Senators welcomed back for new academic year
Concordia’s Senate held its first meeting of the academic year on Friday, Sept. 11. The university’s senior academic body met in the JM Building downtown, and it was the first meeting for a handful of new senators.
Concordia president Alan Shepard opened the meeting by welcoming the group into another academic year with about 8,000 new students starting this semester. Shepard also briefly announced the arrival of 27 new full-time faculty members at Concordia before Senators were shown a presentation refreshing the rules and policies of Senate for both new and returning members.
Concordia’s strategic plan
The Senate was given a presentation on the development of Concordia’s strategic plan. The review discussed the integration of the plan from the university-level into Concordia’s different faculties.
The strategic plan, which was approved by Concordia’s Board of Governors this summer, contains nine different priorities: doubling research; teach for tomorrow (which educates students on both fundamental academics while being transformative to new ideas); get your hands dirty (through experiential learning); mix it up (by promoting intersectionality between disciplines); experiment boldly (and trying new methods of engaging students and the community); grow smartly (and think about Concordia’s expanding student body); embrace the city, embrace the world (and be an agent of change in both); go beyond (by raising the quality of Concordia’s work and relationships); and take pride. The full meaning of these priorities can be found on Concordia’s website.
ENCS council changes approved
This is going back to ENCS Council at their next meeting for changes to student representation and will come back to the next Senate meeting for approval.
Edit: A previous version of the article stated that the Senate voted in favour of changing the rules of membership of the Engineering and Computer Sciences Faculty Council and that the revisions changed the structure of the council, adding eight voting members and specifying the number of councilors from different groups and departments under ENCS. The changes is student representation will need to be approved at the next meeting before implemented. We regret the the error.
