In this essay I discuss the effects of globalization on Canadian community colleges. I apply contemporary social theories culled from the fields of feminism, geography and political science to understand one hidden manifestation of globalization in community colleges: involvement in global civil society via participation in international development projects. I begin by discussing the history of community colleges, highlighting their flexible missions, as a way of understanding how they have changed within the current socio-economic climate. I then present evidence of community colleges participating in international development projects, and provide an analysis of what participation might signify on the broader social level. I end with a call to understand more about these somewhat overlooked activities in order to ensure that they are carried out effectively whilst keeping in mind the needs of both ‘local’ communities.
From pro-rape chants at St. Mary's University in Halifax to misogynistic Facebook posts by some dentistry students at Dalhousie University, sexual assault has become a contentious topic on Canadian campuses.
Over the course of six months, CBC News contacted 87 university and major colleges across Canada to request the number of sexual assaults reported on each campus to the institution between 2009 and 2013.
Here's that data, searchable by school.
I write this from my office in a department of philosophy somewhere in the northern hemisphere. Beside my computer, the unshorn mug of Harvey Weinstein stares out from the cover of the 23 October edition of Time magazine. Beside his unpleasant mien are three words: Producer, Predator, Pariah.
Academia is no Hollywood, but it is also infected by a hidden epidemic of sexual misconduct. There is at least one sexual predator in every department I’ve studied in, or taught in, over 30 years. This is increasingly being acknowledged, but responses typically focus on teaching students about consent. This is hopelessly naive and dangerous.
How to resolve the top enrolment barriers that decrease student satisfaction and negatively impact enrolment efforts.
They’re called “Enrolment Barriers” for a good reason. If your institution isn’t doing all that it can to remove them, there’s a good chance your future students will enrol, uninhibited, at a PSE institution down the road, and your current student satisfaction will be underwhelming. Looking for common barriers? Poor relationships with transactionally focused front line staff, disingenuous interactions with parents, behind-the-times processes/communications and siloed operations are just a few to seek out.
One of the most frequent questions faculty ask about the flipped classroom model is: “How do you encourage students to actually do the pre-class work and come to class prepared?”
This is not really a new question for educators. We’ve always assigned some type of homework, and there have always been students who do not come to class ready to learn. However, the flipped classroom conversation has launched this question straight to the top of the list of challenges faculty face when implementing this model in their classrooms. By design, the flipped model places more emphasis on the importance of homework or pre-class work to ensure that in-person class time is effective, allowing the instructor and the students to explore higher levels of application and analysis together. If students are unprepared, it leads to frustration, stress, and anxiety for everyone.
During the past year and a half, our faculty development unit has been gathering data from students about how engaged they felt in their online courses. We wanted to use this data to develop a variety of strategies for faculty to use to better engage their students. Research provides evidence for the connection between higher student engagement and persistence and retention in online programs (Boston, et al., 2010; Wyatt, 2011). Encouraging student engagement is especially important in the online environment where attrition rates are higher than in the face-to-face setting (Allen & Seaman, 2015; Boston & Ice, 2011).
It’s been nearly three years since I was a fellow in the American Council on Education’s flagship leadership-training
program, yet I still reflect on what I learned there.
A central benefit of the program is the opportunity to spend time with a cross section of senior administrators from a broad array of institutions. During my fellowship, I made a point of meeting presidents and chancellors who were widely regarded as successful. I met more than 40 such CEOs via the program, and they were as different as the institutions they led. But from our conversations, some key similarities emerged in how they succeed at their jobs.
This study aimed to better understand campus mental health culture and student mental health coping strategies, and to identify the mental health needs of students as well as gaps in mental health services within postsecondary education. A videovoice method was used to identify and document health-related issues and advocate for change. Forty-one interviews were conducted with campus stakeholders at five universities. Five themes involving mental
health emerged from the campus interviews: the stigma of mental illness; campus culture related to mental health; mental health services available and barriers to mental health services on campus; accommodations for students’ mental health needs; and student mental health coping strategies. A documentary was developed to advocate for better mental health.
We conclude that although Canadian campuses are raising awareness about mental health issues, there is not enough mental health infrastructure support on campuses; in particular, accessibility to campus mental health resources needs improvement.
Cognitive processes constructs provide a framework for analysis of transformational leadership and transactional leadership behaviors. Working memory, attribution, expectation, schema, script, and strategy processes are viewed as mediators in the relationships between feedback and environmental inputs and leadership behaviors. While these processes are the bases for both transformational and transactional leadership behaviors, the specific cognitive content differs between them. Whether an individual leads by developing a vision and enlisting subordinates' ego involvement in it or by setting goals and structuring tasks, depends upon the content of relevant schemata and scripts. This content is developed through experiences in similar situations or through vicarious Iearnmg. Literature relevant to the leadership and cognitive processes areas is reviewed, propositions are presented, and implications for research and practice are discussed.
