Tamil club's spending was 'legitimate'

There's no evidence that the Waterloo Tamil Students Association (WATSA) misused any of its money over the past decade, says a report being made public today by senior UW officials.

The report details the results of two reviews, one confirming the WATSA finances and another recommending greater oversight of self-generated work placements overseas. The two reviews were launched late last summer after the much-publicized arrests of three UW graduates and one current student in connection with alleged support of Tamil Tiger terrorist activity in Sri Lanka.

Says today's statement: "Deloitte and Touche reviewed documents provided by the university, the University of Waterloo Federation of Students and WATSA covering a 10-year period ending August 2006. The review found nothing to suggest that funds entrusted to WATSA and its leadership were used for anything other than legitimate and intended purposes."

On the other issue raised by the arrests, a co-op work term spent in Sri Lanka by one of the students, "A university committee reviewing international work experience found that opportunities for self-employment overseas should undergo more rigorous pre-approval and ongoing oversight. Where distance makes a staff visit impractical, the university will ask a traveling professor, trusted alumni or other appropriate professional to conduct an on-site visit."

Amit Chakma, vice-president (academic) and provost, "has accepted the report, and our senior administration found the work to be detailed and thorough,” says Martin Van Nierop, director of communications and public affairs. “We are satisfied that an independent auditor has confirmed the integrity of our Tamil student group, and look forward to implementing the recommendations related to students working and studying abroad.”

Deloitte and Touche’s financial audit revealed that $9,200 was received and disbursed by the federation on WATSA’s behalf during the 10-year period. WATSA raised $7,500 of the money and the Federation provided the balance. Approximately 60 percent of the club's spending was for the rental of on-campus facilities. The balance covered a donation to the non-profit Tamil Children’s Endowment Fund as well as reimbursement of individual expenses and small-dollar items.

The report says WATSA received no funds directly from UW. Direct payments to individuals related to "normal course transactions for bursaries, scholarships, engineering endowment funds and student awards".

The committee reviewing work experience overseas endorsed the existing assessment and pre-approval process for the small number self-employment work terms abroad. The committee stressed the importance of ensuring that all procedures — which include a designated contact person and on-site visit — are rigorously followed, and suggested ways of ensuring compliance.

"The university will monitor effectiveness of the process on an ongoing basis," says today's statement. "After three years, it will review the number of self-employed, out-of-country co-op work terms to determine the effectiveness of the measures."

The committee also recommended that the university establish clear requirements on pre-departure training for all students studying or working overseas. Once developed, the training will be required for all students participating in university-sanctioned international activities.

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A Waterloo student team brought home the $2,000 award for "Best Concrete Mix Design" in the annual Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race, held in Winnipeg at the end of January. Doug Ryan, a field coordinator for co-op and career services, dropped in at the competition and took the photo of the UW sled in action. UW's entry came fourth overall.

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Notes after Wednesday's snowfall

"We could still use more help shovelling snow," says Les Van Dongen of UW's grounds crew — not right this minute, maybe, but next time snow falls. Van Dongen and his colleagues "were not overwhelmed", he says, by the turnout of students to help with snow clearing after recent storms, such as yesterday's overnight snow dump.

The work pays $10 an hour; anybody who's interested can call 519-888-4010 to get on the list, then be prepared to show up at 7:30 any morning that there's snow to be cleared from walkways.

UW stayed open yesterday, following the lead of local schools. So did the Waterloo campus of Wilfrid Laurier University, though the Brantford campus was closed. Sheridan College in Oakville and McMaster University in Hamilton also closed.

The Warrior basketball games (both men's and women's teams) that were scheduled to be played at Mac last night were postponed until the same time tonight.

The blood donor clinic scheduled for the Student Life Centre yesterday didn't happen because Canadian Blood Services trucks couldn't get to Waterloo from Hamilton; today's clinic, 10:00 to 4:00, is expected to go ahead.

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'Intervention' boosts students' marks

from the UW media relations office

A one-hour intervention designed to increase students' sense of belonging in post-secondary education improved the academic achievement of black American students even eight months later, and may offer similar promise to minority groups in Canada.

The relatively simple intervention reduced the gap in grade point average between black and white American students by 90 per cent, says a new research study by Gregory Walton, a post-doctoral fellow in the UW psychology department. He thinks it could be used to help reduce academic shortfalls in Canada. The study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, is one of the first to test the effectiveness of a psychological intervention in reducing the racial achievement gap in students' classroom performance.

Black American students have lagged behind white Americans on test scores and grades for decades. Closing this gap has long been a priority for educators and policy-makers. The new results suggest new directions for educators and policy-makers seeking to improve opportunities and achievement for ethnic minority students.

"Given the promise of the new results, an important question for researchers and educators is understanding how these processes play out in other settings, for example, among ethnic minority youth in Canada, among women in math and science, or at different age groups," says Walton, who is lead author and was a graduate student at Yale University when the study was conducted.

In the study, white and black American first-year college students were randomly assigned to the one-hour intervention group or to a control group. In the intervention group, students were told that most students at their school worried at first about whether they belonged on campus, but that these worries lessened with time and that eventually almost all students felt they belonged. Control group students were exposed to irrelevant information about peers' social-political attitudes.

Compared with students in the control group, black students who received the one-hour intervention went on to study longer each night, to correspond with professors more, to sustain higher levels of motivation in the face of adversity and, over the longer term, to earn better grades.

"The intervention communicates to students that their experiences in college are normal — that everyone has tough times in the first year of college," Walton says. "People whose group is negatively stereotyped and underrepresented in school may wonder if they belong there — if others will include them in quality relationships. The intervention conveyed that a negative event, like social rejection, doesn't necessarily mean that you don't belong. Hearing this message early in their studies helped minority students sustain high levels of motivation in the face of adversity."

Walton says the intervention helped students become more resilient to the stresses of college life by preventing them from "globalizing" the implications of a bad day into a general conclusion about their fitness for college.

"This research shows how the problem of the racial achievement gap may arise from interpersonal concerns — about one's sense of being at home and belonging in school," says co-author Geoffrey Cohen, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. As well, notes Walton: "Even brief interventions that target psychological processes can have powerful effects on academic performance."

CAR

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