Ontario’s unis not ready for grad student spike: report
As Ontario’s graduate schools gear up for a sharp increase in graduate students over the next two years, a new report by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations questions whether they will have the resources to cope with the surge.
OCUFA, which lobbies for teachers, researchers and librarians, is concerned about three things. It says that not enough new faculty members have been hired in recent years. As a result, graduate students now get only about 60 hours a year of face time with their advisors, compared to 74 hours in the 90s. The report says that at least 2,200 more profs are needed.
University buildings, on average 30 years old, are another concern. OCUFA recommends spending at least $73 million a year-up from the current $27 million-on fixing crumbling university buildings.
And universities still need more cash to pay operating costs and to add more buildings.
In 2005, the McGuinty government approved plans to add an extra 14,000 grad students by 2010. U of T’s graduate expansion plan, approved in December, foresees an extra 4,470 grad students by Sept. 2008. U of T had 10,780 grad students in 2004.
The OCUFA report worries that universities may end up “robbing Peter to pay Paul”-diluting the quality of undergraduate programs to meet the graduate expansion.
-Mike Ghenu
U of T prof takes gold
A prof at U of T has finally taken Canada’s top science prize, the Herzberg Gold Medal, given out yearly to Canada’s most accomplished scientists by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
For 25 years, Dr. Richard Bond has sought to shed light on the most fundamental questions of the universe. He has studied the so-called “cosmic microwave background,” a faint echo of the Big Bang, which is thought to have started the universe around 14 billion years ago.
The Herzberg award was first given in 2000. It is named after Dr. Gerhard Herzberg, Canada’s 1971 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. It was first awarded in 2000.
-M.G.
What is one in 25 million?
The odds of a three-way tie on Jeopardy, according to a statistician. But, for the first time in 23 years, an episode of that popular quiz show ended in a three-way tie, after all three contestants nailed the final question and finished with $16,000 each. During Friday’s show Jamey Kirby, Anders Martinson and Scott Weiss all identified Bonnie Parker of famed crime duo Bonnie and Clyde as the correct answer in the category of “Women of the 30s.” As a result, all three contestants were declared champions and will meet in a rematch to be aired later today.
-Karen Ho
Stiff price for upgrade
During a recent British Airways flight from Delhi to Heathrow, a woman in her nineties died. As the rest of the airplane was full, the airline staff decided to upgrade her body from economy to first class. One passenger was made witness to a dead body propped up next to his seat, while the woman’s wailied in grief nearby. A BA spokesman said 10 out of 36 millionpassengers die in transit each year.
-K.H.
