Marauders are in seasoned form as swimming, wrestling and volleyball teams all place in U Sports top ten
On Jan. 31, the McMaster University Marauders announced that the men and women’s volleyball, wrestling and swimming teams all placed in the top ten of U Sports sports rankings.
The men and women’s volleyball placed third and eighth respectively in the national circuit following dominant performances in January. Before splitting a weekend series with the Queen’s University Gaels on Jan. 26 and 27, the men’s team was riding a three game win streak against Western University, Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Toronto.
Their record of 12-4 sits only one game behind Brock University and the University of Guelph, who are tied for first in the province with 13 wins and three losses.
On the women’s team, the Marauders went almost undefeated in the month before a recent sweep by the Gaels, who took both games against McMaster 1-3 on Jan. 26 and 27. The losses moved their Ontario University Athletics record to 13-3, as they stand third overall in the province behind the Badgers, who have only recorded one loss this year, and the Gaels.
The losses moved their Ontario University Athletics record to 13-3, as they stand third overall in the province behind the Badgers, who have only recorded one loss this year, and the Gaels.
The wrestling program also made waves in U Sports rankings, with the men and women climbing to the third and eighth best spots in the country.
Leading the charge for Marauders, standouts Serena Di Benedetto and Gregor McNeil picked up gold medals in their matches at the Guelph Open on Jan. 21.
Both athletes played key roles as rookies on last year’s rosters, with Di Benedetto winning the OUA Most Outstanding Wrestler and Rookie of the Year award and McNeil picking up the U Sports Wrestler of the Week award on Nov. 16, 2022. They will look to make a big impact at the OUA championships competition on Feb. 10 in Sault Ste. Marie.
Both athletes played key roles as rookies on last year’s rosters, with Di Benedetto winning the OUA Most Outstanding Wrestler and Rookie of the Year award and McNeil picking up the U Sports Wrestler of the Week award on Nov. 16, 2022.
Finally, the women and men’s swimming placed ninth and tenth to round out the rest of the Marauders’ rankings.
The swimming teams finished their final OUA invitational at the University of Toronto on Jan. 21. Rookies Hayden Yeung and Kalen Murray brought home four medals for the men, with Yeung winning the races for the 100 and 50 metre breaststroke races and Murray capturing the silver 200m and bronze 100m backstroke medals.
Mikaela Blake collected the 100 metre fly gold medal while Megan Deering, who picked up the McMaster Athlete of the Week award on Nov. 27, 2023 placed first in the 50m breaststroke race. Currently, Blake, Deering and Yeung are set to qualify for the national U Sports Swimming Championships taking place on Mar. 7 to 9 in Montreal.
Men's soccer and both men and women's cross country land in top ten of recent U Sports power rankings
On Sept. 26, U Sports released their weekly power rankings for Canadian university teams across several sports. The men and women’s cross country team ranked fifth and ninth in their respective standings, while men’s soccer slid into eighth in the national circuit.
Just before the release of the rankings, both cross country teams put on a solid performance at the Vigars and Salter Western Invitational on Sept. 23.
On the women’s team, veterans Hannah Goodjohn and Rosalyn Barrett both placed in the top 10 at the meet, finishing with times of 30:14 and 30:25. Their efforts helped push the team to fourth place overall, just missing the podium by one point. The St. Francis Xavier University X-Women finished with 116 points.
Their efforts helped push the team to fourth place overall, just missing the podium by one point. The St. Francis Xavier University X-Women finished with 116 points.
For the men’s team, rookie Kamran Brar completed the race as the top runner , nabbing the thirty-fourth place out of 147 qualifying runners with the Marauder’s best time of 26:38. Brar led the team to an eighth place finish, along with top-50 finishes from Connor Lashley, Lukas Vadeika, Noah Mulkewich and William Weist.
Prior to the release of the U Sports rankings, the men’s soccer team snagged a tough 1-0 victory over the Wilfrid Laurier University Golden Hawks on Sept. 22. Sachin Sargeant, a returning member from last year’s Ontario University Athletics championship team, scored a late-game goal in the second half of the match that propelled the team to their fourth win of the regular season.
Following the game, the Marauders played their second match against the Golden Hawks on Sept. 24, winning another tightly contested game 1-0 with a penalty shot by sophomore Damiano Refosco. The win pushed the team to a four-game win streak and an overall record of five wins and two losses for the season.
The win pushed the team to a four-game win streak and an overall record of five wins and two losses for the season.
With these early successesacross both sports, the Marauders have put themselves in a good position for the rest of the season.
It’s the biggest margin of victory yet, but this time in an unfortunate Marauders loss for the Marauders women's rugby team
As the McMaster University women’s rugby team entered week five of competition, they geared up to face the Queen’s Gaels. The Gael’s hold the number one spot on the U Sports women's rugby leaderboard and are the reigning national champions. It was obvious from the get-go that it would be a tough match ahead.
