The McGill Tribune Vol. 42 Issue 13

The McGill Tribune is immensely

Editors devoted

Editor-in-Chief Madison McLauchlan editor@mcgilltribune.com

Creative Director Anoushka Oke aoke@mcgilltribune.com

Managing Editors Sepideh Afshar safshar@mcgilltribune.com Matthew Molinaro mmolinaro@mcgilltribune.com Madison Edward-Wright medwardwright@mcgilltribune.com

News Editors

Lily Cason, Juliet Morrison & Ghazal Azizi news@mcgilltribune.com

Opinion Editors

Kareem Abuali, Leo Larman Brown & Valentina de la Borbolla opinion@mcgilltribune.com

Science & Technology Editors Mayuri Maheswaran & Russel Ismael scitech@mcgilltribune.com

Student Life Editors Abby McCormick & Mahnoor Chaudhry studentlife@mcgilltribune.com

Features Editor Wendy Zhao features@mcgilltribune.com

Arts & Entertainment Editors Arian Kamel & Michelle Siegel arts@mcgilltribune.com

Sports Editors Tillie Burlock & Sarah Farnand sports@mcgilltribune.com

Design Editors Mika Drygas & Shireen Aamir design@mcgilltribune.com

Photo Editor Cameron Flanagan photo@mcgilltribune.com

Multimedia Editors Wendy Lin multimedia@mcgilltribune.com

Web Developers Sneha Senthil & Oliver Warne webdev@mcgilltribune.com

Copy Editor Sarina Macleod copy@mcgilltribune.com

Social Media Editor Taneeshaa Pradhan socialmedia@mcgilltribune.com Business Manager Joseph Abounohra business@mcgilltribune.com

The McGill Tribune is an editorially autonomous newspaper pub lished by the Société de Publication de la Tribune, a student society of McGill University. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of The McGill Tribune and the Société de Publication de la Tribune, and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Letters to the editor may be sent to editor@mc gilltribune.com and must include the contributor’s name, program and year and contact information. Letters should be kept under 300 words and submitted only to the Tribune. Submissions judged by the Tribune Publication Society to be libellous, sexist, racist, homophobic or solely promotional in nature will not be published.

The Tribune reserves the right to edit all contributions. Editorials are decided upon and written by the editorial board. All other opinions are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the McGill Tribune, its editors or its staff.

Joseph Abounohra, Kareem Abuali, Yasmine El Dukar, Ella Gomes, Sequoia Kim, Shani Laskin, Kennedy McKee-Braide, Madison McLauchlan, Michelle Siegal, Sophie Smith

Staffing shortages led to temporary closure of McGill’s main sexual violence support service

OSVRSE services have been relocated to

Juliet Morrison News Editor

As a result of staffing shortages, McGill’s central sexual violence support service, the Office for Sexual Violence, Response, Support, and Education (OSVRSE), was forced to close temporarily during the Fall 2022 semester. All active cases were immediately transferred to the Office of the Dean of Students (ODoS), whose case managers have been trained to provide support to survivors and are prepared to assist both with academic accommodations and priority referrals to the Wellness Hub.

OSVRSE was created in 2016 as the central support service under McGill’s new Policy Against Sexual Violence. Since its inception, however, it has only been staffed by a maximum of three permanent employees at a time. During Summer 2022, after an employee went on leave, OSVRSE was down to one permanent staff member. According to sources interviewed by The McGill Tribune, OSVRSE was forced to close in early fall so the employee could catch up on the paperwork they were legally required to maintain for ongoing sexual assault cases.

Given that the ODoS has a student-centric mandate, Arts Senator Sam Baron is confident in its ability to support survivors in the interim. However, Baron is troubled by the lack of transparency which he believes comes from higher-ups in the senior administration. He told the Tribune that he only realized OSVRSE was closed after seeing that bookings were unavailable for the entire month of October.

“The [senior administration is] very risk-adverse and they don’t want McGill to get bad press regarding its resources for students who have experienced sexual violence, especially because OSVRSE is

the

of Students in the interim

the primary support mechanism,” Baron said. “But [...] I think it’s disingenuous to not tell students when resources have been moved through the university because these resources are so important.”

The Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS)—a volunteer-run organization that offers

commissioner, told the Tribune that after she was informed on Nov. 22, representatives from SSMU and SACOMSS met with the Dean of Students, Robin Beech, on Nov. 29, to clarify on OSVRSE’s website that its services had been rerouted to the ODoS. They also advocated for a public announcement to go out to the McGill community, which was sent out on Dec. 4.

While both Willard-Stepan and SSMU vice-president University Affairs Kerry Yang believe communication from the administration could have been improved, they stressed the importance of letting “bygones be bygones” and focusing on ensuring that survivors can continuously access support services.

“We’re trying to make sure the resources are as robust as possible before OSVRSE comes back, then we can transition to a period where OSVRSE can once again provide support at a much better capacity than before,” Yang said in an interview with the Tribune

support services for survivors—also takes issue with McGill’s lack of communication surrounding the change. A SACOMSS representative told the Tribune that they were only recently informed that OSVSRE responsibilities had been shifted to the ODoS.

“It is our hope that in the future, the McGill administration will proactively inform on-campus resource-referral services and the student body of any changes that may have a significant impact on survivors,” they wrote via email.

Since being notified of OSVRSE’s closure, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) and SACOMSS have been collaborating with the ODoS to reduce confusion for students seeking support. Maya Willard-Stepan, SSMU’s mental health

Over the coming months, OSVRSE will expand staffing from two to five permanent positions, with hiring currently underway. Although Willard-Stepan wishes OSVRSE was never in a position to close in the first place, she is glad McGill is taking the opportunity to revamp the office.

“I am really looking forward to working on rebuilding that relationship in the future,” Willard-Stepan said. “I’m really looking forward to meeting new caseworkers and ensuring that [...] [OSVRSE’s] structure is sustainable enough that this never happens again.”

Those in need of support for sexual violence at McGill can reach out to the Office of the Dean of Students to set up an appointment with a Case Manager by emailing deanofstudents@mcgill.ca or calling 514-398-4990.

employment conditions and academic precarity

Lily Cason News Editor

There have been mounting outcries over poor labour conditions at Canadian universities as instructors and organizations alike point to problems such as low pay, overwork, difficulty being promoted, and lacking job security, exacerbated by a rise in contract-based positions. McGill, according to some members of the university community, is not immune to this so-called ‘academic precarity.’

As of April 2022, 76.3 per cent of teaching staff at McGill were on contract—a category that includes course lecturers, faculty lecturers, and adjunct professors, among others—rather than being tenure-track. Further, salaries for non-unionized staff range

widely depending on faculty, program, and appointment. Salaries for unionized staff also vary according to these factors, but less so because they are regulated by collective agreements.

McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT) president Renee Sieber, an associate professor in both the Department of Geography and the Bieler School of Environment, believes that academia has become a “seller’s market” as more people attain PhDs and qualify for teaching positions. She finds that instructors, even tenure-track ones, are sensing rising instability in their positions.

“If they do feel [precarious], they have to be a lot more cautious, risk averse, just keep their heads down, and do their research and not speak up for say, issues of academic freedom [...] or dissent in other ways,” Sieber said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Or [they may feel that they] can’t do more service, like serve on committees, because if [they are] not trying to pump out research, you know, 80 hours a week, then [they are] going to be shown the door.”

Alexandra Ketchum, a faculty lecturer at McGill’s Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF), explained during an interview with the Tribune that faculty lecturers find themselves in a difficult position.

Ketchum brought up that women, racialized, and queer instructors often end up doing more ‘invisible’ work, such as servicing their department or advising students, which is critical but less valued than research by much of the academic community. When it comes time for pay raises or promotions, these individuals are often overlooked.

“There’s also an issue of respect and culture, in which there’s a way that non-tenure-track employees [...] are treated as less worthy of respect and are often treated as less legitimate scholars,” Ketchum said. “Academia is very hierarchical and very prestige based, and so there’s a culture that can undermine a lot of the contributions of non-tenure-track scholars.”

While some academic staff at McGill—including course lecturers, teaching assistants (TAs), and now professors in the Faculty of Law—are unionized and, thus, protected by collective agreements, the vast majority are not. Though organizations like MAUT exist to advocate for non-unionized teachers’ pay, benefits, and rights, they do not have the same negotiating powers as a union.

Emily Benoit, U2 Arts, thinks unionization would benefit not only staff, but students as well. She pointed out, however, that the university seems dedicated to keeping labour conditions as they are.

As of January 2022, 63.8 per cent of McGill’s 1,775 tenure-track faculty members were men and 36.2 per cent were women. (Elizabeth Flannery / The McGill Tribune)

“Faculty lecturers are eligible after their contract is renewed for more than six years for permanence, which provides some stability but it is not the same as tenure and does not come with sabbaticals and as much research support and so forth,” Ketchum said. “So, while there are some mechanisms for some forms of stability that don’t exist at other institutions, there is a gap and hierarchy in terms of how the institution treats employees, in terms of what kinds of financial and material support is offered.”

“I know that [with] the law profs, McGill threw everything they had at them to prevent them from unionizing. And that’s the law professors—they know the most legal stuff,” Benoit told the Tribune. “It makes all the other profs and all the other faculties [...] scared of unionizing because, you know, they can’t necessarily deal with that [....] It would be better for the students because [a union would bring] better working conditions for the profs. So happier profs, happier students.”

Office of

Dean

OSVRSE’s permanent staff members typically have decades of experience in providing sexual violence support. (Ilia Shareghi / The McGill Tribune)

Over three-quarters of McGill’s teaching staff are non-tenure-track

McGill instructors report inequitable

Cautious optimism for McGill unions as year closes on historic faculty unionization

Number of active collective agreements increased from one to seven this

Elena Lee Contributor

McGill stood for 200 years without a faculty-specific union until Nov. 8, when the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) was certified by the Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT) after a year-long litigation process. As another collective agreement (CA) negotiation is added to the overwhelmed McGill Human Resources (HR) docket, The McGill Tribune followed up on the status of labour unions across campus.

AMPL president Evan Fox-Decent told the Tribune that he is optimistic about maintaining positive relations if McGill “stays the course” by not deliberately delaying negotiations. For example, the administration has not challenged the TAT certification for judicial review, although it is within their legal rights to do so.

“I think [McGill] will be pleased to see that my colleagues don’t have unreasonable demands,” Fox-Decent said. “As much as it might seem like a radical move to unionize, for most of my colleagues, it’s being driven by a deep conservatism [that] cares about tradition”

McGill has recognized AMPL’s notice

to bargain, a written notice requesting the beginnings of collective bargaining, but remains under the viable legal timeframe to challenge the certification until Dec. 7. The first meeting, which was initially scheduled for Nov. 28 but cancelled on McGill’s end, will take place on Dec. 14. The Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) president James Newman finds the AMPL certification to be one of the biggest developments in McGill’s labour dynamics in recent years.

“AMPL is where the action is right now in terms of unions,” Newman said in an interview with the Tribune. “If they ultimately succeed, who knows what could be coming down for [labour] organization[s] at McGill?”

AMUSE has had its share of negotiatory struggles—after repeated stalemates at the bargaining table, floor fellows resorted to striking in March 2022. When members of AMUSE gathered to sign a finalized CA months later on Nov. 7, however, they found two McGill members were missing: One on holiday, the other absent without notice. Since all parties had to be present, the CA was ultimately signed on Nov. 16, two years after the previous contract had expired. Despite the lengthy process, Newman says the union is satisfied and optimistic now that the new CA is in effect.

“Obviously we can’t let relations between

Despite contestation from McGill and its legal representation, the Tribunal administratif du tra vail (TAT) found that AMPL surpassed all five of its legal criteria for certification as a bargaining unit. (Maeve Reilly / The McGill Tribune)

labour and management get too cordial, but I am pleased that McGill seems to be coming around to understanding our point of view on some key issues,” Newman said. “We’ll wait and see what they actually do, but so far I think these developments are positive.”

The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) has also seen

semester

advancements in their CA demands. After government-conciliated meetings on Sept. 6 and Oct. 31, McGill proposed a raise of 10.53 per cent to the current invigilator wages, which were frozen at $14.25 since their last raise in 2019. Wages are set to increase incrementally every May, bringing the hourly wage to $18.00 by 2025 with an additional six per cent vacation indemnity. The offer has since been ratified at the unit assembly held on Nov. 17 and will be included in the new CA.

AGSEM mobilization officer Kiersten van Vliet noted that these were not common raise rates; the previous annual raise had been 2.5 per cent. She hopes AGSEM’s headway can provide momentum for the other unions on campus, turning the administration’s concept of “internal equity” against them.

“In terms of the monetary wins we were able to make, I hope other employee groups are able to take that into account for their own negotiations,” van Vliet told the Tribune. “We can build incrementally on the wins of the previous unions, not just within the employee group but between the groups, so that McGill cannot justify keeping these wages artificially low. A win for one group can be a win for all groups at McGill.”

Out of 15 unions at McGill, seven have active CAs now, according to the university’s HR website.

McGill begins eighth participation in Hydro-Québec Peak Demand Management program

Sixteen buildings at downtown campus are enrolled in initiative to reduce energy use

Shani Laskin Staff Writer

McGill Facilities Management and Ancillary Services (FMAS) has announced that the university is once again participating in Hydro-Québec’s Peak Demand Management (PDM) program—marking its eighth year of participation—this winter. The state-owned energy corporation experiences periods of peak demand on especially cold days from December to the end of March, mostly in the mornings and evenings when people are likely to spend time in their homes. During these hours, Hydro-Québec encourages consumers, including universities like McGill, to use less energy.

Sixteen McGill buildings have protocols in place for peak

demand hours, such as reducing or turning off energy-intensive systems. According to Jerome Conraud, director of utilities and energy management at McGill, the university’s measures work to reduce demand on Hydro-Quebec’s grid, but do not necessarily reduce McGill’s overall energy consumption.

“Many buildings across McGill have back-up emergency generators [....] During PDM events, we transfer these loads to the generators so that they are no longer receiving power from the grid,” Conraud wrote in a statement to The McGill Tribune “This allows us to significantly reduce demand on HydroQuébec’s grid while minimizing impacts to operations within the building.”

For residential consumers, Hydro-Québec advertises a dynamic pricing system that offers discounts to individuals who reduce their energy use during peak demand hours. Similarly, McGill receives money from Hydro-Québec for its participation in the PDM program, which are then used to cover operational costs such as staff wages. The money also goes towards improving energy systems on campus, with any remaining funds allocated towards other energy-saving initiatives like investing in energyefficient infrastructure at McGill.

Donald Smith, a professor in the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (AES), believes that McGill’s incentive to participate in and advertise the PDM program is not purely environmental.

“There could be an economic incentive. There’s an overall environmental and social consideration around that, too, because if [energy usage] gets spread out [...] an entity like Hydro-Québec doesn’t have to go off and dam more rivers,”

Smith said. “I’m sure from McGill’s perspective, there’s a PR thing to it. I think they are generally trying to be conscientious about these things.”

While Hydro-Québec boasts 99 per cent renewable energy sources, McGill should still aim to reduce overall energy use according to professor and founding director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy Christopher Ragan.

“If we can [...] use less energy, then, first of all, we can save money by spending less on even clean electricity,” Ragan said. “But it also means that society then has more clean energy available. Because whatever Hydro-Québec is producing, if we use less of it, then there’s more available for other uses, including to displace dirty energy.”

McGill also limits the number of running elevators and electric heating units in certain buildings during the PDM period. Smith added that there are important trade-offs to be considered when decreasing energy usage campus-wide. He explained that while energy efficiency is crucial, McGill would receive negative feedback if those energy efficiencies interfered with accessibility essentials—for instance, having reliable elevator service.

