Archive for January, 2011
Student sports unwashed pair of jeans for 15 months for experiment
Used jeans to test potential health hazards of wearing grimy clothes
When life gets hectic, it’s common for some students to wear jeans that haven’t been washed for days, even weeks, but most would consider wearing the same unwashed pair for months a bit of a stretch.
Not University of Alberta student Josh Le, who wore the same pair of unwashed jeans for 15 months in an effort to study the potential health risks of wearing a dirty garment for an extended period of time. While the jeans were found to have high counts of five types of bacteria, nothing was found that would be considered hazardous to Le’s health.
“I was blown away. I thought there would be a lot more bacteria than was present,” Le told the Canadian Press. “It sort of shows that it is okay to not wash jeans.”
The highest amount of bacteria were found in the crotch area of the jeans at 10 000 units per square centimeter, but were composed of normal skin bacteria and nothing harmful such as E.Coli bacteria.
Le estimates that he wore the jeans about 200 times during the experiment, and found they became a way to meet new people—although he admits they got pretty smelly.
“Some people really liked it, but some people were completely grossed out by it,” he said. “I was able to meet a lot more people and have a lot of good conversations. It was like, ‘hey, nice jeans,’ ” he said.
USask ignores search committee for Dean of Law
President submits own candidate to Board of Governors
University of Saskatchewan administrators are taking fire for ignoring a candidate for Dean of Law put forward by a search committee. President Peter MacKinnon presented his own candidate, Sanjeev Anand, a criminal law professor at the University of Calgary, to the Board of Governors for approval.
A member of the search committee who spoke anonymously to the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, says committee members are furious because the search was time consuming and because the administration appears to be further centralizing decisions. “It’s a very time-consuming process,” the source said. “This is not just about a few people feeling hard done by.”
Vice-president academic Brett Fairbairn, says that it is typical for recommendations from search committees to be heeded, but that the board has the final say. “Really, it’s about using the committee as the vehicle to collect and assess information,” he said.
Former prez takes reins at Concordia
Board chair considered resigning but will stay on
Concordia University has officially appointed an interim president after the Board of Governors voted unanimously in favour of Fred Lowy on Friday. Lowy is a former Concordia president who left the post in 2005 after serving two terms. He will run the administration while the university searches for a permanent replacement for Judith Woodsworth who left just before Christmas. Although the university initially said Woodsworth left for “personal” reasons, it is now widely believed that she was pushed out by the board, though chair Peter Kruyt says confidentiality rules prevent him from discussing the case in public. Several faculty councils have called for the resignation of Kruyt and other board members, but he says he will remain, although he did consider leaving.
Hazing a major problem in Atlantic Canada
UNB researcher finds majority of university athletes hazed using alcohol
The majority of university athletes in Atlantic Canada are subjected to hazing rituals, according to a researcher at the University of New Brunswick. Over the past four years, graduate student Ryan Hamilton interviewed 300 athletes at seven universities. He found that nearly all of them had been hazed, and usually when alcohol is involved. “Sixty-five per cent of athletes competing in the [Atlantic University Sports], at least according my study, have been hazed using alcohol,” he said. In December, the men’s volleyball team at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick was suspended after rookie Andrew Bartlet was found dead after attending a hazing event.
Thirteen arrested in counterfeit textbook ring
$540,000 worth of fake books seized in Montreal
Thirteen people were arrested in Montreal Thursday after police uncovered a large textbook-counterfeiting ring. Police uncovered 2,700 photocopied textbooks at four copy centres near McGill University. “It was well done; it was like they were real,” RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Luc Thibault told CBC News. The fakes were being sold at roughly one-quarter of their value. Those found had a cover price of $540,000. The people arrested could face fines up to $1-million or five years in jail under the Copyright Act.
The arts are useless and science is uncreative
Would you want your heart surgeon to be a ‘creative entrepreneur’?
Can a 4.0 GPA be a bad thing? A guest lecturer in one of my courses thinks so. In a lecture about “Mistakaphobia,” he argued that part of life–and therefore a part of being a university student–is making mistakes and growing from your experiences, taking risks and learning how to live in the real world. Perfection isn’t something you should strive for, because without mistakes you can’t learn anything. Instead of aiming for that 4.0 GPA, university students should accept mistakes as “opportunities.” It’s all part of a “creative entrepreneur” mentality.
