The Runner: Volume 8, Issue 1

VOL-08-ISS-01

SEPT-15-2015

committed to higher education since 2009

KPU offers new

ONLINE MARIJUANA course design school delays

corporations and universities

the migrant crisis

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Table of Contents

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News |KSA peer support diversifies students’ counselling options 4

The advent of the Kwantlen Student Association’s (KSA) peer support program aims to bridge that gap between hands in need and hands that can.

The Runner is student-owned and operated by Kwantlen Polytechnic University students, published under the Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society. www.runnermag.ca Vol. 08, Issue no. 01 Sept 15, 2015 ISSN# 1916 8241

Arbutus 3710/3720 12666 72 Ave. Surrey, B.C, V3W 2M8 778.565.3801

Culture | The Syrup Trap, Canada’s Answer to The Onion 7 This student-run magazine published out of UBC has found enormous success by lampooning people, politics and just about anything else with a pulse.

The Runner recognises that our work, both in and out of the office, takes place on unceded Coast and Strait Salish territories, specifically the shared traditional territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Sto:lo and Tsawwassen First Nations. Our name is inspired by the hun’qumi’num meaning of Kwantlen, which is tireless hunters or tireless runners. Just as Kwantlen is adaptable and changing so is The Runner.

FEATURES | Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Ltd. 11 When doing work at the library, financial advisors from Coast Capital Savings typically don’t badger you about mutual funds with which to hedge your student debt, even if the Surrey campus library is blandly named after their credit union.

CONTRIBUTORS Aileen Tran Monica Mah Danica Johnston Pifanida Hailey Logan Preet Hundal Joseph Keller Renee McMillan Keith Harris Rosaura Ojeda Kyle Prince

Opinoin | Xenophobia shouldn’t be steering our policies towards refugees 13 Canada has been taking a hit over the past couple of weeks with critics suggesting that the country isn’t doing enough to support Syrian refugees. Instead, it’s getting caught up in notions of “protecting Canadians” from “terrorism” as justification for why our number of accepted Syrian refugees is so low.

columnS | Why HIV is difficult to treat 15 HIV/AIDS is arguably one of the most misunderstood epidemics in the world, largely due to the stigmas that surround it. Over 35 million people live with this disease worldwide, and individuals of poor socioeconomic status struggle to access treatment, leaving them with a much higher risk of developing AIDS.

COVER ARTIST

#BestPhoto Kwantlen’s finest featuring

from KPU Women’s Soccer team (@kpuwsoccer on Instagram) Beautiful sunset at the end of practice tonight! #Kpu #soccer #womenssoccer #pacwest #preseason #practice #team #sunset

Hailey Logan Hailey Logan was born in Vancouver and works predominantly in the medium of painting and sculptural ceramics. Logan is currently completing an BFA at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She has had group shows in Surrey with the Kwantlen Art Collective at the Newton Cultural Centre as well as Collaborative Murals shown at the Newton Community Centre haileyclogan@gmail.com

STAFF

Coordinating Editor

Managing Editor

Tristan Johnston editor@runnermag.ca

Connor Doyle managing@runnermag.ca

Executive Editor

Samantha Thompson deputy@runnermag.ca @sampthompson

Production Manager

Art Director

Web Editor

Charis Au art@runnermag.ca

Kenny Chui production@runnermag.ca

Staff Illustrator

Yaunna Sommersby web@runnermag.ca

Photo Editor

Geoffrey Nilson photo@runnermag.ca

Danielle George

Staff Writer

Kier-Christer Junos staff@runnermag.ca @kierjunos

Operation Manager

Scott Boux office@runnermag.ca 778.565.3801

Editorial

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From the editor

News Briefs

The Refugee Crisis in Europe and the Levant.

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Tristan Johnston Coordinating Editor

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Why are so many Syrians and other refugees dying as they make their way to Europe? A plane ticket from Lebanon to London costs around $600 Canadian, which you might think is too expensive for them, but refugees and migrants that cross the Mediterranean by boat do so at the tune of over $1400 Canadian. Why don’t they just fly?

Many can easily access the airport and pay for the ticket, but they’re stopped at check-in by the airline because of an EU law known as DIRECTIVE 2001/51/EC, which essentially states that if an airline transports a self-professed refugee without all proper documents to the EU, they must pay for their return ticket out of Europe.

But strangely, two lines down in the same directive, it says that the above doesn’t apply to refugees who invoke the Geneva Convention. What this does is transfer the responsibility to the airlines, who don’t want to lose money in an extremely tight business.

The other big problem that refugees are facing is the fact that they can’t apply for refugee status within EU embassies in Turkey, Lebanon, or anywhere else. It is for this reason they must risk their lives and spend thousands to enter the EU, to countries like Greece and Italy, so that they can apply within the Schengen area, or border-free zone of the EU. For the last several years this has been a controversial subject for European citizens, and many are trying to find out how to best address the situation. In 2013 the Swiss peo-

ple voted in referendum to restrict the conditions under which asylum seekers can apply, such as no longer allowing for military deserters.

Greece, as many people know, has had their economy collapse, and now many people are claiming asylum in their country. It’s easy to understand why many Greeks are upset, as the country’s social services can barely help out their own citizens.

Another element is responsibility. Most European countries have small militaries and therefore reduced security. In addition, Italy and Spain are the two most common ports of entry for migrants, and also two of the shakiest economies in Europe.

As usual when it comes to EU situations, everyone is looking at Germany. While many asylum seekers enter through Greece, a lot of them will eventually make their way up to Germany, which is more economically prepared to handle them compared to other countries.

In this year, Germany expects to have over 800,000 people apply. By comparison, Canada only brought in 13,500 claims registered in 2014.

We must also consider neighbouring countries to Syria, where refugee policy seems to vary wildly.

On the high end of the spectrum, Turkey has accepted 1.9 million refugees, and Lebanon has accepted 1.1 million. This is profound, as Lebanon has a domestic population of 4.4 million and a land area one-third the size of Vancouver Island. Iraq, a country also experiencing problems with terrorism, accepted 250,000 and Jordan accepted 500,000.

However, many are pointing their fingers at the richer Gulf states, such as Oman, the U.A.E., Kuwait,

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, all of whom have accepted zero. These countries are profoundly wealthy and share a similar cultural climate compared to Europe.

Refugees are the current dominating topic in European media at the moment. Though many are against the idea of refugees coming to their country, it seems that the majority support it, depending on which country you look at. Germany has shown to be particularly welcoming, with the German government announcing that they’ll take in almost a million people.

On September 9th, Jean-Claude Juncker of the European Union made an appeal for European states to accept a combined 160,000 refugees, though within hours of the announcement the UK, Ireland and Denmark promptly opted out of the proposal, which they are legally entitled to do.

When I lived in Berlin in 2013, it

was very clear to me that the Germans take their history seriously.

The people of Germany also had their cities and towns destroyed during WWII and went through a similar experience to what Syrians are now, and Germans sought refuge in neighbouring European nations and North America. With that in mind, many university students in Berlin and Munich are taking refugees into their own flats. Austrians in Vienna are doing the same, with hundreds of people waiting at Wien Hauptbahnhof to cheer for the coming refugees, offering them food, shoes and hugs.

But are these refugees, as well as migrants, simply looking to get on advanced welfare systems of the Germanic countries so that they don’t have to work? I can’t say definitively, but I don’t think people who risk their lives on a rickety boat and walk thousands of miles on bad shoes can exactly be called “lazy.”

Danielle George

with yaunna sommersby

sun, sept 20

tue, SEPT 22

Can’t Stop the Serenity Fundraiser

KPU women and men’s soccer vs. VIU Mariners

Richmond Revolution

The Kwantlen Gaming Guild (KGG) wants you to embrace your inner nerd.

The games will include Call of Duty, Halo, Super Smash Bros, Rock Band, card games and board games.

5 p.m.–10 p.m.Surrey Campus Con-

Women’s game: 12 p.m.

Men’s game: 2:30 p.m.

Newton Athletic Park. Free.

10 a.m.–6 p.m.Richmond Campus Conference Centre. Free.

wed, sept 23

wed, sept 23

sat, sept 26

Music@Midweek

Explore Arts!

KPU women and men’s soccer vs. Douglas College Royals

ference Centre. By donation for fundraiser.

Show your support for Kwantlen’s music program and enjoy a performance from guitar student Joel Thompson in the Langley auditorium.

12 p.m., KPU Langley Auditorium, 20901 Langley Bypass. Free.

Want to learn more about the Arts programs? Check out the Explore Arts event to ask questions, learn about different opportunities and grab some snacks.

1 p.m. -4 p.m., Surrey Conference Centre. Free.

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CapU lockout On Aug. 21, the Capilano Students’ Union issued a 72-hour notice to its employees, who are represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

However, a mediated settlement was reached on Aug. 22, which prevented the lockout. The details of the agreement are yet to be released.

This is the third time in 2015 that Capilano University students have seen job action as a result of labour disputes.

In late March, members of the Capilano Faculty Association voted to commence strike action after struggling to reach a deal with the university administration. This resulted in the cancellation of classes near the end of the semester, as well as a temporary delay of final exams.

After a month of striking, the two parties were able to reach a 5-year deal.

In mid-July, COPE local 378, which represents non-faculty employees at CapU, struck a deal with the university’s administration after six weeks of job action.

KPIRG recently submitted a proposal

Fri, sept 18

Grab some friends and spend Sunday afternoon cheering for your school at a home game against the Vancouver Island University (VIU) Mariners. Go Eagles go!

Executive Editor

KPIRG requests new space from KSA

what’s up this week (sept 15 - sept 29)

Women Organizing Opportunities for Women (WOOW) is screening two movies and holding a silent auction to support Equality Now and the Surrey Women’s Centre.

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Samatha Thomspon

The Eagles are entering the Lion’s den and playing against the Douglas College Royals for the second set of away games for the season.

Women’s game: 1 p.m.

Men’s game: 3:30 p.m.

Town Centre Park, Coquitlam. Free.

to the KSA for permanent KPIRG space.

