Archive for April, 2010

What if it’s not A, B, or C?

My Human Physiology exam broke one of the cardinal rules of multiple-choice tests.

The whole point of a multiple choice test is that the answer is somewhere in front of you. If you’ve done the readings and listened to the lectures, it’s just a matter of recognizing the right answer.

At the very least, you can narrow it down through process of elimination.

Unless some passive-aggressive TA decides to make all 120 questions include “none of the above.”

-photo courtesy of ccarlstead

U of T retracts acceptance email sent to dozens of graduate school hopefuls

Wow, is this ever embarrassing. The University of Toronto School of Graduate studies mistakenly sent emails to dozens of students telling them they were accepted into the speech pathology program, when they were, in fact, rejected. Some 169 applicants received the erroneous email last Friday.

As the Sun reports:

“Welcome to the University of Toronto,” read the subject line. “Acceptance into Canada’s preeminent grad school is an achievement in itself,” the e-mail said. “We chose you because you’re at the top of our list. And we believe you applied to U of T because we’re at the top of yours!”

That message caused at least one student to be predictably elated. “I was walking on clouds,” Meara Brown, who is a University of Victoria student, told the Sun. “I told my references, my peers, my profs, my friends, and my family. My family started telling everyone in the small town I grew up in.”

Brown’s educational ego boost was burst just three days later, when the U of T sent a clarification email:

“On April 9 you received an e-mail from the School of Graduate Studies suggesting that you should have received an offer of admission from the University of Toronto,” the April 12 e-mail said.

“The e-mail was sent to you as a result of an administrative error. We sincerely regret the confusion this has caused.”

The U of T blames the mistake on a line of coding in the original mass email that was intended for the 45 students who were actually accepted into the program.

A not dissimilar debacle happened at the University of Ottawa last spring when the law school misplaced 600 applicants. To rectify the mistake, UOttawa admitted extra students, and at least they blamed it on “human error” and not on those dreadful computers as the U of T has done. I guess that is just the way things are done at “Canada’s preeminent grad school.”

How to let off steam during exams

During final exams I can suddenly see the appeal of Twitter.

Scott is feeling bogged down right now. Send food.

Scott will never take another chemistry class again. Ever. Until he has to.

Scott ate too many macadamias and will hurl if anyone so much as whispers “want some nuts?”

Scott thinks that people who speak of themselves in the third person to be a special kind of ass.

-photo courtesy of jmilles

Waiting for acceptance is excruciating

High school seniors across Canada are on tenterhooks these days as they await news of their acceptance from the country’s universities or colleges.

Their parents are likely just as anxious, having heard the oft-repeated lament: “Will I get in?” Vida Korhani, 17, of Toronto, says waiting to hear from the three Ontario institutions she applied to–the University of Toronto, Ryerson and York University–has been absolutely excruciating. “It was horrible. Many of my friends had heard back from U of T and I just felt like my average maybe wasn’t good enough.”

Her average is 92 per cent.

While the student at the Hawthorn School for Girls found out she was in fact accepted at both Toronto and York, she’s still waiting to hear if she’ll make it into her first choice, Ryerson’s well-regarded journalism program.

“Mind-boggling” is how her Grade 12 classmate Abiola Abraham describes the wait to hear from her first choice, the University of Waterloo, for computer science and business administration. “So anxious, every day I was just checking my email all the time,” the 16-year-old says. Being accepted at University of Toronto and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., has relieved some of the pressure, she says.

Laura Schoof, 17, of Vincent Massey Secondary School in Windsor, Ont., says it was stressful waiting to be accepted. “I pretty much went home and checked the Internet every day just to see and we woke up and checked the mailbox as soon as I got up,” she says. She was accepted at three colleges but chose the pre-health program at Fanshawe College in London, Ont., because it is close to home and will help her get into medical radiation technology later.

As if the students aren’t nervous enough, the “cut-off marks” referring to the lowest mark a university will accept from an incoming student can be a moving target. Montreal’s McGill University, for example, has been gradually lowering its cut-off marks every two weeks this spring. No one knows where it will end.

