With employers seeking graduates with increasing professional skills, the university standard of required courses is not cutting it.

Co-op, placement courses, research practicums and internships are some of the experiential education opportunities the faculty of science offers its students. Although there are various opportunities for science students to gain an experiential education, this is not necessarily the most known option as students begin their university careers.  

Unless a student begins university intending to partake in co-op, these learning opportunities are not widely discussed. Luckily, McMaster offers courses such as LIFESCI 2AA3 and SCIENCE 2C00 spread awareness about the opportunity and benefits of experiential learning.  

LIFESCI 2AA3 hosts a lecturelecture dedicated to having a panel of third and fourth-year science students speak about their experiences in an experiential learning course. At the same time, SCIENCE 2C00 is a prerequisite course for students to develop professional skills before entering co-op in their third year.     

Although not many experiential educational courses are offered to science students, the different learning methods that are offered allows students to get involved in the ones that best suit them.  

For example, co-op is provided to a limited number of programs within the Faculty of Science here at McMaster. Whereas there are only 16 different experiential education offered to all science students. 

The traditional co-op route entails students adding an extra year to their degree. For many students, this is not attractive due to the length it takes to complete as well as hindering their professional school plans.  

However, by making experiential education courses mandatory, students can receive the benefits of co-op without committing another year to obtain a degree. These courses are created like a regular course in the sense that they are unit based. Thus, experiential education courses count towards the unit requirement of a degree

However, by making experiential education courses mandatory, students can receive the benefits of co-op without committing another year to obtain a degree. These courses are created like a regular course in the sense that they are unit based. Thus, experiential education courses count towards the unit requirement of a degree

Breanna Khameraj

Some of the specific alternatives offered in place of the co-op are SCIENCE 3EP3, a placement course; SCIENCE 3RP3, a research practicum; and SCIENCE 3IE0, an internship course.  

Regardless of the limited courses offered within the faculty of science, the importance of these experiential education courses is prominent. These opportunities allow students to gain real-world experience in their field of choice.  

According to a study published by two archeologists, student interns engaging in experiential learning gained transferable skills and apply their learned knowledge to society. Their internship enabled them to become educators within their community and made these students well-rounded individuals prepared to enter a working environment.    

Experiential learning provides students with the opportunity to gain technical and transferrable skills they may not have been able to gain until post-graduation.  

By making experiential education courses a requirement to obtain a Bachelor of Science degree, science students are given more incentive to engage in opportunities that will provide them with the necessary experience for the working world.  

Through these courses, science students are required to learn professional skills, research, and lab techniques, as well as resume/interview skills.  

The benefit of making experiential education mandatory goes beyond students gaining attractive employable qualities; it also does not deter students from graduating “on time”.  

Universities should make courses under the experiential education category mandatory for all science students. Students will gain experience academically relevant within their field of choice providing them the opportunity to develop transferable skills. Fortunately, this could all occur without extending their graduation date, allowing them to indulge in the best of both worlds.    

Universities should be more mindful of more hands-on learning options and start discussing on making courses such as these mandatory for all science students. 

Student Sustainability Ambassador Program connects sustainability student leaders to provide support and resources during COVID-19

C/O Bram Naus

The 2020-21 academic year was like none other, given the evolving COVID-19 pandemic and online classes at McMaster University. Despite the challenges, one program that helped students stay connected and build community during lockdown was the Student Sustainability Ambassador Program.  

The program launched in October 2020 after discussions between McMaster Hospitality Services and the academic sustainability programs office recognized a need for greater collaboration between sustainability-minded student leaders.

“We noticed that student groups seemed to be running similar events, pursuing similar goals and tackling similar problems as other groups. We scanned campus and found more than 30 clubs focused on sustainability efforts . . . We saw an opportunity to support these groups in having an even bigger impact through collaboration,” explained Abbie Little, the community relations coordinator and experiential learning for the academic sustainability programs office.

"We noticed that student groups seemed to be running similar events, pursuing similar goals and tackling similar problems as other groups. We scanned campus and found more than 30 clubs focused on sustainability efforts."

