From left to right: Andrew Fuchs, Fischel Goloig, Lisa LaFlamme, Angela Orosz. Behind, right: Patrick Bordeaux and Daniel Amar. Photo by Emily Pasquarelli // The Concordian
“I dreamt of the Germans,” says Orosz’s daughter who was conditioned to learn adulthood before she even knew the meaning of the word
When she was just three years old, Katy Orosz was sent grocery shopping on her own. Unbeknownst to her, her mother Angela was secretly following along to ensure her safety. Still, the trauma of that early push for independence lingers in Katy today.
In late January, Angela Orosz, one of the youngest Holocaust survivors, spoke at the Montreal Holocaust Museum (MHM) to discuss her daughter’s experiences with intergenerational trauma.
The event, which held an audience of 350 people, took place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Former Chief Anchor and Senior Editor of CTV News, Lisa Laflamme, hosted the public interview with Orosz to discuss how the genocide impacted aspects of her life, notably her motherhood.
Laflamme covered Orosz’s story on CTV News in 2020, when the two visited Auschwitz. It had been the survivor’s first time back at the concentration camp since her birth.
Orosz was born on Dec. 21, 1944, in German-occupied Poland at the Auschwitz concentration camp. She was one of few to survive the liberation that following year.
The public discussion unraveled the painful psychological impacts of the Holocaust, and Orosz explained its influence on her early parental experiences.
During the mid to late 1960s, Orosz gave birth to her daughter Katy in Budapest, Hungary. Orosz passed down many of the “survivor skills” that she learned from her mother Vera Otvos-Beins. This consisted of sending her young daughter off to go grocery shopping and take public transportation “alone.”
“She was three years old. She can’t forgive me. I taught her how to go shopping by herself. She didn’t know I was following her, but I wanted her to have that feeling that whatever is happening, she is not lost,” confessed Orosz.
This motherly instinct to push for early independence and adulthood in her toddler reflected the trauma she endured when anticipating a recurrence of the Holocaust.
“I think it’s understandable, given what you’ve been through, what your mother probably taught you as a little girl,” said Laflamme. The journalist sympathized with Orosz on the challenges of teaching one’s own child as a survivor.
In August of 2016, Orosz was asked to speak about the transmission of psychological trauma from mothers to children at a psychiatric conference in Dresden. However, Orosz’ reaction to the invite involved instant denial to her repressed feelings of trauma. “I’m not going to do it, I don’t have trauma,” she said.
Orosz went directly to her two children to ask about their thoughts on her attending the event. When she questioned her having trauma, her son had little to say. “But my daughter gave me a list to China and back, on what I did,” she jokingly stated.
“She said, ‘Mom, are you telling me you don’t have trauma? Your whole life is the Holocaust, everything was the Holocaust. You wanted me to be strong and you made me scared. I couldn’t go to sleep because I dreamt of the Germans,’” explained Orosz.
Sarah Fogg is a staff member at the MHM and a third-generation survivor to her two grandparents, Marek and Mara Lewkowicz, who survived the Holocaust in Balkhash, Kazakhstan and Kassel, Germany. After World War II, the young couple began a family and fled as refugees to Canada, where they started a new chapter in their lives.
Fogg has worked with Orosz for years, and emphasized her good intent in trying to protect her daughter from potential harms after the Holocaust.
The thought of Orosz instilling fear into her daughter at such a young age had never been her intention. “For Angi, it wasn’t from that perspective at all, she was just trying to build a safer human,” expressed Fogg.
Orosz felt strongly towards being open about her past with her children, in hopes of teaching them resilience and gratefulness.
She referred to memories early on in her parenthood when her children would complain about something. For instance, if they disliked the meal their mother cooked for them, Orosz would reply with “you know how happy [you] would have been in Auschwitz?”.
“We were happy if water came from the faucets in Auschwitz, how could you dare to complain?” she often asked her children.
When her children were young, she juggled the task of being a novice mother while carrying the weight of being a Holocaust survivor. Orosz was also just trying her best, and many other survivors were too.
“When I think of the survivors that I know, again I can’t speak for everybody, everyone’s different, everyone has just tried their best. They came to Canada as refugees, they had to build new lives, learn new languages, new jobs, start from nothing. And I think they all just did the best they could, really,” said Fogg.
Despite never enduring trauma from the Holocaust, Fogg sympathizes with other descendants who’ve felt as though they lived within their families’ tragic stories.
“Now that I work at the museum, I know that there’s a right way and a wrong way to bring up the history because it could be really traumatizing to talk about it, for the listener and for the survivor,” said Fogg.
Marissa Miller poses with her new book pretty weird photo provided by Marissa Miller
Her book Pretty Weird highlights all of her experiences
An eating disorder, a miscarriage, and mental health issues: Marissa Miller has persevered through all these, and more. Now she has collected all her negative experiences and used them to create something positive.
In her book Pretty Weird, Marissa highlights all of her painful memories to let her readers know that they are never alone.
Marissa studied journalism at Concordia from 2010 to 2013. Since then, she has grown a large platform and hopes to use it to act as a beacon of hope for others who are going through tough times.
“I’ve always been very much an open book in the literal sense, and I use that to my advantage to make others feel less alone in their struggles,” Marissa said.
Knowing that she is helping people allows her to get past the difficulty of publicizing her experiences. “It becomes less ‘things that have humiliated me in the past,’ and more so ‘things that I can use to be a beacon for other people,” she explained.
One such experience was her struggle with impostor syndrome. But transforming her negative feelings into sentences helped her overcome them, while also comforting her readers. “It really robs the pain of its power,” she said. “It’s almost like using my mental health issues as a way to masquerade the fact that you can be broken and imperfect and also of service to others.”
She started her career as a freelance journalist, working for big outlets such as CNN Style, The New York Times, and NBC News. Now, she works full-time at CNN as a contributing editor writing mostly product recommendations and lifestyle advice. She is also a certified personal trainer and outlines all her work on her blog.
Sheldon Miller, Marissa’s father, admits that her determination and affinity for writing not only gave her confidence, but allowed her to always excel in her work. “I don’t know if she is always the most aggressive-type person…but when it comes to her career, she’s on top of everything.”
Many people have reached out to Marissa since her book’s publication to tell her that she took the thoughts right out of their heads. “These are universal feelings that I’m putting on the page,” Marissa confirmed. She is very direct in discussing her rejections, fears, anxieties, and relationships in her book. “They might seem very crude and maybe a little bit too raw at times, but this is the human experience that we are all going through,” she asserted.
One of the biggest lessons that Marissa has learned from everything she’s gone through is that there is always something better out there. “That rings true for everything, not just your relationships,” Marissa explained.
“A lot of our depression and our anxiety will tell us that we are only deserving of what’s presented to us and what’s in front of us. But really one of the best things you can do for yourself is aspiring for more and aspiring for better because you deserve it,” she said.
On top of helping others, Marissa was also thinking of her younger self when writing her book, attempting to give herself the “older sister figure, best friend figure” that she never had as a child and teenager. Though her younger sister, Michelle, is one of the only people who knew about Marissa’s experiences.
“I’d say 90 per cent of it I knew about, either as it was happening or she would open up to me a few years later,” Michelle said. Marissa consulted her sister throughout the writing process to ask for her opinion on editorial choices. Michelle was the only person who knew about several moments mentioned in the book as the two sisters have always been extremely close. “We were so tight and open about everything,” Michelle added. “We’ll be on the phone [for] hours a day. Sometimes we’re not even talking on the phone. It’s just on, but we know that [the other person] is there,” Michelle continued.
Marissa’s parents were always very loving and attentive towards her, she mentions in Pretty Weird, but they were not as informed on her experiences as Michelle. “A lot of the stuff in the book, I didn’t really realize,” Sheldon said. “We knew as she got a bit older, there were some struggles and this and that…but until I read the book, I don’t think I realized it [to that extent],” he continued, adding that it was difficult to read about Marissa’s troubling moments.
More than anything else, he wants Marissa to write the truth, which is what she did. This included some unfortunate stories about Sheldon’s sister, who was close with Marissa and passed away due to health issues related to long-term drug use. But Sheldon wanted Marissa to keep those stories in her book. “I knew she was writing an honest account of her experiences and thoughts,” he explained. “If Marissa was able to grab onto something in a good way or a bad way…for someone to maybe enjoy the book or learn from the book, that’s part of journalism,” he said.
While Marissa always has her family at home, she often chooses to work alone. She enjoys working on her own more than working with a team. “It makes me doubly proud to reflect on my accomplishments because I didn’t have to rely on anyone for them,” she affirmed. Marissa always took charge of group projects when she was in school, so being the only one in charge of her career “is a continuation of that.”
Much of her work as a journalist focuses on lifestyle advice and mental health. She says that she enjoys doing service journalism the most. “One of the only things that give me a sense of purpose is giving advice to other people,” Marissa explained.
