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Doyle reflects on head coaching experience with hockey Martlets

by John Hui on

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An 86-game winning streak, three players on all-Canadian teams, and a silver-medal finish at Nationals. Not a bad result for a first -year hockey coach. Then again, experience with the team is one thing Martlets interim Head Coach Amey Doyle had in spades when she took over Canada’s most successful women’s hockey program from Peter Smith at the beginning of the year. The former McGill star took some time to share her thoughts with the Tribune about her team’s momentous season.

After your career as an all-star goaltender with McGill, what made you decide to go into coaching?I have always been very passionate about coaching, although not necessarily at McGill. My current position kind of fell into place because one of the assistant coaches left [for] Toronto. I started out with a minimal role, [working] with the goaltenders and with recruiting. My role gradually increased, and when Peter took his temporary leave, I was very glad that the Athletics Department had enough faith in me to let me have a chance to be in charge.

What did you learn as an assistant coach under Peter Smith?He definitely showed [me] the importance of paying attention to detail, and to approach everything with professionalism, regardless of the situation. I admire him for his passion for the game, his work ethic, and just how interested he is in the women’s hockey program. What was your mindset going into the season?I approached it with the goal of sticking to the keys of our success. Again, it was paying attention to detail and taking things one day at a time. Even though we were missing a few key components, I thought it was a great opportunity for players to step up, and they all did just that.

Obviously, losing to the Alberta Pandas in the National Championship game was shocking. If you could go back and play the finals all over again, what would you have changed?That is something I have been thinking for a while now. I thought Alberta played very well. They definitely played a very different style of game than they did in their two previous games. They were not afraid to get us to ice the puck, and subsequently they took away our bread and butter, which is our speed and our puck control. We just weren’t able to adapt quickly enough. They had a few bounces go their way, and if we had had our share of those, the result may have been different. With that being said, I would have liked to have seen us try to get the puck on net and score a garbage goal instead of looking for the perfect play. [Many] of our girls are returning next season, and hopefully they will all have become better players because of it.

Some key offensive players are graduating this year – which player of the returnees do you expect to step up their game and fill in for the departing veterans?I think Jordanna Peroff is definitely a candidate to break out next season. She was great at Nationals, and she continues to progress in our program. She reads the game very well and is a very strong and powerful player. Also, Ann-Sophie Bettez brings a lot to the table too, with her experience and great speed. I don’t really expect scoring to be a problem next year.

When you look back on this entire experience, what stands out to you the most? It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed my time in charge. Winning the QSSF was definitely special, [and] we didn’t expect to go undefeated this season because of the personnel we lost. There are a lot of steps that need to be taken before a team gets to the CIS championships, and I thought the team overcame a lot of adversity in taking those steps successfully.

What does the future hold for you? Are you staying in McGill?Peter will be back, and I will be the assistant coach again. I cannot stress enough how excited I am for Peter to come back. He has been a great mentor for many years. Like I said before, I still have lots to learn, and it’s great to learn from the best. I enjoyed my experience this year and I look forward to being in the thick of it again next season.

– Compiled by John Hui

Behind the Bench, Sports

THIRD MAN IN: Sportsophobia

by Brahna Siegelberg on

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Sports are boring. Let’s talk about baseball – I don’t care if it is “America’s pastime,” but when a game only becomes exciting after two and a half hours and consists of waiting to find out whether a player will hit the ball – or if it’s really heated, whether a player will catch it – then I believe it’s time to find a better way to spend the afternoon. How about football? It’s astounding to me that a 400-pound man throwing himself on a pile of other 400-pound men is part of an official game. I am literally haunted by the sounds of the television on a Sunday afternoon – the monotone announcer mumbling something about a 50-yard line. I won’t even begin to express my befuddlement when I moved to Canada and discovered curling – a sport in which players use swiffers to move stones across the ice.

Sports make men even more socially inept than they already are. As if baseball season, basketball season, football season, and hockey season weren’t enough to fill 365 days of the year, men are now also playing fantasy sports. If any man who engages in cyber sports thinks that he is better than that nerd playing World of Warcraft, he is sadly mistaken. To the average female, this is probably a bigger deal-breaker. And whatever happened to the days when going out to a bar meant socializing with your friends to the tune of some good music? Now, the only thing you’re likely to find at a bar is wall-to-wall TVs and tables of screaming men who can’t be bothered to make real conversation.

