The McGill Tribune Vol. 36 Issue 17

STUDENT LIVING “The history of Igloofest” pg. 7

FEATURE “An Arrangement: Exploring the nuances of sugaring” pg. 8-9

The McGill Tribune

EDITORIAL: SSMU’S LACK OF TRANSPARENCY AND LAGGING SUPPORT LEAVE NEWS ISGs IN LIMBO pg. 05 TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2017 VOL. 36 ISSUE 17 PUBLISHED BY THE SPT, A STUDENT SOCIETY OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY McGILLTRIBUNE.COM

Safety first: A history of lab mishaps at McGill McGill lab professionals share stories of chemical reactions gone wrong Oceane Marescal Contributor

McGill’s Woodswomen in action during the crosscut saw competition, page 16. (Patrick Beacham / The McGill Tribune)

The Kalmunity Vibe Collective brings improvised jazz to Petit Campus Tristan Sparks Contributor “Chill is explosive,” is the opening line of the weekly Tuesday night showcase of the Kalmunity Vibe Collective. This idea rang true throughout the three hour set. Held at Petit Campus, the lesser known first floor of

Café Campus, Kalmunity’s unique approach to improvised jazz is as captivating as it is relaxing.

Kalmunity was founded in 2003 by the current drummer, Jashun. Since then the collective has cultivated a dedicated rotation of accomplished musicians and poets. In the 13 years since their inception, Kalmunity has grown from hosting small jam sessions at the

Sablo Cafe to drawing in weekly crowds at the roomier venue Petit Campus. Throughout the years, Kalmunity has given an opportunity for countless instrumentalists, vocalists, and performing artists to improvise together.

Kalmunity has become Canada’s largest collective of musicians ranging from the professional to the amateur.

PG. 11

Defending the 8:35: Why early mornings at McGill aren’t going away Jin Lee Contributor There is a certain meme circulating the depths of the Internet with which, by now, many McGillians should be quite familiar. It depicts a triangular model whose vertices point to certain generalizations about college life. “Good grades. Social life. Enough sleep. Pick two!”

Though some may not find that their experiences

required such a trade-off, the joke resonates with students precisely because the lack of sleep is a real problem—for students everywhere. A good night’s sleep is often difficult to come by, made scarce by late nights, piling workloads, and early morning classes.

In fact, sleep has become such a concern for students, that McGill-based researchers have recommended a delayed start to classes to allow more time for it. Their findings reaffirm what

had been concluded in prior studies—that later start times improve the academic performance of students. The consensus is this: Later start times for high-school age students would result in an appropriate sleep threshold for growing teenagers—around eight to nine hours.Betterrested students would in turn make for less anxious and better-off students. But would delaying morning starts actually work for older students at McGill?

PG. 06

Any student who has taken a chemistry lab at McGill is familiar with the infamous “Safety Lecture.”

For most students, this means an hour of staring off into space as an overlydramatic video shows acids inevitably spilled on unprotected eyes. Yet, such unfortunate accidents have such a low probability of occurrence that many students disregard safety precautions in the lab altogether. Lab accidents can feel like an abstract concept to most, but they have happened at McGill.

Wayne Wood is McGill’s director of Environmental Health and Safety. In his over 30 years of working for the university, Wood has done everything from calling a bomb squad to conducting a massive dig-up of the athletic fields in search of illegally buried chemicals. Wood is one of the first people called if an incident in a lab occurs and his team is the first line of defence against potentially hazardous situations.

Acid explosion shielded by hazmat suits

In 2003, when a 20-litre container of acid started heating up in a lab in the Stewart Biology Building, Wood sent two members of his team to respond. Their plan was to pack the container of acid into a secure drum, neutralize it, and then dispose of it.

But the team never got that far. Just as they opened the door to the cabinet, the container of acid exploded and the two men were covered with 20 litres of hot concentrated acid. Fortunately, they were fully equipped and covered head-to-toe in $6,000 hazmat suits. For Wood, this was a lesson in the value of precautionary safety measures.

PG. 13

2 news

Let’s keep talking: Mental Health Awareness Week at McGill

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Workshops, presentations, and events aim to break down stigma

Students share their experiences with mental health. (Alexandra Gardiner / The McGill Tribune)

Samuel Lottes Contributor From Jan. 23 to 29, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held workshops, screened movies, and distributed cupcakes in order to spark conversation about mental health across campus during the fourth annual Mental Health Awareness Week. There were several additional contributors to the campaign this year, including the

Peer Support Centre, the McGill Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (MORSL), and McGill Counselling and Mental Health Services (MCMHS).

According to Alyssa Wooster, U2 Arts and peer health educator for mental health at Healthy McGill, mental health awareness at McGill has been gaining recognition in recent years.

“Many students are struggling,” Wooster said. “For lack of

a better word, mental health has become more of a ‘buzzed’ topic on campus as [people are] realizing it’s a prominent issue.”

McGill Student Services Mental Health Education Coordinator Tamara Cassis said that mental illness and mental health are on two separate, yet closely related, continuums.

“Mental health can fluctuate with things like sleep or life stressors, and mental illness is something diagnosed in the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual],” Cassis said. “I like to compare it to Type 1 diabetes. You can have Type 1 and be managing your insulin well, but you’re still diabetic.”

On Jan. 26, Cassis and Chloe Rourke, also a McGill Student Services Mental Health Education coordinator, led the Motivation and Self-Determination Workshop. The workshop discussed theoretical concepts, such as the spectrum of motivation and the three fundamental psychological needs, and how they can be applied to daily life.

Cassis and Rourke said that according to Self-Determination Theory, the three basic psychologi-

cal needs are autonomy, relatedness, and competence. People are more likely to be intrinsically motivated when they thrive in these fundamental areas. In turn, with intrinsic motivation comes good mental health. Making time for the things you love to do has a positive effect on other aspects of your life as well.

In support of this, Rourke said that maintaining interpersonal relationships optimizes students’ mental health.

“Paradoxically, the competitive environments that we’re in as students aren’t good for our productivity,” Rourke said. “We have to make time for connections. Close relationships increase our overall mental health, which increases our productivity.”

Several different types of motivation were outlined by Cassis and Rourke, including acting for the intrinsic value of the action itself. According to Cassis and Rourke, it is important to preserve intrinsic motivation as it tends to fade throughout life.

Rourke said that what makes mental health such a vaguely understood concept for many is its lack

of empirical certainty. For example, the notion of relatedness refers to our need for close relationships with others.

“The subjective sense of need is what matters,” Rourke said. “I can’t measure your relatedness. I can only measure how related you feel.”

The Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP), a six-week program facilitated by students who have experience overcoming obstacles in mental health, was highlighted during the week. The program, developed in Vermont in the late 1990s, is designed to provide participants with concrete and personalized tools to improve their mental health.

According to Cassis, who is also a facilitator of the WRAP sessions, the WRAP approach is an effective way to maintain good mental health on a daily basis.

“I’ve found it very helpful,” Cassis said. “Moments where I could’ve easily gone into a depression, I didn’t. It really makes a difference.”

As of Winter 2017, students can now sign up for WRAP without being referred by MCMHS.

Department of Family Medicine partners with Share the Warmth

Research group to evaluate benefits of El Sistema’s music Rebecca Zhuang Staff Writer Since October 2016, the Family Medicine Graduate Student Society (FMGSS) of McGill has partnered with community organization Share the Warmth to conduct research on a volunteer basis for the foundation’s music program. A research team made up of graduate students from the McGill Department of Family Medicine has been working to demonstrate the benefits of music. The team has looked at the effect that a musical education can have on the cognitive skills of children by using interactive tools, such as apps and games, to measure the participants’ memory, learning, reasoning, and problem solving skills.

Founded in 1989, Share the Warmth is a charity based in Montreal that provides music lessons for disadvantaged youth, in addition to tutoring and food banks. According to Share the Warmth’s Music Coordinator Nadège Wary, the music course is closely inspired by El Sistema–a program created 40 years ago in Venezuela that aspired to use music to prevent children from getting involved with drugs and street gangs. Share the Warmth aims to help young students remain academically successful and counteract the risks that can come with low socio-economic status by offer-

ing after-school music lessons.

“We have children with a lot of family difficulties or social difficulties, coming from disadvantaged [households],” Wary said.

“Through music, we want to give the children who are in the program skills for living in a community, and for working together.”

The Share the Warmth El Sistema music course is offered to children in Pointe-Saint-Charles, which is among the most disadvantaged areas in Montreal and has economically been identified as one of Canada’s poorest neighbourhoods.

According to Pathways to Education, the area’s high school dropout rate is approximately 41 per cent— more than twice as high as the dropout rate in Quebec.

According to Nickoo Merati, one of the Family Medicine graduate students involved in this project, a majority of Share the Warmth funding comes from donations. The organization is seeking a way to assure donors of the validity and impact of their music course.

“Providing an intensive music program to children that are not paying for it is incredibly costly to their donors,” Merati said. “So, having that concrete evidence will hopefully be able to convince the donors of their continued support.”

Cristina Longo, FMGSS president, said that the society has spent the last year working to establish a

research capacity within the Share the Warmth organization that will provide measurable, scientific evidence of the positive influence of their El Sistema program.

To accomplish this, the graduate students working with Share the Warmth are using interactive games and questionnaires to measure integral factors, such as the cognitive ability and the level of happiness of the music program participants.

Longo believes that the El Sistema program at Share the Warmth is a project worth volunteering for, especially since it involves helping disadvantaged children to reach their full potential. In 2012, a study conducted by UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies Professor James S. Catterall showed that an education in the arts lessened the achievement gap between children of low and high socioeconomic status.

“Intervening in these types of populations early on, even if it’s an educational intervention like music, could actually help them become more successful later on in life, and be less likely to [be affected by] low socioeconomic status,” Longo said.

Overseeing this initiative is Dr. Gillian Bartlett, the Research and Graduate Program Director for the Department of Family Medicine at McGill. Dr. Bartlett said that she would like to see this unique collaboration expand to reach more

Concrete evidence is sought to prove the benefits of McGill students helping the disadvantaged through music. (Daria Kiseleva / The McGill Tribune)

students in the future.

“I hope [FMGSS] will continue to form partnerships with charities and organizations where the mandate is about children and

education, or the education of more deprived populations or areas in the city that typically would not be able to have this type of support available to them,” Dr. Bartlett said.

news 3

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

SSMU launches new Executive Shadowing Program Program aims to engage students in student governance

McGill takes the stage at Davos Principal Fortier and McGill researchers participate in the 2017 World Economic Forum

Cherry Wu Contributor The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) executive team is made up of seven enrolled students who oversee aspects of student life on campus. Each executive has been elected by the student body to manage a specific portfolio; positions include Vice-President (VP) Operations, VP University Affairs, VP Student Life, VP External Affairs, VP Internal Affairs, VP Finance, and President.

Beginning on Jan. 24, SSMU launched an Executive Shadowing Program that allows students to sign up to shadow a SSMU executive by filling out a short online form. The application puts students in contact with a SSMU executive through email and, once connected, the student and the executive schedule a time to meet.

An objective of the Shadowing Program is to demonstrate the responsibilities of the executives, thus preparing potential future candidates. VP Student Life Elaine Patterson said that understanding SSMU executive positions can be difficult without first-hand experience.

“A year ago, I had never really done student staff work personally,” Patterson said. “So, I understand that it could be very intimidating to run for a position. I think the shadowing program will show interested students that this is really a welcoming environment. You can read all on paper about what the position is like, but until you actually sit behind this table, you cannot really understand what the job really entails.”

Before the restructuring of positions at the end of last school year, executives regularly worked over 100 hours. Ger and VP Internal Daniel Lawrie both stated that, despite the long hours and stress, being a part of the SSMU executive is a valuable experience.

“Honestly, it is in a sense an internship to life, getting a sense of how to work a job, and having a team around you to get the job done,” Lawrie said.

SSMU elections have historically had low voter turnout, with only 17.5 per cent of the undergraduate student body participating in the most recent election. The Executive Shadowing Program was developed in Summer 2016 to increase the transparency of SSMU governance and promote engagement with the campus community.

It is expected to extend to SSMU councillors and upper administrative members of McGill staff in the future.

Planned to start early this week, the program will have no end date. The length and the content of the shadowing will be left to the discretion of the student and his or her assigned executive. With the candidates for the previous SSMU election consisting mainly of Caucasian males and the recent SSMU-sponsored report on equitable governance, President Ben Ger hopes that the program will play a role in further reform.

