OUSA

Educated Solutions - Griffin Carpenter article

Republished from Educated Solutions: The Future of Post-Secondary Education Issue (Issue 6, November 2009)

By Griffin Carpenter

Whether its Macleans trumpeting an article on “How computers make our kids stupid” or authors such as Don Tapscott promoting the idea of a Net Generation that is ripe and ready to thrive in a new economy, few doubt that the use of digital information is radically changing the way we live, and learn.

The post-secondary education system is not exempt from the digital information revolution. On the contrary, the digital progress being made is challenging traditional assumptions about how advanced teaching and learning should take place.  This is quite evident in the policy considerations underway in the field of e-learning, that is, learning that takes place partially or entirely over the Internet. E-learning, in a sense, is a departure from the conventional educational framework as more and more aspects of the education system go digital, and many courses, notes, and papers are now digitally available to all, free of charge.

In addition to greater and cheaper availability of information, digital media offers a unique approach to accessibility issues and provides a high degree of flexibility that has led to an increasing number of students enrolling at e-learning institutions. Many post-secondary institutions in Canada now offer e-learning classes as part of their core curriculum. Furthermore, the Canadian Virtual University boasts a 2008 enrolment of 100, 000 students while research from Athabasca University predicts that the university’s current growth rate due to specialization in e-learning will cause it to become the nation’s largest university in the coming decades.

E-learning classes are now leaving the experimental stage, and the results may be surprising to some. In May 2009, the US Department of Education released a meta-analysis that compiled the results of independent e-learning trials when compared to more traditional face-to-face teaching situations. The study concluded that while a combination of teaching approaches works best for the learning outcomes used in the various trials, e-learning actually outperforms traditional classroom instruction using the same considerations.

With all this potential, what issues then emerge as e-learning is integrated into the Canadian educational landscape? Surprisingly, the issues remain similar to those in the traditional post-secondary education system and so the same principles should apply. E-learning, like all aspects of the post-secondary education system, needs to be guided by the principles of affordability, accessibility, accountability, and quality. The examples of transferable credits, a credit-based tuition framework, and a commitment to funding will help illustrate how e-learning in fact further emphasizes some existing issues already present.

E-learning classes often face questions of credibility when the time comes to transfer from an online institution to a brick and mortar one, but this is not a unique problem. One need only think of the problems that students currently face when they attempt to transfer credits from one institution to another. This phenomenon holds even regarding credits on the same subject taught in the same province. Problems with the transfer of credits will only become more pressing as students not only study at multiple institutions, but under multiple learning formats.

The new kind of student who learns under multiple formats reinforces another problem that is starting to gain attention: the current tuition system is based on the assumption that every student will take a full course load. This fails to reflect the realities of student life. As calls for a reformed tuition framework, in which all tuition is charged on a per-credit basis, gain traction it is important to note that e-learning will further this trend as students in an e-learning environment are more likely to study on a part-time basis.

E-learning also requires strong and consistent funding to ensure that the system functions properly. Many institutions and governments have turned to e-learning, thinking that without a classroom, and with larger class sizes, e-learning will be a money-saving measure. Yet this has amounted to little more than wishful thinking. Lower human costs may be realized through larger classes in a digital medium, but the IT costs, both in setup and maintenance, have been a surprise for some institutions. This lack of financial support has meant that in some cases, students are unable to access courseware properly and their learning suffers as a result. Furthermore, an e-learning environment may not actually reduce the number of faculty, as recent survey data suggests that the development and operation of a digital course requires additional time and effort, especially if honoured practices such as communal learning, detailed research, and academic risk-taking are to continue among faculty. E-learning should thus not be viewed as a more affordable substitute, but as an additional reason why funding a modernizing post-secondary education system is of the upmost priority.

The Canadian post-secondary education system is built on the assumption that students take full course loads within the same brick-and-mortar institution to get a four year degree and get into the workforce. Our e-learning future puts further emphasis on the need for transferable credits, a credit-based tuition framework, a strong commitment to funding the system, and the application of good principles from which to shape the entire system.  As our education system continues to evolve, and in some cases, change dramatically, these issues will not only require the government’s attention, but demand it.  The sooner the realities of e-learning are dealt with, the sooner Ontario can move fully into the twenty-first century and the modern
knowledge economy.

Griffin Carpenter is a 4th year student at Wilfrid Laurier University, majoring in political science. He is from Conestoga, Ontario and is looking to go to grad school for environmental economics and policy.  He is interested in longboading, legomations and lobbying. He is also
OUSA’s local campus coordinator.

