National

Charles Lecomte, president of the Association des Étudiants Antillais (Caribbean Students’ Association) at Université Laval in Quebec City, was anticipating a typical second semester until he turned on CNN Jan. 12.

For the club’s 100 or so members, three quarters of whom are Haitian, winter semester usually brings Black History Month performances and a trip to the cabane à sucre.

The theft of an egg roll will result in court dates and potential criminal charges for a second-year English major at the University of Maine.

Wesley Pelletier ate an egg roll while browsing the school’s independently run Maine Marketplace, then failed to mention it to cashiers when checking out his other purchases.

Another worker, who had seen Pelletier eat the egg roll, told his superiors, who chose to file criminal charges.

When the suggestion for a course designing iPhone applications was put in at the University of Saskatchewan, no one predicted it would have three students working with an investor in only four months.

“One of the TAs thought [the course] was going to be a disaster,” said Chad Jones, the professor who created the class.

Last semester, the University of Alberta waived the need for students to provide a doctor’s note to justify illness-related absences from assignments and exams due to the H1N1 crisis. Now, the U of A has permanently suspended the policy, meaning sick students, or students otherwise skipping class, no longer need to go to a doctor’s office to have deadlines deferred.

As winter term begins and students scramble to start the arduous, and sometimes confusing, process of essay-writing for many of their courses, Brock University’s Essay-Zone online tutorial has many breathing a sigh of relief.

A fresh initiative developed last year, Essay-Zone is a colourful, interactive program that helps students to master the art of the essay.

For first-year students who are not used to writing at a university level, the university said the program proves especially helpful.