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Mayoral election pits upstart challenger against veteran incumbent

by Fionn Adamian on

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The Montreal mayoral election on Nov. 5 presents a choice between incumbent Denis Coderre of Équipe Coderre and Valérie Plante of Projet Montreal. Though most pundits predicted at the beginning of the year that Coderre would easily secure reelection, the most recent poll put him and Plante in a dead heat.

The election stakes an incumbent who stresses that his administration has restored vibrancy to a city marred by corruption against a challenger who promises more transparent and egalitarian policy-making. When voters head to the polls to elect a mayor—alongside borough mayors, city councillors, and borough councillors—they will be choosing between two paths for Montreal. While Coderre has assured voters continued progress in the same direction, Plante has demanded stronger accountability to residents, improved transportation, and cheaper housing.

Accountability

Having served as a Liberal Member of Parliament for the Bourrassa riding since 1997, Coderre won the 2013 mayoral election and inherited a city hall tarnished by private dealings of previous administrations. The previously elected mayor Gérald Tremblay resigned after a corruption investigation suggested ties between his administration and the mafia. The police arrested Tremblay’s interim successor, Michael Applebaum, only months later for fraud.

Équipe Coderre officials argue that the mayor has eradicated fraudulent dealings while also revitalizing the city’s economy. Over the course of his tenure, Coderre created the post of inspector general to investigate collusion between private businesses and public officials, solicited private construction investment, and successfully lobbied the Quebec National Assembly to assign the city metropolitan status, a designation which loosens provincial restrictions on how Montreal spends its money. Daniel Loureiro, Équipe Coderre city councillor candidate for the Jeanne-Mance district, pointed to Montreal’s falling unemployment rate as evidence of the mayor’s success.

“Over the last four years, Montreal has become proud again,” Loureiro said. “I see people happy when they go around the world and say they're from Montreal.”

Perhaps no clash better encapsulates the topic of transparency than the candidates’ debate over the city’s 375th anniversary. Coderre contends that the celebrations energized city residents, cultivated a sense of belonging, and spurred infrastructure renovations that the city needed to make anyways. Plante vehemently disputes Coderre’s account, asserting that the mayor spent millions of dollars on gaudy projects such as the light show on the Jacques Cartier Bridge. To Plante’s officials, the waste reflects the administration's failure to consult residents over expenditures.

“[Coderre’s government] seems like an administration that's running on flashy issues instead of investing that money into improving the lives of everyday Montrealers,” Kiana Saint-Macary, a Projet Montreal volunteer, said.  

Critics of Coderre’s administration argue that the pace of Coderre’s reforms has been sluggish. Niall Clapham-Ricardo, Projet Montreal co-campaign manager for the Côte-des-Neiges district, noted that the mayor has failed to disclose many city contracts, scheduled meetings, and the cost of the Formula-E race, which struggled to sell tickets. He added that Plante would endeavour to publicize the agenda of the mayor’s office to improve engagement with residents.

“When you're going from zero to five on a scale of zero to a hundred, you could say that's an improvement, but the last administration was the worst in terms of transparency,” Clapham-Ricardo said. “We need to make more meaningful public consultations.”

Transportation

Plante, who currently serves as a Ville-Marie city councillor, won the Projet Montreal leadership race three years ago in part because of her proposal to construct the Pink Metro Line, a project that has captured the attention of many voters.

The new metro would run diagonally from Montreal-Nord to Lachine, crossing through the Plateau Mont-Royal. Projet Montreal officials contend that the line would link low-income neighborhoods to the Downtown area, making it easier for residents of northern Montreal to commute to jobs across the city. According to their estimates, riding the Pink Line from Montreal-Nord to Centre-Ville would take 22 minutes compared to 45 minutes by car and an hour by bus.

“Montreal-Nord is chronically under-supplied in terms of public transportation, and it’s a very low-income, racialized area,” Saint-Macary said. “The Pink Line will give metro access to an entire region of Montreal that doesn’t have it.”

