Community college systems were established across North America from the early 1960s through the early 1970s. The new systems had two principal models: in one model, the college combined lower-division, university-level general
education with technical education programs; in the other, most or all of the colleges were intended to concentrate on technical education. Ontario was the largest of the provinces and states in North America that opted for the second model. Many of the issues that planners confronted when designing these college systems have either persisted or re-emerged in recent years. This
article re-examines the debate on the design of Ontario’s colleges that took place when they were founded and considers its implications for the present.
In a knowledge economy, it is almost certain that those without a base level of skills will be left behind. We are seeing that now. Martin Prosperity Institute, November 2008 Every developed country is racing to keep up with profound and fundamental changes in the 21st century. The new knowledge economy is creating unprecedented demands for higher levels of expertise and skills, while, at the same time, changing demographics will significantly reduce the numbers of qualified people available in the economy.
The cumulative impact presents great opportunities and great challenges to Ontario. The province has an opportunity to implement meaningful and transformational changes that exploit the potential for growth in the new economy and drive Ontario’s prosperity to unprecedented levels.
But the threats to Ontario’s future are just as great. Failing to move forward now with significant measures could leave Ontario unprepared for the challenges ahead, and strand thousands of people as permanently unemployable.
All developed countries face this challenge. And the jurisdictions that are best prepared to meet these challenges recognize the solution is in their people. A highly educated population that can develop new ideas, master new technologies, and continue to innovate will be the nucleus to new growth and greater prosperity for all.
Ontario is fortunate. There is a solid foundation in place and the province is well-served by its large number of universities and colleges. Ontario has one of the highest postsecondary attainment rates in the world.
The province’s postsecondary system was also strengthened by the Ontario government’s Reaching Higher plan, which was announced in 2005 and will end this fiscal year. The investments made through Reaching Higher, along with subsequent investments in capital improvements and expansions, have helped Ontario’s colleges and universities to better serve a greater number of students.
Indeed, enrolment at Ontario’s public colleges continues to increase and the success rates among Ontario’s college graduates continue to improve.
But Ontario cannot rest on its laurels. Other jurisdictions are making significant investments in higher education and present a serious challenge to surpass the achievements made in Ontario.
Developing countries now have 94 million postsecondary students, which represents 70 per cent of the world’s total. In 2007, Bloomberg News reported that India was planning to set up 30 universities and 6,000 model schools, and was considering ways to establish a college in each of its 340 districts.
In China, the number of graduates at all levels of higher education has approximately quadrupled in the last six years. The skilled labour supply in China equals about 40 per cent of all OECD Countries.
The following research reports detail the results of programs or inventions designed to increase the retention of post-secondary students. This bibliography is intended as a sample of the recent literature on this topic, rather than an exhaustive list. For inclusion, articles or reports generally described experimental research studies of PSE retention programs. Preference was given to larger scale projects focused on colleges in jurisdictions outside of Ontario (in several cases, progress reports from ongoing, large-scale initiatives were also included). Where possible, links to the original research are provided.
Every developed country is racing to keep up with profound and fundamental changes in the 21st century The new knowledge economy is creating unprecedented demands for higher levels of expertise and skills, while, at the same time, changing demographics will significantly reduce the numbers of qualified people available in the economy The cumulative impact presents great opportunities and great challenges to Ontario The province has an opportunity to implement meaningful and transformational changes that exploit the potential for growth in the new economy and drive Ontario’s prosperity to
unprecedented levels
But the threats to Ontario’s future are just as great Failing to move forward now with significant
measures could leave Ontario unprepared for the challenges ahead, and strand thousands of
people as permanently unemployable
This paper explores general issues relating to globalization and higher education; the internationalization of higher education, and particularly the recruitment of international students. This subject is examined through a range of topics around the global development of the market approach to the recruitment of international students and a focus on the current situation regarding the recruitment of international students in the Colleges of Applied
Arts and Technology in Ontario (CAATs). As the number of international students seeking educational opportunities grows to 7 million over the next 20 years, the ability of the CAATs, the Canadian educational system, and the governments of Ontario and Canada to market the welcoming and safe multicultural Canadian experience, and the excellence of the educational offerings and opportunities in CAATs to potential international students will, in great measure, determine their success and their survival in an increasingly globalized world.
It’s been said that no one dreams of becoming an academic leader when they grow up. It’s a tough job that’s only gotten more challenging as budgets shrink, public scrutiny rises, and responsibilities continue to grow. It requires a unique skill set – part field general, part mediator, part visionary, and part circus barker – to name just a few. But what does it really take to be an
effective leader?
