Faculty Council Meeting - Thursday, December 3, 2020: Deadline for Agenda Items - Thursday, November 26/2020 at 2:00 pm

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES COUNCIL

MINUTES

Thursday, November 12th, 2020
A meeting of the Faculty Council was held on Thursday, November 12th, 2020 at 10:00 am via Zoom.

Presentation/Discussion:
D. Baxter, Vice Provost, Indigenous Initiatives and L. Primavesi, Indigenous Access Programs Coordinator, shared a PowerPoint presentation with our Faculty Council outlining the history of the NAP from its beginnings in the 1990s to present day.  The name has since been changed to the Indigenous Transition Year Program (ITYP). The ITYP is housed administratively under the Office of Indigenous Initiatives and academically under the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities.  The ITYP is an eight-month transition program for Indigenous students who want to attend university but might not otherwise have the opportunity to do so.
L. Primavesi gave an update with regard to the students currently enrolled in the program stating that they were all doing very well and have adapted to online classes as well as the new technology being used.
D. Baxter outlined the current curriculum for the ITYP and led a discussion on how some courses could be offered for credit instead of pass or fail, and that other courses, in particular Mathematics, might be removed altogether.  A discussion followed with regard to how the Faculty might provide support and help in designing the curriculum moving forward.  D. Baxter encouraged faculty to reach out to her with course suggestions.  She Is planning to bring forward calendar changes for the ITYP program in the spring.

1.
Approval of Agenda
It was moved by I. Lemée and seconded by L. Chambers that the agenda be approved.
            Carried.

2.
Approval of Minutes
Approval of the minutes from October 8th, 2020.
        The minutes were accepted as circulated.
        
3.
Business Arising from the Minutes
None.

4.
Calendar Changes
None submitted.  M. Stevenson thanked everyone for submitting their calendar change requests in accordance with the new deadlines.

5.
Department/School Reports.

i)  English
D. Ivison announced that M. Haiven has published a graphic novella entitled, Empires of Pain:  A Story of Racism, Opioids and Revenge.  This novella can be accessed by going to the Department of English website and is listed under News.
D. Ivison also mentioned the upcoming McLeod Lecture which will take place the evening of Tuesday, November 24, 2020 at 7:00 pm.  The speaker will be Leanne Betasamosake Simpson who will be presenting her new latest book, Noopiming:  The Cure for White Ladies.  Registration is required for this event and the link/details can be found on the website for the Department of English under Events.

ii)  History
It was moved by R. Maundrell and seconded by S. Jobbitt that Dr. Kari Alenius be appointed as External Adjunct Professor for the Department of History.
            Carried.

6.
Dean’s Report.
1.    Summer School: No news yet on which courses will be funded; however, but I supported everything. Thanks for proposing a great range of courses. Please go ahead and advertise for them, with the clear caveat that the course will not run if not at 15 students by two weeks before start date. It is up to the department and teacher to advertise these courses, and I will let you know which ones get centrally funded, rather than self -funded.
2.    Student enrollment numbers: Please refer to the handout. We received good news on retentions, and really, just about everything—we now  need to work on getting our students enrolled for winter.
3.    Recruiting: I need to get folks to work on the next recruiting event, Wednesday, December 9th during the evening.  Report from last event:  We had 149 contacts which was high for a Faculty. They are going to combine us into one room, and we will have 11 slots.  Please get back to me about one person from your unit representing. I strongly encourage us to take advantage of this. It is a four-hour time commitment, but two people can split the time.
4.    Finals Information: I will be reaching out to chairs/director for information about delivery of finals.  This request is coming from the Provost. In related news, I encourage everyone to share with their teachers the extensive list of Teaching Commons workshops, but especially the one about designing assessments. https://teachingcommons.lakeheadu.ca/Workshops
5.    Two more requests:
•    Budget committee:  I will share a call with chairs/director for interested folks to help me shape next year’s budget request and priorities. I expect this to require eight hours of time commitment between now and April of next year.
•    BA General committee:  I want a small team interested in working to develop the BA General in order to provide input into the cyclical review, and act as an advisory committee for the program. I will share a call.  I expect this to require 12 hours or so of commitment over the next 18 months.
6.    Budget: We have received our budget. All our regular carry forward was swept and half of all international as well. This is better than I expected, as we received ½ of our last year’s allocation for international students. This is about $110,000. If we had received the full amount, it would be nearly 2X the amount in the past, so in some ways, this is the same allocation we needed to continue functioning. I am very, very relieved.

S. Jobbitt took over as Chair for M. Stevenson.
    
7.
Other Business:
None.

8.
Next Faculty Council Meeting:  Thursday, December 3rd, 2020, at 10:00 am via Zoom.

9.
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 11:48 am.  

ATTENDANCE
 
Thunder Bay Campus
R. Maundrell
S. Jobbitt
K. Holmes
D. Ivison
B. Birmingham
L. Chambers
A. Carastathis
B. Vernier
I. Lemée
P. Cain
C. Sanders
T. Potter
G. Colton
R. Robson
R. Warburton
B. Parker
S. Viitala

Orillia Campus
M. Stevenson
L. Fiddick
S. Islam
A. den Otter
A. Saulnier

Regrets:
J. Jarman
R. Warburton