The McGill Martlets stormed Love Competition Hall for their home opener against the Concordia Stingers on Nov. 21. McGill looked to extend its undefeated start and its nine-game winning streak against the Stingers. The Martlets did not fail to impress, and stuck with their game plan to beat Concordia in a decisive 44-34 victory.
The team came out strong from the tip-off. McGill immediately looked to feed the post down low, as the Martlets took advantage of their height to score easy points in the paint and make their way to the free-throw line early in the game. More important, however, was McGill’s stifling, aggressive defence. The Martlets forced a shot clock violation on the Stingers’ first offensive trip of the game, and proceeded to force Concordia to shoot 16.7 per cent from the field for the first half.
The home team’s aggressive play masked its own shooting deficiencies in the first half. McGill shot a measly 23.5 per cent from the field through the first two quarters, and only scored 20 points in the first 20 minutes of play. However, this was enough to get by in the first half as the Stingers netted a mere 16 points. The Martlets’ defence kept them in the game by clogging up the middle and forcing the Stingers into turnovers and ill-advised shots. Sophomore forward and reigning CIS Rookie-of-the-Year Mariam Sylla was the lynchpin of the stout defensive showing. She denied any easy lay-ups and cleaned the glass all night en route to 11 rebounds at the end of the game.
The second half mirrored the first, as both teams continued to struggle from the perimeter. However, McGill’s persistence in getting to the free-throw line paid dividends. By the end of the game, the Martlets had shot twice as many free throws as Concordia, finishing 11-16 from the line. Both Sylla and senior point guard Francoise Charest finished with 11 points to lead the team.
With another win in the books, the Martlets are 3-0 in season play. The only cause for concern right now is their shooting woes. Following the game, Martlet Head Coach Ryan Thorne reflected on his offensive weaknesses.
“I expect we should be more efficient offensively,” Thorne said. “We have the experience., we [just aren’t] coming together. It’s probably coaching, and we need to tweak some things and get players [in] better places [to score].”
The Martlets have a long way to go if they wish to fully realize their potential. A third straight RSEQ Championship is a very attainable goal, but a medal at CIS Nationals will require consistent improvement. McGill’s defence has kept it afloat as the team has only lost one game to CIS opponents all year, but the squad needs to focus on getting its offence up to par.
“It was good to get the win,” Thorne said. “It is what we are trying to do; but the big thing here is we should be trying to do better. I am not sure if we got better from this game.”
The Martlets look to continue their streak against Bishop’s on Nov. 28 at Love Competition Hall before traveling to Las Vegas, Nevada for the Frontier College Las Vegas Shootout over the winter holiday.
The director’s note uses the words “oppression” and “repression” to describe the McGill English Drama & Theatre Program’s play Cloud 9, and those two words couldn’t have summed up the production more accurately. Cloud 9 explores these main themes within two separate but thematically connected spheres; the first act takes place in Victorian-era colonial Africa, and the second one is set in 1970’s punk London.
The contrast between the two time periods is central to its production. Each actor plays a role in both acts as a way of bending the norms of gender, race, and sexuality. The first act opens with a family headed by a colonist, Clive, singing a tongue-in-cheek song about their idyllic Victorian life. This sets the tone for the play, as from this point on, the Victorian ideals they sing about devolve into a manic destructive spiral. Suddenly, extramarital sex and references to homosexuality, homophobia, and pedophilia appear with abandon.
The second act takes place about 100 years later. Issues of homosexuality and marriage still arise—however, instead of pedophilia, the taboo topic of this act is incest. We are so involved in the show’s reality that we forget the incest occurring on stage is wrong; here, right and wrong are no longer clearly defined. Seemingly a more liberal and free narrative—characters admit their homosexuality, their extramarital affairs, and their sexual habits openly—we see that they actually contain their emotions and actions out of fear. Unlike the first act where fear comes externally, it surfaces here from an anxiety about their true selves.
The play is self-aware in that it questions itself and what it does. In the first act, the play references the traditional veneer of the characters when the actors break the flow of narrative and stiffen up like puppets, moving as if they were attached to strings from above the set. In the second act, the characters’ frustrations explode into a rage of electronic-punk fuelled song. The play toys with the viewer’s expectations of theatre in more ways than one, by choosing actors to play characters that rupture the norms of gender and race. Cloud 9 tries desperately to get a message across: things turn ugly when you reject your true identity.
(Owen Egan / McGill Tribune)
To communicate this message, the actors walk a fine line between drama and comedy, and stray away from the completely ridiculous via moments of earnestness. In act one, Joshua (Leo Imbert), Clive’s black servant, exhibits the struggle of identities within his character. He breaks from his happy caricature of a man and tells Clive’s son Edward a ‘bad’ story of how mankind grew from a great spirit, who threw mud to create the moon. Joshua quickly stiffens up, smiles, and says: “Adam and Eve is true.” The play is full of moments of ‘truths’ like this one.
Although the nuances of the actors’ portrayals of their characters are ultimately successful, the gender-bending in the first act is disappointing. Betty, who is played by Harrison Collett, is too absurd to take seriously. Collett is never convincingly feminine, and the attempts to make her so detract from the point of making a man play her role. Oddly enough, in the second act, Collett’s portrayal of Edward, a gay young man, is more feminine than his portrayal of a woman.
