The power of word of mouth

This UofA Graduate Student focuses on the political power of shared stories, by studying ’street stories’ regarding politicians. It is really interesting commentary on how students  talking to one another about the leadership of the the University, the Province, the Federal Government, can affect those bodies. The following is an excerpt from the Alberta Graduate Studies newletter, the AGC Awareness.

Rumor has it that the University of Alberta Ph.D candidate, Nduka Otiono, has piqued the curiosity of many with his unusual research interest on “street stories” which focuses on the reason people believe stories told by a friend. As Nduka describes it, “these ‘street stories’ are oral texts produced and circulated by ordinary citizens and serve as impromptu ‘mock trials’ of rulers and traducers of human rights. Coming from the context of postcolonial tyranny in Africa, these unofficial narratives open up alternative imaginaries of civic belonging, justice, and individual rights that instigates forums for communication in pubs, bus stations, around public newspaper vending stands, and other arenas of socialization in the public sphere.”

“Our desire to believe makes people believe these stories,” he says. “There are people who wish the worst for these evil politicians. They are only too happy to hear stories like that and to circulate them.”

Through his research, Nduka hopes to reveal what the less privileged think of the political elite and the impact that the channels through which they ‘speak,’ have on the government and on the public sphere. His interest in this field of research was sparked by his background in oral literature, and his experience working as a journalist for 15 years in Nigeria against the backdrop of military dictatorships. The Nigerian born writer’s roots are deeper still, having served as General Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) and as a joint winner of the maiden ANA/Spectrum Fiction Prize.

So how does one so strongly embedded in the roots of Nigerian popular culture find himself in a country that provides such a contrast as Canada? Nduka explains that Canada’s anti-dictatorship stance aligned with his pro-democratic values, and that “coming to Canada was like going to meet a friend”. Nduka has also found parallels between the social context underlining his research in Nigeria and Alberta, where he observes that the devastating exploitation of oil-rich regions by multinational corporations has unleashed resistance by youths. His latest collection of poems, Love in a Time of Nightmares, has poems that reflect how much Edmonton has already captured his poetic sensibilities.

More directly, the University of Alberta, which heavily recruits superior foreign students through the support of the FS Chia Doctoral Scholarship, provided Nduka with a strong incentive to find his niche at the U of A’s Department of English and Film Studies. With a guaranteed $24 000 per year for two years plus tuition and fees, and additional funding from a combination of sources for two more years, Nduka considers himself quite fortunate. Since then, Nduka has also been awarded the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship, the William Rea Scholarship, the Sarah Nettie Christie Research Award, and the Andrew Stewart Memorial Graduate Prize for Research. He was also a University nominee for the Trudeau Foundation Scholarship in 2007. Nduka says that the U of A not only supports him financially, but that the department also encourages him to pursue his unusual research using an interdisciplinary approach, combining oral literature with popular culture and postcolonial studies in a politically charged environment. When asked, what he would do with an Alberta PhD, Nduka professed a desire to pursue a higher academic career as a professor. “This,” he says, “appeals to my love for research, writing, teaching, and functioning as a public intellectual”.

Nduka hopes his research will empower people with the use of street stories to voice their protests against injustice. By demonstrating the value of street stories in the context of civil rights, he will prove that it is more than just rumors. “My research should be able to inspire others. It should demonstrate the possibility of using mass culture as a tool for political resistance. Society should not underestimate the strength of the people’s voice.”

Tuition increases loom over alberta students

(This article was first published on the Students’ Union page of The Meliorist, Nov. 26th, 2009.)

Two weeks ago, I wrote that the University of Alberta was proposing to eliminate of modify the province’s tuition cap so that they could  implement (often massive) differential tuition increases, targeting undergraduate and post-undergraduate professional degrees.

Now one of Edmonton’s other major s post-secondaries, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), has released their most recent business plan, which includes an across-the-board tuition hike o f 40 per cent. That would cause the average student’s tuition to increase by about $1,700 per annum. In contrast, the current cap limits increases for next year to 1.5 per cent.

