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Arts & Entertainment, Books

Montreal’s vibrant zine community

by Avleen Mokha on

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Creative McGill students are building a niche community centred around zines—small-sized, low-circulation publications. Historically used as a tool for marginalized groups to publish content, zines house dialogue that does not ascribe to mainstream rhetoric. Now, groups of university students are using zines to address pertinent social and political issues.

On the McGill campus, students have used zines to start alternative conversations. For instance, F WORD Montreal is a biannual publication that was started in Winter 2014 by a group of like-minded McGill students frustrated by the lack of feminist publications on campus. Judy Huang, U3 Science and Immunology, has been part of the collective since 2015 and believes a close-knit community is central to zine culture.

“[The] heart of zine making is the community itself,” Huang said. “[Zines] are often more niche than literary magazines or scientific journals […which] makes [them] a really great platform to link students together […] to find other people who are interested in the same things.”

While the collective accepts members from all over Montreal, the F WORD community is mostly comprised of McGill undergraduate students. The publication features original visual and written content that discusses feminism, and holds launch parties for like minded individuals across the city.

“As a collective, we also hold events to celebrate and promote our zines,” Huang said. “We usually try to feature other Montreal artists, poets, musicians, and more.”

Though F Word is a venue for broadly feminist content, for many student associations, zines are a means to raise awareness for their unique mandate. McGill’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (MORSL), which aims to promote religious literacy on campus, has been publishing its own zine for 18 years. With five instalments per year, Radix collects student poetry, short fiction, visual art, and photography—all on the theme of religious literacy.

“As Radix is specifically designated by MORSL as McGill’s student spirituality magazine, we act as a medium for McGill’s creative body,” Radix editor Mackenzie Roop, U4 Arts, said. “In this way, Radix really serves a niche community.”

Roop aims for Radix to be a space for students to express their spiritual needs and conflicts. She believes zines are especially well-suited to this purpose, because zine-makers work outside of traditional publishing channels, allowing for more freedom in content and style.

“It feels good to be able to have a space for thoughts that seem to have no direct application [and] to recognize and work the inner perceptions and beliefs of one’s life, which are kept separate and thus often deemed ‘less important’ than professional or educational pursuit. It’s quite a magical and special safe space for all beliefs to come alive together, as a living and breathing process, but also a physical reality.”

While all of Radix’s issues dating back to 2000 can be accessed digitally on the MORSL website, Roop believes that the physicality of zines plays a role in their popularity.

“The translation of the invisible mental and emotional processes, God, [and] the spirit,[into the] physical has been [at] the forefront of human pursuits for millennia,” Roop said. “A zine is the very essence of this [translation].”

Roop’s broad definition is useful insofar as it pinpoints the expressive freedom of the medium. But because some zines are produced at a larger scale than others, the term “zine” can be an elusive classification. Zoe Shaw, U3 Arts, is an editor of The VEG, one of McGill’s student-run creative writing zines. She believes that the label comes with a certain flexibility.

“I’m not entirely sure what we would consider a zine,” Shaw said. “When I think of zines, I think of small handbound chapbooks, but of course, it can mean other things. To me, a zine is really what you make of it.”

The VEG, founded by McGill students 14 years ago, is based in the McGill Department of English and publishes student contributors’ prose and poetry alongside visual art. The current team has worked to make its issues smaller and more portable, which Shaw hopes makes the content feel approachable.

“One of our favourite things to do when we publish a new issue is to just leave it around everywhere,” Shaw said. “In the Department of English, we have all these debates about the materiality of texts. But it’s really fun to be able to read poems in a [small book] you can take out of your jacket pocket or [from] between the pages of your agenda.”

The VEG is primarily based at McGill […] but tries to foster connections outside of McGill and encourages alumni in Montreal to stay involved.  

“The founders really just wanted a place for younger readers and writers to be able to access the artistic work of the community at and around McGill,” Shaw said.  “We’ve had a McGill [alumnus] who is doing a graduate program at UM help out because he was in the neighbourhood. The VEG is really a community open to anyone who catches on, and can keep up with our schedule.”

As The VEG is open to submissions from all over the world, the zine has featured contributors from cities such as Toronto and Las Vegas. Shaw recalls one fond experience of communicating with an artist based outside of Montreal.

“The contributor was involved in the Toronto creative scene, but he was able to come  to the launch and perform,” Shaw said. “It was this pure moment of swapping between communities.”

The Department of English Student’s Association (DESA) recognized how zines bring individuals together by hosting a zine fair on campus earlier this semester. The student association elects a VP Journals & Affiliates every year, who works to strengthen connections between the English department and local literary publications.

Sylvie Schwartz, U3 Arts, is the outgoing DESA VP Journals. While she works primarily with academic journals, Schwartz believes that self-publishing is a crucial avenue for university students.

