The RSEQ-leading McGill Redmen squared off against the Sherbrooke Vert et Or in a Thursday night matchup at Percival Molson Stadium. The Redmen dominated from start to finish, posting a 43-3 victory. McGill’s James Wilson scored three tries and Cameron Perrin tacked on eight points en-route to the team’s fifth straight win of the season.
The Redmen are the clear favourites to win the rugby RSEQ Championship again this season, and have continued to impress sitting atop their conference with a 5-0 record.
McGill’s ability to set the tone of the match right from the opening whistle was on full display Thursday evening. Just under two minutes into the game, McGill’s Thomas Stokes, a rookie fullback from Vancouver, British Columbia, recorded a try to put the Redmen up 5-0. Third-year centre Hugo Peurois quickly followed up with his own try four minutes later to give McGill a 10-0 lead.
However, that quickly signaled the beginning of a scoring slump for the Redmen as they struggled against Sherbrooke’s mounting pressure. McGill was called for a number of penalties, breaking up the offensive rhythm and forcing the home team into uncharacteristically sloppy plays. Wilson scored once more for McGill at 28:54, while the Vert et Or’s Yannick Mailhot tallied Sherbrooke’s only points off of a penalty goal to close the half at 15-3.
Assistant Coach Ian Baillie said he believes that the squad still has room to improve in the technical aspects of the game, despite its spotless record.
“Our fundamentals are good [but] we’ve got to continue to work on basic skills,” Baillie remarked. “Primarily handling the ball—we still throw the ball a little poorer than we want to [….] Protecting the ball, handling the ball, [that’s something] we’ll continue to work on.”
It was clear that the Redmen wanted to re-establish control of the game as they came out of the locker room looking more engaged. Third-year wing Robert Ashe scored for McGill just 1:35 into the second half, scoring his second try of the season. The Redmen then proceeded to open up their lead, as the strong forward pack controled the flow of the game by dominating the rucks. McGill put the match after two more tries by Wilson and one additional try by centre Patrick Mulherin. Junior fullback Perrin scored on his last four conversion attempts to help ensure McGill’s victory.
The Redmen had previously played the Vert et Or in their first game of the season, scraping out a narrow 7-5 victory on Sept. 6. As a result, McGill entered this meeting with a fresh game plan for Sherbrooke.
“This is the second time around so you’ve seen everybody once already,” said Baillie. “We wanted to change things a little bit, wanted to hold onto the ball a little more [and] protect it a little better. [We wanted to] attack the middle of the field, draw them in, and then spread the ball wide. The first time we played them, we were going wide in the beginning so we wanted to change that.”
Now sporting an 11-game win streak dating back to last year including the RSEQ Championships the Redmen have only the highest expectations placed upon them this season.
“The aspiration is always to win each time you come out to play,” said Baillie. “What we want to do is continue to improve and continue to get better [….] Ultimately, our end goal is to host the final and see what we can do there.”
McGill has three regular season games remaining before the RSEQ playoffs. The team will play the winless Montreal Carabins (0-4) on Oct. 19 at Macdonald Campus for Homecoming Week.
Tuesday’s “Campus Conversation” item in the Tribune features four students offering their opinions on whether McGill is in decline. The range of responses covered the entire spectrum: definitely, maybe, maybe not, not really.
I applaud the fact that our students take the future of our institution seriously. I also applaud and welcome the fact that they constantly challenge us to be better.
Kate Sheridan, a student Senator, provided the key to reading this diversity of opinion among student leaders: “It depends on your perspective.”
Quebec is dead last among provinces in funding its universities’ operating budgets.
McGill is a Quebec university.
McGill is suffering – but it saved itself by having a strategy of improving the research performance of its professoriate.
Former SSMU President Josh Redel argued that the failure to allow student groups to use the McGill name, a symptom of trying to protect a “brand,” showed how far the University depended on its past glories, and he expressed the view that McGill is doing too little to get professors to take their pedagogical role as seriously as their research efforts.
SSMU Science representative Devin Bissky Dziadyk, while recognizing the external constraints on the University, pointed to the resilience of McGill and the still outstanding quality and performance of its professors, staff and students, and implied that any downhill motion could be checked in time to protect McGill’s reputation.
Ms. Sheridan, in addition to offering insight on perspective and showing she is aware of the external constraints, described an overall positive trajectory that could be used to the advantage of a new Principal and new Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning).
As McGill’s chief academic officer (after the Principal), I take the opinions of these students very seriously and I share their communal sense of ambiguity when it comes to answering a question like, “Is McGill declining?”
So please allow me to take a crack at answering that question and commenting on the thoughtful responses of the four students.
There should be no doubt that McGill, in comparison with its peer group of public research universities, is underfunded. That underfunding comes from two sources: a lower average contribution on the part of the provincial government to the operating budget and much lower average tuition fees paid by students, especially for undergraduate and professional programs.
However, regardless of the financial constraints, there are legitimate questions about what we actually do with what we have. Our scorecard on student-centredness is far from enviable, according to the survey data, yet the examples of the interactions between researchers and students in the various venues across Faculties indicate positive experiences that should be expanded. Facilitating innovative learning environments is, in fact, a pillar of our academic strategic plan.
I do not think it is accurate or fair to say McGill is resting on its laurels. Until the cuts were announced in December 2012, we had experienced 12 years of increased revenues. Over that time, we hired more than 1,000 new professors (400 net), reducing the average age of the professoriate and changing completely the composition of that body.
