One student’s experience finishing her studies at Concordia, and what she’s learned
Dear Concordians, when asked to reflect on my time at Concordia, I must admit it took me a while to collect my thoughts. I didn’t know where to begin explaining what Concordia means to me. After spending the past six years as both a Concordia undergraduate and graduate student, and an employee in multiple student services, I could probably sit here and write a novel about what this school has given me, in terms of academic, professional and most of all personal growth. But instead, I will give you the cliff notes version.
If I had to sum it all up in one sentence, I would say Concordia gave me a community. As my time at Concordia comes to an end (for now), I find it difficult to accept leaving such an incredible environment. I have been a Concordia student since 2014, completing my Bachelor of Arts in both Human Environment and Communication and Cultural Studies, and am now nearing the end of my Master’s in Environmental Assessment. Suffice to say, I have experienced my fair share of course registration, midterms and exams. Although I am a nerd, and will probably continue my studies further, the most rewarding part of my Concordia experience happened outside the classroom.
It all started during my undergrad, when I got involved with the Hellenic Student Association, which introduced me to a world of extra-curricular involvement on campus. I quickly realized that I enjoyed interacting with other students from various disciplines, all coming together with a common goal. These interactions exposed me to a whole roster of clubs and associations to join, ranging from program-specific student associations under ASFA, to the Inter-Fraternity Council and the Zeta Tau Omega Sorority.
Through these experiences, not only did I learn transferable skills like time-management, but I also learned more about myself. I became a productive version of myself and realized that I like keeping myself busy, being involved, interacting with and learning from others, and representing the university through my Concordia pride. This sense of familiarity, belonging and community cultivated during my undergrad was just the beginning.
Being active within the university led me to appreciate the outstanding services, the diverse people and the incredible opportunities available to us all. As soon as I started my graduate degree in 2017, I began working with various academic service departments, such as with the Student Success Centre, the Examinations Office, the Access Centre for Students with Disabilities, GradProSkills, and more. One of my most rewarding roles was as a Welcome Crew Mentor, during which I learned how most services on campus function, which introduced me to the many opportunities Concordia provides.
For this reason, when asked about Concordia by friends who are looking to attend, or when asked for help from people in my personal circle, I cannot stop gushing about what the university offers (it is often times embarrassing… for them, not for me). A major part of the reason I love working at the university is because I believe I had a truly fulfilling undergraduate and graduate experience—learning, growing and evolving as the best version of myself—and I take it as an opportunity to help do the same for current students.
I am grateful for everything the university has taught me. Thank you Concordia! My advice for students who have read all my embarrassing gushing up to this point: take advantage of your time as an undergrad or grad. Dare to step out of your comfort zone and take on opportunities, both the ones that come your way and the ones you must search for, but that are yours for the taking. Make the most of your time at Concordia, get out there and discover what you love doing in the Concordia community and make it yours!
One member of the slate incited students to vote for the team during the polling period
Shortly after the release of the results of the Concordia Student Union (CSU) elections, it was announced that Cut the Crap, the elected slate, was disqualified for violating standing regulations.
Florian Prual, chief electoral officer (CEO) of the elections, said a slate member incited students to vote for the entire slate during the polling period, which is in violation of the union’s standing regulations. “It’s probably one of the worst things she could have done,” said Prual.
Danielle Vandolder-Beaudin, the finance coordinator candidate, messaged students asking if they had voted, and introducing them to her slate. “You down to vote for us?” wrote Vandolder-Beaudin in one of the messages obtained by The Concordian. Vandolder-Beaudin proceeded to tell students how to vote online and listed the names of the Cut the Crap candidates.
Prual said this falls under “abuse of electronic balloting,” which includes pressuring voters to vote in the presence of a candidate, and bringing the means of electronic voting to a voter.
“That’s an issue and it’s pretty unfair to the other candidates. You cannot incite someone to vote for them during the polling period,” said Prual.
The standing regulation article in question was in fact brought forward to council by CSU Councillor Patrick Quinn, also the academic and advocacy coordinator candidate for Cut the Crap.
According to the standing regulations, it is up to the CSU CEO to declare who is elected 24 hours after the counting of the ballots.
CSU General Coordinator, Sophie Hough-Martin said “this is profoundly disappointing.” Hough- Martin said there is still some confusion as to what the next step is. She added, “I would like to assure the student body that we’ll do our best to rectify this […] to protect the interests of students and democracy in the university.”
Vandolder-Beaudin is banned from running in any CSU election in the next year.
Members of Cut the Crap refused to comment on their disqualification.
For over 3 decades, the Centre for Gender Advocacy has been fighting against gender oppression in its various forms. The staff of the Centre care deeply about ensuring that all Concordia students have equal access to education.
When students face gender oppression due to sexism, transphobia and/or homophobia (each of which are often compounded by other systems of oppression such as racism, ableism and classism), they are not able to derive as much benefit from their education as those who do not face these barriers. Students who face oppression have to work so much harder just to get through their university experience.
