December 1, 2025

The University of Waterloo’s Department of Systems Design Engineering has received a $10.5M gift from alumni David J Cornfield and Linda Archer Cornfield for the establishment of the George Soulis Chair in Systems Design Engineering. Dr Katherine Sellen will serve as the inaugural chair. The gift has also been used to fund several other initiatives including facility upgrades, a Clinician-in-Residence mentorship program, a new NGO and charity-focused co-op program for Systems Design Engineering students, and new courses. “This gift is directly elevating our students’ learning by embedding ethics and societal context into engineering education and expanding hands-on opportunities,” said UWaterloo Systems Design Engineering Chair Dr Lisa Aultman-Hall.

Canadian International Development Scholarships 2030 (BCDI 2030) has disbursed $3.25M in funding to 13 projects in its Stream 2 – Institutional Partnerships. With this funding, teams of researchers hailing from 13 Canadian universities and colleges will embark on projects to support educational institutions and ministries in partner countries. The projects will develop or improve programs that address socio-economic needs and employability in the partner countries. Eight of these projects are focused on offering employability and professional integration training for BCDI 2030 Scholars, while five feature collaborations between Canadian and international postsecondary institutions. BCDI 2030 also stated that further requests for proposals (RFPs) will be launched under this initiative in the coming months.

Three institutions in the Prairies have recently received significant donations to support postsecondary access and workforce development. The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology has received a $2.04M donation from philanthropist Arnold Rumbold that will be used to create a student leadership award, secure supplies and equipment for the Advanced Skills Centre, and support skilled trades youth engagement and mental health. Saskatchewan Polytechnic has received a $1M donation from Strathcona Resources to support the development of its Joseph A Remai Saskatoon Campus. The University of Alberta’s Military, Veteran and Family Connected Campus Consortium (MVF3C) has received $1M from the Royal Canadian Legion – Alberta/Northwest Territories Command to encourage veterans, serving military members, and their families to pursue postsecondary education.

Dalhousie University is launching the Atlantic Institute for Digital Agriculture (AIDA), an institute that will serve as a regional hub supporting precision and digital agriculture in Atlantic Canada. AIDA’s work will be organized around four pillars: precision agriculture; robotics, automation, and AI; data-driven management; and human-computer interaction. Dal experts, including faculty and students, will support the sector by ensuring that tools are designed with Atlantic Canada’s needs in mind. “AIDA creates a single point of entry for partners who want to test new ideas, develop technologies and work with us to grow a more resilient agricultural economy,” said Dal AVP Research and Innovation Dr Graham Gagnon.

Students say they are “deeply troubled” by the Government of Quebec’s secularism bill, which will introduce a ban on prayer rooms at public institutions. Muslim students at Concordia University told the Canadian Press that the university’s prayer room is an important gathering space that is used by at least 500 Muslim students each day. Some added that they chose to attend Concordia because of its established prayer room. Students asserted that the law targets Muslims and will force students to find other spaces to pray on campus.

Several postsecondary institutions have recently engaged in collaborations to address challenges in public health and safety. MacEwan University and Postmedia recently completed a study that identified gaps in Alberta’s food safety system which informed the recently-tabled Bill 11’s proposed changes to the Public Health Act. Red Deer Polytechnic and health provider Covenant have partnered to address challenges related to rural and remote health care. The partnership includes the creation of a Rural and Remote Health and Wellness Centre of Excellence, which will offer workforce training and tailored solutions. Simon Fraser University and the University of the Fraser Valley are working together to identify how superbugs—a growing issue in the health care sector—spread in hospitals.

The Government of Ontario is facing additional pressure to revise its postsecondary system funding formula as advocacy groups share the real and projected financial losses of colleges, polytechnics, and universities. Colleges Ontario recently asserted that its members have cut $1.8B from their collective finances, while the Council of Ontario Universities stated that its members are facing deficits of $365M. ON Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security Nolan Quinn confirmed that the tuition freeze will stay in place until at least the end of 2026-27. He also referenced the ongoing funding formula review, stating that “it’s been over a decade since we’ve really looked at [it].”

Medicine Hat College, the University of Calgary, and the University of New Brunswick have each celebrated the launch and recognition of new programs. MHC has launched a two-year Addictions Counselling program that has officially received recognition from the Canadian Addiction Counsellors Certification Federation. UCalgary has launched two graduate programs—a master’s and a PhD program—in Transdisciplinary Research that will bring together students from various academic backgrounds. The programs are the first such programs to be housed directly within the Faculty of Graduate Studies. The UNB McKenna Institute, the Joint Economic Development Initiative, and Thales also recently hosted a new 12-week program to support Indigenous people interested in cybersecurity careers.

Thompson Rivers University has publicly released an openly licensed resource for Level 2 plumbing apprentices. The BC Plumbing Apprenticeship Level 2 open educational resource reflects SkilledTradesBC’s current requirements and contains interactive tools, multimedia supports, defined outcomes, and assessments. “[The resources have] been a hit,” said TRU Plumbing Instructor Audrey Curran, who was involved in the OER’s development. “The students love how interactive and user-friendly they are, and the free online and printable versions make them super accessible.” The resource joins the existing Level 3 and Level 4 plumbing OERs that are available through BCcampus, and work on a Level 1 resource is currently underway.

Several postsecondary institutions are holding holiday events and donation drives in the coming weeks. Brock University encouraged faculty and staff to take part in Home for the Holidays, where they host an international student for a holiday or activity. Institutions like Fleming College, MaKami College, and St Clair College are hosting free craft workshops and holiday parties for the campus community, while Memorial University’s Botanical Garden is hosting a lights festival. St Clair, the University of Niagara Falls Canada, and University of Manitoba have shared that they will be visited by Santa Claus. Several institutions and student associations—including at Brock, St Thomas University, and UNFC—are also collecting donations of food and toys for special holiday hampers.