Ten with Ken (Audio)

This week, Ken Steele completes his countdown of the ten biggest trends impacting North American higher education in 2015, with the top 4: from political correctness and personal safety to major demographic shifts.

If you missed part 1, check it out first: https://youtu.be/bziLQbNEXcI

4) Indigenous Content:

Even before the recommendations of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, institutions began announcing new mandatory indigenous content in their curricula. Students at the University of Winnipeg proposed mandatory courses in indigenous history or culture. Lakehead University announced that it would introduce indigenous perspectives into courses across all faculties. UBC's Sauder School of Business and the UBC Okanagan School of Nursing both announced that they would be integrating Aboriginal content. The new president at the University of Saskatchewan declared that he would make indigenization his top priority. And the Law Faculties at UBC and Lakehead had both established mandatory courses in Aboriginal Law and intercultural training.

3) Zero Tolerance:

Last year we saw significant mainstream attention being paid to microaggressions on campus, and ongoing debate about trigger warnings for the curriculum. Faculty, most of whom are Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, are alarmed by the rising tide of political correctness and its potential to undermine academic freedom and free speech on campus. Generation Y students, on the other hand, take free speech for granted, but in a social media era have learned to retaliate against even the subtlest prejudice with a firestorm of outrage. Last year, several top comedians declared that they would no longer perform on campuses because students just couldn't take a joke. A controversial prof at Laurentian asked his students to sign a waiver acknowledging coarse language in his lectures. Universities introduced microaggression training in their faculty orientations, collective agreements, and more. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms ranked Canadian universities and gave 15 universities and 26 student unions grades of "F".

2) Sex Assault Protocols:

Although long-term trends in the incidences of sex assault on campus are debated, we saw an immense public spotlight focused on the issue last year. First there was the fallout of a discredited campus rape story published (and then retracted) by Rolling Stone magazine. The release of The Hunting Ground, a full-length documentary about Ivy League schools covering up rape to protect their brands. A Columbia student carrying a mattress with her everywhere on campus, including to her graduation. Task force recommendations at the University of Ottawa, in the wake of a sex assault that resulted in the suspension of its men's hockey team. Rape allegations at Royal Military College. And then there was the CBC's ranking of colleges and universities based on sex assaults reported in the previous 5 years. Across the country, presidents announced task forces and new policies and protocols, student unions and mental health services launched awareness campaigns and bystander intervention programs. There are even smartphone apps designed to secure affirmative sexual consent in the heat of the moment.

Full official trailer for The Hunting Ground: https://youtu.be/GBNHGi36nlM

Full ad for Alberta's #IBelieveYou: https://youtu.be/VruBjg_dc2Q

1) Peak Campus:

Most significant of all, last year there was just no denying that enrolment was plateauing or declining at many campuses across North America. In the US, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported that college enrolment declined in 2015 for the third straight year, particularly at 2-year community colleges and for-profit institutions. The University of Phoenix had lost half of its students between 2010 and 2015, a whopping 250,000! The Council of Ontario Universities reported declines of about 5% in applicants province-wide over 2 years – and more remote institutions like the University of Windsor or Lakehead saw drops of up to 19%. The Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission reported a 1% decline in enrolment after 4 consecutive years of growth, and smaller campuses in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were particularly hard hit.

Check out Ken's white paper, Peak Campus, for more detail: http://eduvation.ca/2013/09/peak-campus/

Next time we'll round up the top higher ed headaches of 2015. For exclusive preview access, a week early, to future episodes of "Ten with Ken", be sure to subscribe to Eduvation's "in the loop" email newsletter, at http://www.eduvation.ca/subscribe/

Canada's most trusted higher ed monitor, Ken Steele, counts down the ten biggest trends impacting North American higher education in 2015, from equity and politics to new technologies and new business models.

Intro:

2015 was a rough year, from terrorist attacks in France and extreme weather in Texas and California, to the Volkswagen emissions scandal and the surprising rise of Donald Trump. But we also saw the launch of the Apple Watch, the Lexus hoverboard, and Nike self-lacing shoes. And there was a profound leftward shift in Canadian politics, from Rachel Notley's NDP in Alberta to Dwight Ball's Liberals in Newfoundland, and of course the second prime minister Trudeau. But there was also no shortage of developments directly affecting higher education. Some we have covered in previous episodes of this podcast, and others will deserve more attention soon. Here are Ken's picks for the top ten.

