All Posts Tagged With: "Toronto Star"
South Asians say teaching staff is too white
But gov’t won’t track race of teachers
In Toronto’s Peel Region, where 57 per cent of people are minorities, South Asians are demanding more non-white teachers. “We’re still seen as outsiders, we’re not part of the team because schools are kind of clique-ish to those who aren’t Caucasian,” teacher Krishna Nankissoor told the Toronto Star. He had complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission after failing to be promoted, but since made a deal with the board. Tony Pontes, the director of education for Peel Region told The Star that it takes time to get more minority teachers. Dean Alice Pitt of York University similarly explained that although the supply of teachers in recent years is very diverse (33 per cent at York) boards aren’t hiring much, so the face of classrooms is changing slowly. The Ontario Ministry of Education told school boards earlier this year to make equity a focus in hiring, but the government will not force boards to track the races of teachers.
‘Our economy now runs on ideas’
Will education play a role in the campaign?
According to the Toronto Star, education should be a major feature of an election.
Investing in innovation. The Conservatives did a poor job in their anti-recession stimulus package of building for the future. They could have turned the crisis into an opportunity, but their 2009 budget actually cut funding for scientific research (though they later addressed that mistake by creating more research chairs and luring world-class researchers to Canada). But the steps are still tentative: last year’s federal budget increased Ottawa’s spending on R&D by $200 million — while President Barack Obama was upping U.S. spending by $15 billion.
Canada needs to step up dramatically in this area. Our economy now runs on ideas; more and more of us discover, design and create things. Waterloo’s Research in Motion is the poster child for that kind of innovation, but we need much more. What kind of investment in research and higher education do the parties propose to keep the country competitive for the next generation?
While it is unclear whether education and research will play a central role in a campaign, all three parties have introduced, or hinted, at what their education platforms could look like. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says he plans to focus on access for students and has, in the past, endorsed centralization by creating a dedicated higher education transfer to the provinces, presumably with conditions similar to the Canada Health Act. We could likely expect something similar from the NDP.
And, if the Tory budget, released earlier this week, really is to double as an election platform, their position is to focus on targeted research for the physical, engineering and technological sciences, while mostly limiting support for students through established programs such as the Canada Student Loans and Grants programs. The Tories have, in the past, promoted developing something similar to a dedicated transfer in higher education, largely through working with the provinces to outline priorities and demanding reporting for how transfers are spent, though they have been slow to follow up.
The federal role in post-secondary education has always been a bit murky. Ottawa is involved in student loans, in part, because it holds jurisdiction over the banking sector, but the provinces still retain responsibility for determining a student’s eligibility for loans. Because of the presumed importance of research to economic development, a large federal role in this area could arguably be justified under the trade and commerce power.
In any case, all three parties advocate a visible role for the federal government in this education and research, with the NDP and the Liberals likely to promise a more robust presence for Ottawa, and the Tories likely to take a more incrementalist approach more in line with the constitutional division of powers.
Rob Ford dropped out of university. How dare he?
What’s really stunning is that he went to York
Toronto mayor Rob Ford dropped out of university in 1991 and it is apparently a scandal. There was some confusion over whether or not he graduated but that was cleared up months ago. He attended Carleton University for 1989-1990 and we now know that he later attended York University for 1990-91 taking distance education courses.
Bouncing off an Open File Ottawa story that looked at whether or not, and by how much, Ford embellished his time as a member of Carleton’s football team, the Toronto Star writes:
Mayor Rob Ford took courses at university — that much, at least, is clear.
Normally, a mayor’s post-secondary education is an easily confirmed thing, a line or two in an official biography.
But Ford is no ordinary mayor.
So, an ordinary mayor would list himself as a university dropout on an official biography? Or would an ordinary mayor simply list the education institutions he attended in order to imply he graduated, when he did not? Or is it that ordinary mayors have university degrees? It’s not really clear what the Star is implying. Are official biographies not usually a list of a politician’s accomplishments, and not their list of failures and incomplete or half-hearted measures? Should Ford’s official City of Toronto biography also list how many times he’s been arrested?
The Star also writes that: “Ford’s official biography makes no mention of university.” Well that is not entirely true. The biography does mention his experience playing “university-level” football, which is just the sort of passing reference one might expect from a politician who attended but did not complete university. The emphasis on football, and not, say, the courses he took in political science also seems to be typical Ford.
Besides, the Star appears to have buried the lead all the way in paragraph nine. Rob Ford went to York!?