Conraud stressed in his statement that McGill has other initiatives in place that aim to reduce energy use on campus as part of the university’s Climate and Sustainability Strategy.

“McGill has made major investments into reducing energy consumption,” Conraud said. “Since 2013 we have reduced our energy and carbon intensity by 15 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively, with many more projects ongoing and planned to further reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.”

In 2021-2022, McGill saved an average of 2,684 kilowatts per peak demand event. (Ilia Shareghi / The McGill Tribune)

Legislative Council approves motion for SSMU to oppose COP-15

Councillors debate support for unaffiliated political campaign

Wendy Zhao Features Editor

The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held its fifth and final Legislative Council meeting of the Fall semester on Dec. 1. Members passed a motion for SSMU to take a position against COP-15, a motion to approve a renewed version of the expired Free Menstrual Hygiene Products Policy, and a motion to donate $4,000 of winter clothing to Resilience Montreal. Throughout the meeting, members also raised concerns about the Student Support progress report.

Ajamu Attard, CEO of Student Support, a for-profit startup which provides students access to Calm, Grammarly, and Udemy through an opt-outable fee, reported that 36 per cent of the McGill student body have not opted out. The Student Support

fee is currently in a testing period of one year before it will be up for renewal in Winter 2023 for a five-year term. Attard told the Council that most of the funds the company receives from student fees are used to provide the three services, with a small portion being allocated towards marketing.

SSMU vice-president (VP) External Val Masny questioned whether the collected fees, which amounted to approximately $200,000 this semester according to Attard, was the best use of students’ money, suggesting it should alternatively be used to pay for psychologists. Attard argued that Calm offers a “different value” for students.

“I know for some students they start their journey with Calm, maybe they’re not comfortable going on the phone, or they just need to get something that they can instantly use to deal with whatever they’re going through,” Attard said.

Near the end of the meeting, Masny presented a motion for SSMU to take a position against COP-15, the 15th World Conference on Biodiversity which will be held in Montreal from Dec. 7 to 19. The motion obliges SSMU to encourage its members to mobilize against the summit and provide financial and non-financial support, such as a teach-in, for those who do so. It argues that the summit’s objectives fail to challenge the central role of states’ and corporations’ extractivism in the global decline in biodiversity and “the continued privatization of natural resources.”

During the debate period, Councillor Benson Wan, Councillor Emily Thom, and Councillor Sedami-Habib Djossou expressed concern about one of the clauses in the motion that would require to SSMU to support the “Coalition anticapitaliste et écologiste contre la Cop 15” as an unaffiliated political campaign.

Unlike affiliated political campaigns, unaffiliated campaigns have not received a mandate from either the Legislative Council, a Referendum, or a General Assembly.

“I have a little bit of hesitancy with supporting this coalition outright in all their numbers without knowing exactly what they’re currently doing and what they will do, especially if they are a public coalition,” Wan said.

“Perhaps the values are good, but […] [fucklacop15.org is] quite a provocative name for an advocacy group,” Thom added. Wan motioned to remove this clause, and the amended motion passed with 12 councillors in favour.

Moment of the Meeting:

In response to councillors’ concerns about affiliating SSMU with the Coalition against COP-15, VP External Val Masny asserted that the coalition is a central base of organizing against COP-15, noting that various student associations in and outside Montreal have offered sup port. They explained that it would be difficult for SSMU to fully adopt a position against COP-15 if the union was unable to support students involved in the coalition.

Soundbite:

“[Education students at UQAM are] currently facing repression by the administration. The administration once marked their classes as with drawals to discourage further strikes. This is unprecedented and very dangerous to student democracy. As such, we’re in the midst of writing a letter of support to students mobilizing against this repression.”

— VP Student Life Hassanatou Koulibaly speaking on behalf of Masny about supporting education students at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) who went on strike for five weeks beginning in mid-October

University-wide participation in course evaluations only at 50 per cent, McGill says Tribune Explains: Course Evaluations

Lauren Huff

Contributor

As the semester wraps up, many students may have heard in-class pleas and received emails asking them to fill out course evaluations. The McGill Tribune looked into how these feedback forms work and how their results are used by the university.

How do course evaluations work at McGill?

At the end of every semester, any course at McGill that has five or more students is evaluated through the Mercury online platform. Course evaluations allow students to provide anonymous feedback to their instructors. The evaluation form includes sections for ratings and supplementary statements about the course, its content, and the instructor’s teaching style. Completing a course evaluation can take about five to 10 minutes depending on how much detail a student wishes to provide. When is the deadline for students to submit course evaluations?

For most departments at the university, students are given a six-week

window each semester to complete course evaluations. With approval from the Dean, instructors can opt to close course evaluations prior to the formal examination period, though the default deadline is when formal exams end. Students can consult the Mercury website to find out whether their course evaluation forms close on Dec. 6 or on Dec. 21. How are course evaluations helpful for professors and students?

According to McGill media relations officer Frédérique Mazerolle, the university uses course evaluations to determine the effectiveness of an instructor’s teaching style and to improve the future delivery of courses. Course evaluation results may also be used as a component of an instructor’s teaching dossier, which is a portfolio of an academic’s major teaching accomplishments. Mazerolle stressed that administrators and faculty rely on course evaluations for decision making and urged students to participate in the surveys.

“McGill University values quality in the courses it offers its students,” Mazerolle wrote in a statement to the Tribune. “The more students fill out

course evaluations, the more seriously feedback is taken by instructors and administrators.”

According to Mazerolle, each year 5,000 courses and 2,500 instructors are evaluated, but only 50 per cent of students fill out course evaluations.

“McGill University values quality in the courses it offers its students,” Mazerolle wrote in a statement to the Tribune. “The more students fill out course evaluations, the more seriously feedback is taken by instructors and administrators.”

According to Mazerolle, each year 5,000 courses and 2,500 instructors are evaluated, but only 50 per cent of the university participate in course evaluations.

How can professors and students see the results from course evaluations?

Course instructors have access to the evaluation results only after they have submitted student grades for the semester. Though course evaluations are entirely anonymous and not linked to student ID numbers, this rule ensures that professors cannot be swayed by course evaluation feedback when grading students.

Students have access to numerical course evaluation results on Mercury or under the Course Evaluation Results tab on Minerva, though written responses are only made available to the instructors. How are course evaluations different from Rate My Professors?

Rate My Professors, a website where anyone can post anonymous reviews about an instructor, is another tool students may use to share their experiences with teachers from universities around the globe. Each review rates a teacher from “awesome,” “great,” “good,” “OK,”

and “awful,” and ranks difficulty and quality levels of their courses on an ascending scale of one to five.

Though the posts on Rate My Professors are not moderated or factchecked, many students rely on the platform instead of McGill’s Mercury system. Susan Aloudat, U0 Arts, did not know about McGill’s internal course evaluations and, instead, consulted Rate My Professors when choosing courses for her first semester at the university. Though she will use both resources when finalizing her schedule for next semester, Aloudat is conscious of the biases of both platforms.

Hiring staff may consult course evaluation results when con sidering a professor for tenure. (Jasmine Acharya / The McGill Tribune)

Hiring staff may consult course evaluation results when considering a professor for tenure. (Corey Zhu / The McGill Tribune)

President

Risann Wright campaigned on a platform of facilitating policy-driven and equity-focused institutional change at SSMU. Over the summer and Fall 2022, Wright has been actively fulfilling these objectives. She created an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) working group to develop an EDI plan that promotes equity across all areas of SSMU. Her portfolio is also drafting an inter-faculty relations policy and creating a social responsibility strategy in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. To fulfill her other campaign promise of ensuring more direct sup port for students, Wright launched the SSMU Pilot Grocery Program to aid those facing food insecurity due to financial constraints and inflation. Wright’s initiatives represent an impressive commitment to supporting students, but going forward, she should be more communicative about her portfolio with both the broader student body and campus media.

MIDTERM

VP University Affairs VP Finance

Marco Pizarro has been a welcome presence at SSMU governance meetings and around SSMU’s executive offices. As a francophone, Pizarro has served as an unofficial trans lator for other executives at governance meetings, ultimately amplifying the voices of francophone students. Beyond this, Pizarro has managed to fulfill several of the tasks in the VP Finance’s mandate. For example, Pizarro and the finance team have managed to implement a trial run of a Legal Protection Plan, streamlined clubs’ access to their finances, and adapted to the post-pandemic revival of student life. He has also focused on decentralizing the power SSMU holds, including his own. Pizarro has been navigating his role with out the support of a General Manager, who is responsible for SSMU’s business and corporate obligations, along with the Society’s accounting. Though increased transparency would be appreciated in the form of additional emails or widely accessible finance reports, Pizarro has performed well in his role.

SSMU

Kerry Yang’s priorities this semester included the expansion of the Menstrual Health Project and academic wellness projects. The Men strual Health Project, which distributes period products free of charge and is funded by an SSMU fee, now has more locations on campus, of fers disposable and reusable products, and has hosted two giveaways this semester. In addition, Yang successfully advocated for a revised exam deferral policy that prioritizes public health: Students who contract COVID-19 no longer need a medical note to defer their exams, even if it is not their first time deferring. Other academic wellness initiatives he is working on for next semester include note-sharing services, for-credit health and wellness courses, and more Open Educational Resources, such as syllabus repositories. In terms of equity and accountability, he is working on reforming the Involvement Restriction Policy (IRP), which processes and acts on complaints of discrimination and violence, and tightening SSMU’s Gender and Sexual Violence Policy. Overall, Yang has had a successful term. Going forward, he should continue advocating for accessibility on campus, ensuring the sustainability of his academic wellness initiatives, and pushing for the administration to decentralize harassment and discrimination complaint procedures.

REVIEWS

Internal VP External VP Student Life

Hassanatou Koulibaly has been very busy since becom ing VP Student Life. Not only did she organize the first fully in-person Activities Night since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but she has also instituted hono rariums for students who sit on SSMU’s mental health committees, soft-launched myWellness—a platform powered by Compass that lists mental health resources on and off campus—hosted a mental health awareness week, and more. Koulibaly has also tried to make herself more available to students by hosting coffee hours every other Thursday, and by making time for appointments most days, rather than during specific office hours. For the coming semester, Koulibaly is working on launching Gerts Cultural Nights—these evenings will focus on diversifying the crowd that attends Gerts Bar and Café. Overall, Koulibaly has fulfilled most, if not all, of the VP Student Life mandate and is on track to continue doing so next semester.

Val Masny, whose office represents SSMU outside of McGill, focused their campaign on accessibility and stressed their goal of supporting mutual aid projects in Milton Parc and engaging more with the student body to prioritize transparency. This year, they organized the “Building an Activist Community” workshop and ran a housing rights workshop. Overall, Masny has been very active in fulfilling their office’s mandate. However, it is difficult to measure their portfolio’s progress since they did not respond to an interview request. Transparency should be a priority for the VP External, and going forward, Masny should be more accessible to students seeking to learn about their work.

Cat Williams’ main priority throughout her campaign was increasing student involvement in campus life and SSMU events. In line with this goal, they organized an SSMU Hal loween party that saw over 800 students flock to the Univer sity Centre. Williams also helped run an alternative non-al coholic event during Frosh to ensure greater accessibility for non-drinkers. With a focus on accessible and equitable event planning, Williams looks forward to the upcoming Faculty Olympics and Graduation Frosh in the Winter semester. Despite these successes, a large part of Williams’ campaign centred around increasing SSMU’s transparency toward the student body, an important objective that has yet to be realized. Going forward, they would benefit from working more closely with their staff to fulfill this promise.

VP

Risann Wright (she/ her)

Marco Pizarro (he/ him)

Kerry Yang (he/ him)

Cat Williams (she/they)

Val Masny (they/ them)

Hassanatou Koulibaly (she/

Kristi Kouchakji is currently serving her second term as Secretary General, a position at the helm of PGSS’s operations. She has found this past semester to be unique ly challenging, with learning to navigate newly-hybrid governance meetings and an abundance of responsibilities, including serving on the Advisory Committee for the Selec tion of a New Principal and Vice-Chancellor. Despite this, Kouchakji has submitted several governance amendments to help build a more sustainable governance infrastructure and stronger institutional memory, aims she was vocal about throughout her campaign. She continues to strive for more equitable working conditions for PGSS employees and graduate students alike, who she aptly describes as “sys tematically overworked and underpaid.” Although PGSS executives are only compensated for 12 hours of work per week, Kouchakji detailed working over 80 hours between Oct. 12 and Nov. 12 in a November 2022 report. In the new year, the Tribune hopes that she succeeds in striking a better balance and delegating responsibilities to make the role more manageable.

As External Affairs Officer, Onyeka Dike is tasked with representing and advancing the collective interests of McGill’s graduate community both provincially and na tionally. Dike’s two-fold priority coming into the role was to strengthen existing connections between PGSS and student associations at McGill and beyond while also fostering new relationships. Dike has taken steps to enhance PGSS’s relationship with SSMU and the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM), as demonstrated by their Joint Townhall Meeting on Nov. 11. However, it is less clear how Dike has nurtured the creation of new relationships for PGSS. He has met with la Fédération des associations étudiantes du campus de l’Université de Montréal (FAECUM)’s External Affairs Coordinator to discuss possible collaborations, but no partnership has been formally established. Although Dike seems to have succeeded in nurturing existing relationships to advance the interests of McGill’s graduate students, his efforts to create new relationships to the same end may need to be revisited

In her first semester as Financial Affairs Officer, Faezeh Pazoki’s main goal was to rechannel the unused PGSS fees from the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic back into the hands of students. After seeing an increase in applications for travel awards and grant programs, Pazoki set out to redirect the funds by bring ing a motion to the Council to use the balance paid by students from 2020-22 to increase the 2022-23 grant program budget by $25,000 and subsidize travel awards. Pazoki drafted a compre hensive budget guide for all PGSS members detailing what each fee is used for and who is responsible for each of the budget’s items. Going forward, Pazoki hopes to transfer funds that are not currently in use to the PGSS Needs Based Bursary, and has pushed PGSS to participate in the McGill Crowdfunding plat form to further finance the Bursary. As Chair of the Committee of Monetary Affairs, Pazoki is working to recruit more commit tee members to help manage the workload of in-person events. Pazoki is also collaborating with PGSS’s Environment Commis sioner to make free sustainable menstrual products available to PGSS members. Overall, Pazoki has tackled important projects that place students at the fore and increase aid and transparency.

MIDTERM REVIEWS

Internal Affairs Officer

As Internal Affairs Officer, Adel Ahmadihosseini is respon sible for organizing events for PGSS members throughout the year, including the fall and winter Graduate Student Orientations. In his second year of serving in this position, he has organized many social and informative events at Thomson House, such as group hikes and legal protection information sessions. He continues to ease the transition to fully in-person events and promotes accessibility by provid ing online options whenever possible. Ahmadihosseini could improve in hosting a greater variety of events which address other barriers that graduate students face, such as events to alleviate mental health and stress. Currently, Ahmadihossei ni is planning orientation and seasonal bonding events such as ice skating, tubing, and skiing for the coming semester.

PGSS

Member Services Officer

As PGSS Member Services Officer, Thovinakere is responsi ble for the proper implementation of several student services, such as Keep.meSafe, Dialogue, and the Legal Protection Program. Thovinakere ensured that these services were func tioning well and solicited the feedback of graduate students using them. Another important aspect of her portfolio in volves insurance coverage for graduate students and graduate student groups. Thovinakere advocated for student interests in meetings with the Quebec Student Union (QSU) but says that it is challenging to balance meeting students’ health and dental insurance needs while also staying within budget. Her transparency reflects an encouraging commitment to her constituents. Finally, Thovanikere helped introduce the new Trans Healthcare Fund, designed to cover costs incurred by trans graduate students seeking gender-affirming care. Next semester, she plans to expand what the fund can cover based on student needs.

