Farzeen Foda
Senior News Editor
“What haven’t we done that we could do if we were just a bit more creative?” said Susan Denburg, associate vice-president academic for the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Denburg was recently appointed Strategic Advisor for the Forward With Integrity initiative.
In response to the letter written by University President, Patrick Deane, addressed to the McMaster community, a Steering Committee has been installed to lead the transformation of the University with respect to four key areas, outlined in the letter as the student experience, community engagement, excellence in research and internationalization.
To tackle each of the four areas in the most comprehensive and creative way, four task forces have been developed, comprised of faculty members, staff, undergraduate and graduate students.
The Time Limited Task Forces, designated to each of the four areas of concentration, will be meeting regularly until April, after which their ideas, termed “deliverables,” will be examined carefully in an effort to fuel some of the change that has been in scattered discussion across campus.
The Advisory Committee, also comprised of faculty, students and staff across all disciplines, aims to oversee the work of the task forces and consolidate the ideas that sprout from the discussion that will surface over the next three to six months.
Membership in the Task Forces and the Advisory Committee are limited to include individuals who can act as a critical liaison for their respective disciplines, actively engaging their faculties in the Forward With Integrity initiative.
In the coming months, the Task Forces, charged with the goals outlined by President Deane, will adopt a problem-based approach to tackling the issues central to teaching, research and community engagement at McMaster, noted Denburg.
Although in the preliminary phase at this time, the Forward With Integrity initiative is a work in progress. The Task Force members are encouraged to think creatively, without ignoring the limitations and implementation of their ideas.
Concerns have been raised about the inherent obstacle in implementing a personalized educational experience for every student as McMaster’s enrollment continues to climb.
Central to a well-rounded education is “human contact,” Denburg acknowledged, though developing repetitive small-scale systems or having a lot of very small programs is simply not feasible. Considerations on this front have explored the possibility of bridging the gap between undergraduate and graduate students to facilitate mentorship and teaching, with appropriate training.
Ideas pertaining to the student experience may further examine policies in need of revision, scheduling of terms, prerequisites for courses, the granting of academic credit for co-curricular activities or even re-examine what constitutes a degree.
“This is not the first time we’re thinking about what we’re doing,” said Denburg, noting previous strategies aimed at transforming education. Refining Directions was initiated in 2002, under the direction of former McMaster president Peter George.
Under a similar premise, the initiative aimed to bring down the barriers across the University and stimulate cross-disciplinary teaching and research. Among others, Refining Directions sparked the development of the Controversies in Health course, which ran for two years and garnered significant acclaim for its multi-disciplinary approach. It brought students together from every faculty to develop skills in critical thinking through the lens of healthcare. The course was discontinued due to resource limitations, but the concept remains fresh in the minds of those behind Forward With Integrity.
The work of the Task Forces will “tell us what we need to think about,” said Denburg. Following consolidation of the ideas between April and June, forums will be held to discuss the progress, and pilot projects may be established to experiment with the ideas on a small scale prior to university-wide implementation.
“Big classes are not going to disappear overnight,” said Denburg, and much of the current teaching practices adopted at McMaster are based on historical principles about teaching and learning, which may be preserved as necessary, but also call for revision.
The positive feedback around the letter and the project has been tremendous, noted Denburg, leaving hope that this approach to the transformation may be more fruitful than previous attempts.
Kacper Niburski
Assistant News Editor
As administrative committees start to blossom around the themes dictated in President Patrick Deane’s letter Forward with Integrity, various faculties and student groups are voicing their concerns.
Among the many, McMaster Humanities Society (MHS) hosted an open forum on Jan. 12 to discuss both the possibility of introducing experiential education into the faculty and general concerns within the given disciplines.
Unlike many faculties, Humanities lacks an experiential education component. Lisa Bifano, president of McMaster Humanities Society (MHS) and student representative for Humanities, stressed this as one of the main inciting factors for the forum itself.
“This project is something I took on as a part of my year plan for MHS president, as well as an SRA representative,” said Bifano. “My main priority as an SRA member and as the Humanities Society president is to ‘Put Student’s First,’ so I am constantly ensuring that my constituents are well represented and allowing them the opportunity to be involved.”
Experiential education does exactly that. Unlike many of the other typical education venues, experiential education offers an opportunity to engage in learning outside the confines of a classroom. Students involved in the program have often been provided with the advantage of internships, volunteer positions, and a variety of other experience-based learning opportunities. Considering that the Humanities faculty has yet to institute the option, there is great potential, especially if there is “a joint effort amongst all,” said Bifano.
The open forum acted as the beginnings of such a unified effort. Organized with the help of MHS VP Academic Heather Watson and SRA Humanities Tanya Kuzman, the event saw both faculty and students.
President Deane himself spoke at the event, as well as listened to the students as they gauged the possibility of experiential education.
Despite speaking only a week after the forum, Bifano claimed that concrete action is being felt. “I am pleased to say that I have been approached on several occasions by students and faculty members.” She added further that, “A few points that were raised in the discussion are being further examined.”
One of these is the fear of unemployment after graduation. While it is true that such a fear is pervasive to all faculties, it could be argued, and often has, that unemployment directly affects humanities students. The diatribe of, “What do I need humanities for? I’m already a human” are all too common. Although not saying exactly that, students were concerned about their future perspectives.
Bifano couldn’t disagree with such a stigma and concern in humanities. “Our faculty is so diverse in that each discipline can lead a student down a different path, as opposed to other programs.”
As it stands, the forum tied the two together. Experiential education would utilize this breadth of options offered by the Humanities faculty in unique ways that have not been done before.
