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A conversation with retiring History Professor Leonard Moore

by Alex Sher on

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On April 11, Professor Leonard Joseph Moore will deliver his final lecture and bid farewell to McGill alongside this year’s cohort of wide-eyed graduating students. Professor Moore was an undergraduate at the University of California (UC) Davis 50 years ago, but in his words, he’s “never really been a graduating student before.” He moved directly from Davis to UCLA, then to Reed College for a year, before arriving at McGill in 1991. He explained that “there was always another university,” so he never truly had to leave behind the “environment that electrified” him. It is only now, in the last year of his nearly half-century-long career, that Moore finally finds himself feeling like a graduating student, having to walk away from the space that he fell in love with as a teenager.

Moore grew up in the suburbs of San Francisco during the postwar baby boom, one of eight children. He lived on a street where all of the men had served in the Second World War. Though a good student in high school, Moore was more concerned with his status on the football team. However, things changed dramatically for Moore at UC Davis.

“It kind of electrified me. I just really loved learning and loved history in particular,” Moore said in an interview with The Tribune. “But I was thinking of law school in the default setting like most people [who] were studying what I was studying.” 

European history had language requirements that Moore considered impossible, and he was resigned to law school until a good friend suggested he take American history. “I thought, oh, I had that in high school; it was boring,” he recalled. But he gave it some thought, and in his last year, he “loaded up on American history courses and realized it was just as exciting as other fields,” and applied to graduate schools for American history.

Moore started his PhD at UCLA in the ’70s, just as the job crisis for historians was emerging. His acceptance letter to UCLA came with a separate letter that said “something to the effect of ‘we here at the university feel morally obligated to let you know there are no jobs in your field. You shouldn’t come here expecting to be a professor; you should only come here if you feel some kind of spiritual calling to study history.’ 

“The realities of the job market hung over my head the entire time I was in graduate school,” Moore said. “The vast majority of people I went to grad school with quit. Those of us who didn’t quit weren’t the most gifted; we were the most stubborn.” He never had a plan B.

While in graduate school, Moore substituted for professors at local universities while he wrote his dissertation. During this time, Moore discovered his love of teaching. 

“I always felt that teaching was undervalued […] and could always tell when I had a professor who was just kind of punching the clock on teaching and not pouring themselves into it,” Moore explained. 

In his last year as an undergraduate, a professor Moore respected pulled him aside after a presentation to tell him he would be a good teacher. 

“That meant an enormous amount to me […] and he in lots of ways was always a model to me. Trying to be positive. Try to encourage people, challenge them and show them when you think they’ve done well. And that was always with me, even when my focus was totally on my research,” he said.

After working non-tenure track jobs at Caltech and Reed College, Moore landed a job at McGill in 1991 and published his dissertation turned book, Citizen Klansmen, a study of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. When Moore started at McGill, there was no cap on class sizes for 300-level classes, and it became evident that there was an immense demand for American history as his classes rose to over 200 seats. 

“Whenever I walk into a classroom here, there’s a kind of intellectual electricity in the air, students are there who really want to learn, who are sincerely interested in what’s going on,” Moore explained.

Moore was struck by the student engagement and interest, which made him feel “a lot of responsibility for trying to do a good job […] in giving people a usable understanding of modern U.S. history.” Students showed overwhelming interest in civil rights, so Moore developed a two-course sequence on civil rights history. “That felt important to do,” Moore explained, “It’s at the heart of U.S. history, issues of citizenship and equality, and all of the injustice and challenges to the notion of equality.”

While at McGill, Moore has worked in voting rights litigation, serving as an expert witness. Moore described it as “some of the most satisfying work.” Voting rights litigation almost always involves historians because establishing a history of discrimination in a jurisdiction is part of the litigation. The fight against voter discrimination and suppression offers historians an opportunity to use history for public consequence.

When asked how the triumph of winning a voting rights case differs from the satisfaction of teaching, Moore replied, “The victories that I’ve been involved in, in litigation, are flickers on the screen compared to the satisfaction of teaching here, day to day, year to year.” Moore has always loved the work he’s done at McGill and considers himself extraordinarily lucky to look back on his career and feel that way.

On the search for pride in American history, Moore explained that the story of American history is the story of trying to live up to the revolutionary ideals of the Declaration of Independence—the idea that there are unalienable human rights and that government should flow from the consent of the governed. 

Moore looks at all the famous and anonymous people who put their lives on the line for those ideals. His first first feeling is not of pride or triumphalism, because he feels “like the battle just continues.” He doesn’t think about it in terms of flag waving and self-congratulations, but rather that he is American, therefore, he has a responsibility to try to live up to the ideals of the United States. 

Moore continued, “I can give you a long list of American heroes and heroines, and some of them were not citizens of the United States at the time or were fighting against the American government.”

“One of my favourite Americans is a former student who is an Indigenous person who has gone on to be a professor of Indigenous history and write an extraordinary book […] about Indigenous people in American history and how you have to understand Indigenous history to understand American history,” Moore said. “He’s writing from a specific perspective that doesn’t really have a lot in common with what maybe a lot of Americans think of when they wave their flag or watch fireworks on the Fourth of July. I’m proud of him as a former student, but also as an American.”

While reflecting on his final lecture, Moore explained that his wife has been encouraging him to retire for a while but that he felt he needed to teach the Civil War and the U.S. History since 1965 classes one more time. 

All semester long he’s had this last lecture on his mind. “Putting Trump and this election in historical perspective is one of the most challenging things, especially when I have students from the ’90s, the ’00s, and the ’10s,” Moore said. To him, navigating this final lecture in the midst of what he considers to be the most dire presidential election since 1860 is the challenge of an American historian and the challenge of someone who cares deeply about the importance of history.

