It is critical that we prepare our students to succeed in a global, knowledge-based economy that is technology-driven and changing at an unparalleled rate. These changes have disrupted the nature of work and are putting upward pressure on the knowledge and skill requirements of the labour market. Humber is addressing these challenges with a dynamic blend of academic and experiential programs that deeply engage students in their learning and empower them to think critically, make bold choices and become leaders of change.
Strategic Priority 1
Current Lead(s): Vera Beletzan
Initiative Description: Focused on ensuring that all graduates acquire the core competencies to be successful in the workforce and society, Humber will establish an institutional learning outcomes framework (Humber Learning Outcomes) that identifies the core skills and attributes that all students will possess upon graduation.
2018/2019 Achievements: The HLO framework was completed and piloted in 14 programs after in-depth consultations with a broad range of stakeholders including students, industry and community partners. They were also aligned with Humber's Co-curricular Record to further enrich the student experience.
2019/2020 Achievements: The college’s newly created Humber Learning Outcomes (HLO) are guiding curriculum development that builds the competencies required for workplace success. Humber faculty are developing curriculum and activities that deeply engage and empower students in their learning, foster skills like critical thinking, and encourages students to make bold choices that sets them apart in the labour market. Through Humber’s collaborations in the Global Polytechnic Alliance, the college launched a new course on systems thinking where students collaborated on interdisciplinary projects with their colleagues in New Zealand and Denmark.
2020/2021 Achievements: A multi-year and ongoing initiative, Humber continued to support faculty and staff as they integrated the HLOs into curriculum and wider experiential learning strategies and activities, including work-integrated learning and research.
2021/2022 Achievements: With the ongoing pandemic, faculty engagement in transitioning academic programs online, and changes within the HLO team, Humber reassessed and refined its plans to embed the HLOs cross-institutionally, including forming plans for particular areas of the college.
2022/2023 Achievements: Humber integrated the HLOs into processes that drive teaching and learning and curriculum development and renewal. The HLO Framework was updated to include the Indigenous Ways of Being Knowing and Doing (IWBKD) mindset as part of Humber’s commitment to Indigenous education.
Current Lead(s): Derek Stockley
Initiative Description: This initiative seeks to ensure that experiential learning and work integrated learning (WIL) are understood, delivered, and managed across the organization, such that students have high quality experiences that build on their curriculum and prepare them for their chosen careers. The focus of the initiative is on developing a framework that links WIL and curriculum to ensure high quality student WIL experiences.
2018/2019 Achievements: With the establishment of the Experiential Learning Working Group to provide oversight of this activity, Humber commenced its foundational work to enhance students’ access to meaningful hands-on learning that will prepare them for their future careers. Broad stakeholder engagement, a review of best practices and an analysis of current work-integrated learning outcomes will inform Humber’s future strategy.
2019/2020 Achievements: Understanding that one of the best ways to develop work-ready skills is through real life experience, Humber continued to invest in enhancing the quality of its work integrated learning opportunities and its collaborations with industry sectors. The college piloted a new digital platform that connects students and faculty to course-aligned experiential projects from industry and not-for-profit partners.
2020/2021 Achievements: To deliver on its promise to provide high quality work-integrated learning experiences during the pandemic, the college worked with its internal and external partners to create dynamic, virtual projects that resulted in unique opportunities for students. Some of their experiences included emergency response support to Torontonians living without shelter and assisting elementary and high school students' transition to online learning through initiatives focused on the use of social media and positive mental health / mindfulness practice. Other students helped Humber to respond to the pandemic by re-designing college spaces to accommodate physical distancing while learning and working in the “new normal”.
2021/2022 Achievements: The college developed its first quality assurance framework for WIL addressing elements such as supervision, authenticity, reflection and preparation processes to ensure effective and meaningful experiences for both students and host organization. Divided into four domains - Student Experience, Planning and Design, Humber Requirements, and Host Engagement - the framework includes both WIL standards and success indicators.
Humber Faculties adapted to the current environment by offering students flexible work integrated learning across Canada and the world that included full- and part-time, in-person and remote or virtual experiences. The locations of work integrated learning ranged from small, medium, and large companies and organizations to freelance, entrepreneurships, and post-secondary institutions, including Humber. They also varied by position, such as apprenticeships, applied research and project-based work. To further support these placements, the college offered students mentorships, coaching, and networking events to broaden their professional connections and future work possibilities.
Additionally, Humber secured over 600 bursaries that enabled students to access paid WIL placements. This funding was provided by a federally funded Student Work Placement program, administered by the non-profit Magnet, that reimburses employers for up to 75% of work placement costs. Bursary decisions are made on a first-come-first-serve basis, with students required to demonstrate financial need and verify unpaid WIL placement
2022/2023 Achievements: The college rolled out its WIL Framework and commenced a review of human resources and organizational structures to support its implementation. In addition to a broad range of WIL supports available to students, the non-profit organization Magnet funded another 284 bursaries for paid WIL experiences, adding to the 323 bursaries provided last year.
