Archive for October, 2010
More doctors on the way
Ontario government announces 75 new residency positions
Canada is in the middle of a doctor shortage, but reinforcements are on the way. The Ontario government recently announced that 75 specialty residence positions will be created over the course of the next five years, starting in the summer of 2011.
According to the Government of Ontario news release, since 2003 there’s been an 80 per cent increase in the number of postgraduate specialty training positions, and by 2014 more than twice as many doctors will be graduating from Ontario’s medical schools than in 2003.
-photo courtesy of Klobetime
Privacy, anxiety, and the academy
At the end of the day, students have to be able to do the work.
The case of Gabor Lukacs, the University of Manitoba professor who has been suspended after complaining that a PhD student was permitted to skip a comprehensive exam, raises a whole host of questions about the state of the Canadian academy. For one thing, where is the CAUT and its academic freedom fund? For another thing, given that, by all accounts, Lukacs had only the best interests of the U of M and the academy in general in mind, isn’t a three month suspension awfully harsh? An assistant professor at U of M makes something in the neighbourhood of $70 000 a year based on the salary tables in the faculty collective agreement. A three-month suspension amounts to a fine that may be in excess of $17 000. Even acknowledging that my estimate is gross pay, not net pay, the sum is staggering. And should a university really be punishing a professor for filing a lawsuit? Isn’t the right to seek redress before a court of law a basic right of every citizen in a free country?
For all of our coverage of this story, please click here.
Still more troubling is the rationale provided by the university. U of M claims Lukacs violated privacy rules when he disclosed details about a student in his suit, but given that his complaint was that a student was unjustly allowed to circumvent a requirement, how could he avoid discussing the student? In any case, the name of the student has not been reported in the media, so where is the harm?
Of course, individuals have a right to a reasonable amount of privacy, but it’s possible things have gone too far. Several years ago, I tried to get my university to include a photo of each student in the instructor’s electronic class list. Such a system makes it easier for profs to learn their students’ names, and it exists at some other schools. But, I was told, even though the computer system could produce such a list, the feature was disabled out of concerns for the students’ privacy. But surely what a student looks like need not be kept private from the students’ own professors! I fought with the registrar for a while over it, and was told at one point it was in the works, but it never happened, and eventually I gave up.
When it comes to disabilities, the lid is kept on even more tightly. Every once in a while I am contacted by our university’s disability office and, from the quality of the communication, one would imagine it was a matter of national security. I am told that the student has a documented disability — typically a learning disability — and I am invited to indicate the accommodations I am willing to make. Can I see the document? No. What is the exact condition? I am not allowed to know. Who documented it? Based on what? What expertise does the professional in question have in the area of learning disabilities? None of your business, I am told. In short, for all I know, Mr and Mrs Anxious took Johnny to see their family doctor and said, “Johnny gets nervous when he takes a test.” Dr Busy says, “Oh, well, let me write you a note,” scribbles something about “test anxiety,” and, voila, Johnny has ” a documented learning disability.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is always the case, and of course, there are many legitimate disabilities, physical and psychological that should be accommodated. And when it comes right down to it, I accommodate Johnny anyway, because the requests are few, and having a few extra hours in a private room to write a test really doesn’t have that much impact anyway. In my experience, what Johnny can’t figure out in three hours, he can’t figure out in five, either. But I do think that professors have the right to know exactly what they are accomodating for the sake of academic integrity.
Academic integrity brings us back to the case at hand. Like Lukacs, I suspect, I maintain that accommodation should only be allowed when, ultimately, the student is still required to demonstrate the same skills as everyone else. I fully understand the anxiety around taking PhD comprehensive exams — I took them myself — and they are no picnic. They’re not like writing an undergraduate midterm: each one is a whole year’s worth of reading, packed into three long (or, rather, short) hours of non-stop, hand-destroying, writing. They are intense. On the other hand, your examiners give you a quiet place to write, and no one is looking over your shoulder with a stopwatch and a stick. Moreover, they test something real. They test a would-be academic’s ability to get a question, and to answer it, on the spot, by using her skills and knowledge.
Now, can you think of a job that requires a PhD, and where people ask you questions and you are expected to respond right away based on your expertise? Oh, wait! I know! University professor! Thinking on the spot is a vital part of the job, and anyone who finds that too stressful needs to find another line of work. Sure, sometimes a prof has to say “I don’t know” or “I’ll find out for you,” but she can’t keep saying “Your question makes me too nervous to respond to you.” I know many people who are afraid to fly and I would not advise any of them to become pilots. I have a moderate fear of heights, so, no, I can’t help you shingle your roof. I could have been a surgeon, but the sight of blood makes me woozy.
And if learning things and answering hard questions about what I learned made me freak out, I would have learned to handle it (and I know people who have done that, too), or I wouldn’t have become a professor. It’s just part of the job. I know nothing about the individual student in this case: perhaps he is a fine person and I wish him all the success and happiness life can afford. But I still think a degree has to mean something significant. And if you can’t sit down in a quiet place, and answer questions about mathematics, you shouldn’t have a PhD in mathematics.
Barring any surprising revelations in this case, I hope professor Lukacs wins his fight, and I hope the U of M pays him back the money they owe him, and I really hope they apologize to him. In public. I’m sure he won’t consider that a violation of his privacy.
