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Via Virtual Meeting room
REPORT NUMBER 43 OF THE ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
January 13, 2022
To the Campus Council,
University of Toronto Mississauga
Your Committee reports that it held a meeting on January 13, 2022 at 3:10 p.m. via a Virtual Meeting Room.
Present:
Laura Taylor (Chair), Sanja Hinic-Frlog (Vice-Chair), Alexandra Gillespie (Vice-President & Principal), Rhonda McEwen (Vice-Principal, Academic & Dean), Steven Short (Acting Vice-Principal, Research), Varouj Aivazian, Sultan Akif, Maelis Barre, Ilia BinderBrett Beston, Laura Brown, Tracey Bowen, Jill Caskey, Rosa Ciantar, Ruth Childs, Laura Cocuzzi, Michael deBraga, Margarida Duarte, Tamara El-Aydi, Sherry Fukuzawa, Philip Goodman, Monika Havelka, Shelley Hawrychuk, Rosa Hong, Tanjim Hossain, Shashi Kant, Helen Kula, Ashley Monks, Michael Nixon, Andrea Olive, Andreas Park, Christoph Richter, Adriano Senatore, Jumi Shin, Jaimal Thind, Soo Min Toh, Ron Wener
Non-Voting Assessors:
Yen Du (Manager Academic Programs, Reviews & Quality Assurance), Michael Lettieri (Vice-Dean, Academic Experience), Heather Miller (Vice-Dean, Teaching & Learning), Lorretta Neebar (Registrar & Director of Enrolment Management), Mark Overton (Dean of Student Affairs), Bryan Stewart (Acting Vice Dean Graduate)
Regrets:
Andreas Bendlin, Randy Besco, Marc Dryer, Ulrich Fekl, Richard Greene, Irenius Konkor, Maggie Ku, Emmanuel Nikiema, Gerard Otiniano, Esteban Parra, Gurpreet Rattan, Jacob Gallagher Ross, Areesha Siddiqui, Alvin Stanislaus, Dunia Stanojevic, Lindsay Schoenbohm, Andrew Sepielli, Meghan Sutherland, Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Leigh Revers, Daniel White, Weiguo Zhang
In Attendance:
Professor Michael Brand (Department of Anthropology), Trevor Orchard (Lab Technician, Department of Anthropology), Kiara Kim (student, Department of Anthropology), Yunfei Lin (student, Department of Anthropology), Murray Clayton (Program Officer and Outreach Coordinator, Forensic Science program)
Secretariat:
Cindy Ferencz Hammond, Assistant Secretary of the Governing Council; Tracey Gameiro
- Chair’s Remarks
The Chair welcomed members to the first meeting of the Academic Affairs for the New Year and provided some elections reminders.
- The Mystery of Mount Woodham: UTM Anthropology’s field and lab work on the puzzling site (for information)
At the invitation of the Chair, Professor Michael Brand, Trevor Orchard, Lab Technician, and senior students, Kiara Kim, and Yunfei Lin, all from the Department of Anthropology shared a video presentation about an anthropology summer field school course, which has been ongoing for several years at the North end of the campus. Third-year students have been exploring the land around Lislehurst to try to find the site of its sister mansion, Mount Woodham, disassembled in part to add onto Lislehurst.
The Vice-President and Principal thanked the presenters for their work and asked whether they had considered using ground penetrating radar in their excavations. Professor Brand answered that this had been considered but not yet implemented.
During discussion, presenters noted that:
- To date, evidence of Indigenous settlements has not been found in these locations focused on the Schreiber houses; team does have contacts in place with the Mississaugas of the Credit;
- Heritage Mississauga was a big supporter of the Field School;
- Library staff have also been working with the Leslie House Museum to potentially digitize old newspapers to make it easily accessible for students doing research;
- The project was moving toward hosting Research Opportunity Program (ROP) students in the near future;
- Evidence of cultural landscapes included old roads with landscaping of limestone boulders not found locally and other alignments of trees that point to how landscapes were divided previously;
- The project could engage historians and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
- Enrolment Update
The Chair invited Ms Lorretta Neebar, Registrar and Director of Enrolment Management to present.
Ms Neebar referred to her PowerPoint presentation and discussed current overall enrolment and total headcount, with new, incoming students at 4473 for the fall of 2021 and returning students at 11675 for the same time period. She noted that UTM’s intake was somewhat higher than expected and what the campus had received over the last couple of years, while returning students were similar in numbers to recent years. With respect to overall enrollment, UTM had 4384 international and 11764 domestic students, which included Canadian citizens and permanent residents. With respect to new intake, these numbers were 1660 and 2813 respectively and Ms Neebar noted that there was a higher than expected update in international offers of admission, which has meant UTM’s international student numbers were higher than what UTM had experienced in the last several years. Ms Neebar reported that predicting enrolment trends during the pandemic has been very difficult. However, she noted that UTM was among the first to decide to be conducting remote learning in the fall, which likely had some bearing on international students deciding to study at UTM. Ms Neebar also noted that UTM had many successful virtual events, including a very popular virtual campus tour.
