Vol102Iss34

Volume 102, Issue 34

February 18, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

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NEWS

The McGill Daily Monday, February 18, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

3

03 NEWS A Thousand Voices march supports Chief Spence Summit on education loses key player Women and minorities underrepresented in Montreal leadership roles QPIRG hosts panel on black students at McGill

07 COMMENTARY Letters on the protest protocol

09 SCI+TECH The importance of clarity in science communication Photo Ahmad Hassan | The McGill Daily

Accessibility in the iWorld

Hundreds march for Indigenous women

10 SPORTS

Missing Justice raises awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women

Sexual assault and the athlete complex

11

CULTURE

Sandman fans at Dr. Sketchy MTL modern dance

2013: A beer odyssey

Hollywood on fracking Metal with a conscience

River Tiber’s new LP The art of Kosisochukwu Nnebe

15

EDITORIAL

Northern Quebec: Out of sight, out of mind

16 COMPENDIUM! Seeking: Deputy Provost

Hannah Besseau, Farid Rener, and Dana Wray The McGill Daily

A

round 250 people gathered outside the St. Laurent metro station on Thursday for the march for missing and murdered Indigenous women. The march, organized by Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, a working group of the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy, is part of a nationwide movement that has been active since 1991.

According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada, approximately 600 Indigenous women have been murdered or found missing within the last three decades in Canada. 2110 Centre Programming and Campaigns Coordinator Bianca Mugyenyi told The Daily in October that proportionally, this number is huge. “[If you] extrapolated that [number] to the general Canadian population, even just with 583 cases, that would be the equivalent of 20,000 people that had gone missing. That would be all over the news – 20,000 women missing, it’s an epidemic, right?” she said.

Mugyenyi said that Indigenous activists put the number of murdered women closer to 3,000. She said the discrepancy could be attrib-

uted to incomplete police records.

Amnesty International Canada reports that Indigenous women in Canada are five to seven times more likely to die of violence than their non-Indigenous counterparts, but that the majority of these cases go unreported.

The march, which had a higher turnout than previous years, began at the corner of St. Laurent and Maisonneuve with a series of speakers and performances, including the Buffalo Hat Singers, a group of contemporary pow wow drummers.

Melissa Dupuis, a representative of Idle No More, Quebec, noted during the opening ceremony that the government was not doing enough to deal with the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

“Harper needs to understand there is an ongoing crisis in the Canadian territory where basic human rights are being neglected and taken away,” she said.

On February 13, Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international human rights group, released a damning report denouncing a lack of action by the government.

The report included testimonies from over fifty Indigenous women who had been roughed up, strip-searched, Tasered, peppersprayed, raped, and threatened with death at the hands of the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in British Columbia.

Despite public outrage, the Conservative government has so far been dismissive of the findings.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was reported in multiple news outlets to have said that anyone experiencing abuse should go to “the appropriate police so they can investigate.” They should “just get on and do it,” he said.

The Human Rights Watch report is the latest in a string of non-governmental initiatives to address the systematic abuse of Indigenous women.

Online hacker group Anonymous released a map on February 5 that traces missing and murdered Indigenous women. The map, which uses public data from police crime maps, allows people to fill in gaps in formal information by anonymously reporting cases.

Nina Sigalwoitz, a caseworker at Chez Doris, a women’s shelter in Montreal, spoke at the march about her experience giving workshops at Montreal schools. That morning, she had witnessed a complete lack of awareness among students when she discussed her experience as an Indigenous woman.

“These students didn’t even know that Indigenous people exist! They thought there weren’t any in Quebec,” she said to the assembled crowd.

Mirha-Soleil Ross, a representative from Action santé tranvesti(e)s et transsexuel(le)s du Quebec (ASTT(e)Q), was also invited to speak. Ross gave a speech on her experience as a trans* Indigenous person, explaining how reports about missing Indigenous women are suppressed by people in positions of privilege and power.

Prominent Mohawk activist Ellen Gabriel was last to speak before the march began. Gabriel pointed at authority figures as facilitators who perpetuate racist ideologies toward Indigenous people. She noted the pressing need for educational reform that fully acknowledges the Indigenous history of Canada.

Gabriel called for an end to the ongoing colonialism, which she feels is currently put forth by the Harper government and sustained by corporations.

“These tyrants do what they need to do to make a profit. They answer to companies, profit making oil companies, and ignore their people,” she said.

Once the march got underway, it wended its way up St. Laurent, ending at the Parc des Amériques on the corner of Rachel and St. Laurent. The evening closed with musical and spoken word performances, and a closing prayer by Indigenous leader John Cree.

LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM

Take the opportunity to sign up for the Leadership Training

Program’s FREE Skills Development Workshops!

These workshops were created to give students the chance to develop and build leadership and life skills. These skills often

PGSS Elec ons 2013-2014

What you need to know:

Campaign Period: Starts February 18, 2013 Ends March 4, 2013

completion. All workshops are on McGill’s downtown campus.

Come and check out the following workshops ...

Pass It On: Planning for a New Executive Wednesday, February 20, 5:35-7:35 pm Make sure that next year’s executives won’t have to start from square one! Plan, prepare and organize yourselves so that next year’s members will be able to learn from your experience.

Hus ngs (Debates):

HALF SECTIONS ARE TWICE THE FUN!

Wednesday February 20th Thomson House Basement - 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm

Friday February 22nd Thomson House Basement - 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Negotiation Skills Wednesday, February 27, 5:35-7:35 pm We all negotiate everyday with friends, other students, professors, landlords, etc. In this experiential workshop, explore and expand your own negotiation skills by being involved in an actual negotiation simulation. Be prepared to see that we can all be better negotiators and attain more win-win outcomes!

Indigenous Leadership and Leadership Skills Thursday, March 14, 5:35-7:35pm There is a wealth of wisdom and distinct insights about leadership and leadership skills that can be found in indigenous cultures that can deeply enhance one’s understanding and awareness. Enrich your own journey to being an inclusive and inspiring leader through this workshop.

Registration available online see all the workshops offered this semester & register via: For more info, drop by the Leadership Training Program in the Firstin the Brown Building, Suite 2100, or call 514-398-6913

Thursday February 28th Mac Campus, Centennial Building Room CC-207 - 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Come to our weekly Health&Ed. Sci+Tech, and Sports meetings

Vo ng Period:

Starts Monday March 4 Ends Friday March 15

Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m.

Ques ons? pgss.mcgill.ca/documents/electoral-affairs or elec ons.pgss@mail.mcgill.ca Vote online at ovs.pgss.mcgill.ca

Daily office (SSMU B-24)

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STUDENT JOURNALISM WEEK 2013

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3 3 !

I D S B N ! z b e j s g !

P U !

9 2 !

I D S B N !

P O E BZ The tradition continues, panels and discussions with professionnals from the world of media, here at McGill. Watch out for further announcements!

le délit

news

5

The McGill Daily | Monday, February 18, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Voice of Thousands March sets off from West Island Activist to deliver petition signed by over 7,500 people Farid Rener The McGill Daily

J

acqueline Rockman left Montreal for Ottawa on foot Thursday to deliver a petition signed by 7,832 people to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The petition was posted on December 19 on the community action website avaaz.org, and calls on Harper and Governor General David Lloyd Johnston to concede to the demands made by Chief Theresa Spence, which would have ended Spence’s hunger strike.

Spence, who was on a liquidsonly diet for six weeks while calling for a meeting between Harper, Johnston, and Aboriginal leaders, ended her strike on January 23 after a list of commitments supporting Aboriginal issues was backed by members of the Assembly of First Nations and the Liberal and New Democrat caucuses.

“I really feel [the petition] is still valid, that to let these men know they weren’t instrumental, and we were watching and we were hoping for a different outcome from them. Maybe they’ll understand,” Rockman told The Daily in a phone interview two days before her departure for Ottawa. “They didn’t respond to Chief Spence, they didn’t do what was needed to its fullness. These are people who are being victimized. I don’t want to call all First Nations [people]

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

victims, but they have been treated atrociously.”

Rockman left from outside John Abbott College, in Sainte Anne-deBellevue, at 7 a.m. She was planning for the trip to take four days, first arriving at Victoria Island, where she said she would be saying her “own prayers.” She then planned to continue to Ottawa to try to meet with the Prime Minister.

“I am hoping to get to Ottawa in four days, hoping to arrive on the 18. [In Hebrew] the number 18

spells life…I feel that love will rise on a day that spells ‘life’,” she said.

The march has been dubbed the “Voice of Thousands March” by Rockman. When the petition was first posted, she had originally said the petition would be hand-delivered were it to reach ten thousand signatures. “There are almost 8,000 people who signed the petition,” she told The Daily. “I think that is still a valid number to be brought...It’s not about me, it’s about everyone.”

Rockman asked community

members to join her on the walk, and to support her with food and camping supplies.

“I’m really impressed with the community support. Occupy Montreal jumped in and loaned equipment to people who needed it. They loaned me a tent and a sleeping bag and other stuff like that,” she said.

Rockman was adamant that her actions upon arriving in Ottawa would be peaceful. Upon arriving, she would “go in peacefully

and respectfully, I’m not going to be banging on doors, yelling or screaming everywhere, at all. I’m not bringing a whole contingent to be noisy,” she told The Daily.

Rockman, who is “just a regular, everyday Canadian,” told The Daily that her action was meant as a wake-up call for other nonIndigenous Canadians. “I have the feeling that Canadians need to wake the hell up, and really need to take a stand and be heard and fight,” she said.

