On Campus

What students are talking about today (October 17th edition)

Free textbooks in B.C. and a couple of dumb online posts

wohnai/Flickr

1. British Columbia says it will become the first province in Canada to offer students free online textbooks. They will be available as early as 2013-14 and will cover the 40 most popular post-secondary courses. Printed options would come at a “fraction of traditional textbook costs.”

2. An Ontario man who wrote “Thank God this b—- is dead” on a memorial page for Amanda Todd was fired from his job at a London, Ont. menswear store. Justin Hutchings told The Toronto Star that he wanted to “stir up the pot” and called it “more or less a social experiment.” A Calgary woman called his boss after seeing the post about the teen who killed herself last week.

3. Speaking of dumb internet postings, Lena Dunham, the writer and star of HBO’s Girls, is making headlines for her offensive Tweet to a couple of friends. It says: “You guys go as killer Canadian couple Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka. I’ll be her sister they murdered. Scariest! Luv U.”

4. A former vice president of the St. Thomas University Students’ Union denies her resignation was based on “a prank war amongst the executives which targeted her several times.” The alleged prank war involved—you guessed it—offensive posts on social media.

5. Nike has dumped cyclist Lance Armstrong. “Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade, it is with great sadness that we have terminated our contract with him,” reads a statement on the company’s website. Here’s a timeline of the reaction on Twitter with quite a few ripped up Livestrong bracelets.

6. Hundreds of email addresses belonging to students registered with Ryerson’s access centre were compromised by a mass email sent out by the centre, reports The Eyeopener. One student who has “chronic mental health disabilities” said he felt violated and mass e-mailed the entire list to point out the error. The access centre said they had meant to put the addresses in the blind field.

7. A university in North Carolina is arguing over whether to force Chick-fil-A off campus because its parent company has funded anti-gay marriage initiatives. Elon University’s Student Government Association voted 35 to 11 to ask its food provider, Aramark, to find a replacement for the chicken sandwich shop slated to open in January. The Pendulum, Elon’s student newspaper, wants it to stay.

8. A student at University of the Fraser Valley reports two confirmed cases of professors using Comic Sans font to write class outlines. Needless to say, she’s insulted.

9. The NHL made a proposal to its locked-out players on Tuesday that calls for a 50-50 split of revenues between owners and players. The NHL Player’s Association called it “an excellent starting point.” If an agreement is worked out (that’s a big “if”) then hockey could be back on Nov. 2.

10. Last night’s U.S. presidential debate was much more lively than the first. A CBS News poll directly after the debate found 37 per cent of voters polled said that president Obama won, 30 per cent said Romney won, and 33 per cent called it tied. Both men missed opportunities, but Twitter was especially harsh on Romney’s answer to a question about women in the workforce. He’d answered that when he was governor of Massachusetts he had “binders of women.” Binders.

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