Volume 33, Issue 24

The CSU’s struggles continue.

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CONCORDIA’S INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1980

volume 33, issue 24 • tuesday, march 05, 2013 • thelinknewspaper.ca

What’s up w our logo? Tu ith ne to CJLO eve in ry Thursday a t 11:00 a.m.

Page 13

The Future Is Fluid

GENDER & SEXUALITY SPECIAL ISSUE OFF THE MARK Two Stingers basketball seasons end in provincial playoffs.

P17 & 18

EDITORIAL: PQ NEEDS TO MAKE GOOD ON SUMMIT PROMISES. P23

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The Link Publication Society Inc. Annual General Assembly Friday March 22, 2013, 4 p.m.

1455 de Maisonneuve West Room H-649

Agenda 1. Call to order 2. Election of a secretary 3. Reading and approval of the agenda 4. Reading and approval of the minutes of the 2012 AGA 5. Constitutional amendments 6. Board of directors report for 2011-2012 7. Presentation of the 2011-2012 financial statements 8. Appointment of the auditor 9. Presentation of financial statements as of February 28, 2013 10 Presentation of the preliminary budget 2013-2014 11. Election of the Board of Directors 12. Other business 13. End of the assembly All Concordia undergraduated students are eligible to attend, vote at the meeting and run for a position on the Link’s Board.

Board of Directors Two (2) positions are open to members at large (none of them shall hold an executive position within another university group) and 2 (two) positions are open to member of the communauty who have been members of the Staff within the last 3 years.

Candidates for the Board must present a letter of intent by Friday March 15, 2012 at 5 p.m. to the secretary of the board of directors : 1455 de Maisonneuve. W. room 649 or by email to business@thelinknewspaper.ca Constitutional amendments are available at the Link office

PAGE 03

UNFAIR FROM THE START Whats keeping some ConU grads from finding work. P9

THE CAMPUS BAR FROM HELL?

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS FEUQ, CSU, Alan Shepard looking back—and forward—from the summit. P6

by Corey Pool @CoreyRiver Concordia’s history can at times be a strange, but just when you think things were as odd as they could be, turn and take a look at Reggie’s.

About three weeks ago, VP Finance Keny Toto and former councillor Ramy Khoriaty gave a presentation to the Concordia Student Union on the past and current state of this university’s student bar, Reggie’s.

Both Khoriaty and Toto sit on the board of CUSACorp—the for-profit arm of the CSU—and are the operations consultant and treasurer, respectively.

CUSACorp oversees the operation of Reggie’s, and collects rent from its neighbour, Java U. The CSU is the sole shareholder in the corporation.

Over the past year, Reggie’s has seen some drastic changes, both esthetically and by way of its internal structure.

“We gave the presentation because there have been a lot of changes at Reggie’s, especially internally,” explained Khoriaty. “It’s not the Reggie’s that we knew before, and it was important to take some time to show this to the Board of Directors.”

The presentation went on to outline some recent problems with the bar, including alleged “corrupt staff,” alcohol theft, lack of maintenance, the firing of nine employees and the resignation of four others.

A SEASON OF FILM FESTIVALS Feed your cultural side by month filled with movies—ones that aren't likely to hit Netflix any time soon. P11

ONLINE CLASSROOMS A clearer vision for elearning at ConU. P19

CHILDISH EXECUTIVES A CSU presidential vacancy brings out the worst in the executive.

P20

Continues on Page 5 Photo Erin Sparks

THE LINK ONLINE QUEBEC CINEMA ON THE RISE

CAST PETITION HEADS TO GA

A Look at Some Films from the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois

MANIF DU SOIR

Theatre students submitted a petition in a bid to save summer courses as a result of cuts to arts funding. A GA is planned for tomorrow. Check online for updates..

Late night student protests are set to start up again Tuesday. Stay tuned online for updates.

NUIT BLANCHE HITS 10 YEARS

CUFA UPDATE Concordia professors are voting on a strike mandate.

Check our news section Wednesday for the results.

The view from Montreal's city-wide all-nighter arts festival

Photo Jake Russell

“CHANGING THE STORIES OF OUR LIVES”

The lecture will address various questions such as “How can we become happier, help teenagers navigate the problems of adolescence, reduce racial prejudice, and help college students adjust to university life?’ These stories, or personal narratives, eventually determine the type of life people lead. At times, psychotherapy helps people to review their stories. However, social psychologists have discovered a promising approach, called “story-editing,” that nudges people down healthy narrative paths. The Lecturer Dr Timothy D. Wilson will discuss story-editing interventions that have been used in a variety of areas (e.g., to help college students experiencing academic problems, reduce teenage pregnancy, increase personal happiness). He will also discuss the promise and limitations of these interventions.

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E-learning: Class From Your Couch? • Page 08

THE MANY CONVOLUTED HISTORIES OF REGGIE’S Getting to Know “Your Student Bar”

by Corey Pool @coreyriver Continued from page 3 Another point addressed a deficit, or loan, from the CSU of about $1.4 million.

Since its inception sometime in 1977, Reggie’s Bar has been a bit of an enigma—rather than one simple, chronological history, Reggie’s has many different histories, depending on who you ask. The only real thing that unites the different tales is that this bar, in all of its incarnations, has seen a lot.

Follow the Money Reggie’s has, especially in recent years, come to be seen as a bit of financial disaster.

Once located on the seventh floor of the Hall Building, Reggie’s moved to its current location in 1994.

The move wasn’t free, but the CSU helped foot the bill.

Since then, that bill—with the help of several deficits posted by the bar over the years—has grown to make up the approximate $1.4 million debt it owes the union.

“The advances from the CSU are non-interest bearing, and are without a specific term of repayment,” said Toto. “[Negotiating payment] would be up to the shareholders—which is the CSU— and the Board of CUSACorp to decide that, and to see if there could be a plan to repay it.”

According to Khoriaty, despite their efforts, CUSACorp has had a tough time addressing this.

“We have not yet discussed the $1.4 million we have in debt,” said Khoriaty. “It’s on CUSACorp because of the past debts we’ve had.

Whenever we have profits, the accountants are putting them straight away towards closing this $1.4 million, however we’re very far from it.”

Despite the mounting debt, both Toto and Khoriaty claim that CUSACorp is doing better.

According to documents shared with The Link by CUSACorp, the corporation is set to break into the black by an estimated $20,000, this year.

Photo Erin Sparks

“Financially, Reggie’s is looking pretty good right now. We passed our sales target for the year ending Dec. 31, 2012,” said Toto.

“Our target was $200,000, and we went over that to reach approximately $220,000. Since then, at the end of February, we’re at $305,810, which is very good.”

Despite being financially on the upswing, Toto wrote in his Feb. 8 executive report that Reggie’s was “going through a tough time.”

This, according to Khoriaty, referred to another issue with the bar’s staff.

The “Corrupt Staff” Reggie’s recently fired its general manager due to alleged issues with his work ethic.

However, Khoriaty suggested in his presentation that this staffing issue is nothing new, claiming that Reggie’s had a “corrupt staff” last year.

Khoriaty cited issues with stolen liquor and missing funds,

“The bigger picture here is that there is no bigger picture. [Reggie’s is] like an annual hamster wheel.” Marlow Wilson, Former Reggie’s Manager

recalling that in one night he counted six bottles of spirits, each around $40 in value, that had gone missing.

“When I started this year, it was a year of change,” said Khoriaty.

“I was thinking about three phases: first of all, cleaning house and getting rid of everything that was bad; then stabilization, and then renovation. To be able to clean house, the first step was firing people. When there is this much alcohol missing and being given away, you cannot work.”

In total, Reggie’s fired nine employees between April and September 2012, and lost four more to resignations.

Khoriaty said that over the summer, he and the rest of CUSACorp met with their lawyers and decided the best way to move forward was to fire a certain amount of people and start over.

Owain Harris, a former bartender and interim manager at Reggie’s for about seven years, remembers things differently.

“We were all given temporary lay-off notices in April 2012,” said Harris. “I thought that I was coming back to my job in September, as did a lot of people. I was planning on coming back to the bar, and they decided put other people in those positions.”

As for the allegations of corruption, Harris said they were insulting, though he admitted Reggie’s

does seem to have a history with staff issues.

“Allegations of corruption have been going on at that bar since the day I started work seven years ago,” he said. “I heard about shady things going on at the bar. There’s always been trouble associated with that.”

Marlow Wilson, former longtime manager and bartender of Reggie’s, said that while not ideal for the bar, its many issues can at least provide those affected by them with a valuable lesson.

“I think a lot of people have made mistakes and have learnt from these mistakes. That’s part of the experience for everyone,” he said. “[The university] is sort of a microcosm of a real society where you have businesses and political organizations and the interplay between them teaches people things—I think there is something to be said for that.”

An Issue of Governance Khoriaty said this year was intended to be one of change. The first steps toward a solution, he said, unfortunately involved removing former staff.

But, pointing fingers may be part of the problem.

“I’ve seen every generation of ‘blame the past and promise the future,’ and it’s always the same story every year,” said Wilson, who was a student at Concordia

from 2004 to 2011.

“That’s optimism, and it’s a good thing for people to have, but it only happens in student organizations where the past isn’t there, and the past becomes a sort of narrative that the people trying to draft the future want it to be.”

One thing that everyone seems to agree on is the presence of an inherent governance crisis.

Members of CUSACorp’s Board turn over every year, and so keeping institutional memory is a problem.

Comparatively, general managers of Reggie’s hold three-year contracts.

“Nobody wants to take responsibility,” said Wilson. “ I can tell you that from a traditional governance perspective, things were not always done the way that you’d expect them to be done for a private corporation.”

This lack of clear leadership, and the divide between the corporation and the staff, seems to be at the root of Reggie’s’ problems.

“The bigger picture here is that there is no bigger picture,” said Wilson.

“It’s like an annual hamster wheel.”

Ultimately though, Reggie’s has come a long way, and it could be on the up-and-up.

Despite the contentious past, Harris recognizes the potential that the incoming changes have to help the bar in the long run.

“I’m proud to see that it’s becoming something good,” he said.

“When I started there it really was a hole in the wall. I think that stu-

Current Affairs

the link • march 05, 2013

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THE POST-SUMMIT SCRAMBLE Next Steps for University Leaders

1. “We want to have a look into what’s going on inside the universities. So it will be a fight again in the chantiers for sure, between us and the administrations.”

Martine Desjardins FEUQ President 2. “For me, the government—they don’t really want to make these cuts, and we’re finding it difficult to do it.” Alan Shepard, Concordia University President

3. “We’re going to be involved in a direct manner where we meet and decide what we’re going to be pushing for.” Simon-Pierre Lauzon, CSU VP External 1. Photo Sam Slotnick

by Jane Gatensby @JaneGatensby & Geoffrey Vendeville @geoffvendeville

Financial Aid: At the Summit for Higher Education, the Quebec government announced it was raising the parental contribution threshold (the income level at which parents are expected to contribute to their child’s university expenses) from $28,000 to $45,000, and that it will award an additional $263 million in bursaries from 2013-14 to 2018-19.

Chantiers: Five different chantiers de travail, or working groups, will be formed as a result of the summit. The groups, respectively, will be tasked with: 1. Drafting an umbrella act for universities, which will establish governance rules 2. Establishing a structure for a Quebecwide council on universities, the Conseil national des universités 3. Making improvements to the CEGEP system 4. Revising university financing policy, including mandatory institutional fees 5. Improving the financial aid system

Cameron Monagle says the Quebec government referring to the indexation of tuition fees as a “relative freeze” is a “load of baloney.”

The Federation étudiante universitaire du Québec’s internal affairs coordinator addressed the Concordia Student Union council last week to explain the federation’s feelings regarding the outcome of Quebec’s Summit on Higher Education.

Monagle explained that the government’s decision to index tuition fees to the level of growth in household disposable income levels would result in a hike of $70 next year.

Indexation—pushed through by the Parti Québécois without a consensus from the summit’s participants—is not the only policy change to result from the summit.

The government is now taking steps to address concerns that student groups and others have been voicing for some time.

“Everything pretty much except tuition went really well,” he said.

In the weeks and months to come, five newly formed chantiers de travail, or working groups, will try to tackle various projects to reform the system, including a new law on universities, the creation of a council on universities, improvements to the CEGEP network and changes to institutional fees and the university funding model.

The summit also resulted in a boost for financial aid and a $1.7 billion reinvestment in the higher education system.

Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec Although FEUQ President Martine Desjardins says she’s disappointed vis-à-vis indexation, she’s optimistic about what else was gained at the summit.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” she said, explaining her satisfaction with the gains to student aid, and positive outlook regarding the potential outcomes of the chantiers du travail.

Desjardins said that although it was clear to her that the govern-

2. Photo Corey Pool

ment had not been willing to negotiate on indexation at the summit, it would be inaccurate to say that everything had been predetermined when it came to other aspects, like what would be dealt with in the chantiers.

For example, the FEUQ was able to push the government to establish a chantier on university financing to deal with the issue of mandatory institutional fees.

“The government didn’t know we were going to put this on the table,” Desjardins said. “When you saw the video you see that Pierre Duchesne wasn’t aware that this was coming up.”

For this reason and others, Desjardins asserted that the summit would have been a “catastrophe” if the FEUQ hadn’t gone.

“People say, ‘[The Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante] did a good thing boycotting the summit,” she said. “But if the FEUQ did the same thing [as ASSÉ], we would be facing not only the tuition fee hikes but also new institutional fees with no [improvements] to the financial aid program.”

Boycotting the summit would have also meant missing out on participating in the chantiers. Now, the federation is set to be very active in these working groups, including one concerning financial aid— which will be headed by an ex-president of the FEUQ. A different chantier will deal with the creation of a council on universities, something that the FEUQ has long been calling for.

“The mandate that will be included in this council is very important,” Desjardins said. “We want to have a look into what’s going on inside the universities. So it will be a fight again in the chantiers for sure, between us and the administrations.”

Additionally, Desjardins thinks that the possibility of an umbrella law for universities, the task of another chantier, will “make sure that we will have a real discussion about where the university is going.”

The FEUQ hopes that a more rounded definition of the collective mission of Quebec universities will be included in the law.

“A lot of people are saying that [the mission] is teaching and re-

3. Photo Corey Pool

search,” she said. “But services for the collectivity should also be included.”

Desjardins said that the FEUQ’s past research and firm policy stances, already voted on by its member associations, will allow the federation to begin work immediately in the chantiers.

“We need to be very prepared,” she said. “And we are.”

Concordia Student Union “We’ve made significant gains,” said CSU VP External SimonPierre Lauzon when asked what he thought of the outcome of the summit. “Of course, we didn’t win on everything,” he added.

