In accordance with the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Institutional Quality Assurance Process (IQAP), this Final Assessment Report (FAR) provides a synthesis of the external evaluation and internal response and assessments of the undergraduate programs offered by the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities in Military and Strategic Studies (MSS). This report identifies the significant strengths of the programs, together with opportunities for 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; and timelines for acting on and monitoring the implementation of those recommendations.
Overview of Program Review Process
The Program Self-Study Report was completed in May 2022. For the programs under review (B.A. (Honours) Military and Strategic Studies and B.A. Military and Strategic Studies) 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. For the External Review Committee (ERC), two arm’s-length external reviewers, Prof. Carl Benn, professor, Department of History, Toronto Metropolitan University, and Prof. Kim Richard Nossal, professor emeritus, Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s University, were selected from a list of possible reviewers and approved by the Dean of Social Science and Humanities. An internal reviewer, Prof. Ranwa Al Mallah, assistant professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Royal Military College, was also selected for participation on the ERC. They reviewed the self-study documentation and conducted an on-site visit to RMC from 27 to 28 February 2023. During the site visit, the ERC met with the VP Academic, VP Research, the Director of Quality Assurance, the interim Dean of Social Science and Humanities, the former Chair of the MSS program, faculty members, students registered in the programs under study, the librarian-in-chief, the PE curriculum program coordinator, the Director of the Language Centre and the VP in Indigenous Learning and Knowledge.
The reviewers submitted their report on 11 April 2023. In their report, the ERC expresses the opinion that this program conforms to normal expectations for an undergraduate degree, noting, of course, the unusual and unique role and mission of the Royal Military College of Canada in training officers for a career in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Significant Strengths and Areas of Concern of the Program
The ERC identified a number of strengths of the MSS program:
- The program is well-regarded judging by the formal responses to surveys, and the feedback that we received from both current students and alumni; and
- The success rate of students registered in the program is solid.
The ERC identified a number of areas of concern for the MSS program:
- The curriculum and how it is decided;
- Francophone education and relations with CMR Saint-Jean;
- Lack of library and research resources; and
- Administration of the program.
The Program Chair, after consultation with faculty and staff in the programs, submitted a response to the ERC Report on 16 May 2023. The Dean of Social Science and Humanities prepared this Final Assessment Report on 25 May, 2023. Specific recommendations are discussed, and follow-up actions and timelines provided.
Summary of the Reviewers’ Recommendations with Dean’s Responses
The ERC identified several areas of concern or issues that require attention. These issues are discussed in the order that they appear in the ERC Report:
Recommendation 1
Core Curriculum: we recommend that the appropriate authorities at RMC consider making a marginal alteration in the Core Curriculum to permit a small amount of greater flexibility for students.
Departmental Response:
While MSS agrees with this recommendation, its implementation extends beyond the capacity of MSS programme. ERC suggests marginal changes in the College core curriculum. While the report gives examples of mathematics and science courses, the recommendation is general and calls for marginal changes in Core courses in other areas too. Both Political Science and History departments have completed their IQAP processes and submitted their responses. Both departments suggest ways to address some of these issues.
To provide some context it is important to note that RMC had set up a Core Curriculum Review Committee (CCRC) a few years ago. The CCRC has submitted its final report on July 2020. Its recommendation #6 reads as follow:
“The Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, and the equivalent faculty at CMRSJ, should review the requirement for mathematics (especially calculus) and information technology courses for all programmes to determine if there are more appropriate topics in those subject areas for each programme, while ensuring that the Proposed Learning Outcomes are still met”.
Dean’s Response:
While we understand the need for more flexibility in terms of courses offered in the Core Curriculum, it is somehow difficult to “reduce” the number of courses as they are mandatory for
all programs. Such changes would need to be studied carefully in order to make a sound decision. While the interim Dean of SSH understands the ERC recommendation, its
interpretation seems to speak directly to “courses” that are relevant to the MSS program. This latter comment is linked to Recommendation 2. If courses offered by the History and Politics
departments are reviewed and more in sync with the needs of the MSS program, it might be easier to expand the course selection and to avoid duplication.
Note: Recommendation 3 suggests the creation of a MSS Program Committee. This committee should be in place in order to address issues that are highlighted throughout this report. This committee will review the courses offered by the History and Political departments, and discuss the needs of the MSS programme in terms of course offerings.
VPA’s response:
The Core Curriculum is a differentiator between RMC and civilian universities in Canada. Although it is important to have the flexibility of course choices within a program, it is of utmost importance that RMC continues to deliver the Core Curriculum to all our programs. This was specifically highlighted in the report by the Core Curriculum Review Committee.
