SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
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S.08-114
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Senate Committee on University Priorities
Memorandum
TO:
Senate ?
FROM:
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Jon Driver
Chair, SCUP and
Vice President, Academic
RE:
Faculty of Education
? DATE: ?
October
The Senate Committee on University Priorities (SCUP) has reyfewèd the External
Review Report on the Faculty of Education, together with respnses from the faculty,
staff and students as well as the Faculty Executive, and input frQ3ie Associate Vice
President, Academic.
Motion:
That Senate approve the recommendations from the Senate Committee on
University Priorities concerning advice to the Faculty of Education and the
Dean of Education on priority items resulting from the External Review.
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Following the review team's site visit the report of the External Review
Team*
for the
Faculty of Education was submitted in March 2008. The responses from the Faculty of
Education were received in June 2008.
The Review Team believes that the strongest resource in the Faculty is its people. They
noted that although the challenges the Faculty is facing are interconnected and
complex, the commitment to overcoming them is unflagging.
A number of recommendations were made by the Team which may strengthen the
Faculty and prepare it for the future.
SCUP recommends to Senate that the Faculty of Education be advised to pursue the
following as priority items.
1.
Faculty Strategy:
Undertake a strategic planning process leading to:
- An agreed set of priorities or goals against which all individual and
collective work can be planned, carried out and evaluated.
- A structure of organizational units that best suits the achievement of
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these priorities, more closely aligns with the operations of the Faculty,
and supports its various undergraduate, graduate and professional
programmes.
- A review of decision making structures and processes to ensure clarity
of authority and a high degree of transparency.
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2.
Communication:
• Continue to seek ways of increasing communication between faculty and staff
members at the three campuses including the use of technology, a web portal
and the consideration of the introduction of an annual retreat.
3. Research:
Develop a Faculty Research Strategy that:
- Defines how research excellence is assessed.
- Connects the research interests and agendas through informal and
formal means as well as individual and group efforts.
- Provides mechanisms for intellectual exchange among all areas of the
Faculty.
- Aligns the research centres with the University's and the Faculty's
priorities to ensure the best use is made of all resources.
- Enriches the understanding of all aspects of teacher education.
4. Faculty Renewal
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is
• Develop a succession plan for hiring faculty based on clearly defined
priorities.
• Intensify efforts at mentoring junior and pre-tenure faculty.
5.
Programmes
Create a system for conducting regular, comprehensive internal evaluations
for all programmes.
Review of the balance of the faculty capacity against student enrollment in
each of the programmes
Develop guidelines for the establishment of new graduate programmes
including the possibility of consolidation with existing programmes.
6.
Administration
Review the teaching and service loads carried by junior faculty.
Review the adequacy of support services including technical support at
Surrey and Burnaby and consider extending the video conference facilities
between
Review the
these
performance
two campuses.of
all staff
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members according to an agreed
0
timetable.
• Address the concerns raised by staff regarding their working environment
during by:
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- Increasing the level of support for, and communication with the Surrey
based staff
- Reviewing and reclassifying jobs where appropriate
- Providing adequate IT equipment and services.
* Review Team
Dr. Rina Upitis - Review Team Chair (Queen's University)
Dr. Graham Pike (University of Prince Edward Island)
Dr. Dennis Thiessen (OISE, University of Toronto)
CC Suzanne de Castell, Acting Dean, Faculty of Education
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FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Response to the 2008 Report of the External Review Team
Introduction
The Academic Vice-President's Office is being provided with a two-part Faculty
of Education response to the Report from the External Review Team: the first
section has been compiled by the Associate Dean-Academic, to present a broad
spectrum of responses from faculty; students, and staff. The second section is. the
Executive's synthesis after collective reflection and consultation with the Dean.
We provide both so that a range of opinion is available to the VPA. The
Executive's recommended actionable items are shown in section two in
italics.
Acknowledgements
We wish to express our sincere appreciation to the External Review Team for
their hard work, attentiveness and care in the conduct of this external review,
and to acknowledge the prodigious efforts of our colleagues, students, staff and
faculty; in collectively authoring the self study report which guided the
reviewers, and in participating in such a frank and sincere way, in the meetings
both prior to, and during, the process of this Faculty's external review, as well as
in contributing to the development of this response.
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Section One
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C
A Compilation
of
Responses to the Report
of
the External
Review Team
Framing
a
Response
It is of course not possible to respond to every element of the report, nor is there,
we think, any need to do so: consensus across the Faculty of Education (FoE) is
that the review team has arrived at a comprehensive and thorough
understanding of our principles, practices and personnel.
For that reason, this response concentrates on matters of concern which arise for
us, whether these are areas of disagreement expressed within our own Faculty
community, or areas of divergence between the report/ recommendations, and
what we as a Faculty see as possible, desirable, and necessary at this time, or to
draw particular attention to aspects of what we do that, not being explicitly
mentioned in the review, we want to make sure are not eroded, lost or
overlooked.
Widely expressed is appreciation to the External Review Team for a careful,
thoughtful, generous and helpful report on our Faculty. It would appear from
discussions, e-mailed comments, and a set of meetings to frame this response to
the report, that we largely agree with, which, as they note, are things the Faculty
of Education is already on its way to tackling:
"None of
the challenges we name in
this report will come as a surprise to the members of the Faculty; they have been working
hard at these issues, both formally and informally.., the Faculty continues to revisit these
issues afresh, continuing to create ways
of
improving their work." (#7)
The following aspects of the report will be concentrated on in our comments on
that report and its specific recommendations:
Making clear
"what is and what ought to be valued:"
establishing priorities
....................................
2.
Fostering broad based orientation to scholarship (#21,
#23, #27), e.g.,
"teaching as scholarship."
3.
Surrey/Burnaby: working cohesively and effectively across two campuses,
with adequate and appropriate technical support.
4.
Governance: "ensuring the
Faculty meeting is the FoE's main decision-.
making body, where all voices are heard and all opinions considered" (#32,
#33).
5._Organizational structure: promoting wider involvement, better
communication, and more effective cohesion between and among
programs, and between professional and academic programs, research and
practice, in particular:
"that the five
programs be restructured into two
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organizational units: Professional Development Unit (Undergraduate
programs, Professional Programs and International Programs) and Graduate
Education Unit (Graduate Programs, Field Programs and International
Programs) (#5).
6.
Workload:
"distribution of teaching and service among its members, paying
particular attention to the loads carried by junior faculty" (00).
7.
Rapid recent growth in EdD and PhD programs: supervision needs are
looming/do we have the capacity to meet these? Need to consolidate.
8.
Staff needs, conditions, working environment,
and advancement (#35-39).
1. Making clear "what is and what ought to be valued:" establishing
priorities.
"One of the most troubling features of the Faculty of Education is the confusion over
what is and what ought to be valued.., most keenly felt in the large contingent ofjunior
faculty members..." (#7).
Clearly, we are being challenged to make more palpably 'real' in peoples'
working lives, what the 'identity,' the core values, purposes and practices of this
Faculty are, so that we collectively understand the course we are set upon, and so
that people can know better how to structure their academic careers here.
We endorse the recommendation to re-examine priorities. An agreed upon set of
priorities is a need made even more urgent by the recent financial cuts, which
demand that we set out very clearly what are most important, non negotiable
areas of operation, and what we can or must either defer, or even let go of, in
order to make the best of the situation within which we have to work over the
next several years. In order to do that in a well grounded and comprehensively
informed way, the Executive has recently agreed to pursue a 'mapping' exercise
in which we determine where our resources, both human and material, are
currently being deployed, what concentrations of work and resources have
proven to be most valuable to us, in terms of scholarship, supporting and
adväriciflg the professional communities we serve, and in terms of economic
returns. We intend to have, by December 2008, a clear and well-structured plan
of action, a specification of priorities, as well as a financial contingency plan, and
this we are, again, already actively engaged in with our ad hoc Budget Analysis
Committee recently established.
Distinctive strengths of the Faculty of Education, which we would protect, are its
integral connections to the profession laddered through the educational field at
all levels. This is structurally enabled through a well-established, flexible and
responsive differentiated taffi iiiödël.in no small measure
because
of what that
structure affords, a second distinction of this faculty is research and scholarship,
at which we have consistently excelled. Maintaining but always grappling with
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fiercely
its non-departmentalized
protected, our foundational
structure, a
priority
structure
is interdisciplinarity,
as ongoingly contested
set in
as
tension
it is
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between excellence in research and graduate study, and excellence in field-based
professional practice. We are,
structurally,
dynamic and diversified. This is what
defines our faculty: that it is positioned within and constituted by powerful
forces whose tensions support, sustain and renew our work. We defend our
diversity as a strength, and embrace complexity as a support to attentive,
innovative and responsive educational theory, research, policy and practice.
In terms of individual career decisions, a complex faculty sets out a complex
assemblage of options, and we recognize that people currently fear that despite
working inordinately hard, they may discover they have been misdirecting their
efforts, from the FTPC perspective. That matters very much at tenure and
promotion time, and is a major concern for too much of the rest of peoples' time.
As reported by the chair of the FTFC, current practice involves "organizing
meetings with pre-tenure colleagues, individual and in groups, and providing
detailed and specific explanations about the expectations for scholarly
achievements, among others." Having invited a faculty member to join our
community, it is very much in our interests to assist them in staying here and in
making satisfying career advancements that preserve enthusiasm, high quality
performance, and good strong and collegial morale. We might consider adopting
a 'peer advocacy' model in preparing portfolios and presenting cases,
particularly for pre-tenure faculty, as we do not see the level of stress and anxiety
experienced by too many colleagues as in any way productive for them
individually, or for the faculty as a whole.
As one way to address the recommendation that we "employ a broad notion of
scholarship," the Dean, with the Chair of the FTPC and colleagues, recently
organized a meeting (April 2008), to revisit and possibly to revise our FTPC
guidelines, and to enable an extended discussion of ways to make more explicit
our FTPC criteria, recognizing this concern is of particular urgency for junior
faulty colleagues.. We do seek to honour a broad notion of scholarship, and have
done so, through ongoing recognition of a wide variety of emergent scholarly
endeavors and research practices:Operationalizirtg what breadth of scholarship
looks like in specific instances is how we propose to address this
recommendation, by compiling and analyzing a representative set of recent cases
as the basis for providing 'profiles' of the ways, both typical and 'outlying', in
which the several stages of advancement in the FoE have been achieved.
Ongoing conversation with faculty about how applied scholarship is realized
and recognized in practice and theory will continue to inform our understanding
and its translation into tenure and promotion criteria. The FTPC is drafting
- revisions and will hold a further meeting with faculty to consider revisions that
better provide faculty ..lèariidienf specification öf crifèriáTdf
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advancement.
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With respect to research centres, clarifying priorities, as well as being guided by
larger University priorities, will assist us in deciding on future development. The
same is true of program development, and particularly the creation of new
graduate programs.
To provide a current picture of the character of FoE research, the Education
Research Office has undertaken to "synthesize information gathered in our
interviews of faculty members to describe the landscape of scholarship in the
Faculty. Alongside other efforts (e.g., faculty research presentations), this will
clarify what our Faculty currently values as expressions of its members' research
and scholarship" (see full report in Appendix 6). This overview will highlight not
only what is valued, but.also identify what is absent, and/or undervalued.
Moreover, in response to graduate student and faculty expressions of need for a
specialist in research methodologies, writes the ERO, "We will generate a profile
of expressed methodological needs to submit to the Faculty at large and the
Faculty Appointments Committee for consideration in framing a plan for hiring
that reflects priorities observed in our interviews of faculty members."
2. Fostering broad based orientation to scholarship... [to] guide decisions
about program excellence (#2), scholarly excellence (#21), research
excellence, (#23), the constitution of committees, the staffing of offices, and
the filling of administrative positions (#27); "...teaching should be
recognized as a form of scholarship in its own right" (#9).
We fully endorse the former point, but there is much discussion among us with
respect to the second. One colleague felt that the overall tone of the review
"emphasized practice at the expense of scholarship, which is disturbing." On the
other hand, we see a need for the FoE to take a broader look at the relationship(s)
between research and practice, to be receptive to emerging conceptions and
approaches, to better recognize the values, and the scholarly character, of applied
educational work—most centrally, teaching. The report's recommendation to
'recoize teaching as aforin of
scholarship'
was therefore noted by many-with
considerable interest. "I see the two as intertwined," wrote one colleague.
"...Teaching should inform our scholarship, and our scholarship should inform
our teaching." This colleague concurs that, "much of what we do in our teaching
is, in fact, scholarship."
Our recent Faculty forum discussion of this notion concluded, however, with a
reaffirmation of the primacy of peer-reviewed articles in 'top-tier' scholarly
journa1s and this was rather adisappointmerit to those who had hoped for a
larger 'vision' of what scholarship might be taken to mean, and somelear
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--
specification of what 'teaching as scholarship' might require or involve, as was
encouraged by the reviewers. We anticipate that opportunities for conversation
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with
on this
what
notion
"scholarship"
will continue
means
to be
within
undertaken,
an academic
as the
educational
faculty endeavor
environment.
to grapple
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In a Faculty that aspires to excellence, it is unfeasible to disregard the principle
means by which scholarship has been conventionally recognized by the academic
community. Teaching, in a university, cannot, normally, fully and entirely
substitute for scholarship in its more traditional sense. The two are of equal
value. There remain two basic conditions for university work to be recognized as
'scholarship' and these are rigorous peer review, and publication, nor is it usual
to tenure and promote faculty members within an
academic
career, if they elect
NOT to publish at least some of the time in high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarly
books and journals. However other forms of peer-review, and other forms of
'making public' have been and will be very rightly and persuasively argued for:
it is essential to keep this question open and alive to alternative forms and
contents of educational work.
To maintain a conceptual distinction between teaching and scholarship is not to
devalue teaching. Teaching can be brilliant, and research can be pointless and
ponderous. Teaching may demand enormous intellectual acumen and
accomplishment, theoretical work might amount to little more than messing
about with numbers, or with language. Teaching may be more central than
theory and research to the proper work of a Faculty of Education. But as closely
imbricated with scholarship as teaching might be, it is not coextensive with it.
Teaching doesn't become scholarship by calling it so, but by elucidating and
specifying the relations, including the separations, between what we always only
crudely denominate "theory" and "practice" in education, so that we can see
when, and how one might look to the other for grounding, direction, priorities.
One colleague wrote in, "Some but not all of educational scholarship originates
in matters of interest and concern in professional spheres of teaching, leadership,
and policy; many, but not all, professional matters can be informed by and
guided by scholarship about education and related disciplines."
The report's recommendation has encouraged us to recognize that teaching
(includirtg graduate -supervision) deserves to be recognized as a 'scholarly'
endeavor
and that our teaching, our supervision, our course and program
development work, must be infused with and informed by, the research upon
which this Faculty has always placed such importance. In addition, we must
more carefully evaluate and more highly value excellence in teaching in general,
and in scholarly teaching in particular.
Such recognition is an encouragement to devise, institute, and publicize means of
-- -----------recognizing excellence in teaching far above and beyond the calculation of
numerical student 'scores' and anecdotal comments. The External Review Team's
-
recommendation calls upon us to rethink how we are defining scholarship, and
we are indeed open to this kind of profound reconsideration.
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Certainly it must be acknowledged that while we have very highly developed
criteria for making reasonably nuanced evaluations of scholarly productivity, our
operational criteria for discriminating execrable from exquisite teaching have at
some times been based largely on end-of-course student evaluations. This is not
the case now, as the FTPC chair explained, "The FTPC considers teaching
portfolios in great detail in cases of contract renewal, tenure and promotion. The
strong features of one's teaching are noted and recommendations for
improvement are made, as necessary." This procedure greatly mitigates the risk
of having little but elementary arithmetical calculations of student responses as
the basis upon which quality of teaching is rated. We endorse the
recommendation to further enlarge the scope of our vision of teaching, and pay
closer attention to evaluating the scholarly quality of teaching (and supervision).
We propose to encourage FTPC leadership in this area and urge Program
Directors, and the EGSA to identify and design ways in which teaching
(including graduate student supervision) may be more fully taken account of,
and to make faculty more aware of how their teaching will be assessed, beyond
standardized student evaluations, and including peer evaluation based on a
careful consideration of the scholarly quality of course outlines and syllabi,
curriculum development, textbook authoring, program evaluation, coordination
and development (#10). Stressed the FTPC Chair, "Since graduate supervision is
a part of the teaching portfolio, it is important to have information about the
nature of this supervision."
Teaching is AS highly weighted, as a matter of both University and Faculty
policy, as is scholarship, and different relative strengths are and have always
been formally recognized. However, it is clear that this formal equality of value is
not universally felt to be operative in practice, with perceptions of a 'hierarchy'
having research and scholarship in reigning position, and professional practice
very far down the scale of faculty values. This perspective harms not just faculty,
but staff and students as well. Writes one colleague greatly disturbed by this
recent reaffirmation of traditional criteria for 'scholarship,' "Some of us are
committed to applied scholarship and to working extensively with professional
educational communities, and to making a significant difference in this realm. I
think thatwe, asaFaculty need toactivelyresist the movement towards -
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"traditional scholarship;" that is, only the highest-rated, peer-reviewed journals."
Some colleagues provided persuasive accounts of many kinds of teaching (and
program development as well) that certainly require considerable active research
and scholarly work to do well. So nothing said above precludes the possibility,
and the invitation, for individual faculty members to argue and to demonstrate
that and how their own distinctive work in teaching, program development
and/or student supervision" is, itself, scholarship," beyond being so in the sense
that their teaching demonstrates and requires scholarship. This
--
ssimply to say----------- -
that until we have a practicable way, routinely and consistently, to evaluate
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teaching AS scholarship, we must more carefully evaluate and more highly value
scholarly educational practice.
One well-established practice for evaluating teaching, but one which this Faculty
has not used in the past, is to have the FTPC carry out on-site observations of
teaching, as well as to pay explicit attention to the quality of the work students
produce by the end of a course of studies, relative to their work at its outset. We
are strongly supportive of these ways to promote scholarly teaching, and of
undertaking to establish ways of paying closer and more nuanced attention to
the scholarly quality of teaching, affording greater discernment than
standardized student course evaluations can provide, so that teaching of the
highest scholarly calibre can be better recognized across a range of academic and
professional contexts, more seriously engaged and more adequately rewarded.
As well, scholarship directly based upon and informed by one's teaching
(curriculum studies, pedagogical theory and research, etc.) can and should be
more strongly cultivated and encouraged. ?
-
We endorse recommendation #13:
"That the professional development unit develop a
program of research that enriches the understanding of the teacher education program
experience of beginning teachers, informs the ongoing investments in the program (i.e.,
Faculty Associates, Coordinators, faculty members, students) as participants and
researchers in the program of research."
The connections to the field that we so prize as a Faculty, in our Field Programs
and Professional Programs work, must be, and be seen to be, connections of
research and scholarship, and not just of flexible and responsive program
development and provision. To this end we propose more intensively to
encourage strong scholarly and research initiatives that focus on practical and
professional concerns, and weave together responsiveness to the field, with
intellectual leadership and scholarly contributions to the field. The corollary also
holds, namely, that our research and scholarship across the Faculty should have
some implicit, explicable and possibly even demonstrable professional
connections. Research excellence without professional applicability is as
quetibnable profeional development that is uninformed by -scholarship.
also propose to encourage and support research that engages the field and the
professional communities with which we work, and that involves the
professional constituency of the faculty working directly with pre-service and in-
service teacher education.
One colleague suggests, and we propose, "a more systematic teaching-based
program of scholarship and research... perhaps overseen by the Institute for
Studies in Teacher Education." We propose, in keeping with this suggestion,
continued support for the scholarship-based revision of pre-service and
in-service teacher education currently underway by the PDP Re-visioning
Committee, the Professional Programs Committee, and the faculty members
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teaching in Professional and Field Programs. The time has come for the Faculty-
at-large to view professional development and our respective programming in
this regard as requiring more than the application and derivation of research
enterprises. Accordingly, we shall invite our FoE research centres and CRC
Chairs to provide some direction in developing the precepts and guidelines of a
more systematic Professional Development Program of scholarship and research.
Addressing #23, the recommendation to foster a broader-based orientation to
scholarship, can in part be structurally accomplished by addressing the
perceived 'narrowness' in the orientations of our present research support
services, implementing the review's organizational suggestion to place
"research" (the research support staff, and the Research Opportunities
Committee) within the portfolio of the Associate Dean-Academic. But
attitudinally, a broad-based orientation to scholarship, and one that disposes
faculty members to attend especially to the "praxis" dimensions of Professional
Development Programs, requires attention to the criteria, practices and
assessments of scholarly performance that prevail within the Faculty.
3. Surrey/Burnaby: working cohesively and effectively across two campuses,
with adequate and appropriate technical support: dedicated
videoconferencing facilities [should]
be
established... (#35).
