Blood drive a continuous source of debate

University of Winnipeg students once again gathered to protest the Canadian Blood Services’ (CBS) campus blood drive for their ban on blood donations from gay men.

Jonathan Niemczak, LGBT* student director for the University of Winnipeg Students’ Association, was present at the protest at Klinic Student Health Services.

Niemczak told the Winnipeg Free Press the protest wasn’t meant to discourage people from donating blood, but only sought to educate them of the ban.

CBS won’t accept blood or organ donations from men who have had sex with men even once after 1977, women who had sex with men with a history of homosexuality, injection-drug users and others who are considered to be at high risk for HIV-AIDS.

Feds planning for the future, cutting out humanities

The New Democratic Party of Canada is protesting the federal government’s attempt at privileging students taking business-related degrees over those studying traditional social sciences.

Niki Ashton, the NDP’s post-secondary education critic, is objecting to a line in the Jan. 27 budget which stipulated all scholarships granted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) will focus on business-related degrees.

A petition against the government decision on Ashton’s constituency website has reached over 17,000 signatures.

A higher opinion on higher learning

In an effort to ensure the federal government is legislating effective policies on higher education, a Winnipeg member of parliament recently cobbled together a new post-secondary caucus.

The group will work with post-secondary administrators, student groups and other members of Parliament to ensure government policies on the matter reflect a broader perspective, Conservative member of Parliament Rod Bruinooge (Winnipeg South) told University Affairs.

The caucus will be open to any members of Parliament who represent a riding with a post-secondary institution.

The caucus had its first meeting on Feb. 4.

Facebook for your brain

Murray Goldberg is the creator of brainify.com, a social bookmarking site aimed towards budding academics, particularly post-secondary students in need of credible resources.

Inspired by the amount of time students spend on-line looking for sources, Goldberg formed the website in an effort to help students help their peers.

Brainify.com allows users to tag useful academic websites according to subject for those searching next and form groups around particular issues.

Launched earlier this year after two years of development, the site has users from over 250 universities, with a significantly large portion being faculty members.

Green building by 2010

Demolition continues from the inside out on the old United Army Surplus building that will hopefully house University of Winnipeg services by the fall of 2010.

Dan Hurley of the U of W says building progress is slow because the university intends to use up to 75 per cent of the old material to build the new structure, planned for programs such as continuing education and parts of the business faculty.

The United Army Surplus building is part of the building initiative put forth by the university in 2008.

The story above has been edited from the version in which it originally appeared. This version was posted March 25.

Published in Volume 63, Number 24 of The Uniter (March 19, 2009)