Each director of Dawson College gave a brief report to the Board of Governors at a special April 22 meeting, which had full attendance.<\/p>\n
Director General Richard Filion spoke about how everyone has worked hard to maintain essential services, such as admissions, staffing, and budget planning, while dealing with an evolving situation and sometimes contradictory information from the Ministry of Education.<\/p>\n
Responding to ministerial requests<\/strong> A key achievement was \u201csetting up ways for students and faculty to complete the Winter Semester through remote teaching while providing students and teachers with proper support and setting up the Dawson Virtual Campus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ensuring timely communications has been a priority to ensure that our community and our union representatives are kept abreast, he said.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Academic Dean Diane Gauvin<\/strong> reported that most courses are being offered online.<\/p>\n There is a modification to ponderation in the Institutional Student Evaluation Policy (ISEP) to give greater flexibility to teachers and students.<\/p>\n Diane explained that ponderation refers to the time and weight given to learning activities. She gave the example of two hours of class time, one hour of lab time and three hours of homework for a total of six hours. \u201cThe Ministry has authorized a change as long as the total number of hours adds up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Numerical grades are still preferred but if a teacher is unable to evaluate the level of mastering a competency, an equivalence is permitted.<\/p>\n \u201cThere has been no change to rules about academic integrity,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are counting on students behaving with integrity.\u201d Students have received instructions about using online platforms and about expectations.<\/p>\n Authorized absences <\/strong> Graduating students will be exempted from the English Exit Exam.<\/p>\n The College has taken a compassionate approach to students who were on probation. Usually, if they fail, they are expelled. \u201cIf they fail one course, they will be back on probation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The R Score will not be calculated this semester. Recognizing achievements of students, especially graduates, is still under consideration.<\/p>\n Academic Calendar revision As for summer school, \u201cwe think it is important to maintain summer school. Some students need courses to graduate or to get into their program at university,\u201d Diane explained.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Student Services Director Monique Magnan<\/strong> spoke about the way her department has reorganized to deliver services remotely, through online meetings and the Virtual Campus.<\/p>\n Employees are working between 20-50% of their usual capacity, she said and added apossible explanation that students may have difficulty in adjusting to this new way of accessing services.<\/p>\n Library staff contacted 100 students who had not shown up for class to check in with them at the request of the Registrar\u2019s Office. \u201cThe students who were contacted truly appreciated that employees from the College took the time to give them a call to see how they were doing. \u00a0We would like to continue making these calls until the end of the semester,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Human Resources Director Pascahl Scott<\/strong> said it has been a challenging time for all the services. \u201cRecruitment is on-going for teaching. For non-teaching jobs, we are pursuing the process for urgent positions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Vacation scheduling will be done beginning May 1 and employees will have two weeks to plan and managers will have two weeks to process.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Finance Director Glenys Ronnie<\/strong> spoke about the financial impacts of the pandemic on the College: \u201cThe F\u00e9d\u00e9ration des c\u00e9geps requested the finance department of each college to submit a very preliminary high level summary of the potential financial impacts of the Colleges. These numbers were consolidated with all other CEGEPs and presented for discussion purposes by the F\u00e9d\u00e9 to Ministry officials. The numbers included estimates for both 19-20 and 20-21 academic years.\u201d<\/p>\n New budget centres have been set up under each directorate to accumulate the additional costs incurred due to the COVID crisis. \u201cThe costs so far have been mainly linked to the delivery of online education including IT equipment, peripherals, computer supplies and software. New codes have been set up to track overtime as well as absences,\u201d she said. \u201cWhile additional expenses will be apparent and identifiable, revenue decreases will be more challenging. We will track all refunds granted due to cancelled activities. We will estimate the loss of revenues that would have been anticipated in a normal academic year.\u201d<\/p>\n There is a process to reimburse faculty for pre-approved purchases in cases where the College was unable to provide the necessary equipment and supplies to deliver online education. The process will be extended shortly to staff performing essential tasks remotely.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Facilities Management Director Wai Bong Shum<\/strong> lauded the \u201cfantastic job\u201d that security, cleaning and HVAC services have been doing to keep things running smoothly at the building. He spoke about the challenges of going through a tendering process for renovations and providing site visits via a laptop computer.<\/p>\n \u201cPriority has been given to the renovation of Human Resources, Diagnostic Imaging\/Radio Oncology, AcessAbility, but there is a lot more renovation that will either be delayed, postponed or defered to next year.,\u201d Wai said.<\/p>\n Wai also mentioned the process to secure a new building to address the space deficit: \u201cFor the upcoming weeks, the College will be working on the \u201cProgramme Fonctionnel\u201d of the \u201cDossier d\u2019opportunit\u00e9\u201d that we have been working on for the past few years. A meeting will be held with different stakeholders in the coming weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Information Systems and Technology Director Fran\u00e7ois Paradis<\/strong> reported that his department has been supporting all of the departments to deliver the semester and essential services.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big rush is over but requests to our department are steady,\u201d he said. \u201cThe remote access has been impressive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Some departments, such as 3D Animation and Radiation Oncology have quite an infrastructure to maintain in order to keep computers accessible, he said. IST personnel have had to come in to visit the server room.<\/p>\n The IST team has been counselling some teachers and staff about what kind of hardware they should buy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are running a seven days a week service through our Help Desk, which is also open to students now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n The Board also approved the graduation <\/strong>of 482 students from the Fall 2019 Semester and 64 students from AEC programs. Students from Nursing and Diagnostic Imaging were also approved as graduates from the Winter 2020 Semester.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Each director of Dawson College gave a brief report to the Board of Governors at a special April 22 meeting, which had full attendance. Director General Richard Filion spoke about how everyone has worked hard to maintain essential services, such as admissions, staffing, and budget planning, while dealing with an evolving situation and sometimes contradictory…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"menu_order":223,"template":"","digest_categories":[225],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/digest\/4400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/digest"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/digest"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/digest\/4400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4431,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/digest\/4400\/revisions\/4431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"digest_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/digest_categories?post=4400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe College has been in frequent contact and meetings with the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration des c\u00e9geps and the Regroupement des coll\u00e8ges de Montr\u00e9al to respond to ministerial requests.<\/p>\n
\nThe Ministry has given the flexibility to CEGEPs to grant authorized absences more liberally. \u201cWe were not planning to be online and for some students, it is impossible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>The Academic Calendar has been revised. There will be a rolling end to classes, beginning May 19 and ending June 2. A seven-day exam schedule will take place May 27-June 4. June 11 is the deadline to submit grades and June 26 is the deadline to submit incomplete\u2019s.<\/p>\n