If it ain't broke, don't fix it
MIKE SILICZ VOLUNTEER STAFF
Mistakes: gotta love 'em. At the University of Manitoba, students are bombarded with mistakes every day on campus. Mistakes are what give the U of M notoriety and pride; big mistakes are what make us infamous. Sure, the other universities have their lofty entry requirements, their exorbitant tuition fees, and their fancy-pants Maclean's rankings to brag about. Well, I say let the elitist fat-cats brag all they want about such trivial things. What matters is that there's one thing none of those preppy universities will ever have on us. And that, of course, is our claim to more mistakes than any other university in the country! Let's review a few.
Let's start with an easy one: the Manitoba Bisons. Wow. Nothing screams "come to the U of M" to Harvard linguistics graduates like our beloved sports teams. Don't get me wrong: I am not knocking the many talented athletes on any of our dominant sport clubs. I'm simply mocking our professionally accredited university's inability to spell correctly. After an extensive consultation with my close and learned friend, Dr. www.dictionary.com, it appears that the word "bisons" does not actually exist! "Bison" is actually an irregular plural for more than one bison. Similarly, there's Mother Goose and Canadian geese, but no such thing as geeses. Chalk up one mistake.
Here's another great mistake that STAFFonly the U of M can boast about: campus infrastructure! The first derogatory comment about the U of M I hear from almost every student is the decrepit state of our campus. What other university has a gym that gets flooded? Asbestos in multiple buildings? Leaky pipes? Science labs without equipment? Not to mention the far-out-and-groovy decor of almost every building on campus, which our parents probably thought was really cool 25 years ago when they went to the U of M. These mistakes have a very detrimental effect on the reputation of our school.
All this leads me to the U of M’s most epic mistake of all. This is not the type of mistake that you can go back and fix easily. Let me put this mistake into its proper Manitoban historical perspective. This mistake is infinitely worse than the decision to cancel Buckley and Beave’s “MTN Kid’s Club” for the Big Breakfast Morning Show. It dwarfs the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s deadly decision in 1919 to charge into a massive crowd of striking Winnipeg workers. Hell, one could even make a persuasive argument that it parallels the greatest travesty in Winnipeg history: the trading of Teemu Selanne, Marc Chouinard, and a fourth-round draft pick to Anaheim for Chad Kilger, Oleg Tverdovsky, and a third-rounder in 1996. What, prey tell, is this unforgivable act?
It is none other than the implementation of the U of M Aurora registration system. Seriously, what the hell? Who on the earth is responsible for the travesty that is Aurora? When making a system-wide switch of this magnitude, did anyone in charge decide to, oh, I don’t know, look at Aurora before buying it? Aurora has been a nightmare for almost everyone on campus, and is a mistake of unprecedented magnitude.
As anyone with five minutes of Aurora experience can attest, the new system is far more difficult to use than the previous UMREG system. Worse, Aurora is harder to follow, poorly laid out, and is surprisingly counterintuitive. On a purely aesthetic level, Aurora is underwhelming. Why has the university “upgraded” to a system that aesthetically looks more outdated than the previous software? Further proof of this is the “new and improved” course calendar. The course calendar under the previous registration system was readable and easy to comprehend. Not so anymore. Printing out a course list is even more absurd. For example, printing out the course calendar for the 2006-07 political studies department creates a massive 29-page document. Compare this to the four or five printed pages of the previous system. Is this a step in the right direction?
Administratively, Aurora appears to be a headache to many of the university staff. Many departments experienced overbooked classes this year because of Aurora. Scholarships and awards are no longer shown on Aurora academic transcripts. Records are held up. Registrations delayed. In short, more harm than good has come from this “upgrade.”
What was the purpose of upgrading to Aurora anyway? There isn’t a day that goes by at the U of M where we are not told of our school’s financial woes. Well, U of M administrators, here’s an idea: don’t spend money on “upgrading” to a system that does more harm to students and staff than it does good! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Mike Silicz is a first-year law student with a background in political studies and history.
