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McGill, News

Open forum for the Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education provokes dialogue on indigenous issues

by Julia Metraux on

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On Nov. 22, the Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education hosted an open forum to discuss their progress and receive input from members of the McGill Community. The Task Force was launched Sept. 22 of this year with the purpose of creating initiatives focused on integrating indigenous viewpoints into all areas of academic life, including research and retention of indigenous students and faculty.

Featured speaker Kenneth Deer, who is a member of the Mohawk nation and served on the Board of Trustees for the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations, said that prejudices against indigenous people affected his upbringing.

“I don’t speak the language,” Deer said. “I’m a victim of the government language policy which forbade us to speak indigenous languages in schools.”

Deer asked forum participants to participate in the indigenous practice of thanking each aspect of creation and think of how ideas can impact the future during the forum.

“We start from the earth, the plants that grow, the medicines, the crops, and we gives thanks to the creator to these things that are necessary to our survival […],” Deer said “We have to remember all the people, the babies, the boys the girls, the elders, just like all the other animals. That brings us here today we all come here with purpose, we are here to deliberate about indigenous education. I ask all of you to keep creation and the future in mind.”

The forum was separated into six different groups that participants could choose and move between during a 30 minute time frame. Notetakers served to encourage participants to share their ideas rather than to teach a topic. According to Isaac, five of the groups–Indigenous Recruitment and Retention, Academic Programs and Curriculum, Physical Representation and Symbolic Recognition, Research and Academic Complement, Building Capacity and Human Resources–represented the five categories of the Provost’s Task Force for Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education. There was an additional group where people could list ideas that did not fit into the other five categories.

Project Manager for the Indigenous Health Professional Training Initiative Jessica Barudin, who completed the Graduate Physical Therapy program at McGill in 2015, said outreach can be changed. She facilitated the discussion of Academic Programs and Curriculum.

“McGill needs to get out and meet the community, not just bring them in,” Barudin said. “Institutions aren’t always welcoming.”

Bethany Douglas, who received her master's degree in Education from McGill in 2016, is a member of the Mohawk nation and is from Kahnawà:ke. Douglas said she felt supported during her time at McGill University.

“I knew the First People’s House was there, as a place I could go to study,” Douglas said. “There was a community aspect, as there was a group from Kahnawà:ke. The First People’s House made it a wider family.”

Deer said racist attitudes towards members of the indigenous community should be tackled at a young age.

“Compulsory courses on indigenous courses could combat racism,” Deer said. “An alternative would be a better education in elementary [and] high school.”

McGill Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) Christopher Manfredi said the university will provide monetary support for the Task Force for the recommendations released in the reports in January and June. According to Manfredi, the amount will be determined depending on what is in the preliminary report.

“We need to reflect upon the past to make a better future,” Manfredi said. “I want to thank everyone on the Task Force for their work. We know that the Task Force will be providing recommendations, those will need resources, as we build our budget, we are leaving places in the budget for those resources.”

Paige Isaac, co-chair of Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education and coordinator of First People’s House, said that the ideas collected from the forum would be considered for the Task Force’s reports.

“The Task Force will make recommendations with respect to the role that McGill can and should play in responding to the [Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s] calls to action,” Isaac said. “There will be a preliminary report in January and the final report in June.”

Behind the Bench, Sports

McGill Intramurals ensures only the average survive

by Joe Khammar on

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McGill Intramurals are highly competitive and low-level matches that border somewhere between animalistic and majestic. These clearly untrained and mediocre athletes pay tens of dollars to compete against the worst of McGill Athletics. Some people wrongly believe these casual leagues are there for “fun,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Winning is everything for a well-oiled intramural squad.

“On my dodgeball team, we had someone who took it way too seriously,” B-League dodgeballer Max Newcamp said. “He would yell at every girl on the team if they even tried to throw [the ball].”

In intramural dodgeball, the will to win supersedes even basic human courtesies. Teammates lose all sense of empathy and revert to barbaric creatures. But dodgeball isn’t the only über competitive intramural sport.

“I once saw a friend lay out a kid for being in his zone during football,” Intermediate flag football linebacker Sami Meffre said. “He was coming across the middle, caught the ball, and took a huge shot. This is flag football, too. It was crazy.”