Featuring 13 articles from Academic Leader this special report seeks to answer that question and provide guidance for anyone in a campus leadership role. For example, in the article “Leadership and Management: Complementary Skill Sets,” Donna Goss
and Don Robertson, explain the differences between management and leadership, and share their thoughts on how to develop leadership skills in yourself and others.
In “Zen and the Art of Higher Education Administration,” author Jeffrey L. Buller shows how the Buddhist practice features many principles for daily life that could benefit academic leaders. Such advice includes “Walk gently, leaving tracks only where they can make a difference.” In “Techniques of Leadership,” authors Isa Kaftal Zimmerman and Joan Thormann outline specific
leadership skills for effectively running meetings, building consensus, and communicating across the institution.
The article “A Formal Approach to Facilitating Change” explains how Northwestern University’s Office of Change Management is structured as well as its operating principles for effectively managing change at the university. The key is to articulate how a change can benefit those directly affected and others not directly affected, to be accountable, and to provide clear criteria for
measuring success Other articles in the report include:
• Factors That Affect Department Chairs’ Performance
• Changing Roles for Chairs
• Becoming a More Mindful Leader
• Creating a Culture of Leadership
• There’s More to Leadership than Motivation and Ability
Academic leadership roles are constantly changing. We hope this report will help you be a more
effective leader during these challenging times.
Rob Kelly
Editor
Academic Leader
The past few years have ushered in more strident calls for accountability across institutions of higher learning. Various internal and external stakeholders are asking questions like "Are students learning what we want them to learn?" and "How do the students' scores from one institution compare to its peers?" As a result, more institutions are looking for new, more far-reaching ways to assess student learning and then use assessment findings to improve students' educational experiences.
However, as Trudy Banta notes in her article An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators, “just as simply weighing a pig will not make it fatter, spending millions simply to test college students is not likely to help them learn more.†(p. 6)
While assessing institutional effectiveness is a noble pursuit, measuring student learning is not always easy, and like so many things we try to quantify, there’s much more to learning than a number in a datasheet. As Roxanne Cullen and Michael Harris note in their article The Dash to Dashboards, “The difficulty we have in higher education in defining and measuring our outcomes lies in the complexity of our business: the business of learning. A widget company or a fast-food chain has clearly defined goals and can usually pinpoint with fine accuracy where and how to address loss in sales or glitches in production or service. Higher education is being called on to be able to perform similar feats, but creating a graduate for the 21st century workforce is a very different kind of operation.†(p. 10) This special report Educational Assessment: Designing a System for Mo re Meaningful Results features articles from Academic Leader, and looks at the assessment issue from a variety of
different angles. Articles in the result include:
.The Faculty and Program-Wide Learning Outcome Assessment
. Assessing the Degree of Learner-Centeredness in a Department or Unit
. Keys to Effective Program-Level Assessment
. Counting Something Leads to Change in an Office or in a Classroom
. An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators
Whether you're looking to completely change your approach to assessment, or simply improve the efficacy of your current assessment processes, we hope this report will help guide your discussions and eventual decisions.
Many immigrant youth view postsecondary education (PSE) as an important, even essential, means of economic mobility and social integration (Cheung, 2007). Gaining access to a PSE program builds on a record of academic engagement and achievement in high school. There is, however, mounting evidence of considerable variability in the preferences, performance, and eventual post-high school (PHS) pathways of immigrant students (Anisef et al., 2008; Thiessen, 2009). Many high school graduates enrol in a college or university while others either delay PSE entry or move directly to the labour market and a significant number leave before graduating. The PHS pathways of immigrant youth, then, can involve transitions to the
postsecondary system, the labour market, or both. The bases for these decisions are complex and include personal characteristics, family resources, and community support factors as well as the individual’s school and classroom experiences (McAndrew et al., 2009).
Previous research on the high-school transitions of immigrant youth in Canada has several limitations (Boyd, 2008). First, studies on school achievement and educational aspirations of immigrants have compared 'immigrant' versus 'non-immigrant' groups. These studies have found few aggregate differences between those born in Canada and those born outside Canada. Such comparisons conceal significant variations among immigrant students that affect the likelihood of PSE participation. Second, PHS planning and preparation are made relatively early in adolescents' educational careers yet most studies have employed cross-sectional or retrospective designs that did not adequately consider the effects of important antecedents on students' PHS pathway choices. Third, previous comparative research has not considered differences in immigrant generational status. First generation immigrant youth1 are those born outside Canada while those considered to be second generation were born in Canada of immigrant parents. To the extent that the school experiences and PHS aspirations of each differ, it is important to distinguish first, second (and third) generations. This is especially the 1 Please note that this term should not be confused with ˜first generation students", which refers to those who are the first in their family to attend and/or complete PSE, regardless of immigration status.
