All Posts Tagged With: "Ontario Universities"
Universities losing autonomy
Who has responsibility for education when students are paying the tab?
The Ontario government is taking enormous steps to catch up to the rest of country by allowing students to more easily transfer from university to university, from university to college and from college to college.
It’s a great effort and one that is nothing but beneficial to students by offering them more opportunities, more flexibility and more chances to figure out what it is they want to do with their lives.
But the trend it represents is perhaps more troubling.
The British Columbia government recently made a major effort to streamline research roles and tradesperson training in the province. By separating those streams into two respective ministries, the government found they were able to better control their output and economic contributions.
While the Ontario government isn’t quite moving in that direction, the increasingly centrally managed university environment in the province is a sign of the times.
More than 50 years ago, universities in Canada were largely autonomous. Many still had strong ties to the various churches that founded the cities and town in which the institutions were founded. Others were in the process of aggressive expansion, taking advantage of a glut of government money in the post-war years.
It was a time when universities ran themselves, but governments paid for it. Tuition was cheap, and education attained for education’s sake.
Over the past 50 years, though, and accelerating through the 1990s, the reverse has become true.
Universities are increasingly funded through tuition fees, residence fees, meal plans, bookstore sales and other private ventures. In Ontario, government subsidies now make up less than half of total university revenue.
Despite this trend, though, government is taking an increasingly active role in university management. From regulating degree-granting abilities, regulating fee increases, regulating administrative structure, government is now also involved in centralized application processes, student loan programs and centralized degree transfer programs.
Government is slowly taking over post-secondary education, but asking students to pay for it. And as post-secondary becomes increasingly necessary to functioning in the larger world, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Its true. Teaching takes a back seat to research
Only 61 per cent of Ontario professor think that teaching is important to their university
The current focus on research–and securing research funding–at Canadian universities could be taking away from teaching. According to a new survey by the Ontario Government’s Higher Education Quality Council only 61 per cent of the professors “believe that teaching is important or very important to their institution” and “70 per cent of professors surveyed believe research has a bigger payoff than teaching in enhancing reputation, respect of peers, and access to funds.”
When it comes to teaching the report says that many professors fount that “little formal support was available when they began their careers, although the survey indicates that teaching support is considered especially critical in the early professional years. Most said they learned about teaching through practice as a graduate student and
continue to learn about postsecondary teaching through practice and peer consultation.”
While this should be concerning to everyone, especially those of us currently pursuing an undergraduate degree, it’s hardly surprising. Sooner or later, everyone in university will encounter professors who lack basic teaching skills and who are far more interested in telling your class about their research than teaching the course material.
In a press release the executive director of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, Henry Mandelbaum, blamed the over-focus on research on the government. “Our universities are chronically underfunded, and that means administrators must chase any additional money they can find,” Said Mandelbaum. “As a result of federal and provincial government policy, much of this new money is for research. It’s therefore not surprising that teaching has taken a backseat at many of our institutions. Funding universities adequately would eliminate this imbalance.”
But there’s more to it than that. Universities don’t really value good teaching. Sure, there are a handful of teaching awards available to professors but tenured professors know that when it comes to promotions, published research counts far more than teaching skills.
One of the other problems with research funding is that it disproportionately goes to “hard” science. Three quarters of federal funding for science and technology go to “natural science and engineering,” with the other quarter going to “social sciences and humanities.” This might not be such a problem if universities and professors weren’t so motivated by research funding. The end result of this imbalance is that “hard” science programs have more funding than their counterparts in the arts, universities value these programs more and science professors have more opportunity to secure grants, publish and get promoted. The problem is that there are more students in the arts than any other program.
Research is always going to be a big deal for universities and a point of pride. I briefly attended the University of Winnipeg a few years ago and I remember the university promoting itself by saying that since it was an undergraduate university, undergraduates would have greater oppertunity to participate in research. The other day, McGill principal, Heather Munroe-Blum told CBC radio that the university’s focus on research and large number of graduate programs would benefit undergrads through some sort of trickle down effect.
This debate won’t be going anywhere soon, the Quality Council’s next research projects will look into improving teaching.
Spending public funds on lobbyists
Ontario NDP says universities spent nearly $1 million on lobbying
After taking aim at hospital lobbyists, Ontario’s New Democrats are now zeroing in on hired guns paid by the province’s universities and colleges. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is demanding to know why nine colleges and universities have been spending close to $1 million on lobbyists to influence the government.
They include Laurentian University, which had a contract worth $102,000, and Toronto’s York University, which had three contracts totalling close to $500,000. The University of Ontario Institute of Technology also has a lobbyist contract worth up to $130,000, according to documents obtained by the NDP under freedom-of-information laws.
“Something is very, very wrong here,” Horwath said in the provincial legislature. “Ontario students pay the highest tuition fees in the entire country. Why are universities spending that money on high-priced, well-connected, insider lobbyists?”
Colleges and Universities Minister John Milloy said the schools have no reason to hire lobbyists and that spending public funds on lobbyists is not acceptable. “There’s no need for them to be spending public money on lobbyists and my ministry will be working to make sure that message is sent loud and clear to the college sector,” Milloy said.
The revelations came a day after the NDP disclosed that 14 hospitals had hired lobbyists — a practice Premier Dalton McGuinty quickly condemned.
