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a, Student Life

Healthy options for breaks during midterms

by Keah Hansen on

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October’s various academic duties can seem pretty blindsiding after the hazy heat and carefree days of September. This season however, students can avoid stress by implementing a few wellness tricks. Below are some suggestions for fun and healthy diversions around McGill to ease minds of midterm woes—and won’t break the bank in the process.

Make a splash in free lane swimming

McGill students have free access to the McGill Athletics Facility Memorial Pool.  Recreational swims are offered daily at various morning, afternoon, and evening times. Swimming is a great way to relieve stress and burn off extra energy, as it offers a full body workout that increases muscle tone and flexibility. Swimming can also be a great meditative activity, and like any exercise, it releases the happy-feeling chemicals called endorphins. For those that still need convincing: Consider what a warm balmy pool will feel like in the midst of the first Montreal blizzard.

Calm minds with meditation

Meditation is an excellent way to alleviate stress and decrease anxiety. Benefits include stress management, increasing self-awareness, reducing negative emotions, and staying focused on the present. The McGill Office of Religion and Spiritual Life offers a non-denominational prayer and meditation space in the Brown Building as an option for on-campus stress reduction. For guided meditation, consider trying a free Zen Meditation session offered every Friday from 8:15 to 9:15 a.m in the Birks Building. This is perfect for calming down frazzled nerves.

Switch up the study routine with some caffeine

For those who need to study—but shudder at the thought of libraries—try some of the cafés near McGill that offer great ambiance and endless caffeine. Studying at cafés is a great way to shake up the routine, and allows students to experience Montreal culture. Recommended cafés close to McGill include Caffe Art Java, Cafe Chai, Pikolo, Arjuna, and Humble Lion, all of which have free wifi, coffee, and enticing pastries.

Try out a pay-as-you-go recreational fitness class

Shake out some stress and get the blood pumping at one of the diverse pay-as-you-go fitness classes offered by the McGill Athletics Facility. Rec Activities Cards are available for purchase in denominations of $10 or $30. One hour sessions only cost $2.61, and are guaranteed to work up a sweat and provide an energy boost. Class types include High Intensity  Interval Training (H.I.I.T.),  spin, power yoga, and zumba—fun and cheap activities which provide a body-boosting break.

Have a nature adventure on Mount Royal

Students are lucky to have a mountain gracing the side of McGill, with beautiful colours dotting the scenery. Bright hues of amber, crimson, and gold seem to be bursting from all directions. Immersing yourself in nature is a great way to relieve stress and increase well-being. There are plenty of trails to meander through, with a set of stairs that lead to a very rewarding view of Montreal.

a, Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Theatre Review: Oh, What a Lovely War!

by Anna St. Clair on

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It’s commonly said that “comedy is tragedy plus time,” and few shows can capture that saying in as much of a literal sense as Oh, What a Lovely War! does. Originally created in 1963—well after the dust had settled on the horrors of both world wars—the production was intended to be an ironic critique of war itself and what it stands for, using the First World War as a backdrop. One hundred years later, Players’ Theatre brings the musical to its stage, and under the direction of Connor Spencer, deftly captures the comedic aspects without letting the seriousness get lost in the laughs.

The show is not a typical musical—one with plots and characters, romances and twists—instead, it’s styled after a Pierrot Show, far more of a circus or variety show than a musical. These Pierrot Shows were popular in the seaside towns of pre-war England.

Mimicking these shows, the Players Theatre designed the set with hanging candles in jars and bunting flags, making you feel like you’ve walked into a vintage circus.

The music is composed entirely of popular, sing-along songs of the time period, most of which were sung by the men in the trenches. A few, like “Gassed Last Night,” are clever parodies of such songs.

The show begins with the troupe playing war games, and quickly launches into an absurd satire of the bumbling generals, laughably naive citizens, and stiff-lipped aristocrats preparing for war. One of the memorable early scenes is a hilarious beauty-pageant of pompous European countries boasting their power and glory, with cultural stereotypes abound.

With the spirited songs, constant movement, and slapstick portrayals of the events of the early war, the cast brings a rousing exuberance to the first act. From propaganda anthems like “I’ll Make a Man of You” to the opening ensemble number “Row, Row, Row,” the cast proves its vocal strength.

