Graduate Student Job Descriptions
Faculty-Graduate Liaison (FGL)
The FGL is a senior PhD candidate tasked with handling most faculty-grad interactions and concerns. This is the person to talk to if you hit a difficult moment in your grad career. Responsibilities include monitoring czar, khan, and merc activity, allocating office space, and controlling access to the grad nest egg.Graduate Student Council Representatives
The CS department is currently entitled to 4 representatives in the Graduate Student Council. At least one of these representatives should be a masters student. The Council itself is a collection of grad representatives from all departments. See GSC page for more details. The CS Reps must attend the GSC meetings and represent the CS department in graduate school affairs. In addition, they are responsible for filing the GSC rebate form, which funds the nest egg.Calendar Czar
The Calendar Czar works with Astaff, Tstaff, faculty and grads to keep track of events of interest to the department and minimize scheduling conflicts. They collect information on classes, reading groups, lectures, lunches, lab meetings and the like and maintain an up-to-date calendar.Comprehensives Czar
The job of the Comprehensive Exam Czar, who must be a PhD candidate, is to assist the faculty member in charge of the comprehensive exams to ensure that the exams run smoothly. During the programming exam, the comps czar monitors the process and works with the responsible faculty members to solve any problems that might occur.Curriculum Czar
The Curriculum Czar must be a PhD candidate and represents the graduate students on the Curriculum Committee. S/he will lobby for grad student interests with the committee and the department chair. This Czar will also serve as our Sheridan Center Liaison.Facilities Czar
The Facilities Czar represents the graduate students on the department's facilities committee. This committee is responsible for allocating money for and determining the specifications of new machines, monitors, etc.Faculty Search Czar
These students assist the faculty in recruiting and hiring new faculty. There is a Czar for each area of the faculty search. Responsibilities include: Assisting in the creation of the short list of candidates, disseminating information about job talks to the graduate students, attending job talks in their area, organizing the graduate student-candidate interview, and presenting the graduate student opinion to the faculty search committee.Fac/Grad Lunch Czar
Fac/Grad Lunches happen periodically and are informal meetings where graduate students and faculty eat pizza and discuss some topic of interest. The Czar is responsible for organizing a faculty member and a topic, reserving the room, and getting pizza.Orientation Czar
The complement to recruiting weekend is orientation week, when new students are welcomed to the department. The Orientation Czars set the weeks schedule, and arrange for all the appropriate talks to take place. In addition, they arrange for the yearly photocollage to be made.Phone Czar
The Phone Czar will be responsible for the care and feeding of the grad student Skype phone. They will make sure that its bill gets paid on time and any student who has job interviews, research-related calls or any other departmental business has access to the phone.Recruitment/Hospitality Czar
The main responsibility of the Hospitality Czars is to organize the graduate-student recruitment weekends. This includes setting up faculty / student talks, organizing lunches and tours, and arranging housing. Students visiting at other times are also made welcome by the Hospitality Czars.REST Czars
The REST (Research Exchange Seminars with Tea) Czars host a weekly talk from a grad student designed to disseminate information about ongoing research in the department and foster collaboration between disciplines.Social Czar
The Social Czar is responsible for keeping a sense of community in the department by organizing at least one social event a month.Sports Czar
The Sports Czar (SC) informs graduate students about ongoing physical and recreational activities in the campus. SC can also sign-up intramural teams, carry out tournament registration and reimbursement processes. It is also the SC's responsibility to attend the captain's meetings and scheduled sessions. The SC is the default administrator of group-specific email lists (such as soccer@cs). Finally, the SC should initiate departmental tournaments and arrange training sessions (time, weather, place, equipment, etc.).Tea Czars
Another two person team, the Tea Czars organize the weekly departmental tea and cookies.TGIF Czars
The TGIF Czars (there are usually 2) are responsible for providing food for the weekly TGIF social hour with funds provided by the department. At least one of the Khans must have a car.Info Khan
The Info Khan is responsible for maintaining the graduate student web structure.Knowledge Khan
The Knowledge Khan is responsible for the dissemination of exciting departmental research to all members of the department. The primary method used is to organize the yearly departmental retreat.Fridge Demon
The Fridge Demon is an anonymous position, responsible for the cleanliness of the department's fridges. Once a month, he/she/it must examine the refrigerators and discard any items that need it.Rubber Chicken Khan
The primary responsibility of the Rubber Chicken Khan is to maintain a coop of rubber chickens. A chicken is traditionally awarded to (i.e., thrown at) a PhD candidate who has successfully defended his/her thesis, following the faculty handshakes and preceding the champagne.The khan is also responsible for assigning the chicken thrower for each thesis defense. The chicken thrower is usually the closest friend in the department of the chicken recipient.