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Category: Budgets

Talking About Money

As I go from campus to campus across the country, one of the things that truly astonishes me is the poor quality of conversation about money. There are far too many campuses where the administration insists everything is fine, until it comes time to negotiate collective agreements (especially with faculty) – at which point everything is suddenly disastrous.  As a result, faculties are naturally suspicious of these claims.  If everything really is disastrous, they reason, why are we only hearing about this

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October 20, 2014 1 Comment

The Math at Windsor

Not only is there strike talk at Laurentian, but there is also a strike in the air at Windsor (a one-day strike was held last week, but a full strike is promised for October 1st if no deal is reached).  Bargaining there began earlier this year, but for whatever reason, no progress was made in negotiations over the spring.  After a conciliator was unable to nudge the two sides closer together, the university was in the legal position to impose its offer on

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September 24, 2014 11 Comments

Back to School 2014

Morning, all.  Ready for the new school year run-down? One thing already clear is that pretty much the whole sector has finally come to grips with the reality that annual 4% increases in funding aren’t coming back any time soon. That’s causing institutions to think more strategically than they’ve had to in a long time, which is a Good Thing – the downside is that there appears to be some places where this hard thinking is leading to some fairly

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August 25, 2014 No Comments

Institutional Strategies: Simulacra or Reinvention?

I recently had the chance to read a re-issue of Simon Marginson and Mark Considine’s, The Enterprise University: Power Governance and Reinvention in Australia.  It’s a heck of a good read; among those currently writing about higher education, Marginson’s probably got the best turn of phrase around.  Some of it – around managerialism and the role of research expenditure in cementing it – seems a bit dated now, in the sense that no one would any longer find it surprising.  And the

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June 4, 2014 6 Comments

A Mediocre Crop of Provincial Budgets

As you all may remember, we here at HESA Towers like to do an annual round-up of how PSE and student assistance has fared in provincial budgets.  It’s been a bit difficult this year, what with Ontario taking its sweet time to table a budget, and Quebec tabling one in March, but failing to pass it before the election was called.  Since the latest betting is that Quebec won’t actually put a budget together until sometime in July (fully 21

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May 2, 2014 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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