ASSÉ to boycott higher education summit Cites government unwillingness to discuss free tuition Molly Korab News Writer

I

n anticipation of the Quebec government’s upcoming summit on student tuition and higher education, L’association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) announced Thursday morning that it will boycott the event later this month.

With the announcement, ASSÉ expressed its concern about the government’s refusal to consider free tuition proposals.

“Instead of fostering a real debate about the role of Quebec universities, [the summit] seeks to build a consensus around the commodification of education,” ASSÉ wrote in French on its website.

In lieu of attending the summit, ASSÉ is planning a march on the same day to demand that the gov-

ernment freeze all current tuition hikes and reopen discussion on the abolition of fees.

The announcement comes after weeks of back-and-forth between the Parti Québécois (PQ) government and ASSÉ concerning negotiations around free tuition at the summit.

ASSÉ remains concerned that, prior to the summit, the government has already decided to index tuition fees to inflation and sees the summit as a “public relations operation” rather than a meaningful exchange on education in Quebec.

“It’s going to confirm decisions that have already been taken by this government behind closed doors. We see no other option but to quit the summit in order for ASSÉ not to legitimize it,” Jérémie Bédard-Wien, spokesperson for the group, told The Globe and Mail in an interview Thursday.

ASSÉ represents over 70,000

students and is considered to be the most radical of Quebec’s student unions.

La fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), another union representing over 125,000 students, still plans on attending the summit.

“We need to have a debate,” FEUQ President Martine Desjardins told The Daily. “Of course it’s not easy, of course we know that the government is not going in the direction that we want, but still.

We have an obligation to last spring and we think we are obligated to be there, for our students.”

FEUQ remains in favour of a tuition freeze. However, Desjardins emphasized the common ground between her association and the government. She said that the government and FEUQ agree on proposals for an independent commission to assess university governance

and transparency, improvements to student financial aid programs, and thorough assessments of universities’ financial situations.

While critical of the government’s indexation plan, and its recently announced cuts in university funding, Desjardins criticized the feasibility of free education.

“We don’t judge people that are asking for free education,” she said. “We don’t have any position [for or against] free education, it’s just that we don’t think that, for now, with the public finances that we have, it’s possible.”

She offered no comment on ASSÉ’s decision to boycott.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, former spokesperson of the student movement and staunch supporter of free tuition, wrote on Thursday that the proposal should not be left off the table.

“No one, not even the ASSÉ,

is claiming that free tuition can be established in two days,” he wrote on rabble.ca. “But can we not think of a plan for gradually reducing fees, even if it means in the short run opting for a freeze as a transitional step?”

Quebec Premier Pauline Marois told the press on Thursday that ASSÉ members “are depriving themselves of a place to speak.”

“It’s a shame but that is their choice and I respect it,” she said.

The government remains opposed to free education.

In a press conference on Friday, the Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec (CREPUQ), an organization that regroups the administrations of universities across the province, said that it would “refuse to be associated with a solution that will not lead to increased funding [for universities].”

6

News

The McGill Daily | Monday, February 18, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Too few women and minorities in leadership roles, report says Corporate sector least diverse

47.2 %

REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN AND VISIBLE MINORITIES IN SENIOR LEADERSHIP POSITIONS IN GREATER MONTREAL, 2012-13

40.7 %

40 %

35.9 %

37.8 %

29.8 %

30 %

9.6 %

GOVERNMENT

6.4 %

EDUCATION

2.6 %

visible minorities

VOLUNTARY

women

CORPORATE

0

2.6 %

10 %

11.4 %

15.1 %

20 %

PUBLIC

more generally to have leaders who broadly represent the population.”

Elizabeth Groeneveld, a faculty lecturer and chair of the Women’s Studies program at McGill, explained that underrepresentation in leadership in Montreal is likely linked to broader systemic racism and sexism.

“There can be impediments in terms of access to education and the kind of mentoring that is often given to men or people who are racialized as white [that] is not always extended in the same way to women and visible minorities,” said Groeneveld.

Gagnon, in reference to both the corporate sector and as a general trend, described how organizations are “self-reproducing entities” that tend to operate as they always have, which becomes a systemic obstacle to introducing women and visible minorities.

Groeneveld echoed this idea: “The language of being ‘the right fit’ for a company can sometimes become code for people who look like us, think like us, and talk like us.”

Cukier noted that several other projects are in progress as part of DiversityLeads, including studies on the representation of Aboriginal people, persons with disabilities, and members of LGBT communities, as well as analysis on the impact of representations of leadership in media. Gagnon mentioned that similar studies were also conducted in other major Canadian cities, including Vancouver and Toronto.

6.9 %

W

omen and visible minorities are underrepresented in senior leadership positions across Montreal, according to a report published

by Ryerson University’s Diversity Institute and the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill.

The report – part of DiversityLeads, a five-year, $2.5-million project funded by the federal Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – aims to “benchmark and assess the progress of diversity in leadership” to develop specific solutions to advance diversity across Canada.

It examined six sectors: elected, public, private, education, voluntary, and appointments to Agencies, Boards and Commissions.

The study found that women accounted for 31.2 per cent of senior leadership positions, despite comprising 51.7 per cent of the population of surveyed areas in greater Montreal.

The figure for visible minorities was even lower, standing at only 5.9 per cent, despite visible minorities comprising 22.5 per cent of the population. The problem compounds itself for women that are visible minorities, who represent 11.5 per cent of the population, but only hold 1.9 per cent of leadership positions.

The corporate sector was found to be the least diverse, with women

at 15.1 per cent and minorities at 2.6 per cent. By comparison, the government and education sectors both had over 40 per cent women, with 9.6 and 6.4 per cent visible minorities, respectively.

Wendy Cukier, founder and director of the Diversity Institute at Ryerson University and a lead researcher on the project, highlighted the significance of the sector-based approach to this research in an email to The Daily.

In a phone interview with The Daily, Suzanne Gagnon, another researcher on the project and a professor of organizational behaviour at Desautels, warned that sector averages should not necessarily be taken at face value, and that there is often a wide range of representation within sectors. She suggested that certain organizations could act as models for others within the same sector.

She explained that phase two of the research would include a crosssectoral survey and case studies to discover specific reasons for, and solutions to, the problem.

Gagnon emphasized the benefits of addressing this underrepresentation. “Diversity at the top of an organization has been linked to a company or organization’s ability to retain top talent, and also as a separate issue – although they are linked to an extent – to innovate, to make innovative and creative decisions drawing on multiple perspectives.”

She also explained that, “it matters for young people and for [their] aspirations and for social inclusion

ELECTED

Nicole Leonard The McGill Daily

Graphic Rebecca Katzman | The McGill Daily

QPIRG panel highlights racial segregation at McGill Students discuss tokenization Shaina Agbayani The McGill Daily

c

ommunity-Unversity Talks (C-UniT), a QPIRG working group, held the panel “Where the f*k am I?!: Black student organizing at McGill” as part of Social Justice Days, an annual event coordinated by QPIRG and SSMU, on Wednesday.

C-UniT is coordinated by black students at McGill in collaboration with members of Montreal’s black community. It started in 2011 as a response to the lack of black representation in members’ university experiences.

Speakers Nantali Indongo, rosalind hampton, and Christiana Collison spoke about black students’ experiences at McGill.

Discussion topics included McGill’s engagement with black communi-

ties and the lack of attention to histories of black McGill alumni.

Indongo spoke about being called upon to defend Charles Drew as a “Greatest McGillian” by McGill’s Alumni Online Community (AOC).

Drew was an African-American physician, surgeon, medical researcher, and McGill graduate, who protested against the practice of racial segregation in the donation of blood.

Indongo noted that she was called upon by the AOC despite not being alumni, reinforcing the sense that she was tokenized as the go-to black person even after leaving McGill. As a member of the hip-hop group Nomadic Massive, she also spoke about grappling with suspicions of being culturally and racially pigeonholed as the “cool hip-hop lady.”

Both Indongo and hampton commented on McGill’s historical attitudes toward diversity, and

the impact of these attitudes on Montreal’s black community. hampton provoked murmurs of surprise in the audience by showing an image of the McGill flag above the Arts Building, which appeared to spell out “KKK” in red birds. hampton noted that the University of Toronto and Queen’s University were admitting black students by the early 1860s, and most Maritime universities were doing so by the end of the 19th century. In contrast, McGill continued to apply racial restrictions on admissions well into the 1940s.

She questioned what happened to a scholarship program set up in the 1970s at the behest of black educators to encourage the application of African-Canadian students.

A fourth-year student at McGill, Collison relayed the psychosocial impacts of the lack of curricular, faculty, and peer representation

of blackness at the university. “I became hyper-aware of my blackness,” Collison said. “It felt toxic to me. I was going to classes just to get through them.”

Collison went on an exchange last year to the University of Toronto, where she took several courses on blackness that “students here at McGill would get excited about if it was even mentioned as one topic on the syllabus.” She noted that black student organizing is difficult due to the feeling that “they’re just waiting for us to leave.”

“Many of us are just trying to survive going to courses that don’t reflect us and that we don’t care about,” Collison said. She spoke about other friends’ experiences of “just wanting to get out.”

“I’ve spoken to people who haven’t thought about going to convocation. Why go to celebrate with students who made your life

a living hell and profs who didn’t care about you?”

She also noted how experiences like finding a roommate after first year are made particularly challenging for non-white students. “When you’re surrounded by white students who hang around with one another anyways, things like finding a roommate who you’re comfortable with can be challenging.”

Collison and hampton asserted the need to increase the number of black faculty members, and establish a Black or African Studies program.

