Canada leads in higher education spending, according to the latest study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Times Higher Education writes: “Canada overtook the US as the biggest spender on tertiary education, increasing its GDP spent from 2.6 per cent in 2009 to 2.8 per cent in 2010.”

Examinant le même rapport, Le Devoir constate que Le Canada possède un des taux les plus élevés de jeunes diplômés d’université entre 25 et 34 ans (57%). Le...

Open Access and ASPP draft policy consultations

It is not too late to submit your feedback on the Federation’s draft policy regarding Open Access in our Awards for Scholarly Publications Program (ASPP). More information on the policy and how you can submit your feedback can be found on the ASPP consultation page.

Why Stephen Harper hates sociology: an opinion

In an interesting opinion piece published by the ...

This week in SSH News, Ontario and Québec are both looking towards a more specialized, targeted funding model for institutions of public secondary education. In Ontario, the government unveiled a plan detailing a new funding strategy for universities and colleges, which will force each institution to pick areas of focus and accept that it cannot have it all. The Globe and Mail writes that “[t]he deals are a crucial step in the province’s plan to tailor the postsecondary system more closely to the economy, and save public money by avoiding duplication.”

In Québec, Minister of Education, Recreation and Sport, Yves Bolduc,...

Have academics lost the arts of rhetoric and public engagement? Is engaging the public a part of their mandate at all? These questions were implicitly raised in essayist Scott McLemee’s overview of communication professor Anna M. Young’s book Prophets, Gurus, and Pundits: Rhetorical Styles and Public Engagement, which examines different types of public intellectuals. McLemee’s tongue-in-cheek piece, which promises to be part of a series, has not provided answers one way or another, but simply raising these questions is sure to pull in strong opinions from academics across the spectrum.

One such opinion comes from Tim Hitchcock, Professor of Digital History at the University of Sussex (UK...