The McGill Tribune Vol. 36 Issue 8

OPINION “McGill’s crumbling brick met with nerves of steel” pg. 06

FEATURE “Discussing academic freedom at McGill” pg. 08-09

The McGill Tribune

EDITORIAL: iN SUPPORT OF FREE MENSTRUAL HYGIENE PRODUCTS ON CAMPUS pg. 05

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2016

VOL. 36 ISSUE 8

PUBLISHED BY THE SPT, A STUDENT SOCIETY OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM

Where do i begin... the rocky horror picture show

Alissa Zilber

Staff Illustrator

Alex Frankel released his solo EP, Negative Space, on Sept. 30. (Lauren Benson-Armer / The McGill Tribune)

AMUSE general assembly authorizes strike mandate

Labour union demands $15 minimum wage for McGill support employees Domenic Casciato Contributor With 82 per cent approval, the Association for McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) pursued a mandate on Oct. 20 to authorize the union to strike.

AMUSE began in Fall 2008 in hopes of unionizing work

study employees. According to the AMUSE website, there are currently 1500 union members, representing both casual and temporary employees at McGill. Approximately 55% of McGill’s nonacademic employees are members of AMUSE. Since May 2015, AMUSE has been at the bargaining table

to discuss the renegotiation of its collective agreement with representatives from McGill’s administration. The agreement determines the rate of pay, benefits, and other non-monetary privileges of support employees at McGill.

AMUSE’s monetary demands, which include increasing the number of job titles and

reevaluating wages for its members, were all denied by the university. The AMUSE negotiation team hopes that bringing a strike mandate to the table will reverse McGills decision. Bradley Powell, Vice-President (VP) internal affairs at AMUSE and member of its negotiating team, explained the union’s strategy.

PG. 04

The Film

In conversation with Laurent Duvernay-Tardif Right guard for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs while a medical student at McGill Nicole Spadotto Staff Writer Balancing a full course load and extracurricular activities is demanding for anybody, but McGill medical student Laurent DuvernayTardif is more than up for the challenge—especially given his “extra-

curricular activity” entails a fulltime NFL job.

Though Duvernay-Tardif’s short-term goal is to win Kansas City’s game against the Indianapolis Colts next weekend, his long-term goal has always been medical school. He walked onto his CEGEP football team and played while

enrolled in the pre-med program.

Duvernay-Tardif thought he would give up football after CEGEP when he came to McGill as a direct entry student; however, his love of the game proved too strong.

“Everyone was telling me I would have to make choices, that I couldn’t do both [medical school

pg. 11 - 13

The last time I was in a movie theatre, I wore a dark red negligee, bright red lipstick, and a second-hand sequined blazer that, judging from its shoulder pads, probably once belonged to a Las Vegas business woman in 1987. This was my fourth time attending a Rocky Horror shadow cast show—where a group of actors performs the film as it is simultaneously projected on a screen behind them. I brought along a few friends who were new to the film—or who we Rocky veterans call “virgins”.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 horror-comedy musical that was a box-office flop at the time of its release, but has since gained a large cult following. Rocky Horror, while shocking to mainstream audiences of its time, is beloved for its open embrace of queerness, gender bending, and unrestrained sexuality.

Whether you’ve never heard of the musical, or are only vaguely familiar with the name, the following insider knowledge about Rocky Horror will soon have you putting on a pair of black heels and red lipstick and heading to the cinema.

and football at McGill] at the same time,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “But, there was a big part of me that was missing it. I called the [McGill] coach [Sonny Wolfe] and explained to him the situation [….] He understood and I started practicing with the team about four weeks into the season.”

PG. 16

The plot follows newly engaged couple Brad and Janet, whose car breaks down in the middle of a rain storm. In search for help, they unknowingly knock on the door of a castle belonging to a mad scientist named Dr. Frank N. Furter. The bold and charismatic Frank N Furter, dressed in fishnets and a corset, happens to be throwing a convention to unveil his latest experiment.

PG. 07

2 news

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship hosts public forum on federal electoral reform at McGill Debate focuses on best system for Canadian interests Gabriel Rincon Contributor On Oct. 20, the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship (CSDC) held a forum on federal electoral reform at McGill’s New Residence Hall with the goal of engaging the public in a discussion on possible alternative electoral systems for Canada. Four distinguished academics, Political Science Associate Professor Sven-Oliver Proksch from McGill, Peter Loewen from the University of Toronto, Marc André Bodet from Université Laval, and Laura Stephenson from the University of Western Ontario were invited to participate in the forum. Each panelist proposed an electoral system they thought was best for Canada and debated its merits. The systems discussed were two iterations of a proportional representation (PR) system, a ranked ballot system, and a defence of the current first-past-thepost (FPTP) system.

In a recent interview with Le Devoir, however, Prime Minister Trudeau has walked back on electoral reform promises. Although the forum was not run by the government, Canadian Minister for Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef attended to promote the government’s commitment to electoral reform.

“My job as Minister for

Particpiants voiced their concerns on the representation of finge parties. (Noah Sutton / The McGill Tribune) Democratic Institutions, I believe, is to restore the trust and confidence that Canadians have in their democratic institutions […] and ultimately [increase electoral] participation,” Monsef said.

The following debate mainly focused on whether citizens’ votes were well-represented in different formats of elections.

Lowen argued that the current FPTP system allows citizens to vote out governments and smooth the transition of power, and, as such, wasn’t in need of an overhaul. On the other hand, Proksch and Stephenson argued that Cana-

dians who vote for smaller parties are not well-represented and are forced to vote strategically for larger parties.

“Canada’s relatively small support for small parties [...] is likely muted due to the strategic incentives of the existing system where voters are forced to pick a [large] party in order not to waste a vote in the election,” said Proksch.

Other issues tackled by the panelists included what it meant for a government to be representative and whether a PR system would empower fringe parties,

such as the Green Party of Canada. In an electronic poll conducted at the end of the discussion, 50 per cent of the audience favoured the proposed mixed member proportional system presented by Proksch.

McGill student Priya Dube, U2 Arts, felt the debate was informative on the variety of electoral systems available for Canada.

“The fact that they’re all academics, and the fact that they all went and researched their specific positions beforehand, really led

to a more constructive debate,” Dube said. “There was less trying to denounce the other person’s views [and] more of trying to come to a solution.”

Ben Latour, U3 Arts, praised the panel’s level of expertise. All four panelists hold advanced degrees in political science.

“The overall frame was one of information and defending points of view,” Latour said.

“They’re all academics [...] they’re all very informed about electoral and democratic institutions.”

Alex Smith, U2 Arts, expressed scepticism about the government’s public consultations and whether they would lead to change. “[The government’s motive is] to look good, generally to look good, [so] we’ll see what happens,” Smith said. “There are pros and cons to every single system, so it’s a hard thing to deal with.”

Dube felt that the government’s commitment is genuine, but that the government would not have time to deliver electoral form by the next election.

“Right now [Trudeau is] doing the grunt work of really learning about what the country needs and wants—there’s clearly a lot of diverging opinions—so it shouldn’t be something that’s rushed,” Dube said.

SSMU continues to sit in at AVEQ despite affiliation referendum failure AVEQ mobilization camp hosts Quebec students for weekend in Hérouxville Alexia Martel-Desjardins Contributor From Oct. 21 to 23, the Association for the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ), a new provincial student federation, held its first mobilization camp at Camp Val Notre Dame in Hérouxville, a town two hours northeast of Montreal. Students from various universities in Quebec, including representatives from the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), attended the event.

According to Kristen Perry, AVEQ coordinator of mobilization and associative development and 2016 McGill Environmental Sciences graduate, the camp is open to all.

“Any Quebec student is essentially invited to come [...],” Perry said. “One of the most important things is building networks, so it’s important for us that it is opened.”

The camp was mostly fi-

nanced by the AVEQ budget in order to keep prices low and accessible.

“A lot of funding [from our mobilization and development commission budget] is going towards making [camp] very accessible and very inclusive,” Perry said. “So, the actual cost is kind of by donation, so from $20 to $40, but a lot of schools […] will be reimbursing those donations.”

According to the schedule published on the AVEQ Mobilization Camp website, the topics of the workshops conducted over the weekend included climate and environmental justice, facilitation and mobilization against austerity, as well as adequately addressing sexual assault on university campuses. “[The] goal is to be training and providing the students with the knowledge and the skills that they need to organize around issues that have been identified as important on campuses and for the

whole province,” Perry said.

Arts Representative to SSMU Igor Sadikov, U3 Arts, participated in the mobilization camp and was surprised by the similarities student activism shares across universities.

“What I found the most interesting is realizing that [...] students mobilized sometimes in different ways, in the regions or in Montreal, or in the francophone milieu and in the anglophone sphere, but also at the same time there’s a lot of issues that we share,” Sadikov said.

A group of SSMU executives participated in the mobilization camp, among them SSMU President Ben Ger, Vice-President (VP) University affairs Erin Sobat, and VP External Affairs David Aird.

Aird facilitated an anti-austerity workshop.

Following the failure of a referendum question to join AVEQ last year, SSMU currently holds an observer position. As an ob-

server, SSMU still benefits from equal representation at AVEQ, and is involved in the decision-making processes. According to Perry, AVEQ aims to include all student associations as much as possible in decision-making processes in order to enable their first year of activities to run more effectively “So, essentially for our opening year, we’re being very open to all associations who want to be involved [...],” said Perry. “Every association has a vote, so we have two official members that have already affiliated [….] For this year, there is actually very few differences in practice, but technically the affiliated associations have a final say at assemblies,” Perry said.

Affiliated members of AVEQ pay a fee, receive more significant support on campus mobilization, and have a final say in the members’ assembly decisions. SSMU is currently a non-affiliated member; therefore, AVEQ does not provide

resources to work on issues that SSMU is trying to resolve, such as tuition deregulation.

“We don’t pay a fee and we also don’t get the special attention that members get, so we don’t […] per se have the federation looking at McGill in particular,” Aird said. “[For] instance, ancillary fees [.…] So, that is something we are looking into independently, but it does require a lot of capacity.”

On the future possibility of SSMU affiliating with AVEQ, Aird explained that the decision will be based on the level of student interest.

“It all depends on […] how well AVEQ is doing and how different it is from last year, because we did ask the question last year,” Aird said. “[The referendum question] did not pass, but there were a huge amount of abstentions, indicating that people probably didn’t just know what it was and so we are really hoping to get the word out.”

news 3

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

McGill faces $1.3 million in deferred maintenance costs

Peacekeeping: A national symbol Canada’s re-emerging role in global affairs

Construction on campus buildings to take between five and seven years Astha Agarwal Contributor McGill intends to borrow $300 million in the form of bonds over the next five to seven years to tackle deferred maintenance. Large-scale construction projects are set to take place across McGill’s Downtown and MacDonald campuses during this time period. While construction on McTavish and Sherbrooke was commissioned by the City of Montreal, building renovations are coordinated by the university. Over half of McGill’s buildings are in need of major renovations, according to a recent CBC report. The bond issue will be in addition to $48 million that McGill receives annually from the Quebec government for capital improvements, according to Associate Vice Principal (Facilities Management and Ancillary Services) Robert Couvrette.

Couvrette said that $800 million is currently estimated in deferred maintenance. An additional $500 million is needed in areas that are not eligible for government subsidy, such as parking and sewage.

According to Internal Communications Director Doug Sweet, campus buildings have been stabilized with scaffolding in compliance with Quebec law and the focus is now on masonry work and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) replacements.

“We have taken steps to make sure that our campus is safe and secure,” Sweet said. “I wouldn’t say that there’s an unsafe building on campus.”

Couvrette noted that the Macdonald-Stewart Building, the Strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry building, the James Administration Building, and Wilson Hall will be prioritized for upcoming masonry work. HVAC replacement priorities include the Rutherford, University Centre, and Wong Buildings.

McGill campus construction projects often have a long timeline. Robert Selby, building director for the Macdonald-Stewart Building, stated that work on the building’s roof began in 2013 and that the building was stabilized in Fall 2014.

“We did the roof, and right after that they started doing stabilization of the building,” Selby said. “They were two different things, but as you do one thing you discover the other. You open [a building] up and you don’t know what you’re going to find.”

