A new draft of “Radical Recovery: An Academic Plan for Trent University (2012-2015)” has been recently released after receiving feedback from faculty, students, alumni, and community members. Arthur sat down with The TCSA’s President Sheldon Willerton and Vice President of Student Issues Brea Hutchinson to talk about the plan and some of its changes.
In the first draft, the first recommendation for improving the student experience was the development and introduction of an “Interdisciplinary First Year Foundational Course” that would be mandatory and implemented in September 2013, with possible trials during the preceding summer. The second draft recommends developing a proposal for a one-term interdisciplinary course, which will be an elective, and not a mandatory course, as the first draft suggested. This course would aim to prepare students for university-level work and to “foster intellectual curiosity.”
TCSA President Sheldon Willerton asserted that “we have first and second year courses that are busy focusing on covering grade 12 material.” This problem will not be solved by introducing elective interdisciplinary courses. Therefore, one of TCSA’s possible recommendations for the third draft will be that there are two levels of courses in first year: one for those who want to major in that specific program, and one for those who are just taking the course out of interest. Sheldon wanted to make it clear that there should not be a “smart kids and a dumb kids course” but a course for students who are serious about the subject and want to major in it, and a separate course for students who are just interested in the subject and just want to learn the basics.
The controversial fifth recommendation to convert all courses at Trent to half-credit courses has now been altered. Instead of the “cookie-cutting” that was proposed, the recommendation instead intends to “initiate a three year phase-in process whereby half-credit courses become the ‘normal,’ though not exclusive, delivery unit.” The plan itself states that there is acknowledgement of the strong feelings about the use of half-year instead of full-year courses. In consideration of these arguments, all existing full-year courses will be reviewed before 2015, and “normally” all new courses will be half-credit courses. It also suggests to faculty to voluntarily split existing full-year courses into complementary linked half-credit courses.
The ninth recommendation is entirely new and replaces the previous recommendation to construct a student learning commons: To increase the entering average of high school students to 74% by the fall of 2015. This will be part of the university’s strategy to increase “student quality” and the university’s reputation.
Moreover, the first draft of the academic plan recommended that “no undergraduate course will normally have a maximum cap of less than 35 students or an enrolment of less than 15.” The new draft of the plan compromised with the feedback given in the previous round of discussion and recommends that Deans begin conversations on what “sustainability” means within their individual units, since “some smaller units may not be arithmetically ‘sustainable’ but are imperative to the University mission.” If there are less than 15 students in a course, and the Chair and Dean are agreeable, the course will proceed.
Sheldon commented: “Again, this is them scaling back their brute forceness. As opposed to mandating 15 bodies in a classroom, they’re saying that you’re going to need to get approval to offer one of those classes […] This will be giving deans and chairs a lot more say in the budgeting process.”
Last term, the TCSA hosted an open forum about the academic plan, where 25 to 35 students showed up. Sheldon said: “I think we ended up pulling out 20 to 30 recommendations that we wanted to comment on… and it was all submitted [as feedback] […] They’re paying attention to what students have to say.”
Last December, Arthur spoke with President Steven Franklin and asked about the important of academic freedom, in regards to Trent and the academic plan, in which he replied: “Academic freedom is our highest value.” When Arthur asked whether the plan touches on Franklin’s sentiment of academic freedom, Sheldon replied “It’s a management document.”
“There’s nothing radical in here. I think it’s a managerial document that’s trying to create a culture of continuous improvement. […] Overall, it’s an improvement. It’s definitely less radical […] but how much academics does it really cover?”
When Arthur asked Brea Hutchinson why many students still don’t know about the academic plan, she said that this is the problem with a document that is of that length; Students either don’t know about it or they don’t take the time to read it. She informed Arthur that only two students showed up at the official consultation for the academic plan last term: TCSA President Sheldon Willerton, and Braden Freer, a junior senator from Gzowski College.
If you would like to read the revised document, visit the Trent website. You will be able to send your feedback to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. up until February 1, 2012.
A final revised version of the Academic Plan will be submitted to the Academic Planning and Budget Committee for approval at their February 6, 2012 meeting. If approved, the document will then proceed to Senate for approval at the February 14th meeting.