Seneca College, like many other institutions, monitors its “application targets” daily, says Cindy Hazell, vice-president at the Toronto college.

Offers are sent out over several months, although the two major waves are in February and April.

The cut-off marks are not necessarily determined by ability to pass the program but are set according to the number of physical spaces, specialized equipment such as labs and number of faculty available, says Hazell. Much of that is determined by the amount of government funding supplied to each post-secondary institution, she adds.

But even when students are accepted, the nerve-racking part is not always over. More than one offer means they’ll have to choose.

That’s where guidance counsellors come in. Fern Schessel of the Toronto French School has been a guidance counsellor for 41 years and works with students applying all across Canada and abroad. Schessel says students fortunate enough to have more than one choice should ask themselves several questions. Which school has the program they want? Where can they flourish? Where would they feel most at home? What resources are available to them at various institutions?

Finally, she tells them to listen to their gut. It’s important that they do their research, she says. Her advice: visit the schools, look at their programs, check out the city they would live in. “A lot of our kids will go based on ‘my friends are going to McGill’ or  . . .  ‘it’s perceived as prestigious for me to go from here to McGill’ and so McGill is automatically a university of choice.”

“They may not have opened the calendar to see what programs are available, they may not have walked the campus, but they will go,” she says.

Mohamud Bulle, 17, another Vincent Massey student from Windsor, has been accepted at two universities but hasn’t heard back from his first choice, the University of Western Ontario in London. He favours Western because it would allow him to study law in his second year, if he has the marks.

But that’s not the only reason. “Western’s a lot of fun, I’m not going to lie,” he laughs. “Some of my older friends have gone there and they say it’s a lot of fun.” He hesitates, then adds “as long as you balance.”

The Canadian Press

What you can’t see might hurt you.

While conscious efforts to maximize the quantity and quality of studying may indeed be important to meeting your full academic potential, there are many factors that influence academic success beyond your immediate awareness. Two such factors are perhaps especially relevant during this time of year as exams approach and as soon-to-be former freshmen choose roommates to live with next year.

The first is known as encoding specificity. Firmly established by Canadian neuroscientist Endel Tulving, this phenomenon states that recalling previously learned information will be most effective when the context in which you learned it is replicated. Thus, students who write a test in a room very different to the room in which they learned the information (or studied it), will do worse on the test than if the rooms were similar.

Encoding specificity can also be important in mental states, with research even showing that information learned while drunk can be better recalled when drunk! While it probably isn’t a good idea to study and write your finals while inebriated, the principle is more practically applicable by realizing that even just imagining the context in which you learned something can help you recall it. A good review of some research into this phenomenon can be found here.

A second influence on your academic success that may remain beyond your awareness is your roommate. Working with freshmen at Darthmouth College, where students are randomly assigned roommates, economist Bruce Sacerdote found that students’ GPAs were significantly influenced by the GPA of their roommates (see the report for all the glorious mathematical details). While planning who to live with next year, it is advisable to choose smart people.

And thus continues the unrelenting struggle to balance future concerns (academic success) with more immediate pleasure (living with/near more carefree and fun loving friends), all the while keeping an eye on those influences that aren’t as immediately apparent… such is the nature of university life.

Although female students have outnumbered their male counterparts for decades, male professors still rule the roost in academia

When the University of Calgary announced last week that engineering dean Elizabeth Cannon would be its next president, the appointment was widely applauded. Cannon — who is by all accounts an excellent scholar and administrator — will be UCalgary’s very first female president in its 43-year history. Both major universities in Alberta are now headed by women. 

“This sends the message that anything is possible,” Anne Katzenberg, an archeology professor and former women’s issues advisor, told the Calgary Herald.

Hurray! Right?

Considering that the number of female university students overtook the number of male students way back in 1988, why is the appointment of a female president being praised as a milestone in 2010? Women accounted for nearly 60 per cent of post-secondary students in 2009 and the gender gap is continuing to grow. However, when it comes to who is standing in front of the classroom, men still overwhelmingly dominate.

