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Ontario tuition grant falls short for province’s private universities
5:34 am | January 23rd, 2012
In late December, 2011, Ontario’s Liberal government announced the introduction of the Ontario tuition grant, designed to cover 30 per cent of the average tuition paid by Ontario students. However, mature students, students restricted by the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP), students attending out-of-province universities and students attending Ontario’s privately funded universities are not eligible.

In efforts to cover the annual $420-million cost of the grant, which will assist more than 300,000 post-secondary students across Ontario, the province will be reallocating funds from the Queen Elizabeth II Aiming for the Top scholarship, the Textbook and Technology Grant, and the Ontario Trust for Student Support.

While privately funded Ontario universities were not able to participate in the Ontario Trust for Student Support program, a $25-million fund that matched donated institutional scholarships and bursaries, their students were able to receive both the QEII Aiming for the Top scholarship and the Textbook and Technology Grant.

According to the ministry, there are 34 students currently holding QEII Aiming for the Top scholarships at privately funded schools across Ontario. All current QEII recipients will be able to renew their scholarship for up to three years, provided they meet the eligibility criteria; however, no new QEII scholarships will be offered in the 2012–13 academic year.

Redeemer University College and Tyndale University College are the only two private, government-approved and accredited universities in the province. There are 15 other not-for-profit private institutions that offer religious programs and degrees, and these are also excluded from the Ontario Tuition Grant.

With files from Brittany Knapper and The Crown. Read the full story here.

University of New Brunswick looking to improve student dropout rates

The Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (MPHEC) reported in a recent survey post-secondary institutions in the Maritimes lose about 33 per cent of students at the end their first year. Of that, the humanities, arts and social sciences faculties endure the lowest retention rate, with only 73 per cent of students returning for year two.

The University of New Brunswick has watched its enrollment rates etch a consistent path up and down graphs for the past decade, rounding out at just over 12,000 for the Fredericton and Saint John campuses. The rates haven’t fallen, but they haven’t gone up. In light of this, the university administration has pledged to enhance the student experience and boost retention through a number of initiatives falling under the Student Experience Measurement Plan.

The university has scoured the MPHEC database in search of trends and a possible answer to increasing student persistence. UNB’s own research demonstrates the most popular factors in students leaving fall outside the academic realm. Financial planning and time management top the list of many, however, the need for a more in-depth and accurate depiction remains.

The need for stable or increasing retention rates is pertinent to the financial administrators, as well. The university uses a predictive number to account for the level enrollment when outlining the annual operating budget. Tuition fees account for roughly 30 per cent of the budget, and a significant drop could lead to a shortfall.

With files from Colin McPhail and The Brunswickan. Read the full story here.

UBC prof launches free online ‘university’ aimed at developing world

Money could be becoming less of a factor in getting a university-level education. Next Generation University (NextGenU) has opened its virtual doors to become one of the first services in Canada to offer university-level education. Erica Frank, founder and executive director of NextGenU and a professor at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, began working on NextGenU a decade ago.

She has made training people for the health sector a priority for the program, which began offering courses this December in the health sciences field. It is free of cost, barriers and advertisements.

Though primarily directed toward people in developing countries, NextGenU.org’s courses can be taken by anyone for either credit at an accredited institution or solely for continued education and training. Content for the courses comes free of charge from professors and institutions from all over the world, and evaluation is done through peer and mentor assessment in addition to quizzes and final exams coordinated by NextGenU.

Some have raised concerns over the use of the term “university” with the NextGenU site, but Frank defended the quality of NextGenU, saying state-approved institutions have contributed greatly.

“Universities are critical as research enterprises, as teaching enterprises. I am very grateful to live in a country where we can have an outstanding institution like UBC that lots of people can afford to go to. But that luxury doesn’t exist every place,” Frank added.

With files from RJ Reid and The Ubyssey. Read the full story here.

About Campus News Roundup

This weekly roundup of student news across the country is compiled by Canadian University Press: North America’s only student press co-operative. CUP is a bilingual organization, owned and operated by almost 90 student newspapers across the country.
Teacher, not class size, is key, report says
4:20 pm | December 16th, 2011
The issue around class size in universities has led to the University of Toronto’s CUPE 3902 union — which represents over 4,000 workers in varying class assistant roles, like teaching assistants and graduate-student teachers — to support a strike if their request for smaller tutorials and labs is not met.

The union voted 91 per cent in favour of a strike on Nov. 30, stating that tutorials need a cap on the number of students in order to stop them from becoming too impersonal and disengaging.

While the union is proposing a soft cap that would add more hours of work time onto a course if the number of students in a tutorial reaches 20, a proposed hard cap would set a limit of 50 students per tutorial.

But there is dispute over whether tutorial and class sizes are the most important factor of a student’s learning experience. A new report recently released by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) states that class size might be less important than a professor who interacts with students and provides active learning methods.

The HEQCO report finds that professors who interact with students and provides active lessons lead to a deeper level of learning, regardless of how big a class is. The report also focuses on ways that teachers of large undergraduate classes, usually first-year introductory courses, are developing ways of getting students out of the traditional lecture and tutorial format.

With files from Lee Richardson. Read the full story here.

