Archive for November, 2011
Student alleges hate crime at Seneca
School conducting review
A 22-year-old student at Seneca College in Toronto alleges he was the victim of a hate crime on campus, according to Xtra.ca. The police are calling it an “altercation that turned into a fight.” The student came to Canada with the help of the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees. He alleges that on Nov. 25 he was attacked by a male student he has classes with. He says the fellow student accused him of gawking, punched a nearby telephone booth, pulled his hood down over his face and then cut his throat, most likely with a ballpoint pen. During the attack he was called “faggot” and “bitch.” Tony Vella of the Toronto Police Service told Xtra that a 21-year-old man was arrested in connection with the incident, charged with one count of assualt with a weapon and then released. Seneca officials say they are “conducting a general review into the matter.”
French professor steals English sign
Latest in U Ottawa language tussle
A University of Ottawa professor stole a National Bank sign set up on campus because it wasn’t available in French. François Charboneau, an assistant professor of Political Studies told CBC News that he did so because he wanted to send a stronger message than simply “making another complaint.” All official signs must appear in English and French at the university, but many companies providing services on campus, such as construction companies and food shops, don’t follow the same rules. That’s because the 1974 provincial act that made the university bilingual says it must support this mandate in “programmes, central administration, general services, internal administration of its faculties and schools, its teaching staff, its support staff and its student population.” It says nothing of ancillary services. It isn’t just francophones who are often frustrated by the relationship between English and French on campus. An anglophone student recently wrote of her frustration about French-only signs and service at a Quizno’s sandwich shop on campus.
“Suspicious” fire at Brandon U
Damage up to $150,000
Police in Brandon, Man. are treating Monday’s fire at the building that houses the Brandon University Students’ Union (BUSU) as suspicious. The damage to the Knowles Douglas building is believed to be between $100,000 and $150,000. No one was injured in the blaze. A 45-day professors’ strike at Brandon ended on Friday. Students returned to class on the same day as the fire. The BUSU sided with the professors’ demands for pay raises and, unlike the university, will not refund fees to students who drop their classes as a result of the nearly seven-week strike.
Big drop in drug use among teens
Cigarette smoking plummets
Photo by austinanomic on Flickr
A survey administered to nearly 10,000 teens in Ontario shows big drops in the use of most drugs when compared to similar teens 12 years ago.
The Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey found an especially encouraging drop in the number of students who smoke cigarettes. In 1999, 28 per cent of students in grades seven to 12 said they smoked in the past year and 22 per cent smoked at least one cigarette daily. In 2011, only nine per cent said they smoked in the past year and only four per cent said they smoked daily. The rates are higher in northern Ontario, where eight per cent smoked daily in 2011.
St. Thomas bans alcohol in residence
Follows apparent drunken vandalism
Alcohol has been banned at the Harrington Hall student residence at St. Thomas University in Fredericton for an indefinite period. The decision was made after fire extinguishers were discharged and glass was broken in apparent acts of drunken vandalism. Larry Batt, Dean of Students, told CBC News that the prohibition is meant to be a wake-up call for residents. The ban will last at least until the end of the calendar year. Many students were defiant as the ban came into effect on Sunday. Ryan Walters, a 19-year-old student, said that on the first night of the alcohol ban, “everybody just got wasted.” St. Thomas developed a strict behaviour code after student Andrew Bartlett hit his head and died last year after an off-campus party where hazing occurred.
Commandant Camila’s uprising
A student’s revolt against Pinochet’s school reforms
Photo by Victor Ruiz Caballero/Reuters
Story by Richard Warnica.
If one were to rank the legacies of the Pinochet era in Chile, education reform wouldn’t likely make most lists. The former dictator devastated his country in many ways. Thousands of his opponents were murdered or simply disappeared. Countless more were tortured or forced into exile. But Augusto Pinochet also radically deregulated the education market, pulling funds from the public sector in the early 1980s and spreading them into a parallel private system. Remarkably, it is that decision that has his country roiling today.
Feds will fund projects for women on campus
Minister cites recent sexual assaults
Minister Ambrose on June 15, 2011.
The federal government is planning to fund projects to address violence against women on university and college campuses.
Rona Ambrose, Minister for Status of Women, told the Canadian Press that recent attacks on Canadian campuses are a reality check.
“Yes, there are good programs out there being offered by institutions like universities and colleges but we need to do more,” she said.
Women have been targeted by sexual predators at schools across the country this year. On the weekend, there were two incidents of possible sexual predators near the University of Windsor. Earlier this month, female students near Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, B.C. allege they received the date-rape drug GHB. In the spring, York University experienced two alleged sexual assaults and the murder of Qian Liu, a student from China. In April, four female McGill University students were physically assaulted.
