Archive for Carson Jerema

UPDATE: Faculty strike confirmed

Classes could be cancelled for students at Vancouver Island University as early as Thursday morning when faculty would be in a legal strike position. Talks stalled between the university and the Vancouver Island University Faculty Association (VIUFA) on Tuesday, after a government appointed mediator failed to negotiate a settlement. Faculty had previously voted 84 per cent to give the union a strike mandate last month.

Negotiations broke down because VIUFA wanted a “no-layoffs” clause in the collective agreement, according to university spokesperson Toni O’Keefe. “We can’t do that” she said, citing the B.C. government’s demand that public universities freeze budgets. “We just can’t negotiate on cost.”

UPDATE: VIU faculty strike confirmed

VIUFA’s chief negotiator Dominique Roleants disputed the university’s claim that it cannot commit to no layoffs. “Virtually every university in Canada has language that severely restricts cuts to education and faculty layoffs, yet VIU won’t even meet to discuss this issue with us,” he said in a release distributed to media Tuesday morning.

The current collective agreement allows for layoffs “for reasons of demonstrable and substantial declining enrolment over a sustained period, and for reasons of a demonstrable need for program or service reduction, including the non-viability of non-teaching positions.”

VIUFA would like to see the language strengthened so that layoffs, for its members, would only be permitted if the university was forced to declare a financial crisis.

O’Keefe said that while the university refuses to include a no-layoffs clause, it is willing to work with the union when reducing staff and faculty. VIUFA president Dan McDonald says that that is news to him. “They’ve certainly never said anything like that to us at the bargaining table,” he said.

The faculty association also says the university plans to cut courses, but O’Keefe dismissed the claim. “They are trying to mix bargaining with the budget” she said. Although she couldn’t confirm whether the university’s upcoming budget would include course cuts, O’Keefe did concede that layoffs are a possibility. “I will anticipate that there will be reductions of some type,” she said.

In order to ensure no increases to the university budget, the administration’s bargaining position is to renew, unaltered, the collective agreement that expired last spring, and extend it until 2012. Wages would be frozen for the duration of the contract.

VIUFA is not calling for wage increases, however, and maintains that improving job security is its chief concern. “If they can’t give some job security, that’s a deal breaker,” McDonald said. “[Wages are] not as high a priority for our members.”

Patrick Barbosa, a spokesperson for the Vancouver Island University Students’ Union, says that while VIUSU supports the faculty association’s right to collective bargaining the organization is remaining officially neutral. “We’re not taking sides. We’re standing up for students,” he said.

More than 14,000 full and part-time students would be affected by a strike.

Unless the administration returns with a new proposal McDonald says “you can expect to see picket lines at 8:00 Thursday morning.”

Photo: VIU students taking introduction to digital media, by bex0r

Guttenberg admits to ‘serious errors’ in his PhD thesis

The university where German defence minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, received his PhD, has withdrawn his right to use the title “Dr.” over plagiarism allegations. Ruediger Bormann, president of Bayreuth University, said he removed the titled because the popular politician had “seriously violated” academic norms because large portions of his dissertation appeared to have been taken from other sources without being properly cited. Guttenberg, who completed his doctorate after being elected to Germany’s parliament, says he “did not deliberately cheat, but made serious errors.”

Admin wants to freeze wages for two years.

University of Winnipeg faculty voted 65 per cent today to reject a contract offer from the university. At issue was the fact that the administration offered zero salary increases for the first two years of a four-year contract, and requested senior faculty increase their pension contributions. Official statements have yet to be released from either the university or the union. More details tomorrow.

UPDATE: The Winnipeg Free Press has comments from the union, which confirmed the vote, and from the admin which says it wants to keep bargaining.

Just because voter turnout is low for ‘youth’ doesn’t mean it is low for all youth

Over here, Jacob makes the claim that tuition protests don’t work because “students don’t vote in elections.” Is this true? It is certainly a widely held belief that appears to be backed up by voter participation rates. But, while only 37.4 per cent of those aged 18-24 voted in the 2008 election, that doesn’t mean students, as a general subset of this age group, are as allergic to ballot boxes as other young people. In fact, the data we have suggests students are loyal voters.

