INQAAHE Conference 2023
Roadmap to Enabling Quality in Tertiary Education 2030
May 30, 2023
Sub-theme 4 Core Values and Quality of Higher Education
Multi-Speaker session
Analysis of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Practices at Canadian Publicly Funded Community Colleges: Toward Student Success
With demographics and social norms changing rapidly in Canadian society, institutions of higher education face pressure to meet the challenges associated with increased student diversity. The proposed study will explore the equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policies, strategies, and practices of publicly funded Canadian community colleges. More specifically, it will examine the potential impact of such approaches on student success. The study has three main objectives: to examine how Canadian community colleges in different cultural and socioeconomic contexts conceptualize equity, diversity, and inclusion; to analyze their EDI strategies; and to identify EDI practices that contribute to student success. Institutions of higher learning are facilitating access and implementing various EDI strategies, but it is not clear how such practices enhance the well-being and success of an increasingly diverse student population. This research aims to answer this question.
Facilitated by:
Dr. Hayfa Jafar
Dr. Hayfa Jafar is Director - Institutional Effectiveness at the American University of Iraq - Sulaimani. Previously she worked as Institutional Research Analyst at Centennial College in Canada – Ontario. She is experienced analyst using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Hayfa led tens of projects related to student retention, graduates outcomes, student social and academic experiences on campus, and international student diversity and market share at Ontario colleges. Her major area of research is internationalization of higher education.
Dr. Oleg Legusov
Dr. Oleg Legusov is an international student advisor at Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology. He previously worked as an agency coordinator, guiding the activities of student recruitment agents in multiple regions of the world. His research interests include the experience of international community college graduates in host-country labor markets and equity, diversity, and inclusion in multicultural societies. He has a Ph.D. from University of Toronto - Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, B.A. (econ.) from McGill University and an M.Ed. from Nipissing University (research on at-risk students) and studied Chinese culture and language at Beijing Language and Culture University.
TBC: The importance and urgency of embedding education for sustainable development (UNESCO 2030) into accreditation standards and quality assurance practices
The standards of accreditation that shape and inform both how universities operate and what sort of learning outcomes they strive to achieve were developed long before the climate crisis and collapse of nature began forcing educators to rethink what sort of education students might actually need for life—and indeed survival—in the 21st century. And despite recent updates and revisions to accreditation standards and indicators, institutional accreditation criteria are still very much rooted in traditional measures of what constitutes a quality education—i.e., one that leads to student success and career empowerment measured in terms of market-driven employability, upward mobility, and the consumerist lifestyle. However, quality measured in such terms is neither scalable for the human population nor within the carrying capacity of planet Earth. As such, this session views accreditation through the lens of sustainability, ecoliterate learning outcomes, and planetary boundaries in an effort to change the metrics, criteria, and “good practice” that characterize accreditation today.
Facilitated by:
Dr. Scott G. Blair
Scott G. Blair, PhD, is Director of Accreditation and Quality Assurance at AIAASC, Vice President of CANIE-Europe, and Affiliate at the Gateway International Group, LLC. He served on the faculties of the University of New Haven, the Institut National des Sciences Politiques, the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, and the American University of Paris. He served as Resident Director at Boston College Paris and Director of Assessment & Sustainability at TEAN. Based in Paris, he has worked in education for over 30 years—as instructor, Academic Director, and Director of Assessment. His research appears in Frontiers, Routledge and Stylus publications and he is a regular speaker at educational conferences on learning outcomes assessment and study abroad program design around UN Sustainable Development Goals. Blair holds a doctorate in history from the Sorbonne, an MA from Georgetown University, and a BA from Miami of Ohio.
TBC: Fostering the equity agenda in quality assurance: the development of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) indicator system in Catalonia
The aim of this presentation is twofold. First, it briefly describes a project that has been carried out at AQU Catalunya to develop a system of indicators to measure the extent to which access and outcomes of higher education(HE) are equitable. Second, it discusses the role of external quality assurance (EQA) in fostering equity policy agendas in HE, paying special attentiontothe mechanisms available to EQA practitioners in the Catalan context. To do so, it first introduces equity in HE as a policy problem, followed by a potted review of recent international developments regarding the inclusion of equity in EQA. Then, this presentation showcases the resulting catalogue of indicators and reflects upon the nature of EQA as a transformative activity.
Facilitated by:
Dr. José Luis Mateos-González
Senior Advisor, Internationalisation and Knowledge Generation Department (AQU Catalunya).
INQAAHE Conference 2023 is sponsored by the Education & Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC), a gold sponsor.
