Hasheel Lodhia & Amanda Mihoub Wright

McMaster Debating Society

 

H: In almost every society, there exist celebrity role models. Particularly in North America, there are hundreds of celebrities that are looked upon by millions of people of all ages. It is even more evident that younger generations are constantly bombarded with impressions of what to be and how to act. However, with this power should come a high level of responsibility and consequence. Kate Moss, Whitney Houston (R.I.P.) and many other high-profile stars have a history of cocaine use. Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and several others have a history of drinking and driving. In many of these cases, little or no action is taken. They can expect fines (which don’t put a stress on their wallet in the slightest) and occasionally a custodial sentence. In the rare case that they are condemned as equals to the rest of society, their high-paid lawyers have no problem settling things out for them, and they continue doing what they do best – flaunting their lifestyle. What message does this send out to our youth? What internal and international image does it give of our country for placing people above the law due to their wealth and fame? Celebrities need harsher and more realistic punishments to show the public that their crimes are in no way acceptable.

 

A: I do not agree with Hasheel’s argument that celebrities, due to their status as “role models” and the fact that they tend to have more resources than the average person, should be punished more harshly. First of all, I take issue with the blanket use of the term “role model” when referring to celebrities. A role model is someone that people look up to, that they want to emulate in a positive way. Celebrities who have problems with the criminal justice system are not role models. These celebrities have displayed socially inappropriate behaviour, and even if they are not punished harshly for their offence, they are not given positive affirmation for their actions. In fact, it is always the opposite; their behaviour is deemed unacceptable. Also, though the media is a powerful force of socialization, people have many other influences in their lives, such as teachers, parents, peers, etc. It is more likely that a person steals a car because all of their friends are doing it than because they see a celebrity, who has done the same thing, receive a fairly light sentence for their actions. The celebrity is still being punished if they are fairly tried and convicted of a criminal offence. Celebrities aren’t the only ones with more resources than the average person. Wealthy people who are not in the public eye do too, and they also have access to better lawyers etc. Shouldn’t they be punished more harshly too, according to Hasheel’s argument? But, that doesn’t seem fair. This is a slippery slope, as every person is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law.

 

H: Yes, celebrities who have problems with the justice system shouldn’t be considered role models, but the fact remains clear that they are. No pre-teen saw Lindsay Lohan in any less of a light after she got a DUI. Nor did their opinion change of her when she was given less than two hours of jail time, a small slap on the wrist, for a repeat offence (something that would not have been the case had any layman done the same). The purpose of the law is to reprimand those who have wronged society in a way that is proportional to the damage that has been done. I think it is extremely safe to say that an unknown homeless man doing crack in a back alleyway does not do nearly as much damage to society as a star of Jersey Shore snorting lines of coke on a hooker’s belly at a party, driving home drunk, feeling fly like a G6, and then having the details and pictures of their night plastered all over the media by the paparazzi. Yes, there are more influential roles in an adolescent’s life, such as parents and peers, but it is extremely ignorant to say that celebrities aren’t role models regardless of the bad personal decisions.

 

A: I disagree with Hasheel’s argument about the purpose of law. Laws are integral to the functioning of society; they facilitate social order. The concept of punishing someone in a way that is proportional to the damages that they have caused to society is not necessarily compatible with the idea of punishing celebrities more harshly for their crimes. The drug dealer who strategically befriends a vulnerable person just to hook them on drugs, or the drug cooker who actually created the drugs, is just as much, if not more, responsible for drug-related deaths and criminal offences than a celebrity who gets caught on camera taking drugs. Punishing a celebrity more harshly because they are in the public eye creates two different justice systems, which is detrimental to the functioning of society.

 

H: A celebrity is anyone deemed to be a national or international phenomenon, the world “celebrity” and “media” go hand in hand. The International Narcotics Control Board has openly stated that when celebrities take illegal drugs, it glamorizes them. Celebrities are not “normal” people. They are elevated above everyone else by choice. They enjoy greater benefits of society, but as a result, do more harm by condoning certain actions. However, it is not only the act that is important when deciding punishment, but the surrounding issues and context of the crime. A woman who takes drugs in front of her children is not only committing a crime, but setting a bad example, and should therefore be reprimanded further. Punishing individuals proportional to the damages to society is very much relevant to celebrities, who choose to live a life under the public eye. Just like how politicians are often scrutinized for their every action, past or present, the same goes for celebrities.

