The Cascade Vol. 23 No. 14 by The Cascade

Vol. 23 Issue 14

May 6, 2015 to May 19, 2015

Literally drawing on the walls since 1993

Looking under the

surface Students challenge stereotypes at leadership retreat

p. 10 -11

THE FINAL CATWALK? Fashion diploma may have been slashed, but Absolute Style fashion show still struts its stuff

p.12

DIRECTORS’ FEST Batman, flying cucumbers, existentialism, and sex in the woods at 20th annual D-Fest

p.14-15

GOLF COACH GOES GLOBAL UFV’s Chris Bertram set to coach Team Canada’s men’s golf team in South Korea for Universiade

p.19

ufvcascade.ca

NEWS 5

Opinion

Culture

Arts in Review

Ono’s knows its sushi

Sports & Health

Thinking about going gluten-free?

Briefs

ABBOTSFORD — Following the annual transition to a new executive team, the Student Union Society (SUS) laid off three staff positions last week. SUS president Thomas Davies, who according to SUS communications policy is “the only person authorized to speak publicly on behalf of SUS,” could not be reached for comment by press time. The Cascade will continue to cover this story in the following weeks.

McMaster administration researches systemic problems, then alters faculty pay to be gender-equal HAMILTON — After McMaster University’s Office of Institutional Research and Analysis studied faculty pay over a two-year period, they discovered a “systematic [sic] bias” in favour of male faculty; on average, female faculty make two per cent less. The research also showed men to be more assertive when asking for higher pay, and a decrease in productivity in women raising children. The pay equity initiative will come into effect July 1, 2015. —The Hamilton Spectator

Christian Vancouver movie production company to shoot scenes at UFV ABBOTSFORD — Holy Road Productions Ltd., a Vancouver film company, is shooting a scenes of a movie titled Ungodly Acts at UFV. The crew will be shooting this Friday, May 8 in the new Student Union Building (SUB), Baker House, on the Green, and in select hallways of the Abbotsford campus buildings. The Cascade will continue to cover this story in the coming weeks.

Have a news tip? Let us know! news@ufvcascade.ca @CascadeNews

www.ufvcascade.ca

UFV planning committee discusses student ideas

News

SUS lays off three staff positions, has yet to give explanation

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015

Noticed the comments boards on campus? They’re part of a student feedback initiative that went before a public forum attended by UFV administration for the first time, as Megan Lambert reports.

Textbook tyranny The cost of textbooks isn’t just too high — it’s unnecessary, writes Kelsey Dunkley.

The show must go on? The Envision Athletic Centre was transformed into a lavish auditorium for the fashion department’s last Absolute Style fashion show. Jennifer Trithardt-Tufts reviews the show and looks to the future of the fashion department.

Ono’s Sushi of HighStreet is sleek and modern, with an eye for food presentation. Check out Sasha Moedt’s restaurant review.

Katie Stobbart shares the pros and cons of the gluten-free diet trend based on her own experience.

Not with a bang, but an editorial There is little more valuable than giving voice to a good question KATIE STOBBART

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

The opportunity for last words is rarer than television would have us believe. Yet here we are for the last time, you and me, together on the same page. Prior editors-inchief have used this endnote to share lessons they have learned, to recall their tenures, and to give the battle-weary hull of The Cascade, this beloved and so seaworthy beast, a final shove into the future. There is a peculiar glint of satisfaction, sweet and almost sharp as pain, in seeing that ship off. In letting go, knowing it is in the best, if yet-uncalloused hands. I have dreams for this paper, and these will be renewed, replaced, or built upon by the next editor: our capable former copy editor, Kodie Cherrille. The next chapter is his to write, not mine. I will use this first page, one last time, to advocate for the good question. The good question asks, as I have aimed to do this year in past editorials: Why do we need this lavish party? How are students better than teachers at teaching students how to write? Where is the money coming from? Why keep what happened a secret? To

Volume 23 · Issue 14 Room C1027 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Editor-in-Chief katie@ufvcascade.ca Katie Stobbart

whom must you be accountable? It bores a hole for the light in the dark hollow. It gets to the point of the matter. It digs for the truffle; its snout is well designed for such a purpose. It does not entertain vague, unsupportable what-ifs whose outcomes are unpredictable. It is generous, but firm and unrelenting. In an institution whose instances of abrupt, even reactionary decision-making filled this publication for at least the better part of a year, it asks how we got here. What is the impetus behind a decision to close an academic service, or instate a sexual assault policy? The good question is specific and no-nonsense. It is direct. You do not have to be a journalist to ask. The most important skill any of us acquires in university is critical thought. There are two things at the root of criticism: purpose and a good question. The best citizens of any group of humans are fuelled by a desire for answers and to use those answers to effect positive change. The Cascade is not like other newspapers: not only because we occasionally indulge in obscenity, have a smaller audience, or are funded by a semesterly fee.

The student newspaper, in its best form, is unlike other newspapers because it will always, I hope, defend the student fiercely. Even to its own detriment. The good question will serve you as long as you give it a voice, as long as you continue to demand it. Whatever right I have to ask, I leave it with you. It is not easy or light to carry, nor warm to the touch. Nor may you touch wood after asking it, for protection from the consequences. But you may touch truth: gunmetal against your cheek, or the ink-wet bite of the sword.

News Editors megan@ufvcascade.ca Megan Lambert

Webmaster ashley@ufvcascade.ca Ashley Mussbacher

michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular

Production Assistant eugene@ufvcascade.ca Eugene Kulaga

Managing Editor valerie@ufvcascade.ca Valerie Franklin

Opinion Editor alex@ufvcascade.ca Alex Rake Culture Editor nadine@ufvcascade.ca Nadine Moedt

Business Manager joe@ufvcascade.ca Joe Johnson

Arts in Review Editor sasha@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt

Production and Design Editor anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi

Sports Editor vanessa@ufvcascade.ca Vanessa Broadbent

Copy Editor kodie@ufvcascade.ca Kodie Cherrille

Video Editor mitch@ufvcascade.ca Mitch Huttema

Image: Casia / Flickr

Advertising Representative jennifer@ufvcascade.ca Jennifer Trithardt-Tufts Staff Writer jeffrey@ufvcascade.ca Jeffrey Trainor Contributors Kelsey Dunkley and Ashley Hayes

Cover image and illustrations: Anthony Biondi

Isn’t that worth it? Here, in this space, I could list Kodie’s wonderful qualities, introduce the new editor-in-chief in painterly detail. But again, that’s his prerogative: to offer himself up. Instead, I will highlight one attribute with a particular gleam: the new editor-in-chief is one of the best critical thinkers I know. He knows the value of a good question. I invite you to ask him yours, and look forward to another year of seeking answers.

Printed By International Web exPress The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It provides a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a circulation of 1500 and is distributed at UFV campuses and throughout Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission. The Cascade is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national cooperative of over 50 university and college newspapers from Victoria to St. John’s. The Cascade follows the CUP ethical policy concerning material of a prejudicial or oppressive nature. Submissions are preferred in electronic format through e-mail. Please send submissions in “.txt” or “.doc” format only. Articles and letters to the editor must be typed. The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic or libellous content. The writer’s name and student number must be submitted with each submission. Letters to the editor must be under 250 words if intended for print. Only one letter to the editor per writer in any given edition. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, Cascade staff and collective, or associated members.

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Prof Talk

Greg Schlitt talks math and UFV over the years JEFFREY TRAINOR THE CASCADE

Prof Talk is The Cascade’s oral history series, featuring the people best qualified to talk about what UFV has been like over the course of its first few decades: its professors. Each week we’ll interview a professor from a different department, asking them what UFV was like before it was UFV, and how they expect things will continue to change here. Greg Schlitt is a math professor at UFV. He has been a full-time professor here for 23 years. What brought you to UFV? Originally I came to UFV as a student. I was here when it was Fraser Valley College in 1980 and 1981. I did my first two years of university here and then went off to UBC, SFU, and McMaster. I came back here as an instructor in 1992 after a post-doc at SFU. So I was here just when it was converting from Fraser Valley College to UCFV. It was an exciting place to be, on the ground floor of the program, so I was here helping build all those things. When you first started here as an instructor, was there a big influx of new staff due to the change from FVC to UCFV? There was a big hire that year — I believe the number was about 35 new people hired that year and then [about] 20 the next. So yeah, there were large changes afoot. There was a big new crowd, lots of fresh faces and so on. What did you initially teach when you started at UCFV? I was here for the degree program — the program was just starting in math, and we only had minors

in those days, but we did have a few upper level courses, so I was teaching, just like now, all across the spectrum: first to fourth year and some university prep stuff as well. That hasn’t really changed; we have more courses, but I still teach the same spectrum. You mentioned the change from FVC to UCFV. How about the change from UCFV to UFV — what was that shift like? There’s been a lot of changes throughout the institution, many mandated by our becoming a university. We are a lot more on the ball now and there’s a lot more need for care and governance. We have exempt status now with the Ministry of Advanced Education, which means we can advance programs much more readily than we used to. Having that requires we have departmental reviews and so on, so there’s a good deal more happening now in terms of structure, but necessarily so. Has your teaching approach changed over time? Yeah, it has. I would say it’s more interactive now than it used to be. It’s a funny thing that graduate students are taught to be disciplined experts, but they’re not usually given much pedagogical instruction, so it’s assumed because we’re content experts that we’re pedagogical experts, which is not necessarily the case. So, there’s a good deal of growing to do in one’s teaching as you move along. I can’t say I’ve arrived at my goal but I can say I’ve made some progress. How has technology impacted your approach? I’m using the web a good deal

