University of Guelph

Strategic Mandate Agreement

Part 1: University of Guelph - Proposed Mandate Statement

The priorities and goals stated in Strengthening Ontarios Centres of Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge validate approaches pursued by the University of Guelph for several years. As detailed in numerous documentsthe Universitys Integrated Plan (now in its second major five-year iteration); the Provosts White Paper on Reimagining the Undergraduate Learning Experience; the report of the Presidential Task Force on Accessibility; the Strategic Research Plan; and the report of the Presidential Task Force on Sustainability Guelph is working to enhance educational productivity, prepare learners for the emerging knowledge economy, ensure equitable access, and offer innovative but sustainable programs in a challenging economy, all while continuing to lead in supporting students as learners and individuals. These ongoing efforts distinguish us from other universities. Recognizing these initiatives within a government acknowledged and supported mandate will help to strengthen our efforts. Historically, Guelph has brought together expertise, research, education and service in agriculture and veterinary science, including food quality and safety and human health. This statutory responsibility has evolved in the most recent Integrated Plan to an intentional concentration on four strategic areas: food, health, environment and community. Each area states an institutional priority or strength and, in a sense, represents an aspect of the more general notion of well-being of organisms, of individuals, of societies and cultures, and of processes that sustain them at all scales. Guelph focuses in theory and in practice on improving well-being. The Integrated Planthe second reiteration of a comprehensive, bottom-up, transparent, long-term planning processdeclares the kind of university we wish to be and offers metrics to measure progress toward that goal. It is our primary means to ensure and demonstrate accountability and return on investment to funding agencies for their dollars, to students and families for their time and aspirations, and to Ontarians for their trust. Naturally, the three priority mandates outlined in this documentTransformative Program Innovation, Student Success and Engagementdraw directly from that Plan. These goals selected and honed through a vigorous, campus-wide, participatory process of reflection and self-assessmentand the greater Plan itself, enables Guelph to continue to enhance its productivity, effectiveness and leadership. We intend to forge ahead where we already confidently lead or excel (e.g., in many life science disciplines, in support for student learning) and to change the game where conventional wisdom yields only dilemmas or zero-sum tradeoffs (using technology to escape the false dichotomy between instructional productivity and learning quality). Innovative and transformative approaches guided by our first Integrated Plan (20052011) increased productivity by more than 20 per cent, including more undergraduate and graduate students taught per faculty member, higher research productivity, and proven improvements in the quality of the learning experience of our students. We also significantly improved our infrastructure and physical plant, including teaching and learning facilities; extended online learning to supplement instructional processes; and raised more external funds specifically to support teaching and learning activities. The second Integrated Plan (2012-2017) aims to further improve productivity by 12 to 15 per cent and to improve learning outcomes in Guelphs areas of strength. We will achieve this goal by focusing on mission-critical efforts and managing resources, risks and opportunities. The University of Guelph will continue to lead in transforming post-secondary education.

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University of Guelph

Strategic Mandate Agreement

Part 2: University of Guelph V ision

The University of Guelph is a research-intensive, learner-centred university. Its core value is the pursuit of truth. Its aim is to serve society and to enhance the quality of life through scholarship. In its research and teaching programs, the University is committed to a global perspective. It is animated by a spirit of free and open inquiry, collaboration and mutual respect. It offers a wide range of excellent programstheoretical and applied, disciplinary and interdisciplinary, undergraduate and graduatein the arts, humanities, social sciences, life and natural sciences, and professional fields. It recognizes agriculture and veterinary medicine as areas of special and historical responsibility. Our University puts the learner at the centre of all it does. It recognizes that research and teaching are intimately linked and that learning is a lifelong commitment. Guelph is committed to the highest standards of teaching and learning; to the education and well-being of the whole person; to meeting the needs of all learners in a purposefully diverse community; to rigorous self-assessment; and to innovative curricula that foster creativity, skill development, critical inquiry and active learning. We educate students for life and work in a rapidly changing world, and enable them to contribute actively to improving their communities, province, nation and world. Institutionally, Guelph has well-known attributes that clearly distinguish it from other institutions. These include the only veterinary school in Ontario (Canadas largest and North Americas oldest); the provinces only agricultural college; and a long, successful and innovative partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs supporting research and service to improve Ontarians health, welfare, livelihood and (again) well-being. Upon this foundation, we have built a reputation as one of the worlds pre-eminent research institutions in agri-food and life sciences. Our scholarly rigour is balanced by a tradition of outreach and extension, derived originally from our founding institutions, which imbues the campus with a spirit of caring and community engagement. We also pioneered a unique and innovative partnership with Humber Collegethe University of Guelph-Humber. It has addressed a gap in postsecondary offerings and retains significant potential to help meet student demand in the next few decades. Although some have argued for a two-tiered system of research universities and teaching universities, Guelph has always seen it as mission-critical to balance teaching and research. This fundamental element of our core vision is embodied in our two primary strategic directions: learner-centredness and researchintensiveness. We believe that these goals are compatible and mutually reinforcing: placing the learner at the centre demands that he or she engage in discovery as a foundation for learning. Many of the other institutional characteristics that distinguish and differentiate us arise from this balance and its implications. We provide a supported learning environment not only to sustain and foster knowledge absorption and accumulation but also to promote active and participatory learning through challenge and engagement. Our focus on students personal and academic growth; our continued commitment to a residential campus, especially for first-year students; our legacy of service and outreach to the community and the public, here at home and around the world; our strategic directions of internationalism, lifelong and online-learning, and collaboration: these all reflect our balanced approach and the importance of the teaching-research link. We will continue to value this balance and promote it as a unique advantage. At the same time, we cannot avoid making choices about what we teach and study. We cannot attempt to serve every educational need and we cannot afford to maintain unsustainable programs and activities. Our Integrated Planning process will continue both to guide us in critically assessing whether initiatives help to achieve overall mission fulfillment and to help us make difficult but necessary choices. This foundation of vision, preparedness, foresight and responsible process will help ensure that we fulfill our Strategic Mandate Agreement.
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University of Guelph

