Students’ Society of McGill University
Association étudiante de l’Université McGill
Office of the Vice-President (University Affairs)
Bureau du Vice-président (affaires universitaires)
UA Report to Council
31st March 2011
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency—Theodore Roosevelt
1. Senate Meeting –The last Senate meeting was held last week Wednesday. It was an
interesting meeting with a mix of sessions exemplifying what senate should be and what
it shouldn’t be.
i) Technological Innovation and Pedagogy Discussion—This session really
exemplified what Senate should be. It was an open and frank discussion that
utilized well the feedback that Senators provided.
ii) Strategic Enrolment Management Plan—An example of what Senate should not
be—a rubber stamping body for admin policy, even when such policies clearly
need more work. The admin basically bullied faculty into accepting a half baked
document. When the Deputy Provost asked for our feedback on the document
in October last year, we indicated that we were uncomfortable endorsing a
document that did not provide pertinent details where such are clearly needed i.e.
on the ratio of graduate, doctorate and professorial masters to the overall
number of undergraduate students. There are several ways of increasing this
proportion and the document is very vague and doesn’t indicate which method
the University intends to use to achieve its desired goal(which is also not
indicated) There was not a single senator who spoke in support of the document
and most asked for further elaboration on the document. The admin was
insistent on having the six principles passed. This is akin to your prof asking you
to write a paper, you hand in the thesis portion and ask him to award you an A,
just based on the thesis! Shouldn’t happen. Further, it is not responsible to want
to increase the number and proportion of graduate and professorial masters
when there is clearly not enough space to accommodate the greater number of
graduate students. Already, undergrads are competing for space with graduate
students, for example in the libraries, and with adoption of such policies; this is
just bound to get worse. The SEM document doesn’t mention how to deal with
space constraints. Granted next time such questions are asked, the admin vs
Governance argument will be brought up. We should probably have done more
lobbying but I was a little disappointed at how easily the rest of Senate was
bullied into voting for a document that clearly needed more work. Senate has to
be more than just a rubber stamping body for admin policy. Admin at the same
time has to try and listen and give due consideration to feedback provided by
Senate.
iii) Calendar of Dates for 2011/2012—Well, this made me happy. Proposed dates
were passed by Senate. Instead of coming back to School on January 3rd 2012,
students will now come back to school on 9th January 2012. The trade off, as
3600 rue McTavish · Suite 1200 · Montréal, Québec · H3A 1Y2 · Tel: (514) 398-6797 · Fax: (514) 398-7490 · E-mail: [email protected]
Students’ Society of McGill University
Association étudiante de l’Université McGill
Office of the Vice-President (University Affairs)
Bureau du Vice-président (affaires universitaires)
mentioned many times before, is that evening exams will be held MondayThursdays during the finals.
iv) Budget Considerations – There wasn’t much time to tackle this most important
topic on Senate agenda. Bad news for students of course is that fees are going to
rise. Even worse news is that you will be paying more for your education but it is
not clear exactly what improvements you should expect to see as from next year.
I asked for an elaboration from the Provost in an email and still awaiting a
response.
v) Course Evaluation Policy Change—was passed. Course evaluations will now be
extended beyond the finals. You will be able to fill your course evaluations after
you have sat your final exams.
vi) SRI—The Principal did finally provide an update on the SRI. However, it was a one
page document brief and we will have to wait for a more detailed report to be
clear on the impacts of the initiative. Great job to all the students and media who
insisted on getting more info on the initiative. It has paid off—to some extent.
There is now a website that will be updated with the recommendations of the
working groups as they come: http://www.mcgill.ca/sri/srithemes/philanthropy
vii) BOG Report–Dean Manfredi’s term was extended for a period of five years ending
June 30th 2016.
2. Undergraduate Forum on Education—This went really well. Thanks to all the
councilors who showed up. The ARC and Senator Doyle did an amazing job organizing
the forum. We got really good feedback about the forum and hopefully next year will
build on this year’s inaugural success.
3. Workgroup on the Calendar of Dates – will be meeting Monday to discuss 2012
Calendar and beyond.
4. Library Improvement Fund Committee –Will be meeting this week to look and
recommendations and start preparing final report.