Further masonry work on the building is set to begin in May 2017 and is expected to last a year and half. The budget for this project is $26 million, according to Couvrette. The recently completed Arts Building portico cost over $1 million and took a year to complete due to difficulty in procuring materials.

“We had to find different stones in different quarries that have the same colour and same shape to be able to replace the stones that we were unable to repair,” Couvrette said. “If we didn’t find the right stones the Arts portico would look like a pizza.”

McGill’s masonry construction projects are usually auctioned to St-Denis Thompson or Atwill-Morrin, two of Montreal’s largest contractors.

“Every project goes to public tender, but because of the nature of this very specialized business, more often than not those big firms will win most of the contracts,” Sweet said. “You see that all over Montreal, not just at McGill.”

Couvrette emphasized the need to prioritize certain projects due to limited funding and limited capacity of construction firms in Montreal to complete the projects. Prioritization is given to projects that have a direct impact on student learning environments.

U3 Arts student Serisha Iyar feels that the poor condition of certain classrooms on campus make for a challenging learning environment.

“In Arts 145, the chairs and desks are broken, since everything’s attached the chairs fold down, but half of them are cracked so you don’t really want to sit in them for a really long lecture,” Iyar said. “I’ve had various classes there and it’s stuffy since there’s not a lot of ventilation, so there’s not a lot of air circulating for you to breathe properly, especially in the winter.”

Many of McGill’s buildings, which are over 100 years old, are considered heritage buildings, and thus face strict regulations to be restored according to code.

“If for example, [a heritage building] has a slate roof, we have to replace [it with] slate [...], or if it has copper flashing around the edges, we have to replace [it] with copper. We can’t just slap aluminum and asphalt shingles on these buildings,” Sweet said. “That’s why McGill’s maintenance costs are higher than those of most other universities. We have a greater number of heritage buildings to look after.”

Speakers discussed the future of Canadian peacekeeping. (L-A Benoit / The McGill Tribune)

Calvin Trottier-Chi Staff Writer On Oct. 21, the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies (CIPSS), a joint academic body of McGill and the Université de Montreal, hosted a conference titled, “New trends in United Nations Peacekeeping: Canadian and Global Perspectives” to discuss the future of Canadian peacekeeping. The talks primarily focused on how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise to re-engage in peacekeeping can be realized. Trudeau’s promise comes almost a decade since Canada last committed troops to a major peacekeeping mission. The speakers included academics, government officials, and representatives of various political organizations.

Canada’s Return to UN Peace Operations The keynote speaker of the series was Roland Paris, a professor at the University of Ottawa and former senior advisor on Global Affairs and Defence to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Paris discussed why peacekeeping is resurfacing as a Canadian national interest and how it should be further developed.

According to Paris, Canadian peacekeeping operations decreased after several failures in the late 20th century–and Stephen Harper’s opposition–but the idea has remained in the public mind. He drew attention to a CTV poll last month in which 70 per cent of respondents were in favour of peacekeeping, even in combat situations.

“It’s stunning, the degree to which Canadians are attached to the idea of peacekeeping,” Paris said. “It appears to be integral to the ideas that Canadians have about their country’s role in the world.”

In addition to deploying peacekeepers, Paris stressed the importance of non-military aspects of peacekeeping.

“Canada is really in a position to promote the kinds of techniques and governance arrangements that can be used to manage diversity peacefully,” Paris said. “We are a bi-linguistic, multicultural federation that has and

continues to manage internal conflict through these institutional structures.”

International Peacekeeping and Canada’s Role Walter Dorn is a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and at the Canadian Forces College. He argued for the necessity of peacekeepers in providing impartial resolutions to conflicts.

“Neighbours don’t make good peacekeepers, they make good war fighters and interveners,” Dorn said. “Even [Boutros Boutros-Ghali], when he was secretary-general, was not viewed in Somalia as the UN Secretary-General, but as the former minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt and therefore [...] as being partisan to the conflict.”

Dorn called upon the Canadian government to rapidly re-engage in peacekeeping operations for moral reasons in addition to tangible worries that foreign conflicts can breed internationally impactful diseases, terrorist groups, and refugee crises.

“Peacekeeping is actually part of prevention because you can prevent the areas where [peacekeepers are] deployed from becoming future Syrias,” Dorn said. “There is a humanitarian imperative that we respond to these conflicts. We can’t just live cozily in Canada and think that these problems won’t come to our own shores.”

There was general concern among the audience about Canada’s slow progress in peacekeeping. Stephane Bekhor, a conference attendee, expressed thoughts on the lack of incentive to participate in peacekeeping.

Bekhor also criticized Canadian intervention in Colombia, stating that there are more dire crises overseas.

“As long as the image of Canada as a peacekeeper remains, there will be no pressure,” Bekhor said. “The other thing is economic interests. Canada certainly benefits from its relationship with U.S. trade connections, and by intervening in Colombia and disrupting the narcotics trade, they’re actually promoting their economic status directly across the border.”

4 news

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

AMUSE general assembly authorizes strike mandate Labour union demands $15 minimum wage for McGill support employees Domenic Casciato Contributor Continued from page 1.

“Having a strike mandate does not mean that we will be on strike,” Powell said. “It just means that the negotiating team can come back to the employer the next meeting and say, ‘We have the strong strike mandate.’ It will pressure [the administration] into being more willing to negotiate with us.”

Some union members voiced their dissatisfaction with the vote.

AMUSE Steward for Phonathon Nikki Derochie was outspoken in her opposition to the vote. Derochie’s job entails acting as the liaison between casual employees at Phonathon and AMUSE. “We have a group of 70 people [at Phonathon] and I don’t think anybody else is in the room tonight from that group, so I am speaking on behalf of 70 people with my vote,” Derochie said.

“I’m really disappointed, just because of the precedent that’s been set in the past. I remember the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association [MUNACA] strike. A lot of the membership was blindsided by that because within 24 hours of the strike mandate vote, MUNACA went on strike, and not a lot of people expected that.”

Despite concerns of underrepresentation, the AMUSE negotiating team was quick to remind the assembly about the urgent need

to take action. Claire Michela, president of AMUSE and member of its negotiations team, stressed the urgency of taking action. “[The administration] said, ‘We can’t bargain on your terms at all because you have an ongoing complaint with the Pay Equity Commission,’” Michela said. “They don’t want to have an administrative burden of changing things now and then changing things again in a year. Our members can’t wait a year. Our members have contracts of four months, of one month, of one day, so they can’t wait a year to have better pay.”

The administration declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations. According to a report released by McGill describing meetings between AMUSE and the university on Sept. 12 and Sept. 14, McGill pledged to assess the financial impact of AMUSE’s monetary demands and to present this assessment at their following meeting on Oct. 14. AMUSE noted that all of these requests were denied by the University at the Oct. 14 meeting. McGill has yet to release a report on the Oct. 14 meeting.

“They said that they would bargain based on our previous categories, but we think that those categories don’t represent our membership and that they’re unacceptable,” Michela said.

In the original collective agreement between AMUSE and McGill, support employees were separated into three classifica-

Claire Michela, AMUSE president, spoke on the importance of immediate changes to pay. (Ava Zwolinski / The McGill Tribune) tions based on the difficulty of their jobs. Employees’ minimum pay rates for the three classes are $10.55/hour, $11.22/hour, and $12.24/hour respectively. The collective agreement categorizes workers into one of three classes based on the number and complexity tasks and the level of autonomy

given to the worker.

“We synthesized [the three] job titles that we currently have [...] into 33 distinct job titles, and wages that reflect those job titles,” said Michela. “We used the university’s own job evaluation form to do this [....] We adjusted the salaries accordingly. We came up

with, all wages would be above fifteen dollars an hour.”

In addition to the monetary demands, AMUSE is demanding a number of non-monetary concessions including creating McGill ID cards for non-student support staff and requiring work study jobs to be clearly posted for the public.

SSMU and PGSS respond to McGill Draft Policy against Sexual Violence

Twenty-eight recommendations called for in consultation report Raseel Ghoul Contributor On Oct. 12, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) and the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) released a collaborative consultation report outlining the results of focus groups conducted to collect comments and recommendations on the university’s Draft Policy against Sexual Violence.

The focus groups were conducted between Sept. 23 and Oct. 3 to give students the opportunity to share their thoughts on the draft policy.

According to Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures and Equity) and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law Angela Campbell, the McGill Administration has been receptive to student recommendations regarding the policy.

“Student opinions are important to us, this is why the McGill Provost and Vice Principal of McGill University, Christopher Manfredi, decided to fund the focus groups [that the SSMU and PGGS held to collect student recommendations in efforts to improve the policy],” Campbell said. “Many of the recommendations put forth are feasible and in line with the views of the administration. They are helping us build a policy as robust for the university as possible. They are crucial to moving an effective policy forward.”

The focus groups were run by trained members of the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS), a volunteer-run organization that provides support to sexual assault survivors on campus. Eight sessions were held, with two closed groups for sexual violence survi-

vors and an additional group on the MacDonald Campus; approximately 25 students participated.

According to PGSS Equity Commissioner Angela Yu, it was important that focus groups were held in order to ensure that the policy would be representative of all students at McGill.

“The reason behind the recommendations was to stress the fact that broader community feedback in regards to the policy was needed, one that focused specifically on experiences and survivors,” Yu said.“It’s a policy that needs to be both proactive and reactive.”

Making resources readily available for survivors is essential, Yu explained. She stated that the policy should act as a guide for anyone who has experienced sexual violence.

“The policy needs to outline what resources exist on campus,

so survivors know and can use what’s available to them,” Yu said. “A huge issue is that most people aren’t clear on where to go or who to speak to.”

Yu also stressed that the policy needs to consider all forms of sexual violence and be accountable for preventing such violence in the community.

“We want the policy to recognize the nature of sexual violence and that it affects people [differently],” Yu said. “The university needs to understand that and be accountable to everyone, have a centralized recording procedure, and articulate the consequences of sexual violence clearly to the community.”

According to SSMU VicePresident (VP) University Affairs Erin Sobat, the policy needs to be as transparent to students as possible. This will allow the community, to understand the way in

which reporting cases should be handled.

“It’s important to make clear that the intention of the policy is to centralize the process for disclosures and reports, the ability to get support without a filing process,” Sobat said. “There needs to be a strong [outline of] what outcomes are available to those affected.”

Sobat also felt that listening to students and survivors was the only way for the administration to ensure the effectiveness of the new policy.

“We thought it was really important to hear from students and survivors who have [navigated] reporting sexual violence issues, so that the report meets the needs of those most affected,” Sobat added.

The Policy against Sexual Violence will be presented to Senate in November or December.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

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 Jenna Stanwood, Sara Cullen, William Pang news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Emma Avery & 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 Zikomo Smith & Aaron Rose sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Domitille Biehlmann & Daniel Freed design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor L-A Benoit photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editor Noah Sutton multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Clare Lyle webdev@mcgilltribune.com Daniel Lutes online@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Areni Nicoghosian copy@mcgilltribune.com

In support of free menstrual hygiene products on campus At the most recent Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) legislative council meeting on Oct. 13, SSMU President Ben Ger put forward a motion that would—if passed in the upcoming Fall 2016 referendum—have SSMU adopt a Free Menstrual Hygiene Products Policy. The policy would create a $0.90 per semester fee to fund the purchase and distribution of free menstrual hygiene products--such as tampons and pads, to the student body.

The motion rightly acknowledges that SSMU’s obligation to provide menstrual products to students stems from its commitment in its Equity Policy to “leadership in matters concerning the wellbeing of marginalized groups.”

Current difficulties in obtaining menstrual products on campus can be a significant source of unnecessary anxiety, especially if a menstruating student needs to find such a product unexpectedly before a class or an examination.

Presently, such feminine hygiene products are available for purchase at the Arts Undergraduate Society’s SNAX, and in limited and expensive bathroom vendors.

Menstrual products are an additional expense that female students incur every month for a necessary item.

