McGill Tribune This week, 26 McGill professors signed an open letter expressing support for the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM)’s “UDrive” to unionize course lecturers, or contract academic staff, at McGill. On Thursday, the McGill Daily expressed its support for the drive and called for “university-wide solidarity.”[Read More…]
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
Harper wrong to scrap federal party subsidies
McGill Tribune Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently announced that he will make the elimination of federal subsidies to Canadian political parties a central component of his re-election campaign, which could come as soon as this spring. This inflammatory move has predictably raised the ire of opposition parties, who in 2008—the[Read More…]
Brendan bids goodbye
When I sat down to write my final column for the McGill Tribune, I didn’t really know the best way to wrap up my time here. I could review criticisms of my work or what I have learned. But neither of these options seemed to be the best way to[Read More…]
Recrastinators of the world … unite!
I was a day late coming back to school, and thus, was behind in my classes before my final semester at McGill even started. Despite this, I don’t feel an urgent need to catch up. But why do certain people seem to actually prefer regularly repeating cycles of falling behind[Read More…]
More face-time with profs not so bad
McGill Tribune At council this week, VP (University Affairs) Josh Abaki discussed his goal of limiting “contact hours”—lectures, conferences, and other face time between professors and students. He hopes to reduce contact hours from the current 39 hours per course per semester to 36, an amount more standard across Canadian[Read More…]
Confront, don’t sanitize the American past
McGill Tribune Issues of censorship, freedom of speech, and political correctness being major concerns of the Tribune, we were alarmed to read that Alan Gribben, a prominent American Mark Twain scholar and Harvard professor, will be re-issuing the classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with two small changes: the[Read More…]
Common courtesy not so common
There are ¬many complaints I can lodge against McGill students. They’re loud in the libraries, they insist on handing out flyers at the Milton gates, and they have a chronic inability to distinguish recyclables from non-recyclables. The list goes on and on, and as many people can attest, I have[Read More…]
Health care gets personal
Most Canadians perceive general flaws in the country’s health care system, but report positive individual experiences. Until recently, I counted myself among those who held this idea: I knew there were gaps in the system, but had always received excellent care. I strongly believed that despite these gaps, Canada’s public[Read More…]
University after university
I remember once, probably as a junior, back in 2006 or 2007, complaining to a friend that I didn’t have opinions or feelings, just clammy analytical observations. The remark embarrasses me now. It’s too obviously aimed at the implicit expectation of my own English degree flakery. It’s also demonstrably untrue;[Read More…]
In memory of 2010
McGill Tribune Three hundred and sixty-five more days have been filed away into the dusty archives of history. Starting with the devastating Haiti earthquake in January and ending with a breathtaking total lunar eclipse in December, the year 2010 was filled with events. Yet, a few years from now, most[Read More…]