Norman Webster: an inspiring man

In the short time that the club has been operational, it has already hosted a documentary screening, produced social media content to raise awareness about sustainable agriculture, and participated in the organization of Eco Week events, as well as promoting the recent climate strike. In the future, Noble says that the club will “support and provide outreach for different projects that the farm undertakes.” Some examples include setting up a new garden and seeing to its tending.

When asked why students should join the club, Watson answered that “if they want to […] get some more hands-on learning on activities related to sustainable agriculture, or if they’re not in the SAFS program and they are just kind of curious about the more hands-on aspect of it, it would be a good place to meet some like-minded people.” Noble summarized the club as “a good place to get some hands-on activities […] and learn some new skills.”

As one of Bishop’s newest clubs, the SAFS Club is a very active organization that is open to students of all backgrounds who show some curiosity for sustainable agriculture. Mixing fun activities and open-minded people, the SAFS Club is a great way to learn more about a growing and interesting field of expertise while having fun. Check out their Instagram page @bu_safsclub and watch out for the next meeting!

Convocation for the class of 2021

Norman Webster: Oxford man, Bishop’s man, inspiring man

Casey Hebert Senior Copy Editor

When we sing along to the school song, we never seem to linger too long on the lyrics. We heartily chant that “we will never graduate,” believing that to mean that we would never leave the Bishop’s bubble. For the past two years, the reality of that line has been that the graduating classes would have no convocation, leaving Bishop’s unceremoniously without getting to “graduate.”

That thought is not a comfortable one to reckon with. Walking across the stage in a cap and gown to pick up your diploma and shake the principal’s hand with all of your peers watching feels like the culmination of the years of effort put into earning the degree. Graduating student María Clavelli says: “It definitely feels strange to know that we’re going to have a non-conventional convocation in a non-conventional time, but I do feel luckier than the class of 2020 who had little to no closure to their university experience.”

It’s true that the class of 2021 is luckier than their predecessors: we, at least, have a clearer hope of convocation. Convocation was originally set for June 5, 2021, but with COVID case numbers still heavily fluctuating and the end of the pandemic not yet in sight, the tentative date was pushed back to late August. Clavelli agrees with this decision, saying: “It was a reasonable choice to make. It’s better to give us the expectation that it isn’t going to happen in June like it usually does rather than to have us excitedly wait until June 5 and then pushing it back. My parents have asked me multiple times when they should make plans to come up to Canada for the ceremony, but I have already come to terms with the fact that I’ll just have to send them the Zoom link.”

Though students are holding out hope for an August convocation ceremony, Clavelli brings up some issues with the recently proposed alternative: “Many students going on to their masters will have already started classes,

Graphic by Leea Rebeca Ruta

and some people with jobs might not be able to get away. Having convocation so late in August is a little inconvenient for those of us who might have something else going on. I also see the struggle for international students who are leaving Canada definitely and would have to come back four months later for their graduation.”

With the looming uncertainty of how the pandemic will unfold, especially given the shifting vaccination schedules, even the August graduation ceremony is no guarantee. An idea had been suggested to host graduation for the classes of 2020 and 2021 in September, the week after Homecoming. The reasoning had been that by September, more people are likely to have been vaccinated. Additionally, if students are coming in from further afield for Homecoming, it might be more reasonable for them to stay an extra week for their convocation than it would be for them to fly in on two separate occasions.

Students like that idea as well. Clavelli explains: “I would prefer a Homecoming graduation. The whole idea of inviting alumni back on campus, their home, really compliments convocation, and if it were a joint graduation [between the classes of 2020 and 2021], it would be nice to experience that moment of homecoming and goodbye with friends from the class of 2020 and those who haven’t graduated yet.” Not to mention the parties would be like something we’ve never seen before!

Over the past year, students have had to make many concessions to their university experience and relegate most events to the virtual realm, so it would be a relief to get an in-person goodbye after the years spent at Bishop’s. Regardless of how convocation unfolds, one thing is sure: BU has not seen the last of the class of 2021.

Hugh Godman Editor-in-Chief

Norman Webster is widely recognized as the former editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail and the Montreal Gazette; yet he is also the former editor-in-chief of another newspaper: The Campus. Webster’s book Newspapering, published in 2020, highlights how his experience at Bishop’s impacted him. And, after conversations with Norman Webster; his dear friend and hockey partner, Principal Goldbloom; his son Professor David Webster; and his wife Pat Webster, it is evident that this man is an inspirational alumnus of our university.

