the watch February 2017
We’ve recently come to the realization that this will be our last issue together as editors, and as sad as that is, this year has really been a great one for us. When we first stepped into our positions as editors, we had no idea what hurdles we would have to jump over, or how difficult this job would be sometimes. The one thing we did know was that we wanted to help make the Watch better, and have more people more engaged in the magazine. Though maybe not in the way we had hoped, we think that that’s something we managed to accomplish and we are very proud of that. We’ve assembled a team of amazing contributors that every month provide fantastic work that surpasses our expectations. We’ve created work that we can take pride in, and we’ve grown together with the rest of our team both as people and as journalists. To Hannah, thank you for always making us laugh. Even in the worst of times you manage to light up the room with your sense of humor. We also have no idea how you do what you do, but we’re so proud of you and impressed by you.
the watch VOL. 34 NO. 5 - FEBRUARY 2017 watchmagazine.ca editors@watchmagazine.ca online@watchmagazine.ca publisher@watchmagazine.ca TWITTER @kingswatch INSTAGRAM @watchmagz
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
Avi Jacob Kristen Thompson
ONLINE EDITOR Hannah Daley COPY EDITOR Allison Hill
CONTRIBUTORS Nicholas Frew Jen Hall Fadila Chater
PHOTOGRAPHERS Daniel Wesser Kristen Thompson
PUBLISHER
John Sandham
TREASURER
Maddie Johnson
PUBLISHING BOARD Fadila Chater Piper MacDougall Lianne Xiao John Sandham Zoê Brimacombe Charlotte Sullivan David Swick Adrian Lee
LAYOUT
Kristen Thompson
To John, thank you so much for having our backs and making sure we don’t get sued. You led the team in a way that makes us so happy to be able to say that we’ve worked with you, and next year won’t be the same without you. To our readers, thank you for continuing to hold us accountable and believing in us. Without you there’s no way we’d be where we are today. We look forward to working with the new executive team on the next issue, and wish the best of luck to all those who run.
We welcome your feedback on each issue. Letters to the editors should be signed. We reserve the right to edit all submissions.
Kristen & Avi
The Watch is owned and operated by the students of the University of King’s College.
But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people not be warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at watchman’s hand. — Ezekiel 33:6
2 The Watch |February 2017| @kingswatch
the watch IN THIS ISSUE
tenure track
page 4
minorities at king’s
page 6
campus heating
page 12
winter photos
page 16
The Watch |February 2017| @kingswatch 3
Getting back on (tenure) track Jennifer Hall
The increased use of contract faculty is a currently widespread problem in North American universities, and King’s is not immune to it. However, with recent changes in leadership here at King’s, there’s hope that change is in the air.
people with sessional appointments are expected to work more, or at least expected to do more teaching,” he says, “which means that they haven’t had the same opportunity as other young faculty to keep up with their research, which puts them potentially at a disadvantage.”
Universities across the continent have been using short-term contract positions – rather than tenure According to the outgoing Vice President Kim Kipositions – as a way to combat enrolment chal- erans, financial difficulties have been primarily relenges and financial difficulties. sponsible for the reliance on sessionals. According to the Canadian Association of University Teachers, tenure is essential to safeguarding academic freedom. The association also suggests that tenured professors, who have guaranteed salaries, are more likely to carry out their teaching, research, and administrative duties in a supportive environment. While the numbers of short-term positions at King’s are much smaller than at some other universities in Nova Scotia, King’s does rely on sessional faculty, who are employed on a year-to-year basis, with a total of 3 sessional positions in the humanities. For academics and students alike, the use of short-term faculty can have negative impacts.
According to the Association of Atlantic Universities, overall enrolment at King’s has dropped in the last four years, from a total of 1,153 full-time undergraduate and graduate students in 2013 to just 914 at the beginning of the 2016 school year. The drop in enrolment and corresponding loss of revenue has compounded the financial difficulties the school faces. According to Lahey, the school’s deficit this year is $1.6 million dollars, while its total debt is $8 million. As a result, King’s has not had a new tenure track hire since 2010, showing the way in which the university’s financial status and its hiring practices go hand in hand.
“The ethical question of equity bumps up against the ethical question of the fiscal management of “From a human resources perspective, it’s not the whole college, and its sustained mission into sustainable, it’s not an equitable arrangement,” the future, and that’s where it gets tricky,” said said Dr. Peter O’Brien, the university’s incoming O’Brien. vice president. However, the problem of faculty renewal is also King’s President William Lahey agrees. “Often tied to the problem of decreasing enrolment. 4 The Watch |February 2017| @kingswatch
“Faculty renewal itself is a key thing we have to do tion with stakeholders, and with the larger finanin order to stabilize and increase our enrolment cial stability of the university in mind, according over time,” said Lahey. to O’Brien. “It’s not a one-way dynamic between the enrol ment situation and the university’s financial position, and the question of whether or not we should be creating tenure track positions. It’s actually a two-way relationship.”
