[ale] future of ALE NW

[Dow Hurst]

I've read the postings and am excited about the interest of the CSIS 
department to teach Linux (really is happening) and support a student 
based LUG.  The chair, Merle King, and the faculty contact for the LUG, 
Dick Gayler, are both very interested in keeping ALE involvement with 
the LUG and welcoming ALE on campus.  So, from that viewpoint I can say 
some things here:

1.  The LUG has been kept alive by a few busy students but not really 
pushed or organized.  This will change since CSIS and the students 
getting involved are starting to plan and do some work.  The 
organization needs some "organization" but there is some limited funding 
plus some advertising space in the student paper.

2.  The ALE-NW has only done well when I've remembered to send out some 
reminder email to the departments, mainly CSIS, to invite students, or 
if there was a topic of high interest to ALE members.  Attendance has 
been up and down, with mainly down, as Geof's and my live's have been 
getting busier.   Conflicts with class times here has really probably 
been a major student block.  Plus the lack of knowledge about the 
meetings, but that will change here soon.

3.  I apologize for not making a public meeting to talk about changes 
but I really wasn't aware of anyone else caring.  Sorry about that, but 
we really haven't had any organization and so no contact info.  The ale 
list wasn't really in my mind as the attendance hasn't been great and I 
wanted to locate the officers of the LUG.  At this point the LUG 
officially exists in Matthew Macumber's person.  We are protecting him 
with high security at this time.   (that was a joke) :-)

4.  CSIS is really interested in getting the LUG going and so making it 
available to students is the key.  ALE-NW will need to adapt some to two 
facts:  students need a meeting when they can come; a strong LUG will 
create opportunities for ALE-NW members we don't have right now.

I'd like to throw out some ideas that Dick Gayler mentioned.  These are 
real possibilities but would take some organization on the part of ALE 
and ALE-NW to make it "official".  How about having "student affiliate" 
relationship to ALE of students in the LUG?  Or an ALE based "group of 
mentors or experts" as special members of the LUG?  Or, my idea is 
developing coop opportunities with members of ALE for students who are 
part of the LUG?  There are a lot of possibilities that can be discussed.

Right now, the general plan is to continue the November and December 
meetings as usual but hopefully with some more advertising by myself, 
Matthew, Emil, and Dr. Gayler.  Dick is going to look into helping Geof 
locate speakers for those meetings.  In January, when the new semester 
starts is when the LUG will have it's kickoff meeting and we will 
probably have a schedule change on the meetings.  So, there is plenty of 
time to suggest ideas, contribute effort, and find ways to work with the 
effort of CSIS and the present LUG member to get things going.  
Personally, I am hoping that this will really help ALE in general since 
the respect the students and faculty have for the expertise represented 
in the ALE group is high.  I am motivated to help keep ALE and the LUG 
here intertwined.

Hope this helps,
Dow


Geoffrey wrote:

> There was a meeting held this afternoon at KSU to discuss the future 
> of the ALE NW meetings.  Of late, the attendance has dropped 
> dramatically.  It's been quite difficult to get presenters as well.
>
> At any rate, I wanted to get feedback on some possible solutions.  We 
> are considering moving the meetings to the afternoon, around 12:30 or 
> so, in order to permit more students to attend.  Unfortunately, KSU 
> has a large number of evening classes and many students who would 
> likely attend the ALE meetings can not make it because of conflicts.
>
> For those folks who are not students of KSU, but have attended ALE NW 
> meetings and would like to continue to do so, I'd like to get some 
> feedback on such a change. Can you/will you still be able to attend?
>
> For any students who might be on the list, I'd like to get your 
> feedback as well.  Will such a change enable you to make more 
> meetings?  Do you think other students would attend who currently do not?
>
> Thanks in advance for the input folks.
>

-- 
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Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428            *
Systems Support Specialist    Fax: 770-423-6744            *
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Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com *
Kennesaw, GA 30144                                         *
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