The province has made it clear that they’re open to suggestions for rejigging the tuition cap, but thankfully they don’t seem to be taking NAIT’s suggestion very seriously. Doug Horner, Alberta’s Minister of Advanced Education and Technology, told reporters on November 19th that “across-the-board massive tuition hikes are just not in the cards.” It would seem that students at NAIT are in less precarious a position as those at U of A.

Even so, consider a hypothetical Alberta (probably not too different from this one) where NAIT’s proposal went through. Imagine that you’re a student is your first year of a four-year program at NAIT. Less than a year into your program, you’re told that you’ll have to find an extra one hundred and forty-some dollars in your monthly budget for the next three years in order to finish school.

Right now, Albertans who may have otherwise jumped right into a poorly-compensated service industry job are taking this recession as a sign that they should upgrade their education. Many have been hit hard by the current realities of the job market, which makes saving for an education no easy task.

Many of these current and potential students’ educational careers would be effectively ruined by that kind of hike. That’s why the Council of Alberta University Students, who represent you to the provincial government, are fighting to keep the current regulation that ties maximum tuition increases to CPI.

On the other hand, NAIT’s proposed increase is not merely arbitrary. If NAIT were to increase their tuition by 40 per cent, it would bring them in line with their closest counterpart: SAIT.

When tuition was frozen and subsequently capped in Alberta, SAIT had significantly higher tuition than NAIT.  Because tuition is tied to CPI, it can only be increased by a given proportion each year, which has caused the NAIT-SAIT tuition gap to grow. Now, NAIT finds itself competing with a school that offers similar programs but is allowed to charge over 40 per cent more for them. Even so, if I were a NAIT student facing that kind of increase my morale and my finances would be devastated, cross-provincial comparisons be damned.

I’m not about to propose a solution to this mess. I support the tuition cap (as do the ULSU and CAUS) because it provides some degree of predictability and affordability. On the other hand, the NAIT-SAIT comparison shows that is has its own inherent flaws. It isn’t a panacea; it’s just better than any of the alternatives that students have been presented with thus far. That, to me, makes it worth fighting for.

I guess the moral of the story here is there is no magic tuition bullet. The best thing that could happen would be a wave of genuine debate and discussion about tuition in Alberta. That discussion has begun in the mainstream media but we students are too busy and too distracted to take part. That’s going to have to change in order for us to protect our interests in such tough times.

The Tuition Cap and You

(This article first appeared on the Students’ Union page of The Meliorist, Nov. 12, 2009)

On November 2nd, Advanced Education and Technology Minister Doug Horner was challenged in the Alberta Legislature to defend Alberta’s current tuition cap. Right now, Alberta’s universities are not allowed to increase tuition faster than inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

Liberal Advanced Education Critic Harry Chase demanded to know whether Horner would maintain that cap, and prevent universities from finding a clever way around it. The question response was long, but thrust of it was as follows: “I think it’s fair to say that what I have suggested to the postsecondaries is that I’m open to any and all ideas that they can bring to us.”

Allow me to put this discussion in context: earlier this year, the Government of Alberta announced an unforseen deficit of seven billion dollars. In response, Advanced Ed and Tech announced to the universities that there would be a freeze in their operating grants, which cover approximately three quarters of their overall operating costs. Over the past few years, the universities have received steady six per cent increases in funding, and they had budgeted for the same, at least for the next two years.

The result is that each of Alberta’s universities is facing a budget crunch. The University of Lethbridge has to cut $11 million from its budget over the next two years to cover the shortfall, and the University of Calgary’s budget gap is greater still.

The University of Alberta, however, is in a whole other ball game. They have announced that they will have to find almost $60 million in revenue or savings by next year. Part of their response was to create a magical tuition-boosting instrument known as the market modifier.

“Applying market modifiers” is really just a fancy way of saying “charging higher tuition for degrees perceived to have a greater market value.” Under such a system, certain degrees – generally those with a professional application – would cost more because they presumably provide for greater return on investment.

The University of Alberta first proposed that they be allowed to use market modifiers within the current tuition regulation to account for the fact that the market values of various degrees were not taken into account when the cap was established. Advanced Ed and Tech have made clear that no such sneaky moves to dodge the tuition policy will be tolerated, but they are allowing the Universities to propose changes to the policy itself.

