C/O Travis Nguyen, Photo Editor
Second-years were able to experience their own Welcome Week after a year of online class
Often, when students think about the beginning of their university experience, they think about Welcome Week, a week dedicated to welcoming first-year students to campus. Welcome Week provides first-year students with the opportunity to meet new people and orient themselves around campus.
However, students who entered university in the year of 2020 faced a new reality to this monumental event. For the majority of those students, classmates were met virtually, through platforms such as Zoom. Though this had its own benefits, these students were not able to experience Welcome Week.
The missed occasion was not unnoticed by those who planned Welcome Week as McMaster University announced that these students who missed out would be able to join their classmates on Sept. 11, 2021.
Second-year undergraduate students were offered a Second-Year Welcome, where they can register for and attend a variety of events meant to capture community-building aspects of an in-person Welcome Week.
In the morning, students can discover the student services provided by McMaster, then have a few hours to meet peers within their faculty and make friends at different MSU events. These events seem to very simply condense what would have happened over a week into a day.
“We want to give you the in-person welcome we couldn’t give you at Welcome Week 2020,” the Student Success Centre said in their announcement.
Jacquie Hampshire and Rachel Nelson were two of the staff members of the SSC who helped ensure that Second-Year Welcome unfolds accordingly. They stated that given how last year's welcome week had panned out, this year's welcome was in the making for over a year.
“When we had learned that last year was going to be a virtual welcome week, at that time the welcome week advisory committee alongside all of our partners on campus had committed to hosting an in-person event when it was safe to do so. So this has been, I would now say, well over a year in terms of thinking about this welcome, and waiting until we were safely able to welcome students to McMaster campus,” said Hampshire.
"When we had learned that last year was going to be a virtual welcome week, at that time the welcome week advisory committee alongside all of our partners on campus had committed to hosting an in-person event when it was safe to do so. So this has been, I would now say, well over a year in terms of thinking about this welcome, and waiting until we were safely able to welcome students to McMaster campus."
Jacquie Hampshire, staff member of the SSC
While discussing the meticulous planning that went into this event, Hampshire and Nelson explained the question that was on many second-year students’ minds: Why was a traditionally week-long event limited to a single day? When asked this question it was all down to one word: accessibility.
“We had considered all options when we were looking at the planning of this event to figure out what was going to be the best. We had landed on offering a one day event for a number of reasons. One is just logistically, for students that are living out of town to provide them the opportunity to be able to come to campus. Offering the event on multiple days doesn’t afford the quite same accessibility for students that may not be in close proximity to the campus. Looking at a one day format has allowed us to maximize the event and also be able to provide this event to all students,” said Hampshire.
They were also asked how exactly the entirety of the second-year population would be on campus while maintaining social distancing guidelines. Hampshire and Nelson quickly reassured that when sign-ups for events had 100 person limits on each and all events were guaranteed to be outside.
Alongside this, students were also required to use MacCheck to ensure they were allowed on campus. MacCheck is an app where McMaster students have to upload proof of vaccination and daily check-ins to ensure that no one is entering campus with COVID-19. With all these precautions put in place, it would maintain the guidelines that were instructed by the city of Hamilton.
As Vice-President of Student Affairs for the McMaster Science Society, Isabelle Son was in charge of ensuring that second-year science students would be able to socialize with their faculty peers during the event.
She was asked to summarize what she wanted Second-Year Welcome to achieve.
“It’s an opportunity for second years to meet each other, because they didn’t get the opportunity to have on-res experience or the in-person welcome experience last year. I know that’s where I met a lot of my friends, and how I met lots of people so this would be an opportunity for them to socialize with their peers and get a glimpse of what welcome week in-person would look like for them,” said Son.
With the large variety and possible popularity among some events, Son’s team had to plan how to ensure science events were all within guidelines.
“Our capacity for outside is 100 people. But we are splitting it up into three different stations and all three stations are in different areas on the Burke Science Building field. So each station can have 100 people. We will have 20 executives and/or representatives at each station so that means only 80 students can sign up for each station. Masks will be encouraged, all the executives and representatives will be wearing them. Within events, each person will be spaced out and put into smaller groups at each station. This is to encourage interacting with less people,” Son explained.
