S-98-18 FACULTY OF SCIENCE Meeting of Faculty Tuesday, November 10, 1998 Leacock Council Room - L232 ATTENDANCE: As recorded in the Faculty Appendix Book. DOCUMENTS: S-98-13 to S-98-17 Dean Shaver called the meeting to order at 3:08 p.m. (1) MINUTES OF OCTOBER 6, 1998 S-98-13 Prof. GowriSankaran moved, seconded by Prof. Paquette, that the minutes be approved. The motion carried. (2) BUSINESS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES 302.1 Prof. Farrell informed members that the fires in the Gym had not been serious in any way, and that there would be sufficient seats available for the December 1998 examination period. (3) ANNOUNCEMENTS 303.1 Dean Shaver said that an e-mail announcement had mistakenly congratulated Prof. Nigel Roulet on obtaining tenure. The e-mail should have congratulated Prof. Roulet on his promotion to full professor. This correction had been sent out by e-mail. 303.2 Dean Shaver encouraged members to keep on informing the Faculty of announcements. He said these would continue to be circulated to Faculty to celebrate the successes of its members. (4) REPORTS OF COMMITTEES a) Academic Committee S-98-14 Academic Committee Meeting - Wednesday, September 23, 1998 GPA REQUIREMENT FOR A SECOND PROGRAM(AC-98-19) 304.1 Associate Dean Mendelson outlined the above document. He added that the Faculty of Science was the only faculty requiring a minimum CGPA for students wishing to do a second program. Associate Dean Mendelson moved, seconded by Prof. GowriSankaran, that the document be approved. The motion carried. Academic Committee Meeting - Tuesday, October 20, 1998 MINOR COURSE CHANGES(AC-98-33) (for information) PSYCHOLOGY New Course 204-753A/B Health Psychology Seminar I(AC-98- 23) 3 credits New Course 204-754A/B Health Psychology Seminar II(AC-98- 24) 3 credits New Course 204-755A/B Health Psychology Seminar III(AC-98- 25) 3 credits New Course 204-756A/B Health Psychology Seminar IV(AC-98- 26) 3 credits New Course 204-757A/B Health Psychology Seminar V(AC-98- 27) 3 credits New Course 204-758A/B Health Psychology Seminar VI(AC-98- 28) 3 credits Prof. Marley moved, seconded by Prof. Farrell, that the courses be adopted. The motion carried. GUIDELINES FOR UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH COURSES(AC-98-29 Revised) (for information) 304.2 Dean Shaver said that the above document described an attempt by the Academic Committee to have departments develop guidelines for undergraduate research courses. He said he was bringing this issue to Faculty for comments or questions. 304.2 A member said he felt that the opportunity for undergraduates to engage in research with active researchers was one of the strongest things a department could offer. He said he thought it was very important that the guidelines not end up being restrictive, which in his experience could easily happen. He said that from the point of view of the supervisors as well as the students, the guidelines should be open and flexible, because there was a wide range of circumstances under which research courses could take place. He said it was important that there be a review to make sure that students did not end up obtaining credit for non-intellectual work. Departments should monitor projects, but the guidelines should not restrict the ways in which research can be carried out. 304.3 Another member agreed with the previous points and asked about the genesis of the guidelines. He said that presumably they were a response to a problem that had arisen. He asked about the magnitude of the problem and whether it was a recurring one or had happened only once. 304.4 Dean Shaver said that the problem was far from being an isolated incident. It regularly happened that students and professors misunderstood the design of an undergraduate research course: perhaps people had not been informed of the design of the course; perhaps there was no design of the course. There was a lot of misunderstanding as to who could supervise research projects for undergraduates and what were the respective responsibilities of students and departments. The guidelines were not meant to be restrictive in any academic manner, but were meant to be informative. The real goal of the guidelines was to encourage undergraduate research in two ways: (i) provide the information that undergraduates need to be successful, and (ii) provide the information that professors need to be responsible. The guidelines would also provide some protection to students. It was an habitual problem, but was very patchy. Some departments had things well under control, but other departments did not pay proper academic attention to such courses. Dean Shaver agreed that undergraduate research was one of the strongest things the Faculty could offer. With that in mind, the guidelines were being instituted in a non-coercive, department-by- department basis. He said that this was an important project that should be undertaken by all responsible academics. COURSES OUTSIDE THE FACULTIES OF ARTS AND SCIENCE(AC-98-30) (for information) 304.5 Associate Dean Mendelson said the Academic Committee had been asked to examine whether 'how to' courses outside the Faculties of Arts and Science were appropriate for Science students (point #8 in document AC-98-30). He said that after some discussion, it had been confirmed by the Academic Committee at its meeting of October 20, 1998, that 'how to' courses in other faculties were not appropriate for Science students. He said that 'how to' courses were courses that teach skills that are necessary in other faculties, but are not necessary for Science students and have no academic content that is appropriate for Science students. Associate Dean Mendelson said that by putting these on a list of courses not open to Science students, the Faculty was in no way questioning the academic integrity of the courses. It was just questioning the relevance of the courses to a degree in Science. The Academic Committee had confirmed the rule about 'how to' courses, and the result was being brought to Faculty solely for information. b) Sub-committee on Scholarships - James McGill Awards & Dean's Honour List S-98- 15 (for information) 304.6 Prof. GowriSankaran said that the above document was a supplementary list of students who have been placed on the Dean's Honour List. Some of these students also received James McGill Awards. These students would have written either a deferred or a supplemental examination. 