All Posts Tagged With: "University of Waterloo"

Worries that efforts in the U.S. to limit enrollment of Asian students in top universities may migrate to Canada

When Alexandra and her friend Rachel, both graduates of Toronto’s Havergal College, an all-girls private school, were deciding which university to go to, they didn’t even bother considering the University of Toronto. “The only people from our school who went to U of T were Asian,” explains Alexandra, a second-year student who looks like a girl from an Aritzia billboard. “All the white kids,” she says, “go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.”

Alexandra eventually chose the University of Western Ontario. Her younger brother, now a high school senior deciding where he’d like to go, will head “either east, west or to McGill”—unusual academic options, but in keeping with what he wants from his university experience. “East would suit him because it’s chill, out west he could be a ski bum,” says Alexandra, who explains her little brother wants to study hard, but is also looking for a good time—which rules out U of T, a school with an academic reputation that can be a bit of a killjoy.

Or, as Alexandra puts it—she asked that her real name not be used in this article, and broached the topic of race at universities hesitantly—a “reputation of being Asian.”

Discussing the role that race plays in the self-selecting communities that more and more characterize university campuses makes many people uncomfortable. Still, an “Asian” school has come to mean one that is so academically focused that some students feel they can no longer compete or have fun. Indeed, Rachel, Alexandra and her brother belong to a growing cohort of student that’s eschewing some big-name schools over perceptions that they’re “too Asian.” It’s a term being used in some U.S. academic circles to describe a phenomenon that’s become such a cause for concern to university admissions officers and high school guidance counsellors that several elite universities to the south have faced scandals in recent years over limiting Asian applicants and keeping the numbers of white students artificially high.

Although university administrators here are loath to discuss the issue, students talk about it all the time. “Too Asian” is not about racism, say students like Alexandra: many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say). Asian kids, meanwhile, say they are resented for taking the spots of white kids. “At graduation a Canadian—i.e. ‘white’—mother told me that I’m the reason her son didn’t get a space in university and that all the immigrants in the country are taking up university spots,” says Frankie Mao, a 22-year-old arts student at the University of British Columbia. “I knew it was wrong, being generalized in this category,” says Mao, “but f–k, I worked hard for it.”

That Asian students work harder is a fact born out by hard data. They tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded in their approach to university. Stephen Hsu, a physics prof at the University of Oregon who has written about the often subtle forms of discrimination faced by Asian-American university applicants, describes them as doing “disproportionately well—they tend to have high SAT scores, good grades in high school, and a lot of them really want to go to top universities.” In Canada, say Canadian high school guidance counsellors, that means the top-tier post-secondary institutions with international profiles specializing in math, science and business: U of T, UBC and the University of Waterloo. White students, by contrast, are more likely to choose universities and build their school lives around social interaction, athletics and self-actualization—and, yes, alcohol. When the two styles collide, the result is separation rather than integration.

The dilemma is this: Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so. Privately, however, many in the education community worry that universities risk becoming too skewed one way, changing campus life—a debate that’s been more or less out in the open in the U.S. for years but remains muted here. And that puts Canadian universities in a quandary. If they openly address the issue of race they expose themselves to criticisms that they are profiling and committing an injustice. If they don’t, Canada’s universities, far from the cultural mosaics they’re supposed to be—oases of dialogue, mutual understanding and diversity—risk becoming places of many solitudes, deserts of non-communication. It’s a tough question to have to think about.

*This article was originally titled “‘Too Asian’?” For our response to the controversy it has generated, click here.

Former UWaterloo president officially takes Canada’s top post

David Johnston was sworn in on Friday as Canada’s newest Governor General. In his first speech as GG, Johnston urged Canadians to build “a smart and caring nation,” and promised to focus his efforts on promoting families, education and volunteerism. Johnston’s role as vice-regal follows a distinguished academic career, which until recently had him serving as president of the University of Waterloo.

“David Johnston has been driven by the intense belief that service is not merely an option. It is a duty, an obligation of the heart that honour compels a man to accept,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. “He holds it to be so whether the beneficiaries are his large and devoted family, the institutions at which he has worked, the wider communities in which he has lived or the country that he loves.”

Source: CTV News

Internal review says most members of football team were shocked by doping scandal

The University of Waterloo is recommending better education of players and coaches about performance-enhancing drugs after a doping scandal. An internal review says most members of the now suspended football team were surprised by the number of drug cheats on the team.

