The Queen's Journal, Volume 143, Issue 19

the journal

Queen’s University

Vol. 143, Issue 19

Rector debate draws full crowd and J osh

since

1873

Students question candidates

Four remaining candidates discussed transparency, sexual assault policy and student advocacy J ordana G oldman Journal Staff

F r i day , J a n ua ry 2 2 , 2 0 1 6

in Wallace Hall debates

M alm

Originally published online on Jan. 21 Not a seat could be found in Wallace Hall for the Jan. 20 Rector debates.

During the relatively friendly debate, candidates highlighted their plans for the Office of the Rector. The Queen’s Rector, who serves for a term of two to three years, represents students at the Queen’s Board of Trustees and is responsible for a number of ceremonial duties. The Board of Trustees, one of Queen’s three governing bodies, oversees the University’s finances.

Zac Baum resigned from the 2016 Rector election a few hours before the debate, which began at 7 p.m. Baum, CompSci ’17, made the announcement on his campaign’s Facebook page.

Baum told The Journal via Facebook Messenger that his resignation won’t be an “out” from getting involved.

“I have learned so much about myself from Queen’s, especially in the last few months. So much so, that I am determined to make this a place where others will do the same,” he wrote. Baum added that he doesn’t plan to endorse any candidate.

The four remaining Rector candidates — Liam Dowling, ConEd ’18; Julia Fulton, ArtSci ’17; Rigers Rukaj, Sci ’17; and Cam Yung, ArtSci ’16 — discussed topics such as transparency, sexual assault policy and how each candidate plans to advocate for the student population.

The debate consisted of 14 issue questions and four lighthearted “Fun Round” questions.

The Journal has included three of the most contested topics debated on Wednesday. Each candidate was given 90 seconds to answer each question.

From top: Tyler Lively, AMS presidential candidate, and Julia Fulton, Rector candidate, were among those that debated.

PHOTOS BY STEPHANIE NIJHUIS

AMS executive hopefuls questioned on their platforms and promises V ictoria G ibson and M ikayla W ronko Journal Staff

What is the most serious issue facing Queen’s students?

violence on campus.

Zarzour said that both response and prevention of sexual violence are lacking, and the team plans on focusing their advocacy on the creation of a sexual assault centre on campus.

While each candidate emphasized the importance of communication, they also stated ways they would advocate on behalf of students.

During the debate, Team LWT stated that increasing enrolment is the most pertinent issue facing students at Queen’s.

Presidential candidate Tyler Lively, who answered the question, said issues of How can you increase opportunities strained health services and cramped study for diverse students in the AMS? spaces have become increasingly relevant as enrolment rises.

Although both teams said they wish to Enrolment is an issue that has to be diversify the AMS, they plan to do so using addressed from a provincial standpoint, different means.

Lively added, and if elected the team is Team CSG’s Vice President (Operations) determined to advocate to the appropriate candidate Sarah Anderson began by stating provincial bodies. that students wouldn’t involve themselves Team CSG agreed that enrolment was in an organization they didn’t care an issue, but presidential candidate Colin about, so combatting apathy towards the Zarzour said their concern was elevated to AMS was a priority. They believe that a level of “crisis” when it came to sexual recruitment into the AMS was its most prominent difficulty.

Candidates from Team LWT said working for the AMS comes with long hours and difficult tasks, and creating an excitement about the work itself is crucial for attracting diverse talent.

Walker also said that working for the AMS provides students with job experience, which needs to be highlighted more strongly in order to attract candidates.

However, the point was raised in a question that the AMS salaries are among the lowest for student governments across Canada.

While LWT’s Vice President (Operations) candidate David Walker said experience was more important than the salary, CSG’s Anderson said they came from a privileged position, and that many students can’t afford

See Rector on page 2

See AMS on page 2

Originally published online on Jan. 20 While the first half of AMS Executive debate was relatively tame, the second period became more contentious as candidates disagreed on matters of the environment, pay scales and services.

During the Jan. 19 debate, which was held in Wallace Hall, Team LWT and Team CSG discussed issues as serious as sexual assault and non-academic discipline and lighter (and more contentious) topics like skate sharpening and panini presses.

The Journal has compiled the most contested topics of the debate.

How will you advocate for all student interests on Board of Trustees?

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

FEATURES

EDITORIALS

OPINIONS

ARTS

SPORTS

When street harassment on campus crosses the criminal line

Tuition freeze only a short-term fix

How the American election will affect you

“Chick lit” puts down the work of female writers

Cut twice from the basketball team, Itskovich bounced back

page 3

page 9

page 10

page 12

page 14

Online:

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News

2 •queensjournal.ca

Friday, January 22, 2016

Rector race down to four candidates at debates Continued from front page

Julia Fulton said she plans to attend faculty meetings, talk to various clubs, and create an open dialogue between students and herself. She stressed the idea of being a strong presence as Rector, a common

trend throughout her answers during the debate.

Cam Yung said improving transparency is the best way to advocate for student interest. To do so, he said, he’ll remodel the Rector website making it more interactive and holding

public open forums to listen effectively and better advocate for students.

Like Fulton, Liam Dowling emphasized the necessity of an open dialogue between students and the Rector. He said he’ll seek to create an open-dialogue

Liam Dowling, ConEd ’18; Julia Fulton, ArtSci ’17; Rigers Rukaj, Sci ’17; and Cam Yung, ArtSci ’16.

AMS candidates reflect on current executive’s record Continued from front page

an extra year’s worth of expenses on the current salaries for AMS salaried staff.

Which of your platform points will cause the most friction with the Queen’s administration?

Lively said the LWT platform point that would meet the most friction from the University would be the re-implementation of the mandatory Personal Statement of Experience (PSE).

He added that when the University administration has recently made a decision, it’s typically difficult to change their mind. However, Lively said the PSE carries a history of student leadership and the University is devaluing that talent by not making the PSE mandatory for applicants.

CSG, meanwhile, said they expect that their promise to extend the deadline for dropping classes would meet with the most resistance from the Queen’s administration.

Zarzour said it’s hard to change the status quo, but it’s unacceptable to penalize students for dropping a course when they only have five per cent of their mark back.

plan to re-instate the Energy Usage Committee through the Student Life Centre to ensure energy usage was more “green”, and improve the use of organics on campus.

Candidates then veered into more contentious debate after LWT’s Lively said his mother worked in environmental services and raised him to do the same.

CSG’s Radisic then asked why the issue wasn’t included in LWT’s platform if it was so important to Lively.

In response, Lively said questioning their commitment to the issue simply because they didn’t have a “laundry list” of promises was unfair, to which Zarzour replied, “Tyler, debate is healthy”.

LWT focused on the recently announced Honeywell audit and said that as the AMS executive they would take on the responsibility of involving students in the $10-million project.

Vice President (Operations) candidate David Walker said the SLC committee had only been disbanded because it “wasn’t going anywhere” in the first place.

What was the biggest achievement and failure of the AMS in recent years?

Team CSG applauded the AMS for establishing the ReUnion Street Festival held during Homecoming weekend.

Zarzour said the event brings Team CSG wants to revisit the together the Queen’s community Queen’s Climate Action Plan, and alumni while building a which was created in 2010 but stronger relationship with the never implemented. They also city and police. He added that What can be done to improve environmental sustainability at Queen’s?

with assemblies, presidents of faculties, undergrads, and graduate trustees to become informed of their opinions.

He also highlighted his plan to inform incoming students about the Rector’s office and its resources during Orientation Week.

Rigers Rukaj agreed with Fulton, Dowling and Yung, and said that the Rector’s office can only be considered credible if there’s constant and open communication between himself, the student body and other actors.

“The Rector has no hard power,” Rukaj said, adding that he’s calling for a pragmatic and practical approach to get results for the student body.

Since there’s no supervisor and the Rector creates their own hours, explain your commitment to this office and the expectations you’ll set for yourself.

Yung said it’s important for the Rector to focus on their own mental health in an effort to provide for students. He again said he’ll implement open public forms so students can interact directly with himself as Rector.

Dowling said he plans to create a policy to properly define the role of the Rector. He will be a “leader and server” for students, he said.

Rukaj said the Rector can do anything they want in office, which has allowed past Rectors to do amazing things. He’ll seek to inform students on issues and listen to their feedback, he said.

Fulton said she hopes to have less students ask what a Rector is

and what a Rector does by being a strong presence on campus.

She’ll follow up with students who have addressed issues or concerns, she added.

How will you ensure that a full range of support services are available on campus for all students affected by sexual assault?

Rukaj said the University needs to step up their game and provide more resources through the SHRC (Sexual Health Resource Center).

He plans to advocate for sexual assault resources to make them more of a priority.

“This is a priority of mine,” Fulton said. She said she’ll create an atmosphere where people feel comfortable discussing this issue and work with existing groups at Queen’s that address sexual violence.

Yung reiterated Fulton’s point about working with existing resources at Queen’s, such as SHRC. He said he’ll also seek to increase the number of counselors.

“If you are a survivor of sexual assault or mental health you should be able to get academic accommodation,” she said.

Dowling said all the candidates believe this is a prominent issue.

Like the other candidates, he said he would use existing resources, such as the AMS Social Issues Commission. He’ll also open up the conversation about sexual assault in Orientation Week so incoming students know about the resources open to them, he said.

— With files from Mikayla Wronko

Greg Radisic, Team CSG’s VP University Affairs candidate.

it’s a celebration of Homecoming in a controlled environment that maintains the fun of the night.

However, Team CSG said they felt the AMS hadn’t engaged in conversation regarding the non-academic misconduct review.

Meanwhile, Team LWT’s Lively praised the AMS’s success in successfully repealing the Kingston City Council’s decision to exclude students from electoral district counts in 2013.

Lively said the greatest failure of the AMS didn’t fall on any single executive team. Instead, he said it was the tendency for AMS executive teams to retreat into the JDUC and disconnect from the students they represent after winning an election.

CORRECTIONS

FASHION MANAGEMENT & PROMOTIONS POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

The Horrible Bosses of Kingston

From retail management to logistics, this program offers the unique skills you will need to launch your career as a fashion buyer, logistics coordinator, product development manager, visual merchandiser and many other exciting career options.

Altomare’s comments about the “party-girl magnetic style” was a paraphrasing of her manager’s words, not her own.

Shakespeare meets sci-fi The sci-fi novel reviewed in the Arts Section is titled Station Eleven, not Station 11.

The Journal regrets the errors.

Inaccurate information appeared in the Jan. 15 edition of The Journal.

business.humber.ca/postgrad

Team LWT’s presidential candidate Tyler Lively speaking at Tuesday night’s AMS executive debate.

PHOTOS BY STEPH NIJHUIS

Friday, January 22, 2016

queensjournal.ca

•3

FEATURE

Street harassment slips through the cracks Routine harassment in the University District is rarely reported, even when it’s criminal PHOTO BY KENDRA PIERROZ

A nisa R awhani Editor in Chief

I

t’s a common enough sight.

A young woman walks along the sidewalk, either alone or in a group, when suddenly a car drives by — slurs and innuendoes are yelled out an open window by a stranger. Before anyone can fully register what’s happened, the car’s gone.

Whether they’ve witnessed a drive-by catcall or public masturbation, female students at Queen’s are no strangers to street harassment in the University District.

But even when an incident is classified as a criminal offence, you’d be hard pressed to find a woman on campus who has reported it to officials.

For Nicole Ahrens, the drive-by scenario is nothing new. Like many other female students, she’s been called a “slut” and a “bitch” on the streets of the University District, with the occasional “I’m going to fuck you” thrown in.

However, in a couple of cases, seemingly harmless situations turned into what police would classify as assault.

“I was on the street with my friend, and we were coming back from yoga on Princess St.,” Ahrens, PHE ’15, said. “We were across from the Starbucks, and some guy who was a few feet away from us … bent down on one knee to pretend to propose.”

At first the young man didn’t seem threatening. He called the girls “beautiful” while touching their faces. Then he suddenly grabbed both Ahrens’ and her friend’s breasts.

“He ran across the street where his friends were and they ran off,” she said. “I remember hearing them all laugh.”

At first they were shocked, but the surprise soon turned into anger.

“It’s disappointing to know that guys around my age think that this is appropriate or acceptable behaviour, and that the friends were laughing about it. They didn’t say anything … it was very accepted.”

Street harassment by the numbers While Ahrens’ experiences aren’t wholly uncommon for female students, statistics on street harassment in Kingston, let alone Queen’s, are sparse and provide

For some participants, these better],” she said. little useful information.

“I didn’t do anything. I was just For Canadian police, incidents took a dark turn.

Melanie Gray, ArtSci ’16, is sitting in my seat.” “catcalling” and “street It would be reassuring to say harassment” aren’t categories for Mohawk and a self-proclaimed criminal offences. They instead hermit. She doesn’t go out much, Gray’s experience was unique, but describe incidents that could fall but she’s heavily involved in that’s also false.

In 2015 alone there were over under the same dispatch codes the Four Directions Aboriginal seven reported cases of indecent as criminal harassment, threats, Student Centre.

One fall morning in 2013, she exposure in the University District suspicious activity, indecent acts and trespass/prowler. As a result, hopped on a bus heading down alone. In late October, police no clear numbers exist on recorded Princess St. to go to a meeting reported a case where a male driver at the Aboriginal Centre. As the masturbated while engaging with a cases of street harassment.

Data from Queen’s Campus bus drove down Barrie St. towards female pedestrian on campus.

And if The Journal can find Security and Emergency Services the centre, Gray noticed something isn’t much better. Like the Ontario moving out of the corner of over 130 people who claim to have experienced street harassment Human Rights Code, street her eye. in the University District harassment and catcalling — many of which would fall under “sexual “I felt sort of sick to my stomach constitute criminal harassment” for Campus Security, which refers to ... Now I realize that that was offences — while Campus any incident of a sexual or shame towards myself, thinking Security and Kingston Police’s statistics fall into gender-related nature. that it was my fault.” the single digits, there’s In 2014, Campus a chance that Gray is Security reported only — Melanie Gray, ArtSci ’16 among many students four “sexual harassment” who simply didn’t report incidents. Reports dating “This guy was just, looking over their experiences. as far back as 1998 don’t stray far from this number — seven at me.”

As first, Gray said she didn’t Why women don’t reported incidents in 2010 is the know what was happening. report harassment all-time high.

