On today’s CHMA daily news:
- Mayors ask for changes at the border;
- Professors says online learning doesn’t have to be bad;
- Good talent pool for new Sackville senior manager;
- A new graphic guide to fake news from Mount A sociologist Erin Steuter;
- and the Maritimes COVID numbers update.
No new cases in the Maritimes reported Thursday
New Brunswick reported no new cases of COVID-19 yesterday.
There are now three active cases, two in the South East region, and one active case in the central zone, around Fredericton.
Nova Scotia and PEI also both reported no new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday.
There are two active cases in Nova Scotia, and nine active cases in PEI.
Mayors on the Aulac checkpoint: move it or lose it
The Mayors of Amherst and Sackville are calling for changes to ensure the free flow of traffic across the provincial border.
In a press release from the town of Amherst, Mayor David Kogon says the current system of checkpoints is, “essentially creating a closed border.”
Kogon says he has heard from business owners saying their cross-border employees are threatening to quit now that travel time to their job includes one to two hours in wait times at the border.
Essential workers, who had always been allowed to cross the border, are now being held up in the glut of traffic caused by the checkpoints for non-essential travellers in place since the Atlantic bubble opened.
Mayor John Higham says that border uncertainty is keeping Nova Scotians from visiting Sackville.
Shortly after the bubble opened, Sackville businessperson Alan Barbour told CHMA the provincial governments had dropped the ball on the bubble.
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“It’s a chaotic mess. It doesn’t seem to me that within a bubble you should have… There’s still borders between the provinces. So if we just want to zip over to Amherst to go grocery shopping or if people from Amherst want to zip over to Sackville to have a coffee, there may be a three hour wait.”
Barbour said the bubble should mean more protection around the exterior borders of the bubble, not interior borders like the crossing at Aulac.
The mayors seem to agree, calling into question the necessity of paperwork for Atlantic residents each time they need to cross a border within the bubble.
David Kogon says screening and monitoring should take place at entry points to the bubble, and that there shouldn’t be a checkpoint at the Aulac border.
If there must be a checkpoint at Aulac, he says, it should be relocated to the weigh station in Nova Scotia, where there are several lanes that could make the crossing more efficient.
Last week, MLA Megan Mitton said that border delays may be part of the new normal, but that the erratic nature of crossing times is causing unnecessary stress on residents.
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“I suspect as long as they are doing checks, there will be some type of delay. I think that people could handle expecting a fairly short delay that was relatively consistent. It’s that I think the uncertainty is part of the causing some of the stress but they don’t know if it’s going to take them five minutes or 50 minutes to get to work. And, and so that that causes a lot of stress and uncertainty at a time when especially people who have been crossing for four months have have been able to get through faster than they are now. And, and people have been dealing with so much stress and uncertainty in our lives in general. It’s hard to add another you know, barrier for them to even just go about their daily lives.”
Last week the province introduced an electronic form that can be filled out in advance and printed to show at the border checkpoint.
It’s not clear how that system was expected to speed up crossings, since travellers were already able to print the checkpoint form in advance.
David Kogon has written to New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs asking for a meeting with the mayors to further discuss changes to the border checkpoints.
Professors says online learning doesn’t have to be bad
The majority of Mount Allison’s fall courses are exclusively online this year due to COVID-19.
Students are expressing concern about the quality of online education, especially after the sudden transition in March.
Assistant professor Matt Betti wants students to know that he and his fellow staff are working hard to improve online education.
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“I have spent time now, and I know my colleagues are spending time, learning how to do this effectively. I personally don’t want to be just, you know, on Zoom with the camera, like at like, a three quarter angle from below half staring up my nose, while I drone on about math to a bunch of people that are sitting there, you know, with all kinds of distractions in the background. That’s, I think, the idea that students and the public have about online learning. And I know at least there are, there are faculty, the faculty I’ve spoken to are, we’re making a real effort to make sure that’s not the case. We want to deliver the same quality education. Even if it looks different.”
He admits that the sudden transition to teaching online last March was difficult.