-photo courtesy of ccarlstead
Outcry against animal research
No marriage please, I’m educated
Weddings delayed for young people not because of recession but because they are in school
There is an increasing number of young people delaying marriage, and Time magazine wants you to believe it’s because of the recession. In reality, they are neglecting the steady increase in female enrolment in post-secondary education over the past 40 years and its implications on the gender norms we’re used to seeing.
They cite a stat from the Wall Street Journal:
“In many big cities, never-married young adults are a strong majority among their peers. In San Francisco, 82% of adults between 25 and 34 had never been married in 2009, the largest share among big U.S. cities. Atlanta, New York and Minneapolis were all among the top 20 U.S. cities with the largest share of never-married young adults, with shares greater than 75%.”
And Canada is experiencing a similar trend.
Instances of marriage among people aged 25-34 have been on a steady decline since 1970, while the average age of first-time marriage rose to 30.2 years for grooms and 28.2 years for brides in 2003.
Conversely, the number of women enrolling in universities and colleges has been on a steady increase during that same time frame. By 1988, female post-secondary enrolment in Canada had eclipsed that of their male classmates, and the divide has only grown since.
So it would seem this so-called dramatic dip in marriage rates isn’t much of a dip at all nor does it have anything to do with fiscally responsible thinking in a time of turmoil and uncertainty. It’s part of a growing trend of women gaining independence and taking control of their lives, furthering their own ambitions and avoiding the traditional barefoot-and-pregnant image.
Another line of thinking believes that the marriage decline is due to Generation Y’s laziness, claiming that young people are moving back in with their parents and not doing anything with their lives. For some, marriage is seen as a big contribution to improving society and youth delaying such an important act is seen as selfish.
In reality, delaying marriage in exchange for school seems like the most selfless thing a young person could do for society. Indeed, Philip Oreopoulos, a University of Toronto researcher told the Toronto Star in 2007 that this “shouldn’t be viewed as a bad thing – especially if the return (on) this investment is substantial. There is evidence that a more educated society helps foster economic growth, reduce crime and promote citizenship.”
To all those shaking their heads at all the young, lazy unmarried youth, I say buck up. A more educated and equitable society — the kind we’ve been building for 40 years — is more valuable for everyone.
Academic ‘crisis’ averted
A plan to dismantle Northrop Frye founded Centre for Comparative literature has been shelved–for now
Students and faculty at the University of Toronto are celebrating after an annoucement that plans to dismantle the prestigious Centre for Comparative Literature may be reversed. Over the summer, the Faculty of Arts and Science released an Academic Plan that would have seen several departments and centres either closed or stripped of their autonomy. Those proposals are now being given a second look. The Centre was founded by Northrop Frye in 1969.
Among the proposed changes in the Academic Plan was the creation of a new School of Languages and Literature that would have housed six previously autonomous units, such as East Asian Studies, German and Spanish and Portuguese. The proposal had drawn international criticism in part because it included the disestablishment of the Centre for Comparative Literature. Students would have still be able to study each language, but not under the auspices of an independent department.
On Wedenesday, Meric Gertler, Dean of Arts and Science met with the chairs of all the units that would have been affected by a new school of languages, and agreed to explore other options. Although some reports suggested that the initial proposal has been taken off the table and that departmental independence has been officially preserved, Gertler says the results of the meeting were more nuanced than that. “It’s a bit premature to say definitively that we have found another model,” he said.
For now the units have been tasked with developing plans for boosting undergraduate enrolment in the languages, finding ways to pool teaching resources, improve graduate student recruitment and streamling administration costs. If the faculty’s goals can be reached without creating a new school of languages, then units are likely to keep their autonomy. “This is exactly the type of discussion we were hoping to have,” Gertler said.
Neil ten Kortenaar, director of the Centre, is optimistic about the future of comparative literature at U of T. “I’m glad that the languages are being listened to and that the tension is over,” he said. Similarly, Jonathan Allan, a PhD student in comparative literature is thrilled by the announcement. “After all this fighting, it’s great to see the dean listened to people in the languages.”
John Zilcosky, chair of the German department, is also confident. “My sense leaving the meeting is that our departmental status has been preserved,” he said.
Students and faculty had launched a campaign opposing the Academic Plan that included soliciting letters from academics around the world, circulating a petition that had over 7,000 signatures, and designating certain people responsible for keeping in touch with news media. The University of Toronto Faculty Association called the situation a “crisis” and had filed a griveance against the Plan.
In August, Allan was worried that closing the centre would handicap him on the job market, as his degree would have come from a program that technically was no longer in existence. Today, he is more confident. “This will bode well for those of us who are about to graduate from comp. lit. It shows that we are successful in academics, but also in university politics,” he said.
The Centre for Ethics and the Centre for Transnational and Diaspora Studies were also put on the block, but now look as if they will survive, but will have to streamline their budgets.
Frat suspended after hazing allegations
UAlberta’s DKE chapter cannot book events, use school equipment or university logo until ‘further notice’
Following allegations of extreme hazing , the University of Alberta chapter of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity has had its status as a student group at the U of A suspended by university administration.
The suspension went into place Oct. 28 and will last “until further notice,” the U of A Dean of Students Frank Robinson announced at a press conference yesterday afternoon, according to the Gateway. “I’ve taken this action under the Code of Student Behaviour, which empowers me, as Dean, with the authority to immediately suspend a student group if I reasonably believe that the group’s activities have endangered or could potentially endanger the health, safety, and well-being of students,” Robinson said.
