Conference
Program

The full CEWIL 2026 Conference program will be released in March 2026. Once available, it will feature a dynamic mix of plenary sessions, concurrent sessions, and opportunities for connection aligned with this year’s theme, Pathways to Partnerships.

In the meantime, we invite you to explore a preview of the concurrent sessions offered at CEWIL 2026. These sessions reflect the depth and diversity of work-integrated learning across Canada and are organized into our six new conference streams.

More details, including session descriptions, speakers, and scheduling, will be shared in the coming weeks. We look forward to welcoming you to Ottawa for an engaging, practical, and collaborative program.

Program Preview

Beyond Landing the Job: Preparing Students to Thrive in AI-Driven Workplaces

Susan Soikie, Cynthia Jairam-Persaud, Mariana Jardim, and Cassandra Kiosses – University of Toronto Scarborough

As Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) transforms both the hiring process and the workplace, Co-op/WIL educators face a new challenge: helping students move beyond using GenAI as a job search tool, to developing the digital fluency and ethical awareness needed to collaborate with GenAI on the job. At the University of Toronto Scarborough’s Arts & Science Co-op program, we recognize that to become proactive and ethical consumers of innovative GenAI technologies, students require support to frame their AI skills across a variety of industries.

To start, students need a basic foundation and understanding of what GenAI is. AI literacy development will allow students to delve deeper into workplace scenarios before they encounter them in their co-op placements. Secondly, students need to develop a sense of ethical awareness to address the existing gaps in knowledge of what it means to ethically use, understand, and evaluate GenAI. Moreover, there is a need for the transfer of applied GenAI skills from the academic domain to workplace applications. To address these gaps, the UTSC Library and Arts & Science co-op launched a project that started by conducting landscape reviews of existing GenAI ethics curricula, creating annotated bibliographies to map current gaps, and developed interactive storyboards to model course content.

We leveraged student focus groups, interviews, and employer data to enrich our understanding of the current state of GenAI in employers and students. Using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Backward Design methodologies, we developed an asynchronous course, AI in the Workplace, for curricular integration in Arts & Science Co-op. In this workshop, we aim to help our colleagues bridge these differences so they can better serve the growth of their students.

From Reciprocity to Reach: Designing Community-Engaged WIL for Impact

Kathryn Fizzell, Colleen Renihan, Shanna Crowder, and Jennifer Thompson - Queen's University

This interactive workshop explores how faculty and staff can design community-engaged WIL experiences that prioritize reciprocal partnerships and meaningful engagement with community-identified priorities. Drawing on two iHub-funded courses at Queen’s University—an undergraduate course in the arts and a graduate course in educational research methods and program evaluation—participants will explore strategies for co-designing WIL placements with community partners in a way that supports shared learning goals and creates meaningful impact in the community.

The session will begin with brief case studies of the two courses, highlighting how each course embedded reciprocal relationship-building, mentorship, and co-development of the projects into the curriculum. Participants will then engage in a collaborative activity to reflect on their current practices and co-design strategies for enhancing reciprocity and assessing impact in their own contexts. The session will conclude with a group discussion and Q&A to support cross-sector learning and idea sharing. Participants will leave with practical tools and adaptable resources, including mentorship tools developed in collaboration with Mentor Canada and the Evaluation Capacity Network, planning templates, partner feedback mechanisms, and examples of deliverables co-created with community organizations.

These tools are designed to support the development of WIL experiences that are not only academically rigorous but also responsive to community needs and grounded in equity-focused, reciprocal relationships. This session is particularly relevant for faculty and staff designing or supporting community-engaged WIL in disciplines where these approaches are still emerging. This workshop offers practical strategies used by instructors who were new to the landscape of community-engaged learning and demonstrates how their dedication to reciprocity and partnership-building created rich learning opportunities for both students and community partners. Participants will leave with ideas and tools to adapt these practices in their own contexts, helping expand WIL opportunities in disciplines that have historically had fewer community-engaged pathways at both the graduate and undergraduate level.

Indigenous/Settler ReconciliACTION, Regenerative Food Growing and Land-based Learning: A Storytelling Circle with Becky Big Canoe and Dale Colleen Hamilton.

