Aaron Rose and Arman Bery chat with NBA Raptors analyst Paul Jones to get you set for the upcoming 2016-17 season. They talk about what to expect from the Raptors this year, especially their young power forwards and guard Terrance Ross. Jones gives his thoughts on Cleveland’s ability to counter Golden State’s off-season moves, Boston’s chances of jumping Toronto for the second seed in the East, and Chicago’s ability to win without three-point shooters. They take a look at the Timberwolves and Bucks, and talk about how teams fix their roster holes during the season. Jones gives a tip to young journalists and recounts his time as a Toronto District School Board principle. Finally, they wrap up with the one player Jones would want to start an NBA franchise with.
Moms are known for picking favourites, based on just about anything really (usually whichever child takes out the trash that week or helps bring in groceries). What is a mom like Tina Knowles-Lawson supposed to do? Now the second album of the year from a Knowles, Solange breaks through Queen Bey’s mold with an unassuming album that has quickly been heralded as one of the two strongest solo albums of the year, unsurprisingly brushing arms with her sister’s own Lemonade. Solange’s third full-length studio album, A Seat at the Table, comes at a time when, “Hands up! Don’t Shoot!” is proclaimed the world over as a form of peaceful resistance.
Solange’s twinkling A Seat at the Table is a treatise on blackness, black lives, and black womanhood. Here, the table offers a euphoric feast for the ears—an album made sickeningly smooth by Solange’s honey sweet voice and echoed harmonies. The sound of /A Seat at the Table/ has a greater resemblance to a majestic hall of mirrors than a studio production. From the beginning of the album, dreamy Grimes-esque riffs serve as a platform from which Solange’s defiant vocals spring. Solange’s glimmering sound contrasts with the heavy and at times sorrowful discussion of the Black female experience in America.
In the powerful opener, “Rise,” Solange croons, “Fall in your ways / so you can crumble.” She builds her assertion with dynamic vocal progression and harmonies given breadth by a pulsing, hypnotic beat. The build-up on this track is furthered by the intertwining of lush melody with spoken interludes featuring Solange’s parents, Tina and Michael, who served as the inspiration for the album. Here, Solange’s messages of Black empowerment and the complexity of owning a collective experience is made apparent through direct narrative. On “Interlude: Tina Taught Me,” Solange’s mother Tina states, “I think, part of it is accepting that there is so much beauty in being black / And that’s the thing that I guess I get emotional about.” These emboldening words are followed by the inspiring “Don’t Touch My Hair,” a song commenting on the politics behind black hair, which infuses a rolling beat and a 90s TLC feel. In Solange's lyricism, hair becomes more than simply hair. It becomes an embodiment of black identity—a battlecry for natural outward expression.
The underlying politics of A Seat at the Table come to a head in “Mad.” The soul jam, which is thick with beats and cascading keys, has harmonies that contrast sharply with Lil’ Wayne’s gruff rap feature in which hard truths hit home. “Are you mad ‘cause the judge ain’t give me more time? / And when I attempted suicide, I didn’t die,” raps Lil’ Wayne amid slow rhythms. Solange replies with a soul-splitting crescendo, “I got a lot to be mad about.” Here, the original harmonies of “Rise” are challenged and triumphed, as Solange is resilient in an act of defiant assertion.
This victory, however, is not Solange’s alone—as trumpet riffs echo on the finale “Closing:the Chosen Ones,” and Solange’s father utters in velveteen tones, “Now, we come here as slaves, but we going out as royalty.” In these final moments of A Seat at the Table the radical importance of honouring personal experience within the greater framework of the overarching narrative of the struggles endured by the black community is emphasized. Throughout the album Solange poises herself as more than a figure of comparison amongst the star-studded members of her family. Rather, Solange solidifies her position as an artist in her own right with an unprecedented and unique sound. In A Seat at the Table, Solange’s artistry rings true via a personal narrative layered with lush beats, in which Solange’s vocals soar to encompass a crowd, leaving listeners in a cascading soundscape finished with an exultant flourish.
Standout Tracks:
“Cranes in the Sky”—powerful ballad backed by sparkling keyboards and angelic harmonies, in which Solange shines as a vocal powerhouse.
