McMaster has released its final graduate and undergraduate enrolment numbers for the 2005-2006 academic year.

Final enrolment figures show full-time undergraduate enrolment is approximately 18,721, with 5,062 new students enrolled in first year studies. In total, 3,001 students are enrolled part-time. These figures include students in the collaborative Mohawk nursing program. Last year, total full-time enrolment was 17,484, with 4,565 new students enrolled in first year.

At the graduate level, 2,316 full-time students and 417 part-time students are enrolled. Last year, McMaster enrolled 2,299 full-time and 388 part-time graduate students.

Of the 5,522 first-year students who came to McMaster this year, 67 per cent received an Honour Awards scholarship, given to entering students who earn at least 80 per cent in their final year of secondary school. Last year, 77 per cent of the first-year class received the award.

There are a total of 1,220 Visa students enrolled at McMaster, with 319 of these entering their first year at McMaster. Of these students, 26 per cent are from outside of Canada. Last year, there were 1,165 visa students, and 329 entering students, 24 per cent of which were from outside Canada.

An underground parking structure is proposed for the new Athletics and Recreation Centre and Stadium. At an estimated cost of $10.5 million, the structure will allow the University to maintain its current number of parking space in the north end of campus, by accommodating approximately 300 vehicles. Funding for the structure will be generated through increased parking revenues in the form of a capital levy applied to all parking permits.

Mamdouh Shoukri, vice-president research and international affairs, provided an overview of the McMaster Innovation Park (MIP). MIP will be located on a 37-acre site purchased by the University in early 2005 in the west end of Hamilton.

Both Senate and the Board of Governors approved in principle the overall direction for the development of the MIP. A committee will be appointed to prepare a business plan for MIP and its financial requirements. This document will be brought to Senate and the Board of Governors for approval in February 2006.

The Board also approved renovations to the MIP office building at an estimated cost of $3.6 million. There are two parts to the five-story redbrick building: an office building and lab building. The 50,000-square-foot office building will be renovated into central core services with ceiling and floor finishes. It will be used for technology transfer operations and administrative services. The 170,000-sqaure-foot lab building has high ceilings suitable for teaching, lab space and offices. At least two floors are being considered for the McMaster Mohawk College of Technology and the main floor will provide a central commons area.

The first phase of a building complex for the faculties of engineering, health sciences and science will commence at an estimated cost of $8.6 million. The new building, which will house a new Centre for Biomedical Engineering and Engineering Practice, will allow these three faculties to share facilities for common research initiatives. Each faculty has requested approximately 50,000-sqaure-feet of space. The total building complex of about 150,000-sqaure-feet will house offices, some undergraduate space, dry and wet labs for graduate studies, lecture students, lecture rooms and classrooms.

The proposed location is near the new Main Street entrance. It is anticipated it will be competed by the fall of 2007 or winter of 2008.

The Board of Governors has approved McMaster's three-year financial plan.

The 2006-2009 plan is aligned with the provincial government's initiative to embark upon multi-year planning, funding and accountability. Commencing with 2006/07, the University will enter into multi-year agreements called Accountability Funding Agreements (AFA) with the province, which establishes enrolment targets, funding commitments and accountability benchmarks. According to the plan, the synchronization of the planning cycles will enhance the University's ability to take advantage of funding opportunities, and balance investments more effectively between those necessary to sustain operations and those which move McMaster forward in achieving its goals set out in Refining Directions and by the Province.

For more information about McMaster's financial status, visit the Planning and Analysis website: http://www.mcmaster.ca/ipa/financial/financial.html.

The Board approved new non-cash compensation rewards for members of The Management Group (TMG).

Presented by the Total Rewards Redevelopment Steering Committee, the new package includes enhancements to TMG's medical and dental benefits, the implementation of an RX05 drug formulary plan and revisions to the paramedical coverage. As well, it includes the addition of equipment and computers to the Management Professional Development Allowance, as well as up to five Management Compensation Days each calendar year. These changes will take effect Jan. 1, 2006.

McMaster's DeGroote School of Business will offer a new master of communications management, offered jointly with S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

The program, suitable for public relations professional with a minimum of five years experience, will be the first-of-its-kind in Ontario.

The program will enable experienced, mid-career public relations executives/professionals to acquire critical management and public relations abilities. It will allow this group to advance in their careers in order to best serve their organizations or clients, the public relations profession and society.

The program is set up as a 36-credit hour masters program, conducted in an executive format, with a one-week residency per semester and a distance electronic learning system, offered to those who are currently employed in the public relations sector and do not wish to leave their careers to pursue an advanced degree.

A gift has been directed to the http://www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/ Faculty of Health Sciences to provide an endowment fund in support of The Andrew Douglas Chair in Neurology. The gift will support research and education into the cause of neurologic disease and specifically Amoyotropic Lateral Sclerosis.

