News Briefs
Chelse McKee and Magally Zelaya, staff
Conciliator called for CUPE university negotiations
Despite a promising start to negotiations between CUPE 3909 and the University of Manitoba earlier this month, both parties have agreed that an outside source is necessary for discussions to continue.
The university originally requested the conciliator, who was appointed by the provincial government.
“It is not unprecedented for the university and CUPE to utilize the services of a conciliator and, in fact, in the past [an] agreement was reached this way,” said John Danakas, the director of public affairs for the university. “Certainly the university is hopeful an agreement can be reached through these means again.”
With the request of a conciliator, CUPE 3909 was more than willing to comply.
“We’re all looking forward to it cause we were all hoping to go to conciliation anyways,” said Jason Kelly, president of CUPE 3909.
The conciliator has already been selected and renewed discussions between the two groups can begin as soon as the next meeting day is set.
More money, more doctors
In accordance with the statements made in the NDP government’s Throne Speech in November, health minister Theresa Oswald announced $3 million in funding for the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Medicine early last week.
The funding will be directed to the costs of adding 10 more places to next fall’s admission numbers, making the total number of new students accepted 110.
More specifically the funds will go the additional faculty members that will be required, as well as to the educational costs associated with the increased class size, according to Ilana Simon, director of marketing and communications for the Faculty of Medicine.
The time frame over which the funds will be distributed has yet to be determined.
The cost of educating one medical student is approximately $70,000 per year, according to the associate dean (undergraduate) of Medicine Bruce Martin.
Women continue to outnumber men in university
Since 2001, women have accounted for 58 per cent of university registrations and they continued to do so in 2005-06, according to a Statistics Canada report released Feb. 7, 2008.
In 2005-06, the number of women enrolled in university increased by 3.1 per cent from the year previous. During the same time frame, 2.8 per cent more men registered.
Across Canada, there were 604,900 women attending university, as compared with 442,000 men.
Prior to 2001, female numbers were increasing steadily according to the report, which stated that in 1995-96 women accounted for 56 per cent of all registrations and in 1985-86 women made up 51 per cent of all registrations.
In terms of doctoral studies, however, men still outnumbered women. Fifty-four per cent of students working towards a PhD were male in 2005-06 — a decrease of seven per cent from 1995-96.
Specifically at the undergraduate levelm men also had a slightly larger increase in enrolment in 2005-06 at 2.2 per cent as compared to the 2.0 per cent increase in women.
