The rapid turnover of technology and ever expanding network of data and information which underpin the knowledge economy have led to a reevaluation of the importance of knowledge to the economic process. Economists now conclude that human capital - the ideas, skills, and expertise of people - is a fundamental driver of economic growth. Demand for employees that possess a mix of both “hard” and “soft” skills is rising
When it comes to keeping tenured professors content in their jobs, you can catch more flies with honey than you can with big faculty-focused strategic initiatives, a new study suggests.
The study, based on survey data from more than 3,600 recently tenured associate professors at doctoral universities, found that their organizational commitment hinged far more on whether they believed they worked in a caring, supportive environment than on their sense that administrators had undertaken broad efforts to support the faculty.
The career search is a mysterious process, and as the seeker it is easy to feel as if you have no control. And the longer the search goes on without a positive outcome, the more you can feel like the system is rigged against you.
But having been on both sides of the hiring equation myself, and through my work coaching others through the process, I know that sometimes job candidates sabotage their own success. My point is not to cast blame, but to provide you with some insight into the perspective of the hiring manager so you can evaluate and reassess your approach. Following are some areas to consider when analyzing your process.
Transgender and gender-nonbinary students share what keeps them from feeling safe and thriving on campus.
The federal law known as Title IX is meant to protect students from discrimination based on their gender identity. But many gay, lesbian, and transgender students say they face an array of challenges and safety issues on their campuses. The Chronicle interviewed more than a dozen of them to hear more about what keeps them from thriving in college.
THE POSTSECONDARY REVIEW led by Bob Rae has presented a bracing diagnosis of a system he accurately describes as strong, but in serious jeopardy. OCUFA agrees that Ontario’s community colleges and universities are “on the edge of the choice between steady decline and great improvement” and that making the choice for improvement “will require more resources as well as a will to change.”
In other areas, Mr. Rae’s framing of the questions suggests a direction OCUFA would find troubling. The Discussion Paper’s section on “Accessibility” does not consider at all the financial barriers to participating in higher education. Instead, tuition and student aid are a major focus of the “Funding” section, pointing to an apparent belief that reformed student assistance accompanied by higher tuition fees could be a significant source of increased resources for community colleges and universities. In this submission, OCUFA calls attention to evidence from other jurisdictions that student aid innovations, in
particular the “go now-pay later” example currently being exported from Australia to the United Kingdom, will not deliver the hoped-for salvation. Instead, we set out the case for significantly increased public funding for higher education.We have organized our submission along the five main themes set out in the Discussion Paper: accessibility, quality, system design, funding and accountability.
Ontario is reviewing its university funding model, an enrolment-based formula through which the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities distributes a $3.5B annual provincial operating grant to the province’s 20 publicly assisted universities.
We examined the existing model in our June 2015 paper The Ontario University Funding Model in Context. We observed that the model is a relatively small (27 %) component of total university system revenues. We concluded that this small slice of funding must be managed in a focussed and strategic way if it is to be effective in shaping behaviour towards desired provincial objectives (HEQCO, 2015).
Tioga High School senior Emily Kennedy studies a child development college course online in Groveland, as part of
a collaboration with Columbia College.
The stakes are getting higher for teachers daily as more and more states adopt hiring, granting policies based on teacher evaluations. Even more concerning is the limited discussion about whether foirri nngo,t ahnigdh t-estnaukrees- tdeeaccishieorn se vaarelu baatisoend coann tmhee erta ttihoen ainlet etnhdaetd f ioruintgc oimneef foefc itmivper toevaecdh setrusd (eans tp arcimhiaervielym meneta,s uarnedd a bty w ohbaste rcvoastti.o Tnh deaseta h aignhd- svtaalkuees-added svcaolirdeist)y ,w pilelr icmenptraogvee fsitruedde,n atn adc thuiernveomveern) tt.h Taht,i si fp rneomt imsee ti,s ccohualldle rnegseudl tb iyn vaa rniuomusb vearr oiaf bploesss aibnlde ausnsiunmtepntdioends c(oen.gse.,q rueelniacbeisl.ity,
The clearest and most consistent message received by the Steering Committee through its working group reports and submissions from the wider community is that, as the University of Toronto seeks to respond fully and faithfully to the challenges issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (“TRC”), our focus must be on concrete action. The Steering Committee (the “Committee”) is of the same mind. Therefore, this report will be framed around a series of ‘calls to action,’ mirroring the work of the TRC itself.
Elementary and high schools spend so much time on the content-laden curriculum that students are unprepared for the analytic and conceptual thinking they'll need at university
Has Ontario’s educational system taught a decade of students not to think? There is growing evidence that the combination of standardized testing with a content-intensive curriculum that’s too advanced – both introduced by the Conservative government between 1997 and 1999 – has done exactly that.