University Affairs Officer

As the PGSS University Affairs Officer, Hossein Poorhemati has focused his efforts on supporting and improving multiple campus organizations and committees, such as the PGSS Library Improvement Fund (LIF) Committee and the PGSS Funding Working Group (FWG). His work with the LIF centres on setting up platforms for input from students and faculty on how the LIF should be spent as well as working to implement transparency measures about the fund’s usage. His work with FWG focuses on supporting the Working Group and helping to prepare FWG’s survey on graduate students’ financial health for Janu ary 2023. In the Winter 2023 semester, Poorhemati plans to continue his work with the Dean of Students to address inequities in graduate student accommodations, advocate for tangible plans for on-campus study space availability, and increase communication with graduate stu dents to provide them with more services. While his support for multiple committees may not have yet yielded tangible progress, Poorhemati’s commitment to transparency and communication with his constituents seems to indicate that his initiatives and advocacy will lead to substantive results for PGSS members moving forward.

Secretary General External Affairs Officer Financial Affairs Officer

Adel Ahmadihosseini (he/ him)

Hossein Poorhemati (he/ him) Naga Thovinakere (she/ her)

Faezeh Pazoki (she/ her)

Onyeka Dike (he/ him)

Kristi Kouchakji (she/ her)

Campus Conversations: Transformation

Keith ContributorBaybayon,

Valentina de la Borbolla, Opinion Editor

As I go through my last few days as a McGill undergrad, I cannot help but look back at my time in university with a sense of incredulity and nostalgia. I am still taken aback when walking by the infamous Leacock 132 lecture hall, struggling to remember any useful piece of information from POLI 200 three years ago. What strikes me most is how normal walking through campus feels, when just a few years ago, this place was so deeply unfamiliar. It took me longer than expected to adapt to university life. The cold, the large classrooms, and the dorms destabilized me. I was used to perfect Mexican weather, classrooms full of friends, and a quiet life with my mom and my dog. Suddenly, I was surrounded by screaming frat boys and empty bottles of Black Flys.

I cruised through the discomfort of my first semester in a half-awake state, and when I had to return home for lockdown, I almost forgot I had left at all. Every post-lockdown semester at McGill felt eerily similar to the first one, but in retrospect, the changes I have gone through are undeniable. I am surrounded by friends, a partner I love, a yapping dachshund, professors that challenge me, and coworkers I admire. All the things I was hoping for when I first got my acceptance letter ended up coming true—though maybe a couple of years later than expected. Before my semester, and my degree, officially end, I am slowing down a little bit and appreciating my growth. These past few years may not have been the best of my life, but they were certainly the most transformative, and that is something to be grateful for.

Chloé Kichenane, Staff Writer

“On this day, two years ago.”

It’s 8 a.m., and my body is sinking back into slumber. Yet, the notification shakes me and I need to know. Who was I two years ago?

As I scroll through the hundreds of pictures flooding my Snapchat memories, an odd feeling hits me. Some people would describe it as looking into a mirror and seeing a past version of yourself looking back. But to me, it feels more like looking into a stranger’s window, into a parallel dimension where I am someone entirely different.

Sometimes, I find myself thinking about home, about who I was before coming here. I think about the people I used to know. I wonder where they are now and where they’re going. As I let my thoughts wander, I realize this past life doesn’t feel real anymore, almost like a very long dream of which I only recall a few glimpses.

Maybe it’s simply the struggle of every university student who leaves home, but being away transformed me—and I get a reminder of it every time I step into my old bedroom, a place that doesn’t feel like mine anymore. It seems like everything from the pictures on the walls to the books on the shelves belonged to someone else. What was once the centrepiece of my life now seems like a still picture, as if I had never actually lived there. So I wondered: Where is ‘home’ if not the very room I grew up in?

For all those for whom going back has caused an existential crisis, here’s a reminder: ‘Home’ is an idea in constant flux. Moving away, I realized that home could be anywhere. It is the wooden staircase of my high school, the cafés my friends and I stayed in for hours, even the street by the train tracks where I’d walk my dog. But home is also 5,000 kilometres away as I sit right here in Montreal, scrolling through pictures from a different time.

I moved to Canada from the Philippines over 10 years ago, not knowing English or anyone outside of my immediate family. Coming from a small town, it was challenging to live in a big city such as Toronto. Yet here I am today, living independently in Montreal, learning French, and making new friends. I became someone I would never have imagined.

Transformation is constantly happening around us. The transition from autumn to winter is a prime example. Changes like this can sometimes come fast, like the flipping of a switch that brings light to a room. Some changes, however, can take months or even years.

As someone who is learning French, it takes time to indulge in French culture and speak the language naturally. Moving to Montreal encouraged me to pursue learning French so that I could communicate with my peers and find a job. It takes dedication and ambition to achieve growth like this.

Some may not have seen snow until having moved to Montreal, officially transforming into either a snowlover or snow-hater. Maybe some took a bird course to achieve a good grade and ended up loving the content and pursuing similar studies; that is a transformation in and of itself. Some people may not notice in the moment, but everyday decisions lay the groundwork for becoming someone new and better.

Uncontrolled events can prompt change, but whether that change is pursued is what matters. I took a big step in my decision to attend McGill as I was the only person from my graduating class to move to Montreal. Each day I spend in this city is another opportunity to figure out who I want to be.

We’re all on a constant journey of improving ourselves. It is that transformation that allows people to reach their highest potential.

Although an effective inebriant, drinking more than three Black Flys may result in lime-green vomiting (McGill University)

Snapchat introduced its “Memories” feature in 2016. (The New York Times)

Montreal is ranked as one of the most student-friendly cities in the world. (Montreal Gazette)

The McGill Tribune Editorial Board

Content warning: Mentions of suicide

Funded by a $14 million donation, McGill opened its Student Wellness Hub in 2019. Since its inception, the centre has been understaffed and strained by unreasonably long wait times for students seeking help. At McGill, there is an urgent need for accessible mental health services and resources: Over eight per cent of McGill students identify as disabled and an astounding 56.3 per cent of students reported having mental health disorders. As of 2019, 16.4 per cent of Canadian university students had seriously considered suicide. While it is critical to address the Wellness Hub’s marked insufficiency, the university must address the systemic shortcomings that both enable and foster a toxic academic environment.

Students should not have to turn to their universities to receive emergency care, but McGill must recognize that Quebec’s health care system is extremely underfunded, short staffed, and overwhelmed. Furthermore, racialized people are significantly more likely to be

The Wellness hub can’t solve McGill’s mental health crisis

undertreated and mistreated in Canadian healthcare institutions. As a result, many McGill students have few other options than the Wellness Hub for affordable care. Yet, the Wellness Hub itself is not even equipped to help students in crisis who require immediate attention. Wait times for psychiatry appointments at the centre can be as long as two weeks for cases deemed urgent, and up to 10 weeks for others. The university has consistently reiterated that the Wellness Hub is not supposed to serve as a primary care provider for its students, but rather as a supplemental service that they have graciously offered. This, however, does not absolve the university from its responsibility to take urgent action.

At McGill, there is an endemic culture of celebrating competitiveness and academic achievement at the expense of mental health, and the university actively contributes to this culture. For instance, U2 Architecture students were informed, after registration had already opened, that they would be required to either take 20 academic credits this fall or delay their graduation by an extra semester. The university’s punitive final exam policy similarly exemplifies its unforgiving attitude. Students that seek more

than one exam deferral must provide documentation, as well as a written explanation for their request, unless the student has COVID-19. If it appears that a student has not made an adequate effort to address the challenges they have been facing, their deferral requests can be refused. The austere and cynical language employed in the exam policy, underscored by unnecessary assumptions of bad faith, subjects students already wavering under the stress of exams to additional barriers.

McGill’s mental health crisis must be examined at every level of the institution, starting with day-today interactions in the classroom. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a psychological toll on university staff, as faculty workloads are increasing and general academic stress has been on the rise. The precarity of tenure-track professors’ occupational status creates a stressful working environment, in turn leading to unsympathetic and antagonistic interactions between faculty and students. Additionally, much like at most Canadian universities, Black and Indigenous faculty at McGill are systemically underrepresented, creating an isolating and discouraging climate

for marginalized students on campus. Overwhelmed students of colour and queer students may feel less comfortable seeking academic accommodations from their professors than their straight, white, cisgender peers. Furthermore, rising tuition costs, food insecurity, and an ableist post-pandemic climate on campus have created a psychologically harmful environment.

Too much of the burden of accessing mental health services at McGill falls upon its students, and the networks that are supposed to accommodate students’ needs fail to do so. As such, the university must hire additional mental health professionals, while focusing on increasing capacity and expanding resources. The university’s refusal to acknowledge its role in the mental health crisis precludes any meaningful work necessary to combat the systemic dimensions of the problem.

The Wellness Hub’s inadequacy is one urgent problem that has relatively straightforward solutions; however, the McGill administration and faculty must work to untangle its systemic web of toxic competitiveness, ableism, academic stress, and structural racism in order to make any headway in solving its mental health crisis.

OFF THE BOARD

Anna Chudakov Multimedia Editor

When memories lie in Soviet apartment blocks

the fringes of Moscow were speckled by the same muted concrete apartment buildings, only distinguishable by the wear they’ve endured over the years, the city centre was marked by the grandeur of Stalinist buildings that competed for my attention. In my naivete, I always felt a sense of disdain for those grey apartments (even though I spent most of my summers around them) and questioned why more of Moscow hadn’t been granted what I thought was architectural beauty.

allowed me to make friends who I’d spend the summer days with, year after year.

As a kid, I remember driving back from the Moscow airport with my family, preparing for another summer in Russia, and refamiliarizing myself with the city after being away for a year. Looking out the window, my childish, curious gaze was often confused by the differences between architectural styles across the city. While

By the time I was a teenager, I recognized that my attitude toward those concrete buildings as a kid was simplistic, and thankfully, I grew mature enough to understand and appreciate the history those buildings held. I learned that they were called Khrushchyovkas and were built as a cheap and fast solution to the 1960s housing crisis in the Soviet Union. Standing through the fall of the USSR and into the 21st century, those apartment buildings continued to exist as a place for me to grow as I fostered friendships in the playgrounds that many Khrushchyovkas were huddled around. The buildings would nudge me outside onto the playground when I felt lonely in my temporary home and

As the COVID-19 pandemic challenged international travel and college started taking over my time, my visits to Russia were put on pause, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this past February forced me to rethink my relationship with the country. In the early days of the war, every Skype call with my family was shadowed by what we could and couldn’t say, as we tried to discern the differences in information we were receiving across the world. Through these phone calls alone, I could feel the polarizing difference between life in Canada and Russia and how restricted life was over there. I now look back at myself as a kid, watching the Russian news if it ever caught my eye, completely unaware that it was state-controlled television, and feel so disconnected from the innocence I lived in back then. Amidst this internal turmoil, I found myself feeling nostalgic for those summer days on the playground near the Khrushchyovkas.

With the war continuing to unfold, I was relieved to discover that some of my family were among the thousands

of Russians leaving for Armenia. Their relocation was also an opportunity for me to visit them after so many years apart, but I had to remind myself that this visit would be nothing like my childhood summers. Nonetheless, when I arrived in Yerevan, I found glimpses of the architecture that I recognized from Moscow wedged into the cityscape. If I looked carefully, I could find the same Khrushchyovkas I remembered from my childhood, but this time, softened by the pink hue of the volcanic stone that is characteristic of the city.

That soft tint that altered the Khrushchyovka-like buildings that were otherwise so familiar marked the distance that had arisen between my childhood self and who I am now. While the Yerevan landscape settles some of my nostalgia and permits my reminiscences, the pink hue distinguishes this place from my childhood. This difference, however, presents me with the space to grapple with the complexities of the world as I understand it now. I will never experience my quiet childhood summers again or see Russia the way I once did. But in exploring Armenia, I have located where comfort and growth can coincide.

Letter to the Editor:

If you can’t start on time, then don’t do it in person

In a Nov. 22 article by The McGill Tribune about the Post-Graduate Student Society (PGSS) Fall General Meeting, they highlighted the meeting’s enormous delay as the “Moment of the Meeting” The meeting was scheduled to start at 7:15 p.m., but as reported by the Tribune, did not start until 8:06 p.m.—a delay of almost one hour! Indeed, I can attest that it was a moment. Thus, let me share my utmost disappointment with what happened.

Before this meeting, PGSS sent out invitations to its constituencies to attend because, according to them, “your voice matters.” They

provided two options: To attend in person or via Zoom. My friend and I, both graduate students, decided to attend in person at Thomson House. We saw this as an opportunity to better understand what is happening within the PGSS and contribute to its decisionmaking process. We also wanted to show our solidarity with the PGSS and further empower the collectively beneficial outcomes that could arise from the meeting.

Optimistic as we were, we arrived at Thomson House at 6:45 p.m. We went up to the Ballroom Hall at 7:05 to get settled but were told that there was still an ongoing

PGSS Council Meeting. We decided to return at 7:15 and were told that the council meeting had been extended for 15 more minutes. My friend and I thought this was okay, but when we went back 15 minutes later, we were again told that the council had just voted to extend their meeting by another 20 minutes, without assurance that the General Meeting would begin after. My friend and I decided to leave.

When I found out through a Tribune News article that the meeting was delayed by almost an hour, I knew we had made the right decision not to stay. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt the same

disdain if I had participated online and instead waited in a Zoom waiting room. But the PGSS making its invitees wait upwards of an hour is completely disrespectful, rude, and insensitive, especially to those who decided to come in person. When they asked us to come, we came. However, it felt like our voices did not matter. It felt like we were thirdclass PGSS members whose attendance is only needed to reach quorum.

In my email to the PGSS—to which I have yet to receive a response—I asked them to reflect: Was there no other way that they could have started on time or at

Systemic neglect continues as Montreal’s houselessness crisis worsens

Chloé Kichenane Staff Writer

More than 3,000 people remain without a home this winter despite years of tireless advocacy from community organizations around Montreal. Almost half of Montreal’s unhoused population is Inuit, reflecting Quebec’s ongoing settler-colonial project.

The city’s attempts at resolving the crisis remain inadequate and ineffective. In 2021, the city provided 1,550 emergency beds, created 10 new warming stations in different boroughs, and launched a program giving housing access to 200 people. Despite these efforts, houseless people in Montreal continue to tragically freeze to death. The city’s solutions seem to be nothing more than a ‘one step forward, two steps back’ plan, as the 14 shelters opened during the pandemic were reduced to three in the past year, compounding the shortage of emergency measures when there are no long-term ones in place. Although the provincial government has launched a $280 million investment plan for the next five years, this is not nearly an urgent enough measure to resolve Montreal’s long-lasting houselessness problem and shows that the city does not prioritize remedying it.

A deeper dive into Montreal’s fiscal policy indicates that houselessness is not the city’s top priority. Mayor Plante’s $125,000,000 investment to build “the

biggest park in Canada” as part of her “green deal” is not nearly as pressing as the houselessness issue, and it would take less than a quarter of that amount to provide permanent housing for those on the streets. Beyond this, the major increase of the Montreal police department’s budget to a total $787 million for 2023 ($63 million more than in 2022) is an absurdly unnecessary and ignorant allocation of taxpayer money. These funds, reserved for hiring more police officers, represent roughly 14 times more than what is invested in the city’s five-year plan to fight houselessness.

The city still engages in the brutal practice of evictions, such as the one planned for Nov. 10 near the VilleMarie Expressway. The eviction was eventually delayed after dozens of protestors marched in solidarity, but the project is still ongoing and will displace an entire camp with nowhere else to go, to supposedly offer them better alternatives.

