

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO FINAL REPORT of the TASK FORCE ON GRADUATE STUDENT FINANCIAL SUPPORT May 31, 2000

This Final Report is also available as Word and Excel documents.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPENDICES

This report represents a very significant achievement and I am grateful to the members of the Task Force for their hard work. I am very pleased with the report's recommendations which embody general principles of equity and accountability and are, at the same time, practical in their orientation. The report also underscores the challenge that faces the University, particularly in addressing the current shortfall in financial resources required to bring graduate funding to the level prescribed in the report.

It is very important that we proceed quickly and decisively to close this gap, so that the aspirational goal of the report quickly becomes a reality for our graduate students.

In my response, I have outlined some steps already taken, including a commitment I have made from the University's budget in the amount of $9.4 million for graduate assistance over the next four years. In addition, the release of the report coincides with a very welcome announcement by the provincial government, involving a substantial increase to the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program. This announcement creates a tremendous opportunity for the University to considerably increase, through its fundraising activities, its resources for graduate assistance. I will shortly announce a matching program for Ontario Graduate Scholarships in the humanities and social sciences which should have a substantial impact in raising the level of graduate funding for students in those disciplines.

In my opinion, this report signals the beginning of a new era in the delivery of graduate funding at this University and provides a framework for this process. I believe that the University of Toronto is well positioned to make significant strides in its ability to attract excellent graduate students and to compete with the best research-intensive universities in North America in recruiting students to our programs.

Funding Packages

Recommendations for Minimum Funding Packages

That the university, SGS, faculties, and graduate units work towards providing a guaranteed minimum level of financial support to all of its doctoral-stream students equivalent to $12,000 per year (indexed according to cost-of-living) plus tuition (domestic or visa) for the first 5 years of study, including, where necessary, 1 year at the master's level. (As part of this process, it is assumed that units will undergo a review of their programs to define master's students who are legitimately in a doctoral-stream, versus those who are legitimately in a terminal master's.) The Task Force believes that, while $12,000 plus tuition is an achievable target in the short term, a more appropriate goal is $15,000 plus tuition. The Task Force also believes that high need students will naturally require higher levels of funding. That units undergo graduate student enrolment planning with regard to academic priorities, supervisory capacity and critical mass, such that available funds can match the number of students registered. As part of this process, graduate units are encouraged to consider possibilities such as direct entry into their PhD programs. To the extent that funding is provided by internal sources, units should strive to achieve equity between students with respect to the ratio between direct grants such as U of T Fellowships and awards that may require work, such as TA and RA positions. In particular, units should be cognizant of the impact of TA hours on available research time and endeavour to provide a similar ratio of award/grant funding to TA hours, to all students in the unit. That each unit establish a coherent funding policy that is well advertised, transparent and reviewed annually by the unit. Units whose doctoral program requirements typically take longer than four years, or master's program requirements longer than one year, should also make clear what (if any) funding is available following the end of the minimum term of funding guaranteed by the university.

I endorse wholeheartedly the recommendations for minimum guaranteed packages of support. As the report notes, these recommendations flow from, and fulfill an objective first raised in the Tuohy-McCammond report. I believe that the principles developed for the formulation of these packages are fair and well-reasoned. I am pleased that the Task Force has acknowledged the principle that graduate funding must be responsive to the requirements of high need students and, furthermore, that international students will require packages which takes into account their higher fees. I will work vigorously with all the Deans and SGS to ensure that faculties and graduate units become fully engaged in achieving and implementing these packages in compliance with the principles set down in this document. I appreciate the concern raised that high need students require access to additional or special sources of funding. Accordingly, I will explore the possibility of consolidating both the funding sources and counselling for graduate students in need of emergency and bursary assistance in one central office, (such as the Office of Student Awards) to ensure an expeditious consideration and processing of their applications.

I also strongly support the emphasis in the report on graduate enrolment planning. This has been a longstanding objective in my own planning agenda and has a central place in the planning strategies articulated in "Raising our Sights". I will continue to work closely with the Deans of the various academic divisions to develop graduate enrolment plans which are tailored to their academic strengths and priorities and to supervisory capacity. As part of this process, there will inevitably be contraction in enrolment in some areas as well as some increase in enrolments in areas of research strength and potential.

I endorse the concept that graduate units should have a policy that is well advertised, transparent and which it reviews annually. I also agree that students should be made aware of what funding options are available to them in master's programs which take longer than one year or doctoral programs which exceed four years.

Post-4 Funding

Recommendations

That post-4 doctoral students be provided with an as-of-right completion grant for years 5 and 6 of their program (and 7 where an extension is approved), equivalent to $2,500 per year, effective September 2000. This grant would be a supplement to current sources and streams of funding for graduate students, but could be a component of any guaranteed minimum funding package. That the effectiveness of this grant in providing financial relief, influencing time-to-degree, impact upon numbers of post-4 students, etc. be assessed over a four-year period of operation, with a view to either continuing the program, limiting the program to certain divisions and/or re-directing the money to alternate programs. Whatever the decision, this money must remain targeted towards doctoral-stream student support. That units review, and where necessary modify their programs, such that they are consistent with a reasonable time-to-degree for the discipline.

The Task Force provides a compelling argument for providing additional assistance to the current cohort of graduate students in the post-4 years. I support the recommendation for some form of bursary assistance to some students in this category.

It is also important that the University continue its efforts to encourage students to complete their programs in a timely fashion. I recognize that requirements for some programs take longer than four years, particularly those in which there are language requirements or fieldwork. These are requirements that are essential to a doctoral degree in that discipline, and improve the marketability of our graduates. In other programs, there are elements which increase the time-to-degree but which have arguably less pedagogical merit and should be re-evaluated. As in many other North American universities, the lengthy time-to-degree in many programs continues to be a source of concern within our institution. In response, efforts have been made to reduce this and to rationalize graduate programs and to provide incentives to students (such as the Dissertation Fellowship and the Career Research and Development Fellowships) to encourage them to complete their degree requirements in a timely fashion. These are initiatives which I strongly support and will continue to support, working with Deans and graduate units.

I agree that an as-of-right bursary be provided, effective September 2000 , to students in Years 5 and 6 for a four-year period, after which its efficacy will be assessed. While I can appreciate the Task Force's reasoning for providing some form of post-4 funding, I fail to see a rationale for extending this funding to students in Year 7. I am concerned that to extend the bursary beyond the sixth year might nullify the positive effect of the incentives to completion that have been introduced (and proven to be very successful) in areas where completion times tend to be longer. I think it is a more prudent use of limited central funds to direct more funding to students at an earlier point in their programs. I will work with the Deans and SGS to ensure that programs are reviewed such that they are consistent with a reasonable time-to-degree for the discipline.

Ways to eliminate the shortfall in funding for graduate students

As the Task Force has demonstrated, the shortfall will need to be addressed using an ensemble of strategies, including fund-raising, central operating budget support, divisional funds, and advocacy to agencies and government. Since the release of the Task Force report, there have been a number of promising developments, including increases in government funding, which I will discuss below. These will help to reduce significantly the shortfall much sooner than might have been anticipated at the time that the Task Force was preparing its report.

Fund-raising

Recommendation

That the university's campaign continue to have as a high priority the raising of funds for graduate student support and that the central advancement office should coordinate a University-wide effort to raise the additional $200 million by 2004. These funds would support the elimination of both the shortfall of minimum funding and enable the creation of larger packages in programs of research strength, making these programs internationally competitive.