That’s what happens to players who don’t protect themselves when they go over the middle in intramural flag football. The intensity of the game means players sometimes lose sight of the flag aspect of the contest, turning a recreational sport into a high-stakes competition.

Intramural basketball matches are equally intense. Friendly back and forth can soon get out of hand and become violent.

“This one game I was reffing, these two guys […] got too tangled up, but one of them shoved the other guy and then they were face-to-face pushing each other,” B-league basketball referee Itai Nitsan said. “Of course, every player on the court runs into the middle of a scrum trying to calm it down, but in reality they just make the scrum bigger.”

Overreactions and aggresion come easily in the heat of the moment. With high tempers and little training in restraint, inexperienced athletes become shaken with hardly any provocation. 

Sometimes more seasoned players will take charge and try to coach their teams to victory. 

“We would go against teams that would actually call their own plays with names and everything,” Newcamp said. “One team even called audibles, but they were so unathletic it really didn’t even matter.”

As it turns out, some players are unteachable in low-level athletic contests. The best strategy is usually just letting the physically-average specimen try to dominate matchups game after game. 

In intramural basketball, unskilled ballers put everything they have on the line. Their bodies are simply tools used to win a much revered intramural championship.

“I once reffed a game where a guy fully dislocated his finger,” Second-year intramural basketball referee Arman Bery said. “A med student on the other team popped it back in, and then the guy tried to argue with me and my co-ref to let him keep playing.”

Apparently nine fingers are more than enough to perform on the court or the field. San Francisco 49ers legend Ronnie Lott once had his finger amputated to prevent missing game time. Want to be a true intramural baller? You have to follow Lott’s lead.

In all seriousness, intramural sports are actually meant to be about fun. The games are supposed to be friendly, particularly in lower divisions. There’s no reason for students to risk their well-being and friendships over an intramural match of basketball, dodgeball, flag football. To rephrase the great Allen Iverson: “I mean, listen, we’re talking about intramurals. Not a varsity game! We’re talking about intramurals. I mean, how silly is that?”

Student Life

The peculiar case of rez caf cliques

by Janine Xu on

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For many first-years, their first foray into McGill life starts in residence. Fresh, bright-faced students come into university expecting to find that perfect group of friends—like something out of Friends or Saved by the Bell—and yet, residence life can be incredibly intimidating to navigate. In many ways, it can even seem like a throwback to the divides of the high school cafeteria.

This occurs because for many students, it is easier to stay within the one network of friends they may make when choosing where to sit in the caf. Over the course of the school year, this ends up creating a cycle in which students only eat with the people they know, making residence cafeterias feel more like a breeding ground for typical high school cliques than a welcoming environment in which to share meals with their friends.

"I think we all know the standard trend [where everyone’s] being open and hyper-friendly at the beginning of the first semester,” said Mana Moshkforoush, U0 Science and president of the Inter-Residence Council (IRC). “And although that’s definitely the case with some people, I find that university is very different from high school in that because there are so many students, you can’t really restrict yourself to a single group.”

Though Moshkforoush doesn’t seem to view residence life as particularly exclusive, the same cannot be said of many other students. When observing certain residence cafeterias, New Rez in particular, the disproportionate number of people sitting alone to people eating in groups is clear. For a residence of 700 students, the New Rez cafeteria seems almost ridiculously small.

Out of all the residences, RVC’s cafeteria is most frequented by students from all areas. This may be due in part to the cafeteria’s large selection of food, but according to Nadia Bichri, a U1 Science student living in RVC, much of the cafeteria’s charm lies in its openness.

"Because of the way our tables are set up, like four friends will get together, and then [gradually] more people join in, even if they don’t really know anyone,” Bichri explained. “You have this friendliness all the way down the table.”

This attitude adds to the numerous qualities—including its location and food selection— attracts so many other first years to the RVC cafeteria. With a large space and bright lights, RVC’s cafeteria is fairly friendly and inviting. Moshkforoush, who is from Douglas, also prefers RVC, since it’s so conveniently located directly across the street from campus.