Though there are initiatives that offer short-term essentials for people in need, they cannot provide solutions for long-term structural problems. Mobilizing For Milton-Parc, a studentrun organization that provides essential food and supplies, and the “Leave a coat” project in the Rosemont borough, are both examples of positive communitybased approaches. Although these are important initiatives, they work to address the consequences of houselessness but cannot address the root causes of housing

insecurity. The municipal government is failing at long-term initiatives and instead relies on band-aid measures. Meanwhile, community-based shelters, such as Resilience Montreal, stand alone by offering unfaltering life-saving services without sufficient government support.

To bring the crisis to an end, the city must implement long-term programs such as affordable or transitional housing and harm reduction which will keep people in precarious situations safe this winter. If the municipal government truly cared about people experiencing houselessness, then they would divert funding to the social programs necessary to combat the systems that leave the

least minimized the time they asked for registrants to wait? Why was there no formal notice about the potential delays? Why invite in-person attendees just to ask them to wait around for an hour?

It’s tempting to roll my eyes when learning from the Tribune that the meeting did not even reach quorum, or one per cent of its membership. Cases like this, trivial as it may sound, damage my trust in the PGSS.

Maybe I should just sing out my disappointment at one of their Karaoke nights?

Elson Galang, PhD Candidate

city’s most vulnerable behind. The provincial and municipal governments must stop making excuses and finally take thoughtful action for its unhoused population, instead of subjecting them to violence. The burden of solving this crisis cannot continue to fall on the shoulders of community organizers and rather should fall on those of a provincial government that has more than enough resources to execute viable solutions. Unhoused populations need effective long-term support from the provincial and municipal leadership because coats may keep people warm for now, but they won’t provide the structural change necessary to save lives.

Photos: Best of Fall 2022

On Track (Maeve Reilly)

Mont Royal Anew (Jasmine Jing)

Little Moves (Maeve Reilly)

Moving into Something New (Cam Flanagan)

Sustainability and Renewal (Jasmine Jing)

Calm, Cool, and Changing (Maeve Reilly)

Sunset Season (Jasmine Jing)

Sunburst (Maeve Reilly)

Go for It (Maeve Reilly)

Paint me a pixel

Madison McLauchlan, Editor-in-Chief Design by Madison McLauchlan and Midjourney AI

/imagine

Intelligence is artificial

It begins as an idea. A flicker of colour, of mo tion, a feeling that you want to convey. There are so many mediums to choose from—char coal, clay, oil, acrylic? Pencil, paintbrush, cam era, hands? In a frenzy, you make the decision and set to work. It’s torturous, amazing, and gut-wrenching all at once. You hate the final product. The next day, you love it. And if you choose to show it to the world, you relinquish control, and you can only hope that it will mean something.

This process of artistic creation was on my mind when I was recently fiddling with DALL-E, an artificial intelligence text-to-image gen erator. And it’s on the minds of many: Those who care about the sanctity of human creativ ity, those who are concerned with the rapidly evolving capabilities of artificial intelligence, and those who spend too much time on Dis cord.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learn ing are intimidating concepts. These terms are so entrenched in the public consciousness and social media, well beyond the tech world, that it feels embarrassing to ask the most basic of questions.

AI is a branch of computer science that aims to help machines solve problems that are typically only solvable by the human mind. A variety of techniques, like machine learning, help accomplish this task: Machine learning involves training an algorithm to make deci sions or predictions based on large data sets. The more data it is trained on, the more accu rate its prediction will be. Machine learning has helped power accessible services like Google Translate and convenient ones like Netflix rec ommendation algorithms. When presented with astonishing advances in this technology, it bears reminding that AI is not inherently good nor bad, but instead a neutral tool. Look only to the world of chess for examples of its dual na ture: IBM’s Deep Blue chess bot showed that human grandmasters could be outplayed; but this summer, an AI-programmed robot broke a seven-year-old’s finger during a chess tourna ment in Moscow.

As for AI text-to-image generators, their sinis ter nature is a little less clear-cut. Several opensource, free services have popped up this year; names like DALL-E and Midjourney especially ruled Twitter timelines for a few weeks, garner ing a John Oliver segment. Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Google’s version, Imagen, ex

emplify a new wave of open-source, soon-to-launch programs capable of visually manifesting almost anything you can think of: Put in a line of text, as specific, as outlandish as you wish, and the algorithm will sift through thousands of data derived from images online to pro duce an original result as close to the prompt as possible. Prompts like “R2D2 getting bap tized” or “Nosferatu on Rupaul’s Drag Race” demonstrate just how absurd the images can get. The idea is incredible. But is it art? And if so, what purpose does it serve?

AI has been marketed to the public as pro gressive and impressive by virtue of its ability to mimic human decision-making. Sun Ha Hong, an assistant professor who teaches about the implications of algorithms on society at Simon Fraser University, rejects that narrative.

“One of the greatest myths about AI is that, because we are told these technologies are so cutting edge and amazing, we tend to assume that every piece of it is cutting edge, worldclass, and really well thought out,” Hong told me. “There are a few world-class, well-thoughtout elements that are then held together with several metres of duct tape from the 1970s.”

Contrary to how many AI companies would have it appear, these generators do not pos sess anything close to human intelligence. When I spoke to Helen Hayes, a PhD candi date in McGill’s Department of Art History and Communication, she told me that, based on what these AI art generators actually do, “artifi cial intelligence” is in many ways a “misnomer.” Open-source AI art generators benefit greatly from the term’s cultural zeitgeist because users are lured in by the power of infinite possibility.

“The use of the term [AI] has so much social capital, so much financial capital, that it doesn’t actually matter if people know what’s going on behind that smokescreen,” Hayes said. “You can call DALL·E like, ‘the scraping of a dataset to produce a digital file that’s [...] visually rep resentative of the text that you’ve entered.’ But no one’s gonna use it.”

For start-ups, the buzzword carries the prom ise of technological utopianism that puts com panies at a disadvantage if they are not using AI in some way. In some cases, tech firms will even pretend to use AI to attract corporate in terest and clients, while humans are really do ing the work of the “bot.”

All the while, we humans should beware of attributing “intelligence” to any non-sentient machine. “Remember, AI has no idea what it is saying,” Hong reminded me. “It has no idea

what art is, it has no idea what it faces. It has no idea what science is. It’s a monkey on a typewriter that’s just copying and pasting things.”

The flimsiest aspect of art-generating algo rithms is what they were trained on—or rather, what they weren’t. Companies like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion will tell you that their AI image generators can create anything within the limitless bounds of imagination. Time, la bour, and expertise limit hand-made visual art. But the inputs of text and the set of images the algorithm was trained on are what limit algorith mically-generated outputs.

“If the AI systems are trained using a specific set of data, that data, which usually isn’t like cleaned in a specific way to account for varying perspectives [...] includes a lot of what we call ‘awful but lawful’ data,” Hayes said.

Everything that is problematic about the in ternet, then—racism, misogyny, ableism, etc.— may be reproduced through algorithms trained on scraped image data that is not carefully fil tered.

“They’re not going through a representative sample of all the art created by anyone across the world, they’re scraping a bunch of things off the very surface of often the English American internet,” Hong explained.

If so, how could an algorithm fed only a small sliver of human creativity produce anything tru ly original?

/imagine The future of art

Before AI, the creativity inherent to artis tic pursuits was infallible. So I reached out to a veteran artist to see what he thought about this newfangled technology. Back when McGill still offered courses in the Fine Arts, interna tionally acclaimed artist and architect Charles Gurd was an undergraduate studying psychol ogy and still figuring out his career path. With a wealth of experience in multimedia, he sees digitally rendered, AI-generated art not as a threat to the industry, necessarily, but rather as a site of contemplation of the form.

At the basis of artistic expression, he says, is a “transmission of energy—way beyond the ‘concerns’ of the intellect—that operates on a

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then where does that leave art?

level of unity of all things.” I understand what he means. Sometimes, writing electri fies me, as though a live wire keeps my fin gers moving until I’ve transformed the inspi ration into a sentence.

“So, as an artist, you have to go to that place and thereby become capable [...] of reaching viewers,” Gurd wrote to me. “[A]rt is this com munication that everyone experiences in [a] common way [....] Art usually involves mys tery/magic/surprise/chaos which is the basis of it all—life.”

In our email chain, Gurd looped in Gwendo lyn Owens, director of visual arts at the McGill Library and Archives, who looked to the evo lution of art forms throughout history.

“In the 20th century, we saw the advent of happenings and performances, readymades, and so much more. To some people, these advances were not art,” Owens wrote. “My view is that every artist can decide what they want to use (or not use) and every critic and collector can make their own decision as well. AI will not be the last change, there will be more. The debates are what make the world of art vibrant.”

I took Owens’s words as an opportunity to explore what AI-generated art had to offer, telling myself all the while that I could mark the pages of art history. But figuring out how to use these flawed platforms to your advan tage is more complex than it appears.

I started imagining prompts to complement articles in the Tribune, with mixed results (successful examples shown here). Legality presented the first hurdle: I quickly learned that Midjourney creations for commercial use would cost $10 USD per month, with a maximum of around 200 generated images. Then there was the task of finding the right words. I was impressed and chastised by other users’ incredible aptitude for getting the AI to produce truly amazing images; prompts would be 25 lines long and include dozens of terms like “hyperrealistic,” “4k pixel,” “octane render”. They knew every trick in the book, while I was sitting there struggling to generate an image of a cat that didn’t resemble a mis shapen badger.

Many users, like Sarah Tornai, have actual ly put the time and effort into learning the best techniques associated with prompt-making, even within a platform structured around data inequities.

“I feel like I’ve landed in a different dimen sion. Honestly having a slightly hard time wrapping my mind around all of this being real,” Tornai, who goes by MoyoMoz, wrote in a public post on the Midjourney server. “Been using [Midjourney] for about a week or two and I feel like someone just gave me access to a deep dream/desire I’ve always had but never knew was possible.”

The post triggered hundreds of community reactions, most of which were overwhelming ly positive. When I spoke to her about her ex perience using Midjourney to create portraits and landscapes of her home country of Mo zambique, she described both wonder and frustration.

“Midjourney has opened up a world of creative possibilities to me that feel person ally revolutionary,” Tornai wrote to me. “I’ve been working on images about Mozambique, which is an incredibly resource-rich and cul turally rich county, but one of the “poorest” countries in the world economically because

of the effects of colonization, historic racism[,] and past wars.”

“I’ve noticed that because AI is pulling im ages from the web[,] the images it generates of Mozambican people or houses [are] high ly skewed towards very deep poverty even though a Mozambican middle class and up per class does exist. I’ve decided to incorpo rate that into my art because it’s actually part of the story I want to tell.”

Google’s Imagen site states that “[T]he data requirements of text-to-image models have led researchers to rely heavily on large, most ly uncurated, web-scraped datasets. While this approach has enabled rapid algorithmic advances in recent years, datasets of this na ture often reflect social stereotypes, oppres sive viewpoints, and derogatory, or otherwise harmful, associations to marginalized identity groups.” This disclaimer explains why they haven’t yet released Imagen for public use, but it does not excuse other platforms’ deci sions to develop algorithms using any data that they can find for free.

The advent of text-prompt-generated art work subverts the traditional one-way rela tionship between an artist and their creation. The user is responsible for the text prompt, the algorithm is responsible for turning this input into an output, and the developer is re sponsible for feeding the output possibilities to the algorithm. In the Tribune’s publications of AI art, I referred to both myself—the artist— and Midjourney AI—the tool—as the source of each image. But really, who is the artist? Is it the person who imagines the text prompt, in the unique string of words that only they have, the intermediary algorithm, or the per son who coded the machine and made all of this possible? And more importantly, who is responsible when the generated product is harmful?

/imagine/ Something beautiful, turned for profit

One story that has been morally exhaust ed in the headlines is that of Jason M. Allen,

abundance of art with less care and thought behind it.

Hong worries that AI art could become a cost-effective way for businesses to make in creasingly eye-catching advertisements de signed to sell us things, not to inspire artistic thought or contemplation.

“We are going to be bombarded with more ugly, nonsensical, barely good enough art, in our buildings, in our books, and our album jackets, that’s going to be bad news for any one who’s working in art and design and illus tration,” Hong said.

Job automation has been both incredibly innovative for some and incredibly scary for manual labourers, and creatives, too. The proliferation of AI art could seriously disrupt the labour market for freelancers who are al ready struggling to secure stable employment and livable wages.

With great art comes great responsibility. As it stands, regulatory frameworks are not robust enough to curtail the evil power of ma nipulating what people perceive as real and using it for capital gains. “We’re often met with this conundrum where tech advances very rapidly, [but] our policy moves very slow ly. And so we’re always responding to tech nological change rather than being ahead of it,” Hayes told me.

Results have yet to be released from a federal public consultation into copyright law and AI. Despite this, an AI art generator was legally registered as the co-author of an AI art piece, much to some law scholars’ con sternation. The corporate pattern of releas ing a product and sloughing off responsibility makes it even more challenging for the law to place blame when users abuse the product.

A much less colourful world lies ahead if a greater proportion of the graphic art that dec orates our institutions, billboards, and furni ture stores comes from the same pool of im ages regurgitated through an algorithm at the behest of overworked labourers.

But the sense of wonder generated by these AI creations and the idea of art for art’s sake cannot be ignored. Only when policy

To swipe or not to swipe: Dating in a postlockdown world

How online dating is transforming the singles landscape

Naomi Gupta Contributor

Since March 2020, the comings and goings of COVID-19 have altered the structure of our social lives. For nearly two years, people of all ages reduced their inperson activities and turned to an online world of family gatherings, end-of-year parties, and even dating. Some embraced this shift in dating culture to challenge themselves. Others met this change with angst and uncertainty but adjusted to the conditions as the pandemic progressed. Regardless, the pandemic brought forth new ideas and practices surrounding the dating world and changed how people viewed their love lives.

New and creative ways of meeting people COVID-19 measures restricted meeting at bars, restaurants, clubs, and other social gatherings for extended periods. Ultimately, people had to rethink how they spent time with others.

“Everything was closed, so coming up with dates required a bit more creativity,” Felix Tymoshenko, U1 Management, shared in an interview with The McGill Tribune. What once was a typical dinner-then-drinks outing was reinvented into going on outdoor hikes, getting takeout from a restaurant, or participating in virtual games such as escape

rooms.

Many consider the unconventionality of pandemic dates to be a good thing: It allows for change and a way to think outside the box. It’s also, arguably, a better way to get to know someone. While the typical dinner-and-drinks setting is a comfortable option for many, it’s easier to discover someone’s true personality while participating in an engaging activity. It also makes dating more appealing to those who find settings like coffee shops or bars dull and repetitive.

“There are endless possibilities of things to do, many of which I never considered before COVID-19: Hiking, biking, or even swimming,”Émilie Fortier, U1 Arts, said.

Changing attitudes: Higher standards and clearer intentions

Dating coaches and experts have also found ways in which attitudes toward dating have shifted over the last few years: People have set higher standards when it comes to dating. For example, Hinge Director of Relationship Science, Logan Ury, has discussed how alone time spent during COVID-19 isolation allowed individuals to gain insight and clarity on different aspects of their lives. Known as the “Hard Baller” trend, people are more likely to be upfront about their dating intentions as soon as their first or second date with someone.

Meeting romantic partners: Shifting from “in person” to online

Although the pandemic sparked creativity and a better sense of self-understanding, one thing remained a challenge: Meeting people. In-person meetups were limited, which prompted many to turn to dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, or Hinge. Although they might seem like a convenient and accessible way of meeting others, criticisms abound about online dating apps. Their rise in popularity has contributed to looks being an overvalued aspect in current dating culture through the abundance of profiles to look through, almost like a game. The ease with which one can swipe left or right prompts users to dismiss potential partners with whom they might share affinities but who don’t perfectly adhere to contemporary and often Eurocentric beauty standards.

Are online dating and “in-person” dating mutually exclusive?

