Category: Opinions

If there is one thing that bothers me more than broken clocks and overcrowded elevators, it is overcrowded classrooms. The situation at Concordia has been getting progressively worse over the past few years. I don’t know about most faculties, but at the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) the situation has become just down right ridiculous.
JMSB has prided itself by promoting the fact that it has small classes. This statement is partially true. When one reaches higher-level courses in their second and third year they will see classes of 25 to 50 students. However, in most of the concentration commerce courses, the enrollments can reach over 150 students. Big classes are not the problem here: the problem lies with the accommodations set aside for these classes. Auditorium-style classrooms are overcrowded in the Hall Building mainly because of broken chairs. In contrast, the new facilities in the Faubourg basement are great, but yet somehow people are still left without a seat. Why is this?
One might suspect that the registrar may be allowing more students than there are seats in the classroom, but this thinking is flawed. The registrar does not allow more registrations than the quantity of seats available.
Then perhaps students do not show up to their classes all the time and when they do it results in overcrowding. Again, this is flawed because even if the students do not show up all the time, the fact remains that if there are 100 seats in class then there are 100 or fewer students registered in that class.
This leads me to point the finger in one direction: some students have the bad habit of attending classes they are not registered in. There are two cases in which students attend a class they are not registered for. The first, the least serious of the two, is when a student wishes to sit in and listen to a lecture, or to go to class with a friend. This is not that bad because it is infrequent and does not affect important course functions such as exams, in-class essays, and group assignments.
The second, however, is the greater of the two evils. This is when students are officially registered for a particular section of a course, but are unofficially transferred to another section of the same course by their professor. The unofficial transfer to another section leaves that student satisfied at the expense of another student already enrolled in the course. This is unacceptable.
Why should one student get privileges over another? We all pay the same fees.
If the registrar feels the need to refuse admission to a student for a
particular section, the professor should respect that decision. Increased
co-ordination and compliance by professors will help avoid situations where frustrated students do not have a seat and write their mid-terms on the floor, as I have.
Just as students must abide by university regulations, so should professors.

Comments expressed within these pages and through other media are revealing a new-found discomfort with the current state of affairs at our student union. Many students, alumni and observers alike seem astonished that this particular executive is actually governing.
It may be a surprise to the uninitiated that to date, the process that brought this CSU executive to power and that which regulates their activities has been followed more-or-less to the letter.
Seizing on the moment, the CSU council of representatives recently proposed several measures aimed at curtailing the scope and power of the executives’ actions, described by one councillor as “putting some controls on the executives.” Among them is the suggestion to screen all executives’ documents before publication. This includes posters, manifestos and even student agendas. This is a good first step in ensuring long-term confidence in the way the CSU is run.
But the CSU council should not be timid in suggesting further changes to the union’s structure to prevent abuse in the future and bring the whole organization down to its true grassroots – not outside lobbies or other external pressure groups, but regular Joe Blo students.
The following is a small wish list of suggestions to improve the way the student union functions:
The union should clearly define who is represented by whom on the CSU council of representatives. There are currently 14 arts and science councillors, but none of them is associated to a particular department. Concerned constituents have 14 people to turn to, but the councillors themselves would have a hard time determining whom to consult if they needed advice from students. To solve this, representatives from each faculty should be divided up and shared between students in different departments. Larger departments could have more than one councillor, while smaller departments may share one.
Senate and Board of Governors (BoG) appointments should be made directly at election time. Right now, the various faculty associations appoint student members of these organizations, in conjunction with the CSU. Direct elections will not only be more democratic, but will give students a glimpse into what these mostly unknown organs actually do.
Votes at general assemblies should no longer be done by a show of hands. Whoever turns out in the greatest numbers tends to intimidate the opposition, either by an eventual degrading of civility (heckling and shouting, for example) or simply by their sheer numbers. There were reports this year’s general assembly was peppered with rude interjections and inappropriate comments, and this has been true of previous assemblies as well. While the discussion should be held in the open as they are now, students attending the assembly should vote in private, not unlike the way presidential and council elections are held. This circumvents the possibility of people voting with the crowd to avoid being jeered at.
Most importantly, the annual general elections should occur earlier in the winter/spring semester. The way things are now, campaign and election time are smack in the middle of final projects and some final exams. This makes it difficult for the average full-time student to devote any decent amount of time or attention to matters of political importance. The current system also favours those who are taking fewer classes. All things being equal, these students can devote more of their time to worrying about a political campaign. An earlier general election will promote more student participation, making the whole process a bit more reflective of the actual mood of students.
These are only a few suggestions that could change the way student politics is run at Concordia. Hopefully, other concerned students will raise their voices and suggest other ways of making sure the student union’s actions are an accurate representation of all students’ needs.