Image: Wikimedia Commons

This image is the newspaper equivalent of when a computer hacker starts typing in a movie and random text starts scrolling rapidly across the screen. more now than I used to, so students have a good deal of support from getting instructional materials from the web, online testing, and so on. I also use a tablet in class and all these sorts of things, so it’s a more dynamic environment, but there’s still that time for the whiteboard — nothing can replace a whiteboard. Sometimes — especially in math — sometimes you’re developing a big, broad argument and a PowerPoint slide just doesn’t cut it. Have you done any research projects while you’ve been teaching? Yes, I have an ongoing project in an area of group theory, which is my research area. I had a sabbati-

cal about two years ago, which is where I spent some time advancing that project, so I have a paper in the works about that. I spent a good deal of time — probably in total eight or nine years — as department head, so I’ve had a lot to do with the administration, program growth and that kind of thing. How have you noticed the area around the university change during your tenure? Well, Chilliwack has changed a good deal, in particular with the university — the CEP campus is a wonderful place, like a built-in university campus. In a sense, it’s kind of a pity everything couldn’t be there because there is land,

space, and a wonderful environment. That being said, there are interesting plans here afoot with the university [district], so it’ll be interesting to see that in 10 years — it will be really exciting. We’re kind of marooned here on the edge of industrial parks and so on, so in some ways it can be not that inspiring an environment; it becomes a commuter campus. But if we can build a community around us, I think that will strengthen the university, just make it that much better, make it more welcoming a place, and a better academic environment too. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

SUS board talks sexual assault policy, clearing up confusion about how SUS works, and changes to health and dental KODIE CHERRILLE THE CASCADE

The new 2015-16 Student Union Society (SUS) board of directors discussed UFV’s revised non-academic policy at its first meeting, which was held in the new Student Union Building (SUB) on April 23. At the meeting, SUS VP external Sukhi Brar said that SUS and UFV were working together on a sexual assault policy. “When instances [of sexual assault] happen on campus, there’s not a clear-cut way to deal with them,” said Brar. She noted that policies directly dealing with sexual assault are not very common in North American academic institutions. “Most institutions right now just have a non-academic policy, and [sexual assault]

just gets lumped into that,” she explained. However, VP students Jody Gordon says that UFV is consulting SUS for a student perspective on a revision of the already-existing student non-academic conduct procedures. Gordon explains in an email that UFV is discussing the possibility of adding educational programming on genderbased violence. “We are not working on a separate sexual assault policy,” says Gordon. Earlier this year, The Tyee reported that only nine of 78 Canadian universities have policy that specifically deals with sexual assault. This despite statistics and stories that show sexual assault is a continuing problem at post-secondary institutions. Later in the meeting, Board of Governors representative Greg Stickland recom-

mended clearing confusion between SUS and UFV’s Board of Governors. “I’ve noticed that there’s a little bit of confusion about what SUS is, what it does, and how it functions,” said Stickland. “Just talking with one person, they were confused and thought that everyone on the board was automatically an executive of SUS. “In their defense,” he noted, “a lot of people have that same confusion about them.” Stickland recommended a formal presentation to the UFV Board of Governors to explain how SUS works. “A lot of the [members] currently have been sitting on the board for three, four, or five years, and are completely unaware of how we function,” he said.

The new board also discussed upcoming changes in UFV students’ health and dental benefits, effective September 1. President Thomas Davies explained that the plan will see an increase in mental health services — namely, more annual and per-visit coverage for counselling. He said this increase in coverage will not increase the $215.59 annual health and dental fee. Students can expect more information about the coverage by SUS and UFV counselling closer to September. The health and dental plan will also see an increase in coverage for eyeglasses and contact lenses, from $75 to $100 every two years.

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Former Writing Centre faculty speak at committee meeting Academic Success Centre transition continues as proposal review begins MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

UFV governance recently learned what many student groups already know about campus involvement: mass emails and blog posts do not attract students, particularly during exam period. The Academic Planning and Priorities committee (APPC) set up a special meeting, the third to mainly focus on the Writing Centre to Academic Success Centre (ASC) change, with an emphasis on hearing presentations from students. The reasoning was students are the ones most effected by the change, while only one to two student representatives are usually present at committee, Senate, and Board of Governors meetings. Upon hearing the idea two weeks previously, some members worried there would be too many presentations to handle. The Writing Centre change has prompted more student comment than usual, including a protest on the Abbotsford campus. “What if 30 speakers show up?” one member suggested. But at the meeting, held almost a week after the last day of exams, the summer session days away, four names appeared on the speakers list: two students, one SUS representative, and Gloria Borrows, who worked in the Writing Centre. Borrows recounted the most prominent development since UFV governance decided to evaluate the initial ASC proposal: the removal of Writing Centre faculty and staff, which has been followed by the beginning of training for ASC tutors. “The Writing Centre has been effectively dismantled,” she said. “Four of the former faculty have been re-assigned to other areas and are busy with duties. One of us has received a layoff notice, and another who worked parttime in the Writing Centre, a brilliant gentleman, we can no longer offer part-time work to.” Borrows did not prepare a lengthy statement, saying that due to the changes already taking place, this call for community consultation, while welcome, is not enough. “I don’t think we can effectively and meaningfully determine [the best approach] without a much more thorough process of consultation and discussion,” she said.

This meeting was part of a consultation process, but one guided by a Board of Governors motion that asks for a narrow scope, tying the decision to the university’s Education Plan and Strategic Enrollment Plan. One argument that those documents do not cover is the pedagogical approach that Borrows says the Writing Centre, more than the ASC, upheld. “Without the support and trust of faculty, any effort to support student writing is not only likely to fail, but to devolve to a model that sees students as somehow deficient in their writing and as disconnected from meaningful disciplinary engagement,” she said. Both SUS president Thomas Davies, who spoke from an audience chair, and director of teaching and learning Maureen Wideman repeated UFV’s wording that the change will expand the service. “The SUS board was unanimously behind this transition to an ASC because of the much broader range of support it provides,” Davies said, referring to SUS’s expression of position on the change following a presentation from UFV administration. After confirming with acting APPC chair Peter Geller that there will also be an accredited instructor at the ASC, Davies said the retention of faculty and staff positions, some of which have yet to be filled, means the ASC will maintain the Writing Centre’s way of helping students as it adds peer tutoring service. “That was one of the points that was important to us, and is one of the reasons we were okay with this decision,” Davies said. After thanking ESL instructor Sandra Smith for beginning work in the Academic Success Centre, Wideman described how professionals will potentially be in contact with students. “Students that require extra help will be assessed and a learning plan developed,” she said. “It won’t be as good as having five 20-year writing veterans. It won’t be as good as that, but we will try to be as good as we can.” Dana Landry, who also worked in the Writing Centre, commented on how preliminary training will not prepare student tutors for many of the demands of helping students with their work. “It [takes] a long time, and part

Image: Michael Scoular

Gloria Borrows (far right), a Writing Centre faculty member, fielded questions for almost half an hour at an open meeting of the APPC. of that is also the emotional and professional sophistication of helping people with writing,” she said. “Writing is a very, very deep personal activity. It took a lot of learning in terms of managing people’s emotions ... I simply don’t feel students are necessarily prepared for it — I’m not saying students can’t do it, but it’s learned through mentoring [and] it’s learned through working with other faculty members.” Program development co-ordinator Sylvie Murray asked Borrows how UFV’s Writing Centre compared to other institutions. “I would say that UFV’s Writing Centre was somewhat unique in having faculty who did the one-on-one consultations with students,” Borrows said. “That used to be more common; it has become less common over time.” Student writing services differ among BC universities. At SFU’s Student Learning Commons, staff and writing facilitators hold either a master’s degree or a PhD. UBC’s Writing Centre is instructor-focused, offering writing-specific courses. Tutoring is facilitated by the AMS, the UBC student society. Kwantlen, comparable to

UFV in size, has a Learning Centre with tutors and 11 staff members. UNBC’s Academic Success Centre runs with a staff of three and a mix of undergraduate and graduate tutors. Two other student presentations preceded Borrows. Rebekah Bergen presented with Natasha Smith, representing the “Save UFV” group that organized the student protest. While questions from committee members queried how informed the average petition-signer would have been about the ASC, Bergen said students were generally aware, and that the amount of interest in the future of the Writing Centre was uncommon at UFV. “The amount of signatures that we have in our petition is over double the amount of students that decided to vote in the last Student Union election, which I think speaks to its legitimacy as a representation of student opinion,” Bergen said. Fourth-year student Owen Coulter also presented. “How do you expect academic excellence when fourth-year students are replacing employees who have 20 years of experience, a wealth of knowledge, and master’s de-

grees?” he said. However, Coulter’s presentation contained inaccuracies about how appointments at the ASC would work, as well as the financial reasoning of university administration. Geller, who chaired the meeting, reminded Coulter that presentations are not intended to act as provocations. “The purpose here isn’t to make rebuttals and prove points; we’re trying to have some further information for APPC,” Geller said, after which Coulter walked out of the room. The main takeaway for most APPC members is the documents now made available to the committee from administration, including a statement from VP students Jody Gordon. An APPC sub-committee, composed of Michelle Rhodes, Farideh Kheradmand, Melissa Walter, Sylvie Murray, Colleen Gingerich, and Peter Geller will organize and synthesize the material so that it applies directly to the motions that APPC has been directed to use as the basis for their recommendation. That recommendation will be decided on at the next meeting of the committee, on May 13.

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

UFV 2025 initiative begins with student feedback Class research shows students want better course planning, more communication of decision-making MEGAN LAMBERT THE CASCADE / PHOTOS

The UFV 2025 Visioning Committee came together April 28 to discuss their research, hoping to ultimately discover what students want from UFV in the next decade. UFV 2025 is an initiative that plans for UFV’s future, with the goal of keeping enrollment high. The university has spent the last semester gathering data from focus groups and the tuition-free PHIL / EDUC 362 Philosophy of Education course, where students were encouraged to share their input. To finish off the Winter 2015 semester, the professors of these courses presented their classes’ findings. Katherine Watson presented research collected from a series of student focus groups. She noted that students loved UFV for its flexibility and efforts for sustainability, but mostly had issues with parking, food services, overregulation of clubs and associations, long waitlists, and opting out of the U-Pass. One of the participants suggested the possibility of more doctorate programs at UFV; at the committee meeting, this suggestion was met by laughter. Watson said some students were also unhappy about poor communication between them and UFV.