McMaster’s second-years have waited diligently for the idea of a proper welcome to the campus where they will be spending their years as a young adult. The Second-Year Welcome has given them the opportunity they had been waiting for.
This is a sponsored post done by the McMaster Alumni Association and Campus Events, this is was not made by The Silhouette.
Together with MSU Campus Events, the Alumni Association is here to help you kick off the year with excitement. Take advantage of all the events we have planned for Light Up the Night and join the rest of the McMaster community in the fun from the comfort of your home!
http://alumni.mcmaster.ca/lutn2021
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Space, the final frontier — these are the words uttered by television’s space captain Jean-Luc Picard aboard the starship Enterprise-D. Star Trek nurtured the world’s passion for space exploration, inspiring awe and wonder about the dark abyss that surrounds us. We exist in this unknown under the twinkling lights of the stars, in the midst of the slow harmonious orbit of planets dancing to the music of outer space.
Back on Earth, Kronos String Quartet is playing along to this music. For David Harrington, founder and violinist of the group, music is as mysterious as space.
“To me music is a very personal, it’s almost human substance that we create for each other. We get to share it with each other. As a musician, all it means is that from a very early age, that’s what you wanted to have around you all the time, but it’s a mystery. How it works? I cannot tell you. I do not know. I’m in awe of music,” said Harrington.
Growing up in Seattle, Washington, Harrington started forming string quartets — a group of four musicians comprising of violin, viola, cello and bass — when he was 12 years old. When he turned 14, something did not make sense to him. He looked at the globe that sat in his family home and realized that all of the music he played and listened to were by the same people out of Vienna: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0CQHpQAXKr/
“The globe has more cities and religions. I needed to explore the world of music. That started me on a voyage that I continue to this very day of wanting to know more of music, more about cultures, languages, religions, traditions and forms of music,” said Harrington.
“The globe has more cities and religions. I needed to explore the world of music. That started me on a voyage that I continue to this very day of wanting to know more of music, more about cultures, languages, religions, traditions and forms of music,” said Harrington.
Growing up towards the end of the 1960s, the U.S.-Vietnam war shook American values and left a long lasting impression on Harrington. He and his wife left the United States in 1972 in fear that he would be drafted for the war. Signing a one-year contract with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, Harrington played in British Columbia until returning to his home one year later.
“[The war] influences all of us a great deal . . . I feel like Kronos was created in 1973 in the shadow of that war . . . The idea that music can be an essential aspect of life and even a counterbalance to events and can actually become a way of responding and even countering directions that things are moving in. That’s right at the heart of why we started this group,” said Harrington.
Kronos String Quartet is based out of San Francisco, California. Harrington has been at the helm of the group as a violin player ever since its inception in November of 1973. The group’s other members are John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola) and Sunny Yang (cello), who play together to form a dynamic mix of stringed voices.
The quartet will be performing “Sun Rings” composed by Terry Riley, a friend of the group. The idea for the piece came in 2000 when Harrington’s manager received a phone call from NASA. NASA asked if the group would be interested in using recordings from the Voyager space probes, which were launched to conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn. While space itself does not emit noise, plasma waves can be recorded via a receptor and transposed into sound waves, producing audible noise.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzt_t_UAtt6/
After hearing the recording, Harrington quickly called Riley to ask him to compose a piece that complimented the music of space. However when disaster struck on Sept. 11, 2001, Riley stopped composing and reconsidered the entire piece. He rewrote “Sun Rings” as a musical response to 9/11, finishing the piece in 2002.
The composer knew that somehow he wanted to integrate the pain he was feeling into the music. In the performance’s final song entitled “One Earth, One People, One Love”, Riley used voice recordings of poet Alice Walker as she chants “One Earth, one people, one love”. Riley recorded Walker during a demonstration following the 9/11 terror attack the day before.
