University students want to vote

From today's Herald:


Alliance: Many in local schools not considered city residents
By AMY PUGSLEY FRASER City Hall Reporter
Fri. Sep 5 - 4:46 AM

" border="0"> Dalhousie University Student Union vice-president Mark Coffin says that legislation that will prevent thousands of university students in Halifax from voting in the municipal election is ‘out of step.’ (Tim Krochak / Staff)

Thousands of university students in Halifax won’t be permitted to mark an X for a city hall candidate.

Provincial legislation prevents many of them from voting in the Oct. 18 Halifax municipal election and that’s unfair, says the chairman of the Halifax Student Alliance.

"It’s out of step," Mark Coffin said in an interview Thursday.

Students with a family home elsewhere in the province are allowed to cast a ballot but only in the district where their family lives.

"So students who live in a different part of the province will not be permitted to vote in Halifax, the place where they spend the majority of their year," Mr. Coffin said.

Out-of-province students who have lived in the city since July 18 — three months prior to the election — can vote.

But Mr. Coffin said many students go away for the summer to work, so they’re likely out of luck.

Students who come to Halifax for university have strong feelings about the city, he said.

"A lot of them would like to stay here but many of them don’t because there aren’t as many opportunities here as elsewhere. But maybe by giving them the vote, they would be able to shape the direction of Halifax and possibly create more opportunities for themselves when they’re done school and looking for employment."

The chairman of the coalition, which represents the interests of more than 20,000 university and college students, would like to see the eligibility for municipal election voting fall more in line with federal rules.

"In a federal election, you can choose to vote for a candidate in your home riding or your school area," he said.

And while most students will likely get to vote in a federal election, rumoured to be called for Oct. 14, he said municipal politics often have a greater impact on people.

"There’s a lot more potential for change in what students see locally." It’s also a landmark election year, he said, because it coincides with the 250th anniversary of democracy in Canada, a movement that started in Nova Scotia.

"We’ve just gone through a whole series of events and campaigns put on by the provincial government that said it’s important for youth to vote."

Mr. Coffin’s alliance has written to Municipal Relations Minister Jamie Muir requesting a change in the legislation. But a department spokesman said it’s unlikely anything could happen this fall.

Any change would have to go to the legislature for consideration, communications director Donna Chislett said Thursday.

"At this point in time, with the House not in session and with no consultation having been undertaken, it would not be a change that would be possible before the upcoming municipal election," she said Thursday.

She stressed students aren’t being excluded — they just have to vote in their hometown.

If nothing can be accomplished before Oct. 18, Mr. Coffin said, the alliance will focus on getting things changed for the next election in 2012.

"We’d love to have it changed now so that we can have a ‘Get out to vote’ campaign and actually encourage our students to vote."

The sheer number of university students in Halifax — Dalhousie alone has 15,000 — could make them a force to be reckoned with, he said.

"In elections, there are usually one to three thousand people who turn out to vote, so students are potentially the swing vote. So it’s definitely important for the students and for the candidates running."

( apugsley@herald.ca)

Student Alliance Schools Halifax

Earlier this week I spoke with Kyle Shaw, Editor for The Coast. Here is the editorial from this week's edition of The Coast:

Student alliance schools Halifax Halifax Student Alliance is a new local alliance of students, was built to take on City Hall's slow grind. by Kyle Shaw write the author