I don’t have a 4.0 GPA, but it’s not for a lack of trying. And although I don’t know anyone who would disagree with the idea that making mistakes and taking risks are all part of living in the real world, as someone who’s planning on applying to med school next year, I need the highest marks possible if I want any hope of actually making it in. I’m sure anyone else who’s getting ready to apply to graduate school or professional school feels the same way. The problem is, there are plenty of applicants with 3.8+ GPA’s who aren’t nerdy little hermits with underdeveloped social skills and a lack of creativity. Out of the thousands of people applying to med school every year, plenty of them have high marks, but I don’t assume a correlation between high marks and low levels of “creativity.”
In the tutorial that took place after the lecture, where students and TAs were able to discuss the ideas with each other, I found it interesting that a lot of people seemed to think it had to be one way or the other: embracing a 4.0 GPA is somehow a rejection of the arts, and it’s only smug science students who get high grades. Discipline and a work ethic shouldn’t be rewarded–they should be stigmatized. If you have anything higher than a 2.8 GPA, you’re not creative or intellectual. You’re afraid to take risks and live in the real world–a robot who’s just following instructions. Part of a flock of sheep.
Yeah, sitting in that tutorial, I felt like I was in enemy territory. It was very uncomfortable. Kind of like if you were sitting in the middle of a crowded cafeteria and suddenly, everyone started declaring Holy Allegiance to the Underground Mole King, and all traitors should be TORTURED AND MUTILATED AND CHEESE GRATED TO DEATH. It was one of those, “I wish I had a jet pack” kind of moments.
I also found it interesting that some of the students also had obvious contempt for the sciences, and seemed to think that all science students are disrespectful of the arts. Like we all get together in Nerd Conferences and make fun of arts students behind their backs, and say things like, “How can a course in philosophy lead to a viable career? If a textbook doesn’t contain at least a couple equations and words like ‘entropy,’ it’s a joke.” At least, I know none of my friends in the biomedical sciences think that way.
Not to mention, med schools are increasingly embracing non-traditional backgrounds. More and more schools are dropping science prerequisites and MCAT requirements. And every med school across Canada looks at more than just marks. Extracurricular activities, life experience and even essay-writing skills are often evaluated, and although the exact weighting formula varies depending on the school, all of these non-academic criteria are important. Of course, it’s wrong to think that a doctor with a background in the arts would automatically be more creative, innovative and people-oriented than someone from the sciences. Just like it would be wrong to assume that someone with a science background is automatically harder working and more disciplined.
The point is, it doesn’t have to be one extreme or the other. In a field like medicine, the ‘entrepreneur’ mentality is definitely a valuable asset. After all, lots of scientific discoveries were mistakes to begin with. And new, innovative surgical techniques are the result of experimentation. But I’m sure those medical researchers and surgeons had high GPAs.
At least I feel better about my physics and organic chemistry marks now. Apparently I can make a political stance out of it. Any low marks I’ve ever gotten were a deliberate choice. I was learning how to be an entrepreneur.
Mind you, if I was having open heart surgery, I wouldn’t want my surgeon to be a “creative entrepreneur.” I’d want them to be a perfectionist who had a 4.0 GPA. Someone who is afraid to make mistakes.
There was no ‘muzzle order’ against Lukacs
Court reserves decision on whether lawsuit can be heard
On Thursday a judge appeared to have dismissed the notion that math professor Gabor Lukacs was suspended from work as punishment for suing his employer, the University of Manitoba, as has been suggested by both Lukacs and his supporters.
Lukacs filed a lawsuit against the U of M in the fall to reverse a decision, by Dean of Graduate Studies John Doering, to waive a comprehensive exam for a PhD student. The student, who had failed the exam twice and was asked to withdraw from the PhD program, is said to suffer from exam anxiety. Lukacs claims that Doering, as an administrator, has no authority to make academic decisions. Shortly after filing his court application, Lukacs received notice that he was being suspended for three months, a sanction that ended at the beginning of January.
The university has maintained that Lukacs was suspended for violating the student’s privacy, but suspicions immediately arose, mostly through dozens of online comments, but also in a petition from his students for him to be reinstated, and in official protests sent to university brass. A grievance filed by the faculty association argued that Lukacs was treated “unreasonably, unfairly and in a manner contrary to the collective agreement.” Surely, many observers argued, Lukacs was suspended for daring to challenge the administration.
But yesterday, Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Deborah McCawley seems to have quashed that argument. Addressing Lukacs’ lawyer Robert Tapper, the judge said, “Your client was not ordered to desist discussion of academic integrity. It’s not right to say it’s effectively a muzzle order.” On that particular point, the judge was siding with U of M counsel, Jamie Kagan, who had argued “When you disobey your employer, there is going to be a consequence, and Dr. Lukacs felt that consequence.”
