What will you be expected to publish from your dissertation?
In an increasingly complex, networked, and rapidly changing world, creativity has taken a central role (Dortier 2015; Runco 2004). There is enormous interest in creativity in education, business, technology research, and emerging fields such as social innovation and design. Coupled with a proliferation of popular as well as academic discourses of creativity, this situation presents researchers with complex, multidimensional challenges that cannot be addressed exclusively from the perspective of one discipline. This new global context requires a transdisciplinary exploration of creativity, particularly since the articulation, expression, and practice of creativity appear to be in flux in society as well as in academia. The networked society, generational differences, and the focus on business innovation have turned attention to collaborative, distributed forms of creativity that have only recently begun to be studied systematically.
Suggestions that universities are hotbeds of radicalism, leading to stifling "political correctness" or "leftist authoritarianism" have been notable in recent media commentaries.
This view is a misleading caricature.
Universities work hard to provide a welcoming environment for students in an increasingly diverse and multicultural Canada. The push for inclusiveness is clearly "liberal" (in the way today's conservatives use the term) insofar as it attempts to respect cultural differences and overcome inequalities and oppressions of the past.
I’m a tenured professor at a large public research-oriented university. This was my first job straight out of doctoral studies. It was, and still is, the job of my dreams. As opposed to the many tenure-track horror stories we hear (particularly from women), I felt valued and appreciated from Day 1 in my department. I respect my colleagues and feel respected by them.
So what’s the problem? Last fall I physically collapsed.
Emotional blackmail is not a pleasant thing to encounter, and many of us succumb to it without even realizing it at various stages in our lives. The truth is that there are many manipulative people out there, who seem to thrive on getting a one-up over someone they deem to be vulnerable and/or they feel they can take something from. As a result, emotional blackmail is something you should do your utmost to avoid. If you think you’re already in such a situation, you need to be able to recognize the signs to identify
emotional blackmail and put an end to it. Here is our guide to dealing with emotional blackmail:
When it comes to connecting with students, good relationships and good rapport go hand in hand. The desired rapport develops when faculty are friendly, approachable, respectful, and caring toward students. And how do students respond to professors who’ve established good rapport? They “like” those professors, and that’s the point at which some of us experience a bit of nervous twitching. If students like us, does that mean they learn more? Does education hinge on the popularity of the professor? The ethical ground feels stronger if what students learn and take from their educational experiences results from actions that support learning. And that circles us right back to rapport and the powerful role it plays in determining how students respond to the content in our courses, their daily attendance, and the study time they devote to what we’re teaching. Student commitment to a course increases if rapport with the instructor is good. So, be nice, chat with students, and show that you love teaching.
Background/Context: In recent years, college attendance has become a universal aspiration. These rising ambitions have been attributed to the “college-for-all” norm, which encourages all students to aim for college attendance; however, not all students are prepared for the college application process or college-level work.
Last semester, I had a student who did so well on his second paper — after doing very poorly on his first — that I got suspicious. I must have Googled every sentence in that second essay, looking for evidence that he had lifted it from someone else. I even called him into my office and grilled him about his process, trying to catch him out. I couldn't believe that the same student had written both papers.
But I was wrong. He hadn't plagiarized. He was responsible both for the terrible paper at the beginning of the term and the excellent one later on. Eventually I learned that he’d been struggling with some personal issues earlier in the semester — issues that kept him from spending enough time on that first paper.
10 questions for universities developing a coordinated response to suicide in their campus community.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death, behind accidents, for young adults, so it is a sad reality that all universities will confront at one time or another on their campuses. During the annual conference of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services in June, Andrea Carter, assistant dean of student wellness, support and success at University of Toronto Mississauga, and Melinda Scott, dean of students at U of T’s University College, addressed a standing-room-only crowd about their experience with student suicides at U of T and how it led them to develop a co-ordinated response. The following is a list of some of the questions that they say postsecondary managers, administrators and crisis-response teams should consider when developing policies or procedures related to suicide on campus:
Canada needs to take an integrated and innovative approach to enhancing student mobility, according to participants at a workshop held December 2014 by Universities Canada. The workshop – held in Calgary and attracting university and private sector leaders – called for Canada to step up its efforts to get university students moving beyond their province
and beyond our borders.
