Despite strong attendance numbers at numerous McGill athletic events this year, some students have recently expressed concerns about McGill Athletics and Recreation’s promotion strategies. They are primarily concerned with Athletics’ promotion of the events surrounding the actual games and with its efforts to work with student groups in promoting events.

Students’  Society VP Internal Tom Fabian—who has been heavily involved in promoting athletic events at McGill as the former president of the Varsity Council, Athletics representative at SSMU Council, and co-creator of Red Thunder—said he has been concerned about this for several years. In talking with different coaches, Fabian said that the teams are frustrated as well.

“I’ve talked to numerous people about this—on how [Athletics] goes about promoting—and it’s very frustrating,” he said.

Emilie Leonard, Athletics representative to SSMU, said the main problem is a lack of communication between McGill and students. She said that although the promotional employees work full-time, they still might be “out of touch with how to connect with the average student.”

“I think they have some good ideas, but there’s the potential for so many better ideas within the student population,” Leonard said. “And when they do have these ideas, just asking one or two people how to carry them out would make them so much better.”

However, Jill Barker, manager of marketing and communications at McGill Athletics and Recreation, said her department has actually been pleased with the attendance numbers at most sporting events.  Men’s and women’s basketball attendance has jumped 76 per cent from last year, and Redmen football had twice as many attendees as last year.

“We actually think that we’re doing a pretty good job of promoting the games,” Barker said. “Pack the House, Fill the Stadium, and Fill the Arena have all been very successful events.”

Barker also said that Athletics has actively tried to work with students and student groups to plan events. For example, they have increased their use of social media—Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—in promotions to try to create a “total fan atmosphere from door to door.”

“We’d be silly if we didn’t work through students, and we do it all the time,” she said.

Both Fabian and Leonard, however, pointed to the Coors Light After Party which followed the inaugural Pack the House basketball games on February 4 as one of the problematic events. The party was very poorly attended and considered by some involved to be a bust.

“There were a few issues that came up [with the Coors Light After Party],” Fabian said. “There have been certain student groups that have tried to do parties like this, but have been turned down, and then [Athletics] come up with this.”

Barker explained that Molson, McGill Athletics’s sponsor, proposed the party, and that it wasn’t a typical event for the department. She added that the party was actually promoted as heavily as the Pack the House event itself and that “we were surprised when we packed the house but the house just left after the game.”

According to Leonard, a number of the issues stemming from the party could have been addressed had more students been consulted during the planning and promotional process of the event.

“You can’t try something out like that without putting all your effort into it and without trying to make it as good as it can be,” she said. “And the fact that they only started promoting two weeks beforehand—I found out at an advisory board meeting a month before it was supposed to happen, or three weeks, and I couldn’t believe it. This should have been talked about in January.”

In addition, both Fabian and Leonard said that they were concerned that Athletics spent nearly $5,000 on the Coors Light event when it did not attract many students.

“They’re not connected as much as the students, so when they try to promote events, they don’t really know how to make it hip, or the ‘in’ thing to do,” Fabian said. “They think it’s the ‘in’ thing to do, but they come off as your mom trying to promote an event.”

Barker, for her part, said Athletics is always trying new initiatives to create a better fan experience, but that they will not necessarily all be resoundingly successful.

“We broke even on the money spent [on the Coors Light After Party],” Barker said. “We don’t have a great venue to host that kind of stuff. We really didn’t know how it would go or not go, but we took a chance.”

Another Athletics-hosted event that failed to attract significant turnout was the Martlet’s hockey “Code Red” game, held on February 19—the first Saturday of Reading Week. As with some previous events, Athletics created a Facebook event page, but seemed unable to generate any serious buzz for the event—nine people were listed on the event page as “attending,” 15 as “maybe attending,” 72 as “not attending,” and 293 as “awaiting reply.”

“It was just a regular turnout,” said Jordanna Peroff, a forward on the team. “Parents were there, [but] I didn’t notice anyone’s friends there—I’m assuming they were [away] on Reading Week.”

Fabian suggested part of the solution for creating better events in the future might be as simple as working “more closely with Red Thunder and other student groups.”

“I understand that there’s difficulties with regards to the culture at McGill,” he said. “Not everybody’s into it, but you have to try new things.”

