September 18, 2007
Farleigh Dickinson University, the largest private university in New Jersey, is the first American university to obtain government approval to offer degree programs in BC. Having recently opened its Vancouver campus for the fall term, Farleigh Dickinson offers the same degrees in business management and information technology as at its New Jersey campus. The school mainly serves international students from China, southeast Asia and Pacific Rim countries.
The ProvinceThe 13-day strike continues at Carleton University in Ottawa, after workers voted 80% to reject Carleton's latest offer, on Sunday. A union statement called the offer "spurious" and "designed to divide the members," while a university statement said the union's decision to reject the offer was "perplexing." Despite some disruptions, classes have continued at Carleton since September 5th, when 700 support staff walked out over a number of issues, including wages and benefits.
CBCScheduled to open in February, a new aboriginal student centre at the University of Manitoba's Fort Garry campus will provide native students with a place to "meet and talk with other aboriginal students." The new centre is set to replace an existing facility that is being run out of an office on campus, and will include a computer lab as well as an "elders-in-residence" program. It is hoped that staff numbers will increase with the opening of the new centre, as four staff members currently provide support and service to the 1,600 aboriginal students enrolled at the UofM.
CBC In an effort to remove barriers to PSE, Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton recently outlined a commitment to rolling back and freezing tuition fees and eliminating apprenticeship fees. With tuition fees above national averages and Ontario students graduating with the highest average post-secondary debt, the "NDP Fair Deal for Students" seeks to ensure that "working families can help send their children to a post-secondary institution without both parents and students facing crippling debt."
Cana da NewswireStudents and faculty at the University of Calgary have eagerly adopted the school's new text messaging alert system. Approximately 1,800 students and 450 faculty have signed up to receive messages in emergency situations. Queen's University has gone a different route, and installed video screens around campus that will be used to broadcast messages (such as emergency alerts).
CTV | Queen's JournalOn Sunday, CBC's Rex Murphy hosted a two-hour segment of A University System In Crisis, and an associate of Academica Group. The full program is available as a podcast at
CBC Radio.Recent results from a StatsCan study on Canada's immigrant labour market found that, despite the fact that immigrants were more likely to have a university education than Canadian-born men and women, unemployment rates for recent immigrants remained high regardless of their level of education. As to be expected, unemployment rates for Canadian-born workers were lower for people with progressively higher levels of education. While 36% of immigrants aged 25 to 54 had at least a bachelors degree, only 22% among those born in Canada had similar levels of education.
StatsCanIn an effort to make the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP) "more effective and ensure an integrated administration and efficient delivery to Canadians," the Canadian government announced a review of the CSL program in consultation with the provinces, territories and stakeholders. The online CSLP consultation is an opportunity for stakeholders to submit their "views and opinions on what is working and what needs to be improved."
Human Resources and Social Development Canada According to research conducted at Purdue University, student activity on course websites can be reliably used as a predictor for student success, and potentially provide an early indicator for "at-risk" students. With course-management systems, professors are able to see which students are logging on, how often, and to what degree they are interacting with the content -- thus providing an indicator of their engagement.
The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required)Given the growing popularity of the video-sharing website YouTube, Pitzer College in California began offering a college course dedicated to further exploring the role of the popular site. The 35 students enrolled in "Learning from YouTube" are encouraged to interact with the site, posting a variety of videos and commenting on material from around the world. The media studies professor who runs the course says that although she is "under-whelmed" with the content on the site, the course is important in learning the role of American culture and internet culture, as well as studying the role of "corporate-sponsored democratic media expression" in society
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