October 30, 2014 EUS GRAND COUNCIL MINUTES 7:30PM – October 30, 2014 FSC 1221 Call to order: 7:30pm Mark Bancroft, VP Academic – Introduction, overview and agenda. • Guidelines: each department’s description under 6 min. Faculty wide issues rather than department specific issues that can be solved in-­‐house. 1. ATTENDANCE • CHBE: Co-­‐Presidents: Kimia Yeganeh & Tyler Wood, 2nd year rep: Tony Wu, 4th year rep: Philip Jones, 3rd year rep: Farbod Rahimiweiaj, Academic Coordinator: Stacy Hurst • CIVL: President: Alyssa Schultz, 2nd year rep: Alan Ehrenholz, 3rd year rep: Lily Truong, 4th year rep: Joey Borsellino • ECE: President, 2nd year rep, 3rd year rep, Grad rep, Academic Rep, Academic Assistant • ENPH: President: Nolan Ohmart, VP Academic: Sharada Balaji • ENVE: President: Tom Willes, 3rd year rep: Kelsey Baker, 4th year rep: Lucy Swank • GEO: GeoRox co-­‐Presidents Victoria Camp & Carlo Penacerrada, VP Academic: Vicky Jones, 3rd year rep: Isabelle Piche, 2nd year rep: Rachel Ambras & Jordan Farra. 4th year rep: Sharon Ross • IGEN: President: • MECH: President: Ruvie Eto, 2nd year rep: Jack Yong, 3rd year rep: Andrew Nui, 4th year rep: Dylan trenise, Curriculum Rep: Szu Yuan (Nancy) Peng • MINE: 2nd year rep: , 3rd year rep, Grad rep • MTRL: President: Lawrence Lam, 2nd year rep: Terek Li • PP: President, Academic reps: Jen Sze, Xingyu Tao • EUS: VP Academic: Mark Bancroft, Curriculum Coordinator: Ben Le, Associate Curriculum Coordinator: Suzanne King, President: Veronica Knott, VP Comm: Jeanie Malone, VP Finance: Armin Rezaiean-­‐Asel, EUS Professional Dev: Amit Jain • Other: Sareena Mohammad 2. Department Specific Discussions (65 minutes) • CHBE: • Huge problem seems to be computer labs. o Computers and programs keep crashing. New plan talked about is taking out computer labs and replacing with laptops. • Other than that not much to update. • CIVL: 1 • New dept. head. Ongoing issues with department head. • Second year apsc 201 different Profs teach at different rates. Large gaps between, weeks. • Civil 215 Monday tutorial later in the week, or homework earlier. Quizzes marked out of more. • TA’s need to work on people skills. Better writing, hard to read. TA’s tutorials don’t do anything. One room for tutorials. Homework similar to the quiz. Harder homework would be ok. Certain TA’s put in a lot more effort. • EOS 210 – too many slides. • Past midterms – peer wise helpful. • Worth buying textbooks? Since material is covered in slides. • Third year Rep: o 301: recurring – excel to teach and goes through too quickly. o 315 – Labs recurring. Ta’s not prepared and don’t know lab procedure. Labs don’t line up well with lectures. Marks not returned timely manner. o 332 – TA’s don’t talk with students. Also happen in other course. Recurring problem with TA’s not just civil. Go through problem without any other words. Communication among Profs to schedule exams not so closely together. • Fourth year Rep: o All grades come from lab, people aren’t going to lecture. No syllabus. o Concrete design was recommended – should have been clarified as definitely required. o TA’s don’t plan ahead. o Consistency among lab sections civil 439 – also available to forestry students. Been a problem for group work. o CVL 445 – students do not feel it is suitable as civil – more like an urban planning project – not a useful project. Scope of project changes too much. Midterm evaluation was handled poorly. o Advanced steel design – not available for registration this summer -­‐ need a prof to teach this. •
October 30, 2014 ECE: • 2nd year Rep: o Math 256 too much homework from prof. o ECE 259 – workload issues. Labs which build upon previous labs when students don’t have solutions to previous lab. TA’s don’t know what the labs are fully about. 2 •
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October 30, 2014 • 3rd year Rep: o Midterms scheduled really close to each other. Profs know about it but haven’t addressed the issue. Projects going on at the same time. • 4th year: o Nothing to report. • Computer program is relatively stable. ENPH: • Lack of hands on learning at UBC: o Talked to many students and Profs, industry and the general consensus is that there is difficulty when you get into the workforce. For example, a contractor thinks the engineer has no idea what is going on in the workplace. o Labs for some courses/some of the tutorial time should be shifted to hands on experience. Example: Electrical courses – hands on