Senate Notes
Magally Zelaya, Staff
Senate is the highest academic governing body at the University of Manitoba, comprised of administrators, deans, directors, and elected professors and students. Senate meets on the first Wednesday of every month in Engineering 2 room 262; the next meeting will be held on March 5.
NAVITAS
A resolution to the ongoing issues surrounding the university’s partnership with Navitas, a private company, to establish the International College of Manitoba was proposed at Senate’s monthly meeting on Feb. 6. The meeting was relocated to the Drake building because of a gas leak in the Engineering and Technology Complex where Senate’s chambers are located.
University president and Senate chair Emöke Szathmáry conceded that “communications could have been handled better” in regards to the partnership, but that the university was “obligated to move forward” with the contract.
She informed Senate that a framework document regarding the partnership was to be made available to the university community by or before the next Senate meeting scheduled for March 5.
The document will address questions about the agreement as well as make clear that the agreement “is in keeping with academic matters at the University of Manitoba,” according to Szathmáry.
Robert Kerr, vice-president (academic) and provost, will provide the framework document, as he is the administrator facilitating the agreement with Navitas.
Szathmáry named Susan Deane, a former member of the province’s Council on Post-Secondary Education, as the director of the International College of Manitoba (ICM).
She further announced the establishment of an academic advisory committee to monitor the ICM. The committee will be made up of three members to be appointed by Navitas and three members and a chair already selected by the university.
Richard Lobdell, vice-provost (programs), was appointed as the chair of the new committee. Richard Sigurdson, the dean of Arts; Mark Whitmore, the dean of Science; and Norman Hunter, a chemistry professor will make up the university’s remaining committee members.
Debate then ensued as Mike Gabbert, the head of the history department, put forth a motion to have the contract given to Senate for review, so as to “remedy, to some degree, the injury done to collegial governance.”
Though many senators supported Gabbert’s motion, other senators felt that directing the contract back to Senate was not the best course of action. Anthony Iacopino, the dean of Dentistry, said such an action would be “counterproductive” and “destructive.” Other senators echoed his views, including Jay Doering, dean of Graduate Studies, and Christine Blais, director of University 1.
The motion was defeated in a 34-41 vote.
NEW DIPLOMA PROGRAM
A proposal to establish an Aboriginal Environmental Stewardship (AES) diploma was approved by Senate.
The new diploma offered to aboriginal students by extended education “teaches environmental assessment, monitoring, protection, management, sustainability, legal requirements, and current issues in the environment field,” according to the proposal put forth to Senate.
Further, the report states that “All the courses within the AES diploma include both Aboriginal and Western world views on the environment.”
The university will partner with Building Environment Aboriginal Human Resources, a federal program, to provide the students with four-month work placements.
If students wish to continue with their studies after completion of the program, the 60-credit-hour diploma will be transferable to a bachelor of Environmental Studies undergraduate degree at the U of M.
Pending the acquirement of funding, the diploma program will be available in September 2008.
Szathmáry said she was “delighted” by the creation of the diploma.
The meeting, which started nearly half an hour after its scheduled time, adjourned after one hour and 50 minutes.
