Teaching 'events' offered to faculty

The teaching resource office — TRACE — will be putting new emphasis on helping faculty members improve their teaching, now that the Certificate on University Teaching program for graduate students has been reorganized, says TRACE director Catherine Schryer.

Apart from confidential, one-on-one assistance to instructors who find themselves in difficulty, TRACE has put the biggest share of its resources into CUT in recent years, Schryer says. But with limits put on the CUT enrolment, and how long a student’s participation can drag on, she thinks more professional time can be available to help professors campus-wide.

The change is heralded by a letter that was sent to department chairs a few days ago, offering to run as many as eight “Focus on Teaching” events this year geared to the needs of individual disciplines — “customized programming… to provide a venue to discuss teaching and learning issues and to promote teaching excellence on campus.”

Says the letter: “Formerly known as ‘spa days,’ these events are collaborative, facilitated sessions designed specifically for your department. An event can range from a couple of hours to a full day and will focus on issues that impact teaching in your discipline. An event can include facilitated discussions, guest speakers, faculty panels, or hands-on workshops.

“The Teaching Excellence Council (TEC), a university-wide committee dedicated to promoting excellence in teaching, established the Focus on Teaching programming last year. The committee realized that teaching constitutes 40% of most faculty members' time commitment and that a great deal of expertise exists in departments regarding disciplinary teaching techniques. Yet time is rarely set aside to share and reflect on issues related to curriculum and course development within departments. The committee noted as well that expertise exists within TRACE that could enhance teaching practices. By bringing both resources together, a department's members could truly profit.

“To date, TRACE has collaborated with Physics, Recreation & Leisure Studies, School of Optometry, School of Accountancy, Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering, and St. Jerome's University to design and deliver an event to promote teaching excellence with faculty members in those areas. Each event was custom-designed to suit the area's needs and was well-received by faculty members.” (A report on the event that was held in mech eng appears in the latest issue of the Teaching Matters newsletter from TRACE.)

Focus on Teaching events will be jointly planned by a TRACE instructional designer and a couple of faculty members from the department involved.

Schryer, a professor of English, became director of TRACE on September 1, taking over from Barbara Bulman-Fleming of the psychology department. The associate director, and a key person in organizing departmental events, is Donna Ellis. As for the TRACE nickname, it stands for “teaching resources and continuing education”, reflecting a combination of functions that were under the same management in the office’s early years.

Back to top

Aboriginal education is topic tomorrow

A major conference on the future of Aboriginal education, featuring Ontario's lieutenant-governor, James K. Bartleman — first member of a First Nation to hold a vice-regal office in Ontario — will be held tomorrow at St. Paul's College.

The conference, which seeks to advance collaboration with Aboriginal Peoples on education, is entitled Aboriginal Education in the 21st Century: Partnering with Integrity. It offers participants an opportunity to meet First Nations leaders and learn about their vision for an educated community.

"This conference will develop greater awareness on the need for supporting Aboriginal leaders in their efforts to educate their people, especially for those far from major centres of education," said Graham Brown, principal of St. Paul's, which is affiliated with UW. "It will provide an opportunity for a broad range of people, including youth, to engage and partner with Aboriginal people in new ways on education."

Aboriginal Peoples — Indians, Métis and Inuit — represent 3.3 per cent of the total population, up from 2.8 per cent in 1996, according to Canada's 2001 census numbers. The median age of the Aboriginal population is 24.7 years, considerably younger than the national average of 37.6 years.

Between 1996 and 2001, census years with comparable data, the share of Aboriginal people with post-secondary qualifications increased to 38 per cent from 33 per cent. About 8 per cent were university graduates, up from 6 per cent five years earlier.

Brown said, however, that in the 20- to 24-year-old group, 43 per cent of Aboriginal people reported having less than high school education. By comparison, among all Canadians 20 to 24 years of age, about 15 per cent reported having less than high school education.

Brown predicts that for some participants tomorrow's event "may be the beginning of an ongoing relationship of learning, understanding and support," while for others it will be "enlightening, encouraging and memorable."

Participants will hear from top Aboriginal leaders who are heading the movement to make literacy and education a basic achievement of all Aboriginal young people. Bartleman will discuss the four key initiatives that comprise the lieutenant-governor's Aboriginal Literacy Program. Grand Chief Stan Beardy, of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, will help participants understand how education is critical for his people's welfare. Rev. Stan McKay, former United Church of Canada moderator, will discuss the role of right relationships in partnering effectively with Aboriginal peoples to achieve their wish of an educated community. And * Vince Dumond, principal of J.R. Nakogee elementary school on Attawapiskat First Nation, will discuss education on the reserve.