“They didn’t know what was going on until they were in their fourth year,” she said. “They weren’t aware of their opportunities, they didn’t know profs, they couldn’t figure out what was happening.” Additional survey results included complaints about registration, although one member of the committee mentioned that UFV is developing a “registration task force” to address issues of long waitlists and course availability. Professor of PHIL / EDUC 362 Jeff Morgan presented his observations about his class and their projects to the UFV 2025 visioning committee. The class was made up of 13 students from the arts, science, business, athletic, international, and indigenous communities, and Morgan noted

that all of them were students with high GPAs who mostly liked UFV the way it was. “From my point of view, I think many of the suggestions are on the conservative side,” he said. “They’re all really good students, they’ve chosen to stay here.” Another committee member agreed, adding that to get more diverse opinions, UFV would have to research a little further. “Both of these initiatives are fantastic, but the key thing that is consistent in both is C+ or higher, high GPA, and that’s a whole group of students that we’re missing that we have not accessed. That to me, as part of a committee, is a huge [sign] that we need to go out to those groups even more so, because they’re the ones who are going to tell us why

they’re leaving and why they’re not,” she said. Although Morgan says the students in his class like UFV as an institution overall, he did say that his group had some controversial ideas considering financial support for UFV, three-year degrees, and some problems with Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs) being too similar to one another. Some of the PHIL / EDUC 362 students were present at the meeting and answered questions from UFV faculty and administration — most of which were directed toward their enjoyment of the class rather than the coursework. “If students were more aware of the situation the university is in, and understanding both sides — of the perspective of the

faculty [and] administration side as well as the student experience side — students would probably feel more of a commitment to the school,” one student from PHIL/ EDUC 362 said. Although the students present had a positive outlook on the 2025 initiative, the conversation among committee members did circle back to the fundamental issues of course planning and the academic calendar. Theatre department head Bruce Kirkley suggested that to create more flexibility among students and to ensure they graduate, perhaps the university could plan the academic calendar two or three years in advance — instead of just looking at the next semester. “We could actually start charting them two or three years with a reasonable expectation that the course that you’re selecting will in fact be offered,” he said. “Is there something we can do in the university to make that kind of planning possible ... in order to achieve that flexibility?” President of UFV Urbanists Derrick Swallow, who also took the course, agreed, noting that having the information to plan in advance is helpful for students. “It comes back to the disconnect between knowing what students want and what’s going to be offered. Both sides are missing information,” he said.

Remembering Dakota Leslie Nineteen-year-old CIVL radio host fatally struck in accident VALERIE FRANKLIN THE CASCADE

Dakota Leslie, host and DJ of The Generation Z Show on CIVL Radio, passed away early Friday morning. He was 19. Leslie is remembered by his friends and colleagues at CIVL as a fun, creative individual who brought his passion and enthusiasm to the station. “He really wanted things to happen, and he really wanted to make things happen,” said CIVL Radio station manager Aaron Levy. “He tried to do that and he did it the best he could.” A family friend has set up an online fundraiser to help meet the costs of Leslie’s celebration of life and to help his family in this difficult time. It can be found at gofundme.com/lesliefamily. With files from Megan Lambert.

Image: Facebook

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

SNAPSHOTS

Dandelion spiders no more

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

Get sweaty in the great outdoors Sasha Moedt

Joe Johnson

What the hell is up with spiders hanging around in dandelion seeds? Just recently I was up at the Westminister Abbey in Mission, picking dandelion seeds to blow with my girlfriend. Who doesn’t enjoy blowing a good dandelion seed cluster? Well, it was entirely a different experience this time. I had picked up what I would consider to be 10 stalks to blow together, creating the greatest floating endeavour the north side of the Fraser River has ever seen. Half-way through, I was flabbergasted when I saw the largest round-sacked spider just sitting there staring at me through the disappearing cluster of seeds in my hand. Clinging as hard as he could against my gust, I’m sure he would have had no problem attacking me should he have had the opportunity to get close enough to my finger. The truth is, spiders should not be hanging around in dandelion seeds. However, I did get him good as I harshly through him to the field. I bet that ruined his day.

I’m not taking summer courses and my Upass has expired. Without it, the ARC student rate is $4.10, which is a little steep if I want to go frequently. I’m going to miss the ARC, because working out outside is the worst. I’m not in shape enough to go for a half-hour run and be done with it — the longest I can run is five minutes. Besides, I like doing the full range of exercises. There are a number of problems with the great outdoors. You have to deal with too much sun, too much wind, itchy grass, and dog poop. But the most horrible of all is the people. There’s nothing worse than sweating and grunting in awkward-looking exercise while there are people sauntering by in their street clothes. At the gym, everyone is in their work-out gear, everyone’s sweaty, and we’re all ignoring each other. People outside want to say hello, or at least stare long enough that you know you look weird. If you want to get your sweat on outdoors, I guess you just have to work with what you’ve got rather than pretend you’re in a gym. It’s going to be a summer of hikes and lake-swims for me.

Someone forgot how to recycle Anthony Biondi I’ll start by saying that I work for a big and well-known retail chain which will remain unnamed because I wish to not be fired. I’ve witnessed the trashing of all sorts of recyclables at this store. There have been numerous plastics, styrofoam, large amounts of steel and iron, and even electronics thrown into the dumpster out back. These acts are not perpetuated by just the common employees; I saw the store manager smashing up Blu-ray players and throwing them in. It was quite upsetting for a number of reasons. Back in the day I worked for London Drugs. They had a recycling program and recycled literally everything. I just don’t understand why more businesses don’t do this. It’s almost as if larger retailers can’t be bothered to think about the environment. It’s like they don’t care that all of this waste just sits in a landfill to rot. Electronic components especially need to be carefully recycled. This sort of wastefulness and disregard for the environment is so typical of a consumerist society. Wake the fuck up, retail.

Seventh inning blahs Nadine Moedt

Abbotsford displays some 60 pieces of varied public installations, and while many are years old, they remain an important part of Abbotsford’s history and a point of nostalgia for many residents. Others, however, need replacing. An example comes in the very salient form of a mural depicting an Abbotsford win at a decades-past Canadian junior fastball tournament, titled “Seventh Inning Stretch.” The fading mural, located on Essendene Avenue, was painted in 1991 and given a 10-year lifespan. Apart from the question of who really cares about baseball, all of the players are white, and a couple of the men on the bleachers appear to be crudely checking out a woman walking by. Not a very flattering representation of Abbotsford. Abbotsford is home to many capable artists. The Reach, the Kariton Art Gallery, and even the halls of UFV’s C building have showcased this talent for years. Why not update some of the less historically significant public artworks using some of this local talent? Abbotsford is changing, and we need our public art to reflect those changes.

Summer semester not for the burnt-out ASHLEY HAYES CONTRIBUTOR

Since coming back to UFV fulltime in 2012, this is the first time I’m not taking classes over summer semester. While part of the reason I chose to take a break is due to a lack of available classes (something that is often a struggle for those of us inching towards graduation), the other reason is the overwhelming sensation of student burnout. I have always taken summer semester so I could get a few more classes out of the way and work towards the eventual goal of graduation. Summer semester is great for those who are trying to graduate in less than the traditional four years. It is also great if you enjoy classes with lots of field trips and outside time! Some of my favourite classes have

been ones offered during the summer — everyone seems to be in a better mood. My theory is that this is because, for once, it’s not impossible to find a parking space on campus. This past semester was a challenging one for me. I had zero motivation and could really care less about school. The semester prior, I had most of my assignments done before their due dates (cue the #nerd tag) and comprehensive study notes for my midterms and finals. This winter, I found myself looking at my syllabus, wondering what I could avoid doing based on what percentage of my final mark that particular assignment made up. Since I am so close to the end of my degree, I can finally start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can also see a giant student loan payment waiting for me on the other side, which is slightly

terrifying. Taking this summer off from school has allowed me to find a full-time job, so I can pay down my bills; then by the time next April rolls around, all I will have is one giant loan payment to worry about. Getting rid of some financial stress will help me cope with the stress of school in the fall, guaranteed. Everyone is different, and there is no way I can give a definitive yes or no to the age-old question: “Summer semester — should I, or shouldn’t I?” What I can say is that if you are feeling burnt out or unmotivated, then it’s probably a sign that it’s time to slow it down and give yourself a break. If you are on a roll and are super pumped for your upcoming classes, then definitely take classes over the summer. There’s nothing better than being excited about school; there’s a reason I’ve taken my sweet time to graduate!

Image: Richard Lawrence Cohen/ flickr - Touch-ups: Anthony Biondi

Ask your doctor if the summer semester is right for you.

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

The back-breaking weight of textbook costs KELSEY DUNKLEY CONTRIBUTOR

Being a university student in Canada comes with an array of unexpected costs that can make studying difficult without the financial aid of student loans. The costs of tuition, general living and transportation, student healthcare plans, electronic devices, and other school supplies add up quickly throughout the semester. The last piece to consider for those in the pursuit of a successful post-secondary education is the exorbitant cost of textbooks across the country. Depending on the program, the Study in BC website forecasts that each student will spend a minimum of $800 annually on textbooks. As a full-time university student, I have noticed the cost of textbooks often substantially exceeds this $800 forecast. As a Study Abroad student this winter semester, I was pleasantly surprised to find that students within the University of Sunderland, England are not required to purchase textbooks for each and every class they attend. Three of my own lecturers make resources available online and post links to helpful websites, as well as listing

sources which are available in the campus library to aid in expanding students’ depth of knowledge on course material. With this in mind, I propose limiting or cutting down the cost students spend each semester on textbooks alone. Most students have encountered the newest edition of a textbook being required for a course, despite minimal changes made to the layout and having nearly identical information to the previous edition. If a professor references material that is not identical in layout between editions of texts, it drives students to spend more to ensure they are following along. A possible suggestion is that students should share textbooks to cut down on costs. As much as sharing reading material would cut the cost of textbooks in half, trying to organize an allotted timeframe to complete reading is not a solid problem-solver. This technique limits thorough reading and re-reading of material as needed to fully grasp concepts and information. Sharing a textbook can work for some, but can limit others who wish to reassess learned material throughout the course and before exams.

Image: John Liu/ flickr

Instead of making students buy textbooks, offering resources online is better for the environment as well as for students’ wallets. If UFV supports students by carrying used textbooks within the library, making electronic versions of the texts available, and prompting professors to “go green” and post information and

articles online, it will reduce the cost of post-secondary education. As a student at UFV myself, I look forward to seeing a transition from adding additional costs to figuring out alternate ways

The end justifies the means when the end is to party, says CSIS and conservatives REPP PORTER REPORTING IN

With the popularity of Bill C-51 declining faster than society on a slippery slope, the Conservative Party of Canada and the Canadian Surveillance Intelligence Service (CSIS) decided to explain why they were so adamantly and uncompromisingly pursuing the bill’s passage — even when revisions would likely entail more support — at a press conference last week. “You want to know why we pursued this bill? Fine, we’ll spoil the fun,” said CSIS spokesman Hugh Tilly-Tarianism in a recent press conference, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “We were going to make a television show called The Best of Canada. “We didn’t want to tell anyone because we wanted it to be a surprise for our fellow Canadians,” Tilly-Tarianism continued. Before the press conference revealed the true reason for its proposal, Bill C-51 had been touted by the Conservatives as a comprehensive response to terrorist threats in Canada.

