Archive for May, 2011
What’s the best way to get a speeding ticket reduced?
University of Waterloo study shows value of remorse
University of Waterloo researchers surveyed 1,000 North Americans who had been pulled over at the side of the road. They found that a simple “I’m sorry” is the best way to encourage a lower fine. Among the 30 per cent of speeders who apologized to the police officer for speeding, most got a reduction. The average was $51. But among the 46 per cent who refused to admit their mistake or offered an excuse, few got any money knocked off. ”If you think about what an apology does, it indicates that the transgressor feels remorse,” PhD candidate and co-author Martin Day told the Waterloo Record. He and professor Mike Ross suggest the research may explain why it’s common to see public figures apologize for their marital transgressions, just as former Calif. governor Arnold Schwarzenegger did last week. Full details will be in the June issue of Law and Human Behavior.
Latest academic conference is on Jersey Shore
Reality show is “a useful lens on contemporary life”
Jersey Shore is must-see TV for any anthropologist, considering the unique rituals of the Italian-American youth who made it so successful. That may explain why academics and students from several disciplines (not just anthropologists) will gather for a one day academic conference to discuss the phenomenon at the University of Chicago on Oct. 28, reports The Huffington Post. Third-year U of C student and Jersey Shore fan David Showalter used JoinStart, an online conference-funding site, to raise the necessary cash for the meeting from other students and academics. He told The Huffington Post that he believes Jersey Shore is “a useful lens through which to examine many of the issues that animate contemporary life: problems around gender roles, ethnic identity, celebrity, the influence of mass media, the notion of ‘reality’ itself, and so on.” Alison Hearn, professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario, will speak at the gathering.
UBC student union considers building slide
Student says slide would be more eco-friendly
The University of British Columbia’s student union is studying the feasibility of a slide to connect up to five floors of their new Student Union Building. Mike Silley, VP of administration for the Alma Mater Society (AMS) says that the goal is not only to make the building more fun, but also to make it more eco-friendly. “Each elevator costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement and that doesn’t even include the energy costs of running it,” Silley told the Ubyssey newspaper, saying the slide would reduce the need for elevators. He also says it would draw tourists to student-owned business. “They could come to the Museum of Anthropology [on campus] and then they say hey there’s a slide in the Student Union Building. Let’s take our kids to check it out. Meantime [they] have some Pie R Squared Pizza,” he says. Other examples of buildings with slides for adults include the Google headquarters in California and the Corus Entertainment building in Toronto.
University took $200,000 from tobacco firm
Donation funds scholarships for Afghan women
Britain’s Durham University is under fire for taking nearly $200,000 from British American Tobacco, a cigarette manufacturer, reports the BBC. The donation, which the school says was made “under careful consideration” will help fund five spots for women from Afghanistan who will undertake postgraduate studies in England. Martin Dockrell, director of policy and research with Action on Smoking and Health, a British anti-smoking group, told the BBC that the school should not have accepted the cash. He accused the company of trying to make smoking look more sophisticated to Asian women. BAT denied that claim, saying that “corporate social investment is an end in itself.”
Banished over alleged harassment, prof sues Ryerson
Says he never got a chance to defend himself
A Ryerson University associate dean is suing the school for breach of contract and defamation after he was put on paid leave in March and told to keep off campus property, except when teaching his lone class, reports The Toronto Star. James Norrie, an IT expert with the Ted Rogers School of Management, wrote in his statement of claim that he wasn’t initially told why he was being removed, except that there were allegations of harassment and conflict of interest. He also wrote that Ryerson gave him no chance to respond to the charges and that it was only after repeated requests that he learned the allegations involved “profanity directed at persons, ridiculing or belittling persons and other inappropriate action.” Stephen Gleave, a lawyer working on the university’s behalf, told a Toronto court Wednesday that the the school’s investigation “may include 20 persons.” Norrie is requesting more than $575,000, a public apology in a national newspaper and an injunction that will allow him to attend convocation ceremonies.
Third of Berlin students say they would consider sex work
Students turn to prostitution to pay bills: researchers
German researchers asked 3,200 students in three European cities whether they had undertaken sex work and whether they would consider doing so in order to pay bills, reports Reuters. More than a third of students in Berlin, where prostitution is legal, said they would consider sex work. In Paris the figure was 29 percent and in Kiev, Ukraine 19 percent agreed. Overall, four per cent of students said they had undertaken sex work, which includes prostitution, erotic dancing and on-line sex services.
Who poisoned water at the University of Manitoba?
