This trio of McGill students earned an impressive title recently. They placed first in the Northeast Regional Programming Contest organized by the Association for Computing Machinery, competing against such powerhouse teams as MIT and Dartmouth.

"We had to solve seven programming problems in five hours, says Patrick Lam (centre), a second-year student in math and computer science. "We got through four of them in the first half, but the last three questions were pretty difficult. "We became really stressed," adds teammate Sébastien Loisel (left), "and we couldn't solve anything in the last half." Runner-up MIT solved four of the questions but took two hours longer to do it than McGill.

Lam and Loisel, a master's student in math, competed at the regional level last year as well, but were disappointed by the experience. Despite the fact that the ACM is the most prestigious programming competition in the world, come the day of the contest nobody could get the computers to work.

"It took more than two hours to get anything going," says Loisel. "In the end they had to look at the things we had written down and base some of the judging on that."

Winning the regional competition means that Lam, Loisel and teammate Alex Ghitza, a second-year math student, will go on to represent McGill in the finals in Atlanta at the end of February. Teams from 50 countries will be competing there, and once exams are over, the three will get down to some serious preparation.

They're only missing one thing, according to Loisel. "We're still looking for some groupies."

If you've ever sat mum at a meeting or stumbled through an oral presentation filled with "ers"and "ums," you may be suffering from a very common affliction. Survey after survey shows that most people's single greatest fear is speaking in public.

A group that feels your pain is Toastmasters International, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people learn how to control their nervousness and acquire the ability to communicate effectively in any situation.

With 8,500 clubs worldwide and 900 in Canada, the 73-year-old organization has just opened a Toastmasters club at McGill.

Club president David White is one of 24 MBA students who have just "graduated" from an eight-session Toastmasters speaking workshop and he found the experience "fantastic."

With the help of local businessman Van Petteway, a governor with the organization, the McGill branch is up and running and will be holding its first meeting in January. White says the club is open to all interested faculty, staff and students. In addition to more effective public speaking, Toastmasters offers help with conducting meetings, organizing special events and motivating people. If you're interested, come to the open house at 6:15 on Friday, January 16 in the Bronfman Building, Room 347. All are welcome. You can also contact Van Petteway, 846-3234 or David White, 938-3172, dwhite@po-box.mcgill.ca.

According to Professor David Covo, McGill's campus "is a storehouse of architectural delights." This quote from the director of the School of Architecture appears in a foreword to a new book about the University's historic buildings. And although some may be getting a little scruffy at the edges, they are beautifully preserved in the collaborative work of text and drawings by Joan Edward and Nancy Onyszchuk called Rediscovering McGill's Heritage.

Edward, who credits Onyszchuk with suggesting the idea for the book, spent the past three years "sketching day in and day out, in all seasons and all temperatures" while her partner researched the history of the buildings.

You'll learn about the people behind the familiar names like Allan the richest man in Canada and father of 12, whose 60-room Tuscan-style villa became the Allan Memorial Institute  as well as Morrice, McTavish and Roddick.

In her introduction, Onyszchuk says, "Preparing this book has been an exhilarating adventure into Montreal's pastÉWe have rubbed elbows with the ghosts of men who helped to build a country and a university from scratch."

Rediscovering McGill's Heritage was officially launched last week and is available at the Bookstore.