I strongly support the recommendation to continue our fund-raising efforts with respect to graduate assistance, but believe that $100 million is a more attainable goal, one which I am confident we can meet within the current planning period. The University is currently very well positioned to realize substantial gains for graduate students through its fund-raising initiatives. The recent announcement of a dramatic increase in provincial funding for Ontario Graduate Scholarships has created a tremendous fund-raising opportunity for the University. I will announce shortly a matching program aimed specifically at maximizing the benefits of this program for the humanities and social science.

Parenthetically (and as noted in the report), there was about $3.5 million in OSOTF funding that in 1998-99 had not yet been transferred to, or allocated by, graduate units. These funds will also help significantly to reduce the shortfall.

Advocacy to Government Funding Programs

Recommendations

That the university, its faculties, SGS, and graduate units seek new ways to obtain new funds from outside the university, using existing student award funds as leverage. Since most graduate units will autonomously manage student award funds, creative ways to obtain new dollars from external granting agencies, industry, and endowments should be promoted through matching programs. Granting agencies such as the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) may plan program grant competitions for funding graduate students in specific fields of research. That the university promote increased funding from the province and seek matched (endowment) funding as often as possible e.g., OGS and OGSST-equivalents, PREA, as recommended in "Growing Ontario's Innovation System: The Strategic Role of University Research." That the university's leadership advocate for greater allocation of funds for graduate student awards by Federal granting agencies, e.g., NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR.

I endorse all of these recommendations. Since the release of this report, there have been very positive developments in the funding picture for graduate students, developments which were largely attributable to lobbying efforts by the university system. In the May 2000 budget, the Ontario government announced that the number of Ontario Graduate Scholarships would be increased by more than 50 percent and the value of each scholarship increased to $15,000. The full extent of this funding is premised on a match from the University in the amount of $3.5 million annually (or the equivalent of a $70 million endowment). In conjunction with the matching program I am establishing, I will direct the Deans to establish as a high divisional priority the raising of funds to fully exploit the government's commitment. As part of this process, it is critical that individual graduate units take ownership of the process of seeking and raising funds for their graduate students, particularly in disciplines in which graduate funding assistance is very limited. The provincial government also announced a doubling of the number of PREA awards, awards given to faculty members specifically for graduate student and postdoctoral fellow support in the sciences.

As these recent developments demonstrate, the advocacy in which our institutional leadership has engaged and the connections we have established have had remarkably positive consequences. I recently met with Marc Renaud, the President of SSHRC, who was very interested in the work of the Task Force and was very eager to use its findings to press for better funding for students in the humanities and social sciences. I am hopeful that this meeting will have positive ramifications for funding in the social sciences and humanities. Finally, it is critical that, at all levels, we be continually attentive to possibilities for allocating funding to graduate students through existing and newly created research programs, such as the 21st Century Chairs.

Distribution of Funding across/within Graduate Units

Recommendations

That the current distribution of funding within and across graduate units be examined. The university should seek ways to promote equalisation of minimum funding for all doctoral-stream students based on the available external resources to individual graduate units (consistent with the guarantee). That the current distribution of funding in all graduate units be re-examined and that a process be initiated that would allow some redistribution of funding, based on current need and accessibility to external awards, through an APF process. That, in determining the distribution of current and new funding, faculty and units should not be penalised for having access to research grants, and that research grants should not be overburdened as a component of the guaranteed minimum level of financial support.

I agree with the general thrust of these recommendations. As noted in the report, the flow of funding from external sources has favoured disciplines in the sciences and applied sciences and I anticipate that it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The recently announced changes to the OGS program present a timely opportunity for the University to increase substantially its level of graduate assistance. In the short term, it is incumbent on both the central and divisional leadership of the University to direct new funding to disciplines in which doctoral-stream students have much lower levels of assistance. This process of redistribution will of course be combined with the other measures cited in the report which will have implications for graduate assistance levels, including vigorous fund-raising, graduate enrolment planning and a rigorous examination by program of students' time-to-degree.

Internal Sources of Funding

Recommendations

That the university identify and, wherever possible, redirect revenues to graduate student funding, as follows: The university should make significant investments to the graduate assistance budget to help those students in areas of greatest need, beginning September 2000.

Faculty-based endowments that have no specific designation should be reassigned to graduate student funding.

The university should ensure that all funds raised during the OSOTF campaign be transferred to their target units as quickly as possible.

The university should use a portion of any future pension contribution holidays as a source of matching funds, developing matching programs that are attractive and appropriate to different disciplinary groups.

The university should re-examine Connaught Fund allocations, directing as much as possible towards graduate assistance, and also re-evaluate its strategy for matching funds.

I agree with all of these recommendations. I am very pleased to report that, in response to the release of this report, I recommended to the Planning and Budget Committee the provision of new base funding for graduate aid in the amount of $2.7M in 2000-01, increasing to $9.4 million over the next four years.

The recommendations contained in the second, third, fourth and fifth bullets will require action by Deans and other Vice-Presidents. I will bring these to their attention and encourage them to implement these recommendations or explore their feasibility as soon as possible.

OISE/UT

Recommendation

That OISE/UT be given full consideration in the process of achieving guaranteed minimum levels of funding and in obtaining access to new sources of graduate assistance funding in accordance with the principles articulated in this report.

I agree with this recommendation. I am very pleased with OISE/UT's determination to raise the level of graduate assistance for their students, as signalled by the recent request in their plan for $1 million from the Academic Priorities Fund to be put toward graduate student assistance. Under the integration agreement, OISE/UT has only very limited access to general graduate assistance funds such as the U of T fellowships until the end of that agreement in June, 2006. We might wish to consider the implications of ending this agreement before June 30, 2006.

Next Steps

Monitoring of Implementation of Task Force Recommendations

Recommendations

That, following the Task Force, the university establish an advisory committee to the Provost with representation from SGS and students and faculty from all graduate divisions, to ensure stewardship of graduate student funding and that strategies for eliminating the shortfall are being implemented effectively and expeditiously. That OISE/UT be represented on the advisory committee to the Provost in order to facilitate communication between the advisory committee and the OISE/UT Dean's Committee on Student Funding

I endorse these recommendations and will move immediately to establish an advisory committee to monitor our progress in graduate student funding. The Vice-Provost, Students will oversee the implementation of the Task Force Report and distribution of the new funding, and ensure that all divisions are working steadily toward the goal of minimum funding packages for its doctoral-stream students.

Data Collection

Recommendations

That the university and SGS maintain ongoing and up-to-date information on graduate student funding through the graduate units, faculties, and SGS, working closely with the university data management systems. That the University set as a high priority the integration of various administrative data systems (AMS, ROSI) such that funding can be analyzed and reports generated in a routine fashion by graduate units, faculties, SGS, and the university.

I support these recommendations. A project team has already been formed to build a Student Income Cube that will facilitate the integration of systems and provide the data needed to support the implement of the recommendations of the Task Force. I will work with SGS, faculties, and graduate units to achieve a coordinated approach to the generation of data on an ongoing basis.

Other Issues

Travel, Research and Conference Funds

Recommendations

That funding for research activities be extended, either through an increase in the size of, or change in the terms of reference of, the SGS fund established for this purpose and/or through the creation of divisional funds. That, in addition, faculties and graduate units establish funds to help students cover travel, conference, equipment and other costs related to professional development and to completion of degree requirements.