In her career she has covered a wide variety of topics, such as finance and real estate when she was starting. As time went on, she gravitated toward lifestyle topics and product recommendations. “People need to know that the products they use in everyday life have more of an impact on their well-being than they think,” she asserted. Marissa is currently doing service journalism for CNN and loving every moment of it.
Pretty Weird, which is still available on Amazon, has been a huge success for Marissa. She hopes to write another book in the future. She is looking towards that, but doesn’t think that now is the right time. “I feel like I have so much I want to say. I need some breathing room,” she asserted. For now, she is very happy where she is. “I do hope to rise the ranks at CNN and stay there forever.”
Nightline volunteers are there to listen to us when something comes up
On Jan. 11, Concordia Students’ Nightline announced their return for the new semester. After a well-deserved break, their volunteers are back on the lines. Callers can reach out to Nightline during their open hours from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m Wednesday through Saturday. It’s a student-run, fee-levy, anonymous, confidential, and non-judgmental active listening service for Concordians and anyone in need to talk about anything that’s on their mind.
The Concordian spoke with one of Nightline’s volunteers. In order to do their jobs, Nightline volunteers require anonymity and as such we will not reveal their name. This particular volunteer is a fourth-year Concordia student who has been with Nightline for two years. With a soothing and calming energy, the volunteer spoke about their experience working with the service.
“I’ve met so many amazing people through it. We’re like a family and we’re just supportive of each other. I feel like it’s such a good way for me to extend compassion to my entire community,” they expressed.
Nightline volunteers undergo thorough training to become active listeners. With the phone ringing on a daily basis, they are always busy as Nightline’s volunteer said every call is different and unexpected. However, they strive to make the conversation work in every situation.
“You have to be prepared for anything when taking calls because you can never have any idea of how the call is going to go when you pick up the phone, obviously you don’t know anything about that person, you don’t know what mood they’re going to be in, or anything about their situation,” they said.
Brooks Reid-Constantin has been the vice-president external of Nightline since May 2022. She, along with the rest of Nightline’s team, know what goes into being an active listener. Reid-Constantin says people sometimes just want to talk without receiving new information and know that any sentiment they’re feeling is validated.
“We’re there to listen without judgment, without giving our personal opinions, or personal biases, and without actually giving advice. Just holding space for the caller and being there so that they can voice any concerns or thoughts they’re having,” said Reid-Constantin.
The volunteer faced challenges when they started, mainly regarding what it truly means to be an active listener.
“The thing that took the most time for me to learn was really taking that step back and learning not to always be trying to lead people towards a solution, and learning the value of just being there for someone,” they said.
Active listening has not only been a helpful tool for this volunteer’s everyday life with their peers, but engaging with their community and friends through conversation helps build connections by using their listening skills and compassion for whoever’s on the other end of the line.
“It’s a way that I can now establish this real connection with someone over the phone who I know nothing about, we both don’t know each other, and we might never talk to each other again, I still feel that we can have this extremely real connection during the call,” they said.
This Nightline volunteer plans to stay with the service until they graduate and continue to spread their empathy, time, and kindness to those who need it. They’re continuing to learn new skills through experience, their coworkers, their executives, and every call.
Brooks always makes sure every volunteer is considered. Nightline volunteers are never alone in their environment and the sense of family shines through.
“We have meetings where we go through everything and make sure that the volunteers can talk, be heard, and also have a safe space to go over any of the emotions that they’re feeling. If you need a second, or you need help, or you need support, we’re there for you. Whatever we extend to our callers, we extend to our volunteers,” she said.
Haneefa Merchant is a psychology student and the vice-president external of the Stronger Than Stigma association at Concordia, which encourages conversations about mental health, and attempts to reduce the stigma behind it. For many, it’s not always easy to share their mental health struggles and have access to a mental health service. Even when Merchant was growing up in a conservative town in Saudi Arabia, she had access to open mic outlets where people talked about their personal stories. Hearing their stories brought her a lot of perspective that everyone deserves to be heard.
“Sometimes it’s hard to talk to your friends about some things, which is fine, we all have our moments […] but this is a great way to call Nightline and you can talk about it,” she said.
She comes back to how therapy isn’t always accessible to everyone, and services such as Nightline, which aren’t the “traditional” forms of mental health support, include more than just talking about personal things on the phone; it’s a form of healing. The work of an active listener isn’t always talked about.
“It is something that should be normalized because I think it’s a wonderful step; it’s not always easy to talk about things,” Merchant said.
Concordia Students’ Nightline volunteers dedicate their time to help fellow Concordians and everyone to give them the listening they need. Even if we can’t see them through the phone or try to picture what they look like in our heads, what matters is that they’re there. Their ears and hearts are always open in the purest intentions, and no amount of words can change that. If you want to know more about Nightline, check out their Facebook page!
Concordia University Foundation juggles social and environmental responsibility with corporate profits
On Nov. 8, 2019, the Concordia University Foundation (CUF) committed to divesting all investments in coal, oil, and gas industries by 2025, in order to become 100 per cent sustainable. The CUF also added the goal of allocating 10 per cent of its long-term assets in impact investments towards its 2025 goal. Impact investments are made with the intention of bringing about positive social and environmental change together with a financial return. Concordia emphasizes that these steps ensure that the University is investing in socially and environmentally responsible ways. However, complaints from students claim a disconnect from community centred initiatives, as multinational service providers tout sustainability as a method for financial growth.
Lacey Boudreau, a Concordia youth activist and a member of Climate Justice Action Concordia (CJAC), believes that these are steps in the right direction. However, Boudreau is wary of how much space is left for the foundation to prioritize profits over community. “You can still be investing in a company that is making a transition to net-zero which means that you can still be investing in them [fossil fuels],” she said.
Boudreau also points out that there could be discrepancies between how both the student community and the finance world interpret the term sustainable.” Shylah Wolfe, the executive director of the Concordia Food Coalition, echoed the same concern. “One of our main critiques of the sustainability action plan, [is that] the recommendations are never going to be fulfilled if we continue with multinational service providers,” explained Wolfe.
Multinational portfolio managers
Currently, the portfolio managers for the CUF’s impact investments, which are claimed to generate impacts on people and the planet, include companies such as Wells Fargo and BlackRock. Wells Fargo has been identified as one of the major banks to invest in private prisons and the immigrant detention industry. Timothy Sloan, former Wells Fargo CEO, said that the bank was exiting the private prison industry in March 2019. But amid Sloan’s statement the bank had been the portfolio manager for the CUF’s impact investments.
BlackRock, another firm listed as a portfolio manager for impact investments in CUF’s 2020-21 Annual Report, faced backlash in 2018 for its ties with large American firearms makers, while maintaining support for the oil and gas industry as part of the solution alongside environmental investment policies.
Wolfe believes that investing with multinational service providers such as Wells Fargo and BlackRock does not fulfil the aims of being impactful and socially responsible. However, Marc Gauthier, the university treasurer and chief investment officer, believes that the University’s investments are in reality 100 per cent impactful and wide reaching.
Gauthier also explained that in the CUF’s new framework, capital allocation is driven by sustainability objectives that enable social equity, financial inclusion, discrimination reduction, affordable housing, and health improvement, among other impacts. However, moving away from multinational portfolio managers was not mentioned as part of the path to being socially or environmentally responsible in investments.
Investment screening
In 2014, Erik Chevrier, part-time instructor at Concordia, made recommendations for implementing a socially responsible investment plan at the University. One of the recommendations was negatively screening fossil fuels production.
Negative screening excludes companies that work in sectors that are harmful for the environment or society. While the foundation has adopted negative screening, Boudreau believes that steps need to be taken towards positive screening. Positive screening finds companies that score high on environmental and social issues, further weeding out low scoring companies.
From the balance sheet to the campus
Wolfe believes that commitment to sustainability needs to “leap from the balance sheet to the campus,” and that “continued commitment to mitigating climate change fundamentally requires investment in transforming the food system.”
Wolfe adds that investing in high impact solutions such as social enterprise funding and The New Food Enterprise need to be prime candidates for CUF’s support and investment. Concordia’s current investment in Aramark, which is a multinational food service with links to the US prison system, is another example of Concordia’s problematic partnerships with multinational corporations.
Boudreau adds that the tension between the student body and the administration regarding the definition of sustainability can have real consequences. This tension explains why students mostly rely on student-run fee levy groups such as the Sustainability Action Fund (SAF) to fund their projects, rather than relying on the University for support.
CUF and the community
The CUF asserts that its links with the community at Concordia are strong and that this communication is maintained through the Joint Sustainable Investment Advisory Committee (JSIAC). Denis Cossette, Concordia’s chief financial officer stated that “JSIAC is composed of both students and faculty members and is very useful to keep the discussion open”.
“These meetings are very infrequent and it’s whenever they [CUF] want to present something,” affirmed Boudreau. She described a recent JSIAC meeting where most of the meeting was spent on the presentation of the CUF’s plans with a short Q&A session.
“It wasn’t a space where they were interested in any of our thoughts. It was just a presentation. The plan was done,” Boudreau said.
Boudreau believes that because the students were not part of the initial conversation, it would be very difficult for their comments to be integrated at the next level.
