EDUCATION INTERVIEWS ELIMINATED
Faculty of Education decides interviews aren’t worth the trouble
JENELLE PETRINCHUK STAFF
A proposal to eliminate the applicant interview as part of the admission process for the bachelor of education program was approved at the June 28 meeting of the U of M Senate.
Currently, in order to be accepted into the program a student must complete a two-step admission process: a written expression exercise and a group interview. According to the report submitted to the Senate by David Morphy, chair of the Senate committee on admissions, the interviews have been monitored for their effectiveness.
“They’ve been debating this within the faculty council for three years,” said Morphy, “This is something that they’ve been really concerned about.”
Although there were no objections to the admissions-policy change at the Senate meeting, not all education students feel it is a change for the better.
Faculty of education student J.P. Jamieson said the interviews are a very important aspect of the faculty and said they are still necessary.
“I think it’s strange that they canceled [the interviews]. I think you should have to talk to the people. Teaching is a very hands on, very personal field. It can’t hurt to have an interview,” said Jamieson.
According to the proposal report provided to Senate, “There has been increasing consensus among faculty that the group interviews are not accomplishing what they were initially intended to do.”
The report provided the following reasons for eliminating the interviews: that the interview process does not allow interviewers to effectively distinguish between strong and weak applicants; uncertainty about the standardization of the process, with many different interviewers and candidates; and that the interviews consume an “inordinate amount of academic and support staff time and resources.”
“[The faculty of education] was just concerned that this wasn’t a very reliable way to separate applicants,” said Morphy, also the university’s vice-provost (student affairs).
It was also pointed out by Morphy in the report that in comparison to other faculties of education in Manitoba — as well as across the country — the U of M’s admission process well exceeds the processes used by other universities and colleges in terms of time taken to organize, schedule and conduct the interviews.
Morphy stated that this was the most compelling concern brought to the Senate committee on admissions. He said that because the process was so timeconsuming, “there was significant concern that students would decide to go somewhere else.”
He said that some of the main advantages to eliminating the interview process will be the fact that the faculty will be reducing the time investment of staff, and students may not be as nervous throughout the application process if there is no interview.
“I would always question what you would get out of a 30 minute interview and how that would impact positively on selection,” said Morphy, “I think students, particularly younger students, would feel more comfortable not having to go through the interview.”
Matt Enns, a faculty of education student that has gone through the interview process commented on the process. “I thought [the interview] was somewhat intimidating. It was a group interview but I didn’t really think it was the best way to go about it. You’re being interviewed with several other candidates, so I didn’t think it was really a good way to get a good perspective on the candidates.”
Enns said a different approach to the interviews would be more effective. “I still think interviews are a good idea, but maybe one-on-one interviews, like a job interview, would be better than interviewing several candidates at one time.”
The new application system will come into effect February 1, 2007, when applications next open for the program. Once it is in effect, decisions on admitting students into education will be based on a student’s GPA (worth up to 45 points of a total 65) and a written expression exercise (up to 20 points).
