Creating old fashioned fashion

Maggie Segal (left) assists her boss, costumer Kim Boucher, as they prepare one of the Empire-style day dresses to be worn by the likes of Chancellor Gretta Chambers and Alumni Association president Gail Johnson at the 175th Anniversary Garden Party on June 6. Everyone on campus is invited to the 1820s-style reception for a spot of genteel conversation and light refreshment.




Policy-makers in the making

Don't be surprised if you hear in the next few years, that many of the top economic policy officials in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia all spent time at McGill. The Economic Policy Management Program, a special master's-level program offered jointly by the Faculty of Management and the Department of Economics, is designed to give a select group of students from developing countries the sorts of skills they'll need to hold down positions of authority in ministries of finance or central banks.
The program, sponsored by the World Bank, the African Capacity Building Foundation and CIDA, held a special ceremony for its first graduates on April 18. Chancellor Gretta Chambers and Registrar Jean-Paul Schuller (right) were on hand at the Faculty Club event to offer their congratulations.







Canadian because of conscience

As an American medical student opposed to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war, Gerald Wiviott counselled friends who wanted to avoid the draft to flee to Canada or apply for conscientious objector status. When Wiviott himself was drafted, he considered doing the same, but changed his mind.
"I was a doctor and I knew I wouldn't be asked to carry a gun, nor would I be put in a position where I'd have to kill people. So I really felt I could do more for the antiwar movement if I went to Vietnam because, as a doctor, I could return to the States and tell people what it was like."
Wiviott, now a McGill psychiatry professor, spent over a year in Vietnam. When he returned, "I just remember wanting to stuff my uniform in the toilet right there in the airport." He moved to Montreal shortly thereafter. Wiviott's experience with the war is one of several related in a new book, Hell No We Won't Go: Vietnam Draft Resisters in Canada. The book profiles several draft resisters who moved to Canada--focusing on how they came to that decision and describing the lives they made in their new country. Wiviott is one of many antiwar activists whošve flourished here, becoming a psychiatrist at the Allan Memorial Institute, a champion fencer and a husband and father.
When Wiviott was first approached by author Alan Haig-Brown about appearing in the book, he hesitated. "I wasn't sure I wanted to think about those events again. I came to Canada to put that whole experience behind me." Wiviott says he sometimes wonders if he should have come earlier instead of serving in Vietnam. "I would have avoided some very painful things, but those events helped shape the person I am today."




Earnest about Hemingway

It's not unusual for an electrical engineering student to create a Web site--a quick look at that department's home page leads one to suspect that a student would seem odd if he didn't have his own site. Still, Marcel Mitran's work on the Web stands out.

While some students post information about their studies, Jim Carrey or supermodels, Mitran has put together an acclaimed site about writer Ernest Hemingway--a Pulitzer--and Nobel-prize winner for his literature and a legend for his adventurous lifestyle.

Mitran says the idea came to him last year as he was becoming more interested in the World Wide Web. "I had a home page, but I wanted to do something a little different with it." A self-described "literary buff," Mitran had recently read some Hemingway biographies and was enthralled by his life story. After searching the Web, Mitran noticed the hard-drinking author of books like For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea and The Sun Also Rises was scarcely in evidence in cyberspace. "Hemingway has been neglected by the Internet. It is shameful that one of the most read and influential writers of the 20th century has not received more attention from this new media," thunders Mitran in the foreword to his Hemingway site, the "Papa Page."

The site has been a huge success. Infoseek, an Internet search service which critiques Web sites, calls it "the ultimate Hemingway page! Pictures, bibliographies, quotes and a wonderful biography," while Point Com, an Infoseek rival, says, "If the Web is a moveable feast, then the banquet table is laden with goodies at the Papa Page." The page attracts about 1,200 visitors each month and Mitran has even received offers from advertisers interested in selling their wares on the "Papa Page," but Mitran says he's in it for fun, not profit. "Besides, while the text is mine, I don't have copyright for the photos I've used, so it wouldnšt be ethical to accept money."