Faith Meets Life: Smoothing out the edges in Ontario universities

Eleven days of “intensive” training. That, according to Carly Weeks of the Globe and Mail (Nov 19, 2008), is what the facilitators of Queen's University's “intergroup dialogue program” endure to qualify for the role.

Facilitators are students who look for casual or spontaneous opportunities to correct other students who may be saying something that offends others. Examples in Weeks' article are using the phrase, “That's so gay;” calling something “retarded;” or avoiding a “classmate's birthday party for faith-based reasons.”

A little north of Queen's in Kingston, the Carleton University Students Association in Ottawa are in talks to drop Shinerama from its list of student activities.

Shinerama has for many years raised funds for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CCFF). It's also a program that Fanshawe College has supported for years.

According to the CTV website (Nov 25, 2008), those who advocated dropping Shinerama claimed that the CCFF was not worthy of student support because CF is a disease that targets only Caucasian males. Apparently, Caucasian was equated with white.

The CTV article goes on to say that in reality Caucasian includes people from South Asia, North Africa, the Persian Gulf and Israel, who are not white. It also states that CF targets young girls, as well as boys. Some of the comments posted in response to the CTV column are from people who are either women with CF or have relatives who are (or were: one has died according to the posting).

The Queen's and Carleton controversies have one thing in common. They were both set in motion by people who want to smooth out the rough edges for us all. At least, if we take their efforts in good faith, we can conclude that they want nothing but the best for their fellow students and our Canadian or global community.

Who could be against efforts to do away with remarks that could make the mentally handicapped, gays, or religious believers feel uncomfortable? Similarly, who would not rather support the eradication of a disease that attacks all sectors of the population, rather than just a few?

When I was growing up, I learned in church classes for kids that all people must be treated respectfully. My parents (not very successfully on some days) tried to model this behaviour. Similarly, somewhere, in my early years it became lodged in my brain that it was always better to root out causes of distress that affected many people, rather than just a few.

Life is an ongoing effort for many of us to live out values like this. However, one has to wonder if subjecting volunteers to eleven days of “intergroup dialogue” programming is going way beyond the bounds of common sense. Not to mention then deploying them among students who may well resent their intrusion.

And one has to wonder if the actions of the Carleton Students Association aren't the work of ill-informed leaders of the association who have latched on to a vague notion that they should legislate in the name of equality. There must be a disease that attacks all people groups equally and is worthy of the association's opposition. Let's see. . . would even the common cold qualify?

I picked up the values of respect for others and doing good for as wide a group as possible from home and church. You may have picked them up in your own ways. We all need to struggle to give such values traction in our lives. But resorting to the creation of student thought-correction bureaucracies and weird student association decisions is, as far as I can tell, going to be far more annoying than helpful.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.