Senate is the academic governing body of UFV, responsible for making decisions that impact the daily lives of both students and faculty. The Board of Governors, which looks at the business side of the university, is advised by Senate on matters of mutual interest. All at the university are welcome to attend Senate’s public meetings, which are held once a month. Senate makes decisions. This article will recap the main agenda items of the hybrid Senate meeting which occurred on Friday, Apr. 11, 2025.
Dr. Alisa Webb, vice president, students, gave a presentation on students’ success at UFV. Webb mentioned that one thing she and her team observed is the increasing number of students who are at risk of being forced to drop out.
“We’ve been engaged in ongoing discussion and conversation about rethinking how we do academic support focused on student academic success, and there’s a few observations that have been made along the way; one of them is we have a high number of students who are at academic risk. So we’re identifying these as students who are sitting with a cumulative GPA below 2.0.”
Webb also explained some of the steps that are being taken to help students stay in university. One strategy was offering those students a grace semester in the summer of 2024 in which they were not required to withdraw from their classes. Webb also explained that a team was put together to help support students in those challenging circumstances.
“They created a multidisciplinary team that included an academic advisor, one of the learning strategists from the Academic Success Centre, and the assistant registrar. The goal was that the team would meet with each student to identify and coordinate needed supports to help them get back to a place of academic success.”
She described the process of how the multidisciplinary team was able to help the students by meeting with them over the course of three semesters. The team also worked alongside the student affairs team, the student support centre, financial aid, and counselling to help better support the students in need. Webb said that the results were successful.
“65 per cent of the pilot group improved their academic standing. 51 per cent of them moved from RTW [required to withdraw] to continued academic probation, so they still have some work to do, but 14 per cent of them moved to good academic standing. That’s a success.”
During the president’s report, Dr. Joanne MacLean, president and vice-chancellor, congratulated Dr. James Mandigo, provost and vice president academic, on being selected as the new university president and vice-chancellor. Mandigo will be taking over for MacLean once her term concludes in June 2025.
Rachel is working towards a BA with a concentration in English and Theatre. She has been employed at The Cascade since Fall 2021 as a Staff Writer and a Jr. News Editor. Currently, she is the sectional News Editor and enjoys meeting and interviewing people as well as taking long walks in nature. Rachel also likes to stay up to date on the latest trends and informs students through her fashion column entitled Campus Fashion.
