McGill Tribune Vol. 35, Issue 20

The McGill Tribune TUesday, FEBRUARY 23, 2016 curiosity delivers

Volume No. 35 Issue No. 20

Editorial: Deregulation should not necessitate increase in international student tuition pg. 05

feature: Alone in a Crowded Room: A Personal essay in Mental Health at M c Gill

m c gilltribune.com @m c gilltribune

pg. 10 - 11

Perks of being a hand writer Zachary Carson Columnist

Martlets drop frst game in series but come back to win series 2-1. (Noah Sutton / McGill Tribune)

Martlets advance to cis national championships Nicole Spadotto Staff Writer Despite dropping a 3-0 loss to the Sherbrooke Vert et Or (15-7) in their first game in the RSEQ semifinals on Friday, the Martlet volleyball team (157) rebounded on Saturday and Sunday to not only advance to the RSEQ Finals, but to clinch a berth at the CIS Championships.

Though statistically, Sherbrooke came away with a rather

commanding win, the Martlets steadily found their groove throughout the game, losing the respective sets by scores of 25-19, 25-18, and 25-23, with the most exciting game play coming in the last stanza, when the Martlets nearly stole the win in the set. The momentum generated towards the end of Friday’s game helped translated into two consecutive wins on Saturday and Sunday by scores of 3-2 and 3-0 respectively.

“Sherbrooke served really well today, and very aggressive,” Martlets Head Coach Rachele Beliveau said after the loss on Friday. “We couldn’t play our offence like we usually play.”

On Saturday and Sunday, McGill improved their offence game by game to overwhelm Sherbrooke.

On Friday, Sherbrooke bested McGill offensively in hitting proficiency, kills, aces, and blocked shots.

Defensively for the Martlets,

miscommunication led to rogue balls being missed on more than a few occasions. Similarly, on Saturday, McGill once again dominated Sherbrooke in digs, but fell short in kills, blocks, and aces; however, enhanced defence and aggressiveness allowed the Martlets to cling to the win. The weekend saga culminated full circle in the deciding match on Sunday, with the Martlets displaying more confidence, poise, and tenacity

One of the quickest ways that professors can get students to drop their course after the first lecture is to announce that laptops are not permitted. The feeling in the lecture hall is almost palpable as everyone pictures lectures with nothing but a pen, some paper, and a professor attempting to keep the attention of 100 or more students. Laptops do have their uses in an academic setting, including those that are not exactly academic— the temptation of the internet is always there during a lull in a lecture. The age-old practice of writing notes by hand, however, has several advantages over typing on laptops.

PG. 06 than they had all weekend– besting Sherbrooke in digs, aces, and kills to dominate the game.

Beliveau credits the comeback to increased aggression on the ball and enhanced execution of the game plan.

“We need the ball to be at the net, and then we’ll become very good offensively,” Beliveau elaborated. “And the ball wasn’t there [on Friday]. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t there on the net.”

PG. 16

BDS motion passes at SSMU Winter GA Indigenous content, conflict minerals divestment motions pass following no debate Aislinn Kalob News Editor A motion regarding support for the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement passed at the Feb. 22 Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Winter General Assembly (GA), with 512 students voting “Yes,” 357 voting “No,” and 14 abstentions. The two other motions up for vote passed with no discussion from the assembly: Motion for an increase in indigenous content at Mc-

Gill, and a motion regarding procurement of products containing conflict minerals. All three move to ratification by undergraduate students in the upcoming online referendum.

BDS The Motion to Support the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions Movement mandates SSMU to support campaigns associated with the worldwide BDS movement, and to lobby McGill University at its Board of Governors

to withdraw investments in companies such as Re/Max, L-3 Communications, and the Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank.

“This call for BDS states that such campaigns are to remain in place until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, and fully complies with the precepts of international law,” the motion reads.

Students debated for nearly two hours in the SSMU Ballroom, with

overflow rooms elsewhere in the Shatner University Centre hosting a livestream of the event and allowing students to vote. Those who spoke in favour of a “No” vote cited the potential divisiveness of this motion, and worry that passing BDS would cause a climate of fear among students who feel the decision does not represent them.

“The McGill student body prides itself on our diversity, yet why is when it pertains to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, [is there] an attempt

is made to make our campus homogeneous?” asked Maya Rosenkrantz, U3 Science. “This motion contradicts SSMU’s safer space policy, as BDS proposes a cultural boycott of Israel, alienating students who belong to that culture [....] Students’ mental health is on the line. Students who identify as Israeli or Zionist are genuinely afraid that if that motion passes, they will not be able to truly express their identity on campus. No student should ever be afraid [of that].”

PG. 02

2

NEWS

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

BDS motion passes at SSMU Winter GA Indigenous content, conflict minerals divestment motions pass following no debate Aislinn Kalob News Editor Continued from Page 1.

Supporters of the motion attempted to clarify its purpose—divesting McGill from holdings associated with certain Israeli settlements military effort—while at times, relating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to apartheid in South Africa.

“As a Palestinian, you do not speak for us,” Laura Khoury, U2 Engineering, said. “Please do not speak on behalf of my lived experience [....]

It’s your moral obligation as people of social conscience to answer this call.

It is not your obligation to tell us what is being done to us. Would any of you here have been in support of South African Apartheid? [....] No, you would have not.”

Students were reminded by Speaker Benjamin Dionne to maintain silent decorum through the debate by refraining from applause, and by their peers to treat the sensitive topic with respect for both sides.

“I would just like to say, as somebody who prides themselves on being

both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, as somebody who is very personally affected by this conflict, I ask [...] please engage in moderation,” said one firstyear student in the Faculty of Law. “Engage in a dialogue that would endorse both people’s rights to self-determination.”

Motion in support of Kahtihon’tia:kwenio (women title holders of the land) Cadence O’Neal, U3 Arts, moved a motion in support of indigenous women title holders from the floor, which was tabled until the next GA in Fall 2016 in order to undergo consultation from the indigenous student community at McGill. This motion was developed alongside Kahnawake women, frustrated with McGill’s lack of response to their notice of seizure of the unceded territory the university occupies.

“The students who are moving this motion hope to both remind students who are here [...] that this is an ongoing issue, that McGill has ongoing political con-

The BDS motion at the SSMU GA saw heated debate. (Noah Sutton / McGill Tribune) text, and that our university [...] is very much involved in a [settlercolonial] situation here,” O’Neal said.

Ashley Dawn Louise Bach, coordinator of the Indigenous Student Alliance, expressed concern that the motion was neither publicized

prior to the event, nor included any feedback from her organization.

“I would just like to point out that there was no consultation with the Indigenous Student Alliance [...] in the making of this motion,” Bach said “I actually hadn’t heard of it until earlier today [...] and I

feel that this lack of consultation is just a perpetuation of the colonial problems we have at this university.”

Movers of the motion agreed to seek further input from the indigenous community at McGill before reintroducing it at the next GA.

Co-Curricular Record offers students recognition for school-sponsored activities Potential expansion to include all SSMU clubs Regina Wung Staff Writer Piloted in 2013 by the MyInvolvement division of Student Services, the Co-Curricular Record (CCR) serves as an online tool to help students record their participation in university-sponsored clubs and organizations.

MyInvolvement is an online portal that allows McGill students to discover and catalog participation in learning opportunities that take place outside of the classroom. Examples of activities that appear on a CCR include participation on athletics teams, in workshops offered by McGill, positions on executive boards of certain student government councils, and clubs sponsored by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU).

CCR Program Administrator Tim Wilfong explained that the concept is similar to that of a CV, but because it is an official school record, activities listed on the CCR carry official verification from the university.

“The official CCR will have the deputy provost’s signature, so it really is an attestation that these things really happened, that students really

participated,” Wilfong said. “It includes volunteering, workshop attendance, peer educator opportunities, varsity athletics, student leadership positions in clubs, student government, etc. and [...] awards and scholarships that you’ve received that aren’t on your transcript but [that] the university acknowledges.”

Additionally, Wilfong contended that students can use the CCR as a tool to help write their CV later in their university or post-university careers.

“I think it’s trying to help students to know how to put it on their CV, to find the right words, to think more critically about what they learned, and how they can market it,” he said.

Speaking to SSMU Council on Feb. 11, Wilfong urged departmental councils to spread word of the CCR to all McGill students.

“This is a movement that’s happening across Canada,” he said. “It’s in McGill’s best interest to also be on the cutting edge.”

According to Wilfong, student feedback has been positive thus far.

“The vast majority of students who I’ve talked to about

the project that we have are excited about it and really want the record to succeed,” he said. “The student leaders have all been excited to be able to offer recognition to the people who were doing work for them and to get that recognition themselves.”

SSMU Vice-President (VP) External Affairs Emily Boytinck voiced her concern about the type of message that the widespread use of the CCR might send to students.

“My issue with this record is that it is essentially the university saying, ‘This is what we consider a valuable university experience, and this is what we don’t consider to be a valuable university experience,’ and to me, I find that highly limiting,” she said. “I have a lot of concerns with the project just putting additional pressures on students, who are already feeling a lot of pressure to succeed academically, to also feel like they have to fill up this co-curricular record as well.”

Boytinck also argued, however, that the CCR could potentially encourage students to get involved for disingenuous reasons.

“As somebody who’s been

involved in student government for a really long time, I’ve chaired a bunch of committees where you know that some people are just on it so they can write something on their resumé,” she said. “I feel like in a lot of ways, this co-curricular record encourages this type of title-grabbing, title-searching behaviour.”

VP Clubs and Services Kimber Bialik brought up the issue of inequity among the recognition of students who devote the majority of their time to a fewer number of projects, versus students who spread small portions over their time among a variety of activities.

“It prioritizes and provides more benefits [to] students who are superficially involved in a number of different organizations at an arm’s length over students who are involved in one initiative but pour much more of their time into the betterment of their chosen project, and treating those two scenarios equally disadvantages the group of students who are often putting more into those smaller number of projects,” she said.

Bialik is equally wary of the CCR’s potential to encourage socalled ‘resumé building.’

“I entirely share the concerns that individuals have raised about the potential for encouraging students to get involved in campus life solely for the purpose of gaining recognition through the Co-Curricular Record,” she said.

According to Wilfong, this problem is not something that is fundamentally caused by the practice of recording one’s cocurricular activities.

“I think that was a problem long before the CCR ever existed,” Wilfong said. “I think it’s kind of a systemic issue within higher education right now, and within the workforce to a certain extent also.”

In spite of these reservations, Bialik ultimately conceded that the CCR is potentially beneficial to student involvement at McGill.

“Unfortunately, these issues are unavoidable,” she said. “Despite my personal reservations about [it...] if the student groups who would be recognized on the [CCR] believe that their inclusion on the project would be beneficial to their group, then I am more than happy to consent to the inclusion of all SSMU groups on the [CCR].”

3

NEWS

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

McGill on track for $10.2 million budget deficit, according to Manfredi McGill Senators move to establish School of Public Policy, discuss employment equity Luke Devine Contributor McGill’s budgetary deficit is expected to be nearly $6 million more than was approved for the 2016 fiscal year, according to the Feb. 17 Senate meeting. Senate also discussed equity practices in hiring tenure-track professors and creating a new school of public policy.

Open discussion on employment equity at McGill Professor Angela Campbell, the current chair of the Joint Board-Senate Committee on Equity, led the discussion and focused on the issue of diversity among tenure-track professors.

“The policy has not had a significant impact on diversifying the McGill community, particularly at the level of tenuretrack faculty.” Campbell said.

Faculty of Medicine Senator Edith Zorychta urged McGill to improve their mentoring system for new faculty members.

“If we had a mentoring program where [new faculty members] got two mentors—one in their field to deal with the area of expertise, and another relat-

ed to their own background that they feel comfortable with— [new faculty members] would be happier, less stressed, and perhaps more likely to succeed in their initial years,” Zorychta said. “It would level the playing field.”

Chloe Rourke, vice-president (VP) University Affairs of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), also raised concerns about McGill’s equity record when compared to other Canadian universities.

Campbell responded that the comparisons between McGill and other post-secondary institutions were, at times, inaccurate, as they often dealt with different subject matters—SSMU’s report compared McGill’s data on tenure-track professors with data on faculty members in general at other universities.

“We’re not comparing apples to apples,” Campbell said.

“It’s relevant to look at it, but it’s not decisive. We really have to measures ourselves against a benchmark that can help us in a meaningful way to make progress in which we’re proud.”

