McGill Tribune vol. 37 issue 24

The McGill Tribune WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2018 | VOL. 37 | ISSUE 24

Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

EDITORIAL

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM | @McGILLTRIBUNE

FEATURE

Behind the picket line: Accessible education requires a concrete action plan

PG. 5

POP RHETORIC

With time, a task force

Gap-toothed women in popular culure

PGs. 8-9

PG. 11

Precolonial history, a 200th birthday, and McGill’s belated response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

(Selwynne Hawkins / The McGill Tribune)

A behind-the-scenes look a coaching through the offseason

In pursuit of building something special, McGill’s varsity coaches’ work never truly ends Gabe Nisker Staff Writer After building toward a championship victory for months at a time, the end of the season leaves players and coaches alike in a trance—the championship hangover.

Coming off his team’s fourth straight CCBA championship, Redmen baseball

Head Coach Jason Starr confirmed this predicament to The McGill Tribune.

“Two weeks,” Starr said. “It takes me two weeks to sit there and say I need a two-week break from the season, and then we’ve got to get back on the train.”

And what a train it is. From scheduling games and practices to recruiting, plenty of offseason phone calls and meetings go into making a season run

Heated debate on free tuition dominates General Assembly

The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) convened for its Winter General Assembly (GA) on March 26. 65 students attended, thus failing to meet the minimum 350-person requirement to meet quorum, forcing the assembly to become a consultative forum. All motions passed by a consultative forum can be added to the agenda of the following SSMU Legislative Council meeting. Attendees

work happens in the offseason, including scouting, preparing training plans, and game strategy. For Martlet basketball Head Coach Ryan Thorne, the final buzzer of a season-ending tournament loss at Nationals in Regina on March 11 didn’t signal the true conclusion of the 2017-18 campaign. There were a few things to take care of first, starting with the final team dinner after the game.

PG. 4

The universe at odds: Quantum mechanics versus general relativity

Making sense of the most fundamental discrepancy in modern physics

General Assembly fails to make quorum Laura Oprescu Staff Writer

as well as it does. It’s a never-ending cycle: By the time the previous season ends, preparations for the next one have already begun. McGill’s coaches, who often juggle full-time work in addition to their McGill Athletics commitments, are always locked in, even if their team is not out there competing. While regular season matchups and championship finishes catch public attention, much of the important

the Motion to Organize the Fight for Free Education and Cancellation of Student Debt, the only motion submitted to the agenda.

SSMU President Muna Tojiboeva attributed low attendance at the GA to the lack of widespread contention over the sole motion presented.

“The GA has been advertised on Facebook and publicized widely,” Tojiboeva said. “I think [lack of attendance has] more to do with the non-controversial nature of the motions, which usually attracts people to the GA.”

PG. 4

Ronny Litvack-Katzman Contributor For over a century, the field of theoretical physics has been in a perpetual state of quandary.

In recent weeks, following noted physicist Stephen Hawking’s death, popular media has turned the spotlight onto the unsolved mysteries of physics. With physicists searching for the next steps to advance the field, the

question of “Where do we go from here?” persists.

Until the revolutionary discoveries of quantum mechanics and relativity that occurred at the turn of the 20th century—primarily through the work of physicists like Max Planck and Albert Einstein— human understanding of the guiding forces of the universe were limited to classical, or pre-1900, models. Classical mechanics deals with the forces

that influence motion, and is based largely on Newtonian principles.

Einstein’s Nobel Prize-winning paper, written in 1905 and awarded in 1921, discussed how light is emitted and transformed. His discoveries marked a major paradigm shift that advanced knowledge beyond the scope of classical physics.

From there, the field of quantum mechanics, the branch of physics that deals with the behaviour of atomic particles, was born.

PG. 13

2 NEWS

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Emails reveal details of how McGill handled Dentistry sexual assault case Administrators tracked survivors’ class attendance without her knowledge Audrey Carleton Managing Editor Email threads shared with The McGill Tribune via the Access to Information (ATI) Act have revealed new details on how the McGill administration handled a recent case of sexual assault within the Faculty of Dentistry. As uncovered by the CBC in December 2017, a former student alleged that a dentist at the university sexually assaulted her during a mouthguard adjustment appointment in November 2016, and that McGill administrators discredited and excused her disclosure. In interviews with the Tribune, the survivor expanded on her complaints, explaining how administrators rehearsed with one another before meeting her and took action without her consent.

“Going into the meeting they had a very strict agenda” As the CBC explained, the survivor and her former boyfriend met with Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry Paul Allison and Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies) Angela Campbell in January 2017 to discuss her case. The survivor deemed the meeting to be unsupportive and far from “survivor-focused.”

Emails the survivor obtained under ATI laws and shared with the Tribune proved that Campbell and Allison made a point of meeting with each other prior to their conversation with the survivor and her thenboyfriend.

While the topic of Allison and Campbell’s conversation is unknown, the survivor and her former boyfriend believe that they had practiced for the meeting.

“It seemed that going into the meeting [Campbell and Allison] had a very strict agenda that they were going to follow and that they knew what was going to happen from the beginning,” the survivor’s exboyfriend, who accompanied her to the meeting for emotional support, said. “[It was as though they said] ‘We’re going to hear the story and basically say we’ll look into it and do our best but we can’t let you know what’s going to happen at the end.’”

According to the survivor, Campbell and Allison’s questioning during the meeting felt as though they were attempting to undermine her claims. Her former boyfriend

reiterated this sentiment to the Tribune.

“The whole tone of the meeting kind of seemed more like [Allison and Campbell] were trying to see if they really should be worried,” the former boyfriend said. “They were trying to [present] it as ‘we’re trying to help [the survivor],’ but it almost seemed as if they were more worried about ‘does she actually have a case against us?’”

To Ashraf Azar, who worked with the survivor on her case in collaboration with several lawyers, Campbell and Allison’s conversation with the survivor is part of a disconcerting trend of McGill prioritizing the quiet resolution of sexual assault cases over supporting survivors.

“With issues like these [...] there has to be either some sensitivity to actually find a solution, and not to try and discredit the claim,” Azar said.

“Because with the seriousness of what’s being claimed [you also want to avoid having] this same perpetrator possibly get away with it and do it to somebody else. So [Campbell and Allison] discussing, rehearsing, going on to basically collect information to some extent it seems, trying to find any holes or discredit [the survivor] at any point is troublesome.”

Allison and Campbell refused to comment on the case publicly due to the nature of the ongoing criminal investigation.

Buddle contacting her professors without her permission Other email conversations showed that Dean of Students Christopher Buddle misinformed the survivor about the extent of his involvement in her case, in what she felt was a violation of her privacy. Buddle emailed the survivor on Feb. 6, 2017 to bring to her attention campus resources for sexual assault survivors, telling her that he knew little to nothing about the case.

“As the Dean of Students, I am typically notified when there are incidents involving students, and I did learn of the situation with you, although I do not know any details,” Buddle wrote in the email. “My utmost concern is your wellbeing.”

While the survivor acknowledged that Buddle’s initial email had a kind and supportive tone, she expressed

concern over other emails she later received through the ATI request, showing that he

30, 2016, and Dec. 1, 2016, two months before his introductory email to the survivor, Buddle

Some names and email addresses from this email thread have been redacted to protect the identities of those involved.

took prior action without her knowledge or consent. On Nov.

requested at least two of the students’ professors to track

her attendance, warning that she “might be sick.” He did not disclose any other information about the case and warned that it is a confidential matter.

“Buddle had not been directly in touch with me at all and to my knowledge, was not involved in the investigation,” the survivor said. “He did introduce himself to me a month later by email, stating that he was informed of my situation, however insisted that he did not know any details. In truth, he was not only involved in internal proceedings, but had actively engaged in the investigation as evidenced by the emails.”

Nonetheless, Buddle remains confident that contacting the students’ professors was necessary to monitoring her well-being following the assault.

“When the Office of the Dean of Students [ODOS] is concerned about a student or when concern has been raised about a student (e.g., health, wellness, or because someone reports them as missing), we will sometimes check in with instructors to see if they have had recent communications with students, or to ask if they can confirm that a student was attending class,” Buddle wrote in an email to the Tribune.

“This is a part of our Office’s mandate around helping students in difficulty.”

Yet there is no line in the ODOS’ mandate explicitly verifying this directive. While the “Helping Students in Difficulty” subsection of the office’s mandate specifies that it will observe “academic indicators” that a student is in distress when necessary, it does not expressly require that the office alert students’ professors when they are unwell.

“Not everything is written down and we use a variety of tools to try to ensure our students feel supported and are well,” Buddle wrote.

The survivor saw this step to be a violation of her privacy and a mishandling of priorities.

“If [Buddle] was indeed concerned about my wellbeing, and not just my academic standing, he could have contacted me directly instead of checking my class attendance,” the survivor said.

“I feel as though my privacy was clearly violated and still feel uncomfortable knowing that my professors were contacted without my permission.”

3 NEWS

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

McGill bans single-use bottled water from all campus food locations

Wellness Hub to bring mental and physical health under one roof

University follows in footsteps of 12 other Canadian schools with eco-friendly step

Student Services’ restructuring to begin in summer 2018

Helen Wu Contributor

Dylan Adamson Arts & Entertainment Editor

McGill students have advocated for banning single-use water bottles on campus since 2010 and, on March 22, the university finally met their demands.

McGill announced that it will begin phasing out the sale of single-use plastic water bottles from all food locations and vending machines on campus, with the goal of completely removing them by May 2019.

The university will also install additional water fountains across campus.

This initiative was the result of consultations between the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), the Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), the MacDonald Campus Students’ Society (MCSS), and student stakeholders in November 2017.

Shortly after the ban was announced, the SSMU Environment Committee passed a new Sustainability Policy on March 29 to outline how it will help student clubs and organizations obtain alternative sources of drinking water for their events. According to Caroline Lou, (SSMU Environment) Commissioner, this policy mandates it to distribute information on plastic bottles to students, promote the use of tap water, and provide services related to waste reduction.

“We can’t visit every club’s events and meetings to monitor their internal practices, but we’re hoping to eliminate plastic water bottle use through education and awareness,” Lou said.

According to Francois Miller, sustainability director at the McGill Office of Sustainability (MOOS), roughly 85,000 plastic water bottles are sold on campus each year—not including bottles distributed by student clubs or associations. He predicts that the ban will help fulfill McGill’s Vision 2020 Climate and Sustainability Action Plan by lowering the university’s carbon footprint significantly, as each bottle is manufactured and trans-

On March 28, the McGill University Senate, the governing body tasked with general control and supervision over academic matters at McGill, convened to discuss McGill’s changing approach to issues of academic integrity. Martine Gauthier, executive director of Student Services, also introduced the new Rossy Student Wellness Hub (RSWH). Additionally, Senate touched upon the newly released federal and provincial budgets, and heard a status report from the Principal’s Task Force on Respect and Inclusion in Campus Life.

ported using fossil fuels.

Moreover, plastic water bottles take at least 450 years to degrade.

Dr. Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill’s Office for Science and Society, believes that the university has taken an environmentally responsible step as he explained the process of manufacturing bottled water. “[The ban] is absolutely not for good publicity,” Schwarcz said. “The university does not benefit from it, society does. Transporting water is an expensive business because [water] is heavy. We also need to take into account the manufacturing of the bottle, which is an energy-intensive industry. Also, depending on where the water is taken from, you are disrupting the aquifers. There have been cases where you see that surfacers have collapsed due to water being sucked out from underneath.”

McGill is far from the first Canadian school to ban the sale of single-use water bottles on its campus. The University of Winnipeg was the first to ban plastic bottles from its campus in 2009. The University of Toronto followed in its footsteps in 2011, as did Concordia University in 2012.

While Miller acknowledges that McGill’s ban is late in comparison, he noted that there have been smaller initiatives to reduce the use of plastic bottles at specific locations on campus, such as SSMU’s ban on water bottle sales in the University Centre in 2009.

Although there are many environmental benefits to banning single-use water bottles, studies have shown that there are risks to this policy move. At the University of Vermont, for example, banning water bottles in 2013 led to an increase in sales of sodas and sweetened beverages.

Yet Miller is confident that McGill has taken the steps necessary to ensure that this doesn’t happen. He cited schools like Washington University in St. Louis, where banning single-use plastic water bottles instead lead to lower soda sales. “[The potential increase in soft-drink sales] was a concern we kept in mind throughout our planning phase,” Miller said. “For this reason, we are supporting the ban by installing or upgrading over 25 new fountains on campus, as well as [selling] cheaper refillable bottles available throughout campus.”

