Archive for Erin Millar and Ben Coli

UManitoba engineers publish nipple measurements; investigation ensues. Send us your joke issues.

The University of Manitoba’s equity services office is investigating the Engineering Society’s annual spoof magazine, Red Loin, to determine whether it is offensive. Naturally, the ruckus is over more than just nipples; this year’s Red Loin is full of explicit dating advice, sexy horoscopes, and dozens of sexual references to things not normally associated with sex.

According to an article in the Winnipeg Free Press, some UManitoba professors are concerned that the magazine creates a hostile atmosphere for engineering students who are not heterosexual males. Not content to take their opinion on the matter, Maclean’s OnCampus asked me to review the magazine.

I’m a poor judge of whether other people would find something offensive, (I’ve been known to tell jokes that would make a pimp blush) but a thorough review of Red Loin left me truly disturbed. It wasn’t the sexual content that shook me; I’ve seen more sexually explicit things written on the walls of church bathroom stalls. My reading experience left me grappling with the fear that Canadian undergraduate students are incapable of producing sexual innuendo above a fifth-grade level.

I broke out in a sweat. My old Cold War fears revisited me; surely the Soviets are gaining an advantage on us in this area. We’ve all heard the reports of a Bulgarian seventh-grader who produced a dirty joke so powerful it offended a person hundreds of kilometers away who didn’t even speak Bulgarian. Meanwhile, our university students are making lame analogies between cross-country skiing and the missionary position in a sexy Winter Olympics article?

Red Loin is packed with lists of tired, unoriginal jokes, such as their list of “funny” porn movie titles, including such topical pop-culture references as “Forrest Hump” (a riff on Forrest Gump, 1994) and “Full Latex Jacket” (Full Metal Jacket, 1987). It is littered with reprinted copyrighted comic strips, and includes a sexy horoscope section, which the magazine unabashedly admits was stolen from the internet.

Much of the original content of the magazine is poorly written, virtually unpunctuated nonsense, informed by shallow stereotypes and juvenile sexuality.. Perhaps the worst example is “Oh-Oh-Olympics,” a barely literate screed making an utterly unsuccessful attempt to relate Winter Olympic sports to sex, which by the third paragraph had already broken down to this level:

“Some of the sports I found to be a bit of a stretch converting them. For example snowboarding and some of the skiing events. I like the back and forth motion of alpine skiing. Swish, swish, swish really rhythmic. But the closest thing I could come up with was ski jumping, free style skiing and snowboarding is like spontaneous sex.”

The only concession I’m prepared to make to Red Loin is that the article “How Not 2 Pick Up Girls” is reasonably well-written, original and funny, and contains jokes about social situations, rather than focusing solely on the plumbing-related aspects of sex. Unfortunately, the article is so riddled with parenthetical asides (like this one) that the writer actually employs two different styles of parentheses so he can make parenthetical asides within his parenthetical asides. One would have to be a math major to follow the order of operations and solve the sentences.

It would be easy to blame the parents, to say that in our fast-paced modern world few people take the time to sit down with their children and teach them the difference between a genuinely clever suggestive remark and idiotically giggling at the utterance of the word “pianist”. Ultimately, universities must accept part of the blame.

Our post-secondary institutions must be prepared to handle students who have fallen through the cracks in their early education and reached the university level incapable of making a coherent sexual pun or writing a dirty limerick. When bad humour is published, it reflects badly on the entire institution.

Maclean’s OnCampus is throwing down the gauntlet. Are you ready to stand up for the reputation of your university, of your country? Student editors and writers, send us your humour articles, your satire issues, your spoofs, your (original) comic strips, your hilarious illustrations, and prove that humour is not dead on Canadian campuses.

The funniest, wittiest, and cleverest articles we receive will be appreciated, laughed at, mentioned in a future column on this website and possibly linked to or reprinted here — I haven’t quite worked this out with my editor yet. I’m not sure what we’re going to do, but I assure you, it will be spectacular.

