The University of Western Ontario · 2020-03-20 · Presentation GEC April 2011, M. Dumouchel Update to Auditing Regulations Graduate Course Audit Form The University of Western Ontario

Attachments Minutes-April 4, 2011 Presentation GEC April 2011, M. Dumouchel Update to Auditing Regulations Graduate Course Audit Form

The University of Western Ontario

School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

Graduate Education Council meeting

Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 Time: 3:30 p.m. Place: Western Student Services, Room 2130

Agenda

1. Approval of the Minutes of April 4, 2011 2. Business arising from the Minutes 3. SGPS Announcements and Information (Linda Miller)

4. Reports from GEC Committees (Michael Milde, Stephen Sims)

Academic Accommodations and Appeals (MM) Policy, Regulations and Graduate Program Membership (MM)

o Auditing Graduate Courses 6.04 Mentorship and Professional Development (SS) Operations/Agenda and Nominating (SS)

o Call for nominations Scholarships and Funding (SS)

5. Other business

Graduate Education Council April 4, 2011 Page 1 of 5

The University of Western Ontario

School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

Graduate Education Council meeting Monday April 4, 2011

The meeting was held at 4:30 p.m. in Room 2130, Western Student Services Building Attendees :

Linda Miller Stephen Sims Michael Milde Jan Polgar Perry Klein Andy Watson Nanda Dimtrov Christa Homenick Peter Simpson Charles Weijer

Henrick Lagerlund Russell Poole Nick Dyer‐Witheford Duncan Sutherland Glen Tigert Jamie Baxter Alan Salmoni Marilyn Randall Mark Perry Sara Seck

Margaret Wilkinson Joyce Garnett Miriam Capretz Mihaela Harmos Vincent Manzerolle Chelsea Mohler Katy Fuller Jennifer Brace Clare Tattersal

1. Approval of the Minutes of February 1, 2011

Approved with the following amendments Charles Weijer added to attendees for February 1, 2011 meeting. Report from the GEC Committee – Academic Accommodations and Appeals (page 3‐paragraph one) replace Charles Rice with Charles Weijer as second S. Sims moved acceptance Deb Compeau SECONDED Approved as amended

2. Business arising from the Minutes ‐none SGPS Announcements and Information (Linda Miller)

Update on SUPR‐G (Subcommittee on Program Review – Graduate) SUPR‐G is now up and running. I want to thank those of you who are sitting on the various committees. SUPR‐G has started the process of getting the periodic appraisal that should have been happening this term – rolling. We currently have several of them tentatively scheduled to happen with in the next couple of months. A word of caution – we are still waiting final approval of our IQAP document from the Quality Council. We are expecting a letter from them any day. SUPR‐G is no longer a sub‐committee of the GEC as the former Appraisal Committee was. It is a Senate sub‐committee. SUPR‐G reports to SCAPA and then on to Senate. We will continue to bring items through GEC for information purposes. As new programs get approved –as the appraisal processes move forward, updates will be brought to this group. Dual Degree PhD program between UWO Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and Sichuan University West China School of Medicine –we are working on fine tuning this agreement. We want this group to be aware of this item but it does not need to come to this group for final approval. It will be brought to SCAPA and then to Senate for final approval.


S. Sims ‐ We are continuing to make minor changes to ensure that the proposal is compatible with existing programs here. We are concerned with maintaining the quality and making sure the students can proceed through the systems. This agreement raised the need for a template that will make things a lot easier next time around and we are very close to achieving that. We are working with Theresa Morrissey, legal council in the secretariat’s office, and we have a draft that we are currently reviewing. We are working on a best practice. Please contact us for the template.

3. Reports from GEC Committees (Michael Milde, Stephen Sims)

Academic Accommodations and Appeals (MM) • Motion on Update of Scholastic Offenses policy The legal department has reviewed the policy and is happy with the document. Approved as circulated Discussion regarding student who request references It is best practice that if a student asks you to be a reference ‐ have the student complete a signed letter stating that they agree that you can access their academic record.

