Program Description
A sea change can be defined as a profound transformation. Canada and Canadian higher education is poised at a crucial moment, ripe with the potential for a sea change as Indigenous issues continue to be a topic of discussion. Of particular importance to educators is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report (2015) and its call for us to build “student capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect” (p. 239). As Justice Murray Sinclair said, “Education is what got us into this mess…..but education is the key to reconciliation” (Mansbridge, 2015). Before we can build up this capacity for and with students, however, there is a need to strengthen it within ourselves.
We want to help our colleagues take active steps towards educating themselves about Indigenous histories, values, cultures, and ways of knowing. That is why we want to host a campfire session at this year’s conference. We will model a respectful, reciprocal relationship through honest dialogue. By infusing Indigenous ways of learning and knowing into this session, we will provide a space for settler and Indigenous folks to ask questions, listen to each other and - as Justice Sinclair has said - learn “how to speak to and about each other in a more respectful way” (ibid.).
The session will be modeled on Indigenous values of talking circles. A circle, with no beginning and with no one in a position of prominence, encourages people to share what is on their mind in a free and honest manner (“Mi’kmaw Spirituality”, 2016). We will facilitate conversation in ways that allows participants to share in a respectful and caring environment. We will create a space for questions and answers on topics such as:
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language (e.g. the difference between terms like ‘native’, ‘Indian’, ‘First Nations’, ‘Aboriginal’, and ‘Indigenous’)
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stereotypes (e.g. Native people get access to free education)
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ways for settlers to educate themselves further
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foregrounding Indigenous knowledges in our work
Most importantly, we will create space for participants to ask questions that will help them move beyond the fear of making a mistake and inspire them to take action. Transformative Learning is about changing our habits of mind, but more importantly our habits of being (Mezirow & Taylor, 2011). As educators we must commit to “being active and willing participants in this thorny process of greater reconciliation in all its forms” (Hannah, 2017).
Session Type: Campfire Session
Competency: Indigenous cultural awareness, Intercultural fluency
Stream: Indigenous Cultural Competency
Room: Langevin
11.03. Paddling Together: A Celebration of Student Success as Our Shared Responsibility
Tricia Seifert, Associate Professor, Montana State University; Jacqueline Beaulieu, Graduate Candidate, OISE; Christine Arnold, Assistant Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Do you feel you and your colleagues are sometimes at cross purposes in terms of supporting student success? Have you wished you could just paddle in the same direction? This session draws on pan-Canadian research that examined the extent to which Enrollment Management staff differ in perceptions of their unit's role to support student success from those in other Student Affairs & Services areas. The findings will serve as a starting point from which institutional teams will share and/or devise a plan to create, communicate, and celebrate how supporting student success is realized as a shared responsibility.
Program Description
There is a lot of talk about the need for staff and faculty to work together to support student success in post-secondary education. Yet, there is also a need for staff from across the institution to see supporting student success as a shared responsibility. This session will present findings from a pan-Canadian study that examined the extent to which Enrollment Management staff differ in perceptions of their unit's role to support student success from those in other Student Affairs & Services areas (Seifert, Moore, Beaulieu, & Arnold, 2017).
Understanding how different functional areas perceive their role in this important undertaking can help institutions create, communicate, and celebrate how supporting student success is a shared responsibility.
As CACUSS and ARUCC gather together in the spirit of sea change, we can draw inspiration from the seafaring people, the Maori. The Maori proverb ""Hoeangatahitia ki ko atu,"" translates to English as ""Paddling together takes us further together.” This campfire session is specifically designed to invite institutional teams to reflect, share, and devise a plan in which ‘student success as shared responsibility’ is crafted, communicated, and celebrated. The goal of the session is for teams to walk with a better sense of how and when they have “paddled together” in supporting students' success and a commitment to paddle with purpose every day.
This session draws directly from the CACUSS webinar that the Supporting Student Success team presented in March 2017 and the invited keynote that Dr. Tricia Seifert delivered to AACRAO's Strategic Enrollment Management conference in October 2017.
Research from the Supporting Student Success research project has been presented for the past 7 years at both CACUSS and ARUCC. It seems fitting at the two associations' joint conference to present a session in which members from both associations come together to reflect, share, dream, and co-construct sea changing actions for the future.