Shooting and arson attacks continue against people linked with B.C. institute

Three more incidents and an Insurance Corporation of B.C. (ICBC) link have emerged in connection to the targeted attacks on people associated with the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC).

In September, the RCMP advised the public that 10 individuals linked with JIBC had been the victims of arson or shooting attacks throughout 2011. The people targeted included three JIBC employees, two former students and five others with loose links to the institution.

Since then, three more people have been targeted, though none of the 13 suffered any injuries. The attacks occurred at or near the victims’ homes and vehicles.

The RCMP declined to specify where the attacks took place, except to state that they were spread throughout the Lower Mainland and that none took place on any of JIBC’s seven campuses. No arrests have been made and according to the RCMP, none of the victims have any links to criminality.

JIBC, a public post-secondary institution based out of New Westminster, trains people in a variety of disciplines related to justice and often instructs professionals such as police officers, paramedics, social workers and correctional staff.

According to Chris Wong, senior manager of communication and marketing at JIBC, no current students have been victims of these attacks and the institute has taken numerous safety precautions to protect its staff and students.

Neither the RCMP or JIBC would speculate about possible motivations for the attacks.

With files from Arshy Mann. Read the full story here.

About Campus News Roundup

This weekly roundup of student news across the country is compiled by Canadian University Press: North America’s only student press co-operative. CUP is a bilingual organization, owned and operated by almost 90 student newspapers across the country.
Exam tips to help you study smart
12:04 pm | December 14th, 2011

By Greg Overholt, Founder and Executive Director of Students Offering Support, and TalentEgg contributor

The exam season is unfortunately upon us. It’s much worse than wedding season and only slightly less depressing than the Toronto Maple Leafs’ recent playoff seasons…but not by much.
I’ve seen thousands of students who have gone through some of the most epic exam schedules (anyone out there with three exams in 27 hours [9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 9 a.m.], which gets around the policy that you can’t have three exams in 24 hours? #schedulingfail), and I have a put together a few thoughts that may help you get through it all.

My overarching mantra for exam-prep is studying smart. Time is your most valuable resource (more so than food and cheap pitchers combined), so when you are studying, you want to always ask yourself: “Is this the smartest use of my time?”

Remember the following pointers to ensure that you’re studying smart:

Practice exam-style questions
Preparing and completing exam-style questions is the best use of time before an exam. If you have only time to do one thing, work through practice problems, mock exam-style questions, past exams, etc. Spending 15 minutes to understand an exam-style question can easily correlate to an extra 2-10% on your exam!

Tip: If you bought a textbook, they typically have an abundance of online resources with question banks and practice exams. Take advantage of these resources while you can!

Read only when you need to read
Your exam covers 11 chapters and 400 pages of the textbook. Textbook readings may be the place for all the answers, or they can just serve as supplementary material for the lecture slides and notes. Does your prof simply teach from the slides? If so, use the textbook as a resource when you don’t understand the slide material. But if you’re taking a course like biology, where your professor may talk about concepts and ideas during lecture (and simply expect you to memorize all 10 tendons of the upper thigh and why they are all so awesome), then textbook reading is valuable time spent.

Teach to learn
Studies have shown that retention is stronger when you are able to tell the information to someone else. Find peers who are at around the same level of “preparedness” and, on the day before the exam, talk through the chapters and take turns explaining things and testing each other. This process can actually be fun too (just make sure that you can stay focused).

Make chapter summary notes and share them with peers
Who has the time to do a great job of reading slides and textbook material to condense 20 chapters into concise notes? Nobody. But if you can assemble a group of ideally four or five people, each of you are only responsible for three or four chapters and can spend a good amount of time creating quality study notes. Share those and BAM – huge time saver and great concise summary notes! This process is extremely useful since you will be super confident in the four chapters that you were responsible for, and the condensed study notes of the lecture and textbook material should be the only thing you need to familiarize yourself with.

Participate in exam review sessions
This is an area of conflict for me as my organization, Students Offering Support (SOS), co-ordinates exam-prep review sessions; however, even our sessions aren’t right for everyone.
For any exam-prep review session, be it professor-taught, from TAs, volunteer student-group sessions like SOS, or any of the big for-profit businesses, you need to weigh the two main resources – time and money. If the session is a six-hour event that takes you through the entire course (often can be for $80-$120), it will take you through EVERYTHING. If you aren’t severely behind or don’t need to get 98% (and 93% will do), then there may be better uses of your time and money. If you have specific areas of struggle or if you have specific questions, then professor- or TA-led sessions are key since most utilize the Q&A style.

If you are looking to gain understanding of the material, clarity of your knowledge, and an opportunity to ask questions, a shorter instruction time (like two-to-four hours) can definitely be enough to give you a huge boost in studying while making a good use of your time (again, biased as this is what SOS Exam-AID sessions provide, but having done this for eight years – these types of sessions really do work!)

