By Henry Srebrnik
Commentary
There are many ways to gauge the excellence of a university, and ranking them has become a major growth industry. But my favourite is one that seems never to be used as an indicator: the excellence of the student newspaper.
I write as someone who has over the years become familiar with many student publications. I obtained degrees from universities in Britain, Canada and the United States, and I taught at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, a liberal arts school, and the University of Calgary, a big research institution, before coming to the University of Prince Edward Island.
A friend who lives in Montreal has been sending me copies of the McGill Daily, McGill University's main student paper. (There is more than one.)
And in reading the wide variety of news articles and opinion pieces, as well as the indepth coverage of the arts and sciences, I find that the paper is, professionally and intellectually, the equal of any college paper - or, for that matter, most daily newspapers. (Full disclosure: four decades ago, I was a student at McGill and also a contributor to the Daily.)
The Daily has a storied history: this year marks the centenary of its founding, and through the decades many famous names have appeared on its masthead and in its bylines. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was in the forefront of student activism and radical politics. That tradition continues: it is still far to the left of most Canadian newspapers, including those published at universities.
If the Daily is a reflection of McGill's student body, then the university remains a vibrant academic institution, where "critical thinking" is a reality and not merely a PR platitude.
And this relates to my main point: Naturally, McGill and similar world-class universities have a more outstanding faculty than a smaller school such as UPEI - though I can think of some professors here who would not be out of place teaching there.
But the real difference probably lies in the student body itself. At UPEI, we have many excellent, even outstanding, students, but not the same ‘critical mass' found at larger places like McGill. And so we do not have the same climate of intellectual inquiry.
Much of real learning goes on outside the classroom, in lounges, the union, the library, and elsewhere, places where students interact, issues are debated, and heated arguments may ensue about matters that are not just ‘on the exam' or related to grades.
Of course, it helps that students at McGill, the University of Toronto, and similar big-city Canadian schools are exposed to more in the way of culture than those studying in smaller towns. Obviously, Charlottetown can never match that. In the U.S., many large universities are located in college towns, which serve the same function: they provide the cultural and political milieu of an urban centre, without, so to speak, the rest of the city.
So it's unfair to compare a small school like UPEI - which in any case has offsetting advantages, such as smaller classroom sizes and better faculty-student ratios - to big research universities. But it never hurts to aim higher. And we are indeed doing just that.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political studies at the University of Prince Edward Island.
