Media Matters – SFU Business Professors in the News

How SFU Business fared in the news for the week of November 7, 2008

Our Canadian media hit of the week: the Maclean’s 2008 ranking of universities, with SFU sharing the No. 1 spot among comprehensive universities.

National News

• Business prof David C. Thomas wrote an article in the Financial Post Executive section of National Post. It said preliminary studies from an international team of which he is a member suggest that bicultural people “have skills not available to monoculturals and that these can be valuable assets to organizations as they are confronted with a more culturally diverse environment.” To read the complete article, click here.
• The Calgary Herald also featured a program to help immigrants reduce their home-country accents. The story mentioned Jennifer Madigan’s L2 Accent Reduction Centre in Vancouver, which is working with SFU to help graduates reduce their accents. Kirk Hill, executive director of SFU’s Career Management Centre, was quoted: “Graduates tend to enter the workplace with all of the qualifications . . . but those with strong foreign accents often hit a huge roadblock during their very first phone interview.”

Other BC News

• Business prof Lindsay Meredith was on GlobalTV in a story about current and anticipated downturns in retail and housing sales. “But we (BC) will probably come through this better than other folks will.”
• The North Shore Outlook ran a story on residents who explored at a “Climate Café” session things they can do to tackle climate change. Among participants was Charles Holmes, an associate of and co-founder of the Learning Strategies Group in SFU Business. “We hope that everybody walks out of here with commitments.”

Maclean’s details

2008 rankings: (Last year’s standing in parentheses)

Comprehensive universities
1. (tie) Simon Fraser (2)
1. (tie) UVic (1)
3. Waterloo (3)
4. Guelph (4)
5. (tie) Memorial (tied at 5)
5. (tie) New Brunswick (tied at 5)
7. Carleton (7)
8. Windsor (10)
9. (tie) Regina (9)
9. (tie) York (8)
11. Concordia (11)

“Medical Doctoral” universities
1. McGill (1)
2. (tie) Queen’s (tied at 2)
2. (tie) Toronto (4)
4. UBC (tied with Queen’s at 2)
5. Alberta (5)
6. McMaster (6)
7. Calgary (10)
8. Dalhousie (tied at 8)
9. Saskatchewan (11)
10. (tie) Ottawa (tied at 8)
10. (tie) Western (7)
12. Laval (tied at 12)
13. Montreal (14)
14. Sherbrooke (tied at 12)
15. Manitoba (15)