Two trends in the evolution of quality assurance in Canadian postsecondary education have been the emergence of outcomes-based quality standards and the demand for balancing accountability and improvement. Using a realist, process-based approach to impact analysis, this study examined four quality assurance events at two universities and two…

Quality teaching and how to assess and award it, continue to be an area of scholarship and debate in higher education. While the literature demonstrates that assessment should be multifaceted, operationalizing this is no easy task. To gain insight into how teaching excellence is defined in Canadian higher education, this empirical study collected…

Sexual violence continues to be a serious problem on university campuses. While the negative psychological and health effects are well known, it is only recently that attention has focused on how sexual violence is related to educational outcomes, particularly women's education. This study contributes to this area and examined the relationship…

In this study, we explored experiences of Ontario students who engaged in a university-to-college (UTC) transfer. Data was collected through qualitative interviews with 20 participants who began their post-secondary journey in a university program but left before completing it and subsequently pursued a college program. We focused on motivations…

This article is concerned with the differences in REB policy and application processes across Canada as they impact multi-jurisdictional, higher education research projects that collect data at universities themselves. Despite the guiding principles of the Tri-Council Policy Statement 2 (TCPS2) there is significant variation among the practices of…

This paper analyzes the incentives induced by a formula to fund universities based primarily on enrolment. Using a simple game theoretical framework, we argue that the strategic behaviour induced by those formulas is to favour enrollment. We further argue that if the funding value differs by enrolment type, it introduces incentives to substitute…

A mixed methods analysis of Canadian natural sciences and engineering faculty's workplace experiences revealed a gendered care gap with women reporting greater responsibility for students' personal and mental health problems, including suicidal thoughts and behaviour, and sexual assault. Statistical results demonstrated that women were approached…

This study examines earnings inequality by gender and academic field among senior university administrators, including presidents, vice presidents, associate and assistant vice presidents, and deans, using data from the Canadian province of Ontario. While a 4.4 percent earnings gap between male and female administrators is initially identified,…

The Institutional Teaching Culture Perception Survey (ITCPS) was used to investigate beliefs of tenured, tenure-track, and sessional faculty members (N=576) about the teaching culture within three large research-intensive universities in Canada. As predicted, we found significant differences between these three groups of faculty members'…

This article presents a portrait of sexual violence on university campuses (SVUC) at six universities in Québec (Canada) and explores differences and similarities in the experiences of students, professors and employees. Data are drawn from the "Enquête Sexualité, Sécurité et Interactions en Milieu Universitaire" (ESSIMU). They reveal…

Universities face inherent informational asymmetries. These make university budgeting prone to various challenges including moral hazard. The last forty years has seen some large research- intensive universities move from centralized incremental budgeting to decentralized Responsibility Center Budgeting (RCB). It is assumed that a faculty chooses…

We examine bachelor's degree completion in the British Columbia post-secondary system, which is noted for its multiple pathways to graduation and ethnically diverse student population. Employing an administrative longitudinal dataset, we compare how the probability of degree completion by students enrolled at research-intensive,…

Institutional efforts to address equity, diversity and inclusion in educational settings have been often met with overwhelmingly critical accounts pointing towards well-intentioned attempts that have reinforced exclusion and inequity. A new wave of recent developments among Canadian research-intensive universities (U15) is providing a slightly…

This qualitative case investigation considers the historical, inter-provincial proliferation of university Crown foundations across Canada from 1984 to 1998. From the findings of over 40 interviews conducted between 2014 and 2017 and document analysis, this study uses a conceptual framework of policy entrepreneurship and institutionalism to…

This article documents the design, delivery, and evaluation of a first-year experience (FYE) course in media and communication studies. It was decided that CMNS 110: Introduction to Communication Studies would start to include elements to address a perceived and documented sense of disconnectedness among first-year students in the School of…