The high turnover of students might make it difficult for them to retain the institutional knowledge that they gain from activism on campus and to be taken seriously by the administration.
“I think there’s a habit of the administration to have no faith and to not follow through on student projects and groups, but we have proven that we are capable,” said Wolfe.
Boudreau noted that Concordia students try to counter that weakness by keeping in touch with past Concordians to brainstorm creative solutions.
The board of directors
The CUF has a male-dominated board of directors with a visible lack of diversity and a number of incredibly wealthy individuals in charge of establishing the University’s portfolio-investment policies.
“It’s true, it’s not a board that is as diversified as the board of university but these people in their field are also applying this sustainable approach that we have included in the investment policy,” said Cossette.
“Where are the climate experts [on the board]?” Boudreau pointed out when asked about the composition of the CUF’s board of directors.
On the other hand, the grassroots groups at Concordia take a different approach to the composition of their board of directors. “The Concordia Food Coalition (CFC) has engaged consultants to overhaul our own recruitment policies because we absolutely believe that our leadership and their perspective will inform how comprehensive and holistic our programs are and how innovative our solutions to community needs are, because the campus is certainly not mostly white cis males,” explained Wolfe.
Transparency
When it comes to the transparency of the CUF, Boudreau believes that it should go beyond the public financial reports. “Even if they are transparent with the information, [they use] all these financial terms and this is how they are getting away with these things because people don’t know what these words mean,” she said.
Boudreau added that the CUF should be transparent “in a way that students understand [the information] and have the space to ask questions and to be listened to.”
The CUF became part of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2018. The organization was supposed to receive a grade for its investments in June 2022, but due to a change in reporting requirements by the PRI, there were delays in the grade reports.
“We’ll have our grades only in 2023,” said Gauthier. For Boudreau, seeing climate experts weighing in on the progress made by the CUF would also help the student body understand the reality of the progress made so far. “They only have finance people working on this and that does not address the root problems,” added Boudreau.
Financing and the future
Gauthier also added that the CUF looks at sustainability not only from an “investment perspective, but from a financing perspective.” Gauthier cited the University’s issuing of sustainable bonds in 2019 as part of this vision. The bonds were issued to help finance the new LEED-certified Science Hub. Therefore, apart from relying on investments, the CUF has also been trying to come up with other financing options such as the issuing of sustainable bonds. However, many community organizers at Concordia believe that responsible financing could go further and include divesting from multinational corporations.
“There’s a dynamic tension between people versus profits at Concordia,” said Wolfe. For Boudreau, “there are many radical projects on campus working against the profit narrative.”
Le Drugstore was Montreal's last lesbian bar and has been closed since 2013. Photo GENEVIÈVE SYLVESTRE, Graphics CARLEEN LOONEY, Photo Edits CATHERINE REYNOLDS/ THE CONCORDIAN
Montreal does not currently have a single lesbian bar, pushing the experiences of lesbian and sapphic people under the rug.
Despite being considered one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, with many gay bars and a queer neighbourhood named the Village, Montreal does not have a lesbian bar. Indeed, the city’s last one, The Drugstore, closed in 2013 and no other lesbian or sapphic bar has opened since. This is a huge departure from 1988, when there were eight active lesbian bars in Montreal. Dr. Julie A. Podmore, an affiliate assistant professor at Concordia specializing in urban studies and human geography, refers to it as the “golden-age of lesbian-visibility” in a 2006 study called “Gone ‘underground’? Lesbian visibility and the consolidation of queer space in Montréal.”
Today, Montreal’s lesbian and sapphic community can meet through different events thrown by organizations like ElleLui, L nights or Sweet Like Honey, amongst others. These events allow for greater gender and racial diversity than most of the sex-segregated bars of the 1980s and ’90s. But their temporary nature doesn’t allow the community a permanent safe place to gather.
The Quebec Lesbian Network (RLQ) is an organization who represents queer women all over the province and speaks to different social and political entities to defend their rights and welfare. Cynthia Eysseric, the executive assistant of the RLQ shared her concerns. “It’s so important to create a community, and I think women of sexual diversity are really looking for that, to be in community with people who understand them and have the same reality.”
The Disappearance of Lesbian Bars
It’s not clear what led to the disappearance of lesbian bars in Montreal. In the same study mentioned previously, Dr. Podmore describes gentrification as a potential factor since most lesbian bars were found in the Plateau neighbourhood. The 1980s and ’90s brought many middle-class individuals to the Le-Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, regardless of gender and sexuality. It soon became one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in Montreal. In contrast, the Village, where most of the bars for gay men were located, gentrified at a much slower rate according to Podmore’s study, and attracted mostly middle-class gay men that increased the popularity of gay establishments.
Another possible factor is the diversification of the Village and the creation of mixed clubs. The 1990s saw an emergence of queer activism and community building with the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic, police repression and the start of the Pride movement. Many mixed queer clubs were created during this time and became popular with the new generation of lesbians, as opposed to the bars in the Plateau which had an older, francophone clientele.
The New Trend
“Usually, what we see in Montreal are events that will switch bars. These events are very precise, usually monthly and they’ll often be in recurring bars because the owners are either part of the community or their establishment is seen as very LGBTQ+ friendly,” said Eysseric.
Lucia Winter, co-founder and producer of ElleLui, shared their thoughts on the village in an interview with her two collaborators, Ray Resvick and Eloise Haliburton. “I’ve noticed that there has been an effort that has been made to diversify the types of parties and types of events that are being run in the village,” shared Winter.
According to their website, ElleLui is a production collective that organizes sapphic and lesbian parties in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal).
“However, it’s not as if club owners suddenly decided to invite lesbians, it’s sapphic organisers that are going out and creating these events,” added Resvick, a co-producer.
ElleLui events are popular and draw large crowds, despite only being created last year. Winter partly credits their success to being one of the first people to start organizing events shortly after the COVID-19 surge at the end of summer 2021. ElleLui, alongside other sapphic event organizers such as Sweet Like Honey, pride themselves on being as inclusive as possible of queer, trans, Black, Indigenous and people of color (QTBIPOC). This emphasis on inclusivity is an element that was missing from the lesbian bars of the past and the Village as a whole.
Jade Sullivan, a data analyst, activist and sapphic ballroom and exotic dancer, attends and performs at many of these Montreal sapphic events. “The community has to spend so much money just to be a part of sapphic spaces because you have to buy tickets to events to cover overhead costs, but with a bar you can just walk in and buy one drink,” shared Sullivan. She mentioned how grateful she is to be able to afford these events, but she knows many others who can’t afford tickets to community events.
Why Are Sapphic Spaces Important?
“The reason that a gay space is amazing depends on who you are,” shared Haliburton. “To walk into a space oriented for cis-gay men is probably amazing for cis-gay men, but that’s not my experience, I don’t relate to that.” Her colleague, Resvick, also mentioned the privilege that cis-men face is not shared by the whole queer community and that there are layers of intersection on top of sexuality such as gender, class, and race.
Lesbians also have less mainstream representation than gay men and face many stereotypes that they don’t. “Sometimes we’ll think that lesbians have no sexuality because of the absence of a man or lesbian relationships are seen as being for male sexual pleasure. Either way, lesbian relationships are not seen as legitimate,” shared Eysseric.
“The amount of harassment I experience when I go to a straight bar with a bunch of my lesbian friends is so bad. Even when we have sapphic events in certain bars, some men will still try to barge in,” shared Sullivan.
She also shared how as an exclusively sapphic exotic dancer, the number of spaces where she can perform are too small for her to support herself solely through exotic dancing. However, that’s not due to lack of demand.
“The sapphic nights were the most money that those bars made because of the amount of people coming in and because there were no other sapphic spaces that had that kind of exotic dancing,” she recalled. “That space was a lot more intersectional and diverse than what you see in a normal strip-club. It very much broke the binary of what we think exotic dancing is like.” Sullivan also raised the point that many gay men can make a living exotic dancing in the Village.
The loss of lesbian bars is not an issue unique to Montreal. According to data from The Lesbian Bar Project, there used to be over 200 lesbian bars in the United States. Today, there are only 24. The Lesbian Bar project raised $117,000 to help the remaining bars survive.
The lack of permanent spaces is not the only issue that the Montreal sapphic community faces; lack of representation and recognition are also issues.
“We’ve been fighting for years for the term lesbophobia to be recognized,” said Eysseric. “It’s really important because lesbophobia is the intersection between sexism and homophobia, which is a reality unique to women of sexual diversity.”
After years of hard work, the RLQ managed to have the term added to the Montreal Charter of Rights and Responsibilities in 2021. “It’s a term that’s very hard to be recognized, it’s not even in every French dictionary, so there is a long way to go,” she added. The Montreal sapphic community is still gathering despite the challenges they face, but there is still a long way to go for lesbian and sapphic acceptance.
