Moderator: Nicholas Salter, Executive Director, Provincial Employment Roundtable (PERT)

Speakers:

Constance Crossland, Pedagogical Counsellor and Douglas Brown, Dean of Career Programs, John Abbott College 

"Retention of English-Language College Health and Services Program Graduates in Quebec"

In 2019 and 2020, with funding from Dialogue McGill and the Secrétariat aux relations avec les québecois d’expression anglaise, John Abbott College surveyed all students in the nineteen health and social services programs offered at six public English-language Cegeps to determine the factors influencing students’ post-graduation intentions to remain in Quebec, and particularly to live and work in regions of Quebec other than the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area.  Programs surveyed included Nursing, Dental Hygiene, Special Care Counselling, Respiratory & Anaesthesia Technology, and Community Recreation Leadership Training.  With a response rate of 60%, there were a total of 2439 responses to the surveys. This presentation will focus on the most pertinent results, identifying patterns in the data, factors at play in the retention of graduates, and suggesting interventions that might enhance their retention in Quebec.

Susan Regan, Pedagogical Counsellor, John Abbott College

"Quantifying Differences in Male and Female Student Success at John Abbott College"

In response to concerns at the Fédérations des Cégeps’ Carrefour de la reussite conferences about persistently lagging graduation rates of male students across Quebec's College network, under the auspices of John Abbott’s Student Success Committee, we examined ten years of data to get a clear picture of comparative male / female student retention rates and graduation timeliness specifically at John Abbott. We discovered both that our CEGEP program landscape is gendered to an extent that we have not always been aware of and that that gendered landscape is more complex and varied from a student success perspective than has previously been recognized. The data provided food for thought regarding the College's overall student body as well as at the individual program level, thus far resulting in a great deal of discussion and three program research projects designed to further support male and female student success, including two specifically to support males. 

Speakers' bios:

Constance Crossland taught chemistry for 36 years at Champlain-St. Lawrence College.  When she retired from teaching in 2010, she then served as a pedagogical counsellor for six years. While at St. Lawrence, she served as a department coordinator and program coordinator, and authored a number of program evaluations and revisions. She now works as a pedagogical counsellor on projects for the College Development Office at John Abbott College.

Douglas Brown is Dean of Career Programs at John Abbott College.  Previously Dean of International Students and Projects and a member of the English department, he has served on John Abbott’s Board of Governors as well as on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Bureau for International Education.  He has also taught at McGill University, l’UQAM, Dawson College, Cégep de Granby, and Cégep de Valleyfield.  As Dean of Career Programs, he has overseen an OQLF-funded project to prepare interns to work in French-language work milieux; several Dialogue McGill-funded projects, including a feasibility study to increase Health and Social Services program internships in regions of Quebec; a Secrétariat aux relations avec les Québecois d’expression anglaise-funded study of factors in the retention in Quebec of graduates of Health and Social Services programs; and student success studies comparing male and female student success at John Abbott.

Susan Regan is currently a Pedagogical Counsellor at John Abbott College and a member of John Abbott’s Student Success Committee. Formerly, she taught in the Graphic & Web Design program (and its previous incarnations) at John Abbott for 32 years and retired from teaching in 2015. She also taught the Philosophy of Education, Introduction to Teaching, Anthropology of Education, and Educational Theories at Concordia University from 1990 through 2001. She has a PhD in Philosophy, major field Philosophy of Education, minor fields History of Ideas and Feminist Theories.

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