•
Arrangements were (prior to the budgetary constraints recently announced)
already underway at Burnaby to create videoconferencing facilities in two
locations, though it must be acknowledged that current budget cuts threaten
their completion at Burnaby, and Surrey already has such facilities. Technology
provision and technical support, initially reported as a problem at Surrey in its
earlier developmental stage, appear now to be largely resolved. However, one
staff member, an educational media specialist, noted a pedagogically significant
difference between Surrey's provision of technical assistance, and
Burnaby/CET's "hands-on/learn to help yourself" helping style, suggesting the
latter gave better preparations for the actual conditions under which teachers are
in fact called upon to learn to use technology effectively in school settings,
•---------------
less "ecologically-valid"
a
facility for technological
teacher preparation. From a staff perspective, technology help has been at least as
much of a problem at Burnaby as at Surrey (see #38), and until the present
financial constraints and hiring freeze are lifted, we do not at this time see how
we can improve conditions. This is a
serious
concern as the scarcity of technical
support erodes staff satisfaction, consumes inordinate amounts of time, and
results in migration of our staff to other, technologically better equipped and
technically better supported positions. At both campuses, the ongoing challenges
around FileMaker and the need to find solutions remain a high priority. It may
prove to be a false economy to delay any further the hiring (recommended in the
------
-
External Review,
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137) of a senior technician/systems
CET Report to the
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administrator, since the ongoing costs and delays incurred because of insufficient
technical assistance promise to cost far more than this position.
We envisage instituting a simple e-mail-based weekly 'update' to better support
internal communication within and across campuses.
Cohesive and effective work of course requires more and other than
technological adequacy and better means of cross-campus communication. We
have yet to devise an intelligible basis upon which to locate faculty, staff and
programs to one or the other campus, and our current undertaking to offer
programs of all types, at all levels, at both campuses, is seriously in question for
some. The concentration of staff, faculty and students which organization around
specific programs and/or research centres affords would, some contend,
contribute greatly to cohesion and effectiveness. At present, Surrey is very largely
staffed by junior (and untenured) faculty members across program areas, and
this has been largely happenstance rather than planned. Notwithstanding the
excellent work of the Associate Dean-Administration in supporting the FoE
community at the Surrey campus, the kind of institutional cohesion and
effectiveness we seek across our two main sites of operation is unlikely to be
arrived at without some systematic reanalysis. Therefore we propose a dedicated
faculty retreat to consider proposals for the (re)organization of the FoE at
Surrey/ Burnaby, and see how the University's priorities for future development
at the Surrey campus (science, health, technology) might guide our own
development decisions.
4. Governance: "ensuring the
Faculty meeting is the FoE's main decision-
making body, where
all voices are heard
and all opinions considered" (#32,
#33).
The fourth recommendation of our 2001 external review, interestingly enough,
was that "the faculty give serious consideration to revising its decision-making structure
so that the general Faculty meeting becomes the main legislative vehicle."
Clearly this is
-a highly resistant- structural problem; for whose resolution good intentions have
proven insufficient. Structural and policy change is indicated. The Dean has
already instituted a 'question period' to advance this goal. Discussed during our
self-study is a proposal to create a larger, more inclusive Faculty meeting format,
in which all members across the community of the Faculty can hear, speak, and
be heard with respect to all the major decisions of the Faculty. This
reconceptualized format would meet every month, as the present Faculty
meeting does. Even more generally open Faculty forums will continue to treat
matters of concern that need to be taken up, discussed, and framed for further
action. Forums and Faculty meetings, as appropriate, sôuld
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specifically research/ scholarship-related discussion and debate: academic
standards, curriculum, students, faculty-based or sponsored conferences, events
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and publications, research, pedagogy, program priorities, prioritizing educational
needs, faculty promotion and tenure, University priorities, and the like. Our ad
hoc Governance Committee is working on the details of these initiatives.
In addition, the kinds of issues traditionally brought before the Faculty meeting,
for example word-smithing new course proposals, announcements, or
information about decisions already taken, might take secondary importance to
discussing, for instance, the development of new programs, or new levels of
programming (e.g., a new PhD program), the quality and consistency of our
courses and programs, the economics and politics of faculty investments in
community professional, academic and international programs, field schools,
and the like, the question of which 'markets' for our programs and courses
should take priority, and how we ought to respond to conditions of special
educational need (such as the call to expand post-graduate certification in
educational leadership, or the determination of new faculty positions), the
determination of faculty-wide initiatives (a further television series, or the
creation of a new research centre or the renewal of an existing centre). The
agenda for Faculty forums and Faculty meetings should be and be known to be
open to development 'from the ground up,' inviting all sectors of the community
to bring matters of concern to the attention of the meeting, and agendas should
• ?
be provided in greater detail and with more lead time. Minutes of meetings
should be available on the (password-protected) FoE website. The greater use of
"question period" should be encouraged toward these ends, as well as open
invitations by program committees to hearings on significant curricular reforms.
At those hearings, faculty and others could contribute to the shaping of
proposals at a formative stage.
Well underway at this time is an active ad hoc Governance Committee, headed
by the Associate Dean-Administration, which has already given a presentation to
the Faculty meeting presenting 'maps' of our current governance structure, as a
first step to reconsidering the structure of administration and decision making.
This Committee will be explicitly requested to help develop an "agreed set of
policies and procedures [for Faculty meetings] to ensure that all voices are heard
-.
and all opinions considered" (#32).
5. Organizational structure: promoting wider involvement, better
communication, and
more effective cohesion between
and among
programs, and between professional and academic programs, research and
practice, in particular: "that the five programs be restructured into two
organizational units: Professional Development Unit (Undergraduate
Programs, Professional Programs and Internma1.Programs)_14_
Graduate Education Unit (Graduate Programs, Field Programs and
International Programs) (#5).
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This recommendation was well received and much discussed. "Ideally this
restructuring would allow for greater linkage to occur between the programs;"
"We may be able to achieve some cost savings by reducing or eliminating the
director roles and devolving some decision-making about curricula and
scholarship to program coordinators and committees." Current and anticipated
cutbacks, and an Acting Dean for the coming year means this is not an easy time
to make a structural change of this magnitude: in one colleague's words, "I have
a hard time seeing how restructuring the Faculty at this time will simplify the
administration of the Faculty, it will only increase complexity in the near future
and make us spend money at a time when we have none to spend." That such a
reorganization should NOT increase bureaucracy, increase Executive power in
ways that impede fuller participation in decision making, add to administrative
positions or subtract from the already very hard-working staff contingent
supporting our five program areas was stressed.
To lay the groundwork for a successful implementation of structural change of
this order requires serious thought, collective 'processing' and extended
discussion. Our first need is to stabilize and consolidate after a period of rather
rapid growth in both programs and faculty, after which we can cautiously
implement intermediate 'transitional' structural modifications, which support
cohesion, consistency and quality across our academic and professional
programs. As an example, for Graduate Programs, one colleague suggests that,
"the Director of Graduate Programs should have greater control over all the
budgets related to grad program offerings, including the EdD and international
grad programs. It makes no sense to me to have the admin of grad programs
budgets split (among Graduate Programs, Field Programs and International
Programs)." It should be noted that off-campus programs were separated from
Graduate Programs in 2004 to allow the Dean the opportunity to review program
and budget processes. These processes are currently working well and we can
look at the academic/ curricular flow while keeping these effectively functioning
processes in place.
While there is broad agreement about the need to improve communication,
reducecosts;streamline operations, build stronger connections and collaborative
work between academic and professional programs, and an enhanced flow of
communications across all program areas, two central considerations are noted
here, and elaborated in the appendices (see especially Field Programs, for finer-
grained elucidation of the specifics here).
The first is that while the proposed restructuring (#14) does draw scholarly
research and graduate scholarship more intelligibly together, in our Faculty.
Professional Programs (like International Programs) cuts across both graduate
and undergraduate areas, so the coupling of Graduate and Professional
Programs structurally risks severing scholar/ practitioner links as much as it
promises to strengthen them. As stressed in Field Programs' response: "Field
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Programs' Graduate Diploma programs would still require a distinct, separate
infrastructure to support students and support relationships with school
districts." Both Field Programs and Professional Programs have stressed the
importance of NOT losing distinctive characteristics, processes, values and
outcomes that are essential to our continued success. As Field Programs response
stressed, "The MEd programs offered by Field Programs are distinctive in length,
structure and nature from those offered under the auspices of Graduate
Programs. We require a structure which supports distinctiveness, yet improves
administrative efficiency, and improves connections across research, scholarship
and practice, while maintaining consistency and quality across diverse kinds of
graduate programming."
The External Review Report commends both Professional Programs and Field
Programs, and recommends these sectors continue with the ways they have been
serving the educational field. A 'smoother' operation that might render more
similar Undergraduate Program operations with PDP, for instance, or Field -
Programs with Graduate Programs, does, however, risk losing that
distinctiveness. Cited among the things we CANNOT risk losing are, for
example, "The differentiated staffing model involving mentors, seconded
teachers (as Faculty Associates) and faculty is essential to the strength and
credibility of our programs and relationships with educators and school
districts" (see Field Programs response, Appendix 2).
The External Review Report recognizes the distinctive and considerable
accomplishments of Professional Programs, as well, writing that, "Though
ongoing program development is evident in most programs, the most extensive
engagement with such improvement efforts occurs in Professional Programs."
From Professional Programs comes the critical question: "How will the specific
needs (as identified through the report) and strengths of the 'organic' nature of
PDP be accommodated through a combined institutional infrastructure? There is
real concern that we must not lose the innovative and unique initiatives of
Professional Programs, ones that truly mark our Professional Programs off from
other, and more current players in this field."
International Programs' response expressed similar concerns about
implementing the proposed restructuring: "An amalgamated organizational
structure will significantly affect IF, especially in the crucial area of
organizational leadership. Without a Director, it is not clear how International
Programs could continue to have the institutional and administrative
opportunity to provide leadership in all areas of the Faculty." Although the
report commends International Programs and recommends the continued
is unclear how
• International Programs could continue to develop, implement and support credit
and non-credit programs when re-organized as recommended by the ERC. Such
initiatives require significant infrastructure support."
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our
In sum,
distinctive
we propose
needs
more
and current
carefully
conditions
to attune
as,
the
in
proposed
its present
structural
form, says
change
one
to
?
S
colleague, "It doesn't represent where the 'professional' activity in our Faculty
takes place, i.e., it is not just at undergrad level; second, it blurs the distinction
between PDP and undergrad which are in fact very distinct. Our undergrad
program does not just serve PDP. A great deal of valuable activity goes on at the
undergrad level that is not of a purely professional orientation." The external
reviewers made it clear that we might well elect not to make the proposed
structural change as the best way to address the problems it was proposed' to
engage. We do strongly endorse the intents of the restructuring, and through a
modification of their proposal, will pursue these, envisaging retaining distinctive
units while gradually working towards enhanced consolidation and more
effective relationships, both administrative and scholarly, across the range of our
academic and professional programs.
6.
Workload: "distribution of teaching and service among its members,
paying particular attention to the loads carried by junior faculty" (#30).
One way to address the workload issues is simply better informing people about
what faculty workloads look like, beyond each person's own case. Transparency
about supervision loads, teaching and research allocation profiles, program
development and coordination work, as well as indicating where additional
incentives/ rewards are provided for these elements of service, could be realized
simply by reporting this basic workload information annually. That one move
towards making information more fully accessible, on its own, might go
considerable distance towards helping us promote more equitable distribution of
supervision in particular, and of workloads in general.
A more streamlined organizational structure could also address the service
aspect of workload, were this to mean fewer committees in which faculty
members would be called upon to serve, and would afford a better idea of where
to address concerns, as well as where to invest ones time.
7.
Rapid
recent growth
in EdD and PhD
programs: supervision needs are
looming/do we have the capacity to meet these? Need to consolidate (#3
Graduate Programs,
#13 Teacher
Education programs, #18 EdD program).
"The financial stability of the EdD and the MEd programs is based upon a
balance of revenue generation, teaching and supervisory capacity, as well as
appropriate staffing infrastructure," one colleague observes. The External Review
Team very explicitly recommeñdéd no further pro grain growth dinded;a
reduction (by 40+ students) in our current EdD commitment. To pursue this
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recommendation would require us to carefully "reassess and evaluate current
and future financial expenditures and budgets."
Here again, the specifics of the recommendation need to be realigned to our own
conditions: recommended is a French EdD cohort size of 20, however colleagues
working in French programs, "doubt we will ever be under pressure to admit
[that number] since we have a small pool of potential French applicants in the
province." By contrast, we have pressing demands for far more EdD places than
the External Review Team recommends, and have in fact, with University
approval, already built our EdD program on a larger scale, supplementing our
tenure-stream faculty supervision capacity with highly qualified adjunct faculty.
A further, longer-range view of how to address the looming supervision needs
arising from the EdD program specifically, is to, in one colleague's words,
"de-link the EdD from its sole association as an Ed Leadership degree, so that the
degree can be applicable to other areas of research and practice." Such an
enlargement of our vision of "Educational Leadership" makes fuller participation
in the EdD program far more relevant and attractive to many more of our tenure-
stream faculty members, removing the excessive burden that has been placed on
junior colleagues working in Educational Leadership. We do need to reduce their
supervisory load.
With respect to easing the work of supervision while promoting better tracking
and pacing of EdD students' progress, the EdD program has implemented new
on-line interactive software that allows students to document and track their
progress through their program, and as they self-monitor, their supervisors have
access to what they are doing and what they require. Instead of relying on annual
reports or waiting for transcripts, this interactive system assists students and
provides support through a 'just in time' system for getting support and tracking
student work to keep students progressing through their program in a successful
and timely way, which is invaluable for heavily committed mid- and senior-level-
educational professionals.
Concludes onecolleague, "'The recommendation to reduce-the number of EdD
students to 60 (in all probability three cohorts) may not be straightforward.
Under the present economic conditions, the Faculty might have to reduce EdD
numbers, but that course of action has to be examined very carefully to see if it in
fact places us in another kind of fiscal difficulty, relative to the tenure-line
appointments we have made on the basis of budgetary allocation through the
WAFTE formula. In principle, we are prepared to rein the program in so that it
does become sustainable and rigorous to the satisfaction of the faculty members,
and are prepared to insist that a consistent process be defined and followed for
the creation of all field, professional, international and academic programs."
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We should note, however, with respect to recommendations #3 and #15, there is
the suggestion of contradictory directions: #3 proposes no further growth in
Graduate Programs, yet #15 proposes "continued development of community-based
off-campus MEd and diploma programs based on models developed by Field Programs
and International Programs."
Responds Field Programs: "Is Recommendation 15 intended to distinguish Field
Programs' and International Programs' efforts and growth from that of
community-based programs offered by Graduate Programs? The fact that the
Team has includeda recommendation specific to two program areas indicates
these two areas are being encouraged to grow at a rate different from the rate of
expansion recommended for other graduate programs. We seek clarification of
the relationship between these two recommendations and the implications for
Field Programs" (see Appendix 2).
With respect to graduate students across all program areas, the External Review
Team, while strongly supportive of the EGSA, did not make recommendations
that address important issues and concerns raised by students. However based
on our self-study, we do see a need for intensified efforts to secure and stabilize
adequate and more equitably distributed funding so more of our students can
pursue full-time studies. We do not at this time have in place enough assured
graduate student funding, and we will pursue this in the coming year. We also
plan to organize workshops on graduate student supervision to address
expressed concerns about quality of supervision, to attend to concerns expressed
in the graduate student surveys about inconsistent course content, and to
address the need for more attention to research methods courses, and qualitative
research methods in particular. Students noted a "lack of intellectual and
institutional community that graduate students need to support them in their
work as new and emerging scholars." We have now instituted a regular faculty
seminar series, of which five sessions have been held since the review, to which
graduate students are invited. We are attending, as well, to needs to involve
graduate students (and sessional instructors) directly in Faculty meetings and on
Faculty committees, as well as to more directly collaborate with EGSA, and to
--encourage strong support for and greater faculty involvement in Educational
Review (#25, #34).
8.
Staff
needs, conditions, working environment, and advancement
(#35 -
39).
• The External Review Team's last recommendations (#36, #37, #38, #39) directly
address working conditions for staff; our concluding response is, accordingly, to
these important directions for further improving the working environment of
-
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"That the University explore the problem of job classification and
reclassification for staff in the Faculty of Education, with a
view to finding a
way to streamline the process" (#36).
"The Assistant to the Dean should make this a priority, and the incoming Dean
should be made aware of the great importance of this. We need APSA managers
to be proactive and sustain this initiative. We need the University to intensify
efforts to get Human Resources to carry out these re-classifications," urged one
colleague. This issue of job classification has undermined morale and consumed
time and resources beyond all proportion to its difficulty to accomplish. This is a
dynamic Faculty, in which many staff are willing and able to master new skill
sets and take on increasingly extensive and demanding responsibilities, and in
order for the FoE to retain, and not just, again and again, re-TRAIN our staff in
the FoE (as well as to promote the 'institutional memory' which keeps any
organization afloat) we need timely help from Human Resources in order to keep
reasonably in tune with the kinds of needs and changing conditions for those
who work here. We can ill afford at a time of budget reduction to lose staff even
as we are asking more of them.
While intensifying our pressure on the University's Human Resources
department to reclassify positions long outstanding, we can at the same time
. ?
make internal revisions to staff assignments and within-classification
enhancements and incentives including recognition, discretionary days, greater
say in scheduling holidays, etc. APSA managers will request input from staff as
to other ways in which we might, internally, ameliorate working conditions
pending full formal job reclassification.
Issues and matters to do with job descriptions must be resolved to include
flexible and creative ways to utilize current and future staff resources. One of the
ways to do this is to build talent and optimize on the use of all differentiated and
staff resources. This is particularly critical due to budget cut backs. The
recommendation of
"annual reviews for all staff members..."
(#37) falls under
the union's responsibility, so while we endorse the value of better and more
regular evaluation at ALL-levels, and not just staff, we will have to devise a
?
--
way -
perhaps making such 'review conversations' a voluntary program -to
take advantage of this recommendation without compromising the authority of
the union over this area. APSA managers expressed the value of uniform,
consistent evaluation criteria and for structured feedback mechanisms.
One staff colleague suggested that "a staff section could be added to the 3-year
plan, so that concerns/ productivity could be mentioned at least every 3 years
rather than every 7 with an external review. [Since] the 3-year plan needs to be
reviewed annually... the staff section would then also be commented upon on a
yearly basis."
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Both APSA and CUPE
staff
greatly favoured a renewed emphasis on career
planning, and providing and encouraging cross-training and professional
development and advancement, devising a plan to build our own talent from
within rather than expending energies and funds into ongoing recruitment and
training, only to lose skilled staff to more attractive positions in other
departments and faculties. To build and reward talent within our own Faculty
will also help us in succession planning. Supervisors could promote and
encourage staff to engage more as team members by invitation to more
integrated faculty and staff meetings and events when appropriate. The External
Review Team recommended "that the
provision of information technology and
technical support on the Burnaby Campus be reviewed, with a view to finding
cost-effective ways of making
improvements and encouraging staff
to share
their knowledge"
(#37). Improved technical support for knowledge-transfer
among knowledgeable and skilled staff working in different program areas will
also help us to capitalize on current APSA expertise and find creative ways to
resolve problems and develop staff, creating an integrated peer and teamwork
environment. No less important is to develop software solutions that actually
work for our staff and our needs, rather than trying to re-tool our staff and our
systems to work with applications built for other purposes that do not serve us
well. We MUST attend to our ongoing needs for better FileMaker solutions and
support.
Conclusion and Summary of Actions Underway and Planned
This Faculty of Education has been well prepared, well advised, and across the
faculty community there has been an expressed readiness to consolidate,
prioritize, and execute well-considered plans.
We began within the period of the self-study itself to revisit and reconsider
governance, to initiate collaborative cross-Faculty budget planning, to undertake
space and technology restructuring, to better inform, advise and support new
and junior faculty; to devise strategic plans for leadership succession, to
reiruvigOratê - bur scholarly community by initiatinga regular faultythinar
series, and to build stronger and more effective and efficient communications
and structural linkages across our program locations.
We welcome further changes that enhance scholarly excellence, the advancement
of the field, service to the community and to the profession, and the
improvement of conditions for learning, and for working across the FoE. The
External Review Team's structural recommendations, as we work out how best
to implement these, recognize that, "Any changes to the Faculty's pgai__
structure or governance must preserve the integrity and distinctiveness of
individual program areas." As we consider restructuring, we remain attentive to
the need to have strong senior faculty and administration at all of the sites where
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we work, the need to pull all the various programs into more administratively
manageable form without sacrificing their unique contributions, and the need to
conserve resources during a time of serious financial restraint.
However there are constraints upon our ability to plan and to consolidate, which
have at times been beyond our control. Field Programs' submission wrote of a
"desperate need for accurate budget information and predictable financial support for our
programs. We are aware that other program areas share this frustration; however the
consequences for Field Programs are more severe as our area is not included in the
Faculty's traditional base budget. We receive an unstable "base" budget plus premium fee
funding that is based on unreliable data collected from SIMS and dispersed on a slip-year
basis followed by periodic adjustments. Without a stable, accurate flow offrnds and
information we are unable to plan for the short or long term and this, in turn, endangers
our credibility and relationships with current and potential students, and school districts.
The impacts
of
these precarious conditions can only be expected to increase in the context
Of
current and anticipated budget cuts. We found no recognition
of
the difficulties created
by uncertainties in funding our work, nor any recommendations that might enable us to
pursue more reliable financial relationships within the Faculty and/or with the senior
administration in the Team's Report"
(see Appendix 2). We clearly need to bring
more of this program and budget planning within our own purview, and assume
o ?
a larger role in, and responsibility for developing more accurate predictions, in
consistently and regularly tracking our progress so as to become less reliant on
university-level provision of information.
