Archive for June, 2011
1,000 new jobs. Only 300 grads to fill them
Worker shortage makes this career a sure bet (for now)
Photo courtesy of jimmyharris on Flickr
During the 2008 recession, mineral prices dropped and mines stopped hiring. Back then, geology graduates and mining engineers had reasons to worry about their career choices.
Not anymore. Three years later, there are at least 1,000 openings at Canadian mines — and only 300 people are expected to graduate from Canadian mining-related programs this year.
Hani Mitri, a professor of Mining Engineering at McGill University, told the Montreal Gazette that Canadian companies are desperate for geologists, mining engineers, metal workers and environmental experts and that “[Schools] are not prepared for the boom.”
However, some schools are reacting to the changing job market. Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont. announced last week that it will open a new School of Mines, which will mean adding more mining-related programs and courses.
Blackout drunk? Watch out!
Students get drunk, hurt themselves and forget what happened
More than half of students got blackout drunk — in other words, they couldn’t remember what happened — at least once in the past 12 months. Seven per cent reported six or more blackouts. That’s according to a new study of 800 undergraduates and 150 postgraduates at North American schools that’s published in the journal Injury Prevention.
What’s worse, the researchers found that more blackouts mean more injuries — a lot more. Overall, 25 per cent of drinkers reported injuries while drunk. That figure increased by 57 per cent when that person had blacked out at least once in the past year and by 300 per cent when they had blacked out more than six times. So, either watch those drinks — or watch out for hazards!
On Campus grades six university apps
One school gets an A-grade. Another failed the assignment.
Photo courtesy of UBC Alumni and University Relations
Universities in Canada are rushing to get their apps onto your phones and tablets. When done right, those apps can help potential students see into the soul of a campus. Even better, they can help current students find their way to lunch, to class and to enriching events. But when done poorly, apps can make a school look out totally of touch with technology. The lesson? Don’t rush your app schools. Here’s what we think of six Canadian universities’ apps for iPhone.
University of British Columbia — Grade: A
If every school made an app this good, then there would be no more paper brochures arriving in the mailbox, no one will ever get lost on campus, and no student would ever have an excuse to say that they’re bored.
Will this degree get me a high-paying job?
British students will soon be able to answer that question
Britain’s government plans to rank universities using graduate employment rates and starting salaries in a bid to “name and shame” programs whose graduates aren’t finding good jobs, reports The Telegraph.
Students who want to pick a degree that will give them better job prospects currently have little to go on, said David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities. He explained that future students “will be able to see [that] ‘if I do biological sciences at one university, I have got a much better chance of a job in a pharmaceutical company than if I do biological sciences at a different university.”
Eventually, a website will allow students to comparison shop by letting them compare tuition rates alongside genuine salary and employment figures. The plan comes after the government faced protests for raising the cap on tuition fees, sending many up to the new maximum of $14,000 per year. (In comparison, average tuition in Canada is $6,500.)
Program-specific salary and employment data is not readily available in Canada. In Ontario, schools must release information on how many students are employed, but there are no details available on whether they’re working in their chosen field — or how much they’re being paid.
That lack of information may have contributed to unrealistic expectations about what students will make five years after starting work. A 2010 survey of 24,000 Canadian students found that university students were expecting an average salary of $70,000 within five years of graduation. In reality, those aged 25 to 30 average $45,000 and those aged 31 to 35 average $51,000.
Two new things you should know about drinking
Study shows brain damage, but that’s not all
Another study suggests that binge drinking damages the brain. But this time, there’s reason to be hopeful too.
Tim McQueeny, a psychology doctoral candidate at the University of Cincinnati (UC), looked at 29 high-resolution brain scans from students aged 18 to 25. Those who reported regularly consuming more than four to five drinks at a time had more thinning of the pre-frontal cortex, which is the area where executive decisions are made. Executive decisions include paying attention and keeping control of emotions — things that become difficult when intoxicated.
“Alcohol might be neurotoxic to the neuron cells, or, since the brain is developing in one’s 20s, it could be interacting with developmental factors and possibly altering the ways in which the brain is still growing,” warns McQueeny.
However, his adviser and co-author Krista Lisdahl Medina also had some hopeful news. Their preliminary data also show that grey matter appears to be fine in those who were once binge drinkers, but who have since abstained. That, she says, warrants further study.
