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My first reaction to seeing the words “shopping cart” on Mosaic was to post a joke about it on Twitter. After my tweet got three likes and my sense of humour was externally affirmed for the day, I glanced over the words again and felt nauseous.
The words “shopping cart” might seem small and meaningless and the intent behind it was probably harmless, meant to turn an administrative process into something familiar. Unfortunately, it speaks to a larger reality of university education: the normalization of seeing universities as businesses and our degrees as products.
These words now serve as a reality check. It makes me ask over and over again: what’s university? Is it a place where knowledge is advanced, where society is challenged? Is it a hub of innovation? The answer is obviously yes, but there’s more to it than that. Being in our undergraduate degrees, many of us will not get to participate in that culture. Many students leave undergrad, either find a job or go to a professional degree, without having ever interacted with the culture of knowledge-advancement that is the essence of the university as a concept.
To undergrads, university is sold as an experience, as the best four years of your life — a fact that I sincerely hope is not true. Degrees are framed as skill-giving products, and those that don’t offer hard professional skills feel the need to justify their existence by teaching “soft” skills, or by shaping their products into something innovative and cool that can then be sold as “elite”. Admittedly, a lot of this has to do with university programs just trying to survive as funding decreases for any non-STEM field that involves even a bit of critical thinking.
It makes me ask over and over again: what’s university? Is it a place where knowledge is advanced, where society is challenged? Is it a hub of innovation?
“Shopping” equates a process as significant to our life and career trajectories as academics with trivial everyday undertakings. Things you put in your “shopping cart” usually include: groceries, clothes from online stores, highly acclaimed books from Amazon you’ve been pretending to want to read for a few months. This language positions the university as the seller of knowledge, and you, the buyer.
Universities already use ads to sell their undergraduate programs — a tactic I’ve found ethically questionable for some time. While advertising is understandable, ads playing in movie theatres for our Engineering program directly following that guy from The Source explaining some cool new tech product makes it a lot harder to think of my education as a genuinely enlightening experience.
The student-as-consumer narrative creates a feeling of disconnect between me and my education that cheapens the whole experience, which is unfortunate, because it’s anything but cheap.
But the problems faced by our public education system won’t disappear if McMaster decides to change a few words on Mosaic, or stop playing ads in movie theatres. In a way, I am thankful for the language used on Mosaic. The idealized view of a university education as the creator and disseminator of knowledge in the public interest is seriously endangered by rising tuition fees, degree inflation, and a rocky job market that leaves many graduates unemployed for frightening periods of time.
While we must continue to think of the university as the place for groundbreaking and socially challenging research, reminders of the state that our education system currently finds itself in might not be such a bad thing. Language like “shopping cart,” as uncomfortable as it makes me feel, serves as a much-needed wake up call.
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By: Isaac Kinley
Earlier this month, Research Infosource Inc. released its 2015 list of the top 50 Canadian Research Universities, as measured by research income figures from 2010 to 2014. The rankings placed McMaster sixth in the country overall, eighth in total 2014 sponsored research income, first for corporate sponsorships, and thirteenth in non-profit sponsorships.
The rankings also measured research intensity, placing McMaster third in the country at $339,500 of research income per faculty member in 2014. Professor Allison Sekuler, McMaster’s interim Vice President of Research, credited the university’s performance to several factors. She pointed to the interdisciplinary faculties and institutions McMaster hosts, such as the Arts and Science Program, one of the oldest of its kind in Canada.
She explained that, along with the size of the university, these initiatives help to foster collaboration between faculty members with different areas of expertise and bring varied perspectives to research questions. “We’re big enough that there’s a lot of really interesting stuff going on but we’re small enough that it still feels like a community,” she said. “When I was at the University of Toronto before, I might have to drive an hour to see some of my colleagues.”
The rankings also showed that corporate research income as a percentage of total research income from 2010 to 2014 was higher for McMaster than for any other university in Canada. This raised the issue of corporate influence on basic research and academic independence.
