Home Blog Page 1282

Board Shorts

By
EIC
-
0

Board Shorts

Welcome back party in the works

The board has started extensive planning on a fall welcome-back event, tentatively scheduled for September 13 in Convocation Mall at the Burnaby campus. The event will be a large afternoon concert with four acts and an after-party at the Highland Pub, to be finalized in the next two or three weeks of the budget being approved in the beginning of July. The SFSS won’t release any names of prospective artists at this time, but president Humza Khan said the “shortlist consists of artists that will appeal to the young crowd in attendance as they are from the electronic and top-40 genres.”

The proposed budget for the concert is just under $63,000, with an expected revenue of approximately $70,000 based on sponsorship, food and beverage sales, and 2000 ticket sales. Tickets will be sold in four tiers, from $16, $18, $20, to $25. Tickets will be sold for $35 at the door, and tickets for the pub after party will be $15. Expectations for the event are high; Khan said the concert “could be the legacy of our board.”

SFU bagpiper tours France

By
EIC
-
0

Kevin McLean

SFU bagpipe player Kevin McLean played across Northern France early this month, on a week long trip honoring several Canadian battles and our fallen soldiers. The expedition had McLean performing on former First and Second World War battlefields and memorable locations, including Juno Beach, to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, better known as D-Day.

The trip proved to be an especially personal one for McLean, as the communication student also visited the grave of his great uncle William McLean, who died in the Hundred Day Offensive in 1918.

The tour, titled Vimy: Leadership Under Fire, is an annual week-long pilgrimage produced by the Canadian organizations True Patriot Love, the Vimy Foundation, and the Young Presidents’ Organization. This year marked the third annual event, taking Canadian business leaders across famous First and Second World War battle sites and cemeteries to preserve interest in the historical sacrifices of canadian military families.

McLean plays for SFU’s internationally recognized pipe band, which is currently raising funds for its annual trip to Glasgow in August to compete in the two-day World Pipe Band Championships. The SFU Pipe Band has won the event six times in the past. The band members are trying to raise $10,000 of the $100,000 cost, which is usually almost entirely funded by the members of the band.

McLean, who has been a piper since the age of 13, described the experience of playing at the battlefields, graves, memorials, museums, and beaches in Northern France as “incredible.” For him, seeing both his uncle’s grave and experiencing these other locations was a reminder of the personal story that each soldier or grave holds.

“Knowing that each soldier buried has a family and an unique story like my great uncle’s really struck home,” he said. “It’s easy to get overwhelmed and awed by the size and numbers of the graveyards, but when you realize that each grave represents a young Canadian soldier that left their families, friends, careers, and lives behind to fight for our country, it’s very emotional and it makes you feel very proud to be Canadian.”

McLean, who was the sole piper on the trip, was accompanied during the trip by two men whom he refers to as “two of the most proud and inspirational Canadians alive:” Pierre Gauthier, a former soldier who fought at Juno Beach at age 19, and General Rick Hillier, the Chief of the Defense Staff of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2008. “It was an honour to play the bagpipes for these people and listen to their stories and absorb their pride in being Canadian,” McLean says.

The most memorable experience of the trip for McLean was giving a performance of four songs and short presentation at the grave of piper James Cleland Richardson, a Vancouver soldier who was killed in the First World War. Originally from Scotland, Richardson was a piper in the 72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, and travelled overseas as part of a large Seaforth contingent.

Richardson was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross — the most prestigious award for gallantry that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces — after allegedly rallying fellow soldiers with his music during a battle in Somme, France, in 1916. Richardson died attempting to retrieve his bagpipes that he had left behind enemy lines; he was 20 years-old at the time.

For McLean’s involvement, General Hiller awarded him the Commander’s Medal, an honour reserved by the retired Chief for moments by which he is personally inspired. “It was an incredible honour to be awarded this,” McLean said.

University Briefs

By
EIC
-
0

Lady

Penis size matters

Apparently it is the size, and not what you do with it, gentlemen.

Biologist Brian Mautz, a University of Ottawa researcher, has concluded that “flaccid penis size had a significant influence on male attractiveness.” The study involved females evaluating potential sexual partners by judging the attractiveness of male figures with different sized penises.