This is why we are encouraging all students to vote for candidates on the RiZe slate. For the position of Academic and Advocacy Coordinator, we encourage you to vote for independent candidate, Jane Lefebvre Prevost (although this should not be understood as meaning that there is a reason you should not vote for her RiZe counterpart, Harvin Hilaire who is also well-qualified for the job). The RiZe candidates and Jane are the only candidates who have addressed fighting sexual violence, the importance of intersectional feminism, the need for expanded mental health services, the importance of accessibility, the needs of international students and the necessity of paid internships from the very beginning.
With respect to every aspect of our work at the Centre for Gender Advocacy, we see a reflection of our values in the RiZe team as well as in Jane. These are candidates who care about survivors of sexual violence, who prioritize the needs of the most marginalized students and who understand that no one gets through their university education if they don’t have the support that they need and deserve.
One of the competing teams, Cut the Crap, has run a campaign branded with Trumpian references and promises to implement a system of online opt-outs that would defund our centre and many other groups that students depend on. If you care about the work that we do, if you or a loved one has ever benefited from our services, please vote for RiZe and Jane Lefebvre Prevost. Our continued operation depends on your support!
Signed,
Dayna Danger, Programming and Campaigns Coordinator
Concordia increases security after student files complaint
Concordia has increased security on campus after a student spoke publicly about two times she was harassed at school by strangers in the last month.
Concordia student Lisa Komlos was approached on campus by two different men on two separate occasions, who complimented her with a sense of urgency. The compliments were followed by a line of questioning about her personal information. According to Komlos, the men also tried to isolate her from the crowd in both instances.
In a statement released on Saturday, the university said they increased security on the Sir George Williams campus and they are “committed to fostering a safe and respectful environment.”
Concordia is in contact with the police. “We are in touch with our colleagues at McGill and UQAM to ensure a coordinated response,” said Fiona Downey, university spokesperson.
Komlos was walking to her class through the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (EV) when the incidents occurred.
Komlos posted a video describing the incidents to her Instagram story on Friday afternoon.
In the video posted to her Instagram, Komlos describes the men as “aggressive” and “angry” when she told them to leave her alone. “I was feeling unheard, frustrated, and frankly, I was annoyed,” said Komlos about the first incident, which happened on March 11. “I finally got away from him and went about my day thinking that this was just another daily occurrence of harassment.”
Komlos realized that the encounters were scripted and rehearsed during the second incident on March 26. “It is because of situations like these that I purposely never take the same route to my class,” she said. “Having a routine makes you predictable, and being predictable can make you vulnerable. It is exhausting having to always be on alert.”
The public service announcement Komlos made now has over 152,000 views. “I felt that it was my duty as a woman to come forward with this story,” she said. “I wanted to share these encounters so that I could warn others to keep their eyes open.”
Komlos is in contact with the university’s security department to identify one of the men who approached her. The man was caught on video surveillance footage.
Over a dozen women from Concordia reached out to Komlos with similar stories on campus after seeing the video. “There was also a flood of responses from other women sharing their personal experiences with sexual harassment and sexual assault,” she added.
People who feel unsafe or are harassed on campus can call Concordia security at (514) 848-3737 option 1. A Safe Walk program is also available on campus. Find more information on the security department’s website.
One student’s experience with an elitist event and how it unfairly targets vulnerable students
Concordia has a classism problem. Higher education should be a place where students from various backgrounds have the opportunity to obtain an education and pursue their dreams, regardless of their socioeconomic status. University-funded events should at a minimum not impose additional barriers to those who are already struggling to pay for their degree.
Although scholarships and financial aid do mitigate some financial constraints, higher education remains an ivory tower requiring financial means to scale. Beyond the textbooks and tuition, Concordia should work at eliminating obstacles preventing students from participating in extra-curricular activities by ensuring money provided to clubs is spent appropriately. These additional funds could be used to help offset the cost of financially unstable students and allow greater access to the abundance of academic extracurriculars.
One extracurricular activity I participate in—a non-profit, CSU-funded organization—didn’t get the memo. I’m not naming the group because I know there is potential to grow and I am still involved. But this example applies to all groups because classism affects other campus organizations as well.
The organization-that-shall-not-be-named sends students to conferences throughout Canada, and sometimes the world to partake in debate and policy simulations. They are academically challenging events that help broaden the mind of participants.
A vital component of these conferences is a gala that occurs on the penultimate evening. These social gatherings are essential as they allow students to network and relax with their peers from various universities.
Unfortunately, the organizers didn’t seem to understand the meaning of accessible. I noticed this initially when the Facebook invitation for the party stated that those who didn’t wear gala attire would be turned away and admission cost $35. As I read the post, the combination of both the admission fee and dress code gave me an uneasy feeling.
