McGill.CA / Office of the Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic)

Initiatives

Draft Policy on Indigenous Membership/Citizenship

In 2016-2017, the Provost struck a Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education. It resulted in 52 Calls to Action, which include specific calls focused on increasing Indigenous representation throughout our workforce, notably among our academic staff (see especially calls #44 and #45). McGill’s efforts to respond to these calls require a robust and equitable policy on Indigenous membership and citizenship. Such a policy is an institutional imperative.

The development of the Policy has been led by Prof. Celeste Pedri-Spade in her role as Associate Provost, Indigenous Initiatives (APII), and a working group whose composition is entirely Indigenous. The important work that this group and Prof. Pedri-Spade have done and continue to do on this Policy, along with the input and feedback provided along the way by Indigenous faculty and staff, have been invaluable.

We are turning to our academic community for their thoughts and reflections on the Policy and its procedures. Feedback can be submitted to provost [at] mcgill.ca.

DRAFT Policy on Indigenous membership-citizenship
DRAFT Procedures for the Policy on Indigenous membership-citizenship

 

Principles on Generative AI in Teaching and Learning at McGill

The Subcommittee on Teaching and Learning (STL) of McGill’s Academic Policy Committee (APC) established a working group in January of 2023 to develop an approach regarding Generative AI and its impacts on Teaching and Learning.

The five principles emerging from the STL AI Working Group’s final report are reproduced below.

These provide a framework for ongoing conversations about Generative AI at the University in the context of teaching and learning, and can be used as a guide for instructors, students, and staff, and also for Faculties when they consider their own internal guidelines.

Laptop and hands

 

McGill’s Principles for the use of Generative AI Tools in Teaching and Learning:

  • First principle: The University community will be educated about what generative AI tools are, how they work, and the opportunities and challenges they entail.
  • Second principle: University leadership and instructors should ensure that when used, generative AI tools play a positive role in the accomplishment of the academic mission.
  • Third principle: As with all approved learning technologies, instructors have autonomy to decide whether they will use an approved generative AI tool for their teaching and assessments.
  • Fourth principle: Instructors remain responsible for comporting themselves according to the highest standards of academic integrity in their use of generative AI tools.
  • Fifth principle: Students remain responsible for maintaining academic rigour. This involves both verifying the accuracy of information generated and acknowledging the use of generative AI tools, if applicable.

Learn more about the Principles: 

English  French

New Vic Project

McGill University is redeveloping a portion of the former Royal Victoria Hospital site into a multidisciplinary research, teaching, and learning hub dedicated to Sustainability Systems and Public Policy.

The complex will serve the McGill community by providing world-class spaces for education and research, but it will also be a collaborative hub where our partners, community groups and citizens are invited to share and contribute to the intellectual vibrancy of the site. The New Vic will be rooted in its community, its history, its city, and its territory.

New Vic Project website
InfoConstruction

Frequently Asked Questions about the archeological investigation of the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital.

English  French

RVH building

Final Report of the Working Group on New Models of Academic Program Delivery

Arts Building

The McGill University Strategy Academic Plan includes a commitment “to supporting pedagogical and curricular innovation” and a diversification of “on-campus academic programming and modes of delivery”, including “alternatives to traditional degree organization and academic time-tabling.” In broad terms, University leadership will “encourage and support a culture of calculated risk-taking, with a commitment to ensuring agility, efficiency, creativity, and organizational learning across all our functions by eliminating barriers to change and through institutional support of the pursuit of new challenges.”

With this in mind, together with the experience of the rapid reorganization of teaching and learning in 2020 and emerging trends in university-level pedagogy, the Working Group on New Models of Academic Program Delivery was tasked with recommending a strategy and direction for the evolution of academic program delivery at McGill that will serve as a basis for growth and change over the next decade or more.

The Working Group submitted its final report in July 2023.