“F.U.B.U.” (ft. The-Dream & BJ The Chicago Kid)—R&B-injected party jam gone slow-mo with collaborating bars rapped by The Dream and BJ the Chicago Kid
Best Lyric:
"Don't touch my pride / They say the glory's all mine / Don't test my mouth / They say the truth is my sound" – “Don’t Touch My Hair”
Sounds like:
An indie-meets-soul take on the issues tackled on Beyonce’s Lemonade, heavy with jazzy Aaliyah undertones
Balancing a full course load and extracurricular activities is demanding for anybody, but McGill medical student Laurent Duvernay-Tardif is more than up for the challenge—especially given his “extracurricular activity” entails a full-time NFL job.
Though Duvernay-Tardif’s short-term goal is to win Kansas City’s game against the Indianapolis Colts next weekend, his long-term goal has always been medical school. He walked onto his CEGEP football team and played while enrolled in the pre-med program. Duvernay-Tardif thought he would give up football after CEGEP when he came to McGill as a direct entry student; however, his love of the game proved too strong.
“Everyone was telling me I would have to make choices, that I couldn’t do both [medical school and football at McGill] at the same time,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “But, there was a big part of me that was missing it. I called the [McGill] coach [Sonny Wolfe] and explained to him the situation [….] He understood and I started practicing with the team about four weeks into the season.”
For most athletes, a sports scholarship is their window into an education—but for Duvernay-Tardif, it was the opposite. For the first three years of his McGill career, Duvernay-Tardif primarily played football as a reprieve from medical school. Even so, scouts soon started to take notice of his apparent talent and competitive spirit.
“People were telling me I had a lot of potential, but maybe I didn’t realize it at the time,” Duvernay-Tardif explained.
An emphasis on gathering advice and support from his close network has informed much of Duvernay-Tardif’s football career, the beginnings of which were a family affair. He speaks fondly of his parents, who took him on a yearlong sailboat trip when he was still in high school. When CFL and NFL teams began expressing interest in Duvernay-Tardif, he hired his best friend from CEGEP–who was in law school at the time—to be his agent because it was his friend’s dream to represent pro-athletes. Mostly, he is incredibly grateful for the flexibility McGill has afforded him in allowing him to pursue his medical school and professional football dreams concurrently.
“We [The Dean of Medicine, Dr. David Eidelman, the Associate Dean of Medicine, Dr. Robert Primavesi, and I] planned that I was going to be able to do four months a year of medical school during the off-season and be in the States practicing and playing football for the rest of the year,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “[My] end goal is to be on the football field with a degree from McGill.”
“Medical school really helped me with the way I approach football. It’s really strategic […it has] helped me to be a student of the game,” Duvernay-Tardif explained. “And the other way around, when you come back from playing a full season in the NFL, it gives you a great perspective […] it helped me to keep my composure and still have a logical approach a in stressful situations.”
The potential Duvernay-Tardif displayed as a Redmen has earned him a role as a starter in the NFL. It took a lot of work and Duvernay-Tardif certainly doesn’t take it for granted.
“This year, the biggest difference is my understanding of the game [….] I’m able to see the defence as a whole and understand the concept and what they’re trying to accomplish. This comes from film studies,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “The biggest part of preparation and training [for football] is done in the classroom. In this regard, medical school has prepared me for those challenges.”
Poutine or barbeque:
“Poutine.”
Plateau or Old Port:
“Plateau, just because I feel it’s more authentic and [there are fewer] tourists.”
Favourite place on campus: “Thompson House. After our exams at medical school, we would go there and have a beer and decompress and talk about the exam. That’s one of my best places to hang out on campus.”
Piece of advice he would give to others:
“If you have a plan, take the proper action to make sure that plan can happen, and just go all out.”
The last time I was in a movie theatre, I wore a dark red negligee, bright red lipstick, and a second-hand sequined blazer that, judging from its shoulder pads, probably once belonged to a Las Vegas business woman in 1987. This was my fourth time attending a Rocky Horror shadow cast show—where a group of actors performs the film as it is simultaneously projected on a screen behind them. I brought along a few friends who were new to the film—or who we Rocky veterans call “virgins”.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 horror-comedy musical that was a box-office flop at the time of its release, but has since gained a large cult following. Rocky Horror, while shocking to mainstream audiences of its time, is beloved for its open embrace of queerness, gender bending, and unrestrained sexuality. Whether you’ve never heard of the musical, or are only vaguely familiar with the name, the following insider knowledge about Rocky Horror will soon have you putting on a pair of black heels and red lipstick and heading to the cinema.