“I saw him shift his body However, these statistics don’t represent the amount of street towards me, so I looked back Of the incidents reported to harassment that occurs in the towards him, and he was literally The Journal, it’s difficult to say masturbating on the bus with lots how many would be considered Queen’s area. criminal offences. However, With minimal data available of people around.”

With his hand deep in his pants, under Canada’s Criminal from official sources, The Journal conducted a survey on catcalling the man made vigorous movements Code, both Ahrens’ and Gray’s and street harassment in the in Gray’s direction. She began experiences, and those of many Queen’s area, which received looking around to the other people other of the survey respondents, responses from 147 members of on the bus, hoping someone else definitely qualify.

Despite that, none of the survey the Queen’s community, including noticed what she was seeing.

“I don’t know if anybody participants contacted Campus staff and undergraduate and graduate students. While the noticed, but nobody was saying online survey isn’t scientifically anything, because what do you do valid — the sample isn’t in that situation?” she said. “So I representative of the entire student kept sitting there awkwardly and population — the results of the seeing him looking at me.”

As he exited the bus at a survey show that Ahrens isn’t alone University District stop, the young in her experience. reported their Ahrens was among 93 per cent man smirked at her. She was 19 at experience to officials of respondents who said they’d the time.

As soon as she reached the been the target of street harassment in the University District. Of those centre, Gray began to cry.

“I felt sort of sick to my respondents, around 30 per cent reported that they experienced stomach,” she said. “I tried to street harassment in the area on figure out what I was wearing, and Security or Kingston Police. thinking no, that can’t be it. I’m more than six occasions.

Participants gave a variety of wearing a sweatshirt and pants.” answers about why they didn’t “Now I realize that that was report their experience, but a few shame towards myself, thinking key reasons came up repeatedly: 37 that it was my fault.” people said there was nothing the She said it was a sad realization, authorities could or would do; 24 because there were undoubtedly people said it didn’t seem necessary of participants many more people who had felt or that they didn’t feel threatened; reported 6 or more the same way she did. and 13 said it was a regular enough incidents “It’s easier to blame yourself occurrence, so why bother? than somebody you don’t know, After the groping incident, of harassment because how are you going to Ahrens said she felt frustrated and displace that blame?” discouraged, and had a sense of not “Now that I’m older [I know knowing how to move forward.

0%

30%

“Thinking about it now, it would have been a good idea to report it just so they’re aware,” she said. “But I felt at the time that I didn’t have enough information to give any substantial information.”

“It was one of those things where I didn’t know if it was going to do any good.”

When is street harassment criminal?

When you call the police on their non-emergency line, there’s a chance that they can’t help you.

But while Kingston Police doesn’t use the category of “street harassment”, that doesn’t mean street harassment cannot fall under a number of criminal offences, KP media relations officer Steve Koopman told The Journal.

Criminal harassment under Canada’s Criminal Code involves one or more of the following: • repeatedly following from place to place; • repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly; • besetting or watching the dwelling-house, or place where the other person, or anyone known to them, resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; • or engaging in threatening conduct directed at the other person or any member of their family.

“If any of those four potentially are met, then the next question that officer must ask is: Did the person have a reasonable fear for their safety?” Const. Koopman said. Police often receive calls from individuals who are bothered or scared, but aren’t in a legitimately threatened position. In those cases, it’s highly unlikely police can press charges.

However, in the event an officer can’t charge someone, police can still educate or warn someone on their behaviour and how it could escalate into a criminal offence in some situations.

So for anyone who believes they have legitimate fears for their safety, or has a hunch that someone’s violating the Criminal Code, it’s worth calling Campus Security or police on their non-emergency line — just to be safe. At the very least, they’ll have numbers that better reflect what’s going on.

News

4 •queensjournal.ca

Friday, January 22, 2016

Faculty Society Election Candidates CESA elections Team CoLlaB

Jena Bowden, ConEd ‘17 Cody Weeden, ConEd ‘17 Laura Buehler, ConEd ‘17

President VP External VP Internal

ComSoc elections Team GPS

Team PVT

Jacob Gardhouse, ConEd ‘17 Sherri Patterson, ConEd ’17 Carma Steenkamp, ConEd ‘17

Bhavik Vyas, Comm ‘17 René Puerta, Comm ‘17 Sara Tyler, Comm, ‘17

Team GPS said their experience in student government will make the CESA executive more accessible to students

EngSoc elections

President VP Operations VP Student Affairs

Andrew Kosc, Comm ‘17 Ellen Bursey, Comm’17 Will Hackney, Comm ‘17

Major platform points

Why should students vote for you?

Team CoLlaB said they believe their team dynamic will reflect how they plan to work with students.

Team WAE

Team PVT’s platform focuses on breaking out of the “Commerce bubble”, improving the reputation of Commerce students and technological improvements.

Team WAE’s platform focuses on projects like a Commerce-specific app, a weekly ComSoc newsletter, an initiative box and improvements to conference bursaries.

ResSoc elections Team CMV

Team TMK

President

Sam Anderson, Sci ‘17

Taylor Sawadsky, Sci ‘17

Why should students vote for you?

“What I will bring to the table is a unifying vision for the society.”

“A leader who is approachable and genuine and friendly is really important.”

Nicholas Rupar, Sci ‘18 Alexander Cavaliere, Sci ‘18

Tyler Bennett, Sci ‘17 Evan Dressel, Sci ‘18

VP Operations VP University Affairs

Chace Spencer, ArtSci ‘17 Michelle Chu, ArtSci ‘17 Varmaan Jeyaseelan, Sci ‘17

President VP Residence Affairs VP Judicial Affairs

Toros Canturk, ArtSci ’18 Matt Ierino, ArtSci ’18 Kayla Chute, ConEd ‘18

Why should students vote for you?

Team CMV said they will expand staff training regarding suicide alert, case investigations and organizational standards.

Team TMK plans to help students understand ResRules and why they’re in place.

ASUS elections Uncontested

President Darrean Baga, ArtSci ‘17

Vice President Brian Mackay, ArtSci ‘17

Darrean Bage and Brian Mackay are the only candidates running for ASUS executive.

Major platform points The pair will focus on personalized course lists, increased group study space learning environment, centralized pre-enrolment and access to grades prior to finals.

COMPSA elections

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President

Aniqah Mair, CompSci ‘18

Colin Bingham, CompSci ‘18

Biggest issue facing students in Computing?

“By 2017, Computing is expected to have lost 14 of their 28 faculty members.”

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“The course load in Computing can be very stressful, and there is not a lot of peer support.”

VP Operations

Vinith Suriyakumar, CompSci ‘18

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Friday, January 22, 2016

Referendum

queensjournal.ca

•5

AMS winter referendum statements The Journal provides this free space for parties on the ballot.

All statements are unedited.

TRIENNIAL REVIEW ASUS SHINERAMA Queen’s Shinerama is a regional chapter of the national Shinerama campaign that raises funds and awareness for the Cystic Fibrosis Canada.

Events are planned by the Community Awareness Respect and Engagement (C.A.R.E) Committee of ASUS Orientation. The Queen’s Shinerama campaign is introduced to students during ASUS Orientation Week and also carries out events throughout the school year which are open to the entire student body! The Shinerama fee of $0.75 goes towards planning school-wide events, and with your support to continue the fee, we hope to expand our events that are offered throughout the school year to increase our support for Shinerama.

An inaugural event for Queen’s Shinerama this past year was Shine Mile, a postOrientation Week 5km walk/run. With support from the opt-out fee, we hope to expand the event to accommodate a greater number of participants and have the opportunity to host local talent- bands and Kingston businesses alike!

In addition, we are looking to expand our winter events that are offered to the student body, such as Candy Gram sales and a Textbook Drive that was also implemented last year.

We are excited at the growth that Queen’s Shinerama has experienced with the student fee in place. Events both during and outside of Orientation Week have been able to expand through the support of the opt-out fee which allows for greater involvement from the Queen’s community. The opt-out fee allows for payments of rentals and bookings for events to ensure that all donations raised by students and Kingston members for Shinerama are donated to the charity.

KINGSTON YOUTH SHELTER Do you agree to the continuation of the Kingston Youth Shelter’s fee of $0.85 (subject to individual opt out) for the next three years. The fee was originally established in 2001 and last went to referendum in 2013.

Please provide a description of your organization and your plans for a student fee.

If you already have a student fee, describe what efforts you have undertaken using the money you have received. (Maximum 300 words) The Kingston Youth Shelter strives to make a difference in the lives of homeless youth by offering them a safe and supportive emergency shelter that encourages their growth and provides them with access to community resources. Whether it is a meal or a place to stay, we offer help in a safe environment that is free from drugs, alcohol and violence. We also provide young people with oneto-one counseling, crisis intervention and life skills training. In addition to our emergency shelter, we operate a 7 bed transitional housing program as well as a family mediation program – all aimed at ending youth homelessness.

Our goal is to provide homeless youth between the ages of 16 and 24 with the opportunity to build the confidence and stability necessary to make positive lifestyle changes, move into and maintain housing and address their issues surrounding homelessness.

Student fees collected each year provide the funding for our grocery & utilities – both of which we could not operate the program without.

TELEPHONE AID LINE KINGSTON Telephone Aid Line Kingston is a crisis, distress, befriending, and information phone line serving all members of the Kingston community since 1971. We are a volunteer-based confidential,

anonymous, and non-judgmental service. Our service has almost doubled in use over the past year due to our increasing promotional efforts and commitment to our service. Some of our calls even originate beyond the Kingston area. We believe in the ability of our service to empower caller and provide them a safe space to talk.

Our volunteers are trained comprehensively. We are a member organization of Distress Centres Ontario. Using the AMS fee, we manage a significant budget to maintain our operations, which include running the phone lines, training new volunteers two to three times a year through an intensive 40-hour training session, spearheading awareness campaigns, organizing executive meetings and board meetings, and organizing General Assemblies twice a year. The AMS budget is invaluable in paying our phone bills, as well as funding promotional materials, training materials and supplies, and awareness campaigns. Our volunteers number in excess of 50, and a significant portion of our volunteers are Queen’s students. Many of our students have gone on to pursue careers in mental health. Our service provides the opportunity for Queen’s students to help and immerse themselves in the Kingston community.

QUEEN’S PROJECT ON INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT QPID Queen’s Project on International Development (QPID) is a student run organization operating out of the Queen’s Engineering Society since 1990. On campus, QPID hosts a weekly forum, which focuses on a variety of development and global justice issues. In Kingston, QPID runs workshops and a conference for high school students. Through these education initiatives, QPID hopes to stimulate more awareness of global problems that our generation faces. In Canada and internationally, QPID participates in summer projects that share a focus on collaboration between interns and host communities to fill community- identified needs.

QPID has participated in over 200 grassroots community projects in Guyana, Ghana, Nunavut, Bolivia, Peru, India, Nunavut, Botswana, and India. In all that we do, QPID strives to engage with and the interns and executive members we hire. Therefore, our plans for the student fee are primarily focused within our international projects within a specific focus on ensuring the safety of summer interns. In addition, a large portion of the QPID budget is allocated to our High School Conference, held in the winter term, in order to obtain an influential keynote speaker to inspire Kingston youth to engage with development topics and think critically about global topics.

POSITIVE SPACE PROGRAM The Positive Space Program has been celebrating sexual and gender diversity at Queen’s since 1999. First and foremost, it is about encouraging volunteers to post our sticker in a location under their control in order to make our welcoming community at Queen’s more visible. To ensure that all who post the sticker have some basic knowledge about the issues, we provide a “Positive Space Information Session,” a two-hour introduction that has become a standard training tool for many student groups on campus. There are currently nearly 2000 participants in our program. Those who decide to become participants may also choose to become info session facilitators and/or to serve on the steering committee.

The student fee we receive covers costs of printing our stickers and brochures as well as some of the costs of other activities that our steering committee decides upon. For instance, in support of trans*-identities, Positive Space joined with the AMS and SGPS last year to fund signage to repurpose some 53 single-user washrooms on campus so that they are now gender neutral.

We also supported an LGBTQ+ panel at the Africa Day event, the development of the “Queer Here” group for Education students, and the Rector’s speaker and panel on trans*-identified children. Beyond our campus, we have shared our program with St. Lawrence College, which is now developing its own. This year, the focus is on our workshop facilitators and developing more programming to meet an increasing demand for education.

QUEEN’S HALF THE SKY Queen’s Half the Sky is an on-campus club whose main objective is to create awareness of particular issues affecting women globally, nationally, and locally.

More specifically QHTS focuses on women’s education, maternal and reproductive rights, ending sex trafficking, and economic empowerment for women. QHTS recognizes the need to address these various issues domestically and in our own communities, which is why each year we select multiple local charities to donate to. This year we have selected the HIV/ AIDS Regional Services and the Dawn House as the local organizations to receive our donations.

Not only locally, but internationally we support organizations that align strongly with our vision; this year we will be supporting Girls Not Brides; an organization dedicated to ending child marriage and enabling girls to fulfill their potential.

The revenue from a student fee will make a huge difference for QHTS. Additional funds will allow us to run awareness campaigns, organize events, and ultimately create a space where students who are interested in our vision can come together, take collective action, and have a hand in making a difference or women on a local and international level.

The student fee works to allow us the resources we need to run a more successful club, hosting larger events and educating more students on issues that women face everyday. QHTS caters to a niche subject; the student fee helps us to increase our presence on campus via events such as speaker series, club nights, and clothing drives throughout the year.

QUEEN’S HEALTH OUTREACH Queen’s Health Outreach (QHO) prides itself in being a student run, non-profit organization dedicated to health awareness. QHO is continuously evolving alongside of partnering communities on intuitive, through a needs-based peer educator system. QHO aims to enhance the organization’s sustainability by partnering with like-minded organizations both locally and internationally.

In past years QHO has used the money received from the student fee to fund the resources required to deliver engaging and effective lessons to grade-school aged students. This includes resources for classrooms and outreach events that unite the students with their communities.

The money has also been used to assist with the total cost of a Peer Educator on initiative.

QHO is an equal opportunity organization who strives to allow all students the opportunity to apply for the position of being a Peer Educator without worrying about financing the program.

Through the student fee, all students as Queen’s are assisting in making a positive difference for youth both locally and abroad.

