WRCAC 2014 Minutes. Approval of 2013 Minutes and Business Arising: Redistributing Demand, Articulating Skills Based Courses

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1 1 WRCAC 2014 Minutes Approval of 2013 Minutes and Business Arising: Redistributing Demand, Articulating Skills Based Courses - Concern that deans would not support off loading demand for courses to other institutions - Douglas College moving to develop online hybrid courses for courses with high levels of demand - Concern that it will be problematic to get registrars to agree to off loading courses - Admission versus applications effect on increased enrollment rates raised - Students taking longer to graduate because of wait to get into classes - More faculty are needed, but that they are not being hired - Possibility of doing something through BCAT regarding research related to redistributing demand - How do we articulate skills based courses? - For example, Interpersonal Skills and Professional Development class: teaching students how to develop interpersonal skills, such as talking to client, and blending practical and theoretical skills - Need to move past atheoretical or unacademic conceptions of these classes - Mount Royal University bridging together interpersonal skills and skills based classes - Comments from employers that students struggling with basic skills, such as Excel spread sheets - How do we integrate literacy and numeracy skills with Excel based skills in classes? - How do we differentiate between skills: for example, interpersonal skills versus fingerprinting? - There is not a definition of skills based training and we need to develop one - Northern Institute of Justice, based out of Yukon College, partially funded by government, providing skills based training, due to pressure from government - Committee: find out BC government s definition of skills based training, do an inventory of classes that are skills based or that contain a skills based program Institutional Reports Bow Valley College - Enrollment for fall consistent with BC s pattern - More than triple capacity for law enforcement stream - Provincial budget has been a challenge and, as a result, more casual instructors have not been invited back - There is an appetite to transfer most, if not all, classes to online - But, not being provided resources for online classes - There is a possibility of an increase in post-secondary education funding and, consequently, online classes over next year - Looking at introducing fourth stream: Aboriginal justice - New Dean, as of September - Looking at ways of introducing faculty development over summer - For instance, full time faculty members will be volunteering with related agencies for two weeks in summer

2 2 - Examples include doing ride alongs College of New Caledonia - Now have two Deans - Trying to get a sense of the new authority structure - Recently hired full time criminology instructor - Expect to be looking for full time sessional instructor - Developing new courses, possibly a restorative justice course - Enrollments are down at College - Enrollment decline attributed to demographic changes: decline in high school graduations - Indications that enrollments in criminology are also declining College of the Rockies - Criminology program ended in 2009, replaced by Crime and Corrections certificate program - There is minimal student mobility: if they don t offer courses, students aren t going elsewhere - Enrollment numbers are increasing - Only have three 100 level criminology classes - Looking at developing cross listed classes - Pushing to bring back research methods class that would be cross listed - Retaining students for full two years is an issue - SFU: looking for courses with core arts components: both qualitative and quantitative work - Concern that psychology would be difficult to include in a cross listed research methods classes Camosun College - Struggling with developing basic academic skills for success in students: s, library research, proper citation, importance of volunteering - Have developed seminar classes to respond to this - South Island Partnerships: delivering criminology classes to high school students - Delivered one high school class last year - Request for four high school classes this year - Hoping to accommodate all four high school classes this year Yukon College - Recently completed a restructuring phase - Now called Applied Arts - Officially moving to university status - Moving towards a B.A. in liberal arts this year - Criminology program enrollments have increased - However, there are not very many graduates, so classes are, largely, comprised of students taking them as electives - A lot of money is being dedicated to new northern campus - Strong students transferring to four year University of Regina B.Sw on campus program - A few transfer to SFU, Royal Roads or law schools Native Education College - Attempting to turn it into public college