The project’s proponents add that it would alleviate traffic by providing another transportation option for the population-dense Plateau neighbourhood. Jabiz Sharifian, Projet Montreal city councillor candidate for the Peter-McGill district, observed that the new line would make it easier to take the crowded Orange Line or drive on the highway.

“It’ll reduce congestion in the city simply because 70 per cent of residents from northern Montreal that come Downtown have to take their car,” Sharifian said.

Although Plante estimates that building and operating the line would cost $5.9 billion, she has assured voters that the Pink Line’s construction would not affect the city’s long-term plan to extend the Blue Line northeast of Saint-Michel to Anjou. To fund the construction, she intends to appeal to the federal infrastructure bank, the federal public transit infrastructure fund, and the provincial infrastructure fund.

However, Coderre has characterized the appraisal as woefully unrealistic, claiming that building one metro station costs about $300 million, an estimate that puts the Pink Line’s cost nearer to $10 billion. Instead, Coderre has identified the Blue Line extension and the construction of the Réseau électrique métropolitain (REM) train as his transportation priorities. The REM, which has secured funding from a mixture of federal, provincial and local funds, would connect the airport with the McGill and Édouard-Montpetit metro stations.

“Right now, it takes 45 minutes to get to the airport, but it’s going to get much shorter,” Cathy Wong, Équipe Coderre city councillor candidate for the Peter-McGill district, said. “And Mayor Coderre has worked so hard to secure that funding from the Caisse du Quebec.”

Housing

The candidates have reached closer consensus on the need to construct more affordable housing units amid rising real estate prices. The Inclusionary Housing Strategy, which became a centerpiece of Montreal’s affordable housing policy in 2005, outlines that new large residential developments should allot 30 per cent of their units for affordable housing. In practice, developers rarely follow the guideline because the city can only offer exemptions from building regulations to incentivize their cooperation.

Équipe Coderre officials emphasized that the Status of Metropolis bill passed by the Quebec National Assembly in September will enable the mayor to better administer the housing strategy. This law permits greater flexibility in how Montreal spends provincial funds and allows for binding contracts between the city and developers, meaning that officials can now enforce the affordable units threshold more stringently.

“With the Status of Metropolis, we will have more power to say that if developers aren't able to build affordable housing that we make sure that they do so,” Wong said.

Plante claims that Coderre’s attention to affordable housing during the election cycle doesn’t reflect his administration’s performance over the past four years. Projet Montreal officials reckon that the city needs to take more emphatic action and have pledged to raise the requirement to 40 per cent of units in an effort to accommodate students and low-income residents.

“The price of housing, especially for McGill, [is] really high for students and we understand that,” Sharifian said. “For the last 10 years, less than two per cent of all developments in Montreal have been affordable. We're hoping to change that.”

Candidates from both parties will spend the remaining days before Nov. 5 trying to sway undecided voters, who comprise 21 per cent of the electorate. In a close election, their decisions could make the difference.

“We have to make sure that people turn out to vote,” Sharifian said. “There are two different paths for the residents of Montreal.”

 

The Montreal mayoral election will be held on Sunday, Nov. 5 from 10 am to 8 pm. To check your eligibility and polling station, click here.

News

Senate reports record-breaking philanthropic achievements

by Jesse Wu on

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At the Oct. 26 McGill Senate meeting, representatives from the McGill office for University Advancement (UA) gave a report on highlights from the 2017 fiscal year (FY17). Senate also made plans to recognize McGill’s 200-year anniversary with the Road to 200 project, launching in 2019, and reviewed the revision of Charter of Students' Rights and the report from the Board of Governors (BoG).

