Dr. Paula Gouveia, former Vice President, Academic (Administration and International), at Conestoga College, has had a long career in Ontario’s public college system. She holds a B.A. (Honours) in French Language and Literature from York University, as well as an M.A. and a Ph.D. in French Language and Literature from the University of Toronto.

Paula began her career in Ontario’s public college system more than 25 years ago as a faculty member at Seneca College (now Seneca Polytechnic), where she taught French and Spanish. Her experience with education and assessment began in the classroom, where her focus was on demonstrating mastery of course learning outcomes. Quite early in her career, Dr. Gouveia moved into administrative leadership roles, shifting her focus from the micro level (individual course learning outcomes) to the macro level (program learning outcomes). In these roles, she worked with faculty to strengthen course relevance, connection, skill development, and authentic assessment design. Her first administrative position was Chair of English and Liberal Studies at Seneca, where she supported initiatives such as Language Across the Curriculum and collaborated with colleagues to develop curricula and build capacity in rubric development and grading norming to support assessment.

Next, Paula served as Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Humber College (now Humber Polytechnic). In this role, she supported policy renewal, worked with her teams to strengthen authentic assessment practices, advance rubric development, and create more inclusive assessment practices, including working to remove barriers placed on learners through placement testing.

During this period, she had the opportunity to join the College Student Achievement Project (CSAP) and work at the provincial level to support improvements in math and literacy among college students. The project examined the secondary school pathways students followed in Mathematics and English and mapped those pathways to their first- and second-semester college results. She and her colleagues also collaborated with partners to develop a suite of digital resources and diagnostic assessments to help address numeracy levels that continued to decline. The Ontario Colleges Math Test (OCMT) was initiated at Humber and other public colleges to assess student skills and better support student success.

It was during her time at Humber that she first partnered with Vretta. The partnership began in the classroom and later expanded to collaboration on the CSAP project and the OCMT, now known as the Assessment and Learning for Success in Mathematics (ALSM), where Vretta served as the technical partner. Over the past 15 years, she has valued Vretta’s responsiveness and ability to adapt to the needs of diverse organizations and jurisdictions. She also highlights the company’s strong commitment to high-quality academic integrity and its willingness to incorporate feedback into its ongoing platform development.

After 10 years at Humber College, Dr. Gouveia assumed the role of VP, Academic at Cambrian College, the largest northern college in Ontario. Building on her earlier contributions to the CSAP project, she was invited to collaborate with the Ontario Ministry of Education, the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT), the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO), and Vretta to launch the Mathematics Proficiency Test (MPT). The MPT was subsequently introduced into legislation as a requirement for teacher candidates to be registered with the OCT. Following five years at Cambrian, Paula moved to Conestoga College, where she served as VP, Academic (Administration and International). In this role, she continued to advance initiatives supporting faculty development in the area of assessment and policy renewal, including the introduction of policies that aimed at promoting student mental health and well-being by addressing the issue of over-assessment.

Paula recognizes the value and challenges of large-scale assessments, particularly online assessments. She emphasizes the benefits of enhanced accessibility for students. She also highlights the importance of these assessments in regulated industries such as nursing, where candidates must demonstrate competence and ensure safe nursing practice. Paula emphasizes the need to evolve assessments beyond just testing answers to assessing critical thinking, and to leverage technology such as AI while ensuring the accessibility and credibility of the results.

Dr. Gouveia continues to explore applications of AI in assessment, focusing specifically on assessing beyond the answer. She is also interested in studying student mental health and well-being, and their relationship with assessment. Reflecting on her career, Paula takes pride in the teams she has collaborated with and the successful projects they have undertaken, including the transition to fully remote learning, launching the MPT, launching the first three-year degree and securing approval to offer applied Master’s degrees within the public college system.

Outside of her professional work, she enjoys reading, hiking, snowshoeing, and traveling.