NEWS Senate Continued from cover Engagement Centre to reach out to new businesses for funding. Brendan Gillon, associate professor of linguistics, expressed concern that dependency on external organizations like private businesses for funding might affect the topics chosen for research, and that McGill may consequently see less curiositydriven research. Senate also passed a motion to broadcast their sessions on the internet for a one-year trial period, starting in January 2013. These broadcasts will only be available to members of the McGill community, and will be accessible through a password-protected login. The Ad Hoc Committee on the Recording and Transmission of Senate Meetings brought this motion forward with the intention of making Senate meetings more accessible to the McGill community. “We want to have engagement from the broad university community,” Chandra Madramootoo, chair of the committee and dean of agricultural and environmental sciences, said.
I N S B RIEF W E N Former director general of muhc, arthur porter, sued by university
Last Tuesday, McGill announced its decision to pursue legal action against Dr. Arthur Porter, the former director general and chief executive officer of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). McGill seeks the reimbursement of $317,153.89—a total that includes a $285,000 loan granted to Porter in 2008, and $30,131.63 in salary overpayment following his resignation in December 2011. According to the Montreal Gazette, McGill originally lent Porter $500,000 at one per cent annual interest in 2008. When Porter resigned from his position at MUHC, he had paid back $214,409 of the loan. “Despite the fact that [Porter] had promised to reimburse the university, the amount owing remains outstanding,” McGill’s press release
read. “The university has therefore decided to take action to ensure the prompt repayment of these sums.” McGill has not disclosed the reason for the loan, nor any information regarding the university’s loan policy to date. According to the Gazette, evidence suggests that the loan is related to Porter’s real-estate investments. Porter allegedly purchased a penthouse apartment in downtown Montreal for over $500,000 in September 2004, and his wife bought a penthouse condominium for over $1 million in December 2007. In March 2008, Porter received the $500,000 loan from McGill, and signed a promissory note acknowledging it. The loan was signed again three months later in the presence of a notary, at which point it became a
“housing loan agreement.” Further investigation by the Gazette has revealed that, in addition to his nearly $350,000 salary as the head of the MUHC, Porter earned a second salary at McGill for teaching as a professor of oncology in the faculty of medicine. However, when the Gazette inquired into Porter’s position as a professor, none of 12 professors in the department of oncology who responded could admit to ever having seen Porter teach. “I was surprised to learn … that Dr. Porter was receiving a salary as a professor of oncology,” Dr. Vincent Giguère, professor in oncology and biochemistry, told the Gazette. “He is not listed as a professor of oncology on our department website ... and I have never seen him at departmental functions.”
McGill has refused to disclose Porter’s professorial salary to the public, saying that information about professors’ salaries is “private.” Quebec’s anti-corruption squad is also seeking to question Porter about MUHC’s procurement of the $1.3 billion superhospital contract. However, Porter’s current whereabouts are unknown. Porter’s most recent communication with McGill was an email dated Oct. 23, in which he promised to pay back the loan. McGill has stated that it will make no further comment on the lawsuit, as the case is currently under review by the Quebec Superior Court. —Bea Britneff
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student government
Council debates creation of additional representative to TaCEQ SSMU VP External hopes to increase student awareness of the inter-university student association Jimmy Lou Contributor Last Thursday, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Council met in Burnside 511, one of two Active Learning Classrooms (ALC) at McGill. Included in the topics of discussion was its relationship with the Quebec Student Roundtable (Table de concertation étudiante du Québec, or TaCEQ) and the possibility of creating another representative position on TaCEQ. McGill currently has four representative seats on TaCEQ. SSMU Vice-President External Robin ReidFraser said Council would increase SSMU commitment to TaCEQ if they created another permanent position for representation. “McGill has a lot of people who are from outside Quebec,” Reid-Fraser said. “My understanding is that a lot of people don’t even know we are a part of TaCEQ, or what it’s for. So it’s important for us to get word out there with things like newsletters or organizing events like panel discussions.” Created in 2009, TaCEQ is a province-wide round-table for mem-
ber student associations to lobby the government as a collective. SSMU is currently one of three members alongside student associations from Université Laval and Université de Sherbrooke. With these three associations, TaCEQ represents 65,000 students in Quebec. “Ultimately, TaCEQ is intended to function as a formalized round-table, where member student associations can, with a louder voice, lobby the government with improved success,” the SSMU website reads. “The structure of TaCEQ is built to prevent it from turning into a large organization carried away with its own purpose and disconnected from its base.” TaCEQ is mostly volunteerbased and operates with a small budget. It does not charge its own membership fees like other large student associations, according to Reid-Fraser. Instead, TaCEQ approves its finances at the beginning of the financial year and its expenses at monthly meetings. “Currently we use this structures because TaCEQ is small and fairly new compared to the other associations,” Reid-Fraser said. “If we get more member associations and
are able to work with a larger budget, then the structure may changesomewhat.” Some councillors raised concerns about electing a new representative to TaCEQ, and suggested that SSMU does not take full advantage of its current level of representation, since many of McGill’s seats are empty during meetings. They also discussed to whom the new TaCEQ representative would be responsible, and under which student organizations on campus the representative would serve. “I would really want to integrate [SSMU Council] and the TaCEQ representatives,” Reid-Fraser said. “Once we get a better picture of what we need [at the] next [TaCEQ] meeting, I’ll be able to bring the feedback and issues back to Council and go forward from there. Hopefully we can find agreement by then [about] what we’re looking for.” SSMU Council is usually held in the Lev Bukhman Room in the Shatner Building. Thursday’s meeting was SSMU’s second “roaming Council” of the year, which is why it was held in Burnside 511. “The purpose of ‘roaming Council’ is to expose the council to
SSMU’s ‘roaming council’ in Burnside 511. (Michael Paolucci / McGill Tribune) different parts of campus, and I think the active learning classroom is an exciting project that could be great for students,” SSMU President Josh Redel said. As part of the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-Down Pedagogies project, ALCs were designed in 2009 to facilitate learning and teaching experiences. Since then, the Teaching and Learning Spaces Working Group at McGill has overseen ALCs at McGill to help enrich education experiences. “You’re not in rows, you’re not facing the same direction, and you can roll around on your chairs,” Oksana Maibroda, McGill’s Educational Technology Consultant, said. “What this room allows for lecture,
is that if the teacher wants to work on certain subject, he or she has a lot of ways to communicate to the students.” Burnside 511 features multiple large overhead projection screens, as well as chairs and desks which allow students to face one another, rather than a professor’s podium. Much like a computer lab, the rotating chairs are easily adjustable and designed to facilitate students break ing into discussion groups. “This is one of the many cool things that McGill’s been working on,” Redel said. “At McGill, the problem is how to make classrooms smaller and more interactive. It’s cool that people on the administration and staff members are working on this.”