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Reindeer Racing
a, Sports

10 Things: Reindeer Racing

by Nicholas Jasinski on

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1. Reindeer racing is a competitive and widely followed sport in some northern parts of Norway, Finland, and Russia. It involves speed-suit-wearing jockeys on cross country skis and a harness being dragged along by full-grown reindeer on a fixed snowy course, reaching speeds of up to 60 km per hour.

2. Reindeer—more commonly known as caribou in North America—are a species of deer native to arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. Both male and female reindeer grow and shed antlers each year, with some large males displaying antlers up to 135 cm in length. Depending on the subspecies and quality of diet, some reindeer can grow to be up to 185 kg in weight.  

3. Racing reindeer can be traced back to the Sami, an indigenous Scandinavian people who inhabit the far north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. Reindeer are integral to Sami heritage and lifestyle, who rely on the animals for their fur and meat, as transportation and as a source of cultural pride.

4. Reindeer are notoriously difficult to domesticate and train for racing, being naturally skittish animals. The semi-wild reindeer are mostly raised for their meat, with only some particularly strong and fast specimens chosen and bred for their racing abilities.

5. “When the reindeer is a few years old, they’ll start to race it and see how good it is,” Dr Carol Brown-Leonardi of the Open University told The Guardian. “Reindeer herding is big business in that part of the world. So they may be wasting money because they’re investing in a reindeer they’re not sure about. It’s quite a gamble on gut feelings and instincts.”

6. The largest annual reindeer race takes place in Tromsø, Norway, each February as part of Sami National Day celebrations. Thousands of spectators come from near and far to witness “the fastest reindeer in Norway” race down a 200m track on Tromsø’s main avenue through the city center, where stores and even banks are closed for the day.

7. The competition is organised as an elimination cup, starting with qualifying heats where only the winners of each heat progress through to the next round. The final at the end of the day decides the national champion of Norway.

8. Another major race on the reindeer racing circuit takes place on a 1000m snow track in Levi, Finland, another region that prides itself in its Sami roots. This is contested between reindeer breeding cooperatives, who compete to see who produced the strongest and fastest reindeer in their herds that year. There are 51 reindeer breeding cooperatives in Finland that raise reindeer for meat, breeding, pulling sleighs, work on farms, as well as racing.

9. In Naryan-Mar, Russia, teams come from reindeer herding communities in the region to participate in various events including sled races. In its journey to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, the Olympic flame passed through Naryan-Mar on a reindeer sled.

10. Every February, as part of the lead-up to the Iditarod Dog Sled Race in Anchorage, Alaska, hosts a winter variation of Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls: The Running of the Reindeer. People gather in heats and sprint down a street pursued by a herd of charging reindeer, dodging hooves and antlers as they run.

Academy Awards Predictions
a, Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

2016 Academy Award Predictions

by Tanveer Ahmed and Christopher Lutes on

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For the 2016 Academy Awards the Arts and Entertainment section of the Tribune did the work for you, predicting the winners for Best Film, Best Leading Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, and Film Editing. Read the reviews, rent the films, and be ready to watch the Oscars on Feb. 28. Unless you're boycotting the show, that is. 

Best Picture: Spotlight

A true exercise in cinematic restraint, Spotlight is the rare Best Picture oscar nomination that was actually the best film of the year. Featuring a taut script and a versatile ensemble full of heavy-hitting character actors, the film uses the Boston Globe’s slow uncovering of rampant sexual assault in the Catholic church as a testament to the importance of the journalistic process. There’s a subtle humanity beneath the journalists’ shocking discovery, making their work feel personally important as well as publicly.

Best Actor In a Leading Role: Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs

Yes, Leonardo DiCaprio is probably going to win for the two-and-a-half hour exercise in human misery that is The Revenant, but in typical Oscar's fashion, he is not the most deserving contender. Instead, that honour goes to Michael Fassbender’s portrayal of the notoriously difficult Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. The film spans three decades of his life, and Fassbender’s committed performance does a great job of showing what does and doesn’t change about the man behind the Macbook.

Best Actress In a Leading Role: Brie Larson, Room

Delivering the latest in a string of strong emotionally-vulnerable performances, Larson’s portrayal of a young woman who is held in captivity for years and then released, might be her best yet. Well-served by the melodramatic potential of the script, Larson sells the unimaginably complex interior life of her character through acts of depression and frustration at herself and the world around her before and after her freedom. There’s a rare emotional consistency to her performance, with each action and reaction revealing something deeper about her mental state, and the trappings that total freedom can bring.

Best Actor In a Supporting Role: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies

Giving an exercise in powerful, invisible acting, Mark Rylance is by far the best part of Bridge of Spies, elevating a middle of the road spy thriller. As a captured Russian spy, Rylance brings a quiet dignity to his role, hinting at his character’s humanity beneath his allegiances, but never fully giving anything away. Every movement he makes is meticulous and hypnotic, silently drawing attention to himself in every frame without ever stealing the spotlight.

