Tag: The Concordian

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News

Concordia set to launch new Kaié:ri Nikawerà:ke Indigenous Bridging Program

Graphic by Sarah Alouani // @okaruno

This program, the first of its kind in Quebec, will launch in Fall 2023

Next fall, Concordia will launch its new Kaié:ri Nikawerà:ke Indigenous Bridging Program, which will help Indigenous students get into engineering programs. 

The program will be three semesters long and will offer prerequisite courses to Indigenous students who are missing these courses going into their bachelor’s degree. Once they complete the program, students enrolled will be automatically transferred into the engineering program of their choice. 

“Particularly, we started in the STEM [Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] field because there are a lot of educational barriers that some Indigenous communities face when it comes to STEM education,” said the program coordinator Saba Din.

The Kaié:ri Nikawerà:ke Indigenous Bridging Program was part of the recommendations made in the Indigenous Direction Action Plan in 2021. This plan has the goal of decolonizing and indigenizing Concordia University. 

“Kaié:ri Nikawerà:ke” is a Kanien’kéha word meaning “the Four Winds” or “the Four Directions.” According to Din, these winds represent growth, renewal, and change.

A core tenet of the Indigenous Bridging Program is to provide a sense of community through a support network for students enlisted in the program. Students will be in the same group for three semesters and will have access to resources to help them transition into university life.

The program will also offer a special student-focused seminar class. This class will cover themes including self-advocating, adapting to life in the city, and rental advice. Guest speakers will include tutors, engineers, or elders, with a priority on Indigenous guests. 

“I think that community feeling is really beneficial for long-term success,” said Din. “Especially to ease that transition from wherever they’re coming from, whatever barriers they face.”

Mariah St. Germain, the coordinator of Indigenous Student Success at Concordia’s Otsenhákta Student Centre, is hopeful that the program will help Indigenous students adapt to the post-secondary environment. 

“I know how meaningful these programs are for students to bridge the gap and gain access,” said St. Germain. “We want any prospective Indigenous students, and our current Indigenous students, and our alumni, to know that they have a place in the community here and that they’re seen and heard, and that they can thrive in that space.”

While the Indigenous Bridging Program is currently tailored to engineering degrees, Din said they plan to expand the program gradually in the upcoming academic years. The next majors on the list are business and psychology, followed by science and computer science, and finally expanding to arts and science. 

“We hope that students feel that they have options,” Din said. “This is just another option for them. Hopefully it opens the door to post-secondary education.”

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Music Quickspins

QUICKSPINS: Mac Demarco – Five Easy Hot Dogs

Five Easy Hot Dogs is a great idea on paper, but in reality, it isn’t quite living up to Mac Demarco’s talent

Mac Demarco has been a household name in the indie scene over the past 10 years. Projects such as 2 and Salad Days helped propel the Canadian singer-songwriter to stardom. Even after six studio albums and more than a decade of being active, he still finds ways to experiment new things with his music. This time, it has taken the form of an instrumental record with his latest release Five Easy Hot Dogs. 

Wait, so guitarist extraordinaire Mac Demarco has released an instrumental record, it must be great, right? Well, not so much. While Five Easy Hot Dogs has its moments, it suffers from safe production choices and sound repetition, which makes the album fall flat on its feet.

Even though it’s Demarco’s first album since 2019, this new record feels much more like a side project rather than a full-fledged studio album. Every song on the record has been recorded during a road trip and each song represents the city it was written in, which explains why there are three songs with “Vancouver” in the title. This makes it easier to follow Demarco’s road trip throughout the album, which starts from Gualala and ends in Rockaway.

For someone who is known for his impressive guitar loops and infectious beats, Five Easy Hot Dogs feels rather uninspired compared to previous works. Yes, the songs are sweet and they are very easy to get into, but as I was listening to the album over and over again, the songs became more and more forgettable, often blending together. This record sounds like if Apple hired Mac Demarco to compose new adventurous alarms — it’s soothing to wake up to, but would you really listen to an album filled with alarms? I don’t think so.

I can definitely see this album getting played and working in some instances. For instance, while studying or relaxing, songs like “Gualala,” “Chicago,” or even “Victoria” would all work well. Aside from these three songs, most of the songs on the album sound like a warped attempt at a lofi study beats project. 

