McMaster union may strike
McMaster’s Service Employees International Union (SEIU Local 2) may strike as early as Oct. 1, McMaster’s Daily News reported. The union represents skilled trades, maintenance and operations, custodial and cleaning staff at the university.
The union has been bargaining with the university since Sept. 20 towards a collective agreement before their contract expired on Sept. 30. Half of the contract has been settled, but the monetary-half remains unresolved.
McMaster expects the union to provide advanced notice of the strike, the Daily News reported. If the union decides to pursue the strike and picket, this might cause delays getting to the university’s campus.
A contingency planning group is working to ensure the health and safety of the university community in the case of a strike.
—Katherine Fernandez-Blance
Olympian s U of C
Dinos Athletics of the University of Calgary announced last Wednesday that gold-medal winning Captain of the 2010 Women’s Olympic Hockey Team, Hayley Wickenheiser will be playing for them.
The 32-year-old captained the women’s hockey team, leading Canada to a third consecutive Olympic gold medal. Throughout her career Wickenheiser has won three Olympic gold medals and one silver medal.
Although she is going to be playing for the Dinos, she still remains the captain of the National Women’s Hockey team.
Wickenheiser decided to play for the Dinos due to her friendship with former Team Canada teammate Danielle Goyette, reported The Gauntlet, U of C’s campus newspaper, on Sept. 23.
Goyette is currently head coach of the Calgary Dino’s women’s hockey program. Wickenheiser is eligible to play in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) hockey because she is a full-time enrolled student at the University. Unlike men’s hockey, professional experience is not an eligibility factor. Wickenheiser will be making her debut against Regina on Oct. 8.
—Labiba Haque
McGill scraps MCAT
McGill University will no longer be requiring its medical school applicants to submit their scores for the Medical College ission Test (MCAT) when applying for ission into the McGill Faculty of Medicine.
The decision was announced in July and was made in an effort to make the application process more accessible to francophone students.
The MCAT is a standardized test istered by the Association of American Medical Colleges. The scores from the test are required by most Medical schools within Canada and the United States upon application.
The test is only istered in English, and has consequently incited criticism from the francophone community.
In Canada, only six of the 17 medical schools do not require MCAT scores for ission. The University of Ottawa, Université de Montréal, Université Laval, Université de Sherbrooke, and now McGill University are included in this list, and are all bilingual or francophone institutions. McMaster University only requires scores from the verbal reasoning section of the MCAT.
—Katherine Fernandez-Blance
U of T must return bones
University of Toronto is being asked to return the bones of Huran-Wendat skeletons to their descendants.
The remains are currently in the University of Toronto St. George and Mississauga anthropology buildings.
The Varsity reported on Sept. 13 that a lack of knowledge over the whereabouts of the Huran-Wendat people has caused U of T to stall in returning the remains to the proper descendants.
In 2000, the Huron-Wendat received remains of its descendants that were kept in Ottawa Parliament buildings after 10 years of negotiations with the Canadian government.
—Jessica Fishbein
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