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There is a certain relationship between students and professors that makes students wary of approaching the people at the front of lecture halls.

Osamah Al-Gayyali, now a third-year Biochemistry student, decided to do something about this. He got the idea while at the Biochemistry Society’s “Meet the Profs” event in his second year, where he could not shake the feeling of fear when approaching professors. Ironically, the event was held specifically with the goal of fostering student professor relations.

When he saw his first semester professor Karun Singh, Al-Gayyali pulled him aside and took a different approach. He asked Singh if he would take a selfie with him. To his surprise, Singh agreed.

“I take my phone out and all of a sudden I see three other biochem students trying to squeeze in … So, I went on for the next two to three weeks, taking selfies with every single professor I knew. Dr. Yang, Dr. Miller, Eric Brown...” recalled Al-Gayyali.

From a single selfie came a collection, and from that collection Professors of McMaster was born. Inspired by Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York, Al-Gayyali decided to adapt the concept to showing students that professors are approachable.

Al-Gayyali decided that it was time to move past selfies, recruiting Annie Cheng to take pictures for the page instead. Cheng and Al-Gayyali were already well acquainted. In fact, all five team members behind the initiative were in the same biochemistry group.

“Except for Mohammad [Ali Khan]. He was the outsider,” they joked, clearly at ease with one another.

Already two years in the running, the Facebook page for Professors of McMaster is bound to feature at least one professor familiar to any given student. Each post involves a lengthy process.

“From the interviews, we try to get something out of them that they don’t present during lectures and stuff, so more of their personal side. But sometimes profs are uncomfortable with sharing that side of them,” said Cheng.

“So we ask them questions related to their education and history … their interests,” added Ali Khan.

When asked what is so intimidating about professors, the group joked around, saying “they were old and scary.” On a more sombre tone, it became apparent that the fact that professors hold your marks and sometimes even your future in their hands was a big factor. The other was the fear that professors were too wise and busy to glean any benefit from conversations with students – a myth that professors shot down immediately in interviews with Professors of McMaster.

“Because interviews are in their offices, I was worried it would be boring and look the same. But every prof has a different style, I find, which is interesting to me.”

Keeping things in perspective was another important message that professors seemed to communicate. “You know, at the time, you feel like you’re under a lot of strain but, in the grand scheme of things, like one midterm or test isn’t going to define your future. I think that’s an important message to send out to students,” said Nafis Hossain.

While the interviews follow interesting narratives, Cheng says that the pictures tell a story on their own. “When I first went in though, because [interviews are] all in their offices, I was worried it would be boring and look the same. But every prof has a different style, I find, which is interesting to me.”

In the future, Professors of McMaster hopes to start a webpage, where they can post full transcripts and audio clips of the interviews.

Photo Credit: Jon White/ Photo Editor

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Nazwa Warda Bintay Salim
The Silhouette

The earth is a very small planet when considering this whole milky galaxy as part of a gigantic universe. We, the homo sapiens, the best of creations supposedly by a god, or just through a natural process of selection, have never turned a deaf ear to those tears of our mother earth. The very thought of Earth being a mother to us is not even there anymore.

Just like a mother who grooms up a child in her loving cradle, this mother earth has been very obliging to us to bless with fruits and water, with dates amidst the dry, deadly and sweltering desserts, nurturing us with rain for a golden harvest, rivers flowing with shoals of fish for fisherman to live on or with the fresh tint of air to breathe in a hot sunny day. It showered us with the beautiful soft flaky snows so that we can enjoy the perfect chilly Christmas nights with a hot cup of coffee.

No ink can describe the enormous and countless ways we have been blessed with this small planet, only bothering to acquire ungratefully as much as we can from it never realizing that each of us are obligated to return to it at least the smallest amount that we can.

Survival of the fittest has been the only mantra of the 21st century. In the competitive run for materialistic accomplishment we have always brutally killed and knowingly murdered the innocence within us, not knowing what aftermaths we are leaving behind as footprints for our next generations to manage.

Nature has endured our actions. Over the years mother nature has waited patiently for better days.

The results are right in front of our eyes. We need to open our eyes to the truth, not intentionally hide away from it for our own selfish benefits. Success and achievement can no longer have a positive effect on us if we are to leave behind our children with a plundered planet, floating in deadly breathable poison.

This sudden abrupt and shocking changes in our weather pattern, extreme chilly winds with severe ice-storms, to the engulfing of villages with dark choking ashes from thousand-year-old dormant volcanoes suddenly erupting, lava exploding from now-where leaving people homeless and in shock, fire in the middle of the forest destructing villages after villages, households and properties, tornadoes and cyclones rising in unnatural ways to completely loot a whole city in seconds demolishing all structures raised through years. These are all just mere signs that there could be more devastating effects affecting our

It is late already, as manifested from these unanticipated events and calamities. The question thus remains: have we had enough lessons yet? Or do we want to still go back, sit and ponder our own self-interest at the cost of prowling our own mother every day?

I see

fear, illusions, exclusivity, hypocrisy, deception, cynicism, separation, judgment, conflict, control, rigidity , seriousness, ingratitude, pride, blame, shame, weakness, conformity,  competition, bound

We want

Love, Truth, inclusivity, honesty, trust, union , compassion, peace, gratitude, humility, forgiveness, honour, courage, equality, collaboration, free

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