None of us knew that this past week was going to be Advanced Education week in Alberta politics. But what a week it was.
Here are five things Minister Nicolaides accomplished this week:
With the Premier out of town, he was able to step in and rev up the base, and even raise some money. The boss will be impressed!
Reminded Indigenous people living in Alberta that they’re welcome at the province’s post-secondary institutions, just as long as they don’t expect those institutions to change.
Served up an excellent reminder to keep those university presidents in their place. Public dissent has consequences, guys!
Helped the board chairs weed out any uppity candidates the next time they’re doing a presidential search. Now everyone is clear on what’s expected from an Alberta university president, and no time will be wasted trying to recruit someone who won’t publicly thank the Ministry for their latest budget cut.
With the help of the Athabasca University board chair, set new standards for board governance in the sector. Talk about reducing red tape! No need for time-consuming board meetings when making consequential decisions - just send some emails and when you get enough votes supporting your plan, go for it!
Have a great weekend, Minister. You must be exhausted.
Thanks for the brilliant summary. I don't understand why the destruction of AU (and to be clear, that is what is happening, the destruction of the very idea of a university) is not causing more public alarm.
Even from the very narrow perspective of fiscal responsibility, how does it make sense to fire brilliant and highly experienced board members (last fall) and a world-leading academic who were leading the university into a bright new future?
It's so clear that this government's authoritarian and anti-intellectual stance has no purpose beyond the ideological. It's not ethical, it's not pragmatic, and it's not good for anyone apart from total weasels like Alex Clark. How could he accept the position? Does he not understand how the search for a university president is supposed to work (in which case he is seriously underqualified), or is he just so sociopathic he doesn't care?
Bang on Lisa 👏 agree the poor minister must be exhausted 🥱