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CONTACT Volume 19, No. 19 - Fall 2009
ARUCC Executive Update
Interested in supporting ARUCC initiatives?
Committed to international recruitment?
H1N1 Planning: an Important Topic of Discussion on Postsecondary Campuses this Fall
WARUCC Conference - Mission Accomplished!
New & Improved ARUCC-L and DocAlert-L
“What’s in a Name?”
The Bologna Process
The Lisbon Recognition Convention – Consultation Call to ARUCC Members!
Update from Atlantic Canada
Final Report to the ARUCC Executive: ARUCC 2008 Conference
Members on the Move
Helpful Links
Mobility Update
ARUCC Executive Update
Near the end of April, the ARUCC Executive engaged in a strategic planning retreat hosted at York University by Joanne Duklas, ARUCC Vice-President. Members may recall that the ARUCC Executive sponsored a planning survey prior to the retreat. The survey was completed by a large number of member institutions and, not surprisingly, identified many interesting and important projects. One of our biggest challenges in the retreat was accepting the fact that we could only hope to accomplish the most important priorities.
The major outcomes of the workshop included:
- Focusing on the creation of a committee structure that would help the executive respond to priorities identified by the ARUCC membership.
- Forming a committee of ARUCC members, supported by the ARUCC Executive, that will focus on registrarial best practice topics. It is hoped that at least one best practice report/standards would be developed each year similar in nature to the ARUCC transcript guide.
- Developing an online research knowledge institute that provides ARUCC members with current research pertinent to registrarial services.
- Identifying and partnering with quality organizations involved in the delivery of advanced SEM training (e.g. through co-sponsorship or full sponsorship of SEM training opportunities, identifying high quality external training opportunities that are "endorsed" by ARUCC).
Interested in supporting ARUCC initiatives?
ARUCC members interested in expanding their networks and supporting the following projects should contact the following people to learn more about these initiatives:
ARUCC Best Practice Working Group: Mike Sekulic, sekulic@ucalgary.ca
ARUCC Research Working Group: Jody Gordon, jody.gordon@kwantlen.ca
Committed to international recruitment?
The ARUCC executive was recently approached to provide comment on internationalization initiatives at the national level to the Advisory Committee on International Students and Immigration (ACISI), a committee created by Citizenship and Immigration Canada in 1995. ARUCC maintains non-governmental membership in ACISI as a means to represent the postsecondary registrarial interests. As a result, ARUCC maintains a vital link to efforts focused on improving international mobility and partnerships.www.cic.gc.ca/english/study/institutions/partnerships.asp
The latest round of consultations focused on identifying best practices for the following thematic areas: promotion and recruitment, Assistance to International Students prior to Study Permit Application/Entry into Canada, Initiatives after Arrival (Including Renewals of Study Permits and Work Permits), Options after Graduation including Links to Permanent Immigration, Collaborative Approaches to International Education Activities.
The feedback provide by ARUCC was informed by select consultations with ARUCC institutions active in the international market. Because of the tight timelines of the consultation process, it wasn’t possible to engage in broader consultation; however, the ARUCC executive would welcome feedback if there are any additional comments.
For more information, click here to read further.
H1N1 Planning: an Important Topic of Discussion on Postsecondary Campuses this Fall
Institutions across the country are preparing for handling possible disruptions due to the possibility of a spread of H1N1. To help you with your discussions, here is a list of possible information sources. By providing these links, ARUCC does not intend to specifically endorse one resource over another. Nor is ARUCC attesting to the information. Rather, these links are intended to inform of the membership.
| Public Health Agency of Canada | www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/new-nouv-eng.php |
| Surveillance of H1N1 | www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/alert-alerte/h1n1/surveillance-eng.php |
| Top questions answered | www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/im/iif-vcg/wh-lm-eng.php |
CD, “H1N1 Preparedness: Fall 2009 Update For Colleges”, PaperClip Communications.
Listen to expert presenters, Dr. Hugh J. Jessop and Dr. Palinkas for an important 90 minute educational webinar that will help your campus prepare and plan efficiently and effectively for the potential of a pandemic response. Click here to order the CD.
Samples of institutional plans:
| Acadia University | http://pandemicinformation.acadiau.ca/ |
| HEC Montréal | www.hec.ca/grippe/ French www.hec.ca/en/flu/ English |
| Kwantlen Polytechnic University | www.kwantlen.ca/hr/ohs/h1n1.html |
| McGill University | www.mcgill.ca/health/ |
| York University | www.yorku.ca/epp/influenza.html |
| University of New Brunswick | www.unb.ca/flu |
WARUCC Conference - Mission Accomplished!
