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a, McGill, News

Anonymous grading sparks debate at Senate

by Erica Friesen on

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The possibility of anonymous exam grading gave rise to debate at Senate last Wednesday.

Discussion stemmed from a report by the Academic Policy Committee, which concluded that there should be no university-wide policy on anonymous evaluations.

Anonymous grading policies have been implemented at other universities worldwide and in McGill’s Faculty of Law. The primary intention is to combat potential biases against students based on personal information that allows the marker to identify the student, their race, or their gender.

According to Provost Anthony Masi, members of the committee did not deem such a policy appropriate for implementation at the university level because grading is under the jurisdiction of individual faculties.

“Suggestions were raised concerning how to deal with this in a manner that would not be too cumbersome,” he said. “We’re not willing to say this should become university policy through the normal mechanisms. Faculties have the right to do that if they so choose.”

Some senators, however, argued against the committee’s conclusions.

“The basis that we should leave this to the faculties to decide—I’m not sure that’s a good justification for not implementing a policy that affects assessment, because assessment is something that affects all students,” Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) Representative Jonathan Mooney said.

Masi argued that more evidence is needed before the committee can move forward with further recommendations.

“We have no evidence that there is bias in grading at McGill,” he said. “If we had that empirical information, it would be very helpful [.…] I will undertake a McGill study to demonstrate it.”

Other senators argued that McGill does not need a new study to move forward on the issue.

“There is data that shows this worldwide,” Cameron Butler, Macdonald Campus Students’ Society (MCSS) representative, said. “There are no reasons to consider that McGill is somehow outside of the realm of social injustice, [so] we can logically assume that these issues exist at McGill.”

Faculty of Arts representative  and Political Science professor Catherine Lu said providing faculty with potential strategies for avoiding bias would be a more effective solution.

“I’m not sure it’s going to really help to try to figure out empirically [through] a study at McGill whether there is bias,” she said. “We have to think of strategies that actually work given the way that we actually do things in our system.”

University priorities

Senate also critiqued and made suggestions for the university’s priorities following a presentation by Principal Suzanne Fortier on McGill’s proposed priorities for the future.

These include emphasizing research; improving the university’s partnerships with alumni and other universities; and maintaining and improving McGill’s physical and digital infrastructure.

Some senators questioned the value of these priorities, noting their lack of substantive, qualitative measures.

“A few things I’ve seen are a bit fluffy and ought to be more well-rounded in what exactly we hope to achieve,” Mooney said. “‘Position McGill research teams at the forefront of knowledge’—that sounds great, but what does it mean? And how are we going to measure that?”

According to Fortier, community approval of these values will lead to another round of consultation to create a concrete plan and to set targets and timelines for reporting on progress.

“We need to know first and foremost: can we at this point mobilize around these areas?” she said.

Other senators praised the document’s emphasis on improving academic advising, and stressed the importance of developing concrete results on this topic.

“Students have been very underrepresented in getting advising services,” Faculty of Arts Advisor Ruth Kuzaitis said. “In our particular faculty the ratio is 2,000 students to one advisor [.…] It’s very unfortunate to see students go through their university studies without ever encountering an advisor [to] help navigate a complex system.”

Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens assured senators that concrete steps for improving advising should be in action within the next year.

“We already are moving on some things—for example […] we’re building an advising checklist for incoming students,” he said. “We’re going to put an emphasis on pre-arrival advising or early advising so we avoid the bottleneck later on, [and] we’re developing a series of simulators for incoming students.”

a, Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, Soccer, Sports

10 Things: Sports jargon

by Zikomo Smith on

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Sports have a weird and wonderful vocabulary of their own. In this edition of 10 Things, we aim to clarify some of the funkiest and most famous phrases in the world of sports. 

Baseball

1

CAN OF CORN— This refers to an easy-to-catch ball hit high into the outfield. There are two possible explanations for this phrase. The first is that nineteenth-century grocers would knock down cans from the highest shelves with a hook for an easy catch in their aprons. The other is that corn was the best selling vegetable, stocked on the lower shelves and thus the easiest canned good to ‘catch.’

2

CATBIRD SEAT­— This is an ideal situation for a batter during which the bases are loaded and there are no strikes nor outs to the batting sides’ name.  A catbird seeks out the highest point in a tree to sing, and the batter can likewise be seen to be on top of the world in these situations.

 

Football

3

HAIL MARY— The most iconic play in American Football is when a desperate quarterback throws the ball deep into the end zone in hopes of a game-changing touchdown late in the game. Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys popularized the name in 1975. After a game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings he said, “I closed my eyes and said a ‘Hail Mary.’”

4

BUMP AND RUN— A defensive technique used by defensive backs who are trying to slow down receivers at the line of scrimmage. It’s designed to initiate contact with the receiver in order to throw him off of his intended running route. This is also a car-theft technique, where one robber draws a driver from the car so that an accomplice can drive off with it.

Basketball

5

TOSSING UP BRICKS—  Shooting the ball in such a manner that it clangs hard off the backboard. It is usually used as an insult to someone who is shooting poorly or has an unpleasant shooting motion. If a basketball player is continuing to miss shots, then he or she can be said to have laid enough bricks to build a house.

6

THE CHARITY STRIPE— Legendary sportscaster Chick Hearn coined the phrase ‘the charity stripe’ to denote the free-throw line in basketball. When players step up to the free throw line, there is no one from the opposing team actively trying to stop them from scoring. Hence, it is deemed that they are given a charitable opportunity to score the basketball.