Since Fall 2015, McGill has required that academic search committees to confirm with the Office of the Provost and VP (Academic) that at least one member of a minority group is on their candidate shortlist.

Budget planning report Christopher Manfredi, provost and VP (Academic), delivered the budget planning report for the 2016-2017 school year, and spoke to McGill’s anticipated budgetary deficit.

“There was an approved budgetary deficit of $4.7 million for the 2016 fiscal year,” said Manfredi. “[But] right now, [McGill] is tracking towards a $10.2 million deficit.”

The increase is owed, in part, to lower than budgeted tuition revenues, and a lower Quebec grant. Manfredi also confirmed that McGill’s deficit is comparable to the deficit faced by other Quebec universities.

“We are [... at] the middle of the range,”Manfredi said. “[McGill’s] total cumulative finance deficit is a little less than $100 million, [and] we’re trying to make sure that we keep that at less than 15 per cent of our total budget.”

Manfredi also said that McGill has seen some recent positive variances, including the unanticipated sale of Redpath property for approximately $20.6 million. Faculty of Arts Senator John Galaty, expressed concern over these sales.

“In general it’s not a great idea to pay the bills by selling

off assets,” said Galaty.

To reassure the Senate, Michael Di Grappa, vice principal (Administration and Finance) asserted that the deal was in the best interest of the university.

“In calculating the amount [McGill] would derive from the remaining 30 years of the lease versus the amount they offered up front, we thought it was in the best interest of the university to take this particular deal, it had nothing to do with balancing the budget,” Di Grappa said.

“This particular sale has allowed [McGill] to make a provision in the budget to support a very important project in sustainability sciences.”

Report of the ombudsperson McGill University’s new ombudsperson for students, Professor Dimitrios Berk, addressed the Senate on the rate and nature of complaints lodged by students since 2010.

“There are two major areas: academic and interpersonal issues,” Berk said. “For academic issues, the vast majority is about grades [....] The report shows that academic issues are declining; 60 complaints were lodged in 2011, versus only 17 this year—this is the good news.

The bad news is that the rate of

[interpersonal] issues between course instructors and students has remained constant.”

Berk concluded his presentation with a word of advice for professors and faculty members.

“Listen to the students [...] it is very very important [....]”

Berk said. “Most issues can be resolved just by listening”

McGill School of Public Policy The Senate also carried a motion to create McGill’s first School of Public Policy. According to Manfredi, the program will draw from and build on McGill’s interdisciplinary knowledge and reputation, focusing on a wide range of policy-making issues.

“Many of the policies reflect McGill’s expertise,” Manfredi said. “They include health and social policy, environmental policy, education policy, governance and public service delivery [....] It goes across a whole range of things.”

According to Manfredi, the School will initially be situated within the Faculty of Arts.

“Once the school is up and running it will [become] a living organism, that will develop as other parts of the university see interest in it,” Manfredi said. “Though situated in the Faculty of Arts, the school is designed to be a multi-faculty and multi-disciplinary school.”

New McGill Sexual Assault Policy draft released Mandates the hiring of a sexual assault resource coordinator Shrinkhala Dawadi Managing Editor On Feb. 16, McGill’s Sexual Assault Policy Working Group released its final version of the proposed Sexual Assault Policy (SAP) to the public. The working group formed in 2012, after allegations of sexual assault against against three former Redmen football players brought greater awareness to the fact that McGill has no university-wide sexual assault policy.

According to Cecilia MacArthur, a member of the working group, the SAP institutionalizes a lot of the informal practices that McGill had previously adopted, while additionally creating the new position of the sexual assault resource coordinator (SARC).

“The bulk of [the SARC’s] role will be just helping people navigate the policy, showing them the resources that exist,”

she said. “The idea would be [that the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACCOMS) and the SARC] would work together and supplement each other, but that the SARC would be less of an immediate support person, understanding that sometimes, if you have an office of the SARC, people who are in crisis might go there, so [...] ultimately, they’re probably going to have [...] some crisis support training.”

According to Andre Costopoulos, dean of students, the potential hiring of a SARC is an implementation matter rather than a policy one.

“Some of the elements in the [SAP] [are] clearly implementation, and some of them are policy, and you have to separate the two,” he said. “The policy says [that] when unacceptable conduct happens we have to intervene. The administration decides how we intervene. How do we make sure that the spirit of

this policy is respected in this community [....] That’s completely different to the policy conversation. Implementation is [...] the university administration in partnership with the student associations.”

Talia Gruber, another member of the SAP working group, explained that the benefit of writing procedures into a policy was the policy’s permanence.

“Right now, we have a lot of things in the policy that [the McGill administration] would like to see in the implementation guide,” she said. “The reason that we want so many things in the policy is that policies are institutionalized and once they’re passed you can’t change what’s in them. We’ve come up with some really good compromises [...] like putting things in the implementation guide, but having a caveat in the policy that says, ‘There is this guide, and it’s going to be used.’”

Costopoulos explained that

other avenues of discussion between the working group and the McGill administration include the interpretation of a McGill Context, as outlined in Article 8 of the Code of Student Conduct.

The current interpretation of the Article is that events held by student associations off-campus do not fall within the McGill context. Consequently, McGill will be unable to conduct a disciplinary investigation into any alleged sexual assaults that occur during such an event.

“It’s one of the points that we’ve been discussing and I think we’re going to continue to be discussing,” he said. “It’s a matter of how we’ve interpreted it over the years, and interpretations are always subject to revision because the context in which we live changes all the time.”

MacArthur explained that many individuals have been involved in shaping the SAP in the two years since its inception,

include students, administration, faculty members, as well as campus groups.

“At a certain point last year, about March, we were considering [...] bringing [the SAP] to Senate,” she said. “But [...] stakeholders were feeling like we could do more consultation with regards to the anti-oppression aspect of the policy [....] At that point, we stopped the trajectory we had set out and started doing more consultation. [This February,] I think we felt like we had done as good of a job as we could of incorporating different experiences, [and] different approaches [into the SAP].”

Going forward, the SAP will be reviewed by members of the administration, including the dean of students and the office of the deputy provost (Student Life and Learning). Following any revisions to the SAP, the group hopes to tentatively present the policy to Senate this March.

4

NEWS

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

SUS Council looks to address low attendence at equity-related events Receives pushback from Faculty of Science on Fall Reading Week initiative Cahal McCabe Contributor The Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) council addressed issues of low attendance at equity events during its Feb. 17 Council meeting. Council also heard updates regarding the budget of the Special Projects Fund, and on the most recent Senate hearing.

Equity events question SUS Vice-President (VP) External Mary Helmer-Smith, brought up the lack of attendance at events hosted by the SUS Equity Committee, specifically the ‘CommuniTea Series’ which is intended to function as a safe discussion space.

“The event series was aimed towards different marginalized groups,” Helmer-Smith said. “[It] would open a space for people to

come and discuss their experiences, drink tea, and hang out.”

Participation at these events has been low in the past—there have been zero attendees on some occasions. These low levels of attendance are thought to be attributed to a lack of interest within the student body, and minimal promotion and communication from the SUS; Helmer-Smith explained potential solutions to the problem.

“The Equity Committee is not really well known, […as] it doesn’t necessarily reach a lot of people,” Helmer-Smith said.

“We’re not targeting people [...] well enough.”

Helmer-Smith attributed this problem to the off-campus location for events, such as the Educational Community Living Environment (ECOLE).

“For some reason students seem to be apprehensive to go

off campus,” Helmer-Smith said. “[ECOLE] is an unknown space for a lot of people, so they might be less willing to go to that space.”

Council approved a motion to include questions regarding the continuation of events for different marginalized groups for the upcoming referendum.

These questions would determine whether students see a general importance with the continuation of such events, and if marginalized students are themselves interested in attending future events.

“The Equity committee thought it would be appropriate to ask the student body if this is something that interests them,” said Helmer-Smith. “Because if not, then there is no point in putting our time into it. But if so, then we just need to promote it better so that more people could

come to it.”

Fall Reading Week Science Senator Marina Smailes gave a report on the response of the Senate regarding a potential Fall Reading Week.

“There is a huge pushback from the Faculty of Science in particular,” Smailes said. “[The faculty believes] there are issues with making up labs, and in general […] issues that [the Faculty of] Science sees as something that they just don’t think the cost of that is worth giving students less stress.”

Smailes explained that the position of the Faculty poses problems, because nearly all other faculties have endorsed this initiative.

“We are going to be working with specifically the Science faculty and administrators to try to

figure out a way to resolve this, as students really want it.”

Special Projects Fund VP Finance Sibat Anam addressed the lack of money in the Special Projects Fund, as a result of the events hosted this year and events planned for later this semester.

“At this point, the original funding amount for the special projects fund has been used up,” Anam said. “We have plans to see if we can replenish that fund somehow. If that does not work out then congrats, this is the first year in the three years I’ve been on this committee that the fund has been used up completely.”

Anam added that in the future, more finite guidelines are planned to be put in place so that future funds can also be used up completely and efficiently.

McGill Against Austerity hosts panel, “Protesting, Police, and Knowing Your Rights” Lawyer Max Silverman shares his experiences with political activism in Montreal Calvin Trottier-Chi Staff Writer McGill Against Austerity continued its series of workshops on Feb. 17 with a presentation entitled “Protesting, Police, and Knowing Your Rights,” given by civil lawyer Max Silverman. A former McGill student, Silverman currently practices with law firm Avocat Montreal and teaches at Concordia University.

He talked about the history of law enforcement in Montreal and gave advice for interacting with the police.

A history of cycles Silverman spoke critically of Montreal’s police force, which he characterized as having cycles of escalation in brutality.

“The history of the Montreal police is basically a history of violence and corruption building up to the point where the public doesn’t take it anymore,” Silverman said.

“The city intervenes, restructures the police force, says all the problems are solved and so begins the forty to fifty year cycle.”

Although Silverman applauded the Quebec Superior Court’s decision to remove Highway Safety Code 500.1 and bylaw P-6, laws which had been used against protesters, he stated that the swift police response to the protests held in Spring 2015 was evidence of the cycle of escalation. “[In Spring 2015] instead of the mass arrests and focusing on giving

McGill Against Austerirty panel informs students of their rights when protesting. (Noah Sutton / McGill Tribune) out as many tickets as possible, the focus was really on violence and weapons,” Silverman said. “The net result of these tactics was that hardly any protests lasted more than an hour and no protests lasted more than two hours.”

Interacting with police Silverman sought to advise student activists by giving an account of a citizen’s civil rights.

“The police do not have the right to stop and identify people for no reason in this country, despite what they think and how they act,” Silverman said.

In advising the distinction between being questioned and being

arrested, Silverman emphasized that the only obligation an individual has when being questioned is identifying yourself if you’ve been pulled over driving, are in a an age-restricted area, in certain parts of the city at night, or are using a reduced fare transit card.

“The general advice that we give in such a situation is that if the police stop you and try to talk to you, you ask them calmly and clearly if you’re under arrest,” Silverman said.

“If they say no, then you absolutely have the right to say I’m not going to talk to you and leave.”

The need for protesting

With the increasing use of force

in 2015, Silverman suggested that social movements might need to reevaluate how they approach protesting.

“There was a time when getting arrested was the point, when getting arrested served a purpose,” Silverman said. “In our modern times with nastier police tactics, with nastier fines, with mandatory minimums in jail, there are many reasons why people have moved away from that.”

Silverman upheld that society has a need for the right to protest.

“I think that things change when people make them change,” Silverman said. “In particular, [for] people concerned about political oppression and [barriers to] protesting [...] I do think the best way to coun-

ter [these issues] is to just get out and protest more.”

McGill Against Austerity organizer Christian Scott stated that he found the workshop informative.

“Protesting is our right, it’s always good to know what our rights and obligations are,” Scott said.

“Keep protesting, there’s always something to change.”

Although students largely agreed that police brutality is a concern, many did not feel convinced about the merits of protesting as a method.

“These protests generally lack clearly defined goals, so they are not likely to do much,” Griffin Smith, U0 Arts, said. “Frankly, I have more important things to do.”