“We really have to focus on the way that faculty renewal takes place, that it to the greatest extent possible deals with the resources we have in the most equitable and sustainable way,” he said.
However, there appears to be support for changFor this reason, there may be changes coming to es to the sessional positions among both faculty King’s current sessional positions. and students, which is being reflected in the adLahey claims that he is strongly in favour of facul- ministration. ty renewal. According to Kierans, many faculty members “When I was a candidate for president, I said it have spoken in favour of the introduction of tenure was high on my list, and I have tried to reiterate positions to allow for a greater sense of stability in that since becoming president, including in meet- the university’s academic programs. ings with faculty, individually, and at the monthly faculty meetings,” he said. Student concerns are also being taken into account by administration. Kierans said she was also “pretty hopeful” that positive changes would soon be made, given the “Students have already made their voices loud president’s position. and clear on this issue, and did so effectively,” said O’Brien. “The support that they’ve given to Any changes to the current sessional positions faculty in the more precarious positions cannot be will of course have to be made in close consulta- ignored.” |w
The Watch | February 2017 | @kingswatch 5
The race issue Fadila Chater
The author identifies as Lebanese and is a part of the small minority population that exists at King’s. The photos accompanying this piece feature Lianne Xiao, Julia-Simone Rutgers, Dorsa Eslami, Itai Kuwodza, and Chater, and are meant to serve as a parody to the over-recruitment of coloured individuals in King’s’ promotional material. Lack of racial and class diversity has been a problem here at King’s for decades. Evidence of this dates back to a piece the Watch did in October of 2001. The piece covers the inherent whiteness of King’s and the problems that can cause on campus. But it appears that there hasn’t been much done in the way of creating a diversified campus since the piece’s publication. While lack of diversity can easily be noticed by anyone who steps foot on King’s campus, only in recent years has administration began to take a step in the direction of diversifying the university. This includes the founding of the Enrolment Management Committee (EMC). The EMC is made up of directors from King’s academic departments as well as the Registrar’s Office, including the committee’s chair and King’s Vice-President, Kim Kierans. According to Kierans, the job of the committee is to give feedback to the Registrar’s Office about the way in which the school can achieve successful recruitment and retention strategies. “We are the ideas people. What we do is we go into schools and give suggestions to schools that might have diverse students that would be interested in what we have to offer,” said Kierans. In 2014, the EMC put forth a goal to address the apparent lack of racial diversity on King’s campus. In 6 The Watch | February 2017 | @kingswatch
the Strategic Enrolment Management Plan, approved by school’s Board of Governors in June of that same year, the committee aimed to “increase the diversity of the student population to better reflect the diversity of Canadian society.” In the plan, the committee acknowledges that “dependence on word-of-mouth recruitment” tends to yield students from “upper-middle-income North-Western-European backgrounds.” In addition to several other targets, the committee seeks to address this challenge by approaching racially diverse high schools. Julie Green, the King’s registrar, said that the university has travelled to public and private schools inside and outside the Maritime provinces, but she did not provide a list of all the schools that King’s recruitment officers visit because she considers this “competitive information.” While the committee acknowledges the need to branch out to more racially diverse schools, they also prioritize the need to stay afloat during the recent decline in overall student population. In a Board of Governors meeting on June 23, 2016, Green said that “despite exhaustive efforts in traditional recruitment, enrolment targets for 2016-2017 have not been met.” She said that although King’s needs to change recruitment strategy, a “plan has been developed to direct the college’s recruitment efforts in schools where there has been success over the past for years.”
