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Council passes ‘fair and transparent’ new program termination process
With little debate at its April 19 meeting, University Council passed the latest step in its overall march towards a new regime of policies and procedures aimed at ensuring the quality and accountability of its programs.
Council members passed a new U of S Program Termination Procedure, to go along with the previously approved Framework for Planning document, Priority Determination Procedure, and the Systematic Program Review (SPR) process.
The new procedure only allows Council to consider programs for termination on the recommendation of Colleges, the President or from poor outcomes in the SPR process. It states advice must also be received from a Program Termination Committee set up to consider each case.
Vice-President Academic Michael Atkinson called the new procedure a "sensible" move that properly establishes a transparent process through which Council can have appropriate oversight of any proposed program terminations, and the University can have a way to end its support for programs that may no longer be viable.
The principles of program termination will include criteria in the 1996 document A Framework for the Evaluation of Academic Programs, such as: U of S program must be of high quality; must be in demand by students and the public; must use resources efficiently.
Questions about a program’s viability might also consider any unique features of a program and the relevance of the program to Saskatchewan.
The policy sets out a series of "fair and objective procedures" that will be used.
Atkinson says there may already be a couple of programs which could be at least considered for the program termination procedure.
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