In 2020, after decades of government budget cuts had plunged Canada’s post-secondary institutions into a financial crisis, the University of Alberta hired a consulting firm to find a way to slash its costs. The firm, called the Nous Group, had earned a name in its home country of Australia as experts in finding “cost efficiencies” inside austerity-riddled universities.

That name was “Nousferatu”—coined by one Australian MLA because of Nous’s reputation for being “this kind of vampire that comes into universities, sucks them dry and leaves them worse off for teachers and students.”