Senate Notes
A regular meeting of Senate, held on Nov. 11, 2005.
Enrolment: Provost and Vice-President Academic Affairs Martin Singer announced that Concordia is currently enjoying the largest full-time equivalent student enrolment (FTE) in its history. There are 9,500 undergraduate FTE students and almost 1,200 graduate FTE, up 400 from this time last year. The figures are slightly low for January enrolment, partly due to the introduction of an online application fee. Singer is encouraged by the increase in enrolment and credits Roger Côté, Executive Director of Enrolment and Student Services, as well as the faculty deans and department chairs for the improvement.
Curriculum changes: Various curriculum changes for all four faculties were brought before Senate.
These changes provoked little discussion except for the decision to lower the GPA requirement from 3.5 to 3.3 for applicants to the Honours in Finance program of the John Molson School of Business. Graduate Student Association representative David Bernans asked whether this change would increase class sizes. JMSB Dean Jerry Tomberlin explained that current discussions in the faculty about increasing class size are at a preliminary stage and entirely unrelated to the GPA requirement change, which would simply allow more students who are interested in the program to access it.
President’s remarks: President Claude Lajeunesse said he has learned that the differences between the Board of Governors and Senate on Senate membership are more substantive than he suggested at the last meeting on Sept. 9. He is still working on resolving the issue.
Lajeunesse also reported that he had begun visiting individual units in the university and anticipates completing all visits by the end of the 2005-2006 academic year.
Lajeunesse congratulated Kathy Assayag, Vice-President Advancement and Almuni Relations, who had contacted 4,000 alumni through her office over the last few months. He concluded by noting that he intends to present a budget to the Board of Governors in December for the 2005-06 year in keeping with the priorities laid out in the academic plan.
Research report: Truong Vo-Van, Vice-Provost, Research, announced two new Canada Research Chair appointments. He also expanded on a recent report that Concordia’s research funding increased by 77 per cent between the 2002-03 and 2003-04 academic years. A large amount of this increase was due to an over 300 per cent increase in Canadian Foundation for Innovation funding. That period also saw grant funding increased by 35.9 per cent and industry contracts increased by 34.9 per cent. SSHRC grants increased by over 100 per cent in Arts and Science, Fine Arts and the JMSB. Engineering and Computer Science increased industry research grants by 89.9 per cent.
Senate document transmission: Concordia University Faculty Association president Christopher Ross commented on the lack of debate at Senate and asked whether the current practice of distributing documents electronically was practical, since it passed on the cost of printing what are sometimes extremely long documents to individual senators. Senate Chair John O’Brien did remark on how Senate meetings are currently “extraordinary in their brevity” and said that the question would be forwarded to the Senate steering committee.
Tuition freeze: Concordia Student Union Vice-President Steven Rosenshein asked President Lajeunesse to clarify his recent statements in the press regarding increasing student tuition. Lajeunesse reiterated that Concordia is markedly underfunded compared to similar institutions in Ontario and elsewhere and that increased funds were necessary to attract quality academic talent.
The next Senate meeting will be held on Jan. 16, 2006.