The Iron Archives

Fall 2005, November 30^th

This was the easiest article to revisit for The Iron Archives. Dan Arnott, Environmental, wrote an article titled “Senate Ignores Engineers, Steals Study Days.” According to this article, on November 23^rd 2005, a full Reading Week was approved for Engineering undergraduate students, albeit the resistance by the Dean and senators. The proponents disfavoured a Reading Week at the expense of more study days before the exam period, as engineering exams tend to be clumped together and more days off right before the exam period were really beneficial.

The then Engineering Senator, John Fishbeing, solicited student opinion on this topic. Opinions were split evenly, and in absence of opinions in favour of a reading week, the engineering representatives in the Senate argued against the establishment of a reading week. Their opinions were, however, ignored in the Senate, which did not give any reason for approving the reading week for Engineering. Fishbeing later said, “… the issue that the student voice had no bearing on the decision is much more important as it exposes a massive flaw in how decisions are made in university governance.”

The issue that this occurrence brought forward was of Senate ignoring the students’ voice while making decisions. This questions the purpose of the establishment of positions by the Administration such as student senators which were in effect to represent the wishes of the students. It also put in jeopardy the faith the student body had in the Senate.

Arnott ended the article by saying that the final decision in a university that affects the students should be based on student wishes and failure to do so could affect the proper functioning of UW.

Fall 2000, November 17^th

A PCP on “Does your vote really matter?” was written, where Maria Simoes and Sung Hon-Wu argued the point and counter point respectively.

Simoes based her arguments on four premises: 1) You have a right to vote, 2) You have a responsibility to vote, 3) You can make a difference, and 4) If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about how the country/province/city/etc. is run.

According to Simoes, the right to vote was “one of the fundamental freedoms that keeps one from becoming a slave in one’s country” as this right had been fought for. With the right comes the responsibility to vote too. Simoes presented the example that if everyone decided not to vote thinking that it wouldn’t matter, it would eventually make a big difference for the worse.

Simoes argued that a difference could be made by people choosing representatives who hold the same opinions as themselves, and that those who didn’t vote had no right to complain over the activities of the political party in action because they didn’t bother to vote for people who shared their opinions.

On the other hand Hon-Wu started his writing by saying that American President influences Canadian life more than Canadian Prime Minister does. Hon-Wu presented the phenomenon of brain drain to account for people who would not be affected by the results of the Canadian election. Moreover, the things of value to Canadians were outside the influence of Canadian Prime Minister and the Government, such as the value of Canadian loonie, which was controlled by the Bank of Canada and traders, and health care, which was under the provincial governments.

Sung further said that the Canadian political system was undemocratic because Canadians did not vote for a person to become the Prime Minister, but rather, the leader of the party winning the most seats in local area won the seat of the Prime Minister. This was undemocratic in Hon-Wu’s opinion as the voice of the people who voted for the losing party was completely ignored. Also, the predictions made by the polls tell beforehand which party is likely to win, so why even bother voting for the losing party?

Fall 1995, December 1^st

S. Kingsley Jones wrote an article on “Thoughts About Employment Equity,” presenting some tips that a starting business even today can use. The article started with a few questions to establish that the purpose of business is to make profit – profit was maximized by having the best people – the best people were those who maximized profits and the best culture was what gets the best out of the employees and was characterized by variety, simulation and different modes of thought.

The author then asked the reader to imagine him/herself as the starter of a company. I was inspired by the author’s statement, “The biggest weakness you have is yourself. By definition you know what YOU are thinking, but you don’t know what you are NOT thinking.” And to prevent this from becoming a weakness of the entire company and to get a variety of opinions, diversity is the key. Diversity in a company should encompass many parameters, such as age, experience, cultural background, expertise etc.

The article also emphasized that since 50% of the North American population was female, 50% of the customers were going to be females and in order to understand this proportion of the market it would be necessary to have females in the workforce.

The author ended the article by saying that equity legislation would die out soon and only the best companies with a diverse set of workforce will survive in the ruthless game of business.

Fall 1990, November 16^th

This issue contained an article by Derek Van Dalen and Rana Banik, Engineering Representatives on the Student Council. They wrote a detailed article on the proposed plan for the Student Life Centre (SLC) which was divided into three different schemes; the implementation of the most basic scheme was put to a student referendum to be held a week later, while the implementation of the other schemes was contingent on external funding. The project was to be funded by an increase of $40 in student fees.

In the same issue, Chris Fleck and Michael Naryan wrote about some questions that students should consider before casting their vote.

Firstly, the lack of student input at the initial stages of the development of the project was a fundamental flaw in this project. According to the authors, the project lacked a specific objective as it wasn’t clear if SLC was supposed to be an extension to PAC or a place for students across campus to socialize. If this building was meant to be an extension to PAC, which was mostly used by Varsity teams, why should all students be made pay towards its construction?

The SLC was also planned to include 5000 ft² of retail space. The high cost of space would increase the cost of establishing a business there which would decrease the likelihood of cheap student oriented services.

The authors pointed other flaws, such as only one architectural firm was consulted, a competition was not held and other alternatives weren’t examined.

Moreover, the administration agreed to provide $3 million in funding over three years, which didn’t seem to be much. Also there was no indication that other sources of funding, such as alumni and government, were explored.

The authors ended the article by saying that it was worthy for the student government to take more time to look into alternative funding sources or this might become an “uncontrollable financial burden on the student body.”