Now there’s a quote: The story “Concerns raised over hiring of security manager” in our March 20, 1995 issue talked about concerns the Camosun College Student Society had over the role of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) in monitoring student groups in post-secondary institutions across Canada; the college’s new security manager at the time was Carter MacDonald (who would go on to have a lengthy career as the college ombudsman and just recently retired). MacDonald, who was with CSIS for 10 years, tried to put any fears that students had about ex-CSIS working at the college at rest: “I’m not a spy,” he said, and even though we interviewed him many more times over the years, his quotes never got as good as that one.
Creative thinking: The story “Tuitions increase 9.8%” talked about how Camosun was considering a near-10-percent tuition fee raise. Budget officer Norene Bradshaw said that if every college staff member gave up one day of pay per year the budget could be balanced immediately, and the fee-raise avoided. I’m thinking we don’t need to read the follow-up story to know that that didn’t happen.
What a circus: Our Shit Happens column, written by Brett Gossman, was a classic slice of Nexus history due to Gossman’s ongoing comments directed toward a certain Sunday-funny-pages institution. In this particular issue, Gossman was talking about ways to unwind. “The only thing you can do is take pleasure in the simple things in life,” he wrote this issue. “Personally, I like to sit back and imagine my hands around the throat of Bil Keane (for those of you who don’t know, he is the creator of the Family Circus comic strip), but to each their own.”