Gradzette THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA’S GRADUATE STUDENT MAGAZINE Gradzette c/o The Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation 105 University Centre University of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2 General inquiries and advertising Phone: (204) 474.6535 Fax: (204) 474.7651 Email: editor@gradzette.com Editor: Ryan Harby Copy Editor: Bryce Hoye Designer: Marc Lagace Contributors: Tom Ingram, Mary Horodyski, Brian Hauri Cover: Ryan Harby The Gradzette is the official student magazine of the University of Manitoba’s graduate student community and is published on the first Monday of each month by the Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation.
Freelance! The Gradzette is pleased to offer U of M graduate students the opportunity to get involved with their student paper. If you have a passion for writing, journalism, photography, or illustration the Gradzette is looking for individuals to get involved with the production process of the U of M’s grad student paper. The Gradzette currently offers 10 cents per word for freelance article assignments (articles can range from 400-900 words) and upwards of seven dollars per photo/graphic used within the paper. Freelancers will be added to a contact pool and emailed with potential article, photo, or graphic assignments when they become available. On average, freelance contributors will be expected to complete assignments within a seven day period, although certain assignments may be allotted a longer schedule. For applications to the freelance writer pool, please send a resume and at least two (2) writing samples to editor@gradzette. com.
The Gradzette is a democratic student organization, open to participation from all students. It exists to serve its readers as students and citizens. The magazine’s primary mandate is to report fairly and objectively on issues and events of importance and interest to the graduate students of the University of Manitoba, to provide an open forum for the free expression and exchange of opinions and ideas, and to stimulate meaningful debate on issues that affect or would otherwise be of interest to the student body and/or society in general. The Gradzette serves as a training ground for students interested in any aspect of journalism. Students and other interested parties are invited to contribute. Please contact the editor listed above for submission guidelines. The Gradzette reserves the right to edit all submissions and will not publish any material deemed by its editorial board to be discriminatory, racist, sexist, homophobic or libelous. Opinions expressed in letters and articles are solely those of the authors. The Gradzette is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national student press cooperative with members from St. John’s to Victoria. All contents are ©2013 and may not be reprinted without the express written permission of the Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation. Yearly subscriptions to the Gradzette are available, please contact publisher@gradzette.com for more information.
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Following up on free-choice learning
Researcher Profile: Jill Bueddefeld by Tom Ingram
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ill Bueddefeld is a graduate student in the faculty of kinesiology and recreation management. Her research focuses on free-choice learning centres like zoos or museums. In particular, she studies the lessons people learn about environmental sustainability and the ways they apply them after leaving these centres. According to Bueddefeld, one of the pervasive problems with free-choice learning centres is that people leave them with heightened knowledge about and interest in sustainability issues, but they are often unsure how to meaningfully change their behaviour.
centre with children or grandchildren. Bueddefeld then separated them into the “treatment” group, which received post-visit resources regularly for two months, and a control group. After the two-month period, she followed up with a second questionnaire. The post-visit resources took the form of weekly emails targeting specific behaviours—recycling, turning off lights, buying local, etc.— with links to more information, as well as printed fact sheets and a newsletter with updates about Hudson, one of the polar bears at the IPBCC.
“There is some value in preaching to the choir. These are the people who are already interested in sustainability issues. They’ll be your early adopters” — Jill Bueddefeld “They are saying to themselves, ‘I know this is a problem, I have good intentions, so what can I do to help make a difference?’” Free-choice learning is the kind of learning that takes place informally in educational environments that people generally attend by choice. In Winnipeg, examples include the Assiniboine Park Zoo, Fort Whyte, and the Manitoba Museum. Bueddefeld’s research investigates the ways in which post-visit activities affect environmental learning and behaviour change in visitors of free-choice learning centres. “Basically, I spent six weeks at the zoo,” she said. Bueddefeld operated a table outside the International Polar Bear Conservation Centre (IPBCC) at the Assiniboine Park Zoo and approached zoo-goers as they left the centre asking them to participate in a post-visit questionnaire. The respondents were adults of all ages – many of them at the
“Some people might say that doing this kind of thing at the International Polar Bear Centre is preaching to the choir,” said Bueddefeld, “but there is some value in preaching to the choir. These are the people who are already interested in sustainability issues. They’ll be your early adopters.” The statistical analysis has not yet been completed but Bueddefeld found that several participants had made major behavioural changes, such as installing solar panels, buying meat from a local farmer, or cross-country skiing with their kids to school in the winter. “It’s so exciting when your research can be applied in the real world,” said Bueddefeld. One of the tools Bueddefeld used in her study was the personal meaning map. This is an extremely flexible way for people to communicate their understanding of a topic. In the centre of the page there is a prompt word—in this case, “Cli-
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mate Change and Sustainability”—and participants use the space around the prompt to write or draw what the prompt word means to them.
