DIALOGUE
10 •queeNsjourNal.ca
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2011
Continued from page 9
engineering Modules,” with a full term team-based design project. design has been embedded in many courses through the middle years of the various engineering programs, but for those students who seek a more intensive design program, the elective “Multidisciplinary design stream,” consisting of aPsC 381 “Fundamentals of design engineering” and aPsC 480 “Multidisciplinary design Project,” has been offered since 2005. since its inception, many engineering departments have allowed students to substitute aPsC 480 in place of their departmental “final year project” in order to allow students to experience a full-year multidisciplinary industry-based design project. In the spirit of continuous improvement, at a Feas faculty-wide retreat on the topic of curriculum development in the summer of 2009, the first of six “guiding principles” established was to provide at least one course in design and Professional Practice in every year of every engineering program. a faculty-wide curriculum steering committee, as well as multiple topic-based sub-committees, were struck immediately following that retreat, and they are delivering on schedule. In 2010-11, the first year aPsC 100 course was re-structured to include more design and profession practice skills, and in turn aptly re-named “engineering design and Professional Practice 1.” In september of this year, with tremendous team effort, the second faculty-wide course in that series, aPsC 200/293 “engineering design and Professional Practice 2” was rolled out. Created from the ground up and based on definitive learning objectives and Canadian engineering accredidation Board (CeaB) graduate attributes, this second year offering incorporates a unique facultydepartmental hybrid course delivery with a total of three design projects and extensive active learning workshops in design process, communication and professional skills. the committees are continuing to work toward the third and fourth years of this “spine” of courses. there is further evidence that Queen’s is serious about excellence in engineering education. since 2003, the Feas has invested significant funding and resources to support the natural sciences and engineering research Council of Canada (nserC) Chair in design engineering and the duPont Chair in engineering education. With funding provided through these Chairs, Queen’s was the first in Canada to support graduate research in engineering education within the Faculty of engineering and applied science, graduating the first Master’s student in 2007, and another five students to date. Queen’s is also taking the lead in responding to the Canadian engineering accreditation Board’s new “graduate attributes” accreditation criteria, and is one of the only engineering schools in the country to have a full time director of Program development. to facilitate the future of engineering education, the Feas has been working tirelessly towards the construction of a new engineering building that will be known as the Centre for Innovation and Global engineering, designed to support collaborative and innovative research, design, and teaching practice. there are many all-encompassing statements made by Mr. Wesley-James, most without evidence or personal professional engineering experience to support the claims, and while the “dialogue” section of the Journal may be an opportunity for an author to present personal views, it is truly unfortunate that a full page entry was not fact-checked for accuracy. a quick look at the “Feas strategic Framework 2012” on the Queen’s website would have been enough to point out many of the inaccuracies. regardless of this period of very tight budgets, the reality is that Queen’s Feas has been and continues to be one of the leaders in the evolution of engineering education in Canada. For well over a decade there
Queen’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science has undergone significant changes since the mid-1990s to increase focus on design, collaboration and hands-on learning, professor David Strong says.
has been steady progression towards an optimized educational opportunity for all of our engineering students that balances the mathematics and engineering science fundamentals for which Queen’s is widely recognized, with creative design skills for innovation, and the professional practice elements of communication, regulatory compliance, and societal responsibility. there is no need to begin “re-engineering” at Queen’s. It has been ongoing for many years. David S. Strong, P. Eng Professor and NSERC Chair in Design Queen’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science
New GPA system will work dear editors, several recent articles published in the Journal have implied that little thought or attention has been given to the impact of the new grading scheme on students. In the Faculty of arts and science, at least, this is not the case. the impact of the new grading scheme on our students has been a central concern from the day it was passed by senate. the Faculty of arts and science made an in-depth study of the impact of the new grading scheme, analyzing over 20,000 student academic records. From the beginning, our goal has been to implement the new grading system in a way that is transparent, fair and results in the same outcomes as would have occurred under the old grading scheme. after much consultation with both students and faculty, this approach culminated in a completely revised set of academic regulations passed unanimously by the arts and science Faculty Board (a body on which there are some 30 undergraduate student representatives) in october, 2010. one of those regulations is that all arts and science students with a GPa of 3.50 or greater in the academic year are placed on the dean’s honour List, not 3.70 as is implied in your oct. 28 article, “senate decides to keep GPa system.” this threshold is exactly that proposed by senator Morelli in the article. It is also important to remember that while much debate seems to have centered about the upper end of the grading scale (e.g. the dean’s honour List), it is even more important to ensure informed academic decision-making at the lower end (e.g. probation or requirements to withdraw), as for students in these categories the stakes are much higher. students with a GPa of less than 1.60 are placed on academic probation, and will be required to withdraw if they remain below this level for more than one academic year. this and several other important thresholds were publicized on the arts and science
website well before the GPa system came into effect in May, 2011. the Faculty will continue to monitor academic outcomes over the next several years, bringing any recommended changes to Faculty Board for review and approval. In her oct. 13 editorial, “GPa Goes Wrong,” Meaghan Wray implies that instructors will continue to grade in percentage terms and then directly translate these percentages into a letter and grade point based on the scheme approved by senate. While it is certainly true that historical percent grades will be treated this way on the transcript, it is by no means clear that this is how instructors will choose to evaluate students going forward. In order to guide instructors in their grading practices, the Faculty of arts and science has provided a number of tools. the first of these is a set of grade descriptors, laid out in the Faculty’s academic regulations. these descriptors not only provide a benchmark for instructors in describing an
PHOTO bY jUsTIN CHIN
expected performance standard in a single course, they also describe the consequence to a student’s overall academic record of continued performance at that grade level across several courses. the Faculty has also introduced a Policy on Grading, focused on means of maintaining transparency and fairness in grading methods, record keeping and communications. this grading policy leaves open the option of providing feedback solely in the form of letter grades. Both the grade descriptors and the grading policy were passed, again unanimously, by the Faculty Board in october 2011. I would hope that as we move forwards in the new scheme that all interested parties will continue to engage in constructive and informed debate on grading practices. J. Hugh Horton, Associate Dean of Studies, Queen’s Faculty of Arts and Science