By Léo Charbonneau - Margin Notes. It’s a safe bet that there were some awkward conversations in Quebec during the holidays over the province’s proposed charter of values – shades of the many previous, divisive sovereignty debates. My father-in-law tried to engage me several times into a discussion on the subject; however, I knew we would likely not find common ground and I demurred. Similar scenarios are playing out at Quebec’s universities. Those presidents (or rectors) of Quebec’s universities who have voiced a position on the subject have all uniformly come out against it, including Alan Shepard at Concordia University, Suzanne Fortier at McGill University, Guy Breton at Université de Montreal, Luce Samoisette at Université de Sherbrooke and Robert Proulx at Université du Québec à Montréal. More...

By Matt Reed. Hope lives in the cracks.
This week I’ve been awash in data, from various sources.  On campus, we had our first real “Data Day,” in which we made actual posters of all manner of IR data and shared it with the entire faculty and staff.  The idea was to provide a common factual base for on-campus discussions of policy, innovations, and planning.  I don’t know if everybody “got” the subtext, but I did see some folks lingering at particular posters for extended periods, pointing at individual numbers and talking to each other.  To the extent that we can replace hunch or anecdote with fact, I have to believe we’ll be better off, even if some of the facts weren’t terribly encouraging in themselves. Earlier this week, the Chronicle published one of the more disturbing data-driven pieces I’ve seen in a while. Read more...

By Matt Reed. Sometimes, it’s worth reading the whole thing.  As they say on the Supreme Court: concur in part, dissent in part. A consortium of seventeen colleges and universities has submitted a concept paper to the Department of Education, petitioning for “experimental site authority” for their campuses to keep financial aid eligibility while moving to competency-based education.  (Hat-tip to Amy Laitinen, from the New America Foundation, for calling attention to it on Twitter.) Read more...