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The Tribune’s winter referenda endorsements

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Composition of SSMU Council: Yes

The most significant change in the composition of the SSMU council proposes the removal of the Architecture Councillor seat. This reform represents a fairer representation process as the Architecture Students’ Association is already represented by the Engineering Undergraduate Society. The Architecture Students’ Association has also agreed to this change. The Tribune is therefore voting ‘Yes.’

Addition of interfaculty arts & science rep: Yes

Interfaculty arts and science students are underrepresented on council. Many of the faculty’s major and minor programs are distinct from the individual arts and science faculties, and thus they require their own representative. In addition, 98.11 per cent of students  in a recent BASiC (Bachelor of Arts & Science Integrative Council) referendum voted in favour of this change. The Tribune believes this to be an overwhelming advocation of the change.

Reform of Judicial Board to comply with Quebec law: Yes

The Tribune supports the rule of Quebec law, which states that the final authority of a corporation has to be the Board of Directors. As the current structure states that the Judicial Board (J-Board) has the final authority, the current structure of J-Board needs to be reformed to fall into compliance with Quebec law. The Tribune encourages voting in favour of this reform, which simply includes changing the terms of the SSMU constitution so that the Board of Directors is the final authority in determining whether the rulings of the J-Board are valid.

J-Board procedural accountability: Yes

Currently the J-Board’s internal rules of practice are not easily accessible to students. There are no stated specifications on how the J-Board’s rules are changed, or even what notice needs to be given to SSMU members. The Tribune supports voting ‘Yes’ because it will make the J-Board’s procedures subject to ratification by the SSMU legislative council, and will make J-Board more transparent to the rest of the SSMU community by ensuring that the board makes public its rules of practice.

SSMU health and dental plan: Yes

The price of the SSMU health and dental plan has not gone up since 2005. The costs of running the plan have risen due to inflation and an increase in claims being made. The proposed fee increase of $35 is therefore acceptable in order to maintain the quality of the service. The total of $220 is still a very reasonable price to pay for a year’s worth of dental insurance, and the plan is optional. The Tribune therefore has no qualms with voting Yes.

CKUT opt-out: Yes

The Tribune strongly encourages students to vote ‘Yes’ to make CKUT’s fees non-opt-outable. Radio CKUT is McGill’s only student radio station and is a worthy compensation for the fact that McGill does not have a formal journalism program. CKUT provides excellent training for those interested in radio as well as being a valuable broadcasting service to the McGill community. A non-opt-outable funding system is desirable to ensure CKUT’s financial viability, giving CKUT a more dependable income flow. This financial independence is also an important bulwark to defend CKUT’s editorial independence from interest groups. 

Composition of J-Board: No 

The Tribune finds this proposal to change the composition of the J-Board to be a flawed one. It is hard to see any reason why the J-board should make allowances for undergraduates to sit on the J-Board. Without any legal education, we do not believe that undergraduate members would have sufficient knowledge of the law to contribute much of value to the J-Board’s rulings. Participation on the J-board should therefore remain the preserve of law students who know a lot more about the legal process than undergraduates. A member of J-Board who was not acquainted with legal procedures would simply serve to undermine the credibility of the board’s rulings. The Tribune therefore votes ‘No.’

Opinion

In defence of tuition hikes: why frozen tuition is folly

by Abraham Moussako on

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This week, students will decide whether an important fee will be raised, in the words of those who support this increase, to “maintain the current level” of service. The fee increase I refer to, of course, is the SSMU dental plan. 

Not really. But my point is that, like this year’s tempestuous tuition hikes debate, the real issue with  dental fees is how much service we will get for our dollars. For those who don’t know, the tuition increase would be $325 annually over five years, to a total increase of $1,625.   

From an economic standpoint, not raising tuition is folly because of inflation. Quebec’s tuition in real dollars is substantially less than it was in 1968. With inflation, the costs of running a university are significantly higher than in the past. 

Interestingly, many of those who are protesting these hikes would decry any proposal to freeze the wages of workers on campus, such as those of a certain union with a popular line of buttons. Yet in the same way that freezing workers’ wages would leave them ill-equipped to handle the annually increasing costs of living, freezing tuition would hamper a university’s ability to handle education costs. 