Leonard said she has also been working to get different students groups under the same umbrella so they can more readily work together with Athletics.

“I think the people higher up should wake up to this group of students who are ready to promote and ready to help out, and that we all need to work together and discuss good ideas,” she said.

While there have been strong improvements in overall attendance numbers, Barker acknowledged there is more work that could be done, but noted that this is no simple task at McGill.

“On a Tuesday night during midterms, you could offer a free car and you wouldn’t get people out to a game,” Barker said. “So we have to be very respectful of what people’s job is at McGill; it is to be successful in school as well. So we know that sometimes it’s just difficult to get students out.”

Joe Schwarcz can fill a room, even over reading week. Last Thursday, McGill’s renowned science educator gave a talk titled “Science and the Paranormal” to a near-capacity crowd in Leacock 232.

The talk was sponsored in part by the McGill Freethought Association, a club that encourages skepticism about, among other things, religion. Schwarcz’s talk, therefore, was mostly interested in showing the scientific explanations behind things called “paranormal.”

“The world of the paranormal is all about … people making observations and making the wrong conclusion,” he said.

Schwarcz pointed to UFOs as one example.

“Isn’t it bizarre in this day and age, when everyone is walking around with digital cameras, taking billions of pictures of everything, somehow nobody is there to take a proper picture of a flying saucer?” Schwarcz said. “Every picture looks like it was taken by a camera made in the 1930s being held by someone with Parkinson’s disease.”

In the discussion after the lecture, one woman said she had seen UFOs on two occasions, and gave a detailed account of each. A number of audience members laughed and rolled their eyes during her stories. Schwarcz’s answer was more scientific.

“We can’t really say anything about it because we were not there,” he said.

Schwarcz said he has kept track of how public psychic predictions correspond to what really happens to “see how inaccurate psychics are.”

He showed one page of a 1993 news magazine predicting that Bill and Hillary Clinton would divorce, which has not yet happened.

“If ever there was a reason for a couple to split up, [they’ve had it],” he said.

Nor did Paula Abdul elope with Arsenio Hall, Martina Navratilova have John McEnroe’s baby, or Donald Trump have a fling with Barbara Walters, all of which were on the same page.

While the incorrectness of these  predictions is harmless, other psychics and paranormal personalities use their gifts to profit from people’s emotions, Schwarcz said. Psychic Sylvia Browne, whom Schwarcz called the “worst” of these, charges $800 for a 30-minute telephone interview that has to be booked two years in advance.

“She is a con artist fully aware of what she is doing,” he said.

Browne predicts serious things to people in distress, which, according to Schwarcz, is a form of emotional abuse. For instance, she tells parents what has “happened” to a child who has disappeared.

Another instance of mass fraud is psychic surgery—the “supernatural” removal of a tumor without an incision.

“That’s not entertainment, that’s horrific fraud,” he said. “This is done usually by uneducated Filippino [or South American] peasants who prey upon the desperate.”

Telekinetic master Uri Geller was also on the chopping block.

“If Geller really had that ability to bend metal with the power of the mind, there surely must be some better purpose to which that talent can be put than tormenting cutlery,” Schwarcz said.

The reason there are so many “paranormal” events, he said, is because there is “not enough critical thinking, not enough education.”

In the discussion period following the lecture, Schwarcz and audience members discussed ways to make people more skeptical. Though Schwarcz didn’t openly link his message to skepticism about religion, many audience members did. They targeted proponents of creationism and intelligent design in particular.

“Teaching critical thinking obviously applies to more than just strictly what he talked about,” said Warren Huard, a Master’s student in Classics and president of the MFA.

“It was very interesting to see some of the tricks that mediums and magicians use. But I think also it illuminated well how people will see things the way they want to see them, and how people can get deceived,” said Tim Skene, a member of the Centre for Inquiry, which co-sponsored the talk with the MFA and McGill’s Office for Science and Society, of which Schwarcz is the director.

“We thought it was important to have someone talking about how things that seem very inexplicable aren’t,” he added.

Though Schwarcz’s talk was an argument for a more scientific worldview, he left a little room for mystery, refusing to explain the science behind the numerous magic tricks he performed.

