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Category: Academia

Time Horizons for Strategic Plans

One of the oddest conventions in strategic planning – in higher education, anyway – is that Strategic Plans should last for five years.  I know of no reason why five years is considered a standard length of measurement other than that when Stalin decided to resume planning in 1928 after the “pause” of the New Economic Policy and the defeat of his left-wing opponents Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, he decided to do so in five-year increments.  After that, pretty much

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November 26, 2019 2 Comments

Strategic Planning for Ambiguous Organizations

I have been doing a fair bit of strategic planning work recently and one mantra that people like repeating when it comes this kind of exercise is “we’re not like a business, so we can’t plan like a business”.  I get why people say this, but they’re wrong.  Or rather, they’re right, but not for the reasons they think. When people say that “universities aren’t businesses”, mostly what they are thinking is that universities aren’t interested in profit, per se.  But

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November 25, 2019 2 Comments

Competition, Markets and the Persistence of Hegemonic Institutions

Competition metaphors abound in higher education.  We talk about competition for students, competition for academics.  Since the introduction of rankings – particularly the global ones about fifteen years ago – we talk about “moving up the tables”, in a squash-ladder kind of way. (There are some sumo metaphors with which I could regale you here but using my incredible powers of self-control, I will spare you, even though the Kyushu basho is currently bumming me out, what with all the top dudes

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November 19, 2019 2 Comments

Monitoring Trends in Academic Programming

Morning all.  We here at HESA Towers are launching a new publication series today, and we couldn’t be prouder.  Written by my colleague Jonathan McQuarrie, it’s called Monitoring Trends in Academic Programming, it’s fabulous, and it’s available here. The genesis of this project lies in the somewhat random calls we get from institutions every once in awhile to suggest ways of evaluating existing academic programs or to assist in designing new ones.  It’s a tricky job to do, because some of

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November 14, 2019 3 Comments

Standardization vs. Differentiation

One of the most annoying things about Canadian governments’ relationship with universities is the fact that almost none of them have a consistent theory of universities. In other words, few governments—provincial, federal, or territorial—have actual understanding of what it is they are funding and why they are funding it. Take, for instance, two of the more common criticisms governments make of universities: 1) “Universities should stop being copies of each other and start differentiating themselves and offering more niche courses”.

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November 13, 2019 No Comments
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