In the past few decades, universities have taken considerable steps towards hiring and pay parity. Nevertheless, male professors with tenure still vastly outnumber female professors, they are paid more than their female counterparts and they are more likely to be promoted to senior positions. It seems that no matter how many more women than men graduate from our universities, men continue to reign in the upper echelons of the ivory tower.

Among the lower ranks of professors there are nearly as many female professors as male professors. For example, in 2006-07 there were slightly more female lecturers than male, according to Statistics Canada. But look at higher ranks—full, associate and assistant professor—and the gender gap widens. Only 20 per cent of full professors were women in 2006-07, and women made up only 33 per cent of all professors.

Last week’s release of Ontario’s Public Salary Disclosure—popularly known as the “Sunshine List”—further illustrated how the number of women declines in the upper ranks of universities. While salaries are nearing parity in the lower ranks, men vastly outnumber women in high paying upper administration jobs. For example, 413 men working for universities in Ontario make in excess of $200,000 (including benefits) while only 115 women are members of the $200,000-plus club.

High profile examples of top paid female university administrators exist; University of Alberta president Indira Samarasekera was the highest paid university president in the country in 2008 with compensation over $620,000. Uof C’s Cannon will also take her place among the best paid university administrators in Canada; her contract includes a base salary of $430,000, an “annual incentive payment” valued up to 20 per cent of her base salary, a car allowance of $16,000 and other benefits.

Ontario’s top female earner in 2009 was Tina Dacin, director of corporate social responsibility at Queen’s School of Business, who was paid over $475,000 including benefits. Roseann Runte, Carleton’s president, was the highest female president with compensation over $400,000. She ranked fourth after Carole Stephenson, dean of the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western, who earned $405,000. Interestingly, the fifth top paid woman doesn’t even work at an Ontario university any more; Lorna Marsden, former president of York University who stepped down in 2007, netted $396,567.00.

Click here to view details on all women earning more than $200,000 at Ontario universities.

For more coverage of university salaries, see The high cost of status

and Hey administrators. Quit your job, earn big bucks

Despite these examples, women account for only about 30 per cent of administrative positions, according to a 2005 survey conducted by Karen Grant for the Senior Women Academic Administrators of Canada. Also, on average women continue to make less than men at every level of employment at universities. In 2006-07, the median salary for female university professors was $113,450 while men earned an average of $119,725, according to Statistics Canada. Women with senior administrative duties earned an average of $123,400 while their male counterparts earned $128,300.

In spring, a professor’s fancy turns to thoughts of who-knows-what.

Christine Overall, over at University Affairs, laments the stereotype of the professor that lingers in popular culture:

In popular media, especially films and television, professors are almost always male. They’re absent-minded and out of touch with the “real world.” They usually teach English or creative writing. They do very little work, except to exchange quips with a class that is seldom larger than about 25 students. The professors, all middle-aged, often try to “hook up” with their young students. We never see them preparing classes, serving on committees, writing papers, or marking students’ work.

Unlike my colleague, I cannot get too riled over this stereotype. For one thing, I can’t fault the media for not showing professors grading papers. Who wants to watch that? The other reason it fails to outrage me is that it is a fairly accurate description of the actual me. Male? Check. English? Check. Middle-aged? Check. I do a fair amount of work, that’s true, but my classes have less than 25 students, and I can quip with the best of them. I do not chase after my students, but my lovely fiancee is twelve years my junior and we met while she was a student here (though we “hooked up” later). Oh, and I almost forgot absent-minded; my fiancee calls my memory “fascinating.”

There is one aspect of the Overall Stereotype, though, that does bother me:

Consider what, in fact, the public “knows” about university professors. They think we have four or five months of vacation each year. They think that every six years we get a whole year off, without work but with full pay. They think we’re unconnected to the real world and, at best, are engaged only with abstract, angels-dancing-on-a-pin type of questions.

What Overall is getting at is, that in the popular imagination, professors are just high-school teachers with an attitude. Around this time, people frequently ask me if I’m “done for the year,” apparently imagining that I put my feet up between April and September. I try to gently explain that I remain busy with administrative service and research, but in the humanities, at least, I think most people are murky at best regarding what research really is.