Best Actress In a Supporting Role: Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight

Giving two of the year’s best performances (the other was her voice work in Anomalisa), Jennifer Jason Leigh had a 2015 that hints at a Matthew McConaughey-style creative resurgence. Her role as a captured member of a band of outlaws is remarkable for how gleefully unhinged and dark it’s allowed to get. Her character’s unrepentant nastiness is simultaneously played for laughter and menace, an incredibly difficult line to walk that Jason Leigh handles with manic grace.

Film Editing: Hank Corwin, The Big Short

The Big Short had the hardest job to keep the audience engaged in a complicated story, but the way the film was edited and cut kept your attention at every turn. The pacing was perfect in terms of letting the anticipation of the climax build until the very end without seeming pretentious. The simultaneous juggling of multiple parallel storylines only worked as well as it did due to the superb editing that the other films did not need nor display to the same extent.

Read our extended predictions for live-action and animated short films online.

a, McGill, News

Co-Curricular Record offers students recognition for school-sponsored activities

by Regina Wung on

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Piloted in 2013 by the MyInvolvement division of Student Services, the Co-Curricular Record (CCR) serves as an online tool to help students record their participation in university-sponsored clubs and organizations. MyInvolvement is an online portal that allows McGill students to discover and catalog participation in learning opportunities that take place outside of the classroom. Examples of activities that appear on a CCR include participation on athletics teams, in workshops offered by McGill, positions on executive boards of certain student government councils, and clubs sponsored by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). 

CCR Program Administrator Tim Wilfong explained that the concept is similar to that of a CV, but because it is an official school record, activities listed on the CCR carry official verification from the university.

“The official CCR will have the deputy provost’s signature, so it really is an attestation that these things really happened, that students really participated,” Wilfong said. “It includes volunteering, workshop attendance, peer educator opportunities, varsity athletics, student leadership positions in clubs, student government, etc. and […] awards and scholarships that you’ve received that aren’t on your transcript but [that] the university acknowledges.”

Additionally, Wilfong contended that students can use the CCR as a tool to help write their CV later in their university or post-university careers.

“I think it’s trying to help students to know how to put it on their CV, to find the right words, to think more critically about what they learned, and how they can market it,” he said. 

Speaking to SSMU Council on Feb. 11, Wilfong urged departmental councils to spread word of the CCR to all McGill students.

“This is a movement that’s happening across Canada,” he said. “It’s in McGill’s best interest to also be on the cutting edge.”

According to Wilfong, student feedback has been positive thus far.

“The vast majority of students who I’ve talked to about the project that we have are excited about it and really want the record to succeed,” he said. “The student leaders have all been excited to be able to offer recognition to the people who were doing work for them and to get that recognition themselves.”

SSMU Vice-President (VP) External Affairs Emily Boytinck voiced her concern about the type of message that the widespread use of the CCR might send to students.

“My issue with this record is that it is essentially the university saying, ‘This is what we consider a valuable university experience, and this is what we don’t consider to be a valuable university experience,’ and to me, I find that highly limiting,” she said. “I have a lot of concerns with the project just putting additional pressures on students, who are already feeling a lot of pressure to succeed academically, to also feel like they have to fill up this co-curricular record as well.”

Boytinck also argued, however, that the CCR could potentially encourage students to get involved for disingenuous reasons.

“As somebody who’s been involved in student government for a really long time, I’ve chaired a bunch of committees where you know that some people are just on it so they can write something on their resumé,” she said. “I feel like in a lot of ways, this co-curricular record encourages this type of title-grabbing, title-searching behaviour.”

VP Clubs and Services Kimber Bialik brought up the issue of inequity among the recognition of students who devote the majority of their time to a fewer number of projects, versus students who spread small portions over their time among a variety of activities.

“It prioritizes and provides more benefits [to] students who are superficially involved in a number of different organizations at an arm’s length over students who are involved in one initiative but pour much more of their time into the betterment of their chosen project, and treating those two scenarios equally disadvantages the group of students who are often putting more into those smaller number of projects,” she said.

Bialik is equally wary of the CCR’s potential to encourage so-called ‘resumé building.’

“I entirely share the concerns that individuals have raised about the potential for encouraging students to get involved in campus life solely for the purpose of gaining recognition through the Co-Curricular Record,” she said. 

According to Wilfong, this problem is not something that is fundamentally caused by the practice of recording one’s co-curricular activities.

“I think that was a problem long before the CCR ever existed,” Wilfong said. “I think it’s kind of a systemic issue within higher education right now, and within the workforce to a certain extent also.”

In spite of these reservations, Bialik ultimately conceded that the CCR is potentially beneficial to student involvement at McGill.

