It’s a real pleasure to be writing this, my first update as your engineering senator. I am already looking forward to the next two years! My first senate meeting (and the focus of this update) took place on May 16th. There were a number of interesting facts presented at this meeting that concern the undergraduate student body.
President Feridun Hamadullahpur presented a report to senate that focused mostly on UW’s standings concerning international students. UW is currently ranked 10th in Canada for proportion of undergraduate students who are international with 12.6% (McGill is 1st with 21%). However, UW is first in international graduate students with 30%. The goal is to reach 20% international undergraduate students by 2017. The President emphasized that it is essential to maintain language standards and support while increasing that number.
The Vice President Academic & Provost also presented a report to senate. This report revealed that Engineering offers of admission this year dropped by 7% (3576 – 3322). This was due to overshooting last year (remember all those frosh?) and a higher number of applicants ranking UW Engineering first. Engineering also increased its offers to international students by 14%. The UAE campus Engineering program increased its enrollment from 23 to 44. A complete summary on admissions will follow in June.
Access Copyright is a company that handles licensing for copyrighted materials and is used by most academic institutions in Canada, UW included. Originally, Access Copyright charged about $4 per student to allow for photocopying and use of copyrighted documents. Recently, they proposed to increase the fee to $45. A number of universities have worked together to bring Access Copyright to court and currently no decision has been reached – the fee remains at $4. If, in a few years time, it is decided that the fee can be increased to $45 then all universities will have to make back payments-in UW’s case working out to about $1.5 million a year. This is a serious issue and one to watch for in the future.
Mechatronics Engineering underwent an academic review at this past meeting. This is a comprehensive self-review that must be conducted by each program every seven years. Given that Mechatronics was recently accredited, the accreditation report was used for this review. A number of minor issues were identified with the program and defended by the department to no dispute.
As senator there are a few things I would like to implement. This includes a proxy system (or phone-in system) for senate meetings as currently there are no provisions for senators who cannot attend (this includes co-op terms, which means students may go entire terms without representation). Another is the development of a historian system so that issues dealt with by senate can be recorded and tracked. This is so that in case an issue comes up again (as it often does) a new senator is more prepared to address it. If you have any suggestions, questions, or anything else please email me at senate@engmail.uwaterloo.ca!
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