Faculty of Arts

ARTSbuzz

September 6, 2011 | Fall Semester Arrives

Today marks the first day of the new term for students, faculty, and staff, a day that always comes with a mix of excitement and anticipation. It’s certainly a special first day for myself, as it marks the beginning of my first school year as Dean. Whether you’re joining us on campus in a new role or one that’s quite familiar, I’d like to extend a warm welcome and wish you a great start to the semester. In this issue of ARTSbuzz, I reflect on the many new members to our community as well as some ongoing initiatives for sharing scholarship.

New Student Faces
This year, over 1,000 new students are joining our undergraduate programs and 170 students our MA and PhD programs. They come from all around the city, the province, and across the country and globe. We spend countless hours attracting the best students to Ryerson through events ranging from the annual Ontario University Fair, Discover Ryerson Days, and Graduate Open Houses, down to personalized meetings, interviews, and conversations. In some of our graduate programs, students are interviewed numerous times in an effort to ensure a selection of the most qualified and ideally suited candidates. And now that they’re here, we are mindful of keeping them here and guiding them to their graduating year. Every class, every meeting, every communication – every single interaction with our students – counts and helps with retention, by which we are ultimately measured.

In fact, efforts to cultivate a positive learning experience are already well underway. Last week, on August 30th, approximately 400 new undergraduate students joined us for Orientation, which was made possible by our Student Life Coordinator Stephan Tang, supported by Work Study students Avala Moore (ACS) and Stephen Kassim (Politics & Governance), and an energetic team of upper-year arts students from all programs who volunteered their time. I also wish to acknowledge all of our Programs Staff and Faculty Program Coordinators and Directors who filled out the day with program-specific orientation sessions. This week, our Graduate Program Directors will be leading orientation meetings for our new graduate student arrivals.

Your efforts in guiding our students matter significantly, from larger organized events to simple gestures such as helping a new student navigate the Kerr Hall labyrinth or finding the OneCard office. And doing so with a smile can mean all the difference. Our students make it possible for us to be here and we should show it whenever we can over the next twelve weeks and beyond.

New Faculty & Staff Faces
We also welcome new faculty and staff. We have 12 new RFA tenured or tenure-track faculty, 8 new RFA limited-term faculty, and 82 sessional hires for the Fall. In these very difficult budgetary times in the public sector, these are enormous gains for the Faculty of Arts, our programs, and our students. Our new colleagues join us from across Canada, the US and Europe (see summer hiring announcements). We can never take hiring for granted and are grateful for these new positions. I would like to acknowledge our CUPE colleagues whose time and effort do not go unnoticed; they help in supporting our students and programs in significant ways.

We continue to make strides in building our staff complement to serve the Faculty of Arts community better. This summer we added 4 new Staff Administrators to support Arts & Contemporary Studies, Criminal Justice & Criminology, English, French & Spanish, History, and Sociology. Special thanks goes to our Staffing Manager, Sharmaine McKenzie, and our Director of Administration, Gail Duffus, for their efforts in fostering support excellence in the Faculty of Arts. 

Sharing Research & Creative Works
While we showcase our faculty members’ books and creative works on the Arts video monitor, I would like for us to actually touch and read the works as well! I think it’s important that we keep abreast of our colleagues’ research and publications, and in doing so, share in the many exciting professional achievements of our growing departments. In an effort to reach out in this way, I have recently added over 40 books published by our faculty (and staff) to our Faculty of Arts Authors bookcase, located just outside my office on the first floor of Jorgensen Hall. You will recognize a comfy sofa and chairs; drop by and check it out. I welcome donations of new books or titles.

For those faculty whose central scholarly outlet is the peer-reviewed article, we are encouraging full-time faculty to send one PDF per faculty of a recent top peer-reviewed paper with Ryerson affiliation to your department administrator, who will collect and send the department listing to our web administrator. We are creating an Arts Scholars Portal, where books and sample articles can be listed and/or accessed. I will also host a Faculty of Arts Book Launch for all books published in 2010 and 2011; February is shaping up to be a good time for this. Stay tuned.

Looking Ahead
We have recently formed a Dean’s Council made up of all chairs, directors, and associate deans and over the next weeks and months I will be working closely with this leadership team to chart the year ahead in the Faculty of Arts. Future issues of this column will begin to outline our work. For now, enjoy your first day of school and the many new experiences that lie ahead.  

Jean-Paul Boudreau
Dean of Arts