Tag: Concordia University

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Arts

The art of getting by

Photo by writer.
Photo by writer.

Stepping into the VA building’s Café X, guests have two options: turn immediately to the left and be greeted by a glass cylinder full of food, a smiling face, and a giant chalkboard of tasty options, or turn immediately to the right and be greeted by a topless, bald, androgynous monster-human spewing paper fortunes out its mouth.
That’s right. Art in Action is still happening.
Gallery X, which inhabits the walls of Café X, is hosting the works of seven of the 30 artists who contributed to the 2012 Art in Action exhibition that ended March 4. The gallery will continue to show the pieces until March 24.
For those who can’t go—or those who just want something to read—here’s the rundown.
As mentioned above, the gallery decided to place the most shocking and unappetizing work closest to the entrance and directly next to the food. Shaw Desjean’s La Logorrhee comprises three pieces: two square canvasses, and that alarmingly ugly (in a good way) human form, which is meant to represent man’s inadequacy in expressing feelings in words.
To the left is Naomi Large’s Our Boxes, a group of brightly painted squares with vague human forms. The pieces attempt to explore “the human form in its natural state,” and the societal boxes in which its sexuality is constrained.
Turning around, visitors can take a seat on what looks like one half of a 1980s family sofa. On the way there, it’s hard to miss Karen Boyles’ Lighten, a giant graphite drawing of a kind of patchwork parachute-tent attached to strings weighed down by bricks. The description states that the structure “suggests our capacity to construct new environments. Environments that are transient, nomadic, adaptive, inclusive: created from a diversity of materials from a diversity of perspectives.”
Across from the partial couch is the second half of the gallery, located inside a turquoise painted room. Here, as before, guests have two options. Turning to the left, one can peer out the wall of windows overlooking the construction on Bishop Street. Or, looking to the right, one can ungracefully lean over someone studying in an effort to examine Keara Yim’s selection of high-colour photos that illustrate Canadians’ relationships with the land they inhabit.
Although Yim’s bright outdoor-themed photos (one two three tree) mirror the openness created by the wall of windows, the feeling of a room wide enough to walk around in is just an illusion. The room is pretty narrow. All the artwork is on the walls, but all the seating is up against the walls, too, underneath the artwork. Therefore, visitors can’t really see anything if they choose to sit down.
Him, Her, Us by Bianca Hlywa offers an examination of subtleties in gender differences through the representation of similar androgynous figures. Opium Dreams by visual artist Emily Yun Ching Claire and literary artist Ryan Kai Cheng Thom has strong messages of diaspora, queer desire and gender fluidity, and requires a lot of looking-at time.
So while the student strike may last for another week, Art in Action proves that there is certainly room for art in the Concordia fine arts landscape, no matter how many students it takes to meet quorum.

Art in Action runs at Gallery X (VA building, second floor, room 229) until March 24. For more information, visit www.gallery-x.com/current.

Categories
Arts

The wonderful world of work

With the fight against tuition hikes escalating, becoming more unpredictable than mid-season weather, it’s refreshing to hear that some Concordia class projects are going swimmingly. This includes the ARTX 480 (advanced integrated studio in contemporary art practices) course’s year-end exhibition entitled Work.

The course began in the fall semester and the culminating exhibition, an integral part of the class, will feature pieces from all 19 students. “We thought that it could be a great opportunity to connect outside of Concordia and represent Concordia, represent artists in [the] community,” said contributing artist Joy (Jee Yoon) Lim.

The choice of theme was crucial, as it had to represent both the subject matter and media that varied so widely between the participating students, ranging from video to installations and performance pieces.

“Because we are just an arbitrarily thrown together group of students, we wanted a theme that could be pretty flexible to us all,” explained artist Zoë Ritts, describing the different ideas within the theme, such as work in relationships, work as labour and work and the body.

Some pieces also have an element of audience interaction, as in Lim’s piece, Coffee/Tea Break, which has attachments around cups and plays with the smell on top in order to stimulate different senses.

“Usually you’re not supposed to touch the art, not supposed to go near it […] for me, the artwork itself is the experience, not the cup,” explained Lim. “So I don’t mind if the cup is ruined, as long as the person has some experience and goes home and thinks about that.”

Attendees will also have a chance to have their future divined for them through Marlee Parsons’ performance Psychic Cell Reading, which involves taking a swab of saliva from two volunteers, placing it under a microscope and projecting an image of the cells, from which she will do her reading.

The group of ARTX 480 students ventured out into the city, and chose the Grover building on Parthenais Street as the site to put on their exhibit rather than the Concordia art gallery hub, with its reigning champions being VAV and FOFA.

“The place is a former textile factory, which is really obvious when you’re looking at the architecture inside. It’s these big rooms that are now perfect for galleries […] Different generations of people such as artists have moved into the building, and so we were really interested in using this as a site, because the artists have fought to keep it [from becoming] a condo building,” said Ritts.

The exhibit reflects the interdisciplinary element of ARTX 480.

