ebook img

The McGill news v.93 n2 fall-winter 2012 PDF

2012·60.4 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview The McGill news v.93 n2 fall-winter 2012

• ALUMNI MAGAZINE ews 1 Making flying fun again Valerie Grand'Maison apres Londres 2012 Fetching coffee? Not these interns HSSL LH3 M2 M3 v.93:no.2 2012: fall/winter TD Insurance Meloche Monnex - Miika Klemetti McGill graduate and satisfied client since 2008 See how good your quote can be. At TD Insurance Meloche Monnex, we know how important it is to save wherever you can. As a member of the McGill Alumni Association, you can take advantage of preferred group rates on your home and auto insurance and other exclusive privileges, thanks to our partnership with your association. You'll also benefit from great coverage and outstanding service. We believe in making insurance easy to understand so you can choose your coverage with confidence. YOU COULD WIN Get an online quote at www.melochemonnex.com/mcgill A LEXUS RX 450h OR $60,000 CASH!' or call1-866-352-6187 Monday to Friday. 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Insurance program recommended by the ;McGill Alumni Association The TO Insurance Meloche Monnex home and auto insurance program is underwritten by SECURITY NATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY. The program is distributed by Meloche Monnex Insurance and Financial Services Inc. in Quebec and by Meloche Monnex Financial Services Inc. in the rest of Canada. Due to provincial legislation, our auto insurance program is not offered in Bri~sh Columbia, Manitoba or Saskatchewan. *No purchase required. Contest organized jointly with Primmum Insurance Company and open to members, employees and other eligible persons belonging to employer, professional and alumni groups which hove an agreement with and ore entitled to group rotes from the organizers. Contest ends on January 31,2013. 1 prize to be won. The winner may choose the prize between a Lexus RX 450h with all basic standard features including freight and preilelivery inspec~on for a total value of $60,000 or $60,000 in Canadian funds. The winner will be responsible to pay for the sole taxes applicable to the vehicle. Skill-tes~ng ques~on required. Odds of winning depend on number of entries received. Complete contest rules available at www.melochemonnex.com/contest. ®flhe TO logo and other trade-marks ore the property of The Toronto-Dominion Bank or a wholly-owned subsidiary, in Canada and/ or other countries. Shaking up Montreal's airwaves For 25 years, McGill's community radio station, CKUT, has offered Montrealers a broad range of options on the FM dial-everything from Bollywood tunes to bluegrass to acid funk. The station has also given generations of McGill students the opportunity to learn how to put together newscasts and produce radio documentaries. BY )ESSICA McGOVERN Blue skies for the little guy Robert Deluce, BSc'71, remembers a time when flying wasn't a grim chore that travellers grumpily endured in order to get somewhere else. The CEO of Porter Airlines believes that air travel can actually be pleasurable- and his point of view is striking a chord with both customers and industry experts. BY ALLYSON ROWLEY, BA'77 The Maria effect As Nike's first-ever vice president for corporate responsibility, Maria Eitel, BA'84, helped transform the sports giant from being the target of an angry boycott movement to becoming a widely respected role model. Now Eitel has embarked on an even more challenging mission-attacking poverty in developing countries by improving the lives of adolescent girls. BY LISA FITTERMAN, BA'81 A world of opportunities What do you think of when you hear the word "intern?" Unpaid, unglamorous grunt work? That doesn't describe the experiences of the students who take part in the Faculty of Arts Internship Program. From helping to curate a major Russian art exhibition to producing a magazine for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, McGill's arts interns put their talents to the test. BY AN DREW MULLINS Sharing her passion for science What's Ziya Tong's idea of a good time? Would you believe travelling to South Korea to meet the scientist who invented glow-in-the-dark dogs? The eo-host of the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet, Tong, MA'99, loves exploring the wonderful and sometimes weird world of science for her TV viewers. BY SARA TRELEAVEN, BA'Ol Temps d'arret Entre les Championnats du monde et les Jeux paralympiques, difficile de tenir le compte des medai lles remportees par Valerie Grand'Maison. AL ondres seulement, elle en a gagne trois, dont une d'or. Toutefois, depuis son retour des Jeux, la nageuse a opte pour un horaire d'entrainement mains a rigoureux afin de se consacrer davantage ses etudes. Finie, la competition? PAR DAVID SAVOIE 3 EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK 4 LETTERS 6 PRINCIPAL'S PERSPECTIVE 7 NEWSBITES 11 DISCOVERY 27 ALUMNI PROFILE 33 ALUMNI PROFILE 38 REVIEWS 40 ALUMNI ACTIVITIES 43 ALUMNOTES 60 IN MEMORIAM 64 ONLINE OFFERINGS MCGILL NEWS· FALL/WIN ff'R 2012 1 ;a»:•·• • +· • +• ·• +1 : •·•·• 1 Yes, jobs are important, but. ... hen I graduated from Well, I think everyone suffers if we McGill, I didn't have end up with engineers and nurses whose a dream job waiting. hearts aren't really into what they're To pay the bills, I worked doing, who only became engineers and for months in a cosmetics nurses because they thought it would be factory that specialized in bargain-priced the safest path to a good job. products. (A friendly aside-you may Do universities have a responsibility want to think twice before purchasing to help prepare their students for life after any heavily discounted nail polish or graduation? Of course they do, and the lipstick. Just trust me.) I became a whiz flourishing internship program in the at foil stamping mascara bottles. Faculty of Arts, the subject of one of this On weekends and evenings, I took issue's features, offers a useful road map on freelance writing assignments for an for how to go about it. Students pick up assortment of low-paying publications invaluable hands-on experience, but only that almost no one had ever heard of as part of a broader educational goal. (generally with good cause). One of my Even the professors in McGill's profes editors took notice of me and offered me sional faculties would bristle at the notion a full-time job at McGill. Twenty-three that they should simply focus on job train years later, I'm still here. ing. Yes, law students learn to pick apart My university education played an contracts, but they're also challenged to important role in preparing me for my probe the legal system for its flaws and career. My analytical abilities, such as they shortcomings. Yes, medical students are are, were forged at McGill. Still, the path taught how to mend broken bones, but to a good job wasn't straightforward. they are also asked to critically examine What brought this to mind was a what the role of a doctor should be. recent cover story in The Walrus. The Looking back at my own education, essay, which caused a stir in university I suspect that many of my favourite circles, claimed that university arts and courses wouldn't have passed muster if science programs are producing graduates they had been judged strictly on the basis who face bleak futures toiling as baristas of their practical utility. English professor or car rental agents. Many of the white Curtis Cecil's course on Victorian satire, collar jobs that once existed for these for instance, and how he vividly brought graduates are disappearing, according works by Wilde and Shaw to life through to the piece, the victims of technological his gloriously over-the-top, one-man progress or economic retrenchment (the performances. Or how Marike Finlay Association of Universities and Colleges honed critical skills by devoting a class to of Canada disputes this, noting that the semiotic dissection of an episode the number of jobs filled by university of Knots Landing. Or how Peter Ohlin's graduates in Canada has more than infectious enthusiasm for Ingmar doubled since 1990). Bergman opened my eyes to the glories "[Students] are encouraged to study of world cinema. what they want, rather than to focus on Did these courses make me more what the economy needs," the authors of employable? I'm not sure. But they did the Walrus piece argued. "If [students] make me a better person and that was choose the humanities or basic science when well worth the time I had to spend at the the market needs engineers and nurses, cosmetics factory. the economy suffers, and so do they." DANIEL MCCABE MCGILL NEWS · FALL/WINTER 2012 3 LETTERS Anticipating his high school gradua I read your article to my mother, Phyllis tion the next year, a young Leonard Cohen (Turner) Sproule, BA'36, who turned threw his hat in the ring for the presidency 97 in February. She enjoyed it, and ofWestmount High School's students' especially remembered the Arts Building's council. As it happened, students felt steps very well. passionately about a key issue opposed I asked her if she recalled a favourite by the school administration-to have haunt from her McGill days, and right ice cream sold in the school at noon away she said, "At the Royal Victoria Col every Wednesday. His slogan, which lege, there was a little room off the dining helped win the day, was "Vote for Lenny room where we commuters, who brought to-bring-you-an-ice-cream-Cohen." our lunches, could eat. It was a great place To enhance his campaign, he hung a to enjoy lunch and socialize together; life-size effigy from the pipes overhead to really, the only such place for commuting be seen by students attending a Saturday women students