Volume 29 - Number 15 - Thursday, April 24, 1997





Bear care

Eight-year-old Stéphanie Hébert took her favourite stuffed teddy to the Montreal Children's Hospital's Teddy Bear Clinic, part of the annual Salon de la maternité, de la paternité et des enfants at Place Bonaventure. Carole Tétreault, manager of medical imaging and cardiology at the Children's, gave the ursa mini a thorough check--right down to an X-ray-and found him to be in grrreat shape.





Reach out and recruit someone

Are you a gregarious sort? Do you want to help convince some of the best and brightest young minds out there that McGill is the school for them? If so, Trish Duff (right) has a phone and list of numbers waiting for you.

Duff, McGill first-year coordinator for new students, is in charge of a series of phonathons in which student and staff volunteers call high school graduates from outside the province who have been offered admission by McGill.

Duff says the first phonathon--targeted at American high school students--went well. "The response was really positive. The students appreciated the opportunity to find out more about McGill." Duff's team of volunteers call prospective students for four faculties--arts, science, education and management. Other faculties, such as engineering, already have similar programs in place.

Duff says the American students "had all kinds of questions. People wanted to know about student residences, Montreal, the University's programs, financial aid, frosh programs. There were lots and lots of questions about residences." When a parent picked up the phone, they tended to zero in on another concern altogether. "The parents want to know how safe McGill and Montreal are."

The volunteers are provided scripts to help them deal with some of the most frequently asked questions and experts are on hand to help answer some of the more difficult queries.

Duff is looking for some help for the next series of phonathons. Canadian students outside Ontario will be called between May 12 and 25, while Ontario students will be phoned from June 13 to 15. Duff can be reached at 4990.





Dear Hannah...

While putting the final touches on her art history degree, Hannah Rogers (above) has been busy trying to help teens from around the world deal with everything from unrequited crushes to suicidal impulses.

Rogers is a volunteer for Teen Advice Online, an American-based website that tries to help teenagers deal with personal problems by putting them in touch electronically with a team of volunteer counselors who provide advice and support. In particularly serious cases, the counselors supply the teens with the numbers of medical and mental health hotlines.

There are over 60 volunteer Teen Advice Online counselors from countries including the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Japan, Israel, Singapore, Chile and India. The service named Rogers its Counselor of the Month for April.

"Hannah is tops. She gives it her all," says Teen Advice Online administrator Cheryl Fenner, who credits Rogers with compassion and common sense. "She's very committed. I ask all the counselors to respond to at least 10 questions a week. Hannah tries to answer them all. That can be 100 sometimes. I often see e-mail coming from her at one in the morning."

"I found out about [the website] purely by accident--I was just surfing the Internet," says Rogers. "It's been really interesting. It's made me think about becoming a counselor. There are kids out there dealing with all kinds of things--sexual assault, depression, divorce. I do what I can to help out."

Rogers is the outgoing administrator of Lesbians, Bisexuals, Gays and Transgendered Students at McGill. "Hannah is very open about her sexuality and that's been a plus," says Fenner. "There are a lot of kids looking for support in that area. She is just a wonderful person."






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