This article proposes a methodology for measuring institutional diversity and applies it to Ontario’s university sector. This study first used hierarchical cluster analysis, which suggested there has been very little change in diver- sity between 1994 and 2010 as universities were clustered in three groups for both years. However, by adapting Birnbaum’s (1983) diversity matrix
meth- odology to Ontario’s university sector, the author appears to have found a decrease in systemic diversity (differences in the type of institution and size of institution; Birnbaum, 1983) and climate diversity (differences in campus environment and culture; Birnbaum, 1983) between 1994 and 2010. Policy implications resulting from this study are also considered.
Experienced and new teachers shared what they learned in the spring about how to make mentoring work during the pandemic.
The exceptionally sad death of Malcolm Anderson at Cardiff Business School in February should serve as a warning light for universities in both the UK and further afield.
There is a high level of awareness and concern about student suicide, but it is important for every university leader, and perhaps every modern citizen, to realise that in most industrialised nations, including the UK, suicide is predominantly a risk among the middle-aged – and particularly among men in their late forties.
Teacher evaluation is a major policy initiative intended to improve the quality of classroom instruction. This study documents a fundamental challenge to using teacher evaluation to improve teaching and learning.
As a professor for nearly 15 years, I have advised more doctoral students than I care to count. I’ve had my fair share of national award winners, those who gave up and vanished, and countless students in between. I have referred them to books, manuals, articles, and advice columns that provide no shortage of step-by-step guidance on how to embark upon the pinnacle of their studies — the doctoral dissertation
I became a professor because I wanted to teach. I really wanted to be a middle-school English teacher but — even at age 19 — I knew that salary wouldn't allow me to pay off my undergraduate loans, so I decided on a Ph.D. Twelve years later and I'm extremely happy with my decision, particularly because I landed at a small liberal-arts college where I have the freedom to teach whatever I want and the good fortune to have small classes.
But it would be dishonest not to admit that I truly had no idea what it meant to be a teacher. Specifically, I had no idea what it meant to be a professor of color at a predominately white institution.
Since January, some people have wondered what implications the selection of Betsy DeVos as the U.S. secretary of education may have for higher education. This discussion leads to an important practical question: In what ways can the government successfully increase college graduation rates? This issue is especially salient, as many college students are preparing to receive their degrees in the next few weeks.
In our recent extensive review of over 1,800 research studies on college students, we found that some of the most common approaches for promoting student success simply aren’t effective. For example, most states have moved to performance-based funding for supporting their public colleges. Instead of giving money based on how many students are enrolled, some funding is based on a measure of institutional performance, such the number of students who graduate or the number of courses completed.
In the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia, the affluent Downingtown, Pa., school system has high test scores, plenty of digital resources, and features one of the best high schools in the country.
Even so, Superintendent Lawrence J. Mussoline decided to shake things up. The 13,000-student district already offered students online courses from a vendor, but Mussoline wanted a blended- learning program taught entirely by Downingtown teachers with Downingtown-created courses.
Background/Context: Facilitating dialogues about racial issues in higher education classroom settings continues to be a vexing problem facing postsecondary educators. In order for students to discuss race with their peers, they need skilled facilitators who are knowledgeable about racial issues and able to support students in these difficult dialogues. Yet previous research on difficult dialogues has largely focused on students experiences in these dialogues and the outcomes they gain from participating in them with little knowledge about the olres of facilitaros of these dialogues.
Trusting people is not easy for any of us, but it may be particularly difficult for administrators.
It entails a degree of letting go that may feel uncomfortable for people used to being in charge. It also requires a fair
amount of courage, since you never really know what other people are going to do — and in this case, what they do
might very well reflect negatively on you.
Canada’s universities are learning communities where students develop the critical thinking, communication and analytical skills our knowledge-driven economy demands. Through innovation in teaching and hands-on research opportunities, universities are producing Canada’s next generation of scientists, entrepreneurs, professionals, educators, innovators and community leaders.