The problems with our student union just keep on coming. And whether they meant it or not, it has clearly been on a path to make Concordia University the laughing stock of academia.
The latest attack against the CSU concerns the 2001-2002 Agenda. It is full of distasteful material that has offended many students, and others generally.
The section on drugs is very good in theory, but encouraging students to take drugs is just plain stupid. There is more: the use of vulgar pictures such as a collage called “CUNT” that appears in the Sex Ed. portion of the agenda and the picture of a woman bearing her breasts and wearing a dildo on page 81 are just disgusting.
The content of the CSU agenda is another problem. The themes of this agenda seem to be revolution, resistance to authority, anti-corporation, anti-conformity, anti-men, liberation, gay liberation, anarchy, and a slew of other related themes. Now some of these are important, such as gay rights and homosexuality.
We have a gay population at Concordia and it is important to offer information concerning services and issues that are of matter to this community.
Unfortunately, the CSU dealt with it by publishing poems, anti-heterosexual literature and other content that is offensive to gay and straight people alike.
The content is graphic, vulgar and radical.
The rest of the agenda touches on similar delicate issues and blows them out of the water. The content is horrible and should have never left the cutting room floor. July 1st is “Anti-Canada Day: burn the flag.” Who do these people think they are? The agenda should not be full of anti-imperialist and anarchist propaganda. It should be filled with university-related issues. We come to university to learn. The “critical thinking” should be done in the classroom, not in the agenda.
The CSU has a not-so-popular newsletter: it should use that as a means for spreading its propaganda. At least that way people choose to read it, not like now where students who want an organizing tool – partially paid for with their money – have to be subjected to distasteful literature and radical ideas.
Our student union agenda should be nonpartisan, informational and tasteful. If I had a dollar for every use of the word “fuck” in the agenda, I would probably be able to pay for my tuition. We pay for this agenda, we pay for that union, we pay for all the services the union provides, but the fact remains that elected representatives have taken our money to further their own political views and force them upon us and the general public.
The student union should be ashamed. This latest saga shows they are not fit to be leaders.

Over the past few days, ordinarily apathetic and politically unconcerned
Concordia students have reasserted themselves in the face of awesome and unbelievable circumstances created by the student union and its executives. Now, there are even calls coming from outside our walls to tame our political representatives.
For our student union, now is the time to wake up.
The alarm clock has been ringing since last Wednesday’s general assembly. That day, hundreds of angry students packed the meeting, voting down one motion proposed by the executives. This motion concerned the expulsion of certain multinational corporations for their purported criminal and war mongering activities abroad.
The executives immediately hit the snooze button, saying that they heard what students had to say, but would continue pressing ahead with their own agenda.
Within days, the alarm started ringing again. This time, it was an uproar over the union agenda, amplified by unusually intense attention from the mainstream media and other parties.
These latest events only underscore how out of touch some of our elected representatives are.
At least there are some positive developments to report on this front. The CSU council of representatives decided it would impose new guidelines upon the executives for the publishing of texts and newsletters. These will now have to be screened by the council first. There is also news of a recall campaign against the executives. These are encouraging first signs for restoring faith in the political structure at Concordia.
In a sense, we really do deserve the government we voted for: only about 10 per cent of the student population voted in last year’s general election. Let the current mess be a lesson for our voting patterns in the future.
Students shouldn’t only care about student politics when decisions and campaigns make them angry. They should be present all the time, constantly reminding our elected representatives who’s really in charge: students themselves.

The Concordia Student Union (CSU), proud defenders of student rights and free speech, will be engaging in its ritual general assembly on Sept. 26. While all three topics on the agenda are issues that are likely to provoke lively discussion, the question about barring certain transnational corporations from Concordia might have the most impact on students at large.
These companies are accused of supplying equipment or material for conflicts that have taken place overseas, or benefiting in some way from those conflicts.
A ban – or perhaps the threat of a ban – may sour their relationship with
Concordia when it comes to job offers and recruiting campaigns. The end result may be the loss of potential employment for Concordia graduates. There are signs this might already be starting. Last week, the Concordian reported that some companies skipped job fairs organized by Commerce and Engineering student associations.
Those who were affected by the job fair fiasco did the rounds at local media to get the story out. Now, maybe it’s time to do some extra work on the home front.
Those who’ve attended past CSU general assemblies may have noticed that the debates are often one-sided, with the queue for one microphone outnumbering the opponents’ line-up by 10-to-one, and sometimes even more. The student union has many critics – but where are they?
People who are opposed to Concordia’s relationships with certain transnational corporations will likely be taking full advantage of their right to speak at the general assembly. So should their opponents. The usual parade of activists will step up to the microphone and plead with the audience to vote their way. The other side must be present with the same fervour, forcefulness and determination.
All undergraduate students are fee-paying members of the Concordia Student Union, therefore all undergrads should be telling the union what to do.
It’s time to reverse the trend and reflect the true diversity of public opinion at Concordia. Do what you can to attend the general assembly on Sept. 26, no matter what your point of view is. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the responsible thing to do.

