The McGill Tribune Vol. 38 Issue 1

The McGill Tribune TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2018 | VOL. 38 | ISSUE 1

EDITORIAL

Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM | @McGILLTRIBUNE

FEATURE

STUDENT LIVING

McGill needs to support its Saudi students

McGill’s commitment to academic freedom remains hazey

A foot on either side

Affirmations for the new school year

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(Gabriel Helfant / McGill Tribune)

McGill lingo 101

The optics of gun violence in Canada Sophie Brzozowski Arts & Entertainment Editor Living in Canada, I’ve never thought of guns as a particularly divisive issue. As far back as I can remember having an opinion, my politics on the subject have mostly aligned with those of most of my country’s citizens, and I’ve always been thankful for this. But lately, I’ve been wondering about the optics

of it all: About our ability as Canadians to see ourselves clearly. The onslaught of gun related tragedy we’ve experienced in the past few months has left me questioning the narratives surrounding gun violence that I’ve long taken for granted.

Canadians have a habit of being selfrighteous. Canada is often portrayed as a civilized and peaceful place, especially when compared to our neighbours to the south. The

devastating magnitude of gun violence that the United States has experienced in the past few decades has left us counting our blessings.

Things are not perfect here, but they could be so much worse. When we experience violence, it’s considered an anomaly, whereas when the United States experiences it, it’s seen as a byproduct of their culture.

In the summer of 2017, however, I spent some time working in Northern Saskatchewan,

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a place with a thriving gun culture. It was a strange experience for a native Torontonian to live in a place where people have such a casual relationship with firearms. with firearms. It was not uncommon, for example, to climb into the passenger seat of a truck and to have to toss a hunting rifle behind you before you could sit down. For someone who is afraid of guns, I’ve handled quite a few of them.

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Eager volunteers take to the web in search of spiders

Data from citizen science helps map distribution patterns Ronny Litvack-Katzman Contributor A recent McGill study following the distribution patterns of the northern black widow and black purse-web spider populations hints at what the future of biodiversity research may look like in the digital age. Using previously collected observations from public online databases, McGill researchers have joined the increasing number of academics who harness the power of ‘citizen

science.’

Comprised of an ever-growing class of novice researchers and biology enthusiasts, citizen scientists are helping researchers surmount a common obstacle: The deficiency of data. For a biodiversity study such as McGill’s, a large variety of data is required.

“Our study required species presence records and environmental data, [like] climate and land cover data, to predict the species distribution range,” Yifu

Wang, a recent McGill graduate and senior author of the study, said.

In the past, researchers have relied primarily on their own observations or esteemed sources such as museum collections and historical literature when mapping distribution patterns. For species such as the black purse-web spider, on which minimal research exists, citizen science has proven a valuable tool for researchers who lack the resources to compile the data themselves.

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news

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

McGill professor sues peers for defamation Ahmed Ibrahim denies sexual misconduct allegations Julia Kafato Online Editor On June 22, Professor Ahmed Ibrahim from McGill’s Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS) took action against the allegations of sexual misconduct levied against him by filing a defamation lawsuit.

The defendants in Ibrahim’s case are Sarah Abdelshamy, a student in the World Islamic and Middle East Studies (WIMES) department and Professor Pasha Khan, an assistant professor at the IIS. The lawsuit requests a total of $600,000 in claims.

The suit’s filing closely follows McGill’s decision to deny Ibrahim tenure, meaning that he will have to leave McGill when his current contract expires. Ibrahim asserts that future employment options seem grim, given his apparent reputation.

He unequivocally denies engaging in sexual misconduct, as his past relationship with a student from 2014 to 2015 was before McGill recognized professor-student relationships as an abuse of authority.

Allegations of Ibrahim’s behaviour first surfaced in 2015, when The McGill Daily published an anonymously-penned article titled Let’s Talk About Teacher. The article, written by a McGill student, recounts the relationship they engaged in with a professor for over a year. According to a statement made by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) regarding Ibrahim’s lawsuit, the article is widely recognized as being about him.

“What Ibrahim has been accused of, in different contexts and over time, is essentially using his position of power as a respected academic and a professor to pursue, basically, sexual relationships with students,” Marina Cupido, former Daily managing editor and current SSMU VP External, said.

During the 2016-17 academic year, the World Islamic and Middle East Studies Student Association (WIMESSA) began their efforts to halt Ibrahim’s tenure. WIMESSA voiced its concerns about allegations of Ibrahim’s sexual misconduct in a

letter to Dr. Robert Wisnovsky, then director of the IIS. “Many students, particularly women, are uncomfortable and reluctant to take courses with Ibrahim because of his history of inappropriate behaviour,” WIMESSA wrote in their letter to Wisnovsky. “They feel like they are at risk of sexual harassment and are wary about his definition of personal boundaries.”

In Feb. 2017, Abdelshamy wrote an article for the Daily criticizing Ibrahim for his approach to the 2017 Quebec mosque shooting in class. Although the article does not mention Ibrahim by name, Abdelshamy publicly conversed with him about the issue in their class’ Facebook page. Later, at the end of the Winter 2017 semester, WIMES students were invited to discuss the administration’s role in enforcing McGill’s Policy Against Sexual Violence, where Abdelshamy allegedly made accusations against Ibrahim.

“Students were specifically asked not to name anyone, as McGill has confidentiality agreements with its professors,” Ibrahim’s lawsuit reads.

“Despite this, Ms. Abdelshamy called Prof. Ibrahim a rapist and accused him of being protected because of his ‘conditioning tactics.’”

In Fall 2017, an anonymous student group called Zero Tolerance McGill put stickers in bathrooms on campus, labelling Ibrahim as an “abusive professor” and calling for students to email their testimonies to them.

The lawsuit claims that Abdelshamy is very likely responsible for Zero Tolerance’s stickers.

Former SSMU VP External Connor Spencer disagrees, stating that it was a collective action by other students acting in solidarity with Islamic Studies students.

“There have been years of mobilization within Islamic Studies from various students who have remained largely anonymous against Ibrahim and I think Sarah was one of the first people to put her

Ibrahim believes that the allegations have unjustly destroyed his academic and scholarly futures. (Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune)

name to something,” Spencer said. “When the stickers went up, I think he automatically responded to the one name he had of a student who was visibly upset with how he taught even though it was for a completely different reason.”

After news of Ibrahim’s lawsuit was made public, SSMU released a statement condemning his actions and blaming his escalation on McGill’s hesitance to enforce procedures.

“The SSMU Executive team condemns this lawsuit in the strongest terms,” SSMU wrote in their statement. “It is blatant intimidation in response to the ability of students to speak out and protect each other from sexual violence when our institution has failed us repeatedly.”

McGill opted not to comment on the case itself or its tenure decision. Meanwhile, although its Policy Against Sexual Violence suggests that professor-student relationships constitute an abuse of authority, the adminis-

tration also released a memorandum in May which outlines how intimate relationships between staff and students should be properly conducted.

In an interview with The McGill Tribune Ibrahim’s lawyer, Julius Grey, disagreed with prohibitions on hierarchical relationships.

“I think [SSMU] always takes one side and they don’t really consider the view of the other side,” Grey said. “They seem to think that there’s never any consent given, which is obviously nonsensical.”

Grey believes that unproven accusations are too readily believed and, subsequently, careers and reputations are unjustly ruined.

“In general, McGill and other institutions, UQAM, U de M, Harvard, etcetera, should get a little bit of backbone and say no to accusers,” Grey said. “Not unless there’s something that can actually be proven and punished in a court of law.”

Trib Explains: Defamation and tenure

An explanation of the legality of libel cases Andras Nemeth News Editor What is defamation?

In the Canadian legal system, defamation law protects an individual’s right to their reputation and good name.

Defamation law is classified under tort law, a branch of Canadian law that provides compensation to those who have been injured or have had their property damaged by the wrongdoings of others.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that all individuals have the right to free speech, defined as freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication. Given this, defamation law rarely acts as a check on the right to freedom of speech. Rather, it is used to compensate those whose reputations or property have been unfairly damaged.

How does a defamation action proceed?

In order for a defamation action to

succeed, the claimant (the party initiating the action) must prove three things: That the referenced material is defamatory—in other words, that it would lower the reputation of an individual in the eyes of a rational individual—that the defamatory material refers directly to the claimant, and that the material was published or provided to someone other than the claimant.

The most common defense against defamation is truth. Under common law, which applies to all Canadian provinces except Quebec, truth is an absolute defense and the onus is on the defendant to prove that their claim is true; if the defamatory material is shown to be true, the defendant is not held liable. In the Civil Code of Quebec, however, truth is only a defense if the material was published in the public interest. A defense against defamation in Quebec must show that the material is true and that the public benefits by its publication.

What is tenure, and how does it re-

late to academic positions at McGill?

At McGill, as well as most other Canadian universities, tenure refers to a permanent academic position in the faculty of a university. Once tenured, a professor or associate professor cannot be dismissed from their position unless they break laws or violate institutional policies.

Professors, associate professors, and assistant professors at McGill can be hired in tenure or tenure track positions. Depending on whether the position is for assistant, associate, or full professor, a tenure-track faculty member must be considered for tenure no later than their sixth, fifth or fourth year respectively. Decisions as to whether or not the professor is granted tenure are made by tenure committees based on the professor’s research and educational contributions.

For legal information and advocacy, students are advised to consult the Legal Information Clinic at 2075 Robert Bourassa, available by phone at 514-398-6792.

Tenure is designed to protect academic freedom. (May Lim / The McGill Tribune)

news

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

University Centre reopening delayed until 2019 Delays further challenge relocated clubs

Diplomatic dispute forces Saudi students out of McGill Full consequences of departure still unclear Isabella Lyons Contributor

The building closure has prevented clubs and student groups from operating at their normal speed and productivity. (McGill Repor ter)

Nina Russell Contributor Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) has postponed the opening of the University Centre building until the end of the 2018-19 school year due to construction delays, according to an Aug. 14 Facebook post.

The construction, which began on March 17, was initially scheduled to be completed by the winter of 2018, with Gerts Campus Bar opening in September followed by the rest of the building according to a staggered calendar.

However, underestimates of the time needed to remove contaminants have caused the expected opening to be pushed back until the summer.

“We were under the impression that the building was on the original timeline until shortly before our update on August 14th,” Tre Mansdoerfer, SSMU President, wrote in an email to the The McGill Tribune. “There was more hazardous material in the building [than] was originally anticipated.”

The building was closed to allow for the replacement of the heating and ventilation system after the discovery of traces of asbestos.

Asbestos, a construction material commonly used during the 1950s and 60s, has been linked to numerous lung conditions when its fibres are inhaled in large quantities. The building will also be equipped with improved electrical distribution, an additional washroom, and various other upgrades.

The University Centre is leased through McGill, which is responsible for the repairs and has been in communication with SSMU throughout the duration of the project.

“Construction on a leased property falls under the control of the lessor,” Mansdoerfer wrote. “Both McGill’s project management team and contractors are responsible for the building repairs. We’ve been in contact with the contractors for the project throughout the summer, they updated us on the timeline in early August, and we subsequently updated the student body.”

The construction delays pose challenges for the 19 clubs that were forced to relocate ahead of the University Centre’s initial closure. Many were moved to spaces on RobertBourassa Boulevard and Peel Street, where they will remain for the duration of the con-

struction period. However, clubs that require specific equipment and ample space to function are now encountering issues resuming regular activity.

