MEDIA COMPANY DONATES $2 MILLION TO ROTMAN A $2 million gift from Corus Entertainment will fund a communications strategy program at the Rotman School of Management on the St. George campus.The Corus Entertainment Chair will study media convergence, both in Canada and in the world at large.So-called “convergence plays” can probably use all the help they can get. Touted as the next big thing in the dot-com boom, convergence media companies are unwieldy behemoths that are formed from a shotgun marriage between a respectable, wealthy, conventional media company (like a newspaper) and a jumped-up, flashy starlet of an Internet company, with plenty of sex appeal but no bank account. U of T AUCTIONING VARSITY BLUES MEMORABILIAThe autumn cleanup of the Faculty of Physical Education and Health is proceeding apace. Now that they knocked down the condemned Varsity Stadium, they’re selling off memorabilia from the glory days of the Varsity Blues.“It’s going very, very well. We’re very pleased,” said Joan Griffin, a media relations staffer at the faculty. “The commemorative items are going very well,” she added.Griffin said steamer trunks and jerseys are the fastest-selling items. Prices range from $10 for a brick of the 78-year-old structure attached to a commemorative plaque, to upwards of $1,000 for dining room tables built with planks from the stadium.The tables are custom-built by Commute Home, a Dundas St. furniture store.Proceeds are “going to enhance Varsity athletics,” Griffin said.
JEWISH CAMPUS SERVICES ASKING ASSU TO APOLOGIZE The Arts and Science Students’ Union is being asked to apologize for its controversial Anti-Calendar dedication.“We expect the ASSU to publish a public apology to the campus community in The Varsity at the closest possible date, clearly stating ASSU’s regret for failing to represent its constituency by publishing an exclusionary and insensitive dedication in the 2001-2002 Anti-Calendar,” read a letter sent to the ASSU by Jewish Campus Services of Greater Toronto.The letter was also sent to the Students’ Administrative Council, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and U of T president Robert Birgeneau’s office.JCS took issue with the dedication in the most recent edition of the Anti-Calendar, which expressed sympathy for “the memory of the Innocents, Afghanistan and Palestine, Murdered.”FALSE ALARMNew College’s Wilson Hall residence was evacuated Sunday night at approximately 9:20 p.m.The ballast from a fluorescent light caught fire in a small room on the sixth floor. The fire alarm was activated, spilling hundreds of students onto Willcocks St.Chief Westlake of the Toronto Fire Department said that after a thorough search, the smoke was traced to its source and the the burning ballast was extinguished.Students returned to their rooms after approximately 20 minutes.
