Archive for March, 2010
UWindsor investigating cheating allegations
1,100 first-year psychology students to re-write midterm
The University of Windsor is probing allegations of cheating that could see 1,100 students being forced to re-write a midterm. The university will not confirm specifics, including what course the alleged cheating took place. However, the Windsor Star reported that the course is called Psychology as a Social Science, a first year class taught by a professor Kenneth Cramer.
The textbook used for the class came with a CD that included multiple choice questions. Evidently, the questions were distributed to students before the exam. Cramer sent an email to his students on Thursday informing them that the midterm will have to be re-written. “The University Academic Integrity Office is currently investigating this matter. As a result, the mid-term results (perhaps only the textbook questions) are deemed invalid and must be tested again in good time. I should have more information from the Integrity Office by early next week so we can find the best way to address this. I cannot have you review your mid-terms, since these are to be turned over to the Integrity Office,” he wrote.
According to the Star, a preliminary investigation revealed that “some students scored near perfect on the textbook questions, yet failed the lecture questions.” A student told the paper that the same textbook is used at the University of Calgary and that this may have been the source of the breach.
McGill privatizes MBA program
Tuition fees to rise to $29,500
The Master’s of Business Administration program at McGill University will be moving to a completely self-funded model this fall, effectively privatizing the program. McGill had announced in September its intentions to transition a related program, the executive MBA, to a self-funded model. Both programs will forfeit public funding and increase tuition to $29,500 per year, up from just over $3,200. Tuition for most students at McGill is set at just over $1,100.
In January, the provincial government threatened to decrease McGill’s operating grant if it went ahead with its plans for the executive MBA. Education Minister Michelle Courchesne has said that the university didn’t seek the government’s permission to increase fees.
According to the Desautels Faculty of Management, the two MBA programs were running a deficit of about $10,000 per student, which has required other faculties to heavily subsidize them.
The OSAP diet and the student lifestyle
Just how well should students expect to live while in school?
Okay, I’ll be the one to say it. I have no problem at all with the “OSAP Diet” as exposed by the Toronto Star. Apparently students funding their studies entirely on government loans are expected to survive on $7.50/day for food. And my reaction, mainly, is a big “so what?”
Related: Budgeting for the real world
First, let’s get the obvious (and somewhat spurious) argument out of the way. Social assistance in Ontario–still generally thought of as “welfare”–will provide $221/month to a single adult for all personal needs after housing costs. So this number includes food, clothing, hygiene products, transportation, etc. If that’s $3-4/day for food they’re lucky–and this ignores the fact that most welfare recipients need to dig into their $221 just to cover rent shortfall.
This is a spurious argument because I would never defend welfare as a livable income–not for anyone. Pointing out that some other group of people is being starved out of existence doesn’t prove that students are getting a fair deal simply because they receive more. But I am somewhat surprised that the “OSAP Diet” is a front page news item when the “Welfare Famine” is not. If educated, presumably competent young people can’t feed themselves on $7.50/day, then honestly, what do we think is happening to the people who rely entirely on public assistance? Do we even care?
Second, let’s agree that an ordinary person, with a little effort and attention, can indeed live on $7.50/day for food–assuming access to reasonable cooking facilities. Does it involve a fair amount of pasta, veggies, and bulk food preparation? Of course it does. Anyone who heads straight to the frozen food aisle and loads up on prepared meats might as well be eating out. The only thing to recommend frozen chicken fingers, really, is convenience. For what they cost by the pound you might as well get fast food. So yes, learning to shop and feed oneself on a budget is a skill, even a valuable educational experience.
There are some barriers and potential issues we should acknowledge. Not every student has access to a grocery store or to transportation. On my campus, the residence council (with support from the university) organized regular grocery van trips. That’s a service I’d want to see on any campus not within walking distance of groceries. Some students off campus simply don’t have access to reasonable cooking facilities. They get stuck in living arrangements they didn’t think enough about, and due to roommate problems, landlord problems, or other issues their “cheap” accommodation ends up costing far more than they realized. But that’s a problem of education too.
Some students have dietary restrictions that may increase their food expenses. That’s a huge problem with social assistance as well–adding to what is already a deeply unrealistic calculation–but I certainly endorse considering any unusual dietary expenses as a medical issue. I’m frankly not sure of the status of such claims within student assistance plans, and I’d be interested to learn more. There may be the kernel of a real problem lurking in this story after all. But for now, let’s stick with a typical student. That’s the thrust of this breaking news story, after all.
For all those “drop fees!” proponents who see this as further evidence that education is too expensive, I’d like to remind you that we are not remotely talking about the cost of education just now. We’re talking about the cost of living. The funding that students require to access education is still, in the majority, not required to pay for tuition but rather required to support their lives and lifestyles while they are in school. Which is fine. People need to live, after all. But if you want education to be affordable, and if you expect governments to subsidize it to that point, you need to eventually confront the question of just how much lifestyle the government has an obligation to fund for each student. And please, think carefully about that question because there isn’t an endless pot of money here. The more extravagantly you believe each student has a right to be supported, the fewer students in total can be funded.
Update: York student investigated for hate speech
University suspends Salman Hossain over internet postings that support genocide.
Updates to this story at the bottom.
A York University student is being investigated by the Ontario police hate crimes unit in relation to postings on a website called Filthy Jewish Terrorists, the National Post reported last week. On the website, Salman Hossain appears to have made several remarks supporting the genocide of Jewish people.
According to the Post, Hossain “refers to Jews as ‘diseased and filthy,’ ‘the scum of the earth,’ ‘psychotic’ and ‘mass murderers’ and writes that ‘a genocide should be perpetrated against the Jewish populations of North America and Europe.’ ”
Section 318 of the criminal code prohibits the promotion of genocide, and section 319 prohibits the “willful” promotion of hatred against identifiable groups. Hossain, who is being investigated by the Hate Crimes Extremism Investigative Team, first came to the attention of police in October 2007. Back then he was probed by the RCMP for internet writings that supported attacking Canadian soldiers on Canadian soil. No charges were laid in that case. At the time Hossain was a University of Toronto student.
In response to the allegations, York University says it will conduct its own investigation to determine if Hossain is in breach of the university’s code of conduct, which could lead to an immediate suspension while a panel of students and faculty consider his case.
UPDATE: Yesterday, York University officially suspended Salman Hossain. He will have to face a disciplinary panel, and is not allowed on the campus until that time. Spokesman Keith Marnoch told the National Post that the panel has to meet within 60 days, but that it should happen much sooner. He also emphasized safety concerns regarding the case, “We want all of our students, all of our community members, to be safe and knowing that they can be.”
You like me! You really, sort of, like me!
Student evaluations are probably here to stay. For worse, not better.