Stronger than Stigma’s (STS) emphasis of peer-to-peer support intends on accommodating every student’s mental health needs
Concordia University’s limited staffing of the Counselling and Psychological Services (CPS) grants priority assistance to students in mental health crises, directing others towards outside psychological services. Consequently, students often face greater financial restraints and longer waiting periods.
As of Nov. 22, Brittany Dohmen-Clermont, a service assistant and secretary for CPS, stated that the school has a total of 11 active psychologists: eight at the Sir George Williams Campus and three at the Loyola Campus.
Concordia has a student body of over 51,250 students. The low number of professionals able to offer psychiatric assistance has sparked growing concerns.
The Concordian spoke with Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman, a first-year journalism major who, despite being qualified for and enrolled in CPS, still faces major accommodation issues. She and many other students are attending student-run mental health club events to fulfill their missing needs.
Glorieux-Stryckman referred to the COVID-19 outbreak as a time of emotional distress for many.
“I was grieving the entire pandemic. I was grieving the time that I had lost, the trips I didn’t take, the friends I didn’t hang out with, the things I didn’t learn,” she expressed.
Undergoing the hardships that derived from the pandemic while fighting the nerves of being a first-year university student, Glorieux-Stryckman stated that seeking therapy at the University’s CPS hadn’t been a question for her. Yet it wasn’t as easy as she anticipated.
On Sept. 9. at 9:15 a.m., she failed to book a triage appointment in time. After only 15 minutes of the desk opening its request for triage appointments, it was full. “That was kind of discouraging for me… that’s actually usually how it goes, it’s hard to even get a triage appointment,” said Glorieux-Stryckman.
Dohment-Clermont stated, “It can take up to two weeks for the triage appointment — the first appointment, it is first come first serve. Those who repeatedly ask, we do take note, and we do take note of those in crisis, and they do receive it.” Triage appointment requests open Fridays at 9 a.m. and are sent by email to office rooms, GM-300 or AD-121. CPS.info@concordia.ca.
The following week, Glorieux-Stryckman scrambled to ensure her alarm had been set for 9 a.m. and prepared a draft email beforehand. On Sept. 16, she secured her appointment in relief, which took place shortly after.
“One of the things that kind of freaked me out at my triage appointment was that before we started, the therapist told me ‘Oh by the way, if we see that you don’t really qualify, we might refer you to other services outside of Concordia,’” stated Glorieux-Stryckman. This appeared to go against the financial advantages of seeking therapy on campus.
Unlike outside services, the CPS is covered by students’ health insurance tuition, which on average costs $123.33 per semester for full-time students. The CPS’ service agreement states: “The number and frequency of these appointments will depend on the client’s tailored plan for therapy.”
Given the CPS’ priority assistance to students in crisis, Glorieux-Stryckman reluctantly stated, “I’m really happy I got it but that means I’m really unwell.”
Claire Dyment, a Concordia student and president of Stronger Than Stigma (STS), the University’s undergraduate mental health club, shares similar experiences to those of Glorieux-Strykman’s. STS caters to a larger student body through its implementation of various events and resources.
Glorieux-Stryckman was told she’d receive an appointment once every other week. Instead, she has had three appointments canceled in a row without receiving proper notice or accommodations by the CPS.
Glorieux-Stryckman began her sessions in early October and has received only 5 therapy sessions as of December 8. Considering the severity of her needs, she states that this inconsistency is lacking effectiveness.
Claire Dyment, a fourth-year psychology major, refers to her first-year stay at the campus’ Grey Nuns Residence, after moving from her hometown in Ottawa.
She spoke about the distress she endured in the fall of 2019, as a first-year student struggling to adapt to her new lifestyle, while undergoing the student residency’s pandemic safety measures.
“I was having a hard time adapting to resident life,” said Dyment. Unimaginably, she was now living in “a weird micro society of everyone in these little rooms.”
Dyment became significantly limited to socializing and exploring her new student-life, worsening the state of her anxiety.
Luckily enough, the residence provided a school adjustment advisor, in support of newly-arrived students who were struggling with adaptation issues. Dyment jumped on the opportunity to book an appointment, where she unraveled her stressors.
Despite exchanging a heartfelt encounter with the advisor, she felt taken aback by one of their statements.
“From our 30-minute conversation, I can tell you are not in maximum crisis and because of that, I’m not even going to direct you to mental health services because you won’t get in. You should go private.”
“From the get-go, I was so grateful that the residence had this service and then it was a halt, like [they] will give you a bite, but you can’t have the whole sandwich,” said Dyment.
Dyment was directed to PsyMontréal, a psychological therapy service offered to CU student members of StudentCare, the Concordia Student Union (CSU) health care insurance plan. Under this plan, students pay $185, which allows them to claim up to $750 per policy year for psychiatric services, paying between $120 to $130 a therapy session. On average, students are only covered up to six sessions a year and often still sit on a lengthy waitlist.
Shortly after Dyment sought help at the residence’s advisor, Quebec’s COVID-19 cases had exponentially risen. The residence responded to the situation by giving the students “four days’ notice to vacate residence. It was really badly managed,” said Dyment.
This initiated an instant worry for Dyment. She, along with the other student-residents, felt pressured to not only respect the limited time frame to vacate, but to find their means of transport to do so. “Luckily, my parents were able to come pick me up in their car. But, it was definitely stressful,” stated Dyment.
After the pandemic Dyment’s battles with anxiety haven’t stopped her from pursuing her passion for studying psychology and achieving the presidential role at STS this year. STS members consist of nine anti-stigma mental health advocate students while additionally having volunteer staff ready to help. Their open-membership platform offers students a safe place to share without fear of judgment.
Dyment is one of many students who have obtained greater benefit from peer-to-peer mental health support than those from school’s services. “This is something that makes me feel good, it makes me feel motivated, it makes me feel connected to my peers,” said Dyment.
STS’ events strive to release students’ mental health stressors by offering a safe space on campus. The club recently hosted their annual Wine and Paint Night on Nov. 2, at Concordia’s Reggie’s Bar. The event charged a $15 entrance fee, which covered all painting supplies, food, and beverages.
Glorieux-Stryckman was one of 72 students to attend the event. At this time, she had missed out on three CPS therapy sessions, and this gathering alleviated a period of discouragement for her.
“She was really making a place for me,” said Glorieux-Stryckman, referring to Dyment’s welcoming demeanor. “It was so nice to know that these people were willing to support students when they needed it.”
“I felt like I could give my energy to hopefully try and make an impact for others,” said Dyment. The STS president hopes to provide this feeling of reassurance to other students in situations similar to Glorieux-Stryckman’s.
Claire Dyment, along with her fellow STS members, head back to sharing their monthly celebratory cheers after completing yet another successful mental health event.
Protesters in Montreal show support for Iranian Women MARIEKE GLORIEUX-STRYCKMAN/The Concordian
Protests continue in Iran, and Iranians in Montreal struggle to be so far from their homeland
McGill University’s Islamic Studies Library is a quiet and inviting place. From the outside, it looks like any other McGill building, and a passerby may not realize the beauty it holds. It’s filled with rows of leather-bound books, large windows, spiral staircases, and students studying for their finals.
Above the library, the Islamic Studies lounge is not so quiet. People talk, laugh, and eat together. There, Sonia Nouri and Sheida Mousavi, second-year Iranian political science students at McGill University, are animatedly speaking Farsi with a friend. They bid him farewell before finding a quieter room to discuss their homeland and the turmoil it faces since the death of Mahsa Amini in September.
“Being Iranian is a lot more than the government, it’s a lot more than the hijab, it’s a lot more than being restricted every day,” said Mousavi.
“A lot of it is that. But, when I talk to my [family], we talk about poetry, and Iranian food, and that’s also what it means to me,” she added. But right now, both students are having a hard time cherishing their Iranian identity.
Nouri and Mousavi both immigrated to Canada from Iran when they were young. They are co-founders of the Coalition for Iranian Human Rights McGill (CIHRM), a group they created to bring McGill’s Iranian community together and to hold a vigil for Mahsa Amini in October.
Last September, Amini died in custody after Iran’s “morality police,” the force tasked with enforcing Iran’s dress code, arrested her for wearing her hijab incorrectly. The Iranian government said that she died of a heart attack, but witnesses claimed that she was beaten by the officers.
Her death led to an uproar against the Islamic Republic of Iran, in which women filmed themselves removing and sometimes burning their hijabs in protest. According to Amnesty International, 15,000 protesters have been arrested, and 21 people are at risk of receiving the death penalty for the offenses of “enmity against God” or “corruption on earth.” The organization Iranian Human Rights states that security forces have killed at least 448 people since the beginning of the protests.
Protesters march in Montreal MARIEKE GLORIEUX-STRYCKAMN/ The Concordian
Nouri and Mousavi have watched these headlines from afar. “Being here has, in the most obvious way, been very difficult and upsetting,” explained Mousavi.
“The protests [in Iran] are only getting worse,” added Nouri, “and we don’t want the conversation to die down in McGill and in Montreal.”
