MCMASTER UNIVERSITY’S VISION/MANDATE
Vision Statement
To achieve international distinction for creativity, innovation, and excellence.
Mission
“At McMaster, our purpose is the discovery, communication, and preservation of knowledge. In our teaching, research, and scholarship, we are committed to creativity, innovation, and excellence. We value integrity, quality, inclusiveness, and teamwork in everything we do. We inspire critical thinking, personal growth, and a passion for lifelong learning. We serve the social, cultural, and economic needs of our community and our society.”
ABSTRACT
In a context of increasing attention to issues of scientific integrity in university research, it is important to reflect on the governance mechanisms that universities use to shape the behaviour of students, researchers, and faculty. This paper presents the results of a study of 47 Canadian university research ntegrity/misconduct (RIM) policies: 41 institutions (87%) had distinct policies dealing with research misconduct, 37 (90%) of which took the form of research integrity/misconduct policies. For each of these 41 documents, we assessed the stated policy objectives and the existence (or not) of procedures for managing allegations of misconduct, definitions of misconduct, and sanctions. Our analysis revealed that, like their American counterparts, most Canadian universities had policies that contained the key elements relevant to protecting research integrity and managing misconduct. Yet, there was significant variability in the structure and content of these policies, particularly with regard to practical guidance for university personnel and review bodies.
Bryn Williams-Jones
Université de Montréal
A large number of college graduates enroll at Lakehead University each year to further their education. Within the Ontario University system Lakehead is tied with Ryerson as the university having the largest share of Ontario transfer students compared to its share of Ontario system full-time equivalent students. Because Lakehead is an important destination for college transfer students, it is important to study the success of these students as has been done for traditional direct entry
(straight from high school) students. This report compares and contrasts the success of the following three groups of college students entering Lakehead:
those entering through bilateral or multi-lateral agreements with block transfer,
advanced standing college transfer students (those who have completed a college diploma and
are eligible for transfer credit) and,
other college students without transfer credits (students who have upgraded their high school
credential at a college, those who only partially completed a diploma, or those whose average is
below the requirement for transfer credit).
Specifically, this report explores whether there are any significant differences in the success rates and / or profile of the three types of college transfer students. Comparisons will be made with direct entry students. Success will be measured using modifications of measures traditionally applied to first-time, full-time freshmen including retention rate, six-year graduation rate, and grade-point average.
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the gendered nature of elite academic careers. Of interest is how similar or diff erent the experiences are of women and men who have been appointed to Canada Research Chairs (CRCs). In particular, we examine the impacts of holding a CRC position and consider the factors that shape that experience for women and men. Based on interviews with 60 CRCs, we find that when women and men are given similar opportunities, their experiences are more alike than diff erent. Where diff erences arise, these are often related to the experience of status/prestige associated with the CRC, and to family care responsibilities. Using expectation states theory, we demonstrate that when women are equal to men, the significance of gender as a determinant of the academic experience is diminished.
RÉSUMÉ
Cette étude se concentre sur l’influence du genre dans l’élite des carrières académiques. L’intérêt porte surtout sur le degré de similarité ou de diff érence entre les expériences des femmes et des hommes nommés à des postes de chaires de recherche du Canada (CRC). Nous examinons en particulier les répercussions sur les femmes et les hommes titulaires de CRC en tenant compte des facteurs qui forment l’expérience de ces individus. Nos entrevues avec 60 titulaires de CRC, nous mènent à conclure que les femmes et les hommes obtiennent des occasions similaires et que leurs expériences sont plus semblables que différentes. Lorsque des différences se présentent, elles sont plus souvent liées à l’expérience du statut et du prestige associés à la position de titulaire de CRC et à ses responsabilités familiales. En utilisant la théorie des états d’anticipation, nous démontrons que, lorsque les femmes sont égales aux hommes, la signification du genre en tant que déterminant de l’expérience académique est diminuée.
Without question, a major classroom challenge facing today’s educators is getting their students to put down their phones and pick up their level of engagement. While a generation ago educators might find their students getting sidetracked by an attractive classmate, an enchanting daydream or passing notes about an upcoming tailgate party, today’s smartphones present educators with a whole new array of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
According to the 2011 article “The Use and Abuse of Cell Phones and Text Messaging in the Classroom: A Survey of College Students,” published in College Teaching, after surveying “269 college students from 21 academic majors at a small Northeastern university,” authors Deborah R. Tindall and Robert W. Bohlander found that “95 percent of students bring their phones to class every day, 92 percent use their phones to text message during class time and 10 percent admit they have texted during an exam on at least one occasion.”
