All Posts Tagged With: "Nipissing University"
Nipissing’s new president on access and #IdleNoMore
An interview with Michael DeGagne
Protesters outside PM Harper's residence on Dec. 23, 2012 (Fred Chartrand/CP)
Michael DeGagne, an Aboriginal Canadian, will become president of Nipissing University in January. The school is located in North Bay, the self-proclaimed Gateway to Northern Ontario, a region of vast mineral wealth that is also home to deep Aboriginal poverty. That poverty is concentrated in places like Attawapiskat, the James Bay reservation made famous by Chief Theresa Spence, who is now on the 18th day of a hunger strike—a protest she says will end only with a visit from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
DeGagne, who once worked for the federal government and was executive director of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, has been watching closely. He spoke to Maclean’s On Campus about his plans for expanding access to education and offered his thoughts on the movement that made Chief Spence front-page news.
How did your work with the Healing Foundation prepare you for Nipissing?
The healing foundation had the good fortune to have a lot of resources to provide mental health healing supports to Aboriginal communities. Programs were directed to people who had been through the Indian residential schools, so we spent a lot of time in consultations asking survivors what they wanted, did a lot of professional development, community development and human resource development, so I think a lot of that work will lend itself to my work at Nipissing.
Continue reading Nipissing’s new president on access and #IdleNoMore
Nipissing research supports all-boys schools
Improved attendance and engagement observed
russell pick/Flickr
Research by Nipissing University professor Douglas Gosse shows that inner-city boys are more likely to succeed academically in all-boys classrooms and schools. From the release:
Gosse’s study involved four weeks of data collection in grades 7 and 8 in an inner city Toronto school. Most of the students were of African, Caribbean and South Asian immigrant backgrounds, where English is not the primary language at home. Many of the families live well below the poverty line. The study is based on in-school and extracurricular observations, interviews with teachers and the school principal, document analysis and a comprehensive literature review on boys and education from North American, Australian and British sources.
Continue reading Nipissing research supports all-boys schools
You might not get your top choice this fall
Some universities are cutting enrollment
Photo courtesy of thepanamerican on Flickr
The trend at universities over the past decade has been to pack in as many students as possible.
But this year, a few schools are planning to reverse the trend by cutting enrollment.
Combine that with the fact that the number of applications continues to grow—up 2.4 per cent in Ontario, for example—and 2012 may be a difficult year for students to get their top choice schools.
Alan Rock, the University of Ottawa’s president, announced last week that growth at his school will slow to 500 new students this fall.
That’s after a long stretch during which the campus added 1,200 to 1,500 new students annually.
Continue reading You might not get your top choice this fall
Small schools. Big advantages.
Canada’s northern universities have arrived
The library at Nipissing. By Cole Garside.
From the Maclean’s Student Issue, on sale now.
It’s the time of year when twelfth graders realize that they need to choose a university—and soon. Let the road trips begin.
But if their travels take them to the libraries at the University of Calgary or Guelph, they may stumble over students sitting on the floors. Study space is in short supply.
If they tour residences at Dalhousie or McGill University, they may find themselves in a converted hotel or see bunks stacked in former study spaces. Each school has had room shortages in recent years.
Quick Memes: the new campus obsession
Students at Nipissing U. early to embrace trend
Students have a new online obsession. Quickmemes.com allows anyone to add their own funny captions to photos of familiar Internet stars, like Rebecca Black, before sharing them on Facebook.
The trend is starting to spread, but one community’s Facebook walls are already littered with Quick Memes. There are more than 1,300 “likes” on the unofficial Nipissing University Memes Facebook page. That’s a lot for a school with just 4,500 students. The page for the North Bay, Ontario school has become a place to share both points of pride (the fries at campus pub The Wall) and common complaints (transportation to the hilltop campus). Here are just a few of the dozens of memes from the Nipissing page that will make you laugh and then share, just like that Rebecca Black video.
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- Fry from Futurama
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- One Does Not Simply…
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- Most Interesting Man in the World
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- Ghosthunter Rage
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- Lazy College Senior
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- Too Damn High
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- Success Kid
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- Scumbag Steve
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- Annoying Facebook Girl
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- Good Guy Greg
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- Rebecca Black of Friday fame
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- First World Problems
Share your Quick Memes with us in the comments section!
Follow @JoshDehaas and @maconcampus on Twitter.
Where the rich kids go
Guess which universities get the least student financial aid
From Queen's Players "I go to Queen's!"
You know the stereotype that Queen’s University attracts rich kids? The one played up in this recent viral video in which a student jokes: “I don’t know what financial aid is, but Queen’s has it.”
Well, if the number of students receiving financial assistance is any indication, it’s very likely true.
Queen’s University has the lowest number of students receiving Ontario Student Assistance in the province: only 29.6 per cent of students.
Contrast that to Nipissing University in the relatively poorer north of Ontario, where twice as many—59.6 per cent—get loans. It’s almost as high at Trent University—59.3 per cent.
Marking the Montreal Massacre
A coast-to-coast round-up of remembrance
Photo by Flabber DeGasky on Flickr
On this date in 1989, a young man named Marc Lepine rounded up women at the Ecole Polytechnique engineering school in Montreal and opened fire, killing 14 females and injuring 14 others before turning the gun on himself. In his suicide note, he blamed women for his problems.
Since 1991, Dec. 6 has been The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Across Quebec today, survivors of the shooting will gather with activists and ask the Quebec government to sue the Canadian government over Bill C-19, which will abolish the long-gun registry and—they say— allow more violence against women to occur.
Here are a few of the ways universities across the country are marking the sombre occasion.
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.
How much should professors make?
In my opinion, they’re paid well enough already.
Photo by ggbaker on Panoramio
More than 1,000 students at Brandon University have signed a petition asking for their tuition money back because of a faculty strike that caused classes to be cancelled since Oct. 12.
But the Brandon University Student’s Union (BUSU), which has collected the signatures, doesn’t blame the professors—who are striking for the second time in three years—for their three weeks of missed classes. BUSU supports the picketing profs. They agree they’re underpaid.
But are Brandon’s professors really underpaid? More importantly—are professors underpaid in general? It’s a question students and taxpayers should ask—they’re the ones who pay the bills.
Brantford – The Education City?
I think there’s an interesting post-secondary education story in Brantford Ontario. The city, known as The Telephone City, is located 93km west and has a population of around 90,000. The city is not a suburb of Toronto and is poorly linked by public transit to Toronto.
I think there’s an interesting post-secondary education story in Brantford Ontario. The city, known as The Telephone City, is located 93km west and has a population of around 90,000. The city is not a suburb of Toronto and is poorly linked by public transit to Toronto.
