Back issues: The Martlet's favourite headlines 68-89

The staff of the Martlet busy at work in their office in the basement of the Student Union building, 1976.  (Photo by Ian Anguish/UVic Archives)

The Martlet, at the University of Victoria, ran their favourite headlines from The Martlet 1968-1989.

“DRUGS: where’s it at?”

March 5, 1968

Current UVic writing instructor and Vancouver Sun contributor Steve Hume wrote an article investigating the prevalence of drug use. He explained the illegal drug market, related legislation and international considerations in the first piece of his series on the subject.

“SUB opens Monday”

Aug. 22, 1972

The Martlet reported on renovations to the Students’ Union Building (SUB), including expansions to the cafeteria and the air-conditioning. The highlights, however, were two 18-foot, dark oak-stained tables and several barrel tables “intended to give the impression of a campus Medieval Inn.” The updates included high oak stools, benches and oak barrel armchairs purchased from England for the then-brickwork foyer.

“Trudeau, ‘beating the drums of national unity’ ”

Oct. 26, 1972

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau addressed a crowd at the Royal Theatre in Victoria, saying that Canada no longer had an identity crisis and that we were no longer “in doubt” about who we were as a nation.

“Math prof proposes 90-minute classes”

March 1, 1973

Today’s schedule of having two 90-minute classes per week, as well as the three hour-long classes, was proposed in 1973 by Marvin Shinbrot, a professor in the Math Department at the time. Previously, the schedule fit courses that went from Monday to Saturday. Shinbrot had professors in mind when devising the re-formatted schedule, giving them days off from teaching responsibilities to conduct research.


“Disco hits the Library”

Oct. 13, 1978

A large donation to the library’s music and audio department brought Saturday Night Fever to its collection, filling a gap in contemporary music with artists such as the Bee Gees and Jethro Tull.

“Women physically capable”

March 15, 1979

The Martlet printed an article outlining the work of two Massachusetts researchers whose study dismissed the notion that women aren’t strong enough to do what was traditionally considered “men’s work.” Almost all of the women involved in the study completed “heavy work,” and 92 per cent completed “very heavy work” such as carrying a 10-kilogram load up a slope and using treadmills at various speeds for an eight-hour work-day.

“Line-ups make reg[istration] ‘sweatshop’”

Jul. 15, 1982

Students began to line up at 6 a.m. in the SUB, and by 11 a.m. on the first day of course registration, the line was out the door. Students waited up to seven hours to register for their courses, hoping there was still space left in classes that fit into a schedule.

“UVic gets engineering school”

Feb. 10, 1983

The B.C. Treasury Board approved UVic’s request for a $15-million Science and Engineering school and complex. UVic President Howard Petch put forth the request to promote high-technology industry development on the Island.

“Students party less”

Nov. 2, 1989

A survey on the habits of Canada’s post-secondary students found that students in 1989 would prefer to spend their money on travel, clothing and computers rather than partying. The study noted that students were older and had more disposable income than in the past. Notably, research showed that beer consumption was down slightly — 43.3 per cent of students didn’t drink at all.

Personally I'm a fan of "Women physically capable." Have any great headlines from your campus papers' past to top The Martlet?

The Silhouette, the CBC and a "black woman student president"

Stewart is president of the McMaster Students Union and, evidently, a black woman. (Photo by Adam Carter/CBC)

CBC-Hamilton recently ran an interview with Siobhan Stewart, president of the McMaster Students Union, with the headline "McMaster's first black woman student president opens up about Hamilton."

The interview began with your fairly typical profile questions, which led into this exchange between the interviewer and Stewart:

Q: Do you consider “finding your way” as an influence?

A: Yeah. Finding my way was a huge influence for me. There aren’t a lot of women in leadership positions, and there aren’t a lot of women of colour [in those positions]. When I was in high school, there was a Black female president on student council. I looked to her as a big sister and she really inspired me and we still keep in touch.

After a few questions about McMaster's relationship to the rest of the community, they have a longer exchange about race.

The Cadre responds!

The editorial team of The Cadre, who are making the move to online only, respond to my post about the shift. From their website:

Hey Arshy,

Thanks for taking notice of The Cadre’s shift to online-only content. As you might imagine, these are wild times for us. We’ve gone from student newspaper, to student news empire, and we’re really excited to start firing with all blasters cylinders in our new format.

In response to your recent article, we figured it would be nice to provide you with a bit more of The Cadre’s history.

As noted in the big announcement last spring, UPEI’s student paper has been around since 1969. Since then, we have gone through a number of names, editors, logos, lawsuits, and pretty well anything else you can think of. Just a few years ago we changed our name to the fucking “Panther Post” and back again before we knew what hit us. Although we’ve been printing for over 40 years, we’re accustomed to change.

Now, we’re going online-only.

Personally, we think this is a good change. Over the past few years our paper has suffered from a small budget, an even smaller readership, and a series of shitty deals with printers that refuse to allow us to run less than 2,000 copies at a time. With a student population of less than 4,500 here at UPEI, we consistently ended up with a foolish amount of wasted paper littering the campus. Issues were thrown out. Issues were taken en mass by representatives of the PEI Humane Society to cover the kennel floors.

You get the idea.

In the end, we believe that going online-only is a move in the right direction, and one that will certainly become relevant to UPEI students on a day-to-day basis.

You mentioned how students often rely on their campus newspapers to read casually, on the bus or in the cafeteria. There’s no denying that The Cadre served that purpose at UPEI. However, by printing new issues only every 3 to 4 weeks, the quality of the paper simply was not there. The new format allows us to cover news as it happens, not a month later.

Just think: had our format remained the same, this response would not have been released for another three weeks, and you likely would never have found it.

The rest after the jump:

UPEI's Cadre is going online only

The Cadre will no longer come in a stackable format.

The Cadre, the campus newspaper at the University of Prince Edward Island, is moving online only. From their website:

In an ideal world, a student newspaper serves two purposes: it is an informative, entertaining document that covers the moments we experience between the first day of class and last class bash; and as a place where young writers can grow and develop their voice. We haven’t been accomplishing this.

Our monthly publication schedule hampers our ability to properly cover events. Our stories are long and broad and often come out two weeks after the fact. We’re going to be moving to a daily publishing schedule. Our content will be shorter and bloggier. Breaking news will be covered as it’s breaking. Bigger stories will get four to five posts from different angles, instead of one long, lumbering summary well after anyone cares. We’ll still do booze panels and stuff.

The rest after the jump.