As students venture off campus for university-sponsored activities, are they at risk, given that universities are better able to control risk factors on cam-pus than they can for their off-campus activities? Co-operative education is a formalized and longstanding academic program that often sees students spend upwards of a third of their time off campus during the completion of a degree; thus, a discussion of the risks in co-operative education could provide a basis for assessing levels of risk for other off-campus activities. This quali-tative, descriptive case study examines co-operative education co-ordinators’ perceptions of the risks to students in co-operative education programs in Ca-nadian universities. Fourteen co-ordinators from across Canada participated in one-on-one interviews. Co-ordinators acknowledged that of the partners in co-operative education, the student is the most at risk. However, they viewed co-operative education as a safe endeavour for students, and there was agree-ment that the actual risk to students is minimal. The risk factors identified by co-ordinators included personal safety, harassment, youth or limited life experience, and mental health.
Puisque les universités contrôlent mieux les facteurs de risque des activiteurqu’elles parrainent qui ont lieu sur campus plutôt que hors campus, les étudiants sont-ils à risque lorsqu’ils s’aventurent hors campus pour de telles activités? Établi depuis longtemps, l’Éducation coopérative est un programme académique structuré qui voit souvent des étudiants passer plus du tiers de leur temps hors campus pendant leurs lôment. Une analyse
des risques en matière d’éducation coopérative pourrait donc fournir une base d’évaluation des niveaux de risque des autres activités hors campus. Cette étude de cas à description qualitative examine les perceptions des coordonnateurs en éducation coopérative quant aux risques encourus par les étudiants des programmes d’éducation coopérative des universités canadiennes. Quatorze coordonnateurs de partout au Canada ont participé à des entrevues individuelles. Ceux-ci reconnaissent que de tous les partenaires en éducation coopérative, l’étudiant est le plus à risque. Ils considèrent toutefois l’éducation coopérative comme un effort relativement sûr pour les élèvesion, et ils s’entendent pour dire que le risque réel pour les étudiants est minime. Les facteurs de risque relevif par les coordonnateurs sont liés à la protection personnelle, au harcèlement, à la jeunesse ou au peu d’expérience de vie, et à la santé mentale.
The reasons why students need to be involved and engaged when they attend college are well established. Engagement can be the difference between completing a degree and dropping out.
Research has sought to identify what makes student involvement more likely. Factors like student-faculty interaction, active and collaborative learning experiences, involvement in extracurricular activities, and living on campus have all been shown to make a difference. Not surprisingly, faculty play a critical role in student engagement … from the obvious: facilitating
discussions in the classroom; to the often overlooked: maximizing those brief encounters we have with students outside of class. This special report features 15 articles that provide perspectives and advice for keeping students actively engaged in learning activities while fostering more meaningful interactions between students and faculty members, and among the students themselves.
For example, in “Student Engagement: Trade-offs and Payoffs” author E Shelley Reid, associate professor at George Mason University, talks about how to craft engagement-focused questions rather than knowledge questions, and explains her willingness to take chances in ceding some control over students’ learning.
In “The Truly Participatory Seminar” authors Sarah M. Leupen and Edward H. Burtt, Jr., of Ohio Wesleyan University, outline their solution for ensuring all students in their upper division seminar course participate in discussion at some level.
In “Reminders for Improving Classroom Discussion” Roben Torosyan, associate director of the Center for Academic Excellence at Fairfield University, offers very specific advice on balancing student voices, reframing discussions, and probing below the surface of group discussions. And finally, in “Living for the Light Bulb” authors Aaron J. Nurick and David H. Carhart of Bentley College provide tips on setting the stage for that delightful time in class “when the student’s entire body says ‘Aha! Now I see it!’” Who wouldn’t like to see more light bulbs going on more often? One of the most challenging tasks instructors face is keeping students engaged. Building Student Engagement: 15 Strategies for the College Classroom will help you meet that challenge while ensuring your classroom is a positive and productive learning environment.
Background/Context: Very little empirical research has been conducted on the issue of educator sexual misconduct (ESM) in secondary settings. The few reports available typically treat a larger social issue, such as sexual harassment or child abuse; therefore, data on ESM specifically must be extrapolated. When such data are obtained, the focus has been on rates of incidence rather than the nature of the problem. Feminist scholars have theorized embodiment in education and debated whether and to what extent an eroticized pedagogy is desirable, but scant attention has been paid to how and why erotic pedagogy can go awry.
In September 2001, the Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada’s (ARUCC) Executive Committee launched an initiative to develop a national academic record and transcript guide for use in Canadian postsecondary institutions. This Report is the result of that initiative.
