This is a sponsored article and was not written by The Silhouette

Develop your leadership skills with the Emerging Leaders Program

Leadership is an essential life skill that can be taught and refined. 

Emerging Leaders is a one-week virtual intensive leadership program for students and young professionals that provides you with the necessary skills to lead across the health system. This program is tailored to senior undergraduates, recent graduates, graduate students, post-doctoral students, medical residents, and young professionals.

In today’s dynamic and changing environment, it is clear that all industries, and in particular the health industry, need good leaders – individuals that are able to work well in teams and collaborate to make a meaningful contribution. Through the Emerging Leaders Program, you develop an enhanced self-awareness of who you are as leader and gain a better understanding of your unique leadership style. This knowledge allows you to work effectively in and across teams, and improve communication with others.

“I have learned that leadership is an essential life skill, and no where did I realise this more than in the empowering environment of the Emerging Leaders Program,” says Chris Zhou (Emerging Leaders 2017). “The reward of this program was not an easy and instantaneous leap in my career, but a strong foundation of essential soft skills that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Skills to lead across the health system

Emerging Leaders is more than just a program. It brings participants together for engaging discussions, team-building activities, and access to experts in the field. 

Learn leadership foundations including change management, situational leadership, collaboration and teamwork, presentation and persuasion, and decision making and problem solving.

Gain a deeper understanding of the issues facing our complex and dynamic healthcare system. Explore important topics such as hallway medicine, elder care, and the future of digital healthcare. Participants also learn about negotiations, design thinking and strategic foresight.

“The Emerging Leaders program provides an excellent opportunity for people from all disciplines and streams of healthcare to come together and learn,” says Anna D’Angela (Emerging Leaders 2017). “Healthcare requires collaboration and cooperation; it also requires people to see different perspectives and understand the impact of decisions from others’ points of view.” 

An engaging virtual learning experience

At the Health Leadership Academy, we create a safe environment for you to make connections and learn from faculty, industry experts, and peers. Our virtual classrooms are not traditional learning spaces. They are intensely interactive and refreshing. Through small-group work projects, playful activities, tools for creativity, and connection with a network of health care leaders, we also teach you new and nourishing ways of learning, collaborating virtually, and leading teams.

The tools to become a better leader

The Emerging Leaders Program will challenge your thinking and give you the tools to become a better leader.

Throughout the program, participants build a personalized leadership portfolio; a living, evolving document that can be used to record experiences, aspirations and to chart progress toward your goals. Understand your own leadership capabilities and potential through self-awareness and reflection, peer feedback, and a one-on-one coaching session. The program will help you to build the confidence and skills you need to make a meaningful contribution as a leader in health.

Lead meaningful change 

If you want to respond to the changing health landscape, disrupt the status quo, and lead innovation and meaningful change, then apply to the Emerging Leaders Program. It is offered virtually May 2-9 and August 15-22, 2021. Learn more at healthleadershipacademy.ca/education/emerging-leaders.

Join our community of leaders

The Health Leadership Academy offers a suite of leadership programs for aspiring and current health leaders. We also host “Leading in Health”, a speaker and networking series that illustrates how our community is leading the change now. Join our community of health leaders by visiting healthleadershipacademy.ca.

Society often considers post-secondary education to be an essential element to today’s knowledge economy. However, while Canada holds one of the highest rates of post-secondary attainment rates across other commonwealth countries at upwards of 66 per cent, some students who have the potential to succeed are subject to barriers within their participation.

The McMaster Discovery Program offers university-level, non-credit courses to adults within the Hamilton community who have faced various barriers to accessing higher levels of education within their lives. The program aims to create opportunities for residents within the community to participate in the process of learning within the arts, inspire passion for life-long learning and foster community engagement within McMaster and the broader City of Hamilton.

Currently in its seventh year, the program was initially developed for McMaster when Prof. Jean Wilson, the Director of McMaster’s Arts & Science Program, discovered similar experiential programs happening in other cities throughout Canada. Early discussions of the program began with members of the McMaster Community Poverty Initiative and a variety of Hamilton community members.

With support from the Office of the President and several community partners, McMaster launched the initial phases of the Discovery Program in 2011, offering the course at the Hamilton Public Library’s central campus to approximately 20 participants every Saturday for two months.

