Archive for November, 2010
Canada should be LGBT world leader
Adding gender identity, expression to list of protected groups is a positive step
A Dutch student successfully campaigned to have his diploma replaced by a university after he had sex re-assignment surgery. Initially reluctant, the university at first offered the man — who was a woman when he graduated from the institution — a simple certificate confirming his graduation. The country’s Equal Opportunities Commission ruled in his favour this week, saying he is entitled to a new diploma that properly identifies him.
Back in Canada, a private member’s bill is causing a bit of a different stir. Bill C-389 would add gender identity and gender expression to the list of identifiable groups protected by the Human Rights Act and even the hate provisions of the criminal code.
In a May debate in the House of Commons, Conservative MP Sylvie Boucher argued that making it illegal to express hatred towards transgender, intersex and transsexual people is a violation of free speech.
“We need enough evidence to conclude that there are enough cases of hate propaganda against transgender people,” she said. “Without that evidence, it is difficult to justify amending the Criminal Code and placing additional restrictions on free speech.”
Boucher pointed to recent Human Rights Tribunal decisions, which found that cases of harassment or discrimination brought forward by transsexuals was fully justified because “discriminating against transsexuals is prohibited based on the current ground of sex.”
In other words, Canada already has these protections in place. But this bill wants to make them more explicit — and that’s also justified.
Given the string of suicides among LGBT youth this fall, and given the fervency with which the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is being debated in the U.S., there is still a need to protect people from those who would do them harm.
If that means making sure the appropriate name is on a diploma, then fine. And if it means making sure that the harassment and abuse of transgender, transsexual and intersex people in Canada will not be tolerated, then fine.
Canada has a chance to be a world leader on this. Boucher told the House that no other country has established these kinds of protections. It can get better, and Canada can help lead the way.
CAUT drops censure threat
Fired medical prof reinstated at the U of M
A threat to censure the University of Manitoba over the firing of a medical professor has been dropped. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) decided this weekend not to go ahead with censure after Larry Reynolds, the previously dismissed professor, reached an agreement with the university and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. If the university had been officially censured, the CAUT would have encouraged academics to decline appointments to the institution.
“Dr. Reynolds has reached a settlement with the University of Manitoba and the WRHA that satisfied our concerns,” James Turk, CAUT’s executive director told the Winnipeg Free Press. Reynolds will rejoin the faculty of medicine after official approval from the board of governors, although the terms of his employment have not, yet, been made public.
Reynolds, who previously taught at the University of Western Ontario, was recruited by the U of M to head the department of family medicine in 2001. His five year term was not renewed, and in 2008 he was dismissed from the department altogether. In the spring, when CAUT first threatened censure, the national professor’s union alleged that Reynolds “was dismissed from the University of Manitoba’s Department of Family Medicine without formal notice and with no hearing regarding dismissal for cause, contrary to his contract and the policies of the University of Manitoba.”
No major research university has been censured in over three decades.
Transsexual graduate to get new diploma
Dutch university was following too strictly law against second diplomas
The University of Amsterdam will be issuing a new diploma with a new name for a student who has a had a sex change since he graduated. Dutch education minister Marja van Bijsterveldt said on Tuesday that the university was following a too strict interpretation of a law that forbids replacement diplomas. Justus Eifeld, now a man, was a woman when he graduated in 2001. Two years ago, the university had offered to give him a certificate confirming his graduation, but he found that unsatisfactory. He took his complaint to the Equal Opportunities Commission, which also ruled in his favour on Tuesday. The university “should have recognized that a gender change is a reason to replace a diploma,” a spokesperson for the Commission said.
The anti-wish list
The top three things I don’t want for Christmas
3) A Wii Fit
Video games aren’t meant to be a work out. When you have a remote control in your hand, you’re not supposed to break into a sweat or even have to stand up. Video games are supposed to transform you into an amorphous blob with a pasty complexion and underdeveloped social skills.
2) A ‘Giant Microbes’ plush toy
Ever wanted the cuddly teddy-bear version of an infectious disease? Then you should check out Giant Microbes plush toys.
Personally, I don’t really understand the appeal of stuffed toys that were featured on my Microbiology exam. When I first saw them at the University of Waterloo bookstore, I thought, “Who the hell would want one of those?”
A second later, I heard my sister say from behind me, “OHMYGODTHOSEARESOCUTE!”
1) A graphing calculator
A friend of mine is actually hoping to find a graphing calculator under the Christmas tree. If someone gave me a graphing calculator as a gift, I’d probably think it’s some kind of sick joke. And yes, it probably means she’s one of those replicants from Blade Runner.