“For general space needs, we’ve been working with the building directors of Athletics facilities and Residence Halls,” Mansdoerfer wrote. “Science Undergraduate Society, Management Undergraduate Society, Engineering Undergraduate Society, and Arts Undergraduate Society will be providing space to SSMU clubs at specified times during the year.

Through the Deputy Provost office, we are booking available classrooms for club usage.

We are also in conversations with McGill on getting additional permanent space for clubs/ student groups on campus.”

For smaller organizations such as the McGill Plate Club, a student group which aims to promote sustainability by loaning reusable eating utensils on campus, the delays have created inconveniences to their regular functioning.

“Our core ability to function as an event plate rental service has only been slightly disrupted, since we are fortunate to have been assigned temporary storage space,” a representative of the Plate Club wrote to the Tribune.

“Since our user base extends beyond SSMU groups, usage has been sustained even if this one sector is holding less events as a consequence of the building closure. I do feel that the loss of a central student space will put a damper on undergraduate student life in general.”

Meanwhile, for bigger groups such as the Players’ Theatre, which was evicted in February and requires a large space to operate, the move has been particularly difficult. Nonetheless, Cheyenne Cranston, Executive Director of the Players’ Theater, remains optimistic about the community’s ability to function despite the delays.

“After meeting with SSMU, it is clear that they are doing everything in their power to assist the clubs and services that have been impacted by the building closure,” Cranston wrote in an email to the Tribune. “There’s an old saying in theatre that says, ‘The show must go on!’ and we plan to follow this saying. While acquiring a theatre space through SSMU would be ideal, we’ll perform in someone’s living room if we have to.”

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Saudi Arabian students studying at Canadian universities were given until Aug. 31 to leave Canada after an announcement terminated all state-sponsored scholarships allowing Saudi students to study in the country. The dispute began in early August, when Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland called for Saudi Arabia to release civil-rights activist Samar Badawi in a tweet, leading to a political feud resulting in the withdrawal of Saudi students. This follows a problematic history of Saudi Arabia’s human rights affairs, including its harsh stances on feminist advocacy, migrant workers, and labour laws.

Following the Aug. 31 deadline, at least 20 Saudi students remaining in Canada filed asylum claims in order to stay in the country.

327 Saudi students were registered at McGill in the past academic year, out of a total of more than 15,000 across Canada. It is not known how many have departed Canada, or how many will attempt to continue their education at McGill.

According to Siddak Ahuja, a U2 Arts student from the United Arab Emirates, disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Canada may affect other students from the Middle east as well.

“There is a glaring inequality and abuse of peoples in both countries. It’s racism, and on a socio-economic scale,” Ahuja said. “The UAE was given a pro-Saudi account of the issue as both countries are part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), so their foreign policies are very similar. When rifts occur, all GCC countries show solidarity with Saudi.”

Professor Malek Abisaab, a professor in Modern History in the Middle East, believes that the sudden feud with Canada is an attempt

by Saudi Arabia to keep a grip on domestic support and curry favour with the United States.

“Saudi Arabia is in a position of pressure,” Abisaab said. “More than 30 per cent of people are unemployed, inflation is hitting hard, and there are no political rights. Opposition is treated harshly with violence in some cases. The Crown Prince is trying to do anything he can to please Trump so that the Yemen war can continue to be covered by

America. I think we need more pressure on Saudi Arabia to stop the war on Yemen and to open up political life in Saudi Arabia for Saudis to prosper and gain political rights.”

McGill has released two updates on the departure of Saudi Arabian students. In an email to The McGill Tribune, Interim Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Fabrice Labeau stated that the university has yet to determine the full impact of the Saudi government’s decision.

“Our Saudi students and medical trainees are an important part of our community,” Labeau said. “McGill is actively investigating the impact of this decision on them, as well as on our programs, and is working with partner institutions and Universities Canada to stay abreast of any developments.”

Ahuja further expressed frustration with the Saudi government’s actions, and sympathy for those affected by it.

“I feel like Saudi Arabia grossly overreacted.” Ahuja said. “They not only made a fool of their reputation around the world by doing this, they also left their future generation dissatisfied. Pulling students out of a foreign university ruins their opportunities and careers.”

Abeer Almahdi, U2 Arts student from Syria, is equally concerned for the Saudi Arabian students and the difficult decisions they have been forced to make, even if they find a way to remain in Canada.

“Most of these students either grew up in Saudi Arabia [...] have family there, or have some sort of cultural tie to the country, so this is a very hard time for them regardless of whether they want to stay here or not,” Almahdi said. “They’re torn in the sense that here is opportunity, but there is family, heritage, and culture. So I don’t think we should reduce the situation to be as polar as we might think it is.”

In terms of supporting her peers, Almahdi also calls for the McGill community to be mindful of the diverse backgrounds of its students.

“One of the things we have to do as students is not just make sure their transition to whatever decision they choose is as smooth as possible, but also to make sure that we use these things as a catalyst for increasing minority representation,” Almahdi said.

Saudi Arabia said that medical residents could stay in Canada until fur ther plans were settled. (Kellyane Levac / The McGill Tribune)

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Tuesday, September 11, 2018

McGill’s Forgotten Freshmen, forgotten no more Concerned student contacts Facebook, fixes glitch

Laura Oprescu News Editor The Facebook error that has plagued McGill students for over a year has been fixed. The error prevented McGill students from accessing the McGill Facebook community, which is supposed to be open to anyone with an “@mail.mcgill.ca” email. Access to the community is necessary to view and create posts in faculty groups, McGill Free and For Sale, Textbook Exchange, and various club groups. As a result, students unable to access the online community found it difficult to communicate with extracurriculars and stay up-to-date on events.

While some clubs have open groups, many choose to keep group membership limited to the McGill community as this protects from spam posting and irrelevant content. For groups involving personal information such as McGill Housing, a closed group that connects McGill students looking for roommates and apartments, it is also important that only McGill students have the ability to post in the group. As a result, some groups were reluctant to make their groups open to the public, which ultimately barred many McGill students from popular forums.

The solution came from exchange student Paul Estephan. When he heard about the glitch, he contacted a friend who worked at Facebook to see if they could fix the error.

“Essentially[,] the domain ‘mail.mcgill.ca’ wasn’t listed as a valid domain for the group,” Estephan wrote to The McGill Tribune. “[My Facebook contact] added ‘mail.mcgill.ca’ as a domain, so everyone who had ‘mail. mcgill.ca’ on their email linked to Facebook could join [the McGill community].”

It is unclear whether the error is now entirely resolved, or how it originated. It has affected students across Canada, including at Bishop’s University, Concor-

dia University, McMaster University, University of British Columbia, and University of Toronto. At McGill, students had tried contacting Facebook as well as McGill’s IT services to fix the issue. In an email to the Tribune, McGill IT wrote that they were unable to offer any assistance to the affected students as Facebook’s McGill community is neither affiliated with nor endorsed by McGill.

Danah Al Megbel, one of the affected students, was dissatisfied with McGill’s lack of proactivity on the issue.

“It was very frustrating because I knew that the [McGill Facebook community] had so many different opportunities that I was technically allowed to use, but couldn’t,” Al Megbel said. “McGill didn’t help in making the situation better or solving the problem.”

First years and other incoming McGill students were among those primarily affected, prompting Keating Kenna Reid, U1 Arts, to create a Facebook group in protest. The group, titled “McGill’s Forgotten Freshmen”, currently has 896 members. Although the error is now solved for the majority of students, including Reid, a few are still having trouble accessing the community.

“I feel like it’d only be right to pass the torch to the still-forgotten freshmen,” Reid said. “I hope they keep being a pain to whomever they need to [in order] to get the issue fixed.”

Although the group started out as a place for affected students to share ways they had tried to fix the error and their frustrations about the problem, it evolved far beyond its original mandate—more recent posts show clubs promoting events, students sharing lease opportunities, and student society candidates campaigning. Although Reid is glad to finally be part of McGill’s Facebook community, he has mixed feelings about the error’s resolution.

“It’s kind of bittersweet,” Reid said. “I think the real StudentswereurgednottocontactMcGillregardingtheglitchwhenitfirst arose and were directed toward McGill community was the friends we made along the Facebook instead. (thenextweb.com) way.”

McGill governance 101

An introduction to the university’s governing bodies Caitlin Kindig News Editor STUDENTS’ SOCIETY OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY (SSMU) The governing body for undergraduate and professional students.

What They Do SSMU’s mandate includes supervising undergraduate clubs and extracurricular activities, managing and ensuring the sustainability of Gerts and other long-term operations, advocating for student interests in the Senate, and planning social events such as Frosh. SSMU’s policies are decided by the Legislative Council, for which the executives sit with 30 councillors who represent both faculties and extracurricular clubs.

Any councillor can propose a motion, which is then voted on at Council and may become legislation. Additionally, several of the 30 councillors deliberate McGill policies at the McGill Senate.

The Judicial Board, which ensures that SSMU adheres to its constitution, is comprised of seven students, predominantly from the Faculty of Law. Undergraduate students can directly influence SSMU by attending its General Assemblies and voting in online Referenda, both of which are held once every semester. Referenda and elections use easily-accessible online voting.

Recent Events Last year, SSMU held a press conference to discuss the open letter drafted to McGill administration regarding sexual violence on campus. The open letter accused the McGill administration of

failing to students from faculty-initiated violence, and it received ample attention from university groups.

POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS’ SOCIETY (PGSS) The governing body for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows What They Do PGSS representatives speak on behalf of postgraduates, meeting once a month to debate and vote on policies. Additionally, it liaises with other governing bodies at McGill and beyond.

Part of PGSS’ mandate is to provide an accessible social environment and improve the quality of student life for postgraduate students. In doing so, the executive plans events for students, including cocktail parties, meditation hours, and workshops, most of which take place at the Thomson House, its headquarters.

Recent Events In March 2018, PGSS held a meeting to discuss an accessibility audit of Thomson House, which evaluated the accessibility of the building and identified ways to improve it. They also discussed amending the roles, duties, and pay of PGSS Commissioners, which was “necessary to accommodate the commissioners’ expanding portfolios and to provide them with sufficient support to achieve their goals.”

BOARD OF GOVERNORS McGill University’s governing body.

What They Do

The BoG serves as the final authority over all of the university’s academic and financial affairs, and it is responsible for the maintenance of daily activities at McGill. The BoG is comprised of eight standing committees including the Finance Committee and the Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR).

The BoG is scheduled to meet five times this upcoming school year. BoG meetings involve a private portion followed by a public session open to members of the university.