Ultimately, Cloud 9 is a success because of its actors’ ability to bring levity to the themes it presents. It is a complex, engaging, and boundless production. When its characters run off the stage in search of refuge or to find someone, they are so convincing that their world does not end with the edge of the set. The temporality within the show is interesting, as characters from the first act appear in the second, and one actor even wears a t-shirt with Kate Moss’ face in act two. The show seems to say that time is without bounds: the past blends into the present, and therefore, history informs our actions. Identity, which is at the center of this play, is never really one’s own, and this makes internal conflict endemic to the human experience.
Cloud 9 continues to run from Nov. 28-30 at 7:30 p.m. at Moyse Hall Theatre in the McGill Arts building. Tickets are $10.
A term we often hear from time to time—sometimes in the pages of this newspaper—is the idea of the “McGill Community.” While this works best as a tidy phrase to lump together disparate stakeholders—students, faculty, employees, the administration, and alumni—in most instances, there is no such “McGill community,” so much as a collection of young and older adults united by the coincidence of attending the same educational institution.
On some level, considering the size of this university, just over 20,000 full-time undergraduate students alone, the idea that McGill comprises any sort of community is dubious on its face. Still, comparably-sized campuses elsewhere in Canada and the U.S. seem to cultivate a sense of “school spirit”, or a “community.” At other universities, students show up to the sporting events, and wear the symbols of these institutions for life. While one certainly sees students wearing McGill apparell, there is a noticiable lack of ritualistic expressions of pride that exist at some other campuses. What makes this university different?
Perhaps the most noticeable aspect of the McGill student body is how fragmented it is. While there are certainly specific rituals that are common to many students—complaining about Minerva, for instance—there are vanishingly few shared activities or experiences that could be generalized to a supposed “average” McGill student that actually exclude large portions of our campus. The debate over the value—and values—of frosh, which rewinds itself every Fall like clockwork, stands as a case in point.
For all the hand-wringing as of late over this lack of cohesiveness—witness the recent debate over the lack of a sports culture, at McGill—there is much to love—or at least tolerate—in this status quo. For one, there isn’t much of a social hierarchy on campus. With the possible exception of those who live in residence in their first year—another oft-generalized experience that ignores many—it is relatively easy to find a niche of like-minded students, and stick to that niche. This is particularly useful for those who may have felt excluded from the main social groups in previous stages of life.
Still, a feature of the student body, less of a whole and more a collection of much smaller, like-minded communities in miniature, does lead to sharper divisions and conflict when forced to interact. The spaces of tension can vary—conference sessions in some departments, or even the pages of campus publications like this one—but the results are the same.
When confronted with the reality—subconsciously acknowledged but never explicitly pointed out—that we share a campus with others who see the world differently, contempt, derision, and sometimes vitriol, are almost natural reactions. From passive-aggressive (and sometimes fully aggressive) responses to contrasting views in classes, to comments expressing a desire to humiliate an author of a seemingly controversial commentary piece—to take the example of a reaction to a piece from earlier this year, vomit on the person—the thread that unites these responses is the same. It’s not just an offence at the opinion or worldview, but a sort of meta-offence at the idea that someone with such views has to share a university, and perhaps even a classroom with oneself.
Even considering these brief flares of divisiveness, the alternative is not necessarily an improvement. A more robust conception of ‘school spirit’ is really just an attempt to patch over these underlying divisions with a happy-seeming caulking. A more honest university culture would be one that embraces the fact that we all see things—from the big picture to the seemingly simple—differently, and tries to work around it. On some level, while attempts to make McGill a university with more ‘spirit’ are well guided, they might amount to an attempt to shove a square peg in a round hole.
Three members of a varsity sports team are accused of sexual assault by a woman who does not attend their university. The story becomes public and, predictably, outrage ensues. Groups on campus pressure the coach to discipline the players. The suspects are charged, and a trial is pending—but observers have no time for that. Members of the school community publish material that implies that the accused are guilty. Some even suggest that guilt is certain, due to the systematic inequalities that exist in society, and that in cases like this, we really ought not presume innocence.
I know what you’re thinking—this sounds familiar. That the male athletes I’m talking about are three former McGill football players; that the pressure came in the form of anger over the coach not reporting the charges to the McGill administration; that the observers who have no time for legal proceedings are the members of the Union for Gender Empowerment, who published a petition demanding “action against these perpetrators.” You probably think that those suggesting the presumption of innocence should not apply include writers like Lily Hoffman, who wrote in the Nov. 18 issue of the Daily.
All of those assumptions, however, would be wrong.
The individuals I’m talking about are three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a party in 2006. The pressure was on the coach for not reporting a lewd email. The material published that assumes guilt was the infamous letter by the Group of 88, faculty members who rushed to condemn the players. Notably, no law professors were among them. The person who believed guilt to be a certainty, nevermind that pesky presumption of innocence, was African Studies professor Wahneema Lubiano, who believed the accused to be “almost perfect offenders.”
It must have been awkward, then, when the charges were dropped, the men declared innocent by the State Attorney General himself, and the prosecutor of the case disbarred. Oops.
Stories like this one make us grateful for civil liberties and for due process.
And yet the argument made so far at McGill, in light of the allegations against the three athletes, suggest that process is for other crimes.
Campus groups and activists need to rethink this tactic of presuming guilt. First, because it’s a pretty dubious idea that making the survivor of sexual assault also the judge, jury, and executioner will make reporting easier. Removing the protections to the accused does not solve the problems that make accusers vulnerable.
