Facebook contest draws fire from students, administrators

TORONTO (CUP) – A contest held by Molson Canada on Facebook invited students from universities and colleges all across Canada to submit pictures of students partying on campus. The best picture could win a spring break trip, and the school with the most pictures posted could win the title of the number one party school in Canada.

The contest closed early, however, when it came under harsh criticism from university students and administrators. The contest was supposed to run for three weeks, but was shut down after just a week and a half.

Molson explained that the contest was misrepresented and misunderstood, and for that reason decided to end the contest early. It argued its contest was just an effort to engage their niche with socially-oriented advertising.

“Our take is that this whole social media realm is new. There’s going to be some experimentation, there’s going to be some learning…Social interaction is key with that [demographic], it seems to be all the rage right now,” said Cynthea Galbraith, a spokesperson for Molson Canada.

“I’m disgusted,” said Jason Laker, associate vice-principal and dean of student affairs at Queen’s University, in an interview with the Globe and Mail. “It is such an apparent and dangerous disregard for the way it promotes an abusive use of alcohol. In order for the photos to be eligible, to be notable, would require outrageous behaviour or profoundly dangerous levels of drinking, and of course the kind of decision making and behaviour that follow that,” Laker said.

Although the contest shut down early, a winner is expected to be announced by the end of next week. Universities on the east coast were in the lead to win.

Campus bars get creative to stay afloat

OTTAWA (CUP) – A move away from alcohol is forcing campus bars across Canada to come up with creative ways to attract students.

Jeff Dockeray, Executive Director of the Campus Hospitality Managers Association, a national association of campus pub, restaurant and nightclub managers, said he sees “a natural progression away from alcohol into a more diverse set of facilities…Campus profits from their alcohol operations and their food operations have dropped significantly the last 10 years,” he said. Campus bars have introduced new foods, arcade games, interactive nights and movie nights, Guitar Hero competitions and guest speakers.

Carleton University and Wilfrid Laurier University have re-invented their campus pubs into faculty and staff friendly restaurants.

“We’ve watched the campus bar evolve from just serving alcohol to starting to serve only bar food at night…Now, the campus bar must be more than just a booze-can,” said Fran Wdowczyk, Executive Director of the Student Life Education Company, which promotes healthy decision-making among post-secondary and high school students. “Students are considerably healthier than they were 20 years ago when it comes to making choices around alcohol,” she said.

Surveys show, furthermore, that students “are not going out two, three, four nights a week. They’re maybe going out once or twice in a month.”