WARUCC CONFERENCE - Mission Accomplished!
The Western Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada held its biannual conference in Edmonton, Alberta, June 23 – 26, 2009. Everyone had fun with the conference theme, “CIA* – The Not So Secret Service”, which also conveyed a serious message. Organizers and presenters shared information on the broad array of core, mission critical and ‘not so secret’ services provided to students, faculty, administration and institutions.
The conference was made possible by the ‘collaboration’ of Concordia University College of Alberta, Grant MacEwan, King's University College, NAIT, NorQuest College, Taylor University & College and the University of Alberta. Grant MacEwan hosted the conference in its Robbins Health Learning Centre – an excellent venue. In addition to accommodation at local hotels, organizers arranged for delegate accommodations in the MacEwan’s student residence. The conference attracted nearly 200 delegates.
The opening keynote Billy Strean, Ph.D., reminded us while our jobs may be serious we should make it fun for ourselves and our students. Dr. Randy Ritz, Drama Department Chair (Concordia University College of Alberta) emphasized the importance of effective communication. And Ken Steele, Senior Vice President, Education Marketing (Academica Group), provided a thought provoking closing keynote on Friday, expanding on “Emerging Trends in Canadian Post Secondary Education”, presented at the 2008 ARUCC National Conference in Halifax. We are in the midst of major political, social and technological changes. To survive, and indeed flourish, higher education needs to be adaptive, flexible and relevant. As Ken put it, "...we either draw inspiration from the winds of change, or get blown away."
Building on the introduction of a Strategic Enrolment Management (SEM) session at ARUCC 2008 and OURA 2009 the WARUCC Conference featured 5 SEM sessions. Other sessions dealt with technology, admission and transfer credit, international education and communications and relationship management. ARUCC was present, promoting the next national conference, to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, June 27 – 30, 2010. Stay tuned for information on this major professional development opportunity!
New & Improved ARUCC-L and DocAlert-L
At the beginning of June we moved our email list serve services from the University of New Brunswick to our commercial service provider. While this has been a relatively smooth transition, we continue to fine tune and adjust the features available on this new list. Some of the new features are listed below:
- Subject Tags [Arucc-l] & [DocAlert-L]
- Mailing List Self Management
- Subscription Web Page
We have updated the website with further information on these features. For more information on these features, visit the following pages on arucc.ca:
| Arucc-L | www.arucc.ca/discuss.htm |
| DocAlert-L | www.arucc.ca/docalertguide.htm |
“What’s in a Name?”
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By Jody Gordon, Associate Vice President, Student Affairs and Registrar |
What’s in a name?” In B.C. we tested those waters when in April 2008 our provincial government announced status changes for one institute, one college and three university colleges. All 5 are now Universities and fall under our University Act.
So what is in a name? Being a University impacts your recruitment efforts. Being a University and having access to minor research grants is a welcome addition. But with 5 institutions having status changes all at the same time many across the country have joked about the crazy west coast, some saying that our premier, on his way to work one day, stopped off at a day care and renamed it a University! Ha, ha, ha… And as our press and government were quick to remind the new Universities, you’re Universities in name and status but not necessarily in money. One reporter said that it was akin to receiving a promotion at work with a new fancy title but with no salary increase. Hmmmm…. I think many of us who work in post secondary can relate to that. In eight years my title has grown from just one word to sever words long!
Looking back over the past year, what has changed? Well not just our name. At Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU for short but even that acronym is full of controversy), the shift in governance structure alone was significant. As Registrars (one word in my seven-word polymorphic title), we are responsible for all elections to our governing bodies. That did not change with University status. What did change is the speed at which we moved towards bi-cameral governance, requiring a transition Senate with elections happening in October 2008 (just a few months after our status change) and then a full-sitting Senate by January 2009. With that came another election in February 2009 to fill vacant seats for September 2009. The size of our governing body from Education Council to Senate doubled and new seats were added to our Board of Governors that also required an election.
The sub-committee structure of Senate expanded as responsibility for the academic operation of the institution shifted from administration and the Board of Governors over to the Senate. Many new committees were in need of members. This meant we had to get our Nominating committee up and running as quickly as possible. How ironic that we had to get members nominated to the nominating committee so we could get members nominated to other committees!
