Matt Essert

Students’ Society President Zach Newburgh discussed his controversial involvement with Jobbook.com, a social networking website designed to match students with employers, at SSMU Council on Thursday for first the first time in front of the general public.

Newburgh preceded his prewritten remarks, which lasted about half an hour, by speaking about the “total lack of assumption of goodwill” on his part by many students and much of the campus media following his censure by Council in the early hours of February 4.

“There has been a total and sweeping disregard for my personal character that I think I have displayed over the course of my involvement with SSMU,” he said. “I would even go as far to say that there has been a lack of humanity in this sense.”

During his speech, Newburgh provided a detailed history of his involvement with Jobbook, beginning with his first meeting with Jean de Brabant, the website’s founder, in September. Although relatively few new details emerged from the speech, Newburgh did reveal that, along with Engineering Undergraduate Society Vice-President Communications Josh Redel, another campus political figure, Engineering Senator Simon Liu, was also involved with Jobbook.

Newburgh also stated that he had made two primary errors in judgment: telling members of the Executive Committee that he was in New York during a trip to England to pitch Jobbook in November and using his SSMU email account to contact student union presidents on behalf of Jobbook.

“For this, though,” he said, “I do sincerely apologize.”

Students in the gallery asked a number of questions after Newburgh’s speech, some of them fairly tough. But Newburgh refused to answer any questions that he thought were asked with “malicious intent” or were not related to Jobbook.

When one student in the gallery asked if Newburgh would resign, however, Newburgh’s answer was clear. Only “charges brought against me on reasonable grounds,” he said, would convince him to leave office.

Matt Essert

After years of incomplete financial statements from the Arts Undergraduate Society, the McGill administration has informed the group it will not release the student fees collected for them this semester until the required documentation is submitted. Although the university was scheduled to release the cheque by today, as of last night the situation was at an impasse, with the AUS unable to provide the requested documentation and the Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson’s office unwilling to renegotiate the matter.

The fees, which are collected from all Arts students by the university on standard e-bills, make up the bulk of the AUS’s operating funds. Receipt of these funds each semester, however, as stipulated in the AUS and McGill’s Memorandum of Agreement, is contingent on the AUS’ submission of a full financial audit, which has not happened in the three fiscal years since 2007. While the AUS has submitted documentation for the first two years, it has not for 2009-2010

“We haven’t gotten the information, we haven’t gotten the financials, and the auditor of the university is telling us it’s inappropriate for us to be handing out the money to a group that hasn’t fulfilled their responsibility,” Mendelson said.

According to AUS President David Marshall, each semester since the group first failed to submit an audit, the president of the AUS or their auditor sent a letter to the deputy provost’s office explaining that an audit would soon be forthcoming and the administration released the fees. This semester, however, the administration has informed Marshall it will not release the fees until certain financial documentation from the 2009-2010 fiscal year is submitted.

“We had a written agreement from the previous president and VP Finance of the AUS agreeing to provide the information we were missing. That didn’t work. We had another commitment by the AUS this year, which is why we released the Fall cheque,” said Mendelson. “There are just so many times this can happen … once bitten, twice shy.”

Marshall said that despite his best efforts, those of the rest of the executive, and those of the group’s new accounting firm RSMRichter, the AUS does not have enough documentation to meet the university’s deadline. Although RSMRichter submitted a letter to the administration on December 21, 2010, explaining the situation and assuring them that the AUS’s newly implemented financial practices would allow them to complete full audits from this point forward, Marshall received a letter from Mendelson on January 21 explaining that without the requested information, they would still not be able to release the AUS’s cheque this semester.

“There was nothing in our history that would have suggested that this year, of all years, when we’re trying to rectify not only the immediate financial issues but all of the historical reasons behind the issues we’ve had, the university should come around and say ‘OK, we’re going to cut you off,'” Marshall said.

Without these funds, Marshall said the AUS will have to make some drastic cuts to the services it provides. The first affected, he said, would likely be the Arts Student Employment Fund, which contributes to the salaries of student researchers. Events like Bar des Arts would also lose funds. In addition, Marshall expressed concern about being able to pay for the services of RSMRichter, the accounting firm that has been working with the group since the Fall to help them set up sound business practices.

