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As many of you know, at its meeting on April 30th, 2025, OISE Council approved our Academic Plan 2025-2030 Leading for the Future: A Vision for Transformative Education and Human Development. The plan moved successfully through University of Toronto governance in May 2025.

 

When we launched the academic planning consultations back in January, 2024, our goal was to ensure an informed and engaged process that helps us envision a renewed purpose for OISE – one that is supported by our core values and commitments and that will carry us enthusiastically into the future. I want to congratulate everyone in our community who participated in the planning process and contributed to the development of our plan.

 

Informed by OISE’s academic leadership team’s discussions, the implementation phase includes OISE-wide initiatives to enact community-crafted priorities arising from the plan. Focused on student experience, faculty development, research innovation, revitalization of professional programs, among other key goals, these initiatives will result in concrete outputs that harness the energy and enthusiasm of our community and deploy its talents and best ideas on directions forward.

 

Our academic plan calls for creating “opportunities to share research, innovations and emerging practices across programs and disciplines, building a collective sense of overarching OISE impact and learning from diverse perspectives.” During the fall term, Associate Dean, Programs Professor Joseph Flessa hosted two sessions for OISE faculty (September 15 and November 24) on principles, strategies, and resources that support positive supervisory relationships. These sessions will continue in the coming year and are critical to implementing the Plan’s priorities related to both student experience and faculty development. Additionally, the Dean and Associate Deans will continue to provide mentoring opportunities to faculty related to the development of teaching and research, including the Dean’s lunch with early-career faculty to facilitate mentorship, networking, feedback, and community building.

 

To help us implement the immediate priorities arising from the plan, we are establishing two Strategy Groups, one on “AI for Education” chaired by Professor Becky Chen, Associate Dean, Research, Partnership and Innovation; and the second one on “Professional Programs – Master of Education”, chaired by Professor Joseph Flessa, Associate Dean, Programs. Comprising faculty and administrators from across OISE whose research and expertise are critical to their areas of focus, these groups will work over the course of 2026 to accomplish their mandates.

 

Building on the work on the University of Toronto’s , and harnessing OISE’s unique expertise, leadership and innovation in education and research, OISE’s Strategy Group on AI for Education will develop a framework for a meaningful human-centered integration of AI in teaching, learning, and research in education. Responding to existing and anticipating new challenges, opportunities and risks brought on by the advent of generative AI, the potential outputs may include the development of a discussion paper, guidelines, and/or a report with strategies and recommendations for OISE and the field on the use of generative AI across education.

 

In keeping with OISE’s leadership in professional practice-oriented programming, and leveraging the expertise of our faculty, this Strategy Group will review the need and demand and identify opportunities for innovation and growth of OISE’s MEd programs including the exploration of possibilities for program structure, delivery options, and recruitment strategies that maximize revenue generation to support the reimagined programs. The potential outputs (e.g., report with recommendations) will enhance the MEd’s distinctiveness as a graduate degree serving a broad range of education professionals while realizing the MEd-related goals in the Academic Plan.

 

In addition to these Institute-wide initiatives that we are already undertaking, the plan includes a space for our departments, units, and other groups to develop their unique contributions through various ongoing and upcoming initiatives that will move us further in implementing our academic plan. I know many of our departmental and affinity group leaders and colleagues are working tirelessly on their specific priorities aligned with the plan.

 

Aligned with our strong collaborative culture, we will work together to accomplish our planning related goals by working across departments, units and functions and engaging all members of our community. Please keep an eye on our OISE Academic Planning website for updates and news related to these goals.

 

As the fall term of 2025 draws to a close, I will have completed my third year at OISE. It has been a wonderful time, and I am deeply grateful for the tremendous support I’ve enjoyed from the community. It has also been a great time for OISE; we have accomplished so much, and we should be proud and confident as we look forward to a great year that lies ahead. I know I am, and I look forward to staying in touch with all of you over the coming year, and to returning to our thriving community after my leave. In the meantime, I am sharing .