Why does this stereotype persist? To some extent, professors bring this on themselves, by not always taking their research obligations seriously, and heading off to the cottage for the summer, but there are slackers and clock-watchers in any field. The bigger reason, I think, is that humanities research, though perhaps not always angel-on-a-pinhead esoteric, is often highly specialized or abstract. Moreover, its importance is often predicated on a whole series of assumptions about the value of understanding our social world and its complex cultural history.

In this respect, I have a deep jealousy for anyone doing cancer research. If someone asks you what your research is, and you reply, “I’m looking for a cure for cancer,” you don’t get any cock-eyed looks. And you certainly don’t get any snide remarks about why the public should be paying for such things; you probably get handed a twenty right there on the street. But if you are a researcher like me and you have to answer, “I’m the lead editor of a modern edition of the works of a seventeenth-century physician,” well, now you’re into a whole different conversation. Don’t get me wrong: I can explain why it’s worth doing, but I have to employ some grand sounding phrases to do it.

And then I just look like a high school teacher with an attitude.

If there was a God, he wouldn’t let me post this.

Some of my previous posts regarding the status of religious universities in Canada led to a very big question: do religious universities serve the public good? What follows is my attempt to answer that question. In addressing it, I will, no doubt, suggest things that may offend those of strong religious faith. While I do not apologize for such offense, I do wish to stress that my aim is not to insult or revile any individual or group; I present the arguments below because I honestly believe in them, and because I believe that matters of religious doctrine — at least when it comes to education — must be debated because they are vital matters of public interest.

To begin, then. Do religious universities serve the public good? I will argue that they do not. I contend that religious universities promote religious belief, and that religious belief is detrimental to the public good because it encourages belief in what is false and because it encourages belief without sound reason.

Most religious people mean well, of course. I have known many fine religious folk, and there have been many devout men and women whom I have admired. By the same token, I  have no doubt that there is much in the way of quality education that goes on at religious universities in Canada, because taken as individuals, I am sure the students and faculty there are mostly decent people. But religion is bigger than the details. When humanity was at a loss to make sense of the universe in any other way, religion was understandable, but we have crossed a threshold, philosophical and scientific, whereby we no longer need the ancient baggage of faith in invented deities. As we face an uncertain future, we must marshal every intellectual resource we have to see as clearly as we can, and those who promote religion are holding us back.

That religious universities promote religious belief is probably not particularly controversial, and I will not spend much time on it. The mission statements of Canada’s religious universities make this clear enough. They do not aim merely to educate students about religion, but rather to lead them to a deeper conviction in their religious beliefs and attitudes.

On to the claims that are more controversial. To suggest that religion teaches that which is false will sound naive, if not absurd in the ears of some, either because they themselves have been so thoroughly immersed in religion that it has come to seem natural, or because our notions of cultural tolerance intervene. But the plausibility of a holy Savior existing today in any literal sense would seem plainly false to everyone if not for the centuries of Christian belief itself. The sheer long-standingness of Christianity has given it a glossy patina of intellectual respectability, so that its claims are difficult to view objectively.

But if you had a difficult problem and asked a friend how she handles her difficulties, you would be taken aback if that friend replied, “Well, I believe that there is a magical carpenter who lives in the sky and communicates with me telepathically. When I am confused I send my brainwaves out through space where the magic carpenter picks them up and beams messages back to me. Then I do what the carpenter tells me.” Indeed, if your friend said that, you would quite likely think she had gone off her medication — or badly needed to be on some. But suppose she said the following instead: “Well, I believe that Jesus is in Heaven and He answers prayers. When I am confused, I pray to Jesus and He answers me. Then I try to follow His will.” In that case, you might find your friend’s piety surprising, but, if you are like most people, you wouldn’t see the claims as crazy. But of course, the two utterances are effectively the same. Magic telepathic carpenter in the sky sounds nutty but is inherently no nuttier than Jesus, the son of God in Heaven. It’s just that the latter has centuries of indoctrination and tradition behind it and the former does not. If I told you I saw a man turn water into Coca Cola you would laugh in my face; never mind if I told you I was going to find a man who could bring my dead brother back to life. But because similar stories are in the Bible, we accept them as, well, gospel.