that I can recall." Her face night dance. In the words of the yearbook, lights up whenever she talks about her ". .. a suit of long underwear stuffed with time at McGill! old sweatshirts, gym shorts and lab coats, My mother had a partial scholarship; REGARDING lEONARD topped by a gruesome papier-mache head she says the only full scholarship available Having arrived in Montreal in 1970, and dangling a blood-lettered sign which was for men. She walked a few miles to Leonard Cohen's music has been the read: 'I'll be hanged-if Len Cohen won't McGill and back every day, being unable background theme of my adult life. I'm be the best president ever."' to afford the fare for public transporta looking forward to seeing him in con- A block away from the school was a tion. When her family moved to the West cert this fall (I saw him in Kingston-a Catholic church. Parishioners on their way Island, she took the train to Windsor magnificent concert). Bernard Perusse has to early mass passed one of the school Station and walked from there. absolutely tapped into Cohen's ability to entrances. The half-light of the early She met my father at McGill make a whole stadium of people feel that spring morning produced a shadowy view (William Kelvin Sproule), Kel's father was he has issued each one a personal invita of the interior. The yearbook continues, a professor at McGill (Gordon Sproule), tion to a private concert. "Policemen at the Westmount Police Head and I believe his mother was one of the ANNECLARK quarters were aroused at an early hour University's earliest female graduates Montreal, Quebec recently by the frantic pleas of a woman (Helen Freeze, BA1904). who insisted that they investigate a corpse We enjoy your magazine! Bernie Perusse always writes great which could be seen hanging from the ceil JANE SPROULE EPSTEIN articles. I never knew he was a McGill ing of the lower hall ofWestmount High Concord, Massachusetts alumnus and a lawyer at that! His article School." To gain entrance, the police called was very interesting and worthy of its the principal, who in turn called the janitor. Il oved to sit in front of the Redpath subject. I'll be at the Bell Centre to see They all assembled before 7 am on that Library during the summer to have a cup Leonard Cohen in concert for the third Sunday morning, and Lenny demonstrated ofTim Horton's coffee. time. It's interesting how he's gone from his early ability to bring people together. NASIR KHAN, MSc'06 Place des Arts to the Bell Centre since his GRAHAM R. ROSS, BEng'S6 Islamabad, Pakistan last visit. His ascendency as he matures is Victoria, BC inspirational. I bundle him with two other I love the M organ Arboretum on masters of song-Dylan and McCartney; FAVOURITE HAUNTS Macdonald Campus. I loved taking all three in their seventies! I became a fan While the fourth floor library at Beatty walks, bird watching and catching snakes of Leonard back in 1969. Forty-three years Hall where I completed my master's and salamanders. How can you beat later, he's still at the top of my favourites degree was spectacular, my favourite place having a forest that doubled as an outdoor list. We in Montreal should be so proud to at McGill has to be Leacock 132 where classroom and field station the size of call him a native. I met my husband Meyer Balter in Physi New York's Central Park right on campus? HARVEY KADER, BSc'BO, MBA'83 ology 101. My first words to him were PROSANTACHAKRABARTY Montreal, Quebec "Would you please shut up!" We celebrated BSc(Agr)'OO our 33rd wedding anniversary in July and Baton Rouge, Louisiana The life of Leonard Cohen as a renais continue to have fond memories of our sance man is well-documented and time at McGill. I love the solitude of the chapel in the his persona well-loved. But not so much is ANITA GRUENWALD BALTER Birks Building. known about his early days as a politician BSc'77, MSc'80 SCOTT DE JONG, BA'88 and humorist. Don Mills, Ontario Rothesay, New Brunswick 4 MCGILL NEWS · FALL/WINTER 2012 CROWN JEWEL human body, then study the relation- Having just read the Spring-Summer ship between the ingredients in this stew 2012 edition of the McGill News, and cancer initiation at the biological I was fascinated by Linda Sutherland's level. Having thus identified the modes article "Fit for a queen" regarding the of cancer causation, we could then single pink diamond found by John Thoburn out those substances on a priority basis Williamson in Mwadui, not least of all as candidates for removal from food, the because I lived in Mwadui for 17 years workplace and the environment. If the having been brought up there while my response is that this is a political matter, father was working for the diamond mine! not a scientific one, I counter that the deci My two daughters are currently studying sion to focus on treatment is just as much for their undergraduate degrees