After years of taking orders, you finally get to issue them in your first administrative role. You will have the freedom to make your own plans, set your own direction, and surround yourself with people who share your work ethic and point of view. Life is good!
Love him or hate him, there’s lots to say about Donald Trump. But how should instructors handle class discussions about the new president, if they allow them at all? An assistant professor of public and strategic communication at American University established with his students a set of ground rules for talking about Trump, which he says may be useful to colleagues elsewhere as they engage with policy and other issues.
I have the mixed fortune of living in a city that, as of this writing, had the highest total snowfall in the United States this year (woohoo Worcester, Massachusetts!). As a skier, I welcome snow; as a homeowner, I have been both lamenting the massive drifts blocking the streets and driveways of our city and cringing at the thought of the water that will inundate our basements in the coming thaw.
The significance of literacy for postsecondary success has been demonstrated in numerous research reports showing that attrition and underachievement are strongly linked to low levels of language proficiency (Jennings and Hunn, 2002; Perin, 2004). It has also been shown that Canadian adults with lower literacy levels have significantly lower employment rates and incomes, higher rates of unemployment, and are less likely to be engaged in their community than Canadian adults with higher literacy levels (Statistics Canada, 2005). On a national scale, literacy is a key factor in economic growth, productivity and innovation (Coulombe, Tremblay and Marchand, 2004).
To evaluate old and new directions we must keep objectives sharply in mind. Of late, articulately explicit discussion of the objectives of international exchange has fortunately been supplanting the vaguer statements of pious hope that sprang from the unanalyzed convictions that exchange is inherently a Good Thing. A brief review of the principal objectives that have been advanced is made easy by the availability of an excellent summary by the Committee on Educational Interchange Policy.1 From the generally expressed purposes of sponsoring groups, the Committee lists the following in
descending order of frequency:
The university as workplace has been imaginatively described by many observers of higher education: at any one university we might find Sanskrit scholars, accountants, glass blowers, philosophers and curators of pregnant hamsters (Henry Wriston, Academic Procession: Reflections of a College President, 1959). However, the quaintness of these occupations (barring the accountants) belies the full reality of the working university in that it fails to include all members of the campus community.
I have been wanting to write about tired teaching for some time now. Concerns about burnout are what’s motivating me. Teachers can reach a place where teaching does nothing for them or their students. They don’t just wake up one morning and find themselves burned out; they’ve moved there gradually, and it’s a journey that often starts with tired teaching.
There’s nothing on the subject in my big file of articles and resources. I can’t remember having read about it, and I’m not sure how much we even talk about it. We do talk about being tired. Teaching is relentless. It happens every day, several times a week—or potentially 24/7 if it’s online. And it’s demanding. There’s so much more than the actual teaching. There’s considerable planning involved before each class. Plus, we need to spend time with students—those who want to talk, those needing
help, and those with questions or, sometimes, complaints. There are assignments to grade and feedback to provide—
all carrying the expectation of a quick turnaround. With multiple courses to teach, we do get tired, but I think we regularly confuse physical fatigue with the more serious emotional tiredness that comes from a heavy workload of always being there, always giving, and always juggling multiple balls in the air.
Attrition from Canadian graduate programs is a point of concern on a societal, institutional, and individual level. To improve retention in graduate school, a better understanding of what leads to withdrawal needs to be reached. This paper uses logistic regression and discrete-time survival analysis with time-varying covariates to analyze data from the Youth in Transition Survey. The pre-entry attributes identified in Tinto’s (1993) model of attrition are exam-ined to help uncover who is most likely to withdraw from graduate school. A good academic background is shown to be the strongest predictor of entering graduate school. Upon entry, demographic and background characteristics, such as being married and having children, are associated with a reduced likelihood of completing. Policy recommendations at the department and in-stitution level are provided as well as directions for future research.
Graduate students need to seek out opportunities for collaboration at every stage of their graduate career. Experience working as part of a team is valuable for Ph.D. students preparing for a rapidly evolving academic job market, and it is indispensable for those pursuing careers beyond academe.