As a result of the suspension, the DKE chapter will no longer be able to take advantage of the privledges afforded to students groups at the U of A. As of Thursday, they will no longer be able to use university space for events and activities on campus, university equipment, or the university logo or insignia until the suspension is lifted.
However, members of the fraternity will not be penalized individually, aside from the impact on their group.
Should universities rethink sports?
Cutbacks to McGill’s athletics programs stirring up controversy
Controversy is brewing at McGill University after the university stripped 20 teams of their varsity status. While the decision was made last spring, it’s only now coming to a head. The decision means that instead of receiving funding from the school students now have to pay to play. These teams have also lost access to one of McGill’s gyms. High profile sports like hockey and football were spared. The decision came after $147,000 was cut from the athletics department’s budget.
The teams stripped of their status include cheerleading, men’s volleyball, figure skating, sailing, wrestling, women’s lacrosse and fencing. McGill also says the decision was made because some of the teams, like women’s lacrosse and fencing, are the only ones in the province. But students who want to participate in these teams say that without the varsity funding they no longer have the money to travel to Ontario or the United States to compete.
But how important are sports to modern Canadian universities and university life?
Varsity sports are often touted as a way to boost a schools profile and school pride, but the fact is most students are indifferent to even high profile teams. According to CBC, McGill’s highest profile sport, football, only draws around 1,000 spectators per game, and that’s at a school with over 30,000 students and attendance is dropping, though the team’s dismal record and a hazing scandal that saw the team lose its entire 2005-2006 season may have something to do with it.
In a competitive university environment prospective students care less about a university’s athletic success than its academic success. When students do care about athletics their more concerned about the quality of a school gym where they can exercise.
Now this may not be the case everywhere, Université Laval whose Rouge et Or football team has won the Vanier Cup (Canada’s football chapionship) draws around 10,000 spectators each game. In addition to the team’s successes this may also have to do with the university’s Quebec City location, where there is no CFL team.
High-profile university sports, like football and hockey, had humble beginnings with regular students trying out for teams, but this is no longer the case. For many sports teams, athletes are scouted and recruited at the high school level.
As universities struggle financially perhaps it’s time for them to start thinking about whether recruiting high calibre athletes, promoting these teams and maintaining stadium infrastructure is a worthwhile investment.
UManitoba–PhD ‘diploma mill’
Prof suspended after taking university to court over waiving academic requirements for doctoral student
Earlier this month Gabor Lukacs received two letters from University of Manitoba president David Barnard. One invited the assistant professor of mathematics to a dinner in acknowledgement of his teaching excellence award. The other informed him that he was being suspended without pay.
Lukacs is accused of violating the university’s privacy regulations with respect to the identity of a PhD student who had been asked to withdraw from the program after twice failing a comprehensive exam. The student later successfully appealed that decision to the Dean of Graduate Studies, John Doering, who, in fall 2009, waived the requirement that the student take the exam at all. The student is said to suffer from “extreme exam anxiety.”
For all of our coverage of this story, please click here.
After months of attempting to use university channels to have Doering’s decision reversed, Lukacs filed an application in late September at Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench. The application calls for Doering’s decision to be quashed and for an affirmation that the dean had no authority to resolve the issue without consulting an appeal committee of academics. Lukacs alleges that Doering violated Faculty of Graduate Studies regulations and the University of Manitoba Act.
Although the student’s identity was included in Lukacs original court application, at a hearing Thursday morning a judge ordered a publication ban on the name.
When outlining the reasons for Lukacs’ suspension, Barnard cites the court application directly in his letter, a copy of which has been obtained by Maclean’s. “These documents include unauthorized reference to a student’s personal and personal health information,” Barnard wrote. The university president calls Lukacs “insubordinate” and further accuses him of “having engaged in a pattern of behaviour with regard to [the] student which the university considers to be harassment.”
Several people contacted for this story, including Dean Doering and certain professors in the Department of Mathematics, either declined to speak to the matter, did not respond to a request to be interviewed, or redirected Maclean’s to the university’s Director of Public Affairs, John Danakas. Danakas declined to speak to the specifics of the case, citing “personnel” and “privacy” issues, but agreed to address university policy in general terms.
In a written response, Danakas stated that all university employees are bound by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and the Personal Health Information Act. “In general personal information about a student, with or without the name attached, may only be disclosed to other university employees who absolutely need to know the information for the purposes of performing other duties,” he wrote.
As for the powers of the dean, Danakas stated that “It is university practice to attempt to resolve appeals at the lowest possible level. This could include a dean achieving an informal resolution with a student after a broad consultation.”
Lukacs, who says he did not meet the student in person until he served the student with court papers, says he is motivated by a desire to protect academic standards. “I have a personal interest in protecting the integrity of the PhD program in Mathematics, because it affects my reputation whether I am a member of a respectable department or a diploma-mill,” he stated via email.
When asked to respond to allegations that he violated the student’s privacy, Lukacs defended himself: “The right for privacy cannot trump the need for review of decisions made without jurisdiction, or decisions that are patently unreasonable.”
According to emails and other documents included with an affidavit filed by Lukacs, the dispute began in March 2009 when the student failed for the second time a comprehensive exam in analysis. Under regulations outlined by the Faculty of Graduate Studies the student was required to withdraw from the PhD program.
In July, after an unsuccessful appeal to an associate dean, the student appealed the withdrawal to Dean Doering on the basis of suffering from “extreme exam anxiety.” Doering reinstated the student and requested that the Graduate Studies Committee in the Department of Mathematics devise an alternate examination option.