Employee’s drink tampered with
Campus security at the University of Manitoba issued a warning to staff and students Wednesday afternoon after an employee’s water bottle was tampered with.
Police are investigating what appears to be the “intentional” contamination of an employee’s personal water bottle with a noxious substance, according to an email sent through a student list serve. They suspect the tampering took place between May 9 and May 10.
A university spokesperson told the Winnipeg Free Press that the bottle was in “a place that wouldn’t have been available to just anybody.” The employee, who was not academic staff, sought medical help after noticing discoloration of the water in their personal bottle.
Students and staff have been advised not to leave their food and drink items unattended, and to report any suspicious activity to the university’s Security Services department.
Google will hire 4,000 to 5,000 arts grads next year
Arts grads can make great programmers: VP
What can you do with an arts degree? How about work for Google, arguably the world’s most successful tech firm. Google vice-president of consumer products, Marissa Mayer, recently told Times Higher Education that most new hires over the next year won’t be engineers or science graduates. “We are going through a period of unbelievable growth and will be hiring about 6,000 people this year – and probably 4,000-5,000 from the humanities or liberal arts,” she said, adding that Google wants people from any background so long as they’re “smart and get things done.” Many of the arts graduates will be hired for technical jobs, even programming, which many arts graduates excel at, said Mayer.
Women graduates expect to make less money
Is the pay gap a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Female university graduates expect to make a lot less money than their male counterparts, according to a new study of 23,000 Canadian university students that will be published in the journal Industrial Relations. Women predicted that their starting salaries will be 14 per cent lower than their male counterparts had predicted and expected to make 18 per cent less five years later. In reality, university-educated women make 32 per cent less than men in Canada, according to a press release from the University of Guelph. One explanation is that the pay gap is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Women might not be as aggressive in contract negotiations as men, because they’re aware that other women make less, suggests Guelph business professor Sean Lyons, who conducted the study with Linda Schweitzer of Carleton University and Ed Ng of Dalhousie University. Another explanation is that women are inherently more realistic; the study bears this out, as women’s expectations were much closer to reality. A third possibility is that women are less concerned with big paycheques. “It may be that women expect to trade off higher salaries for preferences in lifestyle,” said Lyons. After all, the study found that women and men have equal self-efficacy. Whatever the explanation, Lyons says that all post-secondary students need access to better salary data.
Supreme Court should support Quebec religion and ethics class
There’s nothing wrong with teaching basic facts about diversity to children
The Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments on Wednesday about whether the parents of school children in Quebec should have the right to pull their kids out of mandatory classes, if they disagree with the content.
At issue is the province’s “Ethics and Religious Culture” course, which is taught at both the elementary and secondary levels. The course is intended to help children “develop an awareness” of the growing diversity in Quebec society.
According to the course curriculum, “students will be encouraged to engage in critical reflection on ethical questions and to understand the phenomenon of religion by practising, in a spirit of openness, dialogue that is oriented toward contributing to community life.”
But some parents don’t like it.
One Catholic couple, who cannot be identified because of a publication ban, sued to have their children exempted from the class. The Quebec Superior Court rejected their arguments and the Court of Appeals dismissed their appeal of that decision. They’re now challenging the Court of Appeals’ decision at the Supreme Court.
According to the Supreme Court’s case summary, the parents have a problem with the course because of the “disruption caused by forced, premature contact with a series of beliefs that were mostly incompatible with those of the family, as well as the adverse effect on the religious faith of the members of this family.”
Yes, that’s right, these parents don’t want their children to know that some members of our society have different beliefs than they do.
But most Quebecers no longer live in parochial ghettos, most likely the children in question have already encountered children from different backgrounds, who are being raised in different religious traditions, either in the classroom or on the playground.
There’s no problem with parents teaching their children their religious views. There’s also nothing stopping religious schools from teaching explicitly faith-based classes.
But at the same time, I see no problem with the state insisting that schools teach that most basic of Canadian values: that in our society all of us are considered equal.
As Supreme Court Justice Louis LeBel put it, “Is there anything wrong with trying to teach open mindedness to students, to make that a behaviour or an attitude?
In Canada, there shouldn’t be.
The parents’ lawyers have claimed that the course will destroy pluralism in Quebec. I’m not quite sure how teaching children that pluralism exists in a diverse society will lead to that outcome.
Part of the problem is that there seems to be a lot of misinformation going around about what the course actually teaches and some of it seems to be rather deliberate.
National Post columnist, Barbara Kay claims that children will be taught that “that Christianity and pagan Animism and tinfoil-hat science fiction are equally true and equally conducive to a life of morality and spiritual vigour.”
