Archive for July, 2011
Don’t bash Pride parades
Why Kwantlen professor Shinder Purewal is wrong to attack Vancouver Pride
Photo courtesy of cattle_class on Flickr.
When I heard about Kwantlen University Professor Shinder Purewal and his tweet saying that the Vancouver Pride Parade should be banned, I didn’t think much of it. Professors, like everyone else, have the right to be wrong.
But Purewal’s more detailed comments in the National Post were so outrageous that something has to be said by way of rebuttal.
In the interview, Purewal moderates his position to say that he doesn’t want the whole parade banned, but he does want to see an end to the “explicit sexuality” of the event. His main reasons are, first, that publicly sexual behaviour is inappropriate for children, and second, that gay men and women ought to celebrate their rights, but should do it behind closed doors, not “openly, in the streets.”
Children often provide convenient cover for those made uncomfortable by alternate sexualities. One can always say, “I don’t have a problem, but think of the children.” But why should gay sexuality be so harmful for children? What kind of pure wall does Purewal think kids have to be hidden behind? In any case, the kinds of things that go on at major Pride events are no secret. If you don’t think it’s appropriate for your kids, don’t take them.
But the really maddening part of Purewal’s argument is his suggestion that heterosexuals don’t behave so explicitly, so why should gay men and women at pride do so? Well, in fact, straight people display their sexual orientations in public all the time, and they do so without fear of being verbally abused or physically assaulted. The majority doesn’t have to make noise about being the majority because they are the majority. We don’t need a White History Month in Canada because the contributions of white Canadians haven’t been ignored. By the same token, many gay men and women make an issue of their sexuality in a way that heterosexuals don’t because straight people didn’t have to hide for centuries. Straight people didn’t have to worry about losing their friends or their jobs, or being declared mentally ill, or, in extreme cases, going to prison because of their sexuality. So if the sexuality on display in your local Pride parade bothers you, weigh that against the hundreds of years of oppression, oppression that is just now beginning to lift.
But what about the professor’s claim that other groups have fought for their rights and didn’t make a big deal of it? As Purewal said to the Post, “Women had to fight for the right to vote and the fight to be recognized as persons. They didn’t go out walking naked and saying ‘Look, we are women, see us.’” Actually, feminists have done exactly that, but the faulty parallel here is still stark. Gay men and women flaunt their sexuality during Pride because it was their sexuality that they once had have to conceal. The real parallel would be to say that women should vote but not “flaunt” their political involvement. After all, we wouldn’t want children seeing women voting, now, would we?
Purewal claims he is not homophobic, but if he is truly a champion of gay rights as he claims, he should reconsider his view. Canada has come a long way on gay rights in a relatively short period of time.
We should all be Proud.
Professor wants Pride Parade banned
Shinder Purewal tweeted that the parade is “vulgar”
A Kwantlen University professor tweeted Thursday that Vancouver’s Pride Parade “should be banned.”
Shinder Purewal, who was also a third-place Liberal Party candidate in Surrey during the recent federal election and was a citizenship judge, sent out this offensive tweet on Thursday morning:
“Vancouver’s so-called ‘Pride Parade’ should be banned. It is vulgar…to say the least!”
Purewal later explained to the CBC that he would not want his children to see half-naked people walking down the street.
“A lot of people in our society wouldn’t want to see that display downtown.” And he added, “it’s not homophobic… It’s simply if they want to have a pride parade it should be a cultured phenomenon. It should not be sexuality on display.”
Vancouver Pride organizer Kevin Coolen said Purewal has the right to his point of view, but he added that he thinks it couldlead to more homophobia.
Kwantlen University sent out a tweet stating that Purewal’s point of view does not represent the school’s.
A flood of other Tweeters responded to his statement, mainly with criticism.
SFU chemistry professor found dead
Man from Richmond, B.C. taken into custody
Police found a dead woman on Tuesday night that they have now confirmed to have been 37-year-old Simon Fraser University professor Melanie Alexis O’Neill, reports CBC News.
Police believe the death may have been a homicide but they have not yet determined the cause of death.