Anni Choudhury stands out from the ensemble with his prominent comedic talent. In one of the most hilarious scenes, Choudhury plays a loud, buffoonish English sergeant directing his troops on how to properly fire sticks—or in one case, a parasol. The scene had the air of a Monty Python sketch, with Choudhury giving a performance reminiscent of John Cleese.

The second act takes a more somber turn, focusing on the trials and tribulations of the British army. While men are being killed by the thousands, the out-of-touch aristocratic generals are far more concerned with keeping up appearances and following who is being promoted than worrying about the travesties of war. Borrowing money from a subordinate comes as more of a shock to one general than the fact that his troops are being annihilated.

With Spencer’s direction, the juxtaposition of the first and second act isn’t jarring. The transition from uproarious political satire to a solemn revelation of the ‘victory’ of the great war is slow, allowing the audience to gradually sense the shift in tone. Yet even in its exploration of the grim realities of war, the second act combines the tragic truth of the war with dark humour. Daniel Carter in particular masters the delivery of this dark comedy as the English general who is committed to fighting no matter the costs because the alternative—surrendering to some foreign German and saving thousands of lives—is just unthinkable.

Vocal talent was not lacking in this production, particularly from the female cast members. Hannah McKillop’s soprano on “Keep the Home Fires Burning” captured the tearful desperation and exhaustion felt by everyone involved in the war effort, while Sophia Metcalf and Eleonore Lamothe shine in “I’ll Make a Man of You” and “Hold Your Hand out Naughty Boy.”

With its constant shuffling of sets, characters, costumes, and songs, the show is a unique theatrical experience; its talented cast and director manage to bring both the tragedy and comedy of the First World War alive in a performance bursting with delight and creativity.

Oh, What a Lovely War! runs from Oct. 22 to Oct. 25 at 8 p.m. at Players’ Theatre (3480 McTavish). Student tickets are $6.

McGill MOOC course Food for Thought
a, Features

Learning beyond the classroom

by Remi Lu on

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Six million. That was the conservative estimate given by an Oct. 2013 article in the Wall Street Journal addressing the combined enrolment numbers of edX and Coursera—two of the most popular Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms—since the two websites were launched in 2012. Today that number has almost doubled, with 11.7 million users enrolled in courses across the two online learning platforms—2.5 million at edX and 9.2 million at Coursera—according to the two websites’ most recent data. With many leading North American institutions hosting MOOCs, McGill has not been idle, having released two original courses on edX thus far. In the process, McGill has begun to establish a culture of online learning, with growing momentum amongst faculty members to integrate elements of MOOCs on campus.

At 6’2”, David N. Harpp, a professor at McGill’s Department of Chemistry, casts a statement of authority in any room or screen that he occupies. Alongside his patient demeanour and lifelong passion for teaching, Harpp has won 12 academic and teaching awards—including McGill’s inaugural Principal’s Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2001) and the Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership in Learning (2010).

Harpp began to push the boundaries of McGill’s academics once more last year when he heard about MOOCs’ growing popularity around the world. In particular, he wanted to ensure that McGill did not fall behind other top North American institutions, since many academically renowned universities have begun to move towards offering online courses. As a professor, Harpp was excited by the challenge.

“There was so much hype about it, it would have been odd to be left on the sidelines,” Harpp said. “If [the University of Toronto] for instance gave out or put together half a dozen [MOOCs] and McGill wasn’t doing anything, I just don’t think it looks right. But particularly Harvard and MIT, two of the top schools in the world, are working [hard at this].”

A university committee, led by Provost Anthony Masi, settled on edX as the preferred medium for McGill—the same one used by other top North American universities. Harpp and his colleagues decided to draw upon the help of McGill’s Teaching and Learning Services, where he could draft a team of full-time staff to completely redesign an existing course. CHEM181 (World of Chemistry: Food) was chosen as McGill’s pilot MOOC, a popular course Harpp had taught for 31 years with professors Ariel Fenster and Joe A. Schwarcz. Renamed Food for Thought, the course required extensive work to integrate it on McGillX—edX’s assigned name for McGill’s MOOC branch.