“In the past year, we have really been focusing on providing equal access to governance for all identities on campus,” Ger said. “Elections definitely favour a specific population and I believe the makeup of our executives team could definitely be better.

The shadowing program will make elections more accessible to everyone.”

The SSMU election nomination period for next year’s executives will begin Jan. 30 and end Feb. 10, with voting from March 13 to 16. After the election results are announced on March 16, the incoming executives will go through a month-long transition period in May and start their official term on June 1.

“When you step into a position like this, you are stepping in to become the heads of a multimillion-dollar company that is only here to help,” Ger said. “It is not here for profit. It is here to specifically make people happier. It is so hard yet so overwhelmingly rewarding. The people who I went into this with has become the family I’m going to be walking out with.”

Students can sign up to shadow under the Representation tab of the SSMU website. (Natalie Vineberg / The McGill Tribune)

Principal Fortier meets with campus media following the World Economic Forum. (Lauren Benson-Armor / The McGill Tribune)

Catie Futhey Contributor From Jan. 17 to 20, McGill Principal and Vice-Chancellor Suzanne Fortier attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland to discuss labour markets for post-secondary graduates and to present research on sustainability and global connectivity. Fortier was accompanied by Professor Andrew Gonzalez of the Department of Biology, Assistant Professor Graham MacDonald of the Department of Geography, and Associate Professor Elena Bennett of the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and School of Environment.

The annual Forum brings together more than 2,500 business leaders, international political figures, prominent researchers, and journalists to discuss current global issues.

Gonzalez, MacDonald, and Bennett jointly hosted a short presentation called an IdeasLab. They discussed research pertaining to their respective fields under the unifying theme of “Shaping a Sustainable World.”

Much of Fortier’s time at the WEF was spent on the topic of how future postsecondary graduates will integrate into the labour market while grappling with the challenges of globalization and the rapid pace of technological change. In a meeting with campus media on Jan. 23, Fortier discussed how a recent McGill initiative to implement internship opportunities will prepare students for success in today’s dynamic labour market.

“What we want to do is increase opportunities for McGill students in all programs to have work-learning experience outside the university, whether it’s in a company, an NGO, or a community group across Montreal [or] across the world,” Fortier said.

Fortier said that not only is it important for graduates to be job-ready, but also “future ready.” In a WEF panel titled “Jobs and the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” Fortier advocated for a university education that prepares students by ex-

posing them to both liberal and technical instruction, something she calls a renaissance education.

“Of course, you cannot easily navigate this world if you have no understanding of science, technology, [and] mathematics,” Fortier said. “It’s an essential component [of a post-secondary education], but I don’t think it’s sufficient, […students] need to be exposed to the arts and humanities. We need to think of a broader education, not a narrower one.”

Gonzalez, whose research is centred on building sustainable cities, elaborated on the need for a more broad-based education, which he believes is more conducive to research.

“It is important that we marry the social and natural sciences and that we give students the opportunity to experience both of these things,” Gonzalez said. “You can’t ask a robot to work on the social dimensions of change, [...] of sustainability. Many of the solutions are not strictly technological.”

MacDonald later said that he was pleasantly surprised by the topics of conversation at this year’s forum.

“We are seeing a very obvious focus on [issues such as] food, agriculture, and climate at the Davos meeting this year,” MacDonald said. “I did not expect to see so much discussion concerning these [topics] and it’s very inspiring to see this discussion taking place.”

Fortier, who also attended the WEF in 2016, is proud that McGill was the only Canadian university invited to the forum this year.

“The fact that we’re the only Canadian university invited to [Davos] and that we’re a member of the Global University Leaders Forum certainly has a direct impact on students,” Fortier said.

Fortier added that McGill’s invitation to the WEF proves the high academic status of the university.

“The reputation of McGill internationally is obviously very strong and the fact that we are there speaks for itself,” Fortier said.

4 news

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Spousal hiring at McGill

How one professor was replaced by the wife of a colleague Cherry Ng Staff Writer A professor, who is remaining anonymous, was previously a faculty lecturer at McGill University. From her perspective, she had done everything that was expected of a good academic.

She had good student reviews, published papers, and made presentations at international conferences. So when she was suddenly told that McGill would not renew her contract, she was taken by surprise. She later discovered that her job had gone to a spousal hire. She preferred not to disclose when her contract was not renewed.

Spousal hiring usually happens when McGill provides relocation assistance to the spouses of newly hired tenure-stream academic staff by offering appointments, such as tenured/tenure track positions, contract academic staff (CAS) positions, and non-academic positions. In the professor’s case, however, the professor who negotiated the spousal hire was not newly employed.

“The husband, [who was a tenure track professor], had applied to teach [at other universities] and was offered to teach somewhere else,” the professor said. “He used his platform to re-negotiate his contract with [McGill University] so that his wife could get a job. He said, ‘If you don’t give my wife a job, I will leave for this

other university.’”

At the time, the professor had been hired on a nine-month contract as a faculty lecturer, a type of CAS that are taken on to teach. Her contract had been renewed three times and she expected it would be renewed for a fourth year.

Terry Hebert, McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT) president and professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, expressed that renewal of a contract is never guaranteed.

“There’s an end date in the contract,” Hebert said. “[The faculty lecturers] would know when their job will end. If I knew my contract was coming soon, I would be asking around.”

While the professor acknowledged that a contract has an end date, she expected to be notified that her contract would not be renewed.

“In theory, you say, ‘Oh it’s a nine-month contract,’” the professor said. “But when you’ve had it for three years and you’ve been doing a good job, there’s an assumption that [the administration] will let you know if they don’t plan on renewing you. And they can do this because there is no union, no protection.”

When the professor was told her contract would not be renewed, teaching application deadlines had already passed. Her phone service was suspended and her credit rating fell.

“I applied for the [faculty lecturer position] even though there was no opening,” the professor said. “I wasn’t told that, ‘This is your last year’,

so that I was able to prepare. I wasn’t told until it was too late to apply to jobs. [The department] said they were taking a new direction. But there was no new direction. What they had done was hire [the spouse] and now [the spouse] is in that position.”

Faculty lecturer positions must be advertised in bulletins from the University Affairs or Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), letters to the department heads of at least 10 similar departments in Canada, and Canadian professional journals. Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures, and Equity) Angela Campbell said that spousal hirings can be the exception to the mandatory advertising rule. McGill can offer tenured/tenure track and CAS appointments, even when they have not been advertised and have not undergone competition. According to the McGill spousal hiring webpage, hiring procedures for CAS positions have even greater flexibility than tenured/tenure track appointments.

“In some cases, the advertising process for spousal hires may not be the same as that ordinarily followed,” Campbell wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune.

While the position may not be advertised, the appointment must still undergo review.

“Due diligence remains essential to ensure that the academic appointment (whether CAS or tenure track) has been carefully reviewed by the academic unit that is undertaking the hire, and

that the hire furthers the academic mission of the University,” Campbell wrote.

(Madeline Kinney / The McGill Tribune)

Eva Bartlett in Montreal: ‘Mainstream media is lying’ in Syria coverage Freelance journalist claims that rebels are complicit in destruction of Aleppo Grace Bahler Contributor On Jan. 28, the freelance and sometimes controversial Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett spoke at the Montreal Delta Hotel. The event was part of her nationwide tour on the Syrian Civil War and alleged misreporting by Western media. Bartlett, whose work has been published in independent watchdog journalism website MintPress News, focused on events in Aleppo from the perspective of her own journalistic experiences there and was accompanied by President and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, Michel Chossudovsky, and author Yves Engler. The event was sponsored by the Canadian Peace Congress and the Syria Solidarity Movement.

The talk commenced with remarks from Chossudovsky, followed by a discussion of incidents, which according to Bartlett, the mainstream media did not accurately report on or cover at all.

“Syrian voices weren’t being heard in the corporate media,” Bartlett said. “I wanted to concentrate on hearing what they had been living.”

Originally from Ontario, Bartlett lived in Gaza from 2008 to 2013, and has travelled to Syria a total of six times since April 2014.

She speaks colloquial Arabic, which helped her to interview residents of Aleppo. Bartlett emphasized the importance of on-the-ground reporting,

Concerns were raised over Western media reporting of Syria. (Alexandra Gardiner / The McGill Tribune)

which she claims Western media, including BBC and Al Jazeera has failed to adequately do. Instead, she and the other panel speakers said that the media is playing a role in spreading propaganda.

“Most governments, in times of war, engage in propaganda,” Engler said, referring to a staged video of a civilian rescue that many news sources, including CNN mistakenly believed to be real.

The video was produced by the Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, who are a group of volunteer search and rescue workers who were recently nominated for

a Nobel Peace Prize for their work in Syria.

The panelists expressed their discontent with corporate media and claimed that major newspapers and news networks are feeding the public innacurate information. Concerning Aleppo, a city at the centre of the Syrian Civil War and the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Bartlett and her colleagues insisted that the public is not getting the true story.

According to Bartlett, most news coverage regarding Syrian conflict focuses on the civilian battle against Bashar al-Assad’s regime,

while widely ignoring the role of rebel groups in instigating violent attacks.

“This revolution has been targeting civilians and infrastructure,” Bartlett said. “Ask yourselves, ‘What kind of a revolution does that?’”

Chossudovsky added that any government—including the United States and its allies—involved in aiding rebel groups fighting Assad is part of an illegal war. According to Chossudovsky, humanitarian efforts in the form of military interventions are nothing but an insurgency.

“U.S. media disinformation is complicit in this war [by] portraying

this war as a humanitarian undertaking,” Chossudovsky said.

Ultimately, Bartlett made the argument that rebel groups are to blame for the decay of Aleppo. She did not comment on the role played

by Assad and the government.

Though Bartlett was received with praise from the audience, she has previously faced backlash and accusations from other journalists, among them Deputy Editor of 5PillarsUK Dilly Hussain, who debated with Bartlett on Dec. 16, 2016 and accused her of being a propagandist for the Syrian and Russian governments—a claim that she has denied.

McGill Department of Political Science Professor Rex Brynen wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune that he does not agree with Bartlett’s claims about the spread of inaccurate information about the Syrian civil war. Brynen’s research focuses on the politics in the Middle East, international development, and security.

“I think Eva Bartlett has been fairly effectively discredited as a regime apologist,” Brynen wrote. “I think there’s been pretty substantial coverage of rebel human rights violations, and frankly the mainstream press coverage is pretty good. Moreover, none of that takes away from the massive human rights violations carried out by the regime.”

Bartlett’s Canada tour will continue through Feb. 3, ending in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Tuesday, Janauray 31, 2017

OPINION 5

e d ito r i a l Editor-in-Chief Julia Dick editor@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Natalie Vineberg nvineberg@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors April Barrett abarrett@mcgilltribune.com Nicholas Jasinski njasinski@mcgilltribune.com News Editors Holly Cabrera, Sara Cullen, Calvin Trottier-Chi news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Jackie Houston & David Watson opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editor Lydia Kaprelian scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Living Editor Audrey Carleton studentliving@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Albert Park features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Selin Altuntur & Evelyn Goessling arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Joe Khammar & Aaron Rose sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Domitille Biehlmann & Daniel Freed design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Lauren Benson-Armer photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editor Noah Sutton multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Clare Lyle webdev@mcgilltribune.com Daniel Lutes online@mcgilltribune.com

SSMU’s lack of transparency and lagging support leave new ISGs in limbo On April 7, 2016, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Services Review Committee changed the status of Organic Campus, the Players Theatre and other student services within SSMU’s structure. In a similar restructuring move on May 24, 2016, SSMU revoked the club status of the McGill Outdoors Club (MOC). These changes—ratified nine months ago—have had profound implications for the functioning of the affected groups, specifically for those given Independent Student Group (ISG) status.

Yet it was not until January 2017 that VP Student Life Elaine Patterson’s addressed the transition process for new ISGs. SSMU’s silence on the matter has left these groups stranded in managing their new responsibilities. SSMU’s detached—or, in the case of the MOC, seemingly unilateral—decision-making process that yielded these changes, as well as the lack of guidance through their immediate aftermath, fail the society’s mandate to support its student groups.

While the distinction may seem innocuous, there are important differences between a club or service and an ISG vis-à-vis the group’s relationship to SSMU. Clubs and services fall under the legal and financial oversight of SSMU, whereas ISGs exist independently from the society. Unsurprisingly, independence increases a group’s responsibilities.

In addition to obtaining legal status as a non-profit organization in the province of Quebec, ISGs must acquire their own insurance, and file their own taxes.