 

A: While some celebrities may glamorize drugs, others also demonstrate the horrors of addiction and drug use, and serve as powerful examples of the horrors of drug abuse. “Celebrity” is also a term that is hard to define; would it apply to everyone in the public eye? Locally known people as well as internationally known people? What about a popular teenager that everyone else in the school imitates? A two-part justice system would be difficult to implement; one could not come up with a fair criteria to make the distinction in every case between celebrity and non-celebrity, or to distinguish the level of influence that a particular person is exercising on others. It just simply shouldn’t be relevant whether or not a person is a celebrity or not; the punishment should fit the crime. When judges sentence a criminal offender, depending on the charge, there are certain guidelines that they must follow. The legal system has to remain fair and unbiased for society.

Sumeet Khanna & Violetta Nikolskaya

Mcmaster Debating Society

 

S: Think what you may of Newt Gingrich, but he sure knows how to be radical. ‘Let’s colonize the Moon!’ Okay. I want to first look at the practical benefits of a purely scientific colony. If we place astronaut-scientists on the Moon, build them a base, and allow them to take observations and operate technology specifically made for the Moon, a host of scientific avenues open up in terms of space discovery. Many point to the ample source of materials available on the Moon that we can use for the construction or fueling of a spacecraft. A Lunar base could more easily launch rockets to Mars due to the Moon’s lower gravity. Sending a human to Mars has been an aspiration for quite some time now; if a Lunar landing marked human progress in the 20th century, a Mars landing could certainly mark it for the 21st century. There are other benefits to be had as well. We could use a Lunar base for an observatory; high frequency telescopes wouldn’t be hindered by diffraction due to the lack of a sizable atmosphere. The list goes on, but I’ll pass it over to Violetta.
V: Of course, Sumeet would present the most captivating argument to open up his case. However it falls short on certain areas. Firstly, the resources that the Earth is truly in need of do not reside on the Moon. Resources like helium, which is used to cool down an MRI machine, are found in space but not in sediment. Secondly, the Mars exploration missions are coming to a close: the ExoMars program, a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, is near collapse due to the withdrawal of NASA’s support. Lastly, a mission to Mars from the Moon is not a logical step. Descending onto and coming from the Moon would be a poor use of fuel. Currently the world’s finances are not in a position to fund specific space exploration programs that will not conclusively provide us with the resources needed in the immediate future. The resources that the Earth needs are helium and other simple resources that can easily be found not too far into space. The funding that would be pooled into this project will not be transparent, as are few things under NASA’s classified jurisdictions, and will not benefit us at this moment in time.

S: Well, Vio, the moon’s soil is actually rich in helium-3, highly sought on Earth for nuclear fusion. And the moon is vital for us to get to Mars, as many scientists see it as a fuelling station for spacecraft; it may also help to get some data on long-term human health on the Moon before we go to Mars. As for space agencies, I need only point you to Virgin Galactic and the now booming commercial space industry. But I want to extend the reach of this proposal now. I think there’s a case to be made for generally colonizing the Moon. Politicians and scientists alike have a moral imperative to prepare for end-of-Earth scenarios. Asteroids pass-us by all of the time. Earth is over-populating, and resources are dwindling. A lot of countries still have nuclear weapons. Given these variables, a Moon colony would not only allow humankind to hedge against these risks, but would also be a natural step in the evolution of humankind. The preservation of our species, I would argue, is an ultimate good, and every measure possible needs to be taken to ensure our survival.