It will be spectacular.

Email your hyperlinks, scanned documents and .pdf files to carsonjerema@gmail.com. If you are not capable of producing an electronic version of your publication, simply go to your local post office and mail your paper copy to 1992, where I’m sure someone will be happy to receive it.

If you have a spoof issue that you think might be funny, but you’re worried about being exposed to my scathing critique, please refer to the suggestions on the next page and re-evaluate your work.

Profs across the country plead for better written essays, and offer tips to help you get there

Writing good papers isn’t just a way to get better grades; it’s doing your part to solve an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Think of your poor professors and imagine what it’s like to have to consecutively read, mark and make intelligent comments about fifty papers on the same topic. Now imagine how much more painful it must be if most of the papers are poorly written.

Oh, the humanity!

We surveyed past victims of poor paper writing across the country and together, they responded with what amounts to an impassioned plea for mercy: they ask that you, the students, for the sake of your grades, learn to write readable, well-organized papers.

Or, in the words of professor Sorel Friedman of Université de Montréal: “Imagine that your paper is the very last one a professor is going to correct at the end of a very long evening. Try to write something original, or at the very least, clear and logical.”

Academic originality isn’t something we can help you with in the scope of this column, but with our professors’ help, we’ll take a crack at clarity and logicality.

First and foremost, if you’re going to take the time to write hundreds or thousands of words, you should make sure that you’re writing about something. Rambling on from an arbitrary starting point toward no destination in particular is no way to score good grades.

If you have been given a question to address, read it carefully several times and then be absolutely positive that you answer that question and not another. This isn’t politics; you don’t get full marks for answering the question you wish they’d asked instead of the one they asked.

If you’re not given a question, then you’ll have to come up with a thesis, which is a statement of something that you are going to argue to be true. Your subject matter should be relatively focused, so that it’s possible to cover it in depth in the scope of the paper you’re writing, but not so focused that you’ll run out of interesting things to say. If you’re unsure about the appropriateness of your thesis, this is a great time to talk to your prof or TA.

A well-defined thesis will make it much easier for you to organize your paper. You are arguing a point, so your paper should have a logical flow that takes the reader from the thesis statement, through a series of coherent, well-ordered arguments toward your destination, which is the conclusion that the thesis statement is true. This is the nuts and bolts of what an essay is and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and trouble if you keep this in mind throughout the process.

CAUT attacks Christian “faith test” for profs.

By most accounts, Trinity Western University, located in the Vancouver suburb Langley, is a respected member of the Canadian university community. It’s long enjoyed the rubber stamp of approval that is being a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, an organization that fills the vacuum created by Canada’s lack of formal university accreditation. In 2004, the provincial government exempted the school from “detailed reviews of its degree programs,” making Trinity Western the fourth member of an elite club of west coast universities alongside the University of British Columbia, the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University. In fact, having been opened in 1962, the school is one year older than UVic. Trinity Western is also home to three research chairs and boasts over $1 million in annual research funding, impressive for a relatively small institution.

Related: The end of the religious university? Also see: TWU in its own words: special no-straw edition

Despite Trinity Western University’s (TWU) near universal acceptance as a full-fledged university, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT)—a union of sorts, representing faculty associations across the county, that has fought sometimes controversial fights over academic freedom since 1951—placed TWU on its blacklist of universities that violate academic freedom in October, effectively calling into question the school’s dedication to the very heart of what it is to be a university. According to a CAUT report, because TWU—which describes itself as “a faith-based institution, one inspired by Christ’s life and guided by his teachings”—submits its faculty to what CAUT calls a “faith test,” it is violating academic freedom.

The controversial faith test consists of a “Statement of Faith” that professors are required to sign annually and that outlines the “philosophical framework to which all faculty, staff and administration are committed without reservation.” It includes a list of convictions to which professors must assert to subscribe, including belief in the bible, in one infinitely perfect god, that Jesus Christ was a real man, and in “the bodily resurrection of the dead; of the believer to everlasting blessedness and joy with the Lord, of the unbeliever to judgment and everlasting conscious punishment.”