Hockey

7

BUTTERFLY—  A goaltending technique where the goalie falls to his or her knees with legs splayed out and arms wide, like the wings of its insect namesake. This allows the goalie to maximize coverage of the net, and to stop the puck with any part of the body. It was pioneered by Glenn Hall, who played 14 nerve-wracking NHL seasons before finally putting on a goalie mask.

8

GORDIE HOWE HAT TRICK— Named after one of the all-time great hockey players, Gordie Howe, who won four Stanley Cup Championships and six Hart Trophies as MVP. Howe was known to be as tough as he was talented—fittingly, this feat involves scoring a goal, notching an assist and getting into a fight, all in the same game.

Soccer

9

PARKING THE BUS— This is when a team sets up all of its players in a defensive position in front of goal. Thus it is almost impossible for the opposition to score as the defenders take up so much space that it is as if they were a bus taking up parking spots.

10

GETTING BOOKED—  When a player receives either a yellow or red card for a particularly bad infraction. The former is a warning that can lead to a sending off, the latter is an immediate sending off. The referee then notes the foul down in his or her notebook, hence the phrase.

a, Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

FOKUS Film Festival gets hearts racing with robust reels

by Max Mehran on

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It was only fitting that to arrive on time last Friday to the FOKUS Film Festival, I had to re-enact one of the great last-minute dash scenes in movie history. The moment my class ended at 5:55 p.m., I was zooming through the Milton-Parc area doing my best Ferris Bueller impression, pushing myself to get to Cinema du Parc before the festival’s 6 p.m. start time. While no slow-motion trampolining was necessary, I succeeded and thankfully, had the benefit of soaking up the fantastic student-run event in its entirety.

FOKUS is hosted annually by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) service Student Television at McGill (TVM), and serves to showcase the talent of up-and-coming filmmakers in the student community. This year’s installment featured 19 short films categorized as fiction, experimental, documentary, and TVM’s unique 72-hour competition films, all of which were judged for various prizes by both the audience and a panel of judges. The films were worthy of the big screen treatment, displaying strong creativity and a thorough commitment to the filmmaking process.

In the fiction category, I was seduced by J-G Debray’s Valentine’s Day, the story of an unfortunate date that unfolds in a light and amusing narrative style; while Ficol, by Alexandre Vinson, transported the room into a confused and tormented young man’s mind, punctuated by superimposed shots of alcohol and an empty apartment.

The experimental films blew me away. Glitch Walk by Ray Arzaga amazed the rest of the audience, who granted him the prize for the festival’s best film; Arzaga’s film also captured the best experimental film prize, which was determined by the judges. By using an editing of sound and image in harmony with a song, it unified four dancers merging into one. Luke Orlando and Cedric Yarish’s Far Too Awake, which received an honorable mention in the experimental category, relates with finesse the mental state of exhaustion, controlling the camera with full dexterity.

The documentaries were humble and professional. Sophia Loffreda’s Beta Orchestra looked at an emerging style of music-art that moulds together various computer-originated sounds into coherent melodies, while Julia Edelman’s Artscape narrated the story of a saxophonist by compiling a series of alluring shots to accompany the instrumental sounds.

During the intermission, I met with event organizer and U3 Arts student Chantal Africa. She described the process that TVM goes through to judge the 19 films that made it through to the festival out of over 40 applicants.

“We created different criteria for [the categories], but for most of them, cinematography, sound, and editing [were included],” says Africa. “For fiction, it was story and acting; for experimental, it was the ability to evoke feeling and emotion as well as acting; and for documentary, it was subject and presentation.”

The second half of the festival featured the 72-hour competition, a segment that challenges filmmakers to write, produce, film, edit, and turn in short films in under three days—while somehow incorporating the element of “heart beating.”

“It’s a tradition we are running,” explains Africa. “The idea of the secret element changes every year. We announced it at the very beginning of the competition, and we had a 72-hour committee come up with it.”

Taking both straightforward and poetically subtle approaches, the filmmakers incorporated the open-ended “heart beating” requirement in distinct and inventive ways. My personal favourite—which also took the judges’ prize for best 72-hour film—was Vanessa Combe’s Two Tall Blondes, which plunges its viewer into a childhood filled with sophomoric games, softly orchestrated by a calm heartbeat. I also enjoyed Yarish’s second entry in the festival, Bedrooms, an ingenious film that counts down the heartbeats before a young woman’s death.

From start to finish, the theatre was filled with steady amounts of laughter and applause, attesting to the success of a festival that kept the entertainment level high throughout. Every second counted, and my charge to the theatre proved to be well worth it.

Selections and winners from the 2014 FOKUS Film Festival can be viewed in their entirety at www.tvmcgill.com

a, News, PGSS

PGSS member takes CFS to court over disassociation referendum

by Cece Zhang on

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McGill graduate student Ge Sa has formally requested that the Quebec Superior Court order the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) to allow the Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill University (PGSS) to vote on leaving the CFS.

PGSS Councillor Sa appeared before the Court on March 18. The final decision on the case will be made after a two-day trial on Aug. 28 and 29.

This is the second attempt by PGSS to leave the CFS through a referendum. A previous attempt in 2010 was not recognized by the federation due to a disagreement about the length of the voting period. The case is also currently in court, as the CFS alleges that PGSS owes them approximately $270,000 in membership fees since the 2010 referendum.

On Oct. 11, Sa mailed a petition to the CFS with more than 2,000 signatures requesting permission to hold another referendum to leave the federation. A CFS representative acknowledged receiving  the petition on Oct. 29.

According to its bylaws, the CFS had 90 days to determine whether the petition was in order. When he did not receive a response in that timeframe, Sa filed court proceedings with the Quebec Superior Court to ensure that PGSS could schedule a referendum to leave the organization.