These are substantial and often expensive requirements, which unprepared student groups may not be able to accommodate. The Services Review Committee, which was reinstated in 2015 for the

C o m m e nt a r y

Copy Editor Areni Nicoghosian copy@mcgilltribune.com Business Manager Mingye Chen business@mcgilltribune.com Advertising Executives Zain Hussain ads@mcgilltribune.com Publisher Chad Ronalds

TPS Board of Directors

Mingye Chen, Julia Dick, Audrey Carleton, Shrinkhala Dawadi, Arman Bery, Clare Fogarty, Arden Li

Staff Writers

Andy Wang, Alexandra Gardiner, Ariella Garmaise, Arman Bery, Ava Zwolinski, Cherry Ng, Christopher Li, Daria Kisleva, Domenic Casciato, Elli Slavitch, Eric Noble-Marks, Flaminia Cooper, Gabriel Rincon, Hannah Taylor, Izze Siemann, Julia Métraux, Morgan Davis, Nicole Spadotto, Patrick Beacham, Rebecca Zhuang

Contributors

Benji Taubenblatt, Catie Futhey, Charlotte Hings, Cherry Wu, Clemence Auzias, Declan Embury, Dylan Adamson, Grace Bahler, Jin Lee, Julia Metraux, Marie Labrosse, Miguel A.V. Principe, Niklas Kaemmerer, Oceane Marescal, Paige Mysliviec, Patrick Beacham, Samuel Lottes, Selwynne Hawkins, Tristan Sparks, Uzair Khan

Tribune Office

Shatner University Centre Suite 110, 3480 McTavish Montreal, QC H3A 0E7 T: 514.398.6789 The McGill Tribune is an editorially autonomous newspaper published by the Société de Publication de la Tribune, a student society of McGill University. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of The McGill Tribune and the Société de Publication de la Tribune, and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University.

Letters to the editor may be sent to editor@mcgilltribune.com and must include the contributor’s name, program and year and contact information. Letters should be kept under 300 words and submitted only to the Tribune. Submissions judged by the Tribune Publication Society to be libellous, sexist, racist, homophobic or solely promotional in nature will not be published. The Tribune reserves the right to edit all contributions. Editorials are decided upon and written by the editorial board. All other opinions are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the McGill Tribune, its editors or its staff. Please recycle this newspaper.

Julia Metraux Staff Writer I would not be at McGill University if it were not for the assistance of the United States of America’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a federal law requiring schools to provide for the individual needs of students with disabilities. Guidelines set by the IDEA enabled me to succeed in a public education system because this law put me on an equal playing field as the rest of my classmates.

Betsy DeVos, whom President Donald Trump has nominated as Secretary of Education, terrifies me.

In a Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 18, when questioned by U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, DeVos refused to state that all public schools should be held equally accountable to the IDEA requirements, and said that the decision to follow IDEA should

first time since 2011, has a legitimate mandate in evaluating the existing services’ structure and compliance with the internal regulations of student groups. However, while the April 7 report concluded that Organic Campus and the Players Theatre did not meet these criteria, it offered little as to why or how these groups would operate better with the ISG status that they were given. Part of SSMU’s mandate is to offer services to improve the McGill student experience—this means ensuring that the student groups that provide these services are viable and functioning. When the Committee enacts changes to student groups in the future, it must consider whether they are sustainable for the group in question.

The MOC’s transition from club to ISG had a more concrete rationale. Former VP Clubs and Services Kimber Bialik argued that operating as an ISG makes sense for the group, given its external bank account and independent insurance. SSMU has been negotiating the switch with the MOC for the past two years.

However, this does not justify the way the decision was finally made. The Board of Directors and last year’s SSMU Council not only changed the MOC’s status without the group’s knowledge or consent, but waited until the last meeting of the 2016 school year to do so. Minutes from the the May 24 meeting suggest that concern over how MOC’s finances would appear to new auditors motivated the last-minute decision, rather than the best course of action for the club. Moreover, General Manager Ryan Hughes raised the question of possible ‘media flak’ in response to the decision. The minutes of the

meeting are, notably, not accessible on the SSMU website—an unacceptable breach of accountability and transparency.

With the exception of former SSMU president Kareem Ibrahim and director Kahli Douglas, who abstained from voting on the decision, the lack of transparency and hastiness of the MOC decision falls on last year’s SSMU executives. However, it is equally unacceptable that this year’s team has been so slow to extend support to the student groups forced to change their structure. The Players Theatre remains in transition to its new status, while Organic Campus no longer exists as of January 2017. The MOC, meanwhile, is actively appealing the decision to revoke its club status. Patterson plans to aid transitioning groups, with the goal of having all ISGs stable by the end of the Winter 2017 term.

Specifically, she intends to assist new ISGs with their application for legal status in Quebec. This is a positive yet retroactive step.

SSMU is itself a student-operated body.

Like the clubs and services that it supports, it faces the challenge of finite resources and manpower.

Overburdened executive portfolios and the stringent 2016-2017 budget necessitate strategic and sometimes unpopular decisions for the society’s student groups, as has already been demonstrated by the moratorium on new clubs. When these decisions are made, however, they must be made transparently—in consultation with affected parties, and with regard for their consequences.

The McGill Tribune has been an ISG since 2010.

American Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos is a threat to students with disabilities be determined by the states. In the questioning, DeVos also did not seem to understand the difference between proficiency and growth. Proficiency is a student’s comparative performance over a standard benchmark, whereas growth is a student’s individual improvement over time—given the current educational debate on whether to transition from testing proficiency to testing improvement, DeVos’ apparent unfamiliarity with the terms is alarming. Her lack of appreciation for the importance IDEA is likely due to her lack of general lack of experience: She has never attended a public school, never sent her children to public schools, nor received a degree in Education. DeVos is extremely unqualified for the position of Secretary of Education, due her lack of knowledge on public education and her views of IDEA. Schools need to be held to equal accountability when it comes to student disabilities. For every student, the purpose of going to school is to learn in order to succeed in life. If a school decides to allocate more money to a sports program and cut funds for students with disabilities—potentially violating IDEA guidelines—it sets disabled students up for failure. This is both morally and legally wrong, and such schools deserve to be held liable.

Allowing IDEA to be determined by state would be a disaster, as

the quality of public education varies across states. For example, according to Forbes, the quality of public education in Massachusetts is equivalent to Hong Kong, which ranks fourth in the world, whereas the District of Columbia has an 8 per cent math proficiency among public school students, putting it on par with lower-

“ Betsy

DeVos,

whom

American President Donald Trump has nominated as Secretary of Education, terrifies me.

”

ranking countries, like Mexico and Kazakhstan.

Personally, I have a mild to moderate hearing loss, a neuro-

associative anxiety disorder, and have had multiple concussions.

These all had the potential of being major roadblocks in my life, but my Massachusetts K-12 public school system upheld the standards set forth

by IDEA and was supportive of my distinct learning needs. When I suffered from a speech impediment, they gave me free speech therapy which lessened my lisp. When my grades started plummeting on tests due to my inability to focus as a result of anxiety, I was given extended time.

When I had to miss extended periods of school due to concussions, I was not reprimanded for my absences.

When discussing the help I received, I have to acknowledge my privilege: I attended a public school system in a wealthy Massachusetts suburb; I had the assistance of an amazing guidance counselor. Yet the importance of IDEA for me cannot be understated. To make sure that all states are held to the same standard, IDEA should be more uniformly enforced. The Department of Education should be rigorous in ensuring the Act’s accommodations and guidelines are followed.

Throughout his campaign, Trump promised that he would put the best people in his cabinet. DeVos is not only far from being the best—she is a danger to public education. Students with disabilities deserve better.

6 OPINION

C o m m e nt a r y

Grace Bahler Contributor At eight-thirty on weekday mornings, coughs and sniffles fill the McGill Health Services clinic. Sick students, looking miserable to their core, sit and wait—some for strep tests, others for a prescription. Many, however, have braved the negative temperature and icy sidewalks to wait for nothing but a medical note to save their GPA.

C o m m e nt a r y

Jin Lee Contributor Continued from page 1.

Despite the ire which morning classes can draw, they deserve students’ consideration before being put on the chopping block. And there are a few reasons why students would miss 8:35 starts more than one would think.

We should consider that the studies mentioned above focus primarily on the experiences of

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

McGill must improve the medical notes system It’s an unfortunate reality that many committed—and ill— students at McGill face. It is it absurd to have sick students wake up for the clinic’s 8:30 AM opening, to then wait hours on end to see a nurse or doctor, only to have them scribble down a few words and provide a signature. The process places an unreasonable and unnecessary burden on sick students.

Current classroom policies require students to obtain a medical note to avoid penalization for missing class, which may result in lower participation marks. This leaves two choices for sick students: Get the slip of paper to save one’s grades, or get the rest to spare one’s health.

Apparently, there is no way to have both. However, all hope is not lost: The Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) University Affairs Committee (UAC) is presently working to strike a working group on academic accommodations, as

part of SSMU’s broader Know Your Rights campaign.

According to the Know Your Rights website, the UAC’s VP Internal and Office of the Dean of Students are undergoing talks regarding amending and upgrading the medical note policy, with the intention “to develop recommendations for faculty-specific improvements to streamline procedures and reduce the documentation requirements for students and Student Services.”

If successful, this initiative will benefit not only students, but also the university’s professors. It is understandable that a professor would require punctuality and a way of monitoring satisfactory attendance, but it is not acceptable to have such a strenuous process to excuse an absence.

While the clinic does its job prescribing the right antibiotics for sinus infections and pesky coughs, the process to see a physician for a note

is painstaking and laden with inefficiency.

Obtaining a doctor’s note requires no more than a five-minute encounter with an MD, but appointment slots fill up so fast that many students are left with no choice but to leave empty-handed. With no excuse for their absence, these unlucky latecomers must then return to class rather than their beds.

Pertaining to mental health and missing class, you can only hope that you have an understanding professor or a reliable psychiatrist.

While McGill offers counselling services, walk-in spots are limited and resources are slim.

In a high-stress university environment, students need to be able to find help when they need it, and an effective way to communicate their struggles to professors without being penalized.

There is an ideal option that comes to mind for remedying this situation: Create an

oo ff ff tt hh ee bb oo aa rr dd

entirely separate evaluation and documentation process for students who only need a note to excuse them from class. Have doctors, nurses, and psychiatrists present to evaluate the student’s condition and give them their note. UAC’s move to streamline the medical documentation process, as well as McGill mental health and counselling services’ recent adoption of a Stepped Care Model, are steps in the right direction. In the meantime, however, the fact that students have to jump through these hoops to prove they’re sick remains ridiculous.

It’s a simple concept: Rest when you’re sick. But when the process of getting a medical note is as exhausting as the flu itself, students are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to taking care of both their bodies and their grades. At this point, sick students can only hope for enough DayQuil to get us through the semester.

Defending the 8:35: Why early mornings at McGill aren’t going away teenagers—or high-school-aged students—whose experiences do not necessarily reflect the sleep habits of college students.

One point of consensus is that the recommendation for eight to nine hours corresponds to the progression of adolescent circadian cycles, or sleep-wake patterns over a 24-hour period.

The tendency to stay up later and to sleep in later, in other words, is a natural phenomenon for teens, which should be accounted for by later mornings.

That sort of reasoning translates well to high schools in North America, whose students are still undergoing pubescent changes.

However, the lack of sleep for students at the university level cannot be resolved so easily.

There are two possible outcomes to implementing a delayed morning start time: Either the university would make up for lost time by adding an hour of scheduled classes later in the day, or it would decide to do away with early 8:35 classes

EXPERIENCED CAREGIVER NEEDED TO START WORK IMMEDIATELY FOR MOTHER IN LAW SUFFERING DEMENTIA. I am offering 4-5 hours per day on Saturday, Monday, Wednesday,and Friday, at a rate of $20.00 per hour.

ALL APPLICANTS SHOULD EMAIL DIRECTLY AT

joetquirion@gmail.com

without replacing them. In the former case, the standard end to the day would be pushed back by an hour or even more. In the latter case, the outcome would be that an entire array of courses are cut from the curriculum altogether, since there would be no way to fit them into a shortened schedule.

If considered logistically, the apparent solution to our initial problem of lack of sleep— prolonging the morning start time—is to either prolong one’s entire school day or to reduce a number of courses which would otherwise have been offered.