“There is an explanation,” he said after stiffening a rope, “which hopefully you will never find out.”

On February 12, Montreal lost one of its greatest hip-hop artists. Paul “Bad News Brown” Frappier was found murdered in Little Burgundy, near the Lachine Canal at the intersection of William and Richmond Streets.

Frappier, 33, was found by police close to midnight with visible gunshot wounds. The Montreal Police Department was not at liberty to say how many bullets were used in the incident but did reveal that Frappier sustained injuries to the head.

Frappier, originally from Haiti, was adopted by Montreal parents and grew up in St. Henri. With his signature use of the harmonica, he started his music career busking in the streets and metros of Montreal.

 From there he took his career to the studio, where he recorded albums and proved his lyrical skills. His 2009 album Born 2 Sin helped put him on the map and brought recognition to not only himself, but to the Montreal hip-hop scene as well.

Brown travelled the world boosting his career and even opened for artists such as Snoop Dogg and Kanye West. He was also involved in the upcoming film Bumrush, which is based on the rise of a Montreal street gang.

According to those close to him, there was no logical reason for his murder. His father, Pierre Frappier, and his manager, Henry-Francois Gelot, both expressed shock and confusion over what took place.

Despite minor setbacks in his personal life, Frappier rose beyond them and went on to mentor troubled youth across Montreal. As part of one of his tours, he spoke to young people at Shawbridge, a detention centre for youth operated by Batshaw Youth Services. Steve Blackett, an employee at Shawbridge, reminisced about hearing some of the members saying they wanted to be like Frappier. “They were pretty into it,” he said.

According to The Gazette reported that the shooting took place within walking distance of Frappier’s home in St. Henri after he left his girlfriend’s house to meet with someone.

So far no suspects have been taken into custody, and as of Thursday there were “no new developments,” according to Anie Lemieux of the Montreal Police Department.

The police, too, seemed perplexed about why he was killed, as his previous run-ins with police were “nothing major,” Lemieux said.

Frappier’s funeral took place on February 21, at St. Zotique Church in St. Henri. The two-hour service was packed and guests heard words from those closest to him, as well as heartfelt musical renditions in his honour.

“He’s not a bad guy, but to be in that business you are going to be surrounded by that element,” said an acquaintance of Frappier who also lived in the St. Henri neighbourhood. “It’s possible that someone wasn’t too happy for him and wanted to pull him down.”

When asked about if any of Frappier’s associates were involved in crime, Lemieux said the police had “no information on that” and was quick to add that this type of information was “not something we would release to media.”

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is about to undergo major alterations, but people disagree on what they might mean.

The changes will affect a large number of students looking to attend university beyond the undergraduate level. Most academic graduate programs in the United States currently require applicants to submit GRE scores, as do a handful of other programs, including some at McGill.  Additionally, an increasing number of MBA programs accept the GRE as an alternative to the GMAT.

Until now, the GRE has been a more difficult version of the SAT, a standardized test required for most American undergraduate programs. It has been scored on a scale between 600 and 800 and has included three sections: verbal, quantitative, and analytic writing. The verbal section asked students to answer some reading comprehension questions and to show their grasp of vocabulary by choosing antonyms and analogies from a multiple-choice list. Quantitative questions required test-takers to answer high-school-level math questions. Lastly, the analytical writing portion—the only non-multiple choice part of the test—tested writing and reasoning ability through two short essays.

The revised GRE will differ considerably. In changes that Educational Testing Services—the organization that administrates the GRE—advertises as “test-taker friendly,” the analogies, antonyms, and mental arithmetic are gone. Instead, the new format will ask test-takers to define words in context, feature a new on-screen calculator, and allow students to skip questions and come back to them later. It will also change the scoring scale, switching to a system of one-point increments between 130 and 170, and the whole test will be roughly an hour longer.

Tom Ewing, director of press relations for ETS, said that ETS “wanted to make improvements to the test so that it depended less on memorization and more on measuring the test-takers’ reasoning abilities. A lot of that is by the fact that questions like analogies and antonyms are being removed from the test in favour of more scenario-based real life sort of questions.”

