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Category: Policy

EDI and the Measurement of Merit

Across most of the world, the concept of academic merit tends to get operationalized as “best at passing a certain test taken by a limited group of people at a certain point in time.” A competition, in other words. For young people, it tends to involve passing an exam or set of exams, be they the American SAT, the Chinese gaokao, the Indian JEET, the French baccalauréat, etc. For aspiring professors, the competition is a little more subjective in the sense that

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March 25, 2025 2 Comments

HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (March 16, 2025)

Spotlight Wow. It’s already been a week since AI-CADEMY, and I’m still hung up on all the vibrant discussions that happened in Calgary, the insights shared by all, and the palpable eagerness to learn and collaborate. If you haven’t already, make sure to read Alex’s Wednesday blog for a quick summary (and if you attended, there are more post-event follow-ups coming your way soon) – but on a more personal note, I want to express how much of a privilege

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March 16, 2025 No Comments

Liberal Leadership Platforms

As you may have noticed, there’s a Liberal leadership vote on, with results to be announced this weekend. The conceit of today’s blog is that anyone might want to vote for a leader based on actual policy platforms rather than “electability,” so buckle up and see what it is that an improbably fourth Liberal victory might mean. So, let’s start by looking at how the leadership candidates’ platforms shape up at the broad level. All of them want to talk

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March 4, 2025 1 Comment

Nova Scotia’s Bill 12

Just before I went on break last week, the government of Nova Scotia introduced a new bill into the legislature, Bill 12, An Act Respecting Advanced Education and Research. It quickly became apparent that this bill had not been discussed with any way shape or form with anyone in the postsecondary community, which generally spells bad news. It also appeared to have come not from the Minister’s office, but from the Premier’s which again generally suggests if not bad news then

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March 4, 2025 No Comments

What People Get Wrong about the New CCAA Law

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Justin Trudeau’s record. A couple of people wrote in to chide me that I had not included the passage last year of Bill 59, a piece of omnibus legislation which among other things prevents postsecondary education institutions from using the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA). I know a lot of professors—and perhaps more importantly, faculty unions and their provincial/national associations—think that this was a “Good Thing” because “Look What Happened at Laurentian.” To

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February 5, 2025 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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