February & March 2015
Chief Operating Officer
- The spring Budget is now complete. Thank you to everyone who participated in the process.
- The new Operations Town Hall will take place on April 20, at 12:00 noon in Room DSB 1002. Please plan to join us. The Town Hall will be live streamed for those who are off site.
Human Resources
- In response to We Act process, we are thrilled to announce that a Well Being Committee is being established. The Committee will consist of representatives from all areas of Schulich Medicine & Dentistry to ensure a diverse program. Watch for updates as we are hoping to launch the first event in May.
- Representatives from the Clinical Managers group have been meeting regularly to create a standard operating procedure (SOP) to document the faculty recruitment process. The Managers from the basic science departments have created a draft SOP for the Alternative Workload process and are now starting to work through the Promotions and Tenure (P&T) process. A KIWI site will be created in the fall in order to store all of the SOP's created by the two groups
Finance
- Thank you to everyone for your work during the Spring Budget. We were able to meet the Corporate deadline even with the shortened time line. Once we hear back from Corporate on the submission, we will return your final budgets to you and the numbers will be uploaded into the General Ledger for the 2015/16 fiscal year, If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Vicki Douvalis, Janice Dethomasis or myself.
- March 31 marks the fiscal year end of all Tri-Council grants so please ensure that you have submitted your invoices, completed necessary journal entries, etc. by the end of this month.
- The University year-end on April 30, is also fast approaching so we will also need to ensure all expenses are being recorded in the proper year for budget purposes. Please let us know of any significant expenses you think will require accruing at year-end.
Research
- Dr. Jane Aubin, Chief Scientific Officer/Vice-President of CIHR, will visit Western on Monday, May 11. There will be an open Town Hall - watch for details.
- Award notifications for the summer research programs for undergraduate medical students, SRTP and SROP, have been made. In addition, the awards for SWORP, which enables summer research by Schulich Medicine - Windsor students under the supervision of University of Windsor faculty, have also been made.
- The Research Office will be conducting a survey of participants and reviewers from the recent Internal Peer Review Process. The purpose of the survey is to provide us with feedback and to help us refine the process. If you receive a survey request, please respond - we appreciate your input.
Basic Medical Sciences
Basic Medical Sciences Undergraduate Education (BMSUE)
Dr. Candace Gibson
- Intent to Register is in full swing. Students must indicate two program choices for September 2015 by the ITR deadline of March 31. Faculty and upper-year students from the basic medical science departments participated in an ITR Information Fair, hosted by the Science Students’ Council, on March 12.
- March Break Open House (MBOH) was held on Saturday, March 14. Attendance at this campus-wide outreach event was the largest MBOH to date with 6,175 registrants. Many of the students attending are making a final assessment of our programs before accepting offers of admission for September. Western’s outreach events are attracting more and more Grade 10 and 11 students each year.
- Promotional materials for the BMSc and Neuroscience Programs are currently undergoing revision, with a photo session planned for the end of March. Preliminary revisions and updates to the basic medical sciences sections within the Science at Western Viewbook, which is largely distributed at the Ontario Universities’ Fair, have also begun.
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies
- We have received an impressive number of student applications for the first year of the Dean's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Project matching announcement will be made soon.
- The top 32 abstracts judged for feature platform presentations and the top 80 abstracts judged for poster presentations have been selected for London Health Research Day. Judge selection is underway.
Communications, Events and Media Relations
- Welcome to Fiona Moniz, Communications & Facilities Assistant and Tristan Joseph, Senior Media Relations Officer. Fiona will be managing all administrative support for the communications and events teams, as well as supporting Kevin Inchley on room bookings and facilities management matters. Tristan is now managing all media relations for the School.
- Congratulations to Paige Mastalerz, on the birth of her son Milan, and to Crystal MacKay on the birth of her daughter Jane. The moms and the babies are doing well.
- The Comms Team is in the process of booking Website Redevelopment Stakeholder Meetings with all Phase 3 representatives which will cover: Website design template, Review example basic navigation concepts, Review of Clinical information on Western websites , answer and questions and discuss next steps.
- The Schulich Dentistry 50th Anniversary celebration year is well under way, with the committee's plan moving into the execution phase. This was marked by the kickoff celebration hosted in early March.
- The events team is currently preparing for upcoming events including London Health Research Day - April 1, the Windsor Program's Celebration of Excellence Dinner - April 16, and sponsorship for our fall events.
- Planning is underway for a number of events including See the Line, the Dentistry 50th Anniversary Celebration Weekend, Homecoming and Mini Medical School.
Information Services
- The Postgraduate Medical Training lines and affiliated data is now available within the Postgrad View of SAS for our PGE Administrative Users. This is a huge step toward decommissioning the legacy system known as the Postgrad Database. More information regarding this decommissioning process will be provided to all PGE database users shortly.
- We are happy to report that during the past two weeks, our support crew has been installing new hard drives on Schulich Medicine & Dentistry classroom computers on campus. The new type of hard drive being installed takes login times on those computers from three to five minutes and under one minute. We have to date upgraded approximately half of the computers in question with the remaining to be completed in the next two weeks or so.
- A new version of SAS was recently posted with a few minor revisions, as well as an update to the OneForm module that performs a secure file transfer of documents to Corporate HR. The previous version of OneForm sent these documents by email.
Project Management Office/Strategic Technology Commons
- The Project Management office has completed 4 Change Management Orientation workshops for Employees in Schulich Dentistry and are preparing for a Sponsor workshop & a Faculty workshop, as well as Phase One of a Change Management Sponsor workshop for Distributed Education Network and is preparing for the Managers and Employees workshops
- Registration continues for the Standard Operating Procedures Workshop (SOP) - please email stc@schulich.uwo.ca for dates or check the CPD calendar for times/dates. As well, if you have questions or need some advice or coaching related to your specific SOP's, please contact susan.morgan@schulich.uwo.ca
- Strategic Technology Commons (STC) are engaged in the following projects: The IDC and BMSc courses have started to pilot the use of design briefs for courses to help with organizing course design. A project with Biochemistry that is part of a grant funded project between UWO and McMaster. This involves the development of undergraduate modules to be used at both schools - part of an increased push for e-learning. Also, working with IIDF recipients to develop their projects for the coming year. Have recently started to develop an online course for 'teaching online @ Schulich'. This will highlight the resources and services available for faculty teaching in a blended and online environment.
Education
- The first iteration of the CaRMS R1 match was announced a few weeks ago. To read more about the match.
- Congratulations to the Windsor Program Awards of Excellence recipients; winners can be viewed here.
Alumni Relations and Development
Recent Gift Highlights:
- A newly endowed gift of $50,000 has been established to create the Dr. David Wonham Prescription for Fun Award. The purpose of this fund is to support mental health and wellness for students attending the MD Program at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry Windsor program.
- A gift of $48,566 has been made to create the Dr. Ron Holliday Resident Award in Surgical Professionalism.
- $118,000 in contributions toward the Gunton Chair have been received in memory of Dr. Ramsay Gunton.
Facilities
- Planning and preparation for the following projects ongoing; Containment Level 2+/3 Laboratory Renovation, Dentistry Simulation Laboratory Renovation, Dental Sciences Building, third floor; Research Laboratories Renovation, Dental Sciences building, fourth floor, Research Laboratory Renovation, SDRI Research Laboratory Renovation, and WCPHFM 3rd floor Partial Construction.
