Despite growing objections, the Canadian Association of University Teachers is continuing its scrutiny of Canadian Christian colleges for potential violations of academic freedom because they require professors to sign declarations of faith, reports the National Post. Redeemer University College, in Ontario, is the latest institution to say the national union was investigating it. The union has also examined Trinity Western University, in British Columbia; Crandall University, in New Brunswick; and Canadian Mennonite University, in Manitoba. The association says it wants to provide the public more clarity about the religious colleges. Not all of the union’s members agree that the investigations should be conducted, however. The National Post reported Tuesday that a theology professor at Concordia University, in Montreal, has organized a petition with 140 signatures accusing the union of antireligious bullying.
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10 Responses to Canadian Faculty Union Investigates Christian Colleges Over Academic Freedom
grward - March 21, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Yes, Canada is first among nations in college graduation rates. As an undergrad instructor in a science program in a Canadian University (a large one with a rather good reputation), let me tell you how that’s working out for us. My particular program used to be somewhat exclusive, graduating about 30 students a year, of which 20-25 were exceptionally strong. Over the past 10 years we’ve expanded (mostly due to government initiatives—brought in by both conservative and liberal governments—that encouraged or compelled all university programs to increase enrollment) so that we now graduate over a hundred students a year, of which—drum roll please— 20-25 are exceptionally strong. The rest are receiving their degrees but can’t really be called university graduates in any meaningful sense. Their communication skills, both written and spoken, are poor, their knowledge of the discipline is weak, their ability to think critically and analytically is probably equivalent to that of the average high school graduate 30 years ago. Canadian universities are places now where two worlds exist side-by-side. Senior administrators and faculty members preen and strut in self-congratulatory oblivion, dreaming up new ways to expand undergraduate enrollment for the financial rewards while touting “innovative” ways to educate masses of students with fewer resources. On the other side, low-level contract employees who do the actual teaching gather in offices and hallways and fret over the fact that, once again, they are expected to “push through” students who simply don’t have the inclination (I don’t know what else to call it—they certainly aren’t unintelligent) to spend the time required to actually master the course content and related skills. We dare not actually fail them: such an act would raise the possibility that the emperor of universal higher education would be shown to be truly naked, and who knows what vengeance would be brought upon the poor casual employee who dared to commit such an act of sedition.
Some of us joke that Canada is part of a secret conspiracy to render university degrees worthless and return our society to a class system where the elite take care of their own (remember that Canada still recognizes the Queen’s representative as its head of state). After all, once everyone has university degrees, those degrees will become meaningless, and employers can feel free to simply go ahead and hire anyone they like for whatever reason they like.
There’s probably an optimal percentage of young people in any modern society who have the inclination and ability to succeed in higher education, especially when it is not directly focused upon specific employment skills. Who’s to say that the optimal number is that of the “number one” country on the list? Who’s to say that the optimal percentage isn’t closer to that of the U.S.?
richardtaborgreene - March 22, 2011 at 9:28 am
Look, if God comes down to some of us, and blesses the ideas we picked up growing up where we grew up, telling us “thou art right and all others be they friend or foe are wrong—thou shalt smite all dis-agreers and smirk haughtily at their error and blindness—thou shalt worship thine own rightness over all else”. Who needs college? We are already declared by God right along with all the happenstance beliefs our moms, and judges, newspapers and local bigots put into us growing up. Who needs college when we are already righter than all others from birth?
Being RIGHTER than all others is the entitlement; college is a waste of time when you are already righter than all others in principle.
quidditas - March 23, 2011 at 8:51 am
“That signals a huge and significant concession: The administration is essentially abandoning the idea that the federal government could fund four-year degrees for everyone.”
Yeah, it may be about costs, but I really think it’s more about the potential for community colleges to provide some systematic instruction and support for some of the small business economic activity that you point to, as well as a number of para-professional certifications. These are Alan Blinder’s businesses and jobs “that cannot be off-shored” and community colleges, while frequently serving as transfer sources for more traditionally academic 4 year degrees, are nothing if not pragmatic and sensitive to local economies and student populations, who they are charged to serve (unlike selective institutions that don’t have to).
I find it unlikely that Obama’s main concern is the tea budget when he both fails to adequately re-regulate a criminally out of control financial sector and extends in virtually unedited form the Bush tax cuts heavily slanted toward the most wealthy, and we’re now spending $100 million a day in Libya. It is a bi-artisan Dick Cheney all the time in DC–”deficits don’t matter.” The only time it matters is when they don’t want to support something.
But, I think student debt *might* matter and Obama’s low educational horizon is is more along the lines of the “gainful employment” accountability movement. ie., This is in the area of the financial consumer protection agency promoted by Elizabeth Warren, one of the *only* ostensibly “progressive” ideas that Obama permitted to move forward *at all* during the course of his Administration, however much Timmy the Tax Cheat is seeking to hamstring Warren’s efforts lest it hinder his post-Treasury job prospects.
