Current News

Do you have a CIRPA colleague whose unsung contributions have strengthened our organization? Nominate them for an Outstanding Service Award or the New & Emerging Professional Award! Each year CIRPA takes time to recognize an individual whose service as a volunteer, conference presenter, or brain behind the scenes has helped to make CIRPA what it is.

Outstanding Service Award
Exceptional service is broadly defined, and can include contributions made by individuals who have not held a formal position on the CIRPA Board as well as those who have. Normally, the contributions would have been made over a period of years. Exceptional service contributors have recurring involvement in the Association and have actively supported and facilitated the goals and mission of CIRPA in a number of ways.
For more information, including a list of past recipients and to submit a nomination, please click below (you may need to be logged into your CIRPA account for this to work).

New & Emerging Professionals Award
The New & Emerging Professionals Award recognizes leadership, growth, and outstanding potential of a professional working in a professional role in any area of institutional research and planning for 5 years or less (inclusive of all professional roles at all institutions the individual has been employed). This individual has demonstrated significant growth in their position and has made an impact and gone beyond their role on their campus. Ways in which their commitment to excellence and improving institutional research and planning should be demonstrated.

Thank you for participating in the Annual Election for the CIRPA Board! We had a record number of voters this year. I am pleased to announce your new elected Board that will be in place after our AGM in October 2024.

Congratulations to our upcoming Board members:
o Connie Phelps (Conestoga College) – Treasurer (2nd term 2024-2026) – Acclaimed
o Martha Meisner (Dalhousie University) – Secretary (1st term 2024-2026) – Elected
o Antonia ‘Nonie’ Sly Nichols (Nova Scotia Community College) – Member-at-large (2nd term 2024-2026) – Elected

Congratulations to our new nominating committee member, Sonia Beattie (Dalhousie University).

A heartfelt appreciation to all of you who put your name forward for the election. We had a wonderful slate of candidates!

I would like to extend my deep gratitude to our Nominating Committee members for their continuous support, collaboration and hard work. Thank you David Paul (Portage College), Yuqin Gong (University of Prince Edward Island), and Neil Chakraborty (University of Toronto). You are all the best!

Sincerely,
Stephanie McKeown, University of British Columbia
Nominating Committee Chair

I am pleased to advise that the nomination period is now closed. The candidates have been nominated, and the CIRPA Board election is now open!

The current election is for the Secretary role and the Member-at-Large role. Each candidate brings a unique perspective and set of skills to the table, but they all share a common goal: to serve you, the members, with passion and diligence. Take the time to learn about each candidate, their experiences, and their vision for our association’s future by reading their bios.

Your participation is crucial, and every vote counts. Please vote on or before Thursday, June 13, 2024.

Treasurer:
Much appreciation to Connie Phelps (Conestoga College) for putting her name forward for a second term in the Treasurer role (acclaimed).

Secretary:
Martha Meisner (Dalhousie University)
Andy Hu (Queen’s University)

Member-at-large:
Antonia “Nonie” Sly Nichols (Nova Scotia Community College)
Brent Harris (University of British Columbia)

New Nominating Committee Members (acclaimed):
Yuqin Gong, University of Prince Edward Island (term: 2024-2026)
Sonia Beattie, Dalhousie University (term: 2024-2026)

Thank you to our members for your continued support and engagement!

Warm regards,
Stephanie McKeown, Chair Nominating Committee
Canadian Institutional Research and Planning Association

Students of data, data serving students

CIRPA-ACPRI invites you to submit a proposal to present at our upcoming conference, October 20-23, 2024 – Students of data, data serving students. Institutional research inspires a culture of student success through data empowerment. This year’s conference focuses on how data can be used to help students achieve.

The conference will be in person, with activities hosted at the Fredericton Convention Centre, located in the historic heart of downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick.
We welcome all submissions relevant to this year’s theme, including proposals from Institutional research and planning professionals. This includes colleagues at provincial, regional, and federal agencies, other associations and organizations, and individual scholars with research interests in postsecondary education issues.

The submission guidelines and review criteria can be found here. Please complete all proposals using the template provided here.

Submissions are encouraged to align with the conference theme and one or more of the topic areas below and should include realized or potential outcomes (i.e. how research has affected or will affect change):

Action Enablers – This stream covers how an institution or IR team has transformed data to be used broadly to facilitate student success. Emphasis should be placed on the data transformation process and how the resulting information was put into decision-makers hands. Presenters are encouraged to share experiences in leveraging data from diverse sources to create unique insights.

From Start to Finish – Strategic enrolment management (SEM) is a core to institutional stability. How do we determine how many students we can accommodate? What resources are needed to deliver quality educational experiences? How do we incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects? What data-based practices has your institution implemented to maximize graduation rates, reduce attrition and facilitate student engagement? This is an opportunity to present and discuss methods and models for success. How do we map the entire student journey from student surveys to modelling in R?

Eliminating Silos – Often, institutional silos can create barriers to actioning data in service of student success. This stream discusses how data and information have been used at our member institutions to unite various departments (Recruitment, Registrars, Student Service, Institutional Research, etc.) in service of student success. Further topics to consider are partnerships between postsecondary institutions to track student outcomes.

Forecasting Success – In this track, we ask questions such as: how early is early intervention? We will discuss data-based actions to provide support to students. What data is needed to enable success? Models used to forecast retention, graduation and overall positive student outcomes. Presenters are encouraged to demonstrate how they incorporated data from sources such as student surveys into their forecasting activities.

The deadline to submit a proposal(s) is May 10, 2024. Submit your proposal via email to the Programming Committee vicepresident@cirpa-acpri.ca.

We hope you will join us for the CIRPA-ACPRI conference this October!

Sincerely,
Stephen Blair Dove
2024 Program Chair
University of New Brunswick

Emily Clyde-Parry Yaroszko
2024 Local Arrangements Co-Chair
University of Manitoba

David Kilfoil
2024 Local Arrangements Co-Chair
University of New Brunswick