In fact much progress has been made along
these lines in the past several years, not all
of
which may be apparent to all faculty since
this work is necessarily conducted between budget officers.
The ad hoc Governance
and Budget Analysis Committees, to that end, also have been expected to work
more closely with each program committee to enable the FoE to develop greater
autonomy with respect to planning in the service of our critical need for
"accurate budget information, and predictable financial support for our
programs."
The recommendation to create
"a clearer structure that more closely aligns with
the FoE's major operations"
(#31), given our present needs and constraints, will
-
?
- ?
fakë Sothe time to fully-think through. Reserving major structural .. ... --------
rearrangements for the next administration, we propose for the coming year to
work through the existing offices of the two Associate Deans, one based in
Burnaby (Academic) and the other based in Suny (Administration). We propose
to retain our program structures but build linkages among all graduate
programs, whether external, community-based, International, or field programs.
We endorse the proposal to shift the Education Research Office and the Research
Opportunities Committee at least for a time under the portfolio of the Associate
Dean-Academic, who will be responsible for promoting and supporting a
•
?
broader approach to research and scholarship than can fairly be expected when
all research officers share a similar background and expertise in cognitive
psychology. Without fully implementing the structural reorganization proposed
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by the External Review Team, then, we shall consider a clearer structure that
draws together more coherently graduate programs with external, community,
and field programs, such that each retains its own distinct administrative units in
a more expansive graduate program, which in turn streamlines communication
and action. Working in this way, moreover, will support us in exploring the ways
we can link more closely together research, scholarship and teaching. To that end,
Graduate, Undergraduate, and Professional Programs Directors would advise
and confer with the Associate Dean-Academic with respect to appointments and
faculty development, research, scholarship, and educational technology; and
with the Associate Dean-Administration with respect to enrollment, space, and
core systems technology. It will be the responsibility of the two Associate Deans
and the Director of Administration to work closely together to make
administration work smoothly and effectively in support of scholarship,
research, teaching, and professional development. We will see how far this
approach takes us, and review what has been accomplished and what this
modified restructuring might leave still unaddressed, at the end of a year, that is,
by June 15, 2009. This leaves major structural decisions for the next Dean, while
advancing considerably the spirit and intents of the External Review Team's
recommendations.
To act upon recommendation #39, "that staff
concerns about their working
environment, and their recommendations for improvement, be carefully
considered and acted upon,"
we will draw more fully upon the authority,
knowledge and experience of both CUPE and APSA staff. Explicitly, in their
response to this recommendation, APSA staff stressed that, "APSA managers
have the skills and expertise to be involved in discussions that affect operations,
staffing, etc. As such, the APSA group would like to be involved in any
discussions before decisions are made that impact staff." To help secure this
intention, we propose to add a staff section to our three-year plan, so that the
concerns, ideas and proposals of staff can be taken up every three years rather
than every seven, and reviewed annually.
More generally, we will be looking directly to the 'communities of practice'
across th&FOEwithin Whith ?
ti(ttildt'indttets* - cifcOncëmàrise, and seek out the
authoritative input of those who engage most directly with those particulars of
concern, whether those be concerns of faculty, staff, or students. Far from
retreating from our 'complexity' and our differences, this strategy obliges us to
confront these very directly, not in any aspirations for consensus, but in the hope
and expectation that we are not all concerned with
-
nor able to contribute
usefully to -
everything done in so expansive and diverse and inclusive a place
as this Faculty of Education is becoming. We see and acknowledge the need for
regular reviews/ evaluation of courses and programs within each program area,
as well as ongoing tracking of financial conditions, student progress, and
working conditions and advancement for both faculty and staff. We have a well-
formed and well-functioning Executive who can assume responsibility for the
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necessary 'wide angled' overview of Faculty operations that help us see more
clearly those structure by which we are best accomplishing our goals.
Devising a succession plan for hiring (#23), specifically to find a better balance
of junior and mid-level faculty members, and to support the pursuit of priorities
we have determined can begin now, although we are of course presently
experiencing a hiring freeze. In the meantime, we shall encourage the FTPC, in
cooperation with the Dean, Associate Dean-Academic and the Research
Opportunities Committee, to lead renewed efforts at supporting and developing
junior faculty (#24) through a focused and regular program of meetings
concerned with FTPC file preparation, graduate and particularly doctoral
supervision, difficulties with teaching, workshops on writing and publishing,
research needs and opportunities, and the strengthening of scholarly community
through a regular faculty seminar series. Junior and pre-tenure faculty will be
consulted about their own perspectives on workload and the supports they need
to succeed. As well, specific 'protective' changes will be pursued (e.g.,
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/iO3/03cOO101.htm)
involving graduated
responsibilities, limits on supervision numbers for beginning faculty, and
exploring co-supervision structures.
As to immediate plans, we propose a series of discussions in various contexts for
. ?
the revisiting of our strategic plan, to update mission and vision statements, state
prime values in specific terms, and adopt operational approaches to respond to
the external review, to be completed before the Dean Search Committee sets its
long list of candidates so that we might contribute to the conceptualization of the
search process. Implementing our strategic plan demands that we periodically
take stock of our progress and seek appropriate leadership. We can be guided by
University priorities, but we also need, at the Faculty level, to seek out and to
build Faculty-wide consensus in research, program development and community
engagement. One goal is to actively seek out promising initiatives responsive to
university priorities that appear capable of drawing faculty together, consolidate
our strengths and afford a common focus, goal and mission. For example, a
Faculty-wide collaboration that builds on the University's priorities with respect
- -
to
- the -
environment might take the form of multi-disciplinary research and
development involving 'green schools' and 'ecological pedagogy,' a trajectory
that is of great interest to several colleagues. We value a diversity of individual
commitments; we also value the development of shared goals and collaborative
activities, declared priorities around which all members of the Faculty can rally.
With the current and projected fiscal reductions, and having an Acting Dean for a
one-year term, we see the road immediately ahead as one of consolidation, not
..................further growth. We have gained a large number of excellent junior colleagues:
• ?
our job now is their support and development. We have built new programs:
now our work is to stabilize, monitor, evaluate and strengthen them. We have
initiated reviews of budget and governance: now we work on implementation.
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This is a time to conserve and consolidate, to turn our attentions inward,
building collegial, scholarly, research and professional bonds within and across
our Faculty and its constitutive communities of practice, and to cultivate the
excellence we have here.
Armed with a most encouraging and helpful external review, we share the
External team's confidence:
"We have every reason to expect that the members of
Simon Fraser's Faculty of Education are, in fact, poised to take on this challenge.., to
achieve its vision and its goals"
(p.
32).
L
r
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SSection
The Executive's
Two
Response to Recommendations
1.
We think it is quite appropriate to reconsider our priorities on a regular basis,
including at retreats of the Executive or faculty, Faculty meetings, ad hoc
committees and/or one or more Faculty forums. Budgetary and other
conditions constantly change and call upon us to revisit our plans. Our
mission and vision statements and strategic plan provide a context for such
discussion. In terms of calendar, such discussion should be coordinated with
the development of budgets. Ad hoc Budget Analysis and Governance
Committees are currently meeting; an Executive and Research Opportunities
Committee retreat is scheduled in late June, and such deliberations will
continue in the fall. The first stage of the work of the ad hoc Governance
Committee has been to produce a document clearly articulating the
"Principles and Procedures of Governance for the SFU Faculty of Education."
Through this document, beginning faculty members will have a clear point of
reference into the process of roles and responsibilities of various Directors,
and into opportunities to contribute to democratic and consensual decision-
making. It is interesting that the Faculty position on this matter has evolved
over the past few years. We note the response to this matter in the 2001
. ?
Response to the External Review: "The suggestion that the Faculty devote
energy to developing a written constitution/ set of by-laws/or handbook
received little support in discussions of the report. Most of the governance of
the Faculty is already described in written form, i.e., the mandate,
composition, and procedures for election of Program Committees, the
Appointments Committee, the Faculty Tenure Committee, and Program
Directors. Although there is enthusiasm for improving how we operate
within our current governance structure, there is little support for becoming
any more legalistic or procedural and, indeed, some saw the task of
developing a written document of the sort described by the Review
Committee as a "black hole" task, unlikely to achieve the desired pay off.
Thus, in terms of governance, the priority is seen to be continued discussion
-------of and implementation of changes to.howwe..use-current.structures' (p. 3).............................-
An update to the Strategic Plan would be an appropriate documentation of this
process, along with the forthcoming budget and governance changes that are
recommended for Faculty operations by the Executive or our ad hoc committees.
At the same time it bears noting that external conditions, such as provincial
funding patterns and licensure policies greatly affect our sphere of work. Our
priorities must be highly attuned to our broad political and institutional
environment or they will be of little functionality.
.
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2.
Generally we think that commitment to broad-based scholarship and practice
exists across our programs, but perhaps what we should take from this
recommendation is that at the program level each relevant coordinator or director
should be called upon to give evidence that such practices are in place.
In the
absence of program-specific external or accreditation reviews, this will
require a good bit of self-discipline. We could put our programs on a rotation,
however, and subject each to this type of scrutiny.
The Executive will initiate a
process within the Faculty for this type of ongoing evaluation.
3.
We concur that our graduate programs are in general at an appropriate size
given our resources. The one exception is premium-fee programs that carry
their own funding integrity with them. Field Programs, for example, may be able
to make a case for some expansion in the next two years.
They are turning away
many qualified students. Our French language programs have subsidized,
empty seats that should not be included in caps. Areas that function on
differentiated staffing are able to increase capacity much more quickly and
efficiently than traditional programs. The challenge is maintaining quality
and faculty oversight. We must address the competing forces to respond to
market demand and the competitive environment in a way that does not
compromise the quality of our programs. For example, is a large premium-fee
program, by definition, a program with low faculty oversight, privileged
students, and low standards? Is a small, subsidized core program, by
definition, a program with high faculty involvement, disadvantaged students
and high standards? Building capacity will mean making choices about self
definition and adapting to the consequences.
4.
We also concur that PDP is at an appropriate size that in fact will be
challenging to sustain given our province's demographics and increased
competition in
this field.
We have not developed a premium fee PDP, but this
should be considered especially for targeted audiences that would attract
philanthropic or governmental subsidy.
We also have subsidized, empty seats in
French immersion
PDP
that we would like to fill in order to assist the
province in this area of teacher shortage.
5.
In the short term we think it would bean unwise use of Faculty resources to
conduct a major restructuring since the current systems are managing a
highly complex set of challenges very well. The reliability and accuracy of the
current program model is perhaps underappreciated in the visitors' response.
These systems are moving thousands of students through an abundance of
complex curricula with excellent quality control. This consistent, effective
delivery of services has lulled some into complacency about the mass of
precise administrative work that is being done. On the other hand we
certainly can extract from the visitors' recommendation on restructuring some
limited reforms that are feasible. Ongoing curriculum review including the search
for consolidation of courses is one such initiative; another is program research aimed
REV 06-25-2008 ?
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at refining program quality. Our new direct-entry BEd program is a priority in this
regard.
6-8. As stated above, an evaluative process of the type recommended would be
needed if consistent, meaningful reforms were to be made across programs.
This is a major undertaking that the Executive should consider.
We have a sound
model in the experience of the Research Opportunities Committee that in
2007 conducted such a review with external visitors and since then has been
following up on the recommendations.
9.
We agree with the importance of fully employing teaching performance in the
evaluation of faculty. In April 2008, we held a forum on a family of topics
related to this one and launched a serious dialogue about how to do better in
this area. The Tenure & Promotion Committee has been charged with the revision of
our policies in evaluating teaching.
Detailed minutes of the forum were placed in
the Faculty meeting minutes.
10.
We concur with the recommendation. The problem, however, is documenting
the quality of such work, especially in unconventional teaching settings such
as PDP and Field Programs. As a part of the process described in 9,
we have
targeted this project for attention by the respective Program Committees and
Directors.
11.
To us, the suggested curricular coordination is highly desirable and a teacher
education task force is addressing some of those issues currently. We do not
believe an administrative restructuring is desirable or necessary. What is
needed is strong, visionary leadership that is committed to real change in the
curriculum. The possibilities are enormous when an integrated four- to
five-year program is contemplated as the venue for renewal.
12.
Increased faculty involvement is most desirable and closely related to the
reward structure and evaluation reforms described above.
13:Ebedding facultyresearch in
-
the PDP is a way of forging connections ------
between scholarship and professional practice. The Institute for Studies in
Teacher Education (ISTE) directed by Peter Grimmett is one locus for such
work. So, too, are the Faculty research centres, the CRC Chairs, and the
faculty members who provide curricular leadership when they teach in
Professional Programs. The Professional Programs Committee is advised to oversee
and promote this type of scholarly activity through the initiative of its PDP
Re-visioning Subcommittee and the research initiatives offaculty members with PDP
teaching assignments, in keeping with the distinctiveness and acknowledged quality
of the PDP
REV 06-25-2008 ?
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14.
We are committed to integrated development and implementation of
Graduate and Field Programs and bringing the program committees closer
together in communication, but merging the two program areas has a number
of disadvantages, including the straightforward one that the workload would
be excessive for a director who wished to remain active at all as a scholar-
researcher. The faculty have expressed a preference for their peers to serve as
our program directors, rather than a professionalization of these roles. We
therefore must design those roles in a manner that permits fully functioning
professors to occupy them. In our opinion the goals cited here are obtainable
without this type of position amalgamation.
15.
We very much appreciate the reviewers' support for our community-based
and diploma programs. This evaluation affirms our longstanding
commitment to these efforts to serve our colleagues in education and related
fields.
16.
The recommendation to develop guidelines on the determination of
independent and consolidated PhD programs is good advice and could be
required prior to the creation of any further such programs.
After our recent
period of expansion, it makes sense to now take stock of where we are and set future
policy in light of our experience. The Graduate Programs Director has begun such
deliberations.
17.
There may be a significant contextual factor overlooked in the visitors'
concern about our PhD expansion and that is the low PhD matriculation prior
to the expansion. Up to 2004, in the Faculty's history, only 99 graduates of
these programs were recorded. At that time, 27 of approximately 53 faculty
members had zero or one student as a Senior Supervisee. It should be
recognized that the Faculty had not developed its full capacity in this area.
Therefore, to consider only the rate of increase since 2004 without this history,
leads to questionable conclusions about growth metrics. It should also be said
that with one exception, the increase was stimulated by an invitation to
academic coordinators to build capacity to which they enthusiastically
-------responded;-No other-measures were necessary. (In the one exception, a ................
program that was doing alternate year admissions of four to five students
was told that a retiring faculty member would not be replaced if they wished
to remain at their current staffing level. Another program expressed its wish
not to grow since, in their, professional view, they were at a sustainable level.
They were told that they could proceed according to their preference and
have done so.)
It should be noted that students should have a critical mass of peers in order
------
lity-d---al ?
should be the opportunity for -. -
?
community and dialogue in an outstanding doctoral program. Students
should enter the profession with some base of colleagues.
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Finally, the proliferation of doctoral tracks has come entirely from faculty
initiative and has been vetted through the University's stringent process. We
have been loath to deny qualified groups of faculty the opportunity to design
and implement doctoral programs of their choosing. At the same time we do
welcome a period of consolidation and stock taking.
Such reflection would be
prudent and constructive in the wake of a period of growth and should take place
under the guidance of the Graduate Programs Director.
18. Amid a good deal of positive comment regarding the EdD, the reviewers
express a strong reservation about the burden being placed on pre-tenure
faculty and advise capping enrolment in the English language cohorts at 40. It
should be noted that the program has been built over a decade and resourced
to reach its current capacity of approximately 90. To reduce its capacity in
such a dramatic fashion would undermine the expectations of many and
leave the Faculty with an underutilized infrastructure.
An alternative approach is to bring further support to the pre-tenure faculty
whom the reviewers believe are burdened in the area of supervision. To us
this is a much-preferred way to address the perceived problem.
The Executive
should take up this recommendation immediately. Our estimate is that, by revisiting
the costs recovered from the University, program resources should be supplemented by
. ?
approximately $30,000 to redress the load being put on the pre-tenure coordinators of
the EdD in a manner to be negotiated with them and the Graduate Programs
Director.
In our opinion, the significance of this program for the Faculty of Education
at SFU is underappreciated by some. Through this program and some others
we have the opportunity to prepare the leadership cadre that will direct BC's
K-12 education, two ministries, and BC college/ specialized university
administration into the indefinite future. This will benefit BC, since the
alternative is low-quality transported and on-line programs. This will benefit
SFU's Faculty of Education in reputation, faculty satisfaction, applied
research, influence and advancement. We need to resource the capacity we
haveplannedfor.
--------------------- ?
-..-.-.----_-•-•- ?
_..._
We have built all our programs around some of SFU's idiosyncratic structures
and policies. Our University does invest junior faculty with more authority
and opportunity than most other institutions. Those policies (such as senior
supervision by Assistant Professors and co-supervision) were honoured in the
development of many of our programs. Although the external reviewers
expressed some reservations about University policy in this regard, the
University has not had second thoughts about these policies. Until and unless
- .................thUni versity altèsitpolicies, ünituch
?
-
. ?
structures we have been given. We are, however, seeking to better protect our
junior faculty by means described elsewhere in this document (see #24).
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19.
At this point in our history it probably makes most sense to consider applying
premium fees to all programs in certain areas (such as educational
leadership/ administration) and, separately, to those cohorts that incur extra
costs due to remote delivery and other similar factors. If we discern an issue
for certain students related to affordability, the bursary model could be
applied by raising fees generally and redistributing some of the tuition. At the
present time we have far more demand for our premium-fee programs than
we can meet and there has been little expression of concern about the pricing.
Note also that these programs are for working adults and result in significant
pay increases and career advancement. Given the provincial government's
cutbacks in funding we are likely to become more, not less, reliant on the
premium-fee model. It is worth noting also that the people of British
Columbia have knowingly supported this government through the ballot box
and, one must infer, consequently support the government's policies toward
advanced education. SFU is not removed from the financial impact of higher
education policy in the province.
20.
We appreciate the support of the visitors for our professional development
and international efforts. It is our intention to keep these programs strong.
21.
The team gives wise counsel on the breadth of research and scholarship that
best serve our Faculty interest. We concur.
22.
The suggestion that we create a succession plan is worthwhile. Similar to all
efforts at planning in BC at the present time, serious limitations ensue. The
provincial government has taken to not only reducing budgets but also to
micromanaging more of the funds that do come through the Ministry of
Advanced Education. In various ways AVED seeks to direct which programs
receive targeted funding and their priorities change from year to year with
little or no warning. Planning is certainly desirable, but we must note the
uncertain context in which we deliver our courses and programs.
Approximately
1
/6
of our new hires over the past four years have been at the
-----Associate leveL-Our current distribution among the tenuré-line.ranks is .----------.-.--. -
approximately 14 Full Professors, 19 Associate Professors, and 26 Assistant
Professors.
23.
Recently we held a Faculty forum to discuss further renewal, tenure, and
promotion issues such as the evaluation of research. We have underway the
process of revising the relevant policies. With this said, we would point out
that our core requirement of peer-reviewed articles in ranking journals is
likely to remain the most fair and appropriate criterion for judging research,
particularly -
fôitenürë decisions'. There is not only a high standard integral to••
such work but also it is the most valuable means for projecting the Faculty's
ideas and reputation.
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24. We do take to heart the importance of mentoring our junior faculty and have
taken a variety of creative measures in order to facilitate this. Many are
mentioned by the reviewers. In a recent meeting between the Assistant
Professors and the Dean a discussion of procedures for co-publishing with
graduate students suggested that a workshop on this skill set should be sponsored
by the Research Opportunities Committee.
At that same meeting, these
recommendations from a Chronicle of Higher Education article were
tendered and are offered as an example of actions that should be considered by the
graduate programs committee to best develop assistant professors as mentors:
• New Assistant Professors should sit in on both comprehensive exams and
dissertation defenses as an observer immediately upon joining the
department.
• New hires should direct their first two dissertation committees jointly with
a senior colleague.
• Regardless of graduate school policy, departments should establish
safeguards to ensure that a new faculty member will not take on an advisee
in the first year of employment. Limits should be set on the number of
advisees an Assistant Professor is allowed before earning tenure.
• Individual programs should be encouraged to set written expectations and
standards for directing a dissertation.
(See: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/iO3/03cOO101.htm).
25.
This recommendation to intensify faculty communication about research and
•
scholarship has our unqualified support. This has been an area of continual
attention and limited success during the past five years. We are launching a
new series of colloquia as this is being written.
Both the Associate Dean-
Academic and the Research Opportunities Committee will continue to be active in
this regard.
26.
We are currently and will continue to build the type of exchange mentioned
here under current leadership structures. There may be a future restructuring,
but we are not waiting for that prior to beginning this work.
The Executive is
- ?
central to our current activities as well as the Research Opportunities Committee.—-
• ?
27. This recommendation about the representation of the range of research
orientations is welcome and, within the limits imposed by elections, we shall
seek to implement it.
This
is a message for future deans who are influential in the
• ? nominating process.
28. The period of rapid expansion of centres is over, and
study and consolidation of
their missions would be appropriate and will be undertaken by the Executive and the
Centre Directors. ?
-- ?
---------
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29.
The study of possible synergies among the centres is a welcome idea and one
that the Research Opportunities Committee might well take up.