QUEEN’S SPACE ENGINEERING TEAM The Queen’s Space Engineering Team (QSET) is designing and building a Mars Rover for competition in the University Rover Challenge (URC) in late May 2016, hosted by the Mars Rover Society in Utah and the European Rover Challenge (ERC) in early September 2016, hosted by the European Space Foundation in Poland.

QSET’s mission is to provide an environment

where students can develop industry transferable skills, while providing the flexibility and freedom required for successfully planning, researching, and implementing solutions to open ended design problems. During competition teams operate their rovers from designated command and control stations. These stations are metal trailer units or tents with tarp walls restricting visibility of the course. The rover is judged based on 5 tasks: Sample Return, Astronaut Assistance, Equipment Servicing, Terrain Traversing, & Presentation.

Our goal is to continue using the funds from the student fees and apply them directly to the costs of covering our materials for the competition.

STUDENTS FOR WISHES Students for Wishes® Queen’s University is the Kingston volunteer branch of Make-AWish® Eastern Ontario. We are the first and only entirely student-run branch of the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Canada, and part of the largest wish granting organization in the world! We are dedicated to improving the lives of children in our community, and 100% of our fundraising proceeds go towards wish granting and raising awareness about the Make-A-Wish Foundation both on and off campus. As the Kingston volunteer branch of Make-A-Wish, we are responsible for all local fundraising as well as granting the wishes in Kingston. Through granting the wishes of local Kingston children with life threatening medical conditions, we seek to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy.

Any funding received will go toward offsetting a small amount of costs associated with hosting and raising awareness for our annual events.

All left-over funds go directly toward granting the wishes of local Kingston children with lifethreatening medical conditions. To provide a more tangible figure – fees raised from Queen’s University students help grant one child’s entire wish (whether that be to see their favourite celebrity or to take a trip with their whole family!)

SHRC Vote yes…yes…YES! (to the continuation of the SHRC’s fee, that is) The Sexual Health Resource Centre (SHRC) is a confidential, non-judgmental, feminist, pro choice, queer-positive, non-heterosexist, and sex positive information and referral service for all things sex, sexuality and sexual health. We operate out of JDUC 223 selling safer sex products and toys at cost, lending books out of out sexual health library, and providing information and referrals to clients. We are also active in the broader community, distributing condoms through on-campus dispensers and at local events, and presenting sexual health workshops to campus residences and other groups.

Additionally, we provide accompaniment services to the Women’s Clinic for clients accessing abortion services and the Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Unit for clients who have been sexually assaulted. We are an active contributor to the community and truly a one-stop shop for all your sex and sexual health needs!

The SHRC is a completely volunteer-run and not-for-profit organization, and has been serving Queen’s and the surrounding community for forty years. We have had a mandatory fee since 2004, which has helped us to greatly improve the quality and accessibility of our services. The mandatory fee allows us to train volunteers, maintain condom dispensers, provide teach-ins for thousands of participants, and expand our product selection and service offerings. We are seeking continued financial support from the Queen’s community this year, and urge you to vote YES in favour of maintaining our $1.00 fee. Gaels and Kingstonians alike are grateful for your support!

6 •queensjournal.ca UNITED WAY The Queen’s United Way Committee is composed of 10-15 members (plus an additional 10-15 volunteers) and serves to fundraise for the United Way Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox, and Addington (KFL&A) branch, as well as raise awareness about the United Way and the United Way’s agencies on campus. The Queen’s United Way Committee focuses on three pillars: fundraising, outreach, and awareness. On this basis, we create events – such as the United Way Kick Off BBQ and the Annual Food and Clothing Drive – that raise money and resources necessary to provide support to members of the Kingston community.

The Queen’s United Way Committee is particularity proud of fundraising for agencies the directly support student wellness, making our committee an integral part of the Queen’s student experience. The student fee itself has been used to support United Way funded agencies in providing services that enhance the wellness, experience, and functioning of the Kingston community and its members. The student fee is used by the United Way KFL&A to support a broad range of organizations that aim to strengthen the Kingston by providing vital services such as counselling, mental health support, a sexual assault centre and food security among many others. Overall, the student fee gives the United Way KFL&A the opportunity to provide essential, high quality and accessible services to the community and students, while simultaneously creating student leaders and positively changing the way the public perceives Queen’s students.

QUEEN’S SOUL FOOD Soul Food is a non-for-profit organization that is dedicated to addressing issues surrounding poverty and food security. Hunger is one of the most easily solvable issues as there are enough resources for everyone. One of our major initiatives that we do utilizing the student fee is our cafeteria run. Every day after dinner, we send volunteers who pick up the unused, leftover cafeteria food and deliver them to shelters around Kingston.

In the past we have regularly delivered food to Dawnhouse, Kingston Youth Shelter, In from the Cold, and Ryandale. Usually there is one volunteer per cafeteria (Ban Righ, Leonard, and Jean Royce) that has access to a car so they drive to and from the shelters from the cafeterias. However, there are times when we are unable to locate a driver and rather than abandoning the run that night, we tell the volunteers to use a taxi. A major expense for us is taxi usage to ensure that the shelters have food. Queen’s Soul Food also hosts events that promote awareness about poverty and food security such as speaker events and awareness on campus. We raise awareness in the cafeterias about food waste as well with posters and pamphlets.

All the activities that we have undertaken were to promote awareness for poverty and food security.

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BEST BUDDIES Queen’s University Best Buddies is a campus affiliate of Best Buddies Canada, an organization that aims to provide people with intellectual/ developmental disabilities the chance to have experiences that many people take for granted.

Queen’s University Best Buddies facilitates and supports friendships between students and individuals with intellectual disabilities in the Kingston community. Students are paired with a buddy and are responsible for contacting their buddy regularly and meeting their buddy biweekly for a one-on-one activity. These friendships are intended to be similar to any other friendships and time spent together may include going for coffee, watching movies, going to the mall, attending a local sporting event, engaging in physical activity, or another mutually enjoyable activity. At least once a month, we host chapter-wide group events where everyone is invited to socialize with other buddy pairs and enjoy refreshments, crafts, dancing, and various other activities.

In the past, we have funded our activities through opt-outable student fees, which we hope we will continue to do in the future. We receive the majority of our funding from student fees and, in past years, this money has been sufficient to cover all our expenses. The money we receive from student fees pays for food/catering, decorations,

Referendum equipment/room rentals, craft/activity supplies, and miscellaneous other costs associated with running our numerous chapter-wide events held throughout the year. This year (2015-2106), we have the following events planned: October is a Halloween Party, November is the Kingston Santa Claus Parade, December is a Christmas Movie, January is a Kingston Frontenacs hockey game, February is a Valentines Party, March is an Easter Party and April is a Spring Fling/End-of-Year Party.

day camps, and activities in Downtown Toronto.

Many students at Queen’s are familiar with OOCH and the work that it does, and our organization provides a community for people who believe in summer camp for all. In the past, we use our student fee to purchase goods for our events, so that all the money that we raise can be donated to Camp Oochigeas.

QUEEN’S SOCIAL INVESTMENT INITIATIVE

The Sustainability Action Fund (SAF) is a grant operated out of the Commission of the Environment and Sustainability (CES) that awards money to groups looking to either run new sustainability themed projects on campus or to improve their existing operations. For example, in the past couple granting periods, we’ve funded the first ever Queen’s Sustainability Conference, a campus greenhouse (in progress), the Queen’s Solar Design Team’s incredible solar-powered house, local food for the AMS Food Bank, and lots more!

Any individual, club, organization, or service is eligible to submit an application for student-run projects that increase campus energy efficiency, reduce waste, educate the Queen’s community on sustainability-related issues, or any other environmentally friendly initiative that will impact students. This student fee is extremely beneficial for the Queen’s community, as it provides more opportunities for students to get involved in environmentalism and actively encourages the implementation of more sustainable projects at our university.

The Queen’s Social Investment Initiative (“QS2I”) is the first university-based impact investing organization in Canada. We engage and assist local development groups in lowincome markets that have the potential to create employment/growth capacity for their communities. Our investment fund is sourced from annual student opt-out fees, which is in turn used to make business loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries through our local field partners. Our local field partners currently include Peter Morrin, a Queen’s Engineering Alumnus, and Educate!, a Clinton Global Initiative recognized NGO that provides entrepreneurship training to high school students across Uganda.

Through investments, QS2I’s goal is to increase the access to capital for young, educated entrepreneurs, reducing youth unemployment and assisting in breaking the cycle of poverty for future generations. Through education, QS2I’s goal is to increase awareness and knowledge on campus about impact investing, microfinance and social entrepreneurship. We also seek to connect passionate students to organizations and individuals who work in the field for learning and career opportunities. We do this predominantly through two annual events, the Queen’s Microcredit Competition and a Symposium on Economic Development, as well as other smaller events.

STUDENTS FOR LITERACY Queen’s Students for Literacy was established as a branch of Frontier College, a Canada wide literacy organization in 1899. Queen’s Students for Literacy runs three different programs, Literacy Outreach, Prison Literacy Initiative and Read for Fun. Each program focuses its efforts on helping different groups in the Kingston community build their literacy skills and foster a love of reading and writing. Our read for fun program, consisting of over 100 tutors, services over 100 elementary school students in the Kingston community, building their reading, writing, and numeracy abilities. Often these children utilize our free one-on-one tutoring program to build upon what is learned in the classroom, and to provide additional assistance and customized learning not available at school.

Our Literacy Outreach program works with children and adults staying at Lily’s Place and Interval House shelters in the Kingston community.

Building a love of reading and providing additional academic and mentorship support for these kids is our primary objective, while providing child supervision for parents in the process. Our Prison Literacy Initiative program consists of more than thirty tutors who work with inmates at Joyceville minimum, Collins bay minimum, medium and maximum security prisons. Tutoring sessions aim to work on individual projects, skill development and group learning sessions, all with the goal of providing these people with the tools for success in life after their time in prison, with the goal of reducing recidivism.

Funds acquired through our student opt-out fee are essential to providing our tutors with transportation to the 14 locations in the Kingston community where our tutoring takes place.

Without our student fee we would be unable to provide transportation for our tutors, lack the funding required to cover recruitment, hiring, club administration and miscellaneous classroom supply costs.

QUEEN’S FOR OOCH Queen’s for OOCH aims to raise funds and awareness for Camp Oochigeas. Camp Oochigeas is a non-profit camp for children with cancer whose goal is to allow these children to be children once again. They also run programs for children affected by cancer (bereaved siblings),

SUSTAINABILITY ACTION FUND

QUEEN’S LEGAL AID Queen’s Legal Aid has been helping people in the Queen’s and Kingston communities for over 40 years. Those of you who have been to Queen’s Legal Aid will know that we provide free legal services in a number of areas of the law. Queen’s students currently pay a mandatory $5.00 student fee to Queen’s Legal Aid. As a result of this fee, Queen’s students automatically qualify for our legal services without having to meet our financial criteria.

If you have a landlord who is trying to evict you, or refuses to do needed repairs, Queen’s Legal Aid may be able to help. We may be able to assist if you had too much fun one night, got into trouble with the police, and were charged with a minor criminal offence such as drug possession, assault or shoplifting. We may also be able to go to Small Claims Court when your deadbeat housemate will not pay any of the bills. Specifically for students, we offer assistance with the Ontario Student Assistance Plan problems, or when facing the AMS judicial prosecutor. We also provide Notary Public and Commissioner for Oaths services to certify documents and commission Statutory Declarations.

Your $5.00 levy also helps support the work we do for low-income Kingston area residents.

Not only do we provide a valuable service for our students, we help to achieve access to justice for our community.

We hope that you never have to use our services, but many have needed us and found it extremely helpful. Your $5.00 helps us help you.

If you have a legal question you’d like some help with, or for more information, please drop by our office at the Queen’s Law Clinics, 5th Floor, 303 Bagot Street (La Salle Mews building) or call us at 613-533-2102. Everything is confidential.

Thank you for your support.

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BLOOD TEAM The Queen’s University Blood Team works with Canadian Blood Services to raise awareness about blood donation on campus.

We work to reduce the stigma associated with blood donation on campus and in the Kingston community through education.

As well as providing an accessible, easy, comfortable and safe spaces for donating blood on campus. Our team facilitates on campus blood clinics once a month in either the BioScience Complex or the Athletics and Recreation Center (ARC). We also run a LifeBus bi-weekly that brings students from campus to the Kingston Blood Clinic to donate blood. To promote our LifeBus, we run a booth twice a week in the ARC to

Friday, January 22, 2016 allow students to sign up for blood donation appointments. Additionally, the Queen’s University Blood Team runs Special Events throughout the year including several large OneMatch Get Swabbed events. OneMatch is Canada’s Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Registry and through these events we add interested students into the registry. We believe that through encouraging students to donate when they are in school, we create lifelong donors who will save hundreds of lives.

VOGUE CHARITY FASHION SHOW Vogue Charity Fashion Show (VCFS) is the largest student-run fashion show at Queen’s.

Every year we strive to combine charity work with the arts in a creative and innovative way to catch the attention of the Queen’s Community.

Throughout the year we put on various events which culminate with an annual fashion show in the Spring. All of the proceeds are donated to a different local charity at the end of the academic year. Our show combines the talents of models, dancers, musicians, choreographers, designers, makeup artists and many others. VCFS strives to put to use the amazing talent found here at Queen’s in order to improve the community that we are all a part of. Further, we hope each year to promote our charities with enough success that they are able to maintain a strong presence on campus after our formal partnership concludes.

Last year VCFS donated $43, 000 to Jack.org to help raises awareness for issues related to mental health and fund their “Bounce Back” program here at Queen’s. This year VCFS is supporting the Happy Soul Project, an amazing initiative that aims to remove the stigmas attached to differences with the end goal of having everyone embrace their differences with pride. We will be helping to fund their “Kick-it Capes” initiative which sends capes to children in need, allowing them to be their own heroes in their time of need. The funds collected will be used to help us throw events that will raise awareness for the Happy Soul Project and any leftover will be donated to the charity at the end of year.

QBACC Queen’s Backing Action on Climate Change (QBACC) is a student-run environmental activism group that seeks to respond to the seriousness of climate change and other prominent environmental issues. As such, we hope to engage the Queen’s and Kingston communities with the environmental problems faced by current and future generations. QBACC is part of a growing movement of global citizens concerned about the future of our planet, and aims to send a strong message to other institutions and to all levels of government that action on climate change is an urgent priority.

