Archive for Nick Taylor-Vaisey

Investment drops in real terms for the first time in a decade

Universities, governments, businesses and non-profit donors combined to spend an estimated $9.6 billion on post-secondary research and development in 2006-07, according to a Statcan report released on Aug. 14.

That represents a nominal increase of only about $100 million (or 1.1 per cent) from 2005-06 levels, the smallest increase in a number of years. R&D spending jumped 5.1 per cent the year before and 10.5 per cent the year before that, when funding was about $8 billion.

In real terms, however, the picture looks quite different. Buried in the report is a measurement of funding using 2002 dollars as a constant that indicates that post-secondary research funding actually dropped between 2005-06 and 2006-07—falling to $8.5 billion from $8.6 billion. That constitutes the first drop in over a decade.

Spending on R&D has more than doubled in real terms since fiscal year 1993-94, when stakeholders combined to invest $4.2 billion, but it has increased by only $35 million since 2004-05.

Institutions in Quebec and Ontario collected two-thirds of total nominal 2006-07 funding—about $6.6 billion—with Ontario netting about 42 per cent. Saskatchewan was not as lucky. That province has not benefited from an increase in funding since 2002-03. Its funding fell to $215.4 million last year, about a one per cent drop nominally from the year before and, in real terms, a 26 per cent drop from 2002-03 levels.

Natural sciences received 41 per cent of funding, health sciences netted 39 per cent, and social sciences received 20 per cent of funds.

Universities traditionally invest the most in research. They contributed 46 per cent of spending in 2006-07, consistent with levels since 2003-04. The federal government spent almost $2.5 billion, about 26 per cent of total funding. That share has also not changed much since 2003-04. Provincial governments spent $992 million, about 10 per cent of total funding. Businesses and non-profits accounted for a further 16 per cent of funding. Foreign groups provided the remaining one per cent of investment.

Marks 70th anniversary of speech delivered on eve of WWII

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney is donating to Queen’s University a framed facsimile of speaking notes for a speech that former U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered at the school when he received an honourary degree there on August 18, 1938.

The speech itself focused on Canada-U.S. relations, which seemed especially rosy at the time. Roosevelt spoke primarily about how both countries should stick together when facing common enemies, and added that “the people of the United States will not stand idly by if domination of Canadian soil is threatened by any other Empire.”

Towards the end of the speech, Roosevelt focused on education. He closed with the following words:

“Mr. Chancellor, you of Canada who respect the educational tradition of our democratic continent will ever maintain good neighborship in ideas as we in the public service hope and propose to maintain it in the field of government and of foreign relations. My good friend, the Governor General of Canada, in receiving an honorary degree in June at that University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to which Mackenzie King and I both belong, suggested that we cultivate three qualities to keep our foothold in the shifting sands of the present—humility, humanity and humour. I have been thinking in terms of a bridge which is to be dedicated this afternoon and so I could not help coming to the conclusion that all of these three qualities—humility, humanity and humour—embedded in education, build new spans to reestablish free intercourse throughout the world and to bring forth an order in which free nations can live in peace.”

The framed copy of the notes were specially made for Mulroney and presented to him by former U.S. president Bill Clinton on Feb. 5, 1993, when the two leaders first met at the White House.

The full audio of the speech is available for download at iTunesU.

Canada’s most powerful computer world’s most energy efficient

Researchers at the University of Toronto will soon have at their disposal the most powerful supercomputer outside the United States—and apparently the most energy-efficient in the world.

According to the school, The IBM-built computer will be the 20th most powerful in the world, and it will be used to support research in climate-change prediction, aerospace, astrophysics, bioinformatics, chemical physics and medical imaging, among other areas.

Those behind the project say there is more to the supercomputer than its sheer power, however. They are also praising its energy efficiency. Chris Pratt, IBM Canada’s strategic initiatives executive, said the initiative maximizes both power and efficiency without sacrificing either.

“IBM started with the design of the data-centre efficiency and worked our way in. Whereas a lot of machines are designed from the machine out, this machine was designed to be energy efficient,” he said.

A 12,000-square-foot data centre that will house the computer will be built just north of Toronto, in the City of Vaughan. Its distance from the U of T is a product of the computer’s enormous thirst for energy. It will require an estimated two megawatts (or 2,000 kilowatts) of electricity in order to function. If it were to be built in downtown Toronto, the complex would have needed its own power substation. Its total energy consumption will roughly equal that of 1,500 homes.

Of course, it is impossible to determine exactly how much it will cost to run the supercomputer—or how much pollution that will generate. But an emissions calculator at the Toronto Hydro website could provide some insight.

