Article an ‘attack’ on Orientation Round Table Dear Editors,
Re: “Frosh Week finances faze faculty societies” (Journal, Feb. 1, 2008)
In this past Friday’s issue, the Journal decided to present an extremely misleading article on the orientation faculty bills from 2007. Orientation Round Table (ORT)’s budget is within the Campus Activities Commission of the AMS and is overseen by the vice-president (university affairs), who also approves all expenditures. This article appears to be more of an attack the ORT position and is “ed” with several completely fabricated points.
This year’s increase wasn’t unprecedented and should have been anticipated. Steps can be taken to prevent this for years by improving communication, but this is a learning experience. This matter shouldn’t be looked at through the perspective of the commerce faculty, as they had severe flaws in their Frosh Week program. Commerce may rightly be disappointed with the work of ORT in 2007. This is the first year in which a SOARB member was asked to be placed on the Commerce Orientation committee due to mismanagement with their 2007 Frosh Week. Although the system isn’t flawless, the “increases” are a product of two changes to this year’s program. The AMS executive decided to allocate sponsorship funds to cover the costs of ORT (salary and honorarium), which was a decision agreed upon by the faculty executives. ORT also put through several other expenses for faculties this year which for the increases. There was also a two month lag between the ORT Communications Officer’s termination and the hiring of a new officer. The new ORT Communications Officer worked diligently to raise the sponsorship that was brought in for 2007.
Last January, anticipating increases in costs to this year’s program due to construction, ORT attempted to sit down with several faculties to commence a collaborative budgeting process. This wasn’t well received by the societies and the process wasn’t pursued, at the faculties’ requests.
I haven’t been involved with the AMS since last August. Attempts at retaliation can take many forms, and this appears to be the one ComSoc decided to take, however this method has only furthered the appearance of a disconnect in student government.
Ryan Shoemaker
ArtSci ’08
2007 Orientation Round Table Co-ordinator Journal AMS team endorsement ‘hypocritical’
Dear Editors:
The Journal’s practice of endorsing an AMS executive and the way in which it’s carried out is ludicrous and should be discontinued.
Firstly, AMS service staff and managers are discouraged from openly working on executive campaigns unless they take a leave of absence. The CIA strongly censors the endorsement of executive teams by AMS services to the point where any and all campaign paraphernalia are strictly forbidden from being displayed within their boundaries. While the Journal is an editorially autonomous entity, it’s at the same time an AMS service and should thus be subject to the same regulations as the other services are.
Secondly, the Journal’s endorsement is released on the first day of the elections, when campaigning is already officially halted. While I think the cessation of campaigning on voting days is absurd to begin with, if the regulation is to remain then the Journal should be subject to it. Otherwise, they’re given the last word on elections and the campaigns, while the candidates aren’t afforded the proper opportunity to respond to the Journal’s opinion.
I understand that newspapers endorse political parties and candidates all the time, but so do corporations and influential employees within those corporations—even those that are owned and operated by the government. Unfortunately, with regards to AMS elections, the parallel isn’t fully drawn.
There is nothing wrong with the Journal reporting critically on the campaign and on the candidates, but its practice of endorsing candidates is hypocritical in principle and undemocratic in practice and should thus be abolished.
Dan Braverman
ArtSci ’07
Destinations Assistant Manager
Team ACH volunteer
Pro-life letter ‘misrepresents’ pro-choice position
Dear Editors,
Re: “Abortion ‘a bad solution to social problems’” (Journal, Feb. 1, 2008)
Gabrielle Ferri badly misrepresents the pro-choice position when she claims that “[a]bortion advocates argue that we need abortion because so many children, if allowed to be born, won’t have decent food, clothing, housing and education.” In fact, pro-choicers hold that abortion ought to remain a safe and legal option for women who are unwilling or unable to carry the physical, emotional and financial pressures of pregnancy and childbirth. Women, in other words, are not walking incubators. If Ms. Ferri’s response is that women who don’t want babies ought to abstain, then I can only hope the weather is nicer in her fantasy world than it is here in reality.
I would also like to see what sources she can point to to her claims that “[w]e have more divorce, poverty, welfare, teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted disease, [and] child abuse” since the legalization of abortion. Statistics Canada disagrees with her on at least one point; according to them, teen pregnancy has decreased by about 20 per cent since 1974.
I suspect the rest of the social problems she links causally to legalized abortion are nothing more than the hyperbolic scare-mongering typical of the anti-choice movement.
Jessie Hale
ArtSci ’08
Journal sports errors ‘disappointing and near-tragic’
Dear Editors:
Re: “Hockey keeps top spot with weekend split” (Journal, Jan. 29, 2008)
In its report on the Queen’s men’s hockey team’s weekend split against Toronto and Carleton, the Journal noted that “Queen’s will face Ryerson Saturday, on whose turf they haven’t won in three years.”
This would be an interesting and well-researched fact if it were true. Unfortunately, it’s not.
On Jan. 19, 2007, only one year ago, Queen’s defeated the Rams at Ryerson’s George Bell Arena by a whopping 7-2 margin. Surprisingly, it was current Journal sports editor Mike Woods, who wrote this article suggesting a three-year winless streak, who reported on that very game (“Men’s hockey hangs on”, Journal, Jan. 23, 2007).
In its most recent issue, the Journal also reported that the hockey Gaels’ record was 12-11-0 (“Athletes of the Week”, Journal, Feb. 1, 2008). It’s not. It’s 12-11-3.
It’s both disappointing and near-tragic that the Journal is no longer a reliable source for statistics or facts about our varsity teams, especially when those very facts are easily found on a bevy of Internet and other sources.
Tyler King
ArtSci ’09
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