After many impressive performances throughout the season, McMaster swimming teams take home medals from Merrily Stratten Divisional Championships
The McMaster men and women’s swim teams competed in the Merrily Stratten Divisional Championships, hosted by the University of Toronto on Nov. 23 and Nov. 24, 2025. The men’s team was able to capture a silver medal while the women’s team finished with a bronze medal.
In the first day of competition, the women’s side put forth four of their highest level swimmers. This included Shaunna Walker-de Jong, Ashley Ko, Michelle Wang and Amy Tian. The group finished third in the 200 metre relay.
On the men’s side on the first day of divisionals, Hayden Yeung finished first in the 100 metre breaststroke. Brian Dietz also won a gold medal in the 1,500 metre freestyle.
On the men’s side on the first day of Divisionals, Hayden Yeung finished first in the 100 metre breaststroke.
The second day of competition came with even more highs for the Marauder teams. Similar to the women’s team, the men’s relay team consisted of four top swimmers, those being Colin Campbell, Jacob Pawlak, Preston McMann and Hayden Yeung.
This men's group finished third in the 200 metre relay, adding points to the Marauder’s total score. Yeung also picked up another gold medal finish in the 50 metre breaststroke.
On the women’s side, Ko continued her standout
Ko has over five first-place finishes in events so far this season, with the results from divisionals adding to these.
This successful weekend for the Marauders swimming team was the final competition of the fall semester. The team will compete in a meet at home on Jan. 18.
Canada is currently plagued by an opioid crisis. Opioids such as fentanyl are drugs that are commonly used to relieve pain. These drugs, however, can be extremely addictive and their misuse has led to thousands of overdoses and deaths.
In 2017, 88 Hamilton residents died from opioid overdoses. So far into this year, Hamilton Paramedic Services has already responded to 161 incidents of suspected opioid overdoses. In comparison to other cities within the province, Hamilton has the highest opioid-related death rate.
While there is no publicly available data on the demographics of opioid use in Hamilton, in general, young adults aged 18 to 25 are the most vulnerable to opioid misuse. As the rate of opioid misuse increases annually, it is imperative that students are aware of the availability of naloxone.
Naloxone is a fast-acting drug that temporarily reverses the effects of opioid overdoses until medical emergency services can arrive. As of March 2019, Public Health and the Naloxone Expansion Sites in Hamilton have distributed 2496 doses of naloxone, with 285 people reported as being revived by the drug.
McMaster University’s student-led Emergency First Response Team and McMaster University security officers carry and are trained to use naloxone nasal kits in case of emergency situations. While Mac’s security officers only recently began to carry the kits, EFRT responders have been carrying them since August 2017.
Fortunately, EFRT has not had to use any of their kits since they began carrying them. While this may imply that opioid-related overdoses have not occurred on campus, this does not guarantee that students are not at risk at opioid misuse.
As EFRT responders and McMaster security cannot always be available to respond to students’ needs off-campus, students should be more aware of their ability to carry and be trained to use naloxone kits.
While the Student Wellness Centre does not carry the free naloxone kit, the McMaster University Centre Pharmasave located within the McMaster University Student Centre does, in addition to the Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacies located near campus. To obtain a kit, all students must do is show their Ontario health card.
The fact that this life-saving drug is so readily available to students on and near campus is amazing. It is disappointing then that the university hasn’t done a sufficient job in advertising this information to students.
Students should be given naloxone kits and mandatory opioid information and response training at the beginning of the academic term. At the very least, this information can be distributed during Welcome Week along with other orientation events.
The opioid crisis is one that affects us all, especially here in Hamilton. McMaster University should help fight this crisis by ensuring that their students are equipped with the knowledge to recognize an opioid overdose and have the necessary tools to help reverse them.
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Statistics Canada data suggests that persons with disabilities, Indigenous and racialized identities are vastly underrepresented in workforces in Canada. To help marginalized students and alumni seek employment, the Student Success Centre launched the Career Access Program for Students, a suite of services offered in collaboration with the Student Accessibility Centre and Maccess.
