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Tuesday, February 7,1 9 8 9
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Published by the Student's Society of McGill University
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Engineers keep on trik in '.....page 3 Dialogue Q u ébec.................... page 5 Sexual assault feature ...pages 7 to 9 La B ohèm e...............................page 11 McGill beats royal rivals .... page 13
Volume 8 Issue 18
G r a d u a t e s e c e s s io n v o t e t o p r o c e e d BY SU ZY C O STO M RHONDA YARIN
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At their Council Meeting on Febru ary 1, the Post Graduate Students’ Society(PGSS)voted to hold a mailballot referendum on the question o f continued graduate student member ship in the Students’ Society o f McGill University (SSMU). The referendum, to be conducted between February 21 and March 14, will ask graduate students, who are currently members o f SSMU, whether they want “the University to terminate graduate studentmembership in SSMU and stop collecting SSMU fees from graduate students.” The relationship between the PGSS and SSMU has been continuously strained in recent years. Two years ago, a graduate student referendum which gave the PGSS a “mandate to negotiate for autonomy from SSMU” was held, a sort of ‘sovereignty asso
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ciation’ arrangement. Despite subse quent negotiations and student refer endums, the issue has not been re solved to either group’s satisfaction. The upcoming referendum is the latest attempt by PGSS to deal with the prob lem. Interviews with SSMU President Nancy Côté, and PGSS President Lee Iverson revealed highly contrasting interpretations o f the issue at hand. To begin with, Iverson argued that the PGSS was “dragged into” the SSMU against its wishes. Côté, however, stated that “if one looked at the records from that time, there existed no min utes from Council or Senate meetings where graduate concern [of joining SSMU] was expressed.” Furthermore, Côté is not convinced that the ongoing PGSS dissatisfaction described by Iverson is shared by the majority o f graduate students. This is the reason she gives for the SSM U’s reluctance to grant the PGSS its inde
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o f s p e n d in g BY SARAH JOHNSON Despite a loss o f $8,000, the Arts and Science Undergraduates Society (A SU S)’s financial report for Nuclear Winter Week was ratified by council members last Wednesday. The handwritten report, which was presented to the council by Winter W eek co-ordinator P.J. Murphy, noted that $7,000 of the total loss had previ ously been guaranteed by the council to finance guest speakers, resulting in aremaining loss o f $ 1 , 0 0 0 that had not been expected. Specific expenses include $160 on cab fare for speakers, $ 1 0 0 on unex plained photocopies at Copieville, $1750 on newspaper ads, $160 on a movie camera rental and videos, and $ 1 0 0 on approximately ten movies. “There was a serious problem with spillage all week” commented ASUS President Jeremy Boal, in reference to the amount o f beer that was consumed without payment, or else given away by workers at the events. He attributes this to the low number o f ASUS coun cil members working at events. “Eve rybody thinks someone else is going to do it, so there were a lot o f people working who weren’t ASUS, and everybody who worked was drunk. There was one roadie who took 18 beers.” Boal says that the amount o f money that was lost due to spillage cannot be estimated.
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“Our job isn’t to make a profit,” asserts Boal. He argues that the ASUS Council is elected to make decisions for constituents and that activities are planned to please them. Boal says that every faculty has a week-long winter carnival which attracts attention to the faculty and which is more effective than randomly held events. He ex plains that Nuclear Winter Week was scheduled to take place one week be fore S.S.M .U.’s Snowtime Winter Carnival because that was when the most ballroom dates were available. According to Boal, Nuclear Winter Week was planned on a “floating budget, meaning that w e have faith in our programme co-ordinators. There were very loose guidelines.” Refer ring to the council’s agreement to underwrite speakers, Boal says “We knew we wouldn’t be making a profit. You’re taking a gamble. W e’d never have any speakers if we had to worry about making a profit.” Co-ordinator P.J. Murphy claims that events were planned to represent the interests o f all students. “We could have Kraft dinner wrestling every night, but not everyone would be interested. Our speakers were serious. It was something which we thought many students would enjoy and benefit from.” He admits that low attendance may have been a problem, saying that he had been hoping for around 400 students for both speakers, while the average turnout was about250. Murphy
pendence from SSMU. She declares that that the PGSS “has never had a mandate to withdraw from SSMU.” Iverson considers SSM U’s motives to be purely monetary. Put simply, if au tonomy is achieved, graduate students will no longer be required to pay S SM U fees, according to Iverson. The issue o f money is in fact one of the main reasons why the PGSS wants autonomy from the SSMU. Presently, all McGill students pay the same SSMU fees, regardless o f whether they are graduate or undergraduate students. However, according to Iverson, a sur vey conducted two years ago proved that graduate students as a group did not use SSMU facilities and services to the same extent that undergraduate students did. Still, today, Iverson feels that gradu ate students are paying a “dispropor tionate amount” o f SSMU fees when compared to the benefits they gain. While they collectively pay an esti-
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s p illin g thinks that a reason for the poor turnout may be that the new pub Annie’s is now attracting the ballroom crowd. Still, he feels that the speakers were appreciated by those who came. “Just because they didn’t attract thousands doesn’t mean they weren’t a success.” Boal does not think that the atten dance was unsatisfactory. “I was hop ing that people would turn out and they did, and that made me happy. 400 people was P.J.’sprediction, notmine.” He does think that lack o f promotion may have had an impact, and that he would not again plan an event so close to the beginning o f the semester. In B oal’s opinion, the loss o f $8,000 is not unduly serious. Each arts and science student pays a ten dollar fee to the ASUS, giving the society an an nual budget o f $120,000. Says Boal, “We received $22,000 for program ming at the beginning o f the year and we haven’t spent nearly that much yet.” The budget presented to the Council did not include a full breakdown of expenditures and revenues for most events. Ticket prices and beer prices were not listed. Boal explains that everyone on the council knows what the breakdown is, adding that figures for the beer have not yet been worked out The report will be available for ref erence purposes for next year’s ASUS council.
