The McMaster Students Union and McMaster University are preparing to re-examine their policies and protocols on sexual violence in light of the recent Student Voices on Sexual Violence report released by the provincial government earlier this month.
The Student Voices on Sexual Violence survey was sent out last year and involved 160,000 students from over 40 Ontario post-secondary institutions outlining their experiences of sexual violence and harassment.
According to the survey, three in five McMaster students disclosed at least one experience of sexual harassment.
Sixty-one per cent of McMaster students said they do not have knowledge of McMaster’s sexual violence supports and services.
A McMaster Daily News article responding to the report states that McMaster has provided sexual violence prevention and response training to more than 8,600 students, staff and faculty over the past year.
Arig al Shaibah, McMaster’s associate vice president (Equity and Inclusion), said the university’s sexual violence education team will begin planning a bystander intervention training program in April.
In response to the report, the university will also shortly be reviewing the McMaster’s sexual violence policy, which was created in 2017.
“We are just in the beginning processes of looking at the policy,” al Shaibah said. “We know the numbers that come through our offices are not necessarily indicative of the full picture, so periodically going out there and being able to anonymously get a good gauge of people’s experiences and perceptions is really important.”
Every year, the EIO releases a report highlighting statistics on disclosures of sexual violence and harassment.
However, al Shaibah said the EIO needs to make sure that definitions used to classify disclosures are standardized.
“We have just improved the way we are collecting and centralizing data,” al Shaibah said. “Moving forward, one of the things we are doing is trying to make sure that everyone in the intake office is using the same definition so that we can start to capture trend data over time.”
MSU vice president (Administration) Kristina Epifano will be revising the current “Workplace Anti-Violence, Harassment, and Sexual Assault Prevention Policy” in response to the survey.
“With these revisions, we will host some feedback sessions, inviting student-staff and volunteers to share some of the challenges they've experienced with policies in the past and recommendations they would like to see moving forward,” Epifano said in an email. “I believe it is important to adapt the policy to highlight different options and courses of action that a survivor can take during the process.”
The provincial report comes against the backdrop of multiple allegations of sexual assault within the MSU Maroons.
On March 29, Farah released a statement addressing the subject, promising a formal investigation.
Nevertheless, Farah states that she hasn’t “found actual reports, anonymous or otherwise, of sexual violence within the Maroons team this year.”
The statement also said Epifano will be standardizing an anonymous online reporting tool used for Marrons for all MSU volunteers.
Jocelyn Heaton, the coordinator of the MSU Women and Gender Equity Network, said the MSU’s steps in addressing sexual violence are helpful, but there remains a lot of work to be done.
“The fact that less than three quarters of students know that there are supports and services available is pretty harmful for people who experience sexual violence,” said Heaton. “Also, knowing that a lot of that group is going to receive a disclosure during their time at university and they're not going to know where to refer people to is harmful as well,” she said.
Heaton also mentioned that there has been no consultation thus far with services like WGEN when it comes to the Maroons incident and revising the MSU’s workplace sexual assault prevention policy.
“As the coordinator of a service, the only service specifically meant to address sexual violence, I was never once consulted or brought in to talk about that situation,” Heaton said. “Students have not been consulted on what the policy should look like.”
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On Jan 17, the provincial government announced plans to change the Ontario Student Assistance Program and cut tuition by 10 per cent.
The OSAP changes include requiring students to take out a loan when receiving an Ontario Student Grant, lowering the threshold to receive financial assistance, and eliminating the six-month interest-free period after graduation.
On Jan. 31, more than 75 student associations across Canada released an open letter demanding the government reverse the changes to OSAP.
Since the announcement, multiple protests have been held across the province, including in Hamilton.
Students at McMaster are also being affected by the changes, with more than 17,000 full-time students having applied for OSAP.
Many students are concerned about the shift in financial assistance towards loans instead of non-repayable grants.
First-year social sciences student Bryce Lawrence does not get money from her parents for tuition and says she would not be able to go to school without receiving grants and loans through OSAP.
This past year, Lawrence qualified to receive a higher proportion of grants compared to loans. Going forward, she will receive more money in loans and less in grants.
“The 10 per cent tuition decrease is nothing compared to the amount that we are not going to be getting anymore and it is going to be harder for a lot of students,” Lawrence said.
During the school year, Lawrence works three days a week, with the money going directly to basic expenses like groceries, gas and her phone bill.