Strategic Mandate Agreement

Part 3: University of Guelph - Priority Objectives

Priority #1: Transformative Program Innovation
The University of Guelph has always been recognized as an innovator in program development and delivery. Faced with accelerating changein both post-secondary education and society as a wholewe must do more to enhance our productivity and effectiveness. We must understand and embrace the challenges and opportunities of the knowledge economy and a pervasively connected world, and adapt or re-imagine techniques and methodologies appropriately. In order to do more, we must also do less. We cannot innovate and support new, more appropriate models and curricula if we cling to outdated programs, processes and routines. We must continue to explore radically redesigned or accelerated programs and other avenues of innovation. And we must focus our limited resources on areas and programs where we can succeed and, ideally, excel. Guelph is moving beyond initial discussionslargely centered on the 21st Century Curriculum Committee to implement new delivery models to make student learning more effective and efficient.1 We are poised to move beyond our initial experiments and pilot projects and begin making significant and demonstrable changes. The First Integrated Plan focused on first-year and final capstone experiences. We now must transform the curriculum more generallyadapting new models, building accelerated programs and critically examining assumptions. We must lessen reliance on credit hours as the basis for assessing programs; explore block-oriented curriculum plans; and make more use of hybrid, problem/inquiry-based and other learner-centred delivery models. We need to foster the development of even more innovative models. And we need to sharpen our focus to apply limited resources most effectively. Sustaining the highest-quality student learning experience hinges on our ability to demonstrate effectiveness and accountability. The cornerstone of Guelphs transformation will be a rigorous program prioritization process begun in June 2012 and covering all academic and non-academic programs and services. Over the last five years, we have found $46 million within our operating budget, to cover our costs, create funds for strategic reinvestment and increase productivity by more than 20 per cent, largely through enrolment increases and faculty and staff reductions. We have eliminated more than 12 per cent of low-enrolment courses and 69 per cent of low-enrolment majors. Now facing continued resource constraints and needing to find a further $30 million within our budget, we must make informed, evidence-based decisions about what to stop doing. We have engaged Dr. Robert C. Dickeson to help us apply his proven methodology to rank all of our programs/services against 10 criteria, leading to a ranking of our programs/services in quintiles.2 This will help us decide which programs to enhance, continue, reduce, restructure/reorganize or eliminate. Initiatives Science @ Guelph: Along with overall program prioritization, we will comprehensively review science teaching and research programs by engaging a panel of external experts. From its inception, the University has focused on science, applied science, and the social and cultural aspects of science. Science is now embedded in every college in a wide variety of programs and activities. This breadth of influence and commitment consumes resources and benefits the entire university, albeit not evenly. We need to appropriately plan, support and co-ordinate activities to sustain a contemporary scientific enterprise, and we need to determine how to specialize and focus to maintain global leadership in key areas.

http://www.21c.uoguelph.ca Robert C. Dickeson, Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services: Reallocating Resources to Achieve Strategic Balance (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010)
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Strategic Mandate Agreement