From its inception, KPIRG has been using the Pride space as a location to conduct its business, but the document pointed out that they are “essentially squatting” in the Pride offices. “KPU has not been very amenable to discussing the allocation of space directly due to their obligations under the University Act, therefore KPIRG is engaging with the KSA to procure permanent physical space for KPIRG,” the proposal reads. It points out that the lack of physical space has had an impact on its members, citing the fact that non-social justice activities have been occurring in the social justice space, leading to students “feeling unwelcome and unable to protect their privacy in a safe and healthy way.”

New 2015 Student Enrollment Kiosk Student Enrollment Services and the Office of the Registrar have launched an exciting new project that will in theory eradicate physical lines at their student services counter. The self-service station will allow students to virtually queue, with something called the QLess sign-in system. While students are in line they will receive text messages that let them know their wait-times and when it’s their turn. Similar systems are already in place at many other universities.

SES and the Registrar have launched a contest to accompany the launch of the service, where students have an opportunity to name the self-service kiosk. We here at The Runner personally feel that it should be named after our illustrious mascot, Ye Olde Kwintin, who has taken quite a few blows in recent months.

Options include Kwintinsential, Kwintin4Ever, or the iKwintin.

News

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Kwantlen to begin offering online medical marijuana course The first of its kind in Canada.

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Tristan Johnston Coordinating Editor

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KPU has recently announced

that they will be offering two online courses on medical marijuana.

The program, announced Aug. 18, is one of the first of such courses in Canada.

The courses will consist of four modules, each one priced at $1250.

One will focus on staying within the law and obeying regulations, another will explain how to market your product and manage your facilities, while a third course is a theory-based plant production program. These classes will be taught

by Tegan Adams and Deepak Anand Even with the growing social acceptability of marijuana, and the legal status for medical use in Canada, it still could be seen as a risk within university administrations. Jim Pelton, executive director of continuing and professional studies at KPU, believes that there are plenty of good reasons to offer such a course.

“It was a conversation with the faculty of horticulture and some-

body suggested that there’s this new legal medical marijuana industry coming up and it’s sort of at the start of its history. There might be a market there for training, for people going into this business, it’s basically a brand new industry.”

“The consensus was very much that, yes, there’s a need for training in this industry, and we were well-positioned to do it because we have a tremendous reputation in horticulture, and we also have a very big and well-regarded school of business.”

Even though medical marijuana is legal in Canada, there could be some confusion towards the legality of such a course. Pelton, however, explains that there’s no gray area. “It was pretty straightforward, because we’re not handling any marijuana at all, it’s really an online course,” says Pelton.

“In the United States there are a lot of courses about growing marijuana. The U.S. is kind of ahead of us on the legalization of the whole

KSA to oppose Kinder Morgan MOU at Board of Governors

thing. What seems to happen is that it would have to become legal, and then universities can start looking at doing training relating to it.”

Tegan Adams, who will be teaching one of the courses, has a MSc from UBC in land and food systems, and has consulted for eight different medical marijuana companies in B.C. “In terms of facilities available for any sort of agricultural crop, I think that

Kwantlen’s got a stand-alone production facility system that other universities don’t know about.”

Adams makes note of KPU’s continuing education having courses on craft beer and beekeeping, and that this is likely in the same vein.

“The continuing studies department had been thinking about it for a little while, and I had actually been consulting in the industry for two different public companies for about a year, and I noticed there were a lot of H.R. professionals that

were having a hard time staffing marijuana facilities as they were becoming legal and working with licensed producers. So I approached Jim [Pelton] and asked him if he might be interested in starting a course and they said ‘yes.’”

We already have Canadian companies like Tweed Marijuana Inc., Mettrum Health Corp. and Aphrina putting their medical marijuana companies on the stock market. These companies are valued in the millions, with Tweed valued at $91.2 million. With the growing social and legal acceptability of marijuana and the idea of possibly being able to export to the United States, the marijuana industry is one that’s starting to kick off with new investors coming into the fray. The substance your parents might have thought as something only consumed by hippies is now something capitalists want in their portfolio.

Hailey Logan

Construction on KPU Design school has been delayed for the last year

Chip and Shannon Wilson School of Design on hold amidst Some council members worried about budget constraints. “In this case, what we’ve done re-design, and leading it through Tristan Johnston is engage a group of people to de- the bid for construction, and then impact on relationship with KPU. Coordinating Editor sign the building, that was one set possibly into the construction itself.

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For the last several months,

Kenny Chui

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Samantha Thompson Executive Editor

A motion was submitted to the

Kwantlen Student Association council meeting on Sept. 11 pertaining to Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s recent memorandum of understanding with Kinder Morgan. The motion, submitted

by Aboriginal students’ representative Justin Bige, proposed that the KSA write a letter to the Board of Governors stating the need to rescind the MOU, and that the KSA present the letter at the next Board of Governors meeting on Sept.

23. The original motion also requested that the MOU be reviewed by the KSA’s legal counsel, and that the legal counsel also attend the BoG meeting, but those components were struck from the passed motion.

Prior to its passing, the motion underwent extensive discussion by coun-

cil members which lasted close to two hours. Waheed Taiwo, the vice-president of finance and operations, suggested Bige was in a conflict of interest between his role in the KSA and in other groups such as KPIRG. KSA president Allison Gonzalez expressed that she was concerned that presenting such a letter to the Board of Governors would hurt the relationship that had been built up between KPU and the KSA. Bige agreed that this was a valid concern, but suggested that the KSA had enough clout to tell the administration that they are unhappy with the MOU. Numerous council members noted that they felt the KSA had already done enough.

When the matter was called to a vote, the motion passed, with the amendments that struck the clauses referring to legal counsel. Nine council members voted in favour of the motion, and five voted against.

a third of the Richmond campus parking lot has been a fenced-off dirt lot.

In October of last year, The Runner interviewed Gordon Lee, then-vice-president of finance and administration, who said that construction hadn’t started due to being unable to find a construction company who’d stay within budget. Lee has since left the university.

From that time onwards, The Runner has been attempting to secure an interview to gain insight into the status of the project. For months we were told that “nothing had changed” since the last interview.

Harry Gray, AVP of Administration, was finally able to explain the slow progress of the project.

of activities. Then what we did was go out to [request for proposal] and that came in last July for the construction of the building.”

“When that RFP for the construction came in, all of the bids were over budget. So what we did was we explored options with the lowest bidder, but unfortunately weren’t able to work it down to a point where we could go ahead. So what we’ve done since then is look at now revising the design of the building, and that work has begun.

And then what we’re doing, and this is what led to the most recent thing you’ve seen, is decid[ing] that we should get a senior strategic advisor for the oversight of the whole project.”

A senior strategic advisor would be assisting, leading the project in terms of looking at the

“It was sufficiently over budget that we couldn’t proceed with it.”

Gray couldn’t answer questions regarding the eco-friendliness of the original design being altered.

Will the building still be within budget? “Absolutely,” says Gray.

The Chip and Shannon School of Design building is slated to take up 6,000 square metres on six floors.

The building is to cost $36-million, split three ways between KPU, the B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education and Chip and Shannon Wilson through lululemon athletica.

Gray says that the exterior design of the building shouldn’t be much different from what has been seen in artist renderings. “We do not anticipate that there will be any change either to the look of the building, or to the students experience inside the building.”

Tristan Johnston

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peer support diversifies students’ counselling options Student Association program to launch this fall.

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Kier-Christer Junos Staff Writer

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The Kwantlen Student Association’s (KSA) new peer support program aims to bridge that gap between hands in need and hands that can.

The program is poised to launch this fall, and though it does connect students with personal support from approved, trained peer volunteers, the program also functions as a resource base for students that need to be connected with academic help or other counselling services at KPU. “I think the end goal is to provide support and awareness and create an environment . . . that fosters positivity and acceptance,” says Alisha Chauhan, Surrey program coordinator. Her Richmond counterpart Jennifer Lingbaoan adds that, “Connections are such a huge part of what we’re trying to accomplish here.”

If a student felt like accessing the program, Chauhan says the first step would be to match them with a volunteer who is “a good fit for the student,” or allow the student to decide on the volunteer that they would like to see.

“After that, they would go for what we’re calling a ‘walk-andtalk’,” says Chauhan. Simply put, it’s where the student and volunteer would have a casual conversa-

tion and talk about anything that’s going on in their life, be it academic or personal life or wherever the conversation may go. Their session would last about 50 minutes, where afterwards they’d return to the office to gauge if another session would be appropriate for them.

After the fall semester, Lingbaoan says that the program will do a once-a-year intake of people interested in being peer volunteers.

They would attend an information session or a social, perhaps, so they could get to know the program team and taste the nature of the job.

Then they would fill out an application form in hopes of meeting the criteria, and if they made the cut, they would be contacted for an interview.

“Once they finish training, then they can have the title of peer support volunteer,” says Lingbaoan.

Lingbaoan currently studies third-year psychology and pursues a counselling minor. Chauhan is a recent KPU psychology graduate who also did a double-minor, in counselling and in Asian studies.

They’ve been filling their positions for about a year now, preparing the logistics of the program and understanding their roles as the months roll on. They’ve managed to train 14 volunteers over five major training sessions just in February. Over the summer, one student accessed the program and now Lingbaoan and

Chauhan are seeing the microcosms of what their future work may look like.

Like all of us, Lingbaoan and Chauhan aren’t strangers to dark but formative times. They had to share their real-life experiences during their hiring processes.

“I dealt with a lot of cultural identity conflict with being South Asian but growing up in Canada and having to deal with almost two worlds,” says Chauhan, in brief. “And I’ve also been through a lot of toxic relationships in my life. For me, if I had a peer support volunteer to tell me, hey, you could go seek counselling—it would’ve

helped me so much more. I wasn’t able to seek counselling until one of my friends really pushed me and made me realize that I needed to get extra help, and that a friend’s wasn’t enough anymore.”

That initial step out of conflict was something that Lingbaoan needed to catalyze, too, after being in a car accident when she was following her family’s car to lunch in Surrey.

“There came a point where the light had turned red, and my parents stopped in front and I had to brake,” says Lingbaoan. Her brakes stopped functioning properly. “And essentially I had the choice of turn-

ing over to my right and hitting a whole bunch of strangers, hitting my family or trying to turn and hit the median to stop myself.”

The accident was traumatic for Lingbaoan, and her subsequent anxiety crippled her ability to proceed in any situation where she couldn’t control her circumstances. It wasn’t until she took a step towards counselling, here at Kwantlen, that she was able to start recovering from the anxiety she suffered.