Since they are volunteer-run, services like peer tutoring and the essay centre will continue normal operations. The Arts Computer Labs will be unaffected, because they are administered by a separate fund. Marshall is confident that the Society’s St.Patrick’s Day events and Red and White Ball will happen, but he said that the executives have already begun putting some AUS expenses on their personal credit cards in anticipation of being repaid later.

Mendelson also said the AUS is not the first undergraduate society to have issues with its audits.

“We’ve had certain problems with other associations where the proper records aren’t kept. There isn’t the responsible accounting that I assume students want and certainly that students deserve,” he said.

Management Undergraduate Society President Céline Junke said the MUS had submitted documents late before. According to Engineering Students’ Society President Daniel Keresteci, his organization faced a similar situation a few years ago, when they hadn’t filed their audits for a number of years. Now, however, the group has sound accounting practices in place, he said.

“McGill hounds us for our audit, but they know the relationship we have where we use the same firm every year,” Keresetci said. “So we just tell them that we’re waiting from our auditing firm and they’re like “OK” and when it comes in I sign it and we send it over to McGill for approval.”

Mendelson added that discussions with the AUS are ongoing.

“Right now we’re in a conversation with the AUS trying to find out what kind of information they can indeed supply, and we’re waiting to hear from them,” he said.

According to Marshall, it is not yet clear what will happen to the funds if they are not released to the AUS on Tuesday. He is hopeful, however, that the administration will be willing to negotiate.

Additional reporting by Matt Essert.

ArtsOnEarth.com

Many students have complained about Montreal’s arctic temperatures in the past weeks, but few, if any, have actually had a real Arctic experience. In the coming weeks, that is about to change. A group of McGill students led by Professor Eric Galbraith are heading to Antarctica for a two-week field study program as part of a course offered by the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at McGill.

Galbraith, who has been to Antarctica six times, described his experiences there as “unlike anywhere else—it’s as close as we can get to visiting another planet.”

It appears there is no other way to describe an experience in which students will be able see penguins, seals, and glaciers as part of their daily course activities. Indeed, it was some of these activities and the uniqueness of the experience that drew several McGill students to the course in the first place.

“The main reason why I chose to go on this study was because it gave me the chance to go to Antarctica,” said Katrina Adams, a U3 Biology major taking part in the trip. “Now, not many field courses take you there, and it is pretty much the adventure of a lifetime.”

The course involved a series of lectures with Galbraith prior to departure. Students will be taking scientific measurements of ocean currents and of the glaciers themselves while in Antarctica. They will also have the opportunity to see many of the concepts they had learned about throughout their studies.

“We’d like to take some useful measurements of how the ocean currents are behaving, which may be important for understanding the response of the Antarctic ice sheet to climate change,” Galbraith said.

Climate change is an important issue for many students taking part in the field study.

“I want to have a different perspective of the climate issue by looking at one of the regions where the impacts of global warming are significant,” said Audrey Yank, a U4 Biosource Engineering major who is taking part in the study.

“Antarctica has a really large impact on global climate, because it acts kind of like a refrigerator for the world, and an aeration pump for the oceans,” Galbraith said. “Because it’s so hard to get to, it is not all that well understood, and there are still lots of scientific mysteries to explore there.”

To get to Antarctica, students flew to Argentina, and then boarded a boat that was scheduled to bring them to Antarctica on Monday. The students will use the boat as the base for their daily studies. Staying on the continent itself would involve living at a research facility, which Galbraith said was not possible.

McGill arranged the two-week-long study in Antarctica through Students on Ice, a non-profit organization specializing in educational events in both the Northern and Southern polar areas. Students on Ice’s mission statement says its goal is to “to provide students, educators and scientists from around the world with inspiring educational opportunities at the ends of the Earth and, in doing so, help them foster a new understanding and respect for the planet.”

McGill students are not the only ones taking part in this field study. Students from Carleton University, the University of Ottawa, and the University of California, Los Angeles are among the half-dozen schools sending students to Antarctica through the same program. The approximate cost per student for the trip is $11,000.