However, Prof. Sekuler isn’t concerned. “[The McMaster Industry Liaison Office] reviews every contract that comes in to make sure [they] are in keeping with the ethos of the university,” she said.
She also explained that the goals of research and commerce are not necessarily mutually exclusive. She cited Interaxon, the company that sponsors her own research, saying they’re interested in not only improving their product, an EEG headband, but furthering basic research on the human brain. The partnership also allows her to obtain data from many more subjects than are usually available for her research. “We try to be very careful when we’re making agreements with companies, or nonprofits for that matter, in terms of what their role is in the research,” she said. “We generally aren’t getting a lot of funding from companies where it’s constraining the kind of work that people do. Academics don’t typically like to do that.”
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By: Steven Chen
As the rustling shuffles of students reawaken the campus this fall, McMaster aims to bring new flavour with the launch of the Master of Public Health graduate program.
Led by McMaster University’s Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, the MPH program applies the department’s rich expertise in health policy analysis and research within the practical field of public health.
McMaster’s interest in public health came shortly after the SARS outbreak of 2003. Professor Holger Schünemann, chair of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, lead the development of the MPH program over several years along with Professor Julie Emili, program director of the Public Health and Preventive Medicine Program at McMaster. The program is directed by Dr. Fran Scott, an alumni of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
The Master of Public Health program concentrates on advancing the education of students by offering a flexible, practical, meaningful and evidence-based approach to addressing public health challenges in local communities and beyond.
“The MPH program is very much going to be integrating community engagement in its courses,” said Scott. “There is also the practicum, which is a four-month placement at a public health or community agency. The students will bring their own expertise but they will also learn from the agency about how to work with the community.”
Additionally, the program sets out to encourage students to contribute to the community. “We are encouraging students within the program to take on leadership roles,” she said. “By providing them these practical opportunities to take on challenges, they will refine their skills in cultural competency, communication, advocacy, analysis and articulation of evidence.”
Applicants for the MPH program’s inaugural class had to meet a broad range of criteria, such as previous work experience and having career goals aligned with the program’s objectives.
“We are definitely looking for people that are self-directed…Teamwork skills are necessary because a considerable amount of the program revolves around peer learning,” said Scott.
Considering McMaster’s long-standing global reputation for innovative learning, the Master of Public Health program aims to distinguish itself from other Canadian programs by featuring a unique approach to the area of public and population health.
“We are starting locally and extending the material to the provincial, federal and global levels,” said Scott. “In this way, we offer an education that complements the Master of Science in Global Health, although much of what we teach are similar skills.”
The MPH program also offers the option of doing a thesis project along with the practicum. “Not many [master’s programs] do across Canada, most of them are practicum-based, but because we have a lot of research here at McMaster, we really wanted to create the next generation of research initiatives and collaborations,” Scott added.
With the first classes of the MPH program starting this week, Dr. Fran Scott has made it a priority to deliver a quality education for all her students.
“We wanted to start with 25 full-time students, since it helps to ensure a quality experience,” said Scott. “We do not wish to have agencies take on several students, we want them to take on just one student and make it a really good experience.”
“Public health in Ontario is continuously changing… and I expect for it to change in terms of its organization, the problems it will focus on and the resources it will have,” said Scott.
“We want very much for the students to be aware of this and we are hoping to teach them that kind of flexibility so that they will be able to respond to these changes when they graduate.”
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Three years ago, I left Welcome Week feeling like I didn’t belong in the McMaster community. All the screaming and spontaneous Gangman Style mobs just weren’t my thing. The whole week seemed to cater only to extroverts and seemingly extroverted introverts. My only recluses were the friends I made in my small faculty and the few friends I knew coming to McMaster.
For this year’s crop of frosh who are concerned or disillusioned, there are two things you should know. First, your university career is probably not going to be like Welcome Week. You’ll find your little niche, and do the things you like with a small clique of friends. There will be no yelling “HYPE HYPE HYPE” or “nae nae”-ing on the street.
