Too many teachers, too few jobs

Judy McNeil
Business Reporter

Ontario teachers’ colleges face a glut of applicants who will graduate into an already over-saturated job market for educators.

Elementary school teachers fare better in getting full-time jobs if they have the added skill of French, science, technology or mathematics. Others are forced to resort to part-time employment.

“The Ontario College of Teachers does a survey each year on the employment of graduates from all of the programs across the province,” said Kathy Broad, elementary program director of teacher education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). “Their tracking … has indicated that over the last couple of years in particular, there’s less full-time employment for graduates from the program.”

Counter fits

Funny money no laughing matter

Stephanie Sherr
Business Reporter

Humber’s North Campus bookstore will no longer accept traveller’s cheques, after cashing $300 in counterfeits.
“We just got verification from the bank that we received counterfeit traveller’s cheques,” said bookstore manager Debby Martin.

Martin said that the primary reason behind the decision is the difficulty in detecting this type of forged currency. Without easily recognizable security features or special markings that can be detected by the store’s ultraviolet light scanner, staff cannot distinguish fake cheques from real ones.

“We did check,” said bookstore employee Kiran Aslam. “But sometimes if there was a line up, it was hard to figure out.”

“At least with the bills,” Martin said, “we’ve got the information from the police on what you’re supposed to look for to detect counterfeiting. But a traveller’s cheque looks like a traveller’s cheque. It’s just got Visa or American Express on it.”

Three Hawks declared ineligible due to academics

Michael Clegg
Sports Reporter

Three athletes have been deemed ineligible to participate by the athletic department due to poor academic standing – one from the men’s volleyball team and two from the men’s basketball team.

“We normally lose five or six athletes and it’s really not a predictable thing as to which sport,” said Doug Fox, Humber’s athletic director. “It’s one of the reasons we didn’t win this year. We work hard at keeping them academically eligible because you can’t win if you lose players due to academics.”

When a player is deemed academically ineligible he or she is allowed to continue to practice but is banned from playing in games.
“In the case of the basketball players we chose not to have them practice,” Fox said. “We would rather them concentrate on their school so we removed them from the team.”
Humber athletes are held to standards set by the OCAA regarding academic eligibility.

Men’s basketball season over, recruiting begins

James Sturgeon
Sports Reporter

Despite a respectable third-place finish at this year’s provincial championships a few weeks ago, men’s basketball team is looking to add some critical components for the upcoming season.

Head Coach Darrell Glenn is optimistic that through some successful recruiting this off-season the coaching staff can fill the gaps.

“We certainly have those pieces on paper,” Glenn said while taking in a game at this year’s OFSAA high school championships in Hamilton on Saturday.

Glenn was joined by assistant coaches Chris Cheng and Ajay Sharma over the weekend to see potential Hawks Ricky Dunkley and six-foot-four guard Henry Carr in Etobicoke.

“We like his size, we like his athleticism and we think he’s going to be a great addition to the program,” Glenn said.

“I live in the community around (Humber) and I heard it was a very good program,” Dunkley said.

Buzzer sounds on season for men’s hockey team

Hawks conclude year with semi-final loss to Sheridan

Simon Yau
Sports Reporter

The men’s extramural hockey team finished third in its final tournament of the season after being upset 4-3 by the Sheridan Bruins in the semi-final.
The Hawks routed Sheridan 7-2 last Friday at the single-day tournament, but by mid-afternoon the team seemed fatigued, allowing the two goal to lead slip away after four unanswered goals.

“We panicked a little bit and everybody tries to do it themselves, and you lose,” said head coach Joe Washkurak.
The semi-final immediately followed a heartbreaking shootout loss to McMaster University that determined which team would get a bye into the final.

Up 2-1 with a minute and thirty seconds remaining Hawks forward Brent McCully turned the puck over in his own zone, allowing a breakaway for the Marauders that saw the tying goal trickle through the pads of Humber goalie Andrew Jackson.