Redesign large first-year courses for enhanced productivity and learning: Guelph already leads the system in technologically assisted delivery of distance education offerings;3 we will use our experience to redesign face-to-face, on-campus offerings. Working with the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) in the United States, we will redesign instructional approaches using technology to achieve cost-savings and to improve learning. NCAT, established with Pew Trust and Lumina Foundation grants, uses a proven, systematic program to help universities understand the full instructional cost of course delivery; to determine how to use technology as an instructional aid and labour-saving device; and to assess learning effectiveness. The program offers five flexible yet distinct course redesign models that both improve learning and reduce costsparticipating schools have reduced instructional costs by an average of 37 per cent. Guelph is the only Canadian institution to work with NCAT. Technology does not guarantee improved teaching and learning. NCATs redesign approach incorporates highly effective pedagogical practices4 in high-enrolment courses, which would be impossible to do without assistive technologies. Reducing faculty and instructor time spent on teaching, by transferring some tasks to technology-assisted learning is key. This counters the conventional wisdom that highquality learning requires low student-faculty ratios and that large lecture presentation techniques are the only way to lower costs. NCAT has proven that redesigning courses to employ technology-based approaches and learner-centred principles helps to resolve the classic cost-quality tension. Guelph has a strong core technology platform for assisted learning, including technology-enabled classroom spaces. We have allocated some of our internal Priority Investment Fund toward expanding this capacity and hope to attract additional external funding, as with our First-Year Seminar Program. The redesign initiative is clearly one area where prioritized, targeted, accountable investment would have a significant impact. Emerge as leaders in the creation of pathways programs to facilitate credit transfer: Guelph is a recognized leader in student mobility and the emerging credit-transfer economy, partly due to our unique initiatives at Guelph-Humber. Besides our successful partnerships with Humber, Conestoga and Fanshawe colleges, we are cultivating other college partners to ensure applicant pools and appropriate programming, bridge courses and curriculum foundations in such focused areas as engineering, computing, agriculture, environment and health professions. As well, Guelph and six other Ontario universities have formed the University Credit Transfer Consortium, which has set clear standards for inter-institution equivalency of foundational courses, and will integrate expanded credit-transfer processes and agreements in upper-year courses and professional programs. Focused enrolment management: In order to maintain total enrolment even as growth slows in the 101 pool, we will need to establish enrolment targets for transfer students and other applicants in the 105 pool, including out-of-province and international students. Only modest overall net growth is planned on the main campus, but we will need to rebalance programs under changing demographics and demand, and employ other strategies to hold enrolment at current levels.5 Introducing a range of summer semester offerings to support the bridge program, along with proposed changes to re-emphasize a summer academic semester in many co-op programs, will help reinvigorate our summer semester and increase enrolments, especially in face-to-face classes. This expanded summer course offering has enabled the
Guelph remains a Canadian leader in the delivery of on-line courses and continuing education programs. It is even possible to achieve a BA at Guelph entirely through distance education. 4 Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson, "Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education" American Association of Higher Education Bulletin (1987) 39:7, 3-7 5 However, the University of Guelph-Humber continues to provide opportunities to absorb a significant portion of the system growth projected for the GTA.
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Strategic Mandate Agreement

Universitys ESL/Open Learning program to increase international student enrolment by helping students to develop their English language skills and to prepare conditionally admitted students for success. Metrics and Assessment We will have achieved transformative program innovation if, by the end of the planning cycle in 2016-17, we: Set and meet our established transfer target and maintain overall total enrolment. To do this, we will need to establish and begin using 10 pathways programs with community colleges, including the degree completion program at Guelph-Humber; Streamline admissions processes for seamless credit transfer; Complete an action plan following the review of science on campus; Undertake a program prioritization process to focus on transformation and innovation, including continuous review of low-enrolment courses, programs, majors and secondary areas of study; and Work with NCAT to transform two large first-year courses per year, thereby increasing productivity/cost savings by 12 to 15 per cent.

