Our qualitative study explored transition in seven Canadian universities--early providers of distance education that transitioned to online learning between 2002 and 2017. We interviewed 16 individuals who were involved in the design, planning, or implementation of online learning. Participants reported their universities experienced significant…

This article explores the relationship between unionization and academic freedom protections for sessional faculty in Ontario universities. Specifically, we compare university policies and contract provisions with a view to determining whether unionized sessionals hired on a per-course basis have stronger academic freedom protections than their…

Despite growing enrollment of university students with disabilities, they have not achieved academic parity with their non-disabled peers. This study matched 71 first-year university students with disabilities and students without disabilities on three variables: high school average when admitted to university, gender, and program of study. Both…

In the context of the increasing focus on harms, psychological safety, and mental health in post-secondary settings, this qualitative study explores the challenges and opportunities for harm reduction through focus groups with student leaders, service providers, and administrators in one large Canadian university. Key themes explored by…

While Indigenous entrepreneurship is associated with significant economic promise, Indigenous innovation continues to be invisible in Canadian policy contexts. This article examines how Indigenous entrepreneurial activities are framed in government policy, potentially leading to another wave of active exploitation of Indigenous lands, peoples, and…

This paper focuses on the recent political spars between Canada and Saudi Arabia as well as China and their impact on Canadian universities. It asks three questions: (1) What key issues did Canada's political strains with Saudi Arabia and China raise for Canadian universities' international education (IE) initiatives and what issues were absent?…

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Toronto Police Service was exploring how to increase access to higher education to its officers. The service saw higher education as salient to its organizational imperatives of professionalization, increased public legitimacy and credibility, and enhanced academic recognition of police professional learning.…

Some analysts foresee that the rise of automation--triggered by advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and other novel technologies--will soon unsettle sizable sections of our labour market, prompting the need for mass upskilling and re-skilling. Continuous learning is perceived as the new norm within the future of work. Many believe that…

Most Canadian universities participate in the US-based National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) that measures various aspects of "student engagement." The higher the level of engagement, the greater the probability of positive outcomes and the better the quality of the school. "Maclean's" magazine publishes some of the…

Although there is a rich critical literature examining international student policy in Canada, very little of it considers the views of Members of Parliament. MPs have limited direct influence over international student policy, but their policy talk about international students defines the context within which such policy is developed. For that…

The Brazilian Federal Network of VET Institutes was created in 2008 to address the demand for Higher Education's rapid growth. Since the establishment of Science Without Borders in 2011, the Federal Institutes have been developing international strategies for strengthening their internationalization process. However, there has been little research…

This paper explores Ontario's international education policy landscape through illuminating the discursive struggles to define international student funding policies, in particular the international doctoral students' Trillium Scholarship. Adopting Hajer's (1993, 2006) Discourse Coalition Framework, the study engages with three research questions:…

International students are at heightened risk of developing psychological distress, yet little research has been conducted on their mental health or support needs. This quantitative study focused on undergraduate students at two mid-sized universities in Manitoba, Canada. Online and paper surveys were completed by 932 participants, of whom 21%…

This article examines how Canadian colleges and universities formally articulate their priority activities for internationalization, and what discursive rationales justify their approaches. Data come from 32 publicly-available internationalization strategies published in English by Canadian colleges and universities. In terms of practices, we find…

Universities rationalize internationalization according to paradigms that emerge from different contexts. With the advent of internationalization strategies by federal and provincial governments, what effect do government ideas have on Canadian universities? This article evaluates the discursive power of government, and its role in discourse…