The Tribune sat down with environmentalist Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne to talk about her recent publication “Untangling the Environmentalist’s Paradox: Why is Human Well-Being increasing as ecosystems degrade?” The author spoke about the impact that environmental degradation brings to human well-being. What was the aim of your paper? We, as environmentalists, assumed[Read More…]
Opinion
Opinions from our editorial board and contributors.
The Limits of Age Limits
McGill Tribune Eleven months ago, a 15-year-old girl was gang-raped for two and a half hours outside her high school dance in California. More than 20 people were involved in the incident. At least four of these men ravaged the girl, while several others took out their phones not to[Read More…]
Steven Wrong on Quebec Tuition
McGill Tribune Brendan Steven claimed in his September 21 column that increasing Quebec tuition wouldn’t force low-income students out of university. While I’m not sure I buy that (unsupported) argument, it’s also students from middle-income families who could be shut out by tuition increases. A 2005 Statistics Canada report summary[Read More…]
Scrap the Quebec Tuition Model
Unlike some students at McGill, I have been largely satisfied with Heather Munroe-Blum as our Principal. Her administration has brought common sense and innovation to a university defined by bureaucracy and hierarchy. The recent creation of the Service Point, for example, is a welcome change.
The Extremism Cycle
On his blog for the New Republic, the neo-liberal magazine he owns and edits, Marty Peretz recently wrote of American Muslims: “I wonder whether I need honour these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.” This shocking and seemingly racist line, which he later apologized for, is an example of how the always-difficult debate on the role of Islam in American culture has recently become even more difficult, and more uncomfortable.
Hiring tenure-track professors the way to go
The Tribune commends McGill’s commitment to increasing its number of tenure-track staff as part of its academic renewal program. It is a welcome shift from a North American trend of reducing tenure-track professors in favour of course lecturers hired on short-term contracts. Confusion in the campus press, stemming in part from the ambiguous and non-committal language of the McGill budget, had led many to believe that McGill was also reducing its tenure-track hires for the foreseeable future. However, so far as we can tell from the budget, and through clarification by campus administrators, this is not the case.
McGill once too many
I despise the “McGill Once, McGill Twice” cheer. The words are as follows:
McGill once, McGill twice, holy fucking Jesus Christ. Wham, bam, God damn, son of a bitch, shit! Three cheers for McGill: Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Three cheers for fucking: McGill! McGill! McGill!
Why I still ride my bike on campus
“One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Open letter from an Architecture student
I would like to begin this letter by thanking you, students of this university, for your outpouring of support regarding the matter of the Architecture Café. It warms our hearts to know that, despite our faculty’s detachment from the rest of the student body, our cause is not lost on you. Thank you. We appreciate you. Moreover, a special thanks for those of you who have taken the time to write articles for the Daily, the Tribune, the McGill Reporter, Le Délit, and even Concordia’s paper, the Link—we needed to get the word out, and you were all quite successful in that respect.
A Letter of Apology to the Ottawa Emergency Services
Last weekend, my boyfriend and I decided to take my family’s newly purchased boat out on the Ottawa River for a romantic sunset cruise. We had wine and a small snack, and I must admit, I thought I might even get a little lucky that night. Instead, we spent at least two extra hours stuck in the middle of the river with a dead engine, at which point I decided to call the Ottawa Emergency Services.