From The President's Desk

I was invited by the post-grad program in Manufacturing Management to address the Leadership and Management of People course, a subject dear to my heart as I’ve studied it incessantly over the course of my career.  I’ve learned by doing, watching other leaders, learning from my mistakes, and drawing on the wisdom of others – including notable thinkers like Peter Senge, Stephen Covey, Malcolm Gladwell, Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren.

The fundamental thing I’ve learned, and that guides my leadership style today, is that people are essentially good, and they want to make a positive difference in the world.  Building on this premise, one of the key roles of an effective leader is to inspire them to feel empowered to achieve meaningful change.

As I’ve clearly declared in previous blog posts and elsewhere, I am leading Sheridan on a ‘journey’ towards becoming a top-ranked undergraduate teaching university.  I shared with the class the principles of leadership that I firmly believe will get us to our destination.

Empowerment & Collaboration

From the outset, our journey has been rooted in collaboration and empowerment, involving hundreds of conversations, meetings, and strategic retreats with students, faculty, staff and Board members as well as politicians, legislators, peer institutions and competitors. The engagement of all stakeholders will continue to inform and guide our journey.

Transparency & Visibility

Change can cause fear and create uncertainty. Being visible is about being available to answer questions. Being transparent involves answering questions with integrity. As President, I set aside dedicated time on a regular basis for faculty, staff and students to bring me their ideas, interests and concerns.

Optimism and Saying Yes

I believe that a successful leader looks at challenges as opportunities for improvement – not as criticism. Sheridan’s journey presents both challenges and opportunities for our faculty and staff, and I’m committed to helping them overcome the obstacles and seize the opportunities that a change of this magnitude presents.

Helping People Understand

Misperception and confusion stem from a lack of communication.  I shared with the class some examples of what Sheridan strives to become, including several examples from Western Canada such as Mount Royal, Vancouver Island, Grant MacEwan and Kwantlen Polytechnic – institutions that started out as colleges but are now universities – all featuring small class sizes, practical learning, undergraduate teaching and applied research, and strong connections to industry.

Preparing Students for a Different Future

Today we recognize the underlying need for lifelong learning because our students will have many jobs, or even many careers, over their lifetimes. The ‘journey’ is about turning Sheridan into a hub that provides pathways for students to pursue new career opportunities through a range of channels over the course of their careers.

I was pleased but not surprised that the Manufacturing Management students responded to my lecture with insightful questions and comments.  More importantly, they voiced their support for the journey that Sheridan is undertaking – a vote of confidence that will help us stay the course.

Vancouver Island University (VIU) in Nanaimo, BC, was formerly Malaspina University College and prior to that, Malaspina College. VIU, as well as the other “new universities” in BC, best capture the future that Sheridan envisions for itself.

I recently visited VIU as well as the University of the Fraser Valley (formerly University College of the Fraser Valley and previously the College of the Fraser Valley) in Abbotsford, BC. I found it remarkable and invigorating to see how well they have managed to evolve to become accredited universities that have, at the same time, proudly held onto their college roots.

In a nutshell, they:

• Are committed to an undergraduate education experience that includes small class sizes and attentive student supports
• Offer a wide range of programs with a strong, practical orientation
• Are committed to teaching-oriented education at the certificate, diploma and degree level whose graduates are eligible for graduate education across Canada
• Maintain a strong commitment to skilled trades programs to meet the needs of local industry
• Have created pathways for students to transition between credentials
• Are committed to, and serve the needs of, their communities and their local industry
• Undertake applied research that directly impacts and enhances the undergraduate learning experience
• Have faculty with academic preparation to the Bachelors, Masters, and PhD level
• Are members of both the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges

A challenge that we confront as we share the Sheridan Vision with various stakeholder groups in Ontario is that we do not have homegrown examples of this university/college hybrid model in action. As I have written previously, our provincial post-secondary system puts colleges in one box and universities in another. While this worked decades ago, in today’s world of life-long learning students can no longer be placed neatly in boxes. That’s why it is helpful for us to be able to demonstrate that there are hybrid models, both in Canada and elsewhere, that are working marvellously well and, most importantly, are addressing the life-long learning needs of students in a more complex economy.