Others argue that raising tuition is simply a cover for a nefarious right-wing scheme to reduce government support for higher education. This view is completely unsupported by the facts. The Finances Quebec budget report reveals that along with the tuition hikes, “From 2002-2003 to 2016-2017, annual operating grants from the Québec government to universities will increase from $1.9 billion to $3.3 billion.” Furthermore, the government estimates that of the $850 million of extra revenue universities will have after the hikes are fully in effect; 50.6 per cent of that fee will also come from additional government contributions. Over 60 per cent of university income in 2016-17 will be comprised of government funds, with students only paying 16.9 per cent and donations comprising a paltry 3.4 per cent. 

 Then there’s the idea that much of the increase in funding will go to fattening the salaries of university administrators. Again, the actual budget disabuses us of that notion; 65 to 85 per cent of the additional revenue is scheduled to go to “Quality of teaching and research,” with only 10 to 15 per cent slated to go to “improvement of administration and management.”

Now to “accessibility”: increased tuition, some argue, will freeze out lower-class students from the educational system. A study by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy undermines this notion by looking at the university participation rates of low income students across the provinces. The results show that participation rates of students from lower income families were not significantly higher in lower tuition provinces overall. Even taking into account that CEGEPs have some programs that are counted as “university” programs in other provinces, the wider sweep of the data shows that lower tuition is not correlated with higher rates of low-income university participation. Furthermore, the government has set aside 35 per cent of the sums resulting from the hike towards the bursary program, and this does not include additional tax credits given for pursuing a university education. The anti-hikes faction counters by pointing out that remaining 83 per cent of students will have to cover the full price. This assertion, however, does not even explain what portion of that 83 per cent actually would be unable to support paying the additional amount. 

To protest against the tuition hikes, therefore, is to protest against the facts.

Opinion

The return of the Jets

by Johanu Botha on

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Any self-respecting columnist writing on Canada cannot let this year saunter by without spending at least one—I pitched ten, but my editor emphasized one—column on the Winnipeg Jets. This story of prairie power should be trumpeted from the rooftops, but given the country’s current milieu of potential election fraud and economic perturbation, it’s tough to get in a word for a hockey team. And so, here’s a personal trip down memory lane for all those readers aching for some honest scribbling on the return of the Jets.

I swept into Winnipeg, Manitoba on the threshold of teenagerdom, staring stupefied at the flat land that stretched forever into the horizon. It was a far cry from the mountainous South African countryside of my childhood, and if I had not just finished a 32 hour plane journey, I might have hopped on the next flight back. But Manitoba was home now. Greasy John Deere baseball caps bobbing inside combines during summer, and kids who couldn’t yet walk, somehow skating through winter, would become part of everyday life. 

Although the process of understanding and appreciating a new culture was a steady one, there are two things I learned after roughly 24 hours in Manitoba: it is very, very cold, and the Jets are coming back. If the elderly gents in the diners weren’t talking about how low temperatures would plummet come November, they would be chatting about how inevitable it was that the Jets—cruelly relocated to Phoenix in ’96—would come back. Like a mourning but ever-hopeful father awaiting the prodigal son, Manitoba was in perpetual preparation for the return of the Jets. 

And so when it came to pass, in 2011, everyone was ready. Rumors had made their way through the fields, across the lakes, past the polar bears, and into the urban heart of Winnipeg since 2009, but now everyone knew for certain. And such a celebration ensued, the likes of which had not been seen since homegrown rock band The Guess Who were making international waves. Crowds gathered at the famed Forks, policemen smiled misty-eyed, and ‘tobans stuck in other parts of Canada stared longingly at the TV screens broadcasting the welcome tidings. 

The second half of this story is just as invigorating. Everyone expected that tickets to Jet games would fly off the shelves at twice the speed of limited edition Tim Hortons’ role-up-the-rim cups, but nobody was certain how the Atlanta team would perform in its new home. Commentators and columnists took one look at the team on paper and became stock market analysts. There seemed to be no way that the product could live up to its hype. Like the Blackberry playbook of the sports world, the Jets could turn out to be all glistening cover, but few stellar parts below the surface. 

But oh, how the naysayers weep now! There is a lot of hockey to be played, to be sure, but the Jets have excelled in their new home. As the Leafs and Habs saw their earlier successes nosedive into a whirlwind of coach replacements and disillusioned fans, the Jets have delivered strong performances that exhibit a good-looking whole, even if it is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s official: the Jets are back. 