The Film
The plot follows newly engaged couple Brad and Janet, whose car breaks down in the middle of a rain storm. In search for help, they unknowingly knock on the door of a castle belonging to a mad scientist named Dr. Frank N. Furter. The bold and charismatic Frank N Furter, dressed in fishnets and a corset, happens to be throwing a convention to unveil his latest experiment. Brad and Janet quickly become acquainted with a number of convention attendees and household staff, all of whom seem to share Frank’s dubious intentions for the couple. This bizarre opening is just the beginning of what some viewers consider a nonsensical plot filled with ridiculous characters, which may surprise many people who want to draw meaning from the film.
In order to understand the film’s quirks, it’s important to know that Rocky Horror both parodies and pays tribute to the science fiction genre and horror B-films made in the 1930s to the 1970s. The production’s creator Richard O’Brien reveals some of these references in the opening song “Science Fiction/Double Feature” as a disembodied voice sings, “And Flash Gordon was there / In silver underwear / Claude Rains was The Invisible Man.” To better understand the inspiration for Rocky Horror’s plot line, characters, and cultural references, check out classic horror films like Nosferatu or It Came From Outer Space.
The Music
The film’s soundtrack is glam-rock inspired and always invites the viewer to dance or sing along. The songs vary from “Over at the Frankenstein Place,” a soft duet with funky guitar riffs, to “Sweet Transvestite,” a sassy, sexual, brass-filled ballad. The music is filled with gentle piano melodies and ensemble harmonies. The lyrics vary from being absurdly funny like—“Now the only thing I’ve come to trust / Is an orgasmic rush of lust”—to profound sentiments like—“Don’t Dream it—Be it.” Like any great album, the soundtrack takes time to grow on its listener, so I suggest playing it before watching the film in order to become better acquainted with the musical numbers. A couple of my favourites are “Hot Patootie” and “Rose Tint My World.”
The Experience
What might be the best way to first experience Rocky Horror is by going to a live shadow cast show. As a small cast acts out the story in front of the film projection, Rocky Horror becomes a parody of a parody. At the shows I’ve been to, the shadow cast even exaggerates and over-sexualizes some of the more racy scenes. The audience, dressed in costumes mimicking the characters, is even more lively than the actors. They shout perfectly-timed jokes, squirt water guns, and toss rolls of toilet paper upon hearing, “Great Scott!” It’s the best place to get your freak on among an audience of people that are there to have a good time, laugh, and enjoy the show.
If you still don’t have any plans for Halloween, I suggest finding a party hat and bringing a few slices of toast—another of the many audience participation props—to Montreal’s annual shadow cast screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Fans return for the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Cinema Imperial. (rockyhorror.com)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is playing Oct. 28, 29, and 31 at Cinema Imperial. Tickets can be bought in advance for $17.95 or at the door for $19.95. More details can be found at rockyhorrormontreal.
While slogging through the mire of midterm season, it is beneficial to stop and give thanks for our many blessings. As students walk past the rickety scaffolding that soars above campus this Fall, they should give thanks for the most generous gift our university has given us: Our buildings. According to a Quebec government analysis of the province’s universities, 73 per cent of McGill’s buildings are in poor or very poor condition—the worst rating in the province. Considering the estimated $1 billion cost renovations would entail, it is unlikely McGill will be able to address the problems anytime soon. However, by neglecting its buildings, McGill is giving its students an invaluable learning experience. The students that escape university alive will have nerves of steel, tempered by the flames of four years cavorting around in buildings that have walls propped up with plywood, according to the CBC. Yes, plywood.
Could any student, after having faced the dismal lattice of metal that supports the Law Building, possibly fear the job market? Finding a position in a saturated field is nothing compared to the terror that grips the heart of anyone who steps foot in a McGill bathroom. Some stalls have no doors. Others look suspiciously similar to a rest stop one would encounter along a highway.
Finding a position in a saturated field is nothing compared to the terror that grips the heart of anyone who steps foot in a McGill bathroom.
This fear forces students to build crucial skills. The possibility of actual death ensures that only the strongest McGill students survive. If a student doesn’t flatline under the asbestos-hiding ceiling tiles of the Stewart Biology Building, they still must face the makeshift stairs outside the Brown Building. They must then pass the crumbling façade of the Strathcona Dentistry Building, which seems capable of shedding debris at any time. Even if they make it off campus, they can still just fall into a pothole on Sherbrooke. It is a miracle anyone can handle this nightmarish obstacle course—and yet McGill students do. This ‘survival of the fittest’ lifestyle opens any number of new career possibilities. McGill students are among the most qualified university graduates to pursue base jumping, storm chasing, or anything to do with abandoned mine shafts. In today’s economy, every skill counts.