However, bigger is not always better: “The data showed an upside-down-U-shaped curve for each trait,” meaning that there were diminishing returns for extreme size. Additionally, penis size did not seem to matter for  the attractiveness of short men; what matter more is proportions.

The team’s model predicts that the most attractive penis would measure 12.8 to 14.2 centimetres in its flaccid state, which is relatively close to the population average.

With files from The Canadian Press

 

Potential non-gendered washrooms at Douglas

With the recent election of Milo Leraar, DSU Pride Liason, Douglas College’s Pride Collective is looking to push for non-gendered washrooms and “better queer representation and understanding within the college.”

In keeping with the group’s shift towards more collective decision making, Leraar was eager to listen to these ideas at a recent collective meeting.

“The last collective meeting was really awesome. There was a lot of diverse opinion in representation at the meeting,” said Leraar. “I’m hoping that can continue on so that we can put a lot of intention into making this not only a queer safe space but safe for people of all identities.”

With files from The Other Press

 

Forum explored science of sex and relationships

On June 8, the University of Guelph held a daylong research symposium on “The Science of Sex and Relationships.” Prof. Robin Milhausen, a sex educator and event co-chair explained, “people tend to study sex and relationships as separate topics . . . as researchers, these two groups don’t get together too often.”

According to Milhausen, the delegates discussed how having a satisfying sex life and a positive relationship go hand in hand (no pun intended). The two are mutually reinforcing; the thought is that better sex can be found in a relationship, where emotional attachment and trust are present, and not outside of one. Other topics explored included asexuality and working with high-risk sex offenders.

With files from University of Guelph

 

Winnipeg women harassed more often than previously thought

In a recent survey of 300 people by Hollaback! Winnipeg, it was found that 94 per cent of women and members of the LGBT community (specifically, genderqueer and transgendered individuals) in Winnipeg have been the victim of sexual harassment, where 63 per cent experience harassment at least once a month.

The most common forms of harassment that these victim’s underwent include honking, whistling, leering, and comments about physical appearance.

Lexi van Dyck, a fourth-year women’s and gender studies student at the University of Winnipeg, believes that the best way to avoid such oppressive and frightening behavior is to teach young students about how to better interact with opposite genders.

With files from The Uniter: Winnipeg’s Weekly Urban Journal

Opposition to Mumbai mannequins stiffens

By
EIC
-
0

Manequeen with stole of different political parties

A city which has caught the world’s eye for all the wrong reasons in the past year, Mumbai has recently passed a ban on provocative mannequins, hoping to halt sex crimes in India’s ancient capital.

Representatives from Mumbai’s local authority, a body which is dominated by the right-wing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, voted on May 28 to ban the plastic models. The prohibition is based on the “Provisions of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986,” which defines indecent representation of women as “the depiction in any manner of the figure of a woman; her form or body or any part thereof in such way as to have the effect of being indecent, or derogatory to, or denigrating women, or is likely to deprave, corrupt or injure the public morality or morals.”

The initiative was led by Ritu Tawade, a member of the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party. According to Tawade, these “immoral” figures are partly to blame for Mumbai men’s indecent and dangerous behaviour towards women. “It’s time to end shop windows showing women’s breasts and bottoms,” said Tawade. “Young boys see the mannequins and the minds of grown men too are corrupted by these images.”

This ban confronts the increasing number of rapes and sexual abuse in India. According to National Crime Records Bureau, the cases of rape went up by 873 percent between 2001 and 2011. Broken down, Mumbai has India’s second highest number of rapes after Delhi, totalling 231 last year; in Delhi, the total was 706. In India’s capital, a woman is raped every 18 hours, and is molested every 14 hours.

When looking at the country as a whole, one woman is raped every 20 minutes in India. This is calculated only from the reported cases; the actual number of rapes is most likely significantly higher. In a 2011 survey by Trust Law, it was revealed that India is the fourth-worst country for women to live in, on account of trafficking and sexual slavery. It is only preceded by Afghanistan, the Congo, and Pakistan.