"We encourage our students to study and learn for the purpose of personal growth. It is very important to the program that there is no one goal for students leaving the program."

 

Marina Bredin
McMaster Discovery Program, Program coordinator

The course serves as an opportunity for individuals who have may not had previous experience within academia to learn in an experiential way, while providing the McMaster community an opportunity to learn from the local community. Each course is supplemented with a professor, a Program Coordinator, and a student support team, often compromised of undergraduate Arts & Science students, to ensure students needs are met throughout the course.

This year’s program coordinator, Marina Bredin, who is responsible for recruiting students and creating a program that accommodates students needs while considering the logistics of running a course, notes that this program is a crucial step towards learning for personal growth.

“We focus on learning for learning’s sake, and creating an atmosphere free from assessments that are common in a University classroom,” said Bredin. “Instead, we encourage our students to study and learn for the purpose of personal growth. It is very important to the program that there is no one goal for students leaving the program.”

Themes throughout the year

The McMaster Discovery Program has explored a variety of topics since its inception. These topics, while enabling students to explore their own abilities within learning and discovery, are deeply rooted in Hamilton’s history.

The pilot course, titled Voicing Hamilton, looked at historic works of Hamilton’s literature and art in order to engage students to develop their own creativity. Focusing on various stories people have told about the city of Hamilton, students enrolled in the Discovery Program were able to develop their own projects that shared their personal stories of the city.

In 2013, Prof. Ann Herring from the Department of Anthropology introduced a new course titled “Plagues and the People of Hamilton,” which was offered for three years. The course surrounded the topics of pandemics and plagues throughout history in Hamilton specifically, including field trips to the Hamilton Museum of Steam and Technology and the Hamilton municipal cemetery on York Boulevard, where victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic are buried, and the nearby memorial to cholera victims who died in 1854-55.

"When I watch [the professor] bring up the many aspects of resilience and I watch the students reaction it’s often, for some, a brand new word with brand new meaning,”

 

Mary Buzzell
Former professor at the School of Nursing

In 2016, Prof. Anju Joshi, Department of Health, Aging and Society, was introduced as a new Discovery Program instructor. Joshi’s course, titled Diversity and resiliency: Human Differences and our Ability to Overcome Challenges, examines human differences, how these differences can create challenges for people in their daily lives and how people overcome these challenges.

Although students within the course do not earn credits or degrees, the focus of the course is on the learning experience itself and how learning can be applied to community needs.

Mary Buzzell, a former McMaster professor within the School of Nursing, has sat in on courses offered within the McMaster Discovery Program for the past two years as an observer and contributor.

Her role within the course is to examine both teaching and learning styles while offering feedback or insight if the occasion arises. Buzzell notes that while she acts as an observer within the course, she takes away a significant amount of information within her time there.

“I think often we don’t think of the word resilience in our everyday life, and when I watch [the professor] bring up the many aspects of resilience and I watch the students reaction it’s often, for some, a brand new word with brand new meaning,” said Buzzell. “I think it’s a very rich experience. It helps me grow, and for me, it’s like enlightenment.”

Empowerment 

Barriers to immediate post-secondary education can differ for many people. These barriers could revolve around financial struggles, cultural factors, family environment or being a first generation student, or accessibility needs.

McMaster’s Discovery Program is just one of many hands-on learning programs offered across Canada. Several universities across the country offer similar free, non-credit programs to residents within their respective communities.

"To me the Discovery Program is first and foremost opportunity." 

 

Mary Buzzell
Retired professor, Faculty of Nursing

Titled, for the most part, as Humanities 101, these liberal arts focused courses offer a chance for community members with a passion for learning to explore their own options and local resources. These programs typically differ within their curriculum, with each program varying widely in how they achieve their overall goal of promoting learning and discovery.

“To me the Discovery Program is first and foremost opportunity,” said Buzzell. “Opportunity for several students in the class who have not had a learning opportunity except in their basic schooling, so opportunity to learn and not be afraid to ask and inquire.”

Many individuals who participate within Humanities 101 programs would not have had the opportunity to access higher education otherwise. Throughout these programs across Canada, there is a unifying understanding of the importance of learning and how it can empower students in their everyday lives.