Despite Five Easy Hot Dogs having some moments of brightness, they’re not enough to save the album. This could have truly been something great, but it ended up being little more than wasted potential that in retrospect, will serve as one of Demarco’s most forgettable projects.

Trial track: “Gualala”

Score: 4/10

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Community Student Life

The Hive Cafe’s newest Community Fridge

The newly-launched Megan's Community Fridge offers free food for students facing food insecurity. CATHERINE REYNOLDS/The Concordian

A step to fight food insecurity for students.

 The Hive Cafe on Concordia’s Loyola Campus recently welcomed Megan’s Community Fridge. Students were buzzing with excitement. 

Megan’s Community Fridge is a big step in fighting food insecurity for students. Megan Clarke, a Concordia alumna, was the inspiration for this amazing project. Clarke was present at the Hive Cafe on Monday and helped set up the fridge alongside Enuf, an organization fighting the waste crisis.

Courtesy photo provided by Désirée McGraw. (From left to right: Désirée McGraw, Keroles Riad, Megan Clarke, and Alanna Silver)

The Concordian sat with Keroles Riad, the CEO of Enuf and one of the minds behind the Community Fridge. Riad explained that it wasn’t exactly simple to get the project up and running at Concordia.

“Students have been trying to convince the administration to set up a community fridge for at least 10 years, and they have consistently been stalled and eventually turned down,” he said. “We looked for spaces where community groups have a level of autonomy. The Hive Cafe was just perfect, because they already do a lot of work fighting food insecurity on campus, and so they are already reaching the people that need the additional help and they autonomously operate their own spaces on both campuses.”

With the installation of this new fridge, keeping it well-stocked is one of the challenges it currently faces. Riad explained that the fridge will be stocked from the surplus of food that is left over from events happening over the year. 

Waste ambassadors from Enuf will gather all the food and bring it to Megan’s Community Fridge. 

Clarke sat down with The Concordian and explained what the motivation to start this community fridge was. 

“When I was a teenager I found myself in a really tough situation, I was couch surfing and I used to dumpster dive,” Clarke recalled. “My friends and I noticed at a certain point that the dumpsters were being locked to stop people like myself from getting food. At the time, I didn’t have a valid ID to participate in food banks.”

Clarke worked three jobs to get herself out of that situation. Her struggles with food always lingered at the back of her mind and when she began university, she realized that not everyone could get out of the same situation like her.

“I started Food Cycle while I was at Concordia and we would take leftover food and give it to homeless shelters, women’s shelters and so on,” Clarke said.

Megan Clarke in front of the new Megan’s Community Fridge at the Hive Cafe on Concordia’s Loyola Campus. DALIA NARDOLILLO/The Concordian

That’s what kickstarted the idea for the Community Fridge. However, when the pandemic first came along, people became fearful that the virus would be pushed onto food which put a standstill on the project.

Enuf, in partnership with the Hive Cafe, finally got the project going. Working at the Hive Cafe, Alanna Silver is also an integral part of this community fridge. Silver is FoodSafe certified and acts as Enuf’s Chief Operating Officer and the Hive’s administrative coordinator. Riad explained that Silver will ensure the safety of the community being served and have the final say of what goes in the Community Fridge.


“​​I feel so grateful to have the privilege of taking part in making this project a reality,” Riad said proudly. “It is truly heartbreaking to know that 40 per cent of students in Canada say that they have to choose between paying tuition and buying enough food, at a time when we, in Canada, throw away more than half the food we produce. There is surplus food, and there are hungry student tummies. It shouldn’t have been this complicated to try to connect the two.”

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Community

A look inside Montreal’s Lunar New Year Market

Rabbit themed goodies at the Lunar New Year Market. DALIA NARDOLILLO/ The Concordian

Did you know that the Chinese pictographic for the rabbit is 兔?

Sunday, January 22, 2023 marked the beginning of the Lunar New Year which highlights the year of the Rabbit.

In Chinese culture, people strongly believe that it is destined to influence the year and the people born in it. For reference, people born in the years 2023, 2011, 1999, 1987, 1975, 1963, 1951 and 1939 are associated with the Rabbit zodiac. Last year was the year of the Tiger. The rabbit is the fourth Chinese zodiac animal out of twelve.