The committee, after consulting with disability services, agreed to allow the student to retake the exam with more time and relaxed conditions.
In late August 2009, Doering rejected that proposal and requested that the student be given an oral exam. When the graduate studies committee did not agree to those terms, Doering waived the exam requirement altogether.
Lukacs first became involved with the case in October 2009, after he was elected to replace a member of the graduate studies committee who had resigned, allegedly in protest of the dean’s decision.
$1.3 million to stop duck deaths
Alberta judge orders Syncrude to fund research at U of A
In a landmark case that came to a conclusion last Friday, Provincial Court Judge Ken Tjosvold ruled that the University of Alberta will receive a $1.3 million donation from Syncrude Ltd, as part of their $3.3 million sentence over the deaths of 1,606 birds that had landed on a Syncrude tailings pond in 2008. The money will be used for research that will prevent similar deaths in the future,and was granted at the request of provincial and federal prosecutors.
This is clearly an effort on the part of the provincial and federal government to repair the image of the energy industry amongst students, and potential future employees, and show that it is not just about killing birds. Particularly considering the energy industry in Canada is looking at huge shortages of skilled and professional workers in the near future. Over 100, 000 new workers could be needed over the next 10 years to fill the void left by the retirement of the baby boomer generation, according to a study released by the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada in June.
The generally negative perception of the industry amongst students isn’t helping the situation, which the feds and province are obviously aware of after the province revealed improvements to its Alberta Innovation program, hoping to translate Alberta’s hefty wealth from natural resources into investments in post secondary education.
The $1.3 million is allocated to researchers who will conduct studies on avian deterrence to stop the death of birds on these tailing ponds. The current system in place uses sound cannons to ward off birds from landing on the ponds. The lead researcher in the study, U of A biological sciences professor Colleen St. Clair, explained to the Gateway the innovations her research team hopes to bring:
“Picture yourself as a duck,” St. Clair said. “You’re flying towards the tailings pond. The old system would just have these cannons firing all the time, and you would hear them from a safe distance away and they would gradually get louder, but they wouldn’t change in any perceptible way relative to your behavior.”
“This new system — if you still imagine yourself as a duck, flying towards the tailings pond — the ponds are quiet and then suddenly out of nowhere, there is this big massive blast coming from right in front of you with all the cannons synchronized. The theory is that that will be a much more effective deterrent for birds.”
While the extra cash for the U of A is definitely a positive for St. Clair and her team, it is questionable whether this money was allocated with completely benevolent intent. Considering the discovery of more dead birds on tailing ponds in the Fort McMurray area came a drop in share prices of oilsands producers, including Syncrude.
In a province so heavily reliant on the natural resources industry, this donation may be more in interest of cleaning up the image of oilsands producers than the well being of our feathered friends.
First Hero Fund scholarship awarded
Scholarship for children of fallen Canadian soldiers is granted despite professors’ objections last March
(Editor’s note: This post has been updated below)
Hang on to your knickers, University of Regina professors. The first Hero Fund scholarship has been awarded.
Maritimer Matthew Mellish is the first recipient of the Hero Fund scholarship for children of fallen Canadian soldiers. Matthew’s father, Warrant Officer Frank Mellish, was killed in 2006 by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Matthew has received $10,000 from the Canadian Hero Fund to cover tuition and books.
A nice break for a young student who has obviously had a rough ride, right?
Wrong, you imperial jingoist!
When a similar initiative, dubbed “Project Hero,” was being launched earlier in the spring and universities across Canada were signing on, a group of professors from the University of Regina released an “open letter” to the president of the university objecting to its participation in the scholarship program.
They wrote that the Hero Fund (Update: We have been informed by Hero Fund administration that they are unaffiliated with Project Hero. The Hero Fund relies strictly on private donations, whereas individual universities foot the bill for Project Hero recipients.) Project Hero was “a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan and elsewhere.”
“We do not want our university associated with the political impulse to unquestioning glorification of military action,” they argued.
Though despite the professors’ valiant (dare I say, heroic?) efforts to get the university to ditch the program, the University of Regina is still participating in the Project Hero scholarship. And now the Hero Fund has awarded its first scholarship. Bloody compatriots! Surely an extended appeal to Matthew Mellish directly is the next step in these professors’ pursuits of military modesty. Right? Or will bashfulness suddenly seize their pens when ideology is confronted with a real-life story?
Anti-war movements on campus are not new. Poppies have become the target of late, quickly becoming an unfashionable statement on many Canadian campuses. Some students and professors choose to abstain from wearing the Remembrance Day symbol because they believe it glorifies war. Others opt to wear white poppies, which is seen as a symbol for peace and nonviolence.
Then there are more direct approaches; in 2007, for example, the University of Victoria’s student union banned military recruiting at the campus job fair, a move which was later overturned by a general vote. At Laurier that same year, students chose to protest across the street from a veterans’ memorial, only after conceding to pressure and abandoning their original plan to protest on the memorial during ceremonies.
This sort of in-your-face pacifism is what leaves as bad taste in some people’s mouths. Choosing not to wear a poppy on Rememberance Day is a personal choice–lighting a torch to the stash is not. The University of Regina professors can exclude the word “hero” from their own military vernacular if they so desire, but no one asked them to serve as university administration conscience. They have the option to keep their change in the pockets, and the decorum–hopefully now–to cease the politicization of a student’s personal tragedy.