The problem with plagiarism detection software Arriving at the podium for his proposal to repeal the Policy on Text-Matching Software, Professor Chris Buddle, Dean of Students, was greeted with laughter from the senate’s generally stoic audience.

“I want to thank all of the senators for coming today for this momentous occasion,” Buddle said. “Repealing a policy [... is not done] very frequently at universities.”

Text-matching softwares, such as Turnitin, are programs that detect intellectual copyright violations in academic work. Buddle shared the Office of Teaching and Learning’s complaints about the policy, which was developed after McGill purchased a specific license for text-matching software, but has since become obsolete. Laura Winer, director of Teaching and Learning Services, elaborated on the Senate’s motivations for creating the policy in 2004.

“The origins of this policy were [...] concerns about student data privacy,” Winer said. “[There was concern about] students who didn’t want their intellectual property [...] becoming part of a third-party’s database that would be used for profit.”

The policy depended on McGill using a single plagiarism detection software for all academic work produced at the university.

Currently, the university no longer has an institutional license for text-matching software, and the policy has not been revisited since the Board of Governors approved it in December 2004.

The need for such a solution is waning with the rising number of non-text-based assignments such as code for computer science courses, which require a different approach to combating plagiarism. Before putting the

motion to a vote, Buddle emphasized McGill’s unwavering stance toward instances of intellectual copyright infringement.

“Of course, to repeal a policy like this might suggest for some that we don’t take academic integrity seriously, which is not the case,” Buddle said. “I don’t think [...] repealing this policy in any way will lessen our commitment nor the means that we have to ensure academic integrity is upheld at the university, whether formally through our code of conduct, or through the [...] Academic Integrity Module.”

Senate voted to pass the motion to repeal the policy. Professors are still able to copy and paste suspicious paragraphs from students’ essays into search engines, but are required to notify students when using textmatching software.

Rossy Student Wellness Hub in planning stages Gauthier spoke to Senate at length about the forthcoming creation of the RSWH. The initiative will be the largest change to McGill’s Student Services since the implementation of the collaborative care model in 2016. The program will integrate student health, psychiatry, and counselling under one umbrella service.

“Health promotion includes awareness, prevention, and early intervention,” Gauthier said. “At this point, Student Services, in terms of our approach to student mental health, has been largely reactive. So we’re moving to a more proactive model. We’re trying to get into where students are working, learning, and living, [...] and providing support before students get to a crisis point where they need to be accessing a counsellor or psychiatrist.”

The three current part-time directors of student health, psychiatry, and counselling will continue to oversee quality of care within their separate disciplines. However, with the introduction of the Hub, the RSWH director and the associate director of Health and Wellness Promotion—two positions which have yet to be filled—will oversee quality of care in all three disciplines.

RSWH will be housed in the West Wing of the Brown Building, which the university plans to renovate in Summer 2018.

Gauthier emphasized that construction will not interrupt the functioning of health services.

The Hub is projected to open its doors in January 2019.

Senate voted to repeal it’s Policy on Text-Matching Software after years of disuse.

(Kathryn Leci / The McGill Tribune)

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

4 NEWS

Heated debate on free tuition dominates General Assembly General Assembly fails to make quorum Laura Oprescu Staff Writer Continued from page 1.

The motion was drafted by Socialist Fightback’s McGill chapter and mandates that SSMU support initiatives for free education and student debt cancellation.

It calls upon the SSMU Vice-President (VP) External to collaborate with student activists across Canada to mobilize a oneday strike in Fall 2018. Additionally, the motion requested that SSMU establish monthly democratic assemblies to engage students in SSMU’s advocacy campaigns.

This motion is preceded by SSMU’s current policy to promote free education, which passed in 2015. Socialist Fightback member Natalia Garcia believes that organizing a strike is the next step in the fight for free education.

“The best way to fight for our rights is mass action,” Garcia said. “It took the 2012 mass strike for the government to cancel the tuition hikes. That’s what the government responds to, not letters, not votes. They respond to pressure. We don’t believe that [the government] will do anything by themselves if it’s not coming from [students].”

During the debate period, SSMU VP External Connor Spencer expressed her

support for the motion, predicting that free tuition is potentially on the horizon for Canadian universities.

“The NDP just passed, at their congress a month ago, a motion to endorse free tuition,” Spencer said. “This is something that’s on the agenda for the upcoming provincial election, because students have mobilized. This motion is incredibly timely, and I want to lend my full support.”

Socialist Fightback member Vishwaa Ramakrishnan explained that this motion is only one step in the right direction toward free education.

“The motion is Canadian-centric but it is designed to expand beyond the confines of [Canada],” Ramakrishnan said. “This is a global issue. It’s time we start uniting as students across the country, across the world, for free education. I think only through solidarity, with this resolution as a first step in that greater and broader plan for free education, that we can achieve that.”

Not all students were in favour of the motion, however. Andrew Figueiredo, U2 Arts, stated during the debate period that he thinks free tuition is too ambitious a goal to render a student strike effective.

“It’s fine and dandy to talk about free tuition, but it’s a bit of a pipe dream at this point,” Figueiredo said. “It would be nice to implement in the long run, but this motion is not the way to get there. A

Socialist Fightback called for SSMU to mobilize a strike for free education.

(Tristan Surman / The McGill Tribune)

one-day student strike would not only be disruptive to campus life, it would frankly not work.”

Figueiredo further criticized the motion for a lack of fiscal policy details and expressed concern about the long-term repercussions of implementing free tuition.

“We could essentially tank the Canadian economy with this kind of idea, if it goes far enough,” Figueiredo said. “So let’s take a step back and think

about these things, not go on strike, have pertinent discussions on campus, take some economics classes, and consult some experts before going about this.”

A majority of the consultative forum voted in favour of the motion. It was then discussed at SSMU Legislative Council on March 29, where an amended version passed calling for SSMU to work toward the implementation of monthly democratic assemblies in Fall 2018.

AUS Legislative Council votes to reallocate Journal and Special Projects Fund applications FMC miscalculated discretionary funds due to miscommunications

Jacqueline Yao Contributor

HelpDesk position to the Computer Science Undergraduate Society (CSUS).

The Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) held its second-to-last Legislative Council of the 2017-18 academic year on March 28, during which councillors deliberated ways to manage the miscalculated Journal Fund and Special Projects Fund. They also voted on Councillor of the Year, the results of which will be announced at the AUS Awards on April 9. Finally, Council also discussed how AUS will take a larger role in planning next year’s Grad Fair, and passed a motion to add a Vice-President (VP)

Reallocation of the Journal Fund and Special Projects Fund Due to miscommunications between AUS VP Finance Noah Lew and the AUS Financial Management Committee (FMC), the FMC miscalculated the amount of funds available for clubs at their March 21 meeting.

According to Arts Representative Kevin Zhou, the FMC mistakenly combined the Supplementary Fund, the Journal Fund, and the Special Projects Fund, and in doing so put $4,000 of the Supplementary Fund’s money into the other two funds.

“FMC was told by the VP Finance that the three discretionary funds are merging,” Zhou said. “However, after the last FMC meeting, [the committee realized that] the funds are not merging and that it is 20 per cent overfunding [for Journal and Special Projects Funds] but is underspending for departmental associations’ Supplementary Fund.”

Zhou further explained that many journals have already incurred expenses for upcoming launches and will face a budget deficit if AUS were to reallocate funds. In response, Council voted unanimously in favour of Zhou’s motion to move several journal and special projects applications, including those from the Montreal World Health Organization Simulation (MonWHO) and the Department of English Student Association (DESA), to the Supplementary Fund.

AUS will plan more of next Grad Fair and CSUS added an executive position. (Summer Liu / The McGill Tribune)

Suggestion to add new category to Teaching Awards On March 26, the AUS Awards Selection Committee chose the winners of the 2017-18 Teaching Awards: Course Lecturer Kazue Takamura, Teaching Assistant David Collins, and Arts Advisor Brandy Jugandi.

In response to some faculty members’ supposed dissatisfaction with the winners, DESA VP External Thomas MacDonald and VP Academic Madeline Wilson agreed that future Teaching Awards should include a separate category for course lecturers.

“I haven’t considered the idea since there were other course lecturers nominated,” Wilson said. “I would definitely recommend [next year’s AUS Awards Selection Committee] to reconsider that because I’m sorry to hear that there are many faculty members who are upset about the nominations.”

AUS to play larger role in next Grad Fair In the past, the AUS has partnered with the McGill Career Planning Service (CaPS) to jointly plan the AUS Grad Fair, an annual event for students to meet representatives from graduate programs. At the Council meeting, VP External Alice Yue announced that AUS will take a larger organizational role in future Grad Fairs, with the next one planned for Nov. 7, 2018. Yue also proposed to CaPS that AUS receive 85 per cent of the Fair’s revenue, instead of CaPS’ suggested 60 per cent, which comes from graduate

programs’ registration free. Moving forward, she is looking for ways to lower the Grad Fair planning cost from $5,000 to $2,000. This increase is largely the result of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Building closure, as AUS has previously benefited from 10 hours of free booking per week through SSMU. “AUS will communicate with universities and take care of registration and payments,” Yue said. “[Holding the Grad Fair at New Residence] will make shipping from McGill more complicated, so we’re going to collaborate with SUS and EUS for advice because they hold Tech Fair at New Residence every year.”

Motion to Approve Amended CSUS Constitution passes Council voted unanimously to give HelpDesk—a tutoring service for computer science students—a representative VicePresident position on CSUS Council.

Nicholas Lee, VP Arts of CSUS, spoke to the service’s value, explaining that a council position would help the HelpDesk appoint introductory computer science course tutors who have helped many students this year.

Meanwhile, it also voted to change quorum for CSUS Executive Council from four members to 50 per cent of the council, as council meetings have had trouble reaching quorum in the past.

The last AUS Legislative Council will be on April 11.

OPINION 5

Wednesday, April 4, 2018 Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Jasinski editor@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Noah Sutton nsutton@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors Audrey Carleton acarleton@mcgilltribune.com Emma Avery eavery@mcgilltribune.com Selin Altuntur saltuntur@mcgilltribune.com News Editors Holly Cabrera, Domenic Casciato, & Calvin Trottier-Chi news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Jackie Houston & Alexandra Harvey opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editor Jade Prevost-Manuel scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Living Editor Catherine Morrison studentliving@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Marie Labrosse features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Dylan Adamson & Ariella Garmaise arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Stephen Gill & Selwynne Hawkins sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Arshaaq Jiffry & Elli Slavitch design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Ava Zwolinski photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editor Tristan Surman multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Daniel Lutes webdev@mcgilltribune.com Julia Kafato online@mcgilltribune.com

Behind the picket line: Accessible education requires a concrete action plan Today’s university graduates are suffocating under record-high student debt. A 2015 survey by the Canadian University Survey Consortium indicates that approximately 50 per cent of graduating students have debt and carry an average of $26,819 in tuition debt. Debt delays or impedes important life milestones, such as buying a home, and can take a significant toll on students’ mental health. Given the adverse impacts of rising student debt, it’s no wonder that the prospect of free education is enticing to current undergrads.

On March 26, SSMU members passed a motion at the Winter General Assembly (GA) mandating the VicePresident (VP) External to organize a campaign for free education across Canada and the cancellation of student debt. Proposed by the Socialist Fightback student group, part of this campaign includes mobilizing a oneday student strike in the Fall 2018 semester. Quebec student unions have a history of successfully pressuring the provincial government on tuition, and this campaign has similar potential to incite real change.

Because the GA didn’t meet quorum, SSMU Legislative Council subsequently accepted the Motion to Organize the Fight for Free Education and Cancellation of Student Debt at its March 29 meeting, after amending it to include a timeline. The resolution

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Abeer Almahdi, Alissa Ziber, Amanda Fiore, Cordellia Cho, Daria Kiseleva, Emilie Macfie, Erica Stefano, Gwenyth Wren, Gwyneth Boone, Helen Wu, Jacqueline Yao, Jordan Foy, Leanne Young, Leanne Young, Nicholas Raffoul, Patrick Beacham, Ronny Litvack-Katzman, Sarah Bentivegna, Winnie Lin, Zoé Yalden

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Please recycle this newspaper.

Julia Kafato Web Developer

After the recent controversy surrounding Cambridge Analytica’s massive data collection from Facebook users, the public has spoken out against the social network and called for a boycott. A popular Twitter campaign demanded Facebook users #DeleteFacebook. Following the campaign, a series of prominent companies and personalities deleted their Facebook pages, most notably Playboy, Jim Carrey, and Will Ferrell.

When asked via Twitter if Elon Musk could delete the SpaceX Facebook page, Musk hastily took action, tweeting in response, “I didn’t realize there was one. Will do.” For most people, however, deleting a Facebook account is an action requiring a lot more consideration.