Then again, her name is “Emma,” so she was kind of destined to ask for boring gifts. Of course, the whole graphing calculator thing is exactly why she’s going to make it into med school on her first application.
If I make it into med school, I’ll probably be sending her postcards from Grenada.
-Photo courtesy of Andres Rueda
British students continue to protest tuition hikes
Ketchup, mustard and snowballs thrown at police
British students continue to stage nationwide protests over government plans to allow tuition to rise to as much as 9,000 pounds, or $14,000. Tuition is currently capped at 3,000 pounds. In London, “protesters pushed against lines of riot police at Trafalgar Square and some threw objects at officers, who responded with batons,” according to the Associated Press. In Bristol, students tossed ketchup and mustard at police. In Sheffield, about 200 protesters clashed with police in front of the constituency office of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, where snowballs were reportedly thrown. The incidents were just the latest in a series of student protests against tuition hikes that began on Nov 10.
Italian students riot over budget cuts
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says ‘serious’ students should study not protest
Student protests in Rome against government education reforms turned violent on Tuesday. About 3,000 protesters stormed the Italian capital’s city centre in an attempt to reach Parliament, where a bill to cut 8 billion euros (12 million USD) from the public education system was being passed. Some of the protesters tossed eggs, tomatoes and smoke bombs at police. An attempt to overturn a police van was thwarted after a riot squad chased after the students with tear gas. Similar, though more peaceful, protests were staged at cities across the country. “Premier Silvio Berlusconi brushed off the protests, saying ‘serious’ students were home studying,” the Associated Press reported.
Wanted: male veterinarians
Oldest veterinary college focuses recruitment strategy on male students
The Ontario Veterinary College wants more male students. Only 13 per cent of the 114 students admitted to the College, part of the University of Guelph, this year are men. That’s a problem, Elizabeth Lowenger, the college’s diversity and careers coordinator, told the Toronto Star. Promotional materials always include a male face, and male students are the ones picked to sell the veterinarian science to potential students. “Everything I do has to have a male on it, but not exclusively,” she says. The Ontario Veterinary College is the oldest of its kind in North America.
Self-plagiarism debate at Queen’s
Prof found to have duplicated his own research
A Queen’s University professor is at the centre of a controversy over “self-plagiarism.” The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences recently retracted three papers from Reginald Smith, a professor emeritus of mechanical and materials engineering at Queen’s over concerns of academic misconduct. In particular, Smith is alleged to have recycled research from articles published earlier in his career. A fourth article in another journal by Smith was also pulled.
“Titles and authors’ names on the papers change, but large chunks were duplicated in papers co-authored” by the 80-year-old scientist, Postmedia reported after an extensive investigation into the matter including the retrieval of several documents from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) through freedom of information requests.
According to the report, Queen’s professors Mort Shirkhanzadeh and Chris Pickles “found evidence of recycled text and data in about 20 scientific publications that Smith had co-authored with others.” The two colleagues filed complaints first with Queen’s and later with NSERC in 2004 and 2005.
A Queen’s investigation, that NSERC requested, found “minor amendments to title or abstract, and wholesale reproduction of previously published boilerplate, grammatical warts and all,” in some of Smith’s publications. The university told NSERC that Smith “has recognized the seriousness of the findings regarding the reuse of materials and has implemented policies in his research group to prevent further issues arising with new work.” The Queen’s investigation did not find that Smith’s actions constituted scientific misconduct.
The research council, that distributes over $1billion annually to Canadian scientists, found the Queen’s investigation lacking and threatened to cut Smith’s funding in 2006. Smith’s lawyer, Ken Clark, responded with a letter to NSERC. “A more egregious violation of our client’s rights and of due process can hardly be imagined,” Clark wrote demanding that documents supporting the allegations be produced.
NSERC eventually reneged in part because privacy rules prevented certain documents from being provided to Clark, and in part because regulations require that allegations of academic misconduct be investigated by individual universities. Queen’s is not reopening the case, and Clark told Postmedia that the process lacked transparency, alleging that his client was not given sufficient recourse to defend himself.