Image: Paul Sherwood/ flickr

Bill C-51 is slated to be “the funnest bill since Bill Murray,“ according to spokesperson Scott Protter. When concerns arose about how the proposed Anti-terrorism Act could compromise Canadians’ constitutional rights and give CSIS more resources and authority to conduct investigations on citizens without extensions to their oversight, the popularity of the bill started to decline. “And now, with the support for

this bill dwindling, [the show] might not happen,” said TillyTarianism. “Thanks a lot, Canada.” In a later interview that day, conservative spokesperson Scott Protter discussed the vision for Bill C-51 and The Best of Canada. “Think those Canadian Heritage Minutes with America’s Funni-

est Home Videos,” he said. “It would show all the funny, quirky little things Canadians do, caught on CSIS’s cameras, put together with patriotic moments, like our victory at Vimy Ridge or something.” The press conference took place at the same time the federal government adopted the motto

of making the pursuit of postsecondary education more accessible to prospective students in the future.

Satire

“Putting the party back into politics.” Protter also talked about his inspirations when he was brainstorming show ideas with likeminded politicians. Protter also finds inspiration in Pierre Trudeau whose reading of the Wow Pleasures Act in 1970 during the October Crisis had spurned similar human rights criticisms that the Canadian government faces today. When asked by a reporter just what measures he would go to bring the party to Canadians, Trudeau famously responded, “Just watch me.” This vision, Protter claims, guides the philosophy behind Bill C-51: that CSIS and the government should be given unquestionable authority, so they can do “really cool things” with it. When asked whether this new development means a name change in the proposed Antiterrorism Act, Tilly-Tarianism and Protter remained adamant and uncompromising. “The opposite of terrorism is fun,” said Protter. “This Antiterrorism Act will deliver on that.”

CULTURE

THUR SDAY

MAY WINE & ART WALK

The Abbotsford Downtown Business Association is hosting a Wine & Art Walk through the historic downtown. Participants can sip wine and peruse art works of all mediums at various participating businesses. Tickets are $20, and are available at Spruce Collective, Mac and Mango, or by emailing info@downtownabbotsford.com.

THUR SDAY

A DAY OF DISCUSSION ON SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

DNE SDAY

The auto shop at UFV’s Trades and Technology Centre is having a free open house and barbeque, where tips on how to get that shiny-car look and info on automotive training programs will be provided. Tours run from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m., and online registration is required.

URDAY SAT

SATURDAY FARM AND COUNTRY MARKET

Browse handmade crafts, stock up on fresh farm produce, and enjoy local baking and other treats at Abbotsford’s weekly farm market. The market runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is held downtown at the intersection of Montrose Avenue and George Ferguson Way.

TUESDAY

BUSINESS RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES

Environmentalism and business finally work side by side! On Tuesday from 1 to 2 p.m. in C1429, UFV’s School of Business will offer a presentation on the recycling of tires in BC. Did you know that our province has the most successful tire-recycling program in North America? Neither did we! Want to know more? Attend this lecture! Refreshments will be served.

SATURDAY

COFFEE HOUSE SERIES: RHYTHM & CELLO

The Clayburn Gourmet Gallery will host the Abbotsford Art Council’s first concert in their 2015 summer Coffee House Concert series. The band, Rhythm and Cello, blends vocal harmonies and upbeat rhythm with the cello. The night starts at 7:30 p.m. and is free to the public.

TUESDAY

INTERCULTURAL INQUIRY & ICE CREAM

Join UFV International in the Global Lounge every Tuesday from 1 to 1:30 p.m. for interdisciplinary and intercultural discussion on varying topics, as well as free ice cream!

SATURDAY

COFFEE HOUSE SERIES: HER BROTHERS

Her Brothers, a band who blends U2 texture with Vampire Weekend melody, will be performing at House of James beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the second concert of Abbotsford Art Council’s popular summer concert series.

COFFEE HOUSE SERIES: BRENNAN SINCLAIR

Acoustic folk and jazzy pop by local singer-songwriter Brennan Sinclair will add to the merriment at SippChai café. Bring your friends; the live music starts at 7:30 p.m.

Speakers from East Africa, India, and the Fraser Valley will present lectures on global food security, with a focus on food security, distribution, resource use and policy will be discussed. The lectures run from 1 to 4 p.m. in B101 and A234. The day includes a food truck tour on the Green, and a public symposium from 5 to 7 p.m. For a full list of speakers and times, see the UFV website.

SATURDAY

UFV AUTO SHOP OPEN HOUSE

JUNE COFFEE HOUSE SERIES: DAVEN ATMA

The Clayburn Gourmet Gallery is hosting an evening with Daven Atma, who will play Bob Dylan-style originals and covers of folk / rock songs Atma in the continuing Arts Council Coffee House series.

MONDAY

ABORIGINAL FILM SERIES

Celebrate the National Aboriginal History Month by joining the Clearbrook regional library for an Aboriginal-themed movie night! This free series will run every Monday at 6 p.m. until June 29, and will feature movies, documentaries and discussion. Call the library for an update on the film being screened each week.

SATURDAY

LITERARY CAFÉ AT HARRISON

UFV will present a one-man play by writer and musician Corin Raymond at Harrison’s annual Festival of the Arts. The play, which details a story read by a father to his son, has received acclamation from critics across Canada. The play will take place at Harrison’s Memorial Hall, and tickets are $12 at the door.

SATURDAY

COFFEE HOUSE SERIES: RED VELVET MUSIC

Like red velvet cake? You also might like this musical duo, who blend R&B, jazz, and a little bit of gospel. This week’s concert takes place at House of James. Show starts at 7:30 p.m.!

SATURDAY

CONCERT IN THE PARK SERIES: INNERWILD

Innerwild, a band that both swings and rocks, is playing the first of the Abbotsford Art Council’s Concert in the Park series. The concert, which will take place on the green outside the Kariton Gallery at Mill Lake, will run from 4 to 5 p.m. Bring a picnic blanket and some food for a serenaded dinner!

CULTURE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

CROSSWORD In Plain Sight

by VALERIE FRANKLIN

ACROSS

Last issue’s crossword

6. 9. 11.

ACROSS

Hide behind a pair of these on a bright day. (10) Who knows what’s discussed behind closed ____? (4) Completely undetectable by the human eye. (9)

DOWN 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. 8. 10.

The Weekly Horoscope

Search for these on Easter. (4) A spy might hide their real one. (8) A traitor hides their true ones. (7) An iron one might be hidden in a velvet glove. (4) Used to cover grey hairs. (3) Don’t tell one to a blabbermouth. (6) Hopefully one isn’t hidden under your bed. (7) Hides your face on Halloween. (4)

2. CRESCENT 5. HEART 7. PENTAGON 10. DIAMOND 11. SQUARE DOWN 1. CUBE 3. STAR 4. CONE 6. EGG 7. PYRAMID 8. OVAL 9. PEAR

Star Signs from Sirius Spade

Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18: You usually don’t like to get involved, but open up to Capricorn. What Virgo knows can’t hurt you.

Gemini: May 21 - June 21: Don’t get involved with the mystery. Or do. Taurus will blame you either way. Geminis should stick together.

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20: Libra is your friend. Though it affects nothing now, follow Leo closely. Don’t cry for Sagittarius.

Cancer: June 22 - July 22: Yes, there is drama. No, it has nothing to do with you. Learn to detach, little Cancer.

Aries: March 21 - April 19: You suspect Gemini. Trust Taurus. Life is a mystery. Confusion is sex.

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22: Look lively, Leo. Libra is beside you and very far away. Today is your day. They’ll not fish today.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20: You will believe at least one lie, and disbelieve one important truth. You dummy.

Virgo: Aug 23 -Sept 22: Leo is very important. Don’t tell Libra what might hurt them. It can wait till it’s all over.

Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22: You feel a burning desire to figure it all out. Don’t forget to talk to Taurus and Capricorn. Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21: You know who done it. They told you. Take advantage of your power over Taurus. Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21: You and Pisces haven’t spoken in a while. Distance is no matter in matters of love. They remember. Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19: Trust Scorpio. They will understand. They always do. Libra has ulterior motives.

FEATURE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015

Student leadership breaks down borders BY VALERIE FRANKLIN PHOTOS BY MOHAMMED NAJIM

www.ufvcascade.ca

Every year, Student Life organizes a leadership retreat to develop the next set of student leaders, offering students new tools to accomplish their goals and helping them network with other members of the UFV community. But this year the retreat broke new ground: Student Life teamed up with UFV International to offer a retreat titled Leadership Without Borders, specifically focused on breaking down the cultural barriers between international and domestic students. Held at Stillwood Camp and Conference Centre in rural Chilliwack from April 29 to May 2, the retreat included workshops, discussion groups, and team-building exercises guided by the Student Engagement Team.

Bigger and better

“[This year’s retreat] was done specifically in partnership with UFV International,” said Martin Kelly, student engagement co-ordinator at Student Life, adding that the Student Engagement Team had a bigger hand in planning the retreat’s content than in previous years. This was the first time the retreat featured a second full day of activities and workshops, adding up to four days total, and it offered three separate keynote presentations from three UFV speakers: Chelsey Laird, Sidrah Ahmad, and Kyle Baillie. In addition, 30 students were selected from the large pool of applicants — 10 more than in previous years. “This has been the most ambitious retreat we’ve had over the last four or five years,” said Derek Ward-Hall, Student Life assistant.