Both suggested that these steps could begin to make the university a space with enriching educational experiences for black students. hampton ended the panel by criticizing the lack of discussions around the history of blackness at the university, which she said reduced black history at McGill to James McGill’s slave ownership.

commentary Letters on the protest protocol Revise yourself!

One of the surprises for many professors who served as advisors for students undergoing disciplinary hearings in spring and summer 2012 was the extent to which the current student code provides genuine protection for freedom of expression and assembly, including forms of protest that may be deemed disruptive.

It also defers to precedents established in Quebec and Canada. The current initiative to revise the student code stems from desire to place greater limitations and qualifications on freedoms of expression and assembly than the province and nation. For a number of reasons, however good the intentions of those who propose revision, I think it is ill-advised for a number of reasons. First, it is not the place of the University to place limits or qualifications on political freedoms.

Second, such an act runs counter to the ideals of the university, which are to allow for great freedom of expression and assembly. Third, it places McGill at odds with the ideals of Quebec universities, institutions, and society, breaking any sense of connection with the broader community. Fourth, the revisions put forth a corporate image of the univer-

The McGill Daily Monday, February 18, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

7

(continued on page 8)

McGill suppresses dissent sity, namely, freedoms must be limited to assure that business is not disrupted.

Fifth, recent polls place McGill among the worst universities in North America for student-professor relations. Defining the classroom as a site of business rather than learning can only contribute to the sense of the authority of professors over students, and spur the tendency of professors to ignore students’ concerns. Sixth, while students, staff, and faculty may be asked to contribute opinions, there are no structures in place allowing for democratic procedures. It is generally bad practice to use the language of openness and democracy without its institutional substance. The effect will be to silence dissent and crush assembly and student governance. In sum, although those who propose revisions clearly feel that they are responding to a crisis, the process of revision is structurally disposed toward increasing crisis. What needs revision, that is, deep reconsideration, is the uneven and uneasy relations between professors and students, employers and employees.

The administration knows: • That in the future it will continue to have to deal with students agitating for the University to embody progressive goals, which will probably contradict the administration’s own plans.

The erstwhile Protocol (and whatever it is called now) is: • A mechanism for the police to intervene in what are effectively political disputes.

• A very good way for the administration to isolate itself from those discontented with pretty radical neoliberal policy.

What it means for us: • Tactics that previously warranted serious negotiation between students and administration are now considered unacceptable. In contemporaneous protest movements on campuses, police are telling students that the idea of non-violent civil disobedience (sit-ins, disruptions, protests) doesn’t

exist. Any disobedience to a police’s orders is violent, and thus warrants state sponsored violence in turn (i.e. police action).

• The University has effectively completed one more step in disassociating us from directly affecting one of the institutions that directly impacts our lives.

Conclusions: • In the future, neo-liberalism is going to continue to support and give public resources to finance the intensified exploitation of life (e.g. mining industries, military contracts). It is intensifying exploitation of everyone everywhere. It uses securitization to do this.

On the global stage it means border security stopping exploited workers from moving to more prosperous regions. In the domestic sense it means increasing reprisals for political engagement.

—Adrian Turcato B.A. 2011 (Art History)

—Thomas Lamarre Professor, East Asian Studies

A certain degree of inconvenience The McGill administration and the language of “values” Darin Barney Commentary Writer

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hat should we make of the McGill administration’s recent decision to frame its protocol for managing the extent of political organization and activism on campus in terms of a “Statement of Values Concerning Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Peaceful Assembly”? One of my own teachers, Professor Edward Andrew, thought and wrote a great deal about the implications of the language of “values,” most notably in his tremendous book The Genealogy of Values. Thinking of him reminds me that the language of values is far from neutral when it comes to our most cherished commitments.

To adopt the language of values, Ed writes, is “To deny that anything is intrinsically worthy...to claim that nothing is invaluable or priceless; that everything is a matter of choice, taste, wilful estimation, perspectival appraisal or market evaluation, that nothing is a common good, a shared love or a universal need.” The language of values has

been smuggled into our moral and political vocabulary from economics, where goods are converted to values through the mechanisms of price and exchange. There is no such thing as ‘inherent’ or ‘intrinsic’ value. The value of a thing is derived from the price someone is willing to pay for it, or what someone is willing to exchange it for, in a market of competing values.

When the administration frames its commitment to freedom of expression and association as an expression of its “values,” its intention is to suggest that it takes this commitment very seriously.

However, this intention is belied by the framing of this commitment as a matter of mere values. As Ed puts it: “If we translate the language of principles into the language of values we are implicitly encouraging a politics of value trade-offs, not principled stands...one stands on principle, one trades in values.

Principles are non-negotiable, values are negotiable.”

Think about it. We never characterize the things that are most important to us – the things we need, or love, or have an obliga-

tion to care for – as mere values.

Try to imagine someone saying, ‘I value food,’ or ‘I value my children’ or ‘I value my community’ and you will get a sense of the absurdity of expressing that which is fundamental to our being as one of our ‘values’. To use one of Ed’s favourite illustrations, when a lover tells you that they “really value your friendship,” you know you are on your way out the door, about to be exchanged for another.

This places the administration’s declaration that freedom of expression and freedom of association are among its values in a new light. For while the intention of the proposed statement is ostensibly to signal that these are fundamental to the very being of the University, it actually accomplishes the opposite. By characterizing these freedoms as mere values, the Administration is signalling that, while it is generally happy to have them around, it is quite willing to let them go in exchange for something else it considers more valuable.

What other values might the administration be willing to take in exchange for the values of free

expression and assembly? Under current conditions at the university this list is potentially long, but one item stands out in both the Statement of Values itself and in the Operating Procedures that accompany it: convenience. Both documents indicate that the exercise of free expression and assembly require tolerance of “a certain degree of inconvenience” but no more than that, affirming by implication that “a certain degree” of convenience is a value that not only competes with, but also trumps, the values of free expression and assembly at this university.

“Values” is the name we assign to those things we are prepared to exchange for other valuable things, but to which we nevertheless wish to appear strongly committed. Weak commitment to things that are invaluable is not caused by the language of values – rather, recourse to the language of values arises from commitments that are actually weaker than they seem to be. This means the administration cannot fix its Statement simply by substituting the word “principles” for “values.”

The substance of the Statement and

its accompanying Procedure confirm that the language of values expresses perfectly how the administration really feels about these freedoms.

Even if our values cannot ever adequately express our most deeply held principles and commitments, they are a symptom of what we believe we are. To some of us, it is inconceivable that a university could relegate freedom of expression and assembly to the status of mere values. Beyond this, the assertion that these are values which can be traded for something as meagre as convenience somehow seems beneath the dignity of this place.

The price is at once too low and too high: too low because convenience is not enough to take in exchange for freedoms that are fundamental to the being of the university; too high because any university that is willing to make such a bargain cannot long remain a university in anything but name.

Darin Barney is an associate professor in Art History & Communication Studies at McGill University. He can be reached at darin.barney@ mcgill.ca.

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The McGill Daily | Monday, February 18, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Unimaginative and unidirectional, en garde!

The Provisional Protocol (PP) was an attempt to manage away the kind of activism we have seen on campus in recent years. As such, it was not something to obey in the first place. It’s not surprising that the PP was withdrawn once it was denounced by officially recognized organizations. It’s also not surprising that the PP is being redesigned and repackaged. I will be surprised if the ‘new and improved’ PP differs in ways that will matter to those who have repeatedly and effectively defied and disobeyed it.

What is presented to us now as an opportunity to “communicate our views” and “discuss” the Statement of Values on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Assembly (such as in a “consultation fair”) signals no substantive change in how such “discussions” are convened or how decision-making happens at McGill. The premises and terms of discussion in perfunctory “consultation fairs” are

set in advance to move only in the direction of the administration’s desired ends. As such, they provide no room for real engagement for many on campus who reject, find objectionable, or otherwise can’t abide the preliminary terms of the discussion.

At the very least, I’d think one would be embarrassed to flaunt such unimaginative policies and unidirectional decision-making approaches in a city with such a wide array of resources and models for consensus-based organizing. If the administrators tasked with creating protocols and the like insist on pushing through the Statement of Values on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Assembly, all I can say to them is, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

—Adrienne Carey Hurley Associate Professor, East Asian Studies

Protocol 2.0 I am a protester. I was an occupier.

Given the number of rotten things happening in the world, I don’t anticipate that my participation in these kinds of events is likely to slow down any time in the near future.

So naturally, to see that the Operating Procedures Regarding Demonstrations,

Protests and Occupations has not really changed in substance since its inception as the Provisional Protocol in the spring of last year is a serious concern to me.

—Robin Reid-Fraser SSMU VP (External)

How to incite protests?

I don’t have the disposition of an activist. I’m a soft-spoken person and I agonize over seeing all sides of an issue before I take action. Over the past two years, this has meant that I’ve been less likely to take to the streets than many of my fellow students. I really want to understand an issue before I weigh in on it. With this as ethos, I’m going to say something about the recently adopted Operating Procedures Regarding Demonstrations, Protests and Occupations on McGill University Campus.

What I have to say will not focus on the content of this document; however, I would like to note two things about its substance. First, after the events of November 10, 2011 I agree that the administration needs protocol to address on campus protests. Second, I agree with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) that there are very serious problems with the document you’ve put forward for this purpose.

What I want to focus on is how the Operating Procedure came to be what it is.

It began as a temporary protocol instated last year in response to various forms of unrest on campus. Its content was criticized as draconian then, and much of that content remains in the present version. Between then and now you have held on-campus discussions and solicited emails for feedback on the protocol. I took the time to attend one of these discussions and wrote you a long email. I’m still waiting on a reply.