“I think self-publishing is mainly important because it showcases student work,” Schwartz said. “Especially at McGill, [which doesn’t have] a fine arts or creative writing program, self-published journals and other related organizations are the main resources for students to showcase their creative output.”

To discover new zines, McGill students can head over to Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG)-McGill at the corner of University and des Pins, which maintains an extensive zine library. However, zine culture extends far beyond the Roddick Gates. Since 2002, Montreal has hosted EXPOZINE, Canada’s largest annual comic, small press, and zine fair. With vendors sharing content produced in both English and French, EXPOZINE has been vital in creating a space in the Montreal community to showcase alternative publishing. Another downtown resource is ARTEXTE, a library, research centre, and exhibition collective which held a zine-making workshop at McGill in January 2018..

The burgeoning zine community speaks to the limits of traditional modes of publishing. For students plagued with dense syllabi, reading and making zines can be a unique source of comfort.  

“The low circulation of zines makes it easy for a person to put all of [themself] out there and express a degree of emotional vulnerability,” Huang said. “It really lends to a softer reading experience.”

For Shaw, reading zines on her way to campus has rekindled her interest in creative writing.

“I spend three hours commuting a day on public transit [and] it’s hard to just bring out my Norton Anthology of Shakespeare on the metro,” Shaw said. “I took some of the zines lying around in my house, and began reading them. [As] it is my last semester, it’s been really nice to get little snippets of poetry and short fiction and essays while I’ve been standing on the metro. It refreshes my mind, and reminds me why I read poetry.”

As finals season rears its ugly head, and textbooks and MyCourses tabs gather strength in numbers, leisurely reading can feel like a distant memory, and creative pursuits a long forgotten pipe dream. Picking up a zine can remind us that reading and writing don’t need to be dictated by a syllabus, rigorously edited and fuelled by caffeine—there is a whole community of zine makers and readers out there who are the very proof of that.

Album Reviews, Arts & Entertainment

Album Review: Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s ‘Sex & Food’

by Leo Stillinger on

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When Unknown Mortal Orchestra first appeared with a standalone online single in 2010, the identity of its creator was unknown, and an air of mystery surrounded the song. It featured an uncanny, lo-fi voice singing strange words over a psychedelic guitar riff, and a weird title, “Ffunny Ffriends.” Since then, they’ve released four critically-successful records, toured the world multiple times, and achieved indie hits with songs like “Multi-Love” and “So Good at Being in Trouble.” Yet throughout their growth in popularity and the development of their musical style, a feeling of mystery remains present in their music, permeating their newest album, Sex & Food, which was released on April 6.

Perhaps the mystery comes from the distortion and layering frequently applied to the voice of lead singer and songwriter, Ruban Nielson. From song to song, his identity changes—at times, his voice resembles a transmission from a distant alien planet, sent to deliver an enigmatic message. The album’s lyrics contain such enigmas as “Awoke with long fingernails / In the internet of love.”

Distortion is not limited to the vocals. Nielson’s guitar reverbs, floats, scratches, and sings, depending on the song. Nielson has always been a talented guitarist, and on songs like “The Internet of Love,” his virtuosity takes centre stage. On “Hunnybee,” a hypnotic riff repeats beneath every verse until the solo, when his toned-up electric guitar slashes through the peaceful background like a bolt of lighting.

Then, in the middle of the album, there is “Chronos Feasts on his Children,” a short, stripped-back number where the distortion recedes and we are left with Nielson’s raw voice and guitar. In an album so thick with processing, the song is a breath of fresh air, and the emotion delivered beneath the characteristically surreal lyrics is direct.

What makes Sex & Food a success, is that every song contains an emotion: A real feeling. After multiple listens, it is these emotions which rise to the surface, gasping, beneath the layers of alien guitar fuzz.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

Dollar Cinema provides a hospitable filmgoing experience

by Katia Innes on

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There’s a lot you can get for $2.50. A small Iced Capp from Tim Hortons costs that much. But at a movie theatre, $2.50 doesn’t go very far—it might buy you a bag of fuzzy peaches. At Dollar Cinema, however, a two-screen theatre located in the Decarie Square mall, second-run movies show for $2.50. At this bargain price, Dollar Cinema has become an unlikely haven for the many who stumble across its neon-lit marquee and $1 buttered popcorn.

Bernie Gurberg, a former garment manufacturer and one-time mayoral candidate, opened Dollar Cinema in 2004. When the old Cineplex Odeon in Decarie Square closed, Gurberg set up shop, aiming to showcase current films at budget rates to make theatre-going a more affordable experience. Besides showing new releases, Gurberg also makes a point of having special screenings for classic films, such as Pulp Fiction,  at a higher price of $5.

