By Jennifer Polk. I wondered, after my anger subsided, whether I am doing the same thing. Am I waiting and hoping that my business would prove sustainable in the long term? The short answer is “yes, maybe,” but the longer answer is that I am aware that this may not happen. I am aware that my “dream job” is but one manifestation of a life well lived. There are others. I am seeking them out. More...

By Kane X. Faucher. Most universities have a certified bargaining unit for faculty that may include contract faculty. When a university’s faculty association doesn’t represent part-timers, there usually is a separate bargaining unit that does. For those institutions where contract faculty have no union representation, the road to certification can take a very long time, and it involves mobilizing other contract faculty. More...

By David Kent. Last week, Rick Mercer went on a rant about science – about how impressive it is that scientists managed to land on a comet half a billion kilometres away, about how the current Canadian government fails to support “pure science,” and how the Canadian public is “as passionate and curious as anyone else.” While I would agree that the comet landing is neat and that there have been governments that were more supportive, I’m not so convinced by the (lovely!) idea that the Canadian public loves science. More...

By Léo Charbonneau. The Canadian Bureau for International Education released its annual report last Friday on the state of international education in Canada, entitled A World of Learning: Canada’s Performance and Potential in International Education. At first glance, Canada seems to be making the right moves in terms of attracting international students: according to the report, in 2013 there were nearly 300,000 international students in Canada, at all levels of study, an 84 percent increase over the last decade and an 11 percent increase over the previous year. This makes Canada the seventh most popular destination country for “internationally mobile” students. More...

By Alan Maceachern. As I recently read through external reviewers’ reports of a submission to a book series I edit, my horror mounted. A reviewer, exhausted after three pages of scathing prose, had resorted to quoting sentences from the manuscript and appending mocking asides. A quote, and then “(Yawn).” A quote, and then “(Giggle, perhaps!)” More...

By Brett Fairbairn. When I became a faculty member a generation ago, change in the academy was on my mind. The changes that concerned me were the inclusion of new perspectives and methodologies – in my case, social history – as well as more gender balance in the faculty and more engagement with communities. None of those challenges is gone, and at the same time there are new ones. Where issues 30 years ago were about the impact of mass access and associated expectations of diversity and societal outcomes, issues today increasingly also relate to long-term resource constraints. More...

The government made public for the first time this week the details of the ranking system it will use to give skilled immigrants express entry into Canada within six months, starting Jan.1.
A total of 1,200 points will be allotted under the new system, but there's no minimum points level required to qualify. Only the "highest-ranking" candidates will be "invited to apply" for permanent residency. More...

By William Watson. University degrees pay off for students – most of them female – and the debt levels aren’t worrisome.
When do you suppose universities will change the name of the first degree they offer from “bachelor’s” to “bachelorette’s”? Statistics Canada’s National Graduates Survey, which every so often catches up on recent university graduates, is out this week and it shows that 61% of the 196,700 (generally) young people who got a bachelor’s degree in 2010 were female. More...