2 – Post-High School Pathways of Immigrant Youth case in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) where 42 per cent of students are foreignborn and 38 per cent are born in Canada of immigrant parents. Only 20 per cent of TDSB students have both parents born in Canada. These students comprise the third generation, sometimes referred to as the ‘third plus’ generation, and frequently employed as a reference group in comparative research. (Yau and O’Reilly, 2007).
In this paper we disaggregate the "˜immigrant" designation by source country (region-of-origin) and generational status to examine the PHS pathways of a cohort of TDSB youth who began high school (Grade 9) in September 2000 and were tracked through the high school system until Fall, 2006.
The specific purposes of the study were to:
1. Construct profiles of the various immigrant (and non-immigrant) groups comprising the 2000 TDSB cohort.
The elements of each profile include information on students, their school, and neighbourhood characteristics as well as the reported PHS pathways they followed between 2004 and 2006.
2. Predict PHS pathway choices based on this profile information.
The PHS pathway decisions predicted were defined by: (a) those respondents that confirmed university acceptance; (b) those that confirmed community college acceptance; (c) those that graduated high school but either did not apply to PSE or did not confirm an application; and (d) those that left high school early and did not apply toPSE.
The cultural and social composition of Ontario is undergoing dramatic change as a consequence of immigration. This is most obvious in its larger metropolitan areas, particularly Toronto. In many ways, Toronto is a precursor of the demographic change the rest of the province (and Canada) will experience within a few years as immigrant youth become the majority of the school-age population. Our aim in studying TDSB immigrant youth as they prepare for the transition from high school is to extend the literature on immigrant settlement and contribute to informed educational policy and practice.
Post-Secondary Education in Ontario: Managing Challenges in an Age of Austerity – Eastern Ontario Results January 2013
The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), affirmed their commitment to improving outcomes for Aboriginal students and identified the gaps in academic achievement and graduation rates between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students as a key area for attention. One of the strategies articulated in the CMEC Aboriginal Education Action Plan for addressing these gaps in outcomes is “strengthening the capacity for evidence-based decision making.” Toward that goal, CMEC commissioned a report to consider how better data and evidence can be developed to support jurisdictions’ efforts to improve the academic achievement and attainment of Aboriginal students in provincial and territorial elementary and secondary schools.
Ten months after it was first announced, the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services has finally published its report. The Commission, chaired by former bank vice-president Don Drummond, has made 362 separate recommendations. If implemented, Drummond’s plans would permanently change not only our public services, but our province itself. With very few exceptions, the changes Drummond suggests would not be for the better. This paper is called “Out of Step With Ontario” because that is what Drummond’s report is. In December 2011, the Angus Reid polling company conducted a survey of 2,000 Ontarians. What the survey found was that 71 per cent of Ontarians want to see spending on public services either stay the same or go up; 81 per cent support higher income taxes on corporations; 82 per cent support higher income taxes on individuals earning over $300,000 a year; and a whopping 87 per cent chose “job creation” as their preferred method of paying down the provincial deficit. In contrast, Don Drummond wants to take an axe to public services, cutting spending more deeply and for more years than the Mike Harris government did in the 1990s. He wants more privatization, which would drive down wages for workers and increase profits for investors but not provide better services or lower costs to the public. With very few exceptions, Drummond ignores options for generating revenue to pay for public services.
Lastly, Drummond forecasts a weak economy for years to come but proposes no ideas to make that economy stronger. Indeed, his “austerity” measures will slow down our economy, thereby cutting jobs and making the provincial budget deficit worse.
Drummond’s plan won’t work.
This document is a first look at what Drummond has in mind. It is not a comprehensive analysis. Instead, it provides a quick overview that looks at Drummond’s proposals from the perspective of OPSEU members. Some key points have, without a doubt, been overlooked; if so, they will be added to future editions of this document, available on the OPSEU web site.