“Unfortunately, these issues are unavoidable,” she said. “Despite my personal reservations about [it…] if the student groups who would be recognized on the [CCR] believe that their inclusion on the project would be beneficial to their group, then I am more than happy to consent to the inclusion of all SSMU groups on the [CCR].”

a, Editorial, Opinion

Editorial: Deregulation at McGill should not necessitate an increase in international student tuition

by McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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The Quebec government recently announced a new round of budget cuts to university funding for the 2016-2017 academic year. As a means of mitigating the blow, however, the government is rumoured to also have given Quebec universities the green light to raise tuition for international students to the tune of up to 25 per cent, according to La Presse. Tuition deregulation, which would do away with equalizing payments—a process that funnels any tuition above the Quebec rate generated from international students back to the government to be redistributed among universities throughout the province—has been on the administration’s radar for a while. The elimination of equalization payments is a necessary step, but the administration should seek to minimize, as much as possible, any additional financial burden that deregulation will place on McGill’s international students.

McGill stands to benefit from deregulation, but a concurrent increase in tuition for international students is unnecessary. While deregulation doesn’t need to go hand-in-hand with an increase in international tuition, McGill’s track record of tuition deregulation does not provide a promising outlook: History suggests that deregulation will invariably result in a tuition increase for non-Canadians. In McGill’s deregulated Faculty of Engineering, for example, international students pay $37,054.55 in tuition and fees, compared to an undergraduate international student in the regulated Faculty of Arts who pays only $18,258.61 a year.

The budget constraints faced by the university provide an obvious draw for McGill to discontinue its payments to Quebec’s equalization system if given the opportunity. Deregulating the remaining faculties would allow McGill to reinvest international students’ supplemental tuition money into the services and infrastructure that its students use.

The burden of a tuition increase on international students would therefore pose a risk to McGill’s accessibility for non-Canadian students.

Additionally, a portion of the money retained from deregulation should be put towards bursary programs, so that international students are not faced with a significant financial burden that would inhibit them from attending the university. In order to maintain accessibility for international students, however, McGill cannot rely solely on bursaries and other reactive solutions to alleviate a vast increase in international student tuition which follows deregulation.

International students make up a large percentage of McGill’s student body—approximately 25 per cent. In the context of tuition deregulation, this means two things: First, McGill is currently losing a significant amount of money from international students that is being diverted away from the university and funneled into other universities that have a potentially smaller income due to fewer numbers of international students. Secondly, McGill has a unique demographic makeup that it should seek to foster and protect—not exploit.

Significantly increasing the cost of international student tuition sends the wrong message to McGill’s international student body, members of the community who contribute to McGill’s cultural diversity. This diversity continues to attract open-minded and cosmopolitan students from around the world to study at McGill. Moreover, concerns about accessibility for international students are salient, and McGill has not shown that it can provide adequate bursaries for students in deregulated faculties to balance the costs that the tuition increases would incur. The burden of a tuition increase on international students would therefore pose a risk to McGill’s accessibility for non-Canadian students.

Quebec’s student body has long advocated for affordable tuition—a principle that has guided the ideologies of student unions within the province, and which backed the student protests against tuition hikes in 2012. Tuition increases, while necessary for the future viability of Quebec’s universities, are opposed in principle by many of the province’s students. International students have generally been more open to such increases, but this should not give the university free reign to increase tuition for these students.

McGill should take advantage of the financial benefits it stands to gain from eliminating equalization payments that divert McGill’s funds directly into the hands of the provincial government for reallocation at its discretion. This potential for increased income, however, should not be tied inextricably to an increase in international student tuition. McGill’s cultural and socioeconomic variety is at risk; to protect this diversity, McGill should limit the hardships faced by international students.

a, Arts & Entertainment, Books

Artist Spotlight: James Dunnigan

by Evelyn Goessling on

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As a poet, novelist, and aspiring academic, McGill student James Dunnigan lives his life in a cloud of creative energy. While finishing a degree in Honours English (with a graduate essay on Virgil and Wordsworth’s pastoral poetry) Dunnigan reads and writes constantly while keeping up with Montreal’s thriving literary scene. 

Born and raised in Montreal, Dunnigan considers his Hungarian grandparents to be very influential in his passion for writing. His grandfather was a surgeon in Hungary during the Hungarian revolution, and also dabbled in painting and prose. The huge collective libraries of both sets of grandparents helped illustrate to Dunnigan the massive wealth of knowledge contained in the written word. 

“Writing comes from trying to be like the people I’ve admired the most,” Dunnigan said. “Reading and writing are something [my grandparents] are both involved in.”  

While Dunnigan’s interests are grounded in literary classics of all kinds, his writing style as well as his interests are always changing. 

“That’s what originality is,” he said. “Your intentions for a story change because your world changes. Writing must have that quality. The intention you have will be altered.” 

Dunnigan’s view is unexpected; considering his deep interest in the classics, his approach to writing is surprisingly fluid.

“Part of my methodological process is always reading as well as writing. The writing process is very loose. An idea could come anywhere,” Dunnigan said.

One story, Open Bay, has an astonishingly different style from an earlier story, Arabesque. Dunnigan attributes this to an editing crunch. 