Sports are unsettling. Our society gawks at the cultural barbarism of gladiatorial times, but here we are, continuing to engage our most violent and competitive instincts – our Hobbesian inner natures that will readily abandon the social contract in order to embrace the state of nature. We’ve simply traded the Coliseum for the gridiron, armour for jerseys, swords for bats and balls, and “to the death” for “to the concussion.”

At the risk of having a mob of furious Canadians hunt me down, I will only say that when I hear the sounds of hockey players crashing violently into the glass or watch a player repeatedly extend his fist into another player’s face like a whack-a-mole at an amusement park, I can only imagine a crowd erupting into chants of “Caesar!”

I take issue with not only the inherent barbarism of contact sports, but the absolutely infantile state in which they place zealous fans and observers. I’ve seen men who get into fist fights and throw broken beer bottles into people’s faces over petty sports disagreements. I’ve heard of friends who never speak to each other again because they support rival teams. Why is it that when I visit Boston, the first thing I hear from local men is, ‘Oooh a Yankee.’ Really? When you encounter a New Yorker, your mind runs immediately to baseball?

In my humble opinion, there are a lot of things that went awry on the Y chromosome: the need to direct a woman when she is trying to park, the refusal to ask for directions when lost, and the generally slow intake of emotional cues, to name just a few. But the fanatical addiction to sports is by far the worst. Don’t get me wrong, I think physical exertion is invaluable, and a little competitive energy is healthy. But the world of contact sports takes on a whole new level of absurdity – both in its participants and in its observers. You disagree with me? How ’bout I smash a beer bottle over your head? ?

Disclaimer: This is a gross generalization of the male gender and the world of sports as a whole. The author acknowledges that there are women who enjoy sports and some men who do not like sports, or do not revert to cavemen while watching sports.

Sports

Seeing red: Hockey Redmen bounced from Nationals early

by Adam Sadinsky on

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The CIS University Cup tournament is no place for the faint of heart. Two games can catapult a team to the doorstep of national glory, or just as easily dash their dreams of a historic season. The Redmen discovered this painful truth last week at Nationals, after losing 4-2 to the Atlantic University Sport Champion St. Mary’s Huskies on Friday. Combined with McGill’s 5-4 overtime loss to the Manitoba Bisons a day earlier, the loss spelled the end of the road for a promising team that had captured the Queen’s Cup in the same building less than two weeks before.

“We’re very disappointed, as we had a great season and high expectations for this team,” said Redmen defencemen Marc-André Dorion. “We won our league and came into the tournament thinking we could win. We were ahead in both games, but the bounces didn’t go our way.”

McGill was rewarded for their dominance in Quebec with the number-two seed going into the tournament and had their sights set on qualifying for the National Championship game. Instead, the Redmen will go home empty-handed for the fourth time in five seasons. However much the loss stings, though, the Redmen can take comfort in the fact that 2009-10 was an unequivocally impressive season for McGill.

The Redmen took the Queen’s Cup earlier this month, and made quick work of their archrivals – the UQTR Patriotes – along the way. Under the guidance of rookie Head Coach Jim Webster, the team posted a 22-6 regular season record and finished as the highest-scoring team in the country. Redmen players were also rewarded for their efforts with individual accolades – sophomore Francis Verreault-Paul took home the OUA East MVP, while Dorion was recognized as the nation’s best defenceman. Second-year forward Alexandre Picard-Hooper joined Verreault-Paul and Dorion on the OUA East first team.

Despite being loaded with talent, the Redmen simply couldn’t deliver when it mattered most. McGill jumped out to a 4-1 lead against Manitoba in the tournament opener before allowing three goals in the third period to send the game to overtime. The recipe for disaster was twofold: disorganized defensive zone play and undisciplined penalties. McGill’s high-flying offence couldn’t muster a goal in the third period to put the game away. Manitoba, meanwhile, had no trouble carrying their momentum over to the extra session, as Mike Hellyer scored for the Bisons less than two minutes in to put McGill behind the eight ball going into their final group game against St. Mary’s.

