1. Why is Arts and Science expanding its graduate enrolment?
2. Won't this expansion of graduate enrolment come at the expense of our undergraduates?
3. Where is most of the expansion occurring? Are some departments growing more than others?
4. What exactly is the Faculty of Arts and Science doing to ensure that the quality of graduate education is maintained or improved as a result of this growth?
5. Will there be enough research funding to support the extra students?
6. How will we know if graduate expansion is actually maintaining or enhancing the quality of our graduate programs?

Why is Arts and Science expanding its graduate enrolment?

Graduate enrolment expansion has been explicitly identified as a key focus in our academic plan Stepping Up in Arts and Science. The Government of Ontario, through its Reaching Higher program, has recently made graduate expansion a priority for Ontario, and has offered additional operating and capital resources to Ontario universities to support graduate expansion. This means we can increase enrolment while at the same time ensuring that we maintain or improve the overall quality of our graduate programs for our students.

Won't this expansion of graduate enrolment come at the expense of our undergraduates? What impact will this expansion have on the undergraduate student experience?

The Faculty’s enrolment plan calls for a modest reduction in undergraduate enrolment, to levels approaching pre-double cohort enrolments, and an expansion of graduate enrolment. Since graduate students play a significant role in teaching our undergraduates (primarily as teaching assistants), the increasing ratio of graduate to undergraduate enrolment will allow us to enrich the quality of our undergraduate education by enabling departments to devote more graduate student resources to tutorials and other small group undergraduate learning experiences. Since graduate students also benefit tremendously from the opportunity to acquire teaching experience, graduate expansion will be beneficial to both graduate and undergraduate students.

Where is most of the expansion occurring? Are some departments growing more than others?

Each graduate unit has determined how much growth is possible while maintaining or enhancing the quality of their graduate program(s). Because of this, the planned rate of expansion varies substantially from one unit to another. Relative to 2004-05, overall graduate enrolment across the Faculty of Arts and Science is expected to increase by approximately 900 students (or 33 percent) by 2010.

What exactly is the Faculty of Arts and Science doing to ensure that the quality of graduate education is maintained or improved as a result of this growth?

• Many factors come into play in providing a quality education for our graduate students. These include the physical spaces in which our students learn, teach, and conduct research, the financial resources available to support them, and the quality of interaction they have with our faculty. We address each of these in turn:
  • Space:
    • Stepping Up in Arts and Science, identified the creation of graduate student space, computing spaces, lounges and TA spaces as a priority, and the Faculty has incorporated this into all current capital projects that were prioritized under Stepping Up.
    • These steps were taken even before the current expansion plans were adopted, and we expect the additional capital funds made available by the province to cover the space needs generated by graduate expansion and to play a significant part in enabling us to upgrade and increase the space available for our graduate students.
    • When formulating their graduate expansion plans, each graduate unit was asked to determine space requirements to accommodate their growth targets and to compare this to actual and planned increments to their available space. Graduate units anticipating shortfalls in space are working closely with the office of the Assistant Dean, Planning and Information Technology to address their graduate expansion needs. Financing to support new capital costs associated with graduate enrolment expansion will be provided by the Province in proportion to each university’s planned expansion.
  • Financial Support:
    • The University of Toronto was the first postsecondary education institution in Canada to offer minimum guaranteed funding for students in doctoral-stream programs (for up to five years of study). For the 2006-07 year, the minimum level of funding was increased from $12,000 plus tuition and incidental fees to $13,000 plus tuition and incidental fees. All new students admitted to doctoral-stream programs as a result of graduate enrolment expansion will be covered under the same minimum funding guarantee. Furthermore the Faculty’s goal is to identify ways to enrich further the financial support for graduate study.
    • Funding levels in Arts and Science remain competitive with other Canadian universities. The average funding available to a graduate student in Arts and Science covered by the funding guarantee was $27,636 in 2005-06 (the most recent figures available). In the same year, graduate students in Arts and Science received more than $62 million in overall financial support.
    • Many of our graduate students have the opportunity to work as part of a research team supervised by our faculty members. In 2005-06, our students attracted over $10 million in research stipend support. In addition, the Faculty contributes funding in concert with the School of Graduate Studies to support graduate student travel to undertake research (such as fieldwork and archival research). In 2006-07 the Faculty established a new fund to support graduate student travel to present papers at scholarly conferences, supplementing financial assistance already provided by departments.
  • Graduate Supervision and Student-Faculty Ratios:
    • Since graduate units were asked to take supervisory capacity (actual and anticipated) into account when producing their enrolment plans, we expect future levels of graduate enrolment to be accommodated effectively. Our current ratio of graduate students to tenured and tenure-stream faculty in Arts and Science is roughly 3:1. If we meet our graduate expansion targets, we expect this ratio to rise only slightly, to something just below 4:1. This increase should not have any significant impact on the quality of interaction between our graduate students and their faculty supervisors, and overall ratios will remain well within the normal range found amongst our peer institutions.
    • With the abolition of mandatory retirement effective 30 June 2006, a significant number of our most senior remain available to supervise graduate research. These include some of our most productive and distinguished scholars, who possess many years’ experience in supervising graduate students successfully to completion.

Will there be enough research funding to support the extra students?

We are acutely aware of the importance of external sources of research funding to support our graduate students. This is especially critical in our science departments, where students receive a relatively high proportion of their financial support in the form of research assistantships. The University is committed to advocating for increased research funding form the federal and provincial government, as well as increasing graduate scholarship budgets to accommodate enrolment expansion.

For faculty in the humanities and social sciences, we have created two new positions – in co-operation with the Vice-President Research and Associate Provost – to help achieve higher levels of research grant activity. One of these new staff positions will help scholars identify and pursue research funding sources outside Canada, while the other position will focus on supporting applications to SSHRC and other major domestic sources of research funding.

How will we know if graduate expansion is actually maintaining or enhancing the quality of our graduate programs?

The Faculty of Arts and Science is committed to monitoring the performance of individual graduate programs by compiling and updating annually a set of ‘vital statistics’. These data document the number of degrees awarded in each program, the average time to degree, graduate student satisfaction, average levels of financial support, and other relevant indicators of graduate program quality.

The most recent Graduate and Professional Student Survey (GPSS) revealed that over 90 percent of our graduate students had a very high rate of satisfaction with their overall academic experience. However, nearly one-quarter rated their overall student life experience as poor to fair. It should be noted that the last GPSS was conducted before any significant new provincial funds for graduate education had been made available, despite the fact that graduate enrolment in Arts and Science had already increased by nearly 200 students (or 7 per cent) since 2004. In effect, this growth had occurred without any significant increase in provincial funding.

With the new resources made available for the current graduate enrolment expansion program, we expect to be able to do significantly more to improve the student experience. Continuing to solicit feedback from our graduate students and identifying their concerns will be essential in measuring our progress in delivering the highest quality education possible.