Last week, a group of ugly annual visitors arrived: my course evaluation forms.
A few professors are just crazy about student evaluation and wax obscure about “summative” and “formative” evaluation and so on. Others hate them passionately, some even refusing to hand them out (contrary to their contractual obligations, I might add). I hand them out, and I generally get pretty good scores. But I hate doing it, because I know it’s a pretty useless exercise.
The argument for doing them is straightforward. Course evaluations are used to evaluate an instructor’s performance in class, and who better than those who witness that performance every day? At my university, there is no requirement that any faculty members or administrators observe faculty teaching, and though my department does require new faculty to have a tenured member come in, observe, and write a report, the newbee gets to choose who comes to visit, and tends to choose someone they think will be sympathetic. Besides, anyone can get his act together for one performance. But students see the whole run.
The argument above has more or less won the day at every university in Canada, so far as I know. Student evaluations are as ubiquitous as labs, term papers, and baseball caps. But think a bit more about them, and evaluations start to seem less and less worthwhile.
For one thing, it’s pretty clear that students don’t take them very seriously. I remember one student in a hiring committee meeting being astonished at how gravely other committee members were talking about student evaluations, given, she said, that students fill them out as fast as they can in order to get out of class as quickly as possible. This is borne out by the fact that in my school, evaluations are suspiciously consistent among faculty, with most scores ranging between 4.2 and 4.5 out of 5. Only a small fraction of students take the time to include written comments and those are never long.
Further, it seems likely to me that students are not really evaluating the quality of instruction, but rather their level of satisfaction with the course, which are often very different. An excellent instructor may also be a hard grader, and a student earning Ds in that course is not likely going to give Dr Tenacious a five out of five, especially if the question asks whether Dr T is a fair marker or not. More generally, is an undergraduate student actually in a position to know whether Professor Genial is up on the latest scholarship in particle physics? Or is she really just evaluating whether Professor G is funny? Or cool? Or not? All of which tends to promote grade inflation and an emphasis on entertaining students, not educating them.
If we were really serious about evaluating teaching, we would do it the same way that we evaluate research: anonymous peer review. Universities could make video recordings of professors classes throughout the year and send a random sample to three tenured professors at other universities, who would then, in turn, send back their evaluations.
Such a system would be much more expensive than student evaluations, but any university that really cared deeply about teaching would find the money. But of course, they don’t. They prefer a system that is cheap, and easy, and, well, pretty useless.
If we are to keep student evaluations, they should not be done at the end of the course. They should be done five years later. After graduation, a student may come to see that Dr Tenacious’s high standards were actually the best thing for him, while Professor Genial’s pleasant smile didn’t actually come in very handy after all.
Women still face educational barriers
Don’t put away female only scholarships just yet.
In his Feb 22 article, Josh Dehaas asserts “to claim that women are at a disadvantage in school is absurd.” The more absurd reality is policy-makers are more likely to listen to his argument than to look at the facts.
He argues women are now equal, and affirmative action scholarships no longer necessary. Well, it’s great that his woman friend received one, but I meet an awful lot of women students each semester who don’t. I don’t generally ask them why they aren’t part of this mythical horde of privileged women we hear about these days, but the more I get to know them, the more I realize some of the reasons why. And I realize that as long as we live in a society where women are more likely to be sexually assaulted, to be victims of severe forms of violence, to earn less than men, and to be the ones heading up single-parent households, they’re going to face barriers to their education that men don’t. I’ve gotten some fine scholarships over the years. Then again, I didn’t have to face those life situations I just listed.
Dehaas and his friends’ informal tallies tell them there are more women than men in their journalism classes. On the other side of the academy, Engineers Canada reports that “the enrolment of women in undergraduate engineering programs increased until the year 2000. The number of women enrolled in undergraduate engineering programs has since leveled off and there are signs of a decline in the percentage of women pursuing engineering in relation to men. Currently, less than 20 percent of undergraduate engineering students in Canada are women.”
Don’t put those scholarships away yet.
More women enrolling in university doesn’t mean we’ve beaten inequality and discrimination. All it means is there’s more women enrolling. That’s a good start. But it’s little more than a start. Women still earn 70 per cent of male earnings. Why does this matter? Because that means when men and women try to put themselves through university, women wind up 30 per cent more in debt. Add in the fact that the majority of single-parent households are headed by women, and they’re even more in debt if they have children. Suddenly those scholarships make a whole lot of sense.
But aren’t things getting better, as Dehaas’—very selectively chosen—statistics seem to suggest? Well let’s not just look at his handful of success stories: let’s look at the big picture. The Canadian Federation of Professional and Business Women’s Clubs states the wage gap for university-educated women has actually increased by seven per cent during the last decade—to the detriment of women.
Status of Women Canada drew on Canada Student Loans Program data to learn that between 1996 to 2002, the percentage of loans obtained by women has increased (by over five per cent) and decreased for men (by over five per cent). That means women are bearing a significantly larger portion of debt in this country. This also indicates a growing—rather than decreasing—employment income gap between female and male university graduates to women’s disadvantage.
A 2001 study that appeared in the journal, Canadian Public Policy, calculated projections into the future that suggest a wage gap of 22 per cent will still exist in 2031. And those are the rosier stats.
Don’t put those scholarships away yet. And while Mr. Dehaas may have more female classmates, women comprise less than a third of his university’s Senate.
The upshot of all this is that the absurdly simplistic notion that greater female enrolment equals greater equality in Canada is, well, patently absurd. The same day his article was published, a submission to the United Nations on equality in Canada indicated our country has slipped from 47 to 49 in world rankings for gender equality. That’s a serious fail. Until we start achieving real substantive equality, and stop sliding backward, women will remain disadvantaged and discriminated against in this country. Until men stop feeling threatened by efforts to make society equal, we’re not going to start making the progress we need.
So when I encounter a man who complains about being passed over for a scholarship, I ask him to look at the big picture. Women have suffered centuries of violence, exploitation and abuse while men have dominated society for over 2000 years. Enjoy your 30 per cent higher salary, and your statistically greater chance of becoming a CEO, or successful lawyer, or Member of Parliament. Not because you’re smart, but because you’re male.
Hans Rollman is a PhD student in Women’s studies at York University.
Does your tummy hurt?
Gastrointeritis: symptoms may include a drastic lack of preparation for exams.
When a student goes to the doctor and complains of vomiting and stomach pains with no specific cause there’s a catch-all term that readily applies. Doctors call it gastrointeritis, a diagnosis that’s familiar to professors and instructors everywhere. So the doctor scribbles this word on a medical form of some description or other, and just like that the student has his or her “get out of exam free” card.