 

Presentation of FY17 and Road to 200

Vice-Principal (University Advancement) Marc Weinstein commended the UA’s collective effort to engage alumni and raise funds for the university. During FY17—which ran from May 1, 2016 to April 30, 2017—UA received a total of $170 million in cash and donation pledges. Among these donations, the largest gifts to McGill were used to found various schools, including the new School of Retail Management and the Max Bell School of Public Policy, from a $25 million donation from Aldo Bensadoun, founder of the Aldo Group, and a $10 million donation from the Max Bell Foundation, respectively.

“We’ve landed some very significant gifts and had our best cash year [with] all of our best achievements ever in the history of University Advancement,” Weinstein said. “Many deans and academic development officers who worked with UA have really galvanized their efforts to [ensure last year’s success].”

McGill's most recent fundraising campaign, History in the Making, ran from 2005 to 2013 and raised $1.026 billion over the nine years. To surpass this amount in the upcoming celebration of McGill’s bicentennial, Road to 200, Weinstein is testing a potential target of $1.5 billion. He emphasized the importance of capitalizing on McGill’s diverse alumni cohort, given that alumni gave 65 per cent of FY17 donations and often donated with particular areas of interest in mind, such as libraries or scholarships.

“Our alumni live in different pockets of the world and [therefore] our challenge, and our opportunity at the same time, is how to make sure that we connect with our alumni,” Weinstein said. “We clearly need ambassadors. We need champions. We need advocates. We really need [the McGill community] to demonstrate their pride of McGill, to spread the word about the bicentennial, and to [be] creative as this campaign takes shape.”

 

Revision of Charter of Students’ Rights

Before Senate approved the revisions to the Charter of Students’ Rights, Dean of Students Christopher Buddle highlighted a number of new articles in the document, including new definitions such as a "member of the university community" and "university context."  The former term is now defined as anyone holding office under the University Charter and Statutes, appointees and employees of the university, and students. The latter is defined as ‘activities or events organized and supported by the University, whether or not on University properties.’ Some new articles have been added to the revised charter, including Article 31, which gives students the right to recognize and protect their scholarly work, and Article 32, which allows students to resolve disputes through informal means.

The former Articles 4 and 21 concern the rights of student survivors of sexual solicitation by people in positions of power and students charged with a disciplinary offence, respectively. Regarding these two articles, a senator raised the question of their oversimplification in the new charter, to which Buddle answered that the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures and a proposed guiding document would explain these articles in further detail.

“What we’d like to do is to provide a guiding document to go alongside the charter and to clarify some of the [articles],” Buddle said. “A lot of [the simplified information] is procedural and operational with respect to what’s contained already in the Code. The simplified [Charter] would suffice as a foundational charter of rights.”

 

Report on Board of Governors  

According to the report on the Board of Governors, written by representative Tina Hobday, McGill’s top governing body re-appointed Suzanne Fortier as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the university until June 2023 and Marc Weinstein as Vice-Principal (University Advancement) until June 2024.

The Board also approved a number of construction projects and renovation contracts for campus buildings, including the Elizabeth Wirth Music Building, Stewart Biology Building, Macdonald Stewart Library, Lyman Duff Complex, and Rutherford Physics Building.

“There’s going to be a lot more construction,” Hobday said. “[However,] it will end and [the campus] will be beautiful.”

The next Senate meeting will be held on Nov. 23.

 

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that McGill received $296 million in cash and donation pledges with 95 per cent of donations coming from alumni. In fact, McGill received $170 million in cash and donation pledges with 65 per cent coming from alumni. The Tribune regrets these errors.
Student Life

Midnight Kitchen’s ‘Radically Haunted McGill Walking Tour’ sheds light on McGill’s dark past

by Sanchi Bhalla on

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On Oct. 26, in the brisk autumn chill, the Midnight Kitchen (MK) hosted a ‘Radically Haunted McGill Walking Tour.’ Showing the darker—and spookier—side of McGill’s 196 years of history, the tour addressed urban legends and secrets of the past.

