The Cadre + _26)January 1999

UPEI News

3

Value-for-Money Audit greeted with cautious approval

By MELISSA DOUCETTE

On December 16, 1998, the controversial Value-for- Money audit on UPEI was tabled in the PEI Legislature. No audit of this type has ever been performed on a Cana- dian university.

When the audit was pro- posed over a year ago, it was met with intense opposition from administration and stu- dents alike. The university community felt that the audit was a highly invasive step that threatened UPEI’s autonomy.

Now, the administration is cautiously accepting the au- dit, while the UPEI Student

Union Council spent very little time in discussing the results.

“We knew that at a point in time, that despite our objec- tions, this [the audit] was going to be done. So we cooperated fully,” stated Dr. Lawrence Heider, Acting President of UPEI.

Heider stated that the University was relieved when the audit’s findings were re- leased, and many of the rec- ommendations were already in the early stages of develop- ment. Heider does not have any serious disagreements with the audit, which many expected to be quite harmful.

e audit deals with a

variety of subjects, including the University’s governing bod- ies, faculty, research, the book- store, curriculum, and others. The audit also includes a back- ground financial section that contains selective information.

One chart exhibits UPEI’s funding for the year 1987-88 and 1997-98, but not the years in-between. Funding in 87-88 was $21.1 million, and in 97-98 was $28.2 million.

But the audit does not show the peak years of fund- ing to the University of the early 1990s. It also omits the cuts made by the government during the last decade.

“It doesn’t tell the whole

Parlez-vous English?

Psychology student Héléne Deacon makes waves with her honours thesis

By RANDY MCDONALD

-Fourth-year student Héléne Deacon -- profiled last week after winning a Rhodes

-- is attracting a a teams her innovative thesis on bilin- gualism in children and its ef- fects

For her honours thesis, Deacon chose to investigate the effects of bilingualism on children, with the aid of UPEI psychology instructor J. Paul Boudreau

Deacon’s interest in bi- lingualism stems from her background as the daughter of an father and a F mother. When her o brother was born, her mother usually didn’t speak

French at home; even today, he can understand both writ- ten and spoken French, but he isn’t fluent in French. By contrast, Ms. Dea-

es would be confused.

A slew of studies res

thirty years, though, have

Pevealed that this stereotype is quite false.

As ageneral rule, young

children who are fluent in two languages tend to benefit

strongly, possessing signifi- ; kill

their unilingual counterparts. “If you know thata chair

can also be a chaise,” sug- gests Deacon, “then you know that an object can have more than two names ... a rose by any other name is still a rose.” A bilingual person has a

in lan-

story,” Heider stated. The funding information tuition at UPEI to Nova Scotia schools. In com- parison, UPEI has the lowest

rate,

But the report jects to mention that Nova : schools have the highest tui- tion rates in the country.

Heider further com- mented that UPEI “hope[s] this will be per- suaded by the electorate to give us better funding. ... We want them to look at what is the fair amount of support for the University.”

The audit also recom- mends that, due to resource

restrictions, a policy of aca- demic prioritization should be implemented. This polic would help to regulate whi programs are given the high- est priority in times of financial difficulty.

“A mindless way to [cut programs] is to take a low enrolment program. Does [low enrolment] mean it’s not an academic priority? I don’t think so,” said Heider.

He does agree that some kind of academic prioritization should be developed. Heider commented that people were reluctant to do so, and that

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