The Director, Undergraduate Programs oversees 3 accredited undergraduate programs in the SFU Faculty of Health Science with a student population of ~1,600 majors (900 BSc, 700 BA). The undergraduate program offers ~ 60 courses per term and is managed by a team of five full-time staff dedicated to scheduling, advising, and administration. All of our programs are accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH).  The Director, Undergraduate Programs is Chair of the Undergraduate Studies Committee (UGSC).

Our Programs Include

Bachelor of Science, Life Sciences

Bachelor of Science, Life Sciences, Honours

Bachelor of Science, Public Health & Data

Bachelor of Science, Public Health & Data, Honours

Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts, Joint major Health Sciences & Philosophy

Bachelor of Arts, Honours

Responsibilities of Director, Undergraduate Programs

• Advise the Dean, and Associate Dean, Education (ADE) on undergraduate program issues.

• Work with Director, Educational Programs on processes important for the administration of the program.

• Coordinate curricular changes and act as liaison with the ADE, discipline-specific working groups, the Undergraduate Studies Committee (UGSC), and university-level committees such as the Senate Committee for Undergraduate Studies (SCUS).

• Chair of UGSC - Establish priorities, create agendas, and chair meetings.

• Manage team adjudication process for Undergraduate Major Entrance Scholarships.

• Manage team adjudication for seven FHS Undergraduate awards and Convocation awards.

• Resolve conflicts between instructors and students.

• Preside over grade appeals.

• Approve final grades for all undergraduate programs and review compatibility with FHS grading guidelines.

• Represent undergraduate program for accreditation by Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) and external review.

Accomplishments - Second Term (Sept 2022 – Aug 2025)

Establish Undergraduate Awards Committee

• Drafted terms of reference for a new committee managing all undergraduate awards. This will be brought to faculty vote in Fall 2024.

Draft Course Experience Survey Questions

• Collected committee priorities for 4 faculty-level questions via canvas survey and a reflection brainstorming exercise.  Drafted initial sample questions based on this feedback. UGSC will determine the final questions in Fall 2024. These questions will be used in the end-of-term course experience surveys.

Lead General Education Recertification

• Developed a process to re-certify 5 WQB courses within the Faculty and initiate communication with faculty responsible for those courses.

Optimizing Teaching Lab Technician Time

• Strategized with staff and lab instructors to optimize the utilization of teaching lab technicians' time.

Major Entrance Scholarship Adjudication

• Recruited additional faculty and staff to review Major Entrance Scholarship applications.

• Reviewed a total of 91 files, reducing individual reviewer workload from approximately 60 files in past years.

Course Articulation Process

• Developed a transparent process for reviewing and approving course articulation requests from other institutions.

Program Enhancements and Approvals

• Led a committee to review and pass FHS Bachelor of Arts program enhancements.

• Represented these changes to the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies (SCUS) for approval.

Addressing Student Concerns

• Responded to student concerns about low course availability

• Worked with staff to create short and long-term solutions.

CEPH Accreditation

• Addressed program changes necessary for CEPH accreditation.

Collaboration with Program Assessment Expert

• Initiated collaboration with a program assessment expert following external review feedback.

Exploring Collaboration with new SFU Medical School

•  Met with leaders of the SFU medical school to explore collaborative opportunities.

Managing Undergraduate Awards

• Streamlined administrative and communication processes for managing seven undergraduate awards.

BA Program Vision

• Contributed to discussions shaping the new Bachelor of Arts program vision.

I-EDI Advisory Circle Feedback

• Provided feedback to the Inclusion, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (I-EDI) advisory circle to support the committee.

BSc LS Lab Curriculum Changes

• Led discussions on lab curriculum changes and logistics to increase teaching lab size and frequency of offerings.

Advising Instructors and Conflict Resolution with Students: 

• Advised individual instructors on solutions to teaching challenges

• Work with students to solve issues they experience in the program or with their instructors.

Accomplishments - First Term (Jan 2019 – Sept 2021)

Leadership During COVID-19

1. • Provided stable leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.

   • Modeled new instructional practices, led community discussions among instructors, and mentored struggling faculty.

Guidelines for Synchronous Teaching

1. • Generated guidelines for synchronous teaching in collaboration with the Associate Dean, Education (ADE).

BSc Public Health & Data (PH&D) Program Changes

1. • Led the approval and implementation process for BSc PH&D program changes developed by the working group.

Establishing Faculty Teaching Teams

1. • Collaborated with the ADE and the Director of Educational Programs to establish Faculty Teaching Teams.

CEPH Accreditation Preparation

1. • Prepared self-study documents for the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accreditation.