But even if you disagree with that, there is another reason why we ought to abandon the presumption of guilt for sexual assault cases. Trying to take away basic civil liberties is a battle that cannot be won. One glance at the reaction to the Daily article will tell you this. People are rather fond of the presumption of innocence.
Referring to the suspects as perpetrators and calling for their heads without even lip service to due process concerns many who value our judicial system. Following that up by explicitly attacking a fundamental right is downright alarming. Doing so takes potential allies and turns them into opponents by creating a false dichotomy: a choice between the status quo and a world without the presumption of innocence.
It is impossible to convince students that they should have no recourse, and no rights, as soon as they are accused by anybody of sexual assault. But they can be convinced of the importance of combating rape culture, of the importance of consent, and of creating a safe space for survivors. That’s the battle that can be won, and the battle that must be fought.
From papers to midterms to group projects, university life is not a breeze. In addition to academics, students are being asked to perform what may seem like an overwhelming amount of extracurricular activities. It’s not a surprise so many students have to deal with a jam-packed schedule alongside the pressure of choosing their majors and their careers.
A common solution to dealing with the hurdles of school-related stress is caffeine. Bitter or sweet, caffeinated drinks are probably omnipresent in campuses across North America. However, what happens when caffeine is simply not enough for that late-night bout of essay writing? For many students today, the answer lies in study drugs.
Study drugs are prescribed to individuals dealing with disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to help them focus and calm down. For those without a diagnosable attention disorder, these drugs, also known as “campus crack,” cause hyperactivity and what can be interpreted as productivity.
Alan DeSantis, a professor at the University of Kentucky, tracked the use of ADHD drugs at his university. He reported to CNN that, “[they are] abused more than marijuana, and [they are] easier to get.” According to his research, 80 per cent of the upperclassmen were users. Canadian universities follow a similar trend. The Globe and Mail reported in a recent article that more and more students across Canadian universities are taking them on a regular basis.
“I use Adderall especially during midterms and during finals,” said a third-year B.Sc McGill student. “I remember when I first took it: two papers done in a couple of hours when normally that would probably have taken me two weeks to do! But then, I had a friend who took it because she had a huge organic chemistry final the next day, and she told me it was just terrible for her. She couldn’t sleep for two days straight after taking it; so I guess it really depends on the person.”
Evidently, the effect of these drugs—just like most drugs—is individual-oriented. While these stimulants may seem like magic bullets for your GPA, the adverse effects of taking Ritalin, Adderall and Cancerta exist and are numerous.
When a student has a condition like ADHD, Adderall releases a combination of stimulants like amphetamine and dextroamphetamine that restore the balance of neurotransmitters to allow the user to focus. The dosage varies based on the medical condition of the patient. However, for un-prescribed students, this dosage is hardly regulated, and can cause serious side effects such as withdrawal reactions. These include changes in mood and in sleep patterns, as well as fatigue.
The U.S. federal government lists Adderall as a schedule II drug, meaning it is one with “the highest abuse potential and dependence profile of all drugs that have medical utility”.
According to the Director of the McGill Office for Science and Society Joe Schwartz, these drugs do allow for greater concentration, but he emphasizes, “[I am] not in favor of using drugs for that purpose.”
Aabha Sharma is a PhD candidate in Life Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago, with a particular interest in these ‘study drugs’ and their effects on society. Sharma says she has seen a fair share of her friends use these stimulants despite being knowledgeable of the risks involved.
“While it is important to control overuse of Adderall, especially in colleges, understanding why students are resorting to such dangerous prescription drug abuse is equally important,” Sharma said. “The world today is getting more competitive, and survival of […] the smartest is the reality which puts students [under] a lot of pressure. In order to cope with the high standards […] students are finding ways of staying focused to excel. My guess is that the colleges where Adderall overuse is becoming a big problem are also places where mental health issues are skyrocketing.”
According to the same article on the Globe and Mail, campus mental health professionals say they cannot police the use of study drugs and instead suggest educating students about time management, stress, and mental health.
“[A] healthy lifestyle will give you a healthy mind, and help you focus and excel in your work,” Sharma said. “Prescription drug-abuse might seem like it helps for the short term, but the long-term adverse effects might not be worth the price.”
It should be noted that taking or buying drugs without prescription is illegal. Beyond that, this debate of using drugs to forcibly improve cognitive function for better grades while harming one’s body should raise important questions into the values our society associates with the pathway to success. Is harming one’s body acceptable in the name of getting a 90?
Bike gates, a pedestrian-friendly campus, and a car-free McTavish Street are more than just factors of everyday life at McGill. They are all guided by the university’s Physical Master Plan, a document adopted in 2008 that outlines priorities for the development of McGill’s downtown and Macdonald campuses.
The Physical Master Plan
The plan lists nine core principles, including preserving historical buildings, keeping campus accessible, and upholding the university’s academic mission. With an overarching principle of sustainability, the plan directs infrastructure, transit, and landscaping at McGill.
Before the Master Plan was adopted, only disjointed, short-term strategies guided development projects on campus. For example, a large influx of students in the mid-20th century led to the rapid construction of many buildings that fill campus today, including Leacock, Stewart Biology, McLennan Library, and the three upper residences.
“Back in the 1960s, there was huge enrollment growth, so the university was forced to plan major expansion very quickly without a definite vision,” said Chuck Adler, director of Campus and Space Planning (CSP) and a member of the task force behind creating the Master Plan.
