By: Alexander Sallas

Professors continue to state how important and necessary course evaluations are. I don’t doubt the honesty of McMaster or its professors. I believe the staff examines the evaluations, and I believe they feel they are important. However, the student body possesses understandable cynicism regarding these notions. After all, why bother filling them in when no concrete solutions are ever reached from their completion? It’s hardly unreasonable to request transparency regarding these all-important appraisals.

At any rate, one cannot shake the feeling that McMaster is fighting a losing battle. Since the school switched from paper to online evaluations, response rates have plummeted by almost 80 per cent. The situation has become so dire that many professors now offer incentives, such as bonus marks, to complete them. These questionable ethics have an important consideration. If I’m filling in an evaluation form because I was incentivized, will my response be as forthcoming or comprehensive as those who completed it of their own volition? Will the incentive itself taint the rating in some way? Further, how far will these incentives go? How far should they go?

If McMaster really wants more students to fill out course evaluations, it needs to allow students to better interpret the tangible effects from them.

McMaster itself is largely to blame for this course evaluation dissatisfaction. As noted in a previous Silhouette article, McMaster’s policy governs what is and is not released. Developed in 1997 and revised in 2013, it states that the only answer that’s allowed to go public is “how would you rate your professor overall?” In these cases, professors also have to opt-in for the answer’s release.

This policy is antithetical to the purpose of course evaluations. Evaluations are supposed to be “critical to future course development and instructor assessment processes”, but if that’s the case, then why do we never hear of any results stemming from their completion? If McMaster really wants more students to fill out course evaluations, it needs to allow students to better interpret the tangible effects from them. It’s understandable that students, worried about a thousand other things, will be less than enthused about filling in a survey that appears once in a current course and is never heard from again.

This need goes beyond just the students providing the feedback as well. It would be wonderful for future students to be able to read course responses on Mosaic when they are choosing classes. Not sure which elective to take? Wondering if you need to buy the textbook? Curious about the workload? This information could, and should, be readily available. This would empower the student voice. The evaluations would now be meaningful, as those students’ words may be the deciding factor in another student taking or not taking the class. Let’s publicize course evaluations.

https://www.facebook.com/TheMcMasterSilhouette/videos/10154678236360987/

Read the full story here: https://www.thesil.ca/controversial-act-carding

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In an environment of change, McMaster’s Provost is “incredibly optimistic about the future.”

Provost David Wilkinson expressed this idea at the State of the Academy address last Wednesday, Oct. 22. This annual speech is focused on current issues relevant to the running of the university.

Wilkinson began this year’s address seeking to focus on the inevitability of change in the university environment, and the challenges that may come with this.

“We’re certainly going through enormous amounts of system change,” he said of McMaster. He referred specifically to the new budget model and Mosaic, garnering a laugh from the audience of primarily faculty and administrators when he promised that he wouldn’t be talking about the revamped and much-discussed online system.

He also noted that much of this climate of change could be attributed to external factors.

“I want to focus on how the landscape is changing in higher education…thinking about how we are affected by the outside globally and perhaps more importantly in terms of our relationship with the governing climate,” said Wilkinson.

With this in mind, the provost recounted in detail the process the university went through to establish their Strategic Mandate Agreement with the provincial government, a process undertaken by all Ontario universities in a trend towards increased differentiation. While the government’s goal was to encourage each university to shy away from breadth of programming and put significant resources into fewer areas of expertise, Wilkinson claimed the SMA process “certainly didn’t drive us to be narrow.” In McMaster’s SMA document, almost all of the faculties are named explicitly, leading the provost to conclude that the main points the university presented were “deep but incredibly broad.”

However, the impacts of the Ontario policy for differentiation and of federal government policies on higher education remain unclear, but is expected to be “outcome-driven.”

Another focus of the speech and thus for the university in the coming years was growth, both of the student body and of the campus capacity. Wilkinson explained that McMaster is currently operating at 117 percent of capacity, “stuffing students into classrooms.”

McMaster is looking to deal with this reality in part through pursuing a satellite campus. The university already has buildings away from its West Hamilton base (through the downtown Health Campus and Continuing Education Centre), but hopes to expand its presence with the goal of having 10,000 students living and studying downtown in the coming years.

Wilkinson’s closing topic for the address was excellence, which is to be the focus of the Provost’s committee for the coming year. A specific consideration in this broad topic is potentially raising the entrance average across all programs at Mac. He proposed increasing the 75 percent average to an 80.

“It raises the question as to whether or not by raising the bar we actually raise the attractiveness of the institution in all of our programs,” said Wilkinson. “there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that people want to get things that are hard to reach.”

