FAR - Results from the Graduate Programs in Aeronautical Engineering

2015 IQAP Review of Aeronautical Engineering Post Graduate Programmes - Final Assessment Report and Implementation Plan

In accordance with the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Institutional Quality Assurance Plan (IQAP), this final assessment report provides a synthesis of the external evaluation and internal response and assessments of the graduate programmes in Aeronautical Engineering offered by the Faculty of Engineering. This report identifies the significant strengths of the programmes, together with opportunities for programme improvement and enhancement, and sets out and prioritizes the recommendations that have been selected for implementation.

This report includes an Implementation Plan that identifies:

• Who will be responsible for approving the recommendations set out in the Final Assessment Report.
• Who will be responsible for providing any resources entailed by those recommendations.
• Any changes in organization, policy or governance that will be necessary to meet the recommendations and who will be responsible for acting on those recommendations.
• Timelines for acting on and monitoring the implementation of those recommendations.

Overview of Programme Review Process:

The Programme Self-Study report was completed in autumn of 2015.  For the programmes under review, the MASc and MEng in Aeronautical Engineering, it contained the degree level expectations for these programmes, an analytical assessment of the programmes, course outlines, programme-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 report was disseminated and discussed with members of the faculty of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

The reviewers submitted their report on 11 March, 2016.  In their report, they find that the Aeronautical Engineering Programmes requirements are logical, clear, and defined with Learning Outcomes carefully articulated.  The ERC identified strengths in leadership, diverse, committed, and productive faculty, small class sizes and an extensive (impressive) use of experimental facilities. 

Issues with the low number of students, online journal/library access, student (financial) supports and the level of administrative support were noted by as impediments to enhanced quality.

Significant Strengths and Weaknesses of the Programme:

The ERC identified a number of strengths of the Aerospace Engineering Programmes:

• Overall, the programmes were perceived as high-quality programmes. The extensive use of experimental facilities as part of the delivery of the programmes was perceived to offer a unique aspect relative to other comparable programmes.
• Student surveys indicated a high degree of satisfaction with their department and courses of study.

The ERC identified a number of areas of concern for the Aeronautical Engineering Programmes:

• 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 Programme Chair, after consultation with faculty and staff in the programme, submitted a response to the Reviewers’ Report on 30 June 2016. The Dean of Graduate Studies in consultation with the Dean of Engineering prepared this Final Assessment Report in December 2016.  Specific recommendations are discussed and follow-up actions and timelines are provided.

Summary of the Reviewers’ Recommendations with the Programme’s and Dean’s Responses

The ERC identified a number of areas of concern or issues that require attention.  These issues are discussed in the order that they appear in the ERC Report.  Where observations are similar they have been coalesced:

Recommendation 1:  Hire an administrative assistant.

Departmental Response 1:

An indeterminate Administrative Assistant was hired by the department on 19 May 2016.  After serving for three years, the Administrative Assistant was offered a higher position within the institution and left the department in 2019. After a couple of months without administrative support, the department, under the previous leadership was able to hire a well qualified Administrative Assistant in January 2020. In October 2021, the new Administrative Assistant was offered a much higher position in October 2021, also within the RMC institution, leaving the department without an Administrative Assistant for a month and a half. The current Administrative Assistant who joined the department in November 2021 is on assignment from another department in the College until March 2023. The department used to have clerical position that was abolished in 2019. The lack of stable administrative support remains a major concern for a department that is a home for almost half of the students in the Faculty of Engineering at RMC. The department will continue to work with the senior administration of the college to have the clerical position re-instated. This will reduce the heavy administrative load of the main Administrative Assistant and ensure a stable administrative support.

Dean’s Response:

The Dean endorsed this response.

Recommendation 2:  Formulate a plan to ensure uniform start-up funds that guarantees support for at least one MASc student and required travel for two years for junior faculty to ensure successful career initiation.

Departmental Response 2:

The observation leading to the recommendation was not upheld on scrutiny inasmuch as professors hired in the last 10 years have received on average ~$40k as start-up funding which is adequate to this task.  That said, RMC currently lacks a coherent plan for start-up funding resources and for allocations based on need.  Currently start-up funding is cash managed by the Principal through departmental budgets.  The recommendation is for a more deliberate plan for the determination of requirements and allocation of start-up funds under the VPR as part of the hiring process. A new source of funding in the form of Research Bursary Fund (RBF) is now available to all faculty members.

Dean’s Response:

The Dean’s endorsed this response and noted that start-up funds are part of the negotiation between the faculty member and the administration at the time of hire.    

VPR’s Response:

A committee composed of the Vice-Principal Academic, Vice Principal Research, Vice-Principal Finance, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer and Dean of the Faculty involved in the hiring reviews the files prior to determining the start-up funds for the new Faculty member. The start-up funds allocated to new faculty members correspond to $5,000 per year for the first 4 years. In addition, a pilot program has been implemented during the fiscal year 2021-2022 for new Faculty members (first 2 years at RMC) to access funds to support students and research assistants.