To CAUT, the Statement of Faith clearly demonstrates that TWU does not accept the standard definition of academic freedom. They consider universities to have violated academic freedom if they “seek to ensure an ideologically or religiously homogeneous academic staff,” which clearly includes TWU.

James Turk, executive director of CAUT, says that his organization is only sharing with the world what TWU is, not outright denying their right to existence as a university. Yet, Jonathan Raymond, TWU president, is taking CAUT’s actions very seriously. “Such an allegation can easily damage the reputation of a university and place a cloud over the scholarship of its faculty,” Raymond wrote in a recent response to CAUT’s report.

The whole dispute comes down to the definition of a cornerstone of the modern university: academic freedom. In Raymond’s view, TWU’s definition is comfortably mainstream, and that it is possible to have investigation and teaching within the context of a stated perspective. The academic calendar at TWU goes so far as to reject a definition of academic freedom that denies an established perspective: “Trinity Western University rejects as incompatible with human nature and relevational theism a definition of academic freedom which arbitrarily and exclusively requires pluralism without commitment, denies the existence of any fixed points of reference, maximizes the quest for truth to the extent of assuming it is never knowable, and implies an absolute freedom from moral and religious responsibility to its community.” In other words, the university rejects relativism, which many academics would say is incompatible with the primary role of a university.

Getting overseas experience can strengthen your resume, enhance your education and be a lot of fun

When Kali Penney needed to strengthen her med school application, she had a choice between taking more classes and getting some volunteer experience. She chose to spend three months volunteering in Calcutta, followed by a month traveling around India. Her volunteer work looks good on her application, but the experience ended up meaning much more than that to her. “I would recommend going overseas. You’ll do so many things you’d never get to do here and meet people you’d never get to meet.”

There’s no better way to educate yourself about the world than to go out and see it. Travelling can be a great way to broaden your perspective, and doing it while you’re in school and you’re young can be great. Those old people in their fancy tour buses and their five-star hotels are probably enjoying themselves too, but that’s nothing compared to the freedom and the adventure you can have when you’re three decades younger and have a tenth as much money.

There are loads of ways to go abroad while you’re in university. If you do your research, you can find ways to go overseas without blowing a lot of money or adding semesters to the time it takes you to get your degree. You can even find ways to make your trip enhance your education and improve your future job prospects by building your resume — which is also a great way to justify a trip to your parents.

Studying Abroad

Going to school and living in a foreign country will give you a much deeper understanding of a place than just breezing through as a tourist. You’ll have the opportunity to learn the local language and to make friends with locals and other international students. Plus, you won’t miss any semesters and you’ll remain on track for graduation.

For some areas of study, going abroad can greatly improve your education. Overseas universities will offer courses not available at home, and the country you study in can offer opportunities you’d never have in Canada — for example, studying Spanish in Madrid, or Archaeology in Cairo. Most universities have exchange agreements with a number of foreign universities so that you pay the same tuition you would at your home university, rather than expensive foreign student fees.

The easiest way to be sure that the courses you take overseas will be credited through your degree is to go through an exchange program. Check your uni’s website for information, (for example, here is USask’s) but hurry; exchange application deadlines are usually early in the winter semester — meaning right about now.

Volunteering

Volunteering in a developing country can be one of the most rewarding (and challenging) experiences you’ll have in your life. Your experience will look great on a resume, particularly if it is related to your field of study, such as medicine, engineering, teaching or social work. It can be difficult, however, to find a volunteer posting that won’t cost you a lot of money.

