U of S ranks 14 out of 15:Why not being the best of yourself! |
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By Mario deSantis, November 12, 1999 |
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the lack of a mandate by the university | The recent poor standing of the University of Saskatchewan reported by the annual Maclean's |
magazine has alarmed the academic community(1). The President of the University of Saskatchewan, | |
Peter MacKinnon, was very perceptive in stating that Maclean's rating don't tell the whole story, and | |
our journalists were very intelligent in pointing out that one of the major causes of this poor ranking | |
was the lack of a mandate by the university(2). | |
Maclean's ranking of the U of S should become relatively important only when all the rated | |
learning becomes the most widespread commodity | universities do the best they can do. My son Eric is taking the first year in Engineering at the |
U of S, and I don't tell him to be the best of his friends, the best in his class, and the best of | |
every thing else. I tell him that he can be only the best of himself, and when he tells me that | |
some of his academic work has been marked poorly, I tell him "...speak your mind, assert | |
yourself, study together with your friends and just mind to do your homework, everything else | |
will be consequential..." And whenever he tells me about the high failure rates of students and | |
of the related pride shown by the surviving ones, I respond that the university will do a better job | |
only when the failures of our students is being reduced and learning becomes the most widespread | |
commodity rather than the inner sanctum of the few and privileged(3). | |
Last week, Eric was concerned about a poor mark received in some work and whenever he was | |
problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them | told that the marking was done in a tough fashion he pointedly observed that "...there is a |
difference between being tough and being just..." I am happy he is learning through any | |
experience, and that he understands that marks don't tell the whole story. Cultural and academic | |
changes don't occur overnight, and in order to convey to Eric an appreciation for the complexity | |
of the academic life I mentioned to him the thought that social systems self maintain(4) themselves, | |
and that university's "problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them (5)" | |
Our university will do a better job not when it is going to be ranked 1st out of 15(6) Canadian | |
universities, but when our politicians and academicians change their Museum Mentality(7). We | |
don't need a university's vision built on the Synchrotron(8), we need a university vision built on | |
the needs of the Saskatchewan people. | |
-------------Endnotes: | |
U of S slips a notch in Maclean's rankings, by Gerry Klein, The StarPhoenix, November 8, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
U of S ranking serious alarm, OPINIONS, The StarPhoenix, November 9, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations, by Thomas A. Stewart, Doubleday, 1997 | |
Welcome to the Autopoiesis plus... home page. Autopoiesis is a concept created by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to explain how living systems operate. http://www.northnet.com.au/~pfell/index.html | |
Famous quotation by Albert Eistein | |
We Need to Measure, Not Count, by Peter Drucker, The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 1993 | |
A Museum Mentality Is Cheating Our Economy: Healthcare, SHIN and the Synchrotron, by Mario deSantis and reviewed by James deSantis, November 8, 1999 | |
University of Saskatchewan: A Vision Built on Privileged Education and on the Synchrotron, by Mario deSantis, October 25, 1999 |