Students do occasionally become ill. And sometimes illness is badly timed and affects exams, midterms, and assorted deadlines. But this whole regime of medical notes is absurd and hypocritical and what’s more everyone knows it. The students who make a habit of such things know darn well they can get a note based on non-specific symptoms (i.e. “my tummy hurts”) any time they like. They even know which clinics to go to and how much they’ll charge. The doctors aren’t remotely qualified to evaluate any student’s ability to write an exam or complete an assignment while ill and still they’ll produce a note on the subject. And the administrators who require this exercise and the professors who receive the notes understand that 90 per cent or more of the claims are bogus, yet we continue to play the game by the agreed upon rules.
Again, the major problem here is the mistaken belief that doctors are qualified to judge whether or not a student is healthy enough to sit an exam. They are not. They receive no such training and any doctor will freely admit as much. When I was involved in Workplace Safety and Insurance work I had the opportunity to review a variety of documentation relating to injured workers and their ability to perform various tasks and jobs. Doctors who do this stuff for real are highly specialized and they spend a lot of time evaluating their patients before making a report. Even then their work is subject to doubt and controversy. It’s very subjective. So there is no way a family doctor, on the basis of a ten minute discussion, can genuinely report on a student’s ability to get his or her school work done. The diagnosis of gastrointeritis is nothing more than a repetition of the student’s claim about vomiting and stomach pain. There’s no possible test to verify these symptoms.
None of this is meant to suggest that I’m out to punish the poor “sick” students. Common wisdom accepts that students don’t really benefit from blowing off tests, from pushing deadlines, and from deferring exams. They get some relief in the short term, yes, but they only delay their problems. They do make more work for their instructors and that is kind of annoying at times. But they aren’t “cheating” in the sense that they gain anything. So the obvious solution is just to take students at their word and accept the stupid forms. I find myself doing it just as so many instructors have done so before. But it’s still a ridiculous exercise.
A very wise administrator once pointed out to me how truly stupid this all is by making this observation. The students who are genuinely sick don’t benefit significantly from seeing a doctor. The treatment for vomiting, stomach pains, and general flu-like symptoms (in other words, actual gastrointeritis) is just bed rest and fluids. Dragging yourself to a walk-in clinic and sitting around for a couple hours waiting for a note is just about the worst thing you can do. And on top of that, we’re just wasting doctors’ very valuable time with this pointless crap, by turning them into gatekeepers for an academic regime that needs to maintain the illusion of scrutiny. Surely their time could be better spent treating people who are actually ill.
For some this may come as news. If you never realized before how easy it is to get a doctor’s note, well, now you know. But it still isn’t in your interests to do it, so I wouldn’t recommend suddenly becoming “ill” the next time there’s a test. And for those who knew this already, you might as well be aware that we know it too. We know which doctors and clinics you are going to and we know exactly what you’re saying to them and we know how empty the process really is. We just don’t know what to do about it–aside from ensuring that the make up tests are harder than the originals and that no one (including the genuinely ill) ever derives any advantage from the process.
Sometimes, the system just doesn’t work very well for anyone. It makes my tummy hurt.
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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.
Library of humans
Guelph university lends people for 30-minute talks on prejudice
When Chris Langley volunteered to help out with a project at his university library last year, he didn’t imagine he’d wind up becoming a book. The 25-year-old master’s student was intrigued by the notion of a human library, a space in which prospective readers scheduled half-hour time slots with real people and engaged in direct conversations about prejudice.
As an atheist, Langley felt his views and experience could help fill a niche in the library’s catalogue and immediately put himself into circulation. The last-minute addition proved a popular attraction, with all but one of his available time slots filling up over a two-day stretch. The atheist book was back on shelves for the 2010 edition of the human library, which began Thursday at the University of Guelph. The man behind the cover is keen to re-engage with readers on an issue he feels is often misunderstood. “The prejudice I feel is invisible. It’s more a stigma attached to the label,” Langley said in a telephone interview from the university campus. “We’re thought of as evil, callous and even shallow.”
Readers who check out Langley’s book will not be subjected to a lecture about the virtues of his personal religious choice, he said. Readers are strongly encouraged to come with questions and engage him in conversation on spiritual matters of every ilk. “Last year, readers were curious about how I can view the world without a supernatural power, how I cope when I lose loved ones, how I cope without an afterlife,” he said, adding he was checked out by everyone from pro-life evangelists to believers in religions he’d never heard of.
Michael Boterman, another one of last year’s literary offerings, experienced a similarly diverse range of dialogues during his stint on library shelves. As a book entitled “Living with HIV,” the 50-year-old campus staff member attracted a wide readership whose reactions to his ailment ranged from curiosity to fear. Boterman said the conversations gave him a chance to combat widespread ignorance on the subject and influence commonly held attitudes. Some of the people that came and read my book would show a lot of pity. I’ve had this condition longer than most of my readers have been alive. That kind of made them stop and think about that,” he said.
Guelph staff member Lisbeth Sider had her preconceived notions challenged last year when she checked out a book entitled “Sri Lankan Conflict Survivor.” Expecting to hear harrowing tales of domestic terrorism, Sider instead listened to accounts of rebels who treated those on the opposing side with relative kindness despite their profound political differences. “It’s not all black and white,” she said. “You expect one thing and when you come out of it the reality is something very different.”
Such shifts in perspective are what the human library is all about, according to Mike Ridley, the university’s head librarian. By bringing in books who were willing to engage in candid conversations on difficult subjects, organizers strove to turn the library into a place where taboos were cast aside and meaningful engagement was promoted among members of the campus community and beyond.
Last year’s event, which attracted 163 readers and 32 human books, proved the strategy was working, he said. “There were all these people having really intense conversations about sometimes very difficult things,” Ridley said. “Libraries are all about helping users make sense of the world. Here was an event where users were making sense of the world just by talking.”
The two-day event has expanded this year, with 376 slots available for the 36 books on offer. Members of the campus community and general public are invited to browse the collection which includes titles such as “Dykes & Tykes: A Tale of Lesbian Motherhood,” “Female Race Car Driver,” “Living With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder” and “Transsexual Guy.”
The Canadian Press
Now that the Olympics are over…
Out of work? It’s never too late to go back to school.
Budget 2010: Much ado about nothing
Although Flaherty announces a scattering of new investments in research, his budget is underwhelming
After listening to governor general Michaëlle Jean deliver Wednesday’s Speech from the Throne, one would be forgiven for getting excited about a budget that promised to deliver new funds for research. “[The government] will expand the opportunities for our top graduates to pursue post-doctoral studies and to commercialize their ideas,” Jean said. “To fuel the ingenuity of Canada’s best and brightest and bring innovative products to market, our Government will build on the unprecedented investments in Canada’s Economic Action Plan by bolstering its Science and Technology Strategy.”
