This short document presents a synthesis of the main findings emerging from the six case studies aimed at identifying the characteristics of innovative North-South university partnerships conducted by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) in 2012. It includes an overview of the purpose of the study and details on how it was conducted, including a refresher on the analytical framework utilized to design the data collection and analysis tools. The last section presents a summary of the findings emerging from the study and some recommendations addressed to the funders of these partnerships, participating universities and faculty members as well as possible next steps.
LAMBTON COLLEGE VISION/MANDATE
Lambton College fosters innovation and entrepreneurship among our faculty, staff, and students, and in the local and global communities we serve. As the sole provider of higher education in our region, and as a mobile learning college, we are committed to providing teaching and learning excellence in a broad range of program offerings, and a full range of credentials in alignment with our areas of specialization.
It should be noted that our Strategic Mandate was developed within the context of the Lambton College Strategic Plan, and was developed and received with and by the Lambton College of Applied Arts of Technology Board of Governors.
The Dual Credit and School Within a College (SWAC) programs are both dual enrolment/dual credit programs that address access by creating new pathways to postsecondary education for non-traditional students. The programs allow students who are still in grade 11 and grade 12 to take one or more courses at a local college and earn both a high school credit toward their high school diploma as well as a college credit from the college offering the course. Though these programs have been offered internationally for over three decades, there is still little research and little conclusive evidence that demonstrate their effectiveness.
Within the span of 20 years, tuition as a source of operating revenue grew from 18 percent in 1988 to 37 percent in 2008.1 The most recent financial reports show tuition alone made up 45 percent of universities’ operating budgets in 2014—51 percent when fees are included—compared to the provincial government’s 43 percent contribution.2 As tuition continues to increase the affordability, accessibility, and accountability of a university education are put at risk. Our Tuition policy sets out students’ priorities for addressing their short and long term concerns with regards to the tuition framework and tuition payment processes.
Mission
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Confederation College inspires learners to succeed in their lives and careers in Northwestern Ontario and beyond.
Vision
• Confederation College will enrich lives through learning.
This report is the first by StudentsNS to focus principally on the organisation’s quality value. This paper conceptualizes quality in post-secondary education (PSE), examines the tools used by PSE institutions in Nova Scotia to uphold and enhance quality,
and finally, recommends policies to develop a more student-centred approach to quality measures and assessments. Our understanding of quality in PSE has shifted overtime from the traditional notions of excellence and exclusivity to a focus on
access, accountability, learning outcomes, and the student experience. This shift, however, has not been fully realized within the different mechanisms for supporting and measuring PSE quality. As a result, many of these mechanisms do not effectively
address the real factors affecting learning, institutions are insufficiently accountable for students’ learning, and student voice is not adequately supported. More research is needed to better understand the state of teaching and learning, especially within
universities. However, it is clear that, across the system, a greater emphasis needs to be placed on continual improvement in instruction and pedagogy, on learning outcomes, and on effective quality assurance. Recommendations in the report address
these three themes, envisaging a more student-centred, evidence-based, teaching and-learning-driven PSE system for our province. The report does not provide StudentsNS last word on PSE quality, but represents the first of many projects to explore
ways that Nova Scotia’s PSE institutions can better meet students’ expectations
and support their lifelong success.
Failure in one way or another, is likely unavoidable. The experience can take on different meanings for each of us, but the feat behind is something we all share, Moments of failure are typically viewed as poor performances. A teacher attaches a grad to an assignment or test, and the course often continues, in spite of the fact that a number of students have not mastered a significant portion of the material.
Not only did the Great Recession place many people in the unemployment line, it also led to declining access to full-time jobs. Underemployed workers comprise those who want a job but don’t have one as well as those who want a full-time job but only have a part-time job. Now, five years into the recovery, underemployment has declined to less than 10 percent from its peak of 17 percent during the recession. College graduates’ rate of underemployment has declined from 10.2 percent to 6.2 percent today. That is much lower than the 13 percent underemployment rate of high school graduates.
In November 2013, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) asked students to comment on their experience with summer and in-study employment. Of particular interest were: the number of jobs students were working during these
terms; whether or not these opportunities were within a student’s field of study; and whether they positively impacted their academic performance.
Results of OUSA’s 2013 Ontario Post-Secondary Student Survey (OPSSS) were further broken down based on institution and field of study for questions of particular interest. This was done to easily compare the responses from these distinct groups to see how consistent the undergraduate employment experience was across academic disciplines and universities.
Community colleges are a distinctively American contribution to higher education. While invented a century ago, these “junior colleges” were defined in modern terms after World War II in response to the Truman Doctrine’s call for developing post-secondary institutions that encourage adults to return to college. More than 70 percent of American community colleges were established between 1945 and 1970 and are still evolving today.
One in three students globally is enrolled in private higher education institutions, according to research that reveals the huge growth and wide reach of private providers.
The analysis, the first study based on comprehensive data on the size and shape of private higher education internationally, finds that private institutions have 56.7 million students on their books, or 32.9 percent of the world’s enrollment.
Straightforward advice for job candidates in search of a professorial recommendation.
It is one of the most critical steps in a graduate student’s path to permanent academic employment, yet ironically it’s also one of the most mysterious. Asking a professor for a letter, or more likely many letters, of reference can be stressful, and rarely are
students instructed on proper etiquette. Fortunately, the process doesn’t have to be intimidating.