“It’s called interdisciplinary studies―interdisciplinary meaning connecting art with other disciplines, other issues around the world or community-based,” explained Lim. “So we’re basically not creating art just for the sake of making art, just to display, but […] to convey some messages through that.”

They showed their support by adorning their poster and postcards with a little red square, keeping the student strike in mind, of which they were generally in favour.

“By the time the strike started, our classes had begun to happen off Concordia campus anyway because we were in the gallery space working,” said Ritts. “So in that sense we didn’t have to cross any picket lines. Our class was able to continue within the spirit of the strike. And I think it also fell under the aspect of the strike, which is an emphasis on creating art and continue supporting each other outside of the physical university space.”

Ultimately, through Work, the ARTX 480 students are hoping to introduce visitors to taking in a different kind of contemporary art.

“For those who don’t really know art, I think we have great examples that [are] not very conventional, and that’s very interactive,” said Lim. “Usually people don’t expect that. […] Coming here, they can experience a greater range of all kinds of contemporary art.”

Work runs at the Grover building (2065 Parthenais St., metro Frontenac) until March 31. There will also be a panel discussion on the intersections and contradictions of the many kinds of labour in the lives of four invited artists and cultural workers on March 27 at 7 p.m. For more information, check out workyourwork.weebly.com.

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News

For sale: a presidential condo

Graphic by Katie Brioux

A luxurious condominium on Doctor Penfield Avenue is up for sale this morning, although it’s highly unlikely that its occupant is willing to vacate the premises.
A group of students and professors from post-secondary institutions throughout Montreal are holding a “sale” at 10:30 a.m. on March 20 in front of the Hall building, hoping to find a high bidder for Concordia President Frederick Lowy’s condo. The sale is not actually a sale, but rather “a symbolic, creative, fun event, that is more meant to get the dialogue going,” said School of Community and Public Affairs student Liz Colford, the event’s student spokesperson.
“The idea is anybody is invited to come and place a bid for the condo. We’re hoping for a big turnout,” she said.
The major source of frustration for the organizers is a controversial $1.4 million interest free loan that was issued by Concordia to Lowy last year upon his return to the university following the Board of Governors’ ousting of Judith Woodsworth. Lowy, who served as Concordia’s rector between 1995 and 2005, was on the verge of moving and had already made a commitment to purchase another residence outside of Montreal, and the loan was provided to cover that transaction.
Concordia has stated in the past that it has an agreement in place that would ensure that Lowy, who makes $350,000 a year, repay the loan once he sells his Montreal condo when his term ends this summer.
According to the event’s other spokesperson, Philippe Morin, an economics teacher at CEGEP Marie-Victorin, the idea for the home’s auction came about at a meeting of Profs contre la hausse, a group of professors who oppose the provincial government’s imminent tuition hikes.
“We wanted to bring under the spotlight the mismanagement of public funds at universities, part of which is the ridiculous pay of university principals, and Concordia’s principal quickly appeared on our shortlist,” he said. “Concordia has been kind of emblematic of mismanagement of funds over the past five or six years. […] Just the fact that Concordia lent [Lowy] $1.4 million interest free […] while thousands of students have to pay incredible debts and interests to banks, it just seemed too ironic for a university that actively promotes tuition hikes.”
Concordia has come under fire frequently over the past year for its management of public funds, not only related to Lowy’s loan, but also regarding severance packages totalling more than $3 million that were dolled out to several former senior administrators dating back to 2009.
The university recently raised the ire of Education Minister Line Beauchamp, who slapped Concordia with a $2 million fine for its handling of public money. The fine came shortly after the university announced that it would hire external auditors to review severance packages totalling $2.4 million handed out to five former senior employees.
“If Concordia is uncomfortable with what we’re planning, it’s because they know [the loan] makes no sense,” said Morin, a former Concordia student.
The university declined to comment on this morning’s sale.

Auction results

And the highest bid goes to: all Concordia students, who are paying for Lowy’s zero interest rate loan.

While the auction was set to take place in front of the Hall building, the 60 students who showed up for the “sale” decided to turn it into a march towards Lowy’s condo on Doctor Penfield Avenue and hold the bid directly in front of his condo.

Once there, they started hanging “on sale” signs on the walls of the building and pulling chairs on the street to hold an improvised “class” about universities’ mismanagement of public funds.

“It was really fun,” said Colford. “We learned a lot and came to the conclusion that, considering the money paid for Lowy’s loan comes from Concordia, and if we, students, consider ourselves to be Concordia, then this condo already belongs to us.”

The street-class was taught by School of Community and Public Affairs professor Anna Kruzynski and Eric Martin, philosophy professor at the Édouard-Montpetit CEGEP and co-author of the book University Inc. Kruzynski and Martin gave a speech about the “symptoms” of an education shifting from an institution supposed to teach knowledge and values, to a profit-making corporation.

“Universities’ administrators today live like they are rich corporate big wigs,” said Martin. “The problem is that they also behave like ones. The border between academics and corporations is slowly disappearing and this is our big problem. University is a sacred institution and corporations should not come and fuck it up.”

