McGill students can now brag to their friends at UBC about a new top-ten ranking, but its not one that university administrators will be talking about.

In the October issue of cannabis magazine High Times, McGill has been ranked as the number eight counterculture school in North America. This year marks the first time any Canadian school has made the list.

The rankings are based on the level of student activism concerning marijuana law reform. The number one position is awarded to the school with the strongest student activism.McGill was awarded the number eight position for having the most active student drug-policy-reform group in Canada. The first official Canadian chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy was brought about by the National Reefer Association of McGill. McGill SSDP is now working toward forming a nationwide Canada SSDP organization.

Other schools on the list include University of Missouri-Columbia in third place, University of California-Santa Monica in second and University of Maryland taking first place.

In previous years, the criteria for the list was very different. Last year the ranking was of the “Top Ten Cannabis Colleges” which was based on what were believed to be the “stoniest schools.”

The change of focus from student usage to activism is what put McGill on the list this year according to Associate Publisher Rick Cusick.

According to Cusick, High Times, which has been publishing since 1974, is the only marijuana-themed magazine produced in the U.S.

Featuring articles on such topics as how to start your own closet garden and the connection between potheads and piercings, the magazine began ranking schools four years ago. They have received nothing but positive feedback about the list.

“People are ecstatic about activism and the fact that we’re talking about it,” Cusick said.

But not everyone at McGill feels the same way about the new status of the school in the counterculture world.

“This is so ridiculous,” Joshua Harris, U2 History said, “it makes us sound like a bunch of stoners when we’re actually all so busy studying that we don’t have time to get high.”

Others see the school’s student activism as a product of the city surroundings.

“I guess it makes sense. I mean, we’re in the middle of Montreal where I pass about five people smoking a joint on the sidewalk on my way to school. It seems like everyone is really cool about it here,” said U0 student Samantha Malonis.

McGill University Relations Officer Lisa Van Dusen declined to comment.

As early as the nineties, McGill was at the forefront of developing a wireless network. Today that network provides over 2,500 wireless access points, each covering 250 square feet, and the university is in the process of upgrading its coverage and launching a three-year project to better integrate users around the campus.

“This is the first phase of a new, bigger and better McGill Wireless Network,” director of Network and Communications Services Gary Bernstein said. “Wireless access where it exists is now free for all students.”

As of Sept 1st, changes have been made to the wireless network and premium tariffs, once found in otherwise exclusive locations such as professors’ offices, have been removed, something most graduate students had to pay for.

But with the increasing coverage, speed and security, what social impact is near-ubiquitous wireless internet having on the student body and within the classroom? Is direct access to a nearly infinite amount of information beneficial to laptop-carrying students? Or are they inevitably teased into talking on MSN messenger, betting on PartyPoker.com and perusing the profiles of heartthrobs on Facebook?

“I don’t think it’s this big, revolutionary thing,” Jonathan Sterne, Professor of Communications and Art History, said. “It’s just part of the old story of students not paying attention, which has been complained about since the Stone Age. So it’s just an ongoing problem that has nothing to do with wireless. It’s just another tool in the ongoing struggle over attention.”

Sterne added that he would much rather have a student quietly and discreetly typing messages to a friend nearby than reading a newspaper, so the distractions are less notable to both students and professors. Sterne argues that it’s not the technology that is directly having an effect on users, but rather it’s what students want to get out of the available technology that is more important.

“Its not a question of whether wireless has a positive or negative effect but rather it’s what you want from student life and how student life gets organized with that [technology],” Sterne said.

According to Bernstein, NCS had anticipated some of the potential concerns before they began working towards ubiquitous wireless but added that the payoff far outweighs the costs.

Bernstein said that NCS is involved in providing the service, and that it should be the job of the professor to make and enforce any rules regarding technology in the classroom.

“We provide secure, ubiquitous, good-bandwith wireless, and the policing issues are going to be left up to the individual professors,” Bernstein said.

“We looked at a lot of other universities and the experience has been both good and bad,” Bernstein said. “There is a lot of good pedagogical, educational things you can do, but… some students will use their laptops to do instant messaging and checking email.

“Wireless Internet can be used both for good and bad, like in class research,” Ben Fombonne, U1 Political Science and History, said, adding that some people are foolish enough to leave MSN messengers sound on, disrupting the whole class. Yet there are students like Steph Lebhar, U1 Education, who confess they’d much rather use pen and paper when looking at slides to better internalize the information.

At the moment, students can look to the McGill NCS website for information concerning campus- wide network availability as well the progression of current and future projects.

-Additional reporting by Kayvon Afshari

Going back to school may be becoming less painful on your wallet with the introduction of free online books. Freeload Press Company is offering online versions of textbooks, workbooks and study guides in the popular PDF format at no cost. The catch? The pages also contain advertisements, making textbooks appear more like magazines and causing controversy within the academic world.

Currently, 100 titles are available for students to download in subjects including accounting, mathematics, computer applications and psychology.

Within the textbooks pages are ads for products such as Culver’s Frozen Custard Butterburgers, FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Service, Pura Vida Coffee and Total Recall Learning. “Liberating the Textbook” is the motto of the website created in 2004. However some professors don’t see it that way.