When Lukacs first filed his court application, the student was identified by name. The name was later redacted, and replaced with the initials AZ, after a publication ban was ordered.
Despite arguments surrounding whether or not Lukacs was legitimately suspended, Thursday’s hearing, the Winnipeg Free Press reports, was dedicated to the question of standing. Kagan argued that Lukacs, who didn’t teach the student, and was not on the math department’s Graduate Studies Committee until after the exam was waived, was not individually harmed. “His rights are not affected. He has no skin in the game,” Kagan said.
Tapper countered that Lukacs, as a member of the math department, has a direct interest in the case because if the university comes to be seen as a “diploma mill” his own reputation will be at stake. “The University of Manitoba has nothing to be proud of in this case,” Tapper said.
For now, McCawley is reserving her decision on whether Lukacs’ lawsuit will even be heard. But even if the court rules that Lukacs has no standing, the university will still likely find it difficult to claim anything but a narrow legal victory. In November U of M faculty rejected a senate motion that would have recognized “that the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies has jurisdiction to waive academic requirements.”
Even when the story is no longer of interest to media types, grudges within universities can be held for years, and often decades.
Clement urges Canadians complete census
Long-form census optional, but still necessary, says industry minister
Industry Minister Tony Clement, who sent the country into a heated debate over statistics last summer when he made the mandatory long-form census voluntary, is now urging Canadians to voluntarily complete the new National Household Survey. Clement touts the fact Canadians will no longer face jail time for not answering “personal and intrusive” questions. At the same time, the industry minister praised the decision of a Saskatoon judge to let Sandra Finley go without jail time for her refusal to complete the census, on the grounds that StatsCan had purchased software from Lockheed Martin. Census-takers are expecting that, at best, only 65 to 70 percent of Canadians will complete the questionnaire, prompting the Industry Minister to remind Canadians that “completing the census is important for data purposes.” At 35 pages, the National Household Survey is still a fairly long and extensive questionnaire that asks Canadians about their religion, ethnicity and financial information.
Ethical economists
In the wake of the Great Recession, economists were accused of missing the obvious warning signs of the financial meltdown.
In the wake of the Great Recession, economists were accused of missing the obvious warning signs of the financial meltdown. More recently, critics have suggested an even more sinister failure—that conflicts of interest clouded many economists’ forecasts. A study of 19 economists by the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that the majority failed to disclose paid affiliations with financial organizations while offering expert advice to the media and in their research. It concluded that the profession should establish a code of ethics.
This month, 300 economists signed a letter to the American Economic Association calling on the group to adopt such a code, requiring members to disclose “relevant sources of financial support and relevant personal or professional relationships.” Last week the AEA agreed to raise the issue at its annual meeting. While there is still reluctance to police the profession, the debate is a small step toward rehabilitating the dismal science.
U of T students push for bigger governance role
General Assembly created to challenge admin on accountability, funding and corporatization
Students, staff and faculty at the University of Toronto are taking a stand against an administration they believe puts corporate interests ahead of students’. The first ever U of T General Assembly was held on Jan. 19 to discuss how to breach the university’s governing processes and help to ensure their needs are met.
A Facebook press release stated the meeting’s aims:
“At the first ever U of T General Assembly, members of the university community will demand that the administration stand with students, workers, and faculty, rather than with corporations, private donors, and a provincial government that fails to adequately support higher education. Participants of the UTGA will map out an alternative direction for the University — one that ensures access and improved learning conditions for students, safe and dignified working conditions for workers, and the protection of academic freedom for all.”
Topics discussed ranged from the controversial proposed flat fees system to the development of the Munk School of Global Affairs, a relationship the group is calling to come to an end.
According to live tweets from the Varsity’s Dylan Robertson, several working groups were established to focus on key areas of concern, including economic accessibility and funding, governance and accountability, and the university’s move towards corporatization. Tweets also declared the room to be too crowded to hear the discussion at times.
The group plans to meet again the week following reading break in February.
It’s refreshing to see so much mobilization on a campus. Whether you side with the administration or the students and staff, you have to admire the tenacity of a group of people fighting for the type of education and university experience they want to receive. How often do students go about their academic lives, quietly cursing their administration or students’ union for an unpopular decision, without ever doing anything about it?
