Two mini thoughts today rather than one long one. But they are both ideas which I think deserve to be taken more seriously than they currently are.

Mergers that Make Sense

You may recall that a few months ago, I skewered the idea that institutional mergers were a useful path to take for the purpose of cutting costs. But the more I have been thinking about it, there may be a pretty good case—at least in a few places—of mergers for the purpose of innovation.

Recall my observation (based on a number of international studies) that the worst kind of mergers were ones where there were significant overlaps in programming, and the best kind were ones that joined together complementary but non-overlapping sets of programs. The thing is that in Canada, there aren’t many obvious candidates for university mergers with those conditions. Most universities are “comprehensive” in the subjects covered, and it’s really hard to find examples of genuine complementarity.

But…what if we didn’t limit the hunt for mergers to universities? What if we contemplated the idea of mashing together colleges and universities?

We have some successful examples of this in Canada. Guelph-Humber has been an interesting experiment. And places like MacEwan University, Yukon University, or Kwantlen Polytechnic University all might have the word “university” in their name, but they all, to some degree, are still delivering quite a lot of sub-degree programming. Why not more of it?

The main benefits, I would think, would be to create new programming, more quickly, in those emerging fields which have not entirely found a home on one side or the other of the college-university divide. What would happen if you plugged metalworking and other kinds of trades programs side-by-side with some serious materials scientists? Probably you’d get programming that looks a lot like some of the high-end programs for which SAIT gets praised to the skies. What about putting together university and college business programs? My guess is you’d get a strong uptick in high-quality/short-duration programs, and programs like the “degree apprenticeships” which are popular at UK and Irish universities these days. And on and on. Possibilities for new, nimble, relevant programming are plentiful if not endless.

There would be bellyaching, of course. Some university professors would turn their noses up at working with “mere” colleges; and while many on the college side might quite like to be at a degree-granting institutions, they might be equally reluctant to give up the tradition of dynamism and flexibility associated the word “college” to become part of something with the word “university” in its title. While acknowledging all that, I think the examples listed above show that some movement in this area is possible.

But think about it. Why not hive off bits of Carleton and bits of Algonquin College to make a new institution? Or parts of UT Mississauga with either Sheridan or Humber? UT Scarborough with Centennial? St. Clair and Windsor? Red River College and the University of Winnipeg? You get the idea: you could create merged institutions, or, like Guelph-Humber, you could create new “alliance” institutions which run separately alongside their two parent organizations for the purpose of coming up with some specific niche programming. 

I realize the likelihood of any of this is pretty low because most institutions are hunkered down and inward-looking right now, and provincial governments are obsessed with cost savings and not innovation/quality improvement. But I think any government that used a small amount of money to incentivize a little bit of inter-institutional matchmaking in the name of greater relevance and quality could probably get some big wins in this space. Of course, they’d have to prioritize quality and relevance over penny-pinching in the first place, but hope springs eternal. 

Year-Round Campuses

One of the things that frustrates policymakers more than anything else about universities is their, shall we say, somewhat inconsistent use of physical plant. Why are universities basically closed four months of the year, they ask? Why can’t we keep the places open all year round and maximize our investment?

To some extent, this argument is rooted in bad faith and/or ignorance. There is a fair bit of teaching going on in May and June, governments need students to take the summer off to work at least as much as institutions do (the student aid implications of not doing so would be pretty immense), and one small benefit to low summer usage is that at least some parts of university capital wears out less quickly than it otherwise would. Nevertheless, there is a certain force to the critique that, at the very least, it’s not a good look to have so much stuff lying empty for so much of the year.

I don’t know what is stopping institutions from being better at this. Yes, it’s a big ask, mainly with respect to collective agreements, which make more flexible working arrangements more difficult. But in principle, this needn’t be an area where management and labour are on opposite sides. I suspect there are a fair few faculty who would appreciate the ability to take on more teaching if asked (for appropriate overload pay, of course), and equally quite a few who wouldn’t mind having the option of switching their schedule so as to take their break in winter rather than summer. 

(I think a bigger ask would be to get profs teaching evenings and weekends, another important set of downtimes. Comparatively speaking, I suspect that moving to a trimester system is an easier lift.)

And as for students, the ones in whose name ostensibly we shut everything down so they can earn money? Well, fully one-third of all students do not work in the summer. In fact, the employment rate of students in the summer is essentially the same as students during the rest of the year, at between 60 and 70% (though student hours in the summer tend to be higher). I am pretty sure a decent number of students would trade some work hours in summer for the opportunity to get through their programs faster. Enough, certainly, that giving a year-round academic calendar is worth a try.

What is perhaps most difficult to envisage is how to pull off something along these lines for an entire campus, because whole-of-campus initiatives that involve academic affairs are always a nightmare. But this is one of those things that is probably best phased in over a few years. Incentivize one or two faculties to give it a try. Let them figure out what works and what doesn’t and let them act as sherpa to others in the institution. One year to plan, one year to pilot, one year to generalize, and if all goes well, then by the time year four starts, you’ve got the whole institution on a new schedule. Maybe not Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy, but not Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult either.