Once again, the Redmen took an early lead against ex-NHL winger Mike Danton and the Huskies. Leading 2-1 after the first, championship calculations began to run through the heads of the McGill fans at the Fort William Gardens. A regulation win over St. Mary’s and a Huskies regulation victory over Manitoba on Saturday would have put McGill in the finals. Unfortunately, a furious second period charge by the Huskies – three goals scored in five minutes – spelled disaster for the Redmen. McGill mounted a late-game challenge, but couldn’t close the gap.

Three power-play opportunities fell by the wayside, and Verreault-Paul received a 10-minute misconduct, keeping him out of the game until the dying minutes of the period.

“It was very frustrating as we had a good lead early in both games,” said sophomore Maxime Langelier-Parent. “We killed ourselves with penalties.”

While general disappointment and thoughts of “could’ve” and “should’ve” are to be expected, there is a place for optimism in the Redmen locker room. McGill may not have come away with the top prize this year, but the future remains bright. The team will only lose two defencemen – Ben Gazdic and captain Yan Turcotte – along with goaltender Danny Mireault for next season. Throughout the year, the Redmen were led by a line of sophomores, and younger players had a key role in the overall success of the team. With the retention of their core, 2010-11 projects to be another great season for the McGill Redmen, who should once again be in the running for a spot at Nationals in Fredericton, N.B.

– With files from Earl Zukerman

Sports

SOCCER PREVIEW: Reinventing the Redmen

by Aaron Blossom on

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Sports are a transcendent element in today’s turbulent society. To use a cliché, any team can win on any given day. It is not always the supremely skilled squads that capture championships; rather, spirited, passionate and hard-working often trump the talented. It is to this philosophy that the 2006 McGill Redmen soccer team subscribes to, as they are self-avowedly not one of the more impressive teams in CIS soccer.

Second-year Head Coach Philippe Eullaffroy has taken on the mission of cultivating a new spirit and work ethic in Redmen camp. The McGill pitch will not be graced by an extraordinarily skilful team this season; however, if Eullaffroy is successful in his program, there will be a fresh dedication to soccer both within his dressing room and throughout campus.

“I played against the Redmen about 12 years ago,” Eullaffroy said, referring to his time at l’Université de Quebec à Montréal. “When we played McGill, it was a very tough game because the Redmen had spirit that no one else had. Five or six years ago, they lost that spirit and became a common team. I don’t want that. We may not be the best team in the nation, but when others come to play McGill, I want them to say ‘Wow, this will be tough.'”

While passion may be the objective for the Redmen, on the field they still appear to be a fairly average squad. Last season, McGill finished a disappointing fifth in the Quebec University Soccer League with a mediocre 7-6-1 record, missing the playoffs. As a result, the Red ‘n’ White have set themselves very realistic goals. Beginning this year, the team will engage in a step-by-step program to eventually reach the national championship.

“The first goal this year will be to make the playoffs and hopefully win a playoff game,” Eullaffroy said. “The next step would obviously be to win the provincials and then go to nationals, but we have to be realistic. We have the skill level to be national champions, but I’m not going to go out and tell our guys that we’re one of the best teams in the country.”

Young but well-rounded

McGill will look to field a well-balanced, albeit inexperienced squad on the pitch in 2006. Although Coach Eullaffroy has attempted to impart an offensive philosophy on his men-playing with a more offensively inclined 4-4-2 formation-the defence remains the strongest pillar of the team, coming off a season in which they conceded only 14 goals. The midfield-anchored by leading scorer Alec Milne, captain Jean-Philippe Drouin-Bouffard and Quebec all-star James Scolefield-will be a flexible unit that will have to alternate quickly between deep slicing attacks and helping out on the defensive end. The strikers will play an even more crucial role this season as the offensive-minded attitude becomes more ingrained in the team’s style of play.

“There is much more intensity this year,” Drouin-Bouffard said. “The team looks good in preseason, the rookies are ready to perform and bring something to the team and we’re a much stronger team. We’re going to be much harder to beat this year.”

The lack of experience is still a significant weakness for the Redmen however. Last season, 60 per cent of the team were rookies. This year, although that number is down, the squad lost six veterans and is still an overwhelmingly youthful side. In university sport, youth is not a contending team’s ally.

