No need to talk about a transgender washroom
Dear Editors,
RE: “Where’s the transgender washroom?” (Journal, July 26, 2005).
Somebody emailed me your very long, very imioned July 26 [Opinion] piece on the pressing need for a transgender washroom in the new student centre. “Ultimately, Queen’s would be taking a giant step backwards without this initiative.” To whomever wrote it, I have this advice: get a job.
Ted Cape, Arts ’73
Dear Editors,
Instead of dealing with the problems the Main Campus Residents’ Council seems to place on itself year after year after year, MCRC now wants to artificially make itself look good by disallowing its staff to communicate any thoughts, beliefs or opinions to the press on the MCRC and on Queen’s residences. As can be found in [Cha Gheill, Staff Edition], the new MCRC magazine, the proposed communications policy clearly and blatantly restricts the basic rights of student staff to communicate their own personal opinion on matters concerning them in residence at Queen’s University.
In just a single sentence the MCRC contradicts itself by specifically denying students the right to communicate with the media on two matters: the MCRC and Queen’s Residences. [Section 5.07 of the Draft Communication Policy states] “Nothing in this policy shall restrict staff ’ rights to give personal opinions to the media on matters not related to residences or the MCRC.” Never before have I felt my Charter rights so abused at Queen’s as in the MCRC. Indeed, staff are prohibited from initiating any kind of with the media which would include personal opinion pieces: “5.04 Staff are prohibited from initiating with, or responding to, the media on matters concerning residences or the MCRC without prior authorization of the President, MCRS.” [Section 6 of the] policy goes further to prohibit media from ing student staff who may wish to share their thoughts and opinions: “Outside organizations or groups wishing to distribute information or MCRC staff should also be directed to the Vice President (Residence Affairs).”
This is a blatant, and indeed sad, censorship attempt on students that disregards such fundamental rights as freedom of speech, freedom of thought, belief and opinion, and finally freedom of the press.
It would seem that the current Main Campus Residents’ Council at Queen’s University has decided to sweep all matters of importance under the rug and punish any staff member with a conscience, instead of fixing the problems that have plagued the MCRC over the past few years.
Ian Kuehl, ArtSci ’07
Registration lottery a better alternative to QCARD
Dear Editors,
RE: “Demand Clogs QCARD” (Journal, July 26, 2005)
As the parent of a second-year Arts student, I can only confirm the problems with QCARD that you reported in the July 26 issue. My daughter, who works in a summer camp where 45 students share a single dial-up Internet access, was certainly disadvantaged in her attempts to . Instead of adding more servers or increasing the complexity of the access schedule controller, why not introduce a registration lottery? Then students could their rank-ordered preferences any time during (say) a six-week period, with results announced at the end of the registration window. The chances of final-year students and major-concentration students could be weighted in the corresponding departments (as they are now, via the schedule offsets and department offices).
Benefits of a lottery would include: greater fairness perceived by students; more lead time for departments and faculty to assess demand for specific courses and to plan schedule or classroom size adjustments; more balanced load on QCARD, reducing the need for server capacity; more time to respond to urgent QCARD software problems; employment opportunities for talented math students in lottery algorithm design.
Hugh Cameron, Sci ’73
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