The Canadian Press
Ontario profs worried about education quality
57% say quality has declined in the past year, according to survey
Ontario universities are crammed with students, and education is suffering, according to a survey of professors and librarians released today. The study, conducted by the Ontario Confederation of Faculty Associations (OCUFA), revealed that 57 per cent of academic staff say education quality has been declining over the past year. OCUFA president Mark Langer calls the results a “warning bell” issued to government from “the people working on the front line in the universities.”
Other results showed that 55 per cent of respondents reported larger class sizes and 38 per cent said retiring or departing faculty had not been renewed. As a result, 38 per cent said that out-of-class support for students had declined, and 39 per cent were using fewer essay-style exams to compensate for larger classes. Fifty-one per cent said that programs, or classes, had been canceled due to budget constraints.
Langer said the survey results were directly linked to government initiatives to encourage more and more students to go to university. “We’re just packing them in,” he said. “It’s not like stamping out widgets. It doesn’t work that way.”
The Ontario student teacher ratio is among the lowest in the country at 26 to one, compared to the national average of 19 to one. Langer also says that Ontario per student funding is the lowest in the country, but he didn’t have exact figures available, calling the numbers “complicated.”
According to the Canadian Press, John Milloy, minister of training colleges and universities, objected to the claims in the report. “Quality is not declining . . . it’s in fact the opposite . . . We’ve seen a phenomenal investment in the system,” he said. Operating grants to universities have risen from $1.9 to $3.2 billion since 2002, an increase of 77 per cent.
Langer does not dispute that the government has invested heavily in higher education, but he says any extra funding is being “swallowed” up by disproportionate number of students being admitted. “[Funding] is not keeping pace with demand,” he said. Landger adds that the government is not solely to blame, noting that the recession wreaked havoc on university endowment funds and pension plans. When asked if OCUFA would support lowering the number of students admitted to Ontario universities, he dismissed the idea. “We’re certiainly ready to educate them, but give us the support.”
Bonnie Patterson, president of the Council of Ontario Universities, agrees that universities are underfunded, but says that the OCUFA survey failed to account for the many out-of-class programs she says universities provide. She says institutions have shifted some resources towards support for students from underrepresented groups and international students. “And yes there has been some trade-offs in the classroom,” she said.
Meaghan Coker, president of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, says the survey does not account for the quality of teaching in the classroom, focusing too much on measures like student teacher ratios. “It depens less on class size, and more on the practices professors use,” Coker said. She is referring to “active learning” versus “passive learning” and says even in a class of 250, a professor, properly trained, could be effective.
Pension relief for Ontario universities
Province amends solvency rules, but no additional funding provided
Ontario universities that have run into trouble keeping their pension plans afloat will see some relief from the province, but that doesn’t mean any new funding will be on the way. Pension funds that have taken a beating over the recession have accumulated massive deficits, meaning universities may have trouble paying retired workers without redirecting money from other areas like teaching.
To help alleviate the financial pressure, the Ontario government is proposing to amend the Pension Benefits Act to provide universities with much needed solvency relief, by temporarily exempting them from regular solvency expectations. Universities eligible to participate in the plan will be given three years to negotiate with pension plan members and representatives to develop a strategy to bring pension funds into solvency. After this stage, universities that have developed a successful plan will be given 10 years “to amortize their solvency deficits,” according to a government release sent out on Thursday. Under current rules, universities are given five years to address deficits.
But the government is firm that public funding will not be used to cover pension shortfalls. “Ontario will not provide additional funding to cover university pension deficits,” the release stated. Universities that fail to develop a successful plan during the first stage of the process will be subject to normal solvency requirements.
According to the Council of Ontario Universities (COU), no fewer than seven universities are in need of pension deficit relief, including the University of Toronto, Queen’s, York, McMaster, Guelph, Carleton and Trent. Pension deficits range from $3 million at Queen’s to $748 million at the U of T, according to a May report by credit rating firm DBRS.
The COU declined comment, and says it will be leaving it to individual institutions to speak to the policy. A U of T public relations spokesperson said the university is “looking for more details from the government” before an official response will be given.
An email sent by Maclean’s On Campus to the Ministry of Finance seeking clarification on how universities will be judged eligible to participate in the plan was responded with a restatement of Thursday’s press release. “Universities must submit a plan to the Ministry of Finance outlining how they will make their pension plans more sustainable,” the email from the finance department stated.
The Ontario Confederation of Faculty Associations was unavailable for comment, but executive director Henry Mandelbaum told the Toronto Star he is concerned the government’s plan will see universities raise faculty pension contributions or reduce payouts to retired staff.
The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance is pleased with the proposal, “Without solvency relief from the government, many institutions would have been forced to divert significant funds away from their academic pursuits, thus severely impacting the learning experience for Ontario’s students,” executive director Alexi White stated on the group’s website.
Your wages must freeze
Ontario pleads with universities to freeze wages
The Ontario government is asking universities that are in the middle of labour negotiations to walk away from the table and impose a two-year wage freeze. Although the wage freeze is being proposed for all public sector employees, as part of a plan to reduce a $19.7 billion deficit, the government is singling out universities because several of them are currently in the middle of collective bargaining. “It’s not that we chose them or they chose to go first,” a government official told the Globe. “It’s just that chronologically [their agreements] are coming up.” The Star added that after those two-years are up, that wage increases should be regulated inline with the province’s 1.9 per cent cap on spending increases.
