U n i v e r s i t y o f M a n i t o b a’ s G r a d ua t e S t u d e n t M a g a z i n e October 2010
This issue: Graduate tuition hike puts pressure on students New MFA program gives U of M art cred How to succeed at a conference
Letter from the president
University of Manitoba’s Graduate Student Magazine
Hello Readers,
Gradzette
As President of the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA), I would like to welcome back all new and returning students. For those graduate students who work year round, which is most of us, I assure you the end will come. This year the GSA is working to change our method of operations, and to become an organization of action. Over the coming year we want to further engage our members with the organization, and to connect with the community around. If you are reading this, then I’m guessing you are surprised to see the Gradzette within the Manitoban. Each year all graduate students financially contribute to a graduate student publication maintained by the GSA. Historically the Gradzette has been a stand-alone publication, producing four issues a year. Over the summer the GSA realized that the Gradzette needed a change, one that would facilitate greater reporting of graduate student issues, consistency and allow for enhanced distribution. With this in mind, we approached the Manitoban with the intention of turning the Gradzette into an insert within the university newspaper. Through this beneficial collaboration, readers can now look forward to a monthly publication which will address graduate student related issues, events, campus research, and news. The GSA is fully committed to maintaining our productive working relationship with the Manitoban, and we encourage all our readers to send in feedback, so we can continue this forward momentum and continually improve the Gradzette. I hope you enjoy the newly renovated Gradzette, and we look forward to receiving your comments. For additional information on GSA events or contacting the organization, please visit our website: www.umgsa.ca Meaghan Labine President Graduate Students’ Association Local 96 – Canadian Federation of Students
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: publisher@gradzette.com Editor: Vacant Reporter: Vacant Copy Editor: Laura Blakley Designer: Kevin Doole Contributors to this issue: Ashley Gaboury, Noreen Mae Ritsema, Morgan Modjeski, Brian Hauri, Michelle Rosner, Daniel Molinski
The Gradzette is the official student newspaper of the University of Manitoba’s graduate student community and is published at the end of September, October, November, January February and March by The Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation. The Gradzette is a democratic student organization, open to participation from all students. It exists to serve its readers as students and citizens. The newspaper’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 for submission guidelines.
GSA Upcoming Events: Student Counseling and Career Center: Dealing with Difficult People and Situations – Oct 6th, 2:30-4:30, location TBA, Fort Garry Campus
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 approximately 65 members from St. John’s to Victoria. All contents are ©2010 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 for more information.
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U of M grad students cope with 5% tuition increase GSA: more should be done to offset cost by Ashley Gaboury
W
hile graduate students at the University of Manitoba pay tuition fees below the national average, some students want to see more funding to help offset the cost of living coupled with increasing tuition fees. According to recent numbers from Statistics Canada, graduate students in Manitoba currently pay on average $4,132 a year in tuition fees, compared to $3,936 in 200910. This number falls below the national average of $5,182 and places Manitoba approximately midway between the highest, $7,350 in Nova Scotia, and the lowest, $2,600 in Quebec. Meaghan Labine, U of M Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) president, said that any amount tuition is burdensome when there is a lack of funding for students. “Tuition [for graduate students] is only as affordable as the money that you’re making,” said Meaghan Labine. “So if you’re not making a lot in scholarships, bursaries or the supervisor support that we have to live on, any amount of tuition that we have to pay for graduate school is going to be a lot by comparison,” said Labine. Farhoud Delijani, GSA vice-president (internal), echoed these concerns. He explained that, for the most part, when a student has been hired to conduct research they will be paid a lump sum and it is then up to the student to allocate that money to living expenses and tuition fees. Labine wants to see more funding available to graduate students, allowing them to afford all of their living expenses without struggling. “It would great if [there was more funding], and graduate students could live more decently than they are. Living off of $15,000 a year, or $12,000 for some master’s students or even zip for a lot of arts students, is pretty hard to swallow if you’re a full-time graduate [Student].” Labine said that insufficient funding has a number of negative effects on students. “If you can’t afford to put food on the table or you’re counting your pennies in order to buy groceries, then that’s a big deal,” she said. “For a lot of graduate students, particularly the ones who don’t get any scholarships or bursaries, you’ll have to take a part-time job which in the long run takes more time away from your degree and ends up extending your stay at the university.” Farhoud acknowledged that Manitoba has one of the
