Democracy at its Finest

Written by John Nnamchi, Canadian student at McGill University, graduating class of 2017

The Student Society of McGill University (SSMU) has once again lived up to its notorious image as a tumultuous organization full of controversy in both its election period and actions of those who were elected. While previous years involved the hacking of a candidate's Facebook account, the distribution of personal messages, ad the president's victory being invalidated, a this year's events tops the leaderboard of utter madness.

The tension began when Igor Sadikov – an Arts Representative to SSMU and member of the SSMU Board of Directors (BoD) – posted a tweet reading "punch a zionist today". Student outrage and condemnations of inciting violence aside, SSMU only agreed to impeach Sadikov after McGill Principle Suzanne Fortier formally demanded that SSMU release a public statement demanding Sadikov's resignation. The anger amongst the student body due to SSMU's inaction to impeach was only multiplied when one week later, SSMU's VP External David Aird was bombarded with allegations of sexual assault from a group multiple female students. This time SSMU took no delay in forcing Aird to resign, but this does not seem to appease the student body in any way. The situation gets worse. The smeared reputation of its innocent members due to the actions of an irresponsible few has caused intense psychological distress amongst its executives. SSMU's president Ben Ger later resigned from his position stating "deeply personal reasons" while another executive wishes to do the same but fears doing so would incriminate himself.

As if this was not enough, controversy plagues this year's election period too. When VP External candidate was asked by the McGill Daily on his thoughts about the set of events that transpired, he laughingly responded "don't get caught". As you can imagine, social media tore Noah apart, and he was shamefully forced to withdraw from the race. Within a mere span of three weeks, SSMU has triggered a massive hysteria among the student body in both controversy and large-scale uproar. While many saw hope in this new incoming election, a technicality in the voting system forced SSMU to recall all votes that were cast on day 1. It seems that 2017 is not a good year for SSMU whatsoever.

It’s All About Innovation These Days

Written by John Nnamchi,
Canadian student at McGill University, graduating class of 2017

The quest towards fostering innovation and implementing technological solutions has endeared an ever-growing number of institutions of higher education across the globe, including McGill University. The trend has led to efforts ranging from university start-up competitions, to awards supporting innovative projects, to collaborative think tanks. At McGill however, most of these efforts have been conceived and deployed by members of university faculty. The resulting generation gap hinders them in understanding the true needs of McGill’s student body. Furthermore due to administrative reasons and convenience, universities still adopt a top-down approach when it comes to identifying and integrating potentially innovative solutions for the student body. This leads to a slow implementation process, possible outdated solutions, and poor student adoption rates.

“The amount of useless and out of date applications for McGill students is substantial” a McGill student quotes. Thus, while this means the conception and development of innovative solutions should stem from the student body, such ad-hoc initiatives do not possess the administrative, financial, and technological resources that current top-down organizations possess. It is the reason why countless useful and innovative solutions attempted by student initiated project groups fail.

The World is a Much Bigger Place

By John Nnamchi, Canadian student at McGill University, graduating class of 2017

As the end of the semester approaches the pace by which the past year has gone by is remarkable. For some, it is the end of first year discoveries, for others, graduation and entry into the real world awaits. What may be more striking than the realization of yet another completed year, though, is the diversity of paths each and every one of us take immediately after this period: it is impossible to find any two classmates who led remotely similar lives this past summer. Take the most mundane example of two life science students, under-taking summer research in the same lab. I can guarantee that neither one’s experience will be remotely close in similarity. Expanding this thinking to all your peers dotted around different fields, the possible walks of life grow beyond control.

These realizations lead to a newfound awareness about the journeys of life: there are too many to count, too many follow, too many to conceive. I am writing this because such a level of thinking did not exist for me as a student still in high school. My world revolved around those I knew, and strangers didn’t exist. Yet, as I entered university, my student body grew from 300 to 6000 people and in my first year it seemed the amount of people to meet was endless. If six thousand students seemed like too many, imagine six billion. So if asked what the greatest thing to have taken out during one’s time in university, it is the awareness that the world is a lot bigger than it seems.