4 students + 1 pot = yum
If you’re living on a scurvy diet of raisin bread and Stove Top Stuffing, Maclean’s is here to help
Four 21 year-old University of Toronto undergraduate students are gathered around the table in their Woodsworth College residence’s communal kitchen on a recent Friday night inspecting a bounty of fresh vegetables. “Leeks!” shouts Tingting Zhang, a psychology and neuroscience major who could point out the difference between a ganglia and an axon in her sleep, but takes childlike delight in recognizing the ubiquitous vegetable before her roommates do. Karen Sohn, an economics and psychology major, holds a bunch of thin grass-like spears. “Chives?” It’s more of a question than an answer. Aaron Shapland, who studies Middle Eastern civilization and geographical information systems, takes the easy road and correctly identifies the lone red onion. Meanwhile, the bag of baby arugula stumps Dorin Manase, who studies biology and computer science. In fact, they’re all baffled. “Is that leaves?” asks Tingting. “It tastes like nuts.” In an age when all things gastronomic are featured front and centre in television, movies and blogs, you might think this bunch would be more food-savvy. But as Karen pops a yellow-coloured cherry tomato into her mouth, she confesses, “you couldn’t find four people who make more disgusting food.”
Maclean’s is here to help. We’re armed with three simple recipes, for a soup, pasta and mussels. All require just one pot, minimal ingredients and extremely basic kitchen know-how. Our mission is to get these four students eating better fare than Stove Top Stuffing, pasta topped with ketchup, and Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup poured on top of a microwaved chicken breast, “Chicken à la King”: staple student meals from the 1990s. Surely times have changed.
Nobu Adilman, actor, writer, and one of the hosts of the Food Network’s Food Jammers, who graduated from Halifax’s Dalhousie in 1995, says, “It’s a matter of having only so many minutes in a day. You’ve got so much s–t flying at you and you don’t want to spend all that time on cooking. So you just eat to soak up the booze.”
Most students juggle full course loads, part-time jobs and extracurricular activities, which doesn’t leave a lot of free time to visit farmers’ markets, let alone plan a week’s worth of meals. Luckily, in downtown Toronto there are other options: “I don’t know if you saw the hotdog vendor across the street, but she’s going to be my best friend next week during exams,” says Aaron as he chops an onion. Dorin, who just finished an exam, ate cereal for his last three meals, while Tingting polished off an entire loaf of raisin bread yesterday: “Breakfast, lunch and dinner, just in my room,” she says. “I didn’t even use a plate because I was cramming: I had two assignments due.”
Bestselling cookbook author Bonnie Stern, who also runs a Toronto cooking school, has a brighter outlook on students’ eating habits. “They’re much more savvy than they used to be because of the Food Network. They love that feeling of making something—the excitement of it. It’s very cool now.” She ought to know: for the last 15 years her school has offered a university survival class for students leaving home for the first time. “They do have a short attention span so we try to just do one class and then pack it full.” One of the most popular recipes is an Asian-inspired salad dressing, named after her daughter Anna, “who went through all of university without eating a salad.”
Not all university students are clueless come dinnertime. Amanda Garbutt, 22, has been preparing meals since her first year at McGill University in 2006. “I would whip up something in the floor’s kitchen and no one else could even fry an egg.” Soon she was teaching her roommate basic kitchen fundamentals. “We’d buy identical ingredients and split the stove in half and she’d take the left side and I would take the right and we’d make identical meals.” Friends started coming over to watch. “They’d bring wine and it became a social event. And then I came up with BYOI, bring your own ingredients, and I would pick a recipe—a risotto, stew or soup—and assign everyone an ingredient to bring and it would end up being very cost-effective, and we’d all take turns stirring and chopping. It was fun.”
April Engelberg, also 22, met Amanda on their first day at McGill and came up with the idea of filming these sessions. The result was The Hot Plate, a show launched through TV McGill, the University’s student-run television station, in the fall of 2008. Engelberg and Garbutt, who graduated this May, are now developing The Hot Plate’s website, which features about a dozen instructional videos for simple dinners, and their cookbook, which comes out this month.
Like Stern, Engelberg has “noticed a massive trend toward students caring more about cooking. It’s cool to say last night I made risotto, and people are always taking pictures of their food and posting them.” Still, Garbutt says, “Some students go for the McGill pizza down the street. ‘Two bucks? I can do that for breakfast, lunch and dinner until I get scurvy.’ I actually know someone who got scurvy from a pure mac and cheese diet.”
Back in the Maclean’s kitchen, so far scurvy-free, we’ve hit a few snags. Tingting discloses that they don’t have a cheese grater. “I usually use a potato peeler,” she says. There’s also no measuring cup—no measuring device of any sort. More surprising is the absence of a colander from the kitchen of this pasta-loving group. “We use our hands,” says Tingting. “It’s not what you’re supposed to do?” When her three roommates cast steely glares in her direction, she adds, “We wash our hands first.” “Welcome to college,” says Aaron.