“There was a tremendous amount of preparation [done],” said Frank Roop, Video Producer for McGillX. “All the slides were […] updated [with] new pictures, [and] copyright [was] cleared.”

The team created homework and quizzes to accompany each week’s lectures, a format of engagement encouraged and supported by EdX’s platform. The professors also decided to create weekly videos to address any questions arising from the discussion boards in order to establish a more personal interaction with students.

The course exploded. By the time the 10-week instruction period had wrapped up, roughly 32,000 students had been enrolled in Food for Thought. The course posted a final rating of 4.96 out of five—an astonishingly high number given the number of participants.

“The feedback was off the charts, frankly,” Harpp said. “I was a little surprised that it came up as [well] as it did. I thought that maybe they would say, ‘Harpp mumbles a lot, Schwarcz talks too fast,’ or something like that. There was in fact none of that, which was also a surprise.”

The tremendous success of Food for Thought resulted in a flurry of reactions. McGill professors John Gyakum and John Stix launched ATOC185X (Natural Disasters) on edX later that same year. Furthermore, the success of the first course encouraged Harpp, Schwarcz, and Fenster to relaunch Food for Thought, with the course released for the second time this past Oct. 1.

The international audience that MOOCs provide has become a draw for professors looking to further their knowledge and understanding in their field of research. According to Gyakum, the conversations on the ATOC185X discussion boards provided the professors with input from individuals residing in different parts of the world—particularly those with the potential to contribute but may not have had the opportunity to attend university.

“A lot of the hazards that we discuss occur in various areas of the world that may not resonate that well with North Americans,” Gyakum said. “For example, we talked about cyclones in India, typhoons in Japan […] volcanoes in Indonesia, and so forth [….] The primary reason that I was most interested in working on the MOOC was [that] I feel very strongly [that] in order to tackle some of the world’s great scientific problems, we need a lot more input intellectually.”

Outside of field-specific research, online courses have also offered the opportunity for schools to experiment with different teaching styles, including peer grading and the encouragement of participation on course discussion boards. According to Laura Winer, the director of McGill’s Teaching and Learning Services, hosting MOOCs at McGill has allowed staff to better understand students’ learning habits.

“The ultimate goal is to improve learning for our students, [and to] improve and enhance interaction between the professors and students in large classes,” Winer said. “So we’re learning a lot about what we can do, how to do it better, and how to create engaging environments and interactions. We’re investing that in our McGill students. We’re learning how people learn.”

Despite the novelty of the MOOC movement, professors and other staff members have begun to recognize the potential for integrating online learning on campus. With 50 lecture halls at McGill outfitted with recording equipment, students enrolled in over-crowded courses can skip class in lieu of watching lectures at home.

“Many big courses don’t have perfect attendance, particularly at a school like McGill where a third of the students live remote from campus,” Harpp said. “[Students simply] watch many of the classes online […. CHEM181] can be as big as 800 people, and you can’t put 800 people in Leacock [132].”

Working with edX allowed Harpp, Schwarcz, and Fenster to recognize the opportunity to use their newly prepared MOOC to offer an updated learning format. For the next on-campus iteration of CHEM181 in Winter 2015, the three professors plan to release recorded lectures to students ahead of time, and use select class hours as additional information sessions.

“We’ve booked the room for the entire [semester,]” Harpp said. “We will not have a lecture every week, but probably half a dozen […] extra lectures or special lectures [….] We probably won’t ask questions about these topics, unless we record them.”

25 per cent of the grade for CHEM181 will come from online homework and discussion board interaction—a similar format to the grading system that McGillX uses. Yet the class will retain elements of a traditional university course, with a significant portion of the grades coming from two written midterms and a final.

This new format of teaching, titled ‘blended learning,’ straddles the line between traditional brick-and-mortar institutions and online education. A number of universities have begun to tentatively roll out blended learning programs, with the University of Waterloo and York University among the few North American campuses involved.

One of the greatest advantages offered by blended learning is the potential to create more engaging activities—particularly for courses with larger class sizes. Furthermore, there are increased opportunities for students to connect with each other and their professors.