at McGill a political decision as a decision to focus on and I have made them aware of the Dr. cancer prevention. The difficulties of this Williamson/McG ill/M wadui connection. ON LV PART OF THE STORY shift are indeed political: the purveyors Congratulations on taking the opportunity Daniel McCabe's article on cancer of carcinogens are reluctant to sponsor of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee to research (Spring-Summer 2012) was research that might confirm that there is publish the story. very informative and gives McGill the an epidemic whose causes are known and ANNE KHOSHABI scientific credit that it deserves. However, whose occurrence is preventable. Bahrain your readers should be aware that almost DAVID BENNETT, PhD'73 all the cancer research depicted in the arti former director, health, cle is dedicated to the treatment of cancer safety and environment, and not to preventing disease, the inci Canadian Labour Congress dence of cancer. The author of the article Ottawa, Ontario writes that "for decades, many scientists mused that cancer was caused by some Dr. Ben nett makes some valuable points and sort of outside agent." Well, they did much I could have done more to highlight the role more than muse: extensive toxicological played by environmental factors in causing and epidemiological studies identifed a cancer, although I didn't ignore it completely. whole range of carcinogenic substances I did write that "certainly carcinogens like SAFDIE UPDATE and processes in food, the workplace and cigarettes do play an instrumental role" in I enjoy the McGill News whenever it the environment. Much of this research causing cancer and when one of the research comes in the mail. A great balance of is summed up in the publications of the ers quoted in my story talked about how text, design, interest and civil discourse. UN International Agency for Research and cancer death rates are dropping, he singled While reading the Moshe Safdie item on Cancer (IARC), which classifies carcinogens out the decline in smoking as a pivotal page 43, I wanted to make sure that you are as known human, probable and possible. factor. I think Dr. Ben nett does something aware of some dramatic current designs. The article dismisses this research of a disservice to Siddhartha Mukherjee's Marina Bay in Singapore is open as merely "instrumental" in causing Pulitzer Prize-winning book. While Dr. and now an iconic building featuring the cancer, only half the truth. The response Mukherjee does focus much attention on world's first skypark, a "plein-air" roof of the cancer research community, as recent advances in our understanding of structure that spans three towers and is summed up in Siddhartha Mukherjee's how cancer develops within our bodies, he difficult to describe in text. Numerous The Emperor ofA ll Maladies: A Biography also points to the discovery of the carcino projects in China such as the even more of Cancer, is to contend that the entire genic effects ofs moking as one oft he most intense Raffle City in Chong Qing are in question of causation is to be found significant achievements in the history of full design stage. I work at Mr. Safdie's within the human body and until the combatting cancer. studio building models. internal mechanisms of carcinogenesis My son is a recent graduate at McGill are known, we should take no preventive Something on your mind? and is now enjoying the "McGill bump" action about carcinogens in the outside in his super interesting employment. world at all. This is a thoroughly reaction Write to us at: McGi/1 News Montreal is still his favoured city, even as ary position, which leads to the program 1555 Peel Street, Suite 900 he tools around San Francisco. of research on cancer treatment to the Montreal, Quebec From the land down under (New exclusion of preventive measures in the Hampshire) we send regards to all at world outside the human body. Canada H3A 3L8 McGill News. A proper research program on preven Or send an em ail to: MARSHALL PECK Ill tion would be to accumulate knowledge [email protected] Londonderry, New Hampshire about the stew of carcinogens within the MCGILL NEWS· FALLIWI TER 2012 5 ''''4l;••:•++i;'8wll;iil''''''' Broadening our view of the world In your presentation to the Conseil Would you say Quebec universities In the fifties, about half of McGill's des relations internationales de are attracting enough international medical students came from outside Montreal, you argued that it was vital students? Canada, predominantly from the U.S. That for Quebec universities to attract Notwithstanding McGill's extensive network of McGill medical graduates in students from outside the country. population of international students, Boston, New York and California has been Some would say that the government overall, Quebec's share of Canada's inter a tremendous source of