Student Life

Bathroom break

by Colleen McNamara on

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After four long years of an abusive relationship with McGill campus public restrooms, it’s time for me to speak out about the frustration, the repulsion, and the anger they have caused me. Too many times have I entered the facilities on the ground floor of Redpath across from the fishbowl and found myself wanting to just go home and douse myself in bleach. 

It’s undeniable that the McLennan-Redpath complex bathrooms are the most offensive on campus. Toilets covered in garbage bags, carelessly constructed out-of-order signs, and toilet paper that would even be deemed unfit for jail cells characterize each stall, from the most frequently visited in the basement outside of the Cybertheque, all the way up to the illogically miniscule facilities on the sixth floor. Discovering that only two of the five stalls in the basement are working while florescent lights scream at your eyes only enhances the usual library frustration levels to a new degree. And you can’t help but feel extremely uncomfortable on the sixth floor as anywhere from two to seven people are quietly waiting outside of the single stall listening to your every move. 

In other campus bathrooms, one can’t help but feel that there was an utter lack of logic when the blueprints were being drafted. Highlighter yellow doors in the Education Building to match the brick walls? Why not. Seven hundred and fifty stalls in the quiet basement of Leacock? Sure. Two-hundred students eat lunch at Bronfman every day? Two stalls will be fine. In all of these, though, the most striking facility I have come across is the women’s bathroom on the second floor of the Otto Maas Chemistry Building. Upon entry, the first thing I noticed was a formerly-used urinal covered up by the typical bathroom fix-it tool: the garbage bag. Regardless, I admired the soft pink tiling surrounding the entire bathroom, reminding me of some sort of ideal early’90s bathroom a teenage girl would have. 

Unfortunately, the widespread gender separation of washroom facilities has reduced my knowledge of men’s correspondence with McGill’s bathrooms to myth, hearsay, and stories of personal experience. One of the most prevalent bathroom commentaries is the story of “Sean Turner,” a student who had his name plastered over stalls across campus as a practical joke, sparking a widespread bathroom graffiti epidemic, and ultimately elevating this elusive character to campus celebrity status. That’s about as far as my knowledge goes for the men’s rooms, but I can assume they don’t have marble floors, gold sinks, magazine racks, or silk couches.

 McGill finds new and exciting ways to perplex us every day. Maybe the unruly bathrooms are just another one of those character-building exercises to prepare us for the big, bad, harsh world out there. If we have problems tolerating a stinky bathroom, then we will have problems in the professional world too, right? Maybe, maybe not, but one thing’s for sure: I won’t be returning to the second floor bathroom of the Otto Maas Chemistry Building anytime soon. 

Student Life

Becoming fond of ski-du-fond

by Richard Martyn-Hemphill on

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Strolling past the McGill gym window last week was a deeply unsettling experience. The sight of weightlifters was worrying enough, with each lifter solemnly hulking over vast weights, staring themselves down in the mirror for lengths of time that would have impressed Narcissus. But what really disturbed me was the haunting spectacle of all the  treadmill runners—each runner looking both bored and determined, with earphones lassoing round their faces as they jogged mechanically, sweatily, and ceaselessly. They reminded me of hamsters in a wheel, wired up for lab tests. The saddest part was that it was actually a lovely day outside.

It got me thinking that there had to be better ways of exercising during the Montreal winter, another means of keeping all those midnight poutines from making themselves at home around one’s waistline. The best way to exercise, I’ve always thought, is outdoors with the fresh air and changing scenery for company. Yet the idea of outdoor exercise during the Montreal winter, for obvious reasons, appears preposterous: the golf courses, the tennis courts, and the football fields are all covered in thick layers of snow; the sidewalks are devilishly icy, and far too treacherous to run on with any kind of certainty. 

Fortunately, some family friends provided the simple, brilliant answer to my conundrum: cross-country skiing.  Or ski-du-fond, as the Quebecois call it. Extracting me from the warm comfort of the McGill bubble, my friends took me over to Gatineau National Park, just outside Ottawa, where we competed in the Gatineau Loppet, a 51 km ski marathon of 2,300 cross-country skiers. The abilities of the competitors ranged from Olympians of the sport to babies being dragged along by their parents in sleds. My fear, since I was a complete novice, was that I would end up finishing neck-and-neck with the latter group. But as we set off, my expectations changed; my fears became centered around whether I would finish at all. 

