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rfmcdonaldIt's not every week that I receive two E-mail from my alma mater, Queen's University, trying to deal with two public relations disasters.
The first of these E-mails related to Homecoming, a reunion at the beginning of the school year in September that is famous for out-of-control behaviour.
The second one, of much more recent standing, is the controversy of a test program whereby student monitors would watch first-year students for signs of various prejudices--homophobia, say, or racism--and try to guide the conversations and the students down the right roads.
Most of the time I'm glad to be a Queen's alumnus. Most of the time.
The first of these E-mails related to Homecoming, a reunion at the beginning of the school year in September that is famous for out-of-control behaviour.
The riot is cancelled. In a desperate effort to end out-of-control street partying, Queen's University today suspended Fall Homecoming Weekend, one of its most venerable traditions.
"Something very precious and fragile is at risk--our hard-won reputation as a university," principal and vice-chancellor Tom Williams said in suspending the event for at least two years, beginning next fall.
This past fall's event saw a wave of violence, intoxication and mischief that resulted in at least 54 arrests and hundreds of tickets for public drinking and noise complaints.
Kingston police said the crowd, estimated at 6,500, was smaller than last year's, despite thousands of unofficial invitations issued via the Internet to students across the province.
Williams says that beginning next fall, the event will be replaced by May reunions, after classes have ended. The question is whether gate crashers will keep coming in September anyway.
"There will still be a football game," said Kingston police Insp. Brian Cookman. "Is that going to be a flashpoint for those who want to have a (street) event?"
Fall Homecoming Weekend is a decades-old tradition for the 167-year-old school. Between 5,000 and 7,000 alumni return annually to attend reunions, official dinners and receptions, and a Queen's Golden Gaels football game. Former students, some celebrating the 50th and 60th anniversaries of their graduation, parade around the field at half-time.
In recent years, however, student parties in the nearby off-campus housing district have overshadowed formal events, drawing between 5,000 and 10,000 young people to central Aberdeen St.
In 2005, the crowd rolled a car and set it on fire. This year, in late September, a customer at a Subway fast-food restaurant was sent to hospital in a coma.
He regained consciousness a month later with undetermined brain damage. A visiting Ottawa student is charged with aggravated assault.
"From 2005 to 2008, the notoriety of the event caught hold," Cookman said today.
"In the electronic age, with Facebook and YouTube, it is easy to reach across Canada and into the United States," he said. "It really (caught) us off-guard."
The second one, of much more recent standing, is the controversy of a test program whereby student monitors would watch first-year students for signs of various prejudices--homophobia, say, or racism--and try to guide the conversations and the students down the right roads.
A pilot program at Queen's University promoted as a tool to help students embrace diversity is being defended by administration and a student leader who say it's not an attempt to quash freedom of speech.
As part of its ongoing efforts to increase inclusivity, the university in Kingston, Ont., trained and installed six student facilitators to work with first-year students living in campus residences starting in September.
They were tasked with spotting "spontaneous teaching moments" concerning issues of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ability and social class, and to respond - either actively by posing questions to spur discussion, or more passively through activities like poster campaigns or movies.
Such moments may very well occur in cafeterias or common rooms, and it's possible the facilitators might then step in, said vice-principal academic Patrick Deane.
"It's been suggested ... these people are expected to act as thought and speech police. It's exactly the opposite," he said.
"What they're there to do is encourage students not to censor each other, not to silence each other in different ways, but to have a respectful conversation and dialogue."
The distinction between public and private space becomes foggy within student living spaces, he acknowledged.
"In the residence setting, it's perfectly possible that students who are behaving in a manner that's disrespectful would have it pointed out to them," he said.
"(But) to suggest that they are in some way empowered to monitor the way students speak and call students into account for things they might have said absolutely is out of the purview."
Most of the time I'm glad to be a Queen's alumnus. Most of the time.