“We are satisfied with most of what happened there, save the indexation.”

Lauzon said he was still writing a report on the summit to present to council, and that the CSU had not yet formulated any policy pertaining to the chantiers.

When the report is finished, however, Lauzon plans to “start working on what exactly we’re going to be pushing for at those chantiers.

“At this point, we need to look at the individual files [and see] what we can accomplish,” he said.

Although the CSU will not sit directly on any of the chantiers, it will be represented at them by the FEUQ. “We’re going to be involved in a direct manner where we meet and decide what we’re going to be pushing for,” Lauzon said.

Lauzon said he was satisfied with the federation’s work at the summit.

“If you compare the membership of the FEUQ to the membership of other national student organizations and the results that they brought back from the summit, I think we are largely winning,” he said.

“I think that’s a proof that we took the right approach, that we have tangible gains for our students.”

Alan Shepard Describing his mixed impression of the Summit on Higher Education last week, Concordia President Alan Shepard said, “Like most negotiations, nobody went away from them feeling like they were the great victor.”

Shepard supported several of the government’s decisions, in-

cluding its plans to create a National Council of Universities and to index tuition to the annual growth in disposable income— which would amount to a roughly $70 increase in tuition per fulltime student per year.

On the other hand, Shepard warned that the university spending cuts mandated by the government might endanger the quality of higher education in Quebec.

As Premier Pauline Marois and Minister of Higher Education Pierre Duchesne announced at the summit last week, the government is standing by its decision to trim $250 million from universities’ budgets despite heavy opposition from the Conference of Rectors and Principals of Quebec Universities, as well as from other quarters.

Late on Feb. 25, the government reached a deal with CREPUQ allowing universities to stagger the $124 million in cuts initially planned for this year until Apr. 30, 2014.

Shepard said university rectors are still negotiating with the government to find a way to soften the impact of the cuts.

“For me, the government—they don’t really want to make these cuts, and we’re finding it difficult to do it. So everybody has been looking for a solution that would meet everyone’s needs,” he said.

For Concordia, the spending cuts amount to $13.2 million a year for two years, out of a total operating budget of roughly $400 million.

“It’s not an inconsequential amount of money,” said Shepard.

Referring to a CREPUQ report, Shepard argued that there is a “substantial gap” in per-student funding between universities in Quebec and the funding in the rest of Canada.

“We need to be working for the prosperity of our alumni—their intellectual prosperity, their cultural, their economic prosperity,” he said.

“I want to be the president of one of Canada’s great universities, and I think you guys want to be graduates of a place that you’re really proud of, that had the resources it had to deliver an intellectual environment, the research opportunities, and co-op opportunities—whatever it may be that you’re seeking here,” Shepard said.

the link • march 05, 2013

Current Affairs

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A VACANT EXECUTIVE CSU Tries New Tricks to Fix Old Problems

The Concordia Student Union held a special meeting last friday in the student union lobby to resolve several outstanding issues.

by Megan Dolski @MeganDolski If the Concordia Student Union was asked to give a state of the union, the opening statement would likely be “all is not well.”

That is under the assumption, though, that union had a leader in a position to give such an address.

Nearly a month has gone by since outgoing president Schubert Laforest resigned. Since then, the CSU has been bumbling along, juggling Laforest’s portfolio without any one specific person serving as his replacement.

While the burden of distributing the responsibilities of the vacant presidency for an unprecedentedly long period of time has been a setback—it is far from the sole issue that has led the union into its current state of disarray.

Managing the Vacancy According to the CSU’s bylaws, it is the president’s duty to serve as the union’s chief executive officer and official spokesperson. The job description includes the tasks of ensuring the day-to-day administration of the union, and implementing the decisions of council.

Despite being the first agenda point up for discussion at a special council meeting held March 1, the CSU’s council has yet to pick a president—a spot vacant since Laforest’s resignation on Feb. 7 due to health reasons.

The point was immediately tabled at the most recent council meeting, because council had not yet received the Judicial Board’s decision concerning the correct

legal interpretation of Bylaw 7.4.

This bylaw—which outlines the protocol of filling a presidential vacancy—sparked a heated debate at the previous meeting. This led to a standoff between council and its executive, and ultimately, no new president.

A decision is expected to be released from the JB this Wednesday. If a decision arises, the CSU bylaws stipulate the union can hold a special council meeting once they give council members two business days’ notice.

Until then, VP Finance Keny Toto has authority to sign any documents of financial nature, VP Internal Nadine Atallah is responding to e-mails sent to the president’s address and the rest of the executive is collectively absorbing Laforest’s other duties.

“We have been lucky to not have had any controversy to deal with,” said VP External SimonPierre Lauzon. “But we haven’t signed anything big. We are playing it safe and delaying a few things—nothing major that is going to grossly affect our year.”

Lauzon said the process of hiring an office general manager, which Laforest was working on, has been put on hold until a president can be appointed.

Though it hasn’t yet been necessary, Lauzon said that should the executive be required to sign anything they do not currently have authority to, they can seek direct approval from its board of directors.

I.T.’s (Still) an Issue When referencing information technology issues at a council meeting in October, Atallah re-

ferred to the situation as having entered “the phase of meltdown.”

Four months have gone by, and little has changed.

At the time, council voiced concerns over a dysfunctional website, server crashes and a slew of other technical issues.

At the March 1 council meeting, the lack of progress made since was addressed by several councillors.

“I’m super disappointed,” said councillor Fahd Ali Nasser. “We still don’t have a running website—what’s going on?”

When asked about the status of the I.T. project, Toto directed The Link to speak with the CSU’s administrative assistant, Yu Yu-Hui, who he says was “taking care of the project.”

Yu-Hui said she is not actually in charge of the initiative, but rather “a support person.”

Regardless, she was able to explain that the overhaul of the union’s online needs can essentially be divided into three parts— website development and maintenance, I.T. infrastructure and information services.

The I.T. infrastructure portion is currently moving forward, and is set to be completed by the end of April.

As for the other two, a tender has been drafted. Yu-Hui says she doesn’t know whether the process has begun for the website development, but is certain it hasn’t for maintenance and information services.

She said an executive, whose name she declined to disclose, had been assigned to the task, but Simon-Pierre Lauzon later confirmed that he is taking over Lafor-

Photo Sam Slotnick

est’s responsibility for the project.

Yu-Hui said once the tender is posted it will take at least a month to choose a company.

“The project could begin this year, but it won’t finish,” she said.

In his final executive report, prepared for Jan. 23, Laforest wrote, “This has become a rather long and drawn out process, but we’re not going to stop working on this, move it forward and complete it.”

To compensate for the dire reality of the interim, councillors suggested the creation of a WordPress side-site to host basic information.

VP Loyola Stefan Faina has agreed to take on the responsibility of doing so.

Committee Confusion The CSU has several standing committees that exist to execute specific initiatives and tasks to further the progress the union.

A few of such committees have recently received criticism for not fulfilling their roles as facilitators.

The Finance Committee is one of those criticized. The committee, chaired by VP Finance Keny Toto, has not met since Jan. 24.

When asked why, Toto cited scheduling issues. Member of the committee and councillor Paul Jerajian agreed that finding a meeting time had been difficult—but perhaps not an adequate excuse.

“It doesn’t make sense why FinComm doesn’t already have a regular meeting time set up,” he said. “We had established a while ago about the inconveniences that occurred for members, and [Toto] seemed less than willing to accommodate a gen-

eral meeting time for all members.”

Toto said the Finance Committee was currently using Doodle, an online scheduling website, to arrange meetings, and that he hopes to schedule one for this Thursday, since he says there is much to do.

“We have lots to talk about, changes in budget lines, special project applications, disabled students fund and the elections budget,” said Toto.

Additionally, at the March 1 meeting, councillor Melissa Kate Wheeler asked Toto why he had not yet produced a report concerning the transactions of the union’s legal contingency fund.

“I forgot,” he said.

Toto says he will prepare a report of the next council meeting.

Another committee sparking concerns is the Events Committee, chaired by VP Student Life Alexis Suzuki.

The last time the committee met was a week prior to winter Orientation.

“The Events Committee has been a bit of a letdown,” said committee member Jerajian.

“We have met two to three times with the sole purpose of Suzuki telling us what she has planned and [asking] if we agree with her or not.”

Jerijian said committee members were rarely asked to contribute, have only met a total of about three times and that none of the meetings was attended by more than two members.

When asked why the committee hasn’t met since, Suzuki replied, “To be honest, we’ve been swamped with internal things.”

Current Affairs

the link • march 05, 2013

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CONCORDIA SET TO EXPAND E-LEARNING PROGRAM Massive Open Online Classes, In-Class Multimedia on the Way

33,000: Number of people enrolled in online classes via eConcordia

45,954: Total number of students enrolled at Concordia in the 2011-12 academic year

45: Number of faculty members teaching online classes for eConcordia

53: Number of courses offered as of Winter 2013

2: Number of “e-learning fellows” who promote “e-learning, or electronically supported learning, across all Faculties at Concordia,” according to Concordia Now

Graphics Paku Daoust-Cloutier

by Andrew Brennan, @brennamen You get out of bed, go to the kitchen. A slice of toast and a glass of milk later, and you’re snuggled in your sheets, checking your laptop. Also, you just got to class.

In the age of information, where the Internet doubles in size every five years, Concordia University is looking to change its teaching methods to accommodate.

The university says specifics will not be released until next month—so live-streaming lectures from the comfort of home may not yet be on the table—but change is coming.

E+Learning “There is still a lot of misinformation about what online learning is,” admitted Concordia President Alan Shepard. “People still think it’s really boring, or it’s really easy— it’s like a gut course, or whatever you guys call it, to get an easy A.” Since 2000, Concordia has been offering accredited courses online in partnership with eConcordia, a for-profit corporation set up in adjunct to the university.

Growing from roughly 10 courses offered in 2006, 53 credited courses were available for students enrolled this winter semester.

The online entity now accounts for 15 per cent of university enrolment, with about 33,000 unique students registered to take e-courses.

But the upcoming e-learning plan is not just for current Concordia students, according to Shepard. The university is looking to offer massive open online courses, according to a presentation given by interim provost Lisa Ostiguy at a Senate meeting on Feb. 15.

“The MOOC is an open course, anyone can sign up,” said Shepard.

“They don’t have to have any prerequisites, background, marks, diploma, nothing.

And they are going to get no formal academic credentials even if they complete [the class], so the carrot at the end of the stick is all about intellectual development,” he added.

MOOCs emerged as an online teaching platform in 2008, but the format did not gain widespread popularity until 2011.

Major projects, such as Coursera and EdX—a joint venture between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—now offer classes with over 100,000 students.

One major criticism levied against MOOCs is the associated high dropout rates, but according to Shepard the new format is still evolving.

“MOOCs are an experiment,” he explained. “They’ve been going for like a year, and you know the car you drive now is not the car that was built in 1912.”

Upgrades are also tabled for traditional classes as well. The university is exploring a blended-course approach: a mixture between conventional teaching pedagogy and the emerging new world of the Internet, according to Shepard.

“I think the whole world is going towards more courses that are called blended, where I might meet you once a week and instead of just telling you what’s in the textbook—which is what I might have done 25 years ago—you would have [had a] dynamic, interactive experience and then you would come to class,” he said.

In a blended course approach, lesson plans would utilize collaborative, imaging and multimedia software as part of the curriculum, while ensuring students and their professors still meet face-to-face regularly.

To Shepard, the new approach might someday become the most popular teaching format.

“I think there will be some percentage of pure online courses and pure online degrees,” he said. “There will be some that are pure traditional lectures and then there will be a big one in the middle, which is blended.”

But while Concordia’s online future appears promising, some in the university community say problems with Concordia’s past online initiatives need to be addressed as well—namely those having to do with eConcordia.

A History of Grievances Though it delivers online courses accredited by the university, eConcordia is not owned by Concordia directly.

Operated by KnowledgeOne, a subsidiary of econcordia.com, known directors of eConcordia include both current and former university presidents as well as members of Concordia’s Board of Governors—the institution’s highest decisionmaking body.

Current KnowledgeOne administrators include Shepard, Concordia VP Institutional Relations and Secretary-General Bram Freedman and Chief Financial Officer Patrick Kelley, according to the Régistraire des entreprises Québec.

But according to Robert Sonin, president of Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia, the major grievances with eConcordia are coming from its teaching staff.

Teaching assistants from the university are contracted to eConcordia to lead online

courses, explained Sonin.

But eConcordia TAs are not reimbursed at the same pay grade as in-class TAs would be for the same amount of work; in fact, they often do more for less, he said.

“EConcordia content is created by the professors, but it’s delivered by TAs, so if you’ve taken an eConcordia course—even more so than any other course—it is absolutely guaranteed your work is judged by TAs,” he continued.

According to Sonin, the extra TAs curb costs spent on professors, whose salaries are much higher than part-time graduate students.

“Online e-learning as a separate category of class was invented basically to make money,” said Sonin. “What you can do is increase the class size to the size of one of these MOOCs, where literally you could have thousands of people in one class.”

Grievances from TAs filed with the university by TRAC are ongoing, according to Sonin.

“We haven’t met [a TA] happy with an eConcordia course,” he stated.

“They go from a sort of middle of the road, where maybe it’s okay—but compared to what? Compared to a regular one, it’s not okay.”

A Refreshed Start To Shepard, a few difficulties with eConcordia do not spoil the initiative.

“My impression is that the e-learning is going well,” he said.

Last fall, Saul Carliner was appointed as the new e-learning fellow, tasked with advocating for the e-learning program both in and outside of the university.

An updated plan is expected to be presented to Senate by Ostiguy, the interim provost, on March 15.

Concordia will showcase its revamped e-learning plan when it hosts the e.SCAPE conference in early April.

Sonin says he is not overly hopeful.

“I don’t know what is coming, exactly,” he revealed. “I don’t know if there’s a real sort of vision of what they want e-learning to be. My vision would be that e-learning is not really a thing—it’s not something that you do, it’s just part of life.”

As for Shepard however, the focus is on the digital frontier ahead.

“There are lots of signs on the horizon of really substantial changes in our education,” he said.

“I would like to position Concordia so we are a leader in Canada in incorporating and engaging technology to strengthen experience for students.”

the link • march 05, 2013

Current Affairs

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THE WELL-KEPT SECRETS OF THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY How Foreign-Born Engineers Struggle to Practice in Canada

Countries whose nationals are prevented from working in the aerospace industry by the International Traffic of Arms Regulations Graphic Clément Liu

by Sam Slotnick @Sam_Slotnick Stories like Joe’s have become a kind of tragic cliché—a foreignborn resident with a number of impressive credentials, forced to drive a taxi to make ends meet.