Sure, the government has aggressively directed funding at scientific, medical and technological research that have obvious economic or health benefits at the expense of basic and the “soft sciences,” but at least Prime Minister Stephen Harper and finance minister Jim Flaherty recognize that research is key in producing innovative ideas, bolstering the economy and creating jobs. Right?
But when Flaherty rose to speak in the House of Commons Thursday, his pledges in regard to research were, like the rest of the budget, underwhelming. The government announced a $32 million annual boost to the three research granting councils. However, considering that last year’s budget brought in a $43 million cut for 2010-11, they are still left $11 million short.
Similarly, Genome Canada—a non-profit set up by government to conduct leading research in genomics—received $75 million “to launch a new targeted research competition focused on forestry and the environment and sustain funding for the regional genomics innovation centres.” But lest we forget that this time last year Genome Canada was completely shut out of the 2009 budget, although it was expecting funding in the $120 million range. Three months after the funding announcement Genome Canada pulled out of a major Canadian-led program to map the genetic circuitry of stem cells.
The Throne Speech did accurately forecast the continued direction of the government’s approach to research; as has been typical in recent budgets, the so-called “hard sciences”—science, technology, engineering and medicine—are seen as the most important drivers of economic growth. The National Graduate Caucus of the Canadian Federation of Students strongly criticized this approach: “Despite a majority of graduate students being enrolled in the humanities and social sciences, this budget allocated a mere $3 million to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), compared to $16 million for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and $13-million to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council,” it stated in a release.
“Innovation is at the heart of Canada’s future economic success. To meet its own goals the government needs to invest in the basic and curiosity-driven research that fuels the innovation engine,” spokesperson Andrea Balon said.
Graduate students are not the only ones making this argument. A report authored by Impact Group suggested that industries that rely primarily on social science and humanities knowledge account for 75 per cent of jobs in Canada, and that this research influences $389 billion in economic activity, close to the $400 billion from hard science industries.
The Association of Universities and Colleges Canada (AUCC), the lobby group for universities, was more positive in its response. In a statement titled “Budget investments in university research a ‘strategic choice’,” the AUCC said it was “pleased” with the investments. “This budget sends an important signal,” said Paul Davidson, AUCC president and CEO. ”It shows that the government recognizes the vital role universities play in creating opportunities for Canadians in the new economy.”
The budget also puts money aside for $135 million to the National Research Council to support 11 regional technology clusters. Another $397 million over five years went to the Canadian Space Agency. $126 million was earmarked for the TRIUMF facility where nuclear and particle physics research occurs.
Perhaps the most heralded research announcement of the day was $45 million over five years for new post-doctoral fellowships that will attract talented researchers to Canada. The program will establish 140 fellowships annually, valued at $70,000 per year for two years each. This is all fine and good, but let’s put it into context. As Maclean’s columnist Paul Wells notes in his analysis, “It’s also about one-third (in any given average year) of the $87.5 million over three years the 2009 budget allocated to Canada Graduate Scholarships. They’re different programs, but you see the difference in scale.”
These are all worthwhile investments; but the piecemeal approach to funding research (a little space technology here, a scattering of physics research there) suggests that Flaherty is not acting out a larger vision of how research and innovation will help us out of the recession. At least as it relates to research funding, the Conservative government is not “leading the way on jobs and growth”—as the title of Budget 2010 proclaims—but treading water.
Budget 2010: New post-doctoral grant
Granting councils to get fellowship funding for new PhDs
In a budget that is light on new spending, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty did pledge new funding for a post-doctoral program. Over five years, the federal government will provide $45 million to the federal research granting councils to create post-doctoral fellowships. The program will establish 140 fellowships annually, valued at $70,000 per year for two years each.
However, to put the new program into context, in 2009 the federal government pledged $87.5 million over three years, as opposed to five, for the Canada Graduate Scholarships. (Read Paul Wells’ analysis here.)
The new fellowships are aimed at creating a “highly skilled workforce” and are intended to be “internationally competitive.” The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has praised the new program. “The fellowship program, funded at $45 million over five years, will be internationally competitive and will help attract and keep talented recent PhD graduates in Canada. Their skills and knowledge will help drive innovative research and discoveries in universities, industry and other knowledge sectors,” the AUCC said in a media release.
The Canadian Federation of Students had hoped the budget would have increased funding to the existing Canada Graduate Scholarships program. “In this budget, the government ignored recommendations made by researchers, professors and students,” the CFS said.
Budget 2010: Why don’t you get a job?
Budget puts grads to work. Nothing for current students
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s budget, tabled Thursday afternoon, offered little in the way of new spending announcements, or policy revisions, for students. Instead, the 2010 budget makes modest expansions to existing programs that are largely aimed at putting university and college graduates to work, as well as at encouraging low income students to pursue a post-secondary education. Student groups say not enough is being done to help existing students.
Related: Budget 2010: New post-doctoral grant
The budget commits $108 million over three years “to assist young people looking to gain skills and experience.” This includes a one-year $30 million boost to the Career Focus component of the Youth Employment Strategy, which funds businesses and other organizations to provide internships to recent graduates. “This will allow more young Canadians to get that vital first job in their field of study,” the budget reads.
An additional $30 million increase is provided for the Skills Link portion of the Youth Employment Strategy. According to the government, Skills Link targets young people who are “at risk,” and others in need, including people with disabilities, single parents, Aboriginals, recent immigrants and those who have dropped out of high school. Skills Link is aimed at giving youth “the broad range of skills, knowledge and work experience they need to participate and succeed in the job market.”
The Pathway to Education Canada program will see an extra $20 million aimed at encouraging students from lower income families to pursue post-secondary education. Finally, minister Flaherty’s budget promises $30 million to create “partnerships” with First Nations “to improve the governance framework and clarify accountability for First Nations elementary and secondary education.”
In response to Thursday’s budget, Canada’s two largest student groups expressed disappointment.
The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) praised the government’s investment in Pathway to Education Canada, which is targeted at increasing university participation rates. However, CASA says not enough has been done to help students who are already attending Canada’s post-secondary institutions. “Unfortunately the federal government did not recognize the needs of students that are currently facing a cash and credit crunch due to last year’s recession,” said Arati Sharma, CASA’s national director.
Similarly, the Canadian Federation of Students also denounced the budget as inadequate. “With a record number of Canadians enrolled in college or university, this budget does nothing to help students and their families afford an education,” said CFS national chairperson Katherine Giroux-Bougard.
The lack of significant funding announcements is consistent with yesterday’s Speech from the Throne, in which students were barely mentioned. In fact, the only reference to students came when the Conservative government pledged to work with Aboriginal communities and province’s to “reform and strengthen education, and to support student success and provide greater hope and opportunity.”
