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Office ofo Assistant Vice-President (Program Quality Assurance) x54124 interoffice MEMORANDUM to: Senate Committee for Quality Assurance from: Anthony Clarke, Assistant V.P. (PQA) subject: Periodic Review of the Bachelor of Arts and Science Program date: 26 July 2013 Please find attached the documents for the periodic review of the Baachelor of Arts and Science Program: Final Assessment Report, the Executive Summary, the responses of the Chair, Dean, and Provost as separate documents. As per section V.4.A.(vii) of our IQAP for the review of departments and schools, the Executive Summm ary has been prepared for the infoormation of Senate, and submission to the Ontario Universities Council for Quality Assurance. SENATE COMMITTEE FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE PERIODIC REVIEW OF THE BACHELOR OF ARTS AND SCIENCE PROGRAM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of FINAL ASSESSMENT REPORT July 2013 Membership of Internal Review Subcommittee (IRS) External Reviewers: Dr. Lesley Cormack, Dean of Arts, University of Alberta Dr. Yves Gingras, Professor, Department of History, Université du Québec à Montréal Facilitator: Dr. Satsuki Kawano, Department of Sociology and Anthropology The Internal Review Committee (IRC) received the Final Assessment Report for the BAS from the IRS on 25 March 2013. The IRC now presents an Executive Summary of the review, which includes the following: - Introduction - Summary of the review process - Review Committee’s recommendations - Administrative responses to the report from the Chair, Dean, and Provost INTRODUCTION The Bachelor of Arts and Sciences program is a unique undergraduate program at the University of Guelph. One aspect of its uniqueness is the design of the curriculum which requires students to do two minors, one from the Bachelor of Arts Program and the other from the Bachelor of Sciences Program. These minors offer the students grounding in traditional disciplines. Through the interdisciplinary core of courses of the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences Program, students have the opportunity to integrate knowledge from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. The BAS Program was approved by Senate in December 2000. The Program emerged from Akademia which had been introduced in 1990 as an option for first year students in either the BA or BSc Programs. Students in Akademia were required to take a course from the BA Program and one from the BSc Program, in addition to two courses which were specific to Akademia. These courses, which integrated perspectives from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, were restricted to students in Akademia. The first class was admitted to the BAS Program in 2001. The Program was designed to be relatively small, as had the Akademia Program. The original intention was that at steady state, roughly 125 students would be admitted per year. This intention has been realized: the Program admits between 120-135 students per year and represents just over 2% of the undergraduate enrollments at the University of Guelph. The Program is a popular choice of potential University of Guelph students. Most undergraduate degree programs of the University are highly competitive with, on average, six students applying for every available seat in the undergraduate programs. The BAS Program is slightly above the University’s average in terms of the demand for the Program. SUMMARY OF THE REVIEW PROCESS Submission of Self-Study by Department: 01 November 2013 (due 1 November 2012) Site visit: 07/08 March Final Assessment Report received: 25 March (expected: March 25) Response of Coordinator: requested, 26 March; received, June 25 (expected: 10 April) Response of Dean: requested, 26 June 2013; received, 26 June 2013 (expected:8 July ) The IRS conducted their site-visit to review the BAS program over a two-day period. Their agenda included meetings with (in chronological order): Anthony Clarke, Assistant Vice- President (Graduate Studies & Program Quality Assurance); Serge Desmarais, Associate Vice- President (Academic); Ann Wilson, Associate Dean and BAS Coordinator, and Donald Bruce, Dean, College of Arts; Jonathan Schmidt, Associate Dean (Academic), Ontario Agricultural College; Ryan Gregory, Department of Integrative Biology; Eric Piosson, Chair, Department of Physics; Glen Van Der Kraak, Associate Dean (Research & Graduate Studies), College of Biological Science; Jeff Thomason, Department of Biomedical Science; Anthony Vannelli, Dean, College of Physical and Engineering Sciences; Jerome Chang, BAS Program Counsellor; BAS students; BAS instructors (Maya Goldenberg and Patrick Barclay); Patricia Tersigni, Coordinator of Undergraduate Curriculum; Kyle Mackie, Manager, Open Learning and Educational Support; and Clare MacMartin, Associate Dean (Academic), College of Social and Applied Human Sciences. REVIEWERS’ RECOMMENDATIONS Overall, the Consultants believed that this is a strong and successful program. It has a small but committed group of core faculty; it attracts high quality students; and it delivers a very strong interdisciplinary degree which is often life-changing for students. Amongst the strengths of the Program, the Consultants listed: its flexibility, the excellence of the students attracted to it, it constitutes one of the strongest science studies programs in the country, and the well-qualified and engaged faculty members. The two weaknesses noted concerned the 5-year sustainability of the program given it only involves 1.5 core faculty members, and that the role of science colleges is minimal. Recommendations. 1. There is an urgent need to develop concrete outcomes, based on the core values of the BAS program. At the moment, the learning outcomes are just the generic university outcomes. Defining these outcomes will help to define the objectives of the program itself, which are now implicit, and may help attract students, define appropriate minors, etc. Having met the students, we would suggest that senior students and recent graduates should be involved in this process, since they have a good understanding of some of the objectives. 2. The program should be controlled by the core faculty- that is, they should be choosing (as far as possible) courses to be taught each year and choosing instructors and T As for the courses. They should also be creating the learning outcomes specific to the program. In other words, the core faculty should constitute a program committee in charge of planning and development. 3. There should be a larger committee of all teachers of core courses, which meets regularly to ensure that all courses meet the objectives of the BAS. 4. The capstone courses are very important to this program and we are concerned that they do not always integrate the interdisciplinary experiences of the past three years. It is also not clear that there are sufficient faculty to teach these 4th year courses. This is essential, since these integrative activities, together with the other ASCI courses, define the specificity of the program. This integration will be facilitated with a teaching committee meeting regularly. 5. We urge the University to add some resources to this program. Ideal would be a 4th core appointment, probably in the social sciences (sociology or anthropology) and hard budget to buy out teaching for interested faculty in the sciences. It is probably not realistic to expect a hiring in the sciences area, since few scientists work in the area of the interaction of science and society. The exception might be in an area such as ecology. 6. We suggest that there are links between teaching in this area and research interests and that these should be explored with the interested faculty across the Colleges. COLLEGE OF ARTS Office of the Dean November 1, 2012 The Bachelor of Arts of Sciences Program Self-Study Consonance of the Undergraduate Program Within the General Framework of the University’s Mission and Strategic Directions The Bachelor of Arts and Sciences Program (BAS) focuses on the relation between knowledge and societies, exploring the premise that knowledge shapes societies and societies shape knowledge. The Program strives to foster a critical awareness in students of this reciprocity through the development of skills in formulating intellectual problems; in researching problems, with particular attention to a critical examination of the material being used; and in presenting findings through dissemination, to academic audiences and the general public, in a range of modes and venues. The Program fosters engagement in its students, both as young scholars and as citizens who are aware that the dissemination of knowledge should advance the betterment of societies and must not be used to intentionally cause harm. The Bachelor of Arts and Sciences program is a unique undergraduate program at the University of Guelph. One aspect of its uniqueness is the design of the curriculum which requires students to do two minors—one from the Bachelor of Arts Program and the other from the Bachelor of Sciences Program. These minors offer the students grounding in traditional disciplines. Through the interdisciplinary core of courses of the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences Program, students have the opportunity to integrate knowledge from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. These foundational principles are in keeping with the mission of the University of Guelph, as articulated in its Learning Objectives and Mission Statement. History of the Program The BAS Program was approved by Senate in December 2000. The Program emerged from Akademia which had been