All Posts Tagged With: "Carleton University"

Neighbours worry about 16 students next door

The house on Aylmer Ave. Jane Lytvynenko

A single-family dwelling in Ottawa is in the process of being converted to a three-storey monster house for 16 people. The home on Aylmer Ave., near Carleton University, will likely house students.

That project will go ahead, but in a surprise move on April 30, the city approved a temporary bylaw banning new applications for such conversions in the areas around Carleton and the University of Ottawa. The law could last up to a year, giving the city time to decide on new standards.

The sudden moratorium on new monster houses shows the tension between neighbours in single-family homes and the growing number of Ottawa post-secondary students looking for housing in their peaceful neighbourhoods.

Russ and Barbara Williams live next door to the new building on Aylmer and share a driveway with the home. They have lived in their house for 33 years and have never seen more than five or six people occupy the nearly knocked-down residence. Having as many as 16 people next door will be hard to manage, they say. The new building is just three metres away from their house. Barbara works as a nurse and is often on-call or going to work at 5:30 a.m. She worries that sharing a driveway with 16 others will mean a hassle every time she needs her car. Because garbage pickup is twice per month, trash piling up could also be an issue.

Kristen Campbell, a recent graduate from Carleton University, has shared a townhouse with five other students. “Depending on my own situation and what I needed at the time, I may have considered it,” she says of living in such a huge house. While she says sharing space with so many people is not an ideal situation, she could see why some students would opt to move in.

Bree Rody-Mantha, a recent university graduate, says she lived with six other people in a space meant for four and, after that experience, would not consider renting a bedroom in a converted home this size unless it was guaranteed to be clean and have bathroom access. “The fact is, the more people there are in [a small] space, the more mess there will be, the angrier people will be.”

Barbara Williams, the Aylmer resident, stresses that the issue with the house is not who its occupants may be, but the high number of bodies in such a small space. There were as many as six students sharing that space in the past and there were no issues, but 16 may be another story.

“It could turn out just fine, too,” she adds, but she still hopes the new bylaw will give the city a chance to seek public opinion and address issues like garbage, noise and parking space.

Jane Lytvynenko studies at the University of Ottawa and reports for the Canadian University Press.

What students are talking about today (April 12th)

1. The city council of Kingston, Ont. has been accused of disregarding university students as it redraws electoral boundaries. Council voted that three of the 13 municipal electoral districts near Queen’s University will be merged into two, which means students will be represented by fewer councilors. This is despite a staff report that recommended taking into account the student population, which the city knows exists, even though they’re unlikely to be counted in official tallies that require voters to register themselves. Queen’s Alma Mater Society has expressed disappointment. “The AMS is dismayed by the attitudes that many of the Councillors expressed at the meeting, which reflected an aggressively anti-student attitude that is all too familiar—one which the AMS has been working for a decade to eradicate.”

2. A McGill University professor allegedly harassed a Muslim student from Cairo, an accusation that spread on social media and resulted in protesters chanting, “Hey, hey. Ho, Ho. Racist professors have to go,” outside of his lecture, reports the Gazette. The protest followed a Global News report that included an audio recording student Amr El-Orabi secretly made during a conversation with professor Gary Dunphy before El-Orabi quit school and returned to Egypt. In the recording, Dunphy accuses El-Orabi of cyber-stalking, refers to both the student’s God and his own God in unkind terms, and says, “don’t think for a minute that your culture is the be all and end all.” When El-Orabi asks,”is there anything else that you want from me now?,” Dunphy responds, “your death.”