“It’s phenomenal how zoos have changed from just a place to view animals into a place for conservation.”
At first participants are unsupervised, but then a researcher asks them specific questions about parts of the map and has them write down more details in a different colour ink (to differentiate prompted from unprompted responses). Part of the value of personal meaning maps is that they can be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively depending on the design of the study. Working with the staff at the IPBCC was a good experience, Bueddefeld said. They helped her design the study and provided volunteers to help conduct it. Unlike some other organizations she had approached, they seemed interested in making the research a success.
Bueddefeld is in the second year of her master’s degree, hoping to graduate in May and work toward a PhD thereafter. On being a grad student, Bueddefeld said that finding the right advisor is key. Her advisor, Dr. Christine Van Winkle, provides “the right balance of guidance and freedom.” On the topic of her research, Bueddefeld said that she was grateful for all the participants in the study – their participation amounted to a huge number of volunteer hours. “When I told my family about [my research], they said, ‘A survey at the zoo? I’d never do that.’ So I was incredibly surprised and encouraged by the response I got.”
Holiday hampers A message from UMGSA
With the holidays just around the corner, the 2013/14 UMSU and UMGSA executives are beginning to prepare the holiday hampers for the season! The holiday season can be a very emotional and expensive time for all of us. The purpose of offering the holiday hampers is to assist our students with financial difficulties and their families through this holiday season in hopes of alleviating some of these emotional and financial stressors that this time of year can bring. Donated non-perishable food items or charitable contributions from any students, staff, or members of the community are greatly appreciated. If you require a holiday hamper this holiday season, please electronically fill out the Holiday Hamper Registration Form here. Please submit the printed and signed form in person by 4 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 15 to the UMGSA Office (221 University Centre). If you wish to donate or have any questions, you may contact Mehdi Rahimian at vpa@umgsa.org or drop off your donations at the UMGSA office.
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A legacy of peace and progress Distinguished Alumni Ovide Mercredi reflects on life at U of M by Mary horodyski
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vide Mercredi is the University of Manitoba’s Distinguished Alumni for 2013 and was honoured at the University’s Homecoming Dinner this fall. Mercredi is recognized both in Canada and internationally as a leading advocate for Indigenous rights. Mercredi graduated from the U of M with a law degree in 1977 and practiced law until 1983. In 1989, he was elected Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Manitoba. Mercredi also served as National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations from 1991-1999. He was Chief of his home community of Misipawistik Cree Nation from 2005 to 2011. As a specialist in constitutional law, Mercredi played a key role along with Manitoba MLA Elijah Harper in defeating the Meech Lake Accord constitutional amendments. He also had a major role in the Charlottetown Accord discussions and has addressed the United Nations in both Geneva and New York. He was born in 1946 and raised in a traditional lifestyle in Misipawistik Cree Nation (Grand Rapids), Manitoba. Soon after graduating high school, Mercredi came to Winnipeg and became involved at the Friendship Centre. Here he found political mentorship from the experienced advocates working at the Centre. “These were the ones who were our role models, the ones who had faced the devil—meaning racism—before and reached a point in their lives where they became champions in improving the lot of our people.” His work as a student political activist began while registering for courses at the University of Manitoba. While standing in the long lineup, Mercredi noticed a few other Indigenous students and quickly began organizing a student group. This group (the Indian Metis Eskimo Students’ Association, or IMESA) became one of the first Indigenous student organizations in North America and was instrumental in the creation of the native studies department at the university in 1974. IMESA’s first major challenge came in 1971 when a racist and defamatory article about Winnipeg’s Indigenous people was published in a student newspaper. Mercredi, in his speech at the Celebrating Indigenous Trailblazers event in September, called this article “a gift from God.” He further explained to the Gradzette, “I called it a ‘gift from God’ because that implies that it is a good thing. I mean God doesn’t give you negative gifts. So we would make that negative thing into a positive development.”
The Indigenous student group, when faced with the option of having the students who wrote the article expelled from the university, chose to educate the students instead. This event is an early example of Mercredi’s commitment to peaceful co-existence. “Part of it has to do with how you are raised by your own family. The Cree or Ojibwe family survives because of harmony; harmonious relationships are important to the survival of the family. And our family is not just the nuclear family but the extended family, and then the community is part of our family. So you cannot have divisions within a family that size. You have to learn to get along. This is all part of our upbringing.” Mercredi’s notions of peacemaking have also been influenced by Mahatma Gandhi. “One of Gandhi’s beliefs was that if you want to reform, if you want to seek change, then you have to make friends with the oppressor. And then you have to find champions from amongst the oppressor to promote your cause. And you can’t do that through measures that make things worse, through ‘us and them,’ the great divide.”
