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Published by the Students’ Society of McGill University
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Valiant members o f the engineering football league hit fu ll stride and braved Montreal’s generours offering o f November snow on lower campus.
Senate approves central exam bank
Kirshner in control By Lee O berlander Mia Kirshner, an on-and-off McGill student and up-and-coming starlet, is trying to make it in Hollywood while still holding on to “what’s real.” For a relativ e new -com er, Kirshner has a long list of films to her credit. Since her debut in Atom Egoyan’s award-winning Exotica, Kirschner has appeared in Murder in the First, The Crow: City o f A ngels, a film version of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and now Mad City with Dustin Hoffman and John T ravolta and directed by Costa Gavras. Such exposure is certain to be accompanied by a dizzying dose of celebrity, but Mia seems to be taking it all in stride. Many of us have seen her in the Alley talking to friends or por ing over her books. Others knew her in first year when she lived in Solin. When the Tribune inter viewed her, she was perched on an elegantly upholstered couch in the honeym oon suite of the Ritz Carlton. Her Montreal contact ush ered reporters in and out of the warm ly lit room and K irshner repeated again and again what she’s all about. If her comments seem rehearsed at tim es, i t ’s because they are — about twenty times a day.
Rachel Ong
“I can ’t describe m yself because I’m different things on dif ferent days. I think the thing is, look, I find it very easy to slip into other lives and other people’s lives,” she asserted. “It feels very natural for me to be in this room; at the same time I feel just as comfortable being at McGill and running out of money and having to eat popcorn a few nights in a row.” She insisted that she will eventually return to the austere life of the student and finish her degree, but in her own time. Kirshner doesn’t worry about los ing a window of opportunity in her acting career while studying. “By living in fear, that sort of paralyzes you. Opportunity will always be there. I think in this industry it’s important to be fear less. I think that’s why I’ve been able to move forward, because I just don’t care.” Ambitious to her very core, Mia thrives on challenge. “Every time somebody said ‘you can’t do th a t,’ something would click inside of me and say ‘yes, I can, I’m going to show you that I’m going to do this.’ So, in a way, I’d like to thank everybody who tried to tell me that I’ll never
By C hristine Pritchard The McGill Senate recently approved a proposal to institution alize the practice of making old exams available to current students. After this year’s December finals, all exams will be released to McGill libraries for students’ use. Last year, Senate’s Academic Planning and Policy Committee was approached by students con cerned about inequity in examina tions. Students complained that some of their peers had acquired old exams via certain professors, thereby gaining an unfair advantage over those who had not had the same access. In response, a work group was formed under the APPC to come up with recommendations for new exam regulations. According to the Report to Senate of the Workgroup on Exam Security, “some instructors assume, and attempt to ensure, that exam papers (both midterms and finals) from previous years are not avail able to current students. In fact, a few students do generally gain access to old examinations. Where questions are repeated year to year a substantial inequity is created.” The exam security workgroup made eleven recommendations to help improve exam security, the
last of which was to create an exam bank. Vice Principal Academic and APPC chair Bill Chan believes that students will benefit from two main aspects of the exam bank. “The first [effect] is a peda gogical one. I think it is good for the students to know what the pre vious exams are like and that pro fessors have to revise their exams every year. The second is the issue of fairness. With old exams avail able in the public domain, all stu dents will have equal access and therefore, have a level playing field in writing the exam,” Chan said. In addition to the equity factor, Professor Mary Mackinnon, chair of the workgroup, believes old exams can help students become more familiar with their teachers and courses. “Sometimes looking at old exams will give you a better idea of what a course will be about than the reading list does,” Mackinnon com mented. Furtherm ore, M ackinnon believes that making exams avail able on reserve will lead professors to raise their expectations of stu dents. “In the future, when I choose to reuse old questions, I know that all students will have had an oppor
tunity to think about them before they wrote the exam ,” said Mackinnon. “I will adjust the stanContinued on page 5
F ea t u r ed I n sid e UVic: policy aims to profit off the intellectual property of e m p lo y e e s...............................Pg.5 Female Condom: putting safe sex in women's control...............Pg.9 NAFTA: the lowdown on media coverage..................................Pg. 11 Film : three flicks vie for your entertainment dollar.......... Pg-14 Sports: men's hockey upsets thirdranked G u e lp h .................... Pg-16 W hat's O n listings............. Pg.79
Sexual Assault i 'cnee of M cGill Student’s Société
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Continued on page 13 M onday Buckwheat & Lentil Salad Tabouleh Bruschetta T uesday Sw eet & Sour b y C h ef R obert Break the routine... try a vegetarian experience that's w ell-bal anced, nutritional, finest quality ingredients with no additives or preservatives. Scrumptious food with high impact taste
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