5

OPINION

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

e d ito r i a l Editor-in-Chief Mayaz Alam editor@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Hayley Lim hlim@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors Shrinkhala Dawadi sdawadi@mcgilltribune.com Morgan Alexander malexander@mcgilltribune.com Julie Vanderperre jvanderperre@mcgilltribune.com News Editors Jenna Stanwood, Laura Hanrahan, Aislinn Kalob news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editor Julia Dick opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editor Chloe Nevitt scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Living Editor Hailey MacKinnon studentliving@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Natalie Wong features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Christopher Lutes and April Barrett arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Nicholas Jasinski and Zikomo Smith sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editor Domitille Biehlmann design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editors Natalie Vineberg and Noah Sutton photo@mcgilltribune.com

Deregulation should not necessitate increase in international student tuition The Quebec government recently announced a new round of budget cuts to university funding for the 2016-2017 academic year. As a means of mitigating the blow, however, they also have given Quebec universities the green light to raise tuition for international students to the tune of up to 25 per cent.

Tuition deregulation, which would do away with equalizing payments—a process that funnels any tuition above the Quebec rate generated from international students back to the government to be redistributed among universities throughout the province—has been on the administration’s radar for a while.

The elimination of equalization payments is a necessary step, but the administration should seek to minimize, as much as possible, any additional financial burden that deregulation will place on McGill’s international students.

McGill stands to benefit from deregulation, but a concurrent increase in tuition for international students is unnecessary. While deregulation doesn’t need to go hand-in-hand with an increase in international tuition, McGill’s track record of tuition deregulation does not provide a promising outlook: History suggests that deregulation will in-

Advertising Executives Mingye Chen and L-A Benoit ads@mcgilltribune.com Publisher Chad Ronalds

TPS Board of Directors

Lauren Benson-Armer, Audrey Carleton, Cordelia Cho, Daniel Galef Margaux Delalex, Zachary Carson, Luka Ciklovan, Sara Cullen, Evelyn Goessling, Emma Hameau, Clare Lyle, Eric-Noble Marks, Albert Park, Elli Slavitch, Nicole Spadotto, Elizabeth Willcock, Alissa Zilberchteine

Contributors

Emma Avery, Alex Bankier, Weiyu Dang, Margaux Delalux, Amanda Fiore, Clare Fogarty, Ty Fox, Emma Hameau, Emily Huang, Lydia Kaprelian, Jin Lee, Alexia Martel-Desjardins, Will Pang, Rachel Summers, Calvin Trottier-Chi, Andy Wang, James Ward, Emma Whitehall, Regina Wung, Liana Yepremyan, Ava B Zwolinski

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international students would therefore pose a risk to McGill’s accessibility for non-Canadian students.

Quebec’s student body has long advocated for affordable tuition—a principle that has guided the ideologies of student unions within the province, and which backed the student protests against tuition hikes in 2012. Tuition increases, while necessary for the future viability of Quebec’s universities, are opposed in principle by many of the province’s students. International students have generally been more open to such increases, but this should not give the university free reign to increase tuition for these students.

McGill should take advantage of the financial benefits it stands to gain from eliminating equalization payments that divert McGill’s funds directly into the hands of the provincial government for reallocation at its discretion. This potential for increased income, however, should not be tied inextricably to an increase in international student tuition. McGill’s cultural and socioeconomic variety is at risk; to protect this diversity, McGill should limit the hardships faced by international students.

Social activism not enough to break down structures of success

Copy Editor Adrien Hu copy@mcgilltribune.com

Staff Writers, Photographers, & Illustrators

International students make up a large percentage of McGill’s student body—approximately 25 per cent.

In the context of tuition deregulation, this means two things: First, McGill is currently losing a significant amount of money from international students that is being diverted away from the university and funneled into other universities that have a potentially smaller income due to fewer numbers of international students. Secondly, McGill has a unique demographic makeup that it should seek to foster and protect— not exploit.

Significantly increasing the cost of international student tuition sends the wrong message to McGill’s international student body, members of the community who contribute to McGill’s cultural diversity. This diversity continues to attract open-minded and cosmopolitan students from around the world to study at McGill. Moreover, concerns about accessibility for international students are salient, and McGill has not shown that it can provide adequate bursaries for students in deregulated faculties to balance the costs that the tuition increases would incur.

The burden of a tuition increase on

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variably result in a tuition increase for non-Canadians. In McGill’s deregulated Faculty of Engineering, for example, international students pay $37,054.55 in tuition and fees, compared to an undergraduate international student in the regulated Faculty of Arts who pays only $18,258.61 a year.

The budget constraints faced by the university provide an obvious draw for McGill to discontinue its payments to Quebec’s equalization system if given the opportunity. Deregulating the remaining faculties would allow McGill to reinvest international students’ supplemental tuition money into the services and infrastructure that its students use.

Additionally, a portion of the money retained from deregulation should be put towards bursary programs, so that international students are not faced with a significant financial burden that would inhibit them from attending the university. In order to maintain accessibility for international students, however, McGill cannot rely solely on bursaries and other reactive solutions to alleviate a vast increase in international student tuition which follows deregulation.

Shrinkhala Dawadi Managing Editor According to philosopher-writer Albert Camus, “the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

It is harder for a woman of colour to achieve the same metrics of success as a white man. The very definition of success is built around capitalist and patriarchal ideals: You’re successful if you have a prestigious career, earn a certain amount of money, and command the respect of people who are equally as successful. Women of colour face additional pressures when striving for ‘success,’ to be successful by traditional standards while advocating for social justice. Unfortunately, the two worlds don’t always mix. To be successful, sometimes I feel that I cannot stand up for the things that I believe in.

Injustices are both institutionally sanctioned and perpetuated by people who, though they may not intend to, perpetuate harmful ideas. Institutional inequalities are evident by the dispro-

portionate amount of black men and people of colour incarcerated in the United States and Canada, the fact that people of colour have lower wages and socioeconomic outcomes compared to white people, and in the appalling truth that indigenous women have a homicide rate 4.5 times higher than other women in Canada. These inequalities take place day-to-day, in the workplace, and on university campuses.

The pressure to embody mainstream success while also being an activist often comes from like-minded people who care about righting the structural inequalities of society. But oftentimes activism is, by default, the responsibility of the individual who would most benefit from change. There have been many times where I’ve had to swallow my pride and laugh when mentor figures, friends, and work associates have made comments about my name, or tried to greet me with namaste-esque gestures, or said that the rice and chicken I’m having for lunch is exotic.

I used to be the type of person that would point out every time a movie had an all-white cast, or every time a person used a racial slur in a casual conversation. Initially, I thought that the people I spoke to would stop what they were doing, become suddenly enlightened, and go henceforth as a paragon of social justice. It rarely worked that way: Most people’s reactions ranged from confused, to defensive, to angry. On top

of that, I don’t have an infinite amount of energy to patiently explain my point of view and educate every person who says something slightly offensive.

Keeping my silence was, I thought, the best way for me to be liked and progress in school or at work. Yet it takes a huge toll to remain silent in these situations because I feel like I am betraying a part of myself. As wonderful as it would be, it’s unrealistic to expect every single woman of colour to act as an activist in their everyday lives. Some women may only care for mainstream success, some only for activism, and some for neither, or for both.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with striving for success; however, as long as that success is externally defined, achieving a certain career entails participation in a society that is resistant to social activism. This is apparent by the fact that most prestigious organizations—whether they are universities, governmental institutions, major media outlets, or Fortune 500 companies—are mostly run and staffed by white men, who, consciously or not, benefit from societal inequalities.

Succeeding in society doesn’t necessarily mean working as an activist to combat such inequities. One does not necessarily need to be a grassroots activist; one need only consider the discussion that followed Beyonce’s “Formation” video to realize the various forms that activism can take. But not everyone

has the means, energy, or mental health to be a full-time activist while also achieving mainstream success.

The way in which society is structured means that achieving mainstream success often comes at the cost of working to erase the barriers that prevent other women from achieving the same.

While that is a bitter pill to swallow, it’s also the reality of society. We must not demonize the women who choose to work within the system, or do not have the resources or ability to work outside it. Instead, we should work as much as we can to erase these structural inequalities so no one will need to make a choice between mainstream success and social activism.

The tragedy of this situation is that change rarely comes from working within the system, and so activism is the crucial piece in bringing about any societal transformation. I suspect that this is why the pace of change is so slow: In an ideal world, we’d all stop subscribing to notions of mainstream success and build a new, egalitarian system from scratch. But in an imperfect world, one must understand that underprivileged groups are in a unique position: They face pressure to achieve mainstream success within a system that works against them. Their other option is to work towards dismantling the system, but this process is slow, laborious, and is not likely to garner them respect within mainstream society.

6

Opinion C o m m e nt a r y

Zachary Carson Columnist Continued from Page 1.

As much as it might pain students who have full course loads, are involved in extracurriculars, or are trying to maintain some shred of a social life to realize, humans are bad at multitasking. Multitasking leads to impulsive decision making, as well as problems with processing information. Unfortunately, the modern laptop is a multitask-

C o m m e nt a r y

Norman Yallen Contributor In the past couple of years, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) has had trouble obtaining a mandate from students to spend their money.

The student body recently rejected SSMU’s special referendum question for a membership fee increase, which would have increased the base fee by $5.50 per term. A similar situation happened to SSMU with the building fee referendum, which was rejected in Winter 2014 and then passed when a similar question was posed in Fall 2014. SSMU is currently putting together a second package of fees to make up for a budget shortfall. Now, according to Vice-President Finances & Operations Zacheriah Houston, budget adjustments

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The perks of being a hand writer ing machine: Students can take notes, write emails, update social media, read the news, and check the weather, all while sitting in class. This seems like a godsend being able to get so much done at once, but you are absorbing very little information.

There is no multitasking with a pen and paper—you are locked in. There are no new tabs, updates, or notifications—nothing but what the professor is talking about. There are those who say they can refrain from the endless multitasking capabilities of a laptop in lecture, and maybe they actually can, but all it takes is one boring tangent and suddenly you are deep into scheduling your next two weeks, or chatting on Facebook.

Every professor who has ever advocated or enforced handwriting has brought up the studies that indicate that students

learn better when taking notes by hand. However many times students have heard the speech and rolled their eyes, it doesn’t make the science any less true.

Students who take notes by hand remember lectures better than those typing, even when those typing are warned ahead of time.

After all, there must be a reason these professors resort to the same tirade time and time again.

The perks of handwriting for individual students are numerous, but should this grant professors the right to ban laptops from their lectures? Earlier this year a commentary in the McGill Daily argued that this was a paternalistic and dictatorial decision that overruled paying students’ rights to decide how best they learn for themselves. While there is some truth there, there is something that the piece failed to recognize. Yes, professors are provid-

ing a service for which students pay a good deal of money. But

“

Having sat in classrooms permeated with laptops as well as those in which everyone took handwritten notes, it is clear that students are more engaged, ask more questions, and become more collaborative when laptops are absent.

SSMU’s mind on its money, money on its mind and cuts will be to the tune of $100,000. In spite of this urgency, only 16.3 per cent of students voted. Although the membership fee only failed by 17 votes, this result is only the most recent example of the broken dialogue between the student body and SSMU; the majority of students either did not hear the urgency of the request or did not listen. The future success of SSMU requires students to trust SSMU to spend money properly, and to see that dialogue with SSMU is necessary to improve student life at McGill.

In light of the failure of the fee increase, SSMU needs to allocate its money more effectively. For example, this past fall’s 4Floors event was budgeted to sell out for 1,000 people at $25 a ticket. In the end, only 533 tickets were sold, resulting in a loss of $8,000. Students need to be able to trust SSMU to spend money on things that matter. In Winter 2014, SSMU opened the Student Run Café (SRC), The Nest, which lost $20,000 its first semester of operation. SSMU then opened a second studentrun café while The Nest was losing money. While SSMU had the admirable intent of promot-

ing student spaces, it was not sensible to operate two cafés at a loss during a budget shortage.

It sends the wrong message to students when SSMU requests a fee increase while emphasizing seemingly non-essential events and services at a heavy loss.

The problem that SSMU

“

SSMU can be a strong advocate for students, but only if students empower them.

faces is circular: To gain students’ approval, they need to spend money ‘effectively,’ but obtaining adequate funds to provide these services is dependent on the faith of the student body.

If students disapprove of SSMU’s use of funds, the answer is not to cut SSMU off. Students need a functioning student society to support basic clubs and services, and to advocate for students to

the administration and the province. A strong representative on campus is essential in this time of austerity and budget cuts.

SSMU can be a strong advocate for students, but only if students empower them. At the moment, students have trouble believing SSMU will spend money they receive effectively.