It reminds me of the student strikes that occur ever so often in Quebec, the last one in 2005 when almost 200,000 students boycotted their studies until $103 million in the provincial budget was shifted from student loans back to bursaries. It will be interesting to see if the University of Toronto’s general assembly can garner the same kind of clout with its administration, and how things will unfold over the next few months.
Taking a test helps learning more than studying, report shows
Reasons why aren’t entirely understood
Taking a test actually helps people learn, more so than several studying techniques, according to new research in the journal Science and reported in the New York Times. Researchers found that students who read a passage and then took a test asking them to recall what they read retained about 50 per cent more information a week later than did students who used two other methods. One of them was to repeatedly study the material, and the other was to have students draw detailed diagrams of what they were learning. Both those other methods are very popular, and seem to give students the illusion they know the material better than they actually do. By remembering information, we organize it and create connections that our brains later recognize, it seems, although the exact reason retrieval testing works still isn’t known.
Will university webmail ever die?
Despite drop in usage, email remains most reliable way for universities to keep in touch with students
If the university webmail at my school, the University of Manitoba, is any reflection of how inconvenient university webmail can be for students, it may not paint a very good picture. It frequently goes down, students don’t often check it, and seems very rudimentary compared to the sophisticated messaging systems most students are used to.
This may not be the case for students at the University of Alberta in the near future, where the university’s webmail is set to switch to Google Apps by the end of January. The switch follows a yearlong negotiation between the internet giant and the U of A to ensure Google’s operating system was compatible with the university’s. Along with an updated email service, students will also have access to the extras that Google Apps offers, including the use of Google Docs, the ability to share calendars, and will even be able to make phone calls with their university email service.
“What I’m hoping is that we can use this as an opportunity to get faculty, staff, and students using next generation tools,” U of A associate vice president (information and technology) Jonathan Schaeffer told U of A student newspaper The Gateway.
While the switch has the potential to save the U of A money and cut down on maintenance work for IT staff, it may also help the university keep up with increasingly tech savvy students, with whom email may not even be the best way to keep in touch with anymore. According to Inside Higher Education, several technologists are questioning the continued use of institutional email systems when students are communicating less and less via e-mail and making increasing use of more informal messaging systems such as Facebook and text messaging.
However, email is still unlikely to disappear as universities’ preferred mode of communication with students, as it still remains a better medium for more formal messages to students from instructors and administrators. Ed Garay, assistant director for academic computing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, explained that the brevity of texting and instant messaging might not be effective for communicating detailed messages to students, such as notices from financial aid, student affairs or health officials. He also pointed out that universities still need a system that is able to archive these messages in a reliable and secure way.
Cameron Evans, a top technology officer at Microsoft, also told Inside Higher Education that the slew of ways now used by students to communicate “does not hammer in a death nail for email,” explaining that for higher education, “email continues to be the most reliable and persistent form of communication for the work of the academy.”
E-mail may be a more dependable way of communicating with students than mass text messaging or the use of social networking sites, but speaking from personal experience, an outdated webmail system is not. An antiquated university email account with reoccurring problems cannot keep up with the multiple email accounts, social networking sites and smartphones that are now a part of many students’ lives. It only ends up being a nuisance for students and creates gaps in communication between professors and administrators that seem unnecessary in such a hyper connected world. That being said, it’s probably a better investment for universities to devote their time to keeping these webmail systems up to date, than trying to keep up with whatever trendy ways students are staying in touch with each other that change with every new crop of freshmen that make their way onto campus.
Hospital construction delay deja vu
There’s another hospital project in Montreal that’s also behind schedule and over budget
The recent story about construction on a new Montreal hospital being a decade behind schedule and massively over budget, before ground has even been broken, has me feeling some deja vu.
Last spring, construction began on a new McGill “superhospital.” That project was originally proposed in 1992 and at one point was scheduled to open in 2005. Now it’s scheduled to open in 2014. It’s over budget and you know what else is familiar, most of the delays were due to political meddling.
While many of the delays caused by Quebec City have affected both projects, some may have been for different reasons.
While the Université de Montréal project has been plagued by delays from the start and has struggled to find a site, the McGill project has had fewer problems. But that may have been the problem, that it would look bad for an “English” hospital to be built before a “French” one. While Premier Jean Charest has denied this, he’s not exactly the most trusted man in Quebec.
The U de M project on the other hand is somewhat higher profile, in terms of Quebec politics, which has led to the projects’ location being the subject of power struggles both between the government and the university and within the government.
