Daily News

posted on Jan. 17: Ontario must fund 15,000 more faculty to ease shortage, group says

The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is calling on the provincial government to provide more funding to ease a pressing faculty shortage at Ontario universities. "Ontario needs 15,000 more professors in order to meet student demand for higher education," said Henry Jacek, OCUFA president and a professor of political science at McMaster. "And we need to hire now or face a worsening faculty shortage crisis." OCUFA released a research paper this week, titled "Less Isn't More: Ontario's Faculty Shortage Crisis", that highlights the faculty shortage problem. The group is also hosting a one-day conference Jan. 26 that will examine the crisis. "The government has known for years that the number of faculty at Ontario universities is far below what is needed to deal with the growing demand for higher education. We are now faced with a faculty shortage crisis. And while the government uses the rhetoric of investing in students', it has not provided the funding needed to hire faculty who are critical to student learning and to maintaining a world-class system of excellence in education in the province," said Jacek.

posted on Jan. 15: McMaster is only Canadian member of university consortium for new metals research

McMaster is the only Canadian university involved in a consortium of eight North American academic institutions that will collaborate on a new metals research centre. The Centre for Metals in the Environment will conduct applied research focusing on the fate and effects of metals in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. According to the International Lead Zinc Research Organization (ILZRO), which made the announcement in December, research conducted by the centre's scientists and engineers is expected to lead to the creation of reliable predictive models that will assist in the conduct of hazard and risk assessment. Each of the institutions was selected for its expertise in certain areas. The three participating McMaster faculty are professors Gordon McDonald and Chris Wood, and associate professor Pat Chow-Fraser,all in the Department of Biology. They bring to the centre over 20 years' of knowledge and expertise in the fields of the physiology of aquatic organisms, and the mechanisms of metal uptake and toxicity.