After the passionate speech, the “buyers” in the auction were invited to increase their bids by lifting signs reading what the condo’s value could buy for the university: “1,076 computers,” or “175 student meal plans.”

“The money used by universities in such transactions is taxpayers’ and students’ money,” said Martin Godon, coordinator of the action committee Profs contre la hausse. “In the Roman empire, people who used public money for personal usage could face a death penalty and an expropriation of all their goods by the state. I’m not saying we should do the same but this points out how scandalous and absurd all this is.”
With files from Sophia Loffreda
Categories
Arts

He writes hard for the money

“Five years ago, I was ready to kill myself or join the army,” said Concordia creative writing student Ian Truman. Today, he’s a self-published author, celebrating the success of the MainLine Gala for Student Drama’s second year and is getting ready to receive his degree this fall.

“It’s not just hard work and luck. I changed my life around. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs, I stay healthy,” said Truman. Hard work may be an understatement however, as Truman has had a lot more to handle than the average creative writing student.

Shortly after being accepted into the creative writing program, Truman’s wife gave birth to a baby girl. Although this was a blessing, it did complicate things. “We actually ended up baby swapping in Concordia,” he recalled. “I would need to get out of class five minutes early because her class was starting when mine finished. I’d run down the stairs, we’d meet in the Hall building and switch the baby.”

While in school, Truman continued to work as much as possible, but finances were still tight.“We got lucky. At one point I was considering dropping out because we were out of cash,” he said. “My wife wasn’t working that much because she was still a student and when you go on parental leave you can’t be a student. So what happened was she applied for a bursary and I ended up taking parental leave [from my work]. She got the bursary and it was enough to make it.”

On top of his studies, working and being a father, Truman was trying to write. Before attending Concordia, Truman worked at a number of factory jobs that inspired his first novel, The Factory Line. While on the job, he would jot down the things he observed, collecting little memos that would eventually fuel the novel’s plot.

“The Factory Line, I wrote on the job. It’s all true, well true-ish, it’s a tall tale,” he said. “I tried to capture how people talk in factories and the kind of situations that they live every day. Some of them are really nice people, some of them are insane and you get to deal with both.”

Turning these notes into a narrative wasn’t an easy task. A lot of what he’d written took place
over the span of two years and came from moments at multiple factories. Furthermore, Truman had to overcome a language barrier.

“How you do dialogue in French is different than in English, so I did dialogue in French but with English words, which doesn’t work. People gave me a break because I’m francophone and English is my second language, but you need to step up and it’s a steep hill,” he explained. “My English is okay for everyday life, but I wanted to be a writer so I needed to go back to grammar and grind those hours rewriting and learning to do dialogue in English.”

The novel did eventually come together and after finishing his classes at Concordia, Truman began looking for ways to publish it. He sent his manuscript to several publishers in Canada and the United States, but there were no takers.

Unwilling to give up, Truman decided to self-publish; he created a blog, started working the social media scene and hooked up with e-book providers. He hired an editor and a graphic designer to finesse the finished product and will be printing several copies of the novel to distribute at book fairs and zine fests. Sales have yet to pick up, but Truman isn’t too worried. He’s currently putting the finishing touches on a second novel, Tales of Lust, Hate and Despair, due out in late June, and has already begun writing a third novel. Truman hopes that by having three novels out and circulating, buzz will pick up and sales will increase.

Truman continues to work full-time and care for his daughter, writing whenever and wherever he can—before work, on the bus on the way to work, during work and in brief periods after his daughter has gone to bed.

“If you’re going to be a writer, you need to write. I try to write at least 800 words a day,” he said. “If I don’t work an hour a day on writing-related stuff, it’s not going to work out in the end.”

It’s this sort of discipline and hard work that Truman says accounts for his success, but he concedes it was also a bit of luck as well. “If we didn’t get that bursary two and a half years ago, we wouldn’t have done it, me and my wife.”

Check out Ian Truman’s blog at iantruman.wordpress.com and look for his book The Factory Line on Amazon.

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News

Hall building escalators should be fully functional by September

Renovations are in the works at the Henry F. Hall building and escaltors are expected to be up and running by September. Photo by Navneet Pall.
Renovations are in the works at the Henry F. Hall building and escaltors are expected to be up and running by September. Photo by Navneet Pall.

