Report: University Affairs Board - January 15, 2025

REPORT NUMBER 244 OF THE UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS BOARD

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2025

To the Governing Council,
University of Toronto,

Your Board reports that it held a meeting on Wednesday, January 15, 2025 with the following members present:

PRESENT: Geeta Yadav (Chair), K. Sonu Gaind (Vice-Chair), Sandy Welsh (Vice-Provost, Students), David Newman (Executive Director, Student Experience), Amanda Bartley*, Luca Calabretta, Spencer Craddock, Ramy Elitzur, Fatima Formuli*, Ankita Goyat, Audrey Karlinsky,  Jihan Khatib*, David Kim, Rachel Leggett*, Cameron Miranda-Radbord, Somtochukwu Nnakenyi, William Verreault

REGRETS: Robert Gerlai, Brian Harrington, Avi Hyman, Sarosh Jamal, Gretchen Kerr, Daneille Skipp, Arjun Yanglem, Payam Zahedi

NON-VOTING ASSESSORS:
Kelly Hannah-Moffat (Vice-President, People Strategy, Equity & Culture)
Robyn Parr (Executive Director, Office of the Vice-Provost, Students)
Tim Tang (Dean, Student Experience & Wellbeing, UTSC)
Mark Overton (Dean, Student Affairs and Assistant Principal, Student Services, UTM)

SECRETARIAT: Joanne Chou

IN ATTENDANCE:  
Josh Haas, Coordinator, Student Policy Initiatives, Office of the Vice-Provost, Students
Albert Pan, UTM Campus Affairs Committee

*Attended remotely

OPEN SESSION
 

1. Chair’s Remarks
   
   The Chair welcomed members and guests to the meeting. The Chair and Professor Sandy Welsh, Senior Assessor, both extended a warm welcome to Tim Tang, Dean, Student Experience & Wellbeing, UTSC as a new member of the Board.   The Chair also provided remarks about the mandate of the Board and its areas of responsibility.
2. Report of the Senior Assessor
   
   Review of the Policy on Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment
   
   At the invitation of the Chair, Professor Sandy Welsh, Vice-Provost, Students began her report by announcing that the University launched of the Review of the Policy on Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment, with communication sent out to the university community for students via Quercus. The information was also shared with the five student unions, and through administrative and communications channels to reach the broader university community. Professor Welsh reminded members that the provincial legislation and the institution’s own policy required that the University review the policy every three years. They were initiating a multi-faceted approach to gather internal feedback from all stakeholders, and had engaged an external expert for feedback for the internal component of the review. She added that Professor Faye Mishna would lead the consultations and review of the Policy, and that Professor Mishna brought a wealth of expertise to the role, having served as Dean of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work from 2009 to 2019. Her research was also focused on bullying/cyber bullying and sexting among youth, and cyber counselling.
   
   In addition to Professor Mishna, the University had also retained an external expert, Gillian Hnatiw, to provide an independent review of the Policy. A Toronto-based lawyer, Ms. Hnatiw was a Canadian leading legal expert in a number of areas that include gender-based violence and professional liability, health law, employment law, and general commercial litigation. Ms. Hnatiw would review the Policy from an administrative law perspective and assess whether there are aspects of the Policy that we should consider improving, updating, or changing. Ms. Hnatiw would conduct her review with a trauma-informed perspective and an awareness of the unique context of post-secondary institutions. Feedback from the University’s consultations would be shared with Ms. Hnatiw for her awareness and consideration. The U of T consultations would take place between January and March, and during this time, Professor Mishna and her team would be reaching out to various stakeholder groups for feedback. Students, staff, faculty and librarians would have an opportunity to attend open, online and in-person consultation sessions and/or provide input through an anonymous online form. Professor Welsh encouraged all members of the U of T community to share their feedback, and that they university was committed to a trauma-informed consultation and review process. She added that there were various opportunities and ways to participate, and that support would be available for those who needed it. The review process would also include transparency into how information would be recorded and shared. Professor Welsh concluded her remarks by noting that she would bring updates to the Board when possible, and highlighting the URL for more information on the website: https://uoft.me/SVSHReview2025
   
   Members had no questions.
3. Strategic Presentation: Tri-campus Student Mental Health
   
   The Chair invited Professor Welsh to offer introductory remarks, and then invited Ms. Chris Bartha, Senior Executive Director, Student Mental Health, to provide a presentation on the Tri-Campus Student Mental Health.
   