CAPS focuses on skill building and career development through career advising, strategic goal setting and personal branding. Students also work on creating an employment action plan that is customized to meet their needs.
The program is for students and alumni that identify as persons with disabilities, First Nations, Metis and Inuit persons, members of racialized communities, First Generation students and LGBTQA2S+ students.
Students and alumni can book one-on-one appointments through OSCARPlus, participate through events, or utilize online resources to learn about financial accommodations for students with disabilities, wellness support services, a transit accessibility initiative and campaigns to promote diverse practices.
The SSC also introduced a new position.
Katherine Hesson-Bolton started her position as the diversity employment coordinator in July 2018.
Her initial goals were finding her way around campus alongside first-year students, reading reports, developing a network with faculties, students, campus services and partners and identifying service gaps and needs.
Hesson-Bolton’s role places her in a unique position as a connecting link between McMaster and the greater community.
She regularly meets with employers in hopes of coming away with jobs and opportunities for students while also having conversations around diversity hiring and removing barriers.
She then is able to provide employers with on-campus and external resources, such as ones coming from Pride at Work Canada, to help them address diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
“It’s really about having a conversation with the employer to hear what their needs are, what McMaster students’ needs are, and then finding that fit… So it’s really about relationship building on both sides,” said Hesson-Bolton.
“It also comes back to reaching back to those campus partners, whether it’s student accessibility services or Indigenous services,” said Hesson-Bolton. “I also work a lot with and involve students on campus because it’s really important to get students’ perspective and their feedback.”
Hesson-Bolton also strategizes with employees on branding. Some employers have identified that they want to focus on inclusion, but do not know how to identify and address the needs of new employees.
“You may have employers who will want to hire students with disabilities. And the question back is ‘have you thought about how your workplace is set up? What are your policies, procedures, your staff education, so that the new employee feels included?’,” said Hesson-Bolton.
Hesson-Bolton starts the conversation by discussing meeting the needs of new hires, whether that be identifying the accommodations that would allow persons with disabilities to work, establishing prayer spaces or recognizing that always having social events in establishments that serve alcohol may exclude some individuals.
Hesson-Bolton also has important conversations with students and alumni around disclosure in the workplace and accommodation plans.
She also provides a space for students to talk about their frustrations, experiences with discrimination, while also connecting them to mentors and peers with similar lived experience.
There is a strong need for university services to support students entering the workforce and address the barriers to diversity and inclusion. The CAPS program and the role of the diversity employment coordinator are just getting started.
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By: Elliot Fung
In January 2019, McMaster Security Services announced an update to their mobile safety app, allowing students to receive safety alert notifications and information about campus safety resources.
The app, which was developed in partnership with both McMaster and the McMaster Students Union, provides a centralised location for contact information for a multitude of emergency and non-emergency safety services.
In 2013, McMaster Security Services released an application that included the capacity to easily contact emergency services, the MSU Emergency First Response Team and request the MSU Student Walk Home Attendant Team.
In addition, users could access transit information, the university’s emergency protocols and live alerts.
The 2019 update includes many of the previous features and adds new ones.
However, the new app has omitted information about EFRT and transit.
Among the app’s new noteworthy features includes a “Friend Walk” option that allows students to watch their friends as they travel home.
Friend Walk allows a user to send their real-time location to a friend. The user picks a friend to send their location to via SMS or email and then initiates a walk and chooses a destination.
If the user is under duress, they have to option to notify their friend and start an emergency call. If either the user or the friend disconnects from the walk, an option to contact emergency services will appear on the screen.
According to a McMaster Daily News article about the app update, “Friend Walk” serves to enhance the on-campus SWHAT service, which provides students with the ability to walk to a destination with the company of two attendants.
Another notable feature of the app is a crime map.
The map displays the location and dates of recent crimes in Hamilton and the area surrounding McMaster.
Crimes displayed include categories like auto-theft, car burglary and residential burglary.
The app also features a section about student support services, where users can access information about various student supports on-campus including the McMaster Equity and Inclusion Office, sexual violence support, and McMaster Wellness Centre.
Users can also email facility services to report an issue.
