National

Your local Toys “R” Us may just be the key to helping children with disabilities do better in school.

Two professors at the University of Alberta are researching how simple robots, some found at your neighbourhood toy store, can help disabled children keep up with their peers.

The robots are small, colourful and sometimes sport a pair of big, googly eyes.

A program based out of Ottawa’s Algonquin College could inspire Inuit school boards in far northern Quebec to help prepare students for post-secondary education.

The Kativik School Board is working on a program that will be based in Montreal and aimed at serving students from Nunavik, a region of northern Quebec with a large Inuit population.

Women may never have to hobble home barefoot after a night out in high heels ever again if Ryerson University grad Hailey Coleman gets her way.

Coleman scored a $50,000 deal with Arlene Dickinson on the CBC show Dragon’s Den for her invention, which she called Damn Heels.

“Damn Heels are sexy, fold-up ballerina style flats that come tucked into an expandable bag to save women from their beloved damn heels,” Coleman explained in an email.

A student group at Montreal’s Concordia University may be taking their opposition to the school’s exclusivity contract with Pepsi to the next level.
Concordia student activist Laura Beach threatened to sue her school for a “breach of trust” on Oct. 29.     

Private interests have interfered with the hiring and firing practices of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, according to a recently released report by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT).

The report concludes that the former director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA), Ramesh Thakur, was unjustly fired after objecting to pressure by the school’s principal private partner, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).