PGSS Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney explained that although there is no verdict currently, the trial in August is encouraging and leaves the possibility of a Fall referendum question.

“The judge offered dates for a trial to make a final decision over this summer,” Mooney said. “So the trial was fast-tracked—we’ll have a decision faster than it would be otherwise.”

This trial is part of a seven-year dispute between PGSS and the federation. Sa explained that PGSS cannot afford to wait for the final verdict on the previous case to disaffiliate, as the membership fees for the federation continue to accumulate by approximately $50,000 per semester.

“The [2010] litigation is ongoing, and will likely drag on for several more years,” Sa said. “Until that gets resolved, we have to set aside a certain amount every year as contingency funding. What I’m trying to do is to have a referendum without prejudice to the previous litigation, just to determine from this point onwards, whether PGSS is still a member of CFS through this referendum.”

In addition to the two court cases, PGSS is also working to lobby the government to expand the Act Respecting The Accreditation and Financing of Students’ Associations (ARAFSA) to include regulation of leaving student organizations. They have met with Quebec Higher Education Minister Pierre Duschesne, who has expressed interest in the case, as well as Liberal higher education critic Pierre Arcand, who recently sent a letter to Duschesne in their support.

“Right now [ARAFSA] gives student organizations the right to be recognized by universities, and the right to assemble and be recognized by universities,” PGSS Financial Affairs Officer Erik Larson said. “But it doesn’t provide any way to disaffiliate from federal organizations.”

According to Sa, the PGSS’ multiple approaches to disaffiliation mean there should be some movement regarding membership this year.

“No matter what the outcomes of the previous litigation may be, we’ll have a referendum to see if we will continue to be a member of the CFS in the Fall semester,” Sa said. “On the other hand, we will push to lobby the government to devise more appropriate and fair approaches to the ways that student organizations should be.”

a, Features

Incubating innovation: a university’s role in fostering social entrepreneurship

by Alessandra Hechanova on

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Canada’s social economy is replete with innovators inspired by a global consciousness that transforms oppression into opportunity. It is a sector that is neither publicly nor privately controlled and touts one of the fastest growth rates in the country.

According to Statistics Canada, non-profit industries contributed $35.6 billion to the national economy in 2007, exceeding the value added by the agricultural industry more than two-fold and that of the motor vehicle manufacturing industry several times over. Within the social economy, entrepreneurs are leveraging the market system to think critically for solutions to the world’s most pressing economic, environmental, and social problems.  Through critical interdisciplinary learning, niche mentorship, and networking opportunities, academic institutions like McGill are positioned to foster the talents of young innovators who inaugurate and add value to organizations within one of the fastest-growing sectors of the Canadian economy.

And much like a university cannot be represented by one feature, its methods for encouraging students to engage in the social economy can be seen at multiple levels of the institution.

Emulating empathy: a pedagogy of interdisciplinarity 

Industry Canada reported that 98 per cent of higher education institutions in the country offer at least one course in entrepreneurship; however, entrepreneurs surveyed by the 2013 Ernst & Young (EY) G20 Entrepreneurship Barometer were critical of Canada’s lack of coordinated support for entrepreneurship and weak mentorship opportunities. In 2012, the Desautels Faculty of Management began to institutionalize a pedagogy tailored to address this issue by launching MGPO 438, an undergraduate elective called “Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation.”

Anita Nowak, former integrating director of the faculty’s Social Economy Initiative (SEI) and professor of MGPO 438, noted how social entrepreneurship can invigorate new forms of academic instruction.

“It is a catalyst for different ways of teaching across the entire university system,” Nowak said. “Social innovation is about systems change. Any specific problem in one area has its tentacles in other issues, and systems-thinking addresses this holistically.”

Mentorship and outreach occupy a central place in the curriculum of Nowak’s popular course. The class features guest-speakers who serve as role models in the social economy.

The momentum of what Nowak coins the “social entrepreneurship zeitgeist” is establishing its foothold in the Faculty of Management, as the SEI plans to scale its efforts to offer related courses relevant to the social economy.

However, Nowak still sees room for improvement.

“There should be more opportunities that intentionally foster cross-border interdisciplinarity between management and other faculties,” Nowak said, emphasizing the ability of universities to magnetize and bring together the world’s brightest minds. “Every faculty on campus can contribute to social innovation. The convergence of different ways of problem-solving situates social entrepreneurship now in a great moment in time.”

Universities are often able to instigate important and informed conversations about specific social problems that can benefit from interdisciplinary dialogue and experiential learning. U3 International Management student Joanna Klimczak and McGill alumnus Mariana Botero worked tirelessly to pioneer the new Social Business and Social Enterprise Concentration within the faculty. They were both conscious of the advantage of interdisciplinary studies in the context of social innovation. This option allows Management students to integrate classes that focus on corporate social responsibility and social impact with those offered under the International Development Studies curriculum, in addition to other related courses outside the Faculty of Management.

As McGill moves forward, Klimczak hopes the new concentration will serve as fuel to energize a new generation of business leaders.

“It’s one thing to create an idea, and another to make it happen in a large institution with resource limits,” said Klimczak. “While certain management courses definitely [impart] skills for social entrepreneurship, this concentration will be a lot more encompassing.”

The university will thus be urged by students to temper its desire for innovation with the constraints of its structure as an administration.

“McGill is taking a step in the right direction, but its bureaucracy as an institution stifles innovation,” said Sean Reginio, U3 Arts, who completed Nowak’s course last Fall. “Procedures as simple as room-booking for meetings and venues on campus are difficult in an institution of McGill’s size.”

