Spending the afternoon at the Grad Club yesterday with a bunch of first-term students got me thinking about what my first week here was like, what my first semester was like and ways that both could've been better. 

1. Have a "Destressor" at the end of the first week of classes
This way, each semester's new students can get to know people in other terms immediately.  (The lack of connection between different terms was a major issue for a lot of people in my cohort.)  A first-week Destressor would also nicely bookend with the one Student Council holds at the end of semester.  Student Council does have a pizza party for new students early in term but this only introduces new students to members of student council, who, although they are all nice people, don't represent even 10% of the students in the department.  It also is a bit of a contrived situation (or it was last semester) with the Student Council lined up in front of the room but not really interacting with the first-termers and instead, although I'm sure this wasn't their intention, it was like a line was symbolically drawn right off the bat. 

2. Have a students-only message board
This would mean that information can be exchanged easily and past topics of conversation are accessible to all.  I know the Student Council is working to set-up a Sharepoint site but unfortunately, it will be under the umbrella of the Department and housed on their intranet site therefore making it inaccessible to incoming students (until they get their user name and password) and graduating students six months after they leave the program.  To my mind, a much better solution would be a more public forum (although still limited to potential students or alumni) where anyone interested in the program can join and find out about the current events, issues and people who are here.

3. Have a Repository For Student Writing
A few of us are working to start a journal for student writing but we want it to have a focus on the "best of the best" student writing.  But there's also a lot of work being done just below this level that would be of benefit for others to see.  It seems like a shame that once an assignment is graded and handed back, these papers go in a drawer having been seen by only two sets of eyes - the student's and the professor's. 

4. Run Relevant Student Programs
A lot of the things I've done or been involved in - the Lunch Bucket Speaker Series, the Freedom to Read Event, the Student Journal, Quinn's Movie Series, etc. - are the types of things I expected the Student Council to be doing when I got here.  Not to be too disparaing but things like bake sales, candy-grams and semi-formals seem more like the work of a high school student council then the work that should be done by the student council in a Graduate Program. 

5. Make Better Use of Technology
That was basically my entire last post so I won't rehash but it covers everything from the types of technology we have (or don't have) access to to having all lecture notes online to teaching students about cutting-edge technology in their first term and not letting them avoid it by not taking technology courses after 505. 

6. Release Class Lists Two Semesters In Advance
Okay, that last suggestion was pretty basic so here's an extra one.  As far as I know, the Department knows what courses they're tentatively offering up to a year in advance.  So why do they only release the courses for the upcoming semester and at that, only late in term?  For myself, it would've been very helpful to know what was being offered in Fall 2006 as I was selected my Summer 2006 courses as I could've been a lot more strategic in which courses I picked.  I know the Department is worried that students will get their hopes set on a class than it will be cancelled or whatever but isn't that what the words "tentative course list" mean? 
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To be fair, here are five things that are really good about this program:
1. The Peer Mentorship program was awesome for me (although this really depends - some people had horrible or literally no experiences out of it.  Trying to match people based on background, area of interest or even geographic location rather than random assignment would improve things)
2. The Professional Mentorship program is also very useful.
3. Someone told me that Western offers a lot more electives than most other LIS programs.  I haven't done the comparison so don't know for sure but if true, that's very helpful.  (Maybe I'll do an independent study next semester comparing different aspects of the various LIS programs across Canada.  I think that would be really interesting!)
4. Some people don't like the fact that FIMS has three intakes of students per year (again, does anywhere else do this or are they all September starts?) but I really like how it keeps things moving and fresh.
5. Although I'm not planning to take advantage of it myself, the Co-op program can be really useful, especially for anyone who doesn't have previous library experience.