Faculty groups are not impressed. “The government is trying to impose its wishes for zero compensation increases without the legislative tools to do so,” said a spokesman for the Ontario Confederation of Faculty Association quoted in the Globe. Executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers is concerned the move entails forcing universities to bargain as one unit, a move, he told the Star that would be “quite a worrisome development.”
Hey look! Another university fell off a truck
Maybe we should just convert high school diplomas to degrees
One way to create more university spaces is to build classrooms, or erect new universities. Another is to just rename an existing institution a “university.” While Dalton McGuinty is not adverse to creating more classroom space, largely by shifting the classroom to the internet, his Open Ontario plan also includes a rebranding of the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD), as a university. Well sort of. Judging from the proposed name change–the Ontario College of Art and Design University–suggests that OCAD will still just be a lowly college but also a swanky new university.
(editor’s note: OCAD received independent degree granting status in 2002)
This bipolar approach to naming institutions is something of a fetish in Canada. As is the presumption that renaming every college a university will somehow improve educational quality. For years, British Columbia designated several schools as “university colleges” before renaming them universities in 2008. The name change, of course, didn’t bring with it any new expectations for the institutions.
More weirdly, last spring the Manitoba government gave William and Catherine Booth College, the right to market itself as “A Christian University College” despite the fact that the school has no plans to include the word “university” into its title. Advanced education minister, Diane McGifford, defended the decision by dismissing concerns that Booth College has been granted amnesty for lying. “They’re using the term university college solely for the purpose of advertising,” she said at the time.
We use to take universities to be institutions that offered a broad range of degree programs and research in at least the core arts and science disciplines. Now we take the term to mean any institution that offers a degree in anything. I don’t intend to diminish OCAD, but is a specialized school that only offers degrees in fine arts and design. If it were an American institution, it would be a college, and it would not feel too bad about it.
To be clear, I don’t think there is anything wrong with a college education. Colleges are not inferior to universities, but they do have different goals, and this name game is little more than a gimmick designed to confuse.
Sometimes schools evolve and become legitimate universities (Ryerson for instance) but the problem isn’t so much with what we call schools, but with the fact that all you have to do to elevate your institution is lobby the province. The same way one might lobby city council to change the name of a street.
Rebranding allows the government to say it is creating more university spaces, without actually having to do anything. So I have a suggestion for McGuinty, if you think the proportion of Ontarians who are university educated is too low, why not just convert high school diplomas to degrees? No good?
Will I get into university?
Waiting for acceptance is excruciating
High school seniors across Canada are on tenterhooks these days as they await news of their acceptance from the country’s universities or colleges.
Their parents are likely just as anxious, having heard the oft-repeated lament: “Will I get in?” Vida Korhani, 17, of Toronto, says waiting to hear from the three Ontario institutions she applied to–the University of Toronto, Ryerson and York University–has been absolutely excruciating. “It was horrible. Many of my friends had heard back from U of T and I just felt like my average maybe wasn’t good enough.”
Her average is 92 per cent.
While the student at the Hawthorn School for Girls found out she was in fact accepted at both Toronto and York, she’s still waiting to hear if she’ll make it into her first choice, Ryerson’s well-regarded journalism program.
“Mind-boggling” is how her Grade 12 classmate Abiola Abraham describes the wait to hear from her first choice, the University of Waterloo, for computer science and business administration. “So anxious, every day I was just checking my email all the time,” the 16-year-old says. Being accepted at University of Toronto and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., has relieved some of the pressure, she says.
Laura Schoof, 17, of Vincent Massey Secondary School in Windsor, Ont., says it was stressful waiting to be accepted. “I pretty much went home and checked the Internet every day just to see and we woke up and checked the mailbox as soon as I got up,” she says. She was accepted at three colleges but chose the pre-health program at Fanshawe College in London, Ont., because it is close to home and will help her get into medical radiation technology later.
As if the students aren’t nervous enough, the “cut-off marks” referring to the lowest mark a university will accept from an incoming student can be a moving target. Montreal’s McGill University, for example, has been gradually lowering its cut-off marks every two weeks this spring. No one knows where it will end.
Seneca College, like many other institutions, monitors its “application targets” daily, says Cindy Hazell, vice-president at the Toronto college.
Offers are sent out over several months, although the two major waves are in February and April.
The cut-off marks are not necessarily determined by ability to pass the program but are set according to the number of physical spaces, specialized equipment such as labs and number of faculty available, says Hazell. Much of that is determined by the amount of government funding supplied to each post-secondary institution, she adds.
But even when students are accepted, the nerve-racking part is not always over. More than one offer means they’ll have to choose.
That’s where guidance counsellors come in. Fern Schessel of the Toronto French School has been a guidance counsellor for 41 years and works with students applying all across Canada and abroad. Schessel says students fortunate enough to have more than one choice should ask themselves several questions. Which school has the program they want? Where can they flourish? Where would they feel most at home? What resources are available to them at various institutions?
Finally, she tells them to listen to their gut. It’s important that they do their research, she says. Her advice: visit the schools, look at their programs, check out the city they would live in. “A lot of our kids will go based on ‘my friends are going to McGill’ or . . . ‘it’s perceived as prestigious for me to go from here to McGill’ and so McGill is automatically a university of choice.”
“They may not have opened the calendar to see what programs are available, they may not have walked the campus, but they will go,” she says.
Mohamud Bulle, 17, another Vincent Massey student from Windsor, has been accepted at two universities but hasn’t heard back from his first choice, the University of Western Ontario in London. He favours Western because it would allow him to study law in his second year, if he has the marks.