I, too, have personally witnessed this unique form of education. When the pipes at the MORE residence I lived in last year burst, none of its inhabitants seemed fazed. I remember one of my housemates walking nonchalantly into the flooded kitchen, placing a small bowl under one of the ceiling's many drips, and sitting down to do his class readings. This is the kind of attitude that McGill’s buildings foster in its students—one of resilience and resignation.
This midterm season, it’s time to praise the unsung hero: McGill. In its limited budget and consequent inability to fix any of its buildings, the university has prepared its students for their darkest hours. The constantly shifting network of scaffolding numbs us to change and brings us face-to-face with danger. We are equipped to handle the worst, from the pitfalls of the workplace to the collapse our campus as we know it.
Grey Gunning is a U2 History major and occasional artist. She enjoys climbing, gardening, and cheesy 80's sci fi.
The ocean swells and roaring waves engulf the misty surroundings. Amidst this stormy seascape, a dancer bursts into frantic movement. His fragmented gestures transform as the audience becomes submerged beneath the water, and mirrors the setting’s fluid aesthetic. With movement as the joint operator, Aqua Khoria poetically combines dance, music, sound, and environment to venture into a new realm of immersive creation.
The show stars and is created by critically acclaimed contemporary choreographer and dancer, Peter Trosztmer, in collaboration with renowned composer and music-digital artist, Zack Settel. Their project, Aqua Khoria, is produced by two of Montreal’s leading figures in the contemporary dance scene—Tangente and Danse-Cité. Both companies champion risk-taking, collaboration, and inventiveness—all of which are embodied in the experimental nature of Aqua Khoria.
Trosztmer and Settel’s production program describes the show as “virtual sound bodies set in motion” within a “water-bound road trip, spanning the broad, the deep, the familiar, and the strange.” The following 50 minutes revealed the creators’ description was quite literal. Staged at the Satosphere, Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT)’s immersive dome theatre that forms a 360-degree spherical projection screen, the production exhibits a virtual liquid environment.
Settel’s animated seascape is projected onto the immense Satosphere theatre screens. The sounds of ripples and waves echo through surrounding speakers. Trosztmer holds sensors, which control the virtual world, enabling his movement to transport the audience through Settel’s creation. Trosztmer becomes the conductor of an audio-visual symphony as his gestures simultaneously summon waves and submerge the audience deeper beneath the ocean to discover sea creatures, shipwrecks, and caves. Consequently, Trosztmer and Settel consider their project as “a huge musical instrument.”
Additionally, Trosztmer dances on a basin of water that serves as a stage in the centre of the dome. As the water begins to ripple in response to his dancing, Trosztmer becomes dripping wet and visually marked by the show’s motif. His movement stimulates the auditory senses with splashes of real water. His performance reaches a dramatic peak as he stands in the centre of the water basin, while a virtual cave is projected on the screens. Water begins to drip with increasing pressure from the centre of the Stratosphere’s ceiling. Trosztmer is showered in water as a spotlight cuts in and out, emphasizing a series of tableaus. The images created are visually striking and leave the audience with powerful impressions of a body yearning for something.
Trosztmer and Settel’s artist statement gestures to a variety of possible meanings. The show could be representative of the great unknowns of the world and the subconscious. It could also be viewed as a deconstruction of reality as the performer dances amidst physical and virtual representations of water. The message of Trosztmer and Settel’s production is ambiguous, and alongside the abstract nature of the performance, it encourages spectators to draw their own meaning from the surreal seascape of Aqua Khoria. Whatever the creative duo’s metaphorical vision may be, Aqua Khoria dances on the threshold of the virtual and the real world, venturing towards a new poetic dimension of both contemporary dance and audio-visual creation.
Aqua Khoria has closed. Tangente’s next production, Fervid Bodies, will run from Nov. 3-5 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 6 at 4 p.m. at Monument National, 1182 Saint-Laurent. For more information visit tangente.qc.ca.
