Announcement of the Working Group to Update Standing Committees of Faculty Council

When the Faculty updated its constitution and by-laws in 2018-2020, a number of operational challenges that affected the standing committees and the Academic Appeals Board (AAB) were uncovered. These included inconsistent and out-of-date manuals and committee procedures. Moreover, no manual existed for the Executive Committee of Council. I am pleased to announce that I have appointed a working group to respond to these challenges and to bring forward recommendations, with the following mandate, process, timing and membership.

Mandate

1. Update the Procedures for Commitees of Council of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering to include general guiding principles for standing committees/AAB pertaining to mandates, elections, terms of members, membership composition, performance assessment, etc.
   1. Support the updating of the existing manuals of the Faculty’s standing committees/AAB:
   2. Review the mandates and scopes of standing committees/AAB, as a whole and individually,
   3. Create a template for committee/AAB manuals;
   4. Review the documentation of each standing committee/AAB;
   5. Confer with the leadership and the membership of each standing committee/AAB; and
   6. Support the revision, as appropriate, of the manuals of standing committees/AAB.
2. Support the creation of a manual for the Executive Committee of Council.
3. Support the creation of a manual for the Standing Committee Chairs Committee.

Process

The working group will consult with stakeholders through standing committees; departments, divisions and institutes; and constituency groups of Faculty Council including teaching staff, non-academic staff, undergraduate students, graduate students and alumni; and others as appropriate. Its recommendations will be presented as a report to the Dean and Faculty Council.

It is noted that each standing committee and the AAB are responsible for updating their own manuals and, after local approval, for submitting their recommendations through regular Faculty governance channels for approval.

Timing

Commissioning date: July 1, 2020

Target completion date: June 30, 2021

Membership

Doug Reeve, Professor and Speaker of Faculty Council 2015-2020 (Working Group Chair)

Caroline Ziegler, Engineering Governance Officer and Secretary of Faculty Council (Working Group Secretary)

Julie Audet, Professor and Vice Dean, Graduate Studies (Chair, Engineering Graduate Education Committee)

Evan Bentz, Professor (Chair, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee)

Chaim Katz, Graduate Student (President, Graduate Engineering Council of Students)

Mirjana Mijalkovic, Undergraduate Student (VP Academic, Engineering Society)

Daniel Posen, Professor (Chair, Examinations Committee)

Marisa Sterling, Assistant Dean and Director, Diversity, Inclusion and Professionalism

I am grateful to everyone on the working group for their commitment to Engineering.