I say I’m still waiting, because it doesn’t seem like you’re really listening. The heart of what McGill’s non-academic workers’ union (MUNACA), its teaching union (AGSEM), its support employee union (AMUSE), and many students, including myself, have taken issue with in the document is still there. Your consultations and solicitation of feedback has given the community formal avenues by which to voice

their opinions. However, giving voice is only useful if someone is listening.

In mid-January it appeared you were listening. In the face of a growing chorus of dissent you withdrew your attempts to pass the protocol through the Senate and Board of Governors. However, this appearance soon showed itself as a mirage. You proceeded to divide the document into a Statement of Values and the Operating Procedure I’ve been referring to. That is to say you divided the document into two parts: one that affirms free speech, and one that the CCLA is worried may be used to limit this freedom for students and staff at McGill.

The Senate and Board of Governors will vote on the Statement of Values but not the Operating Procedures. The latter – the part with teeth – you decided to instate unilaterally. By not putting the procedure through McGill’s governing body you have robbed students and staff of even the limited representation we have there. This shows all of your ‘affording us voice’ to be empty. You have forced through the part of the original document that was both most problematic and most contested, and to do so you have gone behind the back of the body that is supposed to represent the McGill community.

Shame on you!

People protest for a number of reasons, but, from what I understand, it happens most frequently and most fervently when those people don’t feel established lanes of communication are open. When they feel no one is listening to them. As I said at the beginning of this letter, your goal of preventing a repeat of November 10, 2011 is one I fully support you in. But your means seem to be pushing in the opposite direction.

—Jake Bleiberg U4 Political Science

commentary

Paper tigers don’t bite!

The Draft Protocol on Protests circulated last term contradicted itself. The Preamble defined the freedom of peaceful assembly as the freedom “to engage in meetings and demonstrations free from violence and intimidation.” The Protocol itself, however, declared that meetings and demonstrations will be “deemed” peaceful if they allow the uninterested and those who disagree to go on as if nothing were happening, especially if they work in any administrative offices. It is not enough that a demonstration avoid violence and intimidation; peace requires the avoidance of all inconvenience, all disruption, all boisterous good cheer, even – and certainly all intensity.

The administration has eliminated this contradiction in Solomonic fashion, by sundering the Draft Protocol in two. Instead of a contradiction, sitting there for all to see, we have one document which declares to the world McGill’s commitment to the freedom of assembly, and one document that reveals how the administration reacts when

people actually assemble in protest.

Some people see in these hilariously misnamed “Operating Procedures” a grave threat to student protest. I see a paper tiger.

The James building’s allergy to boisterous speech is no secret. This document merely spells out this allergy in black and white. The administration can “deem” until the cows come home, but they gain no new powers thereby. Having deemed, the only options are those they already exercise: allege that the Student Code has been violated, or call the cops. Since the Code declares plainly that no student can be penalized for peaceful protest (Art. 5c), student protesters are in the same position now that they were last year: they face an administration hostile to protest, but are shielded from this hostility by the Code, and by the independence of the Dean of Students and disciplinary officers. Don’t fear the deemer.

—William Clare Roberts Assistant Professor, Political Science

Don’t circumvent democracy Of the fundamental rights most pivotal to our advancement as a free society, undoubtedly the most important is our cherished right to free expression. Through protest, assembly, and dissent, the principles of free speech have held those in power accountable, toppled dictatorial regimes, and broadened our understanding of the human condition and social justice. It is this same right which drives the framework of our democracy, which protects the principle of opposition that is so crucial to the marketplace of ideas that moves our nation forward. By circumventing the sole democratic checks on its own authority to enact its new protocol regarding campus demonstrations, McGill’s administration has undermined the values that define our university as an innovator in the development of ideals that shape not just our immediate community,

but the global trajectory of knowledge and understanding. In silencing students to suppress logistical inconveniences, this administration has abdicated its responsibility to safeguard the reputation and environment that make McGill one the world’s great institutions of higher learning. We speak often of free speech in a just and democratic society, but free speech does not mean that students get slapped with a surcharge, and the liberty of self-expression cannot be contingent on an operating procedure. If we truly wish to heal the divisive political wounds of last year, our way forward must be guided not by asking, “What is the best way to regulate speech?” but rather, “What is the best way to facilitate its expression?”

—Daniel Braden U2 Political Science

Restore trust I think we should look on the bright side of the latest draft protocol for coping with protest on campus. It quietly gives up on the idea floated last spring at the Manfredi Open Forum on Free Assembly that McGill set aside an outdoor space for blowing off steam, presumably far, far away from the James building. That was a very bad idea, because it would naturally provoke confrontation. Members of the community may now freely assemble wherever they wish, except in offices, classrooms, libraries, and meeting rooms. They may even cause a bit of inconvenience to others, as long as a certain threshold isn’t breached. Security agents, their managers, and presumably the senior administrators above them – ultimately Michael Di Grappa, whose name is at the apex of our security organigram – will judge whether protesters have gone too far. The protocol explicitly requires them to exercise sound judgement, sensitive to context.

I could live with this, if I really believed that these people were capable of sound judgement. But I don’t, because they established such a lousy track record last year and remain – so far as I can see – completely unaccountable to the rest of us. McGill University does not really need this protocol.

It has various codes and statutes that govern

conduct. These things may need to be discussed from time to time, but they ultimately give us the guidelines we live by on campus.

The protocol explicitly recognizes that it cannot replace them. All it can do, then, is explain to us how the security team will make its decisions. That would be fine, if we could be confident that this team has acquired, in the 12 months since the last occupation in James, the wisdom and respect for civil liberties needed to implement the protocol properly. As long as any significant doubts remain, our problem is a loss of trust. How this problem may be solved, I am not sure.

It will certainly take more than a giant fruit salad. I might respectfully suggest that the current security team be relieved at the top and perhaps all the way down. But unless it is made accountable to all of us, it won’t really matter whose names and faces appear on the security organigram. Still, if trust can be restored, the protesters may well cease protesting. Then maybe we can get down to the hard work of figuring out collectively how we will manage the new misery inflicted on us by the provincial budget cuts.

—Alison Laywine Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy

sci+tech

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Science communication at the Redpath Museum Jennifer Carpenter speaks at Darwin Day lecture Stephanne Taylor Science+Technology Writer

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t’s no understatement to say that Charles Darwin revolutionized biology with his theories of evolution and natural selection. His legacy is celebrated every year on his birthday, February 12. Darwin Day is marked by events around the world ranging from open houses to lectures to debates. This year, the Redpath Museum hosted a talk by freelance science journalist Jennifer Carpenter entitled “How the big bang explains your sex life, or, the disconnect between science and media.”

It may seem like an unusual choice to focus a Darwin Day talk on how science is communicated rather than on evolutionary biology, but Carpenter emphasized that part of Darwin’s great success with evolutionary theory was the accessibility of his writing to non-scientists.

He used metaphors and vernacular in ways that made sense to the (educated) masses in Victorian England, and because of that his ideas spread quickly, and not just within the scientific community.

The debate Darwin began within the general populace is far from concluded: the theory of evolution is still controversial and often misinterpreted in some settings. Ingrid Birker, science outreach coordinator for the Redpath Museum, noted that young people often come to the museum, which focuses on natural

history, with questions and misunderstandings of evolutionary biology.

Additionally, there’s still a substantial amount of debate around evolution in some religious communities.

Evolutionary theory is far from the only controversial topic in science: everything from climate change to vaccinations have become hot cultural debates, even when the scientific evidence is clear and cohesive. Carpenter used the example of vaccinations as an issue with enormous societal impact, regardless of whether the prevailing opinion in the public is in line with the evidence or not.

These pressing issues highlight the need for transparency and accuracy in all science communications, in the Darwinian tradition.

Because most people learn about science primarily through popular media, it’s especially important for science journalism to be accurate, as well as enticing and engaging.

But, as Carpenter pointed out, while journalism thrives on new information, new perspectives, and discrete events, science is slower, filled with caveats and nuances, and is much more of a continuous process than a series of individual events. This disconnect can frustrate both the journalist and the scientist: the journalist is looking for a tidy story with a clear conclusion, and the scientist sees a result as a part of a much larger, complicated, and evolving picture. While the journalist will shape the story and the headline to attract readers, the scientists often object that the

Photo Jessie Marchessault

entire picture wasn’t presented. But caveats don’t attract eyeballs, and even if an article is extremely precise, if no one reads it, it will have little effect on the public’s broader scientific understanding. A catchy title, with a little bit of sensationalism (and often a lot of simplification), has a better chance of catching a reader’s eye, and thus a better chance of communicating the scientist’s results.

But threats to science journal-

ism do not come solely from within; the relative lack of science media means that it is that much more important to get what does exist right. The media landscape is shifting, with people now getting their news online rather than in print newspapers, and the pace of news is rapidly increasing as a result.

As science journalists and scientists alike adjust to this shift, perhaps they should look to Darwin for guidance on how to effectively

communicate important, even possibly radical, ideas to a wide audience. It’s just as important now as it was in Darwin’s time, especially as we respond to a shifting climate. As Carpenter emphasizes, “If [science communicators] stop talking about science, then people will find other ways to explain the world around them.” It is crucial, then, that scientists and science journalists find a way to keep the discourse both alive and accurate.

iAccessible Looking to the iPad for accessibility Joanna Schacter The McGill Daily

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hen the child development clinic I volunteer at was given their first two iPads, and asked me to set them up, I was rather confused. To me, the iPad was a toy – just another tech gadget – and I couldn’t understand how it could be useful in rehabilitating patients with varying physical and developmental abilities in a classroom, or even playroom, setting. The iPad has generated a lot of publicity surrounding its educational potential, and its accessibility features are touted as magical selling points in a way that only Apple can manage. The clinic went on to receive another six iPads – but how well is the iPad really suited to special-needs education?