Back at the University of Lethbridge, our administration have stated publicly that they will not seek to charge differential tuition to professional schools, and that they are not actively lobbying to have the tuition fee policy changed.

Does that mean that the U of L is safe from tuition increases beyond CPI? Not really. All it takes is for one school to successfully lobby the government to change the policy and the effects could be felt across the province. Currently, it is quite likely that the province’s two most influential universities are lobbying to have the cap removed in one way or another.

Fortunately, both Advanced Ed and Tech and the Premier himself have made it quite explicit that any proposed change to the tuition cap will be subject to extensive consultation with student groups, which is quite encouraging.

Nevertheless, that discussion is almost certainly coming down the tubes. The lesson? Keep your ear to the ground on this issue and don’t assume that small, steady, predicatable tuition increases are sacred. The students of Alberta may have to fight for them.

Are You Looking for a Job

The University of Lethbridge Students’  Union is currently looking for a Chief Returning Officer (CRO). This is an interesting and unique student job opportunity. The CRO is responsible for managing and coordinating Student Union general elections, by-elections and referenda. The CRO is involved with every facet of these items. The CRO is responsible for promoting the election, orientating the candidates, creating the budget, moderating debates, enforcing and interpreting Students’ Union  bylaws and policies and numerous other tasks. The CRO works extensively with the ULSU’s General Manager, Executive Assistant, Communications Coordinator and with other stakeholders on campus.

This is a great opportunity to gain valuable work experience and apply what you have learned at University.

The requirements for this position are that you are an undergraduate student during the spring semester and that you are not an executive member of any University organization. Please note that that the CRO will not be eligible for nomination as a candidate for the election and may not run a campaign in support of or against any candidate or referenda question.

To apply: Please drop off your resume with cover letter addressed to Cheri Pokarney, General Manager, in the ULSU office (SU180). The deadline for applications is December 18^th, 2009.

A day down the toilet

It was an ordinary day when I awoke to the scream of my alarm. Ripped from the depths of a dreamy haze, I sat up in my bed. It was an early morning, crispy and threatening with its whisper of cold, an unholy hour for any person to rise. Unholy as it is, ten AM always comes earlier then it should. With a heavy fist I mash the sleep button, commanding submission from the screeching alarm. For a moment I fall back onto my pillow and my eyes flicker. Justification for why I should stay in bed swirls through the sleep induced laziness of my mind. The wind scratches at my bedroom window moaning out the word, “Lethbridge”, in its droning voice—like a zombie at a boarded up door.
My eyes closing, I convince myself that I could drift off for just moments more and still make it on time. With sudden surge of panic I awaken fully, with the inherent knowledge that more than just a few moments have passed. Springing from bed I cross the room into a pair of dirty pants from the floor in a single motion. The shirt I wore to bed will do fine if only I can find, in the pile near the door, a pair of shoes that are mine. A jacket slings around my shoulders and my pack back fills in record time, I just might make it. Dirty looks and a frowning professor, the images play in my head as I rush toward the door. Wait! “Why are you still here?” I ask of the blanket shrouded figure on the couch. Pajama clad and adorned with slippers my roommate sits on the couch. The remnants of readying for the day clinging to him, in his washed and styled hair. This person is never late for a class that starts more than an hour before mine; nonetheless they sit on the couch watching terrible morning TV. He cocks his head to the side and with a menacing smile says, “It’s poo day! Don’t you know?” The moments that follow fill my heart with joy as I learn of the happenings of NOV 5th. The University has flowed forth with filth, and the halls have been shut down. With classes cancelled I return to swear pants and settle on the couch next to him. A snow day framed in brown has turned my frown upside down. Later that day a group of us go to Oshos to enjoy food and beverage, the puns swirl like the leaves outside in the Lethbridge wind. A new holiday is born—Nov 5th is the first year anniversary of Poo-Day.

