The Acting Associate Dean, Lynne McKechnie, sat down with members of the Student Council and a few interested students last Wednesday to discuss any and all issues with the program.
It was a very good discussion and a lot of material was covered in the hour and a bit that the meeting lasted. As well, the idea of having these types of sessions on a regular basis was raised (apparently they used to be held each semester then interest died but seems to have perked up again.)
I wasn't taking notes but typed up this summary afterward when I realised there were a lot of people interested in what was being said who couldn't make the meeting due to a resume writing workshop being scheduled at the same time.
If anybody has any changes/additions/comments, you can post them as comments to this blog entry or e-mail me directly.
—
– the NCB wasn't built from a “standard college building” template as is rumoured but it *was* done
on a shoestring
– the process was the usual battle between engineers and architects with
the faculty reps caught in the middle and making lots of compromises
– the GRC was originally going to be in a corner overlooking the river
but this changed somewhere along the lines.
– students are getting a big new grad lounge (like they used to have in
previous FIMS locations when their space was big enough to hold
receptions and events.) This will hopefully be by fall and will likely be on 4th floor
– they're going to move the entire department in the next few years and
there's a possibility that FIMS might end up in the Ivey building (which
definitely wasn't built on a shoestring!) The wider University plan is
to move all classroom/department space to the centre of campus and put
administration things around the outside.
– there is a need for more career counseling while we're here
– there should be more quiet reading space in the GRC which is too
cramped and people tend to congregate there and visit (maybe the new
lounge will reduce this problem?)
– one possibility is to turn the group meeting room with a window into a
reading space.
– changes have come out of previous feedback sessions although they
haven't held one in a long time (maybe two years?) It's like anything
in that it seems to go in cycles – people were really interested then it
died down and now there's interest again
– Lynne clarifies that people still need to attend class, even if their
prof schedules a final exam (which they are allowed to do)
– Lynne also confirms that she informed a new sessional prof that they can't
use of Turnitin.com, a plagiarism tracking service that has a dubious
history of respecting copyright of papers that are submitted after concerns were raised by some students in that class
– one person raises a concern that sometimes it feels like we are treated more like high school students than graduate students and relates how she literally had to beg a professor for permission to leave class early to attend a lecture elsewhere on campus.
– she also agreed that there's no reason tentative classes couldn't be
released two semesters ahead of time since they know the information and
it would help students plan.
– the downside is that even if they mark “tentative” in big red
letters, someone will always come to complain if a class they want to
take ends up not being offered. Also, a tentative list wouldn't have
times or professor names, just the names of classes that they're
planning to offer
– talk about oversubscribed courses and class sizes (45 for required, 35
for electives and 10 for PhD courses unless there's a good reason for it
to be less – limited equipment, first-time prof, prof with other job
commitments, etc. Lower numbers are requested by the instructor.)
– Lynne also talks about how they schedule classes – they try to do one
required class per day (or possibly two – although they once had it so
first-termers had THREE in one day!) then schedule the most popular ones
opposite those since there's no conflict if first-termers are all taking
required courses. Then they slot in the rest of them trying to go by
clusters – ie. don't schedule two public library courses in the same
slot if you can help it (within limits such as “the availability of a
sessional instructor who is in practice (or a sessional instructor who
works in the profession?)
– someone suggests that two new required classes should be advocacy and information ethics
– they have fourteen slots during the week (three per day times five
minus one since they never Friday evening classes) and usually have
about 22 courses to fill those spots so conflicts will happen.
– they will have feedback sessions again in the future (the scheduling
for this was unfortunate as it was at the same time as the
resume-writing workshop that many potential co-op applicants were attending)
– as mentioned, Lynne was great at providing some institutional memory
of what has gone on before in various ways. The GRC used to have 30 000
volumes – who knew? They used to make you meet with a prof to get your
course selection form signed – which provided an opportunity for the
prof to assess your path, give a bit of guidance and just get to know
you a bit. There used to be a “History of Libraries” course but as with
some that are on the books but not offered, they need faculty to teach
them. If a course isn't taught in a two year frame, they usually remove
it (unless faculty might be coming in that can teach it.)
– the entire faculty meets regularly to discuss what's being offered and
to review syllabii, especially for the required courses
– profs do have some flexibility to adjust the plans for the required
courses to adjust for their skills and interests.
Comments 3