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For many Marauders, March is a reminder of deciding to attend university.

The adjustment from high school into post-secondary is a step in formal education that every student in university has gone through, and the repercussions from being unprepared for university remain pertinent.

The disparity between student transitions into McMaster life and academics begs the question of whether this falls on the individual student or whether there are underlying challenges in providing high school students adequate exposure to the university.

Prepping for post-secondary

Ontario students made up 96.3 per cent of the collaborative undergraduate regular session headcount at McMaster.

“We draw significantly from our local community… I wouldn’t say that there are specific schools that we target within Hamilton but we visit them all and that demographic also reaches out to Halton and Peel,” notes Paula Johnson, assistant director of student recruitment.

One could expect local high schools to provide a seamless transition into McMaster due to their close proximity to the university, however there remain challenges for students to adjust to post-secondary life.

“While I was prepared enough to follow lectures and take good notes, I definitely think writing is a different story. I wasn’t taught how to write a proper university level essay,” said Leaha Capriotti, a first-year Humanities student.

Shan Bal, a Health Sciences student who previously attended Orchard Park Secondary School in Hamilton, shared a similar view.

“The level of difficulty of school work in high school is drastically different in university,” he said.

Bal indicated that he did not feel adequately prepared as compared to others.

“Many of my peers were exposed to higher standards of rigorous academia during high school at a level that is equivalent or even higher than first year in university,” he said.

The dialogue is different at the high school level.

From the perspective of local high school students at Westmount Secondary School, we hear a confident attitude in terms of how they feel prepared for university life.

“I definitely believe that this high school is preparing us extremely well for university and college and the post-secondary process in general simply because of the amount of flexibility they give you in the senior grades,” said Matthew Joseph, one of the senior students.

“The pacing and the level of responsibility really prepares us. I have friends from Westmount that have moved on and they were less intimidated by the all-nighters you may need to pull to get stuff done in university,” said Deanna Allain, another student.

Regardless, the students still acknowledge that the transition into university is not as smooth as they would have liked. This hinges mainly on the sharp difference in academic workload.

“One of the challenges [could be] a lot more reading. There could be much more written work than we are used to having,” admitted Allain.

Getting engaged

Westmount Secondary School strives to develop independence and time management for its students. The school provides flexibility in its curriculum and allows students to have the freedom to structure their own time.

“I think that definitely prepares you for when you are having a heavier workload in university,” said Joseph.

Jen Currie, head of student services at Westmount, describes the benefit of giving high school students adequate exposure to the university workload in preparation for post-secondary.

“We have a large number who go to post-secondary and a large number that goes specifically to McMaster. We often get kids who come back and say that they are well prepared,” she said.

"While I was prepared enough to follow lectures and take good notes, I definitely think writing is a different story. I wasn't taught how to write a proper university level essay,"
Leaha Capriotti
First-year student,
McMaster University 

On the flip side, Currie has observed students switching to an “easier” high school in their final year in hopes of obtaining higher marks.

“In this case, typically the students will come back [from McMaster] and say they wished they could have stayed.”

“This high school spends a lot of time trying to shape a culture of high expectations.  Westmount is more rigid in terms of assignment deadlines, and it is a self-directed school.”

With respect to student recruitment and providing students optimal exposure to post-secondary, Currie indicates her dissatisfaction in the amount of exposure McMaster offers students at Westmount and at other secondary schools in Hamilton.

She believes McMaster is falling behind Mohawk College, in terms of student recruitment strategies and offering support to the Grade 12 students interested in the programs available.

“Interactions with McMaster are often initiated on our part. Often I feel like it’s really us who are more interested in giving our students exposure to the university. I wish McMaster would do a little bit more,” Currie said.

“When I look at the outreach program that Mohawk has done — they have counsellors out at every school, providing students with the application process. Sometimes it sways some of the kids,” she added.

On the side of student recruitment at McMaster, Johnson explains the general undertakings of the university to give incoming students a sense of what McMaster is about.

The university offers regular campus tours, fall preview days and March Break week tours. These work to provide an opportunity for prospective students to speak with staff, students and student services representatives.

