Academia

Bosses may be an overbearing breed, but more often than not, you've got to admire their business chops. Wouldn't you love to have that same sense of competence and confidence, that ability to assess tough problems and reach smart solutions on the fly? Guess what? So would they. If you have ever suspected that your boss isn't actually good enough at what he or she does to deserve the job in the first place, a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that you might be right. [...]

Social psychologists know that one way to be viewed as a leader in any group is simply to act like one. Speak up, speak well and offer lots of ideas, and before long, people will begin doing what you say. This works well when leaders know what they're talking about, but what if they don't? If someone acts like a boss but thinks like a boob, is that still enough to stay on top?

[Work sessions] were videotaped, and a group of independent observers performed the same evaluations, as did Anderson and Kilduff. All three sets of judges reached the same conclusions. Consistently, the group members who spoke up the most were rated the highest for such qualities as "general intelligence" and "dependable and self-disciplined." The ones who didn't speak as much tended to score higher for less desirable traits, including "conventional and uncreative." [...]

"Dominant individuals behaved in ways that made them appear competent," the researchers write, "above and beyond their actual competence." Troublingly, group members seemed only too willing to follow these underqualified bosses. An overwhelming 94% of the time, the teams used the first answer anyone shouted out — often giving only perfunctory consideration to others that were offered.

CUPE Ontario has embarrassed itself again.

The union’s president, Sid Ryan, is backing a move that would call on Ontario universities to ban Israeli academics who aren’t prepared to condemn Israel’s current military operations in Gaza, and specifically the Dec. 29 bombing attack on the Islamic University of Gaza.

Mr. Ryan’s meddling is wrong-headed, on multiple levels.

As many in Ontario academia have pointed out in denouncing Mr. Ryan’s plan, the proposal violates the essence of the concept of academic freedom. By demanding adherence to a particular political point of view, with a professor’s job hanging in the balance, CUPE’s stated goal runs counter to the core mission of institutions of higher learning: promoting free academic inquiry.

Mr. Ryan proposes a political litmus test to decide whose views should be allowed to be expressed. That’s a contravention of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ protection of free speech, as well as an act of discrimination under this country’s human rights codes.

CUPE Ontario’s actions are also inconsistent in that no such bans are sought on academics from oth­er parts of the world where charges of repression are rampant. If Israeli professors are to be barred from teaching based on what they say about Gaza, why not ban Chinese academics over China’s role in Tibet? Or Russian professors for their country’s controversial campaigns against Chechnya? As Bernie Farber, Canadian Jewish Congress CEO, pointed out last week, CUPE has not called for Palestinian academics to be banned over Hamas rocket attacks. (It should be noted that Israel claims the Islamic University in Ga­za was a storehouse for munitions and bomb-making centre.) Such scenarios should seem ludicrous, of course, but that further underlines the fact CUPE Ontario seems to devote a lot of time and attention to anti-Is­raeli efforts. That obsession has not surprisingly led to accusations CUPE Ontario is anti-Semitic. The union denies such charges.

Another question many have is why a union that supposedly exists to fight for better wages, working conditions and other benefits for members is using its resources to take sides in a bitter, deeply complex dispute thousands of miles away. CUPE Ontario was roundly criticized several years ago for calling on learning institutions to divest themselves of Israeli investments. Mr. Ryan’s latest salvo seems more of the same.

Pittsburgh Public Schools officials say they want to give struggling children a chance, but the district is raising eyebrows with a policy that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work.

The district and teachers union last week issued a joint memo to ensure staff members' compliance with the policy, which was already on the books but enforced only at some schools. Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers President John Tarka said the policy is several years old.

While some districts use "F" as a failing grade, the city uses an "E." [...]

they said, the 50 percent minimum gives children a chance to catch up and a reason to keep trying. If a student gets a 20 percent in a class for the first marking period, Ms. Pugh said, he or she would need a 100 percent during the second marking period just to squeak through the semester.

"We want to create situations where students can recover and not give up," she said, adding a sense of helplessness can lead to behavior and attendance problems.

"It's not grade inflation. We're not saying, 'Give people passing grades,' " Ms. Pugh said.

But the policy strikes some teachers and parents as rewarding bad work and at odds with the district's "Excellence for All" improvement campaign.