In this day and age, we have seen everything, right? Wrong. After last Tuesday, nothing will ever be the same. The way we fly will forever be changed. The way we think about security in our own homes and cities will change. If this terrorist attack could have happened in the mightiest of all cities, it could happen anywhere. The symbols of democracy, trade and power dropped 110 stories high out of the sky, twice. The events of last Tuesday morning have haunted me and left me appalled that in our so-called “civilized” lives this can still happen.
As much as it disappoints me to talk about the terrorist attacks and what has happened, what further disgusts me is the way some people have reacted. Instead of realizing that this terrorist activity happens in many countries and that it should be stopped and dealt with, many people elect to celebrate. It appalls me that in our educated society I can walk in to a bathroom and see graffiti on the wall that says “Good for the Americans, they deserved what they got! They are the real aggressors.”
Do people in our society, our city, realize that it happened to a city that is about an hour by plane from here? Do people in our society not realize that thousands of lives have been lost? It appalls me that some people have lost their compassion for human life.
Another thing that bothers me are the racial slurs and stereotypes that people have formed. I have seen graffiti on the walls in the form of racial slurs that are too indecent to print in this newspaper. Members in our society who feel the need to group all Muslims, Arabs, or Palestinians under one stereotype are ignorant, closed minded and pathetic individuals. People have to be understanding and open their eyes and see that our world, our city has many faces that represent many nations. It’s sad to know that people see only what they want to see.
Take the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist group in Egypt. Now you must be thinking something negative about this group, but the reality is far from it.
This is a non-violent group that makes sure that their people have food and shelter. This group is always under scrutiny because of another Egyptian-based fundamentalist group that bombed the USS Cole. This type of negative thinking will never allow us to find out who really committed these atrocious acts of terrorism.
Many people who left their countries did so because there is so much turmoil in their homeland. They deserve better than having to live through another kind of turmoil – this time, at the hands of their new fellow countrymen. We live in a multi-cultural society that has many faces. As we expect those different faces to respect our culture and our individuality, we in turn must do the same. If we do not learn, there will be conflict, hate, frustration, and pain in our society whether we like it or not.

We have witnessed history in the making; not only the event, but also the catalyst of policy changes that are sure to come. Probably most of us were glued to the radio or TV Tuesday every free second we had, partaking in the ongoing event that was the worst terrorist attack in North American (and possibly the world’s?) history. It is now painfully obvious that we have all dived head-first into the new globalized world. No more can North America feign “civilized world” superiority, or flippantly dismiss such senseless losses of life as “oh, that kind of stuff only happens over there.” What can we learn from this? What happens now? The extent of the damage and loss of life is unfathomable. Possibly thousands of people are dead: in the planes, in the buildings, in the city blocks surrounding the World Trade Centre, in the Pentagon. Also, imagine the havoc that this must throw the economic world into, as one of the leading financial districts goes up in smoke. Both these tragedies will take long to repair and heal. Even more long-lasting is the fear and loss of innocence each one of us now has. Don’t tell me it doesn’t exist. Embassies, consulates, and government buildings, both in the U.S. and Canada, evacuated. The scare of a suspicious package on Parliament Hill. Worried people clogging the phone lines with calls to their loved ones in the U.S., who might not even live in the same states as the attacks, to make sure they’re okay. Here at Concordia, it was and will be the talk of the hallways. The shuttle buses were tuned to live coverage from the radio. A few even talked about school closure. But the scariest thing is how jet-liners could so easily be hijacked, and how such towering examples of modern engineering, the “ultimate image of industrialization” as one of this paper’s editors put it, could so quickly tumble to dust and destruction. How easy would it be for this to happen again? That’s something for the policy-makers to answer. Now the other shoe has dropped. Thankfully, the Cold War passed us by without any cities nuked, but in this recent age of activism, righteous causes, and terrorism, we have not been so lucky. It starts with hijackings and hostages. Then car bombs in the basement of the WTC eight years ago and gas attacks in Japanese metros. Threats of available anthrax, nuclear weapons on the black-markets, and dubious border crossings from two winters ago. The media has been warning that something like this would happen, and it has. Like it or not, we’re in it now. So now for the future. Very quickly, President Bush promised to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice. U.S. congressmen and senators were screaming bloody-murder on CNN, basically saying “I told you so” and demanding retribution. Everyone’s glares immediately looked towards the Middle East, and Tuesday evening bombs started falling in Afganistan. Here in Canada, the fear of American retaliation seems just as scary is the original attack itself. I feel if at all possible, justice should be served, but that’s it. Believe me, speaking for someone who woke up Tuesday to see his city of birth in ruin and smoke, and who still hasn’t been able to get in touch with his brother and sister-in-law who live in Queens, vengeance is a very high emotion. But what’s even stronger is the feeling that this must never happen again. If one positive thing is to come out of this tragedy, it should be a lesson learned on how to deal with others in a mature fashion and with respect. The “eye for an eye” approach is a never-ending downward spiral, consuming everythng until one or both of sides of a fight are completely dead. This is a strong lessson and message not only to the U.S. and Canada in their international affairs, but also to Concordia students. We cannot go there. For months Concordia has been divided by heated emotions concerning race and religion. Both sides are right, both are wrong. It doesn’t matter. When will it end? If anything, the WTC tragedy shows what happens when anger and hatred is allowed to grow and fester for too long. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to move on from the sandbox and start behaving like adults.