Continue reading Feds will fund projects for women on campus
In defense of courses with crazy titles
Like Harry Potter 101, Superhero Science, Basket Weaving…
Is Harry Potter a bird course? Photo illustration by Casey David on Flickr
Last week, both crusty old curmudgeons and left-wing crusaders received an early holiday gift from Baylor University in Texas: an outrageously named course: Homosexuality as Gateway Drug.
Unsurprisingly, the local TV news played clips of offended students and the blogosphere went wild.
Piling on courses with offensive or trivial names has long been a pastime for those with plenty of time on their hands and not much sense of nuance. But the joke is old—and it needs to stop.
Case in point: Baylor later changed the official title of the offending course to something more generic. Meanwhile, it came out that the “course” in question was not a regular offering, but an independent study being pursued by a single student.
Women warned at University of Windsor
Student reports man with his pants down
Police at the University of Windsor have posted notices on campus after two women reported encountering possible sexual predators this weekend. A woman reported she was followed home early Saturday morning on Sunset Avenue. The man who allegedly followed her is described as skinny, Hispanic and 21-years-old. The second woman reported that in the early hours of Sunday morning she saw a man with his pants down who was watching her through a window at Canterbury College. He is described as in his 30s or 40s with facial hair, according to CBC News.
Why Alberta’s education system is better
The reasons may surprise you
Snowy Edmonton, Alta. by Stella Blu on Flickr
Alberta is as a maverick when it comes to higher education. The province prepares students for post-secondary better than its neighbors, has some of the country’s most satisfied students and punches above its weight in research.
Now there’s even more evidence that the rest of Canada should pay attention to how Wild Rose Country approaches higher education.
New University of Saskatchewan research, which included 12,000 first-year students, found that grades for Albertans tended to drop just 6.4 points from Grade 12, but fell as much as 19.6 points on average for students from another province. In other words, a student from Alberta who graduates with an 86 average is likely to end first-year as an 80 student, while students from that other unnamed province would average 66.
One reason Alberta’s students are much better prepared is that they study long and hard to pass provincial standardized exams, which account for 50 per cent of their Grade 12 marks. Students in other provinces are graded more subjectively, making it easier for teachers to give high marks.
The higher standards are well-known. In recognition of the high standards, the University of British Columbia automatically raises Albertan students’ grades two per cent when they apply.
But it’s a lot more than standardized tests that make Alberta’s schools succed. Here are six more reasons the rest of Canada ought to pay closer attention to Alberta’s higher education system.
1. Public funding of universities is highest in Alberta.
Statistics Canada says that 72 per cent of funding for Alberta universities came from public sources in 2009. The next highest was Newfoundland at 69 per cent. It was only 49 per cent in Nova Scotia.
2. Albertans outperform their peers well before university.
Alberta’s 15-year-olds came second in the world in reading and fourth in the world in science in the 2009 PISA study, the gold-standard international test. Those were the top scores in Canada.
3. Alberta has two teaching-focused universities that work.
Grant MacEwan and Mount Royal Univeristy have faculty who spend most of their days teaching, rather than conducting research—unlike nearly every university east of Edmonton. And both institutions score exceptionally well on the National Survey of Student Engagement. When asked “if you could start over, would go to the institution you are now attending?,” 50 per cent of Mount Royal seniors and 60 per cent of Grant MacEwan seniors said yes. The average is just 45 per cent.
5. Alberta’s transfer system works.
In Sept. 2009, nearly 12,000 post-secondary students transferred between schools in the province. Many of the transfers are from the provinces’ teaching-focused institutions and community colleges into big research institutions. Harvey Weingarten, then-president of the University of Calgary, told the authors of Academic Reform that transfer students are “academically indistinguishable.”
6. Even with teaching-focused universities, Alberta remains a research leader.
Despite having more students in teaching-only institutions and only 11 per cent of Canada’s population, Alberta holds 17 per cent of the Canada Excellence Research Chairs, which come with up to $10-million apiece. Alberta also has 12 per cent of the prestigious Vanier Scholarships. The University of Alberta has the second highest per-faculty research funding in Canada at $309,332.
Brandon strike ends
Students can complete courses or get refunds
After 45 days, the strike at Brandon University ended late Friday. Students will return to classes as of 6 p.m. Monday. On Sunday, University President Deborah Poff said that the Board of Governors approved a plan for student refunds of individual courses or entire semesters. However, students who wish to complete their courses will be able to finish the missed semester. Last week the provincial government said it would force Brandon’s 240 professors and other staff to vote on the university’s latest offer. That offer included a nine per cent pay raise over four years, plus an $1,800 signing bonus. To read about how students were reacting to the strike last week, click here.
