The beginning of June is an exciting time for Grade 12 students in Ontario. The first of the month marks the final day they are able to accept an offer to a university program and the beginning of the end of high school starts to feel real.
For future Marauders, June 1 is also the deadline for applying to residence. Students with academic averages above a certain point, 83.33 per cent for the 2017-18 school year, are guaranteed a spot in on-campus accommodation for their first year. Those with averages below this point are also welcome to apply. They are not assured a place in residence and may spend a large portion of the summer before beginning university in housing limbo: unsure of whether or not to sign a lease or take a gamble that they will make it to the top of the residence waiting list.
There are several reasons why this is a poor, outdated system, but many of these shortcomings are intertwined.
In order for these initiatives to have some gravitas on campus, the university needs to acknowledge, right from the beginning of a student’s first year, that they are worth more to McMaster as an institution than a student number and a grade point average.
As instances of mental illness and stress levels related to academics continue to rise, slogans about how students are more than their academic performance appear in support spaces from online communities to campus services. Multiple McMaster Students Union services, including the Student Health Education Centre and MSU Spark, lead initiatives that encourage students to have a balanced lifestyle that includes schoolwork, but not at the exclusion of everything else.
Currently, McMaster sends the opposite message for the arts faculties, Humanities and Social Sciences, along with Biotechnology and Process Automation. These are the only first year programs that admit students with academic averages below the 83.33 required for guaranteed residence. Other programs have acceptance averages around the residence cutoff, but none are clearly below that point.
For reference, Humanities and Social Sciences require a 75 per cent average. Process Automation and Biotechnology each require a 78. These are completely respectable averages that students need to work hard to achieve.
By granting these students admission, but not guaranteeing them residence, the university sends the message that it values these students, but not as much as someone with a slightly higher GPA. For arts students, this message coupled with the newly opened L.R. Wilson Hall and the revamping of the Faculty of Humanities brand sends a confusing message to incoming students about how much McMaster actually cares about what they have to offer the campus community.
This system of “who’s-in-who’s-out” of residence can be equally uncomfortable for those relatively few first-year students from these programs who do end up in on-campus housing. I lived in Les Prince Hall in my first year, and I think I can name almost all the other arts students in my building. In a building of almost 400 students, there were that few of us. It was one of the reasons I was never comfortable in residence, and if I could do my first year over knowing that I would be one of so few Humanities I students in my residence, I would likely have considered other options more carefully.
Basing a first year's projected university success on their high school marks is about as relevant to their deservingness of a residence space as household income.
The structures of high school and university education are different. Students who flourished in high school may burn out in university, while those with less impressive averages may flourish in the post-secondary environment. Basing a first year’s projected university success on their high school marks is about as relevant to their deservingness of a residence space as household income.
The irksome thing about McMaster’s current residence admission policy is how easy it is to fix. Currently, McMaster cannot guarantee every interested student a spot in residence; something the university is working on with the construction of the Living Learning Centre and other residence initiatives.
Until then, instead of having an entire system based on high school GPA, all incoming first years interested in residence could be entered in a lottery for residence space. If the university wanted to continue some kind of “reward” for students with higher averages, they could be guaranteed their first or second choice room style.
High school students should be rewarded for the hard work they put into their final year of studies prior to post-secondary education. But none should feel like their admission to McMaster has less merit than someone else’s.
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While you may be confronted with all the coursework you neglected over reading week, the rest of this term promises more than just late nights at the library.
Spring is nearly upon us, and with the fairer weather comes show season at McMaster for many arts-based initiatives.
Students involved in performance arts events, from musicals to a capella spectacles, have spent hundreds of hours rehearsing since September. As the end of the school year nears, many of these projects are coming to fruition.
Take a break from essays, assignments, and quizzes, check out some of the upcoming events on Mac’s calendar.
This year, McMaster Musical Theatre is putting on Pippin, the beloved Broadway classic about a performance troupe telling the story of a youthful prince in search for his place in the world.
MMT’s rendition of the Tony award winning musical Pippin features an abundance of dark humour, dazzling choreography by Bob Fosse, circus tricks, as well as various surprises that only audiences will have the opportunity to experience.
