The Muse, vol. 56, no. 24 (06 April 2006)

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Volume 56, Number 24
www.themuse.ca
April 6,201)6
Budget means big cash for Memorial
Danny Willian, Ed Byrne, Joan Burke, Loyola Sullivan and Axel Meisen all have something to say about this year's provincial budget. Check out Pages
4 and 5 to see exactly what.
Turmoil in pharmacy programs irks students
Low completion rate
has many questioning
quality of Masters
program
By Alex Bill
The drop-out rate in the School of
Pharmacy's Masters and PhD programs has got a lot of students worried.
The completion rate for the Masters
program in pharmacy is at 56 per cent
- almost 20 per cent lower than the
other physical sciences (chemistry,
biology, physics etc). And, all three
students who've enrolled in the PhD
program since it was created in 2001
failed to graduate.
"The School of Pharmacy is noto
rious within the Graduate Students'
Union (GSU)," said Sherrie McCarthy,
VP external for the GSU. "There's definitely something wrong that needs to
be addressed."
The consensus from all sides is that
supervisor-student relationships are
the source of the problem, though
opinions differ on why.
Chet Jablonski, dean of graduate
studies, and Linda Hensman, director of the School of Pharmacy, were
wary of putting any blame on individuals.
"Supervisors and their students are
really co-dependent of each other,"
said Jablonski. "In that kind of situation the expectations are high, and
sometimes, for a variety of reasons,
the wheels come off."
Of the three PhD students, Anas El-
Aneed switched back to the Masters
program before switching to biochem
istry, Majde Takieddin quit the program after two years, and Kassem
Abouchehade had his program terminated in 2005.
Takieddin says the relationship
with his supervisor was abysmal, and
if he didn't quit, his supervisor would
have tried to remove him.
Abouchehade declined comment
while his program's termination is
before an appeals committee, and
El-Aneed could not be reached as of
press time.
The dispute mechanism in place for
supervisor-student disputes generally involves talking with the supervisor, and then a committee. If that fails,
Hensman recommends going to the
GSU or even the Counselling Centre
for emotional support.
"Being a small school, we really
don't have the luxury of a variety of
different faculty to provide them with
an option of changing [supervisors]
within the school," said Hensman.
She says the School of Pharmacy
has faced problems in the past with
lab and social space, and minor supervisor conflicts in the past. However,
she and Jablosnki are particularly concerned over the current state of affairs.
"Clearly, the pharmacy doctoral
program has not gotten off to a good
start and we are proceeding cautiously," said Jablonski.
Meanwhile, former pharmacy
Masters student Ayenew Ashenef
wishes Memorial would increase the
budget to pharmacy so the school
could provide other options to students.
But Hensman says that isn't practical. She says attracting new faculty
is often difficult, and expanding the
See "All" Page 7
Students at
Aquarena
underpaid,
unrepresented:
ex-lifeguard
By Sheena Goodyear
When the Aquarena rolled out its controversial notice asking lifeguards to
hand in exam conflicts within a week
after exam schedules were posted, ex-
lifeguard Tim Corbett wasn't surprised. But, Aquarena management
says they were just trying to help.
The notice reads: "Any one who
hands in their conflicts on time will
be guaranteed those shifts off. Any
one who does not is on there own and
will be expected to show up for their
scheduled shifts." [sic]
Corbett says this is just one more
instance of Aquarena management
being unfair to students, but Manager
of Aquatics and Recreation Janet
O'Connor doesn't see it that way.
"It's not a policy, it's not a requirement, no one has to follow this," she
said. "Basically what we're trying to
do is help. In my department there's
about a hundred lifeguard instructors,
and we just tried to help them out."
Out of the 300 employees at the
Aquarena, 250 are students. All the
lifeguards are part-time. O'Connor
says everyone looks for time off during exams and students become very
stressed.
"We said, 'Let's alleviate this pressure.' So, we put up a replacement plan
to try to help them out," she said. "We
certainly didn't want to upset anybody. We just wanted to give them a
hand and help them have a stress-free
study period for exams."
Corbett says the Aquarena management takes advantage of the fact
that most employees are students who
don't know their rights.
"Students don't matter. They're only
going to be here for a couple years anyway," said Corbett.
Corbett says lifeguards at the
Aquarena are drastically underpaid
compared to other pools, but students
choose to work there because it's on
campus, and a lot of them don't have
transportation.
He says the contract signed in 2004
was negotiated by a union of full-time
employees and, because students are
part-time, there was no student representation.
"I felt that when we renegotiated
our contract, the union sold us out,"
he said.
Currently, Aquarena lifeguards
make between $8.45 and $9.66 per
hour, plus eight per cent in lieu of
benefits. This is scheduled to go up
by about 19 cents in July.
City of St. John's pools like
Wedgewood Park and the Mews
Centre pay lifeguards $9.49 an hour
to guards in their first year, but that
salary rises to $13.18 the next year, and
goes as high as $18.05 for head life-
See "Exam" Pace 7