Dalhousie gets international recognition for new sustainability program

When Dr. Deborah Buszard asked a classics professor whether his department had any interest in contributing to planning a new sustainability program, she wasn’t expecting much. Buszard, a plant biologist who researches the use of plants in built environments, had been tasked with contacting every program at Dalhousie University to solicit feedback on the university’s plans to develop an ambitious interdisciplinary sustainability college. So she was delighted when the classics professor responded excitedly, “Oh yes! You can’t understand sustainability without reading Oedipus!”

The classics professor’s suggestion that Oedipus—the story of a mythical Greek king who killed his father and married his mother—is an essential text for anyone trying to understand human behavior was exactly the sort of thing Buszard was after. Recognizing that sustainability issues now touch virtually every subject—be it business, engineering, science, the arts, health, you name it—Dalhousie set the goal of creating a program in which any student from any faculty could pursue a double major in sustainability, a first in Canada. This past fall, only a couple of years later, the program welcomed its first students, and has already gained international recognition by being short-listed for a 2009 World Innovation Summit for Education Award, awarded at the WISE conference in Doha, Qatar in November.

Buszard sees the Environment, Sustainability and Society undergraduate program as the next step in modern liberal education. The accepted view of a liberal education is that students should have a broad education when they graduate from university, having studied English, science, math and so on in addition to their main focus. Buszard says that considering today’s complex problems, sustainability should be added to the list of subjects every student should study. “Whatever you are doing in your career, if you are in a leader position, you need to have this understanding,” she says. “We can’t afford to graduate students without that.”

This is the thinking that is behind’s Dalhousie’s goal of providing sustainability education to every undergraduate student. The program, which can be combined with any other major, brings students from departments from theatre to business to chemistry into the same classroom to puzzle together over complex problems such as water security, climate change or increasing urbanization.

The idea was originally conceived when Buszard’s colleagues realized that there were nearly 150 professors at Dalhousie involved in research on sustainability, in subjects as varied as medicine, international policy, ocean management and law. But these researchers were typically isolated within their departments, without the place to engage with other scholars with similar interests. How could these experts be brought together in a meaningful way?

The result is a college that provides a physical and intellectual place for the exchange of this knowledge. The cornerstone of the college is the undergraduate program itself, in which students study complex sustainability problems in the context of their differing majors. The first year focuses on history of sustainability taught by three professors—a historian, an architect and a scientist—that covers topics such as the development of the wheat economy in Canada and the use of whales as a resource. By the third year, students take their knowledge outside of the classroom to apply to real problems as part of the Campus as a Living Laboratory course in which they identify sustainability issues at Dalhousie and try to develop and implement solutions. In the final year, groups of students team up with community partners such as government and NGOs to tackle community-based challenges.

The intention of the program is to give students an understanding of complex sustainability issues outside of the lens of only one subject of study. The interdisciplinary approach distinguishes the program from environmental science. “We didn’t want to create another silo of experts,” Buszard explains. “We don’t want to produce people who are, say, an economist and only thinks of an issue in terms of economics.”

Buszard says that the program is a first for Canada, and she knows of only one similar program in the States. And students seem to be responding positively. Although the school hoped to enroll 150 students in its first year, 300 signed up.

Canadians among those invited to contribute to international education conference

Some 1,000 delegates from universities, government and the private sector in 120 countries gathered last week in Doha, Qatar for the first annual World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE). The conference, funded and organized by the oil-rich Qatar Foundation, hosted speakers who addressed pluralism, sustainability and innovation in education. However, it may take another WISE event to determine what concrete actions, if any, will come out of the massive undertaking.

Much discussion was focused on how to improve access to education for children and youth in conflict zones or impoverished parts of the world while also ensuring education is of high quality. Many speakers promoted the idea that education is an essential part of establishing peace in war-torn regions. Sessions also centred on issues as varied as how Twitter can be used in the classroom to how the Malaysian education system reaches out to minorities.

