A bad news worth our Chinese to fight!
I paste the following e-mail of a professore from the University of Quebec.
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Subject: UQO Dumping the English PM Program!!
Hey, guys, did you hear that UQO is looking as though they are going to stop the PM Masters program in English?
I heard it on CFRA this morning and there was even a voice clip of
Jean-Paul Paquin saying that this program gives a lot of creditability
to UQO. No kidding.
From what I could gather from the news item, the issue seems to be that
UQO administrative staff is having trouble communicating with the large
numbers of Chinese students UQO is bringing into the English program.
That is likely the case since I saw a very real problem with Chinese
students who were not able to function in English at all in the classes.
I know a number of us ended up carrying these folks through numerous
courses. I never understood why UQO did not enforce some sort of
language standards for the language of instruction... Makes one
wonder....
I believe, however, that the issue is not really the Chinese students
not having a proper level of English but that there is a problem with an
English program in the first place.
I had a very interesting discussion with Alan Beaufils a few years ago
concerning just this problem. He had some tough comments on the
attitude toward the English programs at UQO. He told me that he had
been trying to make the UQO staff and management understand that to have
prosperity as a university it had to embrace the international
community. I recall Alan referring to this matter as "homophobic"
towards French-only programming, which is why UQO at that time was
focusing on bringing in French speaking students from France into the PM
program. Alan also pointed out that UQO was under great pressure from
the Quebec government to drop the English programs or face reductions in
provincial support... Seems pretty homophobic to me...
So, if I read it correctly UQO will be forced to drop its English PM
program and sink it small-minded thinking....
Sorry for the commentary but it is a shame that, once again, the
language issue will have caused another causality. If you folks have a
different view or have different information, I would like to hear it.
XXX
I paste the following e-mail of a professore from the University of Quebec.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: UQO Dumping the English PM Program!!
Hey, guys, did you hear that UQO is looking as though they are going to stop the PM Masters program in English?
I heard it on CFRA this morning and there was even a voice clip of
Jean-Paul Paquin saying that this program gives a lot of creditability
to UQO. No kidding.
From what I could gather from the news item, the issue seems to be that
UQO administrative staff is having trouble communicating with the large
numbers of Chinese students UQO is bringing into the English program.
That is likely the case since I saw a very real problem with Chinese
students who were not able to function in English at all in the classes.
I know a number of us ended up carrying these folks through numerous
courses. I never understood why UQO did not enforce some sort of
language standards for the language of instruction... Makes one
wonder....
I believe, however, that the issue is not really the Chinese students
not having a proper level of English but that there is a problem with an
English program in the first place.
I had a very interesting discussion with Alan Beaufils a few years ago
concerning just this problem. He had some tough comments on the
attitude toward the English programs at UQO. He told me that he had
been trying to make the UQO staff and management understand that to have
prosperity as a university it had to embrace the international
community. I recall Alan referring to this matter as "homophobic"
towards French-only programming, which is why UQO at that time was
focusing on bringing in French speaking students from France into the PM
program. Alan also pointed out that UQO was under great pressure from
the Quebec government to drop the English programs or face reductions in
provincial support... Seems pretty homophobic to me...
So, if I read it correctly UQO will be forced to drop its English PM
program and sink it small-minded thinking....
Sorry for the commentary but it is a shame that, once again, the
language issue will have caused another causality. If you folks have a
different view or have different information, I would like to hear it.
XXX
