9 Helpful Contacts and Resources
You can find the contact information for specific people by using the McMaster Faculty and Staff Directory, but we have taken the liberty of highlighting a few useful contacts below.
Area Chairs
Area chairs ensure continuity between the curriculum of courses taught within their area. They are responsible for assigning courses and hiring new sessionals. They may also assign Ph.D. students as TAs for your courses. If you are not assigned a Ph.D. student TA, then you will need to hire a TA, which is coordinated through the Dean’s Office.
Below you’ll find a list of the chairs for different areas as well as their emails hyperlinked to their name:
- Dr. Khalid Nainar, Accounting And Financial Management Services
- Dr. Trevor Chamberlain, Finance And Business Economics
- Dr. Glen Randall, Health Policy And Management
- Dr. Catherine Connelly, Human Resources And Management
- Dr. Brian Detlor, Information Systems
- Dr. Sourav Ray, Marketing
- Dr. Manish Verma, Operations Management
- Dr. Nick Bontis, Strategic Management
Student Experience (SE) Managers
DeGroote’s Student Experience (SE) Office is composed of both an Academic team and a Career & Professional Development (CPD) team to provide students with the best possible experience, support, and resources. SE managers can be contacted for concerns about students, accommodations, class scheduling, and overall program execution. Please note that in the full-time, accelerated, and BLPT MBA programs, you should inform the program manager if there are any students who are failing or at risk of failing your course. The following are the SE Managers:
- Greg Rombough, Academic Manager for Undergraduate and Specialized Graduate Programs
- Christopher Longtin, Academic Manager for the M.B.A Programs
- Cynthia Bishop, CPD Manager
Program Directors
Program directors are responsible for program-specific academic concerns, curriculum, etc. The following are the program directors:
- Dr. John Medcof, Director for the MBA Program
- Dr. Milena Head, Academic Director for the EMBA Program
- Dr. Michael Hartman, Executive Director for the EMBA Program
- Dr. Emad Mohammad, Director for Integrated Business and Humanities
- Dr. Trevor Chamberlain, Director for Master of Finance
- Dr. Nicole Wagner, Director for the MSc eHealth Program
Dean’s Office
- DeGroote Dean’s Office: deanbus@mcmaster.ca
- Teaching Assistant Hiring and Administration: dsbta@mcmaster.ca
- DeGroote Human Resources: dsbhr@mcmaster.ca
Teaching and Learning Services
DeGroote’s TLS team assists faculty with course design and development processes, as well as the improvement of the quality of digital learning materials and online teaching. For a list of services that the TLS team supports, please view section 6 of our Support Intake Form. If you would like to request support with the development of your course, you can fill out the Support Intake Form or reach out to DeGroote Teaching and Learning Services at dsbEdDev@mcmaster.ca
The MacPherson Institute
The MacPherson Institute is McMaster’s teaching & learning support centre as well as a research institute focused on teaching & learning research. They offer workshop series and events on teaching for faculty members, sessional instructors, staff, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows that give members of the teaching community opportunities to develop and enhance their skills. The MI also offers research grants and supports for those interested in researching their teaching. To find out more about us, see our About Us page on our website.
The MacPherson Institute has offered many resources on their Teaching Remotely website to address possibilities for flexible, blended, and hybrid learning environments. Please use your discretion when selecting resources appropriate for your planned teaching environment.
Any instructor who would like to discuss teaching or course design for the coming term (or at any time) can reach out to Greg Van Gastel at vangasgj@mcmaster.ca. Greg is MacPherson Institute’s key contact for DSB and can support you as you prepare for your upcoming classes or connect you with his colleagues for support if needed.
Avenue Support and MacPherson’s EdTech Team
Avenue to Learn is the vital learning management system where your course will primarily be hosted. There are many supports to help you familiarize yourself with Avenue to Learn. You can navigate the main Avenue support page where you’ll find links to their Service Desk as well as resources for self-supports, including McMaster’s Avenue Knowledge Base.
MacPherson’s Educational Technology team provides services that assist educators with the integration of technology into their teaching practice to create engaging and effective student learning experiences. This includes support for Avenue to Learn and other teaching tools. To learn more about what services they offer, you can navigate their Educational Technology page.
UTS
The University Technology Services, or UTS, offers many services to support access to various McMaster systems as well as teaching and learning at McMaster. Some of their services include Mosaic, Zoom, Office 365, and software licensing. For information on the services they provide, you can visit their Educators Catalogue and navigate other sections of the UTS site from there. You can contact UTS by phone, live chat, or submitting a service ticket. All of these methods are found on their Contact page.
DSB-ITS
The DSB Information Technology Services team is dedicated to providing exceptional technology service in support of the Faculty’s teaching, learning, and research mission. DSB-ITS provides service to the main campus facility and the Ron Joyce Centre in Burlington. To contact DSB-ITS, you can send a service ticket to their ticketing email at dsbhelp@mcmaster.ca
McMaster Libraries
At McMaster, there are four libraries each with a focus on the needs of specific Faculties for their collections and resources: Mills Library (Social Sciences and Humanities), H.G. Thode Library of Science and Engineering, Innis Library (Business) and the Health Sciences Library. Besides their vast collections, the Libraries are available to support teaching and learning including instructional and research support, accessibility services, course reserves and Learning Support’s sessions and workshops on research skills and tools. There are also many spaces that students can use for course work and projects including the Thode Makerspace, Lyons New Media Centre and several others. For more information on the resources and supports available, please visit the Library website.
Campus Bookstore
If your course has required or optional materials (e.g., textbooks, online educational content), contact the McMaster Campus Store to have your course materials adopted. This way, students can search the Campus Store for your course and its required or optional materials for purchase. To submit a course adoption, please email courseadoptions@mcmaster.ca and include:
- Instructor name and email address
- Course information (code, section, estimated enrollment)
- Book information (ISBN, author, publisher, edition)
- Is the book required or optional?
For more information, you can navigate the Faculty & Staff section of the Campus Store’s site. If you need assistance with or have questions regarding the online adoption platform, please contact the Course Materials team at courseadoptions@mcmaster.ca.
Sessional Instructors, CUPE 3906 Unit 2
Sessional instructors form Unit 2 of CUPE 3906 (the union which also represents Teaching Assistants as Unit 1 and Postdoctoral Fellows as Unit 3). All of the regulations regarding working as a sessional instructor can be found in the Collective Agreement on the CUPE 3906 website. More information about your entitlements to training can be found in Article 19 of the Collective Agreement. If you would like to talk about teaching, don’t hesitate to contact Teaching and Learning Services and we can meet in-person or virtually. If, however, you have any questions regarding your pay, benefits, the nature of your work (contract), seniority, etc., those should be directed to your union representatives.
McMaster University Faculty Association
The McMaster University Faculty Association (MUFA) represents and protects the interests of all faculty members and senior academic librarians of McMaster University. It is not a union, but a professional association responsible for collective bargaining with the Administration. More information, including contacts can be found at the MUFA website.