To address McGill’s lack of a long-range plan, John Gruzleski, outgoing dean of Engineering at the time, was appointed chair of the task force formed in 2004 to generate a long-term development strategy. Gruzleski began a consultation process to collect input from thousands of people in the McGill and Montreal communities, as well as recommendations from design and planning experts. After two consultation processes over a four-year period, the collected information was distilled into the 75-page document that guides all planning today.
According to Adler, the space constraints of McGill’s downtown location pose specific difficulties. The university must purchase nearby property to expand the campus beyond its current borders, and the real estate market’s unpredictability makes it difficult for McGill’s future development to have a fixed layout.
“Since we have to evolve outside our own territory, we cannot predict where we’re going to be in 10 years,” Adler said. “So the principles [in the Plan] say what’s important to us, and when opportunities come up we can see if they align with those principles.”
Development projects at McGill do not go forward unless they align with the principles of the Master Plan. First, all new projects undergo an evaluation by CSP and University Services. They then receive final approval from various McGill authorities depending on their value—the Board of Governors (BoG) (if value exceeds $5 million), the BoG’s Building and Property Committee (more than $4 million), or senior administration personnel (less than $4 million).
(via flikr.com)
Pedestrianization
When the city of Montreal took an interest in reducing car traffic in the downtown area, McGill seized the chance to pedestrianize campus in accordance with the principles of the Master Plan.
“The university had been talking to the city about this for about 40 years, to make McTavish Street an enlargement of the campus and to make it a better public space,” Adler said. “It wasn’t really planned—it was just an opportunity.”
McGill struck a deal with the city for the university to receive control of McTavish Street in 2010, agreeing to reduce vehicle use on that street and the rest of lower campus. In May 2010, the new pedestrian-friendly campus debuted with restrictions on car and bike use, and deliveries limited to between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
“People really wanted to have a greener, more sociable campus where pedestrianization and safety came through as the main priorities,” said Dean of Engineering Jim Nicell, who led the second consultation for the Master Plan. “There was a fair amount of opposition to [the restriction on bike access]. However, there was almost no opposition to the removal of vehicle access from the lower campus.”
However, some students at the time found it difficult to adapt to the restrictions of a pedestrianized campus. Tom Fabian, vice-president internal of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) in 2010, told the Tribune at the time that the restriction on deliveries brought some challenges.
“[Pedestrianization] has caused tons of hell for us to not have any cars on campus during frosh and Open Air Pub,” he said. “We don’t know when [deliveries are] going to arrive.”
According to Nicell, the pedestrianization of campus was not without its costs.
“It has negatively impacted the university in a financial way, due to lost revenue from parking,” he said. “[But] we accomplished something that will change the face of our university for the next hundreds of years. It will be taken for granted, but it will be incredibly valued.”
The bike gates
Prior to McGill’s pedestrianization of McTavish, the bike path along Milton Street ended at the McGill campus with no connection to the Montreal city centre. This left cyclists with the option of riding against the flow of traffic along University Street for two blocks until they reached the next bike path, or taking a shortcut through the McGill campus.
In 2010, the city built a two-way bike path along University Street to divert cyclists from riding through campus. Since then, McGill has required cyclists to walk their bikes on campus.
Martin Krayer von Krauss, manager of McGill’s Sustainability Office of Campus and Space Planning (CSP), said the rule was created because cycling on campus was deemed “incompatible” with the Master Plan.
“The concern was […] that the safety of pedestrians on campus [and] the speed at which mounted cyclists would travel on campus was incompatible […] with the vision of our campus as a sanctuary within an otherwise hectic urban environment,” he said.
In September 2013, a set of metal swing gates was added to the pedestrian walkway at McGill’s Milton Gates entrance. Associate Vice-Principal (University Services) Robert Couvrette said the bike gates were intended to increase pedestrian safety.
“If cyclists did what the signs asked and dismounted at the entrance, everyone would be very safe,” Couvrette said. “Cyclists who decide to try to ride through the gates or get around them without dismounting are choosing a riskier option.”
The gates, however, received negative attention from some students, including executives from the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) and SSMU.
“These gates [make campus] so inaccessible for everyone who isn’t an able-bodied person,” said Joey Shea, SSMU Vice-President University Affairs. “The bike gates sent a bad message to the Milton-Parc community, and more importantly to the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD).”
Although the administration originally planned to remove the gates this winter to ease snow removal, they were vandalized and taken down prematurely in October. Using the bike gates as a starting point, a working group—including students, faculty members, urban planning experts, and representatives of the OSD and the student-run Flat Bike Collective—is revisiting whether McGill should allow and accommodate cyclists on campus.
Couvrette said more input from the community is necessary before making further moves regarding cycling on campus.
“We are very aware that many people view these gates as a barrier, even though they are not intended to serve that purpose,” Couvrette said. “In evaluating the effectiveness of this pilot project, we are taking those views into account, bearing in mind that we are committed to the idea of an open, accessible campus.”
Harald Kliems, a member of the Flat Bike Collective, said he is in favour of lifting the restrictions on bikes on campus.
“I strongly believe that it is possible and desirable to create a shared space on campus where pedestrians and cyclists alike can safely co-exist,” Kliems said.
Krayer von Krauss, who chairs the working group re-considering bike use on campus, said financial limitations pose a problem in terms of possible outcomes.
