The Following Is a Summary of the Senate Meeting Which Took Place on Wednesday, September

From: Marc Richard
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 12:02 PM
Cc: Marc Richard
Subject: Senate Meeting Report, 2010-09-22

Colleagues,

The following is a summary of the Senate meeting which took place on Wednesday, September 22, 2010.

Principal Munroe-Blum welcomed new and returning Senators to the first meeting of the new academic year. Dean Manfredi presented a resolution on the death of Professor Frank Kunz.

Senate adopted the minutes of the last Senate meeting (link not yet posted) the report of the Steering Committee ( and the agenda ( Further to the Steering report, Provost Masi indicated that the Joint Board-Senate meeting of October 25 would be on the subject of graduate and postdoctoral studies, and Principal Munroe-Blum announced that Senator Harpp had been elected to the Steering Committee.

In her remarks from the Chair, the Principal discussed Bill 100, which requires various publicly-financed Quebec bodies (including universities) to submit by September 30 plans to reduce administrative staff and other expenses over the next four years. She indicated that, in the Administration's view, this is yet another measure by the Quebec government which infringes on McGill's governance, and that it is a one-size-fits-all measure which inappropriately lumps universities together with such public-sector bodies as the SAQ. McGill wishes to be excluded from Bill 100's provisions, as do the other Quebec universities, and each university will be making its case in this regard to Line Beauchamp, the new Minister of Education. The Principal is scheduled to hold her first meeting with the Minister during the week of September 27th.

Principal Munroe-Blum also discussed the presentation which she, Provost Masi, Chairman of the Board Cobbett, and Planning and Institutional Analysis Director Moreau gave on September 7 to the Commission parlementaire de la culture et de l’éducation. This exercise, which is required every three years, involves submitting a written report in advance, then giving a verbal presentation of some thirty minutes and responding to questions from the members of the Commission. The Principal indicated that the presentation is available on her website.

In the period for formal questions, Senator Reid posed a question (originally submitted by Senator Drouillard) concerning innovation on campus ( V.-P. Rozen responded that goals and objectives have been established in this area, and that a team has been formed to define the desired impacts. She added that the Administration would be working closely with the faculties and with Development and Alumni Relations. Regarding the last part of the question, she indicated that some elements were already part of the regular structures which report to Senate. Following a supplemental question regarding undue corporate influence on campus, V.-P. Rozen responded that she did not believe that academic integrity would be undermined and that there are rules in place to prevent this.

The next question, from Senator Abaki, pertained to international students taking French courses ( Deputy Provost Mendelson responded that McGill is woefully underfunded and faces a precarious financial situation, and thus can ill afford to give courses free of charge. He indicated that the appropriate websites had been updated in early April, and that measures had been taken to notify students by email, but acknowledged that there had been a slip-up in how the information was communicated to students; the Administration should have been more proactive, and it will do better next time. The fact that McGill needs to charge for these courses does not signify that McGill lacks commitment in this area. On the subject of student consultation, Deputy Provost Mendelson noted that tuition is the purview of the Provost, who submits a budget to the Board. Responding to a follow-up question on which programs require student consultation for fee increases, the Provost similarly stated that the setting of fees is an administrative decision which is the purview of the Board rather than of Senate.

Senator Lawson then posed a question regarding the Principal’s presentation to the Commission de la culture et de l’éducation ( Principal Munroe-Blum asked Dean Todd to take the Chair for this item so that she could respond to the question. The Principal indicated that the thirty-minute oral presentation made to the Commission had highlighted elements of McGill's written submission, but that this did not take away from the importance of the other elements in the document. McGill has had one of Canada's most aggressive faculty renewal programs for some ten years, with the goal of attracting top academic talent. A gap does, however, remain when it comes to supporting graduate students. McGill has a considerable deferred maintenance problem, on the order of 650 million to one billion dollars; this is due in part to the age of some of its buildings. The Administration is committed to achieving better student-teacher ratios, and these efforts may involve reducing the number of courses offered so that professors can be better deployed. Deputy Provost Mendelson noted that the courses coming under consideration could include those with very small enrollments. The Principal concluded by stating that the fundamental problem was underfunding.

The following question, from Senator Abaki, concerned the Athletics Board ( Deputy Provost Mendelson responded that many revisions have taken place recently to committees of the Board of Governors and of Senate, with a view to differentiating clearly between governance and administration. The old Athletics Board was anomalous in being a committee of neither body. The new Board, which is advisory in nature, respects the University's reporting lines, and students will have proportionally more representation on it than on the old Board. A review of its operations will take place after the first year.