“I’ve spent 40 years teaching about American history and doing it somehow makes you feel like you’re making the world a little bit better. Like you’re contributing something in a positive way,” Moore said. 

“It’s hard to walk away at this particular moment,” he continued. “It feels kind of like leaving the game at halftime. Or leaving the battlefield. And leaving it to others. When I’ve always felt a personal responsibility to be involved and do my part. So, I won’t be playing as active a role, you know. The world will still spin on its axis of course, but I won’t have the same role and that’s a bit of a hard thing to digest.”

McGill, News

AGSEM attempts to unionize academic support workers amid TA strike

by Jasjot Grewal on

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As the Teaching Assistants (TAs) strike rolls into its second week, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM)—the union that represents TAs and Invigilators—has continued to negotiate over TAs’ new collective agreement (CA) with McGill and has called for all other academic support workers to sign union cards. 

Since the beginning of the academic year, AGSEM and McGill have met 16 times to negotiate a new CA after the previous one expired on July 31. After AGSEM passed a strike mandate during the week of March 11, it met with McGill once again on March 19. McGill’s latest offer was a 4.25 per cent wage increase the first year, 2.25 per cent the second year, and 2 per cent in subsequent years, alongside an offer to put indexation on the agenda of the Labour Relations Committee—which AGSEM deemed unfair. Picketers are calling for better wages, healthcare, and indexed working hours for TAs. They have been at the Roddick Gates since the first day of the strike.

In a written statement to The Tribune, bargaining committee member Nick Vieira explained that at the March 26 bargaining session, McGill and AGSEM discussed what a potential deal between the parties could look like, given the items in AGSEM’s mandate. Furthermore, a bargaining session scheduled for the morning of Friday, March 29 was called off on Thursday evening by McGill. 

“Despite AGSEM’s flexibility, McGill seems to be more interested in investing energy in attempting to undermine the strike, giving out dubious legal advice, and spreading misinformation, than they are in finding the deal,” Vieira wrote. “While we engaged in many discussions on wages and the problem of TA hours being cut while undergraduate enrolment remains the same or rises, a deal was not reached. McGill remains unwilling to give TAs the contract they deserve, despite our repeated attempts to indicate to McGill where a deal might be.” 

Vieira also encouraged students to join TAs on the picket lines to advocate for the vital nature of the position to the university’s functions. 

“We invite TAs and allied undergrads, grads, professors, course lecturers, and staff to join us on the picket line to continue to show McGill: McGill works because we do,” Vieira added. 

Meanwhile, AGSEM is mobilizing to unionize additional academic support staff positions. 

Bradley Por—a Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Law and an AGSEM member—told The Tribune that the additional positions that AGSEM is looking to unionize are “open-ended” and include course assistants, graders, tutors, mentors, and other positions such as students who assist others through the Math Help Desk.

“It depends, department by department. Like in Math, for instance, its undergraduate course assistants, which are people that […] did really well [during] their first year, so they can grade the assignments for the class,” Por said. “So they’re actually supporting the TAs, so the TAs don’t have to do it, but they’re getting paid [$16] an hour. It’s also inconsistent across faculties. Because the same job in Computer Science is paid the TA rate.”

In a written statement to The Tribune, Kiersten Beszterda van Vliet—a Ph.D. candidate in Musicology and Gender, Sexuality, Feminist and Social Justice Studies and a member of AGSEM—explained the importance of academic support staff unionizing, stating that they essentially perform the same work as TAs while being paid lower wages. Van Vliet further explained the importance of all workers being unionized, as they believe McGill will be forced to more closely follow labour law once this happens.

“In most cases, this is the exact same work as graduate Teaching Assistants, and should be compensated as such. The only way to fix this is with a union that can collectively negotiate for better conditions because McGill is using a legal loophole of the ‘non-exclusivity’ of the work of unionized TAs (because professors also do grading or teaching, for example) to hire workers outside of existing collective agreements,” van Vliet wrote. 

AGSEM is calling for academic support workers to sign their union cards before the end of the academic year. If over 35 per cent of academic support workers sign union cards by April 30, there will be a campaign to mobilize a vote on whether to join the union. If 35 per cent or less sign, a vote would not be able to take place, and instead, they would have to mobilize for a vote once again at the end of the next academic term. If over 50 per cent sign their cards by this deadline, they will automatically have a certified bargaining unit with AGSEM. 

“So from May 1, 2023, to April 30, 2024—that’s the academic year—we need to get like 50 per cent of all the employees that work in that time to sign a card. Then as of May 1, [2024], it’s like a whole new year,” Por said. 

Van Vliet also explained that the last time AGSEM tried to mobilize a bargaining unit for academic support staff in April 2020, they were able to get over 35 per cent of union cards signed, which led to a vote in the Fall of 2022. 

“We only lost this vote by one ballot. McGill’s lawyers had delayed this vote for so long that, unfortunately, we could not get in contact with all the workers from 2020 who had moved away. It’s frustrating because we could have already won a contract for these workers and they could have a higher wage right now as well as the benefits of job security and representation in labour disputes,” they wrote. 

McGill’s Faculty of Law does not give TAs, but rather, hosts “Group Assistants” (GAs). Mark Kersten, who graduated from McGill’s Faculty of Law in 2022, elaborated on this in an email to The Tribune, sharing that GAs essentially perform the same tasks as TAs do for other faculties. 

“As I understand it from my time there, [GAs] are effectively TAs. They do work like providing feedback to students, sometimes presenting in the course, helping with evaluations, responding to students, and so on. They pay tuition to receive credits for this work on behalf of profs. Ultimately, this is a pay-to-work scheme (students pay for the ‘experience’ of working for professors),” he wrote.

