When it comes to the administration’s agenda, becoming a top school means sacrificing education for the sake of marketing.
We’ve lost touch of what a university is supposed to be: a place for education. A top university should aim to provide the best education possible. Larger class sizes means less one-on-one time with the students.
The administration is increasing the number of introductory courses and cutting specialized courses. This may make the university more profitable by increased mass enrolment, but at what cost? What happened to academic integrity ?
Our university wants to use “performance indicators” to police and evaluate what professors are publishing. So, basically, the administration only wants papers published on already-marketable fields in order to win rewards on their journey to be a “top university in Canada.”
The use of performance indicators will promote mainstream ideas and sacrifice already marginalized fields. True social justice requires giving a platform to voices from all fields, on all topics, including the ones that might not make the university a lot of money.
The focus of our university should be to improve education and better the world, not move toward becoming a corporation or, in other words, a money-making monster.
Tori Myskiw
