Carleton may soon offer more conjoint programs with Dominican University College, a bilingual Roman Catholic university in Ottawa, in a bid to help the smaller college get more funding by becoming university-affiliated.
Dominican University College offers undergraduate and graduate programs in philosophy and theology. Carleton has already approved conjoint graduate programs in philosophy with Dominican. Now the university is looking into adding conjoint undergraduate and graduate programs in theology and an undergraduate program in philosophy as well.
Conjoint programs are programs offered by university-affiliated colleges, with the university having oversight over the program. This is different than a joint program, where both institutions share faculty members, said Peter Ricketts, Carleton’s vice-president (academic).
Carleton and Dominican will remain separate employers for their faculty, Ricketts said.
Like courses at the University of Ottawa, Carleton students have always been able to take courses at Dominican using a letter of permission. With the affiliation agreement, the process will be much more simplified, according to Ricketts.
Dominican students count as Carleton students, so that their college can get more money from the province, Ricketts said. This means Dominican has to make sure it meets Carleton’s academic standard, and have its programs approved by Carleton’s Senate, which is Carleton’s highest academic decision-making body.
Carleton will oversee Dominican’s programs through what is called an institutional quality assurance process (IQAP). According to the IQAP manual, the measurements include: how the program compares to those overseas, how the program contributes to other disciplines at Carleton, how well university graduates are doing and how many books a professor wrote and edited.
The relationship between Carleton and Dominican compares to that of the University of Ottawa and St. Paul University, where the latter receives all its provincial funding through the former, Ricketts said.
The request to transfer Dominican’s provincial funding through Carleton came from Ontario’s Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, Ricketts said.
“Affiliating DUC to Carleton was more efficient and less costly than establishing DUC as a stand-alone, full-status university,” Ricketts explained.
Increased funding will let Dominican hire new faculty members, which will help improve its programs, Ricketts said.
“In the past, DUC only got partial provincial funding for its programs because it was not affiliated with a university,” Ricketts said.
Since last spring, Dominican students have been using Carleton’s library, archives and resources, and have been receiving diplomas issued by Carleton and Dominican.
Carleton has issued a series of recommendations on the new conjoint programs, which will now head to Ontario Universities Council on Quality Assurance which will review them and make a final decision on approval. Once the process is completed a summary document is produced for public information, Ricketts said.
Dominican’s programs will go through Carleton’s review every seven to eight years, Ricketts said.
Dominican president Maxime Allard was not available for comment.