U3 Management student Nikita Pillai echoed this sentiment.

“McGill is a mecca for talent and skill,” Pillai said. “But, for as long as bureaucratic red tape exists, there will be inertia in academic innovation.”

Fostering confidence and competition

Through competitions and mentorship opportunities, universities can become micro-environments with the potential to address gaps in the public sector’s existing services supporting young entrepreneurs. According to Industry Canada, these shortcomings include unreliable access to start-up funds, long-term mentoring, and restrictions on a young entrepreneur’s eligibility for government assistance. HackMcGill and Computer Science Undergraduate Society’s (CSUS) McHacks—a 24-hour inter-university undergraduate hackathon—and the McGill Dobson Cup, a start-up competition, provide world-class mentorship opportunities from industry professionals and encourage inter-disciplinary solution-making.

“The Dobson cup could be the natural springboard for social enterprises to launch by gaining exposure to key impact investors,” Nowak said. “If [students] don’t have interface opportunities, innovation may never happen.”

Rewarding ingenuity through mentorship and thousands of dollars can make the formative difference in helping a young entrepreneur overcome significant barriers when starting a venture.

“I always knew that I had an interest in entrepreneurship, but it’s risky,” said U3 Arts Jessica Wang­—who won first prize at the Dobson Cup in its social enterprise track. She and with her partner Jassi Pannu co-founded Sanitru, a social enterprise dedicated to reducing the incidence of drug treatment errors.  “The social and financial support network gave me the confidence to pursue entrepreneurship.  If we hadn’t won the Dobson, I don’t know if I would have tried.”

More so than through pedagogy, the university steps up to its role as a true catalyst for social innovation by galvanizing networking opportunities outside of the classroom.

McGill regularly mobilizes its resources to sponsor summits and symposiums that give students exclusive opportunities to interface with high-profile leaders and social entrepreneurs at little to no cost. Within the past academic year alone, McGill welcomed Thomas Mulcair, Justin Trudeau, former vice-president of the United States Al Gore, and Elizabeth May. Mentorship often inspires a certain veneer of confidence in young innovators to consider a vocation in social entrepreneurship.

“I didn’t plan for [Nobel Peace Prize winner] Muhammad Yunus to come to Montreal […but] I approached him at a global leadership summit at McGill about [starting] an incubator and accelerator for young people,” said Klimczak, who is also the President and Co-founder of myVision, a student-run business that focuses on creating social business projects. “He told me to envision the world and how you live in it. Then you can create that world. That’s how myVision was born.”

The myVision initiative leverages education as the fulcrum to resolve local challenges within Montreal, providing university and high school students with an understanding of how social business projects can sustain palpable community-level change.

“Social business was a way for me to personally integrate my life, career, and care for community,” Klimczak said.

Opportunity within the campus network

A major advantage of a campus environment is the wide array of clubs and organizations as well as internships offered to university students.

Internship programs facilitated through individual faculties at McGill also foster a social ecology that makes academic development come alive through praxis. New to Desautels is the SEI impact internship program which partners students with Montreal-based non-profit organizations engaged in social finance and fostering social innovation such as the Jeanne Sauvé Foundation and Artistri Sud.

“The network I have moving forward is way bigger than it ever would have been if I had never [attended] university,” admitted Reginio, who completed an SEI impact internship during its pilot year in 2013. “The intuition you gain about how to lead and manage the human dynamics of a team is from practice with real experience—everything [outside] the classroom. Through niche opportunities and experiences [facilitated by] McGill, I became comfortable with the idea of entrepreneurship as a potential career.”

The number of possibilities for student engagement in McGill’s hundreds of clubs and services has the potential to impart crucial skills that can add significant value for would-be entrepreneurs.

“A general skill-set derives from an executive position […] in extracurricular leadership,” said Pillai, who is also the former vice president external of McGill Women in Leadership.  “Student organizations tend to have specific mandates, and students learn to tailor their communications and sell their ideas in accordance with that mandate.”

McGill’s robust approach to social innovation is supported by a campus-wide ethos supporting of community engagement. This operates on several scales through outward-oriented initiatives such as the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office’s Community Engagement day and faculty-level working groups such as the Arts Community Engagement Committee. The university is able to further encourage critical thinking about social initiatives through inward-oriented social financing opportunities such as the McGill Sustainability Projects Fund and through the dozens of charitable organizations, leadership accelerators, and social activism groups that are financed by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU).

The university-wide commitment to community engagement also helps to form networks that indirectly nurture the seedlings of students’ visions of social change into concrete projects.

Saba Balvardi, U2 Science, arrived at McGill from a small village in Iran with an initiative to address the pediatric health concerns of underserved communities in the southern province of her country, but lacked the network to do so. Meeting likeminded students with similar interests and complementary skillsets through the Muslim Students’ Association enabled Balvardi to start Project Hiva, a student-run initiative that translates and produces culturally-sensitive illustrations for Canadian Paediatric Society health education brochures issued initially in English.

“Joining different groups at McGill helped make Project Hiva possible,” Balvardi said.

The confluence of McGill’s resources  provide long-term opportunities for students with visions that look beyond business and more towards a more equitable social economy.

Prospects for progress 

Within McGill, innovators can look forward to myVision McGill’s social business summit on March 28, anticipated as the largest of its kind to ever take place at the university. The summit invites social entrepreneurs to facilitate social business workshops, culminating in the launch of the myVision internship database and a virtual address delivered from Yunus himself.