Session Type: Campfire Session
Competency: Emotional and interpersonal Intelligence, Leadership, management and administration
Stream: Senior Leaders; Senior Registrarial Leaders
Registrarial Practice: Systems
Room: Pope
11.04. A Leader's Guide to Cultivating Creativity
Erica Fearnall, Residence Life Coordinator, Confederation College; Greg Hum, Director, Residence Life & The Student Experience, Campus Living Centres
Think about the last time someone asked you to create something new, did you believe you could do it?
Creative thinking challenges our daily lives through tasks of solving complex problems, generating innovative ideas and working cohesively with others. A Leader’s Guide to Cultivating Creativity is designed to reframe creativity as a skill that can be accessed, developed, practiced, and performed to help you achieve higher levels of success. Through your use of The Big Book Of Creativity Games and Brainsprouting, you will learn a simple process to unleash your inherent creative powers and help your team do the same!
Program Description
On a daily basis we are challenged to solve problems, become more efficient, create new ideas, do more with less, be innovative, and generally think outside of the box. But what if we have never learned how to get out of the box?
Regardless of where participants come from, or what they do, everyone can benefit from opening their mind to new creative possibilities.
By the end of the session, participants’ question of “how do I become more creative?” will be answered and replaced with the confidence necessary to become a fearlessly creative leader who can nurture and encourage innovative work environments.
This presentation will open by introducing a new model of creativity that includes a definition as well as concepts focused on creativity as a skill, which can be developed with practice. A discussion surrounding the challenges of being asked to create will be generated using key factors that influence our creative potential such as judgement, social pressures and fear of failure.
The next phase of the presentation will explore the relationship between business success and creativity. This will be done through discussion of relevant cases from the Creativity Research Journal, Harvard Business Review and Forrester Consulting (2014), all of which illustrate the significant role creativity plays in leadership.
Participants will be asked to reflect and share where they believe the need for creativity exists in their work, which will set the foundation for skill building in the second-half of this session.
We will discuss the research of Dr. Robert Epstein to introduce four trainable competencies that contribute to creative expression (Epstein, R., Schmidt, S. M., & Warfel, R., 2008), which can be listed as:
1. Capturing (preserving new ideas)
2. Challenging (taking on difficult tasks)
3. Broadening (seeking knowledge)
4. Surrounding (seeking out new stimuli)
The remaining portion of this presentation will be geared towards the development of the creative process through activities from The Big Book of Creativity Games and Brainsprouting. The selected activities create actionable strategies that participants’ can use to increase creativity for themselves, their teams, or their students.
Participants will be provided with takeaway handouts of the activities from the session as well as references to the research that builds the case for creativity in leadership roles. Also included will be a link to Dr. Epstein’s self-evaluation questionnaire that assesses current habits and skills that either contribute to, or detract from individual creativity.
Session Type: Workshop
Competency: Emotional and interpersonal Intelligence, Leadership, management and administration
Room: Chandler
11.05. The Effectiveness of Transition Programs within Ontario Colleges on Student Retention, Persistence, and Experience
Cory Coletta, Coordinator, Orientation & Transition Programs, Humber College
The goal of this study is to gain an understanding of how transition programs two Ontario colleges effect student retention, persistence, and experience. As Ontario colleges look to reframe their orientation events as programmatic initiatives, and execute first year transition programs to enhance student experience and meet key performance indicators, this study will explore what works, compared to the intended impacts.
The results capture the student voice, the perspectives of faculty and student affairs staff, coupled with document analysis. Are we doing enough to support students entering the colleges, or are we allow students to flounder?
Program Description
Higher education is a competitive environment. For students, faculty, staff, and for institutions themselves. With incredible competition in the environment, it is imperative that institutions and the stakeholders of each are dedicated to creating opportunities that undeniably support students to persist through their higher education experience. From a fiscal standpoint, retention of students is essential to the projection of budgets, funding from government, and for identifying trends that the institution can be responsive to in their programmatic efforts, within, and outside of, the classroom.
Retention efforts are contested in some research. Albert (2010) shares that institutions are harming some of their students by working to retain them, whereas Astin (1999) shares conflicting opinions. Astin demonstrates that involvement on campus, through a variety of contexts, contributes positively to the success of a student in their academic pursuits, and in fact, that institutions should do all they can to create more opportunities for involvement on campus (1999). These conflicts raise questions around retention management efforts, including, namely, at what point is the mission of a higher education institution to educate students within a life experience context and allow them to fail, as opposed to, educationally, seemingly forcing the student to stay enrolled to ensure retention rate management?