“We lost six players from last season,” Eullafroy said. “Anytime you lose veterans, it’s not good for the team. But the seven rookies we brought in are better than the rookies from last year so we should have some more balance.”

Playoffs within reach

One of the pluses for the season is that McGill finds itself competing in a fairly wide open QUSL where anything can happen over the course of a season.

“The two stronger teams are Montréal and UQAM for sure, and maybe Laval,” Eullaffroy said. “So we should end up around either third or fourth and make the playoffs.”

The McGill Redmen soccer team isn’t the best squad in CIS or the QUSL; however, if the coaching staff has its way, they will be an exciting and passionate team. And sometimes, spirit trumps skill.

Editorial, Opinion

EDITORIAL: The CRTC shouldn’t tangle with the Web

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Back in 1999, in a rare and uncharacteristic display of good sense, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced: “Our message is clear. We are not regulating any portion of the Internet.”

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The CRTC recently announced that it will hold hearings to investigate the possible regulation of “new media” in Canada. The announcement comes as the CRTC is deliberating whether or not Internet service providers have the right to throttle bandwidth based on the content clients are accessing. These are both troubling developments.

Regulating Canadian broadcast media is part of the CRTC’s mandate. According to the agency, the ubiquity of streaming video prompted their intrusion into online affairs. But the Internet is neither Canadian, nor a broadcaster. It’s an international network, and the “old media” rules don’t apply to online content. There are no broadcast licenses to issue and no channels or signals to prioritize.

Because the Internet is demand-driven, there’s no need for online content regulation by the CRTC. Canadians can access (or create) whatever content they want on the Web. There’s no real danger of corrupt broadcast monopolies or American content pushing out home-grown culture.

Of course, listening to the CRTC talk about regulating the Internet is like watching Don Quixote joust with windmills: neither of them has the slightest idea what they’re up against. Trying to impose CRTC policy-be it Canadian content quotas or decency regulations-on an open network is thoroughly impractical. Because the CRTC’s jurisdiction only extends over Canadian-operated websites, the negative impacts of regulation will be limited to Canadian content-a cruel irony for an agency whose goal is to “ensure that all Canadians have access to a wide variety of high quality Canadian programming.”

While the CRTC’s proposal to regulate online content is Quixotic, their deliberations on network neutrality are troubling. They’re currently hearing a complaint filed by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers against Bell Canada, after CAIP complained that Bell is throttling the speed of certain types of online traffic, like peer-to-peer file sharing.

Throttling is a troubling practice for net neutrality advocates. Google, one of the more prominent advocates of network neutrality, states their case in simple terms: “Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. … Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online.”

The Tribune couldn’t agree more. Giving Internet service providers the ability to prioritize or block traffic makes them the judge of what Canadians should see. Government censorship-like the CRTC’s-is bad enough. But private sector censorship is a terrifying prospect. Whatever its flaws, the Internet’s accessibility has been a virtue. The CRTC should leave it that way.

Recipes, Student Life

Batch of Blood

by Meghna Marjadi on

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Blood, guts, and gore are trademarks of most horror movies and Halloween costumes. But bad fake blood can ruin even the goriest costume. A visit to the costume shop might solve the problem, but with these simple tools, anyone can create scream-worthy innards.

Recipes can be tailored to the purpose of the fake blood-for example, blood to be displayed in glasses should be thinner while blood used for simulating wounds should be thicker. A word of warning: any fabric that touches fake blood will probably be stained forever, so watch your bloody limbs and don’t wear your favorite clothes.

Basic: This recipe for fake blood calls for corn syrup, flour, and red and blue food colouring. Proportions vary, but one part water to three parts corn syrup is a good starting-off point. Add red food colouring a few drops at a time to the mixture, until the color resembles real blood. Repeat with blue food coloring. To thicken it, add flour, corn starch, chocolate syrup, or condensed milk. Use syrup sparingly as too much will make the blood too sticky. After stirring, let the mixture sit for a few minutes to thicken. Basic blood can be applied to shirts or body parts to create bloodstained-attire and oozing wounds.

Chunky blood: For blood that looks like it contains pieces of flesh, add oatmeal, cherries, or bread crumbs to the basic mixture. To make the fake guts look goopier, add some gelatin or jam (strawberry or raspberry). For blood with bits of bone, use chunky peanut butter.