But that’s not what the curriculum says. In fact, the course gives prominence to Christian traditions because of the “historical and cultural importance of Catholicism and Protestantism.” It also focuses on Judaism and Aboriginal spiritual traditions because of their long histories in Quebec. The only other religions mentioned by uname in the curriculum are Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Orthodox Christianity, though there is some time set aside for “other religions” and “other forms of expression.”
What worries me most is the precedent that a victory by these parents could set. What comes next? Will parents be able to pull their children out of science classes because they don’t want them exposed to the theory of evolution? What if a parent doesn’t like what’s taught in a history class?
Canada is a diverse society and there’s nothing wrong with teaching basic facts about the people who live in this country to children.
Which medical students get their residency of choice?
University of Ottawa tops the list
1. University of Ottawa 97.2
2. Memorial University 96.8
3. Dalhousie University 95.5
4. McMaster University 94.8
5. McGill University 94.6
6. University of British Columbia 94
7. University of Toronto 93.4
8. University of Western Ontario 93.4
9. University of Alberta 92.7
10. Northern Ontario Medical School 91.5
11. Université de Montreal 90.9
12. University of Manitoba 90.2
13. University of Calgary 90.2
14. Université Laval 89.5
15. International Schools 88.9.
16. Université de Sherbrooke 87.3
17. University of Saskatchewan 85.7
18. Queen’s University. 84.9
China will fund media university in Pakistan
School will “respond to western media propaganda”
Pakistan will establish a media university “in collaboration with China,” Minister for Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan announced on Wednesday. Although details are scant, the government-run Associated Press of Pakistan writes that media attaches trained at the new institute will help “respond to western media propaganda.” Pakistan’s prime minister is in China on business this week.
Gut bacteria may cause mood disorders: McMaster researchers
Could probiotics cure anxiety and depression?
There’s long been speculation that gut disorders like irritable bowel syndrome are linked to mood disorders like anxiety and depression. Now, there’s much better proof of a connection. The elimination of bacteria in the bowels causes changes to the brain, according to new research by McMaster University scientists published in the journal Gastroenterology. The researchers showed that disrupting normal bacterial content in the gut of mice with antibiotics made the mice less cautious or anxious, while simultaneously increasing brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a substance that has been linked to depression and anxiety. The researchers told the McMaster Daily News that the next step is exploring whether probiotic bacteria can be used to treat mood disorders, particularly those associated with gastrointestinal problems.
President expensed $5,000 Liberal donation
NDP accuses college of trying to influence premier
Georgian College president Brian Tamblyn has apologized for having expensed a $5,000 donation to the Ontario Liberals, which he billed the college for after a fundraising dinner in 2008, reports The Toronto Sun. New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath raised the issue in the provincial legislature Tuesday, accusing Tamblyn of trying to influence Premier Dalton McGuinty and Training, Colleges and Universities Minister John Milloy. Tamblyn says he wasn’t aware of his mistake until he received an Freedom of Information request about the money and denies trying to buy the government’s affection. ”All I can do is reimburse and that’s what I did,” he told reporters. “It was an innocent mistake.”
The surprising benefits of paperless grading
Printer? Who needs a printer?
This past year, I took on another bold experiment: papers without paper. I got the results I expected, and found some advantages that I hadn’t.
You might think that printed papers were long gone, but they have endured despite their inherent difficulties. The process of working with paper essays is complex enough when things go right, but aggravating when they don’t: your printer is out of ink. Then you can’t find your professor, so you put it under his door, only to learn later that his office has a rug and your paper has been lodged under said rug for two weeks. And when he does finally hand it back, you happen to not be in class, so you don’t get it back anyway. You see the point. We need something simpler.
And all that paper adds up. Consider ENGL 200, the intro to lit course here at Cape Breton University. There are typically five or six sections of this course offered annually with around 40 students per section. That’s minimally 200 students who write five papers a year. Let’s say each paper averages five pages in length (probably more given Works Cited pages and so on). So each student produces 25 pieces of paper, times 200 students, that works out to a cool 5000 pieces of paper annually. That’s only one course at just one small university.
So paperless grading offers an obvious advantage from the start. It saves reams of paper.
But does it simplify the process? Colleagues at other universities warned me that online assignments would introduce too many complexities. They and their students have to navigate a complex online system with passwords and formatting and what-not.
But I decided to avoid all that and keep it simple. Students just e-mail the assignment to me directly. I evaluate it with notes added via MS Word, save the thing in PDF format and send it back. It really is simple, all things considered.