However, according to the “On-Campus Infrastructure Policy Paper” passed by the MSU Student Representative Assembly in Nov. 2018, the process of submitting a work order for a repair of infrastructure is still meticulous and unavailable to off-campus students.
The safety app is an improvement to the outdated safety app that was implemented in 2013.
The McMaster Security Services website characterizes the app as a ‘must have’ that contains valuable features and information.
However, it appears the app may not do a great deal to improve students’ experiences.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, the MSU proposed a variety of suggestions for increasing student safety on and off campus and improving the university’s response via the university’s sexual violence prevention and response policy.
As it stands, the university has yet to implement these recommendations and make improvements to these resources.
Among the recommendations relating to infrastructure in the policy paper were increasing the number of red assistance phones and improving lighting on campus and in the surrounding housing areas.
The newly updated safety app does not ensure these larger recommendations are implemented, only consolidating information that is already available online.
In addition, while students can use the app to access information about sexual violence support at McMaster, they also cannot do much beyond that to improve their experience and safety.
More information about the safety app can be found at https://security.mcmaster.ca/crime_prevention_safetyapp.html.
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For many students, living in residence is an important part of the first year experience. In recent years, universities across the country have had to act quickly to meet the increased demand for residence space on campus.
McMaster has 12 residence buildings that house approximately 3,700 students. The demand for student housing, however, is far higher. Currently, there is only enough residence space for about 40 per cent of incoming first year students.
McMaster is one of the only universities in Ontario that does not provide guaranteed campus housing for first year students. In order to be guaranteed admission to residence, students must meet a minimum grade average. All other students are placed on a waitlist.
In 2016, McMaster had to fit 200 additional students into residence due to higher than anticipated enrollment numbers. As an immediate solution, double rooms were converted into three person units.
The Living Learning Centre currently being built on the north end of campus will help to meet the need for residence space. In addition to classrooms and student services, it will also offer 500 suite and traditional-style residence rooms.
But there is only so much space on campus. In order to meet the rapidly increasing demand for residence space, universities across Canada are rushing to create new housing options.
One novel yet controversial approach to the problem of minimal housing space comes from the University of British Columbia’s “nano suites” pilot project.
Enrolment numbers at UBC have been steadily increasing and have led to space and resource shortages. The university is now considering scaling back admission of international students, according to UBC’s student-run newspaper The Ubyssey.
Nano suites are 140 square foot housing units containing a bed, desk, bathroom and kitchen. A desk sits under the bed, which can retract into the wall to save space.
The nano suites will account for 71 rooms in a new 362 unit student residence building on UBC’s campus.
One of the main draws of the nano suites is the cost. Each unit costs around $700 a month which, compared to Vancouver’s notoriously high rent costs, is a strong draw for students.
However, living in such a small space is not a feasible option for everybody. The Ubyssey notes that the units are less than double the size of a minimum-sized single occupancy Canadian prison cell.
While scaling down the size of residence rooms is one approach to the problem, the more common approach is to build residences off campus.
Private developers have noticed this trend. In some cities such as Waterloo and Toronto, the demand for student residences is so high that private companies have built student residences independently of the universities.
Since privately operated residences are not affiliated with universities, students do not get access to the same benefits and support systems that are typically available in traditional residences. Additionally, privately owned residences are often far more expensive than traditional options.
Due to a lack of government funding for residence construction, many universities are unable to build their own new residence buildings. In recent years Canadian universities have begun exploring public-private partnerships to fund university-affiliated student residences.
York University, U of T and McGill are among the growing cohort of Canadian universities who have partnered with private companies to fund student residence buildings.
In 2017, McMaster announced its plan to follow suit. The university bought a group of nine Westdale houses around campus for $9.5 million with the plan to develop a multi-storey residence building in partnership with Knightstone capital management, a Toronto-based company that specializes in student residences.
While the construction will be handled privately, McMaster will run the residence as part of the university-wide student housing system.
The proposed first phase of the residence will have 950 beds, and there will an additional 455 if there is sufficient demand.
In addition to the Westdale residence, McMaster is also partnering with Knightstone to build a residence in downtown Hamilton for graduate students and their families.
