The Arts Undergraduate Society announced on Wednesday that Arts Frosh had taken in far less than what was needed to cover the event’s expenditures, resulting in a budget deficit of $30,105.

AUS Vice-President Finance Majd Al Khaldi spent more than an hour detailing how the event went so deeply into the red at AUS Council.

Much of the revenue shortfall, Al Khaldi said, stemmed from the fact that Nampande Londe, the vice-president in charge of organizing Arts Frosh, decided to raise the cap for attendance to 1,800 participants. More first years chose to register online this summer, which led Londe to believe that a high number would also register on campus in August.

Based on the higher cap, the AUS projected that Arts Frosh would take in $170,863. As the registration numbers in the days leading up to Frosh failed to meet projections, however, the AUS decided to open Frosh to all McGill students in an effort to register as many people as possible.

Nevertheless, this last-ditch effort failed to register many more students. About 1,482 students registered for Arts Frosh, and the event took in $137,637.

Members of AUS Council were made aware of the shortfall during the first week of term, but most of them did not see the budget until Wednesday.

“When I saw the budget, I was appalled,” said Amara Possian, an Arts senator who has been involved in Frosh for the past three years. “Some of the things they spent money on were absurd.”

Froshies, for example, have typically spent the last night of Arts Frosh at St. Sulpice, a popular bar on St. Denis Street, which hosted the event free of charge. This year, though, Londe paid to book the Just for Laughs Theatre.

After news of the loss broke in campus newspapers, Londe resigned her position as AUS VP events on September 14. She cited personal reasons in her decision to resign and is no longer a student at McGill.

Many of Frosh’s financial difficulties, Possian said, stemmed from Londe’s mismanagement. She added that councillors were ready to impeach her if she had not resigned.

Although Londe was not present at Wednesday’s meeting, councilors voiced concerns about how the event generated such a large shortfall.

“Raising the cap was the biggest problem they had, and I wasn’t aware of the extent to which that was going to have an effect on the deficit,” said Cathryn Supko, a representative to AUS Council from the Society of Undergraduate Math Students. “I was actually really fascinated by the fact that they did not spend as much as they anticipated, and there was still quite a significant deficit.”

Several councillors also questioned some of the event’s expenditures. The AUS originally budgeted $4,950 to pay its six Frosh coordinators, who assisted Londe in organizing the event. The AUS subsequently raised their total pay to $7,000, despite the fact that one of the coordinators quit midway through the summer.

“[The decision to raise the coordinator’s stipend] was made by the executive based on the fact that these coordinators had to pull out more work based on the fact that somewhere halfway through the summer the cap was raised,” Al Khaldi said. “They ended up planning an event for 1,800 students instead of 1,400, hence this raise.”

In addition, the budget presented by Al Khaldi showed that the AUS spent $5,505 on food for a barbeque on the second day of Frosh, though only $2,263 was budgeted for the meal. Al Khaldi attributed the overrun to Casey Adams, one of the Frosh coordinators, who failed to order the food from Provigo far enough in advance.

The AUS spent far more on Frosh this summer than in previous years. Total expenditures ran to $167,752 this year—about $46,000 more than last year.

According to Al Khaldi, Arts Frosh had budgeted to lose money on Frosh, but these projections showed the event losing $7,933.

Councillors also expressed concern that Al Khaldi was unable to be more involved in the Frosh planning process. Though Al Khaldi was not required to help plan Frosh or be in Montreal over the summer, councillors suggested that the future holders of Al Khaldi’s position might take a larger role in Frosh.

“I think that it would have been better to have the VP finance there [during Frosh planning] to look over the budget and work in conjunction with them the whole summer,” said Tim Apedaile, the president of the Political Science Students Association. “I think that’s a positive that’s come of this because I think they’re moving towards doing that.”

In two rankings released this month, McGill University was recognized as one of the world’s top universities. The QS World University Rankings placed McGill 19th globally and first in Canada, while the Times Higher Education (THE) Rankings placed McGill 35th globally and third in Canada.