This guide outlines a framework for addressing student mental health in post-secondary institutions. It is the result of a commitment undertaken by the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS) and the Canadian
Mental Health Association (CMHA) to strengthen student mental health. Another product of that commitment, Mental health and well being in postsecondary education settings: A literature and environmental scan to support planning and action in Canada (MacKean, 2011) outlines the current status of post-secondary student mental health and recommends a more system wide approach that extends the focus from “treating individuals... to promoting positive mental health at a population level...” (page 10). The framework presented in this guide continues this work by outlining a systemic approach that focuses on the creation of campus communities that foster mental well-being and learning.
Mental Health
The purpose of this study was to identify how entrepreneurship education is delivered in Ontario colleges and universities. In Ontario, as in the rest of Canada, the increase in the number of entrepreneurship courses at universities and colleges, and the concurrent popularization and maturation of entrepreneurship programming, contribute to fostering entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, and the creation of businesses. The overall aim of this report is to inform debate and decision-making on entrepreneurship education through a mapping and assessment of existing programs in the province.
The Ontario Association of Career Colleges (OACC) is eager to work with the Ontario Government to help shape the vision that is in the best interests of all Ontarians, and we strongly endorse the principle that “Increased innovation in the PSE sector will improve student learning options, meet the needs of lifelong learners, enhance quality, and ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the sector”. By working side-by-side, the Ontario government and all education stakeholders – public and private – can build a world-class postsecondary education system. Career Colleges are an integral component in the
continuum of the province’s postsecondary system and are well positioned to inform the government’s consultations and actively address the challenges associated with developing a highly skilled, globally competitive labour force in communities across the province.
The modernization and increased productivity that are essential to Ontario’s postsecondary system and the economic prosperity of the Province must recognize the value of, and optimally integrate all four pillars of program delivery – Career Colleges, Community Colleges, Universities, and Apprenticeship Programs. If Ontario is to keep pace globally, we must develop strategic policies and mechanisms that support the Career College sector’s potential to contribute to the province’s economic well-being.
The Career College sector in Ontario currently offers more than 5,000 programs at over 600 campuses in 70 communities. It employs 12,000 staff, and annually produces approximately 50,000 skilled graduates at a minimal cost to taxpayers, due to the fact that Career Colleges receive no direct operating funds from the government. By choosing to study at Career Colleges, those 50,000 graduates save taxpayers more than $1 billion per annum. At the same time, the Career College sector generates
more than $94 million in business and payroll taxes. The sector is efficient, productive, flexible, innovative and accountable. It is able to shape and expand its programming to quickly adjust to market forces, thereby complementing the educational offerings of the other three pillars.
One of the primary functions of many Ontario universities and colleges is to provide students with a high quality teaching and learning experience. However, as resources are stretched and postsecondary institutions focus more on research, funding into teaching development and support has been put at risk. A number of additional challenges – including rising student/faculty ratios and class sizes, an aging faculty population, outdated methods of instruction and curriculum design, and uneven access to teaching development for new instructors – are making it even more difficult to develop and maintain quality teaching. Many
student associations, faculty and administrators, the general public, as well as provincial government officials have agreed that the quality of the teaching and learning experience available to students at Ontario’s colleges and universities is increasingly at risk.
Just as the roles and goals of postsecondary institutions have changed over the past few decades, so have the operations and priorities of their teaching and learning centres. These centres first emerged in Canada during the late 1960s and early 1970s, accompanying the rise of student activism and the demand for higher quality teaching. Through teaching and learning centres, institutions hoped to consolidate, expand, and promote professional development programs for college and university faculty, and increasingly for graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants. Most Ontario universities and colleges now have teaching and learning centres; in fact, during the past year alone, five universities and several colleges joined the growing list of Ontario postsecondary institutions that have launched, enhanced, or reorganized their teaching and learning centres and services (Miles & Polovina-Vukovic, forthcoming).
On March 30, 2011, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) hosted a one day workshop attended by several dozen invited experts from Ontario postsecondary institutions to explore the continuing evolution of – and the challenges and opportunities facing – college and university teaching and learning centres.
This paper is intended for members of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) community, college and university faculty and administrators, government officials, students, and concerned parents, along with other postsecondary stakeholders. The objective is to summarize and expand upon the presentations and discussions that took place at HEQCO’s workshop in order to provide a background and context for the evolving role and impact of teaching and learning centres within Ontario postsecondary institutions, and to suggest options and opportunities for future practice. This report is divided into five sections: following this brief introduction, the first section provides a background portrait of the context for teaching and learning centres and educational development in Ontario’s postsecondary sector. The following three sections reflect the discussions that took place at the HEQCO workshop, and are divided into the same three broad themes that animated the discussions there:
1. Responsibilities, Pressures, and Strategies
2. Assessing Impact
3. New Ideas
The concluding section provides some suggestions and recommendations in regards to what needs to be done “Going Forward” when it comes to Ontario’s expanding network of college and university teaching and learning centres, and the growing emphasis on teaching and learning quality in the province’s postsecondary sector.