scientific and dollars spent on those students should national student population has declined professional collaboration. go to other causes that provide a more from 33 percent in 2001 to 25 percent tangible benefzt to Quebecers. in 2010. That's heading in the wrong Do you feel the new Quebec That would be a short-sighted way to direction. One key recommendation in a government's decision to cancel tuition view the matter. Without question, recent report on Canada's international fee increases will be a positive step studying with people from other coun education strategy commissioned by toward attracting international tries gives Quebec students a broader the federal government is to double students? view of the world and a global network the number of full-time international Not at all. International students who of contacts upon graduation. At McGill, students that Canadian universities come here can go anywhere in the world. we believe a university education should recruit over the next decade. We have The quality of the experience is what help develop citizens who are familiar tremendous assets to promote in mak draws them here. We saw this with our with the major cultures and religions ing Quebec an international student MBA program. We recently deregulated of the world and who appreciate differ destination. Montreal is one of the most tuition fees and began to invest more in ent experiences, different ideas and university-student intensive cities in the our program, including in student finan different points of view. world. The cultural experience offered to cial support. Since the tuition fees were There is another factor. Quebec and students here is absolutely unique. increased, applications to the program Canada face huge demographic challenges, and student enrolment have both gone up. and international students can play a role During the Quebec election, Franfois The program is increasingly popular with in addressing them. They've been exposed Legault, the leader of the Coalition Quebec students. The quality of our MBA to Quebec's culture, to its values and to Avenir Quebec, complained that too students remains very high. the French language. They form contacts many McGill medical graduates leave I'm not a fan of American-style high that allow them to think about planting the province. What is your response? tuition fees at all, but nobody wants a roots in Quebec. We care deeply about keeping most bargain-basement quality of university Aldo Bensadoun is a great example of of our graduates in Quebec, not just education, even if it's free. I think that that. He was raised in Morocco and France, in medicine, but from all disciplines. Canada has developed an effective tuition came to the US initially to study, but was Roughly 90 percent of our medical framework, where the average is $6,000 attracted to McGill and completed his students come from Quebec and about per year, plus differential fees for profes studies here. He stayed in Montreal and 75 per cent of our medical residents sional programs that cost much more started Aldo Group, which has become an stay in Quebec upon graduation. We've to deliver. extraordinarily successful multinational worked hard to persuade our medical What we need for the university company by any standard, and a Quebec graduates-from Quebec and elsewhere system is more financial aid for those in jewel. There are many examples from the -to see Quebec as a place where they'll need. Those who can afford to pay a bigger professions-medicine, law, engineering, want to practice their profession. share, within reasonable limits-and I the arts-of international students doing But even when our graduates leave, definitely believe in reasonable limits great things in Quebec after graduating. they remain a strong asset for Quebec. should do that. "' 6 MCG!LL NEWS · FALL/WINTER 2012 While most of the city is tucked in bed, while students Artists respond in kind, with well-loved bands visiting the station • • • • ::·· are rushing to class, while Montrealers enjoy a morning for live performances-just this summer, for example, Sierra latte or an after-work glass of Pi not Noir, McGill's community Leone's Refugee All Stars, who were in town for the Nu its d' Afrique radio station, CKUT, is on the air. festival, dropped by for a visit. The fact that CKUT broadcasts live content 24 hours a day, The station's studios play host to youth summer camps, 365 days a year, is an impressive feat on its own. The fact that seniors training sessions and workshops for the disabled, as well this non-stop operation is run almost entirely by hundreds of as year:round radio orientations for McGill students who receive dedicated volunteers is quite another. schooling in how to conduct interviews, write news stories, The station, which made its campus debut in 1966 as Radio produce documentaries and host