Educated Solutions - Scott Courtice article

Republished from Educated Solutions: The Future of Post-Secondary Education Issue (Issue 6, November 2009)

By Scott Courtice

Ten years ago this September I decided to walk into the offices of the Alma Mater Society at Queen’s University to look for a volunteer opportunity. I didn’t know it at the time, but that decision was the first step of a journey that I’m still on today – advancing the interests of undergraduate students, and the post-secondary education system as a whole.

In student advocacy years, I’m a very old man; but along with my senior citizen status I think I’ve developed some wisdom along the way. Thus, I’d like to share some personal observations of how student advocacy priorities have changed over the past ten years and humbly suggest two areas where student advocates in Ontario should focus their attention over the next decade.

The biggest change since the heady days of 1999 has been a noticeable increase in the attention that student leaders give to defending the interests of students who have not yet entered post-secondary education – in most cases, focusing on young people that are at risk of not entering the system due to a range of financial and non-financial barriers. Dialogue around the importance of early intervention strategies and other means of encouraging underrepresented groups to attend post-secondary education are now second nature to most enlightened student advocates, but ten years ago such discussions would have been deemed ‘off-mission’ in many student circles because they didn’t address the immediate interests of current students.

This shift has had a significant impact on the policy lens used by many student groups when formulating their advocacy priorities. If the policy lens had remained focused almost exclusively on what is best for the pocketbooks of current students, student groups like OUSA would have put all of their energies towards reducing costs for current students through tuition freezes, tuition reductions, tax credits, or other policy mechanisms that reduce costs for all students, regardless of their need. But with the lens broadened, the conversation became more complex. It forced us to ask the question “how do you best spend scarce public dollars to get more underrepresented students in university and college classrooms, while balancing the desire to contain costs for current students while ensuring quality is maintained?” This question does not lend itself to easy answers, or at least answers that neatly fit on placards!

Hitting the above policy objectives requires the right balance of tuition policy, financial aid, tax policy, government funding, and several other intangibles that we’re only now beginning to understand thanks to emerging research. Frankly, the admission by many student groups that this discussion is indeed complex – and their willingness to listen to research that may not align with previously held conceptions – has required tremendous courage from countless student leaders who could have chosen an easier path by sticking to old, popular, tightly-held dogmas.

I ascribe this shift to two factors: the growing courage of student leaders to commit themselves to issues that are larger than themselves, and the explosion of research on access to higher education fuelled by the work of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, the Canadian Council on Learning, Statistics Canada, the Educational Policy Institute, the Higher Educational Quality Council of Ontario, student groups themselves, and a host of other free-agents. When I began as an advocate, good research was scarce to non-existent. This allowed stakeholders of all stripes to stick with their self-interested positions without fear of having assumptions challenged by solid data.

When Millennium first began releasing research many student leaders – myself included – were uncomfortable with the new data-driven reality, and initially questioned the motivations of the Foundation based on suspicions that their true motivation was to justify governments placing a greater financial burden on students. But as the Foundation continued releasing groundbreaking work, and as a more diverse group of researchers began entering the fray, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the data, or ascribe emerging research to some shadowy government conspiracy.
As such, most post-secondary stakeholders recognized the explosion of research as an opportunity to critically analyze previously held assumptions, and to develop a more holistic set of policy solutions to increase access to higher education.

The second biggest change over the past decade is that governments started investing in higher education after years of lean times – the oft-cited $6.2 billion investment in Ontario’s 2005 Budget being a prime example. When I started as an advocate, professional programs were deregulated in Ontario, institutions were making deep and painful cuts due to government cut-backs, and institutions weren’t receiving operating funding from government for many students within the system (so called “unfunded BIUs”). If you told me in 1999 that within six years an Ontario government would freeze tuition for two years, eliminate unfunded BIUs, and invest $6.2 billion into the system I would have called you crazy. Unfortunately, these good times were short lived, and a new era of scarcity has returned, putting students groups and institutions back on defence. After years of almost feeling entitled to good news on budget day, this has been a painful adjustment. But groups like OUSA have been quick to recognize the change, and are adapting accordingly.

It is difficult to predict the future, but I believe student advocates must focus on two additional priorities over the next decade: pay more attention to improving students’ quality of life closer to home by enhancing the social, cultural, and economic vibrancy of the communities they live and study in; and, begin enhancing access and student success for adult learners.

Our economy is undergoing a fundamental transformation, and communities that host post-secondary institutions will be at the heart of this shift. Improving public transit, social conditions, culture, and overall economic vibrancy of local communities will improve students’ quality of life in the short term, but will also set the conditions for their personal success after graduation, and the success of communities that host post-secondary institutions. Every graduating student won’t be able to live in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver – thus, medium sized university cities must adapt to retain more young professionals, and students can play a leading in shaping communities to make this happen. Spending more time at City Hall isn’t nearly as glamorous as roaming the halls of Queen’s Park or Parliament Hill, but progress can be made locally that has a noticeable difference in the lives of students, and positive change can happen much faster at City Hall than in our senior legislatures.

