huzzah minister!!! part 3- Let’s talk about Tri Councils

And we are back. I like that Jenn posted about the VP Research because a big part of their job is to secure funding from the Tri-Councils for research. Conincidentally, we here at CASA are talking about Tri-Council funding as it pertains to students.

So, what the heck are the Tri-Councils? Well, they are the autonomous bodies that are charged with reviewing research projects throughout the country, and subsequently providing funding for said projects. The Tri-Councils are:

Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR)

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

So, why are we talking about the tri-councils. Well, research is important. We are biased, of course, but we fundamentally believe that education and innovation are the primary means of improving this country. That is why we are talking about Tri-Council funding and autonomy.

There are 2 things that we are talking to ministers, MPs, senators, and leaders about.

TRI-COUNCIL PAY EQUITY

A student should not need to take a vow of poverty if they want to do grad work in the Social Sciences and Humanities. But that is what we are requiring of them right now. Students who pursue graduate research through SSHRC get paid significantly less than those who are funded by NSERC and CIHR. Why?

Well, one of the things we hear is NSERC and CIHR need more funding to attract grad students, because of market forces. They could make a lot of money working, rather than researching or something like that. They also throw bunk excuses like “the Universities set the pay level of the degrees!”

But, we are having none of that!!! First off, the value of research is in-calculable. Who knows? The next big thing might come from the social sciences. So why is the government falsely perpetuating market forces? Also, universities don’t spend money on things that they don’t consider necessary, like student salaries (They are a business folks. If you weren’t forced to spend more money on someone’s salary, you would’nt).

So, our ask: Pay equity across the Tri-Councils. Whether this means that the government puts more funding into SSHRC, or simply rejigs the rules to ensure this equity are inconsequential to us, as long as it happens.

Research is valuable, whether is done in the social sciences, natural sciences, or health field. Let’s make sure that students who want to do this work are not disadvantaged.

TRI-COUNCIL AUTONOMY

In Budget 2009, there were some concerning mandates. One thing that the Government did was direct SSHRC to focus in on Business related grad projects. We have an issue with this one too!

The Tri-Councils are supposed to be arms length from the government. And here we have a case of direct interference. While we have no specific issue with differentially funding the tri-councils to reflect the government’s priorities, we believe that is where it should end.

DO NOT tell an independent agency that a management graduate project is more valuable than a history graduate project.

Again, it comes back to the intrinsic value of research across the board. I have been the using the R.I.M example (they are the folks who came up with the Blackberry). The work that RIM did to come up with that little tool needed input from across the disciplines; from computer science to linguistics, to user interface research. If any part of that was missing, the Blackberry would not exist. And that is just one example among many.

Research is important. It is not the government’s place to determine what research should be done. That is the responsibility of the Tri-Councils. That is why they were set up in the first place. Do not tinker with that.

Adam Vossepoel

President

Huzzah Minister!!! Part 2: Let’s talk about books…

When you think of the costs associated with obtaining a University education, you typically think of tution, rent, cost of living, etc. But academic materials (textbooks, course packs, lab materials) are real, and often exorbitantly priced.

Get a load of this statistic: From 1997-2005, textbook prices have increased by 280%, while CPI has only increased by 22%!!! Obviously, something is wrong here.

Well, neglecting the publishing costs, and shipping costs, and whatever other costs that the bookstore tells you they have, there is also another cost on top of the list price. That cost is the Book Importation Regualtions.

It breaks down like this. In 1999, Canada imposed these book import regulations in an effort to protect the Canadian publishing industry. Any books that were imported from the States were subject to a 10% fee above the list price; from anywhere else, it is 15%. One would think that the government might be seeing some revenue from this regulation, but they are not! Not a single penny!

So why is this regualtion in place? Maybe it increased the number of publishing houses in Canada? Wrong. Since this regulation was put in, we have seen the eventual extinction of our publishing houses; from around 40 to 2!

“So what?”, you may be asking yourself. Well, to put it into context, if this regualtion were to be removed, Canadian students would immediately be saving ~$30M/ year on books from the U.S. alone! And this stat doesn’t even account for the savings that students at French schools would see (Canada’s French publishing community is weak, which means that most academic materials must be imported from France, increasing costs for French students).

But I am not done! You know when you walk into Chapters to pick up a book and you see 2 prices on the back, a Canadian one and an American one? Well, that is not just the exchange rate. That difference in price is this book import regualtion fouling your favorite fiction as well!

So, let’s recap:

1) Canadians pay an extra 10-15% on any imported book

2) Canada is the only country that has this regualtion

3) The government does not see a penny of revenue from this regualtion

4) A flick of the wrist and a signature can eliminate this regualtion immediately

5) It makes books cheaper for Canadian citizens

Taking all the above things into account, there should be only one question in your head, “Why aren’t we doing this?!” We here at CASA have the same question in mind, and now, so do a lot of MPs looking for political capital. Let’s hope they can see it a easily as we can.

Next up, TRI-COUCIL FUNDING and AUTONOMY

Adam Vossepoel

President

Free textbooks online?

“How to Download your textbooks for free.”

A very very interesting article from Macleans Magazine campus edition, I highly recommend everyone check it out. Textbook prices are totally unregulated by any sort of external body outside of the on-campus University Bookstore and the university community and are not subject to any sort of public transparency or accountability. Being an industry which lends itself to monopoly, often times textbook stores charge prices to turn a profit (whether that be large or small, there is little information out there on their business success). Like any business we cannot really fault them for this, but is this meant to be a business? Textbooks are a necessary part of anyone’s education, with your success often times being dependent on your ability to access these high priced duo-tangs of information. Now, the writers of these books do get paid royalty’s but ask any professor and they will tell you it is very very little.

This is an ever growing battle and if you have any concerns or comments on this please feel free to contact us!

Jenn Prosser, VP Academic

COCA: Solid Programming or Solid Drinking?

So…

I am doing my report on the COCA Conference I attended and I keep rolling the same question through my mind; is COCA worth it?

For those that do not know, COCA stand for the Canadian Organization of Campus Activities (website here: http://www.coca.org) and we at the ULSU pay a membership fee to access their resources with businesses and professionals in the world of campus programming.

We also get to go to this conference that I suspect you have heard of once or twice in passing.

Now as an organization COCA makes sense to be a part of; contacts, education, and resources for first time programmers or experienced veterans alike!

But what about that darned conference?

In case you haven’t heard some the rumors, COCA has been framed as one giant party filled with free alcohol and ample opportunities to engage in “questionable” behavior. Rooms full of naked people. The Devil play card in the back corner for someone’s soul. That kind of stuff. And now that I am back the question a lot of people have been asking me is, “so how was your time at COCA?” wink.

(That little wink at the end of the question makes reference to all the lovely rumors that circulate around the conference.)

Really, though, I can’t say that anything that went on during our stay in Ottawa would be rumor worthy material; yes there were the rooms with free alcohol, and yes we took a late night swim in a pool, but COCA is not this huge monstrosity of party that I keep hearing about.

Was it a good time? You bet! I saw some awesome bands, I got to hang out in bars with lots of cool people 5 nights in a row, and I got to talk to people doing the same job as me across the country.

So back to that first question; is COCA worth it?

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is yes, because it gives programmers the ability to become instantly comfortable in their job, develop their skill sets to create better events at their respective campuses, and make dozens of contacts across the country for professional purposes.

Cheers,

Eric
VP Internal