Students will learn to teach French as a second language in one-year program
Concordia’s French studies department is introducing a new certificate program for graduate students interested in teaching French as a second language. Department chair Denis Liakin and assistant professor Diane Querrien said they are hopeful the one-year, 15-credit program will be open to students in time for fall 2018.
According to Liakin, the program, called the Microprogramme en didactique et linguistique appliquée à l’enseignement du français langue seconde, will include four newly developed courses and two interactive learning opportunities.
“It is designed to meet both the requirements of quality on an international scale, as well as situate French teaching and learning in Quebec and in Canada,” he said.
During the fall semester, students in the program will gain experience serving as tutors for Concordia’s Centre d’apprentissage et de promotion du français (CAPF). Funded by the French department, CAPF has been offering free conversation groups and one-on-one tutoring sessions to Concordia French language students since 2015.
During the winter term, students will complete a three-credit course requiring them to observe French classes at Concordia, as well as a three-credit course in which they will design French classes and their curricula. Other courses incorporated into this program are focused on technology, linguistics, didactics and how they all relate to French education.
Although courses on French linguistics are already offered at the undergraduate level, Liakin said the department is designing and implementing four new courses specifically tailored to graduate students.
“The entire teaching team is involved in [structuring] the certificate. Each course will be designed by a professor [who specializes] in the field,” Liakin said. “As we work in a spirit of collegiality, an academic committee will approve course outlines and student admissions in collaboration with the graduate program director.”
Despite the proposal for the program only receiving senate approval in December 2017, Liakin said developing the program has been a two-year-long effort. Although the certificate alone will not make students eligible to teach, Querrien said she believes it can help aspiring educators gain a competitive edge in the job market.
“In Quebec, French teachers face a variety of [students], such as immigrants, allophone children integrated into francophone schools or university students [seeking] to expand their linguistic and cultural repertoire,” Querrien said. “In other Canadian provinces, qualified educators with a high-level specialization in French language teaching will distinguish themselves in the labour market.”
According to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), French was the second-most learned language in the world in 2014 and the third-most prominent language in the business world. This is a statistic Querrien claimed shows this program is aligned with an international demand for qualified French teachers.
Since the program is a graduate certificate, interested applicants would need a bachelor’s degree to be eligible. All courses will be taught in French.
Liakin added that, while the French department is already equipped with the resources required for this program, the department is currently in the process of hiring another tenure-track professor. He did not specify what role this new instructor will have in relation to the certificate program.
Although the program’s official start date has not been announced, Liakin and Querrien said they are hopeful the program will offer students the skills and experience necessary to build a successful career in French education.
“We believe that this [graduate certificate] will be a major asset for students who already own their authorization to teach or who want to pursue graduate studies in French language teaching,” Querrien added.
A previous version of this article misspelled Denis Liakin’s name. The Concordian regrets the error.
Q&A held by Concordia faculty with students in wake of allegations
The Concordia Association for Students in English (CASE) circulated a document at a meeting on Jan. 12 announcing that two professors had their courses reassigned pending an investigation and their books had been taken out of the English department’s display in the Webster Library.
Four faculty members met with a small group of English students during the meeting in the library building to answer questions and discuss actions being taken by the university in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct made against a few professors in Concordia’s creative writing program.
Kate Sterns, the creative writing program coordinator, and English department chair Andre Furlani were present at the meeting alongside Lisa Ostiguy, the university’s deputy provost, and dean of students Andrew Woodall. All four representatives encouraged the students to reach out to someone at the university if they’d had a negative experience with a professor.
“Where we have a complaint, we pursue it,” Furlani said. “The problem is that people don’t feel they can approach various members of the department.”
The representatives stressed that the university has dealt effectively with sexual assault complaints in the past, but the outcomes of those cases cannot be shared with the public due to confidentiality agreements.
“Among the people I’ve been talking to, there’s a distrust of the university,” said one student during the meeting.
Furlani said those who shared stories on social media under the CanLitAccountable hashtag—the title of a blog created by former student Mike Spry to describe allegations of misconduct—have been contacted by the university and all allegations are being investigated by an independent party.
According to Ostiguy, the university is also in the process of drafting a policy on student-staff relations.
Former John Molson School of Business professor Isabelle Dostaler left Concordia to become the dean of the faculty of business administration at Memorial University in September 2017. Photo by Rodrigo Iniguez Becerril
Former Concordia Isabelle Dostaler on her transition to Memorial University
In September 2017, a former Concordia University management professor began her new job as the dean of the faculty of business administration at Memorial University in St-John’s, N.L.
