The Retirees' Newsletter

The Retirees's Association ( Faculty, Librarian, Administrator), University of Windsor, Windsor, Ont. Canada

Vol IX , No. 3, June 1999

Visa students will be paying from $4,308 per semester for arts, social science and most other programs, about $5,690 for education, nursing and engineering.

American students paying in US dollars will be paying an annual rate of $3,800 for two semesters.

Y2K Week - Campus informational session was held on Monday, May 10, at 11 a.m. in the Ambassador Auditorium of the CAW Student Centre, with a series of events to inform faculty and staff about what has happened at the university to prepare for January 1, 2000, and what is available to help them prepare at work and at home.

The week was kicked off with presentations by President Ross Paul, Vice-President Eric Harbottle and a guest from the Windsor Utilities Commission (WUC). They spoke on what the university has been doing about the Y2K compliancy and what still needs to be done; contingency plans for individual departments and the university as a whole; what plans the WUC has made for the new year; and a short demonstration of a program that checks the hardware and software and indicates how to make the software compliant.

Free floppies with valuable and useful utilities, and information sheets especially prepared for University of Windsor faculty, staff and students, were made available. Workshops for the coordinators and interested persons were held in the Computer Centre Classroom, Tuesday May 11 at 11 a.m. and Thursday May 13 at 1 p.m.

Over 50 coordinators have helped in the inventory and assessment of equipment on campus as part of the Y2K project were invited and recognized for their contributions.

ONTARIO BUDGET HAS MONEY

FOR MAINTENANCE, BUILDING AND SCHOLARSHIPS

There was some good news for the University of Windsor in the Ontario Budget released last month by Finance Minister Ernie Eves.

Reacting to the budget, President Ross Paul highlights three items: the new investment in campus infrastructure, the attention to the financial challenges facing students, and the expansion of the Access to Opportunities Program (ATOP).

- $742 million for capital projects at colleges at universities, $660 million of which is earmarked for new projects. In addition to the new capital project funding, the government announced a $62-million increase in funding for the facilities renewal..

- "Aiming for the Top" tuition scholarships - to provide 10,000 new scholarships over four years. The first 2,500 scholarships will begin in September 2000.

- The Ontario government also signed a harmonization agreement on student loans with the Government of Canada . Harmonization creates a single loan, and streamlines the administration for loans .

- The Ontario budget also established the Ontario Innovation Fund, a $250 million trust - which will match expenditures against the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to provide more funding to research infrastructure, including laboratories, buildings and equipment.

A unique form of academic planning was introduced at the University of Windsor Senate last month.

Academic Vice-President Neil Gold, as chair of the Program Development Committee (PDC), presented the proposal for academic groups to create five-year plans including criteria for investment. The proposal calls for plans to be developed in all areas that now have an operating budget, as well as any new area of study that a group or groups of faculty members may want to put forward.

The plans are to set out for the reviewers a concrete understanding of the proposal's goals, priorities, and solutions, including a description of how the results will be evaluated. Academic resources will be allocated based on assessment reviews of the plans.

Proposals will be reviewed using the following criteria: The needs addressed by the plan (enrolment patterns, faculty profile, social need for the program, market demand), the significance of the plan (contribution to The Degree that Works and Best of Both Worlds priorities), the quality of the plan's design (clearly specified goals and details), the quality of the plan (competitiveness), the quality of the plan's management (defined responsibilities), the adequacy of resources for the plan, the efficient use of resources for the plan, and the quality of the proposal's evaluation (feasibility, objective performance measures.)

Vice-President Gold said the nature of the planning by setting goals, outlining resources and articulating evaluation measures is standard and common. "But not to us." The proposal did not come to a vote because Senate lost its quorum toward the end of a four-hour meeting

President Ross Paul said the planning that takes place in the coming year or two will determine the make-up of the University of Windsor for the decade ahead and more. There has not been a time similar to this since the 1970s,

"The university faces a promising future. New opportunities are beginning now for filling tenure track positions. But we cannot fill positions in all areas that have been cut over the past decade. We need a method to determine our areas of priority focus," Dr. Paul said.

To get the process started, a workshop is scheduled. Vice-President Gold believes some plans may be submitted as early as September this year and most should be done by the end of 1999.

Dr. Paul noted that the university needs to move quickly to establish its priorities for faculty renewal and program development. However, he also cautioned that programs should take the time to do their planning properly and clearly.

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