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Category: Internationalization

Who Owns Internationalization?

One of the first things you realize when studying how institutions deal with the process of internationalization is how fragmented authority actually is in Canadian universities – to the point where you sometimes have to wonder whether anyone’s actually in charge of the whole operation. Part of the reason for this fragmentation  is that internationalization isn’t a single activity, but rather a process that affects a whole range of other activities in which universities normally engage.  To the extent that internationalization

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November 26, 2014 1 Comment

The Problem with Global Reputation Rankings

I was in Athens this past June, at an EU-sponsored conference on rankings, which included a very intriguing discussion about the use of reputation indicators that I thought I would share with you. Not all rankings have reputational indicators; the Shanghai (ARWU) rankings, for instance, eschew them completely.  But QS and Times Higher Education (THE) rankings both weight them pretty highly (50% for QS, 35% for THE).  But this data isn’t entirely transparent.  THE, who release their World University Rankings

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September 30, 2014 3 Comments

Arigato, Sayonara

With election night, the World Cup getting under way, and tomorrow being Friday the 13th, it seems like as good a time as any to shut down the blog for the summer – I apologize to those of you who were hoping for one last rant on election results (though you can probably catch my thoughts over on twitter, where my handle is @AlexUsherHESA).  Starting Monday, this blog will be on a once-a-week schedule until August 25th,  when normal daily service will resume.

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June 12, 2014 8 Comments

Crazy Managerial Imperatives Around International Students

One of the weirdest – and I mean totally bat-guano-crazy – things in Canadian higher education is the way recruitment of international students is managed.  Although the image of international student recruitment is often seen simply as a money-spinner for institutions, the fact of the matter is that most institutions aren’t coming close to maximizing revenue from this source.  And that’s not because of any high-minded motives of institutions turning away students they don’t think are suitable for their university

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June 10, 2014 1 Comment

Why (Almost) Everyone Loves International Students (Part 2)

Yesterday, I showed how good international students were for universities’ bottom lines.  But it’s not quite as simple as I made it out to be.  Whether admitting international students makes sense or not depends on four factors: 1)      How much of the income do you get to keep?  In Quebec, international students in “regulated” programs (which include Arts) are worth essentially nothing to institutions because the government claws it all back.  On the other hand, in block-grant provinces (and in Saskatchewan,

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May 8, 2014 5 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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