10) Gender Equity:

From pay equity settlements and campaigns to encourage female enrolment in Engineering, to sexism in social media, and in nominations for the Science and Engineering Hall of Fame, gender can't be ignored when we look back at 2015.

Dedicated episode at https://youtu.be/-mm5gjGZEUU

Full OUSA "Bachelorette Degree" video at https://youtu.be/NtIGkB9R32Y

9) Open Textbooks:

Electronic textbooks are being explored, particularly at Olds and Algonquin colleges, but last year we saw real momentum building for open texts – free, online, peer-reviewed textbooks. California, BC, and Manitoba have committed funding to so-called "Textbook Zero" programs, which can reduce student attrition by 10%. And the US Congress is again considering the Affordable College Textbook Act, to encourage the development and adoption of open text alternatives.

Dedicated episode at https://youtu.be/FNLaLr94ppg

8) Contingent Faculty:

Last year the "new faculty majority," untenured part-time sessional instructors, joined fast-food workers on the picket line in the US to fight for a $15 minimum wage. While the situation in Canada is somewhat better, striking sessionals at York University still made national headlines.

Dedicated episode at https://youtu.be/Kyld_inHp1Y

7) Drones:

Consumer drones hit the mainstream last year, about 4.3 million of them worldwide. They're being used to patrol college entrance exams in China, and have entered the curriculum for programs in journalism, video, agriculture and firefighting, among others. But drones really took over last year in PSE marketing departments, with everybody featuring aerial footage in their videos.

MIT Drone Admissions video at https://youtu.be/zjw9-E3_GbM

6) Academic Journals:

A study published last year found that as much as 70% of scholarly output in some disciplines is in the hands of just 5 multinational publishing companies, and since publication determines tenure, promotion, research grants and university rankings, these corporations are the de facto "power brokers" of higher ed. They are posting better profit margins than Apple, and institutions from McGill to Harvard are finding they can no longer afford to subscribe to scholarly journals. Last year we saw editors and editorial boards quit in protest over pay-to-play peer review, extortionate subscription rates, and extensive peer review fraud.

5) Double-Dipping:

Last year there was also a groundswell of protest against generous executive pensions and administrative leave, allowing university presidents in particular to "double-dip" and get paid double their salary, or their salary in addition to pension in retirement. Western University president Amit Chakma took the brunt of the outrage, but other cases included Michael Goldbloom at Bishop's, Arvind Gupta at UBC, Heather Munroe-Blum at McGill, Tom Traves at Dalhousie, and Sean Riley at StFX. When a scarcity mentality sets in, people start looking for scapegoats, and presidents are tempting targets.

Next time, we'll finish this countdown with the 4 biggest trends affecting higher ed last year, from political correctness to major demographic shifts.

For exclusive preview access, a week early, to future episodes of "Ten with Ken", be sure to subscribe to Eduvation's "in the loop" email newsletter, at http://www.eduvation.ca/subscribe/

Governments invest in higher education hoping to see short-term economic benefits in the form of job creation, knowledge mobilization, and increasingly, the launch of entrepreneurial new start-up businesses. In this week's episode, Ken Steele provides a quick overview of college and university research commercialization, from the first research parks to the latest business incubators and accelerators.

In many ways, academic culture is antithetical to entrepreneurship. Scholars and scientists are often perfectionists, conducting exhaustive research, consulting their peers for input and consensus, and avoiding career-limiting risks. Academic culture is centred around credibility, caution, and certainty. Successful entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are often shameless self-promoters, confident or even arrogant, first to market regardless of quality control, and frequently keeping trade secrets from their competitors.

Many question whether modern schools are the right environment in which to nurture entrepreneurs or innovators. Typically, higher ed researchers transfer intellectual property to the private sector for commercialization. Last year, UBC licensed a potential treatment for drug-resistant prostate cancer to Roche Pharmaceuticals for more than $120 million.

Corporations have been partnering with research universities since the 1950s, in research parks like the Stanford Research Park, established in 1951. By the 1970s, it was home to some leading high-tech research facilities, like Xerox PARC, and it is often credited with being the spark that created Silicon Valley. Google itself was a spinoff of the research of 2 Stanford grad students, and Stanford still holds some lucrative Google patents today.