Isabelle Dostaler, who taught management courses and conducted research at the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) for 16 years, said administrators at Concordia were gracious towards her when she informed them that she would be accepting a position at Memorial University.
“Once the offer from Memorial was on the table, there was nothing Concordia could do to keep me there,” she said. “But, they were very understanding. [Concordia president] Alan Shepard wished me the best.” Dostaler left her position at Concordia in April 2017. “It was a bold move, but I’m happy,” she added.
Dostaler, who holds a PhD in management studies from the University of Cambridge, has done extensive research on the air transportation system. While at Concordia, Dostaler was the academic director of the university’s Aviation Think Tank and director of the executive MBA and the aviation MBA programs.
“My major interest is in the air transportation system,” she said. “By that, I mean from the point that the aircraft is being designed to the point where the travellers arrive happy at their destination.”
During her time at Concordia, Dostaler was often featured in the media. She appeared on shows like RDI Économie and Tout le monde en parle to talk about developments and issues in Quebec’s aerospace industry.
Now, as dean of the faculty of business administration, Dostaler explained that her role is to inspire and assist in implementing changes that benefit students, faculty and the larger community.
This month, Memorial University announced a new master’s degree focussing on developing sustainable and social business practices in public, private and not-for-profit sectors.
“Here, there is an emphasis on giving back. It is written in the founding papers of Memorial that the university must exist for the benefit of the community,” Dostaler said.
She added that she enjoys living in St-John’s and, despite differences between Memorial and Concordia—Memorial’s business school only has about 2,000 students compared to the 9,000 at JMSB—she sees many similarities.
“There are a lot of commonalities. For one, here [at Memorial], there is a very supportive staff, just like at John Molson,” she said. “I think Newfoundland and Quebec have a lot in common. For one thing, they’re both societies with very distinct cultures.”
While Dostaler may have moved away from Concordia, she said she hasn’t completely cut ties with the school. For the next two years, she will hold the position of affiliate professor in Concordia’s management department.
“I’m still working on research with the Quebec government through Concordia,” she added.
Photo by Rodrigo Iniguez Becerril
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Ms. Dostaler’s role the creation of Memorial’s new master’s degree and her current position at Concordia. The article also falsely stated that Dostaler initially found the transition to Memorial difficult and that she was previously involved in making recommendations at Concordia. The Concordian regrets the errors.
President Alan Shepard confident in university environment: “The department is safe”
“I feel confident with the environment we have at the university and that the department is safe,” said Concordia president Alan Shepard after announcing the launch of an assessment of the university’s current environment on Jan. 10.
Following allegations of sexual misconduct by professors in Concordia University’s creative writing program, Shepard said he was “profoundly sorry.”
“We take this stuff very seriously, very seriously,” he said.
Concordia president Alan Shepard responded to recent allegations at a press conference on Jan. 10, stating that the university is not “trying to sweep everything under a rug.” Photo by Étienne Lajoie
Shepard announced on Wednesday that the university will be launching an investigation into the allegations posted online by Concordia alumnus Mike Spry on Jan. 8. The investigation was one of three specific actions Shepard outlined during the press conference and in a press release sent to students. The release, written by Shepard himself, reads that the university will also be “meeting this week with students, faculty and staff in the creative writing program to listen, support and chart a path forward.”
The university’s third initiative is an assessment of the “current environment” at Concordia, which will be coordinated by deputy provost Lisa Ostiguy. Ostiguy previously chaired the Sexual Assault Policy Review Working Group, which reviewed the university’s sexual assault policies and made recommendations in August 2015.
“These are complicated matters, and we have to proceed with care. People’s lives are affected by these experiences, and people who are facing allegations also deserve due process,” Shepard said. “We take the allegations seriously. It’s not a case of us trying to sweep everything under a rug.”
Shepard invited students to consult the university’s Office of Rights and Responsibilities and the Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC).
When asked if the university had decided whether to suspend any professors, Shepard said “all investigations are confidential by law and by our policy.” He did not comment when asked if any professors accused of misconduct might still be employed by the university.
“One of the misconceptions I think about our university is that we get complaints about faculty members and we ignore the complaints. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Shepard said.
In 2014, Concordia alumna Emma Healey published an essay on the website The Hairpin making allegations of sexual misconduct against a Concordia creative writing professor. When asked about the university’s lack of response to previous allegations against professors from the program, Shepard said “I acted on Monday afternoon because I heard about it on Monday afternoon.”
Several former students have stated on social media that the creative writing department’s “toxic culture”—as Spry referred to it—has been an open secret dating back 20 years. According to Shepard, “it was not an open secret” to him. “I did my best to pay attention,” he added. “I deeply regret. This is not okay. This not acceptable.”