Already
Centre Directors have begun meeting on this subject.
30.
Our recent Faculty forum examined the difficulty we have in evaluating
teaching and service. A process of policy and procedural review is underway
to improve this aspect of governance. Some progress has already been made
in the design of our teaching evaluation forms, although we still need further
attention to this in program areas such as Field Programs and PDP.
Those
Program Directors will be encouraged to take up this recommendation.
31.
This recommendation about governance restructuring is not one we resonate
with. We do not agree that our structure is "top heavy, impedes
communication, and creates barriers." Authority is spread among a great
many individuals such as an Executive of 11 members, 25 academic
coordinators, four program committees with 16 total faculty members, and
several other major committees. On the other hand, rolling much of the
authority of autonomous Program Directors into the offices of Associate
Deans would to us be much less diffuse in the distribution of authority.
32.
The recommendations to reconsider the constitution of and participation in
the Faculty meetings is welcome and should be acted upon.
An ad hoc
Governance Committee has been in place for several months and is looking at such
issues.
We think a review of the minutes of the meetings and the Faculty
forums will show that there is healthy debate and meaningful decision-
making going on in Faculty meetings. We believe that by turning out for
meetings and expressing oneself, each faculty member votes powerfully to
make the venue more significant and means should be found to heighten
participation and attendance.
The freezing of EdD admissions for the calendar year 2007 is a clear example
of the advise and consent role of the Faculty meeting and the attentiveness of
the Executive to the voice of the faculty. Other examples include addressing
gender and tenure status in the composition-of the Executive.-------- ?
-
33.
To us it is certainly worthwhile to re-examine procedural issues such as
authority and transparency and we have an ad hoc committee on governance
that is doing so. This committee itself is another example of the
administration's desire to respond to faculty concerns and consult widely.
The ad hoc Budget Analysis Committee is another such example and was
created by the administration without calls for it from the faculty in order to
-. -- - broaden consultation.
Better rates of attendance at Faculty meetings and forums would also
contribute to a perception of "transparency." ?
0
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34.
We appreciate the support of the External Review Team for our community
building efforts. The Executive intends to continue moving ahead with this work.
35.
We plan to implement the recommendations on communication and
resources at Surrey. Additionally, the Dean and Executive will heighten their
presence on that campus through more scheduled meetings and visits such as our
June 16th forum on governmental relations.
36.
The Dean's Office will use the findings of the review to renew our efforts at working
with Human Resources to more effectively classify our staff, along with other related
projects.
37.
The suggestion that annual reviews of staff should more comprehensively occur is
valid and will be taken to the Executive for action that comports with collective
agreements.
Reviews should be seen as developmental in nature and an
opportunity for growth and planning.
38.
The Associate Dean-Academic has been addressing these technology concerns with
considerable seriousness of purpose and will continue to do so.
39.
We can always do more to complete the circle of listening, acting, and
.
?
reporting back results. The Dean meets each semester with each staff group;
once a semester each sends a representative to an Executive meeting.
Further
means of communication will be developed by the Dean in consultation with other
groups.
I
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Appendix 1: EGSA Response in Full
Re: Report from the External Review Team: Response from EGSA Executive
The EGSA Executive would like to express our appreciation to the External
Review Team for the thorough job they did in writing this review and in
providing thoughtful and challenging recommendations.
As the current executive leadership in EGSA, we were generally pleased that the
External Review Team recognized the work that EGSA does in supporting the
graduate student population and our contributions to the Faculty as a whole.
They commended the EGSA for assisting new scholars, creating "venues for
intellectual exchange" by organizing "an astonishing array of events", and
representing graduate students on various governance bodies
(p.
19).
In addition to this recognition, we applaud the team's recommendation that the
Faculty of Education do more to directly and indirectly support our efforts on
behalf of graduate students and for the benefit of the Faculty as a whole. To that
end, we are willing to work with the Faculty and to share our ideas as to how
Faculty could better support graduate students. So as to give the Faculty some
direction in the initiatives the Faculty might initiate to support the graduate
student population, EGSA has created a "wish list" of things we ask the Faculty
to undertake: http://www.sfu.ca/egsa/resources
—forms/wishlist/wishlist.html
The EGSA Executive would have liked to see the review team mention some of
the concerns of graduate students, which were shared with them during the
formal meeting and at the reception. These concerns included:
• The lack of intellectual and institutional community that graduate students
need to support them in their work as new and emerging scholars
• Discussions about the varied interpretations of scholarship and what it means
to be a scholar within the Faculty
• How Sessional Instructors are (un)represented within Faculty governance
-----
•
---Inconsistencyin quality of supervision - -
?
------------------------- ------
• The availability of professors to supervise graduate students
• Inconsistencies in course content and teaching in PhD programs
• Lack of opportunities for research assistant-ships among large segments of the
graduate student population.
We would have liked to see such concerns as these acknowledged in the final
report.
Fiñiàll
?
èoiildlikiithánk Dr.deCastell for her efforts aid
accomplishments in including graduate students in this review exercise. We look
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4
?
forward to continuing our involvement as the Faculty engages in stages of
discussion and decision-making that will follow in the months to come.
Thank you very much.
J.M. Young
GPC Representative
On behalf of EGSA Executive
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Appendix 2: Field Programs' Response to the Report of the External
Evaluation Team
We're grateful for the recognition given to the work undertaken by the faculty,
staff and students involved in Field Programs. We offer the comments below on
the document in an effort to enhance its clarity and impact.
Valuing the work we do in the Faculty of Education (Recommendations 1 & 2):
1.
We recommend that the Faculty construct a set of priorities from which to
operate over the coming years against which all of their individual and
collective work can be planned, carried out, and evaluated.
2.
We recommend that a broad-based orientation to scholarship and practice be
used to guide how the Faculty of Education both understands and makes
decisions about program excellence.
Field Programs endorses the recommendation that the faculty re-examine its•
priorities and take a broader look at the relationship between scholarship and
practice. We feel the work undertaken in Field Programs would be better
understood and appreciated as a result of this process.
Restructuring the Faculty of Education in order to address issues around
communication, transparency, decision-making and governance
(Recommendations 5,14
& 31):
5. We recommend that the five programs be restructured into two
organizational units: Professional Development unit (Undergraduate
Programs, Professional Programs and International Programs) and Graduate
Education unit (Graduate Programs, Field Programs, and International
Programs).
14. We recommend the enhanced and integrated development and
implementation of the graduate education programs as afforded through the
restructuring of Graduate Education and Field Programs into a Graduate
Education unit (with affiliations with International Programs as appropriate).
31. We recommend that the organizational structure of the Faculty be re-
- ---.-.--. ----..-- examined with a view to creating a clearer structure that more closely-aligns-
with its major operations; a proposal to initiate discussion appears in
Appendix C. This structure would involve two Associate Dean positions: the
Associate Dean (Graduate Education and Research) established in parallel
with the position of Associate Dean (Professional Development).
Field Programs is already included under the umbrella of Graduate Programs to
some extent, however we agree communication can be improved. We would look
forward to considering options for enhancing the flow of information with or
ithout
?
to the
governance must preserve the integrity and distinctiveness of individual
program areas. If the relationship between Field Programs and other units
REV 06-25-2008 ?
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involved in graduate studies
is
restructured, we must ensure these features of
Field Programs activities are preserved:
• Field Programs' Graduate Diploma programs would still require a distinct,
separate infrastructure to support students and support relationships with
school districts. This is due to the nature of the relationships among program
staff; students and school districts, which are unique and essential to the
success of our programs;
• The differentiated staffing model involving mentors, seconded teachers (as
faculty associates) and faculty is essential to the strength and credibility of our
programs and relationships with educators and school districts.
• The academic integrity of our programs must be protected as it might be lost
in restructuring;
• Field Programs must retain its ability to develop programs in collaboration
with School Districts so programs continue to be responsive to the on-going
and shifting needs for professional development evident in the field;
• Field Programs must be able to respond to requests from districts in outlying
areas (outside of the Lower Mainland area);
• The focus on practitioner inquiry through field study work;
• Community-based cohort model which develops district-based professional
learning communities;
. ?
• The cumulative, non-graded assessment process;
' Admission policies and procedures that acknowledge teachers' commitment to
professional development as the primary consideration for admission.
External Evaluation (Recommendation 8):
8. We recommend periodic external reviews of the teacher education and
graduate programs that are not already reviewed by accrediting bodies.
Field Programs welcomes the Review Teams support for an external review
process. However, given the state of our financial resources it is unlikely that we
will be able to engage is such a process unless external funds are provided by the
Dean, senior administration or other sources for that purpose.
Errors in the text of the report supporting Recommendation 14:
There are a number of errors in the paragraph on page 14 (highlighted in. italics
below).
"The community-based (off-campus) MEd and diploma programs developed and
implemented by Field Programs and International Programs offer educators
relevant, responsive, and principled programs. For example, in the case of Field
Programs, programs are grounded in principles of teacher/ professional learning,
self -dfrétéd, inquiry- -
oriented, and
. ?
creative pedagogical experiences. These Programs have relied on either a
differentiated or a sessional/contract staffing model, one that involves faculty
REV 06-252008 ?
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volunteered
members when
14.5
available.
courses (7
In
faculty
the 2005-2007
members)
period,
to the
faculty
Field Programs
members
(sometimes
only
?
the
is
involvement requires a stipend)..."
Possible confusion regarding Field Programs' community-based MEds and
those offered by Graduate Programs: We want to make it clear that the MEd
programs offered by Field Programs are distinctive in length, structure and
nature from those offered under the auspices of Graduate Programs.
Correction regarding costs related to faculty involvement in Field Programs:
Faculty is seldom, if ever, on a "volunteer" basis. Unlike Undergraduate,
Professional and Graduate Programs, Field. Programs must pay real dollars to
purchase faculty workload assignments or other portions of their time. Some
programs have purchased short-term visits from faculty. Others required
payment of a full sessional instructor salary at a flat rate equivalent to the cost
of a 4-credit assignment although the course they taught may have had only a
2- or 3-credit value to students. Please note the use of the past tense in the
preceding sentences, as this over-payment cannot continue in the context of
increasing sessional instructor rates and budget reductions. We would
appreciate the Review Team's support for our efforts to address and resolve
this problem in our efforts to increase faculty involvement.
Request for clarification regarding Recommendations 3 & 15:
3. We recommend the consolidation of graduate programs with no further
expansion in enrolment.
15. We recommend the continued development of community-based off-campus
MEd and diploma programs based on models developed by Field Programs
and International Programs.
Recommendations 3 and 15 seem to be contradictory from the perspective of
Field Programs - is the team recommending expansion of community-based off-
campus MEd and diploma programs, or not? Is Recommendation 15 intended to
distinguish Field Programs' and International Programs' efforts and growth from
that of community-based programs offered by Graduate Programs? The fact that
---•---the-Team has-included a recommendation specific to two program areas indicates
these two areas are being encouraged to grow at a rate different from the rate of
expansion recommended for other graduate programs. We seek clarification of
the relationship between these two recommendations and the implications for
Field Programs.
Missing from the Recommendations:
A dominant theme in Field Programs' submission to the Faculty's Self-Study
document was the desperate need for accurate budget information and
prédic table
financiál uppóit fdür prdgräñiWe are awarethaf other program
areas share this frustration however the consequences for Field Programs are
more severe as our area is not included in the Faculty's traditional base budget.
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We receive an unstable "base" budget plus premium fee funding that is based on
unreliable data collected from SIMS and dispersed on a slip-year basis followed
by periodic adjustments. Without a stable, accurate flow of funds and
information we are unable to plan for the short or long term and this, in turn,
endangers our credibility and relationships with current and potential students,
and school districts. The impacts of these precarious conditions can only be
expected to increase in the context of current and anticipated budget cuts. We
found no recognition of the difficulties created by uncertainties in funding our
work, nor any recommendations that might enable us to pursue more reliable
financial relationships within the Faculty and/or with the senior administration
in the Team's Report.
In closing...
We appreciate the Team's recognition of Field Programs' accomplishments and
the strength of our relationships with in-service educators and school districts.
We realize it is our responsibility to represent the distinctive nature of the work
undertaken in Field Programs and the challenges created by the differences in the
way it operates (e.g., financing) as compared to the other program areas in the
Faculty of Education. We also realize that this may not have been achieved in the
documentation provided to the External Review Team. We look forward to
accomplishing this in our on-going self-study. In the meantime, we would
.
?
appreciate the Team's recommendations regarding our need for predictable
funding and accurate information to guide our efforts to plan for the future.
.
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Appendix 3: External Communications Office Response to the External
Review Report
A.
External Communications
In response to the External Review report, page 19, where the reviewers
expressed that "there has also been an extraordinary effort to make visible the
research of faculty through the Office of External Communications, by the
measures we were given, this effort has met with considerable success," the
External Communications Office is pleased to know that the reviewers
recognized the value of external communications. It should be noted that the
strategy for the next two years is to focus on directing our external
communications efforts to continue to promote our faculty research at the
provincial level and to promote this research to an additional national and
international stage as well.
In response to the recommendation that a restructuring that involve the External
Communications Office that, "there may be ways that the Director of
Administrative Relations, the External Communications Office, and the
Executive Committee of the Education Graduate Student Association could join
forces in enhancing opportunities for sharing research, within the Faculty, in the
broader university context, and beyond," the External Communications Office
notes that consideration of this recommendation will require thoughtful
assessment and planning for optimal effectiveness. The External
Communications Office should be involved at the very early stages of this
discussion.
B.
Internal Communications
Contributions by all program areas and units may demonstrate a greater
commitment to addressing our own Faculty's internal communications. By using
existing internal committees with the Associate Dean-Administration's office,
providing coordination this may be achieved. Both external and internal
activities may be then recognized and offer interface for all staff and faculty. This
might include:
a) A recommendation from the External Reviewers in which there is a, "...need
for appropriate mechanisms for intellectual exchange including, retreats,
colloquia, seminars, and common communication platforms or templates to
make research interests more visible. This need for intellectual exchange was
just as visible during the site visit for the 2008 external review. Faculty
members, Faculty Associates, and graduate students expressed a strong
desire to learn more about the research of their colleagues. At the same time
that faculty members pointed to the need for this type of intellectual
• exchange, some lamented that when research seminars or other information
sessions were held, attendance was often poor. It should be noted that there
has been progress on this front, particularly in the last couple of years. For
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0example, the electronic newsletter, InRange, was instigated by the Director of
Administrative Relations. Further plans are in the making." (page 19)
b) To assess the situation in order to ensure initiatives are cost-effective
(particularly given the current budget restraints) and accountable for efforts
and achievements. To do this, any approach would require information,
planning, and a strategy for implementation. For example, several questions
need to be asked and answered in order to determine the best approach:
• how are the faculty, staff, and students communicating with one another
now?
• what information are people wanting?
• how do people want to receive information?
• how often do people want to receive information?
• what possible internal communications vehicles can be established now?
.
M
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Appendix 4:
APSA Response
?
0
APSA MEETING: RESPONSE TO THE EXTERNAL REVIEW (May 5, 2008)
Attendees: Derek Warren, Howard Leung, Catherine Clarke, Jacquie Breadon,
Ruby Ng
A group of APSA managers attended a feedback meeting to discuss the response
to recommendations made by the external reviewers pertaining to the-work
environment and staff in the Faculty of Education at SFU. A draft of the response
was then distributed to the broader APSA group for review and comments. In
general, the APSA group was able to identify where efforts are already in place'
associated with the recommendations, were able to brainstorm additional
solutions, and agreed that discussions can and should continue during APSA
meetings, as well as, between managers and staff in program areas and work
units.
Working Environment
We recommend:
35. That the problem of obtaining sufficient resources and technical support on
the Surrey campus be explored and that dedicated videoconferencing facilities
be established on both campuses. ?
0
While discussions are already taking place regarding tech support at the Surrey
campus, pending budget, during the feedback discussion, the APSA group
highlighted the importance of recognizing the complexity of this issue for both
the Surrey and Burnaby campuses. The complexity transcends the immediate
demands for technology and equipment, and even the need for a more robust
technical infrastructure, but also the allocation of financial and staffing resources
to support the infrastructure and needs during a time of budget restraints, effects
on efficiency and productivity, and even the human impact (workload, stress,
etc.). An important aspect of planning is for everyone to remember that the issue
- -- . ----..-- - --isn't about technological tools but also- how-they are used. -Training and re--- ................................- ........-
training should be considered among staff.
The group felt it is important to note that this is not a CET problem, but an issue
that affects program area staff and the Faculty as a whole, and requires a solution
that involves collaborative participation. For example, the group highlighted the
importance for careful project planning (both current and future projects) that
identify technology needs in order to get ahead of what ultimately needs to be
achieved rather than implementing band-aid solutions when problems arise.
A suggestion for staff to identify and discuss cost-effective ways of finding
solutions and sharing information was made. For example, regarding the
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communication between the Surrey and Burnaby campuses, given the current
budget restraints that may delay ideal solutions such as video conferencing
facilities, a suggestion was made to, in the meantime, establish policies and
protocols to support communication between staff from both campuses. Other
suggestions and ideas included increasing cost-recovery measures whether for
facilities or services, or possibly seeking external funding. Proposed solutions
should first be planned and then implemented as a pilot project, possibly at the
Surrey campus. It was again noted that even solutions depend on the availability
of additional resources.
36.
That the University explore the problems of job classification and
reclassification for staff in the Faculty of Education, with a view to finding a
way to streamline the process.
To date, the APSA group, in addition to individual contacts with HR, have met
with Dario Nonis specifically on this issue and will continue to raise it with HR.
Due to the fact that this is a university-level HR issue, the APSA group felt that it
was important to continue to stay on the HR radar and be the squeaky wheel,
and reminding HR people that there are positions pending classification, etc.
37.
That annual reviews for all staff members be carried out according to an
agreed timetable and set of guiding principles.
This is a good idea and has already been in discussion amongst the APSA group.
One manager is collecting information from the University regarding a uniform,
standard evaluation for CUPE staff. Other suggestions made include inviting
someone from HR or career counselling to hold a workshop with staff about
career planning and to get staff thinking about expanding professional
opportunities, what qualifications and re-training may be needed.
It was noted that in order to enhance the likelihood of successfully conducting
timely and useful evaluations, they need to be tied into something in addition to
structured feedback. Possible incentives need to be discussed and considered
.-------whether in the-form of recognition, discretionary days, etc. APSA managers will
discuss and also obtain feedback from staff.
38.
That the provision of information technology and technical support on the
Burnaby campus be reviewed, with a view to finding cost-effective ways of
making improvements and encouraging staff to share their knowledge.
See response to #35 above.
39:Tharstaff concerns about their working environment, and their
.
?
recommendations for improvement, be carefully considered and acted upon.
Where this is not possible, staff should be fully apprised of the reasons.
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APSA managers believe that certainly at the program level staff are addressing
internal communications in specific ways, for example, through regular weekly
meetings where discussions regarding issues, concerns, and questions are
encouraged. The group felt it is important to continue this practice so that staff
feel they are being heard and have a person to go to, and also noted that these
discussions will also involve sharing information about the rationale for certain
decisions that were made and a recognition that not everything can be acted
upon as desired. Communication between program areas needs to continue to
happen as well, for example; at APSA group meetings.
Also to Note:
Since restructuring was raised as a possibility in the report from the External
Review, the group felt it was important to note that APSA managers have the
skills and expertise to be involved in discussions that affect operations, staffing,
etc. As such, the APSA group would like to be involved in any discussions before
decisions are made that impact staff.
.
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0
?
Appendix
5:
International Programs Response
Ian Andrews, Bonnie Waterstone, Sharon Wahl, Margaret Froese, Sophie Dunbar
International Programs (IP) is an active member within the University's
institutional and global agenda for internationalization. IP is the primary vehicle
for international initiatives within the Faculty of Education.
It is gratifying that the ERC is respectful of the role that International Programs
(IP) plays within the Faculty as it coordinates the program delivery and the
revenue generation of international consultancies that often lead to credit based
programs and international enrolments e.g., Thailand, Laos, Cambodia (TLC)
Joint Program with Continuing Studies and CIDA (Graduate), Trinidad
International Teacher Education Program (PDP ITEM), and the Field School
Programs in India and Indonesia (Undergraduate).
Furthermore, the ERC indicates that the Faculty attends to a broader based
orientation toward scholarship and practice, which closely follows the
established protocols of International Programs. As a cross-disciplinary program
area, IP works closely with faculty members to facilitate their specific areas of
international research with other members of faculty and with other educational
institutions in Canada and internationally.
In addition, it should be noted that:
1.
The ERC recognizes that in order for the faculty to be recognized in a broader
arena of research, service and teaching, this could lead to increased
involvement in International Programs. There is opportunity for faculty
involvement in the International Masters program, off shore graduate
programs and in short-term non-credit programs.
2.
One of the recommendations of the External Review team was to use a
"broad-based orientation to scholarship and practice... to guide how the
Faculty both understands and makes decisions about program excellence" (p.
10). In further explicating the framework for evaluating programs
.
an&settlng
program priorities, the ERC named the centrality of a praxis of theory and
practice: "students need to engage in the theoretically rigorous study of
practice and practice-based study of theory in order to become exemplary
knowledge workers in their fields"
(p.
10).
3.
