The Muse, vol. 54, no. 21 (11 March 2004)

              w
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This Week
[Opinion
ARE YOU AWARE? With a wide va-
! riety of "insert issue here" awareness
weeks all piling up this month, here's
the editorial perspective on just what
we really should be aware of. Page 10
Feature
ALCOHOL IS EXPENSIVE. So why
not go DIY for this Friday night? But
be aware, homebrewing is a precise science, and you have to take care over
every detail. Here are some instruc-
[ tions. Page 12
Arts
-,test take
' on fairy tales, puppets and all. But re-
! member that it isn't always for chil-
| dren; it's just some good, clean, dirty
[ clowns. Page 14
Science
I COD MADE DIRT and dirt can't hurt.
But this stuffsure tastes foul. As our web
poll question suggested some time ago.
; there is quite a bit of lead in the soil of
St. John's. Page 17
j Sports
OXFAM was protesting sweatshop
I labour on official Olympic goods this
week, and our sports section has the
story on what they plan to di
| it. Page 20
Inside
\News
Opinion
Feature
Arts & Ent
Science
Sports
Classifieds
Distractions
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10-11
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The    Muse
Volume 54, Number 21
www.themuse.ca
March 11, 2004
Private colleges victimize students - NDP
By Nadya Bell
Skipping out on your student loan is
not a practice the government condones, but NDP leader Jack Harris
says private college students do it all
the time.
Last Monday, Harris released default rates - the number of students
with bad loans - for all post-second
ary institutions in the province, indicating that 6o per cent of student loans
in default since 2000 are from private,
post-secondary institutions.
In comparison, Memorial
University has a relatively low default rate, at 16 per cent for the same
period of time, and the College ofthe
North Atlantic (CONA) is even lower at 15 per cent.
Canadian Federation of Students
(CFS) representatives agree with the
NDP interpretation ofthe statistics, as
the two organizations frequently work
together on developing post-secondary policy. However, representatives
from the private college system question the statistics' accuracy.
The federal government approved
a policy last April which removes a
school's loan accreditation, or de-designates them, if their default rates are
above 45 per cent.
Though yearly default rates for private colleges are 41 per cent, according
to Harris's figures, he suggests the government should not approve private
colleges for student loans, as they are
§ continued on page 7
The power of equality
The members of Beaumont Hamel (above) and many other bands played at the MUN Oxfam Sweatshop fashion show, blowing the audience away with
hard rock, notions of fair trade on the international market, and an equitable system of labour. See story, page 5.
Halliburton gives MUN 'Landmark' donation
By Katie Jackson
and Jessica Montes
Three-dimensional glasses may be
back in style at the earth sciences
department once Memorial uses its
$i3.9-million US software donation
from Landmark Graphics, a division
of Halliburton.
At a ceremony held last Friday
at the R. Gushue Hall, Landmark
Corporation announced it will present software and services valued at
$i8.4-million Canadian to Memorial
Uni
rsity.
The donation includes the promise
of a soon-to-be constructed visualization theatre that will be built in the
geophysics wing on the fourth floor of
the Alexander Murray building.
The announcement has not been
Federal Conservative party candidate Stephen Harper visited the St.
John's Holiday Inn last week. See
story, page 4.
universally accepted, as MUNSU VP
External Thorn Duggan has raised
concerns about the lack of approval
procedure for accepting large donations at the university.
A state-of-the-art visualization facility will provide an interactive approach to learning, using the software donation from Landmark
to look at geological and drilling
data. Researchers will be able to
view three-dimensional images of
Newfoundland's sea floor.
The images will be shown on a
curved screen, and researchers will be
able to manipulate the images to gain
a better understanding of offshore reservoirs and how they function.
Among the presenters at Friday's
Inco is not the only multinational corporation causing a stir on campus,
$ continued on page 3     as Halliburton has added its name to the list of Memorial's benefactors.
Students study nursing in Nicaragua
By Sheena Goodyear
In the middle of February, Alicia
Hennebury and Janine Churchill,
two third-year nursing students
from Memorial University, traveled
to Managua, Nicaragua. But this was
no vacation. They were there to take
part in an international nursing conference on distance education as the
Canadian student representatives.
The conference was organized
as part of the Primary Health Care
Nurse Education project. This is
a partnership between Memorial
University, the Universidad Politecina
de Nicaragua School of Nursing
(UPOLI), and the Telehealth and
Education Technology Resource
Agency.
It involves the universities aiding each other in the development
of nursing education programs in
Canada and Nicaragua.
"I think going to the conference
was a benefit, not only for them, but
a benefit for me and [Hennebury] too,
because we got to learn a lot about in-
f continued on page 2
n around for years,
taying for more.
-till