Universities have not always been the best of neighbours. Community members squabble with the schools over irritants like development plans, rowdy student parties and self-centred research practices.
That’s beginning to change as universities increasingly turn to local residents and non-profit organizations as allies, not adversaries. “There is a fundamental shift in universities across North America from the ivory tower to the public square,” says Diane Kenyon, vice-president of university relations for the University of Calgary, which added community engagement to its strategic plan in 2011. “There are no walls and no barriers between the university and its community.”
What’s driving the change? More importantly, is it for real? A $2.5-million, seven-year national study on universitycommunity
engagement, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), is investigating a proliferation of partnerships across the country for answers.
Recommendations for Documentation Standards and Guidelines for Post-Secondary Students with Mental Health Disabilities
A project funded by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities' Mental Health Innovation Fund
The article examines the changing characteristics of international students in Canada from 1990 to 2013, and their
rate of transition into permanent resident status.
The good news is that Canada is home to so many great universities that it’s difficult to make a poor decision. That’s why choosing the school that best suits you requires going beyond rankings and reputation, and considering the unique culture and educational environment of your potential alma mater.
So what do you really want to get from your university experience? According to multiple surveys, the majority of young people today seek more than just a paycheque from their career. A recent Millennial Branding report found that 72 per cent of this demographic seek work with greater meaning. “Having a job where I can have an impact” ranked higher than wealth or prestige in a 2012 workforce survey conducted by Net Impact.
That’s why, in this year’s Canadian University Report, we looked at how universities are helping undergraduate students make an impact on their careers and in their communities. We spoke to students, faculty and university officials about opportunities to develop the skills needed for a meaningful career and life after graduation (from co-op programs to social entrepreneurship curriculums, from volunteering to purpose-driven business incubators). What we heard was that students aren’t waiting to don their cap and gown before they get started; they are already working with organizations in their communities and beyond, and launching their own businesses and non-profits to tackle our most-challenging social and environmental issues.
The provincial government has established policies that obligate universities to produce skilled graduates and cutting-edge research that will contribute to Ontario’s economic development. This “strategy for prosperity” seems innocuous. However, these market-based higher education policies and targeted research funding programs are narrowing the scope and function of our universities, and perpetuating the business model of higher education.
Accessibility offices are encouraging students with autism to turn to their peers for support through university life.
When accessibility specialist Jamie Penner started at the University of Manitoba in 2009, a series of eye-opening client meetings made him reconsider how the institution was accommodating students with an autism spectrum disorder. “One of my first students on the spectrum had a course in ancient history covering some battle. I asked him what the lectures were like and he really only could remember or focus on the fact that they used a certain weapon in the battles. He was paying attention, he was listening, but he got so sidetracked,” Mr. Penner recalls.
Last year, Yukon College announced that, by 2021, it would become Yukon University. The territory’s minister of education, Doug Graham, had approved the institution’s name change in November, but the transition has been in the works for several years, according to Yukon College president Karen Barnes. Also in November, Sheridan College, based in Brampton, Ontario, hosted a town hall meeting to outline its progress in becoming Sheridan University – a journey that started in 2011 when Sheridan’s board of directors approved the institution’s plan. Sheridan College president Jeff Zabudsky expects the process to be completed in 2020.
Background/context: Over the past 40 years, the composition of the professoriate has changed substantially across all institutional types. Once predominantly tenure track, now nontenure-track faculty (NTTF) constitute more than 70% of the faculty. While these major changes have occurred, we know little about key stakeholders views (accreditors, policy makers, presidents) of these changes.
Purpose: In this article, we explore the following research question: What are the beliefs systems (logics) related to the changing professoriate of the key entities within the higher education organizational field?
For the last decade and a half, I’ve engaged in anthropological research on higher education, identifying several
challenges and mismatches between what we know about learning “in real life” and learning in college. In my most
recent book, “I Love Learning; I Hate School”: An Anthropology of College , I identified a number of ways that formal
education has led to a lack of learning. Colleges promote credentials, obedience and the sorting of haves and havenots, but not necessarily learning.
In this qualitative self-‐‑study, we explore how curriculum theory informed the learning of teacher candidates within an intensive semester that serves as the foundation for a Secondary Teacher Education Program (STEP). Wanting to immerse teacher candidates in educational theory and position them as learning professionals from the first days of their program, we engaged them with the work of eleven curriculum theorists (Appendix A). Guiding questions for this inquiry include: How
did teacher candidates take up and negotiate theory as part of their emerging professional identities? How did teacher candidates understand the relationship between pedagogy and their learning of/through curriculum theory? How did teacher candidates embody diverse theories and understand the significance of this within and beyond this foundational semester? And finally, as teacher educators, how is our pedagogy developing through self-‐‑study?
This purpose of this article is to introduce others to a successful, innovative, self-funding model of entrepreneurship education through a collaborative effort among seven universities and colleges in Northeast Ohio. Ashland University, Baldwin-Wallace College, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, John Carroll University, Kent State University, and The University of Akron created a new 501(c) (3) non-profit corporation called the Entrepreneurship Education Consortium (EEC) http://www.eecneohio.com/acorn.php?page=home to stimulate
entrepreneurial activity within the region.
