Comments for Alex Sévigny

Comment on McMaster launches a new Bachelor of Professional Communication (BPC) by sam

sam — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 10:02:21 +0000

thanks this

Comment on Students don’t read anymore. What does this mean for democracy? by Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:45:04 +0000

Hello all,
My name is Jenn and I am a Canadian student who is entering into an MA History program this coming September. As I am fresh out of my undergraduate years, I believe I can offer some useful insights into this topic of enquiry.
Although the above authors are skeptical of the popular student excuse of “not having enough time,” I would have to say that this is the primary reason why I almost never completed the required readings in time for my seminar classes. I can’t speak on behalf of the North American student body as a whole—however I can put forth my own perspective, as a student with a genuine love for learning and an overarching desire to excel in all of my academic endeavours.
Students, like many professors (and much of the population in general), are becoming more and more cognizant of the fact that holding a BA degree does not guarantee that an individual will get a job in their desired field upon graduation. As more and more individuals apprehend a university level education, it is experience–in conjunction with a good education–that really gives a student a competitive advantage when entering the workforce. “Experience” can take a variety of forms, but all of these forms have the negative consequence of taking time away from those ever-present, seemingly never-ending, assigned course readings.
To stand out from the crowd (and there are a lot of people in this crowd) students today not only need a 4.0 average, but also should try their hand at getting published, in addition to partaking in undergraduate research fellowships, while volunteering at various relevant organizations, and holding one (or two) part time jobs to pay for a university-level education. Factor in a social life and today’s modern student barely has time for sleep.

Example: My 4th Year, First Semester, Time-Management Breakdown
Commitment Hours/Week
Class 10
Part Time Job #1 5
Part Time Job #2 10
Volunteer Position #1 15
Volunteer Position #2 5
Volunteer Position #3 3
Total 48

This is in addition to maintaining an 87% academic average, preparing my graduate school applications, as well as submitting my Ontario Graduate Scholarship package and my Social Studies and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canadian Graduate Scholarship application (which was ultimately successful).

I did actually have the intention (as I had at the beginning of every semester) to keep up with my course readings, as they facilitate seminar discussion, and knowledge of said readings usually does contribute to a seminar participation grade. That being said, I was usually forced to forfeit my seminar participation grades in favour of my impending assignments, examinations and prior work and volunteer commitments. If I do have a night off during the week I usually choose to spend this time with my friends—as my busy schedule usually leaves my social life seriously neglected.

Another problem with seminar readings lies in their quantity and length. Seminars usually require students to provide detailed commentaries on many small aspects of very long articles. Although I am a fast reader, and could easily speed through many of my readings on my lunch break/between classes and pick up many of the key points, this type of reading usually does not allow me to retain all of the relevant information, or think critically about the article’s content—especially if I do this reading far in advance of the actual seminar. In order to properly prepare myself, I find myself having to make detailed notes and re-read the article several times—this process often takes me a few hours/article. Taking this much time out of my day to prepare was usually impossible, and to read an article and not absorb all of the information necessary to be an active participant in seminar discussion is an even greater waste of time—thus leaving many of my articles un-read.

Now, don’t think that I completely neglected my reading. I would read all of the required course material eventually. However this period of binge reading, for me at least, usually takes place in the week preceding final examinations. This block of time, where classes are cancelled, and university-affiliated work and volunteer programs are halted, would leave me with an expanse (or at least a week) of open days where I could catch up on the semester’s required and suggested readings. I genuinely enjoy exam week because almost all of the required readings that professors select are both useful and interesting. For me at least, the issue with readings lies exclusively with time-management.

I implore university faculty and other interested parties to accept the over-used student excuse of “not having enough time” as a valid reason for not having completed the week’s readings. Instead of blaming student laziness exclusively—I cannot deny that this is probably a causal factor in many cases– or societal deterioration as a result of celebrity gossip and dieting fads, please try to sympathize with the complex demands placed on today’s university student.

Comment on An inspiring act of kindness in Chicago by Tom Keefe

Tom Keefe — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 04:12:30 +0000

Very nice story, Alex. I’m glad that you had a good experience with the Chicago cabbie.

One note: If the CABBIE says you overtipped, then you probably did!

Thanks for the kind words about Chicago and the IABC World Conference. We are thrilled to welcome you and our fellow colleagues from across the world.

Comment on An inspiring act of kindness in Chicago by An inspiring act of kindness in Chicago | Alex Sévigny – Cell Phone Companies In Canada

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:34:33 +0000

[...] and track down my driver. After about 10 minutes of fruitless searching, … … Link: An inspiring act of kindness in Chicago | Alex Sévigny ← The Three Big Canadian Telecoms…Relative Valuation [...]