“We do try to ensure that we spend a significant amount of time visiting [local high schools], connecting with the counsellors. We attend their pathway events and their parent nights to sort of layer up and add more support to our local communities. However, we really don’t have a specific targeted plan in place”.

Communication is Key

Perhaps the important difference, as outlined by Currie, is that McMaster lacks a strategy that gives students individualized support in preparing them for post-secondary.

For students who call Hamilton their home, the geographic closeness to McMaster interestingly serves as a double-edged sword.

“The biggest advantage of going through school in Hamilton while transitioning to Mac is being able to come home to an unlimited supply of food and having the ability to see my family on a daily basis,” said Bal.

On the other side, however, living from home in first year creates difficulty in adjusting to the social landscape of university.

“McMaster representatives were always talking about the experience of living on residence. For me, [commuting to Mac] I know that really alienated me and a few of my high school friends that also go to McMaster,” said Andrew Leber, a first-year student.

The theme of time management and organization appears rather frequently in discussions on how McMaster can facilitate a smoother transition from high school.

"Interaction with McMaster are often initiated on our part. Often I feel like it's really us who are more interested in giving our students exposure to the university. I wish McMaster would do a little bit more."
Jen Currie
Head of student services,
Westmount Secondary School 

“In high school, I feel that I never really had the opportunity to learn and implement effective study methods,” said Joseph Murray, a second-year Social Psychology student.

Murray believes it would have been useful for high schools to begin emphasizing the importance of time management and effective studying earlier on. He would have considered it beneficial to have had a stronger awareness for scheduling and organization, prior to coming to university.

“Trying to learn these things now is especially difficult because I’ve formed some bad habits that can be hard to break,” he said.

“It would be helpful having more exposure to the university’s environment, holding events for classes to come to Mac, or having members of McMaster visit the schools could assist with the transition to university,” Murray added.

The number of students who do not return following first year is 2.5 times higher in comparison to later years.

This statistic lends support for the notion that transitioning into university from high school is difficult. From the perspective of students in the Hamilton community, a better understanding of university course load and stronger organizational skills may soften the blow of first year. Ultimately, as students suggested, this would require the university to communicate more at the secondary school level.

The 2014 MSU presidential election recently came to a close, and the five presidential platforms covered a wide range of topics, including reduced MSU fees, an expanded frost week, and a program to fund students’ ideas for improving McMaster. Check out the following infographic to see what topics showed up most often in recent presidential platforms at seven Ontario universities.

A new proposal from the Ministry of Colleges, Training and Universities suggests the province is looking to reduce deferral fees, regulate ancillary fees more and put a threshold on flat-fee charges.

According to the Ministry’s proposal, which has not yet been made public, changes to tuition payment and ancillary fees across Ontario could be implemented starting in 2015.

The Ministry outlined a province-wide cap on late fees and reduction in deferral fees. Student advocates have been outspoken about deferral fees being an unnecessary penalty for students struggling financially and those who receive OSAP in two instalments.

While student groups including OUSA and CFS-Ontario acknowledged the Ministry’s work to address the issues, they continue to push for elimination of deferral fees and flat-fee tuition.

Currently at McMaster University, students opting into an OSAP “Flex Plan” are charged $35 per term in deferral fees.

Non-OSAP students unable to make a full payment by Sept. 1 are charged a one-time $35 late fee on top of monthly interest, which amounts to 14.4 per cent annually.

Spencer Graham, Vice-President (Education) of the McMaster Students Union, said deferral fees are unfair and should ideally be eliminated, not just reduced.

“We believe universities should have flexibility in their funds for students who will end up paying their tuition anyway,” Graham said.

The Ontario government also addressed ancillary fees in its proposal. According to OUSA, Ontario students pay some of the highest ancillary fees in the country. The Ministry proposed to clarify that institutions cannot charge extra fees for credential completion or graduation.

“We’re pretty happy the government is starting to talk to us more about technology,” Graham said. “A lot of programs use technology that charges students extra – if those things are made mandatory, that’s not allowed.”

Both the MSU and OUSA are recommending a 20 per cent off rebate for students who have to buy e-learning materials. Their estimate is that 20 per cent is roughly the evaluation component that should already be covered in students’ tuition.

The MSU’s “Stop, You’ve Paid Enough” campaign launched this fall encouraged students to report and take notice of “mandatory” course materials besides textbooks that they had to pay for out of pocket.

