SUB 238
6138 SUB Boulevard
Vancouver, B.C.
V6T 1Z1
UBC-V Student Senate Caucus
UBC-V Student Senate Caucus Meeting
Date: May 14, 2014
Time: 4:30 - 5:50pm
Venue: SUB 206 (Council Chambers)
Present:
Voting Members: Graham Beales (Applied Science), Eric Zhao (Member At-Large), Elaine Kuo (Education), Nina Karimi (Member At-Large), Daniel Munro (Arts), Mona Maleki (Member At-Large), Cole Leonoff (Sauder), Anne Kessler (Member At-Large), Christopher Roach (Member At-Large), Aliya Daulat
(Pharmacy), Aaron Bailey (Science), Collyn Chan (Land & Food Systems)
Guests: Janet Teasdale (Director of Student Development and Services)
Regrets: Sukhpaul Gurm (Dentistry), Nani Yahya (Forestry), Julienne Jadoe (Graduate & Postdoctoral
Studies), Justin Wiebe (Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies), Brenda Gershkovitch (Law), Casey Chan (Medicine)
Meeting start: 4:37 pm
1. Adopt Agenda
Mona Maleki, SSC Co-Chair
4:38 pm – 4:38 pm
BIRT the UBC-V Student Senate Caucus meeting agenda for April 16th, 2014 be
adopted as presented.
Daniel proposed an amendment to add a ten minute presentation by
Dr. Knight at the end of the meeting regarding his motion to be
brought to Senate Proper, which was accepted.
Carried.
Moved: Christopher Roach; Seconded: Eric Zhao
2. Minute Approval
Mona Maleki, SSC Co-Chair
4:38 pm – 4:39 pm
Be it resolved that the minutes entitled “UBC-V student Senate Caucus Meeting_Minutes_20141015” be approved as presented.
Carried.
Moved: Christopher Roach; Seconded: Nina Karimi
3. Caucus House-Keeping Items
Mona Maleki, SSC Co-Chair
4:38 pm – 4:43 pm
Mona mentioned that SSC would hold a social at Koerners’ after Senate Proper and that as many people cannot make it, there will be another social in the future as well. Also mentioned was that each
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UBC-V Student Senate Caucus
SUB 238
6138 SUB Boulevard
Vancouver, B.C.
V6T 1Z1
SSC meeting will have a short presentation—if student senators would like to invite a presenter to an
SSC meeting, it should be mentioned to either of the chairs and there’ll be food at that meeting!
The question “Is there any topic with which the caucus needs to engage more strongly in?” was put to
the SSC, with no response. However, Anne asked what the plan was for the Caucus’ funding and received the two answers: that it would be put towards the working groups, and towards a meal with
the convocation senators.
Graham mentioned that the old mailing list is no longer working due to its home in an interchange
email address. A new one is being made and will be maintained by the secretariat.
4. SSC Flexible Learning Working Group Update
Daniel Munro, Working Group Lead
4:44 pm – 4:45 pm
At the working group’s previous meeting, the primary discussion surrounded UBC’s policies on supplemental examinations. A supplemental examination is one that is offered if a student fails an exam
when he or she has been doing will in the course. Each faculty has a different policy for supplemental
examinations, with no faculty allowing them for every course taken. The working group tasked its
faculty senators with approaching their respective faculties to ask about the reasoning behind their
policies, etc.
Christopher was still working on his proposal for recognizing extra-curricular involvement with the
idea that once it was finished it would be brought to the SSC for feedback.
Anne asked whether the working group would also be looking at policies surrounding deferred examinations, with the response that the working group are looking at both supplemental and deferred examinations as one group.
5. SSC Mental Health and Wellbeing Working Group Update
Eric Zhao, Working Group Lead
4:45 pm – 4:50 pm
Mona notified the caucus of the student membership of the Mental Health & Wellness ad-hoc committee of Senate: Eric, Elaine, Mona, and Aliya.
Christopher and Mona had the opportunity to meet with Dustin, a University of Calgary student senator, about implementing their fall reading week:
The process to create U of C’s fall reading week took three years, primarily due to the fact
that their Senators were replaced partway through the process. Dustin also mentioned priorities in the process: first to present why the students want a fall reading break and the research behind it, second to utilize data from the other universities across Canada which have
implemented a fall reading break, and third to highlight the importance of collecting data
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UBC-V Student Senate Caucus
SUB 238
6138 SUB Boulevard
Vancouver, B.C.
V6T 1Z1
from both students and faculty. At the time that U of C implemented their fall reading break,
they had the highest number of accesses to their counselling services in the fall term.
Eric had the good fortune to meet with the SSC from McGill and learned they were pushing for similar
things to this SSC: a fall reading break, syllabus insert, etc. Particularly of note was the idea of a Charter of Student Rights, which exists at McGill, and includes things such as academic rights (e.g. receiving a syllabus in each course taken).
