Josh Bickle showing his first set to improving the Student Association by making an Idea wall, for students to post ideas and suggestions.
Story video and image by: Britney Dunn
Josh Bickle wants to make Durham College and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) a better place. He’s currently running for Vice President, College and University Affairs for the Student Association (SA) and, if re-elected, he promises big changes on campus this year.
“My campaign focuses on three main platforms which is lowering fees, student investments and job creation.”
Bickle was the SA Vice President last year and he plans to use his experience as a way to make improvements.
Josh Golin, First year ECE student filling out his Shop & Win ballot.
Story, photo and video by Ashley Anthony
The campus tuck shops, along with the Student Association, are putting on a student appreciation event this week at DC and UOIT, giving full-time students a chance win an iPad mini.
Shop & Win runs from January 21st to the 25th and all students have to do is purchase any item from the north campus, the Whitby campus or downtown campus tuck shops to participate .
“There are three iPads to be won, one at each location,” said Jennifer Neitzel, coordinator of retail services at Durham College and UOIT.
Students receive one ballot per transaction and the draw for the iPad mini is on Monday, January 28th.
“The student will get a call Monday and they will have five days to come pick up their prize,” said Neitzel, “If they don’t come pick it up then we will draw a new name.”
Along with the draw all of the tuck shops have special on-sale items including large dollar coffees and pop, dollar chocolate bars and gum packs and $2.50 Monster energy drinks. Products and prices may very by location but each tuck shop has specialty items on sale for students.
“The winner has to be a current student at either Durham College or UOIT with a valid student card,” said Neitzel. “If you don’t want to purchase anything all you have to do is just fill out a questionnaire and we will give you a ballot to enter the draw.”
The draw ballots will not be given to students who purchase GO Transit passes or a refill on Durham Transit Presto passes. For your chance to win visit a Tuck Shop close to you!
Durham College and UOIT students have the opportunity to join one of the many different campus clubs on campus. Some of these clubs include the Drama Club, the Digital Art Club, the H.E.R – Hip Hop in it’ Essence and Realness Club and the Salsa Club.
Students who are interested in joining a club can go to the Student Association (SA) website, go under the campus club section and email the club president with their student ID number and reason why they would like to join that specific club.
Durham College has been welcoming an array of new facilities and programs over the past few months, including the recently opened Aboriginal Student Centre, located within the Simcoe Building.
The centre celebrated its first Metis Awareness Day on January 26th , where everyone was welcome to find out more about the Metis culture. Cecile Wagar, the Senator of the Oshawa and Durham Metis Council, attended the special day, saying that they were able to share their food, jigging and fiddling fun with curious visitors. She also mentioned the wonderful artifacts and furs that were on display, as well as the beaded moccasins and unique clothing items. Wagar said that even a little drumming took place at the event, while noting they were very happy to be taking part in it, in order to remind them of the beat of their voyageurs.
The amazing talent of Alicia Blore, who played the fiddle throughout the day, entertained guests with her beautiful songs. Wagar said that Blore, along with herself and many others, would be attending the Metis Family Gathering on February 11 at the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 43, in Oshawa.
To learn more about Aboriginal traditions including Metis culture, stop by the Aboriginal Student Centre in the Simcoe Building, Room 1264.
The LGBTQ Centre on campus is looking for volunteers. Volunteers at the centre do peer counselling, help with events and sign out resources for students.
Silence can sometimes be the most effective tool in getting your point across.
Richard Riley speaks to participants about LGBTQ issues
That was exactly the case when students, faculty and members at Durham College and UOIT participated in Breaking the Silence, a campaign against LGBTQ discrimination, all day March 16 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
In conjunction with the SA’s LGBTQ and Pride Centres, participants were invited to take on some form of silence, calling attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBTQ bullying and harassment in schools.
A ‘Breaking the Silence’ wrap-up event took place in the Student Centre from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. to conclude the day’s activities. Richard Ryder of 103.9 Pride FM was on hand to speak to the very small crowd that participated.
He recounted his school years when he was picked on by his classmates. Ryder also shared his thoughts on the “It gets better” campaign and how students should face off against those who are homophobic.
Colin Boucher, coordinator of the Pride group on campus, enjoyed the event but hoped for a better turn-out. He was also disappointed that all of his event’s posters were ripped off the walls at the downtown UOIT campus.
Day of Silence was first founded in 1966. It has grown since then to become the largest single student-led action towards creating safer schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
The 15th annual National Day of Silence will be held on Friday, April 15, 2011.
For more information about the Day of Silence campaign, visit www.dayofsilence.org.
Click below to hear Durham College student Daniel Greanya talk about his experience with this year’s Breaking the Silence campaign on campus.
It’s that time of year again. The snow is melting, the sun is shining and the birds are singing. But while spring may be blooming, so is the garbage that’s popping up around campus.