While other cafeterias such as Douglas and Bishop Mountain Hall (BMH) have similar setups, their location on top of the hill make it hard for students of different residences to gather there. However, BMH still serves to unite the three upper residences: Molson, McConnell, and Gardner.

"BMH easily has the best caf layout to meet new people, because all of the tables are structured to fit 12 or more students,” Rebecca Spiteri, U0 Arts and Molson resident, said. “With BMH being up the hill though, it difficult for students in other residences to visit, but rather than isolating the upper rez students, it creates a strong sense community within the 3 residences.”

With any residence, however, students face the challenge of eating alone at any point in the year. Moshkforoush stressed the importance of taking initiative to be social.

"I'm not going to lie,” Moshkforoush said. “People are usually surprised that I approach them and ask to sit with them [in the cafeteria], but the conversation picks up really quickly and […] I’m happy [to meet] someone new! We’re all in the same boat.”

Staying within the confines of social boundaries in rez is comfortable, but sometimes going out of one’s comfort zone to add to a welcoming rez culture–within the confines of the caf–is worth the plunge.

Student Life

Secretly freeing the nipple: @wearenipscapes challenges instagram censorship regulations

by Jeannie Richardson on

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@wearenipscapes is an Instagram account dedicated to challenging the sexualization and censorship of female nipples. The page consists of pictures of beautiful landscapes with subtle nipple additions, usually hidden somewhere in the corner. The McGill Tribune recently spoke with Sally Maxwell, U3 Science and founder of @wearenipscapes, about her inspiration behind starting the account and why she thinks it’s so meaningful. 


The McGill Tribune (MT): Can you tell us a little bit about @wearenipscapes and why you started it?
Sally Maxwell (SM): @wearenipscapes is an Instagram account that I started in April [2016] when I was travelling with some friends in South America. Essentially, it is photos of beautiful landscapes with nipples poking out of the side of the image. The purpose of the page is to try and remove the stigma of the female nipple on social media, while exploring the beautiful planet we live in and expressing that through these nipscapes.


MT: Do you think social media plays a role in worsening the stigma of the female nipple?
SM: Definitely. I started it because I was frustrated by the fact that the female nipple was so stigmatized on social media—Facebook and Instagram both have clauses in their community guidelines where female nipples aren’t allowed to appear in photos unless they are images of a woman breastfeeding or post-mastectomy scarring images. I follow and support the Free the Nipple movement, and so I guess this was my way of expressing that.
MT: “Free the Nipple” is a really important movement right now. Why do you personally think nipple equality is so important? 
SM: Primarily, I think that nipple equality is a symbol for gender equality as a whole. For starters, the female nipple has been sexualized in a way that the male nipple never was, when the only true difference between the two is the milk producing capability and the lump of fat that may or may not exist behind the nipple.
MT: Do you think the fact that the nipple is so stigmatized makes girls more insecure about their bodies?
SM: Yes, undeniably. I think that girls, from a young age, are taught to hide their body—not only their nipples, but all parts of their body. Slut-shaming is prevalent in our society, and this not only creates a body-negative—versus body-positive—atmosphere, but also increases body-shaming, and ultimately eating disorders, depression, and anxiety. By teaching girls to hide parts of their body, we are dampening that empowerment and freedom, that form of expression, feeling good in our bodies, being proud of who we are, loving ourselves.

MT: I’ve noticed that a lot of accounts that show female nipples, like yours, get reported frequently. Have you received any backlash from Instagram? 
SM: Instagram has taken down several of my posts, which makes me very sad, but I haven’t received any direct messages from the public or from Instagram employees—I tend to just repost whatever they take down as a sort of “fuck you” to Instagram because the community guidelines are so ridiculous—like, only can nipples be present if they represent something that is entirely non-sexualized, such as a child sucking milk out of it. I think it is just an algorithm that can tell what looks like a female nipple/breast so they know which photos to take down. For nipscapes, we’re typically able to avoid this filtering method because the nipples come from the side of the photo, so it’s only if there is a lot of breast that they are taken down.
MT: What do you see for the future of nipscapes?
SM: I definitely hope to continue having fun with it, but also to grow the nipscape community and have more folks taking their own nipscapes and freeing their nipples!