304.7 Prof. GowriSankaran announced the establishment of the following two new scholarships. (i) Frederick M. Connell Award S-98- 16 Value: Minimum $1,200 (ii) Dr. Bernard Shapiro Scholarships S-98- 17 Value: $3,000 each (5) DEAN'S BUSINESS There was no Dean's business. (6) MEMBERS' QUESTION PERIOD There were no questions. (7) REPORT ON ACTIONS OF SENATE* Prof. Zuckermann read the report of the Senate Meeting of October 14, 1998: (i) Report of APPC to Senate Several academic programs in religious studies and geography were approved by Senate. (ii) Federal Contractors Programme - 2nd Compliance Report Every institution which is funded by the Federal Government must submit a progress report showing that it has complied with federal requirements related to harassment, disability issues, accommodation of disadvantaged groups and pay equity. Highlights of the report include the recent APPC report on diversity and equality and the establishment of a First Nations House on campus. Payment equity enjoyed considerable debate and it was felt that progress towards equity goals was slow. (iii) Annual Reports on Academic Staff and Administration Counts It was pointed out that the academic staff, excluding librarians, dropped in number from 1,008 in 1993 to 799 by September 1998, a drop of 20%. The medical staff is also excluded from this count. The worst year was 96- 97, when the total loss of faculty was 63 professors, of which nine positions were from the Faculty of Science. The overall loss in 97-98 consisted of 22 professors, of which 11 were from the Faculty of Science. Dean Shaver pointed out these losses will be considerably compensated by recent and proposed faculty appointments in the Faculty of Science over the next two years. The count of administration staff over the same period decreased from 2,908 to 2,383. The details are as follows: the executives decreased from 28 to 17, the clerical staff from 997 to 745, and the technical staff from 567 to 439. This has resulted in considerable under-staffing in the Administration. In contrast, middle management remained steady at about 600. This is partially due to the contractual nature of some of these appointments. (v) Documents presented to Senate by the Principal of McGill (a) A document entitled "Le Rìle StratÇgique de l'UniversitÇ de la Revolution Tranquille a l'êconomie du Savoir" was presented to the Government of Quebec. This document was co-authored by the principals of McGill, U. de MontrÇal, and Laval and basically took the Quebec Government to task for its drastic reduction of funding to universities. It urged the Government to restore to universities their financial base which was removed in the last few years and thus to bring Quebec universities up to a level in which they can compete with universities in the rest of North America. The universities in return would promise rigorous comparisons with other North American universities. (b) The Principal's report contained a medley of news which included the following items: * For a survey of 110 libraries in North America (excluding Mexico) our McGill Libraries ranked 58. This is a deplorable situation, curable as usual by an infusion of money. * An "MBA for pay" has been established in Japan. This is a McGill program which involves one third Japanese, one third Canadians and one third ex-patriots (note that, curiously enough, Canadians in Japan are not considered ex-patriots; this begs explanation). The 48 successful candidates were selected from 150 applications. The cost of the program is $20,000, and the minimum CGPA required for any programme is 3.2. 307.1 Dean Shaver added that the decrease in staff was related to the Enhanced Retirement Incentive Program. The program caused a wave of retirements as an approach to solving the severe budgetary problems that the university was facing at the time. Since then, the situation had been relieved quite a bit. Recently, the Faculty of Science had been actively recruiting in a number of areas. Dean Shaver said he anticipated that by the Summer of 1999, the Faculty would have added 21 new people. The Faculty had responded very aggressively in trying to secure resources. The chairs had been presenting plans, making academic rationalization, and coordinating their activities. This resulted in the approval of the rebuilding by the administration. On behalf of Prof. Meighen, Prof. Zuckermann read the report of the Senate Meeting of November 4, 1998: A short meeting without a large amount of substance was held on November 4, 1998. Listed below are some of the more significant items; 1. VP Chan responded to a question by Professor Noumoff concerning the allocation of funds in the budget ($1 M) for salary adjustment for staff with anomalous salaries and whether the results would be reported to Senate. VP Chan stated he would respond to the question two meetings later and would take into consideration a request to list the criteria for anomaly. 2. A new four-year program, a Bachelor of Health Sciences in Midwifery in the Faculty of Medicine, was approved providing that sufficient external funding is available to sustain the program. This program was initiated at the request of the Quebec government and will be dependent on whether or not McGill is selected to run this program. 3. VP Heaphy presented the financial results for the year ending May 31, 1998. The reported accumulated deficit stands at 57.8 million, or 2.4 million better than the objective. Some significant items involving budget were: (a) recovery of increased tuition fees of medical residents (not paid since 1993) with write-off of the interest charges; (b) write-down of $3.3 M for the costs of the 21st century capital campaign due to an error in estimating the recovery of interest on the pledged money; (c) $5 M for the McIntyre garage, a cost far exceeding the original estimates; (d) higher government grant, decrease in interest charges, and capital gains on excess research funds gave a plus $4.1 M. The most significant item that was noted by VP Heaphy was that major changes are being made in how to report financial information for non-profit organizations. 4. Fall term registration showed a drop of 2% in undergraduates and 3% in graduate students for 1998/99 vs 1997/98. Although the number of MSc students did not drop significantly, the number of students in PhD programs was substantially lower, particularly in the first year (PhD 1 and PhD 2). In Science, there was a drop of 6 to 7% in graduate students and a 0.7% increase in undergraduates over the same period. Regrets for not attending the Faculty of science meeting due to other commitments. Ted Meighen. *Senate documents are available in the Dean's Secretariat for consultation. (8) OTHER BUSINESS There was no other business. The meeting adjourned at 3:50 p.m. josie\facsci\fmn1998nf