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Office of the Provost & Vice-President (Academic)

Academic Excellence

John Connolly Working in Office

Develop and Support Community Partners and Employers

McMaster’s Experiential Learning Strategic Framework (2024-2029) is a blueprint created for and by McMaster staff, students, and educators to advance accessible, inclusive and transformative learning experiences. This page outlines one of seven strategies within the framework and its expected outcomes.

Develop and Support Community Partners and Employers

Expected Outcome:

Partners are supported in their partnerships. They better understand how to engage, see a benefit from partnering, and are eager to maintain partnerships. 

Key Activities:

7.1 Create systematic opportunities to hear from partners about their experiences working with McMaster students, staff, and faculty that help us understand what works, what doesn’t, and what could be improved to ensure mutually beneficial experiences. 

7.2 Develop guidelines and systems to recognize partner contributions to student learning and development. 

7.3 Create common language tools that can help partners understand the types of experiences that exist at McMaster in order to help them anticipate the time and resource commitments that might come with specific opportunities, setting clearer expectations in partnerships. 

7.4 Establish policies and processes to better coordinate and maintain external partnerships within and across Faculties and central units at McMaster. 

7.5 Equip external partners with the knowledge and skills they need to increase their capacity for effective mentorship of students (e.g., training, guidance, etc.). 

7.6 Establish systems to ensure financial accessibility of EL programming for both partners and students (e.g., compensation for partners, compensation for students where a partner cannot fund the experience, etc.). 

7.7 Identify opportunities for new partnerships with a focus on equipping students to work in newly arising industries and roles, meeting emerging needs of local/global communities, improving accessibility of EL partnerships with underrepresented/equity-deserving external partners, and providing appropriate incentives to partners for collaboration.