This paper reports on some of the findings of a 2008–2009 graduate study conducted as a shared organizational learning experience for the Grant MacEwan College (now MacEwan University1) Board of Governors to learn about a vital board governance responsibility—presidential search. Through a facilitated, qualitative action research exercise, participants engaged in a four-stage progressive learning experience to create a body of knowledge about presidential search experiences and to develop strategies for transferring this knowledge when membership changes. The study examined how, through the application of knowledge management theory, a board can learn and share knowledge. This learning experience contributed to the creation of a comprehensive board succession plan for the MacEwan Board of Governors and, in 2010–2011, this plan was used to guide the institution’s search for its fourth president.
The overarching message of this report is that equality does not happen by accident.
The research reviewed suggests that education policy makers should ensure that gender equality is a
real rather than a rhetorical priority and that change is substantively resourced in teacher
education and in school practices.
The publication of this report is part of our ongoing commitment to promoting gender equality in European schools and societies. A complementary report on gender and educational attainment will be published by Eurydice in November 2009. Also in November, a conference on gender and educational attainment organised by the Swedish Presidency of the European Union will bring together many of the key actors with the aim to providing an improved basis for further European policy
cooperation in this field.
As Canada’s youth consider their increasingly broad and complex array of post-secondary education (PSE) options, they are faced with potentially costly decisions. Moreover, they often do not have the information they need to make appropriate choices, which can negatively impact their participation and persistence in PSE. For many students, it is a challenge to choose, design and follow a post-secondary pathway to its conclusion without deviating from their original plan. Students are increasingly taking non-linear pathways through PSE. Some may need to relocate and attend a different institution. Many students may decide to change the focus of their study, while others may wish to change their program entirely. Some may shift their goals from academic to applied forms of study, or vice versa. However, the structures of post-secondary systems in our provinces, and the various mechanisms that bind them, do not always provide clearly apparent and unobstructed pathways for students, particularly for mobile students. These problems are exacerbated by shifting mandates, roles, and labels of institutions across the Canadian PSE sector.
ecently, I gave a reading at a local independent bookstore for my new book, Trans/Portraits: Voices From Transgender Communities. The book uses an oral history framework to examine the daily lives of 34 transgender and nonbinary individuals
Hindered by video screens, fluctuating schedules, and health regulations, teachers are up
against the odds this school year when it comes to getting to know their students.
Education is vitally important to a person’s personal, social and academic development. Achieving one’s education potential affects a person’s ability to take part in the labour market, live independently, participate meaningfully in society, and realize their full potential.
The Ontario Human Rights Code (Code) recognizes the importance of creating a climate of understanding and mutual respect for the dignity and worth of each person, so that each person can contribute fully to the development and wellbeing of the community and the Province. The Code guarantees the right to equal treatment in education, without discrimination on the ground of disability, as part of the protection for equal treatment in services. This protection applies to elementary and secondary schools, and colleges and universities, both public and private.
Media and policy commentary have focused lately on Canadian employers’ apparent inability to find employees with the desired labour market skills. To explore this issue further, HEQCO reviewed and summarized the current discourse surrounding a “skills gap” in The Great Skills Divide: A Review of the Literature and conducted an analysis of Canadian job advertisements geared toward recent postsecondary graduates in Bridging the Divide, Part I: What Canadian Job Ads Said. In the latter publication, 316 job advertisements for entry-level positions requiring postsecondary education were examined to ascertain the education credentials, work experience and essential skills employers were seeking. To follow-up on Bridging the Divide, Part I, the current report analyzes survey responses from 103 employers that posted job advertisements included in the preceding study.
In particular, employers were asked if they had filled the advertised position or, if not, the reasons for being unable to find someone to hire. Those employers that had filled the position were also asked about the successful candidates’ qualifications and performance on the job so far.
This study examined aspects of approval processes for baccalaureate degree programs in colleges in the following 11 jurisdictions: Alberta, British Columbia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Flanders, Florida, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. More detailed profiles are provided for seven of the jurisdictions. In order to make the data more relevant for the Ontario reader, some comparisons with characteristics of the baccalaureate degree approval process in Ontario are noted.
Reflecting on what’s at play with the Ontario college faculty strike, as Yogi Berra once noted, it’s “déjà vu all over again.”
I was a college president in 1984 when college faculty voted overwhelmingly for a strike because they felt they were treated as lemmings, victims of top-down management styles that eschewed proper faculty involvement in decisionmaking, especially when it came to instructional delivery and workloads.
This clearly defined the majority of colleges at the time. Faculty was right to strike. Each strike has an idiosyncratic ethos — core factors that vary from obvious to vague. In 1984, the issues were clear.