Get ‘some’ sleep
During the exam period, sleep smart. When you have a few days before an exam, get your seven-to-eight hours of sleep if you can. When you are in the middle of a minefield of exams, it is imperative that you get ‘some’ sleep. How much is some? At least three-to-five hours. You need the time to let all that this knowledge solidify in your memory for easy retrieval during your exam.
The best proof I have of this was when I was memorizing my script for elevator pitch competitions. I’d have 90 seconds to spit out 300 words about my idea to the judges. If I stumbled at all, there went the precious seconds that I could’ve invested into my closing sentence. I’d do it over and over again, becoming increasingly frustrated with myself when I messed up. I remember heading to bed the night before getting roughly 90% of the words correct. I’d wake up on the day of and, without looking at my script, my first try would easily be 95% right with only a few minor mistakes.

See the Big Picture
Exam success comes to those who effectively play the game. Not soccer, WOW, LOL or any other palindromic named computer game, but the game of writing exams. Our education system (higher education in particular) is continually growing in student population with bigger class sizes each year. With this, exams often don’t effectively test if you can think critically, analyze problems as one would in the real world, or require higher-level thinking.

So how do you effectively play the game? Know your professor’s style, ask questions about the format, look at past exams if available, and understand the slides and teaching materials to the best of your ability. Memorize where and when you need to, understand how to do key problems, and make sure that you know the core concepts and techniques of the course.

These are the study techniques and tips I used throughout my undergrad and with my tight study group – we all did okay.

Greg Overholt is the founder and executive director of the national student-led charitable social venture SOS: Students Offering Support. SOS is an organization where student volunteers teach their peers in exam-prep group review sessions, with the proceeds used to fund education projects in rural Latin America, built by volunteers on annual outreach trips. Since 2004, 20,000 students have been taught across 23 universities, raising more than $700,000 for 35 development projects. Greg graduated in 2008 from Laurier’s business and computer science program, and has spent the last three years helping 1500+ student leaders across Canada to ‘raise marks, raise money, and raise roofs’ on their campus.

This post is brought to you in partnership with TalentEgg.ca, a career hub for Canadian students and new grads looking for career-starting opportunities with top employers, open 24 hours a day, from coast to coast.
Ontario to build three new campuses based on population, student needs
11:49 am | December 11th, 2011
The Ontario government is planning to build three new campuses that would offer undergraduate degrees in the province, with locations to be selected based on population and educational demands.
The election promise by the Ontario Liberals, recently repeated during the government’s throne speech, is to build the three new campuses to open up 60,000 post-secondary spots by 2015–16. The province is currently looking into where educational needs are not being met.

“We’ll be looking for communities with really significant needs, or where there’s a growing population,” said Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Glen Murray. “We’d be looking at some growth areas where there is an emerging economy with employment that could be supported and reinforced by a local college or university.”

Likely to become satellite campuses of existing universities and colleges, and more likely combinations of the two — examples given by Murray included “any combinations: Mohawk and McMaster University; Toronto and Seneca; Ryerson and Niagara” — the facilities will be designed to respond to what communities need.

“Part of what we want to look at is what kind of education are people trying to get,” said Murray. “Whether it’s apprenticeships, trades, whether it’s a law school — it doesn’t really matter.”

Construction is expected to begin on the three campuses in about three years, according to Murray.

With files from Lee Richardson. Read the full story here.

Lack of report cards won’t hinder graduating students in B.C.

Teachers in British Columbia may not be writing report cards this year, but graduating students should have no problem getting their grades to universities and colleges.
As part of an ongoing “controlled strike,” the B.C. Teachers Federation (BCTF) has, among other things, not been writing and distributing report cards to students. However, teachers will still be reporting the grades of graduating students to administration.

According to Deborah Stewart, media liaison for the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA), if a student or parent requests marks for scholarships, graduation and applications for post-secondary study, then the teacher must provide them to school administration, who will then forward it along to the Ministry of Education.

Post-secondary institutions appear to not be worried that the job action will affect admissions for prospective students.

“We have mechanisms to get students [their] grades other than the report cards. Students can self-report their grades to us and then we verify what they self-report to us against official data that comes from the ministry in May,” said Andrew Arida, associate director of Enrolment Services at UBC.

He said that this is the university’s “standard operating procedure” and doesn’t anticipate any problems this year.

In 2005, a similar labour dispute between the BCTF and the provincial government escalated to a full strike, but the issue was resolved before marks had to be reported.

With files from Arshy Mann. Read the full story here.

McGill’s MUNACA strike ends

McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) members voted Dec. 5 to ratify a new five-year contract with McGill after almost 11 months of negotiations and one semester on strike.
After an over four-hour meeting in the Palais de congrès, the union, which represents around 1,700 non-academic support staff, voted with 71.5 per cent of members in favour.

When the strike began on Sept. 1, the union’s main demands focused on a base salary increase for all members consistent with cost of living increases, a wage scale dictating annual salary increases for members on par with wages scales at other Quebec universities, and greater protection for pensions and benefits.

The new contract will include annual across-the-board wage increases and a new wage scale, an achievement that has been deemed “historic.”

The strike was punctuated by a number of incidents, including two separate injunctions McGill brought against the union.

As late as mid-November, negotiations were suspended between the two sides, both claiming they were too far apart on wage demands.

MUNACA workers can return to work this week, but have a grace period until Dec. 9.

With files from Henry Gass and the McGill Daily. Read the full story here.

