Last year was great. After the results of our Silvision campaign back in early 2016, we started the process of bettering our content with the advice given from readers who took the time to let us know what they think. If you contributed to this, we appreciate it.
Most notably, your feedback helped us with the direction for two of our four current major print sections. Merging Lifestyle with ANDY to create a more conventional Arts & Culture section and refocusing the majority of the content to Hamilton helped raise the quality and relevancy of the paper.
The previously broad nature of Opinion was something that I agreed had to be changed as the section’s editor last year. We believed it was single-handedly bringing down the reputation of the paper.
The section hasn’t had bad or even average editors in the past, far from it, but it was an unfocused mess that meant nothing except an article or two to be embarrassed about publishing every week. Focusing on McMaster and topics related to McMaster students has resulted in a large deal of success.
We respect that this was only the beginnings of laying the foundation. You should expect those sections in particular to continue to improve in the future.
However, I anticipate there would be a few issues with doing a similar feedback campaign now. We might do it later in the year, don’t get me wrong, but hear me out for a second.
The main worry is that we have no real way of getting feedback from the average reader. If you have cared enough to reply about feedback in any situation, then you have cared more than the majority of people.
We received a decent number of responses, but it was low compared to the thousands of copies printed per issue and the stupidly high amount of people who use the website. Maybe investment in the product has increased since retailoring the sections, but I don’t want to get trapped continuously catering to our hardcore readers and forgetting a silent majority.
Let us experiment and take the initiative for a bit. The promises and plans for the upcoming year are based on a few educated guesses about what you like.
We swapped out a News Reporter position and added another Production Coordinator position. Our news content should not suffer as we can accept more volunteer pieces than last year, but the quality of our layouts will increase. The quality of articles should also increase as section editors will have more time to dedicate to writing, editing and volunteer management.
A full-time CFMU/Sil position will be hired. This person will aid in video, graphic design and online to increase quality and quantity across the board while increasing collaboration with partners around campus. You should expect more videos and lots of other multimedia to come.
Our online schedule will no longer be bound by our print. Instead of a mass of articles on Thursday, you will see new articles uploaded Monday to Thursday during the fall and winter terms. This one will take a bit of time, but we’ll get there.
Those are the big ones. We are not planning a complete revamp like last year, but we are going to improve on the fundamentals and see what happens. The bottom line is that you should continue to expect more.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
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
