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News Beat: July 30th

SFU professor wins world record for thickest accent

In a small ceremony held in Convocation Mall last Saturday, Guinness World Record officials awarded SFU professor of computing science, Ranjeet Chupala, the distinct honour of having the world’s thickest accent.

Competing amogst several prominent anti-linguists, Ranjeet wowed the judges with his indecipherable grammar, mumbling and inconsistent volume skills. He beat out the favourite to win, Tinashe Bosede, a Zimbali calculus professor stationed at the University of Lethbridge who conversed entirely in clicks and broken English.

In a short speech after receiving the award, Chupala thanked his students, fellow faculty members and the weather-beaten National Geographics, he used to teach himself English. “I’m most thankful that the world record company’s has being chosen me, for have the award. ”

The speech then continued for another several minutes, but this reporter was unable to extract any more information from the vague utterances that came out of Chapala’s mouth.

— Gregory Gregor

 

Fact checkers union goes on strike

Marking the probably-not-first time that a privatized sector has taken job action, the Fact Checkers Union of Canada announced sometime last week that it would immediately end all fact checking services, effectively grinding all major Canadian news outlets to a halt.

The FCUC have been in talks with Canadian communications giants Shaw Media and Postmedia, but as of last week have still failed to negotiate the terms for their 2013 contract renewal. Or maybe extension; one of those for sure.

Lamden Calbert, professor of . . . a professor at the University of . . . a notable scholar in the field of labour negations, was quoted as saying something along the lines of this being bad. Bad for the news corporations that is, and the flow of information being a key strategic good thing, for the FCUC.

Showing solidaritty with the FCUC, the Candian Proofreader’s Commision anounced last week it would be taking similer job action, reducing their hours to 1-tenth normal dooties.

 

— Sally Salzberg

 

SFU to hold contest for location of a new campus 

Last week, SFU president Andrew Petter announced the beginning of a fun new contest to decide the home of a new campus location.

With campuses already in Whalley, the downtown eastside and up a mountain, the “U-Build-It” contest offers people around the community the chance to nominate the most undesirable locations they can think of to establish a new chapter for SFU.

In his weekly address, president Petter outlines the goals of the project. “Surrey and Woodwards were steps in the right direction. We already have people willing to push back their graduation plans just to avoid taking classes there.  But we need to go further, dream bigger. I envision a campus so arduous and tedious to reach, it makes people reconsider even enrolling in SFU.”

Contest frontrunners include the L.A. neighbourhood Compton, the North Korean capital Pyongyang and the backseat of a Greyhound Bus at the tail end of a cross-country vacation.

 

— Brad McLeod

 

By Gary Lim and Brad McLeod

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Dining workers speak to poor working conditions

By: Lucaiah Smith-Miodownik, News Writer On October 7, a Reddit user posted to r/simonfraser concerning the possibility of a dining worker strike across SFU’s Burnaby campus. The message, which is from Contract Worker Justice (CWJ) @SFU, asserted that SFU “hasn’t budged on insourcing workers and is now trying to walk back its commitments to living wage.” The post also mentioned “a very heated labour environment on campus with several possible strikes and actions for precarious workers upcoming.”  The Peak corresponded with Preet Sangha, a UNITE HERE Local 40 union representative, who spoke with two dining hall employees and forwarded their responses to us via email. Local 40 “represents workers throughout BC who work in hotels, food service, and airports.” Names have been changed to protect their...

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Block title

Dining workers speak to poor working conditions

By: Lucaiah Smith-Miodownik, News Writer On October 7, a Reddit user posted to r/simonfraser concerning the possibility of a dining worker strike across SFU’s Burnaby campus. The message, which is from Contract Worker Justice (CWJ) @SFU, asserted that SFU “hasn’t budged on insourcing workers and is now trying to walk back its commitments to living wage.” The post also mentioned “a very heated labour environment on campus with several possible strikes and actions for precarious workers upcoming.”  The Peak corresponded with Preet Sangha, a UNITE HERE Local 40 union representative, who spoke with two dining hall employees and forwarded their responses to us via email. Local 40 “represents workers throughout BC who work in hotels, food service, and airports.” Names have been changed to protect their...
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Five SFSS full-time union staff receive layoff notices

By: Corbett Gildersleve, News Writer and Hannah Fraser, News Editor The Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) has initiated staff layoffs, with five out of eight full-time union positions affected as of July 25. All the positions either support student activities or the SFSS’ operations, and do not include SFSS executives.…

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TSSU speaks on latest updates to IP policy

By: Corbett Gildersleve, News Writer As recently reported by The Peak, the Senate reviewed and discussed a new draft version of its intellectual property (IP) policy solely focused on the commercialization of inventions and software. Based on community feedback, they split the IP policy into two: one for inventions and…

Block title

Dining workers speak to poor working conditions

By: Lucaiah Smith-Miodownik, News Writer On October 7, a Reddit user posted to r/simonfraser concerning the possibility of a dining worker strike across SFU’s Burnaby campus. The message, which is from Contract Worker Justice (CWJ) @SFU, asserted that SFU “hasn’t budged on insourcing workers and is now trying to walk back its commitments to living wage.” The post also mentioned “a very heated labour environment on campus with several possible strikes and actions for precarious workers upcoming.”  The Peak corresponded with Preet Sangha, a UNITE HERE Local 40 union representative, who spoke with two dining hall employees and forwarded their responses to us via email. Local 40 “represents workers throughout BC who work in hotels, food service, and airports.” Names have been changed to protect their...