My major service to the faculty is in the role of Director, Undergraduate Programs. My second term has allowed me to mature into and embody the role. The first term was tricky; I had just figured out my responsibilities and then my momentum was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It took a while to pick up the pieces. I am thankful to have another opportunity in this role. A colleague recently asked me what I enjoyed about the role, I told them I value:

• being in a position to influence Faculty decisions on our program, teaching assessment, and policy.

• the sense of teamwork, camaraderie, and community when working with the leadership team and staff to ensure that the programs are working for our students.

• representing our faculty in broader university-level contexts (e.g., SCUS).

• the balance between administrative and teaching work.

• facilitating conflict resolution between instructors and students.

• mentoring new instructors and brainstorming solutions. Helping people see that they already have the ability to make decisions about their courses.

• Considering impact /upcoming opportunities for our programs (e.g., medical school).

• Having influence to building teaching culture within the FHS.

As Director, I face a large variety of problems and responsibilities. Some of these are small – simple approvals that require a signature. Other initiatives require project management skills and working with staff. Other problems require deep emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. Below, I describe some examples. These were also included in my last salary review. 

FHS Undergraduate Awards Process

FHS offers a series of university-level awards competitions for students based on criteria such as community service, volunteer activities, hospital service and more. These are monetary awards with a range of values that have substantial impact on supporting students through their university experience.  Over the year, we have a total of seven awards for which students can compete. This includes three brand new high-value awards (up to 10,000$ per award)

We manage the nominations of students for these awards via an internal process and then forward the nominations to the Senate Undergraduate Awards Adjudication Committee (SUAAC).

Problem: In the past year, we had a reactive process to these awards, sending out calls when we received them. This resulted in short turnaround times for students and faculty and low quality applications.

Last summer, I have worked closely with FHS undergraduate staff to streamline several aspects of the awards process and be a step ahead of the award calls. The goal was to improve communication timelines with students and faculty to ensure that we receive a critical mass of high-quality packages.

This work has included: an advertising strategy through the FHS communications team,  improved communication with students via a website, and a checklist to ensure complete applications.  In addition, we have worked to create a comprehensive list of all our awards and negotiated with the student awards office to gain more time between award calls and deadlines so that students can assemble their packages and faculty have more time to write letters of support.

This strategy has been very successful. We received over 50 applications for three of the awards and had many outstanding candidates to choose from.

In the summer of 2024, the UGSC supported the development of a new Undergraduate Awards Committee (UAC) that would oversee the nomination of awardees and other processes associated with the distribution of student awards. The goal is to have a focused team managing these responsibilities, share the workload among the faculty, and bring in a diversity of adjudicators into the process. Terms of reference for the new committee have been drafted and will be brought to vote in the fall of 2024. 

Student Issues

NOTE: I wrote this free form to try to capture the complexities of this kind of work.

It usually starts with an email and a plea. Often at an awkward time. Right before Christmas. The day before a deadline.

Dear Dr. van Houten,

 I am a student in FHS, I:

a) Can’t get the courses I need

b) Need a different grade in one of my courses

c) Need special permission to graduate

d) Think I was graded unfairly

e) Have had this unpleasant experience in my class

Its:

f)  Causing me stress

g) Affecting my financial security

h) Impacting my mental health

i)  Making me worry about my future prospects.

Can you please help me?

Signed, Student.

Sometimes, I can‘t do much. Refer them to a service.

Sometimes, I just listen. Make them feel heard. There is a lot of power in making someone feel heard. Seen.

Sometimes, I can collect their concerns and bring them to the attention of the appropriate committee

Sometimes, I can prioritize their connection to an advisor. The advisors who twist and navigate and find magic solutions for students that I never see. The advisors for whom I am exceptionally grateful.

Sometimes, I reach out to their instructor and make a plea on their behalf.

Sometimes, I find learn a different side of the story – a broadening picture that the student only shared from a biased perspective.

Sometimes, I grant an appeal. Or I deny it.

Sometimes, I have to balance priorities between the autonomy of the instructor and the needs of the student. Find the thin line where something works for both.

Often, I am very limited.

Often, the students are thankful that I made an effort on their behalf

Occasionally, I make a contribution that meaningfully impacts someone’s life. Those are good days.

How We Started

In 2018, the new Faculty Dean (Tania Bubela) held a retreat to organize research into different research challenge areas. The goal was to create small communities contextualized around research interests in a non-departmental faculty. 

At the time, I was appointed as Faculty Teaching Fellow and deeply engaged in my own research project on student challenges in reading primary scientific literature. I had recently collaborated with a teaching-focused working group that conducted a faculty-wide survey on teaching identity. We organized an event for faculty to share examples of "real world" teaching, and there was some momentum building around teaching culture. However, I was still frustrated by the compartmentalization between research and teaching that I frequently observed within the Faculty and University. 

I suggested including education as one of the research challenge areas. 

