This e-memo is sent on behalf of Deborah McCallum, Vice-President
(Administration):
On February 8th and 9th, MMM Group Limited and the City of Winnipeg will be
hosting Public Interactive Display Sessions (PIDS) for a conceptual design
study of a river crossing from St. Vital to Fort Garry near the University
of Manitoba. The PIDS will provide community members an opportunity to
discuss the project. The goal of the PIDS is to help identify design options
and locations for a pedestrian and cycle crossing over the Red River. Please
see the attached flyer for more information.
Deborah J. McCallum
Vice-President (Administration)
There is less than one month left to enter the U of M's Define Your Future
contest for your chance to win!
The grand prize winner will get to choose from one of these fabulous
adventures. You could:
. Travel Canada's Arctic waters aboard the CCGS Amundsen
. Explore global public health projects in India
. Meet and travel with visionary human rights leaders in Ottawa or
New York
Just complete a short video (1 minute or less) defining who you are and you
could win this or other amazing prizes including:
. An on-set film experience with Guy Maddin
. A tour of the new Blue Bombers stadium and tickets to the 2012
season opener
. A student-experience prize package, complete with an iPad,
BookStore gift card, declining balance food card and 1-year gym membership
For full contest details and to see other great video entries visit:
<http://defineyourfuture.ca/webmailer> http://defineyourfuture.ca/webmailer.
Not sure how to enter? Check out our step-by-step video that shows you how:
<http://youtu.be/KGGIUCCdnGw> http://youtu.be/KGGIUCCdnGw
If you have any questions leave them on our Facebook wall and we'll get back
to you.
Good luck!
Dear Students,
For almost 135 years, the University of Manitoba has been shaping academic,
business and community leaders, enhancing our community and conducting
research that changes the world.
Throughout our history, we have grown and evolved through a constant process
of rethinking, re-evaluating and reassessing where we are, where we want to
be and how we'll get there.
Many members of the University of Manitoba community have heard me refer to
the complex academic structure that exists here. Currently, we have 20
faculties and schools and 78 departments delivering programs to serve over
27,000 students. By comparison, the University of Toronto has the same
number of faculties and schools, and only 14 additional departments, to
serve 72,000 students. Almost 30,000 students at the University of Calgary
are served by 13 faculties and schools encompassing 70 departments. At
McMaster University, programs are delivered to its 27,000 students through 6
faculties and 49 departments. In fact, based on available data, no other
medical-doctoral institution of our size and scope in Canada has as many
free-standing faculties and schools or departments as we do.
I believe that this overly elaborated academic structure impedes our
academic work in at least three important ways.
1. It affects academic planning and decision making because academic leaders
- especially deans and directors - are more removed from these processes
than they should be. Put simply, this group is too large to bring together
effectively on these and other matters.
2. This structure results in the inefficient use of our most precious
resource, namely, our people, who should have the opportunity to use their
skills more creatively to advance our learning, discovery and engagement
missions.
3. Most importantly, the need to navigate within our highly articulated
structure hinders progress on our Strategic Planning Framework priorities,
notably, our commitment to providing an outstanding student experience and
to enhancing our teaching and research programs in areas of strength and/or
strategic importance to our province and nation. Students require more
flexible program and course selection, and simpler academic regulations to
achieve their educational and career goals; faculty, in turn, require
greater opportunities for inter- and multi-disciplinary collaboration to
develop and advance their teaching and research programs.
I want to begin an important conversation within the University of Manitoba
community about how we move forward and enhance our commitment to our
students, our faculty and staff, and to the community we serve. It is my
vision to see the University of Manitoba's academic structure better reflect
our size and scope, enhancing rather than impeding our ability to deliver on
our mandate.
When the University of Manitoba's Strategic Planning Framework was adopted,
I committed to ensuring that it would guide the decisions we make together
and that we would use it to pursue our ultimate objective of achieving
excellence. Initiatives like ROSE and OARs have been focused on transforming
our organizational infrastructure and approaches, in order to improve the
way the university conducts its work. It is now time to move forward with a
plan to simplify and improve our university's academic structure, so that we
can more effectively achieve our strategic vision.
Some work designed to address our current academic structure is already
underway. Late last year, we began a process where deans and directors of
faculties and schools with natural affinities of various sorts began working
in clusters to explore some new avenues of collaboration and interaction.
Through this process, work on new cross-faculty academic programming, the
sharing of administrative resources and facilities, and collaborative
outreach activity has already begun. It has shown us that more and closer
ties among units can be beneficial - to students, faculty and staff and to
our community at large.
This cluster mechanism, I believe, can serve as a useful starting point in
the development of a plan to simplify and improve our academic structure. To
this end, I have asked Dr. Joanne Keselman, Vice President (Academic) and
Provost, to work with deans and directors through the cluster groups and
they, in turn, with their faculty, staff, students, alumni and external
stakeholders, to identify viable options for reducing the number of
faculties and schools from the current total of 20 to a number closer to the
national average of 13 by 2017.
Based on discussions to date, it is clear that there are significant
opportunities to improve our academic structure in the health sciences area.
The move to interprofessional education and an increasing emphasis on
multi-disciplinary research teams, combined with the need to address common
issues including clinical education and program accreditation, provide
compelling reasons to proceed with this cluster as a first step in the
development of a plan. To this end, Dr. Keselman will work with the health
sciences cluster to develop a proposal or set of options by December 2012
for consideration by our governing bodies. An interim report on this work
will be provided in the spring of 2012.
It is clear that other opportunities exist to improve our academic
structure. I encourage faculties or departments that see possibilities where
closer relationships among themselves would be beneficial to bring their
ideas forward for discussion.
We remain committed, as the only medical-doctoral institution in Manitoba,
to contributing to our communities' and our province's cultural, social and
economic well-being. This process will enhance our ability to meet the needs
of our students, our faculty and our community as a whole.
We want this change to be invigorating and exciting. We want it to be
inclusive, and will engage the University of Manitoba in discussions about
how this goal will be achieved. Finally, we will only move forward where it
makes sense, and proposals will be advanced, discussed, improved and
approved through the University of Manitoba's collegial governance
processes.
This institution will soon be 135 years old. We respect and honour our
traditions but must adapt them to ensure a vibrant and prosperous future for
the much loved University of Manitoba, its staff and students and the
community it serves.
David
David T. Barnard, Ph.D., President and Vice-Chancellor
202 Administration Building, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg MB R3T 2N2
Canada
Office: +1-204-474-9345 FAX: +1-204-261-1318
Email: president(a)umanitoba.ca
cid:image002.jpg@01CAEBD7.78870110
UM Students.Please see the revised notice below regarding the Annual January
Career Fair. There is no need to register for the Fair. You may register to
receive the latest info on job postings..
Are you looking for full-time, part-time or summer work?
Do you need more info about career options?
Get the information you need at the
Annual January Career Fair
Wednesday, January, 18
9:30 am - 2:30 pm
2nd floor University Centre
More information about the Career Fair at:
http://umanitoba.ca/student/counselling/2855.html
Register to receive job postings and information from Career Services at:
www.umanitoba.ca/student/careerservices
Student Affairs...Creating Opportunities for Student Success
UM Students.
Are you looking for full-time, part-time or summer work?
Do you need more info about career options?
Get the information you need at the
Annual January Career Fair
Wednesday, January, 18
9:30 am - 2:30 pm
2nd floor University Centre
Register at: www.umanitoba.ca/student/careerservices
More information about the Career Fair at:
http://umanitoba.ca/student/counselling/2855.html