“Open Bay was originally three times as long, and in cutting it down to reach the word limit I began cutting out grammatical units of sentences, which ultimately made it sound more like a little kid,” he said. 

The protagonist of Open Bay, a young girl, has little in common with the author. Arabesque, however, could be autobiographical: The protagonist is a young man, having a summer afternoon drink on Rue Sainte Catherine. Dunnigan said that it’s not specifically autobiographical, rather that “elements of character and setting are combinations of elements of real life, rearranged to create a story.” 

The protagonist of Arabesque emphasizes his love for author James Joyce, who was Dunnigan’s favorite author at the time. Now Dunnigan names Virgil, Faulkner, and Balzac to be his primary influences, but like his style, James’ favourite authors are always changing. 

“Faulkner and Balzac reinvent the novel every time they write it, I want to do that with my stories,” Dunnigan said. “Each story [I write] makes a different experiment, and a different experience. I want to escape narrowing down of styles. I’d rather be diverse, and of course good at all styles. That’s the hard part.” 

Dunnigan’s long-standing project is a novel, titled The Inflections of Wilfrid Ylle. Although complete, he says it needs a lot of revision. 

“Perhaps I tried too hard to reinvent the novel,” Dunnigan said, “The narrative structure became too complicated. Every piece of narrative comes from conversation. It’s an investigation into who this man was—perhaps relating somewhat autobiographically to a certain grandfather figure.” 

As a native Montrealer,  Dunnigan is used to living within French and English worlds simultaneously, which comes through in his interests as well as his academic work- he will be graduating this year with a minor in French. On translation, James says that if a translator is going to rewrite a piece, he may as well totally rework it. There is merit to translation, but Dunnigan tries to avoid it as much as possible. 

“I would never read Flaubert in English,” he said. 

While fragments of stories are always constantly popping up around him, for Dunnigan it’s all about the endgame.

Dunnigan explained, “the most rewarding thing about writing is finishing. You can’t finish many other things in life as satisfactory as a story. You can’t always choose where to put that final period.” 

Wherever that final period may be, Montreal should keep an eye out for James Dunnigan’s next work. 

2016 Oscar Nominated Short Films
a, Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

2016 Oscar Nominated Short Films: An in-depth review of the competition

by Luka Ciklovan and Anna St. Clair on

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Once again the world gathers to see what the pinnacle of human cinematography has to offer: The time of the Oscars are upon us. Whether or not the motion pictures presented at this year’s awards are representative of every race or ethnicity, a highly important matter in and of itself, all of the pictures offered up for the best animated short film (Sanjay’s Super Team, World of Tomorrow, Bear Story, We Can’t Live Without Cosmos, and Prologue) and for best live-action short film (Ave Maria, Day One, Shok, Stutterer, and Alles Wired Gut (Everything Will be Ok)) are nonetheless all excellent productions that each tell unique stories in their own respective ways. Which one, however, is worth a 34.3 cm tall golden statue?

Oscar Animated Shorts

Sanjay’s Super Team

A competition for best animation shorts almost wouldn’t be one without Disney and Pixar making an appearance, and they’re back again this year in all their aesthetically cute, yet verbally quiet, glory with Sanjay’s Super Team. The short, directed by Sanjay Patel and inspired by his own childhood, tells the tale of a Hindu father trying to reconnect his young son, who much prefers the cartoon action of his favorite show ‘Super Team,’ to the Hindu faith. In the spiritual search that ensues, Durga, Vishnu, and Hanuman combat the raging Ravana with the assistance of a much bewildered Sanjay. In the standard Pixar style, the film tells a short, sweet, and simple tale that resonates a positive message of familial and spiritual bonding particular to the modern era.

World Of Tomorrow

Departing the realm of traditionalism, World Of Tomorrow, directed by Don Hertzfeldt, somehow manages to touch on feelings of childish joy and existential depression at the same time. Animated in a style that crosses adorably crude fifth grade drawings with very minimalist modern representations, this short gives an overview of the future human condition through the lens of a Emily, a small child, and her future self, and through the course of their travels highlights the technological advancements, such as the ‘outernet,’ time travel, and cloning, that await humanity in the future. Due to the strong juxtaposition between young Emily’s innocent interjections and future Emily’s often emotionless statements, the future, according to this short, may not be so great.

We Can’t Live Without Cosmos

Picking up on the themes of human progress touched on in World Of Tomorrow, Konstantin Bronzit’s production, We Can’t Live Without Cosmos, tells the tale of two astronaut B.F.F.’s, dubbed 1203 and 1204, and the pursuit of their ultimate dream, the final frontier of space. Without any dialogue, the film manages to forge a strong bond between 1203 and 1204 who, under constant criticism by the observing scientists every time they show some form of human emotion, comically compete to enter the space program. Animated in a style reminiscent of recent Adult Swim cartoons, We Can’t Live Without Cosmos, delivers a powerful message about the human drive for scientific progress peppered with moments of unscientific hilarity.

