For several years now, Andrew Parr, director of food services at the University of British Columbia, has participated in a fourth-year course in which students do research on ways to make campus food operations more ethical and environmentally sustainable. The first few years of the course involved "me standing up there defending food services and taking a lot of shots," he says.

The Conservative government's 2007 budget extended a helping hand to graduate students, pledging to expand the existing Canada Graduate Scholarships program and to create a new internship program that will encourage them to gain applied research experience in the private sector. The government also announced plans to review the Canada Student Loans Program and introduced measures to attract foreign students to Canadian universities.

There was much for the university sector to like in the recent federal budget, but few commentators within the sector appeared ready to offer unconditional praise. For many of the new spending initiatives, there were strings attached, not quite as much money as hoped for, or other qualifications and uncertainties.

In the recent debate over judicial appointments, one group notably absent from the decision-making process was legal academe. Speaking to the law faculty at the University of Toronto, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler said this is a group that ought to play a role.

The future of women's studies and of women's postsecondary education were prominent themes of a recent conference held at Mount Saint Vincent University. "Educating Women/Women's Education in the Postsecondary Context" drew participants from Harvard, Duke, MIT and the National University of Singapore, as well as from small and large Canadian institutions.

The federal government should identify and fund specific areas of research excellence while also encouraging the broad base of research strength that's needed to provide training for the next generation of innovators, said the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.

The first students in the medical training program in Quebec's Mauricie region haven't even graduated, yet the program is already having an impact. During the last three years, the number of medical specialists has increased 15 percent at the Centre hospitalier régional de Trois-Rivières and the Centre de santé et de services sociaux de l'énergie, in nearby Shawinigan.