Recent Events The Students’Society of McGill University acts like The Open Forum on Sustainability, held in a representative government for undergraduate September 2016, addressed student concerns over students. (Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune) the campus’ carbon footprint after the BoG’s vote against divesting from fossil fuel companies. The BoG held a closed session on May 25 last year, managing the university’s libraries and adminisduring which they voted to reappoint Principal tering Student Services. The Senate is comprised and Vice-Chancellor Suzanne Fortier for a sec- of nine standing committees, which include the ond five-year term, which began on July 1, 2018. Senate Steering Committee and the Committee Additionally, the BoG addressed the allegations on Libraries. The Senate meets on a monthly of anti-semitism at SSMU’s General Assembly, basis, during which standing committees deliver concluding that the allegations were unfounded reports and senators vote on policies and nominabut understandable due to campus debate sur- tions. rounding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Recent Events This past March, the Senate discussed acaSENATE demic integrity at McGill, specifically plagiarismThe university’s governing body for academic detection software on the basis of privacy in a schopolicies. lastic environment. They also addressed the issue What They Do The Senate is mandated to govern academic of distractions during lectures due to the presence policies such as the development of curricula and of laptops and other electronic devices and debated requirements for degrees and diplomas. Addition- the merits of encouraging discussion in the classally, it takes on a broader role at McGill, including room as a means to combat the problem.

opinion

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

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editorial board Editor-in-Chief Marie Labrosse mlabrosse@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Elli Slavitch eslavitch@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors Ariella Garmaise agarmaise@mcgilltribune.com Stephen Gill sgill@mcgilltribune.com Calvin Trottier-Chi ctrottier-chi@mcgilltribune.com

News Editors Andras Nemeth, Caitlin Kindig & Laura Oprescu news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Keating K. Reid & Abeer Almahdi opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editor Katherine Lord scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Living Editor Emma Carr studentliving@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Dylan Adamson features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Katia Innes & Sophie Brzozowski arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Gabe Nisker & Miya Keilin sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Arshaaq Jiffry & Erica Stefano design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Gabriel Helfant photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editor Tristan Surman multimedia@mcgilltribune.com

Off the board

Web Developers Julia Kafato webdev@mcgilltribune.com Luya Ding online@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Melissa Langley copy@mcgilltribune.com Business Manager Falah Rajput business@mcgilltribune.com Publisher Chad Ronalds

TPS Board of Directors Marie Labrosse & Falah Rajput

Contributors Daria Kiseleva, Emma Gillies, Grace Hu, Gwenyth Wren, Isabella Lyons, Johanna Cline, Kaylina Kodick, Keira Seidenberg, Kellyane Levac, Kevin Vogel, Leanne Young, Linqiao Zhou, Mary Keith, Miya Keilin, Nathan Drezner, Nina Russell, Ronny Litvack-Katzman, Sabrina Girard-Lamas, Sanchi Bhalla, Selwynne Hawkins,Vaishnavi Kapil,Winnie Lin

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EDITORIAL

McGill needs to support its Saudi students This past August, thousands of Saudi students living in Canada had their futures derailed when the Saudi government ordered them to leave Canada, and suspended governmentfunded scholarships to Canadian schools. The measures are a result of a political feud between Canada and Saudi Arabia, sparked by a tweet from the Global Affairs Canada account calling for the ‘immediate release’ of Saudi human rights activist Samar Badawi.

In the month since the SaudiCanadian tensions surfaced, Saudi students in Canada have been in a precarious financial and academic position. The Saudi government’s deadline for students to leave Canada passed on Aug. 31, and now it might not be safe for those still here to return due to fear of imprisonment. 20 students are now seeking asylum with the assistance of Montrealbased activist Omar Abdulaziz.

The Office of the Provost and Vice-Principal has penned two statements on the matter— neither overly supportive, however—in accordance with the

Sophie Brzozowski A&E Editor For many of my co-workers, guns were an integral part of how they made their living, woven into the fabric of everyday life.

An argument I often heard was that the media has blown the issue out of proportion—the media is too selective in the stories it chooses to report on, and, as a result, most people have no perspective on the situation.In some ways I agree: We live in a country that denies the fact that, for many, guns are a part of life.

As a result, we have a shockingly narrow perception of the nature of our own violence.

As the largest city in Canada, Toronto occupies a lot of space in the national media. At the international level, we often serve as a kind of proxy for the

Saudi government’s exemption for certain medical students.

Where the administration’s communications fall short, it is imperative that the McGill community at large does everything in its power to make Saudi students feel welcome on our campus.

Under Canadian law, Saudi students’ legal status has not changed: Their study permits remain valid, and they are free to stay in the country until these travel documents expire.

However, cut off from their home country, as well as from their principal source of funds, these students are among McGill’s most vulnerable.

McGill prides itself on its international reputation. But, international students are just that—students, not unofficial ambassadors for their home country. Saudi students should not be expected to suffer the repercussions of a chill in SaudiCanadian foreign relations.

Although the 132 Saudi students enrolled at McGill at the start of the 2017-18 academic year represent a tiny fraction of

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McGill’s 40,971 students, they were also the fifth largest international student cohort of that year. They are integral parts of the community, just as much as any other local or international student, and they should be treated as such. Now is an opportunity for McGill to set a precedent for their commitment to protecting all of its students.

There is only so much McGill can do to protect its international students; universities have limited clout on the international political stage. Nonetheless, McGill has a responsibility to protect Saudi students within the confines of its campus. The administration should extend its show of support beyond a written statement, and actively demonstrate its commitment to their safety by endorsing services that are of practical use to them. These resources include safe and confidential support services, affordable housing, and minority advocacy organisations.

It is also important that McGill make the academic transition of those students who do choose to leave Canada as straightforward

as possible by providing easy access to advising assistance.

In addition, students can also support the Saudi members of our community on an individual level. Saudi students currently face not only the threat of arbitrary punishment at the hands of their own government, but also that of racism and Islamophobia within Canada. Adequately assisting Saudi students entails starting a conversation about how minorities are treated on campus and spreading awareness of the precarious situations our Saudi peers find themselves in. They can also endorse relevant campus groups and resources such as the Arab Student Network, the Black Students’ Network, the Social Equity and Diversity Education Office (SEDE), and mental health services.

The McGill community should provide Saudi students with whatever resources they require. There may be nothing a university can do to mend an international dispute, but it should be there for its students in need.

The optics of gun violence in Canada rest of the country. According to a recent Maclean’s article, the most dangerous place in Canada is a town I’d never heard of in Saskatchewan called North Battleford.

Despite having extremely low crime rates relative to the rest of Canada, Toronto’s is the violence that is making headlines, not that of the rural communities that are hit the hardest. This context is integral to understanding gun violence in Canada.

Toronto is the fourth-safest city in the world. Knowing what I now know, I wonder how I ever got it into my head to associate gun violence and crime with the big bad city. Probably because I watch too much TV. My fear of guns was amusing to my friends in Saskatchewan, many of whom had grown up around them. And indeed, sometimes my fear of being shot seems a little irrational to me too, both because I live in one of the safest cities in the world, and because there is absolutely no logical reason why anyone would want to shoot me.

Arguably, the scariest thing about the past couple of shootings in Toronto is the sense of chaos and confusion they inspired.

People are getting shot in broad

daylight by complete strangers in busy, commercial neighborhoods.

It makes no sense, and it’s frightening because things are starting to feel out of control.

But. just because violence feels random, doesn’t mean it isn’t systemic. It’s easy to say that my politics put me on the right side of history, but there’s some privilege to being here.

I believe that as Torontonians, we are entitled to our fear and our grief—after all, we don’t experience statistics the

same way we experience tragedy.

Nonetheless, to perpetuate a culture of fear and distrust is not constructive—our gun violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It can be traced back to larger issues of socio-economic inequality, gang violence, and the fact that, contrary to national narratives, guns remain deceivingly accessible.

I hope Canadians never become accustomed to gun violence, but I hope we can expand the scope of our understanding.

6

opinion

commentary

Johanna Cline Contributor

For McGill students, getting into a crowded course often takes more ambition and artistry than the class itself. Securing a spot might require skipping one class to head to another professor’s office hours, refreshing Minerva every two minutes, or carving hours out of a busy schedule to sit in line for a meeting with an advisor. As a result of these intricacies, only students with hours of extra time or consistent access to technology get a shot at crafting their ideal schedule. McGill fails to recognize this reality and should create procedures to make courses more accessible for students.

Even once students master Minerva’s far-from-user-friendly interface, there’s no way to get around the all-consuming, round-the-clock task of webpage refreshing that comes with getting into an in-demand course.

Get a Seat, an app that notifies students when there is an opening in a class at the price of $1 per course, can help ease this burden.

However, the app only helps those

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2018

Getting a seat: The struggle of course registration at McGill who have continuous access to the internet. Students with jobs or classes that uphold strict notechnology policies may miss out on opportunities to enroll in the classes they want.

The McGill course-selection assistance web page specifies that if a student needs a class to meet a degree requirement, they must email the instructor to explain their situation and request a code for Minerva. Because certain classes are reserved exclusively for students from specific faculties, students in multi-faculty programs like Urban Systems—which includes courses in management and architecture, among others— often face difficulties getting into courses. Moreover, issues arise when multiple students pursue reserved seats in the same class, burdening already-busy professors with floods of emails and lowering students’ chances of getting a reply, much less a spot in the class.

On top of diligently refreshing Minerva and emailing professors, getting into classes may require attending office hours and meeting with advisors. Students often try to bolster their chances of registering for a popular course by building a relationship with a professor during their office hours and being overly keen in class. Sometimes meeting with professors outside of class can mean other classes get neglected, setting students back at the end of add/drop, regardless of whether or not they got into their intended class. Meeting with an advisor may also be necessary, but

commentary

Dylan Adamson Features Editor

For me, and hopefully for many other McGill students, this academic year is all about honesty. School is difficult; let’s talk about it. I’m saying goodbye to “everything’s fine.” No more plastering a fake smile over my insecurities. I’m done with pretending. This year is about finding strength in vulnerability, which is why I’m taking this space to voice a

Long wait-times to see an advisor make schedule planning difficult. (Sabrina Girard-Lamaas / The McGill Tribune) lengthy waits for advising waste time in students’ busy schedules.

These time-consuming meetings may give students competing for registration in a course a serious advantage, but for individuals with commitments such as parttime jobs, these surplus steps to secure a seat may not be realistic, and can cause them to miss out on a class. This system ends up putting students who support themselves, as compared to students with financial assistance, at a disadvantage McGill promotes course registration as a simple, step-bystep process, when in reality, it requires more emotional labour, time, and knowledge than the

school accounts for. Other universities also fall short in offering students an accessible registration process. At Concordia, for example, the excessive traffic on the school’s registration website makes getting a seat so difficult during regular hours of the day that students stay up late, refreshing the website in hopes of landing a seat in their prospective class. At the University of Toronto, students turn a profit by selling spots in crowded courses to their desperate classmates.

Being upfront about the process of getting into classes would be a helpful first step for McGill in making student registration less overwhelming.

Additionally, McGill administration should be more considerate of students in programs like Urban Systems, for whom a significant proportion of classes come from other faculties.

Minerva could improve by accommodating higher levels of student traffic. Creating more and larger classes to meet the trend in student demand would also be a helpful long-term goal for the university. In the meantime, students can help themselves by being realistic about how much time they’re willing to commit to getting into their dream classes and having a couple of backup courses lined up in case their attempts fall short.

What is an “internship?” question that I know a lot of us struggle with: What is an “internship?”

This is my fourth year asking people at OAP how their summers were, and frankly, I’m sick of it. I’m tired. What is an “internship?” What does that word mean? I’ve watched as my friends are forced to smile politely and nod along when the word is dropped in conversation.

I’ve seen those same “friends” come back the following year with tales of their own “internship(s? is there more than one?)”

It’s infuriating, but more than anything, it’s just sad. Everyone is too afraid to admit that they don’t know something, and it creates a culture of silence. If I have to be the one to fall on this sword, so be it.

