Adding Life to Your Campus Thru TEDx

Take a moment to imagine your community without ideas or discussion. People would be present, but emotionally distant. Daily routines would be followed... day after day after day. Dialogue would not stray beyond "How are you?" or "Nice weather eh?"

Hardly an inspiring place.

And certainly not the thriving, vibrant community envisioned by the organizers of yesterday's TEDxRyersonU, which was held at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto. Sharing ideas that generate discussion is what TED strives to achieve and several Canadian universities are taking advantage of this popular idea exchange.

You will likely recognize TED through TED Talks which showcase videos of presenters at the annual TED events or the many TEDx events that take place around the world. The 'x' indicated that the event is an "independently organized TED event."

A large group of students, lead by Parvinder Sachdeva, organized TEDxRyersonU - the first TEDx event at Ryerson. Some other Canadian university TEDx events include:

• TEDxUBC
• TEDxYorkU
• TEDxHartHouse (University of Toronto)
• TEDxQueensU
• TEDxMcMasterU

Now imagine your community with a wide variety of activities, full of people that are mentally excited having deep meaningful conversations. 

Feels different I bet. A TEDx event can help create this feeling.

Great job TEDxRyersonU Team!

Ontario's Education Prime Minister

Two thoughts may come to mind when you read the title for this post. The first is that I made a typo by using the term Prime Minister. The second is that one or both the names Dalton McGuinty or William Davis may come to mind as they have both been described as Ontario's Education Premier. 

If you thought any of the above you would be wrong. Up until William Davis took office as Ontario's 18th Premier in 1971 the title for the leader of Ontario's government was Prime Minister.  Davis changed the title shortly after stepping into the role. William Davis and Dalton McGuinty are significant Premier's when it comes to education in Ontario, but not as significant as John P. Robarts. 

Robarts was a Minister of Education in Ontario and Ontario's Prime Minister from 1961 to 1971 which is a period of time that saw significant change to the educational landscape in Ontario. (Davis was Minister of Education during much of Robart's time as leader)  The entire Ontario College system and several universities were opened during Robart's reign. Brock University, the University of Guelph, Nipissing University and Trent University all started as universities in the 1960's. 

After leaving government Robarts served as Chancellor at both the University of Western Ontario (his alma mater) and York University. The Robarts Library at the University of Toronto is named after him along with the Robarts Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario.

No leader of the Ontario government can match this list of achievements for education in the province. 

For more on Robarts you can read Steve Paiken's Public Triumph, Private Tragedy: The Double Life of John P. Robarts.

Getting to PSE Biggest Challenge for First Gen Students

"Parental education does not appear to be a particularly good marker for determining which students are inclined to leave post-secondary education without graduating" was the most significant finding from a recently published report from the Measuring Effectiveness of Student Aid (MESA) Project.
The MESA Project was exploring how family income, the timing of funding for students and regional factors impact a teenager's decision to pursue and persist in post-secondary education (PSE).Here are the MESA Project Report's major findings:

1. First generation students are much less likely than non-first generation students to say that they always knew they would attend PSE and are more likely than others to make their decision to attend PSE during their final years of high school.
2. First generation students are less likely than non-first generation students to have family members who saved for their PSE.
3. First generation students are not very different from non-first generation students when it comes to their opinions of whether they receive support and inspiration from their parents.
4. First generation students spend somewhat fewer hours studying than non-first generation students and have moderately lower grade averages.
5. First generation students are, perhaps surprisingly, not more likely than non-first generation students to leave PSE in first or second year without graduating.

The findings support the general belief that the biggest challenge for First-Generation Students (FGS) has been gaining access and that once in PSE retention and success is on par with non-FGS.  Two unexpected points for me in the report are that females are more likely to be FGS and "students from rural communities are considerably more likely to be first generation students compared to students from larger communities."

(Inside Higher Ed highlights the MESA Project in this November 11 article: Canadian Study Finds Lower Dropout Rates for Immigrants and Minority Students)

Higher Education's Uncertain Financial Future

Could student services withstand a 40% cut to higher education funding? Watching what happens in Britain in the coming years could provide answers to that question. Massive cuts in British higher education are coming.

Inside Higher Ed reports that "The Comprehensive Spending Review unveiled [in the middle of October] includes a reduction in the higher education budget of £2.9 billion – from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion – by 2014-5."  The government has indicated that future funding priorities will centre around science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The article does not provide any details on how student services will be impacted, but the full Browne Report, or the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance, can be found here.

Aside from understanding the Browne Report's recommendations, an area I am interested in exploring more, and will do so in the coming weeks, is to understand how the British higher education funding model compares to other countries around the world. That being said, it is widely known that many governments, including the Canadian federal and nearly every provincial government, are struggling to manage large debts so its quite conceivable that cuts on a similar scale could be made elsewhere. If that is the case then I cannot help but wonder how student services will fair.