The Motion Regarding the Free Menstrual Hygiene Products Policy would create a more equitable campus for fe-

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Business Manager Mingye Chen business@mcgilltribune.com Advertising Executives Richard Blaser, Alexander Beaumont, 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

Christopher Li, Margaux Delalex, Morgan Davis, Julia Metraux, Arman Bery, Nicole Spadotto, Joe Khammar, Alexandra Harvey, Lauren Benson-Armer, Eric NobleMarks, Ariella Garmaise, Jackie Houston, Calvin Trottier-Chi, Cherry Ng, Holly Cabrera, Ava Zwolinski, Andy Wang, Izze Siemann, Justine Touchon, Ceci Steyn, Alissa Zilber, Cordelia Cho, Madeline Kinney,

Contributors

Alexia Martel-Desjardins, Astha Agarwal, Cassandra Lee, Domenic Casciato, Eloise Haliburton, Erin Dwyer, Gabriel Rincon, Grey Gunning, Janine Xu,, Liz Willcock, Michaela Jones, Miguel Principe, Raseel Ghoul, Wasif Husain, Weiyu Dang

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Natalie Vineberg Creative Director One of Justin Trudeau’s flashiest policies has been his promise to legalize marijuana. Taking advantage of 4/20 this past April, his government announced that it will be instated in the spring of 2017—only one year later.

We’re halfway through that time, and his policy remains vague and shallow.

Trudeau is waiting on results from the Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation, but the lack of information this close to its proposed implementation is unsettling. One of the most glaring gaps is that the Liberal government’s website doesn’t explain how it plans to keep the drug out of the hands of youth—it offers no details, and only asks for a signature in support. When discussing how legalization should be accomplished, Trudeau must clarify how he intends to protect youth from excessive marijuana use and commit to educating them on the adverse

male students by relieving the anxiety and financial barriers currently associated with accessing these products.

The adoption of such a policy at a university like McGill is also an important symbolic move, advocating for the rights of women in education.

“

Whether or not students are personally affected by the provision of free menstrual hygiene products, this motion stands to benefit the entire student body.

”

Education has historically been an area where women have faced discrimination—women were barred from attending McGill until 1884. Menstruation in particular continues to prove a significant barrier to women’s education around the world, as lack of access to proper menstrual hygiene products

and stigmatization can discourage girls from attending school. By embracing this policy, SSMU would be taking a step in acknowledging the discrimination women who menstruate often face in education, and the way in which menstruation can impede equal access to education.

In keeping with its symbolic significance, the motion also communicates the importance of this issue to the McGill administration. In fact, the motion calls for SSMU to renew the policy “until McGill, or the Municipal, Provincial, or Federal Government recognize that these products must be classified as Necessary Goods and pass a subsidy program to eliminate their cost and/or supply them publicly.”

In providing menstrual hygiene products, both SSMU and McGill must make these products accessible to transgender members of the McGill community. While the current motion proposes to provide menstrual hygiene products in gender-neutral bathrooms and at Healthy McGill kiosks, the McGill administration can go even further. Following the example of schools such as Brown University, McGill should provide menstrual products in women’s, men’s, and gender-inclusive bathrooms across campus.

Providing free menstrual hygiene products is a simple step that can nor-

malize menstruation, communicate that menstruating students are welcome on campus, and reduce the chance that a student would have to remove themselves from their learning environment in order to find a pad or tampon.

Whether or not students are personally affected by the provision of free menstrual hygiene products, this motion stands to benefit the entire student body.

The motion is not just about women—it is about creating a fairer and more equal university community, where no students are subject to barriers which prevent them from reaching their full potential. All students benefit from being in an environment that minimizes any potential barriers that prevent students from being fully engaged in their postsecondary education. Furthermore, the cost of this improved university community comes at a mere $0.90 per student per semester. This cost is minimal when considered in comparison to other regular expenses students incur on campus for items such as coffee or samosas.

The Motion Regarding the Free Menstrual Hygiene Products Policy will benefit cisgender women and all menstruating people on campus, and is valuable in its advocacy role as a means to encourage further change. McGill students would be making an essential statement by voting in favour of it in the upcoming Fall referendum.

Marijuana legalization poses significant risks to youth health effects and safety risks.

Marijuana has been condemned since the days of Reefer Madness and Harry J. Anslinger, the first commissioner of the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who claimed that marijuana was “a short cut to the insane asylum” in the 1930s. These tactics were undoubtedly excessive and uninformed, and may have led to the general distrust of antidrug data. However, there is increasingly concerning evidence of the negative effects marijuana can have on young people, and Trudeau’s motion thus far seems to do nothing to help prevent these negative effects.

Marijuana use as a teenager can have severe, damaging effects on brain development. Researchers from the University of Missouri and the University of Kansas Medical Centre found that marijuana users overall are more likely to be hospitalized for stroke than nonusers. Significantly, the risk of stroke increases by 126 per cent for users aged 25-34—the greatest for any age group.

Strokes are usually only a risk for those over 55—not those under age 34. This threat more than doubles the risk within a population that should otherwise be relatively unaffected. Furthermore, according to a study published in The Schizophrenia Bulletin, early marijuana usage can be damaging to the quality of life of those predisposed to psychosis.

Cannabis use before the age of 15, the frequency of use, and the potency of the drug can cause the first symptoms of

psychosis to appear up to six years earlier than they would have in non-users, setting in as early as mid-20s. These are crucial years in which those predisposed to psychosis can develop strong support systems or career skills to be better prepared for this onset. Ensuring that youth at risk don’t smoke marijuana is essential to preserving those years.

The potential legalization of marijuana also poses significant risks for youth in terms of car accidents. The US

“

Trudeau must clarify how he intends to protect youth from excessive marijuana use and commit to educating them on the adverse health effects and safety risks.

”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that motor vehicle fatalities were the highest cause of accident deaths among teenagers between 1999 and 2006, making it vital to account for any increased risk to do with substance use. While the risks associated with driving under the influence of marijuana don’t seem to be as great as with alcohol, those who drive while high have trouble staying in their lane and exhibit

slower reaction times than sober drivers.

In the year after marijuana was legalized in Washington, fatal car crashes among drivers who had marijuana in their system were reported to have doubled.

Although this link does not necessarily imply causation, the fact remains that drivers testing positive for THC in their system did increase in that year. It is imperative to better understand these effects before legalizing marijuana and to develop an efficient method of testing for it.

If able-minded, healthy adults want to smoke safely in their own homes, that’s a choice they should be able to make for themselves. But, this is not the population that matters when it comes to the risks marijuana poses.

Considering that the Liberal government claims that our current prohibition does not help youth, its lack of a clear plan to deal with this problem is disturbing. One of the biggest perceived advantages of legalization is that it will provide safer access to marijuana for those that want it, but young users below the legal age will still be left to find it in unsafe ways. Even if it’s not a deciding factor, the significant health and safety risks facing youth need to be a greater part of the conversation before the policy’s implementation. Trudeau’s policy, from the little information provided, seems to be hopping on the bandwagon without any plan to deal with the biggest problems the country currently faces.

6 OPINION

C o m m e nt a r y

Jackie Houston Columnist “And be sure to say your name before speaking, so I can put you down for participation marks,” a teaching assistant instructs a room of blank-faced undergraduate students.

An attendance sheet circulates. A pen taps against a desk. To break the silence, someone offers a summary of the week’s course reading. It’s been four minutes—of a conference that is meant to last an hour.

Most Arts students are well acquainted with mandatory conferences. In a faculty as large as Arts— which had 8,668 students enrolled in Fall 2015—lectures can feel less like classes and more like stadium events. Smaller weekly meetings facilitate the direct participation in peer discussion that just isn’t possible in

C o m m e nt a r y

Grey Gunning Contributor While slogging through the mire of midterm season, it is beneficial to stop and give thanks for our many blessings. As students walk past the rickety scaffolding that soars above campus this Fall, they should give thanks for the most generous gift our university has given us: Our buildings. According to a Quebec government analysis of the province’s universities, 73 per cent of McGill’s buildings are in poor or very poor condition—the worst rating in the province. Considering the estimated $1 billion cost renovations would entail, it is unlikely McGill will be able to address the problems anytime soon. However, by neglecting its buildings, McGill is giving its students an invaluable learning experience.

The students that escape university alive will have nerves of

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

The ineffective weekly conference: Getting past 10 per cent participation marks Leacock 132. These are generally led by teaching assistants (TAs), who are often graduate students in a related area of study. In theory, conferences serve as a helpful and essential supplement to the one-way information channel of a lecture. However, the wide variation and inconsistency between conferences and TAs mean that this end isn’t always achieved in practice. The structure of most mandatory Arts conferences—and the patterns of participation that it produces—precludes the meaningful course engagement that conferences are meant to foster. Minor but mindful changes to this format, as well as standardized TA qualifications, could salvage the conference’s often wasted potential.

While it is necessary to incentivize turnout—nothing puts the “mandatory” in mandatory conference quite like attendance marks—a quantitative grading scheme hampers natural discussion dynamics. Granted, sincere interest in a particular course topic sometimes wins out, but that is a rare exception to the rule that governs most low-risk and lowreward obligations—that of minimal possible effort. When it’s 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, the average conference attendee wants to speak for just long enough to ensure a tally

next to his or her name on the TA’s attendance sheet. The result is often a quantity-over-quality discussion, usually dominated by two or three students while the rest of the class act as Facebook-scrolling, notebookdoodling spectators.

A facilitator—in the form of a TA—ideally prevents such a disjointed, lopsided dynamic. It’s possible to luck out with a TA that is both knowledgeable and an effective mediator, but much like student participation, it’s not guaranteed. TAs are often graduate students for whom the conference is as much a learning experience as it is for the students.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does lead to variation in effectiveness. New teachers can be great, but, as many students are unfortunately aware, new teachers can also be very bad.

At McGill, application criteria for TA positions vary across departments, with no standard requirement of prior teaching experience. Participation in teaching workshops—such as the McGill Teaching and Learning Services’ SKILLSETS—is encouraged, but not always mandatory. As a result, conference experiences vary drastically, and the quality of learning that students receive hinges on the competence of the TA they hap-

pen to be assigned to. Mandating participation in such workshops or including a more substantive, standardized requirement of teaching or equivalent experience would help

“

Together, flawed structure and inconsistent mediation produce conferences that often fall short of encouraging involvement with a course.

”

improve the effectiveness of conferences across the board.

Together, flawed structure and inconsistent mediation produce conferences that often fall short of encouraging involvement with a course,

and can be even more disaffecting than the lecture itself. However, this does not mean that professors should eliminate mandatory conferences altogether, as they are potentially exceptional teaching tools. When a conference is successful, the results—genuine engagement with a course material, original dialogue with peers, and sound-bytes of information that you actually want to tell your parents about—are invaluable.

The question becomes one of turning this rare experience into the standard. Alterations need not be drastic to yield results: Grading schemes should account for the quality rather than the sheer length of contribution, and the conference should be structured to suit a given course’s content. For example, weekly student presentations—as are current practice in some conferences—work well for clarifying abstract political theory, but might feel dry and repetitive for a fact-heavy history course. Inevitably, half of the battle will always be motivation and discipline on the student’s part.

However, steps such as standardized TA training and more course-specific formatting will encourage student engagement with course material and create a conference experience that enriches and involves them.

McGill’s crumbling brick met with nerves of steel steel, tempered by the flames of four years cavorting around in buildings that have walls propped up with plywood, according to the CBC. Yes, plywood.

Could any student, after having faced the dismal lattice of metal that supports the Law Building, possibly fear the job market? Finding a position in a saturated field is nothing compared to the terror that grips the heart of anyone who steps foot in a McGill bathroom. Some stalls have no doors. Others look suspiciously similar to a rest stop one would encounter along a highway.

This fear forces students to build crucial skills. The possibility of actual death ensures that only the strongest McGill students survive. If a student doesn’t flatline under the asbestos-hiding ceiling tiles of the Stewart Biology Building, they still must face the makeshift stairs outside the Brown Building. They must then pass the crumbling façade of the Strathcona Dentistry Building, which seems capable of shedding debris at any time. Even if they make it off campus, they can still just fall into a pothole on Sherbrooke. It is a miracle anyone can handle this nightmarish obstacle course—and yet McGill students do. This ‘survival of the fittest’ lifestyle opens any number of

(Laurie-Anne Benoit / The McGill Tribune) new career possibilities. McGill students are among the most qualified university graduates to pursue base jumping, storm chasing, or anything to do with abandoned mine shafts. In today’s economy, every skill counts.