UVic goes completely rabbit free
Plan to keep 200 bunnies on campus officially shelved
Beginning March 1, the University of Victoria will euthanize any rabbits found on its campus. It is a change from the initial plan, put in place in September, to relocate the vast majority of the 1,600 rabbits to sanctuaries mostly in B.C., but one in Texas, while keeping around 200 on campus. The population is now down to about 50, and the university plans to relocate all of them, in an effort to deter pet owners from leaving unwanted bunnies at the university. “People are continuing to drop rabbits off on campus and I think as long as we continue to manage a population of rabbits, that will just continue,” Tom Smith, UVic’s director of facilities management, said.
Photocopying censored at Chinese University
Police ask students and faculty to report subversive materials
Chinese police have ordered students and faculty at Peking University to stop photocopying materials critical of the government. The order posted to the wall by local Yanyuan Police in 29 copy rooms read, “Materials that express hate against the party, the state or the social politics are forbidden. Do not photocopy Call the police immediately after [these materials] are found” When the Global Times newspaper contacted the university, the ban was confirmed but a spokesman, told a reporter that “It’s none of your business.”
UBC student signs one-day NHL contract
Will be backup goaltender for San Jose tonight against the Canucks
Today, UBC student Jordan White went to school, attended practice as starting goaltender of the men’s hockey team, and was just another student on campus.
Tonight, he’s an NHL player.
The San Jose Sharks signed Jordan White to a one-day, emergency backup contract at 2pm today to play for them tonight against the Vancouver Canucks.
How did this happen? Well, at practice this morning, Antero Niittymäki, the Sharks’ backup goaltender, was injured.
With their backup suddenly injured, and the Sharks’ minor league team out east, they had to scramble. NHL rules stipulate that a team must dress two goaltenders, and allow for the one-day contract as a loophole for situations like this.
“At first, I was just trying to put it into perspective. You’ve heard about these stories on TV or in the papers and I’m looking forward to the experience and taking it for what it is,” he added.
So far this season for the UBC Thunderbirds, White has started every game for the team, and has a record of 7 wins and 11 losses, with a save percentage of 0.876.
Somewhat amazingly, this is the second UBC student to suit up for an NHL game on a one-day contract. On December 9, 2003, third-string T-Birds goalie Chris Levesque was signed by the Vancouver Canucks in similar fashion.
B.C. program helps wealthy apply to university
Student aid plan panned for investing in West Vancouver
A B.C. program intended to help students less likely to go to university is being panned for also investing resources in privileged neighborhoods. Funded through the Canada Student Loans Program, Life After High School counsels students on choosing programs and applying for university or college, and even pays for one application.
Targeting those “less likely to apply to postsecondary education,” $10,000 is being invested in high schools with low transition rates to college or university. However, one of the high schools that is benefiting from the funding is raising eyebrows. West Vancouver Secondary School where 85 per cent of students already apply to university, is on Life After High School’s list. West Vancouver is one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in B.C., and 40 per cent of adults have at least a bachelor’s degree, double the rate for the rest of the province.
Other areas with much lower transition rates, such as in East Vancouver and parts of the Fraser Valley, have not been selected for the program. “It’s disappointing that the Life After High School project has selected West Vancouver Secondary School to provide support, financial assistance, and guidance to young people who are unlikely to face many barriers to attending postsecondary education,” Connie Gibbs, who gives workshops on financial aid, told the Globe and Mail.
Life After High School’s research director, Reuben Ford, told the Globe that the way statistics were gathered may have distorted the data. The rate at which a high school’s students transition to college or university was calculated using only public institutions within the province. Students who go away to Queen’s or McGill, down south to the U.S., or even to a private institution in B.C. were not counted. Measuring the data this way appears to have artificially lowered the transition rate for West Van.
Lukacs is a ‘busybody’
First reports of court case start rolling in
Preliminary reports on the court case between the University of Manitoba and Gabor Lukacs are starting to come in. The Canadian Press reports that the U of M’s lawyer, Jamie Kagan, argued that because the student has already received his degree that “There is no longer any framework for there to be a dispute.” Lukacs is asking the court to reverse a decision by the Dean of Graduate studies to waive an exam requirement for a PhD student. The student is said to suffer from exam anxiety.
As expected, Kagan argued the decision has not caused any direct harm to Lukacs and that he has no standing to argue the case. “His rights are not affected. He has no skin in the game,” Kagan said. Lukacs was also dismissed as a “busybody.”
The assistant math professor’s lawyer is addressing those arguments this afternoon and Justice Deborah McCawley is expected to reserve her decision.