Further details on some of the longer-term ideas for the university are expected to be addressed by President Patrick Deane in his upcoming lecture as part of a series on higher education on Nov. 5.

J.J. Bardoel
Silhouette Intern

Humanities has introduced a new honours program to McMaster, Justice, Political Philosophy and Law, following approval from the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. The program is the outcome of two years of steady preparation from the Department of Philosophy.

The program went through a long process of approval from department faculty, the university and the ministry. Those advocating for the program creating a detailed brief outlining the programs structure, aims of the courses and benefits for students involved, as well as the unique traits the program could potentially bring to the campus.

“In our case, the consistency with President Deane's Forward With Integrity was an important part of the case we made for the JPPL,” said Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Elisabeth Gedge. “The JPPL Program will instantiate the values set out in FWI in a unique way.”

The main focus for students in the JPPL program will be to help develop an understanding of law and legal institutions, as well as perspective on political and moral theories. The ideologies will be reflected throughout the wide range of courses available, ranging from law and global politics to feminist jurisprudence and human rights.

The majority of students already involved with the program are currently aiming to attend law school, although Gedge emphasized that JPPL will also prepare students for potential careers in other fields, including politics, philosophy, human rights or public policy. “More broadly, JPPL should appeal to any student interested in becoming an informed and engaged Canadian and global citizen,” she said.

The centralized focus on law with the heavy emphasis on philosophical reflection and theology make the program unique in Canada.

Those in the program say the program’s feasibility is based on its faculty; the Department of Philosophy currently has two faculty members with law degrees, and a professor who is Chair in Constitutional Studies.

“It builds on strengths we currently have in the Philosophy department in areas of legal philosophy, political philosophy and applied ethics,” said Violetta Igneski, assistant professor in the Department purchase propecia of Philosophy.

The program hopes to offer experience and opportunities for internships, placements and community engagements in legal clinic, round tables and immigrant centres. Senior undergraduate students will also have the benefit of the Department of Philosophy’s active membership in the Ontario Legal Philosophy Partnership, a joint agreement between the philosophy departments of McMaster, York University and Osgoode Hall Law School, which allows for constant collaboration between the three parties.

In order to qualify for the program, students are recommended to complete Humanities I with at least three units of Level I philosophy, along with submitting a supplementary application form in March of their first year in McMaster. Enrolment will be limited, with roughly 60 students expecting to be admitted.

“Lots of students and parents ask, ‘What can I do with my degree?’” said Igneski. “This program has an answer to that.”

While activists call for investment in more sustainable industries, Mac's own practices are unclear

It’s no secret that universities deal with a lot of money. Between tuition, research funding and corporate sponsorships, cash is often on the minds of McMaster administrators. But what people may not know is where the school spends its money.

Elysia Petrone is hoping to change that.

A new Hamilton resident and recent graduate of Lakehead University, Petrone has put forward a petition to Maclean’s Magazine to offer a ranking of schools based on “ethical investment” in their annual University Rankings issue. Together with Kyuwon Kim and Yasmin Parodi, also recent graduates, she hopes to promote divestment across Canada.

“Canadian Universities are proud to claim they are on the cutting edge of sustainability education and research to solve global problems,” reads their online petition, run through Change.com.

“However, together Canadian Universities are investing billions of dollars in unsustainable and unethical industries that we think students would have a problem with.”

The petition lists examples of these “unethical” industries, which includes fossil fuels, weapons manufacturing and tobacco companies.

The three young women thought Maclean’s was a suitable way to promote their commitment to divestment.

“We were thinking [the petition] would be an easier way to create effective change, because it’s going to be a challenge to go to these universities that have vested interests,” Petrone explained in an interview.

“We thought that instead of working with one university, [Maclean’s] could do a lot of the groundwork and find this information.”

She described Maclean’s University Rankings, now in their 22nd year, as the “be-all, end-all of rankings” in Canada.

Although the goal of the petition is focused on the magazine, Petrone hopes to encourage students to pressure their own universities towards divestment.

“I’ve been able to raise this issue with people in my circles here [in Hamilton], and I [thought we should] start something at Mac,” she explained.

“Right now our goal is to find local activists on campus and people who can get on board and invest their time in this project … I don’t go to McMaster, so I want to inject this idea and help it get founded.”

No Canadian universities have yet agreed to divest from fossil fuels, though campaigns exist at McGill, University of Ottawa, University of British Columbia and University of Toronto. Activists at U of T also found success with a 2007 campaign against investment in tobacco companies. The university eventually agreed to divest from tobacco and tobacco-related stocks.

While divestment hasn’t been an institutional priority at McMaster, students supported a 2005 referendum to end the university’s exclusive contract with Coca-Cola due to the company’s alleged human rights violations.