Nouri was a year old when her family moved to Canada, and Mousavi was five. They grew up seeing their families in Iran facing oppression and developed an antagonistic view of the country’s regime. Despite all this, they also grew up with the Iranian culture, surrounded by its religions and traditions.
“Though I grew up here, I never felt really Canadian,” said Nouri. “I always identified more with being Iranian. I was raised grieving a country I never got to live in.”
Mousavi had a different experience. She tried to push away her Iranian heritage, and only in recent years has found a way to unite that heritage with her Canadian identity. “Being a migrant,” she said, “you do feel a constant loss about a lot of things, whether it’s a loss of culture or loss of language.”
In the last few weeks, they have struggled to stay proud of their Iranian identity. “The ways people are describing this country that we consider our homeland, the language that’s being used around this, it’s very conflicting,” said Nouri. “Though we agree that the regime is horrible, it’s hard to see so much of it be generalized.”
These feelings are echoed by the Iranian Student Association of Concordia University (ISACU), and by the organization Woman-Life-Freedom Montreal (WLFM). Fora Fereydouni is a volunteer for ISACU and the co-founder of WLFM. She emigrated from Iran six years ago and is now studying psychology at Concordia University.
Fereydouni explained that the unrest in Iran has made her anxious and depressed. “My family is in the street. My friends are in the street,” she said. “We can just be their voice. We can’t do anything else. It is really exhausting.”
“It has given us a very strong survivor’s guilt,” added Darya Almasi, a volunteer for ISACU and WLFM. Almasi immigrated five years ago to pursue her PhD in sociology at Concordia. “I came here in search of freedom and liberty,” she said. “But the idea that I moved here, so I’m free, I’m on my own and living my life, it never came true. We were always tied to our roots back home. Now that our country is going through a revolution, with mass murder and unbelievable violations of human rights, we’re again finding ourselves in the middle of a war zone.”
Shayan Asgharian, president of ISACU and native Montrealer, experienced many of the same feelings as his colleagues. Asgharian studies political science and Iranian studies, and he grew up intertwined with Iranian culture and still has loved ones in Iran.
“I’ve been worried sick,” he said. “Thursday of last week, I stayed up all night. I called one of my friends 21 times, and he didn’t answer at all, because they didn’t have any connection to the internet.”
According to Asgharian, students are at the center of the crisis in Iran. “When universities are getting blown up, it directly affects us. When someone who is our age gets murdered, it directly affects us. For example, Zhina [Mahsa] Amini, she could’ve been a student. She could’ve been here, talking with us about a completely different subject.”
He is not the only Iranian student losing sleep these days. Pooya is an international student pursuing a master’s in computer science at Concordia, who withheld his last name for security reasons. He moved to Montreal in the winter of 2021. His friends and family are still in Iran, and many of them are in the streets, protesting.
“A couple of my best friends are going out there,” he said. “The first few days, the government were killing brutally, and every night, I was sleeping, and I was just hoping ‘God, just save them tomorrow.’”
Pooya misses his family, but if he goes back to Iran, he will have to do military service. His plan is to get permanent resident status in Canada before returning to his home country.
“It’s hard,” he said. “You cannot forget your hometown easily. But once your home is at war, you need to save yourself first.”
Nevertheless, he shared his hopes that the protests would be successful, and that the government would be replaced. “Only then we can say, now we survived. We can say, now we can provide opportunities for people to work, and live together, and thrive together. Only then we can decide.”
In the classroom above the Islamic studies library, Nouri called on people outside the Iranian community to keep up to date on the news and to offer solidarity for the Iranian community.
“Seeing increased frustration with our generation, seeing these women risk their lives, it’s really empowering,” added Mousavi. “I think that the times will change.”
Xenos-Whinston first attended Concordia, then named Sir George Williams University, in 1950. CATHERINE REYNOLDS/The Concordian
A profile of Concordia’s oldest student
Mary Xenos-Whiston has been a lot of things in her life: a teacher, a mother, and a guide at an art gallery. But the one thing she has always been is a student. At 92 years old, she is Concordia’s oldest student and is currently enrolled in Dr. Nicola Nixon’s American poetry class.
According to Xenos-Whiston, lately she has been doing the usual: “Going crazy,” to which her daughter Barbara commented, “Being 92 is not for the faint of heart.”
Despite going crazy, she is still enjoying her class on American Poetry . “I wouldn’t be taking them if I wasn’t really enjoying them,” she said.
“My life is too short for doing things that I don’t enjoy, like house cleaning.”
Xenos-Whiston was born to Greek immigrants in Verdun, and she’s lived in Montreal her whole life and has watched the city and University change dramatically. Her father owned a restaurant in Verdun, where she recalls it being the first to get a soft-serve ice cream machine. In her early years, much of her life was based around the church. Her and about 50 other Greek families would gather at Holy Trinity for weddings, funerals and Saturday night dances before the church burned down in the 1980s.
As a girl Xenos-Whiston had a love for learning; she frequently found herself in the top math and science classes while attending Verdun high school and she always had a book with her.
This love for learning has kept Xenos-Whiston in school for most of her life. She’s taken courses for fun at Concordia since the ’90s. After originally enrolling in English courses, it wasn’t long until she discovered other interests. “I discovered the FFAR [interdisciplinary fine arts] courses, wow,” she exclaimed. “I took a course in Jazz, I took a course in this, I took a course in that, I was just interested in learning.”
During this time she earned another bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Concordia and has taken many courses in women’s studies. But her history with Concordia goes back to before the school even went by that name.
Mary Xenos-Whiston’s graduate portrait, Sir.George Williams University 1954/ BARBARA WHISTON
Xenos-Whiston began attending Sir George Williams University in 1950, where she received her Bachelor of Arts, majoring in history as one of the few women attending the school. “Girls did not go to university,” Xenos-Whiston said. She recalled a former teacher questioning her about her enrollment on campus one day.
“What are you doing, going to Sir.George? You’re only going to get married and have children,” she recalled the teacher saying. “And I thought that’s what you think.”
She did eventually marry and give birth to her daughter Barbara, but she found time for a great deal of academic success along the way. Xenos-Whiston completed a master’s degree in education at McGill in 1978, and a PhD from the University of Montreal in 1990.
After World War II she saw the city transform spectacularly. “The government allowed educated European immigrants to come here in the late ’40s and early ’50s and Montreal changed.” Xenos-Whinston watched as the city’s identity changed around her: what used to be diners became German, Italian and Chinese restaurants.
“Before you knew it, Montreal was a new place. It was great.”
Concorida’s Iconic Hall building under construction in Crica 1965, 12 years after Xenos-Whiston had graduated from Sir. George Williams University. JACK BORDAN/Concordia Records Management and Archives
After finishing her first degree Xenos-Whiston began teaching in elementary school and spent her days going to the theater. In 1991 she retired. After a life served in education, some people may never want to look at a classroom again. But this was not the case for Xenos-Whiston who continued her education at Concordia.
“Look, some people go to movies. Some people play hockey. Some people spend hours training for things and then going and doing them. I love taking courses,” she said.
Today, her family sees school as a part of her.
“I can’t imagine her not being in school,” said her daughter. The only time Whiston could remember her mother not being in school was after she was born, when her mother left teaching for a few years.
“After that, she’s constantly been a student; it’s part of her identity. I just can’t imagine her not doing it. It’s always been a surprise to hear about what courses she is taking and what papers she is writing, what ideas she is interested in and what she is discovering. It’s kind of fun.”
Going to school has not always been easy for Xenos-Whiston, who is now legally blind and uses hearing aids. She has note-takers in class and through the Centre for Equitable Library Assistance (CELA) can get accessible copies of texts used in her class. It’s no easy feat, but she is still determined to be in class.
During the pandemic, her courses at Concordia were what kept her going. When her daughter asked if she could have made it through COVID without Concordia, her reply was simple. “No, I would have died.”
Concordia does offer a senior non-credit program, which allows older people to audit classes. When auditing courses, students don’t have to write papers or exams like they would for credit. But Xenos-Whiston doesn’t have as much interest in this.
“I did try it out,” she said, “But, to me, a course is not a course until I write the paper. So I decided that I wanted to write the papers.”
92-year-old Concordia student Mary Xenos-Whinston has been taking courses for fun since the 1990s. CATHERINE REYNOLDS/The Concordian
It’s professors like Dr. Nicola Nixon who’ve inspired her to keep coming back. Nixon is an associate professor in Concordia’s English department and Xenos-Whiston’s professor this semester.
“It’s not so unusual to have certain older post-retirement people in your courses, auditing,” said Nixon.
“Of course, they don’t want to write essays or write exams or any of those things and her willingness to do so, I find it quite admirable, But for her, it’s part of, you know, kind of immersing herself in the course, as opposed to just having a passive relationship to it.”
Xenos-Whiston and Professor Nixon have known each other for about five years now. “At first it was basically a professor-student relationship,” said Nixon. “I did go to her birthday party this year […] I suppose we’re more friends now than the first few years she was taking courses.”
Nixon says Xenos-Whiston is a good student, she engages with the class and brings in a lot of her own lived experience. Even considering her age, getting good grades has never been something she has struggled with.