After one too many students called me by my first name and sent me email that resembled a drunken late-night Facebook post, I took a very fogeyish step. I began attaching a page on etiquette to every syllabus: basic rules for how to address teachers and write polite, grammatically correct emails.
Over the past decade or two, college students have become far more casual in their interactions with faculty members. My colleagues around the country grumble about students’ sloppy emails and blithe informality.
Mark Tomforde, a math professor at the University of Houston who has been teaching for almost two decades, added etiquette guidelines to his website. “When students started calling me by my first name, I felt that was too far, and I’ve got to say something,” he told me. “There were also the emails written like text messages. Worse than the text abbreviations was the level of informality, with no address or signoff.”
One of the commitments emerging from the Canadian Education Association’s What’s Standing in the Way of Change in Education? workshop in Calgary in October 2013 was to convene a series of Regional Workshops designed to expand
the conversation about change in Canada’s education systems. To this end, in the Spring of 2014, similar workshops were held in New Brunswick, Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia with a final session held in Quebec in August, 2014.
The aim of this study was to review the existing literature on game-based digital interventions for depression systematically and examine their effectiveness through a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Database searching was conducted using specific search terms and inclusion criteria. A standard meta-analysis was also conducted of available RCT studies with a random effects model. The standard mean difference (Cohen’s d) was used to calculate the effect size of each study. Nineteen studies were included in the review, and 10 RCTs (eight studies) were included in the meta-analysis. Four types of game interventions—psycho-education and training, virtual reality exposure therapy, exercising, and entertainment—were identified, with various types of support delivered and populations targeted. The meta-analysis revealed a moderate effect size of the game interventions for depression therapy at posttreatment (d= -0.47 [95% CI - 0.69 to - 0.24]). A subgroup analysis
showed that interventions based on psycho-education and training had a smaller effect than those based on the other forms, and that self-help interventions yielded better outcomes than supported interventions. A higher effect was achieved when a waiting list was used as the control. The review and meta-analysis support the effectiveness of game-based digital interventions for depression. More large-scale, high-quality RCT studies with sufficient long-term data for treatment evaluation are needed.
Over recent years, it has become increasingly common for students to pursue multiple pathways through the postsecondary education system. Current research in Canada shows that the movement of students both between and within colleges and universities is becoming more typical (e.g., Youth in Transition Survey, Statistics Canada). In Ontario’s colleges, this trend is evidenced by the fact that current students are more likely to have previous postsecondary experience than in the past. In 2007-08, approximately 37 per cent of college students reported having some previous postsecondary experience; this experience could include an incomplete or a complete credential from either college or university (Student Satisfaction Survey, MTCU). Many of these students were pursuing a second credential, as 11 per cent had previously completed a college diploma, and nine per cent had a university degree. In fact, pursuing multiple credentials is the intended goal of many postsecondary students. For example, in 2007-08, 21 per cent of college students indicated that their main goal in enrolling in college was “to prepare for further college or university study,” a percentage which has increased significantly from 16 per cent of students in 2000-01. In addition, many students make the decision to continue their studies while still attending college, or shortly after graduation. The Graduate Satisfaction Survey (MTCU) is administered to college graduates six months after graduation and includes questions on further education. The most recent survey showed that more than 26 per cent of the 2006-07 graduates were continuing their education within six months of graduation. Many recent college graduates choose to attend university; the percentage of graduates enrolled in university within six months of graduation increased substantially from five per cent for the 2001-02 graduates to nine per cent for 2006-07 graduates.
How to resolve the top enrolment barriers that decrease student satisfaction and negatively impact enrolment efforts.
As recent state critiques of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) make clear, the states and federal government are far apart in their understanding of how the spirit of NCLB might continue to take tangible form. This brief article lays out some of the major divides and their implications and urges that the two sides work in good faith to bridge them.
It comes as little surprise that the consensus forged around the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) back in 2001 has begun to unravel. The surprise was that such a consensus was achieved at the time—and doing so required, besides hard work, an appeal to ambiguity during the legislative process that could not be sustained once implementation of the law began. Once the Department of Education, states, and districts had to tangle with the tangible requirements of (among other things) setting standards, creating tests, hiring highly qualified teachers, and providing supplemental tutoring, the widely supported ideal of “accountability” was bound to give way to a series of definitional disputes.
Grounded and reliable measurement instruments grounded in theory are essential to move the field of servant leadership forward.
For the past 18 years, I have worked at the same university. I see some distinct advantages in that — most notably, that I haven’t had to look for another job in all that time. There is also something to be said for avoiding the pains of relocating. And staying put has allowed me to establish really rewarding ties with the surrounding community.
But there are also serious problems for any academic who pursues a faculty career in one place. As my Twitter friend John Warner recently noted, perhaps the most common way for professors to get a raise is to apply for a job elsewhere. Then, if you get a job offer, you take it to administrators at your current campus and try to get them to match the salary and benefits you would receive if you changed jobs.
When Michael Prior came to the University of British Columbia in 2008, he expected to spend the standard four years at the school.
Now in his ffth year, he realizes his original plan was unrealistic. The 22-year-old English Literature major has funded most of his own education, so he works for pay about 20 hours a week. That requires a lighter course load.