Due to increasing financial challenges facing the AMS, including insurance increases, the addition of a new council member and the hiring of a food and beverage officer, the AMS Specific Fee Committee put forward a report proposing a $5.34 increase to the AMS-specific fee.
At the Annual General Meeting on Tuesday night, students voted in favour of the fee.
Students next year will face a $6.70 increase due to the recommendation and an adjustment based on the Consumer Price Index.

Low-income families will soon be better equipped to provide their children with a post-secondary education.
The federal government announced its annual budget for education for the next two years on Tuesday, including an initiative that will help children from low-income families get a jump-start on saving for college and university.
A total of $251 million will be spent on education in 2004-05, with a total of $466 million to be spent in 2005-06.

For three days in May at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan, the new Queen’s Formula SAE race car left 97 other teams in their dust.
The Queen’s race car team placed 26th out of 123 in the competition. Their finish in the international competition was their best finish ever, and the team was judged on design, performance on the track as well as its ability to manufacture an automobile.

Dr. Baugh was the daughter of a Queen’s principal and spent much of her childhood at Summerhill. She was a Queen’s student who graduated with a degree in psychology and later returned to teach in the psychology department. She was one of the last Deans of Women and a room in Ban Righ Hall —-the Elspeth Baugh Fireside Room— is named in her honour.

Four Queen’s students have joined 46 others who have been chosen as semi-finalists in the Magna International As Prime Minister Awards. Anthony Cutrona, Adam Daifallah, Fiona Grant and Alyssa Tomkins submitted essays that present prime ministerial advice that will reviewed by a national panel of judges.

AMS services are showing a financial loss for the first time in three years, according to a list of unaudited results from 2000-2001 obtained by The Journal.
The list, which will be used to evaluate the financial status and performance of the 12 AMS services, indicates a service deficit of $35,905. The loss is a significant reversal from 1999-2000, when AMS services turned a profit of almost $70,000. The loss did not come as a surprise to Jory Platt, vice-president (operations).

Unemployed graduates could be costing Queen’s additional public funding under the provincial government’s Key Performance Indicator (KPI) operating grants.
The Ontario government recently announced it is increasing operating grants for postsecondary institutions by $72 million more than last year, bringing the total amount budgeted to $1.72 billion.
Of the $72 million additional dollars, $23.3 million will be tied to KPI surveys conducted by the Ontario Universities Application Centre and reviewed by the Ministry of Education.

The Queen’s University class of 1948 ½ has a problem. It has money to give away but no one is taking it.
A $50,000 bursary set up by the class of 1948 ½—the only class in Queen’s history to graduate in three and a half years instead of four—is waiting for someone to apply for it. Class member Jack Billingsley is concerned that a student somewhere is missing out on a terrific opportunity.

The Queen’s School of Business received its highest ranking ever in the annual survey conducted by the Financial Times, placing 17th for its Open Executive programs. These programs are unique in that they are open to all executives and cover a wide variety of financial subjects. This ranking marks an improvement over the past two years, when Queen’s placed 22 and 29. Queen’s is the only Canadian school to have appeared on the list three years in a row.

Faculty from the Queen’s department of psychiatry were on hand May 30 when the electronic ribbon was cut to mark the beginning of a new era in the treatment of psychiatric patients: telepsychiatry.
Offered jointly by the Providence Continuing Care Centre (PCCC) and the psychiatry department at Queen’s, people in need of treatment in rural areas are now able to receive psychiatric care from doctors in Kingston via a closed circuit television system.

Fundraising money collected last year for the Shinerama campaign for cystic fibrosis was stolen from an Aberdeen Street house late last month.
$800 in rolled coins was taken from the home of Paul Sawtell, the orientation fundraising chair responsible for Shinerama.
The money was raised from two smokers at Alfie’s and the coat check at last year’s ArtSci formal.

Dr. Smith, former dean of Health Sciences, passed away just over a week ago, nearly two years after making the announcement he had ALS, the fatal neurological disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Dr. Smith resigned as dean in September 1999, but was far from finished his life’s work. Despite the toll the disease was taking on his life, Dr. Smith continued to study, teach and sharing his first hand experiences having lived a full life despite a terminal illness.