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Category: Governance

Same But Different (Part 1)

One of the challenges I find in doing comparative higher education work is that because everyone in the field went to university, they think they know what a university is.  But the fact is universities around the world are different: they are run on different logics; they aspire to do different things and hence can have differing operational processes.  Making useful comparisons, or trying to infer motives for institutional actions in other countries, can be very difficult. One of the

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November 2, 2021 1 Comment

Don’t Mention the Monsters

Lawrence Freedman’s Strategy: A History is a useful (if lengthy) book if for whatever reason you are thinking about going into a strategic planning process.  It traces the history of the concept of strategy through its initial application in the military, then through politics, and eventually – post World War II – into the world of business.  Along the way it continually asks the question “what is strategy, anyway”, before eventually landing on a definition which is basically around leveraging strengths to

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October 25, 2021 2 Comments

Governance and Budgeting

Last week, I wrote a piece about how most Canadian universities seem to have come through the pandemic financially unscathed or even a little bit better off.  Briefly, universities pulled back on the spending in expectation of a collapse in revenues and then the collapse never really happened.  Result: higher surpluses. Let’s just say the reactions to this piece were…heartfelt.   And they often involved some combination of the adjective “lying”, and the nouns “tightwad”, “bastard” and “admins”.  To the extent

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October 12, 2021 No Comments

Focus

On Friday, Newfoundland’s Premier Andrew Furey ruffled some feathers at Memorial (now officially “the Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador”, so no more calling it MUN, please).   In trying to explain what he intended to do with respect to the “Big Reset’s” recommendation of a 30% cut in grants without actually saying anything of substance, he stated: Memorial University has to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up…It has amazing potential, and it too is at a crossroads, of

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May 17, 2021 1 Comment

Vision and Mission

To Hamilton, where McMaster University has released a new vision statement.  To be honest, I am not sure I have ever seen a vision statement quite like it: not only is it detached from any kind of strategic planning exercise I am aware of (from whence vision statements usually spring), but it is also more or less unparalleled as an assault on the English language.  Here it is: “Impact, Ambition and Transformation through Excellence, Inclusion and Community: Advancing Human and

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March 2, 2021 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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