V: How did we end up in a position where we are conceptualizing ‘end-of-the-world’ scenarios? We ended up in this position on our own accord due to mass consumerism, tactless globalization, a disregard for living within our means and a disrespect of the planetary natural processes. For example, the citizens in the UK throw away around 30 per cent of their groceries due to excess consumerism. Clearly there is an issue with the way that people on Earth understand the resources we have and the amount of waste we produce. We use resources improperly. Until we understand how to conserve energy and resources, we should not be able to branch out and destroy more resourceful areas. That is why we have natural wildlife and rain forest sanctuaries; we are attempting to save what we have left. Furthermore, on a more economist stance, exporting materials to the Earth would be incredibly problematic due to the cost of transportation. Issues like solar wind, fuel and human resources will cause the price of these resources to increase drastically, some estimates say. Before we ask ourselves ‘where can we go for more resources?’, we must answer the question of ‘how can we survive on less?’

 

S: How can we survive on less? By learning, innovating, moving forward and not sticking ourselves on one planet. Vio’s right to list off our global tendency to waste, but even if we magically reverse our habits and become ultra-sustainable as a population, resources will run out. Further, imagine what we could learn from living on the Moon; imagine what innovation, what energy-saving, what sustainable practices we would learn from this adventure? Space exploration is most certainly our next evolutionary next step. If Vio wants to save the environment, down the road, that may involve moving people and industry to space, which is a reality we have to accept. Finally, though, on a more theoretical note, I think we have a moral imperative to spread the life and beauty of human civilization throughout the universe - a universe that we usually characterize as cold and barren and frightening. So let’s colonize the Moon, and let us prove to ourselves once again that we are capable of taking another giant leap for humankind.

V: Moral imperative? I could understand and engage with your arguments until this point. The human civilization has stripped the very foundation of anything it inhabits. We would not be inhabiting or colonizing the Moon to do anything but, once again, strip it of all of its essential resources and minerals. How is that in any way beautiful or moral? If we run out of resources, it will have been on our own accord and an issue that we must come to terms with and address. Furthermore, we must recycle our resources because we still have retained a large portion of our minerals.Funding a project to gain resources that will inevitably only become accessible to the rich is a true form of supporting a dynasty. Funding a project with money that could be used to build infrastructure and environmentally sustainable projects is a true form of supporting a simplistic and problematic endeavour. How about we try to fix the problems we’ve started before we go on to create bigger problems we have no right to create in the first place?

Wendy Chi & Amanda Mihoub Wright

McMaster Debating Society

 

Wendy: Statistics about what students are doing after university are painting a less than optimistic picture of the future of undergrads across North America. In many cases, recent grads find themselves in one of three scenarios: unemployed, working in a field unrelated to their education, or returning to school for another degree. As a result, students have begun to question whether the knowledge garnered during their time in university will translate to finding a career and performing well in it. Sadly, for a large proportion of students, it won’t.  At a certain fundamental level of the current system, this actually makes sense. Students often forget that most universities are, first and foremost, research institutions. Teaching undergrads is only a secondary function of these schools and a side job to professors.  What does this mean for students? Aside from the fact that their needs are not always a top priority, there is also an inherent bias in what they are taught that favours theoretical concepts over real world applications. Course content and skill development are presented from a research perspective because that is what professors do for a living. It’s no wonder that more and more people end up pursuing graduate studies, since that is the natural path to follow in a university setting.

Amanda: Wendy is correct when she says that a university degree no longer guarantees employment; however, I do not agree that it is a result of universities failing to teach workplace skills or the theoretical nature of university material. Rather, the devaluation of academic credentials is due to many other factors, such as the expansion of universities since the 1970s. Even though universities are geared towards research, students do develop skills that are necessary for workplace success and employment. Universities offer programs such as internships and co-ops with the explicit goal of fostering students’ workplace skills and to give them concrete, hands-on experience in the career field that they wish to pursue.  As well, universities simulate workplace settings; students learn that they must attend class for a certain amount of time in order to take notes and to succeed, they must respect deadlines or they will be penalized, and they must develop a certain level of skill in order to obtain their university degree. Most importantly, they learn that this must all be done on their own initiative, and that the responsibility for the quality of their work is theirs alone.

