program prioritization

The Wilfrid Laurier Faculty Association (WLUFA) has taken its fight against program prioritization public in the Waterloo Record. A January 2, 2015 article outlines growing faculty resistance to the Laurier admin’s prioritization process, called the “Internal Program and Resource Management” process, or IPRM. The majority of faculty councils have voted against the IPRM report, which calls for cuts or […]

Program prioritization reports have now been released at York University (Nov. 13) and Wilfrid Laurier University (Nov. 28). Faculty at both institutions are preparing to push back against recommendations that violate the principles of good academic governance and the quality of education. At York, faculty in the the Faculty of Environmental Studies and the Faculty […]

On November 27th, students at the University of Guelph held a mock funeral to protest program cuts resulting from the university’s program prioritization process. Programs affected include women’s studies, environmental studies, Italian, and math. According to Sonali Menenzes, external affairs commission at Guelph’s Central Student Association, quoted in the Guelph Mercury : “The program prioritization process is […]

Recently, several Ontario universities have begun “program prioritization processes,” or PPP.  These initiatives seek to rank academic and non-academic programs to determine an institution’s “strengths.” However, these processes have a variety of problems and, in extreme cases, can lead to program cuts. University of Windsor Provost Leo Groarke has written an article in Academic Matters that criticizes the way in which program prioritization is being done in Ontario . In […]

The term “program prioritization” has been making headlines recently, as several Ontario universities have begun this controversial rationalization process. Program prioritization involves ranking every academic and administrative program according to set criteria, and then directing more resources to highly ranked programs while marking poor performers for cuts and closure. Program prioritization is based on a […]

On Friday, November 29, 2013, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) released its policy framework for differentiation in Ontario’s university and college sector . According to the document, MTCU views differentiation as “a primary policy driver for the system.” As such, the framework will be used to inform the Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) process and on-campus initiatives like program prioritization. The document lays […]