Ms Neebar then discussed the new intake’s country of citizenship, admission averages, which had increased from the previous year, and age and gender distribution. She noted that UTM normally saw a much higher percentage of Ontario secondary school applicants in the overall applicant pool, but this year, UTM had an increase in applications from foreign secondary school students, going up from last year by approximately 7%. The remainder of the presentation focused on new intake by program and admission noting that UTM was now seeing Computer Science, Mathematics and Statistics form the largest part of the new intake of the campus.
Ms Neebar concluded her presentation by reporting that numbers for November convocation were slightly down, a predictable outcome for a virtual ceremony. Speaking to the cumulative graduation rate, Ms Neebar noted that UTM had again made progress in bettering these rates through outreach programs to increase retention.
During discussion, the following points were made:
- It was increasingly difficult to predict the rate of acceptances when offers were being made;
- UTM found it difficult to keep up with the demand from students in computer science and other data sciences related programs – there was a shortage of skilled instructors – and these trends were consistent with those around the world;
- Hiring strategies are currently being examined and will use strategic enrolment management and long-term projections as well as looking at budgetary constraints;
- Program enrolment support, targeted advising resources and guidance from the Career Centre helped those students who could not pursue data sciences as their focus of study.
- Minor Modification: Undergraduate Curriculum Changes: Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences, UTM
The Chair invited Professor Heather Miller, Vice-Dean, Teaching & Learning, to present. Professor Miller referred members to the materials posted in the governance portal. She drew attention to the introduction of a new tri-campus calendrical course tag, which was also necessary for reporting such courses to the government. All of the previous “experiential learning (EXP)” tags were stripped from courses and for those that fit the new criteria, they were being replaced with one of two tags: university-based experience and partnership-based experience, the latter most often referring to internships.
On motion duly made, seconded and carried, YOUR COMMITTEE RESOLVED,
THAT the proposed Humanities, Sciences, and Social Sciences undergraduate curriculum changes for the 2022-23 academic year, as detailed in the respective curriculum reports, be approved.
- Forensic Science Admission Requirements
The Chair invited Professor Heather Miller, Vice-Dean, Teaching & Learning, to present. Professor Miller explained that the purpose of this proposed change was to make it clear to students applying to all the various Forensic Science programs that they needed to have Advanced Functions mathematics preparation in High School and that this was particularly important for highly competitive programs, such as the Forensic Science Program. It was noted that students who did not have this kind of foundational mathematics preparation struggled in completing various Forensic Science program requirements.
On motion duly made, seconded and carried, YOUR COMMITTEE RESOLVED,
THAT the proposed changes to the admission requirements in the Forensic Science Program, at UTM, as detailed in the proposal dated October 26, 2021, be approved, effective September 1, 2022.
- Reports of the Presidential Assessors
The Chair invited Professor Rhonda McEwen, Vice-Principal Academic & Dean to provide a report. Professor McEwen reported that the assumptions that UTM had made in the fall in terms of exceptions to in-person instruction held true for the Winter term as well, even with the additional delay to the start of the term due to the rise of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
She noted that 21 courses needed to remain in-person due to their pedagogical approach, in the category of laboratory courses and in the Drama program.
Professor McEwen noted that current indications based on the modeling data from the Ontario Ministers of Health predicted that the University was on target to return to in-person learning on January 31, 2022. She noted that further announcements from the University in this regard would be communicated next week.
In response to a member’s question whether UTM would be ready to support everyone’s return on January 31st, Professor McEwen explained that this had been considered in planning and that in person numbers would be somewhat reduced because ‘Y’ courses that began online would continue online, which included many large, first year courses.
CONSENT AGENDA
On motion duly moved, seconded, and carried
YOUR COMMITTEE APPROVED
THAT the consent agenda be adopted and that Item 8 - Report of the Previous Meeting, be approved.
- Report of the Previous Meeting
Report number 42, dated September 14, 2021, was approved.
- Business Arising from the Report of the Previous Meeting
- Date of Next Meeting – February 10, 2022 at 3:10 p.m.
The Chair reminded members that the next meeting of the Committee was scheduled for Thursday, February 10, 2022.
- Other Business
There was no other business.
The meeting adjourned at 4:33 p.m.
January 17, 2022