2006 – Students protest the removal of the beloved golden hawk from the Hall of Fame
Due to the renovations in the C-Spot, the Students’ Union logo disappeared from the ground tiles on the second floor of the Fred Nichols Campus Centre. It was replaced by a new Hawk logo mounted on a Hall of Fame wall to avoid hallway congestion. Students did not react favourably to the change.
One student is quoted as saying, “I still won’t walk on the hawk” referring to the masking tape hawk outline of where the logo used to be.
2004 – Pikecoming not recognized by WLU
In 2003, several counterfeit tickets were used to sneak into the annual “Pikecoming” party. With numbers well exceeding the 1,500-person capacity, dangerous riots erupted when the kegs ran dry.
Greek Life being a campus club at the time, WLUSU put the brakes on plans for the 2004 Pikecoming in two weeks.
Despite this, the Pikes reportedly had no intention to listen to WLUSU and cancel the party. “We’ve been planning it all summer,” said Jamie King, then president of Pi Kappa Alpha, “it’s an ongoing tradition at Laurier”.
1993 – Fear of major tuition fee hikes
By recommendation of the Council of Ontario Universities, standard undergraduate tuition fees were set to rise 30 per cent over the two years following 1993. For a full-time arts or science undergraduate, this rise indicates a maximum of $3,030 from the then current rate of $2,026.
Heather Russel of the Ontario Community College Student Parliamentary Association was quoted as saying, “They’re talking about tuition fee levels that could never be acceptable under any circumstance.”