The McGill Senate on Dec. 2 rejected a motion to suspend the body’s standing rules, which prevented it from reintroducing a proposal to implement a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) grading option for students this semester. In a controversial move, they referred it back to the Steering Committee, even though it had already[Read More…]
Articles by Jonah Fried
Making sense of McGill’s underfunding crisis
Students come to McGill for many reasons. For domestic students, it is an affordable, high-ranking, historically anglophone university; for international students, McGill’s prestige is comparable to top schools globally. But many students, especially international and out-of-province first years, are surprised to find that McGill’s services and resources are severely[Read More…]
Finding a new sense of American patriotism at McGill
I spent my last meal at McGill’s Bishop Mountain Dining Hall trying to rationalize going home to New York. With COVID-19 cases mounting, all of the jokes I had made about U.S. backwardness ceased to be funny. Instead, the America that I had tried to wish away became all too[Read More…]
Reinforcing Bill 101 is Discrimination 101
A reinvigorated Bill 101 looms over Quebec, and if it descends, it could impede demographic reconciliation in the province. Enacted in 1977, the bill established French as the official language of Quebec, forcing government agencies, many businesses, and other institutions to conduct operations in French. While the bill is longstanding[Read More…]
Point-Counterpoint: Old literature or new literature?
The McGill Tribune contributors Sequoia Kim and Jonah Fried present their opinions on old versus new literature. The case for contemporary literature Sequoia Kim Literature has been foundational to the ebb and flow of ideas in the world: Words and stories inform, persuade, and inspire us. However, bookshelves are[Read More…]
McGill is not an “Antisemitic University”
Over the winter break, I was excited to talk with my family and friends about McGill, but defending the university’s name against accusations of antisemitism was not what I had in mind. Instead of sitting down to the ordinary Shabbat dinner with loved ones, I stumbled into defending a McGill[Read More…]
Embrace the McGill lifestyle
McGill is a quintessential ‘take it or leave it’ school. Far from fully supporting its students, many of the institution’s realities make it unnecessarily difficult for students to succeed. Most emblematic, academic advisors are overworked because the need to serve as many students as possible in the shortest amount of[Read More…]
“Made by McGill” disregards students’ ongoing concerns
Two years ago, McGill cut its Eating Disorder Program. Then, this fall, a change in policy left note-takers working for McGill’s Office for Student Disabilities without proper compensation. McGill has excused these cuts, and other functional problems, as tough decisions forced upon the administration by complex financial difficulties stemming from[Read More…]
Gentrification falls on university administrations too
Urban universities take up a lot of space, and their presence has a profound impact on local neighborhoods’ economies. When universities such as McGill, Concordia, or the University of Montreal (UdeM) expand their properties or develop new ones, property values in the surrounding area tend to increase and developers pressure[Read More…]
Voting responsibly means voting sustainably
Just as abrupt changes in leaves’ colours herald the coming of winter, shifts in global environment signal that our world is on the cusp of a climate crisis. There is currently an insect apocalypse, and the drastic decline in global bird populations over the past few decades is starting to[Read More…]
Everyone deserves a fair share of clean air
Montreal residents generally live for a long time, but environmental injustice threatens to change that for many. According to a study released by the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, the east end’s regional health board, people living in the east end of Montreal live,[Read More…]
Stepping off of (vape) cloud nine
Like a category five hurricane making landfall midsummer, swirling clouds of mango-flavoured e-cigarette vapour have descended upon North American university campuses. The vape is becoming as ubiquitous today as cigarettes were 60 years ago. Advertising themselves as safer alternatives to smoking cigarettes, products such as the Juul exploded onto the[Read More…]