After they devour the leek and potato soup, which Tingting says “tastes like it’s from a restaurant,” the pasta is successfully drained, sans colander, and tossed simply with extra virgin olive oil, ricotta salata, cherry tomatoes and basil. “Mmm,” they hum. We do a second version with a handful of the arugula mixed in—a clever way to sneak a salad into a main dish. “I like it,” says Dorin, who’d earlier confessed to usually eating just meat. “I was skeptical. But it’s really good.”
The last recipe for curried coconut mussels, courtesy of Chatelaine, requires the most effort out of our three dishes—that is if you consider ripping out a few beards from the shells laborious. Not only are these bovines cheap (Chatelaine’s food editor, Claire Tansey, says they usually cost about two dollars for 250 grams) but they’re also high in zinc, protein and omega-3 fatty acids. Pair them with a buttered baguette and call it dinner.
The four students gather round two kilos of steaming mussels piled high in a stainless steel bowl; not an ideal serving vessel for hot food, but it worked in a pinch. They all like mussels, but this was their first time making them. It’s also the first meal these roommates have shared since moving in together this September, although you’d be hard-pressed to tell: as they dunk their bread into the sauce and devour dinner, they talk and laugh as though this were a typical evening. “We should definitely do this again next Friday night,” says Aaron. Mission accomplished.
No ivory tower here
Learning at these three schools happens outside the lecture hall
Concordia University
Like Rodney Dangerfield and rolling in the mud, Concordia University has a tendency to be underappreciated. Long considered the red-headed stepchild of Montreal’s two English universities, it is often lost in the ivy-tinged shadow of McGill. Many wear their alma mater’s scruffier-than-thou reputation on their sleeve. “Concordia is to McGill what the United Church is to Catholicism,” says one-time contemporary dance major Amy Blackmore. Still, the university has consistently found itself on the wrong end of Maclean’s rankings.
But while the numbers may show the 30,000-student university has certain challenges, they obscure many of the innovative aspects of a Concordia education that attract people like Amy Blackmore. Case in point: the faculty of fine arts, based in the glass-and-steel confines of the university’s new Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex. By design, the roughly 3,700 fine arts students live and work in one of Montreal’s busiest strips—from which students and faculty alike draw inspiration. “There’s no sense of there being an ivory tower here,” says Chris Salter, a computer design professor. “There are no closed-off spaces. There’s more of what I’d call seepage.”
“Seepage” is an odd yet apt description of the department’s philosophy. Students who choose fine arts won’t simply learn their chosen craft; more often than not, they’ll learn how to put it to use once they graduate. The department of design and computation arts doesn’t simply teach the esoteric aspects of the craft, but the practical as well. “In any given week I’ll be teaching the academic, such as media theory, to the hard-core technical, like digital audio design,” says Salter. The department offers a double major in computer science and computation arts, the only one of its kind in North America.
If there is a technological pièce de résistance in the department, it’s the Hexagram Institute. Established in 2001, it is the conglomeration of 16 so-called “new media labs” devoted solely to what the university calls “new processes, creative communities and innovative works or prototypes.” Translation: students get to dream up and make really, really cool stuff.
D. Andrew Stewart, a Concordia graduate, is using Matralab (one of the Hexagram’s spaces) to hone the T-Stick, a length of plumbing tube stuffed with electronics and layered with a touch-sensitive surface. The tube reacts to movement and touch, and when hooked up to a computer it can be manipulated to make custom sounds (a flute, maybe, or a sample of Stewart yelling something quasi-obscene). “It’s all open source,” Stewart says, “meaning you could build one yourself with instructions from the Internet. The gyroscope in it is from a Nintendo Wii controller.”
Matralab director Sandeep Bhagwati, who is also one of nine Canada Research Chairs in fine arts, says Stewart’s T-Stick is typical of the department’s beyond-the-box, interdisciplinary approach to art and performance. Indeed, it’s what attracted him to Concordia. “I have a very structured background as an orchestra director and composition professor,” Bhagwati says. “I really don’t like the divides. I needed input from people who were not musicians.”
Music therapy is another example of the department’s mix of theory and practicality. Music majors typically had three choices once they graduate: teaching, performing or gut-wrenching unemployment. You might say that Concordia’s music therapy program is a welcome fourth option. One of only two master’s-level programs in the country, music therapy students spend three days a week during the 12-month period (a total of 1,200 hours) working at various prenatal, health and palliative care centres, as well as women’s shelters and special education facilities around Montreal.