Priority #2: Student Success

Education is as much about the journey as about the destination. But ultimately we must as an institution and as part of an entire systembe consistently accountable for our students success. We need to consider success not just as good grades or career advancement but also as the development of the whole student and as the indirect success of enhanced returns to society and community. University is an investment of time, resources and money; in the current economy, it is an investment that must better demonstrate its return. At the same time, teaching and learning are not merely two sides of a transactional relationship, like producing and consuming. Attempts to reduce them to such a simplistic economic metaphor are shortsighted and do a disservice not just to teachers and learners but to those who support and benefit from teaching and learning. The belief that more teaching somehow begets more learning in the same way that more mining begets more steel begets more cars is fundamentally wrong and yet subtly pervasive in the management of academic institutions and systems. Sweeping away this kind of misconception is the key initial challenge in transforming post-secondary education in a meaningful way.6 What then replaces this consumerist metaphor? We believe that learning is something that students do primarily as a self-directed activity. Excellent teaching means assisting learners in their quest, and supporting their efforts and achievements. The inputscredit hours spent in classrooms, numbers of pages read or writtenmatter less than the outputs: learning outcomes whose tangible skills, capabilities and competencies enhance the social, intellectual and economic life of learners, and enable them to contribute to the social, intellectual and economic vibrancy of the community, nation and world. Initiatives Learning ePortfolios: Partnering with Desire to Learn (D2L), we will widen the use of learning ePortfolios among Guelph students. These portfolios document completed course work and measure learning outcomes in tangible, demonstrable ways: knowledge; skills such as critical thinking, numeracy, teamwork, and oral and written communication; and values important for responsible and participatory citizens. Unlike abstract standardized-test constructs like the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), this accessible and applied initiative motivates students to ensure their best work is represented (and diminishes the temptation to teach to the test). Two degree programsthe Bachelor of Commerce and
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Donald W. Harward, ed., Transforming Undergraduate Education: Theory that Compels and Practices that Succeed (Plymouth: Rowan and Littlefield, 2012
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University of Guelph

Strategic Mandate Agreement

the Bachelor of Arts and Sciencehave already introduced portfolios into their programs; 1,500 undergraduate students are using them this year. By expanding D2L, we will use analytics to further assess and document learning outcomes. This program has been successfully tested in the United States, and we are the first Canadian school to use these analytics. Designated Courses: Besides the ePortfolios, we are now designating courses to reflect acquired or developed skills. These designations will eventually appear in the course calendar and on transcripts, enhancing transparency for students planning programs, for employers hiring graduates and for other institutions encountering students moving through the system. Together these two initiatives afford what some have called double-click degreesmaking plain students record of learning and their specific, demonstrated skills and competencies. This initiative complements our co-curricular transcripts as they document students valuable learning experiences outside of the classroom. Deep Learning: Decades of research, including NSSE results, show which active learning practices lead to deep and engaged learning. These practicesincluding First-Year Seminars; core courses; learning communities; writing-intensive courses; collaborative assignments and projects; undergraduate research opportunities; diversity-oriented and globally focused learning; service learning and community-based learning; internships/practicums/co-op; capstone courses and projectshave been shown to support student retention, enhance student achievement and promote timely program completion. At Guelph, we recognize the importance of such experiences but also appreciate the costs. Not all of a students classes can employ these formats. We must strive for a balance that allows students to experience these learning practices. We are attempting to measure how many such experiences our students encounter and to ensure that they accumulate a guaranteed minimum number before they leave the University. Research shows that these experiences help to ensure that students acquire generic and specific skills needed for work or graduate studies. Enhance and sustain our commitment to a supportive learning environment: With early signs of sliding retention rates and changes in our student populationespecially more commuters and more transfer and international studentswe must continue to provide appropriate academic and non-academic support programs. Extensive research shows that early-intervention strategies are valuable and more costeffective than trying to fix a problem. Similarly, prompt and earnest engagement of students by faculty is tremendously effective, especially early and frequent performance feedback. If students receive little indication of how they are doing until the end of the semester, it is more difficult to seek additional support and for the University to help. Rather than direct most support resources to students already in difficulty we need to promote a healthy campusone that supports the health and wellness of all members of our community. Metrics and Assessment We will have enhanced student success if, by the end of the planning cycle in 2016-17, we: Establish a baseline and create and post curriculum maps in all academic units, including majors, secondary areas of study and distribution requirements. These maps will indicate program objectives and expectations, and specify which courses focus on particular knowledge and skills/competencies (writingintensive, research-intensive, global literacy, inquiry-based, etc.); In keeping with the Quality Assurance Framework, state learning outcomes for graduate and undergraduate programs. All departments and schools will document their learning outcomes in this manner as they come up for review under the Quality Assurance Framework; Establish a baseline and then document student learning with evidence-based measures. This will involve
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University of Guelph

Strategic Mandate Agreement

increasing the number of programs using e-learning portfolios by 25 per cent; adopting and using University-wide, Senate-approved learning outcomes; and completing and analyzing exploratory results from the HEQCO-sponsored project using the CLA; Establish a baseline and increase by 15 per cent the number of students participating in highly effective learning practices. The proportion of faculty providing these opportunities should increase by 10 per cent. We will work toward ensuring that Guelph graduates have experienced at least eight of these practices during their program of study and can demonstrate this achievement to others; Using the results from the last NSSE survey as a baseline, improve our NSSE ratings on learning environment, level of interaction with faculty and academic challenge; and Improve retention rates from 89 per cent to 92 per cent and develop a comprehensive early warning system to identify students in academic jeopardy.