In this study, the work of Ontario colleges to transition, retain, and provide opportunities for their students to persist is examined. The overall research question for this study is: Are the orientation and transition programs in the participating Ontario colleges supporting the educational mission of the institution and effectively delivering results for students?
It is imperative to ask in this research about the meaning of a college experience in Ontario. Are students looking solely for an academic experience, an experience infused with co- curricular and extra-curricular opportunities, or something different? What truly drives their desire to graduate, and do they want to graduate? What is best for the institution is not necessarily where institutional research should be focused, and systematically, what is best for government outcomes should not be what drives funding models and curricula.
The journey of higher education moving to a place where the student experience is positioned at the forefront of all priorities for success measurements is a complicated endeavour. However, institutions do put some significant focus on orientation and transition programs for students, in order to attain and retain every student, and the results of this study demonstrate the impact.
Session Type: Research Presentations
Community/Network Stream: Orientation Transition & Retention
Competency: Student advising, support and advocacy, Student learning and development
Registrarial Practice: Admissions & Transfer Credit, Student Recruitment
Room: Tilley
11.06. Seneca College’s Degree and Credit Transfer Office: A Profile of Users and an Examination of Transfer Outcomes
Ursula McCloy, Director, Centre for Research in Student Mobility, Seneca College; Victoria Baker, Manager, Degree and Credit Transfer Office, Seneca College; Kathleen Williams, Research Analyst, Seneca College; Henry Decock, Associate VP, Pathways and Partnerships, Seneca College
Seneca College was the first, and remains one of the few Ontario colleges with a dedicated Degree and Credit Transfer Office (DCTO). This study focusses on students who used the DCTO’s advisement services, with a focus on the college to university pathway. Students who entered Seneca between 2007 and 2014 will be compared in terms of university aspirations at entry, demographics, academic background and performance in college, and overall rate of transfer. Results showed that DCTO advising was associated with high transfer rates to university, as expected, but also with very strong academic performance in college.
Program Description
Seneca College is a recognized leader in the field of student transfer and pathways, with a large number of articulation agreements and comprehensive student advising, advocacy and assessment services. Seneca established the Degree and Credit Transfer Office (DCTO) in 2001 after an investigation showed that 44% of college entrants were planning to pursue further education (36% at a university) after graduation and yet few services existed to support them in achieving their goals. The current study aims understand which segments of the Seneca student population use the DCTO advising services and whether it is associated with rates of transfer and the transfer experience.
Methods: Part 1 of this study compares the profile of students who used the DCTO advising services between 2007 and 2014 to students who did not use the DCTO. Part 2 of the study compares the outcomes (academic, transfer) of this population by participation in DCTO advising.
Results: Younger students, females, students with slightly stronger high school academic backgrounds and those with a parent with a degree were somewhat more likely to use the DCTO, whereas Canadian citizens were less likely. DCTO users were more likely to be enrolled in a three-year diploma with business the most common study area. Even when controlling for these differences in a regression analysis, DCTO users obtained much higher grades and graduation rates than non-users, likely because they were highly motivated to obtain the grades and, often, the credential required to transfer, and possibly because they benefit from DCTO advising services as well as referrals to academic advising.
Overall, 44% of DCTO users transferred to university compared to 10% of graduates who did not use the DCTO. This difference held true even when controlling for differences in academic performance, student aspirations and a variety of other factors. Of those who aspired to university at college entry, half of DCTO users compared to 22% of non-users transferred to university.
Implications/ Recommendations: The provision of outreach may be necessary for students navigating program pathways with few or no articulation agreements. Outreach to students should be done early, particularly for program areas in which DCTO users are underrepresented. Also, since graduates often transfer to university with a career focus in mind, a focus on career opportunities associated with transfer pathways is warranted. Emphasizing the value of the DCTO and advisement service to faculty, staff and service areas across the college continues to be a priority.
