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Category: Universities

Equity in Athletics

Two weeks ago, the University of Alberta decided to axe its women’s field hockey team. Here’s why that was so… odd: 1) Money wasn’t the issue. The announcement describes the decision as “part of an ongoing review of budget priorities,” but until the moment it happened, no one seemed aware that any teams were under review. And team members say that funding was not even mentioned during the meeting in which players were informed of the decision. 2) It makes

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March 21, 2012 No Comments

Three Years? Four Years?

There’s likely to be a lot of noise about the relative value of three- and four-year Bachelor’s degree programs over the next few weeks, if this leaked government position paper and this Globe and Mail op-ed are anything to go by. Before everyone gets dug in, though, it would be useful to acknowledge a few basic points. If you’re awarding degrees based on time spent in class, then what makes one given length of time intrinsically “better” than another? Degree

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March 6, 2012 6 Comments

The Drummond Report

If you’re from Ontario, you’ll have had yesterday penciled into your calendars, like a trip to the dentist, for weeks. If you’re from outside Ontario, you’re likely at least dimly aware that Premier McGuinty punted the matter of long-term fiscal stabilization to Don Drummond, an ex-Ottawa mandarin, so that his ministers could take to the hustings last fall saying everything was under control when in fact this place is broke, broke, broke. Anyway, Drummond released his report yesterday and it’s

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February 16, 2012 1 Comment

No Disruption Here, Folks

Dear God, save us from Margaret Wente. Someone handed her a copy of Clayton Christensen’s new book and the rest of us got this ludicrous piece of nonsense in our Saturday paper. This has to be the worst meme in higher education this year. I know I’ve gone off on this before, but just to re-iterate: There. Is. No. Great. Disruption. Coming. In. Higher. Education. Period. Yes, there are some very interesting educational experiments going on out there. But does

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February 8, 2012 4 Comments

Distinct Missions

Why are Canadian universities so scared of acting differently from one another?  Why does no one want a niche? I’m not just talking about their cookie-cutter mission statements here, which seem to involve adding the words “research” and “excellence” to the output of a random word generator. I’m talking about the cookie-cutter ways they go about their daily business. In marketing-speak: they have little or no brand personality. It’s not as though cool niche missions are that hard to dream

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January 25, 2012 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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