A small team was pulled together to accomplish many tasks. The team included me as Registrar, several faculty members who had experience as chairs or vice-chairs of our former Education Council and curriculum review committee, several administrators including our VP, Academic, our University Secretary and our newly appointed President. The team was fortunate to have a new president who had previous experience working at several Universities across Canada. His knowledge and insight proved to be invaluable as we transitioned to a new governance model.
So how did this small group spend their summer vacation in 2008? Not basking in the sun on a beach in the south of France. Not hiking the West Coast trail. Not drinking Pilsner Urquell in Old Town Square in Prague. Nope we spent our summer vacation drafting new Senate by-laws, writing new elections rules and regulations, drafting terms of reference for new Senate committees, and creating the foundation for a transition Senate with the goal of getting a full operating Senate up and running within 6 months. And we accomplished this all by September 2008!
When it was all said and done, none of us regretted spending our summer that way. Why? How often in your career do you get to create a University? Because of that unique opportunity and because of all the hard work and effort we put in over that summer, we made sure we had one heck of a celebration at the “end” of it. I say end in quotations because the work is never done. Many of us on that start-up team have now transitioned to the Senate Standing Committee on Governance. So what is on the horizon for the governance committee? Our academic divisions are setting up their Faculty Councils including the by-laws that will guide their operations and we are creating Chancellor’s chairs and establishing new Senate subcommittees.
In my next article I will speak of the impact the transition to a University has had on the day-to-day operations in Student Services, in particular those in Records and Graduation.
The Bologna Process
In 1999, the Ministers of Higher Education of 29 European countries got together in Bologna, Italy, and laid the foundations of what is now called the Bologna Process which aims to standardize the higher education systems in the signatory countries in order to allow for, among other things, greater student mobility in Europe and attract students from foreign countries.
By 2010, 46 European countries, that represent 4000 institutions of higher education, have made the commitment to create an integrated European Higher Education Area (EHEA). More specifically, these countries have agreed to make their education systems compatible and to develop tools to better understand the academic results. The tools developed are, on the one hand, an equivalency matrix called: European Credits Transfer System (ECTS) and, on the other hand, a Diploma Supplement including information on the program taken, like the nature, level, context, content and status of the studies completed.
It goes without saying that this agreement will result in significant changes in the European education system. Many countries outside the Bologna Process, like Australia, China and some South American countries, have already showed an interest to inspire themselves on the European system. One of the main motivations is to counter the increase of competition on student mobility and to reduce the impact apprehended on the recruitment of foreign students.
The scope of these changes will no doubt have repercussions on the Canadian universities, namely on their capacity to attract students from institutions of signatory countries, and also on Canadian students wishing to continue their studies in Europe.
The main issue relates to graduate studies programs, or how to attract students from countries where the undergraduate bachelor studies (the "licence") corresponds to 15 years of studies. The Canadian (and American) universities must decide if the degrees, compliant with the Bologna Process, are admissible in the graduate studies programs of their respective institutions. They will also have to supply tools similar to those recognized by the Bologna Process to allow Canadian students to continue their studies in these European countries.
Currently, some Canadian universities have started to integrate European students who have a three year first cycle diploma in their graduate studies programs, on a case-by-case basis. That is to say that the decisions to admit them in graduate studies programs take into account the quality of each candidate rather than the length of their studies. Some have also started to produce an equivalent of their transcripts in ECTS, starting from the principle that, generally, two credits recognized by the ECTS are equivalent to one Canadian university credit. But few seem to provide a supplement to the diploma.
Canadian universities must continue their reflection and find a way to share on the different policies they adopted to deal with this new reality. The ARUCC will soon consider the role it could play with registrars in this thought process.
For more information:
AUCC background document: The Bologna Process: Implications for Canadian Universities April 2008
www.aucc.ca/_pdf/english/statements/2008/bologna_process_background_06_20_e.pdf
The Bologna Process and Implications for Canada's Universities: Report of the 2009 AUCC Symposium
www.aucc.ca/publications/auccpubs/brochures/bologna_report_e.html
The Lisbon Recognition Convention – Consultation Call to ARUCC Members!
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By Mike Sekulic |
Canada Moving to Recognize the Lisbon Convention
More than 10 years since it signed the Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education in the European Region (also known as the Lisbon Recognition Convention) Canada has begun to take steps to ratify the convention.
