The Humber College Council (HCC) held its second meeting of the 2019-2020 academic year on Thursday October 10, 2019 at the Lakeshore Campus. To ensure the Humber community is informed of upcoming events, new initiatives, and important issues, the College Council reports the highlights of its meetings. For more information or to provide feedback on these highlights, please contact risha.toney@humber.ca.
Roundtable
Gina Catenazzo [Teaching and Learning] noted that the Educational Technology Committee (ETC) is offering FREE Virtual Lunch and Learn Webinars facilitated by professors from different colleges. Upcoming topics include “Designing Presentations and Online Lessons with the Brain in Mind” and “Launching a Domain of One’s Own Project”. For more information and to register, visit edtechontario.ca.
Summary: September meeting and introduction to the new format
Risa Handler [Chair, HCC] noted that HCC Executive and Humber’s Executive team reviewed feedback from the September meeting, and several changes to the meeting format will be adopted going forward. Some of these changes include materials and presenter questions will be circulated before each meeting, increased time during meetings for discussion and feedback and the meeting time has been reduced by one hour.
Academic Policy review
Gina Antonacci [Associate Vice-President, Academic] noted that it is the role of the Office of the Vice-President, Academic to review and amend existing academic policies and create new policies when required. There is a consultative process when reviewing and creating policies; HCC’s role is to provide valuable cross-sectional feedback.
Mid-term and final grade submission policy
G. Antonacci noted that there are changes to the current policy (dated 2013) in regards to requirements for mid-term grades, as well as responsibilities of Academic Staff and the Registrar’s Office. Midterm grades are not calculated in the official grade point average (GPA) and do not appear on the student’s official transcript. The goal is to contribute to student success by providing students with a realistic idea of their performance to date, which is important for our retention strategy
Retention and disposal of student work
G. Antonacci noted that this is a new policy and the intent of this policy is to ensure that staff understand what student work must be retained, how long the work should be retained for, how to warrant that the retention of work ensures protection of the individual’s right to privacy regarding personal and academic information. There is a requirement for a number of accredited programs to retain student work. This policy guides how long students work must be kept for and in what manner it is retained.
Program advisory committee policy
G. Antonacci noted this policy is a revision to the previous version dated 2013, and that the changes are related to holding a central event per year, as well as a formal orientation process, and providing an annual report to the Board of Governors (BoG). Program Advisory Committees (PACs) are subcommittees of the BoG.
Next steps: G. Antonacci will bring forward HCC’s feedback to the next Academic Framework Committee (AFC) meeting and will return to provide updates following the AFC meeting.
Humber’s Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILO’s)
Lara McInnis [Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Innovative Learning] provided an update of Humber’s ILO’s framework and noted that the initiative is part of the Career Ready Citizens pillar in Humber’s Strategic Plan. There have been many stakeholder consultations with HCC, students, industry and community partners. The framework will officially launch in March 2020.
L. McInnis noted next steps for fall 2019 that include: conducting a field placement assessment of the ILO’s in the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts; creation of an Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Taskforce and Sustainability faculty group; work with the Teaching & Learning team to embed the ILO’s in curriculum through the course outline system; and mapping the ILOs during program and course review.
Next steps: L. McInnis will review feedback provided by HCC and look to implement suggestions as the ILO team moves towards the launch and implementation of the ILOs. There will be a call for proposals for the ILO launch event scheduled for March 2020.
Engaging with the 2019-2024 Sustainability Plan
Lindsay Walker [Associate Director, Capital Development and Facilities Management] stated that HCC was consulted prior to the development of the Sustainability Plan, came back in April, and is now returning to share the completed plan.
Highlights of work of the Office of Sustainability include: events to promote sustainability; Integrated Energy Master Plan; 15% reduction in energy use since 2015; 28% reduction in water per student since 2018; and 5% absolute reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 2015.
Next steps: L. Walker to review responses with a view to providing updates at a future meeting.
Debrief of new format
R. Handler opened the conversation of how the first meeting went using the new format. This feedback included: continue to email highlights to HCC members; provide a Word version of all materials in addition to PDFs; provide a digital option for providing feedback; and provide a version of the meeting package specific to the members and constituents.
The next meeting of the College Council will be held on Thursday November 7, 2019 at the North Campus. For meeting highlights, supporting materials, and opportunities to provide feedback please visit the College Council website.
