Direct entry coming Fall 2002

By Natalie Sit

New degrees

Along with direct entry, the university is proposing two new four-year degrees: Bachelor of Natural Science and a Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science. Neither degree has been approved by APC or GFC, although the Natural Science degree is destined for APC consideration sometime in April.

The new science degree will take the place of an undecided program in the Faculty of Science. Students choose two concentrations; they must complete five full-course equivalents in one concentration and three full-course equivalents in the other. The maximum number of courses in any concentration is six full-course equivalents.

The Liberal Arts and Science degree was proposed by the Faculties of Communication and Culture, Humanities and Social Sciences. Students choose which faculty they wish to register in.

Quota programs

The university currently has several quota programs like Communications Studies and Biological Sciences.

A major issue is how many spaces there will be for first-years, internal transfer and external transfer students.

Krivy believes some programs may have high GPAs to maintain that flexibility. Krivy reassure internal and external transfer students, that it’s still possible to enter quota programs, but the number of open spaces is reduced.

The university proposed how to split up the spaces between direct entry and transfers but has no concrete plans.

Porco doesn’t foresee any new measures to deal with extra students created by direct entry.

"I guess it’s wait-and-see," said Porco. "It’s a foregone conclusion that direct entry is coming and it’s just a matter of administration reacting to it as it happens. It would be really sad if the first year [of direct entry] came and they [couldn’t] allow students to register because there were too many."

"The university has around $300,000 to $400,000 to [hire staff to] teach extra sections and labs," said Krivy.

Student advising

The university commissioned a report on student advising and created the Student Advising Review Team. The report mapped out how student advising will proceed for the next few years. Krivy expects to hear something in the next month because advising is a very important but unresolved issue.

SU Social Sciences Representative Michelle McCann believes the current state of student advising is not ready for direct entry. But she thinks advising will be ready by September 2001.

McCann said the report encompasses many recommendations on how to change advising to better meet students’ needs because of direct entry.

"The main change was that there had to be some central advising centre that wasn’t affiliated with any faculty, because with enrolment management and the concept of faculties competing for students, we need to have an impartial advising system," said McCann.

The report also suggested the creation of an advising booklet to inform students where to go depending on their faculty.

Another suggestion was strengthening the advising centre for General Studies, Humanities, Social Sciences and Science. It would have its own budget and a director would control money.