The Silhouette

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McMASTER UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER / THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2010

VOLUME 80, NO. 23

Est. 1930

LILY PANAMSKY

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

McMaster University is attempting to spread its wings to the far east. Right now, the university is in the proposal stage of a partnership with Dongguan University of Technology, located in South China. McMaster University wishes to put its name to a building already on the Dongguan campus and to allow international students to receive a McMaster degree while attending the Chinese campus. Associate Vice President (Academic) Peter Smith explained, “The proposed McMaster campus at the Dongguan University of Technology is not a partnership in the usual sense. Dongguan’s role will be that of landlord, with McMaster having full operational control over all the academic matters.” Peter George, McMaster president and vice-chancellor, described Dongguan City as an untapped region of China and Dongguan University as an aggressive and exciting university of technology. Students would pay fees that are comparable to current visa fees. The McMaster programs offered at Dongguan would be targeted mainly for international students, but George and Smith contended that the possibility for exchanges to the university has not been ruled out for the future. “I’m hoping that with the Confucius Institute and the growing participation in Chinese language classes, we might actually see more of our students opting to do a term abroad in China rather than in Europe,” admitted George. The partnership would offer several benefits for McMaster. “We hope that it will

麦克马斯特 计划筹备 中国学院 McMaster proposes China campus be a significant revenue generator for us,” declared George. “The costs of operation ought to be lower, they may be higher on the instructional side because some of our instructors will be going there to teach for periods of time. On the other hand we would have the local infrastructure costs because of the relationship with Dongguan University.” Smith added, “It would raise our international profile and would generate countless new opportunities for collaborations as both

the campus and the region grow.” The first program at McMaster to show interest in expanding to China was Engineering. The Engineering and Management program will likely be the first degree offered. The communications, multimedia, business, and economics, have all also showed interest in offering a degree at Dongguan. The programs would be instructed in English. “Admission requirements (including TOEFL) and academic standards would be the same

Alternate e-mail system may be in the works

as at the Hamilton campus,” said Smith. To date, there have been several meetings with officials from Dongguan University. “The president of Dongguan and I have gone to see Ministry of Education officials in Beijing,” said George. There has also been one visit to Dongguan University by several McMaster colleagues, including Provost and Vice President (Academic) Ilene Busch-Vishniac and Dean of Engineering David Wilkinson. Another visit, which will be led by Smith, is scheduled for early April. George maintained the April visit was, “a crucial trip in terms of the academic content of the program that’s going to be offered. The projected date for the establishment of the partnership is September 2011. “We’re just putting together a business plan, both an academic and a business plan, and that will have to come eventually to the Senate for approval,” stated George. The original date was set for September 2010, but George explained that it would be difficult to get all of the work done before mid-June, which is when the last Senate meeting takes place. In the first few years, the partnership would be renewable so that McMaster could determine whether it was working out or not. George stated that this partnership has been in the making for several years. “The fact that more and more students have come from China over the years to McMaster has built awareness of the McMaster brand in China, especially in South China,” he explained. However, McMaster University is not the only school in Hamilton that has attracted international attention. • PLEASE SEE MAC, A5

Trio of Mac students lend a hand in Haiti FARZEEN FODA THE SILHOUETTE

SELMA AL-SAMARRAI SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

As of the Feb. 28 Student Representative Assembly (SRA) meeting, the idea of providing an alternative e-mail system for McMaster Undergraduate students became an official policy, as the majority of the SRA chose to support the initiative. Inbox storage capabilities, a multi-faceted calendar system, support for Smart phones and a document sharing system are of the few of the many features that the SRA hopes to see accompanying a McMaster undergraduate e-mail system change. The SRA was adamantly clear that they do not support any specific alternative e-mail system; they simply support the change. Matthew Dillon-Leitch, SRA Humanities and a major actor in this initiative, explained that the purpose of turning this initiative into a policy is to be able to organize and present the idea to John Kearney, the Chief Information Officer of the University Technology Services (UTS) at McMaster. “When we speak to John Kear-

ney, we can say our student government wants these options in our e-mail system. However you go about doing it, whether you go with Microsoft, an alternative, Google or Gmail, it’s up to you but this is ideally what we want. We don’t want to endorse one product,” explained Dillon-Leitch. Dillon-Leitch added that he believed that switching the McMaster Undergraduate Students’ e-mail system to an alternative, modern one will be beneficial because, “by going with a larger company we are opening ourselves to the research of multi-billion dollar companies which I think will be amazing, there will be constant updates.” According to Dillon-Leitch, if this initiative is carried through, then the research, which will take

place prior to the transition, will be very costly. However, he expects that the change will benefit students, especially if the change is to a system such as the internationally recognized Google Apps, which provides Universities with their service for free. Statistics show that the University of Arizona’s switch of 60,000 students to Google Apps in 2007 saved the university an estimated $500,000 a year. Roger Couldrey, McMaster’s Vice-President (Administration), explained, “I think that many of us on campus would like to have a different e-mail system.” Huzaifa Saeed, one of the SRA Social Science representatives, Dillon-Leitch and President-elect Mary Koziol will be meeting with Kearney on May 3 to discuss the policy.

The earthquake in Haiti that struck on January 12, 2010 left 222,517 people dead, 300,000 injured and 1.1 million people displaced in this small and highly impoverished nation, according to final estimates by the US Geological Survey. Worldwide, immediate action was taken to help those in need following the earthquake. Now, after roughly two months, The Republic of Haiti continues to be in a state of despair over the aftermath of the earthquake that reached an alarmingly high 7 on the Richter Scale (USGS, 2010). In an effort further support the traumatized nation, three medical students from the Micheal G. DeGroote School of Medicine; May Sanaee, and Regine Krechowicz of the Niagara Regional Campus and Layli Sanaee of the Hamilton campus have gone to Haiti to deliver supplies and learn first hand about disaster medicine from a medical team in the county’s capital: Port-au-Prince, in a makeshift clinic at Anis Zunuzi Baha’i

School. The three students left for Haiti on Mar. 3 and will be returning on Mar. 11. The students hope to help with the care of the numerous patients that continue to visit the clinic while providing a helping hand to the doctors currently running the clinic. All three students intend to focus their medical career toward global health and have also had prior exposure to international development. Krechowicz contributed to a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) project in Serbia and Bosnia, and also did a volunteer placement with a doctor in India. Layli Sanaee took part in an educational development project in Saint Lucia, and her sister May completed graduate studies in global health prior to medical school. The trip has been funded by generous donations from family members, fellow medical students, physicians, and local businesses in the McMaster community as well as the Baha’i community of St. Catherines and fundraising efforts in the Niagara community.

ANDY Canadian Music Week.

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