This issue hit the world stage last December, when a young physiotherapy student was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi. Since then, the country has been swept by anti-rape protests that have gained impetus from other high-profile incidents of sexual assault in the months following, including a US tourist who was raped in Manali, a resort town in the north.

Nevertheless, this mannequin ban has been criticized for its failure to address the deeper cultural issues at play. A survey by the International Centre for Research on Women found that 75 per cent of men in New Delhi felt that “women provoke men by the way they dress.” This thought process does not stop with men alone, as shown by the comments of Asha Gaitonde, a Mumbai waitress: “Girls wear spaghetti straps, short skirts and tight jeans. These clothes make everyone aware of sex and if men start thinking of sex because girls make them look at them, what do you expect?”

Not only do critics find fault with such “outdated” ways of thinking, but in the city’s failure to address other potential causes of violence against Indian women. Opponents of the ban refer to erotic sculptures and carvings at celebrated temples like Khajuraho that feature scenes of group sex and bestiality, claiming that these images are more culturally harmful than the mannequins.

Fingers have also pointed to Mumbai’s Bollywood film industry, which produces films that feature scantily-clad women dancing provocatively. When confronted, Ekta Kapoor, a co-producer of The Dirty Picture (2011), responded, “Stop your men. Don’t just cover your women. There’s a bigger problem with the mentality of the men in this country.”

Responses from the fashion and advertising industry were similar to those of Kapoor. “If the plastic curves of a mannequin can turn these guys on, they should go see a doctor,” said advertising executive Pritish Nandy.

Once approved, the ban will give civic officials the authority to remove any mannequins that they feel are offensive and in violation of the 1986 Act. If shopkeepers refuse, they will be fined. As of yet, the amount of the fine has not been specified.

Word on the Street: Wild Sex

By
EIC
-
0

Q: Where’s the craziest, wildest, most insane place you’ve ever had sex with a relative? 

 

I’m pretty conservative so I can’t really say that someone who I’m related to and I have ever had sex in any weird location.

Jackson Walters, Unadventurously Incestuous

What kind of a question is that? Pick one adjective, asshole!

Lindsay Gore, Sentence Composition Stickler

Paris, France.

Chris Hardford, Sex Tourist

I’ve never had sex with any of my relatives, that’s disgusting!

Rick Fontaine, Upstanding Citizen

I can’t remember whether it was an air hockey table or a foosball table . . . I’ll have to call my cousin Rick.

Jeremy Fontaine, Oh come on, Rick!

International Sex Headlines

By
EIC
-
0

Study finds that men think about sex every seven seconds while having sex 

(Sexy Times Monthly)

 

Man unable to return home from Thailand due to sex trafficking jam  

(Red Light Observer)

 

Local sex shop sold out of sex 

(YOUR REGION Today)

 

Kim Jong-Un to be voted ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ after annihilation of all other men 

(North Korean Free Press) 

 

African-American porn actor finally breaks “group beastiality cactus-fetish video” colour barrier 

(Aristocrats Weekly)

French study links tattoos to sexual promiscuity

By
EIC
-
0

WEB-Tramp Stamp-Vaikunthe Banerjee

According to a new psychological study, men may have a tendency to take the term “tramp stamp” literally. In the grand tradition of sexual signalling (think cleavage, bare collarbones, short skirts, and the colour red), the French study done by psychologist Nicolas Guéguen  found that the majority of men believe that women with tattoos are more sexually promiscuous.

In France, a select 12 per cent of women sport ink somewhere on their bodies, and previous studies have found that men and women place many unjustified attributes on tattooed women. In one, test subjects were asked to judge two different versions of a photo of a 24 year old woman, one where she had a black dragon tattoo on her upper left arm, and one where she didn’t. When she had the tattoo, she was judged to be less honest, generous, intelligent, and artistic than when her skin was bare.

Even though most studies of this kind found that men considered tattooed women less attractive, Guéguen found they were also more likely to try to sleep with them. The question then was, is that because they are more promiscuous? Or were men barking up the wrong tree? Guéguen headed to the beach to find out.