Lee Weiss, director of graduate programs at Kaplan Test Prep, painted a less rosy picture of the test revisions. While noting that changes like the new calculator and an improved interface will benefit test-takers, he claimed that “all in all, we would definitely say that it’s a tougher test.”

Using a free sample test made available by ETS, along with information from conferencing with ETS, students and Kaplan-associated experts have agreed that the test is harder, Weiss said. He highlighted in particular the test’s new length—roughly four hours—and the change from strictly multiple-choice verbal and quantitative sections to ones where students may have to supply their answers or choose multiple ones. In this new format, Weiss predicted that some students would have to study more than they did previously.

Ewing denied that the test will be tougher and claimed that students involved in ETS’s testing “seemed to like” the new design. He also noted that, being in the industry of test preparation, depicting the test as more complicated was a good business strategy for Kaplan. Weiss declined to comment on ETS’s reasoning for portraying the test as they did. Of course, a successful and respected GRE is also good for ETS’s business.

Regardless of disagreements on some aspects of the revisions, Ewing and Weiss both noted some important information: the new test will be unveiled in August 2011, and students who write the test before the end of September will receive 50 per cent off their registration fees, but due to the volume of test-takers necessary for ETS to generate accurate percentiles, no test-takers will receive their scores until mid-November. Students who need scores for November deadlines, then, or ones who may want to take the test more than once, are advised to take the current test instead.  Students looking to get a taste of the new test can try it out on ETS’ site or at kaplanpracticetest.com or princetonreview.com.

Here at McGill, it’s not clear how the changes will affect admissions procedures. Every department has its own way of dealing with the test. Giovanna LoCascio, Graduate Program Coordinator at the Department of Psychology, explained that, for psychology, at least, the GRE is considered as part of the whole application package and there are no cutoffs or minimum scores. The admissions committee has not considered the new changes yet.

The winter 2011 referendum period is set to start on March 4 at 9 p.m. There are five referendum questions this semester, none of which have caused significant controversy. They are mostly related to student clubs and services at McGill.

“I’m pretty optimistic about [the referendum period],” said Tais McNeill, Elections McGill’s chief electoral officer. “At the moment, there aren’t any conflicting campaign teams, so I’m pretty hopeful that, referendum-wise, it’s going to be a fairly quiet and mostly positive campaign.”  

McNeill said he had some concerns that, because most of the issues are generally uncontroversial, the elections will not be able to achieve quorum, which was a problem last year.

Three of the five referendum questions were initiated by the Students’ Society Council, the first being the renewal of SSMU’s Ambassador Fee, which provides financial assistance to student groups who wish to host or participate in academic competitions and conferences. The question also proposes raising the opt-outable fee—which is currently too depleted to give out any more funds this semester—from $1.25 to $2 per semester.

The second question seeks to renew SSMU’s Referral Services Fee, a $1.75 opt-outable fee that allows SSMU to fund Nightline, Queer McGill, and the Union for Gender Empowerment. The final Council-initiated question proposes a $1 increase in the Midnight Kitchen fee, to $2.25 per semester, in order to improve the services of the student-run vegan food collective.

“Our servings have gone up by a pretty big margin this year, and this year when all the Arch Café rallies were happening we provided food,” said Beth Austerberry, a Midnight Kitchen collective member. “So we just have increased needs. As we grow, there are more logistical requirements, so we have more hired positions.”  

According to Austerberry, the funding would also allow MK to cater for groups whose mandates are anti-oppressive or encourage student empowerment. The collective already has a hold on the Shatner Building’s room 302, which will be turned into a community space.  

The student-initiated referendum question regarding the renewal and increase of the TVMcGill fee proposes an opt-outable fee increase of 10 cents per credit to every student of the downtown campus.

According to TVMcGill President Carter Li, the media outlet has experienced significant growth over the past year, and the fee increase will allow them to further expand their services to meet students’ demands.

“It’s kind of like a snowball effect—now that we have improved our services [with the passage of a fee increase last year] people are really wanting to use them,” Li said. “So I think the main goal is just try to provide what the demand is. We feel like this would really help us [to expand] our ability to be a service for the students.”

The second student-initiated question proposes the creation of a fee for the McGill International Student Network. Currently, the organization receives no funding of any kind, and the proposed opt-outable fee of 50 cents per semester is designed to help MISN expand its services, which help international and exchange students integrate into life in Montreal.