The prevalence of binge drinking on North American campuses is undeniable. In the most recent National College Health Assessment, which surveyed 30,000 students, nearly one in three reported that they consumed at least five standard drinks the last time they went to a party or socialized. Five per cent of them reported having more than 11 drinks the last time they socialized.
Saskatchewan law student guilty of child porn
Faces one to two years in prison
A 27-year-old law student from the University of Saskatchewan pleaded guilty in provincial court Tuesday to possession of 70,000 pieces of child pornography, including photos of men abusing girls as young as two-years-old, reports the Star Phoenix newspaper. A city police officer testified that he found the images on Eran Michael Pinsky’s backpack at the Saskatoon airport on May 31.
It’s at least his second alleged offense. More than onne year ago, he was charged with possessing and making illegal material available to others over the Internet — a charge that he has pleaded not guilty to. The case has not yet been to trial.
But it was bail conditions related to those charges that helped officials catch him the second time. He was forbidden from using any device with internet access or from leaving the city without permission. It was when he was on his way home to his parents house in Vancouver last month that he was met at the airport by a police investigator who wanted to check his laptop for anything illegal. The officer found four USB flash drives in his pocket that included the 70,000 pieces of pornography, Crown Prosecutor Mike Segu told the court.
Pinsky’s lawyer said that his client admits he has a problem and has been seeing a doctor.
Segu has asked for 12 to 24 months in prison. Sentencing has been reserved until July 4th.
Jane Austen is unreadable
Not all English professors like Pride and Prejudice
Photo courtesy of daniel.julia on Flickr
Every once in a while someone asks me what I think about a certain novel or play and I remark that I haven’t read it. And they seem shocked. Or disappointed. I’m an English professor, after all. How could I not have read that book?
Sometimes I try to explain that while I have not read Great Expectations, I have read David Copperfield, and Bleak House, and A Tale of Two Cities, and Oliver Twist, and A Christmas Carol. Can we talk about those? And then I make a mental note to try not to admit to not having read anything ever again.
It’s hard for academics to admit to not knowing things because knowledge is our trade. Carpenters frame walls, plumbers connect pipes, professors know everything about their respective fields. Except, of course, that they don’t. And can’t. There are always things we ought to know, or that people assume we ought to know, but never got around to. You can, of course, steer the conversation away from such lacunae, or, more shamefully, pretend to know things you don’t. When I was a graduate student, I gave a conference paper about Arthur Miller’s autobiography. Unfortunately for me, the room was filled with Miller experts and one of them asked me about how the issues I dealt with in my paper were handled in After the Fall, a play I had not read. I panicked for a moment and then stammered something about not having considered that angle until the moderator stepped in and saved me. Still, not having read everything that Arthur Miller ever wrote is far from my worst secret. I have one that is much worse.
I have never read a Jane Austen novel.
It’s not for lack of trying. I made a real effort in first year with Pride and Prejudice, but I found it insufferable. I tried again a few years later with the same result. Last year I had a spirited conversation with a colleague who convinced me to have a go at, I think, Northanger Abbey, but it, like Pride and Prejudice, had the paradoxical effect of making me anxious and sleepy at the same time. Austen is witty without being funny, like Oscar Wilde’s inane big sister, and I just can’t stand it.
Thankfully, I’m not the only one who feels this way. Though he might have been kidding some of the time, Mark Twain liked to take shots at Austen. “Any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen,” Twain wrote, and he once expressed a gruesome fantasy about digging her up and giving her a good beating. I know the feeling.
The worst part is that this summer I asked my students to write about how a notable work of literature has been adapted to film. There were only four students in the class, so I pretty much let them choose whatever book and film they wanted, provided I would be able to get my hands on both. You can probably guess where this is going.
The first essay is on Pride and Prejudice. So now I have to read it. I’m not that shameless.
How much does your university’s president make?
On Campus shows you where to look
Photo courtesy of Duckie Monster on Flickr
Want to know how much the people running your university make? Is it $100,000? Would $300,000 shock you?
Finding out administrators’ salaries is easy if you go to a school in Ontario, British Columbia or Alberta, thanks to forward-thinking laws. But if you live in New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island, it’s next to impossible. Here’s a province-by-province breakdown of salary disclosure requirements.
Quebec: The information is public, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find. Salaries and other compensation paid to senior university administrators must be included in the annual reports that all universities submit to the National Assembly’s Culture and Education committee. Those documents can be found online here. It would be easier if the universities would post them.
