ExperiencED
5.2 Norah McRae, Associate Provost, Co-operative and Experiential Education, University of Waterloo
Episode Summary
Dr. Norah McRae is the Associate Provost for cooperative and experiential education at the University of Waterloo, one of the largest co-op schools in the world. She is also head of the Secretariate of the World Association of Cooperative Education (WACE) for promoting work-integrated learning and the sustainable knowledge society. It is in both capacities that we interview her in this podcast. Dr. McRae’s professional career began at the University of Victoria in 1992, where she earned her PhD in 2014 after earning her Master’s degree 1987 in Business Administration at the University of Alberta. At Victoria, she rose to be the Executive Director of Cooperative Education and Career Services, and in 2018, she moved to Waterloo to take her current position as the Associate Provost. In 2023, she completed additional training from the Institute of Corporate Directors in Toronto. In this interview, Dr. McRae discusses her interest in transformational learning and how that relates to Work Integrated Learning (WIL) or as sometimes called Cooperative Education (Co-op). She discusses the move of the WACE secretariate from its founding location in the USA to its current location in Waterloo, Canada, the recent World Conference there in June of 2023, and WACE’s programs and role as the only international WIL or Co-op organization under the network-of-networks idea.
Episode Notes
Topics discussed in this Episode include:
- Dr. McRae’s development academically and administratively around the idea of experiences outside the classroom as an important part of transformational learning of students, which is part of her research interest, and is part of her current roles at the University of Victoria and as the head of WACE.
- She reviews some of the aspects of the first move of the WACE secretariate to Waterloo, Canada from its previous home in the USA. And she talks about the special role WACE plays in the world as the only international organization supporting WIL/Co-op that promotes the network-of-network idea with national organizations and individual universities around the world.
- One of WACE’s primary activities is to hold World Conferences alternating with Research Symposia around the world. The last World Conference last June (2023) was at Waterloo and Dr. McRae reviews what it was like, especially having it at her home University. The next Research Symposium in 2024 will be at Trollhättan in Sweden.
- In addition to conferences and working with the network-of-networks, WACE is sponsoring a program with a company, Practera, called the Global Challenge Program. It features students from multiple international universities coming together on-line to solve the problem of another entity in a short time, giving them some global experience when they might not be able to travel abroad.
- We ended on a discussion of how WIL/Co-op and her University at Waterloo must leverage ideas from all over the world to keep fresh and current this form of transformational experiential learning.
Resources discussed in this episode:
Music Credits: C’est La Vie by Derek Clegg