Continue reading Queen’s v. Kingston, chants of racism at McGill & puppies

What students are talking about today (March 28th)

Too hot for Carleton students? (Rick Ross/Flickr)

1. Activists want Carleton University’s student union to pull funding out of an April 9th show by hip-hop artist Rick Ross. It’s partly because of a song with lyrics that suggest men should put drugs in women’s drinks. Kira-Lynn Ferderber, a Carleton Women’s Studies and Human Rights graduate, started a Facebook page to denounce the show. Ferderber told the Ottawa Citizen that, although she’s a hip-hop fan, she’s also a feminist and, “the song itself is such a blatant celebration of rape.” The Student Federation at the University of Ottawa has already pulled out of the show. A Facebook page arguing students should attend has also popped up. It has 80 ‘likes’ so far.

2. The Brandon University Students’ Union will offer interest-free emergency loans in amounts of up to $500 for students facing a “sudden condition of financial distress that hinders academic success,” BUSU’s Raymond Thomson told The Quill student newspaper. The idea is to help out students who can’t get emergency loans from the university itself, which seems rather redundant. Recipients will have to make a re-payment plan and their names will be confidential. Okay then.

Continue reading Rick Ross, scam in Calgary & big news in Ontario

What students are talking about today (February 7th)

From "How to Phallus your Ballot" mlrbMUSIC/YouTube

1. About 1,000 people spoiled their ballots in the recent Carleton University Students’ Association elections, chief electoral officer Sunny Cohen told The Charlatan. Most of the ballots were disqualified because people wrote in more than one place, but more than 100 had penises drawn on them. A “Phallus Your Ballot” Facebook page and instructional video had proposed this act of protest. “If we’re going to elect dicks, we might as well get to draw them,” read the page. Third-year student Sam Corey told The Charlatan he voted for two candidates but drew a phallus on the rest of his ballots because CUSA is too concerned with issues like “safe space.”

2. A fraternity at Duke University threw an Asian-themed party on Friday. The Asian Student Association fought back on Wednesday with a protest after seeing photos of party goers in Japanese kimonos and dressed as sumo-wrestlers. The ASA released the photos but was kind enough to blur faces. Although kimonos and sumo costumes aren’t offensive on their own, The Duke Chronicle reports the party was advertised in an e-mail that started off “Herro Nice Duke Peopre,” a dig at some Asian accents. The frat has apologized.

Continue reading Phalluses on ballots at Carleton, a racist party & Capoeira

What students are talking about today (January 28th)

shahk/Flickr

1. McGill University’s new president has already cost at least $178,690 and he or she hasn’t even been named. Headhunting firm Odgers Berndtson billed that much for four months of work in 2012, reports McGill Daily. Of that amount, $71,000 was for advertisements. The information came from an Access to Information request, the type of request McGill has recently tried to limit.

2. Carleton University’s Love of Liberty Society, a group that supports “free markets and free speech,” has launched a campaign encouraging students to opt out of a $6.84 levy that goes to the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) chapter on campus. Love of Liberty says students shouldn’t be funding such a politically-charged group. Students can opt out, but they only have a week to do so each year and Love of Liberty claims OPIRG makes it difficult. Yafa Jarrar, programming coordinator for OPIRG, told The Charlatan that the group is “non-partisan,” and that it does support students who wish to opt out. OPIRG has funded recent events like “On Turtle Island: Dialogue Between Black and First Nations Womyn” and Students Against Israeli Apartheid.

Continue reading How McGill spent $179k, morning-after pill & St. FX strike

Students: Be proactive and prepare for The Hunger Games

(Photo: Johan Larsson on Flickr)

William Johnson is coordinator, off-campus outreach and engagement at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ont. where he’s responsible for event management, student engagement and communications.

When I speak to students about career development and social media, I want them to take away that they need to be proactive if they want to increase their chances of post-graduate career success. In 2012, there are far too many university graduates annually for current students to put off thinking about their post-grad life until the day after their convocation. If you want to make a smooth transition from pupil to professional, you must constantly be seeking ways to set yourself apart from the cohort.