One of my longest-standing hypotheses was that “internship” refers to a kind of water vessel, or perhaps a ticket to board one. Maybe one summer, when it was my ‘tern,’ I would get my own “internship,” or perhaps a ticket for the singular “internship” that we all go on together, or on some sort of timeshare arrangement. “Internship.” In turn, you get a ship. In-tern-ship. Corroborating

this theory is that an “internship” is usually something that happens in the summer. Summer can be very hot because of the sun, and, when it is hot outside, it is good to be near or even in water—where boats often are.

As a lacklustre swimmer, I found this watercraft hypothesis disheartening, but the evidence seemed overwhelming. I convinced myself that I needed a ticket to board the S.S. Internship. I was desperate, as I’m sure we’ve all felt at times. Though deep down, we might know that everyone is going through the same thing, it’s isolating to suffer in silence. Getting that boarding pass became my number one priority.

I started skipping class to read nautical fiction, scouring seafaring novels for any breadcrumbs related to my search.

When I did go to campus, I wore an old timey children’s sailor costume. I showed anyone who would give me the time of day photoshopped images of myself piloting pedal boats, ski-doos, and catamarans.

I bought a pair of Sperry’s boat shoes. I didn’t want to wait my tern. I wanted in

on the ship, and I was sure that if I could only alert the secretive Internship Marine Society to my impressive, fabricated maritime credentials, they would have no choice but to induct me into their ranks. I was misguided in those days, but dammit, I had drive.

Of course, I wouldn’t be writing this if those dreams had panned out. I would be on the prow of the Internship, sea salt spraying in my face as I gazed out toward the boundless blue expanse of the Pacific.

But trying to fit in is exhausting. I had compiled an encyclopedic knowledge of 19th century British naval lore, along with dozens of photo albums of poorly photoshopped images of myself on water vehicles, but no one had invited me to any secret societies.

My quest to fit in will sound familiar to many of you. But please, take solace in the knowledge that you’re not alone. No one knows what an “internship” is. It’s a round of balderdash that we all silently accept as fact. But not me. Not anymore.

This year, I am hanging up my childsized sailor costume for good and living my truth.

7

student living

Tuesday, SEPTEMBER 11, 2018

Affirmations for the new school year

(Erica Stefano / The McGill Tribune)

What advice would you give your first-year self?

Tips on navigating university life from The McGill Tribune’s editors instead of doing. Even having a vague idea of what you’d like to accomplish in a given day, week, or month allows you to allocate your time much more effectively, both in terms of productivity and fulfillment. Critically pondering what you have enjoyed, inside and outside of the classroom, helps you view your future through a clearer lens.

Elli Slavitch, Creative Director:

You pick your path

It’s important to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all formula for learning, working, or doing anything for that matter.

Although there may seem to be prescribed a ‘McGill experience’ you should always stay true to your own interests. This principle applies to students, teachers, and administrators alike; not everyone is here with the same goals in mind, and not everyone needs to accomplish the same set of tasks.

Though we may not all follow the same path, it’s best for us to support one another’s divergent ambitions as we move through university.

Katia Innes, A&E Editor:

Climb a roof

Marie Labrosse, Editor-in-Chief:

Slow and steady wins the race

I am, by nature, a slow person. All of the decisions I make—from the colour of my notebook to the destination of my semester abroad—take a painstaking amount of time. I used to find this frustrating, trying desperately to rush through my assignments at a breakneck speed and throwing myself into activities without really taking the time to think if they were the right fit for me. As a result, my grades suffered and I wasn’t even that happy outside of the classroom. With the constant flurry of stimuli surrounding new students, it can be difficult to take a step back and discern where your place in the community is. It took me the best of three years to find out where I belonged at McGill, but my slow and deliberate search is what helped me cross the finish line.

Authors pictured from right to left. (Linquio Zhou / The McGill Tribune) Ariella Garmaise, Managing Editor:

Clean your room

Jordan Peterson and my mom have admonished me for my messy room ad nauseam, and I wish I had listened. My first year at McGill was consumed by academic and social tribulations—I switched from Management to English Literature, started writing for the Tribune, and discovered Les Trois Minots Karaoke, only to be asked never to return a mere three months later. Amidst all the excitement, my room was disgusting. Finding friends, classes, and extracurriculars you like can feel daunting, but it’s a process made much easier by having a space to rest and think. Maybe “clean your room” is a metaphor for remembering to slow

down and take time for yourself, but, on a much more practical level, it’s easier to make friends when your dorm doesn’t smell weird. Also, all your clothes look better when they’re not on the floor.

Stephen Gill, Managing Editor:

Remember to reflect and prospect

One of the first things you notice about being a McGill student is that everything moves quickly: Professors, students, and motorists in high-foottraffic areas. Unfortunately, this blazing pace is a fact of McGillian life, and it comes without any guiding principle to tell you how to hold on for the ride. You can’t stop the clock, but it is helpful to devote time to planning and contemplating

If there is one thing I wish I had done earlier in my first year, it would be to climb to the roof of 506 Avenue des Pins. The view stretches past campus to Old Port, so you can just barely catch a glimpse of the Farine Five Roses sign. Honestly, just climb more roofs. I have yet to find a roof I haven’t liked, so I implore everyone to keep their eyes to the skies and always wear shoes with good grips in anticipation of potential building-scaling situations.

As I stood there on the roof of the brownstone, my last exam just completed, McGill—and by extension, Montreal—seemed less foreign.

Arshaaq Jiffry, Design Editor:

Don’t hide from your demons, destroy them

For a lot of students, university can be a time to reinvent yourself. Indeed, that was my number one goal when I began university, but I realized I had no clue who I was to begin with.

I let anxiety and social pressures take control of my life when, in reality, I should’ve trusted myself. If something is genuinely bothering you, consider talking to someone. Don’t hide from your troubles because, eventually, they will catch up to you.

A foot on McGill’s commitment to academic freedom remains hazy Kyle Dewsnap Contributor

In

March 2017, Andrew Potter, former director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC), resigned after publishing a column titled “How a snowstorm exposed Quebec’s real problem: social malaise” in Maclean’s magazine. In addition to causing a rare McGill snow day, the blizzard also sparked a decidedly less rare debate over the limits of academic freedom. After his resignation, Potter’s case became the centre of a national debate hingeing on McGill’s apparent failure to protect a faculty member from criticism.

While McGill insists that Potter resigned of his own accord, many academics claim that McGill’s actions— allegedly forcing Potter’s hand—represent an egregious violation of academic freedom. Heading into a new school year, the concern remains that McGill’s administration may be more committed to attracting donations than protecting its faculty.

As most students only see their professors during class time, it's easy to forget that most tenure-track university contracts have both teaching and research obligations. In order to be considered for continued employment by their universities, professors have to produce original research. Many would posit that to perform this task to their best ability, professors need a space in which they can work without fear of repercussions for researching unpopular or controversial topics.

“Education and research benefit society, but society does not benefit when teachers and researchers are controlled by corporations, religious groups, special interest groups, or the government,” writes the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) on its website.

The main defense from this control is the foundational principle of academic freedom. According to the AAUP, the university must extend this protection to its faculty.

The concept of academic freedom was established with the earliest universities, but modern tools designed to protect it, such as tenure and faculty associations, weren’t developed until the early-20th century. In response to the Stalin-led communist party banning Soviet researchers from studying certain theories—Mendelian genetics, for example—American professors founded the Society for Freedom for Science, whose mission was to promote the cause of free science. During the same year, the AAUP created the Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

“Freedom in research is fundamental to the advancement of truth,” the document reads.

In order to guarantee this freedom, universities must ensure that professors are protected from external societal pressures that would otherwise influence their research.

“When faculty members can lose their positions because of their speech or publications research findings,” the AAUP wrote. “They cannot properly fulfill their core responsibilities to advance and transmit knowledge.”

Given that the internet has revolutionised the way people share thoughts, some academics are beginning to question the relevance of academic freedom in the 21st century. With a computer, anyone can not only access a functionally unlimited supply of free information, but can contribute to it as well. Websites like Wikipedia and Khan Academy provide free, high-quality information to millions of people, and the premium on academic research is faltering.

“As the breadth and volume of search engines’ results increase, providing a source of certainty for those building an argument, the validity of academics’ knowledge, the fundamental assumption of academic freedom, becomes problematic,” Philo Hutcheson, associate professor at Georgia State University said in an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education.

On March 14, 2017, Montreal was hit with a record-breaking snow-storm, and while students enjoyed a rare day off from school, Andrew Potter set to work writing the think-piece that would ignite the academic freedom debate at McGill.

The blizzard caused a catastrophic traffic jam on Highway 13, which extends from the Pierre-Elliott Trudeau Airport to the city of Boisbriand. At 4:29 a.m., Montreal firefighters arrived on the scene to dispatch emergency fuel, food, and blankets to stranded motorists. In total, 300 vehicles were left stranded on the highway, many of which were stuck for more than 12 hours. One motorist, Jean-François Grégoire, had to abandon his car and walk for 20 minutes in the snow to his office so that he could take a dose of insulin for his Type-1 diabetes.

As the incident made national headlines, both politicians and the public took swift action to find out what went wrong.

“Personally, I find it unacceptable that people were stuck for 13 or 14 hours before things were unblocked,” then-mayor Denis Coderre said in a meeting of the city’s executives.

The Sûreté du Québec (SQ), Quebec’s provincial police force, quickly published a series of press releases announcing that two senior officers were placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. While Quebec’s political world was figuring out which fingers to point where, Andrew Potter saw the traffic-jam as something more sinister. Six days after the storm, Potter’s oped framed the debacle as a symptom of “social malaise,” which, according to him, was a pathology that plagued Quebecois society. Potter, who declined to comment, bolstered his thesis by using data gathered from national surveys and by drawing upon his own experiences as an anglophone living in Montreal.

“Quebec is an almost pathologically alienated and low-trust society, deficient in many of the most basic forms of social capital that other Canadians take for granted,” Potter wrote. “A serious winter storm hits, and there is social breakdown at every stage. In the end, a few truckers refuse to let the towers move them off the highway, and there’s no one in charge to force them to move.”

The public’s reaction to Potter’s piece proved to be its own storm. Some Quebecois Twitter users claimed that Potter, an anglophone born in Manitoba, wrote this piece as an outlet for his anti-francophone bigotry. Others criticized McGill for allowing him to teach students given his

either side

apparent bias against Quebec.

Awash with controversy, McGill sought to distance itself from the Maclean’s op-ed.

McGill’s Office for Communications and External Relations used the university’s typically apolitical Twitter account to address the crisis.

“The views expressed by [Dr. Potter] in the @MacleansMag article do not represent those of #McGill,” McGill tweeted a day after Potter’s article went online.

Their reaction was highly unusual. Generally, McGill’s Twitter is quick to retweet its professors’ appearances in the news, yet the university's social media team quickly separated the school from Potter’s op-ed. Louis Arseneault, vice-principal of Communications and External Relations, was in charge of McGill’s public relations office during the crisis.

“The University supports professors’ engagement with the public and media, and we will Tweet about that engagement,” Arsenault wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “The [Potter] tweet [...] was a clarification on the position taken by an administrator at McGill.”

While McGill wanted to distance itself from Potter’s opinion, using its official Twitter to do so created unnecessary ambiguity, which instead fueled further controversy.