For example, software such as APLIA, CAPSIM and Mastering Chemistry should not be mandated by professors for evaluation purposes.

“To get around the Ministry’s rules, professors can make it an optional part of your grades. For organic chemistry, for example, it’s just not included in your course breakdown so you would be evaluated based on 90 per cent instead of 100,” Graham said.

“You may also have the option to have a percentage added to your final exam…But we don’t think students should have to opt out of assignments.”

Graham said he is currently following up on one student’s report of Top Hat Monocle’s interactive classroom software being mandated in a course.

While many students are required to buy iClickers, the technology does not fall with other e-learning materials that cannot be mandated, since students can still use their iClickers or sell them after they complete a course.

The Ministry’s proposal to put an 80 per cent threshold on flat fees would not apply to McMaster, which charges tuition per credit. However, nine universities in Ontario currently have flat-fee models. The University of Toronto, for example, charges students taking a 60 per cent course load the same tuition as students taking a full course load.

 

The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities is set to implement big changes to Ontario’s post-secondary education sector over the next six months. TCU minister Brad Duguid said he expects greater differentiation between institutions, more e-learning opportunities and easier credit transfers.

Duguid met with student and faculty groups over the summer to discuss reforms proposed by the ministry. The ministry has now entered the decision-making stage.

“My sense is that there is recognition among all student groups and faculty groups that, if we just go on the way we are now, given the fiscal environment, it’s not sustainable,” Duguid said.

The province is expected to make announcements addressing three key issues in the next six months.

Online education

The province has proposed an Ontario Online Initiative that would take a consortium or “centre of excellence” approach to providing more e-learning opportunities.

“I expect this fall we will be moving forward with a strategy that will help make Ontario a leader in this area,” Duguid said.

In February 2012, a leaked policy paper from the ministry, suggesting that students should be able to take three of five courses online, drew criticism from several student and faculty groups. Groups responded by raising concerns over reduced quality of education through e-learning.

“It seems now that the government has backed away from a degree-granting institution. Students pushed back on that very strongly,” said Alastair Woods, CFS-Ontario chairperson.

“Online education should only be pursued as a means to provide more access to distance education, not as a cost-saving measure,” said Rylan Kinnon, director of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Association (OUSA). “We feel the government understands that and is making progress.”

Kinnon said OUSA has recommended extended hours for online student support and online credit transfers.

“Having credit transfer is a central aspect of it–students need to know that their [online] course will apply to their program in their home institution,” Kinnon said.

Differentiation

Duguid said the province will continue to push for greater differentiation between Ontario’s colleges and universities “to stay competitive in the global economy.”

“We can no longer afford to have a system that is organically developing based on whatever preferences the institutions may have. We can’t have duplication in the system,” he said.

With greater differentiation, institutions are encouraged to grow preferentially in areas they already excel in, so that each institution can be assessed by specific performance indicators.

OCUFA, which represents 17,000 university faculty and librarians, released its response to the Ministry’s discussion guide, raising concerns over rhetoric and some proposed reforms.

“We don’t really know what ‘differentiation’ means,” said Kate Lawson, OCUFA president. “If it means students in any part of the province can access high quality aspects of education they want, we can support that. But we’re concerned that the government might look at it as a cost-saving mechanism.”

“From OCUFA’s point of view, universities in Ontario are underfunded and need reliable baseline funding,” Lawson said.

OCUFA has stated that it will not support using institutional performance against the goals outlined in the SMAs [strategic mandate agreements] to determine allocations of public funding.

“We believe such a system [imposes] a punitive hierarchy of “winners” and “losers,” OCUFA stated.

Credit transfer

While Duguid did not confirm or deny that the consortium established between seven universities last year will be expanded, he said a more fluid system is one of his priorities.

“I see no reason why, in the coming years, courses can’t be fully transferable across Ontario institutions,” Duguid said.

Kinnon said OUSA supports the ministry’s push for more course-mapping (institutions trying to match each other’s popular courses) as well as putting standards in place for appeals, residence requirements, and minimum grade requirements.

OUSA has also cautioned that rural and northern institutions should have a breadth of offerings since distance is a greater factor for those students.

