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The coworking craze

by Marie Labrosse on

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Fingers fly over keyboards while heads hang heavy with concentration and Slack notifications gurgle softly in the background. These sights and sounds conjure the modern work scene, but they may no longer evoke a singular image of a physical backdrop against which this work unfolds. As the typical 9-to-5 recedes, work no longer has to happen at a cubicle desk housed inside of a multistory corporate building.

Commentary, Opinion

Nothing is set in stone: Colonial statues on campus

by Favour Daka on

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Content warning: Mentions of graphic colonial violence

On March 23, Brigade de solidarité anticoloniale Delhi-Dublin, an anti-colonial group, vandalized the statue of Queen Victoria that sits in front of the Schulich School of Music. The Brigade de solidarité anticoloniale Delhi-Dublin spray-painted the statue green in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, and also vandalized the statue of James McGill, signalling their contempt for figures who represent imperialist and racist histories. While this case of ‘vandalism’ can be seen as a form of activism, it is perhaps not sufficient in rectifying the oppressive actions promoted by either Queen Victoria or James McGill.

The monument of Queen Victoria was first erected in front of Schulich in 1900. Her figure represents tragedy to the communities who were brutalized and oppressed by the actions of colonization she either spearheaded or promoted. Many marginalized students whose ancestors were directly affected by the actions of British colonialism have attended McGill since then, and they have to be constantly reminded of the colonial violence that Queen Victoria symbolizes.

In spray-painting the statue of Queen Victoria, Brigade de solidarité anticoloniale Delhi-Dublin is protesting all that these statues signify: The acceptance and celebration of colonial violence. However, vandalizing these statues has little real-world impact. While the green spray paint has symbolic value, it does not fully address the larger problems inherent to a culture that heralds figures like Queen Victoria. The green paint has been washed off, and the monument remains an imposing reminder of Canada’s colonial nature. The spray paint invites necessary conversation about the permanent removal of these monuments, but the simple erasure of the paint reflects how easily McGill has erased marginalized voices to avoid substantive and fruitful conversations.

Reconsidering which figures should be honoured with monuments is certainly not a new discourse in Canada. On Aug. 11, 2018, a statue of John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister, was taken down in Victoria, B.C., following demands from Indigenous communities. Macdonald played a significant role in encouraging residential schools as a site for aggressively assimilating Indigenous peoples. In Jan. 2018, Halifax’s city council voted to remove a statue of Edward Cornwallis, a former colonial governor of Nova Scotia, after activists spray painted the monument red. While colonizing the province, Cornwallis declared a ‘scalping proclamation,’ which rewarded anyone who killed a Mi’kmaq person and could present their scalps as evidence.

In covering the statue of Queen Victoria with green paint, Brigade de solidarité anticoloniale Delhi-Dublin likely aimed for results similar to those in Victoria and Halifax. However, the monument is still standing. Providing marginalized communities with a platform to uplift their voices is one way of actualizing substantial change. Another way of doing so would be to properly fund Indigenous studies education, and integrate Indigenous systems of knowledge into education. Another is to demand that this statue, if it is to remain, include a plaque detailing the harmful actions promoted by Queen Victoria on the monument.

McGill has an important role in respecting the needs of its marginalized communities. The spray-painting of the Queen Victoria monument should encourage necessary conversations regarding McGill’s racist history, especially as the founding father of the university, James McGill, was a slave owner. To ensure that these conversations produce positive outcomes, measures toward amplifying marginalized voices must be taken seriously.

Science & Technology

The fatal consequences of turning the clocks back

by Margaret Wdowiak on

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Every spring, millions of sleep-deprived Canadians are prompted to wake up an hour earlier, all the while cursing the person who invented daylight saving time. Few people probably imagine that one man’s love of bugs could have disturbed the life of so many individuals on an annual basis.

In 1895, the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson first proposed the concept of daylight saving time because he wanted more daylight hours to better study his insects. While parliament initially dismissed the idea, the English Parliament later accepted daylight saving time in an attempt to conserve energy: The more in sync time is with daylight, the less necessary electric lights are.

Germany was the first country to adopt daylight saving time in 1916 to conserve electricity during the middle of WWI. The United Kingdom followed suit a few weeks later, with other countries like Canada and the United States in tow. However, most countries stopped the practice when WWI drew to a close. The practice was reinstated during  WWII, but it was not standardized in the U.S. until Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which established a system of daylight saving time across the country. Dutifully following its neighbour, Canada subsequently standardized daylight time as well.

In Canada, daylight saving time is a provincial matter. While most jurisdictions have adopted the practice, certain areas, like the majority of Saskatchewan and some towns in Quebec, have not. These exceptions are actually the global norm, as most of the world has not implemented daylight saving time; the practice is not in use in 79 per cent of countries worldwide, and many countries have abandoned it in the last decades.

