The Canadian political landscape, still reeling from the tragic and untimely death of Jack Layton, finds itself in a greater state of uncertainty than in May—the month when the Conservative Party claimed a majority government. It was then that the NDP shed its fringe status by defeating the Liberals and[Read More…]
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News, off and on campus.
MUNACA on strike after negotiations with administration fail
Sam Reynolds Members of the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), the union representing McGill University’s non-academic workers, went on strike Wednesday after the union and the university’s administration failed to reach an agreement on issues of compensation. Negotiations began in November 2010. Picketing began at 6 a.m. on Thursday[Read More…]
First frosh after revamp goes off without a hitch
Year after year, hundreds of new and returning McGill students spend their first days at university involved in Frosh. However, this year’s Frosh has undergone a number of changes: participants had to pay for alcohol, it was held in conjunction with Discover McGill, and took place over the course of[Read More…]
Top stories from the last week
Monday, August 29 United States—Cleanup from Hurricane Irene began along the East Coast. The storm hit over the weekend, bringing down trees and power lines, causing flooding and evacuations, and leaving hundreds of thousands without power. Wednesday, August 31 Syria—The Attorney General of the Syrian city of Hama resigned to[Read More…]
SSMU website refreshed
SSMU’s new website, designed by Plank Multimedia Inc., is going live this week. The new website boasts many improvements to the old design. The site underwent a substantial makeover back in 2008, but despite improvements, was not as user-friendly as SSMU had initially hoped. Problems included infrequent updates, complex navigation,[Read More…]
McGill receives top marks
McGill University was ranked 17th in Quacquarelli Symonds’ (QS) list of the top universities in the world. Since QS began ranking universities in 2004, McGill University has consistently placed among the top 25 schools on the list. The rankings were based on six weighted factors according to QS’s website: academic[Read More…]
Joshua Abaki – VP University Affairs: B-
Josh Abaki is nothing if not zealous. Sometimes, that translates into good results: Abaki followed through on his campaign promise to keep campus libraries open 24 hours a day for most of each semester. He was a committed defender of the student cause during the fallout of the Architecture Café’s[Read More…]
Winer, Chaini, and Wun win SSMU Council seats
Last Tuesday, members of the Students’ Society’s 290 clubs voted to elect the clubs and services representatives to SSMU Council. The three spots up for election went to Adam Winer with 19 votes, Sahil Chaini with 16 votes, and Billi Wun with 15 votes. Most of the candidates—Andrew Tyau, who[Read More…]
Acclamation a growing problem for campus societies
The turnout for last week’s Arts Undergraduate Society elections was a relatively healthy 14.4 per cent. What the AUS didn’t have, though, was enough candidates. Five of the 10 elected positions, including the presidency, were acclaimed. This is an all-too-familiar story in McGill student politics. It’s rare to find a[Read More…]
Turnitin users affected by downtime
Over the last few weeks, a number of Canadian universities have experienced problems with Turnitin, the digital paper-submission system which detects plagiarism by comparing students’ work to that of their peers. The University of Toronto and Ryerson University both posted university-wide notices regarding the outage, which began on March 9.[Read More…]
