Featured Speakers

Heightened Careerism in Challenging Times:
Emerging Trends in Education and Employment

Ken Steele
Senior Vice-President, Education Marketing
Academica Group Inc.

The past four decades have seen long-term tectonic shifts in student careerism and employer expectations, and higher education has gradually evolved in response. College and university campuses have started to diverge on gender lines, while growing enrolments and converging on applied and professionally-oriented programs with demonstrable career ROI. Millennial students are demanding greater flexibility in interdisciplinary programs, as well as part-time, distance delivered, and co-op options. The line between colleges and universities has blurred across much of the country, while societal biases remain entrenched.

But rapid economic and technological change has applied new, almost seismic pressure to employers, students, and institutions, and hidden fissures have fractured under sudden stress. Traditional media models are collapsing in the face of wikinomics and emerging social media. Shifting perceptions of career opportunities are having instantaneous impact on application and enrolment trends. Declining demographics and increasingly aggressive student recruitment have applied pressure on institutions to adapt to marketplace interests and expectations to an unprecedented degree.

Academica Group co-founder Ken Steele, editor of Canada’s daily higher education news digest, Academica’s Top Ten, will provide a fast-paced overview of new developments, emerging trends, research findings and anecdotes to illustrate the long-term trends and short-term changes affecting Canadian higher education, particularly where career services and employment pathways are concerned.

Ken Steele is co-founder and Senior Vice-President at Academica Group, which now has offices in London (Ontario), Toronto, and Boston. He spends most of his time elsewhere, though, delivering campus presentations on emerging trends and Admission Analytics research findings, and speaking at conferences nationally and internationally. Once an award-winning doctoral candidate in Shakespearean drama, now a lapsed academic who yearns to be back on campus, Ken's day job includes developing brand strategy for forward-looking institutions like Lethbridge College and the University of the Fraser Valley, leading strategic summits with senior university administrators or governing boards, and developing data-driven models to measure and understand institutional reputation and brand perceptions. Ironically, he is likely now best known for an activity he began in his spare time, editing a daily digest of Canadian higher education news called "Academica's Top Ten." Over the past three years, more than 4,500 subscribers have come to depend on Ken's Top Ten to provide a concise summary of the busy higher ed landscape, and some thought-provoking evidence of emerging trends in recruitment, marketing, and the business of education.

Jobless Recovery?
Or the Disruptive Transformation of the Labour Force?

Larry Smith, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Waterloo

Larry Smith's charismatic and informative presentation will discuss how the
recession has affected employment trends to date and the immediate outlook for the labour market. It will include a comparison of Canadian and US performance to answer the questions which often puzzle us about our differences.
 
Learn about how the recession has also accelerated the transformation of the labour market in ways that offer both disruption and promise.  Whether you are an employer or career educator, this session will provide information and data to enhance your expertise at work. 

Larry Smith is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Waterloo.  He is Recipient of the University of Waterloo’s Distinguished Teacher Award.

Larry is also President of Essential Economics Corporation, an economic consulting practice that serves a wide range of public and private clients. The firm specializes in forecasting and in the economics of innovation and development.

He is the author of Beyond the Internet: How Expert Systems Will Truly Transform Business.

Larry advises UW students who start their own ventures. He has taught more than 20,000 individuals, representing ten percent of the university’s alumni.

Larry provides an online commentary on the economy at www.lwsmith.ca