1. Realize you’re still a hot commodity

You need to recover the pride and excitement you had when you were first accepted to university. While recent public sentiment might suggest that the degree is losing its value, there are over 600,000 more jobs for graduates in May 2012 than pre-2008 recession (a sharp increase in employment prospects). Despite this increase, employers are still paying individuals with degrees premium wages, according to Statistics Canada and the Boudarat, Lemieux and Riddell study. A university degree may not be for everyone, but higher employability and income can almost certainly be the result for everyone obtaining one.

Continue reading Six steps for cultivating a career in the digital age

Jimmy Carter at Queen’s, Twinkies at risk & a hip-hop club

Twinkies (Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com)

1. Queen’s University is facing a backlash after deciding to award former U.S. president Jimmy Carter an honourary degree. Why? Because Carter criticizes Israel. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs told National Post that at least 50 upset Queen’s alumni have contacted them.

2. Twinkies and Wonder Bread are on life-support. Hostess Brands Inc. says it will go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of striking bakery workers.

3. A third-year journalism student at Ryerson University has started the first Canadian chapter of the Student Hip-Hop Organization. The self-funded group celebrates hip-hop culture and discusses what’s hot on the hip-hop scene, reports The Eyeopener. U.S. branches have brought acts like Wiz Khalifa and Kid Cudi to campus.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (November 16th edition)

Inside the war against risky drinking on campus

Mark Peterson/Redux

From the 2013 Maclean’s University Rankings

When outraged members of Pi Kappa Alpha at the University of Tennessee called a news conference in September to protest the suspension of their fraternity due to allegations of strange and excessive alcohol abuse, two words sprang to mind: Animal House. The news conference, immortalized on YouTube, is so unintentionally bizarre that it could be mistaken for an outtake from the subversive 1978 frat-boy comedy that launched a million toga parties and countless hangovers. The press conference—featuring a bow-tied, dead-serious Southern lawyer backed by an angelic legion of fraternity members in their Sunday suits—was called to refute allegations that one of their own, 20-year-old Alexander P. Broughton, had indulged in “butt-chugging” massive quantities of wine. While there was no denying that Broughton was hospitalized with alcohol poisoning after a night of fraternity drinking games, the idea of an alcohol enema is “repulsive” to Broughton, his lawyer said. “He is a straight man.”

Continue reading Battling the binge

Nitro cocktails, a botched pick-up attempt & a Toronto killer

aoife mac/Flickr

1. The Peak student newspaper at Simon Fraser University is warning students against cocktails containing liquid nitrogen, which is added by some daring bartenders who want to impress drinkers with the ensuing cloud of vapour. The reason for the warning: The Daily Mail newspaper says a British student who chugged two “Nitro Jagermeisters” ended up with a perforated stomach. Ouch.

2. “It wasn’t exactly the most successful pick-up attempt,” writes Julian Uzielli of Western’s University’s The Gazette. A student briefly lost consciousness and was taken to hospital last Wednesday after being injured in The Spoke pub. “He basically tried to pick up a girl really high in the air, and she fell on him, and he fell backwards and he hit his head,” student Tony Ayala told the newspaper.

3. People in Toronto’s Cabbagetown neighbourhood, not far from Ryerson University, are frightened by a killer who stabbed a woman, in her 50s, early on Tuesday. Toronto police released this security camera footage of the victim being followed around 7 a.m. The suspect is a white male.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (October 24th edition)

Lack of national news doesn’t meet licence mandate: study

A long-standing complaint concerning Quebec navel-gazing by the CBC’s French-language news service has been revived as the national broadcast regulator considers Radio-Canada’s licence renewal.

Sen. Pierre de Bane, a former Liberal cabinet minister under prime minister Pierre Trudeau, commissioned an exhaustive research study that suggests Quebec television viewers may be getting an “unrepresentative image of the Canadian reality.”

A scientifically vigorous sample of 2010 newscasts on Le Telejournal, taken by a Carleton University researcher, found that 42 per cent of the coverage focused on Quebec, a third dealt with international news and just 20 per cent covered Canadian “national” news.

Continue reading Radio-Canada accused of being too “Quebec-centric”