Professors and librarians at Carleton University gave their faculty union steering committee an unprecedented mandate to call a strike - now set for Oct. 20. In a heavy turnout, more than 94 per cent of academic staff voted to authorize a strike.

Most Canadian university research libraries continue to fare badly according to the latest report of the Association of Research Libraries on "Holdings of University Research Libraries in U.S. and Canada." Fourteen Canadian institutions were included among the 114 surveyed.

I was distressed by the article on Cynthia Maughan's lawsuit ("CAUT Defends Academics Named in Major Lawsuit," Bulletin, Sept. 2003). I do not know whether Ms. Maughan's claim of discrimination has validity or not - and, indeed, after reading the Bulletin's article I am as ill-informed about the case as I was before. But it was clear to me the biased reporting given to the story here showed less journalistic integrity than one could expect to find in the average issue of the National Enquirer.

Your news item, headlined "Koren Reprimanded by Ontario College of Physicians & Surgeons" (Bulletin, Sept. 2003) reports that University of Toronto dean of medicine David Naylor "directed Koren to arrange for the journal's editor to have the article deleted from the scientific record and to send appropriate personal letters of apology." This action was in response to publication of a paper by Dr. Gideon Koren and two collaborators in the journal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (21:74-81, 1999).

Last month, CAUT published its Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee's report on the case involving Dr. David Noble and Simon Fraser University. I believe the facts speak for themselves. It is not my intention to review the report. But, there is an interesting point arising from events in the case that must be addressed - namely the role of collegiality in today's university and its relationship to academic freedom.

Engineers are warning that rules issued by the U.S. Treasury Department this month could restrict the free exchange of scientific information.

Families on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder have significantly lower participation rates in post-secondary education, says a Statistics Canada survey released last month.

Mount Saint Vincent University has become the first university to introduce the Women's Future Fund as an optional payroll deduction for faculty and staff.

Persons with disability have come a long way - from concerns with mere survival to opportunity for Paralympic glory

New Zealander Howard Clark arrived in Canada in 1957 to take up a position as assistant professor in the chemistry department of the University of British Columbia. His association with Canadian universities continued over the next 38 years with academic opportunities that took him from British Columbia to Ontario to Nova Scotia. Each move was accompanied by a step up the administrative ladder that culminated with Clark serving as president of Dalhousie University for eight years until his retirement in 1996.

This book is reminiscent of a Three Stooges film, Nertsery Rhymes (1933). We find Moe, Larry and Curly as children, unable to sleep in their oversized crib. Daddy (Ted Healy) is thinking of telling them a bedtime story. But the Stooges are noisy and interrupt daddy's train of thought. He snaps on the overhead light, surprising the "kids" in a game of hide-and-seek. By film's end everyone is the worse for wear, but the viewer has a fine time.

A Nova Scotia labour relations tribunal has granted Acadia University Faculty Association's application to combine its full-time and part-time academic staff bargaining units.

Saint Mary's University Faculty Union ratified a collective agreement Sept. 12, which gives bargaining unit members substantial salary improvements.

Talks aimed at further liberalizing the global trading system collapsed in Cancun, Mexico last month after the world's richest nations refused to address the demands of developing countries worldwide on the thorny issue of agricultural subsidies.

"Evidence-based medicine" has become the mantra of the medical profession. When patients "present" to their physicians, the physicians are supposed to set aside their intuitions and prejudices and, instead, treat the patients' problems according to the best and most rigorous scientific data available in the leading journals.