“The first day after doing a couple of counselling sessions—the first day that I actually had driven back to Surrey—was to do my interview for this position.”

Creative Sustainability / Flickr

KPU begins pilot program to support youth-in-care University wants to help a population of historically undercut citizens.

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Kier-Christer Junos Staff Writer

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A person aging out of government care can take up to 10 years to simply get on their feet.

Youth aging out of such care would have lived in foster homes, group homes, temporary receiving homes and the homes of relatives and independent living programs.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University believes they can support those transitioning youth in an initiative

that supports their post-secondary education at Kwantlen, should they opt for it. The university now joins 11 other post-secondary institutions that have similar programs.

The program is under the purview of academic and career advancement (ACA), where dean Patrick Donahoe says his faculty supports students that enter KPU from “an alternate perspective.”

“Everyone is welcome here,” says Donahoe. “We’re an access institution.”

The pilot year of this program

Keith Harris

will support tuition and student fees for up to five students accepted to KPU, according to a press release.

Also, other expenses like textbooks will be funded from the Irving K. Barber Endowment for Educational Opportunities. Donahoe adds that the university offers emergency funding through various processes because, “Many students leave institutions—and I’m generalizing here—not because of a $5,000 problem, but because of a $100 hydro bill.”

“It’s saying, if you get to a stage like that, with money or with other issues, there are things we can do,” says Donahoe. “And we will support you. And the same time as I say that we would do that with any student.”

The press release adds that besides the ability to access financial support, successful applicants get access to, “A dedicated academic advisor for academic planning, regular student check-ins and referrals to other KPU services and programming.” These students will also get priority access to the ACA dean’s office.

“That really is just about, if you find yourself in a place [where] things are looking bleak, or you’re not sure what’s happening, just, maybe we’ll have our phone num-

bers,” says Donahoe. “They can call us, let us know what’s going on.”

He goes on to describe priority access as a sort of failsafe, for students from backgrounds that don’t necessarily work well with the way the system works.

“If you’re not coming from a family or foster family that’s got post-secondary experience it can be overwhelming,” he adds.

Donahoe was part of the team at Vancouver Island University that first put a program like this together in B.C. Kathleen Higgins was his predecessor at KPU, and when he started, he and a small team picked up the pieces already in motion.

He says that some of the thinking around supporting youth-incare started a number of years ago at the University of Winnipeg. He adds that in Manitoba and in B.C., many of the youth-in-care are aboriginal, and that there’s a “certain consciousness” in that regard.

VIU faculty wrote a paper in 2007 exploring where youth-in-care go after they age out, and they followed a variety of youths in a threeyear study.

Not surprisingly, they found that youth-in-care were susceptible to a very transient life and unstable housing situation. Youth-in-care were more likely to rely on income

assistance as their main income source, to be less-educated and to have “fragile social support networks.”

The paper suggests that new thinking was needed for existing government policies, programs and priorities. The authors’ view is that, “Youth from care need to have as gradual and extended a transition process to adulthood as youth in the general population.”

Donahoe says that whether or not post-secondary education is appropriate for a transitioning youthin-care “depends a lot on the individual.” Some aren’t at a point in their lives where education is a priority, he adds. Donahoe acknowledges that it’s an expensive endeavour, especially considering the state of provincial post-secondary education funding these days. Especially for someone so fresh out of government care, Donahoe says, “It’s an early age to figure out how you’re going to cover tuition and transportation, and for some folks, even child care and things like that.”

Donahoe says the biggest challenge facing the program is finding additional funding so that the program can grow. He thinks more people than can be supported would meet the criteria for the program in the future.

Culture

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KPIRG hosts counter-orientation days for new and future Kwantlen students “Dis/Orientation” events aim to un-teach students’ common information.

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Kier-Christer Junos Staff Writer

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The Kwantlen Public Interest Research Group (KPIRG) insists on providing students with a series of alternative information events for students new and old this fall—information that likely won’t make it to the regular orientation days.

This is why they’re calling it “Dis/Orientation,” and it’s the second-ever annual series by KPIRG, which runs from Sept. 8 to 18.

KPIRG says the series is meant to be, “A counter to the conventional orientation days,” and that they want to help students “unlearn certain things that are oppressive.”

KPIRG staffer Deanna Fasciani adds that this event is about, “Questioning what you have been told from institutions of authority and power,” regardless of how you identify as a person. “You’re

gonna want to be critical and wary of what you’re being told.”

The series began with “We are at Kwantlen” on Sept. 8 in the aboriginal gathering place, the side-wing of Main building just beside the Surrey campus gazebo. Newly appointed elder-in-residence Leykeyten talked about the Kwantlen First Nation—which is the band that he’s from—and the meaning of being a Kwantlen student. The event also, “Aim[ed] to contribute to the process of decolonization and to raise consciousness around the sovereignty of the Coast Salish peoples on whose unceded territories KPU students reside and study.”

The next day saw labour rights outreach in Cloverdale and, on that note, Sept. 11 saw the spirit of the Paris Commune Café rise within Grassroots—it was the first successful workers revolution in 1871, and it’s the namesake of the twopart event at Grassroots.

“So, in the spirit of that, we’re going to have a lot of critical discussions on collectivism versus individualism, formal party politics versus informal politics,” among other topics, says Fasciani.

Dr. Fiona Whittington-Walsh from the KPU sociology faculty— along with some other undisclosed, long-time community speakers— will speak at the “Women’s Liberation” event on Sept. 15 from 1–4 p.m., inside Fir 146 at KPU Surrey.

That event explores emancipation from capitalism and patriarchy, presumably in a women’s-lib context, and local and global struggles for working-class women.

According to her KPU bio, Whittington-Walsh is also the vicepresident of Inclusion B.C., a nonprofit organization that, “Strives for full-inclusion of people with developmental disabilities in all aspects of life.” So it’s fitting that she will also speak at the accessibility

rights event held by D.A.M.N. on Sept. 16. The acronym stands for Disability Action Movement Now, a student action group. That goes from 1–3 p.m. in conference centre B in Cedar building on Surrey campus. D.A.M.N. seeks to raise consciousness among KPU students concerning the access barriers that persons with disabilities face each day. They’re also trying to push KPU to expand services to those with disabilities.

Other events include “Decolonizing Yoga,” which means to break modern connotations of yoga that have overshadowed the original meaning of the practice.

That’s going to be an actual yoga class at Surrey campus on Sept. 14 from 2–4 p.m. in a location only described on Facebook as a “quiet and hidden area on campus.”

KPIRG staffer Richard Hosein says that a lot of people, “Don’t understand that it comes from a long-

standing Indian tradition.” He adds that it’s respectful to understand where such practices come from and “how they’re related to our current existence.”

“You could talk about the commercialization of it,” says Hosein.

“About a month ago, B.C. premier Christy Clark was trying to institute this yoga day, which overshadowed some of the yoga events that the Indian consulate wanted to do, in addition to it being aboriginal day in Canada. So when we’re talking about respect and decolonization, those are the types of things that we want to be aware of in those activities.”

“So it’s not about Lululemon,” says KPIRG staff member Inder Johal. “It’s about actually being in the moment, it’s all about the spiritual experience and it doesn’t matter what your fitness level is—yoga is for everybody.”

They add that you should bring your own mat.

Meet The Kwantlen Agricultural Department’s Feline Guardians Langley Campus is totally cool for cats.

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Kyle Prince Contributor

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As it turns out, having a bunch of food in one place is a great way to get mice. The agriculture department at Kwantlen’s Langley campus knows this better than anyone, so in an attempt to rectify their rodent problem, they began adopting cats to patrol the area. Lori Karr, a member of the educational support for Langley, speaks about the cats, their personalities, and how they came to be kings of their own tiny jungle.

“They’re not technically lap cats, they’re farm cats,” says Karr, referring to how well the felines have taken to roaming the approximately 13 acres the campus has to offer. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t friendly around people, and they love to be involved with the goings-on around the greenhouse.

Head honcho of the Langley cluster (one of several accepted collective nouns for cats) is Bruce, the oldest at 13. That’s pretty old in

cat years. According to Karr he left his home due to competition with other animals, but fit right in at the Langley campus, where people tend to leave him to his business.

He spent a year settling in as the first campus cat, getting a feel for the territory, before being joined by brothers Carlos and Chiko, dubbed the “Okanagan Boys.”

Every now and then the cats get off campus and go missing for a couple days. They typically end up in the old folk’s home across the street, whose residents tend to pamper the cats a while before giving the school a call. “Carlos goes every day for a ride on the golf cart,” explains Karr. “They don’t like to ride in cars but they do like to ride on the fork lifts and machines.”

The cats are provided this level of freedom on campus partially because they need it to hunt properly, but also because of the brothers’ special maintenance requirements. Chiko will only drink distilled water, and has an upset stomach every once in a while. As Karr puts it, “If I ate mice,

I would have a sensitive stomach too.” The other brother isn’t too great on his own either. When Carlos gets nervous there’s no amount of potty training that can stop him, which is why there’s little desire amongst the department to keep the cats inside.

On the other hand, “Bruce is pretty laid back,” says Karr. “He’s [old] and he doesn’t really care.

When we have the harvesting sale he comes out, looks around, and goes back to the office. For a ‘fat’ cat he goes pretty fast.”

It isn’t all fun and games with the cats, though. Not too long ago, the two brothers disappeared for longer than normal and didn’t turn up at the usual spots. People were worried about a coyote attack, or a possible cat-napping, but it seems the two were merely prowling for adventure, as they turned up after a few more days of waiting. The staff were understandably scared for the cats, as they’ve spent so long with the department the felines have all but achieved their own faculty positions. In Karr’s words, “Bruce to me is the number one staff. They

all know that about me.”

Ultimately, no one’s surprised the cats came back, since “these are spoiled cats,” says Karr. “They own the place. They go to the vet, they’ve got all their shots, they get good food and fresh water every day, they have catnip growing outside, and they get toys and treats. Who wouldn’t want to live here?”

Another difficult period was when Carlos had a bad leg injury and was out for a couple weeks.

The staff put in extra time with him to help speed the recovery process,

feeding him antibiotics and helping with the rehab. Soon he was back on his feet and out hunting again with the other two.