Despite its long history, daylight saving time has encountered increasing criticism in the last few years. There is a growing movement to end the practice entirely south of the border. A telephone survey in the U.S. from 2013 found that 45 per cent of respondents thought daylight saving time was not useful

The growing criticism is primarily a result of the negative consequences associated with the use of daylight saving time.  For example, a study on hospitals in Michigan found that heart attack rates spike by 25 per cent on the Monday immediately after clocks go forward in the spring. The pushback has also been linked with an increased risk of stroke: Researchers find that the overall rate of artery occlusion-based stroke rises by eight per cent during the first two days after the transition. Also, spring daylight saving time has been associated with an increased number of road accidents. In 2014, there was a 20 per cent increase in car accidents in Manitoba on the Monday following the change.

Perhaps most obviously, daylight saving time disturbs sleeping patterns. Sleeping disturbances can lead to mood disruptions, increased irritability, poorer memory, and lower concentration levels. Individuals who have both a  sleeping disorder and a psychological condition have an especially hard time adjusting to ‘springing’ forward. Research shows that the rate of diagnosed depression, particularly Seasonal Affective Disorder, increases dramatically in the first week following the spring change.

Considering the negative effects associated with daylight saving time, some governments are taking steps across Canada to end the biannual practice. Recently, the Union of British Columbia Municipalities accepted a proposal to disregard daylight saving time completely. In light of the increasing pushback against this practice, disgruntled Canadians can rest easy in the hopes that, in the near future, they won’t be forced to wake up an hour earlier every spring.

Lachine Canal
Out on the Town, Student Life

Greasy diners, antique shops, and Gucci flip flops

by Kevin Vogel on

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In 1962, novelist and filmmaker Hubert Aquin produced September Five at St. Henri, which documented the daily routine of families living in the southwestern, working-class neighbourhood in Montreal.

“St. Henri is not known for fancy restaurants,” Bill Davies, the film’s narrator, comments. “It is really a little island, surrounded by water, railroads, and the industrial wealth of other men.”

Davies’ commentary has hardly aged well. Rue Notre-Dame Ouest, the commercial main street of St. Henri, now boasts a plethora of lavish restaurants with pricey menus. Vintages Frames L’Archive, a sunglasses store on the street, sells designer products for thousands of dollars, and a January Versace ad campaign recently featured 2Chainz sporting a pair of shades that he purchased at the shop. The flamboyance of this new St. Henri is a symptom of a rapid gentrification process: Even though the neighbourhood is home to a distinctly working-class community, rising rent costs coupled with precarious financial circumstances have priced out even long-time residents in favour of more affluent professionals and young students.

While factories hum in the background of Aquin’s film, in the time since, most of St. Henri’s major factories have since closed down and are now abandoned and rusting along the banks of the Lachine Canal. With employment prospects for working-class individuals dwindling away over the decades, the neighbourhood has faced immense economic pressures, and the population has sharply declined. The Arrondissement du Sud-Ouest, of which St. Henri occupies the northwestern quarter, lost 38 per cent of its population between 1966 and 2006, according to Montreal City statistics. That population did not start to grow again until the mid-2000s, as economic redevelopment along the Lachine Canal accelerated.

In the aftermath of deindustrialization, real estate groups renovated abandoned factories into new houses and condominiums. In 1993, developers purchased 4710 rue St-Ambroise, which had been a Simmons Bedding Company factory since 1919, and refurbished it into a luxury loft building. With a Parks Canada investment dedicated to beautifying the areas around the old industrial area, the canal, which once housed the heart of Canada’s manufacturing economy, now features bike lanes, recreational boating opportunities, and music festivals. Private companies have continued to assume old factories and warehouses along the canal, turning them into luxury condos with prices starting at well over $300 thousand for a simple studio. McGill even capitalized on the abandoned factory market in St. Henri—in 1990, the university purchased a former chocolate factory and renovated into what is now Solin Hall, its second-largest student residence that houses upward of 280 students.

These economic and demographic changes have had adverse effects on remaining long-term residents. As factories closed and the population dwindled, entrepreneurs soon bought cheapened property in the area and started new businesses. Howard Zinman, the senior administrative coordinator of Solin Hall, has witnessed St. Henri’s changing landscape since he started working there in the early 2000s.

“When I first got to St. Henri, Notre-Dame [street] was filled with collectible shops. You could have found vintage Barbies, Coca-Cola things,” Zinman said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “I feel like the Internet and the way it affects commerce really stabbed at the heart of Notre-Dame […] For a while, Notre-Dame was a ghost town. [Because of sites like eBay,] the collectible shops closed, there was really nothing there [aside from staples like New System and Greenspot].”

Zinman noticed many empty commercial properties go up for sale during this time. An eclectic variety of small businesses, ranging from mattress to pet lizard stores, filled in the vacancies, but not all of them stayed open.

“The most random businesses that you could think of would pop up [on Notre-Dame],” Zinman said. “People tried different things […] but, there were so many vacancies. Then, the cafés kind of just started opening [one day].”