So long med school essays
McMaster switches to web-based ‘test’ for choosing applicants
McMaster University says it has found a more reliable way to predict how well a med school applicant will perform in med school. Instead of the traditional autobiographical essay submission that most med schools application across North America still require, McMaster is implementing a new recruitment tool called “CASPer,” a Computer-based Assessment for Sampling Personal characteristics.
All applicants are required to complete the computer-based test, which is divided into 12 five-minute long sections. Eight of the sections include video clips that present applicants with “situational challenges,” and the other four involve “self-descriptive questions.”
The 2010/2011 application cycle was the first to use this new system. Although applicants were also required to submit an autobiographical sketch, they were only used as a “back-up plan” in the event that some sort of problem occurred.
McMaster states on its website that this web-based evaluation of an applicant’s interpersonal skills and decision-making is “significantly more reliable” compared to the autobiographical submissions.
A demo of the system and sample video of what to expect from the on-line evaluation is available here.
B.C. PSE split sets dangerous precedent
There seems to be no place for the arts and humanities in Campbell’s vision of higher education
In perhaps one of the more bizarre cabinet shuffles ever, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell split the province’s post-secondary education ministry in two on Monday. Colleges will now be under the new Ministry of Regional Economic and Skills Development, while the province’s universities now fall under the new Ministry of Science and Universities.
What seems to be puzzling most people, especially students, is the lack of explanation for this new split, and what it could mean for the province’s credit transfer system. But perhaps British Columbians should be assessing the government’s correlation between universities and science, and colleges and skills development — a divide that looks like the province is attempting specialization.
Related: Against specialization
With no links to the new departments on the government’s Ministries and Organizations page, I’m wondering if Campbell is preparing to make a further announcement about what exactly post-secondary education means to his B.C. in this split. What does the connection to such specific industries mean?
Is the province gearing up to make a bold statement about the importance of things like science, technology and economic contribution? Is it an attempt at luring more research or venture capital money into the province? Is the province itching for a discovery-related claim to fame?
With the colleges apparently taking more of a skills-based approach and universities forced to focus on research, there seems to be no place for the arts and humanities in Campbell’s re-envisioned version of what post-secondary means to B.C. With this split, Campbell is stating that post-secondary education needs tangible benefits — i.e. research discoveries or trade skills that would bolster the economy — in order to be deemed worthy.
This kind of attitude towards education is setting a dangerous precedent in Canada, and B.C. certainly isn’t alone in this trend. Indeed Nova Scotia and Ontario could be heading in this direction soon, as well. The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario released a report yesterday calling for the province’s universities to specialize their programs.
“I’m not suggesting any university close down its engineering program or stop doing research, but the funding formula just can’t sustain having every institution have every program — there are complaints already that classes are too large and students don’t know their profs,” said president Harvey Weingarten in the report.
“If Ryerson were to say its priority is undergraduate programs that graduate the next wave of entrepreneurs, for example, it might be that the U of T wouldn’t have a program exactly like that.”
In Nova Scotia, the O’Neill report, released in September, recommended that universities look at merger and restructuring options to ensure survival and adequate government funding.
Sure, finding a job upon graduation is on the top of most students’ minds, but should that come at the cost of a good education? For the price students are paying, they shouldn’t be forced into the government’s idea of what education is. Is Campbell asking the future of his province to sacrifice what university is traditionally about — intellectual stimulus and the pursuit of knowledge — in favour of a sense of service to their province.
The intense changes post-secondary education is currently undergoing in this country will dramatically alter what higher learning means. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing. Should we be preparing for military-like recruitment campaigns, waxing poetic about service to one’s country through education?
Universities to become ghost towns
Fewer students will leave universities short of funds to maintain their infrastructure, teaching staff and pay off their debts
For many Canadian universities increasing enrolment has been a point of pride but David Foot, author of Boom, Bust and Echo, recently told the Ryerson Eyeopener that due to Canada’s changing demographics “over the next two, three, four years the number of enrollments will start to decline.”
We’re already seeing this to a certain extent here in Quebec. English universities are increasingly attempting to attract Francophones because there is little room for growth in the Anglophone community. As well many Canadian universities are recruiting more and more international students to keep growth rates high. While the recent economic slowdown has pushed enrolment rates up, as the economy slowly recovers, and as those returning to school graduate, this factor will diminish.
Canadian universities are already becoming highly competitive when it comes to recruiting students from other parts of the country, open any student newspaper and you’ll see ads from other universities. Concordia ads have been spotted in Truro N.S. and while I was editor-in-chief of the Concordian student newspaper last year I received several emails from various universities encouraging me to apply for their journalism programs. This competition will only increase if enrolment drops and advertising and recruitment costs money that could be used for education.
Many, if not most, Canadian universities are carrying long-term debt in the millions of dollars and are counting on increasing enrolment to help pay off these debts. Lower enrolment will leave universities short of funds to maintain their infrastructure, teaching staff and pay off their debts.
Also, we’re currently in a period where universities are carrying out major construction projects. As part of the economic stimulus program the federal government is in the process of pumping $2 billion into university infrastructure and provinces are doing the same. Quebec alone is putting in more than $600 million. Now, not all of this money is going towards new buildings but a lot of it is. If enrolment drops will our expanded universities start to look like ghost towns?
Tiny raise for UManitoba profs
And no labour unrest
Faculty at the University of Manitoba recently ratified their collective agreement with the university that provides a 4.4 per cent raise over the next three years.
