Board and Senate Notes: December 2018
Read the Board Notes from December 12, 2018.
Read the Senate Notes from December 14, 2018.
BOARD NOTES: Board approves revisions to the policy regarding sexual violence and hears report from KnowledgeOne
President’s remarks
In his remarks at the Board of Governors meeting on December12, 2018, Concordia President Alan Shepard referred to his full report, presented in the Board materials, and provided further updates.
Shepard reported the good news that Concordia’s numbers of applications and registrations for winter 2019 are strong.
He thanked the team led by Roger Coté, vice-president of Services, for its successful handling of a recent water issue in the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex.
Shepard informed the Board that Bloomberg Businessweek recently ranked the John Molson School of Business as the fourth best business school in Canada and 95th in the world.
He announced that the university’s 2018 Centraide campaign raised more than $160,000, surpassing its goal. He thanked co-chairs Nadia Bhuiyan, vice-provost of Partnerships and Experiential Learning, and Philippe Beauregard, chief communications officer, and Suzanne Kaye, project coordinator for the Office of the President and Centraide campaign manager.
Shepard also advised governors to watch out for the public launch of Concordia’s 4TH SPACE, the university’s curated public space, on January 18, 2019.
Revisions to the policy regarding sexual violence
Lisa Ostiguy, special advisor to the provost on Campus Life, presented an overview of the revisions to the university’s Policy Regarding Sexual Violence, which required approval from the Board.
Ostiguy explained that the university had been addressing sexual violence and sexual misconduct beginning in 2013 with the establishment of the Sexual Assault Resource Centre. In 2014-15 the sexual assault working group was created to look at Concordia’s policies and practices related to sexual assault. This working group, including faculty, students and staff, made two recommendations to the university: create a policy dedicated to sexual violence along with a working group to develop guidelines around relationships with students and staff and faculty; and look into establishing a policy and appropriate guidelines dedicated to issues of sexual violence.
As a result of the working group recommendations, Concordia created a committee to develop a Sexual Violence Policy in 2016. “We were at the forefront of developing this type of policy,” Ostiguy said. In 2017, a committee of faculty, staff and students developed the Consensual Romantic or Sexual Relationships Guidelines.
In January 2018, the Task Force on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence was created to gather feedback from the university on our policies and processes supporting survivors of sexual violence. The task force completed their work in June 2018 with a list of recommendations. In September 2018, a permanent standing committee chaired by Ostiguy was created to follow up on the recommendations of the task force and to review the requirements of Quebec’s Bill 151. The Standing Committee on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence is comprised of Concordia staff, faculty and students. It updates the sexual violence policy, works on addressing processes and Bill 151 requirements, and continues conversations with the community.
The standing committee, chaired by Ostiguy, set out on an extensive process to update the policy. In addition to the task force consultation from January until June, summer 2018 was spent reviewing policies and best practices at other universities. The standing committee met weekly to discuss aspects of the policy and the requirements of the bill, and the committee also invited feedback from members of the community.
Melody Sullivan, senior legal counsel for the University Secretariat, presented several details on the proposed policy changes. Sullivan pointed out that the existing policy already fulfilled most of Bill 151’s requirements. She showed several examples of how the revised policy matched or differed from both the original and the bill.
For instance, the revised policy section on Education, Training and Communication commits to creating and providing mandatory annual training for certain members of the Concordia community, as required by Bill 151, in addition to the existing in-person training already in place for student leaders and students in residence. Sullivan added that this online training will be done together with KnowledgeOne, Concordia’s eLearning consulting provider.
“We are happy with the law and happy with the work done on the new policy,” Sullivan said. The standing committee will continue to seek input from the Concordia community. “It’s an ongoing process.”
The Board approved the revisions.
Report from KnowledgeOne
Robert Beauchemin, CEO of KnowledgeOne, delivered a report on Concordia’s eLearning consulting provider.
Beauchemin explained that when KnowledgeOne started out in 2001, it offered one online course that used a passive, lecture-based approach for 100 students. In 2018, it offers 74 mostly immersive, interactive courses and plans to get up to 110 courses by 2019-20.
Its 33,000 registered students place it among the top five eLearning programs in Canada.
Project manager Jesse Harris talked about some of KnowledgeOne’s award-winning courses, including Tolkien and Old English, which finished in second place in its category at the International e-Learning Association Awards in 2016, and Introduction to Astronomy, which placed fourth in its category at the European Conference on e-Learning in 2018.
Harris also reported that Concordia’s Master’s Degree in Music Therapy will become the first fully online program in Canada, and could lead to a collaboration with Soochow University in China.
She also pointed to the online sexual awareness training program organized in conjunction with Concordia’s Sexual Assault Resource Centre as part of the university’s revised sexual violence policy. “Concordia is at the forefront of offering this type of sexual awareness training,” Harris said.
Beauchemin talked about the exciting potential of KnowledgeOne’s academic and external partnerships, such as what is already being done with current partners Ubisoft and Honeywell.