Ottawa condo bans student renters
But Carleton student fights back
A condo board in Ottawa passed a rule in October that essentially outlawed students from renting in their building, because it required renters to be families, common-law or otherwise intending to live together permanantly. But Carleton University student Nicholas McLeod has collected enough signatures to force a vote on the ruling, which could overturn it at the annual general meeting at the Southgate Road building on Dec. 6. according to Metro News.
The Hamburgler turns himself in
Video: student breaks into McDonald’s and makes a meal
Capture from video by Cedar Falls Times on YouTube
Police in Cedar Falls, Iowa say a college student turned himself in after they appealed to the public to turn-in the real-life “Hamburgler” who broke into a McDonald’s in the wee hours of Nov. 20.
Footage obtained by the Cedar Falls Times shows 21-year-old Whitley Allen Teslow tapping on the drive-thru window before climbing into the closed restaurant, raiding the freezer and preparing his own hamburgers, fries and soda—which he consumes before exiting through the same drive-thru window. Needless to say, he was drunk.
Date rape drug shows up in Nanaimo, B.C.
Student may have been sexually assaulted and drugged
Photo by Robert S. Donovan on Flickr
Vancouver Island University is warning students via Twitter to guard their drinks. A woman who was sexually assaulted in Nanaimo recently may have been given the date-rape drug GHB.
Another young woman says her doctor confirmed she was given the drug in October. CTV Vancouver Island reports that the woman was found by a friend in a parkade around 3 a.m. after attending a nightclub. She had no recollection of the evening, but her friend says a stranger had shared her drink earlier that night.
V.I.U. has been using custom drink coasters to warn students about how easy it is for people to slip odourless and colourless GHB into their drinks, reports Canada.com.
Where do Canada’s math geniuses go?
Two Canadian schools dominate competition
Photo by il divino designs (ildivino.co.uk)
It’s one of the most prestigious—and lucrative—in the world. The winning team gets $25,000. The winning individual gets a scholarship to Harvard.
Naturally, teams from Harvard, MIT, and Caltech have won the most titles (55, 40 and 30).
But there are two Canadian schools whose students consistently do well too. The University of Toronto and The University of Waterloo each have 18 team titles and top five placements (Queen’s is next in Canada, with three). Waterloo’s wins are particularly impressive, considering the Putnam competition predates its birth in 1957 by a few decades. But those aren’t the only two Canadian schools to do well recently.
Here’s how our schools stacked up over the past five years.
Teams in the top 10
University of Toronto —4
University of Waterloo—4
University of British Columbia—2
Top scoring individuals (winners and honorable mentions)
University of Waterloo—13
University of Toronto —8
University of British Columbia—6
University of Alberta—1
McGill University—1
Professors get some bizarre gifts
Pettrigrew’s guide to thanking professors appropriately
Venison photo by Collin Anderson on Flickr
The other day, in the hallway outside my door, something unusual happened: a student offered his history professor a large amount of venison. The student had recently taken up bow-hunting and had, apparently, become pretty good at it, because he had plenty of deer meat to give away.
The prof graciously turned it down.
That particular gift may have been odd, but it’s not at all uncommon for students to offer gifts. I have a mug adorned with Shakespearean insults on my desk to attest to that fact, and a hand-carved Malaysian pencil in my drawer as further evidence. Student gifts range from the tasteful and understated—I once received a lovely metal bookmark with my initials engraved on it—to the downright bizarre.
A colleague (the same one who turned down the venison) reports being given, among other things, a gavel, a Satan bobble-head, and the right to consider himself some kind of Viking prince. One instructor told me ruefully that all her students had ever given her were “headaches and angst.”
Club cancels debate on women’s role in rape
“Poor wording” says debate society
Screen capture from Don't be THAT guy on YouTube by extremelineprod via Crime Prevention Ottawa
The University of Calgary Debate Society is blaming the cancellation of an upcoming debate on “poor wording.” They advertised an event on Facebook earlier this month that stated the debaters would discuss whether to “hold women partially accountable for rape prevention.”
Students complained. The event was cancelled.
“People do often debate things they don’t necessarily believe in,” the society’s training co-ordinator Pardeep Dhaliwal told Metro Calgary. That much is true—debaters frequently argue about absurd things. And it wasn’t intended to be offensive. In fact, the debate was planned in conjunction with the Calgary Sexual Assault Voices, which has been part of the Don’t Be THAT Guy campaign, which has targeted young men with ads that say things like “Just because she’s drunk doesn’t mean she wants to f**k.” and “sex without consent = sexual assault.”