Comment on About Me by Ryan Martin

Ryan Martin — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:17:37 +0000

My name is Ryan Martin and I’m a third year student at McMaster University. I’ve admired your work in politics and helping Canada move forward as a country, putting in place the regulations that helped keep our financial services industry afloat during the past few years of economic uncertainty. For my final year beginning next fall I’m looking to take on an exchange opportunity called the Semester in Washington DC Program to gain a unique governmental experience abroad and have the opportunity to take classes at Georgetown University. This is something that would help me continue my path of building a diverse background after having worked abroad this past summer, and as a result the cost is quite high and I was wondering if you might be willing to offer me any kind of financial support might be available to help me pay for the expenses that would be incurred. During the 2006 and 2008 I had the pleasure of working with Burlington Liberal MP Paddy Torsney, with whom I have been on in contact ever since. SHe suggested I speak with you about any opportunities you may have for obtaining fund-raising money to help me with the expenses of an abroad program. I understand they would be at my own decision as a result of going, but I was hoping I might be able to get some backing as the only student to ever participate in this program from McMaster and give them some strong representation on the international stage. Any information you require I would be happy to provide.
Please let me know what I can do to move forward if any opportunities might be available.
Thank you for your time.

Comment on My new year’s resolutions for 2012 by Tanya K

Tanya K — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:55:22 +0000

I will look forward to reading “Hamilton Tales”
Happy New Years, Alex – here’s wishing all of us a fantastic 2012!!

Comment on How I did with my 2011 new year’s resolutions: a journey of growth towards principled living by My new year’s resolutions for 2012 | Alex Sévigny

My new year’s resolutions for 2012 | Alex Sévigny — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:44:07 +0000

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Comment on Why I am a professor by Gavin Schulz

Gavin Schulz — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:56:26 +0000

I just stumbled upon this post while reading Facebook of all things. But I am really struck by your observations about how machines are controlling our lives. This post has certainly inspired me to think about these things a little deeper.

Comment on Students don’t read anymore. What does this mean for democracy? by Sylvie

Sylvie — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:58:47 +0000

Here are a few thoughts on the subject, in a random manner. I enjoyed reading the reply of the two folks ahead of me. They had done some real thinking and brought up excellent points, namely the importance to insufflate the passion for reading at a young age. My little one is 9 months old and I read to her everyday since she was a few weeks old. Since the last month, her attention span is about 20-25 minutes of non-stop reading. I have over 50 books in French and in English available for her. Most of the time, I get tired of reading before she does. If I forget to read to her, she will claim reading by staring at the books until I pick one up (she can stare for 3-5 minutes). It surely feeds her imagination well. She has been saying “maman” since she is 5 months old and she said “je t’aime” yesterday. She babbles quite a lot too and she regularly tries new sounds.
On another subject, I am a little weird. I do not have a passion for reading, but, I love reading for school. I did not read much in my youth or teenager’s years. I read the newspaper, comic books, the Reader’s Digest of my mom and a few novels, but I was never keen on reading. However, we played scrabble and boggle and my mother’s quality of French is really amazing. Even after doing a BA in communications and currently doing my MA, my mom still beats me at those games. Her passion for letters was transmitted to me and I thank her for that. The passion for writing with precision too and for finding the root of the word and it’s signification as well (in French). When I want to treat myself, I buy a dictionary, a reference book, a punctuation helper, etc. lol
Strangely, I LOVE reading for educating myself. I love reading 50 articles for one class and writing papers that have an extensive literature review. However, for relaxation purposes, I am not going to read, I rather play sports. For me, reading is linked to learning, not to relaxation. When I had my baby, I started reading all the pregnancy and infant books to educate myself on the subject. I love reading “how to” babies book and my knowledge on the subject is now quite amazing.
However, I need to force myself to read the newspaper and current affairs. I find that it really demands time to be properly informed on what’s going on in the world. I rather have a discussion on the subject with my husband, who is a news junkie, to keep myself up-to-date than reading it myself (lazy me). I remember that I was reading the newspaper with interests until I was forced to do so in one of my media class. Every week, we were having quiz…eurk! It was such a turn off for me! I realized that I enjoyed reading the newspaper while having breakfast, but been forced to do it annoyed me. In fact, since that class, I stopped reading the newspaper.
In the past 10 years, the moment where I had the time to read the newspaper was while commuting by metro. I was reading the Journal 24 heures and Journal Metro. It was light reading, of course, but I got the essential of the news and I was able to deepen any interesting subjects by doing a research on internet of by chatting with my colleagues at work. Lately, I read the news that friends post on Facebook or Twitter (lots of them are journalists) to keep myself informed on current affairs.
Last year, I was TAing an MBA course and it was surprising how it shows when a student is not doing his reading. I remember that I had to speak to the class and stress on the importance to do the readings. Maybe 30% of the class ended up doing the reading and 15% absorbed the material…that’s a sad reality.
A friend of mine, who teaches at Université Laval, was telling me how she is tired of having complaining students and how a BA is worth nothing nowadays. “Students want their paper; they don’t care about knowledge anymore”. Our many discussions on the subject brought up an important point. Universities are also businesses that need to make money. Students are now viewed as customers, so some profs are inclined to have higher average to do not have the faculty on their back or let a student pass because they are harassing the professors to let them pass.
Finally, my last thought goes to a friend who did an exchange in Danemark a few years ago. In their syllabus, the professors placed a “suggestion of readings” section. She did like we do in Québec; she picked one or two books that looked interesting out of the 20. She soon realized that she was behind as all the other students were religiously reading ALL the suggested books. She found it was a little intense, but this is how their culture is over there. What is our culture over here???

