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Category: Administration

Questions and Answers about UBC

So, what happened last week?  On Monday, pursuant to a freedom-of-information request submitted last fall, UBC finally released documents – mainly emails – related to the events surrounding the departure of Arvind Gupta.  Much of it was redacted, including a flurry of fairly long exchanges that happened in May and June.  On Wednesday, somebody figured out how to un-redact the document in adobe, and all of a sudden everyone could see the crucial exchanges.  Then on Thursday, in view of the fact that

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February 1, 2016 6 Comments

Management in Universities

In organizations, people work in teams, but teams work effectively is difficult: this is what management is for.  It doesn’t always work well, but efficient management – making teams work together smarter, faster, and better – is the key to organizational success, whether you are in the private, public, or non-profit sectors. Universities, of course, are an exception. OK, not entirely.  Every university has units that must act as a team in order to deliver results.  Bookstores, admissions offices, physical

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January 12, 2016 3 Comments

Beyond Tenure

Today, Higher Education Strategy Associates is releasing a paper called Beyond Tenure: Faculty Employment Protection at Canadian Universities (available here). People make a lot of fuss about tenure.  They say things like “lifetime employment, now isn’t that cushy”, etc. etc.; or, on the flip side, “tenure’s absolutely essential to protect academic freedom”, heart of the university, etc. etc.  But tenure actually isn’t a guarantee of employment come what may.  Nothing prohibits a university from letting people go if the institution is in deep

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November 26, 2015 No Comments

Scientists vs. Universities: Does War Lie Ahead?

Because universities lobby for science money, there is often a naïve assumption that the interests of scientists (academic ones, anyway) and those of universities are aligned.  But they are not.  In Canada, there is sometimes broad agreement about what to push for (the Canada Foundation for Innovation in the late 1990s was an example), but I would argue that today the interests of scientists and those of universities are about as far apart as they have been at any time

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November 3, 2015 No Comments

Boards of Governors

So, thanks to UBC, everyone wants to talk about Boards of Governors these days.  How they’re not transparent enough, how they’re not representative enough, etc.  What should we make of these claims? On the transparency thing, I think the radicals have at least half a point, regarding some universities at least.  Practice varies from one institution to the next, but it’s not hard to find some boards where harmful secret practices exist.  Some parts of board meetings must be in

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September 23, 2015 4 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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