e ide: The Ins anslation in th r t Lost in E.R. Page 4
The Arts: Sounds of Sweet Honey Page 6
the newspaper The University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly
Since 1978
SAMANTHA CHIUSOLO
Op-Ed: How not to dr like a milli ess on bucks Page 3
VOL XXXIV Issue 18 • February 2, 2012
Students, faculty pressure province to slash tuition fees “Education is a right. We will not give up the fight,” chanted thousands of students, gathered at the University of Toronto King’s College Circle on Wednesday for the National Day of Action. That morning, students rallied outside Sidney Smith Hall calling for a reduction in tuition fees and a higher quality, more accessible post-secondary education. While this may seem an impossible feat to accomplish in a four-hour tour around campus, the University of Toronto Stu-
dent Union saw the National Day of Action as an opportunity “to get students questioning why they’re actually paying so much for education,” said UTSU VP External Shaun Shepherd. The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) has not organized a National Day of Action since 2007, but the government’s failure to provide a 30 per cent tuition reduction for all Ontario post-secondary students prompted UTSU to organize Wednesday’s event. “Students want their promises kept by the Liberal Party,” said Sandy Hudson, Chairperson
for the Ontario division of the CFS, “[they don’t want] a grant scheme that makes it seem like we were deceived in the election.” While eligible university students receive $1,600 back in tuition paid, two-thirds of Ontario’s post-secondary students, including part-time, international and graduate students, are excluded from the rebate. According to a report issued by the CFS, when accounting for inflation and population growth, cash transfer payments from the federal government to
see page 2
Firewalled gardens of academia
^^
Cara Sabatini
BODI BOLD
Rally at St. George campus demands more funds on National Day of Action
Students rally at King’s College circle. Jay Z would be proud...
Inside this issue...
The nebulous practices of convenient scholarship Andrew Walt What used to be an ivory tower has now become a “gated database,” according to a recent editorial for The Atlantic. The target is JSTOR, a company which digitizes scholarship for convenient use by universities and other such academic institutions, and its banner is “Free the Research!” The author of the piece, Laura McKenna, argues that JSTOR is a “stubborn tradition” which keeps the public from ever accessing its wealth of information with its reliance on archaic publisher relationships. “If academic journals skipped that needless step of providing
a print version of their journals, they could simply upload the papers to a website and take the publishers out of the process,” she writes. Admittedly, the established model for publishing scholarly material is not widely known and seldom considered, even by the academics responsible for them. “I’ve never really been obliged, or encouraged, to think the issue through,” said Michael Dewar, Professor of Latin Language and Literature at U of T. “As a member of the University’s faculty I am given access to what JSTOR has to offer free of charge. But, conversely, I have never been consulted about its
business model or its costs.” The price for producing scholarly journals is deceptively steep, with respect both to money and to manpower. Dewar, who spent ten years on the staff of Phoenix, a journal of Classical Studies based at Trinity College, was eventually offered the position of Editor, an opportunity which he declined. “There were several reasons for that decision, but an important one was [knowing] that taking on the job of Editor would mean yet more weekends and yet more evenings spent doing work that was usually tedious and, when not tedious, annoying, and
see page 2
Working out more space...
page 2