International meets domestic

Chelsey Laird, global engagement co-ordinator with UFV International, noted that UFV’s population of international students is increasing — and that many of them are highly involved in the UFV community. “The percentage of international students engaging on campus is significantly high,” she said. “They don’t have the connections that domestic students have, so they’re in a unique position to build community at UFV. They have to in order to survive.” Laird said the idea for Student Life and International to team up originally came from a student who was connected with both worlds: Sunny Kim, a third-year criminology student who works with Student Life and also volunteers with International. Kim had attended several of Student Life’s previous leadership retreats, but noticed something was missing. “Two years ago, I was the only international student at the retreat,” Kim says. “The next year there were still only two or three.” When he saw the final group photo from last year’s retreat on Facebook, Kim saw an opportunity for change. “I saw that photo and something clicked. Why weren’t there more international students? Why isn’t there more engagement?” he said. “The retreat taught me so much, and I wanted international students to get the same experience.” He approached Ward-Hall and Kelly at Student Life with the idea to collaborate with International. Thanks to the collaboration, several of the students attending the retreat were international students, and many more came from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. “One of the things I like the most is getting out of these titles of ‘international’ and ‘domestic,’” said Ward-Hall. “Everyone comes together from different backgrounds.”

Confronting Conflict

Laird led a workshop on identifying different styles of conflict. Each culture handles conflict differently, she explained, and the methods of communication vary. In the West, for example, we value direct and unemotional communication — but in other cultures, conflict may be handled by becoming outwardly upset, or by expressing a vague, indirect frustration that is never aimed at a particular individual or act. “It can lead to miscommunication,” Laird said. “One person might think they’re being really clear, but it might be confusing to someone from a different culture.”

FEATURE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Challenging Barriers

Even though Canada is often thought of as a more inclusive, multicultural country, racism can arise — often as a result of unfair assumptions about others. Laird led small groups of students through an exercise she calls “unpacking the invisible backpack”: taking turns revealing things about yourself that aren’t apparent on the surface. At first it was awkward, with students uncertainly sharing small details about their heritage or their jobs — but gradually other details began to emerge, including painful details about their families, relationships, and fears. Laird said that the invisible backpack exercise is one of her favourites. “People are able to decide what they want to share,” she explained. “It gives them power over that, so it makes them feel comfortable getting closer.” Sidrah Ahmad, co-ordinator of student transitions at Student Life, gave a keynote presentation on the concept of “image-text”: the outward perception of oneself that is presented, purposely or not, to the world, including inferences about one’s race, religion, economic status, gender, sexuality, ability, and other traits — and whether it’s accurate or not, it can affect every interaction one has. “There are going to be borders, and the key piece is to understand and recognize them and to have the skills to break them down,” said Ahmad. Ahmad, who wears a hijab, recounted a story of being confronted by a woman who was offended to see her wearing the head-scarf in Canada. Instead of responding to the woman’s aggression in kind, Ahmad saw a teaching opportunity, and explained to the stranger that she chooses to wear it. “That conversation could have been totally awkward, but instead we had the chance to build new knowledge,” she said. In terms of the relationship between international students and domestic students, image-texts based on race can play a powerful role in dividing the community. Through Ahmad’s workshop, students learned about how to identify their own image-texts and the image-texts they perceive from others — recognizing when they were making assumptions, and how those assumptions affect others. Student Mohammed Najim, who attended the retreat for the fourth year in a row, said that it was activities like these that really broke down the barriers between students. “I came in with certain ideas of different people, and those images were changed 180 degrees in those four days,” he said. Ahmad emphasized the importance of recognizing image-texts and learning how to recognize the common humanity beneath them. “By breaking these borders down, we can become better leaders, and better people overall,” she said.

Bringing ideas home

Kim, who is also SUS’s equalities officer, hosted a brainstorming workshop on how to improve equality at UFV, while VP external Sukhi Brar hosted a similar session on how to improve the Weeks of Welcome celebration that SUS holds every September. Najim said it was during the session with Kim that the borders between students were truly broken. “It was during Sunny’s workshop that it all came together for me, when all of the domestic and international students agreed that everything should be equal for everyone,” he said. At the end of the retreat, each group presented their ideas in a Dragon’s Den-style contest, judged by Brar, Kim, Ward-Hall, and Kelly. The winning idea was a presentation on promoting equity rather than equality on campus, emphasizing that instead of giving everyone the same treatment, disadvantaged groups require special assistance to reach the same level as others. Other activities included a workshop on battling negativity in leadership led by Ward-Hall, and a presentation from Kyle Baillie, director of Student Life and engagement, on how to start a project and get past hurdles and barriers to accomplish goals, especially in a bureaucratic environment like a university.

Learning to lead

Besides the workshops and discussion groups, the retreat offered team-building activities such as archery, a climbing wall, low ropes, campfires, icebreakers, and a two-hour Amazing Race-style challenge, which was painstakingly organized by the Student Engagement Team. “I think people really enjoyed it,” said Kelly. “I know a lot of networking gets done, which is critically important on a commuter campus. “I think what I saw was people improved personally. I don’t know what goes on in their heads, but personally, I think they developed.” Ward-Hall agreed that he was excited about how successful the collaboration between Student Life and International was. “We were a little nervous because of adding the fourth day and the Amazing Race, but overall I’m ecstatic about how it turned out,” he said. “Not every day do I get to do stuff that I think actually will make a difference,” said Kelly. “I’m supposed to engage students and benefit students, and I actually feel like that has happened.” With files from Megan Lambert.

CULTURE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

UFV Fashion walks the runway once more JENNIFER TRITHARDT-TUFTS

THE CASCADE

The annual UFV Absolute Style fashion show had its final moment on the runway Wednesday, April 29. The show, which gives fashion diploma first years, graduating students, and alumni the chance to showcase their lines of clothing, has been discontinued alongside the diploma program. The show took place in the Envision Athletics Centre, which was converted into a lavish highfashion auditorium. Black fabric hung from the ceiling and hundreds of chairs faced the brightly lit runway. Nine tables lined the left side of the room, each displaying a look-book of the designer’s work throughout their diploma, promotional material, fabric swatches, and packaging. UFV provost, VP academic Eric Davis began the special occasion with a few words about the “enormous undertaking” of the show, which attracts some 900 people to the campus every year. Models in bustiers were first on the catwalk, paired with highlow skirts and headpieces. Earth tones were followed by more vibrant and tulle-infused creations. The next category demonstrated the versatility of coats, including capes, multi-textured tie-ups, and transparent rain gear. Categories for first-year dresses, swimsuits, and jackets followed, showcasing the skills of young fashion design students. Most impressive was the personality apparent in each piece. Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” started playing and the fun amped up as male and female models strutted down the isle in plain white and black graphic tees, accessorized with bright green UFV sunglasses. Up next was the alumni collection 80 / 90 Apparel, a line for women born in the ‘80s and ‘90s to wear to the workplace, which is being launched in the new year. It’s funky and fresh while still being workplace-appropriate because, as the line is marketed, “Why fit in when you can stand out?” An “art to wear” category included three subcategories focused on material and fabric. The surface design subcategory showcased brightly coloured fabric and funky patterns, while the weaving subcategory displayed more textured muted tones but had a red finale piece that stood out from the rest. Finally, the machine knitting subcategory presented very linear designs that included stark black and white with splashes of colourful lines. Then came the main attraction: the graduate fashion lines.

Fashion diploma graduates showed off fashion lines that they designed, created, and marketed at the Absolute Style fashion show. Image: ufvroc.com

This second half of the show was kicked off with Juliet Loewen’s line “J&L.” As stated in the event program, her clothes are perfect for the “young contemporary professional.” Next came Alyson MacLaren’s line, “New Genes Maternity.” As Taylor Swift’s “Style” played, the momsto-be strutted their stuff in simple yet incredibly chic and versatile maternity wear. Joline Cadieux’s line, “The Social Platypus,” was next, featuring shimmering metallic fabrics and structured lines. The pants were especially striking with a black diamond on the inside of the knee that added an interesting, eye-catching element. Cydney Burton’s “New Black” line featured sleek, ponytailed models in bold minimalist and sophisticated clothing that allows for an easy transition from work to play. Wren Barber’s collection, “Keeli Designs,” added a whimsically unique vibe to the show. The line is apparently designed for figure-skating fairies: first pink, then blue, then green. Rebecca Zubel’s line “Trash Lingerie” added a sultry vibe to the show, as models with tousled hair showcased electric purple

bras and bustiers with matching panties. “Vere Audax” by Vanessa Lefaivre gave the audience a dose of haute couture with a line of stunning eveningwear. The colours of the garments gradually faded from bright to muted. The different silhouettes displayed an array of skills, and the line finishing with a spectacular structured black dress. As the Runaways’ song “Cherry Bomb” appropriately blasted, models wearing Janna “Jam” Kingma’s “Smelly Jam” collection strutted down the runway in red-, black-, and white-themed outfits. The line had a vintage feel, with a curve-defining style that mixed soft and tough elements to accommodate the modern fashionista perfectly. April Kliewer’s bridal line, “Marilyn Rose,” was the final graduate line of the show. A little flower girl waltzed down the runway in a champagne-coloured dress, followed by a model wearing a beautiful mermaid-style appliquéd wedding dress. The bride and flower girl held hands for a final turn down the catwalk. This may be the last opportu-

nity fashion students get to host the show. As stated on the UFV website, the program is no longer accepting applicants; however, current diploma students will not be affected. Fashion design courses are still available to students who wish to take them as elective classes, and those currently enrolled will be able to finish the diploma. Graduating student Janna Kingma said that while the program ending is “sad,” the proposed changes would benefit incoming students. According to Cindy Stewart, associate professor of the School of Business, the university is currently working on a proposal to replace the fashion design diploma with a business degree in fashion management. This program would be a blend of fashion design and business classes. Stewart added that this would be beneficial to students because the world of fashion involves a variety of business activities; a designer must be able to present their vision to the public — not only the clothes, but through marketing techniques and knowledge of the sales world.

“[The new program] would give students the best skills to succeed,” said Stewart, adding that students would be “better equipped” for today’s real fashion world. However, this program is in the very early stages of development and must weather many levels of review on its path to approval. The UFV fashion design department includes a hands-on component that gives students an opportunity to learn practical skills that will help them attain employment in the field after graduation. For the time being there will be no replacement for the program; however, if the proposed enhancements are received, the new program will be up and running in a few years. In the meantime, the community at large will await the day when our hardworking fashion design students can showcase their skills on the catwalk once again.

CULTURE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Holy Moly Matrimony!