Efforts Made by Administration to Fight the Race Issue In 2014 the EMC recommended the formation of a working group that would allow for support of visible minorities on campus and solutions for further recruitment. However, according to both Julie Green and Kim Kierans, such a working group does not exist. According to Kierans, it was never formed because there wasn’t a registrar available at the time. Green said that the group never formed because those duties are already being filled by the EMC. “We said we want to do this. But we haven’t done it in any kind of way that is substantial,” Kierans said. Kierans also said that the committee seeks ways to increase scholarships, volunteers to give lectures to high schoolers, and writes letters to prospective students. In addition to recruitment strategies, she said that the committee liaises with the Black Student Advising Centre and the Transition Year Program at Dalhousie. “It’s never enough. And we could be doing so much more,” she said. “I think that we need to have more staff and faculty who are diverse. From there, you can start identifying what needs to be done. In order to have a more diverse student population we need critical mass. I’m sure it can be very lonely here if you are the only person of colour in your class.” For Kierans, the solution starts in Nova Scotia by building local relationships. “We are doing a lot of work with First Nations communities, especially journalism in relation to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Journalism is an exemplar in relation to what it’s doing to live up to those recommendations,” Kierans said. Julie Green said that the Humanities for Young People program at King’s is focusing on the history of First Nations peoples in Canada in relation to the TRC. “We are trying to build relationships in our own Nova Scotian community; with African Nova Scotians, First Nations, and Nova Scotian people from different eco8 The Watch | February 2017 | @kingswatch
nomic classes.” Kierans thinks that solutions to the lack of diversity at King’s can come from the bottom up through education and discussion about race and racial minorities among students. “You have to be prepared to be uncomfortable. You have to be prepared to be put in a position that’s not what you know and to be open to listening to other people. We stick to our little groups because that’s what we’re comfortable in.” Green, who is also on the EMC, agrees that the goals set out by the Strategic Enrollment Management Plan have not been met. But she said that since then, it has become a priority to diversify the population as much as possible. One change Green said that has been made in terms of recruitment strategy is that recruitment officers are widening their visits to high schools all around the Atlantic provinces. “We very much do have the perception that we are catered to more affluent people. So we want to do as much as we can to let students know by being in their communities that we want them in our community.” However, Green said that in addition to schools where King’s has seen success over the years, recruitment officers also visit schools that fit the university’s academic and cultural history. “We would typically choose schools so that we feel the students would have more of an affinity to the subjects that we’re teaching,” Green said. For example, schools that would fit these criteria would have strong choral traditions, renowned theatre programs, and schools with journalism connections. Green said that King’s recruits from both private and public schools. International students, Green said, are also targets of recruitment. “The trouble is that with international students, their tendency is to be much more attracted to science, engineering and professional programs. At the graduate level, journalism does do very well with international students with that program,” Green said.
Student Input on the Race Issue While recent recruitment strategies are aimed towards attracting racially diverse people, visible minorities who become King’s students feel even more marginalised on campus. Itai Kuwodza is a second-year international King’s student from Zimbabwe. Kuwodza’s hometown is Mandara, a suburb outside of the capital city of Harare. Her tight-knit neighbourhood is made up of middle-class families, both black and white. Kuwodza considers her family middle-class. She went to an all-girls private school that she said is one of the best private schools in Southern Africa. The school brings in many universities from abroad to recruit their students. Her mother was worried about her attending university in the United States because of the violent political tensions of recent years. So she started to look for Canadian schools. “King’s was very accommodating and they really wanted me to come. They were really excited about me. They fast-tracked my application. Honestly, King’s was actually a saving grace,” Kuwodza said. She said she heard about King’s by searching the internet during high school. Kuwodza was unable to visit King’s before enrolling because she lived outside the country. But when she arrived with her mother they were shocked about the lack of racial diversity on campus. “My mom was like, ‘Yo! You’re like the only black kid here’.” Itai said that she has made many friends here at King’s, both white and non-white. She said her over all experience at King’s has been positive. “To me, people of colour are home.” But, she said that certain aspects of life on campus have been a challenge. “I am definitely benefiting from being in this environment. I just don’t think people here are benefiting from
having people of colour in their environment,” Kuwodza said. She said that staff and students assume her experiences and background and don’t take the time to learn about her real life. “I’m definitely becoming a richer person in the way I view the world, react to it, and adapt to it. But I don’t think people in this community are benefiting from people of colour in their community because there’s just not enough people of colour to engage with in the community. Which again is a disservice to the school and the quality of education people are getting here.” “I find it upsetting when someone looks at me and makes the assumption that ‘You’re from Africa and you’re black, that’s sad’, when actually you and I aren’t that different. The only thing different between me and middle-class Canadians is that I have seen more poverty around me.” During her first year at King’s, Kuwodza was asked to be featured in a promotional video for the school. “I think it does a disservice to the school because they can’t say ‘We’re diverse’ and I get here and they’re not,” Kuwodza said. “I don’t want to be a face of something that’s not real.” Kuwodza thinks that the school’s promotional strategies target people of colour and said it’s misleading, especially for students from outside the country who may not be able to visit the campus before applying. “For someone like me, who can’t do campus visits until I commit to a school, how you look is what I see. There is little information about the students at this school.” Kuwodza said that the school should make better efforts to advertise themselves to prospective students, both nationally and internationally. Because Kuwodza is an international student, the only perception she had of King’s was from visiting their website. “I feel like the school could make a bigger effort of drawing people of colour to the school,” Kuwodza said.
The Watch | February 2017 | @kingswatch 9
Like Green and Kierans, Kuwodza doesn’t think that King’s has reached their Strategic Enrollment Management Plan goals. “It looks good on paper and in theory. But in practice, it looks like there is a failure,” Kuwodza said. “We can count the number of black people on my hand. It’s not right.” “Diversity is not just a card you put out there because it’s attractive, it’s supposed to serve a purpose.” A quick search for “diversity” on the King’s website yields few related pages. But the promotional photos and web design tell a different story. Dorsa Eslami is a second-year journalism student at King’s. She is also Iranian and a racialized minority at the school. Born in Iran, Dorsa spent most of her adolescent years in Kuwait until she moved to Australia when she was 16. She then moved to Calgary, where she attended a public high school. That’s when she heard about King’s. “Something that drew me into this school was the
The Watch | February 2017 | @kingswatch 10
small community, beautiful city, incredible journalism program. King’s was my top choice.” Like Kuwodza, Dorsa didn’t realise how white-dominated King’s was until she arrived. Eslami said that she too has had an overall positive experience at King’s. However, due to the recent Watch op-ed by Kyril Wolfe, Dorsa has felt targeted for her race. “For example, as an Iranian, after everything that’s happened, if I had read the Trump article that came out in The Watch, I probably wouldn’t have come here.” If it wasn’t for her parents applying for permanent residence in Canada, Eslami said that international fees would have stopped her from attending King’s. She thinks that lowering international fees may bring in people of colour to the school.
“I think international awareness is very important. Because I do think that King’s is a good liberal arts school. I like being here. I want to help in making it more diverse and more welcoming. And I think that’s for everyone’s benefit.” Like Kuwodza, Eslami said that the King’s promotional practices are misleading. “I was in the matriculation video in my first year, and I was one of the four people of colour. It’s a little bit misleading. Why me out of everyone?” The matriculation video, which is on YouTube, was made by the university in order to promote and advertise the school’s image. The video features Kuwodza and Dorsa during their matriculation ceremony in their first year. For both Dorsa and Kuwodza, promotional materials on the King’s website portray UKC to be a racially diverse school, when the facts reveal otherwise.
***
The Numbers on the Race Issue To this day there’s little public information about racial history at King’s. However, despite what little information there is about race, the school’s recruitment practices and enrolment goals can be found on the public documents page of the school’s website. The King’s student population has declined steadily since the 2013/2014 academic year. According to data collected by the Student Information System, the school’s student population was 1,170, and at the beginning of this academic year, the total population is 915 students.
year, 84 responded to the CUSC survey. However, according to Julie Green, these numbers may not accurately reflect the reality of racial diversity on King’s campus because they are self-reported. Another pitfall of the CUSC data is that the school has not participated consistently enough in the past to compare the numbers and track any changes. “Self-identification is a real issue across the board with universities, because many students, for a variety of reasons, don’t want to identify as a visible minority,” Green said. In another data set collected by the King’s Student Information System, the numbers show that four per cent of the 2015-2016 King’s student population self-identified as a visible minority. The school’s admission form offers space to self-identify as a minority in the following categories: Aboriginal, Black/African descent, Aboriginal and Black/African descent, other visible minority, disability, sexual orientation, and gender orientation. However, there is no room for applicants to write down their specific racial or ethnic identity if they are “other”. “I understand they wanted to appeal to that kind of demographic. But don’t do it through a false image of us being diverse by putting mainly people of colour in a video when we don’t represent the majority,” Eslami said. Bottom line: King’s students are concerned about the school’s lack of diversity and the numbers that are available are limited by inconsistency and inaccuracy, and the university doesn’t appear to be doing much to change that. |w
While population has decreased, the number of self-identified visible minorities has increased by two per cent since 2014. According to Canadian University Survey Consortium, 11 per cent out of 84 respondents from a group of firstyear students in 2015-2016 academic year self-identify as a visible minority. Seven per cent from this same group of first-year students of the same academic year self-identify as Aboriginal. Out of 189 students who were asked to apply for the 2015-2016 academic The Watch | February 2017 | @kingswatch 11
12 The Watch | April 2014 | @kingswatch
It’s getting hot in here Nick Frew
Here’s the reality: the University of King’s College is hurting for revenue. However, investments and campus improvement efforts are being made to help with that.
approved in principle by the Campus Planning Committee (CPC) and the senior management team, and is waiting for funds that he hopes will be approved at some point during the summer.
The university relies heavily on enrolment for its operating revenue – it makes up 84 per cent of revenue, according to the 2016-17 operating budget. However, with enrolment decreasing, the Board of Governors thinks improving the King’s campus will help with the university’s financial situation.
Doyle said one aspect of the project would be relighting the campus with energy efficient lights.
It’s called “Campus Master Plan.” On March 10, 2016, the university’s Board of Governors approved a plan designed to upgrade the King’s campus, in order to enhance the “King’s Experience” for current students and help draw in prospective students, thus adding to enrolment revenue.
“That’s a big savings energy-wise and will knock down what we’re paying now,” he said. “That’ll knock down what we’re paying (for lighting) right now, probably by about thirty-five to forty per cent.” He added that the savings could be even more if they install sensors. Another component of the project involves the air conditioning system.
According to Doyle, these units are water-fed, meaning they’re dumping water to cool down the system, and instead of reusing the water, it gets Possibly the most underlying improvement to dumped. This system is largely outdated. come is energy efficiency. “That’s a big change and will actually save us a Technically, according to the document, energy lot of water,” Doyle said. efficiency is a second priority to things like accessibility and renewal of residences. However, Adding to the water conservation effort will involve because the buildings are so old - the Bays, for making changes in residences, such as switching example, date back to the 1930s – and have only to low-flow toilets and changing showerheads. had minor upgrades to their operating systems Doyle expects these changes to be made camthroughout the years, the move towards energy pus-wide. efficiency has already started. Changes will also be made to the air-handling Alex Doyle, Director of Facilities at the Universi- systems in the library and the New Academic ty of King’s College, says he has spent a lot of Building. time coming up with an energy proposal for the university. He added that this proposal has been The Watch | February 2017 | @kingswatch 13
Another area that requires an update is the school’s steam heating system. The King’s system is tied with the current system in place at Dalhousie, and King’s purchases the steam every quarter from the other university.
This means that instead of continuing the maintenance on the outdated system, the university is investing in changes that will save both money and energy.
“The biggest problem with the maintaining is that Between September 2014 and May 2015 the we have systems that are at end of life - probably heating costs totaled just under $300,000 years ago - and we’re trying to maintain them,” ($298,782.53). This rate for steam, Doyle says, is Doyle said. “So the more building renewal we do, “very reasonable and if we maintain that, that’s the better we are.” good for King’s.” Leading energy company Siemens Canada is He added that Dalhousie is currently planning to also involved with the project. They helped with make changes to their system, but these changes the assessment of the current systems and will won’t result in energy savings right away - more be the ones working on all energy-related parts of so in the long run. the project. Doyle is looking at how they can improve the heat- According to Doyle, there will be two phases to ing system as it currently is. One example is auto- the energy project. mation - something Doyle introduced little over a year ago as a part of the energy proposal. The first will be implementing the new systems, reducing deferred maintenance, and getting a “A big part of the energy project is the automa- payback for the university. tion and the monitoring of the system,” he said. “We’ve never done that here.” The second phase will be looking at more creative possibilities, including solar energy, for example. “(A monitoring system) is important because we This phase will involve getting student opinions can see and monitor where our spend is, where and introducing any concepts that can make the our waste is and where we’re doing good and campus more energy efficient/green. where we’re doing bad.” “Phase two is always on the plate,” Doyle said. Changes have been made in the heating system “But it will probably start after we finish phase in the newly renovated North Pole Bay. According one.” to Doyle, the bay is now running on water-based heating, which he claims saves a lot on energy. According to the operating budget, the university submitted this project for federal funding. How“It also gives everybody, in every room, total con- ever, if funding isn’t granted, then Siemens will trol of their room,” he said. front the money and King’s can pay back the loan through the energy savings. Doyle added that with the building control system, they could look at the difference of heat in each The operating budget says phase one of the enroom and confirm whether someone purposely ergy project could save about $175,000 annually. has the heat turned up or if there’s an actual prob- |w lem with the thermostat. Another thing the Campus Master Plan does is reduce deferred maintenance. The Watch | February 2017 | @kingswatch 14
Snow-pocalypse 2017 Daniel Wesser
After almost a entire week of snow days, our staff photographer Daniel decided that he wanted to capture what people really do when the city shuts down.
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