Undergraduate/Graduate subcommittee approval
Submit the proposal to the appropriate subcommittee for review and approval.
Faculty Council approval
Follow your faculty governance pathway for approval of your proposal prior to the site visit.
Site visit
The next step is to have a site visit by arm's length external reviewers. The process is coordinated by the AQuE office.
Site visits are conducted by a team of two external appraisers and an internal participant (i.e., support person) who is a faculty member at the University of Waterloo. The internal support person accompanies external reviewers on the site visit. They are selected by the AQuE office from outside the Faculty housing the program and are not expected to have any specific knowledge of the program under review. Their responsibility is to translate UW jargon, provide UW context (e.g., strategic priorities at UW etc.), and answer general questions the reviewers may have. An internal support person does not contribute to writing the reviewers’ report.
The external reviewers will meet with the following:
- Program Director/Chair
- Provost (for Grad and augmented programs)
- Dean
- Associate Dean
- AVPA/AVPA-GSPA
- AQuE office staff
- Faculty
- Staff
- Potential students (if available)
- Academic support unit representatives
Virtual site visits are the standard. They are typically conducted over five days (Monday–Friday).
External reviewers are provided with an honorarium for their work.
External review recommendations and program/dean's response
External reviewers provide a written report within two weeks of the site visit with recommendations on the new program. The AQuE office will send the report to the program proponent for review. The proponent is required to provide a response to each recommendation, which may result in changes to the proposal. The report is sent to the Dean for review and is expected to provide a response to the recommendations as well as the program's responses. The report, including all responses, is sent back to the AQuE office for review. A Provost re-assessment will be conducted, if any recommendations result in major changes to the proposed new program.
Senate level approvals
The AQuE team prepares and submits the proposal package to Senate Undergraduate Council (SUC)/Senate Graduate Council (SGC) for approval. If approved, it moves forward to Senate for approval.
Quality Council and MCURES approval
The AQuE office submits the new program proposal to the Quality Council (QC) for review. The Quality Council Appraisal Committee reviews the proposal and has final authority to approve (with or without conditions) or decline a new program.
The IAP office submits the new program proposal to the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security (MCURES) for approval of proposed tuition and grant weight. MCURES approval can take up to 6 months.
For questions about MCURES submissions, contact Carrie MacKinnon Molson, Institutional Analyst from the Institutional Analysis and Planning office.
For general questions about new programs or SUC/SGC and QC submissions, contact Tawnessa Carter, Quality Enhancement Coordinator, New Programs in the Academic Quality Enhancement office.
Advertising a new program
A new program can be advertised after the AQuE office has submitted the proposal to the Quality Council. All marketing materials must contain the following statement:
"Prospective students are advised that offers of admission to a new program may be made only after the university's own quality assurance processes have been completed and the Ontario Universities Council on Quality Assurance (Quality Council) has approved the program."
In addition, the following text must be included when referring to applications for the new program:
Following approval from the Quality Council and MCURES, the next step is program implementation and follow-up.