 

 

Science & Technology

Blurring the lines of reality at the Montreal International Game Summit

by Nathan Drezner on

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Every year, thousands of gaming conventions are held around the world to discuss what the future holds. Demonstrators, presenters, and indie developers show up to sell their wares and talk about the “next big thing.” At this year’s Montreal International Game Summit (MIGS), held Nov. 13 to 15 at the Palais des Congrès, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) were the obvious stars of the show.

The summit featured both indie game developers and major production companies—including Ubisoft, EA, PlayStation, and Microsoft—who demonstrated new games and technologies. MIGS also hosted lectures on all things videogames and featured a job fair for networking and interviewing with recruiters.

“It’s always important for us to be [at MIGS] because we want to meet the community,” Fabrice Giguère, public relations manager at Ubisoft Montreal, said. “We want to meet the people, but we also want to represent the industry [of video games] that saw its growth over the past 20 years. We have our recruiters, students can come and give us their resumes, we can talk about job openings, and so forth.”

Providing a platform to connect industry professionals is a key component of MIGS’ success.

“We’ve had really good conversations,” Katie Jo Turk, a hardware expert and performance capture supervisor at Faceware Technologies—a motion capture studio—said. “We’ve had great potential leads come to our booth, […] people who are making games, [and] indie developers who are just starting out.”

VR has recently captured the imaginations of many in the gaming industry. Nearly all of the largest stations on the conference floor had a VR setup. Convention-goers had a chance to put on a VR or AR headset—including the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Playstation VR headset, or Microsoft Hololens—to explore what many believe to be the future of video games.

“It definitely seems like VR is a focus.” Technical Marketing Manager and tech evangelist at Autodesk, Matthew Doyle, said. “There have been several VR related talks. There are multiple booths that have VR setups.”

Doyle, who has attended six MIGS conferences, noted that this summit was different from years past.

“Last year, VR was barely a twinkle in anybody’s eye,” Doyle said. “It was being talked about, but you didn’t see a lot of it here at MIGS.”

This contrast is due in large part to advancements in the technology over the last year. Major studios–or “the big guys,” as Doyle called them–are starting to invest more money into VR to form a viable industry. Simultaneously, more VR devices are finding their way into the hands of consumers and developers as the technology is further researched, but there is still a long road ahead.

“Everyone is waiting for the studios to follow [by making games for VR devices], because obviously if you have the hardware without the content, it’s only a piece of plastic,” Giguère said.

Because VR is almost an entirely new medium, developers are only just exploring new ways to use virtual reality in their games. Despite headsets becoming more technologically advanced, the software that can be used on them is relatively limited compared to the sheer number of games available on traditional platforms, such as consoles and personal computers.

The unfamiliar nature of VR and AR is also off-putting to many consumers.

“Some people, after 20 minutes, they say they are tired of it,” Turbulent CEO Marc Beaudet said. ”Sometimes in gaming, you’re going to sit for four, five hours, so how can you adapt a game in which you play hours and hours for a technology which, right now, is a bit uncomfortable after [20] minutes?”

Beaudet, whose company works in the video game, education, and entertainment industries, also noted the monetary difficulties of building a business based on VR. Currently, he explained, VR is difficult to make into a workable business model as it often results in a loss.

Microsoft has also stepped into with ring of augmented reality with the Hololens, a different type of headset.

Instead of replacing the real world with a simulated reality like in a video game, the Hololens lets the user interact with the real world in a way much like Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies: By tapping and moving holograms projected over reality by the headset—referred to by Microsoft as mixed reality.

“It’s a fully untethered mixed reality device that projects holograms into the world around you,” Sage Franch, a tech evangelist at Microsoft, said. “These holograms can interact with the space around you, and it’s constantly mapping your room and your environment so that it provides the best experience possible.”

It might seem like science fiction, but it really works. Holograms and animations interact almost flawlessly with the real world; with endless implications for designers, engineers, doctors, and the average consumer—once the product is mass released, that is. For now, a developer version of the headset is available for $3,000 from Microsoft.

Other industry players that have been steadily growing also showed off their latest and greatest at MIGS. Gameloft, a mobile games studio, presented several games, including Dungeon Hunter 5 and the upcoming game Modern Combat Versus. Thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones, mobile games are more and more accessible to people around the world.

