Economics and Social Science

Universities are facing a critical challenge; university citizenship has steadily declined over the last few decades. As a self-governing entity, most of the foundational elements of a university community are within its own control. As a result, the health and future welfare of the institution depends greatly on the quality of its leaders and robustness of its governing structure. These in turn depend on the quality of those undertaking leadership roles and serving on governing bodies and on the degree to which they reflect its values and aspirations. Maximising the probability that these desiderata will be achieved requires a broad-based faculty willingness to serve conscientiously on these bodies and to serve as administrators to be involved in selecting members, and to be involved on the myriad of sub-committees, task forces, departmental committees, and the like.

PROLOGUE "In the Ontario Budget 2004, the government said that in order to build a high-skill, high-wage economy, Ontario requires higher learning that is second to none. To assist in reaching that goal, the Postsecondary Review was announced." 1 The Postsecondary Review is chaired by Bob Rae, former premier of the Province of Ontario. The Review is to provide recommendations on the design of a publicly-funded system of postsecondary education, on model(s) for funding that system, and on an accountability and performance measurement framework that supports the design and funding recommendations. In September 2004, the Review released a Discussion Paper. The Discussion Paper is organized into six themes: the importance of higher education, accessibility, quality, system design, funding, and accountability. Bob Rae, in his message accompanying the Discussion Paper, asks: "Please share your own research and views-this is an essential part of making reasoned recommendations." This essay responds to that request. It builds upon my own research and draws heavily upon a book manuscript: Universities, Ideas and Democracy. The Discussion Paper recognizes that Ontarioʼs system of postsecondary education has two distinct components: universities and colleges of applied arts and technology. However, there is almost no analysis of their separate missions; virtually all of the discussion deals with higher education as an undifferentiated whole. This essay separates the two components and addresses the mission of the university. Any design for a system of postsecondary education in Ontario must be based upon a clear articulation of the mission of the university (and of course, also upon a clear articulation of the mission of the colleges). Furthermore, it is only with a clear articulation of mission that an appropriate accountability framework can be established for universities. It is hoped, therefore, that this essay can contribute to deliberations about system design and accountability.

After years of cutbacks to housing programs in Canada, there has emerged a consensus that a progressive housing policy requires significant construction of new social housing units to address both the problems of housing affordability and homelessness. This paper argues that large scale social housing should not be the focus of progressive housing policy in the 21st century. We should use the progressive goals of the original welfare state, but we should modify the programs designed to meet these goals. The paper examines the income and personal insecurities faced by low-income households today, contrasting them with the insecurities faced in the early postwar period, and concludes that social housing is poorly suited to the problems of today. To deal with housing affordability problems, the focus should be upon employment programs, education and training, and income support, not upon new social housing. Furthermore, expansion of social housing would do little to help the homeless. ...

George Fallis ’ examination of the plight of the large, Anglo-American, research-intensive univer-sities has recently been reprinted in paperback making it more accessible to many of us who should be reading it. As Fallis notes, most of us in the academic community are “remarkably poorly read ” about what is driving the world of the multiversity and what lies in store for us. In Multiversities, Ideas, and Democracy, he sets out what he takes to be the most salient ideas that have shaped universities over time and then posits five characteristics of our age that are transforming the multiversity. His cri de coeur is that the emerging idea of the multiversity as an explicit service to the economy will so radically change the function of the multiversity that its critical function as an institution of democracy will wither. As members of the academy, whether as presidents, provosts, deans, or faculty members, we share the responsibility for ensuring that doesn’t happen. Five years afte...