The idea for the McGill-themed ghost tour came about when Anastasia Dudley, U3 Arts and coordinator of the event, went on a similar tour of Mount Royal. For Dudley, this Halloween was the perfect opportunity for MK, a nonprofit, volunteer-run collective, to highlight McGill’s own scary stories.

“[Midnight Kitchen] thought it would be a fun, alternative way to do an educational and radical walking tour of campus,” Dudley said. “I like ghost tours [….] I went on one in late August […] and me and my friends […] were talking to [the guy who ran it] afterwards about ghost stories on McGill’s campus, and he said that he used to run the tour [at] McGill, [but] the chief administration made him stop because the stories he was telling portrayed McGill in a negative light, and they didn’t like the attention.”

After the tour, most attendees agreed that McGill University has some skeletons in its closet. The guides, who are part of Haunted Montreal, a Montreal ghost tour group, hauntingly wove history and lore into tales that guests would remember long after the event ended.

The tour began with a history lesson about James McGill, the founder of the university. According to the tour guides, McGill’s past is not as innocent as many students may believe; he was a colonial profiteer, slave-owner, militia leader, and, rather ironically, a university dropout. According to Midnight Kitchen, McGill’s history owning indigenous slaves is possible reasoning for why the university after his name is now one of the the most haunted in Canada.

Out of the many ghosts and hauntings the guides described, including an old woman who waters flowers in a Milton-Parc frat house, a few stories in particular raised questions about McGill’s past. Much to the surprise of guests, McTavish Street is home to the building with the most paranormal activity on campus: The Faculty Club. In the former home of Alfred Baumgarten—an extremely wealthy man who maintained his high social standing by building an opulent mansion—things literally go bump in the night. Students and staff alike have reported doors that slam, portraits with eyes that seem to follow you, elevators that move of their own accord, and mysterious midnight phone calls to the Human Resources department throughout the years. One of the creepiest events that took place involved piano music so loud that a professor couldn’t grade papers. He sent a security guard to find the source of this nuisance, but there was no one; the piano was playing on its own.

The other story, and perhaps the most disturbing, is that of the Allan Memorial Institute. It was the only stop where Midnight Kitchen preceded the story with a content warning, and anyone familiar with the MKUltra experiments will know why. Occurring in the 1960s, MKUltra was a series of CIA-backed psychological experiments on unconsenting test subjects.Tales of child abuse, incredible torture, and other terrifying ordeals were only some of the incidents mentioned during the tour. Guests observed a moment of silence for the atrocities committed there, mainly by the infamously brutal Dr. Ewan Cameron, who ran the experiments. Afterward, the tour moved further down Pins avenue, at which point drunk college students celebrating Halloween broke the tension of the gruesome tales tour attendees encountered.

Midnight Kitchen’s ghost tour was certainly radical; it brought up questions of ethics, challenged paranormal skeptics, and ensured that students will never see certain buildings in the same light ever again.

“The reason why there are ghosts around is because there are horrible things that have happened in the past,” Dudley said. “[There are] terrible things that the chief administration has done, things that they don’t like people talking about or knowing about.”

Student Life

Little Free Libraries: The story behind those yellow newspaper stands on campus

by Gabriela McGuinty on

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Little yellow boxes have sprung up across campus over the course of October, filled to the brim with books. Dubbed Little Free Libraries (LFLs), these renovated stands are a new initiative to foster a sense of community and promote a love of reading across the community.

The mailbox-shaped boxes have a levered glass door that easily pulls open, making the use of LFLs around campus quite easy. Not only are all of the books in them free, but sifting through the books is a speedy process, and the collection housed in a LFL at any one time is constantly changing, through students’ giving and taking books. Anyone who wishes to use a stand just has to go to a location of a LFL, donate any book, and, in exchange, take whichever one they want from the dispenser. Avid readers may be surprised to find some true literary gems.

“Some of these books are worth over $150 and are often overlooked because people think they are outdated,” project co-founder and PhD candidate in Integrated Studies in Education Amelie Lemieux said.