McGill has been in the top 25 universities in the world by the QS rankings for the last seven years. It was ranked highest in 2007, when it was ranked 12th globally. This year, the QS rankings also affirmed McGill among the top 35 universities in Arts & Humanities, Engineering & Technology, Life Sciences & Medicine, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences & Management.

In the THE rankings, McGill placed behind the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia within Canada.

The publications of the two reports is the first since the end of the partnership between QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd and Times Higher Education. Previously, the two organizations worked together, with QS as the data supplier for THE magazine. This year, however, QS produced rankings in association with partners such as US News & World Report and Scopus, the Elsevier database. THE partnered with Thomson Reuters to produce its own university rankings.

“THE is very happy to be working with Thomson Reuters, who have very reliable data collection methods,” said Richard Renolds, a researcher for THE. “THE has rebalanced away from reputational surveys and adopted a more scientific approach.”

The two ranking systems now employ substantially different methodologies. Academic reputation  is the largest part of the QS rankings, compromising 40 per cent of a university’s score. This is measured by an academic peer review, an opinion survey asking active academics about top universities in their field.

 The THE rankings on the other hand, place the greatest weight on citations, which make up 32.5 per cent of a university’s ranking, compared to just 20 per cent in the QS rankings. THE also assigns equal weights to teaching and research, with each accounting for 30 per cent of a university’s score.

 Another advantageous factor for McGill in the QS rankings is the greater weight placed on international students and faculty (10 per cent compared to 5 per cent), a category in which McGill has consistently performed well.

“Part of both the teaching and the research components of the ranking had a reputational component to it as well,” said Vaughan Dowie, executive head of public affairs at McGill.

Dowie said that he was pleased with the recognition McGill was given and explained that the rankings are a useful method of determining how McGill is performing from year to year.

Dowie also spoke about the unique financial situation faced by McGill compared to other universities of a similar stature.

“We have a reality in Quebec in terms of the funding issues which is part of the equation. The kind of miracle of McGill rankings is that with a much smaller resource base than that of universities with which we are ranked, we still do really well. We will continue to do more with less.”

Dowie’s words echoed similar statements made by McGill Principal and Vice-Chancellor Heather Munroe-Blum.

“[McGill is] tremendously gratified to be recognized consistently as one of the world’s leading universities,” Munroe-Blum said in a press release. “[McGill has] managed to maintain its standing despite a growing funding gap between us and the universities with which we compete.”

“Dawson College Massacre,” a controversial videogame based on the 2006 shootings at Dawson College that killed one and wounded 19, was removed from the Internet on September 17 by its creator, a computer programmer with the screen name Virtuaman.

Virtuaman initially refused to remove it despite numerous complaints. He only did so after discovering that the game offended the victim’s family.

“I don’t really care who or what plays my games, I don’t really care if the average person is angry about my game or upset,” Virtuaman said.

“The victims, however, I can understand they could be upset knowing this thing exists, and I can understand if they are angry at me. [But] some that I spoke with were not angry with me. They were great people. They were able to understand that it’s just a game that tries to explore the mind of a killer.”

The game was posted on the Internet shortly before the fourth anniversary of the shooting. It irked many close to the incident and received mixed reviews from others.

Despite complaints, police were unable to take the game down since it did not violate any laws.

“We did what we could do, which is strongly suggest to the Internet provider to take out the game because we didn’t think it was of good taste,” said Marie-Elaine Ladouceur, a spokeswoman for the Montreal Police Department.

Despite police urgings, both Virtuaman and the U.S.-based website initially refused to take down the game.

Sophie Silkes

Sophie Silkes

The Students’ Society of McGill University and University Services co-sponsored an open forum in the Shatner Ballroom on Thursday to discuss the new rules and regulations for cycling and pedestrian safety on McGill’s downtown campus. A panel of professors, advisors, and students responded to the questions and comments posed by those present at the forum.