Adult learning should also be part of the next frontier of student advocacy. The Institute for Employment Research argues that 80 per cent of new jobs created between 1999 and 2010 will require some form of post-secondary education. Putting more young people on the path to higher education will help meet our labour market needs, but what about the scores of adults that never got the chance? Adult learners have unique needs, pressures, and obligations that the current financial aid system is not designed to adequately address, nor is the Employment Insurance system. Ontario’s Second Career strategy is a start, but I believe the needs of adult learners require more attention in the years ahead  I say this as a principle of social justice, but also from a clinical labour market and economic competitiveness perspective.

I am consistently impressed by the work of student leaders on behalf of their constituents. Most of their work goes unseen, yet they put in long hours on behalf of students in the system, and those who aspire to it. They are also willing to do what’s right, even if choosing that path isn’t an easy one. I’m humbled to serve with them, and look forward to supporting another decade of progress.

Scott Courtice is the Public Affairs Officer at the University Students’ Council at Western.  He has served students for over a decade, having previously held the positions of Executive Director of OUSA.

Educated Solutions - Miram Kramer article

Republished from Educated Solutions: The Future of Post-Secondary Education Issue (Issue 6, November 2009)

By Miriam Kramer

When do I have to begin paying back my government student loans? When does interest begin to accrue on them? How do I find out how much I have to pay back so far? Will any of it be remitted or forgiven when I graduate? How long will it take me to pay it back?

If you’re getting stressed out just reading this list of questions, you’re probably not alone. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian post-secondary education students deal with these important decisions before, after and during their time in college and university. Just as stressful as borrowing large sums of money is attempting getting access to coherent information that will both provide answers to these questions .

As part of the Measuring the Effectiveness of Student Aid (MESA; see www.mesa-project.org) project, I’ve had the opportunity to travel across Canada to speak with college and university students on, among several topics, their knowledge of and sources for financial assistance information. Overall, there is a lack of understanding (and immense frustration among students relating to this lack of understanding) regarding eligibility requirements, the rules and regulations regarding getting loans and bursaries and paying back loans. And levels of financial aid knowledge among Ontario students were the worst in all of Canada.

Regarding their knowledge of financial assistance, many Ontario students equated government student financial aid with student loans; while some were aware of the existence of bursaries, many were not. In Toronto, participants in these groups expressed the most cynicism and disbelief about government providing “free money” to students. As well, most students assumed that it takes a lot longer than it does for the average student to pay back their undergraduate student loans. These students also thought that government loan interest rates were substantially higher than they actually are; they were wildly off the mark in terms of expected earning upon graduation with a BA. While most students knew that interest was not charged on student loans while a borrower was still in school, there was much confusion among students regarding when interest on government student loans began to accrue. In addition, there was confusion regarding when loans needed to be paid back; while most students answered correctly that they had a six-month waiting period between graduation and payback, many where unsure about this.

When asked about financial aid information sources, most students reported obtaining information by “word of mouth” from parents, friends, relatives or co-workers. Many talked about learning things from friends or relatives who had borrowed money. Several said they heard about student financial aid from siblings who had taken a student loan or from parents who had encouraged them to apply. While some reported getting some information in high school, Ontario students reported being told “to look at a government website to get information” instead of being offered specific information from their teachers or guidance counsellors.

This student financial aid illiteracy has ramifications for the future of Canada, particularly regarding student default rates, which is something that should concern government deeply. As well, governments should care that students who are taking out large sums of debt are doing so responsibly and with full knowledge of the costs and conditions of their loans.

While the Ontario Student Assistance Program, the Canada Student Loans Program and post-secondary education institutions provide information that could answer these questions, it’s not necessarily easy to find or understand.

Sure, we all could be a bit more detail-oriented in our lives and conduct a little bit more research and careful reading, including the fine print at the bottom of the page where we know many of the juicy details and caveats are explained. However, our research showed that students are seeking and getting information not just from friends and relatives, but also from government websites. And these websites are not exactly the most readable or understandable. In fact, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation recently conducted research on the Canada Student Loans Program website and some related financial assistance materials. They found that the literacy levels required to comprehend much of the information available were written at a graduate school level, a level of educational attainment that most parents of high school and undergraduate students have not attained, not to mention that of the students themselves.

The students with whom I spoke raised these issues as well. And in most of the discussions, they were keen to criticize how information about student financial aid information was provided, stating they did not receive enough information in high school about student loans and other funding options. In nearly every group, there were comments about the inaccessibility of government officials and the difficulty of using websites to obtain information. Students reported that they found it very difficult to locate information about student financial aid via the internet. They also reported difficulty in filling out the various application forms. A few had called the information telephone number for additional assistance, but most only used the website. Students suggested that it would be helpful to have individuals at their post-secondary institutions actively provide this information to students in information sessions.