In 1987, not so. The faculty hit the bricks with only a 51.25 per cent strike vote. It remains unclear to this day, why the union leaders at the time took their brothers and sisters to the picket line with an unprecedented low strike mandate and no apparent issues at stake. Was it runaway megalomania? Was there an unrelated personal agenda? Who knows? But the result was a disaster for faculty who were led down a prickly garden path and dealt a financial blow by an arbitrator.
Jeannine Plamondon is a legal counsel who seeks justice for war crimes. Erin O’Brien is a United Nations worker helping to achieve food security in Africa. And Christopher Charles is a social entrepreneur and the inventor of a tool to combat anemia in Cambodia. These accomplished professionals are a few of the former participants in the Students for Development (SFD) program whose current careers and study paths have been profoundly shaped by their SFD internship experiences.
If you read my previous work, Journey of Joy: Teaching Tips for Reflection, Rejuvenation, and Renewal, you may recall that I suggested using an acronym for the word joy— Just Offer Yourself. In short, when confused about where to locate joy, we can
remember to give of ourselves in basic ways in order to receive the benefits that derive from each simple act. But what about those times when we feel as if we have little to offer? Let’s take a look at some contributing factors and possible solutions.
According to data released by Statistics Canada in 2014, the years of 2000 - 2010 have seen significant increases in large and private debt among graduating students, and skyrocketing private debt among graduates with doctoral degrees. Although the
percentage of graduates in debt appears to be decreasing overall in this decade, this is both because of the introduction of the Canada Student Grants Program (which turns a portion of student loans into non-repayable grants) and because enrollment growth has outpaced increases in student loan borrowing. Even so, those who are borrowing are taking on much higher debts,and increasingly from private sources.
Michael Skolnik
Canadian higher education has in the past few years succumbed to a mood of despair and defensiveness. Until just a few years ago, it was characterized by a confident, forward-looking energy, secure in the notion that it was the pre eminent engine of national development. Since then, we have seen our relative salaries decline; our plant,
equipment, and libraries erode; our jobs threatened; and the value of our contribution to Canadian society severely questioned. A number of explanations could be given for this dramatic reversal of our fortunes, with emphasis ranging from demographics to poor public relations, from economic stagnation to short-sighted political manoeuvering. One popular
explanation is that Canadian higher education is now Qustly) paying off debts it incurred in a Faustian compact with homo economicus. We financed our tremendous growth of yesteryear, this explanation purports, on promises of contributing substantially (or worse, by ourselves, delivering) unprecedented economic growth and industrial expansion. Now that industrial expansion has come to a standstill (and even declined), the primary case for generous funding of higher education is at best called into question, and at worst severely undermined. For those who accept this retributional explanation of the cause of the current crisis of finance and purpose in higher education, Global Stakes
Very often, we tend to interpret a person's behavior as an act that reflects their character, however, behaviors don’t always tell us everything we need to know about a person's personality. The desire to classify people and judge them prevents us from seeing things that can explain the reason for that behavior, and according to prominent American psychotherapists, Beck, and Arthur Freeman, authors of "Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders," something bigger often hides in abnormal behavior that can indicate a mental illness with the same symptoms. In order for you to try and identify these disorders in their
initial stages and to prevent further development and/or treat it, and especially so as not to rush to judge people because of their behavior, we’ve collected for you eight personality traits that many of you have encountered in a certain person and perhaps interpreted incorrectly.
Canadians invest considerable energy, resources, and personal and societal aspiration postsecondary education. It is good public policy to assess how we are doing and outcomes we are achieving with that investment. One of HEQCO’s core mandates evaluate the postsecondary sector and to report the results of that assessment. in this report, we have assembled data that assess the performance of Canada’s provincial public postsecondary education systems.
This report covers the combined results for the summer 2014, autumn 2014, and spring 2015 Ohio State Graduation Survey administrations. An invitation to the Graduation Survey was sent to all undergraduate, Master's, and professional degree recipients who were scheduled to graduate in the summer, autumn, or spring terms of the 2014-2015 academic year.
Graduate studies at OISE occur within Division II of the University’s School of Graduate Studies (SGS). Thus, graduate degrees are granted by the University of Toronto and their requirements derive from University of Toronto policy. As indicated in the OISE Bulletin:
A major requirement for the M.A., M.Ed. (Option III), Ph.D., or Ed.D. degree is the development and presentation of a thesis embodying the results of original investigation, conducted by the student, on an approved topic in her/his major subject. The thesis will constitute a contribution to the knowledge of the field and should be appropriate in scope and significance to the degree which the student is seeking.
Abstract
The purpose of the paper is to describe our peer mentorship experiences and explain how these experiences fostered transformational learning during our PhD graduate program in educational administration. As a literature backdrop, we discuss characteristics of traditional forms of mentorship and depict how our experiences of peer mentorship was unique. Through narrative inquiry, we present personal data and apply concepts of transformational learning theory to analyze our experiences. Our key finding was that it was the ambiguous boundaries combined with the formal structure of our graduate program that created an environment where peer mentorship thrived. We conclude that peer mentorship has great capacity to foster human and social capital within graduate programs for both local and international students.