With more schools incorporating iPads into their teaching methods, it makes sense that classrooms with special needs, even if those needs are simply requiring help motivating students to complete homework, should turn to the iPad as well. The iPad is perfect for those for whom a desk can only clumsily accommodate a wheelchair, and those who cannot hold a pencil.

Tracing cursive letters with your finger, matching shapes, colouring, and using a (larger than usual) calculator is indeed easier and a great deal less frustrating in such cases.

But in my time installing iPad updates, or going through the app store with a patient at the clinic where I volunteer, I have found surprisingly few apps that are truly educational, and fewer still that are actually compatible with the accessibility features that Apple includes,

such as voice over, which describes the screen audibly, or the zooming capabilities. Few apps cater specifically to special needs of any kind. Quite honestly, even in clinical settings, the most sought-after and most frequently used apps are games. On the bright side, these games undeniably increase problem-solving and reflex abilities, and can be used as a reward system that motivates the children to do their actual homework, thereby facilitating the educational experience.

The iPad serves the important function of allowing kids who can’t necessarily take advantage of the well-equipped playroom, or who are unable to play conventional sports, or who spend a great deal of time on their own due to any number of reasons, to carry 36 gigabytes worth of games with them and still engage in tactile activities. Perhaps

the most important aspect of this is that it succeeds in facilitating the task of a child development clinic, which is to foster the mind once the body has been taken care of down the hall in physiotherapy.

So is the iPad just a plaything?

Sure it is. It isn’t the cure to all ills, and it’s a long shot to call it the best teaching tool out there. In fact, its capabilities are severely underexploited, regardless of the endless possibilities that a full colour, touchscreen tablet with hundreds of thousands of apps possesses.

What’s more, beyond issues of physical accessibility, is financial accessibility a realistic expectation? To what degree can parents be expected to buy an iPad for their children? While I have been asked by an extraordinary number of patients to download this app or that app that they have on

their own iPads at home, and a few have even come bearing entirely digital homework assignments, not all families, especially families handling huge medical bills, can afford a $600 toy that can shatter quite spectacularly if dropped. In light of this, as well as the fact that the iPad is more than just an entertainment for some, perhaps more hospitals, clinics, and schools should make such toys and educational tools accessible.

However, merely increasing the number of iPads will not be enough. The iPad should become a more important part of education and care through its content. To allow this, greater emphasis should be placed on its potential to address the needs of the differently abled, and on developing apps that can truly allow the iPad to evolve from toy to tool.

sports

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Illustration Alice Shen | The McGill Daily

Sexual assault and the athlete complex How the media lets ‘boys be boys’ Evan Dent The McGill Daily

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n February 14, Philly.com (an aggregate website of Philadelphia newspapers such as The Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News) published a piece about the apparently heartwarming story of Nick Cousins, a Philadelphia Flyers hockey prospect. The piece detailed how Cousins, previously known as a “troublemaker” with a “soiled off-ice history” had overcome adversity and fashioned himself into a team leader and leading point scorer in his junior league. And then, about 11 paragraphs into the story, we learn exactly what adversity Cousins has had to overcome: “Cousins and two teammates were arrested on Aug. 25 for having sexual intercourse with an unnamed woman, known to the players, against her will. Prosecutors have not dropped the charges, which are still pending in court.” Cousins is an alleged rapist. Somehow, this has become a barrier to overcome on the way to being a National Hockey League (NHL) pro. Regarding the charge, the

director of development for the Flyers, Ian LaPerrière, said, “At the pro level, teams expect you to be an adult and act like one…

He’s got a good heart…Let’s be honest, stuff like that has been happening forever. You can’t get away with anything now. He can’t put himself in those situations.”

Let’s just stop here and give a collective: ‘what the fuck?’ There are so many horrible things happening here at once, it’s hard to order them coherently. Why is a writer writing a puff piece about an alleged rapist? Why is this rape buried so deeply in the story?

Why are the allegations treated as just another young hockey player’s struggle, analogous to an injury or scoring slump? Even the wording is off-putting: “intercourse with an unnamed women, known to the players, against her will.” Could the writer not bear to write ‘sexual assault’? Why is it important that the players knew her? And as for LaPerrière, one can only hope he has been misquoted or taken out of context, because, otherwise: why? How is an alleged rape something “that has been happening forever” or excusable because of that fact?

And surely “you can’t get away

with anything now” doesn’t mean what it sounds like – that you can’t treat women the way you used to be able to? (On February 15, LaPierriere responded to the blog Backhand Shelf’s email and qualified his statement, thankfully. LaPierriere’s first language is not English, and he claimed he stumbled over his words. He meant that young players don’t think about the consequences of their actions, apparently, and claimed that sexual assault awareness would be focused on in the future with prospects. Still, the quote in the story is horribly placed.) After one more quote from LaPierriere about it and a denial that Cousins’ legal troubles had kept him out of top competitions, the story fails to mention the incident again. The story is about Cousins, who has changed his game to become more NHLready. The whole alleged rape thing is nothing more than a minor nuisance.

Unfortunately, this sort of casual handling of sexual assault and harassment among athletes, especially amateur players, is not uncommon.

Sometimes these charges are dismissed on the grounds that ‘boys will be

boys.’ Take, for instance, the Boston University hockey team scandal that was first reported in September 2011. According to the Boston Globe, an internal report at the university claimed that the hockey team fostered a “culture of sexual entitlement.”

The players, according to the report, had the idea that they did not need to “seek consent for sexual contact” with women on campus. But there are plenty of people who see this as just a hockey thing – that women throw themselves at hockey players, who are entitled to have sex with them. One player, according to the Boston Globe, “used two slurs to describe women who ‘hook up with multiple guys,’” then asked, “What other word for them is there?” Overall, the report found that none of the players considered their own actions wrong, the coaching staff did nothing about it, and, since then, the players involved haven’t really been punished – and fans (by and large) haven’t been outraged. Nothing has changed, because ‘boys will be boys.’

Similarly, there exists the idea that athletes are targets of women. Because athletes are pre-

sumably rich (or going to be rich), women supposedly either try to marry these men or, if they fail, make up rape charges to spurn them (or get money from them).

This argument is made numerous times among defenders of players who have been accused of rape, and acts as another way for athletes to be excused. Similarly, women are often pressured not to press charges by the community, who value the athlete’s career over the ugly truth; in this way, many of this cases go unreported or are dropped under pressure.

Athletes have a privileged position in society; they are revered and held up as role models for the world to see and learn from. But it’s time to take the kid gloves off when dealing with them. The media is to blame for valuing their relationship with players and leagues (and hence, ability to get quotes) over effective reporting. The athletes are to blame for assuming that their ability gives them a pass on consent. And society is to blame for deifying athletes and assuming that they can do no wrong, that their perfection on the court is mirrored off the court. It’s time for a higher standard.

culture

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Sandman’s 25th at an anti-art school

Why two great tastes don’t taste great together

Sebastian Grant The McGill Daily

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omic book fans aren’t known to be a restrained group in general, but even so, few series find themselves celebrated with quite the same fervor or creativity as Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, for which a sketch session was recently held

by Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School in celebration of the series’ 25th anniversary. Sandman, which was published in the late eighties and early nineties, is a celebration of the power of story, a genre-hopping epic that could often range into the realm of English major pretension, with its nested references to Shakespeare, Arabian Nights, and various mythologies from around the world. In addition, it created its own meta-canon of anthropomorphic personifications, rather than deities: the Endless, namely Death, Desire, Delirium, Destruction, Destiny, Despair and regular protagonist, Dream. The series is, as a result, something of a touchstone among vaguely dissatisfied teens with a penchant for dark clothing and poetry-writing.

Dr. Sketchy’s, which has permanent locations in various other cities in North America, set up shop in the Mainline Theatre in Montreal, a small black box theater. The main stage was right in the middle of the room, surrounded by three raised

platforms with rows and rows of soft sea green seats. The room was mostly dark except for the few beams of light that surrounded the theater, the main stage itself empty except for a flat platform, covered in black velvet, littered with blue and black pillows. A stand with a book on the platform was covered in large plastic chains, and a black wooden chair stood on the side with a black, stuffed raven in its seat.

The room filled quickly with creative types taking out their sketchbooks, setting up their easels, and taking out their charcoal and pastels. A reporter toting only a spiral notebook and a few pencils might feel a bit out of place, even if they were determined to move beyond their usual doodling to the more elevated discipline of sketching.

After a few announcements, it was finally time for the session to start. Three female models, dressed punk getup to imitate characters from the series, walked onto the stage and after some cheer, quickly took up their poses. In the two minutes (positions weren’t held for long) it wasn’t easy to capture the angry shocks of pink hair, the hips covered in tight leather pants, and the fierce badass looks the models gave with my pencil and notebook.

Dream-themed music was piped in (“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” and the like), some of it recognizable from references in the books, most of it not. The sketch session continued on for an hour and a half. At one

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

point, the models’ shirts came off to reveak pieces of black tape that covered their breasts.

