Barber takes lead on teaching and learning
Vice-provost position created to support IP

July 11, 2008

By Colleen MacPherson

Having spent a year as acting provost shepherding the university’s second integrated plan to completion, Ernie Barber will now take on a leadership role for one of the key components of that plan – enhancing teaching, learning and the student experience.

While the plan did not specifically call for the creation of a vice-provost of teaching and learning position, “we know there is a need to provide an even better academic experience for students and for all those engaged in that experience with students,” said Barber whose two-year term in the post began July 1. According to Brett Fairbairn, provost and vice-president academic, the new vice-provost will lead the university’s academic innovation agenda.

In an interview with On Campus News, Barber said one priority for the new position will be “to help the community to deliberately connect learning and discovery, to see how the student experience we deliver at this research-intensive university differs from the experience students receive at a non-research-intensive university.” Another will be to identify where the teaching and learning expertise is on campus and to enable the implementation of innovative ideas.

“We have lots of capacity for innovation … but from faculty we continue to hear that there is a sense we are not valuing and appreciating the work that gets done around campus in teaching. There’s got to be something to that argument. There is a sense there is more to be done for the learner out there and this is an opportunity to take the learning experience, for both the learner and the teacher, to another level.”

Barber said there is also work to be done in co-ordinating strategies in areas like e-learning, distributed learning and partnerships with other universities. “We have to plan for and accommodate more diversity among learners. We have all the ingredients but we’re not making the cake yet.”

In addition, Barber will be asked to oversee the development and implementation of the Foundational Document on Teaching and Learning, direct the work of academic and instructional support units like the University Learning Centre and the Centre for Continuing and Distance Education, be the primary contact for associate and assistant deans, promote the use of teaching evaluation tools and work with the provincial government on new programs and program changes.

Because of the collaborative nature of the new position, Barber said his preference was to move his office out of the College Building, likely to the University Learning Centre, where he can be “regularly bumping into people.”

As his work progresses, Barber will also be developing a vice-provost position profile. One year from now, Fairbairn will set up a review/search committee to evaluate the position and determine whether it will continue. “Neither of us know precisely what the position profile will look like,” Barber said, “but my intention is not to build the position for Ernie Barber.”

Jim Germida will continue in the position of vice-provost but with specific responsibility for academic leadership in faculty recruitment and retention and collegial processes. His title changes to vice-provost of faculty relations.