ABSTRACT
In 2017 – 18, McMaster University rose 17 places to sixty-sixth in the Academic Rankings of World Universities, and jumped 35 places in the Times Higher Education Rankings, to stand at seventy-eighth position. Innovation is as important in a university as change is inevitable and desirable. But innovation and change are meaningless except when they serve to reinforce and advance a mission that has in fact changed relatively little over time: the personal and intellectual preparation of young people for life, the advancement of knowledge, and the broader pursuit of benefit to humanity. The experience in Ontario, where McMaster University is located and as in many jurisdictions in North America and Europe, involved a dramatically intensifying and progressively more exclusive focus on the economic benefits of higher education to both the individual and to society at large.
