Model UN society represents StFX at Harvard conference

The StFX Model United Nations team recently returned from Boston after participating in the 56th session of the Harvard National Model United Nations from February 11 to 14. This year’s team consisted of President Issam Rizvi, Ryan Blood, Maya Breau, Hilary Feltham, Gabrielle Fiore, Michael Greguol, Brigitte Hartt, Philip Jones, Christine Krause, Rory MacDonald, Natalie MacLean, Christopher Millar, Brendan Riley, Ellen Wiken, and faculty advisor Dr Steve Holloway, a political science professor. The conference was a simulation of the workings of the real United Nations. Participants take on the role...

StFX student named NS Student Entrepreneur of the year

StFX student Jeremy Flynn has been named the 2010 Student Entrepreneur Nova Scotia Champion from the Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE) organization. ACE is a national charitable organization focused on promoting student entrepreneurship and helping students get a solid foundation of business experience. Those named provincial champions will meet next weekend in Halifax for a chance to be named regional champion and receive a $1,000 cash prize as well as participate in the national competition in Calgary in May. The Xaverian Weekly recently got a chance to talk with Flynn this...

Local library to open at the end of the year

People’s Place underway for a decade, to open on Main Street Antigonish

In November 2010, the Antigonish Town and County Library will be ready for use in its new location on Main Street. The new space will replace the former Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library located behind Town Hall. Called the People’s Place Project, the library has been in the works for ten years and the costs will amount to five and a half million dollars. Funding for the project comes from the Municipality of the County of Antigonish, the Town of Antigonish, the Atlantic Canada Building Fund, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and...

Earth sciences professor places second with carbon capture technology

I-3 Technology Start-Up competition encourages high-tech business in Nova Scotia

Dave Risk, a StFX professor of earth sciences, recently placed second in the I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition, a contest to encourage entrepreneurship in the technology sector in Nova Scotia. Risk proposed a conceptual business to conduct scientific monitoring at carbon capture and storage sites using products from his research. He explains that this type of company is in high demand, but has not yet materialized in the business world. “We’ve been developing solutions for businesses to use, but they don’t really know if they need yet… [So] we’ve gone ahead...

Students petition for 24 hour study space

Four senior students are petitioning StFX to offer a 24 hour study space to accommodate those who want a quiet area in which to work after hours. So far, the campaign includes an online petition and a hard copy that is circulated between classes. The initiative also hosts a Facebook group. At the time of print, it included 585 members. Jillian Deighan, Lauren Beaton, Kaitlin Tulle and Samantha Yarwood undertook the initiative as part of a project for their Leading Change class with Dr Chris Galea. Deighan explains they felt...

Women’s Resource Centre hosts conference to address violence against women

From February 18 to 19, Antigonish played host to Girl Talk: Responding to Violence against Girls and Young Women, a conference addressing violence against women and girls organized by the Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre. The keynote speaker, Helene Berman, is the Scotiabank Research Chair for the Center for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children. She focused on the importance of context when discussing violence and encouraged the audience to imagine what visiting anthropologists would conclude about our society in which rape and violence are unacceptable, yet popular...

Newfoundland curler recalls Olympic win in Turin

On Friday February 19, Olympic curling gold medalist Mike Adam visited students at Frank H. MacDonald Elementary School in Sutherland’s River, a rural school located approximately 30 minutes from Antigonish. Adam won gold at the 2006 Winter Olympics held in Turin, Italy. His team was the first Canadian men’s team to win a gold medal for curling. Along with his teammates, Adam was the first person from Newfoundland and Labrador to ever win a gold medal at the Olympics. A native of Labrador, he is now manager of John Brother...

Council report: Meeting held February 21, 2010

A regularly scheduled meeting of the StFX Students’ Union Representative Council was held on Sunday, February 21 at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers. Acting Chair of Council Dave Faour called the meeting to order. Council began by accepting the minutes from the last meeting, which was held on February 14. Off Campus Councillor Dave MacDonald added to the agenda the ratification of Faour as the official chair of council. Councillors then delivered their constituency reports. Science Councillor Andrew Litke noted a concern that arose this past week among students in...

Celebrating Black History Month in Nova Scotia3

History professor describes province’s earliest “Africadians”

Each February, Canadians mark the legacy and achievements of the African diaspora in Canada during Black History Month. Martha Walls, a history professor at StFX whose research interest is in Maritime history, explains that African Nova Scotians in particular share “a history in the region that is as long as it is diverse.” “‘Africadians,’ to use poet George Elliott Clark’s term for African Nova Scotians, have probably been part of the fabric on non-Aboriginal settlement in Nova Scotia since French arrival at Port Royal in 1605. Rumoured to have been...

Memories of Africville

On Wednesday, February 24, the City of Halifax announced a public apology and compensation package for the former residents of Africville. Memories of Africville stir many emotions in Nova Scotia to this day. The African-Nova Scotian village was forcibly removed in the 1960s by the municipal government in order to make way for the A. Murray MacKay Bridge. Speaking to reporters on the preceding Sunday, President of the Africville Genealogy Society Irvine Carvery called the settlement a breakthrough in a long process of negotiations. “It’ll mean that the people of...

Conflict between two StFX residences threatens to cancel TriMac

MacPherson and MacDonald residents banned from each others’ house

Students from MacPherson and MacDonald had a confrontation on the night of Friday February 19 that threatens to cancel the annual TriMac hockey tournament. MacDonald residents reportedly stole MacPherson’s mascot from the residence on Friday evening, which prompted angry MacPherson residents to walk over to MacDonald to get it back. Cory McBean, first year human kinetics student and MacDonald resident, was in the building when his room was vandalized. “Someone just threw a rock through my window, so I went upstairs to talk to the other guys and get an...

Political science department begins brown bag lunch series

Weekly discussion group open to all disciplines

On Tuesday, February 16, the StFX political science department held its first in a series of brown bag lunch discussions in the Room 4001 lounge of the Physical Sciences building. Students from all disciplines are invited to attend and encouraged to bring a lunch to the informal discussion group as it meets on a weekly basis on Tuesdays at noon. Lasting only an hour, the talks represent an opportunity for students to openly debate contemporary issues in political science in Canada and around the world. The discussion was facilitated by...

StFX nursing department pilots new culturally safe curriculum

StFX recently announced the implementation of a “cultural safety curriculum” in the nursing department. The curriculum changes are the result of development involving the Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada (ANAC) and the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN). ANAC and CASN have selected six Canadian schools to participate in the initiative. In addition to StFX, the Nova Scotia Community College, Trent University, Laurentian University, the University of Alberta and Langara College will also participate in the pilot project. The formal launching occurred on June 11 2009, and StFX made...

Students’ union hosts open forum on strike possibility

The StFX Students’ Union hosted a public forum on Monday, February 15 to discuss the impact a strike would have on students at StFX. Approximately twenty-five StFX students attended the event at the Keating Millennium Centre. President Sandy MacIntosh and Vice President Sheryl MacAulay began the forum by listing a chronology of events that have occurred since December in regards to the negotiations between StFXAUT and the university administration. After a brief question period, the students divided into three groups and began discussing their concerns about the possibility of a...

StFX strike: averted?

StFXAUT and StFX administration reach tentative agreement

During the afternoon of Tuesday, February 16, students, faculty and staff at StFX received notification via email that the StFX Association of University Teachers and StFX University have reached a tentative agreement after months of negotiating a new contract. Conciliation talks between the two parties broke down twice in January. Talks were set to resume on February 17, one day before StFXAUT was in a legal position to strike. The biggest sticking point in the negotiations has been the issue of wage parity. The union representing faculty, clinical associates, lab...