Bear Story

Bear Story, directed by Gabriel Osorio, leaves aside comedy altogether and focuses on the rather dark story of the aftermath of a bear’s struggle against the oppressive, fascist-like, institution that is—from an animal’s perspective—the circus. The short utilizes a steampunk-ish animation style that’s loaded with mechanical gears, sewed-on buttons, and patchwork paintjobs that brilliantly conveys the notion of a once ‘working,’ pre-circus world that is now barely rattling on.

Prologue

Finally, Prologue, animated by the iconic Richard Williams responsible for legendary works such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, really pushes the boundary between reality and animation with his hyperreal style of animation. Consciously avoiding a clear plot line, the short focus on a combat situation between ancient four Greek warriors and the nature surrounding them, and proceeds to depict the ensuing scenes in an entirely hand drawn fashion that’s both aesthetically awesome and technically inspiring given the sheer amount of effort that must have accompanied each frame.

Predicted Winner: We Can’t Live Without Cosmos

Ultimately, We Can’t Live Without Cosmos, despite not breaking any boundaries on the animation side of things, takes the cake due to its clever interplay of gravity and levity narratively. Prologue and Bear Story seem to focus too much on animation at the expense of the story, while Sanjay’s Super Team follows the Pixar formula a bit too closely. World Of Tomorrow posits a close second, but that remains for the judges to decide when the Oscars happen on Feb. 28.

Oscar Live-Action Shorts

Ave Maria

Directed by Palestinian-British Director Basil Khalil, Ave Maria looks at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of ordinary people. In the West Bank of Palestine, a Jewish couple and the man’s mother crash into a statue of the Virgin Mary outside a convent and must rely on the nuns for help. What follows is a kind of comedy of religious restrictions. Moshe (Shady Srour) can’t operate the phone because it’s past Shabbat but the nuns have taken a vow of silence making them reluctant to make the call. The various religious rules seem to be irksome formalities preventing the characters from doing what is practical. Despite the prejudices and culture clash, both groups are polite and civil to each other. While the vignette shows us that yes, Jews and Arabs can be polite and friendly with one another, the larger Israeli-Palestinian situation seems omnipresent. Both the Arab nuns and the Jewish family have accepted the precarious situation as an unchangeable reality.

Day One

If Ave Maria was a comedy of cultural restrictions, Day One is a tragedy of cultural restrictions. Day One is directed by American Director Henry Hughes and is based on a true story of his own combat experience in Afghanistan. Feda (Layla Alizada) is a female interpreter on her first assignment with the US military in Afghanistan. She must navigate the male-dominated culture of both the military and pastoral Afghanistan. Yet it’s her uniquely feminine presence that allows her to go above the call of duty where her male colleagues cannot. It allows her to step into a home to be the one source of comfort to a woman giving birth. Dr. Nasir (Navid Neghaban) an Afghani doctor refuses to deliver the woman’s baby, showing that even when a woman’s life is on the line the culture of gender segregation in rural Afghanistan is impenetrable. What’s truly remarkable about Day One is its ability to pack suspense, plot twists and emotion into only 15 minutes.

Shok

Shok takes place during the conflict in Kosovo during the 1990s. The film opens on two young Albanian boys, Petrit (Lum Veseli) and Oki (Andi Bajgora) going for a joyride on a bicycle. The playful, optimistic attitude of both boys distracts the audience from realizing that there is a war going on at all. The short is a coming of age tale, as Petrit must decide where his loyalties lie, both to his country and to his friend. Both boys must decide right from wrong in a time when the lines between right and wrong are blurred. The two young actors deliver strong performances, capturing the struggle the two boys face to retain their childhood during violent times.

Stutterer

Stutterer follows Greenwood (Mathew Needham) a typographer in London who struggles with a speech impediment but whose internal monologue is observant and witty. An online relationship brings joy to his lonely life, but it soon becomes a source of stress with the potential of a real-life meetup. Greenwood’s observations of people he passes on the street or in the tube give the film a playful sense of humour. And the cinematography is enchanting with delicate natural lighting and long musical shots. Yet ultimately the plot is predictable and the trope of a creative wordsmith struggling with a speech impediment feels cliché. If you’re unfamiliar with short films, Stutterer is exactly what you would imagine live action shorts to be, with few characters, sparse plot, long beautiful shots, and minimal dialogue.

Alles Wired Gut (Everything Will be Ok)

German Director Patrick Vollarth shows us what begins as a fun weekend between a divorced father and his 8-year-old daughter. Yet the action quickly takes a darker turn. Michael, played by Simon Schwarz invokes our sympathy, even pity, and yet as we watch his choices unfold, he becomes terrifying. A strong performance from Julia Pointner who plays the 8-year old Lea, the film shows that children can be more emotionally mature than the adults, and often sharper than adults assume. The title phrase, “everything will be ok” is repeated again and again, usually to Lea who knows everything will definitely not be ok.