Let me put it another way. Imagine three scholars were proposing to start new universities in Canada this year with mission statements that included the following:

Canadian Olympian University is an innovative university dedicated to the fearsome Gods of Olympus, rooted in the classical faith tradition, moved and transformed by the life and teachings of the epic poet Homer. Through teaching, research and service COU inspires and equips women and men for lives of service, leadership and reconciliation in Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite and their followers.

As a polytheistic community, Atlantic Egyptian University upholds pagan standards of behavior to which faculty and staff are required to conform. These standards derive not only from ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics, but also from the culture of the Pharaohs, the priesthood and their slaves.

The mission of Canadian Mesopotamian  University, as an arm of Taimat and Abzu, is to develop sky-respecting leaders: positive, goal-oriented university graduates with minds dedicated to Enlil, god of storms; growing disciples of Nin-Khursag, the earth goddess,who glorify Enki, water god and patron of wisdom.

These all sound silly, of course, and we would all think twice before hiring a graduate from any of these schools to teach our children or treat our diseases.  But they are all real statements from Canadian religious universities (Canadian Mennonite, Atlantic Baptist/Crandall, and Trinity Western) with the Christian references removed and other real, if ancient, religions put in their place.

But no one believes in those ancient gods any more, so what is the point? Well, that is precisely the point.  A thunderbolt-hurling Zeus is no more plausible than a Sodom-smiting God. Apollo the Sun is no less credible than Jesus the Son. It’s just that Zeus and Apollo no longer have a broad social endorsement. As my fellow humanists are fond of saying, all religious people are all atheists who make one exception.

Still, isn’t it possible that all the other ancient religions are wrong, and Christianity (or perhaps Islam) is correct? Couldn’t there still be an all-powerful, loving God watching over us? No. Why not? Because there is no sensible way to explain the horrors and suffering of history and the present in a universe ruled over by a just, powerful, and loving God. My detractors have accused me of not knowing any theology, but I have studied enough theology to know about the Problem of Evil, and to know that all the suggested answers are insufficient. We might say that good is only possible if there is evil, but that is dubious (surely the possibility of evil is enough), and that doesn’t account for so much evil. We might say evil is necessary because of man’s free will, but no just ruler allows his subjects the freedom to commit murder, let alone genocide, let alone to do it repeatedly. In any case, what of the suffering of animals? We might fall back and say that we cannot know the mind of God or his ways, but that means that God might very well simply be evil (but then we can’t explain why there is so much good).

Students will be able to finish the school year, but future still unclear

Students at First Nations University of Canada should be able to finish the school year after Chuck Strahl, minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, announced that the federal government will provide $3 million in bridge funding. Both the federal and Saskatchewan governments pulled funding from First Nations University earlier this year, because of ongoing governance problems that have included years of allegations of misused funds, fraud, and political interference from the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

The announcement comes not a moment too soon, as the $7.2 million annually that Ottawa gives to the institution was set to end March 31. However, the $3 million in additional funds only lasts until Aug 31 when the school year ends. Strahl has said that any additional funding would be contingent on the university reaching a long-term agreement to alleviate remaining governance concers.

Last week, the university, the Saskatchewan government and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations signed a memorandum of understanding, that would see provincial funding restored. The five-year deal will see $5 million flow to a national accounting firm during the first year of the aggreement. During the remaining four years, the money will go to the University of Regina, who will then distribute it to FNUC.

On Wednesday, FNUC’s Board of Governors was still unsure if it would accept the federal money because it still falls short of what is needed to keep the university running. Board chair Joely BigEagle told the Regina Leader-Post today that they are still in discussions.

Top administrator salaries point to universities’ pursuit of global recognition, and it’s hurting education quality

Take a guess: who earned the largest paycheque last year at Carleton University? If you guessed President Roseann Runte, with her $358,000 annual salary and $43,000 in taxable benefits, you’re wrong. Some high level financial manager, you say? Nope; vice-president of finance and administration Duncan Watt made a measly $256,000 annually plus $4,000 in benefits.