circuit learning should be included. Goes for a lot of other mech courses. Big issue, even though it is not an easy one to address. • ECE 356: o Prof restricting learning materials. Can only get if you show up to class and the right class. UBC should not be restricting materials. • Transfer students: o Upper years who transferred in from other schools having to take APSC 150 think it is irrelevant at that point. It is 7 hours a week on top of already 7 course course load. Alternative? This point was corroborated by various departments. ENVE: • UNBC, making sure ready for third year at UBC. • Chair of course up there has emailed requesting info on beef and pizza • Civil 418: o Not full time lectures • Civil 305: o Environmental impact assessment – Course description is incorrect/misleading. Ensure proper course descriptions in course calendar. o Only two credits outside of lab time. • Proper use of Connect by Profs: o Seconded – some instructors don’t know how to properly put material on connect or don’t care. GEO: • Survey on Facebook and survey for 2, 3, 4 years. Great feedback. 3 •
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October 30, 2014 • 2nd years: o Not too much course specific. o Tutorials: lack of TA involvement o First year students should be offered computer courses o Fairness in content in non-­‐geo classes was an issue. Ex-­‐ geo students taking mining courses, prof doesn’t design course for non-­‐mining background. o Specific geo courses in second year to make a more cohesive program feel in second year o Alerted when you are moved on and off waitlist • Course content versus exam material. • Greater opportunity for geo students to enrol in civil and mining courses – ongoing issue. • Waitlist: o Students were not notified mid sept early Oct and would have to pay the fee that they didn’t even take/didn’t know. • Curriculum changes not communicated: o Not very transparent change in curriculum. Transparent information and fairness needed. o Not communicating pertinent changes to curriculum. • Conflict of technical electives with STT – big issue • 2nd year student: o Big leap from first year workload. IGEN: • Technical electives: o Extremely complicated to get into courses that fit in your schedule. A lot of hoops to jump through to get into certain tech electives. o Would like a list of all the ones they are allowed to take. • Computer labs licensing. • Computer logins. • TA’s making mistakes on quizzes (CHBE 344). MECH: • Most issues addressed in house. • 4th year: o Lack of hands learning: a. Second year – some hands on projects. b. Engineering degree versus people coming out of technical college. o Prof with full time job – courses are Monday and Friday evening and no time to help students. o Quality of Profs. Not a relative background. o Classes two different times on Tuesday and Thursdays. 4 o More formal TA evaluations needed. o APSC 450: a. Individual portions marked the same in that group, but the mark would vary from prof to prof. Prof is a lawyer. Improve upon the way she gives assignments. b. Groups of 10/11 people. c. Mass produced feeling. A lot more effective if they were law students teaching 40 to 50 students. Not learning anything in that class. d. Current plan for 450 – shift ethics credits in first year. Eventually APSC 450 will not exist. •
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October 30, 2014 MINE: • Technical electives: o Complaints for years. Most conflict with their standard time tables. • In house surveys: o 2nd year: a. MECH 260 – TA’s not giving examples b. Language barrier o 3rd year: a. ECE 263 – online textbooks to do homework online. Prof doesn’t have the resources to make and mark assignments. Labs – gap between using equipment. o 4th year: a. Availability of courses. People could not graduate on time because of one course/failing. Offer this electronics course in first term. • Sessional instructors: o General consensus is that they are great. Having a rubric for industry professionals who come in to teach is a good idea. MTRL: • MECH 260: o TA’s not helpful. o No one showing up to classes – bonus on midterms wasn’t fair. Feels like attending lectures won’t help midterms. • APSC 450: o Hands on work is lacking • Materials machine shop: o IGEN uses it, MTRL doesn’t. • Tech electives: o Conflicts with STT • Space in general: 5 •