3 3 - Eight students enrolled in justice studies program, maximum of 20 seats available - Open to non-indigenous students, but, so far, there is only Indigenous students - In the process of developing a diploma program - Have a course in interpersonal communications Nicola Valley Institute of Technology - Due to budget restrictions, several programs are designated for discontinuance - There is an emphasis on cross listing courses - There is an emphasis on Indigenous study - Hoping to reduce need for directed studies faculty - Have done a lot of work over past several years to enhance writing skills - For instance, a mandatory student preparation course has been created - Board of Directors have committed to building more degree programs - Continue to offer associate arts degree in criminology - Offering law enforcement diploma in fall - High enrollment of Aboriginals - 70 percent of students are female - Interest in Bachelors of Criminology - There is a pattern of students going into social work because they want to stay at NVIT and because they like the small class sizes - Doing more hybrid face to face online classes - Using polycon technology system, exploring other options, but money is an issue Douglas College - Awaiting to start degree program - 17 full time faculty, 7 sessional faculty - Newest developed course: Community Crime Prevention - Have a course in environmental crime and law - Courses are well received - Large cuts to ESL - Wales Field School going ahead, China Field School, tentatively, going ahead - Faculty evaluations being introduced: it is in its formative stages, no implications for faculty members, yet Justice Institute of BC - Emphasis on transformative education - Funding reductions over past few years - required to engage in fundraising (e.g. programs) - School of Public Safety - School of Criminal Justice and Security houses training for security functions, corrections, justice and public safety initiatives etc. - January 2009, introduced a diploma program - Degree in law enforcement beginning in September, degree - Graduate certificate in criminal intelligence analysis Currently have 60 students

4 4 - Arrangement with Mercyhurst University (PA) for MA - 50 percent of students from law enforcement, military - Also have students from medical profession, financial sector etc. - Use prior learning assessment instead of two years Langara - Program full, 500 applications for Fall - Introduced ability to ladder from criminology program to bachelor of business administration degree, which has been popular - Constrained by budget cuts - Aggressively pursuing international students to replace provincial funding - Criminology not receiving many international students - PDD programs: three and four year classes, but not masters - Attempting to make more of these programs - Introduced new special topics class in criminology - Budget cuts constraining ability to develop new classes - Issues with attracting international students: not financial related, internationally justice jobs not held in high regard and justice classes don t provide international education - International students using diploma as a means to stay in Canada - Try to avoid classes with prerequisites for PDD BC Open Textbook Initiative - One million has been set aside for the project by BC government - Textbooks licensed through creative commons - Idea is that students can access books online completely free - Also, can make modifications to existing textbooks - Third, can create textbooks from scratch - Also possible to have textbooks printed out - Found that high costs of textbooks encouraging students not to buy textbooks which, as a result, leads to high rates of failure - Proactive solutions for financing needed - Possibility of creating first year criminal justice textbook: will make it more accessible and allows for modifications, such as adding an extra chapter - However, students are still interested in hard copies - There will be a peer review process - Also provides the possibility of improving the Canadian content in textbooks Institutional Reports University of Fraser Valley - Issues with retirement - Down to eight full time faculty members, need 14 - Granted two limited term faculty - Still offer honours program and masters programs - Masters program is designed for working professionals who are coming back to school

5 5 - Usually a cohort of 12 to 16 in masters program - Honours program is still small, 10 credit hours, 3.33 GPA requirement - New course: criminology 403, applied course, looking at best ways to prevent future psychosocial issues - Possibility of team teaching for More online, hybrid courses - Will be looking at 100 level academic and professional course next month - Referencing and APA citation is an issue for students - This problem is not limited to first year - Grappling with how to deal with informal versus formal responses to academic misconduct - Made changes to practicum: requirement of B- in crim 129 for placement - Hope to have Law 12 for approved admission Royal Roads University - Developed as institution to cater to mid-career students - It has become more complex - Program is second bachelor program - A 2+2 program: residency, online, residency, applied research project - Most of the curriculum did not go through approval committee - Registrar attempting to put... online - Get a lot of people from Alberta and Ontario - Most get approved - End of year reporting process difficult: 40/40/20 - Approximately 100 students - 2 years of study in 1 year program: 4 quarters - New efficiency officers Vancouver Island University - 68 students in two year diploma program - 34 students in third and fourth year bachelor of arts in criminology applications for 68 seats - This year is the first time without a waitlist - 82 applications for 34 seats in third year - Allowing students to begin third year with a maximum of two courses minimum attributed to the rise to 82 applications - Allowed to establish a second cohort for this year: 68, instead of 34, accepted out of the 82 applicants - New course in spring: selected topics, mental health in the criminal justice system - Discussion of usefulness of orientations and interviews - College of the Rockies: welcome phone calls found to help with online retention of students Mount Royal University - Forced to find 7% in budget cuts over three months - Issue is compounded by the introduction of a new President - Went from 145 intake to 108 intake - 83% of admissions are from high school

