2008 Woodie Awards
Engineering students elect all-female executive
Results of the Engineering Undergraduate Society elections were announced Friday night. Outgoing EUS Vice-President External Victoria David has a new title before his name-EUS president. Andrea Linsky will take on the role of vice-president internal, while Isabelle Maillard-past president of the Civil Engineering Undergraduate Society-will work with her as vice-president external.
The cast of an upcoming season of the Middle Eastern version of the reality television show Survivor nearly included a student from McGill. Noura Nakhle, U3 International Development Studies, applied to be a contestant after seeing an advertisement while home in Lebanon.
Walid Shoebat, a self-proclaimed "PLO terrorist turned Zionist" spoke to a packed crowd at Concordia University on Wednesday. His talk, organized by Concordia Hillel and entitled "A Journey: From Hate to Love" told his story, which he called a confession. "To confess is the beginning of healing," he said.
Two Science senators and two Management senators have been elected. Laila Nurmohamed and Jesse Pasternak received 44.6 per cent and 25.0 per cent of the vote for Science senator, respectively. Seema Brar received 264 votes, or 21.3 per cent. "I am excited to be working with the team of senators that got acclaimed or elected," incumbent Nurmohamed said.
The gloves come off in Alam Alli v. Chief Returning Officer
While students running for vice-president positions in the Students' Society election either celebrated their victories or conceded their defeats after results were announced last night, the candidates for SSMU president were left wondering whether all their postering and debating will result in any president at all.
A referendum held by the Students' Society to replace the McGill Student Fund with the McGill Undergraduate Student Fund passed with a majority of 55.3 per cent. The MSF expires in May, and will be replaced this fall. Full-time students will pay $19 per semester, half the amount of the previous fee.
Andrew Bryan was elected as the vice-president university affairs. Bryan received 1,066 votes (28.7 per cent), a significantly higher percentage than his opponents Ashley Becker, Kim D'Souza and Jesse Rosenfeld. Becker received 777 votes (20.9 per cent), D'Souza received 589 votes (15.
Over the course of the spring election period, candidates bombarded students with posters and platforms. Troubling to some, however, is the startling number of positions that were acclaimed. This year's Students' Society elections saw 13 candidates acclaimed, including the vice-president community and government and the senators for the the Arts, Law, Music and Engineering faculties.
Colourful election signs may have papered the walls of McGill buildings last week but, unlike previous years, no candidates listed a Web site address. Candidates for the Students' Society election were not allowed to create campaign Web sites this year. According to Elections McGill Chief Returning Officer Carlyryan Kochen, a change in the SSMU bylaws before this year's election period began banned all campaign Web sites.
Construction on the Lorne M. Trottier building was completed last fall, but concerns are already being raised regarding the building's services. "Trottier is still a 'work in progress,'" said electrical and computer engineering professor Frank Ferrie. Ferrie will be heading a committee looking into the state of computer access at Trottier and McGill in general.
What does the Trib news team do while waiting for election results to be announced? We watch campaign videos, of course! Just can't get enough of SSMU politics and bad acting. Here we evaluate a select few: Race: President Kate Rhodes- 3.5 out of 4 Race: Vice-President Operations Anthony Di Carlo- 2.
Engineers Without Borders told to halt food sales
The student battle against the mass tendering of cafeterias took a new turn last week. The McGill chapter of Engineers Without Borders was informed that selling donuts and pizza to raise money for charity violated McGill's exclusive agreement with Chartwells.
On Monday, students in political science and Management classes had the chance to listen to Jack Layton, the leader of the left-leaning federal New Democratic Party. Speaking in the Bronfman building to an over-capacity crowd, Layton recounted his experiences as a student at McGill and his time in the political arena.
Anthony Di Carlo was declared winner of the vice-president operations race for the Students' Society last night. "I'd like to thank the students for supporting me," he said moments after the results were announced. "[Next year] will be a great year for students.
A four-way race for Students' Society vice-president communications and events ended with a win for Mark Sward last night. He garnered 1,039 votes, or 28 per cent, of the votes. "I think students are ready for a change in the VP C&E portfolio," he said immediately after the results were announced.
Sameen Shahid has been elected Students' Society vice-president clubs and services for the upcoming academic year. She promised to tackle the problem of office space, discriminatory security and room booking fees, platform promises similar to those of her opponent, Amanda Ens.
The Arts Undergraduate Society and the Students' Society are currently negotiating a change in the contract for Arts Snax, located in the Leacock building. According to AUS President Seth Offenbach, who initiated the negotiations, the contract AUS signed with SSMU at the beginning of the year gives SSMU too much of the revenue from Snax.
Revelations allow more profit and affordable events
Student clubs and services have been informed that they can now sell food in Shatner and that the policy of determining security fees for events was arbritary. These concessions were announced at last Thursday's Clubs and Services meeting. In a conversation with her and SSMU Vice-President University Affairs Vivian Choy, Clubs Representative Sarah Elgazzar said, Security Services Manager Louise Savard admitted the process of assigning security is arbitrary.
