The pitchfork brigade.
Canadian university faces off with digital generation
A Canadian university has instilled a culture of fear by threatening to expel a student for cheating because he set up an online study group on Facebook, critics said this week.
Toronto’s Ryerson University threatened to expel first-year computer engineering student Chris Avenir last week, arguing that his study group on the Facebook networking site might encourage cheating.
Ryerson decided to lift the expulsion threat on Tuesday, but Avenir will get zero credits for the course work discussed on the Facebook forum last autumn, and the university has put a disciplinary notice on his record.
Begs disbelief. Even better (worse), it was the Information Technology Management department (!):
But James Norrie, director of the School of Information Technology Management at Ryerson, said on Thursday the issue was one of accountability, whether online or offline.
I guess Ryerson must be focused on corporate recruiters who are looking for 1950s-style “organisation men”, bent on conformity and sympathetic to control-freakery. Let’s just say that I would be disinclined to recruit future Ryerson grads if this is representative of what they are being taught. Of course, I might make an exception for Mr. Avenir and the other members of his Facebook study group. I would however suggest to him, especially as he is a freshman, to get the hell out of there and transfer to a school that is in the 21st century!
(Finally I can’t resist commenting on the delicious irony of the student’s surname; how could Ryerson do this to Mr. Future?!?)