This is quite a tiny increase, compared to the 2007 agreement that saw salaries for academic staff rise 2.5 per cent in the first and second year and a 2.9 per cent in the third year, a deal reached only after narrowly avoiding a strike. Considering the professors held a strike that lasted four days in 2001, and another that lasted 23 days in 1995, it’s surprising this round of negotiations resolved itself without any major problems. At least, not that we know about yet.
Members of the University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA), which represents approximately 1 ,700 professors, lecturers, librarians, and instructors, will receive a $500 lump sum pay increase in the first year, a one per cent increase in the second year, and a 2.9 percent increase in the third.
The seemingly problem-free negotiations by far contrasts the contract negotiations this year between the university and security services officers, which came to a complete breakdown over the summer.
The university had been in talks with Security Services for a year. When these negotiations stalled in early August, the university presented the small membership of 27 employees with what they called their final offer, along with the threat of a lock out if they voted not to take it. When officers voted not to accept, the threat proved not to be an empty one, and the officers were barred from campus .
While the lock out only lasted a few days and happened during a time when the campus was relatively quiet, it was still a scary time for students and staff who didn’t know who was patrolling the campus or when (if ever) these officers were coming back.
As UMFA president Cameron Morrill put it in the Winnipeg Free Press, this is unfortunately just a sign of the times at the university which has been facing $36.4 million budget shortfall for 2010. When U of M president David Barnard first annouced the shortfall last fall, the campus was filled with rumours and uncertainty over what would befall the university. Aside from announcing some “resource optimization” measures and tuition fee increases, administrators have mostly left staff and students in the dark.
The results of these budget constraints are starting to come to light with each labour relations issue that arises. Considering the majority of university’s budget is comprised of salaries and benefits for faculty and staff, there’s no doubt that the relatively small increase for faculty members is a reflection of the U of M’s current money woes, and judging by preliminary data from Statistics Canada, still leaves the U of M far behind many universities across the country in terms of professor pay.
Motion sensors to prevent gay sex?
Newspaper questions UWO’s campus police motives
One of Canada’s most recognizable publications for gay and lesbian news has raised the question of whether new motion detectors at the University of Western Ontario have been installed to clamp down on gay sex.
Xtra! released a story last week probing the motive behind installing motion sensors in washrooms at Western’s Thames Hall. According to the article, Western’s campus police, who wouldn’t respond to Xtra!’s interview requests, had the motion detectors installed in Thames Hall washrooms, allegedly to curb gay sex. The article cites anecdotal evidence from an anonymous source at the university, who says he was questioned by campus police about gay sex happening in mens washrooms. “The man said he told officers there was plenty of sex happening in public spaces among the heterosexual students as well,” the article reads, but “the police did not seem interested in this fact.”
A case of bigoted campus police trying to snuff homosexual ongoings in public places on campus? It’s not entirely impossible. But other than our mystery UWO worker’s account of police prejudice, there’s little to suggest that police are trying to single out homosexual sex in public places on campus. As any university student can (unfortunately) attest, public washrooms are, for some reason, a curious hotspot for campus diddling. So, unless Thames Hall motion detectors are equipped with some sort of wicked-revolutionary ‘gaydar,’ these extra security measures are likely to curtail anyone and everyone thinking of getting naughty in the public stalls.
Perhaps cracking down on sex in public places could be conceived as a deliberate attempt to curb gay sex on campus if you consider the idea that a public washroom can be a relatively “safe space” for a closeted student. Since it’s hard to engage in any sort of dorm room romp without your floormates or roommate noticing, a public bathroom, therefore, can offer a discreet alternative. The option may be all the more appealing when considering the type of bullying to which gay students may be subject on campus, a problem which has gained media attention recently due to the string of suicides by gay youth in the U.S. The tragic case of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, who was recorded having sex with a man by his roommate in the dorm they shared, is just one example. Why risk public ridicule in the dorm, some students may think, when you can opt for the relative privacy of a public bathroom?
Of course, it’s all but mere speculation, but the idea that UWO campus police are deliberately trying to curb gay sex in public places is still a far-fetched one. The bottom line is that the new security measures in Thames Hall washrooms effect everyone equally, regardless of police motives. Without any evidence, fishing for proof of a culture of intolerance only serves to create one.
Young voters should be key
Universities are ripe for mobilization because of how fast word can spread
Megan Leslie, member of Parliament for Halifax, claims that courting voters aged 18-30 is a waste of a politician’s time and that’s why most don’t engage the youth demographic. But those who do are seeing unprecedented success.
Lets take the recent win of Calgary mayor-elect Naheed Nenshi as an example. Nenshi went from polling at one per cent to winning the election with 40 per cent of the vote in two months. Mobilizing young voters is largely considered to be the catalyst for Nenshi’s triumph at the polls — not to mention the city’s dramatic spike in turnout.
While his stint as a professor at Calgary’s Mount Royal University certainly made him a household name in the post-secondary circle, Nenshi cultivated, rather than took advantage, of this connection, realizing that students were key to election gold. In fact, a week before the election, polls indicated that support for him in the 18- to 34-year-old bracket had jumped from nine to 43 per cent over the course of the campaign.
And Nenshi’s not the first successful politician to venture down this road less travelled. Just two years ago, Barack Obama was dubbed America’s first “social media” president.