The composer knew that somehow he wanted to integrate the pain he was feeling into the music. In the performance’s final song entitled “One Earth, One People, One Love”, Riley used voice recordings of poet Alice Walker as she chants “One Earth, one people, one love”.
Riley also used audio recordings of Gene Cernan, the most recent astronaut to walk on the moon. Cenran’s voice can be heard at the opening of the piece as he says, “You have to literally just pinch yourself and ask yourself the question, silently, 'Do you really know where you are at this point in time in space and in reality and in existence, when you look out the window, and you're looking back at the most beautiful star in the heavens?’” This was Cernan’s testament to the beauty of Earth.
“We hope that “Sun Rings” as an experience will radiate out into the community, through the audience, through the choir that joins us, through all of us,” said Harrington.
Kronos String Quartet brings a unique performance to McMaster, not only through the music involved, but also through the message that they convey. The piece was created to instill hope and bring the world together during a time where many felt isolated. Combining these ideas with the vast unknown that is outer space, the piece emphasizes the unity of humankind.
“I think that my allowing Sun Rings to enter your life, I think a person will find a larger sense of appreciation for what we have right here, right now,” said Harrington. “Music is very mysterious, we never know when we will connect with another listener . . . it just gives more of a sense of wonder and wonder is such a beautiful thing.”
Kronos String Quartet will be playing “Sun Rings” (T. Riley) accompanied by the McMaster University and Women’s Choirs on Nov. 9 at 8 p.m. and on Nov. 10 at 2 p.m. in L.R. Wilson Concert Hall as a part of The Socrates Project.
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By Marzan Hamid, Contributor
McMaster University’s Welcome Week is loud and full of spirit — and rightfully so. It is the one week of the year where students are allowed to be shamelessly rowdy and proud of the school they go to. It is a time for first years to make McMaster and its community their home.
However, in order to truly make Mac a home for everyone, the week needs to be accessible to a wider range of personalities. It needs to welcome both those who love the noise, and those who don’t.
McMaster is a diverse university in many ways. As its students, we have many different mother tongues, we coexist in different faiths and we study different passions. Students at Mac come from all points of the personality spectrum, too. However, these differences don’t seem to be taken into consideration.
Welcome Week events are synonymous to heaven for extroverts. Loud crowds during faculty fusion? Hell yeah. Meeting 300 new people in a day and introducing the same three details over and over again? Nothing better. Raving to Bryce Vine in a mosh pit? Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
On the flip side, introverts find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. For people who want some downtime away from the large crowds where they cannot find much more than a few superficial connections, Welcome Week can be emotionally draining. While faculty and residence reps can be a huge resource for this exhaustion, it is undeniable that a disproportionate number of Welcome Week events cater to extroverted students, leaving their introverted counterparts feeling forced into situations they would much rather avoid.
The few low-key events that do exist are not as well promoted or organized. Things like painting or hikes can get crowded easily and limit the intimacy of connections that can be formed. Not to mention, introverted out-of-province and international students can easily feel isolated if they don’t already have friends on campus.
Small group activities are especially hard to come by in larger faculties where organization becomes difficult — however, we must remember who and what the week is for: for embracing new Marauders. Despite the challenges we may encounter when making students feel at home, it should be emphasized that there is truly something available for everyone to try. Whether that is through small group activities running alongside the bigger events (which are promoted just as much), or having designated areas on campus for downtime activities, we need to make strides to make this nervous time of year easier for everyone.
Many students are on their own for the first time in their life; this comes with its own set of problems and anxieties. Welcome Week shouldn’t have to be another. It should be a week as enjoyable for the social butterflies as it is for the wallflowers.
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When Drake dropped “Marvin’s Room” — the lead single off the rapper’s sophomore album, Take Care — in 2011, a then 15-year-old Roy Woods had it on repeat for weeks on end.
Years later, it would remain his most-played song on iTunes and become a major influence on his songwriting. Little did Woods know, he would go on to sign under Drake’s label, OVO Sound, collaborate with the “Marvin’s Room” crooner himself, and become a member of the renowned OVO family within a few short years.
