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Toni Morgan – Wow, Harvard! But How?

“Harvard is such a big goal. How did you do it?” Can I be honest here? I used to hate that question. Not that it’s a bad question. It’s just that open-ended questions about my life often result in a response that starts as an enlightened monologue about determination and chutzpah and quickly devolves into […]

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Harvey P. Weingarten – FutureSkills Lab: A Step in the Right Direction

Recently, the federal finance minister’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth recommended the creation of a national organization — the FutureSkills Lab — to serve as a laboratory for the development and measurement of skills. This proposed laboratory represents a significant and progressive advance that can increase Canada’s global competitiveness and offer its citizens the economic […]

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It’sNotAcademic – The podcast: Episode two with Mehnaz Tabassum

Access to postsecondary education remains a challenge for many students and research has shown that financial considerations are just one part of the equation. In our new episode of It’sNotAcademic: The Podcast, we continue to explore the issue of access and why certain groups — such as first generation students, those with disabilities, low-income students, […]

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Erin Maloney, Daniel Ansari and Jonathan Fugelsang – Outing math anxiety

Most of us can remember a conversation in which someone openly professes a dislike (or even hatred) of math, making statements such as, “I’m not a math person” or “I just don’t get math.” Our cultural dislike of math has become so mainstream that it has even infiltrated the toys that we give our children […]

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Welcome to ItsNotAcademic: The Podcast

Ever vigilant for new ways to share our research with the broader public, HEQCO has initiated a podcast, launching with a series on access to higher education (one of our key research priorities). Aligned with the theme of our upcoming conference, Rethinking Access: When non-traditional is the new normal, the series will explore the systems, […]

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Harvey P. Weingarten – “Plans are useless but planning is indispensable.”

These are the words of former US President Dwight Eisenhower about how one plans for battle. One reason “I like Ike” is that his words capture HEQCO’s philosophy of planning. He understood that plans are useless when they get too specific, try to predict the future with certainty, and prompt fights over every comma in […]

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Cassandra Cao — Machine learning trending on campus

Sentient robots used to be the creatures of science fiction novels, but the future is here. Artificial intelligence quietly recommends the next movie in your Netflix queue, it reminds you of the fastest routes to work just before you leave the house, and it recognizes your face in a selfie and automatically focuses your camera […]

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EduData: Students’ perspectives on work-integrated learning

Almost half of Ontario’s postsecondary students take part in a co-op, internship, field placement or some other form of work-integrated learning (WIL) by the time they graduate. HEQCO’s research focus is on the quality of students’ WIL experiences. We asked Academica Group to survey college and university students on their perceptions about WIL. Among students […]

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Matt Ross – Telling the story of higher ed

As a journalism grad and someone who has been fascinated by newspapers for most of my life, some days it feels pretty bleak. Job losses, cutbacks and storied newspapers going “digital only” are now routine. And as newspapers shrink, so does the space for coverage of higher education. A new HEQCO report says coverage of […]