A brain: For a fake brain (great as a table centerpiece or on your head) use the leftovers from your jack-o-lantern. When you scoop out the insides, remove the seeds (don’t forget to roast them), and saturate the stringy pumpkin bits in the basic fake blood. Mold the final product into a brain like structure.

Arts & Entertainment

COULD BE GOOD

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For those too old to trick-or-treat

Thursday: Comedy. Hellavator. New comedy by award-winning playwright Ned Cox about getting stuck in an elevator in which there’s no way to go but down. Plan to be amused and afraid at the same time. 3861 st. Laurent.

Friday: Musical Theatre. Fini Les Bonbons!!. Musical improvisers The Halloween Quintet and The Zubot/Ceccarelli Duo present a festive, masked evening. 356 Mont-Royal East.

Friday: Music. Broken Social Scene. The prolific Juno Award-winning collective indie rock band plays at Metropolis with opening band Land of Talk. Tricks and treats will abound.

Friday: Film. Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Zack and Miri are best friends who are short on money. The title explains the rest. Seth Rogan naked may be the scariest thing you see this Halloween.

Saturday: Monster trucks. Monster spectacular. Witness the tenth annual demolition of the Olympic Stadium. Sure to be a monster mash-up!

Arts & Entertainment, Music

CD REVIEWS: Mobile, The Creepshow, Oasis

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Mobile. Tales From the City. Local 514-ers Mobile have just released Tales From the City, their second full-length album. Formally known as Moonraker, Mobile has risen to critical success in the past couple of years with their first album, Tomorrow Starts Today, which helped the band win a Juno Award for New Group of the Year. Luckily for their fans, Mobile has stayed true to their original sound. The new album sounds exactly like a Mobile album should-spacey and distorted, with indie rock undertones and pop rock hooks. The first single, “The Killer,” is strong and pop-y, but is dwarfed in comparison to the rhythmic potential in the second single, “Gravity,” which features a chorus that’s sure to get stuck in your head. Another standout track is “Slow Motion Car Crash,” which features reverberating electronic effects and distorted backing vocals built on a solid rock foundation. Tales From the City is a strong sophomore release from this Montreal band, and definitely deserves to be enjoyed from start to finish.– Kyle Carpenter

The Creepshow. Run For Your Life. Most people probably can’t say that they’ve listened to a psychobilly band before. But if you have, then you probably already know about The Creepshow, a female-fronted Toronto-based band that has just released their second album, Run For Your Life. For those who don’t know what psychobilly is, imagine rockabilly (country-based rock n’ roll) on speed. Run For Your Life is a witch’s brew of rockabilly, hard rock, and punk. Standout songs include the title track, “Buried Alive,” and “Demon Lover.” The album marks the debut of lead singer Sarah “Sin” Blackwood, who recently took over vocals from her sister who was featured on the first album. One drawback of the album is its repetitiveness. But if you like one song, chances are you’ll like the rest. Similar to rock godfathers Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne, The Creepshow’s horror persona adds a fun and engrossing element to their music and stage presence, kind of like a bad slasher movie you just can’t stop watching. If you’re up for some fiendish fun this month, then grab a copy of Run For Your Life, just in time for Halloween.-Kyle Carpenter

Oasis. Dig Out Your Soul. Sometimes change is a good thing. Prolific British rock group Oasis’ seventh album, Dig Out Your Soul, offers fans something different from their past albums, and has already gained widespread praise in the music world. Lead vocalist Noel Gallagher proclaimed that he wanted to “throw the kitchen sink at” this album, which has a new sound that’s slightly more aggressive and less acoustic-showing a definite evolution from the band’s hit album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. The album’s first single, “The Shock of the Lightning” is infectious and memorable, but is eclipsed by several other notable tracks, including “Waiting for the Rapture” and the slower tune “Falling Down.” The group experiments with psychedelic tones à la Magical Mystery Tour with “(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady” and “To Be Where There’s Life”-just one example of the Beatles’ influence that pervades the album. As the album’s title suggests, many of the songs’ lyrics contain a philosophical slant-most notably in “The Nature of Reality”-filling the album with a depth and continuity that carries its energy through to the end. This album confirms Oasis’ status as one of the most significant contributors to the contemporary rock scene. Whether you’re a diehard Oasis fan or have somehow managed to avoid their increasingly pervasive rock influence, Dig Out Your Soul is an album to listen to over and over again in its entirety, in order to feel the strong emotion that the group puts into each track. These Brits continue to build their growing legacy with an album that doesn’t disappoint.-Carolyn Gregoire

News

EDUCATION: University of Toronto moves towards higher tuition fees, fewer undergrad spaces

by Andrew Seo on

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On Thursday, members of the University of Toronto’s highest governing body voted overwhelmingly in favour of adopting a long-term policy framework that is closely modeled on research-intensive universities in the United States.

