The Tribune

McGill took several steps to make campus more pedestrian-friendly this summer, drastically reducing the number of vehicles on both Lower Campus and McTavish Street. On May 28, McTavish Street was closed to cars and non-official traffic was eliminated from across campus.

McGill added a third former hotel to its residences earlier this summer with the purchase of the Marriott Courtyard Montreal, which will be transformed into a residence in fall 2011 after a year of renovations. The university had previously expanded its residence system by purchasing the Renaissance Hotel in 2003-now New Residence Hall-and the former Four Points Sheraton in 2009-now starting its second year as Carrefour Sherbrooke.

Last Thursday, 74 lockers in the basement of the Leacock Building were vandalized. A still unknown person or persons cut the locks and rifled through the contents of the lockers most likely between 6:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. As of Friday evening, some students had reported missing items, mostly of little value.

The McGill Centre for Developing-Area Studies recently hired political activist Joe Clark, who will begin teaching Oct. 1. He will be taking the position of Professor of Practice for Public-Private Sector Partnerships and will be responsible for helping build bridges between academic, public sector, private sector and NGOs to real world issues.

A proposed reorganization of the Blackader-Lauterman Library of Architecture and Art is in the works and may end up closing the service desk permanently. Janine Schmidt, the Trenholme Director of Libraries, issued a document in May 2006 to McGill librarians that presented a plan to “close the service point of the library and leave the collection part unattended,” according to Marilyn Berger, the head librarian at Blackader-Lauterman.

The Students’ Society has developed a new service to provide resources for drug and alcohol education as well as activism on drug policy. SSMU’s Harm Reduction Centre aims primarily at ensuring the safe use of drugs and alcohol among McGill students, said Floh Hera-Vega, vice president clubs and services.

As more students choose to bring laptops to campus the opportunities for thieves to take them has increased. Last year over 120 laptops were reported stolen by students and unfortunately for laptop owners, the numbers are increasing. This is one reason why Security Services launched a new laptop tracking program for students in partnership with Connecticut-based Security Tracking of Office Property (STOP).

The course evaluation process will move one step closer to transparency and accessibility this fall. After first being explored in the fall of 2003 and pilot tested in the winter of 2004, McGill Online Evaluations will be launched campus-wide in December under the name “Mercury.

The transition from medical textbooks to a clinical setting often leads to mistakes by well-meaning but inexperienced medical students. To try to help them learn in a risk-free setting, McGill has opened a Medical Simulation Centre to offer hands-on training.