The reviews are in! #MMTPippin is "a thing of beauty...spontaneous, theatre-of-the-moment experience... 4/5 stars!"https://t.co/0FTsryhtBT
— MMT (@McMasterMusical) March 1, 2017
Pippin quickly racked up rave reviews, with shows selling out before MMT even began its run.
Although each performance between March 2 and March 4 is technically sold out, you can be added to a wait list by emailing mmt.tickets@gmail.com, or try your luck at the door.
Since its inception in 2011, McMaster University’s show choir, Absolute Pitch, has put on a slew of memorable performances. The latest offering they have is called “It’s… A Musical!” and will be staged at downtown Hamilton’s Lincoln Alexander Centre on March 10 (7:30 p.m.) and 11 (1:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.).
The night promises a ton of fun for everyone involved, with plenty of Broadway and Disney songs to be performed. Whether you’re hoping for a fun night out with friends or even a chill thing to do by yourself, you’ll find loads of chances to sing along and dance in your chair at Absolute Pitch’s annual show.
Tickets are $10 for students and $15 for adults if you buy early; prices at the door are $12 for students and $18 for adults.
While McMaster Musical Theatre may have the edge when it comes to pure experience and technical expertise, many faculties make up for this gap with exuberant passion and talent.
The musicals that these students put on are always chock-full of faculty-specific jokes that will have those familiar laughing, while expanding the perspective of those outside of the respective faculty.
Mac Engineering Musical will be putting on Dr. Wonka from March 16-18. The Health Sciences program will be putting on HSM: The (Unofficial) Origin Story from March 16-18.
The faculty of Science will be putting on Outside In from March 10-11. Keep an eye out for the chance to support your fellow Marauders in their artistic pursuits.
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During the fall term of 2015, McMaster University sent students in Level II and above a survey, asking them to evaluate their undergraduate experience thus far.
The Student Satisfaction Survey, created by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, touched on a variety of different themes including resource availability, teaching quality and overall satisfaction with students’ chosen program of study.
The majority of the survey was multiple-choice with occasional boxes giving students the option of providing further comment. Since McMaster did not independently create the questionnaire, the survey only queried students’ overall university experience and general satisfaction.
With many students switching programs multiple times, McMaster has failed to create a system that asks targeted questions about academic experiences or gives students the chance to address their program-specific concerns. The OUSA survey may have brought up concerns about education in Ontario, but on our campus, there is no clear avenue for students to express their dissatisfaction without red tape getting in the way.
According to a recent four-year study by the National Centre for Education Statistics, 80 percent of undergraduate students in the United States change their majors at least once over the course of their education. A comparable study has not been completed in Canada, but with post-secondary teaching standards being comparable, and often ranked to be lower than those in the States, Canadian students likely face a similar level of indecision and dissatisfaction.
While the University does offer course evaluations and shared this survey as a stride to address student satisfaction, there are still numerous students who feel unfulfilled with their programs and degrees. The Silhouette sits down with four students who have had disappointing academic experiences to address the three main reasons why they feel or have felt dissatisfaction in their programs — waning interest, a lack of university guidance and the perpetuation of a harmful academic culture.
A change of pace
Shivani Seth, currently a second-year Philosophy and Biology student, found herself looking away from her initial program of study, Chemical Biology. Seth found that despite her love of the field, ChemBio’s focus was far too narrow. Seth was looking for a more holistic experience and she did not share the aversion to essay writing and formal presentations that her peers had.
“I remember one day in class we got a lecture on how to write: grammar, spelling, filler words, and I just sat there like, ‘we are getting a lecture on this.’ I think that’s when it hit me that maybe, what I like to do is different from what the rest of the class liked to do and I think that became more pronounced over the year.”
Upon realizing that the program was not her fit, Seth chose to transfer into a program in a completely different faculty — a decision that didn’t come without challenges.
“It was horribly difficult,” said Seth. “Switching to a whole different Faculty of Humanities, it felt very bizarre. I had to acknowledge I was giving up on previously earned credits. Some would be counted as electives … it was hard to swallow what I was giving up because it means I spent time in another field, basically building my way up there to find out I have to restart at the bottom of another field.”
Unlike Seth whose program was too narrow, fourth-year Honours Life Sciences student Umair Majid considered switching from his program during second year when he felt that the open-ended nature left him without a clear direction. The actual structure of the program streamlined Majid into a vague curriculum that wasn’t what he had in mind. With little guidance from academic advisors and administration, instead of switching programs, Majid looked to extra-curricular activities to find fulfillment while at McMaster.