To rebuild this relationship, there needs to be a dialogue between the student body and SSMU about the best use of student funds. SSMU’s event to discuss the future of the SSMU building is a positive step towards involving students in the process of how money is allocated to student-run initiatives such as The Nest and the SRC. Another step SSMU could take with students is to release its finances for events, clubs, and services by email periodically to improve transparency and show students that their money is being spent appropriately. Student representatives must also do more to increase the flow of information from Council to students. At the moment, budget information is most transparent to those involved in student politics. While representing students on SSMU Council, representa-

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professors are also lecturing to make, in some cases, very dry material seem a little interesting, which becomes even harder to do if the audience is a sea of laptops. Having sat in classrooms permeated with laptops as well as those in which everyone took handwritten notes, it is clear that students are more engaged, ask more questions, and become more collaborative when laptops are absent. There is a real difference in the quality of a lecture when the professor feels appreciated, or at least feels heard.

There is no one right way to learn. Some people might learn better with a laptop. But it has become the norm that the newer, more efficient way is seen as the best way, and this is not always the case. Though it might take a little more thought and require eye contact, the value of hand writing should not be dismissed.

tives must recall their obligation to open channels of information to students within their faculties beyond faculty societies and departmental associations.

Such a dialogue is necessary to build participation in SSMU, but is also dependent on the involvement of students. If SSMU is to rebuild its financial viability while extending and improving the services it provides, students need to consider how their lack of participation is harmful to the very services they want.

Students should be prepared when SSMU opens a dialogue on the future spending of funds.

For SSMU to best serve student needs, students must participate in the process. SSMU is putting forward an alternative package of club fees for students to vote on.

Rather than simply voting “No” on future referendums regarding fees, students should listen to what SSMU has to say. Yes, referendum questions should be responsive to the demands of students. But it is time that students stop treating every referendum as a vote of confidence on the entire institution of SSMU. The future viability of SSMU depends on an active partnership between students and the union.

7

Science & technology

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Police interrogations can be impacted by TASER shocks Study shows that TASER can cause short-term cognitive problems Sihara Wickremasinghe Contributor The Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle, known more commonly as a TASER, has historically been seen as the less deadly hand-held alternative to the gun. The device works by dispatching an average of 50,000 volts of shock through two wires that can shoot from up to 10.6 metres away. This jolt has the ability to generate involuntary constrictions of muscle tissue, rendering the recipient immobilized. According to Amnesty International, between 2001 and 2008, 334 Americans died after being shocked by a TASER. Various studies have been done to evaluate the physical impact of being tased, most of these have focused on evaluating disturbances to cardiac rhythm, breathing, metabolism and stress. The outcome of these tests have shown that TASERs don’t present an increased risk of injury or death to adults in healthy physical shape. The majority of deaths that have occurred because of tasers have been due to a combination of variables such as drug or alcohol abuse and pre-existing medical conditions.

While the physiological aspect of TASER shocks has been evaluated, the impact of TASERs on neurological health has not yet been thoroughly explored. This information is especially relevant for the time

The neurological effects of TASERs has never been examined before. (theguardian.com) period immediately after a TASER shock because this is usually the time frame during which many suspects are interviewed. If the claim that suspects enter a state of significant disorientation after being tased, as the new study by Drexel University and Arizona State University titled, TASER Exposure and Cognitive Impairment: Implications for Valid Miranda Waivers and the Timing of Police Custodial Interrogations, suggests, then the legitimacy of statements taken during this time is brought into question.

A bewildered suspect may not be aware of the fact that they are waiving

their rights of protection from selfincrimination. The study, conducted by Robert Kane, professor of the Drexel’s Criminology and Justice Studies Department and Michael White, a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, involved 142 participants who were screened for substance issues, and cardiac and psychological problems.

There was a control group to which nothing was done, a group that was made to mirror the adrenaline rush of a police encounter by repeatedly pummeling a punching bag, a third group that was tased in five-second

bursts and a final group that underwent a five-second TASER burst after hitting the punching bag.

The tests for cognitive ability were conducted at four different intervals: Before the test, right after, an hour later and after a week had passed. One of the tests, the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test, which assesses verbal learning and short-term memory recall ability, showed the greatest fluctuations. A quarter of the participants experienced a reduction of about four words recalled correctly (from 26.68 to 22.53 with a perfect score being 36) “[This] represents the mean level

cognitive functioning for 79-year-old adults, placing participants within the range of mild cognitive impairment,” read a press-release posted by Drexel University.

This effect generally wore off before one hour had passed.

“The findings from this study suggest that people who have been shocked with a TASER may be unable to understand and rationally act upon his or her legal rights,” Kane stated in the press release.

Innocent people are at risk of unintentionally implicating themselves, whereas guilty parties might not be in a state to give accurate information. This first-of-its-kind study opens up a conversation about how to conduct the most effective interrogations. Even the slight possibility that an investigation could be compromised due to a TASER’s unforeseen mental side effects is reason enough to revisit policy regarding interrogation procedure for a victim of a TASER shock.

TASER shocks can derail the decision-making process of an individual and these researchers propose that waiting an hour after someone has been shocked to interrogate them might be all that is needed to avoid miscommunication.

And when trying to prove whether someone is guilty or not guilty, a miscommunication can mean life or death.

A look into the bioethics of commercialized surrogacy Annual panel addresses Canadian policy on assisted reproduction Clare Fogarty Contributor On Feb. 6, the McGill Journal of Law and Health held its eighth-annual Colloquium, with this year focusing on legal and policy issues concerning assisted reproduction in Canada. The discussion was held by well-known professors, lawyers, and physicians—all meeting to debate and discuss hot topics in Canadian bioethics surrounding reproductive rights. This year’s panel was titled Assisted Reproduction: Navigating the Criminalization of Commercial Surrogacy, and focused on Canada’s decision to make it illegal for surrogates to be paid to carry someone else’s child, eliciting much debate among Canadian scholars and practitioners of bioethics.

The discussions centred on the federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA), which criminalizes the payment of surrogate mothers, setting penalties between $500,000 or a 10-year prison sentence if violated. Surrogates agreeing to carry another couple’s child are to do so entirely altruistically. Since its passing in 2004, the AHRA has exposed rather polar views amongst

leaders in Canadian public health ethics.

One of the speakers, Canadian fertility law lawyer and Founder of Fertility Law Canada, Sara Cohen, argued that the act of commercial surrogacy should be regulated rather than criminalized. “[This law was created to] protect marginalized women from engaging in surrogacy because they felt they had no choice,” Cohen said. “But most women acting as surrogates are altruistic, selfsufficient, [and] independent thinkers.”

Instead of protecting women, Cohen explained, these laws are ‘paternalistic and offensive.’

The AHRA also prohibits the selling of sperm and ova for reproduction—instead, donors must voluntarily make their contribution to banks, and often do so anonymously.

As a result, few individuals donate sperm or gametes, often creating banks with tissues of redundant genotypes (identical DNA). Some birth-mothers therefore receive identical gametes as those received by others, unknowingly giving birth to biological half-siblings.

The anonymous nature of many of the donations also makes family lineage nearly impossible to trace, leaving the

child’s family health history unknown.

According to Cohen, decriminalizing the selling of reproductive tissues would give patients more information, enabling them to make safer decisions.

Arguments challenging this opinion take the exact opposite stance; Professor Margaret Somerville from the McGill Faculties of Law and Medicine and founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics, and Law, argued that not all surrogates are able to give informed consent.

“Most cases of surrogacy in other countries are based on exploitation of poor, vulnerable women,” Somerville said. “Surrogates are often described as altruistic in the advertisements seeking to recruit them.”

According to Somerville, commercial surrogacy is a violation of women’s rights, opening the door to the creation of a breeder class of underprivileged women using their reproduction organs for profit.

While this argument ventures close to the arguments used by proponents against legalizing prostitution, Somerville further reasoned that ethical issues should always focus on the most vulnerable party involved—

Controversy has arisen surrounding surrogacy. (the-american-interest.com) the child. Commercial surrogacy can also be dehumanizing by creating reification and commodification of a child and therefore, of human life.

Somerville compared the issue to organ trafficking by using human beings as means to an end.

“The human life is precious and must never be made a commodity,” Somerville said.

The consequences of the AHRA do pose issues for intending parents

unable to conceive, yet also paint an eerie image of commodifying human life. The juxtaposition of ethical views at the colloquium posed an interesting discussion, but left many uncertain of their opinion on the topics deliberated.

Still, discussion among contrasting views on public health policy must continue to take place, as the field of bioethics takes on an increasingly important role in our modern biomedical society.

Alone in crowded rooms:

Courtesy of Ben Ger

A personal struggle with depression Ben Van der Ger

Courtesy of Juliana Bergen

Disclaimer.

The recommendations made and experiences described in this article are personal to my time with depression and instability. It is not a universal view on what all depression looks like, or how depression should be treated.

S

uddenly, my energy to keep talking disappeared. I left lunch with my two roommates at the E-Café in the McConnell Engineering Building abruptly, and started making my way alone towards the Shatner University Centre . I walked inside, passing a few stairs, corners, and doors until I was sitting on the ground in an empty room on the fourth floor, with my back to the entrance. On the other side of the door I knew there was a campus full of people that would want to support me if they knew what I was going through, but all I felt in the moment was loneliness and pain.

Sorrow so deep and thick, I couldn’t wade out of it no matter how much I shook my legs. So I shook, and shook, and shook. *Ring ring* *Ring ring* Clearing my throat and wiping my nose I stared at my phone. *Ring ring* *Ring ring* *Click* Me: Hello?

N/A: Hey! What are you doing right now? I could really use a break, I’m feeling pretty drained.

Do I tell her? No. It’d probably be good for me to be around somebody right now. Leave it. Go see her.

Me: Oh my gosh, I’ve got way too much food that I’m not going to eat, let me bring you some!

Where are you? Let me come feed youuuu.

Is this helping? I think so.

N/A: Yay! Blackader, come, come.

Me: Kk coming. Come meet me in the lobby and you can tell me all about your day.

Click.

A sigh, followed by an empty laugh, escapes my mouth and echoes around the room. What’s happening to me? Just get back up.

The first time I admitted to myself that my emotional footing was not as stable as it used to be was in the summer of 2015, between my second and third year of university. I didn’t realize it until months after the event above: After my mom had gotten sick, after my girlfriend at the time and I split up, and after losing loved one after loved one to cancer and other diseases. Instead, it came when a group of people I loved went out of their way to organize a party for me after I finished my Law School Admission Test (LSAT).

Walking into a room full of people, green strands hanging from the ceiling, and friends in multi-coloured cone-shaped hats greeting me at the door, all I wanted to do was make them feel the way they wanted me to—happy. But I didn’t have the energy. I was at the helm of a boat with no rudder, spinning the wheel wildly with no result.

I smiled widely while greeting my friend in the library and walking into the party, but internally, my emotions felt the result of whatever was hiding deep in the back of my mind, and fighting it was exhausting.

My instability was a constant process of waiting—whether it was waiting for highs to drop suddenly to particularly thick lows, or for lows to stretch long enough that they can be broken out of by a rush of unpredictable positivity (from a song, an expression of love, or anything, really).

Waiting came with its anxieties. I could never fully enjoy the highs because of the feeling that something darker was waiting around the corner. In Psychology Today Art Markham, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, said students often suffer from ‘“waiting anxiety” thus experiencing rumination, before, during, and after taking the LSAT. Rumination is typically a neutral term, but Markham redefines it as “[thinking] repeatedly about the source of one’s anxiety and [worrying] about the outcome.”

Applying Markham’s definition of rumination to a situation where depression was the outcome, understanding its source and how to work my way out of it became my obsession.

My instability transformed from a period of waiting to a period of self-recognition.

I found myself taking a back seat on my own emotional decisions, and I looked inward to find

anything that would make the process more pleasant and worth it. It was, and continues to be, a period of incredible change. The process of climbing back into the driver’s seat entails many things: Asking what makes or made you feel better or worse, what fuels your productivity, what gives you purpose, and what provokes negative or triggering emotions. Such questions can be largely transformative, but you can only ask yourself so many questions and change so much before others start noticing and asking you some as well.