For professor P. K. Langshaw, interaction with the community at large goes both ways. In 2001, Langshaw began an ad hoc outreach program between her students and those of Dans La Rue, a resource centre for street kids featuring an alternative school. The reason: Langshaw, whose many specialties include computer art design, wanted to demystify the subject for DLR students. Her instinct has legs: today, DLR students can take classes at Concordia, earning the equivalent of six credits for producing university-level works. “For a lot of DLR kids, digital self-expression isn’t something that’s necessarily in their realm,” Langshaw says. “But here they are treated the same as any Concordia student.” It’s a fitting partnership: Concordia itself is dans la rue—and proud to be far away from the ivory towers of certain other universities.
- Martin Patriquin
Students don’t know money
Financial literacy a serious gap in modern education
Students at Concordia University who want to spend some time in their university library have to say no to a credit card on the way in, then again on their way out, every time they visit the building.
“It’s right in front of the stairs to go up into the library,” Concordia student Brandi Goulding told the McGill Daily last week. “So if you are choosing to study in Concordia’s library, you have to say no or listen to their spiel every time you walk by.”
Credit cards available to anyone who asks for them is a relatively new phenomenon, and that means that the education systems haven’t caught up with the modern reality. And it’s time they did.
Consumer debt in Canada is now over $41,000 per person. That’s more than 2.5 times what it was 20 years ago, according to a report by the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada.
What’s even more surprising is that report also found that Canadians are ready to take on even more debt if it means maintaining their preferred lifestyle. What is lacking, though, is an understanding of what debt means, what interest rates mean and what credit ratings mean.
As people are being targeted at ever-younger ages for credit cards, debt is accumulating before people even have their first jobs or any means of bringing their finances back into the black.
Partially because of this increase in debt levels, and largely because people hate being deep in debt, there is a growing movement to teach personal financial strategies as part of a standard high school or university curriculum.
It’s time that movement came out of the back room and became reality.
Financial literacy is increasingly important to being successful in the modern world. And until we teach it along with basic arithmetic, reading Shakespeare and playing dodgeball, we are failing our youngest students.
In class texting is rampant
62% of students surveyed agree they should be allowed to text in class
Sending and receiving text messages while in class is rampant, according to a recent paper by researchers from Wilkes University. Of the 269 Wilkes students who participated in the study, nine out of 10 admitted to sending or receiving a text while in class, while 10 per cent admitted to texting during exams and three per cent said they had used their phones to cheat. In total 62 per cent said that they should be permitted to text in class.
One of the researchers, psychology professor Deborah Tindell, has put a no-cell phone policy in place as a result of her findings. Students who violate the policy during a test will receive a grade of zero.
Another professor, Laurence Thomas, who teaches philosophy at Syracuse University made headlines after he “walked out on his class of nearly 400 students last week when he caught a couple of students fiddling with their phones instead of paying attention to him,” the Canadian Press reported.
Similarly, two Ryerson University professors raised a few eyebrows after campus paper, the Eyeopener, publicized their threat to walk out on their unruly first-year students.
Quebec college locks students out
Plans for sit-ins and student strikes against tuition hikes stalled by administration
A Quebec college, or CEGEP, locked its doors to students last week, ahead of a planned student strike against tuition fees. Students at CEGEP du Vieux Montreal had organized a week of sit-ins, bed-ins and a two-day strike to start last Monday. Those plans were interrupted when the CEGEP opted to lock its doors, ultimately keeping students from staging sit-ins, or sleeping at the school as organizers had hoped. “The goal of closing the CEGEP . . . is really to prevent the mobilization of students,” a student union representative told the McGill Daily.
Universities suffering for pensions
Survey reveals $2.6 billion in solvency deficits
The recession has left Canadian universities with a combined pension deficit of $2.6 billion, according to a Globe and Mail survey of more than 20 institutions. The consequence of the shortfall will likely be reduced services for students, the paper reported. For example, Dalhousie University is facing a solvency deficit of $129 million that will have to be filled by taking funds from the operating budget. Nova Scotia denied the university’s request to exempt it from solvency regulations, instead giving the school 10 years, as opposed to the usual five, to restore funds to the pension plan. Similar situations exist at universities right across the country, with pension plan solvency deficits ranging from a high of $1.1 billion at the University of Toronto to a low of $9.2 million at Trent University.
