As the end of the year approaches, Krista Hapke, Comm ’06, is preparing to hand over her Commerce Society (ComSoc) presidential position to Julia Takach, Comm ’07.
ComSoc’s online voting period ended on Feb. 16.
Hapke told the Journal voter turnout was between 30 and 35 per cent, adding that a possible explanation for the relatively low turnout was that the voting took place during Commerce midterm week.

This Valentine’s Day, Andréa Amaral-LeBlanc spent 28 consecutive hours working on factums with teammates Patricia McLean, Navroop Bhandal, Tim Huyer and Colin Yao, all Law ’07. On Feb. 14, the team produced two 50-page factums as they prepared for the National Securities and Corporate Law Moot—a mock court of appeal—in which teams must argue both sides of a fictitious case to the Supreme Court.

Most international students aren’t as lucky as Daniel Ogutu-were when it comes to finding work.
Under current government guidelines, international students can’t work off-campus. However, changes to these policies may see students working off-campus as early as this summer.
Justin Kerr, international student advisor (short-term programs) at the Queen’s University International Centre (QUIC), said most students don’t have it so easy.

Team MBT continued to “make it happen” this past weekend when they announced the council members who will staff next year’s AMS.
The AMS council consists of five commissioners and three directors who operate different aspects of the AMS’s student services.
James Macmillan, AMS president-elect, said hiring council members was challenging.

Eight long years without daughters or wife, years inside the impenetrable walls of Abu Salim prison in Libya, are finally over for a Queen’s graduate who was incarcerated for allegedly sympathizing with a group that promoted Libyan democratic reform.
Through those seemingly endless years, Ali Sadegh Elhouni would have had no idea that one man thousands of kilometres away—a man tied to him only through their alma mater—was lobbying night and day for his release

Chants of “Hitchcock! Hitchcock! Hitchcock!” filled The Grad Club on Monday evening, as Principal Karen Hitchcock sat down, placed her right elbow on the table and prepared to arm wrestle Golden Words editor Jon Thompson, MA ’06. “When I arrived at Queen’s, the first interview I had was with Golden Words,” Hitchcock said. “It’s now my turn to get even.”

If supporters of the Miss G_ Project get their way, Ontario high school students could see a new addition to their academic options as soon as September 2007.
The project was started in February 2005 by a group of students at Huron University College, an affiliate of the University of Western Ontario. It was named after a woman called Miss G_ who in the 1860s and 1870s became a top student above and beyond both her male and female counterparts.

The Committee for the Safe and Legal Use of Public and Private Space voted yesterday to recommend the provision of surveillance cameras and bright lighting on Aberdeen Street for the duration of Homecoming Weekend 2006. Floyd Patterson, councillor for Sydenham Ward and chair of the committee, said the cameras would be controlled by a person who would have the ability to zoom in on situations and the presence of cameras would be highly publicized.

Last night, Andrew Stevens, a first year PhD student in sociology, was announced as the Society of Graduate and Professional Students (SGPS) president-elect. Stevens is the first SGPS president in three years to be elected, as the past three presidents ran uncontested.
Outgoing SGPS President Dave Thomas said the increase in candidates running this year reflects recent changes within SGPS.

The facts surrounding Louis Plamondon’s resignation as campus activities commissioner are so conflicting, even the commission’s website doesn’t seem to have its story straight.
Plamondon resigned from his post on Feb. 9, but the commission’s website says he is still in charge. The website also says the ice rink on Leonard Field—a lightning rod for the conflicting events surrounding Plamondon’s departure—is “open all winter.”

The recipient of the first-ever AMS Golden Cockroach Award has accused the AMS of presenting a “one-sided diatribe” to media about his landlord practices.
Kingston landlord Phil Lam, who was awarded the gold cockroach-shaped trophy at a ceremony Feb. 9 but did not attend to receive it, has responded to what he called a “derogatory” prize with a lengthy letter sent to the AMS and other media sources, including the Journal and the Kingston Whig-Standard.