For background on this story, please see our earlier coverage.
Are Canadian students learning anything?
Canadian university students may be drifting less than we think.
We’ve been hearing a lot lately about how little students learn in university, based on a new book that evaluates the core thinking skills gained by US students. According to Academically Adrift, plenty of students learn very little and those that do don’t learn very much on average.
Such studies are interesting because they raise an important problem with university education in general. How do we know its working? If I didn’t think their methods of doing so would be all wrong, I would urge governments to spend more time trying to find out what students really are learning. In the absence of perfect measures, though, we might pause to point out that a new report out of the Canadian Maritimes indicates that whatever they are learning, students are satisfied with their university education.
Still, should Canadians be worried? Are taxpayers paying millions for education that isn’t being given? Time may tell, but for now, there are a number of reasons not to panic.
First, the study was done among US students, and while there are, no doubt, similarities between the countries’ higher education systems, my sense is that the grading culture at US institutions is rather different than it is here. In my experience, American professors complain about their bad students but are rarely willing to fail them. I often hear US academics say things like , “That kid never came to class, handed in lousy assignments and missed the midterm. Well I showed him. I gave him a C.” When my students do that, I give them an F. But then, no one has ever sued me over a bad grade.
Second, based on the samples given by the company that did the testing, the questions are focused on a very narrow range of skills, particularly precise logic and comprehension. And while these skills certainly matter, and while university graduates generally should show improvement in such skills, they don’t give a good overall sense of what particular grads have been doing in their time at universities. If we really wanted to test learning, we would give some general, pure skills questions, but we would also ask first year Poli Sci majors about the big questions of Political Science (“Should the Canadian government reconsider laws around capital punishment?”) and then ask similar questions four years later. Similarly, we might ask first year Biology students to give a general account of the importance of evolutionary theory at the beginning and the end of the their studies and see if there is a significant difference. In other words, we would also measure knowledge, and the capacity to apply knowledge. I have a feeling the numbers would come out differently if the tests were more broad and realistic.
Third, as one reader of our coverage pointed out, the big averages in the study disguise the differences among disciplines. Business and education students did especially poorly and this must be reflected in the overall numbers. Humanities graduates, on the other hand, showed significant improvement, suggesting that the negative stereotypes of those fields is undeserved and that businesses (depending on what they are looking for) should think twice before assuming business grads will be smarter employees.
Finally, while we should pay attention to what students learn overall, we should remember that the primary role of a university instructor is not to teach, but to create an atmosphere where students can learn. Even at a good university, people can always game the system. Students can choose a major with the easiest requirements, find out who are the candy-ass markers, do the bare minimum for every assignment, and superficially memorize enough to pass the exam. And if those students come out with a degree despite having learned very little, that is a problem that is neither new nor entirely fixable. Meanwhile, if the students who are motivated and want to be challenged are finding their education exciting and inspiring, then we are doing our jobs.
Universities losing autonomy
Who has responsibility for education when students are paying the tab?
The Ontario government is taking enormous steps to catch up to the rest of country by allowing students to more easily transfer from university to university, from university to college and from college to college.
It’s a great effort and one that is nothing but beneficial to students by offering them more opportunities, more flexibility and more chances to figure out what it is they want to do with their lives.
But the trend it represents is perhaps more troubling.
The British Columbia government recently made a major effort to streamline research roles and tradesperson training in the province. By separating those streams into two respective ministries, the government found they were able to better control their output and economic contributions.
While the Ontario government isn’t quite moving in that direction, the increasingly centrally managed university environment in the province is a sign of the times.
More than 50 years ago, universities in Canada were largely autonomous. Many still had strong ties to the various churches that founded the cities and town in which the institutions were founded. Others were in the process of aggressive expansion, taking advantage of a glut of government money in the post-war years.
It was a time when universities ran themselves, but governments paid for it. Tuition was cheap, and education attained for education’s sake.
Over the past 50 years, though, and accelerating through the 1990s, the reverse has become true.
Universities are increasingly funded through tuition fees, residence fees, meal plans, bookstore sales and other private ventures. In Ontario, government subsidies now make up less than half of total university revenue.
Despite this trend, though, government is taking an increasingly active role in university management. From regulating degree-granting abilities, regulating fee increases, regulating administrative structure, government is now also involved in centralized application processes, student loan programs and centralized degree transfer programs.
Government is slowly taking over post-secondary education, but asking students to pay for it. And as post-secondary becomes increasingly necessary to functioning in the larger world, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
