By Stacey Askew
Ryerson’s engineers haven’t pulled a prank in years. This is a tradition engineers from universities across North America do all the time. Heck, most even have a major budget for it. But Ryerson’s Engineering Student Society (RESS) can’t get funding because administration is too antsy.
“It’s partially the school’s fault. If we did pull (a prank), the school would come down on the engineers,” says RESS president Chris Sano. Fourth-year engineering students lose ownership of their thesis work when they submit it to the school for marks, he adds. Many students have come forward, worried they won’t be able to use their ideas in their work after they graduate. Other schools, like the University of Alberta allow students to keep their intellectual property.
But much as Sano has tried to get the rules changed, he feels admin is too much to crack.
“We feel it would be a dead end to try.”
A few blocks away, business students face some woes of their own.
Riding the lengthy escalators or waiting for the elevators to get to classes on the upper floors constantly cause backups rivaling traffic gridlock for staff and students. The Faculty of Business originally wanted two extra floors for the building, but the board of governors didn’t approve of the suggestion, says Shane Fields, president of the commerce society and member of the RSU board of directors.
Elevators are a short-term habitat for students as they spend up to four minutes at rush-hour waiting inside, thanks to a broken ‘close door’ button. The elevator stops, opens, and stays open even if the elevator is full. “It’s somewhat insignificant, but it is kind of irritating,” Fields says. He met with Provost Errol Aspevig before reading week and was told administration would look into fixing it.
In terms of programs, Fields said students he comes into contact with tend to be happy with things as they are, even though“there are those who don’t like some things, but those aren’t the ones who hang around trying to change things.”
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