We would suggest that this understanding of praxis is the heart of the MEd
programs, in particular the International MEd:
Coordination and on-going meetings of instructional team support a
-
coherent thematic approach throughout the program,-facilitating courses --
.
?
that encourage critique while offering support and contributing to
curriculum development! re-evaluation.
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Cultural assumptions within North American theory/practice cannot be
taken
for
granted in teaching/ learning, which can lead to valuable
critiques from students' "outsider" perspectives and an exciting teaching
experience for instructors.
Practice/ theory embedded in the design of the program with two
Fieldwork courses, coordinated with core courses in educational theory.
Research based on the program is supported, which can then inform
program development. Two Faculty members are currently doing research
based in the International M.Ed. program. Roumi Ilieva is researching
constructions of professional identities of non-native English speakers
teaching EFL. Bonnie Waterstone is researching academic literacy and the
politics of English in teaching international graduate students. In addition,
a work-study Research Assistant has been approved to collect data to
further support the on-going curriculum development of the August
Orientation Program for the arriving students.
4.
Overall faculty involvement in international and global education is evident
with the contributions of such faculty members as Stephen Smith, Michelle
Nilson, Kelleen Toohey, Wanda Cassidy, Ozlem Sensoy, Mark Fettes, Sandy
Vamos and Stephen Marshall to mention just a few. For example, Steve
Marshall is researching academic literacy development
-
a comparative study
of MEd students from Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
5.
Short term international programs were also exemplified and acknowledged
by the ERC for the following reasons:
• Providing professional development to groups of teachers from other
countries, for which this might not be available in home countries.
• Giving SFU faculty and staff the opportunity to present and share their
knowledge, skill, experience, vision and passion.
• Promoting intercultural awareness for all participants.
• Learning from the experience of teachers from other countries.
• Continuing to promote and further strengthen the reputation of the SFU
PDP program, internationally.
Supporting the concept and the reality of.life-Iong learning._.
?
. ........-.
• Contributing financially, in the form of overhead, to the university and the
faculty.
However, there are limitations to the recommendations of the ERC. The
recommendation for two amalgamated organizational units does not take into
consideration the specific roles and responsibilities that are inherent in the five
different program areas.
InAppendix C; the proposed structure simplifies International Programs to
provide international support in both the undergraduate and graduate areas, and
it is unclear to whom the Coordinator of IF would report? Another issue with the
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proposed restructuring is workloads. IF currently has a Director and the
equivalent of two full-time coordinators. The workload of these three positions
could not be handled by one coordinator position as recommended by the ERC.
An amalgamated organizational structure will significantly affect IP, especially in
the crucial area of organizational leadership. Without a Director, it is not clear
how International Programs could continue to have the institutional and
administrative opportunity to provide leadership in all areas of the faculty.
Although international initiatives are important, for most individual faculty
members, international activities are a secondary focus and without sufficient
support from IF these activities may not come to fruition. Therefore, it is unclear
how International Programs could continue to develop, implement and support
credit and non-credit programs when re-organized as recommended by the ERC.
Such initiatives require significant infrastructure support.
The ERC recommendation for organizational amalgamation does not take into
consideration the five different program areas. There is insufficient
documentation to warrant such organizational restructuring. We are very
convinced that this recommendation is not a high priority for the Faculty to
address this coming year, especially when fiscal priorities, new premium fee
non-credit opportunities and selected cutbacks need to be addressed.
In conclusion, it was good to see that the ERC also:
• Encourages the Faculty to continue to support the close community school
base relationship we have with school districts throughout the Province.
• Supports the future of PTEM and APTEM as part of Aboriginal Programs.
• Supports the future of PQP.
• Agrees that the activity of research in both the Professional Development Unit
and International Programs Unit be enhanced by having the Institute for
Studies in Teacher Education.
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Appendix 6: Education Research Office Response (March 2008)
?
0
Philip H. Winne, Research Coordinator, Tracey Leacock, Grants Facilitator,
Geniva Liu, Grants Facilitator
The Faculty's
Self Study Report Fall 07- Spring 08
characterizes the Faculty as "a
research leader among comprehensive universities in Canada... To sustain and
expand this level of accomplishment, the Research Opportunities Committee,
along with the [research] coordinator and an expanded staff have launched a
vigorous process of investment in building research capacity in the Faculty over
the past two years"
(p.
5). Support for this claim is apparent throughout the
Self
Study
wherein each of our Program areas reports applying state-of-the-art
research in its instructional activities, and advancing research and scholarship
though a program of research (see, for example:
pp.
30, 40,41,49, 54, 57, 73, 74,
101, 105-106, 107, 124, 128, 129, 137). The Faculty as a whole expresses strong
value in research and scholarship (e.g.,
p.
146, 148). Moreover, research
assistantships, funded by internal and external grants, provide financial support
for 30% of graduate students and as well as "invaluable" experience
(p.
87).
Finally, research and scholarly excellence are values faculty members would like
to see as core.
(p.
146).
The External Review Team's report validates the Faculty's self-perceptions:
"There is no question that this Faculty has embraced research as a fundamental
part of its culture...
There can be no doubt that the quality of
faculty research is
high (pp. 6,16, bold in the original).
Responses to Recommendations in the External Review
We concur with this overall judgment in the External Review Team's report.
Specific responses to recommendations and observations follow. For background,
we note the ERO, prior to the external review, had initiated interviews with all
members of the Faculty that covered wide scope with respect to issues of
scholarship and research. We plan for this data gathering and analysis to be
complete circa 2008 June 20. Our objectives are to:
---• gather information on the diversity of research interests,orientations,and
methodologies represented in the Faculty
• identify what the Faculty at large values in research and scholarship, and
• acquire information needed to plan for support (e.g., through orientation-
sensitive feedback on applications, attention to possible funding sources
specific to each different need, organizing workshops for different
methodological approaches) across the spectrum of Faculty needs regarding
scholarship and research.
Récomthñdáfión
i3.TheProfeió fDëvëlopmënfuttitdeve1opaprbgram of ..........--
research...
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The external team observed, "The research agenda [in Professional Programs],
however, has been more emergent than planned"
(p.
14). Based on data gathered
in interviews of faculty members, we will map potential topics for synergy
involving faculty members' agendas in research and scholarship and PDP's
objectives and processes.
Recommendation
21. A broad-based orientation to scholarship be used to guide
how the Faculty both understands and makes decisions about scholarly
excellence.
and
Recommendation
27. Careful attention be given to the constitution of
committees, the staffing of offices, and the filling of administrative positions to
ensure that a broad range of research orientations and methodologies are
represented.
The external review team observed:
Yet
another important method to achieve this
goal is through the membership of committees and staffing of offices charged
with advancing the research enterprise. While it may be difficult
- or indeed,
impossible -
to have representation from the entire spectrum of disciplinary
orientations and methodologies of inquiry, it is important for each member of
faculty to see their kind of research orientation represented on these committees
. ?
and in the overall administrative structure... it is imperative that the Faculty as a
whole broaden its notions of what constitutes educational research... In the 2007
Report on Research Productivity, it was noted that "a number of faculty felt that
the research they pursued - both in terms of methods and disciplines - was not
as highly valued as other areas and methods of research." The report went on to
say that "the vision of scholarly excellence was insufficiently flexible" and that
the Faculty needed to "embrace a broader definition of scholarship and research
that maintains excellence, value, and impact in all fields and across research
methods." These observations still hold true.
(p.
20)
We will synthesize information gathered in our interviews of faculty members to
describe the landscape of scholarship in the Faculty. Alongside other efforts (e.g.,
- -----faculty-research-presentations), this will clarify-what our Faculty-currently-values------
as expressions of its members' research and scholarship.
Recommendation
22. The Faculty create a succession plan for hiring, based on
the overall priorities it sets for the next few years of its development, including,
where appropriate, hiring at the Associate level.
Interview data and past information - specifically, discussion of proposals for
new hires at Faculty meetings -
document that faculty members seek one or
mb thlleàgiiès with peciàlization inêsearch ethodolo(ies): The Faulty'
Self
Study
noted in the section on student voices from Graduate Programs,
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"Specific concerns were voiced across disciplines about a lack of research
methods courses..."
(p.
84).
We will generate a profile of expressed methodological needs to submit to the
Faculty at large and the Faculty Appointments Committee for consideration in
framing a plan for hiring that reflects priorities observed in our interviews of
faculty members.
Recommendation
24. The Faculty intensify and coordinate its efforts at
mentoring junior and pre-tenure faculty.
This is a priority of ERO. Workshops will be developed and delivered, starting in
early September 2008, that respond to the needs identified in the external review
and in our interview data. A section of the ERO web site will provide samples of
research proposals as exemplars.
Recommendation
25. The Faculty recommit itself to connecting with their
colleagues' research interests and agendas through informal and formal means,
through individual and group efforts.
An objective of our interview protocol is to identify possible areas of
collaboration among faculty members, and potential opportunities for cross-
faculty mentoring. We also will use these data to identify opportunities to
establish partnerships that bridge other Faculties at SFU.
Recommendation
26. The Faculty coordinate its efforts to provide mechanisms
for intellectual exchange and develop coordinated faculty profiles by bringing
together the work of the Education Research Office, the Director of
Administrative Relations, the Executive Committee of the Education Student
Graduate Association, and the Communications Office, under the auspices of the
proposed new organizational structure where these activities would fall in the
portfolio of Associate Dean (Graduate Education and Research).
In their analysis of why faculty members do not engage in enough intellectual --
exchange, the external review team opined that one component of "what is
needed is an integrated system of data management to develop profiles to share
within the faculty and to use to inform others"
(p.
20). The ERO will develop a
web-hosted tool to meet this need.
Recommendation
29. The Faculty explore efficiencies around the centres and
research clusters to make best use of available fiscal resources, space, and staff,
examining the feasibility of a "Centre of Centres" on the Surrey campus.
The ERO's data from faculty interviews will be added to information available to
the Associate Dean-Administration to address this issue.
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9Recommendation
31. The organizational structure of the Faculty be re-examined
with a view to creating a clearer structure that more closely aligns with its major
operation... This structure would involve two Associate Dean positions: the
Associate Dean (Graduate Education and Research) established in parallel with
the position of Associate Dean (Professional Development).
The Faculty's recent approval of a job description for the Research Coordinator
takes a step toward clarifying roles and responsibilities that relate to aligning
with our emphasis on research and scholarship.
Recommendation
35. The problem of obtaining sufficient resources and technical
support on the Surrey campus be explored and that dedicated videoconferencing
facilities be established on both campuses.
The external review team observed, "The availability of technical support and
research space were generally thought to be inadequate on the Surrey campus
(p. 26). This exacerbates challenging conditions for newly appointed, junior
faculty. ERO's data will be used to clarify needs and help set an agenda to rectify
issues.
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.
0
Report from the External Review Team
Faculty of Education?
Simon Fraser University
by
Dr. Rena Upitis, Queen's University (Chair)
. ?
0
?
Dr. Graham Pike, University of Prince Edward Island
Dr. Dennis Thiessen, OISE/University of Toronto
March 2008
Acknowledgements
Reviewing the work of one's colleagues is a challenging privilege. Our work was guided by the
detailed and refreshingly honest self-study prepared by members of the Faculty of Education. We
were-also guided in our work by what we learned during our meetings with faculty, staff,
students, and administration during our three-day visit to Simon Fraser University in mid-March
2008. Participants in these meetings were forthcoming and thoughtful with their prepared
remarks and in their spontaneous responses to our qiestions. Special thanks to those members of
the community who ensured we were provided with the documentation we needed, and for
making arrangements for the site visit. We are indebted to the fourth member of the review team,
Dr. Marjorie Griffin Cohen (Political Science/Women's Studies). As the internal member of the
review team, she was able to provide us with valuable insights about historical precedents,
cultural norms, and procedures and practices at Simon Fraser University.
..
Report of the External Review Team?
2008?
Faculty of Education?
Simon Fraser University
Before arriving for the site visit, which took place from March 12, 2008 to March 14, 2008, we
were provided with extensive documentation including the Faculty's Self-Study, the Terms of
Reference for the Review, the Curriculum Vitae of tenure-track and tenured professors, the
President's Agenda, the Three Year Plan of the Vice-President (Academic), the Three Year Plan
of the Faculty of Education (2007-2010), the University's Strategic Research Plan, the
Institutional Service Plan and Report, a recent survey of Baccalaureate Graduates, Data on SFU
Research Grants and Contracts to Academic Departments, and the 2007-2008 University Course
Calendar.
The Terms of Reference for the review provided us with a framework for our questions and for
the presentation of our findings and recommendations that appear in this report (see Appendix
A). We were asked to provide the University with assurances about the quality of teaching,
research, and administration, and the working environment of the Faculty. In addition, there were
other specific issues identified for this particular review, which appear below, following the
general terms of reference:
General Terms of
Reference
+ The quality of the unit's teaching programs is high and there are measures in place to
ensure their evaluation and revision.
•• The quality of faculty research is high and faculty collaboration and interaction provides
a stimulating academic environment.
• The faculty members participate in the administration of the unit and take an active role
in the dissemination of knowledge.
+ The environment is conducive to the attainment of the objectives of the Faculty.
Terms
of
Reference Specific to the Faculty
of
Education 2008 Review
+ An evaluation of the current undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs
(including faculty, centers, external sites, international programs, premium fee programs)
and a strategic analysis of the opportunities for expansion and/or consolidation to address
conditions of financial constraint.
+ An assessment of the optimum size of the EdD program and the adequacy of resources
available to support the program.
'R1/flR
An assessment of the character, quality, and integrity of the curricula, pedagogy, research
9
and scholarship of the Faculty, including advice on how these should be pursued in the
future.
+ An evaluation of the Faculty's overall strategic direction which aims to maintain
excellence in its programs of research and teaching across diverse areas of Education,
while managing resources and communications across multiple campuses within a
complex environment.
During our site visit, we sought additional information in order to respond to the terms of
reference. The self-study did not contain, for example,
•• information about faculty teaching workloads
+ detailed budget information
+ course evaluations
+ program evaluations
• sufficient detail regarding graduate student supervisory loads
•• enrolment targets, offers, and admissions
•• EdD program overview
• submission to the B.C. College of Teachers
•. progress and completion rates for graduate students
Documentation regarding these issues was provided to us during our visit. Additional materials
were provided by participants as they took part in the interviews, including documentation from
the Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs, Communications, Advancement,
International Programs, and Field Programs.
Our site visit included time on both the Burnaby and Surrey campuses. We met with just over
half the faculty members, a dozen Faculty Associates,
5
CUPE staff at the Surrey campus and
over 20 CUPE staff at the Burnaby campus, 4 APSA members at the Surrey campus and 14
APSA members at the Burnaby campus. There was a formal meeting with graduate students at
the Burnaby campus (10 attended), in addition to a reception where we spoke with other
students, faculty, and staff. Two undergraduate students met with us to describe the APTEM
professional development model. We met at least once with various members of senior
administration including the Vice President (Academic), the Associate Vice President
(Academic), theAssociate Vice President (Research), the Director of Academic Planning,--the
Dean of Graduate Studies, and the Dean of Education. Other meetings were held with the
Associate Dean (Academic), the Associate Dean (Administration), the Chair of the Renewal,
Tenure, and Promotion Committee, the Director of Graduate Programs, the Director of
Undergraduate Programs, the Director of Field Programs, the Director of Administrative
Relations, the Director of International Programs, and the Director of Professional Development
Programs. Meetings were arranged with staff involved with the communications and
advancement functions, as well as French programs. We also interviewed several of the directors
of the centres and institutes. By the end of the three days, we interacted with well over a hundred
people, individually or in small groups (see Appendix B).
?
------------ --- -
The remainder of the report is divided into eight sections. We begin with a discussion of the
Faculty's strengths. Next, we discuss the major challenges and opportunities, with the first of our
recommendations contained therein. The following four sections focus on the basic terms of
reference, namely teaching programs, research, administration, and environment where we
present our observations and recommendations relating to each of these broad—but
interconnected—areas. The body of the report closes with a summary of the recommendations
and some brief concluding remarks, followed by appendices.
STRENGTHS
People
The strongest resource in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University is its people. The
quality and commitment of the employees at all levels in the Faculty is high. Senior academics
continue to contribute significantly to the Faculty's profile, as do faculty members in the middle
and junior ranks. In fact, a notable feature of the current personnel make-up is the high
proportion of junior faculty members: over 40% have been appointed in the last four years. Their
enthusiasm and productivity levels since appointment suggests that the high quality is assured for
the foreseeable future; indeed, as these junior faculty mature in their careers, exciting and path-
finding scholarship, teaching, and service to the educational community looks likely in the years
to come. Supporting the faculty members is a sizeable cadre of APSA and CUPE staff who are
both skilled and dedicated, and who appear to find in the Faculty a stimulating and enjoyable
work environment. The undergraduate students we spoke with were clearly excited and inspired
by their professional development program (PDP), and we have every reason to believe that
students in these programs feel well prepared for their future careers in teaching. The graduate
student body is impressive and active: they contribute in significant ways to the research culture
of the Faculty and to the overall intellectual community. Equally impressive are the professionals
from the school districts who form a major teaching force in the Faculty of Education. These
Faculty Associates are deeply committed to professional development and have a long history in
shaping and contributing to the professional programs.
Members of the community are aware that in order to sustain and develop the work of the
Faculty, changes inevitably need to be made. Faculty expressed strong interest in making these
changes in productive ways, evidenced also by the Self-Study document that formed the
backbone for the external review,and in the Three Year Plan (2007-2010) of the Faculty of
Education.
1/11 MR
0
Research
?
S
Simon Fraser's Faculty of Education has a deservedly strong reputation for research. There is
impressive scholarly productivity across all ranks, and this is particularly commendable, given
the large influx of junior faculty members over the past few years mentioned above. In fact, the
high productivity in the years prior to the new appointments has been .maintained and even
increased in some areas, indicating that the new members of Faculty have been producing
scholarship at an impressive rate from the very beginning of their careers. The Faculty as a
whole has achieved enviable success with research funding, and there are a proportionally high
number of research chairs and large research grants for a Faculty of Education of this size.
Although perhaps not immediately apparent, there is an appropriately wide range of
methodologies, questions, disciplines, and orientations represented in the research activities of
the faculty members.
The centres, institutes and research clusters provide important mechanisms for promoting
collaboration across disciplines within the Faculty, with other units in the University. and with
other institutions. The graduate students who work directly with faculty members enjoy full
involvement in the research enterprise, and have been well supported as indicated by their co-
authored papers and conference presentations. There is no question that this Faculty has
embraced research as a fundamental part of its culture: members of the Faculty of Education are
committed to their research programs, to their graduate students, and to ensuring that the
research they undertake has impact.
Programs
?
5
The Faculty of Education is well known and well regarded for its innovative and responsive
teacher education and graduate programs. This innovation is a fine enactment of the Three Year
Academic Plan for Simon Fraser University (2007-20 10), where one of the stated objectives is to
provide "the most innovative professional programs." In teacher education, the Faculty of
Education offers a wide range of innovative options for pre-service teachers with particular
Professional Development Program (PDP) modules, including modules in Aboriginal/First
Nations Teacher Education, International Teacher Education, and French Education —areas of
study that map directly on the strategic goals of Simon Fraser University. It also provides
modules for para-professionals and the re-certification of foreign-trained teachers. In graduate
programs, the Faculty of Education offers inservice teachers/educators graduate diploma, MEd.
and EdD programs in different locations in British Columbia (e.g., Surrey, Kamloops, and
Victoria) and in other countries (e.g., China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). From the evidence
we received, the undergraduate and graduate courses taught by faculty, sessional instructors, and
Faculty Associates (FAs) are regarded favorably, with over
75%
at the "very good" level
(highest possible ranking) in recent years. Since the inception of the Faculty's first PhD
programs a quarter century ago, the Faculty has graduated close to 200 candidates. Many of
these graduates are now in prominent academic, professional, and administrative positions across
Canada and beyond.
.
ruiflR
fl
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
The challenges the Faculty of Education faces are interconnected and complex. None of the
challenges we name in this report will come as a surprise to the members of the Faculty: they
have been working hard at these issues, both formally and informally, in recent years and in
decades past. This observation should not be taken as a criticism: the challenges faced by Simon
Fraser's Faculty of Education are, in many ways, systemic to education faculties across North
America. It is encouraging that the Faculty continues to re-visit these issues afresh, continuing to
create ways of improving their work. It is in this spirit that our recommendations are made as
well. That being said, it is also the case that the Faculty is at a crucial juncture in its history. It
now seeks to preserve the successful traditions of the past and adjust—sometimes reluctantly—to
the current fiscal and societal forces that will provide growing and inevitable pressures in
shaping new priorities. The shaping of priorities will require the goodwill of all members of the
community, as well as the sense of innovation that has been a feature of this Faculty since its
inception.
Priorities
One of the most troubling features of the Faculty of Education is the confusion over what
is
and
what
ought
to be valued. This confusion is most keenly felt in the large contingent of junior
• ?
faculty members when it comes to day-to-day decisions about how to set their individual
priorities—both short- and long-term—regarding their research, teaching, and service. Even
more senior members of faculty expressed uncertainty as to which ventures should take priority,
particularly in the course of the coming years where the Faculty is facing looming financial
constraints in what is perceived as an increasingly market-driven environment. These
uncertainties about what ought to be valued are exacerbated by at least two other factors: (a) the
tension between traditional notions of scholarly work and practical wisdom that every Faculty of
Education struggles with, and (b) the dearth of ways in which individual faculty members have
found the means to understand the work of their colleagues, which can lead to an undervaluing
of their colleagues' contributions.