During those years, the quality of our undergraduates continued to rise. Student aid increased by a factor of 10. Programs of study were redesigned, institutes established, graduate student numbers and quality reached new heights.
Relative performance in research inputs, outputs and outcomes rose as well.
But, impressive as these things are against our baseline, the institutions with which we compete were also making significant gains. So our relative standing among the world’s universities, all things considered, did not improve – at least in the QS and Times Higher rankings. Those who are ready to declare that McGill is in decline might want to look at this year’s Shanghai rankings, where we in fact have recently posted our highest score ever in that set of measurements.
So this is clearly not a time to be pushing panic buttons. New leadership and fresh perspectives will help McGill by reinvigorating the debate and discussion on how well we meet our mission of research-intensity, student-centredness, international reach, quality standards, and public purpose.
Insights like those provided by the four students who engage in the Campus Conversation, have got us off on the right foot.
In this week's edition of the Campus Conversation series, we convene voices from across McGill to answer the question: Is McGill in decline? The debate sparked on campus in the wake of McGill's noticeable drop in the QS World University Rankings in September left many wondering if the value of a McGill education is decreasing. Other rankings have since been released, including a better position in the Shanghai Rankings and a slightly lower rank in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Concerns have been raised about the validity of these ratings, as they often rely on methodology that may seem divorced from factors that encompass a valuable university education.
Rather than rely on these rankings, we asked campus leaders and student representatives for a qualitative look at where the university is headed.
I would be hard pressed to say that McGill is in decline, however I do not think the university is doing the work necessary to be moving forward. Throughout my interactions with a wide variety of people at McGill, from staff to students, faculty to administrators, many would say that McGill has been resting on its laurels for too long. I think a more accurate description of what we are experiencing is a halt in forward motion, and it’s time for McGill to wake up and start taking a fresh look at how it operates so it can continue to innovate in the ways that used to set it apart from the competition.
There are a few issues at high levels of the university that have hurt its ability to move forward, but I will only mention two briefly here. First, the university is continuing to allow professors to use “academic freedom” as an excuse to get out of pedagogic innovation at the undergraduate level. When professors are continually allowed to bypass teaching and learning innovations that central units work tirelessly to research, implement, and support, they are only hurting the students they are ultimately here to serve. Academic freedom is innovation in how you teach a course, what materials you use, and how you interact with your class. Refusing to use the centralized myCourses because it requires learning or ignoring hard research about lecture recordings is not an expression of academic freedom, but rather blatant and selfish laziness. This laziness is what hurts undergraduate learning at our university.
As the university continues to allow professors to teach its undergraduates courses as if it were 1950, it is only natural that we are not moving forward. Also natural is perceived decline when compared to universities that have a stronger push on their professoriate to use some of the incredible teaching and learning innovations coming out of their own schools. These include creative uses of active learning classrooms, forward thinking uses of multimedia in the classroom and in specialized labs, and much more. McGill, on the other hand, merely suggests professors use these resources, all in the name of protecting academic freedom.
Second, the central administration has focused too long on preventing student groups, clubs, services, and societies from doing amazing new things. Instead of creating bridges for groups to put their extreme talent to use, they drop roadblocks at almost every step of the way. While it may be forgotten by most, the McGill name issue, to me, embodies the central administration’s flawed view on student life. For years, the central administration has hunted down groups that use a mythical bird and a six-letter family name in ways that enter the school into liability.
Instead of providing financial support, encouraging new work, and finding ways for groups to create projects that break out of current frameworks, the central administration has insisted these groups change their names and logos (and put money into it!) so that the university is free of risk and liability if the group does something wrong.
A university should take risks with, assume liability for, and pour money into its student life. The focus on doing the opposite (and keep in mind, there are many people at this university that work quite hard to help student groups; the focus here is on central administrators), as seen with the policy on the use of the McGill name, is what has halted true development with central administration’s support for student life. Pushing students away by telling them they are not McGill has resulted and will continue to result in a loss of affinity for McGill post-graduation.
So, is McGill in decline? Perhaps.; and it is certainly not doing itself any favours with regards to moving forward. However, if the university continues to combat against its own students, it will absolutely find itself in decline in the near future.
As a university, McGill is not in decline. Looking at both the QS and Shanghai rankings, McGill has maintained roughly the same ranking for the last five years, and small year-to-year variations are statistically insignificant.
That said, a closer look at the data reveals that McGill is advancing in some areas and falling behind in others. For example, according to the QS rankings in 2008, McGill was ranked 229th in terms of citations per faculty; it is now ranked 113th. On the other hand, in 2008 McGill was ranked 22nd in faculty-to-student ratio; it is now ranked 84th. Generally speaking, in terms of research, McGill’s profile is strong and improving, while in terms of operations, McGill is suffering.
How are we to understand this? Follow the money.
First, let’s look at research funding. According to the Canadian Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and World Bank statistics, the Canadian government spends more per GDP on higher education research than the United States or many European countries. The situation is even better in Quebec where the Fonds de recherche du Québec serves as an additional funding source for Quebec researchers and, notably, also provides McGill with a roughly 50 per cent top-up for each grant awarded to cover the indirect costs of research (federal funding for indirect cost is much lower at about 20 per cent).
Moreover, McGill made a conscious decision in the early 2000s to allocate financial resources to an aggressive academic renewal plan, hiring hundreds of top young researchers. McGill’s researchers consistently rank among the best in Canada in terms of research funding “yield” (funding awarded per professor). When you combine a strong research funding model in Quebec and Canada with a willingness from McGill to fund an influx of bright young researchers, it is not surprising that McGill’s research profile is now on the ascent.