The only other hint the government offered about today’s spending, echoed in the budget, was that there were no major cuts planned. “Balancing the nation’s books will not come […] by cutting transfer payments for health care and education,” governor general Michaelle Jean read, going on to explain later in the speech that restraining program spending overall would protect growth in transfers to pensions, education and health.
With files from Erin Millar
‘Odious’ Israeli Apartheid Week condemned
Yearly campus event denounced by politicians as a ruse for racism
Israeli Apartheid Week, held annually on university campuses around the world, has always provoked a strong reaction and this year Canada’s politicians are denouncing the event that began Monday. Later this week, Edmonton Conservative MP Tim Uppal will put forward a motion calling on the House of Commons to unanimously recognize that Israeli Apartheid Week is a ruse for anti-Semitism.
The proposed motion reads: “That this House considers itself to be a friend of the State of Israel; that this House is concerned about expressions of anti-Semitism under the guise of “Israeli Apartheid Week”; and that this House explicitly condemns any action in Canada as well as internationally that would equate the State of Israel with the rejected and racist policy of apartheid.”
A similar motion was passed by the Ontario Provincial Parliament in late February, where all present members supported a motion put forward by Tory MPP Peter Shurman. Shurman told the Toronto Star that he would like to see the name changed. “Israeli Apartheid Week is not a dialogue, it’s a monologue and it is an imposition of a view by the name itself—the name is hateful, it is odious.” Similar sentiments were expressed by both Liberal and NDP members of the provincial legislature.
On Monday of this week, federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff released a statement that would seem to suggest that the Liberal party will endorse Uppal’s proposed motion. “The very premise of Israeli Apartheid Week runs counter to our shared values of mutual respect and tolerance, regardless of nationality, race or creed. It is an attempt to heighten the tensions in our communities around the tragic conflict in the Middle East,” Ignatieff said.
As for the event itself, at York University, where tensions caused by the event have often run the highest, the Excalibur reported today that so far Israeli Apartheid Week has been civil. The Excalibur also reported that York’s president Mamdouh Shoukri encouraged students to not use the event to engage in racist behaviour. “Political activism is no excuse for racism, intimidation or hatred of any kind,” he said.
CO-OPERATIVE EDUCATION and INTERNSHIPS
Below is a listing of co-op and internship options for Acadia University through Brock University. For our complete listing, please click here. Acadia University Co-operative Education and Internships Biology, Business, Chemistry, Computer Science, English, Environmental Geoscience, Environmental Science, French, Geology, German, History, Mathematics, Music, Nutrition, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Spanish University of Alberta Co-operative [...]
Below is a listing of co-op and internship options for Acadia University through Brock University. For our complete listing, please click here.
Acadia University
Co-operative Education and Internships
Biology, Business, Chemistry, Computer Science, English, Environmental Geoscience, Environmental Science, French, Geology, German, History, Mathematics, Music, Nutrition, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Spanish
University of Alberta
Co-operative Education
Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics: Agriculture/Food Business Management, Forestry Business Management
Arts: English, Psychology
Business: All programs
Engineering: Chemical, Chemical/Computer Process Control, Civil, Computer, Computer Software, Electrical, Environmental, Materials, Mechanical, Metallurgical, Mining, Petroleum
Internships
Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics: Agriculture, Agricultural/Food Business Management, Environmental and Conservation Science, Forest Business Management, Forestry, Human Ecology, Nutrition and Food Science
Education: Counselling Psychology (Ph.D.)
Sciences: All programs
Alberta College of Art & Design
No co-op offerings.
Algoma University
Co-operative Education
Business Administration, Community Economic and Social Development, Computer Science, Fine Arts, Science
Internships
Community Economic and Social Development
Athabasca University
Internships/Practicums
Counselling (graduate), Heritage Resources Management, Nursing (graduate and post-LPN)
Bishop’s University
Co-operative Education
Business Administration, Engineering and Liberal Arts, Imaging and Digital Media
Internships
Arts Administration, Economics, Education, History, Political Studies, Psychology
Brandon University
Co-operative Education
Biology, Environmental Science, Geography, Geology
Internships
Arts (International Development), Computer Science, Rural Development
The University of British Columbia
Co-operative Education
Arts: African Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, Art History, Asian Studies, Canadian Studies, Classical Studies, Cognitive Systems, Creative Writing, Drama, Economics, English, Family Studies, Film, First Nations Studies, French, Geography, German, Greek, History, Hispanic Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, International Relations, Italian, Latin American Studies, Law and Society, Library, Archival and Information Studies, Linguistics, Medieval Studies, Modern European Studies, Music, Near Eastern Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Russian, Social Work, Sociology, Speech Sciences, Theatre, Visual Arts, Women’s and Gender Studies
Commerce: Accounting, Finance, Management Information Systems, Marketing, Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources, Real Estate, Transportation and Logistics
Engineering: Chemical and Biological, Civil, Computer, Electrical, Environmental, Geological, Integrated, Mechanical, Materials, Mining
Forestry: Forest Resource Management, Forest Operations, Forest Sciences, Natural Resources Conservation, Wood Products Processing
Land and Food Systems: Agroecology, Food and Nutritional Sciences, Food Market Analysis, Food, Nutrition and Health, Food Science, Global Resource Systems, Nutritional Sciences
Science: Astronomy, Atmospheric Science, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biology, Biophysics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth and Ocean Sciences, Engineering Physics, Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Microbiology and Immunology, Pharmacology, Physics, Physiology, Statistics
Internships
Audiology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Clinical Psychology, Community and Regional Planning, Counselling Psychology, Dentistry, Dietetics, Earth and Ocean Sciences, Education, Entrepreneurship, Finance, General Management, Health Services and Policy Research, Human Kinetics, Information Technology, Journalism, Library and Archival Sciences, Management Information Systems, Marketing, Master of Software Systems, Medicine, Natural Resource Science, Nursing, Organic Agriculture, Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Rehabilitation Sciences, School Psychology, Strategic Management, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability, Transportation and Logistics
Brock University
Co-operative Education
Applied Linguistics, Drama in Education, Drama in Applied Theatre, Dramatic Literature, Economics (Applied Economic Analysis), Geography, Political Science (Public Administration), Psychology
Business: Accounting, Business Administration, Business Economics
Science: Biochemistry, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Computing and Business, Computing and Network Communications, Computing and Solid State Device Technology, Earth Science, Environmental Geoscience, Mathematics Integrated with Computers and Applications, Mathematics (Statistics), Neuroscience, Oenology and Viticulture, Physics
Graduate: Accountancy, Business Administration, Business Administration-International Student Program, Business Economics, International Accountancy,
Internships
Communication Disorders Assistants, Computer Science, Computing and Business, Nursing, Recreation and Leisure, Sport Management
How to get into university
A video application for Canadian schools
Pen and paper for university applications is the way of the past–or so it’s starting to seem. This year, Tufts University in the U.S. started encouraging applicants to send in videos. Which led us to wonder: what would applications for Canadian universities look like if they picked up on the trend?
