Editorial—Back At It!

Switching things up a bit this week, we don’t have a student interview as our feature.  I know, right?  However, we are still featuring an interview, just this time, it’s of Canadian country-pop artist, Bree Taylor.  I’m not a country music fan in general, nor a popular music fan either.  But it’s still an interesting read seeing what drives this woman and how her past of being bullied and depressed has been addressed through her music.

We also have a couple of timely things this week, with two former writers for The Voice Magazine returning.  First Scott Jacobsen brings back the Canadian Education News column, with his look at some of the things going on in the education sphere in Canada, whether it’s ranking universities on innovation or lobbying, or the new school recently formed at the University of Alberta, to the effects of the recent Alberta budget on the post-secondary system.

Also, Philip Kirkbride, the erstwhile “Travelling Student” has returned, and brings back a story of life after AU.  What I like about this story is that it’s real. It’s not a rosy story of runaway success that we see in so many PR reports, but neither is it a tale of failure and wasted education, it just slides right in the middle there, like so many of us undoubtedly will.  I think it’s good to be reminded every once in a while that that “doing okay” is an okay thing.

A quick reminder as well that Remembrance Day is upon us.  And once again, we seem to have another year where Voice writers just weren’t that interested in it.  So we take a look back at previous issues and what other writers have said about it in the Vintage Voice.

Meanwhile, if there’s one thing that’s been on my mind recently, it’s how all the media is Reporting about western separation becoming a real thing.  As the Voice Editor, I’m on the mailing list for the @Wexit group, and what it tells me is that the media is more interested in #Wexit because the idea of it gets people’s attention than the actual facts of the matter.

The facts of the matter is that the movement remains incredibly small.  They say they brought in about 700 people to their latest event at a local pub in Edmonton.  Not bad for a nascent movement, however, when you learn that the petition they recently submitted to become an actual political party was only signed by 500 and some people, even though it was apparently passed around at the bar and they encouraged these people, presumably their most dedicated supporters, to sign, you realize that the media is overplaying their strength, both in the number of supporters and the depth of support they have. As a comparison, HorrorCon, recently held in Calgary, brought in around 2000 people.  It’s not an exaggeration to say more people in Alberta would prefer to be deliberately terrified than separate.  This isn’t to say there aren’t some very angry people here, but welcome to, well, pretty much any place on earth.

In any event,  the Voice Magazine will continue to bring the news, events, scholarships, advice, and more, all from the perspective of students and former students of AU.

Enjoy the read!