“McGill probably should have responded by a venue other than Twitter because the issue was more complicated than a simple tweet merited,” Terry Hébert, former president of the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT), said in a previous interview with the Tribune. “[The tweet] could be interpreted many ways, some innocuous, some not.”

The tweet inspired more activity on social media centred around Potter and his article. According to internal McGill correspondence gathered by Canadaland, an emergency meeting of the MISC was convened on March 22. The next day, Potter posted his resignation on both Facebook and Twitter.

“I deeply regret many aspects of the column,” Potter wrote in his resignation.

“Its sloppy use of anecdotes, its tone, and the way it comes across as deeply critical of the entire province.”

His post maintains that he resigned from the MISC of his own volition.

“This has been the dream job of a lifetime, but I have come to the conclusion that the credibility of the [MISC] will be best served by my resignation,” Potter wrote.

While McGill holds that Potter chose to resign, others believe the administration played a more active role than he let on. Ken Whyte, former visiting fellow of the MISC, claimed that McGill’s administration forced Potter out of his directorship.

“I suggested alternatives to demotion, such as a reprimand or a suspension,” Whyte said in an interview with the Globe and Mail. “These seemed of interest to many people I spoke to at McGill and MISC, but they would not and did not fly with the Principal's office, where Suzanne

Fortier was arguing that he had to go.”

Maclean’s editorial board was among the first to accuse McGill of academic censorship.

“Maclean’s continues to believe in the vital importance of a free and open exchange of ideas and opinions—even if McGill University does not,” the editorial board wrote.

In the eyes of the media, McGill had failed to protect its faculty member’s right to freely voice controversial opinions. Within the school, Professor Víctor Muñiz-Fraticelli, associate professor in McGill’s Faculty of Law and associate director for the Centre for Research on Religion, and 10 other professors wrote a letter to Principal Suzanne Fortier voicing their concern about Potter’s resignation.

“The biggest problem of university administration, at McGill and elsewhere, is a deep aversion to controversy, especially when it will displease donors and political benefactors,” Muñiz-Fraticelli wrote in an email to the Tribune. “A clear commitment to the mission of the university, and to the relation between professors and faculty, would go a long way towards remedying this problem.”

Muñiz-Fraticelli believes that McGill’s actions represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the function of a university.

“The university (not just the individual institution, but the university as a global community of academics) is the setting for scholarly inquiry,” Muñiz-Fraticelli wrote. “But it is the individual academic who is the agent of inquiry. The university exists to protect the conditions of individual academic inquiry... and exists for nothing else.”

McGill’s alleged actions in Potter’s case seem to suggest that academic freedom has its limits.

“When academic administrators no longer believe that they are able to discharge their administrative responsibilities effectively, then it is reasonable for them to step down from those responsibilities,” McGill Principal Suzanne Fortier wrote in a reply to questions McGill senators asked on Potter’s resignation. “Similarly, the University may [...] replace academic administrators who are no longer able to discharge their responsibilities effectively.”

What happened to Andrew Potter could be deeply concerning to McGill students starting classes this September—especially to those with hopes to eventually join a university faculty themselves. While academics and universities work toward progressing the arts and sciences, they need to remain financially viable in order to fund these goals. At public universities like McGill, which rely heavily on grants and donations, the administration needs to ensure that the university's brand remains as agreeable as possible. This objective translates into a need for a squeaky-clean public image. Sometimes, the drive to maintain this image comes into tension with the university’s commitment to academic freedom, forcing a choice between the two. With all of the uncertainty regarding Potter’s resignation, Fortier’s non-committal response shows that McGill has chosen to keep one foot on either side of the line. While the school may want to avoid choosing a side in this debate, academics, in the present and future, should be aware of McGill’s precarious commitment to academic freedom.

student living

Tuesday, sEPTEMBER 11 , 2018

10

McGill lingo 101 A guide to the ins and outs of McGill students’ lexicon Sanchi Bhalla Contributor As a university renowned for its English and Linguistics departments, it should come as no surprise that McGill students put linguistic theories into practice.

Within the confines of the Milton and Roddick Gates students might hear a language that vaguely sounds like English, but the words and phrases seem foreign. No more!

Open Air Pub (OAP)(n) :

McGill’s way of bringing all of your exes and past hookups together in one place overflowing with cheap alcohol and even cheaper food. It also serves as a way for students to test their motivation to attend classes.

“I spent OAP hiding behind a tree because, apparently, my friend-with-benefits and my ex are best friends who spend all their money on Sapporo.

‘Moses (npl)

:

Happiness in the form of tiny fried potato triangles. Chased down with a Sleeman and a Roddick Roast, these highly-nutritious snacks make up the bulk of a McGillian’s diet.

“I used to feel bad about having three ‘moses for lunch every single day, but they’re all sold for charity!

Do you think I can use it as a taxwrite off?”

Gerts (n)

:

Where students go before, during, and after class to get over failures and make themselves feel happy. Unfortunately, Gerts is no more, at least temporarily, and students cannot make terrible alcohol-induced decisions on campus.

“I saw her snaps and she was eight shots-deep at midnight!

Gotta love those $2 shots! #GertsTillItHurts”

Study (v)

:

Alternating between setting up stationery, Tindering, chugging coffee, and complaining about the amount of work a professor has assigned.

“I was studying from 8 p.m. until 3 a.m. last night and managed to finish five whole pages of a reading!”

Campus (n) : Short for Cafe Campus, a hub for all kinds of debauchery, known particularly for its Mardis Retro and throngs of innocent first-years attempting to grind. It’s also known for pleasing parents, as they love the fact that their children are still on campus at three in the morning.

“I had to change my schedule because I had an 8:30 on Wednesdays … Can’t skip Campus!”

McGill students have a language all of their own (Katharine Kocik / The McGill Tribune)

Concordia (n) : The enemy.

“He was honestly the perfect guy–smart, funny, good-looking, and interesting—but he goes to Concordia, so I had to dump him.”

Add/drop period(n) : A time of year when McGillians find themselves at trashy clubs, well past midnight, every single night. One might spend this time trying to get into that class that seemed really interesting on the eCalendar and that drew them to McGill in the first place. Unfortunately, it won’t be offered in the 2018-19 academic year.

“I was at Tokyo yesterday and got into Apartment 200 tonight. It’s add/drop, so who cares about classes? I’m going to do a couple shots and drop my 8:30 tomorrow.”

Stand-in bars to help McGillians ‘Gerts ‘till it hurts’ this year An alternative guide to student nightlife around Montreal Mary Keith Contributor It was most McGill students’ worst nightmare: Aug. 14, the Student’s Society of McGill University (SSMU) announced that Gerts would be closed for the rest of the 201819 academic year due to prolonged construction on the Shatner building. Now, some McGill students are at a loss for where to get that cheap sangria and those tasty mac n’ cheese bites. With students’ weekday, late-night hub out of service, The McGill Tribune has a few alternative suggestions.

If you are in need of a good sangria: Sangria is a fruity beverage to have on warm evenings; it was also a Gerts staple. Near or far from the McGill bubble, sangria is a staple cocktail that can be found at most joints. If you are looking to stay close to campus, try out the sangria at Lola Rosa. The restaurant has three locations within walking distance: The closest to campus is on Rue Milton, while the other two are in the Mile End and in Old Port, respectively. For your late-night sangria fix, another option is Terrasse Bonsecours in Old Port. While it is a bit of a trek from McGill’s downtown campus, the view is great and the venue stays open well past midnight. The bar’s best feature is the 11 different types of sangria on the menu. While on the pricier side, it’s a great spot to visit with a few friends and split a pitcher to satisfy the craving.

If you have an appetite for some greasy pub food: The closest pub for a burger or mouth-watering, beer-battered french fries is Les 3 Brasseurs. Just take a short walk out of Roddick Gates and down Avenue McGill College, and you will be surrounded by the luscious smell of grease and beer. If in search of something cheaper, stop by Le Warehouse for your fill of onion rings, potato skins, or wings. All of the food served at this budget-friendly spot is under six dollars. With locations in the Plateau and Ville-Marie, this bar has long been an essential spot for the skaters around McGill. With extreme sport documentaries playing non-stop, think of Warehouse as the ultimate pre for TRH-Bar just a couple blocks away.

If you are looking for a weekly activity: We will all miss Gerts’ themed nights, but there are plenty of bars nearby to satisfy that yearning. Replace Gerts’ Wednesday sangria nights with Ye Old Orchard’s Wednesday trivia nights. Trivia starts at 8 p.m. and is on the corner of Prince-Arthur and St. Laurent. If school is hard enough to make your brain work, then try unwinding on the weekends at Les Trois Minots on St. Laurent. This spot is a karaoke bar, so grab some liquid courage and belt

With Gerts still closed, students have to source their own sangria (Vaishnavi Kapil / The McGill Tribune) out you favourite tunes to your heart’s content. The venue is always packed on weekends and the beer is cheap, making it the perfect place to either start the night out or simply to unwind after a long day of school or work.

If you want to stay on campus: For those students who love the McGill vibes and just don’t want to leave, look no further than the campus—there are plenty of student-run bars to go around. On Thursdays, the Faculty of Management hosts 4à7 in the basement of Bronfman and the Faculty of Arts hosts Bar des Arts (BdA) in the basement of Leacock. Both provide affordable beverages and high spirits, along with BdA’s gooey grilled cheeses for one dollar. On Fridays, the Engineering Undergraduate Society hosts Blues Pub in the basement of the McConnell Engineering Building and lasts 4-9 p.m. All of these bars offer themed nights, so be ready to hear a lot of Nicki Minaj vs. Beyonce and celebrate the anniversary of McGill’s beloved Flood Girl.

11

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Tuesday, september 11, 2018

Stuff we liked this summer

British bakers, Watergate, 13-year olds, and more low-stakes, friendly competition between casual bakers, and some calculated snark from judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith. If those two names alone don’t entice you, go take your cynicism and watch Survivor, or whatever.

Podcast: Slow Burn

Emma Carr , Student Living Editor

These are a few of our favourite things!

(Winnie Lin / The McGill Tribune) Summer 2018 saw no shortage of consumable content. But while some plebs may have been watching Netflix rom-com To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before on repeat, or blasting Drake’s Scorpion, the A&E team had their ears to the ground.

Here’s some stuff for your eyes and ears that we found especially cool.

TV: The Great British Bake Off (Season 9) Katia Innes , A&E Editor

Twelve amateur bakers. Two B-list British comedians. One sweaty, candystriped outdoor tent in the south of England. Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off returned two weeks ago, saving my sorry soul from my pathetic, pastryfree existence. As this mild-mannered transatlantic import nears double digits, it has still managed to keep its charm with

This August, listeners were captivated

by Slate’s popular podcast Slow Burn, which gained a steady following with its comprehensive retelling of the Watergate Scandal in its first iteration. In the second season of the series, host Leon Neyfakh takes listeners back to the nineties, as he chronicles the events leading up to the impeachment of then-President Bill Clinton. History remembers the characters involved in Clinton’s trial in one-dimensional terms—the adulterer, the scornful wife, and the seductress. However, in Neyfakh’s retelling of history, these key players are at last complex beings. Wellresearched and even-handed, this political drama is a must for history buffs.

