DOWN AND DERBY Features, page 10
Region economy booming, report says
THE
Local, page 7
The tie that binds Wilfrid Laurier University since 1926 Volume 53, Issue 25
thecord.ca
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
BOD attendance hits low point
CBC comes to K-W
With two meetings remaining, directors already at 63 regrets on the year JUSTIN SMIRLIES NEWS DIRECTOR
Jon Pryce, the chair and chief governance officer for the Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union board, has a message for his directors: attend the board meetings. This year, the WLUSU board of directors has a total of about 63 regrets as opposed to roughly 37 last year. A regret is essentially an absence with enough notice from the director under the discretion of the chair. “Obviously, I’m concerned. We have to make sure we are present at board meetings and representing the students’ needs. However, conflicts do come up,” Pryce explained. Last Friday, Pryce had to cancel a scheduled board meeting because there weren’t enough directors to reach quorum, which the minimum amount of directors required to make decisions - ten of the 15 elected directors in the WLUSU board’s case. Only nine said they could have attended. A make-up meeting was held on Tuesday night. “I’m disappointed but everyone
“When push comes to shove, being at the board meeting is imperative.”
Local branch of CBC Radio officially launches News, page 3
—Jon Pryce, WLUSU chair and CGO
has their reason for not being able to make it to a meeting. I’ve made it very clear to which ones were considered regrets and which ones were considered absents,” he added. Of the regrets, midterms, exams, work, volunteering and co-op have all been used as reasons to miss a meeting. There have been 18 Campus, page 6
NICK LACHANCE PHOTOGRAPHY MANAGER
On Monday night, locals got a chance to tour CBC K-W’s newly opened studio and news room.
Online learning takes on global approach In a new approach to online education, professors around the globe start free teaching initiative JUSTIN SMIRLIES NEWS DIRECTOR
Imagine being in a classroom with students from the U.A.E., China, Mexico and various other countries around the globe learning about the same subject in an interactive fashion from the comfort of your home. And it’s free. Kevin Leyton-Brown, a professor at the University of British Columbia, has taught such a class with the
introduction of massively open online courses (MOOCs) at UBC. UBC, in conjunction with Coursera, an online course provider based in the United States, has opened up a few MOOCs, including Leyton-Brown’s course on game theory. Leyton-Brown’s course, however, is also taught with Matthew O. Jackson and Yoav Shoham from Stanford University. MOOCs have also been introduced at the University of Toronto (U of T) and McGill this past
year. “I’ve been kind of amazed about the breadth of reach that the courses have had,” said Leyton-Brown. “I have more students in Iceland, Kyrgyzstan, and the Palestinian territories than I teach here at UBC.” “They’re [MOOCs] reaching out to just far corners of the world, it’s really just amazing to me,” he added. The course that Leyton-Brown teaches employs the use of videos, discussion boards, interactive
projects and quizzes to assess and educate the students. If a student finishes the course from beginning to end, they will receive a signed certificate from the university. Credits, however, are not given for the completion of MOOCs. “Ultimately what you get out of it is that you get to learn from it. For most people taking the course, that’s what it seems they really want,” Leyton-Brown continued, adding
Inside Slow and steady wins the race
Starting strong
Study finds that only 45 per cent of university students earn their degree in four years
Laurier football team brings over 25 new recruits into the fold
National, page 9
Sports, page 18
Staging a comeback
Saying goodbye
Staff Writer Robin Daprato discusses the recent resurgence of the large-scale music festival
Why the classic “let’s just be friends” line may not be the best way to end a relationship
Arts, page 14
Life, page 13
that about 130,000 people enrolled in his class when it first opened last fall. “One thing that I’ve really learned for this is that different people are trying to get different things out of it.” The University of Toronto was the first university in Canada to set up an agreement with Coursera to National, page 9