Faculty, staff, students, volunteers and special guests pose for a photo during the 2025 Robert Macmillan Symposium in Education.
Exploring the ever-changing landscape of education
The Faculty of Education served as a hub for meaningful learning and relationship building as the Robert Macmillan Symposium in Education (RMSE) made its annual return.
Held each year in honour of Dr. Robert Macmillan’s memory, a former Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Research at the Faculty of Education, the RMSE is a two-day conference dedicated to promoting graduate education research and emerging scholars.
The goal is to showcase and support education-related projects, conceptual research, and studies in progress at all levels, from beginning master’s essays to final doctoral presentations.
This year’s RMSE was organized under the theme, “Crossroads of Change: Exploring the Ever-changing Landscape of Education.”
Day one of the RMSE drew a full house to the Faculty of Education’s Community Room.
The opening ceremony featured remarks from Education Dean Dr. Donna Kotsopoulos and Dr. Kathryn Noel, the wife of Macmillan and a former Education Adjunct Professor. Noel’s support plays a key role in making the RMSE possible each year.
Audiences in-person and online were treated to a keynote from Dr. Shelley Taylor, a Professor in the Faculty of Education and Past President of TESOL International Association. Taylor delivered a talk titled, “Research Through the Looking Glass & Graduate Student Resilience.”
Day two featured a virtual keynote from University of British Columbia Assistant Professor Dr. Ron Darvin. Darvin discussed, “Generative AI and the Shifting Education Landscape: The Need for Critical Digital Literacies.”
On both days, attendees also had a chance to view poster presentations, roundtable discussions, and paper sessions, all while gaining some valuable networking opportunities.
Organized entirely by graduate students, the two-day conference is the result of months of hard work from the RMSE Committee.
This year, PhD candidate Chuan Liu and PhD student Liwen (Audrey) Situ served as co-chairs.
“Since attending my first conference in 2019, I’ve often wondered what it would be like to chair one,” said Liu.
“Back then, I began reimagining conferences not just as a collection of presentations, but as carefully curated learning spaces. I saw them as living curricula—co-constructed by organizers, presenters, attendees, and the resources that give them life.”
According to Liu, the goal for the 2025 RMSE was to foster “a curriculum in its own right, intentionally designed to support meaningful learning and relationship-building.”
Liu and Situ wanted emerging scholars to not just be participants of the two-day conference, but also co-creators.
“We reimagined the planning process as a collaborative and emergent one—where scholars were invited to contribute their ideas, experiences, and aspirations at every stage,” Liu said.
What resulted was the development of six separate workshops scheduled in the lead up to the RMSE, each of which were spearheaded by different workshop facilitation support teams. The conference lead up also featured a video competition that tasked graduate students with translating their work into engaging, accessible content.
You can view some of these videos on the RMSE’s YouTube channel.
“Co-chairing RMSE 2025 has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Seeing researchers come together to share their work, engage in meaningful discussions, and build connections made all the hard work worthwhile,” Situ added.
“We are deeply grateful to everyone—our speakers, presenters, volunteers, attendees, Faculty of Education and sponsors—who contributed to making this year’s symposium a success.”
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