On February 2nd, the Faculty of Engineering had a town hall meeting open to students to unveil the Vision 2015 plan, which would outline the planned growth for the Faculty for the next 5 years. The plan overviewed what the Faculty plans on doing to improve teaching quality, co-op, student space and many other frequently discussed topics. Students had the chance to submit questions beforehand, as well as ask them during the meeting. Dean Adel Sedra, Dr. Wayne Parker and Dr. Wayne Loucks were there present to both deliver the presentation as well as answer questions. A handful of faculty and administration members were also there and occasionally chipped in their two cents. While a significant portion of The Iron Warrior staff was present at this meeting, Jon Martin and Erin Matheson have decided to collaborate on reporting on this meeting so as to deliver a further developed insight on the meeting. The following headings cover the main topics that were discussed during the meeting.
Student involvement
One of the big issues addressed by staff representatives was student involvement in the development and review of the 2015 plan. Student participation will be most prevalent on existing and new committees. Each department will be organizing their own undergraduate planning committees, with significant student participation. Check within your own faculty to see who the staff representatives are and how you can get involved. Faculty planning committees will also be a venue for representation. Many of the existing committees that are already in existence, such as the Co-op Working Group, will be consulted and incorporated into the Vision 2015 plan; many of these groups already have student members representing our views and opinions.
Jon-Another tactic for eliciting student opinions that was mentioned were student surveys and focus groups. The issue of trying to avoid spamming undergrads with surveys and other email was raised as a concern by faculty representatives. In my opinion, I would rather get the increased number of emails, and actually have the opportunity to respond when I have the time to fill out a survey instead of having to schedule around a general meeting. Sending the survey out to everyone provides the greatest opportunity for us to give our opinions, and for the faculty to get a much higher number of responses. And if you don’t care, then just delete the email.
Erin- Although the Faculty is making great strides by holding these meetings that are open to students and they are willing to answer questions, there is a significant difference between answering questions and welcoming input. As the meeting progressed it seemed like Dr. Sedra, Dr. Loucks and Dr. Parker became increasingly defensive of current faculty operations or aspects of the plan, all the while the questions coming from the students did not necessarily become vicious in nature. Most of the questions that were being asked also provided some really strong feedback and potential suggestions, but none of the faculty members present really acknowledged any of them. To really make the plan effective, an equal amount of planning regarding the most optimal way to receive student feedback is required, even if that is in the form of survey spam sent to everyone’s inbox.
Teaching Quality
Questions about teaching quality sparked many questions during the conference, with many people wondering how professors are actually ‘graded’ on their teaching abilities, whether anyone actually reads the course critiques we write, and why the same bad profs teach the same course over and over. The faculty has acknowledged that this is an important issue for all students because, after all, we are paying for these profs to teach us. Questions remain about teaching quality stemming from issues with how professors are assigned to courses, as well as circumstances that are preventing them from teaching to the best of their ability. Both of these issues have been identified by the faculty and will be investigated as the planning process goes forward.
Currently the incentive for profs to improve their teaching methods is incorporated into their pay increase each year as well as whether they get promoted. This increase is composed of three components: their teaching, research and service. The teaching component is significantly based on the course critiques that we fill out each term, with Dean Sedra writing congratulatory emails to some, and advisory emails to others. The Centre for Teaching Excellence is a spot where all professors can work to improve their teaching methods and interactions with their students, if they participate. One question that sparked a very forceful answer from Dean Sedra was the ability of professors to buy out of teaching hours using research money. This misnomer was quickly shot down, with the assurance that no professors have this ability. Some professors may teach less courses during a specific term and more in another, but they are not able to buy their way out of teaching courses.
Jon- The problem that I see with the three component pay scale system is in the weighting of the different components, and the ability to cancel out a negative score. How high of a weighting do our course critiques have, as this will have a big impact on how much effect our voices actually have. As for cancelling out a negative, my issue with this system is the potential for a professor who is absolutely horrible at teaching to still get a pay raise because they are brilliant at research. If a professor can practically ignore the students they are teaching and instead focus all their time on their research then they could theoretically still get their standard pay increase, with only a quick advisory email saying they should improve their teaching. If they still get the pay increase then where is the motivation?
Erin – The main point of the evaluation system is to currently establish the pay rate and degree of seniority a professor has within their respective department, not to optimally match professors with the courses they would be the best fit to teach. It’s clear that the professors at UW are exceptionally intelligent in their respective fields, but when directed to teach a course that is outside their area of expertise it becomes a struggle for both the professor as well as the students in the class. There is also the ongoing issue of insufficient teaching skills, language barriers, as well as some professors who do not posses a great desire to teach. Personally, I would rather our course critiques be considered when assigning professors to a certain class, or perhaps act as a recommendation for a professor to participate in a workshop so as to further improve their teaching ability. Currently, money is the only motivating factor, and our course critiques do not play a highly significant role in determining it either. Seeing the level of talent that lies within our faculty, I think it’s more a problem of managing it properly, for the benefit of both the students as well as the professors.