Continue reading Club cancels debate on women’s role in rape
McGill Principal defends herself
Protesters were “masked and hooded”
McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum told the Montreal Gazette yesterday that she is “sorry” to students who were hurt by pepper spray when riot police showed up at the administration building on Nov. 10. Students have called the response to their occupy-style protest heavy-handed. But Munroe-Blum defends herself by stressing that the occupiers were “masked and hooded,” which frightened the staff. She also added, “when you call the police you don’t tell them how to do their job.” The pepper-spraying at McGill came the same day tens of thousands of Quebec students marched in protest to the annual tuition rise of $325, which will bring fees more in line with the Canadian norm by 2017. Munroe-Blum continues to defend the tuition increases as a way to compete with better-funded schools like the University of British Columbia and University of Toronto. Three police officers at the University of California Davis are on leave after pepper-spraying 11 seated students at an Occupy protest Friday. Those protesters were not masked.
How students are reacting to the strike
Occupy? Demand money back? Transfer to Winnipeg?
Student Brandon Layh helped organize Occupy the Courtyard at Brandon University
As the faculty strike at Brandon University enters its seventh week, students are frustrated. But that doesn’t mean they’ve been sitting on their hands.
For Nathan Layh, a fourth-year student in the School of Music, this is the second faculty strike that has interrupted his studies. He was there when faculty picketed for 17 days in 2008.
It’s an interruption he’s not taking lightly. Layh, along with a handful of other students, has been camped out on campus since mid-October as part of ‘Occupy the Courtyard,’ movement, hoping to raise awareness of the strike’s impact. Aside from leaving to go to work or similar obligations, Layh says five to 10 protestors have been living on the BU courtyard everyday, even in snow.
“It’s been a long month,” he said. “We didn’t expect it to go this long, we thought that both sides would see how detrimental this is to the university,” he added.
Where Ontario’s next university must be built
Sorry Niagara Falls, it’s not you
Aerial view of GTA by Paul's Best Shots on Flickr
No sooner did Ontario’s government reiterate in their throne speech that they will build three new universities than a couple of small-town politicians stepped up to demand one for their town.
Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor told the Niagara Falls Review yesterday that the city of 82,000 should get a campus. Naturally, the mayor is on board too. The newspaper called it “a no-brainer.”
But sorry Niagara Falls, your case is weak.
The new book Academic Reform, by policy experts Ian D. Clark, David Trick and Richard Van Loon, took a comprehensive look at exactly what Ontario’s post-secondary system needs right now. They examined what works and what doesn’t, from Australia to Europe, from Florida to British Columbia.
They agree that, yes, Ontario badly needs new universities.
But only in the suburban ring around Toronto, known colloquially as The 905.
They projected that the Greater Toronto Area will need 51,000 to 74,000 new undergraduate seats between 2009 and 2025. The rest of Ontario will require, at most, 30,000—possibly none at all.
And the rest of Ontario already has more seats available than the GTA, despite the fact that the GTA will soon have more than half of the 18 to 24-year-olds. There are 20 universities in Ontario, but only three main campuses are in the GTA. That partly explains why nearly half of local secondary school students leave the city to go to school—far more than come into the city to be educated. Thirty per cent don’t get into university at all. Could it be because local schools are full?
It’s also clear from the research that the GTA needs entirely new campuses, not expansions. Toronto’s universities are already among the biggest in the world. York University, at 55,000 students, and the University of Toronto, at 54,000, are the fifth and sixth largest in North America. U of T has determined that it doesn’t want more growth. York and Ryerson can only grow so quickly.
The growth is in Toronto’s suburbs, like Brampton, Marham and Vaughan. Consider that Brampton grew at a rate of 33 per cent between 2001 and 2006 to 434,000, according to the Census. It’s likely closer to 500,000 now. The City of Vaughan passed the 300,000 mark in 2011 and projects it will add 116,000 more by 2031. These new citizens will demand local options to study.
That said, there are a couple fast-growing cities just outside the GTA that could make reasonable cases too. Barrie, which has put aside $14-million for a potential campus, grew 33 per cent in the past decade to 191,000. Milton, which grew by 71 per cent between 2001 and 2006 to 88,000, has land set aside for a possible campus of Wilfrid Laurier—and it’s a short commute to Brampton.
But Niagara Falls, with 82,000 people, grew by just four between 2001 and 2006. Besides, it’s only 17 kilometres from Brock University in St. Catharines—also a short commute.
If they think they’re getting a new university, they’re dreaming. All three should go to the GTA.