O’Neill was an associate professor of biological chemistry at Simon Fraser University. She was recently awarded tenure.
Police told CBC that a man who knew the owner of the home was taken into custody in Richmond, B.C.
Students can now buy and sell notes
Is sharing notes cheating?
Photo courtesy of Tulane Publications on Flickr
It was two o’clock in the morning on the night before her physiology mid-term when Jennifer Hidy turned on her laptop and saw what she calls “the blue screen of death.” A virus had killed her hard drive, erasing all of the carefully curated lecture notes that she was planning to read in the wee hours of the morning before her nine o’clock exam. She had visions of failure. She considered calling a friend. Then she remembered hearing about a new website called Notesolution.
Hidy headed to the school library, entered her University of Toronto email address into the site and—much to her relief—found that someone else had uploaded notes for her physiology classes. She printed them off and studied. A mere seven hours after recoiling from the blue screen, she sat down and aced her exam.
University kids write the darndest things
Annual contest publishes the most hilarious examples
Each year, Times Higher Education, Britain’s premiere authority on universities, holds a contest. Lecturers submit the most egregious — and hilarious — mistakes that they’ve read in student essays and exams. Next week they will choose a winner.
But they’ve released the first round of entries already. Our favorite so far is that submitted by Ann Wood from the department of biochemistry at King’s College London. In a food science and technology course, a student advised on a test that it was necessary to use a “genital mixing action.”
We’ll report the winner next week. In the meantime, read a few more entires here.
Are you a TA or a professor? Have your students written something dumb? If so, please share in the comments section.
Foreign students spared fee hike at Dalhousie
Foreign students were staring down 10 per cent fee hike
Photo courtesy of Anirudh Koul of Dalhousie
International students at Dalhousie University have been spared a 10 per cent hike to their already-expensive tuition fees.
Could governments finally be defending the students who bring so much money into Canada?
Dalhousie had proposed a seven per cent hike in differential fees, on top of the regular three per cent increase for all students, which would have meant a 10 per cent hike for internationals.
That was rejected by the Nova Scotia government in favour of an increase of 3.5 per cent in differentials, or 6.5 per cent in total. Currently, international students pay $3,630 more per term (or $7,260 more per school year) than Canadian students.
Dalhousie officials said they had requested the larger increase to support improved services for international students, including more advisors and workshops. Carolyn Waters, vice president academic, told the Chronicle Herald that more services are necessary because the number of international students at Dalhousie has grown by 85 per cent since 2008.
They now make up 10 per cent of the total student population.
But several international students had complained about the proposed increase, arguing that it was unfair and unafforable. Some wrote letters to the provincial government, saying that a fee increase would drive international students away from the university.
“[International students] might have to go back to their own country or shift to another university,” Meela Auaduer, a second year student from Malaysia, who penned one of the letters, told the CBC.
The debate over international student’s fees has been heating up across Canada in the past few years. International students pay up to three times what domestic students pay to attend. For example, a full time domestic student at the University of Manitoba studying Law would pay $8,705 in tuition per year while an international student would pay $19,863 for the same course.
The differential fees are meant to reflect the fact that governments provide much of the funding for domestic students. (Click to see how much of your tuition bill is covered by the government.)
But the students are all very good for Canada’s economy. A report from Foreign Affairs and International Trade showed that there were 178,000 international students studying in Canada, who produced $6.5-billion for the economy in 2008. $291 million went directly into government coffers. In total, international students created economic activity that sustained 83,000 Canadian jobs.
Other student groups will be pleased with Nova Scotia’s decision. ”The term that’s being used here a lot on campus [for international students] is ‘cash cows,’” Aisyah Abdakahar, a former vice-president for the University of Manitoba Students Union, told the Winnipeg Free Press.
Nunavut gets first business degree
Inuit can train as accountants without moving south
Nunavut’s students will finally be able to get a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration without moving south.
That means they will be able to become Chartered Accountants without leaving their own territory, possibly increasing the likelihood they will stay and work in the territory.
The four-year program will build on the existing two-year Management Studies diploma program. The school will partner with a Southern Canadian university on curriculum.
Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit received a $150,000 charitable donation from the Royal Bank of Canada to fund the new program over three years, starting with 15 to 20 students in 2012.
Queen’s President: quality has been “compromised”
“Unthinkable” to be compared to Waterloo, McMaster, Guelph
A leaked letter written by Queen’s University’s principal reveals a man who is worried about the school’s slipping reputation, its upcoming labour strife and ongoing financial struggles — which he beleives can only be overcome by more corporate partnerships. The letter was supposed by be a private list of his goals for the upcoming year, but it found its way onto Facebook and Twitter.
Daniel Woolf’s candour on the school’s changing reputation is most striking.
“At Queen’s, where the financial situation is particularly acute, the quality that once defined the institution is clearly being compromised,” he wrote to William Young, who chairs the Board of Trustees. “It would have been unthinkable 20 years ago that the quality reputation of undergraduate education at Queen’s would be challenged by Waterloo and McMaster …to say nothing of Guelph – but it is clearly happening.”
He goes on to say, “it is time to leverage our assets to achieve international recognition… the distinctive small-town Ivy League experience of a Queen’s education with its excellence in both teaching and research, should be embraced – it is this cachet that attracts students from around the world to Cornell and Dartmouth in the U.S. In Canada Queen’s is arguably the only university with this pedigree.”
He also says that the school must “attract many more international students (which is the longer term key both to greater revenue and greater global reputation).”
Then he suggests that the long-term financial situation will only be improved through more partnerships with corporations, citing Stanford’s partnership with IBM and MIT’s partnership with Nokia as examples. More corporate cash is needed because: “the past two decades have seen a complete reversal of the funding model for Ontario universities: 20 years ago 74% of our operating budget was provided by the province; today, that figure has flipped to 47%.”
He also suggests that his Principal’s Commission on Mental Health could be leveraged for funding. “It crosses directly into fund-raising, as there are corporations with a keen interest in this area (including Bell, which has already funded a Chair in the area (to be announced publicly in the fall).”
He does see some light on the horizon regarding government funding — but, in doing so, admits that quick growth has compromised the school’s quality.
“The good news is that Queen’s may not have to grow dramatically just to get what little provincial funding there is. In late May, at a speech I attended in Toronto, the Hon. John Milloy, Ontario’s Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, announced plans of replacing some per-student funding with performance-based support… We may revise our growth projections to take advantage of such a change, should it occur.”
Finally, he writes that his number one goal for the year is to “negotiate successful labour group agreements,” because he antcipates six months of labour unrest. He added that, “I appreciate the Board’s understanding that these disruptions, should they occur, will be unpleasant and potentially reputational-damaging in the short term, but they may be a necessary step in order to achieve success in salary restraint and pension reform.”
Near the end, he writes, “I would anticipate a summary of this document, duly adjusted for a public audience.”
The letter was posted by Ashley Ratcliffe to her Facebook in a “note” and then was circulated on Twitter.
Queen’s communications director Ellie Sadinsky told the Queen’s Journal that Principal Woolf learned that the letter had been leaked and circulated through his Twitter account. He defended the letter in a tweet to former Engineering Society President* Victoria Pleavin, saying “This is my annual ‘goals’ doc to the Board—a normal process; negotiated labour agreements are a priority, as stated.”
*This post originally named Victoria Pleavin as the president of the Engineering Society. In fact, the current president is Derrick Dodgson. We regret the error.
Memorial to ban smoking by 2013
Marine Institute ban effective immediately
Memorial University plans to ban smoking entirely by 2013, citing health concerns about second-hand smoke.
“Restricting smoking to designated areas will help make Memorial University’s campuses healthier places to live, study and work,” school officials wrote in a statement.
The Board of Regents approved a new smoking policy on July 7 that bans smoking near doorways as of Aug. 1. and compels smokers in residences to use designated areas only.
Smoking is no longer permitted anywhere on the Marine Institute’s property.
GG creates award to honour Will and Kate
Preference to those studying Monarchy or Aboriginals
Governor General David Johnston and his wife Sharon have created a one-time $5,000 scholarship at the University of Waterloo to honour the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate.