Abbie Little, academic sustainability programs office

The program was implemented and run by hospitality services along with facility services and the McMaster Students Union. It was started with funding support from the McMaster Okanagan Special Charter program.

This funding was awarded in 2020 to SSAP as it focused on improving the health and well-being of the community, specifically by creating new engagement opportunities for students and empowering their leadership.

The SSAP’s mission is to support student leadership experiential learning while promoting personal and professional development in sustainability initiatives. SSAP outlined three objectives to achieve this mission: increase student awareness on academic sustainability, empower students to be leaders in sustainability through active learning and provide support in their projects and plans of action.

Since its launch, SSAP has gained over 115 members in its private Facebook group, which allowed students to learn, collaborate and support each other’s sustainability initiatives.

The SSAP’s mission is to support student leadership experiential learning, while promoting personal and professional development in sustainability initiatives.

“Everyone that runs the program, as well on the faculty side, is very passionate and very supportive of everyone . . . It's been great meeting with them even throughout being online all the time,” explained Callum Hales. Hales is a member of this Facebook group and a sustainability minor student currently in SUSTAIN 3S03 working on a solitary bees project.

Crystal Zhang, another member of the SSAP Facebook group and sustainability minor student echoed Hales’ sentiments.

“I'm part of the Facebook group and I really enjoyed [it] because there are so many different initiatives and so much information . . . they always have a way [for students] to get involved and I really like that about the sustainability department and community,” explained Zhang. 

“Everyone that runs the program, as well on the faculty side, is very passionate and very supportive of everyone . . . It's been great meeting with them even throughout being online all the time,” explained Callum Hales.

This year, Zhang was a part of a tree planting project in collaboration with local Hamilton organizations and with support from the sustainability department.

“They really helped us out a lot. [They] showed us the whole tree planting process, even without us actually being there,” explained Zhang, who was able to plant over 100 trees on campus with her team.

“I'm part of the Facebook group and I really enjoyed [it] because there are so many different initiatives and so much information . . . they always have a way [for students] to get involved and I really like that about the sustainability department and community.” 

Crystal Zhang

Hales described SSAP and the sustainability courses in general to be insightful in broadening your perspective. 

“It’s a very good way of bringing together a bunch of different disciplines [to see sustainability] from a multi-faceted view instead of like through a single lens,” explained Hales.

The SSAP is also open to all students across all disciplines and Hales believed that the SSAP program could be applied anywhere across campus.

Hales also encouraged all students to take part in sustainability groups. The student plans on incorporating sustainability in his future career because of the positive impact the student projects have had on him.

Zhang explained that sustainability projects have allowed her to develop critical thinking and writing skills. 

“We are going through the climate crisis and I feel like what I’ve learned is really critically thinking about the decisions being made by people in power and where our world is going in terms of sustainability right now,” explained Zhang.

SSAP also hosted monthly Coffee and Collaboration Chats where students shared their ongoing ideas and connected each other to useful resources.

“Students in clubs share their plans and resources and have a discussion board [where they] can post about local and global sustainability topics and event opportunities which helps to form a sense of community. We also offer special project funding to individuals or groups looking for financial support to launch their sustainable projects in their own community,” said Little.

The Sustainability Student Ambassadors Program (SSAP) is offering up to $300 for in Special Project Funding for McMaster...

Posted by McMaster Academic Sustainability Programs Office on Thursday, February 18, 2021

“We have several goals we aim to achieve with the program and one of them is to provide educational workshops on topics that students want to learn more about . . . We heard from students that during the pandemic, they wanted to learn about ways they could be active members of their community from the safety of their homes,” explained Little.

Alongside these chats, SSAP provided educational workshops to help build students’ leadership skills. 

One such event was the advocacy letter writing workshop held in February 2021, which was developed in collaboration with McMaster graduate Jamie Stuckless, who is an expert policy consultant, writer and transportation professional.

McMaster's Student Sustainability Ambassador Program (SSAP), McMaster's Interdisciplinary Minor in Sustainability...