New condos and trendy businesses have made the neighbourhood seem increasingly attractive to students and young professionals looking to settle down in an area close to the downtown core. Jérémie Lapikas, U1 Arts, who grew up across the canal from St. Henri in Ville-Émard, recalls seeing new arrivals to St. Henri over the years.

“You really have this up-and-coming street, Notre-Dame, where it’s slowly becoming the place to be,” Lapikas said. “There’s lots of places to just consume, basically.”

With all of the condos, fancy barber shops, brunch restaurants, and cafés, an influx of new money has come to St. Henri.

“It’s typically young businesspeople [who frequent these places],” Lapikas said. “I see people wearing brand clothing more and more [even though] it’s still very much a family neighbourhood.”

While high-end condo developers, trendy aesthetics, and the educated mid-twenty-somethings they attract are more responsible for gentrifying St. Henri, university students also play a noticeable role in pushing long-time residents out of their homes.

“Many students who lived here, going back to the first years of Solin, after they leave rez after first year, [they] stay in St. Henri,” said Zinman. “There [are also] a lot of people who, once they’ve lived here and maybe moved to the Ghetto, come back here afterward.”

For students at McGill and other Montreal universities, St. Henri’s appeal extends far beyond its trendy cafés. Compared to the increasingly-pricier Plateau and Milton-Parc neighbourhoods, St. Henri has relatively inexpensive rent for student budgets. Commuting to the Downtown campus only takes 10 to 15 minutes by metro, and cheap grocery stores, like Super C and various local markets, are abundant in the area. While this is an attractive setup, Lapikas stated that students resettling in the area need to remember that their actions have consequences.

“You have this wave of students coming in, and it’s hard to blame them because if you can find an apartment which is reasonably priced, and you team up with a bunch of people and split rent it makes sense,” Lapikas said. “But, that’s putting families, especially single-income families, in a very competitive housing environment. As a single parent, it’s much harder to match whatever four students can pool together. But you need that space if you have three kids.”

To combat this problem, community organizations have worked to advocate for awareness of gentrification at City Council. Other more militant activists have smashed in windows of trendy-looking businesses. Lapikas suggested that students could also help by volunteering in the neighbourhood and integrating themselves into St. Henri more.

“I don’t think the solution is to try to reverse the process and make these neighbourhoods ‘working class’ again, but to try to split more evenly the benefits of better stores,” Lapikas said. “It’d be nice to see more interaction with students who just come here for four years and the locals who lived their entire lives here.”

However, not all new stores cater to multimillionaires like Lady Gaga and Nas. Despite Notre-Dame’s many changes, locals have taken a leading role in shaping St. Henri in a less ostentatious fashion. Charity organizations like Les Ami(e)s de Montréal sell inexpensive second-hand furniture, and St. Henri locals own the Singaporean street food restaurant, Satay Brothers. When new residents support long-time residents of the neighbourhood, they can lessen their impact on the gentrified area.

“I love those guys because they were born and grew up in St. Henri, and they employ people from the neighbourhood,” Zinman said. “So, even though I find them a little expensive […], to me, [Satay Brothers] is a great St. Henri success story. But, I can see how someone from the outside could look at that and see it as gentrification [in action].”

Basketball, Martlets, Sports

The seven stages of sports injuries

by Ender McDuff on

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I lost my grade 11 basketball season to injury. Returning from a sprained ankle just in time for the season, all I wanted was to play. I just had to push through and make it happen. But, I was weak; my leg was weak. That’s when I tore my vastus intermedius, the deepest of four muscles in the right quadricep, which ended my season.

Injuries, as devastating as they can be, are widely accepted as an inevitable consequence of playing sports. Athletes know that they take a calculated risk every time they train or compete, yet they play because the joy of sport is unparalleled. Still, with the highs come the lows: For me and countless other athletes, sports can be our undoing.

Gordon Bloom, a professor of Sports Psychology and the Director of the McGill University Sport Psychology Research Laboratory, described the psychological impact that an injury can have on athletes.

“It is a lot more traumatic than I think people realize,”  Bloom said. “If an athlete sustains a really serious injury, they actually, in a lot of cases, go through a similar process as […] someone who is grieving.”

Grief occurs in seven stages, the first of which is denial. Bloom explained that athletes will question whether they are truly hurt and how bad their injury is. Helen Wu, U2 Science, tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) playing basketball and underwent this experience.

“I thought that it was just going to be a quick fix, and then I could get back at it again,” Wu said in a video interview with The McGill Tribune.

Bloom explained that the denial quickly turns to anger, and athletes begin to indignantly question why they were the one to suffer an injury. In many cases, this makes the athlete surly and difficult to be around. Lauren Herweyer, a second-year McGill field hockey player who tore her ACL in high school, acknowledged her own disagreeable temperament after her injury.

“I was so tightly wound just because I was taking the elevator at school and wasn’t allowed to practice,” Herweyer said. “I was so upset by all of it that I started to not handle anything in my life well.”

Bloom also noted athletes’ tendencies to bargain with doctors and coaches, protesting the diagnoses, recovery timetables, and their practicing constraints as they come to grips with the sadness and frustration they experience.