There’s also the less glamourous side of the hunt, since the cats will bring back bodies as “prizes” for the staff and students. Usually they’re proud of what they’ve done, and, “You have to reinforce they did a good job,” says Karr. “Obviously you don’t want to watch it, but they are hard workers.”

Sounds like these cats could teach Kwantlen students a thing or two.

Monica Mah

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Kwantlen Slam poetry team gets new roster Members set to compete in Saskatoon this October.

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Kier-Christer Junos Staff Writer

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A measly sum of people made their way into the social justice space in Surrey to attend the second Slamapalooza team finals on Sept. 3.

In fact, I was the only audience member.

But KPU’s slam poetry team, complete with new faces, can anticipate performing in front of hundreds of people when they slam down in Saskatoon at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (CFSW) mid-October.

“We have a full team! And that’s really good,” says Simon Massey after the poets have filed out of the social justice space. In addition to being a KPU student, Massey’s a regular performer in the Vancouver slam poetry community who organizes these KPU Slamapaloozas, and now coaches the new team. “I

mean, all of the poets who qualified are absolutely capable of competing at the level of CFSW,” he says.

Of the 16 eligible poets to compete on Sept. 3, only three showed up to the competition, and those three made the vacancies on the team. As expected, it was an intimate night. I, being the only audience member, was appointed judge, where I gave scores on a 10-point scale after each of the poets slammed.

“Applaud the poet, not the scores!” Massey would say enthusiastically after each scorecard, which I found out were, to my embarrassment, abnormally on the low side of the spectrum when it comes to scoring slams.

Applaud the poet, let’s please not make eye-contact.

New additions to the team include Chloë Arduini, Lukas Ritter and Siling Zhang. Megan Oakley also joined the team, though she

qualified in the first team finals preceding Sept. 3. Veteran Leslie Stark is also on the team as an alternate, and that makes five. Massey says that Arduini and Ritter have participated in Hullabaloo in the past, which is the youth stream in the Verses Festival of Words. They aren’t strangers to the team setting and large competitions.

Siling Zhang is new, but Massey says she’s “hit the ground running.”

“I’m an arts student right now outside of slam,” says Zhang. “But I feel like since slam is artistic, it’s kind of an extension of what I do anyways. I explore the same themes in poetry as I do in visual arts.”

Zhang characterizes her work as “very imagery-heavy.”

“I think it focuses a lot on juxtaposition, and just that kind of school of thought where you take the mundane and position it so that it’s suddenly unsettling,” says Zhang. Now that she’s on the KPU team, she

aims to soak up experiences rather than try and place in the slam poet standings. She’s not hugely competitive, she says.

Massey’s confident that the team can hold their own at CFSW this October, even considering any greenhorn qualities that the team may have. Massey says the festival is really more exciting than intimidating.

“No poet’s like, ‘ohmygodimthebest.’ Everyone’s really humble,” says Massey. “The competition’s really awesome, but it’s really an excuse to see each other’s poetry.”

Maybe I should have kept that in mind when I was—yeesh—putting up the scorecards. I might as well have been beneath Olympic

diving boards with my immediate stoicism. But for some, like Zhang, it isn’t all about the numbers. She often participates in the Vancouver poetry slam community, and for her, it’s about having poets she likes enjoying her work.

“The numbers don’t matter if at the end of the night the people that I enjoy talking to and hang out are like, ‘That was awesome,’” says Zhang. “That makes me wanna work harder and do more.”

The Syrup Trap, Canada’s Answer to The Onion Where news gets creative enough for us to want to read it.

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Renée McMillen Contributor

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If you’re among the many that enjoy the satirical nature of The Onion, and you live north of the 49th parallel, you may want to start filling that satire quota jar with Canada’s own The Syrup Trap. This student-run magazine published out of UBC has found enormous success by lampooning people, politics and just about anything else with a pulse.

Founder and editor-in-chief Nick Zarzycki began his studies at UBC in history, economics and commerce, but soon found there wasn’t much being offered in terms of campus culture. To correct this, he—along with a handful of funny friends—launched the “fake news”

online magazine, choosing an old Mitch Hedberg quote about waffles being pancakes with built-in traps for syrup as the publication’s namesake.

Zarzycki greatly enjoyed university-run comedy magazines in the U.S, such as the Harvard Lampoon, and was aware of how magazines like that fed into The Onion and Saturday Night Live. In an interview with Stephen Quinn from On the Coast, Zarzycki said he launched the website to, “create something cool for everyone to read,” and in two short years the magazine went from poking fun at UBC’s many foibles to Vancouver at-large, before finally branching out to all of Canada.

With their success, “Canada’s favourite humour magazine,” as they call themselves, introduced a print edition that was published with this

summer’s edition of Geist magazine. This milestone was an opportunity for the writers at the Syrup Trap “to explore new ground,” says Zatzycki.

Their work has since appeared in the National Post as well as other major conglomerates in the media. CBC news has even retweeted some of their favourite headlines, including “Government of Canada pledges 30-million dollars to ignoring science,” and the more recent, “Vancouver commuter thrown off bus for making eye contact.”

While some of the same models and strategies from The Onion are employed, The Syrup Trap developed their own style by doing what they like—silly jokes, “jokes that are a little bit more absurd,” says Zarzycki, “a little bit sillier than you would find on The Onion and on The

Daily Show, for example.” This silly nature is implemented with every article they publish, and it’s what they do best.

“Everyone tends to take themselves a little bit too seriously,” says Zarzycki. “And that’s why satire is so enjoyable.” But what the publication achieves is more than that— satire has a way of drawing us into the irony behind a news story, and making the material more relatable as well as more enjoyable to read.

The Syrup Trap has made a business

Courtesy of Syrup Trap

of finding humour in the news.

Art Director Paul Bucci says, “I think humour builds culture more creatively than any other art form,” due in large part to its accessibility.

“There’s not a lot of culture-building things out there that are so easy to get to.”

For example, the story of British Columbia selling groundwater to Nestle may have raised eyebrows among those in the Lower Mainland, but Zarzycki’s story, “B.C. Trades Drinking Water to Nestle for a Bunch of Aero Bars,” is among the many stories published this summer that led to their ability to offer a print edition.

The philosophy and intent of The Syrup Trap is aimed fully at drawing attention by poking fun. “We are a silly publication. We’re not scathing,” claims Zarzycki. “We’re very serious about being silly.”

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Behind The Music: Surrey Campus’s Resident “Guitar Guy” An accoustic set with Wonsucc Lee.

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Preet Hundal Contributor

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The Surrey campus courtyard

is the closest thing Kwantlen Polytechnic University has to a social epicentre. Although KPU students are windswept across four different campuses, the courtyard sees an impressive amount of traffic on a day-to-day basis. Surrey-goers can become familiar with the courtyard’s array of sights, ranging from frogs and ducks lounging in the

pond to students and faculty members lounging on the grassy knoll beside the pond.

One such lounging student in particular is 19-year-old Wonsucc Lee, better known to some as “the tough-looking Asian dude who carries a guitar everywhere,” among other variations.

Unbeknownst to many, beneath this mysterious tough guy visage lies perhaps one of KPU’s most genuine characters. Dozens, if not hundreds, of Kwantlen students see him every day of the work-

ing week, sitting with his signature acoustic guitar. But few have bothered to chat with the man, or even listen to him play. Who is this raconteur? This bard? In his own words Lee is a man who is “extremely fond of all forms of creative art [and] independent artists of all kinds.”

“Every time you hear a piece of music or see a painting or photograph and read a philosophical text, you get to take a look inside some of the great minds of others and even use it to expand your

Preet Hundal

own,” Lee explains. “It is the expression of something that cannot be demonstrated through colloquial language. It is the essence of humanity and speaks to every one of us regardless of race, religion, social classes, et cetera. It is what separates us from the animals.”

In case it wasn’t made abundantly clear, Lee is a philosophy major.

Much of Lee’s mystique emanates from his ever-present instrument, specifically from the fact that even amongst those many who have made note of his presence, seldom few have ever heard him strum a single chord. The question arises: can he even play that thing all? Does he merely pose with a guitar hoping to allure the “college crowd” that play hackey sack all day or sit cross-legged on university campuses singing the half-remembered lyrics to “Wonderwall”?

When confronted, Lee responds by saying he “can actually play” the guitar and that, if found at the right time, he will be “picking away quietly, not to disturb anyone who may not want to hear it.”

“Instead of creating an impression, I simply stand by my great reverence for creative arts and hope to share this particular branch that I was fortunate enough to add to my life,” says Lee.

So, for once and for all, that matter is settled. Lee can play guitar.

But can he play “Wonderwall?”

As described by Urban Dictionary, “Wonderwall” is “something every lovesick emo teenager believes they can relate to.” Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your musical taste), Lee claims that he has “absolutely no idea” what “Wonderwall” even is.

Lee explains that he began playing guitar as a way to cope with a “really wrong period” in his personal life, and draws inspiration from musicians such as Ray Lamontagne, even going so far as to name his guitar “Jolene” after one of Lamontagne’s songs. Other influences and favorite musicians of his include Han Dae-Soo, Lee Moon-Sae, Norah Jones, Robert Schumann, Frederic Chopin, Danny Elfman, Jack Johnson and Paul McCartney.

In the end, Lee encourages other students to express their creativity publicly on campus, as he believes, “It would be a great addition to the typical college campus atmosphere.” Next time you’re on the Surrey campus, be on the lookout for him and Jolene relaxing around the Surrey Plaza. Maybe you can even stop by and say hello, chat or listen to him play.

Just don’t expect him to delve into Oasis’s greatest hits.

Hollywood Finally Gets it Right with The Runner

Adapting the story of a KPU student publication is Tinseltown’s first good idea in years.

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Connor Doyle Managing Editor

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The Runner has never been one to shy away from the limelight.

We’ve been breaking stories at KPU for nearly eight years now: When the student government was deceiving and defrauding Kwantlen students, we were there to report it.

When the administration signed a controversial MOU with Oil Giant Kinder Morgan, we were there to cover it. And when Grumpy Cat released her long-awaited holiday special, we were there to help you make desperate sense of this grim madness we call reality.