Continue reading How much does your university’s president make?
Students underestimate how much they will owe at graduation
Two-thirds think they’ll pay off debt in five years
Nearly half of Canadian students say they will have either have no debt or owe less than $10,000 upon graduation, according to a new study from BMO Financial Group. In fact, the average owed by all students is $18,800, according to Statistics Canada. On top of that, nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) think they will be able to pay off their student debt within five years of graduation. The default repayment period for government loans is nine-and-a-half years. The study included 625 college and university students and was conducted by Leger Marketing.
Student warns about pornography after $2,300 bill
Multiple daily downloads pushed him over the limit
Sad phone courtesy of Ron Bennetts on Flickr
Irish newspapers have picked up a rather odd warning from a student at University College Cork. The student told the Cork Student News that his peers should be careful about downloading pornographic videos onto their smartphones without have reading the fine print of their mobile contracts. The second-year food business student racked up $2,330 in data charges and subsequently dropped out of school, though he has since decided to return.
“When I signed up, I was misinformed,” the embarrassed student, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the newspaper. “They told me that unlimited internet was part of the deal. I asked the customer service agent repeatedly to make sure that this was the case, and was repeatedly told that it was.” In reality, there was an monthly limit, which he surpassed by downloading “multiple videos” each day during a period when he had no other internet access.
The phone company reduced his charges to $565 as a goodwill gesture.
Is apathy our greatest problem?
The winning essay from the 2011 Write the Wrong contest
Maclean’s On Campus is proud to announce that Brielle Cram, a grade ten student at Rundle College Senior High School in Calgary, is the winner of the Journalists for Human Rights annual Write the Wrong prize, awarded for the best essay on a human rights theme.
This year, the questions was “What is the single largest problem that we face today and what do Youth need to do to fix it?” Cram made the case that apathy is the biggest problem.
Write the Wrong was created in 2009 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Notable Canadian journalists, including Cathrin Bradbury of Maclean’s, judged this year’s essays. Cram will receive a Roger’s smart phone as a prize. She says she plans to study medicine and law so that she can advocate for better access to medical care for people around the world.
Here is an excerpt. Click here to read the Apathy: A generation that avoids involvement.
In the words of Helen Keller, “Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -the apathy of human beings” (Brainy Quote, 2011). Apathy is defined by Dictionary.com as indifference or the lack of interest, concern, or emotion; as inaction when action is called for. Apathy is when people don’t care, or when they feel so helpless that they do not try to change or fix things. Apathy is the single largest problem we face today because it is apathy that fuels the vast number of social, political, economic, and environmental problems facing society. Apathy can be seen every day by people everywhere, just by going to school, by reading the newspaper, or listening to the news.
Apathy is evident in how young people treat each other in their schools and neighborhoods. Bullying, teen violence, and substance abuse are common examples of how youth today have not only stopped caring about the wellbeing of themselves, but also the wellbeing of others. In November 2010, news reports indicated that five teenage boys took their own lives because of homophobic bullying and harassment (Humanitarian News, 2010).These five made the news. How many more are there? In September 2010, a 16 year old girl was drugged and raped by party goers at a rave outside Vancouver, British Columbia, as others watched and took photos, which they then posted on Facebook (CTV News, 2011). No one stepped in to help. The apathy continues. In the same month, a 16 year old boy and a 12 year old girl who met online engaged in drunken sex in a Calgary, Alberta schoolyard, as a group of teenagers watched (CBC News, 2010). One of the teenagers, a 16 year old boy, told CBC News, “I didn’t do nothing. I know that I could have stopped it, and should have, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to get involved and all that” (CBC News, 2010). Incidents like these occur minute by minute around the world, witnessed by millions but stopped by few. These incidents represent only a fraction of the thousands of unreported incidents. Yet despite the fact that these incidents and others like them are broadcast for all the world to see, no real change occurs. Few have stepped forward, few risk putting themselves in harm’s way to help others.
Royals appealing to many Canadian youth
Monarchist League counts 1,500 members under age 25
Photo courtesy of Theodore Scott on Flickr
The Monarchist League of Canada is attracting young people in numbers that may seem surprising, considering the image of royal-watchers as tea-sipping senior citizens. There are 1,500 people under the age of 25 among 10,000 members of the League, according to the Ottawa Citizen.