For those reasons, those who feel that their sleep is being disrupted by the demands of morning classes should not rush to immediately advocate

ERRATA

“

One need not be a

morning person to see the standard start time at McGill for what it is: Sensible.

”

their removal from the schedule.

Instead, students should advocate that morning classes be recorded and made available online as a standard practice.

Doing something as simple as that could curb the conundrum for many students, without forcing a drastic measure such as delaying the start of classes.

One need not be a morning person to see the standard start time at McGill for what it is: Sensible. That is not to say that the struggles of those who must choose between more sleep and morning attendance are not real. Addressing the problem, however, should not involve cutting an entire hour of class from a system which has functioned well thus far.

An article from issue 16 titled “The selfless selfie: ‘Hypotheses’ conference on narcissism, post-internet art” incorrectly named Estelle Wathieu’s paper as “Intersectionality and Post-Internet Art: Petra Collins and Lula Hyers” instead of the correct title, which is “From ‘teen-girl tumblr aesthetic’ to ‘selfie feminism’: evolution of the discourse around a complex and ever-evolving network of artists.” Furthermore, the earlier version incorrectly associated a point Wathieu made about the political potential of intersectionality of the works of Petra Collins to the work of Lula Hyers as well.

The article titled “The magic school bus in the Mile-End” incorrectly stated that a dog called Duda was associated with the owner’s and staff when in fact the dog is not associated with the La Petite Floride.

In an article titled “AVEQ criticizes government consultation efforts on sexual violence,” incorrectly stated that the SSMU motion regarding affiliation with AVEQ failed at its Feb. 11 2016 Council session when in fact the motion passed with 17 votes in favour, five opposed, and two abstentions. The question on affiliation proceeded to the Winter 2016 referendum period, where it failed to be approved by SSMU members. It incorrectly stated that Concordia and the Université de Montréal had decided against joining AVEQ in 2016 when in fact Concordia students voted to affiliate with AVEQ in its November 2015 by-election and the Université de Montréal has had no association with AVEQ. The Tribune regrets these errors.

STUDENT LIVING

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

The history of Igloofest

7

Igloofest provides Montrealers with good times and fun music to drive away the winter blues. (Noah Sutton / The McGill Tribune)

The path to becoming one of the hottest festivals in Montreal Miguel Principe Contributor Every winter since 2006, Igloofest has provided Montrealers with the largest, rowdiest month-long party to occur at the Old Port. At the heart of the thumping beats and dancing people is Nicholas Cournoyer, the executive producer of the festival. Along with co-founder Pascal Lefebvre, Cournoyer thought of creating a festival in the middle of winter after he founded another staple of the Montreal music scene—Piknic Electronik. Piknic Electronik is an electronic music festival that occurs every Sunday at Parc JeanDrapeau from May to October.

“What came first [before Igloofest] was Piknic Electronik,” Cournoyer said. “[....] After two years [of Piknic], we were thinking, ‘There are people

that want to have electronic music in a different environment, what can we do differently?’ We started brainstorming on doing things and we ended up on the idea, ‘Let’s do this in the wintertime!’

And at first, we laughed, [but] in the end we thought, why not?”

Before officially putting on the first Igloofest, the Piknic Electronik crew held two editions of its “semipredecessor” at Lac des Cygnes at Fête des Neiges. They were equally successful as the summer festival, with the first event attracting 1,200 people and the second achieving an attendance of 1,500 people. The success of these trial runs gave Cournoyer and his Piknic Electronik team the confidence they needed to create Igloofest.

Creating this massive winter electronic festival does not come without its challenges, the first and most

After facing her own injury, violinist Claire Motyer started a blog on musician’s health. (Lauren Benson-Armer / The McGill Tribune)

Student of the Week: Claire Motyer Student violinist starts musician’s health blog after injury Flaminia Cooper Contributor

obvious being its temporal setting: The dead of winter. The low temperatures are a physical strain for both attendees and organizers.

“Weather forecast for Piknic can be a problem [...,] but the variety of weather challenges are bigger during the wintertime,” Cournoyer said. “The other thing is, [dragging] people out in the wintertime is more tough than in the summertime, [...] there’s people that have heard about the event, but will never make the move [....Another thing is] all the employees’ situation in cold weather, [...] it’s physically more demanding. If you work the same amount of hours during the summertime [compared to] the wintertime, you won’t have the same fatigue.”

Another logistical problem for Igloofest as it became a bigger event, was its unexpected popularity. Cournoyer

“I’ve been playing violin since I was four, so I’ve always defined myself as a musician,” Claire Motyer, U3 Music, said.

Motyer spent her whole life immersed in musical performance, until she injured herself in her first semester at McGill University from over-rehearsing.

“I was [...] practicing four hours a day plus rehearsals, so up to six to eight hours a day,” Motyer said. “It was just way too much on my body and I immediately started experiencing discomfort and pain.”

After only a month of studying in an intense violin performance programme, Motyer developed tendonitis in her wrist, creating a major setback in her degree and passion. Her injury also took a toll on her mental health. The sheer demand of the music programme at McGill can create a stressful environment for students, which led to the development of a mandatory peer mentorship program for musicians’ mental health in 2015.

For Motyer, studying music caused her to experience high levels of anxiety.

“I think part of the reason I got injured was the stress and anxiety that I was experiencing when I arrived here, and feeling like I had all these expectations that I had to meet,” Motyer said. “[....] Then when I was faced with this injury, I had to redefine who I was if I wasn’t going to be a musician anymore.”

This unfortunate event ultimately kickstarted Motyer’s interest in musician’s health, and over the past couple years she has invested increasing amounts of her spare time into the subject. In September 2016, she started an Instagram account, @c__natural, and last month she posted her first blog post on her new website, C Natural.

Over 80 per cent of orchestra musicians have experienced a physical injury during

and his team struggled to manage the increasing fanbase of Igloofest—tickets selling out at accelerating paces meant more fans got upset by their inability to buy tickets.

“We had some sold-out shows in the beginning [...] and [one] would say, ‘It’s a good thing to have sold out shows,’ but you have to manage how people that won’t be able to make it [...] would react,” Cournoyer said. “In the first few years, we had [a DJ named] Modeselektor, there were sold-out shows and we were happy, but people were going nuts and just jumping over the fence. So [we needed] to prepare the security guys. And people were walking on the ice and [trying to] come to the backstage to try to go in. [People] went nuts.”

This year, in celebration of Montreal’s 375th anniversary, Igloofest

their careers, but discussion of the topic is stigmatized, as many perceived health struggles as a flaw that would detract from their image as an accomplished musician.

Motyer speaking out about her personal experience will hopefully demonstrate, not only to musicians but the wider public, that such struggles are normal and can even provide a path to alternative opportunities.

Though the blog is still fairly new, it has provided Motyer with an outlet to express her thoughts on the under-acknowledged issue of musicians’ health. In some of her first blog posts, she discusses her personal experiences and gives advice to other musicians who are also suffering. As the blog develops, Motyer aims to explore structural flaws in the music world.

In her most recent blog post, published on Jan. 15, Motyer discusses the pressures of practicing an instrument as a musician.

Even when there is good reason to continue practicing, such as an upcoming concert or audition, pushing oneself too hard can lead to injury. This is more harmful in the long-run, as it can affect one’s future opportunities or success by hindering his or her ability to play.

“I want to [...] show it’s not necessarily what [musicians] are doing wrong, but what the education system is doing wrong,” Motyer said. “[Physical strain] wasn’t just the reason that I got injured, it was [also] because I had to do so many things, [...] it’s because I had a lot of pressure on me.”

Considering the short amount of time that the blog has been active, she has already received positive feedback for her efforts, and regularly receives messages from professional musicians, former music teachers, and colleagues about her work.

“I wanted to start a lot of this a long

has teamed up with other organizers of winter events, with hopes of building bridges across the city. Cournoyer and his team are sharing their experience with Igloofest by helping out other Hivernales events, such as Barbegazi— an extreme sports competition that occurred on Jan. 9—and Jeux Nordik—a comical obstacle course based on winter life in Montreal that will happen during the weekends of Feb. 11 and 18. The growing presence of Igloofest in the Montreal winter festival scene is sign of their essential role in the city. The organizers are very content with the improvements the event has seen over the years.

“We improved the sonography [of Igloofest] a lot this year, we invested a lot,” Cournoyer said. And the show is awesome. [...] It’s really more immersive, it’s incredible, it’s perfect.”

time ago, but because I was still experiencing [health problems] so much myself, I couldn’t start everything,” Motyer said. “Now that I’ve come to terms with my own situation and my own mental health, as well as the injury, I’m really able to see where this is going.”

Motyer’s focus on musician’s health is paying off. In addition to her online presence, she is currently working as the Music Intern at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which has enabled her to speak to a large and diverse audience of people about health issues for musicians. As of January 2017, she has also put together the Schulich Musicians’ Health Committee at McGill, which has organized a Musician’s Health Awareness Week to take place on Feb. 18 and 19.

“Musician’s health is [now] where I want to go [professionally], instead of being a performer, but it took me a long time to acknowledge that I couldn’t be a performer anymore,” Motyer said.

Now that Motyer has recovered and is playing violin regularly again, she frequently incorporates her own daily practice into her blog and social media posts. The violinist also has plans to develop the blog further by including featuring guest posts from peers and professors. She has a friend working on the next blog post for C Natural, who will be describing her own experience with music and mental health.

“People that I’d rarely spoken to who wanted to share their stories and contribute to the blog,” Motyer said. “[....] That’s what I want this blog to become, it’s not just about me sharing my experience, but people in general communicating more about this issue and really coming together on this and raising awareness about it.”

sug·ar

/’ SHŏogər/ (noun)

1. sweeten, sprinkle, or coat with sugar. "she absentmindedly sugared her tea"

An Arrangement:

Exploring the nuances of sugaring

By Sara Cullen

W

ith tuition prices on the rise in North America, the question of how to finance a university education without sinking into debt is a source of stress for many. As of late, mainstream media outlets have highlighted the prevalence of sugaring–a situation in which one person is compensated for spending time with another on a regular basis–on university campuses. Commonly discussed using the terms “sugar baby” and “sugar daddy,” media coverage has sensationalized the practice of forming a sugar relationship online.

Jasmine* considered sugaring after graduating from McGill in order to pay for a Masters program at an Ivy League university in the U.S. Although she eventually decided not to pursue a sugar relationship, she recalls how most of her friends would ask her how much she would get paid upon finding out that she was thinking of sugaring.

“I think it’s glamorized a little bit,” Jasmine said. “[....Most] articles on [sugaring] don’t dig into the emotional side of the relationship, most answer questions about how money is exchanged or how you find an arrangement. I think that [media] caters to what people want to know and not to the emotional side.”

Emily* attends McGill and has sugared in the past. She said that many articles on sugaring come across as marketing a new taboo, using scenarios and language that cater to the public by providing them with something with a higher shock value.

“It feels like they ignore the queer people of colour who don’t identify as women because the idea

of Becky from next door engaging in this type of relationship is shocking,” Emily wrote in a message to The McGill Tribune. “The fact that they focus so much on what the people sugaring are doing with their money is also telling. That babies could be using the money to put themselves through college is supposed to highlight a seemingly unstable class positioning. Only talking about hetero young woman [with] older man relationships, plays into people’s weird class boundary fantasies with the added ‘twist’ of a helpless girl [and] pervy old man dynamic.”

The sugaring narrative Emily mentions has been especially stressed by the media in recent years and is often connected to rising tuition costs. In September 2016, CBC reported that on average, undergraduate university tuition in Canada has gone up by around 40 per cent in the last decade. Certain companies hosting sugar websites specifically try to target students struggling to afford tuition or pay off their student debt. SeekingArrangement is a sugar website based in Las Vegas that is used by over five million active members in 139 different countries. According to the website, Canadian university tuition rose by three per cent in the past year and “Finding the right sugar daddy can help a sugar baby manage student loan debt.”

After unexpectedly being accepted to the Ivy League school, Jasmine was faced with the difficult decision of choosing between a widely-recognized university and a lesser known school with more affordable tuition.

“I wanted to go to medical school after, so, that's already a lot of [student] loans,” Jasmine said. “I was

like, the only way I would choose [the Ivy League...] is if I had some way to pay for it [and] I had always thought about sugaring just because I had read stories about it and stuff.”