In 2003, Electoral Insight published a study by a group of political scientists, led by McGill’s Elisabeth Gidengil, that tracked the decline in voter participation. The data, where the 2000 federal election is the latest to be considered, is admittedly dated, but voting trends haven’t changed all that much in the past decade. The pivotal election that saw voter turnout begin to rapidly decline was the 1993 poll.

Consistent with pretty much everything else that has been published on this topic, the authors demonstrate a steady drop in participation among young voters, particularly those born after 1970.

When accounting for education level, however, they conclude: “it is a serious misconception to suppose that it is the highly educated young who are failing to turn up at the polls. On the contrary, the more education young people have, the more likely they are to vote.”

To illustrate they show while participation has dropped off a cliff for those with lower levels of education, the university educated young continue to vote in the same, very high, numbers as they always have.

The 2000 Canadian Election Study reveals that turnout in the youngest generation was almost 50 points higher among university graduates than it was among those who left school without a high school diploma. Furthermore, the decline is confined to those with less than a university education. Since the 1993 general election, turnout has fallen over 30 points among those with less than a high school education and 15 points or more among those who have completed high school and/or some college. Meanwhile, turnout has held steady among young university graduates.

A caveat needs to be added. The authors of the study are referring to “university graduates” not university students. But in 1993, the oldest university educated cohort for this age group would have been 23. It’s possible that those who were 20 or 21, and still in school, voted at the same level as high school dropouts, but that seems unlikely.

(UPDATE: Another study conducted by the same authors breaks up groups by lesser, middle, and better educated, and predicts likelihood of voting. Turnout for lesser educated youth at age 20 is predicted to be 29 per cent. For the middle educated it is 43 per cent, and for the better educated at age 20, it is 58 per cent, which is comparable to total voter turnout for the general population.)

The common refrain, these numbers imply, that university students don’t vote just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Now, the point that tuition protests don’t work because those participating don’t vote, could have some weight if the claim that politicians ignore education was true, or that those protesting were part of a small subset of the young and educated who don’t vote.

Here the argument continues to fall apart. For starters, if you’re politically engaged enough to take part in a protest, you are also engaged enough to vote. As Gidengil and her research partners point out, “these young activists are more likely than other members of their generation to belong to a political party or to an interest group, and to vote.” (Emphasis in original). In other words, people who don’t vote aren’t likely to be engaged in other ways. To the extent that protesting works as a way to impact public policy, it seems reasonable to assume that that is because protesters are voters.

As for whether politicians ignore students, it is a little tricky to draw even speculative conclusions based on these statistics for the simple reason that I have been referring to participation rates for federal elections, and higher education policy continues to be a predominantly provincial responsibility.

But the fact that pretty much every province heavily regulates the price of tuition and/or provides some form of debt relief would suggest politicians are mindful of university students as voters. As for policies like tuition tax credits and tuition rebates, it is true that they may not be precisely what some education advocates, who generally want upfront grants or lower tuition, are calling for. Such policies do, however, remind voters who their benefactors are. A fat cheque at tax time does a better job of this than if tuition is low to begin with.

Finally, if the question of jurisdiction seems inconsequential, and you’re wondering why the Stephen Harper Conservatives may appear to ignore tuition protesters, ask yourself if the government has anything to gain, in terms of votes, by paying attention to these activists? How many diehard anti-tuition advocates are also potential Conservative supporters?

That’s what I thought.

Despite a conventional PSE platform, the Wildrose Alliance might still have a radical edge

When talking about higher education, Alberta’s Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith rarely sounds like the “libertarian” she is commonly believed to be, and certainly sounds nothing like the “extreme” right winger the current government tries to paint her as.

In her view, high student debt “is untenable” because “it discourages kids from seeking higher education.” She slams the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary who have, in the past, circumvented a tuition cap by raising non-tuition ancillary fees because “We don’t think that is fair to students.”

However, there is one policy plank that, depending on how it is implemented, could be one of the most radical departures in Canadian post-secondary education policy in decades. When unveiling the platform at the University of Calgary in October, she advocated for “sending a good chunk of government funding directly to students and allowing it [to] follow them wherever they choose to go.”

The plan, she told the audience, “would have the effect of adequately funding the schools and the programs that are in the highest demand while at the same time creating competition between schools to offer those programs at reasonable rates.”

While the idea remains underdeveloped, Smith’s choice of words have signaled to some observers that she favours a voucher system, albeit a relatively modest one. A pure voucher program would involve entirely replacing operating grants to universities and colleges with direct transfers to students who would then take their money, in voucher form, to any school of their choice. Smith has not proposed anything so bold. A “good chunk” is not the whole envelope.

