L to R: Chris Hinton, Gail Higginson, Joanne Paterson, Tom Cunningham, Karen Hodgins, and Nick Ferrari
I am very pleased to announce that we have completed our PQAPA self-study report and gathered an impressive collection of evidence to send to our auditors. In preparation for our post-audit work, we've also established a new team to help build and communicate an action plan that will support faculty and curriculum excellence.
To ensure the maintenance and growth of quality programs at Durham College, we are examining all facets of a program's life cycle. Our policies and procedures for program development, review and renewal are being updated and documented to ensure we have a consistent cross-college approach in place.
We've clearly been doing things right on the curriculum front for many years but in some instances this has been done intuitively rather than consciously. We want to recognize what we do well and document it so that we can share best practices across the institution.
To support this undertaking, a new 'Curriculum Unit' has been formed within the Innovation Centre. Joining the Director, Chris Hinton and Curriculum Specialist, Karen Hodgins on this team is curriculum expert Gail Higginson and three Durham faculty: Tom Cunningham, Nick Ferrari, and Joanne Paterson.
This new unit will develop guidebooks, checklists, procedures, and other materials to assist faculty in growing their programs. This spring it will also start testing new approaches to curriculum analysis - the results of which will assist in our efforts to embrace general education and program review.
Please watch for upcoming opportunities to meet with this new group and share your thoughts and expertise.
There are seven weeks until our audit date and Durham College is ready!
Don Lovisa
Vice-president, Academic