While it’s not uncommon to hear of immigrants having difficulty finding work in their area of expertise due to the geographical origins of their credentials or their linguistic ability, the reason Joe can’t find work seems a bit harder to grasp.

Joe, who asked that he be referred to in print by a pseudonym due to pending legal action, has lived in Canada since he was a year old.

He received his diploma in Aircraft Structuralism at a Montreal college and a finance degree at Concordia University.

While many fresh out of university have trouble finding a job in the current economic climate, some students in Montreal have their fate already sealed by American anti-terrorism policy.

The reason Joe cannot find work in his area of expertise, aerospace, isn’t because he was educated in Lebanon.

It’s because he was born there.

Turned Down for the Job About a year ago, Joe had an

interview with aerospace contractor Aerotek for a position at Bell Helicopters, which operates a plant in Mirabel, QC. “I went in for the interview and [the interviewer] said, ‘The interview is great—Bell is looking for people like you,’” Joe explained, adding that he already had a good file at Aerotek because of the work he did for Bombardier upon graduation.

“I was one of the best workers at Bombardier,” Joe recalled. “Out of all the people they hired, I was the last to go.”

But according to Joe, the interview with Aerotek ended with a pause and one final question: “Were you born in Canada?”

When Joe told his interviewer he was born in Lebanon, the woman interviewing him explained that she could not put him through the hiring process of Bell—because Lebanon was on a list of countries whose nationals weren’t eligible for the position.

Joe is one of many new to the aerospace industry that fall under American aerospace and defense regulations called the “International Traffic of Arms Regulations.”

ITAR compels virtually every aerospace employer around the globe that handles information re-

lating to the American defense system to put tight restrictions on employees or prospective employees who have ties to any of the proscribed countries.

Those who were born in or were in frequent contact with one of the 26 listed countries—which include Syria, China, Iran, Haiti and Lebanon—are often automatically turned down for jobs or face tight restrictions because of their birthplace.

“I consider myself more Canadian than Lebanese—I was just born there,” said Joe. “I was shocked. I went to school here and I spent two years to get this diploma in aerospace and now I’m not even working [in aerospace]. I feel like I wasted two years of my life.”

They Don’t Teach You This in School It is hard to pinpoint just how many resumés and interviews are thrown out because of the regulations.

Applicants may never hear back from companies and may not realize the role ITAR played in their not getting the position, said Fo Niemi, executive director at the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations, a Canadian civil rights organization that’s handling Joe’s case.

But what is clear is that Joe’s struggle with the policy is not an

isolated one.

Many students at colleges with aerospace diplomas and even in relevant programs at Concordia also go through their degrees having barely heard of the regulations, or knowing little about them.

“We’ve spoken to student associations and advocacy [at Concordia] but they say they never receive any calls because people don’t know the rule exists,” said Niemi.

“It’s not until they go out and look for a job that they realize they can’t get a job—probably because of where they were born.”

A number of Concordia students have confirmed that they weren’t aware of the policy.

“Nobody told me about ITAR in my program. I had a quick discussion before my work-term with my coordinator at co-op about the difficulties I would face,” said Mehdi Sabzalian, a member of Space Concordia and a mechanical engineering major. “However, we didn’t go into too much detail.”

Sabzalian, who worked at Pratt & Whittney, another major aerospace manufacturer with facilities near Montreal, said his interaction with ITAR was limited, but that there were instances when he could not finish his work because

he did not have proper clearance.

“Some of my Concordia friends, who were working there at the same time as me needed ITAR clearance.

In their work, they had to refer to ITAR documents and drawings,” he explained. “I think Concordia students who are born in the proscribed countries will not most likely be able to do those kind of jobs.”

Companies who do extend the courtesy of letting potential employees know that they did not hire them because of the regulations expose themselves to possible lawsuits like Joe’s or the ones that have been heard sporadically by human rights tribunals in Quebec and Ontario since the early 2000s.

Others may feel like they have to use covert methods to adhere to the policies.

“We tell people to be careful when you apply, just be careful, don’t say on the outset where you went to high school or [completed] your undergraduate studies,” said Niemi.

And so, while many of Concordia’s students are putting the finishing touches on job and internship applications to positions in Quebec’s largest manufacturing sector, Joe is prepping for a legal standoff with Textron, Bell Helicopters’ parent corporation.

Current Affairs

BRIEFS

by Erin Sparks @sparkserin LGBT-Friendly Quebec The Parti Québécois has launched a new anti-homophobia campaign, the first of its kind in North America, according to the PQ. The campaign includes television and radio ads that will run this month featuring same-sex couples, and an interactive website that quizzes users on their comfort with different orientations and gender identities. According to an article by The Gazette, a second phase of the campaign will take a closer look at parenting issues. To test your tolerance, go to fighthomophobia.gouv.qc.ca/questions.

After Pasta, Caffègate It may have happened a few weeks ago, but the “pastagate” scandal is far from over. In fact, it’s gotten worse, with Caffè in Gamba on Parc Ave. being reported as the latest establishment paid a visit from the Office québécois de la langue française. According to The Gazette, café owner Jean-François Leduc is facing $3,770 in fines for using the Italian “caffè” instead of “café.” The OQLF has ordered Leduc to either take away the second “f” or change its name to Le Café Caffè in Gamba. Leduc, however, says that doing so would be insulting to his customers, claiming that everyone can easily figure out what “caffè” means.

Magnotta Trial Behind Closed Doors?

When alleged murderer Luka Magnotta has his preliminary hearing next week, the room may be fairly empty. Magnotta’s lawyer, Luc Leclair, has requested that access to the room be restricted to the judge, court clerk and the lawyers involved. Publication bans are common in preliminary hearings, but placing restrictions such as those requested by Magnotta’s lawyer occur less frequently. The request has been submitted for undisclosed medical and personal reasons, which are not included in the document itself. The motion has yet to be approved by the court, and will be the subject of debate next Monday, at which point it will either be approved or denied. Magnotta is accused of first-degree murder in the death of Concordia student Jun Lin in May of last year.

PQ Trims Welfare Beginning June 1, 2013, certain groups that receive social assistance will see a reduction in payments. Under the current funding structure, families where both parents are unemployed and have children under five years of age receive a total of $129 per month towards childcare. As of June 1, however, this money will no longer be given to such families.

Similarly, unemployed Quebecers aged 55 and up are given monthly funds, as they are less likely to find employment.

With the new changes, this bonus will be given to unemployed people 58 years old and up. Following the announcement of these changes on Friday, protests were held outside the Labour and Social Assistance minister’s office over the weekend and on Monday.

the link • march 05, 2013

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CUFA TO VOTE ON STRIKE MANDATE Full-Time Faculty Fed Up with Negotiation Progress

by Riley Sparks @sparksriley After 14 months of contract negotiations, Concordia’s full-time professors began votin on an unlimited strike mandate.

The vote began on Feb.28 and continue online for five days, with results likely to be available by Wednesday of next week. If the motion is approved, members of the Concordia University Faculty Association will be able to begin labour actions that could include a full strike.

In a document released last week, CUFA said that any strike would be a “full-scale walkout,” with “non-stop consecutive days of work stoppage” and picketing until the dispute is resolved.

Since last December, negotiating teams from CUFA and the university have been working with a conciliator appointed by the provincial government.

“At this point, for us, unless we hear otherwise, we are proceeding at the bargaining table with the conciliator,” said university spokesperson Chris Mota. Both teams still have a regular meeting scheduled for March 18.

Except to confirm that the strike

by Megan Dolski @MeganDolski At a sparsely populated party at The Hive Café on Feb. 28, the concept of student space was supposedly re-launched at Concordia.

The event, organized by the Concordia Student Union, aimed to introduce the idea of “The Habitat” to students, their term for the possibility of a future Concordia student centre. For those who attended the event, though, what exactly the Habitat is likely remains as ambiguous.

The event—advertised as a “launch”—was replete with Jenga, a cover band, shots, a candy bar and beer.

But while the freebies were plentiful, what was less readily available was any verbal announcement, introduction or indication of the party’s purpose.

A couple of posters, loot bags and scattered promotional materials dispersed around the room were the sole visible attempts made to ensure the event was about information, not just inebriation.

vote will be taking place, CUFA could not be reached for further comment.

The university is “negotiating with CUFA in a very profligate manner,” the union’s negotiating team wrote in a members bulletin published on Dec. 12.

“For every hour of our time that they waste at the bargaining table, we can expect to spend many, many more hours waiting for them to get back to us. Our money’s on Godot showing up first,” the team wrote in the bulletin.

“We really need to focus on what is really important,” CUFA’s chief negotiator Ian Rakita told The Link in March 2012. “I said it in so many words to the administration, that we would be content with leaving the collective agreement as it was and moving straight to a discussion of monetary issues.”

In the year since that interview, CUFA and the university have not reached a settlement on salary increases, and proposals from both parties remain far apart.

Concordia’s part-time faculty approved an unlimited strike mandate with 95 per cent support last November, but have not yet taken any strike action.

WHAT CUFA WANTS WHAT CONCORDIA IS OFFERING

Infographic Clément Liu

WAIT, WHAT’S “THE HABITAT”?

Student Space Materializes at The Hive Café—Sort Of

Photo Elysha del Giusto-Enos

Fringe Arts

Sports and Lady-Power: This Year’s Edgy Women Fest • Page 14-15

A SEASON OF FILM The Link’s Primer to Montreal’s March Movie Scene

by Jake Russell, Josh Dixon & Katie McGroarty The movie industry’s biggest, most self-congratulatory awards show premiered last Sunday, making many of us lament missing so many films. But who could have guessed seeing Life of Pi would be so crucial?

Luckily, there is a solution to kicking the season off right: the Montreal International Documentary Festival, a.k.a. RIDM, and the International Festival of Films on Art. The two festivals will be screening a whole slew of movies on what seems like every topic imaginable. The full schedules are on their respective websites, but here’s a breakdown of what piqued our interest— and hopefully will pique yours, too.

Montreal International Documentary Festival Presents Docville RIDM is a festival that graces audiences just once a year, but its “Docville” series is an extension of the fest that screens international documentaries the last Thursday of every month at Cinéma Excentris.

Director of programming Charlotte Selb said Docville was created to satisfy Montreal’s craving for hot docs year-round, instead of only 10 days a year.

Docville has been a great success, consistently bringing in new viewers and raising awareness about RIDM itself.

The films, Selb said, were handpicked for their unique content and have won awards at other prestigious film festivals. These films are not two-hour snooze-fests—they are refreshing docs in the spirit of Concordia’s Cinema Politica, aiming to challenge worldviews.

The Act of Killing Dir. Joshua Oppenheimer, 116 min.

March 28 / Cinéma Excentris (3536 St. Laurent Blvd.) / 7:30 p.m. / $8.50 students, $11.00 general One of the most talked-about films at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, this powerful, haunting documentary focuses on the remorseless former members of Indonesian death squads, and challenges them to re-enact some of their horrific murders in the style of contemporary American action movies.

The film is much more than a simple account of the 1965 genocide of accused communists in Indonesia; history is brought to life in a disturbingly real way with the accounts of these actual killers and the dramatization of their crimes.

Don’t be lulled into false security by the apparent lack of gore: the film succeeds in frightening you anyway. A chilling, magnetic descent into the minds of these men, The Act of Killing is a film you’re not likely to forget.

The director will be present via Skype for Q&A following the screening.

The Sheik and I Dir. Caveh Zahedi, 104 min.

April 25 / Cinéma Excentris (3536 St. Laurent Blvd.) / 7:00 p.m. / $8.50 student, $11.00 general “In a place where there is no freedom of

Clockwise from top left: From Montreal, Frankenstein: A Modern Myth, Marianne Faithfull: A Life in Song, Sex in the ComiX.

speech, you cannot go and say there is no freedom of speech.”

—The Sheik and I American/Iranian filmmaker Caveh Zahedi risks life and limb by making a film in the United Arab Emirates and committing the one act forbidden by all residents—making fun of the Sheik of Sharjah.

But the film is light-hearted in tone and is punctuated by cartoonish depictions of its subjects using paper cutouts and stopmotion animation.

Zahedi himself is carefree and has no set agenda when he arrives in the Emirates, so the film moves along as he consistently pushes the boundaries of what is culturally acceptable, all while being funny, provoking and politically incorrect.

This film was also a selection for the 2012 SXSW film festival.

The director will be present via Skype for a Q & A following the screening.

International Festival of Films on Art From March 14 to March 24, Montreal is once again playing host to an event that will relieve your winter blues, but will also open the eyes of art lovers in a highly visual manner.

The 31st International Festival of Films on Art will take over film screens for 11 days in various venues around the city to broad-

cast a plethora of films all relating to art in one way or another.

Whether you’re a fan of music, painting or writing—or any other art practice you can think of—there will be a film shown about it here.

With a low cost of admission, this is an opportune moment to take in some culture, all from the comforting warmth of a movie theatre.

From Montreal Dir. Yannick B. Gelinas, 52 min.

March 15 / Place des Arts - Cinquième Salle (175 Ste. Catherine St. W.) / 6:30 p.m. / $12.00 From Montreal details how this city took the music world by storm. From a massive Arcade Fire concert in the heart of the city to a small Malajube show in Texas to a recording session with Ariane Moffatt, From Montreal puts this city’s musical identity on the map.

Frankenstein: A Modern Myth Dir. Adam Low, 48 min.

March 16 / Grande Bibliothèque Auditorium (475 de Maisonneuve Blvd. E.) / 9:00 p.m. / $12.00 Considering Frankenstein was written by a 19-year-old Mary Shelley almost 200 years ago, the effect it has had on culture since is

undeniable. Hailed as the “first and greatest scientific myth,” the film looks at some interpretations of the story, from theatre productions to punk music.

Marianne Faithfull: A Life in Song Dir. Gerald Fox, 48 min.

March 21 / Place des Arts - Cinquième Salle (175 Ste. Catherine St. W.) / 9:00 p.m. / $12.00 Teenage folk star. Mick Jagger’s girlfriend.

Notorious drug addict. Rock opera star.

Faithfull has been through more in her lifetime than the most of us do in three— making her the perfect candidate for a biographical film.

Sex in the ComiX Dir. Joëlle Oosterlinck, 52 min.

March 23 / Cinémathèque québécoise Salle Claude-Jutra (335 de Maisonneuve Blvd. E.) / 6:30 p.m. / $12.00 This film presents two great things in one neat 52-minute package—sex and comics (duh).

Artist Molly Crabapple, probably best known for her Occupy-themed work, sets out to discover the burgeoning world of erotic comics.