Funded in part through the Learning Initiatives Program by the Learning and Literacy Directorate of Human Resources Development Canada, the work began at the end of August 2002 and was finished seven months later. A National Committee representative of all types of postsecondary institutions, in all parts of the country, was formed. Its investigations were supported by four representative Regional Committees from the Atlantic, from Québec, from Ontario and from the West.
The New Technologies: New Pedagogies project endeavoured to take an innovative approach not only in the creation of new, authentic pedagogies for mobile devices but also in the action learning approach adopted for the professional development of participants. The project involved 19 people including teachers, IT and PD personnel. It was a large and ambitious project that resulted not only in a range of innovative pedagogies, but in the creation of more knowledgable and confident users of mobile technologies among teachers and students in the faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong.
What is on the five-year horizon for higher eudacation instiregarding technology adoption? Which trends technology developments ill drive educational change? What are the challenges that we consider as solvable or difficult to overcome, and educational change steered the collaborative research and discussions of a body of 58 experts to produce the NMC Horizon Report: 2016 Higher Education Edition, in partnership with the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). This NMC Horizon Report series charts the five-year horizon for the impact of emerging technologies in colleges and universities across the globe. With more than 14 years of research and publications, it can be regarded as the world’s longest-running exploration of emerging technology trends and uptake in education.
89% of colleges and universities in the United States offer online courses and of those institutions 58% offer degree programs that are completely online (Parker, Lenhart & Moore, 2011). Providing online student services is an important component of these distance programs and is often required by accrediting bodies. Health and wellness services for online students are especially essential, as college students are accessing mental health services for severe problems at increasing rates on college campuses (Gallagher, Sysko, & Zhang, 2001). This paper outlines how institutions of higher learning can prepare faculty to identify mental health needs of online students and suggests effective administrative policies and programs to address these student needs.Online enrollments were less than 10% of all students in 2002 when the Sloan Foundation began their annual surveys on the topic.By 2011, 32%of all enrolled post-secondary students were taking at least one online course and the numbers have been increasing steadily (Allen & Seaman, 2013). The rising percentage of online students has led to awareness by college administrations that these students have the same needs as students in a traditional classroom setting. Students who want to learn online also want to access their student services online. For learners enrolled in online programs, and living in geographically distant locations, internet access to student services is essential. These students' needs have resulted in revision of college and university policies and the creation of extensive web-based services for technical support in online courses, enrollment services, financial aid, and library resources.
“What is mentoring all about”? Being Telemachus’ guide and resource person Mentor’s prime role was to “help” the young and unskilled son of Odysseus to become a proficient and self-regulated learner, able to cope with the demands of life. This ‘helping” process (Cox, Bachkirova, & Clutterbuck, 2010) was accomplished through conversation. Mentoring’s typical
characteristic is talk, i.e., the communicative interactive exchange between persons. This exchange is considered to be the vehicle of learning and professional development. Therefore, to tentatively answer our opening question, mentoring is about learning in conversations. For mentoring to be of any help its process (i.e., conversation) and its result (i.e., learning to become a professional) need to be carefully appreciated and scrutinized by mentors – i.e., “reflected upon” – in order to
warrant a mentor’s role and position as a “helping” agent.
The thesis of this book is that the present approach to the provision of baccalaureate education in Ontario is not sustainable and
is in need of significant modification. The stage for the present approach was set by two higher education policy decisions that
were made in the 1960s: (1) that the colleges would have no role in the provision of baccalaureate credit activity; and (2) that the
publicly supported universities would have complete autonomy in deciding on their purpose, mission, and objectives. While the
universities had been primarily teaching institutions until the 1960s, since then a single idea of the mission of the university—the
research university—has been adopted by all. A key element of the research university model to which the university community
in Ontario has subscribed is that of the teacher-researcher ideal: that undergraduate students should be taught only by
professors who are active researchers.
Ontario's colleges of applied arts and technology (CAATs) were granted authority to offer degrees in 2000, and the first degree programs were offered in 2002. The rationale for granting colleges permission to offer degrees was threefold: first it was to meet the needs of a higher skilled workforce in a changing economic, social and political environment: second, it was to widen access to degrees for Ontarians overall, but particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are more likely to attend a college than a university; and third, it was anticipated that college degrees would be less expensive than university degrees for students and governments (Skolnik 2016b)
The priority for the Ontario government – for its economic ministries, its education ministries, and for the entire government – must be economic growth and helping more people find good jobs.
