Why wait for me to write about the release when you can read it yourself.

uToronto moves to increase tuition by an average 4.31 despite lack of public direction from provincial government

Two of my friends, one student journalist, and two readers of my online columns have all asked me today if I know what changes the Ontario government will be making to the Ontario Students Assistance Program (OSAP) that will be announced on Monday.

The honest answer is that I do not know.

One of my friends asked if – in light of the recession and Ontario’s deficit – I expect the government to make cutbacks to OSAP?

I do not. There is nothing to indicate that cutbacks are coming, there may be a change made to the debt cap of $7000 for a 2-term year but even this is unlikely to be a cutback.

This media conference to be held Monday is the first one that I’ve been invited to by the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities since I mysteriously stopped receiving releases in Spring of 2008.  The fact that the Ministry has sent me this advisory indicates that either they expect I’ll opine positively about the changes or recent changes to the civil servants in the communications branch have depoliticized the distribution list. …

Last week, in The McMaster Silhouette, I called on McMaster Student Union vice-president education Chris Martin to clear the air about the resignation of Arati Sharma as national director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations.

This week Chris Martin very professionally responded to the request with an elegant opinion piece submitted to The Silhouette. What follows is his response as submitted.

Let me set the stage a bit:

For those of you that don’t know, the MSU represents you federally through the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA). This is a national lobbying organization headed by an elected staff member called the National Director. The current National Director is Arati Sharma, former MSU Vice-President (Education). Recently, Ms. Sharma resigned from her post. At the last SRA meeting, I made a number of critical remarks about the organization.

In last week’s Silhouette, post-secondary education reporter Joey Coleman wrote an opinions piece saying that the MSU has been supportive of CASA until this point, and that now we have changed positions. He raised concerns that this change might be linked to Ms. Sharma’s resignation, and that the MSU is simply supporting her career aspirations. He called on me to shed some light on the situation.

So here’s the truth: The MSU is reviewing its membership currently, but this process has nothing to do with the resignation of our national director. They are separate issues.

I have always been critical of CASA. I have communicated these concerns to the SRA on multiple occasions, as well as written articles on the President’s Page in the Silhouette.

…

Ontario’s Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities release the following statement to the student media this morning:
 
“John Milloy, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities will speak to student media about important changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program.”
 
Minister Milloy has scheduled a teleconference for 2pm Monday. No further details are available at this time.

I will be dialing in for the teleconference and provide coverage on my GlobeCampus column (www.globecampus.ca/joeycoleman) following the call. …

It’s late and I’m not in headline writing mode right now. I feel that I need to force myself into a routine of writing on this blog. Sadly, I can’t think of much to say tonight because I’m fairly exhausted from writing my very brief Ontario budget piece early.

Actually, it’s that I’m tired in general this week. Not sure why, probably cause it is the end of the term.

Anyway, the great thing about this being my personal blog is that sometimes you (my readers) allow me to indulge in a pointless rant like this one here.

Last night, I attended a Penance Mass at Ancaster’s St. Ann’s Church. It was a beautiful ceremony and gave me plenty of time to pray and reflect while in the pew. When I lived on-campus at the University of Manitoba, I would often go to the St. John’s College Chapel late at night to sit in a pew and make sense of the world. It was refreshing and last night was refreshing as well.

Today, March 25th, was budget day in Ontario. This is the fourth Ontario budget that I’ve written about the post-secondary aspects for. Covering the Ontario budget was my first story at Macleans in 2007. It is for this reason that provincial budgets often trigger reflection.

I also received an email from a good friend whom I have not seen since 2007. We’ve been trying since May 10 of that year to get together for dinner; it just hasn’t happened. …

Upcoming on my GlobeCampus blog this week:

The culture wars come to Canada
Ann Coulter’s visit to Canada is only the first of many American right-wing pundits to Canada. My take on last night’s controversy has been submit to the Globe editors and should be up Wednesday afternoon

University fiduciary responsibility and student union autonomy – where’s the line?
I look into this question looking at a recent example of an direct intervention into student union affairs by an institution and offer my predictions of what the York University Ombudsperson’s review of the York Federation of Students election could mean for student unions in Ontario. I expect this column will go live Friday, it could be Monday depending how long it takes to research.

You can read both columns when they go online at my GlobeCampus page: www.globecampus.ca/joeycoleman …

Record number of Brits studying in States

The UK Independent reports that a record number of British students are studying at American universities. The Fulbright Commission says 8,701 British students studied in the United States during the 2008-9 year; an increase of 4 per cent from the previous year.

