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Category: Institutions

Some Thoughts on TA Strikes

At the time of writing (Thursday PM), Teaching Assistant Unions at both the University of Toronto and York University are on strike, as is the union representing sessionals at York.  Since Toronto is indeed “The Centre of the Universe”, I’m sure everyone across the country is just riveted by this news.  At the risk of irritating those readers still further, I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts on the matter. 1)      A lot of people seem to be wondering “why

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March 6, 2015 3 Comments

Rankings in the Middle East

If you follow rankings at all, you’ll have noticed that there is a fair bit of activity going on in the Middle East these days.  US News & World Report and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) both published “Best Arab Universities” rankings last year; this week, the Times Higher Education (THE) produced a MENA (Middle East and North Africa) ranking at a glitzy conference in Doha. The reason for this sudden flurry of Middle East-oriented rankings is pretty clear: Gulf universities have a lot of

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February 25, 2015 2 Comments

Meetings vs. Management

It’s always difficult to make accurate observations about differences in national higher education cultures.  But one thing I can tell you that is absolutely not true is the perception that Canadian universities are suffering under some kind of unprecedented managerialist regime.  If anything, Canadian academics are among the least managed employees in the entire world; When academics complain of over-management, they aren’t using that term in a way that workers in other fields would recognize.  They are not, for instance,

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February 13, 2015 6 Comments

Funding Universities’ Research Role

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a series of pieces looking at the economics of teaching loads; specifically, I was focussed on the relationship between per-student funding and the teaching loads required to make universities self-sustaining.  I had a number of people write to me saying, in effect, “what about research?” Good question. The quick answer is that in provinces with explicit enrolment-driven funding formula (e.g. Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia), governments are not in fact paying universities to do

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February 9, 2015 1 Comment

It’s Not Just Demographics

The Council of Ontario Universities (COU) released an amusingly defensive press release last month, just after the high school applications deadline.  After a glancing acknowledgment that applications to university are down in the province for the second year in a row, we are earnestly told: DEMOGRAPHICS!  APPLICATIONS WAY UP IF YOU USE 2000 AS A BASE YEAR!  JOBS!  DEMOGRAPHICS!  MORE JOBS!  DID WE MENTION DEMOGRAPHICS? I guess COU views itself as a prophylactic against negative press coverage that secondary school applicants

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February 5, 2015 5 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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