The CFS goes to court
Only one school will see a CFS referendum this year, while other schools take legal action
At least one Canadian student union will get the chance to ask students if they want to leave the Canadian Federation of Students this March, while two student unions take the federation to court and several defederation petitions remain in limbo.
The Alberta College of Art and Design Students’ Association will hold a referendum question this year, allowing their student body to vote on whether or not they want to remain members of the CFS.
Meanwhile, two cases are currently before the courts in Quebec and Ontario. The first involves the Post-Graduate Students’ Society at McGill University, which is seeking to fix a referendum date campus paper the McGill Daily, reported. A trial on the issue is likely to happen in April, CFS-National treasurer Dave Molenhuis said, which means it’s unlikely McGill graduate students will see a referendum this school year.
The second group pursuing legal action with the CFS is the Central Student Association at the University of Guelph. The CSA is looking to hold a referendum its students petitioned for, and had asked to be held March 29, 30, and 31 of this year, the Ontarion, Guelph’s student paper reported. An Ontario Superior Court judge will likely rule on the question on Mar. 23, when the case is set to reconvene.
Campuses buzzed last semester over petitions circulated at twelve schools, and thirteen student unions, calling for a membership referendum, the McGill Daily was first to report in September. Student unions have been behind several of the petitions, but students, as members of their respective unions, have acted independently as well, such as at Carleton University, where fourth-year journalism student Dean Tester organized the “Move On Carleton” campaign to gather signatures.
Students in Ontario, including those from Trent University, Carleton University and the University of Guelph, cried foul when discrepancies arose over how and when petitions were delivered to the CFS-Ontario office, the provincial arm of the organization. Because CFS-Ontario mandates petitions for referendum under separate bylaws from national headquarters, groups say they sent petitions to both their provincial and national offices in accordance with each set of bylaws.
According to CFS-Ontario bylaws, petitions must be received six months prior to the requested referendum dates, to allow executive time to review and verify signatures and set up a referendum.
Daniel Bitonti, the Ontarion‘s editor-in-chief, reportedly obtained an affidavit from one of the Guelph student petition organizers, confirming delivery by process server of the petitions from Guelph to the CFS-Ontario office on Sept. 29. This would have given the CFS the six months required in the bylaws to organize the referendum. But, the bylaws also require the petitions be sent by registered mail. The article Bitonti wrote quotes a previous statement from the CFS-Ontario office, claiming they received the petitions by registered mail on Nov. 9, more than a month after the six-month deadline.
While CFS-National did confirm receipt of several petitions, issues verifying student signatures have also stalled the process at Guelph, as well as at Concordia.
CFS’s Molenhuis said the national executive faced a lack of support from Guelph’s student association in verifying student signatures on the submitted petitions. When the CFS contacted the Guelph student executive concerning the validation of the signatures, the CSA was unwilling to cooperate, Molenhuis said.
“There’s some obstructionism going on there,” he said. “I requested assistance of the students’ union in validating the signatures and reviewing them and they . . . refused to engage in any dialogue.”
CSA communications and corporate affairs commissioner Gavin Armstrong, said the association provided a letter from the registrar’s office verifying signatures of more than 10 per cent of their student body, a percentage required, at the time, by CFS-National bylaws. “That should be enough,” Armstrong said.
Amongst the petition confusion, the CFS held its annual general meeting in November, where new restrictions were placed on membership referenda. At the AGM, Motion 6, proposed by Carleton’s Graduate Students Association passed. CFS-national bylaws now require petitions to have signatures from 20 per cent–previously 10 per cent–of the student body. The number of membership referenda held nationwide per three month period has been limited to two. The motion also stipulated that referendum held on each individual campus be limited to one every five years. The motion passed 44 to 19, requiring two thirds support by representatives. An article published in the Fulcrum goes on to detail a debate over who constituted as “voting members,” as CFS-Quebec representatives argued because of a number of abstentions, the vote did not receive the support it needed to pass.
At ACAD, the only student union to so far to have a referendum approved by the CFS, the petitions submitted by the students’ association has not faced the same problems as at other schools, ACADSA’s vice-president communications Graham Krenz said.
The association called on CFS for a membership referendum to ensure ACADSA was accountable with their finances and to their student body, not as an action of discontent with the Federation, Krenz said. He said the question had not been posed to students in several years. “We decided it would be an important issue,” he said. “It’s been a very pleasant experience with the CFS so far.”
ACADSA did not have to follow the dual regulations Ontario students did, because with no provincial CFS branch, they only had to submit one petition to the national office.
The CFS is Canada’s largest student lobby group.
The case of the mystery million dollars
The CFS says Concordia can’t hold membership referendum until it pays $1-mil the union says it doesn’t owe
When Concordia Students’ Union president Amine Dabchy received the letter, he burst out laughing. “How did they pick such a specific number?” he recalls thinking. The letter informed the students’ union that it owned over $1 million to the Canadian Federation of Students—a huge sum Dabchy does not believe his organization owes.
The disagreement over $1,033,278.76 in unpaid fees is the latest episode in a months-long conflict between the Concordia Students’ Union (CSU) and the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), the largest student lobby group in Canada. Since the fall, the CSU has been attempting to put in motion a student referendum that would allow the union to cease its membership in the CFS. According to Dabchy, the CFS has been doing everything in its power to prevent a referendum, including demanding payment of this sum. “We believe this is a political tactic to prevent us from having a referendum,” he says.
When asked whether the debt is a political tactic Dave Molenhuis, treasurer and chairperson elect for the CFS, replies, “Definitely not.” He goes on to explain that the CSU was made aware of the debt years ago and that clearing outstanding fees has long been standard procedure before a referendum. “The rules around outstanding membership dues are very clear. It’s nothing new.”
The CSU—which pays over $200,000 annually to the CFS—is one of 13 students’ unions at 12 universities attempting to end its membership in the CFS. As the battle for student votes heats up, it seems inevitable that the CFS and multiple students’ unions will find themselves in court over the results.
Read about the disputes over referendums at other universities here
The trouble at Concordia started when the newly elected executive of the CSU started the process to leave the CFS. After over 16 per cent of the Concordia student body signed a petition asking for a vote on their continued membership in the group in October 2009, the CSU attempted to schedule a referendum. CFS bylaws at that time required that at least 10 per cent of the student body sign such a petition and that the petition be delivered six months in advance.