The dating app user experience invites further questioning of their impacts on users’ day-to-day lives. Many wonder whether staying “safe behind a screen” affects people’s ability to approach someone they find attractive in real life or contributes to negative feelings of self-worth. Does creating a perfectly curated version of one’s life on dating apps

According to Tinder’s 2021 report, 40 per cent of users said they would continue to use virtual methods such as video chatting even in a postpandemic world (freepik.com).

make users reluctant to meet people in real life out of fear of exposing the less appealing parts of their personality?

Apps, such as Hinge, offer “prompts”: Open-ended questions that help users enhance their profiles and attract people with similar tastes or interests. This function certainly diversifies dating profiles from their usual content type, which helps divert users’ attention from looks to personality traits. However, it remains unclear if such prompts will help counter the appearance-based focus of modern dating culture. Will online dating prevail in the post-lockdown world? Only time will tell.

Soaking up the holiday season at Le Grand Marché de Noël de Montréal

Getting to know the market’s welcoming vendors

Mahnoor Chaudhry Student Life Editor

Montreal’s first snowfall brought with it the spirit of Christmas, lighting up Dollarama stores in Christmas decor and my tongue in the green and red of Christmas candy (yes, already, and no, I would not like to watch my sugar intake, Aunt Karen).

As someone who has never celebrated Christmas and never been in Montreal over the holidays, I decided that this was my year. I would sit at home, binge-watch horrible Christmas movies, bake gingerbread people, trip over wires while trying to decorate a Christmas tree, and freeze to death in outdoor

Christmas markets. I began with the final item on the list and dragged my friends to Le Grand Marché de Noël de Montréal at Quartier des Spectacles.

Walking on Ste. Catherine between Balmoral and Clark, we saw stalls decorated in green and red lights and a huge sign indicating that this was, in fact, the great Christmas market. Hundreds of people were swarming between stalls that displayed goods ranging from warm clothing accessories and unique delicacies to scented candles and handmade woodcrafts. There were also fire pits in the middle, hot drinks, and crepe stands on the side, and an extremely pricey restaurant at the very end.

At the first stall, the vendor was giving out free samples of different kinds of wines, all of which left a tingling maple aftertaste. Intrigued but having sworn off alcohol, I asked my friends to taste-test the Maple Wine for me, and they all endorsed its unique flavour, recommending it to all wine fanatics.

Next, I stopped at a handmade stone and wood jewelry stall, which sold delicate rings, rustic necklaces, and minimalist earrings on display. Kira Confections, wo-manned by Kira herself, has had a stall at Christmas markets for two years running.

“Since the pandemic has slowed down, so has the business,” Kira told The McGill Tribune

Nevertheless, she still enjoys it and is continuing to sell her work through Etsy.

I was then drawn to a woman selling the cutest sewn gnomes. As it turned out, Nina Ahrendt, the vendor, also works as a project administrator at McGill and took up this unique hobby to help enliven the Christmas spirit.

“I have a hobby of creating and sewing gnomes in all shapes and sizes for Christmas, to make sure the Christmas spirit is present in every home,” Ahrendt said. “I’m Danish and we have a great tradition in Denmark to decorate for Christmas.”

Ahrendt has been setting up stalls at Christmas markets for the last five years and claims that she actually got lucky with COVID-19.

“People couldn’t spend anywhere else [during the pandemic] so they actually spent money at the Christmas markets, but I think there is less money available this year.”

I then spotted a man with the kindestlooking face advertising some interesting confections, and although I was quite tired

of walking by now, I knew I had to chat with him. Elias Masmoudi was selling handmade Tunisian sweets, a venture begun by his grandmother in 1972 that has continued with their family name.

“We hand-made sweets and sold them for weddings, and then it got bigger, and we now sell them during Christmas and even other holidays, such as Ramadan. We have stores in France, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia now,” Masmoudi told the Tribune

Though this was his first time setting up a stall in a Christmas market, Masmoudi has been selling the goodies himself since 2017 and claims the pandemic had helped its success.

“In 2017, we started online and the online business got better with COVID, it didn’t get worse. 2021 was a great year and 2022 is now alright,” Masmoudi said.

I asked if I could purchase a $10 sweet box and, after finding out I was writing for a student newspaper, he said he would add in some extra sweets. By the time I got the box, it was filled to the brim with delicious delicacies, bringing a smile to my face. Masmoudi, along with all the other vendors lining the Ste. Catherine walkway, really are spreading the Christmas cheer.

The

Dough, gravy, and seriously good baking at Ta Pies

Discovering the art of the Australian and New Zealander pastry

Matthew Wagman Contributor

Hope has arrived for the 70-odd Australasians at McGill. No longer must they carry Marmite in their purses to liven up lunches or frantically search Mount Royal for the most dangerous-looking critters to feel at home. Less than two kilometres away from campus, off Jeanne-Mance Park, sits a charming little shop called Ta Pies, with an array of offerings from the lands down under.

A modest terrasse greets customers, with regulars enjoying doughy delicacies in fauxwicker chairs. The small storefront is kitted out with a bold red-and-black colour scheme and a whimsical neon “ouvert” sign featuring a steaming pie. The tiny interior is crammed with homemade and imported Australian and New Zealander products and, puzzlingly, a towering shelf of Hot Ones’ sauces. Jars of appetizing sweets, from Tim Tams to fresh Lamington and Anzac biscuits, top the counter. Facing it is a freezer brimming with frozen shrink-wrapped Australian baked goods and a variety of drinks. For all your pantry needs, a nook nestled by the door holds everything from burger-flavoured chips and Milo powder to candy bars like Peanut Slab. Naturally, there are tubs of Marmite.

But, as this eatery’s name highlights, the real centrepieces are the pies, personally-sized and ready to go from a heated case next to the

cash register. Don’t despair if your favourites are gone—the freezer and the case under the side counter have more that can be easily reheated at home. If you shop from the frozen pies, there are tons of additional flavours like Pepper Steak and Thai Curry Chicken, larger sizes, and even a 50-cent discount on each pie.

All pies feature the same blessedly versatile puff pastry dough, holding whatever it must while lending a buttery, flaky component to the flavour and texture profiles. The Classic Beef and Cheese is a concentrated blast of savoury richness, its cheddar and shredded beef combining into a powerful entity within the light-as-air pastry cloud. The Steak, however, can’t match up—chewy strands of meat are stewed to blandness, and adding mushrooms or cheese doesn’t help. Their final beef option is the incredible Ned Kelly (fittingly named after an Australian outlaw). Topped by a crackly layer of sharp cheddar, it consists of ground beef, chewy bacon, a creamy baked egg, a healthy amount of tangy barbecue sauce, and a mess of chopped vegetables for good measure. The pastry struggles, but it ultimately manages to hold together this otherwise lawless expanse of incongruously delicious sustenance.

Their only poultry option is the Butter Chicken, a brick-like mass of curry-tinged dough wasting no time in delivering a burst of warm spices when its crust is pierced. Whole lumps of breast meat and elusive vegetable bits in a thick

orange sauce are spiced just enough to warm the palette without requiring liquid intervention. The Sausage Roll could replace a normal pie, a convenient scroll-shaped mound of laminated dough folded around a beautiful melange of spiced pork, beef, vegetables, and a touch of gravy begging to be wolfed down.

If all this talk of meat is tiring you, there are also a few worthwhile vegetarian options. The best is the Spinach, Ricotta, Mushroom, and Roasted Tomato—the classic Mediterranean combo ingeniously upgraded with the earthy bite of mushroom. The Curry Squash is less impressive, with a thick under-spiced layer of pureed gourd atop peppery, crunchy mixed

vegetables. At $7-8 per pie, the overall value largely depends on which selections you make.

Rounding off the meal with homemade Australian desserts is essential, especially the dreamy Afghan Biscuit ($4.25)—a decadent lumpy disc redolent of cocoa. Topped by a swirl of rich chocolate icing, garnished with crunchy cornflakes and a walnut crown, its interplay of textures and flavours offset each other to create a rice crispy treat and whoopie pie’s love child.

The Anzac Biscuit is simpler, a satisfying thick oat-sprinkled and coconut-filled golden round balancing between snappy and chewy. Just like everything at this gem, it’s warm and comforting, even for a North American like myself.

Gear up! It’s going to be a snowy winter

Ways to combat the cold and stay motivated during Montreal’s icy season

Margo Berthier Staff Writer

As we reach the end of a long and strenuous semester, a brutal winter is steadily making its way to Montreal. The hints of snow and dips in temperature from these past few weeks only represent a mere glimpse of what is to come. As of January, expect a winter season filled with plenty of snow, rain, and mush, as well as record-breaking cold temperatures. Here are some ways winter will change your student lives on or off campus and how to adapt to this icy

transition. So buckle up, it’s going to be a snowy ride. Winter is coming.

Gear up!

Montreal winters are synonymous with extreme below-freezing temperatures, sometimes dropping below -30°C (86°F). It’s time to store away your light fall jackets and bring out the big guns: A proper winter coat is a must! Pair it with gloves, a cozy hat to keep your head warm, a scarf to protect your neck from icy winds, and insulated winter boots for a slip-free walk on icy sidewalks. Layers will be your best friend as you can always peel them off when you get warm inside––even those drenched in sweat.

Watch out, getting to McGill will take longer!

Winter here also means snow-covered streets and more traffic. So, along with the additional time required to bundle up and slip on your winter gear at home, there will also be a couple of extra minutes added to your commute time. Keep warm and take advantage of the bus and metro system: McGill station, on the metro’s green line, is embedded in Montreal’s renowned underground city. This interconnected network of underground tunnels, while giving access to the metro stations, also houses shops, malls, offices, and

entertainment venues, allowing you to walk through Montreal without having to step a foot outside. From the Quartier des Spectacles to the Eaton Centre, passing through Place d’Armes and Bonaventure, this system allows you to get from place to place while avoiding the brutal wintry winds.

Shifting from outdoors to indoors

It can be tempting to hide out in bed when there’s snow on the ground, but keep in mind the myriad of opportunities found on campus to bring the energetic thrill of the outdoors inside. Some of these activities, including ice skating on the lower field rink, will keep you in shape and elevate your mood over the winter. Moving your athletic routines inside for the winter months can be helpful to find consistency, keep the blood pumping, and focus on something other than your mounting pile of coursework. The McGill Fitness Centre offers a wide variety of pay-as-you-go exercise classes and intramural sports. From pilates and spin classes to intramural basketball, volleyball, and badminton, you are sure to find the weekly activity that will get you moving, even in the dead of winter.

Don’t forget your vitamin D Finally, the coming winter changes our

lives drastically—the darkness and shorter days mess with our humour and lead to symptoms such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and an overall lack of motivation. A great way to elevate your mood and combat the lack of summer sunshine is to eat an abundance of vitamin D-rich foods, including salmon, mushrooms, eggs, oranges, tuna, tofu, milk, and even a sun lamp if you’re feeling fancy.

Try and make it to your classes

Winter is an especially rough time for students who feel much less willing to trek to school. When winter arrives, class attendance takes a serious hit. Many McGillians feel discouraged from going outside, and when they do, they tend to return home much earlier due to shorter days. Many students opt for warmer and more accessible solutions, such as working from home or in cafés.

Although you can’t really blame students for wanting to avoid going to class during the dark, snowy, winter days, there are alternatives. Try to avoid getting caught in this spiral of demotivation, and find a feasible routine to make your days easier. Wear appropriate winter attire, take advantage of the metro, stick to your weekly activities, take your vitamin D and, if needed, stay and work at home from time to time.

Each pie flavour is baked with a unique set of ingredients and displayed in a heated case (Maeve Reilly / The McGill Tribune).

Expect below-freezing temperatures and heaps of snow this winter, predicts the farmer’s alma nac (Léa Bourget / The McGill Tribune).

Abby McCormick Student Life Editor

As the winter semester draws to a close and the grassy terrain of campus turns into a snow-covered glaze, you may be at a loss for how to get into the groove of finals season. But don’t fret, dear reader—the stars are here to help guide you through the exam period and winter break.

Aries (March 21- April 19)

Your hard work has paid off this semester, Aries. You’ll breeze through your finals and, in a surprising turn of events, land yourself a stellar internship for this summer. Go get ‘em!

Taurus (April 20- May 20)

Money doesn’t grow on trees, Taurus. But you might forget that this holiday season. You’ll splurge on lavish gifts for your friends and family, and they will absolutely love them. Just remember— you don’t need to break the bank: They love you without all the glitz and glam.

Gemini (May 21-June 21)

Beware, Gemini! Mars will supercharge the moon on Dec. 7, which will bring out your argumentative side. Just make sure to keep your emotions in check. You don’t want to say something you’ll regret.

Cancer (June 22- July 22)

Your cool, calm, and collected demeanour is going to come in handy this winter. A disagreement in your professional life will make waves in your inner circle, but with the help of your superb negotiation skills, you will make the most of it.

Leo (July 23- August 22)

Let’s go, Leo! You’re almost done with the semester. While your workload might have you feeling stressed right now, you will enjoy a restful holiday season, surrounded by friends and family, which will leave you recharged and rejuvenated.

Virgo (August 23- September 22)

Questions like ‘where do you see yourself in 10 years?’ and ‘what does the future hold?’ are often overwhelming. But, luckily for you, Virgo, the full moon on Dec. 7 will bring clarity to your career

prospects. Specifically, you will uncover a new mentorship opportunity that is sure to bring you tons of wisdom.

Libra (September 23- October 23)

Libra, your strong problem-solving skills are sure to come in handy this month. You will notice some tension emerging on the homefront, but ultimately you’ll manage to smooth the waters before things get out of hand. In the end, this will bring you all closer together.

Scorpio (October 24- November 21)

Unfortunately, you’re in for a rough patch at the beginning of this month, Scorpio. The full moon on Dec. 7 will bring out financial stresses that will add uncertainty to your already busy life. But, luckily, all will be resolved as the new moon begins. You will learn new budgeting techniques that will help keep your finances in cheque.

Sagittarius (November 22- December 21)

With the sun in your sign for most of December, you are on your A-game, Sagittarius. From a flirty new romance to a lively social life, you’ve got it all.

Just make sure to hit the books from time to time… those finals aren’t quite over yet.

Capricorn (December 22- January 19)

Watch out, Capricorn! Your academic focus and drive have been a huge advantage this semester, but as finals loom, you’re reaching burnout. Make sure to take time for yourself and spend time with those close to you—there’s more to you than just the studious exterior.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18)

You’re in for a rewarding winter break, Aquarius! You will develop a new hobby that is sure to keep you occupied and fulfilled during your time off. Who knows, you might even meet a potential lover while you’re at it.

Pisces (February 19- March 20)

As the semester comes to a close, you are taking time to reflect on the best and worst parts of it. Whether you regret not getting involved more or not prioritizing your grades, do=n’t be too hard on yourself; next semester will bring tons of opportunities to grow.

“There’s Nothing More Queer than Nature”: A Q&A with Ann-Marie MacDonald

Chloe Sproule Contributor

Spoilers ahead for ‘Fayne’

Award-winning playwright, novelist, actress, and broadcaster Ann-Marie MacDonald has written her “youngest and most joyful” novel to date. Fayne is set in 19th-century Britain and yet entirely modern in feel. The book is a sprawling, ornately detailed, and genre-defying epic that follows the precocious Charlotte Bell as she grows up on a vast, secluded estate on the borderland moors. Her doting father’s will to keep her isolated from society, owing to her mysterious ‘condition,’ wars with her insatiable curiosity.

The McGill Tribune had the chance to speak with MacDonald about her new novel. A condensed version of our conversation follows:

CS: Fayne is an unapologetically long book [736 pages]. What is the magic of a long book for you?

AMM: Well, I prefer the term big. And I love this saying that’s going around: ‘I love big books and I cannot lie’ [....] So with regard to writing a big book, I write the kind of thing that I love, and I know that readers love to get immersed in a long story.