How do we solve this problem? For starters, governments need to pay more attention to students.  Policymakers and their staff who coordinate financial assistance websites and related materials should immerse themselves in the lives of students to really understand how students think, what students read, and how students get their information. It may be that student advisors are in order when drafting websites and other materials. Beta testing of the materials before and after they are drafted is necessary to get it right. A key aspect of this process is to simply make materials and websites more understandable. Young people aren’t stupid; they just get information in different ways than their middle aged and senior counterparts do. If the governments can’t get this right, it might be time for the student associations to create their own materials and knowledge mobilization campaigns to ensure that Canadian students have the correct information and know their rights regarding all aspects of funding post-secondary education.

In addition, many provinces have a high school career curriculum in Grade 10 or 11 that deals with thinking about future careers and education. However, a quick scan of the curricula for these courses shows that they do not include a lot of information about students and families can plan to pay for post-secondary education.  As such, governments could overhaul these curricula to ensure that an in-depth module on paying for post-secondary education is included for these high school students.

Compared to some of Canada’s education woes, this problem of financial aid illiteracy is relatively cheap and easy to fix. The government just needs to better listen to and understand students and young people.

Miriam Kramer is Director of the Canadian Education Project (www.canedproject.ca), part of the Higher Education Strategy Associates (www.higheredstrategy.com).  Email her at mkramer@canedproject.ca. 

* Answers: In general, an Ontario student will have a student financial assistance package made up of provincial (OSAP) and federal (CSLP) loans and bursaries. Loans (or repayable student financial assistance) must be paid back after a six-month grace period that begins after a student completes their credential or leaves their institution; however, interest begins to accrue immediately after the student completes or finished school. For Ontario students, whether or not some or all of your loans will be paid for by government depends on how much loan debt you’ve accumulated. You can find out how much funding you’ve received and how much debt you’ve accrued by logging into the OSAP website Access Window (www.osap.gov.on). Through the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant, a grant will be awarded at the end of each year to pay down any combined federal and provincial annual loan debt exceeding $7,000 for two terms (or $10,500 for three terms). On average, it takes about seven years for a Canadian to pay back their undergraduate student debt; data from Statistics Canada’s 2000 National Graduate Survey showed that 30% of Ontario college and 32% of Ontario university students had repaid their debt within two years of graduation.

Educated Solutions - Joy Mighty article

Republished from Educated Solutions: The Future of Post-Secondary Education Issue (Issue 6, November 2009)

By Joy Mighty

There has been growing concern about the quality of Post-Secondary Education (PSE) in Canada. Among the many issues typically raised are questions about the levels of funding, admission and graduation standards, mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating programs and institutions, and the effectiveness of teaching practices. Given that PSE is a provincial responsibility, no national standard exists for any of these quality issues. Instead, several approaches to establishing, monitoring and evaluating various dimensions of quality co-exist, both across the country and within individual provinces.

In Ontario, quality oversight has over the years been the shared responsibility of various government agencies and non-governmental lobby groups. In 2004, growing concerns about quality led the Government to establish a commission, led by former Premier Bob Rae, to review the state of PSE. The commission’s report (Rae, 2005) emphasized the need to make the processes for ensuring quality explicit and recommended, inter alia, that every university in Ontario should participate in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The NSSE represents “empirically confirmed good practices in undergraduate education” (National Survey of Student Engagement) and its results therefore serve as a proxy for quality in PSE.  The Commission also recommended and subsequently led to the establishment of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) with a mandate to conduct research and provide advice to the Government with special emphasis on quality, accessibility and accountability. At the same time, the Council of Ontario Universities (COU), the organization of Executive Heads of Ontario’s publicly assisted universities, established a task force to develop “Guidelines for University Undergraduate Degree Level Expectations” (UDLEs) to serve as a framework for describing expectations of attributes and performance by graduates of universities in Ontario (OCAV, 2005). Universities agreed to use these guidelines in explicitly articulating their own undergraduate degree level expectations based on their unique institutional values and goals and to develop policies for incorporating them into their program review processes, effective June 2008. More recently, in 2009, the COU established a new Council – the Ontario Universities Council on Quality Assurance (OUCQA) – to oversee quality assurance for academic programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels in Ontario’s publicly assisted universities.

Despite these recent province-wide initiatives, there is still much scepticism among some stakeholders about the quality of PSE in Ontario. Students in particular voice a more fundamental, but thorny, concern about the quality of teaching. They have argued, for example, that their experience at university is often nothing more than a bigger version of their elementary and secondary experience, promoting what one student has called a “regurgitative model” based on rote learning.