The beginning of the race was utter carnage. It was -14 degrees at the starting line, and we all set off in a sprint to warm ourselves up. There were over 2,000 of us skiing side-by-side, with the less able of us occasionally tumbling down into our fellow competitors’ paths. Survival instinct was not enough to keep myself from falling numerous times. In a moment of delirium, I began to see myself as a noble Lion King, doing his best against the odds not to tumble into the antelope stampede. It was a strange moment.

Then came the grind, which thankfully brought with it a bit more space to manoeuvre. Cross-country skiing is hard, especially over 51 kilometers, but it is rewarding in so many ways: the distance covered gives you a chance to glimpse some stunning views of mountains, lakes, trees, and wildlife. Getting up some of the hills, though a true test of grit which can make you want to call the rescue helicopter, is always worth it for the exhilarating downhills that follow. 

When I skied past the finish line after four and a half hours of non-stop skiing, with my legs as stiff as an Englishman’s upper lip, my first reaction was that I would never do this again; yet the moment I arrived back in Montreal, I missed it dearly. I was addicted.

Fortunately, I soon found out how easy it is to satisfy one’s addiction right here in Montreal. It is extraordinarily cheap and easy to rent a decent set of cross-country skis, boots, and poles from the McGill sports centre (just $10 for the whole day, $30 for the entire week), and give it a go on Mount Royal. It is the ideal place to learn. The pathways are not too steep, and it is incredibly beautiful round the Lac Aux Castors. The technique can be picked up quickly; it is pretty much the motion of ice skating—a motion Canadians are supposedly born with. Besides, according to Fitness Magazine, cross-country skiing even burns more calories per minute than running on a treadmill; what more could you ask for? So with an early spring on the horizon, and thoughts of beach volleyball beginning to take shape in our minds, take the opportunity to give cross-country skiing a try. Or, keep it in mind as a new activity to test out next winter.

News

Office of Sustainability launches Vision 2020 project

by Jimmy Lou on

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This winter, McGill’s Office of Sustainability launched a year-long project, Vision 2020, to ensure sustainability on campus and to promote student participation and awareness in sustainable initiatives. The idea behind this project is that interactive planning and intra-community collaborations will make long-term sustainability more effective and feasible. The project also presents an opportunity to work towards a common goal and reform how the administration consults students.

“Consultation around sustainability issues has become increasingly strong in recent years on campus,” Maggie Knight, president of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), said. “Ideally this will provide an example of best practices in collectively shaping our campus. As with most projects, it could use some more people hours to get it to where it needs to be. However, there are several clever people working on this, so I have high hopes that it will produce strong results.”

The project will include an external consultant, Sustainability Solutions Group, offering its expertise in sustainability planning as well as a Vision 2020 Steering Committee which aims to draw a vast range of opinions and perspectives from McGill’s students, academic staff, operational staff, and administration.

Jim Nicell, McGill’s Associate Vice-Principal, will chair this Vision 2020 Steering Committee and jointly select members for this committee with SSMU Sustainability Coordinator and the Office of Sustainability.

“I feel this is an idea with real potential,” Daniel Perrett, U1 geography, said of Vision 2020’s creation. “We need to be forward thinking as we engage with today’s environmental issues, such as the lack of awareness for appropriate means for composting on campus. There are obvious concerns regarding the long-term fruition of the project, but I feel that with sufficient leadership and student engagement, future McGill students can feel as passionate as we do about these projects.”

This project will involve three stages. The first involves a situational analysis of McGill’s on-campus sustainability performance, the second aims to set goals and objectives for sustainability within a 10-year timeframe, and the third will implement the concrete action items of a five-year action plan.

As a part of the project’s effort to achieve an open, consultative, and interactive planning process, students will be able to easily access the planning process and offer their opinions through online social mediums such as Facebook and IdeaScale, a website for posting and rating suggestions. Some popular ideas emerging on IdeaScale include “Encourage Sustainable Procurement Practices” and “Collaborative Student Research.”

“This project matters for students because they are really getting a chance to share their opinions about what McGill will look like in the year 2020,” Sean Reginio, an intern at the Office of Sustainability, said.

Reginio added that members of the administration have proposed that, if successful, this initiative could become the new model for student consultation at McGill.

