International Women’s Day: The March 5, 2001 issue of Nexus came out on International Women’s Day. One opinion piece delved into what defines a woman, and stated that a woman can be whatever she wants to be. Another section had thoughts from male and female students who were asked how equal men and women were in Canadian society. Most women stated that there was still much to achieve, and most men said that we were equal. The feature included a timeline of major achievements in feminism, but also listed the problems women faced then, and still face today: increased risk of violence and abuse, lower wages, being denied opportunities… In many parts of the world, women are far worse off. We have come a long way, but there is so much further to go until we reach true equality.
Student human-rights input: In this issue, we also covered how Camosun College was making a new Human Rights Policy and requesting students give feedback. The college said it wanted to ensure that everyone felt represented properly as they updated the previous Harassment Policy, created in the ’80s. Camosun started having an ombudsperson in 1992, just nine years before this issue came out. The ombudsperson is meant to protect students from any kind of discrimination they might face on campus. Nowadays, people seem to be a lot more open-minded, but policies like this helped make that happen. And, fortunately, help is readily available whenever someone needs it.
Going green: Interurban’s Campus Centre building has a lot of wooden structures inside, something promoted by the Canadian Wood Council, as we covered in this issue. The use of wood is environmentally conscious and a way to support BC industries; it’s also a great building material, as it’s strong, easy to work with, renewable, aesthetically pleasing, and less toxic to the environment than more synthetic materials. The architects involved were also responsible for building other projects all across BC.