“I was positive and idealistic that we were going to find some consensus, negotiate some ideas and projects, but I was also realistic knowing that lately McGill administration has been very unilateral in their decision making,” said Christian Scott, U3 Sociology and IDS.

The strong response generated by some students and faculty members is partly due to McGill’s University Master Plan, an 81-page document that addresses current facilities and space needs while making projections for growth and change in the future. which was approved by the McGill Board of Governors on April 7, 2008.

 While some components of  the Master Plan were implemented nearly a decade ago, the most extensive consultation and review occurred during the 2005/2006 year. One of these components is the McGill Green Project, which mandates that cyclists must dismount their bikes on lower campus and McTavish Street in order to ensure pedestrian safety, causing an outrage among many students and professors.

“Forty-five years ago, the bicyclists were at the forefront of the green movement. Imagine my anger at being at the forefront of this fight for 25 years and being told by a man in a fluorescent suit holding a stick that I had to walk my bicycle because it is dangerous,” said Professor Pieter Sijpkes, an associate professor in the School of Architecture. “I agree that we should have a campus as safe as possible. Instead of closing McGill campus to cyclists, we should welcome them. We should welcome them because they are the eyes that will make the place safe.”

In order to ensure the safety of cyclists and pedestrians, Sijpkes suggested making the distinction between “high-speed” and “low-speed” traffic, similar to vehicular standards. The McGill campus should not be home to high-speed cyclist traffic, he said.

“With regard to speed and speed limits, the main thing that the literature and research that we have done has shown us that people respond to their environments appropriately”  said Jacob Larsen, a doctoral candidate in Urban Planning.  “Rather than imposing speed limits, a better solution would probably be to design the campus in such a way where people are encouraged by themselves to ride slower.”

Jim Nicell, vice-principal University Services said that although the university’s priority is safety, some feel that these claims have been exaggerated.

“It is my impression that there has been an overestimation of the dangers of cycling and also an overestimation of the difficulty of implementing various mitigation efforts to those dangers,” said Randall Blom a student Senator of Law. “But, these difficulties can be overcome. For us to say that it is too difficult to implement, I am not satisfied by that answer.”

Because these changes were implemented after the May 2010 convocation ceremonies, many individuals felt as though there was a lack of consultation and communication between the administration and the greater McGill community.

“The McGill University Master Plan was approved in 2008. So there was lots of consultation that went into that,” said Blom. “Unfortunately, due to our short stay at this university, that all happened probably before we as students were here. So, it is very natural for us to feel […] that we do not play a part in this consultation.”

Nicell stressed that there were numerous opportunities for individuals to express their concerns, ranging from forums to presentations.

“We tried to make as many presentations as possible to get out there, to get an idea of what the priorities of the people are,” said Nicell “I really think that we managed to capture them. I’m looking for that consultative process so that we can get more student input.”

“I think it’s really great that we are having a conversation about this as a community and on issues that affect us,” said SSMU Vice-President University Affairs Joshua Abaki. “It is really important to provide a forum where people can compare their different views and you actually get an opportunity to hear what people have to say and their rationale behind a certain position.”

Nicell said that the forum was better than what he had expected based on the emails that he had received over the course of the summer.

“I want to make it very clear that there is no clear consensus on any of this. What I was happy about was that it was incredibly respectful,” said Nicell “Some of the comments over the last three or four months were insulting. I don’t say insulting to me personally but insulting to the intelligence of the people who have been debating this stuff for years and trying to figure out a solution.”

Gabriela Gilmour

Gabriela Gilmour

For McGill students, Midnight Kitchen is usually the best bet for snagging a free lunch on campus. But for one week at the beginning of each semester, Soup and Science edges out the vegan cooperative, offering free soup, sandwiches, and lectures by some of McGill’s brightest young professors.

The idea behind Soup and Science, said Faculty of Science Dean Martin Grant, originated several years ago when McGill was in the midst of a hiring boom.

