Looking for a Job? You Could Become the Canadian "Oil Sands" Professor of Early Mathematics Education

The University of Calgary's Faculty of Education is looking to fill a new job. Here's the description:

The Faculty of Education, invites applications for the position of Director, Early Mathematics Initiative. This is a 5-year Contingent Term academic position at the rank of Assistant Professor, requiring professional practice and research expertise in the area of Early Mathematics Education. The position involves teaching in the graduate and undergraduate programs in the area of Mathematics and particular responsibilities for coordination of activities associated with the Canadian Oil Sands - Early Mathematics Initiative (COS-EMI) initiative, located in the Faculty. 

The usual verbiage follows.

If the individual who eventually accepts this job is looking to be an ethical person, I'd advise them to focus their research on the development of addition and multiplication skills. That way, future generations of Albertans will be better able to calculate the additional greenhouse gases that the Tar Sands produce.

All joking aside, as academics working in education, I think it's time to start asking some hard questions about who we're really working for.

Are we prepared to accept money from anyone who is willing to donate? Or would restrictions on donations be a violation of academic freedom? 

Congratulations, Alberta teachers! You've won an all-expenses-paid trip to...Fort McMurray!

During the recent Québec election, sovereigntist Amir Khadir was asked what his party offered to federalist voters. He replied, "For Anglophones we will offer them a choice. They can either go to Fort McMurray or to Guantanamo, with a lovely view of the beach!"

As it turns out, as long as you don't have to stay at the prison, Cuba's Guantanamo province is definitely the better choice (great beaches and music). Fort McMurray, on the other hand, is a tough industrial city in Northern Alberta. And "Fort Mac," as they call it out Alberta way, is where all of the Tar Sands oil extraction activity is happening.

Now, unless you have been living under a rock, you will probably have heard something about the environmentally destructive aspects of the Tar Sands (or, as the oil companies prefer, the "Oil Sands") project. Not only does it produce five times the greenhouse gases per barrel of conventional oil, it also requires ripping up the land. The photo that you see below is the outcome of tar sands mining activity.

As one might expect, the fact that Fort McMurray has now replaced Sudbury as Canada's man-made moonscape capital has not exactly made it a top tourist destination. But there is one demographic that can't wait to sign up for trips out to Fort Mac: Alberta teachers. That's because Inside Education, an oil-company sponsored educational outfit, has been offering them all-expenses-paid "professional development" Tar Sands tours.