Posted by McMaster Academic Sustainability Programs Office on Tuesday, January 19, 2021

The workshop included an overview of how students should structure their letters, what specific factors about the audience they should consider, what they should ask for in a letter and the differences between writing on behalf of an individual or a group.

“We looked through a few examples of advocacy letters and then put attendees in a few breakout rooms to practice writing their own advocacy letter on a given topic . . . The workshop was well attended and participants reported in a survey that they found it to be informative, fun and engaging,” emphasized Little.

Throughout the year, SSAP has been a place of community and collaboration for students, despite the pandemic.

“We hope that the impact of providing students with resources and tools will empower them to create positive change in their communities that will reach far and wide. The program itself is an example of what can be accomplished through collaboration, even when collaborating remotely,” said Little.

“We hope that the impact of providing students with resources and tools will empower them to create positive change in their communities that will reach far and wide. The program itself is an example of what can be accomplished through collaboration, even when collaborating remotely.”

ABBIE LITTLE, ACADEMIC SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAMS OFFICE

By Elisa Do and Yvonne Syed, Contributors

Education is often considered to be a stepping stone towards entering the workforce. University is not only supposed to teach students textbook knowledge, but it is also supposed to support students in the development of transferable skills. Hence, the Ontario government has implemented greater ties between university funding and experiential learning opportunities, which is why we are also seeing an increase in experiential learning within the curriculum of many universities.

At McMaster University, experiential learning is defined with six criteria, including: a workplace or simulated workplace environment, exposure to authentic demands, purposeful activities, assessments conducted by both self-assessment and by the employer, application of knowledge from the student’s university or college program and completion of a course credit. By structuring the experience with authentic demands and meaningful activities, students can face real-world problems and undergo conditions that are relevant to the typical responsibilities of the industry that they are practicing for.

The types of experiential learning that are offered at McMaster include: co-op, internships, professional placements, lab courses, community/industry partnered learning and research projects. Experiential learning provides wonderful opportunities for students to apply theory and gain exposure to the workforce. Therefore, as experiential learning makes its way into university learning, there is also a greater need to consider accessibility options for students.

For starters, the time commitment and duration of experiential learning placements may be difficult to manage for certain students depending on their situational circumstances. Students may also have other obligations, such as having to take care of a dependent, having to work to finance their education or having other commitments to tend to, preventing them from fully completing the placement. Some students may not be able to commit to placements for weeks or months on end, and some may not be able to dedicate a fixed amount of hours per week.

The strict time commitments can be a barrier to those who want to access meaningful experiential learning opportunities but cannot commit to the entire time. This could be in the form of a requirement of 5-15 hours a week of volunteer experiences or conflicts between student class times and shift availability.

Furthermore, since the Ministry of Education’s focus on experiential learning involves participation in a workplace or simulated workplace environment, transportation plays a huge factor. For example, nursing students being able to commute to their clinical placements is essential. However, nursing students at McMaster are responsible for their own travel costs to and from their placement locations.

For some students, this may mean travelling on the Hamilton Street Railway to nearby Hamilton hospitals, but others, it can also mean having to spend money on Ubers in order to make it in time to their placements located as far as Niagara. Not all students can afford a vehicle of their own and public transit is not always accessible. This can mean busses not running at times suitable for the student’s placement, or not extending far enough to reach other cities that the student must travel to. Clinical placements in and of itself are already putting students under responsibilities for which they are typically paid. When transportation becomes a barrier, students may endure heavy financial burdens, as they already dedicate much of their time to their studies and do not always have a source of income.

Clinical placements in and of itself are already putting students under responsibilities for which they are typically paid. When transportation becomes a barrier, students may endure heavy financial burdens, as they already dedicate much of their time to their studies and do not always have a source of income.

Looking at other European universities, such as the University of Dundee and the University of Limerick, travel allowance is often provided when expenses are incurred due to responsibilities associated with the nursing program.

When compared to more nearby universities, Queen’s University offers travel reimbursements to students of their school of medicine. Although each university has their own limitations and variations in their accommodations, the importance lies in providing support for students who have to travel beyond local public transport.