It’s bound to be a perfect combination of beautiful and sexy, all while discussing how censorship plays its role on this form of art.

Fringe Arts

the link • march 05, 2013

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FRINGE CALENDAR

by Michelle Pucci @michellempucci CINEMA

1 Cinema Politica: Status Quo? The Unfinished

Business of Feminism in Canada March 8 Hall Building (1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., H-110) 7:00 p.m.

PWYC A documentary that raises a lot of questions—and gives sometimes appalling answers—about the history of the women’s movement in Canada, and asks how far we’ve really come since the beginning.

2 Cinema Politica: Roadmap to Apartheid

March 11 Hall Building (1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd., W. H-110) 7:00 p.m.

PWYC VISUAL ARTS

3 Game On au Chat Bleu

March 8 and March 9 Blue Cat Boxing Club (435 Beaubien St. W., 4th floor) 7:00 p.m. $15.00 students / $20.00 regular Performance and illustration work will transform the gym into a constantly evolving art space, which will be presenting different kinds of visual art that fall under the EDGY Women festival. Check out our feature on the festival on Pages 13 and 14.

COMEDY

4 Comedy Nest FUNdraiser for WUSC Concordia’s Student Refugee Program March 7 Pepsi Forum (2313 Ste. Catherine St. W.) 8:00 p.m. $12.00 students / $15.00 general

MARCH 5 – MARCH 11

5 Couscous Comedy Show - Spécial show de la femme March 8 Le Cabaret du Mile End (5240 Parc Ave.) 6:30 p.m. $25.00 advance / $30.00 door MUSIC

6 Hayden + Nina Nielson + Lou Canon

5

March 8 La Sala Rossa (4848 St. Laurent Blvd.)

8:30 p.m. $16.00

1

7 Veronica Falls

2

+ Cold Showers

March 10 Le Divan Orange (4234 St. Laurent Blvd.)

9:30 p.m. $12.00

3

OTHER

4

8 Applied Quilting

6

7

8

9

10

11

5

March 8 Le Milieu (1251 Robin St.) 5:00 p.m. $30.00 (Tools/materials provided)

6

9 Érablière Urbaine 2013

7

March 9 Parc Molson (2446 Beaubien St. E.) 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Free

8

10 March Freeskool

March 9 Coop Sur Genereux (4518 Papineau Ave.) 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Free

9 10

Without the hierarchy or traditional values associated with formal learning, this full-day event will cover topics from anarchist perspectives on economics to the political history of jazz. There’ll be an acoustic concert by Dato, and also, bread making!

FRINGE GIVEAWAY LAKES OF CANADA AND RA RA RIOT

You have Facebook (probably). We have free tickets (definitely). So like The Link’s Facebook page for a chance to win them!

Lakes of Canada w. Inlet Sound and Motel Raphaël March 8 Ra Ra Riot March 7 We’ve got a pair of tickets to this sweet indie band’s upcoming show this Thursday at Il Motore. Their first tour as a four-piece—meaning the same amount of awesomeness concentrated into fewer people.

That’s science! Head to facebook.com/thelinknewspaper.

GENDER & SEXUALITY

2

The Gender & Sexuality Issue Human beings seem to like dualities. We like dichotomies. Good/bad.

Black/white. Yes/no.

Life is easier to navigate that way. But binaries don’t always slip so neatly onto human affairs, however much we’d like them to. In this special issue, we look at man/woman and gay/straight.

Increasingly, these binaries are failing to define the full spectrum of our experiences, and failing to deliver full, whole pictures of our lives.

And not only do they fail to inform us of the world we live in, they can also limit and shame people who don’t fit into these standards.

Gender roles and expectations place boundaries on what people can do, can feel comfortable doing, or can be respected and applauded for doing. Society’s need for a world that’s understandable at face value has been limiting everyone’s right to be who they really are for too long.

The Link used to publish a Women’s Issue and a Queer Issue separately.

But as questions of gender and sexuality become more and more questions of spectrum, not binary, we thought it made sense to combine the two.

So what if there was another way? What if our future had new pronouns, new horizons and new expectations?

What if we redefined ‘normal’ in terms that had nothing to do with sexual orientation or a gendered presentation?

What if we couldn’t assume someone’s preferences based on the way they carried themselves? What if some people were rewriting the rules in our society’s sexual rulebook? What if we were cheering on athletes who were tough and queer at the same time? What if we stopped expecting someone to be one gender or the other? What if women weren’t valued based on their chastity and people’s sexual orientation was never assumed?

What if everything was fluid?

—Elysha del Giusto-Enos and Alex Manley, Gender & Sexuality Issue Coordinators

With graphics by Jayde Norström & Paku Daoust-Cloutier

GENDER & SEXUALITY

3

A New Sexual Standard

The Nature of Relationships and Sexual Orientations Are Evolving

by Elysha del Giusto-Enos @elyshaenos When Harry Met Sally. “You Can’t Hurry Love” by the Supremes.

Romeo and Juliet.

There are so many iconic representations of love, sex and desire embedded in our social consciousness, it’s hard not to get a picture of what it is well before we even start our own relationships. But what if what we want doesn’t fit the mould?

Role models are scarce for anyone deviating from heterosexual relationships, and even those who deviate from homosexual relationships, too. People who identify as polyamorous, bisexual or whose sexual orientation fluctuates end up confronting negative stereotypes from all sides.

But without any social expectations defining them, the rulebook for these kinds of relationships ends up being written by those in them. And for people working to further diversity and tolerance in our society, the variety of ways they see people defining themselves are staggering.

“Nothing surprises me,” said Marla Schreiber, a Concordia grad-

uate who leads workshops at the local not-for-profit group Ensemble to promote diversity. “At the end of the day people really are reinventing the wheel in many ways.

Because all of a sudden it’s not just masculine or feminine—people are finding ways of playing within the roles of gender and sexuality.”

Schreiber added that sometimes, experiences or people who come into our lives set us on a different path and create a kind of “sexual fluidity” during our lifetimes. In one workshop, she described an intense moment where one participant asked if being sexually assaulted by a man could make someone never want to be with a man again.

While negative past experience may be one of the factors which leads to sexuality fluctuations, new experiences can prompt the same changes.

“When I was attracted to women, I was still attracted to men,” said artist Shaista Latif, who self-identifies as a queer woman. “But it wasn’t until I decided to act on my impulses to see what it was like that my feelings for men went away.”

Latif has been “out” to people

in her life for about a year. But within the performing community, it has been closer to two months.

Being Afghan has made it even more stressful for her to out herself. She’s a rare sight onstage from that conservative community, and audience members will track her down after her shows, so she feels accountable to them to a degree. She’s still a bit at odds with her new identity.

“I don’t feel entirely proud waving a rainbow flag, but I’m comfortable enough to call myself a queer woman, or artist,” Latif said. “But in this world, I don’t think it’s necessary for people to label themselves. Why? Why bother. I don’t understand.”

Schreiber agrees that the definitions coming from the mainstream leave a lot to be desired.

“Television tells us that homosexuality exists, but it tells us that it exists in very specific kind of way,” Schreiber said. “I also do workshops on polyamory and part of why I do that is to talk to the norm—to talk to the people about other ideas that are out there. Because if you’ve never heard of it, and you can’t fathom

it on your own, this ignorance sort of continues.”

Schreiber herself has been living what she calls “the poly life” for almost ten years. It started when she was in CEGEP, where she said that polyamory was an unheard-of concept. But one ethics teacher was living a polyamorous lifestyle and she credits him with “opening her eyes.”

She said that once she decided to pursue this lifestyle, there weren’t any templates for how to model her relationships based on what she saw in society.

Today, one man has been her partner for eight years and another man for three years. The way they make it work is by constantly communicating and setting, then re-setting their boundaries and values.

She had told her partner of eight years earlier in their relationship that she could love many people, but would only ever be “in love” with him.

“Then I fell ‘in love’ with someone else,” she said. “So it created this whole new space where everybody had to meet and we had to work together to make it work within this new context.”

But open-mindedness towards

these emerging relationship styles from established communities can still be a struggle.

“I definitely experienced judgment,” Schreiber said. “A lot of people assume that polyamory means that you’re super easy.”

There was a period when Latif was primarily attracted to men, then she was attracted to both genders before identifying as queer. She noticed a stigma surrounding bisexuality.

“There is a lot of misogyny and difficulty and judgment within the queer circle when you identify in certain ways. A lot of gay people don’t take bisexuals seriously. Because they think [bisexuals] want a boy on one arm and a girl on the other arm, and I don’t think that’s really fair to say.”

Both Schreiber and Latif stress that people misjudge their own ability for sexual fluidness, and that identifying one way at the early stages of one’s life does not mean that they always will.

“We as human beings identify beauty, charm, charisma and everything in people,” Latif said.

“To say that we’re not attracted to a certain gender is a falsity.”

GENDER & SEXUALITY

4 Watch Your Language

by Alex Manley @alex_icon Earlier this month, Sarah Nicole Prickett, ex-Globe and Mail columnist and freelance journalist, kicked off a minor controversy with the publication of her online article for Vice, officially titled “Where Are All the Women?”

Though someone with a keen editorial mind and probably a sense of propriety changed the headline at some point, the URL for the article still shows what was likely the original title. It ends like this: /im-sick-of-ladies.

The article is a rampaging diatribe, an angst-ridden mess and an absolute joy to read. Prickett’s aim is to divorce the women from the ladies—that is, women who are themselves for their own sake, versus ladies, who maintain a stiff upper lip, vote Democrat and try to appear proper.

“Ladies,” Prickett writes, “can eat me and call it a juice cleanse.”

Unsurprisingly, given her tone and the website it appeared on, the article was the recipient of dozens of comments, often less than friendly in tone—and over 1,000 Facebook likes. But whatever your stance on “the upper echelons of what is called equality,” as Prickett calls the space ladies occupy in society, the article and the reaction

Women, Ladies and the Weight of Words When It Comes to Gender

to it did bring back to the fore an interesting relationship.

“It felt very much like putting on a suit of clothes,” said Prickett of ‘lady’ when I called her to ask about the article. “Like when you’re a lady, it seems like a very modest dressing. It seems like a sort of space between the fabric and the skin.”

More than just differentiating between girls, tomboys, bitches, women and ladies, however, “Where Are All the Women?” is also a reminder of the power of language when it comes to gender.

If the archetypal caricature of the feminist is a man-hating, nonshaving, bra-burning perma-angry lesbian, her favourite word is almost certainly ‘womyn.’ Though the first recorded use of that spelling was in 1831, womyn really exploded onto the scene in the 1980s.

It spent the next two decades being mocked, however, the urge to cut the word “man” out of “woman” used as an easy signifier of the pettiness and small-mindedness of the feminist movement by its critics.

It’s easy to target people who seem to advocate for intentionally misspelling things as part of an ideological platform, and “womyn” may seem ridiculous divorced from context. But to con-

strue something like “womyn” as merely a spelling question is to miss the point entirely.

On some level, Prickett’s article understands this—that language is an integral, important aspect of gender, and the way it’s policed reflects the nature of gender relations pretty accurately.

The words we use to describe certain groups can be incredibly powerful—racial minorities understand this, sexual minorities understand this; women understand this and transgender people understand it perhaps more so than any.

It’s one thing to call someone a degrading term, but when even the words ‘he’ or ‘she’ feel like a slur, spoken and written words can be a minefield.

As a result, in English, ‘they’ is increasingly gaining traction when it comes to identifying transpeople who prefer that to masculine or feminine pronouns.

In French, however, a language where every noun, no matter how inanimate, is gendered, and where you can’t even refer to a friend without revealing his or her gender, matters are a little trickier. How does one exist outside the binary?

Where is the in-between space?

Elaine Kennedy, a Montrealbased translator specializing in French-to-English work, noted that,

University gender breakdown

in French, the relationship between nouns and their gender doesn’t seem founded on anything in particular.

“Basically, in linguistics that relationship, within a language, is considered to be arbitrary,” she said. “Your table and chair? It’s very, very arbitrary.”

When searching to bridge gaps between French texts, which often use masculine pronouns as neutral, Kennedy works to be inclusive.

“One of the problems is then you end up in situations where there are precedents,” she said.

“Legal language can be very archaic, so you’re fighting with tradition. What you want is universal.

You want something that’s very universal, that applies to everyone who it could apply to.”

Although it was nearly a millennium ago, English used to be a gendered language, but it has moved almost entirely away from that.

Kennedy doesn’t see a similar shift occurring any time soon in French, but there has been some progress, she said.

“People will say, ‘les citoyens et les citoyennes,’” she said, using the example of addressing a group of citizens.

“And you see that a lot [with] people who are politically aware, when they are addressing an audience that they know is made up of

men and women. There is that awareness in French [now], in addressing people, they don’t just use the traditional masculine to refer to everybody. So that’s been a huge movement.”

Of course, even the act of translation is trapped. In “Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation,” a 1988 essay by Lori Chamberlain, the author discusses the pejorative nickname for translations, “les belles infidèles.”

The term translates as the unfaithful beauties, a misogynist descriptor derived from the fact that in French, a “traduction” is feminine, and the original “texte” is masculine.

German, on the other hand, has a neutral gender, an easy fix for people who shudder at the thought of constructions like “xe” and “xir” to denote gender-indeterminate people.

For Prickett, ultimately, identity is as much about self-determination as anything else. Where there’s a will, there’s a word.

“It’s not entirely about biology, of course it’s not. It’s something elemental, this flesh and blood and bone desire to be a woman”—by which she meant a ‘woman,’ not simply female— “but it doesn’t necessarily have to do with the parts you were born with. It’s something else, like it’s almost like it’s in your blood,” she said.

“Being a woman doesn’t feel like it’s about your vagina.”

percentage of women compared to men in higher education

Key Concordia Students

1

2

Arts and Science Students (60%)

Engineering and Computer Science Students (19%)

3

Fine Arts Students (65%)

4

Business Students (47%)

Concordia Planning Committees

8

9

Academic Plan Steering Committee (22%)

Concordia Governance

10 11

5

Academic Plan Working Group (33%)

Board of Governors (30%) Senate (40%)

Independent Students (46%) Faculty

6

7

F

M

Visiting Students (50%)

12

All Concordia Faculty (34%)

All Students (50%)

13

All McGill Faculty (30%)

compiled by Andrew Brennan, graphic Julia Wolfe

GENDER & SEXUALITY

5 Are Virgins Better People?

Jessica Valenti Talks Myths, Virginity and Online Feminism

VIRGINITY

by Megan Dolski @megandolski Jessica Valenti doesn’t believe that a woman’s moral compass is located in between her legs. She points out though, that if you look at the mainstream media’s depiction of a sexy—but not sexual—virgin, or subscribe to popular conservative rhetoric, then you might have heard otherwise.

