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Category: Governance

Full Participation

The Memorial University of Newfoundland Faculty Association (MUNFA) is on strike.  The strike seems not primarily about salaries (the two sides are not that far apart, 16% over 4 years vs 12% over 4 years plus a signing bonus) and only a bit about post-employment benefits (management wants to funnel new staff into a somewhat less generous pension plan).  Rather, if you follow many of the strikers online, you’ll see that the big rallying call is for “collegial governance”. Now,

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February 1, 2023 4 Comments

Another Suspect ANSUT Report

The Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers (ANSUT) recently released a report entitled A Culture of Entitlement, which purports to analyze the increase of executive salaries versus those of academic staff.  It’s being used as a rallying cry among several faculty unions which are either already (Cape Breton) or about to go (Saint Mary’s) on strike and is very much worth a read even if – as I show below – there are some major problems with the analysis. Readers

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January 31, 2023 1 Comment

Cross-Subsidies

One of the most important but least-acknowledged subjects in higher education management and finance is internal cross-subsidies.  So today, I‘m going to demystify it, and then consider how higher education institutions can be more transparent about them. Let’s start with costs per student because that is a bit easier to understand.  Not every student in every class costs the same to educate.  Broadly speaking, for each course or course section, there is a labour cost and a materials cost.  Labour

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January 16, 2023 2 Comments

Because it’s 2023

Morning everyone and welcome back.  I want to alert everyone to a bit of a shift in the way the team here at HESA Towers is handling the blog.  As you know, we have been trialing a podcast these last few weeks (there’s a great one with Alma Maldonado-Maldonado of Mexico’s CINEVSTAV this Thursday).  Later this month, the podcast format will change a bit and become a regular weekly feature focusing specifically on global higher education.  The regular blog will

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January 9, 2023 2 Comments

Sayonara 2022

Morning all.  This is the final blog of 2022: service resumes January 9th.  When I do a send-off blog, it’s worth thinking about the year past and asking: what should we remember about this year and what do we expect from the year ahead? To my mind, there are really two big stories from 2022.  The first has to do with Laurentian University, which was still the scene of considerable intrigue as evidence gradually mounted that its then-President, Robert Haché,

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December 8, 2022 3 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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