Every year, the university delivers
a report on its progress towards its vision of being a leading, world-class university. Here are some interesting findings from the latest “Performance Indicators for Governance,” published last month.
Student:faculty ratio
U of T says it wants lower class sizes so students can participate more in class, but it lags behind other Canadian and American universities, offering one full-time faculty member per 26.6 full-time students. By comparison, the Canada-wide average student-to-faculty ratio is 22.1, and even supposedly cramped U.S. schools manage 22.3. According to the report, U of T doesn’t have the money to reduce class sizes yet.
Level of academic challenge
In the Indiana-based National Survey of Student Engagement, U of T students rated the level of academic challenge here at 54.2 out of 100, just 0.5 points above the Canadian average. The score breaks down into categories like the importance of preparing for class, number of textbooks required, amount of coursework, as well as the campus environment. U of T reports it is satisfied that it poses an academic challenge on a level with other Canadian institutions.
Enriching educational experience
Another NSSE benchmark, EEE rates how well a school fosters a climate of learning with chances for internships and volunteerships, extracurricular involvement, independent study and projects with faculty. First-year students rated U of T at 22.9, 2.3 points below the national average. Although though fourth-year students gave it a score of 31.2, this is 3.3 points below the national average for fourth-years. U of T acknowledges it needs work in this area, but is vague on how it plans to improve, saying only that progress will take “a multi-year sustained effort.”
-Andre Bovee-Begun