We also hope to motivate and empower students to make greater efforts to be sustainable – challenging them to think beyond recycling and eco-friendly consumerism. Hence, we provide opportunities to adapt a more sustainable lifestyle. Keeping this objective in mind, this year on October 22nd, we have put together a career networking event in the renewable energy industry to help students embody sustainability in their futures.

It is important that we foster a sustainable relationship with our environment. Likewise, at QBACC we believe in the right to a healthy environment. As a result, we have decided to participate in the Blue Dot movement, a project of the David Suzuki Foundation, to ensure that clean water, fresh air, and healthy foods are recognized as human rights in Canada.

For our actions to bring about true change, we recognize the need to provide everyone with the opportunity to engage with these issues.

Consequently, QBACC is always seeking new members, including students, faculty, staff, and other members of our community. If you are interested in getting involved please email us at queensbacc@gmail.com(link sends e-mail).

WORLD UNIVERSITY SERVICES CANADA The Student Refugee Program combines refugee resettlement and the pursuit of higher education. Opportunities for refugees

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Friday, January 22, 2016 to pursue higher education are virtually nonexistent, leaving many bright and talented students unable to achieve their academic or professional goals. This program, run by the World University Service of Canada

NEW OR ALTERING FEES CAMP OUTLOOK Camp Outlook is an all-volunteer, communitybased charitable organization that serves the Queen’s and Kingston communities. Our mission is to encourage local youth to realize their worth as individuals, their abilities, and their potential to achieve. To work towards this goal, we provide young people between the ages of 13 and 17 with the opportunity to experience wilderness camping at no cost. This environment allows them to respond to nature’s challenges in a team while being supported by trained staff.

During the academic year, under our fall and winter programs, we offer weekend wilderness trips staffed by Queen’s students. During the summer we run longer canoe camping trips in Algonquin Park. Camp Outlook was founded by a Queen’s University Medical Student in 1970 and has been running continuously since.

Outlook helps youth experience the beauty of the Canadian Wilderness, as well as assists volunteer staff by helping them gain valuable experience working with children, as well as industry-standard certifications in outdoor education. There is no experience necessary for incoming staff. Queen’s students have been integral to Outlook, in its foundations as well as its day-to-day operation.

Camp Outlook is looking to raise our $0.85 opt-outable fee to $1.00. The fee was originally established in 2001 and has not risen since then. In the past 15 years, we have expanded our programming, enhanced our staff training, and incurred additional costs for running our program associated with inflation. Camp Outlook is a valuable organization for both the broader community and for Queen’s students, and a fee increase will help us ensure the future of our programming. We are particularly interested in further investments in our staff training program.

QUEEN’S FREE THE CHILDREN Queen’s Free The Children (QFTC) is a chapter of the Canadian charity Free The Children (FTC) operating on Queen’s University Campus in Kingston, ON. The Queen’s Free The Children team is a dynamic, energetic, and passionate group of individuals that are united by one common goal; to create social change.

Being a family of shameless idealists and social entrepreneurs, Free The Children empowers youth to change the world through “WE” thinking and “WE” acting. This year, “WE” want YOU to be a part of that change! Already funding three entire Adopt-A-Village projects, QFTC has been growing steadily since its inception in 2007.

Hosting a number of unique events throughout the year such as our annual Be The Change Conference, QFTC helps raise funds for the construction of sustainable development projects in rural Kenya.

Making a donation of over $15,000 to Free The Children in 2014-2015, QFTC plans to exceed that goal this year and needs YOUR help in order to do so! Focusing on the five pillars of sustainability- education, clean water, alternative income projects, health care and food securityFree The Children is committed to shaping a world where everything is possible.

JACK.ORG Jack.org Queen’s Chapter was established at Queen’s University to try to increase awareness, start conversations and break the stigma surrounding mental health. To date, we have tried to do this through events and initiatives on campus, including “Sleeve the Stigma Behind,” an initiative with the Tea Room where we provided coffee sleeves with slogans about mental health like ‘Talking about mental health? Espresso yourself;’ and “Making Noise about Mental Health with Devan and Khalid,” a concert where we provided music and entertainment to attendees, while also discussing the importance of raising awareness of mental health. These initiatives and events are designed to reach students who may not be comfortable with the subject of mental health

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(WUSC), is responsible for the resettlement of approximately 78 students each year to Canadian universities and colleges. Students in refugee camps across Kenya, Malawi, and Thailand, who have completed their

secondary education, are eligible for this program. Every year, Queen’s University sponsors one student to resettle here in Kingston and pursue their university education. Money from student fees goes

towards maintaining this program and helping to financially support these students throughout their undergraduate careers, here at Queen’s.

and bring them into the conversation to challenge negative perceptions. In order to reach our target audience, the student population of Queen’s, we sometimes require a large budget to reach such a large audience – we believe that while 1 in 5 people will struggle with mental illness, 5 in 5 people have mental health and the more we talk about it, the more other people will feel comfortable talking about it too. The head office of Jack.org will not be able to financially support all of the student chapters across the nation forever, so by establishing a student opt-out fee, we will be able to continue to reach Queen’s students and hopefully improve student life.

children and their families benefit immensely from: a) learning swimming skills and water safety awareness b) forming a bond with an attentive young adult role model c) a small break for the parents, from what may otherwise be intensive around-the-clock care d) the very low cost of this program, only $20 per child for 10 weeks of one-on-one lessons, compared to ~$300 for the same set of lessons at a private facility. For many families with children who absolutely require one-on-one instruction, swimming lessons would be prohibitively expensive if our program were not available.

supports follow-up medical care and community development projects. In addition, we work to raise awareness about issues of global health and development. With the student fee our chapter will be able to expand its efforts on campus and reach a larger proportion of the Queen’s community. In hosting fundraising events for the MEDLIFE fund including a conference, global health seminars, academic tutorials and a benefit concert our chapter will be able to expand and increase the volume of these events. In having a larger budget to operate with our chapter will have the opportunity to create new initiatives for students to get involved and take part in – while raising funds for the MEDLIFE fund. In promoting MEDLIFE’s name on campus more students will be made aware of the opportunities MEDLIFE can provide to them, such as taking part in a mobile clinic trip. In embarking on a MEDLIFE trip over reading break or summer break students are given the opportunity to make a global impact. Upon returning home MEDLIFE strongly encourages students to continue their involvement within their local community. The Queen’s Chapter strongly values this principal and with the student fee we hope to incorporate

ROBOGALS Queen’s Robogals Queen’s was established in January of 2014, and is part of the global organization Robogals. Robogals aims to increase female participation in STEM (science, technology, and engineering) fields. We do this by running interactive Lego Robotics workshops for male and female students in high school and elementary school. Since January of 2014 Robogals Queen’s has reached out to over 250 youth in the Kingston community. All workshops are run by male and female volunteers from the Queen’s student body.

Robogals Queen’s is a non-for-profit group, and runs workshops at no cost. Optional student fees will go towards workshop costs. This includes transporting volunteers to and from workshops, purchasing materials for design challenges, and updating and maintaining electronic equipment.

QUEEN’S BRIDGE BUILDING TEAM The Queen’s Bridge Building Team (QBBT) is an engineering design team that designs and constructs bridges made out of popsicle sticks, white glue, and dental floss. Each year we compete in the annual Troitsky Bridge Building Competition hosted by Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. QBBT brings up to six bridges and thirty-six students to competition.

The weekend-long competition provides an opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience within a dynamic project setting.

Team members are able to develop their design, construction, and project management skills as well as become active members of the engineering community through networking with professional organizations and other universities. Although the QBBT is a relatively new entrant to this competition, we believe that with an increase in financial stability, along with continued commitment, we can become a highly competitive team at the annual competition.

Participation requires that we raise and manage funds to cover construction, travel, and accommodation expenses for the four day competition. As such, QBBT relies heavily upon contributions from external organizations, through sponsorship and donations, and internal sources such as the AMS and FEAS grants.

However, each member must pay a participation fee of approximately $190 in order to cover our expenses. With the implementation of a student fee, QBBT will reduce the costs per student, making the team more accommodating for those who may be unable to attend competition due to the high participation fee. Additionally, continuing to expand the financial base of the team will ensure continuity from year-to-year, as well as open added doors for future investment in team resources.

MAKING WAVES Making Waves Kingston, a chapter of organization Making Waves Canada, is a nonfor-profit organization run by Queen’s Students as a platform to provide affordable weekly oneon-one swimming lessons to children with special needs. Lessons are held in the ARC pool, and each child is paired with one student volunteer swim instructor for the entire 10-week session (both in the fall and winter semesters) Local children who enrol in this program include those with autistic spectrum disorder, Down’s Syndrome, ADHD, motor abnormalities, and other conditions. These

QUEEN’S STUDENT CONSTABLES The demand for our program in the Kingston community may be surmised from the fact that Making Waves’ enrollment has grown year-overyear since its inception, from fewer than 30 children the first to almost 100 enrolled today.

The money raised by the fee would go directly to paying for the rental of the ARC pool for lesson time (over $930 a month!), and potentially allowing us to expand the program with more pool time and more children that could be accepted into the program.

The Queen’s Student Constables perform a vital role on campus, providing lower-cost security for our licensed establishments and for many on and off campus events. The very nature of the job is difficult; staff face a stressful work environment that is often hostile and difficult to manage.

This fact, along with the extensive training, has made both recruitment and staff retention extremely difficult.

The Student Constable’s student activity fee was previously increased by $1.66 in 2011 – 2012 at the AGM (Annual General Meeting). The main reasoning for this was the continual deficit brought on by the new cost of training, which had been mandated by the province of Ontario.

During this year, a motion passed to increase Student Constables’ wages from $11 to $12 per hour. The minimum wage at the time was $10.25, providing the Student Constables with a $1.25 buffer. This change was to resolve the concerning issue of low applicant numbers to the service as well as poor rehire retention rates. Now in 2015 with the minimum wage at $11.25, this buffer has been eroded to 75 cents and doesn’t provide the incentive it once did for new applicants. Should the increase to the student fee pass, we will be looking to once again to raise wages by $1.00.

Furthermore, we believe the Student Constables’ presence at events ensure the safety and well-being of all students in attendance.

Most clubs on campus are obligated by policy to have them at their events. Should the student fee increase be passed, we would look to significantly subsidize these clubs and allow them to use the service at a lower cost. We wish to become more accessible to the Queen’s community, and allow all AMS ratified clubs and Faculty societies to extend their budgets and either create enhanced events or lower the entrance fee charged to students.

We are hoping for this fee increase, given that it allows us the opportunity to pursue a number of important objectives for QSC and the Queen’s community.

MEDLIFE MEDLIFE is an international NGO that provides access to medicine, education, and development in impoverished communities, with the ultimate goal of sustainably improving quality of life. MEDLIFE develops relationships with residents of the areas they work in to ensure that aid remains continuous and projects are geared towards each community’s unique needs. With the help of student volunteers, medical professionals hired in Peru, Ecuador, and Tanzania set up mobile clinics in low-income areas. At Queen’s, our club has two main purposes. The first is to recruit and prepare students for volunteer service trips to Peru, Ecuador, and Tanzania. The second is to raise money for the MEDLIFE Fund, which

NYANTENDE FOUNDATION The Nyantende Foundation is a grassroots, non-profit organization that was founded at Queen’s in 2010. The foundation helps to subsidize the full cost of tuition and learning materials for 229 students in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The money we receive from the opt-out fee goes towards the education of these 229 children. This year we are planning to develop an educational technology centre so that the children can have access to computers and a computer based curriculum that will teach them necessary skills to move forward.

The increase in opt fee will help us with the cost of implementation and supplies for this technology centre.

OPIRG The Ontario Public Interest Research Group – Kingston at Queen’s University (OPIRG) is Queen’s campus based centre for communitybased research, education, and action supporting social and environmental justice. We believe we cannot address problems in isolation, but that issues must be examined and challenged through an intersectional approach.

OPIRG is unique in that we do not just do research or education or strive to create change, but we unite those three actions into one organization. Not only do we inspire and support critical research, we use that research to develop educational campaigns and to create lasting change. OPIRG is student driven and directed; our Board of Directors, research projects, and educational campaigns are all student-lead.

A great example of our work is our latest campaign: We Believe In A Campus Free of Sexual Violence. This campaign was started by Queen’s students working on an OPIRG research project.

By examining the best practices of university campuses across Canada this research has created recommendations on how Queen’s University can become the first campus to end sexual violence.

OPIRG is now leading a campaign to make these recommendations a reality on our campus. The optional student fee that we are requesting will go to campaigns like the one above. It will fund guest lecturers, events, campaign materials, volunteer committees, and help eliminate financial barriers for students who would like to participate.

We are seeking a $3 optional student fee. It will allow us to enhance the support and resources we make available to Queen’s University students who participate in our educational campaigns and our research projects. During our 23 years at Queen’s University, our research and educational campaigns have made an undeniable mark on our campus, and all our work has been made possible with the dedication of Queen’s University students.

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TEDxQUEENSU TEDxQueensU is a student run conference aimed at bringing together progressive and unique pioneers, leaders, and collaborators from our community and beyond. We look to provide a platform from which ideas can be shared, action can be inspired, and discussion can be sparked. By identifying a slate of speakers from a variety of fields, and attracting a diverse audience of students and community members, we hope to stimulate curiosity and inspire the continued exchange of solutions and opinions.

Additionally, we hope to celebrate the Queen’s and Kingston community for its dynamic thinking and esteemed achievements through creative TED Talk presentations and innovation sessions.

TEDxQueensU’s optional student fee allows for greater access of attendees to its conference through reduced ticket pricing along with providing funding for outside-conference community events such as its Open Mic Night.

QUEEN’S HEALTHCARE & BUSINESS CONFERENCE The Queen’s Healthcare & Business Conference (QHBC) is a new conference at Queen’s University that aims to highlight the dynamic healthcare industry and its increasingly integrated relationship with both the private and public sectors. It is the first student-run conference of its kind in Canada with comparable conferences only in top schools within the US. This conference is open to all faculties and years with an emphasis on multidisciplinary collaboration that will involve captivating conversations with industry leaders, academic researchers and entrepreneurs. Through these interactions, the goal of the conference is to foster ideas that will work towards a more integrated and innovative healthcare industry. This year’s inaugural conference (held in March 2016) will feature events like speaker panels, workshops, a case competition and an innovation showcase.