“A lot of people used to think that video games were only for men or teenagers,” Loïc Ramboanasolo, a producer of Modern Combat Versus, said. “And now on mobile, it’s actually women that are more predominant [gamers] than men.”

This expanding landscape makes it easier to reach new audiences around the world, allowing for a more universal gaming experience.

Though the gaming industry is drastically changing due to its expansion to new mediums, traditional video games remained a staple of the convention. An array of indie developers occupied a good part of the convention floor. Each developer had a small cubicle, called an “Indie Pod,”  where they set up their own demonstrations of traditionally-styled games.

Ubisoft, in addition to demonstrating a new VR game called EagleFlight, promoted the release of Watch Dogs 2, an open-world game released publicly on the third day of the conference. Meanwhile, Warner Brothers Games showcased Batman: Arkham Knight.

At its heart, the convention remained focused on a group of people with a shared interest in video games.

“[It’s] kind of a geeky thing,” said Doyle. “There’s just something magical about creating some art from start to finish, seeing it come to life. And as for VR, well, I never get tired of seeing someone who’s never tried it before put it on [….] They’re like, ‘Whoa, that’s amazing!’”

And it is. A tangible feeling of awe was in the air at MIGS. A line wrapped around the Microsoft booth to try on the Hololens and rarely was a headset sitting on a chair unused. Whether VR will becomes massively popular remains to be seen, but for now, simply testing out a new way to experience reality is nothing short of incredible.

McGill, News

ISID presents “Unpacking Participatory Democracy”

by Astha Agarwal on

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On Nov. 22 and 23, McGill students and faculty joined activists at a conference titled “Unpacking Participatory Democracy: From theory to practice and from practice to theory,” presented by the McGill Institute for the Study of International Development. Activists from global organizations, including South Africa’s Open Democracy Advice Centre, the UK’s Integrity Action, and Germany’s Transparency International, were in attendance.

The event was organized by Aruna Roy, McGill’s 2016 Professor of Practice in Global Governance. Roy is a prominent activist who has led many socio-political movements in India, including the passage of legislation on the Right to Information and the Right to Employment. Speakers included indigenous human rights activist Ellen Gabriel and Hussein Khalid, executive director of HAKI Africa, an organization focused on combating corruption on the continent.

A recurring topic of discussion at the conference was the limitations of academic theories about democracy and how theory can be enhanced by real democratic movements in action. Activists in attendance shared their personal experiences with the struggles faced by their campaigns. 

Against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s recent victory in the U.S. presidential election, Roy kicked off the conference with an opening speech encouraging discussion and discouraging disillusionment. 

“The worst thing we can do today is to lose hope about the world and about democracy,” Roy said. “We need to rebuild and work harder.”

Panelist Anne Marie Goetz, professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University and former UN Women’s chief advisor on Peace and Security, discussed the ongoing struggle of women’s rights and appealed for immediate action.

“Misogyny is not a side-show,” Goetz said. “It is a central driver of destructive decision-making. Combating misogyny cannot be postponed until after peace, climate change or disarmament negotiations are over. As the anti-war activist Cynthia Enloe says, ‘Later is a patriarchal time-zone.’”

Panelist Vivek Ramkumar, senior director of Policy at the International Budget Partnership in Washington, D.C., said it is more important than ever for students to become involved in democracy.

“The timing [of the conference] could not be better,” Ramkumar said. “I think there is a sense of despair [….] There is the idea that we should disengage for the next few years because our side has lost. Students need to maintain optimism that they are agents of change and they will bring that change, but there is no easy way, and they must get involved.”

Edwina Shaddick, a recent McGill master’s graduate in Sociology, agreed that the conference helped restore some optimism about the future of democracy.

“It’s quite cathartic to come after the Trump presidency,” Shaddick said. “The conversations I’ve had with people are quite dire. Everyone’s reeling from the election. As [panelist] John Harriss said yesterday, this happened in the 1860s and 1930s, and now again we are at a time when we need to say no to fascism and pick the alternative of social democracy. It is important to know that it has happened before and people have fought it, and they will fight it again now.”