Kersten also shared that he brought the nature of the position to the administration in the past, but was met with a refusal to acknowledge the problematic position. 

“Instead, it is defended on the basis that working is a ‘learning opportunity,’ which makes little sense because employment is a learning opportunity too. Like, when do people stop learning? And should people who are remunerated stop learning? Of course not. The argument is absurd,” Kersten added. “In my view, it would be fair to reward students with those credits without having them pay tuition in addition. The remuneration for labour would therefore be in credits.”

Van Vliet stressed the importance of all academic support staff signing their union cards, even if they are graduating this year or will not occupy one of these positions again. 

“Hundreds of graders, tutors, and course assistants have already signed their cards. We have more than enough right now to get another vote at the Labour Tribunal. We don’t want to go to a vote again because a vote leaves too much to chance,” they wrote. “This is why we are in our final push in the next four weeks to get over that 50 per cent plus one threshold to win this union for academic support workers outright. We are asking everyone to sign their card as soon as possible.”

Kersten also shared that while it’s important for GAs to unionize as well, it’s even more vital that the university ends the “pay-to-work” nature of various academic support staff positions. 

“Regardless of whether they unionize or not, it behooves the school—out of a sense of decency and dignity—to end the practice of having students pay to work. It should require no further action by students or anyone else,” Kersten said. “It’s an appalling, unjustifiable practice that undermines labour rights.”

McGill could not be reached for comment in time for publication.

Science & Technology

Insulin delivery tech transforms eating habits beyond the syringe

by Daniel Pyo on

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Living with diabetes is about more than just managing symptoms; it’s about adapting to a new way of life. For individuals with diabetes, one of the primary concerns is their restricted diet, which often means they need to be diligent in choosing foods and pay close attention to their overall eating habits.

Patient studies have shown that individuals with Type One Diabetes (T1D), a condition in which the pancreas does not produce any insulin, often exhibit disordered eating behaviours. The disease worsens conditions like emotional eating and uncontrollable eating, particularly among women, young adults, and teenagers.

Nevertheless, advancements in automated insulin delivery (AID) have been instrumental in reducing the challenges linked to eating disorders caused by the need to regulate glucose levels for patients living with diabetes. 

A recently published paper titled “Does Insulin Delivery Technology Change Our Relationship with Foods? A Scoping Review” features insights into the potential impacts of technology for people with T1D. 

Meryem Talbo, a registered dietitian pursuing a PhD at McGill’s School of Human Nutrition, worked on the review alongside a group of Canadian researchers.

“Before beginning this research, as a dietitian, I had doubts about the prevalence of diabetes and its influence on people’s nutritional behaviours,” Talbo said in an interview with The Tribune. 

She highlighted her keen interest in the progressive enhancements in interventions for chronic health conditions, specifically in applying artificial intelligence to nutritional health.

“AID can reduce the challenges of disease burnout. People with diabetes often feel overwhelmed by the constant task of counting carbs and monitoring their intake, leading them to prioritize carb counting over considering other food components,” Talbo said.

As the study documents, individuals with diabetes are mostly focused on the amount of carbohydrates, including sugars, present in their diet, which results in hesitation and restricted choices.

Carbohydrate counting requires individuals to calculate the grams of glucose in food before consumption. If an individual cannot count carbohydrates themselves, their healthcare provider may recommend a fixed amount of carbohydrates to help avoid hyperglycemia—a sudden rise in body glucose—which may cause overactive glucose shocks that lead to a short-term coma. 

The use of AID mitigates the risk of hypoglycemia by monitoring glucose levels every five minutes and administering insulin to stabilize them as needed.

“You no longer have to be too strict with yourself [….] you get more of a sense of freedom and flexibility with your eating,” Talbo explained. 

The study had a positive outcome, demonstrating that individuals with diabetes have adopted more flexible eating patterns. Nevertheless, more research is necessary to confirm this finding. 

Talbo also raised her concerns about the potential limitations of research on the applications of artificial intelligence and its impact on people’s eating habits.

“AID has undoubtedly improved in terms of reliability over the past few years. However, due to the approximate five-minute time required to read CGM [continuous glucose monitoring] values, it is not entirely dependable, as unpredictable events can occur within that time frame,” Talbo explained.

Although health technologies can be a valuable resource, the possibility of malfunctioning or delayed effects is worrisome for individuals with diabetes, leading them to consider tools like AID as additional support rather than a panacea.

This research not only showcases the impact of AID, it also underscores how advancements in insulin delivery technologies can make space for a deeper discussion among patients and dietitians. 

“We can help with dietary schedules, suggest satisfying foods for cravings, and not just focus on daily carb intake and what to avoid.”

This technology also holds promise as an effective tool for children at risk of developing T1D, providing valuable assistance in managing their health. With a plethora of tempting food options and constantly changing environments, AID may be able to help children be flexible with their diet and reduce mental strain.

Research Briefs, Science & Technology

Cracking the honesty code: Key techniques for encouraging honesty in children

by Lana Liquard on

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Honesty is a crucial foundation for relationships and cooperation. In early childhood education, helping children recognize the importance of honesty is fundamental. 

Victoria Talwar, professor in McGill’s Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology and lab director of the Talwar Child Development Research Lab, recently published a paper in Developmental Psychology that investigates the effects of honesty promotion techniques on children of different ages. 

“As [children’s] cognitive abilities mature, they develop [a] more nuanced understanding of others’ intentions and beliefs, they also understand the importance of truth-telling and the impact of lying on relationships,” Talwar wrote in an email to The Tribune.

