The Humber College Council (HCC) held its fourth meeting of the 2020-2021 academic year on Thursday, December 10, 2020, online using Microsoft Teams. 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 denise.rooney@humber.ca.
HCC Holiday Fundraising Initiative
Karen Stefou [Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellness] provided an update of the fundraising initiative for Ernestine’s Women’s Shelter. Staff who wish to donate to the shelter may do so through the Canada Help’s page that has been set up on the Faculty of Health Sciences & Wellness website.
https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/humber-faculty-of-health-sciences-wellness-support
Core SEM Update
Gina Antonacci, [Associate Vice-President, Academic] and Barb Riach, [Registrar, Office of the Registrar] provided a strategic enrolment management (SEM) update. Also included was a Program Development update.
B. Riach provided an overview of an environmental scan with regards to enrolment. She noted that the expected previous decline in 18–24-year-old domestic students is forecast to change, and rise in the early 2020’s. As well, there has been an increase in international student enrolment to offset the domestic shortfall. Since COVID-19, enrolment forecasts have changed due to the significant uncertainty especially with international students. International students are now able to travel to Canada yet there have been extensive travel restrictions put in place and students have been unable to secure travel documents such as visas. The Canadian Government has made some changes to help accommodate international students to study online while gaining Canadian education credentials. Enrolment projections have been revised to accurately reflect the challenges and possible space restrictions due to physical distancing requirements.
The college is encouraged by the strong enrolment numbers from the summer and fall semesters and especially by the returning students who have continued with their schooling; the numbers are close to pre-COVID-19 rates. The largest shortfall has been with new international student enrolment, yet on a positive note most international students have chosen to defer their start date rather than completely withdraw.
The overall strong enrolment numbers speak to the efforts of how staff were able to pivot services to online, and in many cases reach more potential students with events such as orientation and open house. As of December 7, there are close to 20,700 students registered full-time for the winter semester and we fully expect to meet our enrolment targets. The recruitment team will be hosting online events for potential high-school students which typically they would visit in person in the past.
Program Development Update
G. Antonacci provided Council with an update on new programs starting at Humber in 2021. These include diploma, degree, and graduate certificates.
Winter 2021
- Health Sector Regulatory Compliance (Graduate Certificate)
- Cloud Computing (Graduate Certificate)
Fall 2021
- Advertising – Art Direction (Graduate Certificate)
- Bachelor of Engineering – 3 separate streams offered
- Retirement Home Management (Graduate Certificate)
- Bachelor of Social Science – Addictions and Mental Health
- Bachelor of Science – Nursing
- Computer Programming & Analysis (Advanced Diploma)
Innovative Approaches to Remote Delivery
Laurie Rancourt [Senior Vice-President, Academic] introduced Vera Beletzan [Senior Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences & Innovative Learning] and Gina Antonacci [Associate Vice-President, Academic] to discuss the rapid transformation of teaching and learning during a pandemic.
Teaching and Learning
As a result of the sudden shut down of the college due to COVID-19 in March, Humber took a rapid pivot approach between March and May to ensure that our high-quality teaching and learning for our students was maintained. Several initiatives were established including a Learning Continuity Kit for faculty, Student Learning Kit, a 10-step plan to building an online course, Tech Designated Pivot teams, software upgrades, course trailers and a Blackboard template redesign.
There will be permanent changes made with faculty support including, targeted and specialized webinars, ED-venture days, online conferences every 2 months and on-demand professional learning webinars. Student support will include course trailer videos, upgraded student supports, enhanced Humber-Online experience and student outreach and workshop offerings. The feedback from both faculty and students has been excellent and reassuring.
Project-Based Work Integrated Learning (WIL)
Work placements which are integral to the theory/practice connection were impacted because of the pandemic. To ensure students were able to participate in meaningful experiential learning that was connected to their field of practice, projects were created to provide the necessary learning outcomes. For example, the Faculty of Social and Community Services Criminal Justice degree students, in collaboration with Toronto Police and the Scarborough-Guildwood Business Improvement Area, developed a Mapping Community Resources Project to respond to homelessness in the community. The Faculty of Applied Sciences and Technology Interior Design students re-designed current Humber spaces to respond to the reality of COVID-19 and to envision college learning space of the future. The International Centre developed on the heels of cancellation of travel-based learning the Beyond COVID-19: Global System Gap Challenge. This unique opportunity helped students, both current and potential, demonstrate and articulate the Humber Learning Outcomes (HLO’s) in a meaningful way. There were 390 participants from 27 different countries, and 125 staff and industry partners involved in this challenge.
The impact on the future of WIL as a result of the past few months is that they will continue, as the outcome has been favourable. This forward-thinking mindset enables us to integrate the HLO’s into WIL in a purposeful way. Thus, the experiential learning outcomes has been transformed in innovative ways while still aligning with our strategic plan.
Closing Remarks
Chris Whitaker [President and CEO, Humber College] addressed College Council with year-end closing remarks. He took the opportunity to thank members for their ongoing commitment. He also noted that the Humber response to the pandemic became an opportunity to transform post-secondary education through collaboration while staying true to our strategic plan and priorities as well as maintain our quality of program delivery.
C. Whitaker spoke to other successes that have resulted over the past few months including: multiple town halls that have been a success with strong engagement and attendance; a remote work policy has been developed; deficit reduction; and the college has maintained a strong commitment to employees.
The next meeting of College Council will be held online on Thursday, January 21, 2021. For meeting highlights, supporting materials, or opportunities to provide comments, please visit the College Council website.