Quality Assurance Program Review Committee
Minutes of Meeting – November 14, 2008
9:00-10:30 a.m. - Video Conference
In attendance: Anthony Secco (Chair), Robert MacKinnon, David Munro, Anne Forrestall, Mostaque Hussain,
Linda Nugent, Stephen Sloan, Liz Burge, Kathy Lewis, Ed Biden, Fred Donnelly, Luc Theriault, Reg Sheppard,
Lindsay Jennings, Vasiliki Papadopoulos.
1. Welcome and Introductions.
2. Agenda accepted.
3. Approval of Minutes – May 21, 2008 – Kathy moved that minutes be approved, seconded by Anne,
carried.
4. Business Arising from previous minutes:
a. Template for External Review reports – framework for reviewers to include MPHEC
competencies. Not all departments and faculties need to use these competencies.
Action Item: A sub group consisting of Tony Secco, Liz Burge, Linda Nugent and Stephen
Sloan will work on this template and distribute to rest of committee for comments.
b. Schedule of Reviews – this is a work in progress. Department of Social Science in Saint John
has requested an extension to deadline for self study report for February 20, 2009. Also
Faculty of Arts in Saint John has requested an extension for December 15, 2008.
Action Item: Bev to contact units to give ok for this.
Some discussion whether Saint John College is categorized properly. It was decided to leave
as is.
Guidelines for Non Academic Reviews – this was tabled until next meeting as guidelines were
not available for this meeting.
d. Liaison for Dept. of Economics (F) review – Luc Theriault.
c.
5.
New Business
a. Summary Reports for Acceptance
i. Dept. of English (F)
ii. Registrar’s Office (F)
iii. Dept. of Computer Science & Applied Stats (SJ)
iv. Faculty of Computer Science (F)
These reports were accepted by committee. These will be forwarded to Senate Academic
Planning Committees on both campuses for information, then to Senate.
b.
External Reviewers for 2008-09 Reviews:
i. Faculty of Law – it was recommended to go with a combination of Beth Bilson from U
of Saskatchewan and Michel Bastarache, recently retired Supreme Court of Canada
Justice. If these folks not available, then combination of Harvey Sector from U of
Manitoba and Sheilah Martin, Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench.
ii. Dept. of Economics – not everyone received the file for these reviewers – Bev will
send out via email for consensus.
iii. Dept. of Political Science – avoid numbers 1 and 5 combination. It was recommended
to go with a combination of Frances Abele from Carleton and Greg Pyrcz from Acadia.
If not available, then go with Edna Keeble from Saint Mary’s and John Shields from
Ryerson.
iv. Harriett Irving Library – It was recommended to go with William Maes from Dalhousie
and Marnie Swanson from U of Victoria.
v. Bachelor of Health Sciences – it was felt that John Gilbert was a conflict of interest
given that he had been involved in the Enterprise NB Saint John report. Many of the
other reviewers recommended would have been involved in accreditation reviews in
their respective institutions. The committee agreed that we would like to see more
recommendations for the academic stream of the program, therefore will request two
additional reviewers with an academic background.
Action Item: Bev will contact Dean of Applied Science to request two additional
reviewers.
Due to the fact that this program is in cooperation with an external partner, there was
concern that we may only be able to review the academic side of the program. Tony
is meeting with Mireille Duguay next week to talk about articulated programs.
Feedback from External Reviewers of Computer Science re QA process –
i. Provide QA review material in electronic format – this will be requested of the unit
where possible. This is where the template for external reviewers will be useful.
ii. Tailor QA guidelines to be more directly relevant to unit under review – this is not
feasible.
iii. More meeting time with faculty – each unit prepares their own schedule – site visits are
normally 2 days so time is tight for each representative group.
iv. Representation from partnering units should be included in the site visit – again this is
the unit’s discretion and responsibility to include all representation.
v. Open sessions – use some sort of RSVP mechanism – this is difficult to do – message
goes out via edaily to entire university community. Perhaps need to look at whether an
open session is necessary if not well attended.
d. Humber College review – we were asked if Humber could use our QA guidelines to complete a
review of the BN program so that Humber can apply for renewal of Ministerial Consent to
continue the BN program. It was agreed that they could use our guidelines and we would put
this on our schedule of QA reviews for reporting purposes.
e. Data Collection for QA reviews – this was tabled til next meeting due to time constraints.
c.
6. Other Business
a. Review of Centres and Institutes – Tony reported that he had met with Greg Kealey regarding
the review of Centres and Institutes and agreed that they should have their own guidelines for
review. Centres report to a faculty and institutes to the VP Research. There is no need for a
full external review but it was felt that we should retain the ability to acquire external reviewers
if required. Tony’s suggestion for a review is for the centre/institute to prepare a 2-3 page
report addressing the issues of: are they meeting their mandate, how are they engaging
students, are they doing what they say they are doing. Then a team of 3-4 individuals would
assess the report. Some concern was that this would not work for institutes. There are 4 large
complement faculties with a large number of grad students and undergrad students. Perhaps
Centres could be reviewed as part of the faculty they are housed with.
Action Item: Tony will take this to Dean’s Council for discussion.
b.
Next meeting date – to be determined.
Future Agenda Items:
a. Guidelines for Articulated Programs
b. Data collection for QA reviews
c. Guidelines for Non-Academic Programs