Respect boundaries first, book strippers later when planning bachelorette party NADINE MOEDT THE CASCADE For friends of the bride-to-be, prenuptial festivities are nearly always going to be the highlight of a wedding. While the clichés of wild parties and penis-themed paraphernalia are well-known, party-planning etiquette may be more difficult to pin down. Who plans? Who pays? Who tracks down the sippy dicks, penisshaped cake tins, and other pecker novelties? Most importantly, where is the line between good fun and plain sordidness? Typically, a few good friends of the bride will plan the prenuptial party. In the beginning stages of planning, you should gauge the character of your bride or groom and cater to their preferences. This party is all about her, and should by no means make her uncomfortable. If she is a little more reserved, consider cutting back on the typical sex theme. Instead of gifting the traditional lingerie or sex toys, buy something a little more suitable to her personality. Scented candles, bath bubbles, and massage oils can be sexy in a subtler way. If your party is on a tight budget — remember too that

Image: Todd L. Gilbert/ flickr

Planning a bachelorette? Stick to some basic rules of etiquette for a happy bride-to-be. traditionally the group covers all the costs of the bride — pool your money towards an activity that you can enjoy together, be it shots at a club or a weekend away. Planning the typical night of

dancing and heavy drinking? It’s the job of the party planner to lay down some ground rules. First off, the night is about the bride-to-be. If she wants curly fries at 2 a.m., her wish is your

command. Secondly, stay away from live-tweeting. All pictures should be approved by the other group members before posting. It’s important to have a sober person — ideally, a few sober people

— present to keep an eye on the bride-to-be and the rest of the group. Not into the clubbing scene? If you are considering something a little less conventional, remember that you are by no means limited to the clichés. Any activity that the bride would enjoy is fair game. Go on a wine tour together, go paintballing, take a pottery class, or have high tea. You can look to other cultures for inspiration. In Germany, the bride is dressed up in a silly costume and must walk the streets with her party, selling items in order to buy drinks later that night. In the UK, a very dignified butler might serve you tea, dressed in a collar and cuffs and nothing more. While planning it’s important to remember that, despite the blow-up dolls and strippers, the bride is not single and free to mingle. Don’t plan anything that the bride’s future groom or bride would find upsetting. The sex themes can be playful, but should respect her commitment. Remember: you are by no means confined to a penis-themed party! Be creative, respect boundaries, and have fun!

Reflecting on both sides of now Bachelor of Fine Arts grad show fuses the past with the present NADINE MOEDT

THE CASCADE / PHOTOS

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) grad show, Both Sides of Now, is currently on display in the halls and classrooms of C building. The 14 exhibits, varying in medium and form, find a common theme of traditional influence melded with modern method. Wenhao Shi’s “Blurry Future of Homeland,” for example, uses traditional Chinese calligraphy to express thoughts on the contemporary loss of freedom through the pursuit of status over creativity. Julie Epp’s “Eventually You Will See” blends modern feminism with the classical Venus Pudica vision of female beauty. The BFA exhibition will remain open for viewing until May 19. Stay posted for upcoming profiles of our graduating artists and their work.

The BFA grad show will be displayed in C building until May 19.

CULTURE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Twentieth annual Directors’ Festival uniquely showcases student work Theatre department at turning point as Ian Fenwick retires MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

If you think of UFV’s theatre department, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the three mainstage shows that run each year: one Shakespeare, the two others some combination of contemporary, Canadian, or a classic play, usually fitting a particular season. But at the end of each academic year, Directors’ Festival (D-Fest) arrives. Surrounded by exam period, it’s not the easiest schedule workaround for students, but where a particular title (the most recent examples being the WWI-set Birdsong, A Christmas Carol, and Julius Caesar) might divide a potential audience, DFest provides four and a half days of oneact plays. Like any festival, the high number of unfamiliar titles means anyone attending enters several of the shows blind besides a brief plot synopsis, but D-Fest has earned a solid reputation over its 20-year history. It’s the only festival of its kind in BC, bringing in visiting shows from Capilano University, Thompson Rivers University, Trinity Western University, and UBC-Okanagan. On the UFV side of things, curator Ian Fenwick, who teaches the directing classes that lead up to the festival, watches the progress of each show, making sure they’re all ready to go before a paying audience. As directing classes run every second year, the 2015 edition of D-Fest was a year for experienced directors to select shows that tested and exceeded what they’d done the previous year — the majority of UFV shows occupied hour-long blocks, with some only one-act in name. Before I go any further, I should disclose that I have taken theatre courses, and was involved in the devising and staging of one D-Fest show. The role of the critic or journalist is often associated with complete distance, but, without exception, the theatre department does not allow for that. Partly by virtue of its size, and partly due to the spirit of the festival, anyone going to a show will likely find themselves included in conversations with actors, if not other directors, as they wait in line to see the work of their classmates — you’re either friends with some of them by the end of the festival, or you’re actively avoiding everything the festival was founded on: creative conversation. Fenwick was the star of the opening ceremonies: after starting the theatre department in 1980 and D-Fest a decade after that, he’s retiring, or, as Chilliwack city councillor Jason Lum, a former student of Fenwick’s, said, “attempting to retire.” After welcoming students from other universities and hearing from a number of speakers, all with tributes to Fenwick, the ceremony’s main attraction began: 60 seconds for the actors and director from each play to prove something distinctive about their show. Darcy Knopp’s Tier Two Heroes, represented through a strength-test recitation of the

Images: Darren McDonald for University of the Fraser Valley

Thomas Smith (with bell) and Casey Por (with vaudeville hook) kept the performances to exactly 60 seconds. play’s showtimes, an idea that wouldn’t be out of place in a Michel Gondry music video, was awarded as the best of the skits, while Kadeem Willis’ freestyle rendition of a showtune from Cut!, Dylan Coulter’s reading of Samuel Beckett’s Breath, and Eli Funk’s leading of an impromptu all-male dance party to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” (the song is a centrepiece in Paul Dunn’s Boys) were a few of the other standouts. Boys was also the first show I saw after the opening ceremonies. Staged at D-Fest 2011 with three actors in three main roles, Funk, with the direction of Dylan Schroeder, performed it is a one-man show, slipping between an ABBA-obsessed tambourine busker, a repressed nightclub corner dancer, an overly enthusiastic sandwich artist who decides to join the army, a therapist, a mother, an army poseur, and a police officer over the course of an hour. Funk’s previous leading role in a mainstage production was Romeo in 2014, and there he resembled not the serio-poetic doom of DiCaprio, but an amorous exuberance, turning the hiding of the balcony scene, for example, into a game. In Boys he stretches this idea, making each role, even the sociopath with “Take a Chance” reverberating in his skull, into a sympathetic, individual character. Dunn’s script explicitly parallels the codes of masculinity embodied in costumes, jobs, and names, and Funk, altering

his voice from falsetto to drill sergeant baritone, elevates the material, finding humour in contradiction. Next on my schedule was another show billed as an extended monologue — Peter Fechter: 59 Minutes, directed by Gabriel Kirkley. Jordan Tannahill’s script, historically sourced from Berlin Wall-era Germany, gives the spotlight to a single actor, but Kirkley reworks it, expanding the cast to four and turning a significant portion of the play into something approaching a twohander. Working as bricklayers, restless for America, Dylan Coulter (in the main role) and Josh Tompke (as a friend with ideas of escaping East Berlin) sprint across the city, developing plans on the fly, an address close to the Wall in their hands. Tannahill’s script affects the air of casual conversation, even as it is framed by Fechter’s narration, and Coulter and Tompke evoke the kind of relationship common to just-post-adolescence, where an older friend can, despite his carelessness, seem to point toward a world of intellectual superiority and sexual maturity. This play, it was said repeatedly during the festival, was moving, in the tears-freely-flowing kind of way. The ambitious climactic monologue, where Peter’s body’s closeness with the earth and death reaches an imaginative omniscience, in the wrong hands could have come across like the mawkish epiphanies of Stephen Daldry

dramas. But Coulter lands it. Phay Gagnon, as Peter’s father, and Ally Schuurman, playing both his mother and the owner of an apartment within leaping distance of the wall, arguably have more difficult roles, suggesting histories of emotion without much in the way of dialogue. Gagnon could also be seen in the 10-minute monologue I Am Not Batman, written by Marco Ramirez and co-directed by Gagnon and Eli Moores, where innocence and vulgarity, violence and dreams of empathy collide in the mind and actions of a young child. Gagnon, with a minimal set, a hoodie flexible enough to serve as a cowl, Reilly Ellis on drums, and deep red expressionist lighting, gave one of the most memorable performances of the festival — more than can be said of, say, The Dark Knight Rises. There are two main performance spaces at the Chilliwack North campus, and the studio, the smaller of the two, held just as many excellent works as the main stage, its limitations lending itself to a different level of audience engagement. A Trois, directed by Rae MacEachern from a script by Barry Hall, incorporated the viewpoints acting technique, which has been brought into the theatre department’s teaching by Raina von Waldenburg. Stripped of set artifice and what most audiences would call “actorly” gestures, Ashley Gonzales-Rivas, Nathan Unger, and Darcy Knopp confi-

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca dently navigated the habitual phrasings and gestures of love, pivoting between affection and malice, routine and spontaneity — most of it done while locking audience members in eye contact. Last Directors’ Festival, Geneva Perkins directed Mrs. Cage, a dialogue-heavy interrogation one-act made claustrophobic by the studio setting. This year, she used the same space for Third Person, a play by Brandon Wicke, a sort of Cabin in the Woods minus the horror, and with a lot of existentialism. Russell Blower and Rae MacEachern play two campers confronted by a Narrator who appears as type on a screen, changing the drama from a relationship scenario to a Choose Your Own Adventure where the book argues that all choices are futile. Third Person is not an easy play — its vision of the world, following much philosophical circularity and unbending premises, is one where humans are limited and insignificant — but it follows through on its intentions, however unpopular those might be. After the show, Perkins revealed some of its complexities: after the original projection screen ended up absorbing light instead of reflecting it, technical manager Parjad Sharifi and student Calvin Baker created a new one overnight, allowing the show and its hundreds of technical cues (handled by projections operator Nicole Janisch) to seamlessly unfold. Much lighter technically, but just as demanding in its frequent tonal shifts, was Cheyenne Douglas-Ruttan’s staging of A Quiet Place, by Brendan Gall, where the studio stood in for a doorless prison, with Danny Campbell and Dylan Schroeder its only inhabitants. Abstract enough to stand in for nearly anything, but specific enough in its depiction of emotional drought and

