Trolling for Students
1. Several weeks ago I noticed that Menno Simons College was distributing a handout on their 9 International Development Studies courses at the Info Booth. This led me to wonder about self-promotion of courses and departments on campus, so yesterday I browsed around the registration area on the first floor of Lockhart. There were numerous copies of the Menno Simons handout posted around the area. Other than that and generic information from Registration Services, there were only a few notices posted by Education and by Administrative Studies and Business Computing. However, there was a large information booth for Concord College, again with handouts for its courses. Is it appropriate for segments of the University community and particularly for its affiliated institutions to be advertising their own courses and especially given the heightened concern about enrollments? The sole purpose of these notices would seem to be to encourage students to register for those classes as opposed to others that might be available. Does anyone regulate these initiatives? I have visions of all departments plastering the walls with lists of their courses, or perhaps setting up booths opposite registration. 2. I was also somewhat surprised by the number of courses being offered by Menno Simons in the area of International Development Studies and by the apparent number of courses offered by Concord College. According to the International Development Studies handout, Menno Simons is offering two 6-credit courses at the introductory level and 7 3-credit courses at the 2000 and 3000 levels. In addition, the Timetable indicates that Menno Simons is offering another 7 6-credit courses and another 25 3- credit courses. Some of these are also in International Development Studies, but most are in Conflict Resolution Studies. Concord College seems similarly generous with their offerings. They are offering 6 6-credit courses and 44 3-credit courses in various subjects (especially Music and Religious Studies), plus another 4 4-credit and 16 1.5 credit courses in Applied Music. Concord is offering as many Religious Studies courses as our own department of Religious Studies. If there is that much demand, perhaps we should be hiring regular faculty to teach the courses? It seems inevitable to me that these outside courses will be filled at the expense of the Faculty of Arts and Science, and especially at the expense of certain disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. None of the offerings that I saw were in an area related to the Natural Sciences. Perhaps this "sharing" of scarce students could be justified if there was a reciprocal benefit (i.e., the number of students registered at Menno Simons and Concord who took A&S courses offset the number of A&S registrations at the other institutions), but the higher the number of competing offerings, the less likely that this will be the case. Is anyone monitoring the situation? 3. I think there are other kinds of redistributions that are going on now, only this time within A&S. Looking at the Timetable, one observes what subjectively appears like an increase in the range of offerings in Education (including several Conflict Resolution courses with Menno Simons ... an additional section of one of these had to be offered) and in Administrative Studies. Are enrollments in these courses also coming at the expense of traditional departments, again especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences? Does anyone monitor such possible effects? 4. Of course, we are also competing with an increasingly aggressive UofM, who have gone so far as to advertise what small classes they offer (to make this claim, they must have thrown all their professional programs and graduate courses in with their very large sections in the UofM Faculty of A&S). I understand (please correct me if I am wrong) that a recruitment committee has been formed, including the VP-Academic, the VP- Administration, and the Dean of Continuing Education. Perhaps I'm missing something, but this hardly seems like the appropriate composition for such a committee. The VP-Academic would already seem to have a lot on his plate (e.g., hiring a new Dean of A&S ... more below). The VP-Administration would not seem to have the requisite academic background (or perhaps his financial management duties do not require all of his time?). But the strangest of all would seem to be the Dean of Continuing Education. The primary mandate for this position (i.e., ConEd) involves potential competition with the Faculty of A&S for students. Moreover, the incumbent of this position pushed for and is responsible for the marketing of Telecourses. Out-of-town enrollments have never materialized and now it appears that even the Winnipeg enrollments may be drying up. As of the 28th of July 1997, Psychology had 19 registrants in the in-class TV section, 10 registrants in the Winnipeg home section, and 0 registrants in the out-of-town section. Historically, the TV section has filled up last, only after other sections were full, so there is a possibility that this will turn out to be an underestimate of the final registration. But it is certainly the case that the TV section has never consistently drawn large numbers of students. Finally, A&S has, I believe, suffered financially because of ConEd and the Centre for Learning Technologies, with which ConEd is affiliated. According to the unaudited operating statement for the year ended 31 March 1997, ConEd had revenues of $1,794,900 and expenses of $2,099,100, for a net loss of about $300,000. Moreover, the Centre for Learning Technologies, which now falls under the same administrator as ConEd, cost $384,000 to operate. Meanwhile, A&S was allowed to spend $560,300 _less_ than budgeted (footnotes to the budget document provide some rationale for the underspending, although I have not yet determined whether the rationale is rational or a rationalization). Or perhaps Departments just didn't have any financial needs that weren't met last year. To return to the main point (i.e., external recruitment of students), the Faculty of A&S should be in control of its own recruitment policies. Moreover all recruitment activities (including those of ConEd) should be managed on a day-to-day basis by a central (i.e., neutral) body like Student Services. The composition of the above committee, as I understand it, seems unlikely to produce policies that are in the best interest of A&S. Even if the plan is to extend the membership, these do not strike me as the proper leaders of recruitment activities for A&S courses. 5. Some might think that I should be discussing these ideas with the leadership of the Faculty, rather than posting things on the faculty newsgroup. In addition to my preference for public comment on important issues, however, Faculty leadership would seem to be somewhat in limbo right now. John only has a few weeks left in his term and presumably feels some reluctance to take new initiatives, inasmuch as the new Dean should have been in place by now or in the very near future. I understand that interviewing won't even occur until September now. Someone more pessimistic than I might suspect that the senior administration doesn't mind having the Faculty without a leader. Of course, some members of the Faculty are probably also happy as their pet projects and empires move ahead. My suspicion, however, is that we may all soon come to regret having a weakened Faculty voice in the University. Have the Chairs done anything to encourage senior administration to get moving on the appointment of a Dean? While I am on the subject of the search for Dean, there seem to be several surprises there (none of which involve me), including the lengthy delay in making an appointment. Even more surprising, however, is the fact that the University decided to search externally. An external appointment will cost us at least $100,000 a year more on our budget (and perhaps considerably more), equivalent to two junior appointments, increases for salary anomalies, or a very substantial increase in our scholarships budget (... did I mention that UofM dramatically increased their scholarship budget last year?). Don't we already spend enough money at the upper end of the salary scale without adding to the top-heaviness? Or perhaps those well-paid senior faculty whose incomes are now public knowledge have decided to sacrifice part of their salaries for an external appointment, so that it won't impact negatively on people at the lower end? It would be interesting to know who is driving the selection process and to whom those people are talking and listening in making their decisions. Well, this got a little longer than I had planned. There must have been a bunch of pent-up ideas just waiting to get out. Or perhaps it was just another way for me to avoid the obvious fact that I am not going to get everything done this summer that I had hoped just a few short months ago! Take care Jim
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