The largest university research park today is the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, collocated to serve Duke University, UNC, and NC State. 50,000 employees and 10,000 contractors work at RTP for major corporations including IBM, Cisco, and GlaxoSmithKline.

But today, R&D is no longer the exclusive domain of major multinationals. A student or two with a good idea can take their business global in mere months, as Mark Zuckerberg did in 2004 when he launched Facebook from a Harvard dorm room. That's probably what inspired the University of Waterloo to establish a "dormcubator," the Velocity Residence, and 5 other branches of the incubator program including the Velocity Garage, the Foundry, Velocity Science, and more.

uWaterloo Velocity video: https://youtu.be/vEbKt6Ho9z0

As North American employment is increasingly shifting towards startups and freelancing, business incubators have been multiplying. In the US alone, there are more than a thousand. California's Y Combinator has funded more than 1,000 companies now worth $65 billion, and admission to their program is more competitive than Harvard or Yale.

UBI Global, headquartered in Sweden, looked at more than 1,200 university accelerators and incubators to arrive at its ranking of the top incubators of 2015. First place went to England's SetSquared Partnership, a collaboration between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey. With 6 sites at the 5 research-intensive universities, SetSquared has helped more than a thousand companies raise over £1 billion, and create 9,000 jobs. The #2 incubator in the world is the Innovation Incubation Center at Chaoyang University of Technology in Taiwan.

The top university incubator in North America, #3 in the world, is the DMZ at Ryerson University. The DMZ has launched more than 180 companies, creating more than 1,000 jobs, and attracting $70 million in seed funding. Politicians and the business community praise the DMZ for creating better quality jobs, and harnessing the innovative capacity of the nation. Ryerson has launched other incubation zones, including the Fashion Zone, Design Fabrication Zone, ZoneStartups India, the Transmedia Zone, the Legal Innovation Zone, and the Social Ventures Zone.

Ryerson DMZ video: https://youtu.be/IGncBRPg1TI

As we mentioned previously, colleges and universities are emphasizing experiential learning opportunities, and incubators are just one high-profile approach. Some academics question whether higher education should really be in the business of incubating businesses, but as more and more students graduate into a freelance and innovation economy, business incubators make sense as an extension of campus career services and research commercialization. If we want to prepare our students for successful futures and meaningful citizenship, they are going to require an entrepreneurial mindset.

Increasingly careerist students, at colleges and universities alike, are attracted to work-integrated learning opportunities. This week, Ken continues his series on innovations in teaching and learning with a closer look at Experiential Learning.

Colleges like Sault College have been promoting hands-on learning opportunities for years, like their Field Camp for outdoor recreation students. https://youtu.be/gCfa_LFTRHQ

Calgary's SAIT Polytechnic emphasizes the value of real-world, career-focused education in their "Get Real" commercials. https://youtu.be/9cOUKB6nfic

Algonquin College nicely shows how a daycare, flight deck, kichen, and construction site are all "my classroom." https://youtu.be/AXnbZhIoU64

Universities Canada reports than more than 50% of undergrad students at Canadian universities now get some form of experiential learning opportunity – although this could be as simple as a few labs, or as intense as a co-op work term or study abroad experience.

The so-called "Maker movement" is taking hold on hundreds of campuses across North America. At the University of Southern California, the Iovine & Young Academy (named for the two Beats Electronics co-founders) offers space for problem-based learning, 3D printing, rapid prototyping and more. Even smaller institutions, like BC's Douglas College, have opened MakerSpaces, sometimes in prominent public locations.

New YouTube CreatorSpaces are opening around the world, recently at Ryerson University. Workshops are open to creators with at least 1,000 channel subscribers. (We could really use your help getting to 1,000 – have you subscribed to this channel yet?)

It's telling that a recent survey of graduating college and university students found that the 3 most important "academic activities," in their opinion, were internships, co-ops, and work experiences.

Colleges have been experimenting with creating on-campus work opportunities like the student-managed farm at Lakeland College in Vermilion Alberta, the oldest and largest in the world. Or the campus hotel and conference centre at Olds College. Or the "Learning Enterprises" established at Niagara College, which give hundreds of students work experience and often generate a million-dollar surplus for the college to boot! At St Lawrence College, the on-campus ad agency "Spark" gives marketing students experience, and also creates videos, video games, and other digital resources for college instructors.