“We hired so well and so fast that we lost track of who everybody was,” Grant said.

As the university hired dozens of new professors each year, various departments held mixers in which scientists would briefly explain their research over wine and cheese or, less traditionally, cookies and beer. About five years ago, those informal discussions grew into Soup and Science, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last week.

Every day for a week, four or five recently hired McGill professors address a packed house of undergraduates—and a few graduate students—in the Redpath Museum’s auditorium. Each professor has three minutes to explain his or her research, after which professors and students line up for soup and sandwiches in the museum’s lobby.

Fitting several years’ worth of research into three minutes is a tremendous feat of concision, which each scientist approached it differently at last week’s event.

Christopher Barrett, a charismatic chemist who researches new ways to mimic organic phenomena, spoke rapidly, giving several examples of the kind of natural phenomena from that inspires scientists—everything from seashells to spiders.

“You want to see the world’s best solar cell?” he asked. “Go take a walk in the woods.”

Barrett is currently working on mimicking one of nature’s least appealing substances: mucous. Human bodies, he said in his brief lecture, often reject artificial organ transplants because of the devices’ unfamiliar metal surfaces. His lab is working to create a synthetic mucous with which doctors can coat such organs.

After the presentations, Grant asked students in the audience technical questions about the information the scientists had just breathlessly spewed. When a student got an answer right, Grant lobbed a rolled-up Soup and Science t-shirt to the lucky undergraduate.

As they slurped soup after the presentations, many undergraduates stood in small semicircles around the professors who had spoken, asking questions about their research.

Getting more undergraduates involved in research is a major goal of Soup and Science, said Victor Chisholm, the Faculty of Science’s undergraduate research coordinator, who has run Soup and Science since its inception. Because most of the scientists who speak are fairly new to McGill, they are also more likely to need help in their labs.

Undergraduate interest in research has picked up since the event began, Chisholm said. “In the last year or two, I’ve got more questions from students about research, even [those] in U0,” he said.

Many students who attended were enthusiastic about spending their lunch hour listening to the scientists’ presentations.

“It’s been absolutely wonderful—probably just one notch below Frosh,” said Alex Geller, a U1 microbiology and immunology student who went twice last week.

Geller, who works in Donald Sheppard’s microbiology lab on campus, said Soup and Science can help undergraduates feel comfortable approaching their professors.

“This sort of bridges the gap between being a student and doing research,” he said.

Students aren’t the only ones who hold Soup and Science in high regard, though. At the end of his presentation, Barrett grinned.

“I learn a lot from these things, too,” he said with a laugh.

You are about to undergo invasive surgery, and the anaesthesiologist begins to administer the drugs that will put you to sleep while he sits in a lab 8,000 kilometres away.

This situation is now a reality thanks to an interface developed by Dr. Thomas Hemmerling and his team from McGill’s department of anaesthesia.

Several years ago, Hemmerling created McSleepy, a software system that automatically infuses anaesthetizing drugs into patients. On August 30, his team operated the software remotely, using an Internet connection to monitor patient body signals, transmit system commands, and video chat with doctors performing the surgery abroad.

“It’s an extraordinary technological development that could be enormously useful to help with anaesthesia in remote locations,” said Fernando Cervero, director of McGill’s Anaesthesia Research Unit.

Collaborating with Dr. Cedrick Zaouter’s team at the University of Pisa, Hemmerling’s group sat at their “anaesthesia cockpit” in Montreal and anaesthetized 20 patients undergoing thyroid surgery in Italy. In addition to using automated systems, Hemmerling conducted a preoperative assessment of the patients using Skype video conferencing, including discussion of patient history and measurement of patients’ airways using rulers held by staff in Italy.

“We had two automated systems communicating with each other [and] communication was controlled through an automated system with us here in Montreal,” Hemmerling said.

From the cockpit, Hemmerling’s team gave the system commands to administer the drugs for general anaesthesia.