Policy, Regulations and Graduate Program Membership (MM) At our last meting we passed a policy on suffixes, which was intended to apply to graduate courses. The policy was forwarded to SCAPA, but it was NOT approved. As a result, a working group was formed. We have had a meeting and have come to an agreement. The concern in the registrar’s office was that graduate courses were taking over certain letters and thereby reducing the pool that was available to others. The idea is to remove ownership from any of the letters / suffixes and allow 24 letters to be used by anybody. The agreement / process will work its way through the working group, then Policy and Regulations Committee and eventually back to the GEC. L. Miller – in the mean time, we have a suffix for summer courses. M. Milde‐ We are working on a policy for auditing courses and hope to have something for the next GEC meeting.

Question from the floor Has there been any progress on shortening the length of PhD submissions from 6 to 5 weeks? I understand there had been some discussion because this is now on‐line. M. Milde – We have had a discussion on this at the Policy and Regulations Committee meeting – we have not gone a full calendar year yet with the electronic submissions process and we would like to do that before we start thinking of shortening the time. It is certainly true that so far it seems to be quite effective – we don’t seem to having many complaints regarding slow arrival of or the ability to print the documents. It is quite imaginable that we might go down to 5 weeks but we haven’t gone to that road yet. L. Miller – This change is part of the thesis examination process which is on our slate of things we need to review in terms of our current policies. There have been a fair number of requests on different fronts for changes or reconsiderations on the policy. The entire thesis examination process will be reviewed. S. Sims – I can also comment that there is a lot of flexibility in the system. In unusual circumstances, we can hold exams in much shorter timelines then 6 weeks. One example is, due to illness, a couple of the examiners could not be at the exam‐ we found new internal university examiners and within a week’s time, the exam went forward. This was a tribute to the examiners’ cooperation and willingness and the speed at which we could get the pdf files to them. If unusual circumstances arise – we can adapt.


Mentorship and Professional Development (SS) • 360 degree program update (Clare Tattersall) I will provide a quick update on some of the things that we have done in the past couple of months and some of the things that are coming up. We have been continuing to run drop‐in non‐academic career preparation help sessions, once a month for grad students and we have had at least a dozen students from across the disciplines as well as post doctoral scholars attend. These are run between SGPS and the Student Success Centre. This is the second year that we have been running these. We also had the grad career day at the end of February which was a combination of non‐academic and academic career preparation sessions and workshops. Over 200 grad students attended that event, so it was quite successful as well. Just this past weekend we had a family swim event – this was our first post‐doc / grad student family focused event where the grad students and post docs could bring their children. We had about 144 participants.– Mihaela organized it. We had a Publish and Flourish Workshop in March with approx 75 attendees. Coming up we have a Safety in the Field Workshop – April 20, 2011. This came about because Andrew Walsh from Anthropology invited me to attend a session that the Anthropology and Geography programs are offering to their graduate students / undergraduate students and post docs who are going to be going off and conducting research in the field or international travel. As we get closer to May we are going to see more and more students doing that sort of thing – we wanted to provide something to all grad students and post docs. If you do something like that in your departments please let me know. The more information I can get about what is being passed along and being done then I can help to compile information and create best practices that I can then pass along to the entire community We have the non‐academic career week coming up. This is the fourth year that we are running that. It is for PhDs and Post Docs only. It’s all about what do you do if you are not planning on staying in academia –it has always been a really well attended event –as soon as the session is open it fills up pretty quickly. It is a small session with only about 22 spots. If you do know someone who would really benefit from that, if you know someone conflicted over what they are going to be, sometimes it affects their ability to complete their degree‐ let me know and we will accommodate them. We have the Scholarship Reception Event scheduled. We do this every year it is a feel‐good event where we invite all of our award winners –whether you are taking up their award and holding it here or taking it elsewhere, both undergrad students who are coming into grad school, grad students and post docs. The event will be on June 22nd from 4‐6 pm in the Great Hall – expect a formal invite soon. We are working on updates to the 360 website and will re‐launch it in an effort to increase traffic. We have been working on conducting surveys with perspective, current and completed graduate student and getting their feedback on our website so that we ensure that we are getting them the information that they want. The Teaching Support Centre has a couple purple guides coming out – One is on working with TA’s and that is for Faculty Members and the other one is on Developing Professional Master’s Programs‐Gloria Leckie has been working on that for the past year and that is for departments who are thinking of setting up Professional Master’s Programs. One other event is helping your students not procrastinate. It is primarily for faculty members so grab your grad students and come to that event on May 16.