Lastly, when we look at accessibility options, we must also consider the methods with which students are assessed. Students enrolled in experiential learning courses often have to complete reflections. There is also a concern regarding the course outlines and required components that students are graded on as they partake in an experiential learning course. A challenge to assessing student learning through reflections is how to do so while respecting their privacy.

Novel assessment formats and unclear instructions may lead to students feeling they are required to disclose significant personal details in required 'reflection' assignments. They may not feel comfortable disclosing personal encounters or experiences they have undergone to their professor or teaching assistant, but they may still want to address the issues they’ve faced.

However, if they don’t want their teaching assistant or the professor to know of an embarrassing or uncomfortable situation, they cannot write it in a reflection. Thus, bearing this in mind, assessment through reflection can be made more equitable with revisions of this assessment method from instructors. Perhaps instructors could ensure that students are well informed of an anonymous reporting procedure if they ever feel the need to report any inappropriate behaviours or workplace violations encountered during their experiential learning placement. This eliminates the need to disclose this information in a reflection assignment while still addressing any private issues in an equitable manner.

It is undeniable that experiential learning has been growing rapidly within the curriculum of many programs today. With the benefits that experiential learning holds, it is important for universities to critically evaluate the accessible options that are offered. To start, basic support for barriers in time and scheduling, transportation and as confidentiality should be considered. If students are to carry extra burdens, such as financial costs, their learning experience can also be hindered. In order to provide a well-rounded experiential learning opportunity the way the curriculum intends for it to be, further improvements should be made.

 

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Photo from the Silhouette Archives 

By Wei Yan Wu, Contributor

On Sept. 27, thousands of Canadians took to streets and parks to participate in the Global Climate Strike to raise awareness on the climate emergency.

On a request by students calling for cancellation of academic activities in order to make time for strike attendance. In response, McMaster Students for Climate Change Advocacy created a petition on Change.org. To date, more than 2,000 people have signed the petition, without a public response from the university. Classes and evaluations continued to be scheduled at McMaster during the strike.

Although the university showed no support for the petition, various climate change combating initiatives and programs exist at McMaster. The university’s energy management program, for one, strives to manage utilities and facilities in a way that improves energy efficiency.

“McMaster is very research-intensive. We’ve been working with a third party to reduce air volumes to the labs which reduces our carbon footprint,” said Joe Emberson, director of energy management and utilities at McMaster. 

The university’s energy management staff has also worked on reducing water use on campus. They audit buildings to check where the water is being used, investigating if there might be alternative solutions to using water. 

McMaster also offers The Sustainable Future Program (SUSTAIN) and the Interdisciplinary Minor in Sustainability to its undergraduate students.

The main pillars of the SUSTAIN program, according to Kate Whalen, current senior manager of McMaster’s academic sustainability programs, revolve around providing opportunities for students to learn about sustainability. However, they also have opportunities specifically for interdisciplinary, student-led, community-based and experiential learning. 

Within their five courses, the program aims to scaffold specific skills that give students learning opportunities to prepare for tackling more complex issues in upper-year courses. On the other hand, the program’s lower-year courses have observation-based experiential excursions, projects in the community and lectures on sustainability theory.

“I expect a lot of our first-year students will be attending the climate march [on] Friday. They’ll go and participate, so they’re very much in the community in terms of project implementation and experiential learning where they’re working directly with the community,” said Whalen.

The upper-year courses focus more on community engagement and tackling city-based issues through sustainability projects. Whalen’s students, for example, are each completing a full ethics application for environmental practices. They conduct research and interviews, working with members of the community and city staff to understand environmental issues most prominent in the community and to seek solutions to these challenges. 

The SUSTAIN program has garnered a great amount of interest from the student body.

“When we started the Sustainable Future Program, we had one course and I think we had just under a hundred students enrolled in it. Now we have more than five courses and we have just under a thousand students enrolled this year. We’ve seen rapid growth in the demand for our program,” said Whalen.

She attributes the success of the program to its timeliness, interdisciplinary characteristics, community-based experiences and the overall way sustainability education is being delivered at Mac. For her, it shows that Mac students are aware of the sustainability issues they face and are motivated to understand and engage with them.