“If I go home, I could write a paper, get it in tomorrow and get an A,” she said. “My transcript is all As.” This is all but one failure from the year when she took philosophy.
However, school has not been her only hobby over the past 92 years. Exercise has been important to her for much of her life and she was an avid swimmer and walker for some time. A love for contemporary art led her to guide tours at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts between 1995 and 2005.
Also a passionate music fan, she would go to concerts every other week, frequently attending the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the opera occasionally. Her love for music led her to spend years attempting to learn to play piano, but she never quite got the hang of it. “My family struggled, suffered and listened to me for about ten years try to learn the piano,” she said.
“When I die and go to heaven, I’m going to tell her, she was unfair to give me such a love of music but not the skill to do it.”
Despite not being able to play piano, Mary Xenos-Whiston has accomplished much in her life. At 92 years old she holds four degrees, “Most of it out of sheer curiosity and for pleasure’s sake rather than anything else,” said her daughter.
But Xenos-Whiston still plans on taking courses. Her only dilemma is deciding if she will leave English for a while and take some more FFAR courses. When asked if she had ever considered taking Hip Hop: Beats, Rhymes and Life, a popular FFAR course at Concordia, she said she hadn’t, but did add “maybe in another 10 years.”
After A Two-Year Suspension, Course Evaluations Are Back With Students Doubting Their Ability To Affect Change And Professors Questioning Their Underlying Bias
At the beginning of 2019, Concordia’s Student Union (CSU) conducted its annual undergraduate survey. In that survey, many students voiced their concerns regarding the evaluation system at Concordia and believed that course evaluations did little to improve the teaching or the syllabi.
“Students who are filling out surveys could not benefit from professors’ adjustments and
thus many wouldn’t care to take time to do the surveys,” the survey concluded, which is why 84% of students wanted their professors to implement mid-term evaluations.
JAMES FAY @jamesfaydraws
Others believed that professors did not care enough about their evaluations and were not willing to engage with their feedback. Some students doubted whether their feedback would lead anywhere with regards to tenured professors.
“I think the problem is that professors are not held remotely accountable for being bad professors. Those with tenure have no reason to improve their teaching style because they don’t care enough,” mentioned a surveyed student.
A month after the 2019 annual survey was conducted, the pandemic was in full swing and Concordia’s courses had moved online. Following an agreement between the faculty unions and the University, course evaluations were suspended. “In part, this was done because course evaluations are designed for in-person courses and could not fairly account for the remote teaching context,” explained Vannina Maestracci, Concordia’s University Spokesperson.
While the students surveyed in 2019 had shown a strong preference for more course evaluations, they would not return until the summer of 2022.
Elisabeth Peltier, associate professor at John Molson School of Business and treasurer at Concordia University Faculty Association (CUFA) explained that “[Professors] had to learn how to work with technology and felt that having evaluations would not be fair because they weren’t doing their normal jobs.” However, CUFA was not involved in the prolonged suspension of course evaluations even after in-person courses resumed in the middle of the 2022 spring semester.
According to Maestracci, in 2021, a working group which included CSU and Graduate Student Association (GSA) representation, was set up to look at mechanisms for student feedback and issue recommendations on course evaluations at Concordia. However, there seems to be no concrete timeline to address the student issues that were put on hold due to the pandemic.
The key request from students was to have mid-term evaluations that allowed students to give feedback before the course was over, in the hope that some of the feedback would be implemented before the course’s end. The Concordian spoke with Eric Friedman, a student taking courses in the philosophy department at Concordia who has also echoed this sentiment.
“A discussion in the middle of the semester that addresses students’ concerns about the course and is done in class and as a discussion would be very helpful,” said Friedman.
However, as it currently stands, mid-course evaluations at Concordia are done at the discretion of the professor and are not mandatory, with many professors opting out of them.
“During the pandemic all the efforts at the CSU was focused on advocacy around COVID,” said Asli Isaaq, academic and advocacy coordinator at the CSU. The focus on COVID-related issues has put many other student concerns on the back-burner, with annual student surveys also suspended for the last three CSU mandates.
Some faculty members might be hesitant to support the expansion of course evaluations. Some professors are skeptical of the underlying bias that students might have, and how that bias would affect the instructors’ performance evaluations. “We don’t trust teaching evaluations because there is so much research that shows that they are biased,” added Peltier.
Recent research suggests that factors such as gender, accent, and appearance can play a role in how students evaluate their instructors. “The fact that the participation level is so low also makes evaluations not representative of an instructor’s performance,” explains Peltier.
Some students are also skeptical about course evaluations. Many were concerned that their feedback would not make a change if their professors were tenured and therefore they did not bother with course evaluations. “For tenured professors, research constitutes most of their responsibility and so course evaluations would not have much of an effect,” added Peltier.
Many students who are disappointed with the prospect of affecting change via course evaluations rely on websites such as Rate My Professors to avoid professors with bad reviews. However, external websites are not regulated and many of the reviews can be biased and untrustworthy.
Creating an internal evaluation and reviewing platform that allows students to share their class experiences and feedback could be an idea that addresses these concerns. Some students stated that being able to see other students’ evaluations would incentivize them to take part in more evaluations.
“I check my professors on Rate My Professors before I take a course and it helps me get a general idea of what people think overall,” says Asley, an undergraduate computer engineering student who did not want to disclose her last name. According to Asley, seeing other students’ comments is valuable and it can help incentivize participation.
However, Isaaq believes that such a platform should have been planned for the beginning of the CSU’s mandate and logistically it would not be possible to implement it at this time.
“I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea, but those are the types of things you plan at the beginning of your mandate,” said Isaaq. “My year is set and there’s only so many things you can do and decide on, but an idea like having your own platform to post your ratings […] takes a lot of labour and we already decided what our goals are for this year.”
Isaaq believes that there are benefits to an internal platform since Rate My Professors does not include all of the part-time professors and has no index to show who is currently teaching or no longer teaching at Concordia. However, Fawaz Halloum, the CSU General Coordinator, said that the issue of having mid-course evaluations will be “shared with the academic caucus who may decide to take it up with the Senate.”
The University maintains that course evaluations are taken seriously and that department chairs have access to them and can discuss any issues that arise from them with the respective faculty.
There has been a lack of action since the survey came out in 2019 since there are still no mid-course evaluations for most courses. Maestracci affirmed that “the recommendations are under review and we will be sharing more on their implementation once that is done.” However, she did not share any specific timeline as to when students can expect this implementation.
Following Concordia’s New Contract With Aramark, The Fight Is Still Not Over For A Food-Sovereign Campus
In April, Concordia’s board of governors signed a new contract with multinational food services corporation Aramark to return as the University’s food supplier until May of 2026, with the possibility of a two-year extension. Aramark has been notorious for its ties to the US prison system ,and offering poor working conditions.
The University’s decision to sign a new contract with the corporation goes against a continual effort to steer Concordia away from multinational corporations and towards social enterprises or not-for-profit food suppliers instead, in an attempt to make Concordia into a food-sovereign campus.
In 2021, it seemed as though the University was seriously considering this alternate option. “Concordia was making an effort to explore options outside of multinational corporations,” said Shylah Wolfe, executive director of the Concordia Food Coalition (CFC).
Oliver de Volpi, Concordia’s Food Services manager, corroborated this claim. “We investigated some other options. The one that was even presented by Concordia Food Coalition didn’t pan out. They weren’t ready to bid.”
Ultimately, the University did sign a new contract with Aramark. But, it’s not the end of the movement for a food sovereign campus.
Currently, the CFC is drafting a business plan for what they are calling the New Food Enterprise (NFE), which will be modeled largely off of Diversity Food Services (DFS), a social enterprise providing food service at the University of Winnipeg.
The CFC’s website states that “the NFE will be an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable social enterprise capable of becoming Concordia’s campus food service provider. We are building a coalition of community stakeholders and local food producers to supply affordable and sustainable food options at scale to the university.”
The NFE will bring together the Concordian Student Union, the Hive Cafe, SEIZE, and collaborate with the University’s senior administration. The CFC website states that “there is already broad understanding that the NFE is the transformative model that Concordia needs. Our job is to bring it to fruition.”
The Concordia Student Union has contributed $50,000 total to the NFE project. The CFC has taken $10,000 of the aforementioned funding to contract Chief Operating Officer of DFS Ian Vickers as a consultant. The VP Student Services Office has also pledged $25,000 to the project, Wolfe told The Concordian, with the remaining funds supporting additional planning, financing and partnership development.
“They’re putting their money where their mouth is, and taking us a bit more seriously. Now that we have four years to develop an alternative that is not just lip service, it will be an actually fleshed-out plan,” said Wolfe.
The money was pledged by the University before Aramark won the Request For Proposal (RFP) bid, with the CSU’s funding coming in during the bidding period.
Since 2020, and during the RFP period, the CFC and other student representative groups sitting on the Concordia Food Advisory Working Group (FAWG) advocated for Concordia to adopt a model similar to that of Diversity Food Services. This would include cooking from scratch, more involvement in local food economies, and providing better benefits for staff.