The recipient will be chosen by officials at the University of Waterloo, but preference will be given to a student who is pursuing studies related to the British Monarchy or Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. They will also need to have volunteered and shown leadership to be considered.
David Johnston was president of the University of Waterloo from 1999 until 2010. The Johnstons attended William and Kate’s wedding on April 29.
More information about Their Royal Hignesses Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Award can be found here.
Queen’s to ban alcohol during Frosh Week
Most first-year students can’t legally drink
Queen’s University, the site of at least two alcohol-related deaths last year, will ban alcohol entirely from residences during Frosh Week — even for those who have reached the legal drinking age, reports the Queen’s Journal.
University officials told the Journal that 92 per cent of first-year students in residence are under the legal drinking age anyway.
The Alcohol Working Group came up with the idea, stating the ban would “clearly signal Queen’s commitment to reducing alcohol-related harm, particularly at a critical transitional time when the risk of alcohol misuse among 1st year students has been known to be high (with a tragic alcohol-related accidental death of one resident during Orientation week in 2010).”
Coroner Roger Skinner recommended a review of campus alcohol policies after determining that the 2010 deaths of Cameron Bruce, who fell out of a window on the sixth-floor of a residence, and Habib Khan, who died after falling through a skylight, were alcohol-related.
Students caught with alcohol during Frosh Week will will be given “educational assignments” and watch their alcohol be poured out.
The normal rules that allow drinking among those of legal age will return Sept. 11.
Graduate student residences will not face the new rule.
First Nations University student body president stole $30,000
“Accomplishments” kept him out of jail: judge
A former student council president at the First Nations University of Canada in Saskatoon has been convicted of fraud and theft of $30,000.
Blue Pelletier, 31, repeatedly wrote himself cheques from the student union’s bank accounts in 2006 and 2007 and never accounted for the money. Three other members of the council testified that Pelletier had told them he had used the money to buy a car and furniture for himself.
But he won’t go to jail. Instead, he’ll serve an 18-month conditional sentence that includes a curfew and he’ll be required to pay $20,000 back to the student’s council, reports CBC News.
Judge Gerry Allbright said that although Blue Pelletier is guilty, he had accomplished so much in his life that it proved the fraud was “no doubt, in my mind, an aberration.” Had it been more than an aberration, he would have gone to jail, said the judge.
That’s despite the fact that Pelletier accused the other council members of lying and blamed the lack of records for the cheques on a “lackadaisical” style of accounting. He had pleaded not guilty.
Oslo terrorist referenced Canadian universities in manifesto
Madman’s essay is hateful toward Muslims
Photo courtesy of L.C.Nøttaasen on Flickr
The terrorist who killed 76 with a bomb in Oslo and a shooting rampage at a children’s camp made reference to two Canadian universities in his rambling anti-Muslim manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence.
Dozens of universities are referenced in Anders Breivik’s 1,500 page essay. Of those, at least two are Canadian schools.
First, he recounts a scenario written about in a student newspaper at Ryerson University in Toronto. A Catholic student group had challenged a Muslim student group for space on campus.
“At Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada,” writes Breivik. “The largest student group on campus, the Muslim Students’ Association, has monopolised use of the multifaith room. Eric Da Silva, president of the Catholic Student Association, said the group looked into using the room for mass but was told by RSU front desk staff that the room was “permanently booked” by Muslim students.”
Later on in the manifesto, Salim Mansur, associate professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario is quoted as having written: “Democracy is in a cultural sense an expression of the liberal modern world that situates the individual as the moral center of politics and society. It is the idea of the inalienable rights located in the individual, rights that need to be protected, nurtured, and allowed the fullest unhindered expression that makes democracy so morally distinctive from other cultural systems. From this liberal perspective, the common error about democracy is to view it as a majority system of governance.”
The logic behind Breivik’s selection of this quotation is unclear.
Breivik confessed to the murders on Monday, according to police. Both his defense lawyer and his estranged father, a former diplomat, have publicly questioned his sanity.