Consume with tea and slippers: wintertime reading suggestions

Winter is here. If you’re an otherwise-all-too-busy bibliophile like me, you may want to grab your slippers, steep yourself some tea and curl up with one of the following tomes:

The Selfish Gene

By Richard Dawkins

Want to understand the mysteries of life? Start with this book.

First released in 1976, this was the first book to provide a very readable account how evolution actually works. The book contained no original research. What it contained was a new worldview. That new worldview is based on the Selfish Gene Theory.

Crudely put, the Selfish Gene Theory stipulates that evolution does not progress toward the improvement of species or even individual organisms. All evolution does –all it can do – is work in the interest of genes. Like all other living creatures, you and I came to be only because our ancestors happened to be useful tools for the propagation of the genes that created us.

It’s hard to even begin expanding upon the ramifications the theory. What I will say is that this is by far the most important book I’ve ever read.  It has given me more relevant insights on politics than the entire four years I’ve spent in Political Science. It has taught me more about morality than the sum of every novel, proverb and fairy tale I’ve ever encountered.

The Upside of Down

By Thomas Homer-Dixon

This book is the antidote for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the doom and gloom that we’re all confronted with on a daily basis but who, rather than losing themselves in the bliss of willful ignorance, chooses to make sense of that doom and gloom and to confront it accordingly.

Homer-Dixon begins with an absolutely fascinating account of the fall of the Roman Empire that puts to shame all of the profoundly unsatisfying explanations you may have heard in history class. He goes on the draw some disturbing parallels between the stresses that faced Rome in its day and the ones that confront the whole of human civilization today.

Homer-Dixon pulls together a number of major stresses on human civilization – peak oil, climate change, pollution, massive wealth gaps and frightening demographic trends – and paints them all into a big picture that, while dark at first, contains a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

The Prince

Niccolo Machiavelli

This book is accorded a special place in Western intellectual history for being the first known book to provide a useful and practical account of how politics actually works. Modern-day politics are much less focused on murder and conquest, but the advice set forth by Machiavelli remains as applicable today as it was back then.

Machiavelli deserves some of his modern-day notoriety. He’s cold, manipulative, and straight-up ruthless. He will stab your bleeding-heart naїveté with a cold blade of sound counsel. In a recent exchange with a friend, he described the book as dehumanizing. I told him that I would describe it as invigorating. I am now of the firm opinion that it is both.

The historical examples are hard to follow at times, but the lessons nestled within and between them are worth the wait. Another advantage of this book is that you can read over the course of a single cold Saturday.

Author’s note: This article was originally published on the Students’ Union page of The Meliorist on October 15th, 1009.

don’t cut us out: Herald Article

Yesterday, the ULSU held a press conference to encourage the provincial government to invest in a strong post-secondary system in order to secure Alberta’s future prosperity, adaptiveness and social health. The event received great coverage from the local media. Here’s the Page 3 story in The Lethbridge Herald:

“University could be hit hard

Written by Caroline Zentner LETHBRIDGE HERALD
Tuesday, 15 September 2009

Student and faculty groups at the University of Lethbridge say the Alberta government is being short-sighted by making funding cuts to post-secondary education because the province’s future prosperity and competitiveness depends on a well-educated workforce.”

Read the article here!

CASA meets w/ Libs to discuss student unemployment

Here’s the newest press release from CASA:

Students Meet with Justin Trudeau to Discuss Unemployment

Ottawa, ON – Today, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations met with Justin Trudeau, Member of Parliament for Papineau, to discuss the immediate needs for students suffering from alarmingly high unemployment rates.

In August 2009, there were 128,000 less jobs for students compared with August 2008. This means that post-secondary students are lacking over $500 million of income from summer employment.

“More students will be relying on financial assistance this fall in order to pursue a post-secondary education,” said Arati Sharma, National Director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA). “Drastic unemployment rates and as a result much higher need for financial assistance, is not something that the current system is prepared to support.”

During the needs assessment for student loans, the current system for financial aid does not account for possible unemployment or under-employment; rather, the system deducts loan amounts based on the expectation that a student will make money throughout the summer. Further, if a student works throughout the school year, the government reduces a student’s loan by every dollar earned above $50 per week. CASA is proposing that these employment restrictions be lifted for one year.