“Money will be an issue,” Krayer von Krauss said. “At this point, McGill could simply not afford, for example, to build a proper cycle path from one end of the campus to the other, if this is what was required.”
However, Nicell emphasized that safety is a bigger issue than the budget when considering the creation of a formal bike path across university property.
“It’s not a funding issue; it’s about what we’re here for as a community,” Nicell said. “We’re not anti-cyclist; we’re pro-safety. We have a history of very dangerous situations [involving bikes]. McGill is incredibly supportive of cycling, and we’ve created […] the infrastructure that’s required to support it.”
Next steps
This February, the city of Montreal will excavate McTavish St. to repair the water main leading from the city’s reservoir, which will leave the street closed off in sections until its
Cars, bikes, and pedestrians shared McTavish Street until 2010. (flickr.com)
tentative completion date in Summer 2014. According to Adler, this repair is an ideal starting point to redevelop the surfaces and functions of lower campus in a more pedestrian-friendly and green way in the next few years.
“We were able to get the cars off lower campus, but we haven’t gone that next step to re-landscape and reorganize lower campus,” Adler said. “[McGill is] trying to partner with the city to make McTavish a showcase for how to re-develop urban streets as green spaces.”
In addition, McGill continues to look into options for expansion by keeping an eye on the real estate market in the area surrounding campus.
“We’re at the end of being able to be master of our own destiny because we’ve pretty well exhausted all of our own land resources,” Adler said. “So we have to be dependent on the marketplace, and we are actively finding out what’s available in the immediate vicinity and whether we can afford to acquire it.”
That could include purchasing nearby properties that are about to become available, such the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), which is set to be empty within two to three years once its facilities are relocated.
“There [are] a lot of people who have a stake in its long-term use, [but] there’s a wide-spread acknowledgement that McGill would be the best occupant of that space because we’ve been very good stewards of our land and our buildings,” Nicell said.
Since the hospital resides within one of Montreal’s cultural heritage zones, Nicell said the university would be under obligation to the city and the Quebec government to repurpose or renovate the RVH within the restrictions of such a zone.
Whatever the future holds, any decisions McGill makes regarding development—from purchasing a hospital to implementing bike gates—will be guided by McGill’s Master Plan.
“If it wasn’t for the Master Plan […] we’d be in a very different place now,” Nicell said. “Some people see it as a wishful document, but no—it’s guiding the goal over the long term so that every step we take leads towards our long-term vision.”
Old as the university itself, McGill’s library system has undergone an almost continuous process of restructuring and adaptation since its foundation. While changes such as renovations are often McGill-specific in nature, some of the recent adaptations the library has undertaken point to growing trends and challenges faced by academic libraries across the world.
With diverse factors such as budgetary constraints, physical limitations, and an increased use of technology, the future of libraries is often difficult to predict by librarians and students alike, and can involve difficult choices with far-reaching consequences.
As the McGill Library system prepares to conduct a feasibility study in the upcoming months to address the possibility of future changes to the current system, the Tribune takes an in-depth look at McGill libraries, including how they have evolved over the university’s history, and how they are moving into the future.
History of McGill’s library system
(via archives.mcgill.ca)
The history of libraries at McGill begins with the founding of the Life Sciences Library in 1823. As the first medical library in Canada, the Life Sciences Library was the result of McGill’s acquisition of the Montreal Medical Institute, which owned a collection of medical texts that became the library.
The construction of more libraries followed: Redpath Hall was established in 1893 as a reading room, the Macdonald campus library was opened in 1907, and Birks Reading Room began as a co-operative with the Joint Board of Theological Colleges in 1912.
Individual departments also developed their own collections, due to a continual increase in the availability of print materials, according to Richard Virr, Head and Curator of Manuscripts who has worked in McGill’s library system for 30 years.
“By the 1950s, you had something like 45 or 50 libraries at McGill,” Virr said. “Whatever department, they might have their little working library because there just wasn’t any space in the main library.”
To address the need for more space, the McLennan Library Complex was built in 1969. Originally slated to serve as a library for graduate students, it currently serves as the largest library at McGill.
In the 1990s, research libraries across North America experienced more changes due to the increased availability of digital resources.
“We saw massive changes because of our exponential growth of electronic information, electronic journals, electronic books, digitization of photographs and images, and archives,” Lizabeth Wilson, dean of university libraries at the University of Washington, said. “For the first time, we started talking about buying access to the world’s knowledge through digital means.”
According to the records of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), an organization that monitors trends of its member research libraries, including McGill’s, library expenditure on digital materials increased every year between 1991 and 2011.
Current state of the system
The two most recently opened libraries at McGill, the Nahum Gelber Law Library and Marvin Duchow Music Library, were completed in 1998 and 2006 respectively. Their designs reflected a new priority in libraries.
“They had library [book collections] for years, what had happened was they needed space,” Virr said. “We’re returning almost to the time when libraries had major reading rooms, because that was student space.”
This past summer, 232 seats were added to the McLennan-Redpath library complex as a measure to address the growing need for student space. Similar changes are being undertaken in the Life Sciences Library and the Education Library, whose collections were merged with other branches earlier this year, and which now serve as study space.
“Libraries in general [are] moving away from physical books to online collections; and looking at open study spaces with internet collections and plugs rather than stacks,” Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Vice-President University Affairs Joey Shea said. “The more direct thing that you can point to with this issue is obviously the budget cuts.”