“McMaster’s a big institution, so it’s time to get this thing going here,” said Petrone.

The focus is to avoid investment in any companies that could be deemed unethical or unsustainable, but at McMaster, it is unclear whether or not such investment exists.

Details of investments made by the McMaster Department of Treasury Operations, which manages the school’s endowment funds, are not available to the public. As of 2011, McMaster had a total endowment of $519 million.

“[The investments are] managed on McMaster’s behalf by private investment managers, and these investment managers are guided by the policy, and we’re working with them to make them aware of the policy and ensure they’re directed by it,” explained Gord Arbeau, Director of Public Relations at McMaster.

“With the nature of the investment, it’s impossible to keep up-to-date information or lists as this is frequently changing.”

However, other large universities across Canada, including University of Victoria, Western University, Queen’s University, York University and many others, have such data available online. This has resulted in McMaster being ranked behind most major Canadian universities in terms of endowment transparency, according to the US-based College Sustainability Report Card.

McMaster’s policy on social responsibility in investment, last updated in 1980, states that “the primary social responsibility of the University is to fulfill its role as a centre of learning and free inquiry,” noting also that “the Finance Committee ... does have a serious obligation to consider matters of social responsibility that may arise in connection with its investment decisions.”

The policy stipulates that moral judgments of an industry are to be made based on the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights as a guideline.

Despite their enthusiasm, Petrone, Kim and Parodi have not been met with much support from Maclean’s for their proposed ranking.

“We believe this is an issue best explored in an article,” the magazine wrote in a press release. “At this point we are not considering introducing a ranking indicator on ethical investment of university endowment funds.”

The Change.com petition was set up to send one email to Mary Dwyer, Senior University Rankings editor at Maclean’s, for each signature it received. Petrone and her colleagues agreed to disable this function, but she acknowledged the initial series of emails might have strained relations. Dwyer was unavailable for further comment on the matter.

Maclean’s did respond to the petition with two articles posted on Maclean’s onCampus, a subset of the magazine’s main website. One article argued in favour of investment in divestment; the other made a case that ethical investments are not so simple.

“We want more than just two articles on this website that no one ever goes to,” insisted Petrone. “The petition has [almost ten thousand] people and we want publishing; we want [Maclean’s] to actually publish in [their] print paper every year.”

“I just feel that if there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said. “Hopefully things will spin, and pretty soon all universities will be on the divestment train.”

By Janice Phonepraseuth

OSCARplus, McMaster’s online career portal, has a "No-Show Policy" that is effective when students who have signed up for an event fail to show up and fail to cancel their registration. It seems, however, that students don’t know about it.

The policy states that after the first and second "no-shows," students will receive a warning email from the campus office. After the third "no-show," students will receive an email with a contact for the career centre. The student then has to explain why they didn't attend the events.

If there is no justification given for why the student has missed the event, the student will be barred from signing up for any more events for the remainder of the academic year. They will be able to register for events again in September of the following academic year.

When entering the event, students are asked to present their student ID cards, which will provide information that is used to track the student’s attendance.

Although the policy was implemented in 2007, many students do not know about it. The Student Accountability Policy is not stated on the OSCARplus website itself, but is found through a link under "Student Resources."

It was created by a student accountability committee, and is supported by career and co-op related offices in the faculties of business, engineering, social sciences, and science.

Students, upper-year and first-year, were surprised to hear about this policy and thought it should be clarified.

Souzan Mirza, a first year student, said, "I didn't even know about the policy until I got the first email. When I tried to find it, I didn't find it through legitimate routes, I found it through the MacInsiders website which isn't run by the school but the students."

"I don't condone it; I think there should be more than 3 strikes before you're out. People may want to sign up for many things and things happen and they can't make it,” said Lindsay Ceschia, a second year Honours Social Psychology student. “They should put something visible that everyone can see right when they are signing up,"

Gisela Oliveira, Employment Services Coordinator at McMaster's Student Success Centre, explained why the policy was established.

"We were having a lot of trouble with attendance for these events. Companies were coming on campus with a specific number of guests in mind, when only half of that amount showed up," she said.

"The issue here is kind of bi-fold: first is missed opportunities for students, and second is the school's relationship with the employers."

By following this procedure, students get their opportunity to participate in these events, and the school's relationship with the employer is unharmed.

"I thought it was a bit much that it's for the whole year, but I guess it makes sense because they don't want people registering for the events and not showing up," said Mirza.

One fourth-year honours political science and religious studies student agreed. “I understand the reasoning behind the switch,” he said, “but the fact that they’re limiting student opportunities for success is a little discouraging.”

