Education
Red Deer Polytechnic researching clean energy systems, medical device innovation, and space and defence technologies
Red Deer Polytechnic continues partnership with universities to accelerate applied research
Red Deer Polytechnic (RDP) faculty and staff will grow their impact through applied research, thanks to a $27.3 Million investment by the Government of Alberta to post-secondary institutions through the Major Innovation Fund (MIF).
Red Deer Polytechnic is one of the post-secondary institutions that will continue to collaborate with the Universities of Alberta and Calgary during the next four years to accelerate research and commercialization because of the MIF funding. RDP will receive $800,000 from the MIF funding within three projects.
“We’re enthusiastic and eager to be collaborating with other post-secondary institutions to solve industry challenges in the medical devices, clean energy, and space and defense sectors,” says Dr. Tonya Wolfe, Associate Vice President of Applied Research. “Our team is focused on applying the state-of-the-art equipment and hands-on experience we have at Red Deer Polytechnic to commercialize new technologies in order to strengthen and diversify the economy. Cross-functional collaboration creates exciting outcomes, and industry will benefit by having researchers from universities, polytechnics, and colleges working together.”
The MIF investment will focus on projects in four areas. Red Deer Polytechnic is involved in three of those areas, including:
• Clean Energy – applied researchers from RDP’s Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) will be collaborating with U of A in Resilient and Clean Energy Systems. The team will support the university’s research with its rapid validation technology and information gained from the EIC’s Data Sharing Alliance.
• Medical Device Innovation – led by the U of C under medical devices theme (MEDICO), RDP’s Centre for Innovation in Manufacturing (CIM-TAC) will provide expertise to find solutions to fill the gap between clinicians and commercialization.
• Space and Defence Technologies – using the advanced additive manufacturing technology housed on campus, CIM-TAC will be assisting U of A researchers in the development of novel materials for the defence industry.
This investment also supports research and innovation within strategic areas as part of the Alberta Technology and Innovation Strategy, advancing the province’s competitive position in the development of research and technology.
“We are excited about the Government’s investment toward Alberta’s research and innovation priorities,” says Stuart Cullum, President of Red Deer Polytechnic. “Alberta’s polytechnics provide critical applied research capacity and industry relationships. The investment directed toward Red Deer Polytechnic, facilitated through the MIF program, supports our collaboration with partner institutions and ensures that we are all contributing more to the growth and diversification of Alberta’s economy.”
During 2022, 73 projects were initiated in the CIM-TAC for 57 companies and RDP staff conducted more than 1,300 engagements with industry representatives. RDP provides solutions to complex challenges in society and industry through applied research expertise in the areas of health technology, advanced manufacturing, clean energy integration and energy management, and social innovation. More information about the Government of Alberta’s MIF Funding announcement is available online.
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Race- (and other-) based admissions will inevitably pave the way to race- (and other-) based medical practices, which will only further the divisions that exist in society. You can’t fight discrimination with more discrimination.
Perhaps it should be expected that a so-obviously ‘woke’ institution as the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) would toss aside such antiquated concepts as academic merit as it prepares to open its new medical school in the fall of 2025.
After all, until recently, TMU was more widely known as Ryerson University. But it underwent a rapid period of self-flagellation, statue-tipping and, ultimately, a name change when its namesake, Edgerton Ryerson, was linked (however indirectly) to Canada’s residential school system.
Now that it has sufficiently cleansed itself of any association with past intolerance, it is going forward with a more modern form of intolerance and institutional bias by mandating a huge 80% diversity quota for its inaugural cohort of medical students.
TMU plans to fill 75 of its 94 available seats via three pathways for “equity-deserving groups” in an effort to counter systemic bias and eliminate barriers to success for certain groups. Consequently, there are distinct admission pathways for “Indigenous, Black and Equity-Deserving” groups.
What exactly is an equity-deserving group? It’s almost any identity group you can imagine – that is, except those who identify as white, straight, cisgender, straight-A, middle- and/or upper-class males.
To further facilitate this grand plan, TMU has eliminated the need to write the traditional MCAT exam (often used to assess aptitude, but apparently TMU views it as a barrier to accessing medical education). Further, it has set the minimum grade point average at a rather average 3.3 and, “in order to attract a diverse range of applicants,” it is accepting students with a four-year undergrad degree from any field.
It’s difficult to imagine how such a heterogenous group can begin learning medicine at the same level. Someone with an advanced degree in physiology or anatomy will be light years ahead of a classmate who gained a degree by dissecting Dostoyevsky.
Finally, it should be noted that in “exceptional circumstances” any of these requirements can be reconsidered for, you guessed it, black, indigenous or other equity-deserving groups.
As for the curriculum itself, it promises to be “rooted in community-driven care and cultural respect and safety, with ECA, decolonization and reconciliation woven throughout” which will “help students become a new kind of physician.”
