Be responsible when reforming McGill residences
I spent four years living and working in the McGill residence system: one as a first year student, and three more as a member of the Floor Fellow team in Gardner Hall (2003-2006). These years were incredibly formative for me and the innumerable students I worked with. The skills I gained are put to use every day in my current job in a community organization.
In my work, I have seen the same principle demonstrated over and over again: treating young adults like children brings rebellion and disaster, while treating them like adults provides immense opportunities for growth, learning, and rising to the many challenges that independant living has to offer. The flexibility of "one rule: respect" as a disciplinary system allows the staff in residences to treat each other and the students they serve like individuals, instead of cases.
Leaving room for open discussion about alcohol, drugs, food, coping mechanisms, mental health, sex, etc., fosters an environment of dialogue and harm reduction, where people feel safe seeking help if something goes wrong.
The fact that my students had nothing to hide from me, and nothing to fear, literally saved lives in Gardner Hall during the years I worked there. Watching students gain skills in taking care of themselves (and each other) in a supportive, rather than a restrictive, environment was an experience that cemented the goals and approach of the residence system for me. Please treat incoming staff and students like humans with hearts and brains, not like potential liabilities. They deserve better. We deserve better.
I urge the McGill administration to see the current team of academic staff and building directors as an indispensable resource, and to take a close look at the incredibly progressive, responsible, and responsive manner that McGill residences have been run over the last number of years. Changes to the system should be made in careful consultation with the people who know the system best: those who work in it now.
There is a huge community of current and former staff who have wisdom to share as the university looks into making changes to this system. Please know that we are not inflexible nor opposed to change, but we care deeply about the values that make McGill residence what it is, and we will defend them fiercely.
-Carly Boyce, BA 2006, BSW 2008
Genocide denial is just plain wrong
Re: "Letters to the editor: A completely disinterested critique of the Tribune's heavily biased journalism," 31.03.09
I was at first stunned and am now upset after reading Ergun Kirikovali's letter in the last issue of the Tribune, where he characterizes denial of the Armenian Genocide-during which over one million Armenians were murdered-as simply an "unpopular view." Kirikovali then goes on to state that charges of genocide waged against the Armenian population by the Ottoman Empire are political and cannot be supported by historical evidence.
As a McGill student, I am ashamed to have such an "unpopular view" expressed by a member of my academic community. There is undeniable evidence that the genocide of Armenians took place. I cannot even begin to address the horrors that the Armenians were subjected to. Yehuda Bauer, a Jewish historian and scholar of the Holocaust, said that the Armenian Genocide "is the closest parallel to the Holocaust" and mainly differs only in motivation.
I refer the reader, and especially Kirikovali, to chapter 10 of Robert Fisk's book The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East for a concise summary of the Armenian Genocide including historical background and interviews with survivors.
As H. Jackson Brown, Jr. said, "The greatest ignorance is to reject something you know nothing about."
-Nasser Mohieddin Abukhdeir
Fourth-year PhD,
chemical engineering
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