Priority #3: Engagement

The University of Guelph prides itself on its strong sense of community involvement, and draws upon a long tradition of outreach and extension to foster a broad network of active participants and partners. These include institutions around the globe and here at home. For example, we are working with the City of Guelph and Conestoga College to provide learning opportunities that stimulate regional economic and social development. Teaching, learning and scholarship at Guelph are strongly driven by interest in important, real-world issues, and are used to develop innovative, real-world solutions. We must continue to encourage this kind of engagementlocally, nationally and globally. Developing active, caring and highly competent citizens is core to our mandate. A long-term commitment to social justice and democracy is part of our institutional identity and our community ethos; more than half of Guelph students engage in volunteer work while on campus. Building a Better Planet requires not just exceptional contributions from future leaders but also routine contributions sparked by social responsiveness, everyday good citizenship and democratic responsibility. Initiatives School of Civil Society: Building on our strengths in outreach and extension, and demonstrating our commitment to transformative program innovation (3.1), we will create a new, interdisciplinary, collaborative School of Civil Society that focuses on active, experiential, globally engaged and participatory learning. We will partner with NGOs and public and private sector entities to improve societal ability to face complex challenges and take advantage of opportunities. Under this learnercentred, research-intensive mode of curriculum delivery, students will spend less time in the classroom (thus helping reduce instructional costs) and more time in high-quality experiential, service and community-based learning, both at home and abroad. The School will typify Guelphs emphasis on combining theory and practice to make a difference, while inculcating in students the sense of responsibility and participation needed for long-term societal health. This new unit will champion teaching and research excellence for producing and exchanging applied knowledge in such areas as women and girls in development, the environment, global food security, health and community resilience. A key component will be the establishment of a number of externally funded Knowledge Exchange Chairs to expand and manage partnerships and networks, apply knowledge, and, most important, engage with domestic and global organizations to solve complex problems. Community-engaged scholarship: Scholarly work must be about more than just the accumulation of academic knowledge. Guelph is committed to community partnership, encouraging collaboration and shared decision-making among academics and members of the public who benefit from, are affected by, or can enrich or enhance our activities on campus. We employ knowledge mobilization professionals to broaden our academic outputs and to broaden our inputs by accommodating and soliciting additional
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Strategic Mandate Agreement

perspectives and experiences. We take pride in our ability to find answers to critical problems, but we recognize that we do not always have the answers or even recognize all of the questions. Collaboration lies at the root of community-engaged scholarship, and we value the engagement of communities and citizens in helping to create, design, implement and apply scholarship to meet their needs. Centre for Business and Social Entrepreneurship (CBaSE): Launched in 2009 in partnership with The Co-Operators, CBaSE is dedicated to preparing a new generation of business leaders committed to community involvement, sustainability and entrepreneurship. The CBaSE platformapplied communitybased projects, product development and business developmentprovides transformational learning experiences and research opportunities to faculty and students in collaboration with leaders of local organizations and enterprises. As entrepreneurial centres become more prominent in Ontario universities, CBaSE will remain competitive by distinguishing itself as a leader in socially oriented, community engagement-driven entrepreneurship. Global literacy: Our mission is to help our students discover a vast world of knowledge. This is not just an abstractionthe world itself may be getting smaller in terms of interconnections, but it still offers surprising diversity and variety. Many students, especially those in technical and scientific fields, too easily become enmeshed in their fields specialized modes of thinking and develop a limited world view. Global literacy helps students to consider global impact and context in solving problems and making decisions. It also extends liberal education beyond analytic knowledge and canonical texts to competencies needed by individuals to make responsible, globally informed decisions. We must embed a global dimension in courses across the disciplines. Metrics and Assessment We will have fostered engagement if, by the end of the planning cycle in 2016-17, we: Consistent with our strategic direction of internationalism, complete a global literacy process. Modelled on the one at Carnegie Mellon University, this process will ensure that we have defined global literacy outcomes and are promoting global awareness; Launch a new certificate in Civic Engagement and Global Citizenship. Admit 35 students in the first year and increase enrolment by 25 per cent each year; Create and maintain a sustainable School of Civil Society. Maintain an annual enrolment of at least 125 students, with increases of 10 per cent a year over the five-year planning period. Secure at least three of five planned Knowledge Exchange Chairs to support the School; Establish a baseline and increase by 25 per cent the number of students involved in community-engaged service learning in Canada and abroad; Establish a baseline and increase by five per cent annually the number of scholarships on campus that support experiential learning activities; and Establish a baseline and increase by 25 per cent the number of students engaged in sustainability courses across the University.

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