The effort toward celebrating this auspicious date in Sandman’s history as a franchise was admirable, but came off a bit half-hearted. It might have been a successful sketching session, but was it a successful Sandman-

themed sketching session, as it was billed? This collision of two very different outsider cultures, between the province of teenage outsiders in black eyeliner and hoodies (Sandman) and of adults with disposable income and a desire to feel mildly subversive, but still classy (the neo-burlesque scene), might look like something

put together by an out-of-touch focus group on the outset. But after a bit of thought, it makes more sense: media and entertainment catering to ‘outsider’ social demographics, combining themselves in hopes of gaining a bigger audience. Maybe it didn’t work out terribly well this time around, but the effort was noble.

Dancing on the bar Arret de Bus features young choreographers Lindsey Kendrich-Koch The McGill Daily

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o those who have never experienced it, the Montreal contemporary dance scene can be unnerving and mystifying. A surprise was waiting for me in the cramped Bistro Arrêt de Bus, with a grassroots performance featuring up-and-coming dance choreographers Let’s Get it On! and Sens X. The performance by Let’s Get it On! – consisting of local choreographer and student at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Julia BarretteLaperrière – intrigued me the most.

With no real notion of what to expect from an avant-garde performance (I pictured in my mind something embarrassingly futuristic), what shocked me was how different this was since the last time I watched

a contemporary dance performance.

Not only was the café-bar an unusual location for a dance show; the dancers literally wove among the audience members and jumped onto the bar. The piece showcased BarretteLaperrière’s idea of stereotypical characters and situations that one might stumble upon in a typical trendy bar or raucous club. For the most part, her piece revolved seductively around the themes of sex and sexual identity. During the piece the audience witnessed girls dancing promiscuously in a club and the “hypersexualization” of the female body as a piece of “meat.”

Not only is a bar a good starting point for choreographers looking to make a reputation, but the highly intimate setting and dim mood lighting facilitated the theme.

Barrette-Laperrière argued the venue was entirely conducive for

the storyline of her dance, adapted from its original design for a stage.

The theatrical movements of the dancers resembled acting from a movie or play more than traditional contemporary dance.

If there was a weakness to the performance, however, it was that the dizzying plethora of stereotypes and sexual parodies were presented in an overwhelming flurry of imagery. Barrette-Lapperrière remarked, however, that this was the whole point: seduction happens too rapidly and superficially these days. She explained that she likes to “use the voice, like in theatre,” to tell a story through her piece, but at the same time, to explore a theme highly relevant to young people today.

As a young non-dancer, I think it is crucial to recognize that local contemporary dance, especially from young choreographers, is evolving

to match present social concerns.

Some of Barrette-Laperrière’s other choreographies highlight the subjects of death, physical disabilities, and euthanasia, and have stylistic roots in tango, “waacking” (an increasingly popular type of urban dance), and pole dancing.

Barrette-Laperrière’s personal story is worthy of mention. A student, she also holds down a job and choreographs multiple pieces, the one at Bistro Arrêt de Bus being her first group piece. Unlike most dancers, she started her career only at 18, and therefore she admits that traditional contemporary dance doesn’t interest her, as she doesn’t have the time to perfect her technique. She finds the hardest aspects of being a young choreographer are limited funding and the intense competition in a city flourishing with young, innovative dance art-

ists. The only help she receives is the money raised at pay-what-youcan nights like these, as well as an organization at UQAM called Passerelle 840, which provides dance spaces for the use of students and post-graduate artists.

Even as one of the only anglophones in a francophone-filled bar in Montreal, I couldn’t help but think of Barrette-Laperrière’s theatrical style of choreography as a method of eliminating the language divide in Montreal, which Barrette-Laperrière says seems so apparent at her shows today. Perhaps the reason I myself never expressed a genuine enthusiasm for contemporary dance before was that many of its idealistic themes never resonated with my modern day experience. Let’s Get it On! communicated a contemporary social problem across language barriers to even those less educated in the realm of dance.

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The McGill Daily | Monday, February 18, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

culture

A microbrewery journey A taste of what we’ve missed out on Cynthia Liu and Ralph Haddad The McGill Daily

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ike most students living in Montreal, my first microbrewery experience was at Brutopia. Well-known, close to campus, and serving both imported beers and microbrews on the premises, I never got around to sampling any of Montreal’s vast selection of other options. While I consume enough alcohol to warrant worry for my liver, I certainly do not claim to be a beer connoisseur. But given an opportunity to review different microbreweries with a couple of friends, it was too much of a fun excuse to drink to pass up.

Benelux, 245 Sherbrooke West A five-minute walk away from campus, Benelux was the first stop of the night. The atmosphere was very relaxed and intimate, complete with the usual dim lighting. Their décor was modern and warm: stainless steel bar tops, exposed ductwork, and kegs lining the walls. Our waitress, Gabrielle, was very patient as we mulled over a selection that ranged from traditional Belgianstyle beers to IPAs, and helpfully gave us detailed descriptions and recommendations. We ordered the Pollen, which was described as a classic cream ale, though it was a tangier than expected, with undertones of buckwheat. The Hutchison was an amber ale, not too bitter, with mild hops, and a slightly roasted flavour. This would be an ideal place to go after class to catch up with a friend.

L’Amère à Boire, 2049 St. Denis Our second stop of the night, L’Amère à Boire, felt more casual, with brighter lighting and a crowded atmosphere different from the more intimate feel one usually gets at brewpubs. It seemed like the crowd consisted of Quebecois patrons who were looking to kick back after a

Photo Hera Chan | The McGill Daily

hard day at work. Though it was only 7:30 p.m. and the three floors slightly more than half full, it took a while for our waitress to arrive.

Once she greeted us, the service was quite prompt. Their beer list came in French only, and featured a lot of German- and Czech-style beers.

I tried the Drak, a clear amber with a strong malt taste and a faint tangy aftertaste, as well as their imperial stout. The stout’s colour was as black as coffee, and matched the earthy, bitter taste, as well as the undertones of dark chocolate. It was less bitter than the other stouts we tried, and became thinner and sweeter with subsequent sips. As we were preparing to leave, we caught a whiff of a plate of fries being delivered to

the table behind us, and immediately our salivary glands kicked into production. The smell was intoxicating and we will definitely be trying the food next time.

Le Saint Bock, 1749 St. Denis Down the street from L’Amère à Boire was our next stop, Le Saint Bock. Though the outside is easy to miss, the interior is very sleek, with heavy white drapes and red moody lighting. Think of a clash between a semi-formal lounge and a sports bar. The waiter arrived quickly, but rushed through his recommendations from the extensive beer list, and was generally impatient. We had developed a taste for stouts by this point, and ordered Le Stout Cerise.

It tasted strongly of coffee, laced hints of whiskey and plenty of sugar.

When I asked for a red beer, the gloriously named Dunkelweisen was recommended, a malty brew with a hint of spices and fruits. The beer itself was pretty light; it felt highly carbonated, and the flavour seemed to evaporate on the tongue.

Dieu du Ciel, 29 Laurier West Alas, we saved the last stop for perhaps the best (and certainly one of the most popular) of Montreal’s microbreweries. The pub is almost always busy and full. Luckily, a table emptied just as we arrived and we were quickly seated. The servers were efficient and friendly. Their selection spans the gamut from standard to eccentric,

including a beer infused with wormwood, the herbal base of absinthe, and another one with hibiscus. We had a tasting cup of the Aphrodisiac, a stout with cocoa and vanilla undertones. Even though we enjoyed it, a full pint would probably be too sweet to finish off. It was reminiscent of a very sweet chocolate shake – in beer form, something you would buy at Starbucks, if it had a liquor license.

They lacked a full kitchen, but offered appetizers and simple bar food, so we also ordered a plate of nachos that we devoured rabidly, after our four beer runs. Considering that, it was hard to judge the food fairly. However, the size was good for three people for a fair price, and the nachos were crunchy and utterly satisfying.

Unfit to print Today on The Daily’s radio show:

digital love

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Matt German speaks with a phone sex worker about fantasies and the day-to-day reality of making them come true for others.

hanks to the internet, and even to simpler technology like the telephone, people are increasingly able to reach out and connect with others from behind a veil of anonymity. This anonymity leaves us free to pursue fantasies and interests we’d normally hide, and interact with other people in surprising and exhilarating ways. On this week’s Unfit, we discuss the types of fantasies people are willing to pursue when technology provides a buffer.

Emily Saul and Kate McGillivray peel back the veil of internet-organized Montreal sex events (hint: they happen above stores on Ste. Catherine).

And students share their deepest, darkest internet-history secrets.

Don’t miss this one! Airs on February 18 at 11 a.m. on CKUT 90.3, and premieres on mcgilldaily.com this evening.

CULTURE

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The McGill Daily | Monday, February 18, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

Take this money Gus Van Sant’s Promised Land Alex Kasstan Culture Writer

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ne of the best aspects of Matt Damon, as a writer and an actor, is his ability to avoid those classic film clichés.

The writer of Good Will Hunting (another film directed by Gus Van Sant) is able to confront the audience with all kinds of truths and lies, giving us the feeling that he has lived and reacted to each one of them.

Promised Land is a new drama dealing with corporate exploitation and hydraulic fracturing, a complex natural gas extraction process commonly known as “fracking.”

“I’m not selling them natural gas, I’m selling them the only natural way they have to get back,” insists Steve Butler – played by Damon – a corporate predator tasked with swaying small rural towns into leasing their land to the big drilling company, Global, in exchange for a share of the revenue. Butler’s smalltown upbringing is an asset in his corporate mission, as he is able to blend into the small farming town’s social sphere.