I agree with these recommendations and will work with the Deans of SGS and the other faculties to explore ways of increasing funding for these purposes.

Post-graduation Status

Recommendation

Units might consider establishing forms of post-graduation status (such as limited-term adjunct or research associate positions) in order to provide some infrastructure support for career development/achievement of their graduate students. Non-teaching research centres and institutes could also be canvassed for their ability to provide similar forms of affiliation.

I support and will convey this recommendation to the Deans.

(end of Provost's Response; Final Report follows)

Graduate education is a core function of a research university. A great research university may be renowned for the quality of its undergraduate experience or its exceptional professional programs, but its reputation as an outstanding research university is largely founded on its capacity to attract and support faculty with a passion for scholarly research, its emphasis on linking research and education through graduate studies, and its ability to recruit, mentor, support, and retain exceptional graduate students.

In order to advance its reputation as a great research university, the University of Toronto must ensure that its graduate programs have the capacity to attract excellent Canadian and international graduate students and that these students receive the necessary academic and financial support. The University of Toronto's leadership position among research universities can only be sustained if its graduate programs can remain competitive in terms of recruiting exceptional students.

One approach to meeting this important challenge was identified in the Policy on Student Financial Support, ensuing from the Tuohy/McCammond Task Force on Tuition and Student Financial Support, approved by Governing Council in April, 1998. Within this policy, the university stated that "the goal of the University of Toronto should be to give doctoral-stream students multi-year packages of support that are competitive with packages offered by peer universities". Multi-year packages of funding will allow the University of Toronto to attract the very best graduate students, and thereby maintain its leadership role in research excellence.

In December, 1999, Provost Adel Sedra announced the formation of a Task Force which would evaluate the university's progress in achieving this goal. The terms of reference of the Task Force are:

to assess the full annual value of the packages of support provided to doctoral-stream students, by School of Graduate Studies (SGS) division, broken down by category and source of funding

to gather information about support packages at other universities

to make recommendations with respect to `post-4' fees

to make recommendations on how best the university can achieve its goal of providing multi-year packages of support to doctoral-stream students.

There have been a number of positive developments in graduate funding since the release of the Tuohy/McCammond report. They include:

the introduction of the OGSST (Ontario Graduate Scholarship for Science and Technology) for scholarship support in science and technology: $2.6 million annually. This will provide 173 students/year with $15,000, (the university is urging the government to continue the program and to double the amount of funding);

this year the Provost contributed $1,000,000 from the Academic Priorities Fund (APF) toward graduate fellowships and began funding (to amount to $1 million) for international student fee waivers;

the Premier's Research Excellence (PREA) awards have been given to faculty members specifically for graduate student and postdoctoral fellow support in the sciences; and

as a result of the restructuring of SGS, $850,000 in funds have been moved from SGS administrative budget to graduate fellowships budget.

in 1997, the Provost gave $350,000 in base budget funding to OISE/UT for student assistance.

The membership of the Task Force is listed in Appendix 1. The Task Force met on 14 occasions, between January and May of 2000. As part of its work, it invited submissions from the university community (see Appendix 2 for list of submissions) and held an open meeting with interested faculty and students. In addition, members of the Task Force met with SGS executive committees and the Chair attended a GSU council meeting and an open meeting organized by graduate students at Massey College. A consultation draft was posted on the Web, and a second open meeting was held to receive feedback from the community.

The creation of the Task Force coincided with a labour dispute with CUPE 3902, the union representing the teaching assistants. At the time of its first meeting, the teaching assistants were on strike. The Task Force therefore began its work in a very difficult political context, one which both intensified the focus on its work within the community and raised expectations.

From its own membership, the Task Force struck three working groups, each charged with analyzing and making recommendations with respect to key dimensions of its mandate. One group examined the issue of funding to `post-4' students; a second considered guidelines for establishing multi-year packages of funding; and a third working group developed proposals for ways of generating revenues to fund those packages.

The Task Force received 109 submissions (see Appendix 2 for a list of the authors of the submissions and Appendix 3 for a summary of the main issues raised). The number and intensity of the submissions attest to the tremendous interest the work of the Task Force generated. One theme, however, was consistent: graduate students have very serious concerns about the level of financial support they are receiving. These submissions were very informative to the Task Force. They helped to provide insight into the circumstances of students in a wide variety of disciplines and, by doing so, helped to inform its thinking and recommendations. The submissions also reinforced the diversity of students and graduate programs across the university and provoked particular concerns about the implications of the report's recommendations for their needs or areas. The Task Force believes that this is a healthy by-product of its work and is hopeful that its report will stimulate debate and, where warranted, improvements to graduate funding practices in ways that respond to local or more specific concerns.

The Task Force would not have been able to do its work without reliable, current data. It wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the formidable efforts of five staff members responsible for collecting and organizing the background data and information: Ken Debaeremaeker, Martin England, and Mary McGee from the Planning and Budget Office; and Soobong Song and Heather Walters from the School of Graduate Studies.

The Task Force examined data on enrolment and financial support from 1998-99. Data for OISE/UT were collected and analyzed separately because it is not part of the SGS financial awards database. Data from OISE/UT had to be generated specifically to meet the analytical needs of the Task Force. Similarly, data for students in the Faculty of Medicine had to be generated separately since some of their funding flows from the affiliated hospitals.

The data tend to under-report current sources of funding in disciplines where relatively new endowments (such as those raised during the OSOTF campaign) have not yet been allocated to students (approximately $3.5 million) and, in some areas, because of systemic problems in assigning TA expenditures to individual students. In 1999-00, the OGSST (Ontario Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology) was introduced, providing $2.6 million to 173 students at $15,000/each. These award data are not included.

A total of $69,135,748 (excluding OISE/UT) is currently distributed to graduate students in the form of fellowships, TA-ships and RA-ships. Table 1A shows the distribution of these forms of funding across the various divisions and graduate units of SGS.

Divisions I (Humanities) and II (Social Sciences) have the lowest total amount of funding: $11,334,254 and $10,041,323 respectively (excluding OSAP and UTAPs funding). Divisions III (Physical Sciences) and IV (Life Sciences) are significantly higher: $20,336,511 and $27,423,661. Division IV also has the highest enrolment of any division, with 2201.6 FTE students, as compared with 1274.9 in the Humanities.

The main reason for the difference is the level of discipline-based external funding. Divisions III and IV have a significantly larger base of external funding than divisions I and II. Taken together, MRC (Medical Research Council) awards and NSERC (Natural Science and Engineering Research Council) awards provided $8,071,410 to students in divisions III and IV. By comparison, students in divisions I and II received $2,113,098 from SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), with a small portion of SSHRC funding distributed to division IV. These differences will become more pronounced with the introduction of the OGSST awards in 1999-00, when $2.6 million will be added to the funding received by students in divisions III and IV. In addition, students in division III and IV receive a significant amount of funding (approximately $18 million) in the form of research assistantships funded from their supervisors' research grants, whereas those in divisions I and II received only $826,956 in research assistantships.

Almost all government-funded awards are restricted to Canadian citizens or permanent residents (an exception is the Ontario Graduate Scholarship). OSOTF awards also have a similar restriction. They are given to either Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Almost all other internal awards do not have the citizenship restrictions. With the exception of the U of T Fellowship, most awards cannot be held after the fourth year for doctoral students and the second year for master's students. The summary below includes only the major sources of funding for graduate students. It is intended primarily to give a snapshot of how funding is distributed across the four divisions.