The provincial government’s $38.2 million cuts to McGill’s operating budget last December led to a $1.8 million reduction to the library budget.
France Bouthillier, director of the School of Information Studies, said libraries worldwide are undergoing a shift in role, and budget cuts have merely sped up this inevitable process at McGill.
“Financial constraints […] accelerate the need for change,” Bouthillier said. “Libraries have been changing constantly. It’s just a shock for people […] to realize how drastic changes can be, but when you look at the evolution of libraries over at least the last 15 years, there’s been constant change.”
McGill libraries are not alone in facing changes. In Baltimore, Maryland, the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) was recently redesigned to convert its library space from an access point for books to an open study space for the students and faculty that it serves.
Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums at JHU, Winston Tabb, said the decision went against other suggestions to simply close the library.
(Maryse Thomas / McGill Tribune)
“We spent most of 2012 in a large group thinking of the future of the library, including a lot of students and faculty,” Tabb said. “That’s when we discovered how many people really wanted to be able to use the library, but […] not for coming and consulting books.”
According to an ARL study of the past two decades on growing digitization, the number of library users has increased by 33 per cent while initial circulation of physical materials—including books and DVDs—has decreased by 37 per cent.
As a result of similar patterns of use at McGill, the library has developed a policy for removing books from shelves. All science books that have not been circulated for 10 years, and medical books that have not been circulated for five have been moved to storage in the Currie Gymnasium.
Cook stressed that the library’s current use of the gymnasium is only temporary until they develop a long-term plan.
“There’s been a recognition for at least the past 20 years that there are real issues with library spaces,” Cook said. “It’s just that right now, a concatenation of events—less money for people, the fact that we have almost doubled our holdings because of digital books [and] digital resources within the past five years […] and the social learning needs of a different generation of students—have all come together.”
The unforeseeable future
In the upcoming months, the McGill Library will conduct a feasibility study about possible changes to the current system. The study aims to address the changing needs of students as well as the space constraints and budgetary concerns the libraries currently face.
Coordinated and managed by Associate Vice-Principal (University Services) Robert Couvrette, the study will consider the options for adaptation that McGill’s library system has.
According to Diane Koen, McGill Library’s Senior Director of Planning and Resources, the study will not consider fine details of the future of the library system; rather, it will examine big-picture options.
“It’s high-level; it doesn’t get right into the weeds of ‘it will look like this,’” Koen said. “We’re [considering a] scope of ideas and potential prices.”
One such idea pertains to a high-density storage system that would be able to consolidate McGill’s library collections in a manner that will ensure that it remains inexpensive yet accessible. According to a 2010 study done by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), book storage on an open shelf costs $4.26 USD per year, while high-density storage would decrease the cost to $0.86, due to factors such as building maintenance and operational costs.
“Taking this economic reality into account, academic libraries around the world are merging print collections capitalizing upon the capabilities and conveniences afforded us by automation, the internet, and [the] proliferation of electronic content,” Koen said.
An example of such storage can be found at the James B. Hunt Jr. Library of North Carolina State University (NCSU), which opened in January 2013 and spans over 221,000 square feet. The library features a $4.2 million robotic book retrieval system, bookBot, which automatically locates, retrieves, and delivers requested material from its high density shelving system within five minutes.
Hunt Library at North Carolina State University opened in January 2013 (ncsu.edu)
“When we learned about automated storage and retrieval systems that could condense two million of our volumes into one-ninth the space, […] that was an obvious answer to us—to keep our collections on site, not have to send them off-campus for storage, but also to be able to maximize the amount of floor space we could use for study space and collaborative areas,” Carolyn Argentati, Deputy Director of Libraries Administration at NCSU, said.
After an analysis of needs and constraints for projects such as these, McGill’s feasibility study will undergo a process called ‘going-to-tender,’ which refers to contacting architects for suggestions and pricing.
Following the completion of the study in summer 2014, a proposal for the future of the library system will be placed in a queue alongside many other proposals from other departments—all of which have undergone feasibility studies, as well. The proposal will require the approval of senior administration plus adequate funding, which will include money raised by the library and university through grants, loans, gifts, among other resources. Wilson emphasized the important role that libraries play within the university system.
“The future of the library predicts the future of the university,” Wilson said. “Libraries have gone through many different technological changes, and done so very successfully. The first part of the university to adapt to the web was the library [and] the first part of the university to use automation back in the 1960s was the library. So we’re always out there on the edge and a good place to pilot different kinds technology.”
Virr said that although the future of the library remains unclear, flexibility and adaptability are important considerations.
“I do not know what the library in 2030 is going to look like, except that it’s not going to look like it does today,” Virr said. “Maybe by 2030, students will not want group study spaces at all; who knows? But one can only extrapolate and [try] to create spaces that are adaptable.”
On Nov. 18, McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) met with students to address student concerns including budgetary issues, investment ethics, and transparency.
Co-hosted by Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) President Katie Larson, Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill University (PGSS) Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney, and BoG Chair Stuart Cobbett, the meeting was modeled after a similar event hosted last year.
“It went really well last year, and we [were] hoping for more dialogue this time to get a sense of the scope of the work the BoG does,” Larson said.
Comprised of 25 voting members, the BoG makes final decisions with respect to the maintenance and administration of the university. The BoG makes many of its decisions in confidential sessions, which has led some students to question the transparency and accountability of the body.
