Guiding Principles

Teacher-scholar model

  • St. Thomas More's faculty is distinguished by commitment to excellence in teaching and research. STM faculty expect to teach, as well as to learn, in a collaborative scholarly relationship with students and other faculty.

Teaching 

  • We will continue to prioritize our commitment to high quality teaching.

 Research

  • Teacher-scholar faculty will be active in peer-reviewed research.

Learning

  • We will support the endeavours of our students and faculty to acquire further knowledge, skills, and integrity. We will support learning by providing the best academic and physical resources and environment we are able. To that end, we will endeavour to "teach effectively, assess fairly, act professionally, and solicit feedback as appropriate".  (These four phrases appear as the "instructor commitments" in the University of Saskatchewan's Learning Charter, pp 4-5.  The Learning Charter was drafted by the Teaching and Learning Committee of University Council and approved by University Council on June 17, 2010.)

Service

  • STM faculty will continue to be active in service to the College, the University, and communities beyond the campus. 

Interdisciplinarity

  • We will develop and maintain interdisciplinary programming opportunities. In this way, we will encourage breadth of knowledge and integration of learning in addition to disciplinary specialization. 

Distinctive programming

  • We will continue to develop, promote, and monitor program initiatives distinctive to the College. 

Academic Resources

  • We will preserve our commitment to learning, teaching, and research through the continued support of Shannon library collections and services.

Faculty complement

  • We will build and maintain a faculty complement of 40 tenure-stream/tenured faculty committed to the Teacher-Scholar model. All STM faculty will continue to excel in teaching.  (The number of 40 tenure-stream faculty has been approved by the College's Board of Governors.)

Promotion of STM scholarship on and off campus

  • We will endeavour to promote widely the outstanding work of our faculty and the strengths of our academic program in multiple contexts both on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan as well as within the local, national, and international community.

Federation

  • Through our partnership with the College of Arts and Science we will continue to offer a broad range of courses that complement academic programs in the humanities and social sciences. At the same time, we will offer and support academic courses that highlight our mission as the Catholic college federated with the University of Saskatchewan.