Since the 2015 election, the Liberal government has made two major adjustments to federal programs targeted at children and youth. First, the uniform payment to every family with children was replaced by the new Canada Child Benefit, a benefit worth more to lower income families and withheld from the wealthy. In a similar vein, the government announced it would phase out some of the existing tax credits for post-secondary education (PSE), which were available to all families with taxable income, so it could use the savings to increase the value of grants for students from low-income families.
In 2004, the Lumina Foundation for Education approved a generous grant to support validation research to explore and document the validity of the Community College Student Report (CCSR), add to the higher education field’s understanding of student engagement, and help to identify research or institutional practices that require further attention. The study was conducted in three strands that linked Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) respondents with external data sources: (1) data from the Florida Department of Education; (2) data from the Achieving the Dream project; and (3) student record databases maintained at community colleges that have participated in the CCSSE survey and are either Hispanic-Serving Institutions or members of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). All participating students had participated in the 2002, 2003, or 2004 administrations of the Community College Student Report, CCSSE’s survey instrument.
To build an effective network that can lead to referrals, starting early is best.
Networking can happen anywhere; both formally (at an official networking event) and informally (meeting a friend of a friend who works at a company that interests you), as well as online, and in person. However, the very thought of actively meeting new people and conversing can make students shudder (especially us awkward folk), but the process of creating and managing your network connections doesn’t have to be so daunting. While it is work, it can also be incredibly rewarding!
A healthy university system is essential for Ontarians. University education leads to the best long-term career prospects for individuals and benefits the province as a whole by generating a more civically engaged population with the skills and tools needed to succeed in the knowledge economy of today.
To prepare for the future needs of the economy, the province has committed to foster a highly skilled workforce. To this end, the Premier’s office has assembled an expert panel to address this issue, and broad ranging consultations have already begun. In January 2016, the Ontario Talent and Skills Summit brought together leaders from the corporate sector, the public sector, the non-profit sector, and the post-secondary education sector to have meaningful discussions about developing future leaders and innovators; OUSA was proud to be a part of this initiative.
Canada’s population growth masks some very different trends from one region to another. Using various data sources, including Statistics Canada’s most recent projections on population and diversity, this article provides a general overview of these trends and discusses how recent demographic changes could impact the age structure, diversity and population share of the various regions of Canada over the next decades.
The report’s authors call for at least one-quarter of students within the next decade to have an international learning experience.
“You can take bigger risks, or go do something that maybe scares you, because you know you can do it.” For Emma Monet, this was the benefit of having an international educational experience. The Ryerson University graduate studied in Turkey for the winter semester of 2016, where she took five courses at Koç University toward her sociology degree. She said that, in addition to the course credits, she gained problem-solving skills, a wider appreciation for how others live and a greater ability to trust herself.
If you could start a new university from scratch, how would you do it? You have been tasked with deciding every detail of the academic program — the major requirements, the design of the courses, the class sizes, the weekly schedules. Imagine being unconstrained by tradition, administration, or money. What would you change, if you could?
That was the amazing opportunity offered to four psychologists — Rodolpho Azzi, Carolina Martuscelli Bori, Fred S. Keller, and John Gilmour Sherman — in the early 1960s. The government of Brazil was creating a new university in the country’s capital, Brasilia, and the founders had asked Azzi and Bori — then faculty members at the University of Sao Paulo, along with their American colleagues Keller and Sherman — to create a department of psychology. They were given almost total freedom to design the department from the ground up, beginning with an introductory course for 60 students, most of whom were interested in continuing on as psychology majors.
Internships, field placements, co‐op and other forms of postsecondary work‐integrated learning (WIL) help Ontario college and university students gain practical work experience, enhance their résumés, improve employability skills and determine their fit with a potential career, according to a new study from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO).
This article explores for a broad audience the changing landscape of education in the digital age, the changing roles of teachers in a technologyrich education system, and the skills, knowledge, values, and ways of thinking that teachers will need to have to support students’ social, emotional, and intellectual development in a digital learning environment.
The first “teaching machine” was invented nearly a century ago by Sydney Pressey, a psychologist at Ohio University, out of spare typewriter parts. The device was simple, presenting the user with a multiple-choice question and a set of answers. In “teach mode,” the machine would advance to the next question only once the user chose the correct answer. Pressey declared that his invention marked the beginning of “the industrial revolution in education”—but despite his grand claims, the teaching machine failed to gain much attention, and soon faded into obscurity.
Though more relevant than ever, the field seems to have to continually justify its existence.
The bad news broke on a Monday night in February 2016. Earlier that day, Lisa Dawn Hamilton, acting director of Mount Allison University’s women’s and gender studies program, had received a glum surprise. Nearly two decades after its 1999 founding, funding for the interdisciplinary program was on the chopping block – a move that would effectively eliminate all four of the school’s core women’s and gender studies classes, despite a consistent waitlist and burgeoning enrolment. Although the university administration did not equate the budget cut with an official termination of the program, it was hard to see how it could survive without funding. In an email to students, Dr. Hamilton reluctantly rang the death knell: “This means that, currently, there are no plans to offer any women’s and gender studies courses in the coming academic year.”