The student fee, if received, would go towards enhancing the conference and the organization as a whole to provide more value to Queen’s students in future years. With the funding, the conference can be expanded from the current 1.5 day timeline to a longer event allowing deeper learning for delegates. In addition, the funding would provide us the ability to obtain more and higher quality speakers from farther areas such as the U.S. or Western Canada. Aside from the improving the conference, the funding would also be used to host more events such as tasters (ex. speaker panels, workshops, tours of healthcare facilities) and innovation showcases throughout the year. Furthermore, the number of delegates can be increased with the funds to book larger venues. This allows us to achieve our goal of exposing Queen’s undergraduate students to many aspects of healthcare and its interaction with various industry sectors. Overall, the funds will allow QHBC to provide higher quality events for a greater number of Queen’s AMS students.

QUEST QUEST, the Queen’s University Experimental Sustainability Team, was founded in 2012, as a rebranded version of the Living Energy Lab (LEL). QUEST is the only interdisciplinary, interfaculty design team at Queen’s with a broad focus on sustainability. Sustainability has become an integral aspect in engineering design and is a key focus in industry objectives as issues of resource scarcity and environmental degradation become apparent in modern civilization with continued economic development. The team’s goal is to achieve self-sufficient, sustainable living with projects designed to remediate issues present in society and decrease the human impact on the environment. Through projects and campus-wide interaction QUEST hopes to address the human behavior factor by designing systems that change the way energy and resources are consumed in a residential setting.

The team received an optional student fee

of $0.20 for 2015-2016. The team is currently working on two core projects which require financial resources to operate. One of the projects culminates in a technical symposium competition that requires funding for transportation and accommodation, while the other project is focused on designing and prototyping a human powered electricity device. Every year, the team sets goals to increase campus awareness and build a larger member base. An increase in the optional student fee will assist the team in supporting additional team members and projects, supporting team development and growth into the future.

In the past, funds received from the student fees have been used to allow team members to attend sustainability conferences and showcase projects, purchase required project materials and allow team members to make site visits for competition.

QFLIP The Queen’s Female Leadership in Politics Conference (QFLIP) is the first undergraduate conference in Canada focused on the empowerment of the next generation of female political leaders. QFLIP will bring in prominent political leaders from all backgrounds who can network with delegates and equip them with the necessary skills and connections to achieve success in their careers. Speakers we have invited include Andrea Horwath, leader of the Ontario NDP, and Alison Redford, former Premier of Alberta, both of whom are exemplary female political leaders who can be role models to future leaders.

QFLIP will also host other beneficial events for the Queen’s community, such as our upcoming Career Roundtable where guests can have dinner with a political leader and get to know them personally and in a more intimate setting. Our club is not just a conference, it is a movement on campus that aims to raise awareness and support for gender representation in politics. The value of female leadership in politics is immeasurable because women are an untapped resource in our society. QFLIP will finally tap this resource in ensuring more people have their voices heard and are able to exact positive change in our political community.

USCC The Queen’s branch of the Undergraduate Ontario Science Case Competition allows undergraduate students to apply case based learning to a challenging, educational, and fun research oriented problem. It was founded on the principle that science is much more than memorizing pieces of information and regurgitating them during an exam. It’s about curiosity, it’s about exploration, and it’s about taking risks. The competition involves developing an original research idea in the form of a grant proposal which is aimed at tackling a real-world challenge, and back up the idea with current scientific research. The competition has two phases: a local phase which is involves only students here at Queen’s, and a provincial phase based out of Western University, which involves students from across Ontario. Annually, over 200 undergraduate students participate in the competition, many of which advance to the provincial round. As such, transporting students to Western can be a huge financial burden and is the limiting factor which determines how many students we can afford to send. Student fees would be implemented to help ensure at least some costs of transportation could be covered, increasing the [sic]

LEVANA Levana Gender Advocacy Centre is a Queen’s University organization committed to creating and nurturing a radical community of Queen’s students devoted to fighting gender oppression and advocating for broad ideas of gender empowerment (for those of any or no gender).

Levana operates on an anti-oppressive framework and therefore is committed to confronting all

Friday, January 22, 2016

forms of oppression and working to dismantle oppressive systems and hierarchies including patriarchy, white privilege, colonialism, classism, cis privilege (non-trans privilege), heterosexual privilege, and able-bodied privilege.

Levana hosts events, workshops, and programming throughout the year that are intended to spark conversation and build community. We have different working groups (Lunchtime Chat Series, Feminist Film Series, Feminist Book Club, Trans Student Issues Working Group, Conferences and Panels Working Group) in which Queen’s students can get involved as participants or as volunteers. We also provide funding for projects and initiatives that align with our mandate. Last year alone we provided than $1, 400 to student-led initiatives! We have an alternative resources lending library with over 800 individual book titles and an always-growing collection of ‘zines for Queen’s students to borrow.

We hold regular office hours (come visit us in the Grey House!) and provide support, referrals, and advocacy for Queen’s students on issues relating to our mandate. We strive to create a safe space on campus and to work towards building a Queen’s community that is passionate, connected, and engaged.

If we acquire a student fee, we will use this funding to enrich our programming, host trainings and workshops for students, sponsor stimulating conferences and events, and continue to financially support student initiatives through grants and volunteer opportunities.

GOLDEN WORDS Golden Words is a weekly humor number written, produced and distributed by students at Queen’s university. Golden Words produces 25 issues a year and distribute 4000 copies of the paper free each week across campus. The objective of Golden Words is to provide students with an outlet for their creative talents in writing and visual art and to make this content available to the Queen’s community. Golden Words prides itself in maintaining low barriers to entry. Golden Words membership is open to any member of the Queen’s community and our diverse staff and management is composed of individuals from many different faculties. Golden Words Operates annual events, such as the popular Science Fair, drawing faculties to experience live Golden Words Humor. Golden Words currently receives a mandatory student fee of $2.00. The income is used to pay the operating expenses of the newspaper and is supplemented by advertising revenue.

MUSE MUSE Magazine is a biannual student-run publication, dedicated to exposing underground, artistic student talent at Queen’s University and within the surrounding Kingston area. MUSE strives to showcase all student work, be it personal essays, visual art, fashion design, creative writing, music, or any other forms of creativity. We speak bluntly, creating an edge that we hope will provoke conversation, allowing students to question the world around them. Our hope is to engage in a discourse within the Queen’s University student body, inspiring further student creativity.

Our organization has two primary goals: to introduce Queen’s University students to the unique Kingston arts culture, and to provide a platform upon which university students can express themselves. Our printed copy is crucial to spreading this message. While MUSE Magazine is available in both the print and online format, nothing brings to life the collaborative effort of the Queen’s creative community more than a tangible, physical product. In essence, the print issue is who we are. Our print issue serves as the physical manifestation of the uninhibited creativity that MUSE embodies, and allows us to maintain a tangible presence on campus. MUSE’s mandate states that we strive to be different and to make bold statements- part of living up to this

mandate is being able to publish an issue readers can truly interact with, in order to receive the complete effect of the MUSE experience. Each issue of our magazine is released for free, and all funds received from optional student fees will go directly towards printing expenses.

MUSE serves as a creative outlet for students on campus; with a student fee, we will be able to continue to provide this outlet at the most effective and powerful level possible.

MUSE Magazine: “From creative minds, for creative minds” Yours Creatively, [sic]

QUEEN’S RIGHT TO PLAY Queen’s Right to Play is a branch of the larger charity organization, Right to Play International.

Right to Play recognizes that all children should be given the opportunity to play and interact with other children. Right To Play’s mission is to use sport and play to educate and empower children and youth to overcome the effects of poverty, conflict, and disease in disadvantaged communities. With the support from the head office, Queen’s RTP organizes activities and fundraisers to raise awareness on campus, allow students and local community members to get involved, and improve the lives of youth across more than 20 countries, including Canada and the US. These events include dodgeball, basketball tournaments and volleyball tournaments, spin-athons, Kingston community outreach workshops, yoga, music nights and more!

With the student fee, RTP will be able to hold larger events, making them more accessible to more of the Queen’s community while ensuring that events continue to be affordable for students.

We are also seeking increase community outreach workshops with new partnerships with local schools and Aboriginal youth in Kingston.

QUEEN’S STUDENT CONSTABLES The Queen’s Student Constables perform a vital role on campus, providing lower-cost security for our licensed establishments and for many on and off campus events. The very nature of the job is difficult; staff face a stressful work environment that is often hostile and difficult to manage.

This fact, along with the extensive training, has made both recruitment and staff retention extremely difficult.

The Student Constable’s student activity fee was previously increased by $1.66 in 2011 – 2012 at the AGM (Annual General Meeting). The main reasoning for this was the continual deficit brought on by the new cost of training, which had been mandated by the province of Ontario.

During this year, a motion passed to increase Student Constables’ wages from $11 to $12 per hour. The minimum wage at the time was $10.25, providing the Student Constables with a $1.25 buffer. This change was to resolve the concerning issue of low applicant numbers to the service as well as poor rehire retention rates. Now in 2015 with the minimum wage at $11.25, this buffer has been eroded to 75 cents and doesn’t provide the incentive it once did for new applicants. Should the increase to the student fee pass, we will be looking to once again to raise wages by $1.00.

Furthermore, we believe the Student Constables’ presence at events ensure the safety and well-being of all students in attendance.

Most clubs on campus are obligated by policy to have them at their events. Should the student fee increase be passed, we would look to significantly subsidize these clubs and allow them to use the service at a lower cost. We wish to become more accessible to the Queen’s community, and allow all AMS ratified clubs and Faculty societies to extend their budgets and either create enhanced events or lower the entrance fee charged to students.

We are hoping for this fee increase, given that it allows us the opportunity to pursue a number of important objectives for QSC and the Queen’s community.

Referendum voting is open from Jan. 26 to 27

Friday, January 22, 2016

queensjournal.ca

EDITORIALS

The Journal’s Perspective

Tuition freeze unlikely to solve structural problems F

reezing tuition would give students a breather, but it’s not going to win the marathon in the long run.

The AMS recently joined the “Time Out” Tuition campaign launched by the Ontario University Student Association (OUSA) to freeze tuition in Ontario for four years beginning in 2017.

OUSA’s aim is to have the provincial government shoulder more of universities’ operating costs, which have come increasingly from tuition paid by students in recent years, according to OUSA. If this trend continues, at a certain point, a university education will be unaffordable for many Ontarians — it’s already close to impossible to earn an education simply by working.

Because the government allocates finances based on enrolment, universities are chasing higher and higher enrollment, which has a detrimental effect on the quality of education overall.

A tuition freeze wouldn’t be a bad thing, and we should applaud our student leadership for taking the initiative.

But it’s a step, not the end goal.

Until we ask our public funders the extent to which they value post-secondary education, we’re going to have a hard time making them put their money where their mouth is.

As it stands, with the current fiscal climate of the provincial government, OUSA’s campaign is likely to do no more than start a conversation.

Students need more and more from their universities, from mental health resources to financial support, career resources and better educational facilities.

Getting an education isn’t likely to decrease in its costliness in the near future.

So, a more permanent solution is needed than a four-year freeze.

We need to take a time-out to figure out an effective formula for governmental funding that will subsidize post-secondary education to the point that it’s accessible.

Maybe, in the short term, the solution is more need-based bursaries and scholarships so that those whose socio-economic status is a barrier to attending a post-secondary school have the same opportunities as everyone else.

In the long term though, we will need to decide how much we value having an educated population, and how much we are willing to spend to make it a reality.

— Journal Editorial Board

Time for entrepreneurship to take a look in the mirror A university isn’t Dragons’ Den. So why are we trying to act like it?

In 2014, Queen’s received $900,000 through the provincial government’s $20-million program to bolster entrepreneurship.

According to the Honourable Reza Moridi, Minister of Research and Innovation at the time, youths’ “innovative spirit will build Ontario’s future,” and the government’s investment will allow that to happen.

A recent investigation by the Globe and Mail, however,

THE QUEEN’S JOURNAL Volume 143 Issue 19 www.queensjournal.ca @queensjournal Publishing since 1873

Editorial Board Editors in Chief

Sebastian Leck

highlighted the difficulty that And without clear guidelines, universities experience in there’s a risk of money not going designing and delivering effective where it’s needed. For instance, entrepreneurship programs. For with the Queen’s program, instance, there was disagreement reviewers disagreed over how over the criteria for funding, much of the grant should be which meant some universities’ allocated to students’ living costs. proposals received drastically Investing in entrepreneurship different scores from reviewers. at the university level is a good Beyond vague and optimistic idea on paper. For students facing statements about the power of an increasingly competitive job innovation, there doesn’t appear market, the possibility of making to be a clear and consistent a job for yourself out of your understanding of what the passion is immensely attractive. objective of this funding is.

And many of the groups that

Jane Willsie

Opinions Editor

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Arts Editor

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Assistant Arts Editor Assistant Sports Editor Lifestyle Editor

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Kate Meagher

Strong isn’t the new skinny

I

f you want to believe the Instagram posts, it’s finally hot for girls to be athletic. It’s sexy to squat. It’s hip to be fit. Except it isn’t.

Recently, a trend towards the celebration of fitness has arisen on social media, like a phoenix from the ashes of super skinny models of days gone by. This trend is known as “fitspiration” and it centres on women encouraging each other to eat well and hit the gym so that you, yes you, can have a body just like this.

While this movement reaches towards something like a genuine appreciation for strong women, it falls short in two ways.

The first is that many of the women celebrated as so-called fitness models present the same, thin bodies we’ve always called beautiful — the only difference is that those bodies are now inside sports bras and spandex shorts.

These aren’t the bodies of competitive athletes, up before the crack of dawn for practice, receive funding have legitimately good ideas that create jobs and opportunities.

But post-secondary programs shouldn’t focus on funding one-off start-ups, but instead on how to teach students the technical skills to succeed. In other words, educating them.

The reality is that for students just starting out, working in start-ups is very unstable. Eventually, when government support dies out, students who haven’t learned how to do business independently will be left hanging.

Undoubtedly, innovation is vital. But, because of the way the government allocates funds, opportunities for entrepreneurship programs only arise in selective areas. For instance, the Queen’s Business Staff Business Manager Sales Representatives

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•9

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Want to contribute?

For information visit: www.queensjournal.ca/contribute

Contributions from all members of the Queen’s and Kingston community are welcome. The Journal reserves the right to edit all submissions.