5. Senate Caucus – We met on Tuesday. Very Productive meeting.
.
i) Senate Motions—working on bringing three motions to Senate to senate: FRSL,
Deregulated Tuition Consultation and Budget Considerations and getting
senators to support these.
ii) Senator Exit Reports—we agreed that all senators will start working on writing exit
reports to make their successors work easy. We will also invite elected senators to
attend our meetings before the end of the semester so that they are familiar with
issues next year.
iii) Incoming Senators—We will hold a joint Senate Caucus with the incoming
senators this Tuesday.
iv) Peter Li—Will lose his Senate seat after having missed a couple of senate caucuses
and senate meetings without a good reason.
3600 rue McTavish · Suite 1200 · Montréal, Québec · H3A 1Y2 · Tel: (514) 398-6797 · Fax: (514) 398-7490 · E-mail: [email protected]
Students’ Society of McGill University
Association étudiante de l’Université McGill
Office of the Vice-President (University Affairs)
Bureau du Vice-président (affaires universitaires)
6. Awards of Distinction Committee– Call outs were sent on the list serve as well as
adverts put in the Daily, Trib and Le Délit. The deadline to apply is April 8th 2011.
7. Workgroup on Student Consultation— We have the final recommendations that will
be sent to the Deputy Provost soon.
8. Equity Conference-This happened Friday and Saturday. A big thumps up to Brendan
Shanahan and the Equity Committee for all the great work. Hoping next year’s Equity
Committee builds on success of this year’s forum as well. Great job by Emily Clare with
all the coordination.
9. Committee Updates:
i) CESA—Proposal on conditional acceptance of candidates who don’t have the
requisite English scores was approved. Students will be admitted and will have to
enroll in an English language program and pass the course before starting
program.
ii) Health Services Advisory Committee a) Electronic Medical Records—The
bidding package for the web-based medical records system is complete, but the
project has been put on hold until the funding is secured. They expect to have
the system implemented by next summer or fall. The program would allow the
clinic to use electronic charts, x-ray results transfers... However, as it stands, they
will probably not include a web-based appointment booking module for
students. Their reasoning is that they do not want to exclude (from the bidding)
the companies who do not offer that module and because they feel that the
students need to go through a receptionist in order to book the right
appointment (i.e. with a nurse vs a doctor).
b) Physicians and Appointments—they recruited a full-day physician. They
have a potential second recruit. 2 physicians that were on leave are returning.
Once they have enough doctors to use up the available space during the day
working hours, they can ask doctors to work evenings.
- Their new tactic for appointment-taking: they encourage people to call between
8am and 9am, at which time they have 8 receptionists taking calls.
c) New personnel that they plan to hire: receptionist, finance person for
bookkeeping, an extra month of work for the lab technician. Will take a bigger
part of their budget.
- The shag shop is offering more job opportunities to students working in health
education.
- askdrT web site topics: sex, contraception and emotional health, nondiscrimination in terms of gender and sexual orientation. The web site will be
made available to health services across Canada.
10. Organizational Issues:
a) Next Senate Meeting: April 27th 2011
b) University Committees looking for members:
3600 rue McTavish · Suite 1200 · Montréal, Québec · H3A 1Y2 · Tel: (514) 398-6797 · Fax: (514) 398-7490 · E-mail: [email protected]
Students’ Society of McGill University
Association étudiante de l’Université McGill
Office of the Vice-President (University Affairs)
Bureau du Vice-président (affaires universitaires)
I will send a general call out for members to serve on University Committees next year.
Incoming UA will handle interviews.
11. Upcoming Meetings:
Pauline L’Ecuyer
Remaining Projects:
• Learning Centre
• New Assistant Position within UA Portfolio
• House/College System Research Call out
• Athletics Board Committee ToR
• Final Report on Calendar of Dates Survey
• LIF-Final Report
• AoD
• Committee Reps Exit Reports
Respectfully submitted,
Josh Abaki.
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth
doing—T Roosevelt 1858-1919
One man with courage makes a majority—Andrew Jackson!
3600 rue McTavish · Suite 1200 · Montréal, Québec · H3A 1Y2 · Tel: (514) 398-6797 · Fax: (514) 398-7490 · E-mail: [email protected]