CULTURE human dependency to make its generically named characters stand for something, A Quiet Place is, like all the best plays at DFest, a play with the sense that anything could happen, where the ending is unexpected, where musical numbers appear, even if the only music is an actor’s voice. One of the great things about theatre is that, at any time, everything could go wrong. But actors, rehearsed but also reacting in the moment, can sometimes turn these into some of the most memorable parts of a play. In Cut!, directed by retired UFV production manager Sandy Tait, a purgatorial cucumber flying into the feet of the audience turned an already absurd development (a Hamlet-hating usurper absconds with a Broadway-musical supporting-star’s role, and said would-be matinée idol is then seduced by a Greek-tragic castoff before he is beaten by a Wildean oneline nobody) into a literal showstopper. In Almost Again, directed by Aaron Froc, a sensitive relationship drama whose couple (Russell Blower and Emily MacKinnon), perfectionists prone to mistakes, keep attempting to replay a date night until they get it right, a delayed sound cue was not only saved by Blower’s quick improvisation, but fit with the play’s set-up. Because it was an off-year for directing classes, Directors’ Festival was also open to student-written plays. Two appeared from UFV: Drivers Anonymous, by Shawna Lawson, and Such a Heart as Yours, by Cait Archer. Drivers Anonymous is simply structured: five characters meet in an unconventional driving school, get monologues to explain their backstory, each have mishaps on the road, then come together for a finale. This is not a drawback: each character at first appears to be a broad

The Theatre Students Association fundraises and organizes events for D-Fest. Here, (from left to right) Geneva Perkins, Reilly Ellis, Nicole Janisch, and Jessi Fowlis present a flower crown to Ian Fenwick.

caricature, but through the chemistry of the ensemble cast (Jessi Fowlis, Beth Gasser, Courtney Kelley, Nathan Unger, Dalton Yanciw), and the script, where jokes recur but develop, mixing and matching the incongruities of each character, Lawson has created something that belongs in the driving-school narrative pantheon (next to, say, Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky and Justin Lin’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift). Such a Heart as Yours, a palimpsest over Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, is clearly the work of a talented voice in theatre: Archer’s writing is equally at ease sharing the particulars of undergraduate conversations (research projects, party stories of drinking and bad sex, Taylor Swift) and weaving in the universal currents, rather than the names and lines contained in Shakespearian comedy (desires turning on a dime, the inexplicable forces that language cannot pin down, though it tries). From its opening rhyming cell phone admonishment and festival sponsor message to its cringing-and-laughing relationship entanglements, Archer’s play had a hold on the audience, and its actors (Beth Caldwell, Dylan Schroeder, Julia Toews, Dalton Yanciw), ably swinging from sudden exits and entrances to laid-back banter, pulled off the difficult act of suggesting both years of history and hardly any time at all. While Such a Heart as Yours was not selected as one of the two plays from UFV (Peter Fechter and Zoo Story) headed to the Harrison Festival for the Arts, one of the numerous stepping stones toward broader exposure theatrical productions need to navigate, it is a play that deserves far more than the three performances it had at D-Fest. At the closing meeting of the festival, before sets were dismantled and costumes

sent to the shop, Fenwick led the directors, who spoke of their intentions, their initial sparks, and the lessons they learned and wanted to pass on to the next year’s classes. Two themes repeated: the only play worth doing is the one that speaks to something in you, personally, even and especially if it seems beyond your abilities, and that the way you exceed your own abilities is by bringing in and relying on great collaborators — writers like myself tend to summarize plays as the work of a name or two, but it is never that way in reality. In turn, each also thanked Fenwick, whose work has influenced countless people, and whose commitment to the festival has made it a unique part of culture in the Fraser Valley. Some wonder how it will go on without his leadership — Fenwick reminded students, alumni, and staff of the work they themselves have done, and how they are capable of continuing it. It will not be the same — in department head Bruce Kirkley’s announcement of the next season of theatre at UFV the changes could already be felt (Twelfth Night, a yet-to-be-confirmed season opener, and a limited run of a studentdevised adaptation — the lowest number of performances in many years at UFV). But, as many speakers said, theatre is not, despite how attractive the idea is, magic — it is thousands of hours of work, designed to create the sense of effortlessness. Continuing Fenwick’s work at UFV will take a great deal more of that, but if this year’s Directors’ Festival was any indication, it is possible.

Ian Fenwick (left) created and has curated Directors Festival for 20 years.

ARTS IN REVIEW

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Album

Carrie & Lowell is Stevens’ personal catharsis JEFFREY TRAINOR

CHARTS 1 Dodgers Bombshells 2

N.213’s Group Vision N.213’s Group Vision

Cronin 3 Mikal MCIII

4 METZ II Bolt 5 Lightning Fantasy Empire Heat Waves 6 Freak Bonnie’s State of Mind To Spill 7 Built Untethered Moon Ortiz 8 Speedy Foil Deer No! Yoko 9 Oh Pinhead’s Paradise Barnett 10 Courtney Sometimes I Sit And Think,

And Sometimes I Just Sit Purity Ring Another Eternity

Cong 12 Viet Viet Cong Johnston 13 B.A. Shit Sucks

Western Jaguar Wayfarer

Mothers 15 Single Negative Qualities Gonzalez 16 Jose Vestiges & Claws

17 Wire Wire Bee & the Buzz18 Queen kills Stalk to Me

Shuffle DESSA BAYROCK

CIVLIAN / LIFESAVER Dessa is a sometimes CIVL DJ and an exCascade newshound. Once upon a time she said “asshole” during a radio show and got in trouble. Now she presents four lovely and wholesome songs about banging, because sex is totally okay on the radio but assholes are not.

Daft Punk “Get Lucky” She’s up all night ‘til the sun, I’m up all night to get some; she’s up all night for good fun, I’m up all night to get lucky. (We’re up all night to get lucky; we’re up all night to get lucky; we’re up all night to get lucky; we’re up all night to get lucky.) Semisonic “Chemistry” I remember when I found out about chemistry; it was a long, long way from here. I was old enough to want it, but younger than I wanted to be — suddenly my mission was clear. So for a while I conducted experiments, and I was amazed by the things I learned from a fine, fine girl with nothing but good intentions and a bad tendency to get burned. Sex Bomb-Omb “Garbage Truck” I’ll take you for a ride on my garbage truck. I’ve got a stereo; you’ve just got to turn the knob, and maybe we’ll go as far as we can. I’ll be your garbage man. I’ll take out your junk, and I’ll crush it down. The Decemberists “Philomena” All that I wanted in the world was just to live to see a naked girl, but I found I quickly bored. I wanted more. I wanted more! So I’ll be your candle and I’ll be your statuette. I’ll be your lashing loop of leatherette. Aw, Philomena, if only you’d let me go down, down, down.

THE CASCADE

Sufjan Stevens has long been considered the most eclectic man in indie. Stevens has touched on a multitude of genres from electronica to lo-fi folk, has focused on a plethora of subjects from fabled stories of U.S. states to Bibleinspired pieces, and has incorporated vast array of instruments, from slide guitars to Theremins — he’s done it all. However, on his latest album, Carrie & Lowell, Stevens digs deep internally for content and presents his most honest, vulnerable and sparse work to date. Carrie & Lowell focuses on his mother, Carrie. Stevens’ mother was not a fixture in his life as she went through a majority of struggles with bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, and alcoholism, before ultimately dying of stomach cancer in 2012. Stevens has spoken about his mother in interviews as a “mythological” presence in his life, with

whom he only ever had intermittent connections. Despite this, her death was a stirring and unsettling moment in Stevens’ life, even if she was only a sporadic part of it. Carrie & Lowell carries the weight of all these anxieties and lays them out in the most accessible and honest way possible. With the majority of the tracks containing a docile guitar, banjo, or keyboard, Stevens sticks the emphasis on his vocal and lyrical performance. Lyrically, Carrie & Lowell is heartbreaking and features a bombardment of dark imagery. Stevens touches on the images of shadows, blood, and death multiple times throughout the album, with more blatant lines such as “the evil, it spread like a fever” (“Fourth of July”) and “there’s only a shadow of me / in a manner of speaking, I’m dead” (“John My Beloved”). It’s an old, tired cliché to say someone wears their heart on their sleeve, but in the case of

this release, it is spot-on. Stevens is bringing us into his own personal hell following the passing of his mother and allowing us to experience the full breadth of his misery. If there’s one thing to take away from Carrie & Lowell, it is that even the darkest of times can bring about a positive result. I would not say Stevens intended this to be the result of Carrie & Lowell, but the fact is this record is a testament to turning a negative and debilitating life event into a piece of art that others can hopefully grasp and connect with. There is a lot of pain captured within the 45-minute runtime, but hopefully it allowed Stevens the chance to work through his despair. After all, that is what this album was about — not the listener, but Stevens himself. Carrie & Lowell is the vessel of his own personal catharsis, and we are merely individuals with a window into this process.

ARTS IN REVIEW

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Book

Like grief, the poetry in M x T is wild and complex KATIE STOBBART THE CASCADE

Grief can neither be contained nor measured. Similarly, the poems in Sina Queyras’ M x T bleed together, with lines and ideas recurring throughout the book. At first, containment seems to be Queyras’ aims, as she invokes formulae and circuit breaker diagrams to mark the passage of pages, grafting grief, loss, memory, and time onto charts one might expect to find in a physics textbook. But in “Water, Water Everywhere,” the first poem in the collection, she writes, “I don’t want a grid, I want arms. I don’t want a theory, I want the poem inside me ... I want to sink into the rhythm of your weeping, I want to say, My grief is turning and I have no

way to remain still.” The diagrams and charts, then, juxtapose the immeasurability of grief; as much as the poet attempts to corral it into words, into a work, it defies rigid forms and structures and refuses to be contained. Even poetic forms are too constricting: “You won’t find a couplet in the wild, my love; a sestina is a formal garden, a villanelle is the court, a sonnet is an urban love story, an epic is the senate, a prose poem is the city.” Yet grief resists all these. The blend of free verse and prose poetry; the abrupt, somewhat jarring intrusions of graphs and tables; and the sheer force of Queyras’ imagery and language work well to lead the reader fluidly through complex thoughts

and emotions. However, the more clearly separate poems toward the end of the collection aren’t as effective. Especially disappointing was “Elegy Written in a City Cemetery.” Its premise was intriguing: the poet pieces the poem together from other poets’ elegies, attempting to form a single narrative. Unfortunately, the result feels disjointed and overwhelms Queyras’ voice. The use of footnotes throughout the poem is also distracting. Grief, as the title suggests, is expressed as Memory times Time. But the irony of the title is in the idea that an emotion so multi-layered and overwhelming could be governed by a formula, by a science. Queyras’ poetry is as beautiful and poignant as it is challenging.