RIM cutting 2,000 jobs
Bad news for graduates in Waterloo Region
Canada’s former smartphone leader Research in Motion announced Monday it will eliminate 2,000 jobs. The Waterloo, Ont.-based company will be cutting about 11 per cent of its workforce worldwide. That’s bad news for commerce and engineering graduates in Waterloo Region whom were often hired by the company upon graduation.
The BlackBerry maker said in a statement that the layoffs are a “prudent and necessary step for the long-term success of the company.” RIM’s first quarter profits fell 10 per cent this year, while its market share dropped nearly five per cent. Analysts attribute the company’s losses to its inability to keep up with competitors Apple and Google. After RIM cuts the jobs, it will continue to employ 17,000 people worldwide.
Want to work for a startup?
Grads will be paid to work in poor cities
A new non-profit organization called Venture for America will give bright university graduates a crash course in entrepreneurship — if they’re willing to move to a town with a struggling economy.
The idea is to help graduates learn about entrepreneurship, while helping impoverished cities like New Orleans, Providence, R.I., and Detroit to get back on their feet.
After all, business graduates don’t usually move to such economically depressed areas. In that sense, Venture for America is modeled after Teach for America, the highly-successful organization that pays new teachers to move to places where they wouldn’t otherwise move, helping to fight poverty.
VFA will pay its fellows a modest salary of $32,000 to $38,000 per year for two years.
Photo courtesy of Birmingham City University
The startups will get free workers. The workers will get to see a company grow from the ground up.
“These fellows are going to end up in the midst of a really exciting ecosystem and they’re all going to have access to all the entrepreneurs in the region,” Andrew Yang, founder and president, told Fast Company. Some graduates will find success in their new towns and stay permanently, he said.
And one of those grads will get $100,000 at the end of two years to start a business of their own.
But competition is tough. Yang expects 5,000 applicants for the first 50 placements in September.
Don’t compromise on cheating
Professors must fight plagiarism, even when it’s hard
Photo courtesy of Mr_Stein on Flickr
The decision of Panagiotis Ipeirotis to no longer pursue plagiarism might seem notable in that a professor would give up on catching cheaters. But to those inside the academy, his announcement merely gives a public face to an alarmingly common sentiment.
Students cheat, and any professor with more than a few years experience can tell you stories that would make you laugh. Then weep. Every case of plagiarism makes you feel sick. You are not only not getting through to your students, but it’s as though they don’t care enough to even want you to get through.
So the feelings of Professor Ipeirotis are entirely understandable, and shared, I’m sure, by thousands. They must, nevertheless, be resisted.
The NYU prof has complained publicly that his efforts to catch cheaters made his job harder: “There was a very different dynamic in class, which I did not particularly enjoy.” Oh well, then, by all means, professor, please only stick to what you particularly enjoy. Any bets on how long a university could function with all of its staff doing only what they particularly enjoy?
Simply put, a certain level of diligence is necessary to assure the academic integrity of the assignment, the course for which it is required, the degree to which that course is applied, and the university which grants the degree. If Ipeirotis thinks he was denied part of his raise for being tough, then his problem is with his administration. If he compromises on cheating, he’s part of the problem.
But what about the professor’s idea of winning the cold war by structuring courses and assignments so that cheating is impossible? Isn’t that a better solution?
Not really. As Ipeirotis concedes, some students will cheat if at all possible, and it’s almost always possible. One year I had students submit an essay proposal, then an outline, and then the actual paper so I could follow them through the process and make sure they were not just getting a paper from the internet. Except that some students started with a paper from the internet and then reverse engineered a proposal and outline. You can give students very specific assignments, but suppose a student hands in a paper way off topic? That’s a big red flag and you have to check it out. And even if it’s spot on, there’s no guarantee that he didn’t pay someone to do it for him. And what if two students hand in identical work?
The only real way to ensure students are not cheating is to watch them every minute they are working on their assignments, but that introduces a new and even bigger problem. In-class assignments and presentations take up valuable time that could be given to instruction and discussion. In any case, there are assignments that can’t be done properly in class time. In many disciplines students have to spend time outside of class doing their work or they are not doing the discipline they are supposed to be doing. Chemistry without lab reports is not chemistry and English without essays is not English.