One of the most vocal critics of Freeload Press is Professor Randall Stross of San Jose State University in California. In the Aug 27, 2006 edition of the New York Times he commented that the quality of the textbook decreases with the presence of advertisements. Freeload Press’s response to Stross, written by Associate Professor Frank Werner of Forham University, stated that the price and quality of a textbook are two different things. He added that Freeload Press publishers have veto power over the type of advertisements.

McGill professors are divided on the subject.

“Textbooks are too expensive,” History Professor Suzanne Morton said. “I don’t understand why they cost the way they do. It’s not surprising why this was adopted.”

However, some professors believe that the online publishing company is not beneficial for the academic community.

“I fear that online books are not a good substitute for real books,” said history profressor Peter Hoffman, “because of the way we deal with and the way we process information, but online books can have a function and are valuable because they cost nothing.”

Some students are also adverse to the new boom in online publishing.

“Personally, I wouldn’t use it,” Cal Kufta, U3 History said. “I like using textbooks, but there is nothing wrong with students trying to budget to save some money.”

According to Statistics Canada, university graduates of 2000 owed an average of $19,500 to the government. Thus the option of saving more than $1,000 per year on books has many students opting for free downloadable books.

“I think students need more free services anyway,” said Christine Sinclair, U3 Philosophy and History. “Most students can ignore distractions and concentrate on their work. I’m not offended by the ads if I’m choosing to use it. The company needs sponsors to operate their website.”

Freeload Press runs its website on a sponsorship business model in which the company states, “Publications are written by proven authors and match the depth, range and length of competing textbooks.”

Since its creation in 2004, instructors from over 100 U.S. colleges and universities have begun using the Web site. Over 25,000 users have signed up and 50,000 books were downloaded. Freeload Press Company plans to add more titles to the database for spring 2007.

The Web site is designed to be fast and easy to use. After filling out a simple registration form and agreeing to ‘terms of agreement,’ access is granted to the online database of books. If students already have the free Adobe Reader software, the e-book is available within about 15 minutes.

However, students cannot go onto the site and expect specific textbooks to be there. Some professors elect to use e-books while others do not.

McGill recommends that each student budget $1,000 per year to “books and supplies,” although many students find that they pay much more than $500 a semester to the $4-billion a year textbook industry.

Héma-Québec is still unsure about returning to McGill after a controversial though effective protest staged by radical sexual rights group Second Cumming during last January’s blood drive.

The demonstration was in protest of the blood agency’s policy barring men who have sex with men from donating blood. The event caused Héma-Québec to shut down the drive three hours early due to concerns about the validity of donors’ sexual history questionnaires. Posters were put up on campus asking students to come to the blood drive and “act faggy, do drag, lie about sexual history …and cause a commotion.”

Students’ Society Vice-President Communications and Events Gill Prendergast sat down with Héma-Québec in August to try to convince them to return to campus. According to her, the issue lies somewhere between whether Hema-Quebec is willing to come back and whether students are willing to have them back.

“Héma-Québec is okay with the idea of students protesting,” she said. “Their real concern is the idea or suggestion of people lying about their sexual history when signing up to give blood. They had no choice [last year] but to shut down the blood drive.”

Prendergast explained that the blood collection agency isn’t prepared to come back this semester because of how recently the incident took place. They fear that the dynamics at the school haven’t changed and that the same problems would arise.

According to SSMU President Aaron Donny-Clark, the blood agency has been reluctant to engage in any sort of dialogue on the issue.

“It was a big step just to have them talk to us,” he said. “They felt they were being targeted when they shouldn’t have been.”However, not all student groups are eager to have the blood drives return to Shatner. Queer McGill, in particular, has been active in efforts to influence Héma-Québec to adjust its policy on MSM blood donation. Late last year, the group passed a policy calling on SSMU to ban Héma-Québec from the building. Queer McGill maintains its support for the idea of blood drives, so long as members of the queer community are able to participate.

Queer McGill Equity and Policy Coordinator Kiran Sunar explained her group’s stance.

“SSMU has an obligation to ensure that discrimination is not happening on campus.”

Traditionally, the debate has centered around whether blood donation is a right or a privilege.

“Human rights are tricky,” said Sunar. “From Queer McGill’s perspective, we have a right not to be discriminated against.” One alternative may be to hold the blood drive in a different location. Prendergast pointed out that other schools have blood drives held on other parts of campus, away from student spaces.

Queer McGill was receptive to this idea, but is still trying to change the blood agency’s policy.

“As far as I know we are fine with blood drives held elsewhere on campus,” said Sunar. “If we’re being discriminated against in our own building, that’s not good.”

Sunar also pushed to distance Queer McGill from the radical group Second Cumming. “We don’t condemn or support Second Cumming. I wouldn’t say there’s a huge [membership] overlap with the group.”

Héma-Québec Information Officer Michel Thisdel indicated that a committee would meet soon to decide on whether to come back to McGill this year. However, he was hesitant to comment on last year’s protest.

In advance of any decision, Prendergast is organizing a town hall to be held during first semester in which Héma-Québec will make a presentation.

“We want to invite Queer McGill and all interested student groups into this discussion and from there, engineer ways to foster a dialogue,” she said.

Despite the lack of consensus, SSMU executives are aware of the need for blood drives on campus.

“We give Héma-Québec a lot of blood,” said Donny-Clark. “It’s important that they get that blood.”