Helping Laurentian Recover the AI Way

 Laurentian University is coming out of CCAA protection and apparently is required to come up with a new strategic plan that apparently will require hiring consultants according to a story in Northern Ontario Business.  According to the story: "Laurentian University is finalizing the hiring of a couple of third-party consultants to help guide the institution into the future.  Just who those consultants are has not yet been publicly revealed. The university’s president, Sheila Embleton, gave an update on this process during the April 18 meeting of LU’s senate. One of those consultants will lead a comprehensive operational restructuring of the university, while the other consultant will assist with the development of a new strategic plan for Laurentian. Laurentian is required to hire both of these consultants under the terms of its plan of arrangement after it exited insolvency under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (or CCAA) last year." 

One suspects that this is not going to come cheap.  So in line with my last post on how AI can help administer universities and even draft strategic plans, I inputted a query into my AI to see what it could come up with in terms of a simple report charged with providing a strategic plan for Laurentian's future.  Here it is and at a cost that does not even come close to the average high priced Toronto based consulting firm.  You will notice the query tries to kill two birds with one stone - a restructuring and a strategic plan.

My Query

Laurentian University in Sudbury is coming out of bankruptcy and needs a new strategic plan that will position the new university for recovery and growth. Please draft a five point strategic plan addressing Laurentian’s needs.

 AI Response

Introduction:

Laurentian University in Sudbury recently declared bankruptcy due to significant financial issues, requiring the development of a strategic plan to position the university for recovery and growth. This five-point strategic plan proposes a roadmap that Laurentian University can adopt to overcome its challenges and rebuild itself as one of Canada's top-performing universities.

1. Financial Stability:

Laurentian University needs to prioritize financial recovery and stability. This can be achieved through strategic cost-cutting measures, including but not limited to reducing unnecessary expenses, optimizing resource utilization, increasing revenues from non-core operations, and increasing enrollment numbers. A strong financial foundation will ensure the university's long-term viability and enable it to implement future plans.

2. Program Review:

Laurentian University should undergo a comprehensive review of its academic programs. It is essential to identify courses that need improvement, eliminate underperforming programs, and strengthen leading programs to improve the quality of education. The programs should be relevant to the current market demand and could offer co-op opportunities, internships, and real-world training to create well-rounded graduates.

3. Research Excellence:

Laurentian University should invest in advanced research to uphold its research and innovation community. The University should create funding and partnership opportunities that incentivize leading researchers to the university, promote interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers, and strive for national and international recognition. A rigorous research agenda will lead to groundbreaking discoveries and provide state-of-the-art facilities and support services for faculty and students.

4. Strategic Partnerships:

Laurentian University needs to forge strategic relationships with industry leaders, government organizations, and other academic institutions to drive growth in Sudbury and Northern Ontario. Such partnerships will increase resources, create technology transfer opportunities, bring world-class talent to the University, and enable financial and research support. Partnerships will also improve the university's visibility, and foster relationships with alumni and international students.

5. Campus Infrastructure:

Laurentian University should prioritize the development of its campus infrastructure. Investing in modernizing and upgrading the physical infrastructure will enhance student living and learning, increase research capabilities, provide advanced technological resources, and may lead to an increase in revenue opportunities. Additionally, a well-maintained campus will attract and retain faculty, researchers and students.

In conclusion, Laurentian University should employ these five strategies to achieve financial stability, improve academic quality, enhance research excellence, establish strategic partnerships, and modernize its infrastructure. The combination creates a strong foundation for recovery and growth and positions the University as a leading institution committed to providing a high-quality education and impactful research located in Sudbury.

 

Needless to say, all this is probably summarizes anything a consulting company will be able to come up with on this matter. 

 

Ontario's War on Universities: Coincidence, Incompetence or Strategy?

 

As the Laurentian saga continues to unfold, one is forced to consider the possibility that what is in play in Ontario is not a one-off event of an unfortunate university that did not manage its finances well but perhaps a broader strategy to restructure the university sector.  While such an opinion will be labelled as paranoia by many it remains that a number of variables seem to be coming together that may ultimately create a number of Laurentians. 

 

If this is happening by coincidence, then it is ultimately a reflection of the inconsistency and incompetence of government policies. If it is not a coincidence, then it remains that perhaps conditions are being created to provide incentives for universities to change in a manner that the Ontario government thinks they should. It is no secret that governments have a predisposition for professional programs as opposed to arts and science and the list of the 69 discontinued programs at Laurentian happens to include a rather large number of arts, science and social science programs. 

 

Universities are semi-autonomous and increasingly subject to government program and operation oversight, but they are still independent enough to resist the types of rapid program shifts that government politicians, policy makers and bureaucrats are fond of as they pursue assorted agendas and flavours of the month.  Their faculty associations have also negotiated agreements that include exigency clauses that make it difficult and expensive if not impossible to implement short-term, long-term or permanent layoffs.  How to get around exigency clauses and get rid of tenured faculty? Why file for insolvency under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) which essentially allows the university to financially restructure and get around the exigency clauses.

 

Financial pressure is needed to create a situation whereby a university may eventually feel it needs to file for insolvency.  Ontario universities have been subject to essentially declining or frozen grant funding for a number of years now.  They have compensated by raising the revenue portion from tuition on domestic students, but the Ontario government decided to cut tuition fees by ten percent and then frozen them. Indeed, it has now extended the freeze for a second year because it says it “wants to protect students’ and families’ pocketbooks during the COVID-19 pandemic.”  

 

Now, Ontario and Canadian demographics are such that the pool of domestic university aged students has not been growing substantially and the result is the pursuit of international students who not only are coming in large numbers but can be charged higher tuition than domestic students.   However, on the same day that Ontario announced that it was extending the Ontario domestic student freeze another year (out of province students are exempt from the freeze) it was also revealed that the federal government was facing demands by Ontario to suspend the entry into Ontario of international students.  Needless to say, given the importance of international students and their tuition to the finances of many Ontario universities, the results for university finances this fall would be catastrophic.

 

So, what are we to make of all this?  Is this all an unfortunate coincidence of a number of independent measures and decisions randomly coming together to create a financial storm for the university sector? Is it simply the result of a government that does not understand how to consult and as a result makes damaging policy decisions that border on incompetence?  Or has the government decided to take the case of Laurentian as an opportunity to see if it can create the nudge for massive changes in a university sector that to date has been able to resist change? 

 

Of course, the pursuit of such a strategy requires a sophisticated and calculating behind the scenes over-mind and the Ontario government to date has not exhibited such a tendency.  It probably is a combination of coincidence and poor policy making.  On the other hand, it could be as simple as the Ontario government realizing that most people do not care too much about universities making them an easy target for financial cuts to what remains of government university funding down the road. Smaller universities in the end require less grant funding.