Mathers' Blog

SIFE, the annoying student group dedicated to themselves, have picked up their backpacks and stormed off of campus. I was unable to confirm if the smell emanating from this story was poop in their pants or just their bad attitude.

Here’s the story:

• SIFE has had a monopoly on Thursday’s at Heroes for the past 7 years.
• Their group made a lot of money doing this.
• Other campus clubs wanted in on the action and, over the past two years, TRU has been talking to SIFE about sharing.
• Earlier this year, TRU gave the Adventure Club a thursday to host a Where’s Waldo night.
• SIFE was told one night out of seven would go to another club.

So rather than sharing and allowing other clubs to raise money, SIFE decided to move their event to Cactus Jacks. They tried to take the Thirsty Thursday name with them, but had  no rights to it.

Heroes will continue to have a Thirsty Thursday event. The difference is that each night will benefit a different campus club.

This is good for students and good for TRU. A stronger and  more diverse set of campus clubs will benefit the TRU Community. Wouldn’t you rather see the Nurses hosting a thursday night? And how much money does SIFE spend shipping themselves all over Canada to “compete”?

For more info check out these blogs:

Cam On Campus: Is Dan Erickson just viciously unaware?

Tab on TRUSU: TRUSU gives SIFE $2000 to run one of Kamloops’ Thirsty Thursdays

Rock Trivia at Hereos Pub circa 2008

Has anyone noticed the new game in town? It’s like cops and robbers, but the kids dress up like journalists and abuse a newspaper. Our once weekly source of student drama and campus comedy is now ploughing a field of the mundane and inconsequential. And mmm mmm mm does it taste insipid!

This past edition featured the boy band ‘hey we’re short on cash let’s tour’  Backstreet Boys on the cover. I guess there was nothing else important going on?

Turning the page, which gets harder the further you go, you’ll find an insightful article on how gosh darn irritating bad drivers are. Hey if your cheese is sweaty does that make page 3? You know what else is annoying: wasted journalism! Your paper is sweaty and smells like brie.

Underneath the road lamage is a predictable and clichéd article on how early Christmas starts. Other topics they considered for this spot included: What Women Really Want, How to Avoid a Hangover, Stock Markets are Down, Video Games are Bad for Kids, Tiger Woods is Pretty Good, Snow is Cold and Stock Markets are Up.

We all recognize the challenges of being a student journalist. There are only so many times you can interview your parents and so many times you can criticize the street cleaner and the snow plow for always doing your street last. So here are some tips to help you along. I know you’re busy with homework and handjobs but the more you put into it, the more lives you could ruin, and that’s what being a journalist is all about!

Today’s tip is: If any of these phrases appear in your article, trash it:
- “don’t get me wrong”
- “I just don’t get why”
- “I can’t wait for it to come” (yeah me neither)
- “but I realize I can’t force it to come” (try harder)
- “believe me”
- “it can’t be that hard, can it?” (it’s the pills)
- “not only does he look like an idiot” (but he smells like cheese?)
- “Mr. Advice Guy”
- “students only have the option of calling campus security if they want an escort” (little known fact: maglite brothel)

The competently suspect TRU Student Union has spotted the money that had threatened to shut down the campus radio station. I dedicate this post to you and your valiant effort to reduce the cost of tuition. Good luck!

Favourite X show? Wing and Prayer Show by Kenny B.  Little know fact: This show IS recorded inside of an old shoe.

Thompson Rivers University Selects SunGard Higher Education Solutions
MALVERN, Pa, August 28, 2008 SunGard Higher Education announced today that Thompson Rivers University has selected the Banner Unified Digital Campus….

Haven’t we been working on this project for months already?

B.C. universities and colleges get a little closer
As the opposition critic for advanced education, however, he’s aggrieved because the two distinct institution styles are slipping into each other. At the same time as colleges are growing into universities, he says, universities are devolving into colleges.

