Once again Athabasca University can claim leadership status in the area of distance education. AU was one of only three recipients of an Award of Excellence for Institutional Achievement presented by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL). AU was the only North American recipient of the award – the others were BBC World Service in London,… Read more »

Some years ago I read about a horrible disease named Kuru. It was listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the most rare disease in the world. A little investigation, however, showed that Kuru was not all that rare. Called “laughing sickness”, Kuru is a brain wasting disease that is transmitted by curious… Read more »

“Up to the Lido deck,” I snapped. “Gotta eat! So hungry!” I said in mock starvation. We were told before ever arriving that lunch was at one o’clock on the Lido deck. Damn! These people know proper business and efficiency. I was positively wet over this company’s practices! On the Lido, there was a cranked… Read more »

As a writer, you become acutely aware of every little nuance in the English language. You can spot an error at 500 paces and certain things start to annoy you. Periodically, you notice a change in the English language. You’re not sure who made the change or why, but you either accept it or add… Read more »

After eight hours of driving through the drought stricken farmland of eastern Alberta, then the slightly more lush hills of the more northern reaches of the province, we arrived at Meadow Lake Provincial Park. Situated just across the Saskatchewan border east of Cold Lake, Meadow Lake Provincial Park encompasses 1600 square kilometers of boreal forest… Read more »

I was trying to code a few lines of a program that mathematically analyzes brain cells. I was stuck but my tutor, my mentor and guru of all things mathematical and cranial, was away at a conference until Wednesday. I’d been trying to get my mind around a concept called “strange attractors”, that was at… Read more »

Last week we discussed the complimentary nature of self-interest and autonomy, and the tangled web which unites the two in a co-existing necessity. This week, we will continue along the trip through the Banana Morality where we begin to make some progress in our understanding of what it is to have a sense of self…. Read more »

AU further expanded its reputation for excellence by achieving candidacy status with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The Philadelphia-based MSCHE was established in 1919 and is “a voluntary, non-governmental, peer-based membership association dedicated to educational excellence and improvement through peer evaluation and accreditation.” The commission “supports its members in their quest for excellence… Read more »

(CUP)Pierre Ducasse wants to give the NDP a much-needed facelift. The federal New Democratic Party leadership hopeful’s campaign trail led him to the University of New Brunswick, where he spoke out against student debt. “When you start out in life with a $40,000 debt, that’s not only difficult for the individual, but socially it’s unacceptable,”… Read more »

(CUP)Thousands of Algerians in Canada could unwittingly become collateral in a billion dollar trade agreement between the two countries say critics of a new immigration policy. “The situation in Algeria was horrible,” said Nassim Aoudia. He is one of up to 1,000 Algerian Montrealers facing deportation since Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Denis Coderre, lifted the… Read more »