Career Advice
Five practical tips to help you beat academic culture shock
When visiting another country, openness, flexibility and a willingness to dig into your emotional toolbox to solve problems are often needed to overcome culture shock.
Academic culture shock is no different: research in the field of cross-cultural psychology demonstrates that tolerance for ambigu...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/career-advice-article/how-to-survive-your-first-year-of-graduate-school-part-2/
Career Advice
Recognizing the five stages of academic culture shock
Milton Bennett, a well-known intercultural communication scholar, likes to say that when we talk about another culture, we often picture it as a remote island – with palm trees, exotic foods and unique customs. Academia is one of these islands, with a language and culture of its own.
Each year,...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/career-advice-article/how-to-survive-your-first-year-of-graduate-school-part-1/
News
Released this past summer, the province of New Brunswick’s postsecondary education plan is certainly ambitious.
Its stated goal is to create the best such education system in Canada, to increase provincial higher education participation rates, to make university education affordable, to increas...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/nb-plans-to-restructure-postsecondary-sector/
News
International group advises universities to stop using patents to measure IP success
Counting patents may be the easiest way for administrators to measure the success of a university’s adventures in technology transfer, but Richard Gold insists that it is also the wrong way.
The McGill University law professor argues that universities should not be counting their patents, but i...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/report-critiques-focus-on-patents/
News
Countries are eyeing this vast resource as a potential energy source
In my opinion
As a first-generation immigrant living in Toronto from the mid-1970s to 2002, I had never heard of Lakehead University. In fact, I first heard of Lakehead University when I applied for the position of director of communications in November 2002. Once hired, I was excited when my proposal to launch a...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/marketing-universities-is-a-modern-day-necessity/
News
We all know that the transition to university or college can be difficult for young adults. It’s often their first substantial time away from home and can be filled with much stress and anxiety.
Stan Kutcher, a professor of medicine at Dalhousie University and holder of the Sun Life Financial C...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/adjusting-to-student-life/
Career Advice
Understanding your cultural differences with international students is the key to fostering a productive and rewarding supervisory relationship
The supervision of graduate students is a challenging exercise in effective interpersonal communication even when the faculty member and student share the same cultural background. Differing expectations about workload, progress and a considerable power gap often create the perfect conditions for mi...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/career-advice-article/navigating-supervision-across-cultures/
Features
There’s growing respect for a collaborative kind of research activity that starts with a two-way exchange of information between researchers and the community
A roadkill in 1987 made ecological history in Newfoundland. There had been sightings and unconfirmed reports, dating back to 1985, of coyotes making their way across the 175 kilometres of winter pack ice that separate Newfoundland from Nova Scotia. But when a juvenile was struck by a car near Deer L...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/putting-knowledge-into-practice/
News
Gathering shares research showing even high achievers face problems in first year
Chris Fillmore entered York University's film studies program right out of high school. But he found the whole first-year experience so overwhelming, he soon dropped out.
Older and wiser now at 23, Mr. Fillmore is taking another stab at university. Four years after leaving York, he is back in fir...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/conference-on-first-year-experience/
News
Ask Lakehead University students if they're happy with their school's one-year-old Google-run e-mail service, and chances are you'll get a positive response.
"I love the new Lakehead gmail e-mail system," said third-year political-science student Brianne Kirkpatrick.
"Since the switch to gmail...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/switch-to-google-email-saves-resources-raises-privacy-concerns/
Features
Actually, today’s students are often overwhelmed by multiple stresses. A nurse-educator and administrator explain how their schools are responding to the growing need for mental-health services
The transition to adulthood is a challenge for many young people. Throw in the stresses of attending university and living away from home for the first time, and it's no wonder some find it difficult to cope.
Studies in Canada and the United States, such as those by Richard Kadison of Harvard Uni...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/the-kids-are-alright-right/
News
By 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, January 16, more than 700 people had gathered in front of Queen's University's Stauffer Library for a faculty-organized rally against racism.
The day, time and location of the rally were no coincidence. Exactly eight weeks before, a faculty member on her way to teach a ...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/anti-racism-rally-led-by-faculty-draws-huge-crowd-at-queens-university/
News
A series of newspaper articles this past fall seemed to herald the demise of the campus pub because students are generally drinking less. But that impression of widespread closures is simply not accurate, says Jeff Dockeray, the executive director of the Campus Hospitality Managers Association, a gr...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/campus-pubs-the-end-is-not-nigh/
Features
A heated debate over how to train PhD students for the jobs awaiting them has percolated for 15 years in Europe and the U.S. It’s high time for a Canadian discussion
Bright-eyed and bursting with excitement, the PhD student enters my office to announce the first validation of our hypothesis. As we rush off to the lab to observe the result together, our conversation is punctuated by exclamations. Before we can celebrate the joy of discovery, however, it is my rol...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/researchers-for-tomorrow/
Career Advice
Strategies for success in your postdoc
Click here to read part one of this article.
So you've pinned with the perfect P.I.; now what? Making the most of your fellowship experience requires some foresight and flexibility. Here are some tips to help keep you on the...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/career-advice-article/from-your-lab-to-your-livelihood-part-two/
News
University heads increasingly have to juggle competing interests and the balancing act isn’t always easy
For university presidents, life at the top has never been much of a picnic. But lately the challenges seem to have multiplied.
Within a four-week period towards the end of 2006, presidents at three Canadian universities resigned their posts. David Atkinson and Robert Hawkins stepped aside from Ca...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/the-evolving-role-of-president-takes-its-toll/