“They’ve been one of the services that have been self-funded,” said Anushay Khan, SSMU vice-president clubs and services. “They often make their own revenues through the trips that they have, so it’s an interesting fee because they don’t necessarily require it [to] break even, but it will of course help expand their activities.”

A sixth question proposing a new format for the General Assembly was not approved, since more than 30 per cent of the petition’s signatures were from Arts students, which is against the rules for submitting a referendum question.

In addition to online voting, there will be polling stations open every day during the voting period in busy buildings, such as Leacock, Bronfman, and the Stewart Biology building.

“We are actually really hopeful about the poll stations because we are having them every day, all day long, and they’re all across campus,” McNeill said. “We really think that it will help drive turnout, and people can vote in the same poll for referendums [that they use] for the actual elections of the executive team.”  

In an attempt to increase student participation, referendum questions and SSMU executive elections will take place on the same ballot this year. McNeill hopes that the association of the two voting periods will drive more interest and aid the referendum questions in reaching quorum.

“There weren’t any [referendum questions] that [had] particular difficulty [going] through,” McNeil said. “All the teams that we are working on were really, really great to work with, they were all really helpful and accommodating, the campaigning doesn’t seem like it’s going to be extremely controversial.”

Two weeks ago, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson presented to the University Senate the findings of the Diversity Survey conducted over the past year and a half that was designed to find out more about the composition of McGill’s student body.  

The survey, to which more than 2,000 students responded, reported, among other things, that McGill students are more likely to have at least one parent who attended university and that students’ parents are more likely to pay their tuition than at other Canadian universities. The survey also broke down the students’ religious beliefs (39 per cent Christian, 8 per cent Jewish, 4 per cent Muslim, and 41 per cent non-religious) and the levels of discrimination faced by different groups of students. The Tribune recently sat down with Mendelson to discuss the report’s finding and the administration’s response.

Which parts of the survey’s findings surprised you most?

I can’t say I was surprised, but I was a little concerned by the responses regarding discrimination, and that there was reason to conclude that McGill is not as welcoming as it might be to all of our students. That was a bit of a concern. Those results weren’t a surprise but they were something of a disappointment.

Here’s one thing that was a bit of surprise: In some areas, there really was a lack of awareness of services offered at McGill, both by  McGill’s Student Services and by student associations. We’ve shared the information, but we’re going to be analyzing the data further so that [Student Services] can better reach groups of students who may not be aware of the services that they offer.

In your remarks to the Students’  Society Council, you noted that, on the basis of national origin, the group that reported the most discrimination was Americans. Can you elaborate?  

The group that had the highest level of perceived discrimination was American students. Whenever I present this to anyone at McGill, it seems that people smile. And I think they smile because they say, “Oh, well, Canadians are critical of Americans and so . . .” But the smiling is an indication of the problem, because we wouldn’t smile at discrimination against other groups, I hope.

We also asked about sexual orientation, and not surprisingly, students who self-identify as homosexual and bisexual perceive experiencing a lot more discrimination than other groups.

How is the administration planning to remedy this?

I’m happy to answer that question, but we should also ask, “What can we all do?” There were two aspects of discrimination reported by the survey: discrimination by McGill employees and discrimination by fellow students. Students were, not surprisingly, experiencing more discrimination by students, in most categories, than by employees, presumably because they spend more time with students and because there are just far more students around.

What we’re hoping to do is, in the first instance, follow up on the survey to better understand what it is that students are experiencing. This survey, as a whole, was to get a broad-stroke picture of the diversity of our students, or lack thereof in some cases. It wasn’t designed as a survey on discrimination. There are a lot of different aspects of discrimination that we really need to follow up on. We also need to have some general consciousness-raising in the university, for employees and for students. I think we need to have a “Be Respectful” campaign of some sort, which would be a terrific project for the university and students to partner on.

The survey also found that McGill students, on the whole, are significantly more economically privileged than students at the average Canadian university. How will McGill move forward on this?