But that’s not the whole story.
While Quebec is a leader in research funding to its universities, it is seriously under-performing in terms of ensuring that universities have sufficient revenue to fund day-to-day operations. In 2012, the Council of Ontario Universities examined operating funding available to universities per student among the different provinces, weighted to account for costs by program and discipline. The study found that Quebec ranked no. 10 out of 10 Canadian provinces in terms of operating funding. The Conference of Rectors and Principals of Quebec Universities (CREPUQ) estimated the gap in operating funding between Quebec and other provinces at $850 million in 2013.
Operating funding allows for competitive salaries to professors, increased hiring of course lecturers and TAs, maintains world-class library collections and journal subscriptions, and supports state-of-the-art undergraduate teaching labs. It is also the kind of funding Quebec’s universities are sorely lacking. Insufficient operating funding has eroded McGill’s student to faculty ratio from 17 in 2008 to 20 now.
“If so, what do we do about it?”
First, let’s stop messing around with the data. Some groups claim that because Quebec universities have more research funding than the Canadian average, the lack of operating funding is not a problem. But research grants are dedicated to specific researchers and specific projects and cannot be used to fund general operating activities.
Second, let’s be consistent and acknowledge the facts. The Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec stated in 2010 that Quebec universities were underfunded, but argued in 2012-2013 that they were not, out of a fear that acknowledging underfunding would be used as a justification for a tuition increase. The policy question of how to fund universities is a separate issue from whether they are in need of additional funding in the first place.
Finally, let’s engage in an aggressive lobbying campaign for public re-investment in education. A Quebec election may be on the horizon for early 2014. Government spending on education yields many benefits, including lower crime rates, greater civic participation, and lower reliance on social services. Students, professors, and supporters of higher education should push for all Quebec political parties to adopt a credible plan for reinvesting in Quebec’ universities, and make sure they stick to it if elected. When the PQ recently tried to cut research funding to health research, 2,300 researchers came together and launched the “Je suis Michèle” campaign, which resulted in the restoration of $26.5 million in funding.
Quebec needs to come together and demand that properly funding universities be a requirement for any political party to get or stay elected.
– Jonathan Mooney, Secretary-General, Post Graduate Students' Society
Is McGill in decline? Possibly, but with a large margin of error. Most metrics that we have available to us would indicate that McGill is in some form of decline. Budget cuts, fewer TAs, lower rankings, rising deferred maintenance, larger class sizes, student dissatisfaction, among others, are some of the relevant indicators of a university’s health. In our case they are not looking overly positive. So if these things are all heading downhill, why the hesitancy is saying McGill is a sinking ship?
That is where the wonders of statistics come in. If there is one thing that climate science has taught us over the past decade, it is that the individual changes in measurement from one year to the next do not indicate long-term trends. It is with this in mind that it is best to analyze the current state that our university is in. While certainly we have lost ground in some areas, we still produce world-class research and graduates, while working within the constraints handed to us.
The fact that we remain at all competitive on a worldwide basis certainly indicates some resiliency. It is with this in mind that I am hesitant to say definitively which way things are heading. Although things have gone downhill a bit, there is ultimately not enough data to say with any significant degree of certainty whether or not the ship is sinking.
– Devin Bissky Dziadyk, Science Representative to SSMU
Is McGill in decline? It depends on your perspective. We’ve dropped in some rankings and our budget has been slashed. The 2011 results of the National Survey of Student Engagement showed that students rated McGill below the national average for
(Alexandra Allaire / McGill Tribune)
student-faculty interactions and campus environment, among other measures. While these facts might suggest that McGill’s glory days are fading, I disagree.
The difference in the QS ranking this year is by no means insurmountable, particularly because McGill has the same exceptional human resources it’s always had. The university is still home to some amazing faculty, staff, and—of course—students. Go to the Faculty of Science Undergraduate Research Conference on Thursday, Oct. 10 in the Arts Building. Listen to the young researchers there, and you’ll be reassured that the students here are just as brilliant as they were last year.
No doubt, the last few years have dealt McGill some hard knocks. It’s been a difficult time for the university, in a basic financial sense. However, with the new blood we’ve got in the senior administration this year, I have no doubt that any fears of decline will be alleviated soon. Principal Suzanne Fortier and new Deputy Provost, (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens are, in my opinion, up to the challenge of building a better university. Best of all, they seem to genuinely want our help doing it.
So is McGill actually declining? Will we still be a world-class university in five years? I believe we will; because at the end of the day, it matters less what trajectory we’ve taken up to this point than what we do next.
A conference designed to address past criticisms of research on asbestos at McGill and to discuss the role of privately funded research at universities was hosted by the Faculty of Medicine on Oct. 1 at McGill.
The conference, titled “Asbestos: Dialogue for the Future,” was organized following a controversy in February 2012, when a CBC documentary challenged the findings of research conducted between 1966 and 1998 by retired McGill professor John Corbett McDonald. McDonald’s studies found that chrysotile asbestos was “essentially innocuous” and that no adverse health effects would come from its use excerpt at extremely high levels.
The documentary accused McDonald of misrepresenting his results and questioned the legitimacy of his research because it was funded by the asbestos industry.
“Professor McDonald’s research is still of huge concern today,” anti-asbestos advocate Kathleen Ruff said at the conference. “The asbestos industry is targeting developing countries, saying that chrysotile asbestos […] can be safely used [even though] no country has ever succeeded in safely using chrysotile asbestos.”