Roy Woods is somewhat of a hip-hop wunderkind. Not long ago, he was an aspiring rapper from Brampton, Ontario, playing football and attending classes at Turner Fenton Secondary School. Today, he is working with the likes of Drake, The Weeknd, PartyNextDoor and Future.
Music has always played an important role in Woods’ life; the first time he picked up a microphone, he performed “Miami” by Will Smith. The music his parents would play around the house, most prominently Michael Jackson, shaped who he would become as an artist and continues to influence the music he creates today.
In the often distracting world of hip-hop, where music videos and songs boast blinding opulence and unattainable lifestyles, Woods stands out by stripping things back down to the basics. He excels at writing songs that are rooted in his personal narrative, focusing on feelings and past relationships.
He strikes a delicate balance that only a few succeed in doing; he is sweet but not saccharine, relatable but not corny.
Though he is a rapper, Woods has an indisputably exquisite voice. He considers himself a singer above all else; his songs predominantly feature haunting vocals atop a track of intricate beats. There are moments of silence, echoes and orchestral swells, giving his work a signature dreamy quality that so many people have come to love.
Prior to Roy Woods, the Guyanese-Canadian originally operated under the moniker “Pression”. When that name no longer fit his aesthetic, Woods conducted an informal survey in the hallways of Turner Fenton in search for a new name. “Roy Woods” was the winner.
Since then, Woods has gone from regular talent nights at a local YMCA to posting his tracks onto his Soundcloud account to getting a call from Oliver El-Khatib, founder of OVO and Drake’s long-time manager.
“Man, it was actually mind-blowing, you know, even to this day. I was in Grade 7 when I started listening to Drake, I was 12 years old… so from listening to Drake [to Oliver] hitting me up and becoming a part of the family… I’m speechless a lot of the time… because it’s not something I try to spend time thinking about… I just thank God for this opportunity and I continue doing what I have to do,” said Woods.
The allure and mystique surrounding OVO is a global phenomenon. OVO has evolved into more than just “Drake’s brand,” and OVO Sound has become much more than just “Drake’s record label”. Legions of fans have made OVO a part of their identity.
"I love experiencing what those two worlds [have to offer] because there are [people who are so different but also so similar.]"
Roy Woods
Rapper
OVO Sound
While Drake has become the global ambassador for Toronto, everyone in the OVO family has become Toronto hip-hop royalty. Since signing with OVO, Woods has catapulted from being a Soundcloud favourite cloaked in relative anonymity to global stardom.
He released his debut EP, Exis, in 2015, followed by 2016’s Waking At Dawn project and the Nocturnal EP, all to immense support and acclaim from fans and industry folk alike.
“It was a weird transition… [I was just a] high school kid from a small town… and now I’m out here [in Toronto] living this lifestyle… [with] lots of parties, lots of girls, lots of cool and creative people doing their own things. Music was my life, music was what I loved to do, but it was a hobby. Turning your hobby into… your career, you know, that’s [pretty dope].” said Woods.
Last summer, Woods landed one of the biggest gigs of his career thus far — opening for Drake and Future on the Summer Sixteen tour. The show featured guest appearances from a slew of hip-hop heavy weights and surpassed Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch The Throne tour in 2011 as the highest-grossing hip-hop tour of all time.
“[The Summer Sixteen tour] was lit… man, it was lit. That was a blessing… even when I think back to it now [I’m in disbelief]. Being on the tour I was constantly going: ‘This is sick, let’s do this, it’s game time,’ and then coming off of it I was like: ‘Wow, I just did that!’… the flashbacks that I have are crazy and beautiful all at once,” said Woods.
Still, the Brampton native doesn’t think he has made it big just yet. Although his world has changed drastically, he is more focused on what lies ahead in his life and career.
“The music, hip-hop lifestyle is a dream, you know. I feel like I step into two different worlds… when I’m strictly making music I’m on the grind and focused on creating music, but when I’m experiencing the lifestyle I’m out there [having a good time]. I love experiencing what those two worlds [have to offer] because there are [people who are so different but also so similar]… I’ve been learning a lot and taking in all of my surroundings,” said Woods.