SeekingArrangement publishes rankings of the universities with the most registered sugar babies and displays a “Sugar Baby University” emblem on their website, marketing itself as a solution to expensive tuition. The website even offers Sugar Baby College Premium accounts, which allows sugar babies to display a “college badge” on their profile after verifying their status with a university email. According to Global News, McGill ranked second to University of Toronto as the Canadian university with the fastest growing amount of sugar babies in 2014. SeekingArrangement reports that McGill has now fallen to rank eighth as of 2016. While SeekingArrangement is not the only way to make an arrangement, it is one of the online resources that is talked about the most in mainstream media.

After creating an account on SeekingArrangment, which she likened to OkCupid in format, Jasmine started corresponding with various sugar daddies over email, and eventually over text and FaceTime, once she was more comfortable.

While taking a week-long trip to visit the Ivy League school she planned on attending, Jasmine went on multiple first dates with various professionals who were significantly older than her. She noted that several of the men discussed times when they had met up with attractive girls who were not interesting to talk with, trying to portray themselves as being more interested in intellect than physical appearance.

“When there's money involved there's some expectation of ‘We're going to talk about the things that I want to talk about, you're not going to vent to me about your problems because you're kind of here to entertain me,’” Jasmine said.

While organizations and websites that facilitate sugaring provide information on what it means to be a sugar baby, many people have also taken to the Internet to share their personal techniques or approaches to sugaring. With various sugar-specific websites and threads on Reddit echoing similar tips, it would appear that, for some, sugaring is more of a job than a relationship.

“The big thing [...] is that you're kind of being paid for your time and you always have to be 'on' and happy,” Jasmine said. “It's like working in a restaurant or something. If you're having a bad day, it doesn't matter.”

Jasmine believes that it takes an outgoing personality to be able to be sugar successfully. She also noted that attempting to maintain a sugar relationship on top of graduate school coursework would have been challenging for her.

“I think if I were more extroverted and more sociable, I could have done it, but I think it would have been tiring and stressful,” Jasmine said. “And the stakes weren't like ‘Oh, if I end this sugar relationship, I won't have extra spending money.’ The stakes were like, ‘If I end this sugar relationship because I don't have time for it, I won't be able to pay my rent.’”

SeekingArrangement states on its Sugar Baby University webpage that the average successful sugar baby makes $2,440 USD per month. Whether this is simply in the form of a monetary “allowance” or in gifts is up to the sugar baby and their sugar daddy or momma. For Jasmine, most people she talked to wanted to meet up about once a week and provide her with a monthly allowance.

“Most of the people I talked to wanted [to arrange] some sort of [...] monthly allowance versus [...] ‘Okay, I'll pay you every time I see you,’” Jasmine said. “A lot of them are on that site as opposed to hiring an escort [...] because they didn't want it to feel transactional. And I think for a lot of them, paying per date feels too escort-y to them.”

Sugaring is a grey area when it comes to questions of its legality, with some considering it as comparable to sex work and others pointing out that sugar websites do not exist explicitly for the sake of sexual intimacy.

In many cases, people looking to make a sugar arrangement are in search of human connection.

“One of the biggest things I got from it is [...] I kind of expected that I would need to have my defence up to avoid being taken advantage of,” Jasmine said. “But I was actually kind of surprised at points, I felt like I was in danger of taking advantage of them. It was just because a lot of them [...] just wanted someone to talk to [....] In the end, I sort of saw them as being humans who just wanted companionship, just like anyone else does.”

Emily echoed this sentiment, pointing out that the dynamic within a sugar relationship can be very similar to that of a relationship that is not created within the same context.

“Making an economic arrangement based on complementary needs isn’t about dominance,” Emily wrote. “You can find space to negotiate power dynamics in these types of relationships. Building an understanding and finding a common ground is part of being in a relationship. Also, as in all relationships, people can harm each other. So although there is space for subversion of power dynamics, it’s still as important, as it is in every other relationship you have, to take care of yourself and make sure your boundaries are being respected.”

Alicia,* who works with an organization that aims to empower high-school and CEGEP-aged students, took a women’s health class while at McGill where they discussed sugaring. She holds the opinion that during times when girls are developing their identities, society should seek to empower and support them. In an email, Alicia told The McGill Tribune of a time when the topic of sugar relationships came up during an inclass discussion.

“When the conversation was brought up in my women’s health class, it became very emotional very quickly,” Alicia wrote. “Things like ‘choice’ and ‘empowerment’ came up.”

With discussions sometimes bringing up whether or not sugaring is sex work, social stigmas create difficult barriers in formulating a sense of positionality as someone who sugars.

“Denying the fact that sex workers can have real emotional connections to clients doesn’t take into account the fact that people have emotional connections while at work all the time,” Emily wrote. “Demanding that there be a difference between sugaring and sex work seems to try to solidify class boundaries yet again–as if the temporality of sugaring allows for the maintenance of a class boundary between people who do sex work full time and people who sugar.”

The experience of each individual engaging in a sugar relationship and the impact it has on them is something that should not be generalized or reduced.

Alicia recognizes that emotional complexities are often present in sugaring. “[....I] would never judge someone for being a sugar baby,” Alicia wrote. “[....] I don’t know what the emotional ramifications of being a sugar baby are, but I definitely want to express my concern for the potential negative effects [that this could have on a] young woman’s self-worth.”

It is crucial that the conversation around sugaring reflects and acknowledges the wide spectrum of the experiences of those who choose this type of relationship. Dialogue that is used to discuss how closely sugaring is related to sex work is unproductive and harmful, both for those self-identifying as engaging in sugaring or sex work.

“Denying that sugaring is sex work can often act as a way to validate oneself as impossible to be categorized with sex workers, who are then shown to be lesser in some way,” Emily wrote. “All in all I think people could use an education on the ways that sex workers are framed in media and in the news. Maybe once the nuances of why people feel the need to demarcate difference are brought to light, there can be a healthier discussion about sugaring in which people recognize the complexities of relationships and sustainability.” *Source has requested to remain anonymous.

Since 2006, more than 5 million students have joined SeekingArrangement.com, the world’s largest sugar website.

SUGAR BABY RANKING BY universitY

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

University of Alberta

Ryerson University

University of Ottawa

University of Toronto

Carleton University

University of Guelph

York University

McGill University

Queen’s University

Simon Fraser University

$2,440 AVERAGE ALLOWANCE

10

STUDENT LIVING

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

To Remember or Not to Remember

The role of nostalgia in the lives of university students Paige Mysliviec Contributor When McGill is a student’s entire world, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the present. The past begins to look like a worryfree paradise that has gone by all too quickly. What comes next for many students is a hit of nostalgia for those memories of childhood, high school, or even last summer. Some students combat this feeling with photo collages, talking to friends back home, and reading articles with cultural childhood references, claiming that “only 90s kids will remember” these moments. These flashes of nostalgia—potentially bordering on homesickness—present a troubling paradox: University provides a platform for exploration and growth, yet, for some, the past can prove hard to leave behind.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, moments of nostalgia were seen as a cerebral disease, common among soldiers, in which patients were “stuck” in the past. Other doctors believed that the psychological disease was caused by a “pathological bone” which could never be found in the human body. Doctors commonly treated this by shaming patients for their glorification of the past, labelling it as a failure to live in the present.

However, for many university students—like Michaela Drouillard, U0 Arts—feelings of nostalgia inspire one to become more active in the present.

“I have some pictures in my room from when my family and

I were at my cottage, like, back in the day,” Drouillard said. “[....] It makes me sort of want to do more stuff here.”

Constantine Sedikides, professor of Social and Personality Psychology at the University of Southampton, studies this phenomenon in his 2016 paper entitled “Past Forward: Nostalgia as a Motivational Force.” Sedikides describes nostalgia as both a painful and positive emotion; nostalgia increases optimism, evokes inspiration, and boosts creativity. According to him, pictures and memories from home are not a symbol of regression, but of motivation.

Some first-year students find themselves completely stable in their new environment, but for others, feelings of homesickness affect their first year. For Berenger Garnica, U1 Arts, feelings of nostalgia kicked in hardest during her transition into university. “[In first year], I scrolled through photos of home on my computer while listening to sad music and I talked with friends from home a lot,” Garnica said. “[My homesickness is] less so than last year because I’ve adjusted to the environment.”

Another 2011 study by Routledge et al., entitled “The Past Makes the Present Meaningful: Nostalgia as an Existential Resource,” describes the main function of nostalgia to strengthen “a sense of meaning in life.” According to Routledge et al., when one is put in a position where his or her sense of purpose in life is compromised, such as through extreme change, he or she will turn to nostalgia.

Beginning university is a big social change, and the demanding level

of academics at McGill can exacerbate that transition. Routledge et al. report that students who find meaning in their life tend to benefit in both psychological and physical health, while those who struggle with this more may deal with higher anxiety or unhealthy behaviours, such as excessive drinking, drug abuse, and gambling.

To mitigate these feelings of anxiety, looking at pictures from the past and making phone calls to loved ones are methods of selfcare rather than moments of weakness and failure at university. The experience of nostalgia does not necessarily require one to revisit or relive past memories, but instead conjures the same positively associated feelings. “[Nostalgia is] more like the feelings you had in the [past that you] wish were present in your life right now [….] I find that most people are nostalgic when [they are] feeling lonely or feeling stressed [….] When you’re studying, you’re nostalgic to be a kid when you didn’t have to study,” Sarah Nelson, U1 Arts, said. “Nostalgia is a longing for something to be in your future, not a longing for you to be in your past.”

University forces students to focus on both their present academic performance, as well as their future prospects for jobs and graduate programs; the uncertainty of both makes the past the only period of time within one’s control. Nothing from the past will change, and therein lies its comfort. In the end, nostalgia is a rock in the windstorm of McGill. Sometimes the past is what is needed to get through the present.

Good Mood Food: Promoting mental wellness through nutrition 3 recipes with mood-boosting properties

Marie Labrosse Contributor With second semester already in full swing, gloomily shortened winter days, and the 45th President of the United States’ rocky first week in office, McGill students currently face countless reasons to feel down. One solution to this can be found in the diet; studies have shown a strong correlation between the foods one consumes and his or her everyday mood. Researchers have specifically identified a total of 11 nutrients that can help give one’s mood a healthy boost: Carbohydrates, proteins, omega-3 fatty acids, B-vitamins, folate, calcium, chromium, iodine, iron, lithium, selenium, and zinc. While these technical terms for the nutrients beneficial to mental wellness may seem complicated, in reality, they are found in common ingredients that many students already have in their kitchen.

While consumption of these foods has been connected to improvements in mood, they are not meant to replace treatment for diagnosed mental illnesses. Rather, these foods are simply part of a lifestyle of self-care that can improve mental well-being in general.

Maple-glazed salmon and spinach This easy salmon dish with a side of greens makes for a quick, moodboosting dinner. Salmon is rich in omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin B12;

a deficiency in either is often associated with symptoms of depression.

Sprinkling the fish with sesame seeds can also improve mood because, like most high-protein foods, they contain tryosine—an amino acid essential to the production of two neurotransmitters that regulate mood and behaviour. Leafy green vegetables, such as spinach or broccoli, contain an array of B-vitamins, including B12. Spinach also contains a large amount of iron, which when absent from the human body, results in a severe lack of energy.

Serves: 6 Ingredients: 1 ½ lbs salmon fillets 1/4 cup melted butter 1/4 cup maple syrup 2 tbsp. grainy mustard 2 tbsp. soy sauce 6 tbsp. black and white sesame seeds (optional) 3 tsp. olive oil 225g baby spinach leaves Instructions: 1. Preheat oven to 425° F. 2. Whisk together butter, maple syrup, mustard, and soy sauce. Pour over the salmon pieces in a baking dish. Rub the fish with sesame seeds if desired.

3. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a non-stick frying pan, and cook spinach leaves for 2-3 minutes until wilted.

Season to taste.

(Recipe courtesy of Marie Labrosse)

Warm quinoa, spinach, and mushroom salad For a vegetarian alternative to salmon, try a warm spinach salad.

This salad also contains spinach, thus retaining the same mood enhancing benefits as the recipe above, combined with the uplifting qualities of quinoa and mushroom. Complex carbohydrates like quinoa trigger the production of serotonin and tryptophan—brain chemicals that contribute to an individual’s mood. Mushrooms are a source of selenium, which has been cited as a nutrient capable of reducing anxiety. As an extra pick-me-up, sprinkle the salad with high-protein seeds like sesame, sunflower, or chia seeds.

Serves: 4 Ingredients: 1/2 cup red wine vinegar 1/3 cup olive oil Salt and pepper 2 pounds fresh shiitake or portobello mushrooms, stems removed, caps halved 1 ½ cups quinoa 1 pound baby spinach 8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled Instructions: 1. Heat broiler and set rack 4 inches from heat.

