ON CAMPUS Daily update – 06 Nov 07

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT *MACLEAN’S *ONLINE

Another looming faculty strike

Part-time faculty at Concordia are threatening strike action, according to the student paper The Link. After six years without a contract part-time faculty at Concordia university have voted 97 per cent in favour of strike action. The faculty demands include job protection and security, internal pay equity, pay increases to match wages at other Montreal universities, and a limit on class sizes.

Students and homeowners battle on-air

Tensions between permanent family homeowners and students in Oshawa reached a boil on the local Rogers Cable station. The October 24 segment of Talk Local featured David Bray of the Windfield Farms Association and Naheed Dosani, VP Internal of the UOIT/Durham/Trent at Oshawa student association. At one point in the conversation, Dosani said that permanent residents need to be more welcoming of students, to which Bray shot back “You are a blight on our community.”

Tensions have been running high in Oshawa since homes designed for single families were purchased and rented out to students in communities surrounding the UOIT/Durham College campus. Recently, the city searched student houses for bylaw violations. The city used search warrants to gain entry and many students were upset by what they see as systematic discrimination against them.

Beam me up SSMU

The Student Society of McGill University will be holding a special general meeting next Tuesday in which they will vote on joining a Quebec students strike. The student strike is not the only matter before them. A student group calling itself “Students Organized Against Protestors”, SOAP for short, has put forth motions to honour McGill graduate William Shatner of Captain Kirk fame.

The motions call for renaming buildings at McGill with Star Trek-themed names, would force the Students’ Society Council to recite “Rocket Man” in the style of William Shatner, and will require the students’ society to provide prayer space for students “Shatner-worship needs.”

Personally, I liked Shatner’s destruction of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

I can only ask one thing, can somebody amend the motion to exclude Max Silverman, I hear his singing is really bad. Also, what about those who pray to The Prophets?

Free condoms in your paper? You need protection!

In yet another case of political correctness gone mad, the University of California has cancelled the distribution of 4,500 condoms in the campus paper after some people took offense.

People claimed to take offense, not at the distribution of condoms, but at the advertisement for the distribution which showed two stick figures in the missionary position.

The University health centre had agreed at the beginning of the semester to provide the condoms which the paper would insert into the Nov. 14 issue. Following complaints, the campus health centre will instead print coupons in the student paper which students can submit for a free condom.

Could somebody please invent a form of protection for people who take offense too easily? Or at least something to inject common sense into the ivory tower? Anyone?

Speaking of sex, student newspapers and censorship

Loyola University has pulled a student magazine from distribution on the campus after the magazine ran a sex issue on the Jesuit campus.

The magazine included a drawing of a naked woman in high heels being penetrated by a male from behind. Clearly this is a taboo on most campuses; let alone a private Catholic university.

The students are claiming their freedom of speech is being infringed upon; a valid claim. However, all freedoms must be exercised with reason, just because you have the presses doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want with them. Clearly, this is a Catholic university and nobody is forced to be there. One goes there with the clear understanding that there are certain conventions that are followed. In short, the University is well within its rights to remove this publication; if these students wish to publish a magazine without the restrictions of Catholic doctrine, they are more than able to register at the local public university.