Visiting Scholars Program

The Faculty of Education welcomes national and international scholars from a variety of scholarly areas to join us as visiting scholars. Visiting scholars are professionals who come to the Faculty to research and learn with faculty members for approximately one year. They usually have an academic or equivalent position in their home institutions and are interested in promoting collaboration between themselves and their host and/or other scholars at the Faculty of Education. There is no stipend for the position. Visiting scholars are responsible for their own health insurance for the period of stay since they are not eligible for student or employee health benefit. This document outlines policy and application procedures for our visiting scholar program.

Criteria

The applicant should:

• Hold a full time permanent academic position at the university level
• Demonstrate a clear research interest and agenda
• Have a host faculty member
• Be able to demonstrate English language proficiency for academic purposes (able to work in English with faculty colleagues and with graduate students; able to give oral presentations in English) through provision to the potential host of (a) IELTS language scores in the 7.0 range, or TOEFL scores in the 100 range, or equivalent, or (b) digital files containing spoken or written English that demonstrates such proficiency.
  • If English language proficiency requirements appear to have not been met, the host faculty member may choose to provide a rationale to the Associate Dean and Research Committee for why the applicant should still be accepted.
  • The host faculty member, in putting forward the visiting scholar application, is vouching for the ability of the applicant to meet the language expectations articulated above
• Cover the costs associated with Immigration Canada work permit (approximately C$230 but varies by year).

Privileges

The visiting scholar will be issued a Visiting Scholar Card. The following privileges are available on presentation of the Visiting Scholar Card:

• Use of the University libraries
• Visits to lectures, classes, workshops and seminars, subject to the consent of the instructor or facilitator
• The right to purchase tickets to athletic events and gymnasium facilities
• Office space, when available
• Access to internet, telephone, fax, and photocopying services (fees may apply to long distance calls)

Expectations

Visiting scholars are expected to:

• Collaborate with faculty members and graduate students on scholarly activities
• Give one presentation at the Faculty during their visit 
• Where appropriate, actively promote collaboration between the Faculty of Education and their home institutions

Application Documents

• Up-to-date Curriculum Vita
• Statement of interest with identification of a host faculty member and outline of collaboration
• Evidence of English language proficiency, as noted in Criteria (bullet 4) above
• Declaration of financial independence

Application Procedure

If you are interested in becoming a visiting scholar with the Faculty of Education, please send your application or inquiry directly to a faculty member you are interested in working with. Information about our faculty members can be found here .

Decision procedure (Internal information only)

• Faculty member indicates interest in hosting the applicant to the Associate Dean
• Associate Dean brings it to the Research Committee for discussion
• The Research Committee makes recommendations to the Dean's Office
• The Dean's Office approves the recommendation and then the request is forwarded to the Provost's Office
• The host faculty member is required to submit the following signed documents to the Provost's Office: 
  • Request for Research or Post Doc Appointment (RA) Form
  • Confidentiality Agreement
  • Copy of Appointee's CV

Host Responsibilities

• Host faculty members should note that they are undertaking a legal obligation. Citizenship and Immigration Canada requires that the 'employer' (the faculty host): be actively engaged in the business in respect of which the offer of employment is made and understand that (they) must remain so during the period of employment for which the work permit is issued to the foreign national.  This means that host faculty members should not take any leave or sabbatical that will absent them from the University for an extended period of time unless they have arranged for another faculty member to take on the formal responsibility of host.
• Host faculty members are expected to integrate the visiting scholar into the academic life of the Faculty. In addition to the formal research presentation, the visiting scholar should be involved in a variety of activities such as (but not limited to) guest class lectures, a faculty council meeting, faculty social events, and observation of student theses and dissertation defenses.