Archive for Sarah Petz

Tuition is a deal. School spirit is an experience.

School spirit at the University of Minnesota by Mulad on Flickr

For Manitoban students, international study doesn’t require a transoceanic flight.

Manitoba has a 20-year-old reciprocity agreement with the State of Minnesota and at least 21 Canadians are currently studying at campuses of the highly-regarded University of Minnesota.

Continue reading Why Manitoban students are studying in Minnesota

New report ranks universities on ability to uphold freedom of expression

A new report released Thursday takes a critical look at the state of free speech at Canadian universities.

The 2011 Campus Freedom Index, published by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, measured the ability of 18 universities and student unions across Canada to uphold free speech on campus.

Each university and respective student union was ranked based on their policies and procedures regarding free speech, as well as their actions and practices when addressing freedom of expression issues on campus. While no university or student union received a perfect score, Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, and University of New Brunswick received the best overall assessments. The University of Ottawa, Cartleton University, and the University of Calgary fared the worst.

Authors of the report contend that several schools have “turned a blind eye” to protestors physically or verbally disrupting speakers on campus. They argue that these universities have failed to uphold the rule of law, referring to Section 430 of the Criminal Code that prohibits individuals from obstructing or interfering with any person in lawful use of property.

The report is also accuses certain universities and student unions of censoring and discriminating against certain student clubs for promoting certain religious or ideological beliefs, citing Carleton and the University of Calgary as examples, for their handling of pro-life student groups on campus.

Jennifer Campeau balances motherhood, school and politics

Saskatoon Fairview MLA Jennifer Campeau

Running for office isn’t easy. But how many politicians can say they won their seats while parenting and working on their PhDs?

Not many. But Jennifer Campeau, the newest member the Saskatchewan Legistlature can.

Campeau, 38, is pursuing her PhD in Native Studies at the University of Saskatchewan.

The Yellow Quill First Nation members’ election in Saskatoon Fairview on on Nov. 7 marked only the second time a First Nations woman was elected to the Legislative Assembly in Saskatchewan and the first time an Aboriginal Canadian woman snagged a seat for the Saskatchewan Party, which cleaned up with 49 out of 58 ridings this month.

Despite the rigours of campaigning, Campeau chose not to take any time off from her studies.

“You’ve really got to be out there knocking on doors at least 3 hours a night, if not more,” she says. Still, Campeau doesn’t take the opportunity of post-secondary education for granted. A single mother, it took her a long time to earn her first degree. It was simply too difficult to study full-time while working to support her young daughter. ”It was just the two of us so I didn’t have the support that I could have had to do well in school; I had to work to support us both,” she says.

“[But] when I was 30 and she was old enough to be in school all day, I’d had enough of telling her that education was important when I didn’t have a degree myself,” she says. Sometimes she would bring her daughter to class, explaining “it instilled in her the value of post-secondary education.”

Campeau now has a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Saskatchewan.

She’s pursing her doctoral degree in Native Studies to learn more about aboriginal policy. She says the economic challenges facing Yellow Quill First Nation are part of the reason she chose her field of study.

As an MLA, Campeau hopes to provide a voice for both Aboriginal Canadians and newcomers alike. “The Saskatchewan economy and population is growing, so we have a lot of people new to Saskatchewan in Saskatoon Fairview,” she says. “I want to bring their concerns to the table.”

You’re forigiven if it all sounds tiring. ”In the last eight years, I haven’t really had a life of leisure, I’ve always been working and going to school,” jokes Campeau, “so I kind of got used to a fast pace.”

Incumbent party announces two new programs

Photo by waferboard on Flickr

The Saskatchewan Party’s leader, Premier Brad Wall, announced on Tuesday two new initiatives for improving access to post-secondary education in the province. It happened on the first day of the campaign before the Nov. 7 poll.

The Saskatchewan Advantage Scholarship would provide up to $2,000 for high school graduates in the province to go towards tuition fees at Saskatchewan post-secondary institutions. Under the new program, which would be launched next year, students would be able to reduce their tuition costs by up to $500 per academic year.

The second program, the Saskatchewan Advantage Grant for Education Savings, would build on the federal Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) to help families save for their children’s educations. The provincial government would match 10 per cent of contributions to an RESP account, to a maximum of $250 per year.

The two programs would cost close to $15 million in the next year, according to the release.

So far, Wall’s main challenger, NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter, hasn’t announced any major education-related policy ideas, except that he would spend $24-million to help small centres recruit and keep doctors. That plan would “include things on tuition…” he told the StarPhoenix.

More people are pushing youth to vote. Will they listen?

Photo courtesy of a.drian on Flickr

Much like during the run up to federal election that happened in May, campaigns to encourage youth to vote in the five provincial elections happening this fall are popping up everywhere students look.

The question is—will they work?