The principal source of internal scholarship funding for doctoral-stream students is the University of Toronto Fellowship (formerly called the University of Toronto Open Fellowship). In 1998-99, approximately $14 million was distributed in U of T Fellowships. These awards have a minimum value of $1,000. Funding is allocated to all graduate departments (including professional programs) based on a rolling five-year full-time weighted enrolment. In 1998-99, each division was allocated between $3 - $4 million in these fellowships.

In 1998-99, awards from the Connaught Fund totalled $1,289,805. The Connaught fellowship has a value of $11,000 plus tuition and is a renewable scholarship, subject to the discretion of the department . It is an excellent recruitment tool for international students. Roughly half the Connaught awards are given to international students.

The largest source of external funding graduate students receive is the NSERC award, given primarily to students in divisions III (Physical Sciences) and IV (Life Sciences). In 1998-99, a total amount of $6,032,754 (excluding OISE/UT) was awarded. These awards are available to students at both the master's and doctoral levels and can be held for a maximum of four years. During the first two years of graduate work, the NSERC award has a value of $17,300, during the last two years $19,100 (this phase of the NSERC award is available only to PhD students).

In 1998-99, a total of $4,791,313 (excluding OISE/UT) was allocated in Ontario Graduate Scholarships (OGS), a fellowship program which is administered through the provincial government. Allocated on an annual basis, these are available to students in all divisions at both the master's and doctoral level. They have a value of $11,859 and are the most widely held external award at the University of Toronto. Unfortunately, the value of OGS fellowships has remained the same for 10 years.

A total of $2,287,608 (excluding OISE/UT) was allocated in SSHRC awards. These awards, which can be held for a maximum of four years, are given to doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences and have a value of $16,620. After the OGS, they are the main source of external funding in divisions I and II.

In division IV, the principal form of external funding in the medical departments is the MRC (Medical Research Council) award. Students in non-medical departments, such as Zoology, derive most of their external funding from NSERC. In 1998-99, a total of $2,090,456 was distributed in MRC awards. The MRC Doctoral award, which has a value of $19,030/year, is a multi-year award extending over a period of four years.

In addition to fellowships, students receive funding from TA-ships, RA-ships and GA-ships. RA-ships are funded from faculty members' research grants, TA-ships and GA-ships from divisional budgets. In 1998-99, $12,525,764 (excluding OISE/UT) was distributed in TA-ships. TA-ships are distributed evenly across divisions. $18,905,027 was allocated in RA-ships. Division IV distributes roughly 60% of the university's RA-ships (over $11 million) as compared with $274,314 in division I.

The average funding per FTE doctoral stream student is $12,790 (excluding OISE/UT, see Table 1A). These data include all students in doctoral-stream programs, at both the master's and PhD level. Funding is lowest in division I ($9,047), followed by division II ($11,584), highest in division III ($15,436) and then division IV ($14,631). The differences in averages across divisions are attributable to two main factors: i) differences in the level of external funding; and ii) differences in support to master's students across the four divisions.

Table 1F shows the differences in average levels of funding per student, according to division. On average, master's students in the humanities and social sciences receive significantly less ($4,124 and $5,704 respectively) as compared with their peers in the physical sciences ($14,784) and life sciences ($13,850). Tables 1B  1E show the average levels of funding to master's and to PhD students across departments. Although some humanities and social sciences reserve a small portion of their U of T fellowship funding for master's students, the vast proportion of their funding is allocated to doctoral students. In the sciences, master's students receive funding roughly equivalent to that of a PhD student and, in many cases, transfer part-way through their program directly to a PhD.

As expected, another significant difference can be found in the level of funding to students in years 1  4 when most internal and external awards are held, as opposed to the post-4 years, when this form of funding may have expired. Table 2 shows that the average amount awarded to a student in the Years 1  4 is $16,373 (excluding Medicine and OISE/UT); in the post-4 years this amount drops to $7,159. For PhD students in the years up to and including Year 4, $26,867,389 in funding is allocated; for students in the post-4 years, the total figure is $5,448,266. This significant drop in funding is not matched with a correspondingly large drop in enrolment. Data indicate that, in every division, approximately 30% of PhD students are enrolled in years 5, 6 and 7.

Tables 3A  3C express the decrease in funding opportunities for PhD students as they progress through their programs in terms of the allocation of different types of funding (external awards, TA's, RA's, etc.). As these tables indicate, sources of funding contract considerably after the fourth year of a PhD. The most dramatic drop is in the level of fellowship support. Among students in years 1  4, 1,256 U of T Fellowships and 626 external awards are allocated; this drops to, respectively, 187 and 72 in the post-4 years.

The funding picture for OISE/UT students is dramatically different from that for the rest of the university. As compared with PhD students outside OISE/UT, in which the average level of funding is $14,144, the average OISE/UT doctoral student received $4,867 (see Table 4). The average funding for doctoral students in years 1  4 is $5,782 and in the post-4 years $2,932. A significant portion of OISE/UT's PhD students, (286 out of 564), receive no funding at all from university sources or external awards.

OISE/UT's students receive a lower level of funding from external sources, receiving (with an enrolment of 1,374.7 doctoral-stream students) a total of $521,796 in OGS funding and $465,360 in SSHRC awards (data on the cross-divisional funding include funding for Ed.D students). By comparison, the rest of division II (with an enrolment of 1527.8 students) received $877,566 and $829,098 respectively.

The funding culture within OISE/UT is different from other graduate divisions and its resources very limited. Approximately 50% of the allocation ($600,000 in 1998-99) from its fellowship budget is in the form of need-based bursaries; $630,165 was allocated in merit-based awards. OISE/UT's doctoral students are eligible for Graduate Assistantships (GA's) and for TEPAs (Teaching Education Program Assistants). In 1998-99, $1,845,035 was allocated in GA's and TEPAs. As noted earlier, in keeping with the merger agreement, OISE/UT students are not currently eligible for U of T Fellowships or Connaught awards.

While many departments have established funding policies for doctoral-stream students, practices vary substantially. In some departments, all students admitted are guaranteed a minimum amount of funding for four years at the PhD level. This minimum varies, depending on factors such as the availability of external funding sources and of TA-ships and RA-ships. For example, although Philosophy guarantees its incoming students four years' funding, its minimum is considerably less (in 1998-99, $12,500) than what Physics can offer its students ($17,007). Some departments, particularly in divisions I and II, do not provide guaranteed four-year packages, but try instead to provide some measure of funding to all students. Where guarantees do exist, they generally last four years, with occasional extensions made for students who in Year 5 are writing their dissertations.

The Task Force reviewed data on 30 American peer institutions available through the Association of American Universities Data Exchange (AAUDE). The average amount in graduate assistant compensation at American universities in 1997-98 was $12,167 (expressed in Canadian dollars, this figure is net of tuition: see Table 5). The AAUDE compensation figures comprise all forms of funding provided to students, including internal and external awards, TA-ships and RA-ships. By mutual agreement of the participating institutions, the identity of universities included in the AAUDE survey is not revealed, so the data do not allow us to make comparisons with individual universities. Doctoral-stream students at the University of Toronto received on average $12,790 in 1998-99, with tuition fees paid from this amount. This puts our students at a considerable disadvantage when compared with our American peer group. However, the data indicate differences in the size of teaching assistantships offered at our American peer institutions. A typical TA-ship at U of T is between 5  10 hours/week, whereas at many American universities students are paid to work 20 hours/week for approximately 36 weeks/year. It is not clear from the data whether funding packages are guaranteed.