Last October, McGill released the report of an internal investigation on the studies by research integrity officer Abraham Fuks, who concluded that McDonald had publicly acknowledged the asbestos industry as his funding source and that he was not guilty of research misconduct. Tuesday’s conference is the result of a recommendation Fuks made in his report.
Dean of Medicine David Eidelman said that the event was planned to allow for an open discussion of the issues surrounding the controversy.
“We made sure it was structured in a way to make sure there was a very open and frank exchange of views, and make sure we seriously considered the issues that were brought up in the context of the McDonald controversy,” he said. “I was very glad to have the people who raised the controversy present so they could present their views.”
These critics included Ruff, who denounced McGill for holding an internal investigation on McDonald’s research rather than allowing an external party to examine the case. At the conference, Ruff emphasized that she will continue to push McGill to retract McDonald’s initial research despite the conclusions of the internal review.
“It’s a real concern that’s having impact in the real world, so it is important that McGill address this issue,” she said. “McGill should become a leader in Canada to introduce an effective ethical review system that protects scientific integrity and the public good.”
According to David Egilman- a professor at Brown University and critic of McDonald’s research in the CBC documentary- the way in which McDonald conducted his research on asbestos points to greater problems in the way corporate-funded research is conducted at universities.
“In [McDonald’s] case, money should have been given to the workers [and] the unions to hire independent experts to consult with them, to evaluate the protocols in the research, “Egilman said. “The same thing’s true for drug research- if you’re going corporate-funded pharmaceutical-medical research, there should be an independent group evaluation that research, but the norm [today] in drug research is that the data analysis is all controlled by the company.”
Jaye Ellis, a professor of law at McGill, said communication can be difficult between university researchers and corporations, as each player has a different understanding of their goals in the research.
“It’s not possible for all of the players in these relationships- the university, administrators, the corporation, the researcher- to be on precisely the same page,” Ellis said. “[We need to] talk about how we present communicative structures among these different players to protect the values that we want to protect- rigorous academic freedom, independence, and so forth.”
McGill has several Research Ethics Boards (REBs) intended to promote ethical standards of research and protect the rights and welfare of individual participants in research projects. Researchers must obtain approval for their project from an REB before they begin recruiting participants or collecting data. However, McGill philosophy professor David Weinstock criticized the way university researchers tend to view REBs.
“[Researchers] still have a version of REBs that reflects a conception of ethics that is altogether too superficial, too checklist-like, and too much at the talk end [of the process],” Weinstock said. “Everything that we do can be ethics-free until we get to that point when we have to fill out the ethics checklist and at that point all the important decisions have been made. That has to change.”
One potential solution that was suggested in the discussion was the creation of an additional body concerned with ethics at McGill, which would investigate and follow up on projects after they have received REB approval.
“All major corporate-funded research should set aside funds to establish an oversight board that is dominated by study subjects and the subjects [should] be given funds to hire a consultant who works for them,” Egilman suggested.
According to Weinstock, however, this idea presents logistical difficulties.
“Questions about composition, mandate, independence, [and] the purview become crucial,” he said. “We don’t have the time to do the kind of serious research on the ways in which these details would need to get worked out.”
While Eidelman said he could not comment at this time on how the ideas raised at the conference will be used, he emphasized the potential for improving the university’s ethics review system.
“There is an imperative for the Faculty of Medicine and the university […] to think about how we can make sure that when we’re doing research we’re really meeting the highest standards,” he said.
Ruff said she was skeptical about the effect the conference would have on corporate-funded and asbestos-related research at McGill.
“It’s a good opportunity for the issue to be discussed, but […] the conference is not a substitute for doing the right thing,” Ruff said. “I think that we still have a very serious problem in the way McGill has death with this issue of misuse of research and the asbestos industry influence. I don’t think that has been properly addressed.”
Redmen soccer star Massimo Di Ioia was introduced to the beautiful game at an early age and has lived for the sport ever since. The 26-year-old hails rom Saint Leonard, Quebec, and has travelled the world with the Canadian Junior National Team, and also had the opportunity to wear the maple leaf on his chest during U-20 World Cup. In addition to this Di Ioia has lived the life of a professional footballer during stints with the Montreal Impact and Trois-Rivieres Attak before joining the Redmen this year.
“I was probably five, six years old when I started and from there just grew up loving the game,” said Di Ioia. “I’m a boy from Montreal so playing the Impact was an ambition of mine and I eventually fulfilled that dream.”
Di Ioia’s transition back to school was prompted by the lack of certainty and security in the world of professional athletics. As a member of the Impact he was just another cog in the machine and was at the behest of upper management. Playing as a professional, there was always the possibility of being called into office one day and told that he was being sold from the team. Even worse, he could have been let go without a job.
“[I just needed] something concrete to fall back on,” Di Ioia explained.
Before playing for McGill, Di Ioia was subject the the CIS’ 365-day rule, in which student athletes must wait one full year from their last game as a professional before they can play for their varsity team. Athletes have certain peaks and primes during their playing career, and a year long absence from athletic competition can prove to be detrimental, despite the understandable reasoning behind the rule.
“I think it’s logical that a player has to wait one full year to be eligible for the program,” said Di Ioia. “Yet, in a certain way I still have a question mark to it because at the end of the day you’re preventing a player from representing his [university], and I don’t know if its positive or negative for the player.”
The first year physical education student is returning to his studies following an extended absence from the classroom. Like many other freshmen, he faces difficulty as he tackles the rigors of university course load. In addition to academics, a varsity athlete takes on a burden that makes an already tough adjustment even tougher.
