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"The Judiciary's Distinctive Role in our Constitutional Democracy" by Beverley McLachlin In a speech to the Canadian Club of Toronto in June, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada made a spirited defence of the judicial branch’s role as independent arbiter in interpreting the Constitution, a task that has attracted much more attention since the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. The issue of samesex marriage, now before the Supreme Court, once more raises the question of whether the courts are interpreting the law before Parliament can even debate it. Chief Justice McLachlin vigorously dissents from this view. "Looking Down the Road by the Numbers: Challenges to Universities in the Next 10 Years" by Robert J. Giroux Canada’s universities face a host of daunting challenges over the next decade, from growth spurts in enrolment to replacing retiring faculty, from global competitiveness in R&D to the ever present issues of financing and infrastructure. The numbers in every area speak eloquently of the challenges confronting Canada’s university network, writes the president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. Enrolment will increase by 30 percent over the next decade to nearly 1 million undergraduate, graduate and full time equivalent (FTE) students. In the face of growing enrolment, the university system must hire 40,000 new faculty — more than the entire current university teaching staff — to replace retiring academics and maintain student-teacher ratios at current levels. And while universities conduct one-third of the country’s R&D, Ottawa’s goal of becoming fifth in the world is a long way from Canada’s current 14th place standing in the OECD. Finally, universities will need billions more dollars to meet their capital and operational requirements in this context of growth. "Canada's Universities: Quantitative Success, Qualitative Concerns" by Bernard Shapiro The development of Canada’s university network is one of the miracles of Canadian society over the last century, observes Bernard Shapiro, former principal of McGill, who guided one of Canada’s pre-eminent large universities through the turbulence of the 1990s into the challenges of the new century. He is concerned that for all their success, modern universities are becoming “a kind of social mobility ladder” and could lose sight of their vocation as a community of scholarship. He also reminds scholars — faculty and students — that their endeavours would not be possible without infrastructure and the support staff, who don’t receive sufficient recognition as members of the university community. He also notes that recent federal funding for universities has focused on the sciences, to the virtual exclusion of the humanities. In all, some grounds for concern in a Canadian mosaic of success. "Engagement and Understanding - The Path to the Century of Students" by Martha C. Piper The lessons of citizenship, engagement, cultural understanding and environmental sensitivity are often learned between classes in the activities supported by student services, whose professionals not only provide administrative support but are also indispensable educators in their own right. When the University of British Columbia hosted the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services last June, UBC President Martha Piper gave a keynote address that fell on receptive ears. She suggested a number of contemporary challenges, “to get students involved beyond themselves” as tomorrow’s leaders of civil society. The objective, she suggests, is nothing less than to make the 21st century “the century of students.” "Developing Human Capital in Higher Education: The 21st Century Paradigm Shift" by Robert A. Gordon The ability to create knowledge and develop human capital is a critical socioeconomic challenge for Canada’s higher education system in the first decade of the 21st century. Colleges and universities are Canada’s primary knowledge centres, and as the president of Humber College observes, they face a paradigm shift. Quite aside from operational issues and funding challenges, the clientele of Canadian higher education will be increasingly diverse and demanding. With a home base and a Web base, students will demand more flexibility in curriculum, even as it tailored to their personal specifications. More new professors will be required in the next decade than are now teaching in Canadian universities. "Funding Flows by Two Functions - Teaching and Research" by Arthur Sweetman Teaching and research are viewed as both complementary and distinct roles of universities. In Canada, they are essentially funded on different bases, with teaching money coming from the provinces in their constitutional jurisdiction of education, while research funding mostly comes from the federal government. In terms of the separate funding streams, it is obvious that governments should fund teachers through institutions, but the debate arises over whether to fund research through individuals or institutions. Adopting the American model would see Canada funding individual researchers, while adhering to the British model would see more funding of research through institutions. Arthur Sweetman examines those two models and concludes the British one comes closer to fulfilling the needs of research in Canada. "Aligning Universities for Success - Turning out Graduates Who Get Good Jobs" by Gwyn Morgan Canadians should not take their success in post-secondary education for granted. Indeed, there is much about the university network that needs to be subjected to rigourous scrutiny, suggests the CEO of EnCana, a leading Canadian energy company. Applying the results-oriented rules of the marketplace may not be realistic in the collegial atmosphere of a university, yet the vocational institutes do just that in their accountability reports. They are also measured, as universities should be, by the ability of their graduates to find good jobs. Universities need to allocate more of their resources to “turning out graduates who can get jobs,” suggests Gwyn Morgan. Faculty at large universities often spend as much or more of their time on research as in teaching, and universities need to do a better job of evaluating the undergraduate teaching experience. In evaluating their missions, universities should strive for alignment — a commonality of vision, intent, action and accountability. "Dubya: He's no Moron, He's an MBA" by John S. McCallum George W. Bush is the first MBA (Harvard) to serve as president of the United States. In an age of increasing specialization in business studies, he’s unlikely to be the last. Is an MBA degree a good foundation for becoming leader of a country such as Canada or the United States? In some ways, yes, suggests John McCallum of the Asper School of Business at University of Manitoba. MBAs are trained to think of the big picture, to delegate, to define objectives and measure results. MBA thinking, he writes, “is neither rigid nor narrow, but pushes problem solving and decision making through a value-added prism.” But an MBA does not prepare one for what the first George Bush famously called “the vision thing,” and corporate vision is not the kind of vision a leader needs to focus a country. The bottom line: two years well spent, no matter what an MBA does down the road. "Canadian Philanthropy in Education: From Bricks to Brain Cells" by Hilary Pearson Canadian foundations continue to play an important role in funding Canada’s university network — education is the largest single recipient of philanthropy in the country. But the role of foundations is evolving from bricks to brain cells, writes Hilary Pearson, President of Philanthropic Foundations Canada. Where foundations were once satisfied to have a donor’s name on a university building, they increasingly want to know, and have a say in, what’s going on inside. The role of foundations as a catalyst of ideas is only just beginning in Canada, she observes. Foundations are also increasingly results-oriented, active stakeholders rather than passive investors in higher education. "Tuition Fees: Getting What You Pay For or Getting Your Money's Worth" by Richard W. Pound Education being a provincial jurisdiction, public policy on tuition fees and the fair share of education to be borne by students is as varied as the country itself. The Chancellor of McGill University notes that tuition fees there in the 1960s, adjusted for inflation alone, would be $4,362 today, nearly three times Quebec’s currently frozen tuition fees of $1,668, and essentially the present cost of tuition in Ontario. Whatever the cost of a university education, whatever the mix of public funding and private endowment, there needs to be a discussion of the appropriate share to be paid by students across Canada. Otherwise, suggests Richard Pound, they will eventually get what they pay for — a second-class rather than a world-class education. "Linkages in North American Postsecondary Education: Comparing Canadian and US Institutions" by Edward B. Harvey and Richard Liu It is vital that Canada, the US and Mexico create linkages between universities and community colleges. Trade liberalization combined with rapid growth in the knowledge-based economy has put pressure on the need for skilled workers across the trade area. But surveys show clearly that Canadian higher education institutions lag behind their US counterparts in the number of North American linkage activities. More troubling is that Canadian community colleges almost invariably lag behind Canadian universities in North American linkage development activities. North American integration is moving ahead rapidly and institutions of higher education play a strategic role. Canadian institutions could be doing more. "A New Architecture for the Canadian Student Financial Aid System" by Ross Finnie Equal opportunity of access to higher education should be a goal of an enlightened society. Unfortunately, student aid programs aren’t leveraging that objective, writes Ross Finnie of Queen’s University, even with all the aid programs and scholarships available in the university system. He proposes a reform of student aid that would take into account costs, the ability of students and their families to pay, and their resulting fair share of costs and appropriate subsidy. The resulting difference between costs and resources available would then be declared a student’s financial need, and would comprise the amount of student aid. "More Money? Not for this Prof, Thanks" by William Watson [summary not available] "Genome Diplomacy: Canada's Crucial Role" by Abdallah S. Daar, Elizabeth Dowdeswell and Peter A. Singer The most recent developments in science and technology, in genomics and related biotechnology in particular, hold the promise of significantly improving the health of nations as well as their wealth. Unfortunately, their potential also gives rise to struggles to control them, and there is a real risk, warn the authors, of creating another technological divide that would benefit only the most developed countries. For both ethical and self-interested motives, Canada should take the lead to ensure developing countries also benefit from this scientific revolution. “By continuing along the path set by visionary leaders of the past, Canada could well become the world’s premier genome diplomat,” they say. By building on its assets, and by linking its foreign policy to its domestic science and technology innovation agenda, Canada could position itself as a serious international player in genomics to help address global health inequities, while reinforcing its weakened role in world affairs and benefiting economically from a market of 6 billion consumers. Book Excerpt: Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963-68 by Greg Donaghy The Pearson years, 1963 to 1968, were a period when Canada grew closer to the United States on economics (the Auto Pact), even as Ottawa carefully took its distance from Washington on foreign and defence policy (the Vietnam War). Maintaining this delicate balancing act, while maintaining the peace between the pragmatic and nationalist wings of his own Liberal Party, was Canada’s 14th prime minister. Lester B. Pearson’s principled pragmatism was often put to the test in the conduct of relations with President Lyndon B. Johnson, the towering Texas politician who succeeded John F. Kennedy in 1963. The Pearson-LBJ relationship, and the underlying issues that defined it, are explored in this exclusive excerpt from Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963-68, a revealing examination of one of the most important eras in Canada-US relations. Book Review: Michael Hart reviews Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963-68 by Greg Donaghy [summary not available] "Foreign Policy and the Culture of Complaint" by Phil Ryan [summary not available] "Information Still Wants to be Free" by Joseph Heath [summary not available] |