But we may just be streaming kids into career-directed education too young. Since 1935, Raisbeck Aviation High School, just outside Seattle, has focused students on careers in aviation from grade 9 onward. NAIT and the Edmonton School Boards have announced a new "Collegiate for Science, Technology & Trades" high school to open adjacent to the NAIT campus. Calgary's West Island College, an independent high school, offers several "Institute" programs focused on careers in Business, Health, and Engineering.

It's no wonder, either, that as students place more and more emphasis on work experiences, many are opting to take a "gap year" off from school to pursue employment instead. Uncollege.org is capitalizing on this movement, offering students a self-directed gap year complete with travel, mentors, and internship for just $16,000. It's like university, but without the classes or the grades.

Finally, just #ICYMI, we highlight a "Strive" video from Nova Scotia Community College that focuses on one student's experiential learning journey in the Therapeutic Recreation program. https://youtu.be/ilcPb8CzuzE

Next time, we'll take a look at one specific form of experiential learning that seems to be in ascendance: campus incubators and accelerators. To get exclusive early access to upcoming episodes, subscribe to our free email newsletter at www.Eduvation.ca/subscribe

Passive learning methods like lectures, readings and demonstrations remain the mainstay in higher ed, but research tells us that active learning approaches can have much more lasting impact on student learning outcomes.

From small group discussions and project-based learning to experiential field schools and peer teaching, in this episode Ken sums up some compelling evidence from UBC, Queen's, and Guelph that seem to demonstrate that students learn significantly more from deliberate practice and enquiry-based learning than from lecture. Students who collaboratively observe a video of a tutoring session - not a lecture - learn better. Those who made mistakes and were then corrected learned 60% more than those who were guided straight to the correct answer. There are lasting benefits to enquiry-based learning seminars, particularly for "B" students.

Queen's has opened Ellis Hall, a new facility featuring active learning classrooms. https://youtu.be/bJDCgeaK44E

80% of Generation Z prefer to study with friends, and 40% will do so on Skype if not in person. That social orientation of students may be driving the creation of learning commons and social space on campuses from St Mary's U to the U of Calgary.

Small adjustments to the lecture theatre can improve student engagement. George Brown College's new learning studios allow classes to shift from lecture to group discussions and back. Iowa State U has installed seats that swivel 240 degrees in double-wide rows that allow for group work. Oregon State U opened the new Learning Innovation Center last fall, including 2 "in the round" lecture halls that hold 600 students, all within 15 feet of the instructor. Active learning classrooms date back at least 20 years, to the SCALE-UP classrooms at North Carolina State U. Students sit in clusters of 9, and students learn better 88% of the time (particularly female students). The model has been emulated at hundreds of campuses.

UBC's Sauder School of Business recently opened a Flexible Learning Lab. https://youtu.be/LA4Sqb4jrlw

Next week: Experiential Learning. Subscribe now so you don't miss an episode! www.eduvation.ca/subscribe

Just #ICYMI, check out Red River College's new commercial, featuring plenty of active learning: https://youtu.be/giUez0f-N2g

For more than a thousand years, students have been gathering in lecture halls to listen to the "sage on the stage." But shorter attention spans, new technologies, and empirical testing of learning outcomes have led us to question the tried and true historical "transmission" model of education. In this episode, Ken Steele gives a brief lecture on "the Death of Lecture."

Check out how familiar a 14th-century lecture hall at the Universite di Bologne looks.

Former Quest University president David Helfand explains how the human brain is wired for two-way communication - and the lecture is the opposite of that. https://youtu.be/-J8PcPC7l5U

fMRI studies have demonstrated the impact of curiosity on the brain's ability to soak up new information.

Gen Y and Z have significantly decreased attention spans. They don't have the patience for a 60-minute lecture, and the Columbia University TEDx organizers worry that they don't have the focus for a 16-minute TED talk either. https://youtu.be/wRwPoR707UI

Hundreds of studies have demonstrated that students in lecture classes are 1.5x as likely to fail the course. The lecture is actually "toxic" to student learning, but large first-year lectures subsidize upper-year seminars and graduate studies.

In the past century, most of the innovation in undergraduate teaching and learning has amounted to little more than scaling an outmoded industrial model of education, designed to graduate students into the industrial economy of the 1930s. We need to re-engineering our approach for the 21st century.

Instructors often underuse the active learning methodologies, to rely on passive methods like lecture and demonstrations. Next time, we'll take a closer look at active learning in the classroom.

