Black Americans and black Canadians often bitterly joke that even though we have a month to celebrate our history, “they” only gave us the shortest month of the year.
You can take the boy out of Queen’s but you can’t take Queen’s out of the boy. With AMS election season in full swing, I took a look at the three executive teams. Although I can’t vote any more, I do long for the opportunity to scrawl across the top of a ballot “They all suck!” In the interests of preserving whatever dignity this process has, the team that put the wrong dates on their posters should be disqualified right off the bat. Things could be worse: they could have spelled their own names wrong or put someone else’s photo on their material. But in matters political, I’ve always felt that the voting day is one of those small details that, if you’re serious, you should probably get right.
I’m not the only student parent at Queen’s. There are a lot of us. You just don’t see us in our role as parents that often. There is likely at least one of us in each of your classes.
The Rally Against Racism that took place on Wednesday, Jan. 16 was organized by of the Queen’s faculty and was an important step in bringing issues of race and racism at Queen’s to the forefront. The speakers addressed racism and the culture of whiteness at Queen’s, and steps the Queen’s community can take to make a change. There were students, faculty and staff on all four corners of Union Street and University Avenue showing their opposition to racism.
For my first time since I came to Queen’s, I have nothing to do with the AMS elections. During the past three years I worked on the AMS Election Team. This meant I got to read every scrap of publicity from the candidate and referendum teams—flyers, posters, websites, and e-mails; attend every debate; and, of course, read every Journal article. I’ve read a lot of platforms, and I’ve also seen how the winning team actually performs during their year in office.
I vividly a conversation I once had: it was with my don in first year and the topic of the AMS came up. Before delving into the subject I saying “Oh man, the AMS has a really cool website…but I really don’t know what they do.”
I’m disappointed that in the Journal’s haste to manufacture controversy it effectively marginalized and cast into suspicion a thoroughly positive and environmentally significant initiative by Lifford Wine Agency, Plantatree wine, whose availability on our campus should have been celebrated.
Events last semester have brought discussions regarding racism to the fore on campus. An opinion piece in the Journal in October claimed that racism is present in daily interactions at Queen’s (“‘Everyday racism’ no less violent,” Journal, Oct. 26, 2007). In its apparent simplicity, the concept of being “against racism,” causes me much discomfort because both words are problematic and therefore not indicative of a clear resolution. Firstly, there is no consensus about what constitutes racism. A perfect example is my disagreement with that opinion piece’s reference to “everyday racism”.
Judging by the number of people who showed up at the Rally Against Racism last Wednesday, I’m definitely not the only person who was infuriated by the Nov. 14 racist incident, in which a professor was verbally harassed and forced off the sidewalk on her way to teaching her class.
In taking the time to stop and review its operations, EngSoc has done far more to create a sustainable Clark Hall Pub than any of Mr. Woodhall’s conservative rants. So please, until you have something constructive to add—that’s enough, Mr. Woodhall.
One of my colleagues in graduate study was active in student politics during his undergraduate studies in his native Iran. The only student group was one sanctioned by the government, and organizing workshops to discuss democracy meant risking expulsion or imprisonment. Against this, the manufactured political intrigue of the lower JDUC seems quite trivial.
The students and alumni of Queen’s University can say goodbye to the first student-run bar in Canada. After 30-plus years of continuous (and ittedly sometimes rocky) operations, one of the best live music venues in eastern Ontario has as much chance of reopening as the Queen’s Centre does of being completed on time.
The Journal is a newspaper written for students by students; however, the Nov. 23 issue entitled “Where we’re going: Green Queen’s” didn’t define “we” as the students. Many of the articles regarded “we” as university s, not as students. The theme of the issue being “Where we’re going” became “where they’re going” or “where they are taking us.” For a more empowering approach to “where we’re going,” the issue could have addressed the role students have in directing the sustainability agenda on campus.
How could we, centuries after the abolition of slavery; thousands of memoirs, books and dissertations later that explicate the detriments of racism; hundreds of policies ratified with aims to circumvent the social stagnation wrought through racism, we as an international community have moved no further.
Eighteen years have ed since the Montreal massacre in which 14 women were killed by an anti-feminist shooter at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. Since this tragic event, Dec. 6 has become a memorial day for violence against women.
I was disappointed, to say the least, by the content in the Queen’s vs. Kingston issue. While town-gown relations are an important topic, I did not find the articles to be informative or relevant to the Queen’s-Kingston situation. To the contrary, these articles highlighted issues such as property tax payments (granted by the Provincial government to the town) and increasing class sizes (a result of increased university enrollment province-wide).
According to Statistics Canada, 80 per cent of Canadians are satisfied with the Canadian health-care system. However is it satisfaction or acceptance they’re feeling?
It seems that our esteemed student trustee Michael Ceci has taken issue with my characterization, in a pro-CFS opinion piece published in your paper, of the Board of Trustees being dominated by corporate types—bank executives to be specific—who have a vested interest in seeing our tuition and our debt continue to rise.
It’s profoundly troubling that the istration has managed to pacify our need and our right to have input on the available curricula with a mere bubble-sheet survey.
