By Daniel Becker and Katherine Becker. Advice for new or potential graduate students.
As recent graduates of a doctoral education program, we recall the best advice we received along the way very well. It could benefit any doctoral student in education, no matter the institution. A lot of the advice can also be applied to doctoral candidates in many other fields. We gratefully acknowledge the mentors who shared this wisdom as we pay it forward to tomorrow’s graduates. More...

By Mark Witten. This is the story about a pig and a fish.
This is a true Canadian tale of two genetically modified animals and the efforts to have them end up one day on our dinner tables. More...

By Virginia Galt. Universities are becoming more proactive to ensure the union lasts.
During march reading week, when Université Laval was more or less deserted, 40 professors, novice and seasoned, got together on campus to embark on a novel initiative. They came from a range of disciplines, from medicine to agriculture, intrigued by the invitation from the faculty of graduate studies to form a “community of practice” devoted to helping them all, collectively, become better graduate supervisors. More...

By Harriet Eisenkraft. Unconscious bias still plays a role in keeping women scientists from the top tier.
During her childhood, Emily Choy roamed the countryside around her grandparents’ Ontario cottage, searching out insects and small animals and creating a hospital for the injured ones. In primary and high school, she excelled at science and math, taught by a mix of male and female teachers. “Since I’ve been a little kid, I’ve wanted to be a scientist,” says Ms. Choy, now a PhD candidate in biological sciences at the University of Manitoba and a 2012 L’Oréal-Unesco For Women in Science fellow. More...

By Benjamin Miller. Social entrepreneurship in a living laboratory.
University and college clubs are good places to meet people, gain valuable experiences, sometimes raise a bit of money for a good cause and have some fun. There’s no doubt that clubs are all of the above, but they’re also a great deal more. More...

By Alan MacEachern. The middle stretch of my academic career.
By the time you read this, I’ll be dead.
Not really, probably. But it’s occurred to me that if I begin everything I write like that, imagine how poignant, how tragic it’ll be the one time it’s true.
I’ve been thinking about mortality a lot lately. Because I’m, you know, alive. But also because the last time I wrote for University Affairs, I was a fresh-faced Bob Benson, the junior guy in the office, and now I am a world-weary Don Draper. More...

By Janice Allen. Grad students should set our own goals.
In light of recent discussion on the role of internships in education and early career development, this is a useful time to also reevaluate the importance of internships for graduate students in research-based programs of study. In recent years, a disconnect in how students, faculty and alumni define the goals of graduate studies has become more apparent (for example, in this report, PDF, from Dalhousie University). More...

By Léo Charbonneau. New survey finds postdocs see themselves as employees, not students or ‘trainees’.
A new survey of postdoctoral scholars in Canada paints a portrait of early career researchers who are generally satisfied with their research environment but frustrated by their ambiguous employment status, poor compensation and inadequate training. The online survey (PDF), released on Oct. 2, was conducted this past spring by the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars and Mitacs, a not-for-profit organization that supports industry-university research involving graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The survey’s 1,830 respondents represent a wide range of disciplines and work primarily at universities but also at research hospitals, government laboratories and private companies. More...

By Rosanna Tamburri. Canadian university presidents also more likely to be turfed by their boards than in the past.
Life at the top of a big organization has never been a cakewalk, but new research shows that the complexities faced by modern-day university presidents could be leading to shorter presidential tenures. More...