Please direct comments to Janis McKenna.
With the advent of the Web and more frequent inquiries from potential graduate students, the ever-increasing amount of paperwork that has been shifted back to the Departments from the Faculty of Graduate Studies (and on very tight deadlines), and the increase in administrative jobs now done by the Graduate Co-ordinator that were previously done by other departmental assistants, the administrative workload has increased significantly, to the point where the Graduate Co-ordinator (Janet Johnson) must frequently catch up on paperwork and student email inquiries on her own time at home. We are working to increase our graduate enrollment as well, which will only worsen this situation. Access to part-time assistance is already greatly needed, especially during the very busy winter season when hundreds of graduate applications and thousands of inquiries arrive, and during the very busy beginning of term periods three times/year. A quarter-time secretary/assistant would help alleviate the overburdening workload at peak times of the year. It would be advantageous if this assistant were the same person as the part time Engineering Physics assistant, as many of the databases and administrative tools used are common to both.