Researchers and the Scope of Research

By Anju Kakkar and Saran Davaajargal

ON ANY GIVEN DAY, THE HUMBER COLLEGE COMMUNITY is abuzz with research activities. From collecting and analyzing data to collaborating with industry partners to coming up with new insights, our community is flourishing with new ideas and discoveries every semester. In this issue, we are highlighting just a few of the exciting research projects at Humber. Let’s go on a journey from digital transformation to regenerative design, teaching diversity in classrooms, and student empowerment.

The first research project in this issue’s spotlight is Digital Transformation of Operational Processes (grant amount $25K), led by Mark Stoiko, professor in the Faculty of Business (FB).

Funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Engage grant, the research project is a collaborative endeavour with industry partner NTN Bearing Corporation Ltd. The key challenges that motivated the project are the inefficiency of the existing operational processes at NTN Ltd., and the lack of knowledge and resources of moving from legacy operations into digital operations. This project’s research outcomes would be implementing and testing digital transformation models in all aspects of operations, including manufacturing, engineering, and supply chain, which could contribute to the enterprise’s survival during the pandemic and beyond.

Mark is an expert in business planning, marketing, and research. He is equipped with eight years of digital transformation experience, during which he worked with five companies and fourteen industry partners on digital transformation projects. Mark shares that thinking like a researcher felt incredibly familiar to him, given his natural inclination with mean absolute deviations (MADs). He has applied quantitative methods in applied research towards political studies, including voting behaviour and religiosity in Canada, to name a few. In the past few years, he has presented his work and observations at several conferences on teaching and learning and entrepreneurship practices.

As an educator, Mark inculcates in his students with a desire to search for meaning, to have an inquiring mind, and a philosophical approach to research. He encourages his students to pursue purpose, understand social injustice,

question their realities, participate experientially, and conduct research on matters closest to their hearts to unearth new learnings.

We were deeply moved by these reflective words from Mark:

One of the great revelations in my collective experience with teaching and learning is that research, much like other aspects of life, participates in the three transcendentals—three properties of being: truth, beauty and goodness—the interplay and connection with truth, beauty in discovery, and goodness in impacting real change. I celebrate the privilege of being an instructor who chooses to interplay with objective truth—it is attainable, reachable, understandable—the best part is that it is teachable. If a concept can be understood and explained, then by definition, it can also be taught.

—Mark Stoiko

OUR WELLBEING IS DIRECTLY ASSOCIATED WITH NATURE.

The next project in our spotlight is New post-COVID-19 and nature-based, architectural solutions for enhancing personal wellness at home (grant amount $25K), led by Phil Fung, professor in the Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology (FAST).

The research is highly relevant for the current times when our homes also serve as office spaces, schoolrooms, chat rooms, makeshift gyms, retirement homes, and more. Phil tells us, “The current pandemic is not just a physical pandemic; it is also a mental health pandemic. We are born with an innate connection with nature. However, urbanism has distracted us from the healing powers and positive effects of connecting with nature. I pondered, if only we could learn from nature; why is it so hard to realize how our wellbeing is directly associated with nature?”

With funding from the NSERC Engage grant, Phil is collaborating with Torontobased industry partner Kirkor Architects and Planners to create novel architectural solutions to promote building occupant wellness for the “new normal”—a trend of remote working, at-home learning and athome leisure expected to persist beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The Humber College research team will experimentally test types of acknowledged biophilic features able to be incorporated into building infrastructure (e.g., houseplants, food crops, nature imagery and aquarium fish) for their wellness-enhancing effects. Kirkor will apply these insights to developing data-supported solutions for safeguarding Canadian wellness amidst rapid changes in living and working arrangements.

Phil has dedicated his career to being an advocate of sustainability, bio-inspired design, and regenerative design that help restore natural balance in life. In the course of his career, Phil designed and patented his Vertical Indoor Ecosystem— Vertical Indoor Garden (VIGA™)—in early 2014, which was based on biomimetic and biophilic design principles.

Keeping his students engaged through capstone projects is a high priority for Phil. He stresses that hands-on experiential learning and exposure to community and industry needs is the only way students can truly learn. An example of Phil’s active engagement with his students is the Off-Grid Organic Food Shed project with the City of Brampton. Phil learned of the Brampton Backyard Garden initiative through one of his students and decided to get involved. As a result, Phil conducted a seminar about the Food Shed, and Humber students were involved in a capstone project.

On his motivations for conducting research, Phil remarks:

“To me, research has to have a purpose. I want to ensure that my research has a path to commercialization, to come up with something that will help people as an end result. It is my desire to make the world and our ecosystem more regenerative.”