Social innovation is not just the flavour of the month, but the refrain of our generation. As the social economy becomes an increasingly attractive entry-point into the workforce, Nowak advised that students not ask, but demand that courses and observable institutionalized support for social innovation across all levels of the university be made available and accessible to students.

“What is required is a concerted effort across a critical mass of students,” Nowak said.

She encouraged students to reframe the parameters of their expectations for the future.

“University is the best time of your life [to consider social entrepreneurship] because you are unburdened by major responsibilities,” Nowak said.  “When people are in alignment with what they’re meant to be doing, coincidences and doors open up and allow that energy to flourish.”

a, Arts & Entertainment

Pop Rhetoric: You can’t handle the truth—unless it’s handled properly

by Wyatt Fine-Gagné on

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The first time I listened through Benji, the latest offering from Sun Kil Moon, I was wandering around Macdonald Campus trying to find a place to get a coffee. I’d finally figured out where I could buy one when the sweet organ at the beginning of “Jim Wise” came on. The song tells the story of a man on house arrest for mercy-killing his terminally ill wife, but then is unable to successfully end his own life while at her bedside in a hospital. The story engrossed me, and by its end, I found myself in a hallway I didn’t recognize, unsure of how I got there, and still without a cup of coffee in my hands.

Benji has been well received for the most part by critics and listeners, drawing praise for its lyricism above all else. It is quite literal, with singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek describing actual events from his life in a straightforward fashion, recounting specific stories without the use of metaphors or other figures of speech. This type of songwriting often leads to lyrics that are cumbersome and awkward; however, when done well, it tends to produce incredibly poignant and touching music.

Lyrics that hide most of their meaning below the surface are not inherently better or worse than the kind that Kozelek puts forth on Benji—they’re simply different. When the “verbal obfuscation,” as Ian Cohen of Pitchfork calls the former style, is wiped away, you’re left to deal with your own emotion. Instead of forcing you to dig into the lyrics, these songs make you dig into your own self, looking inward rather than outward for meaning or significance. The visceral quality of this well-executed lyricism has the ability to provoke ephemeral moments of intense listener engagement—as it did for me on Macdonald campus—and holds true across all genres, not just folk rock.

One of the best rap albums in recent memory uses this formula extraordinarily well. Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, M.A.A.D. city is a concept album that takes you inside his upbringing in Compton, a world where family and faith act as last lines of defence against gang violence and crime. The album’s meaning is grounded in characters and stories, not hidden behind clever wordplay, which gives added significance to the lessons and ideas that it preaches.

Another example is “Stan,” Eminem’s disturbingly vivid narrative about an imbalanced fan who communicates with the rapper through a series of letters that go unanswered—until it’s too late. Though not explicitly autobiographical, “Stan” takes the same lyrical approach as Kozelek and Lamar, and it is widely viewed as one of his best songs.

It’s hard to pinpoint examples in mainstream music where this style flat out doesn’t work. Simply put, the songs that fall short of capturing something special are likely tabled, rather than pushed by producers and labels. Even though so few unimpressive songs get released, sometimes it happens. On Benji, “Dogs” stands out as one of the lowlights, as Kozelek messily recounts past sexual experiences, but fails to find any truths about the difference between love and sex.

The Weakerthans have a catalogue filled with interesting characters and songs such as “Our Retired Explorer (Dines with Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961)”—its premise exactly what its title describes—are quite clever, but don’t manage to venture far beyond that. Stories like these function well enough in songs that disguise their meaning, but in order to succeed in the style discussed here, you need to find tales in which listeners can see themselves.

As “Stan” shows, the narratives don’t necessarily need to be true either. Sufjan Stevens is quite good at writing songs that feel more like stories, the best of which might be “Casimir Pulaski Day.” Stevens sings about a lover whose significant other is diagnosed with cancer and later passes away. It is beautiful, devastating, and entirely made up, but the fact that it is fiction doesn’t make it any less impactful. When the song is over, you’re left with a stinging feeling of loss, forced to confront some of the sadness in your own life.

On Benji’s opener “Carissa,” Kozelek sings about trying to “find some poetry [….] to find a deeper meaning/In this senseless tragedy.” But rather than a string of his own thoughts on death or loss, Kozelek tells a story and allows the audience to decide why it matters. We tend to prefer romanticised versions of our own everyday life in much of the content we consume. Though on the surface it may seem as if there is no “poetry” in our lives, it’s there; and songs like these allow us to see it.

a, Baseball, Sports

The great experiment: Jackie and the Montreal Royals

by Elie Waitzer on

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It’s no secret that Montreal is not a baseball city. The Expos moved out because nobody showed up to their games. Nobody came to watch Pedro Martinez throw fire every five days, or Tim Raines rob hit after hit on the outfield grass, or Gary “Kid” Carter fire bullets to second base. Some pointed fingers at Expos owner Jeffrey Loria, but in Montreal, baseball season had always been little more than a time to recover from the hangover of the Habs’ latest playoff run.

If you want to find a piece of baseball lore in Montreal, you would have to look in the right spot.

First, you’d have to go back in time to before the Expos brought Major League Baseball to Canada. Then you’d have to walk a bit—the opening of the metro is still 20 years away. Rush out of your 8:30 a.m. lecture (it’s a day game; there is no stadium lighting, not yet at least) up University and through the Plateau. A few blocks past Saint-Denis you would cut through Parc La Fontaine and hang a right.

You have arrived at Delorimier Stadium. It’s Opening Day for the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top farm club, the Montreal Royals. The date is May 1, 1946. You take a seat and listen to the sound of 16,000 adoring fans screaming one man’s name: Jackie.

