Projects
Current Projects
How Performance Evaluations Shape Leadership: A Multiple-case Study of Canadian Higher Education Administrators
The project aims to clarify how performance evaluations are experienced and understood by those on their receiving ends. The project includes perspectives from academic and non-academic administrators working in both colleges and universities.
This project is funded by 5-year SSHRC Insight Grant.
Participating student researchers: Erin Anderson, Sayeed Naqibullah Orfan, Paula Smellie.
The Challenge of Change in Northern Ontario Colleges and Universities
The project examines how professional mid-level administrators experience and understand change efforts in their units.
This project is funded in part by an institutional Connaught New Researcher Award.
Participating student researchers: Erin Anderson, Rana Al Ghazzi, Angelina Liu.
Ontario College and University Presidents and Vice-presidents: Clarifying their Gender, Race, and Career Trajectories Using the Sunshine List
This project looks at the demographics of the two most senior administrative roles in Ontario colleges and universities.
Funding: This project is funded by SIG departmental grants.
Participating student researchers: Peilu Li, Christos Orfanidis, Joshua Grondin, Sadia Anjum.
Past Projects
The Demographics of Canadian Universities' Provostial Appointments
The project examined the characteristics of Canadian university provosts appointed over the last twelve years to produce a portrait of their gender, race, experience, and provenance.
This project was funded in part by a SIG departmental grant.
Lavigne, E., & Carino, J. (2025). Unequal inequity and precarity: The changing demographics and career trajectories of Canadian university provosts. Higher Education, 90, 337–353. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01323-w
How Performance Evaluations Shape Leadership: A Multiple-case Study of Canadian University Deans' Reappointments
The project examined how Canadian university deans experienced and made sense of their reappointments. It examined the politics of reappointments and their impact on deans' leadership.
Lavigne, E. (2024). How and why performance evaluations shape leadership: The case of Canadian university deans’ reappointments. Higher Education, 88(3), 875–891. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-023-01147-0
How Research Conceptualizes Organizational Change in Developing Countries' Higher Education Institutions
The project looked at the way research portrays organizational change in developing countries' higher education organizations. It used an analytical and critical review of the research literature to 1) look at what types of change has been investigated, and 2) clarify how change is understood and presented by researchers.
The Changing Roles and Qualifications of Canadian University Presidents and Provosts
The project collected thirty years of job advertisements for the positions of Canadian university presidents and provosts to determine how their roles and qualifications were framed and had changed over time.
The Demographics of Canadian University Deans
The project looked at recent decanal appointments to draw a portrait of the Canadian university deanship: their gender, race, experience, and provenance.
The Roles and Qualifications of Canadian University Deans
The project collected job advertisements for the position of university deans to determine how their roles and qualifications were framed and whether they related more strongly to managerial or collegial considerations.