Equitable Admissions Policy

McMaster University Policy Framework

The objective of McMaster’s Policy Framework is to provide students, staff, and faculty with clear, transparent, and equitable processes for developing, revising, and reviewing policies approved by the Senate and Board of Governors. This document seeks to ensure that the University’s policy environment operates based on principles of good governance, equity, and openness.

As an institution, McMaster is committed to promoting inclusive excellence through campus-wide equitable practices. Throughout all policy processes, including drafting, reviewing, and consultation, consideration should be given to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Policies should use inclusive language, seek to remove barriers to equity, promote accessibility and fairness, and wherever possible be reviewed by diverse members of the campus community, including members of communities who experience social inequities.

McMaster University’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy

Foundational to fostering inclusion in higher education is ensuring that all community members experience equal opportunity to access, fully participate, and thrive in the life and work of the university. However, pervasive personally meditated biases and persistent systemic structural and cultural inequities continue to reproduce and reinforce barriers to equal opportunity and inclusion for particular equity-seeking groups who are underrepresented and underutilized in higher education.

For the purposes of this policy, the term “equity-seeking groups” will refer to groups of people who have historically faced, and continue to face, barriers to equal opportunity in higher education. The Federal Employment Equity Act designates the following four groups for particular equity and inclusion attention: Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples), persons who are members of racialized communities in accordance with the Act’s definition of “visible minorities”, women, and persons with disabilities. McMaster University also recognizes persons who identify as 2SLGBTQ+ (Two-spirited, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) or belonging to marginalized sexual orientation and gender identity groups as equity-seeking groups.

Towards Inclusive Excellence: A Report on McMaster University’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy (“EDI Strategy Report”) describes the strategic planning and management processes that were engaged, immediately following the inaugural appointment of the Associate VicePresident Equity and Inclusion (AVPEI), leading to the launch of McMaster’s EDI Strategy in 2019.

Statement on Building an Inclusive Community with a Shared Purpose

The university’s Statement on Building an Inclusive Community with a Shared Purpose, is a policy designed to encourage equity, diversity and inclusion applies to all areas of the university, including female identifying students.

“At McMaster University, an inclusive community is one in which there is real, visible and meaningful representation of the diversity evident in the wider community at all levels and in all constituencies on campus (faculty, staff, students, administration). It is a community in which all members feel safe and empowered, valued and respected for their contributions to the shared purposes of the University; research and education excellence. It is a community where the rights of all individuals and groups are protected. Inclusion occurs when an organization provides equitable access to its services, benefits and opportunities, when systems and structures facilitate full participation by all members and where members are treated equitably and fairly and are recognized for their contributions. The key ingredients are equitable access, participation (especially in decision-making processes) and equal attention to the needs and aspirations of all.”

Policy on Academic Program Development and Review

Updated in 2023, this Policy on Academic Program Development and Review guides the development of new undergraduate and graduate programs (including for-credit graduate diploma programs) and aids in the ongoing improvement of existing programs. It has also been designed to meet the University’s responsibility of ensuring the quality of such programs. It applies to all undergraduate and graduate programs offered at McMaster University, as well as programs offered in collaboration with other institutions that lead to McMaster University degrees or graduate diplomas.

Admission Requirements (page 5)

• Appropriateness of the program’s admission requirements for meeting its goals and the Program Learning Outcomes established for completion of the program
• Alternative requirements, if any, for admission into the program, such as minimum grade point average, additional languages or portfolios, along with how the program recognizes prior work or learning experience
• Consideration of accessible and equitable admissions processes and practices.

Additionally, McMaster monitors student registrations, admissions, and graduation rates, including data on students with demonstrated financial need, through a comprehensive Student Records Database.

This Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) between the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and McMaster University is a key component of the Ontario government’s accountability framework for the postsecondary education system. The SMA establishes the corridor midpoint that will form the basis of enrolment-related funding over the five-year SMA3 period, supports transparency and accountability objectives, and establishes allowable performance targets for 10 metrics upon which institutional performance will be assessed.

Equitable Admissions Pathways

McMaster strives to be an accessible, supportive and inclusive community. As part of our efforts to enhance equity in our programs, several mainstream programs offer equitable admission pathways to help mitigate barriers to post-secondary education.

• Equitable Admissions for Black Applicants
  • Supplementary Application from those in the EABA stream will be scored by a panel of Black faculty, alumni and current students in the Honours Health Sciences Program. Having this team of Black evaluators score the applications of Black-identified applicants will help to reduce the potential for conscious or unconscious anti-Black bias to affect the Supplementary Application scores.
• Facilitated Indigenous Admissions Program (FIAP)
  • With an understanding that Indigenous learners can face specific barriers or challenges when pursuing higher education, schools and programs within McMaster’s Faculty of Health Sciences have facilitated admissions streams for applicants with Indigenous North American (First Nations, Inuit or Métis) ancestry. This process is intended to provide equitable access to Indigenous applicants and aligns with the intent of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action.
• Equitable Admissions Process for Black and/or Latin American/Latinx Applicants
  • As part of our ongoing efforts to contribute to equity and grow and support the diversity of the program community, we are proud to introduce an Equitable Admissions Process for students who identify as Black and/or Latin American/Latinx. This process aims to contribute to dismantling barriers to postsecondary education experienced by Black and/or Latin American/Latinx students, and thus ultimately to enhance the Arts & Science community of learning.