Perhaps it is this humility and perspective that has garnered him such a dedicated base of supporters. Music aside, Woods is an extremely personable and cool guy. He is oddly relatable. He is an avid supporter of Supreme and Stone Island, just like many of his fans. “Mask Off” from Future’s recent release, HNDRXX, is his song of the moment. He has stayed in touch with people from high school, but only “the real ones.”
Currently, he is working on his debut album, Say Less.
Fans will have to hang tight to see what exciting collaborations will be featured on his latest project — and whether “Marvin’s Room” still plays an influential role in the Brampton native’s creative process today.
Over the years, Frost Weeks, Light Up the Nights and Homecomings have continuously helped McMaster grow together and celebrate. While there are smaller events sprinkled throughout the year, such as coffee houses and club-related events, they typically only include students with a small set of interests and lack the diversity of large-scale events. The magnitude and anticipation that big MSU events have can’t be matched.
Welcome Week passed, and disappointment followed. Not that it wasn’t a great event, I’m sure a large portion of incoming students will cite it for a long time as being their favourite university experience, but that it doesn’t unite the students as successfully as these other events.
If the point was to include returning students, then the advertising and social media wasn’t there to support that purpose. The McMaster Students Union Facebook page had a total of five posts in August concerning the week — all of them focused on the concerts. The McMaster Welcome Week page was centered on first years with lots of coverage on the reps, first-year experiences and an Issuu featuring tips for starting university.
The MSU Campus Events page had a mixed message. The schedule was posted on Aug. 10. 17 days before the first events, the selection of people who saw the post were able to plan out their schedules well ahead of time. However, the extensive coverage about Airbands only began the day of, Bedracers was previewed only two hours before the event and no other events were featured. While Facebook isn’t the only social media avenue, the MSU often doesn’t focus on alternate web channels. The #McSU sidebar persisted instead of #MacWW2016 on their site, and there is still no Instagram link next to their other social media. There simply wasn’t enough promotion.
If the point is to only include upper years for specific events, why is that the case? A constant bubble already persists for a lot of first years in being confined to faculty and residence cliques. The previously mentioned MSU events and general clubs do a decent job of introducing students to the community at large, but the question becomes whether these alone are good enough.
In Patrick Deane’s “Forward with Integrity” letter in 2011, he notes that “We are an institution devoted to the cultivation of human potential, which we believe cannot be realized by individuals in isolation from one another, from their history or their imagined future, from the society which surrounds them, or from the physical universe which sustains them. Our programs and activities will reflect this comprehensive view.” While intended for a larger discussion on the school’s academic identity, it can be directly applied to the separation that happens between incoming students and the rest of the community that aren’t reps.
There is a big opportunity to introduce new students to a large MSU event early on with the rest of the university outside of sports and concerts.
We already have examples of McMaster being able to serve the entire community with Frost Week and Light Up the Night. While it’s difficult to advocate for fixing what isn’t broken, Welcome Week could serve the purpose of introducing new students to one another and bringing the entire community together at the same time.
Even if none of the events change, simply promoting these events to returning students would help with things like lining the sides of the PJ Parade, give Justin Monaco-Barnes a few more trips to the dunk tank and reminding people they can donate to Shinerama. Even if it was always the case, Welcome Week should feel more like everyone can contribute.
On the surface, it seems unlikely that the announcement of an educational scientist with a penchant for bowties coming to McMaster to speak could cause the kind of hype that has consumed campus for the past several weeks. But when that scientist is Bill Nye, the beloved Science Guy of 1990’s TV programming, any student will tell you that such excitement is warranted.
Speaking to us from his California home on his 58th birthday, Nye was as enthusiastic about science as he was on screen 20 years ago. Since filming wrapped on Bill Nye the Science Guy in 1998, Nye has kept busy with new shows for the Discovery Channel, working with NASA on their Mars mission, and being involved with several scientific societies.
“Right now, one of the troubling things is that I don’t really have an average day,” Nye said. “I travel a lot to visit places like McMaster… The last three months have been busy with this Dancing with the Stars thing…”
While his present activities are fascinating in their own right, most of Bill Nye’s fame stems from the 100 episodes of the Science Guy that play in elementary schools across North America. Its origins, however, are far more humble.
