Many academic institutions are struggling to put their data to work. According to KPMG’s recent Higher Education Industry Outlook Survey, 39 percent of the respondents said adopting new analytical techniques is a top data challenge, and just 29 percent report using data to inform strategic decisions. Still, 36 percent say that while they have good data, they lack the resources to conduct analyses.
Based on recent polling commissioned by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, an overwhelming majority of Ontarians (69.3%) believe that the current practice of increasing postsecondary tuition fees by five percent annually is unfair. When prompted to evaluate different policy alternatives, 59.6 percent agreed that the government should freeze tuition, while 70.8 percent agreed that all future increases should be tied to inflation. OUSA believes that this data indicates that a change to Ontario’s current tuition framework to either a lower increase or a freeze would be strongly supported by the public.
HubSpot is 9 years old. I consider that we spent our first 6–7 years in “startup” mode, where we got through
product/market fit and got our customer economics to work. Over the last few years, we’ve been in “scale-up” mode, where we’re adding fuel into our engine and growing fast in a great market with nice barriers to entry. It turns out that many of the skills I need as the leader of a scale-up are much different than the skills I needed as the leader of a startup. This article attempts to lay out some of the skills and tools I’ve needed to develop in this scale-up phase.
In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, many learning institutions are re- evaluating the focus of the education they provide and embracing disciplines that provide hands-on learning and real-world experience. As a result, one can find an increasing emphasis on applied research at colleges—that is, research specifically intended to help businesses and industries find solutions to practical problems and to help develop products and services.
To make the comparison that one should never properly make, Higher Degree Research (HDR hereafter) supervision shares with parenting its status as that topic about which every person has an opinion. Watching other people supervise can be as exacerbating as observing a nonchalant parent whose child is throwing food in a café. When a postgraduate student takes directions that one could never possibly recommend, it is easy to imagine that better training was possible, that bad choices were made at crucial junctures, and that somewhere sits a parent reading the newspaper while the floor gets covered in spaghetti. The neglectful supervisor, like the neglectful parent, is easily viewed as a person of a certain type, such that quotidian discussions of supervision practices easily deteriorate into a moral commentary on personal virtues and vices. Although providing short-lived pious pleasures, the urge to judgment can be damaging to higher degree research cultures. Supervision practices need to be understood not as expressions of a moral disposition (friendly, mean, forgiving) or achievements of profound intelligence (the cult of the inept genius), but as institutionally responsive practices within a
broader tertiary system that remains unclear about what higher degree research should achieve, and apprehensive about what its graduates should aspire to afterwards.
Christopher Manfredi, provost and vice-principal, academic, at McGill University, stood before a room of his peers and made a bold statement: “Social sciences and humanities cured cancer.” To the 50 university presidents, vicepresidents and deans gathered at the workshop hosted by Universities Canada in Montreal last March, it was an example of how administrators might pitch the ongoing value of the liberal arts to a Canadian public facing rapid economic, digital, environmental and social change.
In his opening remarks at the two-day event, Universities Canada president Paul Davidson made reference to “ongoing and misguided assaults on the value of a liberal arts degree in popular media.” Dr. Manfredi, a political scientist and former dean of McGill’s faculty of arts, picked up this thread in his panel talk. He suggested reports on declining program enrolment in the humanities and social sciences, and the supposedly dire employment prospects of graduates in these fields, have created a false crisis. Instead of approaching the situation as though they’re putting out a fire, university administrators and faculty should focus instead on crafting “a good story.”
Notwithstanding the current emphasis on utilitarian concerns and issues of the bottom line, I would maintain that creativity is still a topic of great interest in contemporary society. The fact that we are participating in a symposium and contributing to a book entitled Creativity, Imagination, and Innovation in Education attest to this concern. In this context, Barzun has noted that in a reference book of contemporary quotations, “there are fifteen entries for Creativity and only three for Conversation, two for Wisdom, one for Contemplation, and none for Serenity or Repose.” I would agree with Barzun’s contention that “Creativity has become what divine grace and salvation were to former times. It is incessantly invoked, praised, urged, demanded, hoped for, declared achieved, or found lacking” (Barzun, 1990, p. 22). One may wonder why this is the case. And I think that here Barzun’s analogy to divine grace believe that creativity will save us.
Graduates themselves are often unsure of where to look for opportunities outside academe.
One of the most consequential lessons I learned last semester actually happened after it was over. Five days after
the semester ended — to be precise, about 15 minutes after I updated the final grades for my courses — the emails
started coming in, like clockwork. I’m sure you get them too: the earnest and pleading requests (sometimes polite,
sometimes not) for better grades. I responded with my general policy (I only change grades if I’ve made a mistake; I
round to the nearest whole number), and that seemed to satisfy most students. But one student was a tougher nut to
crack.