For students who find themselves interested in their field of studies, but still not completely fulfilled, switching programs can be an extremely difficult decision. For some students, clubs have been the only way to find full satisfaction with their academic experience.
“I spend more time doing non-academic work than academic work. It’s about a 90/10 split, and that 90 percent basically makes my university experience so vibrant because the majority of those things are related some way to my studies.”
Majid used the program’s once overwhelming flexibility to orient his studies to those non-academic activities. Majid eventually became involved with lobbying for a new Life Science course and the start of the student organization “Overcome the Gap.” However, his faculty did very little to promote these non-academic opportunities for students looking for more guidance, yet it is a viable option for people struggling to fit into the broad program.
“The Life Sciences program did not provide the resources or the opportunities to take the knowledge I necessarily gained from all these different courses. I had to do that myself.”
The red tape
As with any other large organization, there are a number of areas where university resources can stumble and fail students. For Seth, it was her own expectations of the curriculum. But for Majid, it was his academic advisors and a lack of guidance from the university.
He found that due to the unspecified nature of the Life Sciences program, the advisors in the Faculty of Science were unable to help him and other students find some direction within the program.
“I feel that in the Life Sciences program they don’t understand what students go through,” he said.
“They should really do a better job at transitioning once you get your acceptance letter.”
According to Majid, the department makes occasional use of a bulletin board and email blasts, but the majority of information relates to environmental science, which is not necessarily the focus of the majority of students in Life Sciences. For him, research into his own program of study was of great interest, but not all students have the time or ability to make that a priority.
“To put it very simply, the students want something but … they don’t know where to reach out and they don’t know how to navigate [their program],” he explained.
The Faculty of Science currently provides five academic advisors for its roughly 6,000 students. While support staff are expensive to uphold, and asking for more advisors may not be feasible, there should still be other methods of guidance available to students so those asking questions are able to find answers.
Tobi Abdul, a recent graduate of McMaster’s Communications program, also found that information about her program was hard to come by, and the academic advising network wasn’t putting out the most helpful information. She initially accepted an offer for Social Work at McMaster, not realizing that unlike most other programs of its kind, Social Work was not a direct entry program.
“I like to look up everything,” she said, referring to the extensive university research she did in Grade 12. “And the fact that I didn’t realize Social Work wasn’t a [direct entry] program means that I wasn’t well-advised … I just didn’t have enough information.”
The small amount of information readily available to incoming students tarnished her experience getting started in the program. The lack of information prevented Abdul from entering her initial program of choice, but luckily, she eventually found a program and system that worked well for her.
“In my last year, I did really enjoy school. I got to take my independent study, I took classes that I wanted to, and at that point I knew how to write about what I wanted to while staying within the guidelines. It just came with a lot of experience, but I guess the end was better than the beginning.”
In addition to her early administrative challenges, she also found obstacles with Student Accessibility Services.
“I also had an ADHD diagnosis when I was 15, and when I got my admissions package, they made it seem like ADHD wasn’t accommodated because technically it’s not a learning disability,” said Abdul.
“I did first year twice because I just dropped so many classes I didn’t have enough credits to go into my second year because I feel like I wasn’t well-advised … they should really do a better job at transitioning once you get your acceptance letter.
That package should come with a list of things you need to know and not just the [link to] the website. They need to let students know what to look for. They need to change the way they lecture. They need to change the culture around lecture. It puts one learning style above others and it makes it difficult for people who don’t learn that way. There are professors who don’t have to use slides and that’s not fair. There are no requirements.”
Toxic culture
While some may be able to transition out of an unpleasant academic situation with personal or academic changes, many students get caught in an unhealthy cycle that makes it difficult for them to want and accept necessary change.
Despite it not being everything she wanted, Seth clearly loved her previous program. “[ChemBio was an] interesting program, great program, but just maybe not the best fit for me,” she said.
While she found the material engaging, Seth was concerned by the lifestyle she and her classmates seemed forced to adopt. She described a routine where she consumed large volumes of coffee to stay awake to get work done. While other Chemical Biology students went to greater extents to minimize the amount of sleep they required.
“Everyone was on caffeine pills,” she said.