We’ve been working on that. A number of years ago, we introduced an entrance bursary so that students can know about the financial aid that they will receive before they actually have to make a decision about whether or not they would accept an offer of admission. The Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence, and Community Engagement has a number of suggestions on increasing pipelines of students from underrepresented groups, including groups with low socioeconomic backgrounds. That’s another area where we have to do some work. We’re focusing on two primary areas: increasing financial aid and supporting students from more diverse backgrounds. It’s not enough to provide money for someone to attend university; students who are the first in their families to attend universities are in a somewhat foreign territory, and they can’t rely on family support in the way that people whose parents have been to university can. There are certain kinds of support we need to provide to ensure that people who come here from underrepresented groups are made to feel welcome and can succeed.  

— Compiled by Theo Meyer. Interview has been edited and condensed.

The rights of women in Canada suffered a serious setback last week when a Manitoba judge allowed a convicted rapist to walk free, arguing that the signals supposedly emitted by the female victim confused the assailant. Justice Robert Dewar noted that the woman had worn high heels and a tube top—without a bra—as evidence that the assailant, Kenneth Rhodes, shouldn’t be held exclusively accountable for the attack that occurred in the woods five years ago. “Sex,” the judge averred, “was in the air.”

The victim was with a friend when she met Rhodes at a bar and later agreed to accompany him alone into the nearby woods. She consented when kissed by Rhodes, but rebuffed him when he repeatedly tried to escalate things. Rhodes then raped the woman, telling her it would only hurt for a short while.

Justice Dewar, while convicting Rhodes of rape, gave him an absurdly lenient two-year conditional sentence, which allows him to avoid prison, continue to live and workin his community. He will also be placed on the national sex-offender registry. To top it all off, Justice Dewar ordered the rapist to write a letter of apology to his victim.

There are few words in Canadian English strong enough to describe how perverse and discredited the judge’s argument is. It’s enough to let his putrescent words speak for themselves. Dewar called it a case of “inconsiderate behavior.” He cited the victim’s tube top, heavy make-up, and willingness to swim with Rhodes in a nearby lake—though she had not brought a bathing suit—as evidence that the victim and her friend “made their intentions publicly known that they wanted to party.” He calls Rhodes “a clumsy Don Juan.” The atmosphere created “inviting circumstances.” In short, the victim got what she asked for.

While we are not privy to the exact proceedings of either the crime itself or the trial, it’s enough merely to consider the supposed evidence of such “inviting circumstances” the justice himself invoked in order to understand that he is partially excusing the rapist from responsibility for his heinous actions. This is merely a latter-day manifestation of a long-held and convenient myth that scantily-clad women are essentially asking to be raped—that they in some way had it coming. The endorsement of this myth—which we at the Tribune mistakenly believed had already been exposed to all as the lie that it is—by a sitting Canadian justice is a shame to this country. This is not an innocuous belief, but could also lead to serious, practical harm, by providing would-be rapists with a ready-made excuse for their violence, and a precedent to which they can appeal. In a bizarre and offensive twist of logic, Dewar’s argument makes victims accomplices in their own victimization.

There is no such thing as “mitigating circumstances” when it comes to rape. In the U.S. last month Republicans in the House of Representatives sought (unsuccessfully) to redefine rape by dividing it between cases of “forcible rape” and all other instances. Dewar and these American legislators ignore the basic fact that all rape is forcible. Tube tops, skinny-dipping, kisses, and “heightened expectations” don’t enter into it. We thought this lesson had been learned years ago and are angered at seeing it ignored—and by a sitting justice no less.

I’m certain most of you have recently heard rumblings about a certain “Jobbook-gate,” which has been tearing SSMU internal relations asunder. I would like to express my ardent support for Zach Newburgh. I believe that the calls for his resignation are completely unwarranted and overdramatic. It seems as if the crux of the matter is a perceived conflict of interest between Newburgh’s role as SSMU president and his role as a spokesperson for Jobbook.com. I fail to see the reasoning behind this claim, and would instead argue that Newburgh took particular care to avoid any conflict of interest.

A conflict of interest, as I understand it, is when a person’s involvement in one endeavour could compromise motivations or decisions in another. In the context of this specific issue, the supposed conflict is that Newburgh’s role with Jobbook would supposedly interfere with his responsibility as SSMU president to protect the integrity of SSMU. As the story goes, the alleged conflict arose when Newburgh travelled to other universities in North America and England seemingly representing SSMU to other student unions.