“From the onset, we … reinforce the paradigm that higher education is simply to suffer through meaningless tests, assignments and labs, affirming that one’s goal here is simply to get through…. Rather than construct a system that mentors students in their quest for growth, awakens their creativity and invites independent thought, we have spawned the very antithesis. … Universities have been insidiously converted into training farms for the professional class. We have been mandated to fulfill economic missions, pumping out cookie-cutter graduates readied for the information age. Whereas universities were to be sources from which new worlds sprang, we’ve instead structured our University to mirror the real world and so have constrained its ability to evolve something transcendent. We’ve been led into happy complacency that this is okay.” (Bishop, 2004)

No doubt, if asked, this student would acknowledge that many of his university professors are committed, talented, caring and effective teachers who devote an enormous amount of time and energy to meeting their teaching responsibilities. He would also point out, however, that his concern is clearly not with individuals but rather with the system. And while this is only one student’s perspective, I daresay that, unfortunately, there is at least a modicum of truth in what he says.

Indeed, other stakeholders have been equally concerned, if less vocal, about the quality of teaching and learning in PSE. The Rae report, for example, decried the apparent lack of pedagogical innovation in our institutions. Since its establishment, HEQCO has taken several steps to encourage institutions to use their NSSE data to identify aspects of the undergraduate experience that can be improved through adopting policies and practices that are more consistent with research on good practice in undergraduate education.

In April 2008, HEQCO collaborated with the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) to organize and sponsor a symposium titled “Taking Stock: Symposium on Teaching and Learning Research in Higher Education.” The symposium sought to identify and synthesize, from multiple research traditions and perspectives, what is already known about teaching practice and student learning in higher education, what we still need to know, and the implications of what is known for improving the quality of education. The ultimate goal was to encourage system-wide adoption of teaching approaches that are consistent with what is known about student learning. Published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, a book that will make the papers presented at the symposium widely accessible is now in the final stages of production (Christen Hughes and Mighty, in press).

While not exhaustive in coverage, the book synthesizes decades of research by scholars from various parts of the world, which has consistently found that there is a close association between how faculty teach and how students learn, and how students learn and the learning outcomes achieved.  When, for example, faculty teach and examine in ways that emphasize rote learning, students adopt surface approaches to learning which lead to less than optimal outcomes. Many university teachers tend to deliver more content than students can assimilate without cognitive overload, or to lecture for an entire class period without engaging students and facilitating their conceptual understanding of the material. Yet, research evidence suggests a host of more effective teaching practices that promote student learning. We know, for example, that learning is enriched when students are encouraged to: monitor their own thinking; create their own understanding by connecting new material to what they already know and to the “real world”; formulate and investigate their own questions; and share their findings with their peers. What is disturbing is that much of this research has been known for decades; yet we continue to teach in ways that are contrary to these findings.  This begs the question: Why do we not teach in ways that we know to be more effective?

Many of our current approaches to teaching have been guided by tradition and dogma rather than by research. In addition, faced with large classes, increasingly heavy workloads, and the constant struggle to balance multiple, often conflicting roles and responsibilities at work and home, many faculty unfortunately choose efficiency over effectiveness. Despite these barriers, there is much that can be done to improve the quality of teaching and learning if the transformational power of a university education is to be realized. Faculty members and students have unique responsibilities for enhancing quality, although some students may not always agree that they have any responsibility in the matter.

One of the most effective ways that faculty can promote student engagement and thus enhance the quality of the university experience is to use active learning strategies. In its most basic form, active learning requires that students participate in the learning process and that they use content knowledge, not just acquire it. Learning is not a spectator sport. Students must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences and apply it to their daily lives. The essence of active learning is captured in the well-known Chinese proverb: “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I might remember.  Involve me and I will understand.”

The effectiveness of the transformational process that we call education depends to a large extent on the quality of the experience that faculty and students encounter in the symbiotic-style relationship that exists between teaching and learning. Active learning pedagogies influence students to take a deep approach to learning. Deep learning involves a personal commitment to understand the material which is reflected in using various strategies such as reading widely, combining a variety of resources, discussing ideas with others, reflecting on how individual pieces of information relate to larger constructs or patterns, and applying knowledge in real world situations. Deep learning involves integrating and synthesizing information with prior learning; it involves seeing things from different perspectives.

But how do we influence faculty and students to translate this evidence-based knowledge about teaching and learning into action?  Fortunately, many universities now have educational development units, also known as teaching and learning centres, which can assist faculty members and departments in using research-guided pedagogy combined with modern information technology to engage students in deeper, more meaningful learning. But as Rae observed in his report, “they are not mandatory, and often it is teachers who need help most who get it least” (Rae, 2005: 17). Besides, improving the quality of teaching and learning in PSE is not the sole responsibility of such units. The government and university administrators also have important roles to play. The truth is that faculty might be more inclined to explore alternative teaching approaches with the judicious allocation of more resources to support teaching innovation and the establishment of more meaningful rewards for teaching excellence. Unfortunately however, the teaching function appears to be seriously undervalued at many of our institutions.