You'd expect Halifax to give more of a shit about its student community. Tens of thousands of vibrant minds arriving each September, as natural as the tide coming in, are a resource to make any other city drool. But not this town, where municipal services like Metro Transit and the police go beyond apathy to treat their student customers with contempt. For an example, read "Jaywalking to justice" on page 60, about how one student got welcomed to his new home by a police officer and wound up in a legal nightmare. The main reason any government can get away with treating students badly is turnover. A student activist who wants something---lower tuition, late-night bus service, a clothing-optional campus---can be passionate and vocal and organized and morally right, but the bureaucracy always has time on its side. Those wheels of change move a lot slower than a Bachelor degree. Students are getting increasingly sophisticated about dealing with this problem, forming student organizations that can carry the torch while individual students come and go. The biggest such organization in the country is the Canadian Federation of Students, lobbying the federal government on students' behalf since 1981. The newest is the Halifax Student Alliance, demanding better from city hall since last November. The HSA was formed in response to the regional municipality's epidemic of muggings and beatings. While Haligonians of all stripes---young and old, student and civilian---had been getting pounded on neighbourhood streets for years, city hall didn't care until fall '06, when an American visitor was stabbed to death outside a bar. Facing that potential tourism disaster in a media spotlight, mayor Peter Kelly woke up to the problem and convened the Mayor's Roundtable on Violence. A study took place to figure out how violence was hitting residents, but it happened over the summer of 2007, effectively excluding the student experience. That oversight, whether by accident or design, was the last straw. The student unions at Dal, SMU and other local schools got together to launch the HSA, then polled their combined membership---over 30,000 students---about violence. Current HSA chair Mark Coffin, who's also the education vice-president at the Dal Student Union, says the information HSA gave the mayor resulted in a 60-page section of the roundtable's report. And it showed students are more likely to be victims of violence than their civilian counterparts. Coffin's career as a student politician is probably nearing its end---he's going into his fourth year of an environmental science degree---but the HSA's in it for the long haul. Just the third municipal lobbying group of its kind in Canada, after Calgary and Edmonton, it is the only one with a paid executive director and long-term funding guaranteed from its members, who each pay $2 per year to the organization. The HSA is focused on the upcoming municipal election, determined to make violence and Metro Transit key issues. Hopefully for all of us, they will succeed. "It's in the best interest of the Halifax economy," Coffin points out. "Students contribute about $300 million annually according to Donald Clairmont, author of the report on violence, so if Halifax doesn't treat its students right, and if we're not making sure that Halifax is an attractive city and a safe city and an easy to get around city, then that number is slowly going to start to shrink. And it's going to have an effect on the wider community."

DSU Radio Show - August 26th

DSU Radio Show - August 26th

Special Guest: Andres Fuentes, VP Education From the University of Waterloo Federation of Students who joined me to talk about post secondary education, the problems facing undergraduate students in Ontario and across Canada, and the ever-looming never-arriving federal election. (Click image to download)

A Living and Learning Community

Like it or leave it, Halifax is a student city. It's not just a city with half-a-dozen universities dropped in the middle of it, rather it is a city with multiple campuses that are both communities of their own, and are intricately and awkwardly woven into a much larger community. This creates challenges for our municipal officials when tackling difficult issues like public safety, public transportation and urban design.

Believe it or not, student's pump over $300 Million into the HRM economy each year, benefiting not only the universities that are busy inhaling our tuition fees but also our local businesses and entrepreneurs. While most don't pay property tax directly, we rent from landlords or universities who do, and many live at home with parents who pay property tax.

Proactive planning for a student friendly city isn't going to be easy. The problems our city students face aren't going to be solved simply by adopting new policies and putting money in new projects. A grassroots, multistakeholder approach is what is needed. Student unions and student associations need to be involved, university administrations need to be involved, the HRM obviously needs to be involved, and community members need to be involved.

In order to solve the problems our city faces, we need to begin to break down the campus-community divide. Student's on campus all too often live and think in a bubble, nescient to the neighbouring environment. Neigbourhoods can often make students feel isolated when they move into their first apartment; treating them as a problem first and a neighbour second. I'd say a real solution would require cooperation from both sides, but the reality is that any affable agreement is fundamentally going to require students be viewed as members of their community, and likewise accepting the responsibilities of being such.

There are several things we can do to start encouraging this kind of movement. Universities can begin offering credit for applied learning initiatives that challenge students to put their learned skills to help our community, as Don Clairmont suggests. Student associations like the DSU can (and do) work with existing community associations to help solve some of the problems our neighbourhoods are facing. The municipality can take a leadership role, and ensure consultation with students is a priority.

Earlier this year Dalhousie, Saint Mary's and NSCC students joined together to fund the Halifax Student Alliance (HSA), a municipal advocacy group that works on behalf of students to make our city a safer, more affordable, more youth friendly place to live. This year will be the first year the HSA will be fully operational, and we're working to achieve our goals by doing many of the things I've already mentioned, and many more. If you're interested in getting involved, learning more about our issues or speaking to your campus HSA rep, drop me a line at dsuvped (at) Dal (dot) ca .

- Mark

Bridging the gap

Here's a great example of the kind of work student's can be doing through classwork to bridge the student-community divide. Read on...

From the Chronicle Herald (http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1069904.html)



Students weigh in on future of famed waterfront

By BEVERLEY WARE South Shore Bureau
Sun. Jul 27 - 4:31 AM

LUNENBURG — A community theatre, sewage treatment plant and heritage resource centre. You could see all three if students asked for their ideas for the unused property on Lunenburg’s waterfront have their way.