Matt Essert

The winter 2011 General Assembly took place last Thursday in a quarter-full Adams Auditorium. Although quorum was reached at several parts of the GA, only two out of four motions debated successfully passed with quorum. Despite efforts made in the previous weeks this semester’s general assembly was sparsely  attended.

“It was the same as all GAs in the past,” said Students’ Society President Zach Newburgh.

“There was quite a lot of advertising from the part of various individuals and groups and we got a standard turnout based on the motions that were submitted.”

 A motion regarding the amendment of the SSMU bylaws to include its investments in corporate shares and government bonds was one of  two that passed with quorum. A resolution in which SSMU which mandated SSMU to determine whether or not bikes are a viable asset on campus also passed.

According to Newburgh, the bylaw regarding investment is a required step in order for a corporation to invest or have shares. “That’s implemented and we are already taking care of that,” he said.

A motion to mandate SSMU to investigate the safety of biking on campus passed. Newburgh explained that he and SSMU Vice-President University Affairs Joshua Abaki will be working together to determine how this will be approached.

A motion to oppose SSMU’s hiring McKinsey and Co. as a consulting firm did not pass with quorum. But according to GA speaker Cathal Rooney-Cespedes it was the resolution that incited the most debate before the GA.

“A lot of people who came out to vote for it were the ones who felt passionate about it,” Rooney-Cespedes said.  

 “If the entire student body was given the chance to vote on something like that, there wouldn’t have been a large majority of people for it.”

 Rooney-Cespedes explained that the opposition to McGill hiring McKinsey was mainly due to what the motion described as the firm’s record of consulting educational institutions from a purely economic perspective, often proposing to lower salaries and increase tuition.

A motion to condemn the McGill administration’s tight control over the use of its name by services, and independent study groups of the Student’s Society was the second one unable to pass with quorum.

“I think a lot of people believe in the motion and think that it is something that we definitely should fight for,” said SSMU VP Clubs and Services Anushay Khan.

These motions will be presented at SSMU Council for approval on Thursday.

“Ultimately, these are recommendations from a consultative body, and I plan to take them into consideration in our future business, regarding both of these motions,” Newburgh said.

A fifth motion called on SSMU to hire a consulting firm to investigate SSMU’s business practices and efficiency. It was ruled out of order because financial decisions on behalf of SSMU cannot be made at a General Assembly.

“It is always disappointing that the GA doesn’t hit quorum,”  Rooney-Cespedes said. “When you are making such large decisions, the fact that it’s less than a hundred students making that decision on behalf of the student body is a bit disproportionate to what people always thought of as democracy.”

At one point in the GA, a member of the audience called out the speaker for addressing the audience in an impolite manner. But Rooney-Cespedes claimed that his obligation was to make sure the event took place within the rules.

“When you are in any general assembly, the best way to go about it is to be as strict as possible with the rules of procedure or else you’ll have total anarchy.”

thelink.theorem.ca

On January 20, Ashraf Azar, a Concordia University student expelled for plagiarism in 2004, entered the Quebec Superior Court to begin a new lawsuit against Concordia. This lawsuit, unlike the previous one filed in 2007, seeks a court injunction in place of monetary damages.  

“If I really had the opportunity to move on, I would have,” Azar said, describing his battle with Concordia. “But I haven’t been given the opportunity.”

The incident at the centre of the lawsuit occurred in 2004 during what would have been Azar’s last semester at Concordia. Azar was accused of breaking and entering into a professor’s office and stealing academically important material, an accusation Azar vehemently denied. This charge led to an academic hearing where, according to Azar, a university-sponsored advocate advised him to plead guilty for a promise of leniency. Instead, Azar found himself expelled only a few weeks before he would have earned his diploma.

“The strange part about the breaking and entering,” Azar said, “is that there was no police or security report ever filed.”

Concordia University refused to comment on the case.

 “I was found guilty of plagiarism … in a course I was not registered in, in a program I was not in, with a professor I had never seen,” Azar added. “They don’t have any evidence [against me], aside from my testimony.”

Speaking about his confession to the charge and subsequent retraction of it, Azar said, “It’s difficult … for a lot of people to comprehend admitting to a mistake … and then recanting it … the thing is that advocacy has a history with other students of telling them to take the blame for things they did not do.”  