“Up until now the ministry and the sector have done a lot of good work on college-to-university credit transfer. Now we need to focus on university-to-university transfer,” Kinnon said.

This article was also published on the Canadian University Press's newswire. 

In a white paper released earlier this month, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives took aim at the Ontario Liberal government’s “30% Off Ontario Tuition” grant, among other initiatives in the post-secondary sector.

A chief concern that has been raised about the grant is that only about 200,000 students received it last year. That is about two-thirds of eligible students and one-third of all post-secondary students.

To give students more time to apply this year, the deadline was extended from the end of January to Friday, March 1.

Launched in 2012, the grant offers 30 per cent off the average tuition for university and college to lower-middle income students. The Ontario government has set aside about $400 million for the program per year.

It is estimated that 300,000 students are eligible for the grant. However, many students are either unaware that it exists, or unaware that they do not need to receive OSAP in order to apply for the grant.

The PCs “Higher Learning for Better Jobs” paper argues that the Ontario Liberals have been spending public money on the program to “fix a problem that doesn’t exist.”

“The Ontario Tuition Grant can thus simply be summed as an idea sold as a benefit to all students, when only a fraction receive it,” reads the paper.

In lieu of the grant, universities and colleges should be “empowered to administer a student financial aid system that grows as tuition increases,” according to the PCs.

The paper also cites a briefing note from the Canadian Federation of Students: “Students are concerned that the Liberal tuition fee grant excludes two-thirds of students in Ontario.”

Ontario’s new Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, Brad Duguid, said axing the program is “unacceptable” and expressed concerns about a two-tiered education system.

“We think that is economically irresponsible, and I consider it to be socially reprehensible,” said Duguid.

He added that the PCs’ proposal to end the grant could have repercussions for several groups, including lower-income students, aboriginal students, student-athletes and students with disabilities.

Duguid took over from MPP John Milloy earlier this February.

Duguid confirmed that the number of students who have received the 30 off grant so far this year surpassed last year’s number.

The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) supports the 30 off grant, but has recommended that the Ministry expand eligibility requirements and change the tuition framework.

OUSA has argued that adjusting the grant to inflation is not enough, since tuition rates are rising at a faster rate than inflation.

“In nine years, though the value of the grant will grow to over $2,000 annually per-student, eligible students will be paying exactly what they pay today,” according to an OUSA policy paper released in 2012.

“I understand the concern, but we haven’t set the tuition framework yet for the next number of years,” said Duguid. “I’ll certainly be taking the students’ views under consideration as we work with post-secondary institutions as well to set an acceptable tuition rate.”

Duguid said a new tuition framework would be announced “fairly soon.”

“As a new minister, I want to reach out a little more before we make any final decisions,” he said.

I had a friend in high school named Jack. His grades were good; he got mid- to high-80s in most of his classes.

His teachers (and I) encouraged him to apply to university. But he didn’t. He didn’t apply to college either. After he graduated, he started work with his brother at a contracting company.

I had another friend, Ben. His grade 12 average was in the mid-70s. He applied to a few schools, and was accepted to a liberal arts program at Western.

Ben failed out of third year and didn’t go back. He now lives with his parents, has $8,000 in student debt and is looking for work.

Jack just made a down payment on a house.

Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives released a policy paper on Tuesday that called for high school students to consider alternatives to university. It pointed out that more students enter college after completing at least some post-secondary education elsewhere than students who enter college immediately after high school.

“We need to encourage students to seek the least expensive and most employable programs first and foremost,” it said.

In other words, forget the Liberal Party’s “If you get the grades, you get to go” slogan. If you don’t like big class sizes, theory-based classes or major student debt loads, maybe you shouldn’t go to university.

This is not to discount the good work being done by advocacy groups to improve undergraduate teaching and boost experiential education. Nor is it to disregard the important criticisms of the PC paper’s statements on student loan incentives, which are now being addressed by students unions (and by contributor Jeff Doucet in this week’s Opinions section).

Universities can certainly do better. But the onus of employability falls to us students, too.

An undergrad is an opportunity. It’s four(ish) years to figure out who you are and what you want. You can get to know people worth knowing and try out some interesting stuff.

