Senate Approves Curriculum Changes

Announcements Include New Co-Ops, Higher Education Forum

NewsAndrew Brennan — Published November 5, 2013 | Updated November 5, 2013 at 7:46am

Concordia Senate entertained ideas for a forum on higher education and plans for some “major” curriculum changes at its monthly meeting held last Friday, including initiatives to integrate more co-op programs into university degrees—particularly in the arts and science faculty.

Three new co-op programs were proposed for the Journalism, Political Science and Sociology and Anthropology departments, starting either in September of this year and approved retroactively, or beginning in 2014.

Getting Non-Traditional

“We’re on a mission to try and grow the co-op program into non-traditional areas,” Gerry Hughes, Concordia’s director of institute for co-operative education, told The Link following the Senate meeting.

“The traditional areas are JMSB and engineering, and that’s 90 per cent of [current] co-op students,” he continued, adding that it’s the reason why his department began coordinating with Dean of Arts and Science Brian Lewis to bring co-op placement programs into new curriculums.

Student senators said they are concerned that students might not maintain full-time status if they chose to enter a co-op program.

“We’ve had problems in the past where students need to be considered a [full-time] student for something, [where] we go verify their status with the CSU or whatever, we’re told, ‘oh, you’re not a student,’” said senator and CSU councillor Wendy Kraus-Heitmann.

“I don’t know if that’s some bureaucratic snafu somewhere of something, but maybe we can talk to somebody about that, because it’s kind of annoying,” she continued.

Senator Melissa Lemieux also questioned why in some cases students on work terms are not actually considered full-time students for the term they are working.

While Hughes admitted that he did not know the particulars, and therefore could not know what was jeopardizing these co-op students’ full-time status in the eyes of the CSU or the university, he rebuked the senators’ concerns.

“I don’t know what they are looking at […] but as a general guideline, the students have to be [considered] full-time,” he told The Link. “That’s not negotiable, they have to have that full-time status.”

Dylan Dammermann, communications coordinator for the Sociology and Anthropology Student Union, says there could be many benefits to her department’s new co-op program.

“It could be really great for students who want to try different aspects of what sociology and anthropology degrees have to offer,” she said. “For instance, the possibility of working for a non-government organization and working for the government within the co-op program, so it gives you the opportunity to work in different types of groups.”

But Dammermann’s enthusiasm is a tempered one.

“There are a lot of really great things that can come out of it,” she said. “It’s still in its infancy and I’d love to see it developed, but the first group of people that go through are definitely going to be guinea pigs.

“Hopefully they prove it is really beneficial to [help] people who are studying sociology and anthropology get their toes wet before they graduate,” she continued.

An internal memorandum from Lewis echoed Dammermann’s sentiment in explaining the rationale behind the Journalism department’s new co-op program, saying “potential employers see the value in having students educated in the field of journalism for long internship periods and are willing to pay for those students [to receive that training].”

An Upcoming Forum

Other business at last week’s Senate meeting included discussion among senators on the possibility of holding an academic forum on higher education for the Concordia community.

Concordia President Alan Shepard proposed the idea of the forum. He told the Senate he is looking for a way to build on Concordia’s current academic plan, which was implemented in 2011.

Concordia currently operates under two future planning documents: the academic plan and a strategic planning framework document approved under former president Judith Woodsworth, which expires next summer.

Shepard told Senate he found it unusual for the university to maintain two separate documents for envisioning its future, and said he hopes they can be ultimately combined.

During that process, Shepard says he wants to consult Concordia at large to find consensus on the university’s direction going forward.

“Before we start a new strategic planning exercise […] the university would stage a series of open forums on the future of higher education, possibly in this coming semester, of the major topics of the day,” he said.

“Following that we would then have some kind of process still not designed where we would do a consultation with the community and produce a single document which would kind of merge the last two documents and make whatever projects we’re going to make.”

Graduate student Senator Holly Nazar was quick to ask what student involvement in the process would be, and whether any promises could be made to students to have their input included.

Shepard responded to Nazar’s concerns by noting whatever is decided, the university leadership will ensure it does not waste anyone’s time in consultation by ignoring their recommendations.

“What nobody can ever promise in these situations is that whatever ideas a group comes up with will absolutely be integrated into something,” he said.

“The university does things that I don’t like either.”