Session Type: Research Presentations
Competency: Post-secondary acumen, Student advising, support and advocacy
Registrarial Practice: Admissions & Transfer Credit, Student Records
Room: McCully
11.07. Student Consultations: Consult, Translate, & Mobilize
Rachelle McGrath, Healthy Campus Team Lead, Mount Royal University; Kandi McElary, Director of Wellness Services, Mount Royal University
Interested in implementing student consultations but not sure where to start? Have you completed student consultations but now you are not sure how to best interpret/use the results? This interactive session will discuss how Mount Royal University (MRU) conducted student wellbeing consultations through the use of surveys, outreach events, and focus groups. Now, MRU is in the process of understanding how to translate these results into action. Join us to discuss the concerns, challenges, and successes associated with conducting student consultations.
Program Description
This campfire session will start off with an overview of the extensive student consultation strategy undertaken at Mount Royal University during the 2017/2018 academic year. The entire process, from survey design to data analysis was done in collaboration with students. Our online survey solicited feedback from just under 800 students and focus groups and interviews included approximately 100 students. Additionally we held different outreach events on campus and a photography competition to encourage arts -based contributions to the discussion. We will provide a brief summary of some of the main findings of this process and some of the ways in which we plan to turn these data into meaningful actions on our campus.
The main goal of this session is to foster collaborative dialogue about the process of consultation and learn about how different campuses are approaching the process and related challenges. Post Secondary Institutions recognize that in order to deliver relevant, impactful campus supports and programming it is imperative that the student voice remain central; however, how best to ensure that this happens can be challenging .
Although we expect that our participants will guide the conversation, some potential questions we are interested in raising include:
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How are you sampling your students? Who are you targeting and who is responding?
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What methods and strategies are you using? Surveys, focus groups, interviews, arts-based processes?
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What type of information are you trying to gather?
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Who on campus are you partnering/ collaborating with to conduct student consultations?
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Who is using the information? How is it being shared with other stakeholders on campus?
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How are you sharing information beyond your campus?
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What types of programming and services are being impacted by the data gathered?
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How are you demonstrating to students that you are using the information they provide?
Significance:
This session will be relevant for anyone who is working to incorporate student perspectives into their campus planning. Additionally, this will also be a useful session for people who may have already gathered a significant amount of data from their student population and are interested in discussing how to integrate this in the most impactful ways.
Session Type: Campfire Session
Competency: Communication, Strategic planning, research and assessment
Room: Tupper
11.08. Cannabis on Campus: Resource Creation to Prevent High Risk Cannabis Use by Post Secondary Students
Maryellen Gibson, Student researcher, Student Wellness Services University Of Saskatchewan; Rita Hanoski, Health Education Coordinator, Student Wellness Centre, University of Saskatchewan
With the upcoming legalization of cannabis in Canada, our research team was tasked to research best practices for cannabis education to create resources for the prevention of cannabis use among university students. Through research of past initiatives and current resources at Canadian and American post secondary institutions, our findings were used to develop new resources, based on a harm reduction approach, to educate students on lower risk consumption of cannabis. This presentation will highlight our findings and show the resources we created and piloted to engage the student population in cannabis harm reduction.
Program Description
With the impending legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada, health education programs on post-secondary campuses are tasked with exploring means to educate their students on the health impacts of cannabis use. We reviewed current best practices for cannabis education in the literature as well as current resources available on Canadian and American post secondary campuses. We then used this evidence to create resources for peer based learning on our campus and gave recommendations for how the university could support students through the legalization process. When communicating with other universities through this project, it became clear that other campuses are exploring how best to educate their student body on the impacts of cannabis. We plan to share the lessons we have learned through this research with other campus health promoters so that they too can utilize best practices to limit the risks experienced by their student body. To share this information we will lead a session where we explain the steps of our research, the key findings or best practices, the resources we have developed, and the impacts of implementation and feedback received. We will explain how the literature suggests the importance of a harm reduction approach through peer based initiatives. We have also learned that certain topics are of the most importance when it comes to educate for this population including: drugged driving; lower risk practices; types of cannabis consumption; and the legalization process. We have found many concerns when it comes to education around the lack of evidence-based effects of cannabis use. This lack of concrete information makes certain traditional forms education difficult and can undermine peer based approaches to health promotion. Rather than trying to explicitly weigh the harms and benefits of cannabis consumption, our interventions use the best evidence available to inform how risks can be lowered. In this way, we hope that other institutions can take the best practices we have learned and our implementation strategy to increase the cannabis resources on their campus and reduce the risks of cannabis-related harms among their population.
