National

A memorial is being planned at Queen’s University to honour a first-year student who died after falling through a skylight, according to Safirah Chowdhury, president and CEO of the Alma Mater Society (AMS) of Queen’s University.

Habib Khan, a 19-year-old student from Toronto, was on the roof of the Education Library in Duncan McArthur Hall on the university’s west campus Dec. 2 with another student, confirmed Queen’s communications officer Michael Onesi.

Queen’s University has suspended its annual fall homecoming for an additional three years, according to a statement by Principal Daniel Woolf.

The Queen’s student-run newspaper the Journal, said homecoming was initially suspended in 2008 for two years after the Aberdeen Street party, an unsanctioned homecoming tradition, drew in a crowd of over 6,000 people.

In 2005 the party turned riotous after a car was flipped and set on fire. Crowds were also turning on police and pelting them with beer bottles.

Over a dozen students at the University of Guelph stripped down Nov. 25 in support of the Climate Change Accountability Act, which was recently struck down by Conservative senators.

Bill C-311 narrowly passed its first Senate reading in May before being struck down 43 to 32 during its second Senate reading Nov. 16.
J. Geoff Loughton, a Guelph student, said he was dismayed to hear the bill had been struck down. “My initial reaction . . . was outrage,” said the

fifth-year political science student.

International graduate students in Saskatchewan universities can now apply for Canadian permanent residency after graduation through a new provincial program, according to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Advanced Education, Employment and Immigration.

The Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP) has updated its master’s and PhD graduate stream under the student category this November.

The program allows the province to nominate applicants to get their landed immigrant status under certain required criteria.  

A cultural and academic center for Métis students opened at Brandon University in Manitoba on Nov. 16. The centre was opened to coincide with the 125th anniversary of the execution of Métis political icon Louis Riel, according to a university press release.  Lorraine Mayer, the director of native studies at the university, said the centre’s goal is to educate non-Métis about the cultural distinctiveness of Métis people and to provide Métis students with a place to learn about themselves and strengthen their cultural identity.