There is no shortage of academic topics to blog about. Much harder is to start a new year with a distinctly interesting post. Then, Stephen Toope saved the (my) day by publishing the following seminal post on the U15 blog. I won’t venture a guess on whether “Piece of Mind” readers are normally interested in the prose emanating from the U15, but Toope’s contribution is provocative enough that it warrants a referral. So here it is.
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While I agree with many of the points, I found the following jarring: “And while it might make sense for relatively standardized approaches to introductory organic chemistry to be agreed upon, I would eschew any attempt to settle on a uniform introduction to “theories of justice” or “the quiet revolution in Quebec” or “gender politics”.” – while the writer added the word “introductory” I find it interesting that he chose to contrast between a science topic (which apparently can be standardized and which he is not an expert in) and a number of humanities ones which (rightly) cannot. In general a cynical read of the blog sends a message of humanities good/STEM bad…. I find these classifications both unhelpful for a discussion about academic concerns in general and divisive. They are most worrisome when coming from a person who is supposed to head ALL of UBC (and not just some of its faculties)