After spending the winter holidays in Toronto with a Christmas ice-storm generously donated by Jack Frost himself, I felt meteorologically prepared to start the semester at McGill; I was wrong. When I heard the sound of rain the morning of January 6, I uttered two words: Vatican cameos; watch out![Read More…]
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
Bookstores not to blame for high textbook prices
A week into my second year at McGill, I was apoplectic. My books for the first semester cost me nearly a thousand dollars—a sum unheard of for an Arts student. The text for my introduction to Chinese culture class, a fairly thin paperback, was nearly $200 alone. Like most students[Read More…]
Give students a say in student services surplus
At the end of last semester, an unexpected surplus was announced in the Student Services contingency fund, to the tune of $5 million. In the coming weeks and months, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens will be faced with the decision of how to allocate these funds. Although[Read More…]
Editorial: McGill must deliver on proposed sexual assault measures
Last Thursday, McGill University finally gave the response our community needed to hear on sexual assault. The message, a Media Relations Office email sent on behalf of Ollivier Dyens, deputy provost (Student Life and Learning), represented a first step towards the administration heeding the calls for change that have been[Read More…]
Sexual assault policies must be inclusive, comprehensive
Here at the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society’s Advocacy Branch (SACOMSS A-Branch), we commend the stance that McGill has taken towards the recent incidents emailed out on Nov. 21. We are happy that they are committing to creating a co-ordinating role to support survivors of sexual assault,[Read More…]
A Campus Conversation: Sexual assault policy
INTRODUCTION (Ruidi Zhu / McGill Tribune) Last week, McGill announced a new set of strategies to confront the issue of sexual assault and build a more cohesive policy on the matter. This comes in the wake of campus debate over the past month, stemming from reports linking three former McGill[Read More…]
Our fragmented campus
A term we often hear from time to time—sometimes in the pages of this newspaper—is the idea of the “McGill Community.” While this works best as a tidy phrase to lump together disparate stakeholders—students, faculty, employees, the administration, and alumni—in most instances, there is no such “McGill community,” so much[Read More…]
Hasty judgments hazardous in response to sexual assault
Three members of a varsity sports team are accused of sexual assault by a woman who does not attend their university. The story becomes public and, predictably, outrage ensues. Groups on campus pressure the coach to discipline the players. The suspects are charged, and a trial is pending—but observers have[Read More…]
Harassment of students not an answer to student harassment
Last Wednesday, about a dozen protesters interrupted the class of professor Gary Dunphy, a professor in the Faculty of Environmental Sciences. The protest was in response to allegations that surfaced in early April that Dunphy had repeatedly harassed, and made a death threat against Amr El-Orabi, a student he was[Read More…]
Letter: Divest McGill turns one year old
About a year and a half ago, Bill McKibben wrote an article in Rolling Stone magazine outlining the climate crisis and urging the world to take action against its main perpetrator, the fossil fuel industry. This call to action saw the conception of over 400 divestment campaigns around the world,[Read More…]