1) We propose to have just two group meetings per week, and schedule sub group meetings to provide more focused attention.
2) We will all have journals on the first day and be expected to fill the journal with thoughts to bring to all meetings.
3) We should start the summer with a more structured education, so that we are all on the same page.
4) We should tour all the projects more often
5) We should continue with the interdisciplinary aspect of the research, and we should increase it: We need students from the arts and humanities involved.
6) We should have a repository for group resources, such as keeping documents on Google Docs.
7) There was some vibrant discussion with respect to the call to increase guidance and providing a clear plan of expectations. My position is that in research, we inherently do not know what to expect. Additionally, I err on the side of taking interested students when I don’t have enough funding for them and don’t clearly know what they will do. This creates some chaos and may appear as being irresponsible. At the same time, the alternative is to deny the student the option to do research if they want to. Potentially, honesty in advertising is the best policy: I do my best to make clear to each student what I see as the pros and cons of their project and my degree of commitment to them. If you have ideas about how this can be improved, please let me know.