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- Clarions, not crickets! Who will defend academic freedom at the University of Alberta? (Guest post by Laurie Adkin)
- AASUA: Don’t give up your rights! (Bylaw amendments)
- In which the University of Alberta forgets that it has faculty
- Acting Like the House is on Fire (Guest Post by Laurie Adkin)
- “Evolving” to what? The Plans for the Humanities Centre and the Future of the University of Alberta
- Just How Broken is Collegial Governance at the University of Alberta? Part III: Step One in Restoring GFC’s Authority
- Just How Broken is Collegial Governance at the University of Alberta? Part II: The University Secretary and “GCUS”
- Just How Broken is Collegial Governance at the University of Alberta? Part I: Cutting of “Academic Leaders”
- Selling the Ring Houses, A Faustian Bargain (Guest Post by Laurie Adkin, Political Science)
- Wear Black Friday (Guest post by Cole Rockarts, NASA)
- It’s Time to Show Moral Leadership and Save Lives (Guest post by John Church, Political Science)
- The Clock is Ticking Down, Decisive Action Needed to Ensure Health and Safety of University of Alberta Community this Fall
- Alberta 2030: A Yoke for the University (Guest post by Marc Schroeder, Mount Royal/University of Calgary)
- The Metric That Matters Most: Faculty Complement and the University of Alberta’s Department of English & Film Studies
- Notes From and For the Frontlines of Academic Restructuring (Guest Post by Heather Young-Leslie, Senior Advisor, Research Development; Adjunct Professor, Anthropology)
- The Single Worst Thing That Happened at the University of Alberta Board of Governors Meeting on Friday (11Dec2020)
- What’s at stake at the University of Alberta General Faculties Council on Monday (7 December 2020)
- RePublicU to host student panels about University restructuring
- UAlberta Faculty of Arts & Science
- Accounting Questions (Guest post by Laurie Adkin, Political Science)
- Some Thoughts on the Australian Restructuring Experience (Guest Post by Fiona Nicoll, Political Science)
- Can the University of Alberta avoid the fate of Australian universities? (A blog post in 55 tweets)
- Uplift the Whole People? Or Cut Them Down to Size? (Guest Post by Kathleen Lowrey, Anthropology)
- Clearing Our Campuses: “Remote” Instruction and the Kenney Government’s Savage Cuts to the University of Alberta
- Fiscal Destruction: Kenney Government Wages War on Alberta’s Universities and Colleges
- Letter to Student Union President re Dougal MacDonald
- Dougal MacDonald: The Holodomor and Free Speech
- Petition to Replace Tri-Council Canadian Common CV
Two stories in January 16, 2012 Edmonton Journal (both by Sheila Pratt, bless her):
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/faces+staff+cuts+larger+classes/6001362/story.html
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/arts+faculty+getting+short+stick/6001371/story.html
The cuts are “modest” and “there is pain everywhere”–in the same interview. They aren’t modest, Indira, for the women losing their jobs.
“Modest cuts at U of A won’t impact students, President says,”
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Modest+cuts+impact+students+president+says/6010880/story.html
Edmonton Journal January 17, 2012, story by Sheila Pratt
Here’s one comment as posted on the Edmonton Journal site by “vatera”:
vatera
10:20 PM on 1/17/2012
Modest? Modest? Dr. Samarasekera needs to get up to speed, with all due respect, on the extent of the cuts suffered at the U in recent years–especially in the Arts Faculty. And perhaps she could try to put herself in the shoes of support staff who are waiting for the axe to fall on their jobs in a few weeks. As for students, I guess she isn’t hearing what the SU President is saying about the use of non-tuition fees to get around tuition fee caps. Or what the grad students in Arts are saying–quite publicly–about how the cuts will affect them. “It must be difficult”? You’re just taking a wild guess, are you, President? This really sounds like the 1 per cent speaking to the 99 per cent.
Comment from a reader in response to January 16th 2012 story in Ed Jo on cuts to the Faculty of Arts:
Article Title: Is arts faculty getting short end of the stick at U of A?
Link to Article: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/arts+faculty+getting+short+stick/6001371/story.html
Link to Comment: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/arts+faculty+getting+short+stick/6001371/story.html?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:8210f330-2600-4938-b746-a1194127450d
The late Steve Jobs provided a hint to these not sure of the value of arts in college. In 1972 Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland. The college requires every freshman to take humanities program. Jobs’ academic life was short lived but he took a calligraphy class because “… It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.”
Comment from reader of Sheila Pratt’s January 16, 2012 article:
LYFK
6:03 PM on 1/17/2012
As a graduate of both Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design (Applied Arts), I have a unique perspective on the situation and I am deeply saddened by the lack of funding for the Arts, and am reminded of that sadness every time the University calls me for a donation…
A somewhat heavily edited version of my letter was published in the January 21st, 2012 print edition of the Edmonton Journal:
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/University+cuts+modest/6031457/story.html