Roy said that if there is one message she would like students to take away from her conference, it is to engage with democratic politics.

“The big picture only changes if all the small pictures change, so nothing is too small for engagement with democratic action,” Roy said. “It is just defining justice, equality and the principles of ethics. Do it wherever you are. It adds up.”

McGill, News

McGill Senate releases report on systemic discrimination

by Calvin Trottier-Chi on

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The McGill Senate Ad Hoc Working Group on Systemic Discrimination released a report  on Nov. 16 describing discriminatory practices towards female, minority, and indigenous faculty members. After surveying 374 tenure-track and tenured professors, the working group found evidence of systemic discrimination at McGill.

Issues raised include frustration towards the McGill administration, feelings of isolation, and institutional limitations differing by gender and ethnicity. Respondents reported witnessing discrimination on the basis of gender a total of 107 times, ethnicity 38 times, and for ‘other’ reasons 81 times. Respondents of all backgrounds were aware of discriminatory issues, although women and minorities especially so. The report urged McGill to develop infrastructure to foster a diverse faculty, specifically by reforming recruitment practices, protecting individuals who report discrimination, creating the position of Senior Officer for Equity and Inclusion, and sponsoring both mentorship and awareness programs.

Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures, and Equity) Angela Campbell praised the report for drawing useful considerations, including the importance of intersectional approaches.

“The /Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Systemic Discrimination/ provides the McGill community with important insights about the systemic barriers encountered by some faculty members who are constituents of underrepresented social groups,” Campbell said. “McGill is committed to the ongoing project of advancing equity and inclusivity on campus.”

Gender

Anthropology sessional lecturer Karen McAllister has faced discrimination at McGill and considers it to be an issue that is a particularly challenging issue.

“[Discrimination can be] something that people don’t realize they’re doing and so they don’t
think about it,” McAllister said. “This is the dangerous part of it [.…] It’s also really hard to say that it’s because of gender versus something else.”

McAllister recounted a student being overtly disrespectful towards her during her first year teaching at McGill. She feels that it is the responsibility of female and minority professors to serve as role models for students.

“I said [to the student], ‘Look, I’ve been told that in this university, young, female professors are given a hard time by the students. This ends here, we’re not going to do this in this class,’” McAllister said. “It’s something that students later on remembered because I’ve had some of those same students in their third or fourth year and they came [to me] and said, ‘That was really memorable, we were so pleased you stood up.’”

Ethnicity

Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Vice-President (VP) University Affairs Erin Sobat said that minorities often face difficulties when trying to organize or speak out. The report echoed this, as out of the 21.9 per cent of respondents who did not declare their ethnicity, several explained that they feared that they could be easily identified if they revealed demographic information, a symptom of the relative dearth of minority students at McGill.

“One of the significant issues with under-representation and discrimination is that there are very few [minority students] to form a community and support one another at McGill,” Sobat said. “As a result, it is the already marginalized members of our academic staff who end up taking on the greatest emotional burden of mentoring and supporting these students.”

Sobat suggests that the university should focus on recruiting underrepresented groups to McGill to alleviate some of these issues. In addition, he has pushed for the McGill Senate to consider diversifying its enrolment plan to acknowledge a wider variety of backgrounds, as it currently divides potential students into the three categories of Quebec, out-of-province, and international students.

“Students should demand that we do more to recruit and retain diverse faculty members as well as students at McGill,” Sobat said. “At SSMU [University Affairs] we have been advocating for a comprehensive student diversity enrolment plan, which would go beyond the current strategic enrolment management approach.”
 

Know Your Athlete, Men's Varsity, Sports

Know Your Athlete: Francois Jarry

by Arman Bery on

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A late-comer to the world of long-distance running, McGill Redmen cross-country star François Jarry fell in love with the thrill of racing in grade 11.

“My high school teacher made us run around the school, and very few people took it seriously, but I always enjoyed it,” Jarry said. “At the end of the year, I won a school race that made me passionate about it.”

A Physical Education and Health Education student, Jarry was named a conference all-star and has placed in the top 10 in seven out of his eight races in 2016. He has performed well in Montreal this season, winning the 2016 McGill Open and placing third in both the RSEQ cross-country championship and 3,000-metre race. While most athletes struggle to find success in sports they start at such a late age, running has been always been a part of Jarry’s life, even if he didn’t start training until he was older.

