INTRODUCTION On Monday afternoon, Dalhousie students protested the welcoming reception for incoming president Peter MacKinnon. As Tim noted on Tuesday, “The students are particularly riled over MacKinnon’s book, University Commons Divided: Exploring Debate & Dissent on Campus.” One of the serious issues students identified in their press release is MacKinnon’s declaration in the book that blackface […]
Dalhousie University is preparing to raise tuition, again
For the seventh year in a row, Dalhousie University plans to raise the tuition fees it charges students. The three per cent increase is the maximum the province allows universities to charge and still receive a one per cent increase in their annual operating grant from the government. An undergraduate science student (page 7) at Dalhousie […]
Hard conversations: Why was “fantastic principal” Lamar Eason suspended from his job?
“People don’t like to talk about race, culture, bias,” Bayview Community School principal Lamar Eason explains, adding elliptically: “Doing your job can lead to questioning the people employing you. Understandably, people get defensive. But [race relations officers] are not there just to support schools; we’re also there to support students and their families. There can be some hard conversations.”
Just as the school day was winding down on Monday, Nov. 5, 2018, the human resources director of the South Shore Regional Centre for Education (SSRCE) showed up, unannounced, at Mahone Bay’s Bayview Community School. Brian Bonia proceeded directly to the office of the school’s principal, Lamar Eason, where he delivered a copy of an […]
How to profit in cannabis gold rush: sell picks and shovels
“During a gold rush, there’s a lot of money to be made supplying the picks and shovels,” said Paul Pedersen. The 2006 Saint Mary’s University business graduate is talking about the stampede to produce and sell cannabis when it becomes legal two weeks from now. In just the last six months, $2.4 billion has been...
Rick Mehta: Acadia clarifies, commingles, confuses
The Mehta case isn't about free speech. And it's not the exercise of academic freedom. It is a professor in a position of power publicly bullying his own students for his amusement and the adulation of his followers. Reason enough to fire him. But...
Start with this. I am no longer conflicted about Acadia University’s decision to fire psychology professor Rick Mehta. The university had plenty of good reasons to dismiss him. On the other hand, I am still troubled by Acadia’s willingness to stir its own self-interest — “damaging the reputation of the institution” and the implicit notion...
梅塔里克:解雇犯罪或just offensive?
去年冬天,阿卡迪亚大学说这是investigating Mehta “for the manner in which you are expressing views that you are alleged to be advancing or supporting and, in some instances, time that you are spending on these issues in the classroom.” We need to parse that sentence. It appears the university says it was investigating Mehta, both for his personal views (freedom of speech) and also for what he was saying in his classroom. Did that violate his academic freedom?
I will confess I’m conflicted about the news Acadia University has fired Rick Mehta. On Friday, the university confirmed it had terminated the controversial psychology professor, effective August 31, but then refused to say why or “provide any elaboration” about what it called “a personnel matter.” Acadia also wouldn’t release the results of an investigation...
Werewolf, naloxone, and education: Nova Scotia addresses opioid deaths
According to folklore (and Wikipedia) a werewolf is a human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf-like creature after being placed under a curse or affliction. So “Werewolf” is the fitting title for Cape Breton director Ashley McKenzie’s much-acclaimed and gritty feature film about two young adults struggling to stay on methadone and break […]
Hijacking “reasoned debate” for right-wing noise at MSVU
In the middle of last week's MSVU discussion over who should teach a course on residential schools, a solemn-sounding group called the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship weighed in. It claims to promote “reasoned debate on issues of academic freedom and scholarship.” It does no such thing.
Mount Saint Vincent University grappled this month with a complex web of issues that will feel uncomfortably familiar to academics at plenty of other Canadian universities: how to (belatedly but quickly) increase the numbers of professors from traditionally under-represented Indigenous and other marginalized communities; how to (belatedly but quickly) add academically rigorous course offerings on...
Health Authority craps on healthy transportation
The Nova Scotia Health Authority sent a letter to Halifax council opposing the South Park Street bike lane.
The Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) has taken a surprise position on the expansion and improvement of the South Park Street bike lane: they’re against it. At least they are against the disruption to available on-street parking that it might cause. In a letter to city council dated March 5, 2018 (the day before council...
When ‘freedom of speech’ is a code, not a value
Making free speech the raw-meat main dish for the Conservative party’s right-wing base worked well enough for current federal leader Andrew Scheer. Will it do the same for wannabe Nova Scotia Tory leader John Lohr?
What is it about Tories seeking their party’s leadership and their seemingly painful need to gymnast-twist the once liberal value of freedom of speech for their own illiberal purposes? Last spring when he was running to become federal Conservative Party leader, Andrew Scheer threatened to cut off federal funding to any university that didn’t foster...
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