This study examined four honesty promotion techniques, including reading moral stories about honesty, increasing self-awareness, promising to tell the truth, and informing children about the positive effects of being honest. These techniques were chosen because they promote truth-telling by enhancing a child’s self-awareness and social obligation to honesty. 

Among different techniques, promising to tell the truth emerges as the most effective and the most studied approach. By instilling a sense of obligation or commitment, this method reinforces children’s dedication to honesty. 

The authors organized this research into two consecutive studies. The first study assessed techniques that emphasize a child’s personal commitment to honesty, including promising to tell the truth and cultivating self-awareness. 

Conversely, the second study investigated the influence of more social mechanisms on a child’s willingness to tell the truth. These mechanisms are modelling honesty and observing positive consequences of honesty.

To promote preschool-aged children’s honesty, increasing self-awareness and a combination of modelling honesty and positive consequences were equally effective. In seven- to eight-year-old children, promising to tell the truth, modelling honesty, and positive consequences of honesty were all successful in promoting honesty. Notably, a combination of modelling truth-telling and observing positive consequences of being honest effectively reduced lie-telling across all ages. 

Furthermore, Study One suggests that age may influence how effective the honesty promotion techniques are. Self-awareness, stimulated in the study by having the children look into a mirror, dramatically decreased lie-telling in children under the age of four. 

“It may be that for younger children seeing themselves in the mirror reminded them of the adults’ expectations [for] their honesty and heightened their awareness of what they were doing,” Talwar explained. 

Additionally, the study observed that seven- to eight-year-old children were significantly less likely to lie in any cohort implementing the promise technique. Telling the truth after promising promotes a child’s adherence to their commitments by allowing them to reflect on their reliability and trustworthiness. 

Prior research has also shown that asking a child of five years or older to promise to tell the truth reduced lie-telling by 20 to 30 per cent. However, preschool-aged children tend to have lower success rates despite implementing the same technique, potentially because they do not fully understand what a “promise” is. 

The findings of Study Two demonstrate that irrespective of age, children were significantly less likely to lie after using a combination of modelling honesty and positive consequences. Moral stories that show not only how to tell the truth but also the positive consequences of honesty are important to increase truth-telling in young children. 

“We notice and condemn lying, we often fail to notice and praise truth-telling,” Talwar wrote. “We often tell stories and give messages about lying, about what not to do. We also need to provide stories and messages about what to do.”

These findings show that a multifaceted approach is necessary to encourage honesty among children. Combining external and internal motivations of modelling truth-telling and focusing on the positive rather than the negative consequences seem to be the most effective strategy for encouraging honesty in children. 

News, SSMU

SSMU BoD meets for first time since court proceedings over Policy Against Genocide in Palestine began

by Leah Gilbert on

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On March 28, the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) Board of Directors (BoD) held its sixth meeting of 2024. At the meeting, the board discussed topics ranging from plans to amend the Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy (GSVP) to ratifying the approved winter 2024 referendum questions.

Following the presentation of the executive committee’s public report—which encompassed all motions that had been approved since the previous meeting—SSMU President Alexandre Ashkir presented a report from the Governance Reform Committee (GRC). Ashkir outlined the two largest motions that have passed through the GRC this year: A revision of the internal regulations of governance to align the written documents with active practices and reforms to the Accountability Plan and Accountability Motion.

Ashkir went on to present a motion on behalf of SSMU’s equity and policy specialist, Sal Cuthbertson, who was absent from the meeting. The motion pertained to the amendments to the GSVP. Ashkir spoke to the inadequacy of the current policy, highlighting how it is an outdated approach to current needs and practices of SSMU. 

“As a whole, this update of the GSVP will allow the policy to more strongly assist students on our campus when it comes to gendered and sexual violence by ways of training and by way of reactions to instances,” Ashkir said. 

Vice-President (VP) Student Life Nadia Dakdouki asked about the urgency of the amendments. Ashkir clarified that the renewal of the current policy has mediated the urgency of the amendments, allowing for its postponement.  

Dakdouki then motioned to postpone the vote over the amendments to the GSVP to the next week’s meeting due to the time required to read the document in full. Director Eliot Bergeron seconded the motion and passed the board vote with no opposition.

Speaker Jonathan Dong went on to inform the board of email approvals that had happened since the previous meeting. An interim provision to the internal regulations of Student Groups and Clubs Committee and a ratification of the legislative council motion regarding SSMU’s special by-election for the president and VP Finance roles were both approved over email. 

The approved questions for the winter 2024 referendum were also ratified following minimal discussion. While VP Finance Amina Kudrati-Plummer described the approved nomination of the auditor for the 2024 fiscal year as standard, other board members expressed some concern. 

“This past year, there were unprecedented costs relating to the auditors […] and I was just wondering if that’s something that’s already been anticipated for or handled, or if we’re expecting the same costs as this past year,” VP Sustainability and Operations Hassanatou Koulibaly asked. 

After assurance from Kudrati-Plummer that the quoted price had been negotiated down from a higher figure, the ratification passed the board vote with no opposition.

Additionally, Dakdouki spoke about the court proceedings that began Monday, March 25, spurred by a McGill student filing for confidentiality and an injunction against the Policy Against Genocide in Palestine. The policy passed in the fall 2023 referendum but has been suspended since Nov. 21 due to the lawsuit and has not been ratified.

“The judge didn’t make any decisions yet and said that he would give us something by Thursday at 4:15 p.m [….] The only decision the judge made today […] was basically that the safeguard order continues to be in place until the decision is made,” said Dakdouki. 

