Posts from May 2013

It’s often assumed that Ontario’s tuition fees are a bargain compared to those in the United States. But tuition fees are rising faster in Ontario, and the percentage of university revenue made up of student fees is higher in the province than in American public institutions. Data from the United States indicate that inflation-adjusted tuition and […]

On May 23, 2013, the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) and the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities (MTCU) hosted a symposium on education in Ontario featuring several Ontario Research Chairs. Glen Jones, a professor at the University of Toronto and Ontario Research Chair in Postsecondary Education Policy and Measurement, presented his thoughts on “the […]

When a pundit or politician attacks unions, they’re really attacking equality for everyone, and for women in particular. Unions and the public sector – and public sector unions especially – are no strangers to criticism. In the wake of the Great Recession, perhaps it should be no surprise that attacks are more vociferous than when times […]

Collective bargaining continues at Ontario’s universities, with seven faculty associations currently at the table. Two of these associations (Brescia and UOIT Teaching Stream faculty) are negotiating their first contract. Two more associations are preparing to begin bargaining soon. At UOIT, appropriate permanency/continuing employment provisions for teaching stream faculty remains an issue. At Ottawa, the faculty association […]

At first glance, the 2013 Ontario Budget doesn’t say much at all about higher education. This silence obscures the austerity logic still working against the province’s universities.  The 2013 Budget continues the slow cuts announced in 2012. Through so-called “policy levers”, some $121 million is being cut from university budgets in 2012-13 and 2013-14. The government will also begin clawing […]

TORONTO – Ontario’s 17,000 professors and academic librarians are calling on Premier Wynne to invest in the province’s universities after today’s budget missed an opportunity to introduce new funding for higher education institutions. The 2013 Budget continues to impose small cuts on the university sector, leading to an overall decline in per-student funding. “Ontario already […]

Read OCUFA’s full budget analysis . Ontario’s 17,000 professors and academic librarians are calling on Premier Wynne to invest in the province’s universities after today’s budget missed an opportunity to introduce new funding for higher education institutions. The 2013 Budget continues to impose small cuts on the university sector, leading to an overall decline in per-student funding. “Ontario already has the worst […]

A group of academics from around the world intend to commit Sociology at every panel, keynote and even during coffee breaks at Worldviews 2013 , a conference co-organized by OCUFA. Download the Twitter Avatar! Download the Facebook Cover Image!Keep Calm and Commit Sociology ” reads the promotional buttons produced by a group of academics who took Stephen Harper to task today over recent comments about the sources of terrorism […]

Last week, Thomas Herndon, a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, discovered a huge flaw in a highly influential paper by the economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. The article claimed to demonstrate that countries with high debt-to-GDP ratios experience slower economic growth, and was widely cited in support of austerity policies […]