Elections Canada has not yet released details on voter turnout by age from the 2011 federal election, but overall voter turnout was up just two per cent in 2011 over 2008 (from 59.1 per cent to 61.4 per cent). In other words, it looks like the rock-the-student-vote campaigns failed to get the big results they aimed for. The 2008 turnout for youth aged 18 to 24, by the way, was 37 per cent.

The failure to boost turnout much in May hasn’t stopped political scientists from creating campaigns like U2011: Understanding the Manitoba Election project. U2011 has tried to spur interest with several events that connect the public with experts on issues including women in politics and politics in Northern Manitoba. The team also created VoteAnyWay, a social media campaign aimed at 18- to 24-year-olds, which enlisted several Manitoban celebrities for video pleas asking youth to vote.

But will cringe-inducing PSAs like this riviting “poem” by Gail Asper really motivate youth? ”Even if you got small pox / you can still go check that box / If politics gets you dejected / maybe you should get elected,” Asper enthusiastically rapped on the steps of the Manitoba legislature. She deserves credit for having courted 2,500 views on YouTube. But other celebrities’ videos, like Fred Penner and Rosanna Dearchild’s joint plea, haven’t exactly gone viral with only a couple hundred views.

Bartley Kives, a reporter with the Winnipeg Free Press, offers a more convincing argument as part of the paper’s Democracy Project: ”People all over the world do not have the opportunity to vote because they live under dystopic, tyrannical regimes. They are dying attempting to vote. Therefore, if you do not exercise your right to vote, you’re kind of spitting in their faces and telling them they’re dying for no reason,” says Kives in his video. He admits he was inspired by Rick Mercer, whose video during the federal election got 58,000 views. But few youth could have heard Kives’ video. So far a grand total of zero people have shared his video on Twitter, Google+ or Facebook.

Nationwide, the Vote With Me project similarly proves that making your message available for sharing on social media doesn’t mean people will necessarily bother to share it. The campaign asks voters to not only get themselves to polling stations, but to bring one friend—and to take the Vote With Me Pledge promising they’ll drag that person along. As of publication, only two Manitobans, one voter from P.E.I., one from Nfld. and 15 from Ontario had taken the pledge.

Student Vote tries to interest elementary, middle and secondary students across the country in the electoral process.  Too bad they haven’t reached voting age yet.

And no round of campaigns could be complete without a flurry of student advocacy groups making videos. The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance created this vote rap video, which may rival Gail Asper’s for artistic merit, though it has an even smaller viewership so far.

So, why aren’t students paying attention?

Jennifer Black, a University of Manitoba arts student, thinks voting is important and that’s why she took part in a Vote Mob at the University of Winnipeg in the spring. But even she doubts the effectiveness of such campaigns. The vote mob got a lot of attention from the media, but she felt it was preaching to the converted. “We all got together and made each other feel good that we’re voting,” she said. But shouting “just go vote” doesn’t really motivate anyone, she says.

When student unions do create more specific campaigns, it’s almost always about tuition fees, says Black. “Everyone has to pay tuition fees, generations before us had to pay tuition fees,” she explains. “It’s a little patronizing—it’s as if we don’t have the capacity to grasp larger issues.”

She’s not the only one who feels that way. A survey by the Historica Dominion Institute ahead of the federal election found that education is surprisingly low on the list of students’ political priorities.

Ethan Cabel, a fourth-year political science student at the University of Winnipeg, is similarly cynical about get-out-the-vote efforts. He also believes that student-led campaigns fail to enumerate the many issues students should care about. Besides, he says, if students don’t know the issues, do we really want them to vote? So far, the get-out-the-vote campaigners haven’t convinced Cabel.

But, as we’ve seen this fall, that doesn’t mean they won’t keep trying.

From cheese to zombies, there’s something for everyone

Photo courtesy of Abode of Chaos on Flickr

Regardless of your school, you can typically choose from dozens of clubs to find one that suits your interests, whether it be sports, the arts, politics…. or cheese. After scouring the club listings of dozens of universities across the country, I give you my list of The Top 10 Weirdest Campus Clubs in Canada

10. 420 Green Club, Mount Royal University
The club raises awareness of Marijuana “so that our members can become more responsible users and get a better understanding of the real pro’s and con’s [sic] of using Cannabis, myths aside.”

Continue reading Top 10 Weirdest Campus Clubs in Canada

Foreign students were staring down 10 per cent fee hike

Photo courtesy of Anirudh Koul of Dalhousie

International students at Dalhousie University have been spared a 10 per cent hike to their already-expensive tuition fees.

Could governments finally be defending the students who bring so much money into Canada?

Dalhousie had proposed a seven per cent hike in differential fees, on top of the regular three per cent increase for all students, which would have meant a 10 per cent hike for internationals.

That was rejected by the Nova Scotia government in favour of an increase of 3.5 per cent in differentials, or 6.5 per cent in total. Currently, international students pay $3,630 more per term (or $7,260 more per school year) than Canadian students.

Dalhousie officials said they had requested the larger increase to support improved services for international students, including more advisors and workshops. Carolyn Waters, vice president academic, told the Chronicle Herald that more services are necessary because the number of international students at Dalhousie has grown by 85 per cent since 2008.

They now make up 10 per cent of the total student population.

But several international students had complained about the proposed increase, arguing that it was unfair and unafforable. Some wrote letters to the provincial government, saying that a fee increase would drive international students away from the university.

“[International students] might have to go back to their own country or shift to another university,” Meela Auaduer, a second year student from Malaysia, who penned one of the letters, told the CBC.

The debate over international student’s fees has been heating up across Canada in the past few years. International students pay up to three times what domestic students pay to attend. For example, a full time domestic student at the University of Manitoba studying Law would pay $8,705 in tuition per year while an international student would pay $19,863 for the same course.

The differential fees are meant to reflect the fact that governments provide much of the funding for domestic students. (Click to see how much of your tuition bill is covered by the government.)

But the students are all very good for Canada’s economy. A report from Foreign Affairs and International Trade showed that there were 178,000 international students studying in Canada, who produced $6.5-billion for the economy in 2008. $291 million went directly into government coffers. In total, international students created economic activity that sustained 83,000 Canadian jobs.

Other student groups will be pleased with Nova Scotia’s decision. ”The term that’s being used here a lot on campus [for international students] is ‘cash cows,’” Aisyah Abdakahar, a former vice-president for the University of Manitoba Students Union, told the Winnipeg Free Press.

After human rights complaint, profs don’t want to supervise him

Photo courtesy of Aaron Yeo

A graduate student at the University of Alberta is going to desperate measures in a bid to find a new graduate supervisor.

Salah Rahmani, who was asked to leave the Department of Cell Biology — which he filed a human rights complaint against earlier this year — is on a hunger strike because he says no one in his new department, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, is willing to supervise him.

“[Professors] are not co-operating. Some of them told me, ‘we don’t have space,’ or ‘we don’t have funding’,” he told The Gateway newspaper from the tent outside the university’s student union building where he has supposedly been living food-free since June 27. He alleges that fellow students got responses from professors about potentially supervising them, while he heard nothing back from those same professors.

On a blog set up to defend Rahmani, it is written that in a meeting with administrators on May 11, 2010: “Psychologist, Dr. Lorraine Breault who was their [sic] friend told that the chair can make any decision. Salah’s understanding was that this was absolutely wrong.” That meeting was set up after he accused a professor of likening him to a dog and saying he was too old to be a student. (Those are similar allegations to those he eventually made in January, 2011 human rights complaint.)

Rene Poliquin, vice-dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, said the faculty is concerned for Rahmani’s health and they are working to find a solution to his issue.

More than 20 supporters have left comments on the Help Salah Rahmani blog.

How to navigate the professor name game

Photo courtesy of Sleeping Sun on Flickr

Though there are probably a dozen more important things to worry about in the stress-filled world that is university life,  how to address your instructor can still be a source of anxiety. As trivial as it may be, it can sometimes be difficult to walk the line between being polite and pretentious, respectful and presumptuous.

For those looking to make a good impression on their instructors, Inside Higher Education’s Nate Kreuter had a few tips for traversing the professor name game:

• When erring on the side of caution, like with a faculty member you’re meeting for the first time, it’s always best to address him or her as “professor.” Though some prefer “doctor”, or that you simply call them by their first name, ” ‘professor’ is a safe, happy medium that you can generally rely upon, until or unless individuals indicate that they would prefer to be addressed in a different way,” says Kreuter.

• This rule also applies when writing to a professor you’re not acquainted with. Once they reply, you may be able to gauge their preferred title from their signature.

• Never address a faculty member as ‘assistant professor’ or ‘associate professor’, as it could be seen as denoting someone’s status in an inappropriate way, as well as sounding extremely awkward.

• Be careful with hyphenated last names. “Professor Smith-Baker probably prefers to be addressed as “Professor Smith-Baker,” and not “Professor Baker.” The hyphen is in there for a reason, so take note of it,” Kreuter writes.

• If you’re not sure how to pronounce a difficult last name, politely ask them, rather than try to guess. You never know if someone could be sensitive about having their name mispronounced.

If you’re considering grad school, you should know about these sites

With social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter becoming increasing important for job hunting, social networks have slowly matured from being primarily a medium for posting embarrassing party photos to a legitimate professional development resource.

Still, I was surprised to learn that the social media model had spawned so many websites available to help connect academic researchers from universities around the world.

Sites such as ResearchGate and Scispace connect researchers by making use of social network features such as profiles, comment walls and blogs, but with a focus on sharing files and research tips rather than vacation updates. ResearchGATE also allows users to browse conferences and other events related to their field, as well as job listings and over 35 million documents.

Continue reading Socials networks get academic