Dollar Cinema fills the gap that corporate movie theatres have left. With increasingly high ticket prices, it’s hard for the everyday family to simply go to the movies. Tickets at the Scotiabank Theatre cost $13.50 for an adult, and $8.99 for a child, whereas a family of four can see a movie at Dollar Cinema for $10.00.

Lorenzo (who asked to be identified only by his first name), a frequent patron of Dollar Cinema, works with special needs children and finds that Gurberg’s low prices make for the perfect outing.

“[I’ve been here] about a thousand times,” Lorenzo said. “Every Saturday since it opened [….] It’s a learning experience for [the kids] because they have sensory problems [….] I can come here and […] it’s inexpensive […] so instead of going to Famous Players where it’s a more chaotic environment, here it’s more affordable, and the parents are [comfortable] with it.”

What makes Dollar Cinema special is how accessible it is—families, newly immigrated ones in particular, make up most of Gurberg’s clientele. Customer loyalty is hardly a factor for corporate theatres such as Cineplex. Gurberg, however, matches his community’s dedication with his own dependability.

“It’s affordable, and we’re not as similar to the other cinemas in the sense that I’m here, meaning that I talk to everybody […] so I […] know so many more people than I would in the ordinary standard way, working in an office,” said Gurberg. “[I’ve been meeting] a lot of people, every day, for the past 14 years.”

Dollar Cinema is open every day until midnight, every day of the year, including holidays, and Gurberg is there for almost every showtime. In the fringes of Montreal, Gerberg has created a community of moviegoers, as dedicated to him as he is to them.

“It’s successful, but with the prices being as low as they are, the rent being high in a shopping mall, causes it not do well financially, but my heart and soul are getting the extra satisfaction,” Gurberg said.

Dollar Cinema is located near Namur metro station on 6900 Decarie Boulevard.

Features

A utilitarian approach to student wellbeing

by Nicholas Jasinski on

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McGill’s Counselling and Mental Health Services have come under fire in recent years, as changes meant to improve care have instead focused on reducing wait times and seeing as many patients as possible. Interviews with current and former counsellors at McGill Counselling Services—some of whom would only speak off the record because they feared repercussions from their employer—reveal that while these quantifiable metrics may have improved, they translate to a lower standard of care for students, and come at a cost to morale and retention of experienced staff.

Until 2007, all student services on campus were under the provision of the Coordinating Committee on Student Services (CCSS), a McGill Senate parity committee composed of an equal number of student and staff members. The CCSS was responsible for overseeing the operations, budget, and other administration of student services includingHealth Services, First Peoples’ House, the Mental Health Service, Career and Placement Services (CaPS), and International Student Services (ISS). Staff members included McGill administrators, directors of various services, and professors, while student committee members included the presidents of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) and the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), as well as representatives from each faculty.

The Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) [DPSLL] position was createdin early 2006 following one of the preliminary recommendations of the Principal’s Task Force on Student Life and Learning at McGill. In spring 2005, the Task Force was assigned to review issues affecting student life and learning at McGill, and released its final report in December 2006. The first DPSLL, Psychology associate professor Morton Mendelson, began his term in July 2006.

“The idea behind my position was to have someone in the senior administration who represents student issues, so those issues would be considered at the senior table and other issues would be considered with reference to how they affect students and student life,” Mendelson told the McGill Reporter in August 2012 . Current DPSLL Ollivier Dyens declined a request to comment for this story.

Administration of Student Services moved to the DPSLL’s portfolio in 2007, with students losing the direct oversight of services they had had as part of the CCSS. An additional administrative position of Executive Director, Services for Students (EDSS) was created to supervise all non-academic services at McGill and report to the DPSLL. Currently, the Committee on Student Services (CSS) remains a student/faculty parity committee of Senate, but can only advise the EDSS on Student Services policies and budgetary priorities.

According to former director of McGill Mental Health Services Dr. Norman Hoffman, who led the service from 1992 until 2007, several directors of services raised their concerns and confusions over the reorganization.

“We understand that the McGill Administration wishes to have a stronger liaison with Student Services, but the proposed structure would leave Directors one step further removed from the Provost,” Dr. Hoffman and other directors wrote in the Student Service Response to the Draft Report of the Principal’s Task Force on Student Life and Learning at McGill at the time. “This appears to be going in the opposite direction to all of our goals [….] In Student Services […] we do not have a management problem, nor do we have any need for a purely administrative manager. What we do have […] is a communication problem with the McGill Administration. An Executive Director, who would be the employee of the Administration, would only accentuate this communication difficulty. The position would also likely jeopardize our partnership with the students, thus leading Student Services and McGill to become less student-centred.”

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Dr. Hoffman lamented students’ reduced oversightof essential student services after the CCSS.