You might be curious about what exactly the rabbit symbolizes in Chinese culture. Well, it embodies energy with a focus on relaxation, quietness and contemplation.

In the Gay Village, in the downtown Montreal area, Montrealers rang in the new year with a variety of activities. One of the activities was a free-to-attend, one-day-only holiday market organized by the Montreal Hong Kong Cultural Learning Society.

According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, the Lunar New Year in Asia falls after the second new moon which occurs after the winter solstice. That means the Lunar New Year can happen anytime between January 21 and February 20.

Upon entering the market space, visitors saw a decorative cherry blossom tree and a table nearby. The table had a bunch of markers and pens on it for visitors to write their wishes for the upcoming new year on cards with the purchase of an item at the market.

Wishing tree where guests could leave their wishes for the new Lunar New Year. DALIA NARDOLILLO/ The Concordian

Various sweet smells wafted throughout the market. The vendors were selling food that was being freshly made to order on-site. Some of those sweets included bubble waffles, Japanese and Tawainese wheel cakes, and much more.

The market not only offered lots of variety in terms of things to buy, but it also offered interactive booths where guests could try their hand at Chinese calligraphy. 

I was enticed to try my hand at Chinese calligraphy and learned that you begin with the horizontal strokes first, and then do the downstrokes. I gave it a couple of tries at writing down some Chinese pictograms until my hands got stained with ink.

The other interactive booth included a dice game with a Fish-Prawn-Crab.

All the vendors present at the market were bursting with energy and the excitement for the year of the Rabbit could be felt throughout the room.

If you celebrate the Lunar New Year, we wish you peace, health and prosperity for this new year!

Categories
News

Protesters at McGill cancel talk by law professor with ties to the LGB Alliance

The incident sparked debates between the balance of free speech and hate speech on University Campuses

On Tuesday Jan. 10, the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) from McGill University hosted a talk called “The Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate in the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T.” 

The event was disrupted by more than 100 protesters due to the presence of controversial guest speaker and McGill alumni Robert Wintemute. Wintemute is a Human Rights Law Professor at King’s College London and a trustee of the LGB Alliance — an advocacy group funded in the UK that opposes certain policies for transgender rights on the grounds that they undermine those of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men and cisgender women.

The protestors occupied the first floor of Chancellor Day Hall and interrupted the professor’s talk by unplugging the projector, which then led to him being escorted out by McGill staff. 

Celeste Trianon, a law student at Université de Montréal and trans rights activist, helped organize the campaign against Wintemute’s seminar.

According to Trianon and other queer advocacy groups, one of the LGB Alliance’s main goals is to oppose policies that aim at protecting and advancing trans rights. 

Trianon explained that the organization had, among other things, lobbied against the “legal recognition of gender identity in the British and Scottish contexts” and works “in collaboration with other anti-trans organizations in the United States.”

She added that, in Canada, the LGB Alliance opposed the inclusion of transgender people in Bill C-4, which prohibited conversion therapy.

“Their whole idea is based on a far-right concept called ‘drop the T’ which is a strategy to divide the queer community by separating transgender people from the rest of the community,” said Trianon. “It is an organization that disguises itself as a pro-women’s rights and pro-gay and lesbian organization.”

Trianon is worried about the international scope that the Alliance is gaining, including in Canada. 

“This is reflected in the fact that all the hate I received after the demonstration came from all over the world and not only from Quebec,”

Said Trianon.

Trianon went on to elaborate on the hate messages and death threats she received via email and social media.

In an interview with The Concordian, Wintemute said that part of his talk was to argue that trans people’s rights, particularly those of trans women, sometimes infringe on cis women’s rights and that legislation against discrimination was “full of contradictions.” He asserted the belief that many cis women agreed with his position but were too afraid or intimidated to speak up against pro-trans rights policies.

“What I was doing was no hate speech at all. Freedom of expression covers even ideas that can offend or disturb. There’s a tendency today that says disagreement equals hatred, but it doesn’t,”

Said Wintemute.

Wintemute argued that the protestors had no right to disturb his talk, comparing the event to “a mini version of the US Congress in Jan. 2021 or the Brazilian capital in Jan. 2023.”

