Concordia students launch anti-tuition campaigns Students worried about tuition increases after 15-year freeze ended in February By Justin Giovannetti — The Link (Concordia University) Erik Chevrier of Free Education Montreal. (Photo by Riley Sparks/The Link) MONTREAL (CUP) — Adrien Severyns wants Concordia University students to only pay $1 of their tuition payments before the Sept. 30 deadline. Severyns, vice-president external for Concordia’s students’ union, is working with the undergraduate and graduate students’ unions and Free Education Montreal, an organization advocating that education is a societal right and not a privilege, to try and send Judith Woodsworth, president of Concordia, a message to not increase tuition. Quebec has enjoyed the lowest tuition in Canada since 1994 when the government implemented a freeze that kept fees at approximately $1,700. The freeze expired in February after repeated calls from university administrators that tuition needed to be increased. “We are trying to make a point. Tuition is rising and we are trying to raise awareness among students. They have a right to know the consequences of higher tuition,” said Severyns. A $1 payment, made before the deadline of Sept. 30, will appear on the university’s payment sheet and display dissatisfaction with rising tuition. “The response we have gotten has been very positive,” said Severyns. “We are trying to reach out to as many students as possible.” The outreach might be necessary, said Erik Chevrier, a spokesperson for Free Education Montreal. Despite the importance of the tuition debate and the size of the projected increase — up to $8,000 a year with ancillary fees — many undergraduate students still seem aloof. “Tt seems that undergraduates are less informed,” said Chevrier. “I don’t know why, it seems they either aren’t being informed or they don’t care.” Chevrier’s organization is circulating a petition among students that calls on Concordia to reverse unannounced increases to international students’ tuition over that occurred over the summer in 2009. “This didn’t come out of nowhere,” said Chevrier. “We are circulating this petition because the university was raising tuition without telling students.” With the tuition of some international students rising by as much as 50 per cent between the time they left their home countries and the time they landed in Montreal, the petition is calling for Concordia to reimburse affected students. The petition, to be presented at Concordia’s board of governors on Sept. 30, also calls for greater transparency about the tuition increases and the amount of money that the increases generated. “We are trying to work at all levels of the university so that administrators, faculty and students can hear our concerns,” said Chevrier, who stated that members of Free Education Montreal sit on the university’s senate and board of governors. “We want the administration to know that we aren’t happy with the tuition increases,” Chevrier continued. Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard — whose government was responsible for the 1994 freeze — and other prominent Quebecers signed a declaration urging the province to raise tuition fees. “Quebec universities are dangerously under- funded compared with those in Canada and North America. These precarious finances have now reached a critical stage. If nothing is done, its students themselves who will suffer first,” Bouchard told reporters at a press conference on Feb. 23. The tuition freeze resulted in a combined debt of $500 million for the province’s universities, said Bouchard. Quebec taxpayers are currently responsible for 80 per cent of post-secondary funding in the province. UBC journalism students win Emmy Award marks the first time students at a Canadian journalism school have won an Emmy By Justin McElroy — The Ubyssey (University of British Columbia) Emmy award-winning UBC journalism students Heba Elasaad, far left, Krysia Collyer, second from left, Blake Sifton, centre, and Prof. Dan McKinney, far right. (Photo courtesy of Blake Sifton) VANCOUVER (CUP) — Students and faculty at the University of British Columbia’s journalism school have won an Emmy award for a documentary that investigated the effects of electronic waste shipped to other countries. Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground, a PBS documentary produced by the students and faculty, was the winner of the Outstanding Investigative Journalism in a News Magazine award at the 2010 News and Documentary Emmy Awards on Sept. 27 in New York. The program, shown on Frontline/World, defeated documentaries that aired on 60 Minutes, Nightline and 48 Hours Mystery. The award marks the first time students at a Canadian journalism school have won an Emmy. “It’s awesome,” said Dan Haves, one of 10 journalism students involved in the project. “We found out an hour ago, we didn’t expect to win, we’re super thrilled that we did.” “Journalists work their entire careers for awards of this prestige,” Mary Lynn Young, director of the UBC Graduate School of Journalism, said in a press release. “Winning these awards early in their careers will give these students a tremendous leg up,” Young continued from New York, where she attended the award ceremony on behalf of the project. Haves seconded the notion. “For all of us, we graduated in one of the tougher times in the industry ... something like this award may validate choosing to get involved in the first place.” But hours after winning the award, Haves was asking simpler questions. “One: Do we get a trophy?” he said. “And two: Where will I put it?” The documentary was a project for the school’s international reporting class, | which is taught by Peter Klein, a former producer at 60 Minutes. Each year students produce a long- form documentary, which is funded through a $1-million gift from the Mindset Social Innovation Foundation. Students traveled to China, India and Ghana in 2008 to film their project. Klein is grateful for the support UBC receives from Mindset Innovation. “The e-waste documentary is the kind of project that the vast majority of newsrooms couldn’t have done,” he said in a press release. “Tf an editor is going to give you tens of thousands of dollars, they want to be sure that there’s going to be a story there. Our funding from Mindset Foundation is crucial, because we’re able to give students this opportunity to really show that you can do good journalism independently.” The full list of students involved are: Shira Bick, Ian Bickis, Krysia Collyer, Allison Cross, Heba Elasaad, Dan Haves, Doerthe Keilholz, Jodie Martinson, Dan McKinney, Blake Sifton and Leslie Young. - Burd.