“I worked hard in high school to get here and I need that money to get myself through it so that in the future I can get myself a good career that will help support a family,” Lawrence said.
Looking forward to next year, Lawrence says the money she gets from OSAP probably will not be enough to cover additional costs on top of tuition.
“It’s just frustrating,” She added. “It is going be weird not having the amount of money I need. Literally nothing is free in school. It is so expensive, and once the money goes into my tuition, I will not have enough to pay for my textbooks and stuff.”
Second-year political science student Zack Anderson said the elimination of the six-month interest-free period is especially harmful.
“It is already stressful enough once I do graduate to try and find a stable income, but I always kind of knew that that six-month cushion was going to be there for me and now that rug’s been pulled out from under me,” he said.
Anderson has relied heavily on OSAP. However, even with OSAP, Anderson still struggles to cover school and living costs beyond just tuition.
This year, he was forced to take a reduced course load and work three jobs to pay for tuition and living costs.
Over the summer, Anderson was working 70-hour weeks to save up for school.
“I have had to take out loans off the bank, I have maxed out credit cards before, done all these kinds of things to try to survive and you take it day by day, week by week,” Anderson said.
While there have yet to be any announcements since Jan. 17, the Ford government’s plans are expected to be in place for the 2019-2020 academic year.
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Expand upon your post-secondary studies to discover your pathway to an exciting career in health information. Learn and apply industry standards for the collection, use, and analysis of personal health data. Study information management’s principles and practices for privacy, confidentiality and security, and how these are applicable to health information systems. Learn how electronic information management is revolutionizing health care within service sectors: primary care, administration and research.
As the Canadian health care delivery system evolves, so does data collection, health information usage and analysis, privacy and security, and the integration of information systems.
That’s why McMaster University Continuing Education is thrilled to announce that its Health Information Management Plus Diploma program is now accredited by the Canadian College of Health Information Management (CCHIM). This accreditation means that the program has met the strict regulation requirements upheld by both the certifying body and the Canadian Health Information Management Association (CHIMA), the national association representing leadership and excellence in health information management across the country.
This post-graduate, part-time, instructor-led program is an online learning experience designed by leading experts in the country in consultation with professional associations. Graduates of the program are eligible to become Certified Health Information Management (CHIM) professionals, who are in high demand in a variety of health care settings across the continuum of care and within provincial and federal governments. These professionals will use electronic information management to revolutionize health care.
The CHIM credential is recognized across Canada, and our members play key roles in the Canadian health system, including privacy and information analytics, to decision support and the coding and classification of records.
McMaster University Continuing Education provides its learners with academic programs that are well-designed, accessible, and relevant to the professional field. Programs within health information are designed for learners with an undergraduate degree or college diploma seeking to build upon their prior knowledge and skills.
To qualify for the Health Information Management Plus Diploma (45 units), students must complete all required courses for the program. In agreement with CHALearning, McMaster University Continuing Education students will register and complete 3 coding courses offered by CHALearning. Upon successful completion of the 3 courses, students receive 6 units of study to be applied to the HIM Plus Diploma. All program courses are offered online. This diploma program is accredited by the Canadian College of Health Information Management (2018-2020).
Applications for the winter term cohort open on January 2, 2019. To find out more about admission requirements, please visit mcmastercce.ca/health-information-management or contact us at mcmastercce.ca/contact-us.
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In April, two reports based on racial equity in education involving data from the Toronto District School Board were published. These detailed a number of issues facing Black students including an increased likelihood of being streamed into non-academic programs, a higher likelihood of suspension due to attitude rather than behaviour and higher drop-out rates.
These reports mainly concerned high school policies. These issues of racial equity are hypothesized to continue at a post-secondary level given that the pathways to this level have these concerns.
The influence of high school policies can be observed, but the effects of universities’ policies cannot.
As revealed by a CBC News investigation in March, 63 out of 76 Canadian universities could not provide a breakdown of their student populations by race. The data is not there to draw any conclusions from.
“How can you decide if access programs are working if you have no way of measuring the population that should be most affected by these access policies?” said Karen Robson, head of the Gateway Cities team and the Ontario Research Chair in Educational Achievement and At-Risk Youth.