The appointment of the chair will be for an initial five-year period, with the understanding that renewal for additional five-year terms is possible. A selection committee will be appointed to recommend an appropriate person for this position.

A gift to the Faculty of Health Sciences will support a new professorship in The Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis (CHEPA). As the academic head and director of CHEPA, the incumbent will hold joint appointments in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and potentially in the relevant department in the Faculty of Social Sciences. The position is a renewable five-year term.

The Faculty of Health Sciences has also received a gift to provide an endowment fund in support of The Alliance for Better Bone Health Chair in Rheumatology. The incumbent will be appointed chair of the Division of Rheumatology within the Department of Medicine. The funds will support the chair's activities for 11 years, which will be comprised of mostly scientific research and experimental development as well as administrative activities. The chair will focus on osteoporosis and metabolic bone disease. The appointment will be for an initial five-year period.

The Board of Governors approved the establishment of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind.

The institute is unique in the world in its interdisciplinary approach and reach. As part of the Faculty of Science, it will bring together some of the best minds from the faculties of engineering, health sciences, humanities, science, and social science, many of whom are funded by such granting agencies as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The Institute's vision is to integrate the arts and sciences through the scientific study of music. It will probe questions about how music gets encoded in the brain, how children learn music, the beneficial effects of music on development, how performers and audiences interact, and the social-emotional impact of music.
The first director of the Institute will be Laurel Trainor, a professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster.

An associate vice-president research position will be created at McMaster, in light of the recent and projected growth in the University's research enterprise. The position is parallel to the associate vice-president international affairs in that the individual would be responsible for the detailed management of one side of the Research and International Affairs portfolio.

The Stonechurch Family Health Centre (SFHC) will be relocated to 1475 Upper Ottawa Street from its current location at 549 Stonechurch Road East Hamilton.

McMaster has purchased the property for $1.5 million, to be funded by the clinical practice plan surplus of the Department of Family Medicine and an internal loan. Major renovations to reconfigure the interior space as clinical and educational facilities will cost an estimated $970,183. Other costs include $35,000 for moving costs and $75,000 for furniture acquisition, to be funded by the internal loan of a maximum $1.4 million.

The SFHC is a teaching family practice unit that provides clinical education to medical students, family medicine residents and nurse practitioner students in the Faculty of Health Sciences. It operates as a joint venture of McMaster and Hamilton Health Sciences. Sixteen full-time and six part-time clinical faculty members provide the educational programs.

The current lease on Stonechurch expires April 30, 2006. SFHC has outgrown its current site as a result of the expansion of the family residency program, and further expansion is anticipated with the growth of the MD program.

The Office of Academic Integrity handled 250 cases of academic dishonesty in 2004/05, the same number of cases as the year before. The three most common cases were plagiarism (101 cases), inappropriate collaboration (90 cases) and cheating on a test/exam (42 cases). Ninety-four per cent of cases were by first-time offenders.

The office implemented a number of educational initiatives this year, including presentations to graduate students, and a required course on academic integrity issues for first-year graduate students. Three videos on academic integrity and plagiarism were created and are available for download from the Academic Integrity website located at http://www.mcmaster.ca/academicintegrity/. A section of this website dedicated to information for instructors also was expanded.

Because the AI Office operates on a part-time basis, educations al initiatives for first-year undergraduate students were limited. As a remedy, a student peer helper will be devoted to undergraduate education in the 2005/06 year.

The Ombuds Office presented its annual report to Senate. From May 1, 2004 to April 30, 2005, the office handled 369 cases and 59 inquiries. Of these, 132 visitors raised secondary issues, typically related to interpersonal concerns. Students from all years visit the office, with a slight increase in year three, and the office generally sees more masters students than PhD students. Of the cases handled, 82.5 per cent are centered on student issues.

The most common complaints the office receives are academic appeals and academic integrity, followed by petitions and withdrawals, teaching quality issues and fees and services. Faculty and staff generally contact the office to discuss issues pertaining to students and policy interpretation questions.

McMaster's Environmental and Occupational Health Support Services (EOHSS) provides internal audits of the university's health, safety and risk management systems in construction, lab safety and waste generation.

The EOHSS report includes an update on a fire that occurred in the Tandem Accelerator Annex Building on Nov. 29. The incident occurred as a worker was decommissioning a molecular beam epitaxy unit. Phosphorus and arsenic were contained inside the main chamber where the fire/chemical reaction occurred. The worker and a graduate student were taken to a contamination unit as a precaution and then to emergency along with City responders for assessment. They were all examined and released.

EOHSS also has announced that Steve Fletcher has been appointed its new manager. Fletcher, from St. Joseph's Hospital, will begin his new position Jan. 9, 2006.

The Health Physics report reviews the radiation safety program at McMaster for the period of July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2005. The objectives of the program are to ensure the safety of the workplace and operations by maintaining doses as low as reasonably achievable and meeting or exceeding the requirements of federal and provincial regulations. According to the report, these objectives continue to be achieved.