—Phil Fung

Faculty members and students experience diversity in their academic experience every day. Soheila Pashang, PhD., in the Faculty of Social & Community Services (FSCS) notes, “Diversity is considered a sensitive topic, but it should not be. It is part of our reality in life.” It was her commitment to diversity that ignited her latest Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) research, Pedagogy and Practice: Teaching Diversity in Classrooms. When asked where the initial spark for her research idea came from, Soheila shares that the challenges she encountered in her classroom “sparked” her to conduct this research. She recalls, “Teaching a class on diversity was more challenging than teaching other courses. As a professor, I found myself constantly having to manage the classroom dynamic around topics students had strong views on.” Soheila is an experienced social worker and adult educator, researcher, and academic writer. She highlights that their research is among a very few in Canada to explore barriers that might hinder diverse groups of students from reaching their potential.

“Having [Humber’s] administration committed to social justice was instrumental to the project—their support made it a major project that I had not envisioned at the beginning.”

—Soheila Pashang

The research team applied anti-racism, anti-oppression, intersectionality, feminist and equity theoretical frameworks and utilized these theories in order to situate this research in existing teaching and curriculum practice, as well as to locate and understand the various ways in which diversity education impacts students and faculty inside and outside classroom spaces. This was possible by applying anti-colonial and decolonizing theory to examine the benefits of diversity in education and cross-pollinate with current classroom praxis and our wider society (Dei and Asgharzadeh, 2001).

Christine McKenzie, professors at Humber College, Joanna Amirault, PhD., and Theresa Knott, PhD., Associate Deans of FSCS at Humber College. The team was joined by external investigators Neil Price, Dean at Fleming College; Rai Reece, PhD., Ryerson University faculty; and research assistants, Trisha Harber, Juan Jeramaillo, and Valentina Tasillo from Humber College.

Soheila recalls, “It was an incredible experience. I started with the mindset of lifting a small project and ended up with a major project alongside my research team.” In particular, Soheila notes that the tremendous support from the Dean and Associate Dean of FSCS has enabled the project to be what it is.

The findings of this research project uphold Humber’s ongoing commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, and a willingness to engage in challenging dialogue to strengthen institutional capacity. Humber’s Strategic Plan 2018-2023 clearly asserts this. Diversity education requires a willingness to confront, challenge, form allyship,

advocate, influence and negotiate change. Mediating such dialectic dynamics as an educator demands extensive experience with critical pedagogy and a willingness to disrupt systems of racialization and marginalization.

In addition to students, diversity educators may experience both direct and vicarious forms of microaggressions, including complex and uncomfortable teaching moments. The impact of these teaching moments requires further contemplation about interrelated questions surrounding who should teach diversity education, who the target audience is, what is the impact of the selected pedagogical content on the ever-growing globalized cohort of students and whether existing pedagogies adequately prepare students to become equity-seeking global citizens. Responding to these important questions requires further cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary research and collaboration.

ACHIEVE™ PLATFORM

Finally, the ACHIEVE™ methodology co-founded by Andrea Wilson, professor in the Faculty of Business (FB). In Andrea’s words, ACHIEVE™ is a “proven 7-step trademarked methodology that provides you with the necessary knowledge, tools and support that will help you find balance, achieve your goals, and unleash your full potential.” The 7-step methodology begins with: Assess the gap, Choose to do and who, Have a plan, Involve others, Excite, Venture and Evaluate and celebrate.

Andrea proudly shares that she applies the ACHIEVE™ methodology in her classrooms as well. She truly believes that our students are aspiring leaders. This 7-step mindset will help them gain clarity, confidence, tools, and accountability strategies in a supportive community to realize their goals and dreams.

When you adopt a research or a researchers’ mindset, you begin to create like an artist.

—Andrea Wilson

She has mentored numerous students through participation in capstone projects with ACHIEVE, offering students a chance to further develop their employable skills through experiential learning opportunities in professional training and management development services.

In 2018, Andrea had the opportunity to work closely with Principal Investigator Ammar Al-Qaraghuli, who received funding from Ontario Centre of Innovation (formerly Ontario Centre of Excellence) under the College Voucher for Technology Adoption (CVTA) program to develop a mobile app for ACHIEVE™ in partnership with Humber. Through the project, several students were hired to develop the ACHIEVE™ app in a collaborative endeavour.

Reflecting on why she created ACHIEVE™, Andrea shares,

I want to help students figure out what success looks like to them. To me, it is all about holistic success as relational, emotional, mental health & wellbeing are as equally important as career and financial success. Empowering students with tools and measures to discover their authentic self and innate strengths while figuring out how to work on their apparent non-strengths, that’s what drives me.

—Andrea Wilson

Conclusion

As faculty members and researchers demonstrate, the possibilities for conducting research are boundless. No matter what the interest is, there is always an opportunity to get involved and explore queries and curiosities. Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation is committed to supporting faculty through the journey of research and innovation. Visit ORI’s website to learn more about ongoing research projects, the growing community of researchers at Humber, partnerships and collaborations, and the impact and endless possibilities that you can become a part of.