Access to university track underrepresented groups recruit

McMaster is committed to recruiting students, staff and faculty from diverse backgrounds building an inclusive community. We have numerous programs to help attract and retain diverse talent to our to the university.

Students

McMaster faculties collaborate to encourage women’s applications in underrepresented fields, particularly in STEM, by offering dedicated scholarships, mentorship, and support programs aimed at empowering women in these disciplines.

McMaster University’s Faculty of Engineering has a solid record of outreach, targeted programming, recruitment, and services in support of women in engineering.

For many decades, across Canada, women have been significantly underrepresented in engineering programs. McMaster Engineering builds momentum toward gender parity with incoming BEng class. The Faculty of Engineering is celebrating its incoming class, which includes 43 per cent women in Bachelor of Engineering programs. This is the closest to gender parity the Faculty has been in its 65-year history, showing a steady upward trend of 19 per cent since 2017.

Helping employers and employees overcome barriers in the workplace 

McMaster’s Career Access Professional Services (CAPS) program supports students and alumni who experience barriers to employment, as well as employers who want to diversify their workplace and increase equity and accessibility in working environments. We offer a broad suite of employer-facing services, including:

• An individualized safe space to discuss your diversity and inclusion questions
• Recruitment services and resources to support your organization’s hiring goals
• Consultations to help you engage diverse candidates
• On-the-job or behind-the-scenes training, onboarding and retention services that are customized to meet employee and employer goals

Staff

McMaster’s Policy on Recruitment and Selection of Faculty Members

McMaster’s Policy on Recruitment and Selection of Faculty Members includes provisions to ensure hiring selections are made free from explicit or implicit biases (Page 3, section 9. Fairness and Equity). If finalists for a position include self-identified members of an equity-deserving group, departments shall consider employment equity gaps in the recruitment of women, persons with disabilities, First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples, persons who are members of racialized communities, and LGBTQ+ identified people.

“This Policy furthers academic excellence by ensuring equitable, inclusive and meritocratic consideration of prospective applicants for faculty appointments through the preparation, advertising, assessment, and selection phases of search processes.”

“The qualifications for positions and criteria for assessing merit will be established in a fair, equitable and transparent manner, which seeks to surface and mitigate explicit or implicit biases. If, among the selection finalists, there are self-identified members of equity-seeking groups2, departments shall consider the University’s employment equity gaps and goals in the active recruitment of women, persons with disabilities, First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples, persons who are members of racialized communities [visible minorities], and LGBTQ+ identified persons, thereby advancing inclusive excellence. Aggregate-level data on the representation of equity-seeking groups is available from Human Resources Services.”

Staff Hiring Guidelines – Recruiting for Diversity

In Canada, employment equity efforts have focused on four designated groups that have historically encountered barriers to full and fair representation in employment: women, First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples (Aboriginal Peoples), members of racialized groups (visible minorities), and persons with disabilities. More recently, organizations and institutions, including McMaster University, have expanded beyond the four designated groups to include other groups that may face employment barriers, such as LGBTQ+ persons (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and related identities).

When applying to work at McMaster applicants are invited to complete an optional and confidential Applicant Diversity Survey that requests voluntary self-identification in relation to equity-deserving groups. If a hiring committee reaches Short List Stage (Page 5, second C) and does not include any or a sufficient proportion of members of equity-deserving groups an Employment Equity Facilitator will work with Human Resources Employment Equity to identify candidates worthy of a ‘second look’.

McMaster’s Presidents Advisory Committee on Building an Inclusive Community established a Race, Racialization and Racism Working Group (R3) in 2015. This group works with McMaster’s diverse communities of colour, Indigenous, First Nations, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) communities to identify and address issues affecting them both within the University, and in the broader community. The working group provides expertise on issues related to racism and anti-racism, and advises the administration on the planning and development of anti-racism policies and strategies with an intersectional lens focused on “building an inclusive community with a shared purpose.”

McMaster’s Faculty of Engineering has made great strides in advancing equity in the program, 43 per cent of incoming engineering students in 2023 identified as women, an 18 per cent increase over just six years (Page 8-10) The faculty has also created an Indigenous Working group and hired five Black Scholars as part of the University’s Black Faculty Cohort Hiring Iniative (Page 12)

Strengthening diversity and equity is an institutional priority and McMaster is focussed on building an inclusive community that celebrates diversity when hiring. All senior leaders, hiring managers, selection committee members and staff involved in the hiring process are encouraged to complete diversity and equity training that includes instruction on how to recognize and combat unconscious, implicit, overt, prejudicial and any other kinds of bias. This training also includes aspects of anti-oppression, anti-racism, cultural competency, accessibility and LGBTQ+ education.

McMaster was named one of Canada’s Top Diversity Employers for the fifth straight year in 2023.The University’s efforts included creating an employee resource group for Black, Indigenous and racialized staff, and recruiting 12 scholars as part of the Black Excellence faculty cohort. Details about McMaster’s strategic planning and management process are documented in: Towards Inclusive Excellence: A Report on McMaster University’s EDI Strategy.