Piper to step down
Martha Piper, current President of UBC, has announced that she will step down from her position in June 2006. Long despised by many a UBC undergrad for jacking tuition without first developing a budget, Piper has never had many fans in the student body.
As my time at UBC is drawing to a close, I must admit that the recent flurry of construction is actually looking like a good investment. The new buildings will add much needed study space in my particular program and offer more seats to increase enrollment.
On the flip side, new buildings and new seats do not translate into better instruction. While I have had 4 or 5 profs that have been oustanding and gave some excellent instruction, more than 10 were absolutely horrid and failed to impart any knowledge to the class.
If the school desires to return to it's former glory, I think the proper start would be to improve the faculty and not spread it even thinner.
As my time at UBC is drawing to a close, I must admit that the recent flurry of construction is actually looking like a good investment. The new buildings will add much needed study space in my particular program and offer more seats to increase enrollment.
On the flip side, new buildings and new seats do not translate into better instruction. While I have had 4 or 5 profs that have been oustanding and gave some excellent instruction, more than 10 were absolutely horrid and failed to impart any knowledge to the class.
If the school desires to return to it's former glory, I think the proper start would be to improve the faculty and not spread it even thinner.
posted by Mike at 5:40 PM
1 Comments:
I agree. Undergrad education should be an important thing, even though tradition may state that undergrads get all the asshole profs (screw tradition anyways). I've also heard much talk about undergrad being a place where we learn (deep voice) "the process" rather than actual meat. This was also said for high school, and elementary. As a plus, those undergrads to get jaded during their stint, and who go on to do their Masters will become asshole TAs for their students (I know UBC's TAs have less duties than SFU's TAs).
I dunno... maybe the whole education thing is a shambles, as Mike sorta implies. Maybe through the "more seats" program, we are actually decreasing the worth of one, since nobody learns anything. Now, I'm directly not criticizign anyone's motives for going to school, as they may be great(ly misguided).
Side question of the day: Why do we go to school? Opens up a can of worms, doesn't it...
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