Evidence that Carleton U's education sucks.

[JohnDakota]

Anyone who did their undergrad at U Ottawa will appreciate this. But overall I think this is a huge injustice.

 

Sorry CF patients.. you're not diverse enough ='(

 

Too bad the Student Association couldn't be bothered to do any background research on the actual epidemiology of CF. The reality is it affects both sexes, and people of all racial, and ethnic backgrounds. Like any genetic disease it does appear to be more prevalent in certain populations, however it affects everyone.

 

I guess they don't push primary literature research very much at Carleton.

[eng_dude786]

I heard about it also in the news. I'm not sure but from what I got out of the news (CTV) was that they were trying something different and fund raising for different charities- instead of keep funding for CF. If that's the case, then it's just a matter of choice and they seemed to have voted on this. I guess its a tough situation to decide which charity to donate to.

 

I believe they are also planning to work towards local charities - much more direct and immediate, in my opinion.

 

But regardless, I think they are hoping to have it switched back to CF after a few years.

 

And I don't think you can strongly correlate the level and quality of education to a change in event like this. It is not like a professor said this and suddenly people decided to change their orientation week activities. I don't think there's a strong link between which charity to give money to - and whatever reasons you may have behind it - and the level of education a school provides.

[JohnDakota]

I heard about it also in the news. I'm not sure but from what I got out of the news (CTV) was that they were trying something different and fund raising for different charities- instead of keep funding for CF. If that's the case, then it's just a matter of choice and they seemed to have voted on this. I guess its a tough situation to decide which charity to donate to.

 

I believe they are also planning to work towards local charities - much more direct and immediate, in my opinion.

 

But regardless, I think they are hoping to have it switched back to CF after a few years.

 

And I don't think you can strongly correlate the level and quality of education to a change in event like this. It is not like a professor said this and suddenly people decided to change their orientation week activities. I don't think there's a strong link between which charity to give money to - and whatever reasons you may have behind it - and the level of education a school provides.

 

No, my statement regarding the quality of the education has to do with the provided rational for the switch away from CF. According to all the quotes available that I've seen, the switch is because the Student Association claimed CF was not 'diverse enough' of a disease, in the sense that they thought it affected white males mostly.

 

Not only is that idea of CF epidemiology totally wrong, but if that's their rational then forget ovarian cancer, obesity, diabetes, etc as possible beneficiaries. Every condition targets various demographics, that's why epidemiology even exists as a study. The only condition that doesn't discriminate is death. Now if they want a fund research to cure death, then by all means.

 

If they just wanted to 'spread the wealth' then they should have said that. However I tend to take people at face value for what they say. The CUSA said it's because CF is a white male disease, so I'm calling a spade a spade. In this case, a group of morons are getting called morons.

 

Just to clarify, here's the quote I'm referring to.

 

Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it.

 

I'm not going to cite articles, but if anyone is interested in the actual epidemiology of CF (not the anti-scientific nitwicy of the CUSA) just go to the Wikipedia page for it, and read the embedded references. It's all there.

[MilSarah]

Although I don't agree with the motion's formulation, I don't want this to be about Carleton U in general. Please don't punish all Carleton students for this. They are already really embarassed.

[abcwxyz]

Eh, it's better anyway. I always thought it dumb how certain charities had such aggressive marketing, resulting in great funding all the time. I'm guessing some equally worthy but more passive ones are underfunded. Sure, it's needed in our world; but that's not what a charity is supposed to be about. By distributing it between different causes year to year, it works better imo.

 

I guess I disagree with it only affecting white males.

[JohnDakota]

Although I don't agree with the motion's formulation, I don't want this to be about Carleton U in general. Please don't punish all Carleton students for this. They are already really embarassed.

 

The title is tongue and cheek. I have nothing against the Carleton student body in general. I did my undergrad at Ottawa U, so there's a little rivalry. For example, one of Carleton's frosh songs was; "F|_|CK you, Ottawa U!" And I always liked to respond in more substantive ways, and this is one of them.

 

The people I'm targeting as morons are the CUSA that voted for this motion under the false ideas that CF is a white man's disease.

 

Imagine if there had not been such a backlash from the public. There would be tons of people who heard about this motion and actually thought CF affects only white males because some student executive couldn't be bothered to do 5 minutes of primary literature work, and made an amazingly ignorant and irresponsible statement. So it's not only that they're totally wrong in their understanding of CF, it's that they had the potential to lay down a serious stigma (in our society white male is a negative stereotype) on CF.

 

As far as I'm concerned this isn't about the feelings of some student executive that were too intellectually lazy to do 5 minutes of work. It's about protecting people with CF and ensuring money donated towards it's research doesn't have to be wasted on publicity to combat ignorant statements made by a bunch of nitwits from a student executive.

[bonito23]

As a current undergrad student at Carleton, I was somewhat shocked to read the article this morning. Firstly, I have no qualms about their decision to shift their resources to benefit other charitable organizations but the justification for doing so shows either someone gave a lazy reason/excuse or has some serious IQ issues. However, if you question the integrity of the education provided at the institution based on that careless statement, then I suggest you enroll in an after school program to learn how to read and interpret articles/stories objectively.