2. Whisk together vinegar, oil, salt and pepper for the dressing.

3. On a large rimmed broiler

proof baking sheet, toss the mushrooms with half of the dressing.

Broil 20-25 minutes until liquid is almost entirely evaporated, and mushrooms are tender, tossing occasionally.

4. Meanwhile, cook the quinoa.

Bring quinoa and 3 cups of water to a boil, then reduce to low heat, cover, and simmer until tender and fluffy.

5. Place spinach in a large bowl with hot mushrooms, quinoa, and the rest of the dressing. Toss to combine, and top with crumbled feta.

(Adapted from marthastewart.com)

Chocolate peanut butter avocado pudding Consuming an excess of sugar can trigger or worsen anxiety symptoms, but not all desserts are harmful for one’s mood. Some sweet treats contain mood-boosting ingredients, such as this chocolate peanut butter avocado pudding.

Avocados are considered to have the strongest positive effect on mental wellness of all foods. They are full of more than a few of the nutrients that improve mental well-being recognized by researchers, including B-vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids.

They can also help with falling asleep and improving sleep quality

due to their elevated copper content.

Additionally, dark chocolate causes the brain to release endorphins and boost serotonin levels. Studies show that sustained consumption of chocolate helps to reduce stress levels and anxiety symptoms, thus making this the perfect dessert to revive low spirits.

Serves: 6 Ingredients: 1 ½ avocados 1 banana 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa or cocoa powder 1/2 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter 1/2 cup sweetener of choice (maple syrup, agave, date paste, honey) 1/4 cup almond milk or other non-dairy milk Instructions: 1. Add all the ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth.

2. Adjust the proportions according to your taste: Add more milk to thin the pudding, more cocoa powder to intensify, or more sweetener to obtain a sweeter flavour.

3. Divide between six small serving glasses, protect with plastic wrap, and leave to chill for at least a few hours.

(Adapted from minimalistbaker. com)

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 11

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Oscars snub some of the year’s best films

(collider.com)

(vox.com)

Silence Based on the 1966 Japanese novel of the same name, Silence follows two Jesuit missionaries who are sent to Japan with two missions. The first is to find Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), a priest who is believed to have committed apostasy. Second, to continue Ferreira’s work developing small Christian communities, which at the time were persecuted in Japan. Silence is a longtime passion project of director Martin Scorsese; it has been in development for 25 years—and it shows.

Every shot, character, and line of dialogue is purposeful, and they come together to create a film that is both stunning and thought-provoking.

The amazing power Silence has is in its ability to make the viewer question their own faith, and beyond that, the meaning that faith has in one’s life. This is embodied in the two missionaries, Father Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver), whose idea about God, and what God means to this Japanese community, shift and change through the course of the film.

It was shocking to see Silence only receive one Academy Award nomination, especially considering Scorsese’s history as an Academy favorite. His movies have received eighty nominations and 20 wins throughout his career.

- Declan Embury, Contributor

Nocturnal Animals From emotional real-world dramas, to inspirational and uplifting biopics and self-congratulatory musicals, this year’s Oscars seem to represent every genre; save for morally-questionable psychological thrillers. Enter Tom Ford’s second theatrical release, Nocturnal Animals.

The film is anchored by a trio of strong performances from Amy Adams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Michael Shannon (who received the film’s sole nomination in the Supporting Actor category), the film weaves together three separate narratives over two time periods, focusing on the relationship between Susan Morrow (Adams) and her ex-husband of twenty years (Jake Gyllenhaal). Ford’s direction is focused: The tone of the film never wavers from the nightmarish and torturous grit necessary for the plot, and is immaculately crafted through the film’s stunning imagery, cinematography, and score.

Having accumulated various BAFTA and Golden Globes nominations, as well as the Grand Jury Prize in Venice, the film was well on its way to Oscar recognition.

Perhaps Academy voters were turned off by its graphic violence or ambiguous ending, but the film’s complete shutout from most major categories comes as a shock.

- Niklas Kaemmerer, Contributor

(onionstatic.com) (comingsoon.net)

Sully Sully appeared to possess the qualities of an award-winning film. Directed by household name Clint Eastwood and starring the beloved Tom Hanks, Sully’s retelling of the true story of US Airways Flight 1549 seemed to be a successful equation for awards season. When Captain Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger miraculously landed his failing aircraft on the Hudson River, the story caught the attention of millions. The two names at the forefront of Sully’s promotional efforts—Eastwood and Hanks—have received plenty of Oscar love in the past. Hanks has received the title of Best Actor five times in his career and Clint Eastwood has won twelve Academy Awards in multiple categories.

2016 took a substantial step in the direction of discussing a broader array of stories in film. The feminism and antiracism of Hidden Figures, the exploration of cultural identity Lion and queer love story of Moonlight all address the reality of a diverse American society. Perhaps, what limited Sully’s Oscar success was its choice to depict an outdated version of the ‘all-American hero,’ ­rather than more socially topical characters. Hanks and Eastwood are nonetheless two talented men that succeeded in creating a captivating visualization of a historical airline incident.

- Morgan Davis, Staff Writer

Don’t Think Twice It is hard to consider Mike Birbiglia’s small, independent film as a conventional snub. The film is not a star-studded, big budget affair, and it wasn’t even nominated for any Golden Globes. Perhaps the counterpoint to the Academy Award favourite La La Land, Don’t Think Twice explores the dark underbelly of the entertainment industry. The film follows an improv troupe, the Commune, after one of their own is hired for a Saturday Night Live-esque show. Whereas La La Land follows the glamorous Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as they chase their creative dreams, Don’t Think Twice’s characters confront the hard truth that they may never “make it.” Oscars are typically awarded to broader, more obvious studio films, but Don’t Think Twice is no less powerful. Each scene is physically excruciating, highlighting the non-comedy specific jealousy, ambition, and resentment. With a 99 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Don’t Think Twice has been lauded by critics---and yet, Hollywood is hesitant to acknowledge its efforts. Rarely does the Academy award comedy, but funny films are no less poignant than their dramatic counterparts—and a great movie should be both.

- Ariella Garmaise, Staff Writer

The Kalmunity Vibe Collective brings improvised jazz to Petit Campus Tristan Sparks Contributor

the stage at once, the effect is amplified as they effortlessly combine their voices into

thoughts out to the audience. The beat of the backing track is always followed

Continued from page 1.

Before the set began, Jashun took the stage to remind the audience that what they were about to hear is 100 per cent improvised. This feat is made all the more impressive by the skill with which Kalmunity’s performance is delivered.

Jashun established a backing rhythm with polished ease; the bassist, keyboardist, followed by the rest of the band joined in to produce a cataclysm of jazz sound that had elements of funk, indie, electronica, and blues. While ad-libbing an entire song, the musicians maintained a cool, calm, and collected demeanour—truly befitting their “vibe collective.”

Though the backing music is impressive in itself, a large portion of Kalmunity’s draw comes from the vocals.

Singers, spoken word poets, and rappers alike perform, each bringing their own unique style and rhythm. When two, three, or even four vocal performers take

Kalmunity features a rotating roster of performers. (fdncms.com) one dynamic, yet undoubtedly unified, to a tee, and, in the case of the singers, sound. The stories told are not strictly the improvised melody is entrancing. improvised; many performers bring a Vocalists explore themes ranging from written journal, or even a phone onto love to political and social issues, the stage, and read or sing pre-written each highlighting the artists’ diverse

backgrounds.

The ever-changing rotation of artists creates striking differences from one Kalmunity performance to the next. One week, the band can be jovial and relaxed, with funky basslines and animated brass section. The next week, the band could be more reserved, with brass being replaced by bongos and jangly, indie-sounding guitar. Some sets of vocalists may favour performing one at a time, while others prefer two or four people sharing the stage. The Kalmunity vibe rotates with the musicians, but the talent and spirit is unwavering.

Kalmunity’s Tuesday night show at Petit Campus are lesser known within the McGill community—many students favour the more popular Throwback Tuesday Night at Café Campus, happening just above the heads of the improv jazz fans. But for those looking to branch out and experience more of what Montreal’s musical culture has to offer, Kalmunity is a perfect introduction. Their catchy hooks and chill vibes can be just what one needs for a mid-week study break.

12 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Photographer Jules Tomi brings viewers closer to South Korea Clemence Auzias Contributor Seoul may be far away—yet through the exhibit “Seoul, c’est loin,” you will be closer than ever to the inimitable Korean city.

Photographer Jules Tomi, U3 Sociology, allows viewers to travel all the way across the ocean with his photos that capture the beauty of what may be an unfamiliar terrain to some. This all started with a photography book, a film camera, and a passion for Korean culture.

When he was 14, Tomi’s mother got him a book of French photographer Robert Doineau’s work and a film camera—enough to encourage him to begin taking pictures of everything. Later on, when taking classes at McGill, he developed an interest in Korea.

“I had been interested in Korea for quite a few years, it started pretty randomly,” Tomi said. “I just started watching movies out of nowhere, and they have a really good cinema, so I just watched a lot of them, and eventually it got me interested in other Korean things, more political and social issues.”

These cultural phenomena are at the heart of the project he is

“Seoul, c’est loin” explores everyday life in Korea. (Lauren Benson-Armer / The McGill Tribune) currently presenting at the Glass Door Gallery on St Laurent. The project, composed of seemingly banal photos, are each emotionally touching because of their simplicity. One captivating shot, “fatigue 1,” simply shows a man asleep in public. Nothing is out of the ordinary, yet it is a moving shot.

“I spent two months [in Korea] and so I brought two cameras, twenty rolls of film, not really knowing what I would be doing in the end,” Tomi explained.

“So I just started taking pictures randomly, as I do here, just walking for hours in cities taking pictures and eventually, I sort of felt like I knew where I was going.”

Tomi is trying to turn the everyday scenes he witnessed in Korea into artistic representations of the lived experiences of his subjects. For instance, Tomi explored the problem of seniors in poverty, explaining that old women are often forced to sell vegetables and other wares on the street to sustain themselves and when they

are not financially supported by their families.

“You don’t really realize what they represent, they’re just cute ladies selling vegetables on the street,” Tomi said. “But for me, with that knowledge and that background when I saw those people, […] I was able to understand what it meant on a larger scale.”

When viewing many of the portraits, after discovering even just a little part of Korea’s social issues—such as impoverished senior citizens—the expressions of the subjects appear more poignant.

“This is the type of photography that simply depicts the social reality of random people in the city, and since I study sociology, [I quickly] saw a connection between my interest in photography and my studies,” Tomi said.

This link between the studies Tomi is pursuing at McGill and his photos is what makes the entire project so attractive. Through this exhibit he is not only expressing his artistic ideas of what is beautiful, but also his understanding of social experiences.

“Some people write books [to express their thoughts] and I take photos,” Tomi said.

20th Century Women presents dimensional characters in a realistic world Dylan Adamson Contributor On Jan. 20, the eve of the Women’s March on Washington, production house A24 made a quiet announcement. The producer of some of the most notable films of the past few years—Spring Breakers, Moonlight, Under The Skin—declared that all of the opening weekend earnings of its newest film, 20th Century Women, would be donated to Planned Parenthood.

At a time when misogyny has found new footing in political discourse, this compassionate gesture comes as a striking reminder of the potential for artists to aid in social justice causes. It’s also emblematic of writer-director Mike Mills’ uncompromisingly feminist vision in 20th Century Women.

Mills’ recent venture, 2012’s Beginners, starred Christopher Plummer as a fictionalized version of the director’s father.

It was well-received, largely due to the powerful warmth Mills imbued in his characters, though it suffered from some tropey indie-romance quirks.

20th Century Women takes a similar quasi-autobiographical tact, but forgoes the gratuitous cheese in favour of sincere feeling and laughter. Annette Bening stars as

Dorothea, loosely representing Mills’ single mother, who, along with Abbie (Greta Gerwig) and Julie (Elle Fanning), attempts to raise her fifteen-year-old son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumman) in Santa Barbara, in 1979.

The real-life inspiration behind 20th Century Women is evident throughout Mills’ film.

From the colourful set designs to the post-punk soundtrack, to the disarmingly candid dialogue, Mills’ personal connection with his work shines through. He writes complicated female characters with a deep-seeded admiration and love. They are flawed and not as transparent as protagonists often are, but admired all the more in their inscrutability.

