Students, faculty and staff gathered in the UBC Okanagan Science Building in November 2022.
They were invited to discuss the UBC Okanagan (UBCO) Provost’s Office’s search for the Faculty of Management’s (FoM) new dean and an upcoming external review process.
As students trickled into the meeting space, Newman, a now-fourth-year UBCO management student and then-president of the Management Student Association (MSA), saw student concern control the conversation.
“We really got a chance to make eye-opening statements and bring awareness to the concerns students were having,” said Newman.
The results of that external review, released this year, show dissatisfaction with the FoM, namely how students felt misled regarding their degree program while faculty and staff felt leadership was unresponsive toward feedback.
This wasn’t the first time concern was expressed about the FoM — in a similar 2017 external review obtained by The Ubyssey, students, faculty and staff expressed some discontent with the FoM’s working environment and academic focus on management, rather than business.
The authors of the 2023 review interviewed UBCO management faculty, staff and students over a three-day period, during which many showed “clear discontent” with the FoM.
This resulted in 28 recommendations for improvement, 12 of which are characterized as the same as or similar to recommendations from the 2017 review.
Now, with a new dean for the first time since 2012, the FoM and UBCO Provost and VP Academic Rehan Sadiq have said change is on the way.
Undergraduate students left dissatisfied
According to the 2023 review, students and alumni “complained aggressively that they chose the FoM for a business education, but the program failed to deliver what they expected.” The 2017 review said, “students expressed concerns that the direction of the Faculty was unclear.”
Student dissatisfaction is something Newman knows a lot about — as MSA president, she worked with her team to give a voice to dissatisfied and concerned students.
The MSA hosted in-person feedback sessions and opened an online feedback form in the wake of the 2023 external review, the results of which were submitted to the review committee, according to Newman.
“We want[ed] to provide our students a platform to voice their opinions and their concerns in a variety of different formats, and we also want[ed] to connect with our alumni to ensure that they felt adequately represented having been through the program and now out in the real world,” said Newman.
UBCO leadership, undergraduate students, some faculty and staff and the broader community “believe the FoM is, for all intents and purposes, a business school,” according to the 2023 review. The review committee found this inconsistent with the dean’s understanding of the faculty’s mission.
Then-dean Dr. Robert Sugden told the review committee the difference between management and business is “clear” in related literature and that management encompasses “soft management skills” and extends to non-business sectors like government, not-for-profit organizations and health agencies, according to the 2023 review.
Sugden was appointed FoM dean in October 2012 and was renewed for a second term in 2017. After his second term ended, Sugden took on the role of dean pro tem ending July 1, 2023. Dr. Sandy Hilton was appointed dean pro tem in February 2023.
The 2023 review said UBCO recruiters were “unable to explain what was distinct about the ‘management’ positioning” of the program and would often tell prospective students to look outside of UBCO if interested in human resources, finance, marketing and other “core fields of business.”
Newman said she knew the FoM was not a business school, but she said she can “definitely understand and very much sympathize” with student confusion.
The 2023 review said the FoM is facing a structural deficit after traditionally running a structural surplus, and the committee said the deficit would continue if the FoM does not have “some success in some of its new programs.” The committee also said if the Sauder School of Business increased enrollment, the FoM would be negatively impacted since “a significant proportion of FoM students come to the Faculty because they did not get into Sauder.”
Despite student discontent with course content, the co-op program is a strength for the FoM, according to the 2023 external review committee. Newman agreed and said her co-op experience has been positive.
The 2023 review also said stakeholders “commented on the lack of communication and strategic direction for the Faculty,” recommending the faculty create a strategic plan. This was also recommended by the 2017 review committee.
Much of this concern was attributed to students, with the review citing an undergraduate student who was unaware the FoM had a dean. At the time, the dean did not have a permanent office space in the FoM.
Following the 2023 review, the FoM’s senior leadership is working to address internal dissatisfaction and outlined their plans in a faculty response to the review. For this response, the FoM consulted stakeholders and community members from March–June.
In the response, the Dean’s Office wrote it is working to increase the “tempo” of communications while increasing in-person social and academic events and work as well as student environment accessibility. Hilton’s office also has plans to be highly visible in a central campus location.
“Recognizing that physical presence is only one part of repairing and rebuilding the management programs, the Dean pro tem and Senior Associate Dean are committed to renewing community, communications, transparency and trust,” wrote the Dean’s Office in its response.
Students also said they did not feel a strong sense of community and that their “efforts to contact the Dean with concerns were not acknowledged, and that they had little voice in the design of the Undergraduate Program or the courses being offered,” according to the 2023 review.
