All Posts Tagged With: "University of Guelph"
University unions cry blackmail amidst economic downturn
UGuelph denies it threatened closure, says all universities are being hit hard
Unionized university staff say they are being pressured to accept pay and benefit rollbacks as their institutions cope with pension and operating shortfalls, according to this story in the Toronto Sun.
CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan says unionized workers are increasingly becoming the scapegoats for the economic downturn. In a press release issued Monday, he said the University of Guelph, whose pension fund has a shortfall of $260 million, recently told its workers to open up their collective agreements or face the closure of their university.
“The University of Guelph is…blackmailing employees and threatening closure if they don’t open up collective agreements and give concessions,” said Ryan. “Universities can’t just threaten to close if workers don’t bow down to their demands.”
Alastair Summerlee, president of the University of Guelph, says there are absolutely no plans to shut down the university and no request has been made to re-open staff collective agreements. However, he did concede that union representatives have been asked to meet with human resources to discuss ways to address the university’s $16 million operating deficit with as little impact on jobs as possible.
“Everybody is in this kind of financial challenge — not just the higher education sector,” he says. “We’ve been working to try to do this without involuntary layoffs, so we’ve had an early resignation and retirement package, and so far we have been successful.”
According to Summerlee, all universities are currently struggling with the effects of the economic downturn on endowment funds and pension plans, which has been combined with the strains of increasing enrolment on operational budgets.
Despite facing a similarly large shortfall in its pension fund, Duncan Watt, Carleton University’s vice-president of finance and administration, told the Ottawa Citizen the school has no plans to ask unions to re-open contracts.
University of Guelph – Prairie Café
Guelph’s worst food can go head to head with many other universities’ best
Guelph has a reputation for food: the Creelman Market Place, for example, has long been seen as a model of what on-campus meals should be: fresh, healthy, hearty. But I wondered: if Guelph’s best is so good, how bad is Guelph’s worst? Waiting for a bus to the university, I informally poll students. Where, I ask, is the worst food? They all answer: “Prairie Café.”
Prairie is attached to the concrete fortress that is South Residence, where over 1,800 students live, most of them frosh. The food service area has no natural light, the ceiling is low and there’s not much room to move around.
Not promising.
There is a “home cooked” counter, a short-order grill, and Pita Pit. The fruit and vegetable selection is basic, and an equivalent-sized space is dedicated to (overpriced) bulk candy. I order fish and chips, and the lunch special, “Lentil Chickpea Casserole.” The fish and chips slide around on the plate and I lose most of the fries. The server gives me a full plate of the casserole. It is huge; I can’t image eating all of it in one sitting. The prices are a bit steep at $6.17 for the fish and chips alone. However, residents pay only $4.94, and that’s a steal.
After paying, we enter the dining hall. What a difference. It is by far the best-looking dining hall of any institution I’ve visited. There are large windows and skylights everywhere. The seating feels upscale, with lots of booths. The materials absorb sound and the lighting is soft. This is definitely the place for relaxing and socializing. We end up staying for an hour and a half.
And the food? It’s not perfect. How much batter can one fish have? The fish was good, once you got to it, but encased in a batter twice its size. The fries were horrible; I can make better fries, and I barely know how to boil water. But the casserole was excellent: it was simply one of the best dishes I’ve had at a cafeteria. Guelph’s worst food can go head to head with many other universities’ best.
Debate censorship by pro-choice student unions?
University of Guelph’s student union latest to ban pro-life club
Forgive me for my sarcasm in this post, but I feel like I’m banging my head against the wall and not even chipping the paint. The only thing I’m achieving is continuing to frustrate myself and getting a headache. Yet, I continue screaming at the top of my lungs: “Enough! Banning free speech does nothing but make martyrs of the newly-oppressed!”
The latest cause of my frustration is the banning, on Oct. 1, of a pro-life club by the University of Guelph’s undergraduate student union, the Central Student Association.
A few months ago during a similar situation at York University, I noted that banning pro-life groups is actually counter-productive to the pro-choice cause.
The name of the banned club is Life Choice and they stand accused of promoting their anti-abortion/pro-life viewpoint during an event called “Life Fair” in March. The event featured speakers from the pro-life side, including graphic pictures and the distribution of materials to the student body. The CSA says this violated clubs policy and decided to ban the club during its Oct. 1 board meeting.
Life Choice says it didn’t believe it was violating policy.
This is the typical “he said-she said” debate that surrounds this issue. As much as I’m personally disgusted by some of the material and graphics shown by pro-lifers at many events I’ve witnessed, I support their ability to express their viewpoint and distribute their materials.