“This is going to be the way of the future, where [students] are guided on where to get information, in addition to having personal contact with the professor,” Schwarcz said. “There’s just no point in redoing lectures exactly the same way you’ve done it in other years. It’s time that could be better oriented to educate in a different way.”

This semester, Gyakum and Stix will integrate three weeks of blended learning into ATOC185 (Natural Disasters), shifting two of their course topics from ATOC185X—the edX version—to their on-campus course. The class will watch lectures online and finish activities at home, in order to use class hours to conduct poster presentations.

“Both [Stix] and I view this as an experiment that we need to be involved with,” Gyakum said. “Obviously, the outcome may not be perfect from the get-go, but I think it’s very important that we work towards engaging more students [….] There’s no question in my mind that [students] are having the opportunity to go much deeper into a lecture than they otherwise would be able to, than [if they were] just taking in a lecture and having a midterm on the material.”

With an increasing number of faculty and students disillusioned with current teaching and learning methods, a shift towards online education appears inevitable.

“There’s a school of thought that the lecture format is becoming archaic in terms of all the electronic devices right now,” Schwarcz said. “It doesn’t make sense to give classroom lectures the same way we’ve always been doing it when they can be recorded and people can look at those lectures. You can use the classroom time for other things.”

According to Teaching and Learning Services’ Alexander Steeves-Fuentes, MOOCs and other forms of online learning will have a large impact on the future of courses at McGill.

“The biggest benefit for McGill will be in terms of adjusting how the curriculum is implemented and how students are instructed,” he said. “The majority of students these days do everything online [….] Why are we still doing things on paper? Why aren’t we building everything online?”

At the moment, however, MOOCs remain at the forefront of the conversation regarding McGill’s role in online learning. Two new courses are in the process of being developed for edX. Dr. Ian Shrier, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, is set to release Body101X—a course analyzing physical activity—on Feb. 25, 2015. The Faculty of Management will be launching a course next Fall titled Social Learning for Social Impact, which is being marketed as a Group MOOC (GROOC)—a MOOC designed to encourage people to collaborate in groups to share knowledge.

Yet a variety of factors—including funding from donors and available support staff—will most likely limit the number of MOOCs that McGill can produce.

“We cannot meet the demand [of professors that want to come on board],” Winer said. “We’ve had way more professors who would be interested in developing MOOCs or developing blended learning approaches than we have the capacity to handle with the current resources.”

Regardless, the impacts of online learning will most likely be felt across campus in the years to come.

“I think [blended learning] has to be a big part of our future at McGill,” Winer said. “How do we take advantage of the tremendous resources that are available online, the tremendous access to people around the world, [and] the collaborative nature of the work you do? To shut ourselves off from that would be an exercise in tunnel vision […. Blended learning] provides opportunities to really give students the best and most powerful learning experience possible, [and] MOOCs provide a vehicle to facilitate and expedite that process.”

a, Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Pop Rhetoric: It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a film franchise!

by Morgan Alexander on

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After months of speculation, DC Comics has released its five-year superhero film line-up, answering hundreds of assumptions, expectations, and unrealistic hopes in one succinct press conference. The films include the sequel to 2013’s Man of Steel, which will focus on Batman and Superman’s first meeting while simultaneously featuring multiple Justice League cameos, including Wonder Woman and Aquaman—whose feature-length films will be coming out in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

The portrayal ofwonder Woman by Gal Gadot will also mark the first time that a superhero film franchise will feature a woman in a leading role, excluding box-office flop Catwoman (2004). This is a huge step forward for the comic book world, which has often featured women in strong leadership roles on print, but shied away from having them play equally strong roles on the big screen. Additional films will be pedalled out for The Flash, Shazam, Cyborg, and Green Lantern, and Justice League is set to be released in two parts in 2017 and 2019.

For DC fans everywhere, as I proudly profess myself to be, this announcement is essentially the advent of a five-year-long Christmas. Beyond the fact that the Suicide Squad is getting its own film—something I didn’t hear anybody speculate upon—seeing that DC Comics is ready to burn and bury the disappointment that was Ryan Reynolds’ performance as Green Lantern could be considered a holiday in and of itself. However, this announcement has, unsurprisingly, been immediately questioned by people claiming DC is just too late to the feature film game, and will now be forever clouded by The Avengers’ (2012) multimillion dollar success. While I have to agree that DC has taken far too long to amp up its movie franchise, it’s an absurd statement to claim that DC is anything other than a powerhouse of superhero comics, TV shows, and films that have established a steady long-lasting fan base completely independent of Marvel’s enterprises.