But unless you’re in Nursing or Engineering, there’s no real guarantee that your degree will lead to a well-paying job in your field of study.

I don’t regret attending McMaster. (Not yet, at least.) And I’m not saying you should, either.

Just know why you’re here, and take some responsibility for what’s going to happen to you after you leave.

Knowing what I know now, my advice to my friend Jack would have been different. Here’s to hoping it all works out well for both of us.

Student and faculty groups in Ontario don’t like what the government has in store for the future of post-secondary education.

In response to a recent discussion paper by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU), several groups say they do not agree with Minister Glen Murray’s proposed reforms.

Key issues raised by student leaders include government intrusion in post-secondary education, tuition hikes, a rapid shift toward technology-based education and incentivization of entrepreneurial learning.

The Canadian Federation of Students - Ontario (CFS Ontario) and the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) are among those concerned about a perceived ‘unprecedented intrusion’ of government in the post-secondary sector.

“People who are in the best position to determine what's best for students are students themselves, faculty members and university administrators,” said Graeme Stewart, communications manager at OCUFA. “We want to keep decision-making power with [those parties].”

The MTCU’s discussion paper, entitled “Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge” was drafted this past summer. To the dismay of student leaders, the paper was written without student consultation and publicized in late August during the back-to-school rush.

The paper comes on the heels of a controversial leaked policy paper in February, tentatively entitled "3 Cubed." The leaked document suggested that universities should increase efficiency by offering more three-year degrees and allowing students to get more than half their credits online.

MTCU’s recent summer discussion paper acknowledges a rapidly changing post-secondary education sector and the need for Ontario institutions to respond.

Though the proposal outwardly rejects efficiency-focused strategies to curb costs, it also aligns itself with the trend of "high quality outcome-based credentials" becoming the norm.

The report says “cost reductions and the elimination of redundancies are essential parts of our government’s fiscal plan,” but these are not enough to meet the fiscal challenges.

In the long term, the Ministry sees “adopting innovation in the sector to drive productivity” as the other half of the equation.

One proposed reform, a simpler credit transfer system, has already been implemented in a recent partnership between seven universities and has generally been well received.

“Credit transfer, online learning, different experiential options - these are all good things. Our concern is that the government seems to be saying: we’re going to tell you what to do, when to use online learning, when to use learning technologies, when to do co-op,” said Stewart.

There are several shared concerns put forward by CFS Ontario and OCUFA, showing overlap between student and faculty reactions to the Ministry's proposal.

 

Underfunded Ontario PSE sector

Respondents pointed to the fact that Ontario’s post-secondary sector is the least funded in the nation. Per-student funding currently stands at $8,349, which is 34 per cent below the national average, according to a 2011 Statistics Canada report.

“The underfunding problem is decades old in Ontario,” said Stewart, who cited Ontario’s per-student funding as the primary reason for a higher student-faculty ratio.

By 2009, Ontario’s ratio of students to full-time faculty was nearly seven per cent higher than the national average, according to a separate report by Stats Canada. Today, there are roughly 27 students for every professor in Ontario.

“This means students can’t have the same face-to-face interaction, professors aren’t as available, students find themselves in larger classes and they have fewer course choices. It also means universities don’t have the money to restore their older buildings,” said Stewart.

 

Higher rate of tuition increase

“When the government allows per-student funding to decrease, that puts pressure on institutions to increase tuition fees because they have to replace that revenue,” said Stewart.

This year, tuition fees across the nation have risen at more than three times the rate of inflation. Student and faculty representatives argue that this would create a more elite system and diminish accessibility to higher education.

“I don’t think we can say that right now, or even a couple of years ago, tuition fees were at the right place and we should increase rates with inflation,” said Sarah Jayne King, chairperson of CFS Ontario.

“Tuition fees are beyond the point where we can simply freeze them and be happy with that," said King.

CFS Ontario has drafted two tuition fee proposals for the most recent provincial budget that would have tuition fees reduced immediately by 25 per cent.

 

Emphasis on performance-based funding and incentivization

CFS Ontario criticized the proposal’s emphasis on ‘entrepreneurial learning’ and the practice of subsidizing private sector research via the post-secondary education system.

In their response, CFS Ontario asserts that “promoting the creation of business incubators or incentivizing entrepreneurial education in the province’s public colleges and universities does not facilitate knowledge, innovation or creativity.”

