Connect Four: Q&A with Kevin McQuillan on transitioning the arts and social sciences

September 9, 2009

Kevin McQuillan, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, will lead the transition to unify the Faculties of Communication and Culture, Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and become the Dean of the new faculty in April, 2010. McQuillan discusses the role of the transition team and its anticipated outcomes.

What are the goals for the transition team?
The real job of the transition team is to create the structures and policies that will allow the new faculty to work effectively to support teaching and research.

This includes first, creating a constitution for the new faculty council. That council will, in turn, be responsible for approving policies on a wide variety of issues that affect students and faculty. We recognize that there are differences across the new faculty with regard to issues such as admissions or progression requirements, and the Fine Arts programs are one example of this. But we would like to simplify as much as we can while recognizing the diversity of programs. Second, we need to settle on an organizational structure for the faculty. In particular, we need to consider the case of the Faculty of Communication and Culture, which has operated as a non-departmentalized faculty until now, and create an administrative arrangement that the people in Communication and Culture will be comfortable with. And, of course, an early benchmark will be deciding upon a name for the faculty. I would like us to have made significant progress on all these items by the end of this calendar year.

How will the team engage others in the transition process?
It is important to distinguish between the transition team and the much broader involvement in the process we seek to encourage. Given the enormous number of issues that need to be addressed, it is critical to involve people with expertise from across the new faculty. The transition team will set up a series of working groups. As one example, a working group will address student issues like admission requirements and student advising. The committee hopes to draw on people with real expertise and have them, through working groups, bring proposals back to the transition team to consider. In addition, we plan to visit departmental meetings, create an online discussion forum and mechanisms to engage students for feedback.

How will the team make decisions?
The transition team is not a decision-making body, but is rather a committee that will make recommendations. Depending on the issue, it may require approval from GFC or the Board of Governors. Many of the faculty policies will have to be approved by the new faculty council.

One of the objectives is to create enhanced inter- and multi-disciplinary research and learning opportunities. What might this look like?
One of the advantages of the amalgamation is that faculty members who are attached to departments, but have an interest in inter- or multi-disciplinary programs, will have more opportunity to research or teach in those programs. This is also an area of opportunity to impact our students' experience in those programs. We already have strong inter- and multi-disciplinary programs which may be revitalized in the new faculty by increasing the teaching resources that may be drawn upon. The International Relations and Latin American Studies programs, for example, have applicability across the faculties. We can boost these programs by making it easier for faculty to become involved in their management and in the range of research and learning opportunities. As well, we can begin thinking of new programs within the context of the larger faculty.

We are committed to student success. We will look for students' feedback on their engagement and satisfaction with their programs as a starting point to creating increased inter- and multi-disciplinary learning and research opportunities.

What are the most important strengths of the new faculty?
The challenge and the opportunity are to raise our profile and make our students and the larger community aware of the really exciting work going on in the arts and social sciences. In student numbers, we will be the largest faculty on campus, so we will have greater opportunity to showcase the variety of work we do, in both research and teaching, across the range of the arts and social sciences. I think we have a tremendous variety of education options open to our students, both disciplinary and inter- or multi-disciplinary, which involve working on the leading issues that our society is facing.

How will the university measure the outcomes of transitioning to a single arts faculty?
We will measure outcomes in three key areas: students, faculty, and financial objectives. The university aspires to grow its enrolment overall and we will be a part of that. We need to attract top quality undergraduate and graduate students and to improve in measures of student engagement like NSSE. We will look at active participation in the governance of the new faculty and positive feedback that there are new opportunities that didn't exist previously. Finally, we will look for evidence that the new faculty allows us to use our resources more efficiently to promote education and research.

How will the iS² review impact staff in the arts and social sciences?
I wouldn't expect the impact to be any different given the amalgamation than had the faculties remained separate. The goal of the iS² is to provide better support services in a more efficient way right across the campus and all faculties.

How will budget cuts affect the merged faculty?
This is an issue that every faculty is dealing with. Had the arts and social sciences remained separate, we would have been dealing with the same budget cuts and making difficult decisions on cutting in each of our faculties separately. It is important for all of us to focus on our long term objectives. We are facing several difficult years but we must work to preserve what is most important to our faculty and remind ourselves that better times will return and will hopefully provide the resources we need to renew and strengthen our academic programs.