“When they created the office of the Deputy Provost [Student Life and Learning] it was basically a hostile takeover of Student Services,” Dr. Hoffman said. “Before [students] were the bosses. So every year as director, if I felt I needed more therapists, more psychiatrists […] I would put it in my budget and would then present the budget to CCSS [….] What [having a parity committee] meant is that as long as the students had one staff member on their side, they had control over what the budget was. And they always had one staff member on their side because usually the student services people were on their side. The McGill faculty that volunteered to be on it were pro-student. Basically if [students] wanted something they got it, if they didn’t want something it didn’t happen.”

Control over the direction of student services was increasingly ceded to the administration, as directors of individual student services saw the scope of their roles decrease as well.

“They took away administrative and financial responsibilities from the Director of Mental Health,” Dr. Hoffman said. “So from that point on the Director of Mental Health has only clinical responsibilities within the service and could not plan for the future, could not plan budgets, did not have the amount of contact with students that the students wanted. Everything from then on was dictated by McGill administration.”

With mounting academic and personal pressures and the stigma surrounding mental health beginning to subside,the number of students who have sought counselling and psychiatric help at McGill has grown by over 35 per cent since 2011 . This increase in demand led to McGill Mental Health Services’ development of a “stepped care model” which it implemented in Fall 2016. Under a stepped care model, the least resource-intensive treatmentis provided to patients first, only stepping up to more intensive or specialized services when determined clinically necessary.

As part of the reorganization, Counselling Services and Mental Health Services (now called Psychiatric Services) were combinedinto one administrative unit,with a single intake and triage area in the Brown Building. Counselling focuses on mental health awareness and helping students through personal or academic issues, while Psychiatric Services assists students with mental health illnesses including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.Students arrive for a first evaluation with a therapist who will refer them to the appropriate service or resource they require, from self-help tips in an online module to group therapy to professional psychotherapy services. However, according to Dr. Hoffman and current and former counsellors who wished to remain anonymous, this model’s decreased wait times and ease of access have come at the cost of thorough and personal care for some students.

“Before [the stepped care model], we had more professional autonomy,” a former McGill psychotherapist who left the service in the past year after several years in their role told the Tribune.“As a psychotherapist or a psychologist, you could actually determine what your patients needed. Recently, it came out of the [stepped care] mandate that we couldn’t give people more than two sessions and we were encouraged to send them all to lower-intensity services such as group [therapy] or online support. About 20 to 30 per cent of the students who come in really require intensive work and those are the ones who are really missing out.”

“The intake model they have now is a superficial information gathering model where, as some counsellors who work there now have told me, their main goal is to figure out how they can get rid of the student [by referring them to a different service or resource.]”

Group therapy options currently offered by Counselling Services include sessions ranging from academic success workshops to multiple-session groups providing cognitive behavioural therapy for social anxiety. Dr. Hoffman compared the current intake approach to a “meat grinder,”and contrasted it with the methods employed in previous years.

“When students have a problem, they want to talk to somebody, not be sent to a peer support group or an online module,” Dr. Hoffman said.” […When] I teach how to approach students […], I teach what I call therapeutic interviewing, which means [if] you’re a student who’s upset and you come to see me, I want to make sure that even if it’s just an initial interview then by the time you leave, you’re feeling better [….] That there’s a person you can talk to who will understand your problems. And those problems are addressed to some degree within the first session.The intake model they have now is a superficial information gathering model where, as some counsellors who work there now have told me, their main goal is to figure out how they can get rid of the student [by referring them to a different service or resource.]”

The psychotherapist who recently left McGill also spoke to the intended outcome of a student’s first meeting with Counselling Services under the current stepped care model.

“The first meeting is basically an assessment to determine what services you can offer them,” the former counsellor said. “Very often it’s a group. But once a group is started it’s very hard to have someone new join. They meet at scattered times. Or you can refer them out or give them therapy assisted online or send them to peer support [….The goal of the first meeting] is to triage them.”

Dr. Hoffman and two of the other counsellors who spoke with the Tribune expressed their disapproval for a high emphasis on simply reducing wait times and seeing more students, and stressed that those two metrics alone do not necessarily align with providing better service.

“It’s very difficult if you see somebody come into your office […] who you know you can help by seeing them on a one-to-one basis, then sending them to a group,” a former counsellor said. “Because you know that you can help but you’re not allowed to [….] The whole idea is [to] see a lot of people, […In counsellors’] reviews, one of the things that is highlighted is how many open appointments they have in their schedules.”

Dr. Hoffman believes that the root of this issue goes back to the creation of the DPSLL’s office and its assumption of student services’ administrative responsibilities.