Ann Coulter not welcome by SFUO

The Student Federation of the University of Ottawa doesn’t want Ann Coulter to speak on their campus Tuesday. Seamus Wolfe, president of the undergraduate student union, tells the Ottawa Citizen:

“There is an interesting line between what is free speech and what is hate speech.”
“As difficult as it is to navigate that boundary, Ann Coulter has a history of hate speech and we wouldn’t invite somebody who spreads hate to come to our campus.”

Mr. Wolfe is correct, there is an “interesting” line what constitutes free speech and what constitutes hate speech. There is an even finer distinction between bigoted, wrong, distasteful, or unpopular speech and true hate speech. The use of the term hate speech must be reserved for the most disgusted, reprehensible, and dangerous speech. By using the word liberally, Mr. Wolfe gives cover to those who truly engage in hate speech by watering down the definition of hate speech.

Personally, I find Ms. Coulter to be distasteful and her rhetoric to be inflammatory. She is a creation of smart marketing and Mr. Wolfe played right into her marketing campaign by trying to stop her from speaking. Ms. Coulter will draw a larger crowd at uOttawa due to the controversy that Mr. …

York University president Mamdouh Shoukri has requested York’s university ombudsperson to review the recent York Federation of Students election following a series of complaints about perceived bias against the opposition “New York” slate. In a letter laying out the terms of reference for the review, Dr. Shoukri states:

“Presidential Regulation 4 (Regulation 4) delegates to student governments and organizations the primary responsibility for the organization and conduct of elections. However Regulation 4 notes that the President retains residual responsibility to ensure the democratic, orderly and responsible conduct of elections. The President and the administration also stand in a fiduciary relationship to York students by virtue of the significant fees that are collected by the University from all York students for the purposes of funding student government.”

The review is a significant moment for student unions in Ontario as it is rare instance of an university administration exercising oversight of student union elections. The Ombuds has been requested to conclude his review and report the findings by July, 30, 2010.

The response of the university and the students union will redefine the level of autonomy that student unions enjoy from conditions of fee collection imposed by university Board of Governors.

Updates

The president of the YFS criticized the appointment of Dr. John D. McCamus as ombudsperson last year due to McCamus part-time employment as Faculty member at York. As a past dean of York’s Osgoode Hall law school, it will not be a surprise for the YFS to accuse the ombuds of having a perceived conflict of interest. …

The United States House of Representatives passed historic health care legislation tonight by a vote of 219 – 212.

I’ve honestly lacked the time to follow the debate closely and cannot weigh in with an opinion that raises to the standard of knowledge I hold myself to.

As a student of political science, I’ll be watching over the coming days as the communications war hits a crescendo and the midterm campaigns throttle up to full speed.

The Democrats once again own the message. For the last 14 months, the Obama administration has seemed adrift and without strong direction. Now, Obama looks strong and can convince people that he is decisive.

Americans like strong leadership, even when they disagree with it. Obama looks strong having maneuvered health care legislation through the Congress. He looks decisive by moving this legislation through the lower chamber with a series of quick actions at the end. It may have taken 14 months, but it was speedy at the end. Rarely do people remember the marathon, but they always remember the winners breaking the tape at the end.

A few weeks ago, it appeared Obama was going to be a one term wonder. Now, if he sells this victory correctly, he will once again be in control of the Washington agenda and on his way to a second term in 2012.

Additional: For those of you who are my Facebook friends, I’m discussing the vote on my page here: http://www.facebook.com/JoeyColeman?v=feed&story_fbid=102625336439291&ref=mf …

The Winnipeg Free Press editorial Thursday called on native leaders to discuss the recent report Free to Learn: Giving Aboriginal Youth Control over Their Post-Secondary Education by the Macdonald Laurier Institute instead of dismissing it out of hand. The focused on the Post-Secondary Student Support Program and called for its replacement with education savings trust funds given to each native child at birth. The funds will be seeded with $4,000 at birth and be injected with an additional $3,000 for each year completed after grade five. I give the Winnipeg Free Press editorial a great deal of weight as the paper is located in a province with a large aboriginal population and a great deal of focus on address the educational challenges facing this demographic.

Students hit the streets in Alberta yesterday to protest government funding cuts to higher education and proposed increases to ancillary fees at the provinces universities. The University of Alberta is trying to impose a $550 and the University of Calgary a $500 ancillary fee increase next academic year.

Joe Warmington’s column in the Toronto Sun Friday says the University of Toronto and 2015 PAN-AM games committee are going to ‘drown students in debt’ by making them pay $30-million towards a new aquatics complex for the games. He quotes Canadian hockey hero, and University of Toronto graduate, Paul Henderson as saying students should reject the proposed ancillary fee to fund the aquatic pool in a referendum vote ending today.

