Report Number 47 Of The Academic Affairs Committee
October 17, 2022
To the Campus Council,
University of Toronto Mississauga
Your Committee reports that it held a meeting on October 17, 2022 at 2:10 p.m. in Room 3130, W.G. Davis Building.
Present:
Laura Taylor (Chair), Sanja Hinic-Frlog (Vice-Chair), Alexandra Gillespie (Vice-President & Principal), Amrita Daniere (Interim Vice-Principal, Academic & Dean), Kent Moore (Vice-Principal, Research), Tracey Bowen (Vice-Dean, Teaching & Learning), Varouj Aivazian, Barend Beekhuizen, Andreas Bendlin, Steven Bernstein, Randy Besco, Brett Beston, Ilia Binder, Mahmoud Bitar, Elizabeth Blake, Tracey Bowen, Laura Brown, Jill Caskey, Craig Chambers, Rosa Ciantar, Ruth Childs, Michael deBraga, Uday Dhingra, Margarida Duarte, Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Philip Goodman, Shelley Hawrychuk,Helen Kula, Asif Mohammed, Lorretta Neebar, Michael Nixon, Andreas Park, Gurpreet Rattan, Christoph Richter, Jumi Shin, Hana Tariq,Jaimal Thind, Soo Min Toh, Jonathan Weisberg, Ron Wener, Weiguo Zhang
Non-Voting Assessors:
Yen Du (Manager, Academic Programs, Reviews & Quality Assurance), Mark Overton (Dean of Student Affairs), Ajay Rao (Vice-Dean Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs)
Regrets:
Salvatore Bancheri, Osama Abdalla, Asma Behery, Monika Havelka, Nawal Faisal, Tracey Galloway, Monika Havelka, Sarah Hillewaert, Rayan Hobeika, Tanjim Hossain, Shashi Kant, Anoosha Keshav, Tong Lam, Ciskas Luwawu, Danielle McLean, Andrea Olive, Esteban Parra, Leigh Revers, Lindsay Schoenbohm, Sarah Sharma, Adriano Senatore, Meghan Sutherland, Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi
In Attendance: Len Brooks (Director, PAC, MFAcc, Professor, Department of Management, IMI), Saima Zulqarnain, (Program and Business Development Manager, IMIx Executive Programs), Chad Nuttall (Assistant Dean of Students and International Initiatives)
Secretariat:
Cindy Ferencz-Hammond
- Chair’s Remarks
The Chair welcomed members to the Committee and welcomed Professor Liza Blake from the Department of English & Drama, who was a newly elected member of the Committee resulting from the fall by-elections.Professor Daniere announced that Professor Barbara Murck, from the Department of Geography, Geomatics and Environment had died on October 15.Graduated from Princeton University in 1976, Professor Murck joined UTM in 1995 and won the U of T President’s Teaching Award in 2010.She was a much beloved member of UTM, having taught many students with genuine enthusiasm.She will be greatly missed.
- Skills Articulation - Helping students translate course learning outcomes for potential employers and graduate & professional school application
The Chair invitedFelicity Morgan, Director of the Career Centre and Panayiota Platanitis, Career Counsellor, to present.During their presentation, they shared the following information:
- The goal for the development of the three-part Skills Articulation Module was to help students:
- Identify & articulate/demonstrate skills gained through academics, a common challenge for many students, and to help them plan for future skill-building through their studies.
- Know their skills and areas for improvement which can be targeted at certain courses/experiences that can help build their skills further.
- The process for taking students through modules involves three parts:
- Part 1: Students were asked to identify and describe the skills they developed in their program of study;
- Part 2: they were asked to identify skills sought by employers or further educational programs; and
- Part 3:They have to show that they have the sought-after skills in a way that speaks to employers and relevant programs.
- The modules illustrate content with the use of relatable examples and are personalized and tailored.
- Another was that the modules were not simply interactive but offered students opportunities to learn and practice. Rather than simply reading through material, students needed to read through and think about the material and answer correctly before moving on.