About Campus News Roundup

This weekly roundup of student news across the country is compiled by Canadian University Press: North America’s only student press co-operative. CUP is a bilingual organization, owned and operated by almost 90 student newspapers across the country.
New Brunswick students to pay highest tuition dollars in country
9:04 am | December 4th, 2011
In January, New Brunswick will become the province with the highest tuition rate paid by students.

This revelation comes on the heels of an announcement by the Ontario government that they will introduce a tax credit for Ontario students studying at Ontario post-secondary institutions. Beginning in January, students whose parents make less than $160,000 annually will receive a tuition credit of $1,600. The Ontario government estimates that this will affect about 86 per cent of its post-secondary students.

According to Statistics Canada, Ontario has an average tuition rate of $6,640 per year. The new tax credit will bring the tuition for most students below the New Brunswick average tuition rate of $5,853 per year.

Students at New Brunswick universities and colleges are familiar with high tuition. Tuition rates have been more than $5,000 per year for the past five years, according to Statistics Canada. The previous Liberal government, which was in power from 2006–10, put a cap on tuition, which was to last five years.

The Conservative government, which was elected on Sept. 27, 2010, removed that cap and raised tuition by $200 for the 2011–12 academic year. The new government also reinstated parental contributions for student loan assessments, a decision which affected many students whose parents make good money on paper but don’t have any money set aside for their child’s tuition.

With files from Alanah Duffy and the Brunswickan. Read the full story here.

NSCAD University avoids strike

NSCAD University and the Faculty Union of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design have avoided a strike in the eleventh hour after five months at the bargaining table.
The ratification of the tentative agreement last week by FUNSCAD Units I and II, representing faculty and technicians, came in a timely manner as the Windsor Report is scheduled to be released in the coming days. The report, conducted by former deputy minister Howard Windsor, will recommend the optimal funding arrangement for the future of the university.

The school is one of six Nova Scotian universities being examined because of financial difficulties. NSCAD is facing a $2.4-million deficit for the 2011–12 year.

The 18-month contract, retroactively beginning July 1, will expire Dec. 31, 2012, and both sides are expecting the negotiations to restart next fall.

Unit III, comprised of support staff, reached a tentative agreement with the administration last week. Although no details have been released, the university and the union, which is based in the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU), are confident it will be ratified as well.

With files from Colin McPhail. Read the full story here.

Alcohol banned in St. Thomas University residence

St. Thomas University’s Harrington Hall has gone dry. An alcohol ban came into effect at the residence this week after several incidents this past semester grabbed the attention of the university’s dean of students Larry Batt.
Students aren’t allowed to use or possess open or unopen alcohol in Harrington for the remainder of first semester. The ban will be reviewed in second semester.

“This decision relates to what’s been going on in Harrington Hall this semester and how we felt it was necessary to respond to it,” Batt said. “Drinking was recognized as a contributing factor in exacerbating other conduct issues. Based on that, I declared this alcohol prohibition.”

Discharged fire extinguishers, paper towel being set on fire and broken glass throughout the residence are among the problems Harrington has faced. A fight during Harrington’s first house party of the year also netted the house some negative attention from residence life.

Residence manager Kelly Hogg said the ban will be enforced like any other residence rule, meaning students could face fines or other sanctions if they’re caught with alcohol.

Hogg, who has been working at STU for the last five years and was a student at STU living in Vanier Hall before that, couldn’t recall another time when the university placed an outright ban on alcohol.

With files from Karissa Donkin and the Aquinian. Read the full story here.

About Campus News Roundup

This weekly roundup of student news across the country is compiled by Canadian University Press: North America’s only student press co-operative. CUP is a bilingual organization, owned and operated by almost 90 student newspapers across the country.
Aboriginal education key to economic growth, professor finds
7:00 am | November 28th, 2011
Aboriginal students are one of Saskatchewan’s largest untapped economic assets, according to a new study.

Eric Howe, a University of Saskatchewan economics professor, was asked by the Gabriel Dumont Institute to do a study on the economic benefits of aboriginal education in Saskatchewan. In addition to the societal advantages of a more highly educated and affluent population — reduced crime, better health, higher tax revenue — there are substantial economic benefits for both the individuals and society at large, he found.

After studying 24 “massive” spreadsheets covering the lifetime earnings of males and females of aboriginal, non-aboriginal and Métis descent who had received varied levels of education, from dropping out to finishing university degrees, Howe combined individual monetary and non-monetary benefits with societal benefits such as higher tax revenues to calculate the economic benefit to Saskatchewan if more aboriginal people were to get university degrees.

The number he reached was $90-billion.

To put this into context, Howe said the prosperous and booming industry of potash sales has brought $70-billion into the province throughout Saskatchewan’s 106-year history. And according to Statistics Canada, Saskatchewan’s 2009 GDP was just over $56-billion.

The economic potential of the aboriginal population in Canada will likely increase dramatically in coming years, as well, according to Howe. Canada’s aboriginal population grew by 45 per cent between 1996 and 2006, during which time the non-aboriginal population grew by just eight per cent. Based on current population projections, aboriginal youths will make up 40 per cent of Saskatchewan’s school-aged youth by 2020.

With files from Tannara Yelland. Read the full story here.

