There’s the
JOURNEY BACK TO THE VANIER
Wi-Fi
As the defending national champions of university football, the Marauders will look to begin their playoff run this Saturday against the Western Mustangs at Ron Joyce Stadium See B6
Mac looks to invest $100,000 in wireless Internet project See A3
The Silhouette www.thesil.ca
MCMASTER UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER
Thursday, November 1, 2012
EST. 1930
When there’s shooting in the street, don’t go near the window.
Vol. 83, No. 13
What Integrity means to us
In the second part of a series on the progress of Patrick Deane’s “Forward With Integrity” initiatives, the Sil explores how a “class-free week” and community-based learning could enhance McMaster’s overall student experience Aissa Boodhoo-Leegsma
that flexibility so students can get to where they want to go, in different ways.” Denburg mentioned that the goal is to eventually guarantee 100 per cent student particiSenior News Editor pation. She noted that the faculties have been receptive to the idea of a class-free week with Campus is often viewed as a community of its own. But Forward with Integrity (FWI) urged supplementary and possibly accredited activities outside of the classroom. the campus to look outside McMaster to understand what constitutes our commitment to com“We want to have this week, want you to step back, think about how could you use a week? munity. What do you want to experience in that week and how would it enhance your learning…and Campus has been abuzz with various initiatives that seek to enhance our internal, local and what skills might it enhance?” said Denburg. global engagement. The Community Engagement (CE) Task Force Report noted the need for reciprocity in community partnership, fostering bilateral and mutually beneficial relationships Where McMaster Stands between McMaster and community agencies. McMaster has been increasingly more involved in the community, with events such as Specific initiatives mentioned in the report include establishing a community opportuni- MacServe, providing opportunities for thousands of students and staff. However, long-term ties infoshare database, a network of community champions and a possible CE course. exposure and involvement in the community has not been an institutional priority at Mac. Mary Koziol, Assistant to the President, Special Community Initiatives, explained that Student experience in the community through flexible learning community engagement is a slow-moving and long-term process, because of the need to both The Student Experience Task Force (discussed in last week’s FWI feature article) also pro- protect the University’s brand and to ensure a mutually beneficial relationship. posed a “class-free week” which would feature community-based learning experiences. “Making sure that community engagement is mutually beneficial is at the forefront of the The “class-free week” concept comes on the cusp of recent student interest and concern decision-making process. Especially when we ask community partners and consult with them over the attempt by the MSU to secure a fall break for students in 2013. before simply creating things,” she said. While a fall break was part of Siobhan Stewart’s electoral platform, the Class-Free Week Generally, McMaster has strong elements of short-term service learning and industry was proposed independently by the CE Task Force as a method to more flexibly approach stu- partnerships but has lagged behind other universities in community-directed research and dent learning and ensure opportunities for community-based learning. community-based education. Most students have limited awareness of Hamilton’s realities. Susan Denburg, VP Academic (Health Sciences) and Strategic Advisor to the President, Huzaifa Saaed, MSU VP Education remarked upon this trend. He stated, “ I don’t feel noted that this week would eliminate classes but provide supplementary opportunities for stu- that…we’ve made a strong commitment to the City of Hamilton, as our city and that’s what we dent learning, through seminars, service-learning and other activities. need to go towards. It’s more of a culture shift.” “We want to increase opportunity for students to expand their horizons, we want the enviSEE COMMIITTING, A4 ronment to be flexible. People learn in different ways and at different rates. So we want to create
Connectivity deification
ANDY gets political
Are there consequences to having such a well-connected world? Delve into the dark side of total digital immersion.
Take the spin out of the system and find out what democracy means to, as ANDY digs into the culture of politics.
See B7
See C4-C5
McMaster gets its annual report card Julia Redmond Assistant News Editor
Remember the feeling of getting your report card? McMaster was faced with that feeling this October, as the Globe and Mail published its annual Canadian University Report. The assessment, released on Oct. 25, tried to get away from the largely data-based rankings of other organizations, instead assigning letter grades to different aspects of the university’s performance based on student surveys. And McMaster’s administration was certainly pleased with the report card results. “It’s extremely gratifying to be ranked by students as providing the highest quality teaching and learning experience in Canada,” McMaster President Patrick Deane told the Daily News, referring to McMaster’s first-place finish in its division for quality of teaching and learning. Most notably, Mac ranked first in campus atmosphere, research opportunities and quality of teaching and learning, as well as second in student satisfaction, where it placed behind Western. It also made an impression at the lower end of the large school division, placing second to last in city satisfaction and information technology. And naturally, McMaster’s infamous SOLAR system earned the university last place in course registration. “If you take all the rankings, they add up to an interesting perspective that we’re strong, but there are some areas which need our attention,” said Deane. The premise of the Globe’s rankings is a survey of cur-
rent undergraduate students. For the 2013 rankings, 33,000 undergrads responded to a survey, and their responses, given on a scale of 1 to 9, were converted into corresponding letter grades. But the entire premise of this style of ranking is problematic, said Lonnie Magee, an economics professor at Mac. “How would a university student be able to know about another school?” he asked. “It’s so driven by how you compare it with what you’re expecting.” He explained that since students attend only one university, such a comparison not particularly useful. The Globe and Mail addressed this criticism in its 2012 Canadian University Report, released last October. Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, an education consulting firm that advises the Globe on the annual report, argued that student surveys are a reliable method of devising rankings. “Another criticism [of the report] was that student[s] … had no idea what was available at any school other than their own. That’s true to some extent – but if year after year a particular institution gets results which are particularly good or particularly bad compared to other institutions of its type, then the results start to gain in validity,” Usher argued. Magee notes that such results come from the “temptation to make the results more objective, to accumulate statistics and present them to show that your rankings are based on these ‘hard facts’ that have been collected.” He cautioned that qualitative factors like student satisfaction are tough to compare. SEE RANKINGS, A4