Humber College Council held its ninth meeting of the 2015-16 academic year on Thursday, May 19 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.biers@humber.ca.

New Programs

• The School of Social and Community Services (SSCS) will be offering a new two-year Diploma program in Fire Services. This program prepares students with the in-depth knowledge, skills and abilities required by professional Fire & Emergency Services. It also provides them with theory, practices and principles of emergency services, fire science, fire prevention, and physical & mental health and safety.  In addition, there are a number of pathways available to students through various programs in SSCS, including the existing Pre-Service Firefighter Education & Training Certificate. The anticipated start date of this program is September 2017.

• The Business School will be offering a new two-semester Graduate Certificate program in Insurance Management – Property & Casualty. The first of its kind in the GTA, this program provides students with 7 of 10 required courses needed for the Chartered Insurance Professional (CIP) designation from Insurance Institute of Canada (IIC) as well as an array of transferrable professional management skills. There are many existing pathways into this through this program already at Humber and it fulfils a need for the insurance industry where there are shortages of trained professionals. The anticipated start date of this program is September 2017. 

• The Business School will be offering a three-semester Graduate Certificate program in Paralegal. The first of its kind in the west GTA, this program provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary to complete the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Paralegal Licensing exams. It also provides students with an opportunity to more highly develop their written and oral communication, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The anticipated start date for this program is September 2017.

• The School of Hospitality, Recreation and Tourism (HRT) will be offering a three-semester Graduate Certificate program in Wellness Coaching. This program, which includes an internship in its third semester, is provided in a hybrid delivery model that includes online components, 12 face-to-face evening classes and 6 weekend intensives. It places an emphasis on the advanced skills that support sustainable behaviour change and teaches students to promote disease prevention and healthy behaviour change in such areas as stress management, healthy eating, active lifestyle, sleep habits and smoking cessation. Anticipated start dates will either be May 2017 or January 2018.

Degree Consent Renewals

The following three degree programs are currently undergoing a program review and applications will be submitted for their Consent Renewal (which are scheduled to expire on August 30, 2017):

• Honours Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) degree
• Honours Bachelor of Child & Youth Care degree
• Honours Bachelor of Public Relations degree

Business Plan and Budget

A. Kaufman, Manager of Strategic Planning and S. Ghandi, Associate Director of Financial Planning presented the 2016-17 Business Plan and Budget to College Council. The Business Plan presentation highlighted the Year 4 strategies and initiatives that will move Humber towards achieving its five-year goals and success outcomes included the 2013-2018 Strategic Plan. The Budget presentation highlighted the guiding principles behind Humber’s budget development as well as 2016-17 assumptions regarding operational activities (core and non-core), ancillary activities and strategic investments.

Nominations for Chair and Vice Chair Positions

After a call for nominations for the Chair and Vice Chair positions, Nancey Adamson was acclaimed as Chair and Risa Handler as Vice Chair effective June 8, 2016.

In keeping with Council’s mandate to report back to the President on key items, members of Council met in small working groups to discuss the evening’s presentations and compiled comments and recommendations that will be brought to the President.

The next meeting of College Council will be held on Tuesday, June 7, at the North Campus.

The Business School is pleased to announce that students from our partnership school in India, Parul University have arrived. Over the next two weeks students will participate in the Leadership Beyond Boundaries Summer Program at the Lakeshore Campus. During this innovative and culturally engaging program they will participate in three interactive classes: Cross Cultural Communication, Global Leadership, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation. During the program, students will learn how to communicate in a multicultural environment, entrepreneurs will teach students how to start a new business, and instructors will guide students to explore the global mindset needed to work across cultural boundaries. They will also have plenty of time to experience true Canadian culture. Students will discover Toronto and the surrounding areas during guided trips to local cultural attractions and can further explore personal areas of interest during their free time.

Humber is becoming a greener campus and everyone is participating! Humber Sustainability Highlights feature people and departments around the College integrating sustainable practices. This month’s focus is the change to paperless pay stubs brought to you by Humber’s Human Resources Department!

June 1st was the start of online pay stubs for all Humber employees. Mike Joyal, Human Resources Information System Manager, says there are many benefits to this change.

BENEFITS FOR HUMBER

• Employees have faster access to their pay stubs from any computer at any time.
• The HR Department is able to utilize their time more effectively and focus on other projects.
• Humber will save approximately $30,000 on labour and postage costs.

In addition to Humber’s benefits, there are some significant environmental benefits to Humber moving to online pay stubs.

BENEFITS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

• Humber will save about 130,000 slips of paper every year. This is equivalent to approximately:
  • 765,818 litres of annual water savings,[1]  which is comparable to the water used by the average Canadian for six years.[2]
  • 1,886 kilograms of carbon dioxide [3] (a greenhouse gas) will not be emitted each year. That’s almost the equivalent to a third of a vehicle’s annual carbon dioxide emissions.[4]
  • 15 trees will be saved annually.[5]

In the fall of 2015, Joyal said HR hosted a series of Open Houses for Humber employees to observe Humber’s HR processes and to provide input. Employees made specific requests to have the ability to receive pay stubs faster and online both on and off campus.

A key part of this change being successful was making sure personal information remained secure. The implementation of Humber’s banner website in 2013 helped the HR administer online pay stub processes in a secure manner.

Joyal says the initiative to bring online pay stubs online is “about serving people better and giving them better tools.” So far, he says, “the adoption of paperless pay stubs has been phenomenal.”

After 35 years at Humber in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Mike Badyk has decided to retire from teaching. In 30 years as a full-time faculty member, he has made significant contributions to the School, to our department, and, most importantly, to the education of thousands of Humber students.

Mike has been dedicated to keeping his courses full of the latest paleontological finds (Discovering Dinosaurs) and the most recent natural disasters and climate events (Dangerous Earth). By doing so, he has kept students engaged and learning about the world around them. Mike embraced learning outside of the classroom in the Nature of Ontario course and with a field trip to the ROM long before the term “experiential learning” was published in periodicals about pedagogy.

Please join me in congratulating Mike on his retirement. 

Dawn Macaulay
Associate Dean Liberal Studies
School of Liberal Arts and Sciences