mated $120,000 each year to SSMU, Iverson claims that graduate students use only $40,000 worth o f services. When questioned about the survey. Côté had a very different conclusion, stating that the “PGSS pays for what they use.” Iverson also contends that the SSMU and the PGSS do not share the same political concerns, and therefore, that autonomy is necessary for PGSS. He explains that many organizations who wish to gain information on student opinion atMcGill will go to the SSMU. In this way, the PGSS’s views, often substantially different from those of the SSMU, are “overlooked and com pletely disregarded.” Côté points out, however, that the PGSS is represented on the SSMU Council and therefore can take part in
the policy making process. Nonethe less, with only three seats on Council, Iverson argues that the PGSS is sub jected to the “tyranny o f the majority.” The other societies on the council represent undergraduate student con cerns. The bottom line is that Côté would like the PGSS to remain within the SSMU. She foresees a restructuring o f the SSMU Council which would in crease PGSS representation there. At the same time, however, Iverson be lieves that raising the level o f PGSS representation is “not enough.” The S SMU must recognize the “democratic right” o f graduate students to decide forthemselves whetherornot the PGSS will remain part of the larger SSMU. The forthcoming referendum will put the question directly to the students.
E n g in e e r s to v o te o n BY LINDA MILLER A referendum on the future o f the banned Plumbers’ Pot will be held in March, according to EUS President Peter Bissegger. The referendum could result in a decision to take the Pot underground. On November 17th, Dean o f Engi neering Pierre Belanger banned the publication and distribution o f the Plumbers' Pot on campus. At the time. Dean Belanger claimed that the Pot was “in bad taste,” and that he was “sick and tired o f the roller coaster ride.” Many other Canadian engineering papers similar in format to the Pot have ceased publication as well, due to pressure from the national organiza tion to “clean up engineering’s im age.” The Plumbers’ Pot, for those not familiar with it, was the subject of some intense debate during its exis tence. Much attention was brought to it from various groups at McGill, espe cially the Women’s Union, which decried the paper as “sexist and misogynistic.” The Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) has resolved to leave it up to the students to decide the future o f the controversial paper. Some have seen the Pot as a source of bad public ity for the engineers, and they are now in the process o f questioning whether or not they want the paper to return. Peter Bissegger, President of the EUS, feels that the Pot has overshadowed the good doings of the engineers; “W e’d be doing these great things for charity, but then the Pot issue would
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come out and everything good would go down the drain.” This will be Bissegger’s last term in office, and he feels from past experience that the Pot’s format needs serious reconsid eration. He also believes that many graduating engineering students hold the same opinion. There will be three choices pre sented to the engineers at the referen dum; to continue the publication, to discontinue the publication and have the funds redirected into the EUS, or to create a new publication without an emphasis on gender-based humour. However, if the referendum does pass EUS Council, the Pot will go underground and its format will carry on, with a whole new dimension: there will be no censorship, and it will be published independently of McGill, with no EUS funds alloted towards it. Bissegger says he will probably vote against the Pot’s reinstatement in the upcoming referendum, which will also include a vote on the new EUS consti tution. A new paper would be the best alternative, in his opinion: “We don’t mind being perceived as rowdy engi neers, cheering the football team, we kind o f like that, but we don’t like to be considered sexists.” Engineering students will examine both the good and the bad aspects o f the Plumbers' Pot and a decision will be rendered based on the outcome of the referendum along with the new EUS constitution. According to Phil Watts, editor of
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