Re:University Reflections (Part 3): The Conversations Higher Education Needs to Be Having

One of the quieter but more persistent themes at Re:University didn’t come from a single keynote or panel. It emerged in side conversations, shared frustrations, and moments where people spoke a little more candidly about what’s actually happening inside institutions right now. 

My colleague Pat Lougheed captured several of these moments across sessions he attended. While they weren’t always fully formed arguments, taken together they point to something important: higher education is being forced into a new set of conversations and many of them are long overdue. 

Notably, these themes echo ideas that have been surfacing elsewhere in the sector. Recent writing from the UK and from Higher Ed Strategy Associates has argued that the challenge facing post-secondary education isn’t a lack of ideas, talent, or commitment, but rather a lack of alignment, pace, and shared problem-solving across boundaries. Re:University felt like a live manifestation of that argument. 

The Hardest Conversation: With Ourselves 

Internally, many institutions are being pushed into a conversation they’ve historically been able to defer: 

What does this institution actually want to be? 

One metaphor that surfaced felt uncomfortably accurate. Universities today are like a 20-year-old who’s just been told, “We’re not supporting you forever. It’s time to figure things out.” 

For decades, growth was the default assumption. If enrolment dipped, it would rebound. If costs rose, demand or funding would catch up. Many strategic plans were built on that underlying confidence. What institutions are facing now feels different. This isn’t just another cyclical downturn. It’s a structural reckoning. Many universities haven’t experienced conditions like this in living memory, and legacy plans often assume a future that no longer exists. 

Conversations Across Institutions: From Collegiality to Capability 

Another recurring theme was the need for much deeper collaboration across institutions , stepping beyond coordination into shared problem-solving. 

This showed up in discussions about: 

• Shared research infrastructure 
• Joint procurement or shared services 
• Academic collaboration, including shared programs or courses 

And inevitably, harder questions followed: 

Do we really need 20 English programs in the same region? 
Or is the real question whether we need 20 separate versions of the same program, delivered independently? 

What’s changed is the framing. Collaboration is no longer being discussed as a nice-to-have or a values-based aspiration. Increasingly, it’s being understood as an institutional capability - one that needs to happen faster, more pragmatically, and sometimes uncomfortably. 

Several conversations reflected a growing realization: waiting for perfect alignment, ideal governance structures, or fully shared incentives may simply take too long. In today’s environment, slow collegiality can be a liability. 

Conversations With Ministries: From Advocacy to Co-Design 

The relationship between institutions and government also feels like it’s shifting. 

The era of general “cap-in-hand” funding requests appears largely behind us. When new money does appear, it’s more likely to be targeted, time-limited, and tied to very specific outcomes or innovations. 

That requires a different posture - one that’s engaged, creative, and ideally non-adversarial. 

Several conversations hinted at a deeper systems issue: institutions and governments are no longer co-designing the future of post-secondary education. Instead, they often react to one another. In that vacuum, funding becomes transactional, innovation becomes narrowly scoped, and trust erodes on both sides. 

This tension was captured in a story from Dalton McGuinty. When a major infusion of funding was provided to the sector, he described being invited to the “post-secondary castle,” lowering the drawbridge, placing the money down, watching the bridge rise again - and being told “thank you.” In the end, he didn’t feel he had much to show for the investment. 

Whether or not the story is entirely fair, the perception matters. Once governments feel disconnected from outcomes, policy inevitably shifts - away from trust-based funding and toward narrow, outcome-specific interventions. 

Conversations With the External Community 

Another gap that surfaced repeatedly was between institutions and the broader communities they serve - employers, regional partners, non-profits, and civic organizations. 

Many universities are deeply embedded in their regions, but the conversation is often episodic rather than strategic. In a constrained environment, that’s a missed opportunity. 

External partners can help institutions think differently about relevance, applied learning, research impact, and shared infrastructure, but only if those relationships move beyond advisory boards and one-off consultations. 

Conversations With Students: Still the Quietest Voice 

Finally, there’s the group most affected by all of this, and often the least meaningfully involved: Students.

Students are navigating rising costs, shifting program value, uncertain labour markets, and institutional change. Yet their role in shaping strategy is often limited to surveys or representation structures that struggle to influence real decisions. 

If institutions are serious about redefining who they are and what they offer, students can’t just be recipients of those decisions. They need to be part of the conversation and have influence on the decisions made. 

No Decision Is Still a Decision 

One of the most sobering takeaways from Re:University is that avoiding these conversations is itself a choice. 

Not deciding who you are, who you collaborate with, or how you engage with government doesn’t preserve the status quo - it allows it to erode in unmanaged ways. 

What Re:University surfaced, again and again, is that higher education’s challenge is no longer a lack of ideas or even a lack of commitment. It’s a lack of shared conversations happening at the right scale, with the right urgency, across the right boundaries. 

The institutions that navigate the next decade most successfully may not be the ones with the most resources. Instead, it'll be the ones willing to engage early and honestly in the conversations that now define the sector.