“I saw a lot of parallels between his campaign and Obama’s campaign. He was mobilizing youth, which [Ric] McIver and [Barb] Higgins were not focusing on,” Ashif Murani, a Calgary lawyer, told the Globe and Mail on Oct. 19.
Rahaf Harfoush, a social media strategist who worked on Obama’s presidential campaign, summed up their success in a CBC interview on Dec. 5, 2008:
“It wasn’t about new media; it was about the fact that the campaign gave new media the opportunity to become an integrated part of the communications campaign of a political campaign.
“I think it helped us to access a lot of people by giving them to tools to organize, to create events, to connect with each others and giving them everything that they needed, so that when they went off-line they were fully equipped — be it canvassing to talk[ing] to their neighbours.
“[Through the site] they had talking points to pass onto their families, videos, events in their area that were happening, community outreach programs in their state. Everything that we did was to connect people, because it was a movement that was fundamentally about people.”
The Q&A portion of Leslie’s Oct. 19 presentation at Dalhousie University touched on some interesting realities of a political future without youth involvement.
“There should be some people in their 20s [in Parliament], because we pass bills on pension changes unanimously and we don’t talk about post-secondary education and unemployment. These issues are dead in the House of Commons,” Leslie said.
Following Leslie’s presentation, Emily Smith van Beek told the Dalhousie Gazette that political neglect of young people will eventually cause the system to crumble. She also added that universities are ripe for mobilization because of how fast word can spread.
While there’s still much to be said about promoting ideas students can get excited about it, it’s clear there is so much more politicians could be doing to engage young voters. And the ability to engage this Everest of demographics has valuable benefits for those who can successfully harness it.
Why ban bottled water?
Long term effects of bottled-water bans are unclear and concerning
Over the summer, Bishop’s University, became the first university in Quebec to ban the sale of bottled water on campus. And there’s a good chance that Concordia, Quebec’s largest English-language university, will follow suit. But is an outright ban on bottled water really the way to go?
Now, I’m no fan of bottled water, I know that plastic bottles are bad for the environment and it’s a huge rip-off. The bottled water sold at Concordia is just regular old Montreal tap water. I’d much rather bring a reusable water bottle and save the 2,000 per cent markup. Pepsi pays the city $2 for every 1,000 liters, according to CBC. That’s less than one cent per bottle.
But, while I’m not going to be buying bottled water myself, I’m not sure that an outright ban is such a good idea. There still are a lot of unanswered questions about the long-term effects these bans will have.
Will banning bottled water lead to increased consumption of other bottled beverages, like pop and sports drinks? The anti-bottled water advocates claim “there is no evidence to suggest that without bottled water, people will consume unhealthy beverages such as colas.” The problem is these bans are all extremely new. Sure there’s no evidence that they will. But there’s no evidence that they won’t. The quote above comes from a study at the University of Winnipeg released before a bottled water ban was even fully implemented.
It’s quite likely that students who say forget to bring a reusable bottle — or who don’t want to — now don’t have the choice and are forced to purchase unhealthy drinks. I’ve definitely been in the situation where I haven’t had a reusable bottle with me and I’ve bought a bottle of something, not because that’s what I wanted to drink but because I wanted something to fill up with tap water and, anecdotally, I’ve heard similar stories from other students.
Bottled water bans have often been coupled with the distribution of reusable bottles, but this also raises some issues. Several years ago students attending an orientation event put on by the Concordia Student Union were required to buy reusable coffee mugs for their beer (the mugs were sold for something like $1). After the event the street was littered with reusable mugs.
While hard numbers are hard to pin down, it takes somewhere between 500 and 1,000 uses for a reusable mug to have less of an environmental impact than a disposable one. Certainly the numbers would be different for water but the fact remains that reusable bottles require a lot of use for them to have less of an environmental impact than disposable ones. Think of how much more plastic or metal goes into the manufacture of a reusable bottle.
And if we’re banning bottled water because of the environmental impact of plastic bottles shouldn’t we be banning everything else that comes in plastic bottles? A bottle of cola is just as bad as a bottle of water. So where do we go from here? What’s going to be banned on campus next?
Against specialization
Remember when choice and flexibility were good things?
With Nova Scotia’s O’Neill report in the books, and a similar report just released in Ontario, specialization is the new watchword for Canadian universities. Thus Bonnie Patterson, President of the Council of Ontario Universities: “the funding realities mean we’re going to have to build on the differences that already exist.”
Setting aside the question that the so-called funding realities are really funding decisions, the emphasis on specialization is troubling from the point of view of quality higher education.
Of course, some specialization is inevitable, or at least practical. Not every university can have a medical school, and a law school, and a major in South American Urban Geography. Fine. But I worry when I hear people like Harvey Weingarten, President of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario say things like this: “If Ryerson were to say its priority is undergraduate programs that graduate the next wave of entrepreneurs, for example, it might be that the U of T wouldn’t have a program exactly like that.”
Setting aside the fact that if Ontario really wanted to save money it could eliminate a few of these education councils, Weingarten’s comments hint that specialization is all about output. If Ontario needs graduates in various areas, the implication runs, it doesn’t need every school to fulfill that need. Put another way, if a student wants program x, she only needs one school to offer it and she can go there.
But the underlying assumption is that a university education is designed only, or mainly, as an economic investment. Universities are understood like factories, turning out useful products and thus should be specialized so as to be more efficient.
