University of Queensland student suspended for two years after speaking out on China ties

2020/05/30 Leave a comment

Outrageous and a reminder of accepting funding from the Chinese government, one that Canadian universities and institutions also face:

A student activist highly critical of the University of Queensland’s ties to Beijing has been handed a two-year suspension from the institution.

Drew Pavlou faced a disciplinary hearing on 20 May at the university over 11 allegations of misconduct, detailed in a confidential 186-page document, reportedly linked to his on-campus activism supporting Hong Kong and criticising the Chinese Communist Party.

The university ordered his suspension on Friday after the 20-year-old philosophy student reportedly left the previous hearing after about one hour, citing procedural unfairness.

UQ chancellor Peter Varghese said on Friday he was concerned with the outcome of the disciplinary action against Pavlou.

“There are aspects of the findings and the severity of the penalty which personally concern me,” Varghese said in a statement.

“In consultation with the vice chancellor, who has played no role in this disciplinary process, I have decided to convene an out-of-session meeting of UQ’s Senate next week to discuss the matter.”

The University of Queensland has faced media scrutiny for its relations with the Chinese government, which has co-funded four courses offered by the university.

The institution is also home to one of Australia’s many Confucius Institutes – Beijing-funded education centres some critics warn promote propaganda.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/29/university-of-queensland-student-suspended-for-two-years-after-speaking-out-on-china-ties?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Email

Filed under foreign policy Tagged with , , ,

Helping College-Bound Native Americans Beat The Odds : NPR

2016/08/16 Leave a comment

Not as familiar with similar initiatives in Canada as I should be, but university graduation rates for Indigenous peoples in Canada are 13 percent, half of the average rate for all Canadians:

Native American students make up only 1.1 percent of the nation’s high school population. And in college, the number is even smaller. More than any other ethnic or racial group, they’re the least likely to have access to college prep or advanced placement courses. Many get any little or no college counseling at all. In 1998, College Horizons, a small nonprofit based in New Mexico, set out to change that through five-day summer workshops on admissions, financial aid and the unique challenges they’ll face on campus. Its director, Carmen Lopez, sat down with NPR to talk about the obstacles that bright, talented Native students face.
You say there’s an implicit bias among college admissions officials who seldom, if ever, deal with Native American students. Is that why you’ve partnered with 50 top-tier institutions, to “educate them” by inviting them to the student retreats?

Something happens when you’re sitting face to face with a teenage native student and you’re hearing their story.

We give counselors an appreciation for what Native students experience, the inequities they face. Admissions counselors realize, “My gosh, you have only two AP classes you’ve been offered! Your school has never offered any test preparation or you’re not getting any advising!”
After spending time at one of your retreats, I noticed that you repeatedly told students: “You are desirable. Colleges want you. You’re not a number.” But don’t admissions officers rely heavily on GPA, class ranking and standardized test scores?

I want you to want my students because they’re going to contribute to your institution.

A test score, the GPA, the ranking, are things that an admissions officer doesn’t remember. l’m not just looking for a diamond in the rough or the hard-knock life. They’re not always in crisis. They’re doing beautiful, amazing things. And I want colleges to recognize that.

Source: Helping College-Bound Native Americans Beat The Odds : NPR Ed : NPR

Filed under Aboriginal Tagged with , ,

The remarkably different answers men and women give when asked who’s the smartest in the class

2016/02/22 Leave a comment

Interesting:

Anthropologist Dan Grunspan was studying the habits of undergraduates when he noticed a persistent trend: Male students assumed their male classmates knew more about course material than female students — even if the young women earned better grades.

“The pattern just screamed at me,” he said.

So, Grunspan and his colleagues at the University of Washington and elsewhere decided to quantify the degree of this gender bias in the classroom.

After surveying roughly 1,700 students across three biology courses, they found young men consistently gave each other more credit than they awarded to their just-as-savvy female classmates.

Men over-ranked their peers by three-quarters of a GPA point, according to the study, published this month in the journal PLOS ONE. In other words, if Johnny and Susie both had A’s, they’d receive equal applause from female students — but Susie would register as a B student in the eyes of her male peers, and Johnny would look like a rock star.

“Something under the conscious is going on,” Grunspan said. “For 18 years, these [young men] have been socialized to have this bias.”

Being male, he added, “is some kind of boost.” At least in the eyes of other men.

The surveys asked each student to “nominate” their most knowledgeable classmates at three points during the school year. Who best knew the subject? Who were the high achievers?

University of Washington

To illustrate the resulting peer-perception gap, researchers compared the importance student grades had on winning a nomination to the weight of the gender bias. The typical student received 1.2 nominations, with men averaging 1.3 and women averaging 1.1.

Female students gave other female students a recognition “boost” equivalent to a GPA bump of 0.04 — too tiny to indicate any gender preference, Grunspan said. Male students, however, awarded fellow male students a recognition boost equivalent to a GPA increase of 0.76.

“On this scale,” the report asserted, “the male nominators’ gender bias is 19 times the size of the female nominators’.”

Source: The remarkably different answers men and women give when asked who’s the smartest in the class

Filed under Other Tagged with , , ,