Former Concordia student publishes essay denouncing department’s “toxic” climate
Mike Spry, a graduate of Concordia’s creative writing program, published a lengthy essay on Jan. 8 criticizing the university’s English department for fostering a toxic, misogynistic climate.
The essay, titled “No Names, Only Monsters: Toxic Masculinity, Concordia and CanLit,” was published as the sole post on a blog called CanLit Accountable. The author detailed specific allegations of sexual misconduct and corroborates a 2014 essay by writer and Concordia alumna Emma Healey.
In the essay, Spry criticized the Canadian literary industry as a whole, describing it as “a community of misogyny, toxic masculinity and privilege” that perpetuates “cronyism, bullying, abuse, sexual harassment and sexual assault.” He also described specific examples of students being subjected to misogyny and sexual misconduct at the hands of professors within Concordia’s creative writing program.
Spry claimed that, as a student, he witnessed “the normalization of sexualization of students by professors” and that romantic or sexual relationships between students and professors were not “unusual or even prohibited” at Concordia. Although his essay did not name any staff members, Spry alleged that a Concordia professor and “internationally celebrated writer” rented a hotel room during a Montreal literary festival in order to “entertain young writers.”
Spry also described another male Concordia professor who he claimed manipulated students by buying drinks for them “using the pretext of wanting to discuss their craft.” He claimed this professor would promise students mentorship and publishing opportunities if they accepted his advances, and he would “denigrate them and their writing” if they rejected him.
Many of Spry’s accusations support Toronto writer Emma Healey’s October 2014 essay, “Stories Like Passwords,” which was published on The Hairpin, a general-interest website aimed at women. In her essay, Healey alleged she was in a toxic, unhealthy relationship with one of her creative writing professors during her first year as a Concordia student. Healey wrote she was 19 when the relationship began, while the professor was 34. According to Healey, “while the relationship was consensual, much of what happened within its borders was not.”
She claimed many sexual encounters with the professor occurred while she was “blackout drunk.” Healey also described a violent encounter with the man after they had broken up. In his essay, Spry admitted he was a friend of the professor, was aware of the man’s relationship with Healey—as well as with other students—and initially supported him after Healey’s essay was published. According to Spry, this professor is still employed at Concordia.
In addition to being published on a digital platform, Healey’s essay was discussed in a Globe and Mail article four years ago. On Jan. 8, Concordia president Alan Shepard released an official statement in which he claimed he only became aware of the allegations that afternoon. In the statement, Shepard said “the allegations are serious, and will be taken seriously,” but admitted the university’s response to the issue of sexual misconduct is a “work in progress.” The statement did not name any individual staff members or list any specific disciplinary measures or policy changes the university is planning to implement.
The university has yet to release a public statement or implement disciplinary measures in response to Healey’s allegations or similar claims made by other women.
Concordia’s Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) released a statement on Jan. 9 calling on the university to “fully investigate all allegations and put [the] students’ safety first.” The statement also encouraged students to reach out to the Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) and the Office of Rights and Responsibilities “if they have ever experienced or witnessed cases of sexual assault and/or harassment.”
Spokesperson said Empath software has been used since January 1993
Concordia plans to move to a new payroll system “in order to better meet the needs of the university,” spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr wrote in an email to The Concordian.
The university has been using the Empath system since January 1993, according to Barr.
A needs assessment study was done, “including user consultations, and a request for proposal (RFP) process for a new software vendor is currently underway,” Barr wrote.
Empath is used by the university’s human resources for all payroll, benefits and position tracking activities. “There are thousands of users among Concordia’s current and former employees” using the system, according to Barr, in addition to “100 heavy users spread across human resources, the provost’s office, the faculties, finance and etc.”
Jack.org and ASFA join forces to destigmatize mental health
Two Concordia student organizations are working together to confront the stigma that hinders conversations surrounding mental health.
Concordia’s chapter of Jack.org, which advertises itself as “the only national network of young leaders transforming the way we think about mental health,” joined the Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) in a presentation held on Nov. 21. The event was organized to help change the dialogue around the psychological challenges many students face.
“Creating a space to talk about it really demystifies things and makes it more accessible,” said Dale Robinson, the former manager of Concordia’s counselling and psychological services.
Concordia students Maya Okindo and Josie Fomé spoke at the event on behalf of Concordia’s Jack.org chapter. They provided information to assist anyone who may be experiencing mental health issues, including when to seek help and where to find it.