The school suspended its football program from competition for a full season in June after urine tests revealed nine anti-doping violations. The team will return to regular competition in 2011, even though 18 players have already transferred to other schools.

Head coach, Dennis McPhee, and assistant, Marshall Bingeman, were placed on paid leave, but they returned to work this week. The school will also hold mandatory seminars in September for each of its 560 athletes and Beckie Scott, an Olympic gold medal-winning cross-country skier, will address the athletes.

The Canadian Press

For more on this story, please click here.

Will David Johnston bring attention to post-secondary education from his new post at Rideau Hall?

David Johnston, president of the University of Waterloo and Governor General-designate, has education on his mind. In an interview with the Waterloo Record published this weekend, he declined to speak about his upcoming move to Ottawa and instead focused on the future of education in Canada.

The profile, written by Luisa D’Amato, describes Johnston as “a man transformed by education and its opportunities,” having eventually found his way to Queen’s University, Cambridge University and Harvard University after having grown up in a family of “modest means.” As a former principal of McGill University and after having served at Waterloo for 11 years, he’s got some ideas about how to improve education in Canada — the primary and secondary education system as well as higher education.

Johnston is in support of government goals to increase the percentage of people who pursue university and college education. But he sees weakness in master’s- and doctoral-level programs, which leads to talented students leaving the country for academic opportunity. He blames Canada’s post-graduate shortcomings for a shortage of skilled, highly-educated workers and poor research capacity.

When it comes to proposing solutions, however, Johnston is less detailed. He doesn’t believe a master strategy will do the trick, rather he points to small institutional changes, such as Waterloo’s recent invitation to a group of Indian post-graduate students to visit the university during the summer to participate in research.

So while his selection as GG suggests that Prime Minister Harper looked to academia for the right person to represent the monarchy, Johnston’s comments in the Record suggest that, as others have already noted, the man knows his place. While his insight into the education system may attract some attention to the file, Johnston likely won’t be the guy to lobby for needed changes. And rightly so. As this publication noted when Governor General Michaelle Jean pushed the government to open a university in the north: the GG should reign, not govern.

How universities and high schools are setting students up for disappointment

Scott Penner was a model high school student. With a grade 12 average of 93 per cent, and with math and science as his strongest subjects, he was poised to be a successful engineering student. That is, until he started at the University of Manitoba. Penner was not expecting to glide through university, though he “was still expecting to do fairly well.” Even by these lowered standards, his first year was less than encouraging. Not only was he receiving an uncharacteristic assortment of Bs and Cs, he failed first-year calculus, a prerequisite to continue on in engineering. “It was a bit of a shock,” he says.

Penner is not alone. The vast majority of students see their grades fall, often dramatically, once they get to university. What is sometimes called “grade shock” can have devastating consequences for students, as they struggle to cope with the fact that they are no longer at the top of the class.

Within the course of a semester dreams can be easily whisked away. “The business program or engineering program that they thought they were going to pursue [is] not an option for them anymore,” says Brock University economist Felice Martinello who recently co-authored a study on the changes in grades between high school and first-year university.

There are also financial repercussions. In 2008, Maclean’s surveyed the rate at which students who received entrance scholarships kept the requisite grades to maintain their funding going into second year. At York University, where fully 60 per cent of incoming students received an entrance scholarship, only 10 per cent kept their funding. At McMaster the rate was 21 per cent. At Ryerson, seven per cent.

As grades have long been known to predict whether students will complete their program, significant grade drops may be contributing to dropout rates, suggesting that students coming in, even with an A+ average, may become discouraged and simply give up. In fact, the best evidence we have suggests that it is the highest achieving students that are most at risk for being disappointed in university.

In his paper, Martinello, and coauthor Ross Finnie, find–consistent with previous research–that on average students see a 10-point drop in their grades once they are in university. Using data from Statistics Canada’s Youth In Transition Survey, the study concludes that nearly half of all students surveyed saw their marks decline by one letter grade. About 23 per cent saw their grades plummet by two letters or more. Only 2.5 per cent of students saw their grades improve, and about a quarter maintained averages consistent with their high school marks.

But, what is novel about Finnie and Martinello’s paper, and pertinent for high school academic stars like Penner, is that the economists determined that “the highest achieving group (in high school) has the largest decrease in grades.” Students entering university with a 90 per cent or higher experienced a drop of 11.9 points. Students with high school marks in the 60-79 per cent range had only a 4.4-point drop. Prior studies tended to assume that even with a drop, that there was a linear relationship between high school and university grades. Finnie and Martinello’s research challenges that assumption.