lower rates for graduate tuition fees. However, he said any increase, such as the five per cent increase to fees this past fall, will cause some students to struggle. “There are few rental properties [available] in the city of Winnipeg and rental costs are growing [ . . .] Adding five per cent to tuition fees will be a challenge to many, many students.” However, for some students the cost of living in Winnipeg was a pleasant surprise when compared to their hometown. “I think [the tuition fees are] off set by a lower cost of living. I’ve experienced a much lower cost of living since I moved here. Rent’s a lot cheaper, food is about the same and gas is a little cheaper than Vancouver,” said Henry Tufts, a graduate student in the faculty of architecture. “To be honest I was pretty pleased coming to Manitoba with the amount of support that was available for students.” Kimalee Phillip, CFS chairperson of National Graduate Caucus, said called the level of Canadian graduate tuition fees “exorbitant.” “It prevents access and it does not necessarily speak to the quality. The current state of tuition fees is a huge barrier to access for students, particularly for grad students.” “What needs to be done is the government needs to shift its priorities and consider post-secondary education a priority and really invest in ensuring that students don’t get more loans, but that students are able to access the system without encountering huge levels of debt,” said Phillip. Labine said that the university, government and students have to work together to address the problem of properly funding post-secondary education. “Until everybody is going after the same goal then I don’t think we’re going to get the federal or provincial government to listen,” she said. “By investing in students, you’re investing in your population and economy and improving the lives of everyone in that province or your country.”
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Accessing his very human, very Haitian soul Bathélemy Bolivar discusses the politics of his poetry by Noreen Mae Ritsema
in twisting the knife in the gaping wound of the Enriquillo fault and in the larger wounds that are our ghettos we made the earth weep until finally it emitted a piercing cry several kilometers beneath our feet
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his is an excerpt from Bathélemy Bolivar’s recently released bilingual work called Mots de Terre / Voices of the Earth. It is a book-length poem about the catastrophic earthquake that took place in Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. Close to 230,000 people died and 1 million people were left homeless after this natural disaster. Now based in Winnipeg, Bolivar was born in Haiti and left there 10 years ago. “Since the morning of April 3, 2000, when the renowned journalist Jean Dominique was brutally assassinated, Haiti has been hit by a chaotic series of events that justified my decision to leave my homeland, but I have to admit, it was a very painful move. It is quite distressing to know that those who stay there — friends, siblings, fellow teachers — are still enduring premature death, political turmoil, abject poverty and natural disasters on a daily basis,” he explains. Initially leaving Haiti for the United States, Bolivar worked as a science and technology teacher in a Florida high school. He considers Miami to be his second home as he has numerous relatives living there, and it welcomes one of the densest Haitian diasporas. In 2002 Bolivar decided to come to Winnipeg to teach at St. Pierre Collegiate, it was a difficult decision; he admits that “leaving Florida at that time was a kind of exile from the Haitian community.” It was also a move that shocked Bolivar’s family still living in Haiti, because they knew that moving as far north as Winnipeg was a definitive indicator that he was not coming home again soon. In 2007 Bolivar joined the PhD cohort of science and math education here at the University of Manitoba. He is interested in “how readers from different cultural
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backgrounds take ownership of science texts,” as well as investigating “[ . . . ] reading and writing in science and all matters that relate to science and language through cultural diversity.” Working with Nathalie Piquemal, from the faculty of education, Bolivar has recently co-authored peer reviewed articles on immigration and integration in French minority schools. Diverging from math and science, Bolivar is also the author of Manguiers Têtus (2005) — for which he won the Prix littéraire Rue-Deschambault and Rebondir (2007). He has now turned his talents towards poetry with Mots de Terre / Voices of the Earth (2010). Explaining his choice of poetry as a medium to describe the horrific events in Haiti this past January, Bolivar says “Poetry is the medium I feel most confident with to express myself on such a [stressful] event. In addition, it encompass-
es what makes language transcendent. Facing the extreme of human suffering, I used it the same way the Haitian pioneers did — as an instrument to craft meaning and collective purpose.” In a scathingly honest yet hopeful approach, Bolivar discusses his motives and inspiration for writing the poem: “Mots de Terre accessed the very Haitian and human soul I host because of the whole context it emerged from. It is a move from within, from all I could capture in terms of sensitivity and awareness of human suffering. I don’t assume that the words taken independently render the kind of image I want to mirror; the whole text does transmit the feeling of active resilience through adversity, however.”