A key point brought up by Okindo and Fomé during the talk was that mental health exists on a spectrum, and where one falls on that spectrum can change over time. The presenters explained that mental health can be impacted by a wide range of factors, such as genetic predisposition, a person’s environment, the culture in which a person is raised and the way society as a whole views people with mental health issues.
The presenters noted that, while one in five Canadians will struggle with mental health in their lifetime, only one in four of them will seek help.
Concordia students have access to a variety of options when it comes to mental health.
Robinson noted that Concordia’s support system is “made up of counselling and psychological services, health services and access centres for students with disabilities.” She explained that these offices work together, like a network, so that students receive the best care possible.
“The services were already good; I think they’re going to be even better because of the fact that there’s active interaction and a network,” Robinson said.
Other speakers and organizers at the event shared stories of their struggles with mental health, including ASFA president Jonathan Roy. When asked why events like the Jack.org talk are important, Roy recalled the lowest points in his life, saying that he wanted to make sure others wouldn’t have to feel the same.
“You have to go through the low moments,” Fomé said, “but you don’t have to go through them alone.” She added that students should never feel afraid to seek help because “it’s okay not to be okay.”
Concordia students in need of psychological support are afforded 10 free counselling sessions through the school. No referral is needed; students simply have to present themselves to a triage centre at either the Loyola or Sir George Williams (SGW) campus. From there, students will be placed with a counsellor.
Counselling and psychological services can be found in room H-440 on the SGW campus or room AD-103 on the Loyola campus.
Plans to lower greenhouse gas emissions, while expanding the fossil fuel industry
Thick, sticky, black crude oil infused with sand could realistically be considered Alberta’s lifeblood. Canada’s lust for this natural resource keeps the nation from successfully meeting lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emission goals.
Every day, 2.5 million barrels of the substance are pumped out of Alberta’s land, according to a report released by the Pembina Institute, a Canadian non-profit think-tank. The tar sands account for 140,000 square kilometres of the province’s territory—a slice of land larger than England and only slightly smaller than the state of Florida.
“The oil sands are a key part of the economic growth potential for Canada,” said Amberly Dooley, the manager of the oil sands for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). A driving force of this growth is the demand from the United States, which purchased 3,228 million of the 3,867 million barrels produced across Canada daily in 2016, according to CAPP.
Dooley claimed the oil sands will play a key role in the country’s economic future and projected a 53 per cent increase in output by 2030.
Canada’s dependence on oil as a significant export puts a lot of pressure on the country’s economy—as shown by the matching fluctuation of the price of oil and the Canadian dollar.
“Our dollar is coupled to the price of oil and that’s no coincidence,” said Daniel Horen Greenford, a Concordia PhD student investigating Canada’s impact on climate change. He is looking at how, by exporting oil, Canada drives oil consumption and GHG outside its borders.
According to Horen Greenford, the price of oil and the Canadian dollar have been in sync for about a decade, although Global News claims the trend began as early as 2003. The cause, according to the news outlet, was a rise in the price of oil coupled with a heightened demand from major economies, like the United States and China.
According to Horen Greenford, Canada’s investment in the oil industry over the last decade has made the country’s economy “volatile,” despite only accounting for two per cent of the country’s (gross domestic product) GDP. The same can be said for the job market within this industry.
While the national unemployment rate rose to 6.3 per cent in 2014, the rate in Alberta dropped to 4.4 per cent after the province created 63,700 new jobs that year, according to Statistics Canada. Yet in the first month of 2015 alone, the price of oil plummeted from US$53 to US$31.45 a barrel, reported CTV News. The unemployment rate in Alberta spiked as the province lost 19,600 jobs in 2015—the province’s largest hit since 1982, according to the same source.
By November 2016, Statistics Canada reported that the province’s unemployment rate had peaked at nine per cent. A rise in the price of oil the following year, however, led to the creation of 12,000 new jobs in Alberta, lowering unemployment to 7.8 per cent.
Despite the roller-coaster tendencies of Canada’s oil industry, the allure of employment stems from its potential prosperity. In 2014, the annual salary for newly graduated engineers working in Alberta was $80,000, while employees in senior executive positions earned up to $380,000, according to Oil Sands Magazine.
According to Peter Graham, a professor at Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs, the appeal is based on more than just the salary. “Under the current economic regime, the aspect of having a job and being productive is a critical aspect of identity,” he said. As such, “when unemployment rates go up, suicide rates generally follow.”
Amid the significant drop in oil price in 2015 and the subsequent job losses, CBC News reported that 30 per cent more Albertans committed suicide in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2014.
