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Summertime.  Class is out.  Time for relaxing and writing.

I’ll be shutting down the blog for a few weeks.  Back regularly as of August 27^th, but may post once or twice over the summer in response to any big news or report releases.  You can probably expect one in the next week or two on the subject of student debt, for instance, as the Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium releases its triennial survey of graduating students (which wouldn’t be big news if anyone else in Canada kept track of this stat and published data on it regularly, but there you have it).

Over the summer, like many of you, I’ll be trying to mix re-charging with some serious writing.  HESA has two big freebies coming out this fall, one on Canadian higher education and one on global higher education, and we’re working excitedly on both.  We’re also in the midst of developing some interesting new products to help institutions evaluate new program proposals for labour market relevance, which is tons of fun.  And, of course, I’ll be stocking up on blog posts for next year.

Reading is also high on the agenda, whether on the beach or otherwise.  If you’re looking for a really good higher education read, I’m still pretty high on Jonathan Jansen’s As by Fire: The End of the South African University which is an account of South Africa’s #Rhodesmustfall/#feesmustfall movements from the perspective of a very sympathetic university vice-chancellor, which I reviewed back here.  Also, as you may remember from a 3-parter I wrote a few months ago, summer might be a good time to take a look at Building the Intentional University: Minerva and the Future of Higher Education for inspiration on how to design higher education (if not necessarily practical advice thereon).

There’ll be a little bit of travel, too: St. John’s, Victoria, DC and Bucharest for work next month, as well as a trip to Waskesiu in August for a University of Saskatchewan Board retreat (I believe every university should have retreats at Waskesiu – and if you have not heard of Waskesiu, what is wrong with you?).  For pleasure, I’m hoping to sneak in trips to Atlanta to see Toronto FC in the new football stadium, Detroit to raid John K King’s unbelievable selection of used higher education books and Niagara Falls to indulge my daughter’s love of water slides, Denny’s, and cheesy tourist attractions (if there were sumo in August I’m sure we’d be off to Nagoya or some place like that instead – small mercies).  If you’re in any of those places and want to meet up, drop me a line!  And regardless, try to get out on the road yourself for a bit: good for the soul.

It’s been great fun writing about this crazy, wonderful, maddening sector for the last seven years and a privilege to be part of so many of people’s morning routines.  Thanks for reading!  But I’m always looking improve things.  If you have any suggestions for me on how to make the blog better, please do let me know: you can reach me via alex at higheredstrategy dot com.

A happy and productive summer to one and all.  See you in nine weeks.