But now we must finally look inward as the newspaper itself becomes the focus of the summer’s sure to be blockbuster classic, The Runner.

No more will Kwantlen students be forced to stare longingly into the pages of our beloved newsmag and wonder blithely to themselves, “What’s it like to work at The Runner?” Now that question will be answered in glorious technicolour by a host of Hollywood’s most talented. All the adventure of taking a pitch at a contributor meeting, the tragedy

of having an interview subject not return your call, the exquisite glory of copy editing!

Student journalism at KPU will finally receive its big screen premiere, and frankly we here at the paper couldn’t be more excited.

Few details have surfaced about the movie, but we’ve been able to compile a basic run-down of the plot based on the YouTube trailer and a few poorly spelled reviews on IMDB. Nicholas Cage, of course, stars as our intrepid Coordinating Editor, Tristan Johnston, as he daringly helms a team of courageous and surprisingly marketable editors. Only Cage’s dynamic range, his raw intensity could properly convey Johnston’s passion for journalism. Cage spoke to us in a phone interview from his Hollywood home.

“It was a REAL PLEASURE getting to tell Mr. Johnston’s STORY,” claims Cage, wildly articulating nouns and adjectives with seemingly inexplainable abandon. “I lived in his mother’s house for THREE MONTHS just trying to capture his-his-his-HIS UN-ABIDING LOVE of Kwantlen Polytechnic University.”

The rest of the cast is rounded

out by a who’s-who of Hollywood royalty. Street-smart Executive Editor Sam Thompson, who teaches the staff how to believe in themselves, is played marvellously

by Connie Nielsen. Wise old Kier Christer-Junos, The Runner’s resident Staff Writer, is brought to life by the great Peter Fonda. And Operations Manager Scott Boux is portrayed, in devastatingly honest fashion, by the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

But what was it about The Runner that made Hollywood superstars want to tell this story?

“I truly RELISHED THE CHANCE to inhabit Mr. Johnston’s mind,” says Cage. “I saw things in there that NO MORTAL MAN could EVER RECTIFY with a just and caring God.” Cage went on to explain, “The BEES! They’ve FOUND ME!” before emitting an uninterrupted three and-a-half minute scream.

The line then went dead.

Executives at the newspaper are hoping the film exposes The Runner to a wider audience, and gets the word out that we are actively seeking Kwantlen students to contribute writing, photography and illustrations to the publication.

If you’re interested in taking part

in Kwantlen’s news and culture leader, just make your way to our offices on the third floor of the Surrey Library, behind the elevators. Stop by our contributor meetings every Monday at 1p.m., or email managing@runnermag. ca if you can’t make that time. We

pay all contributors for their work!

Also be sure to keep an eye out for the sequel, The Maze Runner, which I’m assuming is about that one time Scott got lost in the Richmond Campus and had to start a fire to get people to come and rescue him.

Danielle George

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Fall Movie Preview

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Yaunna Sommersby Web Editor

The fall movie season is fast approaching so now is the time to get your movie list ready! There are a lot of films coming out over the next few months, as the next awards season is also not far away.

Films usually earn the most award bids when released between now and December. Here are our top picks for you to check out this month.

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Richard Foreman Jr for Lionsgate / IMDb

Title: Sicario Director: Denis Villeneuve Cast: Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Donovan and Victor Garber Release date: September 18 Synopsis: A high-stakes crime drama that follows FBI agent Kate Marcer (Blunt) as she works with a task force to fight the war on drugs along the border between the United States and Mexico. With a talented cast and an intriguing story, Sicario will likely generate more buzz as it continues through the festival circuit.

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Warner Brothers Pictures / IMDb

Title: Black Mass Director: Scott Cooper Cast: Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard, Adam Scott, Corey Stoll and Dakota Johnson Release date: September 18 Synopsis: Based on a true story, Black Mass explores the story of infamous criminal Whitey Bulger. Johnny Depp is nearly unrecognizable in the role and his chilling performance is already earning some attention from critics.

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Title: Everest Director: Baltasar KormĂĄkur Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Kiera Knightley, Robin Wright, Josh Brolin, Sam Worthington, Jason Clarke, Emily Watson and Elizabeth Debicki Release date: September 18 Synopsis: Climbing Mount Everest is a daunting and risky task under average weather conditions, add in a storm and the journey becomes even more dangerous. Everest is based on a true story and follows a group of climbers as they attempt the impossible expedition.

Jasin Boland for Universal Pictures / IMDb

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Title: The Intern Director: Nancy Meyers Cast: Anne Hathaway, Robert De Niro, Rene Russo, Nat Wolff, Adam DeVine and Andrew Rannells Release date: September 25 Synopsis: Learning and experiencing new things is not restricted to younger generations. Ben Whittaker (De Niro) is a retired widower who has become bored of being in retirement, so he gets a job as a senior intern at an elite New York fashion website.

Richard Foreman Jr. for Twentieth Century Fox / IMDb

Title: Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Director: Wes Ball Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Giancarlo Esposito, Aidan Gillen, Barry Pepper, Lili Taylor and Patricia Clarkson Release date: September 18 Synopsis: Thomas and the Gladers thought their adventure was over once they left the Maze. Battling through the desolate lands of the Scorch, they must fight against WCKD and continue to unlock the mystery surrounding the organization.

Francois Duhamel for Warner Brothers Pictures / IMDb

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Student life budget to shrink next year, reducing funding for clubs

Student association criticized for still funding KPU events.

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Kier-Christer Junos Staff Writer

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Clubs at Kwantlen Polytechnic University may need to find alternative revenue sources to finance their endeavours in light of tighter realities in the Kwantlen Student Association’s budget, and newly implemented policies on club funding.

According to Manpreet Bassi, the KSA vice-president of student life, there will be approximately $80,000 less in the student life budget, partially due to a lower project enrollment at KPU. New domestic enrollments have been declining since at least 2012, according to KPU’s institutional analysis and planning reports, though international enrollments have been rising. Bassi says that there will be “a lot less funding, unfortunately,” but that the KSA has offered to help clubs set up fundraising techniques and find alternate funding.

KSA president Allison Gonzalez adds, “With the way that the KSA has been spending in the last couple of years, they’re going to

have $80,000 less to work with.”

The student life budget includes clubs and events spending, and Gonzalez hopes that, “Nobody will notice any difference,” as a result of the projected decline in available funds. She adds the culture of club expenditures as of late has been that many club funding requests are being exclusively paid by the KSA, a practice of which Gonzalez says, “is starting to run them dry.” She says a built-in expectation exists where clubs don’t have to fundraise, because they never had to in the past when funding was more ubiquitous and clubs were less numerous.

She hopes that the changes, “won’t be substantial if we could start a culture now in which students are becoming self-sufficient and creating their own funds for themselves to use.”

The number of clubs at KPU is nearing 50. As they’re KSA clubs, they are expected to follow KSA policies, even ones that could theoretically put more financial burdens on them. During the Aug. 21 council meeting, the KSA environmental sustainability committee put forward an air travel policy that would see club members aim to reduce their carbon footprints when travelling by plane. That includes the expectation that flyers pack light (a plane uses less energy when lighter) and fly economy (the more numerous the passengers, the lower each dividend of carbon footprints). But it also means choosing direct flights when possible, which are typically more expensive, and buying carbon offsets from a reputable provider, which increases costs, if marginally.

The policy passed with only one holdout from arts representative Simon Massey.

“I just got conference budget from the KSA to fly to Oakland,” says Massey, who attended a poetry slam event. “It can get really expensive flying direct plus the carbon offsets, and that extra money would have had to come out of my pocket, which is really hard.” The air travel policy hadn’t yet passed at the time of his trip.

“It feels like ultimately we will have less clubs going places if we force them to follow this plan,” adds Massey.

He thinks that those expectations should only extend to the KSA and not its clubs and their members. Massey maintains that he sees the necessity for the environmental philosophy, but he says he always wants to see more student life on campus. Massey says

that’s difficult when financial pressure pushes on students to raise extra money themselves when they’re already divesting from the KSA paying for each and every funding request.

Gonzalez says that council justified the policy’s passing because of the enormity of the KSA’s sustainability mandate.

“We understand that students want to go to conferences and want to go away,” says Gonzalez. “But our planet is still very important . . . and that bigger concept is part of the reason I think that council approved it.”

Massey speculates that going forward, with $80,000 less in student life money considered, the situation will probably mean less KSA-shouldering of costs and more requests for fundraising.

Still, he believes that while the new money situation is unfortunate, the KSA could do other things to mitigate such an effect on clubs—like stop funding KPU projects, many of which Gonzalez told The Runner are projects that she thinks the KSA is proud of supporting.

But Massey thinks it was a mistake, for example, for the KSA to sponsor the KPU convocation in summer 2015. During a May 15 council meeting, $30,000 was pulled from clubs and events money and put into a budget line item called “outside event sponsorship.” Then, $15,000 was released from the newly buffed line item to sponsor the summer convocation.

The motion passed with a twothirds majority, which indicates not everyone was in favour of it.

Massey says their sponsorship took the form of catering, which they did through Grassroots Café and so ensured some return to the KSA. “It doesn’t technically cost us so much,” says Massey, “But clubs and events never sees that $15,000 again.”

Rosaura Ojeda

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The Marriage of

Corporation and Academia and How it Impacts a University’s Operation

Kwantlen Polytechnic Universit y, Ltd.

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Kier-Christer Junos Staff Writer

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When doing work at the library, financial advisors from Coast Capital Savings typically don’t badger you about mutual funds with which to hedge your student debt, even if the Surrey campus library is blandly named after their credit union.

According to KPU’s Asset Naming Policy, the opportunity to have your name attached to something typically comes along as a means to encourage donors to give the university money. From the policy: “In order to qualify for a naming opportunity, donations must represent a significant amount of the asset being named.” Each naming opportunity comes with an agreement that is negotiated between the donor and the university, and each agreement is likely different.

In the case of the Coast CapitalKPU agreement, the main thing Coast Capital receives is their name plastered all over the library.

There’s no CCS booth in the atrium prepositioning debt instruments.

No naming rights over the business department wing. Just what seems to be a pretty innocuous friendswith-benefits situation between university and corporation.