The Queen’s Journal is an editorially autonomous newspaper published by the Alma Mater Society of Queen’s University, Kingston. Editorial opinions expressed in The Journal are the sole

eating whatever they need to fuel their training. These bodies are too often the result of crash dieting or other dangerous practices. Yet they rake in praise for themselves and cash for their sponsors posting scantily-clad selfies with sporty captions and endless hashtags.

Raising them up as beacons of fitness sidelines the real-life athletes who rise and grind in pursuit of performance. By leaving the women who actually participate in competitive sport outside this “fit” ideal for women’s bodies, we don’t seem to be celebrating fitness at all.

The second issue I take with this trend pertains to what these women are doing — which is nothing.

On Instagram, #fitspiration is attached to over 6,000,000 images.

They mostly aren’t of women demonstrating their fitness so much as they’re of women posing in their underwear.

Strength and fitness don’t exist in visible six-packs or even bulging biceps. They’re skills we demonstrate through movement — moving ourselves quickly, moving heavy loads, moving with accuracy and technique.

If we want to celebrate strong women, we need to concern ourselves with more than how “toned” she looks.

We need to consider what women can do — how they’re improving their bodies to perform better, how their training develops them into better athletes, better students and better friends.

Real strength isn’t visible in a still frame. You need to look a little closer to see it.

Kate is The Journal’s Opinions Editor.

She’s a fourth-year Philosophy major.

Innovation Connector runs programs that are open to all students, but those outside of programs that aleady teach entrepreneurial skills, such as Engineering and Commerce, are rarely encouraged to apply.

This is unfortunate when we consider how one of the most important criteria of a publicly-funded educational program should be inclusivity.

Queen’s already has an option for students to pursue a business certificate along with their degree.

If expanded, this program could benefit many more students per amount invested than a highly-selective and exclusive entrepreneurship program.

— Journal Editorial Board responsibility of The Queen’s Journal Editorial Board, and are not necessarily those of the University, the AMS or their officers.

190 University Ave., Kingston, ON, K7L 3P4 Editorial Office: 613-533-2800 Business Office: 613-533-6711 Fax: 613-533-6728 Email: journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca Please address complaints and grievances to the Editors in Chief.

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Contents © 2015 by The Queen’s Journal; all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of The Journal.

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10 • queensjournal.ca

Friday, January 22, 2016

OPINIONS

Your Perspective

Young Canadians: American politics affect you too Why we should care about the U.S. presidential election and make our voices heard

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE NIJHUIS

Whoever the new president will be, their actions will impact Canadian and global ways of life, Myriam-Morênikê Djossou argues.

Myriam-Morênikê Djossou, ArtSci ’18

Even if the words “politics” and “elections” usually tune you out of a conversation, chances are that you’ve still noticed that American elections have begun.

Let’s be honest: the current election looks more like a reality show than a race to choose one of the most powerful human beings on the planet.

But despite the way it looks, the outcome of the 2016 presidential elections, whether positive or negative, will unavoidably influence us as Canadians.

However, we need to acknowledge that we have the ability to influence this outcome as well. This is why it’s about time we move beyond the sensationalism of Donald Trump and start paying attention to the true issues at stake.

The United States and Canada are connected to each other, much more than just physically.

Economically, environmentally, culturally, the list goes on — the United States can’t go without us and we depend on them even more.

Think of the impacts of the

Keystone Pipeline, or the influx of took six Canadian lives — few last sentence was a subtle reference xenophobic and inaccurate beliefs American tourists we can expect countries on the planet, if any, to Donald Trump’s lack of logical people used to keep deep down, as our dollar continues its fall. As can claim to be free from any claims, and perhaps it was, but ask ultimately making them seem yourself: why couldn’t it refer to more plausible to more people. well, in terms of security, Canada terrorist threat.

American leaders may not have any other candidate? and the rest of the world are often And the more we talk about Trump, Because the truth is, many the more he seems like a viable subjected to the consequences of provoked these threats directly, but decisions made south of the border. they’ve contributed to the global other White House aspirants candidate for American presidency. made their fair share of scary In lecture a few weeks ago, relations that gave rise to them.

This is where we, as Canadians, remarks. Nonetheless, and especially as young Canadians, my professor asked us it seems that all of the have the power to influence to think about how the Trump’s views are probably no speeches made, along the outcome: social media is a world might have been different than they were just a with all the positive ones, borderless and powerful means different had Al Gore have been swept away of communication. been elected instead of year ago, yet they’re far more by the tidal wave that Bush in 2000.

Instead of involuntarily helping dangerous simply due to how is Trump.

It’s reasonable to Trump, or any undesirable Since he announced candidate, by constantly discussing assume that the aftermath they’re now spreading. candidacy for the them on Facebook or Twitter, of 9/11 would have been The decisions American leaders Republican primaries, a day hasn’t it’s time to pay less attention to different. Perhaps the war in Iraq would have been avoided, or have made in the last decade have passed without something relating candidates we don’t want to see at least wouldn’t have led to its dramatically shaped how individual to Donald Trump showing up in win and talk more about those we current consequences, including Americans are treated abroad. As my Facebook newsfeed. like, so that American voters might Of course, it’s usually do the same. the insurgence of the Islamic State Canadians, often mistaken for Americans, this has affected us too. accompanied by disapproving we currently face.

I have very little faith that any Considering that the decisions a comments, but it’s still attention broadcast media station, rich I have and will always refuse to fall into the fear campaigns powerful country’s leader makes in given to him and that’s all he multinational company or even right-wing politicians oh so love a crisis seriously impact the stability needs. Trump’s views are probably many Americans will, but let us, as to use, but this doesn’t make me of the planet, we better hope no different than they were just Canadians, take the lead and try to that the next American president a year ago, yet they’re far more make America great again. naïve either.

After the attacks on France, will have a minimum level of dangerous simply due to how Australia, Nigeria, Lebanon, intelligence and will think through they’re now spreading.

Myriam-Morênikê is a second-year This man makes it acceptable psychology and political Parliament Hill in Canada, and decisions carefully.

Now, maybe you thought that to express out loud the racist, studies medial.

Burkina Faso — the latter also

Talking Heads

... with the Rector candidates PHOTOS BY EMMA SEWELL AND KATE MEAGHER

What’s been the hardest part about campaigning?

“All the running around and trying to reach all the students.”

“Trying to reach people who aren’t engaged in elections.”

“Carrying tables from the SLC.”

“Seeing how all the candidates are coming at it from such a good place.”

Cam Yung, ArtSci ’16

Julia Fulton, ArtSci ’17

Liam Dowling, ConEd ’18

Rigers Rukaj, Sci ’17

Friday, January 22, 2016

queensjournal.ca

• 11

ARTS André Alexis, winner of the annual Scotiabank Giller Prize, visited the Agnes Etherington Art Centre to speak about his winning novel and his career.

PHOTOS BY KENDRA PIERROZ

GUEST LECTURE

Giller Prize winner speaks at the Agnes André Alexis, writer of Fifteen Dogs, speaks about the meaning behind his winning novel N ina R icciarelli Staff Writer

T

he Agnes Etherington Art Centre’s foyer is packed, and there’s a light hum of anticipation as the audience waits for author André Alexis to take his place behind the podium.

There’s a table by the door where copies of his book Fifteen Dogs, the winner of the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize, are distributed to the graduating English majors.

Ten years ago, with encouragement from the Faculty of Arts and Science, the English department decided to host a flagship event to host the winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize. The prize is awarded to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection every year.

The talk aims to build comradery within the graduating class by giving them a book to read and bond over.

The winner of the Giller Prize

FESTIVAL

Focusing on student filmmakers What to expect from this year’s Focus Film Festival

L auren L uchenski Assistant Arts Editor In just three days, students participating in the annual Focus Film Festival must conceptualize, write, shoot, direct and edit a short film.

The 13th annual Focus Film Festival is a student-run film festival showcasing, judging and awarding short films made by groups of students over the course of 72 hours.

In early January, festival organizers divide participating student filmmakers from all faculties into groups. Because filmmaking experience isn’t a requirement to

participate, participants are sorted into groups based on skill level and access to film equipment. They are then given the weekend to craft a short film based on the festival’s theme.

One of the festival’s co-directors, Grace Kim, ArtSci ’17, said this combination of skill and interest level across facilities makes Focus unique. She and her co-director Tiffany Mikalachki, ArtSci ’17, oversee Focus’ executive team.

“What’s bringing people together is what they love to do and what they’re interested in,” Kim said.

This year, the festival’s theme — it’s titled “What’s Your

each year is invited to speak to students, with copies of their book provided as a gift to the graduating class.

This year’s winner was André Alexis’ novel Fifteen Dogs.

Fifteen Dogs, an apologue — a moral fable where animals are the main characters — tells the story of a group of 15 dogs who are suddenly gifted by two gods with human language and consciousness.

Hermes and Apollo, the gods in question, engage in a bet pending the outcome of their experiment.

The novel ponders the effects language has on social behaviour, whether pleasure equates to Number?” — is particularly intriguing. This year, student filmmakers are required to take meaningful numbers we encounter everyday, such as 11:11, 365, 24/7 and 3.14, and build a creative storyline around them.

“We were both interested in the idea of numbers and how they are prevalent in our everyday lives, even if we don’t think about it,” Kim said.

Kim and Mikalachki will be the only people to have seen the films before the festival’s screening event and gala on Jan. 28 at Grant Hall.

Although they couldn’t share the premise of the films, they said they were impressed by the quality of this year’s films.

“We were really impressed with what the groups did this year,” Kim said. “There were some groups that kept the original meaning of the number, but added their own little twist to it.”

This year’s gala and screening will feature 15 short films accompanied by red carpets, free popcorn and industry judges.

The panel of judges for the event includes Laura Good, the Senior

happiness, the true meaning of relationships and death’s relevance to happiness.

It’s complex and jarring to read, but hard to put down at the same time.

Alexis spoke of his experience writing the novel — which he wrote in four months — saying his novels are a “result of [his] own agnosticism.”

“In some ways, [my work] is a constant confrontation with this thing. Maybe because, in some ways, I haven’t gotten over the fact that I lost the belief that I had when I was younger.”

Having been raised Catholic, Alexis spoke of the consolidation

Festival co-director Tiffany Mikalachki presenting to last year’s gala crowd.

Programming Coordinator of Film Circuit for Toronto International Film Festival.

This year’s panel will also feature judges from the Kingston Canadian Film Festival looking to

between love, power and divinity.

The dogs are puppets and at the mercy of the gods, who have given them the power of consciousness and language.

Whether that’s a gift or a curse is up to the reader’s interpretation.

Through the dogs, he conveys feelings of alienation. The dogs, who are gifted with this sudden ability to think and feel like humans do, have no choice or say in the actions of the gods, which leads to disillusionment and unhappiness with their lives.

“Belonging,” Alexis said, “is the one thing that is lost with the imposition of human thinking.”

SUPPLIED BY EMMA ZINCK

select three films for their short film program.

The screening and gala will take place on Jan. 28 at Grant Hall. The event is open to all students and members of the public.

Arts

12 •queensjournal.ca

Friday, January 22, 2016

Harlequin vs. hero’s journey: “chick lit” trivializes good literature The internalized sexism of woman-only literary genres

SUPPLIED BY PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE CHILE

SUPPLIED BY LAUREN GERSON

While Jonathan Franzen (left) and Jodi Picoult (right) both write books about love and family, only Picoult’s work is called “chick lit”.

R amna S afeer Arts Editor Many of my favourite novels — books that made me laugh, cry, and envy the ability of the author — have been forced into tight genres like “chick lit” and “airport fiction” simply because they happen to be written by women.

While I’ve never been a fan of squeezing my scattered taste in books into tight genres, the tendency to routinely label a novel by a female author as a “women’s book” or “chick lit” is telling of a larger issue in the literary world.

After years of reading young adult novels, I made my entrance into the intimidating “adult fiction” aisles of the library. American author Jodi Picoult was the author of the first few novels I picked up and truly loved.

Picoult has written 23 novels during her prolific career, and the

last eight have been New York Times bestsellers. One of her most famous novels, My Sister’s Keeper, was adapted into a Hollywood feature film starring Abigail Breslin and Cameron Diaz.

Nudrat Kamal of The Express Tribune remarked that Picoult has written about everything “from mercy killings and school shootings to childhood leukaemia and stem-cell research.”

Yet her novels are often marketed as harlequin romances and thrown casually onto articles like StyleCaster’s “The Smart Girl’s Guide to Summer Beach Reads” and The Guardian’s list of “airport novels” with a “flippant, disposable feel to them.”

Not long ago, I read the novel The Corrections by acclaimed American author Jonathan Franzen.

It, too, was complex. It was about love and family and vulnerability. In a world where labels like “chick lit”

didn’t exist, Franzen’s and Picoult’s novels would fall under the same category. However, Franzen’s novel has been compared to classic works — James Wood of The Guardian called it a “Bleak House of the digital age” and an “intellectual critique … on human beings.”

There’s a gaping difference there. The sexism of the literary world lies beneath reviews that brand prolific female writers like Jodi Picoult as writers of “chick lit” while loudly declaring Franzen a modern-day Dickens.

Picoult isn’t just painfully aware of this double standard — she publicly resents it. In an interview with Bryony Gordon of The Telegraph, she addressed it directly.

“If a woman had written One Day [by David Nicholls], it would have been airport fiction,” Picoult said. “Look at The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. If I had written that, it would have had a pink,

fluffy cover on it.”

Fabricated genres like “chick lit” and book lists with titles like “the 20 best reads for women this summer” uphold a male-dominated literary canon by belittling and trivializing the worth of talented female authors.

Author Shazaf Fatima Haider, whose novel How it Happened was immediately branded “chick lit” in 2012, said it best in an interview for The Express Tribune.

“It is a novel about marriage and weddings and is, therefore, usually considered as a woman-only book, which is a bit of a daft and one-dimensional way of look at it,” Haider said. “But that’s our gendered outlook at life for you.”

Terms like “chick lit” are obviously degrading, but I’m just as perplexed by Amazon’s subcategory in their books section titled “women writers and fiction.”

The category, which is hundreds of pages long, features authors from Maeve Binchy to Virginia Woolf to J.K. Rowling.