“We’ve had such a fast melt this year and the best we can do is be out there,” says Suzanne Chasse, manager of Facilities Services. “With 43 groomed acres of property to look after, it’s hard to keep up.”
It seems the spring is the only time when garbage is a real concern. One of the biggest issues is cigarette butts. Although Chasse says a lot of students are using the ashtrays around campus, it’s easy to just flick because the snow will just cover up the mess.
“It’s just easier to walk and drop,” she says. “We can’t pick up what we don’t see.”
Chasse has been on campus for 23 years and she has noticed a positive trend.
“Different groups of students are more recycle conscious than they were five years ago. Students are learning more about the environment now,” she says.
While Chasse feels most students are respectful of the campus grounds, she says it wouldn’t hurt to put extra garbage bins and ashtrays in key areas, like entrance ways. The fact that there has been so much construction over the last 10 years hasn’t help the situation either, she says.
Despite the actions of some mess makers, Chasse says she has three amazing grounds maintenance employees who do care and want a clean campus.
“There are three great guys out there. If you see them, say thank you.”
Check out the slideshow below to see what the melting snow reveals.
This is just a taste of how bad the washrooms can be.
Story and image by Miranda Roach
As far as I know, women don’t usually have a bad reputation when it comes to being clean. We’re often seen as neat freaks with a dose of OCD but when it comes to the women’s washrooms on campus, think again.
Using the washroom is something we do every day, it just happens to be more often than men. You’d think because we’re in there so much that it must be pretty wonderful, but that’s not the case at all.
The awful smell hits you after the first door and it’s in full effect after the second. It doesn’t matter who’s in there, it’s a constant lingering of unpleasantness all the time.
I also know for a fact that some women aren’t using the one flush rule.
If that’s the case, something needs to be sprayed or we need some air fresheners in there because I’ve been close to being sick from that.
We see the schedule saying when it’s been cleaned, yet we don’t actually see and smell the difference. It needs to happen more frequently with stronger chemicals, or the ladies using it need to pick up the slack because it’s pretty gross.
Washrooms on campus usually get cleaned once or twice a day, but it’s not enough.
On a regular basis I find floating mysteries, crumpled up toilet paper on the floor and coloured water with a touch of candy wrappers. Stall after stall it usually doesn’t get any better.
The garbage cans are overflowing, paper towel is thrown everywhere and sometimes there is the occasional door off its hinges. I’d like to hope things don’t get violent in there, but sometimes you never know.
Most of the time I have to walk across campus to use another washroom because odds are, they’re all disgusting.
Maybe it depends on location, but for the most part they’re all nasty and it only gets worse from there. Perhaps cleaners should try to get in there two to three times a day and if that’s not helping, maybe more.
It’s not their fault for people’s bad habits or laziness but we’re women and it shouldn’t be that way.
I know for a fact I’m not alone on this, so help make it better not only for me, but everyone else who uses it too. And if it comes down to it, bring your own spray.
Check out the poll below and tell DC News how you feel.
Marketplace associate Wendy swipes an Aramark Meal Plan card on campus.
I don’t know how every other student on campus feels, but does it not feel like we’re always paying a fortune to eat? In order to do well in class, we must eat well-balanced and nutritious meals but it’s difficult when everything feels overpriced and expensive.
It approximately costs $10 a day to eat lunch, which comes to around $50 a week. That doesn’t include if you need breakfast or dinner as well. You would think that since we are students on a budget, there would be some kind of discount. This is my fourth year here at Durham College and I know for a fact that I haven’t seen anything close worth using. It seems the only discount available is to purchase an Aramark Meal Plan and use your student card as a debit card using Flex dollars.
I live paycheck to paycheck and there’s no way I’m going to be able to shell out the kind of money needed for a meal plan. The advertisements say that you will save 13%, but when you look inside the brochure only the top 4 choices actually offer that discount, and the plans aren’t cheap either. There are a variety of meal plans ranging from $550 to $1,990. Even though I do work part-time, after bills, there’s not much left to eat extravagant meals and I can’t risk wasting my money on something I may not use entirely.
Last week I went to the Quiznos on campus for lunch. I ordered a small chicken Carbonara. With tax I spent $6.77 and that did not include a drink. So afterwards I bought a 591 ml bottle of Dasani water which came to $2.25, and that’s just one small meal.
I checked out Burger Studio in the Marketplace today and realized that’s not where you go if you’re trying to save money. A regular burger is $4.99, but if you want cheese that’s an extra dollar. If you’d like to make that into a meal, that’s $8.99, plus $1 for cheese. So$9.99 plus tax. No thank you!
To be honest I don’t have money lying around that I can spend on a meal plan. It’s not like I only buy food on campus. We pay all this money to attend college, so why do we have to pay so much for food? It seems I’m left to believe we’re doomed to pay for overpriced and expensive food, if we want to eat at school.