What does the Lisbon Convention change? AUCC has engaged ARUCC in reviewing the impacts and implications of this ratification. In his memo to ARUCC, Robert White, AUCC, points out that "…there is some concern around the fact that the burden of proof shifts from the individual seeking recognition of his/her qualifications onto the institution. While institutions by the letter of the convention are deemed to be responsible for proving it has applied fair and non-discriminatory procedures in its assessment of the applicant's qualifications, it is unclear as to whether this will have concrete implications in the day-to day work of admissions officials. To date however, there seems to be no evidence that this has been the case in other countries. "
The ratification declaration contained later in the memo states that "Each postsecondary institution in Canada determines what qualifications it will accept for admission to various levels of study."
The ratification and adoption in Canada could have two significant impacts. First, " .... holders of a qualification from a signatory country will have that qualification recognised...”. Second, "... mutual recognition of qualifications must be granted by contracting states unless significant difference can be proved..."
I do have some concern in the mechanics and implementation of "qualifications must be granted " unless "significant difference can be proved". Will it be the expectation that the institution makes the case the applicant is not qualified (vs. the applicant making the case they are)? And not just falling 'short', but falling short, significantly.
How do you think the Lisbon Recognition Convention will impact higher education in Canada?
Click here to see the full text of Robert White’s memo.
Update from Atlantic Canada
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2009
St. John’s, NL – Atlantic Canada’s universities and community colleges have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) allowing greater collaboration among institutions and improving completion times, enabling students to have a more seamless educational experience in attaining their post-secondary credentials. This MOU demonstrates institutional commitment to maximizing learning experiences of students so they do not have to repeat post-secondary experiences.
For more information, click here to read further.
Final Report to the ARUCC Executive: ARUCC 2008 Conference
June 25 – 28, 2008, The Westin Nova Scotia (Halifax)
The Product
When the weather, venue, presenters, participants and finances cooperate, success is at hand. ARUCC 2008 opened on June 25 with the Preconference Workshop which exceeded budget estimates by 120%. The Preconference and the Opening Reception set the tone for an energetic and knowledge-based Conference.
For more details, click here to read further.
Members on the Move!
British Columbia Update
John DeGrace, Registrar, University of Northern British Columbia
Effective June 1st, John DeGrace returned as Registrar to the University of Northern British Columbia. John had been University Registrar, and then University Secretary and Registrar, from 2002 to 2007; and spent the following two years working with rocks (rather than students - the differences are subtle but definite) with the BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources). John was also Registrar at the University of Prince Edward Island from 1992 to 2002.
James Ridge, Associate Vice President, Enrolment Services/Registrar at the University of British Columbia
Effective June 8, James Ridge, Deputy City Manager at the City of Vancouver, assumed responsibilities for UBC student recruitment, admissions, financial assistance and other operational matters as well as serving as Secretary of the UBC Senate as mandated by the University Act. Ridge's public sector career began in 1982 with an eight-year stint in the Canadian Forces, where he attained the rank of Major. He became director of the Crime Control Commission of Ontario before taking on a series of licensing and planning positions with the City of Toronto, where he played a key role in municipal amalgamation, culminating in 2001 when he became CIO/Director of Information Technology. Prior to joining the City of Vancouver, Ridge was Chief Administrative Officer of the District of North Vancouver.
Saskatchewan Update
Russell Isinger, Manager and Assistant Registrar (Academic), University of Saskatchewan
Effective July 1st, Russell Isinger began serving as Acting Registrar and Director of Academic Services and Financial Assistance, replacing Kelly McInnes who has left for another position at the University of Saskatchewan.
Helpful Links
ARUCC Survey Archives Access
www.arucc.ca/survey.htm
username: survey
password: arucc2008
Citzenship and Immigration Canada Operational Bulletins
For updates on changes or clarifications on immigration policies click here.
Mobility Update
The Pan-Canadian Consortium on Admissions and Transfer held a recent conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Find the latest provincial mobility updates as well as a keynote from Michael Skolnik, Professor Emeritus (University of Toronto) and an update on mobility trends by Stephanie Oldford (Canadian Council on Learning).
www.pccat.ca/files/pccat-2009/
www.pccat.ca/news/2009/3/11/pccat-2009-keynote.html - Dr. Skolnik’s keynote address
www.pccat.ca/news/2009/3/11/pccat-2009-keynote.html - Stephanie Oldford’s Mobility Trends presentation
Thank you for supporting ARUCC!
Contact Info
ARUCC Vice President and Contact Newsletter Editor - Joanne Duklas, University Registrar, York University, jduklas@yorku.ca 416-650-8002