This is especially true for university

is now pending an online student vote.

Looking forward over the next few months, it is crucial that SSMU conducts adequate research to determine how to properly lobby the government for such a revolutionary change, and do the leg-work necessary to see this broadreaching mandate, if approved, become an effective student campaign.

The resolution acknowledges SSMU’s historical role in fighting against tuition increases, and references a 2015 policy that commits SSMU to supporting universally accessible post-secondary education. It also acknowledges Quebec’s tradition of student activism, alluding to the infamous 2012 “Maple Spring” protests that mobilized over 250,000 students against the provincial Liberal Party’s proposed tuition hike. In the same spirit, the GA motion voices student frustration over “the lack of accessibility of education” and “skyrocketing tuition fees.” According to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian undergraduate tuition has risen 40 per cent in the past 10 years. It is within this context, and in solidarity with universities across Canada, that SSMU aims to mobilize students for the one-day strike and champion a long-term accessible education campaign.

Notably missing from the campaign, however, is current research and information on viable paths toward more accessible—and potentially free—

post-secondary education in Quebec, and how free tuition would impact other important aspects of student life, such as quality of education and enrolment.

The lack of a concrete action plan risks hindering the movement’s goals. Free university tuition is certainly attractive, and it’s proven to be feasible—as students in countries such as Norway, Germany, and Finland benefit from it.

Still, Quebec and McGill present their own unique challenges.

Closer to home, the 2012 strikes’ success at freezing tuition hikes is a testament to the impact that effective student mobilization can have on the accessibility of education. However, further progress on the pricetag of university education in Quebec will undoubtedly require significant adjustment in the public university funding structure. If SSMU wishes to see its bold vision materialize, it must consider its financial aspects as well.

Additionally, to attract the provincial attention necessary to enact substantial change, collaboration with other student unions in the province is essential. In moving forward with its campaign for free education, it is crucial for SSMU and its members to conduct research and strategize about how they would wish to see free tuition implemented. At all stages, students themselves must be continually consulted as stakeholders in the process.

Given the preliminary nature

EDITORIAL of the motion, as a measure to gauge student support, the lack of research included with it is understandable; however, if students wish to see real impact, concrete plans for change must follow. A one-day strike won’t bring about free university overnight. But, if executed effectively, it could raise awareness on the increasing financial burden of post-secondary education for students, and encourage McGill and the provincial government to reconsider Quebec’s tuition rates.

The VP External must also mobilize McGill students, both on the strike, and on the broader campaign for more financially accessible education that the resolution proposes. Substantial change does not happen from one strike in one semester, or in one year, as even the most prominent student activist groups on campus can attest. For this campaign to have the same longevity and impact as causes like Divest McGill or Demilitarize McGill, it must hit the ground running, and then keep running.

SSMU is right to stand behind accessible education and campaign against student debt. While the strike is set to only last one day, it should generate further conversation about the accessibility of education in Quebec and Canada more broadly. As Quebec students have proven, when it comes to fighting for affordable education, they aren’t quick to back down.

Why it’s not easy to #DeleteFacebook

students, given that much of their lives are integrated into the platform. From groups dedicated to university courses, to invitations to parties and on-campus events, Facebook has found a way to make its platform essential to the lives of university students. Considering how difficult it would be for a student to delete their Facebook account, it is important to maintain a heightened awareness of what one can do to protect one’s data while using the social media platform.

To many people, the implications of having their personal information so readily available to corporations or political actors may not seem like an issue. However, whether or not it is used malevolently, this could have negative consequences for people. In the 2016 United States presidential election, Cambridge Analytica allegedly improperly used people’s information to sway them toward certain candidates.

While it is disputed how much the data it used may have influenced the election, cases like this one have implications for how personal data can be used in the future.

Yet trying to disentangle oneself from Facebook is difficult because there is no suitable replacement for it. While students enjoy Twitter, Instagram, and a multitude of other popular social media platforms, Facebook is the one-stopshop of social media. It isn’t meant solely for photography, like Instagram, or for posting short statements, like

Twitter. It’s where users can do all of that and more, making it the central social hub of the Internet. Deleting a student’s Facebook account would make it much more difficult for them to stay in touch with friends, family, and classmates.

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From groups dedicated to university courses, to invitations to parties and on-campus events, Facebook has found a way to make its platform essential to the lives of university students.

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The best way to address concerns about how companies like Cambridge Analytica can obtain personal data from a Facebook account is to be vigilant when giving third-party applications permission to view or access one’s account. Every time a user gives an app access to their Facebook profile, they are giving the app owner all of the data that they may have an interest in keeping private. The most exploitative apps are often those used to curb a student’s

boredom in lecture for five minutes.

For example, apps that offer to reveal the Facebook friend that a user is most likely to marry, or how they would look as the opposite sex, are textbook clickbait—but are driven by an ulterior motive to acquire their users’ data in the process.

Not only is it important to be careful about giving applications permission to view one’s information in the future, but it’s vital to check on the applications which already have permission to view one’s profile. Applications used several years ago may still have access to a profile, making it also worthwhile to check the extent of the permissions current applications have. Beyond simply giving an app access to one’s own information, it is possible that an app may also obtain the information of Facebook friends, compromising not only the user’s privacy, but their friends’ privacy as well.

Luckily, Facebook also offers privacy settings which allow users to limit the information provided to apps used by their friends. These privacy settings only take a quick Google search to figure out how to implement, and they’re important for maintaining privacy.

If you feel you are able to delete your Facebook account, then more power to you. For the rest of us, who feel like Facebook is an integral part of our lives, these steps are a great starting point for protecting our privacy.

6 OPINION

COMMENTARY

Grace Gunning Columnist The idea that arts degrees are useless has become a cultural joke.

Every holiday, my friends and I repeat the same conversation, poking fun at the fact that our relatives are definitely going to ask us about our studies, followed by the inevitable question: “What happens after graduation?” Yet, this conversation only scratches the surface of the problem that is the Bachelor of Arts. The division between arts and sciences in post-secondary education hinders student potential. The solution?

A multidisciplinary approach to degree planning.

Public universities must preserve and promote their arts programs alongside their science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs, because an arts

COMMENTARY

Nicholas Raffoul Contributor Applying to most undergraduate faculties at McGill is a fairly easy process: Fill out some logistical information, submit a high school transcript, and plug in your grades. It’s as impersonal as an application can get. Students are immediately seen as a letter grade or number, stripped of the personalities and experiences that shape them and their academic outcomes.

McGill should adopt a holistic application process that is more inclusive, by allowing all applicants the chance to explain how their experiences—good

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Beyond arts versus STEM: Why the interdisciplinary approach could revolutionize higher education degree teaches students to think creatively, challenge existing scholarship, and contribute to cultural discourses.

Pushing students into a more traditionally profitable field guts their potential to learn these critical thinking skills. However, the classical liberal arts degree is itself problematic, because it still bears the shadow of its original design as an object of the leisure class. It is therefore difficult for moneyminded students to pursue, for example, a classics or literature degree. If students, educators, and employers alike struggle with the divide between the disciplines, it may be time for higher education to overhaul its polar structure by emphasizing interdisciplinary learning and the idea that arts degrees can be profitable.

The divide between arts and STEM is a pastiche of historical holdovers and a shortsighted desire for capital gain.

Liberal arts education has been reserved for the cultural elite since the classical period. The contemporary university grew out of this model. Knowledge not based in skill or craft (for example, knowledge of a dead language) was reserved for those who could afford to spend their time learning without working. At modern, public universities like

McGill—which, in theory, are more accessible—an arts degree is still a precarious option for those without generational wealth, one seen as a detriment to financial security. In contrast, STEM

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It is time to de-emphasize the arts versus STEM polarity in the public mind, so that STEM majors do not eclipse the arts entirely.

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degrees tend to top lists of most lucrative majors.

The air of financial insecurity associated with an arts degree can discourage students from choosing and parents from supporting such a path. The idea that there are “no jobs in the arts” is so pervasive that it has led some institutions to defund arts programs. Most

notably, the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point recently unveiled plans to cut some arts majors in favour of more employable programs in an attempt to attract more students and boost revenue. Governmental policies, such as the UK’s and China’s, are even more extreme, and provide more support for the study of STEM subjects than for the arts.

Messaging from families, institutions, and governments reinforces the idea that the arts are the provenance of the leisure class, and ignores a more complicated reality. Arts degrees tend to pay off long-term, especially when augmented by further education, because they teach students to communicate and problem-solve effectively. Yet, even in light of this information, institutions still feel pressure to fast track their students into STEM fields. It is time to de-emphasize the arts versus STEM polarity in the public mind, so that STEM majors do not eclipse the arts entirely.

An interdisciplinary approach to higher education has the power to create new ways of engaging with fields that some might see as useless or outdated. For example, the meeting of computer science and arts has created new ways to engage with texts that have

been picked over by scholars for centuries. Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library, for example, provides a literary database and analysis tools for ancient languages. JSTOR Labs marries technology with its extensive online database to create new ways to interact with primary and secondary sources.

If universities like McGill encouraged students to take an interdisciplinary approach to their studies, they might find themselves breaking vital new ground in fields that many see as arcane. McGill, notably, already offers a joint arts and science degree, but due to the cultural divide between the two, high school applicants may not be equipped with the knowledge to choose such a path. Even such requirements as arts electives for science students do not help the situation, as they reinforce the idea that the arts are auxiliary.

The financial uncertainty facing those who choose an arts degree is a cultural myth that reinforces the false notion that the arts are dying. An interdisciplinary model for universities would encourage innovation and give students the opportunity to fuse marketable skills with the equally important, but devalued, critical thinking skills provided by the arts.

McGill’s grades-only admissions process needs a holistic revamp and bad—have shaped their worldview. An impressive high school grade point average does not necessarily mean the student will make great contributions to McGill’s community. Past personal experiences are a better indicator of whether or not an applicant will be a successful student and community member at McGill.

Institutions like Queen’s University have a more thoughtful admissions policy, which gives applicants the choice to submit personal statements and supplementary essays.

Such admissions policies give applicants greater choice in how they choose to represent themselves and respect that they have more to offer than just their grades. Personal statements allow students to show their character through writing, giving the university insight into the experiences that have shaped their personal and academic development.

For McGill’s approach to be truly holistic, the applicant’s circumstances are a crucial factor to take into consideration.

Extracurricular activities can be very exclusionary, since not all students have the free time or money to participate in them. McGill should

look into an applicant’s social, economic, and personal contexts to truly understand why they might not have had the opportunity to participate in conventional activities. Instead of offering to accept a resume or list of activities, McGill can ask students to write a written supplement to showcase their strengths beyond any extracurricular activity. This ensures a more inclusive application process so McGill is able to host students of a wide range of backgrounds and experiences to enhance its community.

McGill admissions does offer the chance for applicants to send in a letter of extenuating circumstances explaining any medical or personal difficulties that impacted the applicant’s academic performance. Although this seems as though McGill admissions is giving applicants an opportunity to explain extenuating circumstances, it also asks, if applicable, to provide the “precautions or measures the applicant has taken or will take to ensure that the issue will have no further impact on the applicant’s academic performance,” and for the applicant to include medical notes or accident reports as support for their case. These instructions betray the

admission process’ thoughtlessness, as though McGill does not care for the applicant’s experiences or how they overcame them, but rather, needs proof that these problems actually happened, and that they will no longer be a problem for the student once they enroll at McGill. The way McGill presents its optional writing supplement to

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The ability to surmount obstacles is a greater indicator of a student’s potential than a faceless letter grade.

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applicants suggests that it views past adversity as a risk in taking on a student. In reality, overcoming hardships can make a student stronger and able to tackle the new

challenges of university life. The ability to surmount obstacles is a greater indicator of a student’s potential than a faceless letter grade.

Written supplements are better projections of how the applicant will contribute to McGill’s student community. University is more than just going to class and getting good grades—university is where one builds a foundation for real life and interacts with people of different backgrounds. McGill’s community, which is very student-built and student-led, needs interested individuals who are motivated to build connections with their peers.

An application that considers an potential student’s personality, skills, and how they overcome challenges presented to them ensures its community is filled with students who are motivated and can handle the stress that comes with university life.

McGill should end its impersonal grades-only application system in order to convey that applicants are human beings rather than numbers. A holistic admissions process that takes into consideration an applicant’s creativity, experiences, and how they tackle adversity, ensuring the best fit for McGill’s community.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

STUDENT LIVING 7

Krispy Kremes challenge samosas as McGill’s new go-to snack Crispy golden triangles have their ranks checked by doughy circles of joy Leanne Young Contributor

Move over samosas, there’s a new snack in town. (weheartit.com) McGill students are known for their love of samosas. The crunchy snack is central to the university’s culture. However, Krispy Kreme doughnut sales are growing in popularity day by day, making their way up the McGill food hierarchy to threaten the dominance of samosas at McGill.