Not only that, there are active branches of the league on at least four university campuses: at Queen’s, Ottawa, Toronto and Saint Francis Xavier. Some oung members say that William and Kate are easy for young people to relate to. Others say it’s a way to show their patriotism.
Still, not everyone is excited about the upcoming visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The Quebec Resistance Network expects 300 protesters when the couple visit that province in July.
Fired Ottawa prof sued for racist defamation
Denis Rancourt is in trouble again
Denis Rancourt, the University of Ottawa professor who was fired in 2009 for turning his physics course into a class on social activism and for giving everyone an A+, is being sued by an Ottawa law professor for defamation. Joanne St. Lewis, Assistant Professor of law, alleges that Rancourt wrote racist and professionally-damaging statements about her on his blog, U of O Watch. She wants $1-million in compensation.
He wrote that her evaluation of a student-produced report alleging systematic racism at the school was “an academic fraud” and he accused St. Lewis, who is black, of being a traitor to her race. She asked Rancourt to take down the offending post, but he refused.
After being served with papers Thursday, he said he plans to fight the charges. In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, he defended the use of a particular word that St. Lewis called racist in her statement of claim, which he posted on his website. “This is a term that is understood, well-defined. It has societal and historic meaning,” he said. “It’s used often by public intellectuals and critics. There are many media examples of that in the United States.”
To read more Maclean’s On Campus coverage of Denis Rancourt, click here.
B.C. teacher gets year in jail for sex with student
Teacher took student to opera and plays
Man in Jail courtesy of Mr.Thomas on Flickr
A former B.C. high school teacher will go to jail for a year for having sex with a student, reports the Vancouver Sun. Victor Wiens, 64, pleaded guilty to the charge of sleeping with a minor. He taught the victim social studies at Sutherland Secondary in North Vancouver until a janitor caught him having sex with a girl in a utility closet after class in February 2010, at which point he was supspended.
“He made the absolute worst choice over and over again,” judge Carol Baird Allan told the court, explaining why she gave him a year in jail when the law requires a minimum of 45-days.
The relationship started when, during a hug with the student in June 2008, Wiens ran his hands through the student’s hair and put the other on her back in a sexual fashion, according to an agreed statement of facts. Later that summer, Wiens text-messaged the student about his marital problems and the pair would meet to talk in the park. With the permission of her parents, he took her to theatrical performances and the opera. In November 2009, the relationship progressed to nudity and fondling. The victim’s age was not stated.
Blanket-ban on social media in high schools
Rhode Island legislators say Facebook causes bullying
The U.S. state Rhode Island has passed an “anti-bullying” law that creates a state-wide ban on the use of social networking sites anywhere on school property. As The Huffington Post points out, that means students won’t be able to access the legislature’s own Facebook page, which could make it difficult for the government to extend its fan-base beyond the eight people who have “liked” it so far.
Feminist prof takes research to new extreme
Trains muscles and competes to get insider’s perspective
Photo courtesy of roonb on Flickr
A University of Alberta professor went undercover to understand the women’s body-builder psyche by becoming a body-builder herself. After competing in the Northern Alberta Bodybuilding Competition on June 4 — complete with purple bikini, blond hair extensions, fake nails, four-inch heels and a spray tan — she revealed herself to her surprised colleagues, reports to the Edmonton Journal.
Lianne McTavish is a feminist and teacher of the history of art, design and visual culture who has written about women’s bodies throughout history and across cultures. During her past year of training, she wrote about the experience of body building on a blog using the pseudonym Feminist Figure Girl under the headline Look hot while you fight the patriarchy. That blog will form the basis of a new book she plans to write a book.
McTavish told the Journal that she feels out of shape since the “ritualized test” of the competition, but she doesn’t miss the hardcore dieting. She says she would wake up famished around five in the morning and would have trouble concentrating on her academic work because of the hunger. Planning and consuming her six small meals per day consumed up to 30 hours of her week, she says.
But it wasn’t all pain. She also felt a strong sense of accomplishment from preparing and competing. She also found that the local bodybuilders were very welcoming and supportive.
Colleague Anne Whitelaw told the Journal that she is intrigued by what this means for feminist scholarship. ”[McTavish] values the work that other women are doing and have done to participate in this competition,” she said. “I appreciate the seriousness [of that], because I think it would be very easy, from a feminist standpoint, to just dismiss it as adopting and perpetuating a stereotype.”