Azar also claimed he would be able to prove his accusations against the advocacy group in court with evidence from other people’s incidents as well. But Azar may not be given the chance. His first lawsuit against the university, in 2007, was thrown out because he waited too long to file suit. The presiding judge, Justice Israel Mass, wrote in his ruling, “this is four years later and we are certainly beyond reasonable delay [in filing suit].”

Azar claims he delayed filing suit because his first move after his expulsion was to try negotiating with Concordia. When Concordia offered him a year’s probation in exchange for a guilty plea, Azar refused because he did not want to have to confess to a crime he did not commit. He then obtained what he describes as “incorrect” legal advice in 2006. This, according to Azar, caused the delay in filing which led to the late lawsuit. Azar initially sued the school for $13.5 million in damages.

Justice Mass claimed he had no evidence that Azar had ever sought legal representation. Azar appealed Mass’s decision in 2009, but his appeal was rejected.

 Azar, who represented himself in his 2007 lawsuit and is now doing the same, maintains that his case was unjustly dismissed.

“Once you enter into the court system,” he said, “you realize justice is a privilege rather than a right.” He said that his experience has been one of what he calls “institutionalized injustice” and hopes that he can rectify this with his suit

When Azar, who is married and is a soon to be father of three, was asked what he would do if, after seven years, if he was finally allowed a new disciplinary hearing, he simply replied, “I’d get my day [in court].”

In the last couple of years, overcrowding has become a major problem in Montreal CEGEPs. Simply put, there are more students who have the proper academic credentials than there are spots available.

On January 20, the Gazette reported that the Quebec government is going to wait until after the March 1 deadline to decide how much to commit to Montreal’s overcrowded CEGEPS. The Montreal CEGEPs, however, are already dealing with the effects of being told to take additional students.

Vanier College, for instance, had to turn away a number of top-quality students due to space restrictions in 2010.  Good students were told they would have to take night classes instead of studying full-time.  Vanier was eventually allowed to accept the students it initially designed, but not without a strain.    

“[Between 2005 and 2010], we have grown 14.5 per cent in the number of students in the school, [which] has brought us to 900 over our normal limit,” said Gilbert Heroux, Vanier’s director general.

CEGEPs all across Montreal have had to take more students to accommodate the growing amount of high school graduates.

“[The government] told us we had to take an extra 300 students last year and now they’re telling us to take another 300, so we’re 600 over our normal limits” said Paul Rastelli, coordinator of student services at Dawson College for the last 10 years.

At Dawson, Rastelli said that they had acquired seven new classrooms and two new computer labs from the Pepsi Forum across the street to accommodate new students. But other CEGEPs haven’t been so lucky.

John Abbott College, located in the West Island near the Macdonald campus of McGill, started construction on a new building in August 2010.

“But that won’t be finished until 2014, so it’s still very crowded especially in places where people gather,” said Andrew Shulman, a student at John Abbott in his eighth semester, currently in the creative art, languages, and literature program.

“It’s because more kids are graduating high school and seeing the benefits of going to CEGEP,” he said, “and also older people are coming back in order to either go into professional programs to change careers, or just looking to get an extra degree to be more competitive on the job market.”

Heroux, however, differed on why he thought there were more students.

“It’s just because of a demographic boom we had which is showing now in more high school graduates,” he said. “This is a problem which is going to solve itself in two to four years. We need a strong government initiative temporarily because it is a problem which will solve itself”

Of course, there are some benefits to having a larger student body. Jesse Binstock, recreation technician in charge of campus recreation and league sports at Dawson College said that campus sports participation this year has not been higher since 2001.

“From an athletics standpoint we’ve had the best year ever,” he said. “Every team had to make cuts [after tryouts]. Teams are the best they’ve ever been. We had 150 people try out for two spots on the AAA basketball team this year.”

Although it has been a great year for athletic achievement, Binstock said that an insufficient number of support staff has made running his office difficult. The approval of Bill 100 last summer, designed to reduce debt and return a balanced budget, has made the overcrowding even more logistically challenged.

The bill affects not only CEGEPs but universities such as McGill as well, in stipulating that for every two support staff, there can only be one replacement.  As the staff ranks thin, student populations are exploding.