That was the theme of third annual reconciliation forum, held at University of Manitoba.
More than 350 leaders from universities, colleges and Indigenous communities gathered at the University of
Manitoba for the third annual Building Reconciliation Forum. The theme for this year’s event, held on November 8
and 9, was “The Journey Toward a Reconciled Education System.”
In response to the 94 calls to action issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015,
educational leaders, academics, students and Indigenous people from across the country came together to share
what is currently being done at postsecondary institutions to make reconciliation a reality, and to discuss what still
needs to happen at the institutional level.
Recognition of the importance of a high-quality system of postsecondary education (PSE) in meeting the demands of Canada’s knowledge-based economy has focused recent media and policy attention on the role of Ontario’s colleges and universities in facilitating the successful transition of postsecondary graduates to the labour market. In particular, there is growing interest in the expansion of postsecondary work-integrated learning (WIL) programs – which include co-op, clinical placements, internships, and more – as a means of improving students’ employment prospects and labour market outcomes. These programs are also believed to benefit students in other ways, for example, by enhancing the quality of the postsecondary experience and improving learning outcomes. Yet despite assumptions about the benefits of postsecondary WIL programs, relatively little empirical research has been conducted to assess students’ perspectives on the value of WIL and the learning outcomes associated with WIL participation.
The 2015-16 academic year was one of numerous student protests demanding increases in the admission of
minority students and the hiring of minority faculty members -- not to mention numerous other measures to promote
inclusivity on campus.
But what exactly do students want? While some would say that the various lists of demands of campus protests
provide much of the information, two Dartmouth College professors disagree. On Tuesday they proposed on the
political science blog The Monkey Cage a new way of measuring student interest in different forms of diversity. And they tested their system on students at Dartmouth, an admittedly nontypical student body given that the college is highly competitive in admissions.
There is a huge difference between a boss and a leader. I’d much rather be working for a leader any day.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with both, and it’s amazing what working with someone that you respect and more importantly, respects you, does to boost employee engagement.
Let’s go through each of these one by one and discuss how bosses can become leaders:
Perhaps we in higher ed should consider motivating students to graduate by focusing more on what they have left to do than what they have already done, argues Alexandra W. Logue. July 26,
Abstract Religious colleges and universities make up a substantial segment of the higher education landscape in North America, but the incidence of sexual violence on these campuses remains understudied. This study estimates the incidence of sexual violence on independent Christian campuses using a sample of part-time and full-time undergraduate students (N = 668) from eight private Christian colleges in Ontario, Canada. Using two widely used measures of sexual violence enabled comparisons with studies of self-reported incidents at secular and public colleges and universities. The findings show that 18% of women at religious colleges reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact within the past year, compared to studies of self-reported rates on secular campuses ranging from 21.4% to 31.4%. Exploratory investigation of factors related to victimization suggests that religious colleges may provide a “moral community” that could reduce the risk of sexual violence.
Résumé Quoique les universités religieuses contribuent considérablement à l’ensemble de l’enseignement supérieur en Amérique du Nord, la fréquence des agressions sexuelles sur leurs campus demeure peu étudiée. La présente étude estime le nombre d’agressions sexuelles sur des campus chrétiens indépendants à l’aide d’un échantillon d’étudiant(e)s de premier cycle à temps partiel et à temps plein (N = 688) provenant de huit universités chrétiennes privées en Ontario (Canada). L’utilisation de deux échelles d’agressions sexuelles fréquemment utilisées a permis de comparer notre étude à d’autres études qui traitent de la fréquence d’agressions sexuelles déclarées par les victimes dans les universités laïques et publiques. Nos résultats démontrent que dans les universités religieuses, 18 % des femmes ont rapporté des contacts sexuels non désirés au cours de l’année dernière, comparativement à de 21,4 à 31,4 % des femmes des universités laïques ayant rapporté des agressions sexuelles. Des facteurs liés à la victimisation suggèrent la possibilité que les universités religieuses puissent offrir une « communauté morale » qui diminue les risques d’agression sexuelle.
Tim Clydesdale’s The Purposeful Graduate: Why Colleges Must Talk to Students About Vocation outlines the results of a multiple campus initiative that encouraged students to critically examine how they might lead meaningful lives. The Lilly Endowment initially supported the initiative. When the Lilly funds came to an end, many campuses continued supporting these so-called pro-exploration programs, encouraged by the enthusiasm of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. This initiative and related programs explored the idea of vocation, defined not as a person’s main employment or occupation, but rather as a sense of purpose that gives meaning to their lives.