However, with such a broad focus discussed among delegates from such diverse backgrounds, it’s difficult to guess what consequence will come of WISE. In the final session, Dr. Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, chairperson of WISE, described a 10-point agenda that had come from the discussions:

1.         Access to ‘quality’ education

2.         A fully integrated approach

3.         Global citizenship

4.         Education embedded in the local community

5.         Protecting education and educators

6.         Reconciliation

7.         ‘WISE pioneers’ to monitor progress

8.         Innovating new ways to learn

9.         Pursuing sustainable development

10.      A future built on multi-stakeholder partnership

(How these points will be implemented remains to be seen.)

Canada was represented by a delegation of 19 participants, from universities including Dalhousie and McGill to groups such as the Fraser Institute, the B.C. College of Teachers, and even including Petro Canada. Notable delegates included David Strangway, former president of the University of British Columbia who represented the China-Canada Commission on the Environment and Economic Sustainability, and Norman Riddell of the near-defunct Millennium Scholarship Foundation.

WISE seems to be the next step in Qatar’s campaign to become a global centre for education. It builds on its ambitious Education City, where top American universities such as Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern and Cornell have established foreign campuses, offering the same curriculum to Arab students as is delivered back on American soil. The schools are fully paid for by the Qatar Foundation and the universities are paid a financial incentive in a “management fee” to set up shop.

Visiting Education City is like stepping inside a surreal education utopia. Brand-new immaculate buildings dot an otherwise barren landscape of dry dusty desert. Entering the new Carnegie Mellon building—which appears to have been built without any thought to expense—one is struck by the expansive walkway of gleaming marble and three-story high ceiling. But what makes the impressive building eerie is the lack of those for whom it was built—the students. A building its size at any Canadian university would surely be bustling with hundreds of students in its halls, yet Carnegie Mellon is currently only educating a couple of hundred students in Doha.

Nevertheless, the intention behind Education City seems to be valuable. Qatar, being wholly dependant on fossil fuels for its affluence, hopes to diversify its economy by building an educated workforce that is prepared for the knowledge economy. And like its in architecture and conferences, Qatar didn’t cut corners. The Foundation has sought out what it determines to be the best programs in the world to join Education City, and it insists the universities offer the same courses and programs and that the same tuition be charges as would for an international student back at the home campus. The aim is to avoid the programs becoming cheap, second-rate alternatives to studying in the United States.

The University of Calgary and the College of the North Atlantic have also set up overseas campuses in Qatar. In its second year, UofC is offering the only bachelor’s of nursing available in the country. While the schools are receiving some financial benefit for their Doha operations, faculty and administrators seem to be there for more altruistic reasons—they hope to improve health care in the region. “With our universities and healthcare system, we’re so lucky,” said dean Sheila Evans, “We all feel like we can give back here.”

Your student loan, your credit history and you

You’ve got a student loan and so far things are great. The government sends you a cheque every semester and as long as you make sure they know you’re still in school, they don’t charge you interest and they don’t expect any money from you.

But some day not so many years from now, the government is going to want you to start paying them back. You’ll have two choices:

1. You can pay them.

2. You can tell them to get stuffed.

I know the second choice looks really appealing — it’d save you so much money. But as is often the case in this world, the appealing course has some serious ramifications you should be aware of before you make your decision, and that means understanding what credit ratings are and what they’re going to mean for your future.

Some students think that student loans are somehow less real than other loans. Students are expected to be a little irresponsible, aren’t they? You’re having a wild and crazy time at university, right? And when you apply for a car loan a few years after graduation and the bank’s loan officer sees that you defaulted on your student loan, he’s going to chuckle and shake his head and approve the loan anyway, right?

I’m sure you don’t need to be beaten over the head like this. Obviously, what I’m getting at is that student loans are very real, and your ability to mess up your credit history by mismanaging them is equally real. Actually, because of bankruptcy laws, your student loans can have even longer-lasting effects than everyday loans that people take out on cars and homes and eight-piece dinette sets with no money down and no payments until 2012.