While it is now quite common to find a Krispy Kreme sale when walking through campus, the sales only started recently—the first one this year was held on Sep. 13, 2017 in the McConnell Engineering Building by McGill’s Tashan Dance Company.

“We chose [to sell] Krispy Kremes because it was something different,” Misra Isabel Trana, U1 Arts and VP communications of Tashan Dance Company said. “Everyone sells samosas but not everybody enjoys them, so Krispy Kreme was a nice alternative.”

Despite its rising popularity for student groups looking to fundraise, hosting a Krispy Kreme sale takes a lot more effort than one might expect. For Mary Thieffry, U2 Arts and VP Fundraising for McGill Women in Leadership, getting the doughnuts was the most difficult part of the process. Unlike Pushap, the primary samosa supplier for McGill sales, Krispy Kreme does not deliver directly to campus.

“The closest Krispy Kreme store is almost an hour away from Downtown by public transit,” Thieffry said. “I had to wake up extremely early to go get them and then carry a bunch of boxes in the metro to bring them back to campus.”

Yet, even though transporting the doughnuts was time-consuming, Thieffry admitted that it made up for the labour that goes into holding traditional bake sales.

“Our sale was quite successful, we

made as much as a very good samosa sale would make,” Thieffry said, “If you’re looking to sell something sweet, what’s nice about Krispy Kremes is that you and your team don’t have to spend a night baking. Also, Krispy Kreme sales are always popular and sell out fast which means that you can make just as much of a profit as you would during a bake sale in much less time.”

Although many students are willingly hopping on the Krispy Kreme bandwagon, some student groups have sold the doughnuts instead of samosas purely out of necessity. Global Brigades, a student-run club at McGill, ran their first-ever Krispy Kreme sale in the McConnell Engineering Building on March 23. Although they were initially hoping to run their usual samosa sale, the competition for tabling spots left them no choice but to try selling the new food option.

“We were only able to sell using the sweet table,” Vivian Luong, Global Brigades member said. “We usually sell samosas but you can only sell samosas at the designated samosas-selling table. If the table is already booked by another club then no other club can sell samosas in that

area at that time.”

Despite the rising prominence of doughnuts, competition to get a samosa table remains high—an indication that the classic meal still holds a strong seat in the campus snack world. For Olivia Lockbaum, member of the McGill Martlets Field Hockey team, samosas will always remain her favourite go-to campus treat.

“As an athlete, samosas make both a great pregame and post practice snack,” Lockbaum said.“Three samosas can make a lunch, so many students enjoy the typical one-for-one dollar or three-for-two dollar samosa deal, whereas doughnuts are not as fulfilling and cannot really be treated as a lunch.”

Ultimately, the future of the most popular grab-n-go food on campus remains unclear. While samosas are—and always have been—a classic, the excitement of a new option has been enticing for many sellers and hungry students alike.

“Holding a Krispy Kreme sale was definitely better [than a samosa sale],” Trana said. “We were able to sell [the doughnuts] individually and in boxes of dozens. They sold out super fast because everyone loves doughnuts to be honest.”

How to sublet your apartment From posting your online advertisement to handing over the keys Emilie Macfie Contributor As the school year comes to a close, many McGill students’ focus gradually shifts to exams, OAP, and summer vacation. While some choose to spend their summers in Montreal, the majority decide to go away to work or travel, leaving their bedrooms empty with summer rent to pay. The solution to this is to find a subletter— or a person who pays rent to stay in an apartment for a short-term period. Though competition for summer subletters may be steep, following the right steps can make it much easier for students to find a tenant and save about four months’ rent money. To help students in the process, The McGill Tribune has put together a list of triedand-true tricks to help you set up a stress-free sublet for the summer.

Make sure you have your landlord’s permission Before starting your search for the perfect subletter, look at your lease and make sure it doesn’t forbid subletting. Chances are you’ll be fine, but it’s worth a look to avoid trouble with your landlord. If you’ve got roommates, make sure you also make sure they’re okay with you subletting your room. Whether or not they’ll be there over the summer, open communication is key to avoiding uncomfortable apartment drama.

Set a reasonable price Recuperating 100 per cent of your costs would be fantastic, but it’s a lot more realistic to advertise your subletting price at about 75 per cent of what your rent is. Sublets around McGill are often listed at a pretty substantial discount, so doing the same will help your ad stay competitive and increase your chances of finding a subletter. As for hydro and Wi-Fi costs, take a look at other ads to see whether charging extra for utilities will take you out of the competition. Remember that getting some of your costs back is better than getting none at all.

Post your advertisement in the right places While Craigslist and Kijiji can be good options when selling something in Montreal, advertising your apartment in places where

it will only be visible to McGill students is arguably a preferable option. Not only is it simpler to communicate with a fellow student, but narrowing your audience to the campus community can also lower your risk of being scammed by a stranger. Start by posting your apartment on McGill’s listings website and the various Facebook groups dedicated to housing ads posted by and for McGill students, such as “McGill Housing-Rental-Rooms-Apartments-Sublet” and “Housing.” If you’ve tried these groups and have no luck finding a subletter, then consider casting your net outside the McGill community in groups like “International Roommates in Montreal” and “Chez Queer Montréal.”

Make your advertisement attractive and informative When creating your ad, make sure to include plenty of clear photos, the location of your apartment, correct pricing information, the number of roommates who would be living in the apartment at the same time, and the start and end dates of your sublet period. By answering as many potential questions as possible right off the bat, it will be easier for prospective subletters to make a quick decision about your place. In terms of pictures, make sure to highlight the coolest features and amenities of your apartment—like balconies, a dishwasher, or a washing machine, and its location—including the stores, cafés, and transit options nearby. The goal is to make your apartment stand out from the rest, so make sure to clean up your space and take your photos while the sun is out to produce the most eye-catching results. When writing the ad, use language that will help people picture themselves having an awesome summer in your apartment. This may sound cheesy, but phrases that spark the imagination, like “With a beautiful view of the mountain, the balcony is the best place to study, to pre, or to get that perfect sunset Insta pic,” will leave you with an inbox full of offers.

Don’t forget to check your message requests on Facebook Even if you provide another way for people to contact you in your ad, some prospective tenants will still message you on Facebook.

It’s very easy to miss message requests in your inbox but doing so may lead to a missed opportunity. Once you do receive a message,

make sure to be friendly and quick to respond.

Be welcoming during visits If you find someone interested in visiting your apartment, make sure to clean up your space before they come over for a viewing.

Once they’re there, be hospitable and friendly. Make sure to offer them water or snacks and engage in conversation. You want to make them feel comfortable and welcome in your space. By doing so, you can ensure that they leave your apartment with a good feeling about you and the place in general, and are more likely to sublet it from you.

Get your subletting agreement in writing Once you’ve found a subletter, draw up an agreement with key points. This agreement should outline who will be living there and on what specific dates, the exact amount they will be paying, and other rules the subletter should abide by. An inventory of furniture and other items is a good idea to include in the agreement, so you can rest easy knowing your things will be just as you left them when you return. You still hold the lease, which makes you responsible for paying the rent whether or not your subletter follows through—so this step is perhaps the most important.

With the help of a few tricks, you’ll have potential subletters lining up outside your door.

(Amanda Fiore / The McGill Tribune)

WITH TIME, A TASK FORCE Precolonial history, a 200th birthday, and McGill’s belated response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

BY KENDALL McGOWAN, STAFF WRITER Illustrated by Cordelia Cho

Nearly two centuries ago, James McGill, a fur trader and one of the most prominent slave owners in Quebec’s history, founded McGill University on land traditionally held by Indigenous peoples. On that land, enslaved Indigenous and Black labourers built many of the edifices which still stand on campus, including the Arts building. To this day, the university has not ceded the land that it stands on and during the 20152016 academic year, Indigenous students received just 46 of the 9,022 degrees granted by McGill. Last year, a task force created

by McGill’s Provost Christopher Manfredi proposed 52 calls to action in order to address this history and the ways in which it continues to harm students on campus.

Part I: History In 1859, McGill president and leading Canadian geologist Sir John William Dawson was called to a construction site at the corner of Metcalfe Street and De Maisonneuve Boulevard West, a block away from where McGill’s Bronfman Building stands today. Construction workers uncovered longburied artifacts indicating the former presence of an Iroquois village: Fire pits, the infrastructure of longhouses, human skeletons, pottery, stone implements, and more. Some of these items are now visible at the McCord Museum.

Dawson spent a few months examining the evidence and eventually suggested that the site— which came to be known as the Dawson Site—represents the remains of the village of Hochelaga, populated by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. In 1535, Jacques Cartier was the first European to discover Hochelaga when he reached the island that is today known as Montreal, after the French King Francis I tasked him with exploring what became New France. As he described it in his writings, Hochelaga was a large village of approximately 3,000 people living in 50 longhouses in a fortified enclosure surrounded by cornfields at the base of a mountain which he called Mount Royal. Scholars still dispute the exact location of Hochelaga, but because of Cartier’s description, most contemporary literature places it in the vicinity of McGill Downtown campus. Regardless, the village disappeared shortly after Cartier’s first visit; it was already gone by the time of his second, and no subsequent explorers were able to find it.

The connection between the Dawson Site and the St. Lawrence Iroquoian Hochelaga settlement has also faced criticism in recent years. In 1972, McGill anthropologist Bruce Trigger wrote Cartier’s Hochelaga and the Dawson Site with James Pendergast of the National Museum of Canada, and changed what had been until then the widely-accepted scholarship on the Dawson Site. Their book supports the view that the remnants found during the 1859 renovations belonged to a smaller village which existed on the outskirts of Hochelaga. A number of questions remain unanswered, however: Where on the island of Montreal was Hochelaga located, if not at the Dawson Site? What was the nature of the society that did leave behind the artifacts at the Dawson Site? What happened to these villages, and did their demise have anything to do with Cartier’s visit?

Whatever the answers may be, some facts remain certain. At least one group of Indigenous people resided on this land before James McGill or his university occupied it. Although they disappeared, the land has long been used as a place of meeting and exchange by the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe nations, as well as other Indigenous groups, none of whom were ever compensated for their displacement. In fact, McGill amassed some of the wealth he later used to found the university by selling and owning slaves, which was legal at that time in Canada. McGill owned or sold at least

eight Black and Indigenous slaves, and as a member of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, he voted against the abolition of slavery in 1793.

Progress away from this history and toward better treatment for Indigenous and Black scholars and Montreal residents by McGill University has been steady but tremendously slow. A little less than 10 years ago, Indigenous students accounted still only 0.8 per cent of the student body.

Part II: The “Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education” at McGill In 2016, partly inspired by retired Academic Associate at the School of Social Work and member of the Mohawk community Michael Loft, Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) Christopher Manfredi established a “Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education.” The Task Force’s foundation was also prompted by McGill’s upcoming bicentennial—the school will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2021—and by Canada’s nationwide Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which released its final report in 2015.

According to Manfredi, the Task Force had a ways to go in consolidating McGill’s preexisting resources for Indigenous students such as the First Peoples’ House and efforts toward Indigenous student recruitment.

“The first step we took was actually to do a survey of what McGill is already doing in this area and as it turned out, we were already doing quite a bit,” Manfredi said. “But we weren’t very good at integrating what we were doing, we weren’t very good at publicizing it, and it was kind of all over the place. We hadn’t put a real focus around it.”

The Task Force’s final report, released in June 2017, ultimately specified 52 Calls to Action, which fell under five categories: Student Recruitment and Retention, Physical Representation and Symbolic Recognition, Academic Programs and Curriculum, Research and the Academic Component, and Building Capacity and Human Resources.

Kakwiranó:ron Cook, whose new administrative position as the Provost’s Special Advisor on Indigenous Issues arose from the Task Force, said that the new pace of progress has made him and many of his Indigenous colleagues optimistic.

“I’ve been here for a while, about eight years, and I can say that right now it feels like we’re in a fast-moving river, as opposed to being in a log jam,” Cook said. “It’s a process to roll it out, this takes a little bit of time, [...] but it’s good to be in that process right now.”

Cook directly attributes the speed of the movement’s progress to the administration’s involvement, but worries that future gains will continue to be contingent on its help.

“For me, the sense of urgency came from the fact that we needed the highest level of involvement,” Cook said. “We needed some coordination and some support directly from the leadership [....] Now that we’re there [...] we still need a lot of collaboration to continue aligning all of these things at McGill.”