McGill University declined to comment on the incident. A spokesperson from the CHRLP sent out an email saying, “Every year, the CHRLP organizes a range of events on a variety of human rights issues […] They are not an endorsement of any speaker’s views. McGill recognizes and supports the rights of its students to peaceful protest on campus.”

“This defense of academic freedom as an absolute concept is used to defend hate speech,” said Trianon. “We really have to ask ourselves who was really violent? Was it the protesters or this speech that puts trans people in danger? How do we define violence?”

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Community

Come and take a step back in time at Wilensky’s

Wilensky's store front. Dalia Nardolillo/THE CONCORDIAN

A sandwich shop where everything has stayed the same since 1932

Located in Montreal’s Mile End, Wilensky’s has been a local staple since 1932. Famous for its sandwich special, the restaurant was opened by husband and wife Ruth and Moe Wilensky.

I was so enticed to visit this infamous eatery. My boyfriend and I visited Wilensky’s during the first week of January. We went on a quiet Wednesday afternoon and we were able to sit at one of the bar stools at the front counter.

Stepping foot into Wilensky’s is like stepping into a time machine. I got the chance to sit down with Sharon Wilensky, the daughter of Ruth and Moe, and she discussed with me about who came up with the idea of “the special” at Wilensky’s.

“My dad, Moe Wilensky came up with the idea for the special. The restaurant started in 1932 and that’s the date that we go by. My father and uncle couldn’t find work and that’s when they started working with my grandfather,” Wilensky recalled. “My father said ‘We need to find a way to make more money and I think we need to start selling food.’”

Moe Wilensky brought in a small grill that could only cook a few hotdogs at a time, which cost a fortune because of the Great Depression. 

“Salami and bologna, which is what is in the Wilensky’s special, is something that people ate at home. My dad would be eating it for lunch and customers would come in and ask my dad if he could make it for them. They would come in again and again and say, ‘Could you make that special thing you made for me last time?’” Wilensky said.

The Wilensky’s Special. In the background, there is a cherry cola being mixed the old-fashioned way. Dalia Nardolillo/THE CONCORDIAN

That’s how the Wilensky’s special was born. For under five dollars, you can enjoy the special with either swiss or cheddar cheese. The other special thing about Wilensky’s is the rules that they have regarding their special. 

When you order it right off the bat, they serve it with only mustard and you can’t ask them to cut it in half for you. You have to enjoy it as is. 

The rules for the Special at Wilensky’s. Dalia Nardolillo/THE CONCORDIAN

I ordered the special with swiss cheese, and less than five minutes later I took my first bite of the sandwich. The combination of the two meats with the warm swiss cheese was amazing, I could see how these little sandwiches could get addicting. The mustard is a perfect accompaniment because it cuts through all the fat. 

To accompany his sandwich, my boyfriend ordered a cherry coca cola which was made the old-fashioned way by mixing it right on the spot. Before we left, he wanted to leave a tip and it came to our knowledge that they donate all of their tips to charity!

“Working with my dad is one of my favourite memories,” Wilensky said, teary-eyed. “I went to Outremont high school, which is a french adult-ed high school and I would come to work here after school. I would even remember being a child here, while working here I would see children walking along the bar of the counter and it would bring me back.”

Wilensky’s is the perfect place to stop by if you are in the Mile End area even if it’s simply to say hi to one of the original Wilensky’s! 

Categories
Sports

Hiking is a women’s sport

Photo Courtesy: Christel Bourque

Hikers are taking it upon themselves to create representation for women in the sport

Hiking the 4,265-kilometer-long Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) is no easy feat, but for Christel Bourque, a Montreal-based hiker, photographer, and visual artist, it was how she got into hiking in 2019. Four years later, she recalls how her first experience on the famous through-hiking trail made her realize women in the sport are underrepresented.

“The first thing I realized is that there are not a lot of women who do the PCT alone,” Bourque said.

To prepare for the hike, Bourque, whose experience was limited to Mont-Saint-Hilaire, turned to YouTube for information on the PCT. This is when she noticed a lack of French-Canadian hiking content tailored for women.