Chemical Biology students are certainly not the only group under this pressure. Helen Zeng offers another frightening version of this scenario. A second-year student in the highly competitive Bachelor of Health Sciences program, she found the mentality it breeds in students to be unhealthy and unsafe.
“I find that all my Health Sciences spaces tend to be much more stressful and anxiety induced … I have seen people who have developed anxiety issues … because of being in the program,” said Zeng.
She added that many of the students in her cohort refuse to even acknowledge the level of stress they are experiencing. “It’s almost like it’s a point of weakness … I think it makes it a very toxic environment to be in because that kind of stress can make you hate the things you’re learning, hate the program and get excessively stressed over very small things,” she said.
In a 2013 nation-wide survey on post-secondary students, 86.9 percent of students surveyed said they were exhausted, 56 percent felt overwhelming anxiety and nearly 10 percent had seriously considered suicide. There is clearly a problem with the way students are internalizing and reacting to stress, but many students can’t seem to let go of this harmful culture that is following their education.
“It’s competitive and it’s petty and I see people doing these things that I don’t think they should be,” said Zeng.
Present day
Whether students make the leap to a new program or stay with their original choice remains a highly personal decision that may still present its own challenges.
Ultimately Abdul was far happier in McMaster’s Communications program, however it took until her final year of school to feel satisfied.
Majid provides another case study of making his original program work for him. Now about to graduate, he feels he has a somewhat narrower sense of what he wants to do — education policy being on the list. He has helped revamp the Honours Life Sciences program, spinning his dissatisfaction with the program in a way that helps future students get more out of it.
Even Zeng, despite the unhealthy environment she has found in her program, has no plans to switch out. “It’s just studying alone or getting time outside of the program … I find that getting away from that and studying on my own is beneficial.”
While Abdul, Majid and Zeng all found ways to shape their program to meet their needs, Seth has so far found that she is happier in Philosophy and Biology. However, she is still apprehensive about whether switching was the right move. “I’m that puzzle piece that doesn’t know which puzzle I belong to. I’m watching everyone build their way up and here I am trying to figure out what I want to start working on and where I actually belong,” she said.
Seth acknowledges that her problem is one felt by many students. “I don’t think anyone at the end of the day knows if they’re doing the right thing. As easy as it is for me to say that everyone else has found that puzzle they belong to, I don’t think that’s necessarily true.”
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By: Bina Patel
Allison Rutland is arguably one of McMaster’s most notable alumni. She graduated from the Faculty of Humanities in 2002 with a concentration in Multimedia and Fine Arts. She now works for one of the world’s most renowned animation studios, Pixar. Just a few weeks ago the talented alumna won an Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in A Feature Production at the University of California for her work in Inside Out.
Rutland considered pursuing a career in animation early on but she did not give it much thought, especially while attending high school. She recounted, “I was interested in it when I was younger but then in high school I thought I would be an environmental scientist, and then ended up going to McMaster for Art.”
She credited McMaster for establishing a theoretical perspective of art, and noted two professors in particular. “Judy was the painting professor and Hugh was the life drawing [professor] — they were really good, I really enjoyed them,” Rutland said.
The move from McMaster to Pixar Animation Studios was a gradual process. After her undergraduate education, Rutland applied to Sheridan College for computer animation. And after working on film and television in Toronto and London for a few years, she decided to apply to Pixar in California, something she says friends helped her accomplish. “I had friends who were at Pixar three years before me and it kind of made me want to apply here. They helped me submit a reel.”
Rutland says working on animated films requires a range of skills. Animators are assigned various shots by the leads, followed by a shot briefing. “You get a series of shots and you animate what’s in those shots. Sometimes there might be several characters and sometimes there might be one character. It’s not a definite thing,” she explained. Rutland and her team have worked on some high profile movies, including Brave, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University. She says that Sully remains one of her favourite projects. “I had a fun time on Monsters University. I ended up getting a lot of Sully shots and kind of got to know that character well because I got so many shots with him. It was really fun.”
The staff works rigorously on these films and, according to Rutland, animators always feel their comfort zone is being pushed. “It’s one of those jobs where you’re always learning. You kind of have to approach it almost as a student every time and you’re always going to come across something that’s really difficult,” she said. “I like that aspect of it because I always challenge myself to learn and get better.”