Norman Webster’s remarkable career can be traced back to this very newspaper. Bishop’s was different when Webster was running The Campus. For one, students were obligated to wear long, black gowns to their classes, a rule that did not sit well with Webster. In fact, he wrote an editorial in the paper opposing the gown, believing they made the students “look like penguins, stuffy and old before [their] time,” as highlighted in his book Newspapering. But many of his fellow students passionately disagreed with this view. They thought that the gowns “added a touch of class to the place.” They wrote “stinging letters” and “hissed” at him in the hallways, turning his editorial into “the sharpest possible lesson in humility to a young journalist.” On another occasion, one of Webster’s columnists criticized the university administration for helping to pollute the St. Francis River. Ogden Glass, the principal of Bishop’s at the time, “went ballistic—white-faced, barking, fairly dancing with rage.” These lessons in humility stuck with Webster.

According to Goldbloom, humility was a defining characteristic of Webster’s writing: he took the situations upon which he reported seriously, yet he never took himself seriously. He could criticize without using the vicious tone that is particularly present on social media and TV journalism. This, along with Webster’s ability to discern the essence of noisy situations, is what Goldbloom believes made him exceptional.

Webster and Goldbloom met at the Montreal Gazette. Webster had stepped down from being the paper’s editor-in-chief and began writing for it as a columnist. Meanwhile, Goldbloom became the paper’s publisher. Although Goldbloom is reluctant to characterize Webster as a mentor per se, he did recognize that Webster was one of the few people with whom he had confidence speaking about the Gazette or matters of Quebec politics— Goldbloom was publisher during the tumultuous period in Quebec history surrounding the 1995 referendum.

Webster was also one of the few people that Goldbloom spoke to when, over a decade ago, the opportunity arose for him to become the principal of our university. Webster, a current resident of Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley, loves the Eastern Townships. And he, an Oxford alumnus who attended on a Rhodes Scholarship, has been known to refer to Bishop’s as “Oxford on the Massawippi.” Of course, he told Principal Goldbloom that he should take the opportunity. This conversation did not in itself persuade Goldbloom to become principal, but Webster did have an influential voice on the matter.

Norman Webster’s son Dr. David Webster of BU’s History and Global Studies Department highlighted something else about his father: he was willing to break the rules. Dr. Webster described a time when his father was covering a conference in Montreal with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. The prime minister had slipped in a request for his comments to be off the record, but Norman Webster chose to follow his conscience and report on what he believed the public had the right to know. He took some heat from the Prime Minister, but he was ready for it. As described in Newspapering, Webster has “been denounced by prime ministers, premiers, cabinet ministers and great captains of industry,” yet none of these denunciations were as intimidating as the scolding he received from his principal, Ogden Glass, on our very campus.

Bridget Boucher, Arts & Culture Editor » thecampus.ac@gmail.com

Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival Bridget Boucher Arts & Culture Editor

Do you consider yourself to be a literary buff? Interested in listening to keynote speeches from authors around the globe? Check out the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival from Saturday, April 24, to Sunday, May 2! This year the festival will be running online due to the pandemic. Per publicist Janis Courtesy of Janis Kirshner. Kirshner: “Online and later outdoors, more than 50 eclectic events with 200 artists will delight eyes and minds around the theme, ‘The Challenges of Our Times.’ Free multilingual events in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic take the form of captivating panels, debates, and interviews.”

Executive and Artistic Director William St-Hillaire says of the event, “This very special edition of the festival is presented during a pandemic which isn’t letting up, but which has not got[ten] the better of our great energy and our endless will.”

“When literature rhymes with pleasure, literacy with discovery, and books with hooked (sort of), you know Blue Metropolis is about to start,” says Kirshner.

Check out the full programming at bluemetropolis.org/2021festival/.

The groovy Gaiter summer playlist

It’s officially exam season and the temperature has reached double digits (on some days, at least), so we all know what that means: summer is almost here! And while you’re whiling away your days at the pool, missing your adventures at Bishop’s, you can put on this playlist and pretend you’re floating down the Massawippi.

