Over the course of last week, top administrators in the Faculty of Arts began to address concerns from students, faculty, and support staff about the Faculty’s “People, Processes & Partnerships” project. This new plan proposes changes to departmental space configurations in the Leacock building.

Currently, a project team of 75 people—55 of whom are part of the administrative and support staff, 10 students, two faculty members, the dean, an associate dean, the director of administration, a department chair, and three people from without the Faculty of Arts—has proposed two possible scenarios, both of which involve relocating upwards of 55 offices within Leacock or to the row houses on McTavish Street.

Each scenario involves moving the department of Jewish studies from McTavish into Leacock, and relocating administrative staff within Leacock. However, the significant difference between the two is that the prior seeks to locate all department chairs on one floor, removing them from their respective departments.

According to Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi, space reconfigurations will also occur in the 688 Sherbrooke and the Ferrier building in the future. He explained that Leacock will be addressed first because it involves the most ambitious and complicated change.

The Town Hall

Manfredi presented the logic behind Leacock’s reorganization to a crowd of 100 at a Town Hall in Redpath Museum last week.

He cited the need to consolidate  services for efficiency, and the need to adjust to a new university policy McGill announced last spring, which dictates that, for every two administrative staff members that leave McGill, only one replacement can be hired. This policy is in line with the Quebec government’s Bill 100, which requires that universities reduce spending on administrative staff.

In order to address these two goals, both scenarios suggest that the Faculty of Arts use the third and sixth floors of Leacock for administrative services. As it stands now, each department within the Faculty has its own administrative officer (AO) on each floor who takes care of students registered in that department. As a result of the proposed changes, AOs would move to the sixth floor and be cross-trained, so that they can help students from outside their departments as well as from within.

According to Manfredi, the idea of space reconfiguration was first discussed at a faculty meeting on Sept. 25, 2012, and the project was publicly launched in October. It was also discussed again at a November faculty meeting.

“There is nothing being kept secret about this,” Manfredi said, noting that very few professors at the Town Hall came to the faculty meetings in question.

For the majority of the Town Hall, Manfredi listened to professors’ concerns about the proposed scenarios.

A professor, Grierson Chair in Visual Culture, and Graduate Program Director of art history at McGill, Amelia Jones, spoke of a similar experience she had while working at a university in England.

“I moved here from [the] University of Manchester,” Jones explained. “I left the UK because the University of Manchester had consolidated the administration and staff, and it created, really, a completely dysfunctional non-collegial community. … I know that your plan seems to be different, but there are enough similarities that I’m really concerned about it.”

Jones said that after consolidation, the academic staff became the only possible interface between the University of Manchester students and their departments. According to Jones, the staff was also burdened with administrative tasks, and although administration was centralized for efficiency purposes, the staff was not able to develop the same degree of specialization.

In response, Manfredi told Jones that the Faculty of Arts does not want to replicate bad experiences that occurred at other universities.

Laure Spake, vice-president internal and events of the History Students’ Association (HSA), and one of the few undergraduate attendees at the Town Hall, spoke from the students’ perspective.

“This has been promoted as a move where we will have student services in one area as a [one-stop shop],” she said. “[However,] the department floor … is already a ‘one stop’ [for] students. We can go see our professors. We can go see our … [teaching assistants]. We can receive our students in [the HSA] office, which we hold very dearly.”

“I don’t want to be running between three floors of Leacock, two floors of Ferrier, the McTavish row houses … it’s difficult for us,” Spake added.

Professors continued to offer alternative solutions to the restructuring plan. Sandra Hyde, chair of graduate admissions and associate professor of anthropology, proposed that the Faculty have an AO who acts as a “floater”–someone who can serve the different departments when their AO is unable to do so.

Manfredi also told the Town Hall attendees that the Quebec government-imposed budget cuts on universities could also now play a role in how space is allocated in the Faculty, citing the fact that McGill plans to implement a policy of voluntary retirements for administrative and support staff across the university.

The voluntary retirement plan, to be released this week, will be offered to people above a certain age. Manfredi said that there are 15 people in the Faculty of Arts who might fall into that age group, which he thinks will include people around 60 years and older.

“If all 15 of those people are eligible, and they all decide to take the voluntary retirement plan, that would be a fairly big impact on our Faculty and individual units,” Manfredi explained. “It’s about resiliency, about trying to spread the shock of these kinds of things … across a wider swath, a wider group of people, rather than having it simply felt in a single unit.”

