Coverage about School of Business counsellor baffles, disgusts
Dear Editors:
Re: “VIP counsellor care” (Journal, Jan. 30, 2007).
I was completely baffled by your editorial against the new counsellor for the School of Business.
I’m supposed to be outraged that business students have decided to spend their money on a service
that will help them? Even though it won’t hurt me in the slightest?
In fact it will probably help me. Fewer business students will use the conventional counsellors, thus
decreasing wait time. It’s a good idea and should not be opposed out of a Procrustean sense of equality.
Jacob Kaufman
ArtSci ’07
Dear Editors:
Re: “Shorter wait for business students” (Journal Jan. 26, 2007).
The commerce counselling service was initially started as a motion in the Commerce Society (ComSoc) two years ago to provide services that students need. I was at Assembly when the motion was made, and it gave me comfort in knowing that in this day and age, students still have the power to take charge and make a positive difference to improve their university experiences. It disgusts me that the Journal has decided to publish articles, editorials and cartoons that blows the issue out of proportion, making commerce students look like they are wrong in initiating student services that makes them different from “the rest.”
The Journal has taken an approach that will potentially alienate and distance commerce
students from the rest of the University. The comments made by Kyle Abrey and the distasteful cartoon representing a commerce student wearing a pearl necklace are clear symbols of this interfaculty tension.
Needless to say, many commerce students, including myself, are offended by these publications and in my opinion, it has gone too far. The Journal should be writing from a perspective that will prompt students in other faculties to take charge and improve their university experiences and appreciate what it means to be a student government.
Counselling services, a service that was highly lacking and highly needed, is not the only initiative that ComSoc has brought for its students. ComSoc has previously funded laptop purchases so they can be provided as loaners to commerce students for free (instead of the $50 per week that Queen’s ITS harges all students). The School of Business also negotiated to provide customized e-mail addresses as an alternative to the confusing Qlink addresses and provided equipment funding to the Net.Imp@ct Centre (NSC) in the basement of Goodes Hall.
In my opinion, NSC’s services are better than equivalent services provided elsewhere on campus.
Unfortunately, ComSoc does not have university-wide jurisdiction, so it can’t implement these initiatives on a university-wide scale. Therefore, I would encourage the AMS, ASUS and other faculty societies to take a stronger stance when catering to the students’ needs in the most effective and efficient manner possible and using their powers as appropriate, instead of being engaged in this mess of ive aggressive interfaculty backstabbing.
With elections season coming up, this spirit would definitely be placed in the limelight.
Eddie Ho
Comm ’08 and ComSoc chief information officer
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