I, too, have personally witnessed this unique form of education. When the pipes at the MORE residence I lived in last year burst, none of its inhabitants

seemed fazed. I remember one of my housemates walking nonchalantly into the flooded kitchen, placing a small bowl under one of the ceiling’s many drips, and sitting down to do his class readings. This is the kind of attitude that McGill’s buildings foster in its students—one of resilience and resignation.

This midterm season, it’s time to praise the unsung hero:

McGill. In its limited budget and consequent inability to fix any of its buildings, the university has prepared its students for their darkest hours. The constantly shifting network of scaffolding numbs us to change and brings us face-to-face with danger. We are equipped to handle the worst, from the pitfalls of the workplace to the collapse our campus as we know it.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 7

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Where do I begin… The Rocky Horror Picture Show Alissa Zilber Staff Illustrator Continued from page 1.

Brad and Janet quickly become acquainted with a number of convention attendees and household staff, all of whom seem to share Frank’s dubious intentions for the couple. This bizarre opening is just the beginning of what some viewers consider a nonsensical plot filled with ridiculous characters, which may surprise many people who want to draw meaning from the film.

In order to understand the film’s quirks, it’s important to know that Rocky Horror both parodies and pays tribute to the science fiction genre and horror B-films made in the 1930s to the 1970s. The production’s creator Richard O’Brien reveals some of these references in the opening song “Science Fiction/ Double Feature” as a disembodied voice sings, “And Flash Gordon was there / In silver underwear / Claude Rains was The Invisible Man.” To better understand the inspiration for Rocky Horror’s plot line, characters, and cultural references, check out classic horror films like Nosferatu or It Came From Outer Space.

The Music

The film’s soundtrack is glam-rock inspired and always invites the viewer to dance or sing along. The songs vary from “Over at the Frankenstein Place,” a soft duet with funky guitar riffs, to “Sweet Transvestite,” a sassy, sexual, brass-filled

ballad. The music is filled with gentle piano melodies and ensemble harmonies.

The lyrics vary from being absurdly funny like—“Now the only thing I’ve come to trust / Is an orgasmic rush of lust”— to profound sentiments like—“Don’t Dream it—Be it.” Like any great album, the soundtrack takes time to grow on its listener, so I suggest playing it before watching the film in order to become better acquainted with the musical numbers. A couple of my favourites are “Hot Patootie” and “Rose Tint My World.”

The Experience

What might be the best way to first experience Rocky Horror is by going to a live shadow cast show. As a small cast acts out the story in front of the film projection, Rocky Horror becomes a parody of a parody. At the shows I’ve been to, the shadow cast even exaggerates and oversexualizes some of the more racy scenes.

The audience is even more lively than the actors­ , shouting perfectly-timed jokes, squirting water guns during the storm scene, and tossing rolls of toilet paper upon hearing, “Great Scott!” It’s the best place to get your freak on among an audience of people that are there to have a good time, laugh, and enjoy the show.

If you still don’t have any plans for Halloween, I suggest finding a party hat and bringing a few slices of toast— another of the many audience participation props—to Montreal’s annual shadow cast screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Rocky Horror is a spooky and sassy Halloween event. (Madeline Kinney / The McGill Tribune) The Rocky Horror Picture Show is playing Oct. 28, 29, and 31 at Cinema Imperial. Tickets can be bought in

Play Review: 39 Steps finds its footing

39 Steps brings a unique spin to a classic story. (Margaux Delalax / The McGill Tribune)

Morgan Davis Staff Writer Originally published as a novel in 1915, the literary classic 39 Steps has been adapted for both theatre and film. In 1935, Alfred Hitchcock directed his film adaption of the novel, The 39 Steps, telling the story of a bored British man named Richard Hannay who is attempting to clear his name after being unknowingly drawn into a web of conspiracies involving international spies. The play follows Hannay as he travels through the Scottish Highlands in an effort to redeem his reputation. Along the way the protagonist meets dozens of absurd

characters, even falling for three femmes. Now brought to McGill’s Players’ Theatre, students are putting their own unique spin on the classic.

Players’ Theatre is completely run by undergraduate students, bringing theatre opportunities to both McGill and Montreal area students. A cast of four, the performance requires diversity from the actors, with three of the four playing multiple and recurring roles throughout.

A clever and amusing opening to the performance brought Hannay, played by Tom Phipps, to the theatre lobby to introduce himself, the setting, and the backstory of the

plot. Inviting the audience members into the theater, viewers were seated as if they were in the London Music Hall—the setting of the first scene. This involvement of the audience continued throughout the production and only increased in hilarity. The audience was sometimes directly addressed by a cast member, and other times was showered in props such as newspapers. By the third scene, not a single audience member was able to withhold their laughs.

The last word that comes to mind when describing 39 Steps is “boring.” Frédérique Blanchard and Ben Meyer-Goodman are the two shining stars of the production, juggling dozens of roles between the two of them and providing much of the energy for the entirety of the show. Stylistically inspired by Monty Python, this adaption of 39 Steps takes on a slapstick tone. Slow moving and quiet moments are scarce, leaving the audience constantly engaged. The stage’s close proximity to the audience aids in captivating viewers as well.

The performance is a chaotic jumble of fast-paced exits and entrances, prop changes, and even a few onstage costume alterations.

Director Oscar Lecuyer took appreciated and effective risks with stage props. The audience becomes comfortable in the imaginary world of theatre, only to be reminded that they’re witnessing a live performance. One scene found the characters signaling towards a car, only to realize they had yet to ‘create’ the car out of stage blocks and frantically build it on stage. This drew audience members out of their comfort zone by breaking the fourth wall and

advance for $17.95 or at the door for $19.95. More details can be found at rockyhorrormontreal.com.

acknowledging the reality behind performing arts.

When taking a traditionally dramatic play and turning it into such a comedic adaptation, it’s important that no characters are left behind in the transformation of genres—just as the character of Pamela, played by Jocelyn Weisman, unfortunately did. Her character’s more dramatic demeanour stood in awkward contrast with the play’s humorous characters.

Blanchard and Meyer-Goodman’s many characters provided the majority of comedic relief with additional witticism from Hannay, but Pamela remained flat and frustrated. The entirety of the performance was light-hearted and meant to capitalize on silliness, yet the Pamela’s irritated persona didn’t mesh well with the style of the play or the characters she interacted with.

As the final ten minutes of the show rushed to a conclusion, the eccentrics of the play remained stable. The play follows the threat of German spies colluding to destabilize Europe, and yet, the overtly exaggerated clowning often overshadowed this major theme. Granted, the most enjoyable aspect of the production was that—even for skeptics of the Hitchcock/ Monty Python hybrid—the humour isn’t lost on any member of the audience. While not particularly thought-provoking, 39 Steps is a refreshing and charming performance that succeeds in producing candid laughter.

39 Steps is playing October 19-22 and October 22-26 in Players’ Theatre (3rd floor of SSMU). General tickets are $10 and student tickets are $6.

Discussing academic freedom at

McGill

David Watson Opinion Editor

“Something strange is happening at America’s colleges and universities.” So began the provocative cover story of The Atlantic’s September 2015 issue. The piece, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, dove head-on into a relatively recent, yet highly contentious, debate gripping American campuses—that of campus free speech.

What strange phenomenon had Lukianoff and Haidt identified? “A movement is arising,” they claimed, “undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.”

According to the duo—a constitutional lawyer and a social psychologist—students at campuses across the United States were increasingly calling for censorship surrounding topics that are likely to cause offence, and therefore emotional distress, to some students.

In the year since The Atlantic story ran, the debate over controversial speech on campuses has only intensified. At Yale, students called on two faculty members to resign after one sent an email to students questioning the need for a warning about culturally insensitive Halloween costumes. Emory University was divided in the spring after pro-Trump messages were chalked on campus. This September, students at the University of Chicago expressed outrage after their Dean of Students wrote in a welcome letter that his institution’s commitment to academic freedom meant it opposed safe spaces and trigger warnings.

In each case, the debate is seemingly polarized between two camps. On one side are those arguing that universities need to prioritize the feelings and experiences of students, and rid campuses of offensive expression that could threaten students’ emotional well-being.

Opposing them are those who claim that freedom of expression is essential to preserve the university’s role as an intellectual space of discussion and open debate.

Yet debates about safe spaces and free speech on American campuses tend to limit themselves in one key aspect: They are, after all, debates about how these issues effect American campuses. If it is true that, as Lukianoff and Haidt claimed, there is something strange afoot at “America’s colleges and universities,” is this because there is something unique about American universities, or is it the result of a wider trend in higher education?

Recent events at Canadian universities seem to indicate that there is nothing distinctly American about the debate over campus speech. At McGill, the past year has been a relatively quiet one, but other Canadian schools have had a very different experience. Most notably, the University of Toronto has been embroiled in a lengthy debate over free speech after a professor refused to call transgender students by their preferred personal pronouns.

With the brewing climate of debate over free speech at North American campuses, administrators at McGill are starting to take notice.

“I think these are important discussions with our community because our students are adults, and very smart adults,” said McGill Principal Suzanne Fortier during a recent question and answer session with campus media. “And so we always have to respect that there are people who are able to take responsibilities on our campus [....] I think there is a fine line here of over-protection, which I don’t think is really always a good idea. I don’t think it’s a good move all the time.”

Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Dr. Ollivier Dyens offers an explanation as to why he believes McGill’s campus has seen relatively little conflict.

“I think there is no policy on trigger warnings at McGill and I think that’s something that professors are free to do or [not do] of their own volition. Whether they do or not I think that’s part of academic freedom. There has been no discussion on this at McGill because I think overall [...] we are less exposed to this than U.S. institutions [....] I think the community seems to respect each other and understand some of the tension that can exist. It does not seem to be unnecessarily aggressive with these things.”

While the university does not have an official policy regarding trigger warnings in the classroom, it is not unheard of for some professors to issue a warning about their course material. Selin Altuntur, U3 Arts student and Arts and Entertainment Editor at The McGill Tribune, spoke about an experience she had in IDFC 500: Aboriginal Field Studies.

“In the first class, we were told that the course would be dealing with sensitive matters and emotionally disturbing realities about residential schools and growing up [as an indigenous person] in Canada,” she said. “[We were also warned] before we covered any material that dealt with difficult subject matter. For example, we saw a documentary depicting residential school life and before [watching the documentary the course coordinators] warned us and told us that if we couldn’t handle it or if we needed to [...] take a break and have a moment, we were completely within our rights to step outside the class.”

Rather than feeling overprotected, Altuntur was grateful for the warning.

“I thought it was [beneficial],” she said. “I’ve never experienced [a content warning] in a class before, but I’d had also never dealt with such intense material before [....] I didn’t really know that I would be dealing with such heavy material beforehand, so it was good to have that kind of briefing before going into [the content], so that [students] would not suffer a whiplash as a result.”

However, classrooms are not the only places where steps are taken to ensure the emotional safety of the McGill community. According to Dyens, the respect he perceives as existing amongst the student body is rooted in the training students receive through initiatives such as Rez Project, which teaches first years how to create a “Safe(r) Space” in their residences.

“We do training in residence, there is a lot of training that is happening when students come in to McGill,” said Dyens. “Montreal students come from varied backgrounds, so

they’re used to this.”

Taylor Welch is a U3 Arts student and Floor Fellow at La Citadelle who has been involved with McGill Rez Life, including Rez Project workshops, for the past three years. She greatly values the lessons she learned through Rez Project and residence living in general.

“Prior to attending McGill and undergoing the Rez Project workshop in my first year, I had not been exposed to the idea of safe(r) spaces, and I really think that is a shame,” she wrote in an email to the Tribune. “We as university students are incredibly fortunate to receive this kind of additional, and formative education [....] This is very much an on-going conversation, and rather than asking ourselves, ‘Why is it that we can’t say whatever we like?’ we should be asking, ‘Why do we feel that we can say these potentially harmful things in the first place?’ And further, why do we need to say these things at all?”

Some outside observers do not share an optimistic view of the situation at McGill. Every year the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), an independent research group, releases a report detailing the state of free expression at over 50 Canadian universities. Its 2015 report gave McGill a middling ranking, awarding the university a ‘D’ for policies and a ‘C’ for practices relating to free speech. Its ranking for the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) was even worse: It earned ‘D’s across the board for policy and practices.