of course the dogs are still barking still sounding the alarm this time not set off by hunger or thirst or rage but in unprecedented sadness in a requiem for souls
The haunting image of dogs barking in the Haitian background is a recurring theme throughout the poem. Bolivar explains that “It is a reality that the dogs are constantly barking at night since power outage is very common. Sometimes they do so because of hunger.” He goes on to elucidate “I really don’t know what was happening just before the earthquake, so I do extrapolate, but Haitian life is a great metaphor by itself. Beyond poetry, there are quite a few controversial theses in science on whether animal behaviour can be used to predict natural catastrophe. What we know is that some animals can feel waves that are undetectable by human means.” Thus illuminating some of the multi-layered aspects of his recent work. It is Bolivar’s hope that the poem “[ . . . ] engraves the Haitian struggle for life in the collective imagination.” He
goes on to say that “no one should forget this human catastrophe since it teaches us the resilience needed to cope and to survive.” With this in mind, the proceeds from the sale of Mots de Terre / Voices of the Earth are going toward a distance education initiative that aims to provide free access to quality education to Haitian students regardless of their cultural or socio-economic backgrounds, called Haitian School without Borders. It is a registered non-profit organization that is currently recruiting teachers to design the online content of courses which will be asynchronously taught. They also require more volunteers to raise funds in support of the project. “Money is unfortunately a critical issue in keeping us from offering more courses on a timely basis” says Bolivar. Participating in the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, Bolivar recently spoke as part of the Big Ideas forum which focused on writers who “are tackling some of the big ideas of our place and time.” It is Bolivar’s hope that his talk helped “to raise more awareness around the Haitian reconstruction effort by bringing the audience closer to my experience as a native Haitian and as a poet.” He adds that “buying the book is a small but concrete way of commitment to this ambitious project.” It is Bolivar’s wish that after encountering his work, “the audience will act as ambassadors in sharing this experience with others.”
they’ll see another country rise up from the ashes from its centuries-old shadow from nightmare to the serenity of the everyday in reality Haiti has been trembling for ages
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PHOTOSPREAD
@gradzette.com
Photos by Michelle Rosner
Photospread is a monthly feature of Gradzette, in which we feature photographs from our readers. This Month we feature the photographs of Michelle Rosner. To have your photographs featured send them to photospread@gradzette.com. Please make sure they are saved in as high quality as possible. Please include, if possible, information on: location, equipment setup and any notes on technique of processing, if applicable.
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Conference Tips
A how-to on making the most of scientific conferences
by Brian Hauri and Marcel Peloquin
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ne of the highlights of graduate school is traveling to cities in North America and around the world to attend scientific conferences. They provide an opportunity to interact with your peers, and make meaningful connections which could lead to future collaborations and lasting friendships. Since many of us graduate students will be attending conferences this year, I wanted to compose a “how-to” list for making the most of scientific conferences. I decided to talk with my friends about it and pool their collective wisdom, and my one friend, Marcel Peloquin, pretty well wrote the article for me. Here are Marcel’s seven points to making the most of scientific conferences. 1) Don’t suffer from the “Imposter Syndrome.” You might feel like everyone at the conference knows more than you, and there is a good chance a lot of them do, but if you are there because you are presenting a poster or giving a talk — you deserve to be there. 2) Talk about your research to anyone that will listen. That’s why they have conferences; you are supposed to be social. Don’t just sit by your poster or hang out with the people from your lab. Talk to that researcher who wrote the paper you would like to know more about. Do you think Brian Greene or Philip Zimbardo would just keep to themselves at one of these thing? No, they probably would not. 3) You are also there to network. If you are thinking of applying for a post-doctoral research position do you know where you’d like to do it? Maybe not, but this is the opportunity to talk to potential advisors. Take a chance and speak to someone that you might want to collaborate with. Successful researchers have a lot of irons in the fire. 4) Go out! If you haven’t noticed, most of these conferences have dinners or “gatherings” after all the academic stuff is done. This is a great chance to meet some new people in your area. If you have not learnt to hold your liquor, you should make sure you do so quickly. Surprisingly, academics can drink. It might not be your thing, but be advised that conferences are also short-term vacations. Treat them as such. If you are a grad student, make sure you have a bit of fun. A happy student is one that is able to let loose in between crushing deadlines and non-significant data. 5) See talks/posters/whatever that’s outside of your field of interest. Ever wonder who cares about paediatric pain research? Probably not, but some people do; and their
