A profile on April 29 about Francisco J. Ayala, a professor who speaks often in defense of the theory of evolution, misstated the location of McGill University, where he gave a recent talk. It is Montreal, not Toronto.
The shame, oh the utter horrible shame…
It’s a bit last-minute, but a snowball fight is being organized (Facebook link) at McGill at 7pm. They’re meeting just inside the Roddick Gates on Sherbrooke at the James McGill statue.
McGill has a bug up its butt.
The university, whose name has apparently been left unprotected for almost 200 years, has begun clamping down on the use of the name “McGill” by organizations on campus. It started with CKUT, which was blackmailed into dropping “McGill” from its name last month. Now they’re reviewing all student-run groups, forcing them into mounds of paperwork to justify using the McGill name in theirs.
Concordia University has had a similar policy (PDF) since 2001, with one significant difference: Concordia’s policy grandfathered existing student groups, and as far as I can tell they don’t sweat the small stuff: Only for-profit enterprises and large groups bother with approval.
McGill’s move is just silly. Well-intentioned, but silly. A student club devoted to stamp-collecting at McGill is obviously going to call itself the McGill Stamp-Collecting Club or something similar, just for clarity’s sake. The name implies only that it is at McGill, not that it is run by McGill’s administration. Requiring such a complicated process as board approval will only create unnecessary work for volunteers and discourage students from creating social clubs on campus.
McGill says they’re “reviewing” the policy. Let’s hope they come up with some sane guidelines that have more to do with encouraging a vibrant and active student populace than it does with over-regulation and paperwork.
The folks at the McGill chapter Quebec Public Interest Research Group (read: hippie anarchists) have produced an “alternative” student agenda with activist propaganda.
Called “School Schmool” (education is a tool of the proletariat!), it commemorates the invention of the pipe bomb and encourages vandalism of advertisements.
Those of us with long memories might remember “Uprising“, the 2001 Concordia student agenda, which had a similar ultra-activist slant, titles in Broken Typewriter font for that extra edge, the same “alternative” calendar anniversary notes, and encouraged people to vandalize advertisements, dismantle the capitalist system by firing their “bo$$e$” (l33t!), squat in abandoned buildings, steal expensive cars to take for joy rides and then crash into other expensive cars and setup pirate radio stations.
It also, of course, demonized Israel, the U.S., the media, the university, police, heterosexuals, capitalism and just about any large company.
Unfortunately for Concordia’s student handbook, it was released in September 2001, which was pretty horrible timing. It eventually helped lead to an unprecedented student revolt that took the student union’s executive out of office. (This one probably won’t generate a reaction on the same level, if only because it wasn’t the official student union agenda.)
Like all stupid student ideas, after five years when everyone’s graduated, they start repeating themselves. Embezzlement of student funds, patronage appointments, election fraud, all tend to come and go on a five-year cycle. As do all the election promises that later turn out to be too complicated to accomplish or too impractical to be worth the time.
As Kate so succinctly points out, the Journal de Montréal is taking yesterday’s OMG-McGill-is-giving-out-free-cocaine!!!111oneone story and republishing it with little new information to try and get people to agree with them that it’s a scandal. So far other media are talking about the story, but with the seriousness it deserves. They’re studying a drug, and unfortunately that means people have to take it under controlled conditions.
Just when you think silly disputes only happen at Concordia, McGill University is refusing to hand over CKUT funding until the radio station comes to a formal agreement with the university over the use of the name “Radio McGill”.
The folks at CKUT Radio-McGill can rest easy. The CRTC today renewed their license for seven years until 2014, with only a minor change to its Canadian content rules. The decision also includes “suggestions” (to have board positions be longer than a year) and “reminders” (that board positions must be mostly university community members and at least 80% Canadian citizens).
Oh yeah, and make sure not to be discriminatory and stuff, even though you weren’t actually discriminatory before.
All sorts of medical studies ask strange things of their guinea pigs. Taking new pills, sleeping, not sleeping, changing their eating habits.
But I hope the compensatory indemnity was high for the group who volunteered to have their sexual arousal monitored by taking readings of their penises, in a study to show whether circumsized men are less sensitive. The conclusion: they’re not.
The McGill Daily has an interesting look at the science behind alcohol-induced blackouts.