Album: Mitski, Be the Cowboy Sophie Brzozowski , A&E Editor

Japanese-American songstress Mitski

Miyawaki’s fifth studio album Be the Cowboy could very well be the soundtrack to one of the great rock operas of the twenty first century. 2016’s Puberty 2 established Mitski as a songwriter to be reckoned with, and Be the Cowboy pushes her abilities as a storyteller. Each of the 14 tracks layer her achingly honest lyrics overtop moody and deftly mixed instrumentals, painting a theatrical and maudlin portrait of heartbreak and redemption. Be the Cowboy is a bold addition to Mitski’s already daring body of work.

Book: The Chapo Guide to Revolution Dylan Adamson , Features Editor

For those unindoctrinated to the Chapo cult, this book—released on Aug. 21, just in time to sit unfinished on college students’ nightstands for the rest of the year—is a mind-boggling tour through the genius-brains behind the most successful podcast of the affectionately-titled ‘dirtbag left.’ And also of American history. Much like this review, the Chapo Trap House ‘manifesto’ is replete with confusing sentences with too many clauses, and alternates between self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating sentiments. As the Chapo boys (and one girl) clarify on the second page, “We invented leftism in America and are the only real socialists.” The Chapo

Posters, drugs & rock n’ roll

Contributor

Professor emeritus and curator Marc H. Choko’s exhibition Nonconforming Poster Designers, displayed at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) Centre of Design, is a psychedelic trip without the kool-aid. The exhibition showcases the work of two classically-trained designers, Elzo Durt and Sébastien Lépine, exploring their experimental techniques and kaleidoscopic visual effects. Durt and Lépine disregard traditional boundaries of line, form, and colour in a series of silk screen printed posters that create a visual hybrid.

Their work falls somewhere between the Merry Prankster’s day-glo bus paintings, and the meticulous detailing of a 17th century woodcut engraving.

The exhibition is a product of Choko’s long-time passion for collecting posters, and focuses on the inability to perfectly reproduce a poster. While printed graphics denote endless copies of a given image, Durt and Lépine state that they belong to a movement of poster artists that perform their own printing, rather than outsourcing, resulting in

a more intimate process and limited supply of silkscreen copies. Fitting with the exhibition’s emphasis on ‘nonconformity,’ where reproducibility suggests common consumption, the finite supply of prints and their unique visual quality ensure that Durt and Lépine do not produce work just to fulfill a commercial quota. The show highlights the intersection of visual and musical worlds; Durt and Lépine build on the motifs of past decades and the pre-existing graphics of production companies and bands in a way that integrates the past and present, the original and the reproduced.

Durt’s oeuvre employs an unconventional approach to collage work, using various references to counterculture movements and popular culture to inform a portfolio that is both psychologically and visually engaging.

Beyond their aesthetic appeal, his works function as graphic narratives, with their seemingly endless arrangement of patterns, images of loose bodyparts, and juxtaposition of the organic and man-made. Durt’s work, which generally takes the form of music festival posters, album covers, and logo designs for various companies, is internationally recognized. It can be

Movie: Eighth Grade

Ariella Garmaise , Managing Editor YouTube comedian-turned-filmmaker Bo Burnham’s directorial debut is perhaps the exact opposite of the work you might expect from him. Whereas his signature musical comedy is cheeky and verbose, packed with pop-culture references and clever wordplay, Eighth Grade relies on a series of awkward silences and garbled interactions. Elsie Fisher’s Kayla, the film’s protagonist and eighth-grade heroine, is the antithesis to the strongfemale-lead-archetype popularized by coming of age classics like Lady Bird or Juno. While Kayla is less brazen than Ronan and Page, she is no less brave, and her courage comes in small moments— she makes it to a pool party after having a panic attack in the bathroom, she fumbles over her words before managing to tell an older boy “no.” Kayla is a new type of hero, someone who shows that you can feel terribly anxious all the time, and everything will still be okay.

often composed of a visually-melodic combination of textual and contentbased layers, performed for what he describes as “a quest for depth.” While this means that some elements are obscured, Lépine’s unique technique allows him to establish a narrative

‘Nonconforming Poster Designers’ challenges the status-quo Keira Seidenberg

Guide is funny throughout, but a lot of the jokes rely on a baseline of American history knowledge, which some readers may not meet. Still, if Brian Silva quotes attributed to FDR are your cup of tea, buy the book.

seen in the vacant, yet alluring, gaze of the woman on La Femme’s Psycho Tropical Berlin, or in a skateboard design collaboration with Frenchbased company Antiz. Durt’s designs are simultaneously comical and abject.

In one print Adam and Eve-like figures consume eyeballs from the tree of life, while another depicts classical Greek women with televisions for heads.

Sébastien Lépine’s designs are

through process, suggesting the passing of time or a multiplicity of experiences within a single frame. Lépine uses his posters to combine his passions for music and art, reworking album covers and the graphic designs associated with bands such as Beach House, Father John Misty, and Cigarettes After Sex. In a contemporary culture that is increasingly informed by the past— whether through high waisted jeans

and white sneakers, or the recent resurgence of vinyl—Durt and Lépine revive elements of classic psychedelic design and music in a way that pulls you to the past and back again with your favorite indie classics made new.

UQAM’s exhibit showcases some of the biggest names in graphic design.

(Gabe Helfant/ The McGill Tribune)

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Tuesday, September 11 , 2018

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My search for the best joke at ‘Just for Laughs’ A not-so-easy task involving gators, dating, and triathlons Gabe Nisker Sports Editor On my third day at this year’s Just for Laughs festival, Irish comedian Dylan Moran said something that piqued my interest. Moran had just told a joke about time—comparing it to a French waiter, since it’s never around until it comes and cleans up—and tagged it with a proclamation that it was the best joke at the festival. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t.

Moran had me thinking: What was the best joke? And more importantly, how could I find it? With so many comedians and shows, and such a short amount of time, finding the best joke was no easy task. The plan: Go to as many shows as possible to identify a champion—not necessarily the best comedian at the festival, but the single best joke.

Undertaking this task threw me into a lurch, an existential crisis of sorts, and I began questioning everything I knew about comedy. What even is a joke?

Could bits with more elaborate setups compete on the same stage as Moran’s one-liner?

For instance, Chappelle’s Show co-creator Neal Brennan’s bits became an early favourite in the funniest joke race. In Brennan’s calm, assured hour, he mused on political attack ads, expressing gratitude that no such creations exist in the dating world. As he continued, he invented one of these

ads himself—doing the voices for a campaign that an ex might make to hurt Brennan’s chances with a new love interest (“Neal Brennan doesn’t like brunch”).

As the jokes piled up, tracking the competition became more difficult.

One-liners and funny stories meshed together, like Chris Gethard’s comparison of Disney World to the nearby—and in Gethard’s opinion, far superior—Gatorland. I even got my fair share of musical comedy. Duo Garfunkel and Oates poked fun at bipartisanship with their song “Both Sides Can Laugh.” Todd Glass used the TG Band that accompanies his shows to mark jokes with an old-timey cymbal clash or a piano note, Will Forte performed revised renditions of 12 Days of Christmas and Green Day’s Time of Your Life in his trademark absurd style.

As my journey continued, I discovered it was easier to find a favourite new comedian than it was to discover the best joke. For me, it was a highlight to learn about Australian comedian Nath Valvo, whose jokes about his boyfriend’s triathlon training were clever and charming (“I’m proud of you, let’s go home and do my favourite Sunday activity: Sleep”).

Valvo’s energetic set earned its place among the top tier in my festival experience.

The quest ended a week after it began, on the biggest stage offered at the festival. On Jul. 28, the Bell Centre hosted Controlled Danger, a headlining

Sports Editor Gabe Nisker gets down in the nitty-gritty at Just For Laughs.

(Arshaaq Jiffry/ The McGill Tribune)

show with Dave Chappelle and his good friend John Mayer. Mayer played some music, and then Chappelle did some comedy. But the real treat was their candid display of friendship.

Chappelle is a quick-witted comic, but he was funniest with Mayer, the two telling stories and making fun of each other. The camaraderie of their friendship made for a hilarious and excellent night, one that helped define my journey altogether.

With no shortage of excellent comedians at the festival, I found myself wondering if I could even

Ivytide launches musical career of McGill Inside one of OAP’s most exciting musical guests Kevin Vogel Contributor

For Nathan Gagné, U2 Psychology, and vocalist and rhythm guitarist for indie rock/R&B fusion group Ivytide, making a living through music would be the perfect scenario.

“The school thing is a backup to [being a musician],” Gagné said.

“If I’m able to […] sustain myself by making music, that would be the dream.”

The group performed at OAP last Thursday Aug. 30 to an enthusiastic crowd.

Though he’s sung and played the guitar since the age of ten, Gagné’s musical passion blossomed after he graduated high school. Although he admits to having had an on-and-off relationship with the guitar for much of his youth, Gagné eventually put his nose to the grindstone, improved his instrumental skills, and began work on original acoustic material. When he set out to record his solo work, Gagné met Jamie Snytte, B.A. ‘18, the co-founder of Avbury Studios and the future lead guitarist of Ivytide. The two began producing EPs together, and soon realized that things could only improve from there.

“We really started to see that […] working together was great, there really was some chemistry here, so we

were like ‘let’s pursue that, let’s create a band out of it,’” said Gagné.

Snytte recruited drummer John Zambito, who had also recorded at Avbury Studios, and two of his high school friends, keyboardist Adam Nutbey (B.S. ’18) and bassist Kyle Ruggierol (Concordia B.A. ’18), to create what is now Ivytide. On Aug. 24, the group released their debut EP, Bloom, which features their signature mellow mixes of R&B and hip-hop riffs with a slower-tempo, moody ambiance.

The band draws much of its musical inspiration from the work of Australian singer-songwriter Matt Corby, who uses a loop station during live performances to overlay recorded layers of solo performance, resulting in what sounds like a full band.

“I bought a loop station [after I saw Corby perform] and was messing about with that for a while, and that’s what developed my song writing,” Gagné said. “That’s when I finally decided to go to a studio and that’s when I met Jamie and all the other guys.”

While Ivytide has only begun experimenting with looping techniques, the group has no trouble making their own unique music.

Typically, Gagné begins by producing an acoustic version of a song and writing lyrics based on his own thoughts and emotions. He tries as

find the funniest joke at the festival, or if it was a fool’s errand. And after 21 shows and 75 artists over seven nights at the festival, it turned out to be a little bit of both. There’s no such thing as the funniest joke—given the nature of standup, no two shows are exactly the same.

That being said, my favourite oneliner was probably Colin Quinn’s about debate and discourse.

“Social media is part of the problem,” Quinn said. “When I was growing up, you couldn’t boycott things in your underwear.”

students

See Ivytide perofrm at Piranha Bar on Sept. 21.

(JIvytide/ Press Photo)

hard as possible to infuse his own experience into the song to help fuel the contemplative themes of Ivytide’s music. Gagné and Snytte then make a demo with complete instrumentation, and turn to the other band members for input on their respective sections.

“Each [band member] adds their own element to the tracks as well, and that’s how we get this creation,” Gagné said.

Since the EP debuted so recently,

the band’s current focus is to promote Bloom before producing any new music.

“We’re gigging as much as we possibly can, we’re really trying to take all the steps to make the world know we exist basically,” Gagné said.

Ivytide’s next live performance will be on Sept. 21 at Piranha Bar, where they are opening for Wolves at Midnight. Their EP, Bloom, is on Spotify.

science & technology

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

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Exercising your right to a better brain Motor skills improved by physical and mental wellness Grace Hu Contributor While it might be difficult to consciously visualize how to balance on a bike or catch a ball, a recent study at McGill sheds light on the role of exercise in motor memory, or learning how to perform a skill instinctively.