“Women are more than the sum of our sexual parts,” she says, in a documentary based on her book The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women.

Valenti is American writer and blogger who founded feministing.com, an online community that acts as a forum for feminist news and opinions. She is the author of three books, and currently writes a weekly column for The Nation magazine. Oh, and she was named one of The Guardian’s Top 100 inspiring women in 2009.

V-Card Vocabulary Are you a virgin? If you have a yes or no answer to that question at the tip of your tongue, wait up.

First, let’s define the word.

In The Purity Myth, Valenti points out that even if you spend an afternoon researching it at the Harvard library, you won’t be able to leave with a working medical definition of the term virginity.

The meaning of the word is inevitably attached to the way one defines sex.

Some people consider oral sex as sex; others say an orgasm is required, while some won’t consider it sex unless both a penis and vagina are involved.

Valenti addresses the fact that, as a result, a definition for virginity that is both technically and culturally accepted simply doesn’t exist.

Some might argue that when a girl’s hymen—a fold of tissue that partially covers the external opening of the vagina—breaks, she is

no longer a virgin.

These days, some women will undergo vaginal rejuvenation surgery to reconstruct their hymens and become “born-again” virgins.

Using the hymen as a standard of virginity is flawed, however, as many girls break theirs doing things completely unrelated to sexual activity, such as playing sports or inserting a tampon—and some girls are even born without them.

“It seems kind of ridiculous that all of this weight can be put on something that we don’t really know that much about,” Valenti said.

She argues that the ambiguity surrounding the word is problematic, especially where the female portion of the population is concerned.

“Culturally, we view the term to mean all sorts of different things that most often have a negative effect on women,” she said, adding that the way the word is often defined is unfairly exclusive.

“We think of it in terms of penetrative heterosexual sex, meaning that same-sex couples aren’t really having sex,” said Valenti.

Culturally, the term has been considered to mark an important right of passage—but Valenti said society would benefit from making the term less restrictive.

“I think it would be great if we had a way to talk about your initiation into sexual life, and let it mean of lot of things—I think if we had a little bit more variety and openness on that, there wouldn’t be this disproportionate focus on penetrative, heterosexual intercourse.”

The Purity MytH Valenti believes that notion of virginity relating to the moral purity of women is incredibly detrimental.

“There is a lie that women’s sexuality has some bearing on who they are and how good they are as people, and that what we do or don’t do sexually is a marker of our moral character,” she explained,

when describing the subject of her second book, The Purity Myth.

While Valenti addresses the issue specifically in an American socio-political context, she notes that the obsession with virginity is ubiquitous around the globe, and that manifests itself in slightly different ways.

In the case of the United States, she said, the movement is closely tied to conservative rightwing political ideology and its fear of losing power.

“You can see it in everyday policies that legislators try to pass in regards to women’s rights and health,” Valenti explains. “Whether it has to do with abortion legislation or sex education, the idea is very much this paternalistic view of protecting women from having sex.”

In her work, she references purity balls—events where young girls pledge their virginity to their fathers—as an unfortunate symptom of this way of thinking.

“By focusing on young girls’ virginity, you are still focusing on their sexuality, but the answer to fighting sexualization is not to use the objectification of women’s bodies,” she said.

While the sexualization of women may be seen as negative on all sides of the political spectrum, Valenti said the religious right’s means of combating it is more counterintuitive than anything.

“If you want to fight sexualization, then we need to tell girls that what they do sexually is not equal to what they are.”

She said if purity balls were really about father-daughter bonding, as advertised, then dads should consider becoming Girl Scout leaders, or play sports with their daughters.

“Teach her that her worth has nothing to do with her sexual choices but who she is as a person and based on the moral choices she makes.”

Her book further argues against the “myth” by using statistics to prove the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education.

Still, Valenti said sometimes facts don’t suffice when it comes to fighting an ideological battle.

“That is why they don’t give up,” she said, referencing advocates of abstinence-only education. “Because it’s not based in science. They are not held down by any sort of fact.”

But while it may be a hurdle, Valenti says it’s important for people to keep moving forward by presenting well-researched arguments.

“The more studies that come out that say, ‘This isn’t working,’ the harder it is for them to ignore it,” she said.

Digital Feminism While science is working in favour of feminism, Valenti said, so is technology.

With the inception of feministing.com, The Guardian has credited her with shifting the movement to a digital platform.

The Columbia Journalism Review has praised the website for being “head and shoulders above almost any writing on women’s issues in mainstream media.”

Valenti said the online wave of feminism has been crucial in eliminating geographical boundaries that previously constrained the movement, adding that social media has done wonders for feminism.

“Before, if you were a feminist activist, it was because you were already interested in feminism— you sought it out,” she explained.

“But now, women are coming across it accidently. They do a Google search, and they find feministing.com, or they find a feminist Tumblr blog, and they relate to it. The potential for outreach is really incredible.”

A benefit, she thinks, that’s evidently showing.

“I think young women are seeking more action than ever before, and you see it all the time— young people are getting together and taking charge.”

GENDER & SEXUALITY

6 Out in the Locker Room Young Gay Athletes Face a Sports Culture in Flux

by Eric White @ericwhiteyo Although there are gay politicians, entertainers and writers, there are few gay athletes—especially male ones.

In the four largest sports leagues in North America—the National Hockey League, National Football League, Major League Baseball and National Basketball Association—there still hasn’t been one male athlete to come out while active.

Sports, especially men’s sports, continue to be one of the last places in society where it seems being gay just isn’t accepted.

Nevertheless, numerous Concordia Stingers athletes, both male and female, say that they would be comfortable having a gay teammate. But despite consciously accepting different sexual orientations, locker room culture might be causing problems.

The two Stingers captains interviewed both recognized that they may have had gay teammates at some point in their lives, but doubt they have any gay teammates now.

“I would have no problem [with having a gay teammate]. I don’t see how it would affect the game or the player,” said Dario Pellizzari, captain of Concordia’s men’s rugby team.

Taylor Garner, captain of the

men’s basketball team, agreed.

“Personally, it’s not an issue to me at all,” Garner said. “Sexual orientation holds no bearing to me. I’m not one to judge anyone for who they are. It really makes no difference to me if I had a gay teammate or not.”

Although they did not want to speak for their teammates, Garner and Pellizzari both expected that if a teammate were to come out, he would be treated with respect.

Nevertheless, the sports world still seems intimidating for gay athletes. One of the main reasons could be the prevalence of a subtle form of homophobia that surfaces in homophobic language, which those interviewed said was common in the locker room.

In the sports world, casually tossing the word “gay” around or calling someone a “faggot” is commonplace. Despite the players’ openness and potential acceptance, the continued use of this language makes these barriers much harder to break down.

“I’m sure it would affect the person if it was used,” said Pellizzari. “But it’s almost second nature to us now. We don’t even think about it, you know? When we say it it’s just an expression.

“Should it be monitored?

Probably.” “[For] someone who was gay to

have to listen to that, I think would kind of regress them in their process of coming out, if they wanted to,” said Garner.

Galen Dodd, a high school volleyball player in Los Angeles who told his story to outsports.com, said that this typical language did impact him.

“Every practice I would hear some sort of comment about something or someone being ‘gay’ or a ‘fag,’ and each time I cringed thinking of how I would never be able to be who I truly am with them,” Dodd said.

“Even though those terms are not meant to be harmful, and don’t even seem relevant to what the speaker is trying to express, it has become common language among teenagers and young adults. But after I came out, my fellow players have been nothing but supportive.”

While the men’s teams might be comfortable with a gay teammate in the locker room, for one of Concordia’s women’s teams, the issue has already been resolved.

Goalkeeper Saby Dagenais, who is in her second year of playing on Concordia’s women’s soccer team, came out soon after joining the squad.

“I did not even hesitate whether to say it or not to say it,” Dagenais said. “It just came out with me naturally and I was really open about

it. I was very accepted for that.”

But Dagenais’s situation seems less likely in men’s sports. According to the athletes, society continues to expect male athletes to be very masculine, making it more difficult for anyone who doesn’t fit the typical macho mould.

“Qualities required in a sport for guys are the classical qualities of a typical masculine guy,” said Dagenais.

“To be an athlete, it’s more of a macho, manly sort of profession,” Garner agreed. “Professional athletes are sort of the epitome of all things masculine.”

Although things definitely need to change, as our society needs to change its conceptions of the typical athlete, and athletes need to gain a better understanding of the harmful effects of homophobic language, the athletes interviewed were optimistic that more gay athletes will begin to come out in the future.

“So hopefully, as we become more and more comfortable with this [idea], gay players will feel more comfortable being able to come out.

It’ll take a little bit of time for sure, but hopefully it’s the way society’s going right now,” Garner said.

Considering the male athletes who have come out, such as former Montreal Impact soccer player David Testo, former NFL player Wade Davis, and boxer Orlando Cruz, who is still active, it looks like

the future could be positive.

Given the way Garner and Pellizzari both said they would react positively to having a gay teammate, it’s possible something similar would happen on a Concordia men’s sports team.

Nevertheless, even if they haven’t had any out teammates, the prevalence of homophobic language in our culture and in our locker rooms is going to continue to keep people in the closet.

Increased awareness of the negative effects of homophobic slurs, even if not used menacingly, and a growing acceptance that gay men can compete in “macho” sports, such as Davis did in football, could open up doors for more athletes to come out.

Although homophobia seems to be slowly dissipating, lots of work still needs to be done. An increased awareness about the harmful effects of homophobic language could go a long way in making the sports world more welcoming for gay athletes.

But as more and more professional athletes come out after their retirement, and more and more amateur teams come to terms with having gay teammates, it’s possible that, some day in the not-too-distant future, gay athletes will be judged by their play, not their orientation.

GENDER & SEXUALITY

7 A Safe Space in the Church Basement West Island Youth Centre Gives LGBTQ Youth a Community

by Geoffrey Vendeville @geoffvendeville Since she was eight or nine years old, Jessica Malz felt she was unlike any other girl she knew.

While her friends chased boys around the schoolyard at recess, she remembers usually running after the girls.

“I knew something was different,” she said. “But I didn’t have the words for it. I was just always more interested in my friends who were girls.”

As far as she knew, she was the only person at her school, and in all of the West Island suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, who was attracted to people of the same sex. For most of her high school years, she recalls feeling unhappy and intensely confused about her identity.

Now the coordinator of the LGBTQ Youth Centre in Beaconsfield, QC, the only centre of its kind in the West Island, Malz is helping many queer and “questioning” teens become comfortable with who they are.

Two years old this May, the centre usually attracts a dozen young people between the ages of 14 and 21 each week, with higher attendance in the summer.

Housed in the well-lit basement of the Beaconsfield United Church, the centre has a small library of books and movies, a big-screen

TV, and a foosball table.

A chain of rainbow flags hang from the entrance, and drawings made by the kids decorate the walls. In addition to weekly dropin hours and discussion groups, Malz and volunteers at the centre hold meetings for parents of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer kids, many of whom are concerned about how to make their home a more welcoming environment for their child.

Since the centre opened its doors in May 2011, young people between the ages of 14 and 21 have shown up every week for advice and to share their experiences with others like themselves.

The centre organizes movie screenings, dinners, and trips to Pride events in the summer.

Like Malz herself when she was a teenager, many of the adolescents who use the centre are unsure about their identity.

“Some of them are confused about whether what they’re going through is gender- or sexual orientation-related,” she said. “Others are struggling with normal teen issues like sex, drugs, self-acceptance, figuring out what they want to take in CEGEP—a lot of normal coming-of-age stuff.”

Malz says she takes a handsoff approach to helping teens at the centre, drawing heavily on personal experience.

“I never tell them what to do,” she said. “I listen and make them feel understood and that they’re not alone. And then I use the resources that we have—and the best resource we have is other teens that have gone through the process themselves.”

Although high school is still a very difficult place for LGBTQ teens, Malz says it’s generally easier for teenagers to come out now than it was when she was their age, due to the spread of studentled Gay-Straight Alliances and wider accessibility to counselling services in schools.

Most of the adolescents at the centre have already come out to their friends and family, but a few of them still come to drop-in hours in secret, Malz said.

“Sometimes I Don’t Like the Perfect Girl”

Feel

tity. Sometimes I don’t feel exactly like the perfect girl, which is why queer is better than lesbian.”

Before identifying as queer, Sarah thought she might have been bisexual. When she came out as bi to her peers at school, one of her friends replied, “You can’t be bi. You’re either gay or straight.

There’s no in-between.”

Sarah’s parents, who she described as being very open-minded, were much more accepting.

“Even before I told them, they were very supportive, saying that, ‘If you ever figure [this] out later on life we will still love you and care about you,’” she said.

Now in her last year of high school, Sarah is hoping to enter the three-year social service program at Dawson College as preparation for a career in foster care.

Exactly

Sarah, 17, started going to the centre last year with questions about her sexual identity (she asked to be mentioned by her first name only, even though she has come out to her friends and family). She generally eschews labeling herself, but will say that she identifies as queer.

Asked why she prefers this term to lesbian, she said, “It has a lot to do with my way of thinking in the world and how I feel about my very ambiguous gender iden-

A Safe Place Malz’s first priority when she greets newcomers to the centre during drop-in hours is to make them feel safe.

Typically, Malz introduces anyone new to the regulars at the centre and suggests some topics for discussion. Although the teens spend most of their time at the centre talking in a group, they can also ask for a one-on-one appointment with Malz or a volunteer counsellor.

Asked what she often tells the kids in these sessions, Malz said, “I

just try and tell them that they’re free to explore and figure it out and they don’t need to label themselves or prove anything to anybody.”

When she was growing up, Malz says she didn’t have anywhere to turn to for support.

“When I was a teenager, I didn’t know anyone who was gay.

I had nobody to talk to, and felt very isolated, and very scared. I didn’t know anyone in my community, I didn’t know anyone at school—and at the time, high school was not a safe place to come out in,” she said.

“For many years, I didn’t even have the words to express what I was going through.”

When she found out about the opening of the LGBTQ Youth Centre, she felt a need to apply as a volunteer. After the former coordinator of the centre moved to the United States last year, Malz was offered the job.

“It’s been very meaningful for me to able to support these kids and watch them come out and have a safe place to come to,” she said.

After getting to know some of the teens at the centre so intimately, Malz says it is often hard to see them move on.

“It’s bittersweet, because I saw them come a long way in terms of just accepting themselves and getting happy and becoming a part of their community.”

Homophobia at Concordia

Growing Up Gendered

FirsT Link Queer Issue Ignited Storm of Controversy

A Look at Transgender Issues From a Medical Perspective

Thirty-one years ago, The Link decided to publish its first-ever Queer Issue on Valentine’s Day. Following publication, angry students removed 5,000 copies from the stands, and editors and staff writers were threatened with violence and rape.

