In 2003, soon after I began a job as a journalism instructor at Ryerson University, one of my second-year students told me that her classmate had cheated on a written assignment. The news jolted me.

After Usha George announced her intention to leave the University of Toronto's faculty of social work, her inbox was flooded with e-mails, many of them from visible-minority students letting her know how much she had inspired them. Dr.

It's Sunday at Queen's University's historic Douglas Library, and the place is buzzing. Upstairs, at ancient oak tables under stained-glass windows, laptops display Word documents and Excel spreadsheets for those students getting their homework done - and MSN Messenger, MySpace and Facebook for those who aren't.

What comes to mind most readily when you hear the word "comics?" Incredulity over the fact that a simple pair of glasses keeps the Daily Planet's seasoned reporters from guessing that their colleague Clark Kent is secretly Superman? Bewilderment over Betty and Veronica's helpless attraction to a nondescript redhead like Archie? Chances are the first thoughts that enter your brain aren't "suitable subject for serious academic inquiry. " Still, across the country an increasing number of universities are offering courses on comics, and a growing band of scholars are coming to the conclusion that the medium provides fertile territory for all kinds of research projects.

In a society preoccupied with eternal youth, probing the deeper and sometimes darker questions surrounding aging, death and dying isn't something many of us like to do. But as human life spans increase thanks to the help of modern medicine and technology, we are living longer than ever before and, as a result, are faced with increasingly complex moral and social issues surrounding our own longevity.

What is it like running a university in a province where economic growth rivals that of China and the provincial coffers are overflowing? University of Calgary President Harvey Weingarten has one word: "Wonderful!" Dr. Weingarten moved from McMaster University to Calgary nearly six years ago, attracted by the can-do spirit of Alberta but well before boom times hit the province.

As senior undergraduate students, we were hired by the University of Calgary to research how well inquiry-based learning is understood and how much it is used in undergraduate courses at our university. The research project turned out to be the best learning experience, by far, that either of us encountered in our 12 years combined as undergraduate students.