So there are lots of things going on. All of this information you can find on our 360 website which is http://grad.uwo.ca/360/.

• Postdoctoral scholar update (Mihaela Harmos) First of all I would like to thank all of you for putting up with me for the past two months. I know that most of you would have received an email from me. I have requested personal meetings and have met with most of you, so I want to thank you all for supporting me in my role and also to acknowledge your efforts. I know that you try at the faculty and program levels to really enhance the post doctoral experience and programming. What has happened over the past two months is we are trying to create momentum and build on it. A task force / working group was formed. The members are: • Chair ‐Dr. Andrew Watson, Associate Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, The Schulich School

of Medicine and Dentistry • Dr. Miriam Capretz, Associate Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, Faculty of Engineering • Dr. Peter Simpson, Associate Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, Faculty of Science • Dr. Stephanie Dixon, Postdoctoral Scholar, President of the Postdoctoral Association at Western • Dr. Christa Homenick, Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Chemistry • Jennifer Schroeder, Senior Advisor, Human Resources • Matt Dumouchel, Manager, Information Systems, The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies • Mihaela Harmos, Postdoctoral Services Coordinator, The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral

Studies • Scott May, Campus Communications Consultant The group meets every other week and puts together a work plan. Andrew as chair will provide an update on the task force. A. Watson ‐ What we are looking at is defining best practice for Post Doctoral Fellows across the University. The committee is very active and very energetic one. We are going to be moving forward with a number of documents that we will take through the Policy, Regulations and Graduate Program Committee first, eventually they will reach this committee. Our hope is to be able to define best practices for our Post Doctoral Scholars and have many of these documents in place for fall term. Currently there are very few guidelines as it comes to post docs across the university and we are going to be able to contribute to ensure that we do have those best practices Our first document will be hitting the policy committee very soon. S. Sims ‐ There is a lot of diversity on campus on how post docs are handled. If any of you have comments or recommendations please alert some of the members of the committee so that we can incorporate these suggestions as best as possible. I will also give you a short update‐ Post doctoral associates are considered employees of the University and post doctoral fellows, who are by tax law, independent contractors. There are about 30 post doctoral associates on campus at this moment. Negotiations with the Public Service Alliance of Canada are still ongoing. There is continued effort to move forward but we are also aware that there are not any new resources that will be coming to the table. We are mindful of the limited resources from the supervisors. In the next couple of weeks, we are going to be conducting some information sessions with the academic community for people who


host post doctoral scholars in their lab. The purpose will be to give them an update on where negotiations are. We are anticipating that the union will be giving us their economic package and we want to provide you with some detail of what the articles are. If you do happen to have post docs in you lab, and you know others that have post docs, be aware that there will be information sessions coming up in the near future.

Operations/Agenda and Nominating (SS)‐ prepares this agenda

Scholarships and Funding (SS) • External scholarship payments, recording scholarships on transcripts (Matt Dumouchel) A couple of weeks ago, I gave this brief synopsis of this project to Linda, Stephen and Jan and they found it made sense to share with this group. We thought that this meeting was a good opportunity for us to provide an illustration as to what is going on for graduate students with this system. First phase of this scholarship project went live September 2010. It involves collaboration with SGPS and members of the Western’s Information System Group with the directive that all scholarship income should begin channeling through the Student Centre. First phase involves OGS, OGSST, SSHRC and NSERC. Presentation attached

S. Sims ‐When you are meeting in your own facilities and you feel that you could benefit from having any of the SGPS team come and attend to provide updates to your grad chairs, and any other members of your grad team, let us know. You have heard a number of them speak and we are more than happy to come out and meet with your faculty so that have more hands on. We have experienced Matt’s demo where it is more interactive and you can adjust things on the screen live. If you think that would benefit you, please let us know. One of our key goals is to improve communication.