#ICYMI, Trinity Western University has a dynamic new commercial - and out of 90 seconds, just 1.5 show students in a lecture hall. Seems like a wise idea! https://youtu.be/INPUwp2Fz3k

For exclusive early access to upcoming episodes, subscribe to the Eduvation newsletter! www.eduvation.ca/subscribe

This year, we distill the best moments from 76 holiday greeting videos that were published by colleges and universities across Canada in December 2015, and select a few as "Best in Class" for their categories. Please "take twenty" with us, and enjoy!

If you're creating your own holiday greeting video, be sure to animate your logo with snowflakes and sleighbells. Your task is to convey best wishes on behalf of the campus community, most often featuring the president as spokesperson.

A snowy Canadian winter is a natural, non-denominational symbol of winter break, and so many holiday greeting videos feature footage of campus wrapped in a blanket of snow. Perhaps last year was particularly green, since quite a few videos faked the snow – from Royal Roads to Western (which got Best in Class for this category.)

The simplest way to incorporate the many voices on campus is to feature a collage of photographs, either taken throughout the year, or staged using holiday props. More popular is the "Holiday Shout-Out", a compilation of many staff and students sharing their holiday wishes, often in a range of languages and reflecting a variety of traditions. (Humber College gets Best in Class for this category, although there are plenty of other great examples. VIU deserves honorable mention for involving their "Extreme Science" team. uWindsor produced a very slick multilingual video, but Queen's ultimately got Best in Class for the sheer range of voices and their enthusiasm.)

A variation on the "shout-out" is the "on-the-street Q&A", and again there are plenty of great examples. Many ask students and staff what the holidays mean to them, or what they are looking forward to about the holidays. (SFU gets Best in Class for this category, for a polished and energetic video asking staff and students about their gift to the world.)

Many institutions showcase the skills and talents of their students and alumni in their holiday greetings. Sheridan has a tradition of animated videos, and Mohawk of very polished musical greetings. Last year we saw alumni talents featured by NSCC, ECUAD, Ryerson, and Georgian as well. (We awarded Mohawk Best in Class for their musical videos, and even behind-the-scenes video.) Special mention goes to MSVU's recruiters, who clowned around while demonstrating their gift-wrapping skills.

We saw tree-trimming parties at King's and CBU, among others, but uVic took it to a new level with their best-in-class approach to symbolic ornaments and student sound bytes. A close runner-up was George Brown, which created a strong example as well. Santa Claus made an appearance at Douglas, posing for photos with all the good little girls and boys. At Niagara, gifts were delivered by Basil, the greenhouse cat.

Brock staged a "parking miracle". A staffer named Lori played Secret Santa at Durham, while Lassonde tackled intergenerational peace and understanding with a defense of Millennials. UNB created an emotional thank-you from scholarship recipients to donors. But our favourite in this category was a wordless music video from uLeth, featuring gorgeous cinematography and Tyrone Wells' song "Christmas at Home." (Unfortunately UofL has just recently deleted their upload.)

Some institutions promote professional, accomplished singers of Christmas Carols, while many publish videos of enthusiastic amateurs. Some try to stay in key, while others focus on having fun. NSCC shared a sign language caroling performance. Waterloo's Faculty of Environment rewrote "Winter Wonderland" with a "green" focus.

Algoma staff participated in a collective reading of "The Grinch". Bow Valley "put a bow on it." Fleming produced their own version of Jimmy Fallon's "Thank You Notes." RDC parodied "The Night Before Christmas." Definitely Best in Class for the parody category, however, was a version of the "12 Days of Christmas" by the Film & Video students at CNA. (Of course I can't resist including uMich Engineering's Star Wars parody, "The Holiday Jedi Rap.")

You can watch the original, unedited versions of these holiday videos in our 2015 Holiday Videos playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLodJ8ParJmYULq5f-_JsusgbW1V8BNfSd

On behalf of everyone here at Eduvation, and from my family to yours, I want to wish you a truly peaceful holiday season, and a happy and prosperous 2017!

We're already assembling a YouTube playlist of 2016 holiday videos, so please add yours here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLodJ8ParJmYW50HvU2lrHm_DURpmz8jqk&jct=HCQjNaZ4OsE7aqyhuMM-_4ox4oMGcg

(We'll summarize them for next year's holiday special.)