The Henry F. Hall building is slated to be renovated and upgraded over the next few years, but the process is complex.
The dysfunctional escalators between the mezzanine and fifth floor are a continual source of frustration for Concordia students. The estimated completion date of the current renovations for the escalators between the lobby and fifth floor is September 2012, according to university spokesperson Chris Mota.
Timothy Lazier, a history and English specialization student, remarked that “how students see the building depends on what floor they are on and if they can actually get to it.”
Lazier said that he’s had classes scattered throughout the Hall building and noticed the difference on the newly redone floors.
“Up to the seventh floor, it’s really ugly but I have a bunch of classes on the renovated floors and they’re nice,” said Lazier. “It feels like you’re in a different building.”
The interior and exterior of the 12-floor, cube-shaped building is gradually deteriorating due to time, weather and general use. In 1998, the university started renovations to improve the overall state of the Hall building, but students like Cleo Donnelly are not impressed with the current structure. “I get that it’s old but there’s nothing overly special about it. They should just tear it
down and build a new one,” she said.
According to Martine Lehoux, the university’s director of facilities planning and development, Concordia will refurbish the untouched floors in the near future, but it can only be done when the floors are not occupied.
This explains why certain floors of the Hall building were revamped in the last decade while others have yet to undergo major repairs.
When they were once occupied by various science departments, the eighth, eleventh and twelfth floors were renovated when the Richard J. Renaud Science Pavillon at the Loyola campus opened in 2003. The western section of 7th floor was upgraded after the department of applied human sciences moved to the Loyola campus in 2005.
The escalators between the sixth and seventh floors have been working since last Thursday, according to Mota.
The university is scheduled to improve the amphitheatre on the ninth floor this summer and during 2013, upgrades are planned for the amphitheatre on the first floor and the western portion of the basement that belongs to the engineering department.
Projects awaiting funding approval include renovations for the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh floors of the Hall building for 2014 to 2015.

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Student Life

What’s love got to do with it?

We’ve all heard it before, Valentine’s Day is a ploy on the part of Hallmark and the candy companies to get us to spend vast amounts of money on their products under the guise that we’re doing it because we’re in love.
Yet we shake our heads and say that we know better, or say that Valentine’s Day is a transparent consumerist holiday and we won’t be suckered in. However, for some reason, the majority of us find ourselves bent over smelling roses, trying to pick the ones we think our partner will like, or desperately wracking our brains for something romantic to do. What is this power Feb. 14 holds over us? Why do we as a society continue to observe a holiday named for a saint of dubious origins and significance?
Doctoral candidate and Montreal therapist Stine Linden-Andersen, believes that Valentine’s Day can play an important role in the relationship of a couple. “It can be important for courting, to show a partner how romantically inclined they are, to solidify the relationship. As a relationship matures, it gets used a bit differently, some couples will choose to do small things and some will choose not to do anything at all because it has become too commercialized and doesn’t set them apart as a couple.”
But does that make it an obligation? One Concordia student, who wished to remain anonymous, says that he only participates in Valentine’s Day because it’s what his girlfriend wants and expects of him. However, Dylan Stansfield, a creative writing and psychology student at Concordia, said that he relishes the opportunity to do something special for the person he cares about. “It’s something that’s fun if you’re in a relationship. It’s fun to celebrate that you’re with someone,” he said.
It would seem that the onus is on the men to plan something or come up with a present that’s significant. Creative writing student Lexie Comeau celebrates Valentine’s Day for the love of celebrating in general. “I think any reason to celebrate is a good one,” she explained, and feels that the onus is on the person who wants the celebration to occur to plan an event or buy a gift. “I think it should be whoever wants to take the initiative.”
According to a survey of 2,003 adults by American Express Spending & Saving Tracker, men are willing to spend more than women on Valentine’s Day. Men are willing to spend up to $151, whereas women are only willing to spend up to $114. Close to 48 per cent of women said they were not going to buy anything for their significant other at all.
Why is this? Aren’t we supposed to be in an age of equality between men and women? Are men spending as a result of societal obligation or does it stem from a personal desire?
Linden-Andersen said that often times in young relationships, men feel obligated to demonstrate just how much they care for their partner and Valentine’s Day is a crucial opportunity for doing so. In the LGBT community, Michael Filion, a political science student in Concordia, feels that things are mostly equal, unless previously discussed. “Especially in the gay world, it’s very common to feel almost like this equality has to be maintained. If not, there’s a male-female balance to it. If these gender roles have been established within the relationship, the one who has taken the male dominated role must be the one who pays. Otherwise, the majority of what I’ve noticed is there’s always an equality that’s trying to be matched,” he said.
In any relationship, whether it is brand new or several years old, Valentine’s Day is a good opportunity to open the lines of communication and establish the expectations each person has about this day. Linden-Andersen suggests talking about it lightly and with humour in order to get a better idea of how to celebrate in a way that is convenient for both partners.
She suggests asking leading questions such as “Have you ever been surprised?” and “What have you done before that you liked?” Most importantly though, she says to remember “the way couples celebrate Valentine’s Day is not an indicator of their relationship.” Which means that just because you don’t make a big deal about Feb. 14 does not mean that your relationship is without romance. “You don’t really tell someone you love them only once a year, but it’s an occasion to publicly acknowledge it in a way,” said Donald Boisvert, a professor of religion at Concordia. “It’s like Christmas, there’s always a bit of an obligation. There’s a commercial element that we don’t really want to acknowledge we’re buying into. It doesn’t mean that because it’s commercially focused, people’s feelings aren’t genuine.”
Whether you choose to celebrate Feb. 14  as a special day, or whether you choose to dismiss it as capitalist hogwash, if there’s someone special in your life, we can all agree that you shouldn’t be expressing how you feel about them only once a year.