Recommendation 2
MSS curriculum: we recommend that the MSS curriculum be revisited with an eye to providing a broader and more relevant course matrix, and that the reforms of the course matrixes in History and Political Science recommended in their IQAP reports to reduce duplication and address gaps be informed by the needs of the MSS program.
Departmental Response:
MSS agrees with this recommendation. The report finds that the MSS definition of security study needs to be expanded. The reviewers suggest adding new topics (new courses) to the MSS mandatory and elective courses. These topics are climate change; the threat to liberal democracy, civil society, and security – both domestic and international – posed by populism, misinformation, and the exploitation of technology for nefarious ends; intelligence gathering, cyber-warfare and cyber-security; indigenous and gender issues; and finally more geographical breadth in course offerings. The report recommends retiring the two credit peace keeping courses (MSS mandatory credits) and replacing them with three new courses.
The responses by both Political Science and History departments to their respective ERC recommendations largely reflect the need to revisit their offerings for MSS in order to reduce duplications and address gaps. Both Departments included some of these topics (ex. gender, indigenous) in their courses syllabi and work toward hiring indigenous and broader regional studies faculty.
Dean’s Response:
As mentioned in recommendation 1, recommendation 2 addresses the issue of duplication and the possibility of expanding the course selection. As an example, the external report suggests the creation of new courses in order to broader the scope of topics to study. This recommendation is crucial as it brings to the forefront the necessity to update the program by offering courses that are more relevant to the current political climate as well as understanding issues (ex: indigenous) from an historical perspective.
As mentioned in the Note above, the MSS Program committee will review course offerings as well as the creation of new courses.
Recommendation 3
MSS Program Committee: we recommend that the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities convene a permanent standing MSS Program Committee, with the chair of the Program as chair, and appropriate membership drawn from across the Faculty, to consider the MSS curriculum.
Departmental Response:
MSS Chair is required to attend the weekly Heads-Plus meetings led by the Dean of SSH. All seven departments and programmes regularly engage in consultation and planning by this mechanism. Another mechanism is the Syllabus Committee where MSS Chair is required to attend in order to represent the needs of the programme in relations to any suggested changes affecting MSS Curriculum. That being said, the ERC’ suggestion to create MSS programme committee (convened by the Dean and chaired by MSS Chair) could be an interesting step in order to formalize and enhance the systematic consultations between the contributing departments.
Following recommendation 4, the ERC report also adds a paragraph suggesting ideas (and not a recommendation) in order to address the francophone education and relationship with CMR Saint-Jean. This is an ongoing concern and needs to be addressed at the higher management levels of the two colleges in consultation with respective programmes and departments.
Dean’s Response:
This recommendation echoes what was said in recommendation 2. We reiterate the need to create a committee with members of contributing departments to discuss the MSS curriculum. The chair of MSS is invited as soon as possible, and in consultation with the Dean of SSH, to take the lead in creating this committee. While the MSS program “borrows” courses from departments (mostly History and Politics) to deliver their program, ownership of the program belongs to MSS. Therefore, it is imperative that MSS takes control of course offerings to meet their needs.
Moreover, the relationship with CMR St-Jean is also important as courses from both institutions (especially for francophones) can contribute to enhance the breadth of MSS programs. It is true
that management usually deals with these issues, however, we recommend that the Chair of MSS takes the lead in initiating, informal communication with St-Jean in order to survey what needs to be done in order to make this collaboration possible.
Recommendation 4
MSS courses: we recommend that the MSS Program be given the right — and an appropriate budget — to mount their own courses when in the view of the MSS Program Committee a course should be offered, but which is not able to be offered by a line department.
Departmental Response:
This recommendation could be read in symbiotic relation to the previous one. ERC suggests that MSS is required to have its own budget in order to create courses of its own initiative if not offered by other departments. ERC suggests five to six courses (in topics suggested above) in both languages addressing the specific needs of MSS. These courses could also be offered as electives for wider RMC students beyond MSS. As the report says, such new MSS specific courses would require part-time hires or borrowing faculty resources from other departments. One imperfect way to go about implementing this recommendation is to include these topics in the syllabi of already MSS mandatory courses. That being said the report seems to suggest creating entirely new courses covering these topics.