Predicted Winner: Day One

Day One manages to pack as much emotion, drama and suspense of a feature length film into 15 short minutes. It almost redefines what a short film can be, as it seamlessly integrates not just a main-plot, but sub-plots. It tackles issues of feminism, culture, poverty, and military intervention in subtle yet striking ways. It will haunt you long after the last scene.

a, Opinion

SSMU’s mind on its money, money on its mind

by Norman Yallen on

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In the past couple of years, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) has had trouble obtaining a mandate from students to spend their money. The student body recently rejected SSMU’s special referendum question for a membership fee increase, which would have increased the base fee by $5.50 per term. A similar situation happened to SSMU with the building fee referendum, which was rejected in Winter 2014 and then passed when a similar question was posed in Fall 2014. SSMU is currently putting together a second package of fees to make up for a budget shortfall. Now, according to Vice-President Finances & Operations Zacheriah Houston, budget adjustments and cuts will be to the tune of $100,000. In spite of this urgency, only 16.3 per cent of students voted. Although the membership fee only failed by 17 votes, this result is only the most recent example of the broken dialogue between the student body and SSMU; the majority of students either did not hear the urgency of the request or did not listen. The future success of SSMU requires students to trust SSMU to spend money properly, and to see that dialogue with SSMU is necessary to improve student life at McGill.

In light of the failure of the fee increase, SSMU needs to allocate its money more effectively. For example, this past fall’s 4Floors event was budgeted to sell out for 1,000 people at $25 a ticket. In the end, only 533 tickets were sold, resulting in a loss of $8,000. Students need to be able to trust SSMU to spend money on things that matter. In Winter 2014, SSMU opened the Student Run Café (SRC), The Nest, which lost $20,000 its first semester of operation. SSMU then opened a second student-run café while The Nest was losing money. While SSMU had the admirable intent of promoting student spaces, it was not sensible to operate two cafés at a loss during a budget shortage. It sends the wrong message to students when SSMU requests a fee increase while emphasizing seemingly non-essential events and services at a heavy loss.

SSMU can be a strong advocate for students, but only if students empower them.

The problem that SSMU faces is circular: To gain students’ approval, they need to spend money ‘effectively,’ but obtaining adequate funds to provide these services is dependent on the faith of the student body. If students disapprove of SSMU’s use of funds, the answer is not to cut SSMU off. Students need a functioning student society to support basic clubs and services, and to advocate for students to the administration and the province. A strong representative on campus is essential in this time of austerity and budget cuts. SSMU can be a strong advocate for students, but only if students empower them. At the moment, students have trouble believing SSMU will spend money they receive effectively.

To rebuild this relationship, there needs to be a dialogue between the student body and SSMU about the best use of student funds. SSMU’s event to discuss the future of the SSMU building is a positive step towards involving students in the process of how money is allocated to student-run initiatives such as The Nest and the SRC. Another step SSMU could take with students is to release its finances for events, clubs, and services by email periodically to improve transparency and show students that their money is being spent appropriately. Student representatives must also do more to increase the flow of information from Council to students. At the moment, budget information is most transparent to those involved in student politics. While representing students on SSMU Council, representatives must recall their obligation to open channels of information to students within their faculties beyond faculty societies and departmental associations.

Such a dialogue is necessary to build participation in SSMU, but is also dependent on the involvement of students. If SSMU is to rebuild its financial viability while extending and improving the services it provides, students need to consider how their lack of participation is harmful to the very services they want.

Students should be prepared when SSMU opens a dialogue on the future spending of funds. For SSMU to best serve student needs, students must participate in the process. SSMU is putting forward an alternative package of club fees for students to vote on. Rather than simply voting “No” on future referendums regarding fees, students should listen to what SSMU has to say. Yes, referendum questions should be responsive to the demands of students. But it is time that students stop treating every referendum as a vote of confidence on the entire institution of SSMU. The future viability of SSMU depends on an active partnership between students and the union.

 

 

Norman Yallen is a U3 history major.

 

@McGillTribOp | [email protected]

 

 

 
a, Off the Board, Opinion

Social activism not enough to break down structures of success

by Shrinkhala Dawadi on

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According to philosopher-writer Albert Camus, “the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

It is harder for a woman of colour to achieve the same metrics of success as a white man. The very definition of success is built around capitalist and patriarchal ideals: You’re successful if you have a prestigious career, earn a certain amount of money, and command the respect of people who are equally as successful. Women of colour face additional pressures when striving for ‘success,’ to be successful by traditional standards while advocating for social justice. Unfortunately, the two worlds don’t always mix. To be successful, sometimes I feel that I cannot stand up for the things that I believe in.

Injustices are both institutionally sanctioned and perpetuated by people who, though they may not intend to, perpetuate harmful ideas. Institutional inequalities are evident by the disproportionate amount of black men and people of colour incarcerated in the United States and Canada, the fact that people of colour have lower wages and socioeconomic outcomes compared to white people, and in the appalling truth that indigenous women have a homicide rate 4.5 times higher than other women in Canada. These inequalities take place day-to-day, in the workplace, and on university campuses.

