From the Editor

Meet The Link 2.0

News — Published April 5, 2011

You may have noticed some changes in this newspaper.

Some sections have different names, the stories are a little longer and the editors have different titles.
While the changes might seem cosmetic for now, The Link is undergoing one of the largest transformations in its history.

Over the past year, the editors of the newspaper discovered that their stories were being read increasingly online. While the 10,000 copies of The Link on the stands were still a favourite on campus, the enthusiasm of the newspaper’s readers seemed to have gone digital, with more than 30,000 unique visitors eyeing the paper monthly.

We are now moving to serve those online eyes better.

Our editorial team has taken it upon itself to do online what the web is best suited for: short stories over the course of the week that keep you in touch with your campus community and the thriving city around you.
Check out our website. The old sections that you know and love, News, Fringe Arts and Sports, have become digital.

The News section has now become a daily and will be Concordia’s source of breaking news. The Fringe Arts section is being transformed; it’s less about

Cinema Politica reviews and more about helping you plan out your night. Finally, Sports will now serve the Stingers junkies on campus with all the stats and summaries they can read.

Where does that leave the paper you are holding?

Dont’ worry, The Link’s print edition isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it is only going to get better. The paper will now respond to what you read online and will make the best stories stronger. The paper’s content will now be longer, more critical and add the voices you were missing online.

Did we mention that it’s going to be better looking, too?

The Incoming Editor

Looking Forward: Information is Power

A couple of weeks back, before any of this Concordia Student Union hoopla, The Link held its own elections and I ran for Editor-in-Chief.

Hi, my name is Laura Beeston. I started on Tuesday. What a week to be given the responsibilities of running a newspaper.

I came to this publication two years ago with great ambitions to be an arts writer, but stayed for the very real sense of community it offers. While I came with absolutely no desire to sit at the helm of this institution, I stayed on because The Link’s mandate to engage with Concordia’s unique campus and culture is far too exciting to find a real job, or get a real life.

To get people talking, listening, reading, thinking and acting is an empowering goal we set for ourselves each week. And—even if it kills us—it is truly an honour to work to inform and mediate a dialogue on campus and beyond.

A dedicated team of student volunteers and contributors are committed to creating this paper to keep you informed and engaged, and it’s truly an inspiring time to work for an independent press.

Right now, in the middle of many crises, Concordia students have just participated in the democratic process in record numbers. People are arguably feeling the changes in the air, and I truly hope that the momentum carries. What will happen now? That is largely up to you, and how you choose to use your news.

Already we’ve seen Quebec students making waves, proving that we aren’t apathetic or unconcerned with the state of the system.

With CEGEP students as young as 16-years-old already fighting—and being beaten by the police—for their belief in accessible education, this is a sign as clear as any that something big is on the horizon. And we are lucky to live—and report—in such politicized times.

Inheriting a world that is far more fucked up than those CSU elections last week, we need to work together, engage and inform each other as we move forward into 2012.

Information is power, and it starts with conversation. It also starts with you. The Link wants to be as accessible as possible—we want to tell your stories, hear your feedback and interact. Like we said last week, we need you.

You just spoke up in record numbers about how you wanted to be represented at this university. The Link truly wants to keep this engagement alive. This is your newspaper, after all, and we need you to form and inform us.

In order to get with the times and get out there, our media platform is also undergoing a major shift. This is a great opportunity to get involved with the ongoing information flow that is the student press. And it’s never been easier.

I hope you take it.

Please comment on our website, write letters to the editor, pitch us your copy, tip us off, give us shit, come by our brainstorms or Friday afternoon workshops, and keep connecting with us and our community.
Student press starts with students, and we truly look forward to working with, and for you, Concordia.

—Laura Beeston

The Outgoing Editor

Year in Review: The Return of the Courageous Student

If the previous year could be summed up in one word, that word would be arrogance.

From an unrepresentative Board of Governors that went one dismissal too far, to a Concordia Student Union executive pushing forward with an ill-conceived student centre plan, the year was marked by overreach.

For the Board, the results were nearly catastrophic. The university’s reputation was tarnished on the national stage and Judith Woodsworth left with nearly $1 million of hush money, only to turn around and scuttle the Board’s official position. The wreckage is still falling and Concordia’s “crisis of governance” is unresolved.

By all accounts, Frederick Lowy, the interim president parachuted in to stabilize Concordia and put a fully functioning successor in place, is not up to the task. It’s not his fault; in the six years he’s been away from the president’s office, his four successors have allowed the university’s structure to grow out of control.

The winding and Byzantine diagram that describes which department head falls under which vice-president is so complex as to be rendered useless, requiring a degree simply to understand where authority really falls.
Expect Lowy to be incapable of fully wrestling the sprawling bureaucrats in the year he’s been given. Also expect the heat to remain on the Board’s chair, Peter Kruyt, as many of his faithful companions near two decades at the helm of the university.

In case you weren’t aware, a governor is expected to walk away after six years. Kruyt and his friends clearly believe themselves to be exempt from the rules. The two presidents they have fired are keenly aware of that fact.

The meltdown of the Fusion slate, holding power at the CSU until June, was a much slower process than the Board’s stumbling and was marked by a series of disregarded warnings and unheeded pleas for the union to correct itself.

Wracked by infighting and resignations, the student union stumbled along and was generally oblivious to the governance issues and campus life it was supposed to shape.

The student union was slow to react to a short opening where it could have pressured bottled water off campus. It failed. It largely avoided the tuition debate as the government openly positioned itself to mandate an increase. It blocked an attempt by CUTV to film Council meetings and only relented when the political pressure was too great.

CUTV’s presence has revolutionized the coverage of Council meetings and has been an invaluable tool in keeping the student union’s representatives honest. Their taping helped undermine the student centre campaign and expose corrupt electoral practices during last week’s CSU election.

Faced with arrogance within the university and the CSU, students have taken it upon themselves to be assertive when necessary. Culture jams and sit-ins have returned to a campus that was devoid of them for far too long.

In the end, the ruling CSU dynasty, which can be traced back nine years to the wreckage of the immediate post-Netanyahu days when the university needed pro-student representatives out of the CSU, was brought to an end.

Over the four years I have served at The Link, the university and the union have both been changed in ways even I could have never guessed. The almighty Board was brought to its very knees, upending the balance of power, and the CSU’s ruling dynasty has fallen in a once-in-a-generation upset.

Concordia’s new balance of power has yet to assert itself, but it will find itself in a better place than it was four years ago. That’s a legacy I’ll be happy to retire with.

Justin Giovannetti,
—Outgoing Editor-in-Chief

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 29, published April 5, 2011.