“I think I’m learning the hard way,” said Di Ioia. “It’s a very difficult transition and you have to be very organized […] Trainings are very demanding [and] school is very demanding here at McGill. If you’re not on top of your studies, you’ll fall behind very quickly.”
His arrival to the Redmen has been integral to the team’s growth and success this season as he has provided not only tremendous talent but a veteran presence to a squad with 17 rookies.
“I’m always open to helping the guys […] If they need help I’m always there for them […] on and off the field where I can guide them and lead them seeing as I have been exposed to a certain level [of…] experience professionally,” said Di Ioia.
In addition to this, he has been involved with coaching locally in the Montreal area with young programs. The effect it has had on his game has been profound. The most impactful benefit he has noticed deals with his interactions with his fellow teammates and his coaching staff.
“I think it has made me understand players much better.” he said. “When I was just playing and coaches would make decisions, I wouldn’t understand why [I was not playing] or what [I was] doing wrong,” said Di Ioia.
Looking to the future he believes that soccer – and athletics as a whole – will continue t be a part of his life.
“I’d love to stay in soccer [as a coach],” Di Ioia said. “I think this degree can help […]. If that doesn’t pan out I think I’d be able to be a good [physical education] teacher one day.”
The Redmen have had an up-and-down season in which they have played strongly but have suffered from inconsistency and sudden lapses. Nonetheless, Di Ioia is currently the RSEQ’s leading goal scorer and is optimistic about his squad’s prospects for the rest of the season.
“Right now we’re in fourth position. I think we’re a solid team that has competed with everyone in the league. We’re not far away from any team and we shouldn’t have doubts about ourselves […] Once we reach the playoffs it’s a brand new season.”
Interview conducted by Remi Lu. Visit www.thetribune.ca/sportspodcast to listen to the entire interview.
Dubbed OLD, due to fans continually asking for that “old Danny Brown,” this album takes the themes explored in Danny’s first album, XXX, and pushes them to their extremes. Drug use, abuse, grime, and introspection all come together in equal parts, and what we’re left with is an insane, bipolar, and unexpectedly dark tour-de-force which presents itself as Danny’s most ambitious project to date—not to mention my favourite.
OLD, acting as a concept album of sorts, is divided into two halves. Side A is filled with narrative, sometimes frighteningly introspective tracks detailing Danny’s experiences with newfound fame, drug abuse, depression, and his childhood growing up impoverished in Detroit. Sound-wise, Side A is what you’d get if you left an inner-city crack cocaine abuser to tinker around in a spaceship for a while—tracks “Wonderbread” and “Lonely”, are both notable, and both instrumentally upbeat yet lyrically macabre, as well as “Dope Fiend Rental,” featuring ScHoolboy Q.
Side B is the polar opposite, with every track devoted to getting whacked out on drugs and partying as hard as humanly possible. This type of wild, lyrically raunchy music is what got Danny his big break, so it’s no surprise we’re seeing a fair bit of it on this album. Bangers like “Dubstep,” featuring Scrufizzer, and “Kush Coma,” featuring A$AP Rocky and Zelooperz, are at home anywhere where the windows are open and the volume’s at max. In a nutshell, the tracks on Side B are heavily influenced by both Trap and EDM, and are about as in-your-face as it gets.
The two sides of the album stand at complete odds with one another, and might not initially seem to mesh well, but their stark juxtaposition, upon closer inspection, reveals the story of a downward spiral of addiction and escapism, and the struggles and fears of the man caught inside it. Amidst the bizarrely forceful instrumentals and the brilliantly vulgar lyricism, this message isn’t always clear, but listen closely; even on Side B, Danny slips in lines which show that he knows what the drugs are really doing to him. He raps in three or four distinct vocal tones across the album, making apt use of switching cadence from track-to-track. OLD paints a harrowing, behind-the-scenes picture of a Danny Brown slowly becoming the very addict which haunts his childhood memories.
The album concludes with “Float On ft. Charli XCX”, a track on which Danny’s message is clearer than ever, though not one which provides a particularly apt conclusion to the album. The intended closer, “ODB”, was cut due to an uncleared sample, but provides a more fitting end in tying together all the wildly unique loose ends that OLD offers (note: the track is on YouTube and definitely deserves a listen).
All in all, OLD is everything Danny Brown endeavoured to do with XXX, but on steroids (and MDMA, among others). It’s entertaining, it’s powerful, it’s complex, and it’s one of the best albums to come out in recent memory.
Fan or not, you’ve heard of Miley Cyrus. The former Disney darling has, for the past few years, gone to greater and greater lengths to shed her Hannah Montana past. Now that the staggering transformation of her image is complete, the question becomes, how far will she go? The fact that the media was up in arms over a 2008 Vanity Fair photo shoot, which featured Cyrus wearing nothing but a bed sheet, seems almost laughable now, considering her latest performance at the VMAs and new video for the single ìWrecking Ball,î which features her wearing nothing but a pair of boots.
Recently, Sinead OíConnor wrote a series of open letters to Cyrus, the first of which expressed concern ìin the spirit of motherliness,î and the rest of which reacted harshly to Cyrusís insensitive and dismissive tweets in response, mocking OíConnor for her history of mental illness. Perhaps itís charitable of OíConnor to assume Cyrus is simply naÔve and being controlled by her management, but unfortunately, the pop starís intentions donít count for much. She may be dancing on stage in a flesh-coloured bikini trying to convey that she doesnít care what people think of her and that girls should be sexually empowered; but it becomes irrelevant if what people actually see is a former child star trying desperately to keep her look fresh and shocking enough to stay relevant, while promoting misogynist and borderline racist practices in the process.
