By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: June 19, 2013
This summer saw major changes to faculty services – namely, the end of faculty reception.
Up to this month, the hard copy of a student’s paper or project could be dropped off at the faculty reception desk, stamped with the time it was received and ultimately delivered to the appropriate professor.
This service allowed students to hand in assignments after a professor’s office hours had ended, or if a student had missed class. It also operated on an inter-campus basis; a paper dropped off in Chilliwack could make its way to a professor in Abbotsford at no cost to the student.
As of the end of May, this service is no longer available.
In a press release dated May 14, Nicole Hitchens of the provost’s office stated that the university sought to reorganize and streamline the many functions of faculty services to better reflect a digital age.
“When faculty services was first established, there was no email, few computers, no department assistants in the arts and sciences, and its main role was to provide secretarial/word processing services,” Hitchens noted.
With the evolution of technology, the press release continued, faculty reception is no longer strictly necessary, as students and professors can communicate and exchange assignments via email.
Kathy Gowdridge, who worked Abbotsford campus’s faculty reception desk for many years, will continue to provide services to faculty and staff in a redeveloped role with faculty services.
Hitchens declined to comment on these changes to faculty reception until the fall, stating that these changes are still under implementation.
“It will be difficult to speak to how the changes are working so far,” she stated.