Despite the reaction, it set a precedent for The Link—for 31 years, the paper’s editors have annually dedicated a special issue to covering LGBTQ-related topics.

We interviewed Karen Herland, who wrote for the issue, about the atmosphere at the time and what she thinks about the situation today.

You can watch the interview at youtube.com/thelinknewspaper.

Those who think of gender as something as simple as being born a girl or a boy and growing up to become a woman or a man should think again.

Most people come into the world as females or males and are socialized as feminine or masculine individuals according to norms defining what is a woman or a man in any given culture. But this is far from being a straightforward concept.

“Sex is what you go to bed with and gender is what you go to bed as,” said Dr. Stephen Rosenthal, director of the pediatrics endocrine clinic at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center and founder of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center.

—by Pierre Chauvin

—by Simon Van Vliet

TO READ MORE, CHECK OUT THELINKNEWSPAPER.CA’S SPECIAL ISSUE SECTION.

GENDER & SEXUALITY

8 I Seem Like an Average Straight Guy Should I Out Myself to Everyone I Meet? by an anonymous special to The Link

Out Of Missouri How Montreal and a Well—Timed Craigslist Ad Helped Me Come Out by andrew cutforth Somewhere in the heart of America, a little east of Dorothy’s house, you’ll find a place where the rivers run. This is the Show Me State— my homeland. I’m a Missourian.

But I’m also a gay Missourian.

Growing up in the American Midwest is exactly like you’d imagine. Fridays were for football games, Sundays were for church.

My life wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t awesome either. At that time, homosexuality was a taboo topic in Missouri. Gay-bashing was used by all and rarely received reprimand from teachers or parents.

Throughout high school, my closest friends were girls. In a football-centred macho society, this, along with my obsession for languages, clearly set me apart.

During the tumultuous period of puberty, I found myself attracted to other guys. I lived in a constant state of paranoia, assuming that everyone was accusing me of being “the F word.” In reality, I’m sure most people couldn’t have cared less.

Despite these attractions and secret, guilt-ridden porn-watching sessions, I concluded my homosexuality would dissipate as soon as I was thrown into a more diverse crowd. Obviously it was just a reaction to not fitting in, right?

“What is the exact social and political opposite of Missouri?” I wondered to myself.

My French teacher, a native of Montreal, first told me about the city. It sounded like just what I needed. And at 19, the allure of francophone culture and cheaper tuition pushed me to pack my bags. I was ready to embark on new adventures in a new country.

My first years here, I tried my best to suppress “the gay.” In 2010, my cover was finally blown. A close, yet persistent friend got me to confess my same-sex attractions. He then proceeded to betray my trust by posting an ad for me on the Craigslist m4m personals titled “Never been in a long-term relationship before.” I was beyond furious.

Yet, as the emails rolled in, I

saw that some of the guys sounded decent and, like me, were looking for something more than sex.

At the time, I felt betrayed by my friend. Today, I know that I owe him a debt. He changed my life.

As I slowly came out to my friends, my perspective changed.

My friends didn’t care about who I wanted to be with. They supported me. It was remarkable how little changed after I came out. I was still the same Andrew as before.

I tried getting involved with the LGBTQ club at school. They were all incredibly nice people, but it just wasn’t my circle. Being out did not mean I had to change my friends or adopt new political ideas.

My entire life, I’d been fighting to fit in with the norm. By being true to myself and to my friends and for the first time, I finally felt that.

On Nov. 18, 2012, I was ready to get rid of my last remaining inner struggle—I decided to come out to my parents.

It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I dialed my mother’s number. She listened patiently as her trembling son told her that he was gay. At the end, she gave a short laugh and said the most beautiful words she has ever said to me.

“Andrew, our love for you is unconditional. We love you for who you are and support you.”

I bawled.

After hearing that from my conservative Midwestern parents, I knew that no matter how much I messed up in this life, they would always be there. For the first time, I truly appreciated the extent of their love. Without them, I couldn’t be where I am today.

Not everyone is blessed with accepting families or friends, but inside each of us we have ourselves.

I know that I am one of the lucky ones, but one thing that I gained from this experience is that it’s okay to be different—but it’s also okay to be different from the different.

I’m incredibly proud that, throughout my coming-out process, I stayed true to myself. I was Andrew, just Andrew. The boy from Missouri.

I came out just a few weeks before coming to Montreal. First I told some friends. They were surprised. Some of them thought I was joking, but when they realized that I wasn’t kidding they took me seriously, listened to what I had to say and ultimately were very supportive.

Then I told my family. My parents were cool with it, but also pretty surprised. My sisters, although supportive, were a bit taken aback and not sure how to react.

Even though I was given love and support, it still wasn’t that easy.

I think it’s because of society’s stereotypes and the notions we’ve internalized about how a gay man is supposed to act, dress and sound. With many gay people, it’s not hard to tell. But for me, since I’m still greeted with surprise, coming out hasn’t gotten easier.

I realize that part of it is my fault. I haven’t put myself out there that much. I haven’t integrated myself into the gay community.

I’ve only been to Montreal’s Gay Village a few times. I have a few gay friends, but most of the people I hang out with are straight.

Since coming to Montreal, I’ve been in something of an open relationship with a guy who used to think he was straight. He now identifies as bisexual.

Last year, we lived in residence together and no one knew we were more than friends. I think most people knew I was gay. I told a few people in the first few days and that’s all I had to do. After that, I think people pretty much just asked around and found out, or didn’t care.

But I still didn’t talk to anyone about the fact that my friendship was actually more than that. And even though he’s now “out” (as bi) to most of our friends and to his family, I still sometimes find it difficult to talk to friends and family about my sexual orientation.

In this age where being gay is way more accepted and seems to continue to become more so, as a gay man who on the outside seems straight, I feel like I’m in a weird place.

When I meet someone new, I still don’t know when the time is right to out myself. Unless I can rely on someone else to break the news, I feel like it hangs like a cloud over our conversations and interactions. It seems like unless I get drunk, we get close enough or they find out from someone else, I’ll continue to feel just a bit awkward.

I’m not sure what the solution is. I know a lot of it’s on me—to be more comfortable with myself, proud of myself, and maybe to claim my identity a bit more. I’m not sure how to make it easier for other people unless I change the way I speak, act, or dress to conform closer to society’s expectation of a gay man. It feels like I will always surprise people when I tell them.

Most of the time, it’s not that big a deal. But then there are those awkward situations. When I was at my sister’s birthday party, my sister’s friend and her fiancé, both native Montrealers, asked me how I liked the French-Canadian girls.

My straight friend and I exchanged awkward glances and I wasn’t sure what to say. I tried to brush the question off. Are there language barriers, she asked?

Yeah. Language barriers.

I talked to my friend about it later. He told me how at his college, they have a saying. “Sexuality is a spectrum, not a binary.” Given my own experiences with other people, I completely agree.

Although I think our society is still far from it, maybe we will eventually be able to accept that sexuality is in fact, a spectrum.

And in an age where our generation is constantly criticized for our political apathy, poor communication skills, and self-centredness, I think something beautiful is surfacing: People are beginning to no longer give a fuck. Sexuality is becoming more fluid.

I feel like I’m always hearing about “straight” people being in same-sex relationships, or considering themselves bi, or not putting labels on their sexuality. One of my sisters, after I came out to her, told me how she has experimented with her sexuality and considers herself bi.

I recognize that decades ago, considering my appearance, behaviour and the potential repercussions, it’s possible I wouldn’t have come out. For people like my “friend” and I, it might have tortured us. We might not have been able to tell our friends or families about our reality.

Even though we still have a long way to go to fight for equality, as LGBTQ people are still being discriminated against in many areas of society, I think we’re on the right track.

And while I’m not holding my breath, maybe in the future people will stop making assumptions about people’s sexuality. Maybe then I’ll no longer feel like I’m in limbo.

VOLUME 34

GENERAL ELECTION

Friday, March 8, 2013 4:00 p.m.

The Link Office (1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., H-649)

Come vote for Volume 34’s masthead this Friday at 4:00 p.m.

The following people are running for positions: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Colin Harris

OPINIONS EDITOR Michael Wrobel

COORDINATING EDITOR Corey Pool

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jayde Norström

MANAGING EDITOR Erin Sparks

PHOTO EDITOR Alex Bailey Sam Slotnick

NEWS EDITOR Andrew Brennan Jane Gatensby

For more information, and to find out if you are eligible, email editor@thelinknewspaper.ca

GRAPHICS EDITOR Graeme Shorten Adams

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Sam Slotnick Michael Wrobel CURRENT AFFAIRS EDITOR Katie McGroarty FRINGE ARTS EDITOR Jake Russell FRINGE ARTS ONLINE Michelle Pucci SPORTS EDITOR Yacine Bouhali

Elections to The Link’s Board of Directors will be held March 15 at 4:00 p.m.

COPY EDITOR Justin Blanchard COMMUNITY EDITOR Flora Hammond The following people are eligible to vote: Alex Bailey, Joshua Barkman, Natalia Lara Diaz Berrio, Yacine Bouhali, Jane Gatensby, Flora Hammond, Oliver Leon, Dylan Maloney, Jayde Norström, Michelle Pucci, Graeme Shorten Adams, Riley Sparks, Jonathan Woods and current The Link Masthead

DRINK WITH THE LINK

After a long day of voting, there’s nothing better than a cold beer at your friendly student bar. Come join past, future and current The Link masthead at Reggie’s this Friday, have a few drinks and get to know us a bit better. We’ll be heading down after our elections, so swing by at 6:00 p.m. and hang out.

Fringe Arts

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EDGY Women 2013 Mixes Sport With Extreme Feminism

by Elysha del Giusto-Enos @elyshaenos There’s some debate over whether one artist will be bringing her own 1,500pound pillar of clay or if the EDGY Women Festival has to provide it.

Los Angeles-based Heather Cassils will be punching that pillar for 30 minutes in total darkness, lit only by flashbulbs, as the audience lines the walls of a small room in the Blue Cat Boxing Club.

If this performance and its resulting sculpture seem suspiciously physical for a women-based arts fest, one’s lack of EDGY-knowledge is to blame—but now’s as good a time as any to fix that problem.

EDGY Women is going into its 20th edition of unapologetic feminist art and this year’s theme blends art and sport in a kind of femininemeets-masculine tornado.

The festival is presented by Studio 303, a local art institution, and its artistic director, Miriam Ginestier, said that while EDGY is always out to unite forms, this year is special. It revolves around a theme—sports.

When organizing this year’s fest, Ginestier took out her little black book of artists she wanted to collaborate with. She extended the offer that they come be part of this year’s festival and gave them freedom in developing their own concepts.

The results are performances such as one artist physically beating herself up for three hours. There’s also a rule-breaking hockey free-forall and a mix of high theatre with fighting in Edgy Lucha, a good-versus-evil female wrestling match.

These shows, along with many others, are on during the festival

SUGAR, SPICE AND BLOOD PACKETS and Ginestier is waiting to be surprised along with her audience by what her artists bring. She knows the impulse behind the pieces, but won’t pigeonhole what she expects each artist to present.

“A lot of festivals are like, ‘Here, public, here are some shows for you to consume,’” Ginestier said. “And that’s not my main focus. I’m more artist-driven.”

She has invested in creating a community for the fest’s participants by doing things like renting two apartments—one for the artists and one for the technical team. She says this way they can meet each other and have meaningful exchanges leading up the shows.

Even the boxing club where most of the events are was singled out for its vibe. The Blue Cat Boxing Club, north of the train tracks

in Outremont, is one that tries to build a community and foster art.

“Boxing is a sport that’s an art because it pushes limits more than just physically,” said Phil Dickson, owner of the Blue Cat. He stressed that the setup for the shows would need to be respectful of the space.

That left the EDGY Women technical team to get imaginative in order to accommodate about twenty hanging punching bags and an audience of about two to three hundred people that will be flowing around for hours during the festival’s two-day show, Game On au Chat Bleu.

During this show, the invisible wall between the performers and the crowd will be more like a circle.

The audience will be wandering around, and keeping the performers comfortable with that setup is

another challenge for the tech team.

During Game On, nine artists will come together in their own corners and spaces within Chat Blue to break the rules and challenge their audience. This might seem like an exaggeration, but how else could a woman sequestered in a weight room, beating on herself for three hours be described?

Coral Short is presenting “Stop Beating Yourself Up,” where she’ll set up shop on a few mats and spend a gruesome three hours hitting herself. There will be blood—well, blood packets—to really drive the point home.

She’ll be doing that while Cassils, an artist and former semi-professional boxer, punches a pillar of clay in a small room for 30 minutes—or until she can’t anymore.

The performances are a way to

think about how violence is entertainment. Also, since Cassils hails from L.A., she’s fascinated by the relationship between artists and photographers, and between what’s real and what’s fake.

Real from fake could also be the theme for the final show of the fest—the EDGY Lucha.

“It’s like a virus,” said Marijs Boulogne, a Belgian artist directing the Lucha. “It’s like you smoked something—you get this bliss. But it’s a real bliss. It’s not a drug. It’s artistic ecstasy.”

Female wrestlers are being directed in the EDGY throw-down by Boulogne who sees wrestling as a kind of super-charged theatre. Coming from the theatre world, when Boulogne started watching wrestling, she felt it was transcendent.

She said that although wrestling

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Fringe Arts

Photo Alex Bailey

Photo Alex Bailey

can seem fake, what the Lucha offers is what’s beyond personas and spandex. For Boulogne, the realness comes with watching which wrestler is quicker on their feet—which can get the love of the crowd and has the most creative ideas in the ring.

“Wrestling is a way for people to show their identity and to get fans,” said Boulogne. “Those people do a lot more for minority groups than any subsidy or government plan—they do it in the ring. They get respect because they are wrestlers. I think it’s much safer and more effective way to influence tensions in society.”

Boulogne added that in Mexico, Cassandro el Exotico, a popular wrestler, is labeled “‘exotic’ [because] his sexuality is not really clear. It’s unclear whether he is a woman or a man. But he ac-

tually created respect for this kind of non-distinct position.”

Wrestling has also been a vehicle for women to articulate their physical abilities. Women in Mexico weren’t allowed to wrestle for a long time but they started their own league and the audience was consistent and there was nothing the authorities could do.

So can women be physically powerful in a male way?

Like a kind of feminist Jeopardy! game, EDGY Women gives out the answer to make its audience see the question.

This year’s presentation of extreme feminism has EDGY pushing that line of what women are told they can be—and what they think they can be—right up against the things men are expected to be—all in a palatable entertainment form.

