A regular meeting of the Concordia University Senate, held October 6, 2000.

Centraide: The meeting began with an appeal for generosity during this annual campaign for local charities by Concordia Centraide campaign co-chair Bill Curran (Director of Libraries) and Yvon Bellefeuille, one of 60 executives loaned by their employers to Centraide.

Dot com: Provost Jack Lightstone told Senate that since Quebec law does not yet recognize digital distance education, a legal entity called econcordia.com has been created to embrace Concordia’s electronic teaching activities outside the province.
Performance contract: Over the summer, a document was prepared by the senior administration to satisfy a request from the Minister of Education for a description of each university’s goals and priorities. The document, called Contrat de performance entre l’Université Concordia et le Ministère de l’Education, 31 aout 2000, was duly sent to Quebec. The university was subsequently told that it met Ministry requirements and Concordia would get another $5 million in addition to the operating funds already anticipated. However, the Concordia Students Union has objections to this document, such as economies that they feel are reflected in additional fees to students and an emphasis on corporate involvement. During a long discussion described by Dean Martin Singer as “Alice-in-Wonderland,” student senators put forward a motion that would attach the university’s mission statement to the document, while Lightstone and Rector Frederick Lowy reminded Senate that the document was drawn up in a specific context and had already served its purpose. Singer and other faculty senators said that they did not want to revisit the document, and there was no voting on the motion.

Degree nomenclature: In 1992, Concordia led the way in introducing a gender-neutral degree nomenclature. Students could already choose between English and French names; after much debate, they were given the right to choose baccalaureate or magisteriate over Bachelor’s and Master’s and doctorate for Doctor of. The 1992 innovation was provisional. At this Senate meeting, with no debate at all, the choice of gender-neutral degree nomenclature became a permanent Concordia policy.

Next meeting: November 10.