REPORT NUMBER 75 OF THE
UTSC ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2025
To the UTSC Campus Council, University of Toronto,
Your Committee reports that it held a meeting in the Council Chamber, Arts and Administration Building, on Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 3:10 p.m. with the following members present:
PRESENT: Elaine Khoo (Chair), Rachel Sturge (Vice-Chair), Linda Johston (Vice-President & Principal), Karin Ruhlandt (Vice-Principal, Academic & Dean)*, Katie Larson (Vice-Dean Teaching, Learning & Undergraduate), Alison Mountz (Interim Vice-Principal, Research & Innovation), Iris Au, Corinne Beauquis*, Dan Bowyer, Shelley Brunt, Andrea Charise, Christopher Cochrane, Sébastien Drouin* Angela Hamilton, Rene Harrison, Lisa Harvey, Mariana Jardim* , Randy Lundy*, Gillian Mason, Sophia Mastrella, Karen McCrindle, Elizabeth O'Brien, Kamini Persaud, Hadiya Roderique*, Anthony Ruocco*, Mahinda Samarakoon, Emmanuel Taiwo, Judith Teichman*, Shelby Verboven, David Zweig*
*remote attendance
REGRETS: Sandya Anand, Georgios Arhonditsis, Sandra Bamford, Joshua Barker, James Bremer, Jonathan Cant, Abhay Chawla, Keith Colaco, Suzanne Erb, John Hannigan, Joseph Hermer, Leonard Hu, Thembela Kepe, Ainsley Lawson, Alice Maurice, Sharlene Mollett, Julia Nefsky, William Nelson, Sonja Nikkila, Thy Phu, Jasmine Rault, Michelle Silver, Shennel Simpson, Mauricio Terebiznik, Phil Triadafilopoulos,Jessica Wilson, Arjun Yanglem, Marco Zimmer-De Iuliis, Niyonta Zulfiquar,
NON-VOTING ASSESSORS: Kevin Mak, Varsha Patel, Naureen Nizam, Suzanne Sicchia
SECRETARIAT: Miranda Edwards, Megann Davidson
IN ATTENDANCE: Lee Bazely, Sarah Chaudhry, Maggie Cummings
OPEN SESSION
- Chair’s Remarks
The Chair, Professor Elaine Khoo, began by welcoming members and guests back from the winter break. She introduced the Committee’s new Secretary, Miranda Edwards, and thanked previous Secretary, Emma Thacker, for her tremendous contributions to the Committee. She wished Ms Thacker all the best in her new role.
The Chair informed the Committee that the Winter 2025 elections were underway. She reminded members that the nomination deadline was January 16th and that voting would take place from February 4-14, 2025. She listed the current Committee positions that were available and advised members to contact the Chief Returning Officer with any questions. - Update: Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies
The Chair invited Professor Rene Harrison, Vice Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, to present an update on the work of the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Professor Harrison began by noting that graduate and postdoctoral students were pivotal to the University as both front-line teachers and key drivers of major research output. In 2024-25, UTSC had approximately 500 graduate students (approximately 300 students in tri-campus arts and science programs, 100 students in UTSC “local programs” of Clinical Psychology and Environmental Science, and 100 professional master’s degree students in Accounting/Finance and Environmental Science).
The Office’s primary activities included administering graduate funding packages, scholarship competitions, grants and rebate programs, events, GSAS support, and providing information to graduate students as needed. The Office ran several successful events including orientation sessions, “Hiring a Postdoc”, “Postdoc Appreciation Week”, “Black Scholars Event”, and the “Celebration of Excellence.” Of particular note, the Office held its second annual “Postdoc Palooza” conference – the only conference in Canada held exclusively for postdoctoral students. This annual conference was scheduled to take place for the third time in 2025 and would continue to be fully funded with no fees charged to students.
Professor Harrison then informed the Committee of other accomplishments and ongoing projects. The Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) recently filled a new FTE position focused on running professional development workshops and TA training for graduate students with an EDI lens. The Office also recently secured multiple townhomes on the UTSC campus for graduate and postdoctoral students. These homes were not yet at capacity so the Office had been working to increase awareness of this available housing. The Office was also currently working to secure spaces and create a new booking system for reservable short-term offices for use by graduate and postdoctoral students.
Professor Harrison further informed the Committee that her team was working on implementation details of the new graduate funding package that was announced by the University in November, 2024 and that additional details would be shared at upcoming governance meetings.
Concluding her update, she notified members that two new UTSC graduate programs would be coming forward to governance for approval in the coming year: the PhD in Interdisciplinary and Applied Biology (to begin in Fall 2026)* and the Professional Master’s Degree in Paramedicine (currently in planning stages). - Minor Modifications: Undergraduate Curriculum Changes, UTSC
Professor Katie Larson, Vice-Dean Teaching, Learning & Undergraduate Programs, informed the Committee that the Department of Global Development Studies and the Department of Political Science requested approval to add new courses for the 2025-26 academic year:
Department of Global Development Studies
IDSC22H3: Humanitarian Aid and Global Development
Department of Political Science
POLC07H3: Practicing Model Parliaments: Legislative Assemblies in Canada
POLC44H3: Current Topics in Politics II
POLC45H3: Current Topics in Politics III
POLD32H3: Racism, the Law, and Public Policy
Members had no questions.
