Princeton women told to marry, Demilitarize McGill & #AprilFools

1. In a letter to the editor of a campus newspaper, a Princeton University alumna whose sons now attend the Ivy Leage school, has told female students, “forget about having it all, or not having it all, leaning in or leaning out. Here’s what nobody is telling you: Find a husband on campus before you graduate.” Susan A. Patton says that Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg’s suggestion that women “lean in” to advance in their careers is missing the point. Here’s a sample of the controversial letter from the Daily Princetonian:

You can imagine the reaction this caused over the weekend. “What an excruciatingly retro understanding of relationships she has,” wrote Susan O’Connor of Nymag.com, to which Patton responded in The Huffington Post, “honestly, it was intended as little more than honest advice from a Jewish mother.” It’s rare that such views make it into print, so I’m certain we’ll hear more on this.

2. Students at two colleges of the University of Toronto voted last week in favour of severing financial ties with the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), reports The Varsity student newspaper. Many students are angry at the UTSU for not moving forward on popular electoral reforms and online voting that many believe would improve voter turnout in student elections. One-third of Trinity College students showed up to vote and 72 per cent of them were in favour of leaving, giving that college clear mandate. At Victoria College, only 11.8 per cent voted and 61 per cent were in favour. St. Michael’s College and engineering students vote in referendums this week.

3. Two University of Guelph students drove away with new Chevrolet Cruz cars after being named Canada’s Next Top Ad Execs. Marketing students Alyssa de Hoop and Kennedy Crawford beat out 113 teams from 41 schools for the best campaign for a GM vehicle in the contest organized by McMaster University. Business students will want to mark next year’s contest on their calendars.

4. Students at McGill University want to “demilitarize” campus and have a new website to promote their goals. “We have drawn a lot of connections to show how this research is done on campus,” Kevin Paul, a law student at McGill who has been active with Demilitarize McGill told The Montreal Gazette. Paul says McGill has refused Access to Information requests that may show the campus is involved in military research. The Student Society of McGill University last year adopted a motion calling for McGill to “divest its holdings in private militias, private military contractors, weapons manufacturers and arms dealers, and to create and enforce a policy of allowing no future research on weapons, surveillance technologies with military applications… or any other project designed to facilitate the use of force.” I doubt that such a policy would ever be acceptable to the administration considering it’s an affront to academic freedom.

5. There were plenty of April Fools jokes on campuses today, but a Queen’s University Campus Security bulletin was one of the best. “In the event of a zombie attack on campus, members of the Queen’s community area advised to immediately make their way to the PPS trades shops at the Rideau Building. Crude weapons to fend off the zombies can be fashioned at that location by utilizing assorted pipes, torches, drills, hammers, and circular saw blades,” reads the site. It also suggests Queen’s published a media release debunking the existence of werewolves on the same day Daniel Woolf became principal and that the release “coincided with edicts from the Principal’s office that removed silverware from campus dining halls, divested the university from all stock holdings involving silver mines, and also sold off a taxidermied horse that was donated to Queen’s in the 1950s – best known as the steed of serial-western film star, Clayton Moore.”