In a time of government cuts and cost challenges, universities have to make tough choices about their budgets, finding savings while still supporting core elements such as teaching, research and student experience.
Dalhousie is no stranger to these choices, and this past weekend two areas of campus were celebrated with national awards for their success in navigating them.
Dalhousie took home two institutional Quality and Productivity Awards from the Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO) at its national conference, which continues this week. The Faculty of Medicine received the Atlantic Region Quality and Productivity Award for its innovative approach to considering budget reductions, while Counselling and Psychological Services was recognized with an honourable mention for its efforts to manage increasing demand for its services.
CAUBO is an association that aims to promote and support the professional management and effective leadership in the administrative affairs of Canadian universities and colleges.
In addition to the Quality and Productivity Awards, Dalhousie staff are receiving a number of individual recognitions. Two Dal employees are the first-time recipients of awards that are new this year: Internal Audit Services’ Margaret Sterns is being presented with the the Leadership in Learning Award, while the Faculty of Medicine’s Anne Weeden is receiving the Emerging Leader Award. As well, Financial Services’ Darrell Cochrane (recently retired) is being awarded Honorary Membership for Distinguished Service.
“I’ve been a CAUBO director or member for about 20 years, and I don’t recall an institution winning so many recognitions at once,” says Ken Burt, Dalhousie’s vice-president finance and administration. “This is a real point of pride for our community.”
Sparking a Faculty-wide conversation
The Faculty of Medicine’s Quality and Productivity Award was for “Being Explicit About Allocating Limited Resources within Fiscal Constraints,” recognizing an innovative planning exercise for the 2011-12 budget year.
Diane Gorsky, associate dean of operations and policy, helped lead the effort along with Christina MacNeil, director of finance for the Faculty. The initiative came from a desire to find a new strategy for managing budget cuts, rather than simply applying cuts equally to all the medical school’s departments and units.
“There was a feeling that method wasn’t strategic or sustainable,” explains Gorsky (pictured, left). “It didn’t recognize the Faculty’s strategic plan, or that there are some areas that need to grow and develop and perhaps others that deserve less focus. So how do we start that conversation?”
To develop a new planning model, they teamed up with Craig Mitton, an expert on priority setting in health-care environments, to draft a decision-making framework that engaged stakeholders from across the Faculty: department heads, assistant and associate deans, professors and administrative staff. Grouped into clusters, they submitted proposals that were evaluated against the Faculty of Medicine’s strategic plan. The proposals that moved forward were those that best achieved cost savings while minimizing the impact on key strategic priorities.
While Mitton's model was built for government and health care, not university administration, with a few tweaks it proved incredibly robust.
“It built a shared stewardship in the Faculty budget,” says Gorsky. “It was collegial, non-adversarial and had wide buy-in — and anyone who’s taken part in any budget discussion knows that’s not always the case.”
Accomplished in an intense six-week period — normally such exercises are spread over a year — the program was successful in helping provide multi-year strategies for managing the Faculty budget, and the Medical School is expecting to return to the same planning framework in its next round of budgeting.
“I really commend everyone who took part, all across the Faculty of Medicine,” says Gorsky of the award. “This was a huge team effort.”
Supporting students in need
In addition to the Atlantic Regional Prize, Dalhousie also claimed an Honourable Mention for the work of the Counselling and Psychological Services team.
Its submission was titled “Sustainably Meeting the Counselling Needs of Increasing Numbers of Students Disrupted by Psychological Problems.” The recognition celebrates the team’s work managing increasing demand for student psychological support in a time of limited resources.
“We’ve seen this increase in Dalhousie’s enrolment in recent years but, apart from that, the broader issue is that the number of students requesting help for psychological issues, as well for as learning disabilities, has increased significantly,” explains Dr. Victor Day, director of Counselling and Psychological Services (pictured, right). “And that’s true across the country.”
Part of this can be explained by the decreasing cultural stigma against seeking help for issues like depression and anxiety. Another factor is the rising number of students coming to university with pre-existing conditions. Complicating matters further is the under-resourcing of the public mental health system. “If students are going to get help, by and large it has to be through the university,” says Dr. Day.
To try and address this situation, the Counselling Services team adopted a new triage system to better identify those students with the most pressing and urgent needs. An $8 per-student increase in the student health fee allowed the team to add part-time counsellors from local hospitals or private practice, who offer more support for evenings and on Saturdays — key timeslots for busy students. Counselling Services also increased group support options and introduced SHIFT, a free online self-help program for students experiencing moderate depression, anxiety and/or stress, to help reach students who are reticent to seek out in-person counselling.
Combined, these efforts have allowed the team to provide counselling support to 46 per cent more students over the past five years.
“We’re doing our best to cope with a challenging situation,” says Dr. Day, acknowledging that they’re still a long way from meeting the campus community’s needs. “We know that some students still find it difficult to access counselling here, and others don’t get as much support as they’d like. But we get excellent evaluations from students who receive counselling here and are constantly working to do everything we can, with the resources we have, to improve the well-being of our students.”
Individual recognitions
In the individual categories, Anne Weeden of the Faculty of Medicine is being presented with the Emerging Leader Award in its inaugural year. The award celebrates CAUBO members who are known for their innovative, meaningful contributions to the improvement of their professoion and the efficiency of their institute. Weeden, who has been with the Dean’s Office for more than 20 years, is assistant dean of operations, responsible for developing and maintaining strategic partnerships within the Faculty’s internal and external constituents.
Another inaugural award, Leadership in New Learning, is being presented to Margaret Sterns, the university’s internal auditor. Sterns’ award recognizes her outsanding individual contribtuions to CAUBO professional development, including the annual conference, pre-confernce seminars, online courses, workshops and webinars.
Finally, Darrell Cochrane, who retired from his role as controller with Financial Services this February after 29 years at Dal, is being given Honorary Membership for Distinguished Service. Honorary Membership in CAUBO is granted to former representatives of member institutions who have rendered exceptional service.