Recommendation 3: Advocate a process to streamline travel approvals.

Departmental Response 3:

Approval processes are held to the highest level under Treasury Board (TB) and Department of National Defence (DND) policies, which can result in long lead times and uninformed oversight to approvals.  To address this challenge, RMC worked with DND to change the policy on conference travel, the result being that conference approval is no longer required, only travel approval is required, significantly reducing the time and effort associated with attending a conference. For procurement and contracting, researchers need to plan purchases with reasonable lead times to ensure their programmes are not affected.  This challenge is well understood by the university.

Dean’s Response:

The Dean endorsed this response and noted that these issues are well known.  Travel and procurement policies and directives are established by DND and Treasury Board and are not under the direct control of the College.

Recommendation 4:  Provide financial incentives for graduate student recruitment and retention.

Departmental Response 4:

Sponsored military graduate students represent a considerable financial boon to departments and faculty as they are fully funded and require no stipend.  Efforts to continue and enhance this program will continue. The department has two annual bursaries of $5K each as an endowment from a former department member to support two postgraduate students in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. More recently, the estate of a second donor has allocated funds to create a bursary to support one graduate student in the area of Mechanical Design. “University Scholarships” for civilian graduate students is more problematic as it represents both a financial and philosophical commitment of RMC/DND that has not been envisioned nor necessarily agreed to.  The graduate school needs to look at all imaginative ways to incentivize civilian student’s attendance at RMC. Acceptance letters could highlight the availability of adequate TA opportunities and scholarships or tuition waivers for exceptional students. Recently, the department has been unable to fill all the approved TA positions with the available graduate students.  

Dean’s Response:

The Dean endorsed this response.  The Dean also noted that there are no plans for the College to offer financial assistance to graduate students other than the assistance provided for by the student’s supervisors and/or paid TA assignments through the department.

Recommendation 5:  Develop improved recruiting to ensure a deep pool of graduate student applicants to RMC.  Improve the web infrastructure and presence of RMC.

Departmental Response 5:

There is no doubt that improved marketing, whether web or fair-based would have a positive impact on graduate student applications.  The various research facilities and infrastructure in the department are among the best in the country and a “best kept secret”. In 2021-2022 alone, the department was able to purchase a high-end CNC machine, added two lathes to its existing fleet, and purchased a state of the art 6 DOF robot for a total of nearly $700K. The department has a plan to develop an unofficial website to highlight all the research facilities that are available to potential graduate students. This plan has been delayed by the recent cyber attack on the RMC network.

Dean’s Response:

While the Dean lauds their initiative, the university cannot sanction it.  The school of graduate studies is currently undergoing a redevelopment of its webpages to include all graduate programmes.  It is unlikely that marketing alone will achieve the stated goal of a “deep pool” of applicants.

Recommendation 6: Recognize the impact that WFA has had on the perception of upper levels of administration and determine methods to improve this.

Departmental Response 6:

The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering is one of the very few departments in the college that were severely affected by WFA. The department lost a junior and very promising faculty member who used to teach in an area already under-staffed.  The WFA process was very painful and created a sense of mistrust among members of the department and toward the university leadership. The current Department Head who took on the leadership of the department on June 1, 2021 is working to promote a positive working environment and rebuild this trust. However, the current staffing issues in department do not help. For the academic year 2022-2023, the department has to fill 15 undergraduate courses with term hires and three more with sessional hires. Many of the professors in the department cannot offer a graduate level course because of the requirement to cover the UG courses. Some professors offer a graduate course as extra to support the PG programmes in the department. Given the current demographics in the department, staffing will remain a major issue if the institution is not proactive in filling the vacancies that will be left by the retirement of key faculty members.  

Dean’s Response:

As noted in the Departmental response, “little beyond continuing institutional stability and promoting a positive work environment can help”.  It is worth noting      that few of the current university leadership were in administrative roles at RMC during the period of WFA.  In the years since WFA, staffing levels have stabilized and the negative sentiments resulting from WFA have abated. 

Recommendation 7: Improve electronic access to library resources through Queen’s and/or RMC.

Departmental Response 7:

Graduate students in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering take many of their graduate level course at Queens University and as such, they have access to most of the electronic resources at Queens’s library. More access is needed for those not taking courses at Queens.

Dean’s Response:

The challenges faced in financing library resources under the “new” regulations imposed by PSPC is challenging.  The senior administration continues to engage the leadership within DND to obtain the delegations necessary to effect cost-effective change.  Options to collaborate with Queen’s for library access during the re-negotiating of the Queen’s University / RMC MOU will be explored which will occur in September 2023.    

Recommendation 8:  Develop an institutional repository for publication of open-access materials.

Departmental Response 8:

The department, through it representative on the library committee has identified the journals and conference proceedings that are relevant to the department. The feasibility and the actual implementation of such repository is under the purview of the VPA, VPR, and the Chief Librarian.

Dean’s Response:

VPA, VPR and the Chief Librarian will carry out a study to determine the feasibility of setting up and operating an institutional open-access repository.