WC: I agree that internships and co-operative education programs can be an excellent way to supplement education with practical work experience. The problem is that at many universities, McMaster included, not enough students are participating in these programs. Enrollment in co-op programs is limited to only a privileged few students who can reap the benefits of the experience. In addition, the fact that the co-op schedule disrupts extracurriculars and other year-long commitments can be a major disadvantage to some. As for Amanda’s claim that university simulates a workplace setting, my answer is yes and no. Yes there is a certain structure to the university experience that translates to the workplace (deadlines, schedules, etc.) but is it enough? Although basic organization and time management are important, the relevance of other heavily emphasized skills, such as essay writing, conducting secondary research and test taking, is often limited to academia. It is equally important for students to acquire the interpersonal, communication and leadership skills that are prerequisites for success in the real world.

AMW: I agree with Wendy’s assertion that students need to acquire interpersonal, communication, and leadership skills in order to succeed in the real world. However, these skills can be acquired at university through the group work that goes on in classes, club membership, and involvement in student life. As well, a lot of the skills developed through school work, such as effective writing and communication skills, are actually very transferable and extremely important in many workplace settings. Students have agency, they are not simply passive actors, and they cannot expect to be guaranteed skills and abilities by simply attending a post-secondary institution. Students must actively work on their employability. Yes, there are not as many co-op’s and internships available to students as there should be, but that is not the universities fault but rather the result of the current economic climate. Choosing between club involvement and co-op may be a tough decision for some, but it is a sacrifice that students must be willing to make. It is a tough and competitive job market, but it is not solely universities’ responsibility to ensure that students are prepared.

WC: Amanda makes a good point that students have a role is seeking out their own personal development. However, that doesn’t change the reality that students spend years of their lives in school and thousands of dollars on tuition with the expectation that a university degree will make them better off in the job market. Although the transferable skills gained from group work and extracurricular involvement can help accomplish this, these activities usually come second to the independent study required to perform well in classes. Regardless of their autonomy and initiative, students can only operate within the constraints that the university places on them. Consequently, it is up to the faculty and administration to make changes if they want to produce graduates who are ready for the challenges of the workforce. Programs and services such as co-op, internships, career fairs, career counselling, and other workshops are a great start, but they have to be expanded to serve more students so that they are provided every opportunity to develop their employability.

AMW: A clear-cut answer to this issue does not exist. The current employment market requires an improved effort by both universities and students to increase the employability of students. Students need to be aware of the fact that a university degree does not guarantee them employment and take initiative to improve their own employability and transferable skills. Universities should also offer more career services and place more emphasis on the importance of employability to students; however, universities are a place of higher learning, academia and research and it is unreasonable to expect them to make students’ employability their main focus above all else. The devaluation of credentials has already occurred and it is unlikely that the times of merely having a undergraduate degree and obtaining guaranteed employment will ever return.

Matt Martorana & Andrew Terefenko

MacDebate & the Silhouette

Q: Will Research in Motion be able to survive the year in light of its recent struggles?

Matt: With Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis stepping down as Research In Motion’s co-CEOs, RIM hopes to send a message to its investors that it is ready to make the necessary changes that will turn the course of the company around. Despite this change in leadership, I argue it is unlikely that RIM will actually have renewed success. The main problem that RIM faces is their failure to innovate against their competitors. RIM’s Blackberry and Playbook offer nothing to consumers that other smart phones and tablets – from Apple, for example – do not already offer. This poses a serious problem.

If RIM cannot increase its customer base, it will not be able to survive in the competitive market. In the case of Apple products, users have access to millions of “apps” that can perform almost any action. RIM’s competitors are making further innovations to their products while RIM is not. In the case of the Blackberry, one may argue that BBM is unique to RIM, but BBM alone is not enough. (iPhones now have a feature called iChat that does many of the same things as BBM.)

Others may argue that RIM has now created a number of apps for the Blackberry, but the selection of apps for the iPhone is much wider. It is difficult to see how RIM can innovate its products to make them more attractive to the consumer, and hence why I feel that they will not be able to turn the fortunes of their company around.

