Dean's Office Report

Dean’s Student Input Council – NEW

New this year is the establishment of a Dean’s FAHS Student Input Council. One representative from each Department and one Graduate student will sit on this council. The Input Council will meet once per term and will be a sounding board for students to provide input on various matters related to helping enhance the quality of our Faculty.

Changes to Executive – NEW

Also new this year is the addition of a representative from one of the four Research Centres housed within our Faculty. This year, Paul Leblanc will sit as the Research Centre representative on the Executive. The Faculty Executive meets once per month.

New Programs – NEW

New this year are two Co-Op programs in Kinesiology and Public Health. Kinesiology students apply in their first year to get into the Co-Op program while the Public Health Co-Op students enter directly into first year.

New Programs to start 2015

Three new Applied Health programs are slated to start in 2015: Integrated Life Science (BA/BSc); Applied Kinesiology (MA) and Public Health (MPH – delivered entirely online). Each program’s Statement of Intent was approved by ARC last year and full proposals to be submitted to the Ontario Quality Council for review and approval are currently underway. All three programs were also part of Brock’s Strategic Mandate Agreement with the Ontario Government.

Strategic Mandate Agreement

Speaking of the SMA, all SMA’s across Ontario were formally released in August. The SMA that Brock signed with the Province positions Brock and our Faculty quite favourably. If you recall, about a year ago, HEQCO released a report that attempted to differentiate Ontario’s Universities. Brock was placed in the Primarily Undergraduate category citing that we were “not very involved in graduate education, especially at the PhD level, and attract a lower level of research income.” For a Faculty that has excelled at both teaching and research, this type of perception of Brock could not be further from the truth. The SMA that the Government signed with Brock, however, recognizes that both teaching undergraduate and graduate students and research are integral parts of our University. The SMA represents a public acknowledgement that Brock is indeed a comprehensive university that is committed to excellence in teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels in addition to excellence in research. I would encourage all of you to read through Brock’s SMA as I believe it provides an exciting path forward for our Faculty to continue to grow and succeed.  

Enrolment Intake Numbers

Our first year intake numbers remain healthy across the Faculty. There are currently 790 new first year students registered in our Faculty. This is slightly down from last year’s final total of 839 registered first year students as of January 28/14. At the Graduate level, we have 47 new graduate students.

The decrease in University enrolments particularly at the Undergraduate level is systematic across the Ontario University system. Recently, representatives from the Council of Ontario Universities presented long term projections for enrolments. Given current population data, starting this year, we will see a decrease in University enrolments for the next decade. In fact, at Universities like Brock that are close but outside of the GTA, projections indicate that it will not be until about mid 2020’s when we will see the same number of Ontario residents enrolled at an Ontario university. Universities within the GTA will be least impacted and the further away you get from the GTA, the more severe the decline (hence why we are seeing more Northern Universities build satellite campuses close to the GTA such as Laurentian in Barrie, Lakehead in Orillia, Nippising in Brantford).

What does this mean? Given that the main source of revenue for Universities is tuition and government grants for students, for us to sustain current or increases in operating budgets, we must find a way to recruit more students. Strategies such as increasing the number international students, program excellence, satellite campuses and lower admission averages (an option none of us want) are all on the table for discussion and debate. The one thing that is not up for debate is that the level of competition for fewer students in Ontario will be fierce across the University sector for the next decade. Brock, and our Faculty, need to continue to raise the excellence and reputation of our programs so that we can recruit the best and brightest students. It is shaping up to be a very competitive recruiting environment for the next 10 years.

Health and Safety Workshop

For those of you who have completed the online workshop via Sakai, thank you. For those of you who have not, please complete this required online workshop ASAP as it is a mandatory requirement for all public employees in Ontario.

FAHS Teaching and Learning Grants

Six proposals to support teaching and learning initiatives were recently awarded to faculty and staff members. The funds were provided through revenues generated by the 2013 Spring/ Summer revenue sharing incentive to the Faculty. The revenues were reinvested back into supporting initiatives consistent with the Faculty’s strategic plan over a three year period. This is the second year of the program.

• Chris Chard – Software Programs for classroom 
• Hilary Findlay & Chris Chard – Course-based competition developed and led by SPMA
• Jane Moore – Technology in the classroom – Turning Technologies
• Madelyn Law – I-EQUIP, Experiential Learning 
• Mary Breunig – School yard greening 
• Emily Allan & Janet Zanutto – Professional Development & Travel for Experiential Learning Staff 

Program Review Update

• The Administrative Program Review is now complete and I assume will be posted shortly on the Program Review page.
• The Academic Program Review being conducted by Senate (and Chaired by our very own Nota Klentrou) is nearing the end of the data collection phase. A big thank-you to all the chairs, directors, faculty, and staff who helped to complete the program review for each of their academic programs. Updates on the Academic Program Review Committee can be accessed online.

Admin changes

A few admin changes for your information:

• Gloria Davis will be providing administrative support to the Associate Dean – Undergraduate in addition to her role as Executive Assistant for the Office of the Dean. Please direct any issues for this office (e.g., academic integrity) to Gloria at deanfahs@brocku.ca.
• Ken Lodewyk has been elected as Co-Director for the Centre for Healthy Development
• Paul Leblanc has been elected as Director for the Centre for Bone and Muscle Health

Experiential Learning Manager

Over the summer, how we provide support for Experiential Learning in our Faculty has been restructured. As more and more faculty integrate experiential learning into their courses (a hallmark of our Faculty) and with more need for accountability around experiential learning opportunities for our students (e.g., changing legislation around internships, workplace health and safety regulations, tracking student numbers for SMA purposes, ensuring community partners are not overwhelmed with too many requests from our Faculty), we have had to be more efficient with the resources that we currently have while ensuring that faculty are supported with experiential learning opportunities in their classes.

Over a year ago, Janet Zanutto’s position was converted into the Manager of Experiential Learning for the Faculty. Her role is essentially to work with our over 500 existing community partners to help provide opportunities for community engagement and to ensure that all relevant policies are being adhered.  She is also engaged in helping to manage and implement the Faculty’s strategic mandate surrounding community engagement.

In addition to Janet, we are very fortunate to have four staff members who have Experiential Learning as part of their job descriptions: Emily Allen, Sandra Micsinski, Janet Westbury and Tammy Whitaker-Campbell. They will be working with Janet Zanutto in various ways to help to provide support and opportunities for our students doing different types of experiential learning and supporting the Faculty in various types of experiential learning initiatives.

Faculty/ Staff Changes

This past summer, we have had to say goodbye to long-standing full-time members of our Faculty. After 40 years of service to Brock, Dr. Lorne Adams officially retired this past July. Similarly, our Administrative Assistant for the Department of Recreation and Leisure, Sandy Notar, officially retired at the end of August. Finally, after serving our Faculty in several administrative assistant roles, Jane Deman has taken on a new role in the Faculty of Social Science as an administrative assistant for the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film. I would like to thank each of them for their significant contributions to our Faculty and wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

While we say goodbye to some of our colleagues, we also welcome some new ones. Dr. Adam MacNeil joined the Department of Health Sciences this summer. Adam is joining us after completing a Post Doc in Immunology at Dalhousie University. Replacing Sandra Notar is Rachel Bujtas who joins us after working in the ESL department. Finally, I’d like to welcome back Rachel Corbett as the Department of Sport Management’s recent ILTA appointment this year.

In closing, I wish you all a great start to the new school year and keep up the great work that you do!