The JCCF argues that McGill has a number of policies that “could be used to censor unpopular, controversial, or politically incorrect speech.” McGill’s Statement of Principles Concerning Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, for instance, states that students’ freedom of expression is “subject to limits” in order to safeguard “the right of members of the University community to carry out their activities [...] in a safe environment.”

For the JCCF, this caveat presents a potential danger to free speech at McGill. The JCCF also condemns the practices and policies of SSMU, and holds McGill accountable for having “failed to condemn censorship by its student union.”

In the past few years, McGill has witnessed a series of incidents where students’ speech has been restricted. For instance, in 2012 SSMU executive called for the McGill Friends of Israel (MFI) to change the name of its event “Israel A-Party”— organized to counter-message the organizers of Israel Apartheid Week who claim that Israel is an apartheid state—because SSMU executives considered it “a mockery and/or trivialization of various oppressions some people of the world are subject to on a day-to-day basis.” The SSMU execs based their decision on the Society’s Equity Policy, which requires SSMU to make “a strong commitment to equity, safety, and the creation of safe(r) spaces for its membership.”

In October 2013, the campus was home to the so-called “Farnangate” scandal, after then-SSMU Vice-President Internal Brian Farnan attached to a weekly SSMU listserv a doctored gif of President Obama kicking open a door with the caption, “Honestly midterms get out of here.” The SSMU Equity committee received a complaint that the gif was offensive, and ordered Farnan to apologize and undergo racial sensitivity training.

Despite this, many of the campus organizations criticized by the JCCF view their role on campus in a very different way. The SSMU Equity Policy contains a clause mandating, “Neither this Policy in general, nor its definitions in particular, are to be applied in such a way as to detract from the right of members to engage in open discussion of potentially controversial matters.”

Similarly, the McGill Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) Office states that the goal of its Safe(r) Space workshops are to provide “interactive and engaging learning environments where participants and facilitators address challenging topics openly and honestly.”

Some members of the McGill community are aware of this goal. Welch believes that those who criticize safe spaces as restrictive are misunderstanding their purpose.

“I think what people sometimes misunderstand is that safer spaces are in no way designed with the intention of silencing anyone [...],” Welch wrote. “It is through these platforms of education that the goal is to provide people with the tools to understand further, and articulate why certain acts of speech or harmful thoughts and actions cannot only make people feel uncomfortable, but unsafe.”

According to Welch, freedom of speech also has the potential to be exploited. ”No one likes to feel belittled or silenced, but I think that the concept of freedom of speech can be, and often is, abused; frequently at the hand of those who are privileged and are likely more benefitted by free speech rather than harmed by it.”

The conversation on freedom of speech and safe spaces at McGill bears some important resemblances to the wider trend on North American campuses. First, the movement for a safer campus is driven largely by the students themselves. At Yale, Emory, and the University of Toronto, complaints against those voicing unpopular opinions all came from the student body; this has also been the case with past incidents at McGill. The recent incidents, like Farnangate and the MFI event naming, prove that similar to other schools, student speech—which range from seemingly innocuous gifs to politically-charged event names—can be subject to censure if deemed offensive by even a small minority on campus.

However, McGill’s community also gives this issue a unique spin: Administrators are confident the school’s diversity can be an asset, and student groups such as SSMU recognize the importance of tempering demands for a safe environment with the need to protect the speech of students. As the backbone of the university community, students and their ideas are crucial to preserve an engaging intellectual environment. It is essential that all voices on campus continue to be heard.

10 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Alex Frankel of Holy Ghost! goes solo Janine Xu Contributor Alex Frankel has been hard at work. In May of this year, he released the nu-disco, 80s-nostalgia EP Crime Cutz with fellow Holy Ghost! bandmate Nick Millhiser.

He’s featured on the Classixx single “I Feel Numb” and has performed with the group throughout the year, including gigs at Lollapalooza and on Last Call with Carson Daly.

Along with brother Zach, Frankel recently opened up the wildly popular Frankel’s Delicatessen—a Jewish deli located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

And if all that wasn’t enough, on Sept. 30, Frankel quietly released his first ever solo EP, Negative Space.

The retro collection features four tracks laden with a groovy, pop-funk sound and candy-coated aesthetics and its dance beats are reminiscent of “Do It Again” from Holy Ghost!’s 2011 self-titled album. Negative Space is catchy in a bubblegum pop way, taking aspects from modern pop and disco alike.

When asked how it felt to produce his own solo music, Frankel emphasized the importance of all the help he’s received.

“I wasn’t really alone.

Technically, Nick was still involved in the sense that I would send him mixes […] and he was really helpful

Alex Frankel released his solo EP, Negative Space, on Sept. 30. (Lauren Benson-Armer / The McGill Tribune) as an ear,” Frankel said. “I had a lot of people help out, [like] Ryland Blackinton [of Cobra Starship] and Dave from Chromeo.”

Holy Ghost! is known for its remixes, having produced two successful mix albums in the last few years and reworking songs

by Phoenix, MGMT, and Moby.

Remixing, in a way, has helped Frankel with his own music because it serves as a starting point for his creative output.

“We used the remixes as a real

way [to] learn about production.

We were really lucky […] to have friends who would ask us to do remixes,” Frankel said. “Whether it was remixing LCD Soundsystem or Phoenix, getting a look inside their session was really interesting and informative, and it certainly influenced our productions.”

Currently, Frankel is on tour with DJ duo Classixx through over twenty cities, having stopped in Montreal on Oct. 20 at Le Belmont on Saint-Laurent. It’s not Frankel’s

first time performing as an opening act—in the past, he’s opened for LCD Soundsystem and Chromeo as part of Holy Ghost!.

“I would give it all to Classixx for getting me out to do this with them,” said Frankel. “[Originally,] we were just going to come out and I was just going to sing [“I Feel Numb”] with them, and then Michael and Tyler [from Classixx] were like, ‘Dude, you should […] really play some of the songs you’re working on!’ [And then] everything came

Aqua Khoria: A symphony of liquid movement

Michaela Jones Contributor

Aqua Khoria is set in an underwater seascape. (Nathalie Duhaim / tangente.qc.ca)

The ocean swells and roaring waves engulf the misty surroundings. Amidst this stormy seascape, a dancer bursts into frantic movement. His fragmented gestures transform as the audience becomes submerged beneath the water, and mirrors the setting’s fluid aesthetic.

With movement as the joint operator, Aqua Khoria poetically combines dance, music, sound, and environment to venture

into a new realm of immersive creation.

The show stars and is created by critically acclaimed contemporary choreographer and dancer, Peter Trosztmer, in collaboration with renowned composer and music-digital artist, Zack Settel. Their project, Aqua Khoria, is produced by two of Montreal’s leading figures in the contemporary dance scene— Tangente and Danse-Cité. Both companies champion risk-taking, collaboration, and inventiveness—all of which are embodied

in the experimental nature of Aqua Khoria.

Trosztmer and Settel’s production program describes the show as “virtual sound bodies set in motion” within a “water-bound road trip, spanning the broad, the deep, the familiar, and the strange.” The following 50 minutes revealed the creators’ description was quite literal. Staged at the Satosphere, Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT)’s immersive dome theatre that forms a 360-degree spherical projection screen, the production exhibits a virtual liquid environment.

Settel’s animated seascape is projected onto the immense Satosphere theatre screens. The sounds of ripples and waves echo through surrounding speakers.

Trosztmer holds sensors, which control the virtual world, enabling his movement to transport the audience through Settel’s creation. Trosztmer becomes the conductor of an audio-visual symphony as his gestures simultaneously summon waves and submerge the audience deeper beneath the ocean to discover sea creatures, shipwrecks, and caves. Consequently, Trosztmer and Settel consider their project as “a huge musical instrument.”

Additionally, Trosztmer dances on a basin of water that serves as a stage in the centre of the dome. As the water begins to ripple in response to his dancing, Trosztmer becomes dripping wet and visually marked by the show’s motif.

His movement stimulates the auditory senses with splashes of real water. His performance reaches a dramatic peak

together so quickly.”

This fast-paced workflow certainly is a change for Frankel, as this is his first time performing alone and without childhood best friend Millhiser.

“Most of the time an opening can be really hard,” Frankel explained when discussing life as a solo artist. “The headlining band can be […] mean and purposely [disruptive], or won’t let you ride on their bus. But this has been sort of a dream. Compared to tours I’ve done in the past, this is very comfortable.”

During his performance, Frankel could be seen bobbing along to his own tracks, alternating between singing and playing the keyboard.

Like his music, his presence is electrifying—his dancing invigorates the audience to dance along with him.

Within a few minutes, the Belmont is transformed into a club-like scene.

“I’ve been [to Montreal] probably like ten times,” said Frankel. “I love the Belmont. The last time I came here with Holy Ghost!, it was a really crazy, incredible show.”

He planned on stopping by his favourite Montreal haunts like Schwartz’s Deli, although now that Frankel has his own deli business in Brooklyn, it’s not too hard to compare the two.

“Schwartz’s is great, [but] ours is better, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said, with a laugh.

as he stands in the centre of the water basin, while a virtual cave is projected on the screens. Water begins to drip with increasing pressure from the centre of the Stratosphere’s ceiling. Trosztmer is showered in water as a spotlight cuts in and out, emphasizing a series of tableaus.

The images created are visually striking and leave the audience with powerful impressions of a body yearning for something.

Trosztmer and Settel’s artist statement gestures to a variety of possible meanings.

The show could be representative of the great unknowns of the world and the subconscious. It could also be viewed as a deconstruction of reality as the performer dances amidst physical and virtual representations of water. The message of Trosztmer and Settel’s production is ambiguous, and alongside the abstract nature of the performance, it encourages spectators to draw their own meaning from the surreal seascape of Aqua Khoria.

Whatever the creative duo’s metaphorical vision may be, Aqua Khoria dances on the threshold of the virtual and the real world, venturing towards a new poetic dimension of both contemporary dance and audiovisual creation.

Aqua Khoria has closed. Tangente’s next production, Fervid Bodies, will run from Nov. 3-5 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 6 at 4 p.m. at Monument National, 1182 Saint-Laurent. For more information visit tangente.qc.ca.

student living

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

The loneliness epidemic

11

The way buildings are structured on campus and in-residence keep students from connecting with one another. (Alissa Zilber / The McGill Tribune)

Atmosphere and structures make McGill a lonely place for students

Liz Willcock Contributor Loneliness is hard to define because it is premised on a feeling of lack—a lack of contact, of laughter, of connection, of empathy, of dependence. It is a lack that weighs heavy at 8 p.m. on McGill campus as students slowly make their way home— their stomachs growling and vision blurry from hours spent reading under the library’s halogen lighting. It is a lack found in the way students quietly file out of the library at night with their headphones on, passing each other.

It is the noiseless way that any student filing out of the library feels compelled to reach into their pocket for their phone and call someone—anyone. As they consider calling a parent, they stop themselves short. They don’t really have anything specific to say, they just need to connect with someone. But they worry that if they call just to chat, their parents will assume they’re feeling ‘lonely.’ Slowly they slip the phone back into their pocket, and walk home in silence. This is loneliness.

“Loneliness is so much more than the absence of people,” Eve Kraicer, U3 English, said. “It’s having an actual impulse to articulate how you are doing, with nowhere to go and no one to listen.”

Students are often left without people to listen to them because loneliness is ingrained in the university experience. At age 18, most Canadian students transition from high school to university, and suddenly their old web of community-building tools—teacher-organized clubs, required courses, strict meal times, and a structured 8:30-3:30 schedule—disappears. For the most part, McGill students choose their own classes, consulting academic supervisors and health services is optional, and, after first year, students are responsible for determining their own food and housing. For some, this responsibility is rewarding, but for others it can make university an exceptionally lonely space.

In a recent viral article in The Guardian, titled “Neoliberalism is creating loneliness. That’s what’s wrenching society apart,” journalist and psychologist George Monbiot suggests that the brutal competition and pressure students are put under in the education systems of industrialized countries is creating lonely people.

“Human beings, the ultrasocial mammals, whose brains are wired to respond to other people, are being peeled apart.

Economic and technological change play a major role, but so does ideology,” Monbiot writes. “Though our wellbeing is inextricably linked to the lives of others, everywhere we are told that we will prosper through competitive self-interest and extreme individualism.”