@ Issue Paper No. 12 – Teaching and Learning Centres: Their Evolving Role Within Ontario Colleges and Universities
University leaders are actively addressing the issue of mental health on campuses across Canada. No longer seen as simply a question of crisis management, mental health issues are being approached in more proactive and systematic ways, as universities increasingly appreciate the advantages of prevention over reaction. “We are exploring what we need as a sector to deal with mental health issues in the post-secondary setting,” says Dr. Su-Ting Teo, Director of Student Health and Wellness at Ryerson University. Dr. Teo is co-chair of a working group on mental health for the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS), one of several inter-institutional organizations focusing on the issue. The key is to identify best practices and then put into action strategies and plans that work best for an individual institution
and its specific circumstances.
In the area of developing and maintaining their talent supply chain—how employees are hired, developed and deployed to optimally support business strategy—too many companies are neglecting the all-important entry-level positions from which many of their top-performing employees will emerge.
That’s one of the important implications of the Accenture 2014 College Graduate Employment Survey, which compares the expectations and attitudes of this year’s university graduates with the realities of the working world according to 2012 and 2013 grads. When it comes to talent development, to jobs that match an employee’s education, and even the quest for full-time work, the slightly older peers of today’s graduates tell a cautionary tale about what the job world is really like.
It’s a story that is cautionary for companies, too. If organizations are to attract and retain top talent, as well as ensure their talent supply chain is developing and deploying the people with the right skills, their management of entry-level positions needs to improve.
There has been substantial discussion, research, and debate about the role of academic freedom within higher education, primarily centered on the university model. Not as well documented or understood is the issue of academic freedom within colleges and institutes in Canada. In this paper, we exam- ine the current state of academic freedom in colleges and institutes using a historical analysis of two Canadian provinces, British Columbia and Ontario. Beginning with an overview of academic freedom within universities, we then examine the development and evolution of colleges and institutes and discuss how or if academic freedom applies to them. We consider issues of collegial- ity, faculty engagement, and governance as they impact the concept and practice of academic freedom within these institutions. We also discuss the different origins, intents, roles, and governance models of universities in contrast to colleges and institutes, which are generally representative of the broader Canadian higher education landscape.
In 2008, the OECD launched the AHELO feasibility study, an initiative with the objective to assess whether it is possible to develop international measures of learning outcomes in higher education.
Learning outcomes are indeed key to a meaningful education, and focusing on learning outcomes is essential to inform diagnosis and improve teaching processes and student learning. While there is a long tradition of learning outcomes’ assessment within institutions’ courses and programmes, emphasis on learning outcomes has become more important in
recent years. Interest in developing comparative measures of learning outcomes has increased in response to a range of higher education trends, challenges and paradigm shifts.
AHELO aims to complement institution-based assessments by providing a direct evaluation of student learning outcomes at the global level and to enable institutions to benchmark the performance of their students against their peers as part of their improvement efforts. Given AHELO’s global scope, it is essential that measures of learning outcomes are valid across
diverse cultures and languages as well as different types of higher education institutions (HEIs).
The purpose of the feasibility study is to see whether it is practically and scientifically feasible to assess what students in higher education know and can do upon graduation within and across these diverse contexts. The feasibility study should demonstrate what is feasible and what could be feasible, what has worked well and what has not, as well as provide lessons and
stimulate reflection on how learning outcomes might be most effectively measured in the future.
This report was requested and partially funded by the University of Waterloo’s Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education (WATCACE), along with funding from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. It presents a customized analysis of findings from three surveys, undertaken in spring 2011 and spring 2012, to gather perspectives from graduating college and university students, postsecondary faculty, and Ontario employers on work-integrated learning (WIL) within a postsecondary program of study. The three surveys were funded by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) and conducted by Academica Group Inc., in partnership with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU), the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation (MEDI), as well as 14 Ontario postsecondary institutions and a variety of student associations and other stakeholders. The surveys were designed to gain a better understanding of student, faculty, and employer experiences with WIL, including motivations and barriers to participation, and perceptions of challenges and benefits. The results presented in this report provide insights into the attitudes and opinions of students and faculty from the University of Waterloo and the Ontario employers most likely to hire University of Waterloo graduates.