Dean’s Response:
The interim dean of SSH supports this recommendation with a certain caveat. While MSS has to rely on other departments for their courses, it would beneficial for MSS to consider having
courses that belong specifically to their programs. However, the interim dean does not think that MSS need (at the moment) to have their own budget to create new courses. As already
mentioned in this review, courses from History and Politics need revision in order to offer courses more aligned with current worldviews. In reviewing their courses, the MSS Program
committee should revisit their offerings keeping in mind the requirement for creating new courses for MSS. In doing so, the creation of new courses would be cost neutral. In case there is
a need for part-time hires, the SSH Faculty – in consultation with the VPA – would revisit the requirement for resources.
Recommendation 5
Library: because of the significant problem posed by the lack of access to JSTOR, we recommend that this matter be pursued at the most senior level — the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the College — to appropriate authorities in the Government of Canada and/or to the Council of Ontario Universities with an eye to securing RMC access to this facility
Departmental Response:
MSS agrees. This is a lingering issue raised by previous self-study and ERC reports. Although RMC library was very helpful during pandemics making efforts to facilitate research for faculty and students, we recognize that the bilingual resources (including peer-reviewed journals databases) are in dire need to be improved.
Chief Librarian’s response:
Between the recommendation and responses, there are two identified issues: access to JSTOR, and, access to bilingual resources
JSTOR
- PSPC (Public Services and Procurement Canada) has been unable to contract with JSTOR on behalf of government libraries. There was no response to PSPC’s last attempt to contact JSTOR within the last 18 months. Previously, the two parties had been unable to agree on a license and walked away from a potential contract. Knowing the history, it would have been unethical, to say the least, for RMC to bypass PSPC and subscribe directly to JSTOR, if it was even possible. (See below for the 2012 change in delegation of authorities, which has a bearing on what RMC could or could not do.)
- There are approximately 4500 titles in JSTOR’s 2023 list. Some are obscure, cover disciplines of minimal interest to RMC (art, religion, music, medicine, zoology, etc.) or they are in languages other than English or French (German, Spanish, Hebrew, Italian, etc.). To mitigate the lack of JSTOR, over the last few years the Library has been buying JSTOR-equivalent content through National Master Standing Offers (NMSOs) with several of the largest academic publishers. When extra funds became available, RMC used the NMSOs to purchase backfiles on the JSTOR list from Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, SAGE or Taylor and Francis. By the end of FY 2023, 207 titles had been purchased, with more noted for future years.
- RMC’s contracting difficulties date from 2012, when the delegation of authorities for Chief Librarians within DND changed. This affected RMC’s contracting with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) consortium, meaning there were several years without a contract for CRKN subscriptions. It took until 2020 for PSPC to re-establish a contract. The contract covers the subscription years 2021-2023, which means renewing the contract this year. JSTOR is listed among CRKN’s current offers. When RMC obtains quotes for the next CRKN contract (quotes, summer 2023), JSTOR will be on RMC’s list. Price range est. $10-15K USD. PSPC will be responsible for the contract. In the interest of openness, transparency, and full disclosure, the PSPC buyer must be informed there is history between PSPC and JSTOR. If PSPC declines or fails to include JSTOR, that may be the time for a briefing note and further action.
Bilingual (English/French) resources
- Bilingual resources with bilingual interfaces and bilingual content are rare in a market dominated by English language publishers, although searches mediated through the EBSCO Discovery System (EDS) and various EBSCO databases, may be conducted in either language depending on how the user sets their language preference. Some EBSCO results can be translated into another language on screen, though not pdfs of journal articles.
- Increasing French language resources is a priority for the Library, especially ebooks. The Library welcomes recommendations/suggestions of new resources.
- Current French language resources – ARTFL, CAIRN journals (585), Dictionnaire Usito, Érudit journals (320), « Repère index : Notices d'articles de périodiques en langue française », « Vente et gestion » database
- Current availability of ebooks - Canada Commons contains 62,244 French language titles, Proquest ebooks Central, 47, EBSCO ebooks, 577, Scholars Portal, 37,823.
- Newly acquired French language resources – CAIRN ebooks (17,000), CAIRN “Que sais-je?” series (1000), Archives of sexuality & Gender: L Enfer de la Bibliotheque Nationale de France (2111)
Dean’s Response:
The interim dean of SSH agrees that access to bilingual resources via the library is a challenge but not impossible as there are different sites and e-books available to students and professors.
While this issue was mentioned in the ERC report, the interim dean of SSH suggests that the MSS chair communicates with the Chief librarian for more information about what is available
and not available. Moreover, faculty members have the opportunity to arrange a formal visit to the library to help students get familiar with what is offered. In addition, this formal visit could
coincide with an assignment on a certain topic.