Cook and Manfredi both agreed that one of their main projects as of now is to increase the financial aid packages available to Indigenous students. While their goal is to see 1,000 incoming Indigenous students by 2022, currently about half of the Indigenous students offered admission to McGill decline and go elsewhere, often due to the lack of financial aid available. In Fall 2017, only about 86 incoming students were Indigenous.

According to Associate Director of the First Peoples’ House Allan Vicaire, one of the biggest challenges Indigenous students face at McGill is a lack of visibility and companionship, often exacerbated by financial difficulties.

“I think the challenge for many of our [Indigenous] students is kind of that sense of belonging,” Vicaire said. “This isn’t just a McGill thing [...] I think when we look at all institutions across Canada, institutions were built for a specific type of student. And at that time, it was generally a white, male student.”

At McGill, the First Peoples’ House can provide an inclusive space: In an anonymous survey of Indigenous McGill students conducted by The McGill Tribune, 82 per cent of the 11 self-identifying Indigenous respondents cited the organization as a major source of support at school.

According to Vicaire and the students surveyed, however, the broader McGill community could do a better job of fostering a sense of inclusion. One student respondent wrote in the Tribune’s survey feedback field that increased awareness among non-Indige-

nous students could lead to meaningful improvements.

“Lack of education of my peers is one of the many challenges,” the student wrote. “Myself and many of my Indigenous peers have experienced direct discrimination, that in some cases likely could have been avoided with a simple non-colonial history lesson.”

A majority of the students surveyed also cited a lack of visual representation on campus as a barrier to inclusion. In January 2018, the Provost struck a working group on the “Principles of Commemoration and Renaming,” mandating it to follow up on the Task Force goals for “Physical Representation and Symbolic Recognition” and specifically its 21st call to action: “Varsity Teams and the McGill name.” The report suggested that McGill reconsider the name of its mens’ sports teams, which are currently called the “Redmen,” as well as building names and the name of McGill University itself.

Anja Geitmann, dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and associate vice-principal of Macdonald campus, is co-chair of the working group along with Robert Leckey, dean of the Faculty of Law. She explained that its goal is not to do the renaming itself, but to create a set of criteria to guide such decisions in the future, as schools like Yale University have recently outlined.

“With the wisdom of hindsight it is easy to judge certain decisions that were taken in the past, and some we should probably have to reconsider,” Geitmann said. “Do we really want to continue commemorating certain people, or groups or entities, or should we not rewrite history?”

Cook said that other projects to include visibility include renovating Leacock Terrace with the input of Indigenous artists and architects, improving the Hochelaga Rock monument, which was moved to a more prominent location on campus at the start of the Task Force’s operations to create a dedicated ceremonial space, and raising the flags of Indigenous nations over the Arts building on significant days.

Vicaire acknowledged that change might be slow at an institution like McGill, but encouraged students to push forward anyway.

“I’ve always said to students that, whatever you want McGill to look like, it may not happen while you’re here,” Vicaire said.

“But you also have to know that you’re part of the process. You’re going to push and make leeway, and it may not be the biggest jump, but the next cohort of students will then take what you were able to do and then push it a little bit further.”

Part III: Initiatives at universities across Canada Other Canadian universities with more evolved programs may provide McGill with a sense of direction as it moves forward.

Manfredi along with one of the students surveyed by the Tribune cited the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) as one such example.

Manfredi suggested that the large proportion of Indigenous people at U of S and in the surrounding community accounts for their progress in tackling issues of inclusivity on campus.

Robert Innes, head of the Department of Indigenous Studies at U of S agreed, adding that about 10 to 12 per cent of the population of Saskatoon is Indigenous. Innes said that the U of S has about 2,200 undergraduate Indigenous students and 200 to 300 Indigenous graduate students, and that the Indigenous Studies department offers an undergraduate major and minor, as well as graduate, MA, and PhD programs. According to Innes, the hiring of more Indigenous faculty is an important factor which can expedite the improvement of conditions for students.

“Indigenous people in this city and province are highly visible,” Innes said. “[...In] Montreal that’s not the same, and even less so at McGill. I would say that the lack of a presence is a huge hurdle for students, because the faculty and staff at McGill will not have a real good understanding of the challenges faced by Indigenous students that are unique to Indigenous students. Really they won’t have the same level of understanding of the historical context in which Indigenous people are entering into McGill.”

Innes explained that a school like McGill might have trouble recruiting and retaining Indigenous staff under current conditions.

Small hiring packages and relatively low wages McGill offers seem to indicate that the school is unaware of the highly competitive market for Indigenous professors right now, Innes commented. Furthermore, once on campus, Indigenous professors are often called upon to answer to or assist efforts in Indigenizing the school, and thus need extra support—or simply more Indigenous peers to reduce the workload—so that they don’t get sidetracked from their research, publication, and tenure requirements.

“Here at the University of Saskatchewan we have 50 to 55 Indigenous faculty, 10 in the department of Indigenous Studies itself,” Innes said. “[The McGill task force’s goal of hiring] 20 faculty would be great. But the thing about hiring 20 Indigenous faculty is [...that] there are going to be 20 Indigenous faculty scattered throughout the whole university, isolated from each other [....] In some departments, they’d be looked at as, ‘the only reason you’re here is because you’re Indigenous.’”

According to Eve Tuck, Indigenous associate professor of Critical Race and Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto, one way of avoiding such an outcome is through a process called ‘cluster hires,’ where groups of Indigenous staff are hired in the same years, and influence or make decisions about hiring for subsequent cohorts.

“University administrators say ‘Indigenization,’ and what they say is simply bringing more Indigenous people into the same structures, into the same buildings, without much thought about what universities can learn from Indigenous communities, or what universities need to do to make good relationships with Indigenous communities,” Tuck said in an interview with CBC Radio.

Innes also suggested that individual departments or faculties within universities could undertake their own hiring initiatives. At McGill, new Indigenous staff have been hired by the department of Anthropology and the faculties of Law and Agricultural and Environmental sciences in recent months. Mohawk is being offered as a language course for the first time this year, and Manfredi said that he was hopeful the Indigenous Studies minor would be expanded to a major program within the next 10 years. Yet, according to Innes, McGill should closely watch whether Indigenous staff stay or go.

“The resources are there,” Innes said. “This will be the test, to what degree is McGill sincere about what they want to do? So far, they have produced a report [....] If they can’t retain [Indigenous staff], even if they can recruit them, it’s going to be hard to recruit Indigenous students, and it’s going to be hard to get confidence from the Indigenous community.”

Another venue for meaningful change which Innes discussed is requiring students to take an Indigenous content course. He said that for the past 15 years, the colleges of Kinesiology, Social Work, Education, and Nursing at the University of Saskatchewan have required students to take either a half or full credit class in the department of Indigenous Studies, and that beginning in 2020, their college of Arts and Sciences will begin requiring its freshman class of nearly 2,000 students to do the same.

Manfredi said that there has been some discussion around the idea of such mandatory classes at McGill, but that for the time being the question would be left to individual faculties, depending on whether the content could be integrated into their curriculum.

“I think there’s differences of opinion around mandatory courses,” Manfredi said. “Sometimes if you make things mandatory, people may not take them as seriously as they should.”

Cook and Innes both acknowledged this challenge. However, Cook described an enormous knowledge gap in non-Indigenous members of the McGill community, and argued that designating spaces and classes for them to improve their awareness could prove to take a large burden off of their Indigenous counterparts. Cook, who is an enrolled member of both the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne and the Oglala Lakota Sioux Nation at Pine Ridge, described feeling like an ambassador who regularly has to explain his own history or that of other Indigenous groups, but is still met with disrespectful behaviour, such as people who avoid learning or saying his full name.

“I think people need to create a dedicated space to seriously consider that,” Cook said. “It’s quite an undertaking. Me, as an Indigenous person, yes, I can’t tell you what it’s like. We are affected by colonization every day [....] Most people don’t know about the land here, and the people here, and the ceremonies here, that we’ve been here for thousands of years, and people just aren’t exposed to that in school [....] So there’s a lot to be said, if you ask any Indigenous person, well, yeah, we are missing. We’re invisible in the curriculum. Nobody knows about us. So it’s a lonely experience.

It’s lonely.”

About the survey:

The student survey referenced in this article does not meet scientific standards.

The author of this article distributed the survey to the McGill student body using an anonymous Google form. The survey included a combination of multiple-choice, Likert scale, and open-ended questions about Indigenous student experiences at McGill University.

During the data-collection period, the author posted the survey link to various McGill community groups on Facebook and Reddit over the course of three days from March 27 to March 29. In total, 11 students responded to the survey.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

10 STUDENT LIVING

Ask Ainsley: I’m worried I might fail a class, what should I do?

How not to worry in light of exam-stress and potential course failure Dear Ainsley, I have not been doing well in one of my classes and now that finals are approaching, I am extremely worried about failing this class. Is there anything I can do before the final to avoid failing, or should I just withdraw now?

Sincerely, Freaking About Failing (FAF)

Take a deep breath, you will make it through this semester. (Alissa Zilber / The McGill Tribune)

Dear FAF, Try not to be too hard on yourself; I can assure you that most students have been in your position before. Most of us have dealt with at least one class with material that we just cannot seem to grasp.

Worry not, there are definitely ways to bypass failing, even this late in the semester.

If the grade you need to pass the class is impossible to obtain, like a 105 per cent on the final, consider withdrawing from the class.

Withdrawing will give you a “W” on your transcript in lieu of a final mark, so the class does not get removed from your record and you still pay tuition costs for it. But withdrawing is nothing to be ashamed of. If employers or graduate school admission workers ask, you can always explain your reasons for dropping the class. Most likely, these people have been there once or twice in their lives, so they will understand and perhaps applaud you for taking the “W” instead of the fail.

However, if you don’t need such an unrealistic grade on the final to pass the class, start reviewing now—the sooner the better!

Studies have shown that we feel a greater urge to procrastinate on tasks that make us feel anxious, like preparing for a difficult exam.

Start by making a to-do list of tasks and breaking them down into small, actionable items. Put them into a study schedule—alongside time for relaxation, exercise, and meals—and give yourself rewards for accomplishing each scheduled item. Work in environments that feel comfortable to you, like a library or café you enjoy, and get to making study guides that synthesize all the material into themes.

Before you know it, you will be more equipped for this exam than you ever thought possible.

Reviewing for your exams earlier will leave you in a position to gather questions on the material. Make a list of those questions and head over to your professor’s or TA’s office hours—a resource

that is extremely helpful but notoriously underutilized. Your profs and TAs are there to help you learn and they want you to excel with this material—especially if it interests you. While you’re there, it doesn’t hurt to try to explain to your professor that you are worried about failing the class, and explain the circumstances causing it. I’m not saying this tactic always works, but there’s a chance that they will be slightly more lenient when grading you (unfortunately, this will probably not work for multiple choice exams).

Group study sessions are another great learning tactic. If you can’t think of any reliable friends in the class to review with, post in the class Facebook group and see if anyone wants to form a study group. Working with other students who can explain material you’re struggling with in a digestible manner can help you learn, and you’ll likely feel more comfortable asking questions to a peer than your prof. Plus, if you end up teaching information to another student and explaining out the concepts, equations, or definitions so that they understand it, that’s a sign that you have mastered them and are ready for your exam! Be conscious of who you ask to join your group, however, as studying with other students who have mastered the course may give you more anxiety and self-doubt prior to the test.

Finally, if you have used all of the study tools that you can think of to make it through this class, but you are still not feeling prepared, just do your best. If you end up failing, know that many students fail classes and it is not the end of the world by any means. It may be a sign that your program or major isn’t quite right for you, and you may consider switching tracks in the future—which is only ever a good, progressive step! If you have studied your hardest, take pride in that, and whatever happens will happen.

Good luck, you can do this!

Ainsley

The Best of Montreal’s vintage stores

Head up to the Mile End for some majorly thrifty finds

(Local 23) Empire Exchange 51 Bernard Street West As Local 23’s sister consignment store, Empire Exchange is located right across the street, on the corner of Clark and Bernard Street West. Empire Exchange is Montreal’s first and only buysell-trade store, meaning that customers can sell their own articles

Citizen Vintage 5330 St-Laurent Blvd Focused on repurposing and recycling used clothing, Citizen Vintage offers an alternative to the rise of fast fashion through its environmentally-conscious mandate of recycling and upcycling secondhand pieces. In addition to selling vintage and repurposed pieces, mostly from the ‘60s and ‘70s, the store sells an array of handmade clothing articles from a variety of local designers, promoting the Montreal art scene. Although it is on the pricey side, Citizen Vintage is a great option for sustainable shoppers, and sells sizes up to 16, making it more accessible than many other shops.

