September 26, 1985

Students Leaving

' Their Mark on Students

Students are being controlled by other students. The fate of one student may very well lie in the hands of an assistant corrector. An assistant corrector is a student of a higher course level than you, who is paid to check assignments for the professors. With some classes having more than 200 students, we cannot blame the professors for needing someone else to

1 check assignments. But some of the students with the power, may be weilding a red pen they haven’t the authority to use.

For example, the assignments for Math 151-E are corrected by a second year student who has taken and done well in the course. This assignment corrector has received the first batch of papers. Promptly after receiving them, he notified the

instructor that students would haVe t0 staple their papers after the first assignment, or he (the corrector) would automatically deduct 10% from the student’s mark.

The reasoning behind this is clear. A stapled paper has less chance of being shuffled into disorder in a huge pile. I have no qualms about askng students to staple papers. I personally staple my assignments. Even though the practice of stapling is a good idea, a student, however disorganized he might be, has no right to alter the marks of another to enforce his own pet staple law. Just because a corrector cannot keep papers in order does not give him the right to steal 10% of another student’s marks.

I have checked my 1984-85 Calendar carefully, I have read my mathmetics schedule for the semester several times. Under the grading system, I have no column relating to the stapling of papers. Under assignments, there are no guidelines specified. I think I can safely believe that a university calculus

course does not teach Paper Staple 151. I can see no valid reason for permitting a student to subjectively remove marks from another student’s course total.

If this student is permitted to maintain his practice of “No staple -— remove 10%”, then he may continue on to even more foolish practices like, “Written in pencil, deduct 10%”, “Page number omitted —— loss of 10%”. “Name spelled incorrectly minus 10%”, or the best to come,“ U nruled paper — subtract 60%”. If this student is allowed to bumble on his merry way, he will be able to remove all value a student could earn on an assignment.

Of course, to test the hypocrisy of this student, I should

" like to pass in a scroll of paper for my assignment. With no. staple, what would he do? By James Connolly

Netted Gem Shift ‘

THE NETTED GEM

The staff consists of: Carol Doiron, Jill Warburton, Jim Lai, Jonathan Orlowski, Don Lane, James Connolly, Bill Harwood, Danny Mullen, Ron Lewis, Howard Beattie, Bob Stanley, Robert Bodrog-Goodland, Mike ZinckJ-[eatherK _,', Marlene Cole, Margo Chase, Mel Wilson, Brian Link/etter, Ken Spence/ey, Shelli Wheaten, Rob Kelley, Nils Connor, G R. Boswell. Karen Cough/in, Janet Armstrong: ("70' Sheila Lund, Editor,

— Views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Student Union, the staff or of anyone in particular. We reserve the right to edit copy for space, style, or legal reasons. Letters to the editor must be typed, double spaced and submitted before noon on Mondays. All letters must be signed, by their authors, but names may be withheld upon consultation with the editor. Phone 566-0629. Staff meetings are held on Monday, beginning at 6:30 p. m. All students are welcome to join the staff.

News

Viewpoint

By Nils R. Connor

Before this past summer becomes a mere faded and tattered memory to be brought out only as amusing ancedotes, it seems appro- priate to discuss a govern- ment program which I hope, will be peculiar to 1985 (the International Year of Youth). I refer to the summer employ- ment program, Challenge ’85. Under this program, cer— tain organizations could apply to hire a student for 35 hours of work per week. The federal government would pay the wages of the student at the provincial minimum wage level. Some underlying motives of the program were to provide work experience for students and to provide career oriented employment. Thus functioned Challenge ’85.

It should be noted that the '

wages were paid by the Federal government on the basis of the provincial mini- mum wage. As P.E.I. has the lowest minimum wage of any province, Island students in the program were paid less than any other students in Challenge ’85. This might seem to indicat that the federal government considers. the work of students in P.E.I. to be less valuable than the work of students anywhere else. One might find this to be the cause of some consternation. ' Actually, on further reflec-

Chailenge ’85

tion, it came to me that such could not be the case. In fact, the federal government does

not consider the/work of

Island students to be less

valuable than the work of

others because, to the federal government, all work done by students is totally without value.

Wait! Not all students

worked for minimum wage. The government hired some for very good wages ranging to abo‘le ten dollars an hour.

True, but it is worth no- ting that these are not exclu- sively student positions. The lucky students who got such positions were automatically taken under the protection of unions and associations re- presenting public servants. For example, had the posi- tion of National Park Gate Attendant not existed prior

to this summer (and therefore not been set under previously determined government pay scales), students might have

been hired to fulfill exactly

the same duties at minimum wage.

Still, one might say, stu-

dent work isn’t worthless, but only worth minimum wage.

Not so. If a student does the work of a management consultant (which some stu- dents did, in fact, do) that student should be paid as a management consultant (with

What actually did happen, was that such a student was paid as though he or she was doing work which required no special skills or ability, even though the job inargu-

ably did have such 'special '

requirements. V Under the terms of the program, as it happens, to receive the fund- ing the sponsoring organiza— tion had to design a job re- quiring special skills. That is, the sponsoring organization was required to design a job which deserved more than

‘ minimum wage, for which

the government would pay no more than minimum wage

. as long as it was a student

who did the job.

A program such as this, coming from a government which supposedly endorses the idea of equal pay for work 9f equal value (more on that in an upcoming column) is not only shallow, but a hypocritical insult to stu- dents’ intelligence. It was merely a hollow gesture, and of no real assistance in paying

education expenses. A person.

would do better to collect social assistance benefits. Even the name of the pro- gram, “Challenge ’85” dis- plays hypocrisy. Where is the challenge in trying harder], if all one can aspire to is the

rage-t

reasonable educational

allowance for differences).

lowest possible wages?

A Discussion On Free Trade

By Alix Kreap

Free trade with the United States has been discussed

often in Canada during re- ’

cent years. Free trade is apparently supported by the resource-based industries, e.g. the agricultural, fishery, foresty, petroleum, and mining industries, and is also supported by the Premiers of all the provinces except Ontario. As well, it is sup- ported by the majority of the Conservative politicians.

The MacDonald Comis- sion recently has come out in support of free trade with the United States. With the re- lease of the MacDonald Commission’s report, many critics have surfaced to speak out against free trade. Some critics cite the possible loss of manufacturing jobs due to the resulting competition. Some far-sighted people fear that Canada will be culturally and politically assimilated into the United States, losing the Canadian national identity.

In view of these serious drawbacks, I propose an alternative: Canada should

"enter in free trade with Japan but not the'United States. My

proposal has many advant- ages. Consider the following:

1) Japan is in need of many natural resources, which would be supplied by our resource-based industries listed above. With free trade, Canada would corner the Japanese market in these goods.

2) Canada already pur-

chases much of its high tech and electronic goods from Japan, e.g. VCRs, TVs, and automobiles. With free trade, jobs may be lost in the manu- facturing sector. However, the high cost of transporta- tion from Japan to Canada, across the Pacific Ocean, will encourage Japan to build subsidiary plants in Canada, possibly creating more net jobs. 3) By all accounts, Japan will be the leading economic power in the future. Why have free trade with the second-best economic power when we can have free trade with the best?

4) Cultural assimilation will not be a problem for Cana- dians under free trade since few Canadians understand

movies, and television pro— grams will not swamp Canada, allowing us to re- main culturally independent. However, this is not the case with American free trade.

5) We won’t have a na- tional inferiority complex with our best trading partner, unlike the case with free trade with the United States.

In light of these findings, I believe Canada should

seriously consider entering \in free trade with Japan and not waste time in negotiations with our arrogant neighbour.

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