Comparisons with Canadian universities were more difficult to make. Until recently, there has been no analogue to AAUDE in Canada. The Task Force therefore had to rely on information gleaned from university web-sites and from responses to an Email sent to University Registrars, requesting information on their institutional practices. Based on the information available to the Task Force, it appears that the practice among Canadian universities is similar to ours, that is, while some departments offer guaranteed funding packages, no institutions offer guaranteed funding across the board. There is moreover no indication in this information that suggests other universities are planning to implement a funding guarantee.

Across disciplines at research-intensive Canadian universities, the funding practices and levels are generally consistent. For example, our Physics department and the Physics department at the University of British Columbia (UBC) both guarantee full funding to doctoral students and have similar funding strategies for allocating funding. Queens', UBC and McGill estimate cost-of-living (including tuition) at approximately $17,000.

The Task Force endorses the recommendation of the Tuohy/McCammond report which, to reiterate, states that "the goal of the University of Toronto should be to give doctoral-stream students multi-year packages of support that are competitive with packages offered by peer universities". Its working group was asked to examine current practices across the various divisions, with a goal of identifying best practices and to making recommendations on principles and specific strategies for constituting these packages.

Currently, students in doctoral-stream programs are expected to apply for external funding. Underlying the Task Force's guidelines for minimum packages is the assumption that students will continue to be expected to apply for external funding in order to be eligible for the internal funding provided through these packages. SGS, faculties and graduate should continue to publicize these awards and the relevant deadlines as widely as possible.

In determining the minimum amount of funding, the working group relied on a modified OSAP estimate used for graduate students attending the University of Toronto. This modified OSAP estimate assesses cost-of-living at $17,000, or approximately $12,000 plus tuition. The estimate includes tuition, incidental fees, book supplies and living expenses, rent, photocopying and books. The Task Force recognizes that this is a conservative estimate of living expenses, particularly for international students who have additional expenses, such as UHIP. In the longer term, it recommends $15,000/year plus tuition as a more appropriate minimum package. In addition, the figure of $12,000 plus tuition will need to be revised as cost-of-living increases in Toronto, just as the assumption regarding tuition will need to be indexed to actual tuition rates. For international students, the Task Force assumes that the value of minimum packages will be augmented in accordance with the higher cost of visa fees.

The Task Force recognizes that $12,000 plus tuition is a modest level of funding. It is high by Canadians standards and comparable to the level provided by our peer American universities. Nevertheless, Toronto is an expensive city and this must be taken into account. The Task Force further realizes that, while $12,000 might currently be sufficient to support a single student, students with only one income who have children and all students with special needs will naturally require higher levels of funding. However, it is impossible to project a standard level of support for these students. Rather, their financial needs will be dictated by their personal circumstances and requirements and will vary from one student to another. Fortunately, the University currently has (through its UTAPs program and other sources) mechanisms for assessing and providing aid for students whose financial needs will exceed the minimum package recommended in this report. The Task Force recognizes that this program (and others like it which are available to our students) are vitally important resources in ensuring that all of our students are adequately supported.

In determining the duration of the recommended funding packages, the Task Force took into account the timelines recommended in the School of Graduate Studies Calendar. SGS recommends that graduate units design a four-year Ph.D. program, and that departments whose programs typically exceed this time-to-degree must communicate this to students in their literature. SGS also recommends that M.A. and M.Sc. degrees should take from 1 -2 years but, in actual practice, most doctoral-stream master's programs are designed to take one year. With these SGS guidelines in mind, and also taking into account the practicalities of finding sufficient resources, the Task Force is recommending a funding package that would support five years of graduate study, defined as one year of master's study and four years at the doctoral level. This timeframe conforms with the guidelines used by most external funding agencies and the practice of many Canadian universities with programs which offer full funding packages.

Some departments, particularly in divisions III and IV, have already achieved, if not surpassed, the minimum guaranteed package being recommended by the Task Force. In many of these departments, intake of both master's and PhD students has traditionally been linked to the availability of funding (through internal/external awards, TA-ships and RA-ships) and to supervisory capacity. However, for the university as a whole, the funding sources currently available cannot support all doctoral-stream students at a level of $12,000/year plus tuition. Later in the report the extent of funding required and some strategies for eliminating the shortfall in funding are discussed.

Graduate enrolment planning will play a pivotal role in the university's success in implementing multi-year packages across divisions. For the goal of guaranteed funding for all doctoral-stream students to be realized, obviously there must be a match between the number of students registered and the amount of funding available. At the present time, some units admit only as many students as they can support at the minimum levels those units set for themselves. Some units do not base their admission decisions on the availability of funding. To achieve our goals, all units must take funding into account when admitting students. This is not to suggest that this will be the only criterion for setting the size of a program. Clearly, graduate units should also examine their supervisory capacity, critical mass, program structure and other such factors in deciding how many students to admit. Moreover, in stressing the importance of considering the availability of funding, we are not suggesting that, at least in the short run, this funding must come from the particular graduate unit. On the contrary, the thrust of this exercise has been that funding to provide the minimum level of support will come to some extent from the university as a whole. Thus, the university, faculties, and graduates units will need to work together to achieve a balance between the appropriate enrolment level of each unit and the funding that is available.

When constituting the packages, units should ensure that, to the greatest extent possible, individual students are funded through a mixture of different sources of funding, including internal/external awards, TA-ships and research grants. Student loans, such as OSAP, should not be part of these guaranteed funding packages. It is also important that there be consistency in the allocation of TA assignments across a department's student population, to ensure that students are not overburdened by the demands of their TA responsibilities. In departments in which faculty hold research grants, it is expected that graduate supervisors will provide some level of funding from their grants to help support graduate students. However, in achieving a guaranteed minimum level of financial support, it is essential that supervisors' grants not be overburdened in this context and that the university aim to reduce the amount currently charged to research grants.

Academic units should establish a policy for funding that is well advertised, transparent, and which is monitored. Students should be made aware of these policies prior to their admission. Following on the SGS requirement noted earlier, the Task Force recommends that units whose program requirements typically take longer than four years address in their policy the sources of funding that might be available to students after the end of their guaranteed funding. Currently, in many graduate units a written contract, involving the student, supervisor, and the head of the graduate unit is drawn up to confirm the funding arrangements for that student throughout his or her program (see Appendix 4 for an example). The Task Force recommends this as a procedure to be adopted throughout the university. It will give students assurance about the logistics and sources of funding for their program at its commencement. Finally, it is essential that financial counselling be available to students throughout their programs.

In establishing local funding guidelines, the Task Force recommends there be departmental assessment as to how doctoral-stream students at the master's level are defined. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many students in what are categorized as doctoral-stream master's programs have no intention of pursuing doctoral work or would not be admitted to a PhD program in that discipline. Many students in these programs are completing a terminal master's degree for professional reasons (i.e. teaching) or personal interest. Departments may wish to review the composition of their master's enrolment to see if there are ways of identifying which students are in fact being streamed toward their doctoral programs, and concentrate their resources to create packages for those students.

In addition to providing the minimum package described in this section, units may wish to supplement their own departmental package in ways which correspond to the nature of their discipline or which will make them more competitive. For example, in disciplines where the time-to-degree is considerably longer than four years, units might choose to offer five or six-year packages. In addition, many departments with adequate resources will obviously wish to offer more generous packages in order to compete with peer institutions for the best students, as discussed in an earlier section.

