other press News http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca December 4, 2002 tlantic Universities Seek Prescription: Peace alance Between Tuition ikes and Educational uality dent leader calls on Maclean’s to include ifer Henderson ntic Bureau IFAX (CUP)—The recent Maclean’ uni- ity rankings revealed another Atlantic adian sweep of the undergraduate category, the schools that came out on top are united ore than geography. St. Francis Xavier ersity and Acadia University are both in a Scotia, the province with the highest lon fees in Canada. n Dowsett Johnston, editor at large with lean’, says that is impossible to draw an rate correlation between tuition rates and huality of education at a given institution. ou have to look at the history of spending in the province. Is the rise in tuition offset- a lack of giving on the part of the govern- t? That’s something you have to ask. You make a simple assumption,” she said. cording to Dowsett Johnston, a government ing freeze such as Nova Scotia has experi- d tends to hit larger universities the hardest. bols such as Dalhousie have fewer resources pport comparatively expensive programs medicine and law. Most schools, large and 1, turn to student fees to make up for the fall. lhe Maclean’ survey doesn’t deal specifically tuition rates but does examine universities’ ating budgets and the financial aid they to students. Dowsett Johnston feels that rankings take into account financial con- ts students may face. hat’s why we have scholarships and bursaries H say that’s already in there. I think the larg- Bue is how financial aid is going to be han- across the country.” hris Mazerol, chair of the Nova Scotia ent Advocacy Coalition, says he would like e financial accessibility included as a rank- actor in future surveys, but he concedes that asing tuition fees have yet to compromise ancial accessibility in survey | the quality of education Nova Scotian schools offer. “Despite the freeze in funding by the govern- ment we're still doing well. However, the cost of maintaining this quality has been transmitted to students. That's the only negative aspect,” he said. While Mazerol sees high tuition as a burden on students, Dr. Kelvin Ogilvie, president of Acadia University, sees it as a challenge universities must face when deciding how best to allocate their resources. “I think the more a university depends on a customer for the cost of the program delivered the more attention the university has to pay attention to the program it’s running,” he said. While some critics fear that tuition increases will eventually lead to a two-tiered education system, Ogilvie thinks that a focus on private universities would ultimately benefit Canada. “T think that until Canada has some truly glob- al universities it will struggle to have universities that are competitive on a world level,” he said. According to Dowsett Johnston, the role of the MacLean’ survey is to encourage dialogue on the future direction of university education, whatev- er the view. “Our ranking is a public policy tool to offer a window into post secondary education,” she said. Whether his prediction of educational privati- zation is realistic or not, Ogilvie believes that current conservative operating practices are the reason why Atlantic universities have again achieved national recognition for their quality. “T think that we've had to be concerned earli- er about our bottom line in light of decreased government funding. I think that hit here first and we were first off the mark in responding to this necessity.” Doctors and med students look at war and public health Michael Schwandt The Ubyssey VANCOUVER (CUP)—Health care professionals need to speak out in greater numbers against war . That was one of the conclusions of a weekend conference at the University of British Columbia. Organized by a group of medical stu- dents, the conference delegates discussed the impact of war on public health. The event, entitled “Today’s Militarism, Tomorrow’s Health,’ brought speakers and attendees from Canada and the United States. “We wanted to provide a forum in which we could present to other health professionals, students and the broader community,” said med- ical student Liam Brunham, an organizer of the event. “Physicians, as well as other people involved in health, can advocate against things like war, and can be effective in pressing for change in that area.” “What we're sharing is our hearts, minds and perhaps our actions, to create a healthier world,” said Dr Allan Connolly, president elect of Physicians for Global Survival and master of ceremonies for the event's proceedings. Connolly called attention to the fact that, in terms of mortality, the costs of war are largely borne by the general public. “It’s not the sol- diers who get killed anymore,” he said “It’s almost exclusively the [civil- ians].” Dr. Evan Kanter, a physician from the University of Washington who has twice visited Iraq to document the health effects of war and eco- nomic sanctions on that country, explained to the audience that health effects of war continue long after the conflicts themselves. Attacks on Iraq targeted infrastructure that provided electricity and sewage treatment, he said, and subsequent economic sanctions against Iraq have prevented the movement of many needed drugs and food into the country. “The Gulf War never ended,” he said. “The regime of economic sanctions has been a devastation to the public health of Iraq.” Kanter said that war and sanctions have resulted in a cycle of increased malnutrition and infectious disease in Iraq. He pointed out the increased incidence of tuberculosis and cholera in the Iraqi popu- lation, as well as the appearance of kwashiorkor (a protein deficiency characterized by abdominal swelling), which was virtually unheard of in Iraq before the 1990-91 Gulf War. “There’s some misconception that it was a third-world country, but it was not,” he said, noting that child mortality in Iraq has risen dra- matically since 1990, although rates of death for children there had previously been on a steady decline. “We're wiping out a whole generation,” said Kanter. Delegates at the conference included a group of medical students from the University of Washington. Meeshel Garcia feels that physi- cians can and should play a part in efforts to achieve peace. “T think our role is to educate people. There is something that’s uni- versally linking us all, and we can all understand it,” she said. “You can explain a lot of things through health, and achieve a lot of change through the rhetoric of health, and people will listen.” page > ©)