The final question, from Senator Possian, dealt with the Architecture Café ( In responding to the question, Deputy Provost Mendelson took issue with the statement on social spaces, arguing that the Architecture Café represented only a tiny percentage of the 9,700 square meters of social space that exist on campus. He noted that there is a range of food service operations at McGill. The Deputy Provost indicated that the management model used by the Architecture Café for the past three years was not sustainable because the Architecture Café was losing money, and that it was because of this deficit situation that the Architecture Café had been able to offer good price value to its customers. Deputy Provost Mendelson added that the University cannot afford to subsidize lunch, that the decision to close the Architecture Café was an administrative one which he took after a review of the options, and that the Administration was not willing to revisit this issue.

Following the Deputy Provost's remarks, Senator Abaki stated that what the students were asking for was consultation, and that the problem should be solved as a collegial community. Senator Newburgh attempted to introduce a motion regarding the Architecture Café, but the Chair ruled that this was out of order during the period for questions. Senator Newburgh challenged the Chair's decision. The challenge was put to the assembly for a vote and was defeated.

The next agenda item was the Principal's annual report on the University. Principal Munroe-Blum's presentation, which captured some of the highlights of her forthcoming annual report, included samples of honours and achievements by faculty and students, figures on research funding, and examples of new support for the training of researchers.

V.-P. Rozen next presented a report on research performance ( In the discussion which followed, Senator Robaire commented that McGill's performance in obtaining research funding had slipped. He asked if this could be attributed to the hiring of large numbers of new faculty members who need to be mentored. V.-P. Rozen responded that she was looking at the figures to try to determine possible causes. She encouraged faculties to set up review committees to help both old and new colleagues with their grant applications. Senator Sieber remarked that professors are already working hard to obtain grants and that this burden would only be increased if they also had to take on the task of assisting other professors with their applications. She asked about the level of support being provided to applicants by the University as opposed to support provided by colleagues. V.-P. Rozen acknowledged that the staffing levels in this regard as not as high as they could be, and that McGill would need to be creative in addressing the issue of support to grant applicants. Senator Deguise asked V.-P. Rozen to define the gap funding mentioned in her report. V.-P. Rozen answered that gap funding is funding used to bridge the gap between the time when a research breakthrough is made and the time when the discovery has been developed to the point where it will attract venture capital for the purposes of its commercial application.

Senate then approved the appointment of two new assessors under the Policy on Harassment, Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Prohibited by Law ( and adopted the 421st Report of the Academic Policy Committee ( Senate also approved the report of the Senate Nominating Committee ( from which one nomination (for the representative of the non-academic community appointed by Senate on the Joint Board-Senate Committee on Equity) was withdrawn because the position is in fact already filled by Ms Lorna MacEachern.

Owing to lack of time, the planned presentation on residences ( by Mr. Michael Porritt, Executive Director for Residences and Student Housing, was postponed to the next meeting of Senate.

Governor Chadha next presented the report of the Board of Governors and Executive to Senate ( Senator Richard asked if she could elaborate on the rationale for the proposal to change the name of the School of Nursing to "The Richard Ingram School of Nursing of McGill University" and on the report's specification that this change would be "on an exceptional basis and without creating a precedent." Governor Chadha referred the question to Principal Munroe-Blum, who explained that the provisions of the Policy Relating to the Naming of University Assets are being respected and that the only unusual element in this situation concerns the funding arrangement. Due to the School's urgent need for financial support, an agreement was made with the benefactor that the funding would be run outside the University, rather than set up as an endowment within the University as would usually be the case. The Principal added that the arrangement would be subject to later review.

Provost Masi then gave notice of a forthcoming report and recommendations on the review of academic units and programs. The Provost explained that CREPUQ requires periodic rotating reviews of McGill's academic programs, and that in 2004 Senate had approved a new procedure for these reviews which departed from the cyclical review process which had previously been used. It later became clear that the new process did not provide some of the information which McGill needed as a research-intensive university. A proposed new mechanism will therefore be brought before Senate, for implementation next year.

Under the final agenda item, "Other Business," Senator Newburgh read the full text of the motion on the Architecture Café he had attempted to introduce during the period for formal questions. The text proposed to strike a committee to look at the issue of the Architecture Café, and to nullify the decision to close the Architecture Café until such time as the committee had completed its work. Principal Munroe-Blum indicated that she took Senator Newburgh's intervention as a notice of motion for the next meeting of Senate. Provost Masi expressed the opinion that the subject of the motion was outside the scope of Senate. The Principal recommended to Senator Newburgh that he submit the motion to Senate Steering for consideration.

The next Senate meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 20, 2010 . If you have any questions, please get in touch with us.

Regards,

Your librarian Senate reps,

Jodie Hebert

Joan Hobbins

Marc Richard