 

Andrew: As a company, RIM has had a lot of trouble dealing with the innovations of their competitors, but I feel that their chief executive board was aware of this in their most recent choice of CEO. By promoting industry-veteran Thorsten Heins, they know full well their need to draw upon his extensive R&D experience to come forth with a new flagship product. Having risen from his starting position to CEO in only five years, coming from his highly relevant previous position as Chief Technology Officer at Siemens AG, he will be a great asset for a company that desperately needs to reinvent both their public image and their core product. In a recent video he posted to the web, he outlined a few key concrete plans he has for the company, which bodes well for a CEO who has to take the reigns of a fairly tumultuous corporate entity.

 

Matt: The appointing of the Thorsten Heins to be the new CEO may be a great short-term solution, but I am skeptical about how this will impact RIM in the long run. Besides luring customers away from Apple and other competitors, RIM also needs to ensure that its own clientele will not switch from using RIM products to Apple products (or products of any other competitor). This has proven to be a difficult task, especially in the last year, in which RIM experienced two network failures. These network failures have created great disdain and mistrust between consumers and RIM. The Blackberry was supposed to be a dependable phone that the businessperson could rely on, but these failures have tarnished that image. This trust with the consumer is especially difficult to gain back when RIM’s competitors do not have a track record of network failures. Although appointing a new CEO may seem like a step in the right direction, I question whether this CEO will be able to do anything different than what Balsillie has already done.

 

Andrew: The recent three-day service outage was certainly inexcusable for a device that many rely on for day-to-day activities. On that note, RIM sincerely realized the failure on their part to ensure a reliable product and, to that end, offered $100 worth of free apps to affected customers as a gesture of goodwill. Additionally, it can be speculated that the CEO change was a response to that same outage and poor fiscal year. If their Board is willing to go as far as replacing the two co-founders of the company, they can be counted on to make drastic changes for the better future of the company.

 

Matt: RIM has always been a leader and innovator in targeting the business community. I would agree with anyone who claims that there is no better phone for business than the Blackberry (although I am sure some may disagree). But in the last year and a half, RIM has tried to expand their products from the business community to the consumer market. So far they have failed to reach the consumer in the way that many of their investors had envisioned.

I see no reason why in 2012 RIM should be any more successful in reaching these consumer markets. Many of RIM’s competitors have bigger budgets and more human capital so that they can put out a better product. Thorsten Heins may be aware of the problems that currently plague RIM, but this does not mean that he is equipped to solve these problems.

 

Andrew: It was not premature for RIM to try to enter the highly congested consumer market, but it was clear that their marketing model did not succeed. That being said, it is clear through Heins’ initial ascension statements that he has big plans for the company, as far as a decade away. He wants RIM to go back to what it became famous for, and also its namesake, that being of research. Under his leadership, the company will put a far greater focus on R&D and quality assurance if his plans come to fruition.

Despite that, 2012 will still be a difficult year for RIM, as they come to terms with bad press and unknown leadership, but it is because of their renewed drive to innovate that I believe their future may not be so grim. They conquered the business world with their aesthetically professional, compact and surprisingly durable device, and with many consumers’ aversion to using touch-screen devices, the Blackberry will still see many years of use in light of their competitors’ extreme focus on removing buttons altogether.

They may have fallen behind in the communications race, but clearly have the right set of ideals needed to get back to their former glory.

Matthew Martorana & Amanda Mihoub Wright

McMaster Debating Society

 

Matt: In a year where the protester was deemed the most influential person in the world by Time Magazine, I think it is important to look back and reflect on whether violence is really necessary in overthrowing a government dictator. I would argue that not only is violence not necessary, non-violence is much more effective. Non-violence is not pacifism. People still go to war, just like military leaders would, only their weapons are not the guns, grenades and rockets that militaries use. Instead, activists can arm themselves with political protest, raising international awareness. In violent civil wars, countries are often marred by political instability, economic difficulty and social injustice. The Democratic Republic of Congo serves as a good example of how violence is destroying the stability and safety of a country. Non-violence avoids such bloody and destructive outcomes. Non-violent protests and similar tactics are used to ensure that such destruction and instability do not ensue.