Professor Steven Mannell said his students’ goal is to infuse life into the area while preserving the historic town’s UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

The 10 students, taking their Masters of Architecture degrees at Dalhousie University, will be presenting their ideas at a week-long exhibition beginning Tuesday.

Mr. Mannell thought it would be a good idea to focus on Lunenburg’s past and future after speaking with friends who live in the town.

"They’ve lived there for generations and they feel some sense of ambivalence toward the future of the town," particularly in light of Clearwater walking away from eight wharves, 24 buildings and 5.7 hectares in 2003. "Suddenly there’s this big vacancy."

He said the people he’s spoken to are also ambivalent because the success of the tourist industry has been a mixed blessing. Mr. Mannell said families have told him they are worried about what’s going to be there for their children to do when they grow up.

"It seems those who are able to live there are the wonderfully wealthy who come from elsewhere. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for local people to live there."

The community-based development agency Lunenburg Water Association took responsibility for the properties in 2005 and while it has found some new owners and tenants, many buildings are still not used — or are not used to their full potential.

The work began with a group of 14 students last summer. As part of their studies of Lunenburg’s heritage, they built a dory. "Dozens of students were working on the waterfront with the Picton Castle and Bluenose II. Suddenly, there were a lot of young, energetic people and that presents a different tone," Mr. Mannell said.

A summer stroll in Lunenburg often means encounters with older tourists. Young people bring a different dynamic, Mr. Mannell said, and that’s something the community should consider when it looks at redevelopment.

This year’s class picked up on the work of last year’s students. "They spent a few weeks looking at the physical and cultural history of Lunenburg," Mr. Mannell said, studying how Lunenburg evolved from a British colonial defence town to a seafaring community and how that transformation affected culture and values.

The students also studied more recent physical changes to the town as a result of tourism, looked at the state of these buildings and considered how they could turn them into something useful and attractive to the community.

They looked at a number of sites, including the old forge, Clearwater’s former fish plant and the Bluenose 2 shed. Ideas include community theatre, a music hall, sea school, youth hostel and worship space.

"It’s unlikely you can take one idea off the wall and hand it over and start construction," Mr. Mannell said.

But he hopes the ideas will stir discussion that will get the community moving.

The students’ projects will be unveiled at 6 p.m. Tuesday at 182 Montague St. and on display until 1 p.m. Friday.

( bware@herald.ca)

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

(This) goes for dumdums too

I came across this piece today. Even though I´m on vacation, and even though this really doesn´t have a whole lot to do with my job, and even though most students aren´t even in school right now, I felt a strong need to bloggit. That was a run-on sentence, but if you read on, you´ll see that Vonnegut says I can do that.

Call me a nerd, but writing papers is one of the most enjoyable experiences there is. Nothing beats that satisfaction of crafting (what I think is) a master essay that hits all the right buttons. Vonnegut has always been a favourite of mine, and this instructional essay written by him helps me understand why. For any first years that might be checking out this blog, I highly recommend his advice. You might not get a great grade on your essay, and your prof just might suggest you seek some sort of psychiatric counseling, but you°ll have fun writing your paper!



How to Write With Style by Kurt Vonnegut


Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.

These revelations tell us as readers what sort of person it is with whom we are spending time. Does the writer sound ignorant or informed, stupid or bright, crooked or honest, humorless or playful-- ? And on and on.

Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you're writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead --- or, worse, they will stop reading you.

The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. Don't you yourself like or dislike writers mainly for what they choose to show you or make you think about? Did you ever admire an emptyheaded writer for his or her mastery of the language? No.

So your own winning style must begin with ideas in your head.

1. Find a subject you care about

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

I am not urging you to write a novel, by the way --- although I would not be sorry if you wrote one, provided you genuinely cared about something. A petition to the mayor about a pothole in front of your house or a love letter to the girl next door will do.

2. Do not ramble, though

I won't ramble on about that.

3. Keep it simple

As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. "To be or not to be?" asks Shakespeare's Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story "Eveline" is this one: "She was tired." At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do.

Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

4. Have guts to cut

It may be that you, too, are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra, so to speak. But your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.

5. Sound like yourself

The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was Conrad's third language, and much that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as unornamental as a monkey wrench.

In some of the more remote hollows of Appalachia, children still grow up hearing songs and locutions of Elizabethan times. Yes, and many Americans grow up hearing a language other than English, or an English dialect a majority of Americans cannot understand.

All these varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens to not be standard English, and if it shows itself when your write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue.

I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to write like cultivated Englishmen of a century or more ago.

