Statistics Canada recently released its comprehensive reports on education, covering a wide range of topics, including overall education attainment and the skills mismatches and earnings potential of those with bachelor’s degrees. There was good news and bad news.
StatsCan reported that in 2016, 54 per cent of Canadians aged 25 to 64 had either college or university qualifications. Canada continued to rank first among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in the proportion of college and university graduates. That’s good news.
At most institutions, faculty participate in some sort of annual review. A discussion of student evaluations is usually part of these conversations, and they aren’t always easy interactions. Sometimes the issue is the rating results—they aren’t high enough, maybe they dropped in one course, perhaps they have stayed the same for some time, or maybe there is some question about why they’re so high. Sometimes it’s what the academic leader concludes about the teaching based on a few negative student comments, or it could be the action the department chair recommends. And sometimes, it’s the faculty member who doesn’t know what to say or becomes defensive.
Recently we posted a brief research finding from Stanford math professor Jo Boaler: “Timed math tests can
discourage students, leading to math anxiety and a long-term fear of the subject.” That terse conclusion, from a
2014 article in Teaching Children Mathematics, provoked a torrent of passionate comments as educators and former
students weighed in on the merits of timed testing.
The debate split the audience in half. One side argued that timed testing was valuable because there are real
deadlines in life and careers—and real consequences to missing them. Others felt that timed testing causes a kind
of paralysis in children, throwing a wrench into students’ cognitive machinery and hindering deeper learning. What’s
the point of timed testing, the latter group argued, if the results are as much a measure of fear as aptitude?
Teaching with digital and social technologies often produces stress and tension for teachers and students alike, but I suspect much of that comes from an unclear explanation of why a particular tool is being used and comfort, or lack thereof, with its use. Digital and social technologies are attractive in many ways and we can get excited about working with them, especially in this era where students are dubbed "digital natives." But these tools require we think about their purpose, method, and audience just as carefully as when we design an essay prompt, a problem set, or any other assessment exercise.
Exactly two years ago, Liz Morrish had the unenviable task of explaining to a group of undergraduates why their favourite lecturer could no longer teach them.
There was no question of resorting to half-truths. Her absent colleague, who was on sick leave for stress, had briefed Morrish to talk about the relentless pressure on academic staff at universities.
“I told the students that there are research expectations – including things like ‘grant capture’ – with very low probabilities and yet real consequences for scholars who don’t meet them for whatever reason,” she recalls. “That’s not to mention other expectations like teaching load, marking and the rapidity of feedback,” she adds.
The students were “horrified” to learn that the work of lecturers was being judged by what Morrish calls “a totalising and de-contextualised set of metrics”, which made academics feel more like “players in some academic version of The Hunger Games , where capricious gamemakers change the rules all the time”.
This morning, I had the opportunity to talk with CBC radio morning shows about academic freedom: what is it and
why is it important to professors. And most importantly, why is it so important that it’s at the centre of a 4-week strike
that has no end in sight?
Academic Freedom has been contorted by many forces: in popular terms, by sensationalist reporting that focuses
on individual instances of a professor doing something bad but being protected from reprisal. But it’s not really that.
Mental health is a pressing concern for post-secondary students in Canada. The 2016 National College Health Association survey of Canadian post-secondary students demon-strates that a significant number of students are experiencing mental health problems and illnesses: 44.4% of surveyed students reported that at some point in the previous twelve months they felt “so depressed it was difficult to function”; 13% had seriously considered suicide; 2.1% had attempted suicide, and 18.4% reported being “diagnosed or treated by a professional” for anxiety. 1 The growing prominence of mental health issues among post-secondary students is not limited to Canada – it has been noted by practitioners
We all know raising children is different from teaching undergraduates. Yet as a father of four children — now all grown — I have learned much from parenting that I have been able to apply to the college classroom.
In particular, raising four teenagers taught me a lot about how to reach, engage, and motivate teenage students. The trick to effective parenting, I’m convinced, is to allow children to exercise their agency — encouraging them to make good choices through a clear system of rewards and punishments, with the emphasis on the former. I believe that’s true in teaching, as
well.