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“The Cree or Ojibwe family survives because of harmony; harmonious relationships are important to the survival of the family. And our family is not just the nuclear family but the extended family, and then the community is part of our family” — Ovide Mercredi This lifelong advocacy of non-violent methods of change resulted in Mercredi’s nomination by the Government of India for the Gandhi Peace Prize. In 2010, he was also awarded the Social Courage Award by the Peace and Justice Studies Association.
tion. And not as a program of studies only but one of those things that drives the whole university in its conversations.” When the IMESA students began advocating for a department of native studies, says Mercredi, the intention was never for it to become segregated from the program of studies.
Reflecting on the accomplishments he achieved with “It was a measure that we took to fill the vacuum that was the other members of IMESA, Mercredi is proud of what there but the only way we can really fill the vacuum is to Inthey did as students. He hopes that as the U of M expands digenize the institution itself.” it will be a place where an Indigenous person can show Mercredi believes the native studies department is still up and see their personality reflected there as well. necessary although he says the time has come to change the “This idea of ‘Indigenizing’ the university is about name to Indigenous Studies. But he says the current students bringing Indigenous knowledge into the university in all “should be the ones who initiate that change. Let that be their areas – architecture, law, history, political studies, educa- legacy.”
Resiliency and education
Researcher Profile: Stephanie Yamniuk by Brian Hauri
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tephanie Yamniuk’s excitement about education and interest in the well being of others is evident when discussing her PhD research, her goals, and some of the challenges facing refugee education at home here in Manitoba and throughout Canada. It was her early passion for travel that prompted Yamniuk to take on a volunteer opportunity in Micronesia where she taught first grade. Her interest in getting students the best education available led to a more hands-on approach to teaching that included field trips to local businesses and schooling more focused on the community. This initial exposure to culturally aware education brought Yamniuk to the University of Manitoba where she completed an MA in inter-arts theory and got involved in the coordination of the International Student Exchange Programs. She noticed early on how important funding is in securing equal education opportunities for students and after completion of her degree began work in the department of private funding here at the U of M.
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Yamniuk’s abilities as a fundraiser led her to take on “one of the best jobs in her life” as regional director for UNICEF, where she worked with former NDP Minister of Education Peter Bjornson on global citizenship and education initiatives. Yamniuk’s work with UNICEF also introduced her to John Wiens, the current dean of the faculty of education, which led her to enroll at the U of M to complete a PhD in education. With such a wealth of interests, Yamniuk chose her doctoral research from something she learned through personal experience with one of her own children. As a mother of a
child with a unique medical condition, Stephanie recognized how important it is for children to have an advocate, and how the resilience of her own child to overcome his challenges has contributed to his current educational successes. This idea of resiliency stuck with Yamniuk. Her current research looks at “the personal and contextual factors that hinder or promote resilience, adaptation, and acculturation.” With her experience in cross-cultural education, Yamniuk focused on the factors in refugee children that make them resilient and succeed in spite of their, at times, extremely difficult upbringing. Yamniuk conducted her research out of the Peaceful Village, a part of the Manitoba School Improvement Program (MSIP), primarily through one-on-one interviews with children as well as parental focus groups. Yamniuk uses a strength-based approach in her research, looking at the positive characteristics that affect resiliency. To understand these characteristics, her research uses the model of the Ecological Systems Theory developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner. This model identifies five environmental systems ranging from the individual characteristics, such as age and health, to the “macrosystem” level, which represents the attitudes and ideologies of the culture. As an educator, her approach is not one-dimensional as she has also included perspectives from social work, family social sciences, and nursing. In describing the eventual goal of her research, which is the identification of the factors affecting resiliency, Yamniuk
states that she hopes to “plug what she has learned into the education system, opening up so many more opportunities for refugee students.” When Yamniuk is not advocating for others, she loves to be active with her husband and two children, exploring the outdoors through visits to places like Riding Mountain National Park. When first asked what it was she did for fun, though, Yamniuk said with a smile, “talking about refugee education.” It is clearly an important issue to her, and a cause worthy of the attention she’s giving to it. After completion of her PhD, Yamniuk wants to continue teaching at the university level as a professor and synthesize her research interests in the hopes of drawing awareness and funding for the organizations in place here in Manitoba that provide support for refugee families and help children identify and use their strengths to foster their own resilience. Organizations such as Newcomer Employment and Education Development Services, Peaceful Village, and the Immigrant Centre are becoming increasingly important as the population growth initiatives in place in Manitoba have nearly quadrupled Manitoba’s immigration intake since 1999. Funding for these programs is essential if we as a community are going to meet the challenges facing refugee education head on. Yamniuk continues to make a difference everyday not just with her research, but through empowering her students and those she meets to take on her message and bring awareness to these important issues.