That said, by design an extrovert can more easily succeed in university socially than an introvert. Residence life for an introvert is like living in a minefield of social opportunities and situations. Luckily, that doesn’t mean an introvert is doomed. To survive, you have to get to know your preferences. You may like to spend time by yourself or take time to observe and think before you act. Focus on your interests and make as many—or likely in this case, as few—connections as you desire. Once you figure out what you like, you can easily find people and extracurricular activities that are compatible to you. Clubs are great because you get to talk about what you’re interested in with a small group of people.
Jillian Perkins-Marsh, an Alumni Career Counsellor at the Student Success Centre, says it is also important to take the risk of experiencing new things through experiential programming like MacServe and job shadowing. “At the end of the day you are gaining skills for your own personal development. The experiences always teach you something about yourself even if it doesn’t work out. Personality is not static.”
As an introvert, it’s very important to find the right balance between socializing and taking time for yourself. You should know how to get away when you need to. Your family is a phone call away and they definitely want to hear from you. Find places where you can be quiet and alone on campus if you need to (ETB is a great place that not many people frequent). Jillian also suggests being open about what you need with those around you.
While on this journey of self-discovery it is important to realize that you’re not alone.
In Susan Cain’s TED talk, “The Power of Introverts”, Cain reveals the shocking fact that approximately one third to half of the population identify as introverts. Jillian also suggests completing a Myers-Brig test. “Reading up on yourself can be a really enlightening process.” Frankly, there’s no shame in cozying up in your bed by your lonesome with your boyfriend pillow and Netflix (or as I like to call it, Netflix and no chill).
The second thing you should know is that Welcome Week as a whole actually isn’t so bad. Sure events like MacConnector and PJ Parade are intended for extroverts, but there are plenty of opportunities for introverts as well. If reps did their jobs properly, hopefully at some point in the week you had a nice quiet conversation with a rep or painted a rock or made a bracelet at the chill tent.
Full disclosure, as a Welcome Week faculty planner this year, I have my biases. On the other hand, I’m not the archetypal rep because I’m a quiet introvert. This past week my screaming was kept to a minimum and I was mostly silent in planner meetings. In the past I was worried about what people thought about me given how quiet I was, but the truth is the people who matter don’t think any less of you. They understand where you’re coming from and they know that you are engaged. While as an introvert, it is worthwhile to try to branch out and practice speaking to groups, it’s important to remember that you are simply wired to prefer one way of acting. Forcing yourself to change is as silly as trying to convince yourself that you like boiled eggplant.
On the distinction between branching out and trying too hard to change who you are, Jillian says that it “depends on your own motivations. You should know whether you are doing what you want versus what you think people want you to do.”
Just know that, as an introvert, you can still be a part of the McMaster community if you want to.
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By: Anthony Manrique
York University students threatened at gunpoint
Multiple students at York University were threatened by a group of men in three separate but related incidents between 7:15 and 7:40 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 18. The first incident occurred between two male suspects and a student, in which the student was left unharmed. The second and third confrontation occurred when five or six suspects approached and threatened the student with a handgun. York Security Services are currently working with Toronto police to investigate the incidents.
ISIS supporter hacks University of New Brunswick Student Union website
On Monday, Oct. 13, the UNB Student Union’s website was vandalized, depicting messages such as “I love you ISIS” and other, more serious statements in support of ISIS. The messages were taken down after two hours, and it has been declared that the messages were not a threat to UNB students.
Four cars stuck on UBC stairs within a two-week period
Three different vehicles have become stuck after attempting to drive down a set of stairs at the University of British Columbia. These incidents have forced the university to place a barrier in front of the stairs. Later that week, a fourth vehicle became stuck on a different set of stairs on the campus. UBC officials have stated they are unsure why the cars are getting stuck.
McGill enriches efforts on sustainability
McGill University has recently released its new sustainability strategy, entitled Vision 2020. The strategy identifies 14 specific goals that are intended to create a working definition of sustainability research, develop a networking platform to facilitate collaborative sustainability research, implement a sustainable laboratory program, and renovate underused indoor and outdoor spaces into community gathering spaces.
