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Marjorie Johnson, top of her class
Celebrating Canada’s 3M Teaching Fellows
Photo by Andrew Tolson
Marjorie Johnson is just one of the ten 3M Teaching Fellows announced in the annual Maclean’s student issue, on sale this week. To see who the other nine winners are, click here.
Story by Gustavo Vieira.
A soothing guitar ballad is piped through the sound system, muffling the chatter of a few dozen second-year kinesiology students; they’re waiting for anatomy class to begin at an auditorium at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont. A slide show reviewing the body parts studied in previous classes plays on a loop: the medial pterygoid, trunks of brachial plexus, the maxillary artery, and so on. Two minutes later, the lights dim; a clip from Grey’s Anatomy appears, depicting a blood-gushing patient being treated by a frazzled young medical resident struggling to contain the bleeding. The students go silent. It’s time for Marjorie Johnson to start her lecture on the intricate anatomy of the human neck. Not before she pulls up a photo of Steve Nash, the Phoenix Suns superstar, his neck’s veins, muscles and nerves bulging beneath his skin as he protects the ball from an opponent at a basketball game. “He’s one of my heroes,” Johnson later confesses, “so they see Steve Nash a lot.”
Students aren’t getting the facts about marijuana
Research shows links to mental illness, lung capacity
Photo by Yeshe on Flickr
When sociologist and drug-policy expert Andy Hathaway surveyed one of his first-year classes at the University of Guelph last fall, 80 per cent of students reported experience with cannabis.
Hathaway cautions that it was only a small pilot study (around 100 responses), and it took place at Guelph, which is, let’s face it, “a bit granola.”
Still, that 80 per cent figure isn’t surprising.
When twelfth graders are asked if they’ve tried marijuana, roughly half say yes.
Provincial rates of lifetime usage now range from a low of 40 per cent of Albertan twelfth-graders to a high of 63 per cent of those in Nova Scotia, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. And that’s before university.
Smoking pot can’t be considered deviant anymore, says Hathaway. It’s simply the new normal.
A loosening of cultural attitudes, particularly in the media, helps explains the shift. “We had Cheech and Chong in the 1970s, but that was a very stereotypical portrayal,” says Hathaway. “Now we have shows like Weeds that show use of marijuana by very regular people—soccer moms and dads.”
But as attitudes toward marijuana soften, some campus health experts report that they’re more worried about students using the drug than ever. That’s because research increasingly shows links between marijuana and the number one health problem on Canadian campuses: mental illness.
Dr. Elizabeth Osuch, a psychiatrist who runs the First Episode Mood and Anxiety Program at a hospital in London, Ont., encounters mentally ill students who offer their own evidence of marijuana-related problems. “I hear the story frequently about how ‘I get paranoid when I smoke pot’, ‘I get anxious when I smoke pot’, or ‘I’ve been smoking pot a long time and now I’m depressed’,” she says.
That’s not surprising to Dr. Osuch. What’s surprising to her is how surprising that is to others.
“I’ve given talks across this community and when I talk about the effects of marijuana, it’s news to people,” she says, “unless I’m talking to a group of clinicians who interact with people in a medical or counselling setting. They know, because they’ve been seeing this for years.”
The best-established risk is that marijuana can trigger or exacerbate psychosis in a small number of people who are susceptible, based on their genes. To some, the link is not even debatable. “A number of prospective epidemiological studies put it beyond doubt that cannabis use increases the subsequent risk of schizophrenia,” wrote the authors of a 2007 review in Addictive Disorders.
Devastating as psychosis may be for those who experience it, diseases like schizophrenia only affect a small proportion of the population. But Dr. Osuch warns that marijuana may also be contributing to the most common health problems on Canadian campuses: depression and anxiety.
One study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence in 2007 followed a group of 14 to 17-year-olds over a decade, checking up on their mental health and drug use along the way. They found that depression, bipolar disorder and, to a lesser extent, anxiety disorders, all coincided with previous cannabis use—and more use predicted more illness.
But that’s only the beginning. “I would predict that there will be more and more information out there in the coming years looking at the problematic effects of what’s no longer a ‘soft drug’,” says Dr. Osuch, who notes that there’s more Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in in marijuana today than ever.
Dr. Osuch is currently the lead researcher on one such study exploring the links to depression. She explains the theory behind that possible link: “Marijuana is very active on the neurocirciutry of reward processing. Anything that you do because you like doing it activates reward processing in the brain,” she says. “And if you slam that neurological system daily with a chemical [like THC], it becomes very difficult for the person to feel reward from doing normal things,” she adds.
Dr. Osuch is quick to point out that not everyone who smokes pot will have a problem. “But a significant percentage of them will,” she says, adding, “as long as you know what those percentages are, or a sense of what the risks are, you can make an intelligent decision.”
Right now, the students she meets when giving talks at the Western University in or London, Ont. high schools haven’t gotten the message. They perceive pot-smoking as low risk.
Part of the confusion is the conflicting messages young people get when they type “marijuana health effects” into Google. “What they’re getting is all kind of sites that say marijuana is great,” says Dr. Osuch, “what they aren’t getting is the scientific research.”
There are, of course, some well-funded and easy-to-find meassages about the risks online—those from the federal government. But Hathaway, the drug policy researcher at Guelph, says the federal government’s anti-drug messages aren’t trusted by youth, because they exaggerate the risk.
In one of the federal ads, called Fast Forward, a blonde boy refuses a puff on a joint after he envisions a life of violence and trouble with the law. In another ad, called Mirror, a girl in her bedroom ends up cutting her arm with a piece of glass after taking some unidentified drugs.
Such scare tactics cause teens to tune out drug messaging entirely, says Hathaway. “If you’re sending inaccurate messages about marijuana when they have enough experience to know this is basically propaganda, they’re going to have doubts about any message of that kind,” he explains.
Although Hathaway doesn’t advocate abstinence like Dr. Osuch, he does believe there’s room for better education about marijuana. “Effective social policy would account for the small minority who may run into trouble with drugs and be candidates for some kind of intervention,” says Hathaway.
The government might do better to educate youth about the dangers of smoking tobacco along with marijuana, for example, says Hathaway. Tobacco is known to reduce lung capacity and increase the risk of cancer. Meanwhile, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January showed that smoking two to three joints actually increases lung capacity.
But because the JAMA article portrays marijuana as less harmful, it’s unlikely to would make it into the government’s messaging. Once again, the science is unlikely to reach young Canadians.
And if there’s one thing Dr. Osuch and Prof. Hathaway agree on, it’s that young people need better access to the facts. That way, they can determine the risks for themselves—whatever they may be.
You could be the next Maclean’s On Campus blogger
Seeking opinionated students who can write
Photo by Aaron Jacobs on Flickr
HURRY: THE DEADLINE IS NOW FEB. 2.
Maclean’s On Campus is Canada’s daily source for higher education news, opinion and advice.
To keep the conversation fresh, we rely a team of bloggers who are filing reports and columns from Cape Breton University to UBC in Vancouver.
We’re excited to announce that we’re ready to add a couple of new regular voices. The problem is, we’re not sure who they’ll be. So how about you?
Here’s the deal. Our bloggers are student journalists who tell us what’s changing on their campuses and in higher education nationwide.
They contribute one post minimum per week. It may be a straight-up news story one week, an opinion piece the next, an advice column the week after—anything that will interest our readers.
But who are those readers? They range from high school students who are considering attending post-secondary schools to university presidents, but most of them are current students themselves.
Stories with audio, video and photographs are encouraged, but not required. No experience is necessary, so long as you can prove that you’ve got good ideas and are capable of writing well.
So what’s in it for you? Unlike many blogs sites, we pay a fee for each post. Blogging may also count toward course requirements. But above all, it’s an opportunity to influence the conversation.
To apply, click on “Contact Us” at the top of the screen and send us a message. Tell us a bit about yourself, suggest a couple of news story that you think our readers would read and suggest some opinion pieces you’d like to write. Be sure to include contact information.
Good luck,
Josh Dehaas
Editor, Maclean’s On Campus
The 10 biggest stories in Canadian higher education
The (surprisingly) most-read stories of 2011
Photo by Kelly Finnamore on Flickr
Each year, we offer Maclean’s On Campus readers a look back at the Top 10 most-read higher education news stories of the year. There were two big themes in 2011. First, the many scandals over universities’ reputations, from Alberta to Queen’s to St. FX. Second, uncertainty about the job market for grads.
1. Time for this year’s edition of X-ring Idol
Our blogging English professor, Todd Pettigrew, dared to compare the obsession of St. Francis Xavier students with their beloved X-ring to Gollum’s unhealthy quest for the precious. We knew St. FX students would defend their tradition vociferously—and they did, with more than 250 comments over three days. Most were from alumni and students who thought Pettigrew missed the point. They argued that the ring symbolizes their hard work and the family-like bond they instantly glean whenever a fellow X-grad catches a glimpse of their band. Then again, dozens of readers agreed with Pettigrew—some even suggested the flood of emotional reactions reinforced his point.
Continue reading The 10 biggest stories in Canadian higher education
Why smart profs want students to use Wikipedia
It encourages research, citation, revision…
Photo by Kalexanderson on Flickr
Wikipedia is an outcast on most university campuses. At the beginning of the semester, most professors mention that it’s banished from essays and assignments. If you dare to include a Wikipedia article on your reference list, you’re practically asking for a zero on your bibliography. In extreme cases, your professor might set your essay on fire and scatter the ashes across the Pacific Ocean. That’s because most profs regard Wikipedia’s crowdsourced articles as unreliable.
Despite the website’s reputation, some professors at schools like the University of Alberta are using Wikipedia as a teaching resource. Never mind using Wikipedia as a reference: these profs are actually replacing traditional essays with assignments where students write Wikipedia entries.
Continue reading Why smart profs want students to use Wikipedia
Scientists narrow in on hunt for ‘God particle’
Canadian university researchers among international team
Photo of Large Hadron Collider courtesy of CERN
Two teams of nearly 3,000 scientists from around the world, including researchers from 10 Canadian universities, announced this week a new milestone in the hunt for the Higgs boson, a particle that explains the existence of mass.
Scientists at the CERN Physics Research Centre in Geneva, Switzerland presented evidence on Dec. 13 pointing to the existence of the Higgs boson, coined the “God particle” by the American Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman.
The teams worked independently for 21 months inside the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, to re-create the conditions at the time of the creation of the universe—the Big Bang. The experiments produced the same results: scientists determined that the Higgs boson has a mass between 128 and 525 gigaelectron volts, in the lower regions of the energy field.
The researchers are quick to point out that the news another step in the process, not a definitive discovery. Still, University of Toronto physicist Robert Orr tells the Toronto Star we owe a lot to the elusive Higgs boson: “The whole world we live in is based on the science of electromagnetism. Our whole society has evolved from that: iPads, cameras, lights, computers.”
Kwantlen students vote to oust troubled board
Meeting marked by pepper spray, fire alarms, chants of “racism”
Photo courtesy of Matt Law for The Runner
Kwantlen University students who were meeting on campus Wednesday to oust their student leaders were temporarily interrupted after someone released a spray into the air—likely pepper spray— forcing coughing and teary students to flee.
Then, someone pulled the fire alarm.
After being let back into the building by fire officials approximately one hour later, students were just about to vote when someone pulled the fire alarm again, forcing them back outside.
But students were patient. Instead of losing quorum—250 voters—the crowd grew so large that organizers were able to spare 30 students to guard each fire alarm against troublemakers. Then, students voted nearly unanimously to remove the current board of directors and prevent them from running again. The vote signals a turning point on a campus where the student association has been the target of unusual scrutiny for months. At the end of the day, Kwantlen Student Association directors were escorted by security into their offices to collect their belongings.
Continue reading Kwantlen students vote to oust troubled board
Saskatchewan MLA is a PhD student and a mom
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.”
Fake Queen’s University advertisement plays up sterotypes
Entertaining, if you don’t take it too seriously
Most universities get stereotyped—most unfairly.
Guelph is thought of as the cow college, even though agricultural students comprise only a tiny fraction of the student body.
The University of Victoria has a reputation for attracting laid-back hippies, even though it’s a research powerhouse that ranked second in the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings.
And Queen’s University? Well, its stereotypes are multiple… and legendary. Queen’s has a reputation for being an upper-crust, primarily-Caucasian institution where students drink to excess, have a lot of sex and think very highly of themselves.
Continue reading Fake Queen’s University advertisement plays up sterotypes
What’s on your mind?
How your still-developing brain puts you at risk
Illustration by Ian Phillips and Taylor Shute.
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings—on sale now.
Heading off to university is a time-worn rite of passage, one that marks the transition from teen years to adulthood. Despite the new relationships, responsibilities and independence that come with leaving home, however, in our late teens and early twenties, we’re still not fully mature. Our brains keep developing well into these years.
When puberty hits, brain regions responsible for reward and pleasure kick into high gear, according to Temple University psychology professor Laurence Steinberg, author of You and Your Adolescent. But other regions, involved in decision-making and impulse control, are slower to develop—and don’t mature until our mid-twenties. “The accelerator is activated before there’s a good braking system in place,” he says. Teens in mid-to-late adolescence are prone to risky decisions, seeking rewards without weighing the consequences. Starting a new life on campus, these brain changes affect students’ lives in all sorts of ways—maybe pushing them to stay out drinking all night, sign up for a semester abroad in Europe, sleep right through class, or ask their crush out on a date.
Queen’s suspends fine arts program
Budget is to blame
Artist photo by savrae on Flickr.
Queen’s University is suspending enrolment to its Bachelor of Fine Arts program, citing a lack of resources, rather than a lack of enrollments, reports the Globe and Mail. The 107 students currently in the program have been assured they’ll be able to finish their degrees, but there won’t be any new students taken in 2012-2013. This year, 30 students enrolled—the program’s capacity. Last year, the program attracted 50 per cent more students than capacity. But the program, with small classes and special classrooms, is expensive to run.
Due to similar budget pressures, the University of Windsor is suspending its popular but expensive-to-offer Music Therapy program as of 2012.
Fine Arts programs have had declining enrollments in recent years. Four per cent fewer students from Ontario secondary schools entered Fine Arts programs this September, despite enrollment that was up 1.7 overall, according to the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre. The Council of Ontario Universities also revealed yesterday that Fine Arts graduates from the class of 2008 had the lowest average salary in 2010, earning $34,653 on average, compared to $49,469 overall.
That’s the spirit
Canadian schools have crazy fans and community too
Nipissing University maniacs. By Cole Garside.
From the Maclean’s University Rankings—on newsstands now. Story by Alex Ballingall.
We’ve all seen it: the near-ubiquitous image of the spirited American college student chanting a school slogan, streaking across campus or slogging back a beer from a Dixie cup in a stadium parking lot. It’s the sort of paint-your-body zealotry often depicted in Hollywood movies.
Doesn’t seem very Canadian, does it?
Certainly not according to the 2010 edition of The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges, a yearly publication out of Yale University that documents the strengths and weaknesses of North American universities. “One aspect of college life that Canada fails to offer is school spirit,” the guide stipulates. “Their attachment to their schools is not as strong as in the United States.”
Success, one student at a time
How universities are embracing the Aboriginal baby boom
Students at Lakehead University. By Andrew Tolson.
From the Maclean’s University Rankings—on newsstands now. Story by Ken MacQueen.
It’s one of those small things that’s actually very big. The University of Manitoba has a policy on smudging: the Aboriginal tradition of burning sage, sweetgrass or cedar as a way of setting a positive tone and purifying the mind. Say a love affair goes sideways, or a professor is unimpressed with your political science presentation, or it’s autumn on the reserve and here you are in Winnipeg, lonely and blue; well, retreating to a quiet place to wash yourself in the smoke of a smudge is a way to turn the page, to gain strength and clarity. The policy on smudging and pipe ceremonies is the product of deep bureaucratic thought, legal consultation and many meetings, because, of course, there are no-smoking laws. So, it’s complicated.
The dirt on farming
Urban students are getting dirty on campus
Photo by Andrew Tolson
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings, on newsstands now. Story by Jason McBride
This past September, New Brunswick’s Mount Allison University held an event unprecedented in its 172-year-long history: a you-pick potato harvest. For the first five Saturdays of the new school year, students and Sackville residents were able to pick Russet and Superior potatoes from a boggy, 9.7-hectare farm in the heart of the campus. The rest of the spud harvest—a yield of 30,000 pounds—was transformed, to the delight of many ravenous undergrads, into fresh, hand-cut french fries and mashed potatoes in the kitchen at Jennings Hall.
Really bad advice
How guidance is failing our students
Photo by Andrew Tolson
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings issue—on newsstands now.
Until mid-July, 25-year-old James Douglas pretty much had his life planned out. A fourth-year political science student at a major Canadian university, he anticipated finishing his degree at the end of the summer semester, in August, and graduating with his B.A. this fall. Douglas was in touch with several prospective employers in Toronto, his hometown, as well as in Ottawa, and had allowed the lease on his apartment to lapse. Then he received the phone call that upended all of that.
The call came from the registrar’s office, and informed Douglas that his application for graduation had been turned down. At issue was a three-credit course taken early in his career that his academic adviser had sworn up and down could be put toward his degree as an elective. Not so, the registrar’s office now said. At his entreaties, university officials dug into “some dusty book with fine print on p. 709” and pronounced the course in question as unfit to count toward his poli-sci B.A.
Is this Remembrance Day pub crawl offensive?
It depends whom you ask
Photo by Exit Zero Photography on Flickr
A Facebook posting advertising a Remembrance Day Pub Crawl at the New Brunswick Community College in Saint John is “disrespectful” and “in bad taste,” Jack Watt of the NBCC Student Representative Council told the Telegraph-Journal.
The page features a photo of a poppy with “Lest We Forget” underneath. It reads “join us to remember the brave men and women that fought for our country. 11 bars in 11 hours…” It says that crawlers will start their day at 10:30 a.m., which means they will have drinks in hand during the 11 a.m. moment of silence.
The event has not been sanctioned by the school. Both students and teachers are upset, says Watt.
But Larry Lynch, the president of local Royal Canadian Legion Branch 69, told the newspaper that, although he wouldn’t take part in such an event, “people have a right to remember however they want to remember.” He added: “it’s a free country and that’s what our soldiers fought for.”
Remembrance Day marks the signing of the armistice that ended the First World War on Nov. 11, 1918 at 11 a.m.
High demand for alcohol-free and quiet floors
Vindication for residence management at Alberta
Photo by mathplourde on Flickr
There was high demand for alcohol-free and quiet floors at a University of Alberta residence that decided to offer them for the first time this year. That result seems to vindicate residence management, whose consultation process was criticized last year by the Lister Hall Student’s Association, reports The Gateway.
Among applicants to Lister Hall, 24 per cent requested an alcohol-free floor and 46 per cent requested a quiet floor. That’s similar to what Residence Services predicted using their consultation process, which included a survey that found 51 per cent of the 302 residents surveyed last year would opt for a quiet floor and 19 per cent would live on an alcohol-free floor. The process began after residence management noticed a great number of people were leaving Lister in the first semester and suspected it might be due to rowdy weekend nights. Then-LHSA-President Dustin Edwards suggested there were likely other reasons for the exodus.
Continue reading High demand for alcohol-free and quiet floors
Would you pay $240,000 for a bachelor’s degree?
Forbes lists The Top 10 Most Expensive Colleges
Columbia University by Beraldo Leal on Flickr
Forbes has compiled its annual list of the Top 10 Most Expensive Colleges in America. The winner (uh, winner?) is Sarah Lawrence College, a 1,300-person institution in Yonkers N.Y., which costs $58,334 per year. So what exactly are students getting for their $240,000 degrees? “In practically all cases, our classes are seminars with an average head count of 12 students,” Thomas Blum, vice president for administration, told Forbes. It’s also noted that their small size means a small endowment, making it difficult to keep classes so intimate without charging more.
Every school on the list topped $40,000 in tuition, but that’s a bit deceiving considering most schools give out large amounts of student aid to most students. For example, the second most-expensive school is the University of Chicago, which gives out an average of $27,460 per student to nearly two-thirds of the student body. An exception is the New School for Design, which offers little aid, but still manages to attract students willing to pay $57,199 to study where Donna Karan did.
Curiously, Columbia University in New York, at No. 5, is the only Ivy League school on the list.
Ont., Man. and P.E.I. voters keep student-friendly governments
But turnout still dismal
Premier Dalton McGuinty by • JenniferK • on Flickr
Voters in Ontario, Manitoba and P.E.I. have re-affirmed their provincial governments—and all three of those governments ran on more student-friendly platforms than their main competitors.
Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario Liberals won a third term Thursday, but were one seat shy of a majority government. McGuinty got 53 seats, the Progressive Conservatives under Tim Hudak got 37 and the New Democrats under Andrea Horwath got 17. The leaders achieved, respectively, 38, 35 and 23 per cent of the vote.
McGuinty’s Liberals poured funding into universities over the past two terms, although they promised no extra base funding this time around. That’s unsurprising considering Ontario’s $15-billion deficit. What they did promise for students is the introduction of a new grant in January that will reduce tuition for full-time college and undergraduate students by approximately 30 per cent, so long as their families’ household incomes are less than $160,000. The Progressive Conservatives promised no such grants. The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance was quick to congratulate McGuinty on his win.
Continue reading Ont., Man. and P.E.I. voters keep student-friendly governments
Stalemate in Simon Fraser Student Society lockout
Latest offer would maintain $30 hourly wages
Photo bt stephenrwalli on Flickr
Fifteen unionized employees remain locked out by the Simon Fraser Student Society nearly three months after the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3338 rejected a contract that included $10 per hour wage cuts in July.
The student union’s latest offer on Sept. 1 included no wage cuts for current employees and a reduction in full-time staff by attrition only. Instead of cutting wages and employees, the offer would have allowed for a gradual reduction in the number of full-time positions and the SFSS would have been able to hire students at starting wages of $13 per hour instead for future positions.
The union says that would create a two-tired system. Richard Overgaard, a CUPE national communications representative, told The Ubyssey student newspaper at UBC that the union won’t counter the offer until the SFSS ends the lockout.
Services that are unavailable due to the lockout include the copy centre, the Women’s Centre and the LGBTQ support centre.
The SFSS maintains that a $30.48 average hourly wage for 15 full-time staff is unsustainable in light of its $800,000 deficit. The average hourly wage for all Canadians aged 25 to 54 in August was $24.71, according to Statistics Canada. CUPE says that its members are not overpaid.