6 post-secondary GPA required for acceptance - Department moved out of Faculty of Health to Faculty of Arts - Second largest program in Faculty of Arts - Two streams: fourth year practicum or honours - 90 admitted into practicum, 18 admitted to honours - Half of the honors program go to law school and half go to grad school - 6:1 rejection to acceptance - Alternatives to salary cuts: lieu days - Graduates go to SFV, UFV, Guelph, Windsor, UofM Sociology, UofA Sociology, Australia, increasingly - Distinction between unions and faculty associations discussed - Speculation unionization would increase salary - More study and discussion about unionization proposed Emergent issues and themes within institutional reports: discussion - Concern that decisions are being driven by financial discussions in government - International students are being used to increase profit - Criminology programs are, likely, well placed to deal with financial issues - It is important to demonstrate marketability of criminology skills - Graduates are not being tracked to where they end up - Concern that universities are becoming businesses and are focusing on employment outcomes - SFU concerned with learning objectives: for example, requirement students right a paper - SFU bound by NCAA constraints and creating uniformity with NCAA - Learning objectives for entire degree at Langara being pushed - Then, faculty are held responsible for adherence to the metric - Concern with disconnect between midlevel administration and ministry - Intent to repurpose criminological education to make it cater to fictionalized employment market - It is problematic that no one really knows what skills students need in marketplace - Because of amount mobility, general skills are best - Reject notion that departments are just concerned with preparing students for criminal justice system, improving citizenship is important - Concern with preoccupation of measurement and metrics to test student performance - Underfunding: institutions in Canada, like in US, creating underclass of sessional lecturers - Distribution of demand: don t want places like College of the Rockies to die because they are reliant on locals - Important to remain united - Difficult to deliver degrees in workplaces - Pre-graduation standardized exams: common in US, being discussed in Canada - Need to improve tracking of where students are going, specifically, criminology programs Dissertation Research Presentation and Q & A: Tamara Starblanket, Native Education College - Oral instruction is important: need to remember, can t just write it down

7 - Legal question: whether the government violates the genocide convention - Describing Indigenous s experience of genocide using three terms: demonization, isolation and destruction - Western theory and reasoning tends to limit thinking - It was difficult to write thesis and describe genocide of Aboriginals - Examined international laws on genocide and not colonial laws - Biological, physical, and cultural genocide - Cultural genocide removed from genocide convention because it is a form of colonial genocide - USSR wanted cultural genocide recognized - Language conceals experience of genocide, ex. they lost their culture - Experiences of residential schools, such as being forced to eat vomit, not being talked about - Not talked about in research, but death by disease is also significant - Argue that forcible transportation creates mental, bodily and physical harm - Children transferred to residential schools to civilize them: civilized and uncivilized - Seen in Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, John Locke - Prime Minister John A. Macdonald endorsed this - Important because of Indigenous people in criminal justice system - Long term effects of residential schools found in child welfare system - Destroys Indigenous nations - Nothing has been done to correct this and genocide has not been acknowledged - However, it is starting to be talked about - If individuals are interested, copies of work can be provided - Most Indigenous people are angry - Not just our problem, it is a global problem because these practices continue today - Long term effects still persist - High rates of suicide, children taken way - Indigenous people have been conditioned to believe they are inferior - It is the result of a people who lived under a prolonged period of oppression and genocide - They were conditioned away from their spiritual laws, relation to earth: water, trees, air - Term reconciliation assumes there was a time of conciliation - It is the responsibility of all of us to respond to this 7