I was somewhat surprised to read in your edition of Oct. 2nd that I had  “approved the creation of a new Indigenous Studies Program within the Faculty of Arts,” since I do not have the authority to approve programs. However, I have on many occasions, over several years (including this year) indicated that I support the establishment of such a program and that I look forward to the Faculty’s receiving a concrete proposal through the normal program approval process.  I am pleased to know that a group of students is working on such a proposal, and I look forward to collaborating with them to design a program that will enrich the Faculty’s interdisciplinary offerings.

If you’ve been to campus recently, you’ve probably come across Community Engagement Day promotions, or maybe you even saw the tent on the Lower Field on October 5th. Maybe you even bothered to look into it; heck, you could have even registered to participate.

So what did Community Engagement Day (CED) mean for the students involved, for the community organizations, for McGill, as an institution? What does it mean—for a school so focused on academics—to have an entire day dedicated to the importance of the Community Engagement? Was it simply a passive way to fulfill McGill’s social responsibility and community engagement agenda? I like to think that it was more than a formality. I like to think that McGill has finally begun to understand that in today’s society, integration with community is just as important as academic achievements, as entrepreneurial success, as scientific progress—because without community, all those things are rendered meaningless.

A ‘well-rounded’ individual is no longer just a grad school requirement—it has become a very basic expectation, and community service is perhaps the easiest and the most rewarding way to fulfill it.

I’d like to think that there is a culture shift at McGill, whereby students are taught to appreciate social sustainability, and are encouraged to be proactive in their education. I’d like to think that a few hours at a local shelter, or a day spent cleaning up one’s neighbourhood can be seen to be just as resourceful as a blackboard or a projector screen at the front of a classroom. Moreover, I’d hope that this alternative—community education—could receive even a fraction of the recognition attributed to formal education.

I know I didn’t come to university expecting to learn everything from behind the desk. I came to learn by doing. Community Engagement Day has allowed me to do just that, in more engaging and rewarding ways than this letter can express. If you didn’t take part in CED, the world didn’t end. But it didn’t get any better either.  So get involved, change your views, and allow yourself to accept challenges and risks that will enrich your university experience. Stop fooling yourself into thinking these things don’t matter, or you’ll break your leg kicking yourself later.

Last Tuesday, Justin Trudeau announced the launch of his much-anticipated Liberal leadership campaign. The speech appealed to a wider base, reflecting the party’s need to re-establish itself in the centre of the Canadian political spectrum, staving off a rapidly expanding NDP and the ideologically-grounded Conservative party. In order to win the leadership of the party, the 40-year-old MP needs to establish himself as a serious candidate—beyond his popularity, and distinct from his father’s legacy. Trudeau needs to demonstrate that he is fully capable of recovering significant ground for the Liberals without letting his idealism eclipse more concrete policy points.

“The key to Canadian unity is the shared sense of purpose so hard to define but so deeply felt, the sense that we are all in this together,” Trudeau said at the rally. “That when Albertans do well, it creates opportunities for Quebeckers. That when Quebeckers create and innovate, it echoes across the country and around the world.  That whether you’re in St. Boniface or St. John’s, Mississauga or Surrey, we have common struggles and common dreams.”

Trudeau is asking Canadians to allow him to lead the Liberal Party through much needed, balanced reform. It’s unclear that the yet unproven candidate can do so with unsubstantive rhetoric.

Trudeau is an accessible candidate. He can appeal directly to a younger generation of voters, has an ambitious vision of a unified Canada, and this past Tuesday, proved he could land lines in both English and French.  While these are all virtuous qualities in an energetic politician, it is all for naught if his aspirations cannot yet be carried out by the Liberal party. Though the scope of Trudeau’s objectives for the country are impressive, I am sceptical about his ability to keep up with big-picture claims.

After his party’s loss of 43 seats last May, Trudeau agrees that Liberals needs more than just a change in leadership. In what is now a much narrower political environment, Trudeau—if he wins the leadership race—should seek a more measured, policy-based, and structured recovery. With the NDP in position as a viable opposition, the Liberal Party cannot afford to disappoint a new wave of Canadians. Beyond the leadership race, idealistic promises and a lack of experience won’t benefit Trudeau nor the Liberal Party.

Are there benefits to Trudeau’s bold rhetoric? Sure, broad ideas for the role of the middle class, Indigenous peoples, Quebeckers, and young Canadians have the potential to hugely shift the political discussion and the potential to invoke real and positive change; however, rhetoric without clear policy could hurt both the candidate and his own party. Expectations are high for Trudeau. He needs to escape his own celebrity, and demonstrate he can effectively lead his party back to a position where it can contend for control of parliament. The Liberal Party itself is in rough shape and has to compete within a tighter federal race where idealistic assertions will not win seats, and are in need of a more realistic platform.

At his launch event, Trudeau was asking for our trust, or rather, the opportunity to earn our trust. Tempting as it is to believe the young, articulate MP from Papineau can enact his vision of a revived Liberal Party and the induction of a unified Canada, the capacities of the recovering Liberal Party trying to wedge their way back into the centre of a more crowded playing field are cause for wariness. It’s not Trudeau’s lack of ambition that concerns me—it’s all political.

