The faculty restructuring initiative is an important issue that will impact many (if not most) of our members for years to come.We hope you will take 10-15 minutes to complete our survey.

SFUFA members will have received an email with a link to the survey on Friday. We will send a reminder mid-week.

The survey contains summaries of the main recommendations made by the task force, so we encourage you to take part even if you feel that you are not completely informed on the issue.

SFUFA will report the results of the survey to members and to faculty senators for use in their deliberations regarding the restructuring initiative.

You will only be able to complete the survey once, and no personal identifying information will be recorded. The survey will be open for completion until 9 a.m, Monday, January 28, 2008.

Some members have asked that the summaries be put on the website so that they can read them and discuss them prior to completing the survey. A number of the recommendations are summarized below, but for full details, you should look at the full report of the Task Force which you can access here or you can access the Executive Summary here .

Summaries: (Please see the Task Force report for full recommendations)

Recommendations for Major Structural Change.

Recommendations for major structural change involve the following:

Eliminating the existing Faculty of Applied Sciences and creating three new Faculties: one comprised of Engineering and Computing, one comprised of Contemporary Arts, Communication, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, and the Master of Publishing Program, and one focusing on the Environment comprised of the Resource and Environmental Management, Geography, Environmental Science, the Centre for Sustainable Community Development, and the Graduate Certificate Program in Development Studies.

Moving Kinesiology to Science and leaving Health Sciences as a non-departmentalized Faculty.

Establishing a College of Lifelong and Experiential Learning that would include the Semester in Dialogue/Centre for Dialogue and a Foreign Language Studies Program in the Experiential Learning Division and Continuing Studies and Distance Education in the Lifelong Learning Division. The Language Training Institute would move from Arts and Social Sciences to the new College.

Developing an Institute for Advanced Scholarship.

Recommendations for Interdisciplinarity.

Recommendations for interdisciplinarity include the following:

Establishing an Office of Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Revising the Joint Appointments policy, develop a new policy to allow for internal secondment of post-tenure and permanent teaching faculty for 2-5 year terms to Centres and Institutes, developing a team teaching policy, developing better provisions for review of interdisciplinary research and teaching, revising the Centres and Institutes policy.

Developing incentive strategies and position funding to increase number of joint appointments and identify ways in which funding can flow to support interdisciplinary courses offered through Centres and Institutes and supporting new strategic and interdisciplinary program development.

Recommendations for Programs, Processes and Other Activities.

Recommendations for programs, processes and other activities include the following:

Dealing with the structural issues of existing interdisciplinary collaborations, specifically for the Cognitive Science Program

Having Senate develop a submission template to ensure sufficient commitments in place for new interdisciplinary programs.

Pursuing a new Information and Communications Technology (IT/ICT) program involving Computing, Engineering, Interactive Arts and Technology, Business, and Cognitive Science.

Consolidating undergraduate publishing courses in Communication with the Master of Publishing Program, and perhaps also the Continuing Studies publishing program.

Moving Tech One, at least temporarily, to the new Faculty comprised on Contemporary Arts, Communication, Interactive Arts and Technology and Publishing with a permanent home to be determined in two years.

Revisiting the 2005 Report of the Language Instruction Committee with goal of implementing a coherent, consolidated, and sustainable strategy for English-language learning.

Establishing a Student Mobility and Course Access Review Committee to identify barriers to interdisciplinary educational experiences.

Creating a strategy for developing and financing new interdisciplinary graduate programming.

Identifying the best strategy for locating and managing network and research computing for the University's future.

Summary of Implementation and Process Forward.

The last section of the report offers no recommendations; rather it discusses issues of impact on faculty, staff, and students, potential costs, and the timeframe for implementation. This section includes a commitment to suitable academic homes are found for individual faculty misplaced by restructuring.

Money to fund new initiatives will come from the Vice-President Academic's Strategic Initiatives fund and money remaining in the Double the Opportunities fund. Each new Faculty is estimated to cost an average of $750,000 with another $750,000 for new positions in the Environment Faculty. The College of Lifelong and Experiential Learning is expected to cost $500,000 to $750,000 over the next 3-5 years. The Office of Interdisciplinary Collaboration is expected to require approximately $500,000 base funding, while the SFU Institute for Advanced Scholarship has an estimated operating budget of 1.25 million per year with $10-15 million in capital costs. Non-recurring implementation costs are budgeted at $450,000 spread over the next two years. Up to $500,000 may be required for a bride-to-the-future program for non-relocating faculty members and for program stabilization.

In terms of moving the proposal forward, the Vice-President Academic plans to submit the final report to the Senate Committee on University Priorities in February 2008, with a discussion at Senate in March 2008 and a motion for approval at Senate in April 2008. If approved, the report would be sent to the Board of Governors for final approval in May 2008.