Comparing and contrasting DC and Marvel is a hilariously contentious topic, and I would be lying if I said I had never considered ending a friendship over another’s preference for Iron Man over the clearly superior and far more fleshed-out Batman character. Of course, both franchises have things they do incredibly well and things that they fail horribly in, and while the two companies are clear rivals, they have successfully teamed up multiple times in the past making for some of the most interesting comic book story lines that have ever been produced.

Cinematically, it cannot be denied that Marvel does movies right—focusing on fantasy fun while also funding the talent to bring a solid balance of superhero whimsy and an occasionally strong action-laden plot is what made Marvel the frontrunner of superhero films in the past decade. On the other side of the coin, Marvel too has ‘mastered’ the creation of a multi-film plot that it can then suck the life out of until it is a contradictory carcass of its former glorious self, just for the purpose of continued profit (here’s looking at you X-Men). DC, meanwhile, has tended to focus in recent years on the slow build-up of incredibly gritty, dark, and plot-heavy live-action films and television series; and while these productions may not attract the same profit as Marvel’s spoon-fed humour and good-looking background characters, DC’s commitment to consistent character and plot development makes for a more interesting cinematic experience.

This latest film franchise will likely set the tone already established in Man of Steel—darkly, humorous, true to the comics, and committed to realism. This clear contrast from Marvel’s cinematic route goes to show the inherent differences in the two companies, which have long polarized fans into one camp or the other. The differences in production style between the two companies is what makes the world of superheroes so interesting—Marvel provides fantastical escapism through the capes of broad-shouldered men and women in skintight body suits, allowing for the cinematic escape that movies were initially intended to provide, while DC injects horror and villainy into recognizable cities, thus allowing the heroes of its universe to seem that much more possible, and that much more relatable.

a, Research Briefs, Science & Technology

Research Briefs—Oct. 21, 2014

by Babur Ayanlar on

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Breakthrough in nuclear fission

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC), one of the world’s largest defence contractors—in 2009 it received 7.1 per cent of the Pentagon’s total funds—has had a major breakthrough in the study on the viability of shifting to nuclear energy. Led by Tom McGuire, the team demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven by 10 feet—which would allow the reactor to fit on the back of a large truck. Considering the size of the Hoover Dam, which generates 4.2 billion megawatt-hours annually, a 100-megawatt reactor that small would completely change perspectives on energy and energy costs.

The original study in 2009 focused on nuclear fission—the process by which an atom’s nuclei is split to generate enormous amounts of energy. According to McGuire, the 100-megawatt fusion reactor will hopefully be built in the next 10 years, and can help solve the current energy crisis and climate change problems. In a world where energy use is predicted to increase by 50 per cent over the next generation, this breakthrough may be just what cities need.

Cancer metastasis reduced up to 90 per cent in mice

Cancer is very effective in invading host cells, mainly due to its ability to metastasis—the process by which  a tumour spreads through the body. Researchers at Stanford University have focused their attention on the proteins responsible for this spread, Axl and Gas6. The linking of these two proteins is one of the most important steps in the beginning of metastasis.

In order to prevent this interaction, the researchers engineered a decoy Axl protein 100 times more effective in binding with Gas6, forcing extremely low chances for normal Axl to bind to Gas6. To do this, the team built over 10 million minor variants of the Axl protein to find the one that best fit Gas6. By introducing their engineered protein, they were able to interrupt normal Axl binding to Gas6. As a result, the group found a 78 per cent reduction in metastatic nodules in breast cancer, and a 90 per cent decrease in metastatic nodules in ovarian cancer.

The research has the potential to provide a completely nontoxic process to fight cancer—unlike current cancer treatments. Furthermore, the team is looking to work with other proteins that bind Gas6, such as Mer and Tyro3. Though it will take some time to develop this research into mainstream therapy, it does offer hope in the ongoing search for a cure for cancer.

