Such well-known Canadians as Alex Trebek, Mike Holmes, Hayley Wickenheiser, Paul Gross, Kristen Kreuk and Howie Mandel have thrown their support behind a Windsor Law project celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The group will launch The Charter Project today at 1 p.m. during a ceremony at Osgoode Hall in Toronto. The event, sponsored by the Law Society of Upper Canada, will include such speakers as Ontario Lieutenant Governor David C. Onley and Roy McMurtry, former Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal and one of the charter’s 1982 architects.

The Charter Project, the brainchild of Windsor Law’s 2012 graduating class, includes a series of public service announcements featuring Canadian celebrities discussing the charter and encouraging Canadians to “Join the Discussion.”

The project’s co-founders, Byron Pascoe and Michael O’Brien, say they intend the nationwide educational and public awareness campaign to involve Canadians in a dialogue about their rights and freedoms.

“Canada is the best country in the world to live for many reasons, including the fact that we can have open discussion about rights without the fear of being persecuted,” Pascoe says. “As students studying the law, we have a responsibility to play an active role in ensuring that all members of our community at large have access to justice, including education of the law.”

Join the Discussion public service announcements will begin appearing in movie theatres this Friday, March 16th, and can be viewed at www.charterproject.ca/watch. The projects’ media relations coordinator Lama Sabbagh and Heather MacIvor, a former political science professor now studying law, will discuss the project on Research Matters, a weekly talk show that airs on CJAM 99.1 fm, Thursday at 4:30 p.m.

The students have also developed a workshop for high school classrooms promoting Access to Justice, the theme of Law Day 2012, to be held in mid-April. Additionally, the group has filmed a series of interviews with legal experts and others who can offer unique historical perspectives on the historic document.

As a legacy project, Windsor Law 2012 plans to endow a social justice fellowship at the Faculty of Law that will provide law students with a yearly opportunity to work for a Canadian social justice oriented organization of their choice with no cost to the organization.

When Ian Campeau hits the stage at the St. Clair Centre for the Arts this Saturday night he hopes to create a vibe that will help aboriginal students get in touch with their roots and stimulate a discussion to bridge the divide between first peoples and the rest of Canadian culture.

“We embrace our culture and hope to bring that to other aboriginals,” said Campeau, one of the founding members of A Tribe Called Red, an Ottawa-based trio of DJs known to blend dub-step music with traditional native pow-wow tracks. “We’re creating a culture that’s opening a door to an important conversation that has to happen between aboriginals and non-aboriginals.”

Campeau, aka DJ NDN, and his partners – Dan General, a two time Canadian Disco Mix Club champion who goes by the moniker DJ Shub, and Bear Witness – will perform at A Drum Social & Gathering of Stories. Hosted by the university’s Turtle Island Aboriginal Education Centre and the St. Clair College First Nation, Metis and Inuit Centre, the event will celebrate Aboriginal/First Nations artists and story-tellers, as well as community role models.

“We really want to highlight our talent, and it’s quite significant,” said Turtle Island director Russell Nahdee. “We want to highlight their achievements.”

Also on the bill that day will be three-time world boxing champion and Olympic hopeful Mary Spencer and Jospeh Boyden, author and Giller Prize award winner. The event kicks off Friday night with a drum and dance social, and continues Saturday with interactive exhibits, story-telling and the performance by A Tribe Called Red.

Campeau, who grew up in Ottawa and calls the Nipissing First Nations Reserve near North Bay his home reserve, said his crew has been extremely busy performing during the last year. They recently returned from five days in Vancouver, and have played shows in Indiana, Philadelphia, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Toronto.

His group kind of stumbled on mixing pow-wow music with dub step several years ago when they started experimenting with it.

“It sounded great and that was that,” he said.

They unveiled their sound in 2008 at a club in Ottawa. It was an instant success and became a regular gig, now known as the Electric Pow-Wow. He said they don’t limit themselves to aboriginal mixes and the audience is usually an even split of first peoples and non-aboriginals.

This weekend’s event is open to everyone and Nahdee is encouraging both aboriginals and non-aboriginals to attend and get to know one another. For more information, contact the Turtle Island Centre at 519-253-3000 ext. 3481.