But that’s not the only reason. “Western’s a lot of fun, I’m not going to lie,” he laughs. “Some of my older friends have gone there and they say it’s a lot of fun.” He hesitates, then adds “as long as you balance.”
The Canadian Press
Who needs a classroom?
Ontario Online Institute to pose challenges for students
Learning about Socrates through Facebook forums and chatting with a professor through Skype is the reality for students as e-learning claims a more dominant role in higher education.
Ontario is the latest jurisdiction to jump in with plans to launch the province’s first fully online university, and that has educators urging students to weigh their options carefully before deciding to turn their computer into a classroom. “Most people, if given the choice, would still prefer a traditional university,” said Glen Jones, an expert in higher education policy at the Ontario Institute for Education Studies in Toronto.
Related: Who needs a prof?
Jones said sometimes distance from a school, the necessity of full-time jobs and family obligations make going to university impossible. For these reasons, getting a degree online might be an attractive alternative.
But there are also drawbacks.
Sometimes the cost of clicking a mouse can be just as high as attending a university. Then there’s the lack of companionship that can sometimes make e-learning an isolating experience. And will employers value credentials earned online as much as they do those gained in a classroom?
Ontario hasn’t yet provided details on how its proposed Ontario Online Institute will work, saying only that the virtual school will offer e-courses from several universities as the province tries to produce a more educated workforce. “The ministry is working with college and universities to look at what they’re doing that has been really successful and how to improve the current system,” said Annette Phillips, a spokeswoman for the minister of colleges, training and universities.
But there are already several models across Canada and around the world for Ontario to borrow from. The University of Phoenix allows students from across the United States to earn online degrees. In the United Kingdom, Open University combines the traditional format of correspondence learning with online tools. Similarly, Alberta’s Athabasca University focuses solely on correspondence and online learning.
Richard Pinet, head of e-learning at the University of Ottawa, teaches faculty how to incorporate online tools into their classroom. He says academia in the Internet age has evolved dramatically. Pinet has used Skype for his “office hours,” as he meets with students online through the Internet program that allows people to make free video calls.
Another instructor at the university’s faculty of music has used video conferencing and sound recognition to teach a student at home how to play the piano. “The notion of any time, any place kinds of learning–that students can learn at their own pace–is an advantage to a lot of students who work,” said Pinet. “They can do this late at night, early in the morning or in their pyjamas,” he said. “In traditional face-to-face teaching the prof is kind of — I hate to say it — the sage on the stage, and what e-learning does is it looks at the prof like a guide on the side.”
Pinet says students at the University of Ottawa can earn a bachelor of education exclusively online. St. Paul’s University, an affiliate of the school, became one of the first institutions in Canada to offer PhD courses online.
Jones said while online learning is important, especially for students juggling busy lives and families, tuition can still be prohibitive. “People often assume distance education is inexpensive,” said Jones. “It’s not necessarily cheap.” Online learning replicates an in-person experience and programs still need faculty and the technology to deliver the course work.
Pinet said it can also be difficult for students to self-motivate when learning from home. “The other challenge is they have to learn how these online tools work and, if you’re technologically challenged or threatened, that can be a bit of a hurdle to overcome,” said Pinet.
Academics in the field also fear that online education could morph into a gaming-like environment, where instructors have to compete with short attention spans and constantly deliver interactive lessons.
There is also the question about the value of a degree earned exclusively online. Both Pinet and Jones said it’s difficult to assess how an employer would view an online degree, adding if the credential is bestowed by a reputable institution it shouldn’t matter how it was attained. Then again, it would also depend on the subject. “If I had a brain surgeon who took his degree online, I probably wouldn’t want that guy anywhere near me,” said Pinet with a laugh.
The Canadian Press
Students competing fiercely with the laid off
As mature students flood unis, schools say they will not give priority to Grade 12 applicants
Ontario’s graduating high school students are facing stiffer competition for high-demand, high-employment college and university programs as workers who lost their jobs in the recession head back to school and claim the country’s coveted post-secondary education spots.
Colleges and universities will not give special priority to the Grade 12 candidates, administrators say, despite the fact they could be thrown out into a tough, recessionary job market with little or no work experience, and only a high school education if they’re not accepted. The deadline for Grade 12 students to apply to Ontario’s universities for next September is Wednesday; for colleges it is Feb. 1.
College applications overall were up by 10 per cent over the last several years, with those in areas with a high jobless rate experiencing increases of up to 50 per cent. The recession’s ravaging of the job market is pushing laid-off workers back to school and a wildly popular Ontario government program has provided many unemployed mature students with the financial means to do so.
In northern Ontario, for example, where the forestry industry’s collapse was followed by one in mining, Northern College saw applications for its four campuses jump 47 per cent last year. And that’s even before Extrada’s planned layoff of 700 people this May. In Windsor, where auto sector layoffs have battered the city, applications to St. Clair College were up by 20 per cent in 2009.
“When the economy is strong, students tend to put off going to school, going to college particularly, in favour of entering the workforce and earning some money,” said Northern College president Fred Gibbons. “When the economy turns soft as it has in 2009, students will then return to school or elect to leave high school and enter college . . . College enrolment tends to vary inversely with jobs in the economy.”
The Ontario government’s Second Career program, which provides laid off workers with up to $28,000 a year to go back to school to train for high-demand jobs, has been a huge incentive for mature students. Second Career was announced in 2008 as a $355-million, three-year program. However, it was so popular that the money was scooped up in 18 months as laid off workers headed back to school and the province pumped another $78 million into the program last October.
