To promote the conference to our local students, we organised and hosted a lunch and informal information session at UC. Students and some staff responded to the emails and door knocking (nothing like a bit of peer pressure) and followed the smell of pizzas to the gathering in the staff tea room. Jason Alexander (our Minister of Finance) kicked off the session with a presentation about the NZCSRSC, complete with pictures from the last conference.Tim Bell, Brent Martin, and Tanja Mitrovic spoke about previous conferences that they had attended and the benefits for students. Tim was at the very first conference. Warwick Irwin also showed his “Top Five Presentation” award from a NZCSRSC he had attended as a student. Apparently that year, six people received the award! Go figure.
After the informal talks, students and staff mingled over pizza and drinks, talking about various aspects of the conference. It was great to see interest from students – including final-year undergraduate students considering postgraduate study options.
It is also good to see the effect that events like this have on the morale in the department.
Sascha, the Minister of Broadcasting, is wondering if there is a better bribe than pizza for students.
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NZCSRSC Sponsor:
The NZCSRSC 2008 lunch and info session at the University of Canterbury was sponsored by CSUnplugged.
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2 comments:
Hey you guys have a blog. Nice. I saw it on your news.
Maybe you need a bigger link?
hahaha I like those message sentences at the bottom of your posts.
You guys seem to be organising this conference well.
I haven't been to the conference before. I really want to come - not sure if I can submit a paper before then. I will try.
And I think pizza is the standard bribe!
Thanks James!
It's great to have that encouragement ... it'll keep us going :-)
Thank you also for your suggestion about the link. It is awesome when people such as you, make suggestions to improve things for everyone. The website will be evolving as we have to add more information.
Hopefully by now you have heard of the one week extension to the submission deadline (now 21 December).
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