The policy was set up to ensure students who signed up for these events showed up. If they cannot attend, students must cancel their registration online by 11:55pm the night before the event on OSCARplus, or by 9 a.m. on the day of the event, by phone or in-person. Students who fail to do so are marked as a "no-show."

Oliveira noted that there are exceptions for students who become ill shortly before the event takes place.

"So when we send you the ‘no-show’ email, you contact us and explain to us that you were ill, and the ‘no-show’ is removed. There are exceptions," said Oliveira.

“It was implemented…to teach accountability to students and also to keep the relationships we have with employers,” she explained. But it remains to be seen whether the students need to learn to be accountable, or whether the system could be more accountable to student needs.

 

Social media circles were shaken on Monday as private messages on Facebook sent between 2007 and 2009 were mysteriously appearing on users’ public timelines.

The website, is denying all instances of the leak, explaining that many users are mistaken and are confusing older public messages for private messages.

Numerous students are reporting otherwise.

Philip Savage, Assistant Professor of Communications Studies at McMaster University and researcher of communication law and policy, says that Canada has safeguards in place to combat digital privacy breaches.

“[There] is legislation in Canada to protect your rights as an individual in matters of privacy. PIPEDA sets out rules around the obligations of any government of commercial enterprise around collecting and sharing information on people,” said Savage.

PIPEDA, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, explicitly outlines the rules surrounding the collection and distribution of personal, private information.

Section 4.7.1 states that an organization’s “security safeguards shall protect personal information against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. Organizations shall protect personal information regardless of the format in which it is held.”

“You cannot have your private correspondence shared, regardless of the Terms of Service that you may have signed,” said Savage in reference to clause 16.3 in the Facebook terms of service.

The terms state, in part, “We do not guarantee that Facebook will always be safe, secure or error-free or that Facebook will always function without disruptions, delays or imperfections.”

An organization’s terms of service, accepted or otherwise, cannot supersede Canadian regulations as long as they operate within the country.

The personal information act does not differentiate between breaches of information as both technical fouls and ethical missteps, and clearly outlines that “an organization may collect, use or disclose personal information only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider are appropriate in the circumstances,” which would be employed, for example, in the case of releasing to police officers relevant information in a criminal investigation or about people who are at risk for suicide and abuse.

This is not the first breach of privacy in Facebook’s recent history, as the social media icon was involved in a lengthy investigation in May 2008 regarding “22 separate violations of PIPEDA,” surrounding the collection and disclosure of information on the site. The accusation was brought forward by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, CIPPIC, an organization spawned of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law.

Leslie Regan Shade, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, provided her insights into a history rife with legal issues. “Facebook has always played a cat and mouse game with privacy laws and data commissioners. CIPPIC found that many of the issues that were brought to Facebook’s attention were resolved, and it set a global precedent for Facebook,” said Shade. While the issues were resolved within the one-year time limit set by the Assistant Privacy Commissioner, CIPPIC continued to have concerns with the default settings for users not being reflective of the intent behind the initial resolution.

“If you do not file a complaint, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner may not begin an official investigation in the near future,” said Shade.

Even more recently, Facebook underwent intense scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. on their propensity to reveal private information that users were told would be kept private. The resulting case was settled on the premise that Facebook would undergo regular auditing every two years for the next twenty years as a countermeasure to their quickly shifting privacy atmosphere.

“I think whenever you have huge amounts of information gathered, that there will be mishaps,” said Savage. It is an organizations’ responsibility to have both technical protection in place and accountable individuals available when such a privacy breach is discovered, as outlined by PIPEDA.

Savage believes that this is an issue that needs to be investigated by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, headed by Jennifer Stoddard, the Commissioner herself.

“The Office has been proactive in investigating breaches of privacy in the past, such as the photo tagging issue on Facebook where users were being tagged without their prior consent,” he said.

He then added that the Office was also instrumental in changing Google’s policy in their maps application to include the distortion of faces and sensitive addresses such as women’s shelters.

A statement released by the privacy commissioner’s office on Tuesday elaborated the minister’s current investigation into privacy leaks by popular websites. Research conducted by the office found that “approximately one in four of the sites tested,” had “significant privacy concerns.”

Stoddard has contacted eleven unnamed organizations to inquire into their privacy practices and work with them to ascertain their compliance with PIPEDA and related laws.

“It is time for a more considered, government-driven inquiry into protecting privacy. The means by which PIPEDA and other privacy safeguards are enforced are not resourced enough,” said Savage.

In the meantime, Savage urges students to read the nature of their agreements with organizations, and complain to their service providers if they feel their privacy has been violated.