The Gateway Cities Project, a four year program funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, is centered on examining the determinants of post-secondary pathways for high school students in five cities: Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, New York and London, England. One of the main concerns brought up by Robson is this inability to access pathways from the perspective of Canadian post-secondary institutions.
McMaster is one of the 63 could not provide a breakdown. They do not ask students to provide information about their racial identity.
“How can you decide if access programs are working if you have no way of measuring the population that should be most affected by these access policies?”
Karen Robson
Ontario Research Chair
Educational Advancement and At-Risk Youth
There are a few reasons why there is opposition to this in Canadian universities. The first is that there is misinformation about the legality of collecting the data. Concordia stated it is illegal to ask in Quebec in the CBC investigation, but this is not the case.
Robson mentioned that there is a lot of misinformation that universities have about the legality of asking for data even if they did not state this upfront.
“A lot of administration believes that collecting race data is a violation of human rights when in fact, it is not. I don’t know where this came from, I really don’t, and it’s a total red herring.”
The “Policy and guidelines on racism and racial discrimination” paper created by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, approved in 2005, mentions that the collection of data about race is permissible and recommended.
The second issue is the threat of being seen as racist. The investigation stated Mount Royal University had this worry, and University of Waterloo explained it does not collect the data because the school does not discriminate based on race or any other grounds.
“It’s not so surprising that we’re not collecting race data if we can’t even have conversations about race without feeling like we might be being racist just by talking about it,” said Robson.
There appears to be some progress being made at McMaster towards collecting data.
“McMaster’s not particularly special in that they don’t collect race data. … I’m working with admin on retention strategies. I have brought this up, and they are receptive to collecting this kind of data,” said Robson.
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By: Moleen Makumborenga
The burden of growing up watching early career successes of the rich and famous is sometimes overwhelming. It seems like success is defined by people who can find their niche in the economy, get their degree in no time at all, become a millionaire, donate exorbitant amounts of money to charities and still have time to Snapchat the internet fitness challenge they are doing with their parents. They also seem to have time to maintain a healthy family life and eight hours of sleep every night.
Ours is also the burden of being 22 years old and the crushing disappointment of realizing you might not be able to move out of your parents’ house unless you really like how student debt feels. The narrative is fed by extreme scenarios: at one end you can invent the next technological advance and solve world hunger and on the other hand you can start memorizing the McDonald’s menu to become the best overqualified cashier during the morning rush hour.
In an effort to win the war against my feeling of disillusionment about my degree choice and ultimately the end of my studies, I have begun actively researching what life looks like for a millennial after graduation. In this scenario, I am focusing on the first few weeks up to six months after receiving the $50,000 piece of paper called an undergrad degree. What is the average predicament people find themselves in? Is it worth being upset if you have not started your first NGO/tech start-up by age 24?
Going to a university that ranks in the top 100 in the world seems to help with the employment predicament. Nine out of 10 McMaster grads are employed six months after graduation. The next question is what type of employment is available to you with an undergraduate degree. The answer to that seems to depend on what else you were doing with your time besides studying.
I know of a humanities student who worked on her swimwear label throughout her time at McMaster, had an international clientele by graduation that included celebrities and works as her own boss as well as employs other people. And this is the irony of early success experienced by said Mac grad and Silicon Valley CEOs. Early success is not really ‘early’, but rather takes years of skill-building done behind the scenes of your regular life.
The average graduate cannot emulate her success unless they were building the necessary transferable skills for the 21st century job market. The sad, sad reality is that the $50,000 piece of paper, drenched in the sweat caused by multiple consecutive days without leaving Mills library during exams, seems to not be enough. So before you know it, it’s four months after graduation and you have found yourself unable to get a job because you do not have experience and skills to get a job. You are unable to gain experience because you do not have a job.
Extracurricular activities become even more important when you consider, that more people in the Canada are attending university than ever before. In 2014-2015, there were 1.7 million undergraduate students enrolled in universities across Canada; and those are the makings of a crazy competitive job market, with few entry-level jobs for to meet demand.
I believe most would likely start looking at post grad education options in the form of grad school or a post-graduate certificate at a college by now. The idea to do more schooling is never an easy one, because the money to do so has to come from someone. Will the decision to get more education be a good one? It all depends — because when all factors are considered individuals transition between education, training and work on account of personal circumstance. There is no singular solution to post-McMaster life.