Coming into the week McMaster ranked quite highly themselves, having secured the number nine position in the U Sports ranking. They were coming off a 77 to zero win against the Laurier Golden Hawks and looked to provide a real challenge for the Gryphons.
Unfortunately for the Marauders, they weren’t able to provide much resistance in their battle with Canada’s number one, losing by a final score of 96 to three. Following the loss, McMaster was removed from the U Sports top 10 list.
Facing a top ranked team has proven to be a challenge for most teams. The top five ranked teams have yet to be beaten.
Katie Mcleod, the captain of the women’s team, discussed how difficult it can be facing teams like the Gaels and the strategy that goes along with these big games to ensure the team keeps on moving forward.
“We’ve been focusing on setting goals going into games. Not necessarily score focused goals, but systems goals,” said Mcleod.
“We’ve been focusing on setting goals going into games. Not necessarily score focused goals, but systems goals,”
Katie Mcleod, Captain of women's rugby team
She noted her team seemed to know this game would result in a defeat, showing the importance of goal setting to continue measuring progress regardless of the outcome.
“Going into our Queen’s game, we kind of knew it would be a loss,” explained Mcleod.
The game ended going in the way of the Gaels, as was apparently anticipated. Mcleod was the lone scorer for the Marauders.
But why do these scores keep occurring? How do these substantial margins continue to happen game after game and for every team, not just McMaster?
“It comes down to the legacy that teams have developed. Some teams have full time head coaches, which provides for better recruitment,” said Mcleod.
This message seems to ring true, seeing the recent scores throughout the league. It also makes sense that stronger players recruited to only certain schools would lend itself to the creation of uneven scores. Though it looks like McMaster is trying to compete with these top ranked teams with the addition of head coach Chris Jones and his coaching staff.
“Now that we’ve gotten a new coaching staff, I know that recruitment has become something more on the radar. Hopefully in a few years we can be at a higher level,” explained Mcleod.
Looking to finish the season strong, the Marauders women's rugby team will face York and Brock to wrap up the season. It will become very important for the team to keep their focus on the season ahead, despite the prospect of a promising future they may already be looking forward to.
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On Nov. 20, McMaster secured another award for its trophy case, after being named as one of Hamilton-Niagara’s Top Employers for 2016.
Now in its ninth year, the annual competition is organized by the editors of “Canada’s Top 100 Employers.” The competition recognizes McMaster University for the role it plays in the Hamilton-Niagara region as an industry leader for employment.
McMaster distinguished itself under the eight evaluation criteria set out by “Canada’s Top 100 Employers,” including the physical workplace, work and social atmosphere, financial and family benefits, health and community involvement.
Wanda McKenna, executive director of human resources here at McMaster, is proud of the university’s accomplishment. “We have always believed that McMaster is a fantastic place to work,” she said. “And given the fact that this is our very first time entering the competition, it just goes to show that McMaster does offer a fairly comprehensive package in terms of being a great place to work and teach.”
Comprised of 4,393 full-time employees and 3,052 part-time employees, McMaster is not only one of the largest employers in the Hamilton-Niagara region, but also one that is committed to cultivating a group of passionate staff.
“[The staff] at the university are absolutely dedicated to its mission, its research and its teaching,” acclaimed McKenna. “They love student environments, they love being with students and seeing them learn and grow. It is always fantastic to work with staff that resonate full of such energy.”
“Canada’s Top 100 Employers” features McMaster University’s benefit pension plan, retirement planning assistance, scholarship program and inclusivity of working groups as defining reasons for being selected as one of Hamilton-Niagara’s Top Employers. The thoughtful outlook that McMaster has for its staff is also expressed by the flexible work options, the generous paid vacation allowance and the apprenticeship/skills training programs that it offers.
A strong focal point of the Forward With Integrity campaign has been fostering strong relationships with the Hamilton community. “Community engagement is one of the pillars and priorities for the university, and that means ensuring a diverse employee population that is also reflective of our student population,” said McKenna. “We are trying to reach out to different members of the community and tell them that McMaster is a great place to work.”
The selection for the Hamilton-Niagara Top Employers is also based on their progressive and forward-thinking programs. In this area, McMaster has irrefutably shown merit in terms of both its academics and employment programs.
“The university's vision [revolves] around creativity, innovation and excellence,” she said. “It fosters an environment where our students can also thrive and succeed. McMaster has been able to become a Top 100 university in the world because of its faculty and staff. And continuing to attract and retain the best, has helped McMaster to continue to be the best environment for its students.”
With this, McKenna sets her sights on propelling the continuous evolution of McMaster as a workplace and employer. In the next few months, the university plans on instituting employment equity services to break down the barriers that exist between designated working groups. The intention is to level the playing field, allowing all members of the community the opportunity to find and continue an employment.