Baltimore university teaches The Wire
Class uses HBO series to study issues in modern urban centres
Critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire, frequently the subject of discussion in film classes and at staff parties everywhere, is now the basis for a course at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., the gritty city the series was set in, reported the CBC.
I’ll admit I’m a little obsessed with the show, and suspect Omar Little quotes are now rampant at John Hopkins.
The crime drama is used in other courses at institutions such as Harvard and Duke universities to showcase the struggles against drugs and crime in a fictionalized inner city setting. However, this course, titled “Baltimore and the The Wire: A Focus on Major Urban Issues,” will be the first time the show been taught in Baltimore, and is the first to bring in people who worked on the show and those whose jobs were portrayed on the show.
The course was created by former city health commissioner and current county health officer, Peter Beilenson. Beilenson told student newspaper the JHU Gazette that he thought the show’s portrayal of life in Baltimore, which he felt reflected life in many other American cities, was “frighteningly accurate.” Beilenson said he felt that the show’s realistic portrayal of issues in modern urban centres would be beneficial for students.
“My idea was that instead of just having students read in a book about the problems plaguing modern American urban centres, they could watch them played out in The Wire and then hear them discussed and dissected by leading experts who are working to address those problems,” Beilenson said.
Written by former Baltimore Sun crime reporter, David Simon, and former police detective Ed Burns, the show dissected several different facets of the city of Baltimore, including the drug trade, police force, city government and bureaucracy, and the print news media, during its five season run from 2002 to 2008. In interviews Simon has described the show as being a portrayal of how people function within the modern American city, despite being presented as a crime drama.
Some critics have described the show as the greatest television series ever made, despite having a relatively small following. “When television history is written, little else will rival The Wire, a series of such ambition that it is, perhaps inevitably, savoured only by the appreciative few,” Variety magazine once wrote.
The class’s guest speakers have included former Baltimore police commissioner Ed Norris and Simon himself. The final assignment in the course requires students to write a paper outlining their suggested solutions for solving problems in the city.
If I could transfer from the University of Manitoba to JHU just to take this course, I would do it in a heartbeat. But that seems like a pretty extreme measure to fuel my Wire obsession.
Not everyone supports U of M math prof
Graduate Students’ Association endorses suspension of Gabor Lukacs
The University of Manitoba Graduate Students’ Association has come out in support of the decision to suspend math professor Gabor Lukacs. Lukacs was suspended for three months without pay after he filed an application in Manitoba court to reverse a decision by John Doering, Dean of Graduate Studies, to waive a comprehensive exam requirement for a PhD student. After he filed his court papers, the university suspended him on the official grounds that he violated the students’ privacy. The student, whose name is protected by a publication ban, is said to suffer from “extreme exam anxiety.”
In a recent letter distributed to various media outlets, including Maclean’s, Meaghan Labine, president of the Graduate Students’ Association endorsed the decision to suspend Lukacs.
Graduate students value the protection and privacy of their personal information. The UMGSA supports the protection of all students’ personal and private information that is required by law. The University of Manitoba’s response in dealing with this breach of confidentiality reflects the university’s commitment to ensuring the confidentiality of a student’s personal information. Consequently, to the extent that the university’s decision to suspend its faculty member may have been based on the unauthorized disclosure of personal health information, the UMGSA feels this Human Resources decision was justified.
Although Labine does not address the specific circumstances surrounding the waiving of the exam requirement for the student, she criticizes the characterization of the U of M as a “PhD mill” and implications that the university has been granting “compassionate degrees.” She writes: “It has been our collective experience that the University of Manitoba adheres to regulated standards for academic achievement within all disciplines ensuring that program requirements and achievements fulfill degree requirements and equifinality.”
The GSA letter advances a different position than the University of Manitoba Faculty Association, who is supporting Lukacs by grieving his suspension. “I don’t know if its an automatic thing that we do, but it’s such a harsh thing that we usually try to find some other way to resolve the issue aside from some sort of formal discipline,” Cameron Morrill, UMFA president told the Manitoban.
In a letter published by the Winnipeg Free Press, Morrill also questioned the university’s definition of reasonable accommodation when exam anxiety is concerned.
In cases where a diagnosis of exam anxiety means that the usual methods of examination do not provide a fair evaluation of a student’s abilities, reasonable accommodation routinely takes the form of allowing the student additional time or other special conditions under which to take the exam. Reasonable accommodation does not mean that the student does not have to demonstrate the competencies required by the degree.
Similarly, some 86 mathematicians from around the world have issued a letter of protest addressed to the university administration against the decision to waive the exam requirement.