It was not by chance that Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the colour barrier in professional sports, came to Montreal to play ball. Despite having just fought a war in which the enemy was vilified for its horrific discriminatory practices, the United States remained thoroughly segregated. People may have been comfortable sending African-Americans overseas to die for their country, but they wouldn’t dream of letting a black player onto the hallowed fields of their national pastime.

As the story goes, the integration of African-American players into professional baseball was put to a vote in 1946. Of the sixteen major league owners polled, all but one voted against.  The exception was Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In Rickey’s eyes, the issue at hand wasn’t desegregation or civil rights. He saw a strategic advantage; dormant sluggers waiting to be handed bats and gloves. According to baseball historian Jack Jedwab, Rickey once confided that “the greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of the game is the black race […] who will make us winners for years to come.”

As with all established traditions, segregation was not a status quo that could be slowly chipped away at. Rickey knew that he needed an athlete who could open America’s eyes so wide that they could never be fully shut again. He needed someone who could dazzle on the field and present an honest image off the field. In Rickey’s words: “We need to convince the world that I’m doing this because [he’s] a great ballplayer and a fine gentleman.”

After passing over established Negro League stars such as Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, Rickey found Robinson—an articulate, college-educated, soon-to-be-married Methodist—and the ‘Great Experiment’ was hatched.

Every detail was carefully planned out. Montreal was chosen due to its comparatively weak racial prejudices, and the fact that most of the Royals’ games would be played north of the Mason-Dixon line. The demarcation separated the Confederate states and the Union states during the Civil War and remained a cultural boundary in the years that followed.

The signing itself was kept a secret until October 23, 1945, months after Robinson’s arrival in Montreal. South of the border, the announcement stirred up a national debate, with baseball legends such as Roger Hornsby, Bob Feller, and Connie Mack vehemently opposed to the idea of possibly competing against a black player in the big leagues, let alone having one on their own team. Robinson, of course, was conveniently out of the American media’s reach, and as the cold winter months rolled by, the controversy was buried under metres of Montreal snow.

While popular retellings of the Robinson legend—such as Brian Helgeland’s recent Hollywood biopic 42—often gloss over this period, it can be argued that Robinson’s first winter in Montreal was the beginning of baseball’s desegregation.  After experiencing rejection and hatred in countless American cities, Robinson was surprised when he was able to rent a room in the predominantly French-Canadian neighbourhood of Villeray without a problem. His wife Rachel, who spoke to the Montreal Gazette years later about her experiences, remembered the people of Montreal as warm and hospitable. The children of Avenue de Gaspé rushed to carry her groceries up the icy steps to the apartment, and neighbours began sewing maternity clothes when she became pregnant.

“It was likely that [Rickey] knew the Robinsons would be warmly greeted by the neighbours,” Jedwab said in a recent special to the Gazette

The division in Quebec has always been a linguistic one, and any racist undercurrents would have taken a backseat to the ingrained Anglo-Franco tensions.

“Since most people in the neighbourhood didn’t speak English, the couple was a kind of curiosity […] while the Robinsons were stared at on the streets, the stares were friendly,” Jedwab said. Although the family may not have been able to communicate with their neighbours save for hand gestures, they had found a place where “Jackie” would be recognized and respected first and foremost as a ballplayer, not a black player.

Unburdened by the weight of the civil rights narrative, Robinson took the International League by storm in 1946. The Royals began their season on a long road trip, but news of his prodigious exploits slowly filtered back to Montreal. Rumours swirled that he had knocked a three-run homer in his first at-bat and stolen home his next time on base.

By the time the Royals’ home opener rolled around, Montreal was in the grip of Canada’s first baseball frenzy. According to Toronto Star reporter Richard Griffin, Robinson was unable to join the team’s pre-game practice because he was too busy signing autographs for adoring Royals fans. The Royals won the game 12-9 and, nestled in the riotous crowd of 16,000; Habs legend Maurice Richard would remember the moment as the first time Montreal had cheered for something other than hockey. In a recent retrospective on the magical opening day, New York Times’ sportswriter Joe Sheehan wrote: “Robinson had fully justified [Rickey’s] precedent-setting break with what was described as a baseball tradition.”

Robinson would go on to lead his Royals to a 100-win season and their first Junior World Series title over Louisville. He led the league with a scorching .349 average to go along with 113 runs and 40 steals. After the final out of the championship game was recorded, fans poured out of the bleachers and rushed onto the field, chanting Robinson’s name. Sam Maltin, a stringer for the Pittsburgh Courier, famously described the scene at the time as “the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on the mind.”

But by no means was Robinson’s season with the Royals free of discrimination. The team would get off the bus in Florida or Georgia, only to find their games canceled because their second baseman was black. Griffin recalls that “On road trips […] no team hotel would take African-Americans.” Through it all, Robinson expressed no desire to retaliate nor turn back. He hoped that Americans listening to his games on the radio would slowly grow used to the idea of an African-American playing in the major leagues. Whatever abuse Robinson experienced on the road, he knew he could always heal his bruises back home.  In their cozy apartment on de Gaspé, the Robinsons were accepted without prejudice.

While baseball tends to paint an overly-nostalgic image of history, one wonders if Montreal has been moving backwards ever since Jackie Robinson left town. All that remains of the hallowed grounds of Deloriomier on which Robinson played is a modest bronze plaque in honour of his accomplishments. Jarry Park Stadium, the Expos’ original field, has been repurposed as a tennis stadium; meanwhile Olympic Stadium, the most recent home of  the Expos, stands as a shell of its former self.