If the machine runs for one hour and consumes 2,000 kilowatts, it expends 2,000 kilowatt-hours. According to the emissions calculator, 2,000 kilowatt-hours of consumption monthly translates into 5,688 kilograms of carbon-dioxide emissions every month—the equivalent of burning 2,275 litres of gas and driving over 18,500 kilometres (at a rate of 12 litres burned for every 100 km driven). It is also the equivalent of 20,000 lightbulbs.

And this is the world’s most energy efficient supercomputer.

The calculator also estimates the cost of 2,000 kilowatt-hours at $233.

Pratt focused not on the overall power consumption of the computer, but instead on the potential savings due to the company’s efforts to increase energy efficiency.

“What is significant is a machine of this capacity built out of prior-generation hardware would have required considerably more power to drive it,” he said. “The savings in using the new technology are in the order of 25-30 per cent.”

So using old technology, he said, the consumption could have reached 2.5 or even three megawatts.

Richard Peltier, the scientific director of SciNet consortium—a group of institutions and hospitals at the U of T that will provide a home for the computer—spoke about the importance of such a powerful computer to his research in climate science.

One of the major research initiatives undertaken by SciNet looks at climate-change prediction. The new supercomputer will make predictions more reliable because the increased power will allow researchers to test more complex climate-change models.

Peltier said less powerful computers can’t handle the load required of such complex models.

“The models that we use to do this are very complicated because you have to describe the entire atmosphere, the entire ocean, the sea ice which sits on top of the ocean, and the biosphere on the continents which interact with the overlying atmosphere,” he said, adding that predictions for years up to 2200 are based on conditions at the beginning of industrialization in 1860—a model spanning over three centuries.

Peltier said that high resolution models are necessary to make more precise predictions that apply to specific regions, such as the Arctic or the Great Lakes basin.

He said that the supercomputer will likely attract researchers from around the world.

“They are really poles of attraction in the research universe,” he said. “We expect that this is going to be a really useful recruiting tool.”

The $50-million project is funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Ontario’s provincial government, and the university. It is slated to be completed by next summer.

Workers and graduates can apply for permanent residency without leaving country first

International students who graduate in Canada might not have to leave the country before applying for permanent residence, according to new rules implemented by the federal government and announced by citizenship minister Diane Finley on August 12.

Temporary immigrants eligible for the new Canadian Experience Class will be able to apply for permanent residency while already living and working in Canada. It is a move by the government to increase the retention of skilled foreign workers after they land in Canada, and it applies to both graduating students and skilled workers already in country.

In order to qualify for the program, graduates will have to have completed at least two years of study at a Canadian university or college, have worked as a skilled, professional or technical worker in the country for at least a year, and have basic language skills (depending on their occupational skill level).

Temporary workers will have to have at least two years of skilled, professional or technical work experience to qualify.

Responding to the new rules, NDP MP and immigration critic Olivia Chow told the Globe and Mail that the new program is elitist and will leave out most temporary foreign workers already in Canada.

“They’re good enough to work here, but we don’t want them to become Canadian citizens,” she said. “That’s 90 per cent of the 165,000 temporary foreign workers who are working in Canada right now.”

In an editorial, the Edmonton Journal  called the move “a necessary tool to keep Canada competitive with other potential immigrant destinations.”

The Journal warned, however, that “fast-tracking the likes of accountants, doctors, skilled tradesmen and engineers must not be an alternative to financing the education of training of more such people in Canada.”

Free six-week courses offered to 100 Scarborough students

After studying at Scarborough’s Centennial College free of charge for six weeks, 100 “at-risk” youth from the area yesterday received certificates as part of the school’s Helping Youth Pursue Education (HYPE) program.

The college approached community-service agencies in Malvern, Kingston-Galloway and Scarborough Village and identified youth aged 13-29 who they thought would fit well in HYPE. Tuition was free, and books, meals and transportation were all covered by Centennial.

The Youth Challenge Fund provided much of HYPE’s funding, donating $450,000 over three years. The YCF is a provincial initiative, the board of which is chaired by former Toronto Argonaut Mike “Pinball” Clemons. HYPE also received funding from Ontario’s First Generation student funding and other private donors.

Now in its fifth year of operation, HYPE offered programs in automobile repair, food service, child studies, office administration, business entrepreneurship and physical education.

Clemons was at the students’ graduation yesterday, where valedictorian Aneesah Mohamed addressed the audience. The Star reported that Mohamed, a Grade-10 dropout and single mother of two young children, will study community and justice services full-time at Centennial in the fall. She hopes to become a juvenile probation officer.

Centennial is providing 30 program participants a $2,500 bursary when they enrol at the college in the fall.

Ontario college support staff still at the table just weeks before fall semester

Ontario’s college students today urged support-staff workers and management at the province’s 24 public colleges to reach a new collective agreement before classes start in the fall.