Due to heavy snowfall conditions (and a personal emergency that arose later), Bourque had to quit her hike after having covered roughly 1,600 kilometres of the PCT in three months. Nonetheless, she returned to the PCT in 2022, documenting her experience on her YouTube channel La Petite Marcheuse, thereby filling a void for underrepresented Quebec women in hiking.

Just 1,000 kilometres shy of the end, Bourque’s second attempt also ended abruptly due to complications associated with an insect bite that forced her to return to Canada. 

A third attempt at the PCT lingers in her mind, as she continues hiking in Quebec.

Bourque noted that compared to shorter Quebec trails, the long-distance PCT comes with extra hardships, especially for women.

For one, menstrual pain doesn’t magically go away on hikes and tampons add weight to the backpack.

“I used to be the DivaCup girl, but that was impossible,” Bourque said. “I went back to tampons in 2019 and carried the used ones in those opaque dog waste bags.”

For her second attempt, the hiker took the birth control pill to handle her menstrual cycle — but not without it taking a toll on her body.

Another prevalent challenge for women hikers is hitchhiking to go to faraway towns to resupply, which Bourque did alongside other women.

“If one of us didn’t like the vibe of the person offering us a ride, it was an immediate no,” said Bourque. “We were two women and we didn’t want to get in danger.” She recalled the times when men insisted on giving them a ride or proposed shady exchanges of services. 

Nonetheless, hiking is one of the sports in which discrepancies in performance between men and women are negligible.

“More and more evidence has come out that women’s bodies are better equipped for endurance activities,” said Liz Thomas, hiker and co-founder of Treeline Review, a company that specializes in reviewing women’s outdoor gear. The performance gap between the sexes in ultra-endurance activities (defined as lasting more than six hours) is merely four per cent.

Thomas, whose passion for hiking developed through her alma mater’s outdoor club, achieved the Triple Crown of Hiking after completing the PCT, the Appalachian Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail. She’s been dubbed the “Queen of Urban Hiking,” a title first given by Outside Magazine.

As a tip for beginner hikers, Thomas suggests hiking with friends as it allows for more time to slow down and catch up. It also makes it harder to quit.

“Go on trails in town, you don’t have to go somewhere really remote. Just get out there and walk,” she said.

Conveniently, Montreal might just be the place to do so. “I would love to urban-hike Montreal,” beamed Thomas.

Categories
Opinions

Battle of the books

Henry Richa/THE CONCORDIAN @hhenryricha

Answering the question, if books are better than ebooks

Let me start off by stating this: I love books.

With eReaders like Kindles and Kobos, and subscriptions like Kindle Unlimited, there seems to be a reason for people to choose ebooks over physical books. Over the last few years, I have been told by many people that digital is the way to go now that reading print books is a thing of the past.

But for me, the physical book will always be better than the ebook. Here are my top three reasons why. 

(I’ve excluded audiobooks from this conversation because that is an entirely different experience.) 

1. When I hold a book in my hand, it is an entire experience. I can run my hands across the cover and feel the texture. I get to feel the pages against my skin and I feel like I am fully part of the experience of the book. Sometimes the covers have different textures and that makes the reading more of a sensory experience. I get to turn each page and get the genuine excitement of seeing the words on the next page. 

2. The smell of the book. Books have their own smells, and that makes the reading even better. An ebook doesn’t have that. It’s just a piece of plastic with words on it. It feels like I am just scrolling on my phone. Why would I want reading a book to feel like reading a text message? I want to hold the book close to my face and experience the different scents and moments. 

3. The impracticality of the sizes of books is such a part of the journey for me as a reader. It makes choosing what books I am reading more of a challenge. Can I carry it with me? Does it fit in my bag? It makes me think through what book I can make my main book. And the challenge of making the books fit into my purse makes reading even more exciting. I am someone who reads three books at a time, so getting the physical change that accompanies each book helps distinguish the stories. For me, it’s part of the process. 

Even when it comes to textbooks for class, I will always opt for a physical copy of the book. Again, I just need that experience of having the physical book in front of me to really get immersed.

I can only hope that people are wrong about physical books being a thing of the past. I will say, there is a trend of a lot of indie/self-published books that are only available in digital formats, and that truly is a bummer. Maybe someday they will decide to publish physical copies of their books so I can read them too.