Get your research featured in the
Gradzette
Are you a graduate student eager to promote your research and provide exposure for your work in the master’s or doctoral program? The Gradzette is looking for individuals interested in participating in our ongoing “Researcher Profile” column, which seeks to showcase important and exciting U of M research for a larger audience. Subjects of a “Researcher Profile” will be interviewed by a Gradzette staff member regarding their ongoing research project. Once the column has been put together, the information will be published online both on the Gradzette website and within the PDF version of the monthly Gradzette magazine. Both versions are free to share with coworkers, acquaintances, professors, etc. If you would like to be featured in an upcoming “Researcher Profile,” please contact editor@ gradzette.com with details regarding your field of study, a short blurb about your current research, and any pertinent contact information for interview purposes.
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U of M, UMFA negotiation details surface Academic freedom protections for UMFA in new contract by Kevin Linklater, The Manitoban
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n Monday, Oct. 21, a deal was struck at the 11th hour between the U of M administration and the U of M Faculty Association (UMFA), narrowly avoiding a strike. The three main points of contention between the two sides that led the UMFA to call the strike were: academic freedom, the potential introduction of performance management standards to the faculties, and faculty amalgamations. The UMFA has previously gone on strike – once in 1995 and again in 2001. In all three areas of this year’s strike negotiations, the faculty was granted what they were asking for at the last minute, and thus called off the strike. “We were as successful as we were in this bargaining only because we got a strike vote and we had a strike deadline,” said Robert Chernomas, economics professor at the U of M. “We had spent six months bargaining with the Barnard administration, and had gotten nowhere. In 48 hours before the strike we got all the things that we needed.” In an email from the UMFA circulated to the faculty at 11:37 p.m. on Monday night, the three key sticking points were described in detail. “UMFA has finished the first mediation phase of bargaining. We have made gains in the following key areas: Academic freedom: improvements to existing academic freedom language, with the explicit right to criticize the administration and to exercise our right to free speech outside the university without fear of reprisal; Performance management: in assessing the performance of members generally, or in relation to tenure and promotion, and when setting criteria for research, publication, and venue the university agrees to act reasonably, fairly, in a non-arbitrary manner, in good faith, and consistent with the principles of academic freedom; Faculty amalgamations: assurances that there will now be a more transparent process; decisions at faculty/school councils will now be clearly and completely communicated to senate; and a provision for secret ballot voting on any motion for amalgamation at faculty/school councils.” The email also stated that the issue of mandatory retirement was addressed in the negotiations. According to the email, the policy has been dropped, with the option for current members aged 65 or older to go on halftime appointments for up to five years before full retirement.
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According to John Danakas, director of the marketing and communications office at the U of M, “There is general agreement to change the mandatory requirement that faculty reduct to half-time at age 69, but the parties have not been able to agree on certain transitional provisions.” University of Manitoba president David Barnard had issued a memo on Oct. 17 saying that the administration was not attempting to impose a performance management system, and was not attempting to erode academic freedom at the university. However, the U of M Faculty Association was wary of any contract that omitted language explicitly protecting their right to speak out on matters of public interest and to criticize the university. By leaving out these protections, the faculty association feared that their right to free speech could be curtailed. Chernomas said, “Most contracts in the country have language protecting academic freedom, and they, [the administration], weren’t willing to give it.” Danakas told the Manitoban, “The University of Manitoba is committed to protecting academic freedom and made it very clear that it was prepared to add language to current academic freedom policies. The differences over academic freedom were not over whether or not to protect academic freedom but rather over what that language would look like.” Remaining issues such as pay increases and “the privacy of faculty members and their work” will be worked out through arbitrated settlement. The university administration had offered the faculty a four-year deal, with an 8.9 per cent pay increase, while the faculty wanted 5.9 per cent over two years. The UMFA had contended that a four-year deal would have given an undue amount of control to the administration; giving it “a free hand to refashion the university without the approval of academic staff [ . . . ] A two-year agreement gives UMFA members another chance to have an impact on these transformative processes through collective bargaining.” Danakas told the Manitoban that, “All monetary issues were resolved with a new salary structure which will make the university more competitive in recruiting and retaining bring young faculty members.”