But it is the other consequences of grading electronically that I find most interesting.
For one thing, I think my electronic feedback is better than my old hand written scribbles in the margins of papers. Unlike my handwritten scrawl, my typing is clear and legible, and since I’m not scrambling to fit in what I want to say into a few inches, I can provide fuller explanations. In some cases, I even provide web links to other sites that provide more information on grammar or history that’s relevant.
Further, since I can edit my own comments, I can stop and rephrase a comment when I didn’t like the original wording I had chosen. On paper, I was sort of stuck with it.
Another advantage is that even after I send the paper back to the student, I retain a copy for my records. That way, if a students turns up at the end of the year saying she did five papers but only got credit for four, I can check my email folders to see if and when the paper came in. Similarly, I can check to see if it was graded and what the grade was and so on. After all, mistakes can happen, but this way they can be easily corrected.
I am also toying with the notion of taking examples from old student papers and using them in next year’s class as instances of common errors. I cover common errors now but I think they might be more convincing if students can see that the error was committed by a real student. Of course, I would remove the original student’s name and any identifying information.
On the down side, my grading has to be done on a computer. It also means that throughout most of the year I have large numbers of papers in my inbox waiting to be graded — and I’m one of those people who lives to have his inbox empty.
So clearly, in addition to the joys of paperless grading, there are some terrors. These terrors are why some colleagues say they will never go paperless. Me? I will never go back.
New world science rankings
Is your science faculty on the list?
QS World, a private company, has released new rankings of the top 150 science schools worldwide, broken down into six categories.
Here are the Canadian schools that made it into the Top 100.
Natural Sciences
#14 University of British Columbia
#20 University of Toronto
#37 McGill University
#51-100 Dalhousie University
#51-100 Queen’s University
#51-100 University of Calgary
#51-100 University of Waterloo
Environmental Sciences
#11 University of British Columbia
#20 University of Toronto
#21 McGill University
#51-100 University of Waterloo
Chemistry
#18 University of Toronto
#19 University of British Columbia
#28 McGill University
#51-100 University of Alberta
Physics
#18 University of British Columbia
#24 University of Toronto
#35 McGill University
#51-100 Carleton University
Metallurgy
#27 University of Toronto
#34 University of British Columbia
#43 McGill University
#51-100 McMaster University
Mathematics
#16 University of Toronto
#25 McGill University
#44 University of British Columbia
#51-100 University of Alberta,
#51-100 University of Waterloo
Sask. funds 150 new campus child care spaces
Capacity at USask will double
Some Saskatchewan students with children will be getting much-needed extra support.
The Saskatchewan Party government announced Monday that more than 150 new child care spots will be funded on university and college campuses. This is especially welcome news at the U of S, which currently has space for only 111 children between its two centres and has sometimes had waiting lists of up to 3 years, according to The Sheaf newspaper.
Approximately 110 will be added at the University of Saskatchewan, doubling its capacity. Another 16 new spaces will benefit students of the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies (SIIT) and those attending regional colleges in Punnichy can look forward to a new 30 spaces.
“Our government wants to ensure that our post-secondary students are supported in their studies,” Advanced Education, Employment and Immigration Minister Rob Norris said in a statement released Monday. “These new spaces provide greater opportunity for our students. They will allow more students with children to focus on their studies and, subsequently, succeed in their careers and stay in Saskatchewan.”
Richard Florizone, U of S vice-president of Finance and Resources, said the new development will help the university attract and retain students, faculty and staff, and will also help make the U of S more accessible for Aboriginal students.
University students to vote on hummus ban
But can boycotts really change the dynamic in the Middle East?
Students at DePaul University in Chicago have launched a crusade against a popular chickpea dip. Despite a similar, failed attempt at Princeton late last year, a group of students at DePaul University are pushing to ban the sale of Israeli-made Sabra hummus on campus. Students for Justice in Palestine launched the movement at DePaul, claiming that Sabra’s parent brand, the Strauss Group, supports Israeli military units accused of human rights abuses against Palestinians. DePaul’s student body is voting in a referendum this week.
It appears students are convinced that those are some mighty tainted peas. And, for whatever reason, they must also believe that restricting the sale of said tainted peas will culminate in a massive boycott, putting such dire economic strain on the state of Israel that it will have no choice but to change its military tactics. Here’s why I think it won’t work.