Canada has a credit reporting system that is designed to help lenders make informed choices about who they lend their money to. We talked to Odette Auger, Vice President of Operations of Equifax Canada about the credit reporting system and it turns out it all comes down to sharing information.
Continue reading Default danger

Failing essays or assignments already? How to deal with a mid-term grade crisis

Sarah had a slow start to her fall semester at UBC. She moved into a new apartment at the beginning of October, was waitressing part-time, and her boyfriend moved back to Vancouver and was taking up more of her time than usual.

But Sarah is a good student and is only taking three courses this semester instead of her usual five, so she was sure she could handle it. Then, in late October she got back the mark for her first assignment for her 400-level math class: she had failed. It came as a surprise to her. “I suspected that I may have done poorly,” Sarah says. “But I spent a lot of time on the assignment so I thought I’d at least pass.”

Now the semester is moving on and the workload in her courses has turned out to be enormous, and Sarah’s not sure if she can pull it together to pass her math class. What’s a girl to do?

Meghan Houghton, the Associate Vice-Provost for Student Success and Learning Support Services at the University of Calgary says that mid-semester grade crises are very common, particularly among first year students, who haven’t necessarily adjusted to the higher expectations of university.

“We know there is a natural transition period for students,” she says. “Their ‘A game’ from high school is requiring some refinement and polishing in order for that to be an ‘A game’ for university.”

If you find yourself in this situation, you should first seek out the learning support services offered by their school and refine their study skills. UBC, for example, offers writing tutorials, peer academic coaching, help hiring a tutor and piles of online academic resources, among other programs.

Another common cause of bad grades for first-years, Houghton says, is a lack of interest in what they’re studying. “Low grades on the first round of exams may be reflective of low motivation to study whatever it is they’ve chosen to study.”

Excelling is difficult if you don’t like what you’re studying. So, your bad grades could be a sign that you’re pursuing the wrong degree, and if that’s the case, you should make a change sooner rather than later. Make an appointment with an academic advisor at your school and they’ll talk you through what program is best for you.

What are universities doing to address growing mental health issues among students?

On a Saturday morning at the beginning of this school year, a second-year student jumped from the window of his residence room at the University of Ottawa, an apparent suicide. As the details of the tragedy became clear, friends expressed how shocked they were by the death. In an excellent article written by Kelly Egan for the Ottawa Citizen, he was described as “a happy, motivated young man who travelled broadly, spoke several languages, had a leadership role at the residence and plans of entering law school.” How could this have happened to such a bright, promising young person?

The reality is that depression is incredibly common among students, especially those early in their university careers. Even the most ambitious and energetic students can be affected by depression and other mental health issues, and this often comes as a surprise to their friends and family of students.

Lev Bukhman knows all about what ails students. He’s worked with them for some 20 years, and is currently executive director of Student Care Networks, a leading Canadian health insurer that provides health and dental packages to over 450,000 students. Bukhman’s position gives him an insider’s view of what type of health problems students suffer with and medicate, and what he has noticed is more and more students struggling with their mental health.

“Mental health issues are one of the biggest challenges facing students today,” Bukhman says. In fact, anti-depressants are one of the most common medications taken by students. At most universities covered by Student Care Networks, anti-depressants are the number one drug, ahead of oral contraceptives and acne medication. Typically anti-depressants account for a third of drugs covered by student health plans. At one university—which Bukhman selected randomly from his files—35 per cent of all drug claims were for anti-depressants.

Although most universities don’t collect mental data about students, every counselor I spoke to said they’ve seen an increasing number of students seeking treatment for mental health problems. Statistics from the few schools that do collect mental health data are enlightening. At the University of British Columbia, 11 per cent of female and 13 per cent of male students reported in 2008 that they seriously considered suicide at least once in the previous year, according to Dr. Patricia Mirwaldt, director of student health services.

Students allege awarding less funding than promised is a breach of contract

Erinn Michèle Treff had an A average when she applied to graduate programs in social work. Not surprisingly, she was accepted by four of the five universities she applied to. In considering her options, one university stood out: York University, which offered her significantly more funding than any other program.