In the first part of his experiment, a female research assistant was asked to lie on her stomach on the beach while reading a book or magazine, an activity chosen because roughly 85 per cent of women who hang out at the beach solo do exactly that.

All the different female assistants in the study wore the exact same red bikini, but in some trials they also displayed a temporary tattoo of a butterfly on their back. The tattoo was roughly ten and a half by five centimeters in size, and was chosen because it was deemed a common design for women to get.

Once the target was set, a male observer who was in on the study timed how long it took from the moment the woman laid down to when a man made contact with her, either by saying “hello” or asking her a question. The study carried out this interaction 220 times total; 110 with the tattoo, and 110 without.

In the end, the women who wore the tattoos were solicited by men 23.67 per cent of the time, while their bare counterparts were only approached 10 per cent of the time. Men at the beach were also quicker to come up to a woman with a tattoo, taking an average of only 23.61 minutes, versus 34.78 minutes to approach an uninked woman.

The second part of the experiment also involved the woman laying down, but targeted finding out what the men on the beach thought of her. Once she was in place, the male researcher who was observing would go up to a man within ten meters of the woman and ask what he thought his chances of getting a date with her, and the probability of having sex with her on the first date. In that test, male beachgoers thought their chances of going on a date or having sex with the woman were significantly higher when she had the tattoo.

From these results, Guéguen concluded that women get tattooed as a way to enhance their sexual appeal to men, and to attract more suitors. In the same vein, men are drawn to women who show more sexual receptivity; in this case, in the form of a tattoo.

For Dr. Elise Chenier, an SFU history professor whose focus is gender and sexuality in the 20th century, the answer to these findings is simple: it’s about class. “Tattoos, especially for women, are associated with being lower class . . . and women that are working class, lower class, are assumed to have fewer moral scruples than middle class, respectable women,” she explained.

Chenier likened the popularity of tattoos for showing an anti-establishment attitude to the long hair and loose cotton of the 70s, or lipstick in the early 20th century, which was only worn by prostitutes at the time. “It was Elizabeth Arden who sold lipstick and rouge as a health product,” said Chenier. “It was only by marketing it as a health product that it lost its stigma as being something only sex workers used.”

She was also quick to point to the fact that while tattoos may be a rarity in France, they are much more prevalent in North America, and may not convey the same sexual signal here. “Tattoos are becoming more and more normalized, it’s no longer just sailors and prisoners. Especially in Vancouver, it’s a very very trendy thing to do,” she noted. “[The study] only tells us about France. I wonder if the findings would be different in Vancouver.”

SFU one of Canada’s top 100 employers?

By
EIC
-
0

TopEmployer

By Mohamed Sheriffdeen

The Burnaby campus has been the only post-secondary institution I’ve ever known since I started my undergraduate career. I slogged through my degree before enrolling in graduate school and joined the Teaching and Support Staff Union as a Teaching Assistant to pay the bills, all the while holding a positive image of the University. Then I began to pay attention, and that image fell apart.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that universities have become increasingly corporatized in behavior and organization. The facts are simple: public funding has been shrinking for some time, forcing universities to get more creative and take their cues from corporations as to how and where to raise and allocate funds. While it seems like a natural progression, the central conceit that governs universities versus corporations is indisputably at conflict — the latter driven by profit, and the former driven by idealism.

Universities have always occupied a lofty niche in society that has allowed them to weather ever changing sociopolitical and cultural landscapes. Schools ought to be non-profit organizations, run with the express intent of advancing human understanding, knowledge, the advocacy of intellect and the stimulation of thought.

Perhaps this is starry-eyed idealism, and all the intellect in the world doesn’t power projectors when bills come due. But the people now running the show at these institutions are from a corporate background, and their inexperience in understanding what actually defines a university is telling. SFU is not innocent of this cultural shift, and it signals a definitive disconnect in what we think universities are versus what they really are.

There is a general knee-jerk response to the word corporate; accusations of commodification of people, the environment, memes, social causes, and even disease (breast cancer being a particularly drawn-from well) — these dominate grassroots social movements and the media, especially in BC. But does it actually matter if the university as we know it is no longer a time honoured institution with only the most noble of goals? Don’t corporations, ultimately, produce valuable items? Being a corporation doesn’t necessarily mean that the company is a misleading, faceless Goliath with a hyperactive PR department . . . does it?