The policy document, entitled ‘”Towards 2030,” was first tabled by U of T President David Naylor. It calls for a boost to commercialized research and a significant reduction of the undergraduate population. Critics of the plan argue that the document readily accepts permanent tuition deregulation for one of Canada’s leading public institutions.

Among the 50 voting members of the Council, only one governor opposed Thursday’s motion. Jeff Peters, a representative of the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students, feared that the plan would especially hurt part-time degree students, and lamented the plan’s strong business focus.

“[The administration] want to deregulate tuition and they want to add more continuing education spaces,” Peters said. “They also talk a lot about corporate funding [but] they don’t mention anything about equity.”

Unlike part-time study, Peter aruges that, continuing-education programs do not issue official degrees and are able to achieve a full cost recovery from a financial point-of-view.

While the Governing Council refrained from voting on a specific action plan on Thursday, the motion formally recognized the future priorities of the university, several of which are inspired by prominent American universities. One such goal is to reduce the university’s undergraduate population from 83 per cent of total enrolment to 65 per cent by 2030. Spaces for graduate students would increase by similar margins. This plan mimics enrolment strategies at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where undergraduate spaces make up less than 60 per cent of total student enrolment.

Thursday’s motion also called for further “commercialization of university discoveries” as well as an increase in “per-student revenues” which according to the report currently make up less than one-tenth of financial resources at private, research-intensive, American institutions, according to the report.

Ryan Matthew Campbell, a governor representing full-time students in professional degrees such as law and medicine, was among the majority of legislators who voted in favour of Thursday’s motion.

“I do think the framework document from ‘Towards 2030’ is good for both the University of Toronto [and its students]”, Campbell said. He noted that his constituents were largely ambivalent when asked about the plan. “The framework did not take a position on tuition, and it explicitly stated that the top priority for the University of Toronto is advocacy with the Province of Ontario to increase public funding for education.”

Some critics have argued that public funding can do more harm than good if resources are not spent accordingly. Under the new framework, the U of T will continue to advocate for government “investments in research, as well as growth in federally derived student aid and scholarships.” Students fear that public research funding is increasingly being used for commercial interests. Furthermore, it has been argued that simply issuing bursaries and scholarships will not help the university provide affordable education-part of its public mandate.

“On the other hand, international students [who are ineligible for many forms of financial aid] are concerned that their fees will skyrocket,” said Binish Ahmed, former vice-president university affairs for the U of T Students’ Union. Ahmed fears that the university will be looking to capitalize on the earning potential of international tuition fees.

While Thursday’s motion did not contain specific reference to tuition deregulation it did state that the university will continue to ensure that “accessibility is maintained as and when tuitions increase.” Critics of the proposal have argued that the university would rather accommodate tuition fee hikes than lobby the government to keep costs down.

Students’ Society President Kay Turner indentified a similar trend towards privatization at McGill, where greater attention has been paid to graduate student admissions, which bring lucrative research funding and greater prestige for the university.

“It has [also] been made explicitly clear by the principal and other university administrators that a shift should be made towards the deregulation of tuition and a shift [in] focus towards increased private funding,” Turner said.

McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum previously served as both a governor on the U of T’s Governing Council and as a vice-president of research and international relations. In addition, McGill and the U of T are the only Canadian members of the Association of American Universities, an invitation-only group of 62 leading North American research universities whose reports are frequently cited in the 2030 framework.

“In a very narrow sense, these changes may be good for [McGill] as an institution, in that it will have more money, more prestige, and be more of an elite university. For students and society as a whole, it will be a step backwards. Less people would be able to attend the university,” Turner said.