Originally home to UW's Canadian Studies program, St. Paul's has supported Aboriginal services at UW since 2003 and continues to offer courses in native studies. As well, the college is home to Firekeepers, a high school enrichment program for Aboriginal youth. It is also involved in the lieutenant-governor's Aboriginal Literacy Program for children in the northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat.

The conference runs from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and includes lunch. Participants are asked to register by calling Arlene Sleno at 519-885-1465 ext. 201. Registration fees are $7 for university students or $10 for others. High school students are admitted free when accompanied by an adult.

Back to top

Shoes and ships and sealing-wax

For the past month, co-op students have been scrambling to impress employers who might hire them for the winter term, and suddenly it's time to make big decisions. Employer ranking opens at noon today on JobMine, the online system operated by the co-op education and career services department, and will close at 10 a.m. Monday. By noon on Monday, thousands of students should know what job they've been matched with. Meanwhile, interviews continue, because not all students have yet met the employer of their dreams, or vice versa. And students in architecture, which is administered separately, will travel from Cambridge to Toronto en masse today for the customary blitz of interviews with the big-city firms.

“We’ve selected this year’s Arts Alumni Achievement Award winner,” writes Tobi Day-Hamilton, marketing manager for the faculty of arts. Most years the award is presented at fall convocation, but the 2006 winner was not able to attend that event, “so we’ll present it to her at a later date.” And the winner is… Lenora Hume, a 1974 BA grad who’s now executive vice-president for production and programming with HIT Entertainment, a London-based firm that’s one of the world’s top children’s entertainment producers and rights owners. “She was formerly with Disney as senior vice-president,” Day-Hamilton adds.

There’s a new issue of the environmental journal Alternatives, published from UW’s faculty of environmental studies, this one focusing on “rescuing international aid”. Various experts, an announcement notes, “explore how aid efforts can be both lasting and empowering. Stephen Lewis offers possibilities for turning the tide on the overwhelming AIDS epidemic in Africa. Ian Smilie addresses the ways in which aid donors can help alleviate poverty. Craig Johnson looks at natural disasters and suggests best practices for meaningful relief aid.” Plus, “a map comparing the magnitude of disasters and relief efforts exposes the disparity between media attention, aid efforts, and the need for aid.” Several items in the issue are by UW alumni, including Ryan Kennedy, now a graduate student in psychology, who writes a regular column under the title “Brain Mulch”. Annual subscriptions to the magazine (six issues’ cost $35 plus tax.

Instead of a sit-down seminar at the weekly professional development event this morning, information systems and technology staff took a walk over to Engineering II to visit the audio-visual centre, which was merged with IST earlier this year.… It apparently hasn’t been mentioned in the Daily Bulletin until now, but Michael Chong of UW’s department of chemistry became the director of the Guelph-Waterloo Centre for Graduate Work in Chemistry and Biochemistry as of July 1.… The 2006 calendar produced by the development and alumni affairs office was such a success that a similar calendar is being produced for 2007, to be sent to “leadership donors” and other selected alumni.…

Radio Waterloo (that’s the corporate name of student radio station CKMS) is preparing to offer the Matt Osborne Memorial Award for Emerging Talent in Kitchener and Waterloo. Nominations for this year’s award are due by October 31. “It will be presented November 10 at the radio station’s Sonic Boom Award Celebration,” a news release says. “Any musician or band who is creating and performing original work in any genre may apply.… We are searching for those artists who are starting out and want a chance to develop,” with the assistance of a $500 cheque and $500 worth of studio time in the Palindrome Recording Studio at the station. More information: 519-886-2567 ext. 202.

The “extended health” plan that covers many expenses for UW staff and faculty members also covers retirees. There are some restrictions, however, one of them being a lifetime maximum of $40,000 in payments for out-of-province health care. At its meeting next week, the university’s board of governors will be asked to increase that limit to $50,000, while not changing a limit of $40,000 on payments for health care outside Canada. “For the past several years,” says a report from the pension and benefits committee, use of such coverage has been monitored “with a view to ensuring that no one finds her/himself without extended health care coverage. Based on information considered at its September meeting (one person close to reaching the maximum), the Committee believes that it is reasonable to increase the maximum for this group of retirees; the maximum was established in 1996 and, up until now, there has been no need to modify it.”

Finally… yesterday's Daily Bulletin mentioned a co-op student who helped in developing the university's new recruitment poster, the one with the giant hand, but it appears her name was given to us wrong. She was reported as "May Reimer"; in fact she's Mary Riemer.

CAR

Back to top