University of Washington
Department of Computer Science & Engineering

The Plan for CSE Faculty Lunches

January 1998

History

You'll recall that an undergraduate alumna, Anne Dinning, kindly made a donation during the fall to support a "faculty lunch." I asked Craig Chambers and Anna Karlin to sample your opinions and come up with a plan. Their suggestions, in brief:

A once-per-month scheduled, catered faculty lunch in 422, analogous to the existing undergraduate, staff, and women's lunches; there would ideally be a specific topic for each lunch.

Also, a scheme whereby Anne's fund would be used to reimburse each of us for one "Ave lunch" per month, assuming that at least four faculty members had been present. (The theory being that four is a large enough number that mixing will inevitably occur.)

"Faculty" includes postdocs and visitors (both long-term and short-term) -- in other words, those on the "faculty" email distribution list.

The two formats are meant to offer something for everyone: some people really like the idea of gathering together once per month; some people really like to choose their own company.

I then asked Paul Young if he would ride herd on the "topics" for the 422 lunches. Paul agreed, and now has that under control, so we're ready start these lunches with the new year.

The "422 lunches"

This lunch will be held at noon in 422 on the 2nd Thursday of each month. Attendance is optional -- it's not like a faculty meeting. But those of us involved in the planning hope that the chance to be together and discuss an interesting topic each month will cause you to save the slot on your busy calendars. (There will be lots of conflicts at first; I'll miss the first lunch, for example!)

The basic drill will be that either Scott Dakins or Heather Dolan will send you email offering you some menu choices. It would be helpful if you'd respond -- indicating a choice, or that you won't be there, or that you don't care. But Scott and Heather will try to roll with the punches. It's pretty unlikely that each menu will perfectly suit your tastes; we hope that you'll try to roll with the punches, too.

The "Ave lunches"

Hey, you can go to the Ave for lunch in a group of four or more as many times each month as you like -- the more the better! But we'll pay for one per month. Not everyone in the group needs to "collect" for the same lunch -- if I've already collected mine, I can still count as part of your group of four if I go with you later in the month -- I just won't seek reimbursement for the second one myself. You'll simply need to provide Jane with a receipt, plus some information:

The names of the individuals for whom reimbursement is being claimed.

The amount to be reimbursed to each individual. (It might not be simple division -- lunches might have been priced differently, or you might have picked up the tab for everyone, or there might have been people present who had already claimed their Ave lunch for the month.)

We'll follow the usual entertainment rules for this: $15 max per lunch.

Note

We'll re-evaluate all of this at the end of the year to see how it's working.