In accordance with the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Institutional Quality Assurance Plan (IQAP), The Program Self-Study report was completed in autumn of 2015. For the programs under review, the MASc and MEng in Aeronautical Engineering, it contained the degree level expectations for these programs, an analytical assessment of the programs, course outlines, program-related data, survey data from the Office of Quality Assurance and appendices with sample examinations and CVs of faculty members. Two arm’s-length external reviewers (Professor P. Sullivan, University of Toronto, and Professor H. Alighanbari, Ryerson University) were selected from a list of possible reviewers and approved by the Deans of Engineering and Graduate Studies. They were joined by an internal to RMC Reviewer, Dr. Chantel Lavoie from the Faculty of Arts. They reviewed the self-study documentation and conducted a site visit to RMC on 23, 24 February 2016. The visit included interviews with the VPA, VPR&DGS, Dean of Engineering, Department Head Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (Interim), Head Librarian, as well as several members of faculty from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as well several graduate students in the programmes. The ERC subsequently produced a report based on the Self-Study and site visit.
The ERC identified a number of strengths of the Aerospace Engineering Graduate Programs including that the programs were perceived as high-quality programs, the extensive use
of experimental facilities as part of the delivery of the programs was perceived to offer a unique aspect relative to other comparable programs, and student surveys indicated a high degree of satisfaction with their department and courses of study. The ERC also identified three areas of concern including the need to better track the accomplishment of learning outcomes that relate to specific GDLEs, hire an administrative assistant for the department, formulate a plan to ensure uniform start-up funds for support to new faculty, provide financial incentives for graduate student recruitment and retention, develop improved recruiting to develop a deep pool of graduate student applicants, improve electronic access to library resources through Queen’s and/or RMC, improve/develop an institutional repository for open access publication, improve web infrastructure for programme and RMC information; and advocate for access to provincial scholarship opportunities (i.e. OGS).
The ERC Report is largely positive. It confirms that Aeronautical Engineering is delivering an academically rigorous program to its students and that its standards meet or exceed those of similar programs in Ontario. However, the ERC also identified some areas requiring improvement, and some dangers to the future health of the program. RMC is already taking steps to address the issues raised, such as improving promotional material for recruitment, continuing to improve electronic access to journals and the continued promotion of professional development using college support services. RMC will continue to work toward better administrative support for the program in the form of a postgraduate program representative with cleaner reporting lines, the hiring of new faculty with expertise relevant to the program, and the provision of funds to support conference and research travel.