Series UR-017-10 - Committee on Teaching and Learning

• Textual record

5 cm of textual records

The Committee on Teaching and Learning is a standing committee of Senate. This Committee was originally known as the Committee on Continuing Education and Summer School until it was folded into the Committee on Teaching ca. 1995.

The purpose of the Committee on Continuing Education and Summer School was to provide for the continuous re-examination of the continuing education philosophy and policy of the University to make recommendations to Senate, and to ensure the provision of challenging and diversified continuing education programs. The membership of the committee included the Director of Continuing Education and Summer School as Chairman, three faculty members elected by Senate for three-year terms, and two students elected by Senate for one-year terms, one from among the continuing education students, the other from the undergraduate academic body. The committee met monthly during the academic year and held additions meetings during the summer as required.

The purpose of the Committee on Teaching and Learning is to contribute to the maintaining, fostering and appreciating excellence in teaching and learning at the Mount. Functions of the committee are: to foster and recognize excellence in teaching; to monitor new developments in teaching approaches and' pedagogies, and to inform Senate of such developments; to consider and advise on academic matters and planning for areas of innovative education such as distributed learning, co-operative education and non-credit programming; to organize and support professional development opportunities in teaching for faculty, possibly in collaboration with similar committees or institutes at other Atlantic universities; to consider and bring recommendations to Senate on policy matters affecting teaching and learning, including instruments for student ratings of teaching; to provide a forum for the discussion of curriculum, pedagogy, teaching and learning consistent with the University's mission; to monitor the availability of resources related to teaching enhancement and to make recommendations to the library for the acquisition of such resources; to act as a clearing house for the dissemination of information on teaching enhancement to members of the university communities; to serve as the selection committee for the Instructional Leadership Award; and to act as an appeal committee for Prior Learning Assessment Review.

The membership includes the Vice-President (Academic) and the Director of Distance and Learning and Continuing Education, both ex-officio. Members also include four members of faculty and a winner of the Alumnae Teaching Award, as well as one student chosen by the Student's Union.

Series forms part of the Mount Saint Vincent University Senate fonds and consists of minutes of meetings and memorandums generated by the Committee on Continuing Education and Summer School (1971-1979) resulting from the functions of reassessing on a continuing basis the function of extension, continuing education, and summer school in a changing society to meet the needs of society and the University; effect long-range planning of courses to avoid duplication; examining the content for courses no in the regular calendar; planning calendars for publications; meeting with the corresponding body at Dalhousie University; consulting with the department and dean to secure professors for summer school and continuing education courses and, encouraging appropriate department to provide research on the development of adult courses and on patters of adult learning; memorandums generated by the Ad-Hoc Committee on Expansion (1974-1975) which was formed in 1974 to explore the ways and means of expanding the Mount Saint Vincent University course offerings outside of the normal day-time period. Also includes a copy of the Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Newsletter, No. 39, February 2005.