At the most recent Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) legislative council meeting on Oct. 13, SSMU President Ben Ger put forward a motion that would—if passed in the upcoming Fall 2016 referendum—have SSMU adopt a Free Menstrual Hygiene Products Policy. The policy would create a $0.90 per semester fee to fund the purchase and distribution of free menstrual hygiene products–such as tampons and pads, to the student body.
The motion rightly acknowledges that SSMU’s obligation to provide menstrual products to students stems from its commitment in its Equity Policy to “leadership in matters concerning the wellbeing of marginalized groups.”
Current difficulties in obtaining menstrual products on campus can be a significant source of unnecessary anxiety, especially if a menstruating student needs to find such a product unexpectedly before a class or an examination. Presently, such feminine hygiene products are available for purchase at the Arts Undergraduate Society’s SNAX, and in limited and expensive bathroom vendors.
Menstrual products are an additional expense that female students incur every month for a necessary item. The Motion Regarding the Free Menstrual Hygiene Products Policy would create a more equitable campus for female students by relieving the anxiety and financial barriers currently associated with accessing these products.
Whether or not students are personally affected by the provision of free menstrual hygiene products, this motion stands to benefit the entire student body.
The adoption of such a policy at a university like McGill is also an important symbolic move, advocating for the rights of women in education. Education has historically been an area where women have faced discrimination—women were barred from attending McGill until 1884. Menstruation in particular continues to prove a significant barrier to women’s education around the world, as lack of access to proper menstrual hygiene products and stigmatization can discourage girls from attending school. By embracing this policy, SSMU would be taking a step in acknowledging the discrimination women who menstruate often face in education, and the way in which menstruation can impede equal access to education.
In keeping with its symbolic significance, the motion also communicates the importance of this issue to the McGill administration. In fact, the motion calls for SSMU to renew the policy “until McGill, or the Municipal, Provincial, or Federal Government recognize that these products must be classified as Necessary Goods and pass a subsidy program to eliminate their cost and/or supply them publicly.”
In providing menstrual hygiene products, both SSMU and McGill must make these products accessible to transgender members of the McGill community. While the current motion proposes to provide menstrual hygiene products in gender-neutral bathrooms and at Healthy McGill kiosks, the McGill administration can go even further. Following the example of schools such as Brown University, McGill should provide menstrual products in women’s, men’s, and gender-inclusive bathrooms across campus.
Providing free menstrual hygiene products is a simple step that can normalize menstruation, communicate that menstruating students are welcome on campus, and reduce the chance that a student would have to remove themselves from their learning environment in order to find a pad or tampon. Whether or not students are personally affected by the provision of free menstrual hygiene products, this motion stands to benefit the entire student body. The motion is not just about women—it is about creating a fairer and more equal university community, where no students are subject to barriers which prevent them from reaching their full potential. All students benefit from being in an environment that minimizes any potential barriers that prevent students from being fully engaged in their post-secondary education. Furthermore, the cost of this improved university community comes at a mere $0.90 per student per semester. This cost is minimal when considered in comparison to other regular expenses students incur on campus for items such as coffee or samosas.
The Motion Regarding the Free Menstrual Hygiene Products Policy will benefit cisgender women and all menstruating people on campus, and is valuable in its advocacy role as a means to encourage further change. McGill students would be making an essential statement by voting in favour of it in the upcoming Fall referendum.
Matter of this small scale has made big changes to the world around us. A report published in 2010, titled Nanotechnology Research Direction for Societal Needs in 2020, estimates around $2.6 trillion USD worth of products will incorporate nanotechnology by 2020.
Even more innovations are expected to come into a wide variety of consumer products in the future.
“Nanomaterials are going to be very prominent in our everyday lives,” Assistant Professor Nathalie Tufenkji, of McGill’s Department of Chemical Engineering, said. “We’re incorporating these materials into our everyday consumer products […] we’re putting these materials on our skin, […] in our paints, and electronics that we are contacting everyday.”
The new engineering minor program aims to introduce undergraduates to techniques in nanomaterial characterization and detection, as well as nanomaterial synthesis and processing. These concepts will be covered in courses such as Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Supramolecular Chemistry, and Design and Manufacture of Microdevices.
Tufenkji, along with Professor Peter Grutter in the Department of Physics were instrumental in organizing this program. The minor is interdepartmental and includes courses in physics and engineering.
“Of course there’s a flipside on how do we best develop nanotechnology to […] take advantage of its promise,” Tufenkji said. “One of the questions […] is what are the potential impacts on our health and environment of nanomaterials?”