However, the CFS has repeatedly rebuffed the CSU’s efforts to get the ball rolling. In January, more than two months after receiving Concordia’s petition, the CFS requested that the university registrar verify that the nearly 5,500 signatures were signed by full-time students with valid student numbers. The registrar disqualified only 269 ineligible signatures, leaving enough eligible signatures to trigger a referendum.
The CFS then requested a copy of the petition that the registrar used when verifying signatures. The CSU responded and asked the CFS to confirm its proposed referendum dates by January 28. That deadline came and went without a response.
That’s why Dabachy couldn’t believe his eyes when he received the CFS’s letter detailing the staggering debt owed by the CSU. “We are denying that this is true,” he says. Dabachy wasn’t able to find any record of the debt in CSU books or meeting minutes. In the letter, the CFS states no referendum can be held until the CSU has paid the amount in full.
The disagreement comes down to a Memorandum of Understanding that was signed by former CSU president Keyana Kashfi in April 2009, less than two months before Dabachy took office. The MOU—a copy of which accompanied the CFS’ letter to the CSU—stated that the CSU owed the money for unpaid membership fees and laid out a payment schedule to start in September 2010.
With the exception of Kashfi, no director of the CSU was aware of the document, according to Dabachy. “When we look through our records, we have paid our membership fees since we first became members,” he says. Kashfi appears to have signed the MOU without consulting the CSU council.
Molenhuis says that it is impossible that the union was unaware of the outstanding fees. “It’s common knowledge amongst previous executive members of Concordia,” he says.
Dabachy believes that Kashfi’s actions are a clear violation of CSU bylaws and Quebec laws. CSU lawyers sent a letter to Kashfi last week informing her the CSU would be holding her liable for over $1 million for entering the agreement on her own.
In an interview with the student newspaper The Concordian, Kashfi explained that the debt was incurred in part because the CSU hadn’t adjusted its membership fees for inflation. The CSU also allegedly didn’t pay fees for business and engineering students.
“It’s a lot of money, but it’s what’s owed,” Kashfi told the Concordian. “If anything I did a service to the CSU by stopping the CFS from collecting the debt all at once.” She also said she was not in violation of CSU bylaws because she wasn’t making a purchase, rather paying what was owed for services rendered.
In a statement emailed to Maclean’s OnCampus, the CFS states: “In fairness to all other dues paying members of the Canadian Federation of Students and in accordance with the Federation’s Bylaws, any outstanding dues must be remitted prior to holding a vote on the question of continued membership.”
So what’s next for the CSU? Dabachy says that he plans to go ahead with the referendum regardless of whether the CFS agrees. “We’ll see what happens and we will make use of all of our legal options and rights.”
Global ambitions
Organizing an exchange placement abroad becomes an education in itself
Whether your idea of travel is sipping margaritas on a beach or immersing yourself in foreign cultures, you probably never believed the hardest part would come before you stepped on the plane. Not, that is, unless you’ve ever been on a university exchange: for that true Alice-in-Wonderland experience, try one, and watch yourself fall right down the rabbit hole.
I am a fine arts student at Toronto’s York University about to head to Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, for a third-year exchange program offered through York. That program, York International, is pretty much why I enrolled there. While the university’s entrance scholarships were attractive, it was a brief high school presentation on exchange possibilities that sealed the deal. I wanted that badly to go overseas.
Not so fast, though. Given universities’ bureaucratic nature, going on exchange is not as simple as clicking your heels together and saying I want to go to Australia. At the mid-October 2008 information session I was handed the application package, fat enough to shoot my first overseas plan down in flames. I had wanted to go to Japan for years, ever since becoming hooked on manga. But Japan’s application deadline was just two weeks away. Faced with essay demands and this elaborate a year for York exchange, with one reserved for a law student.
A month later came word that Flinders had accepted me, and that York International had given me a scholarship. I went from despair to elation in seconds, blithely ignorant of the fact that York’s bureaucracy was far from finished with me, and that Flinders’s was just getting started. Forms flew into my inbox from both ends of the earth. It didn’t help that the Australian school year (March to December) doesn’t correspond with ours in the northern hemisphere. Officials at the two schools were concentrating on different priorities. Even Ontario’s student loan program got in on the act, seeking repayments last fall because I was not enrolled full-time at either York or Flinders.
Prime among my application needs were a student visa, health insurance notifications, power of attorney forms and housing. I started falling behind, losing track of what had to be filled out in what order by what deadline. It was November 2009 before I realized I was missing Flinders’s residence application. More forms were cheerfully sent—arriving exactly one day after the deadline.
But nothing loomed larger than the question of what classes I was going to take. It took months, but by mid-December I had received course approval from York and Flinders. But when I went to register in my classes over Christmas break, I learned that of the four topics approved, three were on the same day over the same four hours. I was incensed. Why would they approve impossibilities? Apparently, at Flinders, one department approves, and another—which hadn’t swung into action yet—tells you if it works out. And once you learn about the conflict, that doesn’t mean you simply fill in substitutes—they too have to go through the approval pipeline.
All this was in spite of the efforts of the people in the York and Flinders international offices, who regularly went out of their way to help me—one at Flinders even took time out of his Christmas holidays. But the system itself is flawed. Holding mass meetings, as York does, before the host universities send out their forms, doesn’t help much: students don’t yet know the questions to ask. Although the applications are general—you can apply to Hong Kong, Spain and Britain at one time—the acceptances, and the consequent paperwork, are university-specific. And it doesn’t come to you all at once. It would have been an enormous benefit to me if I could have worked through everything all together with someone who knew Flinders’s needs. In short, you are responsible for getting everything in on time—a reasonable enough demand on a university student, except there is no real mechanism to ensure you know what “everything” consists of.
By January I had to ditch the course quagmire and shift my focus to getting to Australia, no simple task either. I reviewed my budget and came up with a plan: a three-day bus trip across Canada to Vancouver, staying with an uncle for a couple of days, then flying (via San Francisco) to Sydney and from there to Adelaide. An odyssey set to take seven days, over three countries and a dozen cities—but by far the cheapest way there.
So here I am. I may have a monster journey ahead, and nowhere to stay when I get there, but that’s nothing compared to surviving an existential struggle with two university bureaucracies. It’s all good now . . . right?
Who needs a prof?
Students turn to their laptops for free online courses from Ivy League scholars
Last year, I was obliged to take a course as part of my undergraduate political science degree. It was described as political game theory. I was thinking, “Like Russell Crowe doing John Nash in A Beautiful Mind?” But instead I got Victorian Britain and pre-Confederation Canada. As disappointments go, this was roughly equivalent to receiving coal for Christmas. But I needed to make it through the course, so I did what many others have done: I turned to the Internet. There, on a site called Academic Earth, I learned everything I was later tested on from Benjamin Polak, a professor of economics teaching at Yale, whose full course on game theory was videotaped and posted online, complete with worksheets and exams.