The outcomes of any transformational process are dependent to a large extent on the initial inputs into the system as well as the quality of the transformational processes themselves. In the case of teaching and learning, essential inputs include an adequate supply of effective teachers, recruitment of students with the requisite aptitudes and skills for further development, and the provision of sufficient and appropriate physical and financial resources to facilitate the transformation. Except for students, the existing resources in PSE in Ontario can be summed up succinctly: not enough! Yet the physical, financial and human resources are inextricably linked. So too are faculty recruitment, selection, promotion and tenure processes in which teaching and learning competence and scholarship are valued, adequately assessed, and appropriately rewarded.  Together, these contribute not only to the quality of teaching and learning, but also to student and faculty wellbeing, and to overall morale and valuing of the university experience.

Like Rae (2005: 17), I am convinced that nothing short of a renewed commitment to teaching excellence is necessary. I fervently hope that effective leadership will emerge at all levels to ensure the availability of the necessary inputs and appropriate transformational processes so that the desired outcomes of the highest quality PSE in Ontario can be achieved.

Dr Joy Mighty is the President of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, the Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Queen’s University.

Educated Solutions - Chakma & Johnston article

Republished from Educated Solutions: The Future of Post-Secondary Education Issue (Issue 6, November 2009)

By Amit Chakma and David Johnston, Presidents of the University of Western Ontario and the University of Waterloo

RECENTLY AN IMPORTANT DEBATE on higher education has received public airings in the national press. Should universities be viewed and funded as if they are all the same or should we distinguish those that emphasize teaching from those with more research? Higher education is of significant national importance and as such, a public debate on the future of higher education is welcome. In a globalized world we need to excel in areas that are important to Canadians if we are to maintain and enhance our high standards of living and quality of life. The global community also needs Canada to share its values in making the world a better place. To achieve these goals, Canadian universities must provide the highest quality of education to our next generation and feed the innovation through creation, discovery and interpretation to give Canada a competitive edge in attaining and enhancing knowledge and wealth for its own citizens and those of the world. In the game of discovery and innovation, second place is not good enough. Canada and Canadian universities must seek gold. Since we cannot be at the top in all that we do, we need to select areas within our own institutions that are of strategic importance to this nation and where each can excel. Thus, we strongly believe in institutional differentiation for the sake of attaining global excellence. The question is how? We suggest the following:

Canadian Universities are chronically underfunded. Average funding per student in Canada is one of the lowest in North America. We need to raise this level of funding to at least the North American average. Without this, our hopes and dreams of achieving global excellence will remain unfulfilled. Individually, universities will have occasional successes in advancing research and teaching due to sheer luck and philanthropic contributions from generous Canadians, but we will not have a systemic capacity to excel.

All major Canadian universities are publicly funded. In recent years, the provinces, including Ontario, have been investing more in post-secondary education. The current economy has diminished provincial resources. If we are to achieve excellence, there is an alternative to the current funding system. The province could grant universities more latitude to manage their own financial affairs, including the setting of tuition fees within a broader regulatory framework and with a commitment that each university ensure all qualified students have the opportunity to attend.

It is not reasonable to expect governments to be the sole investors in raising the calibre of Canadian universities. A number of generous Canadians have helped our institutions build excellence in select areas. There is much more generosity that can be tapped if Canadian and provincial governments were to encourage philanthropists to invest in education by matching every dollar raised by all universities. Thus each dollar donated will translate into three dollars of investment. This matching is already taking place in many instances directly or indirectly. Making it transparent and institutional will attract private citizens to invest in building excellence in our universities.

Canada and the provinces also have the opportunity to improve our innovation capacity by doubling their investment in research and development. Current levels of support should be used to maintain the base with most incremental investments directed towards building excellence. The sole measure for deciding allocation of these incremental resources should be “excellence” in areas with critical mass. If excellence and obtaining critical mass of talents were used as the sole criteria for this incremental fund, the outcome will gradually lead to institutional differentiation. There will be no need to designate a handful of universities as research intensive universities. If a smaller institution seeks to be world class in a single area, this will allow that institution to do so.

Key government research laboratories should be fully integrated within the university system in Canada, along the models of U.S. national laboratories, to achieve increased synergies.

A blue-ribbon panel consisting of prominent Canadians, including those who are leading some of North America’s top universities, should be convened to advise the government on how to support excellence. The current presidents of Berkeley, Princeton and Johns Hopkins are Canadians as is Princeton’s immediate past president. They could all be invited to join this panel.

