Dean's Office Report

Second Term for Dr. Nota Klentrou – Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies

Please join me in congratulating and thanking Dr. Nota Klentrou for her willingness to serve a second term as the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in our Faculty. The Faculty’s reappointment committee unanimously recommended Nota for a second term starting October 1, 2014 – June 30, 2017.

Senate & Board Meetings

The Board of Trustees met on Thursday, October 2^nd. This was John Suk’s first meeting as the Chair of the Board. John is the first alumnus to chair the board of trustees. You can view the Board’s agenda and the various reports by clicking here. 

The 623^rd meeting of Senate took place on Wednesday, October 8^th. I would like to draw your attention to a couple of items:

• One particular item of importance is the change in the faculty handbook that all graduate students must complete the Course on Research Ethics (CORE) online-tutorial. Over the next coming weeks, we will be providing more instructions on this new requirement for all of our graduate students.
• Dates for the 2015/16 Academic year were approved: https://brocku.ca/webfm_send/33146   
• Ms. Leslie Nash (MSc Health Sciences) is this year’s recipient of the Graduate Student Spirit of Brock Medalist. Congratulations to Leslie and also to her supervisor, Dr. Wendy Ward, for her mentorship.

You can view the entire agenda and various reports at: https://brocku.ca/webfm_send/33161  

Premier’s Mandate Letter to Minister of MTCU

On September 25, 2014, every cabinet minister received a mandate letter for their ministry from Premier Kathleen Wynne outlining the government’s priorities for each ministry. In the letter addressed to the Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities, Dr. Reza Moridi, Premier Wynne outlined a number of priorities that are particularly relevant and noteworthy for the University and for our Faculty. To view the entire letter, go to: http://www.ontario.ca/government/2014-mandate-letter-training-colleges-and-universities

There are a couple of messages (both hidden and directly stated) in this mandate that, from my perspective, will directly impact our Faculty and the University:

a)      The Government definitely wants more say in the type of programs offered and the fiscal management of Universities. Gone, for now, are the days of an “autonomous” university that is completely self-governed. Universities now have to “bid” for graduate spots as well put forth strong sustainability arguments for any new programs.  As well, Universities and all its employees will be required to be much more accountable and transparent to the government and the public in terms of fiscal and programmatic decisions.

b)     The SMA process will continue. The current SMA that Brock signed expires in 2017 and the government has signalled that negotiations around the next SMA will begin in the 2015 new year. Therefore, proposals for new undergraduate and graduate programs need to be in the works by the time a new SMA in 2017 has been signed off.

c)     As I indicated in the last Faculty Insider, there is growing concern around the decline in University applications. Both government and universities are starting to sound the alarm bells. The number of confirmations from secondary students (101’s) and non-secondary (105’s) across Ontario Universities is down 1%. Brock is down about 2% in first year confirmations according to the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre. A recent article by Alex Usher from the Higher Education Strategy Associates highlights the declines in applications this year. Given the decline in the Ontario population, a focus on immigration and international students will be front and centre around filling the gaps left by a declining population of 18 – 25 yr olds.

d)     Differentiation, differentiation, differentiation is the word of the day, year, and decade! The government is now grouping universities into geographic hubs and comparing programs within hubs to each other. Our comparators include universities like McMaster, Laurier, Waterloo and Guelph. In other words, existing  and new programs will be compared to programs at those universities and questions around how our programs are unique from our geographic comparators will be asked more often. 

e)     Ease of transferability between Colleges and Universities and between University to University is also a dominant theme in the Premier’s mandate letter. For example, enabling college students with a 2 or 3 yr degree to transfer credits and then complete an undergraduate degree in 2 years will be high on the priority list. As well, the creation of the Ontario Online Initiative (Click here to view the most recent proposal) to enable students to choose from a bank of online course offerings from various Ontario Universities will ramp up in 2015. The proposed new Masters of Public Health program to be offered by our Faculty in 2015 is ideally positioned to be a key feature of our Faculty’s contribution to the province’s online initiative.  

With a majority government now in power for the next four years, you can expect that these mandates put forth by the Premier will carry more weight … and by that, our funding will be tied to meeting these objectives. If the past 2 years are any indication, I suspect that the next four years will see unprecedented changes in the way that the province approaches post secondary education. 

Mandatory Online Safety Workshop

A reminder that the Online Safety Workshop is mandatory for ALL EMPLOYEES. We currently only have a 30% compliance rate across the University. You can complete the workshop via your Workspace on Sakai.

Service Learning Grants

The Service Learning Centre at Brock recently announced a call for Service Learning Grants. If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please visit the webpage at: http://brocku.ca/service-learning/faculty.

Ontario University Fair & Up-Coming Fall Preview

I would like to thank all those who participated in the Ontario University Fair at the end of September. This year saw a record 129,000+ individuals attend the 3 day event. A special thanks to Dr. Lucie Thibault for being the lead organizer for our Faculty and to our academic advisors who were the lead organizers within our Departments. Great job everyone!

The Fall Preview Date is set for Sunday, November 2^nd from 12 – 4:00. Please put this in your calendar and volunteer a few hours if you can. Potential students and their families love to hear first hand from faculty, staff and students.

Convocation

The Fall Convocation for our Faculty will take place on Saturday, October 18^th at 10:00 a.m. This Fall, we will celebrate and honour the confirmation of 1 doctoral, 14 MA, 16 MSc, and 128 undergraduate degrees. Please make every attempt to participate in convocation. You can register at: http://brocku.ca/registrar/grad/faculty.

Update on New FAHS Dean (from the Office of the VP Academic & Provost)

The Advisory Committee is pleased to announce the names of the two short-listed candidates for the position of Dean, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences.

• Dr. Kevin Wamsley, Western University
• Dr. Peter Tiidus, Wilfred Laurier University

The candidates have been invited to Brock to meet with the Advisory Committee, Senior Administration,  faculty, staff and students. Each candidate will be making a public presentation to the Brock community on the following dates:

• Dr. Wamsley on October 21, 2014
• Dr. Tiidus on November 5, 2014

The times and locations of the presentations will be posted shortly at: https://www.brocku.ca/vp-academic/senior-academic-searches/Dean_AHS_Search

Printing & Copying Challenge

You may recall that we announced a Printing and Copying Challenge in the Spring. The Department with the lowest average of combined printing and copying per person (including staff) wins a tablet. We are now half-way through the year and here are the standings so far: