All Posts Tagged With: "college"

Students sound off over threat to school year

Fearing a repeat of 2006 when Ontario college faculty went on strike for nearly a month, or, worse, a repeat of the 2008/09 York strike where faculty walked for three months, Ontario college students have started an online petition opposing a work stoppage. The petition so far has nearly 2000 signatures.

Negotiations between college management and the the faculty union broke down earlier this week, and a strike vote is scheduled for January 13th. Some 500,000 students could have their school year interrupted.

Related: Another year, another strike

A Facebook group titled “Ontario College Students Against a Strike” has more than 12,000 members and counting. The group was created by Graeme McNaughton, who was quoted in the Toronto Star today drawing comparisons with the York walkout. “We don’t want a strike to happen. My sister went to York last year and lost out on a summer job because that strike,” he said.

Much of the group’s message board is filled with students concerned over losing their term, not getting their money’s worth in a shortened term, or missing out on summer jobs due to an extended school year. Much of the anger is directed towards the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. One student wrote: “I understand that they feel overworked and underpaid . . . How does ruining all of our semesters going to help that?”

The College Students Alliance is calling on both sides to work to come to an agreement. “Students are concerned with the fact that, yet again, there is a threat of a province-wide faculty strike looming over their education,” says CSA president Justin Fox.  “Students do not want a repeat of the 21 day strike of 2006, which nearly cost many their semester and graduation.”

The CSA also points out that many college students are in government retraining programs, meaning a strike could have far reaching economic consequences during a fragile recovery.

Editor’s note: This post has been updated to correct for the number of college students. It was previously stated that there were 200,000 college students in Ontario. The correct number is 500,000  comprising of 350,000 full time students and 150,000 part time students.

If you’re looking for work experience, consider going somewhere new

As a part of the Journalism program at College X, students go on four-week internships during their first year (for the second half of March and the first two weeks in April). Second-year students have always done a six-week internship in January and into February.

This year, they’ve changed the rules a little bit. Six weeks has been shortened to four weeks. And frankly, I’m delighted.

I guess Instructor A and B were getting some freaked-out students. (“I have no family out of the area. I need to stay here in City X.”) Well, there’s 11 of us and only one newspaper in the whole town and three radio stations.

As for me, I dished out $1,000 so I could stay at a nice bed & breakfast down the street from the news office, in Town X where I’d previously attended high school and had a couple friends. Generally, I got great stories: people stories, which is the best kind (to me) that a small town newspaper can offer. Although my experience at that news office was a good one, I always felt very out-of-place. There was only one other full-time reporter there who was a woman and she worked evenings so I didn’t see her much.

Otherwise, I was in an office of men. The editor? Male. Both the copy editors? Male. The other two full-time reporters? Male. The sports reporter? Male. Male, male, male. Which makes it look so strange to me that I only have three males in my journalism class.

I had assumed I’d be going back to the same news office this year. I knew the place. I knew some of the people, although several of my friends had since gone to university. But I decided to take a chance and look into accommodations in another town. I do know a few people there and yes, my aunt works in that town… but mostly, I know very little about this town (which I will refer to as UniTown X). But Instructor A once told me, “There’s no better way to learn about a town than being a reporter in it.” So, I’ll keep that in mind while working there.

UniTown X is a university town — and not much else. The newspaper is a weekly instead of a daily, which will likely be a bit different. There is an editor and one other reporter- and she’s a she! And guess what: I’ve found a tiny place to rent for the month of January- only $325 per month! It’s not the Ritz, by any means, but as long as I have Internet access, I don’t even need much else. (Although food is a necessity.)

This post, albeit lengthy, does have a point, I promise. If you’re in college and looking for a place to do your internship, consider going to a town you don’t know much about. If everyone just stuck to their hometown, nobody would go anywhere! Nobody would live anywhere else! Life is too short for that.

- photo by rabbleradio

You can hold a job while in school, just don’t expect much else in terms of support

We have an international readership here, and I received some mail the other day from a student hoping to study in Canada.

I am an international student considering education in a college in Toronto. I am also depending on part time jobs to take care of my living expenses. Now that the announcement has been made that recession is over in Canada, is the situation still the same or got better now and how do you expect it to be in the near future. Thanks in advance.

First, let’s talk about working on a student visa. It’s not nearly as difficult as it once was. The extended details can be found at this government website. The short version is that you can always work on campus with no restrictions. For off campus employment, you need to apply for an additional work permit that will allow you to work 20 hours per week during the school year and full-time during breaks and in the summer. I gather that’s a pretty straight-forward application and shouldn’t be a problem. Though as the site says, merely having the permit doesn’t guarantee anyone a job.

Now, I can’t swear that’s going to be enough to support your studies. In fact, once you combine living expenses and tuition the odds that you can earn enough to entirely cover your studies are probably quite slim. I’m not sure if that’s going to be a problem for the student who wrote me in this case, but it’s something that international students need to know. And it leads me around to an interesting point.

Quite a lot of international students are interested in studying here. I suppose that’s a good thing, and reflects well on Canada. But some of the questions they ask about funding, scholarships, and covering their costs suggests that not all international students understand how they are regarded by Canadian institutions and governments. Rightly or wrongly, no one really believes that Canada has an obligation to fund or support the studies of every student who wishes to come here. Those who can pay the full cost of their tuition (without the usual subsidies for domestic students) and also cover their living expenses are welcome to do so – but the idea that society owes people the chance to pursue post-secondary education just doesn’t apply to international students. The very few merit-based scholarships that are available are purely selfish in nature. The hope is that Canada will retain the best and the brightest.

When one institution grants degrees and another regulates accreditation, things are going to get messy

Unemployed students are in the news again. This they’re from the International Business Management Program at George Brown College, and they claim the program isn’t properly recognized and hasn’t qualified them for jobs. Hence the lawsuit. Here’s the Star’s article on the story:

Two former students, who took the International Business Management program at Toronto’s George Brown College, claim it didn’t confer three important industry designations it had promised.

Now, this claim isn’t quite accurate. It either reflects a gross over-simplification of the situation by the students at hand or by the Star itself. Most likely the Star simply repeated their claims verbatim rather than try to untangle the details. I think we can do better.

So here’s the program at George Brown. They claim that the program “can also prepare students to pursue three industry designations / certifications in addition to the George Brown College Graduate Certificate if they choose to do so.” Now there’s some waffle words for you. “Preparation” can mean a lot of things, and the implication that students “choose” (or not) to pursue these additional certificates should send up some red flags. Obviously there aren’t any promises made here.

Now with regards to the requirements of these three designations, here’s what a bit of research has uncovered:

• The certified customs specialist designation, from the CSCB, has three potential prerequisites. One is certification in the U.S., another is one year working in the industry, and the third is the completion of an approved college program – which does not include George Brown. So in that sense it would be accurate to say that other programs may be superior, though there are only two that are approved and both are in the GTA, so it would also seem unlikely to suggest that an approved program is absolutely required.
• Then there’s the certified international trade professional from FITT. From a look at their accreditation chart, it appears that study at George Brown is as recognized as any other college.
• Finally, the certificate in international freight forwarding, from CIFFA, apparently requires all of a high school diploma to begin accreditation. At that point you’re into their internal designation system, and you move up from there.

So what does this tell us, aside from the fact that the Star has less time to browse the Internet than I do? The preparation required for professional designations varies considerably, from place to place. It’s just about inevitable that it will. These professional bodies aren’t standardized in any meaningful way. These are voluntary bodies that stamp their seals of approval on students’ qualifications in much the same way that Fair Trade stamps their seal on chocolate bars. The various certifications may have some value and recognition, but expecting a standardized regime is a bit much.

It’s no wonder that students are frustrated, when they’re left to wade through this muck. Now I’ll gladly assign a large share of blame to the students as well. These are university graduates, enrolled in postgraduate college programs, who claim they were unable to learn in all that time what would be required to enter their chosen careers. And here I’ve gone and researched three different organizations in an hour. It wasn’t hard. But they are right to point fingers at the glaring disconnect between the program of study they take in college and the requirements of the relevant professional association(s) who regulate the credentials they may or may not need to actually work in their fields.

What all of this adds up to is simply a widespread institutional problem that isn’t going away any time soon. This isn’t really George Brown’s fault. They can’t control the requirements of the relevant professional bodies. And we haven’t even discussed the actual standing of these bodies and qualifications. Please don’t get the sense that all of these designations and certifications carry the same importance as being a registered nurse. They don’t. These designations may be sought by employers. They may even become de facto requirements for employment. But that’s only a function of whatever credibility and standing the relevant association can attract. Just like Fair Trade, it’s only meaningful to the extent that people care. And that, again, is a variable beyond the control of colleges.

What a mess eh? The only reasonable conclusion, as always, is buyer beware. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have this confusion of college diplomas and professional certifications and employment requirements that don’t mesh perfectly. But we don’t live in a perfect world and there are limits beyond which the government simply can’t police the situation and colleges can’t make firm guarantees. So students must do some research on their own and be sure of what they’re getting for their time and tuition. It’s natural to want to blame someone, when things go wrong, but going into the situation students are still in the best position to protect themselves.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.

One in five U.S. adults take a course out of personal, not professional, interest each year

It was starting to get embarrassing: I’d been living in New York City for 20 years and had never been to the symphony.

I considered myself a well-educated person, read books and magazines, spent hours at art museums. But for some reason, live classical music intimidated me. Maybe it was the tuxedoes and evening gowns worn by the members of the New York Philharmonic, or those mysterious pauses between movements when everyone seemed to know not to applaud.

So last fall I audited a music appreciation course at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York – the first time I had been back to college since I graduated in 1976. I wanted to learn just enough about western classical music to enjoy an evening at the opera or a chamber music performance. I also wanted to finish what I’d started in my first semester of college when I signed up for – then dropped out of – an introductory music class.

About one in five American adults, or about 40 million people, take a course out of personal, not professional, interest each year, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Classes in subjects ranging from computers to cooking are taught at colleges, community centres, libraries and other venues.

Whether the recession will diminish this flow of so-called “lifelong learners” to the classroom remains to be seen. But Sean Gallagher, a program director and senior analyst at Eduventures, a higher education research and consulting firm, expects demand to continue.

“You get a lot of value in taking a course,” he said. “If you take a course for $200 and it meets weekly for eight weeks, that’s a lot of value compared to some other activities.”

Some take classes just for fun, others to nurture undeveloped talents.

Kumar Shah, 60, has taken two writing classes at the 92nd Street Y in New York City since semi-retiring from a career in corporate finance, where his business reports earned him a reputation for a “pretty decent way with words.”

“It suggested I might have a talent and interest in the other direction,” he said, “and maybe a course like this could be fun. It gives me a chance to talk to and be with people who enjoy this activity. Many of my other friends don’t have the same level of interest in reading and writing.”

The 92nd Street Y offers more than 4,000 classes, some taught by leading scholars and writers such as Margaret Atwood.

Education, business students became more religious during university, study finds

A new study released by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research is shedding some light on the relationship between the religiosity of students and how it interacts with their higher education.

Religious high school students, meaning those who attend religious services or view religion as being important in their lives, were overall more likely to attend university. That group of students may be under pressure from fellow churchgoers to pursue higher education, something the four University of Michigan researchers who conducted the study called “nagging theory.”

Additionally, studying humanities or social sciences had a negative effect on the religious beliefs of students, while education and business students showed an increase in religiosity during their university years.

For students majoring in biological or physical sciences, their religious attendance was not affected by their program of study. However, studying physical sciences did have a negative impact on how those students viewed religion’s importance in their lives.

For study abstract, or to order a copy, click here.

My new roommate and some fun roommate-related links.

The image on the left is from this person. And it’s exactly what all dorm rooms look like. (Ha.)

Anyway. I got my roommate assignment recently and we’ve been corresponding. And I think… I think I love her.

Well, no. But she sounds like a pretty chill chick. My last roommate and I didn’t get along great at first but now we’re pretty tight. She decided to be all “Oooers. I’m too cool to live in the dorm.” and got herself an apartment. So, now, I’ve got Lauren.

Lauren is a former ballet dancer. She trained for ten years and even danced for six months in Germany. After several injuries, she decided to give it up and go to culinary school. (So, she’s going to bake me stuff. Ha.)

She likes Death Cab For Cutie and Bright Eyes. Thus, I think we’ll be very good pals. I plan to assimilate her into my little group of friends. Shouldn’t be too hard, she seems really funny and friendly.

And now for some fun roommate-related links.

• The 7 Kinds of Roommates
• Your Roommate, Translated
• The One-Step Roommate Test
• Annoying Your Roommate
• Roommate Confessions
• Roommate & Dorm Pranks

And now, for some helpful links. (Boring, I know. But it must be done.)

• How To Be a Good Roommate
• How To Survive a Messy Roommate
• How to Survive a Super Clean Roommate
• How to Live with a College Roommate Who Is Your Total Opposite
• How to Get Along with Your Roommate
• How to Deal With Your Roommate’s Mood Swings
• How to Tell Your Roommates to Clean up After Themselves
• How to Ignore Someone You Live With

Addressing the question of personal stands on potentially divisive off campus issues, for union execs

A piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the limits of an elected student’s mandate seems to have generated some buzz. A political blog from Queens picked up the topic in connection with local issues. Justin McElroy ran a riff off the topic on this site. And I’ve heard from a few student politicians (or former ones) on the subject.

Now I’ve just received this question. Note that I’ve made all the details more general, to avoid putting anyone on the spot.

My fellow union executives and I recently decided to participate together in an event, off-campus, that has some political overtones. Some of us, although they supported it, were highlighting whether or not this was the union taking a stance on something that they felt is seen as political and if that is appropriate. The event is important to at least one identity group on campus, and we see our participation as a way to support diversity. But it’s possible that some students might disagree.

In our union we have a very strict policy that we don’t pass motions dealing with political things (ie. The war in Afghanistan) and while I feel this is a different case I’d like your opinion on it.

Well first off, thanks for the interesting question! In order to answer it, I’ve got to introduce another idea that is foundational to my understanding of student politics. I believe that just because someone becomes elected to a position in some organization – even if that may be the presidency of the organization – that person’s identity does not become entirely subsumed to the organization itself. In other words, there is still the individual. There is the somewhat prominent student, who may still do things on his or her own behalf, and there is the person who holds office in the organization and may do things on the organization’s behalf. Keeping those two roles distinct from one another is very important.

Union executives are fairly prominent figures – at least among students. I’ll compare them to city counselors only in miniature. Not everything a city counselor says or does is endorsed by the city or needs to reflect on the city’s official position on issues. Now, if the counselor says or does something particularly stupid, embarrassing, or toxic that’s a different story. The fact that the counselor is embarrassing him or herself does affect the city – but only by reflection. If a counselor speaks on behalf of some cause or shows up at some event that doesn’t mean the city supports that cause or event. Not even if the mayor does it. The city has its official policy but city officials still have their individual identities. And so too do student figures on campus.

So, to answer the question. I think if your union were to pass a formal motion supporting this event or the cause it is associated with that would be outside of what I feel is an appropriate union mandate. That just goes back to the original article. Similarly, if you were going to spend student money on the cause that would amount to the same thing. But merely showing up doesn’t need to imply that your union is taking a formal stand. You can still show up as prominent students who want to show your support for the cause. And there is nothing at all wrong with that.

I’ll grant you, once the entire union executive shows up that does send a clear message. But the message is only that you happen to agree on this issue. Unless you show up on behalf of all the students you represent, or presume to speak on their behalf, you aren’t binding them to your individual views on the subject. And I firmly believe elected students remain entitled to their individual views. As particularly prominent students on campus others may be interested to know how you feel about things. Feel free to share your opinions (and potentially deal with the criticisms that may follow) but the opinions can remain your own and need not reflect on the union unless you intentionally cross that line.

All of this implies one necessary limitation. If you aren’t showing up as representatives of the union you have no right to require anyone to show up. So while your mail seems to suggest that everyone is on board, if there were one or more execs who would prefer not to participate I would say that’s their right. As soon as you say that someone has to show up as a function of their role in the union then your union is clearly taking a stand. If you communicate clearly that showing up is a personal decision for each participant that would go a long way toward avoiding the perception that you are taking an official union stand on the issue.

I’m really glad this topic has received so much attention, and I’m particularly glad to hear from union execs who agree that unions are strongest and most effective when they stick to core student issues. It’s so easy to push the rhetoric in the other direction, and succumb to accusations that if you don’t use your control over the students’ union to promote a particular cause or agenda then you obviously must not care. Of course students care – about any number of things. But it’s possible to support a cause wholeheartedly and still debate the best way to promote that cause. Grappling honestly with these issues is part of what student leadership is all about.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.

Andre Marin releases report showing Ministry “incompetence”

Andre Marin, Ombudsman of Ontario, released a report on the Ontario government’s handling of private career colleges and he held back nothing calling the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities “incompetent.”

Marin uploaded video of his news conference at Queen’s Park today which provides a good summary of the report.

A couple of things jump out at me that raise serious questions related to the Ministry, my thoughts after the video.

1) The complete lack of empathy and ability to think outside of the box to assist the victims of the Ministry’s “incompetence.” The Ministry hires intelligent people, so why do they lose this intelligence when they walk into the MTCU?

2) The complete unwillingness to protect students and fulfill the oversight role of the Ministry. This is not a problem limited to private colleges. We see this Ministry and Minister turning a blind eye to illegal fees at public colleges and universities. I often ask why the Minister’s title includes universities when he doesn’t seem to do anything beyond ribbon cuttings related to them.

3) The Ministry hired the owner of the illegal college after it went belly up. The Ministry was more than willing to assist her, but has done nothing for the students.

4) The most disturbing, for me at least, part of this fiasco is the initial criticism of the Ombudsman by Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities John Milloy. The fact that he criticized the Ombudsman prior to reading the report from Marin is a serious mistake of judgment. Milloy is one of the most intelligent and educated Ministers in the Ontario government. The time is long overdue for him to start showing better judgment and acting as Minister instead of a glorified ribbon-cutter.

The Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities is lurching from slamming report to slamming report. Last year, it was the Auditor General. This year, it is the Ombudsman and Marin is not done investigating the domain of the Ministry.

When it comes to career and life, the sexes make similar choices — but at different times

Question: What’s the real difference between men and women?

Answer: It’s all in the timing.

Based on the results of Statistics Canada survey released today, although men and women follow similar pathways from school to adult life, the main difference is in the timing of when they make certain transitions.

Studying more than 22,000 young people over eight years, researchers found that the most common sequence of events after formal education was pretty much what you might think: leave school, find a full-time job, leave the parental home, form a relationship, have children.

However, they also found some interesting facts: men were leaving school and working full-time earlier than women, while women moved out of their parents’ homes, formed relationships and had children earlier than men. Over those eight years, from 2000 to 2008, more men worked full-time and still lived with their parents. (Does this remind you of anyone? If so, that’s why.)

Respondents, who were 18 to 20 years old in 2000 and from all 10 Canadian provinces, also provided information about higher ed. When the survey started, about 55 per cent of both men and women had participated in some form of college, university or private post-secondary education. In 2008, by time they were 26 to 28 years old, this proportion had increased to 81 per cent.

Colleges edged out universities in terms of attendance, with 43 per cent of student attending college, and 42 per cent attending university. Overall, though, more women were going to university (8 per cent) and college (7 per cent) than men by the time the survey ended in 2008.

But women didn’t top all the lists. Over the full eight years of the study, a smaller proportion of women than men were working, and a smaller proportion were working full-time. In 2008, 80 per cent of men had a job and were not in school compared with 72 per cent of women. And about 75 per cent of men were working full-time compared with 63 per cent of women.

When the survey started, in 2000, 8 per cent of both women and men didn’t have jobs, but eight years later those numbers were drastically split. Thirteen per cent of women didn’t have jobs, which is almost double the six per cent of men who also didn’t have jobs.

Most obviously, the report’s authors say the reason why women between 26 and 28 had a lower rate of participation in the labour market could be directly related to the fact that more women were in a relationship and had children earlier than men. In 2008, 57 per cent of women were (or had been) married or common-law compared with 42 per cent of men. Almost twice as many women (32 per cent) than men (18 per cent) had children at the same age.

- photo courtesy of daniel.julia