Current Lead(s): Tyler Charlebois
Initiative Description: Humber will build on its Centres of Innovation to create the conditions, space and facilities for students, faculty, and industry and community partners to collaborate, innovate and undertake interdisciplinary, cross-faculty applied research. This initiative will establish an effective and efficient business model to guide the ongoing development and success of Humber’s COIs and support the college’s new model of industry partnerships and student learning.
2018/2019 Achievements: Humber opened the doors to the Barrett Centre for Technology Innovation, a 93,000-square-foot, net-zero facility designed to ignite creative problem-solving, innovation and applied research in areas such as automation, robotics, systems integration, and user experience. With equipment that is unique to North America, key features include a data centre, cyber physical factory, automated guided vehicles, prototyping labs, makerspaces, interactive technology zones and digital media studios. The Barrett CTI is home to Humber’s Advanced Manufacturing Skills Consortium, a group of eight leading industry partners who are working with the college to train students and employees of Canadian companies. Consortium members include Cimetrix Solutions, Cisco Systems Canada Co., DMG MORI Canada Inc., Festo Didactic Inc., KUKA Robotics Canada Inc., Rockwell Automation Inc., SEW-EURODRIVE Company of Canada Ltd., and SICK Sensor Intelligence.
2019/2020 Achievements: Humber’s Barrett Centre for Technology Innovation is delivering on its commitments to advance multi-disciplinary applied research, connect students with industry experts, and create innovative solutions for the Canadian manufacturing sector. Examples from this year include, Humber’s work integrated learning where students built and programmed interactive educational display units with KUKA Robotics using their robotic arms, while SEW-EURODRIVE and SICK Sensor Intelligence developed Humber’s first automated guided vehicle with support from Humber students and other industry partners.
2020/2021 Achievements: Established in the last three years, Humber’s Barrett CTI, the Centre for Creative Business Innovation (CCBI), and Centre for Entrepreneurship (CfE) continued to bring together interdisciplinary teams of faculty, students, and community and industry partners to solve complex, real-world problems in new and creative ways. In partnership with Innovation360, Humber became the sole Canadian educational provider of an innovation management and analytics system. Used to drive alternative sources of revenue in addition to ongoing research in innovation management and open innovation platforms, this world-leading technology will enable the college to expand its own innovation processes, track them against major world innovators, and engage our partners in industry-shaking disruptions.
2021/2022 Achievements: In addition to the ongoing cross-institutional collaboration with the college’s community and industry partners through the existing Centres of Innovation (COIs), Humber operationalized the Centre for Innovation in Health & Wellness (CIHW) and created a COI Network Annual Impact Report to share initiatives more broadly across the college and its innovation partners.
2022/2023 Achievements: Humber's Centres of Innovation Network was completed with the launch of the Centre for Social Innovation. This COI will address systemic social barriers by working with equity-deserving populations and the community organizations that support them to produce sustainable, just, effective solutions that enhance resilience and create equitable systems for us all.
Current Lead(s): Derek Stockley
Initiative Description: This initiative will build faculty capacity to undertake applied research and embed it into program curricula as a form of experiential learning that cultivates student creativity, innovation literacy and new skills.
2018/2019 Achievements: Humber convened the Experiential Working Group to advance the incorporation of experiential learning opportunities into the curriculum. Data collection commenced on the use of experiential learning within Humber programs, including work-integrated learning and applied research.
2019/2020 Achievements: Based on the research conducted in 2018/2019, the college identified the capacity development required to assist in incorporating student engagement into applied research and commenced faculty training to support this integration.
2020/2021 Achievements: In 2020, Humber was proud to be recognized as a national research leader. The college climbed fourteen levels in Canada’s Top 50 Research Colleges in two years, landing sixth in the overall ranking, first in research partnerships and third for industry research income. As a result of Humber’s support to student research capacity through paid internships and work-integrated learning, the college ranked fifth in paid student researchers.
2021/2022 Achievements: Humber cemented its status as a national research leader, rising to a second-place ranking for Canada's Top 50 Research Colleges and to the top among colleges in Ontario as published by Research Infosource Inc. Humber is recognized for its support to social innovation research focused on community development, building partnerships with community organizations, developing solutions to systemic issues, and linking Humber students with industry and community partners.
In 2021/2022, Humber students participated in over 650 industry capstone projects across the COI Network. Two of the innovative initiatives that took place this year included the Affordable Housing for All and the 3D Landfill Modelling projects.
- The Affordable Housing for All project examined obstacles faced when accessing affordable housing and determined a baseline of housing affordability. Humber and its partner LAMP Community Health Centre are identifying measures to inform affordable housing development and decision-making through policy change.
- The 3D Landfill Modelling project is a partnership with DGI Geoscience that developed a fast, cost-effective alternative to traditional time-consuming and expensive 3D landfill modelling methods. Their approach simulates the landfill's behaviour, showing the interaction between landfill gas and contaminated groundwater moving through the landfill, thereby enabling closer monitoring and assessment of public and environmental risk.
2022/2023 Achievements: Humber launched the Greenfield Research and Innovation Fund to strengthen regional partnerships and applied research. Made possible through a NSERC Mobilize Grant, the fund enables Humber researchers, and their private, non-profit, post-secondary, and public sector partners to address health, economic, and environmental impacts brought on by the pandemic. Underway in January 2023, up to $25,000 will be awarded per project over a 6 to 12-month period.