Amanda: In some situations, non-violent tactics of protest are not effective in terms of inciting regime change. In reaction to some actions of protesters in Libya, Qaddaffi hired foreign mercenaries to kill unarmed civilians. It was only due to the untenable situation in Libya caused by Qaddaffi’s violent repression of his citizens, along with the resistance campaign, that foreign intervention occurred. If the Libyan rebels had continued to use only non-violent tactics of resistance, their resistance would not have lasted long enough to incite foreign intervention. This should indicate that the blanket expectation of non-violence in all situations is unreasonable. In some situations, change may perhaps be achieved without violence, but in others, the use of violence may be the only way to bring about change. How can people be expected to continuously experience atrocities at the hands of a regime, to have their human rights denied to them continuously and to not react in self-defense? Violence on the part of protesters may serve as a pre-emptive type of self-defense.

Matt: In many cases violence has created more problems than it has solved. In Liberia, a civil war was waged because in 1989 President  Samuel K. Doe used political patronage to allow members of his own ethnic group to have control over the military and government affairs. In resistance to President Doe, Charles Taylor created the National Patriotic Front of Liberia to overthrow Samuel Doe’s government regime. Although Samuel Doe was assassinated in 1990, what ensued was a 14-year bloody civil war in which over one hundred thousand people lost their lives. What initially started out as a simple military campaign against President Doe became a war over blood diamonds and economic control. The effects of such a brutal and devastating war have left Liberia in severe economic depression even to this day.

Military campaigns may serve as a great temporary solution, but when we have a long-term perspective we see that military campaigns often leave a country worse off. Even if military campaigns are successful, overthrowing the dictator is only half the battle. The other half is to ensure that there are true democratic leaders to replace the dictator.

Amanda: Overthrowing a dictator is only half of the battle, but the way in which a dictator has been overthrown does not necessarily predict how democratic the new regime will be. The Egyptian revolution was achieved through non-violent methods of protest, but the transition to democracy has been messy. What the outcome of the political situation in that country will be is still not clear. There is also the fact that non-violent methods on their own cannot necessarily overthrow a regime that uses violent methods to maintain power. In some cases, such as Egypt, in which significant international pressure, a high literacy rate, a committed youth and access to social media ousted a dictator, non-violence was effective. However, in other situations, such as the political strife in Syria, it is evident that non-violence cannot always achieve the necessary regime change, as Al-Assad is a ruthless leader. When one’s opponent does not abide by any rules but their own, it is difficult to win by following rules.

Dictators are more often than not vicious and unyielding, as this is often what helps them stay in power. Non-violent revolutions don’t just spontaneously occur – they are often the result of years of planning on the part of individuals and interest groups and should be carefully executed. Social media planning was critical to the success of many revolutions during the Arab Awakening. Yes, there are many examples of non-violence working and achieving it’s goal, however, it is not guaranteed to be the best course of action in every single situation.

Matt: Let me tackle the common assumption that you cannot fight violence with non-violence. I agree that a non-violent response is not an easy one. It requires citizens to suffer great loss, and to respond to great injustice without anger, fear or disillusionment. Citizens must be willing, in the most profound sense, to “turn the other cheek.” The reality is that people have a natural tendency to react violently when attacked or made to suffer severely. I am not so insensitive to suggest that this violent reaction is morally wrong. I merely want to suggest that reacting to violence with more violence is not the healthiest response. A non-violent reaction, such as that which Ghandi performed for India in the face of Britain’s brutality, has the kind of strength needed to create a lasting change and not just a superficial one. Non-violence responses are excellent ways of exposing the root causes of systematic injustices, not to mention in gaining support for a just cause.
Amanda: According to Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Burmese pro-democracy movement, “It is never easy to convince those who have acquired power forcibly of the wisdom of peaceful change.” This statement can be applied to both situations of non-violent and violent resistance. Regime change does not occur smoothly, no matter the method of resistance. Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress, improved the bargaining tactics of the non-violent anti-apartheid movement in South Africa by using guerrilla methods. However, there are many more examples of non-violence, rather than violence, achieving political change in history, the most famous of which is the American Civil Rights Movement. The outcome of any resistance depends on the level of widespread cooperation on the part of its citizens, as well as the resistance’s organization and careful execution.