That the university, SGS, faculties, and graduate units work towards providing a guaranteed minimum level of financial support to all of its doctoral-stream students equivalent to $12,000 per year (indexed according to cost-of-living) plus tuition (domestic or visa) for the first 5 years of study, including, where necessary, 1 year at the master's level. (As part of this process, it is assumed that units will undergo a review of their programs to define master's students who are legitimately in a doctoral-stream, versus those who are legitimately in a terminal master's.) The Task Force believes that, while $12,000 plus tuition is an achievable target in the short term, a more appropriate goal is $15,000 plus tuition. The Task Force also believes that high need students will naturally require higher levels of funding.

That units undergo graduate student enrolment planning with regard to academic priorities, supervisory capacity and critical mass, such that available funds can match the number of students registered. As part of this process, graduate units are encouraged to consider possibilities such as direct entry into their PhD programs.

To the extent that funding is provided by internal sources, units should strive to achieve equity between students with respect to the ratio between direct grants such as U of T Fellowships and awards that may require work, such as TA and RA positions. In particular, units should be cognizant of the impact of TA hours on available research time and endeavour to provide a similar ratio of award/grant funding to TA hours, to all students in the unit.

That each unit establish a coherent funding policy that is well advertised, transparent and reviewed annually by the unit. Units whose doctoral program requirements typically take longer than four years, or master's program requirements longer than one year, should also make clear what (if any) funding is available following the end of the minimum term of funding guaranteed by the university.

As part of its mandate, the Task Force was asked to make recommendations with respect to post-4 funding. It formed a working group which considered the data on post-4 students, the submissions on this subject, and considered arguments both for and against the introduction of a bursary for students in the post-4 years.

Figures 1A  1F show the distribution of PhD students by years of study, shown as actual numbers and percentages of total enrolment. The first of these bar charts is summarised below in tabular form. Figures 2A  2D show the change in the distribution of students within each division since 1990, according to their year of enrolment.

Division Students in Years 1  4 (in %) Students in Years 5  7 (in %) Humanities 59.3 32.7 Social Sciences 67.0 29.5 OISE/UT 65.7 29.8 Physical Sciences 68.7 28.8 Life Sciences 66.4 30.3 Total for University 65.0 30.4

As these data indicate, in each division close to 30% of our graduate students are in years 5-7. Men and women are represented proportionately in this group, as are (at least in years 5 and 6) international students. The last group is less likely to be found in years 7 and 8.

In 1999, the Graduate Students' Union (GSU) proposed the creation of a reduced tuition fee regime or a post-4 fee to help offset the financial pressures on students in these years. As the data examined earlier in this report indicate, students in this group received considerably less funding, an average of $7,159/year as compared with $16,373/year for a student in years 1  4 (data exclusive of OISE/UT and Medicine). The proposal was for students in years 5, 6, and 7 of their PhD programs to receive an as-of-right bursary of $2,500. With approximately 1,000 PhD students in this category, the cost to the university of the bursary is $2.5 million. The Task Force invited feedback from the university community on the advisability of introducing a post-4 bursary, and received numerous responses.

Opponents of a post-4 bursary suggest that it would undermine efforts made to encourage students to complete in four years as well as efforts made by departments to rationalise and stream-line their program requirements. In addition, there is divisional resistance to a post-4 bursary as an appropriate strategy for providing support to graduate students, particularly in divisions III and IV. There is a preference, given current limitations on the availability of funding for graduate students, to target any funding to students in the first four years (helping them to complete expeditiously) rather than targeting those funds toward students who have been in the system for some time.

Those in favour of some form of post-4 funding believe it is needed to help the current cohort complete their degrees by alleviating the financial pressures on these students. Many challenge the universality of the four-year completion model for doctoral programs. There are many curricular factors that lead to a longer and arguably a better program: field work, practica, and language requirements. These are factors over which students have little control, but may extend a program beyond four years. Those in favour of some form of post-4 funding also believe that to compel all students to try to complete in four years is unrealistic. In addition, trying to finish in 4-5 years might put students at a disadvantage when competing for academic positions with students who have had more than six years to complete work in the same area. For many students, there are opportunities for teaching and professional development here that could not be found outside the academy.

There was considerable debate within the Task Force and commentary in the submissions on the `four-year model' for completion of a doctorate. Much of the support for a post-4 bursary came from students and faculty in academic units in which doctoral programs are typically longer than four years. While it is outside the mandate of the Task Force to make recommendations with regard to time-to-completion, its discussion of this issue influenced its thinking on post-4 funding and helped to shape its recommendations, and so is briefly recorded in this section.

The Task Force examined recent data on time-to-completion (see Table 6). In 1998-99, the average time-to-completion for a PhD degree at this university was: 6.1 years in division I; 5.3 in division II; 5.0 in division III; and 4.9 years in division IV. Within divisions, there is variance across departments. For example, in division II, average completion times range from a high of 6.4 years in Sociology and in Information Studies to a low of 4.6 years in Theory and Policy Studies in Education. Completion times are roughly equal for men, women and visa students. Comparisons SGS has conducted with peer institutions show that many of our departments with completion times of longer than five years are in fact finishing faster relative to their peer institutions.

As the data on award programs and post-4 funding have shown, variations in times-to-completion across disciplines clearly have significant implications for funding levels and expectations of doctoral students. The current fellowship system is structured around a four-year model for completion. Most graduate awards (including SSHRC, NSERC, OGS, MRC, Connaught) can only be used during the first four years of a PhD. (The one exception is the U of T Fellowship which is occasionally allocated to students in their fifth year.) In addition, departmental funding policies within the university generally conform to a four-year funding template, with occasional extensions of support to students in fifth year. After that, funding may become sporadic, with students relying primarily on funding from TA-ships.

In 1992, Professor Joseph Fletcher and Richard Stren, in a study conducted of 1991 graduates of PhD programs, identified a number of factors which affect time-to-completion. The primary impediment to finishing in a timely manner was financial pressures: students having to interrupt their studies to take full-time or part-time work. Interestingly, the gap between divisions I and II versus divisions III and IV, with regard to time-to-degree, disappeared when controlling for time worked and income. They cited other factors as well, including problems in defining the thesis topic and supervisory problems. Furthermore, expectations about what is required in doctoral work vary across departments, leading to considerable variations in the research demands on doctoral students.

In recent years, departments have made efforts to reduce time-to-degree, through streamlining requirements. SGS has introduced a number of incentives for completion, including the Dissertation Award, which gives $18,000 to students in divisions I or II who are completing their degree in five years or less, with preference given to students who are finishing in 4 years or less. Some departments, such as Spanish and Portuguese, offer enhanced stipends to students in the fourth year, when they are writing their dissertations.

Some members of the Task Force, while supporting the introduction of a post-4 bursary, were concerned that more could be done to structure academic programs in such a way as to promote timely completion, while preserving their academic quality. The Task Force supports the view that the institution should continue to find ways of reducing time-to-degree, both through re-examination of its programs and the provision of incentives to students to finish their degree.

The Task Force recommends the introduction of an as-of-right post-4 bursary. It believes that the current cohort of post-4 students have faced financial challenges which are unique to their cohort. They have experienced significant fee increases, while not having the benefit of post-program fees. The introduction of a post-4 bursary would have an immediate and positive impact on the segment of our doctoral population with the most limited financial resources. Moreover, it would benefit students across all divisions.