shows. McGill, is celebrating a milestone this fall. CKUT has now been Veterans of the station have gone on to successful careers in reaching a much wider audience at 90.3 on the FM dial for a the media and arts; CTV Montreal's news and public affairs direc quarter of a century. tor Jed Kahane, BA'88, musician and recent Polaris Prize finalist "Before," explains long-time staff member Louise Burns, Grimes and Arcade Fire eo-founder Regine Chassagne have all "college radio had a stereotype-a couple of music nerds from passed through the station's colourful corridors. campus playing their favourite, obscure music to a handful of So what kinds of people are drawn to CKUT? "All kinds," says friends. We may have started out that way, but now, the program Burns, "because of the incredibly diverse programming. We have ming is extremely diverse." people in here at three in the morning, over Christmas, and long Few top 40 hits get airplay at the station, but, depending on after they've graduated." when you're listening, you'll be able to hear local indie pop, blue As for the next 25 years-the staff have their fingers firmly on grass, traditional Acadian tunes, seventies-era punk, Bollywood the pulse of this generation. The CKUT site is packed full of MP3 songs, acid funk, reggae and a whole lot more. "lt's pretty varied archives, videos, photos and blog posts, and the space continues around here," says Burns. "lt's not unusual to have Muslims hand to evolve into a comprehensive hub of alternative radio-related ing over the mic to metalheads." content. But if you're old fashioned, you can still catch them on Forty percent of the station's financial support comes from the wireless: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, there is always student fees, and the rest from grants and donations. "We are someone live on air at CKUT. very lucky to receive support from our listeners and donors," says JESSICA McGOVERN Caitlin Manicom, BA'lO, the station's funding and outreach coordi nator. "Once, during our annual funding drive, someone phoned in CKUT is inviting all former volunteers and staffers to share their to say that he didn't have money, but was there anything else we stories of working at the station and to send in photos from their needed. We looked around and realized we didn't have a clock days at CKUT. You can contact the station at [email protected]. the next day he turned up with a bag full of them!" CKUT prides itself on the tentacles it has in the local music and arts scene and constantly shines a much-needed spotlight on emerging bands, cultural happenings and festivals of every genre. MCG!LL NEWS · FALL/WINTER 2012 7 ~ .ll.:w+.i'ii1'w'*l~~•:•lwilli•iflijlll _______________________________________________________________________________ HOW SWEET IT IS VD, or not VD: th~tt?.t.h~qq~?.t~9n~ When most people think ofWilliam Shakespeare, they imagine great tragedies, kings and queens, and star-crossed lovers. But as JOHN j. ROSS, MDCM'92, points out, many passages in the Bard of Avon's works are also laced with references to something decidedly less grandiose: venereal disease. In his new book, Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwel/'s Cough, Ross speculates that this saturated carnal content, combined with the shaky handwriting that the playwright developed later in life, may be evidence that Shakespeare suffered from syphilis. "Shakespeare was known to be a promiscuous fellow and sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis were fairly common during 16th century England," says Ross, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. The book uses contemporary medical knowledge to examine the impact of maladies on the lives and works of famous wordsmiths. and was subjected to the dubious treatments of a quack doctor who George Orwell, notes Ross, chain-smoked, was wounded by a sniper's poured cold water on the lame limb from a second-story window to bullet during the Spanish Civil War, and ultimately died after a three reduce inflammation. Hawthorne, Ross diagnoses, probably died from year battle with tuberculosis, a tribulation that the English-born gastrointestinal cancer, a condition no doubt impacted by the writer's author credited for inspiring his masterpiece, 1984. fondness for cigars and red meat. Moby-Dick creator Herman Melville wrestled with a host of "My hope is that the book will both instruct and entertain," says psychiatric illnesses, possibly including bipolar disorder, post-trau Ross, "and that readers will be left with a greater appreciation for the matic stress disorder and alcoholism. And then there was Nathaniel authors and for everything they achieved despite their illnesses." Hawthorne, of The Scarlet Letterfame, who, as a boy, injured his foot GARY FRANCOEUR 8 MCGILL NEWS · FALL/WINTER 2012

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.