Take Mediacorp’s listing of the Top 100 Canadian Employers. SFU has enjoyed a catbird seat over the last decade, making the list for six straight years. It’s quite the feat, and if you pay any attention to SFU’s PR campaigns and job advertisements, it won’t escape your notice. But how accurate a representation is this listing of the university, or any of the other businesses selected?

Screen shot 2013-06-10 at 2.27.58 PM

Mediacorp’s scouting strategy is, at best, flawed. The process is driven by questionnaires filled out by each applicant’s HR Department, without input or feedback from actual employees; it’s akin to a child gleefully filling out their own report card. But, for the sake of this argument, let’s narrow our focus.

SFU has been ranked as “very good,” in employee engagement and “above average” with reference to communication. Mediacorp judges specifically highlighted annual performance reviews, as well as in-house satisfaction surveys and exit interviews conducted by SFU. They also state on their website that feedback is encouraged by in-house newsletters and an intranet site.

Surprisingly, in its last three years of rankings, the judges failed to note (or SFU failed to notify) that a number of unions working on campus remained without a contract. The Teaching and Support Staff Union concluded negotiations last December after two and a half years in limbo, only after the union enacted a work stoppage that threatened to delay delivery of final grades to students.

Even more severe, CUPE 3338 — encompassing clerical and library staff, lifeguards, programmers, buyers and store clerks, amongst others — have remained without a contract for three years now. SFU was found guilty of bargaining in bad faith in January of this year by a Labour Relations Board, a decision that the University appealed for over three months before the LRB upheld the original ruling in April.

In their most recent contract offer, the university offered a package which, including two years of the BC Government’s zero wage mandate for public workers, offered a retroactive increase of 0.5 per cent over each of the last two years of a four year contract; far below the current rate of inflation and, in essence, a pay cut. Contrasted with other BC universities, which have long since settled their labour issues, the offer was blasted as “insulting” by CUPE 3338 president Lynne Fowler. But isn’t this common knowledge? Apparently, not to Mediacorp.

SFU has also been feted for vacation pay that starts at three weeks, increases to four weeks after an employee’s first year, and may reach six weeks for long-standing employees (according to Mediacorp and SFU’s HR department). However, TSSU members are limited to two weeks of paid vacation at the beginning of employment, and longstanding members are not offered any escalators for time employed or performance.

When contacted by The Peak for a response, Scott McLean of the Public Media and Relationships Office stated diplomatically that “the TSSU had an opportunity to address vacation pay during the last round of negotiations.” Scott Yano, involved in the TSSU’s contract committee during the negotiations, was nonplussed by the comment, alleging that “The TSSU had the opportunity and took it. Stunned silence was the only reply.” The TSSU was further, according to Yano, pressed to file a grievance to receive statutory holiday pay. When asked to respond to these allegations, McLean politely elected to decline.

Additionally, to avoid the issue of long-standing workers with seniority escalators, the University instituted a cap on the number of semesters during which an individual could receive a TA position, which results in graduate students who rely on such positions to pay for their schooling to find work off-campus, often delaying the completion of their degrees.

Given that the average time taken for a Ph.D. student to complete their thesis work varies between 5-7 years with no external conflicts, this is a significant issue for a number of students and an absolute non-starter for international students who are unable to work off-campus, requiring them to assume an even more crushing student debt load. However, this still does not address the issue of sessionals and continuing students who are, in essence, long-term workers with no potential seniority-based perks or security. Are these the actions of a Top 100 Employer? You decide.

I don’t want to indemnify SFU as some sort of uncaring corporate giant, but a disturbing trend has taken root at the core of the University. A focus on profit ahead of academia scuttles the very concept of a university, and challenges our expectations of what a school is. It ought to be a public service and the source of an individual alumni’s identity — a brand that they carry as a part of themselves for the rest of their professional careers.