The Task Force recommends that the post-4 bursary program be reviewed over a four-year period, at which time it might be discontinued or revamped. The Task Force is cautiously optimistic that, as funding packages improve, a larger proportion of our students will graduate more quickly. There may be better and different uses at that time for the funding, with some units deciding to redirect it to students in years 1  4.

That post-4 doctoral students be provided with an as-of-right completion grant for years 5 and 6 of their program (and 7 where an extension is approved), equivalent to $2,500 per year, effective September 2000. This grant would be a supplement to current sources and streams of funding for graduate students, but could be a component of any guaranteed minimum funding package.

That the effectiveness of this grant in providing financial relief, influencing time-to-degree, impact upon numbers of post-4 students, etc. be assessed over a four-year period of operation, with a view to either continuing the program, limiting the program to certain divisions and/or re-directing the money to alternate programs. Whatever the decision, this money must remain targeted towards doctoral-stream student support.

That units review, and where necessary modify their programs, such that they are consistent with a reasonable time-to-degree for the discipline.

The Task Force created a working group to try to identify strategies for raising new revenues and exploiting current sources of funding to eliminate the shortfall. The working group examined all current sources of funding available to graduate students, from both internal and external sources. As mentioned earlier, it is expected that students will explore all possible sources of external funding.

The shortfall is defined as the gap between current funding, from all university and external award sources, and a guaranteed minimum of $17,000/year (including tuition) for all doctoral students (1 year master's and 4 years at the PhD level). The analysis of the shortfall in each division, including OISE/UT, is based on the 1998-99 frequency distribution of funding for all doctoral-stream students. (See Tables 7A and 7B.) In addition, units will naturally wish to craft 4-year funding packages which exceed the minimum guarantee in order to remain competitive with peer graduate units in Canada and the USA.

The amount required to bring all PhD students to a level of funding of $17,000/year in years 1  4 is $11,661,032. Of the total amount: $4,354,833 is required to close the gap for OISE/UT PhD students; $1,213,483 is required for Medicine; and $6,092,716 for the rest of the university. In Medicine, a significant portion of the shortfall is attributable to Community Health, where 128 students are currently receiving less than $17,000/year.

If all students in the first year of doctoral-stream master's programs were to receive the same level of funding as PhD students, the gap in funding for this group is $9,644,019, thereby creating a total shortfall for the university of $21,305,051.

The Task Force recommends the elimination of the shortfall in minimum funding for all doctoral students by 2005. By 2005, the university should ideally be in a position to establish funding packages competitive with peer universities for incoming doctoral stream students, within the realm of funding opportunities.

The first task in addressing the shortfall is twofold: i) identifying all potential sources of funding, both internal and external; and ii) enrolment planning. The Task Force recommends that all academic units set priorities such that future enrolment in graduate programs reflects the funding available to support all doctoral students at a minimum established by the University of Toronto.

The Task Force is recommending a number of strategies for eliminating the shortfall. In making these recommendations, its working group considered the possibilities of exploiting current sources of revenue, including the university's operating budget and funding from government agencies. These sources might have some potential for increasing revenues, but they are very limited. The Task Force believes that most of the revenues required will need to be generated through fund-raising.

The university has had some success in raising money for graduate assistance. It was very successful in raising funds for this purpose during the recent OSOTF campaign, increasing the endowment for graduate assistance by $93 million. Some areas (such as Zoology and Medicine, to cite two examples) devoted tremendous energy to the OSOTF campaign and were extremely successful. The university also succeeded in raising $8.7 million towards the OGSST scholarships in less than eight months. This development has in turn freed up more internal scholarship funding for the humanities and social sciences. Nonetheless, in order to reach the goal set out in this report, the university will need to intensify its efforts to raise funds for graduate assistance, preferably through its capital campaign. Interestingly, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has assigned an extremely high priority to this goal in its campaign in order to provide the best financial packages for its graduate students . To be successful, the university, faculties, and graduate units will need to work collaboratively to achieve both local and university-wide goals.

That the university's campaign continue to have as a high priority the raising of funds for graduate student support and that the central advancement office should coordinate a University-wide effort to raise the additional $200 million by 2004. These funds would support the elimination of both the shortfall of minimum funding and enable the creation of larger packages in programs of research strength, making these programs internationally competitive.

The university has placed a high priority on, and devoted considerable time and effort to, making governments and funding agencies aware of the need for increasing funding for research and graduate support. It is vitally important to the success of this report for the university's leadership and members to continue to mobilize their forces to improve, in particular, the level of support for graduate students from external sources. The university, SGS, faculties, and graduate units, as well as individual faculty members, all have an important role to play in establishing new, and exploiting current, sources of programmatic funding, as well as funding from private foundations.

That the university, its faculties, SGS, and graduate units seek new ways to obtain new funds from outside the university, using existing student award funds as leverage. Since most graduate units will autonomously manage student award funds, creative ways to obtain new dollars from external granting agencies, industry, and endowments should be promoted through matching programs. Granting agencies such as the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) may plan program grant competitions for funding graduate students in specific fields of research.

That the university promote increased funding from the province and seek matched (endowment) funding as often as possible e.g., OGS and OGSST-equivalents, PREA, as recommended in "Growing Ontario's Innovation System: The Strategic Role of University Research."

That the university's leadership advocate for greater allocation of funds for graduate student awards by Federal granting agencies, e.g., NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR.

While there are relatively few potential sources of the university's operating budget or endowment which can be redirected to graduate funding, the Task Force recommends that the university explore these possibilities to the fullest extent. As one example, in some departments there is concern for a greater efficiency in transferring OSOTF funds from central accounts to the units to which it is targeted. In addition, the value of the Connaught award ($11,100 plus academic fee) has remained unchanged for 10 years and the amount of the total allocation to graduate students has remained constant, at $1.3 - $1.4 million for some years. The Task Force recommends that the possibility of increasing funding from this source be explored. Also, there may be ways that some fund-raising initiatives could be modified to make them more attractive to donors, particularly those devised to raise funds for graduate students in the humanities and social sciences. In this regard, one of the university's current matching programs requires a minimum donation of $100,000 to qualify for a match. This threshold might be too high for the kinds of donors interested in giving to the humanities and social sciences. Consideration should be given to revising the terms to allow a match for donors of smaller amounts.

That the university identify and, wherever possible, redirect revenues to graduate student funding, as follows:

The university should make significant investments to the graduate assistance budget to help those students in areas of greatest need, beginning September 2000.

Faculty-based endowments that have no specific designation should be reassigned to graduate student funding.

The university should ensure that all funds raised during the OSOTF campaign be transferred to their target units as quickly as possible.

The university should use a portion of any future pension contribution holidays as a source of matching funds, developing matching programs that are attractive and appropriate to different disciplinary groups.

The university should re-examine Connaught Fund allocations, directing as much as possible towards graduate assistance, and also re-evaluate its strategy for matching funds.

That the current distribution of funding within and across graduate units be examined. The university should seek ways to promote equalisation of minimum funding for all doctoral-stream students based on the available external resources to individual graduate units (consistent with the guarantee).

That the current distribution of funding in all graduate units be re-examined and that a process be initiated that would allow some redistribution of funding, based on current need and accessibility to external awards, through an APF process.

That, in determining the distribution of current and new funding, faculty and units should not be penalised for having access to research grants, and that research grants should not be overburdened as a component of the guaranteed minimum level of financial support.