No holiday for high school students
For many students, applying to get into a university is like applying for a job
The holiday break could prove a busy and stressful time for high school seniors in Ontario facing a Jan. 13 deadline to apply to university and a demand for high grades to enter competitive programs.
While the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre began receiving applications in November, many students will spend the holidays submitting forms before the deadline to ensure they’re guaranteed full consideration, said OUAC director George Granger.
Tyler Carson is among those students competing for a coveted spot next year.
The 17-year-old Toronto student says he did a lot of research over the past two years into which university he should go to next fall. The Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate Institute senior visited four university campuses in the Toronto area and checked out schools and programs online.
Carson applied to the University of Toronto, York University, Wilfrid Laurier University and McGill University to study sexual diversity and human rights. He later hopes to attend law school. Carson, who is student council vice-president, founder of the school’s first gay-straight alliance, and has a 94 per cent average, says he’s not worried about being accepted into a top university.
“I’m pretty confident I’ll get into all the generalized programs. I’m applying to Vic One which is a specialized program at U of T that only accepts around 25 kids from my stream, so that will be competitive,” he said.
For many students, applying to get into a university is like applying for a job.
The guidance counsellor at Carson’s school, Renee Rawlins, advises students to get their applications in early and do research. That includes speaking to recruitment officers, going to campuses, and looking into university programs and requirements, such as prerequisite high school courses and marks needed.
Business and engineering programs are more competitive than Bachelor of Arts programs, and require students to have marks in the mid 80s to 90s to get in, she said. “A student with a 55 per cent average in their six courses — they’re not looking to be very competitive anywhere,” said Rawlins. “If you have 90, we can say, well, you’ll be very competitive anywhere.”
Calls grow for back-to-work order in York strike
Toronto newspapers blame union for impasse, urge McGuinty government to step in
Montreal mayor Camillien Houde said that to lead people, you first had to know where they were going.
If the editorial boards of Toronto’s newspapers are any indication, public opinion—centre, left and right—has run out of patience, and wants an immediate end to the strike by teaching assistants, research assistants and sessional lecturers at York. Canada’s third-largest university has been shut down since November.
This morning, all four Toronto dailies called for the government to pass back-to-work legislation. The editorials sometimes invoked common images—metaphors like “held hostage;” reminders that a premier who called himself “the education premier” should be troubled by the inability of 50,000 university students to get an education—but there were subtle differences in the way each argued the case for government intervention, as well as whom they blamed for the impasse.
According to the Sun (headline: “McGuinty fiddles while York burns”), York students are victims of a “fraud”, which it says “has been perpetrated by labour and management at York, aided yesterday by Premier Dalton McGuinty.”
“It’s fraud because students are not getting the education they were promised and for which they paid, in advance, in good faith.” The Sun called on the government to “recall the legislature and pass back-to-work legislation.”
The Globe and Mail, surprisingly, delivers an editorial that is a blistering screed against the union. Whereas the Sun said students were victims of a fraud perpetrated by both sides, The Globe opens its editorial with the following: “In the midst of a recession, tens of thousands of young people looking to further their education are being held hostage by the country’s most well-paid teaching assistants, who are unwilling to accept a pay increase beyond what most workers expect in the current climate. The interests of organized labour have overtaken those of students. York University has now been shut down for 11 weeks only because of the needs of striking teaching assistants, graduate assistants and contract workers.”
The Globe says that “the university’s initial offer of a 9.25 per cent pay hike over three years was reasonable; its revised offer, which tacked on additional benefits and wages, was better.” The Globe also notes that the union is trying to strengthen its hand in the future by pushing for a two-year deal (instead of past three year deals) that would expire in 2010, at the same time as many other collective bargaining agreements. “That strategy,” writes the Globe, “should be an incentive to Dalton McGuinty, the Ontario Premier, to draw his own line in the sand. Forced to wade into the dispute this week after months of steering clear, Mr. McGuinty appointed mediator Reg Pearson to “bang a few heads together.” But the time for mediation is over. To discourage CUPE from shutting down more campuses when it can, the Premier should heed the Opposition’s calls to promptly legislate an end to the strike.”
Gov’t rejects calls for back-to-work order in York strike
Opposition says students’ school year on verge of being lost; government says it wants negotiated solution
An Opposition demand to recall the Ontario legislature to order an end to the strike at York University was dismissed Tuesday when the government said it preferred the two sides reach a negotiated settlement.
The 3,300 striking contract faculty, teaching assistants and graduate assistants at the Toronto university will vote on the latest contract offer next Monday and Tuesday in secret ballots arranged by the Labour Ministry.
Under Ontario law, employers can ask for a vote of union members on a contract offer just once in each round of bargaining – something the university asked the government for last week.
The strike, which began Nov. 6, has left some 50,000 full-time students without classes.
Progressive Conservative Peter Shurman said students can’t afford to wait another week to find out if the striking staff will accept the deal and return to work.
“The strike has to be ended now, and it has to be ended by the legislature of Ontario,” said Shurman. “This is a situation without end unless the government gets involved and ends the strike legislatively.”
However, a spokesman for Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday that the government still thinks the best contract settlement will come from negotiations, a position echoed by Universities Minister John Milloy.
“I appreciate the frustration of the parents and the students,” Milloy said in an interview.
“I’ve urged and encouraged both sides to resolve it as quickly as possible, and we continue to do that.”