The initiative was the brainchild of Lemieux and Merika Ramundo, McGill Library communications officer, who received financial support from a Sustainability Projects Fund through the McGill Office of Sustainability (MOOS). Both women believe there is a hunger for knowledge within McGill’s community, and for them, LFLs help satisfy that. By making books more accessible, LFLs encourage students and staff alike to read.

The idea behind the project came after Ramundo and Lemieux noticed a surplus of unwanted books at various library giveaways on campus, and recognized how much McGill students could gain from having easy access to free literature. Ramundo first came into contact with LFLs while on maternity leave, when her father built a stand and placed it in her front lawn.

“From there, my neighbors and I started exchanging books, CD’s, and other trinkets daily,” Ramundo said. “It was an easy way to stay engaged with the community and discover new artifacts that I wouldn’t have necessarily been able to find at my local convenience store.”

Lemieux encountered LFLs in another manner nearly two years ago, while walking around her Montreal neighborhood.

“I saw all these little free libraries in front of high schools, and thought that this would be a great project to implement at McGill,” Lemieux said. “One of the main reasons I thought this was because I had seen several book giveaways happening in front of the Redpath Library, and different professors leaving books in the hallways. So, I suggested the [LFLs] project to SPF and they accepted.”

The fact that LFLs are free and available for anyone to use opens many possibilities for the future growth of the project. As of now, McGill plans to install more stands in new locations around Montreal while maintaining the existing ones as permanent fixtures on campus.

As of right now, LFLs around campus are registered on an international network that pinpoints their location on a map posted online. The website helps spread the word about LFLs to both the McGill community and the city of Montreal.

“It is quite amazing that this idea that started from walking around my neighborhood has materialized into something this big,” Lemieux said. “If we call on the whole community to maintain the idea, it would be very cool.”

Currently on McGill downtown campus, you can find the LFL’s in:

News, SSMU

A Fall Reading Week presents both benefits and drawbacks

by Caitlin Kindig on

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In the years following the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council’s November 2015 motion in support of a Fall Reading Week, McGill students are still pushing for its implementation. According to SSMU Vice-President (VP) External Connor Spencer, the administration abandoned the concept shortly after the proposal, citing the university’s rigorous curriculum and leaving the student body without answers or an outcome.

“Often the response the administration gives is that because we are a research-intensive school, we can't afford to take time off and still keep the challenging level of our studies,” Spencer said. “But many of the U15 [Canada’s 15 research-intensive universities] schools have been able to implement a Fall Reading Week in the last few years.”

SSMU VP University Affairs (UA) Isabelle Oke has worked with the McGill Senate on this project, and considers the implementation of a Fall Reading Week a top priority.

“The deadlock that we find ourselves at is based on the fact that some concessions will have to be made in response to scheduling constraints, [like] holidays, exam schedules, and the presence of Labour Day at the beginning of the year,” Oke said.

According to Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens, in 2015, then registrar Kathleen Massey addressed whether or not the university could implement a Fall Reading Week. Massey created a survey, formed an ad hoc committee, and consulted with several students, staff, and faculty members regarding a potential break.

One option these parties discussed was adding two or three days to the break Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. However, this would require beginning the semester before Labour Day, thus forcing students living off-campus to sign leases starting in August, and pay an extra month of rent. It would also reduce the number of days between the end of classes and the start of final exams. Another option would be to shorten the holiday break, which is already shorter than that of many other North American universities.

“Having a more dense exam period would mean much more stress on all students,” Dyens said. “While I really pushed for this at first, I also realized through the process that the correlation between a Fall break and better mental health is not that clear in the literature. And I really did not want to create more stress during the exam period.”

Idil Uner, U3 Arts and floor fellow for La Citadelle residence, believes that there is a lot at stake for first-years transitioning to university in the debate over whether to implement a Fall Reading Week.