I do not know to what extent it is necessary to have figured out your whole life’s purpose by 22 or 23. I am awed by those who do, but also I always wonder if Mark Zuckerberg at 45 will tire of the idea he had at 18, and go on and get that degree he left unfinished way back when. Of course, that Facebook money will cushion the blow of changing careers mid-life.
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Although it is only February, 2016 seems to be my year of introspection and big decisions. I am in my third year of the Arts and Science program and although I chose this degree to get exposure to a variety of fields, I pushed myself into focusing on biology — certainly not my favourite subject — with seemingly no pressure from anyone but myself. Unhappy with my schoolwork, this year I decided to change that. I took a step back and asked myself, what’s so appealing about science? Why is my story so common?
McMaster students may be more biased towards the sciences since our university is best known for its scientific research. With so much campus space designated for science students, it’s understandable to crave being part of that community. McMaster made a proactive choice when deciding to build L.R. Wilson Hall, a space for liberal arts students to feel the same sense of togetherness and appreciation that science students experience. Perhaps it will encourage students to embrace their interests and not feel pressured into a stream that doesn’t suit them. Perhaps not.
The way in which many students generally speak about the humanities is relatively simplified. When we talk about the humanities, we should be talking about philosophy, art history, French, communication studies, and linguistics, to provide a few examples. It is misguided and inaccurate to reduce a program to nothing but writing essays and calling that “easy.” Not everyone can communicate effectively enough to get a point across in an essay, just as not everyone is able to work well in a biology lab. Yet, we need both types of people. Part of the reason science is so appealing could be attributed to the seemingly infinite options it presents. But if science can be divided into chemistry, physics, biology, and technology, then let’s not forget to acknowledge the diversity within the humanities. Regardless of the fact that studying the humanities can lead to very successful careers, there is a pressure to avoid them at all costs. Maybe that’s because it’s convenient to pursue the sciences to avoid the usual questions about what on earth you’re going to do after graduation. If you’re in the sciences, you tend to get off easier because there’s always med school, right? However, if you’re in the humanities, people often forget the boundless options that exist because they forget how vast a field it is.
Studying science gives the illusion that there’s an obvious answer as to what you will be doing next. There’s either research or medicine, and that’s all. That, too, is a dangerously singular way to think, and yet, this seemingly clear path could be what attracts so many students. Tunnel vision is an interesting thing when it comes to education. On one hand, you may love it because it steers you in a defined direction. On the other hand, you could hate it because you may find that direction doesn’t fit you. The important thing is to take a step back once in a while and ask yourself what you find appealing about your field of study. If nothing comes to mind, it might be time to explore a bit more.
Studying science gives the illusion that there’s an obvious answer as to what you will be doing next.
The reality is that this pressure we feel to study the natural sciences isn’t solely because of McMaster’s reputation, but rather, the wider growing obsession with scientific and technological advancement. While it is important for us to study science and develop technologies to better our world, it takes all sorts of people to better society. We fail to recognize that this growing culture of praise for science and technology is giving us tunnel vision when it comes to our education.
At the end of the day, university education has become the new baseline for future career prospects. The majority of us, no matter what we go into, will have to continue our education. Therefore, if you find science to lack the appeal it’s hyped up to have, then you should explore other fields of study. It would be short-sighted to limit yourself so early in your education and feel pressured to pursue something that has just as many prospects as other fields of study. As a fellow Marauder, I urge you to remain open-minded about other faculties and programs and take courses outside of your comfort zone. You’ll never know what you’ll find intriguing.
Photo Credit: The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore
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By: Mia Kibel
Maybe your parents pay for your tuition, and maybe they don’t. Maybe you get subsidies from OSAP, maybe you work, or maybe you subsist off a diet of air, cheetos, and pirated videos. But the fact remains that any way you slice it, university isn’t free, and students are the ones that have to find a way to pay.
University is never actually going to be free. Professors, campuses, and programs are always going to cost money. It is, however, worth questioning whether students should be the ones to pay. Germany, for example, recently decided that we shouldn’t. At the beginning of October, university became completely free in all German states, not only for German students, but for foreign students as well. So, if you can get a German visa, Auf Wiedersehen, and enjoy. But can university be free in Canada, and should it?