It’s a meaningless label when being a woman is the only condition for inclusion on the list. Where’s the category titled “men’s popular fiction”? There isn’t one, because men’s fiction is the default — men’s fiction is just fiction. Literature can be a tool for change, social movement and political voice. And yet, the literary world itself has miles to go.

When I read Lisa Genova’s Still Alice this weekend, a novel that has been adapted into an award-winning feature film, I’ll know that I’m reading literature.

Not chick lit. Not airport fiction.

I am reading acclaimed, worthy, intellectual literature.

In the novel of gender equity, it seems many are still on the first chapter.

CONCERT

Young Rival kicks off Ontario tour in Kingston The Hamilton band debuts their new psychedelic sound

SUPPLIED BY LAUREN GERSON

Hamilton-based band Young Rival is set to perform at the Grad Club on Jan. 27.

S tephanie N ijhuis Photo Editor Young Rival is returning to Kingston on Jan. 27 to give us a taste of their new psychedelic sound.

The Hamilton band hasn’t stopped moving since the release of their most recent album Interior Light. They recently supported Toronto band Born Ruffians on

their North American tour and then finished off 2015 with a few headlining shows. They’re now preparing for their tour by hitting up classic spots across Ontario and then heading to Europe.

Before they kick off their Ontario tour at the Grad Club, The Journal had the opportunity to chat with Queen’s alumni and Young Rival drummer Noah Fralick, Arts ’06.

SUPPLIED BY YOUNG RIVAL

“That’s almost 10 years ago, that’s crazy,” Fralick said. “Time really flies.”

During his time at Queen’s, he studied Philosophy and Political Studies.

“When I graduated Queen’s, that’s when I was really focused on being a musician,” he said.

During his time at school he remained part of the trio — despite See New on page 13

See Novella on page 13

Arts

Friday, January 22, 2016

queensjournal.ca

• 13

New album: a love child of indie garage-pop and 60s psychedelic vibes Continued from page 12

being in a different city than his bandmates — as it developed into today’s Young Rival. This time, he played shows on weekends with the band in both Hamilton, their hometown, and in Kingston.

“Right when Arcade Fire was exploding, they had a show at Clark Hall Pub and we opened that show,” Fralick said.

“There was a lineup of about a thousand people down the show trying to get in. It was very surreal.”

Since that performance, the band has developed a new name — they were previously called The Ride Theory — and their sound.

Young Rival’s most recent album, Interior Light, was released in October 2015 via Paper Bag Records. The album is the unlikely love child of their 21st century indie garage-pop band and some 60s psychedelic drugs.

Members of Young Rival have been using the term “croon psych” to define their latest album.

“It doesn’t have any reference point, but it works really well for what we’re trying to pull off,” Fralick said.

He said the term came out of a comical conversation they had in the studio with their producer, Graham Walsh. Walsh has worked on albums for a plethora of bands, including Alvvays and Viet Cong, and he’s also a member of Toronto-based electronica band Holy Fuck.

“It’s very unfunny to anyone that wasn’t there,” Fralick said.

“When you are really focused on a record and spending all your energy on it, day after day, in the studio, you sort of start losing your mind and becoming a bit unhinged.”

However, the term still captures the band’s sound.

“We like a lot of old 50s sounding stuff — Roy Orbison and the element of Sinatra,” Fralick said. It’s a genre that vocalist Aron D’Alesio captures quite well. The band then pairs that sound with a “psychy atmosphere” to complete the “croon psych” sound.

Fralick remembers his time at Queen’s with nostalgia — he reminisced on his affinity for Common Ground coffee and playing shows at his favourite venue, The Grad Club.

“I love that [The Grad Club] still exists. It feels the same way now that it did. It’s a really good institution that is really doing things right, and it’s nice to see that being consistent,” he said.

The venue will provide an intimate house party setting for past fans and newcomers alike to see two Kingston favourites, Young Rival and The Lost Cousins, play together next Wednesday.

Renée Rodgers Anchor, CHEX Televison 2013 LOYALIST JOURNALISM - ONLINE, PRINT AND BROADCAST GRAD 2009 QUEEN’S FILM AND MEDIA GRAD

* KPI stats released April 2015

14 •queensjournal.ca

Friday, January 22, 2016

SPORTS

Walking on a different path Undergraduate Idan Itskovich holding rare role as Director of Basketball Operations

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE NIJHUIS

Idan Itskovich has been working for the men’s basketball team for the past two seasons after initially pursuing a career as a player.

J oseph C attana Assistant Sports Editor

A

fter getting cut from the men’s basketball team for the second time in two years, it appeared Idan Itskovich’s basketball career was coming to an abrupt end.

However, while head coach Steph Barrie told Itskovich the team’s plans didn’t include him as a player, they saw potential in him for a new role — working alongside the team as a managerial assistant. In the role, he began by working out with game film and day-to-day work at practices and games.

Currently, he travels alongside the team on extended road trips and is present at every team event. Itskovich’s many hours of commitment to the program each week rivals only that of varsity athletes and coaches.

But when he was offered a similar role after his first-year cut, Itskovich declined, as he believed he could make the squad on his second try.

After he failed to make the 2014-15 team, Itskovich took a week to consider his options and finally accepted the role.

“I got out of my own delusions,” he said. “I told [Barrie] I love basketball and wanted to be a part of it for as long as I possibly can.”

Now in his second year on the job and his third year at Queen’s, Itskovich is the Director of Basketball Operations and an official part of the coaching staff — a rarity for undergraduate students.

Itskovich’s position with the Gaels keeps his relationship with basketball growing.

“Of everything in my life, it’s the thing I enjoy the most,” he said.

A high-level player for much of his youth, Itskovich believes that the basketball IQ he’s developed over the years has helped him

transition into the position he has today.

Once head coach Barrie gave him a week to mull over the position, Itskovich looked for guidance from friend and Queen’s basketball player Mike Shoveller.

“I asked him … what guys would think,” he said of him joining the coaching staff.

Often times, when athletes and coaches are the same age, a divide can grow. For Itskovich, he feared potential resentment from the players would hinder him from being a part of the team.

Teammates since they were 13, Itskovich knew Shoveller would be honest. “[He said] ‘it’s going to be different, but you’re still the same guy,’” Itskovich said. “I’m really glad … because it’s given me the opportunity I have today.”

Shoveller echoed these feelings, as he said sharing the experiences of the program with a close friend — and current housemate — is something they both value.

For Barrie, Itskovich has helped to alleviate stress off himself.

“The number of jobs he has done I can’t really keep track of because there is too many,” he said.

“It just kind of goes day-to-day.

Whatever we need, he’s the guy we go to for it.”

Because of this, Itskovich has become sort of a jack-of-all-trades for the basketball team. Whether he’s helping in practice, taking down stats during a game, taking general observations for the scouting report or with game film, Itskovich has made himself fully available to the program.

While most people would be itching to get back onto the court, it’s the road trips, the thrill of winning and the trials and tribulations of a basketball season that keeps Itskovich going.

“Just having a chance to be a part of a high level basketball team is my favourite part of

the experience, no matter what we need to do what’s best for the But when most would take the I’m doing.” basketball team.” credit, Itskovich believes that the And his work hasn’t One of the members of the team team comes first. gone unnoticed by the Itskovich talks with on a daily basis “It’s not about getting credit … basketball team. is assistant coach Jermaine Small. it’s just about the team overall,” “They’ve made me feel he said. “Often times I feel like one of the guys,” he like less of a coach and said. “They’ve been the Just having a chance to be a more of a guy on the bench most accepting, friendly getting excited when things part of a high level basketball bunch … I’ve developed are going right.” team is my favourite part of relationships I’ll have Although his position the experience, no matter for life.” on the team will end For most, switching next year, Itskovich will what I’m doing. between the role of peer continue to look for jobs in and coach would be the basketball community. difficult. But after feeling Looking ahead to a master’s — Idan Itskovich degree, he’s already begun out the process, Itskovich believes he’s found the to look at graduate positions right balance. on basketball teams.

“Everything I say to the During games, Itskovich notices “I want to stay involved and coaching staff is separate from the certain moments that they’ve ride this thing out as long as I can players,” he said. “These guys are talked previously about help or until there is no possibility for my friends, but at the same time the Gaels on the court. me to get a job out of this.”

“

”

Itskovich (left) at the 2013 varsity tryouts.

JOURNAL FILE PHOTO

Sports

Friday, January 22, 2016

YES

Adam Laskaris As the great football coach Vince Lombardi once said: “If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?”

Sports are meant to be competitive, but restrictions on the amount Canadian schools can spend on their athletes hinders competition.

For any top-end Canadian talent looking to play at the university level, the dream is almost always the same: that an American school offers them a chance to play their sport for free under a scholarship.

For many, this can even mean moving down south for a year or two of high school to play their sport there, just for the chance to get noticed.

There’s a major reason why this phenomena occurs: full-ride scholarships (complete coverage of all university and living fees) aren’t a reality in the Canadian athletic culture, and that’s a shame.

It’s a major story when talents like Kingston-based basketball player Bridget Mulholland turn down American offers to come to a school like Queen’s, because in truth the quality of competition is much higher in the US. While it’s true that partial scholarships and academic incentives exist, if playing in Canada is going to be considered an acceptable option for top-end university athletes, the option of offering full scholarships must be actualized.

Canadian fans can support the NHL, MLS, NBA and the MLB, even if the latter two have just a single team in each league. So why can’t we try harder to build a more competitive university athletic culture?

It’s not a be-all, end-all solution, but if there’s money to be spent to improve the quality of players, spend it in hopes of creating a higher-quality league.

Few CIS teams, in any sport, find themselves able to compete with their American university counterparts.

Of course, there’s a larger population to go to the highest-quality athletic programs, but when top Canadian athletes are always looking to emigrate away from home, it’s further proof that the CIS is a step behind.

With Queen’s funding over $20 million to the revitalization of Richardson Stadium, it would be a wonder to see what kind of talent they’d snag if they were allowed to spend that on their athletes.

Not every athlete’s going to get a full-ride scholarship, of course, but the option should be there for the athletic departments willing to pay.

The CIS may never be the NCAA, but it should at least do its best to get as close as possible.

queensjournal.ca

Should CIS schools offer full athletic scholarships?

• 15

NO

Joseph Cattana

PHOTO BY MATHIESON SMITH

MEN’S HOCKEY

Gaels falter against Ravens Slow start hinders comeback chances in 3-2 home loss M att C hristie Staff Writer Men’s hockey fell to the Carleton Ravens in a 3-2 loss at home on Tuesday, where a tough first period stifled chances of a late comeback attempt.

Coming off of two losses at home this past weekend, head coach Brett Gibson wasn’t impressed with his team’s performance.

In the first 20 minutes, the Gaels were outshot 14-9. A quick goal

by Carleton’s Michael McNamee and a power play goal by Ryan Van Stralen put the visitors up two after the opening frame. Gibson believed the team got down on themselves as a result.

“It’s all about mental toughness, and we didn’t demonstrate that tonight,” Gibson said.

“We didn’t start on time,” he said, referring to his team’s first period. “When you come into a game late you’re going to be chasing the game from behind the whole time.”

A quick goal in the third by Carleton’s Mitch Zion put the Gaels down 3-0.

Spencer Abraham scored his eighth of the season on the power play, followed by a goal

by Ryan Bloom assisted by Slater Doggett and Eric Ming with 2:19 remaining.

Ming now has a point streak of nine games, with 10 goals and nine assists.

With just over two minutes to go, the Gaels pulled starting goalie Kevin Bailie in the hopes of sparking a last-minute goal with six men on the ice. A couple close offensive opportunities didn’t suffice, as the Ravens took the game. In the process, the visitors extended their record to 15-5, while the Gaels now sit at 11-7.

Queen’s visits Laurentian and Nipissing this weekend, hoping to win both games to extend their away record to 9-1. Gibson said getting away will be good for the team.

Yannick Laflamme (left) pushes the tempo in Tuesday’s game.

“When you’re on the road and you don’t have studies, you are able to get to together as a group,” he said. “That helps team morale.

We’re confident on the road, and we must win both games.”

Gaels captain Patrick Downe believes that in spite of the loss the team’s comeback attempts were something to build on.

“After such a slow start, we were fed up,” he said. “We started getting the puck down low, putting the body on them, and generated quality offensive opportunities.”

By Saturday night, the team will have played eight games in five days, though Downe says excuses can’t be made as the team enters the season’s final stretch.

“We’ve got a good strength coach. We’re going to be doing a few pull sections off the ice,” he said. “There are no excuses for being tired. We’ve played 18 games, some teams have played 21.”

PHOTO BY KENDRA PIERROZ

In an ideal world, offering full scholarships sounds great, but it’s just not feasible.

One of my biggest complaints about trying to fund scholarships is that the economic standing for full scholarships in Canada is simply not there.

In 2013, the CIS signed a six-year agreement with Sportsnet for the multiplatform rights to an all-encompassing portfolio of university sports across television, online and mobile.

With this deal, the goal was to air as many as 27 CIS events annually. For the 2015 Vanier Cup, only 301,000 people tuned in to watch the biggest spectacle in Canadian university sports, a 64 per cent decline from the year before.

In the NCAA — where full scholarships are offered — the College Football Playoff National Championship garnered just about 30 million viewers at home, with 545,000 streaming at home.

The general lack of interest in university sports will keep Canadian schools from offering full scholarships.

Though we’re dealing with completely different markets, college sports on campuses across Canada mostly come off as a novelty, rather than the obsession they cause south of the border.

At Queen’s alone, the only game of the year that sells out is Homecoming. Students are willing to sleep outside the ARC to get free tickets to watch the Gaels play. But at Duke University, for example, students will line up for days and will pay for one single ticket to watch the Blue Devils play anyone on the schedule.

This year, The Journal had the pleasure of covering the CIS Women’s Rugby National Championship. Even though the Gaels were going to make a deep run in the tournament, it wasn’t until they reached the final that students finally showed up. With the games played on Nixon Field, you would think that the stands would be packed, but instead, because of the $8 admission fee, most students stayed away.

Michigan University, meanwhile, sold out the away students section against Penn State at $100 a ticket for a football game last season.

For schools to start funding these athletes, they will need more lucrative contract deals. Ohio State recently signed a 15-year, $262-million deal with Nike.

Here in Kingston, we can’t even get fans to pay $25 a year for football season tickets.

The athletic talent is coming to Canada, but the following is still behind.

