The low-down about learning at Ontario’s 20 public universities, 24 colleges or 400+ registered
private career colleges.
In August, a report by Rand Europe confirmed what many had long suspected: that academics face a greater mental
health risk than the population at large. About two in five scholars have common mental health disorders, such as
depression or stress-related problems. Among the reasons behind this, the report, which was commissioned by the
Royal Society and the Wellcome Trust, identified environmental risk factors such as heavy workloads and lack of job
security and management support. But is there anything that academics themselves could do to boost their wellbeing?
Here, scholars from disciplines ranging from philosophy to neuroscience share their insights into how the
search for happiness should be conducted – if it should be conducted at all
Professors have long been political targets. But a spate of recent threats against scholars -- including two that have led to campus closures -- is raising fresh concerns about safety and academic freedom.
The American Associations of University Professors “is definitely concerned about this trend, which I think is a fair description of what is happening,” said Hans-Joerg Tiede, senior program officer for academic freedom and tenure at AAUP . “We will continue to monitor it and consider what other actions we can take.”
Abstract
This article presents the results of the first Canada-wide survey on how university admissions personnel view the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) in relation to other curricula. The purpose of this study was twofold: (i) to move beyond anecdote and discover how Canada compares with universities in the UK and Australia/NZ, and (ii) to determine whether a dominant or hegemonic discourse surrounding the IBDP exists. Building on a smallscale pilot of perceptions in Ontario universities, the present study replicates two International
Baccalaureate Organization studies (in the UK, 2003, and in Australia/NZ, in 2007) in the Canadian context. Results reveal a pattern of responses consistent with the previous studies —i.e., a confident positive general view, combined with uncertainty regarding specific aspects of the IBDP. Such widespread and consistent views suggest the existence of a dominant or hegemonic discourse surrounding the IBDP, constructing it as the standard of excellence in pre-tertiary education, which has important implications for publicly funded education in Canada.
Religion. Faith. Spirituality. Some faculty may view these phenomena as significant influences on the human experience, others as challenges to intellectualism and the scientific method. There are also academics who struggle with their position, perceiving the power embedded in these ideologies and practices as potentially beneficial as well as restrictive. Most would agree that theology elicits a range of strong and often-personal reactions. Why, then, would faculty teaching secular studies courses want to raise the topic of religion in their classes when they could play it safe and leave the subject entirely to the specialists, their colleagues in religious studies?
Abstract
In the context of the increasing focus on harms, psychological safety, and mental health in post-secondary settings, this qualitative study explores the challenges and opportunities for harm reduction through focus groups with student leaders, service providers, and administrators in one large Canadian university. Key themes explored by participants include a pervasive work hard, party culture, clashes regarding how to define and operationalize harm reduction, broad approaches to harm reduction in tension with the risk of becoming a band-aid solution, and knowledge transfer and privilege in an academic context. These findings suggest possible avenues for harm reduction that could be implemented as part of the new post-secondary standard,
as well as in society as a whole.
Keywords: harm reduction, mental health, post-secondary, Canada
Ten years ago, I taught a literature unit on the Vietnam era. We read T.C. Boyle’s Drop City and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and I invited my colleague Bob to speak to my class. He brought his guitar and sang a song he’d written about serving in the Army. Then he looked at my students and said, "I’ve been asked to talk about my experiences in Vietnam maybe six times in my life. You’re the seventh." And he held us spellbound for an hour.
This year, my first in a Ph.D. program, I counted how many times I said "Sorry!" in a single day and found that the tally reached upwards of 30. Each "Sorry," pronounced with bubbly inflection, was an apology for more than whatever I was ostensibly apologizing for: speaking in seminar, again, even though that’s what you’re supposed to do in seminar, or disagreeing, again, even though the discipline of philosophy trades in opposition. These local apologies were part of a global apology for existing in the male-dominated discipline of analytic philosophy: for being the wayward creature I am, 5-foot-2 and female but brash and contrarian.
In Educational Leadership for a More Sustainable World, author Mike Bottery uses Rittel and Webber’s (1973) framework of tame and wicked problems across the book’s three sections. This situates and contextualizes current complex and seemingly intractable issues in education by connecting them to equally wicked issues in economics and the environment. Each of the three sections is comprised of three to four chapters.