Fear the Ageing Brain

By John Nnamchi,
Canadian student at McGill University, graduating class of 2017

An important time in a student’s university year is the arrival of the summer holidays and subsequent search for a summer job or internship. Lucky for me, I was given the amazing opportunity to go back to Singapore for a summer intership at Senescence Life Sciences (Senescence), a bio-technology firm founded by Dr. Shawn Watson, PhD, a fellow member of the Canadian community in Singapore.

Senescence’s research specializes in age elated cognitive decline: the natural degeneration of brain function with age and often a predecessor to the onset of dementia (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s etc.) in later years. For Dr. Watson, his journey started at the University of Calgary during his doctoral studies when he discovered a novel mechanism found to be responsible for brain aging. Seven years of dedicated research later, he developed enough understanding of how human brains age and he then moved to Singapore to found Senescence. Aside from offering scientifically proven products for your aging brain, they also publish important information regarding aging, its effect on your brain, and how one’s lifestyle can influence the rate of cognitive decline. For example, did you know the human brain starts to age as early as 20 years old, or that brain aging is a universal reality that no individual can avoid? Once I began working at Senescence, it became clear why aging and cognitive decline were among the top concerns of adults today.

Interning at Senescence allowed me to work within my field of study Bio-chemistry) while equipping me with invaluable administrative, entrepreneurial and commercial skills. It was the first time I was able to appreciate the real life applications and contextual value of what I was learning in class. In retrospect this is exactly what a student should get out of a summer job in order to generate the awareness and perspective needed to map out the right career path. On a final note, Dr. Watson showed how one could seamlessly bridge academia and industry in a mutually profitable way (profits from Senescence go back towards research in brain aging), and is the ideal example of an ambitious Canadian taking control of a tremendous opportunity. Returning back to McGill with a new approach and perception towards my academic studies, I raise my glass to Canadians all around the world who remind me that we as a country never cease to do amazing things.

Democracy At Its Finest

Daniel Lawrie, a Second year McGill student, ran for SSMU VP Internal, one of the many positions that went uncontested.

By John Nnamchi

The mid to late march period probably marks one of the most important and entertaining periods for the student body at McGill. This is the time when the inspired, eager, or downright brave individuals launch their campaigns for the numerous positions of the Student Society of McGill University (SSMU). Of course, representing the entire student body of twenty five thousand undergraduates is a prestigious honor, but historically, SSMU elections are notoriously famous for being extremely controversial.

Last year, competition got the better of the two presidential hopefuls when one candidate’s Facebook account was hacked, and his personal messages between his election team and peers exposed on his campaign page. The year before that, the president’s victory was invalidated, after the losing competitor successfully pushed an investigation claiming numerous infractions of campaign bylaws on the part of the winner. Given the claims were very disputable, a lawsuit then followed. Voters themselves contribute to the mess as well, where the bulk of problems actually begin as questions from the public easily snowball into endless debates. Safe space (November 2015 issue) is a popular topic, where many candidates who suggest improvements for safe space initiatives in their platforms, are bombarded with insults from the community. The huge publicity and lasting reputations can get the better of some, as it did with one girl who dropped out of the race, stating extreme psychological harm resulting from her scandalous campaign story. The saying goes, if you plan to run for student politics at McGill, expect the full, political experience: hence the bravery.

Perhaps this is why, out of the 7 SSMU positions available, around half of the candidates run un-contested. Do not be fooled by this seemingly easy win though: last year, a group of unhappy students ran a Vote NO campaign against the only running candidate for VP External, as they disagreed with his platform. Of the 25 000 undergraduates, are there really so few motivated and caring students willing to represent their student body? Or does the election history cause most to shy away in fear? Although the cause is a probable combination of the two, there is an obvious problem. Nonetheless, the campaign pages of this year’s hopefuls are up; let the show begin.

Inflate our Grades

By John Nnamchi
 
McGill, The University of Toronto (U of T) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) are named as the top institutions in Canada that actively contend against the rest of the world’s best colleges. Within the country, the competition between the big three is always tough: 2016 QS university rankings put McGill, U of T and UBC in 24th, 34thand 50th respectively worldwide, but these numbers fluctuate yearly. Now, logically speaking if we are ranked equally amongst some Ivy League schools of the United States such as Duke (29th) and Columbia (22nd), one should assume a similar makeup of students achieving grades of equal caliber. Surprisingly, this assumption could not be further from the truth.