Moment of the Meeting: 

The nomination window for SSMU’s special election for VP Finance and President is currently open with committee director spots also to be filled by new board directors. 

Soundbite:

“I was just talking to a few people, and it was brought up to me that the relations between Macdonald Campus Students’ Society (MCSS) and SSMU could be better and there were people that weren’t benefitting from all the resources and services and everything that SSMU offers.” — Bergeron on the necessity for relations between the downtown and Macdonald Campus student societies.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Peace has returned to Spotify via Neil Young and Joni Mitchell

by Lily Dodson on

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At the beginning of 2022, music legends Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, alongside a few other artists pulled their music off Spotify in response to the streaming service platforming controversial podcaster Joe Rogan. Young explained that he did not want to be associated with a brand that had such a controversial figure attached to it, as Rogan has faced accusations from the medical community for spreading disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines. Over two years later, both artists have decided to bring their music back to Spotify despite Rogan remaining on the platform. The question is, what changed? 

Earlier this year, Spotify adjusted Rogan’s contract, allowing him to put his hit podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” on other streaming platforms. Such an expansion allows Rogan to expand his podcast’s reach while still allowing Spotify to handle the distribution of the podcast and gain a certain percentage of revenue from advertising. This ultimately sparked Young’s decision to put his music back on Spotify, as pulling his albums from every streaming service would not be a feasible solution. Young reasoned that if he pulled his entire discography off of every platform, it would be nearly impossible for his fans to enjoy his music. Listeners would have to buy either digital or physical copies of his music, with physical copies being much less accessible now. Though neither Joni Mitchell nor anyone from her team has specifically stated why the acclaimed folk artist has made her catalogue available on the streaming giant again, their simultaneous return implies that similar reasoning motivated this decision. 

For millions of listeners, the return of Young and Mitchell’s music to Spotify is a triumph. One of Young’s biggest grievances with Spotify is the platform’s quality of music, which is considerably more low-resolution compared to its biggest competitors, such as Amazon Music or Apple Music. As a Spotify user, being able to listen to their best albums and songs on the same app—as opposed to going on YouTube or another streaming service—makes it much easier to enjoy their music. I, for one, am incredibly grateful that both artists have decided to put their music back on Spotify—I got desperate enough that I almost bought my favourite albums, Blue by Mitchell and Harvest Moon by Young on iTunes to upload it myself to Spotify. Still, I cannot help but be slightly disappointed with the circumstances surrounding their decisions. Such a choice on behalf of both artists may be a win for Spotify and its users, but it is not a win for every other streaming service or the general public. 

Now that Rogan has an even bigger platform to spread his disinformation and spew his hateful rhetoric, he has the potential to cause even greater harm. While Spotify has approximately 602 million users, Rogan’s podcast will now reach an even larger audience—Apple Music has around 88 million listeners and Amazon Music has around 82 million listeners. Needless to say, it is disappointing that the return of neither Mitchell nor Young’s music to Spotify happened on ideal terms. When Young first pulled his music off of Spotify in early 2022, he announced in a statement addressed to the platform, “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.” Now, Spotify has both, making Young’s initial protest seem slightly meaningless. 

This expansion to other platforms will likely have negative implications for the general public. While I agree with and understand Young’s decision to bring his music back to the platform, he could have used his returning catalogue as leverage to entice Spotify to renegotiate their deal with Rogan. While Spotify may have still sided with Rogan, I would have liked to see Young attempt to use his position and leverage to force Spotify to rein in Rogan’s controversial podcast by holding him to higher standards.

Features

Finding the way forward in urban green spaces

by Mason Bramadat on

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A guide to revitalizing our relationships with the land

Photo Editor Mason Bramadat grew up in Yukon Territory, where he was immersed in nature. Reflecting on urban landscapes and the environment’s potential for healing, community building, and transformation, he offers a way forward for shared green spaces.


Three weeks ago, I had a spiritual awakening while photographing raccoons.

It all started 23 years ago. I am lucky to have been raised in Yukon Territory, where our population of around 40,000 is immersed in a patch of wilderness larger than California. Opportunities for connecting with the land are plentiful, and nature generously served as one of my primary caretakers and educators throughout my childhood. I learned to trust the trees, whose strong branches offered perfect perches for people-watching. I was taught spoken word by the ravens and their many musical calls. I was humbled by the massive, resolute power of the Yukon River, whose waters cracked and crumpled the winter’s ice each spring. Now, looking back, I realize that this wild playground also facilitated my healthy psychological development. It provided endless opportunities for happy play and mental stimulation. The amazing complexity of these ecosystems fostered my strong connection to and curiosity toward the environment. Above all, nature gave me the sense that I have an unalienable place in this world. This protective factor has supported my health in ways I may never fully understand.

When I came to Montreal to pursue my studies, I watched Mont Royal’s leaves burst into autumn colours with the same bright eyes with which I had watched wild cranberries glow translucent in the crisp morning light that follows the first frost. But soon, as I navigated the process of prioritizing my seemingly endless academic, work, and social responsibilities, I slowly forgot to make space for my relationship with nature. Under the stress and obligations that can accompany a busy student life, I lost touch with my love for the land. 

