and now for some campus politics

Though there are many happy effects of McGill’s prime downtown location, one of the perennial problems is a space crunch. As a result, the administration has been moving people around from office to office in an effort to free up space for other uses.

So some of the biggest conflicts between students and administration have been over space. The latest issue is the administration’s decision to evict the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill Students Society (SACOMSS) from their night office. The decision is both strange and wrongheaded. While administrators couch their decision in terms of institutional priorities, issues of liability and “proper channels” for funding, volunteers wonder where they will be able to continue their work.

I have never heard of a university campus where sexual assault — from harassment to date rape to stranger attacks — has not been a central issue for university students. SACOMSS is thus a valuable resource both for students and for the university community as a whole. I was impressed last fall when the administration cancelled the football season in response to a hazing incident. That was a high profile case, but the administration has the same obligation to students whose cases don’t make national headlines. Support for victims of sexual violence ought to be central to the University’s student services mission and SACOMSS ought to have a reliable and secure office space to carry out their work.

Tomorrow (Monday), there is a rally in support of SACOMSS that starts at the Roddick Gates at 2pm and moves to the James Administration Building.

More information can be found here and here.

Wingnuts, North of the 49th Parallel

Education professors are now being asked to provide evidence for the theory of evolution in their grant applications to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, perhaps the main funding body for social scientific and humanistic work in Canada (pronounced “shirk” for you non-Canadians). Read up here and here.

I love that the SSHRC rep said that Alters took the comment about intelligent design out of context. Sure, there may have been other reasons to deny his application, but good lord, if the issue wasn’t whether or not an education professor could “prove” evolution, why mention it as an issue in funding the grant? If Alters’ research program wasn’t up to snuff or if his plan for spending the money (by the way, $40000 sounds like a lot but it is not a particularly huge SSHRC grant in this day and age) was flawed, then by all means turn down the grant. But what business do they have asking him to prove the theory of evolution? It’s a grant about education.

In McGill’s own PR about the opening of Alters’ Centre in 1999, they quote his colleague Graham Bell as saying

When [he] talks to colleagues in his field in the U.S. about the Kansas decision, the consistent reaction is one of “embarrassment.”

Canada dodged a parallel experience thanks to its federal system, notes Bell. “There was a school board in B.C. where a similar sort of thing was going to happen, but the administration of education is a provincial responsibility.”

Well, now it’s got an issue in its federal system.

The idea that the Enlightenment quotient increases north of the 49th parallel is an important part both of liberal and left Americans’ idealization of Canada and of Canadian anti-Americanism. And I sometimes partake of it, let down my guard, and enjoy that I’m up here and not “down there.” But this is a reminder that vigilance is essential in protecting intellectual inquiry from ignorance rooted in religious dogmatism. Everywhere.

Pittsburgh Confessions

As you approach the tram to take you to the baggage claim area of the Pittsburgh Internation Airport, you are greeted by two statues of approximate life size. On the right is George Washington. You know who he is. On the left is Franco Harris, a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl teams of the 1970s, immortalized in the position of catching the “immaculate reception,” a catch that catapulted the Steelers to their first Super Bowl victory. For once, an airport got it right. This juxtaposition sums up something about the city. Probably just that they like football.

First Confession. I apparently drive like a maniac. Montreal does that to you. Offensive driving is defensive driving in this city. I remember at first Carrie and I were amazed at the things drivers did here. She claimed to be impressed that there were “so few” accidents. But it turns out that there are a lot. Anyway, Monday morning I’m driving in for my first defense (9:15am, and yes it hurt but at least the diss was about space aliens and UFOs) and I found myself weaving in and out of traffic, zipping around. I didn’t feel rushed or aggressive or anything like that. Everyone was just moving so slowly. People were driving below the speed limit. What’s up with that? Anyway, I now can mark the distance between my Pittsburgh self as a driver and my Montreal self as a driver. It is the distance between between someone who is sane and courteous and someone who is batshit crazy.