CS: It’s a defiant choice in a media scene that’s dominated by small bites. Do you think we still have the attention span for them?

AMM: This idea that younger people don’t have an attention span, I think it’s ridiculous. I don’t buy it [....] Yes, we can bemoan the kind of attention that’s being fractured and starved and yet lured over and over again in an addictive framework, but it isn’t new [....] It seems like every decade or so, someone announces the death of the book. It’s never true [....] People love stories.

CS: Fayne is full of characters that are both familiar and not. Can you explain the choice to employ ‘tropes’? What do they help

you to achieve?

AMM: For me, as a writer, I go: Oh! Here’s my toy box full of literary devices, what could be more fun? It’s the absolute delicious delight of the Victorian novel, that’s what sustains me. And there’s that familiarity, which is so inviting [...] and then within that I can introduce all kinds of unnerving and unfamiliar things [....] There’s nothing like a period piece to tell a very contemporary story.

CS: You manage a very faithful rendering of Charlotte’s intersex identity and avoid exoticizing it. What was it like to write from her perspective?

AMM: The late Victorian time is one of extreme categorization, not unlike our own world where divisions among beliefs and identities are becoming so narrow. So it was crucial to say that Charlotte is normal, it’s the world that has a problem [....] I do immersive research and the history of women and gender and bodily

non-conforming people in the medical gaze is something that’s very, very important to me. But the spark comes from within me as knowing from a very young age that I was wrong in the world. And the idea of looking through the eyes of somebody who’s born with an intersex trait has been quite compelling to me for a very long time [....] It’s not an exotic quality. That’s why I’ve decided not to treat it as a “spoiler”. That’s just who she is, that’s her body. That’s normal. It’s the world that has a problem and is going to make it a problem for her.

CS: Threaded throughout Fayne are these symbols of ambiguity. Why was it important to engage in the marginal and nameless?

AMM: Because there’s nothing more queer than nature. Nature

flourishes at the margins, it favours blurred lines [....] It is wonderful to put names to the world, but if the goal of naming is just to catch things, pin them, and stick a name on them, then you’re killing everything you’re naming.

Ann-Marie MacDonald is first and foremost an entertainer and her loyalties lie with her readers. In her own words: “I just wrote a big book. If you start reading it, you might wanna get lost in the journey.”

Fayne is available in bookstores in print and in audio-book form, read by the author.

Ella Buckingham & Adrienne Roy Staff Writer & Contributor

Since 2004, the Canadian publishing company Biblioasis has remained committed to publishing intimate and creative works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry from authors across the world. As the fall semester comes to a close and students finally get the opportunity to read and decompress during winter break, The McGill Tribune highlights two of Biblioasis’ best offerings released this year.

Ordinary Wonder Tales by Emily Urquhart - Ella Buckingham

In this essay collection, Emily Urquhart draws from her experience as a folklore scholar to relate historical “wonder tales,” as she calls them, to experiences in her own life. Pulling from legends ranging in origin from Japanese to Irish, this collection is engaging, innovative, and thoughtful. Characters appearing throughout these folktales such as the Amabie, a half-fish, halfduck Japanese prophetess, are described in vivid detail. The Amabie warned the village people to whom it appeared that a plague would occur unless her image was spread amongst the people.

Urquhart then applies these folktales to situations of our time, demonstrating how adaptable and powerful these stories are to contemporary life. In “The Plague Tales,” she explains how during the pandemic, her family and children sketched out the Amabie and placed it on the front door as a protective talisman. She also explores how ancient motifs can resonate in present-day stories. In “Years Thought Days,” she compares her father’s battle with dementia to a genre of folktale with the same name that

references the supernatural flow of time occurring when a mortal visits the underworld.

At points, discord emerges between the stories’ lyrical quality and the crash course on the technical side of folklore scattered throughout. This can distract readers from the calming lull of the tales. However, the end result is a literal blending of fact and fiction that informs readers about the complexity of storytelling while also satisfying their imaginations. In Urquhart’s collection, she dispels the notion that fairy tales are irrelevant in this fast-paced, modern environment, and recreates the magic of childhood in day-to-day life.

This Time, That Place by Clark Blaise - Adrienne Roy Peeling off layers and simultaneously figuring out which ones to put back on epitomizes the never-ending process of growing up. Clark Blaise’s latest memoir This Time, That Place, a compilation of 24 essays spanning 40 years, is a bittersweet work that authentically captures this transformation.

The structure of This Time, That Place gifts the reader with more agency than a typical autobiography. By first illustrating his nomadic childhood, Blaise contextualizes the disjointedness he feels in adulthood without explicitly addressing it, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. While the stories are uniquely his, he expresses his growing pains in a universal way. The reader feels they’ve known someone like his uncle Étienne: Once the mayor of a war-torn town in France, he immigrated to the United States and opened a French restaurant in Gainesville, Florida. Perhaps they aspire to be like his wife Bharati Mukherjee, who balances her writing and teaching career, including a stint at McGillwhile navigating two worlds as an Indian immigrant to North America.

Based in Windsor, Ontario, Biblioasis began as a bookstore in 1998 and expanded into publishing in 2004. (bordercityliving.com)

The readers don’t feel as though they’re merely a fly on the wall: They’re sitting in the back of a stolen car in the middle of the night, inheriting a new identity as they watch a past life fade in the rearview.

Margaret Atwood writes a graceful foreword to This Time, That Place and emphasizes Blaise’s underappreciated and lasting impact on Canadian literature. When other Canadian authors looked to publish abroad, exchanging their Canadian identity for the opportunity of a larger audience, Blaise did the opposite, dedicating his time to the Montreal Story Tellers rather than publishing in the New Yorker. In outlining his devotion, the reader trusts Blaise from the first page. Though sublimely written, This Time, That Place stands out because of that early connection with the reader and Blaise’s vulnerability. His dedication to poignant storytelling instead of commercial success fosters an unparalleled reading experience, and ensures that This Time, That Place finds its audience only for the right reasons.

Big books, compulsive categorization, and MacDonald’s new novel, ‘Fayne’

Venturing deep into “the bowels of the stacks” of McGill’s Osler Library, Ms. MacDonald conducted extensive research on 19th century asylums, surgi cal procedures, and instrument catalogues for her new novel. (annmariemadconald.com)

Best of: Albums

Mitski, Laurel Hell – Ella Buckingham, Staff

BEST AND WORST OF 2022

Writer

Japanese-American singer-songwriter Mitski’s sixth studio album, Laurel Hell, comes off the back of her three-year hiatus and is an artful collection of head-bopping pop numbers and slow, narrative ballads. Though veering more toward the mainstream than her previous albums, throughout this record, Mitski tackles her discomfort with her role as an indie-rock icon and the hardships of staying true to oneself in the music industry. Despite critiques that Mitski has become a “mainstream sellout” with her turn to conventional sounds such as bright 80s pop beats, Laurel Hell manages to wow with tracks such as “Heat Lightning” and still impresses self-proclaimed cool kids everywhere.

Kendrick Lamar, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers - Yash Zodgekar, Staff Writer

Kendrick Lamar’s latest release finds him at his most confessional, reflecting on themes like fatherhood, sexual addiction, and celebrity worship through the lens of his experiences in therapy. The result is a record of great emotional poignance, once again demonstrating Lamar’s remarkable poetic skill. Sonically, the 18 tracks presented are remarkably diverse, melding jazz samples, trap beats, and orchestral arrangements, sounding like no one else in the process. Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers is an essential record for any hip-hop fan this year.

Harry Styles, Harry’s House - Dana Prather, Staff Writer

The May release of Harry Styles’ Harry’s House kicked off a summer of supreme new music, taking listeners on a leisurely stroll through the pop star’s daydreams and reflections on love. Standout track “Late Night Talking” infuses its 80s-inspired beat with the singer’s characteristic charm, while the woefullyneglected B-side, “Satellite,” supplies some of the album’s best sonic moments. While the lyrics can leave something to be desired (looking at you, “Cinema”), the former One Direction star’s much-anticipated third solo album provided enough blissful beats to keep us moving and grooving all year long.

Beyoncé, Renaissance - Suzanna Graham, Staff Writer

Queen Bey reaffirmed her reign on the music industry with her chart-topping seventh studio album Renaissance. The album revives a disco era, encouraging uninhibited sweaty dance party vibes that the Bey-hive was missing during the height of the pandemic. Beyoncé strives for the future, especially in “Alien Superstar,” a utopian track that mixes poetry and singing while oozing confidence. Beyoncé’s bops are better than ever with her raspy vocals, club beats, and self-love lyrics.

Best of: Films

Everything Everywhere All at Once - Dana Prather

Both a fan-favourite and critical darling, A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once is a rare piece of media that everyone seems to agree on: This film is a messy, mind-bending masterpiece. Written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively, ‘Daniels’), the film blends sci-fi, action, comedy, and domestic drama to offer a fresh take on the multiverse concept. In a career-best performance, Michelle Yeoh portrays an immigrant mother attempting to do her family business’ taxes while battling bizarre, otherworldly enemies. Everything Everywhere All At Once will make you laugh, cry, and philosophize––sometimes all at once––for its entire 140-minute runtime.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On - Yash Zodgekar

Dean Fleischer Camp’s directorial debut tells the story of

Marcel (Jenny Slate), an anthropomorphic one-inch-tall shell. When filmmaker Dean discovers Marcel, who has innocuously been looking after his grandmother in an empty Airbnb, he becomes an internet sensation and must confront the wonders and woes of the vast outer world. Presented in a mockumentary format that deftly combines animation and live action, the film is characterized by its whimsicality and tenderness, conveying much about the human condition from the unique outsider perspective of its premise.

the coveted world of fine dining to rescue his family’s Italian beef sandwich shop. Raw, sarcastic, and nail-biting at moments, this series takes an unabashed look at the reality of the restaurant business and the struggle to stay afloat—both financially and emotionally—amidst the devastation of loss.

Stranger Things (Season 4) - Yash Zodgekar

Stranger Things’ fourth season elevates the show to another scale, boasting gorgeous special effects, feature-length episodes, and settings from California to Russia. What makes this season the best yet are the human relationships at its centre. Showrunners the Duffer Brothers also use Vecna, a new villain with a more complex and nuanced backstory than those of previous seasons, as a means to delve deeper into the nuances of their young protagonists, exploring more mature themes as they enter high school. Season five cannot come soon enough!

Wednesday - Suzanna Graham

Funny, fierce, and a little freaky, Wednesday puts a new spin on the whimsical Addams Family, in which the titular daughter, Wednesday (Jenna Ortega), joins Nevermore Academy to hopefully fit in with her fellow outcasts. The show subverts the expected family-oriented plot, allowing Ortega to shine as a surprisingly complex angsty teen who somehow smiles more than she blinks. With plot lines involving American witch-trial lore and bug-eyed serial killing monsters, Wednesday is Netflix’s newest binge-able hit. And for enjoyers of the iconic movie Addams Family Values, make sure to catch Christina Ricci’s whimsical cameo as Mrs. Thornhill.

Triangle of Sadness - Suzanna Graham

Ruben Östlund’s film Triangle of Sadness, Cannes’s 2022 Palme d’Or winner, could have been rightfully named The White Floatus. Sigh in frustration at the ultimate will-they-won’tthey (break up) influencer couple Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), who would rather continuously bicker about who paid on a previous date than enjoy their free tropical vacation. Of course, with the perpetually drunk Captain Thomas (Woody Harrelson) at the helm—who always slays in his chaotic roles—it’s no surprise that the cruise gets derailed. So sit back, relax, and get ready to use your promotional barf bag.

Top Gun: Maverick - Charlotte Hayes, Staff Writer

Tom Cruise is back, reprising one of his most iconic roles in this summer’s Top Gun: Maverick. Set 30 years after the original film, the film follows Maverick as he is called back to his alma mater to train a whole new generation of elite fighter pilots. Although returning cast members Cruise and Val Kilmer give commendable performances, the next class of Top Gun pilots, including Glen Powell, Monica Barbaro, and Miles Teller, outshine them in their breakthrough performances. With action-packed training montages, motorcycle rides, and musical callbacks (shout out to Kenny Loggins), the movie walks the line perfectly between nostalgia and a new era.

Best of: TV Shows

The White Lotus (Season 2) - Charlotte Hayes

Bodies are in the water and the White Lotus has opened its doors again—but this time in Sicily! The HBO critical darling is back for its second season with an almost brand-new cast (except for Emmy winner and pop culture icon Jennifer Coolidge) and a gorgeous new locale. Once again, creator Mike White wrote a season with the same electric energy as reality TV while simultaneously delivering some of the most interesting class commentary currently on television. The White Lotus delivers an edgier take on the format we came to know and love last season.

The Bear - Ella Buckingham

In a lead role that is casting Shameless’ Jeremy Allen White to new celebrity heights, the dramedy The Bear revolves around a young chef (White) who, in the wake of his brother’s death, leaves

Worst of: Albums

Machine Gun Kelly, mainstream sellout - Ella Buckingham

The McGill Tribune’s Worst Album of 2022 by a whopping 32 per cent vote (oof), this 16-track album by Machine Gun Kelly was unfortunately released 20 years too late. Heavily inspired by early 2000s pop-punk beats and tackling all subjects from sex to drugs to war, this collection is reminiscent of a pissedoff Avril Lavigne, but in a disingenuous, lacklustre way (his track “emo girl (feat. WILLOW)” and “Sk8er Boi” are just a touch too similar). If you’re looking for mindless cliched bangers, however, or want to time-travel back to the release of Mean Girls, then this album fulfills that role scrumptiously.

Worst of: Films

Don’t Worry Darling - Charlotte Hayes

Don’t Worry Darling was one of 2022’s most highly anticipated films but somehow also its biggest flop. With a star-studded cast, high-concept script, and broad anticipation for Olivia Wilde’s sophomore directorial effort, it felt like a surefire recipe for success. Instead, the film delivered some half-baked insights on secondwave feminism packaged in a blatant ripoff of the Stepford Wives The most interesting thing about this movie was its absolutely chaotic press junket, but even the endless tabloid fodder couldn’t save this trainwreck.

Worst of: TV Shows

Dahmer - Dana Prather

In an age where true crime documentaries, movies, and podcasts have gained rapid but questionable popularity, it’s no surprise that Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has been a commercial success with mixed critical reception. Indeed, the Netflix limited series, which presents a dramatic retelling of the life and crimes of the infamous serial killer, garnered an astounding 192.6 million watches in its first week alone. Still, it’s important to recognize the very real danger posed by shows like Dahmer: They romanticize abhorrent criminals and retraumatize the families and friends of real-life victims.

Hold your breath, make a wish, count to 2.5

researchers

Gillian Cameron Contributor

Air pollution from industrial processes, cars, and even forest fires means that the air we breathe contains numerous harmful particles and debris. Fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, are tiny particles in the air released by both natural sources and human activities. Since The McGill Tribune last reported on this fine particulate matter, PM2.5 has only garnered more attention. Their name is derived from their 2.5 micron width. For reference, a rain droplet is around 10 microns in diametre. PM2.5 is not made of one chemical, but rather a mixture of different pollutants such as pollen, ash, aerosols, and fumes. These particles can be directly emitted by combustion reactions, such as the burning of fossil fuels, or formed through the reactions of different gasses interacting. But no matter how these particles form, PM2.5 poses a serious risk to our health.

The microscopic size of PM2.5 means that these particles penetrate deeper into our lungs than larger pollutants, which are typically deposited in the upper respiratory tract. PM2.5 deposition can lead to inflammation of lung tissue and subsequent tissue damage. Short-term exposure to PM2.5 has been found to cause respiratory ailments, such as acute and chronic bronchitis. Long-term PM2.5 exposure is linked to premature mortality, especially among children and people with chronic heart or lung conditions. While the connection between high concentrations of PM2.5 and increased mortality is well established, the safe level of exposure is

pollution can

to premature death

still being determined. According to a recent McGill study published in Science Advances, a safe concentration of PM2.5 is much lower than previously thought.