Whether or not this “new kind of physician” will be perceived as fully credible, however, is yet to be seen. Because of its ‘woke’ application process, all TMU medical graduates will be judged differently no matter how skilled they may be and even when physicians are in short supply. Life and death decisions are literally in their hands, and in such cases, one would think that medical expertise is far more important than sharing the same pronouns.
Frankly, if students need a falsely inclusive environment where all minds think alike to feel safe and a part of society, then maybe they aren’t cut out to become doctors who will treat all people equally. After all, race- (and other-) based admissions will inevitably pave the way to race- (and other-) based medical practices, which will only further the divisions that exist in society. You can’t fight discrimination with more discrimination.
It’s ridiculous to use medical school enrollments as a means of resolving issues of social injustice. However, from a broader perspective, this social experiment echoes what is already happening in universities across Canada. The academic merit of individuals is increasingly being pushed aside to fulfill quotas based on gender or even race.
One year ago, the University of Victoria made headlines when it posted a position for an assistant professor in the music department. The catch is that the selection process was limited to black people. Education professor Dr. Patrick Keeney points out that diversity, equity and inclusion policies are reshaping core operations at universities. Grants and prestigious research chair positions are increasingly available only to visible minorities or other identity groups.
Non-academic considerations are given priority, and funding is contingent on meeting minority quotas.
Consequently, Keeney states that the quality of education is falling and universities that were once committed to academic excellence are now perceived as institutions to pursue social justice.
Diversity is a legitimate goal, but it cannot – and should not — be achieved by subjugating academic merit to social experimentation.
Susan Martinuk is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health-care Crisis.
From the Fraser Institute
The Waterloo Region District School Board recently announced it would remove garbage bins from classrooms, before suddenly reversing itself.
Strange as it sounds, the school board planned to replace classroom waste bins with larger bins in common areas outside of classrooms, ostensibly to reduce the amount of waste produced by schools. Apparently, the facilities superintendent and senior facilities manager (the people behind this idea) think garbage magically appears when garbage bins are in classrooms and disappears once you get rid of these bins.
Of course, reality is quite different. Students still must dispose of dirty Kleenex tissues, empty pens and used candy wrappers. The aborted plan gave students a ready-made excuse for extra hallway trips. To prevent this from happening, teachers would have to provide makeshift garbage bins of their own.
This is a prime example of administrators trying to impose impractical directives on teachers for the sake of virtue signalling. No doubt Waterloo school board officials wanted to be recognized as environmental leaders. Getting rid of garbage bins in classrooms is an easy and effortless way to look like you’re doing something good for the environment.
Indeed, teachers typically bear the brunt of bad ideas imposed on them from above. As another example, British Columbia K-9 teachers must now issue report cards with confusing descriptors such as “emerging” and “extending” rather than more easily understood letter grades such as A, B and C. A recent survey revealed that most parents find the new B.C. report cards hard to understand. While most had no trouble interpreting letter grades such as A, less than one-third could correctly identify what “emerging” and “extending” mean about a student’s progress.
While the B.C. Ministry of Education claims these new report cards are built on the expertise of classroom teachers, its own surveys found that 77 per cent of teachers were unhappy with the grading overhaul. Of course, their feedback was ignored by education bureaucrats, which means teachers must implement something most disagree with, and then bear the brunt of parental frustration.
And one can never forget the nonsensical “no-zero” policies imposed on teachers in every province, which prohibit teachers from giving a mark of zero when students fail to hand in assignments or docking marks for late assignments. The reasoning behind no-zero policies is that zeroes have too negative an impact on student grades.
Fortunately, no-zero policies have become less popular in Canadian schools, particularly after Edmonton physics teacher Lynden Dorval was fired for refusing to comply with his principal’s no-zeroes edict. Not only did the public overwhelmingly support Dorval at the time, but the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld an arbitrator’s ruling that Dorval’s firing was unjust. In the end, taxpayers were on the hook for paying Dorval two years of salary, along with topping up his pension. But this doesn’t mean no-zero policies have disappeared entirely. Plenty of assessment gurus hired by school boards still push them on gullible administrators and unsuspecting teachers.
Finally, there are the never-ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training sessions—possibly the worst fads ever imposed on Canadian teachers. In an obvious desire to justify their jobs, DEI consultants provide many hours of professional development to hapless teachers who have no choice but to attend.
When teachers push back, as Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto did during a DEI session a couple years ago, they’re subjected to harassment and derision. In this case, the social impact on Bilkszto was so negative he eventually and tragically took his own life.
The Bilkszto case had a chilling effect—teachers should go along with whatever they’re told to do by their employer, even when a directive doesn’t make sense. This is not healthy for any profession, and it certainly doesn’t benefit students.
Classroom teachers have far too many bad ideas imposed on them. Instead of making teachers implement useless fads, we should just let them teach. That is, after all, why they became teachers in the first place.
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