Fourth Report of the University and Academic Affairs Coordinator

It sure has been a busy month since classes started. Thank goodness I don't have any clases to attend. ;-)

Highlights of the past month:

Senate

Senate met for the first time on Sept 20, opening with a debate on whether to extend congratulations to a prof who recently won the world scrabble championship. Believe it or not, it was tabled. A brilliant start..

I raised the following question to open questions from members: Whereas the McGill University Policy Concerning the Rights of Students with Disabilities states that: "McGill University is responsible for ensuring that... 15. ... the McGill Barrier-Free Standards are applied to all renovation and new construction at McGill." Question: With respect to the recent renovations to the Burnside Terrace, why did the administration choose not to install a wheelchair ramp connecting the Burnside Terrace to the Roddick Gates? When does the administration plan to install a ramp at this location?

The answer: a ramp will be built within the next 6-8 weeks.

The next item of note was APPC's recommendation on supervisor evaluations. Dr Crago, Senator Shore and myself dominated the floor with our positions before anyone else spoke. Some profs continue to be concerned about our anonymity. There are also some minor technical concerns. Prof Shore has a mountain of significant technical concerns. It has been referred back to APPC and will come to senate again in January.

Protracted debate on revision of emeritus profs- also referred to cttee.

Nominating committee: We were asked why PGSS always has vacancies on senate cttees. The answer- we fill them late. I noted that we're looking into changing our cttee-filling practises.

Barely managed quorum as time dragged on in a cttee of the whole discussion to consider our response to the MEQ's request for comments on a science and tech policy. I pointed out that admin's stance on intellectual property is divergent with the ongoing IP deliberations.

Council

The first council of the year was very well attended. Lowlights included the impeachment of our Board of Governors rep. Highlights included a debate on the legalization of marijuana.

Council #2 was held on Sept 20 exclusively to recruit volunteers for more than 107 open committee positions. In the end, we filled 69%, a great figure. Credit goes to our services coordinator for getting everything organized. I'll be working to fill the remaining positions for the next few weeks.

GSPC

GSPC met for the first time on Sept 19. We discussed the following:

  1. Primary issue for me was Time Limitations. We need to see more dept accountability. concerns were well received, and we'll likely see a departmental procedure created.
  2. Discussed question of nested certificates towards MA, MEd. Dept of Educational psych wants to be able to apply professional development certificates as building blocks towards Master's thesis. General response was that there's not enough challenge and/or breadth in the certificates to warrant a master's.
  3. Prioritized issues for upcoming year:
    1. Dean's HL: review policy.
    2. TOEFL, Parallel admissions for ESL -- plan to raise the minimum Toefl score for admissions. Also plan to institute xtra semester program for students with borderline scores.
    3. Supplementals Y/N-- should we continue to offer supps? Banner doesn't support supps. Brilliant.
    4. Thesis procedures-- a review of thesis submission procedures.
    5. Policy on permission to supervise, postdoc supervision. I'm very interested in this issue- that professors must meet some standards in order to be able to offer graduate supervision.

Meetings

Robert Sim, UAC