Nonetheless, her comments prompted the Council of Alberta University Students to request clarification from the party on this peg of their platform. Aden Murphy, a student executive at the U of A, says that the worry over transferring education funding in voucher style is that it could cripple universities, unless it is modified enough to take into account multi-year enrolment projections.

“An institution isn’t as agile as a small business,” he says.

When asked about her university funding plans Smith is reluctant to actually use the word “voucher,” instead stating that the proposal “is more like our charter school system.” When a “student chooses to go to that charter school, the funding, on a per capita basis, flows directly to that school,” she pointed out in an interview. “There is some value in considering this approach in post-secondary education as well.”

If her comments were simply intended to refer to per capita student funding, already incorporated to a degree in Alberta, then her plan may be similar to other elements of the Wildrose higher education platform, that is, it may involve modest tweaks rather than slashing and burning.

Of course, Smith could be hedging on this question to avoid appearing immoderate. In the past she has openly advocated for a voucher program in the K-12 system. A report she coauthored for the Fraser Institute concluded that, “Schools must be given the freedom to innovate and the requirement to do so. The way to do this is to introduce competition into the school system through a voucher scheme.”

An article that appeared in the Georgia Straight last spring wondered if Smith has been preparing to put her old education ideas into practice. For primary and secondary education, the Wildrose Alliance is only officially committed to supporting “School Choice” legislation.

In addition to enforcing rules that index tuition to the rate of inflation, the more fleshed out, and conventional, parts of Smith’s higher education platform includes plans to forgive student debt for graduates who stay in Alberta, remove parental income as a factor in loan eligibility, and to streamline the credit transfer process.

She would also change election rules so students living in residence could vote in their university riding, rather than in their parents’.

“We seem to have no problem setting up polling stations in other facilities where we have temporary residents, like prisons for instance, like nursing homes for instance,” she says. The current Progressive Conservative government, Smith adds, has “no reason to find a way to facilitate the vote [for students],” because they tend to be more “left-leaning.”

So far her platform is receiving cautiously optimistic reviews from student leaders. Murphy says that a year ago students he spoke to were worried that Smith would promote privatizing elements of the university and college sector.

“That fear hasn’t come to pass,” he says.

He does note that any debt relief scheme shouldn’t supplant current programs, and that upfront grants would be preferable to tuition tax credits. But on balance he is hopeful that if Smith were to become premier after the next election, her focus, at least when it comes to higher education, would involve tweaking the current system rather than anything particularly revolutionary.

“They showed they are serious about developing a constructive higher education policy,” he says.

Where Smith is more comfortably conservative is on her already notable distrust of the federal government. She dismisses any legislation to enshrine higher education standards across the country—as has been proposed by the federal wings of both the NDP and the Liberal party—as unconstitutional.

“There is just no way that we would support an increased federal role so that they can start meddling in this area. I don’t see how that would benefit Alberta taxpayers or Alberta students,” she says. “I would anticipate that that would just be another mechanism to transfer wealth out of Alberta.”

Photo: Canadian Press

Our student panel has their say

Last week an American study concluded that students are not learning very much in university. New York University sociologist Richard Arum and coauthor, Josipa Roska, discovered that when measuring writing skills, the ability to think critically and to engage in complex reasoning, forty-five per cent of students did not show an improvement on skills such as writing and critical thinking. After four years, 36 per cent of students had barely improved.

We asked our student to rate the teaching quality at their school. As with previous weeks, videos will be posted on our front page, and archived on our You Tube channel.

First reports of court case start rolling in

Preliminary reports on the court case between the University of Manitoba and Gabor Lukacs are starting to come in. The Canadian Press reports that the  U of M’s lawyer, Jamie Kagan, argued that because the student has already received his degree that “There is no longer any framework for there to be a dispute.” Lukacs is asking the court to reverse a decision by the Dean of Graduate studies to waive an exam requirement for a PhD student. The student is said to suffer from exam anxiety.

As expected, Kagan argued the decision has not caused any direct harm to Lukacs and that he has no standing to argue the case. “His rights are not affected. He has no skin in the game,” Kagan said. Lukacs was also dismissed as a “busybody.”