Bridget Boucher Arts & Culture Editor

“Peach Pit” Peach Pit “Cocaine Jesus” Rainbow Kitten Surprise “Common People” - Pulp “Perfect Places” Lorde “8TEEN” Khalid “San Francisco” The Mowglis “Tongue Tied” Grouplove “Electric Love” BØRNS “Anna Sun” Walk the Moon “Vacation Town” The Front Bottoms “3 Nights” Dominic Fike “Talk Too Much” COIN “Cake by the Ocean” DNCE “Pink Lemonade” The Wombats “Are You Bored Yet?” Wallows ft. Clairo “I Wanna Get Better” Bleachers “Hard Times” Paramore “Animal” Neon Trees “Raspberry” Grouplove “Watermelon Sugar” Harry Styles “Cough Syrup” Young the Giant “What You Know” Two Door Cinema Club “Out of My League” Fitz and The Tantrums “Magic in the Hamptons” Social House “Sucker” Jonas Brothers

Illustration courtesy of Bridget Boucher

Queer Canadian author releases debut YA novel

Bridget Boucher Elizabeth Menzie, born and raised in Saskatchewan, has

Arts & Culture Editor released her debut novel, Northern Lights: The Druid of Black Lake. The YA romance, released on March 21, 2021, focuses on Charlotte Gillies, a young werewolf who has recently and reluctantly reached the age at which she is required by tradition to find her mate at the Mating Exhibition of the Central Prairie Territory, held in Brandon, Manitoba. Romance and drama ensue when Charlotte, at last, meets her mate, Clark Duffy, and soon discovers that everything is not what it seems in his home of Black Lake. “I enjoy stories and novels with strong female leads that are relatable,” says Menzie from her home in Wynyard, Saskatchewan, where she lives with her wife Leanne and their cat Ellie. “I created Charlotte Gillies as such an individual.” Menzie says that she has “enjoyed writing fiction since [she] was about

Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Menzie twelve years old, storytelling before [she] could even read.” The novel is dedicated to her father, Darryl Senecal, whom Menzie says taught her “that the greatest gift we possess is our imagination.”

Charlotte’s love interest Clark was created to “reflect a man who displays non-toxic masculinity” as “abuse, violence, and neglect are heavily prevalent in the fantasy genre of fiction,” and Menzie wanted “to buck those norms.”

Northern Lights is the first of a series, and you can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or at Indigo.

Illustration by Leea Rebeca Ruta

The Story of Belle

Safia Hafid Opinions Editor

There is a longing, simmering and waiting to burst Borne from the words on a page, from the words of those around Books gifting me wings–villagers shackling me with chains Oh, that I wish, when I look at the grass and the hills and the bluebell sky That I could have more than this; More than the clucks of chickens and the simpering calls and the growling, possessive commands More than this village, more than this cage, more than this prison, More than this provincial life.

Yet this I did not know, that this provincial life brings safety Of a kind Now there is none The wind howls in tandem to the gnashing wolves Branches like creeping vines, twisting and snatching and hurting The snow traps and slows and blinds Yet another prison, another cage, an enchanted castle Now a haunted home for eternity– My captor that imprisons, that takes, that chases; Heart heavy, mind numb, a single thought crystalizes Escape. I cry and I scream–I protest, I plead, I beg Yet no-one listens All they do is assume and take and destroy There is terror that consumes me, that worsens with every step and every cry “Kill the Beast!” they roar, with torches that burn and pitchforks that slash, The blinding, pouring storm echoing the turmoil and fear within, That they will destroy, kill All that they do not understand–a woman who loves books and a Beast that is kind.

For so long there has been fear, uncertainty Now grief Yet as the rain lashes at the ramparts, soaking hems, Yet as the ray of light diminishes, and those tender words are uttered I finally breathe, shuddering cries– Relief Now, my arms around him, the castle restored The story can finally begin; There will be dresses and chandeliers and polished floors–later For the moment, there is just us, love and kindness and beauty that has triumphed.

David Rossiter, Sports Editor » thecampus.sports@gmail.com

Annual Congress of Sports Studies

Late season expectations for the Montreal Canadiens

The Congress of Sports Studies is back this year on Wednesday, April 21, with inspiring speakers, interesting presentations, and an exciting new online platform. The congress is an opportunity for upper-year Sports Studies students, students in other disciplines, alumni, and other academics to present a poster on a sports topic. Topics could include Olympic weightlifting, substances to improve performance, the impact of physical activity on mental health, injury recovery techniques, and more.