The Expos have been gone for a decade now, and over the next few decades, their legacy will fade, as did that of the Royals. Soon, it may be hard to imagine that the crack of bat on ball ever sounded in this city. The role that Montreal played in the civil rights movement should not serve as a reason to put our city on a pedestal, but as a constant reminder of what Montreal once was, and what it can be.

a, Opinion

Fool me twice, shame on SSMU

by Ben Reedijk on

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SSMU has made its fair share of mistakes this year. We messed up frosh. We messed up on the Farnan apology. We certainly messed up on the building referendum. But all these mistakes would pale in comparison to the mistake President Larson seems to be planning on making. A re-referendum would be a slap in the faces of students and an affront to democracy.

I study democracy—both from the political science and the theory side. It is really complicated, and rarely cut and dry. For example, should President-elect Khan have to advance to a run-off against  runner-up Ayukawa? He only received 78 more votes than her—less than 30 per cent of the total votes—and that’s before we count the abstentions so beloved by McGill Memes (which pointed out that more voters abstained than actually voted for Khan). According to SSMU bylaws, Khan is a democratically elected president. But if this were France, he wouldn’t be, and many theorists would argue he is not. Again: democracy is almost never cut and dry.

There are, however, some pretty basic principles. One of them is that under no circumstances do you re-run referendums. Doing so is a wildly abusive act because it allows for the institution that controls referendums—in this case SSMU—to run referendums ad nauseum until it gets the result it wants. If that’s the plan, we should really just stop kidding ourselves, ignore the constitution (because we’re probably about to abuse it anyways), and just hike student fees unilaterally.

Actually, that would have been a preferable option. As insulting as it would have been to charge students without asking them, it’s far more damaging to ask them and then ignore their answer. Compounding matters and showing that we really just don’t get why students see us as disconnected, apparently the line from the executives is that students just didn’t pay enough attention, so they are going to get another try at making the ‘right’ choice. Even North Korea is generous enough to provide just one option on the ballot in the first place and save everybody some time.

The reality is that we don’t want to accept responsibility for our own mistakes. SSMU ignored the recommendations of a couple of councillors and chose political correctness over principle and common sense when they censured Farnan. There was a profound willingness to listen when students en masse protested against the apology. It actually took the Black Students’ Network coming to Council and pleading with us to reverse the apology and to stop making a mockery of the equity process.

We weren’t done. Organic Campus came to Council asking for a 20-cent fee levy. We asked them why, and they told us that it was because they will otherwise have to raise costs next year in order to operate. We asked them how much and they hadn’t run the numbers. Because its easier to get Council to vote in a fee levy (which then gets passed because Organic Campus campaigned for it and nobody campaigns against 20-cent fee levies) than it is to actually do math. But at Council, again, we didn’t feel offended enough by that assertion to scrap the referendum on the levy.

Concerns from myself and Councillor Élie Lubendo that perhaps the plethora of fee increases might lead to a backlash were politely ignored.

Finally, we showed the same disdain we have for students—those pesky, apolitical students—by not even campaigning for our fee. So if you’re keeping score at home, SSMU has now embarrassed itself with Farnangate, ignored the reaction of student body entirely,  put to shame by the Black Students Network, shown zero respect for students’ wallets (frosh and Organic Campus), and a lack of respect for their ability to say enough by running nine fee increases at the same time and not campaigning for our own.

The line from SSMU is that those students just didn’t know what they were doing: “Gerts is going to be gone!’” “SACOMSS as well!”

(Wrong: Gerts is highly profitable and not going anywhere,  and SACOMSS is separately funded.)

The problem isn’t the students. The problem is SSMU. If this vote doesn’t make us realize that, nothing will.

Ben Reedijk is an Arts Representative to SSMU, and sits on SSMU Council. The views represented here are his alone. 

a, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Deep cuts: sound bites from Seattle

by Jessica Fu on

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Thank You For Tonight (feat. Eliza Young)

Artist: Sam Lachow

Album: Brand New Bike

Released: January 1, 2011

This rapper begins his nostalgic track with trademark smooth vocals, which he proceeds to layer over rhythmic percussions, rich keyboard cadences, and mesmerizing saxophone samples. He paints an evocative scene—“Green eyes sitting over red lips/Cigarette smoke drips up thick”—while maintaining his work’s characteristically playful tone —“I don’t know what I’m doing/But I know I’m having fun,/ And I don’t know where I’m going/ But I hope you might want to come.” Young proceeds to steal the show with her smoky chorus, concluding one of the most soulful tracks on the album.

A Long Midwinter

Artist: The Horde and the Harem

Album: A Long Midwinter

Released: February 2, 2012

The Horde and the Harem features multiple vocalists taking turns crooning about winter coats, fine clothing, and how “The snow kept falling, such a chill to our hearts” in this noteworthy track. Over a harmonic pairing of keys and guitar strums, the song builds itself up and finally concludes in a sorrowful, melodic cadence. How a band from the Pacific Northwest could so accurately describe the specificities of the Montreal college student winter experience, we will never know.

I Want You

Artist: Odesza

Album: Summer’s Gone

Released: September 6, 2012

This young electronic duo mixes choppy, seemingly erratic cries with metered synthetic snaps in this bright track. Twinkling electronic echoes saturate the song from beginning to end, evoking promising images of the energy of youth and the highs of summer, despite what the album’s title may otherwise suggest.