Of the 120 animators at Pixar there are roughly 25 women, a ratio Rutland explained has affected the way some characters are created. Brave for instance was a female heavy film and therefore required for a high level of femininity in its characters. “When there’s a female character, you kind of end up getting the women to animate them cause they can bring a certain amount of femininity that maybe the men wouldn’t know about. All my shots were Merida, she was the only character I animated with them,” she explained.
Rutland is thankful for all the small steps that led her transition from an undergraduate at McMaster to an animator at Pixar. “It’s a really great job, I love it. I feel very lucky to have gotten in at this time to be where I am.”
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By: Lauren Beals
If you were walking through IAHS on Feb. 9, you probably noticed travelling bands of kinesiology students taking selfies on their trips across campus. Ignore your first impressions, as those dedicated students were not skipping class to capture the perfect Instagram moment, but rather documenting their exploration into health and wellness research at McMaster.
McMaster Health Crawl was a one-day event organized by the university to showcase different avenues of locally conducted, health-focused research. Throughout the event, researchers and staff provided guided tours through a selection of six state of the art labs and learning spaces across campus, giving attendees an inside look into how their students learn on a daily basis.
Jennifer Heisz, a professor with the Department of Kinesiology, encouraged her students to attend the event and record their exploits into the world of research. They were joined by other undergraduates, alumni, prospective students and curious members of the community.
Health Crawl was part of the School of Rehabilitation’s Building Healthy Communities Week. Featured researcher and physiotherapist Julie Richardson thinks that the Building Healthy Communities Week is important for future prosperity.
“This [research] has large implications not only for community health but for public health,” she said. “The population is aging substantially; everyone needs mobility … it just doesn’t happen by chance. Sometimes we have to do things to facilitate it”.
Health Crawl was also the fourth event in the larger “Big Ideas Better Cities” initiative, a yearlong series of events aimed at showcasing how McMaster’s research can help communities respond to modern challenges.
But it was not just ground-breaking research on display. Innovative campus facilities played a prominent role in the event, advertising McMaster’s novel approaches to learning. Annette Brown, Program Manager at the Center for Simulation Based Learning, gave attendees a tour of the recently expanded Simulation Lab.
Within the facility, students in the Faculty of Health Sciences learn clinical and communication skills through standardized patient programs, task trainers and re-created healthcare scenarios. The lab features a variety of practice environments including homecare rooms, standardized hospital rooms and a fully functional operating room complete with high fidelity mannequins.
For Brown the advantages of opening the center for tours was clear. “Often [one of the larger benefits] is awareness. If you are not in one of the programs … you may hear of other schools or hospitals that have these centers and wonder if McMaster has one, now you know.”
Photo Credit: Esther Barlow
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This coming September, Assistant Dean of the Bachelor of Health Sciences program, Delsworth Harnish, will be stepping down to take on an Associate Dean role with the larger Faculty of Health Sciences.
“As an academic administrator, you’re only supposed to do two five-year terms, it’s rare to do more than that, and I’m in my third five-year term. It’s time to step away, new blood is always really important,” said Harnish. “I’m happy to be stepping away from it, although I will miss it.”
After having founded the undergraduate program 15 years ago as a research initiative and working to help develop it into the well-known program that it has become today, Harnish will be moving on to another venture with the university, one that involves bringing aspects of the BHSc program to other faculties and programs.
“We’re developing new programs with Engineering and Business,” said Harnish. “Business is actively collaborating with us on a couple of things. It’s largely true that students benefit from interdisciplinary perspectives, and this new program [we’re working on] was built with enough elective space to encourage students to take courses in Humanities, Social Science, Science, etcetera.”
Along with this proposed Commerce program, Harnish is also working on developing something in Engineering that will attract students interested in both Engineering and Health Sciences.
“We’ve tried that twice before but we really haven’t had the formula right. I think this time there are a lot of people engaged in it.”
In the past, the BHSc program has received backlash from the public about its perceived semphasis on grades, with articles being written in Maclean’s, the Toronto Star, and a variety of online blogs, harping on their application process.
While it is true that programs with lower acceptance standards can lead to the same technical outcome as a BHSc degree, its content and style provides a unique multi-faceted experience beyond its perceived reputation, and it is hard to deny the positive influence the Health Sciences program has had on a number of McMaster programs.