Herweyer demanded that her mother take her to practice three days after sustaining her injury and then played in the provincial championship tournament while injured. As a result, she required extra medical care during games as well as immediate and constant ice afterward to make the pain of her injury manageable.

Athletes also feel an absence in their lives when their injuries prevent them from participating in their sport. For many, sports are not only a constant presence but also serve as an emotional outlet and provide a sense of belonging. Without this stability, the outcome can be disastrous.

“In some cases, it goes to the point of depression,” Bloom said. “They are suffering mentally [… and] are just unable to control their emotions.”

Bilal Virji, U3 Arts and a student filmmaker, conducted interviews with McGill student-athletes for his project “Recovery.” He described how he struggled with his own injury, a repeatedly-torn ACL.

“The most difficult part about [the injury] was not the physical scars but the mental ones,” Virji said. “Sport was my form of meditation [….] It was my coping mechanism for everything that life threw at me, and, in an instant, it was all taken away from me.”

Many athletes recalled suffering from depression, eating disorders, or drug addiction and considered dropping out of school. Dorothea Stefanou, a U2 Arts student and gymnast who dislocated her elbow, recalled her own struggles.

“The injury was kind of the beginning of the end for me,” Stefanou said. “I was fighting for it before that, but, [after the injury], I kind of realized that I couldn’t overcome my mental challenges.”

Friends, family, and even coaches often fail to comprehend the mental trauma and challenges that injured athletes experience. This only further exacerbates the difficulty of their recovery.

“People just ask an athlete, ‘How’s your knee doing? How’s the recovery?’” Bloom said. “It’s all about the physical instead of saying, ‘How are you feeling? How are you doing?’”

Additionally, student-athletes are often constrained by graduation dates. If they do not play now, they will lose out on their final chances to play and even the opportunity to play at a higher level.

Concerned with missing out on a limited number of seasons, athletes face a difficult choice: Return as quickly as possible, or take more time to recover and prevent reinjury. This can become a profound mental handicap because, while the months absent from sport are difficult, returning too soon can be equally daunting, as one’s mind becomes preoccupied with thoughts of reinjury.

“On the floor, where I’d always been confident, I [became] afraid to do any tumbling where I’d land facing backward,” Stefanou, who was injured performing such a maneuver, said.

Despite caution, reinjuries happen frequently. Athletes’ competitive nature can cause them to push their bodies to the point of failure if they are unwilling to take breaks.

“[My ACL] took a long time to heal, and it never healed properly, so I reinjured it four or five more times after that,” Herweyer said.

My own injury came as a result of this same forced error: I pushed my body too hard, failed to receive proper physical and mental help, and was unwilling to rest. Yet, my injury would not prevent me from playing basketball forever, and I wish I had understood that at the time. My quadricep will never work the same again because I foolishly played when I should not have, but I managed to return a season later and help my team win a provincial championship. I may never have that single season back, but my injury was not the end, either.

Wu looks back on her experience with the same insight.

“The struggles you go through now, the struggles you have, they’re going to teach you something,” Wu said. “This didn’t happen for nothing. This happened to make you stronger, to teach you, to build your character. Learn from everything that happens to you, whether good or bad.”

 

This feature was produced in coordination with The McGill Tribune’s Multimedia section. Find the video accompaniment “Recovery” by Bilal Virji on our website.  

Science & Technology

Cargo ships contribute to spreading alien species

by Andras Nemeth on

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In 1988, the arrival of the zebra mussel irreversibly transformed the ecosystem of the Great Lakes. The introduction of the species was, and continues to be, a disaster for North American waterways. By 2009, the species had spread as far as Manitoba and Texas, driving out local species and costing the U.S. government an estimated $5 billion per year, primarily through the cost of removal from electricity-generating and water-treatment facilities.  

When freighters load up on ballast water, large pressurized containers that keep a ship sufficiently submerged, they risk introducing invasive species to their destination. Scientists believe that these ballast tanks brought the zebra mussels, native to southern Russia and the Ukraine, to the Great Lakes.

The role of shipping in propagating species invasion has since become the subject of extensive study, incorporating the use of statistical models to better predict patterns of invasion. However, when Brian Leung, an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Biology, and Anthony Sardain, a graduate student, were considering the issue, they realized that the existing statistical models didn’t account for a key factor: The variability of shipping activity over time.

“Sardain’s […] father works in shipping,” Leung said. “So, while we were trying to figure out [the] project, he was having conversations with his father, who was talking about the variability of shipping, and how shipping changes over time [….] Most of the models that we have and the forecasts that existed at the time didn’t account for this potentially very large change.”

Leung and Sardain sought to study the relationship between economic growth and invasive species risk, and, to do so, they developed a model to predict shipping activity based on global economic scenarios from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Their shipping model relies on an economic theory known as the gravity model of trade, which states that trade between two countries, like gravitation, is a function of the ‘mass’ of the economies and their geographical and economic proximity.

