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Category: Canada

Re: University is on. Are you in?

Hi everyone — pardon the summer interruption, but we’ve got news worth breaking the quiet for. You may recall that earlier this year, we announced something new: a national conference dedicated to helping Canadian universities rethink what they are and what they could be. We called it Re:University. We said it would be the conference that couldn’t have been an email. We meant it. Re:University will take place January 29–30, 2026, in downtown Ottawa. Two full days, bringing together hundreds

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June 26, 2025 No Comments

Summer 2025

So. This is the last blog of the academic year. Service resumes Tuesday, 2 September. It’s been a long year. I’m pretty tired. How about you? This was the year it all kind of came crashing down: not just here in Canda, but everywhere else too. It’s too long to go through and my more faithful readers already know the story. It’s not just in Canada. In France, Australia, and the UK, we saw institutions having similar problems: all these

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June 11, 2025 1 Comment

Effective Graduates

One of the most tiresome debates in post-secondary education is about whether or not students emerge from their studies “job ready”.  To which the answer, of course, is that for the most part they do not. Education – including vocational education – is meant to prepare you for a long career rather than an immediate job.  Training for specific jobs?  That’s usually a job for companies themselves, and the fact that they underinvest in this area – notably by cutting

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June 4, 2025 3 Comments

Code Red on University Autonomy

There is no aspect of university autonomy that is more fundamental – in the British Commonwealth at least — than the right of each institution to select which students it chooses to admit. Along with financial autonomy, staffing autonomy, and financial autonomy (that last one being under increasing pressure these days), the right of institutions to choose which students to teach is fundamental to the Canadian higher education system. At no time in Canadian history has a government ever tried

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June 3, 2025 1 Comment

Last Week in Parliament: Three Takeaways

It was a busy week in Parliament last week.  The King came to Ottawa to deliver a Speech From the Throne.  His speech – almost exclusively a re-hash of Liberal promises from the April election – was deeply depressing for anyone who thinks the words “knowledge economy” have any meaning.    The main feature of the Speech from the Throne was that it spelled out, in excruciating detail, how the Liberals intend to double down on re-creating the Canadian economy

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June 2, 2025 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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