From what I have grasped, Newburgh made every effort to clearly distinguish between his comments as a Jobbook spokesperson and his comments as SSMU president. As Newburgh stated in an interview with the Daily, he “was not representing the SSMU in an official capacity [during these meetings]. And that should have been clear. And was made clear.” He appears to have sincerely attempted to make this distinction. Unfortunately, Newburgh cannot control the perceptions that other universities had of him. He is not to blame because they misinterpreted his intentions; that isn’t a fair burden to place on anyone. In fact, we are lucky enough to have a SSMU president who was astute enough to recognize the potential for a conflict of interest, and adjust the circumstances accordingly. Newburgh did this in two ways. First, he negotiated a potential deal that would actually align the interests of SSMU and Jobbook. Second, he abstained from any Executive Committee votes on the matter.

As part of Newburgh’s involvement with Jobbook, he negotiated with Jean de Brabant, the site’s founder, a potential deal whereby SSMU, should it choose to partner with Jobbook, would be entitled to one share for every McGill student that registered. To me, this seems as if he used his role as spokesperson for Jobbook to benefit SSMU, not the other way around, as certain pundits would have you believe. Therefore, any decision Newburgh made to benefit Jobbook would benefit SSMU as well. As far as I am concerned, that doesn’t qualify as a conflict of interest. But to even further safeguard the interests of SSMU, and remove any airs of impropriety, Newburgh abstained from all Executive Committee votes related to Jobbook. In fact, Newburgh told the Prince Arthur Herald that he “abstained from voting, disclosed [his] potential conflict to the chair, and deferred to an alternate chair” during the Executive Committee meeting where the matter was eventually disclosed. For the above reasons, I commend Newburgh for having taken every possible action to remove potential conflicts of interest.

I won’t argue that Newburgh handled the Jobbook situation perfectly, and I think he would agree. He has himself admitted that it was a lapse in judgment to sign the confidentiality agreement with de Brabant before consulting with the Executive Committee, and I’d be inclined to agree. However, there’s no use in lamenting what could or should have been done. To me, the most important indicator of Newburgh’s maturity in this matter will be how he handles this delicate and exasperating situation. He did his utmost to prevent any conflict of interest, and worked to turn the situation to the benefit of SSMU. To me, that’s called making the best of a complex situation. He’s done wonderful things for McGill undergraduate students, and we should let him continue to do so.

I’ll end this opinion piece by clearly stating that this is my personal opinion, not that of the Management Undergraduate Society. Judging by the backlash against Newburgh for his involvement with Jobbook, it seems some students have difficulty with the distinction between an invidual and his official capacity. And unfortunately for Newburgh and us, it has resulted in gross overreactions against a well-intentioned and incredibly accomplished SSMU president. It is time to move on.

Mike Conrad is a U4 student in Finance and Engineering and is VP-Academic of the MUS. He can be reached at [email protected].

Dear Vicky,

When I woke up on Tuesday and decided to read the Tribune, I had the misfortune of coming across your piece, “Democracy is not a right,” in which you admitted that you were originally against the Egyptian protests on the basis that they would “wreak havoc” in the region. Correct me if I’m wrong, but was that gulp a thinly-veiled way of saying that you were worried about Israel’s security? It’s not always about Israel, you know. According to your logic, it’s acceptable to subjugate hundreds of millions of people for the sake of “stability.” How would you feel if someone told you that Jews (or any other group, for that matter) were not entitled to the right of self-determination and/or a nation state because it would lead to instability throughout the Middle East?

I’m not trying to be provocative or controversial here. I’m simply flipping the mirror to provide an analogy.

You then went on to declare that the key catalyst behind the Egyptian Revolution was food. Really? Just food?

I am sure many protesters were poor and could not afford to properly feed themselves and their families. However, it beats me how you failed to recognize that the real demands were for democracy, an end to oppression, poverty, inequality, etc. One of the slogans chanted by protesters was: “We can go hungry but live free.” As much as I hate to regurgitate, I feel obliged to inform you that educated, tech-savvy people formed the bulk of protesters. Manual labourers, lawyers, Christians, Muslims, children, and retirees—everyone protested. This was not a “food” revolution. It was a much-delayed demand for dignity.