Session Type: Research Presentations
Competency: Strategic planning, research and assessment, Student advising, support and advocacy
Room: Steeves
11.09. Student Party Registration Program
Kathryn Hofer, Manager, Off-Campus Living, University of Guelph
The University of Guelph’s Party Registration program is a collaboration between the University and the City of Guelph with the goal of making Guelph a more neighbourly place to live. Hear the story of how the program was established, how we engage students to promote registration, the role that community partners play in the program’s success, and our response to those not so successful parties. The party registration program was launched in the fall of 2015, based on a model from the University of Colorado, and participation continues to grow every year.
Program Description
Presentation will cover core content outlined below:
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What is party registration?
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Students participate in a consultation lead by a Peer Helper team, and depending on the party date (i.e. Homecoming), a Police or By-law Officer who can answer student questions in advance of the party.
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Students agree to have contact information shared with Police and City
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Consultation includes tips related to successfully managing a party, how to interact with Police and By-law, and how to reduce the chances of neighbourhood complaints, which should in turn decrease chance of receiving one or more $650 nuisance party tickets, while also improving the community experience.
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Online registration
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Where did the party registration idea come from?
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Practice-based model used at the University of Colorado
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Impetus to introduce the party registration program at the University of Guelph.
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After attending a Town and Gown Association of Ontario symposium where Colorado presented on the program, our Guelph representatives at the Symposium (myself, Police, and By-law Enforcement) decided to take a closer look at how the program could be adapted to work within the Canadian context
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The logistics of how party registration works.
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What is the benefit to our community partners, i.e. Police, Public Health?
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Local Town and Gown Committee
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Police
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By-law
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Wellington-Dufferin Public Health: Connection to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse framework to address high-risk drinking and alcohol harms reduction on Canadian Campuses through Strategic Area 1: Health Promotion, prevention, and education. Involvement of Public Health Unit in addressing alcohol harms in the community
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Question to participants: When you envision a program like this in your community, who, outside of your campus community, could champion the program? Do you need community partners to have a successful party registration program?
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How do we engage students to promote registration?
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Question to participants: In Guelph we have a $650 Nuisance Party fine that is the carrot to get students to register their party. What can you identify in your community as the key sales pitch for students to participate in a party registration program?
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Stories of successful and not so successful party registrations (i.e. the students who worked collaboratively with Guelph Police to shutdown a party that could have resulted in multiple nuisance party violations, versus, the students who received 5 nuisance tickets and participated in the University’s Community Standards Protocol)
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Program statistics and student feedback
Session Type: Storytelling
Competency: Student advising, support and advocacy, Student learning and development
Room: McGee
11.10. We’ll Prove It! How Career Exploration is Cultivating Hope Despite the Bleak Headlines of a Precarious Labour Market
Amelia Merrick, Director, Student Career Exploration and Education, University of Toronto
Headlines warn students of a bleak employment market, but through career exploration, students are more hopeful. In this 60 minute arts-informed session we will share evidence that students are developing resilience, agency and networking skills through career exploration; and we will demonstrate how this is cultivating hope. We will explore how career narratives are changing the way students understand themselves and their role as students (and future employees) and we will interrogate our role as Student Affairs practitioners to curate career narratives for students, administration and “career co-educators.” All this, while dabbling in a bit of art!
Program Description
If we agree with Kincheloe (2009) that “language is not a neutral and objective conduit of description of the real world… linguistic descriptions are not simply about the world but serve to construct it…[discourses] regulate what can and cannot be said” (p. 55) then the way we hear, interpret, (re) frame and tell career stories has power. Often, twitter feeds and headlines about the career prospects of today’s students include words like: precarious, struggling, anxiety and “failing to launch.” However, career exploration at the University of Toronto is curating counter-narratives for students, which is cultivating hope about the futures.
Between September 2014 to April 2017 more than 4560 students from the University of Toronto, including 850 graduate students (18.7%) participated in career exploration. The majority of them demonstrated improved resiliency in relation to their career exploration, learned a holistic and self-directed approach to career exploration, and were able to identify and develop relationships in order to grow their career community. In fact, 92% of students said they can see how their studies can be applied to a range of career opportunities, there was a 30% increase in students who could describe the “day-to-day” life of a professional, a 50% increase in students who feel confident identifying the next steps in their career development process and 97% of participants felt more comfortable approaching professionals. Furthermore, a summary of qualitative student data, representing more than 1000 data points revealed that students feel hopeful.