Watch a video about A Tribe Called Red.

In a memo to students, staff and faculty on Monday, UWindsor president Alan Wildeman called a stabbing outside the CAW Student Centre during the early morning hours of Friday, March 9, “shocking and highly unusual for our campus.”

He credited the tremendous co-operation and teamwork of those responding to the situation with helping to maintain the safety of our community.

“I would like to thank everyone on campus and those emergency personnel who came to our assistance for their co-operation and compassion during this difficult time,” Wildeman wrote “Most deeply, I would like to express our best wishes for the quick recovery of those who were injured.”

Read the entire memo.

What better way to celebrate the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter than to ή β π? That’s eta beta pi to you non-Greeks.

Students in the math and computer science societies invite the campus community to join them for a Pi Day party in honour of the mathematical constant, Wednesday, March 14. The event starts at 1:59 p.m. (get it? 3.14, 1:59 …) in room 3150, Erie Hall – appropriately enough, the Java lab.

There will be pie on offer, promise organizers.

A workshop hosted by the Centre for Enterprise and Law on Thursday, March 15, offers students help with writing a business plan in preparation for a $25,000 Ontario-wide competition.

The competition will bring investment to new businesses that can demonstrate the potential for economic impact. It is open to students or recent grads from the University of Windsor and St. Clair College.

Thursday’s workshop starts at 4 p.m. in Alumni Hall’s McPherson Lounge. Register for the business plan workshop here.

The deadline to submit a business plan to the Discovery 2012 competition is March 20. Find details about the competition on the centre’s Web site.

The University Bookstore will offer discounts on thousands of books, plus UWindsor-themed clothing, giftware, board games, and school, office and computer supplies during its annual overstock sale, Tuesday in the CAW Student Centre.

The sale will include books marked as low as 99 cents, and clothing priced to clear. It runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 13 in the centre’s Commons area.

The International Wednesdays documentary series presents India Reborn: Manufacturing Dreams, tomorrow at noon in the International Student Centre on the second floor of Laurier Hall.

India produces an annual output of 1000 films, but obsession with the movies runs beyond watching them. Bollywood—Hindi cinema—has seeped into every aspect of life of people in this vast and diverse nation.

India Reborn charts the rise of one of the world’s emerging super powers. In this second part of the series originally produced for the CBC, directors Gert Anhalt and Jacqueline Corkery explore the experiences of people living through India’s dramatic transformation.

International Wednesdays screenings are free and open to the public.

Up to half of all cancers can be either prevented or detected before they become a serious threat to your health. When it comes to cancer, an ounce of prevention and screening is worth more than a pound of cure!

A session for UWindsor employees will focus on general risk factors that individuals have control over and can change. Cancer Care Ontario developed the “Your Health Matters” information session to enhance participants’ understanding of the risks.

The one-hour session is being offered at 9 a.m. on three dates: March 14, 20 and 21. Find more information and online registration on the Web site of the Human Resources department.

People engaging in argument will profit understanding the motivations underlying a disagreement, says Frank Zenker.

A post-doctoral fellow at the Filosofiska institutionen of Sweden’s Lund University, he will explore a mathematical model to determine the limits of debate in his free public lecture, “From Pro/Con to Compromise,” in the seminar room of Parker House, 105 Sunset Avenue, on Wednesday, March 14, at 3 p.m.

“Arguers can make use of these conditions in deciding how -- and whether -- to engage in a particular debate,” says Dr. Zenker. “The primary aim is to account for the fact that argumentative resolutions of deep disagreements appear impossible and in such cases, it is rational to start bargaining, rather than continue debating.”

This event is sponsored by the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric.

Voting for CJAMfm’s annual Jammy Awards will continue through March.

The awards recognize the best programs on the campus-community radio station in 10 categories, as well as local musicians and venues for live acts. CJAM will holds an awards ceremony in early April, says volunteer coordinator Sarah Morris.

“We want to celebrate the contributions of our dedicated volunteer hosts,” she says.

Cast your ballot on the Jammy Awards Web site.