DSC Representative Responsibilities

The DSC is involved with:

• Academic liaison between students, faculty, and staff
• Organizing social events (bake sales, smokers)
• USAT evaluations

If you are interested in being on the DSC or helping with any of our activities (or you have any ideas for events or things that you want to see) please come to the meetings. We hope to meet fairly frequently and announcements will be posted.

Functions of a DSC

• to elect a DSC Executive 
• to elect students to serve on Departmental Committees and to serve on Faculty Board 
• to conduct, with the cooperation of the department, written course evaluations in all on-campus courses offered within the FAculty. The DSC summarize the evaluations and pass the summaries and evaluation forms to the Head of the department. After the final grades have been submitted, the Head will make available all evaluation forms collected for the final evaluations and the summaries to the instructor. 
• any form of publication of the evaluations must be determined by the Head and the course instructor(s).

Departmental Student Council Executives (DSC Executives)

Each DSC will elect a DSC Executive, the size of which will be appropriate to the size and work of the department.

• a DSC will elect the Chair of its Executive and may elect other officers

NOTE: some DSC's may wish to include all members of the departmental committees and of committees of the Faculty Board in the DSC Executive, while others may prefer to form a smaller Management Committee under its Chair. In either case, all elections are by the DSC; and the DSC Executive will not be entitled to appoint to any committee or duty a member not elected to that office by the DSC.]

• The Chair of the DSC Executive will normally be a member of the Faculty Board.

NOTE: Large DSC's may wish to elect an officer to manage the internal affairs of the DSC under the Chair's general direction.]

• a student may serve on the DSC Executive of only one department.
• It will be permissible for the Class Representatives of two or more related departments to form in cooperation with the departments concerned, a common DSC and to elect a common DSC Executive. In such cases, a Faculty Board member will be elected for each department.

Student Participation in Departmental Committees

• When a DSC requests participation in the work of the department, the department will form one or more committees composed of staff and students, the students being elected by their DSC. Such a committee or committees shall consider and evaluate departmental matters of concern to students and staff and make recommendations to the department on such matters, which shall include problems of study and course offerings, methods and quality of instruction and of the academic evaluation of students, and physical facilities. A department may form separate undergraduate and graduate committees.
• Where the procedures established by the Senate for appointment, promotion and tenure of academic staff require consultation with a representative group of students and staff, the method of obtaining the advice of students shall be decided jointly by the Department Head and the DSC Executive.

NOTE: The intention is that if a department has only one student-staff committee (an Undergraduate Studies committee), it would be a standing committee. It is not intended to impose a complex committee structure upon departments which have already established, or wish to operate under a more flexible system. Where a department functions through a group of standing or special committees on which elected students serve, the functions of the Undergraduate Studies Committee could be distributed into the appropriate existing committees either in place of or in addition to an Undergraduate Studies Committee.]

Student Participation on Faculty Board

• By Friday of the sixth week of the Winter term, each DSC will elect from among its members, to take office on September 1 following, one member to the Faculty Board, and relay to the Secretary the name of this member, together with such information as is required by the Nominating Committee. If the DSC wishes to separate the offices of the Chair and the Faculty Board Representative, it may elect the Chair for the subsequent academic year at the same time.

NOTE: The intention is to provide selection according to areas of knowledge, rather than according to the size of the departmental constituency.]

• The President and Vice President of the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society shall be members of the Faculty Board. |
• The following standing committees of the Faculty of Arts and Science will have student members in the numbers noted:

Admissions Committee - three; Curriculum Committee - seven; Academic Orientation Committee - three, plus the President of the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society, and the Academic Coordinator of the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society's Orientation Committee, ex officio ; Nominating Committee - four, plus the President and Vice President of the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society, ex officio ; Procedures Committee - three; Study Abroad and Student Exchanges - three, Computing Committee - three.

NOTE: The Nominating Committee is required to nominate, for the Admissions, Academic Orientation, and the Procedures Committee, one student from the Humanities, one from the Social Sciences, and one from the Departments of Natural Sciences and Mathematics; for the Curriculum and Nominating Committees, two students from the Humanities, two from the Social Sciences, and two from the Departments of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and to the Curriculum Committee, in addition, one graduate student.]

• Student members of Faculty committees will be elected by the Faculty Board from a slate prepared by the Nominating Committee, and will serve until replaced.

NOTE: By convention of the Faculty of Arts and Science, the Nominating Committee presents a slate including at least two names for each position, and additional nominations may also be presented from the floor.] E) For purposes of this by-law, the Concurrent Education Students Association will be considered to be a DSC and will be entitled to appoint one person to sit on the Faculty Board. Students who are proposed by the Concurrent Education Students Association for nomination to the standing committees of the Faculty, shall be considered to represent the discipline division of their major area of study.