This handbook is intended to serve as a resource for faculty, staff, academic leaders and education developers engaged in program and course design/review, and the assessment of program-level learning outcomes for program improvement. The assessment of learning outcomes at the program-level can assist in making improvements to curricula, teaching and assessments plans.
Ensuring a good match between skills acquired in education and on the job and those required in the labour market is essential to make the most of investments in human capital and promote strong and inclusive growth. Unfortunately, in the OECD on average, about one in four workers are over-qualified – i.e. they possess higher qualifications than those required by their job – and just over one in five are under- qualified – i.e. they possess lower qualifications than those required by their
job. In addition, some socio- demographic groups are more likely than others to be over-qualified – notably, immigrants and new labour market entrants who take some time to sort themselves into appropriate jobs – or under-qualified – notably,
experienced workers lacking a formal qualification for the skills acquired on the labour market.
Attraction and retention of apprentices and completion of apprenticeships are issues of concern to all stakeholders involved in training, economic development and workforce planning. The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum (CAF) has forecast that by 2017 there will be a need to train 316,000 workers to replace the retiring workforce in the construction industry alone (CAF, 2011a). In the automotive sector, shortages are expected to reach between 43,700 and 77,150 by 2021. However, shortages are already widespread across the sector, and CAF survey data show that almost half (48.1%) of employers reported that there was a limited number of qualified staff in 2011 (CAF, 2011a). Given this, retention of qualified individuals in apprenticeship training and supporting them through to completion is a serious issue. There is some indication that registration in apprenticeship programs has been increasing steadily over the past few years, but the number of apprentices completing their program has not kept pace (Kallio, 2013; Laporte & Mueller, 2011). Increasing the number of completions would result in a net benefit to both apprentices and
employers, minimizing joblessness and skills shortages.
A 1975 research article by Vincent Tinto,“Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research,” spurred more than twenty-five years of dialogue on student retention and persistence in higher education. Though it has been attacked by some and re- vised by Tinto himself, his work has remained the dominant sociological theory of how students navigate through our postsecondary system.
More than a quarter century later, the issues of student retention and persistence are as pertinent as they were when Tinto first published his student integration model. In the 1970s and 1980s, public policy was focused primarily on access, with federal and state legislation aimed at reducing barriers to higher education. By the mid-1990s, the discussion moved from access to issues of choice, affordability, and persistence. Although gaining entry to col- lege is still a dramatic accomplishment for some, persisting to degree is what really matters in the postcollege world. Unfulfilled academic goals often result in unfulfilled career realities:
lower pay, less security, fewer opportunities, and dreams deferred—if not abandoned.
In a recent Center for Digital Education (CDE) survey, 74 percent of responding higher education decision- makers said improving student retention and graduation rates is the top goal of their college or institution. The ability to retain and promote students not only influences college rankings, reputation and recruitment of top talent, but also impacts the bottom line. Enrolled students provide a steady revenue stream via tuition and other purchases (e.g., books, parking passes and food services). Student retention also allows recruitment dollars to go further by decreasing the need to continually replace students who have dropped out.
The focus of this study was to determine the graduation and employment rates of Indspire’s Building Brighter Futures: Bursaries and Scholarship Awards (BBF) program recipients. Methodologically, the study was structured as a qualitative-quantitative survey. A total of 1,248 Indigenous students who received funding through Indspire’s BBF program between 2000-2001 and 2012-2013 participated in a survey. The report gathers data from a sample of Indigenous students in all provinces and
territories.
Abstract
Achieving tenure and promotion are significant milestones in the career of a university faculty member. However, research indicates that racialized and female faculty do not achieve tenure and promotion at the same rate as their non-racialized and male counterparts. Using new survey data on faculty in eight Canadian universities, this article examines differences in being tenured and promoted between racialized and non-racialized faculty and between female and non-female faculty. It also investigates the extent to which explanations of human capital theory and cultural or identity taxation account for these disparities. Logistic regression confirms that controlling for human capital and cultural or identity taxation washes away the differences between being tenured and promoted for female faculty. Differences for racialized faculty remain, offering evidence of racial discrimination in the academic system.
Résumé
L’obtention de la permanence et la promotion sont des jalons importants de la carrière d’un professeur d’université. Cependant, des recherches scientifiques indiquent que les professeurs racialisés et les femmes n’obtiennent pas de permanence et de promotion au même rythme que leurs homologues non racialisés et de sexe masculin. En utilisant de nouvelles données provenant d’une enquête menée auprès de professeurs dans huit universités canadiennes, cet article scrute les différences entre les taux de permanence et de promotion des professeurs racialisés et non racialisés, ainsi qu’entre femmes et non femmes, afin d’analyser dans quelle mesure la théorie du capital humain ou celle de l’imposition culturelle ou identitaire explique
ces disparités. La régression logistique confirme qu’en contrôlant le capital humain ou l’imposition culturelle ou identitaire, les différences de permanence ou de promotion parmi les femmes disparaissent. Cependant, même avec ce contrôle, les différences demeurent pour les professeurs racialisés, ce qui fournit une preuve que la discrimination raciale existe dans le système universitaire.
In recent years, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) has launched several studies that analyze and conceptualize the differentiation of the Ontario postsecondary education system (Weingarten & Deller, 2010; Hicks, Weingarten, Jonker & Liu, 2013; Weingarten, Hicks, Jonker & Liu, 2013). Similarly, in the summer of 2012, the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) initiated several projects to identify ways to drive innovation and improve the productivity of the postsecondary sector.