PP: October 30, 2014 o A lot more non-­‐mining and mon-­‐materials departments taking up room in frank forward. • A lot more of courses are being taught by non-­‐faculty members. • Survey results: o Physics 157: a. 74% students said it was their worst class. b. Course material and all aspects don’t line up well. Prereading weeks ahead of lecture. Homework is not testing anything from lecture. Disjointed. Confusing and hard to learn. c. In class examples – poorly explained or not explained at all. I-­‐clicker questions not explained. d. TA’s are horrendous. e. Demos are a waste of time in class. f. Tutorial sessions – first class was completely irrelevant. o Apsc 160: a. Generally positive feedback. o Math 100: a. Drastic marking levels between profs – average of 55 to 80 % o Webwork: a. Inputting errors – waste of time. o Apsc 122: a. 50 percent of students would skip course if there were no questions. b. Second part of the class is irrelevant. c. Recommendations: not write a paragraph on the shortest and most irrelevant part of the presentation. 3. Faculty Discussions (15 minutes) • Co-­‐op: • Mining department feedback: o Terrible time. Met with department head and Prof Development rep. o Sending out a survey on experience. o Also, getting complaints from industry which is a huge issue! Trying to deal with it in house but this is a faculty wide issue. • Too many emails. • Unclear deadlines. • System crash to pay coop fees • Employer’s not giving evaluations – co-­‐op should follow up with the coop office to make sure that their evaluation comes through and there is a pass on the credit. 6 •
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October 30, 2014 • Co-­‐op reports – technical reports can be really great. Students don’t take reports seriously because the first two are a joke. Employers lose respect and students don’t get as much out of them as they could. Not executed well. • Employers actively avoiding hiring UBC co-­‐op students because of how much red tape there is. • As an employer the evaluations are extremely confusing. Needs to be made clearer for employers. • The application to do co-­‐op is odd. It would operate as a better system if it was a service to a student. Maybe it is a better idea just to make the co-­‐op program a mandatory component? • Civil – co-­‐op cares about stats more than it does about students. Engineering Student Services: • Comments from transfer students • Registration issues: o STT’s weren’t working o Faculty didn’t know it was a problem until a student mentioned. Never let them know when it was resolved. o Register for a STT a second time – can’t register for courses you have already taken even if you have the intention of dropping them. No indication of that at all. Not enough services for troubleshooting during registration. o Had to register for STT before they could select technical electives. • Period you have to wait for responses to e-­‐mail were way too long. • ESS is understaffed • Registration for minors: o Send a notice online through an online system. Word box to ask questions limited to 65 words. Difficult. By the time they read it the class is full. o Commerce minor – don’t get to apply until really late – no spots open • Distribution of technical electives: o Second semester heavy. More even distribution. • Electives – more electives offered outside engineering. o Forum for electives Professional Development: • Feedback on Proposed workshops: o AutoCAD – civils conceptual design course – one assignment, one design in google sketch up. Should be free tutorials or classes on AutoCAD. o Learn how to macros – short cuts in excel 7 October 30, 2014 • Technical workshops: o Include in technical writing – formatting word and excel o Curriculum based classes o Tutorials on AutoCAD o Professional sessions and networking a. Optional for students, promote well by EUS b. Do workshops earlier in the year • Other: • Design software being used: o HYSYS • Emails: from staff/admin – not getting to Hotmail/yahoo accounts. • Stats – 251 standard • ECE 357 4. Other Discussions (10 minutes) • Need for more summer courses: • Offer more summer courses • Needed! • Workload consistency • Other: • Transfer students – late acceptance. Don’t know until late summer, don’t know what course you are in, terrible experience transferring in. Acceptance into program days before school started. Contact with ESS. • Printing resources – too far to go all the way to libraries. ESC (done in June) will have a printer. Meeting Adjourned: 9:02 pm Minutes prepared by: Associate Curriculum Coordinator, Suzanne King 8