Teaching Assistants
Many questions were also focused on the teaching quality of the TAs for courses. Currently, TAs undergo an expectations process before they ever become TAs, though it was acknowledged that there are currently some loopholes in that system – what those loopholes are were not mentioned. Professor Raymond Legge, associate dean of graduate studies and his team have also identified issues from the graduate studies side of things dealing with how TAs are assigned to courses. It is hoped that this could translate into improvements from our side. Of course this will be a balancing act between what the grad students want as a job, and undergrads want to actually help them pass a course. One thing the faculty has identified is the need for more information from students, and preferably constructive information. Saying “We want a TA who can speak English” is great, but it doesn’t tell them how widespread and how serious the issue is, or help in generating a solution. So the more input the better.
Erin – Any problem’s I have had with a TA has been related to either a language issue, or a simple lack of motivation on the part of the TA. It seems like there is too much emphasis on laying out guidelines and educating the applicants to the TA program when they apply or just before the term begins, but not sufficient follow up on their performance in the interim. An ongoing evaluation program that is consistent across all of the faculties would be much more beneficial. It seems like TA’s currently sign up for the job, have assignments or labs dumped on their desk for marking, and then no one follows up with them throughout the term. As a grad student accepted to UW, I don’t think it’s a question of their ability necessarily, but similar to the issue with professors rather an issue of talent management and development. Many of these TA’s have the potential to be helpful, but haven’t been given or taught the necessary tools to allow them to do so. Doing so will again, not only benefit the students, but will allow the TA’s to develop further as well.
Jon-So far I have seen great TAs, that have really helped the class and have been an integral part of the course instruction. Then I have also had TAs that offered very little help, or tried to help but just couldn’t project their voices to allow anyone outside a half metre area to hear them. Continued support is required throughout the term to actually fix these problems, otherwise they will just continue into the next term. I think the limited visible change that we actually see term to term is a discouraging factor for many students, we fill out the course critiques about the profs and TAs, but there never seems to be any action.
Co-op
Most co-op questions were answered by Wayne Parker, the associate Dean of Co-op, focusing on job rates as well as co-op fees. In response to the troubling number of jobs, Parker promoted the actual increase in co-op jobs this term, as well as the increase in the employment rate. In the fall of 2010 the overall undergrad employment rate stood at 94%, while the fall term was 99%. While this is a great number it does not take into account the differences between faculties. Every term the employment numbers show the low percentage of students who are actually employed in programs like Chemical. The difference in number of available jobs between departments and their respective employment rates also connected with another question: why the high co-op rates are justified across all programs when there is such a difference in job postings, as well as the continual increase in the cost overall. As explained, the co-op fees that we pay every term are annualized across our entire engineering careers, hence why you pay the fee even if you aren’t on a co-op term. CECS operates with the sole purpose of breaking even financially at the end of the year, with most of the costs going to payroll.
Jon – For all of my co-op terms so far I have been able to organize my own co-op positions at multiple large consulting firms, and as a result I haven’t actually used Jobmine. I know a number of people who have also organized their own jobs, allowing them to focus on midterms and assignments as well. This has spared me a lot of the headaches of balancing both classes and searching for co-op positons, but it has also left me in an interesting situation when it comes to paying for co-op. I have organized all my own jobs, but I have still paid the same co-op fee every single term – paying for services I have never used, beyond the regular visit from CECS to ask about my pay and rate my job from 1 to ten. So will that ever change? I have no idea, but in the meantime I guess I have to keep paying.
Erin – One of the fundamental issues with the reported CECS employment rate is the fine print that very few people read over. A significant number of unemployed students, or students who search for co-op placements on their own terms are exempt from this figure. The employment rate also reflects all co-op students at UW, not just engineering majors. I can remember at the end of my 1B term at least a good third of my class was still without a job at the start of the following work term, not the 6% as would be implied by the CECS stat for that same year. One subject that was mentioned but not really addressed was the current structure of the co-op system and the value students receive from it. It is frequently mentioned that field co-ordinator visits during work placements serve no great value, yet certainly account for a considerable portion of CECS’ yearly costs considering the very distant locations some students are employed in. In addition, although there are currently efforts to upgrade the current JobMine system to Waterloo Works, as well as improve the current ranking and matching system so as to maximize the number of jobs awarded to students, there wasn’t much opportunity to offer suggestions or feedback. The bulk of the meeting was spent on a question and answer period regarding co-op, so it’s already quite clear that students are most concerned about the co-op aspect of the 2015 plan.