By: Mitali Chaudhary
It’s time for sweatpants, bruised-looking under-eyes, and the I-just-woke-up hair: it’s midterm season. Luckily, exactly 95.87% of the stress can be avoided this year by these helpful DON’Ts for the midterms.
There’s no use in rationalizing the hours you plan to spend on Netflix, or convincing yourself of the reason you need to watch one more episode. You know it in your bones that there’s no way you’re stopping at “one more episode”.
2. Take five-minute Facebook/Tumblr/Reddit breaks.
They’re never five minutes long – the range is more like one to two hours – and you know it. It’s no use even getting on those sites in the first place because they suck you in. No one enjoys that soul-crushing post-surfing oh-my-god-I-wasted-so-much-time-on-the-internet guilt either but we all still do it. Because this activity is so addicting, it’s better not to engage in it in the first place, since we clearly get transported into another dimension where time always breaks the speed limit.
3. Put yourself through six-hour, no-break study blitzes.
Especially the night before the midterm. Although it may seem like a good idea when it first crosses your panic-stricken brain, it’s an extremely counter-productive practice. On average, the human brain can focus on a single task for no more than a stretch of 45 minutes. Taking short, frequent breaks while studying gives the brain some time to absorb what it just learned and gets it ready for another informational onslaught.
4. Become a total hermit.
Sitting in your room all day, only coming out to forage for food, is tiresome. We’re on the edge of Cootes Paradise! Taking short walks and getting some exercise into your schedule improves concentration, gets the heart pumping, and is a good way to spend a study break. It’s also a nice change of scenery—fall is beautiful at McMaster and it’s worth venturing out for before winter comes our way.
5. Procrastinate.
Okay that sounds like the most “duh” DON’T, but avoiding it is the best way to succeed during any time of the year. Dividing your hours up into study and break time as well as time to eat and sleep (good nights of sleep are key!) will help you focus on one thing at a time and keep you on track. Honestly, the hardest part about this is making a realistic schedule—you just have to stick to it afterwards, which is pure willpower. The feeling of satisfaction that comes with completing all your tasks in a day is worth it, I promise.
And with these five tips, as well as some smart studying, you’ll be able to breeze past midterm season with ease to face the more dreaded finals. You’re welcome.
By: Bina Patel
It's time to implement a course shopping week
I think most undergraduates have, at some point, taken a course as an elective or possible major, only to regret it later. It’s very common for students to change their minds about their major during their undergraduate career.
So, many people have to retake the first year courses of a major in their second year of university. But often, students don’t even allow themselves to consider the option because of its implications: the extra time, effort, money, and maybe even adding a fifth year to the expected four. There is nothing wrong with taking an extra year or two, but I think I’m speaking for the majority when I say that if I were given the opportunity to re-do first year and really think about what academic path I wanted to pursue, I would most definitely take it.
The fault doesn’t fall on one party. Even though it is the students who are picking their courses, they cannot be held accountable for not being passionate enough about a subject, or for not having mapped out an exact academic plan at the age of 18.
We have found ways to relieve stress by implementing Reading Week, to reduce waste through Mac Green, and make a significant difference for an important cause through Shinerama. But now, especially at a time of immense financial struggle for many students, I think there needs to be a tweak in the system regarding the way in which we go about choosing our courses (don't worry, it doesn't involve SOLAR).
It's called “shopping week,”and currently only a few academic institutions have implemented it. I came across this in a news article in the Harvard Gazette, describing its success among students.
At the beginning of each term, one to two weeks are dedicated to students popping in and out of lectures and seminars which describe the nature and outline of the course. Based on what they find interesting, they can register in the course at the end of the shopping period.
Technically, we can still drop courses at McMaster in the first week or so (without academic and/or financial penalties), and then register in another that we think might ignite our interest to a greater extent. But this is not the same as having time to make an informed decision before officially committing to a course.
