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Category: Institutions

Laurentian Blues (8) Causes, Fault, and Lessons

Good morning.  I had hoped to get you a bit more detail about what has happened at Laurentian in the last few days, but as usual there is less info available than there should be.  Here’s what we know: Late Monday, the university released a list of 69 programs that have been discontinued.  Most of them are programs which have fewer than 30 students (in some cases considerably fewer), and a lot of these programs are in humanities, which is not

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April 15, 2021 15 Comments

Laurentian Blues (7) – The Process

Last week, the Laurentian University Senate met in a bizarre closed-door session to approve a package of cuts, the details of which are still mostly unknown.  On the basis of this, quite a number of people received termination notices at Laurentian University yesterday.  I have not seen any definitive numbers on losses (the university, typical of its entire approach through this crisis, is being crap at communicating actual information), but I have seen estimates of anywhere between 80 and 110

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April 13, 2021 11 Comments

Federated Universities (A kind of Laurentian story)

Morning, everyone.  Apologies for the pause in posting: it’s been a rough few weeks, health-wise.  I am not 100% yet, and blogging might not be 4x per week for a little while, but time to get back in the saddle: there’s too much going on to sit on the sidelines. So, it’s a big day at Laurentian University.  The administration – or at least the tiny portion of if that actually knows what’s going on – has called a super-duper secret

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April 6, 2021 6 Comments

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 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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