When Harvard University announced Lawrence S. Bacow as its president-in-waiting on Sunday, the institution focused heavily on his illustrious academic history, past presidential experience at Tufts University and family story as the son of immigrants.
Less discussed was Bacow’s age. He’s 66, about four years older than the average college president. If he stays at Harvard for 10 years -- the tenure he has previously said is about right for a president -- he will be stepping down in his mid-70s.
Nature of Leadership
Effective leadership is a key factor in the life and success of an organization
Leadership transforms potential into reality.
Leadership is the ultimate act which brings to success all of the potent potential that is in an organization and
its people.
Leaders propose new paradigms when old ones lose their effectiveness.
A partnership between the Mastercard Foundation, Rideau Hall Foundation, Vancouver Island University and Yukon College has ambitious aims.
Tasha Brooks likes to have an open-door policy. As one of Vancouver Island University’s four new “education navigators,” her job is to help First Nations students to transition into university and complete their education. “I’m very open about my own struggles through university,” says Ms. Brooks, who earned two degrees in business administration at VIU. “They can look at my past and say, she was also like me, very close to dropping out at some point. … I’m there to not only support them but I can empathize with them.”
In his classic 1963 study Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Richard Hofstadter convincingly argues that Americans’ suspicion of purely intellectual pursuits extends even to our thinking about how to structure and value higher education. He might not have been surprised at the currently popular movement on college campuses that goes under the banners of “experiential learning,” “service learning” and “engaged learning.”
A drum circle is just one of the many activities at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax that focuses on Aboriginal heritage. Photo courtesy Mount Saint Vincent University
Every Catholic college and university in Canada has woken up to the call for truth and reconciliation between Indigenous Canadians and the rest of us.
What's the worst college major for your career, according to Forbes? Anthropology and archaeology. Kiplinger's says to stay away from religious studies, music, anthropology and art history.
Such warnings are common these days. And liberal arts professors and admissions deans at liberal arts colleges will tell you that plenty of students (and an even larger share of parents) believe them. Many colleges with liberal arts roots are rushing to add preprofessional programs.
It is 2018 and we still have a crisis with the faculty. For 30 years critics have proclaimed the tenure-track and adjunct models of faculty broken.
Tenure-track models overemphasize a very narrow definition of research and do not encourage or provide accountability for quality teaching or improvement of teaching. For example, studies demonstrate that only 25 percent of faculty are excellent at both research and teaching. Furthermore, the tenure track can commit institutions to wages beyond retirement and to fields of study where enrollments may no longer exist.
For academics, November through March are perhaps the most emotionally taxing months of the year. Not only are we dealing with holiday stress while preparing for the end of one semester and the start of another, we also have an omnipresent and oppressive awareness of the faculty job market.
Somehow higher education has chosen the winter months — when seasonal affective disorders are most pronounced — as the perfect moment to decide the professional fate of thousands of Ph.D.s.
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.
The deliberations of university boards seem to have become more rancorous and controversial of late. What’s going on?
What’s the latest at your university board? There was a time when that question may have been a signal to cue the crickets. While faculty and students busied themselves with the exciting highs and lows of intellectual and scientific pursuits, university boards were the steady hand that quietly and capably guided the ship – so steadily that they were (and still are, at many campuses) easy to ignore.
"Administration" is a cold word. Yet — whether our many campus critics believe it or not — most full-time administrators have very deep feelings about the work they do. I was no exception. I got into the racket as an advocate for doctoral students in English, and I approached all my administrative work as a calling.
Just starting out? Worried about your lectures, your students, your time-management skills and more? Eight academics offer up their advice.
There are plenty of mistakes to go around early in one’s academic career. Whether they happen in front of a class or
behind the scenes, hindsight shows us how to do better. Here you’ll find a mix of experience and advice from eight
professors who’ve been there, done that and lived to share some lessons.