Comment on Students don’t read anymore. What does this mean for democracy? by Lars Wessman

Lars Wessman — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:23:28 +0000

I’m going to assume that the value of doing readings is not in question, but I’m prepared to argue that point if someone comes up with a good argument against.

That said, this is a discussion about how to capture the horses after they’ve escaped the pasture because the fence has fallen into disrepair.

People who read for pleasure don’t have a problem making time for uni readings… I remember taking smoke breaks at work with a textbook in my hand. All people who read for pleasure have a sock full of such stories. The real problem is convincing non-readers to cost/benefit their way into educating themselves (for this is what university is really supposed to be doing).

The most logical way of doing this is also the option that you can’t take for a number of reasons. If they don’t or refuse to learn (for that is the import of not preparing for class), you refuse to teach. When I was TAing for you, I did this with a group that going through a particularly bad spate of reading-ignoring. I told them that they were wasting my time and wasting their time and tuition money and left the class one day. I suppose there were complaints and you probably had to cover for me (and I imagine, cursed me for it), but the end result was that group ended being the best among my groups for being prepared for class for the rest of the year. Effective when used sparingly, but it’s something you can’t do.

I find the “not enough time” argument to be weak at best. The first year of my BA was probably the most time consuming year I was in university because of all the survey courses I was taking (for a taste of what it was like, there was a year long English lit course which had a full novel length reading each weak and a history seminar course where I had to prepare a summary of a full work of academic history each week, and that was just 40% of the work-load for the year). At the same time, I was doing 30 hours a week of work to pay for the privilege of studying. I was able to hack this schedule because I was well-prepared. I could read and assimilate information very quickly and had taken some good composition courses in high school so writing papers was significantly easier for me than it was for my peers. Those were the circumstances that allowed me to do a crazy schedule and do university well. Of course, I had little life outside of work and classes.

What about people who didn’t have my preparedness but had the same problem of paying for university courses that were more expensive than a weekend-only job could pay for (it’s not the first time in history that the situation faced by today’s students has been seen). My dad likes to tell the story about a guy he used to go to uni with who did one year at school, one year work to pay for his university. He couldn’t do well in school and put the work time necessary to pay for it, so he sacrificed by taking longer to get his diploma.

The point of this is not to wallow in “walking 5 miles in the snow” and “get off my lawn” stories, but to underline the fact that where there’s a will, there’s a way, and it is always possible to do things properly if one is prepared to sacrifice.

The problem you face with getting the horses back in the pasture is that the idea of sacrifice, at least the type of sacrifice I’m talking about, goes against the logic of paying for a service. This is what most people today believe they are doing when they’re paying their tuition and it’s what makes it make sense to put socializing or doing pay work ahead of doing the work (be it readings or whatever else) for their classes. In any case, asking large groups of people to make the sort of sacrifice I’m talking about doesn’t make much sense as public policy — it smells funny on the level of social justice.

I don’t think there is a quick fix to the problem. Incentives such as extra credit might make a small difference here or there, but it’s hard to see them remedying the problem.

The only solution is to step out of the conditions that created the problem in the first place. What must be done is to raise the proportion of people who are readers in the population as a whole. This will ensure that people arrive at university equipped with the tools necessary to educate themselves. It is something that needs to be dealt with at home before kids have hit the age of 7, when kids are becoming small “l” literate. They need to develop the habits of a reader at a young age so that they will be, in the course of reading, develop the habits of quiet reflection and thinking, rather than developing the habit of reacting and interacting to the “cooler” stimuli and tittytainment that our electronic technologies offer us. In short, students need to arrive at university wanting to read rather than having to be convinced to read.

As I hinted above, this isn’t really a solution that lends itself to public policy, but to personal responsibility as a parent, for those who choose to become parents. It means taking the time necessary to make sure that one’s children can become readers by habit as far as they are able. It means changing one’s own habits too. I’ve mad e a point of not using my computer or tablet when my kids are around the house (as much as I can). You look like you’re “using the computer” rather than reading even if you are reading on the computer. Instead, I pull out a book when they are around so they can see me taking time out to read. It seems to be taking with them, but it’s a lot of work to get a child to the point where they develop the habit of reading for pleasure.