It’s that time of the year again, time to pick my classes for the coming academic year.

I usually decide on my courses in five steps.

1)  Read the academic calendar to find courses that interest me.

2)  Print out a calendar grid for timetabling. Write all potential courses into the timetable to discover conflicts.

3)  Select the necessary courses from my major and minor. Make sure they don’t conflict.

4)  Look at professors to determine if any should be avoided.

5)  Register

Step four is the most difficult of the process. I’ve only enjoyed a few good professors. My definition of a “good professor” is very different than what seems to be the definition on this evaluation sites. I want a professor who assigns material without a step-by-step manual to completing the assignment does not expect regurgitation of course material. Sadly, these professors seem to be harder to find with each passing year. (Mind you, I’m getting better at turning off my brain as I advance in university.)

I always find I’m most interested in a course where I’m allowed to conduct research and develop an argument based upon that research. I cannot stand the typical go and research to develop a boiler plate argument using the a predetermined set of books and journals.

It seems few people actually evaluating professors share my point-of-view. It also seems the only people using these sites are those complaining about having to work for their degree. Sigh.

Thankfully, I will again be taking most of my courses by distance education. DE courses are self-directed and a lot more work. Whereas the regular full-year course will have at most two essays, DE courses have a minimum of six essays.

I forgot, I added a step this year – make sure the credit will count towards my degree! I’ve been obsessed with taking courses that broaden my horizons that I forgot the real reason for attending university – getting a piece of paper. I have a few courses which I took knowing they would not count towards my degree.

A lot of what was in the report was common-sense. The major flaw with the report is the constant call for the creation of new bureaucracies. A lot of the ideas could, and should, be implemented within the existing bureaucracies of N.B. higher education.

This WG report creates layers of red-tape that will ultimately result in no changes in the system that would not have occurred without the report. Way to go New Brunswick, you’ve managed to outpace British Columbia in messing up your post-secondary system.

I will be updating this post as I read New Brunswick’s latest post-secondary review which was released today. 

Week’s after the report was leaked to the media, the New Brunswick government finally released the report of its “Working Group” on post-secondary reform.

You may recall last year the “Commission on Post-Secondary Education” released a comprehensive report which, among other things, called for the creation of a first-rate Polytechnic school to replace third-rate University of New Brunswick – Saint John.

It upset the inmates stakeholders and the government quickly announced they were turning the asylum over to the inmates the creation of a post-secondary “Working Group” (WG) ran by the stakeholders to create a new vision for post-secondary education in New Brunswick.

So, after weeks of delay, we have a fancy webpage for the report which includes a big picture of Premier Shawn Graham releasing the document – wait two pictures and video of the release!

17:19EDT: What do you call a polytechnic which is not really a polytechnic when you know you should have a polytechnic but don’t want to upset stuck-up people by calling it a polytechnic? If you guessed “Institutes of applied learning and training” you’d be correct! They even have a nice acronym to add to the alphabet soup of higher education – IALTs.

17:23EDT: Shiny object alert! Another story has appeared that I need to work on. I shall return to this report – there’s lot of new acronyms, administrative bodies, inefficiencies and other ideas to improve New Brunswick higher education!

0015EDT:  After getting distracted by the release of P.G.’s contract, watching the Tiger-Cats lose, and playing pinball – I’m back.

0020: Love the opening “Dear Premier Graham and Minister Doherty: In the fall of 2007, you boldly presented us with a challenge to participate in the
transformation of the New Brunswick Post-Secondary Education (PSE) system to achieve the goal of making the province self-sufficient by 2026.” Yes, it was really bold to cave to pressure when a proposal for real reform was presented.

0029: Lots of talk about improving participation and outcomes to surpass the national average. Eventually NB wants to surpass all other provinces.

0039: The WG calls for a decrease in two student by freezing tuition for two years and lowering student loan interest rates by 2.5% to prime.

0043: This is innovative – a 25% credit on student loan debt for the timely completion of programs over two years of length.

0052: Many recommendations we’ve heard in other reports. Increase participation of under-represented groups especially aboriginals. Good stuff, not surprising or ground-breaking.

0057: Transferability of credits between colleges and universities – more good stuff. Lots more of this… I skimming for now.

(Note: computer crashed… lost content.. restarting from this point. Giving up on timestamps.)

Into the structural reform section. No surprise here, “autonomy” is a key buzzword. Colleges want more autonomy from government. You don’t say, “autonomy” is so much better than the accountability that stems from strong government oversight of publicly funded bodies. Oh, here is it – Recommendation 11 is that the colleges be independent of government. The report states: “the community college system should be moved from the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour and become an independent corporation.” The WG calls for an expansion of 1,400 seats / 7,000 spaces by 2013.

How will the colleges be overseen? By the creation of new bodies. A Board of Governors provincially and six “Community Advisory Boards.”