The Antimatter Microscope

Werner Trifthäuser and his colleagues at the Military University in Munich, Germany have been using positrons in order to find and analyze high quality images of the defects found in material surfaces. It is important to analyze and discover the defects in a material, because they affect its mechanical properties and can cause failure and fracture. Many engineering issues—such as any malfunctions aircraft wings and unstable and unsafe mechanical constructs—are caused by concentrated defects in the structure of materials used.

The focus of Trifthäuser’s research was to detect one of the most common material defects, ‘vacancies,’ which are locations within a material where a positively charged nucleus is missing. Consequently, positrons—the antimatter partners of electrons—are preferred in imaging, as they are very effective in finding vacancies. Without a nucleus, there are no electrons in the vicinity to react and annihilate the positron. Due to the completely opposite properties they have, matter and antimatter are highly reactive and their interaction results in total destruction—leaving nothing but energy behind. Therefore, by measuring the time a positron can survive in a section of the material, the researchers have been able to generate images that have unprecedented sensitivity to defects, compared to those from current methods of microscopy.

The band Royal Tusk
a, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Carriere keeps moving as Royal Tusk settles into its own

by Eric Noble-Marks on

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How does Daniel Carriere—lead singer and guitar player for Edmonton rock band Royal Tusk—relax after a stressful day on the road? It’s simple—he doesn’t.

“I don’t unwind as much as I just crash [and] like, pass the fuck out,” said Carriere. “It is exhausting. People think you play a show and you’ve done nothing all day ‘cause you’ve been driving and you should have time and energy, but it’s the contrary because there’s no routine. You don’t know when you’re gonna eat sometimes, especially with a tour like this because you’re following a bus and the drives can get pretty long.”

Despite the never-ending trial of touring, Carriere wouldn’t have it any other way. To him, a seasoned road warrior with over a decade of experience with his previous band Ten Second Epic, the road is home. Despite touring with a mostly new set of bandmates, the road experience never changes.

“The road is always the road,” says Carriere. “It’s almost like you get used to that as a home. I’m quite comfortable touring […] we’ve done it for so long. Right now [when on tour] I feel like I’m at my other home. It’s really tiring, I mean just travelling all the time, but something about the transience of it all is really kind of nice for me.”

Carriere is in the midst of Royal Tusk’s second tour in support of the band’s debut EP, Mountain. The EP, is in many ways, a culmination of ideas accumulated by Carriere and Royal Tusk bass player Sandy Mackinnon during their time in Ten Second Epic.

“It’s just a sample of what we were doing,” explained Carriere. “We toured so long in [Ten Second Epic] and for all that time we were just thinking of other music we wanted to play, so when we got a chance to start making this stuff we wrote like crazy. We went into the studio in New York with 25 to 26 songs and had to cut it down to six! I think it popped a cork of inspiration that we’d been saving for a long time”.

Mountain also reflects a more collective approach to songwriting than exhibited in the past by the musicians. Carriere suggested that this strategy was just as fulfilling as writing on his own.

“We’re all pretty competent at our instruments and we don’t tell each other what to do,” he said. “Everyone writes their own parts. It’s exciting because sometimes if you’re writing everything from the drum part to the last lyric, there are no surprises. You get to be more of a fan of the song if you’re surprised by it.”

As for Carriere’s two-band relationship with Mackinnon, Carriere couldn’t put his finger on what has made their partnership so special.

“I don’t want to try and get analytical about it,” he said.  “It’s just something about the chemistry of it all. I guess it’s effortless, we’ve just known each other so long. To have a successful band, you need to have successful relationships with people. That’s what keeps it ticking and makes it fun, because God knows this isn’t the easiest job to do.”

a, Student Life

Beating the midterm blues

by Devona Lean on

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Falling leaves and changing colours illustrate the transition into autumn. They also mark the beginning of midterm season.  Stress levels in McGill students tend to skyrocket during this time.  In order to combat this, McGill Mental Health Services (MMHS) has implemented a number of initiatives to aid students in coping with stress.

Located on the fifth floor of the Brown Student Services Building, the comfy chairs and large windows of the clinic create a feeling of openness and acceptance.  This is the ideology that MMHS maintains. 