Individuals normally pick up motor memory through repetition, but exercise can reportedly speed up this process, with possible implications for future physical therapy regimens.

Using a visuo-motor video game in which participants tracked a moving target by adjusting grip force, researchers found that those who had exercised immediately after learning a new skill performed better in a skill level assessment than those who had not. Study co-author Marie-Hélène Boudrias, assistant professor at the McGill School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, believes that exercise consolidates motor skill memories by stimulating circulation. “[Improved motor skill retention after exercise] is due to an increase in metabolism,” Boudrias said. “You can also think about it as increased blood flow, increased glycolysis, possibly bringing fresh blood to parts of the brain. The exercise change[s] the way your brain consolidates the memory of what you’ve just learned.”

Although exercise decreased the brain activity of participants overall, brain signals were more concentrated in areas of the brain dedicated to learning the motor task, which meant that the brain was more efficient in delegating tasks to relevant neural circuits.

“It seems that exercise maximizes the resources you’re dedicating into something you’ve just learned,” Boudrias said.

Boudrias mentioned that her co-author, Assistant

Professor Marc Roig, is currently delving further into the medical applications of their research. The results of the study suggest that, for people who have suffered a stroke, incorporating exercise into therapy sessions could help them regain lost motor skills. Strokes can severely damage brain function and quality of life, and patients are in need of motor memory, as they may have trouble grasping objects or walking. It often takes around six months of physical therapy to regain these capabilities.

“Let’s say there’s an exercise program or rehabilitation program where you’re relearning how to do things such as walking, or keeping your balance,” Boudrias said. “If [patients] could do a short bout of exercise after their session, they could potentially retain better what they have just learned.”

In addition to implications for stroke rehabilitation specifically, the study also highlighted an important link between sleep and memory. Regardless of whether or not they exercised, participants best performed the newlylearned motor skill after a good night’s sleep.

“The motor skill retention was not better eight hours after the exercise, unlike [after] 24 hours [where participants had the chance to sleep],” Boudrias said.

“Sleep helps consolidate this memory [so that], 24 hours later, you’re better at extracting this memory.”

For students, this means that getting a good night’s sleep is actually better than pulling an all-nighter to study for finals. Bennet Desormeau, co-author of the study and Master’s student at Université de Montréal, noted that students can easily incorporate cardiovascular exercise such as running, swimming, or biking into their lives to help nurture a healthy memory.

“Drawing from first-hand experience, it was always clear to me that exercise promoted physical and mental wellness,” Desormeau said. “Acute cardiovascular

Exercising after learning a new skill promotes memory consolidation.

(Arshaaq Jiffry / The McGill Tribune)

exercise can be a useful tool in the retention of motor skills, which each of us makes use of daily.”

While the importance of a healthy lifestyle might be obvious, it is often easy to overlook these habits when academic and social responsibilities take their toll.

“You can put your brain in a state that is optimized to learn,” Boudrias said. “What you put in your body, the amount you sleep, the food you eat, [...] there’s an ensemble of variables that might contribute to [learning].”

World Cup sees injuries increase among young Montreal soccer players Pick-up soccer among young boys sees spike in injuries Emma Gillies Contributor Whether you celebrated France’s win or are recovering from Germany’s early exit, there’s no denying that the 2018 FIFA World Cup had its fair share of momentous upsets, brilliant goals, and stirring controversies.

For young soccer enthusiasts, the global tournament that comes around only once every four years is an exciting time. Yet, while it inspires adolescents to get out and exercise—a phenomenon known as the ‘trickle-down effect’—it may also negatively impact their health.

A new study co-authored by McGill researcher and clinician scientist Isabelle Gagnon examined injuries sustained by boys and girls from the ages of 13 to 16 between 1999 and 2014.

Using patient data from May and June, Gagnon found that the Montreal Children’s Hospital and Hôpital Sainte-Justine saw an increase in the number and severity of soccer-related injuries during World Cup years.

Interestingly, this trend was greatest for boys playing non-

organised soccer, with 17.2 per cent more injuries during World Cup years; comparatively, boys playing organised soccer had no significantly greater risk of injury.

It is unclear whether the increased danger lies in rowdier pick-up games or an increased number of casual matches.

“Organised soccer is something that’s already fixed in time, such as practices or games,” Gagnon said.

Participation in organised soccer is thus less severely affected by the World Cup because the times for practices and games are pre-determined. Unlike organised soccer, pick-up soccer has no referees to ensure the players are abiding by the rules and not making reckless plays. Pick-up games in the park are more likely to occur during soccer-crazy World Cup years when game participation can increase without the restraints of an organised system.

Adolescent girls, on the other hand, are not nearly as affected by soccer-related injuries as their male counterparts. Not only do they sustain fewer injuries while playing, but the increase in injuries during World Cup years among girls was too slight to be

statistically significant.

“Perhaps girls are not engaging in pickup soccer as much as boys [are],” Gagnon said.

Still, both girls and boys have a high risk of experiencing concussions and other contact injuries in soccer. Non-contact injuries to the knees and ankles are also common as a result of twisting and changing direction.

“Soccer is a big knee-injury generator,” Gagnon said. “There are lots of ligaments and muscles around the knee, and that means lots of sprains and strains.”

Remarkably, while the rate of concussions and other contact injuries increased during World Cup years, the frequency of many non-contact incidents decreased.

In boys’ non-organised soccer, injuries to the head and neck increased by roughly seven per cent while fractures increased by over 10 per cent. However, strains and sprains, which are common non-contact injuries, decreased by almost 20 per cent. The researchers suspected that this could be due to bolder play in pick-up games during the World Cup. Coupled with likely emboldenment from watching the World Cup, this might explain why contact injuries

Enthusiasm for the sport during World Cup years leads to an increase in casual, unregulated games. (Arshaaq Jiffry / The McGill Tribune)

increased.

While Gagnon would like for children to continue playing non-organised soccer, she insists that it is important to have injury prevention and education programs in place.

Although female soccer players weren’t at an increased risk of injury during the World Cup, they always face a particularly high chance of knee

and ankle injury due to factors such as structural alignment and hormone fluctuations. While there are more injuries in male soccer overall, individual female soccer players have a higher chance of being seriously injured. It is therefore important to focus on injury prevention strategies, such as education, balance, and strength training for both male and female soccer players.

14

science & technology

Tuesday, september 11, 2018

Eager volunteers take to the web in search of spiders Data from citizen science helps map distribution patterns

Ronny Litvack-Katzman Contributor To gather information, Wang and her colleagues turned to citizen scientists on wildlife observation sites like iNaturalist and BugGuide. Using these citizeninformed databases, the study found that the territory of the northern black widow spider has expanded northward while the black purse-web spider’s domain has stretched to the south. When comparing the study’s findings with historical species-distribution maps, it is evident that both species have experienced significant shifts from their native habitats over the last three decades.

“We determined what environmental factors best explain distributions and, for both species, temperature was the key driver,” Christopher Buddle, a professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and researcher on the study, said to the The McGill Tribune.

Other factors, such as annual precipitation rate and seasonal variations of the climate, also contributed to changes in the spiders’ distribution.

“While our paper did not specifically address climate change, we can now use the current maps of these species and see

how things change as the planet warms,” Buddle said.

While Buddle is pleased with the findings indicating a change in species distribution, equally revelatory was the study’s successful utilization of citizen science.

“A very high percentage of the data we had for both species came from [public databases], so the value of citizen science is immense,” Buddle said.

Although the researchers feel confident that the information gathered from online databases is factual, Buddle acknowledged that the risk of error is always present when using citizen science data. Fortunately, there are preventative measures in place, which preserve the value of citizen scientists accumulating data.

“Incorrect identifications on online platforms such as these are quickly and effectively handled by experts,” Buddle said.

The observer community regulates the quality of identifications by vetting all posted information, employing a peerreview approach similar to that which is standard in scientific research.

The new study is an encouraging example of how the scientific community at large may begin to take citizen science

Fluctuating climatic conditions are causing a change in the distribution patterns of North American spiders. (Kaylina Kodlick / The McGill Tribune)

seriously, employing online data in all facets of ecological and epidemiological research.

“There is immense value to leveraging the passion of citizens in contributing to

meaningful science,” Buddle said. “The scientific community will benefit from all citizens who engage with and participate directly in science, and, in turn, the science will better serve the public.”

How sustainable is your sex life?

The environmental impacts of condoms Gwenyth Wren Contributor When we think about sex, people consider their own needs, and, if they’re a decent person, those of their sexual partners as well. Rarely are the needs of the environment considered in the bedroom. However, the sustainability of contraception habits is an arena in which sexual sustainability and environmental health overlap.

Of the 6.3 billion tons of plastic produced since the 1950s, only nine per cent has been recycled, while the rest has been dumped into landfills or natural environments that frequently connect to oceans. Unsound waste disposal can impact the environment through soil and water contamination. The high levels of methane gas produced at waste disposal sites also contribute to overall greenhouse gas emissions.

In the last few years, many governments have implemented measures to combat the excessive use of plastics such as the introduction of levies on plastic bags as well as bans on plastic containers and straws.

Consumer goods giants have also stepped up: McDonald’s, for instance, plans to make all of its packaging from recycled, renewable sources by 2025. Collective action against garbage is also being taken on an individual scale.

As individuals evaluate and mitigate their contributions to waste and pollution, achieving a greener sex life is an oftenoverlooked responsibility. An enormous contributor to waste is single-use garbage, particularly plastic bottles, containers, bags, and condoms. As one of the most popular

Traditional latex condoms are not recyclable, and contribute to society’s enormous waste problem. (sickchirpse.com) forms of contraception, condoms have been essential to curbing population growth .

For instance, Mr Condom, a contraception campaign in Thailand, reduced the country’s rate of HIV by 90 per cent and number of children from 7.5 to 1. Vital for protecting STIs, Healthy McGill distributed upwards of 20,000 condoms across campus in the 20172018 school year.

Indirectly, condoms have a positive influence for the environment; by preventing pregnancy, any form of contraception or family planning helps reduce the pressure that the human population puts on the planet and its resources. Despite the crucial benefits of contraception on the human population, the direct environmental impact of condoms is not so positive.

While there are many different types of condoms with varying properties, latex condoms are the most popular. Latex is made out of the sap of rubber trees—a renewable

resource—and is theoretically a sustainable, biodegradable material. However, since most condoms are made with additives to prevent breakage, the latex is more difficult to break down, lubricant further inhibits latex’s ability to decompose.

“Generally, if flushed down the toilet, which they should not be, [condoms] are removed during the water purification process and end up in landfills,” Joe Schwarcz, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and the director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “ [The] same happens if they are put into the garbage. In the oxygen-deprived (anaerobic) environment of a landfill, it is very doubtful that they will biodegrade.”

Schwarcz explained that, when latex condoms are flushed down the toilet, they are no longer biodegradable because they are wet. Despite being a natural material, latex is incredibly slow to decompose and contributes to the waste populating Earth’s land and oceans. Additionally, despite innovative efforts to create reusable condoms, there is no viable, recyclable product currently on the market.