“I think that McMaster has a bright future ahead of itself,” said McKenna. “We are trying to position [ourselves] such that we have the right people — our greatest assets are the people, and it is the people who will be the deciding factor for our success in the future. We aim to continuously look forward and [assess] how are we going to improve, so that we can continue to offer the best environment for our students.”
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For the past 25 years, Maclean’s magazine has released a comprehensive ranking of Canadian Universities.
The ranking takes into account numerous categories including, but not limited to: program details, finances, scholarship opportunities, reputational rankings, and historically, survey results conducted by the universities themselves.
This year, for the first time in the magazine’s history, instead of relying on the independent surveys distributed by each academic institution, they conducted their own Student Satisfaction Survey to receive unique data on the lived student experience.
The survey asked questions related to familiarity and closeness with professors, feeling prepared to enter the workforce, critical thinking education, mental health services on campus and more.
If you’ve been keeping up with these rankings, you will know that this year McMaster received an overall fifth place ranking among Canadian institutions, and according to the Student Satisfaction Survey, it is the top ranked university for the provision of mental health services. McMaster Daily News was quick to tote the university’s place at the top of the Mental Health pyramid, but many students can attest to the fact that the school, like many others, still has a long way to go before being considered a front-runner in the Canadian mental health awareness journey.
In one breath, there are elements of McMaster’s mental health provisions that are fantastic and an undeniable privilege compared to the facilities available to our academic neighbours. We have on-campus services that provide counselling and therapy, the McMaster Student Absence Form that allows students to take time off in moments of ailment, and a few student-run services that work to give students one-on-one time. But just how many students are actually able to access these programs?
As someone who has used these services, I know that there is often a waitlist for services, and barriers with professors and programs can arise when filing documentation or completing an MSAF [FEB. 12, 2015 – “Let’s talk about the MSAF”].
The Satisfaction Survey received responses from over 10,000 students across the country, with 310 of those being from McMaster. A mere 1.02 percent of McMaster’s 30,000+ student population was surveyed to reach this ranking, and the magazine acknowledges that it was not the most in-depth analysis for this particular category.
This is an extremely small population of people to begin with, but on top of this, of this one percent, how many of these students have actually experienced mental health concerns to the point that they’ve required McMaster’s services?
The only question on the survey related to mental health was “How would you rate the following at your school,” with “Mental Health Services” being one of the rated categories. The survey was not detailed in this category, and as excited as the university is, and many of its students are, to receive this ranking and celebrate McMaster’s efforts to improve mental health treatment on campus, we cannot convince ourselves that it is an appropriate representation of the services we provide for students.
Thousands of incoming university students see these rankings and make their choices based on the information provided. While this rank is a boost for the University, we still have an obligation to continue working to make sure our mental health services are the best they can be, and keep incoming students informed about the realistic limitations of our services, as well as our efforts to improve them.
Just because our university has received this one unsubstantiated ranking, it does not mean we have peaked at our ability to adequately serve the needs of all our students.
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By: Isaac Kinley
Earlier this month, Research Infosource Inc. released its 2015 list of the top 50 Canadian Research Universities, as measured by research income figures from 2010 to 2014. The rankings placed McMaster sixth in the country overall, eighth in total 2014 sponsored research income, first for corporate sponsorships, and thirteenth in non-profit sponsorships.
The rankings also measured research intensity, placing McMaster third in the country at $339,500 of research income per faculty member in 2014. Professor Allison Sekuler, McMaster’s interim Vice President of Research, credited the university’s performance to several factors. She pointed to the interdisciplinary faculties and institutions McMaster hosts, such as the Arts and Science Program, one of the oldest of its kind in Canada.
She explained that, along with the size of the university, these initiatives help to foster collaboration between faculty members with different areas of expertise and bring varied perspectives to research questions. “We’re big enough that there’s a lot of really interesting stuff going on but we’re small enough that it still feels like a community,” she said. “When I was at the University of Toronto before, I might have to drive an hour to see some of my colleagues.”
The rankings also showed that corporate research income as a percentage of total research income from 2010 to 2014 was higher for McMaster than for any other university in Canada. This raised the issue of corporate influence on basic research and academic independence.
However, Prof. Sekuler isn’t concerned. “[The McMaster Industry Liaison Office] reviews every contract that comes in to make sure [they] are in keeping with the ethos of the university,” she said.
She also explained that the goals of research and commerce are not necessarily mutually exclusive. She cited Interaxon, the company that sponsors her own research, saying they’re interested in not only improving their product, an EEG headband, but furthering basic research on the human brain. The partnership also allows her to obtain data from many more subjects than are usually available for her research. “We try to be very careful when we’re making agreements with companies, or nonprofits for that matter, in terms of what their role is in the research,” she said. “We generally aren’t getting a lot of funding from companies where it’s constraining the kind of work that people do. Academics don’t typically like to do that.”
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