Recommendation 6
Administration: we recommend that:
- The chair of the MSS be allocated an office, and that that office be the designated location of the MSS Program;
- The MSS Program be allocated an appropriate budget each year to offset the non-course costs incurred in providing non-instructional activities for MSS students;
- An administrative staff person be identified whose responsibility it would be to advise students on course access; and
- The MSS information on the RMC website be kept up to date.
Departmental Response:
On points a and b, it should be noted that MSS Chair is alternately selected from the faculty members of History and political Science departments. Currently MSS Chairs are using their own offices to run MSS business. On Point b, the only fund MSS Chair can apply for to support MSS extracurricular activities (ex. Student trips, events…) is through RMC foundation. Expanding such resources could improve the programme’ capacity to support a wide range of extracurricular activities. On point c, acquiring an admin staff to support MSS daily business, would be a significant assistance to MSS Chair. On point d, the MSS Chair (or the new admin staff) in cooperation with RMC Support IT need to regularly update MSS info on RMC website.
Dean’s Response:
Having a designated office for the MSS chair is a good suggestion. However, it might be difficult to materialize due to the lack of available space. At the moment, the use of their offices
compensates for that lack of space. This recommendation could be considered in the future if it becomes an issue that has a negative impact on the program. At the moment, the MSS extra
curriculum activities are funded through the RMC Foundation. The Foundation is supportive of students’ activities and the MSS chair should continue to request funds from them. The dean of
SSH could absorb some costs as well. However, those costs need to be planned in advance and included into the Dean’s budget. The request for an administrative assistant is difficult to justify
especially for the reasons highlighted. Administrative assistants don’t deal with scheduling issues and website updates. We suggest that a course advisor be appointed by the MSS chair in order to respond to questions related to courses. As this person would deal with courses, they would be aware of changes that need to be reported to the RMC website master. However, if the MSS chair wants to explore the possibility for an Admin Assis, a needs analysis should be done prior to any discussion.
Implementation Plan
| Recommendation | Proposed Follow-up | Responsibility for Leading Follow-up | Timeline for Addressing Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1. Core Curriculum: we recommend that the appropriate authorities at RMC consider making a marginal alteration in the Core Curriculum to permit a small amount of greater flexibility for students |
This is a college wide process and extends beyond the terms of references of the MSS Chair |
MSS chair and the Dean of SSH | Note: To be reviewed once recommendations 2 and 3 are completed as the need to revise the Core curriculum may be addressed. |
| 2. MSS curriculum: we recommend that the MSS curriculum be revisited with an eye to providing a broader and more relevant course matrix, and that the reforms of the course matrixes in History and Political Science recommended in their IQAP reports to reduce duplication and addresses gaps be informed by the needs of the MSS program. | In their IQAP reports, both History and Political Science Departments have recommended changes in their curriculum with impact on MSS curriculum. | MSS Chair; MSS Program committee |
Target: 2023-2024 with a revision every two years (maximum) |
| 3. MSS Program Committee: we recommend that the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities convene a permanent standing MSS Program Committee to consider the MSS curriculum. | MSS Committee could be pursued as a future step to formalize the inter-programmes cooperation and to enhance MSS initiatives. |
MSS Chair, History and Political Science heads and the Dean of SSH in consultation with the office of the registrar |
Initiate in fall 2023 Action 2024 |
| 4. MSS courses: we recommend that the MSS Program be given the right to mount their own courses when in the view of the MSS Program Committee a course should be offered. |
The implementation has resource implications for new courses. The program has suggested exploring including MSS topics in existing MSS mandatory courses. |
MSS, History and Political Science Heads in consultation with the Dean of SSH and the registrar | Course review by MSS committee in 2024-2025 |
| 5. Library: because of the significant problem posed by the lack of access to JSTOR, we recommend that this matter be pursued at the most senior level to the appropriate authorities. | This recommendation needs to be met ASAP in order to facilitate research and teaching at more generally to diversify the pedagogical resources including peer viewed and primary references. |
MSS Chair, Chief librarian, Dean of SSH, Department Heads, and VPA in consultation with the Principal |
Fall 2023 |
| 6.
Administration: we recommend that:
|
MSS Program committee | MSS Chair, Dean of SSH and VPA. |
Partially complete
|
Conclusion:
The ERC Report provided positive feedback on the outcomes of the undergraduate programs in Military and Strategic Studies and confirmed that the RMC is delivering solid program according to the undergraduate degree expectations. However, the ERC did identify areas that had room for improvement, and RMC is, or has already taken, taking steps to address the issues raised. RMC will continue to work toward program enhancement and improve student success in the History program.
The Dean of Social Science and Humanities, in consultation with the program Chair for MSS, is responsible for monitoring the Implementation Plan.