Regarding the first of these factors, the tension between scholarship and practice, it seems
evident that a broader notion of scholarship coupled with a broader notion of practice is required
as the Faculty begins to articulate more clearly what it is to be valued over the coming years..
Regarding the second factor, it is difficult to understand the work of one's colleagues—and by
this we mean the contributions of faculty members, Faculty Associates, sessional instructors,
administrators, school associates, among others—when there is a complex set of offerings across
many levels of career development and geographic locations. We will say more about this
complexity in the next section.
In short, this is the time for the Faculty to construct a set of priorities from which to operate over
the coming years. The agreed upon mission and vision are not enough to provide a path forward.
. -------- ?
Neither is the important call to "establish a unified faculty vision of our core activities" .as stated____
• ?
in the Three Year Plan of the Faculty of Education (2007-20 10). What is needed is an agreed
upon set of priorities where all members of faculty can see what they value as central to the
MR
Faculty's core mission. We are calling for the development of a strategic plan, where priorities
are defined to a greater level of specificity, priorities that all faculty members can identify with
and embrace.
We recommend that the Faculty construct a set of priorities from which to operate
over the coming years against which all of their individual and collective work can
be planned, carried out, and evaluated.
Complexity
The multiplicity and complexity of the Faculty's many programs and operations can be viewed
as both a strength and a weakness. At this point in the Faculty's development, however, with so
many new faculty members, allied to a rapid expansion of programs and students, it seems to be
more of a weakness than a strength. Some junior faculty and students with whom we spoke
described as the Faculty of Education as a "chaotic" place to study and work, causing them to
feel isolated and confused. They also lack an understanding of how to connect with people and
systems that might support them and help create a sense of belonging to the Faculty. These
challenges, we suggest, are compounded by problems of internal communication and a
perception of insufficient transparency in decision-making.
Expansion
Over the last five years the Faculty has witnessed considerable expansion in its operations and
personnel. During this period, for example, student enrolments in the EdD program have nearly
quadrupled while the number of PhD students has at least doubled, as has the number of
programs into which they have been admitted. Not surprisingly, this program expansion has been
accompanied by a significant increase in faculty and staff, with the vast majority of new faculty
appointments being made at the Assistant Professor level. This has created a further imbalance in
the Faculty profile, with the consequent pressure on junior faculty to take on demanding
administrative and teaching roles. Adding significantly to the challenges of expansion have been
the growing pains of establishing the Faculty's operations on the Surrey campus and the
complexities of conducting programs and projects on two sites. Our visits to both campuses
suggest that communications between them are neither as effective nor as comprehensive as
would be desirable for the satisfactory operation of the programs and the most efficient use of
__faculty
.time.--------.•
and
?
staff
--------- ------------ .
?
-.-.-...... - ........
Resources
In the current climate of fiscal uncertainty and restraint, it is unlikely that there will be additional
resources available for personnel (new faculty or staff appointments), restructuring (e.g.,
renovation), or capital projects (e.g., new buildings). The lack of clarity on priorities and the
tendency to maintain current practices (e.g., how staff are deployed or how space is assigned)
conspires against changes that might be possible within the current circumstances and
conditions, resulting in efficiencies. and synergies to be achieved with existing resources.
............................-
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Organizational Structure
We acknowledge that the organizational structure contributes to the problems noted under
complexity noted above, especially around issues of communication and transparency. At the
same time, if the faculty members either had more opportunities to participate in decision-
making or were more fully engaged in governance, changes in the organizational structure of the
Faculty of Education may not be necessary. It is not immediately clear if the organizational
structure needs to be re-invented or simply re-invigorated. That being said, the expansion in both
faculty and graduate students, and the increasing complexity of the Faculty (see above) suggests
that some restructuring may be needed. As the Faculty of Education sorts out its priorities and
addresses the challenges of complexity, any changes in the organizational structure will likely
occur to the extent that they enable faculty members to better enact and manage their priorities in
a spirit of frank and open communication and democratic decision-making, whether by
consensus or some form of representational democracy. In the end, whatever the Faculty of
Education does, it is not the structure that is the only solution (or the primary problem); the issue
is how the people make use of the structure.
TEACHING PROGRAMS
Summary
Through five program units (Undergraduate Programs, Professional Programs, Graduate
Programs, Field Programs, International Programs), the Faculty of Education offers a wide range
of credit and non-credit courses, modules, and programs in teacher education and graduate
education. Based on the qualifications of the faculty members, high applicant to enrolment ratios
(as high as 20:1), the diversification and expansion of program activities, course assessments,
student surveys (though the graduate students raised some concerns), the completion rates for
graduate students, the successes of graduates (e.g., academic appointments, publications,
leadership positions), some research results (mainly for the Professional Development
Programs), an analysis of selected program documents (e.g., EdD Program Overview;
Professional Programs' submission to the Association of BC Deans of Education and BC
College of Teachers, 2007), and reputation, the quality
of
the teacher education and graduate
programs is
-..-....-- ....................................
Framework for Evaluating Programs and Setting Program Priorities
Following from our first recommendation about setting priorities and consistent with the general
arguments about setting priorities for research (for a discussion about what constitutes valued
scholarship, see below: Framework for Evaluating Research and Setting Priorities),
it is
important to consider what constitutes "valued programs" and valued teaching within these
programs, and how programs are evaluated. For programs, the charge above to honour "a
. broader notion of scholarship coupled
with
a broadei notion of practice" translates into a view of
valued programs that both respects and encompasses how theory informs and is informed by
practice.
Ins
In
at the
this
heart
concept
of how
of what
we construct,
constitutes
enact,
valued
and
programs,
evaluate a
it
wide
is this
range
praxis
of
of
professional
theory and
and
practice
research
that is
?
is
programs. Whether preparing for a professional career or a research/academic career, students
need to engage in the theoretically rigorous study of practice and practice-based study of theory
in order to become exemplary knowledge workers in their fields. Though the particular
engagement with the theory-practice relationship will vary in each program, students nonetheless
learn how to generate, integrate, and apply knowledge in ways that are meaningful and relevant
to the discipline- and/or career-related focus of their respective programs.
We recommend that a broad-based orientation to scholarship and practice be used
to guide how the Faculty of Education both understands and makes decisions about.
program excellence.
In the following sections, we begin with some general observations and recommendations about
the teaching programs. We then provide more specific observations and recommendations for
teacher education, graduate education, and non-credit program activities.
General Observations and Recommendations Related to the Teaching Programs
In recent years, there has been a significant expansion of both doctoral programs (in both
enrolment and, in the case of PhD programs, in areas/fields), a relatively steady state in the
MA/MSc programs, and a fluctuation (enrolment) and some diversification (in sites, delivery
modes) in the MEd programs. The overall increase in graduate enrolment has also resulted in a
proportional decrease in faculty involvement in teacher education courses and PDP modules.
Between 2002/03 and 2006/2007, in teacher education, the annualized FFE enrolments have
increased (though the headcount is relatively stable). The overall enrolment in teacher education
is likely to increase with the introduction of the Bachelor of General Studies (Education)
program; some additional modules are also proposed (e.g., Aboriginal/First Nation, French,
international, PTEM).
We recommend the consolidation of graduate programs with no further expansion
in enrolment.
We recommend that, with the exception of the addition of the Bachelor of General
Studies (Education) program, the focus in teacher education should be on
maintaining the current level of enrolment.
?
--- ?
------------- .....---.-----
The structure and requirements of all programs are clear and appropriate to their respective
areas/fields. The innovative, responsive, and adaptive program models used by Professional
Programs, Field Programs, International Programs, and many of the off-campus MEd programs
and EdD cohorts provide various professional groups with timely, relevant, and rigorous
programs to enhance the understanding and improvement practice.
Various program units have offered or supported teacher education courses or modules
(Undergraduate Programs, Professional Programs, and to a lesser extent, International Programs
and Field Programs). Similarly various program units have offered or supported graduate
courses, diplomas, or programs (Graduate Programs, Field Programs, and to a lesser extent,
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International Programs). Though across-program links regularly occur (e.g., between
Undergraduate and Professional Programs, Field Programs and Graduate Programs), greater
coordination is possible through a re-organization of programs under teacher education and
graduate education (for further discussion on this point, see
Administration and Governance).
We recommend that the five programs be restructured into two organizational
units: Professional Development unit (Undergraduate Programs, Professional
Programs and International Programs) and Graduate Education unit (Graduate
Programs, Field Programs, and International Programs).
The Faculty of Education has made very good progress on many of the priorities identified by
the University, particularly those involving programs for French teaching and Aboriginal/First
Nations Education. French programs have expanded and are now integrated into a significant
part of all program areas. There is a French module in Professional Development Programs,
which has increased from 32 to 64 students over the past four years. Students can earn a B.Ed. as
a second degree through a Minor in French Education. An MEd [Curriculum and Instruction] is
now available in French on the Burnaby campus and has been offered in Victoria and Kelowna.
A French Language EdD program in Educational Leadership began in 2007 with 13 students,
and Graduate Studies Diploma programs are available in French language education and
Pedagogical Differentiation for Immersion and Francophone teachers. In addition, and in
cooperation with the Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs and International Programs,
a Dual Certification program is offered with two universities in France.
In the area of Aboriginal/First Nations Education, the Faculty of Education continues to work in
partnership with Aboriginal/First Nations' peoples to develop programs that respond to the
educational needs of these communities (e.g., in teacher education, the Indigenous Peoples'
Teacher Education Module and the Kamloops' Indigenous Peoples' Teacher Education Module;
in relation to school-based support, the planned development of Paraprofessional Teacher
Education Modules; strategies to increase the enrolment of and program options for
AboriginalfFirst Nations' educators). There are also developments in graduate programs related
to health education (e.g., MEd/MA program in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization
in Health and Physical Activity) and educational technology (e.g., master's and doctoral
programs in Educational Technology and Learning Design). The application of the six elements
- ----- of internationalization isa valued and integral dimension of teacher education, graduate -.--- ....----...---. --
education, and research.
Though ongoing program development is evident in most programs, the most extensive
engagement with such improvement efforts occurs in Professional Programs (e.g., based on the
commitment to inquiry-based renewal).
As noted in the Faculty's Three Year Plan (2007-2010), there is a need to develop "agreement
on quality standards for program delivery, teaching, research and service." In the context of the
- .........-
?
teacher education and graduate programs, other than the indicators noted in the
Summa,.
the --
--------------
•
?
Faculty of Education does not conduct any systematic, comprehensive, and regular program
evaluation of its programs. Some formative evaluation occurs, but usually only on specific
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aspects of the program. It also does not invite external reviews of its programs, other than those
required by the BC College of Teachers in teacher education or the Canadian Counselling
Association (forthcoming).
We recommend that the Faculty of Education create a system for regular and
comprehensive internal evaluation of its teacher education and graduate programs.
We recommend that the regular and comprehensive internal evaluation of its
teacher education and graduate programs address underlying principles, structure,
implementation, and outcomes..
We recommend periodic external reviews of the teacher education and graduate
programs that are not already reviewed by accrediting bodies.
The Education Graduate Student Association (EGSA) provides active and extensive support for
its members, which we elaborate on in the section dealing with research. Faculty members could
do more to directly and indirectly support the impressive efforts of the EGSA.
In the same spirit as the discussion below about what constitutes valued scholarship (see
Framework for Evaluating Research and Setting Priorities),
it is also important to consider what
constitutes "valued teaching" and how this teaching is assessed. For the most part, teaching was
mainly described in terms of teaching .courses and supervising students (and here mainly
graduate supervision). Though some spoke about teaching in terms of scholarship (transforming
knowledge), how teaching informs and is informed by research, or contributions to teaching with
colleagues (e.g., mentoring), through coordination or innovation (e.g., program leadership), or to
the field (e.g., writing articles about how to teach certain issues or topics in a discipline), these
wider perspectives on teaching do not seem to be considered in how teaching is understood or
assessed.
We recommend that teaching should be equally valued to scholarship and
recognized as a form of scholarship in its own right.
We recommend that the assessment of teaching include teaching practice (in
- courses), student supervision (with both graduate students and teacher education
-
students), the integration of teaching and scholarship (e.g., in the form of action
research or program evaluation, the development of curriculum or textbooks,
contributions to the teaching of a discipline), and leadership in teaching (e.g.,
program coordination/development).
Teacher Education
Following the above recommendation to create a Professional Development unit, the following
observations and recommendations refer to the combined interests and activities of
Undergraduate Programs, Professional Programs, and where appropriate, International Programs.
R1/Op ?
1
In recent years, Undergraduate Programs and Professional Programs, and to some extent,
International Programs have worked together on such matters as the development of the
Bachelor of General Studies (Education) program, the curricular work related to the Writing-
Intensive Designation, the articulation and/or coordination between PDP and the professional
coursework semester, and the development of a capstone project.
We recommend the enhanced and integrated development and implementation of
the teacher education program as afforded through the restructuring of
Undergraduate Education and Professional Programs into a Professional
Development unit (with affiliations with International Programs as appropriate).
Program development in PDP is in part organic, fostered by the ongoing appointment of Faculty
Associates, and in part deliberate, stimulated by the need to address 13 Standards for Education,
Competence and Professional Conduct of Educators in British Columbia and the desire to review
and improve the program (e.g., revisioning process). On this latter point, in the revisioning
process, PDP faculty members and Faculty Associates and Coordinators have embedded six key
curriculum ideas into the program: social justice and equity, ecology, health and physical
activity, literacy and numeracy, diversity, and technology. In these six core areas, some of the
key issues facing educators—such as multiculturalism and special needs education—are
addressed.
• ?
One of the enduring features and declared strengths of PDP is the differentiated staffing model.
Faculty Associates are exemplary teachers who are seconded for two years, with approximately
half of the 45 Faculty Associates appointed new each year. The dedicated time to the
professional development of the Faculty Associates and Coordinators ensures a pedagogical
continuity in the principles that define and guide the PDP, while at the same time honouring the
unique contribution that each Faculty Associate and Coordinator brings to the PDP. In the last
year, there were 90 applicants for the 22 Faculty Associate positions, an indication of both the
quality of those who are hired and of the reputation of PDP in the field. That being said, it is also
the case that the current costs of differentiated staffing means that the budget for Faculty
Associates and part-time instructors is considerably greater than the budget for faculty members.
This begs the question as to whether the FA/faculty budget ratio is appropriate in terms of
program needs or budget allocation.
-- - --Between 2005 and 2007, 37 faculty members taught 94 undergraduate courses and 19 faculty --------- -- -
members completed 35 PDP teaching assignments. The total of 129 teacher education courses
was slightly less than the number of graduate courses taught by faculty members in the same
time period (148.5 graduate courses). In terms of faculty involvement, steps have been taken to
more fully define a PDP teaching assignment. It is not clear what an optimal level of faculty
involvement in teacher education would be (especially in PDP) in a differentiated staffing model.
We recommend that faculty members work with the proposed new Professional
Development unit to coordinate and increase the involvement of faculty members in
--
----------------
teacher education. ----
--------- ---- --•----- --------------•------- ------------- --------------
The PDP is in part based on an image of practitioner inquiry, and thus research is inherent in the
professional development of both students and instructors in the program. As a result, there have
been a number of published and unpublished studies, reports, and conference presentations about
teacher education at SFU (often associated with the PDP) conducted by Faculty Associates and
Coordinators, faculty members, and some students. The research agenda, however, has been
more emergent than planned. It has varied in focus, intensity, and frequency, and has not always
been framed in ways that inform program improvement.
We recommend that the Professional Development unit develop a program of
research that enriches the understanding of the teacher education program
experience of beginning teachers, informs the ongoing efforts to improve the teacher
education program, and engages all those with an investment in the program (i.e.,
Faculty Associates, coordinators, faculty members, students) as participants and
researchers in the program of research.
Graduate Education
Following the above general recommendation to create a Graduate Education unit, the following
observations and recommendations refer to the combined interests and activities of the Graduate
Programs, Field Programs, and where appropriate, International Programs.
In recent years, Graduate Programs and Field Programs (and to some extent, International
Programs) have worked together on such matters as the delivery of off-campus MEd programs,
the articulation of graduate diploma programs and the MEd in Educational Practice, and the
application of graduate regulations in admissions, program requirements, etc.
We recommend the enhanced and integrated development and implementation of
the graduate education programs as afforded through the restructuring of Graduate
Education and Field Programs into a Graduate Education unit (with affiliations
with International Programs as appropriate).
The community-based (off-campus) MEd and diploma programs developed and implemented by
Field Programs and International Programs offer educators relevant, responsive, and principled
programs. For example, in the case of Field Programs, programs are grounded in principles of
- ------------------teacher/professional learning, with a particular focus on practice-based, self-directed, inquiry-
oriented, and creative pedagogical experiences. These Programs have relied on either a
differentiated or a sessional/contract staffing model, one that involves faculty members when
available. In the 2005-2007 period, faculty members only volunteered
14.5
courses (7 faculty
members) to the Field Programs (sometimes the involvement requires a stipend). While no
numbers are available for the International Programs, the faculty participation in international
projects appears to be modest and infrequent, and usually requires stipends to support their
engagement.
----We
recommend the continued development of community-based (off-campus) MEd
and diploma programs based on models developed by Field Programs and
International Programs.
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1t
.
The Faculty of Education has significantly expanded its doctoral programs, so much so that there
are now more doctoral (PhD and EdD) students currently enrolled than the total number of PhD
students who have graduated since the inception of PhD programs in the 1980s. Though more
attention has recently been given to the problems of expansion that arise from the rapid increase
in EdD students (e.g., questions/concerns of supervision demands, the number of cohorts—"too
big," the pace of expansion—"too fast"), related questions/concerns can also be raised about the
PhD expansion. For example, in the PhD expansion, why has this enrolment more than doubled
since 2000? Why have there been so many new programs developed (with more still planned)?
Why has the Faculty of Education :
developed programs in these areas/disciplines (e.g.,
academic/professional rationale)? What are the optimal conditions for a new program (e. g.,
number of faculty members, range of expertise among the faculty members, number of students,
supervision load, supply-demand projections, depth and breadth of course offerings, etc)? In
terms of program structure, why introduce separate programs instead of consolidation through
fields identified within existing programs? The expansion has introduced the challenge of not
only implementing high quality graduate programs in a number of new areas/disciplines (it can
take a number of years to build a high quality doctoral program) but also sustaining this high
quality across multiple programs with a large number of doctoral students in total but an uneven
distribution of these students across the programs.
We recommend the development of guidelines for the determination of independent
. ?
and consolidated PhD programs.
We recommend the establishment of enrolment targets that are commensurate with
the capacity of each of the independent and consolidated PhD programs.
In the last year, the EdD program has addressed many of the challenges of its rapid expansion.
The innovative, intensive, and pedagogically defensible program design enables both students
and faculty members alike to understand expectations and to plan when and what they need to
do. In order to better manage the growth of the EdD program, no additional EdD cohorts were
started in the 2007 calendar year. The current cohorts are spread across different
areas/disciplines and thus involve different groups of faculty members (Educational
Administration, Higher Education, French Education). At least 22 faculty members have
committed to be supervisors for one or more of the EdD students, and another 15 faculty
-members have played a role-on at least one supervisory committee. Adjunct supervisors (some
are emeritus faculty from the Faculty of Education, others are SFU graduates working in the
field) have been appointed to support thesis research; the adjunct supervisors also receive
training and mentoring on how to assist the EdD students in their studies. However, the primary
responsibilities for the development, supervision, and overall implementation of the EdD
programs mainly fall to pre-tenure faculty members. And though the above strategies make the
supervisory load manageable, the current numbers are still demanding and higher than what
most faculty members, especially pre-tenured faculty, should be expected to supervise. In fact,
as of 2007, only 22 EdD students had graduated. With 72 students currently with supervisors, 11
students on leave, and 27 students still taking courses (Pro-Tern stage), and 13 students in the .................-
• ?
French EdD cohort, there are many students who are, or who will soon be in need of supervisory
support.
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We recommend that EdD cohorts be limited to no more than 40 registered students
in educational leadership (Educational Administration and Higher Education) and
20 registered students in the French Language EdD program in Educational
Leadership.
Some faculty members do not understand or support the increase in premium-fee programs or
cohorts. They see such programs as driven by financial need and opportunism and not by
responsiveness, invention, or academic priorities. They also worry that premium-fee program
fees are not affordable (disadvantaged areas) by some school districts or groups that the Faculty
of Education would otherwise wish to serve.
We recommend the establishment of balanced enrolment targets for regular and
premium graduate programs, with due regard to responding to school districts or
professional groups whose needs based on equity and/or diversity are high and
whose circumstances make it difficult for prospective students to enroll in premium-
fee programs.
Non-Credit Program Activities
Field Programs and International Programs have both initiated and responded to a wide range of
non-credit activities, including: courses, modules, institutes and programs; consultations and
advice; conferences and workshops; or network coordination and development. The Faculty of
Education is committed to intellectually rigorous and practically relevant professional
development activities (e.g., non-credit programs, projects, inservice strategies) for British
Columbia teachers, educational leaders, and researchers throughout their careers.
In the new structure, non-credit program activities would be the primary responsibility of the
Professional Development unit.