The pressure to embody mainstream success while also being an activist often comes from like-minded people who care about righting the structural inequalities of society. But oftentimes activism is, by default, the responsibility of the individual who would most benefit from change. There have been many times where I’ve had to swallow my pride and laugh when mentor figures, friends, and work associates have made comments about my name, or tried to greet me with namaste-esque gestures, or said that the rice and chicken I’m having for lunch is exotic.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with striving for success; however, as long as that success is externally defined, achieving a certain career entails participation in a society that is resistant to social activism.

I used to be the type of person that would point out every time a movie had an all-white cast, or every time a person used a racial slur in a casual conversation. Initially, I thought that the people I spoke to would stop what they were doing, become suddenly enlightened, and go henceforth as a paragon of social justice. It rarely worked that way: Most people’s reactions ranged from confused, to defensive, to angry. On top of that, I don’t have an infinite amount of energy to patiently explain my point of view and educate every person who says something slightly offensive. Keeping my silence was, I thought, the best way for me to be liked and progress in school or at work. Yet it takes a huge toll to remain silent in these situations because I feel like I am betraying a part of myself. As wonderful as it would be, it’s unrealistic to expect every single woman of colour to act as an activist in their everyday lives. Some women may only care for mainstream success, some only for activism, and some for neither, or for both.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with striving for success; however, as long as that success is externally defined, achieving a certain career entails participation in a society that is resistant to social activism. This is apparent by the fact that most prestigious organizations—whether they are universities, governmental institutions, major media outlets, or Fortune 500 companies—are mostly run and staffed by white men, who, consciously or not, benefit from societal inequalities.

Succeeding in society doesn’t necessarily mean working as an activist to combat such inequities. One does not necessarily need to be a grassroots activist; one need only consider the discussion that followed Beyonce’s “Formation” video to realize the various forms that activism can take. But not everyone has the means, energy, or mental health to be a full-time activist while also achieving mainstream success.

The way in which society is structured means that achieving mainstream success often comes at the cost of working to erase the barriers that prevent other women from achieving the same. While that is a bitter pill to swallow, it’s also the reality of society. We must not demonize the women who choose to work within the system, or do not have the resources or ability to work outside it. Instead, we should work as much as we can to erase these structural inequalities so no one will need to make a choice between mainstream success and social activism.

The tragedy of this situation is that change rarely comes from working within the system, and so activism is the crucial piece in bringing about any societal transformation. I suspect that this is why the pace of change is so slow: In an ideal world, we’d all stop subscribing to notions of mainstream success and build a new, egalitarian system from scratch. But in an imperfect world, one must understand that underprivileged groups are in a unique position: They face pressure to achieve mainstream success within a system that works against them. Their other option is to work towards dismantling the system, but this process is slow, laborious, and is not likely to garner respect within mainstream society.

Shrinkhala Dawadi is a writer and managing editor at the McGill Tribune.

 

@McGillTribOp | [email protected]

a, Science & Technology

Game design thinking and the realm of possibility

by Tiffany Le on

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Founded in 1992 by current CEO Remi Racine, Behaviour Interactive is one of the largest and most successful independent game developers in Canada. Their team is made up of  over 300 employees and is headquartered here in Montreal. 

In the last year, Behaviour has worked on games like the award-winning iOS game Fallout Shelter, which the organization made in partnership with Bethesda Game Solutions. The team also worked on $92 million Kickstarter project, Star Citizen—the biggest crowdfunded video game ever developed for Microsoft Windows and Linux. Their success has been tied to their ability to make their games interactive, artistic, and above all, fun.

“Fun is very complicated,” Creative Director Peter Hammer explained. “The only thing you know is when you’re having it and when you’re not having it.”

With this in mind, Behaviour has curated a series of key universal ingredients to creating fun in video games. This is what Senior Vice-President Dominique Lebel calls “game design thinking.” 

A study conducted by Microsoft revealed that humans’ attention span has dropped from 12 to eight seconds due to smartphone usage. This means that a game must be designed as a first time experience. Its virtual world must contain a set of rules that remain persistent, unchanging, and therefore learnable to the user. There needs to be easily identifiable goals to reach and a motivating reason as to why those goals should be reached. The game must be simple and include engagement and re-engagement tools. There must be visible progress, a tangible feeling of moving forwards. Social involvement, competitiveness, and cooperation are also key. Finally, a fun game requires the idea of winning.

(forbes.com)
(forbes.com)

What Behaviour Business Solutions found, however, was that these exact same ingredients—this game design thinking—can be applied outside of videogames, and be just as effective. Although the idea of using game mechanics in business, specifically marketing, has existed for a long time, it hasn’t evolved much. Known as ‘gameification,’ the process of using games in business never evolved beyond simple tactics such as a game of spin-the-wheel to win a cup of coffee. Now, however, most people carry smartphones, which Behaviour Business Solutions aims to target to revolutionize experiences through game mechanics.