The report of the blue-ribbon panel can be the backdrop to a first ministers’ meeting as suggested by our colleague David Naylor of the University of Toronto.

We hope that the outcome of such a first ministers’ meeting will lead to the enactment of a Smart Nation Act-Canada Learning and Innovation Act, similar in its impacts to the Canada Health Act and will establish Canada’s aspiration and a multi-governmental framework for us to be a “smart nation”.

Our undergraduate and graduate students have the intellectual ability, the desire and the discipline to compete with the best. But to achieve their goals, students need universities that are equally bold and ambitious. Canadian universities can compete and many of our institutions will rise to the top if a supportive environment is created.

Educated Solutions - Jack Lightstone article

Republished from Educated Solutions: The Future of Post-Secondary Education Issue (Issue 6, November 2009)

By Brock University President, Jack Lightstone

THIS SUMMER the leaders of five large Canadian universities went public in lobbying governments to concentrate research spending at their schools. The implication was that research money would be diverted away from other universities.

They argued that only these few institutions in Canada have the potential to be world-class centres of research and graduate education; all they need is more money. The rest of the country’s universities would be largely undergraduate institutions with some limited graduate education and research.

This policy would be so completely wrongheaded that it would be dangerous for Canada. History has already taught us the painful lesson of what happens when students have their potential restricted by discriminatory or exclusionary approaches to research opportunities.

We are in an era when Canada requires not only many more people to have university educations in order to maintain our national competitiveness, but exponentially ¬more people with post-graduate degrees, especially as countries such as China and India ramp up their capacity to deliver bachelors-level education to their citizenry.

This is universally recognized by all OECD countries, Canada among them.

Canada needs all of its universities to contribute to post-graduate education. Four or five, even 10 or 13 institutions could not possibly produce the numbers without becoming mass-education, graduate student factories — precisely the wrong model for post-graduate education.

We would be turning back the clock more than 50 years, when only a limited number of Canadian universities offered graduate programs in a wide array of fields. At that time, many of Canada’s best undergraduates went elsewhere for post-graduate education, and many did not return.

of Canadian universities offered graduate programs in a wide array of fields. At that time, many of Canada’s best undergraduates went elsewhere for post-graduate education, and many did not return.

In recent years Canadian universities have hired hundreds of young, gifted academics. It is heartening to see the quality of these young faculty members, and their potential to have not only stunning teaching careers but also significant research careers at the cutting edge of their disciplines.

These faculty have a reasonable expectation that their careers will be well served at more than just a handful of Canada’s universities, and they ought to be able to have confidence that good research work and good research proposals will win grants in open, peer-review competitions, notwithstanding their home university. To restructure the system otherwise is to tell them to leave Canada, since they cannot all migrate to the handful of universities that put themselves forward as candidates for preferential funding and research support. What a loss to Canada! And what a loss to teaching at the undergraduate level as well as at the graduate level! For all teaching greatly benefits from a research environment.

At Brock University in the Niagara area of southern Ontario, many of our research and graduate programs are drivers of the economic, social and cultural development of our host region. In this respect, Brock is pivotal to addressing the economic challenges of our region, once one of the most heavily industrialized in Canada and now facing all of the challenges associated with the globalization of manufacturing.

To play this role, Brock’s researchers and institutes in many disciplines increasingly partner with local agencies, local government and local industry to define research programs, to conduct research and to disseminate the results — not only to the international scholarly community but to local stakeholders, in a form that directly addresses local developmental challenges.

A handful of “Tier 1” institutions could, and would, never play this partnership role for the plethora of Canada’s regions. Yet playing this role in itself drives research excellence and enriches graduate programs and graduate students.

The current funding model, especially for research and related activities, already ensures that Canada’s research powerhouses get more resources: more chairs; more indirect-cost grants; the lion’s share of federal grants. That is appropriate — they have earned it. But they should continue to have to earn it, just as everyone else should earn what they receive. That is the true driver of quality and excellence, not a priori entitlements.

After all, Institutions do not do research. Researchers and their teams do research. And therefore governments ought to fund the work of these individuals and teams — wherever the quality warrants it.

Focusing on a few institutions as loci of top-flight research and graduate studies — and relegating other universities to the status of largely undergraduate schools — would be a great step backwards.

It would leave much of our intellectual capital underdeveloped, would incite an exodus of first-rate minds to campuses south of the border, and would leave many Canadian communities without the necessary drivers of their economic, social and cultural development in an age of global competitiveness—effectively relegating these communities to “Tier 2” status.

This would be a national disaster. Canada needs more researchers, not fewer. And, therefore, Canada needs more of its universities increasingly engaged in research and graduate studies.

