News

UNBC BEAMS ABOARD

by Manpreet Sidhu

Since UNBC is the
first university to be built from
_ the ground up in Canada in 25
years, it has been able to install
technology not available at
other Canadian universities.

On December 2nd at
9:00 am, BC _— Systems
Corporation will give
demonstrations on the uses of
teleconferencing. The Prince
George campus will be linked
with Terrace, Quesnel and

Victoria on that day to illustrate"

how courses will be offered
starting in the second semester.

This project will result
in a dozen courses being offered
via video _ teleconferencing
starting this January.
Teleconferencing is like
interactive television in that it
allows the instructor and
students to see each other and
interact as if they were in one
classroom.

Initially, this project
will link Prince George to
Quesnel and Terrace.
Additional teaching centers will
be added in the future.

Video teleconferencing
is a part of UNBC's
commitment to be a regional
university. Media
representatives are welcome to
attend the demonstration at the
Prince George campus in Room
5-173 where they will sec
people in Quesnel and Terrace.

On December 5th, the
$2.3 million Dynacom system
will be showcased. This
integrated voice, video and data
network was awarded to BC Tel
in early 1994 and will bring
multi-media technology to the
classroom.

As part of the
demonstration, UNBC faculty
will show how they will use the
technology in the classroom.

Media officer Rob van

Adrichem feels that this
technology will enhance the
classroom experience for most
students. "The sciences will
greatly benefit from this", van
Adrichem says. "An instructor
can mix the lab and the lecture
parts of a class together by
performing the experiment in
the Lab building and explaining
it to students in the classroom
via Dynacom."

Dynacom _~ President
Tim Beekman and BC Tel
Advanced Communications

representative Bruce Gillanders ©

will be on campus to

demonstrate the system. Media
representatives are asked to
meet at the entrance of the
Library on that day. ¥

BUBBLE BUBBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE

Core or bore... The question rages on

by Stephanie Willett

On Tuesday November
23, 1994 a student forum was
held to discuss the core
classes. This forum was
chaired by Deborah Poff,
UNBC’s acting academic
vice-president. The topic for
discussion was __ students

.Yeaction to the five
mandatory CORE classes,
and the possible revisal of
these classes.

The general consensus
with students. was that the
CORE classes are generally a
waste of time, effort, money
and academic stress.
Although most of the
students disagree with the
five mandatory CORE
classes, they commonly
agreed that CORE 100 was a
good idea, and _ worth
keeping, if it were revised
greatly. The students also
generally agreed that a
science based course would
be acceptable, if it was not so
broad, much like the.
requirements that UBC has.
Another consensus with the

students was that it wou'd be
preferable if the CORE
classes could be used as
prerequisite or a transfer
courses. The classes now are
structured so that you learn a
little bit about everything, but
not enough to go further in
the subject, without taking
another first year course. At
least with UBC’s policy the
Students can use the
mandatory course as a 100
level prerequisite.

It is true that the CORE
courses are a nice idea. To
diversify the students is a
variety of subjects is a great
idea. Unfortunately when
one is forced to do
something, they generally do
not go into that situation
with an open mind. Also
why should a social science
major be expected to take
CORE 1037 If students had
this extra space to get on
with their real goal, they
would obviously be taking a
social science course. Many
of the CORE courses are
redundant.

Many suggestions were
made to help reform the
CORE’s _ including; not
having them affect GPA’s,
having them tuition free,
making them longer,
reducing the number to two
or three, restructuring CORE
100, as well as many others.

Poff concluded the
forum by telling the students -
that the complaints and
recommendations will be
taken seriously. The student
forum, along with the faculty
forum, will be taken into .
consideration and a decision
should be made by the
September 95 semester.

Hopefully something
will be done. Students
generally do not want, and
do not like the CORE
classes, but as it was pointed
out at the meeting, every
single student that came to
this university knew about
the CORE requirements.
When students decided to
come here they came with
the knowledge that they had

‘to take these classes and they

agreed to the terms. X

over THE EDGE - Wednesday, November 30 , 1994 3

GRADS AND UNDERGRADS:
TWO SEPARATE SOCIETIES?

by Charles Hogg
The graduate
students at UNBC are

currently in the process of
setting up their own society.
Their main concern is that
the current constitution
under which the Student
Association (SA) operates
will not meet the very
different and specific necds
they have.

In the opinion of Ed
Stafford and Tony Lort , two
grads working on the socicty,
the constitution focuses on
clubs and social events. The
grad students feel that they
need a group to address their
specific concerns dealing
with teachers assistants, pay,
relationships with faculty
members and __ research
assistance.

Another concern for
grad students is possible
conflicts of interest within
the Student Association. In
other words it is very
possible that a grad student
on the SA could be the
teacher of another undergrad
on the SA. By setting up a
separate society this potential
for conflict is eliminated.

Grad students

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SUPERB TELEMARK & TOURING

generally feel that these
issues are enough to warrant
the establishment of a
separate society.

Lort feels there is a
strong possibility that two
societies can work together
in areas of similar concern,
like library hours, computer
problems and _ interlibrary
loans. He also feels that two
separate bodies could have
more of an impact on
decisions and issues if they
cooperate than if both were
in one society.

The activities of the
society to date have been

‘ mostly ad-hoc and focused on

deciding what grad students
need and want from their
society. In the next few
months the society hopes to
have a constitution, a budget,
a scholarship fund and hold
an intérim election.

Grad students are
working for the future,
according to Lort,

“motivation is good despite
the fact most grads won’t see
the results of their work.” Of
the 105 grad students at
UNBC, Lort feels 90% of
them are behind the concept
of the society. %

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Prince George, B.C. .
Ph: (604) 5@4-7814