10 questions for universities developing a coordinated response to suicide in their campus community.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death, behind accidents, for young adults, so it is a sad reality that all universities will confront at one time or another on their campuses. During the annual conference of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services in June, Andrea Carter, assistant dean of student wellness, support and success at University of Toronto Mississauga, and Melinda Scott, dean of students at U of T’s University College, addressed a standing-room-only crowd about their experience with student suicides at U of T and how it led them to develop a co-ordinated response. The following is a list of some of the questions that they say postsecondary managers, administrators and crisis-response teams should consider when developing policies or procedures related to suicide on campus:
The United States is at a crossroads in its policies towards the family and gender equality. Currently America provides basic support for children, fathers, and mothers in the form of unpaid parental leave, child-related tax breaks, and limited public childcare. Alternatively, the United States’ OECD peers empower families through paid parental leave and comprehensive investments in infants and children.
How can we make assessment more meaningful?
Rigorous assessment is central to education. It tells us whether our students are mastering essential skills and knowledge and whether our teaching is effective.
But grading also provokes much grousing.
Many students complain that grading is arbitrary, inconsistent, and unfair, while many instructors grumble about grade inflation, the excessive amount of time devoted to grading, and the many complaints that grading prompts.
In the early 1970s, Rosalind Driver, then a graduate student in education at the University of Illinois, had a peculiar notion. To understand how children learn important scientific concepts,she argued, we first need to grasp how they see the world before they start school. Children do not come into their first science classrooms as blank slates, with no sense of the natural world or of the way objects move in space. Talking with children, Driver showed, often revealed that they had quite fully developed (if incorrect) ideas about scientific phenomena.
Her crucial — and radical — insight was that learning is dependent on preconceptions. We learn by revising our understanding of things.
On her first day of work, a dean got a call from the provost of her new university. He asked her to act immediately on a matter "too long put off" — firing the director of a badly run research center. The university had built a strong case — perennially low performance and financial mismanagement — but the departing dean hadn’t wanted to leave with blood on his hands. So
the new dean dutifully pulled the trigger.
It turned out that the center’s director — while abjectly unfit — was also extremely popular. And so a firestorm erupted among the college’s faculty members. By the dean’s estimation, her honeymoon lasted half a day.
Do you have anxiety? Have you tried just about everything to get over it, but it just keeps coming back? Perhaps you thought you had got over it, only for the symptoms to return with a vengeance? Whatever your circumstances, science can help you to beat anxiety for good.
Anxiety can present as fear, restlessness, an inability to focus at work or school, finding it hard to fall or stay asleep at night, or getting easily irritated. In social situations, it can make it hard to talk to others; you might feel like you’re constantly being judged, or have symptoms such as stuttering, sweating, blushing or an upset stomach.
The history of rankings stretches back to the late 19th century, but it is the intensification of globalisation that has been the most powerful force and explanation for their emergence and success since the turn of the millennium.
Today, as the distribution of economic activity and scientific collaboration has become increasingly international, higher education has been transformed from a local institution into a global actor. It sits at the fulcrum of the geopolitical struggle for a greater share of the global market and the new world-order, facilitating increasing concentrations of wealth and resources and greater hierarchical differentiation and social stratification
A decade ago, few universities thought strategically about their brand. Now, as the market for academic talent, funding, and recognition heats up, the need has become acute. Universities recognize the necessity of building appreciation for what makes them unique. Yet while some universities may be regarded as “great” brands, most aren’t. And it may be because of the ways in which higher education approaches branding.
Employers value candidates who have developed career readiness competencies throughout their diverse academic experiences. Graduate students and postdocs in particular should aim to incorporate those transferable skill sets into their professional development so that they can be seen as more than just researchers and teachers. More than that, they need to be able to provide tangible illustrations of such skills and competencies in action to convince future employers that they are qualified for professional
roles.
This time of year has always been my favorite. Back to school once meant new clothes, new notebooks, and new
hopes of avoiding the dreaded bottom locker. Now, as a professor, I retain the joy I have every August when I get
new colleagues, new students, and yes, new clothes. Mostly though, I’m excited about the opportunity to start fresh
and do a better job than I did the year before.
To begin that process, I revise and enhance my professional networks — because a new academic year should
bring with it new relationships and new opportunities.
The evidence is clear that post-secondary education leads to improved employment opportunities and career outcomes. Over the course of their lives, graduates with credentials from across the spectrum of post-secondary programs, including apprenticeships, trade certificates, colleges diplomas, and undergraduate and graduate degrees, have enjoyed significantly higher rates of employment compared with high school graduates. Median annual and career earnings, meanwhile, rise consistently in relation to post-secondary credentials.