OCUFA similarly criticized the provincial government’s ‘performance funding’ model, saying it “makes quality improvement impossible” and unfairly punishes students.

“I don’t think the minister has a totally clear idea of what he wants yet, but our concern is that the recommendations in the paper tend to push the [post-secondary education] system toward this kind of labour market focus,” said Stewart.

 

Using technology as a cost-saving measure

“Students are concerned that online courses are going to be implemented as a cost-saving measure, when we know that to actually produce a high-quality online education is quite expensive,” said King.

There have been no concrete proposals put forward yet mandating that three out of five courses be online, said King, referring to the contents of the leaked ‘3 Cubed’ ministry document earlier this year.

However, she said there is continued concern among students that the education sector is headed in this direction.

 

The ministry asked that formal responses to the discussion paper be sent in by Sept. 30. Respondents include CFS (national), COPE, COU and OPSEU.

King and Stewart said they don’t know of any definitive timeline for a response from the Ministry, but representatives continue to be open to discussions with the government while awaiting a follow-up.

Ask. Then ask again – this time through a months-long and thousands-strong public protest. And, eventually, you will receive.

Student activist groups in Quebec are tentatively celebrating victory. The newly elected Parti Québécois minority government has promised to cancel the tuition hikes initially proposed by the previous Liberal government.

What have we learned here in Ontario? Apparently, not much.

Here’s the state of post-secondary education in our province. Our schools have the highest tuition in Canada. They also have the lowest level of provincial support. And in my time here, I’ve never seen a McMaster University budget that wasn’t prefaced by a desperate call for more funding.

So schools take on more and more students, both because provincial funding depends on it and to boost tuition revenues.

But there’s nowhere to put the extra students. It’s no secret that McMaster, like other universities in the area, is well over capacity. Its class sizes are too large, its residences are stuffed and its common spaces are crowded.

And for that less valuable education, students are paying more every year.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that there’s anything natural about the gradual fee hikes. They aren’t about inflation. A report released on Tuesday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says tuition across the country has increased at three times the rate of inflation since 1990. In Ontario, where it’s highest, the report says that undergraduate tuition will increase from its current level of $7,513 to $9,231 four years from now.

It’s a vicious cycle. More students means more need for funds. More need for funds means more spaces for new students, all paying higher fees than the students before them.

University administrators will tell you this is a problem. They know campus is crowded. They know that young people don’t get much value from sitting through lectures with hundreds of others. They know high fees mean more difficult or more burdensome access to education.

But the province – and its universities along with it – has committed to the recommendations of the Drummond Report, which was released in February. The Report supported continued enrolment growth. It recommended tuition increases – not ones low enough to match inflation, but not ones high enough to match the growth of the student population, either.

It also continued the push for more differentiation of Ontario universities, which would make some universities teaching-focused schools and others research-oriented in order to enhance the student experience. But, for good or bad, McMaster’s president Patrick Deane wants nothing to do with it. He believes that teaching and research should go hand-in-hand.

In other words, the University isn’t going to solve this problem. The province isn’t going to solve this problem.

Students need to solve it. Can we get together and make it happen? Can we make change like they did in Quebec?

Well, how about our record of direct democracy here at Mac? At last year’s students union General Assembly, we just barely got the three per cent needed to reach quorum. We ran to one side of the room of the other, and, ultimately, every first year ended up paying for a Welcome Week they probably could have gotten through the old, opt-in MacPass system. That’s our direct democracy.

But people didn’t even show up because they cared about Welcome Week. It was participation for the sake of participation. The 601 campaign to get people out was a great marketing strategy. But imagine if Quebec students’ primary objective was to gather in huge numbers first – only to collectively decide later that their reason for being there was to be angry about tuition.

Understand, too, that student groups in Quebec were holding meetings similar to our general assembly every week.

It’s not that we’re incapable of getting together for a good cause. We raised $116,000 for Shinerama this year. At least for a week, hundreds of students gladly made a concern for cystic fibrosis part of their identity. And how many of them felt personally affected by the disorder?

So what’s it going to take for us to care about the state of post-secondary schooling?

The official charity of Welcome Week 2013: our education?