Indeed, for the lone member who opposed the measure at Thursday’s vote, this was a rash choice in a Governing Council where only four seats out of 50 represent undergraduate students.

“[It makes] the university even more inaccessible,” Peters said. “It is not the vision I have for U of T moving forward.”

News

CAMPUS: Controversy over travel directive continues

by Matt Chesser & Theo Meyer on

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After working to send McGill student teachers to Indonesia for over a year, professor Fiona Benson was “gobsmacked” to learn that the university’s new travel directive would force the trip’s cancellation less than a month before departure.

“I was given a green light to go to Indonesia by [Faculty of Education Dean Hélène Perrault] and by the administration,” said Benson, who is also the director of the Faculty of Education’s Office of Student Teaching. “This was a project that took months to build with very good minds behind it, and it was pulled very late.”

McGill’s new travel directive prohibits student participation “in any university related activities, be they curricular or co-curricular, in countries with a level-three (avoid non-essential travel) or level-four (avoid all travel) warning.” Indonesia has a level-three travel warning, as issued by Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In addition, some regions of the country currently have level-four warnings.

Eight undergraduate students were scheduled to leave for Indonesia in the third week of October. They planned to spend nine weeks as teachers in the Program for International Attachment, Global Education, and Training (PIAGET) network of schools. All expenses were going to be paid by their Indonesian hosts. The trip was cancelled shortly before the new travel restrictions were released in a memo on September 25.

Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson identified the trip to Indonesia as the catalyst behind the new travel directive.

“It came to our attention that there were people who were not taking what might be considered appropriate precautions with respect to student travel, and we felt that we had to take control of the situation,” Mendelson said in an interview with the Tribune two weeks ago.

When asked earlier this week to name specific precautions that had been neglected by the planners of the trip to Indonesia, Mendelson declined to engage in “a public conversation” with Benson.

“The trip to Indonesia was cancelled because there was, and remains, a level-3 DFAIT travel warning to the country, plain and simple,” said Mendelson. “DFAIT travel warnings are not new, and McGill has heeded them in the past.”

Mendelson cited the Africa Field Study Semester reshuffling earlier this year, and the suspension of a bilateral exchange agreement with Technion-the Israel Institute of Technology-as examples of McGill heeding DFAIT warnings in the past.

According to Quebec civil law, liability waivers can be rendered invalid in the case of injury or death. Therefore, even students who sign liability waivers could theoretically sue the university if injured while on McGill-sanctioned trips abroad.

Benson maintains that proper precautions to provide for student safety were taken, and that, as adults, the students should have been allowed to determine if the risk was acceptable.

“There was nothing haphazard about this trip,” Benson said. “I went to Indonesia and visited all the schools our students would be working at, and I helped to train the [Indonesian] cooperating teachers who would work with our student teachers. I liked what I saw, and I never felt at risk.”

Kim Grenier, a U3 secondary education student scheduled to go on the trip, said that the trip fell through despite Benson’s hard work.

“Going to Indonesia in the first place was giving us an incredible opportunity to be immersed in another culture and see what their teaching techniques were,” Grenier said. “And it was an international school, so it was providing us with networking opportunities and numerous opportunities to see what the profession is like. Not being able to go … is a huge setback.”

Grenier is currently fulfilling her field work requirement working with special needs children near her home on Montreal’s South Shore. She lamented the short notice of that students were given.

“We didn’t have much time to turn around and try to find another experience that would have been like [studying in Indonesia],” Grenier said.

Benson claimed that some students had given up jobs and leases that are no longer available to them in order to go to Indonesia.

Students’ Society Vice-President University Affairs Nadya Wilkinson said that SSMU, in conjunction with the Arts Undergraduate Society and Post-Graduate Students’ Society, is gathering information to combat the new travel directive. The administration’s revised guidelines are expected to be released by the end of October.

“As soon as the policy and the guidelines come out, then we can get loud with this,” Wilkinson said.

Both Benson and Grenier stressed that while Indonesia is not completely safe, students are exposed to some danger anywhere they study.

“I was asked if I could guarantee the safety of my students, and I said no. But I can’t guarantee their safety in Montreal [either],” said Benson. “I’m not against McGill tightening procedures, but this blanket ban and the last-minute cancellation of this project without really doing due diligence, is not a decision I’m happy with.”

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