Résumé
Le but de cet article est de décrire nos expériences de mentorat par les pairs et d’expliquer comment ces expériences ont favorisé l’apprentissage transformationnel au cours de notre programme d’études supérieures de doctorat. Avec la littérature comme toile de fond, nous discutons des caractéristiques des formes traditionnelles de mentorat et décrivons comment
notre mentorat par les pairs est unique. Grâce à l’analyse narrative, nous présentons des données personnelles et appliquons les concepts de la théorie de l’apprentissage transformationnel pour analyser nos expériences. L’élément clé de l’étude démontre clairement que les frontières ambiguës, combinées à la structure formelle de notre programme d’études supérieures, créent un environnement favorable au mentorat par les pairs. À la lumière de notre étude, nous concluons que, tant pour les étudiants locaux qu’internationaux, le mentorat par les pairs rehausse le développement humain et social dans les
programmes d’études supérieures.
The overall persistence rate for first-time college students has dropped 1.2 percentage points since 2009, while the retention
rate has remained nearly constant.The persistence rate is the percentage of students who return to college at any institution for their second year, while the retention rate is the percentage of students who return to the same institution for their second year.
Objective: Responsible media reporting of youth suicide may reduce the risk of contagion and
increase help-seeking behaviour. Accordingly, we conducted a content analysis of Canadian youth suicide newspaper
articles to assess quality and summarize content (themes, age groups, populations and use of scientific evidence). Method: The Canadian Periodical Index Quarterly (CPI.Q) was searched (2008-2012) for full-text Canadian newspaper articles using the keywords “youth” and “suicide.” The top five most relevant articles as judged by CPI.Q were selected sequentially for each year (n=25). Quality was assessed using World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for responsible media reporting. Content analysis was completed in duplicate by two reviewers. Results: All articles addressed youth suicide generally rather than reporting exclusively on a specific death by suicide. Alignment of articles with individual WHO guideline items ranged from 16 to 60%. The most common content theme was prevention (80%). No article was judged to glamorize suicide. Help seeking was
addressed in 52% of articles, but only 20% provided information on where to obtain help. Statistics were referenced more frequently than scientific research (76% vs. 28%). Conclusions: Our review suggests that Canadian media presents youth suicide as an issue for which hope and help exist. While the majority of reports aim to educate the public about suicide, increased use of scientific evidence about risk factors and prevention is recommended to facilitate the translation of rigorous scientific knowledge into improved mental health and reduced suicide risk among Canadian youth.
Key Words: suicide, youth, responsible media reporting, Canada
Objectif: Les médias responsables qui rendent compte du suicide chez les adolescents peuvent réduire le risque de
contagion et favoriser le comportement de recherche d’aide. Conformément, nous avons mené une analyse de contenu des articles de journaux canadiens sur le suicide d’adolescents pour en évaluer la qualité et résumer le contenu (thèmes, groupes d’âge, populations et utilisation de données probantes scientifiques). Méthode: Nous avons recherché (2008- 2012) dans l’Index de périodiques canadiens trimestriel (IPC.T) le texte intégral des articles de journaux canadiens à l’aide des mots « adolescent » et « suicide ». Les cinq principaux articles les plus pertinents, selon l’IPC.T, ont été choisis séquentiellement pour chaque année (n=25). La qualité a été évaluée à l’aide des directives de l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) pour une couverture responsable des médias. L’analyse de contenu a été effectuée en double par deux réviseurs. Résultats: Tous les articles abordaient le suicide chez les adolescents généralement plutôt que decouvrir exclusivement un décès spécifique par suicide. L’alignement des articles contenant des éléments individuels des directives de l’OMS allait de 16 à 60%. Le thème le plus commun était la prévention (80%). Aucun article n’a été jugé sensationnaliser le suicide. La recherche d’aide a été mentionnée
dans 52% des articles, mais seulement 20% donnaient de l’information sur l’endroit où obtenir de l’aide. Les références étaient plus fréquemment de l’ordre des statistiques que de la recherche scientifique (76% c. 28%). Conclusions: Notre revue suggère que les médias canadiens présentent le suicide chez les adolescents comme un enjeu pour lequel il existe de l’espoir et de l’aide. Bien que la majorité des articles visent à éduquer le public sur le suicide, le recours accru à des données probantes scientifiques sur les facteurs de risque et la prévention est recommandé pour faciliter la traduction de connaissances scientifiques rigoureuses en une meilleure santé mentale, et des risques de suicide réduits chez les adolescents canadiens.
Mots clés: suicide, adolescent, couverture responsable des médias, Canada