“When they created the office of the Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning), they switched from giving [annual reports from each service] to a system […] in which you’re supposed to only report things that you can measure,” Dr. Hoffman said. “For mental health, what could you measure? If you want to measure actually how students improve and what are their long-term outcomes you would have to spend a million dollars doing studies. So you measure how many students you saw, what the waiting times were. If your goal is to improve your measurements of waiting times […] you do all triage and no treatment, then your wait times go down. [That] doesn’t tend to lead to people giving better help. The metrics don’t line up.”

Counsellors who spoke to the Tribune believe that a focus on quantity over quality has had negative effects on students and therapists alike. They stated that there have been multiple staff departures from Counselling Services and Psychiatric Servicesover the past two years due to low morale, especially among the most experienced and longest-serving members.

“When you’re sitting in your office and you’re having somebody pour their guts out to you, it’s intense and it takes a lot out of you,” one former counsellor said. “And if you’re watching the clock and you have five minutes to wrap up and see another person, it’s demanding and people get burned out [….] I have seen really really excellent therapists there, but those things weren’t valued. What was valued was ‘can you find a resource that isn’t therapy.’ That was valued [….] That’s what really took a lot out of people, to see someone break down in their office and then say, you have to go to a group, you have to go online.”

In addition to demanding work schedules, counsellors who spoke to the Tribune described a “shape-up-or-ship-out” attitude from administrators in Counselling Services that demands buy-in with the service’s new mandate.

“You cannot express any dissatisfaction as a counsellor or a therapist with the stepped care model,” the former psychotherapist said. “People have been called into [Executive Director of Student Services] Martine Gauthier’s office, they’ve been reprimanded. We were told a long time ago that the model was here to stay.”

“All the stepped care, peer support, online modules, these are all good as adjuncts to good care. You want to provide good care where people can come in and see a counsellor or psychotherapist quickly, who will give them what they need and then you want to add something to that for follow-up, for extra support.”

Dr. Hoffman, who now has a private practice in downtown Montreal, said that he has seen numerous students who felt so poorly treated at their initial intake session that they chose not to return to McGill’s mental health services.

“It’s not that stepped care is inherently bad,” Dr. Hoffman said. “All the stepped care, peer support, online modules, these are all good as adjuncts to good care. You want to provide good care where people can come in and see a counsellor or psychotherapist quickly, who will give them what they need and then you want to add something to that for follow-up, for extra support.These things are fine as adjuncts. But they’re using them at McGill as primary modalities of treatment instead of providing proper treatment, and that’s the problem.”

In December 2017 Dr. Hoffman sent a six page letter to Principal Suzanne Fortier outlining his concerns with the management of mental health services at McGill. In a four sentence response over a month later, Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) Christopher Manfredi reaffirmed McGill’s priorities as “amplifying the range of services available to students and reducing wait times”–underlining the focus on quantifiable metrics that counsellors criticized for detracting from providing adequate care to all students.

At the March 28 meeting of the McGill Senate, EDSS Martine Gauthier introduced the new Rossy Student Wellness Hub (RSWH), a new umbrella service with the goal of further integrating and streamlining student health, psychiatry, and counselling at McGill. The Hub is planned to open in the Brown Building by January 2019.

“Health promotion includes awareness, prevention, and early intervention,” Gauthier said at the meeting . “At this point, Student Services, in terms of our approach to student mental health, has been largely reactive. So we’re moving to a more proactive model. We’re trying to get into where students are working, learning, and living, […] and providing support before students get to a crisis point where they need to be accessing a counsellor or psychiatrist.”

The psychotherapist who resigned in the past year gave a pessimistic assessment of the future of mental health services at McGill should the current focus on achieving easily-measurable goals continue.

“They will continue to see a lot [of patients], there will be a lot of window dressing,” the psychotherapist said. “It will look good and they will see good numbers but someone should go in and look at the dropout rate of the groups, see how many people who get referred out for therapy actually follow up, and what happens to those who really have a severe disorder can only be seen once a month or very rarely. I think a lot of therapists who have the intention of doing what they trained for but can’t do therapy, they will leave. It’s not a pretty picture.”

Martlets, Men's Varsity, Sports

The McGill Tribune end-of-season athletic awards

by Stephen Gill on

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2017-2018 Martlet Awards

Team of the year: Martlet basketball

(Yan Doublet / Université Laval)

The Martlets’ 2017-18 season couldn’t quite follow up on their prior campaign’s record highs—including a first-ever national championship title. Regardless, this year should be considered a success. Led by veterans Alex Kiss-Rusk and Frederique Potvin, among others, the Martlets made it to the U Sports semifinals by constantly improving throughout the season.

After winning just one of four matchups with the Université Laval Rouge et Or in the regular season, McGill put Laval away with a close win in the RSEQ championship, earning the squad a trip to Regina for nationals. The Martlets comfortably closed out the McMaster Marauders in the quarterfinal, and then gave the undefeated, eventual-national champion Carleton Ravens all they could handle in a hard-fought, two-point semifinal loss.