In the traditional college classroom today, faculty and students arrive with a certain set of expectations, shaped largely by past experiences. And although students may need the occasional (or perhaps frequent) reminder of what's required of them, there's usually something very familiar about the experience for both faculty and students alike. In the online classroom, an entirely new set of variables enters the equation. It's a little like trying to drive in a foreign country. You know how to drive, just like you know how to teach, but it sure is hard to get the hang of driving on the left side of the road, you're not quite sure
how far a kilometre is, and darn it if those road signs aren't all in Japanese. This special report explains the "rules of the road" for online teaching and learning and features a series of columns that first appeared in the Distance Education Report's "Between the Clicks," a popular column by Dr. Lawrence C. Ragan, Director of Instructional Design and
Development for Penn State's World Campus.
The articles contained in the report will help you establish online instructor best practices and expectations, and include the following principles of effective online teaching:
. Show Up and Teach
. Practice Proactive Course Management Strategies
. Establish Patterns of Course Activities
. Plan for the Unplanned
. Response Requested and Expected
. Think Before You Write
. Help Maintain Forward Progress
. Safe and Secure
. Quality Counts
.(Double) Click a Mile on My Connection
These principles, developed at Penn State's World Campus, outline the core behaviours of the successful online instructor, and help to define parameters around the investment of time on part of the instructor. In his articles, Ragan identifies potential barriers and limitations to online learning, and specific strategies to assist instructors in achieving the performance
The school-to-work transition of Ontario postsecondary graduates is a growing concern within Canada’s “knowledge-based” economy, with increasing attention given to the skills possessed by recent graduates. There is some debate about whether the skills developed within postsecondary programs provide a good fit with the requirements of the evolving “knowledge” economy. While some argue that graduates require technical and applied skills for this economy, others assert that generic skills offered by liberal arts programs, such as communication and critical thinking skills, are also in demand by employers. Therefore, although technological skills are required for the creation of new technology in this economy, an alternate perspective identifies a need for a variety of educated workers, including those who can evaluate, interpret, and communicate information in the knowledge economy. The field of study of recent postsecondary graduates is thus a salient aspect of their labour
market outcomes. Previous research indicates that there was little difference in outcomes between graduates of different fields of study in the 1980s and early 1990s; however, information about more recent cohorts is needed. The impact of new information technology and a greater concentration on producing workers for the knowledge economy has influenced changes in human resources needs and business activities. It is therefore important to study a recent cohort of graduates who made their school-to-work transitions during a time of rapid technological change.
The primary purpose of this study is to explore issues relating to the labour market outcomes of recent graduates of various field of study and levels of schooling in Ontario. While stratification based on fields of study is the focus of this research, attention is also given to gender when examining the employment outcomes of recent graduates. Enrolment across trades, college, and university programs remain segregated by gender, leading to gender differences in occupational choice and technical training. Thus, the reproduction of the gendered division of labour may result. This study will provide important information for policy officials involved with allocating government funding to education and may inform decisions about tuition levels for different programs. Results may also be of interest to administrators of college, trades, and university programs who are concerned with admissions strategies and enrolment across different fields of study. The findings from this study will also be of assistance to students.
Last month’s Women’s March, one of the largest demonstrations in American history, drew between three and five million people across 673 U.S. cities and 170 cities internationally, according to a Google Drive effort to capture estimates. Since then, protests have continued in communities nationwide, including a series of major demonstrations in response to President Trump’s executive order barring travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim nations, his order to move ahead with the wall along the Mexican border and the controversial North Dakota pipeline.
Viewed as signaling white nationalism, racism, sexism and xenophobia, the election of Donald Trump has provoked strong and negative responses among students. The turbulent political atmosphere recently engulfed the University of California, Berkeley, where students or -- according to campus officials -- agitators from off the campus violently interrupted what were to be peaceful protests and a speech by Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Student protests against Trump’s travel ban have also occurred at Ohio, American, Chapman and Rutgers Universities.
What do these events say, if anything, about activism on college campuses today? Have they sparked a new wave of student engagement? Or is it a momentary outcry?
GRADUATES WITH RELEVANT WORK EXPERIENCE ARE AHEAD OF THEIR PEERS.
THE NATIONAL GRADUATES SURVEY SHOWS BACHELOR’S LEVEL GRADUATES WITH CO-OP EXPERIENCE EARN MORE THAN THEIR PEERS, HAVE HIGHER EMPLOYMENT AND FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT RATES, AND ARE MORE LIKELY TO HAVE PAID OFF DEBT TWO YEARS AFTER GRADUATION.