Recently while taking the subway in the morning rush there was an almost business-as-usual delay that left hundreds, perhaps even more than a thousand people crammed onto the platform as we waited for the train.

When the train did finally arrive, it was packed to the gills with people who had squeezed on at the previous station. Between the two trains there were more than 2,000 uncomfortable and annoyed people saying "excuse me" who had paid the $3 fare to ride a system that is straining from years of underfunding. 

Ontario's post-secondary system has parallels to public transit as it too is a system designed in the 1960s that keeps asking people to pay more as it becomes more crowded and people grumble about the state of things. 

Student unions and the campus press are two things that go together like a spark to gasoline. When it's done right you can take the energy and use it to propel the best interests of students as far as possible. When it's done wrong it can lead to everybody getting badly burned.

 The campus press in Canada has its origins in the student union movement as students found they had to have a way to raise student issues that weren't covered by the mainstream media.

This is still very much the case. In fact, with the daily newspapers cutting back on their newsroom staff dedicated education reporters are becoming harder to find.

In response to a campaign spearheaded by Concordia's Centre for Gender Advocacy, Concordia University has announced they are establishing a Sexual Assault Resource Centre.

With 1 in 4 students sexually assaulted during the course of their post-secondary education, over 80 per cent of who are women, this is a much-needed service.

"This is a victory for the entire Concordia community and will contribute to a broader cross-campus anti-violence movement that challenges rape culture," says Bianca Mugyenyi Campaigns and Programming Coordinator at the Centre for Gender Advocacy "We commend the University. This is a step forward and it is our hope that this integral service will be accessible to people of all genders and backgrounds."

Deep in the heart of the University of Toronto campus, a development program of 70 students and 9 faculty members is struggling for its 'financial survival,' according to Shahzali Samah, an alumni of the Transitional-Year Program (TYP).

The U of T's Provost, Cheryl Misak, 'flat-lined' TYP's budget earlier this year after they refused to restructure the program according to her personal wishes. According to a former student, Jessie Little, who now studies Sociology, U of T is trying to "strangle the program."

Later this week, undergraduate students at Carleton University will vote to decide the future of OPIRG-Carleton, a social justice organizing centre that has been serving students and the broader Ottawa community for the past 33 years.

In the spirit of spring, as the Equinox is upon us; and the Easter and Passover seasons, the Professors for Peace and Education at the University of Regina wish to open a conversation on peace. These seasons emphasize new beginnings, reconciliation and peace. Yet globally, peace is in short supply.

While major global wars have diminished since World War II, a plethora of regional wars, including but not limited to Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Congo, Rwanda, Mali, Syria and others have brought unspeakable anguish to countless families and communities.

On March 21, 2013 I was waiting outside the campus restaurant's dance hall at York University. It had been converted into a York Federation of Students meeting room when the originally planned room in the Students Centre reached full capacity. There were at least a few hundred York University undergraduate students attending the meeting on a windy, snowy day at the Keele Campus.

I'm not an undergrad student which is why I had to wait outside the enormous makeshift meeting room, only able to see two large crowds sitting across from one another with Israeli flags and red and white keffiyahs.

On March 21, in an historic vote at the largest students' union in Canada, York University's undergraduate students' union, the York Federation of Students (YFS), voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution to endorse the Global Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid. In passing this BDS resolution, the YFS now joins many student unions around the world, who have all passed similar resolutions. In Canadian universities, the BDS campaign has had several milestones in the last year at Carleton University (Graduate Students' Association), University of Regina (Student Union) and most recently, York University (Graduate Students' Association) and University of Toronto (Graduate Students' Union).

This article was originally published on August 30, 2012, in Montreal, by The McGill Daily.

In mid-summer, almost four months after the Quebec student strike of 2012 had entered uncharted territory as the longest in the province's history, Premier Jean Charest played his final card. With CEGEP students prepared to renew strike mandates despite threats of a lost semester, and the Special Law lying in shreds under the feet of a hundred thousand illegal demonstrators, Charest called a provincial election, over a year before his term was set to expire. On September 4, Quebec residents will enter voting booths.

Journalism has the ability to uncover, to elucidate, and to share a variety of viewpoints and truths. As Daily writers, we think that sharing viewpoints that are not often heard, or that often get drowned out or outright silenced, is of particular importance. And as science students, we are particularly interested in writing and reading about research. We're charmed by the goings-on inside cells, by the workings of subatomic particles, by the way that the sky lights up all on its own when we're far, far away from the city. We think that rational, calculated measurements of the world have the ability to deepen our understanding of it, and of ourselves.