Former interned Japanese-Canadian UBC students to receive honourary degrees

After much hesitation and public criticism, the University of British Columbia has decided to give interned Japanese-Canadian students honourary degrees.

The university senate decided to present 76 Japanese-Canadian former UBC students, including Sumiya, with the degrees to recognize those who were interned and unable to complete their studies at the institution during WWII. This follows a course of action that many other universities in North America have already taken.
After hearing about similar cases at other universities, Mary Kitagawa of the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Students Association made the degrees a priority for their Human Rights Committee for the past three years.

“It’s been a long struggle. It’s been more or less trying to educate people in power to understand the issue and it’s taken this long,” said Kitagawa.

Associate history professor Henry Yu is one of several faculty members and students who are proposing a minor in Asian-Canadian studies. The program would include existing classes on Asian-Canadian history and literature and two new classes.

“One [class] would be a broad introduction, multi-disciplinary, drawing on the strengths of faculty and students from many different departments,” said Yu. “The other would … really be about community-based research.”

UBC’s libraries also plan to digitize parts of their Japanese-Canadian collections.

With files from Micki Cowan and The Ubyssey. Read the full story here.

Future of visual art at Queen’s in question

The future of visual arts studies at Queen’s University is uncertain as enrolment for the school’s bachelor of fine arts program has been suspended for the next academic year.
The stop to new admissions is due to of a lack of resources, according to an announcement made by associate dean of arts and science, Gordon E. Smith. But the announcement potentially reflects a larger opposition towards the fine arts at universities in general, according to those within art faculties.

The announcement cites a lack of resources, including a retirement within the program and financial difficulties, as the reasons for suspension of new admissions.

“Other units are also vulnerable, not just us,” said fine art undergraduate chair Jan Winton. “We’ve experienced really, really severe cutbacks, university-wide, for the last three years … it’s been something that we’ve seen coming down the line for a long time.”

Students in the BFA program have been told that their current degree won’t be affected. But members of the student body and faculty have spoken out against the decision and created petitions in support of reconsidering the decision.

The suspension of the program for the 2012–2013 academic year, along with the Nova Scotia government’s review of NSCAD University in Halifax, N.S., has led to questions being raised in art circles about the future of arts and humanities education in Canada.

“It’s a concern for all of us teaching in this sector, in art and design schools, across the country,” said Caroline Langill, associate dean at OCAD University’s faculty of art.

With files from Lee Richardson. Read the full story here.

About Campus News Roundup

This weekly roundup of student news across the country is compiled by Canadian University Press: North America’s only student press co-operative. CUP is a bilingual organization, owned and operated by almost 90 student newspapers across the country.
NSCAD University moves closer to avoiding strike
3:52 pm | November 18th, 2011
NSCAD University, the former Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, has moved one step closer to avoiding a strike as administrators have reached tentative agreements with two of the three union bargaining units.
Earlier this month, instructors initially voted 93 per cent in favour of strike action in the face of such issues as more casual employees teaching classes and the future of the school, as NSCAD is currently under review by the province.

The school is one of six Nova Scotian universities being examined because of financial difficulties. NSCAD is facing a $2.4-million deficit for the 2011–12 year.

The university reached tentative agreements with the first bargaining unit — composed of faculty — on Nov. 11, and the second bargaining unit — which includes technicians — on Nov. 16.

The second-unit members will vote to ratify the new contract on Nov. 21 and the faculty unit will vote the next day. Spokespeople from both sides are hopeful they will pass.

The ongoing negotiations, which began in June, have been long and arduous. Both sides said reaching an agreement came at the right time, as a report evaluating the university’s future is scheduled to be published in the next couple of weeks. Marilyn More, provincial minister of advanced education and labour, appointed in September Howard Windsor, a former deputy minister, to compose the report after the university rejected the notion of a possible merger with another school. Windsor is working with NSCAD’s board of governors to find solutions for the school’s financial pressures, after the board voted in favour of keeping the school autonomous back in September.

The final bargaining unit, representing support staff, is still in the midst of negotiations with the administration and a conciliator. The two sides will meet again next week.

With files from Colin McPhail. Read the full story here.

McGill student protesters forced off campus

Over 100 riot police stormed McGill campus on the evening of the Nov. 10 tuition fee protests in Montreal, forcefully dispersing student demonstrators who had gathered in front of the James Administration building. Pepper spray, tear gas and physical force were used by police against demonstrators who were protesting the detainment and violence allegedly used by McGill Security against a group of McGill students who had occupied Principal Heather Munroe-Blum’s office earlier in the day. Their sit-in coincided with a 30,000-strong demonstration against tuition hikes in the province.

In the early evening of Nov. 10, riot police entered the campus, beating their shields with batons. Demonstrators were pepper-sprayed after pushing back against the police lines in front of James Administration. Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson told the McGill Daily on Nov. 11 that the university did not call the riot squad, and suggested police already on the scene made the call.

Munroe-Blum released a statement Nov. 11, indicating that McGill Dean of Law Daniel Jutras has been asked to conduct an independent investigation of the events of Nov. 10, to be completed by Dec. 15. The McGill principal added that she was not on campus to witness the events firsthand on Nov. 10, and emphasized that “the presence of the riot squad, which dispersed the protesters by its usual means, was entirely directed by the Montreal police service.”