Dale Colleen Hamilton, Turtle Island Acres and Becky Big Canoe, Mno-Aki Indigenous Land Trust and The Kinship Way

Indigenous/settler relations, regenerative food growing, food security and land-based hands-on learning will be explored in a story telling circle lead by Becky Big Canoe and Dale Colleen Hamilton. Becky is a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation and co-founder of Mno-Aki Indigenous Land Trust and The Kinship Way. Dale comes from a five-generations-deep farm family in the Eramosa River Valley near Guelph ON and is the owner/steward (with her Indigenous son) of Turtle Island Acres where she practises regenerative food and medicine growing and land-based learning.

Both Becky and Dale will also present about the important role the arts can play in environmental education and inter-racial community building. They will also discuss practical ways to advance relations between Indigenous and settler people and communities through what they call "reconciliACTION", with an emphasis on action. Becky & Dale will then invite all those in the circle to share a brief story sparked by their story-telling presentation. This session will essentially serve as a case study of a successful 2025 CEWIL-funded project called RAILL (Regenerative Agriculture and Indigenous Land-Based Learning), in which Becky and Dale were community partners with the Ontario Agricultural College's Environmental Science program at the University of Guelph. This session will begin with the opportunity to participate in an Indigenous smudging and Celtic saining ceremony.

New National Data: Quantifying the Distinct Interests and Needs of Today's WIL Students

Graham Donald, Brainstorm Strategy Group

How is the current cohort of Canadian WIL students truly distinct?

This presentation utilizes the findings from The Brainstorm Student Interests Report, a 2025 survey of over 24,900 university and college students, including more than 9,000 WIL participants. The data provides new, critical insights into the evolving WIL landscape. We will analyze the unique profile of WIL students, quantifying how their career expectations, perceived workplace preparedness, and prioritized skills differ from the general student body.

The session specifically leverages new co-op and WIL-specific questions to explore the best and worst aspects of recent work terms, providing evidence on the student-reported quality of supervision, mentorship, and work assignments. Furthermore, the research explores the unique experiences and support needs of diverse groups within the WIL population. This evidence-based session offers program leaders and researchers the actionable data required to validate program impact and inform future WIL strategy.

The Seven Successes of Student Projects: A Roadmap for Partners, Instructors, and Institutions

Tracy Whatmore, MacEwan University

Every student project has four actors: ✔ the organization (partner), ✔ the student, ✔ the instructor, and ✔ the institution. Three of these actors arrive with clear goals, the student wants experience, the organization wants value, the instructor wants learning outcomes achieved. The fourth actor, the institution, provides the container: the course structure, expectations, and parameters. Yet despite the common vision, project outcomes can feel wildly variable. Some organizations walk away inspired and committed to hosting students again. Others conclude that “students are too much work.”

So what creates success? This session introduces The Seven Successes of Student Projects, a practical framework developed from experience working with dozens of organizations hosting project-based WIL students. The model outlines the benefits, obligations, and responsibilities of each actor and offers concrete practices partners can use to improve outcomes - from scoping bite-sized projects to mentoring students and engaging instructors as true collaborators.

Co-presented by a community partner and a WIL practitioner, this session offers pracademic tools, checklists, and a shared vocabulary that makes expectations transparent and success repeatable. Attendees will leave with a replicable model to support stronger partnerships, smoother student experiences, and more impactful project outcomes.

Burnout in Work-Integrated Learning: Boundaries, Balance, and the Human Cost of Doing More with Less

Krista Steeves, CEWIL Canada

In the current climate of post-secondary education in Canada, professionals working in work-integrated learning (WIL) are facing unprecedented strain. Funding cuts, heavier workloads, and expanding administrative expectations have amplified emotional fatigue and professional burnout. As educators and practitioners dedicated to student success, many of us give beyond capacity, often neglecting our own boundaries, mental health, and sense of purpose.

This session offers a personal and reflective exploration of burnout through the lens of psychotherapy and professional practice. It will examine the psychological consequences of chronic stress, the subtle signs that boundaries are eroding, and the internal narratives that make it difficult to say no. Drawing on evidence-based mental health approaches, participants will be guided to recognize their own warning signs, reconnect with their professional values, and develop sustainable strategies for self-preservation.

The presentation integrates reflection, discussion, and practical tools to help participants identify what balance looks like in a shifting educational landscape. It invites WIL professionals to reimagine boundaries not as barriers to service, but as essential structures that sustain empathy, creativity, and career longevity.

Conference Program

Program Preview

Beyond Landing the Job: Preparing Students to Thrive in AI-Driven Workplaces

Conference
Program