College Student Alliance (CSA) president Jenn Howarth said that her organization is worried about stalemated negotiations between the Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU), which represents 6,500 support staff at Ontario colleges, and management.

“We are quite concerned that both sides appear to be no closer to reaching a new agreement,” she said.

Howarth said that the CSA became concerned when OPSEU left negotiations a couple of weeks ago, and the organization has since established a website to inform their members of updates.

The CSA will take no position if a strike occurs.

“We aren’t necessarily taking a stance about who’s right and who’s wrong,” she said. “It’s more: Let’s come to an agreement so that way our students are receiving the essential services and the quality of education that they paid for.”

The chair of the support staff’s bargaining team, Rod Bemister, said that the union did leave the table in June because it wanted to put a vote on the proposal to its members, but that there are still nine scheduled days before the current collective agreement expires on Aug. 31.

There will also be a mediator at the table for the remaining negotiations.

The most recent proposal by the College Compensation and Appointments Council (CCAC) was rejected by OPSEU. The June proposal called for a two-year agreement that would see support staff receive a three-per-cent raise each year. The union has said that because college faculty received a four-per-cent wage increase two years ago after it entered binding arbitration, and because administrators “are getting more than” four per cent, support staff should receive no less.

On July 16, 66 per cent of support staff voted 69 per cent in favour of a strike mandate. 79 per cent of union members also rejected the CCAC proposal.

Both sides will head back to the bargaining table for three days beginning on Aug. 12.

Gord Wright, the president of OPSEU Local 421 at Loyalist College, told Belleville’s Intelligencer last week that a strike was a “last resort”.

“Now that the bargaining team has received a strike mandate, this should help in the bargaining process,” Wright was quoted saying, adding that “there’s not talk of strike right now.”

Cambrian College has set up an automated message about the potential strike that is the first option on the phone service’s electronic menu. The voice declares that a strike is trying to be avoided, but if it happens, “We will do everything in our power to minimize its effects.”

Intrusion in presidential selection process upsets MUN governing body

The governing body of the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) today stated that the provincial government interfered in the ongoing presidential selection process, calling into question the school’s autonomy.

The Board said in a statement today that Premier Danny Williams offered to meet with short-listed candidates, and the Board endorsed the idea and extended an offer to Williams. The purpose of the meetings, today’s statement read, was to “promote the province, to emphasize the importance of Memorial to the province and to confirm the government’s strong commitment to university education in Newfoundland and Labrador.”

Williams was to conduct the meetings, but they were later delegated to Education minister Joan Burke.

Problems only arose when Burke told the university that the candidates—including the Board’s preferred candidate, interim president Eddy Campbell—were not acceptable and the search should continue, the Board took exception.

In a separate statement, the regents insisted that autonomy was of vital importance to the school’s success.

“(MUN) must be free to operate at arm’s length from government, while adhering to provisions that allow for appropriate government oversight and accountability,” it read.

According to the MUN regents, the government’s action “constitutes inappropriate interference in the normal process.” It has recommended that the government amend the Memorial University Act to remove itself from these kinds of processes.

Youth wing of Liberal party wants to raise tuition—but delay payment until students graduate

Quebec’s provincial Liberal youth wing proposed a solution to the chronic underfunding of the post-secondary system in that province: an across-the-board tuition-fee increase to the national average that students would only need to pay following the completion of their studies.

The proposal was adopted by the youth at a weekend convention in Sherbrooke, Que.

Quebec media picked up on the story quickly. Most of the coverage in English media focused on the “doubling” or “tripling” of tuition fees to meet the apparent national average of $6,000.

Quebec Young Liberal president François Beaudry took issue with this framing of the issue, arguing that while the proposal does increase tuition fees to that average, no student would feel the weight of the increased fees until they could afford to pay through a percentage of their income tax after graduation. While in school, he said, all students would still pay the same tuition—around $2,500.

According to Beaudry, studies have shown Quebec schools are underfunded by more than $350 million a year. The provincial government cannot close that funding gap on its own, said Beaudry, and the responsible move would be for students to do their part.

“The debate was to raise the number to $6,000, and the difference between the $2,500 and $6,000 would be paid through income tax after graduation,” said Beaudry. “We think the user should pay.”

Beaudry said that “the youth is going to pay for the service, for better quality.” And they should, he added, because they are the people benefiting from the post-secondary system.
David Paradis, the president of the Fédération Étudiante Universitaire du Québec, flatly rejected the logic used by the Liberals when they devised the proposal.

“It’s totally irresponsible. They haven’t made any kind of evaluation of the impact it would have. They didn’t evaluate the cost of the implementation,” said Paradis.

He claimed that if the proposal becomes government policy, between 32,000 and 50,000 students who otherwise would have pursued post-secondary studies simply will not. The numbers, he said, are based on a study conducted by Quebec’s Ministry of Education.