In this week's Ten with Ken, we sum up some recent higher ed social media trends and memes, from the #MannequinChallenge to MUN's reality TV webcast, "The New Class," and much more!

#MannequinChallenge:

After the Pokémon Go craze of July and August, the next viral sensation to hit the inter webs was the #MannequinChallenge. It was apparently started by high school students in Jacksonville FLA in early October. Within a month it was being replicated by college football teams, NFL teams, leading political candidates, pop music stars and the US First Lady. The first Canadian PSE campus to upload a #MannequinChallenge video to their official YouTube channel appears to be La Cité Collègiale. Their culinary students were featured in a video on Nov 9. MSVU students jumped on the bandwagon a day later. A Collège Boréal student association video followed a week later. But by far the biggest, most ambitious #MannequinChallenge we've seen involved 750 staff and students at Brock University.

The #Mannequin videos we featured in this episode are collected in this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLodJ8ParJmYVSWaOnbWUbXGGD62QwQMp_ Let us know if there was another we should have seen, by commenting below!

#TBT:

St Lawrence College released a series of short alumni profiles in early November, explicitly leveraging the "Throwback Thursday" meme. We've made a playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLodJ8ParJmYVWsDOh51Y0uMEYa4Rl2DSo

Global Oil Thigh:

Queen's University Advancement collected clips of alumni worldwide participating in a rendition of the school's gaelic fight song, the "Oil Thigh." Although low-res and uneven in quality, it does convey the school spirit of alumni, as a small celebration of Queen's 175th anniversary. https://youtu.be/DorpBgaxujU

MUN's "The New Class":

Memorial University of Newfoundland launched a really interesting experiment in student blogging: a weekly web series produced by and starring students. "The New Class" follows the experiences of 10 new students at MUN, from mental health challenges to exhilaration about the weather, outsized characters to more mundane accounts of school strengths. Check out the episodes here: https://youtu.be/vkDLQ-UFvEY?list=PLzixCJnFSSVgTTSLou7kxKLvC4HJoOICj

Cute Kids:

As part of their 50th anniversary communications program, Ontario's Colleges released a video this month featuring adorable kids talking about the future, their career plans, and their (limited) understandings of what college offers. https://youtu.be/Ja967dYPVvg

Women are Powerful:

Mount St Vincent University released a 2-min video this month to thank Hillary Clinton for her efforts on the campaign trail and in particular her concession speech empowering young women. It connected to MSVU's history as a women's college (from 1873-1967) and the honorary degree it awarded to a much younger Hillary Clinton in 1995. https://youtu.be/7VTKWBGKDyA

So in addition to our April Fool's special https://youtu.be/v-dSiWr3KHM and our Back to School episode https://youtu.be/Ci3YPzohbLM , this rounds out our coverage of social media this year.

Aside, of course, from our upcoming annual Holiday Special! Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss it, here on YouTube, or on iTunes, or by email (for exclusive early access) at http://eduvation.ca/subscribe/

This week, Ken talks to leaders from 14 Ontario universities about the latest new construction and renovations on campus, and extrapolates some major trends in campus construction, which reflect institutional priorities and new trends in student services.

Major Facelifts: Laurentian University has just completed a $34 M campus renewal program, renovating 9 buildings and virtually every classroom. The University of Windsor has closed campus roads to traffic, and replaced parking lots and dilapidated buildings with green space, pedestrian pathways and outdoor furniture. OCAD University is undertaking the renewal and expansion of 150,000 sq ft at its downtown "Creative City Campus".

Downtown Satellites: The University of Windsor has renovated the Windsor Armouries to house its School of Creative Arts and Music faculties, the former Greyhound Bus Depot to hold its Film program, and the former Windsor Star building to house the Centre for Professional and Executive Education and the Social Work program. OCAD will be opening an extension campus in the Waterfront "City of the Arts", and will be opening the Mirvish-Gehry Centre for Visual Art & Art History.

Extroverted Social Space: Western University has added significant capacity for student social and study space, in residences, academic and administrative buildings. Ryerson University has opened its new remarkable new Student Learning Centre, "the library of the future," with distinct layouts and environments on each floor. Lakehead and Trent are breaking ground on new Student Centres. Queen's has added two new residences, Brant House and Smith House. Lakehead has opened a new residence and cafeteria building in Orillia. Laurentian has a new Great Hall.