“These claw backs are increasing the burden for students who need financial assistance the most,” said Sharma. “If removing these requirements is not immediate, students will be forced to take on more private debt, and for some, it will be a choice of whether or not to complete their education.”

“Students are grateful for the opportunity to talk about these issues with Mr. Trudeau,” said Sharma. “It is crucial for all our leaders to recognize the urgent need for changes to the post-secondary education system in Canada and we welcome any opportunity to discuss these concerns.”

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The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit national student organization composed of 24 student associations, representing 400,000 students from coast to coast.
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Jillian Flake
Public Relations and Communications Officer
Canadian Alliance of Student Associations
Tel.: 613-236-3457 ext. 224 (c) 613-868-6605
Email: casacomm@casa.ca

Perspectives on Education: Part 3

The third and last author to be featured in “Perspectives on Education” today is H.L. Mencken, a bitterly incisive journalist, social commentator and devastating critic of all things sub-par. Mencken was a powerful opponent of the social repression that dominted America in the first half of the twentieth century. Here are a few of his choicest words on education:

From The Public-School

“Education in the highest (and rarest) sense – education directed toward awakening a capacity to differentiate between fact and appearance – is and always will be a more or less furtive and illicit thing, for its chief purpose is the controversion and destruction of the very ideas that the majority of men – and particularly the majority of official and powerful men – regard as incontrovertibly true.[...] Progress consists precisely in attacking and and disposing of these ordinary beliefs. It is thus opposed to education as the thing is now managed, and so there should be no surprise in the fact that the generality of pedagogues in the public-schools, like the generality of policemen and saloon-keepers, are bitter enemies to all new ideas.

Think of what the average schoolboy is taught today, say in history or economics.[...] Surely no sane man would argue that the assimilation of such a mess of evasions and mendacities will make the boy of today a well-informed and quick-minded citizen tomorrow, alert to error and wary of propaganda. This plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda – a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with a capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The idea is to make “good” citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens.”

From The Golden Age of Pedagogy

“I can’t imagine a genuinely intelligent boy getting much out of college, even out of a good college, save it be a cynical habit of mind. For even the good ones are manned chiefly by third-rate men, and any boy of sharp wits is sure to penetrate to their inferiority almost instantly. Men can fool other men, but they can seldom fool boys.”

From the same:

“In addition to the prestige, [college graduates] carry home certain cultural (as opposed to intellectual) gains. They have learned the rules of basket-ball, football, high-jumping, pole-vaulting and maybe lawn tennis. They have become privy to the facts that a dress coat is not work in the morning or with plus-fours, that an Episcopalian has something on a Baptist and even on a Presbytarian, that smoking cigarettes is not immediately followed by general paralysis, that a girl may both believe the literal accuracy of Genesis, and neck. They have become, in a sense, house-broken, and learned how to trip over the rug gracefully, without upsetting the piano.”

The interested reader can find both works in A Second Mencken Chrestomathy, ed. Terry Teachout (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).

Perspectives on Education: Part 2

Today’s second installment of “Perspectives on Education” features the unparalleled Thomas Henry Huxley. Anatomist extraordinaire, eminent social critic, navy surgeon, college principal, university rector, chief defender of evolution and the inventor of the term ‘agnostic,’ Huxley is one of the most underrated figures in Western intellectual history. The following excerpt is taken from the speech A Liberal Education; and Where to Find It, which Huxley delivered to his students while serving as Principal of the South London Working Men’s College in 1868:

“Those who take honours in Nature’s university, who learn the laws which govern men and things and obey them, are the really great and successful men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the “Poll,” who pick up just enough to go through without much discredit. Those who won’t learn at all are plucked; and then you can’t come up again. Nature’s pluck means extermination.

Thus the question of compulsory education is settled so far as Nature is concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed a long ago. But, like all compulsory legislation, that of Nature is harsh and wasteful in its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as wilful disobedience–incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime. Nature’s discipline is not even a word and a blow and the blow first; but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out why your ears are boxed.”