Oladunni's Picture

Oladunni Tola-Adewumi

MBA, M.A. Ed.
Pronouns: she/her

Affiliations

Ph.D. Student, Educational Research

Werklund School of Education, Specialization, Adult Learning

Contact information

Email

oladunni.tolaadewumi@ucalgary.ca

Web presence

LinkedIn

Background

Credentials

Alberta Interim Professional Teaching Certificate, Alberta Ministry of Education, 2025

Nigeria Professional Teaching License, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), 2016

Educational Background

Bachelor of Arts in Education (English), Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 2016

Erasmus Student Exchange Programme University of Padua, Italy, 2020

Master of Business Administration (Entrepreneurship), Quantic School of Business and Technology, Washington, DC, USA, 2021

Master of of Arts in Education (Adult Education), Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 2023

College Courses (Special education), Athabasca University, 2026

Biography

Oladunni is a doctoral student in Adult Learning at the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, and a recipient of the Distinguished Doctoral Award and the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship. Her research examines African Indigenous knowledge systems as a source of informal learning about entrepreneurship and employability for Black graduate adult learners in Canada. Drawing on transformative learning theory through a critical race theory lens, her work asks what knowledge Black learners carry from family, elders, community, and spiritual life. It also asks how Canadian postsecondary and workforce institutions recognize, overlook, or suppress that knowledge. Rather than treating this knowledge as a tool for improving outcomes, she takes up a harder question: whether turning relational and spiritual ways of knowing into economic "skills" is decolonization or simply repackaging.

Oladunni has studied and conducted research across three continents, in Nigeria, Italy, Germany, the United States, and Canada. Her doctoral work builds on her Master of Arts in Adult Education at Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, where she studied the Indigenous salesmanship practices of Adire textile entrepreneurs. She also holds an MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology in Washington, DC, and completed Erasmus and DAAD-funded studies in comparative adult education at the University of Padua, Italy, and the University of Würzburg, Germany. She has taught in Nigerian secondary schools and colleges, in Calgary postsecondary programs, and in Alberta's K-12 system with Golden Hills School Division. Broadly, her scholarship widens what adult education counts as learning and asks who decides what counts as knowledge and success.

Awards

  • Distinguished Doctoral Recruitment Scholarship (DDRS), University of Calgary. 2026
  • Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship (AGES), Government of Alberta. 2026
  • Full-Tuition MBA Scholarship, Quantic School of Business and Technology, USA. 2020
  • DAAD Scholarship – International and Comparative Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). 2019
  • DAAD Scholarship – International and Comparative Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). 2020
  • Erasmus+ Exchange Scholarship – University of Padua, Italy, European Commission (Erasmus+ Programme). 2020
  • DAAD Scholarship – Curricular Structures and Teaching Modes in Adult and Lifelong Education (University of Lagos, Nigeria, in partnership with the University of Würzburg, Germany), German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). 2019

Publications