Committee for Undergraduate Studies

At its meeting on 21 December 1992 the Chair of the Academic Board, A/P Mack, recommended that the Board establish a Committee for Undergraduate Studies, whose members shall hold office until February 1994, with the following terms of reference:

(a) to provide policy guidelines on which the Faculties, Colleges, Boards of Studies and the University may develop effective procedures for determining, monitoring and assuring the quality of our undergraduate degree programs, within available resource constraints;

(b) to provide advice on how such procedures may impact on admissions policies and resource needs;

(c) to provide advice on how assessment of quality of teaching best be incorporated into procedures for consideration of applications for promotion;

(d) to set up a working party to consider a complete revision of the present procedures for obtaining authority to amend or revise degree programs, with a view to seeking Senate approval to delegate some of these to the Board or Faculties, and also to consider how the Board might periodically undertake a global review of complete degree programs in order to monitor their overall quality. Working Party to report to the Academic Board through the Committee by the September 1993 Board meeting;

(e) to consider and report on any matter referred to it by the Academic Board, any of its Standing Committees, the Chair of the Board or the Vice-Chancellor and to establish such working parties as necessary with such members as the Committee requires, such members not necessarily being members of the Committee or the Academic Board;

(f) after consultation with the Faculties, Colleges, Boards o Studies and the Policy Advisory Committee of the Academic Board to bring to the October 1993 meeting of the Board recommendations on the future composition and terms of reference of this Committee.

A review of the Academic Board was carried out in 1995, with a Report of the Committee of Review, dated July 1995, submitted to Senate in October 1995. The report proposed that the board of nearly 400 members be replaced by a two-tiered structure: an Academic Forum of about the same number and an Academic Board of 61 members. The Board would be supported by 6 committees instead of 12, the new committees to be Undergraduate Studies, Graduate Studies, Teaching and Learning, Research Policy, Library and Information, and Academic Staffing. The new structure came into place in 1996.