We were already expected to wear “western business attire” throughout the four-day conference, a significant financial burden for many. Adding “gala attire” to an increasingly expensive, yet theoretically accessible, event for an evening felt like an insult to injury.
I am fortunate to come from a family that could afford the standard attire for the conference, however, neither my parents nor I have the funds to buy a tuxedo. Thankfully, I managed to get in the event with the same clothing I had worn throughout the weekend.
But what about those unlike me? Students who don’t have financial support from their parents, or who already spent money on clothing? What options did those who couldn’t afford gala attire (or who managed to make it in, like me) have? Thankfully, I wasn’t the only concerned person as I heard murmurs of discontent about the admission requirements. Nonetheless, the post remained online until after the gala.
We will never know how many people didn’t attend because they feared being turned away at the door, a repulsive display of elitism that doesn’t belong anywhere, let alone at an academic event. This is the nature of classism. It is hard to notice if one isn’t suffering from it, but once apparent, the remarkable apathy of others towards it is startling.
Perhaps admission to the gala would have been cheaper if the organizers didn’t choose Le Windsor—featuring a ridiculously extravagant ballroom in downtown Montreal—as the venue. A dissatisfied executive in the organization told me the cost of renting the space went well into thousands of dollars. Why didn’t they choose a cheaper venue (Le Windsor ended up being too large for the small number of attendees anyway) and use the money saved to help financially-challenged students?
Although I did not see anyone get turned away, I know Le Windsor staff were instructed to enforce the dress code, and allegedly scrutinized one participant’s attire before she was waved through by a friend. As students, do we want our collectively funded groups to prevent students from participating in academic programs based on the thickness of their wallets? I fear what is to come if we don’t tackle classism head-on; all injustices, including economic ones, are worthy of attention.
On March 26, Concordia University held a conference led by the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), where Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uighur Congress, spoke. Isa is an Uighur activist who often speaks at conferences highlighting the ongoing human rights violations Uighur Muslims in China face.
Kyle Matthews, Executive Director of MIGS, told The Concordian: “Before the event, we started to see reports in the media that showed [the] Chinese government and some Chinese students disrupting any events about human rights abuses involving the Uighur or the Tibetans. We were kind of concerned about that and thought our event would get cancelled.”
While the event wasn’t cancelled, a day before it took place, Matthews received an email from the Chinese consul general in Montreal. In the email, Matthews was asked for an urgent meeting to discuss the event and their point of view. Matthews ignored the email, but on the day of the event, he found out that the Chinese consul general was pressuring different people in Montreal to cancel the event.
Matthews decided to ignore the email, and the event still took place with two security officers present to ensure there were no disruptions. In an article by La Presse, the Chinese consul general admitted that he pressured Montreal to cancel the event, saying students shouldn’t be exposed to terrorism. “He made some very bizarre references to the Christchurch terrorism case in New Zealand,” said Matthews. “It didn’t make sense because our speaker wasn’t some member of the far right; he’s actually a Muslim Uighur minority from China.”
This idea of linking Uighur Muslims to terrorism isn’t new—in fact, China has claimed they are dealing with threats and violence from separatist Islamist groups in Xinjiang, but human rights groups argue differently. In 2009, riots in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, killed 200 people, most of whom were Han Chinese—numerous attacks have occurred since then, according to BBC News. Human rights groups argue that this violence erupted from China’s oppression of Uighur Muslims, and these violent events were used by the Chinese government to crack down on Uighur Muslims in February 2017, according to the same source.
Evidence highlights that more than 1 million Uighur Muslims in China are detained in what resembles a “massive internment camp,” according to BBC News. In these camps, detainees are forced to learn Mandarin Chinese, renounce their Islamic faith, and swear loyalty to the Communist Party of China and President Xi Jinping, according to the same source.
At first, China ignored the camps’ existence—but in October 2018, Chinese officials legalized “education camps” with the goal of eradicating extremism, according to Vox. Instead of referring to these detainment centres for what they are, the Chinese government has called them “re-education” centres that are meant to fend off terrorism, according to BBC News. Millions of people have disappeared, and Uighur Muslims are under surveillance, according to Vox. Not only that, but officials say these “re-education” centres offer classes on topics such as Chinese history and culture, and have said that inmates are “happier” after their imprisonment, according to CNN. Yet, various camp survivors have said they were physically tortured for the purpose of brainwashing, were sleep deprived, isolated without food and water, and were subject to waterboarding, according to Vox.
It is difficult to know every detail of what Uighur Muslims are currently going through, as China’s lack of freedom of press hinders journalists’ ability to report freely. “What’s deeply troubling is that China is exporting its authoritarianism to Western countries,” said Matthews. “This is the third case of Chinese political interference in events happening at Canadian universities. One was at the University of Toronto, one was at McMaster, and now Concordia comes to number three.”
