Past Event

Intended Audience: Carleton campus community – faculty, staff and students.
Note: Specific consultations will be scheduled with students, alumni and external partners.

Featuring two higher education leaders who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience about student engagement and success, this event is part of a Speaker Series hosted by the SIP Task Force to prompt us all to think strategically about significant topics.

Prof. Sean Lyons (University of Guelph)

Understanding today’s generation of learners: The current generation of post-secondary students presents a unique mix of opportunities and challenges for post-secondary institutions. We will explore the ways in which today’s students differ from those of the past and the implications for educational instruction, student experience and student wellbeing.

Prof. Heather Smith (University of Northern British Columbia)

Where are the students? Where are the learners? When we seek to discuss the diverse needs of learners, we need to ensure learners are not marginal to our discussions. We need to build spaces and processes that are inclusive of the student voice and faculty and staff must see themselves as learners. Drawing on the students as partners model, I will share stories that reveal the transformative power of authentic engagement with students.

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More About the Speakers

Sean Lyons

Dr. Sean Lyons is Professor of Leadership and Management and Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies at the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics at the University of Guelph. Dr. Lyons’s main area of research concerns inter-generational differences and their impacts on workplace dynamics and managing people. He is co-author of the book Generational Career Shifts: How Matures, Boomers, Gen Xers and Millennials View Work and co-editor of Managing the New Workforce: International Perspectives on the Millennial Generation. His research on generations has been featured in a number of media outlets, including Time Magazine, the Globe & Mail, the National Post, the Daily Mirror (UK), Macleans magazine, as well as on CBC’s The National, CTV News Channel, the Business News Network and CBC Radio’s The Current. Dr. Lyons works frequently with private and public sector organizations to identify and address inter-generational issues.

Heather Smith

Heather A. Smith is Professor of Global and International Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia. Currently on sabbatical, she is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University. She is the recipient of the 3M National Teaching Fellowship (2006), the Canadian Political Science Excellence in Teaching Award (2012), a two time recipient of the UNBC Excellence in Teaching Award, and a 2018 BCcampus Scholarly Teaching Fellow. In her most recent administrative position, she was the Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology at the University of Northern British Columbia (2012-2018).

Other teaching and learning activities include: Facilitator for the International Socieity for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) International Collaborative Writing Group on personal narrative and autoethnography (2019), Regional Vice-President Canada of ISSOTL  (2016-2019) and founding co-coordinator of the ISSOTL Fellows Program (2017-2019). She has also been co-section head with Renan Levine (U of T Scarborough) Teaching and Professional Practice Section for the Canadian Political Science Association Annual Conference (2016-2017) and co-section head with Janice Newton for Canadian Political Science Association Teaching Workshop and Teaching and Learning Politics Section, (2011). She was the Chair of the Canadian Political Science Association Board of Directors subcommittee on developing a teaching award (2009) and Chair of the International Studies Association Canada Professional Development Committee, (2009-2012).

Among her most recent teaching and learning publications are:  With Tracy Summerville “Can We Talk? Four Conversations We Need to Have about Teaching and Learning in Canadian Political Science” The Canadian Journal of Political Science, published online (April 2017) , with Angela Kehler, Roselynn Verwoord, “We are the Process: Reflections on the Underestimation of Power in Students as Partners in Practice” The International Journal of Students as Partners, (May 2017), Vol 1(1), and “Unlearning: A Messy and Complex Journey with Canadian Foreign Policy” International Journal, (2017), Vol. 72(2). Her forthcoming work includes with Roselynn Verwoord, “The P.O.W.E.R. Framework: Power Dimensions Shaping Students-as-Partners Processes” in Sophia Abbott and Lucy-Mercer Mapstone (eds) The Power of Student-Staff Partnership: Revolutionizing Higher Education.