Sadly, the CSA does not believe in free speech for this political hot potato. According to the CSA, the event in March was so traumatic they had no choice but to ban the club and to issue an apology on behalf of the student body for exposing them to this side of the debate. The apology cites, in partial defense of the CSA’s crackdown on free speech, a recent resolution of the Canadian Federation of Students to support student unions which ban “anti-choice organizations access to their resources and space.”
All of this reflects poorly upon the CSA, but it gets worse. The CSA did not provide due process to the pro-life group.
Under the CSA’s own policy, Life Choice was supposed to be informed that their club status was being review. This would have provided the club the opportunity to speak in its own defense in front of the CSA Board. The CSA did not inform Life Choice of the impending vote as they rushed to ban the club. The lack of due process discredited the decision to ban the club. The CSA took the position that this lack of due process was acceptable because the club could appeal its mistreatment to the CSA Board of Directors, the same people who denied them due process in the first place.
The appeal was to be heard on Oct. 29. In the lead up to this meeting, the local mainstream newspaper The Guelph Mercury, devoted an editorial to the fiasco. In the editorial, the paper called the ban an “incredibly ill-advised choice.” However, the paper noted the appeal offered the CSA a “chance to save face, do the proper thing and return the club’s student group status.”
Sadly, for the already damaged reputation of the CSA, the normal chair of their meetings was unavailable that night and the meeting was unable to render a decision on the future of the pro-life club. According to The Mercury, the CSA will be meeting again tomorrow and still has the opportunity to make the right decision. They can allow for free speech to return to their campus.
Here’s my advice to the CSA: allow Life Choice enough status to participate in the great discussions of the academy. Allow them free speech. Don’t fund them. (They’ve said they don’t want the funding.) Allow them to distribute their viewpoint. If the CSA feels so strongly on the issue, counter their materials. If they are false, as the CSA claims, have confidence in the intelligence of the average university student to be able to realize this.
The abortion debate is exactly that; a debate. What better place for a debate to occur than on an university campus.
Poll Question
What should be done about hazing on campus?
- It should be banned outright (43%)
- If students want to join a frat, that's their choice (38%)
- It should be monitored and regulated (19%)
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This poll closes at 19:00 Eastern Standard Time on November 12, 2008
Four cases of E. coli confirmed for U of Guelph students
University takes precautions and shuts down campus Pita Pit
Public health officials have confirmed four University of Guelph students are suffering from an infection caused by E. coli 0157.
Public health officials are in the preliminary stages of their investigation and presently know of only one commonality among the four students; they all consumed food at the University’s Pita Pit.
The university, as a voluntary precaution, has shut down the Pita Pit pending the outcome of the public health investigation.
The University of Guelph had an incident of E. coli 0157:H7 contamination slightly over three months ago. There were eight confirmed cases during that outbreak.
Last November, the University of Western Ontario suffered an outbreak of Salmonella typhimurium that resulted in 90 laboratory-confirmed cases and many suspected cases. The outbreak was traced to contamination of the food preparation area of the University’s Pita Pit.
The Middlesex-London Health Unit issued a 118 page report (PDF) on the UWO outbreak in June.
The university is extending the hours of its student health services centre and keeping it open during the weekend to provide services to students in residence and those without family doctors living off-campus. The university is encouraging students with symptoms to visit the health centre or to contact the public health unit.
$9.5 for Ontario Veterinary College
Money will building small animals teaching hospital
The Ontario Veterinary College, Canada’s oldest, is receiving $9.5 million dollars from the province of Ontario to develop a primary-care teaching hospital for small animals.
The college, one of only four in Canada, will use the new hospital to give students more practical experience in caring for household pets. According to the college, Canadians have rising expectations for the health of their pets and this is increasing demand for veterinary services. With over $1.6 billion spent last year on medical care for pets, it is a growing area of practice for veterinarians.
Presently, the college’s teaching hospital operates primarily by referral and most referrals are specialized cases – not necessarily reflective of the day-to-day practice of a small animal medicine.
“The centre will give our student veterinarians unprecedented and invaluable learning and training opportunities and bring vital infrastructure improvements to the entire OVC campus,” said OVC dean Elizabeth Stone. “We hope to shape the future of veterinary education in primary health care.”
“Our government knows that it is today’s students who will build Ontario’s future economy, and that economy will be increasingly knowledge-based,” said John Milloy, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. “Our investment in these teaching and research facilities is ensuring that our veterinary students have access to the postsecondary education resources they need to prepare for the future.”