- At the end of each module, students could save a screenshot of their summary page so that they could keep a record of their skills and descriptions.
- The goal for the development of the three-part Skills Articulation Module was to help students:
- Program Closure: Master of Forensic Accounting, DIFA - Advanced Standing Option
The Chair invited Professor Len Brooks, Director of the Master of Forensic Accounting, (MFAcc) program to present.Professor Brooks reported that the Diploma in Investigative & Forensic Accounting (DIFA) was offered at the Professional Graduate Programs Centre and later at the Institute for Management & Innovation (IMI) from 2001 to 2017. In response to the evolving landscape of the industry, a master’s level degree program in forensic accounting, Master of Forensic Accounting, (MFAcc) was created and offered at IMI starting in May 2018. The MFAcc replaced the DIFA. The DIFA was approved to close through university governance effective April 30, 2022.
Professor Brooks explained that as part of the transition from the DIFA to the MFAcc program, the MFAcc offered an Advanced Standing Option (ASO) for graduates of the DIFA program and that this was also an opportunity for DIFA graduates to enrol in the MFAcc Program and upgrade/ enhance their knowledge and skills to a master’s level research understanding and remain competitive with the industry standard. UTM approved a total of three ASO offerings, each of which involved four standalone sections of existing MFAcc courses and these courses would continue to remain part of the MFAcc curriculum and program requirements.
He explained that as of August 2020, all three offerings of the ASO had been completed and all students in the ASO had completed their program, with no current students enrolled in that option. In acknowledgement of the completion of the three ASO offerings and with no additional demand from DIFA graduates, it was therefore proposed that the ASO be closed effective December 31, 2022.There were no questions from members.
On motion duly made, seconded, and carried,
YOUR COMMITTEE RESOLVED,THAT the Diploma in Investigative & Forensic Accounting - Advanced Standing Option, part of the Master of Forensic Accounting (MFAcc) program, be closed, effective December 31, 2022, as detailed in the proposal dated September 30, 2022.
- New Type 3 Certificate Program: Canadian Income Tax Practices
The Chair invited Professor Brooks to present the item. Professor Brooks explained that the proposed Certificate of Canadian Income Tax Practice (Tax Certificate) would be a Type 3, not-for-credit certificate offered through the Institute for Management & Innovation Executive Programs unit (IMIx) at UTM and would provide professional accountants and lawyers foundational knowledge and skills for a career in income tax practice. This practical knowledge and these skills were not offered at the required levels in the preparatory program for the CPA designation and this proposed certificate was meant to fill that gap. He added that there was no formal option for this type of education anywhere else in Canada.In response to a member’s question about how the growth potential of this offering would affect physical space requirement at UTM, Professor Brooks explained that this certificate was offered entirely online, similar to the Master of Forensic Accounting program.
On motion duly made, seconded, and carried,
YOUR COMMITTEE RESOLVED,THAT the New Type 3 Certificate Program: Canadian Income Tax Practices, be approved, as detailed in the proposal dated October 3, 2022, effective January 1, 2023.
- New Type 3 Certificate Program: Effective Health Care Management
Professor Brooks provided a summary of the certificate being proposed.The Certificate of Effective Healthcare Management was being proposed as a Type 3, not-for-credit certificate to enhance the management knowledge and capabilities of managers working in the healthcare sector and would be offered through the Institute for Management & Innovation’s (IMI) Executive Programs unit, IMIx. He noted that it had been developed in response to a grant request by the Mastercard Foundation (MCF) to educate students in Africa and had been funded by MCF for an initial six offerings over six years, with a possible extension to 10 years.Professor Brooks explained that the goal of MCF was to enable 30 million young people in Africa to secure dignified and fulfilling work by 2030.IMIx Executive Programs was proposing to offer learners in Africa an executive program micro-credential and certificate in management specifically designed for individuals working in the healthcare sector.The Certificate would be offered in English through online, interactive sessions, to cohorts of 50 aspiring and mid-level managers who will take the classes in the evening in Africa.Professor Daniere commented that the proposed certificate reflected positively on UTM and that these kinds of micro-credentialing programs reflected the future of education for many people.