A privatization of said brand does nothing to enhance one’s credentials, despite private and federal attempts to commodify the culture of schools. The core influencing public and university policy needs to be the cadre of academics and faculty, creating an environment conducive to learning and discovery, instead of endless labs dedicated to product testing and the fostering of a consumer culture.

Demand change. Because the status quo isn’t good enough.

Doors and arms wide open with the Women’s Centre collective

By
EIC
-
0

WEB-USE THAT SHITpsd boost=.=

By Rachel Braeuer
Photos by Leah Bjornson

At the end of the Rotunda Hallway (or at the beginning, if you’re coming from residences and West Mall) lies the SFU Women’s Centre, a pro-feminist, sex-positive, pro-choice, trans and intersex inclusive, anti-racist space. It’s a second home to some, a place to microwave lunch for others, or somewhere verboten for others.

“I was definitely hesitant to come into the space, and mainly because I didn’t really know what existed beyond that door,” explained Biftu Yousuf, a fourth-year criminology student who is now a collective member and volunteer at the Centre.

Another volunteer, Stephanie Boulding, also remembers her hesitations: “I said ‘I don’t have time to do this!’ and then I started doing it, and it turned out I did — I made time.” While spelling her name for me, she signs it.

The Women’s Centre collective meets from 2:15 to 3:45 p.m. every Monday this semester in room TC 3013. “Collective makes the decisions — we’re a consensus-based decision making group,”said Negin Alavi, another collective member. Everything the Centre does is agreed upon by all collective members. If a consensus can’t be met, then it doesn’t happen.

Not surprisingly, when you think of the Women’s Centre, most people immediately think of Nadine Chambers, the Centre’s volunteer coordinator. “Nadine is the glue that puts our decisions into practice and reality,” Alavi explains.

Despite only having part-time hours with her official title and being a part-time student herself, Nadine is a constant around the Centre, so “people end up thinking she owns the space — she must have an incredibly amazing title, and profit immensely,” Alavi concludes.

When I ask about Nadine, the room lights up while she herself casually backs away. Later she reveals that she actually had another meeting to be in while she was there making sure everything was going great. The stories the collective members share with me second that this ever-busyness with her is a regular occurrence.

Yousuf, is a single mother, volunteers with three different organizations, is a full time student, works part-time, and trains for and runs marathons for charity; yet, despite her busy schedule, she explains how Nadine’s schedule still puts her to shame.

If you ask Nadine about her involvement with the Centre, she’ll be quick to tell you she just sees out the wishes of collective. She chalks up people seeing her as the flagstone of the Centre to her visibility, while flipping a stray dread over her shoulder.

Despite their efforts, many seem to misunderstand the role the Centre and its volunteers play on campus. “Some people, haven’t actually been in the Centre because [they’ve] got this ‘version of it’,” explains Boulding, who emphatically adds she wants to tell them “Come, join! Walk in! Just say hi!”

Alavi agrees and explains how she wishes people understood how important a role male allies play in the Centre. She also wants “people who don’t identify as feminist, but who are interested in learning more, to come here. And I want them to know they won’t be judged . . . we’d be happy to clarify and give more information.”

For Yousuf, it was the first time she came into the office that sealed the deal. “[Nadine and I] sat right there” — she points to the small love seat in front of Nadine’s desk — “and I was like, ‘wow, this is the beginning,’ and it just went from there and it’s been amazing since then.”

If, after reading this article, you’re still afraid to walk through the doors and find out what the Centre is all about, know this: at an appreciation event collective members, volunteers and local community activists got together at Tamam, a local Palestinian restaurant.

The laughter of the group was so loud, the area the group was in had to be closed off from the rest of the patrons. A good third of my interview is just laughter, and the rest is peppered with sarcasm and witticisms.

“This one time, Bill Murray came to the Centre . . .” is only one of many stories they shared with me.

Learning outcomes may pave the way to the NCAA

By
EIC
-
0

ncaa-page2

 

By Rachel Braeuer
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee

Unless you’re on Senate, chances are you haven’t heard about learning outcomes, the latest way SFU is assuring students it can improve our educational experience. It’s interesting that this new assessment model has been kept so relatively hush-hush, since a learning outcome is essentially a secondary assessment tool on top of regular marking schemes professors and TAs will be adjudicating students’ performances with.