[A]s members of the mathematical community, we wish to express our deep concern about the repercussions this affair will have at the national and international levels. Indeed, given the current cohesiveness of the mathematical community, and the speed at which information now travels, the negative publicity your institution is receiving threatens to cast a shadow on all future mathematics degrees awarded by the University of Manitoba. In the current context of intense competition, many of your students will find it difficult to overcome such a handicap.
While Lukacs’ grievance against his suspension will not be heard until the spring, a hearing on his court application, where a judge is being asked to rule whether Doering, as an administrator, had the authority to waive PhD requirements, is scheduled for tomorrow January 20, 2011(Update: The hearing was originally scheduled for Nov 30th, but that has since changed). The university’s primary defense is that Lukacs has no standing.
Dr. Lukacs has no individual rights in law or equity that are at stake or in issue. He does not have a direct and personal interest in the alleged improper acts of Dr. Doering or the university. . . . Further, there is no evidence that he has suffered, or is likely to suffer, special damages peculiar to himself as a result of the accommodation afforded to [the student] by the university and any decision made by the university as a consequence of said accommodation.
The day I left class
I understand if students don’t have enough respect for me to pay attention, but they at least ought to have enough respect for themselves.
Two Ryerson profs created more waves than they probably meant to recently when they decided that they would simply stop teaching and leave class if things became too rowdy. Critics seem to take the view that while their concerns may be valid, there must be a better way.
As a professor, I am particularly sympathetic to the plight of the Ryerson Two, since I know first hand how soul-destroying it can be to do everything you can to be engaging about a fascinating topic and still watch students pass notes back and forth or try to make their cell phone spin like a top. I have never walked out for the reasons cited by the Ryerson profs. The most I’ve ever done on that score is stop teaching, walk over to an offending quartet and tell them quietly that they were causing a distraction. This was so mortifying to all of us that it was never needed again. But then, my classes are fairly small compared to those at most universities, and I can easily stroll over a few steps and correct the behaviour of a few students. But I wouldn’t want to climb the stairs to the back of a big lecture hall to tell off dozens of malcontents.
But one day I did walk out.
I had just graded a pile of papers so that I could hand them back in class. There were nine papers in the pile and of those nine, three of them had been blatantly plagiarized. And they were not the only ones that year. I had had enough and felt like I had to do something to convey to my students how serious the problem was. So I went into class and gave a very stern lecture about why plagiarism was wrong, about how it was an insult to me, to other students, and to the academy in general. Plus it was stupid because a bunch of them now had zeroes on their papers.
And then I left.
I don’t know what was said in the room after I was gone, but I’m pretty sure it made an impression. A student later told me that everyone in the class was now “paranoid” about citing sources correctly, which, in a way, was what I wanted because what they viewed as paranoid was merely what I considered diligent.
My case, of course, was something different than what the Ryerson profs are doing (or said they would do). It was a one-time thing, not a regular policy, and it was designed to make a particular point to the students, to actually teach them something. In that case, I felt like I could teach them more by leaving than I could by staying.
Looking back, I’m not entirely sure whether I did the right thing. There was no more misuse of sources that year, but when evaluations came around, it became clear that a lot of students were hurt because they felt they were being yelled at because of what other students did. No doubt some Ryerson students feel the same way about their profs walking out. And how much less will they learn because they no longer feel like they are being treated fairly?
Of course, it should never have had to come to that, and it should never have come to this. Students should pay attention for the simple reason that they should be embarrassed not to.
Each year, I talk to my students about my expectations around behaviour in class, including refraining from using their phones and laptops instead of paying attention. The reason I usually give is that it provides a distraction — not just to them but to other students and to me as well. But next year, I’m going to give another reason why students should pay attention: because anything else is beneath them. They are university students, for whom thousands of dollars of theirs (or their parents) and the taxpayers’ money is being spent so they can be there and to learn. They seek a university degree, a centuries-old designation, and a time-honoured mark of the educated man or woman. To do anything but pay attention is gormless and infantile.
I understand if students don’t have enough respect for me to pay attention, but they at least ought to have enough respect for themselves.
Are pro-life groups deserving of student funding?
Our student panel weighs in
Pro-life clubs are among the most controversial student groups on university campuses. At several universities across the country, they have had their student group status stripped and have even been arrested for their advocacy. Recently, the Carleton University Students’ Association decertified pro-life group Carleton Lifeline because the club’s constitution was out-of-line with CUSA’s official pro-choice stance.
