Students and government will be holding a big, public party next week – but it’s one that not everyone will be here to attend.

Take Melissa, for instance. Originally from Placentia Bay, she graduated from Memorial University in 1997. Facing a student debt she couldn’t pay back, she promptly left the country. She’s worked continuously outside the province since then.

“I remember studying and having to choose whether to buy books or buy groceries,” she recalls. “Or pay some of my rent and buy books, or all of my rent and do without textbooks. Toward the end of my last year I started doing the math and realized oh my god, if I do pay back my student loans, the rate I could pay them off, I’d be over 30. That was stressful…knowing that even though I’d finished my degree, something I worked really hard at, I’d still be working at paying off my debt into my 30s.”

Melissa – like thousands of other graduates who got their degrees and ran – are part of a lost generation of Newfoundlanders that had the misfortune to go through university in the 1990s. Early that decade, the provincial government followed the lead of some other provinces in slashing post-secondary funding. Newfoundland’s grant program was changed to a loan system, and the university jacked up tuition fees by 191%. Enrolment declined and student debt skyrocketed. Facing crushing debtloads, a generation of the province’s youth fled – many of them never to return.

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Today’s the first day of the six-week summer session at MUN. My first history class was about to begin (about half an hour ago) when the Arts and Administration Building’s fire alarm — a mid-pitch droning sound, very futuristic — began to sound. 

Instead of chaos and anarchy, people in the Arts and Admin evacuated sedately, expressions of polite bewilderment on the faces of the academic types the building houses. 

Campus Enforcement showed up and started sweeping the building, followed by the fire department. Judging by the atmosphere of less-than-urgency, I think it’s a safe assumption that the offices of the president et. al. are safe. 

According to an email from MUN Communications, it appears to be a false alarm and those are known to happen from time to time. The whole thing probably amounts to a walk from history class and an unplanned fire drill. 

I think in the back of everyone’s mind is a really cool movie just dying to get out and onto the big screen. If only they knew how the darn things were made.

The Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers’ Cooperative (NIFCO) and MUN are teaming up again this year to offer a two part course covering the basics of filmmaking in HD.

The first part of the course covers production, from writing a script to shooting a scene.

Part two takes you through the editing process, where you’ll take the scenes you shot and assemble them into a finished film.

There’s no experience necessary and all the tools of the trade are provided.

The course is being offered twice, from June 7th to the 15th, and June 28th to July 6th.

For more information, contact Roger Maunder at 753-6121 (ext. 223) or e-mail him at roger@nifco.ca.

The MUSE, Memorial University of Newfoundland’s student newspaper, is the least funded student newspaper in all of Canada.

In order to help the MUSE in its ongoing efforts to bring you top quality student journalism and bring that journalism into the 21st century (hello online and interactive, goodbye paper), they are seeking an increase of two dollars in student fees.

Two bucks. For a semester’s worth of top quality, necessary to the existence of a healthy and informed student body, journalism.

This is like a multiple choice exam with only one question and a clear answer.

On March 16th and 17th, vote YES!

According to CBC, MUN may be freezing funding for incoming graduate students next year. This would not bode well for folks who have already applied to graduate programs for the fall, as most of the deadlines for external funding are long past. Click here to listen to MUN Faculty Association President Ross Klein being interviewed by Ted Blades earlier today on CBC.

If this is true, then Memorial might want to rethink some of the slogans on their graduate student recruitment site.

MUN, VOCM and CBC are all over the recent arrest of three 20-something guys and a 17 year old gal. They’re accused of stealing laptops from the library.

I had to laugh at CBC’s Television coverage. Just watch for 20 seconds and you’ll see what I mean as their writers nail their major demographic. Bonus monocle near the end.

…anyway, Charges will also be laid against some of the people who purchased the stolen laptops. Knowingly having stolen property worth less than $5,000 is a summary offense.

The really sad part is, a student’s computer is their life at this time of year. All this coverage probably dissuades would-be crooks from ruining someone’s academic career. I can get behind that. This incident demonstrates that sketchy b’ys are not hard to track down on a campus with closed circuit TV cameras everywhere.

Good job, RNC/CEP.

If you’re driving in the university area this morning, heads up: The lights at the intersection of Elizabeth and Westerland are out.

It’s probably got something to do with the ridiculous winds out there (which I guess is the price we St. Johnsites pay for a sunny day in late November).

I’m pleased to report that, at least when I was walking by, drivers were handling the situation in an orderly fashion.

Be careful out there!

In case you’re on campus today and you’re wondering why at least 58 warm people are sporting the colourfully ironic and the ironically colourful: it was unofficially declared “Ugly Sweater Day“.

This is tame, people.

I’m all for spontaneous community events but if somebody doesn’t post the best sweater of the day to LATFH.com, it’ll be allllll for naught.

Our friends at The Scope have a list of the immunization centers open on the Avalon, via Eastern Health’s H1N1 Page. I even remarked today that it would be smart to put an immunization clinic on campus. Turns out, somebody’s on the ball with the preventative measures:

While institutions are going through a lot of trouble to make this vaccination available to everyone who wants it, the topic of discussion about town today is:

“Should I?”

In short, the answer (in the editorial sense – I am not a medical professional) is: “Yes, you should be vaccinated, but not for your own sake.” You probably won’t die of H1N1 if you’re not in a designated susceptible group – the odds are you may not even feel sick if you do get the virus – but spreading the disease to others is a dick move.

Just make sure you wait until the initial rush is over so that priority susceptible patients can get their flu juice first. Non-priority vaccinations start on November 2nd.

Read on to find out why this flu shot is important…