Academic Council met for the second time this semester on Thursday, February 14, 2013, at the North Campus. In the interest of keeping the Humber community informed about upcoming events, new initiatives, and important issues, I’ll be reporting on the highlights of the monthly meetings.

For more information on any topic, or to give me feedback on the reports, please feel free to contact me directly, at lisa.salem-wiseman@humber.ca.

Strategic Planning

Humber’s President, Chris Whitaker, provided Council with an update on Humber’s strategic planning process. In total, over 220 members of the Humber community participated in the Student Success Roundtables, the last of which was held in early February. President Whitaker thanked those who participated, noting that the feedback thus far has been extremely thoughtful and relevant. Upcoming events include a roundtable for external stakeholders, as well as town halls for faculty, staff, and students. President Whitaker closed his remarks by encouraging people to have a voice in the process by providing feedback through the strategic planning website at www.humber.ca/imaginehumber

Centre for Teaching and Learning

Eileen DeCourcy provided an overview of the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s activities over the past year. The aim of the CTL, since its establishment in 2010, has been to create a community of practice at Humber. Highlights of the 2011-2012 Academic year include the following:

• Over 600 people attended Showcase 2012, which was held at the Lakeshore campus on May 31, 2012.
• Over 3,000 Humber faculty and staff have participated in over 190 faculty-led workshops.
• Over 40 faculty participated in the Summer Teaching Institute, which was held at Hockley Valley Resort and featured a workshop with Ken Bain.
• The CTL website has been updated with valuable resources for both full-time and part-time faculty. There have been over 22,000 visits to the website since September, including visitors from the United States, United Kingdom, and India.
• An editorial board has been formed for the Humber Press. Two publications have gone through, and two more are in process.
• Several faculty are currently seconded to the CTL on initiatives that include working with faculty on teaching with cases, building a community of program coordinators, helping faculty develop skills for teaching international students, providing one-on-one support to faculty on projects related to teaching and learning, and building communities of practice within specific schools.
• The CTL is currently undergoing renovations, reforming its existing space and building a video production studio, which will feature high quality, portable cameras and editing software.

Future initiatives include building a teaching excellence framework to help faculty to identify needs across four different levels (Novice; Developing; Proficient; Exemplary), and developing an app that rewards faculty who conduct workshops with points that can be redeemed for materials to promote excellence in teaching. The Mini-conference for Part-time faculty will be held April 6. Showcase 2013 will be held June 6 at the North Campus.

IT Services

Scott Briggs gave council an update on Information Technology Services. Open access labs have been updated at both the North and Lakeshore campuses, in order to provide more collaborative workspaces for students. Further updates are planned for the summer.

Currently, almost 3000 Humber faculty, staff, and administrators have been moved to Microsoft Outlook. By the end of April, the entire college will be on Outlook. Updates are planned for the campus network and campus data centres. The network will be much faster and have more feature functionality.

ITS continues to make Microsoft software available to Humber faculty, staff, and students. Since 2010, Over 30,800 people have downloaded different Microsoft Office applications for personal use. Currently, Office Professional 2013 is available for personal use by the Humber community.

University of Guelph-Humber Update

George Bragues spoke to Council about recent events at the University of Guelph-Humber. Fall 2012 marked the 10th anniversary of Guelph-Humber, which has grown from 200 students across three programs to 3,850 students across nine programs. The occasion was celebrated with a series of events, including an Open House and a Founders’ Dinner in October.

Guelph-Humber is continuing to experience solid increases in applications, with an 11.8% increase in first-choice applications. Upcoming initiatives include an online journal which will be run by the Psychology program.