The term pro-exploration undoubtedly has religious connotations, a fact that is acknowledged early in the text. The initial Lilly funding targeted institutions with a religious affiliation in keeping with the mission and history of the Lilly Endowment. However, Clydesdale is careful to note that all students possess a vocational identity regardless of their religious identity. In an era
of workforce development, where vocational training correlates with specific skill sets and employment opportunities, the idea of exploring vocation as an individual passion seems to be a luxury. Yet the book positions pro-exploration programs as a nod to the original purpose of higher education: educating globally knowledgeable, capable, and responsive citizens. This goal is too often not realized and pro-exploration programs provide an active path towards this end.
The highly volatile monthly job creation figures and an unemployment rate that sometimes masks more than it reveals get all the attention. But the real tale of the Canadian labour market is written far away from the spotlights, closer to where the details reside. And there, the emerging picture is of a job market that is fundamentally changing. Canadian employment dances
increasingly to the tune of structural forces and less to reversible cyclical dynamics. And it’s not only about demographics. Job market mismatches, sticky long-term unemployment, diverging bargaining power, rising entry barriers and increased job tenure and job stability for those who clear the bar, all suggest that monetary policy aimed at the cyclical component of employment slack is aiming at a shrinking target.
This report summarizes several phases of a multiphase science education
development project occurring between April, 2004 and November, 2009 in three Inuit
communities in the northern Qikiqtani (Baffin Island) Region of Nunavut, Canada.
Although the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) funding for this project is confined to
the development, implementation and evaluation of the influence of Inuktitut-language
place-based resources on Inuit students’ learning, it is believed by the participants of this
project that because of the dissemination forum provided by CCL, the contents in this
report should be a cumulative summary outlining the chronology of the project and its
overall findings. The project, in its entirety, is motivated to assist Inuit school communities
in achieving their aspirations for science education. The project overall focuses on (1)
establishing the current situation in science education in Kindergarten through to Grade 7
in the Qikiqtani communities, (2) identifying developmental aspirations for stakeholders
within the communities and potential contributors and constraints to these aspirations, (3)
implementing mechanisms for achieving identified aspirations, (4) evaluating the
effectiveness of such mechanisms and (5) providing suggestions for further development
projects established to assist Aboriginal, especially Inuit, communities in achieving their
goals for curriculum, in particular, science education. This project attempts to “combine the
views of both worlds” in science education for Qikiqtani students; that is, it combines the knowledge, practices, values, beliefs, and ways of knowing of both the community of scientists and Inuit culture. Equally, it also combines the views of both worlds in achieving these goals through two process development frameworks: Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model (a model that identifies teacher attributes and the environment in which they work as determinants on development) and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ, Inuit ways of knowing and doing). This report focuses upon an evaluative overview of all phases of the
development project and the efficacy of this “two-way” model in fostering school development, especially in the area of science education.
Top motivations to study or train abroad remain the same as in recent years: the opportunity to live abroad and meet new
people, improve foreign language proficiency, develop transversal skills. Just after comes the wish to enhance employability abroad for more than 85% of students.
On average, Erasmus students have better employability skills after a stay abroad than 70% of all students. Based on their personality traits, they have a better predisposition for employability even before going abroad. By the time they return they have increased their advantage by 42% on average. While 81% of Erasmus students perceive an improvement in their transversal skills when they come back, 52% show higher memo© factors. In all cases, they consider the improvement of skills to be greater than they expected before going abroad.
This report presents the results of research into the use of collaborative, multiple-choice format question-writing activities as a supplement to standard peer instruction (PI) methods in a large introductory physics course.
Two institutions with major diversity initiatives have their work cut out for them in terms of improving campus climate for minority graduate students. Studies released by a student group at Yale University and by a graduate school at the University of Michigan suggest ongoing concerns that could have implications for retention as they work toward diversifying the Ph.D. pool. And since many minority undergraduates are pushing colleges and universities to find and hire more minority Ph.D.s as faculty members, these findings could have an impact at all the places that might do so.
