Senate Notes
A regular meeting of Senate held April 7, 2006
School of General Studies: This new academic entity will address the needs of mature, independent, at-risk and visiting students, and coordinate the services currently offered by Continuing Education and eConcordia.
Having been approved by the faculty councils and the council of the School of Graduate Studies, this proposal was presented by President Claude Lajeunesse, who assured Senate that it would be controlled by the appropriate faculties and departments. Dean Nabil Esmail, representing Provost Martin Singer in his absence, added that it wouldn’t increase professors’ workload, though it would no doubt add enrolment and increased activity.
Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the Centre for Mature Students, said the wording of the proposal had changed since it was presented to the faculty councils; now it said the Centre and Continuing Education would close by May 31, 2007. Dr. Lajeunesse replied that the original draft said the centres “would be for the most part subsumed” into the new School. Vice-Provost (Academic Programs) Danielle Morin said the School would not subtract from student services; it would enhance them and make them more flexible.
The proposal to establish a School of General Studies was approved unanimously. Senate will recommend it to the Board of Governors.
Searches: Dr. Lajeunesse presented the draft profile of Vice-President, Research and Graduate Studies, for comment. Dean David Graham forwarded contributions from Arts and Science; namely, that the preamble was negative, and having done substantial research and knowing about the administration of research were both essential qualifications, not alternatives, as implied by “and/or.” Ronald Rudin (Arts & Science) recommended changing the bilingual requirement to a simpler phrase that specified knowing English and French. Lajeunesse said the search committee will start to look at candidates. He said an open meeting on the requirements for a new JMSB dean held recently was well attended and extremely useful.
Research funding: Vice-Provost Research Truong Vo-Van reported that the results from this year’s (2005-2006) competition with the major granting agencies were generally good. In the CIHR (Canadian Institutes for Health Research) Operating Program, Concordia’s success rate was 27 per cent, ahead of the national success rate of 25 per cent; the total awarded was $970,000.
With NSERC (Science and Engineering Research Council), in the Discovery Grant Program, the success rate was 69 per cent, with 47 successful applicants and a total of $5.7 million awarded. This success rate is lower than last year’s rate and may be partly attributed to the low success rate with new applicants and the fact that no new funds were allocated to the NSERC Discovery Grant budget while there was an increase inapplicants to the program. There was considerable success, however with the NSERC Research Tools and Instruments Program, a success rate of 57 per cent, as compared to the national success rate of 42 per cent. Sixteen Concordia applicants received $870,000 in this latter program.
Finally, the success rate with SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council) has risen to 33 per cent from the low 25 per cent of last year. Thirty-eight successful applicants were awarded a total amount of about $3 million.
Assistant General Counsel: University Counsel Pierre Frégeau introduced Jonathan Levinson as his assistant general counsel.
Next meeting: May 5.