You gotta hear this one song, it’ll change your life, I swear, exclaims Natalie Portman’s character Sam in the 2004 indie film Garden State. While she may have been exaggerating a bit, McGill students are taking her advice rather seriously. Even with the live bands playing on the OAP stage, students everywhere are wandering around campus with little white wires dangling from their ears.
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STUDENT LIVING WEBSITE OF THE WEEK: Eavesdropping while procrastinating
As of late, many students have become extremely uncomfortable with the level of creepiness some online social networks, ahem, Facebook, have stooped to – going from knowing details about people you’ve never actually met in reality, to knowing the last time that person ate a meal, went to the bathroom and slept in someone else’s bed.
NATIONAL: McGill number eight in counterculture
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.
CAMPUS: SSMU ditches room fees
Making good on a central campaign promise, Students’ Society executives announced last week that rooms in the Shatner Building can now be booked free of charge. Beginning last Friday, internal clubs, faculty associations, media, SSMU recognized groups and others are now able to use the rooms without the customary bill.
CAMPUS: Wireless worries
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.
CAMPUS: Web site offers alternative to traditional text
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.
CITY: Conference hopes to bring religions together
Five years after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, a McGill professor is hoping that he can help the religions of the world address and challenge the negative perceptions that have sprung up following the fall of the World Trade Center. This week, Montreal’s Palais de Congrès will play host to World Religions after September 11: A Global Conference.
CAMPUS: Mercury takes over
The course evaluation process will move one step closer to transparency and accessibility this fall. After first being explored in the fall of 2003 and pilot tested in the winter of 2004, McGill Online Evaluations will be launched campus-wide in December under the name “Mercury.
CAMPUS: SSMU delays handbooks
A recent controversy over the content of the SSMU handbook has resulted in a three week delay in its realease due to the firing of the two original editors. Genevieve Friesen and Sara Kipp-Ferguson, the original editors for the handbook, were let go in August when the finished product was deemed unacceptable by Students’ Society executives, said Vice-President University Affairs Finn Upham.
CAMPUS: Hema-Quebec’s speedy return questionable
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.