Jack Lightstone is President and Vice-Chancellor of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. For more information contact Kevin Cavanagh, Associate Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Brock University, 905.688.5550,
ext. 5888 or kcavanagh@brocku.ca

Today, I submitted the FINAL version of the Fall 2009 issue of Educated Solutions to our printers.  The road of this project started out in August when I took some design classes on how to use Adobe In Design and Illustrator.  What I didn’t realize was that these courses taught me how to use the programs – it didn’t teach me how to be creative.  As September rolls around, we start to ask around for submissions for the magazine, and if you thought getting 1000 word essays from students for grades was hard, try getting 1000 word essays from alumni, faculty, partners, etc. for no grades and no money, just an entry into OUSA’s tiny-but-mighty magazine.  After several delays and pushbacks (something called General Assembly, Campus Visits and Lobby Con), I finally got some time to start designing.  I was ill prepared to create a magazine from scratch, and definitely got some serious help from our previous editions (thank you Communications Directors of years past), and Renee Lung, the AMS’ former Communications Officer and graphic-design-ass-kicker who designed the template that this issue is based on.  I honestly think that this may be the best issue of Educated Solutions to come out of OUSA, and that’s no disrespect to previous editors, just a continuation of building on previous successes.  Thank you to everyone who contributed and help get this out for our Lobby Conference.  Check out the online version here.

-Alvin Tedjo

Well…have you? Because that what the OUSA Home Office staff have spent the last two days doing.  With our annual lobby conference just around the corner, we are putting in long days and making sure all our bases are covered so that this year’s major government relations effort is our best yet!  Armed with great research and well thought out policies, student leaders from across the province will spend three very busy days from November 30 to December 2 sitting down with members of provincial parliament to raise important issues regarding post-secondary education.  In the past, this has led great results for the students of Ontario, ranging from questions being asked in question period, to issues being raised in cabinet.

Ok…enough talk. Time to get back to making sure that everything is set!

-Paul Bien

I hope you are all well! I am in sunny Halifax at one of our partners’ (Canadian Alliance of Students Association) Annual General Meeting! Queen’s is pretty hectic on campus right now, with the Queen’s Centre opening very soon (December 1st). The Academic Affairs Commission of the AMS is hard at work planning OUSA Awareness week, and we are busy ordering some fun swag for the week including stress balls and coffee sleeves. The Teaching Issues Committee is busy planning our first Teaching Issues Forum on November 25th, where students will be invited to voice their concerns and opinions on teaching quality at Queen’s, I look forward to bringing their advice and comments to OUSA.

Ciao,

-Susannah Gouinlock

On Thursday and Friday last week, a delegation from OUSA attended the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation’s final conference and the release of the latest iteration of The Price of Knowledge, their flagship publication. Also in attendance at the conference were student groups from across Canada, as well as university administrators, NGOs, and bureaucrats from Canada and the United States.

Deborah Bial, President and Founder of The Posse Foundation, led things off Thursday morning with a breakfast address to attendees. She described the tremendous success her Foundation has had sending “posses” of students from diverse backgrounds to select colleges and universities in the United States. Over 2,200 students have participated so far, with an astounding 90% graduation rate. Discussion focused on whether the Posse Foundation model could be applied to the Canadian system with the same success.

Later that afternoon, John Mighton, Founder of JUMP Math, spoke on the myth that some people just can’t learn math. He argued that anyone can be taught math if it is done in the right way, and that a vast amount of research exists to back his argument. As a math major myself, I found his presentation particularly stimulating. OUSA President Dan Moulton also get into it, volunteering to help Mr. Mighton solve some math problems in front of the group.

Without doubt, the highlight of the conference was the gala dinner Thursday night, featuring Robert Birgeneau, Chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley. His address outlined the pros of California’s higher education system, including the seamless transfer pathways, the large amount of financial aid available, and the success they have had in attracting students from underrepresented groups.

OUSA bought a table for the event and invited our partners from across the sector to join us, including Leah Myers, head of the government’s post-secondary secretariat devising a new long-term plan for higher education.

On Friday, Greg Darnieder, Special Assistant and Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Education addressed the delegates. He explained the recent steps taken south of the boarder to improve access for African American and Latino students.

Later that day I attended a session with Dr. Joy Mighty, President of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. She impressed upon her audience the need to encourage active learning methods in our universities and described some of the innovative ways instructors are pushing the boundaries of traditional teaching pedagogy. I left with a renewed sense of urgency on the need to push the government and our institutions to change the culture around teaching and learning.

Sadly, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation is approaching the end of its mandate and will be closing its doors in the new year. We at OUSA are deeply concerned about the research gap that will be left when it is gone.

If you’re interested in reading the latest version of The Price of Knowledge, you can download a copy from the Millennium website:

http://www.millenniumscholarships.ca/en/research/PriceKnowledge.asp

-Alexi White