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News

Reggie’s may be forced to increase prices

Reggie's may be forced to increase drink prices to cover outstanding deficit - Photo by Navneet Pall

A grim report of Reggie’s financial state exposed at last Wednesday’s Concordia Student Union council meeting could possibly result in increased drink prices at Concordia’s student bar.

CSU VP finance Jordan Lindsay and CSU President Lex Gill reported that CUSACorp, the union’s for-profit subsidiary that runs the bar, held a deficit of more than $40,000 for the last four months. According to Lindsay, this deficit will most likely double by the end of the winter term.

“Right now we have to find a way to go from $121,833 of semester sales to nearly $300,000,” said Lindsay, who is also on CUSACorp’s board of directors. “The situation is fairly grim and we need to tighten finances. We are going to do all we can to avoid increasing prices, but there is a 25 per cent chance that it will happen.”

Lindsay added that if such a scenario were to present itself, the increase would be minimal; “a matter of 25 cents here and there.”

During the meeting, Gill spoke of a worrying situation where, despite having no rent to pay for the bar and despite collecting a rent from the Java U café located next to Reggie’s in the Hall building, CUSACorp still managed to run constant deficits.

“Historically, Reggie’s has lost an awful lot of money,” said Gill.

Lindsay said the situation has been going on for years and that the bar has often been “eating up” most of the Java U rental profits. Gill explained that the losing money pattern was mainly due to “very poor” internal control, shifting management and high administration costs.

“Reggie’s is a fairly vulnerable institution,” said Gill. “It has a mix-mandate which is to be a bar, sell beer and make profits, but simultaneously to provide services and a community space for students. Therefore, the goal is not always to make money.”

Lindsay said that CUSACorp has not only planned to tighten expenses by controlling inventory and entertainment costs, but also to increase sales through better marketing campaigns, involvement of professional companies, use of social media, better lighting on Thursday nights, increased beer selection and organization of more theme nights.

Lindsay also insisted that Reggie’s was not condemned to bankruptcy, as he was confident the situation was fixable with better management of finances and increased sales campaigns.

However, the price increase seemed to be a concern for several students informed of the possible outcome.

“One of the major draws that Reggie’s has for students is cheap drinks,” said communications studies student Michael Czemerys. “I think they’re going to lose a lot of business if they increase prices.”

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News

BoG meeting ends abruptly

February’s Board of Governors meeting abruptly ended on Feb. 10 even before its open session began.

The meeting came to a halt toward the end of its hour-long closed session, when three student governors, undergrads AJ West and Cameron Monagle and grad student Erik Chevrier, walked out in protest over a motion to discuss allowing cameras in the meeting. All student representatives, including CSU President Lex Gill who remained in the boardroom, felt that this transparency-related motion should have been discussed during the meeting’s open session, when members of the audience would be able to observe.

With the absence of West, Monagle and Chevrier, quorum, which is 21 governors, was no longer met, effectively prohibiting the rest of the BoG members from voting on motions, and ultimately cancelling the meeting.

The majority of governors already voted down a motion in January put forward by Chevrier that mandated the board to offer live broadcasts of its meetings. The motion presented on Feb. 10 in closed session, according to West, dealt with transparency at the BoG level, including the potential use of cameras by individuals in the boardroom.

“This is still something that has yet to be clarified, and I imagine this is something that will be brought up again,” said West, who had implored students at a Concordia Student Union council meeting in January to bring their cameras to the BoG meeting. There were as many as fifteen to twenty students waiting outside the boardroom on Friday, some of them indeed carrying cameras.

“This was a discussion [during closed session] that the student representatives thought should have happened in open session, so we refused to take part,” added West.

Speaking to reporters outside the boardroom, Gill, who indicated that she could not touch on specific discussions held during closed session, spoke more broadly about the need for cameras during the BoG’s open session.

“The rationale for why people should be able to film and broadcast the open session is that first of all, we’ve always done it anyway,” she said, mentioning the fact that journalists, for example, are allowed in the boardroom with tape recorders. “I think everyone should have the right to film these meetings and have the right to see what’s going on. This university is publicly-funded, financed by your tuition fees and tax dollars. […] The reality, I think, of this situation is that [the BoG]  has to be accountable to someone. Right now they operate in a way that they’re accountable to no one.”

Gill spoke vaguely about the possibility of bringing forward a proposal regarding the use of cameras at the BoG’s next meeting on April 19. All other items that were on the agenda for the Feb. 10 meeting will, in all likelihood, also be discussed during that meeting.

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News

ASFA: Meet the presidential candidates

The Arts and Science Federation of Associations’ (ASFA) nomination period for its upcoming general election is over, and all candidates running for executive positions were announced on Sunday. Polling will be taking place between Feb. 15 and 17. As the campaign period begins, The Concordian sat down with presidential candidates Caroline Bourbonnière and Charles Brenchley for an inside look at their newly-launched platforms.

Caroline Bourbonnière:

What would you do if you were elected ASFA president?
I think the most important thing to do is strengthen ties with the CSU. There has been a bit of miscommunication between ASFA and the CSU. That’s the way to get things clear. I do want us to have healthy relationships with the press. Many students are not aware of what is going on at Concordia. I want a better ASFA. I want to bring it back on track.

