Gaining overseas work experience while attending university may sound appealing, but some Dalhousie University international students say they’re having trouble completing this mandatory part of their school program because they can’t find a job here in Canada. Yuxi Tang is one of them. After months of fruitless job hunting, Tang is giving herself a few […]
Education
Posted inNews + Opinion
Precarious labour is exploiting university educators
University campuses across Nova Scotia are continuing to benefit from contract faculty who face high workloads, low job security and lower wages than tenured professors, leaving a mental health drain on this province’s educators. The common assumption is that contract professors, who Dalhousie Faculty Association president Darren Abramson calls “precarious academic staff,” are mostly graduate […]
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Wade Smith’s Afrocentric legacy
Andre Fenton barely made it to class in his first two years of high school. But the poet and activist eventually graduated with honours after finding inspiration in an Afrocentric literature course he took his senior year. “If it wasn’t for that class, I would not be doing spoken word poetry,” says Fenton. “It influenced […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Course evaluations underused by students
Every school is different. At Dalhousie, they’re SRIs—Student Ratings of Instruction. At Saint Mary’s, they’re ICEs—Instructor/Course Evaluations. Mount Saint Vincent is still old-school, using paper and pencil, while Dal switched to an online system six years ago (saving a million sheets of paper annually). But each university has the same goal: To get student feedback […]
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The 9 habits of highly effective professors
1. Simplify those lessonsAs a chemistry and mathematics student at Dalhousie, Connor Lamont’s classes are often very theory-heavy and difficult to grasp. So he likes professors who can simplify those lessons. “If a professor is able to liken it to a very understandable thing, then that makes it a lot easier to grasp the concepts,” […]
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Welcome to Harbourdale
Earlier this year, the television landscape felt bleak, rudderless without a good teen drama to act as guilty-pleasure viewing while we awaited the return of Serious Dramas like Twin Peaks and Game of Thrones. What a treat, then, when Riverdale landed on the scene—and wasn’t only a guilty pleasure, but a full-on feast in its […]
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Four research projects in Halifax worth knowing about
Jessica Bennett, Masters of engineering, Dalhousie UniversityFeminizing baby eels in farms in order to raise them locally and sell to global marketsLocal aquaculture research company NovaEel is teaming up with researchers at the Dalhousie Medical School to create “a competitive eel industry that is safe, sustainable and beneficial to the economy,” according to Jessica Bennett, […]
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Jade Brooks turns her trauma into teaching
When Jade Brooks was 15, she thought she met the love of her life. He wooed her, bought her gifts, took her on dates and told her that he was in love. Looking back now, she recognizes him as her trafficker—the man who manipulated her into moving from her home near Uniacke Square and selling […]
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P3 schools debacle, lessons not learned?
Last summer, my organization published an evaluation of the 39 P3 schools built in the late 1990s. We concluded that it was a failed experiment marred by cost overruns, massive private profits, mismanagement and an overarching lack of evidence-based decision-making (echoing the Auditor General). We recommended that the province take the discount rate (43 percent […]
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Truth, then reconciliation
Acknowledging we are on Mi’kmaw territory is planting the seed of reconciliation in Nova Scotia. Last week the Halifax Regional School Board voted to include an acknowledgement during morning announcements that schools sit on Mi’kmaw land, and in October the department of Education and Early Childhood Development will introduce treaty history into Nova Scotia’s education […]
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Goodbye Mr. Smith
In my high school years, there was always that one teacher I could count on, and that was Mr. (Wade) Smith. From keeping me on track to just giving me your ear when I needed to talk—but more importantly needed someone to listen—you were always there. You gave me guidance and support as a young […]
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Dalhousie takes another swing at replacing ceremonial mace
After its first effort fell short, Dalhousie University is once again asking the public to design a replacement for its ceremonial mace. The school is hoping to swap out its oak-carved graduation horcrux for a symbol that better reflects Dal’s diversity and values. A request for proposals issued this week is seeking submissions from the […]