 

(mcgillathletics.ca)

Athlete of the year: Alex Kiss-Rusk, Martlet basketball

After earning The McGill Tribune’s nod for athlete of the year last year, Alex Kiss-Rusk’s 2017-18 campaign was similarly monstrous. The six-foot four centre easily led the RSEQ in both rebounds (11.8 per game) and double-doubles (11 total) again, while also proving to be one of its best scorers (14.3 points per game), shooters (45 field goal percentage), and shot-blockers (1.2 blocks per game). Impressive showcases like her 27-point, 14-rebound performance against Concordia on Nov. 18 and her 18-point, 17-rebound, five-block outing versus the University of New Brunswick during non-conference play added more than enough exclamation points to her concluding season. With her memorable days of wearing a McGill jersey over, she traded McGill’s red and white for Canada’s at the Commonwealth Games from April 5-15 in Australia.

 

(mcgillathletics.ca)

Coach of the year: Rachèle Béliveau, Martlet volleyball

Despite her team falling to Laval in the RSEQ semifinals, there was plenty for Martlet volleyball Head Coach Rachèle Béliveau to be proud of this season. Her squad proved to be a thorn in the sides of the RSEQ’s other top two squads—the Université de Montréal (UdeM) Carabins and the Laval Rouge et Or. With a combined 4-4 regular-season record against the two, the Martlets showed that they belong in the RSEQ’s top tier. Still, most notable for Béliveau was her 600th career win, which came in a Jan. 27 victory against the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees.

 

(mcgillathletics.ca)

Rookie of the year: Kellyanne Lecours, Martlet hockey

Since scoring the first Martlet goal of conference play this season, forward Kellyanne Lecours made an instant impact on Martlet hockey in 2017-18. She followed that performance up with consistently stellar play throughout the year—including two three-point outings against UdeM—leading to OUA all-rookie honours. Despite missing eight games, Lecours finished the season with the team’s third-highest point total and second-best points per-game mark.

 

2017-2018 Redmen Awards

(Derek Drummond / McGill Athletics)

Team of the year: Redmen basketball

A perfect combination of experience and young talent aligned for the Redmen this season. Combining an upper class chock-full of veteran fourth- and fifth-years with an injection of youth, McGill rolled through the RSEQ and through to the U Sports semifinals with ease. After a dominant conference season that saw the Redmen beat RSEQ opponents by nearly 22 points per game—including five 30-plus-point annihilations—the squad took down the University of New Brunswick by 31 points in the national quarterfinals. Unfortunately, their offence faltered against the eventual national champion University of Calgary Dinos in the semifinals. McGill nearly bounced back to give the Carleton Ravens a scare during the subsequent third-place game, but ultimately had to settle for fourth place.

 

(mcgillathletics.ca)

Player of the year: Dele Ogundokun, Redmen basketball

The 2017-18 season was business as usual for fifth-year guard Dele Ogundokun, who capped a remarkable McGill career in familiar, outstanding fashion, earning RSEQ First Team All-Star and U Sports Second Team All-Canadian honours once again. This season, Ogundokun’s contributions rewarded the Redmen with another impressive campaign.

Ogundokun’s stifling defensive effort helped him nab 2.4 steals per game—tied for the highest mark in the conference—while he added the second-best per-game stats for McGill in almost every other category: Points (11.4), rebounds (5.4), and assists (2.1).

 

(mcgillathletics.ca)

Coach of the year: Peter Carpenter, Redmen swimming

Peter Carpenter, head coach of both the Redmen and the Martlet swimming teams, built on last year’s success to help push his athletes to new heights in 2018. At the U Sports national championships, the Redmen stepped from an 11th-place 2017 finish up to seventh place this season. The Redmen and Martlets combined to break seven school records at the meet in Toronto, while second-year Samuel Wang’s silver medal in the 50m butterfly highlighted the weekend—and Carpenter took home U Sports Men’s Swimming Coach of the Year honours alongside the University of British Columbia’s Steve Price.

 

 

(mcgillathletics.ca)

Rookie of the year: Keanu Yamamoto, Redmen hockey

On June 23, 2017, the Edmonton Oilers took Keanu Yamamoto’s younger brother, Kailer, with the 22nd pick in the NHL draft. However, after a standout rookie year with the Redmen, Keanu has made a name of his own. In just his ninth career OUA match, he broke out with a hat trick against the Royal Military College Paladins on Nov. 3. Yamamoto finished his inaugural campaign with 14 goals and 19 assists—good for the Redmen’s third-best points total.

