The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

The World of Higher Education Podcast Listen now →

Author: Alex Usher

Historical Higher Ed Data-Palooza Part 2

Today’s discussion might be a little less exciting than yesterday because although I now have all this cool data on finances going back to 1920, holy hell are there some difficulties coming up with way to provide a unified data series through that period.  So, apologies, but you’re in for some long parenthetical statements on methodology. The main reason I was looking for historical data in the first place was that I was trying to resolve a long-standing puzzle around

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April 12, 2023 3 Comments

Historical Higher Ed Data-Palooza (Part 1)

I found some great data yesterday! It turns out that when Statscan murders a data series, it sometimes leaves traces of the old corpse on its website.  Not anywhere you can find it through normal keyword searches or anything, but if you can find yourself an old CANSIM table number (ask your stat nerd grandparents, kids) you might just be able to dig up some truly interesting data.  Yesterday I managed to find so much historical data on Canadian higher

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April 11, 2023 2 Comments

Vianne Timmons

Late last week, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador  removed its President, Vianne Timmons, on a without cause basis, on account of her contested claims to Indigeneity.  This is a big deal, (read the original CBC story about Dr. Timmons here, and the very long interview with her on the subject of her Indigenous heritage here.) Formally, there are three things of which Dr. Timmons stands accused. First, that she claimed membership in the “Bras D’Or Mi’kmaq First Nation”, a

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April 10, 2023 No Comments

Venezuelan Higher Education

This week’s guest on The World of Higher Education Podcast is Juan Carlos Navarro, international expert in higher education, innovation and digital talent; senior advisor to several international institutions and universities; and Member of the international faculty of the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración, in Caracas, Venezuela. He joins us talk about what has happened to higher education in Venezuela under the rule of Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro, and their Bolivarian Socialist regime over the past 25 years. The story here

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April 6, 2023 No Comments

The Return of Bad Arguments for the Humanities

I see we’re back into tiresome public debates about the value of “Liberal Arts” and the “Humanities” (not synonyms, even though most people use the terms interchangeably).  The most recent example is this past weekend’s piece in the New York Times by historian Bret C. Devereaux entitled “Colleges Should be More than Just Vocational Schools” (where “college” is being used in the American sense of “undergraduate education”). Let’s ignore the headline, which the author doesn’t necessarily choose, and get to

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April 5, 2023 4 Comments

One Thought to Start Your Day

One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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