“I don’t have a lot of money and I already have a significant OSAP loan,” Treff says, “so when I was offered a funding package for $14,000 first year and $10,000 second year, it seemed like a no-brainer.”

So imagine her surprise when a few weeks into her second year, rumours circulated that social work students wouldn’t receive their full funding package. Treff emailed her department head asking for clarification, but received no response. A few days later the rumours became reality when a meeting was called: the students must have misinterpreted their acceptance letters, the university said, and they would only be paid $6,600 because the second year only consists of two semesters instead of three.

With the surprise cut to the funding she expected, Treff doesn’t know how she will afford to get through the year. After paying tuition she, like other students affected, is left with about $2,000 for everything else. She doesn’t have time for an extra job because she is already working the equivalent of two part-time jobs as part of her program: as a graduate assistant at York (for which she is paid with the funding package York rolled back) and as an unpaid intern at the Ministry of the Attorney General. The result? She hasn’t yet bought any books because she can’t afford them.

“I was absolutely livid,” Treff says, who added that she had planned to apply for two PHD programs at York. “When this happened, I shredded my applications.” In an online petition started by Treff, her anger is mirrored by over 300 students and sympathizers who have signed in the past six days.

“The university admin should be ashamed,” one commenter Cameron Campbell wrote. “I will not be donating any money to the University when I become an alumni over actions such as this,” pledged Graham Potts. “My family will also be doing the same.”

The anger seems not only in response to this series of events, but attached to resentment that has been simmering under the surface since last year’s strike, which kept 45,000 students out of class for three months. “I will never let any of my family members ever to go to York. First the strike and now this?” wrote Arvinder Singh, adding his voice to a number of petitioners who interpreted the strike and this move as a sign that the university mistreats students.

Treff says that although the strike was horrible, she understood it was necessary and didn’t hold a grudge. “Having our promised money taken away is another story.” She blames the Faculty of Graduate Studies and the administration of the university—not her specific program. “I love my professors and I love my program,” she says. “But it’s such a shame to have such a wonderful program dirtied. It’s embarrassing.”

York University did not respond to multiple phone calls and emails before deadline.

Treff was “dumbfounded” when she was told students misunderstood funding levels promised in their acceptance letters. Other students echoed this sentiment. “There was no letter misinterpretation of any kind. Bottle [sic] line is a contract was breached and we deserve our PROMISED money!!” wrote petitioner Josie DiPlacito. Treff agrees that the acceptance letter constitutes a written contract, and she alleges that York is breaching that contract.

From viewing one of the relevant acceptance letters, it’s easy to understand the students’ frustration. The letter, signed by the dean and associate vice-president of the Faculty of Graduate Studies Dr. Douglas M. Peers, reads, “In recognition of your excellent academic record, York University will award you a minimum of $14,000 in Year One of your full-time master’s study, and at least $10,000 in Year Two of your full-time study, in the form of a tuition scholarship, teaching assistantship, research assistantship, or graduate assistantship.” There is no mention of funding being subject to the number of semesters in each year.

Students also lamented the decision because they have already informed the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) that they would receive $10,000 in funding this academic year, so they don’t qualify for student loans. “I am not eligible for OSAP becasue OSAP believes I will be recieving $10,000 of funding that was in my contract [sic],” wrote petitioner Amanda Rose. “I can no longer continue to pay my rent, food and necessities on my VISA!”

In addition to the online petition, social work students and sympathizers have launched a letter writing campaign. As of the evening of October 20, there had been no response from the Faculty of Graduate Studies. But in an email that summarized an October 20 meeting with students and administration in the faculty of social work, a student wrote that it appeared that the social work administration “has taken a turn and is now supporting us.” However, whether the funding is restored is up to administration in the Faculty of Graduate Studies. Both faculties will meet Monday, Oct. 26 to discuss the situation.