Several of the largest education publishers say they now generate most of their sales and revenue from digital roducts, but both analysts and some in the industry disagree on if the shift represents a transformation for the textbook industry or a forced rebranding.
If graduate education is to undergo serious change, relying on the development of supervision abilities only through modeling or memory seems out of step.
In light of recent national discussions on the purpose, content, structure, and assessment of the doctoral dissertation, the highly competitive (academic and non-academic) job market and the increasing precarity of employment in the academy—it is no surprise that the design and role of graduate education has been called into question. While some might cheekily say “So
you want to earn a PhD?” and outline the employment outcomes for PhD graduates, it might be time to ask “could the process of earning a PhD be improved?” More importantly, who could do so?
How can we make assessment more meaningful?
Rigorous assessment is central to education. It tells us whether our students are mastering essential skills and knowledge and whether our teaching is effective.
But grading also provokes much grousing.
Many students complain that grading is arbitrary, inconsistent, and unfair, while many instructors grumble about grade inflation, the excessive amount of time devoted to grading, and the many complaints that grading prompts.
The transition from high school to university or college is one of the most stressful times in a young person’s life.
The late teens, early 20s are also the time in life when severe mental illness often reveals itself and when earlier mental-health issues – eating disorders, anxiety, depression and the like – can be exacerbated.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in this age group, second only to motor-vehicle crashes. “Every parent should know that this can happen to any family. We’re living proof of this,” says Eric Windeler, founder and executive director of Jack.org, which promotes mental- health advocacy by young people.
Religion. Faith. Spirituality. Some faculty may view these phenomena as significant influences on the human experience, others as challenges to intellectualism and the scientific method. There are also academics who struggle with their position, perceiving the power embedded in these ideologies and practices as potentially beneficial as well as restrictive. Most would agree that theology elicits a range of strong and often-personal reactions. Why, then, would faculty teaching secular studies courses want to raise the topic of religion in their classes when they could play it safe and leave the subject entirely to the specialists, their colleagues in religious studies?
How do you teach the same concepts and skills to students with diverse abilities and interests? Different learning profiles? And how do you do that in real classrooms, with limited time to plan?
Higher education communications professionals need to understand and apply digital marketing as part of their toolkit in order to stay relevant in a highly competitive marketplace.
Digital marketing refers to the many ways you can reach and market to your target audiences through digital channels and devices, including social media, email, digital advertising, and landing page/form strategies.
Transnational education is now commonplace. But what is a transnational curriculum and what are its outcomes? Is
it an agenda for a universal consensus above and beyond national politics and the dissonances of race, gender and
ethnicity? Or is it something more uneasy, complex, unruly and creative?
Last month provided an opportunity to test answers to some of these questions. Each January, the Centre for Higher
Education Development at the University of Cape Town hosts an intense 10-day residential as part of the Mellon
Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, or MMUF.
The Strada-Gallup 2017 College Student Survey declares that “college students do not feel prepared for the workforce.”
Brandon Busteed who directs Gallup’s higher education research tells Inside Higher Ed, “Students are not nearly as prepared as they could or should be, and they actually know it while they’re in college.”
Given their unique pedagogical mandate and structure, Canadian public col- leges play a central role in serving groups traditionally under-represented in the post-secondary system. Yet as enrolment from these groups continues to rise, it is unclear to what extent the diversity of student bodies is reflected among faculty. In fact, while issues of faculty diversity and
employment eq- uity have gained increasing attention within Canadian universities, they have been largely overlooked within colleges. In an effort to address this gap, we have reviewed the employment equity related policies of Ontario’s five larg- est publicly funded colleges (otherwise known as Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology, or OCAATs). With a focus on personnel data collection and recruitment—two policy areas we will argue are particularly underdevel- oped in the sector—this paper provides recommendations for future research and priorities for organizational policy development.