Student Services: Lakehead and Laurentian are building new one-stop centres. Queen's is integrating all of its student wellness services in one location, in the former Phys Ed building. OCAD is building a new Indigenous Cultural Centre. Laurentian is just finishing a new Indigenous Sharing and Learning Centre. Lakehead has created a new international Students Centre.

Libraries: Algoma University has just completed renovations to its library. OCAD is expanding its library three-fold, to create a new "Library of the Future" with collaborative space. Trent is hoping to do a major retrofit of the Bata Library, an iconic but 50-year-old building.

Flexible Classrooms: Algoma is planning to renovate its main building to create a more student-centred campus. Laurentian has retrofitted virtually all of its Sudbury classrooms with half a dozen LCD displays, flexible seating and tables. Western is renovating its oldest building, University College, to make it more modern, and experimental new active learning spaces have proven very popular with faculty and students.

Entrepreneurial Spaces: Many campuses are building space on campus for incubators, accelerators, makerspaces and research parks. Western has its Propel accelerator. Queen's is building a new Innovation incubator for the faculty of Engineering. Ryerson has the Launch Zone in its new SLC. UOIT is constructing a new $100 M Centre for Advanced Research, Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Trent is developing a new 100-acre Research & Innovation Park to focus on Clean Tech. Brock University has just received federal funding to create a new innovation centre.

STEM Space: Brock opened its Cairns Building two years ago, with 271 state-of-the-art labs. uWindsor has a new Engineering building. Carleton is building a new Health Sciences building. Laurentian has its new $20 M Vale Living with Lakes Centre. UOIT has broken ground on a new Infomatics Research building, to open Fall 2017. uOttawa has built the Advanced Research Complex, including the largest Photonics centre in Ontario and Canada's only accelerated mass spectrometer, and is about to start building a new STEM centre. Western is building a new 100,000 sq ft Engineering building.

Professional Faculties: Lakehead has just completed renovating the former Port Arthur Collegiate for its new Faculty of Law. Brock is building a $22 M addition to its Goodman School of Business. Laurentian has completed its new $45 M MacEwan School of Architecture.

Overall, these campus construction trends reflect some long-term program trends, and new emphasis on student services.

Ryerson Student Learning Centre - https://youtu.be/5PfR-IEM96M uWindsor Engineering Building - https://youtu.be/Dr2ec7dNd7I uWindsor Downtown Campuses - https://youtu.be/KrF7F7NWaB4 uWindsor Campus Time Lapse - https://youtu.be/dsFYTabpOwI

This week, Ken Steele speaks with 10 university presidents and 2 senior administrators about the ways in which universities are evolving to meet the needs of 21st Century Learners.

While it's certainly fair to argue that the core principles of a university education are timeless, in general university programs, services and campuses are evolving in a time of labour market uncertainty, interdisciplinarity, active learning classrooms, experiential and work-integrated learning, and new technology. Institutions are trying to be responsive to student expectations, employer demands, and government requirements. Preparing today's students for careers can also involve entrepreneurial training, since 40% of jobs are projected to be freelance by 2020.

Interviewed for this episode:

Algoma U: Craig Chamberlin, President & Vice-Chancellor Brock U: Brian Hutchings, Acting President

Carleton U: Suzanne Blanchard, Vice-President, Students & Enrolment Lakehead U: Brian Stevenson, President & Vice-Chancellor Laurentian U: Dominic Giroux, President & Vice-Chancellor

Nipissing U: Mike DeGagné, President & Vice-Chancellor

OCADU: Sara Diamond, President & Vice-Chancellor

UOIT: Tim McTiernan, President & Vice-Chancellor

uOttawa: Steve Perry, Dean of Science Queen's U: Stuart Pinchin, Executive Director, Undergraduate Admissions & Recruitment Ryerson U: Mohamed Lachemi, President & Vice-Chancellor

Trent U: Leo Groarke, President & Vice-Chancellor Western U: Amit Chakma, President & Vice-Chancellor uWindsor: Alan Wildeman, President & Vice-Chancellor Thank you to all who agreed to be interviewed! And our apologies to those we missed because of time constraints. (We had just 1.5 days onsite this year.)

Recent episodes have examined the top reasons why people love attending the OUF, and new booths and recruitment marketing tactics, and Advice on Choosing a Program. Next week: Trends in campus construction projects.

For exclusive early access, subscribe to our free email newsletter at www.eduvation.ca/subscribe