Tuition
The main comments related to tuition increases and costs were about the possibility of price reductions, as well as greater transparency in where our money actually goes. Dean Sedra mentioned previous instances where government changes in funding laws resulted in major increases in tuition costs, though these occurrences are not expected in the near future.
Unfortunately there is always a trade-off between tuition costs and the quality of the university. If you want to pay half as much for tuition than you also have to accept a loss of half of the services we expect and use. While we both totally agree when it comes to the pains of tuition increases we somewhat have to accept it, after all would you rather save the money but be stuck in Arts?
On a related note, a question was raised by a person at the town hall meeting, relating to the differential cost for taking elective courses. While on a school term we are able to take as many electives as we want for no additional cost. Whether it is a good idea or not to overload yourself with extra courses when you are actually responsible for passing your assigned ones, that is another question. Unfortunately taking those same courses when you are on a work term and actually have the time to devote to actually doing well in them, can also be extremely costly. While students in other faculties might pay $400 to take a course, we in engineering have to pay about double that for the same course. The justification for this discrepancy was that we pay a set fee for our education – of course it always seems to be going up each term – but it is essentially a standard fee for our entire engineering program. Students in many other faculties on the other hand pay for each course individually, this difference is the cause for the differential pay structure.
Erin – Another point that was mentioned during the meeting was the fact that comparitively, UW is a relatively young school with ‘not a lot of money’. Although my bank account begs to differ with that statement, I can understand where they were coming from – UW does not yet have a great and vast history and a large community of alumni’s who are willing to throw money at the school, nor does the average undergrad at UW come from a family who also has a building named after them due to their financial generosity. As nice as it is that for the most part UW students receive their degrees based on their own intelligence and hard work, not because of a generous donation, it comes back to bite us all in the form of our massively high tuition. Although cutting costs won’t benefit the university nor it’s students, I think the faculty should instead focus on value creation from the high tuition. Showing its students that they’re really getting their money’s worth from all of the services provided and quality education and effort put in by the faculty makes the high dollar amount slightly easier for the student population to swallow. As the undergrad enrollment rate increases, further emphasis on scholarships and bursaries should also be considered – especially with shaky co-op employment rates as the economy continues to recover.
Jon – I think the differential elective costs makes no sense. If we are already paying for our program then any additional courses that we take should just be added on top, they should have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we are in engineering. If the price that other students pay is representative of the cost for running the course then that is what we should be paying – we should be treated exactly the same as anyone else taking the course. The administration needs to support engineering students who want to become more well rounded people, beyond the limited choices set out by complementary studies electives. University is an opportunity to learn so many different things, but our programs are so structured we rarely get a chance to take advantage of that. Any student who wants to broaden their horizons should be supported by the university administration, through equal treatment for all faculties, on all terms.
Campus Development
We’ve already seen some of the effects that Vision 2010 had on our campus layout – Engineering 5 is already open and Engineering 6 phase I will be open this coming summer. Between these two buildings there is already space dedicated to undergrad student use in the forms of computer labs, seminar rooms as well as the new student teams bay. With the increasing student population study and work space is hard to come by, particularly for group or project work. Although there are of course more plans for additional buildings, there is still limited feedback being provided for how to develop the space in these buildings. More importantly however is the lack of mention of developing student space in existing buildings for those of us who won’t be around to see these new buildings being used.
Erin – To be perfectly honest, if it weren’t for the Iron Warrior office I wouldn’t have anywhere on campus to peacefully do work. Most of the computer labs are either always full, too loud, too warm, or filled with broken computers. Even still, most assignments for ChE classes don’t require a computer, so setting up shop in a computer lab is relatively pointless. Smaller rooms within the engineering buildings can be allocated for silent study space or perhaps group work to alleviate some of the strain on the computer work spaces. I feel this is also a place where the departments can step up to work to provide their students with work space that is appropriate for the type of work their students typically do as its very difficult to build one type of study space that satisfies all engineering students. This again is another segment of the plan that needs much more student influence and diversification.
Jon – Last year I had the opportunity to tour E5 before it had finished construction, including the now opened computer lab, all of the design bays and the classrooms. This building really showed me how much the engineering department is actually recognizing the innovative spirit of the students. We represent the University around the country and the world, showing the quality of the education provided here, and finally the University is actually devoting space to developing this branch of student development. I am very optimistic for the future development of the engineering department, including the plans for E6 part 2 and E7, which should offer new and innovative space for all engineering departments.
Vision 2015 is a great opportunity for us to impact the future of the Engineering faculty so voice your opinions, go to the Vision 2015 website and make the changes you want to see. For every complaint we make there is a potential solution – and this is the venue we need to see those solutions put into action.
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