From Sunday, March 13 to Friday, March 18, four students from the Telfer School of Management will brave the cold to sleep outside the Thompson Residence, near the Morisset Library and Unicentre entrances, in support of the national Five Days for the Homeless campaign.

Eating and drinking donated items only, and living without access to the many creature comforts we all take for granted such as beds, showers and cell phones, these students will seek to raise funds and awareness of homelessness. Together with students at Carleton University, they are collecting donations in an effort to raise $15,000 for the local charity Operation Come Home, which focuses on homeless youth at risk.

I encourage you to support this important cause by visiting these students, who are forgoing their comforts for five full days and nights. You can drop off your donations directly with them or make a contribution through the Five Days for the Homeless website. Just select Ottawa (Ottawa U) from the Choose a School menu at the top of the page.

I am often asked why we call ourselves "Canada's university." Sometimes I get the impression (especially when speaking with colleagues from other campuses) that people regard the term as presumptuous or even arrogant. Let me explain why it is neither, but rather just a statement of fact.

Not only are we situated in the heart of Canada's capital, at the very meeting point of francophones and anglophones in Canada, but we also embody and reflect some of the defining characteristics of our country:

• We operate in both official languages, offering courses in both French and English in the vast majority of our 360 undergraduate programs. No other university in Canada even comes close to our record for bilingualism;

• Many of our faculties have a distinctly national character. For example, our Faculty of Law has sections for both systems of law used in Canada-Droit Civil and Common Law-and each system is taught in both French and English. (And by the way, we provide a large number of the law clerks hired by the Supreme Court of Canada judges every year.) Our faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences lead the National Consortium (funded by the Government of Canada) training health care professionals to offer services to francophone minorities outside Quebec;

• We were chosen by the Canadian government as the headquarters for Language Rights Support Program in 2009;

• Our location has allowed us to develop a special relationship with the federal public service, some examples of which include research partnerships with the National Research Council, the hundreds of CO-OP students we place in various federal departments and the 5,000 federal public servants who took continuing education courses here last year; and

• Our professors provide policy advice and insightful research to senior federal officials in fields as diverse as foreign affairs, public health and the environment.

So the next time someone asks you why we are known as "Canada's university," don't hesitate to tell them that it's a title we deserve!

Maybe you remember having to walk to the University two years ago because of the bus strike. Maybe you want to bike to the campus but there aren’t enough bike paths. Or maybe you don’t like how your neighbourhood is being developed.

All of these issues and more are decided by municipal politicians. From garbage collection to zoning decisions and traffic control, municipal politicians make decisions that affect your daily life. This coming Monday, if you live in Ontario, you’ll have the opportunity to choose who will make these decisions, by voting in the municipal elections.

Need to find out about the issues? Just google "[name of your municipality] municipal elections," and you’ll get everything from news sites to blogs to links to candidates’ websites. For information on how to vote if you live in Ottawa, check out the City of Ottawa’s elections website.

Above all, show that you value democracy and care about your city: vote!