Shurman said he was worried the school year could be lost if the politicians don’t step in soon to end the walkout, now in its tenth week.
“I believe that it is in jeopardy, but I can’t get anybody – and I’m well connected to the university – to give me a drop dead date,” he complained.
“It looks like we’re approaching it, and I’m talking about within the month of January.”
Shurman called the situation urgent, and said at the very least the government should force an end to the strike and send both sides to binding arbitration.
The university is working on plans to extend the school year if necessary so all the York students can complete their courses. That has raised concerns about students missing out on summer jobs and having to find apartments for a longer school year.
Milloy said it was too early to talk about any kind of help for students and he didn’t want to discuss the possibility of tuition refunds.
“If the school year is extended, we’d be happy to work with students and the university in terms of the support programs that we have,” he said.
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves right now. Hopefully everything can be done within the current time frame.”
Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903 is recommending the York workers in three bargaining units reject the offers, saying they are “substandard” and take workers in the wrong direction.
The union is demanding contract faculty be awarded five-year contracts instead of the eight-month contracts they have now.
— The Canadian Press
“C” students not wanted
Few Ontario high schoolers with C averages go to university, says report
If you just graduated high school with an average of between 60 and 69 per cent and are attending university this fall, you are part of a very select group.
The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario today released a report examining post-secondary participation rates in Ontario and the rest of Canada. Among the most glaring findings: only 4.8 per cent of students who graduate high school with a C average pursue university. That compares to almost 16 per cent of C-level Atlantic Canadians and 15.1 per cent of British Columbians who scored a C in high school but still pursued university.
However, nearly half of all Ontarians with a “C” high school average went on to attend college. That’s the second-highest college participation level in the country, only topped by Quebec’s participation rate. Quebec’s high rate of college enrolment is partly explained by the fact that in the province, high school ends in grade 11; students thereafter attend CEGEP for either university preparation (the equivalent of grade 12/13 in other provinces) or vocational diplomas.
Trent University economics professor Torben Drewes, who specializes in the economics of education and authored the study, said that it lends credence to the idea that Ontario universities simply have stricter entrance requirements.
“That result, the “C” student in Ontario … is consistent with the idea that Ontario universities are setting a higher bar … but that’s not definitive,” he said. “We don’t have that kind of information. A couple of people have alluded to it, but we have no real hard evidence.”
Drewes added that the study shows that by and large, those students who want to pursue post-secondary studies in Canada are able to do so. He pointed to the success of Ontario’s “double cohort” in 2003-04, when universities and colleges weathered a huge bulge in applications and enrolment. Drewes said that the province, its universities, and its colleges responded to any perceived “crisis” quite admirably.
“In the larger context, I think we should be pretty happy with the availability of spaces,” Drewes said.
The report also found that 70.6 per cent of Ontario’s high school graduates between the ages of 18 and 24 pursue some form of post-secondary education. That compares to 82.9 per cent in Quebec, 76.3 per cent in Atlantic Canada, 63.8 per cent in British Columbia, and 63 per cent across the Prairies.
As far as barriers to PSE are concerned, the report found that financial barriers posed the biggest problem for potential students. Only 20 per cent of Quebec students, however, claimed financial barriers to be an issue. Nearly as many (19.6 per cent) were simply uninterested in pursuing higher education. 28.8 per cent of students in the Prairies were uninterested, compared to 29.3 per cent who faced financial barriers.
Drewes was quick to point out that the study was by no means the final word on access to post-secondary education in Ontario, or anywhere else in Canada.
“The report is kind of preliminary to the real research that will go on now. It doesn’t have as many answers as it does questions,” he said.
The information in Drewes’ report was based on Statistics Canada’s 2002 Post-secondary Education Participation Survey.
Ontario’s ombudsman calls for independent oversight of universities
Government rejects his proposal, says already has a “comprehensive regime” of accountability
Ontario ombudsman André Marin released his annual report today, and renewed his call for independent oversight of the province’s universities.
Referring to the so-called MUSH sector — municipalities, universities, public schools, hospitals or children’s aid societies — Marin stated these agencies “have become almost a law unto themselves … they have carved themselves a nice, comfortable niche, a zone of immunity against oversight.”
Ontario’s universities are immune from investigation by Marin’s office. If a student feels that their university has treated them unfairly, they are left with no recourse in Ontario. Students in Newfoundland & Labrador and British Columbia are eligible to receive assistance from their ombudsman.
Marin wrote that his office received 109 complaints about Ontario’s colleges of applied arts and technology. Marin can deal with these complaints because Ontario colleges, unlike universities, are considered to be government agencies.
One complaint featured in the annual report involved a learning-disabled man who started taking courses as a mature student at a college in 1999. The man failed several courses and repeated them until he successfully received passing grades. In 2007, he compiled enough credits to graduate. But because he failed to meet the four-year completion requirement, he was not granted a diploma.
Upon receiving the complaint, the ombudsman contacted the college. After the school reviewed the student’s records, officials agreed with the ombudsman that it was unlikely the man was ever advised of the requirement to complete his courses within a time limit.
The college sent the student a letter of apology and awarded him his diploma.
If an university student filed the same complaint, the ombudsman would have to turn the complainant away — as he did 31 times in the last year.
Ontario’s student-loan program was the subject of 142 complaints last year, ranking in the top 20 for number of complaints filed against a provincial government organization — tied with the Ontario Human Rights Commission for 17th place.
The Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities was the subject of more complaints than all but three other ministries.
The provincial government immediately rejected Marin’s call for more oversight, pointing to other measures of accountability, at least in the hospital sector.
“The level of accountability that hospitals have right now, with the combination of community-based governance, local health-integration networks, and the power of the provincial auditor for investigation — (that) really is a pretty comprehensive regime of accountability,” said Health minister George Smitherman.
Both the Conservatives and New Democrats are calling on the government to take the advice of the ombudsman and expand oversight to the MUSH sector.
- with files from the Canadian Press
Ontario announces $200 mil for university infrastructure
Funds are in addition to January annoucement of $200 mil
The Ontario government announced $200 million in new money Friday for Ontario universities to fund infrastructure, equipment and security upgrades at the province’s 19 public universities.
“Ontario’s skilled and highly educated workforce is a key economic advantage and enhances Ontario’s position as a destination of choice for global investment,” said Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities John Milloy.
The money will be distributed to universities using a government formula that has been in place for years. The University of Toronto will receive $37.7 million, Western $19.5 million, and York $18.6 million.
Peter George, president of McMaster University — which is receiving $13.5 million — welcomed the new funding. “This investment will enable us to modernize labs and classrooms so that our facilities are better equipped for cutting-edge research and today’s teaching needs, and that they achieve new standards for energy efficiency, campus safety, security and accessibility,” said George.
Today’s money is over and above a January announcement of $200 million for infrastructure split between Ontario’s colleges and universities.
“This significant investment will help our universities to modernize our labs, libraries and classrooms, and underscores that universities are indeed the knowledge infrastructure of the province,” said Dr. Paul C. Genest, president of the Council of Ontario Universities. “The investment also confirms Premier McGuinty’s bold commitment to make investing in the skills and education of Ontarians the number one priority of his government.”
Compared to universities, college heads are poor cousins in salary sweepstakes
Ontario salary disclosure shows lower salaries at colleges; presidents and profs less well-paid than their university peers
Colleges claim that, compared to universities, they don’t get enough respect. A recent Ontario colleges ad campaign was humorously premised on the idea that the average parent would be willing to drug their kid to keep him or her from going to college. Whether parents really want their kids to choose university over college is an open question, but the latest Ontario salary disclosure suggests that parents should at least be dreaming of having their kids run a university, rather than a college.
RELATED CONTENT Who is Canada’s top paid academic? AND Update: Maybe David Naylor is a (relative) bargain AND Professor pay varies greatly by discipline AND McMaster goes to court to block release of president’s pay package
The “$100K” list for colleges is shorter—much shorter—than the list of Ontario university employees making over $100,000. And most colleges have only one person—the president—earning over $200,000. That compares to universities, where the $200K club is extensive, featuring a variety of deans, administrators and professors, and where many university presidents are earning over $400,000.
Algonquin College in Ottawa was the only college with three employees making more than $200,000: president Robert Gillett and vice-presidents Raymonde Hanson and Robert Letourneau. Toronto’s Humber College had three names on the list at $200,000-plus, but two occupied them same position: outgoing president Robert Gordon, who retired in the summer of 2007, and new president John Davies.
Sheridan College and Seneca College were the only other Ontario colleges with two employees earning over $200,000. Seneca president Frederick Miner was Ontario’s highest paid college president; in 2007 he earned just over $367,000
Two other college presidents had total compensation over $300,000: Sheridan president Robert Turner was paid nearly $324,000 and John Tibbits, president of Conestoga College in Kitchener, earned almost $339,000.
(See salary chart next page.)
Update: Maybe David Naylor is a (relative) bargain
U of T says president’s house is included in compensation. That means the head of the largest university in Canada is paid less than several of his colleagues
As we reported yesterday, U of T president David Naylor appears to be underpaid relative to his colleagues at other Ontario (and Alberta) universities. (Or, depending on how you look at it, his colleagues are overpaid). Despite heading the largest university in Canada, and coming to the position a few years ago from the already traditionally high-paying (by academic standards, at least) job of dean of medicine, Naylor makes less than the heads of such smaller institutions as McMaster, Waterloo and Guelph. He even makes less than the man who manages the U of T’s money.
RELATED CONTENT Who is Canada’s top paid academic? AND Academics compared to CEOs, politicians AND Professor pay varies greatly by discipline AND McMaster goes to court to block release of president’s pay package
But, we asked yesterday, does Naylor’s compensation disclosure include the taxable benefit of living in the president’s residence, a large Rosedale mansion owned by the U of T? We asked, and the U of T responded that… it wouldn’t respond. Said the U of T spokesman, “The University of Toronto does not discuss or disclose confidential employment matters regarding any member of faculty or staff.”
Which left me speculating in yesterday’s post that Naylor’s $50,000 in other “taxable benefits”might not be comprehensive number, and might not include the value of the benefit of living in the residence. As I wrote, “we can’t see how that $50,000 (which would likely also cover such things as the university’s contribution to the president’s pension) can fully account for more than a small fraction of the value of the house, which would rent for a significant five-figures-per-month sum on the open market.”
But apparently it does.
U of T spokesman Rob Steiner told me in an email this morning that, “The current number under benefits/allowances DOES include the house benefit and a fixed car allowance.” He also told me that “the sunshine disclosure does NOT include pension benefits.”
