A recent article in Macleans (http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/07/28/our-universities-can-be-smarter/4/) makes the argument that there should only be 5 major research institutions in the country. The remaining universities should train undergraduates and feed their best students to U of A, UBC, Toronto, UM and McGill. There are so many problems with this that I won’t even attempt to address it. Instead, I’ve included a post by ‘eddycurrent’ in response to the Maclean’s article. It is an excellent decoding of the big 5 president’s request:
Eddy Current Writes
I am a faculty member at a Canadian university which is not one of the self proclaimed “Big Five”. Obviously these five presidents would want their universities to receive special treatment. It would make their work more rewarding and most likely easier. I hope their plea, and this article, fall on deaf ears.
Here’s why…
1) The only tangible evidence put forward in the article that the Big Five are outperforming the rest of Canadian universities is their winning 40% of the last nationwide CFI competition. This number of 40% means nothing. I can give you another number. In the last CFI competition McMaster University (not one of the Big Five) dramatically outperformed the University of Alberta (one of the Big Five), receiving 1.5 times the amount of money in the competition (McMaster received $36M in comparison to U of A’s $20.6M). Given that it is a smaller university, with less faculty and students than U of A, McMaster trounced its Big Five competition. So, should U of A not bow out of the Big Five and nominate McMaster in its place? The answer, of course, is no, because this kind of analysis is far too shallow to base policy on. The 40% number and the performance of McMaster relative to U of A in this competition are the kind of “statistics” that have no place in a magazine like Macleans which has some role to play in shaping public opinion and public policy. Homer Simpson said, after all, “people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent, 14% of people know that”… Macleans: you should do better than this!
2) The message put forward by the Big Five presidents, and in a de facto sense by the article, is that concentration of excellence, however measured, leads to better outcomes (to use a word that government types will resonate with). Like many men, I worry that bigger might really mean better, but I doubt that for universities this point can be supported in any real way. Ivy League schools and their peers (the California State Schools, etc.) are not bigger or smaller than less demonstrably successful schools (as an aside I point out that McMaster and the University of Calgary are roughly the same size in terms of students as Harvard). The ways that they are tangibly better are a consequence of long histories of recruiting outstanding staff and students, maintaining better standards, visionary leadership, and luck. Sometimes this really is a consequence of more money, but probably less so than one might think. A Canadian graduate student, with an NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship, will likely take home (after tax and tuition) more than $3500/month. I know many students at the big schools in the US, and they are not making anywhere near as much. Faculty are paid a bit more, on average, at the big schools in the US, but the difference is not as much as people think. In any case, a faculty member making $150k/year living in Edmonton or Montreal is likely doing better than one making $200k/year in Los Angeles. If we want better people, I hope the Canadian government will not buy the argument that the Big Five need dramatically more resources. We need more visionary leadership in universities across the board… not cash and power grabs by powerful presidents.
3) Could we be more innovative? Could there be more benefits to Canadians from government funded research? Yes, obviously. What do we need? I suggest that we figure out, collectively, what constitutes a “good outcome”. Then our government should go out among all research institutions, including government labs, universities, colleges, and private corporations, identifying examples of good outcomes, and try to figure out what was behind them. If I had to guess, in the majority of cases it will be individual ingenuity, or that of a small team, coupled with dedication and the time to follow through on the ingenuity.
4) I like how the Big Five message is presented in a way that an argument against it will be perceived by many as an argument against a merit based system. My response to the article is that the Big Five are trying to create, for themselves, a situation where they have some guaranteed larger access to research funding. I am NOT arguing that everyone should be given the same resources. I am a strong proponent of competition and a merit based system. The problem with the Big Five proposition is that it derives from the fact that they are not so comfortable competing with the likes of me. I say bring it on. Yes we need more resources, but without competition those will be wasted.
I conclude with a statement of personal experience. I was offered a faculty position at one of the Big Five, but turned it down to remain at one of the Lesser Eight (by which I mean the rest of the Canadian G13 universities - which in itself is a kind of self-proclaimed Winners Circle). There are many great things going on in the Lesser Eight, and some crap. The same is true of the Big Five. The question is, is the great to crap ratio better or worse in the Big Five. Would they willing to compare these ratios in a Big Five vs Lesser Eight winner-takes-all competition right now? If they come up short, would they stand aside for the Lesser Eight, volunteer to focus on undergraduate education, and strongly support a program to make the Lesser Eight “Harvards of the North”?
I agree completely. Transparent competition, resources and commitment to all students (undergraduates and graduates) is the key to a respectful and successful system.