Canada, compared to other countries, has relatively low PM2.5 levels, with a current average annual concentration of 7.1 micrograms per cubic metre. The limited presence of PM2.5 is due to stringent regulations in place for industrial emissions and coal burning, resulting in cleaner air than in countries with more lax regulations. Due to having low

census.

“Our national census [...] has been linked to tax records (for residential location) and mortality data,” Scott Weichenthal, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health at McGill and lead author of the study, wrote in an email to the Tribune. “This allows us to assign people’s exposures to outdoor air pollution based on where they live and then follow people over time to see if people living in higher exposure areas have higher rates of death/disease.”

After controlling for factors like diet, smoking, exercise, and alcohol consumption, the researchers found that mortality in places with a low concentration of PM2.5 was significantly higher than previously thought. They estimate that an additional 1.55 million deaths worldwide each year are caused by outdoor concentrations of PM2.5.

“Essentially, what we did is update [...] how the risk of death changes with increasing exposure,” Weichenthal wrote. “Previously, the lower end of this curve was left undefined because of insufficient evidence at low concentrations, but we addressed this knowledge gap using a large study we conducted in Canada where PM2.5 levels are low. Our results suggest that globally PM2.5 likely kills more people than previously appreciated.”

PM2.5 concentrations, Canada is an ideal place to study the effects of low PM2.5 levels on health. To study mortality rates related to this type of air pollution, McGill researchers used mortality data and lifestyle data collected in the Canadian

The World Health Organization recently changed their guidelines for safe average annual concentrations of PM2.5 to below five micrograms per cubic metre. If PM2.5 levels can be reduced to meet this guideline, millions of premature deaths caused by these fine particles could be prevented.

Athina Sitou Staff Writer

On Nov. 26, NeuroLingo hosted a free public neuroscience event during which researchers shared their ongoing projects. Founded in January 2020 by four graduate students in McGill’s Integrated Program in Neuroscience (IPN), NeuroLingo is a neuroscience outreach initiative with the goal of demystifying complex topics in neuroscience. The six speakers at the event were all neuroscience graduate students at McGill and Université de Montréal who condensed their months-long research into 10-minute TEDTalk-style presentations on topics such as depression, language, and child abuse.

The common thread that united the six seemingly disjointed talks was science communication. NeuroLingo aims to make neuroscience accessible to those who are not necessarily scientists or familiar with technical jargon. Greater access to digestible science talks is crucial as they provide a platform where scientists can distill concepts down to their simplest forms.

The first speaker, Gabriel Blanco Gomez, a PhD student at The Neuro, introduced his research about language deficits in children with autism by challenging the audience with philosophical questions about why language

exists. Although Gomez was unable to provide all the answers to these inquiries, he imparted the key steps of scientific discovery, like making predictions, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions, that should be applied in the pursuit of answers to such complicated questions.

“We still don’t have an answer about how humans develop language. But that’s okay. Because language is complex, not just genes and brain structures—[it’s] a lot more than that. It’s deeply rooted in culture and emotion,” Gomez said.

Sophie Simard, a master’s student in Naguib Mechawar’s lab, then introduced the process of neurogenesis, the birth of new neurons, and debunked the long-standing myth that the adult human brain does not generate new neurons. Her research aims to determine the extent to which neurogenesis occurs during adulthood. Hopefully, this phenomenon can be harnessed for new and more effective treatments for neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease.

Candice Canonne, a PhD student and Simard’s labmate, began her talk by noting that if she had to retain one positive aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be the increased attention mental health has received. She then delved into her research about Von Economo neurons, a particular class of neurons

The Fall 2022 event is the fourth talk NeuroLin go has hosted since their inception in 2020. (NeuroLingo / facebook.com)

that are thought to be implicated in certain mental disorders.

“[Von Economo neurons] are present in key regions that have been linked to depression and schizophrenia, and [this] leads me exactly to the question I want to answer [by] the end of my PhD. Is there an alteration of Von Economo neurons in depression and schizophrenia?” Canonne told the audience.

Arsenii Prozorov studies neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt to internal or external stimuli, in relation to Alzheimer’s. To make his research as relatable as possible, Prozorov explained neural plasticity by giving examples of daily activities, such as attending a

social event and being physically active.

“The preventative measures that are recommended for now are much more effective than any of the current medication for Alzheimer’s disease,” Prozorov said.

To understand the strong correlation between child abuse and mental disorders, Claudia Belliveau, a PhD student also in Mechawar’s lab, researches perineuronal nets (PNNs), which are composed of sugars and proteins that come together around neurons to form protective meshes against toxic substances. Belliveau’s research has suggested that child abuse leads to an increased number of PNNs.

“We hypothesize that abuse during this time where the brain is like soft playdough not only changes the way that neurons communicate but also changes the way that these nets develop,” Belliveau noted.

The final speaker, Hiba Daghar, discussed the importance of raising awareness about rare diseases. In her research, she characterizes rare congenital neurodevelopmental diseases, like glycogen storage disease type III, in different animal models to better understand the underlying mechanisms that would allow for more effective and targeted treatments.

“Having this capacity to mimic specific genetic conditions opens the door to what we call personalized medicine,” Daghar said.

McGill

find that low levels of PM2.5 air

lead

PM2.5 can be released from natural sources, or from human activities like burning fossil fuels. (Alex Zhou / The McGill Tribune)

Accessible talks on neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, rare diseases among highlights

NeuroLingo breaks down neuroscience jargon during TED-talk-like event

The transforming landscape of linguistic diversity

Ella Paulin Staff Writer

The Montreal

Underdocumented Languages Linguistics Lab (MULL-Lab) houses linguists from McGill and the wider Montreal community who focus their research on languages that are considered to be at risk of extinction because so few people speak them. For example, MULL has ongoing research on Inuktitut and Tlingit, two Indigenous languages from Nunavut and Alaska, respectively. Underdocumented can also refer to languages with a stable number of speakers but a relatively small amount of academic material written about them. Languages in this category include Igala in Nigeria and a number of Mayan languages spoken throughout Central America.

Regardless of the unique situation of a given language, MULL researchers approach each language with the goal of identifying patterns, understanding the inner workings of its grammar, and untangling nuances that have not been previously identified.

Elicitation is one of the primary ways linguists investigate how a language works. This method allows linguists to formulate hypotheses and questions about the grammar of a language and test them systematically by collecting direct feedback from native speakers.

“It’s basically an interview. We ask [a native speaker], ‘How do you say this? How do you say that?’ and we write it out on the board in chalk. Using that, we trace out the outlines of the grammar,” explained Terrence Gatchalian, a PhD student in linguistics at McGill, in an interview with The McGill Tribune

But elicitation has its limits. “A speaker’s knowledge of their language is incredibly deep, it’s very far reaching, and at any given point, you’re only going to get a small corner of that linguistic knowledge,” Gatchalian said.

One way to get a broader view of a language is to work with

a corpus, which is a collection of speech and writing from native speakers.

“When you’re looking at corpora, you get a good distribution of what kinds of things that a speaker will say if they want to express [some] meaning,” Gatchalian said. “You get the benefit of having very naturalistic data—these are things that someone said.”

McGill’s Department of Linguistics is primarily focused on studying language data in support of theoretical work, but Jessica Coon, a professor in the department, points out that a linguist’s ethical obligations increase when they start working with endangered languages.

“I think there’s an added responsibility when doing theoretical work with underdocumented languages to make sure that the outputs of that work––while they might contribute to linguistic theory and they might also go in journals that are really theoretically oriented––can also be communicated to community members in an accessible way,” Coon said in an interview with the Tribune

Linguists have not always taken this responsibility seriously, engaging instead in extractive linguistics—the practice of going into a community, studying the language, leaving, and eventually publishing the results in a journal, typically in a manner that’s inaccessible to members of the community who are directly impacted by language extinction.

Over the last few decades, however, linguists have shifted towards a more collaborative approach with communities of speakers. This means valuing the work done by native-speaker linguists, taking community goals into account when designing research projects, and ensuring that any gained linguistic insight is shared with the source community.

“It’s really just like a completely new learning process every single time, because every community is going to have different challenges, every community’s going to have different goals,” Gatchalian said. “As someone who tries to do this work, I think it’s important to be

really flexible and open minded.”

Prioritizing the goals and needs of speaker communities is especially important given that many of those communities are in the process of completely losing their language. Of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken globally, over 40 per cent, or more than 2,800, are endangered, and many of these endangered languages are spoken by Indigenous peoples around the world. In response to the crisis, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared the decade from 2022 to 2032 to be the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL). Through the IDIL and other initiatives, language documentation work around the world is trying to keep pace with the rate of language loss.

“The time is really now to be doing this very important work, because for many languages around the world, they’re in a very critical state where the language is not being passed on to new generations of speakers in the home,” Coon said.

At McGill, MULL is one place where this work is happening, but there is currently no specialized support for those interested in language revitalization. In 2021, $3 million of a larger donation from Gerald Rimer was allocated to establishing the Institute for Indigenous Research and Knowledges at McGill, which will include a lab specifically dedicated to the revitalization of Indigenous languages.

This institute will bring some much-needed focus and structural support to the study of Indigenous languages spoken in and around Montreal, such as Kanien’kéha.

“When you look at the universities that support programs related to Indigenous languages or revitalization or conservation efforts, there aren’t very many of them, even though there are communities whose languages are in need of that kind of support all over the place,” said Willie Myers, a graduate student in McGill’s linguistics department, in an interview with the Tribune

Language revitalization and

conservation is a pressing issue globally, but especially so in Canada, where there are more than 70 languages across 12 language families.

“In many respects, the Indigenous languages of Canada are as different from each other as they are from any other human languages. Because of this, it’s very difficult to generalize about Indigenous languages in this country,” James Crippen, who is Tlingit and a professor in McGill’s Department of Linguistics, wrote in an email to the Tribune . “But we can confidently say one general thing: All Indigenous languages in Canada are endangered or threatened.”

All of the language conservation work being done by native speakers, community members, and outsider linguists raises the question: Why is it important to preserve endangered and threatened languages? In other words, what is lost when a language disappears?

“There are [...] fuzzy claims about how the loss of the language takes with it some mysterious connection to the world or to nebulous, often magical ideas that nobody wants to actually explain,” Crippen said. “Although this

kind of discourse might be well intended, it’s honestly just as harmful as the rhetoric about how our languages are bizarre.”

Culturally and linguistically, there are compelling reasons to care about language loss. For example, as Crippen explained, fluency in a language is often the only way to appreciate the verbal artistry of a language’s stories or songs. On the linguistics side, documenting as wide a variety of languages as possible is fundamental to making accurate claims about language. One goal of linguistics is to make generalizations about the ways that all languages function and what the underlying patterns are. In order to do this work accurately, it’s imperative that linguists look at diverse languages. But at some point, these lines of reasoning must go beyond the academic.

“First and foremost people use their languages for everyday life,” Crippen wrote. “I tell learners of Indigenous languages that they should learn how to wipe their butt in the language, learn how to pick their nose in the language, learn how to fight in the language, and learn how to love in the language. It’s those ways of describing ordinary lived experience that are the most visceral and the most human.”

MULL-lab works to document endangered languages while making research accessible

UNESCO’s atlas of the world’s languages in danger compiles data from more than 2,500 languages across the world. (Drea Garcia / The McGill Tribune)

scitech@mcgilltribune.com

The harms of transformation diets

Fatphobia encourages dangerous eating practices by

severe weight loss

Sarah Farnand Sports Editor

Content Warning: Mention of disordered eating, abuse

Diet and exercise: The cure-all for any health issue, right? Social media is smattered with self-proclaimed “fitness coaches” and “dieticians” who prescribe these quick fixes for anyone wanting to lose weight quickly. The truth is that these “transformation” diets prey on those with deep-seated body image issues and internalized fatphobia by promising a new body in a matter of weeks. However, such drastic diets can have extremely detrimental physiological and psychological effects.

Those who engage in any form of diet become more vulnerable to developing an eating disorder as dieting itself can be considered a form of disordered eating. Extreme dieting can also lead to cardiac dysrhythmias—irregular heartbeats—and even cardiac death if not closely monitored. The heart uses fat, which is released as a result of an abrupt reduction in calories, instead of sugars for energy, putting more strain on the organ’s ability to function.

Calorie counts and suggested portions are notoriously inaccurate measures of how much one should eat because all bodies are different. The counts on nutrition labels are based on averages that ignore the complexity of digestion and the diversity of each individual’s unique gut biome and metabolic rate.

As Chloé Fleurent-Grégoire, a registered dietician and MSc candidate at McGill explained, restrictive diets are not sustainable and lead to unhealthy eating patterns.

“In general, an individual who is constantly dieting will suffer from negative physiological consequences,” Fleurent-Grégoire wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “Retrospective data

demonstrates that more than two-thirds of people who pursue weight loss don’t sustain a clinically significant weight reduction (i.e., five per cent of body weight) after five years. This may lead to individuals wanting to pursue weight loss once again, leading to the yo-yo dieting pattern.”

The yo-yo effect of extreme dieting is the process of losing and regaining weight in a cyclical manner. It can lead to micro-tears in blood vessels which can cause atherosclerosis—the hardening of the arteries—as well as other types of heart disease. Severely limiting calorie intake almost guarantees deficiencies of certain vital vitamins and minerals, leading to a less efficient immune system and weaker bones. Other consequences noted by FleurentGrégoire include loss of muscle mass, hormonal disturbances, chronic fatigue, interrupted hunger and satiety cues, and much more.

In addition to the physiological effects of these crash diets, dieting can trigger mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Dieting, according to Fleurent-Grégoire, can create obsessive and dichotomous thinking about food as either good or bad with no in-between, and strict food rules, food guilt, or shame—all of which can lead to further disordered eating.

Those who become obsessed with thoughts of food may also develop harmful behavioural symptoms such as skipping meals, partaking in exhaustive amounts of exercise, and binge eating.

“Some people may attribute the “failure” to their poor willpower instead of the unrealistic food rules related to the fad diet,” Fleurent-Grégoire wrote. “This shame attributed to ‘failure’ may lead to reduced self-esteem [...] a potential side effect of the binge-restrict cycle.”

It is also important to consider the source of weight gain or the motivations behind diets to begin with. While many of those looking to diet are doing so because of their own insecurities,

Growing into the Red Jersey

According to a recent study on university dieting, 60 to 80 per cent of students reported dieting within the last year. (iStock)

trauma can also lead to weight gain that cannot be avoided with any quick-fix diet. Obesity is more prevalent in those, especially women, who have experienced physical or sexual abuse. However, because of the pervasive nature of fatphobia, those perceived as obese or characterized as being overweight by the problematic body mass index (BMI) may be prescribed extreme weight-loss regimens by physicians which do not address the underlying mental or comorbid physiological issues.

The normalization of crash diets is fatphobic, dangerous, and unsustainable for those looking to improve their overall health.

For those looking for a healthier lifestyle, Fleurent-Grégoire had several suggestions.

“Flexibility. Making sure to include foods you love and avoid dichotomous thinking,” Fleurent-Grégoire wrote. “[Cook] more often and eat with family and friends.”

sports@mcgilltribune.com | SPORTS

Leaders in university sports are tasked with building up positive team culture

Philippe Haddad & Sepideh Afshar Contributor & Managing Editor

Canadian university athletes’ collegiate careers are short. Under current U Sport eligibility rules, athletes are restricted to only five years of eligibility, providing a challenging timeline for those looking to make an impact on their programs. Individuals are given a year—including the offseason—to take on the mantle of captain or president, to either reform or reinforce structure and values within their teams. The McGill Tribune sat down with Martlets rugby captain Davine Yang, Redbirds hockey captain Taylor Ford, and Redbirds rugby co-president Owen Cumming to discuss their paths to leadership in their respective programs.