With the support of a $4.5 million joint NSERC/CFI College-Industry Innovation Fund grant, Humber established Canada’s first Broadcast to Broadband Convergence (B²C) Lab to explore both NextGen television and data delivery applications enabled by the new Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 television broadcast standard. This 3.0 standard is set to replace the current ATSC 1.0 standard in North America offering enhanced audio and visual features for television and full broadcast mobility.
With the formation of Humber’s Digital Campus Plan, the college recognized that this initiative is part of that plan. Please refer the Foundations page, Commitment 3, action 1 for information on the Digital Campus Plan and what the college is doing to engage students with new digital technologies.
Strategic Priority 2
Current Lead(s): Tyler Charlebois
Initiative Description: The initiative seeks to enhance, grow and mature Humber’s engagement with its industry and community partners, and ensure that these relationships and collaborations provide reciprocal benefits.
2018/2019 Achievements: Humber created the Experiential Learning Working Group to provide oversight to this initiative and revisited policies and administrative processes to enhance the tracking and management of its partnerships.
2019/2020 Achievements: Humber developed a new Strategic Partnership Framework in collaboration with industry and community stakeholders. It outlines a process for building and strengthening partnerships, such as that with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Inc. Among the planned activities, AWS is supporting Humber’s first comprehensive full-time Cloud Computing Ontario Graduate Certificate in Canada launching in January 2021. Given current global cloud computing needs, it is anticipated that graduates of this program will be in high demand. The first intake is expected to launch in Winter 2021. Humber also became a Designated PearsonVue Test Centre, enabling it to provide AWS testing services including certification examinations for companies such as Microsoft, Cisco Systems and CompTia. Humber is one of only two colleges with this designation.
2020/2021 Achievements: Key to harmonizing relationships with partners is maintaining comprehensive files that capture the breadth of Humber’s relationships. This year, Humber analyzed data collected from the consolidation of industry and community partnership databases from across the college.
2021/2022 Achievements: Humber developed a draft institutional strategic partnership strategy that focuses on creating a coordinated “One Humber” approach that stimulates a culture of innovation and reciprocal partnership benefits. The strategy aims to ensure Humber programs are current and relevant and experiential learning and applied research is expanded so that students have a seamless transition from education to employment.
2022/2023 Achievements: The College developed a Strategic Partnership Hub and new tools to help faculty find, create, and sustain strategic research partnerships. A new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) will allow the College to improve our relationships and communications with our partners.
Several College partners provided Humber and its students with financial support to achieve their educational dreams:
Schulich Foundation: Humber is one of 10 colleges to be awarded funding through the Schulich Foundation’s Schulich Builders: Scholarships for the Skilled Trades program. The largest of its kind in Canada, this scholarship program is designed to address labour shortages and amplify the importance of skilled trades in Ontario. Ten talented Humber students will benefit from the scholarship. Five Humber students enrolled in a one-year certificate program will be awarded $20,000 and another five students enrolled in two-year diploma programs will receive $20,000/year to support the costs of tuition, tools and living expenses.
Barrett Family Foundation: On January 24, 2023, the Barrett Family Foundation made an exceptional gift of $30M to Humber College marking the largest single donation made to an Ontario college. Combined with their previous donations, the Foundation has given a total of $42M to increase access to post-secondary education. Their donation supports science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs and technology at Humber and fosters a learning environment where students can develop and build digital and innovation skills critical for the future of work. It also provides access to education through more than 100 annual scholarships valued at $3,000 each to students entering and continuing their studies in engineering and technology related degrees and diplomas.
Longo Family Foundation: Dedicated to building a world of strong, healthy families where children and youth can reach their potential, the Longo Family Foundation contributed $5 million to Humber’s Unlimited Campaign. Their gift supports scholarships, entrepreneurship, small business expertise and leadership development. In recognition of this gift and the longstanding support that the Longo family members have provided, Humber’s Faculty of Business and the Centre for Entrepreneurship underwent name changes to bear the well-known Canadian Longo family name. This marked the first time that Humber has named a Faculty with a family or corporate name.
Current Lead(s): Marianne Davitjan & Vera Beletzan
Initiative Description: This initiative seeks to proactively create faculty and staff teams with varied skillsets and networks in each faculty/program and within key communities and industries. The initiative will define and implement a competency model and recruitment and professional development plans for faculty and staff.
2019/2020 Achievements: This initiative was scheduled to commence this year. Humber developed a competency framework and a plan for competency modelling, and completed the first level core competencies for all Humber employees.
2020/2021 Achievements: While COVID-19 did impact this initiative’s 2020/2021 work plan, this multi-year project continued to focus on the development of a leadership competency catalogue, including academic leadership competencies, for Humber.
2021/2022 Achievements: Based on Humber’s competency framework developed in 2019/2020, the college further developed its core components. The framework and core competencies were made available to managers with the Administrative staff performance review in 2021/2022.
2022/2023 Achievements: A draft faculty competency framework was created following research on other institution’s faculty competency frameworks and consultations with Humber faculty.