As a result, the deflated Hawks went into a dramatic extra-rounds shootout – the tournament did not feature overtime – which ended when McCully failed to score in the sixth round.

“I was just thinking I got to score,” McCully said. “I was going to do a spin move, which I can do, but the guys wouldn’t let me.”

The tough loss was clearly still on the minds of the players as they struggled to regain their composure against a weak Sheridan team.

“Playing back-to-back is hard after getting beat by a team we haven’t beaten this whole year,” Washkurak said, adding, “it’s for fun and that’s all that really matters.”

Office options online

Free software competes with Microsoft products

Will Cottingham
Business Reporter

Downloadable programs are proving a reasonable alternative to Microsoft Office for cost-conscious students.

Google docs and spreadsheets and OpenOffice.org are free software suites for students, said Mark Naylor, chief information officer of information and technology services at Humber.

“If you have a new (computer) and you want an office program, and you don’t want to buy Microsoft or take it illegally, then OpenOffice is a good product,” Naylor said.

But there are some potential problems in the long run.

Ontario lays out new budget

Angela Scappatura
Business Reporter

The new provincial budget does not do enough to distinguish and support college education, said HSF president Cynthia Malagerio.

“Colleges are drastically under funded,” Malagerio said. “The government has started to recognize the value colleges provide but more needs to be done.”

Finance Minister Greg Sorbara’s budget last week included a plan to invest a total of $6.2 billion into post-secondary education by 2009 or 2010.

Malagerio said while the government has allocated $390 million to post-secondary institutions this year, the number sounds a lot larger than it is.

“It won’t seem like so much when it is distributed between all of us,” she said.

Cultural changes

HSF’s plans to bring in Human Race Machine intrigues staff and students

Krista Cyr
Life Reporter

HSF has ordered a machine that will be available for everyone curious to see what they would look like as a different ethnicity.

“It would be interesting to see what they might choose,” said Nitin Deckha, teacher of sociology of cultural difference. “Looking at different films in class, predominant people were changing their features with surgery to look lighter, fairer, with straighter noses and it is the mainstream media images that push that kind of fashion and film, where people look Europeanized.”

HSF programming director Aaron Miller said it’s a way to celebrate diversity.

“For example, you get to see what you would look like as Asian or black,” he said.

The contraption, called The Human Race Machine, will be available April 2-3 at North Campus.

After your picture is taken inside the large machine, a program adjusts your image by changing it to any race you select.

Nurse heads to Peru

Katarina Ilic
Life Reporter

The practical nursing program is sending one of its second-year students to Peru at the end of March.

“I really have a passion for nursing and I also have a passion for travelling,” said Courtney Miller, who will stay with a host family in Urumba, Peru.

She hopes her trip will give her a new perspective on nursing.

“I really just wanted to get that international perspective. I don’t like the fact that my nursing knowledge is limited to westernized methods,” Miller said.

She also hopes that this trip will make her a global citizen.

Four is the new six

Jordana Stier
Life Reporter

Nicknamed vanity sizing, a new fashion trend makes consumers think they’re thinner by re-working garments size system, Humber fashion teachers said.

Manufacturers are tailoring to the obsession of being thin by providing new scales of sizes that go down to double zero and extra- extra small.

It makes a woman who’s normally a size six fit into a size four or two, said Rose Rutherford, a fashion business teacher at Humber.

She said the trend is a “reflection of our time, and not so much the fashion industry. It negatively reflects our time in what we see as right.”

According to Rutherford, the modern woman is expanding, and sizes that seem smaller are designed to make women feel better.

“I’ve talked a lot about it in my classes and this (trend) came up, and I think (students) understand that it is somewhat of a marketing tool, but they’re not going to get affected by it,” she said. “I think that they’re rational. They’re smart enough to figure it out.”

Some fashion business students don’t see vanity sizing as a form of exploitation by the fashion industry, they view it as a trend that ties into people trying to look a certain way, Rutherford said.

She also said young people are fed up, and understand that, “there’s more to life than just this.”