(Kay Vintage)

Local 23 23 Bernard Street West Located on the corner of Bernard Street West and St-Laurent Boulevard, Local 23 offers a dynamic space with an endless array of secondhand pieces. Although the store is quite small, its managers have fit an enormous quantity of pieces into that space. Local 23 specializes in ‘90’s vintage clothing, shoes, boots, and accessories.

Their styles are ever-changing, with new pieces coming in every week from approximately 25 regular consigners. Most clothing items are priced from 20 to 40 dollars per piece, while accessories sell for slightly less. Unlike many thrift stores, Local 23 has a plus-size jeans rack, which makes it much more accessible to bodies of many shapes and sizes.

dresses and leather jackets. The store’s items are sectioned by price, making it easy and efficient to stick to your budget when shopping there. Its inventory includes hats, dresses, and leather wallets, belts, boots, and shoes. The owner is not only extremely friendly, but is also open to negotiating prices, making this store accessible to even the most frugal thrifter.

(yellowpages.ca)

For students and local trendsetters alike, thrift shopping is possibly the best way to find one-of-a-kind vintage items while sticking to a budget. Luckily for Montrealers, the city offers a plethora of local vintage, consignment, and thrift stores. To help students navigate the map of businesses spread across the city, The McGill Tribune found the best Mile End thrift stores based on their budget and style.

of clothing for an immediate portion of the appraised value or store credit valid at multiple locations. The store specializes in in-season modern and vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories.

Annex Vintage 56 Saint Viateur Street West Annex Vintage is a hub for vintage clothing-lovers and independent designers alike, showcasing hundreds of pieces from national artists. This shop sells more than just clothes. With jewellery, stationary, apothecary products, pins, patches, artist T-shirts, socks, and many other gift items on display, there is something for everyone.

While on the pricier side—with some items selling for 60 dollars— Annex Vintage has a dynamic collection of high quality products that you won’t find elsewhere.

(yellowpages.ca)

Abeer Almahdi Contributors

Kay Vintage 157 Bernard Street West With the greatest variety of item prices of all the shops on this list, Kay Vintage offers shoppers a true treasure-hunting experience.

Although the space is quite small, the store is stocked from floor to ceiling with everything from five-dollar accessories to 50-dollar

Forget your Winter wardrobe and head out to one of the Mile End’s vintage stores to find a new look.

(Zoé Yalden / The McGill Tribune)

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 11

Pop Rhetoric: Gap-Toothed women in popular culture What my sister, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay all have in common Ariella Garmaise Arts & Entertainment Editor In preparation for getting her braces on, my 13-year-old sister Noa recently met with her orthodontist for a consultation. The two agreed that she would have her braces on for about three years, that her elastics would be a neutral white instead of the bright pink and green for which I had opted at her age, and that she would floss regularly. The only point of contention was what purpose the braces served.

“I want you to keep the gap between my two front teeth,” Noa told Dr. Hirsch. Her diastema (the scientific term for the space between front teeth) had long been a defining feature; she often joked that she could fit her entire tongue through the opening, and the gap was cute and charming.

Dr. Hirsch informed her that this would not be possible, despite her diastema not being a medical liability.

Pop culture has long considered gapped front teeth to be a desirable trait, despite common perceptions that it is a cosmetic flaw that can be easily taken care of. Perhaps counterintuitively, it

is pop culture that has taught my sister to embrace this quirk. As early as in the The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer describes “the gap-toothed” Wife of Bath, her diastema being symbolic of beauty and lust. Gap-toothed models like Brigitte Bardot and Lauren Hutton dominated magazines in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and stars like Madonna, Anna Paquin, and Georgia Jagger have carried the quirk into the new millennium. Even The Bachelor franchise, a series not known for its progressive beauty standards, starred gap-toothed bachelorette Rachel Lindsay in its latest season.

Les Blank’s 1987 documentary Gap-Toothed Woman looks at women with diastemas from all walks of life; he interviews notable gapped-tooth women like Hutton and United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. He gives equal airtime to everyday women to air early childhood grievances on this perceived flaw.

Eventually, even the non-models conclude that their diastemas are empowering.

“I’m just wondering if people don’t think there’s some mystique about gap toothed women,” one woman giggles to the camera.

“Gap-toothed women are supposed

to be sexier.”

However, gaps in teeth need not only be for their aesthetic value. Diastemas are a non-issue, and fixing them can be expensive and painful.

For example, Patricia Arquette has famously refused to fix her crooked (albeit not gapped) teeth. When her parents offered her braces, she declined.

“It didn’t feel like it would fit who I was inside,” Arquette said in an interview with Today.

Not only did she cite a refusal to conform to how she was expected to look, but Arquette also believed that her teeth added character, and gave her a unique advantage in pursuing a career on screen.

Moreover, diastemas are also genetic, a symbol of heritage.

“Everybody in my family has [a gap], the women in my family,” says another woman in Blank’s documentary.

Growing up, I was the only woman in my family without gapped-teeth, and it was my mother and sister who got attention for their sweet smiles. Their grins were reflected in television and magazines, and it makes me sad that the trait I have always admired will soon disappear. I’d like for

Although gapped-teeth are viewed as a flaw, pop culture has long embraced them as a charming quirk. (Daria Kiseleva / The McGill Tribune) my sister to plead with Dr. Hirsch to keep her diastema; at the very least, I’d like for a 45-year-old

orthodontist to stop telling my pubescent sister what she should look like.

‘Queer Eye’ is back to teach straight men about guacamole Netflix’s reboot of the 2003 classic goes deeper than makeovers Gwyneth Boone Contributor Would you believe me if I told you that I recently discovered a reality show that made me want to move to America?

The show in question is the Netflix original, Queer Eye, a reboot of the popular 2003 Emmy-award winning show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Queer Eye revolves around

the “Fab Five;” five gay men who are experts in their given lifestyle field. At the beginning of each episode, the Fab Five drive to a new city where someone has nominated a straight man in their life who needs an intervention.

The Five then spend the week making over a hapless man. In the original show, they would counsel him on his personal style, spruce up his living space, give him a great haircut,

pat him on the head, and send him on his way.

In this newest instalment, Jonathan Van Ness covers grooming, Karamo Brown is all things culture, Antoni Porowski is an expert on cooking and wine, while Bobby Berk oversees interior decor, and Tan France is charged with building a new wardrobe.

In episode one, “You Can’t Fix Ugly,” we meet straight guy Tom, a self-proclaimed “dumb ol’ country boy from Kentucky,” drinking a Jumbo Texas Margarita at a local bar.

Tom is bearded, overweight, and seems to be permanently wearing a baseball cap, T-shirt, and shorts. The Fab Five jump into action, Tan finds Tom age-appropriate clothes while Jonathan trims his beard and Bobby renovates his bachelor pad. Antoni teaches Tom how to make guacamole.

After the makeover, the six men sit down to debrief.

Tom, freshly made over, starts to cry. He spoke about how much he appreciated the Fab Five’s help.

“I loved their personalities,” Tom said. “I’ve

never hung with gay guys before and they were great.

They were so open with me and I was open with them.”

This, coming from the butch guy who asked earlier in the episode if Bobby Berk was the “wife” in his relationship with his husband of five years. This moment moved me to tears, which doesn’t often happen watching reality television.

Though the reboot does maintain the same structural components as the original (introduction, intervention, makeover, reveal), it surprised me by going much deeper. The men wrestle with conflicts such as sexuality and religion, the acceptance of oneself and of others, racial tensions, and bigotry. Perhaps most surprising is the way that time and time again, the Fab Five manages to break down barriers with the “straightguys” that go far beyond skin deep.

In episode 3, “Dega Don’t,” Karamo Brown, the first African-American member of the Fab Five, and redneck “straight-guy”

Cory discuss the relationship between black communities and the police. Cory, a cop, enters the conversation noticeably defensive about the actions of his fellow officers.

“All police officers don’t want to be lumped into being the bad guy, you know.” But as the conversation continues, you see a compassionate dialogue emerge between the two men.

Corey ends the conversation by stating, “Black lives matter, they weren’t able to be heard, and the police officers weren’t able to be heard. If we could sit down and have a conversation like me and you just did, things would be a lot better, you know, in society. Everybody wants to talk, but nobody wants to listen.”

This conversation pretty much sums up what is so impressive about this new season of Queer Eye. The show has covered meaningful topics including sexuality, religion, coming out, race, and ethnicity with each member of the Fab Five bringing a unique perspective to the conversation.

12 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Tomb Raider is a surprisingly good video game movie A smart action movie that delivers on character depth Patrick Beacham Contributor Following a 15-year absence from the big screen, and five years after the video game reboots by Edios Interactive and, later, Square Enix, Lara Croft has returned to the big screen in Tomb Raider’s latest iteration. Usually, one would come to expect little from a video game movies, especially after the first stabs at a Tomb Raider adaptation, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003), failed to establish a believable character. However, much like Square’s games, this film avoids expected pitfalls, and Alicia Vikander’s Croft leads a triumphant return for the series.

Croft’s story is familiar in this adaptation of the beloved game series: She ventures to a mysterious island to investigate the whereabouts of her father, who went missing in the Pacific Ocean while searching for a mysterious artifact seven years prior. While not the most novel storyline for a Tomb Raider-based project, the film incorporates the best elements of past installments, combining strong plot points from the first movies with the revamped character development of the recent games. Croft’s father

Tomb Raider serves surprisingly smart genre thrills. (polygon.com) (Dominic West) and a rival archaeologist trying to unleash the artifact, Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins), serve as incredible foils to one another when it comes to their respective values. One is willing to forsake the world for his family, and the other, his family for the world.

Between the two stands Lara Croft, who must make impossible decisions as the two men are perched like an angel and devil on opposite shoulders.

The new crew behind the camera, veterans of action films like Kingsman

(2014) and the recent James Bond series, knew they had to do better than the Angelina Jolie movies at building a believable Lara Croft. Enter Alicia Vikander, an Oscar-winning actress known in action-movie circles for her ability to move from watery-eyed, convincing vulnerability in one moment to calculated composure in the next. This versatility defines Tomb Raider from the first act. Croft seems tough, but her personal strife affects her deeply. As that internal conflict escalates on the island,

Album Review: ‘My Dear Melancholy’ - The Weeknd

Vikander shows audiences just how much it threatens to tear Lara in half, and her gripping showdowns with both foes are nothing short of heart pounding.

Everything about the production places the talent, especially Vikander, at the centerfold. Dialogue is shot and cut in classical fashion. Gunshots punctuate the trauma for a young Lara Croft still new to life-and-death decisions. Closeups linger to show how each situation challenges each character’s resolve.

Cinematographer George Richmond, who has worked with close-up maestro Emmanuel Lubezki on Children of Men (2006), strives to put the audience faceto-face with these characters in a way that helps us understand what words can’t explain, and the camera-work capitalizes on the film’s star power with smart framing.

By no means is the new Tomb Raider an award-winner, but the same can be said of Square Enix’s games, and that hasn’t torn down Hitman or Just Cause or even Lara Croft’s own recent spate of new game titles. Despite the little things holding the blockbuster back from the top tier, Tomb Raider is still a smart, standout action film that gives casual moviegoers and series fans alike a nice breath of fresh air.

ALBUM REVIEW

The Starboy is heartbroken

my dear melancholy The Weeknd

Only 16 months after his last album, Starboy, The Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, surprised fans by dropping a 22-minute, six track EP, My Dear Melancholy (MDM). Aside from cryptic social media posts, the project went practically unannounced until Tesfaye posted the cover artwork to his Instagram account on March 29.

After the upbeat, 68-minute Starboy, which saw Tesfaye continue his transition into a bona fide pop star, MDM is a dive back into his shadowy R&B roots. Sonically, the album is dark and atmospheric, a deviation from the shimmering pop hits fans have become accustomed to. The production is superb, with collaborators that include Mike WiLL Made-It, Skrillex, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (of Daft Punk), Frank Dukes, and Gesaffelstein.

Lyrically, MDM explores new thematic territory for the artist. As the title suggests, it is a downbeat listening experience, although not in the way Tesfaye’s music has traditionally been. It is a moody and bitter trek into a post-breakup universe, and is clearly inspired by his recent split with singer Selena Gomez. Virtually every track on the project deals with a terminated romance in some capacity, with variation only in his approach: At times, Tesfaye dishes out shade, while on other tracks he begs for his ex-lover to take him back—presumably the other love interest in his life, model Bella Hadid.

The opener, “Call Out My Name,” features a murky, haunting piano melody, flaunting Tesfaye’s powerful vocals and trademark falsetto, and lyrically does everything but name drop Gomez.

