University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario volume 16, number 19 friday, October 24, 1975
Inside The Waterloo Farmers Market is a lively place to buy fresh farm produce. The market, at the north extension of ?ber Street beyond lakeshore viliage, is bpen on Saiurdays from 7.40 am to about 2 pm. Apple butter, fresh picked fruit and vegetables, home cooking and much more that is good for you are sold with photo by neil docherty lfts and assorted items at the Market on Saturday mornings.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p.3 Wages for housework Rape law proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p.5 evils of university education . . . .pp. I#- I5 Starvation in Cambodia . . . . . . . . . . . .p.26
conditions
class Crowded conditions on campus ty force UW to hold classes on turdays and rent space in the :al community, university presint Burt Matthews said WednesY* This rental space will be for lec-es and research facilities, and 11also solve the accommodation oblem of the Faculty of Human netics and Leisure Studies, atthews said. Another possibility is to hedule classes on Saturday but
government
Matthews said he’s not “actively pursuing it yet. ” Nevertheless, the holding of classes on weekends “remains in the realm of possibilities since there aren’t any others,” he ,added. However, for this year the space limitation question “eased” itself as the registrar’s office (which is responsible for scheduling classes) has managed to find locations for all lectures, Matthews said. “Whether this situation will continue next year we just don’t
know,” Matthews said. Enrolment is expected to increase 3.5 per cent next year. Matthews also said there’s little “likelihood of the government giving any funds for capital expansion.” Even if more funds were provided, the space limitation problem could not be solved in the short term. He said the closing of the Center for Continuing Management Education this year provided one more classroom for university use.
The holding of classes on Saturday arose at Monday’s UW senate meeting when the possibility was suggested in response to a professor’s complaint about crowded conditions encouraging students to cheat on exams. Chemistry professor Don Irish told senate that students have complained of being unfairly appraised during mid-term exams because of cheating by some. There are two kinds of cheating-the cold blooded kind
saw
rio. universities n The ministry of colleges and unirsities criticized Monday a study rich says Ontario universities are derfunded and have been “unstly” treated by the province er the last four years. The study,’ conducted by the luncil of Ontario Universities OU), showed that the province s consistently funded univeries, on a per student basis, below 2 national average and “at a submtially lower rate than British aumbia and Alberta.” Ontario was sixth in Canada for e three years examined and the ldy says that preliminary data for 74-75, the university year just mpleted) indic’ate a deteriorating sition for Ontario, “falling even rther behind the national erage . . .” Assistant deputy minister, Ben ilson told the chevron that while e. figures showing Ontario as ing sixth in Canada are “numerilly quite correct ,” the study done r COU researcher, professor Anany @annelli, is unfair because it lesn’t consider the equalization yments made by Ontario to other evinces, nor Ontario’s student an policy. Ontario’s per student spending r 197 l-74, the years covered by
the study, was sixth, behind British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec. What the study may have overlooked is that Ontario pays equalization payments, especially to the Maritime provinces, and this money may go for their university support, Wilson said. Wilson also criticized the study because it emphasizes dollars spent and doesn’t sufficiently consider the number of students going through the system. While Ontario has 35 per cent of Canada’s population, it educates 44.6 per cent of the undergraduate and graduate students at its universi ties. British Columbia, with the highstudent operating est per grants-$3,382 for each student compared to Ontario’s $2,773 for f973-74-has 10.5 per cent of Canada’s population but educates only 8.3 per cent of Canadian students at its universities. Another point not touched by the study is the grants Ontario is pouring into student loans after an $800 loan, while other provinces don’t put in grant money until after the federal government’s $1,800 loan, Wilson said. “It’s an interesting piece of
underfunded
numbers (the COU study) that doesn’t tell the whole story,” he said. Wilson added that though the numbers are correct, the interpretation given may not be right. “ The numbers put this way come as no surprise to us.” The study says the province has been deceiving the public when it asks universities to curtail spending under the premise that they are being overfunded, since in reality Ontario universities have a much lower per student grant than other provincial universities. “The results of this study do not substantiate the contention that Ontario universities have been relatively over-funded. The opposite is the case when looking at per student contributions, especially when one recognizes that Ontario universities educate a disproportionally large share of graduate students .” Ontario spent $340,997 million on university operating revenue in 1971-72, $372,032 million in 1972-73 and $444,538 million in 1973-74. Though this was almost double what any other university system in the nine provinces had spent, on a per student basis, it ranked sixth in each year.
In order to match the national average during the 1971-74 period, Ontario would have had to contribute an additional $93 million the study suggests . UW finance vice-president, Bruce Gellatly said Monday that the study accomplishes what “we’ve been trying to get across for some time, that funding has declined for the university system.” The study also shows that there has been a “significant decrease in priorities” on the part of the province with regard to postsecondary education since the late 1960s) Gellatly said. “The public has been led to believe, rightly or wrongly, that the universities now have to cut their budgets ,’ ’ when in reality they have been “steadily squeezed for the last five years,” he said. UW, for instance, has endured a significant drop in provincial support over the past few years, while student enrolment has gone up by 18 per cent during the same time span, Gellatly said. Since the hiring of new professors has been kept down to a tight 2.6 per cent for the past five years, the class sizes have increased considerably. -john
morris
and the circumstantial, the latter caused by space limitations, Irish said. These problems are overlooked because the ministry of colleges and universities produces statistics saying that a professor teaches an average 13.7 students per class, he said. Irish said he has two classes of 120 students-a ratio of 240 to one as far as he cares. He was advised by Matthews that he should attempt to book the Village II dining hall for tests, but was warned that he would have to book well in advance to be guaranteed a date. Irish said that booking the Village II exam room for a test would limit the time from the normal 50 minutes to 30 minutes because of the time required to walk there. It was student senator Andy Telegdi who suggested that Saturday classes would be the only solution to solve the space limitation problem. Telegdi asked senate to strike a committee to look into the feasability of such a proposal. Telegdi’s idea was taken up by Matthews who said “we’ve just gone to the limit on the ordinary day-8:30 a.m. to lo:30 p.m. We don’t have any options except Saturday classes .” Matthews said Queen’s University, in Kingston, holds Saturday classes for full-time students. But Federation of Students president John Shortall objected to the idea saying that it should be a “last ditch” option. He said some students might be inconvenienced due to religious reasons. Matthews said Saturday classes at universities are not a new thing-“ not long ago” he endured them. “It’s not so long ago there wasn’t a minimum wage, but that doesn’t mean we should go back,” Shortall rep1 ied,