George Fallis' examination of the plight of the large, Anglo-American, research-intensive universities has recently been reprinted in paperback making it more accessible to many of us who should be reading it. As Fallis notes, most of us in the academic community are "remarkably poorly read" about what is driving the world of the multiversity and what lies in store for us. In Multiversities, Ideas, and Democracy, he sets out what he takes to be the most salient ideas that have shaped universities over time and then posits five characteristics of our age that are transforming the multiversity. His cri de coeur is that the emerging idea of the multiversity as an explicit service to the economy will so radically change the function of the multiversity that its critical function as an institution of democracy will wither. As members of the academy, whether as presidents, provosts, deans, or faculty members, we share the responsibility for ensuring that doesn't happen. Five years after it was first published, the book is still essential reading, though not all of us will find all parts of it of equal interest. Fallis's history of various ideas of universities that have been at play over the years, though, is helpful in understanding the tension between the teaching (particularly undergraduate teaching) and research functions that causes so much stress for us both individually and institutionally today. It also helps us understand why we should all care about the plight of the social sciences and humanities, whether we are in arts, science, or professional faculties. However, our interest in his discussions of the five characteristics of our age that he is most worried about-the constrained welfare state, information technology, postmodernism, globalization, and commercialization of research-will vary, depending on how much we already know about these issues. In skimming through these sections, it is important not to miss his real point: to expose the impact those forces have been having on our universities. What makes his analysis compelling reading, though, is his conclusion that we need to make serving democracy an explicit part of the multiversity's mission and his subsequent discussion of the implications for us as academics if that were to happen. While Fallis is disinclined to present the alternative as a "doom and gloom" scenario, he is gravely concerned that something fundamental is threatening to transform the multiuniversity and its role in society, that it is suffering a drift in mission toward becoming an instrument of the economy, putting our inheritance at risk.

If journalism is the first rough draft of history, books like these-a conference volume, a collection of papers from a major research project, and a presidential memoire/analysis-are the second drafts. But these drafts are polished, the quality of the analysis uniformly high. Government policy choices through time are being documented and data are being collected; the patterns are being identified, causality argued, international commonalities and local specificities discussed. Although most of the papers have a time horizon too short to constitute history (with the exception of the Fisher et al. book, which examines the period 1980 to 2010), taken all together, these books are a second draft of history. And of course, in history, there is no final draft. The three books are quite different from each other, but are unified by a focus on post-secondary education (PSE) policy and by a focus on Canada, in an international context. The Axelrod et al. book, Making Policy in Turbulent Times, is an anthology of eighteen papers presented at a conference organized by York University's Faculty of Education.

am especially indebted to my colleague Barry Smith for his computer programming. 21his Gap allowance is equivalent to an income transfer program; cs is the lump-sum payment and c, the tax-back rate. The comparison between the Percentage-of-Rent and Gap housing allowances could be viewed as a comparison between a housing allowance and a cash transfer system-in a situation where the government has concerns about both utility levels and housing consumption. Most Gap proposals include a constraint that recipients consume at least a certain amount and quality of housing. A constrained Gap will always perform as well or better than an unconstrained Gap. Similarly, a constraint could be added to the Percentageof-Rent type.

If journalism is the first rough draft of history, books like these-a conference volume, a collection of papers from a major research project, and a presidential memoire/analysis-are the second drafts. But these drafts are polished, the quality of the analysis uniformly high. Government policy choices through time are being documented and data are being collected; the patterns are being identified, causality argued, international commonalities and local specificities discussed. Although most of the papers have a time horizon too short to constitute history (with the exception of the Fisher et al. book, which examines the period 1980 to 2010), taken all together, these books are a second draft of history. And of course, in history, there is no final draft. The three books are quite different from each other, but are unified by a focus on post-secondary education (PSE) policy and by a focus on Canada, in an international context. The Axelrod et al. book, Making Policy in Turbulent Times, is an anthology of eighteen papers presented at a conference organized by York University's Faculty of Education.

PROLOGUE "In the Ontario Budget 2004, the government said that in order to build a high-skill, high-wage economy, Ontario requires higher learning that is second to none. To assist in reaching that goal, the Postsecondary Review was announced." 1 The Postsecondary Review is chaired by Bob Rae, former premier of the Province of Ontario. The Review is to provide recommendations on the design of a publicly-funded system of postsecondary education, on model(s) for funding that system, and on an accountability and performance measurement framework that supports the design and funding recommendations. In September 2004, the Review released a Discussion Paper. The Discussion Paper is organized into six themes: the importance of higher education, accessibility, quality, system design, funding, and accountability. Bob Rae, in his message accompanying the Discussion Paper, asks: "Please share your own research and views-this is an essential part of making reasoned recommendations." This essay responds to that request. It builds upon my own research and draws heavily upon a book manuscript: Universities, Ideas and Democracy. The Discussion Paper recognizes that Ontarioʼs system of postsecondary education has two distinct components: universities and colleges of applied arts and technology. However, there is almost no analysis of their separate missions; virtually all of the discussion deals with higher education as an undifferentiated whole. This essay separates the two components and addresses the mission of the university. Any design for a system of postsecondary education in Ontario must be based upon a clear articulation of the mission of the university (and of course, also upon a clear articulation of the mission of the colleges). Furthermore, it is only with a clear articulation of mission that an appropriate accountability framework can be established for universities. It is hoped, therefore, that this essay can contribute to deliberations about system design and accountability.

