Our Major Directions And Goals
Third Direction: Caring for our community
In 2005, we set out to offer our student body the experience of a learning community that is attentive, stimulating, dynamic and effective. To that end, every member of the University community was to play a direct role in our educational and research mission. In addition, alumni as well as retired members of academic and support staff were to be given opportunities to become partners in achieving our vision. In order to achieve this, we set two goals.
Goal 8 To embrace a modern governance model
We wanted our community members to take a more active part in the decision-making process and be promptly informed of decisions affecting our future, our structures and resource allocations at all levels to allow us to reach our goals and, finally, to take action so that women play a leading role in university governance.
We thus aimed to incorporate new communication tools in our governance models, ensuring greater transparency, a change that should cultivate the team spirit needed to carry out our mission. We also aimed to move to an administrative model that would facilitate interdisciplinarity and foster the development of inter-faculty projects.
To reach this goal, here are the main initiatives that were adopted and a summary of our progress to date:
| Structure and interdisciplinarity | In June 2006, the Task Force on Interdisciplinarity submitted a report that led to the creation of the Council on Interdisciplinarity and of the Interdisciplinary Forum, both of which, however, have not been highly active over the past year. A few joint hirings and appointments were also made. |
| Complaints | In the winter of 2008, an electronic suggestion box was activated, allowing the University's Administrative Committee to receive comments, suggestions and complaints. In the summer of 2008, the Standing Commission on Francophone Affairs and Official Languages launched an on-line tool allowing individuals to submit comments and suggestions on the language in which they have been served. The University is also exploring the possibility of creating an Ombudsperson's position on campus. |
| Transparency and representation | Since 2005-2006, the terms of reference, the membership, the agendas and the minutes of the Board of Governors, the Senate and their key committees are posted on the Web. In addition, student representatives were added to a number of committees. Finally, some faculties assessed—and, where needed, improved—the representation of various campus groups in decision-making processes. |
| Progress assessment | Since 2005-2006, we have produced an annual scorecard to measure our success and show our progress to date, conducted benchmarking with other institutions and performed annual risk assessments. We have also conducted surveys on service satisfaction, on the student experience (undergraduate and graduate) and during program evaluations. Finally, we have posted Vision 2010 progress reports on the Web. |