Seventh Report of the University and Academic Affairs Coordinator

State of the Onion

Happy new year, one and all! In this report I'll take some time to summarize the year so far and look forward to the next 6 months. Needless to say there's been a lot going on..

Equity Commissioner

The proposal for a PGSS Equity Commissioner went to Council in December and was very well received. In the next few weeks I'll be drafting the constitutional amendments that are needed to implement the position. Expect to see them at February Council.

Supervision Seminars and other workshops

In the fall we held two workshops on working with your supervisor, and these were well attended. Given the demand, I will probably try to run another in the spring. Dean Crago, Prof Winer from CUTL and I have been discussing these seminars for new student orientation in the fall, and we're looking at the exercise of holding a joint seminar with students and professors. I think this holds a lot of potential for improved dialogue between grad students and faculty.

Supervisor Evaluations

The supervisor evaluations saga continues. We have been taking the protocol the faculty council meetings and soliciting feedback from the faculties. I have had to make some difficult concessions with respect to the proposed protocol in order for it to receive acceptance. Students and faculty alike have expressed legitimate fears that the protocol did not go far enough to protect students' anonymity. Faculty members and particularly department chairs are vocally concerned about promotion and tenure issues. Many professors also wanted to see a self-evaluation section for students to complete as well, addressing questions of satisfactory progress, etc. Finally, there were many complaints that the questionnaire was too long and unwieldy.

The end result, is that our workgroup has decided to shorten the questionnaire and compile the results on a departmental basis. Individual results will not be sent to professors. This approach solves questions of anonymity for all but the very smallest departments and also eliminates the promotion and tenure issues. We have also added five self-evaluation questions. While I am uncomfortable with these questions, we are under no obligation to answer them, and of course, they are only compiled on a department-wide basis.

While the documents are constantly evolving, the most recent protocol is online here and the new questionnaires are here. I apologize that they are in MS Word format.

Finally, I would appreciate all the feedback I can get on this issue, both positive and negative. The need for a mechanism protecting students from bad supervisors is apparent, and perhaps we should turn to external websites that conduct similar surveys.

Senate

It has been a quiet year at Senate, thus far. The MEQ Entente was the biggest issue by far that senators debated. Whether the looming economic downturn will have an impact on the government's promised funding remains to be seen.

Intellectual Property

The proposed IP policy has been left stagnating while VP Belanger waits to hear from the Provincial Gov't on a proposed science and technology policy. We shall see where this leads in the next few months.

Daycare

This fall the Academic Issues committee conducted some preliminary research on daycare availability on campus. In the next month or so, I hope to conduct a broader survey of the on-campus need for daycare amongst graduate students.

Restructuring Graduate Faculty Council

In November and December there were some discussions about how to go about restructuring the monolithic FGSR council. The downsizing will obviously result in a reduction in the number of students on faculty council, although I aim to ensure that the ratio of students to faculty is maintained. I plan to bring the issue to the PGSS workgroup addressing faculty restructuring in the next month.

Dean's Honour List

In late October the Graduate Studies Policy committee voted to do away with the Dean Honour List. I would be happy to hear your feedback on this contentious decision. The Graduate Faculty Executive committee will be discussing it in the near future.

Performance Tracking

As part of the new failure policy, which was adopted in the fall, FGSR may soon start looking at bi-annual performance reviews for graduate students (in order to generate "documented lack of progress" for students who are not progressing). I'll report back on this issue when more information is available.

Fee Increases

The divide and conquer approach continues last year the administration hiked our ancillary fees, and now this year there are rumours that the Dean of Students is proposing to hike the student services fee to make up a $900K shortfall in last year's budget. Aaron and I will keep you informed as this issue unfolds.

Feedback

As always, I can be reached by email at academic@pgss.mcgill.ca. Feel free to contact me with any and all of your feedback.

December Meetings

Note the increasing number of cancellations of high-profile committees. One wonders who's really making all the decisions.

Robert Sim, UAC