 

 

Yes, the system has responded to the clarion call for “more” with the establishment of more universities and colleges over the past 50 years. But, it has largely ignored the more muted calls for “different” (Clark, Trick, Van Loon anyone?). There has been remarkably little substantive change to the legislative and regulatory structure of Ontario’s higher education system. We have 20 public universities that follow individual and broadly interpreted legislative charters and we have 24 public colleges constrained within a one size fits all colleges act.

The wheels turn slowly and that’s just the way it is in higher education, you say? I beg to differ given the examples we find when we look to other provinces. Alberta has overhauled its system to create more sophisticated legislation that categorizes institutions into medical/doctoral research universities, undergraduate teaching universities, polytechnic institutions, regional colleges, etc.

British Columbia has long been open to progressive forms of institutional design as seen in the development of hybrid university-colleges.  By contrast, whether through a need to protect legacies, blind provincial boosterism, or the inertia that comes from being the 800 pound gorilla of higher education in Canada, Ontario’s guiding principle with regard to legislative reform in higher education is “So it has been, so it is, so shall it ever be.”

This aversion to legislative reform is a shame, really. So much of what Ontario wants to accomplish on the public policy front – things like improving the educational experience of undergraduates, adding graduate education capacity, creating inter-institutional learning pathways, and improving access for under-represented populations – will only be addressed through bold legislative and regulatory reform. Instead, we prefer to tinker around with councils, task forces, working groups and white papers.

Of course, it might be entirely accurate to frame our system as one that is not broken and not in need of fixing. But my experience across this country and my gut tell me that the anecdote or metaphor that is more apropos has to do with a frog, a pot of cold water and a hot plate.

Contrast that with 2012/13, where government support represents 42% of our revenue.  The following graph illustrates this decline in funding from 1977 to the present day:

Today, 58% of our operating budget comes from domestic and international tuition fees, ancillary services revenue and continuing education and corporate training revenue. This trend away from government funding will only accelerate next year as the province begins clawing back grant revenue for every international student enrolled at Sheridan.

There are those who lament this trend and see a grim future for higher education in Ontario. While there are strong arguments to be made for increased government funding, I believe that our postsecondary institutions are stronger when we have mixed revenue streams comprised of both public and private sources, which ensures that when one stream of revenue is reduced other streams can make up the difference. To be sustainable, our institutions need this resilience and adaptability.

I’d like to propose a funding framework based on the following principles:

• Students derive a lifetime personal benefit from their postsecondary education, and should pay a fair share for that benefit. Strong systems of public (i.e., OSAP) and private (institutionally-based scholarships and bursaries) support must be in place to ensure no capable student is denied access due to financial need
• Ancillary business lines should be maximized to contribute to the overall operating budget
• Revenue-generating corporate training and continuing education programs can make a growing contribution to operating budgets
• Postsecondary education should be viewed as an “export” and increased international student recruitment to the system pursued
• Recognizing the public good that comes to society from a more highly-educated citizenry, provincial funding must continue to be an important feature of the postsecondary system

A public policy debate on the appropriate distribution of these revenue streams is long overdue.

A final consideration is the constraining regulatory environment that postsecondary institutions operate within. If the provincial government continues to lower its contribution to operating budgets, it may be timely to consider how and where government might appropriately diminish its regulatory and oversight role to allow our institutions to more nimbly adapt to shifting financial realities.

On a lighter note, I close as I began at the Sheridan Big Picture Gala. These entrepreneurial activities are becoming increasingly important to our bottom line budgets but, frankly, they are also a heck of a lot of fun as they allow us to connect with our communities and highlight the skills of our students and alumni. Here’s a glimpse of this talent through the lens of two student-produced videos that premiered at the gala:

Sheridan Big Picture Award Presentation

The Sheridan Heritage Minute