On Apr. 12, KANATA announced that an indigenous studies minor will be officially created within the Faculty of Arts. KANATA is an undergraduate journal that publishes work by indigenous students at McGill.

The idea to develop an indigenous studies program was presented two years ago at a KANATA peer-to-peer conference. In May 2012, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) hired a researcher, Brett Lamoureux, to study similar programs at other universities.

Allan Vicaire, Aboriginal Sustainability Projects coordinator at the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office, then created a steering committee which was tasked with organizing a forum where students, faculty, and staff— as well as members of several nearby indigenous communities — would contribute their ideas for an indigenous studies program and help create a clear vision for the program.

The committee was a collaboration of several indigenous student groups across campus, and met every week to develop the forum. Tiffany Harrington, U2 anthropology and vice president of McGill’s Indigenous Student Alliance (ISA), was a member of the steering committee.

“The ISA wanted to make sure that students were a part of the process and that their voices were being heard,” Harrington said. “We always had ISA members on the council boards.”

The forum, held on Nov. 27, 2012, was an interactive event where participants were invited to contribute their thoughts on how to integrate different themes within an indigenous studies minor program structure. The themes discussed included educators, learning types, space, and course content.

Following the forum, the steering committee produced a report—titled the McGill Community Vision for an Indigenous Studies Program: Forum Report—which summarized the findings of the forum.

Vicaire has been actively involved in the progression of the indigenous studies program project.

“This is the first time we knew what [the committee’s report] would look like,” Vicaire explained. “It’s great for students to have a letter and to sign it and support it, but the provost or a member of faculty can say, ‘Oh we know you want it but what would it look like, what do you want to offer?’ The forum provided those answers, saying this is the type of program it should look like.”

McGill is one of the only major Canadian universities without an indigenous studies program. There had been attempts to create one in the past, but with little success.

“McGill likes to compare itself to the U15 [a group of 15 leading research-intensive universities in Canada],” Vicaire said. “Out of the U15, 11 or 12 have a minor in indigenous studies. In this way, we are lagging. We are still pushing forward in terms of services, such as the First Nations house.”

“There are still pockets of indigenous [studies] courses, such as in [the Faculty of Education],” he continued. “[However], we need something to link them all together.”

Several members of the McGill community have voiced the reasons why they believe it is important for the university to have an indigenous studies minor. According to Nicholas Magnien, a fifth-year student in geography and history, it is important for students to know the indigenous history of the country in which they are living.

“We know McGill as an international university. I find it very sad, personally, that students can attend school here, take courses here, and can spend four years here and not learn anything about indigenous people,” Magnien explained.

According to Vicaire, Will Straw, director of the Institute of the Study of Canada at McGill, has shown interest in the indigenous studies program, and has said that he would like to house such a minor within the Canadian studies department.

The creation of an indigenous studies program would create many employment opportunities for students who wish to work in Canada, says Vicaire.

“Already we have a whole list of graduate and PhD students studying a range of issues…. We need to have an undergraduate program to help push this forward,” he said. “It can influence people or provide support for [those] who are in other majors, such as those wanting to work in indigenous communities.”

To date, it has not been announced when the indigenous studies program will be launched, however, it could potentially be formed within the next year, according to Vicaire.

Library Improvement Fund
After meeting with student leaders, Library Improvement Fund (LIF) Coordinator Kira Gossack-Keenan outlined how the $630,000 fund will be allotted in a presentation to Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s Legislative Council.

“In terms of progress that we’ve done this year, we’ve been working on a variety of things to ultimately decide where we want this year’s funding to go,” Gossack-Keenan said.

The LIF is comprised of student fees, which are then matched by alumni donations.

“For the past fifteen years the LIF has invested in the most important library needs of the undergraduate student body,” according to SSMU’s website. “In the past we have contributed to extending opening hours, improving facilities and collections, supporting student learning and employment and a variety of special projects.”

This year, the $630,000 will be put towards student employment (around $85,000), exam time extended hours in anticipation of budget cuts by the provincial government (around $380,000), adding 52 new study seats in McLennan (around $125,000), buying new computers for Cyberthèque, installing the Adobe Suite on those computers (around $30,000), and buying cushions for the wooden chairs in Birks Reading Room (around $500).

Financial Ethics Research Committee (FERC) Report
Adam Winer, FERC Coordinator, presented a summary of his committee’s findings to Council on Thursday evening. As part of a five year plan to investigate investments, SSMU has graded its investments using a broad range of criteria that are new this year.

According to Winer, the committee highlighted certain investments as having crossed “red lines,” including companies whose business relates to the production of tobacco, gambling, pornography, tar sands companies, and companies doing business on Native lands without their consent, among others.