Cyrusí cultural appropriation of ëratchetí culture is nothing new, certainly. White artists have been doing this for years, but that in no way excuses her doing it now. Cyrus has admitted that she wants her new album to have a ìblack sound,î and appears to use her back-up dancers almost as props to help her achieve this ëratchetí vibe. I agree that itís unfair for anyone to diminish the talent of these dancers by saying they were hired for merely having the ëright look,í but their roles in Cyrusí performances scream objectification.
Cyrus has also been the target of criticism for her skimpy wardrobe, as well as her provocative performance with Robin Thicke at this year’s VMAs. It’s problematic that the so-called music industry is set up for young women to be valued for sex appeal over musical talent in terms of business strategy in the first place, but it also sends a veritable tidal wave of dangerous messages to today’s youth. Cyrus being so successful and constantly talked about makes it abundantly clear that this strategy may well work that a woman’s body is more important than her talent or what she has to say but at what cost? Cyrus seems to teach other young women that they should value themselves primarily upon their looks, or how many men they can attract, and to teach young men that women are to be seen first and foremost as sexual beings if we’re being generous or as objects if we’re not. Regardless of Cyrus current awareness of these issues, they simply cannot continue to be ignored. She is seriously in need of a reality check or an education, and though Sinead O’Connor couldn’t get the job done, she needs to get one or the other sometime soon.
– Jacqueline Gailbraith
Don’t hate Miley is twerking all the way to the bank
I’m Miley Cyrus/I’m Miley Cyrus, I raps viral hip-hop artist Lil B, on Miley Cyrus.î Released in the singer’s ìParty in the U.S.A. days, the absurd song references an unbelievable career arc: a former Hannah Montana making a sextuple platinum single, all while finishing up her contract with Disney.
Now it’s 2013, and Miley Cyrus is still famous. She can sing, decently, but that’s not the reason she’s on the cover of Rolling Stone. It’s a different feature of the pop starlet that attracts magazine editors, rappers such as Pharrell and Kanye West, and hitmakers like Mike WiLL Made It, to work with her.
I think whether a reader relates to a cover star is not always the point, says Harper’s Bazaar executive director Laura Brown. They just need to find her interesting. And Miley, at this point in her life, certainly is.
Whether you’re a Miley fan or not, she is the girl of the moment, said Cori Murray, entertainment director at Essence magazine, in an interview with the Associated Press. Business is business. [Rappers are] in the music business; she’s the girl of the moment, so why not get on record with the girl of the moment? That’s as basic as it’s going to get.
In fact, without Cyrus marketing strategy, she wouldn’t even be mentioned in The McGill Tribune. But after a controversial performance at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), and increasingly risquè publicity stunts, Miley is filling a gap. On her latest album, Bangerz, the only other female singer featured is pop icon Britney Spears. The fact that Miley sees the Princess of Pop as an inspiration is telling. Both have an overall brilliant market strategy; Miley’s package consists of an MTV documentary, an album release, and talked-aboutíperformances performances that not only attract television viewership, but also reach a YouTube audience. Current single We Can’t Stop garnered a record-breaking 10.7 million views within 24 hours of its release, and now approaches a total of 225 million.
Allegations of cultural appropriation have some truth to them, but are misguided overall. At the VMAs, Cyrus performed with R&B singers Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke, but all three are appropriators. In fact, Thicke is now preemptively suing legendary black singer Marvin Gaye’s family after they rejected a six-figure settlement offer, and hopes for a ruling that summer hit ìBlurred Lines does not infringe on Gaye’s Got to Give It Up. But criticism of Blurred Lines is focused on accusations of misogyny, not exploiting black culture. The tone of this backlash is even more surprising considering many of the critics accusing Thicke of misogyny are the ones calling Cyrus promiscuous. You could accuse the late Elvis Presley of exploiting a genre that came before him, but in the end, ìMoney ain’t nothing but money when you get to the money, ain’t nothing but money,î as Cyrus claims on ìLove Money Party.î To have such a comeback, Miley has to be doing something right.
The Segal Centre kicked off its season with a delightfully rambunctious musical revue. Ain’t Misbehavin’ celebrates music from the Harlem Renaissance, a period in the “Roaring Twenties” when African-American artists sought to affirm pride in a new black identity. First conceived by Richard Maltby Jr. and Murray Horwitz with music by jazz pianist Thomas “Fats” Waller, the show went on to receive the Tony for Best Musical in 1978.
This rendition, co-produced with Copa de Oro under the direction of Roger Peace, lives up to its reputation. Five outstanding performers deliver song after song, each more infectious than the last. The three-time Juno-winning Kim Richardson is a devastating presence on stage, matching rich, full-blooded vocals with go-for-the-throat aplomb. When she sings, “If you break my heart I’ll break your jaw,” not a single soul in the room doubts her. Toya Alexis, Richardson’s frequent sparring partner, is equally ravishing, with two outstanding solos in “Squeeze Me” and “When the Nylons Bloom Again.”
It’s former McGill student and rapper Jonathan Emile, however, who hits the high note of the show with “The Viper’s Drag,” a song fittingly about the fine art of getting high. The lyrics are funny as-is (“I dreamed about a reefer, five feet long/A might immense, but not too strong”), but Emile’s delivery displays impeccable comedic timing and genuine charm. The slick and suave Michael-Lamont Lytle, who also served as dance captain, likewise won over audiences with both the romantic (“Honeysuckle Rose,” with Richardson) and the outrageous (“Your Feet’s Too Big”). The breakout star of the revue was clearly Aiza Ntibarikure. A 2011 Dawson College graduate, Ntibarikure proved capable of roughing and tumbling with the rest of the cast with an effervescent, no-holds-barred performance that channels Janelle Monáe.
