CIHE Faculty Receive OHCRIF Funding from Provincial Government

CIHE’s Creso Sa, Glen Jones and Leesa Wheelahan have each had their respective Ontario Human Capital Research and Innovation Fund projects approved by the Ontario Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development.

Creso Sa and his research team’s project seeks to identify the outcomes that students participating in entrepreneurship programming in Ontario colleges and universities value, as well as the program attributes and/or experiences that help them achieve those outcomes. The project will focus on experiential programs supported by colleges and universities that are part of the provincially-funded Ontario Centres of Excellence. This study is intended to help inform Ontario’s entrepreneurship and innovation policy landscape by examining the goals, expectations and outcomes of students in these types of post-secondary programs. This is a three-year project.

Glen Jones and his research team’s project is the Canadian component of a comparative, international project focusing on the changing academic profession in more than thirty countries. The study is a follow-up to a 2007 survey of university faculty and will build on the original questionnaire, with a new emphasis on understanding the perceptions of university faculty in the context of the “knowledge society.” The core of the study will be a representative survey of full-time faculty employed in Canadian universities. The researchers will be able to explore changes in demographics and the perception of university faculty between 2007 and 2017 and contribute to our understanding of the academic profession in Canada compared to other countries. This is a three-year project.

Leesa Wheelahan and her research team’s project will assess the role and impact of baccalaureate degrees in Ontario. Baccalaureate degrees have been offered at Ontario colleges for 15 years. How have they impacted Ontario colleges and students? The research team includes Professors Leesa Wheelahan, Michael Skolnik and Gavin Moodie, with Dr Qin Liu as the post-doctoral researcher. The project will generate new insights on Ontario college baccalaureate degrees with respect to mission, curriculum, students and employment outcomes.