“We started with this shipping model, realizing that we would have to attach it to measurable elements afterward,” Leung said. “The first part of that was building the shipping model, evaluating and validating it, and seeing whether it was, in fact, possible to forecast the magnitudes of change of shipping, which we were able to do. We also needed to use those elements that we could get worldwide data for and that also had projections for the future, so that’s where the IPCC […and IIASA] came in.”

The results of the study show that, as shipping intensifies, it will magnify the risk of the introduction of invasive species. Based on the six economic development scenarios used in the study, the threat of invasive species could increase three- to 20-fold by 2050. In fact, the study found that increases in shipping are far more likely to lead to threats of species invasion than the isolated effects of climate change, which may actually slightly decrease the risk of invasion due to diverging environmental conditions. As ecosystems transform due to climate change, they are likely to become increasingly dissimilar, making it harder for invasive species to adapt to different environments.

According to Leung, one of the surprising results of the study was that the projected increases in invasion risk were high even for sustainable economic scenarios.

“One of the future scenarios that had the highest invasion potential was the business as usual, fossil-fuel development one […] but, the other one was the sustainability pathway,” Leung said. “The sustainability pathway could also produce, as an unfortunate side-effect, increased invasions, and the reason for that is that everybody is doing better […] which means they are trading more.”

McGill, News

Students stalked with scripted harassment around campus

by Ezra-Jean Taylor on

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In the past few weeks, McGill students have taken to social media to bring attention to recent incidents of harassment around campus. The issue has garnered attention from numerous media outlets, including CBC News, as well as prompted a university-wide email alert on Apr. 1.

Viveca Lee, U1 Science, was exiting the Eaton Centre when a man approached her and attempted to start a conversation with a barrage of personal questions. He asked about her home, her studies, and if he could buy her coffee. After she declined, he asked for her number so that they could meet another time.

“I left and just shrugged off what happened,” Lee said. “He made himself sound super sweet the whole time, so I thought maybe he was just desperate to get women, or maybe he was being genuine.”

However, a similar incident happened a few days later, when a different man approached her on the corner of Sherbrooke and University with the exact same set of questions.

“I gave [the second man] short, dry responses so that he would get the message and leave,” Lee said. “Eventually, I just stopped responding, and he kept silently walking beside me until I went inside Trottier.”

As more students disclosed their experiences over social media, it became clear that the two encounters were not isolated incidents, but part of a deliberate, targeted strategy. On March 29, Concordia University student Emma* posted a video on her Instagram account describing two incidents of harassment around Concordia’s campus. Her video reports two different men who approached her with the same scripted set of questions and aggressively pursued her. Afterwards, Emma felt obligated to share her experience.

“I understand feeling nervous about sharing any kind of experience online, let alone an experience with harassment,” Emma said. “However, it is important to acknowledge that, by sharing your stories with others, [you] could help make others feel comfortable enough to share their experiences as well.”

Emma’s video quickly gained over 156,000 views and was widely shared. Hundreds of women commented, describing similar experiences around Concordia’s campus and the Eaton Centre. Lee herself recognized the extent of the problem after seeing Emma’s post.

“As I was watching the video, I [thought], ‘This sounds exactly like what happened to me,’” Lee said. “Then, I read the replies she reposted from hundreds of women giving the same testimonies, and it was absolutely horrifying.”

The incidents originally seemed isolated to nearby Concordia’s downtown campus, but women are now reporting similar experiences in the McGill campus area. Alex, who wished to remain anonymous, was approached by a man with an Eastern-European accent in his mid-to-late 20s who was wearing a leather coat. After avoiding his attempts to start a conversation, she made sure to keep him in eyesight.

“He left, walking up University street,” Alex said. “But then I watched him turn left [onto] the path going to Otto Maass.”

A man fitting the same description was reported by a student near the McConnell Engineering building. After seeing a Facebook post about a suspicious man near Otto Maass, Lee reported the incident to Campus Security, who sent out patrollers to watch for the man and directed Lee toward the police.  

“The police told me there was nothing I could do,” Lee said. “They were not aware of how this has been happening to hundreds of women all over downtown.”

In addition to the notably high number of harassment complaints, students have reported that the nature of these harassments differentiates them from usual pick-up attempts. According to a student who chose to remain anonymous, the man who approached her while she walked through campus was very confrontational.

“It felt like a staged and generally strange encounter right away,” Sam said. “It didn’t feel like the typical scenario of a guy trying to pick up a girl. He was definitely not anywhere near my age. He could also tell by my body language that I was in a rush, but he kept being pushy about ‘getting to know me’ [….] When I learned the next day that this [had] been happening to many others, I realized my random encounter with this man wasn’t coincidental, and I realized why my gut feeling about this man was uneasy.”

The scripted dialogues, aggressive nature of the assailants, and similarities between the incidents have caused concerns that they could be tied to sex trafficking. According to the Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM), traffickers often begin with non-violent, manipulative routines to establish a connection with potential victims.