For some, such as Ford and Cumming, leadership opportunities came early, as seen through their respective histories within the Halifax Mooseheads and the Shawnigan Lake School rugby program. Others, such as Yang, gradually ascended to their leadership positions due to their experience and seniority.

“I kind of just stepped into it,” Yang told the Tribune. “As the years progressed and everyone else became my rookie […] it kind of transitioned [from] being the baby of the team to being the one that has been around the longest and so everyone kind of looks to you to troubleshoot.”

Becoming the team troubleshooter comes with many challenges—both expected and unexpected. Cumming detailed that the COVID-19 pandemic was a major obstacle to organizing Redbirds rugby, with teammates spread out across the globe. Even outside of navigating a global pandemic, leaders are often faced with the burden of making a direct impact on their programs. Yang recounted the pressure she felt to reform the team this season.

“[With] every captain, there’s pressure to do well,” she admitted. “I think the pressure that I felt was on me this year was to try to start turning us around.”

Yang, Cumming, and Ford all expressed feeling privileged to take on leadership roles. However, in challenging circumstances, like those detailed above, they all emphasized that support from those around them was paramount for growing into their current positions.

“My captain at the time took me under his wing and we had good discussions about what it is to be a leader,” Ford explained. “I do have to give a lot of credit to my past leaders and guys I’ve looked up to [….] It’s definitely kind of like a trickle-down effect from leader to leader.”

“My biggest struggle was learning how to do what’s best for the group and not what I think was best for the group,” Cumming said, emphasizing the importance of his peers and co-president Peter Demers. “When I thought that something went well in my head, [I would use] guys in our leadership group as a sounding board.”

One cannot discuss any team sport without talking about culture. A team goes beyond a group of people who play the same sport; it’s about a community that supports and aims to better its members. This takes on a variety of forms: Giving back to the sport, competing against like-minded opponents, focusing on core values, or just pure love of the game. All of these and more are considered by leaders striving to unite their teams.

“You don’t necessarily need to always get along,” Ford said. “But as long as there’s respect towards each other, that’s when everybody can start going in the same direction.”

“I came into this year hoping that we could reset the culture,” Yang stressed about her aspirations to inspire her team. “Getting

Redbirds hockey is off to a hot second-seeded start to their season, while Redbirds rugby caps off their season with a Finals appearance at Nationals. Martlets rugby looks to capitalize on their off-season with hard work. (Anam Musta’ein / Today)

players to be less extrinsically motivated, to be more intrinsically motivated, to […] be better than their past selves.”

“It’s thinking about the players that wore the jersey before you, the players that will wear it out for you, and what you can do to move the needle during your time wearing it,” said Cumming. “It’s less what sets the player apart and more what the player wants to offer. I think that that’s what matters.”

“Culture” and “leadership” are often used as buzzwords in sports, but their real-life manifestations instill pride in all members of a program. It is critical that varsity leaders build on the foundations of the strong culture established before them, or work to develop one themselves, because the impact of a strong leader reverberates far beyond their eight-month term. It doesn’t necessarily take having a leader to buy into a culture, but it takes leadership to provide a culture that matters to its members.

promoting

Formula One is steering women out of the race

Whenwillawomanjointhetopranksoftheprestigious sport?

Zoé Mineret Staff Writer

Ifell in love with the sport of Formula One (F1) in 2020 after watching “Senna”, a documentary depicting the life of the famous Brazilian Formula 1 driver, Ayrton Senna. Three seasons of “Drive to Survive” later, I was hooked.

After watching several seasons of driver lineups consisting completely of men, discovering that F1 was not a men’s-only sport came as a shock. In my budding F1 fandom, I was yet to see any women on the racetrack nor was I aware of any women drivers in the sport’s history. I learned—only through individual research—that five women have attempted to qualify for a Formula 1 Grand Prix: Maria Teresa de Filippis, Lella Lombardi, Divina Galica, Desiré Wilson, and Giovanna Amati. Out of these five women, only Lombardi and de Filippis qualified for a race, and only Lombardi scored points.

Thirty years have passed since a woman last attempted to qualify for a Grand Prix. Since then, F1 has exclusively been a boys club. Unsurprisingly, this maledominated environment does not exist only on the tracks; it extends into the management of the teams as well.

A 2021 study by ESPN examining the number of women working within F1 revealed the severe lack of gender parity in the sport. Mercedes’ core race team is comprised of 65 people— four of whom are women. Five women are part of the 66-person race team for McLaren, and no women work for the Alpha Tauri team.

Across gender, race, class, and ability, F1 is an inherently exclusive sport. With only 10 teams each with two drivers, only 20 drivers are lucky enough to compete each year. Furthermore, the exorbitant cost to succeed in F1 creates a major financial

barrier to gain entry into the sport, let alone to train and access the equipment required to excel. Often, teams will only choose to work with drivers that have ample sponsorship funding as it provides them with more capital for car and team development. The majority of successful F1 drivers are able to accomplish this through relationships with sponsors and teams and for women, the sponsorship opportunities are few and far between.

The obstacle of finding sponsorships is even harder to overcome given the small number of women in karting––a four-wheel motorsport practiced by most racers when they are children to gain experience and build up the necessary reflexes to compete. In Britain, the under-16 karting license split is 14 boys to every 1 girl, putting over 93 per cent of licences in the hands of boys. The lack of representation for women in the categories under F1, such as Formula 4, Formula 3, or Formula 2, leaves many fans concerned about the high barriers to entry for women. F1 fan, Victor Henry, U3 Science, expressed his concern about the lack of opportunities for women in the racing world.

“I think one day it could definitely be possible to see a woman race for an F1 team,” Henry told The McGill Tribune . “However, with the way things are in place today in F1, it makes it very hard for women to achieve excellence in this domain. In this regard, as long as the world of car racing does not change in a way that offers women equal opportunities, I don’t think we could see a female Formula 1 driver.”

Strides toward equal opportunities could be as simple as changing the car design to accommodate smaller physiques. Though performing well in the lower ranks is key to accessing F1, the car design of these feeder categories is often the same for all drivers in an effort

to reduce costs. Tatiana Calderón, a Colombian racer in the 2019 Formula 2, explained that due to her height, weight, and foot size, she often struggles to perform to the best of her abilities as the car was made for men. The size of the braking pedal, for example, is made for bigger feet, forcing Calderón to press down on the brake with just her toes, losing strength and power. The size of the steering wheel is also made for bigger hands, which leads Calderón to suffer from heavy cramps following a racing weekend.

Despite facing difficulties in terms of accessibility, the dream of racing professionally is not out of the question for young drivers like Nicole Havrda. The 16-year-old Canadian racer is currently competing in the Indian Racing League as part of the Chennai Turbo Riders and helping pave the way for young women in motorsport.

“I 100 per cent believe that in the future there will be a female driver racing, and I am working my butt off to achieve that myself,” Havrda said in an interview with the Tribune

For women to gain access to that prized seat, there needs to be more initiative taken in the realm of motorsport to promote the involvement of women as both drivers and contributors

to the racing world.

“More large companies need to step up and help young and upcoming drivers make their way up the racing ladder,” explained Havrda. “It is hard financially for most drivers to be able to make it far [….] I was recently a part of the She’s Mercedes program [and] the campaign is helping create a path in motorsports for women like me.”

Other initiatives to increase the number of women in motorsport have also recently kicked off. Alpine has launched a Rac(H) er program to encourage the presence of women in the sport. The W series, a women-only competition without entry fees, seeks to eliminate the financial barriers that prevent many from racing. The recentlylaunched F1 Academy also aims to support women in navigating the different series of the sport. However, to many fans, these measures are only surface-level. In an interview with the Tribune , McGill alumna (BA ’22) Erin Smith expressed her concern that these newfound initiatives are simply not enough.

“I [...] think that F1 is doing basically next-tonothing in terms of getting women more involved,” Smith told the Tribune .“I think F1 is almost kind of

happy with this current status quo where women are in a completely different category when they are perfectly able, eligible, and willing to participate in Formula 1 and not W series [....] There should be better programs.”

The truth is that women have every capacity needed to drive at the same level as their male counterparts. Jamie Chadwick, a British driver who will be racing in the Indy NXT 2023 for Andretti Autosport, has won the W series three times, each by a large margin and remains unable to score a seat in the Formula circuit.

F1 must do more to rectify the systemic exclusion of women within motorsport. A woman driver winning the highly competitive W series three years in a row should be able to secure at least a Formula 3 seat. F1’s initiatives to promote women racing can only work if the system is changed from within and women are seen as integral to the sport. Encouraging women to become racing drivers through programs yet failing to provide them with opportunities once they reach the higher stages of competition reveals the true colours of F1 leadership. There is no real desire for gender equity among those who hold power within the sport—just performative action.

Lella Lombardi is the only woman driver to score points in a F1 Grand Prix, earning half a point during the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix (Glory Media).

Varsity Report Card: Fall 2022

The Tribune Sports Section reviews the Martlet and Redbird fall seasons

Sepideh Afshar, Tillie Burlock, and Sarah Farnand Managing Editor and Sports Editors

Men’s Baseball (21-8): A

After two years of cancelled seasons and uncertainty, the McGill men’s baseball team is finally back, and they did not disappoint. With a roster mainly composed of players in their first year of eligibility, no one quite knew what this season would hold for the Redbirds. Concerns that the team would be unable to keep up with those who played in 2021 arose after the

five. The team defeated Queen’s (7–4) in a sudden-death playoff game to advance to the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) Baggataway Cup Championship Tournament. After defeating Western (10–2) in a remarkable comeback victory in the quarter-finals, McGill faced off against the top-seeded Trent in the semis. Missing their leading scorer Cameron McGinnis due to injury, the Redbirds fell to the Excalibur for the third time this season. Despite a disappointing final outcome, the Redbirds’ first year back after two lost seasons due to the pandemic was marked by impressive

comes after these same players, along with three others—Alexandre Laurendeau (also named rookie of the year), Owen Cumming, and Gaspard Poiré—were named RSEQ All-Stars after the RSEQ final. The Nationals final play marked an emotional last game for over a dozen seniors on the team. Redbirds rugby was phenomenal this year, setting an example for varsity athletes both on and off the field while giving fans something to cheer about all season long. For both their play and their overall impact on the McGill community and beyond, with activities such as teaching coding at an elementary school, we award men’s rugby the coveted A+.

Cross Country: Martlets B+/ Redbirds A-

together back-to-back wins in late September but was unable to maintain the pace, finishing off the month with a draw. The Martlets headed into the RSEQ semifinals against Laval (10-1-3) with a 2-22 record in October. Despite falling 1-0 to the Rouge et Or, many individual Martlets had standout showings. Midfielder Mara Bouchard was named to the RSEQ AllStar first team and U Sports All-Canadian second team, while defender Stephanie Hill was given the RSEQ second-team AllStar honours. As for the rookies, midfielder Chloe Renaud made the U Sports National All-Rookie team, the RSEQ second team, and the RSEQ All-Rookie team alongside defender Giselle De Leon.

Men’s Football (1-7): D

team dropped three straight games in early September. But the Redbirds refused to let that define their season, winning 13 of their next 14. The remarkable record carried over to the Quebec semi-finals where they silenced the Université de Montréal in a double-header before facing off against Concordia (12-10) in the final. The Stingers were no match for the Redbirds as McGill swept the best-of-three series to win the Quebec championship. The impressive season was highlighted by breakout stars all around the diamond. Starting pitcher Arthur “Cinch” Smith went 4-0, leading the team with 30 innings pitched. On the other side of the ball, Jett Jarvis and Chris Bodine carried the team’s offence, slashing .377/.448/.481 and .421/.515/.491 respectively. Overall, the championship, combined with a number of impressive individual seasons, earns the Redbirds’ baseball team an A from us.

Men’s Lacrosse (8-5): A-

What can we say about the men’s lacrosse team? Records were broken, history was made, and fans were more than entertained. After dropping their season opener to the Trent Excalibur (11-1), the Redbirds went on to win their next four games, averaging a goal differential of over

individual performances. On Oct. 28, McGinnis scored eight goals, breaking the McGill record for goals in a single game. With two multi-goal games in the playoffs and four in the regular season, Isaiah Cree was named to the Baggataway Cup AllTournament team. Samuel Macdonald was selected as the team’s lone CUFLA East All-Star, with honourable mentions Chris Parkinson and Logan Glick. With eight graduating seniors, the team is bound to look different but hopefully, the incoming rookies will avenge the ‘Birds next season.

Men’s Rugby (10-2): A+

The 2022-2023 season marked a historic one for Redbirds rugby. The team not only attended Nationals for the second time in the rugby program’s 150 years of existence, but came home with silver medals for the first time. Their 48-5 defeat by the University of British Columbia (103) marked their second loss in a strong and exciting season. Fourth-year Zachary Auger was named player of the game for McGill. Meanwhile, three Redbirds were named All-Tournament first-team All-Stars: Fourth-year captain Monty Weatherall, third-year Brad Hunger, and third-year Alexander Armstrong. This

With the women only having enough runners to score as a team in one meet this season, grading the team as a whole is quite difficult. However, Sophie Courville and Ann-Rebecca Drolet stood out on the Martlets’ side as both runners qualified for U Sports Nationals and earned RSEQ all-star status. Second-year Sophie RashidCocker also put up some impressive races throughout the season, finishing second for the Martlets at the McGill Open and placing fourth overall at the Sherbrooke Invitational. While the team is small, they are mighty, and for that The McGill Tribune gives the Martlets Cross Country team a valiant B+.

While the men’s team consistently had enough runners to score, they lacked depth for much of the season. When three of the top runners were taken out of the equation, as was the case at the Rouge et Or Interlocking Meet, the team was no longer competitive. However, four runners earned RSEQ All-Star honours, there were several strong team finishes throughout the season, and an impressive end to the season at Nationals. Therefore, the Redbirds score slightly higher than the Martlets with an Aoverall.

Women’s Soccer (7-6-3:) B

With a record just a lick above .500, the Martlets soccer team had a very average season earning them a very average B. There was little to complain about early on as the Martlets opened their preseason with a win over the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) defending champions, Acadia University. With rookie Sophie Guilmette, a transfer student from the NCAA Division I Vanderbilt, between the pipes, all signs pointed to a promising year for the Martlets. After dropping their first RSEQ regular season game to UQÀM, the Martlets bounced back and forth between wins and losses. The squad finally strung

For Redbirds’ football, D stands for do not disturb. As in, do not disturb their two consecutive years of ending the season with a 1–7 record. Keeping in this tradition, we, at The McGill Tribune, also do not want to disturb the D grade they got in last year’s Varsity Report Card. Between their home opener and the end of the season, their only win was a 50-36 finish against Sherbrooke. Despite the team’s overall performance, four stand-out players received All-Star honours from RSEQ: Second-year offensive line Zachary Aboud, third-year receiver Darius Simmons, and first-year defensive back Benjamin Labrosse, firstyear quarterback Eloa LatendresseRegimbald. We look forward to seeing how this team evolves considering their impressive young players like Regimbald, who was named RSEQ most outstanding rookie and RSEQ offensive rookie of the year. As the third-ever McGill player to win the Peter Gorman Trophy, Regimbald has left fans excited for the team’s future. Until then, we wish them a terrific off-season and hope the Redbirds football squad is not getting too comfortable in their current funk.

Other varsity sports this fall season included men’s soccer, women’s rugby, women’s field hockey, rowing, and golf (Matt Garies).

Ann-Rebecca Drolet and Sophie Courville finished 12th and 13th respectively at the RSEQ championships (Matt Garies).