But like many universities, KPU is connected to several corporations, typically as a means to supplement the less-than-adequate provincial funding. The way public university funding works these days, universities like KPU are forced to look at sources other than government for revenue just to operate frugally. They also have an increasing number of sessional instructors to pay, and everyone’s research to financially support. Someone’s got to pay, and if the public sector doesn’t want to foot the entire bill for an academic’s rare blood disorder research, well, the private pharmaceutical company downtown might prop them up. For a price.

When the price tag reads academic freedom with six zeros trailing behind, that’s when the critics become concerned about universities and corporations saying “I do.”

Universities and the private sector operate in very different ways and for very “legitimate reasons,” according to David Robinson, the executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. Universities have traditionally operated more collaboratively, he says, and academic researchers often share preliminary findings in order to let the broader community expand, criticize or disprove them.

“The private sector is mainly concerned about secrecy,” says Robinson. “You’re developing, through your research, new products, new processes that you want to keep to yourself because you don’t want your competition getting hold of them.”

Robinson provides an anecdote about Dr. Nancy Olivieri, who in the late 1990s was researching a new drug treatment for a rare blood disorder at the Hospital for Sick Children in conjunction with the University of Toronto. The pharmaceutical company Apotex sponsored her research at the time.

“As the trial progressed,” recounts Robinson. “She discovered, in her view, what she thought were very serious adverse side effects that some patients were exhibiting.

She wanted to inform her patients and publish the results of her findings, and the company threatened to pull funding from her, started to sue her . . . the university didn’t protect her.”

Robinson thinks that, increasingly, universities are, “Becoming like the private sector.” He says that this trend of universities closely working

with corporations leads to corporate thinking finding a nest in the senior administration and boards of governors of our post-secondary institutions—that they’re more in charge of a private or for-profit corporation rather than a public institution.

But with the state of public university funding, can such philosophies really be helped? The bigger issue beyond who the university’s in bed with is the current public commitment to public university funding, says Robinson. He notes there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with collaborations with the private sector. In fact, he suggests that in many cases the private sector can bring questions, issues and research problems that academics would not have thought about. Many corporations partner with nonprofits, even, and produce great things.

But when it comes to university partner-

ships, he stresses that there are rules to be followed that ensure every agreement is transparent and open.

CAUT conducted a recent study that examined 12 of the biggest corporate-university collaborations.

The report found that only seven of those collaborations had any protections for academic freedom and free publication of research.

It’s not really the perceived agency of corporate interests that shocks Robinson, but rather that, “Our so-called leaders of our universities are so quick to sell away fundamental academic values just for a little donation or the promise of more corporate funding.”

During the time a controversial agreement between KPU and Trans Mountain was signed, KPU’s viceprovost Salvador Ferreras told The Runner that KPU is, “An institution that is entrusted with by the board and by the University Act to conduct the business of a university, to raise money to have scholarships to support students and support the regional economy.”

KPU geography professor Bill Burgess, who is actively working against that agreement with other faculty members, sees problems with that philosophy. Burgess maintains that he’s “very enthusiastic” about the general idea of a polytechnic education, and, “Mixing the traditional liberal arts heart of the original university with more science-oriented and applied-oriented jobs.”

But he says, “The problem is that when we just turn into a job training institution for private business and government institutions.” His view is that employers are shedding their responsibility to train employees, and that these days the job market

wants universities to gear their programs to, “Custom-fit their particular . . . short-term requirements.”

The B.C. government does have a program called the “Skills for Jobs Blueprint.” They project that up to 43 per cent of jobs in B.C. will require trades skills or technical training. This blueprint, which includes what the government calls “re-engineering education and training” seeks to strengthen trades sectors and especially LNG. Part of that blueprint will see about $270-million of post-secondary operating grants by 2017-18, “aligned to training that matches with high-demand jobs.”

Robinson believes that, “Fundamentally, what universities should do is conduct research that’s scientifically interesting—not something that’s being dictated by political interests of the day.” The research culture of a university, according to Robinson, fosters long-term research that goes for decades, not four- to five-year election cycles.

Perhaps 30, 40 years isn’t fast enough for policy-makers and the job market. Robinson is convinced that this research culture is necessary to future innovations, which he sees have been declining in Canada.

“The Irish physicist John Tyndall in the late 19th century asked a very basic question,” says Robinson. “He asked, ‘why is the sky blue?’”

Robinson says it led Tyndall to explore the properties of light.

Which then led to understandings that helped humans create lasers, orthoscopic equipment and other things.

“Now, if you walked into a corporate boardroom today and said, ‘I want some research funding to investigate why the sky is blue,’ I don’t think you’d get much of a response except laughter,” says Robinson. “And similarly I think governments would be a little inclined to say, why would you want to investigate that? What practical use would that ever have?”

Pifanida

Opinion

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The Problem With First-Past-the-Post

Here’s why three out of four of our major political parties want to change our electoral system.

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Joseph Keller Contributor

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One of the many talking points

you might notice during this extended election season is the issue of the election itself—namely, the system by which we elect our government. Currently we have three of the four major political parties actively campaigning to do away with the first-past-the-post system. NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has pledged to make this election the last election using FPTP, while Liberal and Green leaders Justin Trudeau and Elizabeth May have expressed similar intentions. The only

candidate that hasn’t commented on the issue this election is incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper who defended the system back in 2011.

Why are most of our political parties so opposed to the status quo? And why is the party in power the only one who’s uninterested in making changes? What’s wrong with first-past-the-post?

First, a quick overview for those of us who slept through grade eight social studies. FPTP is the system that divides Canada into ridings.

Each election, the local candidate with the most votes in his or her riding becomes the member of parliament for that riding and is awarded a seat in the House of Commons. The party that wins the most seats

becomes the ruling party.

So what’s wrong with that?

Well, one clue to the fundamental flaw with FPTP can be seen in the 2011 election results. As most will remember, the Conservatives shocked us all by pulling a surprise majority win. However, this “majority” starts to look a lot less like a majority when one considers that only 39.62 per cent of voters actually voted Conservative.

This is because FPTP only takes into account the number of seats won when deciding a winner, so if a party wins a riding by one per cent in an extremely close race then that party takes the riding and

Rosaura Ojeda

the runner-up gets nothing. Winner takes all. This means that if you vote and your party loses in your riding than your vote is essentially wasted.

It’s easy to see why the Conservatives are the only party that’s happy with this arrangement.

Since the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and Canadian Alliance to form the modern Cons e r va t i ve party in 2003, there has been only one party in Canada that leans to the right of the three left and centre-left parties. This consolidation of the right and fragmentation of the left means a lot of narrow wins in ridings for the Conservatives. Because a narrow win counts for just as much as a landslide, first-past-thepost creates a significant advantage for the Conservative party, and Stephen Harper knows it.

This advantage represents a serious problem for the health of our democracy. In Canada, a majority government wields a lot of power. Since a majority government controls the bulk of the seats in parliament and therefore most of the votes, a majority is able to pass

any legislation it likes virtually unchecked. That’s quite a bit of power for a government that doesn’t have the backing of 60 per cent of voters.

The main alternative to FPTP, and the one currently being touted

by Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair, is proportional representation.

This system would divvy up seats in the House of Commons based on the number of Canadians who voted for each party. Simple as that.

This system would allow smaller parties that gain grassroot support among a small but significant number of Canadians, but can’t pull a win in concentrated ridings, to achieve some level of representation. It would also mean no more 40 per cent “majorities.”

The currently leading NDP and third place Liberal Party have both placed great importance on reforming our electoral system.

Justin Trudeau stated that such a step is needed to “restore democracy in Canada,” while Mulcair said in an op-ed in Common Ground magazine that “it’s up to Canadians to make the next election the last unfair election.” These are not overstatements. If either of these parties forms our government after Oct. 19, then that party will have a responsibility to create a system that accurately represents the will of Canadians.

Vanc-Uber Needs to Become a Reality

Metro Vancouver’s laws against ridesharing have us trailing other metropolises.

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Joseph Keller Contributor

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Having been on exchange in

Vienna for a month now, I can say that one of the highlights of living abroad is the opportunity to sample products that are not available to you back home. For me this product has been Uber, a service that’s become a lauded transportation innovation in many cities around the world.

But not in Vancity.

Uber’s a company that’s fascinated me ever since it was blocked from expanding to Vancouver in 2012. Maybe it’s just human nature to want what you can’t have, but it’s always bugged me that I’ve been kept away from a new and interesting product which could potentially make getting around town a little easier.

Needless to say, once I was out of the Lower Mainland it wasn’t long before I found myself in the back of an Uber cab.

The trip itself was everything I expected. I pressed a button, a driver came to me. He didn’t speak much English but that didn’t matter much as all the relevant info was

communicated through the app. It cost a little less than I’d expect from a cab, and was refreshingly more convenient than anything I could get in Surrey.

So why in Vancouver do we still have to call a taxi company by phone like cave people? Vancouver was originally to be Uber’s first Canadian city in 2012, until the company found itself unable to work around Metro-Vancouver’s archaic web of taxi regulations.

In Vancouver there’s a limited number of taxi licenses allowed at one time and as a result Vancouver has the lowest number of taxis per capita of any Canadian city, as reported by BC Business in 2014.

Attempts at reforming the policy to allow ridesharing companies to operate within the city have been met with formidable opposition from lobbying groups representing B.C.’s taxi and limousine industries. This is hardly surprising, since the current system has made taxi licenses extremely valuable and created a monopoly-like situation to the benefit of license holders. This lack of competition may be good for the established taxi industry but it’s terrible for the consumer who is

stuck with both an inferior product (at a higher cost) and an industry with no incentive to offer a better service.

Of course, there are many who argue the laws that keep Uber out of Vancouver are in place for good reason. The common claim from detractors of Uber, and similar companies such as Lyft and SideCar, is that a ridesharing system wherein anyone with a suitable vehicle can be a driver will inevitably result in abuse, and ultimately create an unsafe environment for the consumer.

The thing is, the dystopian scenario predicted by ridesharing naysayers hasn’t come to pass in any of the 300-plus cities these companies currently operate in.

One of the benefits of an appbased system is that ratings can be seen for any individual driver before hiring, which makes it easy to weed out bad drivers. The fact that metering is controlled by Uber rather than drivers makes overcharging virtually impossible.