Violetta Nikolskaya, Matt Martorana, Wendy Chi & Amanda Mihoub Wright

MacDebate

 

Matt: We from Mac Debate would like to welcome you to the New Year, full of new beginnings, resolutions and hopefully new business for the McMaster Students Union. Travel Cuts, which was in MUSC between Union Market and the pharmacy, has left. It’s exciting to think of all the possibilities that lie before us. My favourite one has to be the suggestion for a new restaurant chain. Yes, perhaps this is the most obvious and lacklustre proposal, but I think it carries with it a few benefits that other suggestions do not. First of all, I do not think it would hurt to increase the diversity of the food services on campus, maybe by having a Mexican food restaurant or a Vietnamese place or a place that sells falafels – just something that we cannot ordinarily get on campus. If we can’t get diversity, though, then at least having another pizza parlour or burger joint could provide competition to drive down some of the prices at Bistro or La Piazza.

Violetta: One of the most important facets of the campus to emerge recently was the McMaster Farmstand. The farm stand gave students the opportunity to eat locally and support the partnership with McMaster’s sustainability and hospitality services. Around campus, it is hard to find a wide selection of fresh fruits; looking at a sometimes unappetizing basket of oranges and apples in La Piazza should be enough to prove that. It is also hard to find some more simple treats like spreads and jams produced locally without making the trek to the downtown market. However, the farm stand is only available a couple times a week and may sometimes be hard to access, as it is located outside, when the weather takes a turn for the worse. Having the Farmstand located inside, with the possibility of opening for a few more days out of the week, providing a more accessible, convenient and healthy alternative would be a great thing for McMaster. Apart from improving our environment, local economy and health, there are a variety of reasons why the Farmstand has been a wonderful part of campus. Why not upgrade the location and help spread the word (and jam)?

Wendy: It’s likely that you’ve heard about the overcrowding problem at McMaster caused by too many prospective students accepting their admission offers for 2011. If not, maybe you’ve caught wind of how upper years planning to stay in residence this year were offered financial incentives to find off-campus housing in order to make room for an unusually large influx of first years. Or, if you didn’t know about either of these issues, maybe you’ve simply noticed (and been aggravated by) how hard it can be to get a seat in the student centre to eat a quick lunch or do some work between classes. The fact is that there are more students at McMaster than there were before and as a result free sitting space is hard to come by during the high-volume midday hours. MUSC is the hub of the entire McMaster campus, but people can’t take full advantage of its various food services and central location if they have to scour the floor in search of a clean table and a seat. That’s why converting the Travel Cuts location into an additional area with tables and chairs, complete with power outlets for students to eat, work, or just sit and relax, is the best way to use it. There may not be any of the novelty that comes with a new vendor or service, but it is something that could be used by all students, at all times and at no cost, both to those occupying it and the university.

Amanda: The area previously occupied by Travel Cuts in the student centre should host a beauty salon because it is a service that truly serves the needs of the McMaster community. A beauty salon in the student centre would cater to students by charging affordable budget-friendly prices and offering basic salon treatments. The beauty services offered, such as haircuts, manicures, pedicures and fake nails, among others, would allow students to conveniently take care of their aesthetic needs. The beauty salon’s location would make it easy for students to access the services that it offers. Students could stop by the salon on their breaks and get their haircut quickly. Many students put off beauty treatments such as basic haircuts while they are at school due to their busy schedules and the inconvenience of having to find a barber shop/beauty salon in a city that they are unfamiliar with. The salon would also cater to students taking their graduation photos, as they could more easily get their hair and makeup done before their session at the photography studio in the student centre. A beauty salon would serve a wide range of students at McMaster by offering treatments ranging from basic (such as haircuts) to more complex ones (such as waxing).