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Category: Canada

What Could Still Derail Fall 2021

Some of you doubted me – a few of you quite vocally –  when I suggested campuses would be able to open in-person for Fall 2021.  Now, it should be clear that with more vaccines being approved, accelerated deliveries of already-approved vaccines and the decision to permit up to four months between jabs, that pretty much anyone in the country who wants one will receive the first dose of the vaccine by June and most will have a second before

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March 9, 2021 1 Comment

Laurentian Blues (6) – The Model

Most of what we know about the Laurentian affair suggests that it is sui generis, but some people insist on turning it into an exemplar of broader trend: not so much a “who’s next” as a “there but for the grace of God go all of us” (or, as a recent podcast had it: is Laurentian the “canary in the nickel mine”?).  Basically, this argument suggests that Laurentian is not really at fault, but rather a victim of “the Ontario

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March 8, 2021 5 Comments

A Very Canadian Innovation Proposal

If you let any conversation about innovation policy go on long enough, the story of DARPA (the Defence Advance Research Projects Agency, known as ARPA until 1972, and, weirdly, between 1993 and 1996) will likely come up, usually in a form so tortured that it is unrecognizable from the real thing.  This matters because the Business Council of Canada has just backed the idea of a Canadian DARPA as a solution to the country’s innovation woes.  This is, I think, a bad idea,

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March 3, 2021 3 Comments

The Alberta Budget

Everything you need to know about last Thursday’s horror show in a handy Q&A session. Q: What’s the damage this time? A: I swear to God I do not understand how the province of Alberta explains anything financial.  The University of Alberta claimed the system-wide cut was $126 million, the Globe and Mail said it was $135 million.  I count the cut to operating institutions as being $175 million if you use the 20-21 budget as a base, and $142 million

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March 1, 2021 4 Comments

New Strategy in Manitoba

To Winnipeg, where the provincial government suddenly seems to be taking postsecondary education seriously.  Yes, recent years haven’t been great – a vindictive Premier ousting a fantastic college President because he used to work for the NDP, or mooting a cut in post-secondary finances so nonsensical that even the Province’s overwhelmingly Tory business community told the government to get real, thus forcing a U-Turn.  But now the government seems to be heading down a different path.  For starters, it has pulled postsecondary education out

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February 18, 2021 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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