Canada has another “Schulich School” after the famous philanthropist donated $15-million to Northern Ontario’s Nipissing University. …

Originally published in The McMaster Silhouette on 18 March 2010

The CASA question gets withdrawn

VP (education) changes horses in mid-stream on membership issue

The questions surrounding the resignation of Arati Sharma as national director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) are swirling and McMaster’s at the centre of the whirlwind. Of particular note is that two of the key players in this drama are former McMaster students.

Arati Sharma was Vice-President (Education) of the McMaster Students Union last year two years ago* and was able to propel herself to the top of CASA in large part by bringing the MSU back into the national student lobbying organization. Chris Martin is the current Vice-President (Education) and has been a cheerleader for CASA throughout his term.

Suddenly, though, Martin is highly critical of CASA and has started exploring the removal of McMaster from the organization. (19-March-2010)

At Sunday’s SRA meeting, Martin told the assembly that he was extremely concerned about problems within CASA and that he felt it was necessary for the MSU to evaluate its membership was an eye to potentially leaving the organization. In the same speech, Martin announced that Sharma was resigning from the organization. This left a clear impression that Sharma’s resignation was directly connected to the problems that the Martin now sees the MSU having with CASA.

Considering that tens of thousands of dollars have already been spent on CASA, Martin must clarify exactly what is occurring with student money. After flying across Canada and enjoying CASA conferences on the student dime, Martin owes students a clear communication of exactly what CASA is all about. …

Cornell University is trying to cope with two suspected student suicides in the last week, another suicide less than a month ago, and three suicides which occurred earlier in the academic year.

With six deaths this year, Cornell is sparing no resource in addressing the situation. The Cornell Daily Sun reports the university has started patrolling bridges on the 20,000 student campus and going door-to-door in residences to reach out to students requiring assistance during a high stress period of exams. Next week is the university’s Spring Break.

The situation is concerning and could happen at any university.

A few people that were/are close to me have attempted suicide. Thankfully, only one of these attempts was successful. These experiences have made me much more aware of the depth of human despair. Sadly, most people – myself previously included – are unaware of the signs of a person in crisis.

As a society, we need to have an open discussion about mental health and start removing the stigmas that surround those with mental illness.

We are silent about suicides,  it is distressing to think that anyone would want to end a human life – let alone their own. We need to end the silence so that people have the knowledge to help their fellow person and those who need help are made aware that it is there – that suicide is not the solution that will end all problems.

It is only by opening discussion about these issues that we can truly address them.  …

Prime Minister Stephen Harper took to YouTube last night to answer questions from Canadians.

At 31:29 in his online interview, Harper received a post-secondary education question.

“University students are expected to pay back so much money, plus interest, after furthering there [sic] education when most do not start getting a livable salary right after schol. [sic] Why is there not more assistance when it comes to student loans?” crazy4u79 asked Mr. Harper.

Mr. Harper spent the next minute and 15 seconds speaking in generalities and did not really answer the question.

“One of the things that is obviously a big concern to us over the past years, we know that younger people and new graduates have been particularly hard hit in the recession,” he stated to begin his response to the question. “That’s why we’ve introduced a number of specific programs in the last couple of years.”

I covered the 2008 Federal Budget for Maclean’s. The government did introduce changes to student loans, but they were administrative in nature and didn’t provide any substantive relief to student loan payees. The student loan system was broke both administratively and financially.

The government addressed a lot of the administrative problems and Mr. Harper’s administrative changes have helped make the student loan repayment process easier, but his government did nothing to address the overwhelming financial problems with the Canada Student Loans Program that destroys the lives of so many recent graduates.
Mr. Harper has refused to lower student loan interest, refused to increase the grace period for students to find jobs, and did nothing in the last budget to truly address the issues facing recent graduates. …

I went for coffee last week with a person that lived in the same residence as me at the University of Manitoba. During our conversation, we discussed memories of living on-campus at the university.

I spoke about how greatly I enjoy my summer trips to the campus each year. I have very fond memories of the time I spent at St. John’s College.

She, on the other hand, does not have fond memories of her time at the university. She was a member of another college and . Our experiences were different , but it made me think about the university experience and how memories of the experience are so subjective.

Another friend of mine attended McMaster University for her undergraduate degree and the University of Manitoba for her graduate degree. She loves McMaster University, but doesn’t think fondly of UManitoba.

I, on the otherhand, am not too fond of McMaster and have great memories of the UManitoba college system. …