According to McGill’s Interim Director of Internal Communications James Martin, the recent incidents are tied to the same person harassing women, likely while using a script.

“We have heard people speculate online about human trafficking,” Martin said. “But we have spoken to Montreal police and they report no issues of human trafficking, kidnapping, or missing persons related to this kind of activity on the island of Montreal.”

Campus Security started receiving reports of similar cases of harassment on March 30. Since then, they have received direct reports from five individuals who have experienced harassment and two reports of second-hand accounts.

Eighteen individuals who responded to a survey conducted by The McGill Tribune reported having experienced harassment on campus. Three distinct perpetrators were described in the survey responses, though the dialogue the respondents described have similarities across all accounts. Nine respondents from the survey suggested that McGill should place more security personnel around campus both during the day and at night.

Martin explained that Campus Security is increasing its presence in response to reports and encouraged students to stay vigilant.

“We have reassigned patrols to increase our visibility in high-traffic areas,” Martin said. “We keep patrolling and being visible, and we encourage people to call Security Services if they are concerned about their safety on campus or if they observe something suspicious [….] Our agents will coordinate with Montreal police as necessary, but, if it’s an emergency situation, don’t hesitate to call 911 directly.”

Encounters typically begin with a man approaching a woman and initiating a conversation by either asking a general question or directly mentioning the woman’s physical appearance. No matter how the woman responds, the man begins asking personal questions about their name, studies, where they live, or what they are doing. Then, the man asks to go somewhere off-campus, typically a cafe or their apartment. If the woman refuses, the man asks for their cell number. Most women have said the men follow them after their conversation.

The harassers may be changing tactics, however. According to an anonymous source, who posted in a university Facebook group, a man who matched reported descriptions approached her on St. Laurent on Apr. 7 with an altered script.

“He acted surprised and said he knew us,” they wrote . “He said he was on his way to get some groceries but liked to ‘socialize on the street and meet new people’ [….] He asked us if we’d go with him to get some drinks, and again, when we said no, he persisted.”

Immediately after the incident, a different man approached the source asking if they noticed a similarity between their experience and reports of scripted harassment.

“He insisted about five times asking ‘if we had to say, did it sound similar to the scripts,’” they wrote . “It all seemed super off to us. It seems as if they’re now trying to figure out how to change the script enough so that girls don’t recognize it.”

Students who feel unsafe have a variety of resources available to them: The urgent care walk-in clinic opens at 8:30 a.m. on weekdays in the Brown Building, Suite 3100. The Sexual Assault Center of the McGill Student’s Society (SACOMSS) hotline is 514-398-8500. Walksafe can be reached at 514-398-2498, and Drivesafe can be reached at 514-398-8040.  Any student in need of assistance is encouraged to call Security Services, available 24/7 (Downtown: 514-398-3000. Mac campus: 514-398-7777).

*Emma’s name has been changed to preserve their confidentiality.

This piece was updated at 1:45 p.m. on Dec. 11, 2023 to remove a name.

News, SSMU

SSMU Council discusses base fee increase, referendum questions

by Elli Slavitch on

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On March 14, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council met to discuss motions on Referendum questions including increases to the SSMU base fee and an increase to Student Services fee.

Motion regarding the increase of the SSMU Membership Fee

SSMU President Tre Mansdoerfer presented his Master Plan—a long-term project that requires a $30 membership fee increase, from $44 to $74 per semester, for every undergraduate student. The revenue from the increase would have gone toward hiring additional staff, purchasing new spaces, and renovating building facilities; a large part of the plan involved implementing a ‘SSMU Wellness Model,’ under which the society would hire four private psychologists, a nutritionist, a massage therapist, and a physiotherapist to compensate for a lack of mental health resources on campus.

The motion passed at Legislative Council, but the undergraduate student body voted down the proposed increase in the SSMU Winter 2019 Referendum, where it failed by a margin of 162 votes.

Motion regarding the Student Services’ fee question for the Winter 2019 Referendum

Martine Gauthier, executive director of McGill’s Student Services attended theCouncil meeting as a spokesperson for the Student Services’ fee question for the Winter 2019 Referendum, asking to raise the student base fee by four per cent. This would generate an additional $318,000 for Student Services. SSMU initially rejected the motion on February 28.

Gauthier presented the current plan for the Rossy Wellness Hub, a $14 million dollar project to remodel Student Services in the Brown Building. The Hub will combine counselling, health, and psychiatric services and wellness to provide mental health services much in demand at McGill. The proposed fee levy is also crucial  to remedying Student Services’ financial deficiency, which is currently operating at a deficit.

“If we do not address these problems by 2023, we will be almost $2 million dollars back in debt,” Gauthier said. “I do not think it is ethical for students to be paying for a deficit that was brought by not overseeing the financial services.”

If the motion fails in the referendum, Gauthier will be forced to reconsider services under the Student Services portfolio which are considered ‘non-essential,’ such as Campus Life & Engagement (CL&E) and McGill’s Office for Religious and Spiritual Life (MORSL).