Mandate and Terms of Reference
Read the Final Report

McGill University's Policy on Academic Freedom

In June 2022, the National Assembly adopted a new law entitled, An Act respecting academic freedom in the university sector. This legislation requires every university in Quebec to develop an institutional policy on academic freedom. It also sets out specific elements that must be included within such a policy. Each university in the province had to adopt its policy by 7 June 2023.

Developed in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders in the McGill community, the new Policy was approved by McGill's Senate on May 10, 2023, and by the Board of Governors on May 18, 2023.

Read McGill's Policy on Academic Freedom
Complaints pursuant to the Policy

Working Group on Indigeneity in Infrastructure Planning and Development (WGIIPD)

Hiawatha flag

The 2017 Final Report of the Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education presented the University with 52 Calls to Action, among which were 11 that addressed physical representation and symbolic recognition on campus. 

The 2019 McGill Master Plan likewise addressed the need and opportunity to include Indigenous representation on the University’s campuses: “Specifically, the plan seeks to recognize and respect the specific and diverse cultural practices of Indigenous members of the community by providing interior and exterior spaces that serve their needs.”

The WGIIPD was tasked with formulation of guiding principles and best practices to address these imperatives in the context of the large-scale campus development and re-development activities that will take place over the coming years.

The Working Group submitted its final report in March 2023.

Mandate and Terms of reference 
Final report of the WGIIPD

Final Report of the Initiative against Islamophobia and Antisemitism (IAIAS)

Created by the Provost in March 2022 and led by Prof. Angela Campbell, Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies) and Prof. Fabrice Labeau, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning), the IAIAS was created to address and prevent Islamophobia and Antisemitism on our campuses.

The PDF icon Final Report of the IAIAS contains a series of bold and concrete recommended actions that we will implement over the coming years. The University will act on each of these recommendations immediately to enhance inclusion and belonging for Muslim and Jewish members of our university community.

As the Report affirms, acts of discrimination and oppression, which include Islamophobia and Antisemitism, have no place at our University and will not be tolerated. Our diverse identities are not only accepted at McGill but honoured and celebrated; no one should ever feel that they must hide who they are to feel that they belong on our campuses.

We are indebted to all those who contributed to the consultations and the preparation of the Report, especially students, faculty, staff, and members of the wider Jewish and Muslim communities who took time to share their perspectives and insights, despite the often sensitive and difficult experiences recounted.

Final Report of the IAIAS

Students walking on campus in the summer in front of a stone building

Provostial Visiting Fellow-in-Residence on Black Life and History

McGill University

Launched in Fall 2020, McGill’s Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism includes the following commitment, as part of a series of action items aimed at boosting research and knowledge that advances the Action Plan’s overarching objectives:

Establish a Provostial Visiting Fellowship-in-Residence on Black Life and History. This initiative will welcome to McGill, each year, a leading Black scholar whose research focuses on Black life and the Black experience, whether historically or in contemporary society.

Interested applicants are invited to send a cover letter outlining their record of experience and accomplishments, as well as their curriculum vitae, to karen.diop [at] mcgill.ca (Karen Diop). Queries about the Fellowship-in-Residence may also be directed to this address.

Fellowship submissions will be received and reviewed on a rolling basis.

Terms of reference and how to participate

The Provost's Faculty Mentorship Network

Arts Building

Set to launch in summer 2021, the Provost’s Faculty Mentorship Network will be an important source of guidance and support to all pre-tenure professors. Mentors who are part of this network are outstanding teachers and researchers who have experience as institutional leaders at McGill. As their profiles show mentors possess a range of strengths and capacities that will contribute to guiding and advising junior colleagues.

All pre-tenure faculty are eligible to participate in the mentorship program. Information about how to be matched with a mentor within the Network, and about what participation as a mentee, see our Becoming a Mentee page.

Applications for the Provost's Faculty Mentorship Network will be accepted starting May 2021.

