IN OTHER SCHOOLS
September 20, 2006
Two killed in Montreal College Shootings
MONTREAL (CUP) — At least one gunman entered Dawson College in downtown Montreal and opened fire on crowds of students on September 13, killing one woman and wounding 19 others. Four victims were still in critical condition as of Friday.
The suspect, 25-year-old Kimveer Gill, was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to an autopsy report released by Québec Provincial Police.
The victim killed during the shooting is reported to be 18-year-old Montreal resident Anastasia DeSousa.
Police, who arrived shortly after the suspect began firing in the cafeteria, evacuated the school floor by floor, sending thousands of students running into the streets.
“There was blood everywhere around the cafeteria and gunshot holes through the main doors,” said eyewitness Roxanne Michaud.
Fehr Marouf, a Dawson student, was leaving for lunch when he saw a man in a trench coat and black boots approach the school with a large firearm. Eyewitness reports corroborate this description of the gunman.
After being directed away from the school, students and faculty sought refuge at nearby Concordia University, where group debriefing and counseling were held. “There’s going to be a long healing process,” acknowledged Ray Bourgeois, Dawson’s dean of science.
As of Friday, no connection has been established between the suspect and the school. Police have not established a motive for the killings either. A hate crime has been ruled out since Gill shot at random, wounding men and women of no particular ethnicity.
Enrolment Decline plagues Atlantic universities
SACKVILLE, N.B. (CUP) — A report from the Association of Atlantic Universities states that enrolment in the area has been declining steadily since 2003. Dalhousie University, the University of New Brunswick, the University of Prince Edward Island, and Mount Allison University have all experienced drops in enrolment between one and 10 per cent in the past five years.
Among those schools experiencing a drop in enrolment, a number of theories have emerged to explain the lower student numbers. Chief among them is that there are simply fewer students graduating from high school than in previous years and that this, combined with the same number of universities competing for them, has resulted in lower overall enrolment.
As the phenomenon progresses, however, universities are developing their own strategies to try and balance their budgets with declining revenues from both provincial and student sources.
Acadia University has created a new department, the office of Enrolment Management, which aims to increase international student enrolment to 15 per cent of the total student body and focus on domestic recruiting in Nova Scotia, Alberta, and B.C.
Mount Allison University has designated one international recruiter to tour Southeast Asia and provided a travel budget of $100,000 to recruit students from that area.
A report from the Associate of Atlantic Universities expects the number of students ages 18-24 enrolled in post-secondary education in all four Atlantic provinces to decline until at least 2014.
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