When asked if depression looks the same in everyone, the National Institute of Mental Health answers bluntly: “No.” Some people respond well to the type of support that takes the form of the ever-sooverused question, “How’s it going?” And some don’t. What’s the best way to tell what somebody dealing with instability might want? Ask. “Do you want me asking you how you’re doing?” If the answer is “No,” then don’t. If the answer is “I don’t know,” then ask when it feels appropriate; there really is no hard rule about when that time is. If you get a response that indicates they might not want to talk about it, then move on to the next topic. If the answer is “Yes I’d like you to,” or “yeah, feel free to ask anything,” apply the same logic as if they said maybe.

Some people might find talking therapeutic, and some might not, confirmed Dr. Robert Whitley, assistant professor of Psychiatry at McGill, and principal investigator of the Social Psychiatry Research and Interest Group (SPRING).

“Letting [someone] know that you’re there for them if they need an ear to listen can be helpful,” Whitley said.

For me, talking was my way of letting

people in and attempting to bridge the gap of understanding from different lived experiences.

It may seem trivial to ask if somebody is okay with being asked a question, but in my experience, it reinforced the importance of clarity and being upfront about other people’s comfort levels. Besides the banality associated with micro-adjustments to everyday conversations, they all remain expressions of love that may, for some, inspire feelings of care and companionship during a time of loneliness and instability.

Personally, these questions helped to flesh out day-to-day solutions, but in itself, the process of communicating could remain and can still be difficult.

Is it wrong for me to need help? This question popped up constantly in my experience with instability. I didn’t want to feel like I relied on anybody else to feel whole or healthy again. I felt, and to some extent still feel, responsible for my hitting my ‘wall.’ Over the summer and throughout Fall 2015, I rejected romantic relationships the moment I associated them with requiring someone else to make me feel complete. I constantly dwelled over the fear of burdening anyone with my problems.

“This year is gonna be a lot for me,” I said.

“I’m sorry, I just don’t think I can get in a relationship right now.”

I wasn’t lying, but I wasn’t telling the entire truth.

To cope with my inability to accept help, it turned out that giving support fit perfectly as a replacement for receiving it. I didn’t want others to feel the way I did, so I found purpose again in providing comfort and education on mental health issues. I wanted to be a resource for those feeling the same or similar to myself, those who felt alone in crowded rooms, and those who wanted to reach out and talk about how they were feeling. But the wall that separated my ideologies from my actions was the inability to follow my own advice.

Even my attempts to communicate and let people in lacked something. I approached every situation as an educational tool, and less of a learning space for myself. As a result, an emotional divide between my words and their content was always present. I felt happy for anyone that found me helpful, but grew sad watching my knowledge go wasted on myself. This emotional duality became my reality, always elated and depressed at the same time. For those in similar experiences, this can be incredibly confusing and isolating.

When replying to questions such as “How are you?” it wasn’t surprising when people were confused by the answer, “I’m really depressed,” said while laughing heavily. In a lot of cases, it was met with a response spit through weaker laughter of, “Really?” or, “Why are you laughing?”

For those who might find themselves confused or thrown off by such honesty, it is important to remember that different emotions don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Just because somebody expresses outward happiness while communicating that he or she is sad, doesn’t mean that this person is lying or being insincere.

“The same way a broken leg can limit some aspects of your life, mental health can sometimes overwhelm your mind, but it doesn’t limit your ability to feel a range of emotions,” Whitley said.

The assumption that seemingly conflicting emotions can’t be felt simultaneously forces some people to choose one or the other, often feeling like their sad emotions are not welcome and further pushing them inwards.

For some, laughing or smiling when talking about tough issues may serve a purpose— perhaps as a defence mechanism, or in my

experience, a way to force myself to not feel ashamed for the way I was feeling by making the topic more approachable or light-hearted.

For others, it may not. What’s important is to recognize that regardless of how one chooses to speak about their experience, each sentence should be valued as an attempt to reach out, and listeners should stay conscious of what might accidentally make them feel ashamed.

Emotional shaming and discounting, whether intentional or not, is largely enforced by the gendered emotional roles of men, and has a prevalent impact on their depression and suicide rates.

According to Jane Powell, in The Guardian, more men below the age of 35 died from suicide in the UK than road accidents, murder, and HIV/AIDS combined in 2011. Powell partially attributes this to her theory that for some men, asking for help may be seen as a failure. Breaking out of the typical set of emotions associated with masculinity can be difficult for many selfidentified men; however, there are potential solutions to this problem already in the works.

On a macro scale, feminist campaigns aimed at relieving societal roles of women by also alleviating societal roles of men can help push back against some causes of these high suicide rates.

On a micro scale, what can be helpful is making sure that the people you know who may be dealing with instability (or whatever they define it as) are aware that they can express typically ‘non-masculine’ emotions. The decision to express those emotions is up to them, but opening the door for it to be a possibility can be incredibly comforting and might inspire more trust or openness between the parties involved.

For those who find themselves in the company of somebody struggling with mental health issues, it’s important to know that you don’t have to be their saviour. I am by no means suggesting that it is one’s social obligation to take on every support role that presents itself.

In cases where it may be too damaging to your own mental health, too exhaustive, or really for any reason at all, it’s completely fair to take a step back. Every situation should be handled differently. In my case hearing something along the lines of, “I love you so much, but I might not be able or qualified enough to be a helpful support system. Do you want help looking into other resources together though?” would have been helpful in gauging what kind of relationship I should be associating with that person. In similar cases to this, where a person’s immediate support structures might not be able to help, it’s important for alternative resources to aptly available.

McGill provides some services, like the McGill’s Mental Health Services (MMHS), but, like many services, it isn’t perfect and the waitlists are incredibly long. “[Waitlists are] delaying students [from getting] access to crucial care by months,” Whitley said. “In regards to the admin [...] much much more can be done.”

According to Emily Yung, mental health coordinator at MMHS, the average wait time is at least a few weeks.

“It’s about two weeks long to see a psychiatrist... and four months for individual psychotherapy,” Yung said. “[With] the largest proportion of students who seek care [at MMHS going] for depression or anxiety.”

Initiatives like Mentoring Across Campus, and The Buddy Program do a good job at building better student-faculty relations, which may help some students feel less like just another number, and lift pressure off MMHS by shifting the focus away from bandaid solutions to more preventative measures.

Yet, according to Whitley, these services are largely underpromoted and underperform-

ing. He insisted that more focus must be put on these preventative measures. Professors can seem unapproachable in university settings,

On the other side of the door I knew there was a campus full of people that would want to support me if they knew what I was going through, but all I felt in the moment was loneliness and pain. and though I never had a bad experience managing my workload during my struggle, many other students do. The added pressure can contribute to already existing symptoms.

“Mental health needs much more than services […] social determinants of mental health on campus [such as] loneliness […] peer pressure to be popular, drink, or have sex, and increasingly heavy workloads all can play a large role [in causing depression],” Whitley said.

“Faculty members should be getting compulsory mental health training where they learn […] how to treat these issues compassionately.”

Training for a standardized Canadian program does exist on campus, through the Mental Health First Aid training sessions, however it is not mandatory for all staff, and even if it were, it might not be possible due to issues of space.

MMHS is struggling to physically fit more doctors, and there just aren’t the human resources available to manage that many people moving around.

“Right now I’m the only trainer [at Mental Health Services],” Yung said. “All the offices are full [... and] resources are not increasing to meet the rising demand.”

If a training program were implemented, outsourcing some of the work to one or more of the five federally certified Mental Health First Aid Trainers in Montreal could alleviate the weight on the McGill’s services.

But even with a mandatory staff training at McGill, a Canadian standardized program

might not properly address stressors affiliated with specific settings, such as factors that affect McGill students, or campus resources to point to. When temperatures dropped around the same time workloads increased, and the average hours of sunlight per day decreased in Montreal, I noticed a considerable return of my instability, but didn’t understand why.

According to Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s Mental Health Coordinator Anya McMurrer, a large problem for many McGill students’ mental health is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which—especially in combination with excess stress from a large workload—can be destabilizing.

Collaboration with some of the amazing student-run services such as McGill Students’ Nightline, the Peer Support Network, and the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society [SACOMSS] could help alleviate organizational stress on the system when trainers are needed, as well as create a program much more tailored to McGill; however, I disagree with Dr. Whitley on the emphasis of compassion as its focal point.

Compassion, as defined by Dr. Emma Seppala, the science director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, is “The emotional response when perceiving suffering and involves an authentic desire to help.”

When I was slouched over in that room on the fourth floor of the Shatner University Centre, I found myself looking for something else. I wanted somebody to lay or sit down with quietly, to silently feed off of each other’s energy and understanding, or somebody that could match my tone when talking about my mental state—whether through light-hearted laughter or serious responses.

But I never wanted somebody to help me.

Compassion can help, but what I came to value most in people during my struggle with instability and depression was empathy. I didn’t need a saviour; not every depressed person does. Some might, but what I, as well as others like me need, is for you to make an attempt at understanding.

One needs empathy to be compassionate, but understanding the former may be harder than the latter. As contenders for the generation with the lowest levels of empathy, we all need to make an active effort to read about or talk to people with these experiences in order to start working those mental muscles.

Finally, to those who might find themselves reading this from a less-than-optimistic place—you are not alone. You are not your depression. You can make it through this. If you find yourself wanting or needing a hand, know that many people who are reading these words will want to give it to you. I know I will if you want to reach out.

Author’s note This article for me has been the culmination of months of struggling, and to some extent a way for me to begin to own and use a part of me that has been largely debilitating. But beyond writing this for myself, I also wanted to write this as both a thank you letter and an apology. To clarify, I am not sorry for how I’ve been feeling, but rather for not properly being able to express my love and thanks to all my friends, family, and the community that has been around me these few months. Knowingly or not, your constant expressions of love, though maybe not registered traditionally, have kept me running. It’s because of that love that I get out of bed early every morning, and it’s because of that love that I’m working my way out of that period of instability. Thank you.

Sending my love, Ben.

Science & technology

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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Game design thinking and the realm of possibility

(bhvr.com)

Behaviour Interactive aims to increase productivity by making life a game Tiffany Le Contributor Founded in 1992 by current CEO Remi Racine, Behaviour Interactive is one of the largest and most successful independent game developers in Canada. Their team is made up of over 300 employees and is headquartered here in Montreal.

In the last year, Behaviour has worked on games like the awardwinning iOS game Fallout Shelter, which the organization made in partnership with Bethesda Game Solutions. The team also worked on $92 million Kickstarter project, Star Citizen—the biggest crowdfunded video game ever developed for Microsoft Windows and Linux.

Their success has been tied to their ability to make their games interactive, artistic, and above all, fun.

“Fun is very complicated,” Creative Director Peter Hammer explained. “The only thing you know is when you’re having it and when you’re not having it.”

With this in mind, Behaviour has curated a series of key universal ingredients to creating fun in video games. This is what Senior VicePresident Dominique Lebel calls “game design thinking.”

A study conducted by Microsoft revealed that humans’ attention span has dropped from 12 to eight seconds due to smartphone usage. This means that a game must be designed as a first time experience. Its virtual world must contain a set of rules that remain persistent, unchanging, and therefore learnable to the user.

There needs to be easily identifiable goals to reach and a motivating reason as to why those goals should be reached. The game must be simple and include engagement and re-engagement tools. There must be visible progress, a tangible feeling of moving forwards. Social involvement, competitiveness, and cooperation are also key. Finally, a fun game requires the idea of winning.

What Behaviour Business Solutions found, however, was that these exact same ingredients— this game design thinking—can be applied outside of videogames, and be just as effective. Although the idea of using game mechanics

in business, specifically marketing, has existed for a long time, it hasn’t evolved much. Known as ‘gameification,’ the process of using games in business never evolved beyond simple tactics such as a game of spin-the-wheel to win a cup of coffee. Now, however, most people carry smartphones, which Behaviour Business Solutions aims to target to revolutionize experiences through game mechanics.

“Imagine if I was coming into work every single day [and] it was a fair world where the rules were incredibly simple; I had clear goals, there was an engagement mechanism, and I knew what I had to do to win,” Hammer stated. “[That] would be a perfect world.

These mechanics exist in a game but they don’t exist in our everyday world, [which] makes it imperfect.”

Behaviour believes the problem with the real world is a lack of immediate validation.

When short term results are not visible, motivation goes down.

Behaviour is utilizing game design thinking to fill that gap. One of the first ways they have begun doing this is by revolutionizing the work experience. The goal is to engage employees, increase motivation, and transform learning.

