Daily News

Posted on Sept. 4: Classrooms ready for the return of students

When classes resume Thursday, some students will find themselves sitting in new and newly renovated classrooms. "McMaster has worked extremely hard to prepare for the first students of the double cohort," says Karen Belaire, vice-president administration. "And it shows." In the Refectory, the dining area has been converted into a lecture hall. Renovations to this 250-seat room include flooring, lighting, electrical, audio/visual, and window treatments. Writing palettes for the seats have yet to be delivered. McMaster's largest and most heavily used classroom on campus is Room 120 in Togo Salmon Hall. "It has been completely renovated over the summer. I believe students will be pleasantly surprised when they see it," says Ken Norrie, provost and vice-president academic. Arthur Bourns Building Room 102 and Burke Sciences Building Room B135/B136 also have new seating and lighting upgrades. Three classrooms are available in the AIC Wing, an e-commerce annex constructed on the southwest corner of the Michael G. DeGroote building. This two-storey addition houses three new classrooms, labs, and office space and includes a link to the current building in the basement. The temporary classroom, located on the southeast tennis court, west of the Ivor Wynne Centre, will help accommodate much of the increased student enrolment. This facility will be ready for classes on Monday. Students with classes in this building on Thursday and Friday are instructed to go to the facility (Building T-28) where they will be provided with additional information. Some classes are being relocated and others will be cancelled.* "Construction crews were racing to put the finishing touches on it. In fact, people were working on it through the Labour Day weekend trying to get everything completed in time," says Belaire. *Note: Click here for T28 Classroom information

Posted on Aug. 30: Research may aid in more effective drug addiction treatments

New research by McMaster University researchers suggests that a learned compensatory response can trigger "drug tolerance," a physiological process central to addiction. Drug tolerance makes people need more and more drug to get the same effect, whether pain relief or a "high." Its newly discovered psychological aspect -- in which a drug-predictive cue primes the body to react "as if" the drug effect is imminent -- might be used to treat addiction more effectively. In short, if drug tolerance can be learned, there's a chance it can be unlearned, reducing or eliminating the tolerance-related cravings and other withdrawal symptoms can lead addicts to relapse. Research by McMaster psychology professor Shepard Siegel, graduate student Marta Sokolowska, and McMaster alumnus Joseph Kim (now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco) demonstrated that there is a powerful "internal cue" process that stimulates the body to react to the effect of a drug. The research results were recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes. "The effect of a drug depends not only on our response to the drug, but also our response to stimuli that in the past have been paired with the drug. We've known this for a long time in terms of external stimuli, such as where and when a drug is taken, but now it's also clear that internal stimuli also play an important role," says Siegel. Current drug addiction treatment programs often include a component that tries to remove the effects of the external cues (so-called "cue exposure treatments"), but they ignore the importance of internal cues.

Posted on Aug. 29: Students call McMaster home this weekend

This weekend, approximately 3,000 bodies will descend upon campus armed with suitcases, boxes and crates. It's move-in weekend, and that means heavy traffic and jammed parking lots. "The new school term is less than a week away, and like all departments, Housing and Conference Services is busy preparing for the beginning of another exciting year," says Cathie Miller, director of Housing and Conference Services. "We are gearing up to welcome the class of 2006' as well as returning students who will be moving into University residences over the Labour Day weekend."