While most of the US ivy leagues boast GPA averages of about 3.3 (on a 4.00 scale), McGill maintains a mere 2.8, well below what is expected. While some may immediately call up the quality level of students as an obvious reason, countless others have performed extensive research to argue that the “problem” is in fact with McGill, not students. In general, it is said “McGill University has aggressively pursued a dual policy of zero grade inflation and rigorous academic standards” which translates to tough grading and little flexibility. These claims do indeed have some validity: while McGill’s average GPA has stagnated at roughly 2.8 for the past decades, The Economist reported the Ivy league school averages as having increased from 2.3 to 3.4 since 1955. This tendency for students achieving higher grades for work that would have received lower grades in the past forms the basis of grade inflation.

So are the top American schools actually enrolling increasingly smarter undergraduates, or are they taking desperate measures to maintain the most academically competitive student bodies in hopes of achieving higher popularity? Either way, even if students on exchange confirm the comparatively difficult academic standards at McGill, it is in our best interest to do as well as we can regardless. I am reminded every day of the talented students that attend this university, and undeniably, people here have so much more to offer, than just their GPAs.

A Place Called Home

As one excitedly returns from the Christmas Holiday breaks and is immediately forced into school mode, one of the hardest things a student may face, indeed, is waving goodbye to their family once again. At least for me, the ensuing long journey back to Montreal helps with moving on. Yet as I commence a fourth semester in Montreal, the ease by which I have settled back to life here hits me. Do I immediately miss home, the food, weather and more? yes – but adjusting back to Montreal mode here has become alarmingly simple. What one might call an emotional paradox, these contrasting feelings create an inherent dilemma in deciding where exactly I call home (if you have a child in college, try asking them a similar question).

Within this region, another group of people are experiencing similar, but more serious predicaments: they are the Syrian refugees making their way into the country. Some argue that because McGill students are, as a whole, part of a well-informed community that openly involves itself in the current events in Montreal, news spreads quickly. Hence with the influx of refugees came an explosion of volunteer opportunities from embracing them at the airport to organizing clothes drives to equip them for this winter. Although refugees are set to spread out around many areas of Canada, most McGill students unanimously stand in solidarity to support their integration into society. Already there are talks of cultural centers being implemented as well as efforts to teach English to Syrian residents via video chat.

Trudeau’s response to the refugee crisis is exemplary of some of his initiatives as the new PM, and it is safe to say his decisions so far have been influential towards the students around me. So amidst the dilemma for Montreal dwellers deciding where to call home, they still strive to make sure others truly in need find an easy answer to this question: Canada. 

Are you triggered?

In recent years a movement has been on the rise. Driven largely by students, there is a growing quest to scour entire campuses clean of words, ideas and subjects that may cause discomfort or give offense. This increasing demand for protection from words and ideas students don’t like, known as “trigger words”, is a topic taken very seriously at McGill. Overall, it has led to a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face possible accusations of insensitivity, aggression, or worse.

This new-found vulnerability towards micro-aggressions is a big change for many, and it is a culture clash in its own when it comes to simply understanding what exactly a “trigger word” can be. Seemingly innocuous topics of discussion such as euthanasia, war, and books like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart are now forbidden in some places (not in Canada) for portraying racial violence that can “trigger” the recurrence of past trauma in some students. However, after the events that unfolded at Yale and Mizzou, the underlying reasons for this issue become open for debate. Both of these incidents, related to the weaponization of “safe space” are worth a read.

The ultimate aim is to turn campuses into “safe spaces” where young adults are shielded from words and ideas that make some uncomfortable and actually, measures have already been taken to do so. For example, all students residing in McGill Dorms must attend a mandatory 3-hour session on how to exercise such a safe space. Although it is argued that avoiding the things that cause fear can affect the perception on mental health, this concept is a reality that many college students will experience. So next time you find yourself within the McGill bubble, feel free ask someone “what is a safe space?” to get their take on the whole situation.

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John Nnamchi is a Canadian student at McGill University and will contribute his Montreal perspectives in each issue of the MLT.