Students will elect a new rector on March 10 and 11, but may not know they’re voting for a position that’s the only one in Canada.
“The rector is the student at large,” said University Secretary Georgina Moore. “To not be accountable to a particular [student] society gives the rector a much broader view.”
The position was created in 1913 as a member of the Board of Trustees to give students a voice when it came to the financial management of the University. The first student rector was elected in 1968.

ASUS Student Senator Brooks Barnett’s definition of a successful rector is one who leaves students with a sense of community during their four years on campus.
“Making students feel they belong to a greater community … that’s probably one of the most important qualities of a rector.”
This includes addressing diversity issues so students feel safe on campus, he said.

The Canadian North is a subject many authors have tackled with varying degrees of success. In her latest novel, the Giller Prize-winning Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay manages to not only capture the soul of 1970s Yellowknife, but also essence of the people who lived there.
Late Nights on Air won the Giller Prize up against the likes of M. G. Vassanji’s Assassin’s Song, Alissa York’s Effigy, Daniel Poliqiun’s A Secret Between Us and Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero.

A Queen’s professor is in jail for continuing to protest uranium exploration on disputed land.
Robert Lovelace is a former Ardoch Algonquin First Nations chief and teaches Devs 220 and Devs 221 at Queen’s. He also teaches at Sir Sanford Fleming College.
Lovelace has been part of a protest against the Oakville-based mining company Frontenac Ventures Corporation that began on June 28, 2007. Members of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and the Shabot Obaadijiwan Algonquin living in the Ardoch area believe they hold unceded interest in Crown lands to which Frontenac Ventures has laid claim, and that the provincial government should not have granted prospecting rights without consulting them.

The Queen’s Centre is tens of millions of dollars over budget a year and a half before the first of its three phases is scheduled to be complete.
Now the University’s trying to scale back costs on the rest of the project to bring the price tag closer to the $230 million originally budgeted.

Rosemary Jolly wants to have an African studies department at Queen’s but simply doesn’t have time to work in a new program. Jolly is an English professor who specializes in Southern African literature and cultures. Part of AMS executive-elect Radcliffe-Wang-St. Clair’s campaign was focused on the creation of new academic programs, such as African studies, Middle Eastern studies and aboriginal studies.

With 120,000 Queen’s alumni spread across 150 countries worldwide, keeping in touch can be tough. But for Vice-Principal (Advancement) David Mitchell, keeping in touch is a lifestyle.
On Tuesday, I spent the day with Mitchell to get a look behind the scenes of the Queen’s advancement team, which is devoted to connecting with alumni, donors and corporations to raise funds for the University.

Pressure on the University to adopt a designated suppliers program is on hold after a U.S. Department of Justice decision stalled the program’s implementation.
The designated suppliers program (DSP) requires universities to source most of their logo apparel from supplier factories compliant with ethical labour standards. The program is organized by the Worker’s Rights Consortium, an independent labour rights group of which Queen’s is a member.
The consortium helps universities adhere to their codes of conduct, which require their suppliers follow ethical labour standards. Queen’s current system is complaints-based, however: suppliers aren’t checked up on to ensure their compliance.

Vice-President (Operations)-elect Ken Wang says the unusually early hiring will allow for a more complete transition.

The discrepancies over finances for Frosh Week 2007 will make things difficult for this year’s Orientation Round Table co-ordinator, Adam Mielczynski, ArtSci ’08, said.
Mielczynski was ORT co-ordinator in 2005-06. He was responsible for training Ryan Shoemaker, who was co-ordinator in 2006-07.
Confusion and inconsistent numbers surrounding Frosh Week 2007’s finances prompted AMS Vice-President (University Affairs) Julia Mitchell to conduct an audit of ORT’s finances. She said the report, to be released Feb. 28, will result in policy changes ensuring accountability and communication within ORT and between ORT and the executive.

As soon as I walked into Valerie Kuhlmeier’s lab in Humphrey Hall I realized it wasn’t your typical science experiment.
Instead of white lab coats and test tubes, there were colourful toys and comfortable furniture. It was as though I stepped back in time to my childhood playrooms—except with much less clutter.
The unexpectedly welcoming environment is intentional. Kuhlmeier is head of the Infant Cognition Lab, which studies aspects of infant cognitive development. Their test subjects generally range from three months to three years in age.

More posters defaced with racist phrases were turned in to Campus Security last week.
Two posters were found two weeks ago near campus and contained racist slogans, signed by stormfront.org, an online white supremacist group.
After the second round of posters was discovered, Campus Security sent out an e-mail to all faculty, staff and students asking them to watch out for further racist activity and report suspicious-looking people.
David Patterson, Campus Security director, said the e-mail wasn’t prompted by threats or direct attacks written on the posters.

On Friday evening, many students’ days are finished and they’re preparing for a night out with friends or in with the books. Last Friday, Elizabeth Purssell, ArtSci ’10, and Justin Everett, Sci ’08, donned red jackets and responder packs.
They’re on-call for the 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Queen’s First Aid (QFA) shift. Queen’s First Aid is comprised of student volunteers trained in first aid who work on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the school term, except holidays and exam periods.

The Faculty of Health Sciences is pursuing a proposal for construction of a new School of Medicine building it hopes will be underway in the next couple of years. The space crunch is underscored by the medical school’s expansion, said David Walker, dean of health sciences.
It has grown 35 per cent in the past six years, and the government wants to see it grow more to help alleviate Ontario’s doctor shortage.