The rationale for making university entirely subsidized by the government is obvious, and it feels good in the gut. More education is a social good. On a macro level, a more educated population can drive innovation and development across all sectors the university touches, in areas as diverse as business, science, law, and the arts. For individuals, university education opens doors to careers that are typically more profitable and stable, and gives them the tools to specialize in areas that interest them, not to mention the simple implicit value of learning new things and ideas. Tuition fees make it harder for a large segment of the population, typically those that are simultaneously disenfranchised, to access these benefits. They restrict university education to the rich, thereby setting up a cycle where only those who already have money can access the jobs best suited to making money.
Though students can take out loans to pay fees, the interest that kicks in as soon as you graduate means that university costs more for poor students than it does for rich ones. When students do decide to take out loans to pay for school, the interest can be crippling, and an uncertain job market makes it difficult to determine when or if the loan can be paid back.
If we believe that education isn’t an elitist privilege and that see that loans aren’t an equitable, or even necessarily viable, way for poorer students to pay for school, it seems like moving towards a system like Germany’s is the obvious choice. But a closer look at Germany’s system reveals that, while completely subsidized university education is possible, it’s not exactly compatible with our university system. German university students mostly attend institutions in or near their hometowns, so university residences are extremely limited. Most classes are large lectures, not the small group discussion based classes that become so rewarding in upper years. While “university” here is an institution replete with amenities, German schools are, for the most part, just classes. Think about Mac without DBAC, the student centre, big sports teams, four libraries with support staff, and all the other things that happen outside of class, then consider what a “free” school would look like.
As it stands, universities are already heavily subsidized. Only 25.9 percent of university and college revenue in Ontario comes from tuition fees. And with budgets tightly stressed, both in universities and in governments, it’s clear that fully subsidizing schools as they are isn’t really an option for Canada. Trimming down universities might not be such a bad thing— in fact, it might a good one. But, the next time you hear someone proclaim they’re off to the vaterland, use those critical thinking skills you’re paying so much for to decide whether “free” is a price you’re willing to pay.
In an environment of change, McMaster’s Provost is “incredibly optimistic about the future.”
Provost David Wilkinson expressed this idea at the State of the Academy address last Wednesday, Oct. 22. This annual speech is focused on current issues relevant to the running of the university.
Wilkinson began this year’s address seeking to focus on the inevitability of change in the university environment, and the challenges that may come with this.
“We’re certainly going through enormous amounts of system change,” he said of McMaster. He referred specifically to the new budget model and Mosaic, garnering a laugh from the audience of primarily faculty and administrators when he promised that he wouldn’t be talking about the revamped and much-discussed online system.
He also noted that much of this climate of change could be attributed to external factors.
“I want to focus on how the landscape is changing in higher education…thinking about how we are affected by the outside globally and perhaps more importantly in terms of our relationship with the governing climate,” said Wilkinson.
With this in mind, the provost recounted in detail the process the university went through to establish their Strategic Mandate Agreement with the provincial government, a process undertaken by all Ontario universities in a trend towards increased differentiation. While the government’s goal was to encourage each university to shy away from breadth of programming and put significant resources into fewer areas of expertise, Wilkinson claimed the SMA process “certainly didn’t drive us to be narrow.” In McMaster’s SMA document, almost all of the faculties are named explicitly, leading the provost to conclude that the main points the university presented were “deep but incredibly broad.”
However, the impacts of the Ontario policy for differentiation and of federal government policies on higher education remain unclear, but is expected to be “outcome-driven.”
Another focus of the speech and thus for the university in the coming years was growth, both of the student body and of the campus capacity. Wilkinson explained that McMaster is currently operating at 117 percent of capacity, “stuffing students into classrooms.”
McMaster is looking to deal with this reality in part through pursuing a satellite campus. The university already has buildings away from its West Hamilton base (through the downtown Health Campus and Continuing Education Centre), but hopes to expand its presence with the goal of having 10,000 students living and studying downtown in the coming years.
Wilkinson’s closing topic for the address was excellence, which is to be the focus of the Provost’s committee for the coming year. A specific consideration in this broad topic is potentially raising the entrance average across all programs at Mac. He proposed increasing the 75 percent average to an 80.
“It raises the question as to whether or not by raising the bar we actually raise the attractiveness of the institution in all of our programs,” said Wilkinson. “there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that people want to get things that are hard to reach.”
Further details on some of the longer-term ideas for the university are expected to be addressed by President Patrick Deane in his upcoming lecture as part of a series on higher education on Nov. 5.