None of this would be possible without magnetic performances across the board.

Bening exudes a remarkably assured liveliness each time she enters the frame. With a cigarette perched between two fingers, her superbly expressive face breathes volumes into the pauses of her frequent, “Yeah . . . no,” mannerism. Her honest, collective approach to parenting conveys depths far exceeding her role as a mother.

The sexual awakening of second wave feminism is integral to 20th Century Women.

Throughout the film, Dorothea,

20th Century Women presents a candid look at the director’s real-life experience. (pmcvariety.wordpress.com) Abbie, and Julie grapple with their unique concepts of femininity.

As Jamie embraces the tenets of radical feminism, he struggles to understand the women in his own life. While both Lucas Jade Zumman and Billy Crudup—as William, an aging California hippie—deliver stirring performances, the spotlight is definitively cast on the three female leads, who are constructed

with loving attention to detail.

For the work of the captivating performances, in 20th Century Women’s 118 minutes very little happens, although in watching the film it feels as if Mills is moving mountains.

While this lack of action could be considered a lack of focus on the part of the filmmaker, the result is an effective subversion of our narrative expectations. Although

we’re tempted to look forward to Jamie losing his virginity to Julie as a sort of culmination of themes, the script is too insistently thoughtful and empowering of its female characters to allow for this familiar, male-centred comingof-age tale ending to occur.

Mills doesn’t want to sell us a neat, fictional resolution, instead favouring the ambiguousness of real life.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

science & technology 13

Safety first: A history of lab mishaps at McGill

McGill lab professionals share stories of chemical reactions gone wrong perform the reaction under a shield,” Perepichka said.

Instead, the researcher had been working under a fume hood. While the fume hood does offer a layer of protection between the reaction vessel and the person conducting the experiment, it was not enough to prevent the researcher’s injury.

The explosion had been caused by static electricity between the metal thermometer in the vessel and the metal tip of the syringe used to add in the catalyst—the two together created a spark that was enough to trigger the combustion event. The chances of such an incident occurring were incredibly slim. In fact, nothing like it had ever happened before, despite the reaction being a routine and often repeated procedure. The incident left Perepichka with an important lesson on taking proper safety precautions in the lab.

“Unpredictable things do happen, so you must always be vigilant,” Perepichka said.

Oceane Marescal Contributor Continued from page 1.

“Until then, I was wondering why I had spent $6,000 on that equipment,” Wood said.

“But those guys would’ve died without those suits.”

The root cause of the explosion was the mixing of materials that should not have been mixed together. This is the reason why most introductory chemistry labs clearly specify which waste container each chemical must be placed in to dispose of it.

Not-so-expected Neuro

incidents

at

the

Fifteen years ago, a major explosion occurred at the Montreal Neurological Institute.

Although no researchers were present at the time, the room was left with blackened walls and unrecognizably charred objects strewn across the area. There were also other smaller incidents involving the cleanup of radioactive materials in a chemistry lab and the disposal of nitroglycerine by firefighters in a psychiatry lab, but neither resulted in any injuries or major damage to materials.

Fume hood fails to protect from burning acetone

Despite improvements in lab safety in

While there have not been any recent incidents, there is still reason to be cautious in the lab. (Eric Stefano / The McGill Tribune) unusual or dangerous behaviour.

This time, recent years, one incident occurred as recently as 2009 in the lab of Chemistry Professor Dr. Dima however, when the researcher in Perepichka’s lab went to add the catalyst, the reaction caused Perepichka.

The reaction involved bubbling oxygen the solution to erupt and he was hit with a wave in acetone and gradually adding a catalyst—a of burning acetone. The researcher was rushed to chemical used to accelerate a reaction—to the hospital with serious burns, and fortunately the solution. The same routine procedure had recovered within a couple of weeks.

“The safest method would have been to been done many times before with no previous

As corny as it sounds, being vigilant for the everyday lab student means always wearing a lab coat and goggles, and following the precise instructions written in the manuals. Wood noted that he had no recent incidents to report, affirming the “new culture of lab safety” that has arisen at McGill, largely due to increased caution on the part of students and instructors. So, next time a safety video plays, think twice before tuning it out to scroll through Facebook–a fireball could be right around the corner.

MNI researchers use advanced data models to research Alzheimer’s disease Increased urgency to isolate Alzheimer’s pathologic characteristics Uzair Khan Contributor Alzheimer’s disease, first described by Alois Alzheimer in 1906, is a progressive brain disorder that causes debilitating cognitive impairments. Today, it is the most common cause of dementia, responsible for 60 to 70 per cent of 47.5 million cases worldwide. Due to its high prevalence, Alzheimer’s disease poses a significant economic burden for affected families and the Canadian health system at large. With Alzheimer’s disease increasingly becoming one of society’s major public health concerns, targeted research has become a priority.

Researchers have identified various biological abnormalities at the microscopic level that manifest themselves in the classical symptoms of Alzheimer’s. These abnormalities include plaques, composed of specific peptides called amyloid-beta, that form outside neurons— the fundamental units of the nervous system.

Furthermore, specific biological structures called neurofibrillary tangles, which are stabilized with tau proteins, accumulate inside neurons. Inflammation and damage to synapses, which are avenues of communication between neurons, also occur. The eventual result of these and many other flaws is brain degeneration with noticeable changes in structure and widespread death of neurons. The combination of these defects lead to the symptomatic behaviours of Alzheimer’s disease.

The presence of Alzheimer’s disease is accompanied by many pathological indicators; however, scientists have not identified the exact

cause of the disease. Currently, they surmise that Alzheimer’s results from dynamic interactions between multiple factors rather than any one significant trigger. One of the scientists holding this view is Dr. Yasser Iturria Medina, a postdoctoral fellow at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI).

“Alzheimer’s disease is not causally associated with any unique neuropathological mechanism, but rather with multiple concomitant factors,” Medina said.

His own research is focused on elucidating the causes and progression of Alzheimer’s disease, specifically through the development of an “integrative multifactorial causal model.”

The model, when optimally developed, will evaluate all possible pathological factors, as well as their interactions, to determine the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. The end goal of this model would be to enable the development of personally tailored and efficient therapeutic interventions for Alzheimer’s disease.

In pursuing the development of this model, Medina investigated the early signs present in the development of Alzheimer’s in one of his recent studies. The study, published in Nature Communications last June, examined how certain brain processes change over time as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. The processes considered were: The deposition of amyloidbeta proteins, metabolism, vascular function, functional activity at rest, structural properties, cognitive integrity, and the levels of peripheral proteins. As part of the study, Medina looked at 7,700 images from 1,171 subjects. Utilizing sophisticated algorithms, his study established

Amyloid-beta plaques that build up in the brain are thought to be one of the main indicators of Alzheimer’s disease.

(Daria Kiseleva / The McGill Tribune) an order of disease progress and identified one of the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease development called “intra-brain vascular dysregulation”—that is, impairment of the blood supply in the brain. The results of this study mark an important step towards understanding the underlying causes of the disease—crucial to eventually finding a cure.

But even with such important advances, a lack of full knowledge regarding Alzheimer’s limits available treatment options. At present,

there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease.

Treatments available today are only designed to treat its symptoms, with five FDA-approved drugs currently available to do so. However, present consensus states Alzheimer’s disease can not be stopped or reversed once it begins.

Undoubtedly, finding the cure for Alzheimer’s is a daunting task. It will only, and eventually, be accomplished through the unrelenting and collaborative efforts of researchers around the world.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

14 science & technology

Tor and anonymous internet browsing

The onion router defends against traffic analysis Benji Taubenblatt Contributor Commonly known as the “onion router,” Tor Project is a free software that allows users to browse the Internet anonymously. By defending against traffic analysis—a type of Internet surveillance—Tor aims to protect its users’ privacy and anonymity on the web.

Tor works by creating a distributed, anonymous network.

“The idea is similar to using a twisty, hard-tofollow route in order to throw off somebody who is tailing you—and then periodically erasing your footprints,” Tor’s website explains.

Tor builds circuits of encrypted connections by using many connected relays on a network, such that no single connection can be used to pinpoint a user’s location. Without the full information, each relay knows only where data packets have come from or where they are going, and the user’s Internet protocol (IP) address is never revealed to any website. By sending communications around a distributed network of servers run by volunteers around the world, Tor helps reduce the risk of

traffic analysis.

Under the condition of characteristic anonymity, a Tor core developer came to speak at McGill’s Cultural Industries (COMS 541) class during Fall 2016.

“You can’t be anonymous alone,” he said.

“Anonymity is strengthened by its numbers.”

The many relays around the world help users remain anonymous. In this way, Tor users will become even more secure the more people use the software.

Tor is often used in countries where access is limited due to censorship or other restraints, and thus functions as a vessel for users to reach otherwise blocked content.

“Journalists use Tor to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents,” Tor’s website explains. “Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use Tor to allow their workers to connect to their home website while they’re in a foreign country, without notifying everybody nearby that they’re working with that organization.”

Tor was first created by the United States Naval Research Laboratory almost 20 years ago.

Today, there are estimated to be nearly two million users, although it is hard to measure due to the inherent anonymity of the software. The U.S. Navy still uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering and anonymous communications while in the field.

Tor is also used for security during sting operations or to prevent websites from seeing government IP addresses in their web logs.

As a result of Tor’s privacy capabilities and ability to mask a website’s location, online black markets are also often formed.

While Tor helps users remain anonymous, it is important to still exercise precaution on the Internet even while using Tor. Almost all communications over the Internet are sent in the form of data packets.

Data packets consist of the packet header, which contains information—such as source, destination, and size—and the packet payload, containing the actual data.

“Even if you encrypt the data payload of your communications, traffic analysis still reveals a great deal about what you’re doing and, possibly, what you’re saying,” Tor’s website cautions.

Tor prevents observers from learning what sites a user visits and prevents the sites from

learning their actual physical location. However, it does not defend against end-to-end attacks— where statistical analysis is used on traffic coming out of the user’s computer and into the destination computer to determine if they are part of the same circuit.

Although Tor protects anonymity, it is not foolproof. In fact, in 2009, a McGill student was put on academic probation for editing a professor’s Wikipedia page on McGill’s Virtual Private Network (VPN). IP addresses on a network are managed by a central computer called a router, which forwards data packets between computer networks.

“In the case of McGill networks, this router is owned by McGill,” a 2009 McGill Daily article explained.

Now, IP addresses serve as identifiers and location addresses so when students log into McGill’s VPN with their McGill ID, their identity is revealed and anonymity is no longer a possibility.

In the absence of McGill’s VPN, consider Tor for improved security. As a free and open source software, Tor is a perfect example of human collaboration and innovation, and first and foremost promotes and helps protect personal privacy.

McGill Psychiatry professor directs documentary on separated fathers

SPRING’s research sheds light on separated fathers in Montreal aiming to break the isolation Charlotte Hings Contributor In Canada, approximately 40 per cent of heterosexual marriages end in divorce, with women initiating 70 per cent of those breakups. In divorces that involve the custody of children, judges nearly always give full custody to mothers. Historically, a common custody arrangement only let the father see his children every other weekend.

This was because the dominant research throughout the last half of the 20th century was focused on the importance of the mother’s role in the child’s development and not on the father’s role. Advancements in psychology have come to demonstrate the importance of the father figure in the lives of children.

Dr. Robert Whitley, assistant professor in Psychiatry and principal investigator of the Social Psychiatry Research and Interest Group (SPRING) at Douglas Hospital Research Centre, focuses his research on recovery and stigma. This month, he directed a short documentary entitled, Père-sévérance: Briser L’isolement (Separated Fathers: Breaking the Isolation). The film chronicles a group of separated fathers who use or have used the services at Pères Séparés (Separated Fathers) inc., a not-for-profit referral centre located in eastern Montreal. In this documentary, the fathers discuss their experiences, feelings, and perseverance through their divorce and separation from their children. The film stresses the importance of a father figure in the lives of children.

The ending of any meaningful relationship is always extremely difficult for both partners. Men and women often have different ways of dealing with their emotions after a divorce and the documentary takes the perspective of

the man. In general, men have trouble dealing with their emotions because they are socialized not to vocalize them and find it harder to do so than women.

“They tend to keep to themselves to avoid the judgment of others because they think that if they say something to someone it will be perceived as a failure on their part,” Jerome, a father in the documentary, separated since 2008, said.

Many men also have a reflex to isolate themselves, which is tied to traditional ideals of masculinity or the perception of the quintessential man who is strong, autonomous, and capable of coping. Patrick, a father in the documentary who has been separated from his wife since 2006, describes his feelings of isolation and helplessness.