Outside of academics, other McMaster students have also taken the initiative to promote sustainability across campus. Zero Waste McMaster is a new club on campus this fall.

“I decided to start the club because I thought there was a gap in the clubs at McMaster. There wasn’t really any club organization working towards conscious, sustainable, low-waste living for students,” said Josephine Agueci, president of Zero Waste McMaster and student in the SUSTAIN program.

The club is in the process of planning its activities for the year, with goals to hold monthly workshops and discussions on sustainable living. The club also aims to encourage students to attend environment awareness events like the Sustainability Walk in Hamilton happening at the beginning of October.

“Right now we’re focusing on individual impact, but from there we definitely want to work towards helping McMaster be more sustainable as a school, not just on an individual level. So whether that be working on a composting system or working with different food options or waste disposal on campus,” said Agueci.

Zero Waste McMaster also aims to collect feedback from the student body. They want to know what students want to change and what sustainability issues they see on campus. 

Though the university did not support students who wished to attend the climate strike on Sept. 27, academic programs continue to find ways to contribute to efforts against climate change. While many of them were not able to skip their classes or evaluations on Sept. 27, McMaster students are nevertheless finding ways to engage in sustainability initiatives on campus. 

 

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Photo from Silhouette Photo Archives

By: Grace Kuang

McMaster president Patrick Deane is approaching the end of his second five year-term in his role as president at the university. Over the past nine years, Deane oversaw significant changes at McMaster, such as the addition of new infrastructural developments and interdisciplinary programs at the university.

“It will be extremely difficult to leave McMaster,” said Deane. “I was welcomed here nine years ago and from that first day to this, I have been amazed at the ground-breaking work of our researchers, the commitment of our students to making a difference, and the dedication of the staff, alumni and friends of the university to expanding McMaster’s impact on our community and our world.”

In 2011, Deane penned a letter addressing the McMaster community titled “Forward with Integrity: A Letter to the McMaster Community.” In the letter, Deane emphasized that all of McMaster’s continued success will depend on the cultivation of integrity.

The letter advocated for integrity in four key and interconnected areas: student experience, specifically experiential learning, self-directed learning and interdisciplinary education, research, McMaster’s relationship with the surrounding community and the university’s dedication to internationalization.

“At McMaster, the evidence is that in the category of ‘Enriching Educational Experiences,’ which includes experiential activities, we fare a little better than our sister institutions in Ontario, but not as well as comparable U.S. Peers,” reads part of the letter.

Over the last few years, McMaster has focused heavily on experiential learning, most recently developing an innovation minor for students and partnering with Riipen Networks to create a continuing education project-based learning course.

Another one of Deane’s priorities concerned interdisciplinary education. During Deane’s term, interdisciplinary programs such as the justice, political philosophy and law program and the integrated business and humanities program were created.

In his letter, Deane also stressed his goals for internationalization.

Internationalization of the university by the presence of foreign students, by faculty involvement in a network of research alliances abroad, by faculty and student travel for research and development purposes, and above all by the adoption of an internationalized perspective in curriculum and program design on our campus: this is not only desirable and appropriate to present circumstances, it is urgently needed,” reads part of the letter.

McMaster’s model for global engagement was solidified in 2017. In addition, last year, tuition was reduced for international PhD students.

As such, it appears that some of Deane’s largest and most controversial initiatives were implemented within the last year.

One of these was the smoke and tobacco-free campus policy, which entailed the university becoming the first one in the province to claim to be 100 per cent spoke-free.

While the policy was praised by some, other students and groups, particularly the McMaster Students Union Student Representative Assembly, cautioned against the policy in an effort to prioritize “considerations of student safety, accessibility and comprehensive access to McMaster University when considering implementation.”

This past year, Deane also helped create and implement McMaster’s free expression guidelines, which evoked mixed reactions from the campus community. The guidelines sought to strike a balance between protecting free speech and the right to protest.

However, a number of students, specifically student activists, expressed concern that the guidelines would stifle dissension and silence marginalized voices.

Deane will be departing for Queen’s University in July 2019. Currently, it is uncertain who will replace Deane as McMaster’s next president.

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