Tufenkji believes it is important that Canada has scientists and engineers that are educated in emerging scientific concepts and cutting-edge technology. Giving undergraduate students exposure to nanotechnology research early in their studies is a good stepping stone for further investigation into the evolving field.
The longest any human being has ever lived was 122 years. Jeanne Calment of France, who rode a bicycle until age 100, passed away in 1997. Since then, no one has been recorded to live past 120 years.
A paper published in the Oct. 2016 issue of Nature claims to have found an age limit to the human lifespan. The researchers compared the death of the oldest person against calendar years and found that the rate of maximal lifespan growth seems to have hit a plateau.
These results are consistent with the idea that the limit of an organism’s lifespan is encoded in its genetics. For example, fruit flies live for about 40 days, while the Giant Galapagos Tortoise can live for over 170 years. The imposition of a genetic constraint on maximum lifespan may also apply to humans.
However, the exact mechanisms of the aging process are still unclear, though many theories exist. From a physical perspective, the “general wear and tear” mechanism states that aging is the phenomenon of overuse, in the same sense as old cars accumulate problems as their mileage increases.
In the case of progeria—an extremely rare genetic disorder where patients age eight to ten times faster than the normal aging process—general wear and tear damage, such as cataracts and osteoarthritis, is not observed. While overuse is likely a contributing factor to aging, there are other genetic influences at play.
Another theory of aging is genomic instability from mutations and DNA damage. During cellular respiration—the process wherein cells derive their energy—cells produce unstable modecules called free radicals resulting in harmful oxidation. Free radicals are incredibly reactive and can cause extensive damage to proteins and DNA. As more damage is incurred, there will be an increased likelihood of cancer and cell mutation arising from abnormal protein production.
There is some good news when it comes to aging. Globally, the average human lifespan is rising over two years per decade. Better health care and nutrition improve the average life expectancy in developing and developed countries like the United States, Canada, and Germany. There are also drugs going to clinical trial that target cellular aging pathways, which have demonstrated promising results in laboratory animals.
One such drug is metformin, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medication for the treatment of type II diabetes. The drug has slowed down the aging process in laboratory model organisms. However, researchers will likely have a hard time receiving funding from pharmaceutical companies as metformin is a low-cost drug and therefore not very profitable.
As of now, there is only one agreed-upon method to slow down the aging process: Caloric restriction. In model organisms, restricting the caloric intake while still supplying essential nutrients such as iron and calcium, led to reproducible results that extended an organism’s maximum lifespan. While the underlying mechanism of this process is still unclear, physiological changes such as increased insulin sensitivity, reduced metabolism and oxidation have been reported. Dietary intake restriction is an area of intense research and could yield promising discoveries in the near future.
While it appears that the maximum amount of time any human being could stay on this planet is predetermined by DNA, there is also something to be said about the quality of these years: As the millennials say, “You Only Live Once.”
Loneliness is hard to define because it is premised on a feeling of lack—a lack of contact, of laughter, of connection, of empathy, of dependence. It is a lack that weighs heavy at 8 p.m. on McGill campus as students slowly make their way home—their stomachs growling and vision blurry from hours spent reading under the library’s halogen lighting. It is a lack found in the way students quietly file out of the library at night with their headphones on, passing each other.
It is the noiseless way that any student filing out of the library feels compelled to reach into their pocket for their phone and call someone—anyone. As they consider calling a parent, they stop themselves short. They don’t really have anything specific to say, they just need to connect with someone. But they worry that if they call just to chat, their parents will assume they’re feeling ‘lonely.’ Slowly they slip the phone back into their pocket, and walk home in silence. This is loneliness.
“Loneliness is so much more than the absence of people,” Eve Kraicer, U3 English, said. “It’s having an actual impulse to articulate how you are doing, with nowhere to go and no one to listen.”
Students are often left without people to listen to them because loneliness is ingrained in the university experience. At age 18, most Canadian students transition from high school to university, and suddenly their old web of community-building tools—teacher-organized clubs, required courses, strict meal times, and a structured 8:30-3:30 schedule—disappears. For the most part, McGill students choose their own classes, consulting academic supervisors and health services is optional, and, after first year, students are responsible for determining their own food and housing. For some, this responsibility is rewarding, but for others it can make university an exceptionally lonely space.
