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

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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

…

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More on bad Ontario/California comparisons

  |  By 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 …

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The perils of California Dreamin’ in higher education

  |  By 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 …

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

  |  By 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 …

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The November issue of Academic Matters is now live!

  |  By 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 …

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Why not have mandatory “toolbox” training?

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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 …

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Speak, Listen, Think, Repeat …

  |  By 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 …

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

  |  By 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 …

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My Professorial ‘Eureka’ Moment

  |  By 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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Lightning Over Bloor

  |  By Judith P. Roberston

We had taken our places at the table, For some words after the break, On various comings and goings. And when—twice—the professor said, “hope,” The celestial fireworks following the verb Had us rocketing skywards too. I had always suspected, The poet’s powerful leanings, but now I reckoned, How few exchanges we had actually come to know, Between pedagogy, providence, and rain.

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swisscan2

Take Your Online Teaching to the Next Level

  |  By Camille Rutherford

Whether you are teaching a blended course (where a significant portion of the course takes place online) or have been using your institution’s course management system to supplement your face to face course, there are a couple tools that can be used to take online teaching and learning to the next level.

 Level 1
YouTube has become a noted repository of high quality academic content from renowned universities. With the creation of YouTube Education, which aggregates the thousands …

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Luisa D’Amato on Michelle Miller’s ‘Hot for Teacher’

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In the latest issue of Academic Matters, Michelle Miller wrote a provocative piece on the politics of student/professor sexual relationships. The article was featured on Inside Higher Ed, and has generated a lot of discussion. Luisa D’Amato wrote a response to the piece in the TheRecord.com. Luisa and The Record have kindly allowed us to reprint it here.

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New video on the Worldviews Conference on Media and Higher Education

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Last June, Academic Matters and its parent organization OCUFA sponsored the first Worldviews Conference on Media and Higher Education. It was a great event, well attended by the media, scholars, administrators and communications professionals.

The fine folks at RDV Productions shot some video of the conference, and have recently unveiled the result. It’s a great summary of the event and the insights it delivered.

Worldviews Conference 2011 from RDV Productions on Vimeo.

Look for the next version of …

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Mobile Learning in the 21st Century

  |  By Camille Rutherford

Cheap and ubiquitous technological resources have reshaped our geopolitical and economic realities, by providing individuals with almost instant access to the collective knowledge of humankind

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Strike Vote

  |  By Karen Dubinsky

Things I never thought I would do:  today I went to my union meeting and voted in a strike vote. On a sunny afternoon in July, four hundred of my colleagues crowded into a lecture theatre (the kind of place we try to forget about in July) to learn about the state of contract negotiations between the faculty and the University.  Things are not good.  They want us to pay, through our pension plan and our salaries, for their bad …

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