It would appear that career exploration offers students experiences and nuanced career narratives that pose a challenge to the dominant discourse presenting bleak employment prospects. Through guided reflection drawing on theories like the Narrative Approach, Planned Happenstance and Self-Directed Career Management, students are given space to re-imagine their role as individuals, as students and as future members of the labour market.
While the evidence of UofT’s career exploration programs show that all program goals are being met and students are developing resilience, agency, networking skills and hope; another level of analysis suggests that there are important political and power implications in the way career stories are told and that as an institution we have an important role to curate the telling of stories, creating access to a diversity of stories (gender, accessibility, sexual-orientation, ethnicity, class, etc.). This is particularly important as we consider our commitments to equity, diversity and inclusion.
Session Type: Roundtable Discussion
Competency: Equity, diversity and inclusion, Student learning and development
Registrarial Practice: Advising, Curriculum and Calendar
Room: Cartier
11.11. A whole new world: A discussion on shifting student engagement needs
Jenn McCulloch, Coordinator, Residence Orientation and Community Development, Simon Fraser University; Paula Broderick, Student Engagement Coordinator, Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University
Students today face many responsibilities and commitments outside the classroom. From jobs, volunteer work, and lengthy commutes, etc., both students living in residence and those commuting have expressed wanting to become more engaged with campus life than they already are. As professionals from a variety of areas, what can we do to help support this goal? This campfire session will allow participants to come together and share their experiences and knowledge surrounding engagement on campus, from what has worked to what has not worked. Participants will be able to create and direct the conversation allowing for a meaningful dialogue.
Program Description
This session is focused on creating a dialogue between professionals from a variety of areas who help foster student engagement on campus. Tinto and Astin’s theories on integration and involvement informs a lot of the work done by student service professionals. However, the profile of students has changed over the years, and student responsibilities have also grown. Though Tinto and Astin are still relevant, with the shifting student demographic, the literature behind engagement has also changed.
Many individuals attending Canadian institutions are now students with part-time or full-time jobs, students with lengthy commutes, international students who have never been abroad, students who live on campus but have work or volunteer off-campus, etc. This is not an exhaustive list, but does provide perspective on what responsibilities students today have in addition to their classes.
While the term “commuter campus” may not be a term every institution identifies with, the reality is that programs and events focused on increasing student engagement have to contend with students who arrive to campus for classes and then leave for other commitments. The same type of barriers to involvement can even be said for students who live on campus. A study by Halley Alfano and Nina Eduljuee (2013) found that over 50% of both students who live on campus and students who commute expressed a desire to be more involved with campus life than they currently were.
As professionals who work in this environment, this dialogue will be focused on discussing what experiences each person has (from a variety of roles within their institution) when planning programs, curriculum, and events focused on student engagement. What strategies, programs, and events have worked, and what hasn’t worked? The purpose is to gain a better understanding of what various institutions are working on to help foster student involvement.
This session will include a PowerPoint that provides a brief overview of both historic and current student engagement theories and discusses the responsibilities and commitments that can affect a student’s ability to become more involved on campus. It will also provide participants with a snapshot of the presenters’ perspectives on the subject, as they both do not work within a central student services unit (one works within a faculty and the other works within a residence and housing department). The presentation will then move to a facilitated dialogue amongst the participants.
Session Type: Campfire Session
Community/Network Stream: Leadership Educators
Competency: Equity, diversity and inclusion,Student learning and development
Registrarial Practice: Student Recruitment
Room: Henry
11.12. Access Granted: Establishing a Grant Program to Support Students’ Career Development
Dan Traynor, Campus Engagement Specialist, Ryerson University; Nikki Waheed, Career Education Specialist, Ryerson University; Daniel Lis, Vice-President, Education, Ryerson Students' Union
The Career Development Grant was established in the fall of 2017 as a new financial assistance program for students pursuing unpaid career-integrated learning opportunities, such as internships and practicums. Launched in partnership by the Ryerson Career Centre and the Ryerson Students’ Union, the grant is the first of its kind at a Canadian university. Presenters will share their story of how addressing the needs of students required a strong, unique partnership between student leaders and student affairs professionals. In detailing the journey of starting the grant program, we will explore the benefits of working together when confronting shared obstacles.