“As a floor fellow, I see the benefits of having a Fall Reading Week even more,” Uner said. “First-years are not used to having no breaks and studying for weeks on end [….] First year is an overwhelming period and it is unfair of McGill to expect students to navigate it easily without some sort of off time.”

Sports

10 Things: Athletes whose careers came back from the ‘dead’

by Lucas Harvey, Sam Wendel, Jordan Foy, and Stephen Gill on

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1. Kurt Warner

After he went undrafted in the 1993 NFL Draft and was subsequently cut by the Green Bay Packers, Warner began stocking grocery store shelves. But the quarterback persisted, and after dominating in the Arena Football League for three seasons, was given another shot by the St. Louis Rams in 1997. He made most of the opportunity, finishing his career with two Most Valuable Player awards, one Super Bowl ring, and two additional Super Bowl appearances.

 

2. Dara Torres

Torres’ return to swimming in the 2000 Sydney Olympics was surprising enough, as she earned five medals as part of Team U.S.A. However, she one-upped that feat when she came back to Olympic swimming once again in 2008. At 41 years old and 16 months after giving birth, Torres won three silver medals in Beijing.

 

3. Petr Cech

In a Premier League match in 2006, the then-Chelsea goalkeeper was struck in the head by an opposing player’s knee. The collision gave Cech a nearly-fatal depressed skull fracture. Despite the traumatic injury, he returned to play later in the season in superb form, including nine consecutive clean sheets.

 

4. Muhammad Ali

While dodging the draft, Ali had his boxing license suspended and couldn’t box competitively for three years. He returned to boxing after his conviction was overturned. Despite a rusty start, Ali regained his prior dominance, defeating boxing legends like Joe Frazier and George Foreman on his way back to the top.

 

5. Bethany Hamilton

In 2003, Hamilton was bitten by a shark while surfing. The attack left her without her left arm, but after just a month of recovery, she began surfing again. Hamilton would go on to surf professionally with inspirational success, nearly winning prestigious competitions such as the U.S. Open of Surfing and Fiji Women’s Pro. She has participated in competitions as recently as 2016.

 

6. Shaun Livingston

In Livingston’s third NBA season, he landed awkwardly on his leg in a graphic injury that resulted in three torn ligaments, a sprained MCL, a dislocated patella, and a dislocated kneecap. Doctors considered amputation, but ultimately he overcame the injury and returned to the league. Since then, he has sustained a career as an experienced veteran, winning two NBA championships with the Golden State Warriors.

 

7. Monica Seles

During her reign as the world’s top female tennis player, Seles was stabbed by a spectator during a Citizen Cup match in 1993. She missed two years while recovering from the attack, but eventually returned to tennis to win an Australian Open championship and reach three more Grand Slam finals.

 

8. Mario Lemieux

In 1993, the hockey legend was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. This only kept him out of action for two months, and he still managed to win the Art Ross Trophy that season. Lemieux played five seasons after the diagnosis—winning two more Ross trophies and a Hart Memorial trophy—finally deciding to hang it up and become an owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Amazingly, the Hall-of-Famer returned to the league again from 2000 to 2006 in an unprecedented player-owner role.

 

9. Andre Agassi

Agassi won two Grand Slam finals and reached another in 1994 and 1995, but failed to follow up in 1996. His career bottomed out the following year between a wrist injury, failed marriage, and crystal meth bout. Still, Agassi came back in 1999 to win two Grand Slams and finish second at Wimbledon.

 

10. Brett Favre

After an illustrious 16-year career with the Green Bay Packers—highlighted by three consecutive MVP awards and one Super Bowl—Brett Favre called it a career on March 4, 2008, but for just 156 days before returning to the NFL to sign with the New York Jets. After an up-and-down season, he retired again—this time, for 112 days. Favre would go on to play one of the best statistical seasons of his career with the Minnesota Vikings, with a Pro Bowl appearance and almost another Super Bowl appearance  before retiring for a third time. This time, it was for good.

