The Divest Canada Coalition, a consortium of climate action groups at 19 Canadian universities, penned an open letter in September 2020 calling on universities across the country to divest from fossil fuels. The coalition’s demands centre on divestment, but also address related issues such as the violation of Indigenous sovereignty,[Read More…]
Search Results for "Admin"
Exploring how artificial intelligence could redefine health care
Before Siri and Alexa, programmers created Eliza. Developed in 1964, Eliza was the first chatbot capable of recreating conversations between a psychotherapist and a patient. This chatbot pushed the boundaries of artificial intelligence (AI), a still-emerging field at the time, into the domain of health care. Despite researcher’s best efforts,[Read More…]
Collective agreement ratified at AGSEM’s TA General Assembly
The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) held its Teaching Assistant (TA) General Assembly online on Sept. 30 to vote on the new tentative TA Collective Agreement (CA). After two years of negotiations, AGSEM’s Bargaining Committee presented the tentative contract to the AGSEM Unit 1(TA) membership. The meeting[Read More…]
McGill must prioritize affordable student housing
Seeking out safe, affordable housing is often a significant source of anxiety for students, one that has only intensified due to the disastrous financial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Montreal, in the thralls of a housing crisis, currently has an extremely low vacancy rate of about 1.5 per cent. Low[Read More…]
10 out of 1726: Confronting McGill’s colonial past and racist present
McGill lost 10 per cent of its Black faculty when Art History professor Charmaine Nelson left to take up a new post at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) in July 2020. Of the 1726 tenured or tenure-track faculty at McGill, only 10 are Black—a figure unearthed[Read More…]
The Royal Victoria Hospital must remain in public hands
On Sept. 4, students joined forces with Milton-Parc residents to protest the privatization of the old Royal Victoria Hospital. The building’s fate has remained unclear since it was decommissioned in 2015. In July, it was converted into a shelter for the unhoused during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the City of[Read More…]
Campus Spotlight: #TakeJamesDown
Anti-Black racism at McGill is institutionalized, and the work of Black student activists is vital in demanding systemic changes on campus. A summer of Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the continued police brutality and murders of Black people have brought increased visibility to Black activism around the globe, including[Read More…]
PGSS panel argues for a fossil-free future for McGill
On Sept. 23, the Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) and their Environment Committee hosted an online discussion and panel titled “Divestment from Fossil Fuels at McGill.” The panel presented arguments in favour of McGill divesting from fossil fuels, examined what divestment might look like, and delved into the broader implications[Read More…]
PEQ reforms highlight the CAQ’s xenophobia
On Sept. 12, activist group Le Quebec c’est nous aussi held a protest against proposed reforms to the Programme experience Quebecoise (PEQ), a fast-track immigration program for international students who wish to permanently reside in Quebec after graduation. While similar reforms proposed (and later suspended) last November sought to impose[Read More…]
Tribune Explains: Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM)
What is AGSEM? The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) is the union to which teaching assistants (TA) and invigilators for McGill university belong. Founded in 1974 as the McGill Teaching Assistant Association (MTAA) and certified in 1993 as a union to represent Teaching Assistants, AGSEM is the[Read More…]