“The systems are specifically designed so that they deliver anaesthesia in the safest possible way, probably even safer than if you do it manually. There are many, many safety checks,” he said.

During surgery, laptops showed four video screens monitoring the surgery and various biological signals of the patients, providing doctors with the same information they would have if they were present in the room.

“If for some reason the local doctors don’t like what the automated system is doing, they can always stop it or override it,” Hemmerling said. “Even if communication breaks down, the local automated system would still function during our re-establishment of the connection.”

A particular focus of the test procedure was to determine the frequency of manual overrides or Internet misconnections. Neither problem occurred in any of the surgeries, though.

Hemmerling and other anaesthetists envision multiple potential uses for the combined technology of video conferencing and automatic anaesthesia.

“There is big incentive from the World Health Organization to develop more and more of what we call ‘telemedicine,” he said. “Transcontinental anaesthesia is definitely part of this.”

Many countries in Africa have very few anaesthesiologists. An automated system, Hemmerling said, could make anaesthesia more accessible even in remote areas.

“At this point, we do not have enough specialists in remote areas, even in Canada when you go to rural areas up north,” Hemmerling said. “Even if you are a specialist, you might have to deal with very complicated cases where you would prefer to have an automated system helping you and an expert team as a backup, with whom you can consult in real time.”

Besides helping isolated doctors, Hemmerling said he foresees the possible use of the technology as a teaching tool for training residents and for providing preoperative assessments remotely without having patients travel to the hospital.

Groups in the military and space industries have also expressed an interest in making use of the technology for surgery in locations with few or no specialist doctors available.

Steven Backman, chair of McGill’s department of anaesthesia, emphasized the novelty of Hemmerling’s process.

“You are able in real time to get a lot of biological information about the patient and also control the delivery of drugs over a long distance,” Backman said. “It’s important to bear in mind that it doesn’t replace the anaesthesiologist, but it certainly allows you to provide anaesthesia care with the input from doctors over any distance.

“We’re very excited about this,” he added. “We look forward to seeing how this is going to evolve. It’s very, very new technology.”

The Quebec Student Roundtable (QSR, or TaCEQ in French), a provincial student lobbying group, is gearing up its campaign for the coming school year.

TaCEQ represents the student associations of the undergraduate and graduate students of Laval University, the graduate students of the University of Sherbrooke, and the Students’ Society of McGill University. According to SSMU Vice-President External Myriam Zaidi, the organization represents roughly 65,000 students in total.

“We’ve been working already in conjunction with these associations that are a part of TaCEQ right now,” Zaidi said. “We meet once a month, at a roundtable of the associations.”

TaCEQ, which was started last fall, spent much the last year drafting its bylaws and campaigning to introduce paid practicums for Education students. This year, however, TaCEQ plans on tackling a number of issues facing Quebec universities, including the tuition hikes scheduled to be rolled out in 2012.

“We are trying to get different actors in Quebec to endorse alternative solutions to underfunding instead of tuition increases, whether it’s businesses, university administration, or the government,” Zaidi said.

The coming tuition hikes are being approached in different ways by the different student lobby group, throughout the province. Others include the Quebec Federation of University Students (FEUQ), and the Student Union Solidarity Association (ASSE).

“They all go at it differently to a certain extent just to make sure that they offer something different to their constituents,” Zaidi said. “We will be going at it in the sense that we really want increased government funding for universities.”

This differs from FEUQ’s campaign, which, according to their website, is focused largely on the management of finances in university administrations.

However, there is some overlap when these different groups come together at the Table of University Partners (TPU). “It’s a roundtable of all the partners in Quebec universities. That includes student groups, professors’ unions, teaching assistant unions, and others,” said Zaidi.

TaCEQ is in the process of obtaining recognition by the Quebec government, which would allow them to get government funding. Zaidi is also working on increasing the group’s visibility at McGill by promoting TaCEQ’s English-language acronym, QSR.