Thoughts on culture, education, and having been a Canadian in the US

I’m in the process of writing up my own statement on academic honesty and plagiarism to include in all my future syllabi. In the meantime, here are some links to the relevant UVM policies and to some external sites that have good information on how to avoid plagiarism.

UVM’s Code of Academic Integrity (pdf)

UVM’s Center for Student Ethics and Standards

The UVM Cat’s Tale Student Handbook

Plagiarism: What it is and How to Recognize and Avoid it ( a resource for students from Indiana University)

Plagiarism and Intellectual Honesty (an excellent resource from Dalhousie U)

Congrats to my colleague Major Jackson, whose extraordinary book Hoops has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the Outstanding Literary Work category. A PDF of the complete list of nominees can be found here. The winners will be announced March 2.

I picked up Hoops earlier this year when I was in Washington, DC on business and, because I couldn’t put the book down, hogged a table at a busy Thai restaurant long after I was done eating. This nomination is a very well-deserved honour for a great book (and a great guy).

How cool is this thing?

1/17 Follow up: sigh…..

I expect the “one more thing” will be an Apple phone ringing in Steve Jobs’ pocket. I can’t see him being able to resist that…..

I’m also hoping for a new 802.11n base station today, given that my old one gave up the ghost over the holidays.

CBC’s annual Hockey Day in Canada. That’s thirteen hours of hockey on CBC my friends with an all-Canadian triple-header.

This opinion piece by George C. Cross in today’s Burlington Free Press describes the Edmonton Public School Board and suggests that its model would work well in Vermont, a state whose total population is about half the size of the City of Edmonton. The author here overlooks the existence of the Edmonton Separate School Board (the Catholic school system in Edmonton), but otherwise it seems to be a good representation of the many merits of Edmonton’s system. I’ve found it amazing since moving here the reputation the Edmonton school system has outside of Edmonton, and even outside of Canada.

Our children’s elementary school here is fantastic, but I do lament the loss of the many options they would have had back home, such as the ability to choose their own school, something that seems to me should be everyone’s right…

Just looking at the list of language options there are at the EPSB. I tell my students here about this all the time when trying to explain what Canadian multiculturalism is all about. Still, it’s astonishing to see that list of bilingual education programs in Edmonton public schools includes Arabic, Mandarin, Cree, French, German, Hebrew, Spanish, Punjabi, and Ukrainian. Nice to see someone in Burlington noticing my hometown!

YouTube is such a great way of catching these goals after the fact. Caught this via Darren Barefoot’s always enjoyable blog

Watch this clip from last night’s game, that saw the Oilers blow a great lead and salvage a point in the last few seconds of the game on this amazing goal by Hemsky. Even more amazing perhaps is this colossal blunder by the Stars. This is well worth watching if you’ve not already seen it on every highlight reel of the day. Hell, it’s worth watching again even if you have…

UPDATE (01/09): I didn’t watch the game the other night, so I missed (and just now discovered thanks to good ol’ YouTube) this goal by Niklas Hagman. Now, I admit I’d prefer to see it happen against a team other than the Oilers, but it’s a beauty as well…

Canada is moving on to the gold medal game in the World Junior Hockey Championship, after what was a thrilling game against the USA (Canada won 2-1 in a shootout following a scoreless overtime). Of course, I just now discovered that you can watch the games online at tsn.ca (argh. It appears that only works if you live in Canada. What about if your brain lives in Canada and your body lives elsewhere, eh? What about that?! Sigh.)

In other hockey news, the Oilers finally got their 1000th win as a team last night, making them the third fastest team in NHL history to reach that mark. It’s also important to note that the two other teams to do that, Montreal and Philadelphia, accomplished that feat when there were only six teams in the league.

Need I say more?

(Update: Heidi asks if I mean “drunk and nutty.” Not drunk, though I wish I had a Guinness right now….)