For many students on campus, university can be an isolating place. The McGill Tribune Opinion section asked marginalized students to write about their personal experiences with representation, or a lack thereof, to answer the question, “Where do students find representation, and how do they create spaces for themselves?” Leina[Read More…]
Commentary
Grassroots, lawsuits, and the future of climate activism
A group of Quebec youth are stoking a freshly-lit fire in the fight against global climate change. Montreal climate justice organization ENvironment JEUnesse (ENJEU) is pursuing a class-action lawsuit against the federal government for climate negligence on behalf of all Quebec youth under the age of 35. They argue that[Read More…]
Consultation in name only at the joint Board-Senate meeting
On Nov. 14, McGill University held its annual Senate and Board of Governors joint meeting, bringing together the university’s highest academic and financial administrative bodies, respectively. Each year, the two bodies convene to discuss a topic that relates to the university’s mission; I attended as an undergraduate senator from the[Read More…]
New urbanist schemes for transit-oriented teens
On Nov. 19, Montreal mayor Valérie Plante announced, to the outrage of downtown business owners, that the city council has decided to pursue her plan to redesign St. Catherine Street by widening sidewalks to 6.5 metres and reducing traffic to a single lane. This transportation proposal accompanied a host of[Read More…]
Curing the McLennan blues
For many students, midterms, paper writing, and the pressure of the approaching finals season means that they must spend the majority of their waking hours in the infamous McLennan-Redpath Library Complex. McLennan-Redpath is known to evoke strong feelings of anxiety, dread, and stress among its dwellers, due in large part[Read More…]
SSMU votes to change the name. What now?
In the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) Fall 2018 referendum, 78.8 per cent of students voted in favour of changing the McGill men’s varsity athletics teams’ name. The result comes in the wake of a petition launched by SSMU Indigenous Affairs commissioner Tomas Jirousek, which has over 10,000 signatures,[Read More…]
Remembering Izy
My beloved friend Isabella Guerrico, U3 Arts, passed away in a sudden accident on Thursday, Nov. 15. We will remember Izy, who was beloved by many in the McGill community, for her fiery and generous spirit. When I moved into Gardner three years ago, I had no idea what was[Read More…]
Women in STEM and men in the arts: Gender roles in academia
The regrettable lack of women studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in post-secondary education is well-documented. Efforts to minimize this gender imbalance are widespread, and include initiatives such as Girls Who Code and a UNESCO publication investigating its root causes. However, similarly concerning, yet often overlooked, are rising gender[Read More…]
Left out in the cold: Homelessness in Montreal
The month of November is often the time that Montreal gets painfully, unbearably cold. Suddenly, a five-minute walk to campus feels like a frigid expedition, a treacherous hike through white, icy streets. While this expedition may be momentarily uncomfortable to students, others call Montreal’s streets home throughout the winter. Montreal’s[Read More…]
Cross-border sympathy
Once again, the world stopped to mourn American mass shooting victims. On Oct. 24, a white supremacist killed a black couple in a supermarket in Louisville, Kentucky. On Oct. 27, a white supremacist killed 11 people in a synagogue during a Shabbat service because they were Jewish. On Nov. 3,[Read More…]