In the winter of 2012, the FERC drafted an Ethical Investment Plan (EIP) as a means to do substantive research into SSMU’s investment portfolio.

“It’s important for [SSMU] to [look into its investments] for two reasons: first, because SSMU has constitutional commitments to environmental sustainability and to social justice, and second, because some of those same commitments are a trend and made more specific in the Ethical Investment Plan that was passed last year,” Winer said.

Screening SSMU’s individual investments will involve grading them against both positive and negative criteria, such as a company’s community involvement or the presence of human rights violations.

“We, this summer, are going to submit a proposal to a hire a researcher who can help us figure out how to balance these different screens against each other, because it isn’t clear whether the positive or negative ones are supposed to have more weight, how that all plays out, et cetera.” Winer said.

Motion Regarding Accountable Leadership
Councilors also discussed a motion calling for the adoption of the Accountable Leadership Policy.

The policy would create an Accountability Committee, whose responsibilities would entail reviewing executive performance, investigating and informing the executives and councillors of any contravening actions, anonymously bringing forth complaints, and reporting to Council.

The motion passed unanimously.

“This [Accountability Committee] is kind of an initial step to address some problems that we’ve witnessed to a certain extent this year,” VP External Robin Reid-Fraser said. “But quite obviously, [with] a new committee, a new policy, I think that it can be changed. And once it’s actually put into practice, then it really should be doing the work of reflecting on how things are going and if there are things that do need to change.”

While presenting an overview of the 2013-2014 budget at Senate on April 17, Provost Anthony Masi highlighted the budget’s uncertainty in the upcoming year, the $38.3 million in government imposed cuts, and the $18 million in loss due to rescinded tuition.

“This is not the easiest presentation for me to give,” Masi said.

Masi compared McGill’s financial standing with those of other Quebec universities, highlighting the university’s strengths.

Unlike other universities, who plan their budgets one year at a time, “we project a budget out for a multi-year period,” Masi said.

Another key difference to which Masi pointed exists in the structure of teaching at McGill. Other Quebec universities hire a significant number of instructors to teach courses, which allows them to enroll more students, but McGill has a relatively higher proportion of tenured professors. Masi said that this is because of McGill’s commitment to a high quality of instruction.

Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Vice-President University Affairs Haley Dinel asked Masi about the effect of the new budget on students, which is predicted to impact library hours, class sizes, course selection, and number of staff, professors, and instructors.

Masi responded that there would not be an impact on courses required to fulfill programs, but added that “these are Draconian cuts.”

Dean of Students Andre Costopoulos and Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures and Equity) Lydia White also presented revisions to the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures.

Revisions included changing the definition of plagiarism to be the same as in other official McGill documents, clarifying to some extent of the term “obstruction,” and making the code easier to understand for students and faculty.

Senate passed the motion to adopt the changes beginning in the next academic year with an overwhelming majority.

Last Thursday, Provost Anthony Masi and Vice-Principal (Administration and Finance) Michael Di Grappa released an email to the McGill community providing further details about the extent of the budget cuts imposed by the Quebec government, and the rationale behind the measures McGill has chosen to deal with them.

According to the MRO, from Jan. 1, 2013, to Apr. 30, 2014, McGill will suffer a $56.3 million reduction in its operating budget, of which the provincial government’s cuts account for $38.3 million and the revenue lost due to the cancellation of the former Liberal government’s tuition increase accounts for $18 million.

However, McGill is expecting to receive an additional stipend of $4.4 million from the government in both the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years, as well as revenue from a three per cent tuition increase starting in 2014, according to the MRO. Ultimately the university will be dealing with “a net shortfall of approximately $43 million.”

Given that the Parti Québécois has stated that it will reinvest in the university system come 2015, some have questioned why McGill cannot add the sum of the cuts to its accumulated operating deficit.

“Doing this would double our accumulated deficit in less than five years, which we will in any case have to repay sooner rather than later,” the MRO reads.

However, the email noted that McGill’s Board of Governors has allowed the university to transfer $25.1 million onto its accumulated deficit for the 2013 fiscal year.

As detailed in an email from Principal Heather Monroe-Blum on Mar. 26, McGill will be implementing hiring and wage freezes, and a voluntary retirement program for administrative and support staff in the first phase of cuts. According to Vice-Principal (External Relations) Olivier Marcil, the voluntary retirement program will be available from Apr. 2 to Jun. 3., and is expected to generate savings of $7.7 million on a recurring basis.

Thursday’s email also noted that McGill expects to save up to $7 million through “non-personnel” related cuts. According to Marcil, this may be achieved through cuts in events, catering, legal and consulting expenses, and travel expenditures, excluding research.

Marcil added that the administration will assess the savings reached through the first phase of cuts in June, and will subsequently evaluate the extent of further cost-cutting measures, including layoffs.