The scariest part of your article is your view that democracy is not right for Middle Easterners based on the ongoing Afghan and Iraqi experiences. First, Afghanistan is not an Arab country (and most would argue that it is not a part of the Middle East), and so a comparison must be avoided. Second, in both cases “democracies” were imposed by outsiders based on the Western-liberal model. That does not sound like a successful formula to me. Third, democracies do not emerge overnight. Britain took over 700 years to get to where it is today. Fourth, democracy is a right that all humans are entitled to—courtesy of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You add insult to injury by claiming that what the protesters want is not democracy, but an end to corruption. It’s amazing how you know what the Egyptian people want better than they do. Have you communicated with even one protester? On what basis do you assume that the Muslim Brotherhood would simply revert to corruption if it comes to power? What is your basis for deciding who democracy is right for?

While you admit that your intent is not to be judgmental, your entire piece seems to be just that. As wary as I am of using the R word, the undertone in your writing seems to border on being racist.

In the future, I would highly recommend running drafts of your “Perspectives” by people with varying points of view. That way, you could have avoided writing the one Op-Ed that has provoked the largest number of negative comments on the Tribune’s website. You owe the McGill community, Egyptians, and all oppressed people around the world an apology for the nonsense you wrote.

Majd Al Khaldi is a U3 Honours Political Science & Economics student, and can be reached at [email protected].

It’s no secret that our campus isn’t always a cheery oasis of bustling students whistling as they work. We rarely move from classroom to cafeteria with a hop, skip, and a “Howdy, partner.” Ours is a place where acrimony rules the student council, academic competition trumps academic enrichment, and moderate politics means sitting on the fence. Calls for a friendlier, common-sensical dialogue are often described as dangerous depoliticization. Meanwhile, the lack of a traditionally strong conservative voice on campus has lead to a new publication plastering our hallways with posters that smell more of American-style nationalism than the generally more down-to-earth Canadian patriotism.

All this leads to an atmosphere that has often been termed “cold.” While I have yet to meet a fellow McGillian who I thought to be an outright jerk-face, we cannot deny the lingering, unfriendly vibe that can too regularly be the sum of our parts.  

A good way to start changing things is not by simply dropping committee-speak phrases like “conflict resolution,” “open dialogue,” or my personal favourite: “facilitating discussion.” The best way to effect actual change is simply by chilling out. Relax. Your peers, like you, are only students trying to make this place better in a way they see fit. They, like you, constantly see things in a way that makes sense within their pre-existing worldview. There is no reason to freak out when someone else doesn’t see a situation as you do. This isn’t new, and won’t change after university. Get used to it.

I am not suggesting that our councillors, editors, club leaders, etc. all drink chamomile tea and munch oatmeal cookies together, leaving their respective agendas behind. But I am suggesting that it’s quite possible to add “liking, getting along,” and, yes, even “joking” with the other side to each and every agenda. I am willing to bet every A on my transcript that each of our public figures—from a newspaper’s copy editor to the Students’ Society’s president—will have a certain amount of respect, and perhaps awe, for the historical leaders Ghandi and Mandela. Far from pulling these names out of a hat, I see the relevance of their tactics whenever I look at public leadership of any kind. Yet far too often we revere these sorts of figures as vague ideas but cast aside the way they handled their opposition when it comes to our own.

As a campus opinion writer I have the privilege of being idealistic. I realize the nitty-gritty dynamics found within the higher ups of public debate makes this sort of rhetoric seem out of touch. Nevertheless, I urge everyone to remember those models who were able to defy opposition with much skill, without letting the discourse dwindle down to bitter, unproductive, and yes, oh-so-cold words.

McGill is a fine school, but its continued greatness will depend not just on its research output and global prestige, but also on the environment its students are themselves able to create. Is it one in which an outsider can feel welcome? In which he or she can share ideas with confidence, comfort, and even … wait for it … a smile? It should be.

As students, we’ve chosen to attend McGill in order to enrich our own experience and understanding, and bearing a “cold” demeanor is no way to begin.