Then, earlier this month, inspired by Peter Mather’s work on urban foxes, I was struck by the urge to photograph raccoons in and around the city. So one night, my trusted adventure partner Nate and I set out for the Camilien-Houde lookout on Mount Royal’s northern slope. As we walked along the park’s trails, the forest’s canopy shielded us from the city’s lights. We heard the scuttling of squirrels in overflowing garbage cans. Nervous flashes of fur leapt across our path, indicating that we had stirred up a resting rabbit. Branches scratched eerily as they danced in the breeze. Finally, we arrived at the lookout. After an hour of sitting on a cold bench, eating delicious chili and sipping local brews, out of the bushes came two raccoons. I scrambled to get my camera, snapped a few pics, and revelled in the raccoons’ polite curiosity. When we had gotten our fill, we made our way back down the mountain, giddy with success. Back home, lying in bed, I realized that our adventure had reawakened a feeling in me that had been dormant for too long. Spending time in the park had not only rekindled my connection with the land but also inspired me to investigate others’ experiences with urban nature.

Curious about what value urban nature brought to different people, I reached out to Lisa Mintz, an environmentalist who has been involved in multiple projects aiming to save green spaces from construction in Montreal. Like me, Mintz’s appreciation for nature began at home, having had access to a cottage and a large green space near her home in Toronto. However, when she moved to Montreal, she felt a void. She eventually realized that losing access to those green spaces deprived her of the psychological and spiritual benefits they had once offered. 

Then, she discovered the raw, tangled beauty of the Saint-Jacques escarpment, a strip of forested land four kilometres long which, according to Mintz, has hosted over 70 species of birds, as well as deer and brown snakes. In 2015, Mintz was shocked and disturbed to see that a section of this forest had been levelled by bulldozers. She joined with other community members who shared her appreciation for the green space, and together they moved to protect it. In this process, Mintz founded //Sauvons la Falaise!//—an initiative that at first cleared pathways, removed garbage, documented wildlife, and filled bird feeders in the escarpment. In doing so, the group’s members made this stretch of urban nature their own and demonstrated just how valuable its preservation was to their community. Finally, in 2020, the City of Montreal announced that a green corridor would be added to the base of the escarpment, that trees and other vegetation would be planted to extend the forest, and that the area would eventually be designated as a //grand parc//. 

In addition to her efforts to ensure the escarpment’s preservation, Mintz has enabled more people in the community to learn and reap the benefits of green spaces. She also co-founded UrbaNature, an organization dedicated to outdoor education, promoting the mental, physical, and spiritual benefits of being in nature. UrbaNature hosts university researchers and offers programming for people of all ages, including nature walks and summer day camps. All of these programs are run in green spaces around Montreal, often within the Saint-Jacques escarpment. Mintz, who teaches some of them, noted that kids have expressed their amazement at discovering the wide range of activities nature has to offer. Ultimately, her work illustrates the invaluable role that green spaces play as sites of education, recreation, and healing. 

The psychological and spiritual value found in the outdoors was echoed during my interview with Chris Barrington-Leigh, an associate professor at McGill, jointly appointed to the Department of Equity, Ethics and Policy and the Bieler School of Environment. One branch of his research focuses on the economics of well-being, where he measures people’s subjectively reported life satisfaction to better understand the effects of various economic and social conditions, changes, and policies. I was excited to learn that Barrington-Leigh also loves to spend time in nature, including climbing gnarly routes in British Columbia’s Bugaboos mountains, cross-country skiing, running, and bird watching in Montreal’s green spaces.

Interestingly, Barrington-Leigh reported that the most important predictors of life satisfaction are social, referring to factors like our relationships, sense of identity, and feelings of belonging. He emphasized that these predictors must be defined broadly. For example, “relationships” should extend to include connections beyond humans, like how Nate and I bonded with the raccoons. Similarly, our understanding of both “identity” and “belonging” should include our connections to the land. This more comprehensive definition of what it means to be social informs a better understanding of well-being and life satisfaction.

It seems then that green spaces are ripe with opportunities to develop connections that can support our life satisfaction. And for people like me, who come to the city with an already-established relationship with nature, where else can we go in the city to maintain this connection? It’s abundantly clear that urban nature has great value. Although grassroots activists like Mintz and the team at //Sauvons la Falaise!// can undoubtedly have a major impact and successfully protect particular green spaces, change needs to occur at the policy level to ensure that these areas’ value is recognized across the board. This could, for example, ensure that residents don’t wake up to find the forests they once bird-watched bulldozed without warning.

I spoke with Kwetiio, who is one of the Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers), an important voice in the struggle against the New Vic Project. When she looks at the nature that remains in the city today, whether that be the rising expanse of Mount Royal Park or simply a flower growing from a crack in the sidewalk, she wonders if the people around her understand how they came to be on this land. Do they know the rich and long history of the Kanien’kehá:ka in these green spaces, and if so, do they realize that hostile settler colonialism led to the cold urbanism that surrounds us today? To her, the roots of the big trees in Tiohtià:ke tell this history well. Their connections to this land go much deeper than those of two-and-a-half-inch trimmed grass. In Kwetiio’s eyes, the manicured nature we have today is a painful souvenir of what she and the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation had stolen from them.

But Kwetiio also sees urban nature as a beautiful reminder of the connectedness of all nature—of Creation. It reminds her that everything—air, water, earth, life—depends on one another to exist in harmony. Today, most people disrespect this relationship by using the land without recognition of all that it provides. Kwetiio believes that everyone has a responsibility to be grateful for the beauty, nourishment and connections that nature offers.

Looking forward, Kwetiio envisions a world wherein people look deeper into the land, to read the history and lessons written on its roots. She dreams of a more harmonious society, in which we allow green spaces to grow wild. Let us celebrate the beauty of Creation, instead of trying to control it. Instead of mowing down grass to get rid of mosquitoes, Kwetiio suggests we plant corn. She encourages us to garden, and in doing so, learn to lovingly tend to plants like they are our children. Kwetiio knows, and as a professional gardener I agree, that in raising plants, the more you respect them, the more beautiful they become. This is the kind of social knowledge that we stand to gain from engaging in reciprocal relationships with our green spaces. Let us nurture these spaces, and in turn, cultivate a culture of mutual caretaking and stronger communities.

