Sheridan grads are #1!

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Jeff Zabudsky

At this time of year as I make my way to many end of term student events and award ceremonies, it’s clear to me that Sheridan is blessed with incredibly talented students and faculty. Whether it’s our year-end Photography Exhibition, Illustration Awards Ceremony, Athletic Therapy Banquet, the Journalism Awards Night or the rollicking Music Theatre Gala Evening, these events provide all of the internal validation I need to tout Sheridan programs as being among the best of the best.

That said, external validation is always a good thing which is why we were so excited recently to be acknowledged as the #1 School in the world for Animation, Gaming and Design Continue reading →

by animation industry professionals and recruiters as well as industry-reviewed lists like the Princeton Review. This ranking places us among an august group of arts schools that includes Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, the Gobelins School in France, and the California Institute for the Arts (CalArts) that was founded by none other than Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney in 1961.

And the #1 School once again attracted recruiters from North America’s top studios to our annual Animation Industry Day, here to hire the exceptionally talented and well-rounded graduates we produce, earning national media exposure for the program in the process.

To top off a great week, Sheridan received ministerial approval to move forward with two new degree programs that grow out of our cluster of excellence in animation. The Bachelor of Applied Arts in Game Design and the Bachelor of Applied Arts in Interaction Design are set to begin in the fall of 2013 and will allow the #1 School in the World for Animation, Gaming and Design (I know, I already wrote that but it has a great ring to it, doesn’t it?) to produce more talented graduates for these growing sectors.

Sheridan graduates are taking on the world. This year in Hollywood, 43 of our graduates worked on seven different academy award nominated feature films including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Hugo, and Kung Fu Panda II. On Broadway, the Stratford production of Jesus Christ Superstar opened with 4 former Sheridan students and graduates in the cast including the female lead, Chilina Kennedy as Mary Magdalene. And on May 16, in partnership with Mirvish Productions, Sheridan’s Class of 2012 Musical Theatre students will open in Toronto’s Panasonic Theatre for a three-week presentation of the musical RENT.

On the world’s stage or right here at home, Sheridan grads are #1!

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Sheridan is my Canada

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Jeff Zabudsky

“Sheridan is my Canada.”

I almost cried when I heard these words.  They were expressed at an event last week celebrating our student leadership – the remarkable students who have stepped forward to support other students at Sheridan as peer mentors, peer tutors, and new student admission representatives. These compelling words came from Omar, a 4th year Animation student who is originally from Iraq and who came to Canada and to Sheridan five years ago.

I wish you could all meet Omar. He is bright, talented, brimming with joy and he lights up a room when he enters it. Everyone loves him. Sheridan is a better place with Omar and Ontario will continue to be a better place with Omar. I left the event completely inspired by our students and, in particular, those students who have come to us from different parts of the globe.

As I write this in the cold light of day, I am worried about 2,458 of those students. Students who are studying at Sheridan on international student visas. Students who will, upon graduation, either return to their home country to build their lives and champion Ontario’s education system to the world, or, increasingly, students who will remain here in Ontario to provide us with a much needed workforce and citizenry of the future.

I worry for them because the latest provincial budget included an out of left field announcement that international students may be expected to carry an increased burden in the funding of Ontario’s post-secondary education system. International students at Sheridan already pay the full cost of their education with no subsidy provided by the provincial taxpayer. As a result of last week’s provincial budget announcement, Sheridan will have a portion of its operating grant clawed back for every international student that we enroll.  We are left with the option of increasing tuition for our international students.

I don’t want to do this. I don’t think it’s fair.

Our international students bring inestimable value to our colleges and universities. If we treat them well, they will bring inestimable value to our province. A dialogue on this policy measure has not taken place. I hope we can start one now.

And by the way….

“Omar is my Sheridan.”

 

 

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The Liminal Zone is a Happy Place

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Jeff Zabudsky

Alex Usher is always a great read (What? Aren’t you all higher education wonks?) but today he hits it out of the park. The March 8, 2012 edition of One Thought to Start the Day maps out a Canadian higher education middle world, or Liminal Zone as he calls it*, that is being populated by a growing number of PSE institutions in Canada.  Continue reading →

Not traditional universities and not traditional community colleges, these institutions are emerging to address the changing contemporary expectations of learners and the more sophisticated needs of many fields of practice.

Even his proposed appellation — Canada’s Universities of Applied Sciences – has a certain majestic ring to it (with the one quibble that it excludes the Applied  Arts).

* He actually calls it the ‘Limnal’ Zone but I think that’s a typo.

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The 2002 Charter Redux

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Jeff Zabudsky

The past week saw the announcement of an important partnership between Sheridan and Mohawk College; important because it will allow our institutions to serve many more students more effectively and efficiently while focusing on our respective areas of academic excellence.

It’s interesting that this partnership delivers on goals that were identified way back in 2002 for the Ontario College system. Continue reading →

At that time a new charter in the form of amendments to the colleges act envisioned the elimination of catchment areas. Instead, colleges were invited to focus on unique areas of excellence in programming and to anticipate attracting students from across the province, the country and around the world.  The general themes of the new charter emphasized program excellence, more choice for students, and institutional freedom and autonomy.

My take on the 2002 Charter is that its intentions were worthy and well-founded but that its goals have yet to be realized. Perhaps it was an idea that was ahead of its time. As Ontario emerges from the recent economic downturn and wrestles with a resulting deficit, those themes of excellence, choice and autonomy sound like the makings of a recipe for system success in the years ahead.  The Sheridan-Mohawk partnership is one example of a way forward.

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Who serves the under-represented in Ontario PSE?

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Jeff Zabudsky

One of the objections I’ve heard raised to the concept of transitioning selected colleges into universities is the notion that under-represented groups will lose out because it’s the mandated role of colleges to serve these groups. This might come as a surprise to the members of the Council of Ontario Universities who have worked diligently to embrace students from all backgrounds – socio-economic and otherwise. Continue reading →

Today’s Ontario Universities are not your father’s Oldsmobile. They are aggressively pursuing students from all under-represented categories and offering specialized programs that will meet their needs. For instance, the University of Ottawa offers the Aboriginal Teacher Education Program, Western University provides Access Transition Opportunities, and Lakehead University offers the Native Nurses Entry Program. An issue paper produced by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario titled An Overview of PSE Accessibility in Ontario *, examining the participation rates of 18-21 year-olds, suggests that this diligence is paying off.  While colleges continue to have a proportionately higher rate of participation by Aboriginal students, their participation in universities has been slowly trending up over the ten year period from 1999 to 2009.

Another under-represented group in post-secondary education is young people from families with lower incomes. As has traditionally been the case, these young people continue to be better represented in colleges than in universities. But, interestingly, if one parent in these families has a university education, the bias towards college flips and these students are just as likely to attend university.

Conversely, students whose mother tongue is not English are much more likely to go to university than to college. Similarly, there is some evidence to show that young people in single parent households are more likely to be found in universities than in colleges although the data are not conclusive in the above referenced study. Colleges, on the other hand, do a better job of attracting students who have disabilities or whose parents have no previous PSE.

The point here is that the population that is under-represented in post-secondary education is not a static entity. The myth that colleges are for the marginalized and that universities are for an elite does not reflect the democratization of the system that has taken place over the past few decades. Our focus now should be on enabling capable students from all backgrounds to enter the institution of their choice rather than pre-ordaining their destination.

*See Table 3:  Rates of Access to Postsecondary Education in Ontario, p. 28.

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