Higher Education Commons^™

Building Dynamic Capabilities Towards Innovation And Flexibility, Marianne Iaboni Marando

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

In March 2020 most Higher Education Institutions around the world quickly moved to online learning and work with only one week to prepare. While the pandemic forced us to do this quickly and without a well thought out plan, most of us met this challenge. The World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was no longer a global health emergency on May 5, 2023, but many institutions had started the return to “normal” before then. This Organizational Improvement Plan starts with the vision that rather than retrenching back to “normal”, Ontario Polytechnic, a large polytechnic institution in Ontario, Canada, should be …

A Faculty-Based Approach To Engaging University Alumni, Osman Hamid

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Alumni engagement is widely defined as the level of relationship graduates have with their alma maters. Universities have an opportunity to leverage benefits from having strong connections with their alumni. Furthermore, graduates generally have a stronger affinity to the academic departments they graduated from than to the universities where these departments are based. Additionally, the fiscal and regulatory pressures facing Canadian universities within the province of Ontario highlight the advantages that come with having an engaged alumni community. The Problem of Practice (PoP) investigated in this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) is the lack of alumni engagement within a faculty of …

Continuous Improvement Leadership In Applied Research, Silvana Maclean

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

The purpose of this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) is to assist leaders in Ontario colleges in understanding the barriers and challenges of engaging faculty to enact applied research practices. Undergirding this OIP is social cognition theory and the analytical discipline of improvement science theory. Taken together, these theories align with systems thinking and are a step towards a holistic understanding of the dynamics of a college learning culture. Underpinned by a set of simple principles including improving through communication, learning through collaboration, and changing through coordination, a continuous improvement (CI) leadership approach, which combines servant (Greenleaf, 1977), team (Kogler Hill, …

Increasing Support For Victims Of Sexual Assault Through The Adoption Of A Victim-Centered Approach To Police Investigations, Kara Brooks

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Police services across North America have been criticized for their lack of support for victims throughout the investigative process, especially when investigating crimes involving sexual violence. The Problem of Practice addressed in this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) focuses on the lack of victim support throughout sexual assault investigations in a large police service in Canada. Taking a victim-centered approach to sexual assault investigations pushes the police organization to consider victims’ needs and rights ahead of strictly gathering information throughout a sexual assault investigation.

A gap analysis identified two main areas of focus for this (OIP): the need for enhanced training …

The Impact Of Leadership And Change On Job Satisfaction, Team Effectiveness, Employee Engagement And Workplace Culture: An Organizational Improvement Plan, Victor Jimenez Gonzalez

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

This Organizational Improvement Plan presents an actionable plan to the problem of low job satisfaction in the International Department of an Institute of Technology. The connections amongst leadership, workplace culture, employee engagement, and team effectiveness are explored with a view to implementing changes to leadership, employee engagement and team effectiveness that will foster a positive workplace environment with improved job satisfaction. Leaders and staff in the International Department are aware that some members systematically engage in behaviours that are anathema to the institution's ethical principles. Consequently, this has resulted in a plethora of adverse outcomes such as lack of trust …

Creative ‘Class’: Leading Innovation With Digital Pedagogy In Cultural And Creative Industry (Cci) Programs, Dana Morningstar

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Leaders of cultural and creative programs (CCIs) in Ontario community colleges are key to realizing potential in higher education related to digital pedagogy, creativity, industry partnerships, entrepreneurship and innovation. In this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP), the role of an academic leadership group is considered from Ontario-centric creative industry and innovation policies and college processes. The problem of practice is the gap of harmonized leadership strategy between higher education classroom practices and regional and provincial overarching educational strategy to increase innovation through digital pedagogy. Colleges have collective capacities in innovating with digital pedagogy in creative industry programs and providing graduates with …

Oise-Cidec-Ciesc 50-Year Relationship: Lessons Learned In Leadership, Mentorship, Partnerships, Identity And Innovation, Mary A. Drinkwater, Stephen Bahry, Teodora Ajanovska Gligorova, Melissa Beauregard, Wales Wong

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

As we approach the 50^th anniversary of CIESC, we heed Vandra Masemann’s call to “gather and reflect on our historical memory” and to strive to “build our identity and broaden our reach”. Data for this paper were gathered through a combination of interviews and document analysis. Interviews were conducted with 9 current and former OISE-CIDEC faculty and staff. Documents reviewed included: CIDEC newsletters, annual reports, director/co-director reports, CIE Journal and other academic journal article reviews, and book reviews. In order to trace the evolution of the relationship between OISE-CIDEC and CIESC, we undertook a chronological analysis broken into three …