“You’d think that maybe, oh, it’s the weaker students, that once they go to university, they’re really going to get killed, but it turns out that’s it’s the 90 plus group,” Martinello says.

Recent trends suggest that the challenges of grade shock are only going to become more widespread. That’s because students with average entering grades, in the B or B+ range, are slowly disappearing. And when all, or most, of the students come in with an A or A+ average, many will have nowhere to go but down.

At the University of British Columbia average entrance grades across the university are expected to be 87 per cent this year, a two per cent increase from last year, and up from 80 per cent ten years ago, and 70 per cent twenty years ago. Andrew Arida, UBC’s associate director of enrolment says higher entering grades are simply a matter of supply and demand. “Because students are presenting higher grades, we’ve had to raise our admission averages to avoid over-enrolling,” he explains.

Only a few years ago, UBC was admitting around 15 per cent of students with grades below 80. That number is dwindling fast. Although Arida didn’t have final figures for the fall, he says only a “small number” of students will get in with less than an A. Students entering the two largest faculties, science and arts, will need a minimum high school average of 86 and 85 per cent respectively.

Similarly, the University of Waterloo increased by seven per cent this year over last, the number of entering students with an average of at least 85 per cent.

Schools like Waterloo and UBC, already considered prestigious, are joining an elite club of universities that are inaccessible to all but the highest achieving students. With an average entering grade of 88.9 per cent, Queen’s University rarely admits students with less than an A average. At McGill, the median average entrance grade for Canadian students is 92 per cent.

Students confident of success

Six young Canadian math whizzes are ready to divide, add, subtract, multiply and conquer at a prestigious global competition, but they won’t be using their calculators at the contest. For high school students taking part in the International Mathematical Olympiad, rulers and compasses are allowed in the exam room. Calculators, however, are a no-no.

Canada’s sharp math minds are well aware they’re facing tough challenges ahead beyond mere number-crunching in their quest for a medal at the IMO. “Calculations are usually not a big part of the competition. It really is just pure problem-solving,” said Canadian team leader Adrian Tang, who took home a bronze medal at the IMO in 1998. “Everybody wants to make sure that it’s not a race through who can multiply these numbers quickly. It really is a true test of who has the best problem-solving skills.”

Canada will join more than 100 countries participating in this year’s IMO in Kazakhstan. The 51st annual event begins Saturday in the capital city of Astana. The first contest was held in Romania in 1959 with seven participating countries. It has since expanded to more than 90 countries from five continents. Toronto played host to the event in 1995.

Since Canada first started taking part in 1981, the country has received 17 gold, 40 silver and 68 bronze medals. This year’s Canadian team includes two students from B.C., one from Alberta and three from Ontario ranging from Grade 7 to 12. Robin Cheng, Hunter Spink and Chen Sun, who were silver medallists at the 2009 IMO in Bremen, Germany, are back on the Canadian squad, alongside team members Alex Song, Yuqi Zhu and Jonathan Zung.

Canada’s team is attending training camp at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., in the leadup to this year’s contest, where they’ll take mock tests similar to the complex questions they’ll tackle during the IMO.

The contest takes place over two days, July 7 and 8. On each contest day, students are provided with three problems that they are given four hours and 30 minutes to complete. According to information by Naoki Sato, a former Canadian IMO team member, that is posted on the Canadian Mathematical Society’s website, subjects are restricted to those from the high school curriculum, including algebra, geometry, number theory, inequalities and combinatorics and probability.

The host country receives up to six problem proposals from other countries. They then have to make a shortlist of about 30 questions. An international jury comprising a chief delegate or leader from each participating country together with the chairman named by the host country selects the final problems. “It takes a lot of insight and analytical skills for anybody to be able to solve these problems,” said Tang, a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary in mathematics. “I’ve been solving math competition problems for 12 years and I still encounter problems I cannot solve.”

Tang said grading is done on a point system, and the goal is to solve as many problems as possible. Even if they can’t, participants should try to make as much progress as possible. “For anybody to even make partial progress on one of the problems is an astounding achievement because it takes a lot of creativity, it takes a lot of talent to really understand what the problem is asking,” he said.