“Try Me” speeds up the rhythm, as uptempo drumbeats drive the song. Synths overlay everything, as Tefaye tries to persuade an old flame to “try [him]” again. On “Wasted Times,” the style maintains the EP’s nocturnal mood, but incorporates elements of dubstep. Skrillex’s involvement on the track is

obvious, but only works to complement Tesfaye’s approach to the track.

“I Was Never There,” and “Hurt You” are the only tracks to feature another artist, namely Gesaffelstein in a non-vocal contribution, but they sound like two sides of the same coin. The underlying music is lush and complex, but Tesfaye’s singing is comparatively forgettable—his voice seems drowned out by everything else going on.

The album closes with “Privilege,” a sleek track on which Tesfaye parts with an ex-lover and promises a change-up. He croons, “I’ma drink the pain away, I’ll be back to my old ways,” in the same mood that defined his early EPs. The project is a solid contribution to Tesfaye’s discography. Occasionally, the lyrical content marks a shift toward more heartfelt subject matter. Glimmers of real emotion are embedded in every track—a far cry from the drugged-up zombie on his earlier projects—reflecting Tesfaye’s artistic evolution.

But, as an individual who has prided himself on being a villain in the past, it is often difficult to empathize with Tesfaye on MDM. Fans who were introduced to him on House of Balloons (2011) remember him as a sociopathic, pill-popping sex machine, making his pleas to his former lover sound disingenuous. This is exacerbated by his petty and sometimes antagonistic lyrics: “Cause if it’s love you want again, don’t waste your time/ But if you call me up, I’m fuckin’ you on sight” he sings on “Hurt You.” MDM is worth a listen. The songs feature excellent production, and Tesfaye’s trademark vocals don’t disappoint, despite the problematic lyrics. At the end of the day, the EP makes for excellent break up music. If anything, MDM shows Tesfaye’s ability to dip his toes into other styles, and it will be interesting to see what musical direction he takes next.

- Jordan Foy (Staff Writer)

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

science & technology 13

The universe at odds: Quantum mechanics versus general relativity Making sense of the most fundamental discrepancy in modern physics

Ronny Litvack-Katzman Contributor Continued from page 1.

Alongside quantum mechanics, a second modern, or post-1900, physical principle that Einstein called “general relativity” emerged. This theory provided a unified description of gravity, describing natural phenomena on a much larger scale than quantum mechanics at the level of orbiting planets and galaxies. General relativity gives an accurate description to spacetime, postulating that large objects distort both space and time, creating the effect that we feel as gravity.

As one of the large objects that distort space-time, the sun, as theorized

by Einstein, creates a ‘dip’ in the universal membrane of space, pulling Earth, along with the rest of the solar system, into the void it creates. “[Einstein] reinterpreted the theory of gravity in a very radical way,” McGill Professor of Physics Alexander Maloney said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “He proposed that rather than thinking of gravity as originating from a gravitational field, one should attribute the existence of gravity to the curvature of space-time itself.”

Einstein took a fundamental principle, challenged it, and provided a theory that was radically divergent from Newtonian mechanics, yet remains the most accurate model considered by physicists.

His second theory of quantum mechanics describes the behaviour of

When viewed together, the quantum mechanical model does not completely align with general relativity. (Erica Stefano / The McGill Tribune) light as both particles and as waves, applying physics at the smallest of scales, which in today’s world has broad applications, such as in quantum computing and modern electronics.

Einstein’s legacy left two completely justified and scientifically provable theories. However, when viewed together, the quantum mechanical model does not completely align with general relativity. This is where the fundamental dilemma arises: A major disagreement exists between physics’ two most important frameworks.

Relativity treats objects as point particles that exist as independent masses in time and space. Quantum mechanics, however, treats matter as wave functions that do not possess positions as point particles do, but are probability distributions. Relativity’s predictions produce definite outcomes, whereas quantum mechanics’ predictions produce probabilistic ones. As a result, applying relativity to objects of the scale at which quantum mechanics operates fails to produce sensible answers.

Robert Brandenberger, a professor in the department of Physics at McGill, completed his post-doctoral research under Hawking. Brandenberger now works on the cosmological aspects of string theory, a postmodern theory that thinks of particles not as definite points, but as one-dimensional ‘strings’ which propagate through space-time in constant interaction with one another.

“For matter to be described quantum mechanically, then gravity must be described quantum

mechanically as well.” Brandenberger said.

If both quantum mechanics and relativity work independently, then they also have to work in unison. Here lies the scientific grey area physicists face when trying to integrate quantum mechanics with relativity: They simply do not function properly.

“It is not that they oppose one another, but general relativity has a limited range of applicability,” Brandenberger said. “Newtonian [classical] mechanics describes point particles very well except if you go down to very small scales.”

The same drawback applies to quantum mechanics on a larger scale: It describes, with great accuracy, the inner workings of subatomic particles, but fails to precisely address particle properties in the grand scheme.

“When you include quantum mechanics, you get corrections to Einstein’s original equation,” Professor of Theoretical Cosmology Jim Cline told the Tribune. “These corrections are very small when talking about the everyday applications of gravity, but at short distances and high energies the corrections that come from quantum mechanics become very big and are infinitely many.”

He explained that the data required to discern a unified theory are incredibly, and maybe impossibly, hard to collect using current research methods.

“The theory itself becomes unpredictive,” Cline said. “Scientists do not like that.”

However, black holes in the outerreaches of the universe may provide

the answer to unifying these two theories, an argument Hawking himself supported in his hypothetical ‘theory of everything.’

“If you want to consider the physics of something very massive, that is also very small, you would need to understand both general relativity and quantum mechanics simultaneously,” Maloney said.

The density of black holes is so great that nothing, not even light, can escape their immense pull. If a black hole can exert gravitational effects on large masses like planets in the same way that it can pull in light—which has a mass of almost zero—then an explanation of the phenomena of black holes would, in theory, reveal how large, macroscopic particles can interact with tiny, nanoscopic ones.

Hawking came extremely close to breaking through the quantum mechanic-relativity barrier with his work on string theory and Hawking radiation, a type of radiation that is emitted from black holes, proving that if a black hole doesn’t gain mass over time, it will shrink and disappear.

Although Hawking radiation is too small to be observed, it remains an important discovery that allows physicists to peer into what unification may look like.

“The unification of general relativity with quantum mechanics would allow us to make [great] progress in our understanding [of the early universe],” Brandenberger said.

Since the universe is constantly expanding, physicists believe that in the distant past it was extremely small in size.

“It would allow us to understand the beginning of the universe and would also allow us to probe black holes, to see what they look like on the inside,” Brandenberger said.

Currently, Canadian research on string theory and quantum-gravity is centred around McGill, the University of British Columbia (UBC), and the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, where Hawking was a Visiting Research Chair. Other initiatives like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, which can strike particles together at immense speeds, is managed by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Institutes such as these are beacons of the hope that, one day, even the most baffling of physical principles may be uncovered.

It was not until 2016 that a group of scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) were able to record two black holes colliding, which affirmed Einstein’s supposedly ‘unprovable’ theory 100 years after its original proposal.

The scientific community may still be decades away from unearthing the secrets of the distant universe. As of today, there remains no conclusive answer to whether or not relativity and quantum mechanics can be unified, but there exists a firm beginning to finding what that solution may be.

While a unified theory is the end goal, the best scientific theories are the ones that don’t just explain phenomena, but provoke further questions: Questions that can continue scientific discovery on a path that may be as infinite as spacetime itself.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

14 science & technology

Combatting reluctance: Why is climate action so hard?

2018 Mossman Lecture explores the biggest issue of our time Gwenyth Wren Contributor On March 22, Philip Kitcher, a professor of philosophy at Columbia University, discussed the difficulties of implementing climate change policy during the 2018 Mossman Lecture. The lecture series, named after McGill alumnus and chemist Donald Mossman, seeks to raise awareness about scientific thought that is pertinent to solving the issues currently facing society.

According to Kitcher, deciding the appropriate course of climate action requires weighing the needs of the present against those of both developing nations and future generations. By providing philosophical insight to the debate, Kitcher broke down why it is so difficult to motivate climate action.

Over 97 per cent of the world’s climate scientists agree that climate change is a result of human activities. Despite the overwhelming amount of supportive data, climate change deniers are far from few in number. When denial is so prevalent, even among world leaders, it is difficult to move forward.

The problem extends beyond the deniers.

While many people believe climate change is real, few are aware of the rate at which change is occuring. According to NASA, humankind is facing the possibility of a global temperature rise between two and six degrees Celsius in the next century. This increase will

cause more extreme episodic weather events such as wildfires, droughts, floods, storms, and heat waves, events that will permeate all aspects of life. Droughts, for example, can lead to water wars, and floods can spread infectious disease.

Another barrier to action is the debate on what issues we should prioritize. Many believe that governments should be focusing their efforts on remedying suffering and poverty in the present, and should let the future take care of itself.

“It would be wrong to ask any single generation to sacrifice everything to aid another,” Kitcher said. “If we don’t act on climate change [now], the life of future generations will be hard. [Similarly, however,] if we don’t act to help people now, their [lives] will continue to be very hard.”

The solution, Kitcher said, is dividing our resources. Kitcher proposed that we must ensure a habitable world for future generations while alleviating the plight of the poor in today’s society.

Many scientists and researchers worldwide are working on different ways to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Kitcher, applauding their efforts, suggested that in order to discover the best method, countries should explore new and varied approaches to decreasing their emissions.

Coming up with a solution is now more important than ever, as the atmosphere can

Over 97 per cent of the world’s climate scientists agree that climate change is a result of human activities. (The Guardian Nigeria) only handle a certain amount of GHGs. The profited from industrialization need to step United States has already used up close to a up and bear the burden of not only mitigating third of the quota despite only having about their own emissions, but those of developing nations as well. four per cent of the world’s population. “[I’m giving this lecture] in [the] spirit of Kitcher explained that understanding the economic and political changes needed to take looking at problems and forging an alliance action is challenging, as better communication to destroy the collective enemy we’ve created for ourselves, atmospheric carbon,” Kitcher between nations is necessary.

“If too many nations refuse to cooperate, said. “[Our] best hope is to overcome our then our planet will be doomed,” Kitcher said. differences and confront our [common] “We must no longer adhere to nationalist enemy. If we don’t, the beautiful world [that] we live in will give way to a world that is politics or unrestrained capitalism.”

Ultimately, climate action is a far nastier, a world that our grandchildren’s collaborative effort. Nations that have grandchildren will find it hard to survive in.”

McGill develops new screening method for Canada’s deadliest women’s cancer The research sheds light on serious lack of funding for gynecological cancers Jade Prévost-Manuel Science & Technology Editor Just hearing the “C” word is enough to send chills down anyone’s spine—and with cancer warnings splashed across everything from cigarette packages to coffee cups, it’s difficult to avoid. In 2017, the Canadian Cancer Society amassed over $80 million in donations.

According to their 2017 report, 206,200 Canadians are expected to develop cancer within their lifetime.

Donations are often funneled into research on high-profile cancers, like breast cancer, that boast highly successful charities. Meanwhile, ovarian cancer receives little funding despite its status as the most fatal gynecological cancer in Canada.

However, new hope for early detection springs from the Research Institute of McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), which has overcome a critical obstacle in developing new methods of screening for ovarian and endometrial cancers in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University.

Currently, screening is not recommended for ovarian cancer due to a lack of effective methods. The difficulty in screening lies in the fact that ovarian and endometrial cancers are heterogeneous diseases, comprising of multiple subtypes that vary in fatality rates.

“In ovarian [and endometrial] cancer, the subtype that causes most of the deaths is called type two variety, [or] high-grade serous cancer,” Dr. Lucy Gilbert, director of Gynecological Oncology at the McGill University Health

PapSEEK, the new test described in the team’s publication, looks for mutations associated with these cancers by analyzing pap tests from the uterus and cervix. (McGill University) Centre and corresponding author of the study, told The McGill Tribune.

Unfortunately, current technologies are limited, and the type two subtype is often only detected in its third or fourth stage, by which time it’s often too late for the patient. Testing for the disease is limited to the CA 125 blood test and ultrasound imaging, neither of which can detect high-grade serous cancer in its critical early stages.

“Before [type two ovarian and endometrial cancers] cause symptoms [like] bleeding or bloating [or can be detected by imaging] they

have to reach a certain volume,” Gilbert said.

“At the moment, we don’t have any test that can pick it up [...] before it spreads from the organ of origin [or beyond Stage 1].”

The genius behind Gilbert’s approach is targeting the earliest step in carcinogenesis: Mutations within the cell. PapSEEK, the new test described in the team’s publication in Science Translational Medicine, looks for mutations associated with these cancers by analyzing pap tests from the uterus and cervix.