"Clearly, some people will not be pleased with this policy," Mr. Tarka said. But he added, "We stand by that decision."

Judy Leonardi, a Stanton Heights resident and retired district home economics teacher, said she objected to the notion that a student could "walk in the door, breathe the air and get 50 percent for that."

"I don't think it sets kids up properly for college, for competition in life," she said.

To Ms. Leonardi, a 20 percent score means a student isn't trying or needs more help with the material. Automatically putting 50 percent in the grade book, she said, doesn't help the student in either case. [...]

Superintendent James Lombardo said he's in favor of implementing the idea, partly as a fairness issue. He noted that a failing grade carries far more mathematical weight than any other grade if the "E" or "F" has a range of zero to 59 percent.

"I guess I laud the Pittsburgh district for recognizing some of the foibles of our numerical system," he said, adding low percentage scores sometimes are given to students because of their attitude or work ethic, rather than their level of accomplishment.

Students overwhelmingly rejected a motion to ban the military from recruiting in the Student Union Building at the UVic Students’ Society (UVSS) annual general meeting on Oct. 25.

According to UVSS records, 525 students packed the SUB’s Michèle Pujol Room to attend the meeting. The meeting started half an hour late as students waited in line to sign in and receive voting cards.

Roughly 25 people voted in favour of the ban. Had the motion passed, the Canadian Forces wouldn’t have been able to recruit at the annual UVic Career Fair in January because it is held in the SUB.

George Robinson, former UVSS chairperson candidate, spoke against the ban. “For students that wish to protest the war, this is the wrong way to do it,” said Robinson. “By banning any organization that we may disagree with, we are acting against the very purpose of this university.”

Student Serina Zapf agreed. “I’m a human rights activist. I totally understand the issues in Afghanistan. I know about the torture. I hear about these things. I campaign on them,” she said. “That being said, as a human rights activist I believe in a dialogue of voices … I’m excited that our UVSS has a voice and is speaking on issues. But at the same time, I don’t think they need to protest for me.”

The ban voted in on Sept. 10 means that the Canadian Armed Forces will be unable to attend the annual recruiting fair put on by UVic's Career Services in the SUB every January. The Armed Forces attended last year's recruiting fair.

At the Sept. 10 meeting, UVSS director of academics Caitlin Meggs read a statement by Jennifer Margison, manager of Career Services, urging students not to ban the military and to invite a member of the Armed Forces to speak to them before making a decision. Margison was unable to attend the meeting.

'If the policy would be implemented as a ban, I would ask the board to consider that this could be a very slippery slope, and one that I don't believe is in the spirit of a university campus, where alternate and opposing views, debate and discourse, personal choice and decision making should be fostered,' Meggs read on behalf of Margison. 'I would suggest that banning any organization from campus, if they are operating in accordance with Canadian law, and with university policy, is an infringement on the rights of students to make their own decisions about their futures.

During the normally quiet months of summer on campus, Canadian university presidents have been near unanimous in their denounciations of a call by Britain's largest professors' union to consider a boycott of Israel's institutions of higher learning.

The British resolution, endorsed at the end of May by 150 of the University and College Union's more than 120,000 members, suggests that locals consider a freeze on ties with Israeli universities including teacher and student exchanges, attendance at conferences and publication of research papers.

Based on the premise that Israeli universities are complicit in denying Palestinians the right to an education, the union's proposal -- at this point only to discuss such a possibility -- has since drawn widespread international condemnation for violating the sacred tenets of academic freedom.

From Dalhousie to Simon Fraser and most of the ivory towers in between, Canada's university principals, rectors, chancellors and presidents have gradually been adding their voices to the swell of opposition from the likes of outgoing British prime minister Tony Blair, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the U.S. Congress, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and a long list of scholars that includes Nobel Prize winners.

At last count, 22 Canadian universities had released statements opposing the British union resolution.

In Vancouver, University of British Columbia president Stephen Toope was among the first to react.

"The attempt of one group of scholars to stifle the views of another is an affront to modern society and must be condemned wherever it arises," said Mr. Toope, himself a world-renowned human rights expert.

"Those British professors who have brought forward this shameful scheme ought to reflect on the example and consequence of the intolerance they are communicating to their students."