In a recent viral article in The Guardian, titled “Neoliberalism is creating loneliness. That’s what’s wrenching society apart,” journalist and psychologist George Monbiot suggests that the brutal competition and pressure students are put under in the education systems of industrialized countries is creating lonely people.
“Human beings, the ultrasocial mammals, whose brains are wired to respond to other people, are being peeled apart. Economic and technological change play a major role, but so does ideology,” Monbiot writes. “Though our wellbeing is inextricably linked to the lives of others, everywhere we are told that we will prosper through competitive self-interest and extreme individualism.”
Neoliberal societies, as Monbiot explains, are those that see competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. At McGill, this extreme individualism—which prioritizes the success of the individual above the community and fosters extreme loneliness—is ingrained into the culture of the university. Entry-level class sizes can enroll up to 1,000 people, and students often feel pressured to study before socializing in order to keep up with their classmates. McGill’s academically rigorous setting pits students against each other and the bell curve.
“Usually my friends spend approximately the same amount of time studying as I do, so I don’t need to choose between studying and socializing” Gabrielle Trzcinski, U4 Engineering, said. “However, during busy weeks I sometimes need to prioritize studying over socializing, which can make me feel left out or lonely, and can also add to the stress of trying to get things done on time.”
(Cordelia Cho / The McGill Tribune)
The competitive nature of university is built into the institution’s landscape. Students are quick to point out the lack of community spaces on campus and common rooms in residences. For example, a singular common room is made for 200 students to socialize in each of the upper residences, and doors that close and lock automatically in La Citadelle and New Residence Hall. The spaces first years are welcomed into in the first week of September are, at the level of their construction, far from welcoming. This trend continues beyond first year institutions. Many buildings on campus, including the SSMU, are not conducive to social interaction.
“I think the institution, just from its very architecture, creates loneliness,” Noah Witte-Winnett, U4 Arts, said. “Literally, the spaces that exist within the university for people to get together are terrible, like the Madeleine Parent room has heaters that can be so loud you won’t hear what people are saying. The SSMU building in general—there is a whole fourth floor I didn’t know about, with clubs up there.”
Although students try their best to counteract the austere geography of campus—there are incredibly well trained floor fellows in each residence, and the active presence of social groups and initiatives like intramural sports teams, Midnight Kitchen, and SSMU minicourses—it is difficult to counteract the institutionalized forms of loneliness at university. For Ines Dubois, U3 Arts, first-year residences are a clear example of this.
“The residences do a good job at fostering communities, but their prices are inconvenient,” Dubois said. “Only people that can afford over $1,000 per month get to make friends, and that’s not right.”
Dubois draws attention to the fact that at McGill, the lack of community spaces on campus turns connection into an experience that is inaccessible to students without the financial means. Currently, for students who live at home or in independent off-campus housing, loneliness is a very real concern.
Even for those students who can afford the rez experience, the loneliness that is ingrained in McGill’s landscape creates a marginalizing process of maturation that often lets students fall through the cracks. However, the reality is that student life at McGill is not very different from how the real world functions, and independence can also yield unexpected gifts.
“The older you get [as an individual], the fewer institutions there are that try and help you,” Kraicer reflected. “I think that the experience of growing up is one of learning how to understand and navigate loneliness.”
Like many people, Kraicer says she has experienced her fair share of isolation. In fact, moments of aloneness seem to have become a given in our university setting. Yet, Kraicer is hopeful that there is something to be gained by being exposed to loneliness. She points to the fact that university provides students with a wealth of opportunity to forge meaningful relationships outside the institution.
“The optimistic part of me hopes that the connections that you make that you have to work at, the ones you make when you’re older […] are more meaningful than the ones you make when you’re in elementary school,” Kraicer said. “I hope that the farther I get from being told how to do this, the more I’ll be able to do this for myself, and I’ll know how to do it in an individual way that works for the communities I want to build, and the communities I need.”
Solitude or time enjoyed by oneself should not be equated with loneliness, per se. However, there are preventative measures students can take when alone time begins to turn into feelings of disconnection. Whether it’s making recurring dinner plans with roommates or family, scheduling regular mental health check-ups, or simply asking friends how they’re doing and really listening to their response, Kraicer notes that the only way to combat loneliness is through active connection. In this way, a period of loneliness can be a formative experience. Although individualism and competitiveness are intrinsic to the university campus, the students that populate it are also intrinsically social beings. The conflict this creates is at the root of loneliness, but it can also provide the fertile ground in which meaningful communities flourish.