What is interesting about Butler’s character is that he really believes in the greater good that his company can achieve, having witnessed his small hometown in Iowa thrive economically thanks

to the introduction of the drilling industry. After having seen his rural town fade away due to diminishing economic relevance, Butler is convinced that rural life can no longer be sustained by agriculture alone.

Weighing economic benefits against the environmental costs is the dilemma all these small towns must eventually face. Butler’s case is well argued until everything turns sour when he becomes paranoid about an ‘environmental presence’ in town. Enter Dustin Noble, played

by John Krasinski (The Office), who co-wrote the film with Damon. With the arrival of the environmentalist, Butler quickly turns from town saviour to public enemy number one, as evidence of the damaging consequences of fracking comes to light.

The fracking process involves drilling and injecting fluids into the earth at high pressures in order to fracture shale rocks deep underground, releasing valuable natural gas. With over 500,000 active wells in the U.S., each of which can be fracked up to 18 times, this makes for a grand total of 72 trillion gallons of water, mixed with 360 billion gallons of hazardous chemicals. What do these figures mean?

When the shale rock is broken, the chemicals have a tendency to leak out into nearby groundwater, contaminating the supply and leading to cases of sensory or neuro-

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

logical damage in residents of the surrounding areas, as well as dire crop yields.

While the film has a relatively strong anti-fracking message, it remains a drama about conflicted individuals, not a documentary – for that, see Gasland. Promised Land deals with fundamental human morals, in the sense that there is no absolute good or absolute evil; the only things that truly separate people are greed and selfishness. There are greedy rural citizens who choose to buy

a Lamborghini with their fracking money, as opposed to a better education for their children, just as there are corporate representatives who care little about their clients’ best interests. Butler is an honest businessman, who is trying to offer this dying way of life a chance to take advantage of the corporate world. For those of you who are skeptical about fracking, the true value of money, and the motives of big businesses, there may be gratification to be found from the rather sentimental conclusion.

However, where the film disappoints is in its use of convenient plot twists to make its stance on anti-fracking clear and obvious, which feels a little cheap. Yet any film that Damon is involved with, from Inside Job to Green Zone, tends to have a strong, hard-tomiss political and philosophical message at its core. So while Promised Land lacks the audacity of Gasland, or the compelling dramatics of Good Will Hunting, it is a sweet story softly nestled in between the two.

Growling against capitalism Derelict’s new LP, Perpetuation Zoey Tung Culture Writer

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world’s poor. According to Burnet, in theory, there should be enough food for everyone. However, greed persists and the capitalist system continues to perpetuate personal accumulation.

No less politically charged is Perpetuation’s appropriately brutal cover, illustrated by Cate Francis. It portrays a wealthy man in a burning mansion, ingesting money. Burnet says it was inspired by the popular saying, “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.”

Burnet explains to me that metal music is a style that does not appeal to everyone, but, like all genres of music, it should be appreciated and acknowledged nonetheless.

Derelict is nominated in the category of metal group of the year for the upcoming 13th Annual Independent Music Awards in Toronto this March, the only east coat band in the running. In addition, Derelict is currently in the running to be featured in the Heavy MTL festival this August.

Photo Robert Smith | The McGill Daily

o the uninitiated, heavy metal can often sound like guttural screaming and squealing distortion, but the music is far more to the people that love it. Eric Burnet of Montreal-based technical death metal band Derelict recently sat down to talk about Perpetutation, his band’s new album, as well as the genre in general, helping a metal neophyte gain some appreciation for the genre.

Perpetuation is the band’s second album after 2009’s Unspoken Words. Burnet is the lead singer of Derelict and also behind most of the band’s lyrics. Currently the band consists of five members: Eric Burnet, Simon Cléroux, Jordan Perry, Max Lussier, and Xavier Sperdouklis. All five members have other occupations or are still in school. Burnet works in a high school as a community worker for a program called Youth Fusion, which aims to counter

Quebec’s high secondary school drop out rates.

After getting to know Burnet and a bit about the band, we began talking about their new album.

Burnet explained the double meaning of the album’s name, which reflects the circumstance and survival of the band. After Unspoken Words and a national tour, several members of the band quit the group. This left the remaining members with a decision about whether or not to perpetuate their group, hence Perpetuation. The name also refers to the album’s socio-political tinged first single: “Struggling for accumulation Cyclical over-consumption Finite space filled up with waste Perpetuation of scarcity” According to Burnet, Perpetuation is about capitalism.

Essentially, the capitalist system that we exist in today continues because there is a conscious decision not to reverse capitalist inequality. The over-consumptive lifestyle of America has lead to an obesity problem, while malnourishment continues to haunt the

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culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, February 18, 2013 | mcgilldaily.com

A McGill vernissage Kosisochukwu Nnebe at O Patro Výš Sofia Bachouchi Culture Writer

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n Wednesday, February 6, a landmark event occurred in McGill student Kosisochukwu Nnebe’s artistic career: the vernissage of her first exhibit at O Patro Výš, a multifunctional space whose goal is the promotion and distribution of local art. Raised in Gatineau, Quebec, Nnebe is a 19-year-old Nigerian-Canadian artist who is currently studying Economics and International Development.

Juggling being a full-time student and a visual artist is beyond what most McGill students would consider possible, but Nnebe manages to play both roles.

The exhibit itself is a combination of three series of mixed media works (watercolours, oil pastels, ink and marker) and a selection of sketches. The Floral series are mixed media portraits representing black male subjects against a floral background. Turning Away explores the theme of the perception of the individual of the viewer, and consists of paintings of female figures with their backs to the viewer. Finally, Eze Nwanyi, which means “Queen of Women,” is a series of oil pastel large-scale paintings that represent black women in a holistic and affirmative fashion.

For the artist, Eze Nwanyi was an attempt to amend the biased and normalized view of the beauty, a view that is imposed upon us by magazines and reinforced by social media. “From a [black] woman who has been proven as less attractive by recognized academics, or who is regularly turned into an object of lust, I wanted to create a work of art,” explains Nnebe, referring to a discredited 2011 blog post on Psychology Today. Throughout the

history of Western art, the black female figure has always been seen as an inferior, hypersexualized character. As a black woman herself, Nnebe wanted to “take the black woman, strip her down to nothing, and reclaim her image.”

Nnebe emphasizes the political role of her representation of black women. “I think people underestimate the importance of the stereotype within the media,” and how that impacts the everyday lives of women of colour. She refers to Sesko’s and Biernat’s study, “Prototypes of Race and Gender: the Invisibility of Black Women,” which explains how “[…] black women are more likely than black men or white men and women to go unnoticed by others in a group or social situation.” On the subject of stereotypes, Nnebe addresses the persistent tropes of the ‘welfare queen,’ and the ‘angry and emasculating black woman’ and how it influences her in her everyday life. “If I act in a certain manner, the message I may be trying to get across will be lost in others’ representation of me as just another ‘angry black woman’.”

In that sense, Eze Nwanyi, by depicting a black female figure outside of the normal social and media contexts, constitutes a rebellious political statement. Nnebe summarized her political goal as “trying to change the representation of black women in my work [...] trying to reclaim the image of the black woman, reclaim her voice, and give back the dignity and power that she has for so long been denied.”

Nnebe’s Floral series was the artist’s first foray into fashion illustration, representing welldressed black men in a floral and decorative setting. “I feel as though fashion is the best method of recording the various facets of black masculinity,” she

Floral no. 2. Ink, marker, and watercolour. explains. Less overtly political, the Floral paintings give the impression of a young artist practicing her technique. However, there is

Courtesy of Kosisochukwu Nnebe

an undercurrent of gender exploration here, as the flowery backgrounds deliberately undermine her subjects’ masculinity.

Nnebe’s work will be on view until March 5 at O Patro Vys, 356 Mont Royal East.

Cerebral transmissions River Tiber’s Synapses Celine Caira Culture Writer

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ynaesthetes across Canada will be happy to know River Tiber. Melodic, textured, and evocative, River Tiber’s first fulllength album Synapses is something worth downloading. This four-piece group (Tommy Paxton-Beesley, John Mavro, Thadeus Garwood, and David Lewis) produces a layered sound reminiscent of bands such as Sigur Ros, Bon Iver, Flying Lotus, and Radiohead. Synaesthete or not, Synapses will make you taste colour and hear shapes.

River Tiber was born from a solo project by Paxton-Beesley, a former

McGill undergraduate who now attends Berklee College of Music.

Paxton-Beesley composed and recorded the entire album himself, and then assembled the band to play in live settings. As they started picking up steam, the group evolved into the collective and collaborative project that is now River Tiber. Synapses is the strength and clarity of Tom’s vision and our collective enthusiasm to see it through. “It’s an exciting album; exciting to play and even more exciting to play with good friends,” says Lewis, River Tiber’s bassist.

Paxton-Beesley sings from the soul. He smears together his soft vocals with layers of dissonant guitar and off-kilter beats. “Every level has a different character, from the rhyth-

mic foundation, to the keyboard and guitar textures, to the vocals on top; every part adds to the conversation.

To me it’s like a big collage of colors and shapes,” he says. Tracks such as “Prophets” and “Reverie” feature delightfully tender vocal harmonies and chorus-rich guitars accompanied by interludes of convulsive crescendos and rock rhythms.

Synapses was released on January 1, after which the album received considerable attention from social media forums both in Canada and abroad. On January 3, River Tiber performed live to a packed crowd at the Drake Underground at Toronto’s celebrated Drake Hotel.

With many fresh bands such as River Tiber penetrating the local

music scene today, it would be naïve not to address the paradigm shift within current music distribution.

“Free music is the norm, and it’s actually a good thing,” argues Lewis.