4. Other business Question from the floor from the minutes of last minutes Has there been any news on the Immigrations policy? L. Miller – There is not any news on that front and unfortunately we recently lost our key contact with the passing of Marty England. The last information that we did receive is that it has moved onto AUCC who is advocating on behalf of international students. Apparently the AUCC message has been received favourably at the government level. They do realize that there were unintended negative consequences to the change in policy. We have not heard any commitment to pull back on it yet. There is still a push from AUCC toward that. It does have serious implications. We do know that students have already expressed concern that if they go into year 5. We know that we currently have year 5 students affected – is it not forgotten and the only way we can get movement is to have many people involved. Comments from the floor I have been reviewing funding for international student in my department. Right now international graduate students are the only section of students who aren’t eligible for work study. When I inquired about this –I was directed to grad studies for clarification. L. Miller – SGPS does not make these decisions‐ but will certainly take it up and look into it. Motion to adjourn Duncan Sutherland, second Michael Milde Meeting adjourned 5:20pm

The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

Presentation Title Goes in Here

External Scholarship Project

Topics

• Key Improvements - Student• Key Improvements - Staff


BackgroundThe long term direction at Western is to have all scholarship (T4A) income paid directly through the student system (Student Center)

September 2010, the first phase of a project to revise the methods we maintain external scholarship information was released involving:

• OGS, OGSST

• SSHRC

• NSREC


Key Improvements - StudentStudents can access one system (Student Center) to get an overall view of their scholarship income.

No additional arrangements will be needed between the student and the Registrar's office to pay tuition in installments or to follow up on late payments

https://student.uwo.ca/psp/heprdweb/?cmd=login


Key Improvements - StudentAccess to an online external scholarship application tracking tool within Student Center

Automated e-mail communications as students move through the various phases of the application


Key Improvements - StudentExternal scholarships displayed on transcripts for those who have activated the award at Western


Key Improvements - StaffImproved processes for tracking and measuring the progression of the scholarships


Key Improvements - StaffImproved processes for tracking and measuring the progression of the scholarships


Questions?

GEC Policy, Regulations and Graduate Program Membership Committee

-Results from discussion at March 15, 2011 meeting

AUDITING GRADUATE COURSES

CURRENT SPGS REGULATION:

6.04 AUDITING GRADUATE COURSES

The student must declare an intention to audit a graduate course at the initial registration for the

course, using the Graduate Course Audit Form. An Audit requires regular attendance and any other

obligations stated by the course instructor.

RECOMMENDED SPGS REGULATION:

6.04 AUDITING GRADUATE COURSES

The student must declare an intention to audit a graduate course by the enrolment deadline for the

term, using the Graduate Course Audit Form. The student must have the instructor’s signed approval

to audit the course, as well as approval from the Supervisor (if applicable) and Graduate Chair. An

Audit requires regular attendance and any other obligations as stated by the course instructor in the

Comments/Expectations section of the Graduate Course Audit Form. If these requirements are not

met, the audit will be removed from the student’s record at the instructor’s request.

After the enrolment deadline, a student may not make a change from auditing a course to taking it for

credit, or vice versa, within a given term. A student may, in a subsequent term, enroll in a given

course for credit that has previously been audited.

Graduate courses delivered online may not be audited.

Student Name:

Graduate Program:

Student Number:

Degree:

AUDITDROP AUDIT SECTION TERM

COURSE NUMBER

Graduate Course Audit Form

This form is to be used by graduate students wishing to audit a graduate-level course.

Please see 6.04 of the Graduate Regulations for important information regarding auditing graduate courses.

SUBJECT/COURSE TITLE INSTRUCTOR'S SIGNATURE OF

APPROVAL

Comments/Expectations:(must be completed by the course instructor)

Form Revised March 2011

After obtaining all necessary signatures, submit this form to the Office of the Registrar.

Student Signature Date Supervisor Signature Date

Graduate Chair Signature Date SGPS Approval Date

The personal information on this form is collected under the authority of the University of Western Ontario Act, 1982, as amended. For a complete Collection Notice, visit www.grad.uwo.ca.

Comments/Expectations:(must be completed by the course instructor)

Form Revised March 2011

Documents

The University of Western Ontario · 2020-03-20 · Presentation GEC April 2011, M. Dumouchel Update to Auditing Regulations Graduate Course Audit Form The University of Western Ontario