March 28, 2024

The Government of Ontario has released its 2024 Budget, which includes the previously announced $1.3B in funding to stabilize ON colleges and universities. Other postsecondary-related announcements in the budget included an additional $100M into the Skills Development Fund Training Stream for 2024-25; $15M over three years to implement an Efficiency and Accountability Fund; $10M to support small, rural, and northern training institutions; and $9M for the establishment of a medical school at York University focused on training family doctors, which ON says is the first of its kind.

The Government of Canada has invested $9.6M into the Health System Impact Embedded Early Career Researcher Award, which supports researchers working in health organizations across Canada. The funding supports 12 researchers focused on addressing health system priorities and building research capacity at their host organizations. Researchers will receive $800K over four years to study health-related topics such as autism research and policy, chronic pain management, and perinatal and neonatal health care. The researchers who have received funding hail from Dalhousie University, McMaster University, St Francis Xavier University, Université Laval, the University of Alberta, the University of Calgary, the University of Ottawa, the University of Toronto, and Western University .

Government of Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry has questioned whether it is “time to ban initiations” at cégeps and universities after a group of biology students alleged that they were put through “degrading hazing” experiences at Université de Sherbrooke. Radio-Canada reported that biology students were doused in animal urine, encouraged to strip naked in public, and told to bathe in the lac des Nations. USherbrooke has opened an investigation into the reports. “This is completely unacceptable,” said USherbrooke vice rector and secretary general Jocelyne Faucher. “At no time does the university tolerate such actions, violence, intimidation.” Déry expressed her approval of the university’s response and expressed hope that the organizers of the hazing activities would be sanctioned.

The Globe and Mail reports that ON will be allotting 96% of its international study permit applications to publicly assisted colleges and universities. The remaining 4% will go to language schools, private universities, and “other institutions,” while career colleges will reportedly not receive any applications. ON stated that it will be prioritizing programs in high-demand areas such as the skilled trades, health, human resources, hospitality, childcare, and STEM. Applications will not be able to exceed an institution’s 2023 study permit levels and the ratio of permits cannot exceed 55% of the institution’s first-year domestic enrolment. “We are protecting the integrity of our province’s postsecondary education system by attracting the best and brightest international students to Ontario to study in areas that are critical to our economy,” ON Minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop said in a statement.

The University of Alberta has launched the Climate Change and Health Hub. This interdisciplinary hub—which is based in the College of Health Sciences—brings together 30 interdisciplinary researchers to explore how climate change impacts human health. It focuses on promoting student learning and research opportunities; collaboration between researchers, universities, practitioners, and policy-makers; and evidence-informed advocacy to best reach the public. “It’s really important to think about climate change as a health issue,” said UAlberta Professor Sherilee Harper. Harper noted that previous research demonstrates that “if we frame climate change as a health issue it’s more likely to inspire people to take action compared to if we frame climate change as an environmental problem, or as an economic problem, or as a national security problem.”

Saint Mary’s University’s senate has approved an enhanced International Baccalaureate (IB) admissions and recognition policy. The policy will offer admission to graduates from over 180 IB curriculum schools in Canada and over 5,600 schools across the world. “Research shows that IB students tend to transition to university smoother and outperform their colleagues in their first year,” says Seneker. “Recognizing these students and the intellectual and personal growth that they experience both inside and outside the classroom is long overdue.”

St Clair College’s Office Administration-Health Services program has received accreditation from the Canadian College of Health Information Management (CCHIM). Graduates of the program will be able to write the national certification examination to become Health Information-Certified Associates. “This new stamp of approval assures employers that our graduates are bringing job-ready skills of the highest and most current industry standards to doctors’ offices, clinics and hospitals,” said St Clair President Patti France.

Université Laval will create a computing cluster for AI research in order to ensure Canadian researchers and industry stakeholders have access to the computing power they need for their work. The initiative has received pledges of $9.6M through the Government of Canada’s Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy (PCAIS) and $6.4M from the Government of Quebec. The investment will enable ULaval to acquire the computing infrastructure it needs to host the Pan-Canadian AI Compute Environment platform. The platform will be developed in collaboration with Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, and Calcul Québec.

Sharing a research paper on X/Twitter may increase engagement, but it does not increase citations, according to a recent study shared on Nature. Over the course of ten months, researchers shared randomly selected primary research articles and reviews on their personal accounts. Three years later, they compared the statistics of each shared article with other articles from the same journal editions. They found that the shared articles had higher daily download values, but similar citation rates to the control articles. The findings reportedly echo a similar study that was conducted in 2013 by University of Ottawa scholar Stefanie Haustein. “We actually showed that a lot of the counts on Twitter you would get were bots, it wasn’t even humans,” said Haustein of the 2013 study.

A weapons complaint at Dalhousie University’s Killam Library prompted an on-campus police response on Tuesday. Students in the library were instructed to shelter in place, while those outside the library were told to avoid the library as officers responded to a report of “a man with a gun” in the area. Police searched each floor but did not find anyone matching that description in the area. Global News reports that police are investigating the source of the “suspicious telephone call.” Dal encouraged students to connect with Student Health and Wellness for support after the disruption.