Email after email arrived with detailed (and specious) arguments as to why he was shortchanged on the grades he
earned for specific assignments. He requested documentation that explained why he received 12.15 points for an
assignment instead of 12.16. He earnestly explained what it would mean if I could find an extra 1.05 points
somewhere to bump him from a B to a B+. Each of my responses provoked an even longer email in reply. It went on
for some time.
Putting Students In Charge of Their Learning
Through inquiry, Wildwood works to ignite passion, inspire relevance, and develop ownership in their students. Using student inquiries and questions as guidance, teachers develop lessons that engage and excite, teaching their students to be active thinkers rather than passive learners.
Two organizations have recently made themselves more than eligible to be inducted into the hall of shame when it comes to the sexual abuse of powerless children. And the negligent bystanders who knowingly ignore the immorality of it all and those who spend too much energy on not knowing, continue to be a large part of the problem.
Abstract
Various studies acknowledge the uncertainty many doctoral graduates face when beginning their search for full-time employment within the academic sector. Recent graduates face a job market where the likelihood of obtaining full-time permanent positions in academia is perceived to be declining, and the mobility of graduates within the sector is unclear. Drawing on Statistics Canada’s 2013 National Graduates Survey, this paper assesses whether graduates who pursued a doctoral degree to become a full-time professor achieved their goal within three years of graduation. The results suggest that although a large portion of doctoral graduates pursued their degrees to become full-time professors, relatively few reported obtaining such positions within three years of graduation, regardless of field of study.
Résumé
Plusieurs études attestent de l’incertitude que doivent affronter les titulaires d’un doctorat quand ils entament leurs recherches pour un poste à temps plein dans le secteur universitaire. En effet, les récents diplômés font face à un marché de l’emploi où on plein dans le secteur académique s’amenuisent, et où la mobilité professionnelle des titulaires d’un doctorat de ce secteur demeure floue. À partir des données de l’Enquête nationale auprès des diplômés 2013 de Statistique Canada, cet article examine la propension des titulaires d’un doctorat souhaitant devenir professeurs à temps plein à réaliser leur objectif sur une période de trois ans après leur collation des grades. Indépendamment du domaine d’étude, les résultats démontrent que, bien qu’une grande proportion de titulaires d’un doctorat aspire à devenir professeurs à temps plein, peu d’entre eux rapportent avoir obtenu de tels postes trois ans après leur remise de diplôme. perçoit que les chances d’obtenir un poste permanent à temps
The question of how to hold Ontario’s universities accountable to the needs of students is a relatively complex one. One must be careful to balance the need for academic freedom with the public’s (and especially students’) right to be assured that its considerable investments into postsecondary institutions are being used effectively and appropriately. OUSA’s Accountability paper offers recommendations to improve quality assurance and strategic goal-setting in Ontario’s universities. In essence, it describes students’ vision of to whom, for what, and how universities should be held accountable.
I have a PhD in the Humanities and I'm employed.
Gainfully employed, in fact - in every sense of the word, for myself, my employer, my communitym and those I work on behalf of. And I' no employed as a professor, thought I confess that's what I wanted todo when I started my graduate work, and I;ve swum in academic waters since earning my doctorate.
This report examines community colleges from the perspective of the faculty who deliver their public service – high quality post-secondary education and job training. The report is based on conversations with over 600 faculty at all 24 CAATs,
along with historical research and present-day inquiry into the sector’s financing, management, and operations. The report is focused primarily on perceptions by college faculty that there is a crisis of quality within the college system today.
colleges have opened campuses in Saudi Arabia that don’t allow women.
On Wednesday, Colleges and Universities Minister Reza Moridi said decisions on the operation of a
campus, including student composition, are up to each college’s board of governors.
But late Thursday, after a lot of criticism on social media about the male-only campuses, the minister had a
change of heart about Ontario colleges teaching courses that deliberately exclude women.
Most teachers enter the profession with strong ideals regarding the work they are about to undertake, and the impact
this work will have on the students they teach. A good number of those who apply to faculties of education will report
that teaching is something they have dreamed of doing since they were, themselves, young children. Others will tell
stories of teachers encountered throughout their own schooling – teachers who, through effective teaching strategies,
personal encouragement and modeling, influenced their decision to pursue a teaching career. Conversations
with teacher candidates entering their first years of professional life are, in many cases, full of hope, passion and the
expectation that, through their work as teachers, they will be able to inspire, excite, and make a similar impact on the
lives of the young people with whom they work.
Inside Higher Ed’s fifth annual survey of college and university provosts and chief academic officers (CAOs) aims to understand how these leaders perceive and address the challenges facing higher education institutions in the U.S.
In 2011 there was a loud buzz about gamification - theuse of game lements such as point systems and graduated challenges for activities not usually considered games.
Abstract: The paper presents the results of the second stage of training academia in designing e-learning courses in a foreign language. An action research conducted during such staff development project showed high appreciation of continuous mutual support, need for established channels for sharing, and raised confidence in designing own electronic courses by young specialists.
Key words: Staff Development, e-Learning, Higher Education, Language Teaching.