The Maclean’s magazine “On Campus” section has listed its Top 10 most read online education posts for the past year, and a Queen’s University’s related story made the grade – squeaking in as the #9 most read story of 2010.
The article entitled “Queen’s Remembrance Day soapbox”, written by Robyn Urback, is an OpEd piece that criticizes Nick Day, Queen’s University’s student rector – an elected position to represent student views to the university for social and financial matters.
In part, Urback castigates the rector’s speech as an example of “opportunistic hijacking of public addresses” for his speech at the university’s Remembrance Day ceremony this past November.
In the article, Urback blames Day for segueing from briefly recounting memories of his veteran grandfather, who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in WW2, to lamenting injustices in the Rwandan genocide and towards the First Nations and Palestinians, as well as criticizing the Israeli Defense Force.
Similar to other public complaints about the speech, Urback states that “divisive political points have no place in a Remembrance Day address. A ceremony intended to honour the memory of war veterans should do exactly that.”
In announcing their Top 10 most read articles for the year, Maclean’s revealed that its readers appear most interested in news and commentary about academic freedom, free speech in universities, faculty strikes and student grades.
The entire Top 10 list (below) can be viewed – with links to the full articles – at Maclean’s “On Campus” online.
10: Carleton profs prepare for strike vote
9: Queen’s Remembrance Day soapbox
8: Rejoicing in Christopher Hitchens’ cancer
7: Toronto’s G20 summit: a failure all around
6: Let Flanagan’s remarks die
5: Your grades will drop
4: Academic freedom at Trinity Western?
3: NSERC bars scientist from receiving grants
2: College strike vote today
1: Ann Coulter went home
