Andrew Tischler: The Prez with the Pez

Andrew Tischler will enthusiastically tell you that he's the classic profile of a McGill student: he goes to class, plays basketball and air hockey for fun, and he has a job. Well, actually, two jobs.

Tischler is the president-elect of the Students' Society of McGill University for the upcoming academic year. He is also the co-owner of Sucre Bleu!, a candy story on St-Denis Street which he started last summer with a friend. Armed with entrepreneurial spirit and political savvy, Tischler knows exactly how to speak softly and carry a big Pez dispenser.

"I'm looking forward to [becoming president]. I really can't wait to throw myself into the job," says Tischler, who, when he takes office May 1, will be the last student president of the century and the first to set up shop in the new Student Services building.

"We are moving into the building in October, and I want to make sure everything gets done properly over the summer to prepare for it," he said.

The 22-year-old Tischler is confident about having a smooth and successful term as president, partly due to his experience with Sucre Bleu! Before opening the shop that specializes in Pez candy and other things yummy, the enterprising student developed a business plan, successfully applied for grants, dealt with governments regarding permits and taxes, found suppliers and hired staff. "I wanted to create something that would sustain itself after a while, and I knew that it could be done as long as it was set up properly from the beginning."

Business acumen, however, wasn't the only quality Tischler brought to the race for president. Born and raised in Toronto, Tischler will be one of the few fluently bilingual student presidents in recent years. He picked up the language at 13 while on a three-month exchange to Paris, but is quick to add that starting a business on St-Denis was the best refresher course he could have taken.

"[Speaking French] is a skill people appreciate," Tischler noted. He plans to work closely with the francophone commissioner of the Students' Society next year. "My wish for the francophone community, as it is for all students at McGill, is for them to feel as if SSMU represents them."

It comes as no surprise that an out-of-province student businessman would like to focus on student employment. Tischler, himself a former employee of Boubouf, the now defunct student haunt across from the Roddick Gates -- would, ideally, like to see students working in their field of study and making money. "I want to help start projects where students can get work experience while they study. There's a lot of on-campus projects to hire students for."

A case in point may be the greenifying of McGill. Together with people from such disciplines as geography, history and engineering, Tischler is drafting an environmental workgroup to make the campus and its surrounding areas a greener space.

Tischler also talks about giving students the "enabling conditions" in order that they may take advantage of everything available to them. "One of the biggest barriers to students is money. I read that only 15 per cent of a student's budget goes to tuition, and the rest is allocated for rent, food, clothing and travelling back home." Next year, the SSMU hopes to alleviate the problem by posting ride boards on the Internet.

However, notes Tischler, the irony is that most rides offered are local and students bearing the greatest travel costs aren't travelling locally. His solution would include discounts on airfares for McGill students based on large bookings. "It's an example where we can use the fact that there are so many students as an asset, instead of a liability."

Regarding his future, Tischler admits that he's not certain of what's in store: "Maybe a career in diplomacy," the political science major mused. True, he doesn't come from political lineage; his father is an engineer, his mother a microbiologist, while his siblings are musicians. But, if the diplomatic sphere comes calling, surely the combined experience of Sucre Bleu! and student politics will sweeten the deal.

Leslie Stojsic

The recent discovery of the fossil of what may be the earliest known reptile confirmed what biology professor Robert Carroll (pictured) hypothesized 25 years ago. The Redpath Museum's curator of vertebrate paleontology, Carroll believes that the first reptiles must have been small creatures to have succesfully made the transition from water (i.e. from being amphibians) to land.

"Reptiles had to be small in order that the egg provide all the nutrients necessary," explains Carroll. Amphibians, he says, could grow to greater sizes thanks to the fact that their eggs are laid in water and they have a larval stage, such as frog tadpoles, during which they can continue to grow, using the water's nutrients. Without a tadpole stage, early land-based animals couldn't grow as large as amphibians.

Casineria kiddi, the 340-million-year-old fossil found by amateur fossil-collector Nicholas Kidd on the shore's of Cheese Bay, Scotland, is only eight-inches long, (including a five-inch tail). It is also believed to have been one of the first animals to have had five fingers, putting it in that branch of evolution that includes mammals, birds and reptiles, all of which have five digits in their forearms. Amphibians, on the other hand, have had varying numbers of digits throughout their evolution and now have four.

"It's a really exciting find," said Carroll, one of only six reptile paleontologists in the world, who was interviewed about the discovery by both ABC on-line news and Québec Science article.

"It's the first solid evidence we have for the origin of the group that would eventually lead to reptiles, birds and mammals."

"One of the keys to the origin of the amniotes (five-digited animals) is going through a small size," said Carroll, noting that it took the dinosaurs some 100 million years to evolve from these tiny lizards.

They are swindlers. New Age is garbage culture. I am a scientist. I am a physicist. They are anti-scientists. They are just charlatans who peddle old superstitions.


Philosophy professor Mario Bunge talking to The Gazette about the popularity of New Age gurus such as Celestine Prophecy author James Redfield.

It's safe to say that Ilya Klvana (pictured) is an outdoorsman. He once embarked on a six-day cross-country ski trip in the backcountry of the Charlevoix region. Over seven weeks, he biked his way from Quebec City through much of the Maritimes, finishing the trip in Montreal. He spent last autumn living on a little island on Lake of Two Mountains, kayaking to school at Macdonald Campus each day.

Now the wildlife biology student is about to embark on his most ambitious trek yet. On May 10, travelling in a kayak he built himself, Klvana will make his way from Prince Rupert, British Columbia to Montreal. A 7,380 km journey, the expedition will take about five-and-a-half months and Klvana will have to contend with raging white water, fierce wind and hordes of black flies and mosquitoes.

Klvana hopes to use his voyage to raise awareness about Canada's inland waters. For most of the trip, he'll be retracing fur trading routes used by natives, traders and voyageurs hundreds of years ago. "They are very important ecosystems that support countless numbers of species. They are also rich in history, having once been the lifeblood of Canada. Today, they are too often damned, polluted, mismanaged and destroyed."

He'll be taking photos along the way and keeping a diary about what he encounters. Klvana has the official support of Dean of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Deborah Buzsard for the trip.

He'll be sporting the diaries of early explorers such as Mackenzie and La Vérendrye, to see how the waterways have changed since their days. He'll be sporting some supplies that Mackenzie couldn't have dreamed of -- dehydrated food, Gore-Tex camping outfits and a satellite phone from which Klvana will be filing regular reports about his journey via the McGill Gateway, the University's home page. Check up on his progress this summer at ww2.mcgill.ca/kayak.

I get more excited about a student from India with 65 or 70 percent than I do about a student from Saudi Arabia with 80 percent.


Senior admissions officer Marina Swoboda, talking to University Affairs about examining student applications from different nations. The marking systems in various countries differ widely and McGill's admissions officers have to take this into account.