June 2, 2010
McMaster University announced Tuesday that with one month to go in its "
Campaign for McMaster University" fundraising initiative, it has raised over $471 million, surpassing the campaign's $400-million goal. Over 36,000 donors have contributed to the campaign, including more than 17,000 donors who had never given to McMaster before. Notable donations include $50 million from philanthropist
David Braley, and $10 million each from McMaster chancellor
Lynton (Red) Wilson and Tim Hortons co-founder
Ron Joyce. Launched in 2006, the campaign has supported a wide variety of university priorities, including new classrooms, research facilities, and over $30 million for new student scholarships and academic grants.
McMaster News Release |
Hamilton Spectator Calgary businessman Clayton H. Riddell has donated $15 million to Carleton University to establish Canada's first graduate program in political management. The program aims to improve the practice of politics at all levels of government across the country by providing graduate-level professional training for political officeholders, advisors, campaigners, and staff. The idea for the program began with
Preston Manning, who saw the need for a university program to train politicians. In honour of Riddell's gift, the largest in Carleton's history, the program will be named the Clayton H. Riddell Graduate Program in Political Management. Should the program be approved by the Ontario Council on Graduate Studies, the first class of 25 students will begin in September 2011.
Carleton News Release |
Ottawa CitizenFederal Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl announced yesterday his department will invest up to $4 million in transitional funding though the Indian Studies Support Program to the University of Regina for program-related expenses for First Nations University of Canada students. After
withdrawing financial support for FNUC earlier this year, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada provided
$3 million to uRegina last month to ensure FNUC students would be able to complete their academic year. Encouraged by FNUC's progress, Strahl looks forward to seeing the university "become increasingly stable, both with regards to its finance and its governance." The new funding will cover the period of September 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011.
INAC News Release |
Canoe NewsOutgoing University of Calgary chancellor Joanne Cuthbertson and her husband are donating $1 million to the university to establish the Chancellor Cuthbertson Centre for Student Success, a student and resource facility to be housed in uCalgary's
Taylor Family Digital Library. One reason for the couple's generosity is that both Cuthbertson and her husband are graduates of uCalgary, where they met and fell in love. "It's something we can do now," the departing chancellor says of the gift. "It represents how we feel about universities in general, and especially the University of Calgary."
uCalgary News |
Calgary HeraldAt a public forum Tuesday, several attendees spoke in favour of Algonquin College's 2-year horticulture diploma program, which is one of 23 programs proposed to be phased out as part of a
massive program restructuring project at the college. Several horticultural business owners raised the issue of a labour shortage in the industry, which could be compounded if the program -- the only one of its kind in eastern Ontario and western Quebec -- were to be phased out. Algonquin's board of governors is expected to make a final decision on program restructuring by the end of August.
Ottawa Citizen On Tuesday, the deans of Canadian education faculties joined First Nations leaders to pledge to respect traditional knowledge and culture in classrooms across Canada and develop future Aboriginal educators and scholars. Signed at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, taking place this week at Concordia University, the Accord on Indigenous Education outlines a broad vision statement, principles, and goals for "respectful and inclusive" curriculum and welcoming learning environments meant to encourage more Aboriginal students to stay in school and build stronger understanding between native and non-native communities.
Globe and Mail |
Montreal Gazette |
Read the accordThe BC government announced yesterday a new made-in-BC tool that will help students and job seekers choose the right career path. The BC Labour Market Outlook is an online, interactive report that provides users with reliable labour market information, such as the projected number and type of job openings in a particular area. The tool will help citizens, employers, educators, and government to accurately forecast occupation demand and supply on a regional and provincial basis over a 10-year period from 2009 to 2019. A high school student can use the Outlook to see which careers are projected to be in demand and in which regions, and tailor his or her education decisions to match. 14 industries and 140 occupations are profiled in 7 economic development regions of BC.
BC News ReleaseOn Tuesday, the Université de Montréal unveiled a new-look homepage to coincide with the arrival of
Guy Breton as the university's new rector. Visitors to the redesigned homepage can access the university's future student portal, a multi-media news page, university news, event listings, and a video of Breton's installation as the new rector. The redesign will gradually expand to the rest of uMontréal's website in the coming months.
uMontréal News (in French) |
uMontréal websiteA new survey from McGraw-Hill Education reveals discrepancies between perceptions of high school guidance counsellors, students, and recent graduates around preparedness for post-secondary success. Guidance counsellors pointed toward college "eligibility," rather than "readiness," as a measure of student success, with almost 70% of respondents defining success as a student receiving a high school diploma. However, college students surveyed indicated they could have been better prepared to meet college academic standards and relied primarily on close friends and family members as mentors. The top 3 areas where graduates would have liked to receive further instruction in high school/college were technology applications (31%), people skills (30%), and communication skills (28%).
McGraw-Hill Education News ReleaseIn a commentary published in
The Chronicle of Higher Education, University of Melbourne professor Simon Marginson writes that the convergence of global networking, research power, and mass participation, along with the emergence of the Global Research University, has created a new set of tensions: the tensions between national and global perspectives; between elite research and mass teaching; between sameness and diversity; within the hierarchy of the most-competitive global universities; and between those inside and outside the hierarchy. If the Global Research University can resolve these tensions, it will meet its key challenges: to be locally and globally effective at the same time; move forward on both elite research and democratic education; and devise common systems and methods of standardization which broaden creativity instead of narrowing it.
The Chronicle of Higher Education (free access)
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