This year’s contest will be the swan song for Chen Sun. The 17-year-old from London, Ont., attended his first IMO in Madrid in 2008 and last year’s event in Germany. Sun has been immersed in the subject and competitions for years. He first attended the local “Math Challenge @ Western” program in the fourth grade. Sun said what distinguishes math competitions is the emphasis on problem solving and creativity and truly trying to figure out something that, at first glance, even the world’s best math students may not have any idea how to solve.

While some may immediately conjure images of calculations when their thoughts turn to the subject, Sun sees math and the contests as representative of much more. “For people who are fortunate to have experienced that in high school and maybe in university, they see this other side of math, this other side that a lot of people never got a chance to see, and it really is pretty cool,” he said. “There is really some nice stuff in it. It’s like an art form, almost.”

Tang said he was confident that Canada will do well. “They’re a great team with a lot of talent and it’s probably one of the best teams we’ve had,” he said. “I expect great things from the team, but at the same time, I also hope that they’ll have a lot of fun in Kazakhstan, meet people, learn about the culture — just whatever is available there.”

The Canadian Press

Violations of academic freedom alleged in dismissal of school’s director

While his Research In Motion business partner is enjoying the glow of Stephen Hawking’s presence at the Perimeter Institute, Jim Balsillie’s own foray into high-level academic research has been steeped  in alleged violations of academic freedom. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) announced last week that it will be investigating the removal of Ramesh Thakur as director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs. The school is affiliated with the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University.

In a letter addressed to the presidents of both institutions, CAUT director James Turk alleged that Thakur was fired “without any stated cause, without any fair procedure and in violation of his contract.” Thakur’s tenure as director of the Balsillie School was to last until 2013. He will retain his faculty position at the University of Waterloo. The national professors union has appointed Len Findlay, a University of Saskatchewan English professor, to investigate the case and file a report by Sept 1.

Attracting the attention of the CAUT follows a report in the Globe and Mail about Thakur’s dismissal that raised questions about the relationship between the Balsillie School and the Blackberry entrepreneur’s private think tank, the Centre for Innovation in Global Governance (CIGI). A donation of $33 million to help create the school was funneled through CIGI, and faculty appointed to the Balsillie School are simultaneously appointed as CIGI chairs.  Summarizing the donor agreement and emails obtained by the Globe, the newspaper reported that there was an “expectation that CIGI will be consulted on strategy and staffing at the new school.”

The CAUT suspects that Thakur’s firing was motivated by his “opposition to giving CIGI a larger role in the governance of the Balsillie School.” It is a claim that appears to be supported by Thakur himself, who told the Globe, via email, that “Academic freedom is the bedrock of the university, and autonomy from outside interests (however well-meaning) is important in protecting that academic freedom.”

No one from the University of Waterloo or Wilfrid Laurier agreed to be interviewed by Maclean’s. However, both institutions released brief statements through their communications offices. “The departure of Dr. Ramesh Thakur as director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs is a personnel matter and therefore subject to confidentiality requirements,” read the Wilfrid Laurier statement.

A statement from the University of Waterloo similarly cited confidentiality issues, but also defended the institution’s commitment to academic freedom. “The university considers academic integrity and freedom as the most fundamental element of our foundation and existence,” the statement read.

Prior to coming to Waterloo, Thakur was Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations.

After deadline passes football players begin transferring to other universities

After giving the University of Waterloo a deadline of 1pm today, that came and went, to reverse a decision to cancel the 2010 football season, players are giving up. The program was suspended for a year after nine players tested positive for, or admitted to using, steroids. The unprecedented move of testing an entire football team was prompted by the arrest of receiver Nathan Zettler, who is charged with drug trafficking.

Yesterday, captains representing the 53 clean players pleaded with university administrators to reinstate the season, otherwise players would begin transferring to other universities. Earlier in the week, Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) announced that players wishing to play football elsewhere were free to apply to other schools. The university didn’t budge, and players have begun the transfer process.

The University of Waterloo Warriors football team will spend the upcoming season training, and will return to the CIS schedule next year. Administrators have said they will no longer be providing media comment until a review of the program and how it approaches drug use is completed.

University of Waterloo stands by decision to put football on hiatus after 9 positive steroid tests

Football players and coaches at the University of Waterloo are not pleased with the decision to suspend the program over a steroid scandal that has attracted international attention. The suspension was prompted after testing revealed nine football players tested positive for, or admitted to using, steroids. The unprecedented testing of the entire Waterloo Warriors football team stemmed from the arrest of a player, receiver Nathan Zettler, who is charged with drug trafficking.