Although McTavish won’t compete again, she does hope to become a volunteer trainer for women at a local shelter, who might benefit from the same type of sense of accomplishment that she felt.
A doctor in seven years? Sign me up
New program combines undergraduate and medical school
Photo courtesy of Tulane Public Relations on Flickr
Imagine if there were a way to train doctors more efficiently, effectively, and at a lower cost, increasing the number of primary care providers while decreasing the amount of debt that students face. In other words, imagine a system that benefits patients, doctors, and the health care system.
Officials at the University of Texas (UT) believe they can do just that.
A new program pitched for 2013 will reduce the number of years that are required for students to earn a bachelor’s degree and a medical degree by spreading medical education across seven years, instead of putting most of it in a four year program that follows a BSc. The class would start with 60 freshman who are guaranteed a spot in med school if they do well in the first three years.
There may be fewer electives than a normal science degree, but there will still be some flexibility built into the program, including an entire year to “explore an area of interest” such as public health or medical research.
“Medical education, in general, takes too long, costs too much, it’s redundant, and it also doesn’t necessarily prepare people for practice in the 21st century,” Dr. Kenneth Shine, the UT’s executive vice chancellor for health affairs explained to The Austin American-Statesman. Other UT campuses are planning to try a similar model for nursing and pharmacy students.
The idea of reducing the time it takes to graduate from medical school isn’t exactly new, but it’s not very common. At least one three-year medical program can be found here in Canada. McMaster operates on an 11 months-a-year basis that allows students to qualify for the MD degree at the end of the third academic year. So do roughly 15 per cent of American schools. But the idea of combining undergraduate and graduate has so far been limited to places like Australia and Ireland. This may be a North American first.
Considering that it takes at least eight years between high school and medical residency, there’s another potential benefit to shortened programs for both patients and taxpayers. If doctors enter the workforce a year earlier and stay working a year longer, it would make life easier for the roughly 2-million Canadians who want a family doctor but can’t find one.
Ovulating women have better “gaydar”
Women who can get pregnant pay attention to sexual cues
Women who are ovulating are much better at guessing whether a man is gay or straight, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto and Tufts University.
Scientists asked 40 heterosexual female students to judge 80 photos of men’s faces. Half of the men were gay and the rest were straight, but the groups were considered equally attractive. What’s interesting is that women judged the sexual orientation of each man more accurately during ovulation.
“What it really sort of hints at is [that] there are evolutionary reasons why women would pay attention to cues relevant for mating,” Nicholas Rule, a lead researcher, told The Toronto Star. “When women have a higher chance of getting pregnant they’re going to pay more attention to cues in the environment that would attend to that.”
Plan to marry a lawyer? This site should help.
Dating website for students finds success in exclusivity
Photo courtesy of Kelley Mari on Flickr
DateMySchool.com wants you to know that, no, it’s not the same as Facebook and yes, it will come to Canada — eventually.
That’s good news if your plan is to meet a rich lawyer before the age of 30. Or just a nice girl from your school. Either way, the site could help you narrow your search.
DateMySchool is a quickly-growing American dating website that’s exclusively for students from exclusive schools. Many have likened it to Facebook and it’s easy to understand the comparison. The link spread to thousands of students at the Ivy-league school where it was launched in the first week in November 2010. Since it’s expansion to 140 universities, more than 20,000 students have signed up.
Continue reading Plan to marry a lawyer? This site should help.
Toronto won’t license sorority and frat houses
City staff prefer “grass-roots solution” to noisy parties
Fraternity and sorority houses at the University of Toronto won’t have to deal with any new regulations. A city staff report says the houses can’t legitimately be labelled rooming houses or businesses, so they can’t be regulated under current laws. Local councillor Adam Vaughan had asked staff for to look into a licences scheme after complaints about late-night parties from neighbours of the two-dozen Greek system houses in the city’s expensive Annex neighbourhood.
The report also noted that there was “promise of a grass-roots solution,” something with which Vaughan says he agrees. Complaints are “way down” in the past year, from six problematic houses out of 24 to just “one or two,” he told the Toronto Star.
David Harrison, chair of the Annex Residents’ Association sounded less enthusiastic about the report, though he said he would consult with neighbours before releasing a full statement. He told The Star that the situation had improved only because they had “spent hours and hours and hours” working on it. He questioned what might happen if “self-regulation” were to fail in the future.