Recommendation 9:  Advocate for access to provincial scholarships opportunities.

Departmental Response 9:

A formal request to have RMC added to the list of institutions eligible for the Ontario Graduate Scholarship was made and has been denied, as we are not a provincially funded University. Internal financial supports to graduate students face many challenges due to the nature of the institution. 

Dean’s Response:

The VPR was engaged in efforts to determine the possibilities of becoming eligible for Ontario Graduate Scholarships (OGS) for civilian graduate students.    Although OCGS were supportive of RMC’s request, it was deemed by OCAV that RMC was not eligible for OGS.  However, RMC graduate students are eligible for all other scholarships.

Recommendation 10:  Implement professional development courses/workshops to assist civilian students in their studies.  Improve the use of the Writing Centre to alleviate some of the work of departmental personnel.

Departmental Response 10:

The Department has interpreted this to refer to writing skills and will explore options to do this.  Supervisors and students are aware of the services offered by the Writing Centre and they are encouraged to take advantage of them.

Dean’s Response

The Dean endorsed this response.  The Writing Centre assists all students at the College including graduate students who are writing their thesis.

Recommendation 11:  Implement an annual meeting with MASc and PhD students with their supervisory committees to ensure timely completion of degrees.

Departmental Response 11:

Graduate students meet with their supervisors on a regular basis. A formal progress report that includes comments from the student and comments from the supervisor is submitted by the student’s supervisor to the DGS. The report includes key milestones and a tentative completion date.

Dean’s Response:

The School of Graduate Studies has implemented  a policy to enhance and standardize student supervisions to include bi-annual or annual feedback to students.  It has also implemented a supervisor/student agreement that focuses on individual roles, deliverables and milestones.

Recommendation 12:  The visitors considered Mechanical & Aerospace’s minimum entry grade of 70% to be lower than comparable schools.

Departmental Response 12:    

The department viewed this as attributable to higher marking standards at the UG level (no evidence was provided).  The department felt that the students that were admitted to the program were of high calibre and no evidence was provided in the ERC report that correlated performance or rates of time to completion to current admission standards.

Dean’s response:    

The Dean endorsed this response and noted that RMC admissions standards acknowledges that the ROTP graduates have obligations in four pillars:  Military, Physical Fitness, Bilingualism and Academics.  These obligations can have a negative affect on a student’s undergraduate marks.    

Implementation Plan

Recommendation	Proposed Follow-up	Responsibility for Leading Follow-up	Timeline for Addressing Recommendation
1. Hire an administrative assistant.		Programme Chair VPA Dean GS/Eng.	The current Administrative Assistant position is being filled by an assignment until March 2023. The department will prepare a brief to the Dean of Eng. /GS by May 2023 to explore if there is a justification to hire additional support staff.
2. Formulate a plan for uniform start-up funds.		Principal  VPR	Completed
3. Streamline travel approvals.	Efforts to shorten the approvals process at the top end through greater delegations.	Principal  VPR	Completed
4. Provide financial incentives for graduate students recruitment and retention.	Civilian graduate students will be offered contracts as paid teaching assistants in the department.	Programme Chair Dean of Engineering	Completed
5. Develop improved recruiting to ensure a deep pool of graduate student applicants to RMC.	DGS is currently in discussions with the Liaison office to develop brochures, attend graduate fairs, etc… Require a liaison officer to focus on Graduate Studies.	Dean of Graduate Studies	Production of promotional materials will be completed by Fall 2023.
6. Recognize impact of WFA.		Principal Programme Chair	Completed.
7. Improve electronic access to library resources through Queen’s and/or RMC.	RMC/Queen’s MOU renewed in September 2020	VPA Chief Librarian	Monitored annually
8. Develop an institutional repository for publication of open-access materials.	Submit a proposal brief to explore the requirements to define the scope of a demonstration project on Open Access materials.	VPA VPR Chief Librarian	June 2023
9. Advocate for access to provincial scholarships opportunities	Students are eligible for all scholarships with the exception of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS).	VPA DGS	Completed
10. Implement professional development courses/workshops.	Improve writing skills by encouraging graduate students to make use of the Writing Center.	Dr. Lucie Moussu  Programme Chair	Monitored annually
11. Implement an annual meeting between graduate students and supervisory committee.	Implement a robust student progress reporting process across the Graduate School.	DGS Programme Chair	Completed. DGS has implemented a uniform progress reporting process across all programmes.  The completed progress reports are due by the end of each Summer term.
12. RMC should consider raising admission standards to be in line with similar standards at comparative schools.	Significant efforts have been expended to improve scrutiny on time to completion in recent years. This has improved in the last 3-4 years.	Programme Chair	Completed

Conclusion:

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 programme 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.

The Dean of Graduate Studies, in consultation with Dean of Engineering and the Chair of the Aeronautical Engineering programme, is responsible for monitoring the Implementation Plan.  The other recommendations have either already been considered or have been implemented.