Bad news: Our January 8, 1996 issue featured a duo of grim headlines on the front page: “Apprentice programs expect severe cut-backs” and “Federal funding restrictions cut education to the bone.” The latter featured a particularly dour photo of a student forking over money while a buzzsaw approached their arms. Ugh, and we thought 2020 was tough.
Good news: These days, Victoria is a fairly positive place to be a cyclist. But 25 years ago, as the story “Bike funding benefits college” proved, it was tougher. Talking about a particular stretch of North Dairy behind the Hillside Centre, writer Kelley Ford said it’s “a particularly dangerous road for cyclists. Several deep potholes line the shoulder of the road for a block between Hillside mall and Cedar Hill Rd., posing the potential for cyclists to be thrown from their bikes should they hit one. The road is also much too narrow for cyclists to comfortably share it with motorists.” Sure, still describes a lot of roads around here, but, hey, at least that block has a bike lane now, as does much of downtown.
Not holding back: The student editorial in this issue, “The cost of a quick decision,” talked about how students didn’t get the full amount of their tuition back depending on when in the semester they drop a course. Writer Jody MacFarland referred to the Camosun calendar as “the 200-page scholastic bible of the college” and went on to refer to the fine print in the tuition-refund section as “illegibly scrawled, hidden within the babble of incomprehensible garbage simply entitled ‘tuition fee refunds.’”