Several colleagues immediately supported this, including the Associate Dean, Education (Stephen Smith) and other Teaching faculty. I was appointed co-lead to this group along with Kaye Tairyan, also teaching faculty at FHS. 

Collectively, we established a vision for integrating teaching and research that was incorporated into the FHS academic plan. 

"The Health Sciences and Public Health Education research challenge area (RCA) aims to bring together FHS researchers, educators and their community partners for the advancement of health education scholarship, and to promote the core FHS value for excellence in teaching and learning. The RCA focuses on developing a “magnet” community that offers value, support, and guidance to the faculty, students and staff interested in enriching teaching, learning and curriculum development in FHS that is vision-driven and evidence-informed. We recognize that research can influence and inform teaching, teaching can influence and inform research, and that intentionally and scientifically investigating this cycle can impact both research quality and student experience; we are defining this concept as reflexivity. By combining teaching and research, we hope to create and enable a culture of reflexivity in T&L&R and a shared vision for scholarship around FHS pedagogies in various RCAs. We hope this will lead to identifying, assessing, and expanding high-impact signature pedagogies in FHS focusing on interdisciplinarity and experiential learning which will strengthen “our brand” as Canada’s most engaged university, will transform FHS T&L&R into a student-centered practice at and beyond the university, and will bring T&L scholarship from an individual-level endeavour to a faculty-wide approach that is embedded within our well-established research challenge areas".

-https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/research/research-challenge-areas/health-sciences-public-health-education.html.html

What We Did 

The group developed a concept note, applied for faculty funding and hosted several events and retreats. We had a strong momentum for two years, in which we: 

• Initiated opportunities for faculty to undertake EDI-I training.

• Supported faculty in transition to online learning by coordinating and hosting two faculty conversations during the first months of the pandemic.

• Delivered a research-in-progress talk. Van Houten NE, Tairyan K, Ardiles P and Lechner M. FHS Health Sciences and Public Health Education Challenge Area - Action Plan and Work in Progress, FHS, SFU. October 2019

• Initiated a Flagship Research Project. 

• Developed detailed workplan. 

• Held a half-day retreat and visioning exercise.

• Identified a collective vision for educational identity within the Faculty.

• Developed a concept note and integrated work into the Faculty Academic Plan. 

Faculty Impact

The work we have undertaken has solidified the Faculty's identity in teaching. This challenge area has created a sense of cohesion among those who share a passion for teaching and a desire to develop a strong teaching culture within FHS. We have identified areas where the faculty can grow and have begun to blur the lines between teaching and research, embodying our vision of a more integrated approach.

For more information on FHS Research Challenges Areas, please visit: https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/research/research-challenge-areas.html

About the Role:

I was a Faculty Teaching Fellow for three terms from 2012 to 2018. In those years, this role was considered my full service to the faculty, though I was still a member of key committees as part of that role. I worked very closely with a Faculty-centered Educational Consultant (Barb Berry). We developed clear work plans and strategies to target specific areas of educational development within the faculty. 

The Faculty Teaching Fellow program at SFU states, "The primary role of the faculty teaching fellow is to support the continued improvement of teaching and learning within the faculty. They will work to help address the challenges that instructors face and to communicate solutions across the Faculty, as well as to provide a channel of communication between the Faculty and higher administrative units that focus on teaching."

I used this role to advocate for developing teaching-centric culture within our Faculty

We Focused on Five Key Areas

1. Create conditions and supports for capacity and professional development in relation to teaching, learning and scholarship of teaching and learning.

2. Work in collaboration with members of the faculty and EC to establish and foster an education research group in FHS and work towards advancing teaching & learning scholarship within the faculty and broader community of health sciences teaching and learning.

3. Support FHS committees and working groups with respect to curriculum development including UGSC, writing skills working group, and life science area of emphasis.

4. Take part in teaching and learning events and committees within SFU and in the broader teaching and learning community.

5. Practice student-centered learning in my own classes, and develop instructional practices that can be disseminated to other instructors.

Summary of Activities

• Created awareness about technology in teaching, assessment of teaching, assessment of programs, student evaluation techniques and more. Co-developed and hosted 20 discussion sessions and workshops.

• Member of Tenure Promotion Committee

• Author of FHS Teaching & Learning Blog, wrote 30 posts over 3 years  (no longer active) 2011 – 2015.

• Designed and facilitated 4 workshops at the SFU Teaching and Learning Symposium.

• Hosted 3 Faculty-wide events to celebrate Teaching and Learning.

• Hosted 2 seminar speakers.

• Member of 12 different committees and working groups during that time.

• Attended 8 different conferences and symposia.

• Modelled evidence-based practice with my own scholarship projects.

• Initiated working group to promote teaching and leanring initiatives within the faculty and identified Faculty teaching identity of Real-World Teaching via survey.