This is significantly beneficial for students, especially during this busy, stressful time of the year.  Emily Yung, the Mental Health Education Coordinator, highlighted the hike in student traffic at the clinic during exam periods.

“We’ve seen a sharp increase in walk-ins, in particular during midterms and finals,” Yung said. “This got as high as 100 emergency student walk-ins in one week during finals in 2013.”

Although MMHS is heavily focused on assisting students by way of their clinical team, Yung explained that their services are anything but restricted to the clinic. 

“For the last four years, Healthy McGill […] has run the Peer Health Education and Outreach program, with Mental Health [Services] informing the content in reaching out to students during midterms,” she said. 

Volunteers in bright yellow shirts and bright smiles make up the team of Peer Health Educators, who seek to facilitate a healthier mental culture through workshops, presentations, and active tabling around campus.

“[We strive] to reduce mental health disorder symptoms and return people to their daily life activities, enabling them to reach their academic and personal goals,” Yung explained.

Beyond this direct approach of informing students, MMHS has also leaned towards social media to reach out to a larger population.  The “No Health Without Mental Health” video campaign was released last year, and addressed topics such as the sources and remedies of stress from students at McGill.

Another initiative implemented by MMHS last year was the Self-Care Challenge. Given the demanding lifestyles of university students, it is easy to neglect one’s mental well-being.  This campaign aimed to remind students that partaking in small actions can contribute immensely towards the maintenance of mental health, while encouraging individual development.

These initiatives have been met with a supportive response from the students. Cindy Li, U0 Science, had high praises for the efforts that MMHS has taken to inspire a healthy state-of-mind for the student population.

“The detrimental effects of stress are usually kept under wraps, and that isn’t the right way to approach it,” Li said. “I think that it’s a great idea to bring it into the open—to educate people about the ways it can alter mental well-being.”

However, Li reflected that not enough students know about these initiatives.

“It seems that a majority [of students are] oblivious about these services— I was once a part of that majority,” Li said. “McGill’s Mental Health initiatives are something a lot of students would benefit from, especially around midterms and finals time. The absence of its prevalence is quite unfortunate.”

Frederick Lavallee, U2 Management, suggested that MMHS could reach a wider audience through online promotion.

“Social media is definitely a good place to reach out to a lot of students,” Lavallee explained. “Emails can be very effective, as well as advertising through faculty Facebook groups.

According to Lavallee, it is important for students to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health.

“Students will perhaps feel more prone to participating in these initiatives if they can see that their peers are also seeking ways to cope with stress—if they understand that everyone is in the same boat,” Lavallee said.

a, News, SSMU

Extracurricular transcript system expands on pilot project

by Philippe Dumais on

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After the creation of myInvolvement—a website that aims to track students involvement in extracurricular activities—and its merging with Student Services, the program is now expanding its scope to include activities in student clubs. The co-curricular record (CCR) provided by myInvolvement is a personalized transcript that can be customized for specific needs and can be attached to one’s academic transcript and resume.

Lina Di Genova, who is responsible for the program at McGill Student Services, says that the expansion will continue throughout the current academic year.

“Later this semester, we will be running information sessions and myInvolvement training [for the students and clubs], and students will be able to access their unofficial co-curricular record  online within the myInvolvement portal,” Di Genova said. “Next semester, students will be able to request an official electronic copy of their co-curricular record.”

Darlene Hnatchuck, director of the Career Planning Service, is confident in the program’s ability to convert extracurricular hours into job opportunities.

“Students who have developed transferable skills and can articulate them clearly to an employer have an edge in their search for employment opportunities,” Hnatchuck said. “Using the CCR, students will be better able to identify and articulate the skills they developed through [their] activities.”

Currently, over 48 student organizations have joined myInvolvement.

“Our list of student organizations is growing on a daily basis,” Di Genova said. “Since September, over 3,000 new students have logged into the myInvolvement portal and over 7,000 students have active accounts.”

The software is not without its criticisms. According to SSMU Vice-President Club and Services Stephan Fong, the program has not been specifically adapted to the Canadian educational system. 

“It is very much an American program,” Fong said. “[In the United States] student societies have very little power and life is run by the University itself. All the clubs are under the university, so it makes sense for the university to purchase the program and use it to manage their clubs. The problem in Canada is that societies are constructed completely differently.”