Sure, there have been instances of problems with Uber, as there have been with any transportation system, but overall the company has received glowing praise and

ever-growing popularity.

Also worth mentioning is one not-so-insignificant side benefit.

Ridesharing programs have been shown to save lives. A study conducted from 2009 to 2014 at Temple University in Philadelphia found a 3.6 to 5.6 per cent decrease in deaths related to drunk driving in cities where Uber operates. Who would have thought that having an affordable and reliable ride at the push of a button would make getting behind the wheel after a few drinks less tempting?

It’s also important to consider that the traditional taxi industry isn’t always a shining beacon of quality or safety in itself. Anyone who has used a taxi more than a few times knows how inconsistent

the experience can be. Even in a city like Vancouver, with its supposedly strict regulations, everything from unsafe driving to unclean conditions to abuse of the metering system in order to overcharge citizens are not uncommon occurrences.

The inconsistency of the taxi industry is a big part of the reason companies like Uber have become so popular in the first place.

Now, please don’t mistake me for an Uber advertising executive.

I just lament the fact that of the hundreds of cities all over the world that Uber has operated in, Vancouver is the only one that the company has had to pull out of. It’s time to put pressure on our officials to change that.

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Xenophobia controls our refugee policies Look in the mirror, Canada.

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Samantha Thompson Executive Editor

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Finally, it seems, we’re talking about refugees.

Canada has been taking a hit over the past couple of weeks with critics suggesting that the country isn’t doing enough to support Syrian refugees. Instead, it’s getting caught up in notions of “protecting Canadians” from “terrorism” as justification for why our number of accepted Syrian refugees is so low.

The Syrian conflict began in 2011, with an uprising against the government and a call for the resignation of current president Bashar al-Assad before escalating into a full civil war. By March 2015, an estimated 200,000 people had been killed because of the conflict, according to the U.N. The U.N. has also determined that both sides of the conflict (oversimplified: those for and against the current government) have committed war crimes, and there have been multiple examples of the targeting of civilians.

There are also reports that the Islamic State is now occupying various regions of the country, which was infinitely easier to do amidst the chaos. Approximately 4-million

people have fled Syria, with another 7.6-million internally displaced, according to BBC reports.

Is Canada a truly humanitarian nation, or is that just something we continuously tell ourselves to cover the racism and discrimination that exists within our borders? It is difficult to find an example of Canada as a country doing good in this world within the last 10 years, and the Syrian crisis is but the most recent example to hit headlines.

There was a time when Canada was in the top 10 per cent of peacekeeping components in U.N. mandates. In 2012, the Huffington Post reported that Canada ranked 57th in its contributions. We used to be able to identify as a peacekeeping nation with some sort of statistical support. Not only that, but our history of welcoming refugees goes back pre-1867, but notably in 1956, 37,000 Hungarians found refuge in Canada from the Soviet Union, and between 1970-90, following the Communist victory in the Vietnam war, more than 60,000 Boat People found refuge in Canada. Compare this to the 2,374 Syrian refugees who have come to Canada so far, or the fact that Canada has now expanded its commitment to allow 10,000 Syrians to seek refuge over

the next three years--a big-sounding number until you compare it to what we’ve done in the past.

Out of every 1,000 Syrian refugees, Canada accepts five, according to the International Spectator.

The U.S. accepts 0.9, and because we have an inherent need to always compare ourselves to them, I guess that means we’re not doing too poorly.

But really, in what world can we say that our number is high enough?

In every speech or recycled sentence Harper gives that touches on refugees, he emphasizes the need to help people while simultaneously protecting Canadians. It’s fear-mongering at its best: we don’t need to be protected from what’s “out there,” but rather we need to be protected from the fact that we have a government that doesn’t provide sufficient support to those in Canada unless they can somehow provide a political advantage.

There are people in Canada who spend their lives in poverty without adequate support from the government. We have been ignoring signs of climate change that tell us our country should be making a real effort to reduce carbon emissions.

And it is not nearly problematized

enough that there are people in our country who live in fear of speaking the truth, because the threat of consequences is enough to keep them silent.

Our resistance to open our borders to refugees stems from many problematic notions, the first of which is likely a xenophobic racism, and Islamophobia.

As the online publication Africa is a Country points out, even the fact that Syrian refugees are receiving publicity at all is indicative of a further problem. Eritrea is also undergoing a refugee crisis: in 2014, approximately 40,000 Syrians crossed the Mediterranean to seek asylum in Europe, as did 35,000 Eritreans, according to AIAC. Yet the situation in Eritrea is barely making headlines in Western media as all eyes are turned toward Syria and the Middle East. It can be argued that much of this is still tied to 9/11, and our obsession with and skewed perception of the Middle East since.

In any refugee crisis, it would be unfortunate to believe that a country’s decision on whether or not to provide assistance to those in need was related to politics, but that’s exactly what we see here.

In some levels of government, we are already seeing the potential

for change in the way we address refugees. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and City Councillor Geoff Meggs introduced a motion at city council last week that urged the federal government to increase the number of refugees it was letting into Canada. The City of Vancouver is also in the process of reviewing the idea of becoming a Sanctuary City, a concept that provides “Access without fear” policies to refugees. This tangibly translates to refugees and undocumented residents having access to city services without fear of being reported to border officials. Toronto became a Sanctuary City in 2014, and many supporters point out that these services are paid for by undocumented residents, through their rent, sales taxes and often income tax.

If Canada wants to actually be a humanitarian country, we need to take some time to internally reflect on the problems we already have within our borders. We don’t need to be protected from those seeking asylum--rather, we should be offering protection to them because we can, and because it’s the right thing to do. Politics aside, we need to check into the part of us that is still human, and sees that denying others refuge is wrong.

Explainer: Chinese Stock Market Crash What the hell happened?

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Kier-Christer Junos Staff Writer

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The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) fell 8.6 per cent on Aug. 24 and then even more on the 26th, prompting investors to piss themselves, in China and around the world. That’s a massive drop of about 1000 points just between Aug. 19 and 26, each point being a per cent. North American stock indexes like the DOW dropped too.

But as the week rolled on, what was dubbed a Black Monday started looking more like a case of the Mondays. We’re in no way discounting the fluctuations, of course. But world markets generally climbed up by 50 per cent of their loss on the Wednesday and Thursday. Even the SSE composite, an average of numerous publicly traded Chinese companies’ worth, recovered marginally on those days.

Chances are that you probably had money ready for biology textbooks rather than, uh, Chinese equities and venture capital. So unless you had a lot of money in global markets and were scared into selling your devalued

stocks before the market bounced back, you probably haven’t ground down your pearly whites, lost your shirt and all that.

Here’s some of what people are saying: The Economist reports that, in part, Chinese policy-induced currency devaluation is to blame for the crash on Monday. Projections for poor growth in China perhaps prompted policy-makers to do this. When the country’s central bank employs policy to devalue the Chinese yuan, Chinese equity returns will sub- sequently be lower. Central bank officials in China told

The Economic Times not to make scapegoat out of the devaluation, instead blaming the U.S. Federal Reserve’s upcoming move to raise interest rates in what’s called a contractionary monetary policy move.

What that could mean is that returns on U.S. equities could be better relative to Chinese equities, perhaps

shifting Chinese market demand downward since Chinese investors expect rosier prospects in the U.S. of A. Really, both situations—lower market demand and lower yuan value—could be factors.

Once upon a time, I made about 1.5 grand in Canadian Tire shares as an employee, and after I unceremoniously left that place, I put the money in a mutual fund and continued sitting on that egg. Waking up to Black Monday news in China did interest me in how my reallocated funds were

doing. Part of that portfolio I put money in had about 50 per cent in U.S. equities, and as we know those markets did fall. But I wasn’t concerned because I have longer-term prospects for that money. I shot an email to my financial advisor and he reflected my sentiments, saying that long-term investments usually do great even in the wake of that turbulent week.

CBC Radio shows that Monday morning featured economists and financial advisors, who took questions from callers. Generally, the advisors they featured told average investors like me to remember what their goal was for investing in the first place. They were especially dire when speaking to those who had their assets completely in stocks. Many people just play the market to see how they’ll do, and when things don’t go well, they fly the coop faster than they really need to.

Disclaimer: Kier is definitely not a financial advisor, he is merely studying an economics minor with his journalism degree to help him grip some of these issues.

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Science Explained

F Word

Why HIV is difficult to treat.

Free The Nipple.

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Aileen Tran Columnist

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All nipples are equal. That’s the message that Lina Esco, activist and producer of the 2013 documentary Free the Nipple, is hoping to communicate through her work.

Ever since her best friend’s mother was kicked out of a church for the crime of breastfeeding, Enesco has been dedicated to the Free The Nipple campaign, specifically in its fight to liberate the female nipple from sexualization and regulation. Esco’s film, and the campaign behind it, centre on an army of breasts-barring activists who battle unfair legislation that polices women’s bodies in public spaces. They fight for women and men to have equal ownership over their bodies.

“The moment a woman shows her areolas and really owns it, [she’s] committing a crime,” Esco told Vice in a 2014 interview. “You can get up to three years jail time in Louisiana.”

Esco and her campaign have taken to holding “optional topless” rallies on the streets of the United States. On Aug. 23 of this year, as many as 300 topless demonstrators took to the streets of Manhattan.

The campaign quickly globalized with similar protests taking place in 60 other cities around the world.

In her work, Esco points out that American society continues to glorify violence while simultaneously repressing sexuality, something which she argues is both hypocritical and troublingly unhealthy.

Children, she claims, are overly subjected to depictions of violence on television and video games, all while an exposed female breast is demonized. In an article in the Huffington Post, Esco wrote, “An American child sees over 200,000 acts of violence and 16,000 murders on television before they turn 18 and not one nipple? Yet the FCC fines CBS $550,000 for Janet Jackson’s infamous Super

15

Bowl wardrobe malfunction.”

Free The Nipple protesters are calling out the media and society at large for these double standards.

While topless men are considered normal, women are told to cover up—and yet Western society still seems to be obsessed with women’s breasts. We exploit and hypersexualize them, use them to sell every conceivable product from cologne to hamburgers. The movement addresses and covers many feminist issues concerning the female body, from rape culture and slut-shaming to attacking women who breastfeed in public. This campaign isn’t about telling women to constantly bare their breasts, but to empower those who want to so that they have the freedom to do so.

