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volume 141 issue 1 • canada’s oldest student publication • UNB fredericton’s student paper • Sept. 6, 2007
Oh my gosh week it’s fr*sh week by Naomi Osborne
It’s that time of year again. Back to school, back to textbooks and back to studying. University students are returning to campus refreshed from their summer vacations and ready to take the plunge into the world of long study hours and no sleep. For returning students, the transition is common ground, but for first year students it can be a bit overwhelming. Making the transition from high school to university is a tough one. Everything is done differently and it is the first time most people get a taste of what the world is like without parents. UNB Orientation Week kicked off on Saturday as new students from all over began to file in with excitement, ready for what university has in store for them. UNBSU Orientation Chair, Jill Griffith, along with her committee, spent long hours planning to make orientation week a positive experience for first year students. The transition can be very difficult for new students to make. It is the Orientation Week Committee’s job to make sure that all the students adapt well to university life in their first week. Orientation week is about making the students feel welcome and letting them know that they are going to a promising school. This year, Orientation Week has added a few new things to the schedule. A group called Playfair for blast off was brought in to do icebreakers with large groups. DJ Nasty Naz was also brought in for the rest of the blast off to provided music for the students. “These two things get the new students to mingle and meet each other while being lots of fun,” said Griffith. In the past, Orientation Week events haven’t always brought out the numbers it intended. The goal this year was to find a way to make all the events appealing to a wide range of students. “We usually have an event that is called the ‘Amazing Race’, which includes a lot of running and this year we changed it so that every group had to finish and then we had a skill testing question at the end to determine the winner,” said Griffith. The first big event of the week was Blast Off, held in the Aitken University Centre. This event is not new to the Orientation Week schedule, although it nevertheless brought in a large crowd, as it always does. The MuchMusic Video Dance that took place Monday night drew in a lot of people. For those students that don’t enjoy dancing there was also a video and games night in McConnell Hall. Every year, the Orientation Concert sparks the interest of the first years.
Andrew Meade /The Brunswickan
This year, the concert will feature Joel Plaskett, a Canadian singer/songwriter from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Both first year UNB and STU students are invited to attend the concert, beginning at seven o’clock in the SUB on Friday night.
Shinerama is one of the last big events taking place to end the week with a bang. It will be held on Saturday at 9am and is always a success with the first years. Many of the events have been running
for years and will continue to do so in the future. Events such as the Orientation Concert, the MuchMusic Dance, Movie on the Hill, and Chose your Own Adventure Day will continue to be a part of Orientation Week in the future.
The week has already taken off to a good start. UNB planned for 1000 new students and is optimistic that every one of them will have a memorable year. “My expectations for the week are that all the new students have a great
time and get as many chances as possible to meet new people. I have high hopes that the events we planned will allow this and I feel the week will be a huge success,” said Griffith.
see Burning page 3
Bridges cut in half, creates office space for Carleton refugees by Josh O’Kane
Frosh week can be a pretty bustling time, with new students running amok on campus trying to meet people, getting to know them, trying to find classes, and embracing college life for the first time. The house team at Bridges House – don, proctors, and president – haven’t had to do too much yet. That’s because they have no first year students this year. Residence occupants are limited in number once again this year, putting UNB’s Residence Life and Conference Services in a sticky situation. In lieu
of closing all of Aitken House, as was planned until mid-Spring, half of Bridges has been closed off, leaving only the ground and first floor for residents. Returning members of Bridges as well as members of the residence community at large were dismayed at the decision. While Aitken was given time to debate and ultimately appeal the decision, Bridges residents were not notified until June. What’s the catch? The space is being used to house UNB staff affected by the addition of a much-needed elevator in Carleton Hall. This solves a pressing accessibility issue on campus, and as such, views on the half-closure of Bridges have been mixed. “We’ve done a detailed analysis of likely demand,” says Residential Life and Conference Services Director James Brown, “and we got the demand
dead on this year, filling every bed we made available, with a house and a half closed.” The first house would be Jones House, which is currently being rededicated as a Student Affairs ands Services building, and the half house is Bridges. One hall in Joy Kidd house is shut down as well, and a variety of super single rooms (doubles converted into large singles to recoup costs) are spread around the residence system. Traditional residence occupancy is on the decline, hands down. A slew of variables are affecting the number of beds Res Life has to fill each year. “I was planning on closing half of a house since June, when we had our occupancy numbers,” says Brown. “It became Bridges [this year] on the same basis as Jones… We just don’t have enough prospective occupants to
continue to maintain empty buildings, which is extremely expensive.” Jones, and now Bridges, was chosen on the basis of having the least number of returning residents to the house in the central cluster who had paid their damage deposits. However, says Brown, since only half the building is closed, “we were able to accent Bridges to accommodate everyone who wanted to return, and in fact offer them a single room or whatever room their points would have gotten them. It was done on a leastharm basis.” ‘Points’ are awarded to residents applying to return based on a calculation including years in school, years in residence, and GPA. When June rolled around, it also happened to be clear that the addition of an elevator to Carleton would leave
many faculty and staff, at least temporarily, without office space. “It was clear that the accessibility of Carleton would be inconsistent with people remaining in the building, and that hadn’t been understood prior to that. We then decided to help solve the problem,” says Brown. The decision was accented by the fact that Aitken House is to remain open, as was determined by the university’s board of governors. Brown explains that “when the Res Life budget was approved, there was a discussion that the deficit would be about $630,000 for the upcoming year. But that was predicated on closing a second house – for example, Aitken house. They first approved the budget and then debated the Aitken situation specifically. At that point the Board decided that they weren’t comfortable
with closing Aitken, and they wanted a one-year reprieve. The university agreed to reimburse residence with a $90,000 difference in occupying the building and operating costs.” “That being the case, it was then reasonable to make space available to them.” Brown says that he has not asked for more money since Res Life agreed to house the refugee staff and faculty. The decision was made in June when tentative occupancy numbers were calculated and space was found to be available. Some professors have been occupying Bridges House since June, says Brown. The building’s staircases and doorways are now configured to accommodate everyone involved, with resident-only access to the ground and first floors and staff-only access to the second and third floors. From 8am