“With all the events this year that have caused disagreement and turmoil on campus, I feel that a shared vision towards the future is something important to discuss,” Reginio said. “More importantly, though, I believe that this shared vision is possible, very possible. I truly believe in this community. It’s really time to collaborate.”

/- The first Vision 2020 event is a community conversation that will be held this Friday, March 16 in the RVC dining hall at 2:00 p.m. To contribute your ideas to Vision 2020, visit http://mcgillvision2020.ideascale.com /

News

SSMU hosts second annual Forum on Undergraduate Education

by Chris Lazaris on

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Last Tuesday, SSMU hosted its second annual Forum on Undergraduate Education . The forum allowed students to propose and discuss ideas about the role of undergraduate students at McGill.

“This is the second year that we’ve had the event,” Emily Yee Clare, SSMU VP University Affairs, said. “It was started last year [in order to] create a forum where [students] would come together and talk about academic issues and how undergraduates [at McGill] are basically placed within a research-intensive environment.”

As a research-intensive university, McGill emphasizes the involvement of graduate students, who are able to engage in original academic research. This raises questions about how undergraduates fit into the process. Not having been properly trained to contribute to research, it may be difficult for them to contribute to the research.

The forum began with two public speakers who discussed how undergraduates can be more effectively integrated into the world of real academic research.

“The opportunities for undergraduate students to have some engagement in research provides opportunities really to engage in [certain] fundamental [aspects of research] … that are really important outcomes of an undergraduate education, [and] can be difficult to get within the standard course structure,” speaker Laura Winer, Associate Director of Teaching and Learning Services, said.

Speakers discussed the necessity for undergraduate students to have the opportunity to engage in authentic academic research in order to develop certain skills necessary to make real contributions to future research.

“When you engage in research, you understand how knowledge is created and refined,” Winer said. “People have to learn these skills and how to apply them in such a way where the fruits of their labour will have a certain validity.”

During the second part of the forum, students had the opportunity to put forward their own ideas about how McGill could better integrate the average student into more advanced levels of research. This raised topics such as the allocation of study space on campus, the quality of lectures, and the practicality of undergraduate degrees in general.

The forum differed in structure from the previous year’s. Rather than having a long period for students to make comments and ask questions to the speakers, students chose this year to sit at one of five tables, with each table focusing on a different issue of discussion while SSMU representatives wrote down points that were raised. After fifteen minutes, students were asked to move to another table to talk about a different issue. After three rotations, the forum was over.

“We found that the format of round-table discussions … really allowed for students to have a good understanding of the issues,” Clare said. “It really allowed us to get some concrete ideas from students and allowed students to be very honest about how they felt about different issues.”

While the speakers focused specifically on how to promote undergraduate engagement in research, the table discussion period allowed for a wider range of issues to be discussed without drifting very far from the general theme of research and how it can be facilitated.

Although organizers of the event felt that they received a lot of information to work with in order to improve undergraduate research at McGill over the next year, some students who attended did not receive the impression that much is actually going to be done for them.

“It was nice to get my feelings out, but because I’m in my second [to] last year, I don’t feel like any of the things that I’m saying are really going to be effective for me,” Mathura Ravishankar, U2 arts and science student, said. “To be honest, we raised a lot of issues but did not come up with practical solutions.”

World

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Capitol Hill Building ,Washington DC.
Capitol Hill Building ,Washington DC.

This is some dummy copy. You’re not really supposed to read this dummy copy, it is just a place holder for people who need some type to visualize what the actual copy might look like if it were real content.

If you want to read, I might suggest a good book, perhaps Hemingway or Melville. That’s why they call it, the dummy copy. This, of course, is not the real copy for this entry. Rest assured, the words will expand the concept. With clarity. Conviction. And a little wit.

In today’s competitive market environment, the body copy of your entry must lead the reader through a series of disarmingly simple thoughts.

All your supporting arguments must be communicated with simplicity and charm. And in such a way that the reader will read on. (After all, that’s a reader’s job: to read, isn’t it?) And by the time your readers have reached this point in the finished copy, you will have convinced them that you not only respect their intelligence, but you also understand their needs as consumers.

As a result of which, your entry will repay your efforts. Take your sales; simply put, they will rise. Likewise your credibility. There’s every chance your competitors will wish they’d placed this entry, not you. While your customers will have probably forgotten that your competitors even exist. Which brings us, by a somewhat circuitous route, to another small point, but one which we feel should be raised.

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