A growing number of education and social science researchers design and conduct online research. In this review, the Internet Research Ethics (IRE) policy gap in Canada is identified along with the range of stakeholders and groups that either have a role or have attempted to play a role in forming bet- ter ethics policy. Ethical issues that current policy and guidelines fail to ad- dress are interrogated and discussed. Complexities around applying the hu- man subject model to internet research are explored, such as issues of privacy, anonymity, and informed consent. The authors call for immediate action on the Canadian ethics policy gap and urge the research community to consider the situational, contextual, and temporal aspects of IRE in the development of flexible and responsive policies that address the complexity and diversity of internet research spaces.
I’ve been ruminating lately about tests and wondering if our thinking about them hasn’t gotten into something of a rut. We give exams for two reasons. First, we use exams to assess the degree to which students have mastered the content and skills of the course. But like students, we can get too focused on this grade-generating function of exams. We forget the second reason (or take it for granted): exams are learning events. Most students study for them, perhaps not as much or in the ways we might like, but before an exam most students are engaged with the content. Should we be doing more to increase the learning potential inherent in exam experiences?
This article analyzes the topic of leadership from an evo-lutionary perspective and proposes three conclusions that are not part of mainstream theory. First, leading and following are strategies that evolved for solving social coordination problems in ancestral environments, includ-ing in particular the problems of group movement, intra-group peacekeeping, and intergroup competition. Second, the relationship between leaders and followers is inher-ently ambivalent because of the potential for exploitation of followers by leaders. Third, modern organizational struc-tures are sometimes inconsistent with aspects of our evolved leadership psychology, which might explain the alienation and frustration of many citizens and employees. The authors draw several implications of this evolutionary analysis for leadership theory, research, and practice.
Keywords: evolution, leadership, followership, game the-ory, mismatch hypothesis
Many people who work at colleges and universities have expressed concern about the new administration’s executive orders and policies regarding immigration, as well as the reactions of international students and scholars to it. However, more fundamental issues related to the internationalization of higher education that should not be ignored have been emerging for some time.
In this age of global connectivity, internationalization in academe has become an increasingly normal practice. That has proven to be profitable for institutions and beneficial for the career prospects of international students. But even before the recent political turmoil and upheaval, not all has been as good as it may have seemed. Those directly involved in the process -- domestic students, international students and professors -- have been voicing dissatisfaction.
At a time of increasingly complex societal challenges and tight fiscal constraints, all participants agreed that social finance offers an opportunity for Canada to mobilize new sources of capital to generate positive social and financial returns. Despite recent advancements in the field of social finance, Canada remains in the early adoption stage and has yet to reach a stage of maturity. Participants agreed that transformational change takes time and commitment; as such, it should such change, reporting that there is increasingly more openness to innovation and more permission to think differently.
In the fall of 2014, then Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada, the Honourable Jason Kenney,
appointed the Panel on Employment Challenges of New Canadians to consult with immigrant-serving organizations,
regulators, employers and other stakeholders.
The Panel was asked to identify and report on successes, innovative approaches and promising practices on the licensing, hiring and retention of recent immigrants, as well as the challenges of this process faced by employers. This work will help to shape strategies for better integrating newcomers into the workforce.
In-person consultations were held in Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. During
these events, the Panel met with over 150 organizations closely involved in the issue of employment for new Canadians.
The Panel also posted an online survey open to all Canadians and received input from over 600 respondents—including
many immigrants themselves.
The rapid turnover of technology and ever expanding network of data and information which underpin the knowledge economy have led to a reevaluation of the importance of knowledge to the economic process. Economists now conclude that human capital - the ideas, skills, and expertise of people - is a fundamental driver of economic growth. Demand for employees that possess a mix of both “hard” and “soft” skills is rising as companies respond to intensified global economic competition.
Many years ago, educational anthropologists George and Louise Spindler (1982) urged us to "make the familiar strange and the strange familiar" (p. 15) to understand the commonplace in our culture. The lives of 21st century students are strange in many ways; they face much of the traditional angst associated with social acceptance, prospects for academic achievement, and economic success. However, the lives of today’s youth are also defined by a burgeoning number of technological innovations that shape every aspect of behavior, relationships, and communication. As such, attempts to make this world more familiar are important to adults seeking to understand and perhaps create spaces where there are opportunities to bridge the gap between a rapidly changing and complex contemporary world and a future where the only certainty is that our notions of community, work, and family are likely to be even more sharply defined by technological innovations.