October 21, 2004

Food, radical ideas, and the presence of Jason Shim made yesterday’s student town hall a success. Fourty students stuffed their faces with food while offering their insights on Laurier’s strenghts and challenges. “We want to make this as informal as possible,” Dean McMurray said encouraging students to help themselves to another slice of pizza.

The university is struggling to find direction now that it’s been around for nearly 100 years, and the town hall gave students an opportunity to provide input in the process. And many people did: I ranted about the lack of technology and blogs; Bernard lectured on growth; the new VP academic sang praises to law schools (by the sounds of it, she’s interested in some professional programs at WLU).

After an hour of talking, the discussion facilitators presented ideas from individual groups using compelling hand gestures. “People should juggle when presenting boring information,” I said afterwards.