“What we’re doing now is essentially taking a provenly successful model at the University of Winnipeg with Diversity, and essentially building out an offering on a silver platter to the administration that we would run it with Diversity closely consulting,” said Wolfe.
According to Wolfe, the business would be owned by stakeholders made up of the University, the CFC, and DFS.
According to the University’s sustainable food systems plan, Concordia and Aramark are making efforts to be more sustainable and improve upon their last contract, by bringing in more local products, removing Aramark’s rights to operating vending machines on campus, and making meals offered in cafeterias one-third vegetarian, one-third vegan and one-third meat by 2025.
De Volpi further stated that while Concordia did decide to re-sign with Aramark, the decision was not motivated purely by finances.
“75% of the criteria for coming back to campus is not financially related. It’s sustainability operations, it’s nutrition, it’s that part of it. And Aramark won the bid. They’ve made contractual obligations to be easily a leader in Canada in both sustainability and nutrition. We’re going to hold them to it as well,” he said.
But many advocating for a new food service model feel that their current goals aren’t enough.
“I think that the goals that the University has are commendable, but they’re not transformative. I think that it is difficult for them to ever do anything transformative if they continue with the bureaucratic processes that they are using,” said Wolfe.
“That last 25 percent is weighted twice as heavily as the other 75 percent,” explained de Volpi.
Erik Chevrier, a part-time professor at Concordia who did his PhD on building food-sovereign campuses, and a Concordia FAWG member, explained why Concordia’s sustainability goals can’t be too transformative under the current RFP model.
“If you look at the targets, they’re not too hard to meet. So the targets are somewhat written for the big food service providers to be able to meet them, because if not, they’re setting unrealistic goals. So in some way, the idea that if they make this criteria too stringent nobody could actually fit the criteria. They’ll have no food service provider,” said Chevrier.
Financial aspects are involved in the RFP process. According to Chevrier, Companies need a minimum of $5 million annual revenue in food service before being able to bid. This requirement makes it difficult for small or new food service entities to compete for a contract. This is to help ensure that the companies Concordia partners with can remain viable throughout the year, and makes it harder for smaller-scale or new companies to compete during the RFP.
“There’s a big risk for us. We bring in [a food supplier] who’s never existed before that, you know, a month in and they say we just don’t have the personnel to operate anymore. We’re going to close down. Then what do we do with 1,000 students that live here and the rest of the population that depends on us?” said de Volpi.
Wolfe feels that the risk is on the CFC and now with the ability to develop their own business plans, when the next RFP comes around in 2026, the New Food Enterprise will be able to prove their viability.
“We’re basically taking all of the risk for them, to develop this, to garner the support, the political will and also build out the actual back-end with a supply network. We’re essentially going to build them a business that will do all the things that they said they were going to do, but give them none of the risk,” said Wolfe.
Chevrier pointed out that Concordia has a number of student-built food initiatives that have been able to remain viable for many years.
“We’ve created them in the past, or students have, like the People’s Potato,” said Chevrier. “Nobody believed that it would last 20 years when it was first incarnated.”
Across Canada, Concordia has one of the strongest student-run food economies, with seven organizations operating in 2018.
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These economies all work together across Concordia in a way that Aramark doesn’t.
Aramark makes half of their money off a mandatory meal plan for most students in residences. This plan provides flex dollars that can only be spent at Aramark’s other retail locations across campus. Chevrier believes that allowing flex dollars to be spent at student locations would be largely beneficial.
EVAN LINDSAY/The Concordian
“First of all, it’ll create competition for the big food service providers, maybe get them to behave a little bit better. And second of all, it could actually provide a local economy, where students can actually choose where they want to go,” said Chevrier.
While DFS, the business the New Food Enterprise is based on, did struggle during its start-up phase, has now yielded a better performance for the University of Winnipeg than their previous multinational supplier, Chartwells.
“The University does better with us than they ever do with Chartwells because we sell three times what Chartwells did. People actually want to eat real, made from scratch food a lot more than they wanted to eat that processed food.” said Vickers.
The new contract with Aramark is an improvement on the last, but the problem many have with it is not Aramark themselves, but Concordia continuing to work with multinational corporations.
“There’s a lot of evidence to show that actually, the global food industry is decimating our planet. So basically, most of these big corporations, externalized costs in that they basically externalize them to people,” said Chevrier.
Concordia has a long history of working with multinational suppliers. Their relationship with Aramark began in 2015, and prior to that they worked with Compass-Chartwells and Sodexo, two other multinational food supply and hospitality corporations.
Combined across Canadian universities, these corporations make up 60.8 per cent of the food suppliers among universities in Canada, according to Erik Chevrier’s thesis on building food-sovereign campuses.
“Each of these corporations really relies on supply chains that actually drive down costs as much as they can by externalizing the environmental and social costs,” said Chevrier.
“Concordia, as an innovator, I think should actually be looking towards how we can better the world, especially in some of the industries that they’re actually partaking [in.]”
The advantage of moving away from multinational corporations and towards social enterprises like DFS is that they are able to better interact with local farmers and food producers. Currently, according to University Spokesperson Vanninia Maestracci, 43 per cent of food offered in cafeterias is local or sustainability sourced.
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Vickers stated that last year, 72 per cent of food served by DFS was locally or sustainably sourced. Purchasing locally most of the time is naturally better for farmers, who have experienced a 31.5 per cent increase in total outstanding debt across Canada since 2017, according to Statistics Canada.
By working with more local food suppliers, DFS is able to better manage its supply chain and from-scratch cooking is made more possible to attain.
“Our cooks come in first thing in the morning. They bring in fresh turkeys, the first thing the chef will do is throw the turkeys in the oven instead of roasting them off so that she can slice them out and then cut it down and that becomes turkey sandwiches. She takes those bones and she puts them in a pot and starts making turkey stock. Then she can make gravy for what’s going to go on the poutine, as well as make soup,” said Vickers.
According to Vickers, the cost of bringing in local food is largely the same as well.
“We tend to be between two and three per cent less expensive,” he claimed.
Independent food suppliers have the freedom to work with as many producers as they like and don’t suffer the same turnaround times for payment as larger corporations do.
“When it’s an independent business, being able to pay farmers for cash right at the farm gates or out of their delivery truck is more possible,” said Wolfe. “We can work with as many suppliers as Diversity does, which is sometimes up to 100 different local producers.”
“Large corporations like Aramark or even the University would not be able to do that because they have like sometimes 90- to 120-day payment processing so they have to work with huge distributors,” she stated.
“Part of the reason Diversity is able to do this is because, while they are a for-profit business they are also a social enterprise,” explained Vickers.
“What would normally be the profit that you would pay to your owners, is invested instead in environmental, social, cultural, or local economic sustainability,” he continued.
“What [the University] charged myself and the rest of our management team with is taking the profit and reinvesting it into being a good player in the global economy. So what does that mean? It means that we buy as locally as possible every single time.”
Additionally, under this model Diversity Food Services is able to offer a living wage, benefits and pension plans to all of their employees.
EVAN LINDSAY/The Concordian
There is a lot of money to be made in these contracts — a study by the CFC found that the food service providers who won the RFP process in 2015 stood to make a minimum of $7 million in revenue annually.
Under the new food enterprise model, any money made by the business could then be reinvested.
“The profits, if there are any, would be in the community,” said Wolfe.
“That money would be reinvested in the business so that it’s cheaper, so that meal plans and generally food is cheaper, or so that workers get more money or it would be donated to the community organizations that need funds to run their projects.”
Creating a project like DFS at Concordia is ambitious, and bringing in more local food to supply the 3,000 meals a day that CFC provides is a big task. It’s one that Vickers says will need a really solid plan, but he doesn’t think its impossible.
“Your local agriculture is so much better equipped to do this than we are,” said Vickers. “It would be incredibly feasible.”
The march begins with a greeting, a must for any Indigenous ceremony. “We give thanks to our mother the Earth,” says Kahnawà:ke elder Steve McComber, “so that we can continue to grow, and have a good life.”
“As we gather here on this day,” he says, “we are here to commemorate and to make people all over the world aware of the things that have gone on. When I listened to the Prime Minister talk about truth and reconciliation, I thought this was nice, it is a beginning. But without really knowing the truth, how can we really reconcile?”
The crowd listening to Steve McComber’s speech to start off the event. CEDRIC GALLANT/The Concordian
Inflamed and armed with her arguments, Nakuset, the director of Montreal’s Native Women’s Shelter, says not much has been done since the first rendition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. “Last year, when I did the first march, I said I wanted people to hand out subpoenas. No subpoenas were given.”
“Somebody decided to dig that grave, someone decided to put a child in there, someone decided that they were not going to tell the families,” she follows. A whole group of government and church officials were involved, yet it was all hidden, and no one was blamed.
“If we actually hear the truth and change the history, that will bring some kind of comfort to the people, because there is no accountability,” Nakuset says.