The highest paid employee at Carleton in 2009 was Feridun Hamdullahpur, vice-president research and international, according to Ontario public sector salary disclosure figures released Wednesday. Having earned $503,000 plus $12,000 in benefits, Hamdullahpur ranked third highest paid university employee in Ontario.

But to say Hamdullahpur enjoyed the highest salary is somewhat misleading. He stepped down from his post at Carleton in July 2009 to become vice-president academic and provost of Waterloo University, meaning that much of his 2009 compensation was likely a severance package, possibly including pension and other supplemental benefits. (He earned $230,000 in 2008.) Nevertheless, his comfortable salary and generous severance package demonstrate just how much Carleton valued Hamdullahpur’s work.

Related: Hey administrators. Quit your job, earn big bucks

Hamdullahpur’s compensation also illustrates a trend that is impacting universities from coast to coast. Universities, particularly large research-focused schools, are putting more and more resources into pursuing global status.

In Hamdullahpur’s case, his work overseeing international activities at Carleton was one of Waterloo’s reasons for hiring him. A Waterloo press release announcing his appointment states, “Hamdullahpur will play a key role in helping the university achieve the ambitious objectives outlined in its strategic plan, Pursuing Global Excellence,” and goes on to describe those objectives as including the expansion of Waterloo’s global reach. He will surely continue to be handsomely rewarded for his efforts at Waterloo; his predecessor ranked as Ontario’s number one earner having pocketed a whopping $737,000 in 2009 (which also likely included a severance package).

These staggering numbers are indicative of a slow shift of vision that has been occurring for years on Canadian campuses, according to Bill Smith, an independent researcher who was formerly the general manager at the University of Alberta Students’ Union for 17 years. “The focus has switched from [on] campus to off campus,” he says.

Smith’s research—a 20-year analysis of university spending based on numbers submitted by universities to the Canadian Association of University Business Officers—shows that the average university spent almost $9 million on external affairs in 2007-08. The Top 5 schools, which are most eager for global recognition, spent $15 million on average.

Smith wrote about his research in Maclean’s in January. Click here to read: “Where all that money is going.”

To Smith, the salaries of university top brass aren’t the most troubling aspect since they only account for a small portion of overall spending. What is of concern, he says, is ballooning central administration costs. “It’s all the infrastructure under these people,” he says. “These are bright people with big dreams and the only way they can make them happen is by building a big support infrastructure and then you start seeing things like international vice presidents, vice presidents of external affairs. Before too long, you’ve really jacked up central administration costs.”

Attracting high quality people to pursue goals like boosting a university’s global status is expensive, and has contributed to escalating central administration costs. In 1987-88, the top 25 universities in Canada spent 7.8 per cent of their general operating expenditures on administration costs, which rose to 11.7 per cent in 2007-08. At the top five schools, administration spending grew from 7 per cent of all expenditures to 12 per cent.

While “pursuing global excellence,” in Waterloo’s words, seems to be a noble objective, there is no indication that it benefits students. Take, for example, the University of Alberta. President Indira Samarasekera has pledged the university will be recognized as one of the top 20 universities in the world by 2020. “Was there ever any public discussion about whether that is a legitimate goal? Is that goal important to the public that is funding these universities?” Smith questions. “I don’t know if anybody had any clear idea of what the price tag was going to be.”

As an aside, Samarasekera is among the highest paid university presidents in the country. Administration costs at the University of Alberta have doubled since 2000-01 and have quadrupled since 1994-95.

With university budgets as stretched as they are, money spent on administration is money not spent in the classroom. In 1987-88 the top 25 universities spent 65 per cent of general operating funds on instruction and non-sponsored research; now only 58 per cent is spent on teaching, meaning some $30 million has been deflected from the classroom.

This is why Smith argues that some universities appear to have become preoccupied with status rather than excellence. The dangers of ballooning administrative costs go further than the erosion of education quality and threaten universities’ overall financial sustainability, he says. “When enrolment falls, and it will at some point, this massive residue of central fixed cost is going to act as a millstone and drag universities into a much deeper crisis than they’re in now.”