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Category: Universities

One In, One Out

I had a discussion a few months ago with a government official who was convinced she knew what was wrong with universities.  “They have no discipline,” she said.  “They just go out and create new programs all the time with no thought as to what the cost implications are or what the labour market implications are, and so costs just keep going up and up.” I told her she was only half right.  It’s absolutely true that universities have no discipline when it

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January 25, 2016 6 Comments

Management in Universities

In organizations, people work in teams, but teams work effectively is difficult: this is what management is for.  It doesn’t always work well, but efficient management – making teams work together smarter, faster, and better – is the key to organizational success, whether you are in the private, public, or non-profit sectors. Universities, of course, are an exception. OK, not entirely.  Every university has units that must act as a team in order to deliver results.  Bookstores, admissions offices, physical

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January 12, 2016 3 Comments

Why Class Size Matters (Up to a Point)

At the outset of the MOOC debate about four years ago, there was a line of argument that went something like this: MOOC Enthusiast:  These MOOCs are great.  Now the classroom is not a barrier.  Now we can teach hundreds of thousands of students at a time!  Quel efficiency! Not MOOC Enthusiast:  They’re just videos.  They can’t give you the same human touch as an in-class experience with a professor. MOOC Enthusiast: How’s that human touch going for you in the 1,000-person intro class? To which there was

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January 11, 2016 6 Comments

Innovation Buzzword Bingo

Morning all.  Regular service will pushed back one week to January 10th, but I couldn’t let the Globe op-ed “Southern Ontario Should be an Innovation Cluster, Not a Farm Team” by three Ontario university presidents (McMaster’s Patrick Deane, Toronto’s Meric Gertler, and Waterloo’s Feridun Hamdullahpur) go without comment. The article reads like someone set out to fill a buzzword bingo card.  Words like “supercluster”, “resilient”, “enhancing interaction”, “external connectivity”, “cluster-building infrastructure”, and “entrepreneurship ecosystem” all duly make an appearance; hell, there’s even a

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January 4, 2016 6 Comments

Who Are the U-15, Exactly?

Over the last few years, two new players have been introduced into the Ottawa higher education lobbying ecosystem.  One is Polytechnics Canada – essentially, the country’s largest, most technologically sophisticated, and most research intensive colleges; the other is the U-15 – essentially the country’s largest, most technologically sophisticated, and most research intensive universities.  For a variety of reasons, both of these new players have had a pretty good run in Ottawa, lately. Certainly, in the the U-15’s case, it’s often seemed like the

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December 9, 2015 2 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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