The Provost's Faculty Mentorship Network

Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism 2020-2025

McGill Campus

I am pleased to share McGill’s Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism.

This Plan was developed further to a mandate that our Principal & Vice-Chancellor, Suzanne Fortier, gave to me on 30 June 2020.

I am grateful to the many members of the McGill community who provided input and ideas that were crucial to this Action Plan. I especially wish to recognize and thank the Dr. Kenneth Melville McGill Black Faculty Caucus, the Black Students’ Network, the McGill Black Alumni Association, and the Subcommittee for Racialized and Ethnic Persons.

This Action Plan sets out a series of bold and concrete actions that we will implement over the coming years. Work on the Action Plan begins immediately. Through this work, we will deepen and strengthen our commitment to addressing systemic racism, especially anti-Black racism, with a view to building a more inclusive and justice campus community for all.

Sincerely,

Professor Christopher Manfredi

Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic)

McGill’s Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism 2020-2025
Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism Dashboard

Provostial Research Scholars in Institutional Histories, Slavery, and Colonialism

Provost and Vice-Principal Academic, Professor Christopher Manfredi, has establishd the Provostial Research Scholars in Institutional Histories, Slavery, and Colonialism, as one important way in which McGill is seeking to develop a critical understanding of its past.

Meet the postdoctoral researchers appointed as the McGill Provostial Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Institutional Histories, Slavery and Colonialism

Joana Joachim

Earned her PhD in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies and the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University with Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson. Her research interests include Black feminist art histories, Black Canadian studies and Canadian slavery studies.

Photo cred: Ève Lafontaine

More on Joana Joachim bio

McGill Reporter: Using historical research to advance anti-racist and decolonial work in contemporary society

 

Melissa N. Shaw

Currently completing her PhD in History at Queen’s University (to be defended in the fall of 2020). Her dissertation entitled, “Blackness and British ‘Fair Play’: Burgeoning Black  Social Activism in Ontario and its Responses to the Canadian Colour Line, 1919-1939,” explores the symbiotic relationship between anti-Black racisms in Canada and the rise of Black Canadian socio-political activism in Ontario.

More on Melissa N. Shaw bio

McGill Reporter: Postdoctoral fellows to study slavery and colonialism

As McGill prepares for its Bicentennial, the University community looks forward to celebrating 200 years of innovation and excellence. But an institution with a history stretching back to the 19th century will have blemishes mixed in with momentous achievements. Like many storied universities – McGill is reflecting critically on some troubling elements of its past by confronting its historical connection to the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism.

 

Students at a coffee shop

Working Group on Online Programs

McGill University’s Strategic Academic Plan, implemented in 2017, includes an explicit commitment “to accelerate the development and delivery of online degree programs and professional masters programs, with the goal of implementing five online programs in five years.”

The Working Group on Online Programs is tasked with recommending a strategy for achieving this goal and means to ensure that McGill develops a sustainable framework for a new online presence and the further incorporation of digital tools (where desirable) into existing programs.

Terms of reference
Students in a group

Révision de l’unité Études et vie étudiante

À l'approche de la fin du mandat du premier vice‑principal exécutif adjoint, l’Université entreprendra un examen de la structure organisationnelle de l’unité Études et vie étudiante, plus particulièrement de sa cohérence, de la relation entre les priorités de l’unité et les responsabilités de cette dernière à l’égard des autres unités, et de sa réponse aux besoins et aux préoccupations des étudiant(e)s.

Mandat et participation
Rodik Gates

Working Group on Principles of Commemoration and Renaming

The Working Group on Principles of Commemoration and Renaming is tasked with undertaking an examination of McGill’s relationship (past and current) with underrepresented groups, in the context of a broad-reaching reflection of our institutional history, with a view to recommending a set of principles by which the University may be guided in its decision-making with respect to any future commemorative or renaming initiative.
(Version française.)

   

Terms of reference and ways to participate
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