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“I’m okay to admit that when everything went online in March, I failed, I failed my students because it happened almost overnight. And I had done no prep for moving things online. And I had no idea where to begin. And naively just trying to continue as I would have, if I had a classroom was not I learned very quickly, it wasn’t going to work, but by the time I learned that myself It was too late to really salvage anything. So I can understand why people have a bad experience with online learning. I do too.”
Betti is optimistic about the fall semester now that he has had more time to modify his courses.
Lecturer Holly Morgan has taught over five online courses since 2017.
She says students should not base their opinion of online learning exclusively on what happened in March.
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“I really hope students take away from this is not to judge too harshly their professors’ or their University’s capabilities with online learning based on what they saw at the end of that last term. Because that wasn’t online learning, that was online learning as an emergency pandemic response. And so those were not online classes. Those were classes that immediately had to pivot online. That was professors and students, really everybody, communities, living through a crisis trying their best to salvage a semester that at Mount A had already been a little bit disrupted and was already being rebuilt and reshuffled.”
Morgan says that planning is essential in order to deliver an online course successfully.
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“Those were not courses that were developed to be online. And there’s a big difference when it’s something that’s planned for.”
Morgan says. “students need to know that they’re entitled to their professors,” and that student learning is a professor’s job.
Part-time instructor and soon-to-be assistant professor Geordie Miller is concerned that online learning might affect the connection between student and professor.
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“I’m making an attempt without being too intrusive to like, reach out to my students more directly, i.e. over email, to give them affirmation when they’re participating, right, or to pose questions. And to just, you know, assure them, that it’s a difficulty we’re all kind of working through right and ask questions and make space, I guess, make space for them to bring anything that they want to me that they’re not able to do because, you know, of the lack of face to face or in person.”
He says it’s important to listen to students’ concerns about online learning this fall.
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“I hesitate to be critical of that because that’s, that’s the experience of people learning in these environments. I think the main thing to take from it, so we need to hear that, right? And the university needs to hear that and to respond adequately to those concerns.”
Miller understands that it is a big transition and hopes to see mental health prioritized for students this fall.
A “good talent pool” for new Senior Manager
There were over ninety applications to fill the post of Senior Manager of Corporate Projects with the Town of Sackville, Councillor Bill Evans told his fellow councillors on Monday evening.
Evans said there appears to be a good talent pool available for the new position.
The job used to belong to Jamie Burke, before he was hired as CAO in April.
Burke says the position is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades role.
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“I guess the best way to describe it is anything that’s not finance or engineering kind of falls into this corner of the shop. And it’s anything from, you know, corporate strategy to working with Mr. Kelly Spurles or Mr. Pryde on tourism and business development or recreation programs and events.“
The Senior Manager is also responsible for town communications,
including working with the Engineering Department on the third phase of the flood control project.
The Senior manager also shares responsibility for economic development along with the CAO.
Burke says he is currently trying to fill both his new and old job, and he will be delighted when the senior manager post is filled.
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“It’s a fun, dynamic, challenging role… It requires someone to be able to project manage, juggle, you know, and be strategic. And, there’s going to be some… like all large projects that we’re trying to move through the corporation, there’s some bumps in the road. So you need to have a thick skin. But you’ve really got to love what you do and believe in the benefit of community development. No matter what the naysayers say, we’ve got a plan. We’ve got good plans and we’ve got really good people here as part of our team, so, you know, I would encourage anyone who thinks they have those qualifications to submit a resume and look to join us and help out the entire town.”
A new graphic guide to fake news
Erin Steuter wants to help you win the fight against fake news.
Steuter heads up the department of sociology at Mount Allison University, where she focusses her research on critical media studies.
Her latest book is Won’t Get Fooled Again: A Guide to Fake News.
It’s a graphic novel produced with artist Alan Spinney of Moncton.
Won’t Get Fooled Again is presented through fictional characters encountering actual instances of fake news and figuring out how to deal with them.
Erica Butler spoke with Steuter about her book, and started off asking her about the choice to create a graphic novel.
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CHMA Daily News is hosted Mahalia Thompson-Onichino, and produced by Erica Butler, with contributions from Bruce Wark, Meg Cunningham, Aura-Lynn Groomes, Geoff de Gannes, and James Anderson.
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