Commentary, Opinion

The problem with “broad-based” scholarships

by Keating Reid on

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A fundamental principle of a liberal education is its status as “the great equalizer.” It’s meant to serve as a vehicle for talented individuals to reach their potential, no matter their financial background. It’s a justification for education’s status as a human right. It’s also why The Universal Declaration on Human Rights asserts that “higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.”

To this end, virtually all Canadian universities offer merit scholarships to help poorer students invest in their futures. However, this vision of equal opportunity is threatened by a recent trend in scholarship applications—emphasis on extracurricular activities. “Broad-based” application processes are sold as a progressive practice, allowing capable students whose strengths aren’t measured in a grade point average to compete with their more traditionally academic peers. But, there are unintended, regressive consequences to this development: Namely, it disadvantages students from lower-class backgrounds when competing for the scholarships they need most.

According to a 2015 survey of university admissions teams by gap-year provider World Challenge, extracurricular activities—like volunteering, athletics, and the ever-nebulous trait of “leadership experience”—have grown in importance for admissions decisions over the last 10 years. The trend also applies to scholarship applications: For example, the McGill Major Entrance Scholarship application recommends listing service, athletic, and artistic activities.

Completely eliminating the educational advantages that come with wealth is a difficult task, but broad-based scholarship applications do more to disadvantage low-income students than they do to include them.

While these non-academic experiences are valuable for students, the reality is that most model scholarship students are not self-made. Taking on extensive extracurricular activities often requires family support—logistically and financially. Athletics are particularly expensive: The cost of equipment, lessons, travel, and miscellaneous expenses can run into the thousands. Even less expensive activities, such as volunteering, take parental investment in the form of car rides, help finding opportunities, and above all, encouraging these activities from a young age. Without this parental involvement, students are left with the difficult task of organizing themselves. Some students may even need to balance school with working to support their families, leaving little time for unpaid community work or extracurriculars. It’s no surprise then that participation in extracurricular activities is split along class lines. Children from families wealthy in time and money have an inherent advantage in competing for scholarships, but the truth is, these are the people who need them the least.

In order to remedy these skewed opportunity structures, schools must de-emphasize consideration of extracurricular involvement in broad-based scholarships, and instead use a combination of high school grades and standardized testing. While some parents and educators argue that standardized tests are biased in favour of the rich, and that they only effectively measure test-taking ability, the data shows otherwise. According to a 2012 study from the University of Minnesota, 21.2 per cent of variance in SAT scores can be linked to socioeconomic status. While this number is significant, and speaks to a need for academic equalization as well, it is worth noting that 78.8 per cent of SAT scores have no correlation with socioeconomic status—which is no small amount. The study also found that SAT scores, especially when considered alongside high school grades, can effectively predict university performance.

It is true that students from low-income families face disproportionate challenges in their academic pursuits, and that the problem is not limited to extracurriculars. Schools in low-income areas may not offer the same resources as their wealthier counterparts. Certain lifestyle pressures, like needing to work to contribute to family expenses, are unique barriers. But merit scholarships aim to help those students who succeed in spite of such barriers. Admittedly, they’re a palliative solution until society finds a way to truly equitize the education system, but the current trend of broad-based scholarships is not helping in this aim.

Completely eliminating the educational advantages that come with wealth is a difficult task, but broad-based scholarship applications do more to disadvantage low-income students than they do to include them. Not using expensive, inaccessible extracurricular activities as measures of merit—or at least, viewing them in the context of a student’s financial background—is a start to making education accessible to all. Increasing need-based financial aid offered by governments and universities is even better. And, while not perfect, the use of standardized testing goes a long way in levelling the playing field. Incorporating them in a thoughtful way would help make sure education remains “the great equalizer.”

 

 

 

Keating is a U0 in the Faculty of Arts planning to study political science. He’s often found reading the news and grumbling in his bathrobe.

 

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 

 
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