research might not only interest you, but might stimulate some ideas of your own. 6) Know what’s actually going on in your field! Isn’t it surprising how advisors seem to always know what’s new and exciting in [insert your boring-to-everyone-other-thanyou field]. Well, it’s because of these conferences. Plan ahead; especially if it is a large conference. I’ve wandered around looking at posters for hours on end, and nothing else makes me want to leave a conference early than when I have no idea what’s worth looking at. See different things, but make sure you attend what you came there for. 7) See the city; maybe you’ll love the city and want to move there. Why is this important? Because, if you think you are going to work at the same place you are taking your studies, it’s unlikely — especially if you get a doctorate. That’s the reality of the situation, so take a quick tour of the city. I like talking to people from the city to get an idea of what it’s like there, and also what the universities/hospitals — or wherever you might want to work once you are done your degree — are like. One other helpful suggestion that my friend Karen added was to bring your own business cards. This will make networking a lot easier, and will save other people the hassle of trying to find those important scraps of paper with your email on it amongst the coffee receipts stuffed in their pockets. I hope these nuggets of wisdom make your next conference experience more productive; they’re one of the perks of being a graduate student, and look great on your CV, so get out there and start submitting abstracts!
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New master’s of fine art up and running WAG director: program long overdue by Morgan Modjeski
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he new master of fine arts (MFA) degree at the University of Manitoba has been a long time coming, but classes are now in session. According to Donna Jones, Manager of the new MFA, the program saw a total of 15 applicants from across Canada, four of whom were accepted into the program Jones explained that the U of M has been working towards developing and MFA for roughly 40 years, and it’s only been within the past two years that the program has been officially approved. The program is studio-based, offering students a chance to develop their craft over two years, after which they will have to do a final thesis piece consisting of a full gallery showing and a written presentation. Jones continued to say that students are encouraged to experiment with a variety of mediums in the program in addition to working on their thesis. “When grad students come into fine art programs, they might come in focused on one particular medium, like painting, and end up doing completely different work by the time the two years are up,” explained Jones. “People are encouraged to do a lot of exploration and development of their expressive work,” she continued. Jones also added that with the development of the new MFA the U of M is expecting a boost in terms of artistic standing across the country. “Having a [fine arts] graduate program just makes sense,” said Jones. “We’re the oldest school of art in western Canada and being able to offer this higher education opportunity gives us respect.” “It’s also really great for the community, for the city and for the professional art community as it draws in new people,” she said. Stephen Borys, the director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) and U of M scholar in residence, said the program was long overdue. “For a city of close to 700,000 people, with two universities and probably one of the hottest cultural scenes in the
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country in terms of visual art, its hard to believe that we don’t have a graduate program in fine art,” said Borys. He went on to explain that even thought the program is over due, it will be a massive advantage for young artists who chose to study at the U of M. “The masters program gives [students] another layer of confidence, another layer of professional contact and more serious liaison with the arts community.” Borys also added that the new program would attract a number people from outside of Manitoba, adding that diversity within a graduate program is essential. Even though Borys explained how the new program would provide a number of positives for both the city’s art community and the university, he went on to say that the U of M still needs a master of art history program, noting that the two programs go hand in hand. Monica Martinez, one of the four MFA students at the U of M said that one of the main reasons why she chose the to do her graduate studies in Manitoba is because of the faculty involved with the new program, and the reputation of the U of M. Martinez, who came from Alberta to study ceramic sculpture, explained that the size of the U of M is an attractive aspect in itself, saying that she hopes to work internally with other faculties on artistic projects. “Being part of a larger [university] infrastructure was a big draw for me because I have an interest in architect[ure] and engineering and trying to do projects with other faculties is something that I would enjoy,” explained Martinez. Martinez said that the U of M has been very generous in terms of supplies and studio space as all of the graduate students have their own workspace and the tools they need for their mediums. She also went on to say that being part of the first group of students in the program is an exciting aspect of the experience, as these students have the ability to influence the future of the program. “You’re at the ground floor, you have a lot of influence on what comes after,” said Martinez. “You have the responsibility of trying to put in the systems that follow you.” The program is expected to grow as it gets older and it’s currently not accepting students who have graduated from the U of M’s school of art until three years after convocation, to ensure students get a diverse education.