Neoliberal societies, as Monbiot explains, are those that see competition as the defining characteristic of human relations.

At McGill, this extreme individualism—which prioritizes the success of the individual above the community and fosters extreme loneliness—is ingrained into the culture of the

groups and initiatives like intramural sports teams, Midnight Kitchen, and SSMU minicourses—it is difficult to counteract the institutionalized forms of loneliness at university. For Ines Dubois, U3 Arts, first-year residences are a clear example of this.

“The residences do a good job at fostering communities, but their prices are inconvenient,” Dubois said. “Only people that can afford over $1,000 per month get to make friends, and that’s not right.”

Dubois draws attention to the fact that at McGill, the lack of community spaces on campus turns connection into an experience that is inaccessible to students without the financial means. Currently, for students who live at home or in independent off-campus housing, loneliness is a very real concern.

Even for those students who can afford the rez experience, the loneliness that is ingrained in McGill’s landscape creates a marginalizing process of maturation that often lets students fall through the cracks. However, the reality is that student life at McGill is not very different from how the real world functions, and independence can also yield unexpected gifts.

“The older you get [as an individual], the fewer institutions there are that try and help you,” Kraicer reflected. “I think that the experience of growing up is one of learning how to understand and navigate loneliness.”

Like many people, Kraicer says she has experienced her fair share of isolation. In fact, moments of aloneness seem to have become a given in our university setting. Yet, Kraicer is hopeful that there is something to be gained by being exposed to loneliness. She points to the fact that university provides students with a wealth of opportunity to forge meaningful relationships outside the institution.

“The optimistic part of me hopes that the connections that Academic competition at McGill isolates students, trapping them in the library. you make that you have to work at, the ones you make when (Cordelia Cho / The McGill Tribune) you’re older […] are more meaningful than the ones you make lack of community spaces on campus and common rooms in when you’re in elementary school,” Kraicer said. “I hope that residences. For example, a singular common room is made for the farther I get from being told how to do this, the more I’ll 200 students to socialize in each of the upper residences, and be able to do this for myself, and I’ll know how to do it in an doors that close and lock automatically in La Citadelle and New individual way that works for the communities I want to build, Residence Hall. The spaces first years are welcomed into in the and the communities I need.”

Solitude or time enjoyed by oneself should not be equated first week of September are, at the level of their construction, far from welcoming. This trend continues beyond first year with loneliness, per se. However, there are preventative measures institutions. Many buildings on campus, including the SSMU, students can take when alone time begins to turn into feelings of disconnection. Whether it’s making recurring dinner plans with are not conducive to social interaction.

“I think the institution, just from its very architecture, creates roommates or family, scheduling regular mental health checkloneliness,” Noah Witte-Winnett, U4 Arts, said. “Literally, the ups, or simply asking friends how they’re doing and really spaces that exist within the university for people to get together listening to their response, Kraicer notes that the only way to are terrible, like the Madeleine Parent room has heaters that can combat loneliness is through active connection. In this way, a be so loud you won’t hear what people are saying. The SSMU period of loneliness can be a formative experience.

Although individualism and competitiveness are intrinsic building in general—there is a whole fourth floor I didn’t know to the university campus, the students that populate it are also about, with clubs up there.”

Although students try their best to counteract the austere intrinsically social beings. The conflict this creates is at the root geography of campus—there are incredibly well trained floor of loneliness, but it can also provide the fertile ground in which fellows in each residence, and the active presence of social meaningful communities flourish. university. Entry-level class sizes can enroll up to 1,000 people, and students often feel pressured to study before socializing in order to keep up with their classmates. McGill’s academically rigorous setting pits students against each other and the bell curve.

“Usually my friends spend approximately the same amount of time studying as I do, so I don’t need to choose between studying and socializing” Gabrielle Trzcinski, U4 Engineering, said. “However, during busy weeks I sometimes need to prioritize studying over socializing, which can make me feel left out or lonely, and can also add to the stress of trying to get things done on time.”

The competitive nature of university is built into the institution’s landscape. Students are quick to point out the

student living

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

12

The many urban legends of McGill residences

The truth behind tales of fires, ghosts, and Hell’s Angels told to students in Rez

McGill’s old buildings inspire many a cautionary tale. (Noah Sutton / The McGill Tribune)

Janine Xu & Miguel Principe Contributors From the Upper Rez residents complaining about the hill to the hotel-style residents’ habit of locking themselves out, each McGill residence has its own atmosphere and annoyances.

One of the few things they share in common are the urban legends that any first-year student living in residence has heard. These widely shared myths—be it a cautionary tale told by floor fellows during the first floor meeting of the year, or simply the spread of a good story— keep residents on their toes while also teaching a lesson or two.

New Rez Fire: Candle in the wind, the curtain, and, well, everything else

One commonly heard story among students who lived in Rez is that of a first year girl who forgets to blow out a candle in her room before leaving. The candle lights her curtains on fire, setting off the sprinklers and flooding three floors, after which she supposedly drops

out of McGill, never to be seen again.

“The way I heard it was from my floor fellow,” said Alex Levesque, U3 Science and a floor fellow at New Rez. “[As the story goes], she had a single room, and her boyfriend would come over a lot. One time, [...] they decided to light a candle to set the mood, and [it lit up] the curtain, which instantly set the sprinklers off.”

It’s a story oft-repeated, and for good measure, too: According to Levesque, first-years frequently tend to set off the sprinklers. With no real fire, sprinkler systems can cause extensive damage to property. “[Supposedly] it soaked through her room, and probably two or three floors,” Levesque said. “That caused [...] $200,000 in [damages], but they said she did drop out [...] partially because of the money, but [also] because people were rude to her after that.”

This story is alarming, indeed.

The cautionary tale is used by all floor fellows, but actual details differ from residence to residence, raising questions about its validity. Alison Gu, U2 Science

student and floor fellow at Douglas Hall, remembers the story quite differently from Levesque.

“From what I understand, [...] she was taking a bath, [so] she lit a candle.

[It] was not in her bathroom so she didn’t realize, and it caught everything on fire. [....] She had to pay for the damages, and was in debt for $300,000 [and] had to drop out of McGill,” said Gu. To residence leadership, the story’s level of merit isn’t important; rather, their goal with this story is to prevent first years from accidentally activating the sprinkler system. It’s also an attempt to discourage students from intentionally setting off the fire alarm, although judging by the amount of times the alarm has gone off in New Rez this past month—five in total, and twice in one night—perhaps a scarier urban legend might just do the trick.

Hell’s Angels: Weeding out the competition

As if the story of Candle Girl wasn’t terrifying enough, another urban legend from Rez involves the Hell’s

Angels. The quintessential story that floor fellows tell to dissuade people from selling drugs in residence, is one that has sent shivers down the backs of new students for years.

“The way my floor fellow [told the story] was there was this drug dealer in Gardner [who] kept coming home to find pictures of himself taped to his door, and then one day he came in [to] find [members] of Hell’s Angels sitting in his room, and his furniture [...] slashed with [knives]. They threatened him [to get him] to stop [selling drugs on their turf],” Levesque said.

The story varies with different degrees of extremity depending on the person telling it. Levesque also recounted another version he heard in which the student was dangled by his feet from the window by Hell’s Angels, although Levesque admitted this version of the tale is probably ridiculous.

There is another version of the legend in which pictures of the student were taped to his window—a more intrusive detail than his door. Another describes how the Angels posted personal pictures of the student on his Facebook wall. Nevertheless, whatever version of the tale, the moral is to avoid selling drugs in McGill residences.

Douglas Hall: The haunted house on the hill

Douglas Hall is known to be McGill’s most haunted residence, simply because of its age and architectural style. Built in 1937 during the Great Depression era, Douglas Hall, with its ancient cobblestone structure,

resembles that of a Victorian mansion out of a horror film. It comes as no surprise that this residence comes with a few stories—some likely invented by floor fellows to scare first years, while others perhaps containing a grain of truth.

One such story is the existence of a ghost living within the walls of Douglas Hall. Although its origins are unknown, its presence can be felt throughout.

“My floor fellow in my first year [...] fully believed that there was a [...] ghost, but it was apparently friendly,” Gu said. “There was somebody who had a plant, and they put the plant outside to get some sunlight and it disappeared. He thought somebody had stolen it and he made a post [on Facebook] about it. [Eight months later] he found it in the basement somewhere, and it was dead. People were like, ‘Oh, the Douglas ghost!’”

While the presence of this ghost in Douglas is up for debate, the story likely originated in the general spooked feeling that residents have while walking through the building’s old halls. “[The ghost rumours are] probably because [Douglas was] built so long ago and seems to have more character [...] than the other residences, and it can be really creepy at night,” Gu explained. “I don’t know what it is, but it is just spooky.”

If one does believe in the legend of the ghost of Douglas Hall, there’s no reason to worry. It seems to be relatively friendly, despite occasionally stealing students’ plants.

Recipe: Pumpkin three ways

Fall treats made with leftover parts of any pumpkin

Eloise Haliburton Contributor One glance at the trees on Mount Royal is enough to know that fall is here. The most cozy season of the year has arrived, signaling students to unpack their sweaters, pull out their toques, and enjoy the beautiful colours of fall before winter sets in. One key autumnal staple in both diet and home décor is the pumpkin. Whether used for pies or jack-o’-lanterns, there always seems to be some part of the pumpkin carelessly tossed into the compost. However, what may have otherwise been thoughtlessly thrown away can actually be saved and used to make a delicious snack.

To solve your pumpkin waste problems, The Tribune has compiled three new recipes to make the most out of all of your next pumpkin. Carve the top off like you would with a jack-o’lantern, then separate the seeds, flesh, and skin into three bowls.

Make sure the seeds are clean of pumpkin innards.

toasted pumpkin seeds Like sunflower seeds, but better.

This is a tasty, easy recipe that you can really make your own. Any kind of spices work to season the pumpkin seeds, so get creative!

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F/177° C. 2. Take your cleaned seeds and spread them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

3. Generously sprinkle the seeds with garlic salt, or any other spice mix you like, then bake for 30-45 minutes, shaking occasionally. By the end, the seeds should be dried and crunchy. Let cool, or enjoy right away!

Recipe from Allrecipes.com

pumpkin crisps For this recipe, it’s important to thoroughly wash your pumpkin. You’re going to be eating the skin, so try to remove any dirt and blemishes.

1. Preheat your oven to 400° F/205° C. 2. Cut the pumpkin skins into long thin slices. The thinner the slice the better, since they will curl up when you cook them.

3. Put the skins in a bowl and liberally sprinkle with salt. Toss the strips, then let them sit for 10 minutes.

4. Add a small amount (1 tablespoon, give or take) of olive oil, and toss the skins again. Bake them on a baking pan lined with parchment paper for 25-30 minutes, then serve with soup or your dip of choice.

fall day. Here’s what you need: 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour 1 ½ cups white sugar 1 cup canned or fresh pumpkin puree 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon groud nutmeg 2 cups icing sugar ½ teaspoon ground cloves 3 tablespoons milk 1 tablespoon melted butter ½ teaspoon salt

Recipe from Homegrownfun.com

glazed pumpkin cookies These are the best pumpkin cookies you will ever taste. Though this recipe is a bit more complicated than the former recipes, it is still quite easy to make. The texture of these cookies is simultaneously chewy and melt-in-your-mouth, and goes perfectly with a cup of tea on a rainy

1 tablespoon melted butter ½ cup butter, softened

1. Preheat the oven to 375° F/191° C. 2. Cut the skinned pumpkin in half and place face down on a lined baking tray.

3. Cook for 1 to 1 ½ hours, or until tender.

4. Remove the pumpkin from the oven and mash the flesh in a bowl. If you’re finding it’s a bit stringy, run it

through a sieve for smooth pumpkin puree.

5. Once you have that out of the way, get started on the cookies.

6. First, preheat your oven to 350° F/177° C. 7. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt. In a separate bowl, cream the ½ cup of butter and white sugar. Add the pumpkin, egg, one teaspoon of vanilla extract to the butter, and beat until smooth.

8. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients until they are thoroughly combined.

9. Drop spoonfuls on a lined cookie sheet. Flatten slightly and bake for 15-20 minutes.

10. While the cookies are cooling, make the glaze. Combine the icing sugar, milk, melted butter, and the remaining vanilla. If the mixture is too thick, add milk as needed. Once the cookies have cooled, drizzle the icing over each one with a fork and enjoy!