CANADA’S GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
In November, more than 15,000 members of the global scientific community published a letter in the peer-reviewed journal BioScience, titled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice.” The letter was a follow-up to an appeal written in 1992 by more than 1,700 independent scientists, which urged a drastic change in environmentally destructive practices in order to avoid “vast human misery.”
The recent version of the letter revisits the 1992 warning and emphasizes the global community’s shortcomings in the decades since.
“Humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse,” the letter reads. “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out.”
Graphic by Zeze Le Lin
Despite Canada’s agreement to reduce its GHG emission levels by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, the country plans to expand its fossil fuel industry. From 2014 to 2015, national emission levels only decreased by five megatonnes—from 727 to 722, the National Post reported. This is a far cry from the 2030 target of 523 megatonnes.
According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, the entire oil and gas sector is the nation’s largest GHG emitter in 2015, responsible for 26 per cent of the country’s emissions. Alberta’s oil sands alone represented 9.8 per cent of these emissions. Close behind was the transportation sector—which relies heavily on the fossil fuel industry—at 24 per cent.
Yet, in 2014, the federal government had approved 81 tar sands mining projects scheduled to begin between that year and 2020, according to the Pembina Institute report. At that time, there were also 74 projects in the application stages and 56 more announced for after 2030. Taking into account that not all of the planned projects will proceed, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers still predicts that, by 2030, oil sands production levels will rise from the 2014 rate of 2.5 million barrels per day to 4.8 million, according to the Pembina report.
As such, it seems reasonable that the Ottawa Citizen reported that oil sands emissions are expected to be responsible for more than half of the total 124 per cent increase in Canada’s GHG output between 2010 and 2030.
“At some point, people will wake up and realize we have a choice: get off fossils fuels or face a very grim—and possibly terminal—future as a species,” said Concordia’s professor Graham. “This means that long-term investments in fossil fuel infrastructure is beyond greedy and stupid—it is suicidal.”
Graham stressed that closing Canada’s oil sands would not only greatly reduce the country’s emission levels, it would also put Canada in “a much better position to exert moral persuasion over countries to cut their emissions and close their mining operations.”
Yet CAPP manager Dooley claims the oil sands are only one piece of the puzzle, since the transportation and industrial sectors are also large GHG emitters. “The oil sands industry is probably one of the leaders in developing technology innovations to help look at reducing the GHG created by the operations in Northern Alberta,” she added.
Graphic by Zeze Le Lin
PUSHING AWAY FROM THE OIL ECONOMY
As of 2015, there were more employees in the global renewable energy sector than the oil and gas sector, according to the Huffington Post. While renewable energy jobs worldwide totalled 8.1 million in 2015, the oil and gas sector lost 250,000 jobs that same year.
Relying on hydropower as well as wind, geothermal, biomass and solar energy, Costa Rica survived on 100 per cent renewable energy for 300 days this year, according to The Independent. Legislators in Hawaii and California have also set goals to make their states 100 per cent reliant on renewable energy by 2045.
In 2015, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven pledged to make his country “the first fossil-free welfare state in the world,” and announced a US$546-million action plan for renewable energy and climate change, according to Global Research, a Montreal-based centre for research on globalization.
Even oil-giant Saudi Arabia has been making efforts to diversify the country’s economy and reduce its dependency on oil, according to The Washington Post.
In Canada, there were 36,000 employees working in the renewable energy sector, reported by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) last year. Yet, while Canada is the world’s seventh-largest manufacturer of wind energy, 43 per cent of the country’s energy production still comes from crude oil and another 33 per cent from natural gas, according to Natural Resources Canada’s 2016-17 “Energy Fact Book” report.
There are, nonetheless, some sustainable initiatives taking place across the country. Ontario, for example, has become a large producer of wind energy and has reduced operations of coal-fired power plants. In Quebec, Hydro-Québec produces 99 per cent of its electricity using water, which significantly lowers the province’s GHG emissions, according to the company’s website.
According to Natural Resources Canada, 96 per cent of Quebec’s energy in 2010 was generated using hydropower. Yet, on a regional basis, Quebec only generates 4.1 per cent of Canada’s total energy, while Alberta produces 62.8 per cent on average, according to the same source.
“We have the technology but not the political will to move towards greener cities,” said Ricardo Duenez, a Concordia professor in the geography, planning and environment department.
“Fossil fuels are not economically viable anymore,” Graham said. “They’re not good for the economy.” The reason alternative, solar and wind energies are not a bigger part of Canada’s energy production, the Concordia professor explained, is because of a widespread anxiety induced by capitalism that generates an excessive need for natural resources and fear about a reality without these goods.