“My father ran marathons,” Jarry said. “He did not [run] competitively, but did about nine of them for his own experience. So the idea of running was always there.”

Jarry competes in both track and cross-country for McGill, but prefers the more comfortable environment of a track compared to the unpredictable terrain of a cross-country race.

“I definitely have a preference for track,” Jarry said. “I think I’ve just been mentally weaker when [cross-country] racing, I find that races get less exciting the more you run.”

Jarry’s preference for an even surface to run on matches his general desire for structure and predictability. He believes in a running style that is both technically efficient and well-planned: Before the race even begins, Jarry aims to outsmart and out-plan his opponents. He has modeled his patient running style after famed British-Somali distance runner Mo Farah.

“I think [Farah] getting criticized for sitting back in races is really unfair,” Jarry said. “I have a very similar mentality, […] I just love to just get the best approach I can. I start at the speed I can and build from there [….] People always think making the best time is the only thing that matters, but being able to be tactically efficient is very impressive.”

Jarry is also a star off the track. David Johnston, the governor general of Canada, honoured him this year as one of the top eight Academic All-Canadians. For Jarry, striking a balance between academics and athletics has always come naturally.

“Getting good grades, I find, a big part of it is having nice teachers who grade fairly,” Jarry said. “It’s also about relaxing, listening in class, not taking notes frantically, not signing up for too much other stuff.”

Jarry is a laid-back, cerebral person who believes that actions speak louder than words. He is considering doing a master’s and is currently completing a practicum with a professor at McGill. It is a possibility that the Quebec-native still has a few more years on McGill campus. 

In the spirit of Mo Farah’s mantra—“Don’t dream of winning. Train for it”—Jarry is well on his way to future success.

Favourite song/artist to listen to before a race: Often in the bus we listen to songs we would listen to during like elementary school prom, like “Stronger” by Kanye, or “Run Caleb Ndiku,” a song by a [Machakos Kyalo].

Favourite pre-race meal: The night before: Often pasta and a bit of beans and veggies.

Days off: Just cereal and soy milk.

Favourite place to study at McGill: The computer lab [at] the stadium.

Commentary, Opinion

Bridging the gap between the downtown and Mac campuses

by Tara Allen-Flanagan on

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Although they are two halves of a single university, for downtown students, it may seem that the main things that the Macdonald and main campus share are the McGill name and a shuttle bus. The two campuses have separate student unions; therefore, students from one campus do not often engage with the services or clubs of the other. McGill is slowly beginning to advertise the benefits of Mac campus to downtown students—for example, by offering Science Literacy Week events at both campuses—but many students don’t bother to find out more about them. The result of this divide is two groups of students who know nothing about each other and are not interested in visiting their non-native campus.

As a member of the McGill Agricultural Association, a club located at Mac campus, I was dismayed when local students told me that I was one of the few downtown students they knew personally who makes a habit of visiting Mac for non-academic reasons. Students who never make the trek out to the West Island are missing out on the chance to explore a rural and bountiful campus that offers much more than just classes.

For downtown students, it is easy to never leave the city core and venture out to Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue. The only obvious markers of Mac campus’ existence downtown are the shuttle bus stops—currently situated in front of the Strathcona Music Building due to construction on Sherbrooke—and the McGill Farmers’ market at the Y-intersection on Thursdays in the fall.

Located across the street from the St. Lawrence river, Mac campus houses the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Beyond the main buildings of campus are acres of experimental farm land; across the bridge is the massive Morgan Arboretum and nature reserve. Students have access to a forest less than an hour away from downtown, yet many of them are unaware of its existence. Instead of going to the crowded libraries of Redpath during finals, downtown McGillians can find a change of scenery in the Macdonald Campus Library and take study breaks by the canal.