“Imagine if I was coming into work every single day [and] it was a fair world where the rules were incredibly simple; I had clear goals, there was an engagement mechanism, and I knew what I had to do to win,” Hammer stated. “[That] would be a perfect world. These mechanics exist in a game but they don’t exist in our everyday world, [which] makes it imperfect.”

Behaviour believes the problem with the real world is a lack of immediate validation. When short term results are not visible, motivation goes down. Behaviour is utilizing game design thinking to fill that gap. One of the first ways they have begun doing this is by revolutionizing the work experience. The goal is to engage employees, increase motivation, and transform learning.

“[Behaviour] is not only taking the old way of teaching and doing it digitally, but we are creating a new way of teaching,” Lebel stated.

To test their theory, Behaviour has been working with large firms such as Air Canada and Sobeys to transform their employee training processes. Infusing game mechanics into training is the distinction between a dreary test and a fun trivia game. Behaviour has also been working to employ virtual reality technology in training. This means effective use of the same technology that develops first person shooter games to create highly realistic first person training simulations. Although they are currently working largely with private corporations, this development is heading towards the public sector, specifically in education.

“Students are actually used to engaging with everything they’re doing, they’ve got all these two-way communication channels,” Hammer said. “They’re playing games; they’re completely connected at all times. Then, they go to school and the mechanics are ancient.”

Somewhere between elementary and middle school, education changes from a reward orientation to a punitive orientation. Whereas younger children are rewarded for good behaviour, older kids are being punished for bad behaviour. This extends into university and eventually the workforce. This system encourages students to prioritize grades over acquiring knowledge, which means they retain very little of the information that is important. Game design thinking will be able to make education engaging.

“It’s not a very fair system today,” Hammer said. “[The education system] values a [specific] form of academia. Some people are used to taking tests and they know how to get through the system. Are they the best? They’re the best at something. With game mechanics through design, [education] can value the best of many things.”

“Fun is very complicated,” Creative Director Peter Hammer explained. “The only thing you know is when you’re having it and when you’re not having it.”

The US government has already begun funding initiatives to change the way people are educated. This process will begin with the younger groups who are more adaptive to new technology but will expand into more serious fields that require a long and theoretical education such as medicine.

“[Behaviour] is not only taking the old way of teaching and doing it digitally, but we are creating a new way of teaching,” Lebel stated. 

Healthcare is the next public sector where game design thinking hopes to change. To do this, they want to shift the focus from treatment during illnesses to preventative care. In order to accomplish this, Behaviour aims to use the concept of immediate validation. 

“The only reward in staying healthy […] is ‘I won’t get sick,’” Hammer said. “That’s a very obscure reward compared to [a] vice, which feels good.”

For example, a person may go out for drinks with friends or eat a bag of salty chips because it feels good immediately, whereas the long term health benefits of not doing those things feels bad.

Game design thinking can add immediate validation for someone who is trying to make healthy life choices when there are no visible, physical forms of immediate validation. To do this, Behaviour Interactive hopes to link users with health insurance premiums. Insurance companies can reward its users for good behaviour, such as eating healthy and quitting smoking.

The last sector that game design thinking will be able to tackle is environment. The idea of process is key here; through game mechanics, people will become more motivated to recycle if their garbage is able to tell them exactly how much carbon emission they eliminated. Game design thinking is filling the gap that is limiting rational decisions because the payoff is not evident.

These projects take a long time to complete and perhaps longer to become fully integrated. However, they are big steps towards a dramatic change in human behaviour. The idea of game design thinking is relatively new but packed with potential. Companies like Behaviour  Interactive are paving the way towards a bold paradigm shift. 

(bhvr.com)
(bhvr.com)
a, Recipes, Student Life

Recipe: Red Lentil Soup

by Natalie Vineberg on

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Now that midterms season has graced McGill students, any prior New Year’s resolutions to cook fancy, elaborate meals have gone out the window. Enter this red lentil soup recipe, which is fast and simple; it only has three steps, and the last one is opt-outable if you’re tight for time. It’s affordable for students since the main ingredient is lentils, and the rest of the ingredients can probably be found around the house already. For those looking for a vegetarian option, the chicken broth can be swapped out for vegetable broth. Lastly, students can cook up a jumbo batch to eat at the library throughout the week; the soup freezes well, and can be warmed up for a quick snack between stints in the library. 

Ingredients

2 tbsp of olive oil

2 carrots, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 onion, diced

½ tsp of salt

1 tbsp of tomato paste

2 cups of red lentils

8 cups of chicken broth 

2 bay leaves 

Black pepper

Cayenne pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook olive oil, carrots, garlic, onion, salt, for 5 minutes, covered, over medium heat.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pot and bring to a boil. Turn down to heat to low and simmer covered until lentils fall apart. This should take approximately 20 minutes.

3. For a thicker consistency, purée half the soup. 

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