“I found myself feeling vulnerable and completely weak,” Patrick said. “I had suicidal thoughts and was ready to act them out.”

From the child’s perspective, previous research was centred on determining the role of the maternal figure in a child’s life. In general, findings stated that absence of a mother figure in the early years of child development can lead to delinquent character development and persistent misbehaviour in children.

Newer research findings presented in the documentary do not undermine the importance of the mother, but particularly emphasize the father’s role in child development.

“It is essential for children to have access to both their parents,” Martin, a father who has been separated since 2014, said in the documentary. “It is what is best for the children. However, there are exceptions and situations and cases where it may not be ideal to grant joint custody [.…] Children need both

their parents, but only if the parents are stable.”

The organization highlighted in the documentary, Pères Séparés (Separated Fathers) inc., aims to break the isolation by bringing together groups of separated fathers and providing a safe, nonjudgmental space wwhere they can share their experiences and thoughts.

The organization offers resources over

Patrick said. “Just the fact that I was not alone and that we were all experiencing the same suffering awakened something in me.”

A few years later, he is now a facilitator at Separated Fathers inc. and leads the support groups.

The film highlights the need for further information that focuses on fathers who go through divorce.

ADULT EDUCATION

Centre

SAINT-LOUIS 4285, Drolet, 3rd floor Mont-Royal

514 596-5800, ext.: 8533

the phone and over Skype, as well as individual hour-long meetings, weekly support groups, and meetings with a volunteer family lawyer. Patrick describes how he overcame his suicidal thoughts with the help of Separated Fathers inc.

“I got through it by remembering the saying that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem,”

French as a second language Classes start January 10, 2017 and March 7, 2017 Schedules: • Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 12:55 p.m.

• Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

• Monday to Thursday from 5:45 p.m. to 10:10 p.m.

Registration by appointment

centre-st-louis.csdm.ca

SPORTS 15

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Super Bowl LI Picks JULIA DICK

Ronald Hilaire

“I pick the birds.”

Editor-in-Chief

Redmen Football Head Coach

BEN GER

SSMU PRESIDENT

SPORTS SECTION

“I will go with the Falcons.”

“I’m going to take the underdog and bet the Falcons.”

“Don’t bet against Tom Brady and Bill Belicheck.”

Nick, Aaron, & Joe

57th Annual Woodsmen Games brings danger and excitement to Mac campus Flying axes and fires are just small tastes of the competition Joe Khammar Sports Editor The 57th Annual Intercollegiate Woodsmen Competition brought fast-paced action, roaring crowds, and the scent of freshly chopped wood to McGill’s Macdonald Campus on Saturday, Jan. 28. The suspense was palpable from the 9 a.m. ceremonial first cut to the dangerous water boil finale.

For those unacquainted with the tradition of the Woodsmen Games, the event is a series of high-octane lumberjack-inspired competitions. There are both single competitor and team-based events with results translated into cumulative sores for the Canadian and American universities present.

McGill’s lumberjill’s placed first, while the lumberjacks finished fourth. The day’s action was broken up into morning and afternoon sessions.

“The morning events are more sign-in events, [...] you sign in and you [compete],” McGill Woodsmen captain Dominic Mercier-Provencher said. “But for the afternoon, it will be more concurrent. Every school competes at the same time doing the same events.”

The first session was filled with enthralling action in events like the pole climb, axe throw, and—the Mac campus special—the snowshoe race. In the race, athletes compete in a 1.5km race while wearing snowshoes, tremendously increasing the difficulty of sprinting tremendously.

After the excitement of the morning events, both athletes and spectators alike retreated from the heavy snow into the Ceilidh Bar for beer, chili, and coffee.

Despite the weather, the crowd

The McGill Woodsmen in action at Mac Campus on Jan. 28. (Joe Khammar / The McGill Tribune) seemingly doubled in size when the competition resumed for the afternoon.

“For me, I like [the afternoon] better,” Mercier-Provencher said.

“It gives you an idea of how well you did against the other teams.

We’ll have the underhand chop, swede saw, and crosscut saw.”

While the morning was great fun, the afternoon took the intensity to an entirely new level. The first events of the session- swede and crosscut saws-were phenomenal displays of pure power and timing on the saw exchanges. Each event consisted of teams making cuts through blocks of wood with athletes rotating positions throughout the competition. At times, the entire structure holding

the block would shake despite the other four members of the team weighing it down. While McGill’s lumberjacks were impressive, the lumberjills showed a tenacity and level of skill well above the competition.

The underhand chop soon followed and brought a heightened sense of danger to the proceedings.

Each team of two athletes stood on top of a block and slashed down, with the first member chopping towards the middle on both sides of the stick. As soon as they finished, the second began in earnest. The chop is so dangerous that athletes wore chainmail on their legs and feet to prevent severe injuries.

Multiple times, the competitors were centimetres away from

severing their own foot. The whole spectacle was equal parts petrifying and exhilarating with each successive heat bringing more danger.

After the life-threatening nature of the underhand, the quarter split was needed to bring both comedy and brevity to the afternoon. Consisting of teams of two, the event centred around each member attempting to first chop a log in half, then break it into quarters. While this may seem straightforward, the logs went flying after the first cut, causing the lumberjacks to sprint after the chunks of wood trying to split the remaining timber.

The day ended with the pièce de résistance—the water boil.

The day’s most dangerous event featured innovation, fire, and engineering prowess all rolled into one quick-fire competition.

“The water boil consists of a can and a little bit of water and soap,” Mercier-Provencher said.

“You have to build a fire and make the water boil as fast as you can.

It’s really fun.”

Like the rest of the day’s events, this too was exceedingly dangerous. When trying to get the perfect thickness of wood to start the fire, the woodsmen repeatedly attempted to make precise cuts downwards on the log, often coming within inches of losing a thumb. After starting the fire, the athletes then built a miniature pyre to allow the flames to encompass the can. By this point, each of the competitors lay down beside the fire, acting as a human billow for the flames. As soon as the first hint of the soapy water boiled over the can, the crowd exploded.

While these events may seem like nothing more than jazzedup menial tasks, the competitive environment and skill all added to the day, making it greater than the sum of its parts. Anyone with the opportunity should check out the event next year.

“It’s a very nice day, everyone should come to see us,” MercierProvencher said. “We practice hard, about four mornings per week. It’s very funny and it’s fun for everyone if people come see and cheer us.”

The experience itself is worth the hour and a half bus and metro trip to Macdonald Campus. It is likely you will never see anything like this again in your life. The whole day is unique and more entertaining than any other free event imaginable on a Saturday.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

16 sports

Team Challenge showcases improvements of McGill’s track and field athletes

Despite strong performances, McGill struggled to make podiums Selwynne Hawkins Contributor

On Jan. 28 and 29, the Tomlinson Fieldhouse hosted the 22nd annual McGill Team Challenge. Nineteen schools from across Eastern Canada competed in the largest indoor track meet in the country.

Dominant Guelph, Laval, Sherbrooke, and Dalhousie squads captured the top four spots in both men’s and women’s team rankings. McGill was largely kept off the podium, with second-year pole vaulter Megan Dimler capturing the team’s only bronze medal. Despite the lack of hardware, the McGill team remained upbeat about their performance.

“I threw my season’s best [in shot put], so I was pretty excited about it,” fourth-year Vanisa Ezukuse said of her 11.30m throw at the meet.

Ezukuse currently sits eighth in USports shot put rankings, enough to qualify for the national championships held at the University of Alberta in early March. For now, however, she’s staying focused on meeting her personal standards.

“Sixteen metres is my ultimate goal [and] I’m slowly getting there,” Ezukuse said.

Many other personal bests were shattered by McGill’s runners.

In his first home meet, freshmen Gift (Seph) Marshall-Burghardt was able to cut eight seconds off his 1,500m time to finish in 4:11. Teammate Jeremy Briand also registered a personal record at the same event, finishing in 3:56.

The Redmen failed to podium at the 2017 McGill Team Challenge. (L-A Benoit / The McGill Tribune) “Everything seems to be coming together,” MarshallBurghardt said. “With the home meet, it was great.”

The McGill track team has worked hard to become a cohesive unit and maintain a sense of team spirit.

“If I’m at a meet, I’ll go see a cross-country person run, and cheer them on, or go to the shot put circle and ask how it’s going,” third-year long-sprinter Ariane Lismer said. “Meets [are] where we conglomerate and cheer each other on.”

The team will travel to New York next weekend before returning to host another meet the subsequent weekend. To end the season, the RSEQ championships will be held on Feb. 24 and 25 at Laval University. Sprinting Coach Marie-Eve Dugas is pleased with her athletes so far, and knows exactly where to focus her efforts for the remainder of the season.

SerenaWilliamsdefeatedhersisterinconsecutivesetstocaptureher23rdGrandSlamtitleattheAustralianOpen.(yahoo.com)

From practice partners to tennis royalty

The Williams sisters continue to dominate on and off the court Nicole Spadotto Staff Writer Venus and Serena Williams’ ascent to stardom has transcended sports and moved into the forefront of popular culture. Serena recent appearance in Beyonce’s music video for “Sorry” demonstrates the extent to which the sisters have penetrated all facets of American society. While their

supremacy is undisputed, it’s the sisters’ humble roots, hours of relentless practice, and their father–a man who wouldn’t stop pushing his daughters to greatness–that go largely unnoticed. In a form of poetic justice, their sibling rivalry transcended childhood practice to one of the most prolific tournaments in the world.

This past weekend, on Jan. 28, Venus and Serena battled one another

for the Australian Open title, their first finals meeting since 2009. Ultimately, Serena won consecutive sets to claim her seventh Australian Open title and her 23rd Grand Slam—the most by any tennis player in history. However, after the match, she chose to speak about her closeness to Venus in both interviews and on social media, highlighting their sisterhood rather than their competitiveness. As such, revisiting

STATCORNER

KEY MOMENT

QUOTABLE

The fastest event at the meet, the 60m dash, was completed in just 6.85 seconds by Guelph University’s Kyle Thompson.

Vanisa Ezukuse beat her personal best and broke McGill’s record in the hammer throw with a distance of 11.30m.

“We work so hard every practice and it’s just awesome to be here with everyone at the track, with everyone cheering everyone on,”—Longsprinter Ariane Lismer.

their origins and their climb to winning Grand Slam titles is a cornerstone in understanding the impact they have had on their sport, on female athletics, and even on the politics of race relations in the United States.

Coming from modest beginnings, the Williams sisters father, Richard Williams, was the pair’s first and most influential tennis coach. Working as a sharecropper in his early years, he was drawn to tennis by the incredible amounts of money he noticed was exchanged after championships. Realizing the profitability of the sport, he decided that his two youngest daughters would become tennis players, but first, he had to teach himself how to play. Once he had a grasp of the game, he took his daughters to practice on the derelict tennis courts in Compton, California, where they spent countless hours working on tennis fundamentals. The time and effort put into the sport certainly paid off.

By the time she was 16, though still unranked, Venus made it to the finals of her first U.S. Open. Serena soon followed suit, joining her older sister on tour and at some moments proving to be even more dominant.

The Williams sisters both leveraged and overcame their circumstances.

Growing up in historically segregated areas of New York and California, their father asked passerbys to yell racial slurs to prepare them for competitions.

Their upbringing motivated them to be better and more competitive, mainly to

improve life for themselves and their family. Even when faced with racial abuse, most notably at the 2001 BNP Paribas Open in which the sisters and their father faced harassment from the crowd, the sisters maintained their competitive edge.

Over the duration of their careers, the sisters have been both one another’s greatest rivals and greatest supporters; perhaps being siblings fuels the sisters into optimal performance when playing each other. They have faced one another in 28 professional tournaments with Serena leading the meetings 17-11, yet off the court their competitiveness waivers and their sisterhood shines.

Each one recognizes that without one another and their childhood competitions, they wouldn’t be where they are today.

Venus and Serena, with their sheer athleticism, rags-to-riches story, and close sibling relationship have brought new attention to women’s tennis.

They’ve also made significant strides in breaking down the barriers keeping African-Americans out of tennis. Ultimately, the Williams sisters have left an awe-inspiring legacy on tennis, but they have also left a mark on women and black athletes in sports—making strides in changing social biases. Considering their age and Venus’ autoimmune disease, this may be the last time we see the two sisters taking each other on in a Grand Slam final, but their legacies in the sports world are sure to survive.