Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology Students Association
Meeting Minutes
Monday March 23, 2015
In Attendance:
Megan, Steven M, Matt, Ian, Shaila, Steven O, Ran, Loryn, Jordan, Garrett, Sam, Josh, Garveen, Dr. Victoria Claydon, Dr. Glen Tibbits
In today’s meeting, Dr. Glen Tibbits and Dr. Victoria Claydon attended and discussed with us what we found to be the pros/cons of the BPK program and what we would like to have changed. Everything we discussed is below:
Courses
–BPK 201:
-BIF majors do not find the course relevant for their degree path (especially with the upper division physiology courses), and it is more relevant for KIN majors
-Dr. Tibbits informed us that renovation of BPK 201 is underway since it is taught by Dr. Max Donelan this semester who he told to add more physiology to the course (for example the biomechanics of cross bridge detachment)
-this was partially due to the fact that we now have an equal number of BIF and KIN majors in the program which is a major development
-BPK 304W:
-both the instructors for this course are fantastic
-the department made a good move by making this course a prerequisite for other courses since it does place emphasis on literature review and the application of statistics
-in addition people tend to take 304W in their last few semesters but now that it’s a prerequisite, it decrease the time gap between when people take STAT 201 and BPK 304W so people will retain the information more
-we need this course to be more writing intensive; lectures do not reflect this and are more heavy on the statistics
-students receive really little feedback on the writing so they don’t find it useful
-one other option may be do more lab reports or critical reviews throughout the semester to improve the feedback and make it more frequent; will be more beneficial for the students (similar to the structure of MBB 309W)
-in addition, the draft is worth more than the revision so even though the feedback you can get is beneficial, it destroys your grade in the course
-it may be a good idea to improve STAT 201 to teach the application of statistics so BPK 304W can be more writing intensive
-STAT 201 is really heavy on just teaching the equations and is really tedious
-currently the department has a dialogue open with Math & Statistics departments and can try to improve this
-having BPK 304W more like the graduate level BPK statistics course (BPK 801) could be useful since it teaches more the application of statistics in experiments
-BPK 303:
-lab participation for this course is mandatory and some girls are uncomfortable being the subject in the labs for religious or modesty reasons
-need the lab instructor to be more open to discuss these issues
-Richard does briefly address these issues in lab in that he allows girls who are uncomfortable to go to the bathroom to make measurements (but this removes instructors feedback on your techniques)
-BPK 207:
-very good that this course is a prerequisite to BPK 306
-very relevant and well designed course
BPK 461:
-very dry; needs to be remodeled
-needs to updated; literature searches are really old and is really outdated
-Dr. Tibbits did inform us that the issues with this course are known and faculty is trying
to change it
Degree Requirements
-Addition of BISC 202 (genetics) was an excellent move
-maybe consider adding it to the KIN program also so KIN majors at least have some knowledge of it since they will come across genetics eventually
-will help with Angela-Brooks Wilson’s Medical Genetics course
-you need to learn the modification of the genome to talk about modern physiology
-many have found this course to be super helpful
-Course Offerings:
-BIF majors struggle to find courses for their upper divisions that are a part of their major and are interesting to them
-the list of upper division courses that BIF majors can take is so much smaller versus the courses KIN majors can take and are offered less often or never,
-some courses which can be relevant to both KIN and BIF are not included in BIF
-could add BPK 461 (Physiological Aspects of Aging), BPK 375 (Human Growth &
Development), BPK 481 (Musculoskeletal Disorders) to the program or some upper division MBB BISC or HSCI courses to have them count for credit for BIF majors
-could add courses that are relevant for BIF and this is a short tem solution
rather than creating new courses
-lots of HSCI students in the life sciences stream can take BPK classes to count for their majors
-also, the list is all 400 level courses and therefore if possible, we could add more 300 level courses so BIF majors aren’t jumping right into the 400 levels
-could add courses like MBB 308 or 309W , HSCI 321 (Human Pathophysiology), HSCI 323 (Pharmacology & Toxicology)
-could also include MBB 322 (Molecular Physiology), but the issue with this course is that the course contents vary greatly with who is teaching the course
for that semester; could vary from being relevant to physiology to being completely irrelevant
-Dr. Tibbits will try to talk to the MBB department
-Dr. Tibbits also discussed that they have been looking into chronic solutions to alleviate the issues with the amount of courses and their offerings
-they have been trying to add more 400 level courses
-Angela Brooks Wilson’s Medical Genetics, Damon Poburko’s Vascular Physiology, Matt White’s Temperature Regulation, and a Cellular Physiology Lab
-Research:
-could also incorporate more research into 200 and 300 level courses
-this will allow people to take on literature review and research papers in 400 levels a lot better
-need to teach students how to do blast searches as they can prove to be really helpful
with research
-students need to learn how to use all the tools out there because right now they have
no exposure to this
-also students need to learn how to research through databases and read/criticize
research papers
-BPK could also create an “Introduction to Research” course (similar to BISC 272); could
also incorporate research ethics and how to report data (similar to BPK 801)
-KIN Ergonomics Stream:
-we need to have the program more recognized
-Dr. Tibbits informed us that the faculty with expertise not present and that the
department can’t afford to hire people which reduces the strength of the program
-if the core courses have been taken, they can set you up to do an advanced program in BCIT for example (i.e cardiology)
-Advancement of BPK Students to BCIT Programs:
-Dr. Tibbits talked to the Dean of BCIT last week and the idea of students with the right courses going onto BCIT for their advanced programs was well received
-this will initiate a dialogue with people in BCIT so students in BPK can do something relevant with their degrees
-in addition, BPK Career Night is so professional school heavy and therefore it is needed to make options like BCIT known to average students
-Dr. Claydon and Ryan Dill have been talking to BCIT to get students into these programs since students in BPK going into this program have all the knowledge and can therefore take advantage of their skill set
USRAs:
-the distribution of USRA’s over years of students is an issue in that a lot of first years getting USRA’s over 4th years is posing a problem
-but we also want to get first year students involved in research labs but this poses the
problem of 4th year students being overlooked and not getting the positions that they
really want
-one solution could be to limit some students to one USRA during their undergraduate path since some students get more than one sometimes and this can open up an opportunity to more people
-Dr. Tibbits told us that the department is trying to get more USRA’s so everyone gets an equal opportunity
-in addition he want students to get USRA’s repeatedly since they are valuable and are a good way of consolidating knowledge and learning new things
-also because of USRA’s, more undergraduates want to go to Graduate School
BPK 445 (Advanced Cardiac Rehabilitation)
–should be offered more often; not supposed to be a code course and instructor is in a different faculty
-consists of a 2 hour discussion on campus that is theory based and then a practicum placement; helps with certification with ACSM, very practical and BPK 444 is a prerequisite, should be an option for BIF majors
SIS, Courses Webpage, Faculty-Student Communication
–SIS & Course Webpages need to be updated so students can plan their courses ahead of time
-if professors are going on sabbatical students need to be informed ahead of time since this will affect their ability to take certain courses and can allow to plan around this
Adjournment:
The meeting of the BPKSA was adjourned by Loryn at 1:30 pm in the BPK Conference Room. The next meeting will be held on Monday March 30th, 2015 in the BPK Conference Room at 12:30 pm.