The road to creating the show “took years,” according to Nye. He explained, “I was in a writers’ meeting for this comedy show in Seattle, and we needed to fill six minutes. The host, who is still a dear friend of mine, said, ‘why don’t you do that stuff you’re always talking about… You could be like, I don’t know, Bill Nye the Science Guy or something.’ So I came up with this bit on the household uses of liquid nitrogen – since we all have liquid nitrogen around – and it was funny.”
Those offhand ideas led to the full show eventually airing, fulfilling Nye’s childhood fascination for learning about the world and sharing his enthusiasm with others. He cites his brother as one person who got him into science.
“My older brother was very influential,” Nye said. “He had a chemistry set. And I remember he made ammonia in the palm of my hand, which was quite impressive. And I used to sit … and watch bees. I remember being absolutely fascinated with them. And then one day, I got stung by a bumblebee and my mother put ammonia on the wound. And it was the same smell that my brother had created in the palm of my hand. And I realized there was some… not magic, but mystery to be learned.”
Nye’s appearance at McMaster marks one of the largest and most expensive speaker events that McMaster has seen in recent memory.
Al Legault, director of Campus Events, said, “I’ve never planned anything this large in Burridge for a speaker. We’re used to doing concerts and hypnotists – things like that. Nothing of this [scale]. In this last 10 years at least this is [financially] the largest speaker we’ve had.”
He’s also probably the only speaker they’ve had who would answer birthday greetings with, “Another orbit of the sun! Check me out!”
To hear the extended interview with Bill Nye, tune in to 93.3 CFMU on Friday, Nov. 29 at 9:30 a.m. or visit CFMU’s website afterwards to hear the podcast. Bill Nye will speak at McMaster’s Burridge Gym this Sunday, Dec. 1 at 5 p.m. Tickets are available at Compass in MUSC.
Photo courtesy of NASA/GSFC/Bill Hrybyk (Flickr)
Shrewd students are padding their pockets this week as they capitalize on the free concert coming to Mac at the end of the month.
The TD Pump It Up event has, through the combined effort of student votes, resulted in Diplo, Classified and Keys N Krates playing a free show at the Hamilton Convention Centre this Saturday exclusively for Mac students.
Students waited in line on Nov. 20 for their tickets, which they were eligible for if they voted in the promotion, with preference given to TD members, and some students are turning around and making a tidy profit on their opportunity.
“Selling one ticket with VIP. Message me with offers. Ticket goes to highest bidder,” posted one Mac student on the promotion’s offical Facebook page.
It was just one among many similar postings, as the page’s comments were riddled with more than a hundred such offers, with prices ranging from as low as $25 to heights of $90—which would be all profit.
“By the provincial law, you are technically not allowed to sell a ticket above its price. On the ticket it says zero dollars, so anybody selling a ticket at any price over a dollar or a cent is technically illegal,” said Al Legault, director of campus events.
Ticketholders will be required to present their Mac ID card to gain entry into the event, so ticket scalping will be limited to other McMaster students, but that has not stopped the less than scrupulous entrepreneurial spirit of the student body.
“I think you’re always going to have a black market with tickets. If it’s a ten-dollar event, or a Rolling Stones concert, people are always going to find a way to make money off of it, because of the need. The second that someone needs a ticket, they’re going to want to pay for it,” said Legault.
The sales were not limited to the events page, as likewise offers were being billed on classifieds websites such as Kijiji, where the sellers were not explaining that non-Mac students would be barred from entered the event, creating the possibility of Hamilton citizens being duped of their time and money.
Despite this, the MSU is committed to stem this practice wherever they can. “[The MSU] has been on our social networks. People posting it in ours, we’d remove it right away, so you can’t be selling that. It’s a free event for students,” said Legault.
The act of ticket scalping does not end at Mac, as the universities of Acadia and Moncton, the two other winners of the TD promotion, had comparable amounts of ticket offers on their official event pages.