We at The Concordian believe this situation further highlights how urgent it is for us to discuss what is happening in Xinjiang. We’re proud of our university for offering its security services to ensure the conference took place. The ongoing violation of human rights for Uighur Muslims in China is an issue that must be continuously spoken about. Censorship has no place in Canada, or in Canadian universities—we at The Concordian hope to see this conversation continue and bring change.
When I was a kid, I spent most of my time in the basement of a 60s-style diner behind the Old Forum. My days consisted of playing “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls on the jukeboxes on repeat, riding around the block in one of the regular customer’s cabs, and mixing coffee, ketchup, pancake mix—anything I could get my hands on—together in a giant bowl. I called it a potion and begged my dad’s staff to have a taste.
The Corner Snack Bar—dubbed Moe’s—was opened by a man named Moe Sweigman in 1958. It was purchased by my grandparents, Vasiliki and Petros Thomas, 20 years later. For decades, the 24-hour greasy spoon served as an after-game pitstop for the Habs, whose home arena was located just across the street before they moved to the Bell Centre in 1996.
Eddy Thomas, father of Katelyn Thomas, in the 90s. Photo by Lee Jenkinson.
The Thomas’s eldest son, Eddy, dropped out of school at 15 to work at the diner full time. Eventually, a woman from Ontario named Lee was hired as a waitress. After a few years of bickering, the two fell in love and went on to have two children: my brother and me.
My grandparents passed the diner down to my dad in the 90s, and it’s where my parents worked for the better half of my life. It was everything to me; everything to us. Customers at Moe’s were as intrinsically tied to us as our family members. Even now, after all these years, they remain threaded into my memory like quirky, lovable characters from a Disney film.
I cried when employees quit. I cried when employees were fired (actually, the first time my parents told me they fired someone, I thought they meant they set him on fire). My mom used to say that when customers I didn’t like tried to talk to me, I’d just swivel around on my stool to face the opposite direction. I also apparently used to command customers to “talk” if they wore CHOM 97.7 apparel, in an attempt to recognize their voices, since the station served as the soundtrack to Moe’s until aux cords became a thing.
The diner meant so much to so many people. For some, it was a 3 a.m. poutine pitstop after a drunken night on the town. For others, it was where they brought a first date whose heart they would go on to claim forever; a place where you could bump into actors who were in town to shoot a movie; even a refuge during the Ice Storm of 1998 and the Dawson College shooting in 2006. For me, it was a go-to hangout, bottomless fries, Yiayia’s unrivaled tzatziki, and my first (and longest) full-time job. But above all, it was home.
Eddy, Katelyn and Justin Thomas (left to right). Photo by Lee Jenkinson.
When times got tough and we had to close in December 2015, it felt like I was losing part of my soul. My mom passed away six years prior to that, so it also felt like I was losing yet another part of her. A chapter of my life closed forever, and it still feels like I’m being stabbed in the heart when I drive by its former location to find a trendy café in its place.
Nowadays, Moe’s crosses my mind every so often, like when I come across an old photograph I haven’t seen in a while. But for the most part, it’s been compartmentalized into a part of my brain labelled “this hurts too much to think about.”
Since the diner’s closing, I’ve taken on a few different jobs, but most of my time has been devoted to the journalism degree I’m pursuing at Concordia. As a journalism student, I spend a lot of time in the CJ building on the Loyola campus. Last fall, as I was walking down the hallway that leads to the tunnel connecting CJ to the SP building, I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks. Hanging there on the wall was a 7UP sign that read “CASSE-CROUTE DU COIN RESTAURANT.” It took a second, but then it hit me: I know this sign. It used to hang above the window outside my diner.
It’s hard to put how I felt in that moment into words, but for the most part I was overcome with a distinct feeling of warmth that I’ve never experienced before. It might be comparable to bumping into an old friend you haven’t seen in years, whose whereabouts you were entirely unaware of up until your paths happened to cross again. A twist of fate.
Of all the places on earth this sign could have ended up, it so happened to be in a building where I spend most of my days. Moe’s lives on forever in the hearts of everyone who frequented it over the years, but also in the basement of Concordia’s CJ building. Somehow, three years later, it made its way back to me.
Jackie Batsinduka explores loss and family history in Geni
“Growing up as a child of two survivors of the [Rwandan] genocide, the big thing for my family—and I think it’s true of many people’s family—is that it’s not really talked about,” said Jackie Batsinduka, a Concordia communications studies graduate. “My mom lost the majority of her immediate family, except for two brothers, and my dad lost his entire family. So imagine that, then you have a kid two years later.”
Jackie Batsinduka is a rising filmmaker and recent Concordia communication studies graduate. Photo courtesy of Jackie Batsinduka.
Starting on April 7,1994 and lasting about 100 days, the Rwandan genocide resulted in the mass murder of nearly one million people, the majority of whom were Tutsis. Batsinduka was born in Ottawa just two years after the genocide. “I guess it was easier to just forget and live your life,” said Batsinduka, “focus on this new chapter.” Although her family rebuilt their lives and eventually settled in Gatineau, Batsinduka explained how the past would come up in small ways, no matter how much they tried to push it away.