After years of cutbacks to housing programs in Canada, there has emerged a consensus that a progressive housing policy requires significant construction of new social housing units to address both the problems of housing affordability and homelessness. This paper argues that large scale social housing should not be the focus of progressive housing policy in the 2 1 st century. We should use the progressive goals of the original welfare state, but we should modify the programs designed to meet these goals. The paper examines the income and personal insecurities faced by low-income households today, contrasting them with the insecurities faced in the early postwar period, and concludes that social housing is poorly suited to the problems of today. To deal with housing affordability problems, the focus should be upon employment programs, education and training, and income support, not upon new social housing. Furthermore, expansion of social housing would do little to help the homeless. The focus of progressive housing policy should be on programs to directly help the homeless. This requires a coordinated combining of housing first with social support programs: a supportive housing strategy.

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Universities are facing a critical challenge; university citizenship has steadily declined over the last few decades. As a self-governing entity, most of the foundational elements of a university community are within its own control. As a result, the health and future welfare of the institution depends greatly on the quality of its leaders and robustness of its governing structure. These in turn depend on the quality of those undertaking leadership roles and serving on governing bodies and on the degree to which they reflect its values and aspirations. Maximising the probability that these desiderata will be achieved requires a broad-based faculty willingness to serve conscientiously on these bodies and to serve as administrators to be involved in selecting members, and to be involved on the myriad of subcommittees , task forces, departmental committees, and the like. It is not only an abdication of citizenship to leave governance and administration of the institution to a few willing faculty, it is dangerous and puts at risk the welfare of the institution. Even if these few were all able to place the welfare of the institution above their own particular agendas and their self-interest (not something on which to count), the process of self-selection could not be expected to result in a group that would adequately reflect, represent or understand the breadth and depth of the needs, aspirations and complex circumstances of the entire institution. The larger the pool of willing participants, the greater the probability that those selected will reflect best the institutional diversity. This paper draws out the rights and obligations of faculty citizens embedded in the structural arrangements common to universities in the western world. In part A we examine three fundamental components of those arrangements, components that collectively define certain rights and entail certain obligations of citizenship. These obligations flow in part from essential rights, and also in part from what is necessary to sustain the viability and vibrancy of the community. In Part B, we examine some of these essential obligations of citizenship. In Part C, we make recommendations about how to promote effective citizenship; these recommendations are collected after Part C under the heading BRecommendations.

PROLOGUE "In the Ontario Budget 2004, the government said that in order to build a high-skill, high-wage economy, Ontario requires higher learning that is second to none. To assist in reaching that goal, the Postsecondary Review was announced." 1 The Postsecondary Review is chaired by Bob Rae, former premier of the Province of Ontario. The Review is to provide recommendations on the design of a publicly-funded system of postsecondary education, on model(s) for funding that system, and on an accountability and performance measurement framework that supports the design and funding recommendations. In September 2004, the Review released a Discussion Paper. The Discussion Paper is organized into six themes: the importance of higher education, accessibility, quality, system design, funding, and accountability. Bob Rae, in his message accompanying the Discussion Paper, asks: "Please share your own research and views-this is an essential part of making reasoned recommendations." This essay responds to that request. It builds upon my own research and draws heavily upon a book manuscript: Universities, Ideas and Democracy. The Discussion Paper recognizes that Ontarioʼs system of postsecondary education has two distinct components: universities and colleges of applied arts and technology. However, there is almost no analysis of their separate missions; virtually all of the discussion deals with higher education as an undifferentiated whole. This essay separates the two components and addresses the mission of the university. Any design for a system of postsecondary education in Ontario must be based upon a clear articulation of the mission of the university (and of course, also upon a clear articulation of the mission of the colleges). Furthermore, it is only with a clear articulation of mission that an appropriate accountability framework can be established for universities. It is hoped, therefore, that this essay can contribute to deliberations about system design and accountability.

He has written a number of books on housing economics and policy, including Housing Economics and Housing the Homeless and Poor (with Alex Murray), and published many articles in academic journals. He has been a consultant to national, provincial and local governments in Canada and to various international organisations regarding housing economics, policy and finance, as well as urban development issues. He has also written on the economics of constitutional change.