Letters to the Editors

Budgeting quality

Dear Editors,

The Queen’s University Graduate English Society (GES), an organization dedicated to the quality of both graduate and undergraduate education at Queen’s, would like to express its extreme concern and resolute opposition to ongoing funding cuts.

The inevitable correspondent reduction in the quantity of Teaching Assistantships and Teaching Fellowships—integral pedagogical resources in the English department—will prove deleterious to the entire program.

It’s the University administration’s responsibility to fund the top-quality education that the GES’s membership is committed to providing and achieving. We refuse to accept budget policy is entirely at the mercy of the government. An administration that claims it has no choice but to cut programs shirks its duty to defend higher education by demanding better funding. Genuine leadership requires genuine advocacy and we rely on the administration to carry our concerns to policymakers.

The GES hopes for an administration that lives up to the ideals that have helped place Queen’s among the top universities in the country. We will stand united with an administration whose policies match its rhetoric and whose budget doesn’t foster fear and cynicism among the graduate community. We came here to pursue excellence for ourselves and to provide, in turn, the same opportunities for the students we mentor.

The GES asks the administration to honour our work with a sustainable funding model. Current budget proposals threaten to dismantle our program.

We ask, in short, that the administration craft a budget policy that shows as much genuine commitment to quality education as we do in our own work.

Leslie Stobbart and MaryAnne Laurico

Co-Presidents, Graduate English Society

Solar prospects

Dear Editors,

In the summer of 2009, I worked for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Farms and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) writing information sheets on the generation of photovoltaic (solar, abbreviated PV) electricity for Ontario’s farmers.

From my direct experience dealing with the various companies in solar market, I can confirm to the Journal that Team CHR’s plan for leasing roof space at Queen’s University for the generation of solar electricity is concrete and realizable.

Anyone interested in a detailed assessment of our university’s prospects for solar electricity generation should consult Joshua Pearce and the Applied Sustainability Research Team. They conservatively estimate that Queen’s could install between three and six mW of solar panels, up to 35,000 square metres of available, non-visible roof space.

The introduction of the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program by the provincial government provides a subsidy—ranging from $0.539 to $0.802 per kilowatt/hour—for electricity generated by roof-top mounted PV panels.

Under a roof-lease agreement, the company would bear the cost of the PV panels and would sell the electricity it generates back to the Ontario Power Authority under a fixed-price contract lasting 20 years. It would pay the roof owner a monthly rate ‘lease’ for the space.

However, the FIT subsidy rates are scheduled for revision in September 2011. Under conditions of mounting provincial deficit, it’s generally acknowledged they will be revised downward. If the student body is serious about the environmental sustainability of our university, now is the time to act.

Graham Juneau, ArtSci ’10

Big boy now

Dear Editors,

I’m a 21-year-old student at Queen’s University. I have been able to discern with reasonable ability when I should and shouldn’t do something. I also have a general awareness of my surroundings. I consider myself the final authority on when I should and shouldn’t perform some action. I listen to others and then I decide.

Based on this, I doubt I’m the only student who gets pissed off when our university, or some facet of it, treats me like I need a hug when I skin my knee. The latest version of this is our inability to get a stir-fry from Ban Righ cafeteria without a tray for fear that we may burn ourselves on the hot food.

Are you serious?

When did it become a legitimate concern that students couldn’t watch out for their own welfare? Are we so incapable we need people to go beyond issuing a simple warning to instituting a rule that we have to abide by? I can understand rules regarding etiquette and efficiency in the caf, but do we really need rules better given to kids?

Whether this was instituted for our safety or to protect the cafeteria from liability issues; how many more bullshit rules are going to be put in place until university becomes a continuation of high school and no longer a place where adults study and develop?

It should be noted at this point that this is a letter to the editor. It’s not a forum for a longstanding debate. So I will speak plainly: I ‘m a big boy and I don’t need an artificial paternalistic entity to tell me how to deal with a bowl of food that’s not even hot.

Ryan Guichon, ArtSci ’10

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

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