“Right now, we are maxed out, and we are going through salary increases now, so we have to cut services,” Gauthier said.

Provided the fee passed in the Referendum, McGill pledged to add an additional $337,000 to the $13 million that it is already donating to Student Services. Senators Bryan Buraga and Andre Lametti critiqued this conditionality, contesting McGill’s incentive to increase its contribution only if the Referendum fee passes.

“It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth for McGill to dangle $300,000 over our heads and say, ‘We’ll match it, if you say yes,’” Buraga said.

In response, Vice-President (VP) University Affairs Jacob Shapiro reiterated the importance of funding Student Services.

“There’s not only one way to take a stance on things, and what we know is that Student Services does need money and counselors,” Shapiro said.

The Student Services Fee passed on March 29 by 61.1 per cent. The Hub is now slated to operate with an additional $655,000 dollars from student fees and the university.

Art, Arts & Entertainment

Balancing art and academia

by Leo Stilinger on

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Gemma Else, U1 Arts, has painted since before she started kindergarten. In grades 11 and 12, she enrolled in an advanced placement Studio Art class, where she practiced four hours a day, six days a week. At McGill, Else has continued to make art and is a curator for the student-run Fridge Door Gallery. But, instead of oil painting, the medium she loved in high school, she has switched to less time-consuming endeavours, like pencil sketches and watercolours. As a student, she yearns for the day that she will have enough time and space to take up oil painting again.

“It’s been hard,” Else said. “I’ve totally changed the way I work. I don’t work in the same [media] anymore, and that’s simply [due to the] time restraint.”

Like Else, Jeanne Cholot studied visual art extensively throughout high school, taking five hours of art and art history classes every Saturday afternoon. At McGill, she realized that a political science major was not for her and that the art clubs at McGill were insufficient creative outlets. She formed an artists’ collective called École Publique with other McGill students, but she still felt unsatisfied. After attending an open house for Concordia’s art studios, she applied to their joint B.A. in art history and fine arts. For the past year, Cholot has studied at Concordia, and art has gone from a side-project to a full-time study. It marks a welcome change from McGill.

“I’m learning to be an artist, so it’s very different,” Cholot said.

Sasha Khalimonova took up guitar at age 16, and started playing at open mics around Montreal. During CEGEP, she dreamed of studying creative writing at Concordia, but her parents wanted her to go to McGill instead. While she enjoyed her classes, she felt stifled creatively. Nonetheless, she continued to practice her music on the side, performing nearly every week. In September, her band Sasha Cay opened for Homeshake at the Rialto Theatre. All the while, Khalimonova struggled balancing music with her academics.

Upon meeting Khalimonova at the Milton Gates with her guitar case in hand, she revealed that she too, had transferred to Concordia, to pursue creative writing.

It would be wrong to sensationalize a handful of anecdotes: As far as we can tell, there is no large-scale artistic brain drain crossing Sherbrooke southwards to Concordia. Nonetheless, these artists’ experience raises questions about the difficulty and the feasibility of balancing art and academics at a prestigious institution like McGill, which has no fine arts program.

The problem is largely one of time-management. When Khalimonova opened for Homeshake, she was balancing band practices, homework for her English Literature classes, and a 15-hour-per-week job. She cited an author who compared writing a novel while having a full-time job to having an affair.

“It was this secret thing she wasn’t supposed to do, but she got done anyways,” Khalimonova said. “I think there’s something kind of exciting about it, doing the thing you love knowing it’s really difficult and it’s getting in the way but doing it anyways.”

The difficulty of time management is compounded by a lack of institutional support from McGill. For music students, there is the Schulich School of Music, although the high admissions standards limit the school’s reach to a select few musicians. For visual artists, performers, and creative writers, there are no classes in fine arts, not even electives, and the only degree program where you students can learn to draw is in the school of Architecture.  

“McGill as an institution doesn’t do anything,” Else said. “I think that creates a necessity for a really strong, student-driven environment for the arts.”

Indeed, in the absence of official recognition, a variety of clubs have sprung up, offering opportunities for music, theatre, a capella, visual arts, and dance. The diversity of options is testament to the need for creative outlets across the student body.             

Yet, for Cholot, the clubs she participated in at McGill were somehow unsatisfying. They struck her as fun diversions for stressed-out students, where art was more of a therapeutic hobby than a serious practice. For instance, a recent Visual Arts Society event was titled “De-Stress with the VAS: Colouring Book Night.”

“There’s no sense of critique,” Cholot said.  “It was very much […] to breathe out your classes and release the pressure,”

Else also found the lack of critique of her work to be limiting. While wine and paint events are fun, and they provide a wonderful and much-needed release from the pressures of McGill, Else misses the level of feedback she had in her Studio Art class in high school, and she thinks her progress has been stifled as a result.

“I think critique nights instead of a drawing night could be really cool,” Else said.

Despite such limitations, artistically inclined students continue to choose McGill. Else, who has an eye to pursue law school, put it bluntly.