Earlier this year, India’s most well-known newspaper, The Times of India, was found to have recycled a three-year-old full page cover story word-for-word as a paid-for advertisement. There has been an alarming regularity with which incidents of gross misconduct have come to light: for example, over 100 Harvard students cheated on an exam last academic year. Closer to home, Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail admitted to running excerpts written by others in a July 2009 column, passing them off as her own. Most recently, the Harvard Crimson scrutinized Paul Krugman’s citation standards in one of his NYT op-eds.

Each of these cases (barring Dr. Krugman, of course—journalistic citations demand integrity but definitely offer some latitude) presents interesting questions to ponder. Can money cloud the judgment of a newspaper enough for it to sell its masthead to advertisers? Does the promise of getting a good grade on a final motivate an entire class to cheat? Would the prospect of publishing a spectacular piece drive a columnist to sample other’s thoughts and opinions without credit? Wente is certainly not an exception in this case. These questions are eloquently summed up by American philosopher Martha Nussbaum in her The Fragility of Goodness. This philosophical treatise is Nussbaum’s authoritative view on notions of tragedy and ethics. By analyzing ethical dilemmas, Nussbaum puts forward a pointed question: Why should anyone do the right thing when there are no particularly striking incentives for good behaviour?

The motivation for such acts of plagiarism largely stem from mismanaged time. During the years we spend at McGill, there’s always room for a lapse or two—under the brutal force of a looming deadline, all standards of ethics and originality can crumble. When immediate focus is placed entirely on submitting an assignment, acing a final, or turning in a report, the final results—grades—take precedence. Acquisition of knowledge and expertise in a field feel like utopian ideals in a system of education that seemingly acts against you. The joy and goal of learning seem mundane as we don roles of assignment-completing, number-crunching machines. The incentives are not apparent; the options tempting, even corrupting. In the viral age, it is much easier to give in, and it is just as easy to get caught.

[pullquote]Why should anyone do the right thing when there are no particularly striking incentives for good behaviour?[/pullquote]

Finding the right incentives lies at the core of reform. All is not right with the way higher education functions. Most institutions deal with plagiarism by penalizing misbehaviour. The failure to acknowledge and reward good deeds can counteract the effects of these supposed bulwarks that prevent damage. For instance, many consumers at the grocery store check-out line continue to spring the few additional cents for a plastic bag without thinking, and wasteful behaviour progresses in an infinite loop. The ideal solution to this issue is to charge more and provide a cloth bag. Any sensible consumer would eventually bring his or her own cloth bag (likely purchased at a check-out line at some point). This sort of positive penalization promotes good behaviour.

The solution to academic dishonesty is a similar one. Instead of handing out an identical problem-set to a class, students should be allowed to select from a pool of challenging questions. Additionally, the weighting of assignments towards the final grade can be reduced to a bare minimum, assuming that most of the cheating happens on assignments. If such a system were replicated in educational establishments today, there’s some hope for the preservation of the ideals in a real university education.

With AUS elections underway (voting period is from October 4th-10th), debate on the importance of student politics is particularly potent. The recent discussion on student politics in the Tribune has suggested two things: first, there are core reasons we should be politically active on campus; second, political activism helps students identify with those reasons, providing an impetus for these students to get involved.

However, students should not be expected to come to McGill with an understanding of their role in McGill civil society, nor should they be expected to understand the political context in which they entered McGill. The lack of involvement in student politics suggests a lack of grassroots engagement with students. Any civil society’s reach is dependent on its ability to demonstrate its cause to be important.

Sometimes, students are simply unaware of the issues on which they are able to take a stance. The AUS and other faculty associations should focus on how to illustrate the importance of political involvement on campus. It is a long-term goal, and perhaps waiting to reap its benefit could seem too distant. However,  without an effective ability to elect individuals who can identify and communicate the issues that would mobilize students to vote, it would be pointless to run a political society in the first place. Reliable and effective dissemination of information regarding substantial student issues have become underrated. Modes of communication, like listservs, have arguably proven themselves to be less user-friendly than they should be. As a whole, spreading awareness has become far too undervalued to make any meaningful progress.

[pullquote]The lack of involvement in student politics suggests a lack of grassroots engagement with students.[/pullquote]

Political leadership, especially in a student society, necessitates striking a balance between taking one’s own initiative and accommodating people’s needs. Unfortunately, to compel engagement in civil society (voting), student leaders tend to inadvertently become too representative, and this has upset the balance needed in student leadership. Taking too much individual initiative breeds stagnation, in part because students are unaware of many issues. As a result, candidates end up failing to voice issues that resonate with them the most, all the while making empty promises of “this is how I would deal with your hypothetical issues.” This, once again, ultimately leads to a failure in progress through their own initiative, as well as the hypothetical initiative of students.

The question thus lies in whether McGill student associations can make their automatic memberships serve a clearly defined purpose. The problem with the lack of student involvement in campus politics alludes to a structural issue, and begs the question of whether there is a need to manipulate the structure of campus civil society to necessitate student government as an entity in the first place. There is a need for more encouragement to engage in the democratic process.