Mona asked the Caucus is it would review the mental health framework created by the Mental Health
and Well-being committee which would help shape committees and how they view, create, and use
their procedures. She asked for feedback on the Mental Health and Wellbeing strategy as well. The
timeline for the former was two weeks, and the latter was one month.
6. SSC Intercultural Understanding Working Group Updates
Mona Maleki, Working Group Lead
4:50 pm – 5:08 pm
Mona and Anne had the opportunity to meet with Lin Kessler, who pushed through the diversity
course curricula in Oregan State University:
At UBC, we would be required to code courses as to whether they meet a diversity requirement, and would most likely need a matrix to grade the courses in this requirement, as well
as a position to decide which courses qualify. Teachers at Oregan State also required a six
week training course before they could facilitate these courses. Anne commented that this is
not worth doing unless it is done well—for example at Oregan State any course that taught a
‘non-American’ example of culture would qualify, which is probably not what the caucus desires.
A difficulty included getting the curricula to a point at which enough professors had the training to facilitate the required courses before requiring a diversity component in programs,
with Janet commenting that the SSC could look at the pathways through which the sustainability initiative at UBC reached its same goals.
At Oregan State there were also different media events happening at the time the initiative
went through which helped it along, and they had many discussions regarding having younger
professors/sessional lecturers teach the courses, versus having tenured faculty doing so and
regarding the burden that can be placed on professors representing a minority. In each of
these discussions it was decided that it is important to have the most mainstream professors
facilitating these courses.
7. Presentation on Engaging Faculty
Janet Teasdale, Director of Student Development and Services
5:08 pm – 5:33 pm
Janet’s portfolio at UBC includes student services including, but not limited to: student health services, counselling services, Go Global, international student services, Access and Diversity, Centre for
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UBC-V Student Senate Caucus
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6138 SUB Boulevard
Vancouver, B.C.
V6T 1Z1
Student Involvement and Careers, and case management. She also advices the non-academic discipline process and student advising, and has worked at UBC for 21 years in a variety of capacities.
- She has knowledge of things like the pressures that exist on the administration.
- The VP Students office has lots of data available to student senators, not all of which is publicized without asking (due to the chance of data being used out of context).
- She can help push through blockades.
- The VP Students office can help initiate discussions that are otherwise refusing to happen.
Janet also wanted the student senators to know that her door is always open, as well as Louise
Cowen’s (although they may not always be there), and that Ben Pollard is a new staff member in the
VP Students office, and left them with a final piece of advice—to know what you plan to do at the
start of your term, or else there will not be the time to accomplish it.
Graham asked the best way to contact Janet or the VP Students’ office, and received the reply that
email or phone call tend to be best.
Janet also asked whether there were any particular issues that the student senators believed needed
to be fixed and received the following replies:
- (Anne): Equity, but it will take a long time to accomplish.
- (Colleen): a strategy, not just the policy with regards to student consultation needs to be
made. The implementations of the current policy leave much to be desired.
Anne asked Janet when the review of Policy 73 was to commence, and was told that it may be as
soon as this term.
As a final point, Janet mentioned that a review of the academic discipline process was about to begin
with the idea of making it more supportive. If any student senators were interested, they were to
contact Janet.
8. May Senate Meeting Material Review
Mona Maleki, SSC Co-Chair
5:34 pm – 5:50 pm
Curriculum Committee
The piece about parchments will affect nearly no-one, and is therefore not particularly important.
Casey had some questions, (submitted through Mona), about the medicine curriculum review: while students will be paying more student fees at a minimum, how is tuition changing?
What are the “assessment exams”, and what are Pharmacy’s and Dentistry’s opinions of
these changes? Eric mentioned that the “assessment exams” are exams that are given to
every year in medicine but are not worth marks with the idea of tracking progress between
years. Aliya stated that while Pharmacy does have some concerns regarding the new medicine curriculum, they are primarily with regard to Pharmacy’s implementation of the PharmD
program.
Nina asks what may happen if a student fails a single fourteen credits course, with Anne commenting that she understood that one of the purposes of the flex time was to help students
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UBC-V Student Senate Caucus
SUB 238
6138 SUB Boulevard
Vancouver, B.C.
V6T 1Z1
recover from failed courses. Eric also mentioned how medicine has a close system in which if
a student fails an exam they can normally retake it, or there’s remediation for the course, etc.
The high credit count per course was probably picked to satisfy accreditation.
Eric forwarded a question of the Medical Undergraduate Society’s (MUS): do students have to
self-report immunizations? He also commented that the MUS is in support of the proposal.
Nominating Committee
Cole mentioned that he has been removed from the admissions committee, and doesn’t think
he’s been replaced, and Colleen mentioned the same. No present caucus members stated
that they were able to attend the admissions committee’s meetings, and Mona mentioned
that she may be able to do so if no other student senator is available.
Be it resolved that the Student Senate Caucus meeting is adjourned.
Moved: Nina Karimi; Seconded: Graham Beales
Meeting Adjourned:
5:50pm
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