EDITORIAL: Post-secondary schools need to do better to support their student community

Nov 26, 2021 | Editorial, OP-ED

It’s an incredibly disheartening feeling when the school you’re paying to attend turns its back on you.

As it is, the cost of going to school is not paid with pocket change. Transit, gas, food, rent and bills all pile on top of the growing mound of stress that is keeping up with assignments and, for many, working a job — or two — on the side.

So when it comes time to get down to doing assignments, it’s expected that the school you’re attending will have its doors open to you.

What ends up being reality is paperwork and hoops that one has to jump through in order to access on-site facilities, especially when approaching them through a program.

A number of media classes are affected by this. Film and television production, photography and journalism are large in scope, capturing events that others may not get to see. Rather than nurture the programs that hundreds of students come to campus for, students are left discouraged, frustrated and looking elsewhere for stories or subjects.

Temporary use-of-space agreement forms are part of what Humber College has introduced in order to better manage who is using the campus’ facilities. What it also does is present a problem for how information is collected and presented to the school community.

Breaking or important news stories that students should be made aware of cannot be covered in adequate time because of policies like these. What it does is allow the school to censor what is allowed to be covered and released and in what timeframe. It may not be intentional, but it is censorship nonetheless. It appears it was a policy developed from the 2019 provincial government’s requirements that each post-secondary school develop a free speech on campus policy.

Humber is an educational institution that offers three journalism programs, but there seems to be a lack of knowledge and appreciation of what journalism requires — and the on-campus training that is needed — to be responsible and factual.

It’s no secret the media landscape, particularly in recent years, has been a hostile one. The highlight of ‘fake news’ has never been brighter and contrary to many beliefs, it is not the role of reporters, be it in print, digital or broadcast, to mislead or wrongly inform their audiences.

What we can’t do is accurately tell those stories when we’re not allowed to.

It’s also entirely understandable the COVID-19 pandemic, which held the world in its grip for two years, also brought a number of policies forward that may not have existed prior to the pandemic.

Safety is paramount right now as we climb out of COVID-19’s path of destruction, and limited capacity is to be expected.

When it comes to covering news stories, there are many sources and ideas to be found, and if Humber’s reporters have to look outside of the school, it’s very doable.

For a large number of journalism students, they either started the program virtually, completed their final year virtually or had to adapt to doing work — all while focusing on stories outside of the school.

We want to tell the stories Humber has to offer, but if we can’t, we won’t.