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Category: Academia

Governance, Management and Balancing Acts

Higher education is a hard thing to generalize about. Superficially, universities look the same the world over, but scratch beneath the surface a little and you’ll see that there are enormous differences in structures, policies, and cultures. Nevertheless, it’s still pretty safe to say that over the last 40 years (in some countries longer) three major trends have emerged more or less the world over:  first, in every country, there has been pressure to expand systems and accommodate greater participation in

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March 27, 2019 2 Comments

Excellence vs Progress

Earlier this week, I was in Moscow at a session talking about (among other things) national excellence programs, making the point that there aren’t really that many examples of successful ones.  One of the university rectors in the audience then asked me the following question (I apologize for paraphrasing a bit here because I don’t remember the exact wording): “look, the real problem in science is that we are spinning our wheels, not making any great discoveries.  Instead, all we

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March 21, 2019 No Comments

Organizing Science

I’m on my way to Moscow today.  It’s become one of my favourite destinations not only because I can walk around and pretend I am in my favourite novels (I highly recommend an early morning stroll to the Patriarch Ponds and then sit on one of the benches to read the opening chapter of The Master and Margarita) but also because Russia in general holds a mirror up to the west and makes you question the “normal” order of things. 

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March 18, 2019 1 Comment

Best Higher Ed Scandal of the Year

The following statement was issued in a Massachusetts courtroom yesterday morning. Dozens of individuals involved in a nationwide conspiracy that facilitated cheating on college entrance exams and the admission of students to elite universities as purported athletic recruits were arrested by federal agents in multiple states and charged in documents unsealed on March 12, 2019, in federal court in Boston. Athletic coaches from Yale, Stanford, USC, Wake Forest and Georgetown, among others, are implicated, as well as parents and exam

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March 13, 2019 1 Comment

“Listening To Industry”

If you’ve hung around higher education for even a millisecond, you’ll know that the sector is often told that it should listen more to industry.  To the extent that institutions are about preparing graduates for a career in the labor market, and to the extent they are in the business of solving problems which are relevant to innovation and economic development, this sounds like a really good idea.  Almost so good an idea as to be unarguable. Except for one

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February 28, 2019 1 Comment

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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