“The presence of riot police on our campus is shocking,” she wrote.

With files from Jessica Lukawiecki, Erin Hudson and The McGill Daily. Read the full story here.

Ontario university considers teaching students one course at a time

Students at an Ontario university could be learning their courses in a dramatically different way if a proposal is passed.

Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie is considering switching to a “block plan” that would allow students to study courses one at a time consecutively, instead of the usual four or five courses being studied at the same time.

An executive report on the proposal was recently released by the university, the result of eight months of research into the idea of switching from the typical “parallel curriculum model” to a “sequential” system.

A major factor in the report revolves around an expected higher level of student engagement that results from a short burst of heavier learning. This concentration on a certain subject is seen as easier to manage than balancing workloads of various courses simultaneously.

Quest University, the only Canadian university that currently uses a block plan, has been recognized in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which covers post-secondary schools across North America, for high levels of student engagement. In the 2010 survey, interaction between students and faculty was 52.7 against the NSSE average of 32.7. In the “Enriching Educational Experiences” section Quest received a score of 40.8 against the NSSE average of 27.

There are some concerns around whether switching to a block plan system — developed at Colorado College in 1970 — could alienate some groups of students, including part-time, special needs and mature students.

An academic planning committee at Algoma’s senate will now analyze the report, with a decision to be expected in early 2012. The estimated cost of Algoma switching to a block plan is $2-million.

With files from Lee Richardson. Read the full story here.

About Campus News Roundup

This weekly roundup of student news across the country is compiled by Canadian University Press: North America’s only student press co-operative. CUP is a bilingual organization, owned and operated by almost 90 student newspapers across the country.
B.C. shipbuilding contracts increase need for tradespeople, naval experts
3:46 pm | November 11th, 2011
In light of last month’s federal announcement of $8 billion in shipbuilding contracts coming to British Columbia, schools in the area are gearing up to fill the skills gap.

Technical colleges — such as Burnaby’s British Columbia Institute of Technology and Camosun College in Victoria — are expecting an increased demand for workers in fields as varied as welding, millwrighting, project management and occupational health therapy.

“The government estimates that there will be 4,000 spin-off jobs. And that means these people will have to be trained and most likely they’re going to be trained at places like Camosun, places like BCIT,” said Dave Pinton, media relations manager for BCIT.

Seaspan Marine’s Vancouver yard won the smaller of two contracts, while Irving Shipyards in Halifax was awarded the $25-billion military vessels contract.

According to Pinton, all six of BCIT’s schools, including business, transportation and health sciences, will be affected by the shipbuilding contracts.

Tom Roemer, vice-president of strategic development for Camosun College, said graduates will be impacted heavily given that these 30-year contracts will mean lifetime employment for many students.

Roemer said that Camosun is planning to expand capacity by up to 50 per cent in many of their trade programs, while also looking at tailoring some of their current programs — like the one for industrial electricians — towards a marine setting.

He also said business programs, such as supply chain management, will also likely require expansion.

Roemer believes that the shipbuilding jobs will pay wages that are competitive with those doled out in places like Fort McMurray, Alberta or northeastern B.C., with many being paid in the six figures after a few years.

Camosun will be meeting in early December with the Department of National Defence to discuss what types of training on which the college should focus.

With files from Arshy Mann. Read the full story here.

More than 30,000 Canadian students seek food bank support every month: report

HungerCount, an annual study of food banks and food programs in Canada, found that in 2011, an average of 851,000 individuals were assisted by food banks each month — and four per cent of them were post-secondary students.

“Four per cent means that there [are more than] 34,000 students every month that are going to a food bank for help,” said Food Banks Canada executive director Katharine Schmidt.

“It’s a group of people in this country that is important to us. Educating our young people and preparing people for their futures is important, so to know that we’ve got about 34,000 Canadians who are walking into or getting help from a food bank each and every month, who are post-secondary students, I think is a large number.”

Since 2008, overall food bank use in Canada has increased by 26 per cent. Two per cent of those receiving assistance from food banks cite student loans or scholarships as their primary source of income.

Food bank use has increased on campuses as well. According to numbers from the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa, the number of people using their food bank has increased from 259 in 2007 to 3,534 in 2011.

Chris Hynes, an employee at the SFUO food bank, explained that he and his coworkers are currently collecting information about who accesses the food bank service on their campus. They have found that students with dependents are more likely to be regular clients.

“Students shouldn’t have to choose between paying tuition, paying rent, and buying food,” said Hynes.

With files from Briana Hill. Read the full story here.

Yukon government eyes Canada’s first northern university

Canada is the only arctic country without a university north of 60 degrees — but that may be changing.
Newly elected Yukon Premier Darrell Pasloski has said that his government is committed to building a university in the territory.

“By taking a leading role, we will work towards developing Yukon College into a northern university,” Pasloski stated in a press release during the September territorial elections. “We will work to explore university models, identify which model is best suited for Yukoners and northerners alike, and commit to achieving that goal.”

The idea of a university in the Yukon has been proposed every few years since the 1970s, with previous NDP and Liberal administrations getting behind the idea.

However, Yukon College remains the only centre for advanced education in the territory, providing both academic courses and vocational training.