Someone may enjoy Ancient Roman Architecture more than Cultural Geography, or Religious Studies more than Introductory Psychology—we should encourage students to explore different subjects. Simply put, we should implement our own “shopping week,” because like the countless initiatives McMaster has taken on, it's another way to improve the student experience.
Following allegations that surfaced late January, McMaster University has prepared an action plan to respond to the issue, following the results of an external investigation.
McMaster Daily News reports that the investigation was focused in two areas: behaviour surrounding songs and songbook materials, and unsanctioned events that may put students at risk. The report can be found here, and the second report, prepared by Associate Vice-President and Dean of Students Sean Van Koughnett as an outline for University action, can be found here.
"The findings in the investigator's report are disturbing," said Provost and Vice-President Academic David Wilkinson in an Daily News interview. "The behaviour is unacceptable and while the McMaster Engineering Society had indicated in a document from some time ago that its culture needed to change, it is clear that the pace of change is not sufficient. The University will be implementing all of the recommendations in the dean of Students' report."
The external report included several findings of misconduct, including but not limited to:
The second report outlined several actions the University will take to address these findings:
The MSU has released a statement clarifying that this scandal is not indicative of the kind of behaviour present in other student-led societies, nor will it be an enormous constraint on organizational autonomy. "We are an organization that is ideally situated to define the leadership orientation and training programs alluded to in the recommendations," said MSU President Teddy Saull. "Autonomous student leadership is the cornerstone of student life. The MSU will work with all faculty societies to ensure responsible student government continues to thrive for the benefit of the undergraduate students of McMaster University."
You really don’t know what it’s like to feel alone when you are attending a university who enrolls 30,000 students, living in a building that holds 1,000 of those, residing 20 minutes from three siblings, two parents, a dog and a girlfriend (the last two give all the kisses a guy could need) – yet each night you feel surrounded by nothing but concrete and white paint. This is not only a personal rendition; this is one story out of the thousands attending our Canadian universities.
I felt alone in my six bedroom advertised “suite,” adorned with a fully-furnished bedroom, spacious living room and squeaky marble kitchen. At $630 a month most would call me spoiled, and if they knew I was a humanities student some might have far more selective words for this “total waste of money” at my parent’s hard-worked expense of course. This attack of negative stigma towards the faculty of humanities is a relentless one in this recessive economy.
Take online forums who have recently revealed to me the surprising factoid that I am “literally burning my parent’s money” but then maybe I should also stop googling “Is humanities a good major?”
However, this piece is not going to be a heroic defense to the faculty of humanities, but as the sarcastic undertone reveals: I feel like I am working towards a worthless degree – better yet, a worthless life.
What my rented room did not advertise was the impending deep depression awaiting me right behind the pretty door. I was a first year who was not living on-campus. Admittedly, that was my fault as I had missed the residence application deadline, in what was a grand display of my university level intelligence. I lived in a dark pit, in which it was in every way. It may have looked like the Ritz of residences but I hated everything inside its walls. I lived with four other upper-year strangers, two of whom spoke little English and one of whom I saw only twice over four months of living together. They locked themselves in their own separate rooms, scurried to the washroom when needed, generally just kept to themselves and I followed suit.
I was miserable. I fell into a routine that started as eat-class-sleep but evolved into sleep-sleep-sleep and sleep some more. I had gone to class with all intentions of getting amazing grades, but that spark faded - fast. All-nighters for essays turned into no essay at all and missing a couple classes turned into no class at all. The long and the short of it is: I got lonely and gave up on everything else because of it. I felt the pressure of academic success and faltered on it when I didn’t have anybody around me for support. I saw my university career as useless in four years so I thought I might as well admit defeat now.
I lost the one thing I took for granted: human interaction. This depressive state exists in student houses, apartments, commuters and even packed residences on-campus. Students become hermits when they have to budget their time around emotionally strenuous pressure to perform well in school. They just do not have time to properly recuperate from stress through relaxation and socialization, in what I would say, essentials to not kill yourself.