“The need for further measures will likely be known by late June to early July,” he said.

The MRO also addressed a query regarding whether McGill could defer capital projects in order to increase savings. Masi and Di Grappa explained that maintenance on campus could not be postponed, and would not be a long-term solution to the cuts.

“McGill has a very serious and unique deferred maintenance problem,” they wrote. “In order to deal with these matters … we have already been borrowing against future fiscal years’ allocations. Therefore, there are no surplus capital funds to transfer to operations.”

“In addition, capital is one-time-only money. It is not recurrent base funding,” Masi and Di Grappa continued. “It may alleviate the problem for a year or two, but then we will still have to find a way to deal with the shortfall in operating grant revenues.”

Marcil emphasized McGill’s efforts to insulate students as much as possible from the effect of the cuts.

“It is our primary objective to limit the impact of these measures on students and to preserve our core teaching and research mission,” he said. “Some services and programs may be at risk, but it is too early to determine which ones.”

Since the announcement of Suzanne Fortier, former president of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), as McGill’s next principal, concerns have arisen regarding Fortier’s impact at NSERC and how such an impact could further affect research at McGill.

McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) announced on Mar. 5 that Fortier, who resigned from her post as president of NSERC on Mar. 4, will be taking the position of principal at McGill beginning in Sept. 2013. Current Principal Heather Munroe-Blum will step down on Jun. 30, and an acting principal will be appointed to serve from then until the beginning of Fortier’s term.

Various media outlets, such as The Montreal Gazette, raised concerns  about a decrease in funding for basic research and a significant increase in funding for applied research during Fortier’s time at NSERC.

In the world of science, there exists a distinction between basic research and applied research. Basic research—also known as ‘pure’ or ‘fundamental’ research—is largely curiosity driven and is not necessarily intended to invent something of monetary value. Applied research, on the other hand, has pre-defined purposes and often strives to solve practical problems by creating or inventing solutions.

“I view basic research as the effort to increase our understanding of nature,” Robert Brandenberger, a professor in the department of physics at McGill, said. “For example, we are interested in finding a description of the early universe, an understanding of the origin of structure in the universe, and we would like to know what the basic constituents of matter are. Applied research aims to develop new tools for society [and] new devices for society.”

Basic research is much more prevalent at research-intensive universities, such as McGill, with applied research playing a more minor role.

“It’s true that basic, curiosity-driven research remains the lifeblood of any research-intensive university,” Rose Goldstein, vice-principal (research and international relations) said. “In particular, McGill is very committed to the importance of basic research.”

At McGill, the majority of basic and applied research is funded by various external sources, such as federal agencies like NSERC. A small part of funding comes from “special McGill internal grants,” according to Brandenberger, with all other research relying on the external agencies.

“Funding for research is mainly [achieved] through applications from the researchers themselves to government agencies,” Goldstein said. “We apply to other agencies, but mostly to [the] federal government—[for] over 50 per cent [of funding]—and about 20 per cent of [funding comes from the] provincial government. Most of that is [put towards] basic research.”

“When it comes to research that is funded by businesses.… that is the minority of the research—less than 20 per cent [of funding comes from businesses],” she said.

Fortier, in her role as principal next year, will not have control over which sources provide funding for research at McGill.

“It’s not an internal university decision,” Goldstein said. “It’s the funders externally who decide which projects they’re going to fund.”

According to Adam Bouchard, academic affairs officer for the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), students are often less concerned about whether their research is considered basic or applied.

“As graduate students, we just see it as the research we’re doing at the time,” Bouchard said. “The research I’m doing can be applied, but we’re not applying it. I know a lot of people who are doing things that are called ‘pure,’ but realistically, we’re not seeing that global picture. We’re working on our individual projects.”

Even if concerns about research funding were to arise among faculty, they would be raised with the external agency that funded the research, not the university.

“Since the funding for our research is mainly external, we need to raise our concerns externally, maybe as a group of McGill faculty,” Brandenberger said.

According to Goldstein, despite the changes towards applied research at NSERC, Fortier’s imminent arrival should not be a cause for concern, but rather— considering her commitment to research—welcomed.

“She’s a research-intensive graduate, [a] researcher herself, who has worked at excellent research-intensive universities … and has led our premier Natural Science Engineering Research Council,” Goldstein said. “She is a research leader, and so it bodes well for research intensiveness and research excellence at McGill, because that’s also what she represents.”

Goldstein also expressed that having Fortier as principal will reinforce McGill’s traditional values and identity.

“McGill is a top, research-intensive university … that’s what we are, that’s what we have maintained in the last few years, and that’s what we strive to be even better at,” Goldstein continued. “I see [that as] our identity; that’s always been our identity.”