On March 19, Senate met to vote on curriculum proposals and discuss the strengths and limitations of the strategic plan.
Here’s what you might’ve missed.
Senate passes three curriculum committee motions
Curriculum Committee Chair Catherine Rawn presented three motions to Senate.
The first motion creates a new shell course to balance out a Workday issue in how it designates course credits. Right now, Workday categorizes the credits of courses which range across both the winter and spring sessions only as winter credits. For students that don’t have any other courses in their spring session, this categorization can lead to a disruption of tuition installments and of services like the U-Pass. Rawn explained that this shell course would force Workday to recognize term two credits and enable fees to be assessed correctly.
Rawn then presented the second motion, which involves degrees, diplomas, certificate names and parchments. This policy creates naming consistency and standardization across both campuses and different programs. Further, this allows for certificates of Indigenous language programs to be printed in the Indigenous language of the program.
The final motion Rawn presented recommends to the Board of Governors one new sub-specialization and one discontinued program. The new sub-specialization is the Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Genetics and the discontinued program is the Doctor of Philosophy in Genetic and Genomic Counselling. This is because it was determined that this should not be considered a separate degree, but rather a sub-specialization.
All three motions passed.
Strategic plan refresh
The Senate has discussed the strategic plan refresh since September 2024. Today, they continued the discussion with a presentation from Provost Gage Averill and VP Research and Innovation Gail Murphy.
In the last meeting, the Senate heard about the first phase of community engagement, completed this fall, as well as 16 themes on UBC’s future.
Some of the priorities involve increasing flexibility for learners, expanding student experiential learning opportunities, embracing emerging technologies and expanding research.
Senator Sean Graham voiced that the strategic plan’s goal of integrating AI across teaching, learning and research needs to involve an aspect of risk mitigation that he said he did not see as clearly listed.
“There are risks associated with embracing technologies,” Graham said.
Senator Laura Moss continued this discussion on AI by connecting it to concerns heard during her time as chair of the teaching and learning committee.
Moss said she has seen an increase in cases of academic misconduct that she has seen and the “exponential growth in reliance on ChatGPT,” she described AI as a “moving target” that serves as an additional workload for her colleagues when implemented in the classroom.
“It [the strategic plan] seems quite blind to the real problems,” she said.
Senator Charles Menzies echoed concerns about AI and technology and expanded by pointing toward the need for financial and structural support in order for the strategic plan to succeed in its goals.
“Unless you actually include real time, actual resources ... and staff structural support, none of these ideas will happen,” said Menzies.
Menzies also highlighted a second concern about the strategic plan premised upon a “improving progressiveness” and “doing more.”
“Maybe it's time, instead of embracing new things, we reassure ourselves some of the old things actually work,” he said. Menzies encouraged the focus to be on actions and strategies that are currently working and to build on those, rather than succumbing to an “ideology of constant discovery.”
Murphy replied to these concerns by saying that the strategic plan was built from a “bottom-up” approach and is reflective of different communities that the university has been hearing from.
Senate was meant to vote on a motion on institutional neutrality, but Senator Paul Harrison explained that it would be withdrawn.
In a previous meeting, discussion about forming an Ad Hoc Committee on this issue was also postponed.
Harrison said that after speaking with Senators, he felt that “the matter can better be addressed in other venues.” He pointed to UBC’s guidance for ongoing collegial discussions statement and said the provost has indicated it this could be considered and strengthened within the context of institutional neutrality.
He said that the Senate’s time can also be better utilized by addressing other more pressing issues like a revised policy on academic freedom.
Shortly after, the Senate moved into an in-camera session.
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