What are the main points of your platform?
I plan to create an ASFA scholarship of $500 for five students not only with high GPAs, but for those who are also involved in the Concordia community. I also want to start ASFA success workshops. ASFA’s job is to provide services to students so they can succeed and show them how to get involved.

How would you get students more involved with ASFA?
I think executives need to be more visible to the student population. Also, an online presence with videos updating students on what’s happening [would help]. I also want to do classroom visits, with speeches, to a different class each week. It’s a great way to provide information to people while getting students inspired.

What made you choose to be affiliated?
[Those] I’m affiliated with all demonstrated real drive and good ideas. I know Eric Moses is a perfect fit for VP academic. Carlotta [Longo] would be an amazing VP external. She’s really engaged with fighting tuition hikes and I think she could mobilize a lot of people. They all have what it takes.

What differentiates you from other candidates?
I think what ASFA might need is a pragmatic leader who wants to serve the students and get things done. I am honest, I have a clean record. I have a vision, I think big.

What is your position on the CSU engaging in legal proceedings to get out of the Canadian Federation of Students?
I think it’s very disappointing that the CFS is not giving Concordia their democratic right to get out. The group is supposed to be lobbying for students’ rights and this just seems wrong.

Why should someone vote for you?
I see so much potential in ASFA, and I would be so excited to take on this challenge.
I wake up early and I go to bed late and it’s because I want to get the job done and keep my promises.

Charlie Brenchley is running for ASFA President for a second time. Photo by Navneet Pall.

Charles Brenchley:

What would you do if you were elected ASFA president?
I am a man for the students and I will represent the majority voice of the students. I have the beat; I have been implementing myself into it. My role would also be to build the youth engagement within Quebec and whatever momentum it is among arts and science students.

What are the main points of your platform?
First, we really want to build that vibe to make people proud to be arts and science students on both campuses. Second, I want to work with student associations to really empower them. ASFA oversees the local funding of local associations and I want to give them the tools to run their events successfully.

You ran two years ago and lost. What do you have now that you did not have then?
I was a first-year student and I wasn’t completely versed in the Concordia community. I really got involved in the student movement at Concordia since the last time I ran for the position. I think that I am now completely ready to be president.

What made you choose to be affiliated?
I think it’s important for whoever gets elected next year to have a group of people that want to work together. Being at Concordia for a few years, I got to know them and I think we have a group of people that is extremely diverse, and everyone has been involved with the council in a different way.

What is your position on the CSU engaging in legal proceedings to get out of the Canadian Federation of Students?
I am no longer connected to [the CFS] in any way. I have definitely made mistakes in the past, but I am now at Concordia and I have seen from within the student movement at Concordia what the Quebec student movement wants and I think it’s important to recognize the vote that took place in 2009 [to leave the CFS]. Right now, CFS has no place here in the Quebec student movement.

What differentiates you from other candidates?
I think that I bring a lot of skills to the table. I am running with a group of people who have a lot of council experience. The other affiliation is deeply rooted in the political science department downtown but ours is present on both campuses. Moreover, not one person from the other affiliation has been sitting or present at ASFA council meetings.

These interviews have been edited for length.

ASFA 2012-2013 candidates:

Affiliated:
-Caroline Bourbonnière (President)
-Carlotta Longo (VP external)
-Eric Moses (VP academic and Loyola affairs)
-Terrence Adams (VP social)
-Nick Santella (VP communications)

Affiliated:
-Charles Brenchley (President)
-Veryan Goodship (VP internal)
-Maddy Griffin (VP social)
-Jeansil Bruyère (VP academic and Loyola affairs)
-Olivia Taddio (VP external and sustainability)
-Rachel Feldman (VP finance)

Sean Nolan (Independent)
Maryam Azam (VP communications)

Categories
Student Life

Becoming a youth leader

 Upon entering university, you usually want to make the most out of your university experience. A big part of that experience is developing your personal skills and being exposed to different cultures. There are different organizations at Concordia that could help you do just that.

AIESEC is one of those organizations. It is a global student-run, non-profit organization aimed at developing leadership skills through international exchange and internship programs or local leadership programs.

“AIESEC provides a lot of opportunities for students to develop their leadership by getting them to do hands-on activities, so it’s not just by listening. We try to empower our members so they can actually have their own project and gain experience while doing it,” said Naomi Ko, AIESEC’s incoming VP of information and communication management.

In order to fully understand the AIESEC experience, there is no better way than to dive into a real story of a Concordia student. Meet Curtis Deschambault, who is currently holding a year-long AIESEC position in Austria.

Deschambault joined AIESEC upon entering Concordia in 2007 in order to indulge in the university experience and to travel around. After attending the AIESEC information session, he realized that the organization offered him both of those experiences and he eagerly jumped at the opportunity to take part. He started going to conferences which helped him learn more about the organization.

“It was a really good chance for me to expand on things that I have not really looked at in my life, like how to manage my skills, how to motivate people and how to implement real life projects,” said Deschambault. “It was a challenge at the beginning but I definitely grew quite a bit from it.”