“We have been looking for a test that can pick these cancers up even earlier when it’s tiny

and microscopic before it causes symptoms [and] can be seen on imaging,” Gilbert said.

“And the principle behind these tests [is mutations].”

Upon mutating, these cancerous cells “exfoliate,” losing their ability to adhere to one another. Even if the cancer originates in the fallopian tubes or the ovaries, exfoliated cells find their way into the uterine cavity and cervix, where Gilbert has found these flakey, mutated cells.

“By collecting cells from the cervix, and looking for these mutations that are specific to ovarian and endometrial cancer, you can identify these cancers very, very early,” Gilbert said. “[By collecting from the uterus], we were able to increase the sensitivity of the test from 33 per cent for ovarian cancer to 45 per cent, and 78 per cent to 93 per cent for endometrial cancer.”

The team’s success has drawn attention to a larger issue: The absurd lack of funding for ovarian cancer research. Between 2010 and 2014, ovarian research received only $16.9 million in funding, $64.4 million less than the funds allotted to breast cancer research. Funding, Gilbert said, continues to be disappointing.

“Women [...] end up costing health care services [huge amounts] simply because of the volume of deaths and suffering, and there’s not enough funding going into it,” Gilbert said. “[PapSEEK needs] large amounts of funds [to continue its research]. We have started on a small scale but we expect to have to [continue] for another three to four years before we can get sensitivity higher and [increase] specificity.”

SPORTS 15

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

A behind-the-scenes look at coaching through the offseason In pursuit of building something special, McGill’s varsity coaches’ work never truly ends Gabe Nisker, Staff Writer / Photographs by Selwynne Hawkins Continued from page 1.

Next, their flight home to Montreal got delayed, and the team was stuck in Toronto for a few extra hours. Nine days later, Thorne sat down with the Tribune, just as the book on the past season was finally coming to a close.

“From that last game, we’ll give them a week where we limit that contact, let [the players] get back into everything they need to do academically without us bothering them,” Thorne said.

“And then we’ll have our exit meetings [the following week].”

After exit interviews wrap up, the Martlets flex other muscles until exams end on May 1. For Thorne, it’s time to accomplish the little, inconspicuous tasks that make the season run.

“We don’t just show up [on the court] and say, ‘Let’s go roll a ball out there,’” Thorne said. “There’s a plan that goes into place. We do all that planning between now and May.” Just over a week after his team’s final game, Thorne was busy fielding calls to plan out the next season’s schedule. His main concern was creating a balance between his players’ academic obligations and a demanding basketball schedule.

“What we try to do is not overload [the players],” Thorne said. “This is the time where we look at [...] schedules. Where can we travel? When can we travel, just based on all of these [factors]?

So, that’s what we figure out now.”

For the dominant Martlet basketball squad, who won their seventh consecutive conference title in March, preseason exhibition challenges from teams south of the border keep the group in top form for when league play begins. The McGill basketball teams generally play against NCAA schools in early August, which means they require a waiver from U Sports to allow freshmen to compete. Under U Sports regulations, incoming players cannot participate in formal team drills until Aug 15.

Throughout the offseason, Thorne remains in close contact with his assistant coaches; however, he is the only full-time employee of his staff.

“There are a lot of teams

across the country that have fulltime assistant coaches,” Thorne said. “We’re not fortunate enough to have one right now. We just try to script it so that everyone gets involved but without overloading my assistants, either.”

In the summer, availability is a matching game between players, coaches, and gym times.

Coordinating all of the moving pieces can be a significant hurdle for McGill’s teams. During May and June, players and gyms are free during the day, but Thorne’s assistant coaches are working at their day jobs. In July, summer camps occupy the gyms, so space is only available at night. That’s when everyone gets together for workouts.

Even though he works full-

time as Martlet head coach, Thorne balances that job with a number of other roles: He helps select McGill Athletics award recipients, works on the coaching staff for the Canadian Women’s U19 basketball team, and serves as the president of the Women’s Basketball Coaching Association for Canada.

Other McGill sports teams are even less fortunate than the basketball team, as they rely fully on an all-volunteer staff. McGill Redmen lacrosse Head Coach Tim Murdoch has volunteered his time for the last 15 seasons, all while leading his own consulting

“I don’t see the guys much [from November to April],” Murdoch said. “I don’t want them to get sick of the sport, but we lean on our captains in the offseason to play the leadership role in terms of training and conditioning.”

With his captains working

firm outside McGill. The bulk of his coaching commitment comes during the team’s AugustNovember season. Murdoch has the team elect captains at the end of the fall season for the following year, which allows him to step back as his team prepares for exams and trains under peer leadership.

hard to lead offseason drills, Murdoch can devote his time to his day job and tasks such as recruiting.

In December, he attended the Oceanside Hustle, a major recruiting event on the lacrosse circuit in Oceanside, California.

The tournament’s structure allowed him to watch hundreds of players from 120 competitive high school and club teams across the United States. Before spectating the event, Murdoch identified several critical recruiting targets, and during the action, found even more potential Redmen. Such events are vital for constructing the team’s roster and creating positive momentum for recruiting players in the future. “[After taking part in these recruiting opportunities,] we suddenly have two Californians

on the roster, and all of a sudden, kids from California will notice [McGill’s program],” Murdoch said.

As with coaching, recruiting is a year-round gig. Coaches work hard to solidify their rosters for not only the immediate season, but for many years to come.

“There’s no rest for [recruiting],” Thorne said. “We’ll have some kids on the list who aren’t [eligible] for 2018 but are for 2019.”

Furthermore, recruiting is not a one-man show. It takes an effective plan and good communication to get the job done.

Starr and his associate head coach and recruiting coordinator Casey Auerbach travel together to the U.S. for recruiting showcases.

Once they’ve identified potential recruits, Auerbach will directly contact them as the duo aims to get to know the student behind the baseball player.

“We’ll organize day trips and night trips for the guys who will stay with our players to determine [if they’re] a good fit for the program,” Starr said. “[We ask] not only are they good baseball players, but are they good fits?

Throughout the years, we’ve learned that fit is more important than the ballplayer [himself.]”

The final piece of the puzzle comes at the very beginning of McGill’s Fall semester. As the offseason winds down, many McGill teams hold open tryouts weeks before the season begins.

“Because of the reputation of McGill, there might be a kid who we didn’t know about, who didn’t know that McGill had a basketball team but was coming here just for academics,” Thorne said. “And now she’s a talent and she loves basketball.”

After a long summer of training, recruiting, and planning, McGill’s coaches move into the fall eager to see their hard work pay off. The offseason is a critical component of McGill teams’ success, as it allows athletes, coaches, and staff the time needed to reset and recover from the previous year. Then, once the next season starts, it’s full steam ahead for McGill’s coaches.

“In that [March-May period] also, there’s some vacation time,” Thorne said. “[But] once you get going, you get going.”

16 SPORTS

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Impact

Concussions in youth and collegiate sport The changing landscape in concussion diagnosis and treatment

Miya Keilin, Staff Writer / Illustration by Daria Kiseleva Rowan Stringer, a 17-year-old rugby player from Ottawa, suffered a concussion during a rugby match but ignored her symptoms and took to the field again less than a week later. In that second, and ultimately final, match on May 8, 2013, she suffered a second concussion that sent her into a coma—from which she would never wake up.

Stringer is far from the only athlete to have suffered a concussion practicing youth sport. Thirty-one per cent of Canadians who have participated in youth sports report having suffered at least one sport-related concussion, according to a 2015 study conducted by the Angus Reid Institute. While most concussion stories do not end as tragically as Rowan’s, they always threaten permanent damage to the brain. In turn, sports leagues for players of all ages have taken measures to curb the harm caused by concussions.

A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that occurs when a hard impact to the head or body jolts the brain, resulting in a temporary impairment of brain function.

The brain is surrounded by three layers of membrane and cerebrospinal fluids that cushion it; however, upon forceful impact, these protective measures are not strong enough to hold the brain in place, allowing it to move within the skull. Such movement can affect the brain’s chemical equilibrium, damage nerve tissue, and cause bruising.

Typically, it takes one to two weeks to recover from a concussion, but optimal recovery times vary depending on factors such as age, mental conditions—including anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, or post-traumatic stress disorder—and the severity of the concussion. Rest is key to the healing process, but patients must often avoid bright lighting, screens, and strenuous brain activity, too.

Alyssa Crichton, BSc ‘18 and Martlet soccer player from 2013 to 2017, suffered a concussion after taking a couple of

hard shots to the head in back-to-back games. After the second, she was removed from play and taken care of by a team of doctors and therapists, but her recovery was still long and painful.

“I had a headache every single day for about five months and was constantly in pain because of it,” Crichton wrote in a message to The McGill Tribune. “I couldn’t really do much of anything [....] I have had a lot of bad injuries in my life, but the concussion was a whole new experience.”

Professional sports are leading the way in concussion prevention policy, looking to medical professionals and research for guidance. Teams and leagues across North America have started incorporating protocols into their treatment practices, like the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT)—a standardized evaluation form to check athletes for concussions—return-to-play policies, and baseline neurological tests.

These are undoubtedly improvements compared to over a decade ago, but professional sports still have a long way to go in addressing concussions. Concussions continue to slip through the cracks because of poorlywritten protocols, inadequate implementation, and, in some cases, an appalling lack of policy. For example, the NHL places much of the discretion on teams to decide when a player should fall under concussion protocol. This procedure reduces the chance that the concussed player receives proper care because teams will always push for their players to return to competition as soon as possible.

On the other hand, organizations like the MLB and NBA have implemented league-wide policies that strictly dictate when a player should be removed, how long they must sit out, and the conditions of their return.

Youth and collegiate sports leagues have followed their professional counterparts by writing concussion protocols into their own rulebooks. Most policies help responders decide when athletes should be removed from play and how long they should be kept out; however, especially in youth sports, these protocols are often unclear and are not consistently followed.

Dr. Taryn Taylor is the co-owner and medical director of the Carleton Sports Medicine Clinic and chair of the newly-formed U Sports Injury Surveillance Committee.

Currently, each U Sports conference individually manages concussion protocols, but the committee i s

working toward implementing a nation-wide policy. She outlined some of their biggest challenges and priorities in designing new protocols.

“There is very little a physician can do once a concussion has occurred,” Taylor wrote in an email to the Tribune.

“The best treatment is prevention. This can be achieved with encouraging fair play and respecting opponents, stronger penalties for unsafe play, rule changes, and skill development [....] Athlete and coach education is important to improve reporting of concussion symptoms to ensure athletes are removed from play if a concussion is suspected and to prevent athletes from playing with a head injury.”

Youth athletes don’t enjoy the luxuries of designated team doctors and trainers caring for their team, but there’s still plenty that can be done to protect them. Every state in the United States—and as of March 2018, Ontario, too— has passed concussion legislation specific to youth sports, detailing protocols on when an athlete should be removed and for how long, as well as requirements for educating parents and coaches on concussion identification and treatment. However, the gamechanger for youth sports will be to ensure that every athlete, coach, official, and parent is confident and consistent in taking a conservative approach when dealing with potential concussions during practice or a game.

“If [athletes] are being told that they are fine, or are being pushed into returning to play, they will convince themselves that they are okay and put themselves at risk of doing more damage,” Crichton wrote.

Because of that competitive inclination to keep playing, and because concussion symptoms lurk below the surface, progress for a safer concussion culture has been slow.

In January 2018, Dr. Scott Delaney, an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Emergency Medicine and team doctor for McGill Athletics, the Montreal Alouettes, and the Montreal Impact, published a study about why professional football players don’t come forward when they suspect they are concussed. The study concluded that players knew that if they did report a suspected concussion they would be removed from play, and that they did not always understand the danger of playing while concussed.

“I think it is still hard for a lot of people who have never had a concussion to fully understand the injury and how terrible it can be, because [...] it’s an ‘invisible’ injury,” Crichton wrote. “If you can’t see it, it’s harder to believe that it’s actually there.”

Concussions will probably remain an inevitable part of athletics. Youth, collegiate, and professional sports leagues alike have been making a steady effort in the last 10 years to eliminate concussion-causing impact in sports—but it might be impossible to completely eliminate concussions.

That’s not the present goal, though. Instead, the current focus is on improving the attitudes of athletes and coaches toward concussions—from education, to diagnosis, to treatment.

“We have to somehow change the culture involved in concussions and make people better understand the risk and try to take the pressure off the players if they come forward,” Delaney wrote.

This goal is achievable and shows that the sports world is moving in the right direction. But the work doesn’t end with new legislation. Above all else, everyone in sports must understand and emphasize that, at least when it comes to concussions, health is always greater than glory.