In recent years, Ontario universities have increasingly targeted Indigenous and international students for recruitment. Focusing on three southern Ontario universities, I examine how service delivery for these student groups is organized in space. In light of Henri Lefebvre's work, I argue that the spatiality of the information hubs created to…

Researchers are under increasing pressure to disseminate research more widely with non-academic audiences (efforts we call knowledge mobilization, KMb) and to articulate the value of their research beyond academia to broader society. This study surveyed SSHRC-funded education researchers to explore how universities are supporting researchers with…

Using data from two cohorts of Grade 12 students in Toronto, we examined whether the transition to post-secondary education changed between 2006 and 2011, particularly for under-represented groups. We used multilevel, multinomial logistic regressions to examine how the intersections of race and sex affect post-secondary transitions in the two…

There is a global trend toward improving programs and student experiences in higher education through curriculum review and mapping of degree programs. This paper describes an action research approach to program improvement for a course-based MEd degree. The driver for continual program improvement came from actions and recommendations that arose…

Conventional scholarship within the sociology of education and organizations posits that schools achieve legitimacy by virtue of conforming to normative standards, abiding by government regulations and mimicking the forms of successful peers. Through this study, an examination of a sample of 751 Canadian for-profit colleges (FPCs) is performed,…

Since the 1980s, research on employment conditions in post-secondary institutions has focused on the growth of contingent academic workers, or what the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) has labelled "non-full- time instructors" (Field, Jones, Stephenson, & Khoyetsyan, 2014). Very little attention, however, has been…

A requirement for quality assurance is becoming more prevalent in higher education today as institutions are being asked to demonstrate that they are providing robust, meaningful learning experiences for students. Many institutions are adopting curriculum review frameworks as part of their overall quality assurance strategy. Three leaders at…

As with higher-education institutions around the world, British Columbia (BC) and Ontario are increasingly faced with demographic and market pressures that erode the traditional difference between the university and non-university sectors (i.e., colleges and institutes). Key components that ensure these provinces' institutions preserve their…

Given their unique pedagogical mandate and structure, Canadian public colleges play a central role in serving groups traditionally under-represented in the post-secondary system. Yet as enrolment from these groups continues to rise, it is unclear to what extent the diversity of student bodies is reflected among faculty. In fact, while issues of…

Many universities have implemented campus-based initiatives addressing students' mental health with the goal of promoting well-being. One such initiative is the newly developed Counsellor-in-Residence (CIR) program at the University of Calgary, which targets students' mental health by providing residence-based counselling services and mental…

Canadian post-secondary students are vulnerable to food insecurity, yet lack of examination of this issue has prevented identification of policy and program solutions. This mixed-methods study aimed to characterize the experience of food insecurity among undergraduate students by eliciting barriers to food security, strategies used to manage food…

National and international statistics show that across disciplines there are many more PhD graduates than academic positions. In fact, more than half of graduates find their careers outside the academy--though the kinds of positions they accept, their work satisfaction, and the relevance of their PhDs is much less clear. As regards scholarly…

In Canada there are growing discussions concerning the role of publicly funded universities and the impact of academic research. The integration of neoliberal practices and market rationalities place pressure on universities to "go public" in order to demonstrate relevance and accountability. Researchers are encouraged or even required…

Student success in post-secondary education is an ongoing concern, however, research has focused on relatively homogeneous university samples. Moreover, Canadian research on predictors of student success is limited. Following recent trends, we examined non-cognitive, personal qualities, rather than cognitive predictors (e.g., IQ), of student…

This qualitative investigation addresses three "new universities" in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta and their presidents' ascriptions of organizational identity to their universities. Through extended, semi-structured interviews and narrative analysis, this investigation uses organizational identity theory and…