Program Description
As students increasingly seek to gain practical work experience to improve their employability upon graduation, Career-Integrated Learning (CIL) is a growing area of focus on campuses across Canada (Sattler & Peters, 2013). CIL includes experiential work opportunities such as practicums and internships, the majority of which are unpaid positions (NACE, 2016). While the growth of CIL brings potential to produce more job-ready graduates and fulfill the labour needs of both students and employers, the acceptance of unpaid work remains a contested issue for students, employers, faculty and staff alike.
The challenge of unpaid work is especially significant given growing concerns over student access to postsecondary education in the face of rising costs of education, housing, and food (Silverthorn, 2016). Considering that students from intersecting, equity-seeking identities (e.g. racialized students, Indigenous students, students with disabilities) often face more challenges in higher education than other students, and that equity-seeking populations are also ones that experience disadvantages when navigating career transitions - from obtaining employment to salary negotiation (Quaye & Harper, 2015) - the need to support students through unpaid work terms becomes critical.
As a response to this challenge, in the fall of 2017 the Ryerson Career Centre and the Ryerson Students’ Union established a formal partnership to launch a grant program to support students navigating this complex, changing climate. The Career Development Grant, the first of its kind at a Canadian university, was collaboratively designed by students and staff to assist students pursuing unpaid work experiences that contribute to their professional development.
With over 500 applicants for an initial 50 grants, in this session we will explore how the program very quickly identified a potentially unmet need. Using Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as theoretical frameworks, we will provide an overview of the development of the grant program, designed to ensure all applicants - whether successful in receiving the grant or not - were exposed to a learning experience.
Of relevance to both student affairs & registrarial services professionals, the session will also focus on the partnership developed between staff and student leaders; the design of an equitable and inclusive application process; and insights gained into student CIL experiences from the first round of the grant’s administration.
Session Type: Storytelling
Competency: Equity, diversity and inclusion, Leadership, management and administration
Registrarial Practice: Financial Assistance
Room: Campbell
11.13. Seeing Change in Gender Inclusive Housing in Canada
Sarah Burley Hollows, Assistant Dean, Student Life, Innis College, University of Toronto; Ian Crookshank, Director, Housing & Residence Life, Ryerson University; Mary Stefanidis, Career Educator, University of Toronto; Sonja Smiljanic, Residence Life Coordinator, Innis College, University of Toronto
All Gender/Gender Inclusive Housing is being developed and instituted in post-secondary institutions across Canada. Come hear about the implementation experiences at two institutions, Ryerson and University of Toronto (Innis College), along with the co-author of the OACUHO white paper on Gender Inclusive Housing. Presenters will discuss timelines,change processes,and student-impact while reflecting on the research and needs that were the catalysts of these initiatives. The focus will be on Housing, and attendees who have interest in gender inclusion in other Student Affairs areas will also be able to connect with the content (intake/application processes, stakeholder consultation approaches, education, etc.).
Program Description
Participants will be introduced to the OACUHO report, “The State of Gender-Inclusive Housing Among OACUHO Member Institutions” prepared by Mary Stefanidis, MEd, and Nic Weststrate, PhD. The report outlines recommendations and 3 clear first steps that can be taken by individuals interested in implementing and better supporting gender-inclusive housing practices. These recommendations are based on extensive literature found from such journals as The Journal for Gay and Lesbian Issues in Education and The Journal of College and University Student Housing, data collected from 15 institutions and rooted in the Ontario Human Rights Code.
The similarities and difference between the OACUHO report and that of the ACUHOI 2016 study, “The Implementation of Gender-Neutral Housing: A mixed method study across ACUHOI member institutions” will be discussed. This will allow any potential global participants, to identify similarities and differences in legalities, polices and philosophies.
These two reports are based in theories relating to gender and gender identity development as well as resources collected from academic journals relating to LGBTQ issues and Student Housing. These resources will be discussed and a resource list provided to attendees.
Participants will then be shown the processes of how Ryerson University and U of T, Innis Residence changed their admissions processes, placement practices, stakeholder education, and community development to reflect a greater understanding of gender-inclusive options and practices. Included in this will be an evaluation and reflection of the first year in action, and will include student resident and parent feedback.
There will be significant opportunity for question and answer, as we believe there should be time to talk about global best practices, and to discuss how Ryerson/U of T, as well as session attendees, could continue to move forward with more equitable intake, admissions, assignment, and program practices.