We recommend a continued emphasis on serving the professional development
needs of the academic and professional communities in the province, and with the
growing number of international partners of the Faculty of Education.
RESEARCH AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLABORATION
Summary Assessment
There can be no doubt that the quality
offaculty research is high.
Individual records are
generally strong in terms of externally funded research, books, book chapters, refereed journal
articles, creative works, conference presentations, and professional non-refereed contributions to
scholarship. In addition, there are many examples of faculty collaboration as evidenced by the-
activity in various research groups, centres, and research clusters. Many faculty members
described their research programs with palpable energy and excitement.
I -]
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Framework for Evaluating Research and Setting Priorities
In the
21st
century, universities are increasingly faced with the challenge of making meaningful
contributions to our local and broader communities through the public stewardship of ideas, the
education of students who
will
become citizens and leaders, and the discovery and generation of
knowledge. Such is the mission of a public university in a knowledge society, that is to forge a
new relevance in its work: by addressing the most urgent and compelling problems of the day; by
both generating new knowledge and making better and more creative use of what is already
known; and by increasing the connectedness among people and institutions (e.g., through
informational technology, networks, partnerships), across ideas and fields (e.g., through
interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study and application), through many contexts (e.g.,
through local and global projects). Faculties of education are uniquely poised to contribute to
such a mission, and indeed, bear a considerable responsibility to do so. Valued scholarship in
education therefore includes:
• research and development projects rooted in problems of educational practice;
• action-oriented initiatives designed to improve and, where justified, transform current
policies and practices;
•> integration and application of theories from two or more disciplines;
•• a commitment to various forms of collaborative inquiry; and
•
?
• responsiveness to and engagement with academic and professional communities at all
stages of the research and development process.
What constitutes valued scholarship in today's university will no doubt continue to emanate from
the careful and sustained efforts to generate new knowledge. However, following from the above
mandate, so clearly articulated by and so fervently pursued in most of the leading research
universities around the world, valued scholarship in a knowledge society must also extend to
other forms of knowledge work. The complexity of our most pressing theoretical and practical
questions therefore requires sustained, creative and often combined efforts to generate, apply,
and integrate knowledge—or in the terms increasingly used by granting agencies —knowledge
mobilization and evidence-based practices. This broad notion of research scholarship has been
recognized by the Faculty of Education itself, in its use of the parallel terms knowledge
generation, knowledge transfer, and knowledge enactment in the Three Year Plan (2007-2010).
- This broad orientation to scholarship is consistent with the Faculty's mission statement inits__
commitment to "scholarly excellence", and in its vision statement through its commitment to the
principle of promoting "a broad spectrum of scholarly and professional inquiry to advance
theory, pedagogy and the practice of education."
For many years, the Faculty of Education has engaged in all three forms of knowledge work.
Numerous projects devoted to generating knowledge include an applied phase where the results
of the research are translated into implications for policy, program, or practice. Much of the
Faculty of Education's outreach or field development activities are efforts in knowledge
------------ dissemination and mobilization (i.e., integrating and applying knowledge). The Faculty's
.
?
ongoing inquiry-based development of some of its programs (e.g., PDP) is an example where
knowledge is both translated and transformed through a continuous cycle of integrating and
1/11 MR ?
17
applying what is known (in this case about teacher learning/development) and, through further
study and evaluation generating further insights that in turn informs program improvement.
We recommend that a broad-based orientation to scholarship be used to guide how
the Faculty both understands and makes decisions about scholarly excellence.
Faculty Complement
We have already commented on the uneven distribution of faculty members through the ranks.
Approximately half the faculty complement is comprised of Assistant Professors. While it is
clear that many Assistant Professors have been called upon to carry heavy loads in program
coordination, teaching, and program development, it is equally clear that this has not happened at
the expense of their research contributions. However, even though the most junior members of
faculty are establishing strong beginning careers, it is questionable if the present pace is
sustainable, particularly since the full force of the supervisory load for doctoral students already
registered in the various programs has yet to be experienced. As noted previously, in the EdD
program alone, as of December, 2007, 22 EdD students had graduated since the program's
inception. There are presently well over 100 EdD students registered in the program, and they
will all need supervision. There is a real need to balance the faculty complement and to create a
comprehensive succession plan—and once again, this issue has been squarely identified in the
Three Year Plan of the Faculty of Education (2007-2010).
We recommend that the Faculty create a succession plan for hiring, based on the
overall priorities it sets for the next few years of its development, including, where
appropriate, hiring at the Associate level.
Progress Through the Ranks
It is critically important that the Faculty support all of its members, but particularly the large
cohort of junior faculty. As these members of faculty approach tenure and promotion, they need
to have a clear idea of what is expected of them in terms of their work in the areas of research,
teaching, and service. We urge the faculty to conceptualize research, teaching and outreach
--activities in light of the framework outlined above, that is, employing abroad notion of
scholarship where the generation, application, and integration of knowledge are all valued and
where agreed upon measures for evaluating all forms of knowledge and scholarship are
developed and understood.
Pre-tenured faculty members require several other kinds of support and mentorship. There is
ample evidence of various forms of mentorship, although it is not clear if these efforts are as
extensive as they might be in that some junior members reported feeling that they were not being
appropriately mentored. That being said, it should be noted that the Faculty has instigated several
-
forms of support, including a range of
-
informal gatherings that have been encouraged by the
present and previous Director of Administrative Relations. Equally important are the information
sessions regarding logistics of working on both the Burnaby and Surrey campuses, under the
0 ?
auspices of the Director of Administrative Relations. In addition, we would like to highlight the
success of the writing group, which involves nearly a third of the faculty members. This group
has met several times to discuss ways of managing writing time, selecting venues for publication,
and offering feedback on papers in progress. This kind of activity not only serves to support
junior members on the road to tenure: it also serves to stimulate a healthy intellectual climate and
build research capacity.
We recommend that the Faculty employ a broad notion of scholarship in assessing
research excellence, especially at the crucial junctures when an assessment of a
faculty member's performance is made (e.g., renewal, promotion, tenure, and salary
review).
We recommend that the Faculty intensify and coordinate its efforts at mentoring
junior and pre-tenure faculty.
Intellectual Exchange
The 2001 External Review (Phillips & Magsino), the 2007 Report on Research Productivity
(Abrarni, Haughey, & Upitis), and the Faculty's Three Year Plan (2007-2010) all highlight the
need for appropriate mechanisms for intellectual exchange including, retreats, colloquia,
•
?
seminars, and common communication platforms or templates to make research interests more
visible. This need for intellectual exchange was just as visible during the site visit for the 2008
external review. Faculty members, Faculty Associates, and graduate students expressed a strong
desire to learn more about the research of their colleagues. At the same time that faculty
members pointed to the need for this type of intellectual exchange, some lamented that when
research seminars or other information sessions were held, attendance was often poor.
It should be noted that there has been progress on this front, particularly in the last couple of
years. For example, the electronic newsletter,
InRange,
was instigated in 2006 by the Director of
Administrative Relations. Further plans are in the making. There has also been an extraordinary
effort to make visible the research of faculty through the Office of External Communications,
and by the measures we were given, this effort has met with considerable success.
The efforts to create venues for intellectual exchange are considerable on the part of the graduate
students. The Education Graduate Students Association (EGSA) is very active in its efforts to
support beginning scholars, having mounted an astonishing array of events for its members.
These events include regular meetings to discuss issues and disseminate information; colloquia,
symposia, and institutes on topics of interest to graduate students; conference organization;
social events; travel support for conferences; new graduate student orientation; and
representation on various governance bodies. There may be ways that the Director of
Administrative Relations, the External Communications Office, and the Executive Committee of
the Education Graduate Student Association could join forces in enhancing opportunities for
sharing research, within the Faculty, in the broader university context, and beyond. At the very ...
least, recognition of the EGSA activities by the Faculty is to be encouraged.
'A /11
in
In summary, it would appear that faculty members understand the importance of intellectual
exchan
g
e—of sharing and therefore valuing one another's ideas and research programs—and
also, that mechanisms for such exchanges are already, to some extent, in place. What appears to
be lacking is the institutional commitment to take part in these exchanges and an overall
coordination of these opportunities. This lack of coordination is not only evidenced in the
opportunities to share research internally and externally; it is also evidenced in the lack of an
overall scheme to describe the research that is taking place. For example, we were not provided
with a productivity table as part of the Self-Study, summarizing the research accomplishments of
faculty members. But data of various kinds are being compiled by individuals and offices: what
is needed is an integrated system of data management to develop profiles to share within the
faculty and to use to inform others. Again, this is noted in the Three Year Plan (2007-20 10)
where it is stated that there is a need to track growth in an environment where "individuals and
programs are growing in somewhat independent directions". In fact, not only does this growth
need to be tracked more systematically: the information should be used to
shape
growth and
priorities.
We recommend that the Faculty re-commit itself to connecting with their
colleagues' research interests and agendas through informal and formal means,
through individual and group efforts.
We recommend that the Faculty coordinate its efforts to provide mechanisms for
intellectual exchange and develop coordinated faculty profiles by bringing together
the work of the Education Research Office, the Director of Administrative
Relations, the Executive Committee of the Education Student Graduate Association,
and the Communications Office, under the auspices of the proposed new
organizational structure where these activities would fall in the portfolio of
Associate Dean (Graduate Education and Research).
Broadening the Notion of Research and Scholarship
In keeping with the framework outlined at the beginning of this section, we feel it is imperative
that the Faculty as a whole broaden its notions of what constitutes educational research in order
to in fact better reflect the work that is happening within its ranks.In the 200'L
Report
on - --
Research Productivity, it was noted that "a number of faculty felt that the research they
pursued—both in terms of methods and disciplines—Was not as highly valued as other areas and
methods of research." The report went on to say that "the vision of scholarly excellence was
insufficiently flexible" and that the Faculty needed to "embrace a broader definition of
scholarship and research that maintains excellence, value, and impact in all fields and across
research methods." These observations still hold true.
One of the ways that the notions of research can be broadened is through the intellectual
exchange mechanisms discussed above. By learning more about the work of one's c9 gues it
becomes more likely that the work will also be valued. Another way of broadening the scope of
1/
1
11 MR
0
what constitutes research is through the decision-making processes around promotion, salary
review, and tenure, also discussed above.
Yet another important method to achieve this goal is through the membership of committees and
staffing of offices charged with advancing the research enterprise. While it may be difficult—or
indeed, of
have representation from the entire spectrum of disciplinary orientations
and methodolo
g
ies of inquiry, it is important for each member of faculty to see their kind of
research orientation represented on these committees and in the overall administrative structure.
We recommend that careful attention be given to the constitution of committees, the
staffing of offices, and the filling of administrative positions to ensure that a broad
range of research orientations and methodologies are represented.
Research Collaborations
There are many members of faculty engaged in collaborative research projects in formal and less
formal ways. A number of centres and institutes have been established for some time, including
the endowed Centre for Education, Law, and Society (CELS), which has been in existence for a
quarter century, the Centre for Imaginative Education (with the affiliated Imaginative Education
Research Group, and Learning for Understanding through Culturally Inclusive Imaginative
• ?
Development), and the Institute for Studies in Teacher Education. Others have been more
recently established, such as the David Wheeler Institute for Research in Mathematics Education.
In addition, projects such as the Learning Kit, that have received impressive amounts of external
funding—while not constituted as centres
per
se—enjoy a high level of intellectual activity
involving a number of faculty and graduates students. A vast array of research endeavours are
represented by these centres, institutes, and research clusters
-
from research on early-education
and child health, to neuroscience, to tools for enhancing self-regulated learning, to higher
education, to arts education and audio visual imaging. Some of these endeavours align clearly
with the University's five research priorities as outlined in the Strategic Research Plan (2005-
20 10): more could be done to align the others with the overall direction of the University.
SFUs centres and institutes, affinity groups, and research clusters are important mechanisms for
promoting collaboration within the faculty both within and
,
across disciplines. They also provide
the context for collaborations that seek to unite the scholarly excellence with practical
?
-.--•-••-. --
application. But while the promise of these centres is great, the danger is that a proliferation of
research centres—which often rely on very few core members—serves to segment rather than
bring together researchers within and outside the Faculty. We question whether the number of
clusters is too great, causing the kind of troublesome complexity that was described earlier in our
report: the parallel phenomenon of multiple graduate programs was discussed in the previous
section. With so many research clusters, issues around staffing and space allocation become
critical. We were made acutely aware of the challenges in finding space to house the centres and
institutes. One group has created a virtual space to meet this challenge but feels its work would
be enhanced with a permanent and visible physical location. Other centres and research clusters
• ?
struggle to find adequate space to house the equipment they have acquired to carry out their
research agendas. Most centres feel that their enterprises are understaffed. In order to maximize
the benefit of research centres/units, the Faculty may want to consider the development of
guidelines for establishing centres/units, a process for periodic review of centres, "exit" or
lifespan recommendations, and resources (space, staff, etc.).
There has been discussion amongst faculty members about the creation of a "Centre of Centres"
on the Surrey campus, with the idea that several centres could be located in close enough
proximity to begin to foster efficiencies in terms of operations as well as the sharing of ideas
across centres and units. This, to us, is an idea well worth pursuing.
We recommend that the Faculty limit the number of research centres it both
establishes and maintains by aligning research centres with university priorities for
research and the overall set of priorities established by the Faculty.
We recommend that the Faculty explore efficiencies around the centres and
research clusters to make best use of available fiscal resources, space, and staff,
examining the feasibility of a "Centre of Centres" on the Surrey campus.
Structural Considerations
A number of the recommendations made in the 2007 Report on Research Productivity have been
put into place or are underway. We have already discussed some of the recommendations that
have yet to be implemented, including the hiring of mid-career faculty members, continually
crafting ways to provide a more inclusive research culture, and bridging knowledge generation
and dissemination. Another structural consideration that has particular importance in the present
review is that of embedding research and its attendant graduate programs in an Associate Dean
level of the organizational structure. In the 2007 review, it was recommended that the Associate
Dean be responsible for (a) developing an inclusive and coherent vision for research, (b)
supporting faculty research at all levels (from the design phases through to granting, publication,
and knowledge mobilization), (c) creating a mentorship program for junior faculty, (d) further
internationalizing research endeavours, and (e) building partnerships with educational
practitioners and policy makers. We would add to this list of responsibilities the overseeing of
the graduate programs as outlined in the previous section. An explicit recommendation coming
out of this suggestion appears in the following section on administration and governance.
ADMINISTRATION AND GOVERNANCE
It is recognized that an external review team is presented with a snapshot of how the various
administrative and teaching roles in the Faculty are distributed at a particular point in time,
without a full understanding of its history, nor of plans for the future. We understand that some
more senior faculty members have carried heavy administrative and teaching loads at some point
- -- in their careers,-and that others will do so in the-future, so that the-burden is, equitably distributed
over time. However, it does appear to us that the current structure of program co-ordination and
teaching distribution places undue responsibility on some junior faculty at a particularly
Ins
vulnerable time in their careers. For, example, between 2005-2007, five faculty members (of
whom three are Assistant Professors) taught all of the EdD courses at a time of rapid growth in
this program and a relatively small number of faculty have been actively involved in EdD thesis
supervision; the co-ordination of graduate programs is now being undertaken by an Associate
Professor and an Assistant Professor, both hired relatively recently. These demands on new and
junior faculty are in addition to the inevitable pressures emanating from the launching of
research careers, preparation for contract renewal, tenure and promotion, and the often daunting
task of establishing credibility in the eyes of one's peers and in the field. To their credit, the
faculty with whom we spoke appear to be rising to the challenge, though some bitterness was
evident in their perception of having little choice in whether or not to take on these
responsibilities, due to the vulnerability of their positions as pre-tenure faculty.
An additional strain for some junior faculty lies in the perception by some of their colleagues that
the teaching, supervision and co-ordination they undertake is of lower value than the research-
related activity that results in scholarly outcomes counted for tenure and promotion. However,
we would suggest that the service and teaching loads carried by the junior faculty are critical to
the Faculty's capacity to maintain and develop its programs and should be recognized as such by
colleagues. Furthermore, these tasks should be afforded their true value within the criteria for
tenure and promotion, as laid down in the University policy and reaffirmed in the Faculty's
current Three Year Plan (2007-2010).
• ?
We recommend that the Faculty examine the distribution of teaching and service
among its members, paying particular attention to the loads carried by junior
faculty. In addition, teaching and service contributions should be adequately
acknowledged as two of the three required areas of activity for contract renewal,
tenure, promotion, and salary review.
The Review Team read and heard many comments about the administrative structure of the
Faculty of Education and concerns from some about the degree of access to, and transparency in,
decision-making processes. Some of the key recommendations of the 2001 External Review
were concerned with issues of governance, including structural changes that would allow
meaningful participation for all faculty, revisions to decision-making processes so that the
general Faculty Meeting would become the main legislative vehicle, and the identification of a
senior member of the administration with the mandate to improve staff relations. Community-
building expertise
-
was a key criterion in the selection of the new- Dean in 2003.Revisioning the
Faculty's Governance and Decision Models' constitutes a section of objectives in the 2007-2010
Three Year Plan. It is clear that strong efforts have been made over the past five years to address
the structural and governance weaknesses identified and improvements in faculty relations have
accrued. Recently, additional measures have been put in place; among these initiatives are the
appointments of an Associate Dean Administration, a half-time Director of Administrative
Relations and the establishment of a committee on governance issues. All of these are worthy
initiatives that should contribute to the improvement of communications among, and
participation of faculty members and staff. Nonetheless, comments about structure and
-governance were among the more critical statements made by both faculty and staff to the
Review Team.
1/11 MR
For some, the organizational structure of the Faculty is at fault, leading to a plea for the more
?
S
traditional organization by discipline-based departments. For others, the current program-based
structure would be workable if improvements could be made to communication and decision-
making processes. We suggest a solution that takes elements from both of these positions. We
believe that the complexity of the current structure creates a top-heavy layer of senior
administration that may impede effective communication and create barriers to genuine
participation by all members of the Faculty in decision-making; however, we also believe that a
departmental structure would likely engender the same challenges and create new problems in
communication among disciplines and interest groups.
We propose, then,, a more streamlined version of the current structure that is rooted in the two
strands described above, each headed by an Associate Dean and outlined in an earlier
recommendation (see Appendix Q. Each of these strands represents the two major elements of
faculty activity: the professional development of teachers, and graduate education and research.
This proposal is in no way intended to diminish the importance of undergraduate programs, field
programs and international activities, but rather to consolidate administrative services around the
activities that consume the majority of faculty time and resources. It also provides a clearer
administrative structure that, hopefully, would provide for more effective lines of reporting and
communication.
We recommend that the organizational structure of the Faculty be re-examined
with a view to creating a clearer structure that more closely aligns with its major
operations; a proposal to initiate discussion appears in Appendix C. This structure
would involve two Associate Dean positions: the Associate Dean (Graduate
Education and Research) established in parallel with the position of Associate Dean
(Professional Development).
Whether or not this proposed structure is accepted by the Faculty, the Review Team contends
that additional measures are required to ensure the meaningful participation of all faculty in
decision-making and to increase the level of communication among programs and interest
groups. In theory, the general Faculty Meeting remains the principal legislative vehicle. In
practice, however, it appears that Faculty Meetings are often poorly attended and, in the opinion
of some, devoted largely to the sharing of information rather than to the encouragement of
healthy debate on matters of significance. This perception of Faculty Meetings has persisted
despite. the structural change -(reported in the 2004 response to the 2001 External Review) of.,
ensuring that Faculty Meetings do not conflict with regularly scheduled classes. This lack of
regard for the key role of the Faculty Meeting also contributes to the perception, by some, of
deficiencies in the transparency of the decision-making process, with key decisions—such as the
rapid growth in the EdD program—not being open for discussion by all faculty members.
Whether or not this perception is an accurate representation of reality, it remains a point of
contention that needs to be thoroughly aired. In re-thinking the ways in which the Faculty
Meeting operates (see recommendation below), the representation of Faculty Associates,
students, and staff should also be reappraised. From the information we received, only five
students,.for example, are eligible to attend the Faculty Meeting for the 2007-2008 academic
year. Four of the five students represent undergraduate/PDP programs. It would seem that there
should be at least as many graduate students as undergraduate students at Faculty Meetings. At
.
I41/I)R ?
"a
other universities, the formal inclusion of 2-4 voting staff members would also be common in a
Faculty or Education of this size. If the Faculty adopts the sort of structure we have suggested in
Appendix C, committee structures—and therefore roles at Faculty Meetings may also be
realigned.
An increase in transparency and trust in decision-making would also likely result from greater
and more effective communication among all Faculty employees. We believe that the strategy
advocated by the Director of Administrative Relations is sound: while the approach to
community building through social functions has merit, a regular program of focused activities,
such as writing workshops, that provides much needed support as well as community interaction
is likely to have a more profound and longer-lasting impact. In addition, we support the idea of
faculty members and graduate students being encouraged to take responsibility for leading
informal seminars on topics of interest, to be timetabled to precede or follow Faculty Meetings.
We recommend that the role of the Faculty Meeting be re-envisioned, to
reaffirm its place as the key decision-making forum, with an agreed set of
policies and procedures to ensure that all voices are heard and all opinions
considered.
