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‘ By Ron Charles

Reprinted from the Plant by Canadian University Press 'lONTREAL (CUP) — It’s 1986. Upon graduating from high chool, Kim, an average community college prospect, must hoose between two profesSional programs.

One is the traditional diploma program that offers” a wide ange of study, including humanities and English courses. The ther is a new certificate program. It focuses on one dis— pfine, requires fewer arts courses, and discourages Kim from aking complementary courses outside her program.

Kim, very interested in lelectrotechnology, chooses the zzrrower certificate program.

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At first it seems a success. She gets her certificare and lands an excellent job in her field. But the rapidly changing marke. and the introduction of automation soon catches up with her. Employers find they need broadly educated, flexible people: Kim’s education is simply inadequate. .

Kim is a victim of a Canada-wide trend. “Specialization” is the buzz word governments use to introduce narrou programs aimed at specific job markets. And if the Parti Quebecois government gets it way, Quebec will soon jump to the front ofthe bandwagon and make Kim’s scenario a reality.

The PQ call it PREC — Project de Reglement des Etudes Collegiales. It means sweeping reforms to the college system

International Women’s Day was March 8

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By Canadian University Press

First class of the term. You survey the cluster of nervous first-year faces and wish your students did not, like your academic colleagues, automatically underrate your teaching performance. But you know, sure as your salary is lower than average, sure as your chances of promotion are limited, sure as you’ll be the first to go in a cutbacks crunch, that by the end of the week students will transfer out of your class. For you are a woman.

“What do you do when you discover that students are walking out of your class at the beginning of the term because you are a woman?” asks University of Toronto professor Kathryn Morgan in her paper “Amazons, Spinsters and Women; ACareer .Of .One’s One.”

What do you do? The question is generating controversy at campuses across the country as educational institutes frantically'set up committees, establish affirmative action programs, an publically proclaim their support for women in the face of increasing crticism against sex discrimination.

Morgan, who teaches philosophy and women’s studies, says in her paper women professors are subject to alienation and self-consciousness because male professors and students judge them on the basis of sex. She points out women professors are greatly outnumbered, occupy lower-paid positions, and face reprisal if they taketime off for pregnancy.

“Given these Stresses and forms of alienation it is not surprising that many women decide to leave the academy,” she says.

Her points are clearly backed up by Some Questions of Balance, at recent report by the Commission on Canadian Studies. The report discusses the larger issue of education’s future in Canada, but 20 of the commission’s 85 recom- mendations relate» to the status of women.

Despite a 50 percent increase; in women students over the last 15 years; tithe report says women faculty have not increased, “There has to be more women for the health of the sYStem,” says James Page, one of the report’s two authors. “Women 'shou1d be encouraged to pursue academic careers. But when only 15 per cent of facultyare women, there is a lack of role models (for female undergraduates). ”

Some institutions have dealt with the problem through . affirmative action, but not without a great deal of opposition, Ar

even from women. At Concordia University in Montreal, the senators who objected strongly to the establishment of a committee to study the status of women at Concordia were two women.

June Chaikelson, Dean of Arts and Science, told the senate at a November meeting affirmative action is demeaning. “It may put women in the positions, but they’ll have less status because of it,” she said after the meeting.

Chaikelson said she had achieved her position through her abilities, not because she had been artificially promoted to

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and to make it official policy the Quebec government will only seek the agreement of cabinet.

Currently, the specialized certificate program is only offered to adult continuing education students. »

But Quebec education minister Camille Laurin says the PREC would open up CEGEPs (Quebec community colleges) to a new group of students. Just before the Dec. 5 parlia- mentary hearings on PREC, Laurin said the choices cur- rently offered to v0cational students are “insufficient”, andfa “new clientele must be welcomed”

,. _. ,‘flWhat can’the colleges offer the unemployed or the worker ‘who needs retraining, or the high school graduate who don’t

‘ continue their studies? And especially what are they proposing

for ‘the numerous CEGEP students who quit before finishing?” asked Laurin. '

Laurin says the new certificate program would not detract current diploma students, but Julia Newell, academic dean at Dawson College in Montreal, disagrees;

“The problem is with the certificate is that is too similar to a regular diploma,” Newell says. The only major dif- ferences between the two is the certificate requires two fewer

_ English courses and three fewer humanities courses.

“The real problem with (the certificate) is that it looks really good to the, students,” says Pat Powers, a Dawson teacher who sits on a committee studying PREC. “It shows that CEGEP education is only to get a job I don't know where they’re supposed to make it easier to get a job than a student with a (diploma). ”

A PREC pamphlet distributed at Dawson last year says the certificate program “would have you slide through Dan .or with the minimal skills necessary for a ‘job‘ supposed to be packaged to fit the job description

The Parent Report, the document I‘CSlel‘lt-u. for the founding of the CEGEPS, organizes the system so students in professional and academic programs coma le through complementary courses which would help students get a broader education and experiment.

According to Laurin, the policies in the Parent Report are only experimental although they‘ve been use for more than 15 years.

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an prOfs face doubts and discrimination

increase the amount of women in top-level positions. “When I get my next position, people will say I got it because I was a women,” she said.

Concordia education professor Arpi Jamalian said a status of women committee would do little to ensure women get fair treatment. “If we have one committee, five committees, 10 committees, how is the situation going to be different” she asked.

Despite the arguments, the senate voted 25 to 11 to establish an eight-member body with the power to take action on achieving equality of the sexes. Senate also advised the administration to hold open senior positions and posts in male-dominated faculties like engineering until qualified women can be found to fill them.

Another institution that has taken concrete steps to increase the number of women professors and their salaries is Dal- housie University in Halifax. Since the release of a status of women report four years ago, the faculty association, the president’s committee on the employment of women and the Dalhousie Women’s Faculty Association have succeeded in attaining better conditions for women.

“There are now more women in teaching and administrative positions and relative salaries have improved,” says professor Judith Fingard, history department chair and vice president of women faculty. But she stressed the needed for further work.

One victory women attained during contract negotiations last year was an agreement to make part time professors —- of which a high proportion are women — eligible for tenure “We are all very very pleased (with the new collective agree- ment),”'said women’s faculty president Christine Boyle. “It shows that this university is a progressive employer that is not prepared to allow women to wallow in the ghetto of secondary employment and job descrimination . ”

Despite such victories, women still face a difficult struggle in academia. And that struggle gets even tougher as goan- ment funding for education shrinks.

Phyllis Leonardi, coordinator of the Carleton Universi-x' status of women office, says cutbacks are often used an excuse for not hiring women. And Page, in Some Questions of Balance, says the wage gap hctween women and meal is steadily widening.

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