16 •queensjournal.ca

Sports

Friday, January 22, 2016

Winter Photo Contest WWW.QUEENSJOURNAL.CA/CONTEST

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PHOTO BY CAROLIN BROCKHAUS

Friday, January 22, 2016

queensjournal.ca

• 17

LIFESTYLE

SUPPLIED BY ANDREAS KAY

A Centrosema virginianum flower.

SEX

Is everyone but me having vaginal orgasms?

T he E xpert S expert

different parts of the vulva, namely is different. the clitoris (which is almost Let’s face it: we live in a world aginal orgasms have been entirely internal and an average where centuries of ingrained sought out since the dawn of five inches long!), the vestibular sexism have led people with bulbs, the labia minora and the vulvas to believe their orgasms are of penetration. non-essential for sexual activity.

The vaginal or “G-spot” urethral sponge.

While many people with Why can’t we accept that people orgasm is a climax that’s brought on by exclusively internal vaginal vulvas say they do, in fact, have a with vulvas, much like people with stimulation. Many people have G-spot, the G-spot itself has been penises, are people, with individual never experienced vaginal orgasms, under debate for decades. The sexual needs?

Why can’t we put aside the time but those who can achieve G-spot is described as a rough, “hands-free” orgasms may be textured area of tissue inside the in our sexual encounters to ensure perceived as experienced, more vagina. But so far no study has that all partners, regardless of their in-tune with their bodies or gifted found any definitive proof of its existence. with a talented sexual partners.

Of course, praise to those who But some experts have suggested that the vaginal orgasm doesn’t can vaginally orgasm. If it works exist. Instead those who experience for you, great!

But for people who can’t it are actually experiencing a vaginally orgasm, it can cause fears clitoral orgasm.

Studies suggest that orgasms of being inadequate or that there’s are brought about by simultaneous something wrong with your body. stimulation to a number of But in reality, everyone’s physiology

V

genitalia, are being stimulated to I say on the subject, the same their full potential; whether that’s way that it doesn’t matter what a clitoral orgasm, a vaginal orgasm your friends or your partners or or even no orgasm at all, as the case that article in Cosmopolitan says. may be?

You matter, your sexuality matters The thing is, I can’t tell you and your orgasm matters. There’s whether the vaginal orgasm exists. no shame in clitoral or whatever I can tell you about the studies, other stimulation you enjoy during but I can also tell you that I have intercourse. There’s no “correct” friends who swear by them, and means of achieving an orgasm. All have even had partners who insist that matters is that you and your they’ve caused them. partners are having fun, whichever Luckily, it doesn’t matter what way you like to have it.

STUDENT LIFE

How I got over my faculty stereotype M adeline H einke Contributor I used to think that attending Queens, no matter your faculty, was prestigious in itself. Apparently, I was wrong.

Before I even stepped foot onto campus there was a preconceived notion that I was going nowhere with my life.

I’m currently in Arts and Science, and as many undergraduates at Queen’s know, that comes along with the stereotype that I’m lazy, not as intelligent (to put it lightly) and most likely going to end up

working a sub-par job. At least, that’s what I was told in my first few weeks at Queen’s, hung over Queen’s students wearing their faculty jackets with pride. me as a taunting shadow.

These obnoxious stereotypes because of the direction I’d chosen wasn’t succeeding. It was because started when I began to complain for my undergraduate degree. The I was in Arts, and because I simply about work or talked about how worst part was that with enough wasn’t as smart. I constantly put much class I had. With every seemingly harmless comments like myself in this mindset, damagingly claim I made it was discredited these, I started to believe it. pushing myself to work harder just by someone else saying something I began questioning myself so I could prove to everyone that along the lines of “how can you be when courses got hard, really I do belong here and that the Arts busy, you’re in Arts” or “Arts is the wondering if I was actually meant stereotype is BS. easiest program here to get into, to be at Queen’s. As I struggled But I was going about tackling I’m sure it’s not that bad.” through my first-year economics the stereotype in the wrong way. It’s It was like I was at a lower level course and many of my commerce not about working hard to prove than someone else who’d been economics friends did well, it the theory wrong, but rather it’s accepted into the same school, all became obvious to me just why I about understanding its ridiculous

PHOTO BY AUSTON CHHOR

components. The reason we’re broken up into faculties is because everyone specializes in something different, which is actually pretty cool.

A nursing student is confident enough to get a job right after their undergraduate, and an engineering student is ready to take on the empirical world of math and science by applying it to create amazing things. A PheKin See Every on page 18

Lifestyle

18 •queensjournal.ca

1/21/2016

Friday, January 22, 2016

www.brainbashers.com/printsudoku.asp?q=2o3oo9oo8oo5o6o7oooo5oooo2oooo4oo2oooo6oo2oooo8oo1oo8oooooo7oo1oo3oooo5oo4oooo5

Sudoku

BrainBashers Sudoku ­ January 21 ­ Super Hard

View from Mounte Urgull in San Sebastián, one hour from Pamplona.

SUPPLIED BY JENNA ZUCKER

EXCHANGE DIARIES

Lost in translation J enna Z ucker Staff Writer Picture yourself out to dinner with a friend — a pretty standard situation, right?

Now substitute a typical dinnertime for 10 p.m. and a friend for your new roommate who you’ve just met. You’re in a foreign country and don’t speak a lick of the language.

Cue panic. Welcome to exchange.

It was my first night in Pamplona, a small university town in the north of Spain where barely anyone speaks English — let alone Spanish. I tried to learn some Spanish via Duolingo before I arrived, only to learn that they don’t predominantly speak Spanish in Pamplona — they speak Catalan.

When I ventured out for dinner in this foreign place I was looking forward to relaxing after a long day of travelling. My roommate, who knew some Spanish, let me practice the local tongue and order for the both of us. She wanted to start with a beer. “Hola! Una ceviche por favor.” I definitely felt cool thinking I knew the word for beer, but the feeling was invalidated when a plate of raw fish was brought to our table. ‘Cervesa,’ not ‘ceviche.’ This definitely broke the ice, but the thought of paying for

student strives to help others understand more about their health, and an Arts student tackles difficult concepts and theories about society through lengthy term papers. A science student will sit for hours memorizing molecules or muscles, and a computer science student will stare at a computer screen continuously coding.

We all have specialized talents at Queen’s that may or may not lead us to a job, and may or may not lead us to make a huge difference.

It doesn’t mean that someone is smarter than someone else or guarantees them any sort of superiority over another person. All it means is that we all have an expertise that guides us in a certain direction at Queen’s.

Crossword

© Kevin Stone [www.brainbashers.com]

my mix-ups more than once is less funny. I Printed from BrainBashers [www.brainbashers.com] became determined.

Thankfully, I’m taking beginner Spanish; a safe space to practice rolling my r’s and masking my Canadian accent. Our first week of classes was dedicated to learning phrases http://www.brainbashers.com/printsudoku.asp?q=2o3oo9oo8oo5o6o7oooo5oooo2oooo4oo2oooo6oo2oooo8oo1oo8oooooo7oo1oo3oooo5oo4oooo5oo4ooo to help us survive in this small town that speaks an unfamiliar language.

We learned a few phrases including “tengo viente años” — “I’m 20 years old.”

I proceeded to use my limited phrases when interacting with locals, but my poor pronunciations immediately clued them in that I was a foreigner. Little did I know that pronunciation really matters. When you mispronounce the accent in años, you’re essentially saying you have 20 buttholes, instead of that you’re 20 years old.

It’s safe to say that within one week of arriving in Pamplona, I’ve learned the only phrase necessary to my survival: one coffee to go, please — un café para llevar, por favor!

Besides forcing us to fake a lisp, my Spanish teacher is incredibly kind and eager to help us perfect the language.

From here on out, I promise to salvage the Canadian reputation by not correcting ACROSS anyone who calls me a dumb American as I 56 Chances, for 19 Singer’s attempt to become a Spaniard.

1 Earth (Lat.) short recording 6 Witnessed 57 Gumby’s 21 Snapshot 9 ___ -relief horse 22 Past 12 Symbol of 24 Jewel slowness DOWN 26 In the direction 13 Inventor of Whitney 1 Recipe 28 “Forget it!”

14 Genetic abbr. meas.

30 Trawler need 15 Of punishment 2 Away from 32 Rifle 16 Burma’s capital, WSW 33 Pair once 3 Cowboy, often 34 Moreover 18 Astute 4 Iranian money 36 Berates 20 Took the train 5 Dumpster 38 Freight 21 Oom follower location 39 Over 23 Thither 6 Venus’ sister 40 Kitchen need 24 Xbox enthusiast 7 Winged 42 Outfit 25 “__ a Kick Out of 8 Victory 45 Film sample You” 9 Witch craft?

46 Nevada city 27 Worked with 10 Battery 48 Commotion rattan terminal 50 Regret 29 Circle around 11 Less loony 51 Pigs’ digs

the sun 17 Ranked 31 Conspiracy of silence The only person you need to prove just Last Issue’s Answers 35 Cardiff’s people how capable you are of something is yourself, 37 Sunrise and no one can tell you otherwise. As long as 38 200 milligrams you’re passionate and determined, you can 41 Gear tooth do anything with your life and be successful 43 Affirmative action? at it.

44 Culture medium It might have taken me a while to realize 45 Cringes this, but it was liberating once I had. I 47 Longtime let go of what people thought about me

Klugman co-star and continued striving for success. It’s all 49 Symbol of about taking our ideas and running with sorrow them — not degrading ourselves to those 52 Jazz job 53 Accomplished stereotypes that confine us.

54 Intact 55 Individual

Every faculty brings something to the table Continued from page 17

Sudoku © Kevin Stone Sudoku Ref: 182637

Friday, January 22, 2016

Lifestyle

queensjournal.ca

• 19

POSTSCRIPT

Shots fired

One student’s experience at a shooting range E rika S treisfield Lifestyle Editor

wanted to try shooting. And so she did.

“There’s no way to not make that sound redneck. It’s just so unfortunate,” MacDonald said.

But for MacDonald, her experience wasn’t so much a thrill as it was scary.

“I was terrified because I’ve heard so many horror stories of people who’ve shot themselves in the foot or something by accident,” MacDonald said. “I’m so uncoordinated, so I was very convinced that was going to be me and I was going to be the person to shoot myself or someone.”

But once things were all said and shot, MacDonald felt relieved.

“It was an experience,” she said.

“I’m not sure if I necessarily enjoyed it. It was just scary the whole time.

It was cool, I mean after it was all over and I realized I was okay.”

Shooting guns isn’t your average recreational activity.

Both MacDonald and myself experienced a unique opportunity

I

f you think Call of Duty is exhilarating, try shooting guns in real life.

I headed out recently to a shooting range to blow off some post-exam stress with my mom and sister. That’s right, three women and a copious amount of artillery.

And, where better to shoot guns than at Lock & Load in Miami, Florida?

While the beach was a main attraction, shooting guns was way more enticing, and to be honest, right up my alley.

When I was 16, I studied abroad in Israel and attended a one-week training camp on an education army base. It was a strict and tiresome program to say the least, but at the end of it I got to shoot an M16. I remember it being such a thrill, feeling every bullet leave my gun as I pulled the trigger and it kicked back.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I revisited my glory days and upped the ante on my “I was terrified because gun game. I traded in my M16 I’ve heard so many experience for some machine guns. horror stories ... I’m Upon my arrival at the shooting so uncoordinated, so range, I experienced mixed feelings I was very convinced of nervousness and excitement.

Firing a gun is a serious risk and that was going to be huge responsibility. Every fired me...” bullet is potential death — they don’t teach you that in Call of Duty.

— Rachel MacDonald Before we entered the range, we had to sign away our lives — you know, in case anything happened. that you wouldn’t necessarily Thankfully, our instructor come across on a day-to-day basis, for the day was an experienced especially here in Canada.

SUPPLIED BY ERIKA STREISFIELD shooter, having served in the U.S. Streisfield shooting at Lock & Load in Miami, Fl. For me, shooting those machine army for several years. He taught guns was a thrill. While I do us everything from gun safety to I was the first to volunteer. I mom — that woman was a natural. range. At that moment, I felt like enjoy sitting on a beach, reading loading a gun and firing it. positioned the HK MP5 into my She was hitting the target dead on, I graduated machine gun training. magazines and listening to girly We quickly got suited up with shoulder with one hand on the putting the rest of us to shame. I What’s next? Explosives. pop music, my alter ego feigns earplugs, headphones and glasses. trigger and the other supporting always knew my mom was a “cool All the way home, my sister adventure and risky business I had the opportunity of the gun. mom”, but never did I think that and I raved about the experience. — shooting guns satisfied just that. shooting four guns that are famous I set up my body in a type of she was good with guns. I guess I Participating in an activity so lethal power stance and aimed the gun have good genes? was one of the most exhilarating straight at the target. It helped that The experience went by all too things we’ve ever done. That day, Before we entered all the guns had a red laser target, fast. In a matter of 20 minutes I’d we all took a walk on the wild so I could see exactly where I side, and to be honest, we the range, we had to was shooting.

At times, alternating loved it — especially my sign away our lives between the target’s head and heart.

[Y]ou should have mom.

— you know, in case With adrenaline pumping Rachel MacDonald, seen my mom — that anything happened. though my veins, I pulled the ArtSci has also woman was a natural. had her’18, trigger. I shot a couple of times fair share of She was hitting the in semi-automatic (that is, a slow experience with target dead on... for their cameos in 007: the HK release of bullets), eventually shooting guns.

MP5, HK UMP, HK G36 and a building up confidence to MacDonald shot Glock 18 submachine gun. shoot in automatic (fast and shot all four lethal machine guns. her first gun on a For those of you who aren’t continuous shots).

I so desperately wanted to shoot family’s ranch in West fluent in gun lingo: the guns were I felt like badass — not to more — if only the sport wasn’t so Virginia. Her uncle and huge and powerful. If it weren’t mention, I had good aim as I hit costly. Thanks, mom! cousins set up a gun range for my instructor supporting me, I the same spots close to the center of As we left the range, our on their farm, where they would have been blown off my feet the target. Watch out, gentlemen! instructor awarded us with special would shoot at makeshift foam by the gun’s kickback.

But if you thought I was medals, claiming it was a tradition targets. One day, MacDonald’s When it came time to shoot, good, you should have seen my in their ex-army family at the uncle casually asked her if she

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