“How does the BoG consider the student experience in their decision making?” Mooney asked. “They’re this ‘otherworldly organization,’ and there’s no community interaction.”
Cobbett said the BoG is addressing transparency, but the issue is complex.
“In the past, there were fewer items in the open than perhaps could have been, so we are putting more and more in the open,” Cobbett said. “We are trying to be more transparent, but there are some things that by their very nature we cannot be transparent about. The university’s budget, for instance, we debate in closed session every year.”
Cobbett also said it is important to understand the difference between the BoG’s role and that of the administration.
“We are a governance body,” Cobbett said. “We give advice on strategic priorities, but it is very important to remember that the university is run by the principal and administration.”
Other questions focused on the BoG’s commitment to environmental concerns. Some students asked board members to explain their policies on sustainability issues ranging from efficient heating to ethical investments.
“McGill has a really strong reputation as an innovative leader,” said a student who could not be identified. “What kind of ways can we use that power we have now to address climate change, especially on this question of fossil fuel divestment?”
Cobbett responded that divestment was a complicated issue that has been addressed by the BoG before. Given the university’s current budgeting constraints, Cobbett stressed that it is important for the investment committee to remain concerned with generating revenue, as opposed to divesting from the fossil fuel industry.
“Ethical investments often […] underperform in the market as a whole,” Cobbett said. “It’s tough enough to make money, and for our investment managers to get a decent return on our endowment, without telling them what they can and can’t invest in. I’m not saying we haven’t done it, or that we won’t do it in the future, but it’s something that we have to consider very carefully.”
Other students questioned the effect of the university’s recent budget cuts on staff and professors, class sizes, and the availability of academic resources. Students voiced concerns about the feeling of anonymity at a large university like McGill.
“Is the number of undergraduate and graduate students going to continue increasing if we’re changing the ratio of students to teachers?” one graduate student asked.
“There is absolutely no intent to increase our revenues by dramatically increasing the size of our student body,” Cobbett responded.
Cobbett said he is optimistic about McGill’s financial situation and confident that the situation will improve within the next five years.
“It’s a tough time at McGill, but I don’t want anyone to think we’re teetering on the brink,” Cobbett said. “We have a fabulously strong institution with wonderful people.”
Organizers of the event said they were pleased with the participation of the McGill community.
“Very few universities do this sort of thing,” Mooney said. “It shows that the governors want to be engaged–it’s fantastic.”
At the end of each semester, the Tribune assesses SSMU executives based on their progress, engagement at SSMU Council, and presence at public events. Overall, we have found this year’s executives generally uncommunicative with the media. Additionally, SSMU Council documents are not often made publicly available in a timely fashion. Since both communication with student media and online documentation are important methods that allow students to keep executives accountable, we urge executives to address these issues in the Winter semester.
Katie Larson (Sam Reynolds / McGill Tribune)
Katie Larson – President
Larson’s tenure so far has met tangible milestones, such as passing the new constitution. We hope that her work on the lease negotiations—which have taken almost four years and a considerable toll on the SSMU budget—will translate into a fair lease for both SSMU and McGill.
Although Larson organized a well-executed GA in October, SSMU’s lack of initiative in promoting the event resulted in poor attendance. However, the success of quorum at the Special GA demonstrated that participation can be achieved when its importance is effectively communicated to students. We encourage Larson to use the strategies behind this success to seek greater student engagement next semester.
Sustainability is another important part of the president’s portfolio, and we hope Larson will find ways to continue sustainability work at SSMU, given that the position of sustainability co-ordinator was cut from the budget for this year.
Larson has acknowledged that her communication skills, especially through email, need improvement. We feel that increased communication will enable us to provide better reporting on issues important to students in the new year.
While we recognize that the job of SSMU President is often thankless, Larson has also rarely shown enthusiasm regarding her work at Council or other public events. At a university where student apathy is a recurring issue, it is important for the student president to take the lead in showing disengaged students why they should care.
Joey Shea (Sam Reynolds / McGill Tribune)
Joey Shea – VP University Affairs
It has been a busy year for Shea’s portfolio, with mental health initiatives and the sexual harassment policy at the forefront of campus conversation. The administration’s recently announced plan to coordinate forums on sexual harassment and the role of a university presents an exciting opportunity to reform McGill’s policy and open a wider discussion at McGill. We look forward to her leadership in this area next semester.
Additionally, Shea has been active in discussions on mental health at different levels in the university.
Shea also successfully organized a town hall on libraries this semester and worked in partnership with the VP Internal Affairs to create an “appropriate costumes campaign” that prevented the use of blackface and other racist and culturally insensitive appropriations at SSMU events.
We applaud Shea for her willingness to facilitate communication when necessary.
Stefan Fong – VP Clubs & Services
Stefan Wong (McGill Tribune)
Fong’s portfolio involves the highly administrative task of managing the SSMU Building with the General Manager, Pauline Gervais, as well as sitting in the Board of CKUT—McGill’s campus-community radio station—and the SSMU Daycare.
One successful initiative by Fong this semester was the implementation of a time period during which internal SSMU groups have priority over external groups in room booking. However, some club leaders have been concerned by an erratic communication system, with emails sent often too close to upcoming deadlines.
Next semester, we hope Fong will be able to put out the long-awaited guides on how to run a club and continue working towards his campaign promise of ensuring that clubs have easy access to financial and administrative information.
