• Harper’s attack on science: No science, no evidence, no truth, no democracy

  • Contempt for values: The controversy over Library and Archives Canada’s Code of Conduct

  • Good government and Statistics Canada: The need for true independence

  • The MOOC bubble and the attack on public education

  • The evolution of freedom of information in Ontario: From reactive to proactice disclosure

  • Canada’s universities and the loss of UCASS data: Scrambling for an alternative

Blog Posts

Where have all the academics gone?

Graeme Stewart

Writing in today’s Ottawa Citizen, Lawrence Martin observes that Canada’s academic are “missing in action“. That is, almost totally silent on the critical issues facing the country- everything from the “declining state of our parliamentary democracy” to the tepid response to the Federal Government’s muzzling of federal scientists and starvation of key research institutions (for more on this, check out Carol Linnitt’s scathing indictment of the Harper Government’s attack on science).

Martin’s point is a good one. …

Reflections on the CSSHE Annual Conference: Good, but more policy, please?

This past week, Academic Matters was fortunate to attend the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. As a magazine dedicated to higher education issues, we were particularly interested to attend the sessions of the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE), held between June 2nd and June 6th.

The sessions were quite good, featuring a lot of insight for student affairs professionals and those interested in teaching a learning. However, as with past years, …

Harper and the “dumbing down” of Canadian society

Erica Rayment

It’s almost like we planned it!

But even though we didn’t, the micro-lecture roundtable discussion sponsored jointly by the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) and the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) provided a perfect venue for scholars in a range of fields to address some of the themes that were raised in the most recent issue of Academic Matters. And it would seem this is a topic that piques people’s interest and incites serious concern for academics – attendees at the …

Conference Board of Canada announces skills and post-secondary education project

Erica Rayment

There seems to be a recurring theme in discussions about post-secondary education policy – we talk a lot about big ideas (innovation, productivity, quality, the list goes on) but have a hard time getting consensus on what we actually mean by these terms.

When it comes to the conversation about skills training and post-secondary education, though, the folks at the Conference Board of Canada are trying to make things easier by providing us with a clear but intentionally broad definition …

100 cups of coffee every minute…

It’s an eye-catching stat, but understandable when you consider it refers to the rate of caffeine consumption at the 2013 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences.   Put 7,100 academics in one place, and you’re bound to run through an impressive amount of coffee.

But the big stats don’t stop there – 1,800 sessions, 500 volunteers, and 70 academic associations are all part of Congress 2013 at the beautiful University of Victoria. Academic Matters is here to experience …

Sometimes it feels like we’re standing on a battlefied

Graeme Stewart

Military metaphors are tired, no question. Orwell cautions that we should never use clichés that we are accustomed to seeing in print, as they will “construct your sentences for you—even think your thoughts for you.” But with all respect to George— one of the clearest, if not greatest, prose writers of the 20th century— sometimes an old cliché is the best way to describe what’s going on.

The truth is that academia is under attack. Not by a single aggressor, …

“Universities need to innovate, but put down the sledgehammer”

Over on the Inside Agenda Blog, there is an excellent piece by Emmett Macfarlane, a professor at the University of Waterloo. In it, he explains that there is a need for universities to be innovative, but that the current proposals for change (such as MOOCs or teaching-only institutions) are not the panaceas they are made out to be. Moreover, the currently monologue around university reform ignores the great deal of innovation already occurring within our universities:

The biggest problem

…

More on bad Ontario/California comparisons

Graeme Stewart

Ken Snowdon has released a paper that echoes our criticisms about Ian Clark’s recent article advocating “California Style”differentiation in Ontario. OCUFA, our publisher, has the complete document and a short summary.

Snowdon’s analysis reveals several facts that should give policy-makers pause before they rush to emulate California: Clark’s analysis is a bad case of “apples-to-oranges” comparisons; there is little evidence that California’s system is any cheaper per student, or any better in terms of outcomes; and invalid comparisons of …

The perils of California Dreamin’ in higher education

Graeme Stewart

Writing in the National Post, Ian Clark argues that emulating California’s higher education system will increase the productivity and efficiency of Ontario’s universities. No doubt, this is an idea that will appeal to some, but the rest of us should be cautious in accepting his conclusions.

Clark, along with David Trick and Richard Van Loon, have built a bit of a cottage industry around diagnosing the ailments of Ontario’s universities and suggesting ways to cure them. Their work, expressed …

“Hello, Professor Penfold? It’s the fiscal crisis calling.”

Steve Penfold

By the time this column is published, I will have no telephone in my office. It turns out that phones are really expensive, and with so many alternatives—from iPads to Blackberries and email to social media —there was no sense holding on to anachronistic nineteenth century technologies.

So don’t expect any heroic resistance from me. I’m not about to chain myself to my telephone, singing Woody Guthrie songs and quoting Martin Luther King while campus police try to talk me …

The November issue of Academic Matters is now live!

Graeme Stewart

The great medieval universities – Paris, Bologna, Oxford – were places far removed from the tribulations of daily life. Under the protection of the Church, scholars were free to pursue knowledge for its own sake without interference from the city fathers. They lived in near-literal ivory towers, soaring above the concerns of kings and peasants alike.

This separation could not last. First in Scotland, then in France, and then with Humboldt’s bold reforms to German universities, the academy began to …

Why not have mandatory “toolbox” training?