 

 

Fact or Fiction, Science & Technology

Caffeine: A brewing controversy

by Domenica Cirone on

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Caffeine—a stimulant that is actually classified as a drug—is a saving grace for many students during exam season, when coffee and energy drinks start to replace sleep. Although this particular lifestyle can’t be described as healthy, the extent of caffeine’s harm is debated. Scientifically speaking, there is a significant amount of controversy surrounding the consumption of this stimulant—specifically around whether caffeine has the potential to stunt growth, and the limits that should be put on caffeine consumption.

Yet, that doesn’t stop North American society from being caffeine-dependent. In 2013, a study conducted by the National Coffee Association claimed that the cumulative American population drinks about 587 millions cups of coffee per day: That’s almost two cups per person per day. Similarly, according to the Coffee Association of Canada, the average coffee consumption for Canadian coffee drinkers over the age of 18 is roughly three cups per day.

The MayoClinic’s recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for caffeine is 400 milligrams daily, representing the amount of caffeine that most healthy adults can safely consume without any major side effects. While caffeine’s RDA is equivalent to about four cups of brewed coffee, for energy drinks and carbonated beverages, the number of drinks one can safely consume depends largely on the amount of caffeine per serving. When it comes to children, however, the MayoClinic advises that this demographic should not be consuming caffeine, and advises adolescents to limit their intake.

The main concern regarding caffeine consumption among youth is when caffeinated beverages begin to replace nutritious alternatives that are important for development.  

“The bones [of young people] need calcium to keep growing, to achieve optimal bone density,” Sylvia Santosa, a registered dietician and associate professor in the Department of Exercise Science at Concordia University, told The McGill Tribune. “Drinking beverages with low nutritional density, such as coffee or soda, decreases the amount of nutrients consumed for optimal growth and development. Caffeine also binds minerals from the foods that we eat and decreases their absorption as well.”

This decreased absorption of calcium can subsequently impact growth and development. In response to these findings, the Canadian government has set RDA guidelines to try and moderate caffeine consumption among youth in different age categories. The growth effects, and other effects, of the stimulant are also dependent on the sensitivity of the individual.

“Some people are more sensitive to the effects of caffeine than others,” Santosa said. “Overconsumption of caffeine can cause side effects such as rapid heartbeat, irritability, restlessness, upset stomach, insomnia, and tremors.”

Restlessness or insomnia caused by an overconsumption of caffeine is another factor that affects growth. According to a study in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, a large amount of growth hormone is secreted during sleep in developing children. A caffeine-induced lack of sleep could further negatively impact growth and development.

Surprisingly, however, there is a lack of evidence indicating that caffeine stunts growth. Santosa described this rumour as an old wives tale.

“In general, consuming anything low in nutrients in place of foods that are high in nutrients can theoretically affect growth,” Santosa said.

Overall, the consensus is that, if not consumed in excess, caffeine is fairly safe. A study from the National Cancer Institute has even suggested that regular coffee consumers are at a lower risk of dying from various lifestyle diseases including heart disease, respiratory disease, diabetes mellitus, stroke, and numerous infections, although no links have been associated with cancer risk reduction. The real risks start to appear with the consumption of caffeine in quantities higher than the RDA allows, and when it is consumed in replacement of highly-nutritious foods.

Science & Technology

A McGill club’s mapping mission

by Emma Avery on

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U3 students Hannah Rebentisch, Caroline Thompson, Hannah Ker, Jan Oledan, and Cameron Power, with various concentrations in geography and geographic information systems (GIS), are bringing the mission of mapping to McGill. After attending the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team conference in September 2017, they met representatives from a global organization called YouthMappers, which seeks to build students’ capacities to map their own communities and build resiliency against natural disasters. Returning to McGill, they created the McGill Open Mapping Group (OMG), the first chapter of YouthMappers at any Canadian university.

GIS, the system used in basically all mapping efforts, is designed to analyze, represent, and interpret spatial data in order to understand spatial relationships or patterns. GIScience refers to the science behind implementing and conceptualizing the actual GIS models. While McGill offers a geography minor in Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing, OMG seeks to encourage the participation of all McGill students by using a free, open source software, rather than the paid—and notoriously difficult—ArcGIS software used in most McGill courses.

“We try and raise awareness on campus of the importance of mapping and spatial data and how you can use open source tools to collect and store this data, and then how it can be used to promote community-building and resilience for communities and cities around the world,” Rebentisch said.

This goal can be achieved through OpenStreetMap (OSM), an online mapping site that relies on voluntary contributors around the world to create an open-source, editable map of the world. It contains data from many regions that are not available through sites like Google Maps, and apps like Uber and Craigslist depend on its free basemaps. Tim Elrick, director of the McGill Geographic Information Centre and the group’s faculty advisor, has extensive experience with the OSM community and has been an integral source of support for the new group.