To test their theory, Behaviour has been working with large firms such as Air Canada and Sobeys to transform their employee training processes. Infusing game mechanics into training is the distinction between a dreary test and a fun trivia game. Behaviour has also been working to employ virtual reality technology in training. This means effective use of the same technology that develops first person shooter games to create highly realistic first person training simulations.

Although they are currently working largely with private corporations, this development is heading towards the public sector, specifically in education.

“Students are actually used to engaging with everything they’re doing, they’ve got all these two-way communication channels,” Hammer said. “They’re playing games; they’re completely connected at all times. Then, they go to school and the mechanics are ancient.”

Somewhere between

Behaviour Interactive has worked on award-winning games like Fallout Shelter and the upcoming Star Citizen. (forbes.com) elementary and middle school, education changes from a reward orientation to a punitive orientation.

Whereas younger children are rewarded for good behaviour, older kids are being punished for bad behaviour. This extends into university and eventually the workforce. This system encourages students to prioritize grades over acquiring knowledge, which means they retain very little of the information that is important. Game design thinking will be able to make education engaging.

“It’s not a very fair system today,” Hammer said. “[The education system] values a [specific] form of academia. Some people are used to taking tests and they know how to get through the system. Are they the best? They’re the best at something. With game mechanics through design, [education] can value the best of many things.”

The US government has already begun funding initiatives to change the way people are educated. This process will begin with the younger groups who are more adaptive to

new technology but will expand into more serious fields that require a long and theoretical education such as medicine. “[Behaviour] is not only taking the old way of teaching and doing it digitally, but we are creating a new way of teaching,” Lebel stated.

Healthcare is the next public sector where game design thinking hopes to change. To do this, they want to shift the focus from treatment during illnesses to preventative care. In order to accomplish this, Behaviour aims to use the concept of immediate validation.

“The only reward in staying healthy […] is ‘I won’t get sick,’” Hammer said. “That’s a very obscure reward compared to [a] vice, which feels good.”

For example, a person may go out for drinks with friends or eat a bag of salty chips because it feels good immediately, whereas the long term health benefits of not doing those things feels bad.

Game design thinking can add immediate validation for someone who is trying to make healthy life

choices when there are no visible, physical forms of immediate validation. To do this, Behaviour Interactive hopes to link users with health insurance premiums.

Insurance companies can reward its users for good behaviour, such as eating healthy and quitting smoking.

The last sector that game design thinking will be able to tackle is environment. The idea of process is key here; through game mechanics, people will become more motivated to recycle if their garbage is able to tell them exactly how much carbon emission they eliminated. Game design thinking is filling the gap that is limiting rational decisions because the payoff is not evident.

These projects take a long time to complete and perhaps longer to become fully integrated.

However, they are big steps towards a dramatic change in human behaviour. The idea of game design thinking is relatively new but packed with potential.

Companies like Behaviour Interactive are paving the way towards a bold paradigm shift.

C A M P U S S P O T L IG H T Marina Sulmona Contributor McGill’s hustle and bustle can often seem neverending, and finding an environment where one can escape the busy-ness of student life while still on campus can be a challenge. The Arts Undergraduate Society’s (AUS) Bar des Arts (BdA) serves as a resting spot for students to enjoy a beer and grilled cheese, play a game of pool, or just relax with a diverse group of students.

“The role of BdA [...] is to provide a space for students, run by students, that is about the students,” Nic Price, U4 Arts and BdA co-chair, said. “It’s really about offering a judgment-free, stress-free space for people to take a break from their daily lives on campus and have some fun.”

Nestled in the Arts Lounge in the basement of Leacock, BdA acts as a central meeting place on campus. Students of all faculties (not just Arts) toting frosh mugs and various reusable cups gather from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. every Thursday evening.

“You’d be surprised how many people are not in Arts,” Alyssa Gold, U3 Arts and BdA staff member, said. “There’s education, science, there are people who are in graduate programs here.”

This spirit of inclusivity stems from the tight-knit community among the staff, which extends to

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Bar des arts (bda)

its patrons. Working together in various roles from serving beer, to checking IDs at the door, to managing cash, the camaraderie of BdA staff members continues even after closing time. Outside of the bar, the staff participate in events like apartment crawls and Faculty Olympics.

“The staff honestly, we are like one big family,” Alanna Sokic, U3 Arts and staff member, said.

This familial feel allows attendees to feel right at home at BdA, regardless of whether they would like to drink or not.

Options such as water and juice are available in addition to beer, week to week.

“It’s more about the atmosphere and the people and less about the drinking,” Gold said.

In order to keep the weekly events engaging, each Thursday is marked by a new theme. Themes often incorporate a range of additional food and drink items.

Price remarked on the continuous effort to appeal to a wide range of interests.

“We’ve done champagne for The Bachelor theme, we’ve done churros; we’ve done a bunch of things,” Price said.

While holiday-themed events in general tend to be the most popular, more unexpected themes also have the ability to draw in large crowds.

BdA staff members work on the perfect beer pour. (Natalie Vineberg / McGill Tribune) “Our best selling event was Mimosas & Samosas,” Price said.

“That day we sold 1500 beers, I mean, it is unheard of. We sold all the mimosas and all the samosas.”

In line with other sustainability missions on campus, BdA sells plastic recyclable cups provided by their sponsor, Sleeman, in case students forget to bring their reusable and non-breakable cup.

“It is in an effort to promote sustainability but is also in order to promote [the] safety of our patrons,” Price explained.

BdA also acts as a platform for other clubs and organizations on campus to showcase their

respective events and initiatives.

Every week BdA hosts groups who would like to sell tickets for other events on campus, recruit new members, or just get the word out there about their club’s platform.

All in all, the BdA staff seek to inspire an environment with welcoming and non-intimidating vibes. Staff are quick to point to the openness of the environment as the result of BdA’s continued success. As word of mouth grows, so does the diversity of attendees. Staff members emphasized that forming new friendships and strengthening

old ones is what makes BdA so appealing.

“Just come, we don’t bite,” Price said.

Whether it’s during the midterm lull or amped up holiday seasons, even after last call staff and attendees alike aren’t quite ready to leave BdA. The message that resonates is that BdA is a place all students can enjoy themselves be it once a semester, or every week. The impression is that your first visit to BdA likely won’t be your last.

“People love it so much they’ll want to stay afterwards,” Sokic laughed.

Red lentil soup Natalie Vineberg

A quick meal to get students through the midterm season. (soupsecrets.net)

Ingredients

DIRECTIONS

2 tbsp of olive oil 2 carrots, diced 2 cloves of garlic, minced 1 onion, diced ½ tsp of salt 1 tbsp of tomato paste 2 cups of red lentils 8 cups of chicken broth 2 bay leaves Black pepper Cayenne pepper

1. Cook olive oil, carrots, garlic, onion, salt, for 5 minutes, covered, over medium heat.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pot and bring to a boil. Turn down to heat to low and simmer covered until lentils fall apart. This should take approximately 20 minutes.

3. For a thicker consistency, purée half the soup.

Now that midterms season has graced McGill students, any prior New Year’s resolutions to cook fancy, elaborate meals have gone out the window. Enter this red lentil soup recipe, which is fast and simple; it only has three steps, and the last one is opt-outable if you’re tight for time. It’s affordable for students since the main ingredient is lentils, and the

rest of the ingredients can probably be found around the house already. For those looking for a vegetarian option, the chicken broth can be swapped out for vegetable broth. Lastly, students can cook up a jumbo batch to eat at the library throughout the week; the soup freezes well, and can be warmed up for a quick snack between stints in the library.

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Student Living Reflections on the Self Care Challenge

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Healthy McGill program underscores need for mental health services on McGill campus Liz Willcock Staff Writer For most people, self care occurs on an unconscious level everyday. At its simplest, self care is the process whereby one gives their body and mind what they need.

For the last three years, however, Healthy McGill has made a point of asking students to bring this process to a conscious level, making the effort to think about what they need, and making a point to answer these demands.

Healthy McGill’s annual “Self Care Challenge” took place this year from Feb. 8 to 19, and was designed to bring questions of self care to light in the midst of the stressful midterm season.

There were five challenges every day, each of which covered a pillar of Healthy McGill: Active living, mental health, eating well, sexual health, and safe partying.

The activities ranged from “go fill up your water bottle” or “compliment a friend” to “make an appointment to get tested for STIs.” Though these tasks may appear mundane to some, and are probably already a part of most students’ routines, self care constitutes undertaking these activities consciously as something that contributes to one’s overall health.

Dorothy Apedaile, a sexual and peer health educator at Healthy McGill, explained how self care is essentially about taking a moment to contribute to one’s personal health and wellbeing.

“The Self Care Challenge was about taking time for yourself,” Apedaile said. “It’s about folks developing behaviours that can help them down the road [….]

The idea of the ‘challenge’ format [was] to start a community where folks can share their experiences.

People who have completed the challenge in previous years say they enjoy seeing other students participating online, and that sharing their experiences is a form of self care in and of itself.”

Self care is particularly important for young students in stressful academic settings.

Most mental illnesses, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and psychosis, crop up between the ages of 18 and 25.

According to Anya McMurrer, a mental health coordinator for Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), nearly one third of McGill students experience less-than-average mental health over the course of their degree. Although self care is by no means a form of treatment, it is an important preventative

measure in a competitive university environment where students are faced with a myriad of pressures, academic and otherwise.

The Self Care Challenge used the internet to begin discussions about self care and personal health. It asked students to demonstrate their self care over Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and by the end of the week, the event page was filled with photo collages of students sharing their experiences throughout the 12day period.

Harnessing social media as a tool has proved effective for the Self Care Challenge in creating a community. Katie Wheatley, U3 Arts, chose to participate in the challenge for a second year simply because she enjoys seeing other students’ experiences.

“It reminded us, as busy students, to check in and make a conscientious effort to take care of ourselves,” Wheatley said. “I also chose to partake because I knew I would appreciate the reminders to spend time on myself, and encouragement to dive into what feel like little indulgences, at a point in the semester when things are ramping up in terms of stress and expectations.”

Wheatley also noted that she thought sharing her experience online encouraged her friends to participate in the challenge, or at least start thinking about self care.

Although social media is a powerful tool for starting discussions and building community, it is worth considering what was noticeably absent from the self care challenge: Male students. The participants posting in the event were overwhelmingly female, and undertaking what are conceived as typically gendered activities.

According to Dorothy Apedaile, a Healthy McGill representative, the unfortunate consequence of using a social media platform is that gender comes into a lot of who uses social media. Apedaile stressed that although Healthy McGill tried to make the Self Care Challenge as accessible as possible, there were certain things that lie beyond their control.

“There are definitely gender expectations around who shares what on social media, ” Apedaile explained. “One of our solutions (to the lack of male participation) is getting people to email us and moving away from traditionally gendered types of self care like ‘painting your fingernails.’”

Although the experience of many participants of the Self

Handling mental health issues sometimes takes more than just chocolate.(Elli Slavitch / McGill Tribune) Care Challenge was positive, it is essential to examine these initiatives critically and weigh the pros and cons.

For McMurrer, the Self Care Challenge, while contributing to the health of a great number of students, has a lot to improve on.

“Posting pictures of yourself doing any of the given activities can both empower you and normalize self care, but for the person scrolling through their news feed who hasn’t left bed in three days due to a bout of depression, it might actually be more upsetting,” McMurrer said.

To combat the issues with social media, McMurrer suggested Healthy McGill to shift the focus of the Self Care Challenge from an online forum for sharing, into a proactive form of community support.

“I think future Self Care Challenges can shift a little bit more towards thinking about ‘community care’—engaging with friends and loved ones and giving them support in any way they might need it,” McMurrer said.

“Healthy McGill could cater to a wider audience by reframing the event as a Self-Care Week with different workshops that give you the opportunity to learn how you take care of yourself best.”

Wheatley, who participated in the challenge, noted that within the scope of their abilities, the Self Care Challenge had the potential to have a positive impact.

“I really see taking care of ourselves and actively adopting strategies to de-stress on a regular basis as key preventative measures in ensuring we maintain healthy outlooks on life,” Wheatley said.

“Especially given the stress of school and the hundred other things we all have on our plates.”

Ultimately, the Self Care Challenge raised issues over the scarce health services at McGill—a shift that places responsibility for care on the student rather than the institution. McMurrer noted that there is a recent trend at the university where student groups pick up the slack when the university falls short, such as a lack of appointment availability to see psychologists, and long wait times that have let students down. She argued that in this

sense the Self Care Challenge is essential to students, but part of a larger problem that needs to be addressed.