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Interview Music

Jacob River Milnes and his Footprint to fame

Concordia student proves his talent once again with fresh new album

Concordia music student Jacob River Milnes has recently dropped his second album,  Footprints. With the songs falling under varying genres such as folk, rock and even country, this album is truly for anyone. Milnes sat down with The Concordian to talk about his work and his passion for music.

Given his proficient recording technique and obvious talent, it is clear that Milnes has been working at his music for a long time. Just last year, he released his debut album I’ll Be Waiting Here which was inspired by a past relationship while the message behind Footprints is left up to the listener. 

“There’s not really a message behind this one. My songs come from my own experiences with the world. The message is up to the listener. I’m sure if they listen to it, they’ll come up with something that is true to them and that’s what’s important to me.”

“Footprints,” Milnes’s favourite song on the album, differs from his other pieces as it is clearly more sentimental. The track stemmed from his experience of moving away from his hometown, Val -des-Monts, to come to Montreal to study music. The heartfelt lyrics of the track paired with his all-consuming relationship with the guitar provokes an undeniable feeling of nostalgia among listeners.

“I grew up in the country and for a long time I’ve been wanting to get out of there and move to the city. Finally, I’m in Montreal now and “Footprints” was written right before I left,” Milnes said.

But “Footprints” is not the only track with a story. “Theme From ‘Don’t Let The Bull Defeat You’” is the last song on the album, composed for a short film that Milnes and his friends created over the summer. The artist wrote and directed the entire soundtrack for the film. Considering it was Milnes’ first acoustic song, he definitely didn’t disappoint.

The rock and roll tone within the two tracks “I Won’t Do It” as well as “You Could Pretend” on Footprints were inspired by some of Milnes favourite artists.While his main inspirations are The Beatles and Bob Dylan, most recently he has started listening to Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish.   

“I do listen to a lot of old music but I try to stay connected with modern music as well. So, I was inspired by those two artists [Rodrigo and Eilish] to write more modern sounding songs,” Milnes told The Concordian.

Milnes also has a number of family members that have been guiding him throughout his career.  

“One of the biggest inspirations for me is the man who introduced me to Bob Dylan and introduced me to all music which was my grandfather. He was the one who got me interested in music.”

Although the most notable instrument in Milnes’ songs is the guitar, he first started out on the drums when he was ten years old. He didn’t originally intend to be a singer-songwriter but starting off on the drums for a band, he quickly realised after playing a few shows, he wanted to be actively engaging with the audience.

“I would see the people in front of me on the stage and I was behind the stage playing drums and I realised that I wanted to be upfront playing guitar and engaging with the audience more. This side came out of me through showmanship. When I picked up the guitar, I slowly realised that I could write.”

Jacob River Milnes is definitely capable of becoming a known name in the music industry and Footprints is a clear indication of that. While letting fans enjoy the new album for the time being, he has some new projects to treat his fans with in the upcoming year.

“There’s definitely going to be a next album. I’m always writing and I have a few songs that will probably be on the next one.” 

Categories
Concordia Student Union News

Boycott of Concordia’s Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence committee continues

Concordia University's Sir George Williams Campus. CATHERINE REYNOLDS/The Concordian

The standing committee responsible for combatting sexual violence on campus remains highly unpopular Amongst the student body

Debates raged at the Concordia Student Union’s (CSU) regular council meeting (RCM) on Jan. 11, over the ongoing boycott of the University’s Standing Committee on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Violence (SMSV) as student representatives discussed potential solutions to end sexual misconduct on campus. 

The boycott dates back to October 5, 2022, when the CSU, alongside the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) and the Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia (TRAC) formally withdrew from the SMSV.

The action came after years of criticism from members of the SMSV and from the student body at large over the committee’s lack of transparency and failure to support survivors of sexual assault.

The conversation was sparked after it came to light that multiple candidates had been appointed to the SMSV during an appointments committee meeting last December. This action, if passed, would have ended the CSU’s ongoing boycott of the SMSV.

Fawaz Halloum, general coordinator of the CSU, explained the reason behind the appointments committee’s decision at the RCM on Jan. 11. According to Halloum, the decision was made in response to Lisa White, executive director of the Equity Office at Concordia University and chair of the SMSV, who was threatening to appoint students to the committee without the CSU’s consent.