Recipe from Allrecipes.com

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

science & technology 13

Reaching the limits of the human lifespan

Maximum to how long humans can survive may be encoded in our genetics

Andy Wang Staff Writer The longest any human being has ever lived was 122 years. Jeanne Calment of France, who rode a bicycle until age 100, passed away in 1997. Since then, no one has been recorded to live past 120 years.

A paper published in the Oct. 2016 issue of Nature claims to have found a limit to the human lifespan. The researchers compared the death of the oldest person against calendar years and found that the rate of maximal lifespan growth seems to have hit a plateau.

These results are consistent with the idea that the limit of an organism’s lifespan is encoded in its genetics. For example, fruit flies live for about 40 days, while the Giant Galapagos Tortoise can live for over 170 years. The imposition of a genetic constraint on maximum lifespan may also apply to humans.

However, the exact mechanisms of the aging process are still unclear, though many theories exist. From a physical perspective, the “general wear and tear” mechanism states that aging is the phenomenon of overuse, in the same sense as old cars accumulate problems as their mileage increases.

In the case of progeria—an extremely rare genetic disorder where patients age eight to ten times faster than the normal aging process—general wear and tear damage, such as

cataracts and osteoarthritis, is not observed. While overuse is likely a contributing factor to aging, there are other genetic influences at play.

energy—cells produce unstable modecules called free radicals resulting in harmful oxidation.

Free radicals are incredibly reactive and can cause extensive

production.

There is some good news when it comes to aging. Globally, the average human lifespan is rising over two years per

Researchers have found a theoretical limit to the maximum human lifespan. (Madeline Kinney / The McGill Tribune) Another theory of aging is genomic instability from mutations and DNA damage.

During cellular respiration—the process wherein cells derive their

damage to proteins and DNA. As more damage is incurred, there will be an increased likelihood of cancer and cell mutation arising from abnormal protein

decade. Better health care and nutrition improve the average life expectancy in developing and developed countries like the United States, Canada, and

Germany. There are also drugs going to clinical trial that target cellular aging pathways, which have demonstrated promising results in laboratory animals.

One such drug is metformin, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medication for the treatment of type II diabetes. The drug has slowed down the aging process in laboratory model organisms.

However, researchers will likely have a hard time receiving funding from pharmaceutical companies as metformin is a lowcost drug and therefore not very profitable.

As of now, there is only one agreed-upon method to slow down the aging process: Caloric restriction. In model organisms, restricting the caloric intake while still supplying essential nutrients such as iron and calcium, led to reproducible results that extended an organism’s maximum lifespan.

While the underlying mechanism of this process is still unclear, physiological changes such as increased insulin sensitivity, reduced metabolism and oxidation have been reported.

Dietary intake restriction is an area of intense research and could yield promising discoveries in the near future.

While it appears that the maximum amount of time any human being could stay on this planet is predetermined by DNA, there is also something to be said about the quality of these years: As the millennials say, “You Only Live Once.”

McGill announces new minor program in nanotechnology A look into the tiny materials that will make the biggest changes Miguel Principe Contributor

McGill’s Faculty of Engineering launched a new minor program this year that explores into the world of nanotechnology. It’s a relatively young field that focuses on nanomaterials—materials that have one dimension measuring 100 nanometres or less.

Nanomaterials are so tiny they often can’t even be seen under a microscope—in fact, a sheet of this newspaper is approximately 100,000 nanometers thick!

Types of nanomaterials are further broken down to carbonbased, metal-based, dendrites—a polymer chain of nanoparticles— and composites—combination of nanoparticles with other

materials. These nanomaterials have a wide variety of characteristics such as unique thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties.

Matter of this small scale has made big changes to the world around us. A report published in 2010, titled Nanotechnology Research Direction for Societal Needs in 2020 , estimates around $2.6 trillion USD worth of products will incorporate nanotechnology by 2020.

Nanotechnology is already incorporated in many consumer products. For example, most sunscreen now contains titanium oxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles because they are more effective at absorbing UV rays than larger particles.

Other skin care products, such as anti-aging creams, contain

lipid nanostructures, which are biocompatible and can transport chemicals into our cells more effectively.

Nanotechnology enhances the production of smartphones and laptops, as it can create computer chips capable of reaching higher processing speeds, resulting in faster and more affordable electronics.

There are even nanomaterial paints that are water-resistant, bacteria-resistant, and scratchresistant.

Even more innovations are expected to come into a wide variety of consumer products in the future.

“Nanomaterials are going to be very prominent in our everyday lives,” Assistant Professor Nathalie Tufenkji, of McGill’s Department of Chemical Engineering, said.

“We’re incorporating these materials into our everyday consumer products [...] we’re putting these materials on our skin, [...] in our paints, and electronics that we are contacting everyday.”

The new engineering minor program aims to introduce undergraduates to techniques in nanomaterial characterization and detection, as well as nanomaterial synthesis and processing. These concepts will be covered in courses such as Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Supramolecular Chemistry, and Design and Manufacture of Microdevices.

Tufenkji, along with Professor Peter Grutter in the Department of Physics were instrumental in organizing

this program.

The minor is interdepartmental and includes courses in physics and engineering.

“Of course there’s a flipside on how do we best develop nanotechnology to [...] take advantage of its promise,” Tufenkji said. “One of the questions [...] is what are the potential impacts on our health and environment of nanomaterials?”

Tufenkji believes it is important that Canada has scientists and engineers that are educated in emerging scientific concepts and cuttingedge technology.

Giving undergraduate students exposure to nanotechnology research early in their studies is a good stepping stone for further investigation into the evolving field.

14 science & technology

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Duck hunting

Trottier Symposium on Science and the Media takes on a hunt for pseudoscience quacks Cassandra Lee Contributor Today it might be bacon, but tomorrow it could be avocados; the public has a macabre obsession with searching for things that may kill us. In the Age of Anxiety, it’s easy to get lost in all the opinions thrown around as fact in the media. The Lorne Trottier Symposium series is held annually by McGill’s Office for Science and Society (OSS). This year, the series focused on Science and the Media: The Challenge of reporting science responsibly.

Oct. 17 featured four keynote speakers—all journalists situated right in the heart of the struggle between science and the public’s understanding of it.

Dr. Joe Schwarcz, director of the OSS and moderator of the Trottier Symposium, began the evening by painting a picture of science communication in 2016.

With the public facing more media channels than ever before—from Twitter to podcasts, bloggers to Buzzfeed—people have seemingly infinite resources to turn to when in search of answers.

As an unfortunate consequence, the consumer is left to decide for themselves if gluten makes them fat or sunscreen gives them cancer. With so many outlets of information, some are bound to be less accurate than others.

One of the more prevalent problems discussed by Schwarcz is how non-experts handle data differently science researchers.

Someone may take, for example, the rise of autism and vaccinated children and assume a causal relationship. The rise in autism also correlates with the rise of organic health food consumption, but that does not mean one causes the other.

Julia Belluz, a science writer at Vox, explained the responsibility that the media has for effectively and honestly communicating complicated science.

Primary scientific literature is largely inaccessible to the public and therefore scientific journalists must act as the interpreters, relaying true information to patients and policymakers alike.

Belluz’s presentation, “The Dr. Oz problem,” discussed how journalists should handle the “quackery” being sold by media sources, fitness bloggers, and some real medical professionals.

Picking out biases in information, finding conflicts of interest, and critically analyzing situational information were all ways in which journalists and informed members of the public could become “BS detectors” in order to bring down those who misinterpret scientific facts.

Erica Johnson from CBS

The 2016 Lorne Trottier Symposium focused on the media’s responsibility in communicating interesting and faithful science to the public. (Justine Touchon / The McGill Tribune)

News runs a segment called Go Public in which she and her crew take on modern controversies first hand by visiting holistic health centres and other public science sources in an effort to distinguish truth from non-researched “science” claims.

In her presentation, Johnson discussed the role that the internet plays in awarding false credibility to sources that have not been properly fact-checked. As curious people invest more time into their own health and safety, the internet can be dangerous without a healthy dose of critical thinking.

Even then, it’s difficult to weed through what is true and what is not.

Johnson does not come from a science background nor does she believe one is absolutely necessary to be a science journalist.

Nevertheless, she agrees that thorough research is vital in order for science writers to act as translators between the jargon-filled world of science and the general public.

At the end of the first evening of presentations, it was clear that both the attendees of the Trottier Symposium and the accomplished speakers are in for a long season of “quack hunting.” In a complicated game of broken telephone from scientific research to the screens of the public, the truth is easily lost along the way.

To lie or not to lie: That is the question for growing children

Awareness of morality becomes more complex with age Erin Dwyer Contributor Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology Professor Dr. Victoria Talwar remembers that when she was a child, her mother mistakenly replaced salt with sugar in a blueberry pie. Her friend, who had stayed for dinner, was the first to eat the pie. She ate the entire slice, bite by bite, without spitting it out in disgust.

She didn’t say a word and waited for others to try the disaster themselves.

Talwar’s friend told a lie. Was this wrong and should she have been punished? It depends on the age of who you ask.

As the lead author, Talwar recently published a study in the International Review of Pragmatics which found that as children’s cognitive abilities progress with age, so does their ability to think critically about the lies they tell and the consequences.

Talwar and her team showed children, aged six to twelve years old, short vignettes depicting a protagonist puppet telling a lie or truth about their own behaviour or another character’s. The puppet either lied to

cause harm to another character, lied to protect another character, or told a truth to report another character’s behaviour—commonly known by children as “tattling.”

“We were interested in not only whether they thought different statements were lies or truths, but how they would evaluate them and if these lies should be punished or rewarded,” Talwar said.

The study found that children understand from a young age that lying is wrong and telling the truth is right. This binary notion often continues until approximately age nine, when things begin to get more complex. Although they still believe lying is wrong, older children don’t solely take the lie at face value, but also consider the intentions behind the lie.

In addition to assessing children’s lying behaviour, her research team collected information on the role parents play in the development of lying versus truth-telling.

“Research with adults tells us that they are telling a couple of lies a day, and some of these are to their kids,” Talwar said. “It’s the classic case of wanting to leave the grocery store, but

your kids want potato chips. You tell them that the store has none left as an easy way to get them to leave.”

Children hear and see their parents acting in a hypocritical fashion all the time. For example, telling a telemarketer you’re just a house guest or lying about your children’s age to get into a museum for free.

The notion of conditional lying can be confusing to children.

Although Talwar realizes most children were found to have a clear understanding of what is a punishable lie—to harm others—and what is an admissible one—to protect others— many situations are ambiguous.

In the case of tattling, this ambiguity can have significant implications.

“Younger children saw black and white, while older children saw more conflict because, although they are telling the truth, someone else is landing in hot water,” Talwar explained. “As a result, they were much less likely to reward this form of truth-telling behaviour than younger children [....] We want children to feel like they can tell us about other people’s transgressions, especially if it involves bullying.”

Children’s perceptions of tattling and lying become more nuanced with they grow older. (mcgill.ca) As a result of the study, Talwar contends that parents should have more in-depth discussion with children about lying and the intentions behind lies as early as the age of six. By that time, Talwar argues, children have

developed a strong theory of mind and lying behaviour emerges. She predicts that discussing the idea that lying has many shades of grey will help children make better decisions about when to lie and when to tell the truth as adults.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

SPORTS 15

2016/17 NBA Season Preview

By Wasif Husain, Joe Khammar, Weiyu Dang, Gabriel Rincon, Zikomo Smith, and Arman Bery

Eastern CONFERENCE

WESTERN CONFERENCE

SOUTHEAST Division

SOUTHWEST Division

ATLANTA HAWKS

Replacing Al Horford with Dwight Howard is a downgrade both on and off the court. Howard is no longer a top-tier centre and has been nothing but a headache for his coaches and teammates in recent seasons. With the transition to the flashy and mercurial Dennis Schroder as point guard, growing pains will be inevitable. The Hawks will struggle at times, endure a handful of Dwight-mares, but ultimately still have the pieces in place to sneak into the playoffs in a top-heavy Eastern Conference.

