Faculty Fellows

Faculty play an essential role in the student experience of transfer. ONCAT’s Faculty Fellows program was piloted in 2017-18 to support faculty members interested in advancing a culture of transfer in their institutions, while also helping ONCAT to understand faculty members’ perspectives. Following a success pilot, ONCAT has continued to fund Faculty Fellows for 2018-19 in three main areas:

  • Increasing institutional knowledge about transfer-related data and transfer student experience in their Faculty/department/ institution;
  • Improving academic processes related to evaluating transfer credits and working with transfer students; and,
  • Sharing emerging models of successful student mobility initiatives.

Faculty Fellows engage in a number of activities, including working collaboratively with administrators, academic colleagues, and student groups to improve transfer processes; exploring innovative approaches to academic governance or curriculum development as it relates to transfer; and/or developing tools/resources that support faculty roles in the transfer process.

Successful past and present Fellows represent a variety of Institutions including La Cité Collégiale, Université de Hearst, Lakehead University, Seneca College, St. Clair College, University of Ottawa, Algonquin College, Canadore College, and Trent University.

  • Pauline Lavoie,  Université de Hearst
  • Mehdi Idrissi, la Cité Collégiale
  • Corey Pyne, St. Clair College
  • Naomi Kestenbaum, Seneca College
  • Nancy Luckai, Lakehead University
Catherine LaBerge-Kenney
Catherine LaBerge-Kenney, Professor, Faculty of Arts, Media, and Design, Algonquin College
Catherine is a professor in the department of Media Studies at Algonquin College, where she has been developing strategies to support university transfer students to transition into the college without having to unnecessarily repeat course content. University transfer students to Algonquin may be repeating course content because they have not applied for an exemption or face barriers to withdrawing from a course. This project will support the development of a microcredit that students can take throughout a semester to achieve the equivalency of a Communications 1 course, without having to take the full course. This project will help reduce administrative time to review withdrawal and exemption requests, while enabling students to concentrate on subject matter materials they are missing as opposed to repeating content.
Jan Lundquist
Jan Lundquist, Professor and Program Coordinator, Faculty of Language, Communication and General Education, Canadore College
Jan is a program coordinator and professor in Language, Communications and General Education programs at Canadore College. At Canadore College, the volume of General Education and Language course applications and the attention each application requires by the reviewing faculty member means that the process can take four to five weeks, negatively affecting students. This project will test an automated workflow to replace current paper-based practices, evaluate the automated tool, and champion the new process college-wide through information sessions and presentations to the faculty group.
Mehdi Idrissi
Mehdi Idrissi, Professor, School of School of Administration, Hospitality and Tourism, Collège La Cité
Mehdi is a professor in the School of Administration, Hospitality and Tourism at Collège La Cité. Collège La Cité is working to improve information and communications processes to ensure that staff are aware of transfer paths between institutions, the transfer process and the needs of transfer students. This project will develop an online training course for all members of the college community to support them to promote transfer agreements to students. This project will include training for business administration instructors on student mobility, and the development of an information tool for instructors and students.
Antony J. Puddephatt
Antony J. Puddephatt, Professor, Department of Sociology, Lakehead University
Through this fellowship, he will advocate for increased awareness of transfer students within the department of Social Sciences and Humanities at Lakehead University and the updating of transfer agreements to support the growing levels of local and Indigenous college students transferring into degree level studies in the SSH department. He will focus on collecting transfer data by academic units, sharing this data and summaries of existing articulation agreements with each SSH department, and then supporting faculty to revise or generate articulation agreements. This project will also involve Transfer Information Sessions at the Thunder Bay and Orillia campuses to increase awareness of transfer students.
Lynne Bowker
Lynne Bowker, Professor, School of Translation & Interpretation, University of Ottawa
Through this fellowship, Lynne will be conducting research on faculty attitudes on student mobility and transfer in her institution as well as transferrable strategies from the literature on faculty attitudes in other academic endeavours that can be used to advance a culture of transfer. She will also develop a resource kit focused on the faculty role in the mobility process, based on faculty focus group findings. This project will increase institutional knowledge at the University of Ottawa about the faculty perspective of transfer and develop tools/resources to support faculty roles in the transfer process.
Richard T. Hurley
Richard T. Hurley, Professor and Chair, Department of Computing and Information Systems, Trent University
Through this fellowship, he will be conducting research on the academic performance of students who have been admitted through articulation agreements, compared with students entering directly from high school and college transfer students admitted outside formalized pathways. He will also be documenting effective student mobility practices including using program learning outcomes and assigning block credits in a way that ensures students are academically prepared to enter University programming on an advanced standing basis. This project will increase institutional knowledge at Trent University about transfer-related student outcomes and share effective block-transfer models utilized within the department of Computing and Information Systems with other academic units at Trent.

 

Live Faculty Fellows Podcast

What role do faculty members play in transfer and student mobility? What unique insights do faculty members have on the challenges and opportunities in creating pathways and course equivalencies?

We hosted two live interactive podcasts to hear firsthand about 2019 Faculty Fellows program learnings, including: faculty perspectives on transfer, simplifying administrative processes for faculty and transfer students, learning from other departments, and creating faculty resources. 

Session 1: University Focus
Wed, May 22, 2019, 2PM – 2:45PM

  • Richard Hornsey, Professor, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University (Moderator)
  • Lynne Bowker, Professor, School of Translation & Interpretation, University of Ottawa
  • Antony J. Puddephatt, Professor, Department of Sociology, Lakehead University

Session 3: Richard T. Hurley, Trent University (June 19, 2019)
Professor and Chair, Department of Computing and Information Systems

Session 2: College Focus
Tues, May 28, 2019, 11AM – 11:45 AM

  • Tracie Howieson, Professor, Community Services, Northern College (Moderator)
  • Mehdi Idrissi, Professor, School of Administration, Hospitality and Tourism, Collège La Cité
  • Catherine LaBerge-Kenney, Professor, Faculty of Arts, Media, and Design, Algonquin College
  • Jan Lundquist, Professor and Program Coordinator, Faculty of Language, Communication and General Education, Canadore College