This year, at OMG’s first two “mapathons”—where people get together to map—participants mapped building locations in Williams Lake, British Columbia, and Khairpur, Pakistan.  The Williams Lake mapathon contributed to Statistics Canada’s Building Canada 2020 initiative, which aims to map all buildings in Canada by 2020. Because official government maps are incomplete in their coverage, organizations like the Red Cross rely on OSM during humanitarian crises. The mapping of an area like Williams Lake, which is particularly prone to forest fires, can increase response time and ability in these types of crises.

At the same time, OMG prioritizes community involvement and consultation in each of its projects. The collaboration with students in Shah Abdul Latif University in Pakistan arose when a visiting scholar, Fayyaz Baqir, from Pakistan approached Sarah Moser, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at McGill, with the idea, who then put him in contact with OMG.

“It’s obviously very problematic to just […] do armchair mapping […] without really understanding the context or the implications of what you’re doing,” Rebentisch said. “[The idea of ethical mapping] really informed our approach with the Pakistan collaboration where obviously we wanted to contribute what we could, […but] it needed to also be approved and directed to some extent from the community itself.”

In May, OMG plans to host a “mapping party” to map accessibility points on McGill’s campus, including ramps, elevators, and stairways. In this way, open source programs such as OSM reflect the needs and perspectives of those who contribute to them. However, equitable mapping is a continuous challenge, as what is represented on a map is often reflective of the person who created it. This is especially troubling given that OSM’s contributor base is overwhelmingly male—something that student mapping groups like OMG aim to change.

“[There are] a lot of movements to have more women be mapping, because [studies have] found that when women make the maps they add more things that you know weren’t on there before, so they’ll add childcare centres [for example],” Thompson said. “So many different voices have the opportunity to change and enrich the map.”

Science & Technology, Student Research

The Willy Trip: A student initiative to learn about rocks

by Océane Marescal on

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In many programs at McGill, experiential learning opportunities are difficult to access. A student group with a passion for geology has found their own solution to this frustrating barrier. Every year, students from the earth and planetary science department organize a reading week field trip to a geologically-rich region of the world. Founded in 1978 by Professor Anthony Williams-Jones, the field trip—dubbed the “Willy” trip in honour of its founder—offers McGill students a chance to gain first-hand experience in the field of geology. Williams-Jones, professor and Logan Chair in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, is still involved in helping students facilitate the trip, though it is mostly student-run from start to finish.

(Jordan Kasarjian / The McGill Tribune)

 

The process begins in the Fall semester, when interested students meet to decide on a destination. They discuss a number of prospective locations, and the group votes by process of elimination. This year, the group chose Guatemala from a list that also included Mexico, Tanzania, and Morocco.

After choosing a destination, students split the complex undertaking of organizing the trip into smaller subtasks: Some students focus on reserving flights, contacting geologists in the decided location, or fundraising. This year, the 15 student attendees of the trip raised over 10,000 dollars to fund their voyage. Others plan the itinerary, which usually includes mine visits and tours of geological features like volcanoes, mountains, reefs, calderas, or caves, complemented by culturally-enriching activities and visits.

Daphne Saint-Denis, a U3 earth and planetary science major, described her experience on this year’s Willy Trip.

“[It’s] an incredible learning experience in the sense that we need to plan, research, and organize the whole thing and as a team too,” Saint-Denis said. “It is basically a really fun and non-formal way to gain geology field experience, which is really important for our learning process.”

After all of the planning this year, the students enjoyed two weeks in Guatemala. The country’s unique geology is thanks to its location in a triple junction—a place where three tectonic plates meet. This feature has resulted in exciting geological phenomena like volcanism, metamorphism—or changes in the composition of rock—and sedimentation.

“For me, a big highlight was our snorkelling day in the southern tip of the Belize reef,” Saint-Denis said. “We also got to climb an active volcano, which was huge for everyone on the trip really.”

For Zach Kowalsky, also a U3 earth and planetary science major, the best part of the trip was visiting the Tikal National Park. Tikal, located in Northern Guatemala’s Petén region, is one of the most important archaeological complexes left by the Mayan civilization, and consists of numerous ruins dating back to 600 B.C. The region surrounding the ruins, known as the Maya Forest, is home to diverse landscapes and species.

Kowalsky described his experience at Tikal National Park to The McGill Tribune.

“We were there from the early morning until it closed, and it had a multitude of paths walking through the jungle, where you could appreciate the nature of the region,” Kowalsky said. “We spotted spider monkeys and howler monkeys in their natural habitat, which was pretty surreal.”

The next Willy Trip is set to take place in March 2019, with preliminary meetings beginning during the Fall 2018 semester. Although it is recommended that participants have taken one or two geology classes prior to participating, the trip is open to any McGill student with a feverish interest in geology and who is willing to commit the time and hard work to organizing the trip.

(Jordan Kasarjian / The McGill Tribune)
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