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Category: Academia

Architecture and the Role of the University

Robert Hutchins, a former president of the University of Chicago, once described the university as “a collection of departments tied together by a common steam plant.” There’s some truth to this. Most academics will profess more loyalty to a discipline than an institution. Disciplines fight amongst each other for resources and the departmental structure they occupy has enormous possibilities for empire building. The only thing that really unites them is the heating plant (and perhaps the Finance and HR people

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May 31, 2012 1 Comment

A Good Decade for Profs

I was browsing through some Statistics Canada data on university salaries the other day, and I rapidly came to the conclusion that there have been few decades in which it was better to be a prof than the last one. As the following table shows, over the years 2001 to 2009 (the years for which I could get good-quality data from Statscan for free – this email’s not paying a paying gig unfortunately), pay for full professors in non-medical disciplines

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January 10, 2012 3 Comments

Can Universities Compete?

There’s a basic problem with trying to get universities to compete with one another: most of them are structurally incapable of following any coherent competitive strategy at all. Michael Porter posited that there were basically three generic types of competitive strategies.  Those competing on a broad scale could compete on cost (e.g., WalMart), or they could compete on product differentiation that allows them to charge a premium (e.g., Apple, Mercedes-Benz).  A third option is to limit oneself to a particular

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December 14, 2011 5 Comments

Shite Gifts for Academics

So, now that Hallowe’en is over, you need to start thinking about Christmas. Wondering what to get an academic friend? Check out the facebook app Shite Gifts for Academics, where you’re sure to find something worth giving. Ok, not really. It’s one of those meant-to-be-funny-but-actually-kind-of-annoying facebook sites where you can “send” something to someone. With a click of a button, you can give a friend one of 212 presents such as “two big male egos in a departmental meeting,” “second

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November 7, 2011 1 Comment

Why the “Great Disruption” is Bogus

So apparently Inigral CEO Michael Staton – who by and large is a sensible guy – has been talking up this idea about higher education being about to undergo a “Great Disruption.” Why he thinks this is the case isn’t clear – he spends most of his Inside Higher Ed article explaining why higher education isn’t, contra some of higher education’s weirder critics, in a bubble, but he does think everyone needs to spend a lot of money adapting to

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October 13, 2011 No Comments

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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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