Session Type: Storytelling
Competency: Equity, diversity and inclusion
Registrarial Practice: Student Recruitment
Room: John Hamilton
11.14. Changing Understandings of Campus Rape Culture
Lyndsay Anderson, Manager, Student Conduct, Dalhousie University
In September 2013, students chanted about raping underage girls during orientation week events at Saint Mary’s University and University of British Columbia, garnering international media attention and public outrage. This presentation will outline the findings of a feminist discourse analysis of the news media coverage of the rape chant at Saint Mary’s, examining how the media framed this incident and why this framing matters to Student Affairs practitioners. Participants will learn about the importance of analyzing discourses to better understand why and how students engage in incidents of campus rape culture.
Program Description
This presentation will review the findings of my Master’s thesis research of the Saint Mary’s rape chant incident. In September 2013, students at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia chanted about the rape of underage girls, an incident that garnered national and international media coverage. Utilizing feminist poststructuralist discourse analysis, this study examines a selection of media articles published in the weeks after the rape chant to identify the discursive context and the implications for students on campus. This study identifies a complex process where the media coverage that attempted to critique rape culture instead reiterated harmful discourses of youth, gender and sexuality. An alternative approach that offers a more nuanced analysis of these types of incidents is encouraged – one that considers the standpoints of the participants in addition to the context of university life, rape culture and postfeminism.
The majority of this presentation will focus on several key recommendations for student affairs practitioners of all positions and levels of experience to better understand and address these incidents when they occur. These recommendations are as follows:
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Allow time for processing and understanding the incidents
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Involve participating students in your exploration into ‘why’ and ‘what next’
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Examine usage of the word ‘frosh’
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Examine other words with discursive power on campus
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Understand concepts of postfeminist sensibility, irony, and knowingness (Rosalind Gill, 2007)
I will use various other examples of campus rape culture to work through these recommendations to ensure that the content is relevant, current and can speak to various types of institutions across Canada. While this presentation requires a brief explanation of theory, I will ensure that concepts are clearly explained and delivered at a level where participants can learn in an accessible manner. Finally, I will ensure that there is time for discussion of the concepts and ideas that I present.
The theories that I will utilizing are as follows:
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Feminist poststructuralist discourse analysis (FPDA)
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Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory
Session Type: Research Presentations
Community/Network Stream: Orientation Transition & Retention, Student Conduct
Competency: Equity, diversity and inclusion, Post-secondary acumen
Room: Brown
11.15. Fostering Student Leadership Development in an Off-Campus Co-Curricular Setting
Gabriel Wee, Student, University of Toronto; Rhoda Lam, Student University of Toronto; Yin Kot, Student, University of Toronto
Student Life Professionals (SLP) play an important role in supporting students in developing their own leadership skills. To this end, we ask: what dynamics enable student leadership development to flourish in an off-campus co-curricular setting? In seeking to answer this question, we draw upon our experiences as students in Alternative Reading Week to showcase important components of the program and its impacts on students learning and leadership development.
Program Description
Student Life Professionals (SLP) play a critical role in advancing student affairs and engaging students in a lifelong journey of learning and discovery. They implement and facilitate programs and services in the form of co-curricular activities to complement learning opportunities for students that would otherwise not be available in a traditional classroom. In their role as an educator, they share knowledge, and support students to build skills and grow both personally and professionally. As student leaders who have been involved with different leadership opportunities, we would like to explore a fundamental question that underpins this concept: what dynamics enable student leadership development to flourish in an off-campus co-curricular setting? In seeking to answer this question, we would like draw upon our journeys and experiences with the Alternative Reading Week program (ARW) at the University of Toronto. ARW is an opportunity for students to take part in three days of volunteering with different community organizations in the city of Toronto. We will be sharing students' narratives of their experiences with ARW including training for Project Leaders (PLs) that highlight best practices for leadership development. The ARW journey fosters conditions that cultivate students' capacities for socially responsible leadership. It also provides clear positions for growth, where students like ourselves can progress through roles of increasing responsibilities, so as to gain more experiences. We will draw on our experiences and that of other students to show the impacts of these practices on student learning and leadership development and engage the audience in a short discussion.
Session Type: Storytelling
Community/Network Stream: Leadership Educators, Co-Curricular Record
Competency: Student learning and development
Room: Archibald
CONCURRENT SESSIONS 12
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
3:00PM – 4:00PM
12.01. ARUCC/CACUSS - Aligning Two Worlds
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