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Category: Universities

The Universities of Imperial China

Today kicks-off Chinese New Year, and so I wanted to devote some time to the subject of higher education in the People’s Republic of China.  Given the immensity of the topic, the usual one-off, “Better Know a Higher Ed System” piece seemed inadequate – hence, I’ve written a series of posts, which I’ll be publishing over the next 15 days (the duration of Lunar New Year celebrations).  Enjoy. *** China is one of the few places in the world that

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January 31, 2014 2 Comments

Students Always Get Hurt

There’s a strike on at UNB.  I won’t get into the ins and outs of it because both sides have kept bargaining positions pretty close to their chests, and so it’s hard to say if one side or the other is being unreasonable.  The administration, presumably, will want to make sure that a wage settlement doesn’t entirely eat up all new revenue (which, as I showed back here, might well be the case).  Staff will presumably want wage increases similar

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January 17, 2014 2 Comments

The Listening Tour

There’s a little management technique gaining some traction called the “Listening Tour”.  In the US, over the past eighteen months, new Presidents at Carnegie Mellon and James Madison have used this to inaugurate their terms.  At Princeton, new President (and erstwhile Provost) Chris Eisgruber decided to embark on an entire “Year of Listening”, though why he needs a whole year when he’s been provost for the past nine is unclear.  Here at home, the pioneer of this is new Dalhousie

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January 15, 2014 8 Comments

Better Know a Higher Ed System: Chile

Chile has a very diverse higher education sector, and has been subject to a lot of policy experimentation in recent years.  That makes it a case to watch, both regionally and globally. Prior to the 1973 coup, Universidad de Chile was the country’s pre-eminent school, with campuses across the country.  But academia didn’t fare so well under Pinochet, as there were waves of arrests, exiles, and, in some cases, executions.  All of this meant that, on occasion, whole departments suddenly

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January 10, 2014 2 Comments

The Salaries Problem

I’ve made a few key points over the last couple of days: 1)      Canadian Universities will be lucky if they keep being able to increase their incomes by 3% per year, holding enrolments constant. 2)      The kinds of salary settlements we have seen recently at Canadian universities, if allowed to continue, will eat up easily 70-80% of that income, maybe more, leaving precious little left over for IT, infrastructure, etc. 3)      It’s not a problem of administrative bloat.  The ratio of academic salaries

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January 9, 2014 8 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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