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This article describes a self-study inquiry project designed and conducted by a self-study group at a Faculty of Education in an Atlantic Canadian University. The seven-member group engaged in a collaborative self-study inquiry while adopting Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles in their teacher education practices and documented their professional learning. This yearlong self-study inquiry project encompassed several data collection methods to examine inclusive practices of self-study group members, including personal reflections, minutes of weekly meetings, artifacts, and field notes. This article focuses on how UDL provided a means for three group members to critically examine their inclusive practices at the beginning, during, and following the collaborative self-study inquiry. Using a case study methodology, self-study cases of these three faculty members--Angela, Ryan, and Sarah (Pseudonyms)--were developed. The cases reported on the journey of these faculty members in improving their inclusive practice through their engagement in self-study.

Student services professionals have emerged as significant supportive collaborators in the construction of environments that encourage student success within Canadian post-secondary education (Hardy-Cox & Strange, 2010). In Canada, literature pertaining to student services is evolving and research from other contexts is therefore often used to inform student affairs practices in this context. Yet, without a comprehensive understanding of research that is focused on Canadian student services specifically, those working in post-secondary education are left with a scope of understanding that may not always apply to the unique contexts in which they work. The purpose of this research study is to begin mapping the landscape of research on Canadian student services. We review articles pertaining to student success, the student experience, and student services, that have been published in national ("Canadian Journal of Higher Education") and international ("Journal of College Student Development"; "Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice"; Journal of College Student Psychotherapy"; "Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice"; and "Student Success") student services and post-secondary education journals. This scoping review documents Canadian academic research published within the student services field and describes contributing authors and their affiliations, graduate student and post-doctoral fellow involvement, provincial and territorial research clusters, research movements over the decades, institutional research contexts, and research participants' level of education and communities/populations, as well as contextual trends and themes. [Publication year printed on PDF is incorrect. This article was published in 2021.]

A narrative approach was adopted to explore the experiences of 13 women who pursued academic careers. Analysis of the personal reflective narratives uncovered themes common to the participants, also the authors of this study, which focused on striving to have work-life balance, personal and professional costs associated with being unwell, and the impact of academic work on families. Findings highlighted suggestions for being well in academia such as choose to engage in work and leisure activities that are enjoyable and maintain relationships. Suggestions for universities included: provide clear promotion and tenure processes, examine workload expectations, promote wellness, and facilitate mentorship.

Our group of early- and mid-career women faculty members in a mid-sized Canadian university examined the peer review process and our experiences of being reviewed. Using post-structural feminist literature, we theorised how subjectivities are shaped by the pressures of neoliberal incursions into university work. The impact of peer review can be severe and feel highly personal. The peer review system contains assumptions that create conditions for misuse: that reviewers have expertise and that notions of quality scholarly work are shared; that they will be supportive and intellectually ethical; and that they will encourage innovation. We engaged with what it feels like to be reviewed through using collaborative autoethnography as a methodology, and narrative and poetic inquiry as data as well as methods of analysis. We found that how a writer received a review depended on the amount of respect and collegiality in the reviewer's language. Uninformed critical review comments appeared to be particularly damaging. We also found the obscure nature of the process meant that misunderstandings characterised our experiences. Many of us suffered feelings of powerlessness, a homogenisation of writing style, and a decrease in creativity. However, we also found solace and agency in sharing our stories. We shared our experiences within a relational holding space drawing on an ethic of care where well-being flourished, and in which there was an equality of respect, dignity, and mutual concern. We argue this perspective has potential to be applied more broadly to review processes.

Communities of practice, based on the work of Etienne Wenger, is being adopted as a framework in higher education to facilitate and foster professional learning. This article describes the emergence and cultivation of a university community of practice. Based on a desire to enhance our work as teacher educators and the learning experiences of our students, Karen, the first author, invited faculty to become part of a self-study group in a faculty of education. We remained a fluid entity for almost two years. Eventually, we evolved into a core group of seven faculty who were interested in conceptualizing and implementing a shared self-study inquiry. Data collection methods and sources included audio recordings of weekly meetings, collaborative reflections, meeting minutes, and personal journal reflection. Outcomes report on the evolution and functioning of the self-study group over an 18-month period. Principles for cultivating a community of practice are used to retroactively reflect on the successes and tensions the group experienced, group dynamics, group leadership, the nature of collaboration, individual and group learning, and strategies used to foster productive community functioning.

In its earliest form, Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) focused on recruiting students, but soon included a focus on student success, defined in terms of retention and graduation. Several researchers have noted that developing effective student services, as well as establishing strong lines of communications across departments, are key components of SEM (Bontrager, 2004; Smith & Gottheil, 2009). Gottheil (2015) argues that, based on her experiences, what has been the most critical factor to successfully incorporating SEM into campuses has been "using SEM as a tool to enhance communication, collaboration, and partnerships" (para. 3). Henderson (2014) argued that all aspects of a university ought to support students' academic success and that all-encompassing division-level collaborative approaches to SEM promote institutional ability to support student success from the prospective student stage through to becoming alumni. However, past research (see Seifert, Arnold, Burrow, & Brown, 2011; Seifert & Burrow, 2013 ) found that focus group participants from across Enrollment Management and student affairs and services differ in how they perceive their unit's contributions to student success and the institution's retention efforts. Given the enormous variation in the day-to-day work of these staff members, this seemed highly plausible. This is despite the importance of a whole-campus approach to SEM (AASCU, 2005, cited in Lingrell, 2014; Gottheil, 2015; Henderson, 2014), in which the campus culture promotes staff members' consistent understanding of and commitment to realizing SEM priorities irrespective of employment area. In this current study, the authors explore how staff members' perceptions of their immediate work unit's retention efforts vary by area of employment.

Utilizing an ecological model as a framework, we analyze the role of peers as connectors between an array of microsystems within a student’s post-secondary experience. We examine data from 128 student focus group participants from four colleges and eight universities in Ontario, Canada and conclude that peer interactions, both formal and informal, are critical in supporting student success. Respondents articulated that their peers connected them with resources and opportunities on campus, served as coaches and confidantes, co-constructed the environment to meet student needs and served as role models who they wished to copy or emulate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]