Setting aside the fact that it is inherently repugnant to think of people as products (the report calls for graduates who, like iPods should be “highly valued and competitive” [p.15]), the specialization perspective assumes that students know what they want to study when they go to university and will stick to that field of study all the way through. Anyone who teaches at a university knows that these assumptions are actually false, and idealists like me see them as deeply troubling.
For one thing, circumstances mean that students are not infinitely mobile. A student in Sudbury may not feasibly be able to move to Windsor to study. Consequently, specialization means limiting choices. The report claims that “differentiation” will mean more variety of programs overall (p. 6) but later reveals that claim to be false by insisting that universities must work with their existing programs (p.10). In other words, the Kingston girl who might have been a world-class artist may end up toiling as an accountant because Fine Arts was only available at Western, not Queen’s. Such things may happen even now, but they become more likely the more specialized institutions become.
The Rhodes and the big ask
Falling markets and rising tuition have the old trust seeking new donations
After spending a lifetime amassing a fortune with questionable means, Cecil Rhodes, a diamond magnate in colonial Africa, left one unquestionably good thing after he died in 1902: a bequest of over £3 million, roughly equivalent to half a billion in today’s dollars, for students from abroad to study at his alma mater, Oxford University. Over 100 years and 7,000 Rhodes Scholars later, though, that money is down to about $186 million. The bequest, reads an April online note by the Rhodes Trust, which administers the scholarship, “needs to be supplemented to secure [our emphasis] and improve the Rhodes Scholarships for the future.” Gifts of the magnitude of $1 million per individual donor were “warmly encouraged.”
The turn to fundraising represents a major shift for the trust, which has traditionally relied on investment to preserve and supplement its capital. Benefactions from the illustrious community of Rhodes alumni, which includes Bill Clinton, Canada’s former governor general Roland Michener, and former PM John Turner, are not new, but shrill calls for donations came only after the trust lost nearly $70 million in the 2008-2009 financial crisis, a drop of around 27 per cent in the net value of its assets.
“We’re drawing money from the principal,” says director of advancement Krista Slade, who is helping to engineer the trust’s fundraising campaign. Though there are no plans to resize the scholarship program, she says, the trust needs to at least double the size of its endowment by the end of the decade to “be competitive.” That means raising a minimum of $160 million by 2020.
It’s an onerous sum to ask of the small Rhodes community, whose living members number around 4,500, many of whom went on to earn middle-range salaries in academia or the public sector. But Slade says the trust is counting on its influential cadre of alumni to help reach out to outside benefactors as well. The scholars’ response has mostly been warm. “I haven’t heard anyone say anything other than, ‘Good, I’ll be very happy to contribute,’ ” says L. Yves Fortier, a lawyer in Montreal and Rhodes Scholar who served as Canada’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations. A Rhodes Scholarship is a life-changing affair, he says, and people are eager to give back. Toronto Centre MP Bob Rae, also a Rhodes Scholar, agrees. The trust’s financial performance “hasn’t been as robust as everybody would have liked,” he says, and “taking the bull by the horns” with a major fundraising effort makes sense.
But for others, the fact that the trust was asking for money was a shock. Now that “they’re trying to raise a buck along with everybody else,” the myth of the “infinitely wealthy” Rhodes Scholarship has been damaged, says scholar Philip Slayton, author of Lawyers Gone Bad and a contributor to Maclean’s. And as scholars dig into their wallets and work their connections to get others to chip in, they are also raising the hard questions. First of all: how did we get here?
The major culprits, according to warden of the Rhodes House Donald Markwell, are volatile markets (where the trust took a beating in the dot-com bust and the global financial crisis), and ballooning university tuitions, which have been rising across the U.K.
Some, though, are questioning the soundness of the trust’s investment strategy. Despite the intellectual firepower behind the trust, says Slayton, maybe it “didn’t do such a good job after all.” And even if losing money was unavoidable, “you’d think they would have rebounded,” at least after the dot-com bust, says scholar and Foreign Affairs magazine senior editor Sasha Polakow-Suransky. (The Rhodes Trust declined a request to see financial reports for the early 2000s; its 2010 annual report is not available yet.)
Others are wondering whether “mandate creep” is also a reason for the red ink. A program for 57 young men in its early days, the scholarship has welcomed 81 students this year and even more in previous years. New commitments included the creation in 2002 of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation for African scholarships. The trust’s pledge to give it $16 million over 10 years sparked divisions among scholars that made headlines.
University of Toronto president David Naylor says he would ask the trust, “show me what the cost is of the new programs and commitments,” although he adds he would probably “put some money in the kettle.”
And even in the tightly knit Rhodes community, money, as it often does, is coming with strings attached. Stepped-up fundraising almost coincided with an organizational reshaping this year that sets a minimum quota of scholar members in, among others, the board of trustees. “If we’re going to tap scholars for money,” former ambassador Fortier says, part of the reasoning was, “we’ll have to give them more voice.”
Women at Dalhousie spied on
Secret videos posted online, police investigating
Women at Dalhousie University are being filmed without their knowledge and the video is being posted online. The director of security for the school, Mike Burns, recently emailed students warning them of the incidents. “The videos were taken without consent of the subjects and appear to have been taken in a manner where the subjects would have been unaware that they were being recorded,” Burns wrote. “The nature of the video is an invasion of individual privacy, as well as being offensive in its content toward the subject of the recording.” At least one student has filed a complaint with the police. The university has not confirmed whether or not the videos are still available online.