“These partnerships offer us a chance to create exciting synergy between the academic and private sectors,” he said.
Report on compliance with environmental legislation and health and safety
Roger Coté gave a brief report on the university’s compliance with environmental legislation and health and safety. Coté said that in the third quarter of 2018, July through September, a number of internal and external inspections led to the discovery of a few deficiencies, which have since been addressed.
Pension plan funding policy update approved
The Board approved the updated Pension Plan Funding Policy, as recommended by the Employee Benefits Committee. “We have to update the funding policy to comply with the provincial requirement deadline,” explained Denis Cossette, Concordia’s chief financial officer.
The updated Supplemental Pension Plans Act of Quebec mandates the adoption of a funding policy for all defined benefit pension plans in Quebec by no later than January 4, 2019.
The revised version of the funding policy includes all the new legislation requirements and the new cost-sharing arrangements between the pension plan’s active members and the university, which took effect January 1, 2018.
SENATE NOTES: Senate approves Faculty of Arts and Science undergraduate curriculum changes and strategic research plan
President’s remarks
In his remarks at the Senate meeting on December 14, 2018, Concordia President Alan Shepard acknowledged that he would be leaving at the end of June to become president of Western University. He thanked members of the Senate for their support during his time at Concordia.
“I have deeply valued being president and feel a great personal and intellectual connection with my colleagues,” Shepard said. “I have a deep respect for the mission and history of Concordia and for where it’s going. This is the era of diverse metropolitan universities like Concordia. I will miss that.”
He then touched on other current activities at the university. He reported that the university’s 2018 Centraide campaign raised more than $160,000, surpassing its goal. He thanked co-chairs Nadia Bhuiyan, vice-provost of Partnerships and Experiential Learning, and Philippe Beauregard, chief communications officer, and Suzanne Kaye, project coordinator for the Office of the President and Centraide campaign manager.
Shepard reported that the John Molson School of Business was named the number four business school in Canada and 95th in the world according to recent rankings by Bloomberg Businessweek.
He made a series of other announcements:
- Two psychology programs received accreditation from the Canadian Psychological Association: PhD, research and clinical training option; and a psychology internship program.
- Two startups sponsored by Concordia’s District 3 Innovation Center took home awards at the recent IBM Watson AI XPRIZE milestone competition: Aifred Health, which wants to use machine learning to improve the efficacy of treating depression; and Nectar, which seeks to use technology to help beekeepers improve honeybee health and the security of our food supply.
- Geneviève Cadieux, photographer and associate professor in Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts, was awarded the prestigious Prix du Québec’s 2018 Paul-Émile-Borduas Award for visual arts.
- Muthukumaran Packirisamy, professor in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering, was named a fellow of the U.S.-based National Academy of Inventors.
- Concordia’s TAG (Technoculture, Art and Games) research centre hosted the Gamerella Game Jam at Concordia in November.
- Concordia recently received more than $5 million in funding for Canada Research Chairs.
Shepard also welcomed Paul Chesser, Concordia’s newly appointed vice-president of advancement, to his first Senate meeting.
Academic update
In his academic update to Senate, Graham Carr, provost and vice-president, Academic, mentioned that his written report highlights many of the recent initiatives and accomplishments of Concordia faculty and students.
Carr echoed Alan Shepard’s congratulations for Muthukumaran Packirisamy, who became the first Quebec-based researcher to be named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and Geneviève Cadieux for her Prix du Québec, “one of the growing list of awards for Madame Cadieux,” he said.
Faculty of Arts and Science undergraduate curriculum proposals approved
Senate approved proposals presented by André Roy, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, for undergraduate curriculum changes in the Department of Education and new undergraduate programs in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, and a minor and certificate in Geospatial Technologies. The minor is directed at existing students, and the certificate at professionals who want to upgrade their qualifications, and others not enrolled in a Concordia degree program.
Approval of the 2018-23 strategic research plan
Senate approved Concordia University’s Canada Research Chair and Canada Foundation for Innovation Strategic Research Plan 2018-2023, presented by Christophe Guy, vice-president of Research and Graduate Studies.
Guy reported that the plan was developed in consultation with faculty councils and tenured- and tenure-track faculty and librarians. Justin Powlowski, associate vice‑president of Strategy and Operations, received final feedback on the draft in October 2018. The Senate Research Committee unanimously approved both the long and short versions of the plan.
Guy explained that the plan is a guide to the university’s research activities for the next five years, based on Concordia’s nine strategic directions, and establishes a framework of commitments and a strategic level of research allocation.
The plan for the first time incorporates the best practices in equity, diversity and inclusion. The section on research and research-creation strengths has six major research themes:
- Health, Development and Well‐being of the Person across the Lifespan and in Society
- Arts, Culture, History and Identity
- People, Organizations and Society
- Enabling and Disruptive Technologies and their Foundations
- Advanced Materials and their Applications
- Natural Systems and Sustainability
The plan includes a commitment to prioritize and support building on research and research‐creation regarding Indigenous issues.