Tyler Hofmeister – VP Finance & Operations
Tyler Hofmeister (Sam Reynolds / McGill Tribune)
Although Hofmeister ultimately succeeded in balancing the budget for this year, this resulted in the removal of two positions: the sustainability coordinator and the political attaché, two important positions in SSMU’s mandate.
Additionally, Hofmeister has been consistently reluctant to explain details of the budget. Communication with him is difficult, as he does not grant in-person interviews and is largely unresponsive via email. Lack of communication with student press appears to be indicative of larger issues of transparency. Councillors have complained publicly that he is disorganized. Looking forward, we hope to see Hofmeister make an effort to improve communication and promote transparency regarding his portfolio.
The Student-Run Café (SRC) is a major part of the VP Finance and Operations’ portfolio, and it appears to be well on track to open in January. After years of discussion, we’re excited to see this project materialize. However, questions have been raised regarding the transparency of the project, as students were not made aware of the project’s progress until three months before its implementation. Furthermore, the positions of SRC manager and head chef were already filled before the project was announced to students.
Brian Farnan (Sam Reynolds / McGill Tribune)
Brian Farnan – VP Internal Affairs
In terms of communication, Farnan succeeded at creating a Communications Guide and Strategy for SSMU, which has been followed by timely and regular listservs—a much-needed improvement from last year. Although the implementation of “Soapbox” in the SSMU website is promising, so far it has scarcely been advertised.
The 4Floors Halloween party was well-organized and did not run into major issues this year. We commend Farnan for his work with the equity commissioners to take active steps in promoting appropriate costumes and preventing situations like last year’s presence of blackface at the party.
A main component of Farnan’s portfolio involves the organization of frosh. Although this year’s frosh successfully provided more alcohol-free alternatives, the overall event saw a $21,000 loss in student funds due to avoidable budgeting issues. We urge Farnan to take advantage of the accounting department within SSMU when planning similar large-scale events next semester.
Samuel Harris (Sam Reynolds / McGill Tribune)
Sam Harris – VP External Affairs
The most contentious event in Quebec politics this semester is undoubtedly the proposed Quebec Charter of Values. While SSMU Council took a stance against this issue, we would have liked to see Harris use this bill to encourage attendance at the first General Assembly of the semester.
SSMU’s student federation TaCEQ has been interesting to watch this semester, particularly as REMDUS—a coalition of University of Sherbrooke students—is holding a referendum on whether they want to remain a member of the student federation. If this vote passes, this may be an important chance for SSMU to reconsider the benefits of being a part of this student association. We hope that Harris will spearhead a critical discussion of the implications of staying or leaving, and ensure that students know and understand what TaCEQ is, its financial cost for students, and its role in the province.
In terms of outreach to the wider community, Harris has continued ongoing events like Community Engagement Day and street teams during frosh to promote communication and awareness of the interconnectedness of the community. We look forward to seeing what new initiatives he can come up with in this aspect of the portfolio for next semester.
Students typically understand education at McGill at two levels—graduate and undergraduate studies. However, not every faculty at McGill is as clear-cut as this system appears; in the Faculties of Law and Medicine, students are considered undergraduates even though most applicants have already completed an undergraduate degree.
Students in law and medicine are considered undergraduates across Canada and in much of the world, although students can also receive a graduate degree in either faculty by completing an additional degree.
Being an undergraduate in these faculties does not alter the daily life of students, according to executive President of the Medical Students’ Society (MSS) Carl White Ulysse.
“We are still treated a little differently from most undergraduates,” Ulysse said. “For example, we only pay 72 per cent of the SSMU fee as per article 1.2 of their constitution, and we have access to the Thomson House like ‘real’ graduate students. In the end, we will get the same degree.”
Marc Roy, vice-president academic of the Law Students’ Association (LSA), said the system of undergraduate classification can create discrepancies between the education levels of entering students, since Quebec students can apply directly from CEGEP.
“A significant part of the class each year is admitted from [CEGEP] applicants,” Roy said. “They go through a very similar application process to students with previous university study, but CEGEP applicants are at the same stage in their education as most students from Quebec entering other undergraduate degree programs.”
CEGEPs offer two-year programs between high school and university from which students can apply for admissions directly to the McGill School of Law and with reduced credit requirements for the School of Medicine.
However, undergraduate status can cause problems for some students in these faculties, especially those looking to work in positions similar to Teaching Assistants (TAs). Undergraduate students are not included in the definition of a TA set by the collective agreement between McGill and the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM).
“AGSEM was accredited in 1993 to represent graduate TAs, and our current TA Collective Agreement defines a TA as a current graduate student,” Justin Irwin, a delegate of AGSEM, said.
Irwin said this can be a harmful situation for both graduate and undergraduate students.
“Graduate students miss out on jobs and the pedagogical experience that goes with them, and undergraduates have no protections on the job,” he said. “The current situation allows McGill to hire non-unionized employees, both undergraduate students and graduate students, to do various teaching support work like grading. This work is often done for low and inconsistent pay without many of the rights unionized workers have, including paid pedagogical training.”
According to Irwin, AGSEM would like to expand to represent undergraduate students, to ensure that the current situation changes.
“We want to see fair rules that balance finding the best candidates with improving the quality of education, and that protect everyone doing teaching support work at McGill,” Irwin said