“There’s a much deeper issue here,” McMurrer said.

“Ultimately, there is a lot of onus on McGill students to take care of themselves as individuals because the university is not taking proper care of [them].”

There remains a lot of work to be done at McGill in providing adequate mental health services, but for most students the Self Care Challenge appeared to be a step in the right direction in the meantime.

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

JAMES DUNNIGAN

Dunnigan is always concocting complex narratives. (Photo courtesy of James Dunnigan)

Evelyn Goessling Staff Writer As a poet, novelist, and aspiring academic, McGill student James Dunnigan lives his life in a cloud of creative energy. While finishing a degree in Honours English (with a graduate essay on Virgil and Wordsworth’s pastoral poetry) Dunnigan reads and writes constantly

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while keeping up with Montreal’s thriving literary scene.

Born and raised in Montreal, Dunnigan considers his Hungarian grandparents to be very influential in his passion for writing. His grandfather was a surgeon in Hungary during the Hungarian revolution, and also dabbled in painting and prose.

The huge collective libraries of both sets of grandparents helped illustrate to Dunnigan the massive wealth of

knowledge contained in the written word.

“Writing comes from trying to be like the people I’ve admired the most,” Dunnigan said. “Reading and writing are something [my grandparents] are both involved in.”

While Dunnigan’s interests are grounded in literary classics of all kinds, his writing style as well as his interests are always changing.

“That’s what originality is,” he said. “Your intentions for a story change because your world changes.

Writing must have that quality. The intention you have will be altered.”

Dunnigan’s view is unexpected; considering his deep interest in the classics, his approach to writing is surprisingly fluid.

“Part of my methodological process is always reading as well as writing. The writing process is very loose. An idea could come anywhere,” Dunnigan said.

One story, Open Bay, has an astonishingly different style from an earlier story, Arabesque. Dunnigan attributes this to an editing crunch.

“Open Bay was originally three times as long, and in cutting it down to reach the word limit I began cutting out grammatical units of sentences, which ultimately made it sound more like a little kid,” he said.

The protagonist of Open Bay, a young girl, has little in common with the author. Arabesque, however, could be autobiographical: The protagonist is a young man, having a summer afternoon drink on Rue Sainte Catherine. Dunnigan said that it’s not specifically autobiographical, rather that “elements of character and setting are combinations of elements of real life, rearranged to create a story.”

The protagonist of Arabesque emphasizes his love for author James Joyce, who was Dunnigan’s favorite author at the time. Now Dunnigan names Virgil, Faulkner, and Balzac to be his primary influences, but like his style, James’ favourite authors are always changing.

“Faulkner and Balzac reinvent the novel every time they write it, I want to do that with my stories,” Dunnigan said. “Each story [I write] makes a different experiment, and a different experience. I want to escape narrowing down of styles. I’d rather be diverse, and of course good at all styles. That’s the hard part.”

Dunnigan’s long-standing project is a novel, titled The Inflections of Wilfrid Ylle. Although complete, he says it needs a lot of revision.

“Perhaps I tried too hard to reinvent the novel,” Dunnigan said,

“The narrative structure became too complicated. Every piece of narrative comes from conversation.

It’s an investigation into who this man was—perhaps relating somewhat autobiographically to a certain grandfather figure.”

As a native Montrealer, Dunnigan is used to living within French and English worlds simultaneously, which comes through in his interests as well as his academic work- he will be graduating this year with a minor in French. On translation, James says that if a translator is going to rewrite a piece, he may as well totally rework it. There is merit to translation, but Dunnigan tries to avoid it as much as possible.

“I would never read Flaubert in English,” he said.

While fragments of stories are always constantly popping up around him, for Dunnigan it’s all about the endgame.

Dunnigan explained, “the most rewarding thing about writing is finishing. You can’t finish many other things in life as satisfactory as a story. You can’t always choose where to put that final period.”

Wherever that final period may be, Montreal should keep an eye out for James Dunnigan’s next work.

Comic books 101: How to start reading (and loving) comic books

Clark Kent reads comics, and you can too! (Stephanie Ngo / McGill Tribune)

Jenna Stanwood News Editor As comic-cons become more popular and geek culture merges with pop culture, comic books are attracting more and more attention. With movie franchises and television series, characters previously restricted to ink and paper are attracting new fans through digital media. However, comics remain intimidating to newcomers, since most characters have multiple series, and every series has a multitude of volumes. Whether you’re interested in superheroes, zombies, or some of the more serious stories told graphically, here are some tips for new comic enthusiasts.

Take advantage of compendiums

Classics are classics for a reason, so long-running comics are often a great place for newcomers to start, especially superhero classics from Marvel or DC. It can be intimidating to jump into the middle of established story lines, so new readers may feel more comfortable seeking out collected publications.

These are series of smaller comics bound together in chronological order, usually across numerous volumes for a certain series or character. Both Marvel and DC have compiled collections for most of their most popular series, usually stretching back to their very beginnings—as early as the 1950s. For classic superheros from the Marvel universe (Iron Man, Captain America, etc.) check out the Marvel MasterWorks series. On the DC side, storylines from iconic characters such as Batman, Superman or the Green Lantern are published together in hardcover.

Buy local

Yes, it’s good to support your local economy, but shopping at the comic shop down the street has other important benefits. No one that works in a comic store is going to be clueless about the art form, and they’re usually more than willing to help you dive in.

Don’t hesitate to ask for help, your local comic book store owner might be able to suggest the best place to begin with a certain series or a certain character. Or, if you’re not sure who to start with, they might have some suggestions to ease the transition from novels to comics.

Begin with familiar stories and characters

Many beloved television series have started as comic series or have

been continued after their cancellation in comic book form. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Avatar are just a selection of shows that live on in comic books. The Walking Dead is based off of a comic series of the same name.

Check out Dark Horse Comics for many television series turned to the page, including all of director Joss Whedon’s classics. There are also the obvious comic-based movies, such as Guardians of the Galaxy, that can make a good starting point and whose comics are usually easier to get your hands on after the movie versions have premiered.

If you, like many others, found your interest in comic books through such movies, identify what characters you liked the most and start with their comics. Chances are if you liked their on-screen persona, you’ll come to love them even more in written form.

Put more emphasis on the book

There is no need to jump immediately into episodic comic book series. There are many graphic novels that serve as a great bridge between traditional novels and comics. The best is Watchmen, which runs over 400 pages and combines classic comic panels with written sections between each chapter. Outside of the superhero world, there are light hearted options like Scott Pilgrim or graphic novels that deal with heavier themes, like Persepolis or Blue is the Warmest Colour. These

options rely more on images than Watchmen, but still provide a longer reading experience for those adjusting to comics.

Don’t limit yourself to one genre

Comic books aren’t just superheroes, sci-fi and zombies. Some comic series, such as Sandman by Neil Gaiman, combine enthralling dark stories with haunting imagery for an enchanting and at times chilling reading experience. Others can appeal to the angsty, cynical teenager that lives on in us all, such as Ghost World. No matter what you’re looking for in a story, chances are there’s a comic that’s right for you. You just might have to put in a little research to find it.

Just start somewhere

There really is no right or wrong way to approach comic books. Head to a bookstore, pick one up, and start reading! It may be intimidating to jump into the middle of a series, but comics are written with their serial nature in mind.

Catching up is usually easy, and gaps in the story line are often explained right in the dialogue or text. If you still feel you’re missing something important, never be afraid to make use of Google.

Comic book fans have created many online resources to help new and old fans alike stay up to date.

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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The original production of RENT was quite different than the AUTS version. (Left: nothingsky.com; Right: Scott Cope / AUTS)

Race & Rent: A look at racial representation within the McGill theatre community April Barrett Arts & Entertainment Editor The poster for the Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society’s (AUTS) most recent production, RENT, might have unsettled those who know the original musical well. Their first question would likely be: “Wait, why is everybody white?” RENT is a musical that centres on the lives of poor artists in 1980s New York dealing with love and loss in the time of the AIDS epidemic. While it’s focus on queer people of colour living with a highly stigmatized illness is a little heavier than Wicked, RENT is as beloved as it is critically acclaimed. The popular image of RENT is based in part on its original 1993 cast as well as on its 2005 movie adaptation. Both renditions depict a majority nonwhite group of bohemian artists, with specifically Latino and black characters in leading roles. RENT is singular as a Broadway show with diverse and non-tokenized roles for ethnic minorities. In the AUTS version, there was only one person of colour in the main cast, Tiger Xu, a student of Chinese descent who was also the only main character in an antagonistic role.

“Of course [being the only person of colour] went through my head,” Xu explained. “It does play a role; I play an evil character, maybe it’s easier for an audience member to identify someone who looks different.”

In terms of casting, the

director of AUTS’ RENT Daniel Austin-Boyd admitted that many of the same actors are cast in AUTS productions season after season, and this community of performers is, in majority, white.

“I think the most important thing is that you get people who are good at what they do,” he said.

Like other theatre companies, the first step of AUTS’ process is selecting the actual show. AustinBoyd emphasized the popularity of RENT as a central reason behind his choice to put it on.

“Firstly, it’s just a very popular musical, and AUTS needs to get audiences to cover the cost of renting Moyse Hall,” AustinBoyd explained. “I also liked that the characters were roughly the same age as McGill students.

Finally, it is a rock musical, so it was a nice contrast to the kind of shows we usually put on.”

Austin-Boyd acknowledged that the McGill context is very far removed from the original context of the musical.

“I’m not going to say it didn’t cross our minds,” Austin-Boyd said of the largely-white cast. “A lot of the original cast was very ethnically diverse. That being said we are at McGill and McGill’s a university so we don’t have the same pool as all of New York City.

Our primary consideration was, do they fit the characters?”

Beyond RENT and the AUTS, the issue remains that the pool of actors within McGill theatre is small, and quite homogenous.

Shanti Gonzales is a student

director working on a production of Paula Vogel’s play How I Learned to Drive, as a part of the McGill Director’s Projects Festival (going on in Moyse Hall March 30 to April 9, 2016). Gonzales, concerned with diversity in her production, opened her call for auditions to those outside McGill.

“When race comes up in a casting discussion, the most common excuse is ‘We did what we could with who showed up,’” Gonzales explained. “My response to that is ‘Extend your audition call to a more diverse array of people.’

Without that extension, the same bodies are put on stage time and time again, and those bodies are almost always white.”

She pointed out the irony of McGill theatre’s consistent whiteness, as it so contrasts Montreal’s diversity, mentioning that organizations such as The Black Theatre Workshop and The Centre for Intercultural Arts are only blocks away from campus.

Nathaniel Hanula-James, the publicity manager of McGill’s Tuesday Night Café Theatre Company (TNC), has also starred in numerous productions during his time at McGill. Every year, new directors apply to work with TNC for the season, and it’s up to the board of the TNC to consider new directors within their mandate for inclusivity.

“If we have the same director who comes to us multiple times with a wonderful vision, we don’t want to keep privileging that director and have them do multiple

seasons,” Hanula-James said.

“Instead, we’re trying to pay more attention to first-time directors, who will maybe not produce as good of a play, but who we would want to give more of a chance to.

Similarly, if you cast an actor of colour because there is a mandate for that, and they are not as good of a performer, well then train them!”

Gonzales explained that often racial dynamics are at play when assesing auditions.

“The white face is the face that we’re used to reading, so that one becomes the most legible to us,” Gonzales said. “Then in casting, I’ve seen directors consider someone white against someone of colour, and conclude that the white person is better— genuinely believing that it was a matter of talent. The fact is, both actors were just as talented, but the white body was easier to read.”

On a similar vein, Xu added that he understood audiences might subconsciously relate his racial appearance to his character.

“It’s harder to picture myself as being in one of the main couples,” Xu said. “The casting was predominantly white and I think that factors into it. The reality is that it’s easier to have me as an outsider.”

Xu also stated that the creative team of RENT did put in effort to cast fairly, and that casting him in such a way was more of a subconscious choice, when working with what they had.

Xu asserted that as more people of

colour are cast in shows, regardless of their roles, the community gradually becomes more inclusive “Looking on stage at performers, you can’t avoid seeing colour, it’s about getting used to that,” Xu stated. “We need to get used to the idea that people of colour can be in these roles too. I think representation is one of the least volatile and most powerful ways to do that.”

In a student-run atmosphere like McGill’s theatre community, companies such as the AUTS will continue to grow and flourish.