Assistant coach Carl Zender quit over the cancelled season. He told The Record that canceling the program for a year could doom football at the university for years to come. “You can’t lose all the fourth- and fifth-year players and incoming recruits and have 30 people left and play football,” he said. Warriors captain Tom Bruce, who is graduating this year, added that the university is unfairly punishing the innocent. “What would you do if nine engineers were caught cheating on a test? You wouldn’t kick the whole class out of school,” he said.

Players who want the suspension revoked are launching a campaign, starting with a Facebook group, and a press conference schedule for tomorrow at noon. Legal action may be considered. However, a revised season schedule excluding the Warriors is currently being drawn up.

The university is standing by its decision. “It’s just too many (positive tests),” vice-president academic and provost Feridun Hamdullahpu said. “For all new students coming to Waterloo to study and also participate in athletics, this had to be heard loud and clear. (Using banned substances) will not be tolerated.” The testing was conducted by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports. Urine tests were taken from all Waterloo players, and while those results have been revealed, the agency is awaiting results from 20 blood samples that are being tested for human growth hormone.

Dick Pound, former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, has applauded Waterloo’s decision to cancel the season. “It’s clearly a very serious situation. To catch nine in one swatch of tests is pretty alarming. The self-imposed sanction is probably a good message (to send),” he said.

Understanding academic probation, what it means and what to do about it

As exams wrap up across the country, most students are looking forward to patio nights and a stress-free summer. But some students are dreading their final grades after a not-so-perfect year.

A failed class, a flunked exam, or a mediocre grade-point average are outcomes no student wants to have come May. But what are the actual consequences of an ‘F’ on your transcript? Or missing required credits to move on to your next year or to graduate?

While most students may have heard of “academic probation,” not everyone knows what it entails. The first thing to remember is failing a class doesn’t mean you need to pack up your textbooks and join the circus, and getting put on academic probation won’t necessarily cripple you academically, if you seek help.

“The whole point of academic standings is to identify students who are at risk and then make them aware of the services that are available in obtaining better academic grades,” University of Calgary’s associate vice-provost (enrolment) and registrar David Johnston said. “When we admit a student, we want them to graduate.”

Academic probation is just one of many possible academic standings a full-time student can be assigned at the end of the year. In many cases the bad outweighs the good. At most schools, the only desired outcome is “In Good Standing,” which means you’re in the clear. There are varying degrees of unsatisfactory standings that come with conditions for the following school year, ranging from meeting benchmark grade-point averages, to withdrawing for a year.

In addition to “In Good Standing,” most universities include “Academic Probation” and “Failed” as the three possible standings. And the conditions of these standings are typically outlined in the university’s academic rules and regulations. Students receive notice of their standing in the summer, after grades are calculated through a mailed letter or an online transcript.

At a school like Calgary’s, when a student’s grade-point average is less than 1.70, the equivalent of a C-, students are put on a probationary period. This is typical of most schools, though the grade-point average threshold varies.

“The purpose, of course, of the first warning is to get them on track academically,” Johnston said. He said it’s normal for first-year students to come into university unprepared for the heavy course-load and higher academic standards than they are accustomed. First-year students, he said, are the largest group his school sees placed on academic probation.

Since grades are dealt with at the faculty level, it’s not clear exactly how many students each year are put on academic probation at each school.

It’s often just a matter of showing students their current learning styles aren’t working, associate dean of the faculty of science at the University of British Columbia Paul Harrison said. “Universities are pretty selective of who they invite in,” he said. “Students deep down have the skills if they apply themselves. Unfortunately some of them don’t.”

He said students also usually come out of high school with limited exposure to their chosen program or knowledge of the university’s expectations for them.

Manager of the Student Academic Success Centre at Carleton University, Kathleen Semanyk said besides academics, there could be any number of circumstances that prevent students from meeting program requirements. “We hear everything from ‘We’ve had a serious illness in my family,’ ‘I’ve lost a loved one,’ ‘I had to find a second job,’” Semanyk said. “It’s really common for students to think they’ve hit the end of the academic road.”

Johnston said, what also tends to happen is students may find their chosen program is not as well suited for them as they had hoped. “It’s aptitude and interest,” Johnston said. “If you don’t have an interest it’s hard to apply yourself.” Just the same, students may find their skill set doesn’t match what their program asks of them.