The event will kick off at 10:30 a.m. with the keynote speaker Dr. Ann Pegoraro, the Lang Chair in Sport Management at the University of Guelph. Next, there will be two- time slots for poster presentations followed by an alumni panel. This year’s panellists are Ben McPherson, a strength and conditioning specialist who works with Dylan Cozens; Naomi James, former Bishop’s University basketball player who now works as a mental performance consultant; Simon Gordon, the NBA’s Senior Manager of Marketing Partnerships and Media; and Maddie Hession, the founder and CEO of Runway

Pascale Desmarais Contributor

Unlimited Inc., who helps develop aspiring models and entrepreneurs. The event will end with casual networking time where students, professors, alumni, and other attendees will be able to interact.

A large part of the annual affair is the poster presentations by graduating students in the Sports Studies Department. These posters represent a final project, a thesis of sorts, by the students. Younger students from the department always attend the presentations to support their older friends or to discover what sports in academia looks like.

In the past, the congress has had the poster presentations in the lobby of Centennial Theatre and speakers presenting on the theatre stage. This year, it will be hosted virtually on Remo, an interactive online conferencing tool. The student organizing committee is excited about this platform, as it will allow for similar interactions as the in-person event.

To find out more about the event, check out The Congress of Sports Studies event page on Facebook. The committee hopes to see you there!

Source: BU Sports Studies Department’s Facebook page

David Rossiter Sports Editor

As the National Hockey League’s COVID-shortened 56-game season winds down, we are going to take a look at what Quebec’s team, the Montreal Canadiens, can expect as far as postseason success.

Starting the year on fire, the Habs were atop the league a few weeks in. A tough slump through February resulted in the team dropping in the standings, as well as the firing of Head Coach Claude Julien.

Interim head coach Dominique Ducharme has done a good job of revitalizing the Canadiens, and they are currently in the playoff position. Analyzing the numbers, Montreal is most likely to land in the fourth and final playoff position in the new allCanadian “North” division. This means that as a low seed, the Habs will face a strong, high-seeded team in the playoffs.

Due to COVID, the first two rounds of playoffs will feature the top four teams in each division facing one another. The best regular season team in Canada is still to be decided but it will be between the Edmonton Oilers, the Winnipeg Jets, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. With the Leafs currently on top and playing better than ever, the most likely first- round playoff matchup for Montreal will be their century-old rival, Toronto. Wow.

This series would be entertaining not only because of the rivalry and competitiveness between the two squads but also because it should be rather close. So far this year, the Leafs have gotten the better of the Habs with Montreal only winning one of the five contests between the teams. However, each game has been extremely close, with all but one of them being decided by a single goal.

Auston Matthews has been arguably the top goal scorer in the league this year, and he has made the Maple Leafs’ power play nearly unstoppable. Montreal’s special teams have improved since the firing of Julien, but still have a ways to go if they want to nullify this aspect of Toronto’s game.

Some new lineup changes may very well be the spark that gives Montreal an edge over Toronto. General Manager Marc Bergevin has been known to make bold trades during his nine-year tenure with the Canadiens, and this year was no different.

In early April, Bergevin managed to snag veteran forward Eric Staal from the fledgling Buffalo Sabres. In his first game in the bleu-blanc-et-rouge, Staal stunned with an epic overtime winner vs. Edmonton. At the time of writing, Staal has not yet played versus Toronto, so the Leafs will have to account for them in their game plan.

Contrasting with the acquisition of 36-year-old Staal, the Habs’ other big late-season addition is joining them since his college season just ended. 2018 first-round draft pick Cole Caufield has been lighting the NCAA on fire in 2021. A member of the Wisconsin Badgers, Caulfield has signed a contract with the Canadiens and at the time of writing has not yet played with the Canadiens, but he is expected to any day now. Exciting.

While the Canadiens have had ups and downs throughout this unusual season, their ceiling is still quite high. Get into the Stanley Cup Playoffs and anything can happen, as we’ve all seen before. Whether or not they play Toronto in round one, there is excitement around the current roster and their capabilities.

Thank you, seniors

David Rossiter Sports Editor

As this goes to print, members of the Bishop’s University class of 2021 have just undergone their Grad Formal and now have convocation on the horizon.

The Campus has reported on the difficulties of student-athletes watching their last seasons slip away due to COVID. So today let’s stay positive, congratulate seniors for what they’ve done in purple and silver, and wish them well in the future. Thank you, seniors!

Courtesy of Marty Rourke