In a recent meeting with a number of teaching-minded colleagues, one made what – to me – sounded like a rather innocent remark. She suggested that perhaps all new faculty should be required to attend a course about good teaching practices before they begin planning their first courses. Her suggestion was met with an uncomfortable quiet and when I asked others about it afterwards I was informed that this issue was a political hot potato of a sort. Why, because …

Speak, Listen, Think, Repeat …

Steve Joordens

Hey all,

Please allow me to introduce myself!  I’m Steve Joordens and, like many of you, I’m afraid I have become addicted to improving myself as an educator.  Along the way I have written some articles here on Academic Matters, and for reasons perhaps only they understand, the powers that be have asked if might consider becoming a regular blogger.  While blogging is new to me, spewing my opinions is not!  So I thought I would begin by laying out …

Canada’s Self-Imposed Crisis in Post-Secondary Education

Nick Falvo

On June 7, I gave a keynote address to the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees Education Sector Conference.  My PowerPoint presentation (with full references) can be found at this link.

Points I raised in the address include the following:

-Canada’s economy has been growing quite steadily over the past three decades, even when one adjusts for inflation, and even when one accounts for population growth. The exceptions, of course, occur during recessions.

-Yet, since the early 1980s, the federal government …

My Professorial ‘Eureka’ Moment

Steve Penfold

I remember the exact moment when I realized that I really am a professor. It wasn’t when I got hired, that’s for sure. I assumed that was a clerical error, so I spent six months waiting for an “Oops, we’re sorry” email (“We meant to hire that smart guy named Fenhold”). It wasn’t when I showed up to start the job either. It took me at least a year to stop glancing around before I entered my office, figuring that …

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Harper’s attack on science: No science, no evidence, no truth, no democracy

By Carol Linnitt

Science—and the culture of evidence and inquiry it supports—has a long relationship with democracy. Widely available facts have long served as a check on political power. Attacks on science, and on the ability of scientists to communicate freely, are ultimately attacks on democratic governance.

It’s no secret the Harper government has a problem with science. In fact, Canada’s scientists are so frustrated with this government’s recent overhaul of scientific communications policies and cuts to research programs they took to the …

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Are the Stars Aligned? Will Canada finally create an international education strategy?

By Roopa Desai Trilokekar & Glen A. Jones

In its 2011 budget, the Government of Canada announced an allocation of $10 million over a two year period for the development and launching of Canada’s first international education strategy.  To achieve this goal, it struck an Advisory Panel of six experts who produced an extremely comprehensive, strategic, and expansive report in August 2012.  The report, entitled International Education: A Key Driver of Canada’s Future Prosperity, provides recommendations organized under five core themes: targets for success, policy coordination and …

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Behind the Green Square: Why Many Students Opposed the Strike

By Arielle Grenier

Check out Martin Robert’s support of the student strike. This article has been translated from the original French. Read the French version here.

On March 30, 2011, Quebec Minister of Finance, Raymond Bachand, announced that students would have to pay more for their university education, and that the funding of universities would require a greater contribution from students. Following this announcement, Quebec student associations decided to speak for all students, as if magically all students were of the …

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Equality of Opportunity, Equality of Means: An Argument for Low Tuition and the Student Strike

By Daniel Weinstock

Read Jacob T. Levy’s take on this issue here.

Political philosophers have taken in recent years to distinguishing between “ideal theory” and “nonideal theory.” As I understand the distinction, the former has to do with the way we think that political institutions ought to be, were they to embody our preferred values perfectly. The latter pertains to the choices that we ought to make on specific issues of real-world political morality, given that our institutions are as they are—that is, …

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The Quiet Campus: The Anatomy of Dissent at Canadian Universities

By Ken Coates

The remarkable—a word that can be read in many different ways—2012 student protests in Quebec have stirred memories of the activist campuses of yesteryear. For faculty members introduced to the academy in the era of student activism, anti-Vietnam War protests, and general social unrest, the recent quietude of the Canadian university system has been disturbing. Universities had been transformed in the 1960s from comfortable retreats into agents of intellectual foment, social change, and political action. For a time, it appeared …

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Final Observations of Canadian University Rankings: A Misadventure Now Over Two Decades Long

By Stewart Page, Ph.D

In November, 2012, Maclean’s published its  21st annual rankings of Canadian universities. Indeed, the ranking of universities has become a popular exercise with which to assess and promote higher education in North America. The ranking approach is similar to that used by publications such as Consumer Reports, in which goods or services are assigned scores based on rational parameters, and then assigned relative rank standings. Rankings of universities continue to be advertised annually as required reading for prospective students …

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The High Cost of Low Tuition in Quebec

By Jacob T. Levy

Read Daniel Weinstock’s take on this issue.

At this writing, the student unions’ boycott of classes in Quebec has ended in success. The boycott precipitated an early election that brought down Jean Charest’s PLQ government. His defense of higher tuition and his stand against the student unions—excessive and illiberal though it became— almost certainly helped him in the polls; the boycott was never popular among voters. Perhaps it even saved his party from the third-place finish and subsequent death spiral …

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Not Another Brick in the Wall: Capitalism and Student Protests in Chile

By Andrés Bernasconi

A few days ago, I visited a high school in a poor urban area in Western Santiago and met with the junior and senior classes to discuss the student movement of 2011 in Chile. “What were the mobilized youth demanding?” I asked the students in the San Alberto Hurtado School. “Did they succeed?” The questions were relevant enough to keep the students engaged. They voiced their opinions and argued for a while, beating the somnolence induced by the heat and …

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Influencing Universities to Embrace Learning Outcomes: Why JOBS is a Dirty Four Letter Word

By Steve Joordens

Thunderstorm 4/9/2011

“Looming low and ominous, in twilight premature, thunderheads are rumbling in a distant overture” (Neil Peart, from the RUSH song Jacob’s Ladder). 

As a 16 year old New Brunswick boy listening to these words I always imagined impending chaos as the power of nature crept slowly upon an earth that refused to change in any but superficial ways.  Now, as a 46 year old professor returning from a conference focused on “Learning Outcomes” these lyrics again come to mind as …

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