In response to a member’s question about the long time horizon of the program, Professor Brooks explained that seven individual certificates were integrated with the goal of not having to start a new certificate every six to eight weeks. The proposed plan ensured that these were coordinated, and a speaker series was also planned.
On motion duly made, seconded, and carried,
YOUR COMMITTEE RESOLVED,THAT the New Type 3 Certificate Program: Effective Health Care Management, be approved, as detailed in the proposal dated October 3, 2022, effective January 1, 2023.
- Reports of the Presidential Assessors
There were two reports for the Committee’s attention.Professor Andreas Bendlin, Vice-Dean, Academic Experience provided a report of the work of his unit, sharing the following information:
- The Academic Experience unit consisted of two portfolios: the academic integrity unit (AIU) and the experiential education unit (EEU).
- Academic integrity cases had been on the rise steadily across the University of Toronto, with a spike in 2019-20, during the pandemic.
- The AI unit was focusing on actively preventing cases before they occurred by educating faculty about strategies to implement in their course syllabi and in their assignments and by working with student ambassadors and student societies educating students about academic integrity.
- Regarding the experiential education unit: UTM was committed to offering real-world opportunities to all its students and this unit supported instructors who ran experiential learning courses.
- The range of opportunities offered were listed on the website and ranged from academic internships, community engaged learning, and the research opportunity program and field courses (both national and international).
- Financial and logistic support was provided to departments and faculty engaging in these programs.
- Demand was high and more faculty were encouraged to participate.
- The unit was expanded with an additional hire who would focus on developing a UTM Co-op Program, with the goal of launching it in two years.
In response to member’s question about whether there was financial support for students who wished to participate in these programs, it was noted that bursaries were available. Regarding study abroad opportunities, Mr. Chad Nuttall, Assistant Dean of Students and International Initiatives, explained that the intention was to continue to grow the opportunities strategically with key champion faculty. He further confirmed that in response to student demand, UTM was doing shorter trips within a class while the St. George campus had longer, residential opportunities and added that there were varying study abroad products throughout the University.Regarding the use of the $5000 given to faculty for experiential programming, it was noted that those funds were flexible and could be used to support students in various ways on a case-by-case basis.Regarding academic integrity, a member asked whether data could be made available at the unit level. Professor Bendlin noted that these kinds of department level reports had recently been provided to individual chairs upon request.
Next, Professor Kent Moore, Vice-Principal Research (OVPR)provided an update from his office. He noted that recently, two new staff members had joined the OVPR. Dr. Raquel De Souza was the Strategic Research Initiatives and Partnerships Manager, responsible for designing and implementing programs and strategies that would increase UTM's strategic initiatives and research partnerships. Secondly, Dr. Stefanie Bernaudo joined the team as a Strategic Research Development Officer, and she would support the UTM community by advising faculty on funding application strategies, as well as prizes and awards.
Professor Moore also reported that the Vice-President & Principal recently funded an initiative that would provide faculty with assistance in writing large grants. In addition, with the support of the Vice-Principal Academic & Dean, a program was initiated whereby teaching release was granted for individuals who were the lead Principal Investigators who wrote and shared partnership grants.
CONSENT AGENDA
On motion duly moved, seconded, and carried
YOUR COMMITTEE APPROVED
THAT the consent agenda be adopted and that Item 7, the Report of the Previous Meeting, be approved.
- Report of the Previous Meeting
Report number 46, dated September 12, 2022, was approved. - Business Arising from the Report of the Previous Meeting
- Date of Next Meeting – January 11, 2023, at 3:10 p.m.
The Chair reminded members that the next meeting of the Committee was scheduled for January 11, 2023. - Other Business
There was no other business.
The meeting adjourned at 3:24 p.m.
October 21, 2022