   Highlights from the presentation included:

• The Tri-Campus Student Mental Health Team was established in 2022, in response to the recommendations of the Presidential and Provostial Task Force Report on Student Mental Health. The team was led by Chris Bartha, and they collaborated on a range of projects, with the goal of improving the quality and impact of student mental health services at U of T.
• Advancing change in healthcare was a challenge, hence the University worked very hard to respond to the feedback and voices of the students.
• In 2020, following the publication of the Presidential and Provost Task Force Report, the University adopted the Tri-campus Stepped Care Model for mental health services.  The integration was a direct response to the University of Toronto Mental Health Framework, student feedback, and best practices to ensure students had quicker, direct access to health and mental health services.
  • This included 4 key initiatives: The Navigation Service, Telus Health Student Support, Health Centers (one-at-a-time (OAAT) approach), and the Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
• A data strategy was launched to measure progress, and highlighted that the University was delivering more care to students in 2023-24 as compared to pre-pandemic.
• The data strategy was built around a Best Practices Framework that included high consideration for privacy of the data and appropriate reporting, storage within a secure electronic medical record system, standardized analysis, and transparent methodologies.
• The 2024/25 results would represent the new tri-campus baseline year, emphasizing reliable and accurate data.
• In April 2024, there was a major data upgrade to the mental health data, noting that the data continued to be trending in the same direction.
• The improvements made to the data strategy reflected that more services were being delivered to students than initially realized, capturing more mental health activities.
• In 2024, the University delivered more mental health services across the three campuses, and increased by approximately 6%, ensuring that students continued to have access to same day / next day counseling. This was a significant change from what would have happened three to four years ago, as preserving good access to same day counseling was a key commitment of the University.
• For occasions where requests for same day / next day (and up to 5 days) could not be accommodated due to resource constraints, this was less than 10%, noting that health care centres did well ensuring students had appropriate access, that 90% of requests were booked same/next day.
• In August 2023, NAVI expanded to include a general FAQ chatbot, which led to an increase in overall utilization.
• The Telus Health Student Support Service main resource revealed that students were frequently using telephone counselling. However, there was a decline in 2024, where students indicated that they had a preference for in-person interactions with counselors and support.
• In November 2022, the three campus health centers collaborated to survey students who visited the mental health centers for mental health reasons. This survey was the first Student Perception of Mental Health Care Survey, resulting in constructive feedback and providing notable areas for improvement. The second survey was launched in November 2024, and through an improved outreach and communications strategy, the response rate was much higher of up to 15%.
• An evaluation of the one-at-a-time (“OAAT”) model & effectiveness was conducted based on the feedback from the first survey; this was the single largest growing model in mental health.
  • This was an ongoing project that was a co-designed process and selection of tools with students & clinical staff to review the impact of this model in a post-secondary environment. The results demonstrated significant positive change in emotions and distress.
  • This included two adapted questionnaires completed by students:
    • Measures of emotions & distress
    • Measures of session outcomes
• The management of Acute Mental Health Concerns project was a partnership with The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (“CAMH”), to support students that were admitted to the CAMH emergency department or an inpatient unit.
• Many students sought help from the CAMH emergency department, with approximately 500 emergency department visits per year.
• 90% of students that engaged with the Navigator recovered well, and was able to move onto achieving their post hospital plans and goals, return to the University or seek additional supports. Students were able to work with the Navigator for up to three months.
  • A similar model was being launched at UTSC, and would be extended to UTM.
• The overall mental health strategy had shown significant advances for access to care and services, working diligently to improve data, and fostering hospital partnerships.
• The initial launch of the tri-campus evaluation initiatives included student engagement, student voices, and student co-design.
• A newly revised student mental health portal would be released at the end of this month to simplify navigation and improve communications and awareness for students that were seeking services from specific types of counselors.
• New Provostial Priority would be soft launched in July 2025 and would focus on concurrent mental health and accessibility needs, commencing at the St. George Wellness Center.

In the discussion that followed, Ms. Bartha added the following:

• Mental Health has not had good data for decades, and that they were only able to work with the existing limitations and data available, hence the need to develop a foundational bottom line to benchmark progress over time. Historically, mental heath was underfunded, and all of the data was based on self-reporting.
• Higher data numbers in young adults reflected a positive, as this denoted a higher number of individuals with help seeking behaviour.
• Many of those seeking care at the University had moderate needs, and were seeking care and support as an early intervention strategy, underscoring the importance of proactive measures.
• Acknowledgement of increased rigor required in data collection, analysis and presentation, and that this was a future goal.
• Collaboration and information sharing occurred through informal pathways between universities, inpatient units or emergency departments of a hospital. An example was informal collaborations with the patient's consent around planning, and noting that there was no formal evaluation.
• The CAMH initiative was part of a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (“CIHR”) study that was led by Dr. Kristin Cleverley. The teams of Dr. Cleverley and Ms. Bartha jointly collaborated to foster new developments and drive new initiatives.
• Continuous opportunities to formally collaborate with colleagues, but no formal method to measure, evaluate and track cross-sectoral partnerships.
• A member acknowledged the incredible progress made to mental health over the past few years, with the proven outcomes and initiatives that has benefited the University community. He underscored the value of the stepped care model, noting that it was not a one size fits all, emphasizing that the mental health practice was evolving.
• A tri-campus student advisory committee chaired by Professor Sandy Welsh met biannually to present the data, gather feedback and measure progress from a mental health perspective.
• The data tracking included single and multiple visits. The mental health model meant that students could start with a single visit, and then determine the next best steps. Thus, they were tracking all types of visits and utilizations as well. With the new data set, they would be able to do a deep dive into those details.
• The data also raised the question of appropriate supports for students that visited many times, that a customizable model and robust support plan was needed to be considered which was an ongoing discussion within the health centres.
• Approximately 30% of students seeking mental health support were international; the health centers collaborated with the Center for International Experience (“CIE”) to offer resources and supports. The counsellors within the health centers were also knowledgeable in the complex challenges that the international students could be experiencing at the university.
• Emphasized the need to improve the communication strategy and promote the resources available, given the challenge and confusion of navigating all of the resources and information at the university.
• Exploring ways of improving peer supports for international students given the low uptake, noting that the peer support program was a robust model at the university.
• Ongoing exploration of leveraging the U of T Navigation service with downtown hospitals. A key challenge was staffing issues; a need to employ health care professionals, social workers, occupational therapists, and nurses that were all jointly trained in the complexities of the hospital system and the university system to help students navigate both systems.
• On an annual basis, professional development training agendas were developed and implemented by leadership around specific topics that were relevant to the environment in which the counselors are working. This helped to build competencies for clinical staff.
• Good clinical practice was driven to encourage clinicians to seek supervision and consultation when their competency might not cover everything to the extent that they could properly serve the client.
• Clinicians and professional staff would often learn from their clients or students themselves, consequently varying between formal training or informal channels. Patients acting as teachers was an important element in healthcare, and a part of the healthcare models at U of T.
• The Survey data was collected between a 7-8 week period in 2024 on a volunteer basis, and where students that engaged with services in the health centers previously were invited to participate in the 2024 survey.
• For the 2024 Survey launch, there was a larger window for data collection coupled with a herculean effort to communicate the opportunity to share feedback, resulted in doubling the number of student participation.

4. Annual Report: Compulsory Non-Academic Incidental Fees 2024-25
   
   The Chair invited Professor Welsh to introduce the item. Ms. Robyn Parr (Executive Director, Office of the Vice-Provost, Students), presented an overview of the annual Compulsory Non-Academic Incidental Fees Report (“CNAIF”), with the following highlights:    

• The report was an inventory of all non-academic incidental fees, and their designated portions;  
• The report provided fee data for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years and included a listing of these fees paid by students by division;   
• The fees were categorized into three areas: Campus Service Fees, Cross-Divisional Student Society Fees, and Divisional Fees;    
• The report highlighted the range of fees across the University and was reflective of the local needs of the various divisions and any special programs within those divisions. Fees paid by students varied by campus; 
• Ms. Parr provided examples of these incidental fees for full-time and part-time undergraduate, and graduate students for 2023-24 across the three campuses, and outlined a comparison chart of these fees among divisions at the University.    

In response to a member’s question regarding the Toronto School of Theology (“TST”) and their fee structure for student fees, Professor Welsh explained that not all TST students paid student fees and that some fees were specific to theology students and weren’t connected to the Student Union. She added that it was important to understand the variability and the differences between the fees, and that the fees went through processes that were driven by student voting.

In response to a member’s question about potential fee reductions for students that experienced financial difficulty, Professor Welsh noted that through the University Registrar's office and Divisional Registrar's offices, there were various emergency bursaries that were available for students that could be experiencing financial issues.

CONSENT AGENDA
 

On motion duly moved, seconded, and carried

YOUR BOARD APPROVED

THAT the consent agenda be adopted and that Item 5, the Report of the Previous Meeting, be approved.

5. Report of the Previous Meeting
   
   The Report of the Previous meeting was approved.
6. Business Arising from the Report of the Previous Meeting
   
   There was no business arising from the report of the previous meeting.

7. Date of Next Meeting: February 26, 2025, at 4:30 p.m.
   
   The Chair confirmed that the next meeting would be held on February 26, 2025, in the Council Chamber.
8. Other Business
   
   There were no items of other business.

The meeting adjourned at 5:50 p.m.

January 24, 2025