Fong also voiced concerns over the shared platform between the university and SSMU.

“We are not necessarily comfortable with letting the university administer our clubs through their program,” Fong explained, elaborating on the caveats of SSMU purchasing the program through. “These programs are often off-the-shelves programs, hence not as customizable as we would want [them to be].  It is a one-size-fits-all program and what I’ve learned by looking across Canada is that none of us  [are] one size consistent.” 

Fong made it clear that the initiative remains a pilot project and must be improved. 

“I want students to look at it themselves and tell us what they want out of the system: Does the system deliver what they want?” Fong said. “I know that all the students would like to have their extracurricular activities recognized. My goal is, by the end of this semester, [to] collect a lot of feedback and bring it to Council or [the] General Assembly to see what people think of the system.”

a, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Album Review: Jessie Ware – Tough Love

by Jack Neal on

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Just under a month ago, Jessie Ware, the Brixton-born singer and master of restraint, performed at the iTunes Festival where she showcased a vastly improved confidence in not only her stage presence, but in her vocals as well. Ware stated in a 2014 interview with The Guardian that her new record pushed her voice to the front and out of her usual comfort zone. Based on her iTunes performance, the result is a welcome departure from the restrained, seductive efforts on her previous album, Devotion (2012).

The new record, Tough Love, sees Ware tackle the problems that arise from being in love. The song titles say it all: Love is “Cruel”; it happens “Kind Of… Sometimes… Maybe,” and when things get tough, it’s better to “Keep On Lying.”

Beginning with the arresting lead single in which Ware sings in a higher than usual register—almost in a whisper—delivering her vocals over an echoing beat, electronics, and restrained guitar strums, this track is essentially a prologue for the rest of the album. The standout track—the second single and her highest charting song to date—“Say You Love Me,” is a superbly crafted track—far more organic than the rest of the album and perfectly suited to Ware’s sultry vocals. She should take this song as the model for the future.

Unfortunately, though, this is where Tough Love begins to falter. For all the supreme production, what’s lacking is Ware’s upfront vocals that she clearly demonstrated she can do with ease at her iTunes performance. The chorus of “You And I (Forever)” for example, which was incredible at the live performance, was a gently-building song that climaxed with a stunning final note. On the album, though, that same note is barely a murmur.

This underwhelming listen is more of an annoyance, though, rather than the making of a bad album. It would be wrong to overlook everything Tough Love does well, and for refined and restrained music to listen to in the wee hours of the morning, you simply cannot get any better.

a, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Album Review: Rich Gang – Rich Gang: Tha Tour Part 1

by Clark Bray on

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On each of their releases, Rich Gang mixtapes and albums have featured a different assemblage of rappers associated with Birdman’s Cash Money Records. Riding off the success of this summer’s chart-topping single, “Lifestyle,” Rich Gang: Tha Tour Part 1 is a promising and well-crafted development of the single’s sound, serving as a portent of the group’s inevitable monopoly on commercial hip hop.

The mixtape features Young Thug and Rich Homie Quan—who in my opinion, especially the former—have such peerless voices that I tend to think of their combined sound more as instrumentation than as vocalization—and I mean that as praise. Young Thug’s voice is the manifestation of what Lil Wayne would have sounded like if he had chosen to develop his weird, Da Drought 3 (2007) persona, and accordingly, it comes as no surprise that the two are now working with one another.

London on da Track, who produces the entire mixtape, perfectly complements the duo with visceral and distinctive synth stabs throughout, which makes me hope that the trio continues to refine their sound throughout the year and perhaps eventually even form their own group.

My personal favourite track is “Tell Em (Lies),” which has the same structure as “Lifestyle” but features heavier piano fills and a dreamier sequence of drum kicks, which attests to London on da Track’s talent as a producer. Like his contemporaries Metro Boomin and DJ Mustard, London on da Track is adept at crafting minimal beats that have similar structures but always showcase interesting and unpredictable harmonic patterns. The group has high potential, and I am excited to see if Rich Gang: Tha Tour Part 2, coming out later this year, will be as matured as I predict it will be.

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