On motion duly moved, seconded and carried,
YOUR COMMITTEE APPROVED,
THAT the proposed Social Sciences undergraduate curriculum changes for the 2025-26 academic year, as detailed in the respective curriculum report, be approved.
- Minor Modifications: Admission Requirements - Combined Degree Programs, UTSC, and the Master of Teaching, OISE
Professor Larson presented a request for approval of minor modifications to admission requirements for the Combined Degree Programs with the Master of Teaching program at OISE. The modifications were to lower GPA standards to a mid-B or better and to require only two teaching subjects for the intermediate and senior teaching divisions.
Professor Larson informed the Committee that OISE had determined that its current GPA requirements had been a deterrent to many students from applying and had created a barrier to students from underrepresented groups. In addition, OISE’s current admissions requirements did not align with the Ontario College of Teachers’ requirements.
Professor Larson noted that extensive consultation had taken place within OISE and with academic leaders and Deans throughout the University. Professor Larson confirmed that no issues of concern had been raised.
A member commented that students should be made aware of their major and minor program requirements relevant to teachable subjects during the application stage. Professor Larson said that she would bring this comment back to relevant staff at UTSC and in AA&CC who are supporting students enrolled in the combined programs, as a student advisory issue.
On motion duly moved, seconded and carried,
YOUR COMMITTEE APPROVED,
THAT the proposed changes to the admission requirements of UTSC’s Combined Degree Programs linked to the Master of Teaching at OISE, as detailed in the attached proposal, be approved effective September 1, 2025. - Reports of the Presidential Assessors
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Professor Karin Ruhlandt, Vice-Principal Academic & Dean
Professor Ruhlandt informed the Committee that, in December 2024, she spent three weeks in China with UTSC’s Green Path team to recruit international students. She noted that the team had successfully signed on five new Green Path partner schools. She praised the program’s successes over the past twenty years and noted that the program had maintained stringent admissions standards, ensuring that top students were recruited.
Professor Ruhlandt also updated the Committee regarding the increase in applications for UTSC’s Health Sciences Certificate program, reflecting the program’s uniqueness and a strong trend of interest in the health sciences. Professor Ruhlandt noted that UTSC was the only university in Ontario to be offered 500 additional spaces from the provincial government for domestic student enrollment. UTSC exceeded expectations by recruiting 750 students into the program, surpassing its target. For the first time in many years, UTSC almost met its domestic student enrollment goal and expected to continue seeing this upward trend in domestic student enrolment. This trend was expected to balance the declining interest from international students that had been observed over the past year due to geopolitical issues and Canadian government student visa policies.
Concluding her remarks, Professor Ruhlandt updated the Committee that her office had been engaged in eighteen ongoing faculty searches – a mix of tenure track and teaching stream.
- Professor Alison Mountz, Interim Vice-Principal Research and Innovation
Professor Alison Mountz began her report by updating the Committee about her office’s annual competition for department research funds. Her office received fourteen proposals this year and she was pleased to announce that approximately $750,000 in funding would be awarded to most, if not all, of the proposals.
Professor Mountz then provided an update to the Committee on the ongoing collaboration between the Office of Research and Innovation and the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion office. A brainstorming session was recently held on the subject of creating tools to embed EDI principles within the research lifecycle. An example of one potential outcome of the session was an interactive website with video testimonials made by researchers who have successfully implemented EDI practices in their research.
Professor Mountz also provided an update on the Taskforce on Research Supports and Service. The mandate of the taskforce was to improve access to information about research at UTSC. Professor Mountz explained that the idea came, in part, from her own experience of arriving on campus as a new researcher and encountering the challenges of navigating decentralized information. One of the task force’s current projects was the creation of an online portal that would centralize information about the supports and services available to UTSC researchers. The task force had been meeting monthly and Professor Mountz noted that reports would be forthcoming. In response to a member’s question, Professor Mountz confirmed that the task force is multi-departmental and that one of its goals had been to build relationships across portfolios in order to improve the onboarding experience of new researchers.
Lastly, Professor Mountz was pleased to announce that UTSC had been allocated two new Canada Research Chairs (CRCs) in the social sciences and humanities. She offered congratulations to the entire UTSC research community for this collective accomplishment. With these two new chairs, there would now be a total of twelve CRCs on campus. Five of the existing Chairs were slated to become vacant in the next couple of years so Professor Mountz informed the committee that her office would soon be issuing an open call for nominations to the CRC selection committee.
In response to a member’s question regarding university community partnerships, Professor Mountz confirmed that all CRCs were very engaged in the local community. She emphasized that community engagement was a priority for all researchers and faculty on campus and listed several examples of such initiatives. In response to another member’s question as to the impact of new research initiatives on teaching stream faculty, Professor Mountz explained the ways in which new research initiatives had a positive impact across campus including for teaching stream faculty, researchers, and students.
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- Report of the Previous Meeting: Report Number 74 – October 15, 2024
The report of the previous meeting was approved. - Business Arising from the Report of the Previous Meeting
There was no business arising from the report of the previous meeting. - Date of Next Meeting – February 6, 2025, 3:10 p.m.
The Chair advised members that the Committee would meet again on February 6, 2025, at 3:10 p.m. - Other Business
No other business was raised by members.
The meeting adjourned at 4:10 p.m.
January 27, 2025
*Secretary’s Note: Post-meeting, it was confirmed that the start date of this program had been delayed to a later date to be determined.