In the end, it’s not just about what nature does for people, it’s also about what we can do for it.

Creative

Modern Day Reverence – Nearly Human

by Defne Olgun on

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Captured in Boston within the backroom of an athletic shop. Here is a mannequin deep in thought. The light shines upon him, but there is no light within. He has no brain, yet you can’t resist the impulse to wonder what’s on his mind. In this photograph, I’m interested in the question of how the inanimate can unsettle us and cause internal reflection.

Features

When walls talk: Graffiti and stickering for mobilization, resource-sharing, and expression

by Eliza Lee on

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Earlier this week, I was absent-mindedly clicking through a social media timeline when an image caught my eye. An acquaintance had shared a picture of some math-themed graffiti she’d discovered Sharpie-d onto a bathroom wall: The word “series” repeated across several tiles, with “Taylor,” “MacLaurin,” “Fourier,” and “geometric” printed above each. 

Given that I was working on this article, I did what anyone would do—I awkwardly DM-ed her, (“aha this is so random”) asking where this artwork was located. I ended up in the wrong bathroom, but it too boasted an impressive display of stickers and graffiti littered on the stalls. 

As any student knows, these small-but-mighty acts of so-called vandalism aren’t unique to a single destination. It’s not hard to find handwritten notes and peeling stickers on elevator doors, street corners, and partitions between library desks. Impermanent yet often difficult to remove, public, and against the rules, stickering and graffiti share several traits that set them apart from other forms of communication. I wanted to explore how these unique features lend themselves to use by students and groups across campus.

Media of “Resistance-based action”

Opposition to formal rules governing the use of space is baked into graffiti and stickering as forms of media. This is certainly the case at McGill, where, as McGill media relations officer Frédérique Mazerolle explained in a written statement to //The Tribune//, building directors must approve any notices and posters on the university’s premises. 

“No posters are allowed anywhere other than on notice boards provided for the purpose,” Mazerolle wrote. “When unauthorized posters are found, it is standard practice to remove them. The protocol is to remove the graffiti/stickers as soon as possible and when it is safe to do so.”

Melissa Proietti is the assistant director of the Montreal campus of Champlain College and served as the festival director for Montreal’s annual Under Pressure International Graffiti Festival for 15 years. Her research—including her PhD completed in McGill’s Department of Integrated Studies—looks into the ways that graffiti can be incorporated into educational contexts. In an interview with //The Tribune//, Proietti explained that graffiti culture is rooted in the artist making space for themselves in an environment where they may otherwise lack the power to change their surroundings. 

“[Graffiti is] a mindset for people who identify with a lifestyle that’s associated with it, and a mindset of understanding what it means to take space for yourself in often urban areas, city spaces that are really densely populated, and that are not often really equitable in terms of space and living situations.” Proietti said. “Traditionally speaking, and where we see graffiti culture really becoming noticeable in more popular culture is in that resistance-based action, […] taking space and doing it for yourself […] your friends, and for that kind of notoriety.”

Like graffiti, stickering as a medium is shaped by its resistance to institutional and legal rules. Lola Milder, U3 Arts, has been involved with stickering campaigns for student groups such as Divest McGill and Let’s Eat McGill, as well as for organizing against tuition hikes. Milder highlighted that despite their contested use, the persistence and accumulation of stickers across campus works to legitimize the practice in the eyes of students.

“When you come to a place where there are stickers—even evidence of stickers being ripped off—it’s a reminder to new students that there’s something going on that students are trying or community members are trying to get information out, especially information that the administration is not interested in being circulated,” Milder said. “And that creates this classic [feeling] of, ‘oh, there’s something subversive [and] anti-institution going on.’”

In this way, the mere presence of graffiti, stickers, or their remnants encourages more students to join the dialogue and add their own messages. Even messages that are not explicitly political support this “classic” anti-institutional attitude by nature of their media, sometimes quite literally. For example, when the remains of partly torn-off stickers become a surface for a new crop of graffiti, or when one message scrawled on the wall sparks an entire debate below.

From her experiences speaking with graffiti artists, Proietti recalled that many of them discussed a feeling that once they paint a piece of graffiti, it enters a public space and no longer solely belongs to them.

“[The graffiti] does [belong to you], because it’s your identity, but it also now lives outside,” Proietti said. “When things live outside, [they] become part of a bigger picture.”

There are works of graffiti so iconic that they’ve become a familiar sight in my day-to-day life: “FUCK MEN” with “command or declaration? Instructions unclear” printed neatly underneath in response; “you can do it dont give up” on a bathroom wall; a portrait of a person with eyes closed in quiet contemplation drawn in swirly, looping black marker. Indeed, while the identities of these unknown graffiti artists are meaningfully absent from this article, their impact goes beyond an isolated message. It builds upon this culture of resistance and serves as a way for students to assert their voice and express their frustrations toward a university that fails to support them, listen to them, and be honest with them. 

A tool for mobilization and organizing

Given that graffiti and stickering inherently undermine the institutional rules governing a space, it’s perhaps unsurprising that student activist groups use them as ways to rally the public around a cause.  

Milder attested to the way that stickering can familiarize the work of an organized group to students, showing them it’s “safe for [them] to engage.”

“I feel like there’s a rule of thumb or something where people have to see something multiple times before they think of it as legitimate and consider getting involved,” Milder said. “Let’s say the first sticker is just that first thing, and then they see an Instagram post, and then they see an event from afar. And it like builds into [a feeling of] ‘oh okay, maybe I’ll actually go closer and see what they’re doing.’”

