Want a Job? How About This One?

Since I'm going to be graduating (and hopefully finding a more clever greeting than "Hey guys"), it is time to hire on the new Campus Life Bloggers for next year! I've posted the various positions below. Feel free to peruse them and apply to one or all of the jobs you think you'd be great for!

Blogger/Reporter

Video Blogger

Photojournalist

Laughs on Campus: (Literally) Priceless

Check out Matt's post about the RAC referendum and head on over to Blackboard to vote! Polls close on Thursday, March 19th at 4:00.

Engineering Students Raise Money for Sick Kids

If you walked past the quad last Wednesday, you might have wondered what all those students were doing huddled around that bug. No, I don’t mean the creepy, crawly, run across the floor type of bug - I’m talking about the Volkswagen Beetle!

In case you did miss it, Ryerson Engineering students manually pushed a 1955 classic Beetle around and around the quad. They started at 11 a.m. and went for 24 hours with about 100 students taking part in the bug push.

Now while this did look like a pretty decent workout (not to mention the guy that got to sit INSIDE the driver’s seat definitely got the best deal), Engineering students pulled this together to raise money for The Hospital of Sick Children.

This annual event is run by the Ryerson Engineering Students’ Society and it always takes place during National Engineering Week in February. Last week marks the seventh time for this great event. Ryerson raised over $2,000 last year.

One plus this year was that the weather was much better than on the snowy day of the last bug push. I heard one of the pushers gladly comment that this time, horrible weather was NOT included in the day’s event.

Ryerson Athletics Center Referendum

Chances are, even if you aren't a member, you've been inside the Ryerson Athletics Center, our subterranean sports facility beneath the Kerr Hall Quad. I like the facilities at the RAC, but there's been some rumblings that Ryerson is looking to give them a bit of a face-lift via a new building. I did a bit of research and found that the while the RAC looks pretty new to me, the building was completed over two decades ago in 1988. It was an even bigger surprise when Ivan Joseph, Ryerson's Athletics Director, informed me that it was originally built to accommodate a campus of 8500 people, a third of Ryerson's current estimated 25,000 population.

"Our facilities are overpacked," Joseph said, "We need to grow. We need to provide more opportunities for students."

While Ryerson is eager to pursue a new athletics facility, ultimately, they are leaving it up to the students. In order to pay for a new facility Ryerson would be required to increase Athletics fees on students' tuition by $126, raising the price from $61 to $187. Before they can proceed to do this, Ryerson will be holding a referendum on February 23rd, a voting process that will let the students decide whether they want Ryerson to go ahead with the project. Advantages of these new fees would include that it would make the new facility available to everyone with no extra membership fees incurred, and that the school wouldn't start charging students until the facilities would be completed; students in their third or fourth years can breathe a sigh of relief knowing they won't be charged for something they might not use.