Our bloggers have weighed in on the issue, with Robyn Urback arguing that CUSA has enacted a “discriminatory ban” and Jacob Serebrin taking the position that no student group has any inherent right to funding.
We put the question to our student panel. Leading off this week is Shelley Halchuk, a dentistry student at the University of Manitoba, and an executive member of the University of Manitoba Aboriginal Students’ Association. As with previous weeks, all videos will be featured on our You Tube channel.
‘Educational’ video games: stop kidding yourself
Try Halo Reach instead.
When I’m in EB Games, it’s always sickening to see parents and grandparents buying LEGO Indiana Jones 2 or Kung-Fu Panda for their kids. They seem to think that buying video games is kind of like buying a pair of socks: they’re all the same, so there’s no point getting fussy about a particular pair.
And by the way, there’s no such thing as an educational video game, so don’t bother with Ultimate Spelling Bee or Virtual Math Coach. The words “educational” and “videogame” shouldn’t be in the same sentence, unless you’re making the point that they shouldn’t be in the same sentence.
For one thing, you’re wasting your money, because a normal kid is never going to play 101 Grammar Exercises on their Nintendo DS.
Secondly, stop kidding yourself with the whole “educational” thing. It’s still a videogame. Kind of like those “Healthy Choice” apple slices at McDonald’s that come with caramel dip.
-Photo courtesy of mysza831
Why student politics and the Middle East don’t mix
When any decision you make is bound to be seen as a political statement, what’s the point?
I don’t have a list of 10 Commandments for student politicians. But if I did, I’m pretty sure one would be this:
Thou shall not make any political judgments, implied or otherwise, on the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Why? What do you gain by putting yourself in the middle of any conflict that does nothing to directly harm or benefit your student union, and will inevitably annoy half the people involved? At any university, there is a large pro-Israeli group and a large pro-Palestine group, both of whom go about their regular advocacy business, but with whom tensions can become inflamed in the blink of an eye. And such a thing has happened at UBC with their student union, the Alma Mater Society (AMS).
As you can imagine, the AMS decision to withhold a $700 donation by a student group for an aid flotilla to Gaza for council approval was the equivalent of skipping the whole match-and-gasoline charade and just going straight to the fire. Student councillors have been inundated with angry letters. Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), the group that was to give the donation, President Omar Shaban was escorted by security out of AMS president Bijan Ahmadian’s office when he came to ask for minutes of the meeting where the decision to withhold funds was made. Even UBC President Stephen Toope has weighed in, with a letter that obliquely refers to the current dust-up.
So how did we get here?
– It’s mandated that $1.50 per student be given to the AMS Resource Groups, a hodgepodge of associations that advocate for various social causes. Though technically a branch of the AMS, all the students’ union does is set the yearly budget for each resource group during the summer, and then allow them to be autonomous.
– In this case, the Social Justice Centre (total budget: $9,741) decided to give a $700 donation to the SPHR, who wanted to put the money towards a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza—leaving in Spring 2011. The money came out of the $4,000 line item in the SJC budget for “grants,” and all that was left to do was to have the VP Finance sign off on the cheque. In most cases, a fait accompli.
– Members of the Israeli Awareness Club complained to the VP Finance that allowing student money to go towards a Gaza flotilla was a foolish thing.
All going as you would expect student politics to go. Here’s where it gets tricky.
The VP Finance consulted with Ahmadian, the AMS President, along with other members of the executive, and it was decided to let student council decide whether they would get the money. Why? Well, at first it was claimed that it was due to the “controversial nature” of the donation. Then, it was argued by Ahmadian that it was due to the SJC not holding a proper AGM, and so was purely an administrative decision.
Except that having council approve funding decisions of its subsidiaries (which include the resource groups and clubs) is incredibly rare. And donations to Palestinian refugees is a wee bit of an international issue. Which meant that the decision, regardless of whether it was meant to be political or not, was always going to be seen as such
What’s next? Well, expect more virulent criticism of president Ahmadian and Shaban—who has gotten targeted online this week based on his incendiary past statements against Canada—on personal/political grounds, a council meeting scheduled for this week that has all the makings of a Tea Party town hall (there’s a chance it will move to one of the largest lecture halls on campus), and plenty of hurt feelings. It may make for a good story, but it makes for a more polarized community.
There are enough reasons for pro-Palestine and Israel groups on campuses to butt heads without getting student governments (or university administrations, for that matter) involved. And if anything good comes out of this, it will be that student leaders across Canada may think twice before wading into a debate they don’t need to be part of.
Related: We need to stop talking about Israel and Palestine so much