The cast is accompanied by an equally-talented quintet under the direction of Chris Barillaro. A McGill alumnus and former member of Players’ Theatre, Barillaro is also an incredibly talented pianist, and the production is fortunate to have his skills. Jean-Claude Olivier’s elegant, jazz club set design and Karen Pearce’s stylish costuming add touches of opulence to the production.
As a celebration of a pivotal movement in music and American history, Ain’t Misbehavin’ is also very much an artefact of its times. Sometimes this requires a stretch of the imagination on the audience’s part, such as when Richardson appeals for us to donate our metals to the war effort (“Cash for Your Trash”). At other times, such as “Find Out What They Like,” the cost of datedness is too great to justifiably bear: “Find out what they like, and how they like it, and let him have it just that way/Give them what they want, and when they want it, without a single word to say/You got to cater to a man and if you don’t, day and night, he’ll find some other gal to do the things you won’t.” Robin Thicke couldn’t have said it better himself.
In keeping with the light-hearted, full-throttle nature of the production, the cast double downs at such moments. Indeed, Richardson sings the aforementioned lines with such gusto and strength that she almost succeeds in turning the song into a message of empowerment. That the production could still be so entertaining, warts and all, is truly a testament to the skill of the performers in wooing and winning the audience over. Besides, there are plenty of numbers that are a pure joy to see and hear. The sum total is a night of unforgettable music and passion, where the very essence of entertainment is distilled into a highly potent punch. Montreal last saw a production of the play in 1986, so no fan of theatre should pass up the present opportunity—Ain’t Misbehavin’ is nothing short of an absolute spectacle.
Ain’t Misbehavin’ runs until Oct. 20 at the Segal Centre (5710 ch. De la Cote-Ste-Catherine). Student tickets are $29.
From a quiet office tucked away on the fourth floor of the Shatner building, Elections SSMU takes on a huge task. It is the branch of student government responsible for enabling the political participation of all 25,000 members of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). Amidst the chaos of the upcoming Fall referendum period, Ben Fung, SSMU’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), reflects on his organization’s core mandate.
“You have student democracy happening on SSMU Council, but that’s representative democracy,” Fung explains. “If you want every single person participating, there are only two ways of doing it; General Assemblies (GAs), or elections and referenda. The role for Elections SSMU is to be the impartial body that manages [both], and allows […] student democracy at large to happen.”
As with most modern democratic systems, SSMU typically operates on this representative basis—executives, councillors, and senators who have been elected by the student body are responsible for the day-to-day operation of SSMU. Even within this framework, however, students can participate directly through biannual referenda, in which issues are voted on by the entire membership. The end of the academic year brings the opportunity for students to reflect on the quality of the representation they have received and elect those who will steer the ship for the year to come.
These moments, when the student body engages directly with the political process, are when Elections SSMU comes in. It is responsible for conducting all of SSMU’s elections and referenda; this includes overseeing technical and administrative aspects of the campaign periods, acting as a resource to the campaigns, and reaching out to students to encourage participation. All the while, it must also act as an arbiter and a watchdog, ensuring that everything from campaigning practices to referendum wording is up to code.
Fung (U2 Science) leads the Elections SSMU team, which also consists of Deputy Electoral Officer David Koots (L2 Law), and Elections Coordinator Hannah Rackow (U4 Arts). Even once the second elections coordinator position—for which hiring is currently underway—is filled, it is a small team with a daunting mission.
Just like the rest of SSMU, the Elections team is governed by the constitution and bylaws of the society. These lay out all of the guidelines and regulations by which Elections SSMU operates; some of these are the rules that must be enforced during campaign, while others detail internal processes—such as the official procedure for counting ballots.
With every advance in electoral procedures or technology, the bylaws must also change to accommodate such advances. For example, in 2003 SSMU voted in favour of implementing an online voting system. While this innovation facilitates student participation and greatly increases accessibility to the political process, it also brought with it logistical complications and a plethora of new regulations to ensure that the online voting met the same quality and privacy standards as physical polling. These changes can now all be found in the bylaws.
The tweaking of the bylaws is a perpetually ongoing project. Hubie Yu, last year’s CEO, left behind a list of bylaws which she feels need to be added, many of which stem from ambiguities in the rules that she encountered during her tenure.
“This is something I told [Fung] about, as it happened several times last year. Many candidates try to take advantage of bylaws that are up for interpretation, and would try to argue and convince me to see it their way,” Yu explained. “This is a tough situation as some bylaws don’t specifically say that they can’t do [certain things], but also don’t clearly state that they can.”
Fung recounts such a situation from this year’s First Year Council (FYC) elections in September.
“I had a student come up to me the other day, and she’s running for FYC. There’s a limit on the [size of posters], and she asked me how close [together] the posters could be; she wanted to paste them to make a bigger poster,” he laughed. “When students get really creative and we learn about things that we haven’t encountered before, then there becomes a need to introduce new bylaws—and there’s always a need to introduce new bylaws.”
In the meantime, Fung explained, even having found a need for revision, the CEO must make a ruling interpreting the bylaws as they stand. “My authority and my interpretation just comes from the constitution and by-laws, and I do my best to represent the spirit of the constitution and by-laws. And try not to get ‘J-Boarded.’”