For those seeking to be more environmentally-conscious in their sexual ventures, a new brand of condoms named Sustain offers a more sustainable, non-toxic, and vegan alternative to the traditional Trojans. The latex in Sustain condoms comes from a fair trade rubber plantation, and the condoms are free from nitrosamines and other possible carcinogens which are found in the products of many popular condom brands. While growing

in popularity with more than $1 million in annual sales, the environmentallyfriendly condoms have yet to revolutionize the market. Nevertheless, the options are available for those who want to‘go green.’

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sports

Tuesday, September 11 , 2018

15

Inaugural Psicobloc Open Series makes a splash Canada’s newest sport can only go up from here Selwynne Hawkins Contributor From Aug. 23-25, Montreal’s Parc Jean Drapeau hosted the Psicobloc Open Series—Canada’s first psicobloc competition. Psicobloc, also known as ‘deep-water soloing,’ is a form of rock climbing performed over a body of water without the use of bolts, ropes, or harnesses. If a climber loses their grip, they plummet—safely—into the deep water below.

Spectators gathered around the diving pool at the Jean Drapeau aquatic complex as pairs of competitors rocketed up the 55foot wall. Between rounds, the public was allowed to use the main wall, a smaller bouldering wall, and a designated section of the pool. Food trucks, sponsor booths, yoga sessions, and slacklines kept athletes and onlookers occupied throughout the three-day event.

Psicobloc is just one of many practices that fall into rock climbing’s scope. Three other disciplines—bouldering, speed, and sport climbing—will get their Olympic debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, indicating a gradual increase in the sport’s popularity. But, while elite climbers push the boundaries of climbing, inexperienced spectators still can’t fully comprehend the sport. Ulric Rousseau, a Psicobloc Open Series organizer, told The McGill Tribune that this disconnect makes it difficult

for climbing to find a solid foothold in popular culture.

“I started doing climbing competitions when I was 18 or 19, and it’s fun to compete, but as soon as you’re […] on the floor, I find it very boring,” Rousseau said. “If [spectators] don’t climb, [they] don’t understand that the climber is holding onto this super small hold, it’s overhung, and she’s been training for years and years and years.”

Rousseau hopes the psicobloc format will make climbing competitions more appealing to the general public.

“The difference with psicobloc is that […] it’s not [about route difficulty],” Rousseau said. “It’s a gladiator [match] where you have to beat your opponent in a speed competition up the wall with no protection [….] It’s skill, it’s mental, and the falls are incredible.”

With the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on the horizon, the climbing world is focused on the athletes who might finish on the podium. But Rousseau’s focus remains on accessibility and providing opportunities for climbers below the elite level.

“I’m actually more excited to have the weekend warrior [...] coming to my event than anyone else, really, because this is what we’ve built it for,” Rousseau said. “We build it for the everyman or the everywoman. We put this competition together so that everyone who’s never really had access to this type of wall or

Spectators look on at the climbing wall at Parc Jean-Drapeau (Selwynne Hawkins / The McGill Tribune) competition can now actually do it.”

In addition to putting together an action-packed weekend, the event organizers established the Canadian Free Climbing Championship, a nonprofit which aims to improve the sport’s accessibility. Climbing requires expensive safety equipment and training, which can prevent climbers from truly embracing the sport. Rousseau, who, himself, had a serendipitous introduction to climbing, hopes to provide the same opportunity to all kids.

“When I was in high school […], we had to do some community service […], and I volunteered to work at this fair,”

Rousseau said. “I assisted the climbing instructor all weekend, and he saw some talent in me […], and maybe two or three years later, I was probably one of the best climbers on the east coast. It saved me a lot. I was a little troubled kid [...], and it really saved me from that turmoil.”

Before the current competitors’ shoes had dried, Rousseau and the other organizers had already turned their sights to next year. With plans to expand to Squamish, British Columbia, and potentially other host cities, the Psicobloc Open Series is set to help spectators across Canada fall in love with the sport.

Carabins blow out Martlets soccer in second regular season game UdeM scores early and often to shut out McGill they found themselves back on the right side of the scoreboard, with a 2-1 win against the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) Citadins. They host the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) Patriotes (1-0-0) on Wednesday.

Miya Keilin Sports Editor On Aug. 31, the McGill Martlets (1-10) hosted the Université de Montréal (UdeM) Carabins (1-0-1). As the reigning national champions, the Carabins were dominant en route to a 5-0 victory.

UdeM’s five goals all occurred in the first 25 minutes of the match. In the opening minute, Carabins forward and 2017 RSEQ Player of the Year Emmanuelle Alcindor netted home a loose ball in the box for her first of three goals of the evening. Her second came three minutes later—a stunner from just inside the penalty box. A UdeM midfielder joined in on the scoring in the 17th minute when a botched clearance left the ball at her feet right in front of goal. Next, Alcindor picked off a lazy pass between McGill defenders to complete her hat trick. It took one more defensive lapse in the 25th minute for the Martlets to stop the bleeding.

“We didn’t come out hard enough right away,” fifth-year centre-back Natasha Tcheki-Jamgotchian said. “[The Carabins] did, they came out ready to go. [It] is something that we have to work on [...] so we don’t get caught off guard early in the game.”

UdeM kept the pressure on for the rest of the half, but McGill managed to resist with more possession and better defensive organization. But, on the offensive end, the Martlets struggled to move into their

Natasha Tcheki-Jamgotchian heads the ball away from goal (Miya Keilin / The McGill Tribune) attacking third and take quality chances on goal.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to move the ball around as well as we [would have] liked,” Martlet Head Coach Jose-Luis Valdes said. “We weren’t very efficient, which led to a couple of interceptions and two very early goals.”

In the second half, the Carabins again pieced together some close scoring opportunities. McGill snuffed those chances out, and overall the play evened out.

“We calmed down a lot,” fifth-year goalkeeper Sarah Dubois said. “We didn’t

look as dangerous as I would have liked, but [...] [UdeM] also relaxed, so we got to come out of [the] back a little bit more and tried to play our style of game.”

The Martlets were disappointed by their first loss of the regular season, but are ready to put it behind them. “[The Carabins are] a physical team, and I think that their physicality and the way that they play are a great match for the way that we play,” Dubois said. “Unfortunately, we just didn’t have that physicality there today to counter them.”

In the Martlets’ next game on Sept. 7,

Quotable: “The good thing is, regardless of the score, it’s only a loss, one loss.

Whether it’s by one goal or by three or by five, it’s just a loss. It hurts just as much, maybe it hurts the ego a little bit because it’s five, but I’m happy with the group that we have.

I know that they’re gonna work and that they’re not going to ever want to see [such a bad loss] again.”

- Head Coach Jose-Luis Valdes

Moment of the Game: McGill goalkeeper Sarah Dubois came up with a huge stop to deny UdeM’s Leïla Boudjelal on a 24th minute penalty kick.

Stat Corner: Montréal took 14 shots on goal to McGill’s 2.

16

sports

Tuesday, september 11, 2018

DUKE basketball VISITS MONTREAL

McGill the last stop on Blue Devils’ Canada tour Gabe Nisker Sports Editor

Pregame

When asked what he was anticipating in Montreal, Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski didn’t mince words.

“I’m looking forward to beating McGill,” Krzyzewski said. “That’s first. Do you want a list?”

The Duke Canada tour—the Blue Devils’ three-game pre-season trip to two iconic Canadian cities in August—was off to a wonderful start for Krzyzewski’s squad. After two victories against Ryerson University and the University of Toronto, the team had finished their business in Toronto. Their next stop was Montreal for an Aug. 19 date with the McGill Redmen.

In addition to the game itself, the team was thrilled to have the chance to visit Montreal.

“It’s one of those cities where you hear about it a lot, but I mean I’ve just never been,” Duke star freshman Zion Williamson said. “I’m very excited.”

PRACTICE

The Blue Devils arrived to much fanfare. With a practice at Love Competition Hall scheduled for Aug. 18, the day before the game, the Blue Devils put on a show for the city of Montreal and McGill students. The team ran drills while Krzyzewski and Associate Head Coach Jon Scheyer spoke to the packed house and explained what was going on.

GAMEDAY

For the three Canadian teams, taking on the NCAA heavyweight was a chance to tout the strength of their own programs to the world. Ryerson kept the final margin within 20; University of Toronto showed some shotmaking ability. Finally, came McGill’s turn, and when the 3 p.m. tip-off rolled around, it was immediately apparent that fifth-year point guard Alex Paquin came to play. The American University transfer scored half of McGill’s points, showing off his arsenal of dribble moves and knocking down long jump shots. Out of McGill’s 58 points, Paquin put up 29.

“Ever since I knew we were playing Duke, I got my butt in the gym and I worked really, really hard this summer because I knew it was coming,” Paquin said in an interview posted to the McGill Athletics and Recreation’s Facebook page. “I wanted to really show everyone that I could do it.”

R.J. Barrett goes up for a dunk. (Nathan Drezner / The McGill Tribune)

WRAP-UP

Duke dominated their three affairs up north, concluding their tour with a 103-58 win over the Redmen. However, there was plenty to be proud of for Canadian basketball: A strong effort, raucous, sold-out crowds for all three games, and R.J. Barrett himself. The future is bright for Canadian basketball.

“As good as we thought we’d feel about the whole experience, it’s exponentially better,” Krzyzewski said. “Thank you for that. The three coaches and their teams, they were fabulous in preparing and testing us.”

After the tour, Duke returned to Durham, North Carolina to prepare for the upcoming season, which begins on Nov. 6 with a game against the Kentucky Wildcats. As for McGill, the Redmen will look to top the RSEQ conference once more—a tough task that will start with their Nov. 8 game against the Université du Québec à Montréal Citadins.

Alex Paquin shields the ball away from a Duke defender (Nathan Drezner / The McGill Tribune) But, ultimately, the Duke Canada tour was still all about Duke, led by the powerful freshmen duo of Williamson and Ontario native R.J. Barrett. Over 10,000 basketball fans piled into Laval’s Place Bell to watch the two NBA prospects’ electrifying performance. Barrett put 20 points on the board— including two in the dunk pictured above—and added 10 assists. Williamson, too, was phenomenal: He scored a game-high 36 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. The pair teamed up for plenty of highlight-reel moments, like a third-quarter alley-oop.

“It’s great when you’re able to get the ball, and you’re wide open, and you see the crowd standing on their feet,” Williamson said. “To describe that feeling, you would have to actually be in that situation.

The ball is in your hands with thousands of people watching you, and they’re just waiting to see what you’re going to do. It’s a very thrilling moment.”

Barrett and Zion Williamson congratulate each other (Nathan Drezner / The McGill Tribune)

CHEMISTRY

Teamwork was on full display in each of the three contests of the tour; so, it came as a surprise that it was the freshmen’s first slate of games together. Barrett showed particular prowess—and enjoyment— in sharing the ball.

“When my teammates score, I’m very happy for them,” Barrett told reporters after Duke’s 96-60 win against Toronto. “If I throw a lob to Zion (Williamson), that’s the most fun time of the game. I really like for everyone to do well and be successful.”

Williamson, meanwhile, noted the special connection he and Barrett share.

“Me and R.J. have really good chemistry,” Williamson said on Aug. 15 in Toronto. “We were roommates over the summer, so we developed a very good brotherly bond. Me and him have a connection on the court that [allows us to] both know what we’re about to do with the ball.”

Duke thanks the crowd after their win (Nathan Drezner / The McGill Tribune)