WEB - The pencils copy

What is a Learning Outcome?

According to the Report on Learning Outcomes and Assessment Working Group last updated on December 2012, a learning outcome is “an area of knowledge, practical skill, area of professional development, attitude, higher-order thinking skill, etc., that an instructor expects students to develop, learn, or master during a course or program” that can be measured by “quantitative or qualitative assessment models.” I’m not entirely sure how one qualitatively assesses attitude, but let’s just say it’s my good luck I’ll be crossing the stage on Thursday.

The same document indicates that this model is being adopted because of growing concerns around the return on investment (ROI) of any given degree. “The challenge for many is how to best invest limited resources in developing one’s skill sets for a successful and rewarding career within the parameters of a selective marketplace that demands highly specific qualifications and abilities.”

It indicates that these changes are a direct result of a Task Force on Teaching and Learning that started in 2008 and ended in 2010, which found that the University should focus more on student experience generally. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to focus on the student experience, but is applying a secondary assessment model really a way to positively affect student experiences?

Charles Bingham, a tenured professor in the Faculty of Education who worked for years with learning outcomes as a high school teacher, thinks “learning outcomes are the ‘highschoolification’ of university.” BC elementary, middle and high schools have had Prescribed Learning Outcomes in place for decades. If you’re wondering how these affected your initial educational career, think back to standardized provincial tests, with their decrees that “this section will demonstrate a student’s reading comprehension skills” (and our abilities to fill in circles with only pencil).

The reason we have standardized, provincial testing is because of learning outcomes. The province made these necessary as a way to accurately measure the progress of all students. Arguably, since their adoption, Dogwood Diplomas didn’t increase in ROI. If anything, the value of a high school diploma has fallen in the last few years, so why would learning outcomes at a tertiary educational level add ROI to our degrees?

 

WQB Requirements and ROI

Many students don’t remember a time before WQB requirements. I, on the other hand, was part of the very first year of the new program. It was brought in to make students more well rounded, and therefore more appealing to employers. After all, what good is an English student who can’t add or subtract in base seven?

Unlike Learning Outcomes, WQB meant we had to take extra courses. Our predecessors didn’t have to take an intro to poetry class, or some other W-designated course to get their degree in engineering science. When I was a first-year, older students would rue not taking their first-year requirements earlier, as they were now stuck with a bunch of biology majors who didn’t care about the Victorian bildungsroman, they just needed a credit.

Then departments started making special WQB courses so that students could fulfill their requirements, like “The Physics of Sound” (aka waveforms and behaviours for art student idiots, PHYS 192), “Metrics and Prosody” (aka counting beats per line of poetry, ENGL 212).

Am I or my peers any more well rounded, therefore hireable, than those who came before us? Declining youth employment rates and a burgeoning generation of boomerang kids suggest otherwise. Adding more diverse courses and increasing the workload didn’t help add ROI to our degrees, so why would adding a second level of assessment?

 

NCAA

Back in 2009, SFU was just a “membership candidate” in its first year with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) — like a pledge at the coolest American fraternity. This was and is still a big deal for the university, as it guarantees our athletes more visibility and scholarships and more funding for the school generally. It was is also the same year our application to the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) was accepted.

Never heard of the NWCCU? They’re an American accreditation body approved by the NCAA that oversees colleges and universities in Alaska, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah, as well as Capilano University in North Vancouver, and now SFU. In order for SFU to become a member of the NCAA, we had to go through the process of becoming accredited by an approved accreditation body, hence the NWCCU.

SFU is already accredited by one local organization that isn’t NCAA-approved. Its seal can be found on the SFU homepage right beside the NCAA logo. Soon, assuming we complete the necessary steps to becoming accredited, a third seal will be added.

One of the 20 things the NWCCU looks for in its institutions is student achievement, which they measure through identified and published “expected learning outcomes for each of its degree and certificate programs of 30 semester or 45 quarter credits or more.” Just as a reminder: the results of the TFTL that suggested student experience needed to be focused on, the supposed rationale behind implementing learning outcomes, weren’t published until 2010, a year after we applied to the NWCCU.

