Monday, June 24, 2019

Susan Tighe appointed Deputy Provost and AVP Integrated Planning and Budgeting

"I am delighted to announce that Professor Susan Tighe has been appointed Deputy Provost and Associate Vice-President Integrated Planning and Budgeting for a five-year term commencing July 1, 2019," Vice-President, Academic & Provost Jim Rush wrote in a memo circulated to Executive Council and academic chairs and directors on Friday. 

Professor Tighe completed her BSc in Chemical Engineering (Queens University, Kingston), and received an MASc and PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Waterloo. She has been a faculty member in Civil and Environmental Engineering since 2000 and is the Norman McLeod Chair in Sustainable Pavement Engineering.

"Susan has gained national and international recognition for her outstanding contributions to the development, design, and management of sustainable concrete and asphalt transportation infrastructure.," the provost writes. "She has been involved with numerous Departmental, Faculty, and University-level initiatives, and has served as the Deputy Provost and Associate Vice-President since July 2017 where she made substantial progress on the implementation of the waterloo budget model, university wide space planning activities and advanced communication on important issues amongst key stakeholders across the university." 

She is the Past President of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering and also Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering. Her reputation as a scholar, educator, and professional engineer is well illustrated by the breadth of her honours and awards including Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, New College of Scholars Royal Society of Canada, Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Fellow and the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers Medal for Research and Development. 

"I am grateful to Susan for taking on this important leadership role at the University of Waterloo. Please join Feridun and I in congratulating Susan on her appointment," the provost continues. "I would also like to thank the members of the nominating committee, Bob Lemieux, Cathy Newell Kelly, Scott Nicoll, Allan Starr, Sarah Hadley and Becky Grant for a job well done."

Would you like to take a survey? Introducing Policy 55

President Feridun Hamdullahpur has approved Policy 55 – Non-Academic Surveys with University Populations on May 27, 2019 and the policy is now officially in effect. This new “G” policy can be found on the Secretariat website. 

The Survey Advisory Committee (SAC) initiated and developed Policy 55, with the primary goal of establishing procedures for information sharing, and the coordination and approval of campus-wide non-academic surveys. 

“Policy 55 applies to all non-academic surveys designed for a sample of 500 or more members of the University community, or any non-academic survey that upon preliminary assessment, poses higher than minimal risk to potential participants, as assessed by the SAC,” says an explanatory note prepared by the Secretariat. Some examples of potential non-academic surveys include:

• internal surveys administered to the University community;
• external surveys that involve University students, staff, or faculty;
• surveys undertaken for internal planning purposes of the University;
• internally sponsored market research; and
• surveys of significance to the University brand and reputation.

SAC is planning education and awareness activities for the fall, and the committee will continue to work with data stewards to streamline survey requests and implementation processes, and coordinate activities with the Office of Research Ethics.

Several resources are in place to support surveys at the University. Institutional Analysis & Planning hosts an Institutional Surveys webpage which provides:

• A summary of institutional surveys;
• A survey administration process flowchart;
• A survey toolkit;
• A survey calendar;
• A survey review form; and
• Links to additional resources.

Qualtrics is a survey administration platform for online surveys that is available to campus users through an enterprise license. 

Any questions about the new policy, or non-academic surveys in general, can be directed to analysis@uwaterloo.ca.