All through secondary and post-secondary education we students are bombarded with fear - you could call them threats. We are told three basic premises: “you need to go to university”, “you need good grades in university to get a good job”, “don’t do any of those two and you will be a garbage man for the rest of your life.” These are the statements that the modern student mind revolves around. These authoritative intimidations are assertions of attitude coming from the teachers, parents and students - these people being the most influential to the education system. It’s not like these are completely false statements at all; the economy is still recovering from 2008, fewer jobs are to be had, existing workers are retiring later and especially a growing number of high school graduates, out of societal imposition, choose to go to university creating an insanely competitive environment in comparison to previous decades. The university degree and ever-more so the quality of that degree is as well rising in importance as much as it is falling in value, as larger percentages of first-world populations are acquiring undergraduate degrees. The contemporary educational environment is one that cultivates mental illness through the increased importance of its unfortunate necessity in capitalistic society.
It is easy to be just a number in university, as it is much too easy to fall into a routine of a never-ending lonely loop. Waking up, going to class, coming home, (maybe) doing homework, eating a couple times a day, watching a movie, going to sleep becomes a rudimentary and rigidly lonesome life. You repeat this process daily, all with insurmountable expectations, creating a mountain of stress.
This increasing importance on educational performance is reaching breaking point for many students. With the pressure coming from all aspects of their lives, a student can become helpless in a sea of papers due the next morning. Any human-being can fall to overwhelming pressure, students are no different.
Supported by shocking national statistics, this illustrates a university experience that entails a life of limited fun in fall to the need to devote as much time to educational performance at the expense of human saneness.
This is an epidemic with no clear cut solution in this capitalistic society. We can obviously start by building a stronger economy but all that is known is that mental health should always precede a mark given out by a Scantron machine.
People are plenty aware of mental illness in society, but without a physical image for the disease, mental illness thrives on its covertness.
It seems university students are falling to mental illness faster than they are graduating.
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Emily Buddo
The Silhouette
The Ontario government has announced that they want universities to narrow their focus in the future by specializing in certain programs. This specialization is to help the government save money, an ever-present issue due to their ever-growing deficit.
All universities must make difficult decisions about what programs to focus on and what programs to scrap before the end of this year (to be implemented in later years) or they risk losing funding. What to specialize in is up to the universities, however, the government has the final say on all decisions.
The government knows that money is power. And with this knowledge the government is abusing their power by using universities’ need for money to control them, as well as limit the even more desperate-for-money university students who attend the now at-risk institutions.
Brad Duguid, the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, made the argument that two institutions may not be needed if both are offering the same course in the same region. But what Duguid and his ministry are neglecting to recognize is that there is so much more to universities than the programs they provide.
Choosing the right university has forever been a stressful decision for graduating high school and mature students, however with this new legislation would that decision soon cease to exist? Would students not be able to choose a university based on how close it was to home? How far away it was from home? Because their grandmother and mother went there? Because they liked the size and the campus atmosphere?
Following through with this legislation would take away a student’s right to choose a university based on what is the perfect fit for them – a choice that is crucial to a student’s success and happiness for the subsequent years after making their decisions.
This new legislation would put even more pressure on students because if a student chose a program and found they didn’t like it they would either be: stuck in it, forced to change into another one of their university’s limited specializations, drop-out or switch to another university.
What kind of implications would this have on students? No one really knows because students have always had options. With this legislation the government is taking those options, students’ right to choose a university based on more than academics, and a university’s right to provide their students with a variety of programs to major, minor, or just take electives in.
Making universities more specialized would get rid of out-of-faculty electives that help to expand science students brains past the chemical formulas, and arts students’ brains past the philosophy and sociology courses.
What Duguid is failing to realize is that there is so much more that needs to be added into the equation on universities specialization than just dollars and cents.
Would scrapping certain faculties on a certain campus limit the creation of clubs and groups that help to create community around the campus? Would it lead to narrow mindedness of students because nothing would challenge them? Would their growth in university become purely educational and lack the important intellectual growth?
There are too many unexplored potential consequences if universities and their students are forced to specialize.