As already noted, by far the greatest shortfalls in graduate student support are at OISE/UT. While the level of graduate student support available to students has increased since the 1996 merger, the average level of support available to Ph.D. students at OISE/UT is still less than one-third the University of Toronto average. The terms of the integration agreement that led to the creation of OISE/UT also limit the degree to which enrolment planning and the expansion of support available through some centrally administered funding mechanisms can be utilized to address the shortfall in graduate student support in this faculty. The integration agreement includes assumptions about enrolment, and established a relationship between enrolment and the allocation of operating support to this faculty. OISE/UT graduate students are not eligible to apply for almost all internal awards available to other students at the University of Toronto.

That OISE/UT be given full consideration in the process of achieving guaranteed minimum levels of funding and in obtaining access to new sources of graduate assistance funding in accordance with the principles articulated in this report.

The section on funding packages made a recommendation concerning graduate enrolment planning. The Task Force would like to underscore the importance of that recommendation. Quite aside from its intrinsic value, graduate enrolment planning is essential in helping units to address the shortfall.

As mentioned at the outset of this report, the work of the Task Force represents a starting point for what we believe to be an extremely significant process for the university. It is in fact the first time that the university has been able to assemble all the data needed to create a comprehensive picture of the level and distribution of graduate student funding. Judging from the vitality of input from the community into this process, the report has certainly provoked debate and arguably has heightened consciousness across graduate units about the limitations of funding available to many graduate students. The report does not pretend to be a panacea for all of the shortcomings in graduate funding, nor does it (or can it) prescribe solutions for all of the funding challenges facing graduate students and programs. If anything, we hope that the report has had a salutary effect in initiating a conversation involving students, graduate units, deans, and the central administration to address some of these issues.

In addition, there are recommendations in this report, such as the post-4 bursary, which will immediately advantage current graduate students, if implemented in September 2000. Establishment of minimum funding packages in many disciplines represents a more ambitious goal of the Task Force, one which will not see an immediate realization. To ensure that its recommendations remain a highest priority for the university, the Task Force is advocating that the following steps be taken immediately.

The Task Force recommends the establishment of a committee that will oversee the university's progress toward its goal of achieving multi-year packages for doctoral-stream students and monitor other aspects of the implementation of this report. The committee should be established by the Provost and include membership from students, SGS, and faculty in graduate units in all four divisions. The terms of reference of the committee will be to monitor, and report to the Provost on the progress being made in the implementation of the Task Force's recommendations. In preparation for the work of this committee, the Provost should set specific funding targets and timelines for achieving the goals of this report.

That, following the Task Force, the university establish an advisory committee to the Provost with representation from SGS and students and faculty from all graduate divisions, to ensure stewardship of graduate student funding and that strategies for eliminating the shortfall are being implemented effectively and expeditiously.

That OISE/UT be represented on the advisory committee to the Provost in order to facilitate communication between the advisory committee and the OISE/UT Dean's Committee on Student Funding.

In order to do its work properly, the advisory committee should be provided with ongoing and up-to-date information on divisional and graduate unit funding levels and practices. While significant progress has been made since the Tuohy/McCammond report in generating data on graduate assistance, there needs to be ongoing production of data that will enable the university to measure the level of graduate student funding. These data must provide a more comprehensive picture of the sources and breakdown of that funding (including data which can separate, for example, RA funding derived from contract research and that derived from grant funds). The University should set as a high priority the integration of the various administrative data systems (AMS, ROSI) such that funding can be analyzed and reports generated in a routine fashion.

That the university and SGS maintain ongoing and up-to-date information on graduate student funding through the graduate units, faculties, and SGS working closely with the university data management systems.

That the University set as a high priority the integration of various administrative data systems (AMS, ROSI) such that funding can be analyzed and reports generated in a routine fashion by graduate units, faculties, SGS, and the university.

In the course of its work, a number of other issues emerged as relevant to the way in which the University supports its doctoral-stream students.

In addition to basic living expenses and tuition, there are a variety of costs associated with being a graduate student and preparing oneself for an academic career that would not be covered by a minimum guarantee. In many departments, students have little access to money for conferences or travel that will help to further their professional development and establish contacts in the academic world. In other cases, students are funding travel, field expenses and equipment that are required in order for them to complete their degree requirements. Currently there are limited resources available for these activities.

The School of Graduate Studies has a fund of $45,000 available to students in the humanities and social sciences to help them with research activities outside Canada, but currently receives about $500,000 in applications for this funding. This fund is restricted to financing experiences, such as fieldwork, which are required for completion of students' programs. The Task Force believes that this type of funding needs to be extended, through an increase in the size and a re-examination of the terms of reference of the SGS fund, or the creation of divisional funds for this purpose. (In addition, the terms of reference of the funds should be re-evaluated to see whether students who have to travel to do fieldwork in Canada could be eligible.)

In addition, students (particularly in some disciplines) need greater access to funding that would help them cover expenses such as equipment, conference travel, and research expenses. The Task Force recommends that graduate units and faculties establish their own funds for these purposes, perhaps through seeking funding from the Academic Priorities Fund.

That funding for research activities be extended, either through an increase in the size of, or change in the terms of reference of, the SGS fund established for this purpose and/or through the creation of divisional funds.

That, in addition, faculties and graduate units establish funds to help students cover travel, conference, equipment and other costs related to professional development and to completion of degree requirements.

While the Task Force mandate was graduate funding, the status of newly graduated PhDs emerged as a related issue. In some divisions, graduates can expect to move fairly quickly into postdoctoral fellowships or employment. But in divisions where postdoctoral awards are rare, and where students are training primarily for highly-competitive tenure-track positions, new graduates may face a considerable "gap" upon graduation. There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that students may delay dissertation completion to remain eligible for TA positions and research support. Allowing graduates to maintain forms of university affiliation might provide a bridge for new graduates and may assist in timely completion.

Units might consider establishing forms of post-graduation status (such as limited-term adjunct or research associate positions) in order to provide some infrastructure support for career development/achievement of their graduate students. Non-teaching research centres and institutes could also be canvassed for their ability to provide similar forms of affiliation.

In fulfilling its terms of reference, the Task Force has been determined to present a lucid and informed analysis of the state of graduate student funding at the University of Toronto and to craft recommendations that reinforce the importance of establishing viable multi-year packages of funding for doctoral-stream students. While our students are reasonably funded in comparison with their Canadian peers, the report underscores the disparity between our students' current funding packages and those of their American peers. In actual fact, our aspirational funding level of $12,000 plus tuition would bring us into alignment with those institutions' current funding standards. The report also illustrates the significant size of the shortfall required to achieve our goals and emphasizes the limited potential that current sources of funding to graduate students will likely have in reducing that shortfall.

This report raises many challenges for the university. In striking this Task Force, the Provost set an ambitious objective for our institution: the provision of full multi-year packages for all of our doctoral-stream students. In its work and its report, the Task Force has attempted to articulate a set of principles and strategies which will guide the university towards the attainment of this important goal. The Task Force believes that its goals can be achieved. Our ability to recruit, mentor, and support exceptional graduate students is central to our mission as an internationally significant research institution. Therefore, it is essential that the university, including its graduate units and faculties, work collaboratively and vigorously to make the report's goals a reality. It is also crucial that, as part of its planning process, improving support to graduate students remain at the forefront of our institutional priorities.

Office of the Vice-President and Provost

University of Toronto

27 King's College Circle

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A1



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