Moving Forward

Two days after the Town Hall, Associate Dean (Academic Administration and Oversight) Gillian Lane-Mercier addressed a room of student representatives at the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Council meeting to explain the need for the project.

“The Faculty of Arts lacks space in general,” Lane-Mercier said. “[That’s] just the way it is.”

All students who spoke and asked questions expressed skepticism about the plans.

“Why can’t it stay as it is?” Michelle Shames, vice-president external of the Sociology Students’ Association (SSA), asked Lane-Mercier. “It seems to be working very effectively. Students [and] faculty members, as well as staff in my department, have voiced an extreme amount of concern about the loss of soft knowledge.”

“We can’t keep the status quo because we are in for big administrative changes,” Lane-Mercier said in response to Shame’s inquiry, pointing to the looming budget cuts and the urgent need to implement McGill’s policy of voluntary retirements.

Manfredi has estimated that the cost of the project could reach $2.5 million, but Lane-Mercier told AUS Council that this was a very rough estimate, and is unlikely to hold. She also noted that the project will not be put into effect for another year and a half.

Manfredi said that following the feedback he received at the Town Hall, he now plans to expand the 75-person project team, and have Lane-Mercier conduct further consultation with individual departments.

“I was very pleased with attendance at the Town Hall, as well as with the constructive comments and feedback we received,” he said. “I was pleased to see general agreement that the Faculty has real challenges that need to be met, and that there is a willingness of individuals to get involved in the process of finding ways to meet those challenges.”

“There are clearly deep concerns about how changes to administrative structures and space may affect departmental cultures and autonomy, and these concerns need to be taken seriously,” Manfredi continued.

Mandredi also stated that more scenarios are being developed, and will be presented to the community “in an appropriate form” when ready.

AUS will be hosting a Town Hall with Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi and Associate Deans Gillian Lane-Mercier and Lucy Lach on April 2 in Leacock B-12 from 5pm to 7pm.

Statement of Values and Operating Procedures adopted

McGill Senate passed a motion to adopt the “Statement of Values and Principles Concerning Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Peaceful Assembly” with an overwhelming majority on Mar. 20.

The Statement of Values was created by the McGill administration in response to a student occupation of the James Administration Building in February 2012. The document is intended to provide guidelines detailing how protests, demonstrations, and occupations may be carried out on McGill’s campuses.

Although Ashraf Ismail, associate professor in the department of food science and agriculture chemistry, moved to table the entire motion and many senators voiced their criticism of the document, the motion passed.

Provost Anthony Masi reminded Senate that there were two consultation periods to discuss the Statement of Values, and said that the feedback received at the Consultation Fairs made it clear it was necessary that the university possess a document that states its principles on peaceful assembly.

Dean of the Desautels Faculty of Management Peter Todd agreed with Masi’s statement.

“[It’s necessary to] strike a balance between those who want to study and learn and those who are expressing dissent,” Todd said.

Many of the student senators criticized the Statement of Values.

“[An] attempt to define peaceful expression is ideologically dangerous,” Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) President Josh Redel said. “Peace is personal, [and] defining it in two sentences lacks in empathy.”

Associate Professor of Political Science Catherine Lu, who has been a long-time critic of the Statement, told Senate she thinks that the Statement of Values is unnecessary.

“If we were the University of Tehran we would need this, but we aren’t, so I don’t see why it is needed,” Lu said.

Following the motion’s approval, Senate discussed the Statement of Values’ accompanying document, known as the “Operating Procedures Regarding Demonstrations, Protests and Occupations on McGill University Campuses.” The Operating Procedures outline the measures that the university and Security Services will take in the event of a protest or demonstration. Unlike the Statement of Values, the Operating Procedures are not subject to Senate approval.

Associate Professor of Political Science Derek Nystrom asked why Senate was not allowed to vote on the approval of the Operating Procedures. Vice-Principal (Administration and Finance) Michael Di Grappa explained that normal Operating Procedures for campus security services do not require Senate approval.

The Statement of Values will need to be approved by the Board of Governors (BoG) before coming into effect, which will likely happen at the Apr. 26 meeting of the BoG. The Operating Procedures are currently in effect.

edX and mental health discussed

Another major topic of debate at Wednesday’s meeting was McGill’s participation in the edX consortium—a not-for-profit enterprise comprised of several universities that offer free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). EdX was founded by Harvard and MIT. McGill joined edX on Feb. 20 without approval from Senate.

