Since receiving the president’s response in November 2006 to the report by the Presidential Task Force to Revise the Keele Campus Colleges, members of the college community and senior administration at York University have been busy working on implementing the key recommendations.
The goal continues to be the realization of York’s Keele campus college system succeeding in their mission to enhance the York experience for students, faculty and staff. Through a new model of shared leadership and collaboration, the colleges will continue to be student focused and expand on the range and quality of co-curricular opportunities.
The following highlight a number of changes that are of most interest to the York community:
Reporting lines and affiliations
Starting July 1, college masters will begin to report to the affiliated dean of the Faculty that is most closely aligned with that college. The reporting lines will be as follows:
- Bethune – Faculty of Science & Engineering,
- Calumet and Stong – Faculty of Health, with an ongoing relationship with the Faculty of Arts during the transition,
- Founders, McLaughlin and Vanier – Faculty of Arts,
- Winters – Faculty of Fine Arts.
There will also be associate relationships with other Faculties as follows:
- Bethune – Faculty of Environmental Studies,
- Winters – Faculty of Education.
The precise nature of the associate relationships will be determined by the relevant deans and college masters.
Due to the date of the change and planning that has already occurred in college councils, orientation and student council, levies will be based on the pre-July 1affiliations. For a full listing of these affiliations, click here.
As part of the discussions regarding the recent Senate approved Faculty restructuring, college affiliations will be reviewed this coming year and will include broad community consultation.
There is a new best-practice residence life model
Residence life has undergone a complete transformation through the development of a residence life team modelled on the best and leading practices in the country. This September, residences will 
be served by a complete team of full-time professional residence life staff.
The staff will report through the assistant director of Residence Life, who reports to the director of Student Community & Leadership Development .
Information and a detailed explanation of the model, as well as an introduction of the team, will be circulated to the York community in the near future.
Additional resources for co-curricular programming
In keeping with the goal to enhance the level of co-curricular programming, colleges have received a 22.5 per cent increase in their programming budgets.
Administrative staff realignment
Administrative staff will report to the office of the dean to which the college is aligned. The direct reporting relationship and manager of the administrative staff will be determined by each Faculty dean.
The executive officer of each college will report to the senior executive officer in York’s Office of the Vice-President Academic, with duties and title to be finalized but with a continued role in the colleges excluding budget.
Implementation of a cohesive planning and communication process: the Council of College Communities and local college community teams
Co-chaired by the York vice-president students and the Chair of the Council of Masters, the Council of College Communities will be focused on:
- Integrated communication and planning amongst partners in the college system,
- Identification of collective strategic goals and benchmarking,
- Resource allocation for strategic initiatives,
- Decision making on issues that affect the entire college system,
Each college will have a local community team that will be focused on:
- Development of college operational plans and suggested measurements of success
- Implementation of initiatives on local level (speaker series, specific events, for example, Robbie Burns celebration),
- Identifying local challenges, needs and successes for sharing with other teams,
- Decision-making that affects the local college (co-curricular programming).
Timeline
July
- Reporting line change for masters from VP Students to deans,
- Reporting line change for administrative staff from Office of the VP Students to Deans’ Offices,
- Movement of college budgetary cost centres from VP Students to Faculties and VP Academic,
- Rollout of new residence life model.
August
- First meeting of the Council of College Communities.
September
- Review of the college strategic plans.
Fall/Winter 2007-2008
- Review of program affiliations with colleges.
July 2008
- Review of transition.