Department Committee Descriptions

Reviews files of applicants, makes up short lists for interviews, hosts candidates when they visit, makes recommendations to department on candidates to hire, discusses procedure for departmental discussions and voting on hiring matters.
This is probably the most demanding committee in terms of time and energy required. During the year, there can be as many as 20 dca meetings. Many of these meetings require substantial advance preparation in reading files and consulting with other faculty members who have read the files.

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This is a new committee that replaces the Curriculum Committee. The committee helps the Undergraduate Chair oversee all aspects of the undergraduate program, including curriculum, teaching issues, teaching assignments, student advising and interactions with other departments and faculties. One member of the committee is in charge of teaching assignments, another is in charge of curriculum matters and another is a liaison with Applied Science.
The committee meets as often as needed, roughly twice per month during the academic year. Sometimes meetings will generate homework for committee members. There are often discussions by email. The time commitment for the undergrad chair and committee members in charge of scheduling and curriculum is much greater.

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The Graduate Affairs Committee (GAC) oversees all aspects of the graduate program in Mathematics. The principal duties of the GAC include the administration of the Graduate Qualifying Examination and other prerequisites, Graduate recruitment and admissions, discussion of current and future graduate course offerings, rankings of student applicants for scholarships and fellowships, discussion of aspects of financial remuneration packages for graduate students, organization of graduate social events and the oversight of doctoral committees.
Traditionally the committee has been comprised of roughly 8 faculty members, representing a broad cross-section of the Department, together with one graduate student.
The committee typically meets several times per year, usually with increased frequency in the early part of the Spring term (to deal with graduate admissions).

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Meets occasionally, sometimes with the Science Librarian, to discuss library policy for the Math library and the Math collection in the main library. The committee also discusses things by email that may not warrant a formal meeting. The time commitment is just a few hours per term (somewhat more for the chair), but on occasion it can be quite a bit more.
The committee chair acts as a liaison with the UBC library and the Science Library Advisory Committee and also handles some day-to-day requests from library users, for example to order certain books or change check-out policies, etc.

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Recommends nominations of faculty for awards and prizes, given by UBC and national and international socities. The committee discusses suitable candidates for nominations and asks appropriate faculty to do the actual nominating work. The committee meets sporadically. Most of the work is done by email. Typically, time commitment is less than 1/2 hour/week overall.

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Current focus of this committee is the re-design of the department webpage. This will include updating and addition of content in most areas of our program, as well as improving the format. The committee will also serve as faculty and staff consultants to the Math department systems team on computing needs, student computer labs, and grant proposals involving major amounts of computing equipement. Meets occasionally, maybe monthly.

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Considers plans for both short-term and long-term renovations to improve quality of facilities and to provide more space. Considers questions of priority for existing space. Meets with great variability -- meets more often in advance of and during more signficant renovation projects.