Hopefully, this growth will come in part due to an understanding that diversity is not just for inclusion purposes; it makes for more interesting theatre.

Hanula-James emphasized that a student theatre community should have more training opportunities. Not making it into a show, or not getting into a very small theatre class, should not mean the end of the road for developing new talent. In the spirit of learning, RENT should not be looked upon as a failure on the part of anyone involved, but as a point of reflection and the beginning of an active conversation.

“McGill theatre, in general, should be more about training people and growing people, not about assembling a line of stars to keep performing in McGill theatre,” Hanula-James stressed.

An extended version of this piece can be found online at mcgilltribune.com/a-e

w e b reads McGill Tribune Arts and Entertainment’s 2016 Oscar Predictions Oscar Nominated Shorts: An in-depth review of the competition Black Lights Over America: The rising influence of Black Power on pop culture Read all online at mcgilltribune.com/a-e

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Sports

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

10 things Reindeer racing

(msm.no)

By Nick Jasinski

Reindeer racing is a competitive and widely followed sport in some northern parts of Norway, Finland, and Russia. It involves speed-suit-wearing jockeys on cross country skis and a harness being dragged along by full-grown reindeer on a fixed snowy course, reaching speeds of up to 60 km per hour.

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Reindeer—more commonly known as caribou in North America—are a species of deer native to arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. Both male and female reindeer grow and shed antlers each year, with some large males displaying antlers up to 135 cm in length. Depending on the subspecies and quality of diet, some reindeer can grow to be up to 185 kg in weight.

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Racing reindeer can be traced back to the Sami, an indigenous Scandinavian people who inhabit the far north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. Reindeer are integral to Sami heritage and lifestyle, who rely on the animals for their fur and meat, as transportation and as a source of cultural pride.

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The largest annual reindeer race takes place in Tromsø, Norway, each February as part of Sami National Day celebrations. Thousands of spectators come from near and far to witness “the fastest reindeer in Norway” race down a 200m track on Tromsø’s main avenue through the city center, where stores and even banks are closed for the day.

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The competition is organised as an elimination cup, starting with qualifying heats where only the winners of each heat progress through to the next round. The final at the end of the day decides the national champion of Norway.

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Another major race on the reindeer racing circuit takes place on a 1000m snow track in Levi, Finland, another region that prides itself in its Sami roots. This is contested between reindeer breeding cooperatives, who compete to see who produced the strongest and fastest reindeer in their herds that year. There are 51 reindeer breeding cooperatives in Finland that raise reindeer for meat, breeding, pulling sleighs, work on farms, as well as racing.

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Reindeer are notoriously difficult to domesticate and train for racing, being naturally skittish animals. The semi-wild reindeer are mostly raised for their meat, with only some particularly strong and fast specimens chosen and bred for their racing abilities.

In Naryan-Mar, Russia, teams come from reindeer herding communities in the region to participate in various events including sled races. In its journey to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, the Olympic flame passed through Naryan-Mar on a reindeer sled.

“When the reindeer is a few years old, they’ll start to race it and see how good it is,” Dr Carol Brown-Leonardi of the Open University told The Guardian. “Reindeer herding is big business in that part of the world. So they may be wasting money because they’re investing in a reindeer they’re not sure about. It’s quite a gamble on gut feelings and instincts.”

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Hockey

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Every February, as part of the lead-up to the Iditarod Dog Sled Race in Anchorage, Alaska, hosts a winter variation of Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls: The Running of the Reindeer.

People gather in heats and sprint down a street pursued by a herd of charging reindeer, dodging hooves and antlers as they run.

concordia

McGill on cloud nine, dominate Concordia Redmen defeat rival Stingers and advance to OUA semifinals Arman Bery Contributor ‘Relentless’ is a word that summarizes the McGill Redmen Hockey team’s (21-6-1) dominant 9-2 victory over crosstown rival Concordia (10-12-6) at McConnell Arena on Wednesday. From the puck drop to the final buzzer, the Redmen played a physical, skillful, and disciplined style to capture a 1-0 series lead in the OUA East quarter-final.

“You try to play the same way, try and stick to your plan,” Head Coach Kelly Nobes said. “And I think we did a good job of that tonight. We played a full 60 minutes, and that’s what it takes this time of year.”

Of the two sides, McGill generated the best chances in the first period, most notably a fifth minute thread-theneedle pass by centre Liam Heelis. At 11:35, senior centre Mathieu Pompei’s nasty slide-by dangle and shot past the goalie opened McGill’s account for the post-season. Concordia replied swiftly, scoring a minute after a McGill penalty kill. McGill reclaimed its lead at the end of the first period as forward Patrick Delisle-Houde scooped up a blocked shot rebound to find the top of the net.

From the second period onward, McGill dictated the game’s pace; at the

2:18 mark of the second period, a point shot from McGill was deflected onto the stick of rookie winger Rock Regimbald, whose no-look behind-the-back pass found rookie winger Christophe Lalonde for the goal. Even though Concordia tied the scores five minutes later, the Redmen were still in charge.

A double penalty at the 12 minute mark led to four-on-four play; a great sliding breakup by rookie defenceman Dominic Talbot-Tassi in the Redmen’s own zone led to a counterattack goal scored by Talbot-Tassi himself.

“It’s a 200 foot play,” Nobes said.

“It’s a great defensive play that gets you rewarded at the other end of the ice and that’s how the game works all the time.”

McGill asserted their will at the end of the second period with a beautiful transition three-man-weave that led to rookie centre Frederic Gamelin scoring.

The Redmen entered the third period with a 33-20 shot advantage and a 5-2 lead.

McGill dominated Concordia in the third period; three minutes in, sophomore winger Simon TardifRichard squeezed the puck into the front of the net. Frustrations began to boil over for the Stingers, and the visitors’ Frederick Roy received a five minute major and a game misconduct for fighting (Gamelin also received

McGill outscored Concordia by a combined eight goals. (Zikomo Smith / McGill Tribune) two minutes for roughing). Despite the tensions, McGill continued to play with great drive: The team’s seventh and eighth goals, both on power-plays, were scored by Lalonde and Jonathan Bonneau, respectively. Bonneau also added McGill’s final and ninth goal of the game—he exploded past the defender on the right side of the ice, sniping a stunning shot into the top-left corner of the net.

McGill went on to win the second game and the series at Concordia in a hard fought 4-3 overtime win on Friday, Feb 19. Simon Tardif-Richard scored

twice, including the game-winner, to help the Redmen advance to the next round of the OUA playoffs against the Carleton Ravens on Feb 24.

Quotable “I think that it’s the playoffs, it’s a short series, [so] you need to be ready from the start, need to play 60 minutes, I don’t think that was a factor in tonight’s game.”— Nobes on whether McGill’s rivalry with Concordia influenced their performance.

Stat Corner Concordia was only 1-7 on the power-play, and McGill had a decisive shot advantage of 4329.

Play of the Game A great end-to-end play by the Redmen during four-on-four, with a great diving breakup, translated to a great goal from the slot on the other end by Talbot-Tassi.

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Sports Volleyball

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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

sh e r b r o o k e

Martlets advance to RSEQ Finals and clinch CIS Championship berth Drop first game in series but comeback to win 2-1 Nicole Spadotto Staff Writer Continued from page 1.

Despite the disappointing loss, McGill progressively improved their game throughout the match. At the beginning of the second set, McGill and Sherbrooke traded points, with McGill hanging onto the lead up until midway through the set.

In the second half, key missed blocks led to a ommanding lead lead for Sherbrooke, which they managed to hang onto despite a late-set surge by the Martlets, led by energizing blocks by Robitaille and powerful shots by junior power-hitter Marie-Eve Dorion.

In Friday’s third set, the Sherbrooke defence looked sharp, saving what looked like sure points for McGill. The end of the set was the high point of the game for the Martlets, with McGill back coming from

a deficit to tie the game 23-23.

Sherbrooke would ultimately pull ahead after an aptly placed spike, and then win the game off the technicality of a Martlet player accidentally touching the net. The last set on Friday would set the tone for the Martlets for the rest of the weekend, giving them indispensible momentum and positivity that contributed to the series win, even in the face of a rowdy crowd at Sherbrooke on Saturday and a fervent Sherbrooke comeback attempt after McGill put them down 2-0.

“At the beginning, I think [our players] were nervous,” Beliveau said. “And then at some point they just started to get it together but it just gave the momentum to Sherbrooke, and if you do that with Sherbrooke, they’re going to go up.”

Though Sherbrooke commanded the win on Friday, the Martlets shook their nerves and wrestled back the momentum.

Sherbrooke notably ended the

Martlets drop frst game in series but came back to win 2-1. (Noah Sutton / McGill Tribune) Martlets Championship hopes last year by beating them out of a playoff berth, but this season, the Martlets bested Sherbrooke 4-3 through seven matches. With the strong response in a tightly contested game on Saturday at Sherbrooke, followed by

a dominant performance on Sunday, the Martlets have finally solidified their superiority over their cross-provincial foes. The Martlets look forward to their next series, the RSEQ Finals against Université de Montreal, coming up this weekend.

“Our programs have been working really hard to be in the top two of our league, and this is what we’ve reached this year,” Beliveau concluded. “Now, we have to make it concrete with the playoffs.”

Redmen Basketball

ball effectively and scored over half of the points from assists; rookie guard Geraldine Cabillo-Abante recorded a game-high 12 points, all coming from three-pointers. They also converted an excellent 85 per cent of their attempts from the charity stripe. On defence, McGill held Laval to a paltry 12 per cent from the three point line and to 23 per cent from the field. Senior forward Mariam Sylla was dominant with eight rebounds, whilst rookie guard Gladys Hakizimana recorded two steals.

Next Saturday, the Martlets, who has already clinched the number one spot in the RSEQ, and will face last-placed Bishop’s (0-13).

The WEEK THAT WAS for M c Gill Athletics By the Numbers

Tribune Athletes of the Week

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The number of game winners Melodie Daoust of the Martlet hockey team has scored this season, the best in the CIS.

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The number of goals the Redmen hockey team put past the Concordia Stingers in the first leg of the OUA East quarter-finals.

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The advantage of digs that McGill had over Sherbrooke in game 3 of their RSEQ semifinals series matchup.

Photos courtesy of McGill Athletics

Simon Tardif-Richard Sophomore Winger

Yasmeen Dawoodjee Senior Setter

Sophomore wing Simon TardifRichard scored twice, including McGill’s series winner in the second leg of the best of three OUA-East quarter-final against Concordia last Friday. TardifRichard’s clutch performance also saw him score McGill’s third goal halfway through the second period, which forced the overtime and allowed for his game winner.

Tardif-Richard was a speedy and alert presence all game and will give opponents fits as McGill moves into the second semifinals of the OUA East playoffs.

Senior setter and captain Yasmeen Dawoodjee garnered a gamehigh 38 assists in a 3-0 victory on Sunday to propel McGill to a 2-1 RSEQ semi-finals series victory over Sherbrooke. In doing so, McGill qualified for the CIS nationals for only the third time in team history; Dawoodjee is the only member of the 2016 squad who was a part of McGill’s CIS bronze medal squad in 2012.

She will be a key component in McGill’s game plan when they play the Montreal Carabins in the RSEQ finals Friday March 4.

On Friday, the Redmen (10-4) overcame a 15-point deficit at the end of the third quarter to defeat the Laval Rouge et Or (6-8) 69-68. The thrilling game was ultimately decided on a pair of missed free throws by Laval senior Laurier Beaulac-Dufresne. In the first half of the game, senior guard Tychon Carter-Newman carried the Redmen offence with 15 points (he finished the game with 25 points overall), shooting an efficient 50 per cent from the floor.

In the final quarter of the game, McGill clawed their way back, with CarterNewman, sophomore centre Noah Daoust, and senior guard and captain Vincent Dufort all excelling. Daoust scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half, while Dufort scored all of his 18 points on 50 per cent shooting in the second half. McGill struggled with 20 turnovers for the game, though they managed to out-rebound Laval 40-25, and score nine more points that their opposition off second chance attempts.

McGill, who top the RSEQ standings, will play last place Bishop’s (3-10) next Saturday in Love Competition Hall.

Martlet Basketball The Martlets (13-1) had an easier victory over the Laval Rouge et Or (86) than their Redmen counterparts last Friday: McGill won 60-50 and extended its winning streak to 11 games. The Martlets never trailed in the game and maintained a double digit lead through all four quarters. McGill moved the