News
ONCAT's May 2019 newsletter features:
- 2019 Transfer Projects Awarded
- ONTransfer.ca Day Recap
- Faculty Fellows: Live Podcasts
- ONCAT Transfer Awards
- Transfer Advisor Resources
Learn more inside:
What's Inside?
Anchor Links
- Message from the Executive Director
- 2019 Transfer Projects Awarded
- ONTransfer.ca Day Recap
- Faculty Fellows: Live Podcasts
- ONCAT Transfer Awards
- Transfer Advisor Resources
- Call for Transfer Students
- Upcoming Events & Deadlines
2019 Transfer Projects Awarded
ONCAT is pleased to announce the funding of 26 new projects in support of building a more mature and seamless transfer system for Ontario students.
The 6 Research, 11 Pathway Development, and 9 Innovative Transfer awarded projects will explore the topics of: transfer in the Northern and Ottawa regions, labour market and schooling outcomes of transfer students, pathways for under-represented learners, and the continued development of an online transfer credit assessment tool.
ONTransfer.ca Day Recap
February 2019 marked ONCAT’s 5th ONTransfer.ca Day, bringing administrators from 45 colleges and universities across the province to Toronto to discuss the technical aspects of credit transfer, and share tools and resources.
This year’s theme was ‘The Art and Science of Credit Transfer’, in which we explored promising practices, operational successes, and the art of advising transfer students.
Faculty Fellows: Live Podcasts
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?
Join us for two live interactive podcasts to hear firsthand from the 2019 Faculty Fellows, including: faculty perspectives on transfer, simplifying administrative processes, learning from other departments, and creating faculty resources.
Teleconference Line: 1-888-884-4534
Guest code – 6366163
Session 1: University Focus
Wed, May 22, 2019, 2-2:45pm
Session 2: College Focus
Tues, May 28, 2019, 11-11:45pm
ONCAT Transfer Awards
ONCAT recently honoured members of the college and university community for their outstanding contributions to building a culture of transfer and mobility within Ontario’s postsecondary sector.
We were thrilled to present the inaugural awards at the 5th annual ONTransfer.ca Day event in Toronto, on February 25th, 2019. Awards were presented by Executive Director, Yvette Munro, in three categories, to the following recipients:
Staff Champion: Mat Brown, Admissions Officer, Transfer, at the University of Waterloo.
Research Excellence: Centre for Research in Student Mobility (CRSM) at Seneca College.
Leadership: Dr. Henry Decock, Associate Vice-President of Academic Partnerships, Seneca College.
Transfer Advisor Resources
Our Transfer Advisor Group (TAG) has been busy working on various projects to help build capacity for staff who work with transfer students to provide better quality support.
Some of these initiatives include a working document for onboarding new transfer advisors, an online community space, and transfer advisor mentors.
Call for Transfer Students
We’re thrilled to have launched our inaugural Student Transfer Expert Panel (STEP). This Panel will advise and inform ONCAT on various initiatives (strategic planning, events, programs, and projects) to support our student-first agenda.
We are still looking for a few additional transfer students to join the panel.
Upcoming Events & Deadlines
- Live Faculty Fellow Podcasts (ONCAT): event … May 22, 2pm & May 28, 11am
- 30th Annual PLAR Conference (Partner): event ... May 22-24
- Digital Marketing & Content Specialist (ONCAT): job posting … May 26
- PCCAT Conference (Partner): event ... June 20-21
- Annual General Meeting (ONCAT): event ... June 28 *details to be announced
Message from the Executive Director
Spring is finally here, and it’s a time when students are very busy with final assignments, exams, and campuses wind down classes, but start to prepare for convocation ceremonies. For ONCAT it’s the time of the year when decisions about new innovative curriculum, transfer pathway, and research projects are released and also an opportunity for us to learn from our partners as final reports roll in. While we manage the regular ebbs and flows of work at ONCAT, we also have been spending quite a bit of time thinking ahead and imagining what’s possible as we establish our relationship with the new Government.
Over this past year, I have been able to meet with 19 institutions; sitting down with senior leaders and administrators whose work touches upon, or has responsibility for transfer. Whether the conversation has been with a college, university, or Indigenous institute; I have heard a great deal of similar messages. It’s clear that our partners see value in the creation and work of ONCAT, especially in helping to build collaboration across a system that had very little previous experience sitting at the same table. Our partners acknowledge the support of ONCAT in helping to build new and innovative transfer pathways. In fact, I had the pleasure to join our partners in Ottawa and Timmins to attend two media events celebrating new pathways for Francophone/Bilingual students resulting from ONCAT funded projects. We also hosted Collège Boréal and their university partners to celebrate the first university partners of their new campus in Toronto, and the unique transfer opportunities that will be offered to French and bilingual students as a result of these partnerships. For more information about these announcements, please see the news section of our ONCAT website.
It’s also clear that while a good foundation has been built, there is more to do in order to achieve an integrated and efficient transfer system in Ontario. We see this as a shared responsibility that requires all of us to continue to work differently and place, at the heart of what we do, the needs of our students. We encourage institutions to move away from working in siloes both internally and externally. It’s apparent, often in the transfer data we are able to gather, that when institutions engage institutional research, faculty/ academic administrators, registrars, and student services professionals in their transfer planning, they are able to achieve better results for their students and their institution. Similarly, we are seeing some great work happening in regions across Ontario where colleges, universities, and Indigenous institutes have come together to develop pathways that meet the local learning and employment needs of their region.
For ONCAT, we are also hearing from our partners that they need more from us as well. In order to ensure that prospective transfer students or those supporting student pathway planning have the information they need to make informed decisions, we need to rethink the look and capabilities of ONTransfer.ca. It’s time to prepare for Version 2.0 and we have started that process by gathering feedback from students and our institutional partners. Our approach to project funding and research will continue to evolve in order to ensure projects align strongly with institutional needs, ONCAT priorities, and system transformation. We also don’t want all the great work that is happening either within a project or among our Faculty Fellows to go unnoticed and we have great plans for ONCAT for sharing learning and mobilizing knowledge across the sector. In fact, in the coming weeks, we are hosting a series of webinars and we hope that you will participate in the webinars, as this is a great opportunity to hear about the great work of our partners.
Lastly, all are welcome to attend the ONCAT Annual General Meeting on June 28, 2019. This year, we will be hosting the meeting via teleconference. More details around the selection of council members, along with dates and logistics will be forthcoming.
As always, we are incredibly grateful to all of members for your commitment to credit transfer, and student mobility. We thank our government partners for their continued support of our organization, and the work that we do.
Sincerely,
Yvette Munro
Executive Director