“Whenever there’d be a class project that had to do with your family tree, I’d be like ‘I don’t know,’” said Batsinduka, with a shrug. “Then as a six-year-old, having to explain to your class like, ‘yup, doesn’t go higher than my parents; unfortunately I don’t know anything else’ and everyone else can’t really relate.” Because her parents hardly spoke about the genocide, Batsinduka said she grew up feeling as though asking questions about her family’s history was too painful. “I’m kind of embarrassed to say it,” said Batsinkduka, “but I also wasn’t, like, out there seeking to know more.”
Throughout her childhood, Batsinduka was fascinated with how TV shows and movies could bring people’s imagination to life, despite not thinking of herself as imaginative. “As I got older and into high school, I realized ‘hey, I can make this stuff,’” she said, with a laugh. Batsinduka’s filmmaking career began in high school where she’d make amateur videos with her friends in media club. In CÉGEP and eventually at Concordia, she further explored her multimedia passion and continued developing her unique voice.
After graduating from communication studies at Concordia in summer 2018, Batsinduka delved into writing the script for her first project post-graduation, titled Geni. The short film tells the story of a girl estranged from her mother, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, who is invited back to her childhood home at her mother’s request. Batsinduka is both writing, directing and co-starring in Geni, which explores how one family is impacted by the genocide, the intergenerational trauma carried by the children of survivors, and how each family member’s unique experiences feed into one another.
Christine Kayirangwa, Batsinduka’s mother, was born in Kigali, Rwanda. Photo courtesy of Jackie Batsinduka.
“Whenever there’d be a class project that had to do with your family tree, I’d be like ‘I don’t know,’” said Batsinduka, with a shrug. “Then as a six-year-old, having to explain to your class like, ‘yup, doesn’t go higher than my parents; unfortunately I don’t know anything else’ and everyone else can’t really relate.”
“This project is an opportunity to heal, not just for the Rwandans involved in the making of this film, but for everyone who will watch it,” writes Batsinduka in her director’s notes. “By bringing Geni to life, I can thankfully now say that my identity as the daughter of Rwandan genocide survivors is something I have begun to claim.”
Geni is also the shortened, Americanized nickname for the main character, Mugeni. Mugeni means ‘bride’ in Kinyarwanda, one of the mother tongues of Rwanda. Batsinduka’s mother, Christine Kayirangwa, has no acting experience but is also co-starring in the short film as Geni’s estranged mother. “Having her support and her confidence in me, and trusting me that this is a story worth being told and that I can tell it, has been amazing,” said Batsinduka. “Just her willingness to embark on this exploration of how this story could change our lives, or our relationship.” Though Batsinduka’s father passed away a few years ago, before this film was conceptualized, she likes to think that he’s smiling down on her and Kayirangwa as they explore their shared history together.
Identity reconciliation is a central theme in Geni, as is profound loss and the cyclical nature of family dynamics, which Batsinduka feels everyone can relate to. “The film is for everyone, but it’s especially for my community,” said Batsinduka. “There are nuances that are very much for people of that community, and that was important to me […] to not hold back on the audience. This film will definitely leave you thinking.”
Geniis scheduled to film in early May, and is aiming to premiere at festivals in summer 2019. This year marks the 25-year commemoration of the Rwandan genocide, which took place from April 7 to mid-July 1994. Batsinduka is holding a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo from March 19 to April 16.
Concordia’s climate review of the English department has made headlines in every major Canadian news network since its release last week. Last week, one of our News Editors, Mia Anhoury wrote a piece outlining the lead-up to the review, its focus, some recommendations from the review, and comments from several people involved.
Some of the recommendations for professors include: making students more aware of the process for filing complaints, prohibiting classes in bars, clearer definitions and training about power dynamics in relationships, consent and conflicts of interest. Another recommendation is the requirement to disclose a conflict of interest in professors’ relationships with students, and clear consequences for failure to abide by it.
We at The Concordian encourage you to read the report for yourself. Many of the recommendations are focused on clarifying Concordia’s legislation around sexual misconduct and the process of voicing a complaint.
There are many takeaways from the report. Concordia has started many initiatives already, such as updating their sexual violence policy, and indeed they seem willing to comply with many of the recommendations.
One recurring goal was increased clarity; many students are unaware of the process of filing a complaint, and many don’t even know what situations qualify as a breach of university protocol. Clarity among the administration is also key, since many members claimed to be unaware of the toxic climate in the first place. Lisa Ostiguy, the head of Concordia’s standing committee on sexual misconduct and sexual violence, told The Concordian, “I’ve been actively involved in sexual violence and sexual misconduct files and processes, and I was not made aware [of fraternization between students and faculty].” Accountability between faculty members and accessibility to the complaint system will put more checks in place to prevent violent behaviour.