Knightstone aims to build residences that challenge the perception of unclean, unsafe student living. Their website claims that they cater to the new generation of students with higher expectations about their student living conditions.
“These expectations, taken together with security, cost and cleanliness as their parents’ hot buttons, have created consumers that seek a student residence experience at a level that corresponds to their home life,.” read a part of their site.
Some of the new privately developed student residences across Canada more closely resemble luxury condominiums than traditional student dormitories.
CampusOne is a student residence in downtown Toronto that houses students from the University of Toronto, Ryerson and Ontario College of Art and Design. The building houses movie theatres and a fitness studio, and the website advertises Feng Shui compliant rooms.
While privately and jointly funded residences offer luxury, they also tend to be more expensive than university owned buildings. A standard room at CampusOne, for example, costs about $1700 a month, not including the meal plan.
McMaster has yet to announce the costs of the new residence buildings in Westdale and downtown Hamilton.
By building student residences the surrounding city, universities are better able to meet the increasing demand for housing. However, building residences off campus means that universities must account for the needs of the surrounding community members.
The proposed Westdale residence concerned residents, who worried that the height and density of the proposed building would alter the community. A letter from Ainslie Wood/Westdale Community Association Of Resident Homeowners Inc. to the city of Hamilton expressed concern about foot and vehicle traffic and, as well as the plan for yearly move in and move out.
“We understand the need of the University, and we endorse a development on the proposed site; however, we feel that this development in its present form will have long-lasting negative effects on the immediate community,” states the letter.
Community resistance to off-campus student residences is not unique to Hamilton.
In 2013, a proposed private residence for U of T students faced similar backlash from members of the surrounding community. The Harbord village residents’ association found issues with the proposed building’s height and density, among other concerns.
A new proposal was announced this past summer that accounted for the concerns raised by the HVRA. However, it took five years of negotiation to come to the agreement.
While building residences off campus may be necessary to accommodate for increasing enrollment, it requires careful consultation with community members.
As university admissions continue to rise across the country, so too will the demand for student housing. While many incoming students want the first year residence experience, the future of campus living is anything but traditional.
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When I was in first year, I hated Welcome Week.
I’m a naturally small and quiet person who gets easily lost in crowds, so the tradition of thousands of students swarming small fields and screaming at each other is a surefire way to erase me from any and all social activities going on at the same time.
I didn’t get along with the reps in my faculty, was generally neglected by the off-campus reps that were supposed to show me around, and after the week was finished, I could safely say that I made no new friends. My Welcome Week story is not an uncommon one, and I’ve finally pinpointed why: Welcome Week Rep Fatigue Syndrome.
WWRFS is a problem that has hounded our student body for years now, and it’s time we did something to stop it.
Contrary to my horrible Welcome Week experience, come the spring of first year, I still decided to apply, and consequently become, a faculty representative for the next two years of my undergrad. And it was during that fall of 2013 that I experienced WWRFS for the first time.
Representing the faculty of Humanities, I was a “Hummer” (a name my dear former faculty should look into changing for solely innuendo reasons) and I was ready to have a great Welcome Week this time around. But shortly into it, I grew tired. At the time, Welcome Week occurred during regular class schedules, my part-time job at The Sil had just started, and our faculty planners and reps were in the middle of a melodramatic and unnecessary power trip. I was sick and tired, but I put on a smile for first years and tried my best to have a great time.
A few of my housemates were also repping that year for residences and the Society of Off-Campus Students. They had it worse. Even though they enjoyed helping first years, waking up and going to sleep at ungodly hours all while trying to keep up with schoolwork and work-work, their bodies were only allowing them to do so much to get the people going.
Over the course of the week, there were reps around me coughing up a tasty mélange of bodily fluids from the amount of screaming and yelling, and those who weren’t hit with this plague were starting to snap at each other and first years from a lack of sleep and exhaustion.
By closing ceremonies, everyone seemed to have come down with a combination of strep throat and possibly SARS, and we were all excited to hibernate over the weekend before our next round of classes started.