Photo Valérie Sanguin

Photo Alex Bailey

Sports

Stingers Basketball: RSEQ final a déjà vu for ConU women• Page 17

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

Fernando Fernandez (yellow jacket) teaches Esteban Lara (foreground) and Ivan Mayda how to cross-country ski. A snow-covered Mount-Royal makes a perfect spot for beginners to practice.

Photo Natalia Lara Diaz Berrio

BOXSCORES

WEEK OF FEB. 25 TO MARCH 3

Saturday, March 2

Women’s Basketball RSEQ final - Concordia 48, McGill University 51

UPCOMING GAMES

THIS WEEK IN CONCORDIA SPORTS

Sunday, March 10

3:30 p.m.

3:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 27

Men’s Basketball RSEQ semifinal Concordia 63, Bishop’s University 70 Women’s Basketball RSEQ semifinal Concordia 65, Université du Québec à Montréal 62

Women’s Indoor Soccer RSEQ quarterfinal vs.

Laval Rouge et Or Men’s Indoor Soccer RSEQ quarterfinal vs.

UQTR Patriotes

Check out Stingers game summaries at thelinknewspaper.ca/sports

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Sports

DEJA VU FOR STINGERS ConU Women Lose Hoops Title to McGill for Second Straight Year

by Yacine Bouhali @MyBouhali As the second of two free throws

by McGill guard Marie-Pier Bastrash fell through the net, Keith Pruden found the nearest referee and called a timeout.

Down three points with six seconds left in the fourth quarter of last Saturday’s provincial final, the Stingers’ head coach knew his team still had a chance to tie the game.

All it took was perfect execution on the most important play of their season.

After Pruden huddled the team around him and explained the play he wanted, the players quickly scattered and the referee gave the ball to point guard Ashley Clarke, who inbounded for Concordia.

A few premeditated passes later, the ball found its way to three-point specialist Alex Boudreau in the corner of the court. In control of her team’s destiny, she took a step into a wall of two McGill defenders and made the most important shot of her season.

Sitting on the edge of their seats, each of the 1,023 spectators at Love Competition Hall held their collective breath as the ball rolled off Boudreau’s fingers and into the air towards the net.

But the ball crashed onto the rim and bounced off.

Moments later, the final buzzer sounded. Final score: McGill 51, Concordia 48.

For the second straight year, McGill had bested the Stingers in the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec championship game.

For the second straight year, the Stingers could only watch in silence as the Martlets received the RSEQ banner and hoisted the championship trophy with gold medals hanging around their necks.

“We had trouble scoring, we had a lot of open looks but couldn’t put the ball in,” said Pruden. “We lost because we couldn’t put the ball in the basket.”

The statistics showed as much: The Stingers were just 20-for-67 from the field and a measly threefor-24 beyond the three-point line.

Concordia wasn’t much better rebounding the ball, as McGill dominated that category by a mark of 44-25.

But even worse for the Stingers, their usual knack for drawing fouls— they entered the game second only to McGill in the conference in free-

throw attempts on the season— seemed to disappear at halftime.

“Full credit to McGill for playing good defense […] but we didn’t take a single free throw in the second half—and that is not my team’s fault,” said Pruden. “We were getting hand-checked every single time we would put the ball on the floor and the referees wouldn’t make a call.”

It was a complete turnaround from the beginning of the game for the Stingers, who dominated early as they took a 6-0 lead minutes into the first period.

But that dominance would be short-lived, as turnovers, missed shots and poor rebounding led the Martlets to take a 19-12 lead into the second and a 32-23 lead into the half.

It was much of the same in the third period, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Stingers starting guard and two-time league MVP Kaylah Barrett fouled out seconds into the final frame.

“She feels like she let us down,” said assistant coach Rastko Popovic.

Added Pruden, “It was painful for her, it was painful for the rest of the team—[she’s] a big chunk of our offense.”

Without their star player, Concordia saw rookie forward Marilyse Roy-Viau fill the void as eight of her 18 points would come in the game’s final 10 minutes. But it simply wasn’t enough, as the Stingers were unable to beat a team they had defeated twice in February. “[The players] put a lot of work into this and I understand their disappointment, but they have to use it as a motivation to train harder in the gym this summer so it doesn’t happen next year,” said Popovic. “I hope this hurts for the rest of the summer, and every time they go to the gym to shoot all they think about is this game.”

The Stingers nonetheless have reason to be proud this year, having gone 11-5 in the regular season, their best mark since going 15-5 in the 1998-99 season—the last time they made nationals.

They also have good reason to remain positive heading into next season, as every player on the team will be returning and more experienced next year.

“We’ll need to step up next season, welcome the new players and together put higher standards so we’ll have more chances to win,” said Roy-Viau.

“I hope this hurts for the rest of the summer, and every time they go to the gym to shoot all they think about is this game.”

Rastko Popovic, Stingers Assistant Coach

Stingers forward Marilyse Roy-Viau takes a shot in Concordia’s 51-48 provincial championship loss to the McGill Martlets at Love Competition Hall last Saturday. Photos Leslie Schachter

Sports

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END OF THE ROAD FOR STINGERS ConU Men Fall Short of Basketball Final in Injury-Plagued Season

by David Kaufmann @davidkaufmann85 With 1:39 remaining on the clock in last Wednesday’s semifinal against the Bishop’s University Gaiters, it was evident the Concordia Stingers men’s basketball team’s season was already over.

After a frustrated Morgan Tajfel fouled by grabbing the ball out of Bishop’s guard Jonathan Bermillo’s hands, the death knell rung out on the Stingers’ season. Bermillo stepped to the line and sank a free-throw shot to put the Gaiters up by six.

“There’s a lot of issues we had during the game, and they wanted it more than we did,” said Stingers point guard Kyle Desmarais.

“This is a very disappointing season; this is not Concordia basketball,” said Stingers assistant head coach Ernie Rosa. “There’s nothing good about this year, except for the fact that it’s over.”

The Stingers got off to an 8-0 run just under three minutes into the opening period, but things quickly shifted the Gaiters’ way when forward Tim Hunter scored a three-pointer seconds later as Bishop’s then came from behind to take an 18-11 lead.

The Stingers would make a comeback of their own, retaking the lead 33-31 with 1:58 left in the second period.

But aside from briefly going ahead by one point late in the third period, the Stingers would never lead again en route to a 70-63 loss.

“Beating Concordia is huge for us,” said Gaiters head coach Rod Gilpin. “Anybody who wants to win a championship in our league has to go through Concordia.

They’ve been the benchmark for the last few years, so it feels special to get that win tonight.”

One reason the Gaiters advanced to the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec final is because Concordia lacked ball control.

“We had 28 turnovers today,” explained Rosa. “Normally that’s good enough for two and a half games. We had it in one game.”

Not helping matters was that the Stingers only made 31 per cent of their shots.

Some of their loss also can be blamed on their season finale performance, when the Laval Rouge et Or defeated them 84-62 on Feb. 22.

It was a game the Stingers needed to win to host the semifinals.

Instead, last Wednesday saw them march into a packed Mitchell Gym at Bishop’s. “When you go and play on the road in front of a rowdy crowd, it’s always a benefit for the home team,” said Rosa.

But the biggest reason for the Stingers’ early playoff exit is the string of injuries to numerous

Stingers forward Evens Laroche (foreground) defends Gaiters forward Jeremy Leonard-Smith as he looks to inbound the ball in Bishop’s 70-63 RSEQ semifinal win over Concordia last Wednesday.

key players they suffered over the course of the season.

“Almost everybody except our two youngest guys went through some kind of major injury this year,” said Rosa.

Added Desmarais, “I think [all the injuries] hurt our chemistry in the long run. As soon as we got something big going, somebody else got hurt and that just threw a wrench through our wheels.”

Among the notable injuries this season were a knee injury that forced Tajfel to miss seven weeks and one that kept guard JeanAndré Moussignac out since Feb. 1, as well as a broken thumb to forward Taylor Garner.

“I’ve never been on a team that has had so many injuries,” said Desmarais. Rosa, who has been coaching the Stingers since 1994 and made his playing debut for them in 1987, said the same was true for him as well.

Indeed, with the team that entered the season virtually the same one that went 14-2 and won the RSEQ last season, a lack of talent wasn’t the issue for this year’s Stingers.

In fact, the injury situation was so bad this year that Desmarais himself had to play through an ankle injury he suffered on Feb. 17.

“Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t be playing tonight,” said Rosa.

But the Stingers were fortunate he did: Desmarais was the heart and soul of the team last Wednesday, scoring a team-high 21 points and logging 37 minutes of playing time.

“He played like a champion. He did the best that he could under the circumstances and really showed a lot of guts,” said Rosa.

With the Stingers’ season officially over, the team’s coaching staff will now turn their attention to filling some holes in the lineup with the graduation of fourth-year veteran Tajfel and forwards Evens Laroche and Kafil Eyitayo, the latter two of which have completed their fifth and final year of Canadian Interuniversity Sport eligibility.

“Now is an opportunity for someone else to step up,” said Rosa. “Evens did his five years and someone has to do what he did and more to make us better.”

Fans look on as the Stingers and Gaiters prepare for the tipoff of last week’s semifinal playoff game at Bishop’s University. Photos courtesy of Bishop’s Athletic Department

Opinions

CSU Presidential Vacancy: Confrontational Behaviour at Council Meeting • Page 20

CONCORDIA SHOULD REBOOT ITS E-LEARNING STRATEGY “Real Education for the Real World” Doesn’t Happen Online

by Julia Wolfe @juruwolfe There’s been a lot of talk this year about online learning at Concordia.

Board of Governors and Senate meetings keep circling the subject, as we apparently need to move quickly to stay ahead of this online movement. What that means—or how it can be accomplished—is still muddied in bureaucratic waters.

University President Alan Shepard is a huge proponent of this push, which has become a substantial piece of his vision for Concordia.

That’s all well and good, but only so long as we understand what students actually want from their education here.

It’s one of the odd ironies of this generation that we no longer come to university exclusively to learn.

We’re here primarily for the degree and partly for the connections, social experience and—for some of us—the extra-curricular activities.

If our generation wants to learn something in particular, from the Python programming language to Spanish verb conjugation, we can already do it online, for free.

With tools like Codecademy and communities such as Google Course Builder, information sharing has never been easier.

Our eConcordia classes don’t come close to competing with the wide variety of resources available online, so it’s fundamentally strange to me that the university would even try to do so.

Why go head-to-head on a level playing field with everyone in the world when we can excel in areas they cannot?

The classroom allows for building programs that offer things students simply cannot get online.

Building relationships with professors, staff and future co-workers will make all the difference when applying for jobs. Plus, learning how to behave in a professional and challenging public environment is a really vital first step to entering the workforce.

And for some programs, there’s an added technical benefit.

A student representative and senior administrator recently suggested that because my program, computation arts, emphasizes digital work, it’s the perfect candidate for online learning.

That’s like suggesting that all publishing should happen in a library.

Much of our work, which

ranges from electronics to animation, requires heavy-duty and expensive equipment. Concordia has excellent facilities for this, which contributes significantly to the program’s success.

Online, CART would be forced to focus on the theoretical rather than the practical. As a university whose motto until recently was “real education for the real world,” that would run contrary a supposedly central tenet of Concordia.

Not to mention it probably won’t help our attempts to bolster the university’s reputation.

As we attempt to build a name for our university that’s worth something, we don’t want to appear to be giving out degrees. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the image an online-centric university gives off to potential applicants and their parents.

Inside the school, we have another problem.

Several administrators have asked that the university’s governing bodies not focus too much on issues regarding eConcordia and its contractor, KnowledgeOne. To do so, they say, could mean losing sight of the wider potential of online learning at Concordia.

On the contrary, we seem to be moving beyond these concerns far too quickly.

It’s unclear if, as was previously the case, members of Concordia’s Board of Governors also sit on eConcordia’s Board.

And while one of online learning’s biggest benefits should be cutting costs, KnowledgeOne is a for-profit company that has yet to finish a year with a surplus.

It’s this inability to cover costs that might explain why its workers are getting treated so terribly.

The most recent presentation on e-learning boasted that “a substantial number of [teaching assistants] are being supported through their work in eConcordia.”

Those same TAs might disagree.

After fighting to join the Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia union, online TAs had their hours cut to ensure they wouldn’t get a pay bump. The excess work was dumped on professors, who received no compensation for it.

Clearly, this is not an organization helping combat the labour-relations nightmare currently raging at Concordia.

The March 15 Senate meeting promises to address specifics, in-

Graphic Paku Daoust-Cloutier

cluding creating a roadmap for the future of e-learning at Concordia.

There, Concordia can consider how it can integrate physical and online learning into the same space. Very few classes are perfect for either medium, but every one could benefit from using both.

This seems to be the direction in which Shepard and the Provost are headed, but it would be nice to solidify that with some concrete decisions.

Let’s take advantage of the fact that Concordia has a team of critical and tech-savvy student senators.

Senate could strike a working group including these students mandated to look into different organizations and online tools Concordia could use.

Moodle and massive online courses are not our only options.

With diligent research and careful analysis, we could start building e-

learning into all our classes and leave online-only for occasional electives.

Digital textbooks, free tutorials and video lectures could supplement the in-class experience in a way we’re just not set up to do right now.

But our first step needs to be cleaning up our relationship with KnowledgeOne. Anything else will only set us up for more of the same in the future.

Opinions

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FORCING THE HAND OF COUNCIL The CSU Executive’s Childish Strategy to Get Its Way a special to The Link

by Gonzo Nieto @gonzebo Gonzo Nieto is a Concordia Student Union Arts & Science councillor and former VP Clubs and Internal. This article represents his own views, not those of the Concordia Student Union.

On Feb. 13, following the resignation of the CSU president several days earlier, council met to appoint a new president.

The procedure to do so states that council must elect a president from one of the remaining vicepresidents who are willing to take the position. If none are willing, then council chooses a councillor to fill the vacancy.

The executive’s role at this meeting, then, should have been to tell council which of the remaining VPs was willing to fill the vacancy, and allow council to decide.

Contrary to the spirit of the bylaws, however, the executives attempted to take the decision into their own hands by giving council only one “willing” VP to choose from: current VP Internal & Services Nadine Atallah.

As the conversation progressed, it became clear that council did not want Atallah to become president. When it came to a vote, there were seven votes against Atallah, five abstentions and

not a single vote in her favour.

Following a break to discuss how to proceed, the executives returned to the table only to restate their desire for Atallah to be appointed president, despite knowing that she had no support from council.

This time, they also produced a questionable legal opinion to support their view that council had no choice but to appoint the only willing VP. One executive, Hajar El Jahidi, went so far as to threaten her own council with legal action for what, in her eyes, was a breach of the union’s regulations.