The report claimed “there is no place for any romantic or sexual relationship between an instructor and his or her student.” This is the kind of concrete, definitive language that we need surrounding this issue. Ostiguy acknowledged that “it’s very difficult to prohibit relationships between adults that are consenting.” We at The Concordian believe this is an issue that requires more clear, direct, and precise language. Being vague in the policy or when referring to it will only contribute to the difficulty of prohibiting toxic relationships.
Responses from the university thus far have not included an explicit apology to past or current students who were affected by abuses of power from several members of their institution. This includes Alan Shepherd’s recent response letter to the climate review, titled “Concordia welcomes the recommendations put forth in the Climate Review of the Department of English.”
In his response, Shepard mentions that the “unhealthy” climate that the report describes in the English department gives the university “cause [for] concern.” Immediately after, however, he mentions that many students have had a positive experience, that only a small percentage of faculty members were accused, and that most of the complaints came from alumni rather than current students. What are we supposed to make of these defences? It’s hard not to see this as an effort to save face.
Shepard’s letter goes on to highlight the ways Concordia has been investing in sexual assault resources, independently, he stresses, of the climate review. We do think that the letter is a useful way to discuss or promote resources for sexual assault. It is great that the university is working on developing new strategies, and it certainly needs to provide new resources to students as much as possible. But without the preface of an apology, it is easy to perceive the report in-part as an attempt to preserve the university’s reputation.
We at The Concordian want to see the university take responsibility for its employees by explicitly apologizing to its students, and demonstrate their sincerity by clearly defining their policy around student-professor relationships, the definition of ‘conflicts of interest’ and consequences for when that is breached. The complaint-filing process needs to be clear and accessible, and the university needs to make an active effort to investigate claims and enforce consequences for perpetrators.
We’ve all been there. And if we haven’t, we know someone who has. As students, we expect to feel nervous, stressed, anxious and even depressed at some point during our studies. As school, work and other responsibilities pile up, it can be difficult to reach out to mental health professionals and care for yourself.
With the numerous resources they have, depending on their financial capabilities, universities often emphasize that students should reach out with mental health concerns about themselves or others. But what happens when more people are reaching out than there are hands being offered?
If you’ve tried to access the Counselling and Psychological Services at Concordia, you might be familiar with the long wait times and lack of availability. At the end of last semester, Concordia’s Fine Arts Students Alliance (FASA) conducted a Mental Health and Wellness Survey. According to The Concordian, FASA coordinators noticed that common concerns included long wait times and a lack of communication about mental health services at Concordia. The coordinators will present the survey results in April and propose initiatives to better address students’ needs, according to the same article.
Concordia does, however, offer free sessions and workshops on stress management, self-confidence, and other topics. Posters about mental health can be seen around campus as well. Even so, there are only 14 mental health professionals listed on the Counselling and Psychological Services website. This isn’t proportionate with Concordia’s 45,000 students.
According to The Montreal Gazette, many Canadian universities have been dealing with increasing demands for better mental health support on campus. A 2016 National College Health Assessment found that 44 per cent of the 43,780 Canadian higher-education students surveyed felt too depressed to function, while 65 per cent experienced overwhelming anxiety, according to The Globe and Mail. The assessment found these two figures had increased from 2013, where 38 per cent were depressed and 57 per cent had anxiety.
According to Maclean’s, 51.8 per cent of Concordia University students felt overwhelmed on a daily or weekly basis. It is clear there is a need for mental health support, but what can Concordia do to meet this demand? Firstly, we at The Concordian would like to see the university invest in and promote more student-run initiatives, of which there are multiple. In an email sent to fine arts students by FASA on Feb. 20, the alliance outlined various services offered by student groups and the university. The email referenced the Concordia Student Union’s 24-hour mental health hotline, Empower Me, the Concordia Art Hive, an open space in the EV building where students are free to create and heal through art-making, and the Concordia Students’ Nightline, a student-run organization that offers confidential support on Friday and Saturday nights.
While we at The Concordian don’t want to dismiss everything the university has done to better promote mental health for its students, we can’t deny that the administration could do better in promoting the varied services available.
There are students trying to help each other through these difficult times, but their efforts don’t reach many of the people who need support. We at The Concordian know first-hand that many students weren’t familiar with the resources offered on campus until they read about them in our newspaper or heard about them through a friend. We believe the university must better address the struggles its student body faces with mental health. It could be as simple as including a list of services on every syllabus.
Mental Health services offered at Concordia include:
24-hour confidential and multilingual hotline, Empower Me (1-844-741-6389)
Counselling and Psychological Services on both campuses in rooms GM-200 and AD-103
The Zen Den, a calm public space offered at the Counselling and Psychological Services office, which is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Concordia Art Hive, offered in EV-5.777 on Mondays from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Thursdays from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
The Concordia Students’ Nightline, which is open on Fridays and Saturdays from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. (514-437-9797)
A meditation room in the downtown office of the Multi-faith and Spirituality Centre in the Z Annex on Mackay St.
Why the upcoming protest about climate change is needed
On Friday, March 15, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., many Concordia students will participate in a walkout to protest inaction from authority figures on the issue of climate change. The strike will be in solidarity with international climate strikes and walkouts in other institutions in Montreal, such as McGill and UdeM. Later in the day, protesters will join a Montreal-wide march to stand up for climate action.
Now, although I do not condone skipping class, I would like to stress the importance of the call to action this protest aims for: to raise awareness on the current environmental crisis we find ourselves in and to act now for a more sustainable future for our planet. To get a little scientific, the Keeling curve (which many aren’t aware of) is a graph of the accumulation of measurements of the concentration of CO2 emissions taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii from 1958 to today. The sense of urgency to take action stems from the Keeling curve, as it has been increasing—this year it has reached its highest level of CO2 concentration measured ever!
As a Master’s student in environmental assessment, in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, I’ve learnt about the environmental science behind these issues firsthand and the detailed extent of how humans impact the planet. Just last week, our class visited the Anthropocene exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada. Witnessing attendees appreciate the beauty in photos of environmental destruction as art was terrifying, to say the least. However, it did bring about an opportunity for the public to learn about the effects we’ve imposed on our environment, similarly to what the walkout aims to do.
March 15 is an important date since many schools will be on strike that day to follow the European demonstration movement initiated by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish political activist working to fight against climate change and global warming. It is crucial to acknowledge that this walkout is a response to a global issue. It is also important to emphasize the international scale of this crisis, as seen by the lone protest of Thunberg. Her actions have led to a powerful global movement of school climate strikes, spreading to countries in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Germany, the United States, Japan and dozens more, demanding politicians act on behalf of the planet, according to The Guardian.
At the UN Climate Change COP24 in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018, Thunberg announced, “[World leaders today] only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess even when the only sensible thing to do is to pull the emergency brake.” Following this urgency for action against today’s environmental issues, Concordia’s Department of Geography, Planning and Environment has begun a number of projects in support of raising awareness and promoting ways to reduce our environmental impact.
Some of these projects include Concordia’s Climate Clock, which shows how current greenhouse gas emissions affect our planet’s trajectory to reach two degrees. Another project is Climate Bytes, which aims to translate complicated studies on climate change into “digestible byte-sized pieces of information” for the public to more easily understand the science behind these issues. Another is the newly formed Climate Emergency Committee, which allows students within the department and professors in the field to come together and discuss the issues and ways to move forward in addressing these problems.
To learn more about these issues, I invite you all to attend the upcoming Sustainability in the City and Beyond conference from March 19 to 21 at the Loyola Jesuit Hall and Conference Centre. Here, the Climate Emergency Committee will be speaking more about their work.
Remember, the need for action is urgent, and the time to become aware of environmental issues and how to help is now!
Lin has been teaching at Concordia since she was a graduate student in 2001. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.
Part-time studio arts instructor Jenny Lin on how her practice continues to evolve
“I’ve been working in a really introspective way,” Jenny Lin said of her recent artistic endeavours. The visual artist and part-time Concordia professor has found herself in what seems to be a creative ebb—drawing back from her usual schedule to make room for new projects and pursuits.
One glance at Lin’s resume will reveal how busy she’s been over the past couple of decades, with most of her artistic work taking place during her teaching career at Concordia. “I feel like I can be a better teacher when I’m actually making work,” she said. A 2018 recipient of the Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching Award, Lin is soft spoken yet firmly present.
Lin began teaching at the university during her master’s degree in print media in 2001. She taught a screenprinting course in her third year, but upon graduating, found herself unsure about a career as a teacher. Instead, Lin worked in the studio arts office for a few years before Tony Patricio, the office administrator, convinced her to apply for a teaching position. She got her first teaching job in 2004 and has been an instructor at Concordia ever since.
“It made me a bit more confident and sure that I wanted to do this,” Lin said about landing her first gig. What started as a few occasional classes developed into a steady schedule, and by 2007, Lin had solidified her place at the university.
Lin’s screenprinted zine, avoid taking too personally or literally, 2018. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Lin said her job as a professor influences her creative career, and vice versa. “It’s inspiring to be around people making art and [to] get to talk about what they’re doing, and help guide them through the process,” she said. “The teaching really inspires me to keep making work.” Keeping an open creative channel between work and play is essential for both aspects of her practice to succeed, Lin said. “[I’m] lucky to be able to work in the studio art [department]. Both things feed each other.”
It’s fair to say that she’s found the balance, because Lin’s artistic biography is staggering. Since her time as an undergraduate student at the University of Calgary, Lin has racked up over 150 credits in group and solo exhibitions, video screenings, residencies, artists’ book collections and workshops. But her list of accomplishments isn’t what Lin considers to be most important—it’s the people she’s been able to work with, and certain projects that have her particularly inspired.
Although Lin completed her master’s degree in print media, she also took video courses while studying at Concordia. At the time, Lin was interested in creating art through non-physical means. Though she has shifted gears a little since her graduate work, this is a sentiment the artist continues to investigate. “I feel interested in [the] different ways that people can be reached by an artwork,” she said. “It’s interesting that someone could see something on the web, in their house, or on a random computer, and enter into this world—like a story—that they get immersed in.”
In her recent projects, Lin has been more focused on print media and zine work. These works can be immersive in their own way, she explained. In addition to being a tangible medium that the viewer can interact with, “artists’ books can fit in many spaces,” she said. Opposed to more traditional work that only appears in a gallery, for example, zines and artists’ books facilitate a more intimate relationship between work and viewer, Lin said.
The artist said she feels more distant from the virtual world now than she did while creating video and digital work. “The way that I was presenting it, or the way that people were accessing it felt a little unsatisfying,” she explained. Lin refocused her practice, leading her to build quite an extensive collection of artists’ books, host bookmaking and zinemaking workshops, and participate in zine fairs across the country with her partner Eloisa Aquino, who is also an artist. Lin and Aquino publish some of their collaborative work under the name B&D Press.
The artist’s 2016 poster/zine titled That which separates you and I or here and there. Photo courtesy of the artist.
As for why she’s drawn to bookmaking and published work specifically, Lin said “[zinemaking] is a way to create a space for more marginalized voices, and also to create a different space where it’s about encountering different people.” She has worked with a variety of groups in efforts to showcase art from marginalized groups, such as the Qouleur collective, which focuses on art and activism of people of colour within the LGBTTQ+ community. According to its Twitter page, Qouleur also hosts a “festival celebrating racialized queer/trans* identities and experience.” Lin said she connected with many people, and was inspired by the time she spent working with Qouleur.
In 2015, Lin helped create the Queer Print Club at Concordia. The artist said she “felt there was a need to bring something more collective and more political into the studios, [and] it seemed like the perfect thing to bridge the community, and the art studios, and teaching in this institution.” According to Lin’s website, the club encourages undergraduate students to “[create] projects that explore the collaborative, community-based and democratic aspects of print.”
Although some may see print media and zine work as disposable, Lin believes in its ability to connect with and create space for those not reflected in the mainstream art scene. In mainstream publishing, for example, “there’s way more distance between the artist and the audience,” Lin said. She also finds smaller, physical artworks refreshing in an age of social media and technological inundation. “A physical object touches and impacts a person differently, and stays with them in a way that’s different than looking at something online and scrolling through or clicking through,” she said.
“[Zine work] is a way to create a space for more marginalized voices, and also to create a different space where it’s about encountering different people,” said Lin. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.This is not to say that Lin considers virtual or computer-generated art forms to be inferior to her recent endeavours in print media. The artist referenced Montreal-based publishing company and studio Anteism as a current example of how to bridge the gap between virtual experience and physical work. According to Lin, Anteism experiments with artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) in tandem with publishing. Lin is particularly inspired by the work the studio does with artists’ books. Although she has worked in the fields of AR and print media throughout her creative career, Lin admitted, “I’m not at a point where I know what to do with it myself.”
This artist also cited Zohar Kfir’s Testimony virtual reality (VR) project as insight into how computer-generated content can be used to express reality. Kfir’s project involves testimonies from sexual assault survivors that the viewer is told through VR—they are confronted with looking at the subject while they tell their story, as if they were face to face. “I like the idea that people identify issues with technology,” Lin said. “If there’s a lack of something […], people try to make work that addresses that. There are more and more people that are trying to humanize the experience of VR.”
Lin’s home studio. Photo by Gabe Chevalier.
As of now, Lin has a few projects in the works, and although she admits they’re progressing slowly, she knows which direction they’re headed in. The artist’s recent introspection has highlighted key ideas that she wants to explore further. Lin explained that she wants to create works by “trying to pinpoint emotional responses to different situations, and gathering really random and fragmented thoughts and fragmented images, and pairing them together […] to create something that feels cathartic.”
Lin mentioned that her teaching schedule has reduced, allowing more time for creative pursuits, whatever those may be. She is currently working on a project with Aquino involving the Quebec Gay Archives. According to their website, “the Quebec Gay Archives have a mandate to acquire, conserve and preserve any handwritten, printed, visual or audio material which testify to the history of the LGBTQ+ communities of Quebec.” Lin and Aquino are interested in exploring queer people’s responses to their collections.
Lin has also started an AR book in collaboration with Anteism, however it’s still in its early stages. “I feel like I’ve opened up more time purposefully,” the artist said, and although she has a few projects on the horizon, Lin is still waiting for them to take shape. “It’s just part of the process,” she said with a reassuring nod.
See more of Lin’s work on her website: jenny-lin.ca
More of Lin and Aquino’s collaborative work can be found on their website: banddpress.blogspot.com