A dramatic indication that there could be a serious problem was the performance of my introductory physics class on their November test last year. It was identical to one given in 1996, but the class average over this 10-year period had plummeted from 66 to 50 percent. There is about a five-percent fluctuation in this test grade from year to year due to variation in student ability
and the difficulty of the questions but, when I looked at the class average over the many times I have taught the course since 1981, I found that four of the five lowest grades have occurred in the last four years, with the lowest this year. When I enquired elsewhere at Trent University, I found the same pattern in the mathematics department, where the first test in linear algebra was down some 15 percent from its historic mean, and the calculus average had dropped nine percent from the year before.
Critics of posttenure review of faculty members rightly trace the practice’s origins to the 1990s, when tenure came under fire from conservative state legislators and trustees who assumed that, once granted tenure, the typical professor felt free to come in late, go home early and spend the hours in between hiding from students at the faculty club.
The truth turned out to be the opposite. Instead of laying the foundation for an assault on tenure, the rapid spread and implementation of posttenure review on most state campuses and many private ones demonstrated that the vast majority of tenured faculty work just as hard and well as they did during their probationary years.
The past millennium has witnessed a myriad of technological changes, and there has been exponential growth in the same over the past century. Yet the design of the classroom has changed relatively little over the same time period. The classroom of Aristotle was organized more or less in the same fashion as that of Thomas Aquinas or Einstein. This design emphasizes the so-called “sage on the stage” model where a lecturer addresses an auditorium of students who are expected to listen, absorb, and retain this knowledge. The model continues to be the staple of pedagogical practice in the 21st century. Although the sage-on-the-stage model still dominates, there is a great deal of research suggesting more efficient and effective ways of imparting knowledge.
Nature of Leadership
Effective leadership is a key factor in the life and success of an organization
Leadership transforms potential into reality.
Leadership is the ultimate act which brings to success all of the potent potential that is in an organization and
its people.
Leaders propose new paradigms when old ones lose their effectiveness.
Limits of Generalizing in Education Research: Why Criteria for Research Generalization Should Include Population Heterogeneity and Uses of Knowledge Claims by Kadriye Ercikan & Wolff-Michael Roth — 2014
Many people who work at colleges and universities have expressed concern about the new administration’s executive orders and policies regarding immigration, as well as the reactions of international students and scholars to it. However, more fundamental issues related to the internationalization of higher education that should not be ignored have been emerging for some time.
In this age of global connectivity, internationalization in academe has become an increasingly normal practice. That has proven to be profitable for institutions and beneficial for the career prospects of international students. But even before the recent political turmoil and upheaval, not all has been as good as it may have seemed. Those directly involved in the process -- domestic students, international students and professors -- have been voicing dissatisfaction.
At the heart of Concordia University’s mission and tradition is respect for every member of its community. The university is committed to equality, dignity, and the building and maintaining of a healthy, safe and respectful environment.
Behaviours commonly associated with rape culture, such as victim blaming, normalizing sexual objectification and violence, are absolutely unacceptable in the Concordia community. As such, sexual violence violates our institutional values, in particular the rights of individuals in our university community to be treated with dignity and respect.
Concordia has taken many important steps to creating a safe environment. It was the first university in Canada to create the position of sexual harassment advisor in 1987 and one of the first to adopt a policy on sexual harassment in the early 1990s. It was also among the first Canadian universities to create an Ombuds Office in the 1970s. In 2013, the university launched the Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) to inform the campus community about consent and prevention, and to provide
survivor support.
Friendships can blossom naturally between scholars and students, but are they always problematic? Nina Kelly
navigates the boundaries.
After putting in the time, money and energy to complete a degree, it can be extremely discouraging to realize you no longer want to work in that industry. If you spent the better part of four years in a classroom only to learn you don’t want to pursue the field you’re now qualified for, what do you do? Most people don’t have the time or money to go back to school and start over again — but don’t fret. There are steps to take when trying to change career paths to something not directly associated with your degree. While making the switch may be difficult, it’s not impossible. The following steps will help push you in the direction you want to go.
Throughout this past decade, scholars and higher education practitioners have asked: Who will lead the nation’s community colleges in the future? This question is especially critical today since at no previous time in the nation’s history have community colleges confronted such an array of monumental challenges. Presidents and key leaders are departing in droves; in a recent survey by the AACC (2012), as many as 40% of presidents plan to retire within the next five years. This phenomenon occurs at a time when our colleges are faced with a variety of previously unimagined threats, many resulting from the impact of conflicting socio-economic changes. Further, colleges must address the American education and skills gap in an effort to meet the emerging needs of the new knowledge economy, while simultaneously struggling with the task of educating those students with the greatest needs during a time of dwindling funds.
The labour force participation rate of 15- to 24-year-olds (the percentage who are employed or seeking employment) declined from 67.3% in 2008 to 64.2% in 2014, reflecting a 3.8-percentage- point drop from 2008 to 2012 followed by a slight increase (Chart 1). The decline was particularly pronounced among youth aged 15 to 19, whose participation rate fell 6.2 percentage points to 49.8% in 2014.