When the issue was being considered at Princeton back in December, I argued that the movement and (similar boycott attempts) will undoubtedly fail to get the Israeli army to change course for three main reasons. The first is the counter-boycott movement, also known as BUYcott, which acts in reverse of the boycott protesters. When a group in Maryland called for a boycott of an Israeli beauty product last summer, BUYcotters organized to buy the product instead and ended up clearing out the shelves. The same thing happened when protesters called for a boycott of Israeli-made wine in Toronto. If, indeed, DePaul students are successful in banning the sale of Sabra hummus on campus, I have a feeling sales may spike elsewhere.
The second reason DePaul and similar boycott attempts will likely fail to achieve their goal is because of the selective nature of the products chosen for boycott. Hummus, face creams, coffees—even academics—have all been targeted by the movement, while computer chips, medical technologies, and other Israeli products and scientific breakthroughs have been allowed to seamlessly cross borders. How persuasive can a boycott possibly be if activists pick and choose which products they can do without?
The third reason is the most intangible and arguably ideological. (Forgive me, I’m still in my 20’s.) Simply put, the situation that has been festering in the Middle East is not strictly about economics. In fact, I would argue economics has little to do with, but I know there are those who would debate me on that. Either way, the struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians is largely one of existential values, boiling down to religious claim to land. As I said before, and I’ll reiterate now, not buying fruit juice from one side or the other won’t throw anyone off course. Core values are impervious to such external pressure.
So, if perhaps DePaul’s boycott of Sabra Hummus is more symbolic than pragmatic (a symbolic student movement, you say?! How novel!), is there really a reason to take issue? On the one hand, no. Each member of the student body has the opportunity to exercise his or her opinion via the non-binding referendum, so it is not as though a few ardent activists have totally seized control of the cafeteria.
That said, squabbling over hummus–even if just symbolically–does little more than cheapen the overall discourse surrounding the Middle East conflict, nevermind ignite hostility on already brewing bed of Israeli-Palestinian tension. Still, if one feels compelled to fuel campus fires, why not do so in a more pragmatic way? Perhaps it’s because “I’m working with my local government after reading up on both sides” doesn’t look as good on a poster board. Indeed, until then, it seems the war on delicious dips shall wage on.
10 Websites with Summer Jobs for Students
These sites post new summer jobs each week
For jobs in the helping industry, try…
Charity Village
Sample Summer Job: Community Support & Outreach Worker at Nellie’s, a women’s shelter in Toronto.
For jobs in the tourism industry, try…
Cool Jobs Canada
Sample Summer Job: Wine Shop Sales Associate at Mission Hill Family Estate Winery in West Kelowna, B.C.
Those with hospitality experience may want to try…
Resort Jobs
Sample Summer Job: Chef de Partie at Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise near Banff, Alta.
If you want a work-out at work, try…
Job Trekker
Sample Summer Job: Kayaking Guide at NovaShores Adventures in Advocate Harbour, N.S.
If you’re eco-obsessed, try…
Good Work Canada
Sample Summer Job: Stewardship and Horticultural Assistant at The Riverwood Conservancy in Mississauga, Ont.
If you like working with children, try…
Camp Page
Sample Summer Job: Instructor for bead-making, pottery, guitar, hip-hop dance, or hockey at Pripstein’s Camp Mismar in St. Adolphe d’Howard, Que.
If you prefer a nine-to-five workday, try…
Randstad
Sample Summer Job: Receptionist for an office in downtown Toronto.
If you’re a born salesman, try…
Mosaic
Sample Summer Job: Sales and Merchandising Representative for Labatt Brewery in Calgary, Alta.
If you’re looking for work in Atlantic Canada, try…
Career Beacon
Sample Summer Job: Electrical Engineering Summer Student with Nova Scotia Power.
For employment in far-flung places, try…
Canada Jobs
Sample Summer Job: Assistant at the fly-fishing lodge run by Lac La Martre Adventures in the Northwest Territories.
Americans agree that education is expensive, but worth it
Minority of students feel weighed-down by debts
There’s a debate in America about whether post-secondary education is worth the cost now that the average tuition has passed $9,500 per year at public universities and $27,000 per year at private schools. But a new study by the Pew Research Center found that 86 per cent of grads feel that their degree was a good investment. Although three-quarters of the 2,142 respondents agreed that school is too expensive, most Americans with student loans don’t feel particularly weighed down. Less than half of those with student loans found it harder to pay other bills because of their school debt and only a quarter said that school debt made it harder to afford a home. On top of that, those who graduated from four-year programs were very likely to agree their education helped them grow intellectually (74 per cent) and just over half (55 per cent) said it was very useful in helping them prepare for a career.