Last December, Deschambault decided to apply to go to Austria in order to work for the AIESEC national team. His role is to coordinate their two internship programs on a national level and to expand AIESEC’s volunteer abroad program in Austria. In addition to that, he works on making partnerships between Austria and other AIESEC countries.

As for living in a foreign country, Deschambault found it to be a comfortable and easy transition. He says Austria is a privileged country, with a very good standard of living and minimal homelessness. The language barrier didn’t seem to affect him negatively either. The international language in AIESEC is English, which facilitated his communication with others. He describes people in Austria as supportive and understanding of his linguistic obstacles.

Deschambault is currently surrounded by seven nationalities in the AIESEC team in Austria, including Egyptian and Hungarian.

“It’s a diverse cultural experience for me, so it’s really interesting. I’m really enjoying it a lot and learning cultural leadership as well. I’m experiencing how different cultures interpret leadership,” said Deschambault.

The AIESEC experience, although enriching in many ways, does not come without a few challenges. Deschambault was recently in Kenya for an international leadership conference with about 600 delegates from AIESEC’s 110 member countries. He said that he found it was sometimes overwhelming to have to deal with so many different cultures in the same place. However, he did have the chance to talk with people from different countries about world and leadership issues.

One of the biggest advantages that AIESEC provided Deschambault was being able to travel across the world. So far, he has travelled to 12 countries, allowing him to visit four out of the seven continents. Deschambault says that he never imagined that he would be able to travel this much.

Given all of his experiences so far with AIESEC, Deschambault says his time with the program has been worth the minor challenges. “It was definitely an eye-opening experience. It was probably the best decision I made when I entered university.”

For more information, visit www.aiesec.ca/concordia.

Categories
News

‘I am fundamentally an academic’: Judith Woodsworth

Judith Woodsworth, pictured here during her time as Concordia president, has returned to teaching at the university. Photo from archives
Judith Woodsworth, pictured here during her time as Concordia president, has returned to teaching at the university. Photo from archives

MONTREAL (CUP) — After walking away in late 2010 from the top position at Concordia University with just over $700,000 in severance pay, it turns out that former president Judith Woodsworth has been quietly teaching at the university since the start of the winter semester.

This time, she’s not returning to the executive offices on the upper floors of the administration GM building, but to an office on the sixth floor of the McConnell building where the études françaises department is located. Twice a week, Woodsworth heads to the new MB building, where she teaches two small 400-level courses on translation.
“I am fundamentally an academic,” Woodsworth said in a phone interview with Canadian University Press when asked why she would return to Concordia after her dismissal. “I felt that the academic life was something that was really very much a part of me, and I wanted to come back and continue where I left off when I left Concordia 14 years ago.”
Returning to Concordia in 2008 as president was like a “homecoming,” said Woodsworth, though she lasted only two and a half years as president. “It wasn’t all smooth when I came back, but I feel still that this is a place where I belong. Some people might find it strange, but they’re focusing on the wrong things, maybe,” she suggested.
Education Minister Line Beauchamp told a reporter on Feb. 1 that she had asked Concordia for more information, saying she’d like to know the circumstances for her return.
“Yesterday, when I saw the news, I asked for certain explanations,” Beauchamp said. “Phone calls were made.”
Concordia spokesperson Cléa Desjardins confirmed that on Jan. 31, “senior officials at Concordia were in touch with the office of Minister Beauchamp and answered their questions on the subject of Judith Woodsworth’s return to the university.” The minister’s office could not be reached for comment.
In the last year, while on unpaid leave, Woodsworth updated her book on the history of translation and travelled to Africa as a consultant to university bodies in Ghana and Kenya. She notified Concordia she was ready to return to teaching over the summer.
Woodsworth’s dismissal raised the ire of students, staff, alumni and the public when she was let go under mysterious circumstances a few days before Christmas in 2010.
Her severance package raised eyebrows about university funding, since Woodsworth had requested, with other university leaders, that the provincial government raise tuition fees. Tuition fee increases in Quebec will begin in fall 2012.“I realize that it doesn’t sit well when people think of their individual costs when tuition goes up,” said Woodsworth, who nevertheless added that it is “normal” to receive compensation when contracts are terminated, and that her predecessor, Claude Lajeunesse, left with a larger severance package in hand.
The dismissal of two presidents within a few years stirred up outrage, with media nationwide taking note. Last summer, three external investigators released the Shapiro report, the full cost of which came to about $78,000. The investigation condemned Concordia’s governance, saying the university needed to overcome a “culture of contempt.”
But is it okay for Woodsworth to be teaching students after being fired as president?
“The university obviously thinks it’s perfectly appropriate. Like all academic administrators, Dr. Woodsworth received an academic appointment when she was hired on as president,” said Desjardins, “so she just took up that opportunity after that relationship was terminated.”
The reaction on campus to the return of a former administrator has been minimal.
“The two jobs are not connected,” said Maria Peluso, president of the Part-time Faculty Association, who pointed out that academics frequently return to teaching positions after their time as administrators. “There’s nothing unusual about that.”
Lex Gill, president of the Concordia Student Union, agreed: “The reality is, being a university professor is different than being an administrator,” she said. “I just don’t understand why she would want to come back.”
Erik Chevrier, a representative of the Graduate Students’ Association on the Board of Governors, said Woodsworth’s departure raised questions about the school’s transparency.
“We tried to address this by putting in transparent measures in a series of proposals […] and all of them, last meeting, every single one of them, was shot down,” he said.
The suggested measures included filming board meetings and increasing seating space for the audience.
“That’s more of a concern for me — since her departure, since they let her go, they’re really not looking [at making governance more open],” said Chevrier.
A casual survey of students milling around the Webster Library downtown showed some students were unaware of who Woodsworth is. The ones who had heard about it were not concerned.
“If we don’t really know the whole story [about the dismissal], it’s not bad that she came back,” said history student Mara Stancana.
“It doesn’t affect my daily life at school. The goings-on of the administration doesn’t change anything for me,” said Mohamed Azab, an English student.
Woodsworth said she misses meeting a variety of people in her previous position, but that she won’t be seeking any administrative positions any time soon.
While Woodsworth has dropped hints in the past that she was forced out of her position, she indicated that she would not discuss the details of her dismissal because of a non-disclosure agreement.
Categories
Opinions

The technology war has reached our bookstore, and Google won

Photo by Dean Sas via Flickr
Graphic by Sean Kershaw

Do you remember when companies stuck to what they did best? Google was a search engine, Amazon sold books and Apple sold computers.

Those days are over. All three companies have beefed up to offer a wide variety of services, and as a result, they encroach on each other’s territory every so often in an attempt to expand their customer base. Google, Apple and Amazon now offer music and storage services, as well as tablets.

This level of competition is advantageous to us, the consumers, because it drives prices down and offers a wider variety of choices.

This semester, Concordia’s bookstore started offering a decent range of e-books (textbooks, novels, etc.) through a partnership with Google and 22 other universities in Canada and the United States. “We are proud to sell Google eBooks because they offer students ultimate flexibility,” the website boasts. “They can be read on virtually any device, at any time.”

The key word is “virtually.” As a proud owner of an Amazon Kindle e-reader, which I bought for the sole purpose of reading, I was excited knowing that thousands of books, possibly some that I would need for class, would be made available for me.

Then I read this: “Google eBooks will work on the following devices: Android, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Computers, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo Reader.” It adds: “Google eBooks are not currently compatible with Amazon Kindle devices.”

After repeated attempts to get an explanation from the bookstore as to why it was exercising what seemed like e-reader discrimination, I got a reply from Ken Bissonnette, the operations and text manager at the bookstore. He started out by saying that the bookstore had sold roughly 450 copies of e-books that were required for courses in January, but “there are no plans to include the Kindle.” After demanding more precise explanations, he finally said: “At this time I don’t see Google using Kindle.”

This statement proves two things: firstly, that a partnership with Google clearly entails preference to Android-based tablet users, which is understandable, and secondly, that the bookstore itself is clearly unaware of student trends, and the advantages of making their e-books available to Kindle users.

While Apple clearly has a stranglehold on the tablet market share, the Kindle has the same kind of monopoly for e-readers. “During the last nine weeks of 2011, Kindle unit sales, including the Fire tablet, increased 177 per cent compared to the same period in 2010,” according to an official Amazon statement last month.

Kindle device sales in 2011 were nearly triple the 2010 total; this is due to its low starting prices and to Amazon’s “focus on an ecosystem and content for users, an approach closer to what Apple uses for the iPad, rather than focusing on hardware specs.,” according to Flurry Analytics.

The point is, the Kindle is prevalent among the student population and universities should opt to include the Kindle if they want to achieve substantial e-book sales. No one I know owns a Sony or Kobo eReader, and I certainly don’t know any students who want to strain their eyes by reading an 80-page document on an iPod or iPhone, let alone an iPad, which uses a reflective screen that simply won’t let you read in the sun.

Photo by Dean Sas via Flickr

In 2009, Princeton University carried out a pilot program (three members of faculty and 51 students) using e-readers in a classroom setting. One of their goals was to reduce the amount of printing and photocopying. “Most students surveyed in the Princeton pilot (94%) said they did use less paper, reducing by as much as 85% the printing they normally would have done in the pilot course,” according to the report.

Can you imagine if the Concordia bookstore sold the world’s most popular e-reader (which is already attractively priced) or at the very least made its e-books available to Kindle users? Not only would their e-book sales skyrocket, but the university would save an enormous amount of paper, which would certainly help Concordia’s efforts to become as sustainable as possible, and to be a model for other schools to follow.

More e-book sales would likely lead to more coursepacks and textbooks becoming available to the student body and subsequently, students wouldn’t be as turned off by the outlook of reading 80 electronic pages. So, will the bookstore bow down to Google, as so many others have done, or will it figure out a way to let us, the Kindle users, in on the fun?

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