UNIVERSITY COLLEGE of the FRASER VALLEY

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Volume 6, Number 12

Wednesday, Feb. 12, 1992

A QUESTION OF BALANCE — Jean
Ballard-Kent (right) hosted two of the nine
workshops presented at UCFV’s Question
of Balance conference on Jan. 31.

Panelists for the Teaching Excellence
workshop included (I. to r.) Gary Poole of
SFU’s teaching resource centre; SFU (and
formerly UCFV) student Pat McQueen, and
special guest Dr. Stuart Smith, leader of
the Commission of Inquiry on Canadian
University Education. Not pictured:
panelist and UCFV student Pat Hultmann.

See page 4-5 for more conference photos
and a wrap-up story. -

_ Birkett looking at student success strategies

Counselling and Advising
department head Dave Birkett has been
given a special assignment by President _
Peter Jones. He’s spending four weeks —
in February and March researching __
“systems for student success”, and will
present a report to management with
options and recOmmendations for
implementing such systems at UCFV.

Jones explained that he wants to
ensure that some of the extra funding
received for expansion into a university
college is applied to student success
strategies.

“We’re coming into the first budget
year with university college funds. We
want to have the funding in place to

implement some of these strategies
because, quite frankly, if it’s not there
in the first year it will be hard to get in
afterwards,” he said.

Birkett is researching literature on
student success systems, and
communicating with other
post-secondary institutions in B.C. and
other areas, to identify options.

“T’ll be trying to identify the basic
continuum of the process students go
through, from first contact with UCFV,
before they even enrol, to beyond when
they leave, whether they graduate,
transfer, or withdraw,” he said. “Then
I'll identify specific components of
student success and see where they

would fit in that continuum.”

There are two different kinds of
student success initiatives, he notes.

“There are ones that support
academic skills, such as reading and
study skills courses, and there are
psychological support systems, which
help integrate students into the system
and foster a sense of belonging. Both
types need to be addressed at UCFV.”

Initiatives also differ with regard to
what type of students they’re aimed at.

“Something that works with mature
students isn’t necessarily effective with
recent high school graduates. There are

Please see Student, page 2