During his election campaign, Pasloski said that his Yukon Party government would take initial steps toward a university that would include building a new student residence at Yukon College and also identifying land that could be used for additional academic facilities.

However, there remain questions over whether the Yukon would push forward by itself to build Canada’s first northern university or work with the other two territories.

According to Brent Slobodin, assistant deputy minister of education, before the recent election, the Yukon had been in discussions with the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the presidents of all three arctic colleges about the possibility of a pan-northern university.

In their discussions with the other territories, Slobodin said that “there [was] no talk [of] bricks-and-mortars, so it’s a question of using the current bricks-and-mortars that we do have — looking at virtual technology and seeing where we can go from there.”

With files from Arshy Mann. Read the full story here.

About Campus News Roundup

This weekly roundup of student news across the country is compiled by Canadian University Press: North America’s only student press co-operative. CUP is a bilingual organization, owned and operated by almost 90 student newspapers across the country.
Top 7 ways to improve your career prospects in college or uni
4:13 pm | November 9th, 2011
By Marisa Baratta, TalentEgg contributor

For many of us, university or college is a buffer zone between the safe, close-knit quarters of our high school and the wide, unknown corners of the working world.

But post-secondary education carries with it worries too: What program should you study? What career path should you take? Should you focus on your grades or jumpstart your job search?
The friends you make, the people you meet and the advisers you work with on campus can all help you find a job.

Erin Millar and Ben Coli, recent graduates, answer just these sorts of questions and more in their book The Canadian Campus Companion, which walks students through every possible aspect of their post-secondary journey, with chapters on choosing a degree and school to helping students cope with grades, finances, job prospects and social experiences like campus parties, sexual experiences and health issues.

I combed through the book to share with you the Top 7 things you didn’t know about university or college that can help improve your job prospects—even if you don’t know what your job goals are just yet.

1. You don’t have to choose between university and college.

Some programs combine the hands-on, practical aspect and experience of college with the theory-based, analytical side of university. Those aspiring to be nurses can opt for a college diploma focusing on skills and experience or a more academic degree from a university.

Some schools even offer both. For example, students in the nursing program at Seneca College study at the college for two years and then at York University for two years. These programs increase a graduate’s appeal among employers as their education demonstrates they can thrive in both the practical college landscape and in a competitive university setting.

Try to get past the stigma that university is “better” than college; in Ontario, there is a higher unemployment rate among 25 to 29 year old university graduates than among college graduates of the same age group. And that’s not to say college is better than university. One or the other may be the better choice for you depending on your interests, goals and program of study.

2. There is more to school than academics.

Again, employers are more impressed with someone who does well in school and outside of it than someone who can boast great marks with no extra-curriculars to show for it.

Getting involved on campus demonstrates many traits that are desirable in employers’ eyes: time management skills and the ability to multi-task and meet deadlines. It indicates that you possess an interest in the world around you and that you have a way with people, not to mention that the network you form in your post-secondary years can turn out to be invaluable in your future job search. Your classmates can and likely will become your colleagues.

3. Your school’s academic advisers can help you plan your career path before you graduate.

There’s no denying you shouldn’t be expected to know where you want to work when you’ve only just started university or college; even halfway through your degree or diploma you may find yourself changing your mind. But it’s a good idea to make an appointment with your adviser, even if it is to double check that you’re fulfilling your program’s requirements.

The last thing you want is to discover you have to reschedule your classes or stay back a semester to complete a course. In your final year, your academic adviser can help point you in the direction of “next steps.”

4. Fun electives can boost your résumé’s star potential.

How can a hiring manager forget the promising candidate who, in addition to earning strong marks and joining several clubs, completed a course in video game addiction and the history of gaming at the University of Western Ontario or learned about swing and golf etiquette at Medicine Hat College?

5. Get to know your profs.

You may not love your class. Staying awake during the lecture may be as painful as pulling your hair out. But getting to know your professor could save your career. For one thing, if you face the common struggle of finding a job after you graduate, your professor could become the strongest reference on your résumé. Who knows you better than the person who saw you every week in class, read your papers and evaluated your work ethic firsthand?

In a more subtle way, knowing your professor can improve your grades too; if you develop a more personal (but still professional) connection with your teacher, you’ll be more interested in what wisdom he or she has to share in class.

6. Stay healthy—it’s important.

When it comes down to it, your health matters most. Don’t pull an all-nighter, stock up on coffee, or force yourself to attend your weekly gym class if you’re sick. Stress can take a toll on your health and can create an impact that goes well into your graduate years.

Most post-secondary institutions offer ways for you to prevent illness and stay healthy. Learning to eat well, cook, and get in the habit of regular exercise can improve your health as well as bolster your job appeal with the acquisition of skills like self-discipline, dedication and the ability to work hard.

7. Don’t underestimate the power of your network.

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again: it’s not what you know, it’s whom you know. It’s essential that you possess a strong work ethic and a passion for what you do, but you’ll likely find after graduation that this doesn’t seem to be enough to find a job. The friends you make, the people you meet, and the advisers you work with on campus can all help you find a job or put you in touch with that one person who knows a person who works with a person who’s looking to hire someone like you.