That’s the optimistic spin. The pessimistic spin is that the gainful employment accountability movement is all for show (as one fears the CFPB is itself) while Fedgov *actually* funnels money to the for-profits under *the pretense* that it is assisting institutions that enable first generation college students to obtain credentials that are directly useful to them, while *also* turning *still more* people into debt servicers for Citibank. This may, in fact, be the correct interpretation as even elected tea potters favor printing money in order to funnel it to the for-profits.
Either way, it’s not about the tea budget which is a red herring all around and you should stop pretending that it is. It is about deliberate policy choices *under cover* of the tea budget, which enables them to pretend that there is some insuperable barrier to alternative policy choices, silencing public dissent to the choices they’re actively making.
I myself am skeptical of narrow degrees because I think their recipients are too easily rendered effectively “degree-less” if they fail to land a narrowly defined “job,” but I accept that not everyone is going to agree not least of all students themselves. Therefore, my solution is that community college degrees should all have a healthy gen-ed core with a strong productive literacy curriculum and that the very narrow trade credentials generally peddled by the for-profits and on-line education should not become the prevailing model because they an all too likely rip-off.
Meanwhile, you simply can’t do clearly useful and important things like nursing, other health, criminal justice, or small business education and job/internship placement on-line or without strong community ties. Period. Students with such certification are at a permanent disadvantage, while saddled with the same debt.
manoflamancha - March 23, 2011 at 11:07 am
I have taught in two of the top six so-called leader countries, and I am quite surprised they ranked so high. There was no such thing in my time there as an Associate’s degree, so I can not possibly ascertain how such data was collected in the first instance. This leads me to question the validity of all such international comparisons. The only remotely valid way to make such a comparison is to institute an International Validation Test for all graduates in each field in their own language, shove this into a giant computer, and grind out the comparisons. Otherwise, it is all anecdotal story telling, and insufficient as a basis for instigating another space-type race for supremacy. In short, it is a waste of time and money to enjoin such a competition.
For future comparison purposes, a smaller pool for testing would be prophetic, namely, test the IQ of all recent science and engineering graduates. Now, that would reveal something to sink your teeth into!
drgarysgoodman - March 23, 2011 at 11:11 am
There should be more millionaires in America. To that end, I hereby order the Federal Reserve to expand the money supply, so we can officially declare every citizen to be a financial success. We will refer to this program as The American Millionaire Initiative.
hank_devereaux_jr - March 23, 2011 at 3:21 pm
“Second, it presupposes that formal higher education is the single biggest factor in professional and social success. That’s just not true: my plumber, my electrician, and any contractor I’ve ever hired make more money than I do as an associate professor of English at Ohio State; were I more vain I’m sure I could find a hair stylist who would also fit into that category of high earners.”
This isn’t proof that higher education is not a vital (or even the most important factor) influencing a person’s future income.
Comparing one of the least well-paid disciplines in higher ed to some of the highest paid occupations that don’t require a college degree isn’t valid.
You could compare tenured English Professors to the people who work in the aisles at Wal-Mart or Lowes, the people who prepare fast food, or work as hotel maids, etc. (But, that wouldn’t prove anything either.)
Or you could compare tenured professors in accounting, finance, engineering, law, and economics to electricians, plumbers and contractors. (But, that wouldn’t prove anything either.)
Or — you could run a regression using national data to calculate how higher education affects salary controlling for things like college major, occupation, age, etc. That would be data that would actually quantify the effect of higher education on salary.
old nassau'67 - March 23, 2011 at 9:18 pm
“4. Japan, 3. Russia, 2. South Korea, and 1. Canada.”
According to the Vancouver Sun: “roughly 250,000 arrivals (immigrants) a year, the vast majority from Asia. (Vancouver Sun)”
According to the Population Reference Bureau, USA immigration, 2009, 1,130,818.
I didn’t even bother with 4,3, and 2: Everyone knows that Japan, Russia, and South Korea welcome all immigrants. Not.
Fat_Man - March 23, 2011 at 11:20 pm
http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-beta-cons/262183/reynoldss-law-and-college-decadence-david-french
Reynolds’s Law, succinctly stated, is: “Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.” In other words:
“The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”
When you believe, simplistically, that college somehow equals success, then vacuuming more people into college just makes sense. Yet you’re vacuuming in real people, not stimulus-response lab rats. And many of these real people are quite unprepared for traditional workloads, unused to academic discipline, and — worst of all — almost completely uninterested in the pursuit of knowledge. So you dumb down standards to keep them in, ramp up their free time, and voila, you end up with testimonials like a parent told me about her child in a freshman dorm at a certain unnamed SEC school (hint: Roll Tide!): “She sometimes dodges puddles of vomit on her way to the bathroom and about half the nights can’t even stay in her own room because her roommate is entertaining any one of her various hook-ups.”
It’s hard to think of a better way to undermine values than pack thousands of young people in a small geographic area, place no meaningful study or work demands on their lives, teach them that traditional values imprison them, and then provide oceans of easy credit or taxpayer-provided grants. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
voltaire75 - March 29, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Huh??
Prof_truthteller - March 29, 2011 at 4:58 pm
And it seems many researchers have already done this and have proven many times that higher education does correlate with higher salaries. Here’s but one source: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=77