International education is at a crossroads. International students in Canada have found themselves at the centre of many political and cultural arguments over the past few years. It’s easy to assume what their stories are, how they feel, and what they want from a Canadian educational experience. It’s more difficult to dig deeper and discover what’s going on under the surface. As the experts in this issue will show, it’s imperative to examine the systems that brought us here in order to understand the impact of this current moment and how to build a better future for students, faculty, and staf ..read more

The stories of international students and the policies that brought them to Canada are headline news. But international education wasn’t always at the forefront of Canada’s reputation abroad. Roopa Desai Trilokekar, a scholar of international education, explains the shifts in an interview with Academic Matters. How did you become interested in studying international education? I was an international student in the United States in the 1970s for seven years, and when I went back to India after my studies, I worked with the United States Education Foundation, which did binational educational ex ..read more

As international students become an integral part of the Canadian postsecondary education landscape, Soma Chatterjee asks: How did immigration, labour markets, and education get tied together, and how can we untangle their influence to improve student conditions? This piece originally appeared on the Academic Matters website. It has been updated to reflect the recent policy changes to the international higher education program. For the 2023-24 year, most arts and science programs at Toronto’s York University and Toronto Metropolitan University charge international students ..read more

From Thunder Bay, Ontario, Josia Price and Benjamin Maiangwa explore the educational, financial, and cultural challenges that international students face in Northern Ontario, and the solutions that could improve their experiences. The aim of the university is not simply to teach bread winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a center of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms the secret of civilization. E.B Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk Our aim in this pi ..read more

Anukriti Randev, an international student, and Kriti Sharma, a new permanent resident turned domestic student, set out to learn how and why students from the Punjab region of India are coming to Canada—and the myths and realities they encounter along the way. The Contemporary Influx of Students from Punjab to Canada The flow of students from India to Canada over the last decade has been unprecedented. In 2022, India surpassed China as the leading origin country for international students in Canada, with roughly 40 percent of the study permits in Canada held by Indian-origin students. One regi ..read more

In a new feature, The Life Academic, contributors reflect on how life and work intersect for faculty, academic librarians, academic professionals, researchers, and others. In the first installment, Sarah A Gagliano Taliun, a researcher and assistant professor at the Université de Montreal, offers advice for early-career researchers trying to find balance. Last summer, my partner and I rented a tandem bicycle to spend the day riding through the Curonian Spit National Park, a narrow piece of land in Lithuania that splits the Curonian Lagoon and the Baltic Sea. Certain trails, arguably the most ..read more

How can a university become a more equitable place to learn, study, and work? This question has been the driving force behind many new initiatives at Ontario universities in recent years, from curriculum changes to new names. The current landscape of equity work on campuses is dynamic in scope, with more voices at the table calling for big changes to campuses as we know them. And as many Indigenous scholars argue, Indigenization and decolonization are distinct from equity, and must be pursued as such. This issue features the expertise and experiences of faculty and academic administrators who ..read more

Universities in Ontario and across the country have, on the surface, committed to supporting reconciliation, Indigenization, and decolonization. Are those commitments helping Indigenous faculty, students, and staff navigate the postsecondary system? What should universities do to ensure Indigenous people can thrive on campus? Through her teaching, research, and administrative work, Lynn Lavallee has dedicated her career to advancing Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledge in the academy. Her areas of expertise include Indigenous ethics, research methods including Indigenous research metho ..read more

As academic convenor of the 2023 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Andrea A. Davis worked with a diverse community to shift the form, content, and vision of the longstanding conference. She asks: where will these interventions take us? I received the invitation to assume the role of Academic Convenor of the 2023 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in the fall of 2021, after having just completed a year as inaugural special advisor on anti-Black racism strategies in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University. Both the invitation to conven ..read more

As students and faculty, women have been entering into postsecondary education institutions at growing rates for decades. However, women, trans folks, and gender-diverse students and faculty continue to face barriers and challenges at universities. How did we get here, and how can we learn from the past to improve conditions for the future? On International Women’s Day in 2020, the OCUFA Equity and Social Justice Committee issued a statement warning that women, trans folks, and gender-diverse faculty continue to be underrepresented as full-time, tenure-stream faculty, and that this discrepanc ..read more