 

Now your snub about not publishing primarily literature at Carleton brings me to question your intellect as an undergrad. I had an option of going to Ottawa U over Carleton but chose Carleton because of the atmosphere and a specific program I wanted to enroll in. I know that there is a rivalry between Ottawa U and Carleton, but to suggest that there is a dearth of publications at the school is laughable. Carleton got $85 million in 2006/2007 for research funding in the country, ranking in the top four; I don't think people would invest in something that does not produce results, so to produce results you gotta publish research articles.

 

I mean come on a decision, by William Beckel over 20 years ago still sticks with the University. It was William Beckel who decided to accept large number of high school students to give them a chance despite below par perfomances. CURRENTLY, the mean of averages admitted to the institution is 81% not far off from the 82% that many OTHER universities in the country currently have for the admitted students, so drop the 3rd grader argument of there being a inferior level of academic prowess at the institution.

 

Carleton indeed has been the subject of countless negative publicity, I think to go off and suggest that a statement by a few not so well informed students suggests the education level at the institution is inferior to others is downright absurd.

 

It is hard to believe that I am being objective but let's be realistic about the whole issue.

 

#1- The justification for the switch was dumb, unethical, and certainly downright insulting.

 

#2- The choice was theirs to make but their reasoning was really NOT smart.

 

To base a whole argument on the academic integrity of an institution on the basis of a nefarious comment is no less dumber than the statement itself.

 

 

Carleton has an array of professors, researchers and people who have studied at Ottawa U, U of T, Harvard and Cambridge, so to suggest that the education imparted to students is inferior is ridiculous.

 

Anyways, I rest my case.

[JohnDakota]

......if you question the integrity of the education provided at the institution based on that careless statement, then I suggest you enroll in an after school program to learn how to read and interpret articles/stories objectively.

 

No, as I said in my previous post the title was mostly tongue and cheek. It's the students on the CUSA that I feel have not truely taken advantage of the education opportunities. Please read my posts fully before assuming.

 

Now your snub about not publishing primarily literature at Carleton brings me to question your intellect as an undergrad... to suggest that there is a dearth of publications at the school is laughable.

 

What I said was that the CUSA should have READ the published peer reviewed literature on CF epidemiology. I didn't say anything about how many paper's are published by Carleton's faculty. Again, please read my posts fully before you go off the deep end.

 

 

Carleton indeed has been the subject of countless negative publicity, I think to go off and suggest that a statement by a few not so well informed students suggests the education level at the institution is inferior to others is downright absurd.

 

Again, if you would have just read my actual posts you would have seen the title is tongue and cheek while I do hold contempt for the CUSA. Please read posts. They're not there to be aesthetically pleasing.

 

 

#1- The justification for the switch was dumb, unethical, and certainly downright insulting.

 

Yep.. but I would have just said it was ignorant.

 

#2- The choice was theirs to make but their reasoning was really NOT smart..

As I understand it Shinearama is organized specifically for CF foundations. If Carleton no longer wants to participate in Shinearama but focus on other charities then fine. However they can't say they're part of Shinearama to potential donors, and then give the money to some other non-CF charity. So the money they've raised this year should go to CF as that's what donors understood that their donations would go towards. If they want to change focus of who they're working fundraisers for, then I'm with you, it's their perogative.

To base a whole argument on the academic integrity of an institution on the basis of a nefarious comment is no less dumber than the statement itself. ..

 

Your inability to read posts has made your post a 'nefarious comment.'

 

 

Carleton has an array of professors, researchers and people who have studied at Ottawa U, U of T, Harvard and Cambridge, so to suggest that the education imparted to students is inferior is ridiculous..

 

Tongue and cheek. Learn it's application

 

Anyways, I rest my case.

 

As do I

[MilSarah]

Very interesting read :

 

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2008/11/26/free-advice-to-cusa-president-and-carleton-students-and-other-students-as-well/

[JohnDakota]

Very interesting read :

 

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2008/11/26/free-advice-to-cusa-president-and-carleton-students-and-other-students-as-well/

 

I don't know if I totally agree with that guy's perspective, but I'm sure there may be some employer that will have this sort of issue somewhere in their mind when flipping through CVs. Keep in mind 2 years ago there was a similar, but less serious, event with CUSA banning a pro-life group at Carleton.

 

Anyway, in that Maclean's link the best part was the audio of the CUSA president. She has no idea about Roberts Rules of Order, and she gets paid 28k/yr to be CUSA president. She should, as a matter of being a professional, know every detail of Roberts Rules of Order. This is what you get when you elect people who are only interested in pumping their CVs.

[eng_dude786]

supposedly they have taken back everything...so its still CF for next year...

[bonito23]

Obama to hold a press conference today regarding the whole CUSA issue.

 

lol (BTW, I am just kidding).

[Ehudz]

Carleton rocks. CUSA sucks.

[JohnDakota]

Obama to hold a press conference today regarding the whole CUSA issue.

 

lol (BTW, I am just kidding).

 

I should hope you're joking. I suspect that if he did hold a press conference on this, Obama would make some speech where he sounds amazing, but supports the idea of 'spreading the wealth.' He would then appoint a former Clinton Administration exec (CHANGE!) to oversee the wealth spreading at CUSA. To finish off the speech he would express that the people supporting Shinerama and continued CF fundraising are just trying to scare us all by saying diseases other than CF have 'funny names', their epidemiologies aren't the same as other ones, oh and the fact that CFs black? In there he'd sprinkle in a little bit of 'Ayers and Wright are mainstream.'

 

BTW I'm just joking =P