Ryerson racism probe seeks to coddle students
University isn’t about making you feel good. It’s about confronting challenges.
Ryerson University, in all her racist glory, graced the front page of the Toronto Star Monday.
I know; I couldn’t believe it either. I didn’t know purgatorial images were allowed on the front page.
Well, nevermind. The real story is that a university-commissioned probe into campus racism identified serious issues at the school. Its 107-page report recommended specific and swift action to tackle the problems.
So, what were the issues? Well, some were of legitimate concern. The Task Force on Anti-Racism at Ryerson cited a few specific examples of harassment and vandalism, which, I agree, should be dealt with harshly and swiftly. But most of it? Hyperbole and pandering, I’m sorry to say. Obviously a task force committed to sniffing out racism will find something. They don’t want to be deemed useless, after all.
I’ve spent nearly four years at Ryerson and have personally found it to be one of the most multicultural, inclusive, and culturally sensitive institutions I’ve ever encountered. Sure, maybe that’s my complacency/privilege/ignorance speaking, but from what I’ve observed, the campus is fairly harmonious (which says a lot, considering it’s a university). Globe writer Marcus Gee shares my view. “Ryerson University is one of the most diverse and welcoming universities in the country, if not the world,” he writes. Gee continues:
Under president Sheldon Levy, Ryerson has bent over backward to celebrate and encourage diversity. The university already has active programs on employment equity, a special office to serve aboriginal students and a prayer space for Muslim worshippers. At the university’s Ted Rogers School of Management, five of the 11 faculty hired in 2008 were visible minorities, just short of its target of six. Other faculties are striving to bring up their numbers, too.
The Toronto Star ignored these details in its article. Here are the more… umm… poignant excerpts:
Some observant Muslim students complained teachers often use jokes about sex that can make them uncomfortable.
One professor who was teaching students how to modulate their voices for radio told the class to pretend they were having sex and to imagine the voice they heard when they experience “pleasure.” Other students joined in and began making “very weird noises,” leaving some students very uncomfortable.
This line’s a gem:
Others longed for teachers who look like them, especially aboriginal and black students.
And straight from students’ mouths:
“Professors don’t address issues of inappropriate language.”
“I think a lot of Jewish students don’t run for student leadership positions because of the hostile environment and so they don’t have to vote for anti-Israel resolutions.”
Hmm. So what? We should be hiring professors for their looks, not their qualifications? (I wonder if the Force will advocate on behalf of the few men in my program, who swim in a sea of aspiring women-journalist, for more professors who “look like them.”) And what of the inappropriate language? Sexual innuendos? Hurt feelings? I thought we were out of middle school.
University is not supposed to make you feel comfortable. Sorry. Stay at home if you want to be coddled. University is one of those unique places where individuals are encouraged to express their beliefs and challenge their assumptions. And yes, some will often be offended. Personally, I celebrate it. What better opportunity to explore your own preconceptions than face that which irks you? And if you don’t like it: avoid it, challenge it, but don’t stifle it. If university can’t be a sanctuary for free speech, what can be?
Compulsory anti-racism courses for staff and students, as recommended by the racism report, won’t fix anything. You can’t force out ideology with a couple obligatory lectures. And telling profs to babysit or keep it PG is a dangerous step in the wrong direction. Oddly enough, I’ll think we’ll end up homogenizing if we keep catering to the multiplicity of hurt feelings. The real world isn’t sterilized, why should university be?
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.”
Toronto Star’s forged degree investigation
$1,000 buys two copies of sealed transcripts, $3,000 gets a university degree
The Toronto Star reports that it recently investigated 26-year-old York University graduate Peng Sun, who they say is in the business of selling forged university degrees and transcripts. As the story notes, the fake-degree market is believed to be a billion-dollar industry “with hundreds of Internet sites pumping out an estimated 200,000 fake diplomas a year around the globe”.
A transcript of two conversations between Peng Sun and the Star’s undercover operative is posted on the paper’s website. Sun admits that he sells “3 (degrees) per week, a good week, I get 4”. His price list is below. These items are apparently available in “different combos, with gift packages”.
- $3,000 – most university degrees (York, University of Toronto, etc.)
- $6,000 – University of Toronto-post 2006 (with anti-counterfeit hologram)
- $1,750 – Student photo ID card
- $1,000 – Two copies of sealed transcripts, on watermarked paper
- $900 – Graduation letter from Canadian university
- $800 – Enrolment notice
- $600 – Proof of tuition payments
- $500 – Admission letter from university