Newman said the lack of attention and communication toward students is “disheartening.”
“As undergraduate students, we are the primary stakeholders by number alone, and it really felt like a lot of us were not taken seriously or accounted for,” said Newman.
She also said students “came together and … showed resilience,” when it came to being heard by the FoM. Newman said the MSA and FoM students worked to ensure their voices were heard in the review.
“As asserted by the External Review and revealed by consultations with our community, it is clear that the Faculty is facing significant challenges and opportunities,” wrote the Dean’s Office.
The FoM is now working to offer specializations for management students, and has committed to include students at Faculty Council and key working groups in “developing and revising [the FoM’s] mission, vision and strategy.”
Newman said Hilton and FoM senior leadership have started to support the MSA, something the 2017 and 2023 reviews said needed to be done.
According to the Dean’s Office, “the MSA [is] an important connection to the body of students enrolled in Management courses and programs,” and since February 2023, “the Dean pro tem has engaged regularly with the MSA.”
Faculty and staff concerns
Students were not the only FoM stakeholders who wanted their voices heard in the 2017 and 2023 reviews.
The 2017 review said staff experiences were generally positive, but that some faculty members were “clearly working under stressful conditions” and spoke about “mental health issues, distress, and harassment,” and non-inclusive workplaces. However, the review noted that some faculty were pleased with the FoM’s direction.
Additionally, the external committee members of the 2017 review felt “several faculty members did not feel safe, although the panel repeatedly mentioned that all comments were confidential.”
In 2023, the review committee said they had limited feedback from faculty, but respondents’ concerns echoed the 2017 review. Namely, faculty noted difficulties introducing new programs and limited opportunities to provide feedback to the FoM.
According to the 2023 review, “a few participants felt they had been retaliated against for speaking out.”
In a statement to The Ubyssey, Sadiq said to protect student, faculty and staff privacy, the university cannot comment on individual personnel matters but pointed toward Policy SC18, the university’s retaliation policy.
Faculty members also expressed concerns regarding a lack of research support, with the 2023 committee noting the FoM does not have “critical mass in any area that allows it to attract new faculty to a particular research strength of focus.”
The 2023 review also said stakeholders said the FoM’s small academic staff size has “negative effects on service (taking too much time) and on research (too little time available).” This impacts faculty member retention.
This review also said the FoM has pivoted to multidisciplinary research because of this, and faculty members have found success here, but this research is more difficult to publish in top-rated journals, impacting morale and retention.
The Dean’s Office, in its response to the review, said the “re-engagement of faculty and staff” has been an area of “immediate focus” for the Dean pro tem, with the resumption and initiation of social events and enhanced communications which include a bi-weekly Dean’s Office update and “celebrating the small successes that build gradually toward a shared sense of mission and identity.”
Sadiq said external reviews “are an important part of maintaining the academic integrity and quality of a university’s programs,” and this “regular and essential function” demonstrates the university’s commitment to transparency and the renewal and improvement of university programs.
“Some of the findings in this external review are concerning but I have full confidence in Sandy Hilton … to address these issues directly and meaningfully,” wrote Sadiq.
Hilton was unavailable for an interview with The Ubyssey before press time.
Moving forward
On February 2, 2023, the Provost’s Office announced Hilton, an FoM associate professor of teaching, was appointed to serve as management dean pro tem while the search for a permanent dean continues.
Students congregated on campus for the Students’ Union Okanagan’s Expo Day — excited students explored club booths. Among the clubs was Newman and her MSA team.
Once FoM students knew about Hilton’s appointment, they started buzzing.
“Students were so excited,” said Newman. “They were coming up to our booth … some students were crying, [saying] ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.’”
“That’s when we knew that the community we’d been fighting for came together,” said Newman.
Hilton is a familiar face for many students, according to Newman — he used to teach MGMT 110, an introductory management course mandatory for all FoM undergrads.
Newman said Hilton, who is also the FoM undergraduate curriculum lead, “has always been an advocate for students.”
Moving forward, Sadiq said UBCO “remain[s] laser-focused on what we can do today and in the future to address these issues and ensure the very best experiences and learning outcomes for our students.”
“As an institution of higher learning, it is in our DNA to draw lessons from these experiences and adapt our practices to do better,” said Sadiq.
Newman is excited to see what happens with management moving forward, and she’s proud of her fellow students for speaking up.
“The amount of changes that have immediately happened [after Hilton was appointed] just shows that nothing is impossible and that we can make the change that we need to.”