6. Say what you mean

I used to be exasperated by such teachers, but am no more. I understand now that all those antique essays and stories with which I was to compare my own work were not magnificent for their datedness or foreignness, but for saying precisely what their authors meant them to say. My teachers wished me to write accurately, always selecting the most effective words, and relating the words to one another unambiguously, rigidly, like parts of a machine. The teachers did not want to turn me into an Englishman after all. They hoped that I would become understandable --- and therefore understood. And there went my dream of doing with words what Pablo Picasso did with paint or what any number of jazz idols did with music. If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledy-piggledy, I would simply not be understood. So you, too, had better avoid Picasso-style or jazz-style writing, if you have something worth saying and wish to be understood.

Readers want our pages to look very much like pages they have seen before. Why? This is because they themselves have a tough job to do, and they need all the help they can get from us.

7. Pity the readers

They have to identify thousands of little marks on paper, and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don't really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school --- twelve long years.

So this discussion must finally acknowledge that our stylistic options as writers are neither numerous nor glamorous, since our readers are bound to be such imperfect artists. Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient readers, ever willing to simplify and clarify --- whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales.

That is the bad news. The good news is that we Americans are governed under a unique Constitution, which allows us to write whatever we please without fear of punishment. So the most meaningful aspect of our styles, which is what we choose to write about, is utterly unlimited.

8. For really detailed advice

For a discussion of literary style in a narrower sense, in a more technical sense, I recommend to your attention The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. E.B. White is, of course, one of the most admirable literary stylists this country has so far produced.

You should realize, too, that no one would care how well or badly Mr. White expressed himself, if he did not have perfectly enchanting things to say.

In Sum:

1. Find a subject you care about

2. Do not ramble, though

3. Keep it simple

4. Have guts to cut

5. Sound like yourself

6. Say what you mean

7. Pity the readers



From http://literature.sdsu.edu/onWRITING/vonnegutSTYLE.html

Textbooks are sexy (Part 2): Homeward Bound

I’m writing this post while sitting in the airport on my way back to Halifax, which is fitting, because everything I’ve learned this week tells me that the solution to dealing with the high costs of textbooks begins at home. As I mentioned in my last post, Dalhousie faculty and instructors are the ultimate decision makers when it comes to choosing and negotiating textbook orders for you. Alternatives, though there are few, need to be made apparent to students on campus before they’ve made their textbook purchases for the year.

Each year profs are approached by marketing representatives from the major publishing companies. Obviously, professors of larger classes are the target market, giving publishers the biggest bang for their book (Har har…). Profs can be (and usually are) offered lucrative deals from these reps. If, lets say, a prof is considering ordering “Campbell Biology” (Gazzilionth Edition) they may be offered full copyright access to countless images and diagrams for their slideshow, teaching aids, technological supplements for course websites, and more. Often times, profs aren’t even given a price for the text book until an order has been made. And, if your prof accidentally spent too much time on the beach over the summer and failed to order their course texts until August, the cost of your textbook just jumped over the moon. The list goes on.

An interesting tidbit that came out of our meeting with the publishers was the availability of digital texts for courses. James Reeves, president of Neilson Publishing’s Higher Education Division, argued that a large majority of their books were offered in digital format at roughly half the price, but, he concluded, it was pretty evident from sales that students preferred hard copy. This, of course, took us by surprise, as a straw poll quickly revealed that not a single student in the room was aware of this service. Think of the money that students could save (or better yet, the money we could curtail from the publishers) if students in our huge first year courses were able to purchase digital texts for half the cost of the hard-copy.

There is a long list of actions we can take here at Dal to mitigate the financial burden of textbook purchases on students. I’m in the process of developing an action plan for the year that consists of meetings with faculty members, student awareness initiatives and coordination with other student unions and bookstores.

In the meantime, if you’re as concerned about the costs of textbooks as I am, here are some steps you can take:

1. Talk to your prof. Ask them how they ordered your textbooks. Find out if they asked what the price of the books would be before they made an order. Ask if they inquired as to whether or not a digital version of the text was available at a cheaper cost. Make sure your prof knows you expect this of them.

2. Check tigerbooks to see if you can get a purchase a used textbook from someone who no longer needs theirs. If you can’t find the edition you’re looking for, ask your prof to see if you can get away with using a previous edition.

3. Share a book with a friend, or use a copy of the book that is on reserve in the library.

As I continue researching this issue more, I’ll keep you DSUers who are watching from blogland posted on what else we can due. So stay tuned!