Provost Anthony Masi explained that approval from Senate was not required to join edX, as Senate had already approved the Achieving Strategic Academic Priorities (ASAP) plan, which had an entire section on technological pedagogy, under which edX falls.

Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson also led a discussion on both student mental health at McGill and student-professor interactions.

Mendelson said that mental health issues at the university are on the rise, citing the fact that last semester there was a 20 per cent increase in drop-in visits at the McGill’s Mental Health Services Clinic.

He also noted that 14 students were hospitalized at the McGill University Health Centre last semester due to mental health issues—a number much higher than the average two hospitalizations that usually occur in a semester, on average.

Wait times are also a concern, according to Mendelson, as students sometimes wait weeks or months to see a counselor.

“Mental health should be the top priority for student services,” said Mendelson.

Mendelson said that his team has explored several solutions in order to curb mental health issues. One would be to restructure the calendar so as to provide for a longer winter break to alleviate stress, while another option sought to create a mental health work group, which would “advance the overall health of students,” according to Mendelson.

The Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) hosted its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in the Thompson House Ballroom last Wednesday evening with students, McGill staff, and PGSS members in attendance. Six motions were passed before the meeting lost quorum.

PGSS Council

Before the AGM began, PGSS held a Council meeting to vote on the appointment of Colby Briggs to the position of Chief Returning Officer (CRO) on PGSS Council.

“I did run elections at Concordia for their Arts and Science Federation of Associations,” Briggs, a Concordia graduate and former Concordia Community Assistant, said. “I know they faced many of the issues that I’ve heard go on here, so I think I’ll be more than able to bring my experience there to the McGill environment.”

The room voted in favour of his appointment.

Motion to censure removed 

PGSS Member Services Officer Elizabeth Cawley began the AGM by motioning to remove an item from the agenda that called for the censure of Academic Affairs Officer Adam Bouchard and Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney.

The motion to censure arose due to Bouchard and Mooney’s alleged failure to comply with a request passed down to them from last year’s AGM last March, which asked them to contract an independent company to audit McGill’s securitization of campus. Cawley argued that, despite Bouchard and Mooney’s alleged lack of compliance, censuring them was unnecessary.

“These executives have conducted themselves in accordance with regulations, diligently worked to complete their project, and a motion of censure is completely reprehensible,” Cawley said.

Cawley’s motion passed, and the motion to censure was struck from the agenda.

Differential Fee Waivers

Differential fees—the tuition supplements for international students—were addressed in the third motion of the evening, which called upon McGill to advocate for Differential Fee Waivers (DFW) based on graduate students’ financial needs.

Mooney mentioned that the dean of Graduate Studies continues to pay 70 per cent of the differential fees of each international PhD student the department admits, but the dean of each faculty has discretion over whether they allocate this money towards the students’ differential fee or not.

“It’s this weird system where you’re getting money based on how many international students you attract, but sometimes you don’t use it to actually make the experience good for them,” Mooney said.

After some debate, the motion passed with a strong majority.

Gender Equality

The fourth motion on the agenda addressed the lack of gender parity on PGSS’ Board of Directors, and called upon the Board to have female candidates fill at least 50 per cent of positions.

Most participants agreed with the spirit of the motion, but some expressed the opinion that it needed further refinement.

“Overall, it’s good to diversify the Board, but why are we only talking about women?” PGSS Internal Affairs Officer Michael Krause asked. “[I agree that] we should actively reach out to more women and [to] more diverse members … but I think as the motion stands now, it is not feasible and not fully encompassing what the PGSS should do.”

Cora-Lee Conway, a doctoral student at McGill and a mover of the motion, emphasized that it seeks to diversification the Board.

“My motivation was to bring this motion forward as an entry point to discussion about the values we have here at the PGSS about representation,” Conway said. “[PGSS] Council … has over 50 per cent female membership, [yet our] Board, up until today, did not have any female representation.”

The motion passed after it was amended to encourage increased diversity rather than exclusively female representation on the Board.

Oil Sands investments

A motion for PGSS to lobby McGill to cut off its investments in Canada’s Oil Sands industry passed after some issues were addressed, including concern over the feasibility of persuading McGill to divest from these companies, and whether the tax revenues from these companies benefit students.

Divest McGill Spokesperson Lily Schwarzbaum spoke to PGSS, insisting that divestment from Oil Sands interests is a feasible and necessary step for the university to undertake.

“Divestment is a concrete target to symbolically make the statement [against supporting fossil fuels] along with other universities in North America,” said Schwarzbaum.