We recommend that concerns about the lack of transparency in decision-making be
addressed by the committee on governance issues through a process of faculty-wide
• ?
consultation that results in a proposal to be brought to a full Faculty Meeting for
discussion and approval.
We recommend that the program of regular community-building activities be
continued, with a view to encouraging the dissemination of knowledge and
providing support for colleagues as a way to improving communication between all
members of the Faculty.
WORKING ENVIRONMENT
• - ?
From our reading and discussions,-it appears that there exists a
.
more positive and constnictive
working environment for most employees than was evident to the 2001 External Review team.
Given the growth in programs and student enrolment over the past seven years, it should be
acknowledged that the current Dean's initiatives to improve employee relations have had a
significant positive impact. As was pointed out in our discussions, gender discrimination appears
no longer to be an issue that receives any regular attention. Many faculty and staff commented
positively about their workplace, their collegial relationships, and the broad and varied
opportunities they have for personal development and fulfillment. These successes
notwithstanding, there remain concerns about the working environment that merit further
exploration. An additional complexity .of recent. origin—is—the.—opening of the Faculty's operations
on the Surrey campus.
?
• ?
_ _-_• -.
R1/flR
Faculty concerns in general about organizational structure and governance, and their implications
for the climate of the workplace, have been addressed above. More particular concerns were
raised by the faculty and staff based in Surrey with regard to communication with the Burnaby
campus and the level of support they have received in setting up their operations. On the positive
side. the Surrey-based faculty expressed appreciation for the autonomy and the close
professional relations they enjoy and for the supportive environment created by the senior
administrator assigned to the Surrey campus. The negative consequences of working in Surrey
include a sense of alienation from Faculty activities and decision-making that take place in
Burnaby and the difficulties of establishing an effective workplace: one faculty member reported
that it had taken six months to get a computer installed. The availability of technical support and
research space were generally thought to be inadequate on the Surrey campus. While it was
acknowledged that important Faculty information was relayed to them electronically and that
they were always invited to relevant meetings on the Burnaby campus, Surrey-based faculty
argued that the necessity of traveling to Burnaby in order to have face-to-face contact with
colleagues created an additional strain. One suggested solution to this problem would be the
establishment of dedicated videoconferencing facilities on both campuses and the expectation
that these be used whenever possible for meetings that involve faculty from both sites.
We recommend that the problem of obtaining sufficient resources and technical
support on the Surrey campus be explored and that dedicated videoconferencing
facilities be established on both campuses.
Support
Staff ?
.
CUPE and APSA staff we met at both campuses appeared to be skilled and dedicated to their
work. For the most part, they expressed enthusiasm for their work environment and for the
support that they received from each other.
As identified in the Self-Study and further expounded in our meetings, several areas of concern
were noted by both staff groups. The first is a significant and continuing frustration over the lack
of attention from Human Resources to job description reviews and reclassifications. Many CUPE
staff feel that their jobs are not adequately defined and, therefore, they are not sufficiently
rewarded for the important work they do. Their APSA colleagues are similarly frustrated over
the length of time taken to get new jobs classified, or existing jobs re-classified, often leading to
the hiring of temporary staff and the erosion of morale .CUPEstaff also believe that, because. job
reclassification is so difficult to achieve, new hirings are made at higher levels, even though
existing staff have the skills and experience required to move into these positions. Longstanding
staff members, in particular, resent being overlooked for more challenging positions for which
they feel appropriately qualified. It appears that job reviews for CUPE staff are irregular, at best,
and usually not done at all. While the issue of job reclassification is a matter for Human
Resources and, therefore, beyond the Faculty's control, regular job reviews should be achievable
within the unit and would go some way to acknowledging staff members abilities, improving
morale and providing a framework for professional development.
.
v'iing
We recommend that the University explore the problems of job classification and
reclassification for staff in the Faculty of Education, with a view to finding a way to
streamline the process.
We recommend that annual reviews for all staff members be carried out according
to an agreed timetable and set of guiding principles.
The second.concern for both APSA and CUPE staff relates to the provision of information
technology and technical support. The particular situation in Surrey has been outlined above;
however, staff in Burnaby also feel that the support they receive is inadequate for their needs,
though they recognize that the IT staff are doing the best they can with the resources they have
available. The SIMS system was characterized by most staff as very slow and time-consuming,
as well as unfriendly for Mac-users, though it was acknowledged that some significant
improvements had been achieved in the newer versions. Some staff argued that additional
technical support staff are urgently needed; others suggested that some individual problems
could be alleviated if there were time and encouragement for staff to share their knowledge and
expertise.
We recommend that the provision of information technology and technical support
on the Burnaby campus be reviewed, with a view to finding cost-effective ways of
making improvements and encouraging staff to share their knowledge.
A final note on the workplace environment for staff: in the Self-Study, and in our meetings, the
CUPE staff expressed their appreciation for having a voice in the review process but also their
expectation that nothing would happen as a result of their contributions, even though they have
made specific recommendations. This appears to us to be an unsatisfactory, and potentially
damaging, situation that merits careful attention.
We recommend that staff concerns about their working environment, and their
recommendations for improvement, be carefully considered and acted upon. Where
this is not possible, staff should be fully apprised of the reasons.
We acknowledge that many of the above points concerning governance and work environment
are widely recognized within the Faculty and that our recommendations support, to a large
degree, the vision outlined in the Three Year Plan (2007-20 10) as well as the initiatives currently
under way. We also understand, from our own experiences, the challenges of turning visions of
community building and democratic decision-making into reality amidst a wider academic
culture that still values and rewards individuality, competition and autonomy.
.
R1IflS
RECOMMENDATIONS ?
0
The recommendations made throughout the report are listed below for ease of reference. They
are numbered and organized under the main headings of the report.
Challenges and Opportunities
We recommend:
that the Faculty construct a set of priorities from which to operate over the coming years
against which all of their individual and collective work can be planned, carried out, and
evaluated.
Teaching Programs
We recommend:
2.
that a broad-based orientation to scholarship and practice be used to guide how the
Faculty of Education both understands and makes decisions about program excellence.
3.
the consolidation of graduate programs with no further expansion in enrolment.
4.
that, with the exception of the addition of the Bachelor of General Studies (Education)
program, the focus in teacher education should be on maintaining the current level of
enrolment.
5.
that the five programs be restructured into two organizational units: Professional
Development unit (Undergraduate Programs, Professional Programs and International
Programs) and Graduate Education unit (Graduate Programs, Field Programs, and
International Programs).
6.
that the Faculty of Education create a system for regular and comprehensive internal
evaluation of its teacher education and graduate programs.
-
-_ ---7.--
---that- the regular--and comprehensive internal evaluation of its teacher education and
graduate programs address underlying principles, structure, implementation, and
outcomes.
8.
periodic external reviews of the teacher education and graduate programs that are not
already reviewed by accrediting bodies.
9.
that teaching should be equally valued to scholarship and recognized as a form of
scholarship in its own right.
10.
that the assessment of teaching include teaching practice (in courses), student supervision
(with both graduate students and teacher education students), the integration of teaching
and scholarship (e.g., in the form of action research or program evaluation, the
development of curriculum or textbooks, contributions to the teaching of a discipline),
and leadership in teaching (e.g., program coordination/development).
Teacher Education
We recommend:
ii. ?
the enhanced and integrated development and implementation of the teacher education
program as afforded through the restructuring of Undergraduate Education and
Professional Programs into a Professional Development unit (with affiliations with
International Programs as appropriate).
12.
that faculty members work with the proposed new Professional Development unit to
coordinate and increase the involvement of faculty members in teacher education.
13.
that the Professional Development unit develop a program of research that enriches the
understanding of the teacher education program experience of beginning teachers,
informs the ongoing efforts to improve the teacher education program, and engages all
those with an investment in the program (i.e., Faculty Associates, coordinators, faculty
members, students) as participants and researchers in the program of research.
Graduate Education
We recommend:
14.
the enhanced and integrated development and implementation of the graduate education
programs as afforded through the restructuring of Graduate Education and Field
Programs into a Graduate Education unit (with affiliations with International Programs as
appropriate).
15.
the continued development of community-based (off-campus) MEd and diploma
---programs based on models developed by Field Programsand-International Programs..
16.
the development of guidelines for the determination of independent and consolidated
PhD programs.
17.
the establishment of enrolment targets that are commensurate with the capacity of each of
the independent and consolidated PhD programs.
18.
that EdD cohorts be limited to no more than 40 registered students in educational
--- leadership (Educational Administration and Higher Education). and20. registered students
in the French Language EdD program in Educational Leadership.
RIIfl
19.
the establishment of balanced enrolment targets for regular and premium graduate
programs, with due regard to responding to school districts or professional groups whose
needs based on equity and/or diversity are high and whose circumstances make it difficult
to enroll in premium-fee programs.
Non-Credit Program Activities
We recommend:
20.
a continued emphasis on serving the professional development needs of the academic and
professional communities in the province, and with the growing number of international
partners of the Faculty of Education.
Research
We recommend:
21.
that a broad-based orientation to scholarship be used to guide how the Faculty both
understands and makes decisions about scholarly excellence.
22.
that the Faculty create a succession plan for hiring, based on the overall priorities it sets
for the next few years of its development, including, where appropriate, hiring at the
Associate level.
23.
that the Faculty employ a broad notion of scholarship in assessing research excellence,
especially at the crucial junctures when an assessment of a faculty member's performance
is made (e.g., renewal, promotion, tenure, and salary review).
24.
that the Faculty intensify and coordinate its efforts at mentoring junior and pre-tenure
faculty.
25.
that the Faculty re-commit itself to connecting with their colleagues' research interests
-----•------ and agendas through informal and formal means, through individual and group efforts...--.
26.
that the Faculty coordinate its efforts to provide mechanisms for intellectual exchange
and develop coordinated faculty profiles by bringing together the work of the Education
Research Office, the Director of Administrative Relations, the Executive Committee of
the Education Student Graduate Association, and the Communications Office, under the
auspices of the proposed new organizational structure where these activities would fall in
the portfolio of Associate Dean (Graduate Education and Research).
-- -- ---- --------2-7--- - that careful attention be given to the constitution of committees, the staffing of
and the filling of administrative positions to ensure that a broad range of research
orientations and methodologies are represented.
R1/1)R
.
28.
that the Faculty limit the number of research centres it both establishes and maintains by
aligning research centres with university priorities for research and the overall set of
priorities established by the Faculty.
29.
that the Faculty explore efficiencies around the centres and research clusters to make best
use of available fiscal resources, space, and staff, examining the feasibility of a "Centre
of Centres" on the Surrey campus.
Administration and Governance
We recommend:
30.
that the Faculty examine the distribution of teaching and service among its members,
paying particular attention to the loads carried by junior faculty. In addition, teaching and
service contributions should be adequately acknowledged as two of the three required
areas of activity for contract renewal, tenure, promotion, and salary review.
31.
that the organizational structure of the Faculty be re-examined with a view to creating a
clearer structure that more closely aligns with its major operations; a proposal to initiate
• ?
discussion appears in Appendix C. This structure would involve two Associate Dean
positions: the Associate Dean (Graduate Education and Research) established in parallel
with the position of Associate Dean (Professional Development).
32.
that the role of the Faculty Meeting be re-envisioned, to reaffirm its place as the key
decision-making forum, with an agreed set of policies and procedures to ensure that all
voices are heard and all opinions considered.
33.
that concerns about the lack of transparency in decision-making be addressed by the
committee on governance issues through a process of faculty-wide consultation that
results in a proposal to be brought to a full Faculty Meeting for discussion and approval.
34.
that the program of regular community-building activities be continued, with a view to
...-encouraging the dissemination- of knowledge and providing support for colleagues as a
way to improving communication between all members of the Faculty.
Working Environment
We recommend:
35.
that the problem of obtaining sufficient resources and technical support on the Surrey
campus be explored and that dedicated videoconferencing facilities be established on
bothcampuses
.---------
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------ - ........
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-- ...-_--.. ..................
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.
36.
that the University explore the problems of job classification and reclassification for staff
in the Faculty of Education, with a view to finding a way to streamline the process.
37.
that annual reviews for all staff members be carried out according to an agreed timetable
and set of guiding principles.
38.
that the provision of information technology and technical support on the Burnaby
campus be reviewed, with a view to finding cost-effective ways of making improvements
and encouraging staff to share their knowledge.
39.
that staff concerns about their working environment, and their recommendations for
improvement, be carefully considered and acted upon. Where this is not possible, staff
should be fully apprised of the reasons.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
An external review that provides nearly 40 recommendations may leave the unintended
impression that this is a Faculty in need of improvement. We do not wish to leave this
impression. In fact—returning to our original observations—this is a Faculty with many enviable
strengths. Our recommendations are made in considerable detail because we believe that the
potential of the Faculty will be even further enhanced through a renewal of efforts to address the
issues that negatively impact upon the wellbeing and productivity of some of its members. This
renewal will require a greater sense of personal responsibility and commitment to wider Faculty
goals by all members. We have every reason to expect that the members of Simon Fraser's
Faculty of Education are, in fact, poised to take on this challenge.
At the beginning of this Report, we argued that the Faculty of Education's strongest resource is
its people; the health and sustainability of that resource will depend upon how well the people
care for themselves and each other. We hope that some of the recommendations we offer here
will help the Faculty achieve its vision and goals.
[]
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Appendix
A
Faculty of Education
?
Simon Fraser University
?
External Review Committee 2007/2008 - Terms of Reference
The purpose of the external review process is to provide the University with assurances that:
a)
The quality of the unit's teaching programs is high and there are measures in place to
ensure their evaluation and revision.
b)
The quality of faculty research is high and faculty collaboration and interaction
provides a stimulating academic environment.
c)
The Faculty members participate in the administration of the unit and take an active
role in the dissemination of knowledge.
d)
The environment is conducive to the attainment of the objectives of the Faculty.
The Review Committee will assess the Faculty and comment on its strengths and weaknesses, on
opportunities for change and/or improvement, and on quality and effectiveness. The Review
•
?
Committee should make essential, formal prioritized recommendations that address its major
concerns, with reference to the resources available to the Faculty and the objectives described in
its three-year plans.
Issues of particular interest to the University and/or the Faculty that we would like the review
team to consider during the review are:
a)
An evaluation of the Faculty's overall strategic direction which aims to maintain
excellence in its programs of research and teaching across diverse areas of
Education, while managing resources and communications across multiple
campuses within a complex environment.
b)
An evaluation of the current undergraduate, graduate and professional programs
(including faculty, centers, external sites, international programs, premium fee -
--
programs), and a strategic analysis of the opportunities for expansion and/or
consolidation to address conditions of financial constraint.
c)
An assessment of the character, quality and integrity of the curricula, pedagogy,
research and scholarship of the faculty, including advice on how these should be
pursued in the future.
d)
An assessment of the optimum size of the Ed D program and the adequacy of the
resources available to support the program.
...........................------- -------- ----
.
R1IflR
Other areas of the Faculty to be considered by the review team include:
1.
Programs
• structure, breadth, orientation and integration of the undergraduate programs including
the cooperative education program
• structure, breadth, depth and course offering schedule of the graduate programs
• graduate student progress and completion, and support for graduate students
• enrolment management issues at the undergraduate and graduate levels including, for the
former, majors and service teaching
2.
Faculty
• size and quality of the faculty complement in relation to the Faculty's responsibilities and
workload
• teaching, research and service contributions of faculty members, including the level of
external research support
3.
Administration
• size of the administrative and support staff complement, and the effectiveness of the
administration of the Faculty
• adequacy of resources and facilities provided to support teaching and research, including
library, laboratory, equipment, computing, and office space
4.
Connection
• the Faculty's
of
concept
the faculty
and
within
plan for
and
teaching
outside
and
the
research
University
and
?
relationship with the other
is
units within the University
• relationship between the Faculty and the community
• relationship with alumni
5.
Future Directions
• the plans of the Faculty are appropriate and manageable.
I
VI I MR ?
IA
I
.
?
Appendix B
Itinerary for External Site Visit
?
March
12-14, 2008
Reviewers:
Dr. Rena Upitis, Queen's University, Chair of Review Team
Dr. Dennis Thiessen, University of Toronto
Dr. Graham Pike, University of Prince Edward Island
Dr. Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Political Science/Women's Studies,
Simon Fraser University
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
E
7:15
-
Taxi from Delta Vancouver Suites to SFU Burnaby Campus
8:00
9:00
Opening meeting with Senior Administrators:
Strand Hall,
Dr. Bill Krane, Associate VP Academic (Chair)
PCR
Dr. Jonathan Driver, Dean of Graduate Studies
Room 3187
Dr. Paul Shaker, Dean, Faculty of Education
Continental
Dr. Glynn Nicholls, Director Academic Planning
breakfast served
Dr. Norbert Haunerland, Associate VP Research
9:00
9:15
Enroute to Department
9:15
10:15
Paul Shaker, Dean, Faculty of Education
EDB
8525
10:15
10:45
Suzanne de Castell, Associate Dean - Academic
EDB 8545
10:45
11:15
Heeson Bai, Director
EDB 8541
Graduate Programs
11:15
11:45
Stephen Smith, Director
EDB 8541
Professional Development Programs
11:45
1:15
Lunch, Executive Committee
DAC
Reservation under "de Castell"
1:15
1:45
Tracy London, Advancement Officer
EDB 8541
Ian Andrews, Director, International Programs
1:45
2:15
Lannie Kanevsky, Acting Director of Field Programs
EDB 8541
Director of Administrative Relations
2:15
2:30
Danielle Arcand, French Programs
EDB 8541
2:30 -
2:45
Cheryl Amundsen, Faculty
EDB 8541
2:45
3:00
Phil Winne, Faculty
?
-----------
EDB 8541
3:00
4:00
Executive Committee
EDB 8541
1
1/
1
1
1 Ing
?
4:00
?
5:00 ?
Reception
?
EDB 8651
?
5:00 ?
Return to Hotel by taxi
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Taxi from Delta Vancouver Suites to SFU Surrey Campus
-
7:45
8:30
9:00
Campus Tour with Leonard Thong, Assistant to the
Associate Dean - Administration
Meet by the Security Desk at the top of the main entrance
stairs.
Surrey
9:30
David Paterson, Associate Dean - Administration
Director, Undergraduate Programs
SUR 15-645
9:00
9:30
10:30
Surrey Faculty and Instructors
SUR 15-645
10:30
11:00
Surrey CUPE Staff
SUR 15-645
11:00
11:30
Surrey APSA Staff
SUR 15-645
11:30
1:00
Lunch, David Paterson - Central City Brewing Co.
Reservation under "Paterson"
Surrey
1:45
Travel to Burnaby Campus with David Paterson
1:00
1:45
2:15
Burnaby CUPE Staff
EDB 8620F
2:15
2:45
Burnaby APSA Staff
EDB 8620F
Ruby Ng, External Communications
EDB 8541
2:45
3:00
?
-
Faculty Members
EDB 7600F
3:00
4:15
4:15
5:00
Graduate Students
EDB 7600F
5:00
Return to Hotel by taxi
.
0
Friday, March
14,
2008
0
8:15
Taxi from Delta Vancouver Suites to SFU Burnaby Campus
9:00
9:45
Dr. Jon Driver, Dean of Graduate Studies
Strand Hall,
(Coffee only served)
PCR, Rm 3187
9:45
10:30
Dr. Norbert Haunerland, Associate VP Research
Strand Hall,
PCRRm 3187
10:30
10:45
Enroute to Department
10:45
11:00
Sen Campbell, Faculty
EDB 7504
ENGRAMMETRON - Educational Neuroscience
Laboratory
11:00
11:15
Peter Grimmett, Faculty
EDB 8541
11:15
11:45
IPTEM Module - Virtual Class
EDB 8541
11:45
12:15
Research Opportunities Committee
EDB 8541
Paul Shaker, Phil Winne, Cheryl Amundson, Sen
Campbell, Geniva Liu, Tracey Leacock
12:15
1:45
Lunch, Ian Andrews and members of International
DAC
Programs - Reservation under "Andrews"
1:45
2:45
Institutes and Centres in the Faculty of Education
EDB 8541
(Kieran Egan, Dan Laitsch, Wanda Cassidy, Peter
Grimmett, Maureen Hoskyn, Rina Zazkis)
2:45
3:45
Faculty Associates and Coordinators
EDB 8680-81
3:45
4:00
Enroute to Strand Hall
4:00
5:00
Closing meeting with Senior Administrators:
Strand Hall,
Dr. Bill Krane, Associate VP Academic (Chair)
PCR
Dr. John Waterhouse, VP Academic
Rm 3187
Dr. Norbert Haunerland, Associate VP Research
Light
Dr. Glynn Nicholls, Director, Academic Planning
refreshments
Dr. Jonathan Driver, Dean of Graduate Studies
served
Dr. Paul Shaker, Dean, Faculty of Education
5:00
Return to Hotel by taxi
/U/ng
Appendix C
?
Proposed Organizational Structure for Programs and Research
-*:DeaflofEdUcaOfl
AseDean.
?
Assocte Dean
:fessina! eIopment)
?
(Graduate Educathn &Reseah)
DrethcfTeadie ?
bioroProsonaModuies
?
DirthorofReseaith ?
or of Graduate
Education ?
(PTEM, PQP...)
?
:
?
Education
• --- ?
-,=••
Coodnator of Internabonal
Dtyvrmc
MEdJEdD ?
MAIPhD
Ccxnator ?
Cdirth