Since the implementation of the BHSc program, McMaster has gone on to create more inquiry-based learning programs and further integrate problem-based learning, experiential education, and interdisciplinary curriculums. Since its inaugural BHSc cohort, McMaster has introduced the inquiry-based Arts and Science and iSci programs, as well as the recent interdisciplinary Sustainability minor, among other efforts.
“Universities are not good organizations for change, in general. Things tend to track along the way they have historically… But I think McMaster more than most universities in the last several years has seen some active change in lots of areas,” said Harnish.
Upon the start of his new position, Harnish’s replacement will be coming in this fall. Her name has not been made available to the public, but we do know that she worked for the program in the past and is well acquainted with McMaster’s culture.
Harnish is looking forward to the future of McMaster, as should current and incoming students.
“I’ve enjoyed this immensely, it is fantastic working with young people.”
By: Rachel Katz
The Medical Radiation Sciences and Medical Physics programs are both under the microscope, but for different reasons. Changes to these science programs were proposed as part of the recent Faculty of Science planning document.
According to Robert Baker, Dean of Science, the Medical Radiation program is one of the faculty’s most popular. It is taught in collaboration with Mohawk College and the Juravinski Cancer Center.
“We’re not proposing any changes to the Medical Radiation Sciences program,” Baker said.
On the other hand, he claims the Medical Physics program needs serious reevaluation.
“What we are proposing to do is essentially rethink how we’re offering the general area of medical physics at McMaster. We don’t think there’s anything wrong with the program… our concern is that there’s just so few students taking it [and] we need resources to be used for some of our other programs,” Baker explained.
The Medical Physics program will continue to exist, but in a different way. Options include combining it with Biophysics or making it a stream in Life Science. However, specific details have not been confirmed.
“The bigger issue is really that we’re proposing to close the department…the administrative unit of the Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Science," he said.
This proposal is one of various proposed changes to the entire Faculty.
Baker is hoping for these changes will “be online…for September 2016. And I think that’s a reasonable date to set for,” he says. He is planning on setting up working groups to discuss this in the next two weeks.
Students either currently in or planning to be in these programs before September 2016 have no need for concern.
“Any program that a student has started in on, we make the commitment that that student will be able to complete the program as they started it,” said Baker. He explained that the only difference for students is that instead of going to the office of the Department of Applied Physics and Radiation Sciences, they would consult the office of interdisciplinary sciences, a new office also proposed in the planning document.
The course requirements will not change for these students either. The Faculty of Science will offer two versions of the same program until all the students in the old Medical Physics and Radiation Sciences programs.
The Faculty of Science has released its Academic Plan, which maps out the changes and improvements that will be made by the faculty from 2014 to 2019.
Five major initiatives for the Faculty of Science have been outlined in the report: improving undergraduate experience, reinvigorating and creating new graduate programs, focusing on research excellence, supporting faculty, and managing resources.
The first of the initiatives will improve undergraduate experience by establishing a new academic unit called interdisciplinary sciences that would house life sciences, medical radiation sciences, integrated science, and Science Career and Cooperative Education.
The interdisciplinary unit will be created as a result of many factors, especially the need for an academic home for life sciences students, who do not currently have their own department.
“We want to create a department of interdisciplinary science that would house the Life Science program,” said Robert Baker, Dean of Science. “There would be actual faculty appointed to it […] but still we would have a lot of contributions from other departments in teaching that program as well.”
The reorganization of the life sciences program into its own academic unit will also help with allocating resources to the program.
“Right now the director has to come to me, and come to various chairs to get enough resources to offer the [life sciences] program and that’s not the appropriate way to run a program," said Baker.
The life science program, under the direction of the interdisciplinary unit, will see some changes in the next five years. A review of the program conducted in 2012 found that class sizes were too large, courses overlapped, and students run the risk of graduating with an unfocused degree. To address these concerns, a working group will be established to look into creating specific streams of study, such as health policy or global health.
The Faculty also plans to create more research positions for undergraduate students, starting in second year. This could be achieved by encouraging professors to hire undergraduate students for their labs or by creating shared undergraduate research spaces for individual and group projects.
Additional ways to improve the undergraduate experience include lowering the entrance average to Honours programs to a cumulative average of five, hiring more undergraduate teaching assistants, and teaching stress management to first year students through Science 1A03.