How can $50,000 (or less, since the amount includes the aforementioned car allowance, and we know not what else) cover the rental value of a large, ravine-edge house, in the most expensive neighbourhood in the city? According to Steiner, you have to keep in mind that while the residence is a place where the president and his family live, it’s also a building used for a lot of university business. Steiner told me that “the ground floor (a good half of the house) of the President’s house and the main gardens operate as institutional space for meeting, receptions, and other events. The President and his family enjoy some great space in the off hours, obviously, but there’s regular traffic.” And Revenue Canada would no more consider that portion of the property to be a taxable benefit than would it consider an employee’s company-provided office space and desk to be taxable benefit.
Steiner notes that Naylor’s compensation for 2007 barely differs from him 2006 compensation, and that Naylor said that he “could not justify accepting any increase to an already high salary with generous housing perquisites given the intense financial
pressure on the institution.”
One final interesting sidebar to all of this: Naylor is married to Ilse Treurnicht, the CEO of the MaRS Discovery District, a research and commercialization centre. And according to the sunshine disclosure, in 2007 she was paid $437,500 —or just slightly more than the president of U of T.
Who is Canada’s most highly paid academic?
Surprise: Ontario’s salary leader isn’t a university president.
Who is Ontario’s highest paid university administrator? Surprise: New figures released by the government of Ontario, under the province’s decade-old “sunshine law,” suggest that the province’s most well-compensated university officer isn’t a president, the traditional top university job. That’s just one of the discoveries revealed in the Ontario’s salary disclosures, which were supposed to be released tomorrow morning, but were posted late this afternoon on a provincial government website.
RELATED CONTENT Academics compared to CEOs, politicians AND Update: Maybe David Naylor is a (relative) bargain AND Professor pay varies greatly by discipline AND McMaster goes to court to block release of president’s pay package
We gave the list a quick eyeball, and the highest paid individual we could find was not the president of Canada’s largest university, the University of Toronto—but rather Felix Chee, the President and CEO of University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation, the body that oversees the university’s endowment and pensions. Chee was paid a total of $562,000 in 2007, comprised of $549,000 in salary and $13,000 in other taxable benefits. David Naylor, the university president, received $430,000 in salary and taxable benefits.
The highest paid Ontario president appears to be McMaster’s Peter George. In 2007, he was paid just shy of $505,000 in salary in benefits. David Johnston of Waterloo earned nearly $482,000. York’s Lorna Marsden was paid $487,000 in 2007, though she retired in the middle of the year. Her successor, Mamdouh Shoukri, earned $179,000 for the approximately half-year that he was York’s president. Alastair Summerlee, president of Guelph, received nearly $447,000
The fact that Naylor is paid less than the presidents of other, smaller universities is surprising. He runs the country’s biggest university, located in what is by far the province’s most expensive city. But we don’t yet know if the disclosed “taxable benefits” portion of Naylor’s compensation—listed as $380,000 in salary and nearly $50,000 in taxable benefits—fully accounts for one important perk of the office: the presidential residence, a large Rosedale ravine mansion owned by the U of T. We can’t see how that $50,000 (which would likely also cover such things as the university’s contribution to the president’s pension) can fully account for more than a small fraction of the value of the house, which would rent for a significant five-figures-per-month sum on the open market.
The University of Toronto declined to provide us with information about the breakdown of the disclosed taxable benefits, or to explain to what degree they account for the notional rent on the presidential residence. “The University of Toronto does not discuss or disclose confidential employment matters regarding any member of faculty or staff,” said U of T spokesman Robert Steiner.
Ontario universities have been sensitive about disclosing the details of pay packages, as the Hamilton Spectator discovered when it filed this access to information request against McMaster.
The highest paid university administrators would appear to be not in Ontario, but in Alberta. According to the University of Alberta’s fiscal statements for year ended March 31, 2007, U of A president Indira Samarasekera was paid $591,000 in salary and benefits. Her Number Two, provost Carl Amrhein, earned even more: $599,000.
Included in the above total were “non-cash benefits” for Amrhein ($209,000) and Samarasekera ($177,000) that are both far larger than anything awarded to Ontario senior administrators. That may reflect higher compensation—but it may also reflect the fact that Alberta has very stringent and highly transparent disclosure laws. It may be that the Alberta figures are higher in part because Alberta law is simply more stringent in its definition of what universities have to measure and disclose under the grab-bag of “other compensation.”
Environmental studies, math applications jump
The Ontario University Application Centre released its application statistics for February last week. According to the February numbers, few programs are seeing a significant rise in applicants this year. While most programs saw modest rises in applicants, both general education and physical education programs dropped by 18 and 10 per cent respectively. Agriculture, environmental studies, [...]
The Ontario University Application Centre released its application statistics for February last week. According to the February numbers, few programs are seeing a significant rise in applicants this year.
While most programs saw modest rises in applicants, both general education and physical education programs dropped by 18 and 10 per cent respectively. Agriculture, environmental studies, and math all experienced significant jumps in applications in February.
Nearly more 1000 students applied for environmental studies than last year at this time. This represents an increase of 36.7 per cent. The number of students who cited this as their first choice is 47.6 per cent higher.
Nursing is also popular with over a thousand more applicants, from 8520 applications last year to 9612 this year.
Mathematics has the largest increase in demand with 5310 applications compared to 3595 last year, an increase of over 47 per cent. However, over a quarter of the applications for math are applicants’ fourth or fifth choice.
Overall, the number of applications being processed by Ontario universities is up 4.3 per cent from last year.
