Globe Graduate Studies section for MBAs only

For a moment I was excited to see the Globe and Mail has added a "Graduate Strudies" section to their education report.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/graduatestudies/

However, a quick review shows that virtually every story is about MBA students -- ony 6 of 43 posts thus far are about a subject other than MBA programs. And even the 6 non-MBA stories were often more general interest than graduate studies (ie. scandal related to a speech at convocation, kids visit a lab, etc).

It is too bad because there are lots of interesting things to consider about graduate school -- changes to research funding, corporate involvement on granting council boards, research facilities in various universities, the changing demographic of graduate school. Even graduate student unions occasionally do something interesting!

So, if you are an MBA student, I encourage you to have a look.. there is some interesting stuff there. Otherwise, unfortunately, not so much.

2008 Federal Budget through a grad student lense

Here are some 2008 Federal Budget key points for graduate students:

Canadian Graduate Scholarship: Creation of 500 $50,000 scholarships for top PhD students--both Canadian and international
250 $6,000 scholarships to help Canadian graduate students study abroad for one semester
$80 million increase for granting agencies

For the profs, but these funds often support grad student funding: 20 new Canada Research Chairs worth $10 mill over 7 years each
$15 million for the indirect costs of research. Also--project specific funding including the synchrotron at U Saskatchewan. And the Genome project. I love the synchrotron, although I don't know what it does, it sounds cool!!!

For the undergrads: a new grants program replaces the Millenium Scholarship Program with income contingent grants that are more predictable.

<----- This is the synchrotron.




This article from The Fulcrum is a good summary of key criticisms of the new budget's agenda on post-secondary education.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has issued a press release in reaction to the buget announcement (below) which details concerns about targetting research money.

----
Attention News/Education Editors:
Federal budget: little on offer for post-secondary education

OTTAWA, Feb. 26 /CNW Telbec/ - The Canadian Association of University
Teachers (CAUT) says today's budget lacks any coherent vision for
post-secondary education and research.
CAUT executive director Jim Turk says that aside from the creation of the
Canada Student Grant Program, the budget ignores the most pressing needs of
universities and colleges.
"The new grant program announced today is a step in the right direction,
but by simply consolidating money from existing programs it means there's no
real new support for students in the current year."
Turk emphasizes that the government is providing no new money for
post-secondary education through the Canada Social Transfer, funding that
would have allowed universities and colleges to make education more affordable
and ensure that staff and students have access to labs, library resources and
other facilities.
The budget announces the creation of a small program for 500 Canadian and
international students. Named after Georges Vanier, the Canada Graduate
Scholarships will provide up to $50,000 a year for no more than three years.
"While we welcome the new program, we can't ignore the fact that there is
otherwise no increase in funding for Canada's hundreds of thousands of
undergraduate students in this budget," Turk says. "The budget fails to deal
with the real problem: the need for more core funding."
The budget proposes a modest increase in federal funding for the indirect
costs of university research. There are also small increases for the federal
granting agencies, but the new money is heavily targeted to priority areas set
by the government.
"We appreciate the new research funding, but we're extremely concerned
that the federal government is increasingly targeting research funding rather
than allowing the priorities to be established by the research community,"
Turk says.

CAUT is the national voice of more than 57,000 academic and general staff
in universities and colleges across the country.

The First Nations Day of Action: Why we should support it

Thursday June 28, 2pm
Grad Centre Room 108 (board room), UVIC.

Come join the GSS for tea and coffee and an informal round table discussion with:

Chiinuuks, an MA student in Indigenous Governance who is from the Nuchalnuth First Nation

Glen Coulthard, a Dene activist and PhD student in political theory at the University of Victoria who teaches courses in the Indigenous Governance Programs and the Department of Political Science.

What is the day of action?
National Chief Phil Fontaine issued an invitation to all canadians to join a peaceful First Nations Day of Action to improve the lives of First Nations people. Information on June 29th activities and the campaign can be found at http://afn.ca. Chief Fontaine also discussed many of the issues faced by First Nations in this short YouTube statement about the Day of Action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skV_UB32fxA

For more information about this event, contact Stacy at gssmgr@uvic.ca

Great new site for Canadian Grad Students!

Check out this site from the publishers of The Peer Review. Its called the Grad Student Survival guide and has links to great information and past articles from their magazine.

Carleton Grads seek help with RA funding issue

Hi all,

We seem to be having an issue with RA funding that we could use your help with.

Here at Carleton, non-unionized RA funding is currently accounted for as a research grant which is taxable. In the past, only $3000 of this awarded funding was tax-exempt and students could then deduct expenses from the total “grant”. But with the exemption of scholarships and fellowships from income tax, it seems like this practice is going to cost grads thousands of dollars. This is especially disturbing in cases where the research being conducted by students on these RAs falls into the government’s definition of fellowship funding.

So, we were wondering if you could answer the following questions about the way your institution accounts for RAs.

1) How are your RA accounted for? Are they seen as non-taxable fellowships or taxable research grants?

2) If they are fellowships, have there been any downsides or unintended impacts of this arrangement?

Finally, this might be a topic we could discuss at our next NGC meeting. It seems to me that some policy guidelines and best practices might help other schools who find themselves in a similar situation.

Thanks for your time and look forward to getting your responses.

Cheers,

Oren

Oren Howlett

President

Graduate Student's Union

Carleton University

Local 78, Canadian Federation of Students

613-520-2600 x8271

gsa_pres@carleton.ca