Athabasca University
Research Team: Karen Fletcher
Problem Statement:
“The post-secondary system in Canada centres "traditional students" who can study full-time at conventional universities without needing to miss class. This excludes people who live far from a university, who have caregiving responsibilities, who have to work full-time and those who have medical needs requiring many appointments, among others. The complexity of the post-secondary landscape in Canada, involving multiple provincial funders each with their own requirements, industry regulators, and the ways of teaching and learning entrenched in the academy make change difficult as change in one area may cause issues in another. However, we cannot content ourselves by declaring a system which excludes those who are different as "good enough," so this project examines how non-traditional students are pushed out of university and what can be done, instead, to support them”