FÉUQ would rather see a dedicated federal transfer for post-secondary education fill Quebec’s funding gap. There is a $4-billion shortfall in funding nationally, Paradis said, and $1 billion of that applies to Quebec. He said further that FÉUQ wants all sectors of the province to sit down and create a long-term vision for education in the province, which could include a push for more private donations from university alumni.

Beaudry said that Paradis’ calls for more government funding are short-sighted.

“We shouldn’t think that everything should be paid by the government. And this is what should change in Quebec. Everything is over-funded, everyone is overprotected, and what happens ultimately is you think that everything is due to you,” he said. We’re in a world where there is strong competition … and waiting for the government to do everything is a big problem.”

This is not the first time that Liberal youth in Quebec have proposed for fee increases, as they initially called for a tuition de-freeze in September 2006. Quebec Premier Jean Charest did end the freeze and proposed a $100-a-year increase over five years ending in 2012 as a first step in tackling underfunded schools.

Young Liberals in Quebec hold one-third of the votes at provincial party conventions.

Omnibus compromise bill overhauls American post-secondary system

Both houses of U.S. Congress reauthorized federal higher-education legislation for the first time in a decade yesterday. The bill will now be sent to the desk of President George W. Bush for final approval.

The House of Representatives approved the bill by a margin of 380-49, and the Senate followed later in the evening with a vote of 83-8.

The nearly 1,200-page omnibus bill, described by Inside Higher Ed as having “the feel of a conglomeration that includes everything but the kitchen sink,” did indeed include something for everybody. One of the most appreciated elements of the bill raises the annual limit of Pell Grants to $9,000 and makes them available year-round. Application processes for aid will also be simplified.

Pell Grants are needs-based and meant to increase access to higher education for low-income students. Introduced in 1980 as the successor program to the Basic Education Opportunity Grants introduced in 1972. Last year, the grants were limited to just over $4,000 for the academic year.

The U.S. Department of Education will now report the least and most expensive schools in the country, split into several categories including private and public institutions. Institutions whose tuition rises particularly quickly over a short period of years will have to justify the rising costs.

Reuters’ report focused on student-loan fairness. All lenders will now be forced to disclose the terms of their loans, the story says, as “a response to scandals uncovered last year involving kickback schemes and conflicts on interest between lenders and school officials.”

California Democrat Rep. George Miller, the chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, told the Washington Post that the overhaul will make it easier to pursue higher education.

“This legislation will create a higher-education system that is more affordable, fairer and easier to navigate for students and families,” he said.

Tennesee Senator Lamar Alexander begged to differ with Miller, telling the Post that the bill regulates institutions too much.

“The greatest threat to higher education isn’t underfunding—it’s over-regulation,” he said.

An Air Force Times report celebrated the provisions in the bill dedicated to helping soldiers access higher education. Military families who are stationed outside of their home state are often forced to pay out-of-state tuition fees. The bill will change that, allowing families who have lived in a state for 30 days to pay in-state fees. According to the Times, it will also “set up a scholarship program for family members of troops and veterans; establish support centers to help veterans succeed in college and graduate; and prohibit discrimination against students who serve in the armed forces when they seek to be readmitted after an absence because of military duty.”

Not everyone was pleased. University of Bridgeport president Neil A. Salonen told the Connecticut Post that “it’s nowhere near the bill we need to improve higher education in this country.”

In a release, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers lamented part of the bill that mandated “hundreds of new reporting requirements and several special interest provisions.”

The bill also includes anti-piracy provisions that will encourage schools to provide their students with access to legal downloading services.

Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, told San Jose’s Mercury News that these reauthorizations usually prompt a national debate about higher education, something that was missing this time around.

“It’s probably the least consequential of all the Higher Education Act reauthorizations that have been passed,” he said. “At certain points in time, it’s in the best interests of the country to have that discussion about the future of higher education.”

Bush is expected to sign the bill into law.

Dalhousie grads happy with CASA

Although they might not know it, graduate students at Dalhousie University have been members of both national student lobby groups for several years.

The Canadian University Press (CUP) reported last night that the Dalhousie Association of Graduate Students (DAGS) is a trial member of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) and also a member of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) by virtue of its status as a “member society” of the Dalhousie Student Union (DSU)—a CASA member.

DSU President Courtney Larkin reportedly said that DAGS decided not to pursue full membership in the CFS in 2004, and that they “seem very happy with what CASA is doing.”

According to the CUP story, DAGS president Christopher Giacomantonio has “not had a conversation with any CFS representative” since his election. Nevertheless, DAGS had its trial membership in the CFS extended indefinitely in 2005, pending a referendum on full membership. Larkin told CUP that such a referendum is unlikely, because “there is no interest in participating” in the organization.