Look who’s eating soap this week
Two Debaters argue whether it’s right to sanitize Twain
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the newspaper University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly
Vol. XXXIII N0. 13
January 13, 2010
GC report
Among other news, students asked to pony up $40M in levy toward UTSC sports centre MarTÍn WaldMan Student groups across campus, such as the UofT Millennium Project Committee, have been showing their support for World AIDS Day 2010 by hosting unique events in the effort to raise funds and awareness throughout the university community about the growing epidemic. Participating students were asked to come to King’s College Circle at 3 p.m. wearing red to help the Millennium Project
Committee attempt the record for largest human red ribbon. “What we really wanted to focus on this year is moving beyond passive awareness and encouraging an ‘active’ and more tangible awareness program,” says Millennium Project co-director Nymisha Chilukuri. “The formation of the ribbon is simple in idea but it is powerful because by being part of the ribbon, the student is also now taking an active role in generating awareness and spirit in the issue rather than just...attending to an awareness event,” says
Chilukuri. The project also aimed to encourage students to challenge policymakers to keep their promises to foster more services for prevention strategies, proper treatment, expulsion of stigma and most of all education. “Students are such an important part in society because of their active participation in events such as these,” says Mona Younis, Logistics Coordinator for the Millennium Continued on page 2
Take note: andreW GYorkos We’ve all been there. Be it from illness or laziness, we’ve missed a class and suffered a large gap in the course-going experience. We’ve done all the necessary prep work, and downloaded the lecture skeleton from the blackboard website (if the professor’s generous enough to make it available, of course). But without the comfort of someone else’s notes, preferably notes infinitely more diligent and coherent than we could ever hope for, we’ll never be able to assuage the guilt of having missed a few hours of our pricey higher education. Sure, we could send out electronic cries for help to our peers, appealing for their precious notes with a promise to return the favour sometime down the line. But such is often an embarrassing prospect when we recall
the many times we scoff at others for making the same pleads. This whole “begging for notes” game simply isn’t cool. Thankfully, a more dignified approach has arrived, offering U of T students the ability to get the notes for the material they’ve missed without resorting to spamming desperately the inboxes of their classmates. A way to give the common ‘stay on top of coursework’ new year’s resolution a fighting chance. “That’s where NoteSolution. com comes in,” says Kevin Wu, who co-founded the project along with U of T graduate Jack Tiantai. “In essence, NoteSolution.com provides a knowledge exchange portal that allows students to find supplementary material for all of their courses. When you sign up, you gain access to all of the additional material contributed by other students.”
Currently only available to U of T students, NoteSolution. com is a website that cleverly encourages the exchange and sharing of notes between U of T students across the departments and programs of all three campuses. Using its own unique currency of credits, students can spend their initial wallet of 100 credits on downloading notes at 20 credits a pop, and earn more through referring friends to the service, submitting their own notes, or having their own notes downloaded by others. Study guides are also available during exam crunches, and surplus credits can even be redeemed for gift cards. The glaring concern with a site like this is the notion that students may use the detailed notes of others as an excuse to cut class with a clean conscience; certain professors already tend to decline making
STEPHANIE KERVIN
Notesolution.com helps students fill in the missing pieces