Introduction

This edition represents the collection of seminal ideas that have shaped the postsecondary institutions in Canada. The chapters in this edition correspond to the animating ideas that are relevant in this era of increased participation of the public in tertiary education. The chapters that have been chosen to present the reader with the salient issues concerning functioning, accountability, policy framework, inter alia, constitute the sessions of a course on post secondary policy and governance offered to adults who either work at or aspire to work at universities and colleges.

This text is interactive insofar as it offers stimuli for the engaged student to co-construct knowledge and their own gloss of pertinent issues. This text introduces concepts through various examples and contemporary cases and provides a plethora of resources primarily from Canadian context for further engagement. Finally, it offers an activity, through case studies, for students to play the part of various roles in the postsecondary sector to bring together the ideas explored in the text.