At its Oct. 9 meeting, University Senate revised its Enrolment Management Team, it released its latest enrolment figures and it discussed how the University plans to ease pressures resulting from the double cohort. Senate also approved the establishment of a prestigious editorship in mathematics & statistics.

Managing enrolment

To reflect the evolution of McMaster's Enrolment Management Team (EMT), additional members have been added to the group that implements and oversees all enrolment policies approved by Senate.

Following three amendments, Senate approved the composition of the EMT executive and core team. The executive now includes the “core” members and adds the dean of graduate studies and the vice-president academic of the McMaster Students Union. The core team retains the former membership and adds the chair of nursing, associate registrars, director of public relations, two students, executive director of the Office of International Affairs and a member of the McMaster University Faculty Association.

It was also moved that the EMT report to Senate on an annual basis.

Enrolment on the rise

Undergraduate and graduate students continue to enrol at McMaster for the 2002-03 academic year.

As of Sept. 16, 4,890 first-year students were enrolled at the University, reported University registrar George Granger.

“These figures will probably move up a little bit,” says Granger, “but they are representative of what our final numbers will be.”

Graduate enrolment numbers have also risen, reported Laura Finsten, associate dean of graduate studies.

The latest figures for graduate enrolment at McMaster show that 2,001 full-time and 433 part-time graduate students are enrolled at the University, she said.

These numbers represent an increase of more than 25 per cent in graduate enrolment over the past two years, she says, and an increase over last year of about 10 per cent.

More SuperBuild funding?

McMaster is hoping to secure provincial capital support for the expansion to the Health Sciences Centre, reported McMaster President Peter George.

As part of the province's June budget announcement there was a promise of a new SuperBuild competition for colleges and universities, said George. An announcement, he noted, is expected this month, with a decision on funding in January.

Construction of the Health Sciences Centre expansion is expected to begin this month. “We didn't think we could delay the project we feel is so critical to our academic mission,” said George.

Prestigious editorship

Senate approved the creation of the Marcel Dekker Professor of Statistics  an editorship for the prestigious journal Communications in Statistics  held by editor-in-chief
Narayanaswamy Balakrishnan, professor in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics.

“The editorship of this journal is a highly influential and responsible position which is held by a senior and respected research statistician for a term that is indefinite but expected to last at least five years,” reported dean of science Peter Sutherland.

Marcel Dekker, founder of Marcel Dekker Publishers, which publishes the journal, will contribute an annual amount of approximately $85,000, to enhance the incumbent's research capacity while being editor. The funding will also support salary and other expenses.

“This is slightly different from other professorships where the term is fixed and the external contribution is a fixed sum to cover that term,” Sutherland reports.