I know way too many people who had comparably bad first-year Welcome Week experiences, and it’s because you can’t expect a group of exhausted over-worked students to put on a week-long spectacle without a few people suffering from the side effects — and more often than not, those people are first years.
With applications for Welcome Week representatives currently circulating across social media, the emphasis seems to be on “first years first,” but we can’t forget to also throw the needs of reps somewhere in there. Welcome Week representatives are not paid to work 12+ hour days, so the least they should get is a relatively healthy experience. Whether this means bringing on board more students to lighten the loads of each rep, or reassessing the number of events that take place during the week, our university and students union should strive to make this an event that all parties can enjoy. First years should be first. But if reps are neglecting their health, no one is going to feel like they’re coming in first.
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By: Yara Farran
I’m a first year. I’m the girl who’s probably asked you (yes, you specifically) how to get to the Student Centre from BSB/Hamilton Hall/Faculty Hollow and the like. I’m the one who casually tries to help other first years find their classes, getting them even more lost than they already are. “Oh that room, it’s probably here,” I say with a smile, slowly realizing that it is actually probably not. Most likely, you’ve spotted me walking in and out the Health Science Library like a lost little lamb and frantically trying to access the Internet on one of the computers (why is the Internet button named “Health Sciences Library?”). It’s not like I’m proud of my shortcomings as a newly knighted freshman, it’s just easier for me to digest this whole new experience if I recollect all of the things that I’ve done wrong thus far.
Exhibit A
While scouring Limeridge (For
all you kids new to Hamilton, it’s the main mall. Unfortunately, it’s not the Eaton Centre. Fortunately, it’s not East Gate) I began to collect some pieces for school. “I’m going to dress up every day,” I said. “My hair is going to be straightened every day.”
Now, as I begin to contemplate the actual reality of my closet and grasp the real demands of university, I’m shaking my head. All I want to do is sit in yoga pants, gorge on some Union Market bagels in elastic waistband sweats, and bury myself under a spaghetti sauce stained sweater. The very thought of jackets (shivers), jeans (holding back vomit right now), and shoes (wait, what do you mean flip flops aren’t shoes?) is making me violently ill.
Exhibit B
Socializing has never been my strong point. I once said a joke to an unsuspecting stranger that went along the lines of, “Oh em gee, I have so much homework. I’m going to cry tears – tears of blood.” The poor girl took a step back. Then another. Then turned as politely as she could. Cleary she (bless her) didn’t think my (obvious?) joke was funny and felt that her young life was in danger in my presence. I hope she’s recovered from the experience. I know I haven’t. During this past week, every time I have made a questionable joke, I thought back to that moment. Luckily, none have been as disastrous as my previous example, but I have thrown out a few tankers. Now, this would be okay if I had been in the company of long time friends who’d give a few pity laughs or say, “Oh, that’s so you! You’re so wild.” However, that didn’t happen in front of my new colleagues. They still think I’m wild, though. I consider that a start.
Exhibit C
This what I’m most guilty of doing. Maybe it’s the lifetime of media consumption and Dawson’s Creek conditioning. Perhaps, my imagination is wired to be completely ridiculous, and disbar the truth about life as a university student. The thing is, I came into this whole situation with a plethora of grand expectations and a bucket load of romanticized notions. University is a lot different than high school, and in some ways, it seems to be worlds away from the one portrayed on television. Once I entered my first lecture in Chester New Hall, I didn’t have an epiphany and discover that I’m meant to be a doctor/dancer/disc jockey. As I casually ate lunch, a handsome, slightly older British guy didn’t ask me out on a romantic date. I haven’t even joined a nu-wave Indie rock band yet. Even though it’s literally been a week, it’s safe to say that these expectations are probably never going to come into fruition.
It’s okay, though. University, as I’ve learned, isn’t about the obvious happening. It’s not about travelling concrete, rigid paths and arriving to the predicted destination. It’s about discovery. It’s about mistakes. It’s the time in your life – and remember it is your life – when it’s okay to not have any expectation and just go with the sweat filled, anxiety ridden wind.
Although, I’m only a first year and have got a ton of first years lost already, so maybe my advice shouldn’t be heeded. Maybe.