The J-Board
The sole body that can overturn an Elections SSMU decision is the SSMU Judicial Board (J-Board), a panel of five full-time students from the McGill Faculty of Law. Any member of the society can bring a case to the J-Board, and after review they can chose to conduct a full investigation.
Elections SSMU (then referred to as Elections McGill) was involved in a high-profile case after the Fall 2011 referendum, when then-CEO Rebecca Tacoma was brought before the J-Board for allegedly failing to fulfill the duties of her position.
The case centred around QPIRG’s existence referendum, for which it claimed the wording of the question was unclear. It also alleged campaign violations from the ‘Yes’ committee, and claimed that Tacoma had failed to demonstrate diligence and impartiality while carrying out her duties. Although the personal charges against Tacoma were not upheld, the result of the referendum was invalidated and it was held again in the spring.
For Yu, who took office the following year, this case was a reminder of the level of scrutiny aimed at Elections SSMU.
“During my time as CEO, it definitely made me very careful. When I made decisions, I sometimes would think about whether it could be justified if it [got] to J-Board,” Yu wrote. “CEO’s get J-Boarded pretty often. We only hear about the [cases] that get accepted by J-Board, but I was told that petitions [get] submitted—sometimes they’re just not accepted.”
While a review by the J-Board is a concern for all members of Elections SSMU, the CEO is both the final decision-maker and the front line of accountability.
“In the constitution, the office of the CEO is synonymous with Elections SSMU, which is just another way of saying that the CEO is held responsible for all the decisions Elections SSMU makes,” Fung said. “It’s a way of holding us accountable for the decisions we’re making, and making sure we are following the constitution and bylaws.”
While some students do seek to hold the organization accountable, others seem not to care at all. Elections SSMU continues to have extremely low visibility and awareness amongst students. This is a serious problem for an organization plagued with chronically low voter turnout. Last year’s Winter election was considered a success with 29.1 per cent of students showing up to the polls; Fall referendum periods generally experience even lower turnout.
Student apathy is a significant challenge faced by SSMU as a whole, but there are few opportunities to quantify it the way that an election can. As such, it is very easy for the issue of apathy to fall to Elections SSMU. According to former SSMU President Josh Redel, the Elections team has a role to play in this issue, but the burden of responsibility has to be shared.
“You’d call the Elections SSMU [team] apolitical and purely logistics, and [yet] voter apathy is a political problem, [so it’s] something that would fall within [the SSMU] executive’s role,” Redel said. “It’s [Elections SSMU’s] role to get people out to vote, but not to get them interested in SSMU [itself].”
Current VP University Affairs Joey Shea expressed a similar sentiment.
“It’s up to the students, once they’ve heard the speeches and seen the chalkboards, whether they’re going to click on that email,” she said. “That’s not Elections SSMU’s responsibility.”
At times, however, apathy has morphed into negativity and hostility. Yu received angry—and at times vulgar—emails and tweets in response to her outreach efforts during last year’s election period.
“Most of the negative emails I received last year acknowledge the importance of elections, but they just don’t care,” Yu said. “I think people are sick of getting listservs, and sick of constantly getting information forced onto them, via class announcements or when candidates are handing out flyers,” Yu wrote.
Fung says he learned from Yu’s approach.
“Hubie’s philosophy was ‘Don’t let the haters get you down,’” he recalled. “She had no problems powering through it, and it was quite impressive.”
While there are always ideas and initiatives within Elections SSMU to engage its membership and increase accessibility, its status as an arms-length agency of SSMU provides a logistical obstacle to any major institutional change.
While it technically falls under the President’s portfolio, none of its actions or initiatives can reflect the politics of the sitting president. Redel expressed the frustration that came with this semi-independent status.
“How do we find that balance where I’m not interfering or influencing Elections SSMU, but still putting into place some new projects—like the new elections software [and] videos in the ballots,” he said. “I think that’s why we always see, year to year, in the end, the same stuff put forward, because there’s so many of these nuances in the politics of things and the boundary between SSMU and Elections SSMU that don’t let us work to find those creative solutions in the middle.”
While some initiatives were successfully brought to fruition, such as video pensketches for elections candidates, and increased web presence, there were also roadblocks put up by this division. There was an idea to put hyperlinks to external resources and background information into the text of referendum questions, though it was brought to a halt when the concern arose of how to choose an unbiased range of sources.
“The issue with that is inherently it’s going to be political,” Redel pointed out. “So it’s that never-ending circle of how to inform people. No matter what you do, even if you list articles from all sides, you’re going to be missing something, or someone’s going to think you’re missing something.”
Moving forward
An unavoidable reality of Elections SSMU is that regularly scheduled events will always take precedence over all other potential plans. Already this year it has conducted the FYC elections, and the student nomination period for the Fall referendum is open until Oct. 11.
Nevertheless, there are also bigger-picture projects and initiatives for the year already underway. Fung has ambitions to establish mobile polling stations by equipping elections officers with iPads rented from the library, and is already contemplating his outreach strategy for the Winter election and referendum period—easily the biggest event of the year for Elections SSMU.
“Exactly how that’s going to turn out we’re not sure yet, because it could be something like sharks and gorillas fighting each other, or it could be more like awareness campaigns you see everywhere else,” Fung said, gesturing to last year’s SSMU Executive candidate debate posters, which featured various animals engaged in combat.
For Fung, however, the most important legacy that he can leave behind will be found in the constitution and bylaws.
“It’s the institutional memory—it’s what stays through generation after generation,” Fung said. “That’s why the [constitutional reform] process works so well, because the avenues for change are there.”