Through form of viewing, stickering has the potential to articulate thoughts the viewer may not have considered acting upon and motivate them to partake in the group’s next action item.

Zahur Ashrafuzzaman, BA ’23 and former member of Divest McGill and Let’s Eat McGill, echoed the importance of stickering in familiarizing the public with activist campaigns on campus. They also attest to the efficacy of large outdoor works of graffiti as a strategy to get students talking about a campaign, even if they disagree with its tactics. 

“A group like Divest or Let’s Eat, does lots of different actions with many sorts on campus but some of the major ones that I’ve seen that actually get people talking on an online platform like the McGill subreddit, are these graffiti eye-catching sort of actions even if […] they might not necessarily not match up with [different measures] of impacts.”

Ashrafuzzaman remarked that one of the practical benefits of graffiti’s “decentralized, autonomous […] style” is that certain activists can take on the task by themselves, limiting the likelihood that the artist or the group be held accountable by McGill staff. 

This past week, as I walked home from class I noticed that the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) had put stickers all over campus promoting their strike. AGSEM President Mario Roy told //The Tribune// that the union encourages members to take posters and stickers from meetings and put them up where they see fit as a way to reach community members within their faculty or program. 

Roy noted that as a result, the representation of stickers is a reflection “that [AGSEM] members really want to show to McGill and to the entire community that they care for what they are fighting for, and they really want to win what they are fighting for.” In addition to sharing information, stickers can be powerful visual symbols of the support behind a movement.

Stickering as a site of resource-sharing

Not only is stickering a useful form of student activism, but it can also raise awareness of support services on campus that students may otherwise overlook. In the women’s washrooms at McGill, it’s not uncommon to see stickers for the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS), the Eating Disorder Centre of the Students’ Society of McGill University, and McGill Students’ Nightline.

Aiya Hyslop-Healy, U1 Arts and VP External of McGill Students’ Nightline, explained in an interview with //The Tribune// that the group had stickered on campus to raise awareness about their services among students. The strategy has seen success, as some of their volunteers reported expressing interest in joining after seeing these stickers. 

At a time when social media is a dominant approach for grabbing the public’s attention, Hyslop-Healy highlighted that stickering can work in tandem with social media to reach audiences that would otherwise be inaccessible. 

“[With] social media […] people have to actually follow us to receive the content that we do,” Hyslop-Healy said. “So I think that’s why stickers are so useful, because anybody can see what we have to offer. And then they can go and look it up on Instagram and find out more about us.”

Potty talk: Messaging and Location Matters

The words that go into designing graffiti and stickers are also crucial in ensuring they capture their audience’s attention. As the fabled series graffiti illustrates, humorous wording with a relatable message is a sure way to catch someone’s eye. Ashrafuzzaman explained that in their sticker design for Let’s Eat McGill, they try to use wordplay to create catchy messages that are memorable for viewers. Due to the often simple nature of graffiti’s messaging in particular, it relies heavily on shared context for audiences to understand its meaning. For example, messages like “Divest” spray-painted on a building may conjure different meanings depending on what issues are in the spotlight on campus. 

“Around McGill campus, there’s quite a bit of graffiti recently with things like ‘McGill Funds Genocide’ or ‘Divest,’” Ashrafuzzaman said. “In this case, it’s relatively clear given the available context that ‘Divest’ here means divestment of McGill’s investments in Israeli apartheid and genocide, whereas a few years ago, ‘Divest’ would be probably taken as referring to fossil fuels [….] But of course both these movements have been going on for some time and aren’t exclusive in any way.”

The specific locations where creators place graffiti and stickers are also strategic, with the bathroom stall being perhaps the most iconic example. Proietti noted that bathrooms are a unique space for their sense of privacy and safety, opening them up to graffiti as a form of expression. Because of their unique position as private areas that users may perceive as dirty and less maintained, “the rules get a little bit grey.”

“[T]hose spaces are […] kind of contestable in the sense of who they belong to, and how well maintained they really are, and if that’s truly vandalism at that point, or if you’re kind of more taking part in a communal dialogue,” Proietti said. “It’s not like you’re out on the front line of some kind of really intense debate. It’s a really low-pressure place.”

In addition to being contestable spaces, bathrooms are places of repose. Milder spoke to the way that “moments of forced pause” around campus—such as bathrooms and elevators—are prime real estate for stickers because they’re more likely to capture someone’s attention. At the same time, she highlighted practical considerations surrounding the threat of stickers being noticed by McGill staff and taken down. For instance, while staff may consider a sticker outside to be a threat to the university’s public image, one “in fifth floor Burnside” might slip through the cracks.

Milder also explained that when there are other stickers in one space she is more inclined to add one to the same group, fostering camaraderie between the causes.

“It’s almost like you’re supporting the other stickers,” Milder said. “You’re like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna put another one here, and then maybe it’s less likely they’ll take both of us down.’”

*

Clustered around bathroom stall doors, on elevator walls, and on stair railings, stickers and graffiti serve as a timeline of recent student activism—from the Association of McGill University Support Employees floor fellow strike in 2022 to the demand “Free Palestine.” These messages do more than occupy space in bathroom stalls, they support mobilization and organizing efforts and act as a means to share important resources on campus. Their very forms are tools for students to make space for themselves at a university that does not adequately support them or take into consideration their voices. 

There’s no guarantee that the graffiti and stickers we pass each day (the “series” family included) will last. But given the role that these practices play in activism and expression, the writing’s on the wall: For every bathroom door replaced and Sharpie that’s scrubbed away, a new generation of creators will be ready to take up the torch. 

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