The assistant math professor’s lawyer is addressing those arguments this afternoon and Justice Deborah McCawley is expected to reserve her decision.

For background on this story, please see our earlier coverage.

Campus radio won’t play ‘Money for Nothing,’ and it has nothing to do with offensive words

Unlike their commercial counterparts, campus radio stations are not subject to the ruling banning the original version of the Dire Straits’ 1985 hit, “Money for Nothing” over the word “faggot.” It is, however, unlikely that university disc jockeys will be taking advantage of their newfound monopoly as probably the only broadcasters in Canada permitted to air the song. The reason? Many campus stations already have a policy against playing “Money for Nothing.” And it has nothing to do with offensive words.

“Dire Straits is a band that is more suited to AOR and classic rock radio,” says Bryce Dunn, program coordinator at CiTR at the University of British Columbia. When asked if his station would play the song in light of the recent controversy, Dunn said, “Umm, no.” That goes for all versions not just the original.

On Friday, the University of Calgary station, CJSW, dedicated an afternoon talk show to the controversy surrounding the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) decision to censor the song. Although the offending word was used several times, “Money for Nothing” was not actually played. “No offence to the Dire Straits. We just don’t play them,” says station manager Chad Saunders.

When a late night program host at the University of Manitoba’s UMFM played the song following the ruling, he was sent an email from supervisors reminding him of the station’s policies against playing mainstream music. “We can’t condone the fact that he played a hit song on the air, as that falls outside our mandate,” Jared McKetiak, who runs UMFM, said.

There are two reasons why “Money for Nothing” and other mainstream songs will get little if any airplay on Canadian campuses. The first is regulatory. Licenses issued to campus radio stations by the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) strictly limit how many “hit” songs they are permitted to play. Their broadcasts are suppose to be dedicated to independent and local artists.

Aside from licensing requirements, that limit but do not ban mainstream music, campus station managers are just not that interested in rockers from other decades. “After 25 years, does anyone really need to hear ‘Money For Nothing’ again anyways?” McKetiak asks. “We don’t need to be playing something like Bryan Adams.”

Kristiana Clemens, operations officer for CFRC at Queen’s University, says that while her staff does not “censor” programming, volunteers “are expected to be responsible and thoughtful in planning their programs and upholding the station’s broadcast license.” They are encouraged to “play artists and genres that are under-represented in mainstream media,” she says.

Despite having no interest in playing “Money for Nothing” the CBSC ruling isn’t being met with indifference among campus radio circles. “It is simply a quick fix by the CBSC to appease advertisers and listening audiences without actually taking steps to address the systemic homophobia,” Clemens said.

The U of C’s Saunders called the ruling “dangerous” adding that “the punchline to the joke is it has taken 25 years for a complaint to come through.”

UAlberta grades dispute ‘breaks trust in grading’

John Kmech, editor of the University of Alberta’s the Gateway, weighs in on the grading dispute between math professor Mikhail Kovalyov and the university.

It’s unclear what the department gains from failing so many students or giving the class a final average of 1.79, little higher than a C-. It could be seen as maintaining “standards,” and it’s true that students should do poorly if they aren’t pulling their weight. But what “fail” means inherently depends on the difficulty of the coursework, something that only an individual professor can judge. While it’s currently the department’s prerogative to approve the final grades, if they can lower the marks by bulk like this, there doesn’t seem much point to professors handing out grades at all.

Read the the rest here.

Our student panel weighs in

At the centre of the dispute between math professor Mikhail Kovalyov and the University of Alberta is the question of grading curves. Kovalyov’s course average was lowered by department administrators supposedly because he had awarded too many Bs compared to Cs and Ds, touching off a battle that ultimately resulted in the administration asking him to resign.

The case is unique because Kovalyov actively encouraged his students to appeal their grades. It also highlights the fact that how students are assessed can be controversial.

Achieving target class averages often involves employing a mathematical grading curve to ensure that in each class their are the predetermined number of As, Cs, and Fs awarded. Results can be confusing. If an overwhelming number of students score well on an exam, even those with a mark in the high 80s could see their final grade curved down to a B. Similarly, if a disproportionate number of students score very low, a pass for the exam could be set at 35 per cent.

We asked our student panel whether they thought grading curves are fair. Answers are posted below, as well as on our front page. As with previous weeks, all videos are archived on our You Tube Channel.