Remember to not confuse the colleges with the new “Institutes of applied learning and training” or “Consortia of applied learning and training.” They are separate but connected to the colleges and universities. Make sure you don’t confuse them with or refer to them using the “P-word.”

Just to be clear, “The Working Group does not endorse the establishment of the polytechnics as recommended in the Commission on Post-Secondary Education final report.”

The WG says university presidents should be commissioned to review programs at the various institutions to recommend changes to improve the system. They even make list the programs which should be priorities for the province “priority areas to include applied health, education, applied business, engineering and liberal arts programming.” So, everything is a priority but science. Seriously, if your going to set priorities, it shouldn’t list every choice available.

Now were making sense.  The province needs more graduate students and recommendation 16 addresses this. The WG calls for New Brunswick to increase graduate enrolment by 855 students over the next three years to bring the total number of grad students to 3000.

Recommendation 17: The new”not-polytechnics”

Bare with me here, this section makes no sense.
- The new institutes are needed because the current “PSE system is often incapable of responding quickly enough” to changes in the needs of the economy and labour market.
– Just to be clear, this means that the current system of colleges and universities are not capable of changing quickly enough to respond to the market and the new institutes are needed to correct this.
- The new institutes will not be “brick and mortar” initiatives. They will be partnerships between colleges and universities. Run by the institutions and housed on either a college or university campus.
– Get that, the colleges and universities are “incapable of responding quickly enough.” However, they will magically become more capable of responding quickly if their is another layer of bureaucracy involved in their decision making processes.

The goals of the new institutions are laudable. The problem is that they are being formed as an politicially acceptable alternative to the “P-word.” The CALT’s make much more sense in that they are designed to reach out to communities that are currently underserved for post-secondary options. The rest of the listed goals are things that should be happening anyway and could be done without the new layer of bureaucracy.

Section Four “Collaboration, Governance and Administration”

This section should have been entitled “creation of new bureaucratic bodies”

The summary of this section is simple, just list the new bureaucracies. (Remember we already have the new BoD of the community colleges, the CABs, the IALTs and CALTs.)

1)  “A central agency for post-secondary education” – a provincial body to oversee the PSE system. The agency will have a staff of experts and it’s own management board. Appartently, the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour doesn’t fit this role already.

2)  “New Brunswick Presidents’ Council” – the presidents of the colleges and universities plus the “Deputy Minister of the PSE Agency.”

3) “Share Services Bureau” – this body will oversee collaborative spending for non-academic functions such as the purchase of insurances, applications, administrative services, and information technology. From the WG report “The SSB would be owned by the PSE institutions, from which a management board and a director would be recruited. The SSB would be accountable to the PSE Agency to deliver ervices to the institutions in the system, and to do so at a lower overall cost.”

4) “New Brunswick Council on Admissions and Transfers” – a new body to facilitate a joint application and admission process between the colleges and universities. Will also facilitate transferability between the institutions.

5) “Change Management Bureau in the PSE Agency”

Section 5: Implementation (aka, show us the money)

The WG wants $466-million in new funding over ten years with most of that in the first five years.

Monte Solberg didn’t get moved in today’s mini-cabinet shuffle.

This means I get to continue chasing him, especially since he got a free pass last time we saw each other.

UBC hates the environment, loves making money from selling bottled water.

David Akin of Canwest News Services says his sources are telling him that briefing papers are being made ready for a new minister federally in Human Resources. This means Monte Solberg may be moving – and I get a new minister to chase for answers – in an expect cabinet shuffle.

Solberg has done a decent job in his current portfolio – one of the larger departments – and is a capable politician.

At first, I dismissed the spectulation as typical capital rumour mill. However, I’ve noticed that Monte’s hasn’t been doing many photo-ops lately. Today, he handed a Parliament Hill photo-op off to his parliamentary assistant. Could this be related?

British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell announced his election cabinet in a shuffle today.

I immediately looked for who the new minister of advanced education would be.

Turns out the new minister is same as the old. I guess Campbell does not care about higher education this election cycle.

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation is making another public transit announcement at a GO Transit station tomorrow.

I always find these announcements to be ironic since they usually involve speeches about encouraging the use of public transit but everyone – including the transit officials – shows up in a car. (Some of them show up in carpools)

I also enjoy the releases.

I’ve heard a few times from transit officials that one of the obstacles preventing people from using public transit is a lack of information – most people don’t know how to use public transit to get from point A to point B.

So, when they send out a release, you’d think they would include directions on how to get from point A to point B?

You’d be incorrect – they do include directions but only on how to drive to the announcement!

Bravo, that’s how we encourage the use of public transit.

(I realize that adding public transit instructions would primarily be symbolic, but symbolism is what news conferences are all about.)