Elegy

Artist: Hey Marseilles

Album: Lines We Trace

Released: March 5, 2013

Hey Marseilles employs a full symphony—or so it feels—in “Elegy.” These indie rockers expertly balance string work and drumbeats, which supplement their warm, melodic vocals. As the song progresses, its high-arching instrumentals and unanswered lyrical musings lead into a hopeful conclusion that makes you feel as though you’ve been transported out of winter, through spring, past summer, and into fall—all in slow motion.

a, Sports

Women in sports journalism

on

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In November 2013, a San Francisco sports radio host made a number of misogynistic statements on air, arguing that women did not belong in the world of sports journalism. The resulting uproar shone a spotlight on some of the barriers preventing women from breaking into, and moving up, in sports media today.

According to Amy Lawrence, a CBS radio host, roughly 90 per cent of the producers and on-air talents in sports radio are male. In sports television too, men outnumber women in production roles, as noted by award-winning multimedia journalist Amy K. Nelson. That’s not to mention the alienation some female journalists can feel in male professional locker rooms, outlined in a Sports Illustrated  piece on the subject in November shortly after the comments were made. 

Despite some recent milestones for women in sports media—Molly Solomon was named executive producer for the Golf Channel in 2012—progress has been extremely slow in dismantling the “old boys’ club” mentality of the sports world. In this edition of Changing the Game, we look at how to break down the institutional obstacles that exist for women looking to enter and rise up in the field of sports journalism in order to promote greater diversity in the world of sports media.

Athletes first, reporters second

While women in sports journalism undoubtedly face many industry-specific obstacles, the heart of this problem is the assumption that women are not—or should not be—as interested in sports as men. Athletics organizations need to encourage and legitimize women’s participation in sports culture by increasing support for women to be involved at the foundation of that culture—as athletes. Women cannot thrive professionally in a culture where their participation is consistently undermined by limited opportunities as athletes and a lack of publicity due to poor media coverage.

The promotion of a sports culture in which women can feel comfortable and encouraged to participate athletically is key to their ability to participate in other professions in the field. Whether through increased funding, opportunities, or media coverage, an emphasis on the legitimacy of women’s sports would perpetuate positive views about the acceptance of women in the sports world in general. Role models like Hayley Wickenheiser and Christine Sinclair may encourage girls to not only become athletes, but also be more involved in sports culture through other avenues like journalism. An increase in female athletes would also create a pool of experienced and qualified women to provide expertise and insight as sports journalists once they have retired.

For women to be taken seriously in the world of sports media, we need to make it normal for them to be engaged in athletics culture—whether as viewers, athletes, or journalists.

—Erica Friesen

Recruiting to smash the glass ceiling

Similar to scientific disciplines or engineering, the glass-ceiling paradigm is also in effect for women in sports journalism. There are only a few token jobs considered suitable specifically for women, such as sideline reporter or on-screen reporter. Consequently, there is a lack of role models and, subconsciously, achieving roles of power seems unattainable and ‘unconventional.’

Broadcasters need to start actively seeking women in sports journalism. There are plenty of women attempting to rise up in the field, but men in power perpetuate the present inequality. It is these men in power that need to acknowledge their own biases and start recruiting women. Moreover, women’s voice in sports needs to be considered valid not ‘radical’ because they are not mimicking the ‘conventional’ male voice.

This is not to suggest looking to increase the number of women in sports journalism simply for the sake of gender equality. Hiring women who are not competent to simply fill a quota would continue to perpetuate the idea that women have no place in the sports world.

What needs to occur is the hiring of women who are qualified, not only with on-screen roles, but in production roles that hold more responsibility. This would create an influential drive that would continue making a positive change in sports journalism.

—Rebecca Babcock

The fix is in the family

The issue of gender equality is in no way unique to the world of sports, so it stands to reason that any possible solutions won’t be either. The vast majority of professions have been ‘old boys clubs,’ and in many ways, upper level executive positions continue to be. For as far as our society has progressed in terms of accepting women as more than mothers and homemakers, the overwhelming attitude still seems to be that if a working woman wants to have children, it is up to her to balance raising a family with pursuing a career. By the time most women are at the point where they’ve paid their dues and earned an executive spot, they have also made decisions about starting a family. Options for childcare and paid leave are severely lacking in Canada, and many women opt out of the elite tracks they may be on to focus on their families when they are forced with the choice.

As freelance multimedia journalist Amy K. Nelson suggests, the real problem in the world of sports is a lack of women in positions of power. There is no doubt in my mind that women are more than capable of keeping their heads down, putting in their work, and rising to the top despite any workplace misogyny they might encounter. However, no real, sustainably beneficial change will come for women in any workplace—the sports industry included—until systemic change is effected in terms of childcare for both mothers and fathers. This would allow women to fill higher ranking positions, which would in turn lead to increased equality for women in the world of sports.

—Jacqueline Galbraith

Putting the coach in the booth

The best way to increase the presence of women in the media is to include more female voices in serious tactical analysis of male sports. Analysis of basketball is an area where this could be attainable, given the litany of Hall of Fame basketball coaches who have deep insights into the game that are at a level far higher than the current on-camera product. Great basketball minds like Pat Summitt, C. Vivian Stringer and Jody Conradt would put Skip Bayless in his place far more effectively than Stephen A. Smith. Moves like this would give credibility to women’s views on sport and allow for female opinions to be embraced without criticism; after all, people are less likely to question the acumen of a professional coach who has embodied the culture of winning in her sport than male commentators who themselves have never been involved with professional sports.

Subsequently,viewers would become more accustomed to serious and analytical female voices in sports and these commentators will provide young women with visible role models. Ultimately, fans are going to demand coverage by those who display a deep knowledge of whatever is being talked about, and given the level of expertise of female coaches, there is certainly a supply.

—Zikomo Smith

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