THE STUDENT MOVEMENT
Issue 6—Check out our website at www.tsmwindsor.ca
UWindsor Professor raises questions over Digital Journalism Program By Dr. James Winter
Cecil Houston, the Dean of Arts and Social Sciences began promoting the idea of a Digital Journalism program about 2 ½ years ago.
Initially, the Dean proposed that English and my department, Communication, Media & Film, (CMF) host the program. The two program heads responded that they would only consider it if new faculty were hired.
This was despite my own strong reservations. I hold undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism, and I’m perhaps the only full-time faculty member on campus to do so. When I was hired many moons ago, it was partly to supervise the journalism component of our CMF program. The following are some of my objections to a Digital Journalism program at the university:
1. Journalism programs are mostly about using public money train people to work for media conglomerates such as to Postmedia Network Inc., owners of The Windsor Star. Do we really want to train journalists so we can save money for the wealthy families which own these media conglomerates, such as the Thomsons, Rogers, Demarais’ or Peladeaus? How will such a program merge with our central offerings, which emphasize communications and social justice? 2. There are no jobs out there. These conglomerates are firing rather than hiring journalists right now. For example, U.S. daily newspapers have lost 13,500 newsroom jobs since 2007, according to The American Society of News Editors, which conducts an annual census of newsrooms. Continued on next page.
November 18th, 2010
By Vajo Stafic
TSM calls on students and profs to write in and share their views By the Editorial Committee
The Student Movement has received a number of submissions regarding the newly proposed program focus for the Media, Film and Communications Department. The letters show that students and faculty are very concerned about the direction of their programs. The most recent letter—by Dr. Winter, a senior professor in the department—reveals that the new program does not appear to be coming from the student body and faculty, but in fact is a direction being promoted by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Cecil Houston. The new direction is coming from above, rather than from the needs, interests and desires of the students in the program and the faculty. Our view is that there should be a forum or mechanism through which the students in this department and all others can participate fully in deciding what happens in their programs. We are aware that programs have their own departmental councils; however, if the departmental councils are only able to discuss an agenda set by administrators, and the agenda does not come from the students and faculty who are on the ground, then it will not actually be empowering. In fact it will be the opposite. Students in the Communication, Media & Film department and other departments should empower themselves by taking the lead and organizing to discuss this new direction for the program. Through this discussion we have no doubt that students and faculty will come up with proposals and directions which are in their and the community’s best interests. This discussion could also include students from a similar program at St. Clair College so as to oppose the divisive atmosphere being created between our campus and theirs. What do you think? Write in at movement@tsmwindsor.ca The Student Movement
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A talk by Yves Engler
The Right did wrong—how Stephen Harper’s government destroyed Canada’s reputation as an honest broker and lost a seat at the UN Security Council
December 1, 2010, 7pm McPherson Room, Alumni Hall Yves Engler is the author of The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy and Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid Continued from Digital Journalism. In Canada, during one three-month period in 2009 alone, news companies slashed 1,200 full time jobs. 3. St. Clair College has invested heavily in journalism education, including $5 million spent on renovated downtown facilities at the new MediaPlex, which opened this fall. Teaming up with them to offer university studies on top of their training is a better plan than competing with them. 4. Our own university facilities are stressed. Lost faculty and retirees will not be replaced. With fewer faculty, we’ve still extended our film studies area, and added a Master of Fine Arts program, jointly with the Visual Arts department. For 30 years we have capped enrolment in our journalism writing course at 40 students, owing to limited facilities. 5. In my understanding, the current plan calls for no new hires to the university. Instead, the Dean plans to hire a number of part time, sessional instructors to offer many courses. 6. Since this violates the program heads’ conditions, the Dean has placed this program directly under his own office so department approval is not required. 7. Dean Cecil Houston has designed an end-run around CMF, the longstanding home of journalism studies, by linking to English and Political Science. Other than a few courses taught by The Windsor Star’s Marty Gervais, the English department’s strength is creative writing, which is not journalism. Political Science appears to be connected to journalism only through one sessional instructor there, who used to be a CBC TV reporter. Dean Cecil Houston’s plan to install a quick-and-dirty program to attract students with false promises of jobs, and part-time instructors is reprehensible, no matter how desperate he is for more students. Dr. Winter is a professor in Dept. of Communication, Media & Film at the University of Windsor and a member of the University Senate 2
The Student Movement
U of W Looks to U.S. E-mail Providers Instead of Canadian Solution By Darryl Gallinger
The University of Windsor is looking at American services such as Google Apps for Education or Microsoft Live @ EDU in order to provide more storage space, access to webbased applications, friendlier use with mobile devices and easier methods to work together in a team environment. The university’s current web application is internally hosted via Communigate Pro. At the Student Computing Committee, committee members recognized that pay stubs, course confirmations and other sensitive information may be currently emailed through UWindsor servers. In considering a change in service providers, the university recognizes that they need to examine “privacy concerns with respect to internal email traffic on the Internet,” according to the notes for this project.