Second Confession. When I was in the car, I voluntarily listened to the modern rock radio station the whole time I was there. It’s somewhere between metal and modern rock, actually. I chose it mostly because a) as you may know from this very blog, I’ve been really into heavy music for the whole time I’ve been up here, b) I was curious what they were playing and c) I hate surfing around the radio dial while driving. Anyway, this led to several observations, which I present to you in bullet form for easy executive comprehension:

  • Good lord the playlist is narrow.
  • Grunge is the new classic rock. I mean, it sounded like classic rock when it was new, but now it’s become a format. Most of the songs on the station were songs I remembered from the 1990s.
  • I have always and still do hate Alice in Chains’ “The Rooster.” When it came on the radio, I listened to it anyway. Both times.
  • The one thing that’s different is that the station is playing rap. Real rap as in not Nu Metal with rapping over it or Rage Against the Machine (though they did play that), but Cypress Hill and then a bunch of newer stuff I didn’t recognize. This is weird because the audience for this station is pretty much working class white Pittsburgh and there was certainly no rap on this station when I lived in Pittsburgh.

Third Confession My favorite nickname for the Cathedral of Learning is “the dirty tower.” But I still loved going in there every day to work. Its gothic absurdity somehow instilled a feeling of importance for my work. The little dome on the Arts Building at McGill is almost as good, though. Special Arts Building bonus: decades-old soot doesn’t float in my window every time I open it.

Fourth Confession. I know I’m supposed to be disgusted by the famous Pittsburgh portions at restaurants. But it was kind of fun.

and now some facts in Harper’s Index form:

  • Density of PhDs on which I have signed off in the last week: 4 doctorates in 5 days
  • Density of PhDs on which Carol Stabile has signed off in the last week: 4 doctorates in two days
  • Who I thought was the badass: me
  • Who turned out to be the real badass: her
  • Number of consecutive round trips on USAir between Montreal and Pittsburgh on which I have experienced major delays: 3
  • Number of consecutive flights on which USAir has lost my luggage: 2
  • Number of the last four one-way trips between Montreal and Pittsburgh where I have had luggage lost: 3
  • Number of days worth of essential clothing I brought in my carry-on this time: 1
  • Why I still check my luggage: I overpack and my clothes are big
  • Average number of hours of sleep per night during Pittsburgh trip: 6
  • Amount of Thai food I ate in Pittsburgh: a lot
  • Number of words I learned to say in Indonesian: 6
  • English translation of said words: “I am a giant potato salad.”
  • Last two words of this post: Electric Wizard.

Two for Two

I forgot to write that I’m off to Pittsburgh for a few days to make some doctors. Of philosophy, that it. So here I am, and for the second time in a row on a Montreal-Pgh trip, USAir has managed to lose my luggage. I would ask what the odds are but I’m starting to feel like they’re pretty good. Hopefully, it will appear tomorrow.

The good news is that you can get homestyle Italian food in this town unlike anything I’ve found in Montreal thus far.

More upon my return.

Things I Have Learned Recently

Today we walked from our apartment to the Pullman Bar, which is on Parc just north of Sherbrooke. Took about an hour, which by extrapolation means that it would take about an hour an 20 minutes door to door to walk from the apartment to my office. At least if we go through Parc Lafontaine. It was, notably, the first “walk” of the season and of course Carrie and I loved it, saying things like “we should do this all the time during the summer.” Which is of course predicated on our forgetting what it’s like to take an hour long walk in 30 degree humid weather (that’s celsius for you kids below the border).

I also learned today that British soccer (ahem “football”) teams (are they even called teams?) don’t have a draft. They sign players as early as 14. How could it actually be worse than major American sports franchises? But it is.

Yesterday I learned that my knowledge of Canadian history has significantly surpassed that of my students after conversations with two particular smart and well-trained students during my office hours. For some reason, I thought that it was different here. In the U.S., I was always comfortable with the fact that I knew more American history than most of my students, since history is not taught often or well in public schools. But somehow, with all the projects around cultural preservation, promotion and protection here, I thought Canadian nationalism required a certain consciousness of Canadian history. Apparently, it does not. I’m still glad I know the history, though.

Coda: just now, I was sitting in the kitchen with Carrie as she was potting two new plants (she misses gardening). She turned to me and said “plants have balls.” It turns out they do. Some of them, at least.