Okay, so Canadian higher education is pretty cautious and risk-averse, and so perhaps the bar for calling something a ‘revolution” is pretty low. But everyone needs to take a look at what has been going on at Concordia this year, because if what has been happening there were to spread widely, I think you genuinely could call it a revolution. It’s big, bold, and has the potential to alter for the better some of the basic underpinnings of universities’ financial models.
Concordia is one of the institutions which has been hit hardest by government hackery in the past couple of years. Obviously, there was the financial crunch brought on not only by the federal Liberals’ insouciant vandalizing of the international student visa program. But there was also a series of moves taken by the CAQ government in Quebec, to wit:
- Cutting base budgets to all institutions in Quebec by 8% in real terms over the past 5 years.
- Clawed back much of extra income institutions earn via differential tuition from international students.
- Requiring institutions to charge – but not retain, since the extra marginal revenue goes to the province – significantly higher fees to out-of-province Canadian students.
The first of these measures hit all Quebec institutions equally, but the latter two did not. Concordia was disproportionately affected by the international student decision because it had a high international student population, and, also disproportionately affected by the out-of-province students policy because it was neither as rich as McGill (which could offer offsetting bursaries to incoming students) nor as cute and fuzzy as Bishop’s (which did a whole Puss in Boots-eyes routine and got itself a deal exempting itself from the policy).
In sum, Concordia found itself in a pretty nasty financial bind – that is, a deficit to the tune of about $70 million with income of $610 million – with a round of bargaining with most of its unions, including full- and part-time faculty, in the offing. Concordia’s finances were at the point where the institution wasn’t just unable to go higher than 0%, it wasn’t even really able to afford the normal step increases without having to cutback elsewhere.
So, what to do? Well, the first step was to get the campus community on the same page with respect to the nature, causes, and severity of the financial crisis. This is a step that fartoo many institutions skip over. Putting a VP Finance or a Provost in front of a mic and saying “things are terrible, trust us” is not the way to get people to accept the need for shared sacrifice. No, building trust on finances is something which a) is very time-consuming and b) is intensely political. Concordia hit this head on, with their Provost Faye Diamantoudi and President Graham Carr fanning out to make dozens of presentations across the institution, mainly at the departmental level. These were long presentations, with lots of data and plenty of time for questions. A financial liaison committee, which meets periodically and allows unions to ask questions about institutional financial decisions, was also created, thus increasing trust within the organization.
What all of this achieved was two things: first, a broadly-shared understanding that the institution was in real financial trouble, and second, an alignment on a shared belief that what the institution needed was a lot of new fee-paying students, fast. And thus were born the two strands of the Concordia revolution.
The first strand was financial. Four unions, including the full-time faculty union, agreed to a rollover of the existing agreement, with three provisos.
- No annual increases and no annual step increases (yes, you are reading that correctly).
- If the institution hits a specific total revenue threshold for the 2026-27 financial year, then the step increase for this year will be paid retroactively.
- If the institution hits a second, higher total revenue, then 32% of funds above that threshold – a proportion equivalent to the full-time faculty’s salaries as a share of total expenditures – will be funnelled back towards faculty, half in the form of salary increases, and half in the form of increased hiring.
Folks, this is amazing. An actual revenue-sharing agreement between management and staff. A mere fourteen years after I proposed it back here, but better late than never. The principle here is excellent: be conservative in initial estimates but be liberal in sharing the benefits of collective success.
In itself, this development would be worthy of note and celebration, but what I think makes things more interesting is the second strand of the Concordia Revolution, which had to do with accelerating how programs get developed and approved. At Concordia, like a lot of universities, this process looked something like this.
- Home department proposes a new program.
- A committee of faculty councils recommends to faculty council.
- Faculty council approves.
- If it’s a graduate program, a committee of the School of Graduate Studies makes a recommendation to the Graduate School Council.
- Grad School Council approves.
- Some kind of sub-committee of Senate approves.
- Senate approves.
And, of course, this is all done sequentially at meetings of committees and councils that may only meet a couple of times per term, and at any point can be set back to the previous level for more consultation. It’s a total nightmare and also the precise reason why universities are seen as slow, finicky, and resistant to change, particularly as the pace of technological change is making it even harder to keep curricular offerings fresh and relevant.
Remember, though, that part of the alignment generated by the budget consultations was around the urgent need for more students. Failure in recruitment means no raises, so everyone at Concordia is now aligned on the need to get more students through the door, quickly. And that meant finding many new programs to offer, often in new formats, in a very short space of time. In such a situation, the standard university program-approval procedure was the enemy and needed to be reformed.
Now, the province of Quebec has a very detailed process for approving new degrees. No way to shorten that process. But there are a whole lot of programs which are not degrees which can simply be approved by the institution itself by whatever process it wants. The two ends of the process – the Department and the Senate – can’t sensibly or legally be altered. But the middle three or five steps are basically optional. So, here’s what Concordia did. First, it got the Faculty and Graduate School Councils to delegate approval power to their committees, which reduced the steps from 3 (or 5 if a graduate program) to just 2 (or 3). Second, it made approval of new programs by the committees simultaneous rather than sequential. And third, it opened the door to allowing committees to comment upon and approve programs on a continuing basis (i.e. no waiting for an-in person committee meeting, everything can be done electronically). Not all committees have chosen to take up that third reform, but nevertheless this trio of measures has allowed 34 new degree and non-degree programs to be approved in the first half of 2026.
It’s too early to declare this new system a success. We won’t know new enrolment numbers until later this fall and we won’t have full financial results for the current fiscal year until early next year. It might not work. But, boy, it sure looks promising. And, possibly a model for many other to follow. Bravo, Concordia.