CHARLOTTE HORNETS

Despite last season’s optimism—when the team almost won fifty games and pointguard Kemba Walker evolved into a stud—the Hornets now lack depth following the departures of quality backup Jeremy Lin and the gritty Courtney Lee. Adding Roy Hibbert and Ramon Sessions would have helped the team in 2012, but it is not 2012, and the Hornets will regress. Michael Jordan will again be disappointed as Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers will trample his team if they manage to make the playoffs.

WASHINGTON WIZARDS

Aiming for backcourt stability, the Wizards gave Bradley Beal an undeservedly monster-sized contract–underappreciated point-guard John Wall says he’s not jealous.

The two guards make up the Wizards’ backcourt, but with Beal’s streaky shooting, this duo might have a strenuous relationship. Without adding any legitimate starters, Washington is stalling and shouldn’t improve from last year’s .500 record, falling short of the playoffs and wasting another year with Wall’s affordable contract on the books.

TORONTO RAPTORS

With a bevy of young talent, the Celtics have finally left obscurity and returned to form as NBA Finals contenders. Under the tutelage of Head Coach Brad Stevens, Boston has become an attractive place for marquee free agents. In a topheavy Eastern Conference, the addition of Al Horford will probably help them eclipse Toronto for the top spot in the Atlantic and the second seed in the Eastern Conference come playoff time.

The Raptors have the tough task of trying to top the Celtics for their fourth straight Atlantic Division championship.

Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan have shown that they can carry a team to the playoffs, but they still lack that last piece to bring them to the NBA finals. If they can trade for another superstar, they might be able to break the Cleveland Cavaliers’ two-year streak as Eastern Conference champions.

NEW YORK KNICKS If we could turn back the clock by six years, the Knicks’ current roster would challenge this season’s Golden State Warriors on superstar-power alone. Unfortunately, Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, and Carmelo Anthony are all well past their NBA primes. Although Rose and Noah could see their roles reduced this year, they should help the development of sophmore big Kristaps Porzingis as he transitions into a bonafide star. However, expect the Knicks to once again be a middling team this year.

CENTRAL Division

CLEVELAND CAVALIERS Winning back-to-back championships is one of the greatest achievements in sports. The Cavs shouldn’t have any issues with the pressure this season.

They didn’t make any flashy moves this summer, but they remain the class of the Eastern Conference by a considerable margin. Barring injuries, Cleveland will be right back in the NBA Finals this year–LeBron James’ seventh in a row.

INDIANA PACERS The Pacers had a busy off-season acquiring veteran players and finding a potential franchise pillar in sophomore centre Myles Turner. Forward Paul George is one of the league’s five best players and will push the high calibre attack offence.

Head Coach Nate McMillan has the depth to rotate nine or ten players on a nightly basis.

A second or third playoff seed is a realistic possibility.

It’s hard to bet against San Antonio’s coaching staff, but the departures of the legendary Tim Duncan and versatile Boris Diaw have weakened the Spurs’ standing in the Western conference. They will still be a high-seeded contender, but their defence will regress with an ancient roster and reportedly unhappy LaMarcus Aldridge. Expect Kawhi Leonard to be in the MVP discussion and the Spurs to lose in the second round of the playoffs.

MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES

Memphis is in basketball purgatory. They are good enough to scrape into the playoffs behind the indestructable Mike Conley, the dynamic Chandler Parsons and the excellent Marc Gasol; however, their thin squad is only an injury away from catastrophe and they rely too heavily on ground-and-pound, unathletic big men. Until Memphis commits to better three point shooting, they will never go deep into the playoffs.

DALLAS MAVERICKS

The Mavericks are one of the most intriguing teams in the NBA. If Harrison Barnes overcomes his stage fright, Wes Matthews returns to his gunslinging best, and Andrew Bogut provides the best rim-protection since the Tyson Chandler days, Dallas could go deep in the playoffs. However, those are big ifs. The Mavericks should be content with a mid-seed finish and a second round playoff performance in the twilight of Dirk Nowitzki’s career.

PACIFIC DIVISION

ATLANTIC Division

BOSTON CELTICS

SAN ANTONIO SPURS

(usatoday.com)

GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS Last year, the Warriors’ four perimeter all-stars had shooting percentages of 38.7, 38.8, 42.5, and 45.4.

Anybody who questions their ability to win based on a lack of size or rim protection should refer to those aforementioned percentages. Furthermore, adding Kevin Durant to a team that’s already a perennial championship contender is a scary thought. Pencil in the Warriors atop the Pacific Division, the Western Conference, and the NBA.

LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS Blake Griffin punching a team assistant was symbolic of the frustration of the Clippers’ 2015-2016 season. The same core group returns this year with the addition of Mo Speights and Brandon Bass on the bench, but once again this team will only go as far as their big three can take them. Griffin should have a major bounceback year and guide the Clippers to a top three finish in the Western Conference.

SACRAMENTO KINGS Rudy Gay described the Kings succinctly: “Basketball hell.” Owner Vivek Ranadive and General Manager Vlade Divac are the most puzzling and groan-inducing front office duo in sports. One bright spot is that Sacramento hired a competent–albeit bristly– Head Coach in Dave Joerger and added some solid veteran players. However, the likely result is another disappointing, playoff-less season—something one should expect when Darren Collison is a starting point guard.

NORTHWEST Division

CHICAGO BULLS The Bulls made big splashes in the off-season, shipping away former-MVP Derrick Rose, then signing point-guard Rajon Rondo and hometown superstar Dwyane Wade. The days of trying to get past LeBron James in the playoffs seem long gone, as Chicago shifts their focus to just trying to make the postseason. Their inability to shoot will relegate the Bulls to a fringe playoff team.

Go to mcgilltribune.com/sports to read about the other 12 teams in our NBA preview and check out a new edition of The McGill Tribune Sports Podcast with Raptors analyst Paul Jones. We discuss what to expect from the NBA and the Raptors this year and the one player to start an NBA franchise with.

PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS

MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER

With one of the league’s best starting backcourts, Portland could make a splash this season. Point guard Damian Lillard doesn’t receive enough appreciation around the league and will be on a tear this year trying to establish himself as one of the game’s best. The Blazers didn’t make many moves in the off-season aside from overpaying for Evan Turner and Allen Crabbe, but they didn’t lose anyone either. Don’t be surprised if they win the division.

The Timberwolves will be one of the most exciting teams to watch this season.

Karl Anthony-Towns and Andrew Wiggins are two of the league’s best young players, and Zach Lavine is an athletic freak. Don’t forget that new Head Coach Tom Thibodeau was Derrick Rose’s coach when he won an MVP at just 22 years old. He might be the perfect coach to lead this young, athletic team to a dark horse playoff run.

Oklahoma will take the biggest step back of any team this season due to the exit of their former MVP Kevin Durant.

When they lost Durant to injury two years ago, Russell Westbrook was unstoppable on the court, but he couldn’t will his team into the playoffs–the likely outcome this season. Look for Westbrook to compete for MVP, but don’t bet on much more from the Thunder.

16 sports

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

In conversation with Laurent Duvernay-Tardif

Right guard for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs doubles as a medical student at McGill Duvernay-Tardif certainly doesn’t take it for granted.

“This year, the biggest difference is my understanding of the game [....] I’m able to see the defence as a whole and understand the concept and what they’re trying to accomplish.

This comes from film studies,” Duvernay-Tardif said.

“The biggest part of preparation and training [for football] is done in the classroom. In this regard, medical school has prepared me for those challenges.”

Nicole Spadotto Staff Writer Continued from page 1.

For most athletes, a sports scholarship is their window into an education—but for DuvernayTardif, it was the opposite. For the first three years of his McGill career, Duvernay-Tardif primarily played football as a reprieve from medical school. Even so, scouts soon started to take notice of his apparent talent and competitive spirit.

“People were telling me I had a lot of potential, but maybe I didn’t realize it at the time,” Duvernay-Tardif explained.

An emphasis on gathering advice and support from his close network has informed much of Duvernay-Tardif’s football career, the beginnings of which were a family affair. He speaks fondly of his parents, who took him on a yearlong sailboat trip when he was still in high school.

When CFL and NFL teams began expressing interest in DuvernayTardif, he hired his best friend from CEGEP–who was in law school at the time—to be his agent because it was his friend’s dream to represent pro-athletes. Mostly, he is incredibly grateful for the

Poutine or barbeque: “Poutine.”

Plateau or Old Port: “Plateau, just because I feel it’s more authentic and [there are fewer] tourists.”

flexibility McGill has afforded him in allowing him to pursue his medical school and professional football dreams concurrently.

“We [The Dean of Medicine, Dr. David Eidelman and I] planned that I was going to be able to do four months a year of medical school during the off-season and be in the States practicing and playing football for the rest of

McGill medical student and Kansas City Chief’s’ right guard Laurant Duvernay-Tardif. (lactualite.com) the year,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “[My] end goal is to be on the football field with a degree from McGill.”

“Medical school really helped me with the way I approach football. It’s really strategic [… it has] helped me to be a student of the game,” Duvernay-Tardif explained. “And the other way around, when you come back from

playing a full season in the NFL, it gives you a great perspective […] it helped me put value on teamwork in the hospital […] and learning how to lose those battles and turn the page and learn from it without being destroyed mentally.”

The potential DuvernayTardif displayed as a Redmen has earned him a role as a starter in the NFL. It took a lot of work and

Favourite place on campus: “Thompson House. After our exams at medical school, we would go there and have a beer and decompress and talk about the exam. That’s one of my best places to hang out on campus.”

Piece of advice he would give to others: “If you have a plan, take the proper action to make sure that plan can happen, and just go all out.”

From botched fields to grueling weekends, Martlet Field Hockey endures

The Martlet field hockey team suffers increased travel costs Joe Khammar Staff Writer Being a collegiate athlete at McGill is an enormous commitment.

Practices during the week and travelling for games on the weekend takes up a large block of student athletes’ schedules. However, the Martlet Varsity Field Hockey team experiences this reality at an extreme.

According to team captain Julia Rogers, each athlete paid $975 this season to play field hockey for McGill—the highest of any sports team at the university. This was a $325 increase in fees on previous years. “‘[The] price increase [to our team fee] happened because of a change in the league structure,” Rogers said. “The league has been structured such that the top four teams go to the OUA championship. This year, however, every team gets seeded. This means that we are travelling an extra four days that we weren’t last year.”

The field hockey regular season packs in 12 games from Sept. 24 to Oct. 23. The congested schedule also contained a two-day stretch when the team played four games—a true feat.

“When you play that many games in a weekend you have to be very mentally tough and to compartmentalize each individual game,” said

Rogers. “If you or the team has one bad game, you cannot let that affect the other three games you need to play.”

The Martlets also have to contend with only three substitutes on their team, forcing the upperclassmen to play entire games without rest or rehab. “[You have to] be prepared,” Rogers said. “You’re going to be sore and need to push through it.”

The team has so few substitutes available because they face geographical constraints in recruiting new talent.

They are the only field hockey team in the entire province of Quebec, and have little to no opportunities to bring in recruits and see them play.

“Field hockey is not that popular in Quebec,” third year Assistant Captain Catherine Friedman said. “Players who are genuinely interested in [playing at] a university level typically aren’t drawn to McGill.”

Most potential recruits are located outside of Quebec. While other varsity teams have the resources to recruit players from across the country, the cost of scouting trips combined with the time commitment for the team’s two unpaid coaches make the task next to impossible for the field hockey team—the only way would be to further increase the cost of the

team’s fee.

This year, the team lacks a suitable local practice field. The recent resurfacing of Forbes Field was supposed to include lines and marking for field hockey use. Unfortunately the lines that were made are largely wrong. For example, the 25 yard-lines are painted in the incorrect location.

Despite the error, McGill Athlet-

ics haven’t taken any steps to fix the markings or provide the field hockey team with an alternate field for practices and exhibitions.

“This is the first time that [news of the incorrectly marked field] has actually come to my attention,” Associate Director of Athletics and Recreation Philip Quintal said. “I’ll have to

look into this.”

The fact that McGill Athletics was unaware of this trouble only compounds the fact that the field hockey team faces unique difficulties.

And yet, the Martlet Field Hockey players soldier on, embracing a schedule and adversity beyond the average McGill athlete.

The Martlet Field Hockey team sports some of the mentally toughest athletes at McGill. (Photo courtesy of Julia Rogers)