Senate News
Focus on Undergraduate
Learning Experience Continues
Senate held its first meeting of the 2009/10 academic year Oct. 6. President Alastair Summerlee welcomed new and returning senators and spoke on trends at U of G and in the Ontario post-secondary system. Provost and vice-president (academic) Maureen Mancuso discussed academic priorities for the coming year.
Summerlee told senators that Guelph continues to deal with a structural deficit, rising costs in the absence of funding — especially for inflation — and difficulties with its pension and endowment funds.
But the University is ahead of schedule in its four-year plan for reducing the structural deficit, he said, and U of G’s relationship with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs remains strong and positive. Guelph was also the only university in the province to meet its graduate student enrolment targets. And it continues to have an international reputation for fiscal responsibility, for community engagement and for being “the world’s most caring university,” he said.
On the academic side, U of G will continue to focus on the review of the undergraduate learning experience, including revising the curriculum and identifying under- performing courses and specializations — recommendations that emerged from the integrated plan and the 21st-century curriculum report. Guelph will also be aligning its quality assurance review process with the new provincial framework and raising awareness of its capital campaign.
In other business, Senate endorsed the revised human rights policy and procedures, and approved the membership of the search committee for a new dean of the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences.
Chaired by Mancuso, the committee consists of OVC dean Elizabeth Stone; Prof. John Livernois, chair of the Department of Economics; Prof. Paula Brauer, Family Relations and Applied Nutrition; Prof. Sally Humphries, Sociology and Anthropology; Prof. Harvey Marmurek, Psychology; student Andrew Donnachie; and staff member Cathie Hosker.