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Category: History Lesson

The Making of the Modern University

I have spent a godawful amount of time on planes this week, going to Malawi and back for a meeting concerning the African Centres of Excellence project.  It’s given me a lot of time to catch up on reading (two recommendations for African fiction: The Grub Hunter by Amir Tag Elser is good, but Woman of the Ashes by Mia Couto is great).  But one book in particular I thought I should mention to y’all is The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the

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November 22, 2019 1 Comment

Light Weekend Reading

It’s Friday, so I thought I’d skip the heavy stuff and lay out some quick notes on my recent higher ed reads. I’ve been trying to read more about the history of Canadian institutions.  One very short pamphlet-like read is called Hatching the Cowbird’s Egg by David R. Murray, about the origin of the University of Guelph (the title vaguely make sense if you read the whole book; in context it’s a reference to the fact that Guelph is a weirdly

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November 8, 2019 1 Comment

The North American Higher Education Area

There was a fascinating little story last week about a contretemps at the American Association of Universities (AAU), where the executive committee made a controversial decision to expel McGill University and the University of Toronto, largely on the grounds of needing to spend more time focussed on “American issues”. I am sure this would have had an enormous effect on public opinion in Canada (wot, o my god, so nationalist, Trump/nativism gone mad, etc), if anyone in Canada had the

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October 18, 2019 1 Comment

From the Shelves of HESA Towers—Soviet Education

Sometimes, I think back to 40 or 50 years ago and imagine what my job would have been like and I realise it would have been more or less impossible.  My shtick is mostly “the guy in Canada who knows what’s happening elsewhere” – and back then it was practically impossible to know what was going on in other countries.  There were some books, of course, but they were necessarily occasional and tended to touch only on the most basic

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October 4, 2019 2 Comments

Canadian PSE History Through Election Manifestos: the 2010s and a Historical Perspective

This is part five of a five-part series.  Just showing up now?  See Monday (1949-62), Tuesday (63-74), Wednesday (79-93) and Thursday (1997-2011) to catch up. I dwell much on the 2015 election today.  Most of you probably remember it reasonably well, and if you don’t, then you can click on these links to see details on that year’s Liberal platform, Conservative platform, NDP platform, Green platform, the various science platforms and an overall analysis here.    What was maybe a bit surprising in historical perspective about the 2015

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September 27, 2019 No Comments

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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