“Albums no longer have price tags, therefore the competition and comparison among artists is now based [on] the assessment of something much more substantial than monetary value.” By making Synapses available for free online, River Tiber has been able to reach a much wider audience. “The music scene is such a different place today than it was even 15 years ago. Obviously labels are still a valuable means of distributing a band’s material,” explains guitarist Mavro, “but thanks to technology, big labels aren’t as crucial to a band’s suc-

cess as they once were.”

Paxton-Beesley succeeded in knitting together elements from a variety of genres, including jazz, electronic, and rock, to create a fresh and tantalizing sound. “Synapses are the connections between neurons. Neurologists believe that the root of intelligence isn’t contained in the neurons themselves, but in the connections between them – their plasticity, their substance,” he says, regarding the album’s title. “I thought that was a pretty awesome metaphor. Meaning created in the space between words, life in transitory bodies, infinity between two mirrors.”

Synapses is available as a free download at rivertiber.com.

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EDITORIAL

volume 102 number 34

editorial board

Northern Quebec: Out of sight, out of mind

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Queen Arsem-O’Malley

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com

coordinating news editor

Juan Camilo Velásquez news editors

Laurent Bastien Corbeil Lola Duffort Farid Rener commentary editors

Jacqueline Brandon Steve Eldon Kerr

Illustration Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

culture editors

Kaj Huddart Hillary Pasternak features editor

Christina Colizza science+technology editor

Anqi Zhang

health&education editor

Ralph Haddad sports editor

Evan Dent

multimedia editor

Kate McGillivray photo editor

Hera Chan illustrations editor

Amina Batyreva design&production editors

Edna Chan Rebecca Katzman

copy editor

Nicole Leonard web editor

Tom Acker le délit

Nicolas Quiazua

rec@delitfrancais.com

cover design Amina Batyreva and Hera Chan contributors Shaina Agbayani, Sofia Bachouchi, Darin Barney, Hannah Besseau, Jake Bleiberg, Daniel Braden, Celine Caira, Sebastian Grant, Ahmad Hassan, Adrienne Carey Hurley, William Clare Roberts, Lindsey Kendrick-Koch, Molly Korab, Thomas Lamarre, Alison Laywine, Cynthia Liu, Jessie Marchessault, Robin Reid-Fraser, Joanna Schacter, Robert Smith, Stephanne Taylor, Adrian Turcato, Zoey Tung, Dana Wray

In a few months, a railway will be built across Montreal, cleaving the city in two. The St. Lawrence will be drained to make way for a new hydroelectric dam, and the McGill campus will be excavated for iron ore production. Even St. Laurent won’t be spared. The street and its clubs will be razed and used as a ditch for faulty heavy equipment. The company behind the plan has assured us that the construction will bring jobs and wealth to the region. Those claims were also guaranteed by several government ministers, yet so far those promises have not materialized.

In a big city like Montreal, this scenario might seem unthinkable, but it is a reality faced by many Indigenous communities across northern Quebec, following the provincial government’s $80-billion natural resource exploitation and development plan, the Plan Nord. The Innu of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam, for instance, have been fighting against the construction of a dam on their territory for months. In October, more than half of the community rejected an agreement with Hydro-Québec which called for the construction of new transmission lines across their territory. Regardless, the company went ahead with their plan.

It is also shocking that the same community will have to contend with a $5-billion railway. The train tracks will most likely cut their territory in two, and so far, nobody at Canadian National Railway – the company behind the project – has bothered to ask

Innu communities for their consent.

While this happens, the mainstream media remains silent. Despite the occasional news article, most of the coverage we hear focuses on the city of Montreal. Much has been written about last week’s protest against the Strategic Forum on natural resources at the Palais des congrès – a job fair designed to attract workers to northern Quebec – yet little has been said about Indigenous resistance to the plan. It is only by looking at alternative media sources that we learn of Indigenous resistance. For instance, Highway 138, one of the main highways that leads to northern Quebec, has been blockaded five times in protest of the construction of a Hydro-Québec dam.

The distance between Montreal and northern Quebec, it seems, is not just calculated in kilometres. It is troubling to see that the government was so quick to send its ministers to visit the numerous companies at Montreal’s Palais des congrès while ignoring Indigenous communities across the province. Why is the Montreal Board of Trade, the organizer of the Strategic Forum, more important than the communities that will likely bear the brunt of these projects?

We would have been better off if the Palais had been used as a forum for discussion with Indigenous groups. But the government and the Board of Trade, it seems, care little for that.

— The McGill Daily Editorial Board

Errata In a previous article, (“Quebec universities underfunded, says graduate student motion,” News, February 14, page 6) The Daily incorrectly referred to Justin Marleau as a researcher from AGSEMMcGill’s Teaching Union. In fact, Marleau is their Vice-President.

On page 3 of the February 14 issue, the photograph is incorrectly attributed to Hera Chan. In fact, the photograph was taken by Ahmad Hassan.

The Daily regrets the errors.

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318 advertising & general manager Boris

Shedov sales representative Letty Matteo ad layout & design Geneviève Robert Mathieu Ménard dps board of directors

Queen Arsem-O’Malley, Erin Hudson, Rebecca Katzman, Michael Lee-Murphy, Anthony Lecossois, Matthew Milne, Sheehan Moore (chair@dailypublications.org), Joan Moses, Farid Muttalib, Shannon Palus, Nicolas Quiazua, Boris Shedov

All contents © 2013 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec.

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compendium!

The McGill Daily Monday, February 18, 2013 mcgilldaily.com

lies, half-truths, and cultural topographies

I6

seeking: deputy provost

(student life and learning)

The Opportunity McGall University, a collection of fascinating build-

ings and gardens with grass, develops the fire power necessary for the furthering of the global war on terror ©. We also have students.

McGall is seeking obedient candidates for the position of Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning). The Deputy Provost will be a docile and tactile leader – feeling is believing – who will build on the university’s foundations. Ability to provide own bricks and mortar an asset, not essential.

The University Established as part of an extensive colonial war, McGall

University has built a global reputation for academic and research excellence across a wide-ranging number of Faculties that distinguishes it as Canada’s most international university, a leader in higher education, and purveyor of declaratory sentences that can be proven by neither empirical analysis or theoretical cohesion. Due to the general growth in World Freedom (TM) over the past thirty years, McGall has focused its strengths in order to better please the global Decision Makers (TM). McGall is now Canada’s leader in the research of contemporary human dispersal technology and one of North America’s primary venues for the sale of Aramark “This world, this food, this taste” goods. McGall comprises 11 Faculties, the School of Continuing Studies, the Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Office, and 11 finishing schools. McGall attracts outstanding students at all program levels from Quebec and across Canada, as well as internationally. It has a consumer base of more than 37,500 across two campuses, and 215,000 living shareholders in the brand.

Located in the cosmopolitan city of McGall, the university benefits from a milieu rich in dollars, smiles, and samosas. More information about McGall can be found at www.McGall.ca.

The Position The Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) reports to the Provost and oversees those offices that deliver key services to students to support their optimal growth, to enhance the development of their intellectual, social, cultural, and physical capital, and to complement McGall’s academic programs by providing access to the world’s most important knowledge, as well as opportunities to explore experiences and interests, both in McGall, and in Other places, worldwide.

The Deputy Provost is expected to serve. Walk for me. Serve. The Deputy Provost will also report directly to the University’s senior administrative automatons. They must be a top-twenty ranked Deputy Provost, purveyor of unimaginative research, and world leader in the communicationistics. The perfect candidate will have a history of work in formal institutional settings and will advance communitybuilding always-in-relation-to the institution; members of the MiltonParc community must be understood only as potential customers able to be incorporated into the McGall Epistemic Edifice ©. The Deputy Provost participates in internal University governance through utilization of the “yes” and “no” words. The Deputy Provost serves on the senior administrative team, and bakes cakes for the Senate. In addition, the Deputy Provost ignores a number of committees.

candidate qualifications The Advisory Committee recognizes that no one indi-

vidual is likely to exhibit all of the following characteristics in equal measure; nevertheless, the ideal candidate should demonstrate: A record of successful leadership in university student affairs, and in working effectively to dress competently in the morning; The ability to assess and address university-wide issues, to be an agent of positive change, and to promote collaboration discussion feedback initiatives with potential and current community members of the McGall University community area; An unquestioned record of academic/professional achievement; No asbestos, please; Exemplary examples; A good knowledge of both English and French, including the ability to work in both of Canada’s official languages.

primary responsibilities of the Deputy Provost Speak on behalf of McGall students to the broad University community and to the University’s senior leadership team, working to ensure that students’ concerns and interests arise only when convenient; Work work work with relevant McGall offices and divisions to ensure high-level programs and services that provide an experience for all McGall students; Ensure that McGall’s values, standards, and goals with respect to students are integrated into University policies, operations, and procedures, and assume less than complete responsibility for Universitywide student policy issues; Encourage a strong sense of community on the Downtown and Macdonald campuses for both current and future students – McGall will provide money for fine wine if it helps; Provide oversight for the Office of the Dean of Students; Office of Student Services; Enrolment Services; Office of International Education; Athletics and Recreation, Food and Dining Services; Residences and Student Housing; and all their related services; Play the only role in promoting University-wide initiatives to diversify improvements in all aspects of the student experience, including international tourism through internships and student exchanges, among other opportunities; and Channel resources to strengthen McGall’s ability to meet current and emerging military needs.

The search process and the appointment Review of candidates began in late December 2012,

and will continue until the position is filled. The appointment is for a five-year renewable term to commence on September 1, 2013.