Marisa Baratta is an editor and freelance writer who specializes in health and nutrition, the environment, and human and animal rights. She is a recent graduate of York University’s Glendon College and the Book and Magazine Publishing program at Centennial College.

This post is brought to you in partnership with TalentEgg.ca, a career hub for Canadian students and new grads looking for career-starting opportunities with top employers, open 24 hours a day, from coast to coast.
What you can learn from how doctors learn
11:29 am | November 8th, 2011
As medical students in clerkship, we don’t get too many repeat patients since we don’t usually spend enough time within a given specialty for follow-up appointments. This is especially true of high-volume settings such as emergency rooms. But I was lucky enough (and you could say they were unlucky enough) to see some patients a second time while I was working in the ER a few weeks ago. Since we were in a Canadian ER and – let’s face it – they were forced to stick around for awhile, we got to talking.

It turns out that they were both academics who knew a lot about the science of learning. So while we waited around for lab tests I asked the obvious question, given what I do every day: how can I optimize my learning?

The answer they gave me shouldn’t surprise you, “It’s all about repetition,” they said, “going over the material again and again as many times as possible”. But there’s a caveat to advice that might seem obvious at the outset: not only do you need to go over the material many times, you need to do it in different ways. Reading the same set of notes over and over again won’t do you much good. You need to read the notes, then talk the issue over with a friend, then create some flash cards… and then what you’re learning might finally stick.

In other words, novelty promotes memory (link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=learning-by-surprise) because the hippocampus, a part of the brain integral to encoding new memories, is activated by novel stimuli more than it is by familiar ones.

Another interesting point is that learning is enhanced when learners take information that they learn in one format (verbal information, for instance), and “re-represent” it in an alternative format such as a flowchart or image. The science behind this is that humans process information either visuo-spatially or through an auditory-verbal channel. A piece of information can be stored in either or both of these modalities, and “dual coding theory” says that information that is retained in both formats will be more likely to be remembered than information remembered in either format alone.

As far as the way that medicine is taught, anyone at a Canadian medical school will tell you that we do a heck of a lot of something called problem-based learning or PBL. According to an article the British Medical Journal, in PBL,

“Students use “triggers” from the problem case or scenario to define their own learning objectives. Subsequently they do independent, self directed study before returning to the group to discuss and refine their acquired knowledge. Thus, PBL is not about problem solving per se, but rather it uses appropriate problems to increase knowledge and understanding.”

Say it’s colon cancer week. In addition to sitting in a lecture theatre listening to someone talk about the topic, eight of us will spend about 2 hours x 3 days sitting around a table with a tutor who guides us through a clinical scenario. An example of a scenario we might get would be a 57 year old male who walks into their family physician’s office complaining of difficulty passing stools, weight loss, and decreased energy. As a group we walk through the differential diagnosis, questions we’d ask on history, the diagnostic tests we’d order… all the way through to treatment and follow up.

As with any system, there are both pros and cons. The BMJ article goes on to describe the fact that one of the advantages of PBL is that it fosters active learning: you’re not passively sitting there taking in information, but you’re working collaboratively to help synthesize the answer to a problem. As a result, you develop “self-directed learning skills”, which you’ll need when you’re finally applying your knowledge to patient care. You’ve also got no choice but to work with your colleagues and all of their inevitable quirks (and yes, we all have them), which may help to prepare you for the reality of working as part of a health care team which includes physicians, nurses, and social workers. You’re also connecting the knowledge to a “physical patient” which – in theory – helps you better retain what you’ve learned.

On the other hand, PBL is a fairly resource intensive way to learn (read: paying tutors isn’t cheap); it also takes up a lot of time – 6 hours per week is almost a full day of curricular time. Also, the point of PBL is for students to research the answers to problems themselves; since tutors aren’t allowed to formally “teach” the group material, if a group’s learning goes awry they can only help “re-direct” students with guiding questions – and at times this can be incredibly frustrating. In the literature, criticisms of PBL include the lack of evidence that it helps produce doctors with better clinical outcomes, and how from cognitive science perspective, our working memory cannot problem solve and be used to learn at the same time, potentially limiting PBL’s benefits.

It seems the lessons about learning are clear: repetition is good, especially repeating the information in different ways. Learning through solving cases in small groups might also be helpful to learning, but more research may be needed to determine how useful it really is.

In the spirit of helping you retain some of this, there will be an audiotape released in the near future… watch for it.

For more info:
Wood, D. (2003) ABC of learning and teaching in medicine. BMJ 236(7384): 328-330.

Koh GC, Khoo HE, Wong ML & Koh D. (2008) The effects of problem-based learning during medical school on physician competency: A systematic review. CMAJ 178: 1.

Kilroy, DA. (2004) Problem based learning. Emergency Medicine Journal 21: 411-413.

Halpern, DF & Hakel, MD. (Jul/Aug 2003). Applying the Science of Learning. Change. http://psyc.memphis.edu/learning/applyingthesciencechange.pdf

Neville AJ. (2009). Problem-based learning and medical education forty years on. Medical Principles and Practice 18: 1-9.

Norman GR & Henk GS. (1992). The psychological basis of problem-based learning: A review of the evidence. Academic Medicine 67(9).

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