MEMORANDUM
ATTENTION
FROM
RE:
S.1
1-
17
OFFICE
OF
THE
ASSOCIATE VICE
-PR
ES
ID
ENT, ACA
D
EM
I
C AND
ASSOCIATE
PROVOST
8888 U
ni
versity
Dri
ve,
Burnaby, BC
Ca
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a
d
a
V5A
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S6
TEL:
778
.
782
.4636
FA..,{:
778
.7
82.5876
Senate
DATE
Bill Krane,
C
h
air
PAGES
Senate
Committee on Undergra
du
ate
S
tudi
es
Faculty of
Ap
plied
Sciences
(SCUS 11-01a)
avpc
io
@sf
u
www.sfu.ca/vpacademic
J
anuary
7,
20
11
1
/
1
Action undertaken by the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies at its meeting of
January 6,2011, gives rise to the following recommendation:
Motion:
That Senate approve the elimination of Direct Admission to the Bachelor of
General Studies within the Faculty of Appli
e
d Sciences
effective
Spring 2012
.
SIMON
FRASER UN
I
VERSITY
THIN
K
I
NG OF
THE
WORLD
MEMO
Office of the Dean
ASS-9861
Applied Science Bldg
Tel: 778-782-4724
www.fas.sfu.ca
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A P P II E 0 SCi E
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ATTENTION
Bill Krane, Chair SCUS
Rob Cameron, Associate Dean,
Faculty of Applied Sciences
FROM
Faculty of Applied Sciences
RE
Elimination of Direct Admission to BGSAP
I DATE
December 14,2010
The following motion is appended here for approval and recommendation to
senate.
1. Motion - that the Faculty of Applied Sciences eliminate direct admission
to the Bachelor
of General Studies in Applied Sciences program for
incoming students to the university.
Rationale:
The BGSAP degree, established prior to the faculty restructuring, was
initially conceived as a means to provide a formal credential to students
interested in combining courses and/ or programs across the wide range
of
offerings available within the former faculty (REM, Kinesiology,
Computing, Engineering, Communications, Tech One and SlAT), As
the programs within the newly restructured faculty are much more closely
aligned, the need for this type
of program has now diminished.
In addition, the BGSAP program appears to be inconsistently understood
by external applicants who tend to either equate it with a degree program
in Computing Science or Engineering Science or to conceive of it as a
general or undecided first year program that will lead into one
of these
two degrees. As this is not the case, we believe that eliminating this option
from the P ASBC application site will more clearly indicate the pathways
available to
new students and thereby help to ensure students are placed
appropriately at the beginning
of their first year.
While the faculty would like to maintain this program for students who
are interested
in a broader applied sciences education, we believe it is
better
kep~
as an option for students who have been at the univers,ity for
some time and
who have specific reasons for choosing this type of
program (as a precursor to elementary teacher education, for example).
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Eliminating the program from the PASBC application site would enable
us to meet with students prior to internal transfer, assess their goals, advise
them of the strengths and weaknesses of the program and ensure that they
clearly understand the scope
of the curriculum and their employment
prospects post-graduation.
As applications are already open for the Fall 2011 intake, it is suggested
that this change
be implemented for the Spring 2012 application cycle.
12
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