Graphic by Zeze Le Lin
“Government will not lead—only follow. The days of heroic and enlightened politicians is over,” Graham said. “Politics has become a career, not a calling. Scientists especially need to re-imagine their role in society.”
Echoing this sentiment, Duenez emphasized the smaller-scale changes that can be made by individual Canadians. As an example, he cited the city-wide compost system that Montreal began expanding on in 2015, with the goal of having every household in the city compost by 2019.
“We need to think [of] what ways we can live together with nature while having a happy lifestyle,” Duenez said. The key, he added, is accepting that we need to learn to live with less.
“Montreal should look around the world for examples,” Duenez said, using Asia’s vertical farming industry as an example. Instead of growing crops in fields outdoors, vertical farming is done inside old warehouses and discontinued factories. Vegetables and herbs are grown in these tight spaces, using unnatural light and cloth instead of soil, according to BBC News.
In 2015, as the price of oil dropped, Alberta oil sands workers created the Iron and Earth initiative to promote sustainable energy and train unemployed electricians from the oil sands for renewable energy jobs in Alberta. According to the initiative’s website, the members of Iron and Earth believe that Canada has failed to take a leading role in the global renewable energy industry and needs to develop “a more diversified approach” to its energy sector.
“Simply waiting for government to act would provide the highest certainty of failure,” Graham said. “Individual people need to change the way they talk to each other, change the way they interact with the environment and change their understandings of the human place in the world.”
Pippin Barr, co-director of TAG, at the small DIY 3D printer workshop. Photo by Olivier Sylvestre
Concordia’s Technoculture, Art and Games research lab brings new ideas to digital life
It is as if you were doing work is a video game that starts on a retro, Windows-like desktop computer interface. It asks you to write a bunch of seemingly productive emails and accomplish easy tasks. As you complete them, you earn points and eventually get promoted. Inspirational work-related stock photographs pop up every few minutes. It can go on forever or until you, the player, die.
This video game is a work of speculative design, a field of academia where researchers design hypothetical futures, explained Pippin Barr, the game’s creator. Barr is also the co-director of the Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) research lab at Concordia, a place for researchers, professors and eligible graduate students from diverse faculties to research video games and design them collaboratively.
According to Barr, in an automated future, computers would replace workers, and humans would be free to do whatever they please. He was left wondering: What would we be doing if we didn’t have to work anymore? Maybe we’d always be “Netflix and chilling” or spending our time creating art?
What Barr speculated, however, was that we might feel the need to play a video game where we accomplish work to feel productive again. Instead of writing an essay about the idea, he designed and programmed a game around it.
The TAG lab hosts 57 students—13 of whom joined in 2017—and 21 faculty members. But when Barr and I met on a Thursday morning, the lab was empty.
“Ten in the morning is a bit early for graduate students,” he explained. “But I’d say, on average, you might see at least 10 or 15 or 20 people in here. There is always a nice buzz around.”
Located on the 11th floor of Concordia’s EV building, the lab is a large, open, well-lit space with computer stations lining three of its four walls. A chalkboard bears the marks of a past brainstorming session, and there’s a small DIY workshop bench with a 3D printer.
In the lab’s entrance, various gaming machines are plugged into a TV. There’s even a fake fireplace to gather around. “We make games and playful things,” Barr said.
“In Quebec [and Canada], there is a thing called research creation,” said, “which is the idea that creative or artistic practice—so for instance making a videogame—can be a form of research and knowledge production. That’s a very big part of what TAG does.”
As Barr explained it, research creation involves developing ideas about the future, but “rather than writing an essay about it, […] you can convey the actual experience of that future by creating a game.”
Another game produced in the lab is a game called rustle your leaves to me softly. Created by PhD students and TAG members Jess Marcotte and Dietrich Squinkifer, the game asks players get to know a fellow living creature: a live plant. When the player touches a real plant connected to a computer through sensors and wires, the plant responds with soothing sounds and poetry. It is an attempt to let a plant communicate.
“We also have completely just straight-up scholars [in our faculty] who write these amazing books, like Mia Consalvo, for instance,” Barr said. “She is extremely well-known in the field of game studies.”
Consalvo is a professor and the research chair in game studies and design at Concordia. Her latest book, Atari to Zelda: Japan’s Videogames in Global Contexts, studies Japan’s video game scene and the aesthetics of Japanese video games. “She writes in this extremely scholarly mode,” Barr said.
So how can graduate students become members of the lab? According to Barr, “students who are planning on doing a graduate degree […] have to choose a supervisor, who is going to be the main person who advises them in their process. If that supervisor is a member of TAG, then as an added bonus, they become a member of the lab if they want to.”
The lab does try to make exceptions for students with special projects, Barr Said. “If it seems that being at TAG would be really good for that project and they could contribute back to TAG, then they can propose it to us.” But access is limited. “We try to have as many people as we can without accidentally completely overstraining our resources.”
Newly elected students explain their roles, their goals and their upcoming challenges
During last week’s Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) by-elections, which named Jonathan Roy the federation’s new president, each of the five independent councillor candidates secured enough “yes” votes to earn a seat on the ASFA council.
Independent councillor Patrick Quinn
What is the point of having independent candidates on council? What makes someone want to run as an independent, rather than as a candidate from a Member Association (MA)? What are the unique challenges and advantages associated with being an independent? The Concordian sat down with three of ASFA’s new independent councillors—two newcomers and one veteran—to ask them these questions. Each one of them felt the advantages of running as an independent outweighed the disadvantages.
“As an independent [councillor], you have more of a free will in government, because you’re not really accountable to anybody but yourself and to the people who elected you,” said Patrick Quinn, a second-year political science student and VP external for NDP Concordia.
According to Quinn, independent councillors play an important role in holding the council accountable. “You’re there to watch the meeting and make sure that what the executive and what the council is doing is correct, is following the bylaws, is the direction that everyone wants to go in,” he said.
Independent councillors can sit on the council and vote on motions, but they cannot be part of the executive team. However, as returning independent councillor Andrea Gauthier said, this does not mean independents cannot be active in student government. “[I’m] on the internal committee, the finance committee, the academic committee [and] archiving committee,” she said.
Independent councillor Fatima Janna El Gahami
First-year political science student Fatima Janna El Gahami said running as an independent can also help avoid competition. “I knew the chances for me to be elected as an independent would be stronger,” she said. “It’s very competitive, and everyone wants a position in the [Political Science Students’ Association].”
Despite lacking an MA, none of the candidates felt that connecting with the student body had been or would be an issue. “I think [one of] the joys of being a part of ASFA is that I get to become friends with a lot of people from a lot of different programs,” Gauthier said. “I attend a lot of different events from a lot of different MAs.”
“I’m a people’s person,” El Gahami said. “I like to talk to people. I’m very social. I like meeting new people.”
As for the goals they have for their mandate, each councillor was more concerned with how they planned to conduct themselves on council rather than with specific policies. Quinn said his goals are transparency, accessibility, accountability and strong relationships with the student body. For El Gahami, her aim is “to be as transparent as I can, and also to represent the students at Concordia.”
Independent councillor Gaëlle Kouyoumdjian was not available for comment in time for publication. Independent councillor Alisa Knezevic did not respond to a request for comment.
CSU finance coordinator Soulaymane El Alaoui resigned on Nov. 22 citing personal reasons. Photo by Kirubel Mehari
Soulaymane El Alaoui is cited personal reasons; fourth finance coordinator to resign in last three years
The Concordia Student Union (CSU) finance coordinator made his way to the ninth floor of the John Molson School of Business on Nov. 22, asked for the attention of the students on council and then read a message aloud:
“My resignation is effective immediately. It was a pleasure to work alongside you all, and I will be available once my replacement is chosen to help him transition into the role. Thank you for your support. Best regards, Soulaymane El Alaoui.”
He then walked out of the room. El Alaoui cited personal reasons as the cause of his resignation. El Alaoui told The Concordian he made the decision “a couple days ago.” Internal affairs coordinator Veronika Rydzewski has been named interim finance coordinator.
El Alaoui was elected as the finance coordinator in March. He is the fourth CSU finance coordinator to leave the position in the last two years. In March 2016, Anas Bouslikhane resigned from the position before finishing his mandate. His replacement, Adrian Longinotti, was asked to resign by the CSU after the executive body deemed him unfit to act as a representative of the student union.
In November 2016, Longinotti was replaced by Thomas David-Bashore, who was the finance coordinator from December 2016 until the following CSU election in March, when El Alaoui was elected.
Rydzewski said El Alaoui did not warn the CSU’s executive team that he would be resigning.
Rydzewski, who as the internal affairs coordinator is responsible for supporting clubs, often communicated with El Alaoui regarding club budgets.
“A large portion of the cheques that the CSU processes weekly are from CSU clubs,” she explained. “My role as interim finance coordinator will be to make sure that cheques are processed in a timely manner.”
According to Rydzewski, there will be a general call out for students to apply for the finance coordinator position. Councillors will also be able to apply. The CSU’s appointments committee will then “collect the applications and only filter out applications that do not meet the most basic requirement, i.e. be a registered Concordia undergraduate student,” Rydzewski wrote in an email to The Concordian.
The appointments committees will forward all the remaining applications to the CSU council for further deliberation, she added.
Apology letter rejected
A letter of apology written by CSU general coordinator Omar Riaz and submitted to council was rejected by an eight-to-five vote, with one abstention, during the council meeting.
The request for the letter, as well as the repayment of two plane tickets, were sanctions decided by the council on Sept. 20, after learning that Riaz and El Alaoui accepted plane tickets from Alliance pour la Santé Étudiante au Québec (ASEQ) CEO Lev Bukhman.
Riaz and El Alaoui used the tickets to fly to Vancouver in August for the Student Union Development Summit (SUDS).
John Molson School of Business councillor Rory James described the letter as “frankly quite insulting to council.”
“There’s no contrition, there’s no apology, no acceptance of what actions were wrong,” James said.
In his letter, Riaz wrote: “I did not deem this sponsorship as a personal gratuity or intend to benefit from it. Instead, I considered it as a cost-saving measure for the CSU.”
The first draft of the letter had to be submitted on Nov. 22, to be reviewed before being submitted to the student body. Due to the rejection, Riaz must resubmit a revised version of the apology letter.
Concordia students interact with Blue Ribbon therapy dogs. Photo by Kirubel Mehari
Blue Ribbon Canine Centre offers puppy therapy to battle students’ exam stress
Concordia University is working with the Blue Ribbon Canine Centre to offer free, drop-in animal therapy sessions on Nov. 30 and Dec. 6 intended to help students cope with exam period stress and anxiety.
At the Webster Library on the Sir George Williams (SGW) campus and the Vanier Library on the Loyola campus, students will be able to interact with trained, vaccinated therapy dogs from the Dorval-based animal training centre. Since the organization is run exclusively by volunteers, their animal therapy services are free.
While these sessions “are not designed as a formal response to mental health on campus,” according to Concordia spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr, there is significant research to suggest that animal therapy can have positive effects on both mental and physical health.
According to Theresa Bianco, a psychology professor at Concordia, research shows animal therapy can lead to an increased release of hormones, such as serotonin and oxytocin, which are responsible for improving mood.
“Anecdotally, you hear students say they’re having a great time, and they report that [the sessions] ease their stress,” she said. “If you look at the research, studies demonstrate that it’s improving mood, it’s reducing stress and anxiety and increasing positive thoughts.”
Animal therapy can also be beneficial to physical health by lowering blood pressure, diminishing physical pain and improving cardiovascular health, according to UCLA Health.
Harriet Schleifer, the co-founder of Blue Ribbon and one of its trainers, said she has observed the positive effects of university puppy therapy sessions first-hand.
“[Students] come in with all this stressed body language, and the next thing you know everybody’s laughing and relaxing. It’s a huge stress reliever,” she said. “They’ll say even thinking about the puppies will help them feel better. We’ve had the students tell us they were going home for the holidays but delayed it to be able to see the dogs again.”
Graphic by Zeze Le Lin
According to Schleifer, therapy animals begin intensive training as puppies that lasts between seven weeks and seven months. In addition to traditional obedience and agility training, puppies receive specific training related to the settings they typically work in. For example, puppies are trained not to touch any objects on the the ground since, in hospital settings, they could encounter dropped medications or medical objects. Additionally, they are trained to move away from people who are walking to avoid becoming a safety hazard when they visit elderly people. However, Schleifer said she believes properly training handlers is as important as training the dogs, if not more.
“They learn to recognize stress in the dog and learn to tell when they should take the dog out of a situation, for whatever reason,” Schleifer said. “I train the handlers and I tell them, ‘You are the dog’s butler and chauffeur. They know what they’re doing, just let the dog work.’”
To ensure safety during the sessions, the dogs are leashed and accompanied by a handler.
When they’re not hosting exam period therapy sessions at Concordia and McGill University, Blue Ribbon dogs visit elementary schools, hospitals and retirement homes. For example, the Blue Ribbon Canine Centre offered animal therapy sessions at shelters and community centres in the West Island following the damaging floods last May.
In addition to helping students manage their anxiety and stress, Bianco said she believes animal therapy can help people adjust to traditional counselling methods and even overcome a fear of animals.
“It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution,” Bianco said. “But it’s terrific to offer it to students. It provides the opportunity for students to choose how much interaction they feel comfortable with and can definitely improve well-being.”