“I find it very troubling because it takes a lot from our power as a union,”

Said Halloum. 

After consulting with a legal expert, Halloum said he was advised that the best course of action would be to appoint students to the SMSV — either to ensure the CSU maintains a voice on the committee, or to continue the protest by having committee members refuse to show up.

The proposed nomination was met with harsh criticism from many in attendance at last week’s RCM.

TRAC’s bargaining officer Mya Walmsley called the move “disgraceful.” Walmsley believes that the concessions the University’s offered in response to end the dispute was not made with the students body’s best interests, but rather to legitimise the SMSV’s poor track record. 

“Obviously [the administration is] going to try to get you back with honey [rather than vinegar],” said Walmsley. “Promising these sorts of vague and nonspecific concessions is the way to do it.”

Walmsley asserted that, due to the current circumstances, the best course of action would be to further escalate the conflict to press their demands.

“We have the power now, we have the opportunity to talk to Lisa White whenever we want, we just don’t have to do it through the committee [SMSV],” said Walmsley.

“The argument that we gain more power by ending the boycott is absurd. It’s like giving up power will give us more power.”

Said Wamsley.

The CSU’s External Affairs Coordinator Julianna Smith presented a motion which was passed to reject the appointment committee’s nomination to continue the boycott. 

However, CSU counsellor Mohamad Abdallah spoke out against continuing the boycott. He questioned the purpose of an indefinite boycott and argued that the decision was harming students. 

“How is this boycott harming [the administration] more than it is harming us by preventing us from representation? They have already appointed new people on that committee,” said Abdallah.

Abdallah also challenged the idea that those in favour of ending the boycott were, in essence, supporting the current policies that are in place.  

“Our goal is the same at the end of the day, but we are taking different roads to reach the same goal, which is to change these policies regarding sexual violence and sexual harrassment in the University,” said Abdallah.

Nevertheless, Abdallah’s position remained unpopular amongst CSU councillors. The boycott of the SMSV will continue into the foreseeable future.

Categories
News

Stranded for the holidays

Concordia students struggled to fly home to their families amidst delayed and cancelled flights

For many, snow storms over this holiday season meant dreams of a white Christmas came true. However, for other students trying to fly home to their families, snow storms meant flight delays and unforeseen challenges. 

Emily Jans, a first-year therapeutic recreation student from Alberta, faced these challenges when her flight from Toronto to Edmonton was cancelled on Dec. 21. Jans said she was forced to choose between spending Christmas there or an extra $850 to be with her family in Alberta. 

“Basically, I was stranded in Toronto,” she said.

Jans said she was notified by Flair Airlines that her flight had been delayed by three hours after she arrived at the airport. 

Three hours later, as she was getting ready to check in, she got another email. 

“I didn’t really check it, but I go upstairs, and I see a big line of other angry people, and I was like ‘oh no, what is happening?’ And then I checked my email; my flight was cancelled.” 

said Jans

According to Jans, the flight was cancelled because it did not have a crew for the plane. The next available flight was on Dec. 28. Unless she had found another option, she would spend Christmas alone in Toronto.

“That’s when the panic ensued,” she continued. Because she would have to stay in Toronto for a few days, the airline was responsible for arranging hotel accommodations for her, according to Canada’s Air Passenger Rights. But for Jans, spending a week in Toronto was not an option. 

She started looking for different ways to get home, including a three-day train leaving on Christmas Eve. She tried calling the airline and was told that she was the 400th customer in line. She requested a callback, which she never got. 

She found an available ticket on a Westjet flight for $855.55 plus baggage fees. The total price of her initial flights was $637.04. 

She decided to pay the extra, but said: “The one thing I kept thinking when I bought my ticket was: ‘This is the price of a flight outside of Canada.’ My friends were going to France and Mexico… That’s the price of going to France, but I was just going to Alberta.”

On her way back to Montreal, Jans’ suitcase got damaged. According to her, “a lot of people had broken luggage.”

Jans  hopes she will get a reimbursement for the cancelled flight. According to a customer service agent with Flair Airlines, the refund can take up to 10 days. For now, Jans has not heard back from the airline.