Then, in a last-ditch attempt, the executives made an appeal to the harm it would do the union to go without a president for any period of time.

Council, however, was not willing to budge unless the executives provided more than one candidate, so the issue was sent to the judicial board for an interpretation on how to proceed if the only willing VP does not have the support of council.

The executive’s tactics could hardly be considered negotiating— they were more like an attempt to dictate a decision that actually lies in council’s hands.

While the threat of legal action proved to be empty, I would hope that the executive now understands that threatening people, especially when those people are

your bosses, is never a good idea.

Proof that the executives’ presentation of only one “willing” VP was an attempt to manipulate council in order to guarantee their desired outcome came when, several days after failing to install Atallah as president, VP External SimonPierre Lauzon came forward, announcing he would indeed be willing to take over the presidency.

This is in direct contradiction to his own words at the council meeting, where he explained he would be unable and unwilling to fill the vacancy.

Now that the case is in the hands of the judicial board, the executives have chosen to wait until the JB’s final ruling (scheduled for March 6) before considering the possibility of presenting another one of their VPs to be appointed as president.

It is curious that the same executives who argued that it would do harm to the union to go on without a president have now chosen to allow the union to go without one for an additional three weeks as they hold out for a last chance to see if they might be able to bypass council’s decision-making powers.

In doing so, they have unambiguously shown that they would rather find a way to force the hand of council than to acknowledge the will of council—and what would be best for the union—and act accordingly.

WE WANT THE AIRWAVES! Starting March 7, The Link will be on the radio every Thursday at 11:00 a.m.

Yes, your favourite newspaper is getting its own show on Concordia’s radio station, CJLO—and we want you in.

If you’ve got the gift of the gab and want to cover Concordia news, then you’re already halfway there.

We’ll hold your hand and take you through the writing and recording—just email the hosts to get started: Andrew at assistantnews@thelinknewspaper.ca, or Elysha at fringeonline@thelinknewspaper.ca.

Graphic Caity Hall

the link • march 05, 2013

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THE RIGHT WAY TO STROKE IT? I’m a 24-year-old male and healthy outside of one thing that I’m not quite sure about and that I haven’t been able to find an answer to. I haven’t been able to cum in about six months. Everything works until I finish, and then nothing ever comes out.

For years, I would squeeze my penis at the point of ejaculation to keep anything from coming out, but eventually stopped and started letting it happen. And then I spent a month without masturbating and my current problem began. Should I be worried?

—Ejaculatory Worry

I don’t think you should necessarily worry, but you should see a doctor because that is definitely a sign that something’s up.

It’s not necessarily something serious—for example, it could just be a bacterial infection—but I’m not a medical professional. If you’re unsure about something, my advice is always to get it checked out.

I recommend Concordia Health Services, your local Centre local de services communautaires or calling info-santé (8-1-1 from any Montreal number) for help finding a location.

And if you’re experiencing any pain, then I suggest heading to the emergency room.

That being said, it’s possible that this has nothing to do with your masturbating practice. There’s a pretty big following of men who

stop themselves from ejaculating for a variety of reasons and in different ways. Still, I don’t recommend it, because there aren’t any studies or medical evidence in its favour or on its long-term side effects.

Some swear by it and report no negative consequences after decades, while others report issues like bacterial infections, prostatitis and damage to the urethra. If you find masturbation enjoyable without it, then it’s probably just a good call to try to change the habit, although I totally recognize that that’s not necessarily easy to do.

Many of us develop masturbation techniques pretty early on and typically without guidance, which means there are probably a lot of “unique” methods out there.

I’m sure people had a variety of re-

actions when they read this question, but that many immediately thought of their own techniques, or ones they had as teens that they maybe grew out of.

It might be interesting to know that many sex therapists consider stroking your penis with a curved hand while lying down on your back or in a seated position until ejaculation to be the “proper” technique for male masturbation.

This definition is, of course, very specific. It also assumes that people and sexual pleasure fit into very specific boxes. It was first introduced in response to the prone technique, where you masturbate face down, essentially fucking the bed, a pillow or hand, and the death grip, where you masturbate

using an extremely tight grip.

These techniques started a concern that developing habits that don’t simulate the sensation of sexual penetration closely enough could mean later difficulties in someone’s sexual life.

Both methods are considered problematic because they apply a kind of pressure to the penis that can’t be replicated by penetrative sex and run the risk of desensitizing the penis to lighter pressure or touches.

The death grip even recently gained some mainstream infamy when some people tried to use it to fuel the claim that masturbating ruins sex, without specifying the problems with the technique itself.

So where am I going with all this? Basically, there’s no right or wrong way to masturbate, because

ultimately it depends on what kind of sex you’re going to be having and what you enjoy.

At the same time, some methods could cause potential longterm health or sexual response issues, so it never hurts to talk to a doctor if you have doubts, worries, or think you might be experiencing negative effects as a result.

—Melissa Fuller, @mel_full Submit your questions anonymously at sex-pancakes.com and check out “Sex & Pancakes” on Facebook.

Need some extra help? You can always contact Concordia Counselling & Development at 514-848-2424 ext. 3545 for SGW and ext. 3555 for Loyola.

Got a quick health question? Call infosanté at 8-1-1 from any Montreal number.

FIFTY YEARS OF THE BEATLES

by Liana Di Iorio @MsBerbtoYou

Graphic Flora Hammond

Across 4. Though John Lennon could have had dated just about anyone in the world, he chose this Japanese artist. Just her luck: she’s often accused of causing the break-up of the world’s greatest rock band. (2 words) 6. This is the name given to the phenomenon surrounding the band, which was then appropriated by a touring Fab Four tribute band.

8. This working-class English city is the hometown of John, Paul, George and Ringo—and it’s become something of a mecca for die-hard Beatles fans.

9. In 1964, the Beatles make their American television debut on this television host’s show, causing millions of teenage boys to grow out their hair, and millions of teenage girls to lose their shit. (2 words) 10. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has been named the greatest rock album of all time by multiple sources. It features “With A Little Help From my Friends”, “A Day in the Life” and “Lucy in the Sky with ____”.

11. The Beatles credit many American musicians with influencing their early style and even cover this American rock ’n’ roll architect’s “Roll Over Beethoven.” (2 words) Down 1. This March marks the 50th anniversary of Please, Please Me, the Beatles’ debut album. This famous music magazine named it the 39th greatest album of all time. (2 words) 2. Capitol Records, the American home of the Beatles, has its headquarters in this glitzy entertainment capital, where the building is an iconic part of its skyline. (2 words) 3. The band’s experience in this German city—the second largest in the country—led to a theory about expertise requiring 10,000 hours of practice.

5. A 2007 film musical that makes use of the Beatles’ music takes its name from this LennonMcCartney composition, “Across the ____.”

7. In 1968, the Beatles started their own record label named after this fruit. Hint: Steve Jobs had nothing to do with it.

Opinions

22 ##

BARTON FLATS

COMIC JONATHAN WOODS

LINKOGRAPHY

the link • march 05, 2013

thelinknewspaper.ca/opinions

WE DRINK TO NUMB THE PAIN

GRAPHIC JAYDE NORSTRÖM

FALSE KNEES COMIC JOSHUA BARKMAN

NAH’MSAYIN?

May the Faucets Be With You When our university went bottled waterfree, I was all-in.

I joined the Rebel Alliance (bought a water bottle), sacrificed everything for the cause (bought a replacement bottle when I lost the first) and occasionally ran around the Hall Building duelling unsuspecting members of the Empire (tackled confused strangers).

But these new water fountains are not making my life any easier.

The fancy water bottle fill-up stations are supposed to be our lifeblood. But it appears you need the strength of ten Jedi just to operate the damn things. The mere task of refuelling has been a grueling battle of thumb vs. button. And the thumb is losing.

I’m sorry to admit, dear Padawan, that I am not up to the task. I find myself growing

weak, often succumbing before my bottle is even half-full.

I tried to hold out, but I fear the tide in my soul is turning. I can hear the voices of normal water fountains calling to me in a demented cackle: “You want this, don’t you? The thirst is swelling in you now. Take your water bottle.

Use it. Give in to the water.”

So I leave you this note, as I leave this place in search of a nearby planet reportedly sympathetic to our cause. There, you can let the water flow through you. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. They call it McGill.

—Julia Wolfe, Supreme Commander of the Rebel Alliance (Editor-in-Chief) Graphic Joshua Barkman

the link • march 05, 2013

Opinions

23 ##

thelinknewspaper.ca/opinions

Editorial

STEPS AFTER THE SUMMIT It was a bona fide media event.

The “national discussion” was promised by Premier Pauline Marois before she was even sworn in last September. Relations between once-unified student associations were strained as their conditions for attendance diverged.

Outside the Griffintown art gallery, thousands marched in an illegal demonstration that ended with clashes with riot police and the Sûreté du Québec. The event even fought for airtime with the drama of the Charbonneau Commission.

For a moment, a month before the spring equinox, it almost seemed like we were almost slipping into another printemps érable.

So what are we left with after this twoday blitz of talking points?

Looking at tuition, there wasn’t much of a surprise.

The Parti Québécois used the summit to announce their unilateral decision to index tuition, ending a freeze that has been in place for most of the time since the Quiet Revolution.

Despite her early support for the carré rouge movement, anyone paying attention to Marois’s campaign last fall won’t take this as a shock.

Maybe it was inevitable, given the huge gulf between the student associations’ and university administrators’ positions on the issue—both parties staring at her as she

made the announcement.

What’s more disappointing is how the government has marketed its indexation plan.

The government and the major media have repeatedly emphasized that university tuition costs will increase by about three per cent, or $70, annually—but that’s not entirely accurate.

It might be true for this fall, but with tuition tied to growth in average household income, there’s no guarantee that rate won’t change.

A widening gap between the rich and poor can increase average income on the whole, disproportionately raising tuition for lower-income families in the process.

If indexation is the government’s solution, they’re going about it the wrong way. How much households make isn’t a good statistic to tie tuition increases to in a province where students are often pay their own way through school without help from their parents.

But though it served as a platform to voice what the PQ had planned all along, the summit wasn’t entirely fruitless.

Five working groups will be created to examine topics including university governance, accountability, academic offerings and funding, with their findings to be reported to the government in the coming months.

It’s encouraging to see that the student

associations will have a role to play in these working groups. When student representation has been reduced on our own Board of Governors at Concordia, it’s refreshing to hear we’ll have input in these discussions at the provincial level.

One of the working groups will explore different organizational structures for the government’s proposed National Council on Universities.

At present, Quebec universities are spending large sums of money building new campuses without adequately consulting stakeholders or coordinating their expansion plans with one another.

If this council is actually given some teeth, it could help to rectify that problem.

Perhaps a council on universities will provide a forum in which a single, cohesive vision for higher education in the province can be formulated.

The government’s decision to inject $25 million per year for five years into financial aid can also be seen as a relative win for students. The working group looking into financial aid will also be presided over by Pier-André Bouchard St-Amand, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec during the student strike of 2005.

The Quebec government has already

been touting the summit as a success in advertisements placed in several dailies. Unlike the last time such a summit was planned, this one actually finished as planned. For that, we suppose, the PQ can call it a success—although higher education in Quebec remains rife with uncertainty.

While the FEUQ has already stated it doesn’t intend to go back to the streets, the next move for more radical groups remains to be seen. There’s also no guarantee, for all the talk about governance and accountability at the summit, that real reform will actually come of these working groups.

As it stands, universities including Concordia are still arguing that they’re underfunded. Their operating grant amounts are, for the moment, nebulous at best. Our parttime faculty has a strike mandate and our full-time professors are currently voting on one as well, citing no progress at the negotiation table.

With money tight, and the provincial government in danger of falling if they veer too far either way, much remains to be seen—even if, as the government puts it, the “crisis” is over.

The PQ needs to make good on its intentions for this summit to be remembered as anything more than a publicity stunt.

Graphic Paku Daoust-Cloutier

CONCORDIA’S INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1980

The Link is published every Tuesday during the academic year by The Link Publication Society Inc. Content is independent of the university and student associations (ECA, CASA, ASFA, FASA, CSU). Editorial policy is set by an elected board as provided for in The Link ’s constitution. Any student is welcome to work on The Link and become a voting staff member. The Link is a member of Presse Universitaire Indépendante du Québec.

Material appearing in The Link may not be reproduced without prior written permission from The Link.

Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters 400 words or less will be printed, space permitting. The letters deadline is Friday at 4:00 p.m. The Link reserves the right to edit letters for clarity and length and refuse those deemed racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, libellous, or otherwise contrary to The Link ’s statement of principles.

Board of Directors 2012-2013: Justin Giovannetti, Clare Raspopow, Laura Beeston, Adam Kovac, Julia Jones; non-voting members: Rachel Boucher, Julia Wolfe.

Typesetting by The Link. Printing by Hebdo-Litho.

Contributors:Alex Bailey, Joshua Barkman, Yacine Bouhali, Natalia Lara Diaz Berrio, Liana di Iorio, Josh Dixon, Melissa Fuller, Jane Gatensby, Caity Hall, Flora Hammond, David Kaufmann, Gonzo Nieto, Jayde Norstrom, Jake Russell, Valerie Sangin, Leslie Schachter, Geoffrey Vendeville, Jonathan Woods.

Main Cover by Paku Daoust-Cloutier and Art Directed by Jayde Norstrom Top Photo by Sam Slotnick Bottom Photo by Leslie Schachter

MASTHEAD

Volume 33, Issue 24 Tuesday, March 05, 2013 Concordia University Hall Building, Room H-649 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 editor: 514-848-2424 x. 7405 arts: 514-848-2424 x. 5813 news: 514-848-2424 x. 8682 fax: 514-848-4540 business: 514-848-7406 advertising: 514-848-7406

editor-in-chief coordinating editor managing editor news editor current affairs editor assistant news editor fringe arts editor fringe arts online editor sports editor sports online editor opinions editor copy editor community editor creative director photo editor graphics editor business manager distribution ad designer online developper system administrator

JULIA WOLFE COLIN HARRIS HILARY SINCLAIR COREY POOL MEGAN DOLSKI ANDREW BRENNAN KATIE MCGROARTY ELYSHA DEL GIUSTO-ENOS JUSTIN BLANCHARD OPEN MICHAEL WROBEL ALEX MANLEY SAM SLOTNICK CLÉMENT LIU ERIN SPARKS PAKU DAOUST-CLOUTIER RACHEL BOUCHER JOSHUA BARKMAN ADAM NORRIS MOHAMAD ADLOUNI CLEVE HIGGINS

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