“It’s not about going topless, it’s about equality,” Esco told EW Magazine in a 2014 interview.

Females should be able to legally go topless in public, whether it is for breastfeeding, sunbathing or the simple fact that they didn’t want to wear a shirt and/or bra that day. Men have the freedom to walk around publically shirtless without anyone questioning them, criticising them or attacking them. This is an unfair double standard.

An incident (just one of many such examples) occurred at a beach in Kelowna, B.C. when a topless, sunbathing woman was stopped by an RCMP officer who demanded she put her top back on. The woman knew her rights, knew that it was perfectly legal for her to be topless in public, but she was still hassled by the RCMP. Another incident occurred in Kitchener, Ontario, where three sisters, Tameera, Nadia and Alysha Mohamed, were stopped by a police officer for choosing to ride their bikes topless because of the heat.

“When men take off their tops in public, it’s clearly because it’s a hot day and clearly it’s for their comfort. Women should be given the same freedom,” said Nadia Mohamed. “Even though legally we have that

right, socially we clearly don’t.”

Celebrities such as Cara Delevingne, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and many others have endured harsh criticism for their nudity, and they’re fed up with it. They took to social media to show their support for Esco’s campaign. Some of them, like Cyrus, were brave enough to post photos of themselves barring breasts in public. Earlier this year Australian model Nicole Trunfino was criticized for her ELLE cover photo, which depicted her breastfeeding her four-month-old son.

Society loves breasts, just not when faced with the functionality of one.

Then it becomes something to fear.

We as a society more than tolerate a poster girl with plumped breasts spilling out of her bra to advertise a sandwich. Some of us even encourage it. But when a mother tries to breastfeed her child in a public space she is shamed for indecent exposure and even fined in some areas. This is an example of how women are not allowed to own or even expose their bodies unless they are being used to sell a product. Trunfino’s photo didn’t show a nipple, it didn’t even show more cleavage than most magazine ads, yet many people complained about it being inappropriate.

Our culture constantly tells us that breasts are only good for two things: advertisements and sexual pleasure. The Free the Nipple campaign is about demolishing this idea. It advocates for the equality of men and women’s bodies. No man who goes shirtless in public is told that he’s “asking to get raped,” nor would he suffer the degrading names a woman would have to endure if she were to do the same. Even when women are brave enough to go topless or nurse their children in public, they are often uncomfortable because of the treatment they receive from the public.

The more we free the female nipple the more normalized and accepted it will become, just like anything else people are constantly exposed to. Free the Nipple is about desexualizing the female nipple, demanding the equal rights to men, and taking back the right to own our bodies.

Rosaura Ojeda

Danielle George

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Danica Johnston Columnist

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THE HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS

HIV fits under a branch of viruses called lentiviruses, and many animals such as cats, cows, horses, and sheep have strains of lentiviruses that typically don’t cause disease. In primates, the lentivirus is called SIV (Simian immunodeficiency virus), and multiple strains exist that are specific to various regions.

Although animals typically survive with a strain of lentivirus, it was found that when an African monkey was infected with an Asian monkey’s strain of SIV, and vice versa, the monkey gets something called Simian AIDS, similar to what humans experience with HIV/ AIDS. If humans had a long history of this lentivirus, it would probably not cause such a dramatic illness, suggesting that HIV is fairly new to humans and may have been contracted from trapping, butchering, and eating chimps.

HIV can be transmitted—in descending order of likelihood—via blood transfusion, by birth, by using infected needles and sexual contact. Overtime, HIV destroys vital immune cells that are necessary for fighting common colds and infections, and eventually, individuals will be left with a very low immune cell, specifically CD4 T-cell, count. If their CD4 T-cell count is below 200 cells/mm3, the individual’s condition has reached the final stage of HIV infection, known as AIDS. HIV can also progress to AIDS if individuals are diagnosed with certain cancers, or opportunistic infections. Such infections, like Tuberculosis or Lymphoma, do not pose a great threat to healthy individuals but can be very dangerous to immunodeficient persons.

THE DANGERS OF VIRUSES Unlike bacteria, viruses are not typically considered living organisms, and are typically more complex in their treatment. The virus infects cells by latching onto a host cell, which they take over and use to reproduce. This makes them so much harder to target and kill, because in killing the virus we must also kill the host cell. This is why viruses, such as smallpox, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, rabies, HPV and Ebola are difficult to treat, and extremely

challenging to cure.

However, most of these viruses have vaccines available that will prevent individuals from contracting them. Bacterial infections and diseases can be cured with a simple antibacterial or antibiotic, though this method can also leave you defenseless due to superbugs. There are an approximated 23,000 people that die every year in the United States from drug-resistant superbugs that have developed from the overuse of antibiotics.

RESISTANCE For HIV to enter an immune cell, it must bind to a protein receptor called CD4, as well as a co-receptor CCR5. Once the virus is bound to the receptors, the union of protein and virus are internalized into the cell. Interestingly, some individuals have a mutation in their genes which prevents the CCR5 co-receptor from functioning properly. The dysfunctional CCR5 gene prevents the protein from even making it onto the cell’s surface when your body manufactures these cells.

Without it, the virus cannot infect the cell, making some individuals resistant to HIV/AIDS. In addition, researchers have been able to develop a new class of drugs that alter how the CCR5 protein functions, preventing HIV from taking over the entire immune system and causing AIDS. There are now six classes of HIV drugs, one of those being entry inhibitors, also known as CCR5 antagonists.

The drug works by binding the CCR5 co-receptor and causing the co-receptor to change shape. These conformational changes prevent the virus from binding.

CONCLUSION HIV/AIDS is arguably one of the most misunderstood epidemics in the world, largely due to the stigmas that surround it. Over 35 million people live with this disease worldwide, and individuals of poor socioeconomic status struggle to access treatment, leaving them with a much higher risk of developing AIDS. By educating ourselves with the science behind a disease, and becoming aware of the social impact misinformation can have, we are better equipped to prevent the spread of HIV altogether.

Danica is a second-year science major. She is passionate about human genetics, physics and neurology.

Procrastination

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SUDOKU No. 130

Very Hard

3

4 9

1

Previous solution - Tough

8 5 4 7 6 1 9 3 2

9 1 5 7 6

4 7 5

9

8 4 6 4 8 9

© 2011 Syndicated Puzzles, Inc.

2 4 3 7 2 1

4

6 1 2 3 9 8 7 5 4

9 3 7 4 2 5 8 1 6

5 7 3 1 4 6 2 9 8

4 6 8 9 5 2 1 7 3

1 2 9 8 7 3 4 6 5

7 8 1 6 3 4 5 2 9

2 4 6 5 1 9 3 8 7

3 9 5 2 8 7 6 4 1

To complete Sudoku, fill the board by entering numbers 1 to 9 such that each row, column and 3x3 box contains every number uniquely.

For many strategies, hints and tips, visit www.sudokuwiki.org If you like Sudoku you’ll really like ‘Str8ts’ and our other puzzles, Apps and books. Visit www.str8ts.com

CROSSWORD 1.1.

Small amounts Small amounts 5.5.

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Uneven 16.

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Revivalists 17.

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Menachem’s Nobelist 18. Menachem's 1978 co19.

Anatomical passage Nobelist 20. Supplementary part in music 19. Anatomical passage 23. Bard’s nightfall 20. Supplementary part in 24. Appomattox figure music 25.

Supervisor 23.

Bard's 33.

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Bing Crosby’s record 37.

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Female fowl to drive 41.

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Paddled disaster 59.

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Nothing but 60.

Racer Yarborough 61.

Italian whitefowl wine 48.

Female 62.

Baseball team 49.

Thoughtless 63.

Nailed 56.

Org.obliquely 64. Ruhr city 58. Paddled 65. Sets of equipment

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6.Encounter Verdi opera 22. Start of a counting rhyme 25. ___ boom 26. Hives

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1

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17

18

19

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Food and water 46. Blush 29.

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Time being 52. Social standing 32.

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Leaves in a bag 56. Pretend 39.

Energy 57. ___ Paulo, Brazil 41. After-bath powder 42. Completed 44. Preserved in a can 45. Steal 46. Blush

Horoscopes Sagittarius Nov. 23 - Dec 21

Capricorn Dec. 22 - Jan 20

You: “Can I use the bathroom?” Him: “I don’t know, can you?” You: *Reigning blows upon him till he dies*

Whenever forced to take a stance on a difficult ethical matter, it is imperative that you stand with Funk Master Flex.

On Tuesday your family’s torrid history of mental illness finally catches up with you. Try not to take it seriously.

Pisces Feb 20 - Mar 20

Aries Mar 21 - Apr 19

Taurus Apr 20 - May 20

Rarely does the universe afford you an opportunity to look, at once and in equal parts, “employable” and “fuckable.” This Wednesday your stars align.

Isn’t about time we just got rid of Scorpio? I mean c’mon, Pluto’s not even a planet anymore.

You are a living testament to man’s irreverence.

Gemini May 21 - Jun 20

The solutions will be published here in the next issue.

Across Across

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49. Archipelago part 50. Greek temple 51. Ladies of Sp. 52. Social standing 53. Et ____ (and other men) 54. Camp sight 55. Former partners 56. Pretend 57. ___ Paulo, Brazil

Cancer Jun 21 - Jul 23

Aquarius Jan 21 - Feb 19

Leo Jul 24 - Aug 23

By the time they perfect the technology for self-driving cars you will have already been dead for three years.

There was never a moment wherein you questioned your actions, a time when you forced yourself to look deeply inside what you’d laughably refer to as a “soul.”

Loudly tell the people around you how progressive your thoughts are on [RECENT SOCIAL ISSUE] and wait for the nodding approval from David Simon’s astral projection.

Virgo Aug 24 - Sept 23

Libra Sept 24 - Oct 23

Scorpio Oct 24 - Nov 22

Gather your friends together and tell them you believe one of them is a murderer. If no one cops to it, tell them you were kidding as you slowly reach for your pistol.

If the waiter won’t take your order, simply recite the entirety of Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore at your loudest possible volume until you’re asked to leave the restaurant.

Don’t let that punk Aries talk smack about you. Scorpio’ll cut a bitch if need be.