The university’s IT services will be investigating whether or not the U.S. will control or own the data if an American service provider is used.
A few years ago, the British Columbian government and student leaders raised similar concerns when Canadian companies were sold to American companies, putting Canadian citizens’ data at risk to seizure by the American government. They were concerned by the new surveillance powers granted by the USA PATRIOT Act. An investigation by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner eventually concluded that the USA PATRIOT Act would be the last tool used by the government, finding that Canadians’ data was vulnerable to ordinary search warrants from the U.S.
Despite the potential pitfalls, the university is pursuing this because “other universities are moving which may give them an advantage in service delivery,” such as Wilfrid Laurier which recently adopted Google Apps for Education. Discussion about this by the TSM Editorial Committee led to an important question: Why isn’t the UofW pursuing a Canadian service provider? It’s possible that one doesn’t exist to meet the needs of universities. If that’s the case, perhaps the Canadian government should facilitate the creation of such a service to provide students with security and privacy.
Fair Trade? Social Advocacy?
Overseas Volunteer Opportunities?! Engineers Without Borders Windsor
Has all these and more! Weekly meetings in the CAW on Thursday, 7pm Not Just for Engineers! But anyone who wants this world to be a better place For Volunteer Information, or just to find out about us contact Stanley Moll at: Stanmoll@ewb.ca Or check out www.ewb.ca
Editorial: People will never be silenced By Ian Clough
In a country that encourages people to be a-political and where many consider voting to be the end of their democratic participation, going to a protest and raising your voice is one of the most empowering things you can do. Under threat of rubber bullets, tear gas, and sound cannons, a staggering 35,000 people marched in the streets of Toronto to protest the G20. That weekend in June, the Canadian government failed to stop thousands of politically-active Canadians from raising their voice and exercising free speech. We didn’t falter. Even after the largest peace-time mass arrest in Canadian history, thousands of people protested police actions for a week following the summit. Protests broke out in cities across the country, including Windsor. This is not old news. There are still almost a hundred people whose charges have not been dropped. The people with the most serious charges were arrested at gunpoint the night of June 25th—the night before the vandalism and the labour march even happened. Their bail conditions prevent them from speaking publically about political issues on the threat of arrest.
On November 10th, I drove to Toronto to participate in the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s (CCLA) public hearings on the police violence during the demonstrations. On behalf of the Drop Fees Coalition, I gave a statement about the police violence we witnessed and I listened to others’ stories. The hearings were held to raise awareness of the police violence and to hold all levels of government accountable. Even now, people continue to resist the violation of our rights.
Bill 68 and its Attack on Workers By Zach Gerard
Sandra Pupatello, Windsor’s own MPP, has recently put forward Bill 68 (now on its second reading) compromising our very protection under the Employment Standards Act (ESA) in favour of exploitative employers and saving money on enforcement.
Under Schedule 9 of Bill 68, any worker who wishes to file a complaint with the Ministry of Labour regarding an employer’s ESA violation, must first inform and file paperwork with their offending employer. This bill will force workers to personally approach their employers over Toronto Jail Solidarity Rally, June 28th violations, even when Photo by Lauren Quinn they are reluctant for fear of retribution, punishment or blacklisting. Continued on last page.
Want to get involved with TSM? Email us at: movement@tsmwindsor.ca
Drop Fees is definitely not Drop CFS By the Editorial Committee
For those who are confused about the two groups on campus, we’d like to provide clarification: the Drop Fees Coalition (DFC) is a grassroots, campus organization that organizes students to affirm and defend high-quality, affordable education and democracy on campus; the Drop CFS group is not affiliated or connected to us in any way. Some people petitioning for Drop CFS have claimed to be members of the DFC: no DFC member past or present is a part of Drop CFS.
The Student Movement
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Landscape of Work Changing for Ontario Students: Do You Know Your Rights? By Zach Gerard
Photo by Chelsie Macllwain
We Walk for More: GuluWalk 2010 By Kate Murray
On Saturday, October 23rd, sixty members of the Windsor community walked peacefully in solidarity with 40,000 children in Northern Uganda. Night commuting (walking by foot in the night) from the outskirts of rural, internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps to the urban centre of Gulu, Northern Uganda developed during a 22-year civil war between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). When the native Acholi people were displaced from their homes due to violence, IDP camps were deemed by the Ugandan government to be safer living spaces. Life in the camps was squalid, disease spread quickly, and children were perpetually at risk of being abducted by the LRA. To avoid being abducted, 40,000 children would walk from the camps to urban safe centres to spend the night. In 2005, when two men from Toronto heard about the plight of the Acholi children, they felt compelled to take action and make a month-long nightly commute in solidarity. Since then, the GuluWalk movement has erupted in over 100 cities in 16 different countries around the world.
The 4 annual GuluWalk Windsor took walkers from the University of Windsor campus to city hall square for a peaceful concert and back. The Windsor walk was able to raise over $2,100 for youth programming and the construction of youth centres in Gulu; an essential component of the rehabilitation process for individual children as well as for the community as a whole. Beyond this, the sixty participants marching together in solidarity symbolized the importance of mobilizing our own community. We proved that the power of solidarity can create change, growth, and sustainability both at home and in our sister-communities abroad. th
Kate Murray is the Windsor 2010 GuluWalk Coordinator. For more information on GuluWalk, visit www.guluwalk.com. To make a donation, please contact Kate Murray at murray1d@ uwindsor.ca
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The Student Movement
Photo by Chelsie Macllwain
As tuition rates soar (4% each year since 2007) students are struggling more than ever to find work to finance their degrees. The financial burden of tuition, combined with a job market shrinking under the weight of a depressed economy, is forcing students into exploitative and precarious work situations. To make this a triple-threat, the Employment Standards Act, a set of laws supposed to protect Ontario’s workers, is becoming less relevant, poorly enforced and increasingly compromised by neoliberal legislation
In today’s competitive job market, students are finding that a bachelor’s degree is no longer sufficient to find employment in their preferred fields. This causes students to continue their post-secondary education for an extended period of time, forcing them to work part-time for an ever-increasing amount of their early adult lives. Many university and college students work in the retail and fast food business, a precarious sector in which turn-over rates are high and job security is low.
Increasingly, temporary and part-time workers are struggling to recover termination or severance pay when they are laid off or their workplaces become bankrupt or insolvent, a situation that we are now seeing more of during the economic crisis. In 2008/09 alone, over 48 million dollars backlogged in termination and severance pay Employment Standards claims have not been paid to workers. Harsher penalties for violating the Employment Service Act (ESA) need to be put into place in order to deter employers from breaking the law, thereby protecting our workers. As it currently stands, employers offending for the first time are only fined $295 (hardly a dent in the profit margin of your local McDonalds), plus relatively low applicable costs and victim fine surcharges. This pathetic punishment for the injustice done to workers is hardly deterrent and undermines the purpose of the ESA in protecting workers from exploitation.
Continued from Bill 68
Picture for a moment being forced to track down, confront and prosecute a person who has just burglarized your home: this is effectively what workers are being asked to do. Bill 68 requires workers to take on the role of the expert in their own claim with little to no guidance. New Canadians and racialized individuals with literary and language challenges will be left especially vulnerable and thus more likely to avoid confrontation. Also, students as young workers are typically unaware of their rights and are often uninformed to the procedures of making a claim.
Employers are increasingly taking advantage of student workers. Legislation supposed to protect workers is being compromised and enforcement of the Employment Standards Act is abysmal. We as students are struggling enough with rising tuition fees: we don’t need to be exploited again in our attempt to earn money to pay for them!