After it lost quorum, the AGM adjourned amidst debate on the seventh motion, which concerned tuition indexation. It was decided that PGSS will use their in-house researcher to further look into the issue of tuition indexation.

Montreal police crack down on one-year anniversary protest

Last Friday, protestors gathered at Place Émilie-Gamelin to commemorate the one-year anniversary of a historic march against tuition increases that took place on Mar. 22, 2012. However, the Montreal police (SPVM) intervened quickly, and arrested over 250 people.

Several demonstrators criticized the police for dispersing them before the protest truly began, and the march’s organizers pointed to the SPVM’s behaviour as “increasingly systemic repression,” according the National Post.

CBC News reported that Québec Solidaire member Manon Massé said that her party is requesting an independent public inquiry into police conduct during demonstrations and protests in downtown Montreal.

Friday’s march, which saw hundreds of attendees­—a number that came nowhere close to the tens of thousands of students who paralyzed the streets of Montreal last year—was the latest in a series of protests that have occurred following the Quebec government’s decision to index tuition by three per cent a year.

Cree group to finish 1,600 km trek in support of Idle No More movement in Ottawa

A group of Cree youths will soon complete their 1,600 kilometre march to Ottawa in support of the Idle No More movement.

The group, originally comprised of six young adults and a guide left their James Bay community of Whapmagootsui, Quebec, in January. Many people from other Cree and Algonquin Communities have joined them since their departure, increasing the group’s membership to 200.

The group has been travelling in the winter weather conditions only by snowshoe. Throughout the duration of the march, 22 of the walkers suffered from foot injuries and had to seek medical attention in Kitigan Zibi, Quebec. Three required further treatment and were sent to a hospital in Maniwaki.

David Kawapit, an 18-year-old Cree youth, told  CBC News that the group has received a lot of support along their journey.

The group, who has called their trek “The Journey of the People,” arrived in Ottawa on Monday.

TVO pulls online game that shows pipeline bombing

Following heavy criticism from the premiers of Alberta and B.C., public broadcaster TV Ontario (TVO) has decided to remove an online game that features the bombing of gas pipelines. Ontario Education Minister Liz Sandals and two appointed individuals will review the game and determine whether it meets the broadcaster’s programming standards.

According to the Globe and Mail, TVO paid to have the game developed, with the intention of including it in a documentary highlighting the heated public debate over Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project. The Gateway pipeline would transfer raw bitumen from the Alberta Oil Sands, through B.C., to the West Coast.

“It’s disappointing to see a taxpayer-funded game and organization depict the blowing up of pipelines,” Alberta Premier Alison Redford said in a public statement. “It’s exactly opposite of Canada’s interests given all of Canada benefits from a strong and diverse energy sector.”

TVO spent approximately $100,000 on the production of the game and the documentary, according to the Globe and Mail.

Manitobans suffering from flood damages sue Province

People who owned property on Lake Manitoba prior to the flood of Apr. 2011 flood filed a lawsuit on Mar. 23 against the province for $260 million, saying that the government relocated too much water into the area that had already been damaged extensively by flooding.

According to CBC News, the government of Manitoba had committed to providing multi-year compensation for floods from 2011 onwards. Many property owners on Lake Manitoba initially received compensation for the flood. However, they claim that they have not received anything more since 2012, despite remaining property damages.

“The government needs to fess up that they dumped a pile of water in there, and it had nowhere to go,” Alice Dent, one of the plaintiffs in the case who lost her cottage due to the excess water, told CBC News. “I don’t think you can talk to anybody that doesn’t understand that we were sacrificed for Winnipeg.”

One-man Hunger Strike begins in Vancouver

On Mar. 22, a Vancouver resident, who calls himself “The artist formerly known as Homeless Dave,” began a hunger strike to protest the gentrification of the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood in Vancouver.

According to the Globe and Mail, his specific demands include that the city’s government deny a permit to build condominiums at 138 Hastings Street E.; that social housing be built on the site of a former police station on Main Street; and, that the entire neighbourhood be deemed a “social justice zone.”

The man only plans to drink sage tea and juice until his demands are met, the Globe and Mail
reported.

This is the latest instance of protesting against the alleged displacement of low-income residents in the Downtown Eastside. Earlier last week, a group that identifies as “Anarchist” stole a sign from an eatery in the neighbourhood that they had deemed to be a “prominent piece of gentrification propaganda.”