Fact Sheet #4. November 2005
Acronyms - Who’s on First?
As soon as you start talking about U of G activities, you hit the I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S. Let’s see – there’s JFPC and FPC and JCC and Senate and SCUP and BoG and EHS and SOFAL and AVPHR and CRCs and BUGS and much more. The University’s official Organizational Chart (see the UGFA webpage under “Joining U of G” ) may help a bit. (How many vice-presidents can you find?) But UGFA and a few other really important bits are missing, so we’ll summarize the essentials here and in the next ugFACTsheet.
Top Dogs
The Chancellor is the titular head of the University, and so gets to grant all those degrees. The University President is also the Vice-Chancellor. Board of Governors oversees the “government, conduct, management and control of the university and its property, revenues, expenditures, business and affairs”. (i.e. They’ve got the purse strings.) The Senate is the ultimate academic authority in the University, and has powers over programs, regulations and policies and directs the academic life of the University. The university is described as having a bicameral governance structure – with Senate and the BoG equal, in adjacent “boxes”. (Think about that, the next time a meeting of Senate takes half-hour!)
Senate includes elected members from the faculty and students, and members who sit ex officio, because they are serving as Vice-Presidents, Deans, Directors, Chairs of departments, Registrar, Chief Librarian, CSA and GSA President, and so on. One of the Senate rules is that the number of elected faculty shall exceed by one, the number of ex-officio members. Other Senate members are selected or appointed by the Alumni, the Board of Governors, the staff (2), the Library (1) and UGFA (1).
You can see the kinds of things Senate does by referring to the website, www.uoguelph.ca/senate/ . Senate oversees academic activities, but those activities clearly have a cost. One key Senate committee is the Senate Committee on University Planning (SCUP), which is charged with reviewing and recommending on priorities for the distribution of resources in the University.
Many Vices?
To run the place, there are the Vice-Presidents for Finance and Administration (she signs your pay-cheque!), Alumni Affairs and Development, Research, and the Provost & Vice-President Academic. The Director of the Human Rights and Equity Office (HREO) also reports at the VP-level. On the business side, the Assistant Vice-President Human Resources (AVPHR), and the Director of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) report to the VP Finance and Administration, as do the directors for Physical Resources, for Police & Fire & Parking, and for Real Estate and others. The VP Research and two Associate VPs Research oversee research grants and research support and business development, including OMAF (Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food … and sometimes Rural Affairs) programs, Laboratory Services, and Animal Care Services.
Academics US
The Associate VP Academic and the Associate VP Student Affairs report to the Provost& VP Academic. Units such as Teaching Support Services (TSS), Open Learning, Counselling & Student Development, Student Housing, Student Health, Student Life & Career Services, and the Learning Commons report through one of those AVPs.
The Deans of the six Colleges (* OK, can you name them?), and the Dean of Graduate Studies are members of VPAC (Vice-President’s Advisory Council), as are the Directors of Resource Planning & Analysis, International Programs, Computing & Communication Services, and the Registrar (Director of Strategic Enrollment and Registrar). The Board of Undergraduate Studies (BUGS!) and the Board of Graduate Studies (BGS) control undergraduate and graduate studies, while each undergraduate degree program has a Program Committee (e.g. the B.Sc. Program Committee),
LET’S GET TO THE GOOD STUFF!
he University of Guelph Faculty Association (UGFA) is the employee group that represents Faculty and Academic Librarians ( you knew that! ). The Special Plan Agreementgoverns our relationship with the Administration, and the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) and Joint Faculty Policies Committee (JFPC) are the two main mechanisms of formal communication between faculty as an employee group and the Administration. But really explaining this will take another ugFACTsheet!
This UGFA fact sheet is intended to provide general background information to ugfa members to allow them to understand their association better and to encourage active participation. Further details are available on the websites of the UGFA and the University of Guelph.