After May 22, when the B.C. government passed Bill 34, the University Amendment Act, colleges and universities indeed moved closer together. First, four colleges and one institution were rebranded as universities (Capilano, Malaspina, Fraser Valley, Kwantlen, and Emily Carr), but without any additional funding for research or other typical university facilities, such as research libraries.

Second, Bill 34 reformed university governance: a board of governors, not alumni, will now select chancellors. Third, senates (which determine curriculum, admission policies, et cetera) at the new “teaching” universities have only four student representatives, not the traditional balance of half administration, half students. To Fleming, this all spells trouble.

Thompson Rivers University now has a website for the posting and viewing of off campus housing.

The site basically kicks some ass.

Students, after only one half month, are able to browse and search through 53 accommodations. Wanted ads can also be created by more particular students for specific wants, needs, fetishes, obsessions or porno set requirements. These ads can be viewed by both landlords and students.

The majority of current postings are from landlords who, after creating an account, can return and post any vacancies they possess. This service is free for both students and their overlords. Listing are held for approval before making it to the site. For some reason two dudes looking for a single female roommate is cause for concern

The web application was written in PHP and uses the ADODB library to interface with the Oracle database. Accommodation photos are processed and displayed with GD.

We should thank G23 (author of the best blackberry geocaching software GeoBerry) for recompiling php with GD. Little disappointed it wasn’t as complicated as you said it would be. Maybe if we add –with-ldap? Seriously we need to add ldap support. Should I put in a helpdesk ticket?

And rookie thanks to Coop who, despite me, managed to complete the database, the stored procedures and the site! And with Google Maps!

Montgomery College serves 60,000 students across 3 campuses in Maryland, USA. It produced 1700 graduates in 2006 out of a student body representing 170 different countries. 27,000 of those students take Workforce Development and Continuing Education programs. (fact sheet)

Montgomery College has a large and diverse campus community.

Montgomery College completely banned smoking. You can’t smoke in any buildings. You can’t smoke outside of any buildings. You can’t smoke in the parking lot. You can’t smoke on any land owned or controlled by the college.

From the press release:

All tobacco products, including cigarettes and chewing tobacco, will be prohibited from Montgomery College property, including its three campuses at Germantown, Rockville and Takoma Park/Silver Spring, and its central administration building in Rockville. This new policy affects all buildings, athletic fields, pedestrian walkways, entryways, outdoor terraces, campus bus stops and parking lots.

Their Tobacco-Free website lists the following reasons for the ban

• Supports community efforts to reduce or eliminate tobacco use in public settings
• Eliminates second-hand smoke from around building entrances.
• Eliminates litter from cigarette butts and other debris.
• May encourage some tobacco users to stop a harmful habit.
• Prepares Montgomery College students to cope with future employment in tobacco-free environments.
• Sets a positive example for high school students and young children who are often on campus.
• Reduces risk of fires caused by cigarette smoking.

TRU’s current smoking policy prohibits smoking in vehicles, smoking in buildings and the sale of tobacco products on campus. However, it allows smoking on campus, as long as you are 25 feet away from a building entrance.

This policy is up for review in 2 months, October 2008!

I had an LOA on Tuesday and spent my day here. You know I’m the unarmed sergeant at arms for the union (did you know that?), the new union, the recently divorced from local 900, local 4879. Pleasant conversations are underway to determine who gets custody of the cute kid, how grandma’s china set will be split and whether or not Local 900 cheated on 4879 with United Steelworkers 7619. Who can say no to a steelworker?

TRU has used a Google Mini for the past 3 years to provide a search for www.tru.ca.

Although we haven’t outgrown it, there was one specific feature that our web team used to justified a new purchase. Our current box allows the creation of sub collections of the entire index and the ability to search that collection separately. But it does not allow us to create an individual web interface for each collection. It adds a drop down box on the main search page containing the sub collections.

The new Mini promotes
“Unlimited collections and front ends
Power search across multiple sites with increased security and control over the user interface of each site.”

We have not set it up yet – it’s still under the tree – but I’ll report back on how satisfied we are with the $3000 blue pizza box.