For Rodrigo Allison, a second-year finance student from Mexico, these flight difficulties resulted in spending three hours in a plane during a snowstorm. 

Allison was scheduled to fly home to Mexico on the morning of Dec. 16, with a layover in Denver. He got an email from Air Canada warning him that the weather might affect his flight, but until the day of the flight, everything seemed to be running as scheduled.

Once inside the plane, the pilot announced that the weather was not safe enough to leave. Allison ended up spending three hours on that plane. “They didn’t give us any information [about what was happening],” he said. 

Allison missed his layover by an hour and a half. He got to Denver in the early afternoon and was told that the next available flight was the next morning. He spent the rest of the day and the night alone in the airport.

On Jans’ end, she is very disappointed with her experience. “I’m a student, and if they offer it [cheap flights], if they have low-fare airlines, that’s amazing. But I don’t think that should be taken away from the respect that we deserve as people. We were not treated with respect at all.”

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Teachers shift gears to avoid A.I. plagiarism

As concern over students using A.I. chatbots rises, teachers must prepare to deal with the issue constructively.

OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence research laboratory, has recently launched ChatGPT, a text-generating tool open to all for free. This chatbot is capable of understanding and answering questions through prompts, and hence is becoming extremely popular among students.

Textbots like ChatGPT can rescue last-minute assignments that can range from writing Shakespearean poetry to doing calculus. As such A.I. gets exploited by students, teachers are looking for ways to detect such plagiarism.

“We clearly need to come up with new ways to evaluate learning if we want to avoid these bots to be used to fake student work,” said Bérengère Marin-Dubuard, an A.I. enthusiast and teacher in interactive media arts at Dawson College.

Marin-Dubuard also expressed her thoughts on the quality of the text written by the A.I.

“The text generated is interesting, but in the end I’d be surprised if many people just don’t do the work,” she said. “It’s probably even more work to set it up.”

Marin-Dubuard encourages her class to embrace the new technology as a tool, but she remains wary of the threat of plagiarism. 

ChatGPT’s technology relies on natural language processing — a subfield of computer science based on the interaction between computers and human language.

“One part of how ChatGPT works is by learning complex patterns of language usage using a large amount of data,” said Jackie CK Cheung, an associate computer science professor at McGill University and the Associate Scientific Director at Mila A.I. Institute of Quebec. 

“Think at the scale of all the text that is on the internet,” Cheung added. “The system learns to predict which words are likely to occur together in the same context.”

He explained that the developing A.I. would eventually improve as researchers and users feed it new knowledge, a process known as “deep learning.”

Cheung knew that the easily accessible ChatGPT and related models could increase students’ temptation to plagiarize. He noted that instructors will have to adapt their methods of evaluation, and try resorting more to in-person or oral communication. Cheung added;

“There could also be innovations in which ChatGPT-like models can be used as an aid to help with improving the learning process itself.” 

A question of ethics has remained, as A.I. continues to develop in art and writing. Both art and text generators have been accused of plagiarism. Last month, artists online flooded art-hosting websites to prevent A.I. from generating proper images. Last week, a substack blog was outed as being written by A.I. by one of its plagiarized writers. 

Julia Anderson, who finds new ways to interact with developing technology and has collaborated with the Montreal A.I. Ethics Institute, said that A.I. should not be simply used to do the work for you. She believes that ChatGPT and similar models could be used as tools to help conceptualize projects or aid in teaching and supporting students. A.I. tools like LEX offer support in conceptualizing ideas, something Anderson thought teachers could use to aid them in making a curriculum. 

“You can make a similar argument with other technologies, like Google translate,” Anderson said. “But it’ll be at the discretion of the user to decide what to edit.”

With schools now beginning to look for methods of detecting A.I. plagiarism, Edward Tian, a 22-year-old computer science major from Princeton University, developed GPTZero. The program can detect work written by the OpenAI software. 

Other methods of dissuading students’ temptations to plagiarize, according to Anderson, could include digital watermarks and the requirement to pay in order to be able to copy text. 

Nonetheless, Anderson understands that such measures cannot strictly assure legitimacy. 

“Going forward I’m sure there’s going to be more problems,” she said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to human discretion.”

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