9:00 - 9:30am - Welcome & Refreshments

Room: OISE Library

9:30 - 10:00am - Jingle Dance, Welcome & Introduction

Nadia & Genie
Room: OISE Library

10:00 - 10:45am - Who are Mature Students?

Dr. Lance McCready + alumni 
Room: OISE Library

This opening keynote will define who mature students are and identify the particular forms of discrimination they face in accessing and remaining in higher education. Former and current mature students who entered higher education through the Transitional

10:45 - 11:00am - Break

Room: OISE Library

11:00am - 12:00pm - Paper Sessions: Reflections on Lived Experience and Teaching Mature Students Across Contexts

Room: OISE Library

Dr. Jill Carter & Discussant Kristin Bos 
Room: OISE Library

This session explores questions around curating spaces and conditions where adult learners in higher education will serve generations that follow them. Two Indigenous scholars will engage in discussions around working with learners without (re)traumatizing them.

Dr. Chevy Eugene & Dr. Isaac Saney
Room: TBD

In this session, Black scholars with long-standing histories and lived experiences in access programs like TYP will explore how systemic racism and barriers are challenged using decolonial pedagogies, drawing from Black scholars and amplifying Black voices, to teach and learn from students as educators in access programs.

Dr. Max Mishler & Rachel Klein & Discussant Dargine Rajeswaran
Room: TBD

This session explores whether contemporary prison education programs in the age of mass incarceration are complimentary parts of a broader project of decarceration and, potentially, prison abolition or if they function to justify, naturalize, and expand the reach of America’s carceral state.

Nadia Qureshi, Thelma Akyea, Jessica Stockdale
Room: TBD

This session will discuss the underrepresentation of racialized and mature students in STEM post-secondary. Panelists will discuss their respective research studies on additional barriers mature students face accessing STEM, and implications for STEM pathways and curriculum.

Tanya Aberman & Paloma Villegas
Room: TBD

This session focuses on York University’s Sanctuary Scholars program which works to deborder Higher Education (HE) to provide pathways for migrant students with precarious immigration status-non-status, refugee claimants, applicants for permanent residence, certain visa holders, etc.-- to enroll in undergraduate programs and pay domestic tuition rates.