“I can pursue art on the side but I can’t pursue law on the side,” Else said.

Moreover, a future in the fine arts can be frighteningly precarious.

“Being a creative person—that’s always the issue, right?” Khalimonova said, referring to the uncertainty of life with a B.A. in creative writing. “You love your thing, and you want to believe in it, but it’s also kind of terrifying.”

Pressure from parents can be another factor in deciding to push a fine arts practice to leisure time. Many McGill students will attest that their university is ‘harder’ and more ‘prestigious’ than Concordia, even if in reality this prestige often translates to a lack of flexibility in curricula.

All three artists, however, told me that even more than prestige or pressure, they came to McGill because they loved learning.

“Being able to engage with ideas and the world differently is something I really value,” Khalimonova said.

Cholot voiced a similar sentiment.

“There is a great need for educated artists in the world,” she said. “When you learn [as] much stuff as you do at McGill, to be able to transcribe that into art pieces […] would be great for people.”

Unfortunately, the classical curricula of McGill fail to foster such dynamic and interdisciplinary work.

“It’s a square, and you have to fit the square,” Cholot said.

In this prestigious pressure-cooker, art and academia find themselves as bitter competitors instead of fruitful collaborators; when the going gets tough, grades take priority, and art is relegated to a remedial hobby. Cholot’s program at Concordia, which combines theoretical art history with applied fine arts, shows that this need not be the case. Perhaps, it is up to the students, with the little institutional power they have, to imagine a McGill where art and academics could go hand-in-hand.

Until then, devoted artists will keep up their balancing act. It is possible, Cholot told me, even at McGill. It just takes some sacrifices.

“You have to give up on the idea of being a straight-A student,” Cholot said.

Else, meanwhile, told me that the problem isn’t exclusive to McGill.

“You’re never, ever going to have enough time,” she said. “Graduating isn’t going to give me more time. It’s going to give me different time.”

When asked if a healthy balance was possible, Khalimonova’s answer was more abstract in nature.

“I want to say yes,” she laughed. “I’m sure someone’s figured it out!”

 

Arts & Entertainment, Comedy, Theatre

Bring Your Own Juice supplies the laughs

by Matthew Hawkins on

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In the midst of the pre-finals panic, there is often little time for humour. However, one McGill group is bringing joy and laughter to the community, providing some much needed respite from this terribly unfunny season. Bring Your Own Juice (BYOJ), McGill’s only sketch comedy group, hosted a three-night show at Tuesday Night Cafe  (TNC) this weekend, featuring over a dozen sketches written and produced by the 11-person cast.

The sketches explored a range of subjects, from a parody of The Little Mermaid’s “Kiss the Girl”—in which Sebastian the crab urges Prince Eric to do a little more than just kiss Ariel—to skits referencing the disturbing and widespread theory that many public figures, are, in fact, lizard-people. The varied subject matter is undoubtedly due, in part, to the fact that the entire cast takes part in the writing process. Writing ability, in fact, is also part of the audition process.

“[For the audition the directors and producers] asked you to submit one sketch, and then, optionally, another piece of comedic writing,” Anika Hundal (U0, Psychology), a member of the cast, said.

The 2018-19 season is Hundal’s first year with BYOJ, and she is also a member of Continental Breakfast, one of McGill’s improv groups. Hundal’s featured piece in the show was titled “Emotional Baggage,” an ad “from the luggage company that brought you ‘Whiteface:’ The only thing guaranteed to get you through airport security without hassle.”

One notable sketch featuring Hundal was a slam poetry session in which every poet worked with a similar theme: “My parents are divorced but are still good friends.” As each slam poet revealed their emotional turmoil over their parent’s amicable divorce, the host became increasingly frustrated until Hundal entered wearing layers of clothing giving a seemingly profound reading while removing items, only to reveal a shirt with the words “my father left my mother” on the front and “but they’re still friends” on the back.

Other standout sketches included a ‘bro’ who discovers that he lacks object permanence when his friend “disappears” to the washroom, a girl from Toronto who finds out that she was adopted from Laval and is, in fact, Celine Dion’s daughter. There was even a skit that included a “Personality Shop for White People” which featured characteristics like the person who did a year abroad and a Plateau/Mile-End classic: The guy who owns a record player.

Morrice Hall was sold out, so some audience members had to stand on the side for the duration of the show, while others shared seats. A fully-packed theatre for a student comedy show is refreshing, especially as end-of-term stress bears down.

Hundal also extolled the close-knit community of the group, explaining that positive group dynamics were essential to a good show.

 “We had a retreat to rural Quebec this fall where we just got to know each other and [wrote] a bunch of sketches,” Hundal said.  

With group-based comedy like sketch, group chemistry is paramount and BYOJ clearly shows this camaraderie by translating real bonds and friendship into a perfect on-stage chemistry. The blend of writing and performing showcased the individual strengths of each performer, making the characters strong, believable, and, most importantly, funny.

 

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