I used only Polak’s material for all my assignments and exams. And so I wondered: why was I paying for this class when I got a better education online and for free?
Sites like Academic Earth, Open Culture and iTunes U have immortalized lectures and debates of top academics from Yale, MIT and Harvard in the form of free, downloadable videos and podcasts, easily available on a laptop or iPhone. It’s instant Ivy League for the masses. “It may be a better resource for some students than a textbook,” says Polak, adding that he receives emails responding to his online course from all over the world.
Polak didn’t intend his course to be a substitution for real-life instruction at other universities. But students of general undergraduate courses like Poli 101 can and do turn to online resources like Academic Earth and even Wikipedia to learn much of their classwork. Classmate Geoff Costeloe studied solely for his upper-level political science exam this way. “I didn’t even buy a textbook,” he says.
It’s not just the proliferation of online information that encourages students to abandon their professors—it’s the structure of the classroom. “Clearly, to be effective you need face-to-face interaction and a more intimate environment than lecture halls with 300 to 400 students,” says David Robinson, associate executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. Robinson says that while university enrolments continue to rise, there isn’t the same increase in the number of professors, which means “we do need to look at the quality of education.”
In the United States, there are similar cracks in the instructional facade. Universities “have an obligation to get their heads out of the sand,” says Julio Ojeda-Zapata, technology journalist for Pioneer Press, publisher of a raft of suburban newspapers in Chicago. He believes academia should adopt an entrepreneurial spirit to equip students with tools that prepare them for the business world. “College campuses are clinging to an archaic method that is being discouraged everywhere else,” he says. “I’m a little concerned about sending my son to an expensive four-year education that may be of little value.”
Some educators are calling for a radical change. Since 2006, Carl Wieman, a Nobel physics laureate, has been working at UBC to reshape science education. Wieman has oriented teaching methods away from memorizing facts—a method that Wieman says was made “obsolete since the printing press”—and toward complex, problem-solving exercises with an expert approach, facilitated by the faculty. “Now, you look in the classes,” he says, “and instead of students sitting there text messaging, falling asleep or not showing up to class, they are engaged.”
Similarly, William Rankin, an associate professor of English at Abilene Christian University, has been a primary mover behind equipping students at the Texas university with iPod Touches and iPhones. The program began in 2008, and now nearly half the student body have the devices. Rankin says teachers, too, are better off for it. The faculty uses the devices to overcome time delays between tests and feedback, get immediate class input, and participate in ongoing online discussions via blogs. “The medieval apprentice model in which people learned in these very personalized ways is exactly the type of learning we can see in this initiative,” says Rankin. “I do think that in the next two or three years you will see a groundswell of these sorts of initiatives.”
So what role is left for the teacher? To be effective, Wieman says, they must be “cognitive coaches” rather than conduits of information. Rankin believes that the change in pedagogy will happen soon. “It’s comparable to the introduction of a light switch,” he adds. “It’s just going to take a while for people to figure out what this looks like and how it works.”
The Agony, the Ecstasy and an Epiphany
Undergraduate teaching is in bad shape
I just got back from Europe, where I spent my reading week visiting NATO, various organs of the EU in Brussels, the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, and United Nations University in Bruges. My entire Global Governance class was lucky enough to have received full funding from the University of Toronto’s Internationalized Course Module, a fund dedicated to providing opportunities for students to complement their studies with international travel.
Such are the kind of benefits of attending university, where programs and funds seem to exist for every imaginable purpose and great opportunities abound. The Ecstasy lies therein.
Last semester I took a course with a professor who very fundamentally affected the way in which I view myself and the world around me. Almost every student I’ve encountered who has also had this professor has had similar experiences with his incredibly passionate and challenging teaching style. He teaches six courses and has taught here for 15 years. He produces leading research in his field. Yet the university has hitherto refused to provide him with any form of job security beyond sessional lectureship positions. As a result, he is seeking employment elsewhere, much to the dismay of the 300+ students who have signed a petition pressuring the university to retain him.
By the same token, I have tenured professors whose clear lack of passion and talent for teaching has left me completely turned off their subjects and rather disillusioned by the entire process of formal education itself. Undergraduate teaching at large universities is in bad shape, and solutions are in short supply. One idea I’ve heard is to encourage younger professors to focus on their research and on teaching graduate students who can benefit from the cutting-edge perspective of a researcher while letting the older, more experienced and proven professors neglect research in order to focus on teaching their subjects to undergraduates.
In the absence of such sweeping reforms, the reality of bad teaching seems here to stay. This annoyingly persistent failure of “teaching institutions” at recognizing value for their students (wherein lies the Agony) seems to be but one manifestation of a larger societal trend.
Consider this:
The question that most occupies my thoughts of what I am going to do with my life has reached great conclusion! An epiphany has finally stuck me, narrowing down the myriad of life and career choices ahead into a simple dichotomy, an easy two-way fork in the road that shall now be easy to navigate in light of the multifarious squid of options I have just overcome.
It is simply this: I shall either go into politics or I shall take Voltaire’s advice and cultivate a garden. My reasoning, which I judge important enough to my point to expound, is as follows: To achieve success in either pursuit, one must possess the same skills. One must first be able to sow. This in itself is easy enough. One then must provide the right quantity and quality of care for the seedling: providing enough nourishment and encouragement, maybe singing to it a little (apparently Mozart helps plants grow . . . ).
Once the thing has sprouted, one must protect it from the lecherous weeds that will threaten its progress, and continue to procure the resources necessary to ensure its lasting growth and health. If successful, after long months of labour and with perhaps a little luck, one is finally free to reap the fruits of success and revel, as Grandpa Joad so enjoyed, in the sweet juices of a peach (or a passed Bill) trickling down one’s chin.
A successful legislator must thus possess the same skills as a gardener. I believe these skills are actually fundamental to a host of careers, if not for all, and yet they are not those we learn in school. We are taught information in an age where an iPhone can in seconds download more information than you could learn, let alone produce, over the course of six PhDs. We are taught hard skills in a world where increasing interconnectedness demands the soft skills of a gardener. On a grander level, we value status and appearance (the two go hand in hand, of course) over substance and real power to affect real change.
This is why my dichotomy appears so ludicrous: in response to the question of the 21st century (“What do you do?”), “I plant trees” will elicit far less affect than “I plant laws.”
The irony is that politics, which is thought of in terms so much grander than gardening, often requires the successful practitioner to decorate himself with irrelevant degrees, qualifications, and other tinsel, when a gardener with a briefing could do his job just as well. We shouldn’t think of someone as more valuable simply because he has a degree, nor should we think of a degree as indicative of anything valuable in itself. At least not until degree-granting institutions begin to realize value in teaching.