If you look at the Capilano University website, you’ll see “student learning outcomes” listed for every program. Under the English Associate Degree program, one of the learning outcomes listed is that “students will be able to draw upon knowledge, judgment, and imagination in work and life.” Unless TAs start taking tutorials to coffee shops to play Cranium, I’m not sure how one could measure, qualitatively or quantitatively, a student’s ability to draw upon their imagination in life.

 

Learning Outcomes and You (and Your Instructors)

Right now, it’s unclear how learning outcomes will alter student experience at SFU. One iteration of the plan released by the office of Jon Driver, the VP Academic, stated that learning outcomes would be faculty specific, while another suggested creating a set for every course offered. An April 25 memorandum to Senate discusses establishing learning goals (which are not the same things as learning outcomes) for academic units and programs.

Realistically, it’s the instructors that will be affected by this the most, in the sense that they will be the ones responsible for filling out the forms and / or doing the actual assessments. While the same report indicates the resources available to professors during this initial stage, it’s unclear who will be completing the assessments in the long run, or what resources will be made available to them.

Given that the TSSU only recently came to a collective agreement with the University, learning outcomes and the additional work they warrant seems like it could be a major source of contention in the near future. As well, this could change how professors and TAs teach. “If you have a professor who is towing the line . . . you may find that person is teaching to the learning outcome rather than giving students a chance to go deeply into the subject matter,” asserts Dr. Bingham.

One area that has the most to lose with the implementation of learning outcomes is experiential learning, especially Co-op. “There’s no way I could write a learning outcome for what my student is going to do at her internship,” Dr. Bingham states outright. Some may suggest simply writing learning outcomes broadly, but “If you write them broadly, they mean nothing.” In the case of experiential learning, learning outcomes are “somewhere between restrictive and vacuous.”

It’s reasons such as this that have Matthew Kruger-Ross, a doctoral student in Curriculum Theory and Implementation: Philosophy of Education program, wishing professors would take more of an active rather than passive role. “It would be interesting to see the faculty say ‘Okay, we’re going to do this, however, we’re doing it our way. We’re going to reappropriate learning outcomes.’ That feels better to me than ‘no.’” He’s worked with learning outcomes for many years and says that when then these kinds of programmes are rigidly followed, “it doesn’t take you to a very happy place.”

 

Moving Forward

As an editor, I’ve received four unsolicited articles about experiential learning, either through Co-op, directed studies or another format, meaning four students felt so strongly about it that they wrote and fired off a full article. Unless GAP is on campus, getting unsolicited articles on the same topic doesn’t happen very often.

If the rationale behind learning outcomes is an emphasis on the student experience and in having marketable skills post-graduation, the logical solution would be to focus on experiential learning, through Co-ops or otherwise, which allows students to learn and achieve real-world experience, not assessing learning outcomes for the same courses a department has always had.

Realistically, though, the timeline of events seems to indicate that learning outcomes have more (let’s be real, everything) to do with our NCAA membership. This isn’t to say that that is bad by any means — the funding and notoriety that follow membership is hardly a negative thing. However, it does connect learning outcomes to a larger theme our school has been dogged with lately: bad faith.

“Do [we] want NCAA to be driving the fact that this is where we’re headed?” asks Kruger-Ross. “If we do, that’s fine, but we should be pretty explicit in what we’re doing.” The issue here isn’t that SFU is trying to implement a new system. It isn’t the first nor should it be the last time SFU changes the way it assess student achievement.

Let’s face it, our system of gradients of pass vs. fail isn’t much better than a learning outcomes approach. Rather, the issue lies in a purportedly “world class university” trying to pass off the prerequisites for an athletics association membership as beneficial to students’ future. The membership should warrant the efforts involved in getting accredited. Why, then, the bait and switch?

1...1,2811,2821,283...1,438Page 1,282 of 1,438

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

For advertising inquiries: [email protected]
For promotional inquiries: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

For advertising inquiries: [email protected]
For promotional inquiries: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society