This is not to say we should do nothing. We should explain plagiarism properly, and we should punish it judiciously, and, yes, we should look for innovative ways to structure assignments.
But we can’t compromise where it really matters.
Want to get paid to drink?
It’s all in the name of research
Photo courtesy of Kirti Poddar on Flickr
Students at Arizona State University are getting paid to drink — $60 per night.
Will Corbin, an Arizona State University professor researches the effects of alcohol by getting students drunk. “‘The biggest thing I get is, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he told azcentral.com. “You have a bar, and you give people alcohol as part of your research.’
That’s right. He has a bar in the psychology building where carefully screened students are plied with cocktails by research assistants each night at 5 p.m. They’re given three drinks in the first half hour. Then they’re put through a battery of tests related to memory or potentially risky behviour.
After they’ve sobered up, they’re allowed to leave. That typically happens around 9 p.m. — early enough to make it to a real bar.
Chinese student gets probation for stabbing
Memorial University may invite him back to campus
Qiang Tang, the 23-year-old Chinese student who stabbed a fellow English as a Second Language student in March got a sentence of 12-months probation today, with a condition that he must stay away from Memorial University unless he’s invited back.
Tang stabbed the fellow student after being accused of talking too loudly in class. He had originally been charged with aggravated assault, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of assault causing bodily harm.
“The fact [that] this occurred on campus was an aggravating factor as assaults in schools have been treated seriously by the court,” Judge David Orr said in court.
Defence attorney Rosellen Sullivan told the court that Memorial University will decide whether or not to allow Tang back on campus after their own investigation is completed.
Citizen and Immigration Canada will decide whether to deport Tang after its own investigation.
Prof says he will never pursue cheating again
Did outing cheaters lead to poor evaluations, lower raise?
On advice from the school, a young computer scientist at New York University has taken down a controversial blog post entitled Why I will never pursue cheating again.
After Panagiotis Ipeirotis accused 20 per cent of students in one of his classes of plagiarism, he ended up with much lower student-teacher evaluation scores than ever before, he wrote in the now removed blog post. He had discovered the cheating using software and many of the students confessed when confronted. He was proud to have done the right thing.
Then the low scores from students were cited in a performance review as justification for his smallest-ever pay raise.
“Was it worth it? Absolutely not,” he wrote, referring to the confrontation with students. “Not only [have] I paid a significant financial penalty for ‘doing the right thing’… teaching became annoying and tiring.”
He told Inside Higher Ed in an e-mail that the point he was trying to make was that “as educators, we should be focusing on making cheating impossible. Not through enforcement but by designing evaluation schemes that are much less amenable to cheating.” He suggested that replacing assignments with in-class competitions could eliminate the need to police students.
Regarding the low pay increse, Ingo Walter, a business school dean, wrote the following. “Faculty evaluation is based on a detailed annual review of research, teaching and service to the department, the university and the profession. This includes possible class-feedback consequences in plagiarism or cheating cases in course evaluations. Moreover, the course evaluation input of any student who has an honor code infraction is removed from consideration when evaluating teaching performance.”
UBC may sell Whistler Lodge
Ultra-cheap resort for students is losing money
Photo courtesy of Morisawa81 on Flickr
A budget deficit means UBC could sell Whistler Lodge, the ski resort that has provided ultra-cheap accommodation for students in the mountain town north of Vancouver since 1965.
The Alma Mater Society, UBC’s student union, has a $100,000 budget hole and at least $30,000 of the annual deficit comes from losses at the lodge, which offers students bunks for $29 a night or private rooms for $90. With the hotel prices in Whistler averaging $177 per night in 2010, it makes skiing and snowboarding possible for students who couldn’t afford to otherwise.
“[Selling] is one of the options on the table,” AMS President Jeremy McElroy told the Pique, a Whistler paper. ”(The lodge is) something that we like, students built it and it’s part of a tradition for UBC for the better part of 50 years. We don’t really want to shut it down.”