For graduate students, the Faculty of Science plans to establish three professional Master’s programs by July 2015 in areas such as environmental monitoring, genomic analysis, and ergonomics.
Along with improving undergraduate and graduate programs, the Faculty of Science looks to improve research excellence through their Strategic Research Plan.
“The SRP makes it clear that to succeed during economically challenging times, the Faculty must focus its efforts to support leading edge research while managing expenditures prudently,” the report said.
As a result, science research will now be focused on four main areas: biological systems and health, environmental science, fundamental exploration, and materials discovery and characterization.
The report also highlighted the need to hire and maintain quality faculty members.
“Demographic analysis indicates that there may be many retirements in the Faculty over the next several years, allowing us to plan for faculty renewal. However, financial forecasts indicate the Faculty may need to decrease our faculty complement over the next five years,” the report said.
Despite these financial restrictions, the Faculty of Science is looking to hire more diverse candidates.
“Given the evidence that students benefit from being taught by role models with whom they identify, whether it be a woman professor or someone from a similar ethnic group, it is vital to the future of undergraduate and graduate teaching programs that the Faculty encourages the hiring of excellent candidates who reflect the diversity of our student population, particularly with the hiring of more female faculty members,” the report said.
The report also outlines the importance of both teaching and research excellence within the faculty, stating that all faculty must teach at least six units each year.
The last initiative examined is the management of resources. In particular, the lack of budget to fund incoming international students is addressed. Since international students make up only four percent of the science undergraduate population, the Faculty of Science must work to find new models of funding to support more international students.
With files from Rachel Katz
Ryan Sparrow / The Silhouette
While students are wrapping up their courses and gearing up for exams, negotiations are underway for contract renewal for sessional faculty members.
"Sessional faculty face a myriad of other problems, including the inadequacy of TA support, the rising cost of child care and a lack of decent health benefits," said Alex Diceanu, a sessional faculty member who teaches in Political Science and Labour Studies.
CUPE 3906, the union that represents the approximately 300 sessional faculty at McMaster, is negotiating for its membership. The bargaining team for the sessionals recognizes that things need to change at McMaster.
“The biggest issue this round is job security,” said the union’s president Blake McCall, who did his undergrad and masters degrees at McMaster
“Many members have to apply for their job every four months, with some exceptions. This creates high levels of uncertainty leaving many sessionals without knowing if they are going to have a steady income on a semester-to-semester basis. Changing this to ensure security of our members is a top priority.”
Sessional faculty members, like many contingent faculty, are hired on a course-by-course basis, which makes it difficult to make long-term personal decisions like purchasing a home or starting a family.
As of 2013, Ontario still ranks the last in per-student funding at universities in Canada. The most recent budget announced is expected to include additional cuts to post-secondary education despite record enrollment.
One common cost-cutting measure for universities is to rely on increasing numbers of lower paid part-time faculty.
Continued budget cuts have resulted in a casualization of the academic sector. While some academic workers still have a relatively secure position, such as tenured professors, there has have been efforts to erode even their relative power in institutions.
The growth of precarious work in academia is accelerating. A University Affairs report from January 2013 states that, in the U.S., one-third of faculty at universities are contract workers. Experts suggest that Canadian data may indicate similarly high rates.
The UA report specifically looks at job insecurity, pay and benefits. Out of the nine schools surveyed, McMaster is one out of three that have no teaching load limit. McMaster sessionals also have no access to a pension and only have access to benefits through their union membership.
Temporary and part-time faculty are paid on average 50 per cent less than tenured professors, and they lack the job security and academic freedom that is afforded to tenured professors.
Most of the part-time and temporary positions are solely confined to teaching-only work, which can have an effect on learning outcomes for students, especially as their professor may also have to engage in additional research.
Gord Arbeau, a university spokesperson, described how, “McMaster values the important work that is performed by all employees at the University and believes all employees deserve fair and equitable contracts.”
“Negotiations work best when they happen at the table and not through the media or other avenues of communication,”said Arbeau.
Students are seeing the effect this has on their professors, and they are concerned.
"I think largely decreasing levels of tenure being made available to professors is an unfortunate trend for academia as a whole," said Eric Gillis, incoming SRA Social Science representative.
“As in any round of bargaining we hope to better job security, and better wages and benefits for our members,” said McCall.
