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Tag: United States

The Listening Tour

There’s a little management technique gaining some traction called the “Listening Tour”.  In the US, over the past eighteen months, new Presidents at Carnegie Mellon and James Madison have used this to inaugurate their terms.  At Princeton, new President (and erstwhile Provost) Chris Eisgruber decided to embark on an entire “Year of Listening”, though why he needs a whole year when he’s been provost for the past nine is unclear.  Here at home, the pioneer of this is new Dalhousie

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January 15, 2014 8 Comments

Faculty Salary Data You Should Probably Ignore

Recently, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) published a comparison of American and Canadian academics’ salaries.  Using Canada’s National Household Survey (NHS) and the US Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey (which they described as being not quite apples-to-apples, but at least Macintosh-to-Granny Smith), they noted that average salaries for the combined college-and-university instructor population (the OES cannot disaggregate below that level) were $76,000.  In Canada, the figure was $65,000.  Hence, according to them, with the dollar at par, there is

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October 22, 2013 7 Comments

Cultural Determinants of Data Acquisition Costs

I saw a fascinating piece in the New York Times awhile back.  It was about a trend at American universities, asking applicants if they were gay or not.  Apparently, these institutions believe that by asking students this question, they are sending a message that they are a gay-positive environment. Interesting. Americans think that transparency about identity is the path to utopia.  Enrolment statistics by race?  They’ve got them.  Indeed, they are required to keep such statistics, because of a clutch of laws

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September 19, 2013 3 Comments

Financing Canadian Universities: A Self-Inflicted Wound (Part 5)

We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last few days.  Back on Tuesday, we asked the question why faculty-student ratios could fall by 20% over two decades when per-student income had jumped by 40% over the same period.  The best way to sum up the answer is with the following graph: Changes in Total and Operating Income per Student, Academic Salary Mass, and Student-Teacher Ratios, Indexed to 1992               The top line is

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September 13, 2013 5 Comments

So, This Obama Plan, Then (Part 2)

To recap yesterday’s blog: President Obama has a plan to make colleges reduce their costs, and deliver better value for money.  It involves having the government rate institutions on Accessibility, Affordability, and Outcomes; those which rate poorly risk losing eligibility for various forms of federal student aid (which, in total, is up around $150 billion/year these days). While there’s no question that college costs do need to be reined in, this particular solution strikes me as odd.  Here’s what you

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August 30, 2013 No 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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