With Premier François Legault elected for four more years, systemic racism will continue to be questioned by the governing body. “He is someone that says there is no systemic racism,” she says, “yet we live it every single day with every single institution, and we fight it every day.”
That same week, the second anniversary of Joyce Echaquan’s tragic death was commemorated at Place du Canada. Nakuset says that Legault “is creating generational trauma to the children.” She adds that “At the hospitals, when you mistreat people like what happened to Joyce, that’s generational trauma, because her kids may never want to go to a hospital.”
She then emulates shaking someone by the shoulder, saying that “Today we need to shake people up!”
Nakuset looking towards the crowd, with her words written on the green paper, ready to be told. CEDRIC GALLANT/The Concordian
Off to the side, away from the crowd is Kanehsatà:ke activist Ellen Gabriel, sat on a bench, planning the speech she would deliver later during the march.
“You know, I was surprised that, when we first heard these stories, we didn’t riot,” she says. What is important now is to let these stories slowly come out. “I think it’s important to let Indigenous people lead, when it comes to telling these stories. To listen, to be comfortable in the uncomfortableness, as it will be difficult for both sides,” she says.
“What we need is for reconciliation to be initiated by the other side. It is usually the party that has harmed that should begin the process of reparations and restitutions.”
For Indigenous people, “We see genocide ongoing,” Gabriel says. “The denial of Premier Legault to say there is no systemic racism, that creates an atmosphere that perpetuates genocide.”
“We want reconciliation to be ongoing, and to be on a daily basis.” She says that the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation should be more than just a holiday, but also “a national day of remembrance.”
Protesters gathered at the Sir George-Étienne Cartier monument near Mount-Royal. CEDRIC GALLANT/The Concordian
A few things should be put in place at the government level to ensure that reconciliation is moving forward. “I think there should be an independent group that monitors the government,” she says. “The government is supposed to have an annual report on their reconciliation progress, and as far as I am concerned, they really have not done anything.”
“Human rights are interrelated and interdependent,” she says, “if one is being violated, you cannot enjoy the rest of the human rights.”
“Indigenous Affairs minister Ian Lafreniere or Premier Legault often say that it’s a success, it’s not a success,” she says. “I have been doing this for 32 years, it’s really frustrating seeing the government continue its propaganda, saying look we have done it! Well no, you have not done it, because you continue to do it.”
She calls upon us, Quebecers and Canadians. “You have an obligation, not just a moral obligation but also a legal one, to make sure that reconciliation begins.”
“The government cannot claim it doesn’t know, “she says, “Canadians and Quebecers cannot claim they do not know, if you’re not doing anything to be part of the change then you are part of the problem.”
Resilience Montreal’s Community and Intervention Coordinator Maggie Chittspattio at the forefront of the crowd. She would translate Nakuset’s words in French and Naskapi. CEDRIC GALLANT/The Concordian
Inuk singer-songwriter Elisapie stood to the microphone, and performed a small excerpt from a song by her uncle Irsutuk Kakayuk, lead singer of the band Sugluk. For her, art is also part of the process, as it’s part of the stories being told. “Art has always been there, we have always had our ceremonies, our dances, and our stories,” she says.
“I think, nowadays, we are just expanding our realities, exploring how we want to tell them.” What matters most is to listen to Indigenous peoples, and understand the trauma they have faced for generations, without infringing on their will to share.
In her speech she quotes her friend, Innu doctor Stanley Vollant, who was standing in the crowd, looking at her with admiration. She says “We might be sick now, we might have great pain, but with time, maybe in a few generations, we will be healed. But for now, to move towards healing, we need to be heard, and to be given space.”
Elisapie starting her speech with an a cappella performance of her uncle Irsutuk Kakayuk’s song. CEDRIC GALLANT/The Concordian
A TRAC protest from Winter 2021. Kaitlynn Rodney/The Concordian
TAs struggle to make ends meet with wages that do not cover living expenses and are lower than some other Canadian universities.
“We deserve a living wage,” says Max Jones, communications officer for Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia (TRAC). Jones, a master’s student in English literature, has been a TA himself for the past year.
TAs are paid $29 an hour at Concordia which is significantly lower than some other Canadian universities, such as the University of Toronto where they are paid $49, or McGill University where the rate is $33 an hour.
Most TAs have contracts that cover an average of five to fifteen hours a week. University policy states that “the maximum TA working hours for TAs is 20 hours per week in order not to interfere with their studies.”
According to Jones, “these hours do not reflect the needs. At times English TAs need to read a whole book for a class and they can easily go overtime.” The limited hours coupled with the relatively lower pay leaves many TAs financially struggling.
“There are cases where a grad student is a TRAC executive, has a TA contract, and also works for other organizations to make ends meet,” adds Jones.
Agustín Rugiero is a third-year PhD student in film studies. Currently, he has two RAships and one TAship while doing some other small jobs to support himself. “You need at least three TAships to break even, $29 is not a living wage anymore,” Rugiero said.
As a PhD student he received an initial funding that allowed him to pay Quebec tuition rates. “This is not the case with all students,” acknowledged Rugiero. The tuition for a full PhD program can amount to $59,000 for an Arts and Science program in the case of international students. Even for Rugiero, who is not paying such rates, he still finds himself eating through his funds instead of relying on the money he makes through his TA or RAship. “$4 more per hour for McGill students might not look like much, but it can amount to $400 more per TAship which makes a lot of difference,” he added.
PhD students are expected to carry out quality research in their fields which is in itself a full-time job, but as Rugiero points out, “if this is our job, why are we not being sustained by it?” Many PhD students are deprived of more reading and research time because they need to complement their TAships with more work. For Rugiero this fact has made it more difficult to find time to network with other researchers in his field who have the same interests.
All this can gravely affect the quality of research that is being done at Concordia. “I enjoy my studies at Concordia; however, the creeping economic anxieties are also part of this experience,” admits Rugiero.
Vannina Maestracci, Concordia’s University Spokesperson, explained to The Concordian that the teaching assistants’ wages “are negotiated between the University and the Union.” These wages are based on a “Collective Agreement [that] is due to expire in June 2023 and that is when new wages will be negotiated.”
However, there is no guarantee that this new negotiation will result in higher wages for the TAs and RAs at Concordia. When asked about the possibility of a wage increase, Maestracci responded that they “can’t know what will happen in negotiations that are over a year and a half away.”
Currently, the low pay is not the only issue plaguing the TAs at Concordia. TAs are required to provide their sex assigned at birth when they are hired, “which forces trans TAs to out themselves,” Jones explains. The union has not been able to change this procedure after talks with Concordia’s Human Resources.
When The Concordian reached out to the University to inquire about the reasons behind such a requirement, it was explained that the University is “legally required to gather this [information] because TRAC employees (like all employees) are entitled to pension plan entitlements, which are based on age and gender at birth.”
The University official further explained that while this information is required, it is “collected separately from the other work-related information for an additional layer of confidentiality. As always, this, and all personal information, is treated with great respect and confidentiality.” While this stands as a legal requirement, Jones explained that many trans employees continue to be deeply disturbed by it.
Addressing various TA and RA grievances has been a hard task to achieve so far for the union. TRAC is a relatively new union; it was also dissolved in 2015 and put under the trusteeship of its parent union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), due to an investigation that saw the removal of TRAC executives. The executive committee was found to be fully dysfunctional, and the lack of a united front has affected the union’s capability to bargain in the past. Moreover, graduate students have a high turnover since they mostly graduate within two years.
“Grad students are also so tired that it makes it hard to functionally bargain,” adds Jones.
Voicing grievances can also affect a TA’s prospects for pursuing a career in academia. “Your career path can be determined by the professor you work for since you need their recommendation or help and there are professors who take advantage of this power dynamic,” adds the TRAC member. Jones is referring to a case in 2022 where TAs campaigned against working for a philosophy professor who was accused of sexual harassment. Jones explained that some TAs hesitate to come forth with complaints due to career considerations.
“Professors need to be more respectful of TAs as people and not just as a way to lessen their workload,” said Jones. Jones added that at times the failure of a professor to sign their contracts on time has resulted in a TA not being paid for months.
This year the TAs and RAs at Concordia are also recovering from COVID, where they had to learn new software and hold long Zoom hours to cope with the demands of the pandemic, and all these challenges were not reflected in their pay.
Rugiero is also a TRAC delegate. He believes that despite all the difficulties and the general slow response from Concordia, they can have high hopes for the negotiations.
“TRAC is shaping up to be even better and has been rallying people up for a higher wage,” he adds.
Rugiero also believes that Concordia needs to support their words with concrete action when it comes to mental health. The low wage that pushes grad students to seek more employment affects their work quality as researchers as well as their mental health.
“We’re paying so much for tuition and TAships should not make us sacrifice our degrees so we can have money to eat,” says Jones.
The wage increase would benefit grad students and undergrads who might become grad students in the future, and in this way it would affect the student body as a whole. As Agustín stated: “Not having an inflation-adjusted wage amounts to having a pay cut.”
