Humber College Council held its third meeting of the 2016-17 academic year on Thursday, November 10 at the North Campus. To ensure the Humber community is informed of upcoming events, new initiatives and important issues, College Council reports the highlights of its monthly meetings. For more information or to provide feedback on the highlights, please contact jean.o’donnell@humber.ca.

Roundtable

• Council members expressed interest in developing a policy for e-signatures in order to increase cross-institutional environmental sustainability and efficiency.
• Council members addressed constituent concerns about the flow of traffic in and out of campus, current parking capacity and development of the new parking structure at North campus.

Winter Carnival

• W. Buote, Lakeshore Principal, introduced students from the Public Relations graduate program who are responsible for organizing the Humber Staff and Children’s Holiday Party. Scheduled for Saturday, November 26 from 8:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m., the ‘Winter Carnival’ themed event will include breakfast, crafts and activities. Tickets are $8/child and $10/adult, and can be purchased online or at campus bookstores. Attendees are asked to bring a non-perishable food item for donation.   

Ernestine’s Place

• The College Council meeting in December will include the annual donation to Ernestine’s Place, a local women’s shelter. Accepted donations include necessities like new clothing, food, toiletries, baby/toddler items and housewares. Raffle tickets will also be sold to raise money for the shelter.    

Humber Student Success Survey

• C. Johnston, Director of Strategic Planning and Institutional Analysis (SPIA), provided an overview of the newly developed Humber Student Success Survey (HSSS). Using best practice research, consultations, student focus groups and a working group of SEM to provide input, the new HSSS is built into 2 phases to identify students at risk:
  • Phase 1 asks about demographic information (race, gender, sexual identity, disabilities, financial considerations, etc.).
  • Phase 2 asks about academic skills, engagement, expectations, program fit and competing responsibilities/stressors.
• Survey results are confidential and will become longitudinal; roll-out will take 4 years as students from all semesters are eventually surveyed.
• SPIA will be developing aggregate reports to be shared with students to encourage future participation and allow students to take ownership of their own information. 

Academic Calendar

• B. Riach and G. Antonacci presented the 2017-2018 Academic Calendar and highlighted the following dates:
  • October study days align with the U. of Guelph/Guelph-Humber; Humber is currently conducting research with IGNITE to measure student feedback and the effectiveness of these days.
  • Reading week 2018 aligns with the University of Guelph.
  • Timelines for final grade submissions are tight, particularly in the fall, because of how the calendar falls that year.

Accommodations

• G. Antonacci provided an overview of the Accommodations Task Force that was developed in spring 2016 to meet the requirements of the most recent directive from the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) addressing accommodation processes for postsecondary students. Currently at Humber, there are 3,000 students registered with the Accessible Learning Services office. However, not all students follow a natural path through registration which delays and complicates accommodations and assistance. G. Antonacci and J. McMillen will present to College Council at a later date, answering specific questions and concerns raised by members and constituents. Members are asked to submit their questions to N. Adamson by November 18. 

Integrated Advising

• C. Joy and M. Gallo presented an overview of the integrated advising model at Humber. Research has shown that many students get incorrect advice from friends and family.  Integrated advising uses a case-management approach that promotes shared ownership for educational progress among students, faculty and administration (using a hub and spoke model). To ease access, academic advising appointments can now be done online, and a formal referral tool is currently under development. To share this information with students, faculty are encouraged to invite the Academic & Career Success Centre to present to their students. 

Creative and Performing Arts

• A. Scott, Associate Dean in the School of Creative and Performing Arts, provided an overview of the school. Currently, it is working to develop an internationalization strategy that will include more study-abroad opportunities for students in many different countries. They are also working to develop a Centre of Innovation in Creative Enterprise. New programs in 2017 include graduate certificates in Comedy Writing (Print Humour), Music Business and Music Composition, with another 6 programs under development for future launch. A. Scott also promoted the newly available humbertunes.com.   

The next meeting of College Council will be held on Thursday, December 8 at North Campus. For meeting highlights, supporting materials, or opportunities to provide feedback please visit the College Council website at: humber.ca/wearehumber/staff/committees/college-council