Welcome return

Re: “Homecoming to return in 2013”

Dear Editors,

I was happy and excited to announce in December that Queen’s Homecoming would be reinstated in the fall of 2013.

But I thought it worthwhile to point out that this decision was about much more than “good student behaviour last October,” as your article suggests (“Homecoming to return in 2013,” January 11), and which would imply that past problems with the event were entirely to do with student actions.

As I wrote in a recent blog post, I have felt encouraged by the good judgment that people in general (including but not limited to students) have been showing when gathering informally in the years since our annual event was put on hold.

The decision to reinstate Homecoming was taken in consultation with the University’s Office of Advancement and the Queen’s University Alumni Association, along with the Rector and student leaders from the AMS, the SGPS, and the QSAA.

Kingston Police, Emergency Services, municipal government and city residents were also involved in the process, which took more than a year.

It was not a decision I made lightly, nor one that was based on recent student behaviour alone, but rather on all these parties’ collective confidence that adequate planning was now in place to relaunch the event with minimal risk of the recurrence of the sort of unsafe activities that have happened in the past.

I am thankful to all of these groups — students included — for their participation in this important work, work that led to the December 11 announcement.

I hope that good judgement continues this fall so that everyone — alumni, students, and community members — can enjoy the wonderful and unique experience that is a Queen’s Homecoming.

Sincerely,

Daniel Woolf

Principal and Vice-Chancellor