 

 

Students who never make the trek out to the West Island are missing out on the chance to explore a rural and bountiful campus that offers much more than just classes

The distance between the two campuses may seem daunting, but prospective commuters should take advantage of the shuttle bus that leaves from McGill’s downtown campus. Although it is primarily intended to transport students and staff who have courses at Mac campus, the bus is quite empty at non-peak hours. All that students need to do is get a sticker on their McGill ID card from Service Point, and they can take advantage of the shuttle bus, which, by the way, has Wi-Fi.

Groups from both locations are attempting to dissolve the boundaries between the two campuses. The McGill Farmers’ Market brings produce from Mac campus downtown in the summer and fall to sell to students at a low price; the geography and environment student associations organized an apple picking trip at the arboretum this fall. Initiatives such as these are important because they provide occasions for downtown natives to interact with Mac campus and participate in activities that are not possible to hold downtown. Students may feel hesitant about visiting Mac campus alone; however, when McGill hosts events that highlight the unique attractions of Mac, newcomers may like what they see and visit more often. 

Downtown students should reap the benefits of both campuses and visit Mac at least once in their university careers. The services and scenery offered by Mac campus can broaden a downtown student’s university experience and provide a natural retreat from the hectic downtown core. Student societies could allow students of the other campus to pay membership fees to Macdonald campus, or create more initiatives to bring students together. Mac and downtown campuses should not feel like mutually exclusive worlds; this idea prevents students from exploring all that McGill has to offer.

 

 

 

Tara Allen-Flanagan is a U2 art history and English literature student who enjoys beekeeping but does not enjoy getting stung by bees. In her free time, she likes to explore the multitude of vending machines around campus and cuddle with her friends’ cats.

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 

 

 

 

McGill, News

Trump victory draws increased international interest in McGill

by Astha Agarwal on

More in McGill:

Donald Trump’s victory in the United States’ presidential election on Nov. 8 has triggered increased interest in McGill from international students, both in America and abroad.  

According to Director of Admissions Kim Bartlett, McGill received 400 applications from American high school students in the week following the election. A total of 1,900 U.S. applications have been submitted as of Nov. 18, 600 more than the previous year. This year, there are 2,381 undergraduate American students at McGill, making up 10.31 per cent of the student body. In total, 3,000 overseas applications have been sent in, a slight increase from the 2,600 applications received in the same time last year.

According to Bartlett, the increase in application numbers cannot be directly attributed to the Trump victory.  There was, however, an unusually high traffic on McGill’s social media websites on election night and in the 48 hours that followed.

“I think people were reaching out for reassurance and to express their point of view more,” Bartlett said. 

Natalie Marusiak, a Grade 11 student at Belmont High School in Massachusetts, said that the election result has piqued her interest in applying to McGill and the University of British Columbia.

“The amount of hate that has surfaced even in just a few weeks of Trump being elected is very scary,” Marusiak said. “[As students we are worried about] all the things that have happened and could potentially happen. Student debt is also a big thing for a lot of people and it’s a bit scary to think about the implications for that with a Trump presidency.”

Since the election results, Rohita Ramayanam, U3 Management and an American student, has been considering seeking employment in Canada after graduation. 

“My decision will ultimately depend on where I find employment, but I’m definitely more open to staying in Canada because of the election results,” Ramayanam said. “Now that I’m here, I wouldn’t want to go back to live in an environment where people like myself don’t have the same rights as others. If the U.S. continues down a path that I completely don’t agree with, there’s nothing stopping me from staying here.”

Margot Silberblatt, U3 Arts and an American citizen, said that the election results have decreased her interest in returning to the U.S. after graduation.

“Before the election, I thought I would have preferred going back to the U.S., but after the election, I’ve become 100 per cent more invested in considering my options abroad,” Silberblatt said.

The election has also increased interest in McGill from international applicants outside the U.S.

“Whatever happens in the U.S. doesn’t just affect U.S. applicants, but it affects people worldwide,” Bartlett said. “Many international students have in their mind the U.S. as their university destination and so if people are nervous about something happening in the U.S. they might consider Canada where they haven’t in the past.” 

Bartlett doesn’t believe that increased American interest in McGill will drastically alter the composition of the student body.

“We don’t look at citizenship when we’re evaluating applications, so I don’t anticipate a major shift,” Bartlett said. “There has always been a substantial representation of U.S. students and probably will continue to be.” 


 

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