Indigenous Awareness Week is now in its fifth year at McGill University. The week showcases local indigenous culture through a series of events, beginning with the Pow Wow on Sept. 18, and concluding on Sept. 25 with a symposium titled Resisting Gendered and State Violence: Indigenous Women’s Activism. The focal[Read More…]
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
Off the board: Drawing the line between inspiration and appropriation
Following the release of Taylor Swift’s new music video for “Wildest Dreams”—the 5th single from her 2014 album, 1989—the singer and the video’s director, Joseph Kahn, came under fire for accusations of racism and glorifying colonialism. It is very easy to call out something as being racist or culturally appropriative—especially[Read More…]
Commentary: Anti-Austerity Week a start to mobilizing students
Last week, the Students' Society of McGill University (SSMU) hosted a number of workshops and discussions to encourage awareness about Quebec’s austerity measures. Anti-Austerity Week at McGill took a strong stance against continuing university budget cuts while aiming to inform students and the public of what austerity means for them: lower[Read More…]
Commentary: Student-Run Cafeteria is risky business
In additin to The Nest, a new, yet-to-be-named food provider has opened in the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) cafeteria this Fall. Both are student-run operations and together make up the Student-Run Café (SRC). This new addition is part of a larger plan by SSMU to move away from commercial[Read More…]
Editorial: On sexual assault, unacceptable gaps remain in McGill’s redress procedures
As McGill works on drafting a new sexual assault policy, one survivor’s experience demonstrated that our administration and faculty associations are failing in their responsibility to provide adequate redress to students who have been sexually assaulted. After an incident at an undergraduate departmental event where the survivor was allegedly sexually[Read More…]
Off the Board: 21st Century Fox/National Geographic partnership signals decline in accessible education
On Sept. 9, 21st Century Fox struck a 725 million-dollar deal with National Geographic, thus ending the 127-year-old magazine’s era of non-profit existence. Under this deal, Fox will own 73 per cent of the new joint media venture—National Geographic Partners—making Fox the majority stakeholders. Only 27 per cent will remain under[Read More…]
Commentary: Desautels Faculty of Management’s new female dean a testament to women in leadership
McGill has achieved a new milestone—appointing the first female Dean of McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management, Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou. Despite the overwhelming majority of male business executives, a Fall 2014 statistic shows that 48.3 per cent of the students enrolled in the Faculty were women, and little has changed since 2005.[Read More…]
Commentary: Ode to OAP
Most McGill students would agree that Open Air Pub (OAP) is a great place to commence the semester. It has cold drinks, hot food, live music, and provides the perfect venue to catch up with your friends at the beginning of the school year. But these attractions alone don’t make[Read More…]
Commentary: What does Thomas Mulcair stand for?
Arriving back to Montreal in the heat and humidity of late August, I was greeted by hundreds of smiling Thomas Mulcair signs. My mother, who was with me, asked me how many shots it must have taken to make Mulcair look that friendly. She had a point. Prior to the[Read More…]
Editorial: Student mobilization key to addressing youth issues in Federal Election
On Oct. 19, Canadians will decide who will form the government for the next four years. At this time, it is critical that students—and the organizations that represent them—remain informed and engaged. The vicious cycle of low youth voter turnout and subsequent shortage of issues affecting youth and students in[Read More…]