Image: Anthony Biondi

Queyras’ free-verse and prose poetry describes grief and loss through the language of physics.

Dine & Dash

Ono’s Sushi brings a modern touch to Abbotsford sushi scene SASHA MOEDT THE CASCADE

Ono’s is different from the usual sushi fare in Abbotsford. Rather than playing soft tinkling music or putting up pictures of geishas and jumbles of other Japanese décor, Ono’s keeps it simple. Walking in — if one didn’t see the sushi bar — a diner might not realize they’re walking into a sushi restaurant. The décor at Ono’s Sushi fits the HighStreet style. It’s sleek and modern, with hard benches, interesting and impractical light fixtures, and expensive-looking bronze bamboo art. I went in after the lunch rush and before the dinner, and the restaurant was basically empty. My sister and I sat down by the window, only to realize that any window booth had a full view of HighStreet’s playground. Annoying mall children aren’t the best dining entertainment, so make sure you go with someone interesting enough to hold a conversation; otherwise, don’t sit by the window. Our server was prompt — what else did she have to do in an empty restaurant? We were brought our tea and miso soup soon after we ordered. The menu was a little pricier than my go-to places — Nikko Sushi and Yummy Sushi — but I liked that their sashimi is

Image: Sasha Moedt

Ono’s has style when it comes to presentation. à la carte. I enjoy taking the small risks in life, but only if I have to pay $1.50 per piece. The menu also has choices of roll sizes. You can order a dynamite roll, for example, in large or small. The price is the same, but the chef slices only six pieces for the large roll, and eight pieces for the small. That’s a nice option if

you are going to share a roll. My food was excellent, with great presentation. The miso soup was rich, the fish was fresh and firm, and the rolls were very flavourful. I appreciated that I could actually taste the crab in my California roll, and that the rolls were proportioned properly. Our dynamite roll had an interesting little

twist: a bit of yam tempura inside. The server came back a couple times to ask if the food was satisfactory, each time after I had just filled my mouth with a roll, so I had to do that awkward thumbsup while frantically chewing. She was nice about it, and made our meal a comfortable one. Whatever you might say about

Abbotsford, we do sushi well here. Ono’s is a quality competitor for some great restaurants in town. Though the prices are a few dollars more, the quality of food matches the best of Abbotsford — right up there with Nikko and Yummy Sushi.

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

A lesson in observation and moderation The good and the bad of voluntarily cutting out wheat KATIE STOBBART

THE CASCADE

For the most part, I’ve avoided fad diets, because I hate to feed the hungry, manipulative marketing beast that exploits people who want to improve their health. However, last fall I decided to try cutting wheat from my diet to see if there are health benefits to going gluten-free. Obviously, if you have an allergy to gluten, you don’t really have a choice in the matter. I don’t have an allergy, so I had the luxury of not having to avoid anything with traces of gluten. I set a minimum of one month with no wheat products. I also worked out once or twice per week, and avoided most meat (fish was allowed). Overall, I felt my health benefitted from changing my diet. One thing I noticed quickly was that I didn’t feel as mentally “cloudy.” I also felt a lot lighter physically, but not in the dangerous, you’re-going-to-faint way. I also didn’t feel a need to keep eating, keep eating, keep eating, as I sometimes felt when I was eating a lot of pasta, for instance. I did lose weight during the month of my diet, but I’m fairly certain it was a combination of improved eating and exercise habits. Public opinion appears to have shifted from “gluten is bad” to “products containing gluten are bad.” The reason is that the most ubiquitous products containing gluten, like pasta and bread, contain other ingredients (sugar, for example) which, especially paired with inactivity, will thwart attempts to eat healthy or lose weight. I can’t say for certain whether public opinion can be trusted, and I’m relying mainly on personal experience because I don’t have much faith in health websites or even the latest stats and

studies. However, I’m inclined to think that for the average person, reliance on processed foods should be significantly decreased, which is different from demonizing any particular ingredient. (Again, this is obviously different if you have an allergy.) One of the experiences I most appreciated about this diet was the increased attention I paid to what goes in my mouth: thinking about what’s in my food and how it got there. I also ate out a lot less. Restaurants often have a few gluten-free options — though many aren’t trustworthy if you have an allergy — but my biggest temptation to eat out always happens on campus. You probably know how it goes; you forget or don’t have time to make lunch, you’re stuck on campus, and you have to eat. Your options are probably limited to the cafeteria or (at least when I was on this diet) AfterMath. Slim, expensive pickings. Price is one of the main obstacles to going gluten-free, if you’re not prepared to give up prepared foods. Bread, pasta, pastries, and a whole host of other products have gluten-free versions, but they’re often significantly more expensive than their wheat-containing counterparts, which I believe is largely due to the fad of going gluten-free, not necessarily the cost of making the product. The side effect of eating out less and trying to avoid processed food is that it often takes more time to prepare meals. For that reason, I let myself fall off the wagon for the end of this semester. In all honesty, I don’t know if I’ll go strictly gluten-free again, but cutting out processed foods and moderating wheat in my diet will be a priority this summer, when local fruits and vegetables are fresh and plentiful, and when exams and final papers are a hazy dream.

Image: Foodio /Shutterstock

Image: jeffreyw/ flickr

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

SPORTS & HEALTH

UFV Cascades’ golf coach Chris Bertram named Team Canada’s head coach for Summer Universiade VANESSA BROADBENT

THE CASCADE

UFV Cascades golf coach Chris Bertram will take his coaching to an international level this summer when he coaches the Team Canada men’s golf team at this year’s Summer Universiade in Gwangju, South Korea. Bertram explained that the Universiade is similar to the Olympic Games, but for over 12,000 university athletes from 170 different countries. Organized by the International University Sports Federation, the event takes place every two years, each time hosted by a different country. “All of the athletes get together in a city, live in a village, compete at different venues; there’s a big opening ceremony, there’s a big closing ceremony,” he said. “It’s very much like the Olympic games.” This won’t be Bertram’s first time coaching internationally, as he was the assistant coach for last year’s World University Golf Championship. “We had a successful run, and then I knew that this deal in South Korea was coming up this year, so I applied again and I was accepted to be the head coach for the men’s team,” he said. Bertram credits this opportunity to the success of the Cascades golf team. “I’ve been coaching the UFV

Images: ufvcascades.ca

Cascades golf team for about the last 10 years. Our program has had a good deal of success in that time, and at some point these opportunities to coach internationally come up,” he said. “It just kind of evolved over the course of 10 years. You have some success,

you get noticed, and opportunities start to come up.” Although the Universiade is an international event, Bertram finds the coaching similar to his coaching at UFV. “You’re talking about athletes that are the same age. The Cana-

dian athletes that may end up on this team, we compete against them and so I’m used to being around athletes at this level,” he said. “But when you go to a world championship, the level of competition is a lot higher because you’re playing the best players from

around the world.” It is still uncertain whether any of the UFV Cascades’ golfers will be competing in the Universiade as part of Team Canada. The Cascades will compete in the Golf Canada University Championship at the end of this month, where the top three individuals will qualify to move on to the Universiade. Although the competition is stiff, Bertram thinks that with a little hard work, UFV golfers have a shot of qualifying. “From that tournament, the top three individuals will be the ones that qualify to go to the Universiade. That might end up being one of our players, but it’s going to be really, really difficult and there’s going to be a lot of really good competition there,” he said. “I think a couple of our players have a really good chance, but they’re going to have to go and earn it.” The Universiade doesn’t start until July 3, but Bertram will still be busy until then. “In the meantime, it will be communicating with the players, getting everybody together for some meetings, talking about what to prepare for, what to look forward to, what the whole experience is going to involve — trying to prepare everybody psychologically for what’s going to be a really great experience, but certainly a pressure-packed one, too.”

Walks, Hikes, and Bikes

Willband Creek Park: a peaceful birdwatching paradise SASHA MOEDT

THE CASCADE

The health benefits of walking are underestimated. Not only does it get you moving — which aids your muscles, heart, and joints — but it also reduces stress levels. Going for a walk when you’ve hit a wall on your final paper is a great way to clear your head and come back mentally refreshed. For the full experience, it’s nice to get away from concrete sidewalks, cars, and people, and into the local nature. Willband Creek Park is a perfect place for that. It’s a place that’s made to be peaceful — the path goes around storm water detention ponds, built in part to house bird populations, local and migratory. The bird watching is relaxing. According to Wild Birds Unlimited, this time of year

Image: LeosL/Flickr

you’ll see a lot of warblers, sparrows, and swallows while the ducks head north. The Canadian geese stick around, and you can walk the loop watching them and their fuzzy goslings paddling along. Willband Creek Park is located just off of Highway 11 on Bateman Road. The loop is a flat gravel trail. It starts at a parking lot (accessed at Bateman), weaves around the pond, and comes back to the parking lot. If you’d like to go a little farther, you can continue on a longer three-km loop. It has all the amenities — outhouse, wooden bridges over the marshes, benches, and a roomy parking lot. Often in the wet months of early spring, Willband Creek Park will be flooded and parts of the path are inaccessible, but it’s been exceptionally dry this year. The

area is classic Sumas Flats: the ponds are brown and mucky, the marsh is reedy and muddy, and it’s surrounded by grassy fields that blend into surrounding farmlands. Though the loop is quite close to the Abby-Mission Highway, I didn’t notice the sound of the cars. If you’re sick of staring at your screen, take a walk and make it count. It’s just a 10-minute drive from UFV; if you live near downtown Abbotsford, it’s only a fiveminute drive. There are benches facing the pond where you can watch the plentiful and peaceful waterfowl activity. Lepp Farm Market is right down the road, so you can pick up some picnic foods, sit on the bench and watch the birds.

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca