The Argosy, February 2, Vol. 146, Iss. 14

THE ARG OSY

NEWS Student empoyees seek to unionize (Pg. 2) Against borders since 1872

ARTS & CULTURE Vagina Monologues hold writing workshop (Pg. 11)

SPORTS A day in the life of a swimmmer (Pg. 7)

OPINIONS Rethinking Bell Let’s Talk (Pg. 15)

Mount Allison’s Independent Student Newspaper

COVER: GONE FISHING, JEN FRAIL, 2016.

February 2, 2017 Vol. 146, Iss. 14

02 NEWS

EDITORS: CATHERINE TURNBULL & NAOMI GOLDBERG | FEBRUARY 2. 2017 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

STUDENT LABOUR

AMASE reveals plan to unionize student employees on campus

NAOMI GOLDBERG News Editor The Association of Mount Allison Student Employees (AMASE) has announced their plan to unionize campus employment.

Fourth-year student Josh Johnson, president of AMASE, and fifth-year student Chris Arsenault, vicepresident, are working with the New Brunswick chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) to bring Mt. A student employees under CUPE’s umbrella.

Other executive members of AMASE include third-year student Kaye Klapman, secretary and fourthyear student Tom Hammond, treasurer.

CUPE is New Brunswick’s largest union, representing more than 28,000 workers.

If successful, the positions covered by the union will include all student employees working for Mt. A, with the exception of those working for the Meighen Centre. This includes residence assistants (RAs), teaching assistants (TAs), bartending staff at the Pond, lifeguards, library assistants, event services staff (ESS) and others.

“Anyone who is paid by Mt. A on campus, we’re interested in talking to,” Arsenault said.

Johnson and Arsenault listed the absence of liability insurance, a lack of clear and accurate job descriptions, unofficial hiring processes, low TA and RA pay, unpaid training and a lack of mental health initiatives for RAs as major student employment issues.

Last year, Arsenault and a few others worked with the MASU to lobby Student Life to improve student employee working conditions.

Among other requests, they lobbied for paid training hours, better security and better pay. It did not turn out as planned.

“We realized that because we don’t have legitimacy as students, they don’t take us seriously as employees, and we can’t actually advocate for ourselves when there are problems,” Arsenault said. “Unionizing is a move to force them to treat us as legitimate employees.”

In the coming weeks, AMASE will attempt to sign on more than 50 per cent of student employees on campus.

In order to sign on, each student employee will have to fill out a card.

Signing the card means accepting to be a part of the union. In order for

AMASE MUST SIGN OVER 50 PER CENT OF STUDENT EMPLOYEES IN ORDER TO ATTEMPT TO UNIONIZE JEFF MANN/ARGOSY their card to be valid, a student must have worked for Mt. A at some point during the 30 days before signing and work at some point in the 30 days after.

Arsenault said there are currently over 100 cards “in the midst of being signed.”

AMASE hopes to complete the process of signing cards by midFebruary. “We want to have 60 or 70 per cent [of student employees],” Arsenault said. “From what we’ve been hearing from people, we don’t believe that should be a massive undertaking.”

Arsenault and Johnson said their biggest issue at the moment is finding student employees, as there is no comprehensive list. Instead, there is a list of student employee positions, but as some students often occupy two or more employee positions, AMASE is only interested in the number of bodies holding the positions. As such, they are proceeding by word of mouth.

Once they have signed on as

many students as they can, AMASE, CUPE and Mt. A’s administration will sit down together and go through the cards. Arsenault said the administration will probably try to disqualify cards, whereas CUPE will try to protect cards. “ T h e administration will bring a list of all their student employees, we would bring a list of the cards we signed, then it’s up to CUPE legal to make a case for why we should unionize, versus the administration making a case for why we shouldn’t,” Johnson said.

If AMASE gets 60 per cent or more of student employees to sign, not including disqualifications, the unionization process will occur.

If between 50 and 60 per cent of student employees sign on, after

the disqualifications, it will be up to the New Brunswick labour board to decide whether to allow the formation of a union.

Arsenault and Johnson stressed that AMASE would prefer to cooperate with the administration in the unionization process. “We don’t want to build a union so we can fight against the administration,” Arsenault said. “We want to bring the community of Mt. A as employers and as employees back together, because right now, there are really serious divides.”

“All we’re asking for is structure for the way students are hired and employed. And that makes it better for everyone in the future,” Johnson said.

Third parties – notably, the Mt. A administration – are not legally allowed to interfere in the unionizing

“ALL WE’RE

ASKING FOR IS

STRUCTURE FOR

THE WAY STUDENTS ARE HIRED AND EMPLOYED“

process. “If anyone does do something out of line, we’re protected [by CUPE legal],” Arsenault said. “But we’re pretty sure the administration will be professional about this.”

The final unionization step will involve getting certification from the New Brunswick labour board. The amount of time this will take depends in part on how the administration proceeds. “If they just voluntarily accept that we’re a union, then we would form almost right away,” Arsenault said. Alternatively, the process could take months.

When and if the union forms, collective bargaining will take place between CUPE and the Mt. A administration. “Given how simple and how widely practised most of the things we’re asking for are, the normal ways you would treat normal employees, I don’t think [getting what we want] will be too difficult,” Arsenault said.

“We aren’t asking for gilded toilets,” Johnson said. “We’re asking for job descriptions.”

MASU ELECTION RESULTS PRESIDENT

Sara Camus

VP ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

Rachel Howlett

VP EXERNAL AFFAIRS

Danica Garner

VP STUDENT LIFE

Emma Miller

7 MONDAYS

Levy Approved

THE ARGOSY | WWW.ARGOSY.CA

NEWS

03

News Editor

AFTER RECENT EVENTS AT ALUMNI FIELD IN WHICH AN IMAGE OF HATE WAS CARVED INTO THE SNOW, INDIGENOUS ELDER GILBERT SEWELL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS CO-ORDINATOR DOREEN RICHARD PERFORMED A SMUDGING CEREMONY. RYAN MACRAE/ARGOSY

04

NEWS

FEBRUARY 2, 2017 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

CAMPUS

No equality without accessibility

THURSDAY, FEB. 2 A.C.I.D. movie night “Me Before You” 7 p.m./Library theater

FRIDAY, FEB. 3 Fake News: Tips for Truth Detectives 3:30/Library theater Huu Bac Quartet 7:30/Brunton auditorium Climate + Carbon Panel 7 p.m./AVDX G12 Vagina Monologues 7 p.m./Vogue Cinema

SATURDAY, FEB. 4 Farmers market 9 a.m. - 1 p.m./Downtown Vagina Monologues 2 p.m. & 7 p.m./Vogue Cinema

SUNDAY, FEB. 5 Vigil in remembrance of the victims of Mosque shooting in Quebec city time TBD/University chapel Music from the 17th Century 3 p.m./Chapel sanctuary

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 8 Deep Stories: live storytelling 7:30 p.m./T&L Tideland Doc Fest 7 p.m./Vogue Cinema CIS and WGST: Migrant Dreams film screening 7 p.m./Dunn 113 Unity 1918 8 p.m. (until Feb. 11)/Motyer Fancy

Discussing physical accessibility at Mount Allison DAVID TAPLIN Sports & Health Editor Mount Allison lists small class sizes, a good reputation, teaching excellence and the ability for students to create their own degree as reasons why it is among Canada’s top undergraduate universities. But one thing lacking from that list, one thing you do not hear students cite as a reason they chose this institution, is its physical accessibility.

Amy Visser, a third-year psychology student, broke her leg at the beginning of last semester. After weighing her options, Visser decided to transfer to Carleton University for the rest of the year on a letter of permission from Mt. A. “[O]ver my first two years at Mt. A, I’ve experienced an icy campus where lots of people are falling, and they have two good legs. I didn’t want to risk injuring myself again,” she wrote in a Facebook message.

According to Olivia Auriat, president of the Association of Chronically Ill and Disabled Students (ACID) at Mt. A, the choice Visser made is not unique. “Every year we have at least one student break their leg and they basically have to drop out,” she said.

Visser was quick to point out the support Mt. A has offered her. “The school was pretty helpful. [They] made time to talk to me about my options and gave me time to think about them by extending deadlines for tuition payment and the drop/add period.”

Through the Meighen Centre, students who undergo surgery, break a leg, or have their mobility temporarily inhibited through other incidents are able to cope with their situation. The Meighen Centre helps students find note-takers, tutors and walking assistants.

Anne Comfort, the program and services manager for the Meighen Centre, elaborated on the lengths to which she and her coworkers go to help students in need.

“We reach out to professors to let them know, ‘student x may miss some classes,’” she said. “If a student can’t make it [to a classroom], we could ask to have that class moved.”

In response to the criticism that services at Mt. A receive, Comfort said that students sometimes reject accommodations despite her recommendations.

“The students often don’t want that attention drawn to themselves,” she said.

Mt. A’s campus is far from ideal for prospective students who deal with such permanent disabilities.

Currently, no wheelchair-using students attend the school. In addition to steep slopes on campus,

MOUNT ALLISON LACKS ADEQUATELY ACCESSIBLE CAMPUS, ACCORDING TO MANY IZZY FRANCOLINI/ARGOSY many academic buildings are not accessible.

When asked about this, Comfort said that though she encourages prospective students with mobility disabilities to visit the campus, “sometimes at the end of the visit they will say, ‘you have a lovely campus, but I don’t think it will work for me.’”

With over 175 years of history, many of Mt. A’s buildings were built decades before issues of accessibility were widely discussed.

When asked about steps the school is taking toward a more accessible campus, Mt. A’s vice-president finance and administration Robert Inglis said, “The University is guided by its Accessible Facilities Policy, which indicates that we deal with accessibility projects as part of larger, overall capital projects within a building.”

Auriat does not attribute the inaccessible nature of our campus to the current administration. She does, however, believe it is not a reason to be apathetic toward accessibility issues.

“It’s [about] being constructive in moving forward, not letting the past be an excuse for not moving forward,” Auriat said.

Mario Levesque, a professor of Canadian politics who has been at Mt. A for nearly five years, believes that some of the accessibility-related changes that have been made to residences are insufficient.

“Most of the changes I have seen are exterior,” he said. He referred to problems with door handles, grab bars too far from toilets, and showers with one-inch lips and inadequate spaces between beds and walls.

“When they [have] renovated the residences they really haven’t adapted them to make them fully accessible,” Levesque said.

Despite these issues, the University has made some progress. Based on a 2007 report that identified exterior stairs as an accessibility issue, stairs have now been exchanged for slopes.

Despite this, many buildings still do not have elevators or accessible washrooms. Addressing these issues would cost Mt. A millions of dollars.

Levesque looks at the current Indigenization efforts on campus as inspiration for future changes to infrastructure.

“We need a similar effort for accessibility on campus and yet there is no traction for that at all. [The administration] thinks they move three steps [forward] and that’s it, they’re done,” he said. How do we get that traction? Levesque believes a fundraising campaign through University Advancement is the solution.

“Call it Fully Accessible Mt. A by 2020 or 2030,” Levesque said.

Such a campaign would take a big commitment from the University, both financially and ideologically.

“I think that Mount Allisonians would embrace that campaign – how do you argue against an accessible campus?” Levesque said. “That’s like saying we only want Mt. A to be for white people, and you can’t do that.

We want Mt. A to be inclusive of all different types of people – of different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures and abilities.”

NEWS

THE ARGOSY | WWW.ARGOSY.CA

This Week in New Brunswick Compiled by CATHERINE TURNBULL News Editor ICE STORM CAUSES MASS POWER OUTAGES Thousands in northeastern New Brunswick are still without power after a major ice storm last week caused damage and dangerous conditions. The deaths of two elderly people have been linked to the storm as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by home generators. 31 others have reportedly been hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning. Soldiers and Red Cross aid have mobilized in the area, providing support and supplies to those who are still without electricity. Emergency shelters have been set up in the affected areas.

THREE DEER VISIT GRAND FALLS GAS STATION On Monday, three deer entered the automatic doors of a gas station in Grand Falls. A video of the deer exiting the building has gone viral. The deer caused a mess inside the gas station, but, when told by the gas station employee to leave, exited the building relatively quickly.

J. D. IRVING PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO POLLUTION CHARGES The Irving pulp and paper mill in Saint John has come under scrutiny since 15 pollution charges were filed against the company under the federal Fisheries Act. The charges followed a series of incidents which occurred at the mill since 2014.

If Irving is found guilty of all charges, the minimum penalty for the corporation would be $13 million. A lawyer for Irving said the allegations were based on lab tests rather than the actual environment around the mill. Irving has previous convictions under the Fisheries Act from 2007.

RCMP INVESTIGATES VANDALISM OF MEMORIAL

PRESIDENT’S SPEAKER SERIES

Francyne Joe at MTA KAVANA WA KILELE News Reporter

On Jan. 24, despite the freezing rain and slippery walkways, Francyne Joe gave a presentation at Mount Allison about the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). Joe is the interim president of the NWAC and is from Shackan First Nation.

Her presentation was the most recent iteration in the President’s Speaker Series’ Year of Indigenous Knowing.

Joe began her presentation by acknowledging that we were guests on the unceded territory of the Maliseet and Mi’kmaq people. She went on to describe what the NWAC is and what it does.

“Since 1974, the NWAC has been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as a national organization representing Indigenous women across Canada,” Joe said. “We are the national voice that brings the concerns of our members to the political forefront both nationally and internationally.”

Joe said the NWAC mandate is to advance the well-being and equality of Indigenous women through advocacy, education, research and policy.

“In the past, the NWAC has advocated for voting rights for offreserve women, C-31 status [a bill that amends the Indian act to follow principles of gender equality under the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms], rights of women who have married non-Indigenous men and lost their status, and for the missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) and girls across Canada,” Joe said.

Some issues that the NWAC is still working on include MMIW, climate change, housing, education and health. “Indigenous women across this country, across Turtle Island, have been knowledge keepers, educators, healers, leaders, warriors and mothers,” she said.

Joe used an example of a recent trip to Whitehorse, YT to show how Indigenous women experience climate change and the economic hardships that accompany it.

Joe said she talked to some of the elders there and was told how climate change has affected their tanning and stretching of hides.

“It is not cold enough for it to help them and they are actually finding that it is leading to degradation of hides, which is then leading to less

05

economic opportunity for the women up there.”

During her presentation, Joe not only talked about her work with Indigenous issues, but also about her personal experience, specifically about the effects of residential schools on her family.

“My uncle went to residential school at Saint George’s from the age of six until he left at age 17,” Joe said.

“I did hear one time, when he had too much to drink, a story of what he went through and until then – I was nine – I did not understand the pain that he went through at Saint George’s.”

“It is hard when you are doing these types of events. What has made it easier is when you talk from the heart. I talk about my uncle and it is a tough talk, but it is real,” said Joe. “I am asking all people, especially Indigenous women, to use their voice[s]; say something and, if you can, participate in some sort of leadership role,” she continued.

“Each of us has a certain role and we need to keep our skills together pass them onto our children. And if something isn’t right, say something.

Use your voice.”

CLIMATE CHANGE WEEK

A Canary in the Coal Mine

A firefighter and police memorial in Moncton was reported as vandalized on Sunday. RCMP is asking for the public’s help to identify the vandals. Since the incident, the spray paint has been cleaned off of the memorial.

Birder Jim Wilson reflects on 50+ years of fieldwork and the growing impact of climate change on local birds

NEW BRUNSWICK APPEARS AS JEOPARDY! CATEGORY

JILL MACINTYRE News Reporter

This past Monday, the American game show Jeopardy! featured “New Brunswick” as a category of questions. Questions included information about the Atlantic Salmon Museum in Doaktown, Campobello Island, the New Brunswick tides and Fredericton, which was mispronounced by the contestant running the category. Host Alex Trebek, born in Canada, also made a mispronunciation while announcing a question about Kouchibouguac National Park.

JOB POSTING

Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre Student Intern/Assistant Colony Coordinator

If you are a current Mount Allison University student interested in getting some hands-on experience with a not-for-profit arts organization, this is the job for you. This opportunity will allow you to learn about arts administration and new play development.

Responsibilities involve office work, library work, and clerical work. The intern will help to organize development workshops and get to work with some of Canada’s leading theatre professionals and emerging artists in the discipline. The successful candidate will play an important role in assisting in the organization and coordination of the annual PARC Playwrights’ Colony. An interest in theatre is an asset, as is previous experience working in a library and/or in an office. Advanced computer skills, the ability to be an IT troubleshooter, and a valid driver’s license will be particularly useful.

This is a full time position for 5 weeks (May 1st to May 31st) If interested, please send your resume showing your work experience and a cover letter explaining why you would be a good candidate for this job to:

Jenny Munday

Artistic Director parcdramaturge@playwrightsatlantic.ca

On Monday night, Quispamsis birder Jim Wilson gave a public talk on his experiences with bird watching and surveying, as well as the impacts of climate change on local bird species.

Hosted at the Sackville Commons by the Chignecto Naturalists’ Club, the event was one of many in a full lineup for EOS Eco Energy’s Tantramar Climate Change Week 2017. Around 60 people attended, mostly Sackville community members.

Wilson, who has since worked for the NB Wildlife Fund and the Canadian Wildlife Service, began birding in 1963 as a shared passion with his father. Coming from a working-class background, both Wilson and his father had day jobs, but maintained a lifelong commitment to birding and conservation efforts.

Wilson began his talk by discussing developments in conservation technology over the past few decades.

When he was a child, he said they had poor-quality binoculars, no digital cameras, no advanced tracking technology and “relatively little knowledge of local bird life.”

He also said that in the past few decades he has seen a major increase in education and awareness about wildlife conservation efforts.

Throughout his lifetime, an additional 117 bird species have been identified in New Brunswick.

Wilson discussed many local bird species, including cases of species extinction and endangerment. With the rise of new agricultural methods and tools, many wildlife species have been forced to adapt to new surroundings. The Bobolink, a small blackbird found in New Brunswick, is a notable case study, as the onceabundant species is now uncommon due to the practice of mowing hayfields that reduces its possible nesting period.

Deforestation in N.B. has also had a major impact on birds, as migratory birds often return to find their nesting ground destroyed before their breeding season. Climate change has also increased the populations of certain more adaptable species, which can have detrimental impacts on other species and the ecosystem as a whole.

Wilson has also seen positive instances of recovery. Many waterfowl species such as Mallards and Wood Ducks were once at-risk, but nest box programs implemented

by Ducks Unlimited have led to a resurgence in current numbers. The population numbers of some birds of prey, such as Bald Eagles and Osprey, have also recovered in recent years due to the ban of DDT, a carcinogenic pesticide.

Wilson emphasized the role of public education in mitigating climate change and species extinction.

“Change happens gradually. Very few people intend to harm wildlife in a

significant way,” he said. “Knowledge changes attitudes.”

According to Linnea Bell, a thirdyear history student who attended the event, Wilson’s talk helped give a local perspective to human impacts on the environment.

“I think local awareness fosters a tangible connection to the results of climate change,” she said. “This event made me quite aware of how the species directly in this area are experiencing climate change.”

This was the fifth consecutive year that EOS Eco Energy has hosted the Tantramar Climate Change Week.

In an email to the Argosy, Executive Director of EOS Eco Energy Amanda Marlin wrote that they “have been serving the Tantramar and Memramcook regions since 2004 with projects focused on promoting renewable energy, energy conservation, efficiency, sustainable development and climate adaptation.”

An environmental non-profit, EOS Eco-Energy has also created a number of local climate-friendly initiatives such as the installation of rainwater gardens, the local electric vehicle charging station and energy retrofits for low-income families.

Tantramar Climate Change Week also hosted a solar home tour, children’s activities and a panel on the connections between climate change and carbon emissions.

06

NEWS

FEBRUARY 2, 2017 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

PHOTOGRAPHS: SAVANNAH FORSEY (LEFT THREE) AND SAVANNAH MILEEN-HARRIS (RIGHT THREE)

EDITOR: DAVID TAPLIN | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

VOLLEYBALL

SPORTS & HEALTH 07 SWIMMING

Struggling to find their groove Daily grind: The life of a swimmer

Women’s volleyball digging for second place

DYLAN WOOLEY-BERRY Contributor

MOUNTIES WERE UNABLE TO SWEEP THE DRAGONS IN BACK-TO-BACK GAMES SAVANNAH FORSEY

HAMZA MUNAWA Sports Reporter After a convincing first half of the season, the women’s varsity volleyball team found themselves in one of the top spots of the ACAA conference, boasting a 7-2 record.

“It’s encouraging to see us play at the calibre of a championship team,” Melissa McAnsh, the team’s libero, said. “We have a young and talented team that can only improve with time and playing together.”

Heading into the second half of the season, the team looked to do more of the same; however, this has not been the case. Since returning from the winter break, the team has played seven games and holds a 3-4 record throughout January.

Although still ranked third overall in the conference, the team finds itself falling out of reach of the top two teams, which gives them less of a chance to qualify for a bye through the first round of playoffs.

According to head coach Paul

Settle, “Getting one of the top two playoff seeds is not impossible, but unlikely, because we have six losses and the two teams [MSVU and Holland] we are chasing have just one and two losses, respectively.”

Indeed, having a bye would be nice, but it’s consistency that the Mounties should be worried about as they close out the regular season.

“We want to finish the season out strong and develop that ability to finish off teams, and I think we know that this is what we have to do to be successful,” Settle said.

The team starts out winning a consistent number of points and sets every time they step on the floor. However, they have a habit of slipping in the last sets of the match.

“Execution is especially needed in the end of sets,” Settle said.

An accurate display of the pattern the team is trying to fix was evident this past weekend, when they faced off against Université Sainte-Anne in a doubleheader on Saturday and Sunday.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

ACAA

Holland 6 MSVU St. Thomas 14 Mount Allison UKing’s College UNBSJ Crandall 4

GP 12 12 11 10 13 11 11

W

11 11 6 5 5 2 0

L

1 1 5 5 8 9 11

PTS 22 22 12 10 10 4 0

*NUMBER NEXT TO TEAM NAME DENOTES NATIONAL RANKING*

The team had a clean sweep Saturday night, winning 3-0. The same result was expected Sunday morning against the Dragons, who are 4-12 this season.

After winning the first two sets 25-23 and 25-13, the team went on to lose the next two. The Mounties fought hard in the fifth set, but ultimately fell 3-2, dropping the match to one of the lower-ranked teams in the conference. “[These past games] are not reflective of what we are capable of, McAnsh said. “As the season is progressing, we need to consistently display the level of volleyball that we know how to play, so that we can be a dominant team all the time.”

The team will look to find their groove as they face their toughest matchups this upcoming weekend against Holland College and MSVU. This weekend, the team will try to prove that they deserve to be top contenders for the ACAA championship.

The alarm sounds, and I swipe my phone screen to turn it off. The clock on the screen reads 6 a.m. It’s Monday – if it were Tuesday or Friday, I would be waking up at 6:30.

I roll out of my bed, get dressed and grab something light to eat, usually a piece of toast or some yogurt and granola. I then put on my winter coat and boots and grab my book bag that was packed the night before. I leave the warmth of my apartment for the cold outdoors.

It’s 6:20 by the time I get to the Athletic Centre, and 6:25 by the time I have changed into my bathing suit and walk out onto the pool deck. I see my coach writing the morning’s practice on the board and as swimmers walk out onto the pool deck, they grab flutter boards and pull buoys before hopping into the 15-degree water.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, dryland training begins at 7 a.m.

Everyone helps set up stations for the dryland endurance circuits that the team will run on those mornings.

The circuits include the use of battle ropes, core training and medicine ball exercises. Following the circuit, the team heads to the gym in the Athletic Centre for about half an hour of weight training.

After morning practice ends at 8:10, I shower to get the smell of sweat and chlorine off my body before class. Then, the swimmers living in residence head over to meal hall for a quick breakfast. Swimmers like me, who live off campus, usually have their breakfast on campus and get a jump on their school work for the day.

Some swimmers have class at 8:30,

MEN’S BASKETBALL

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

DAL AC (A) 51 - MTA (H) 97

USA (A) 0 - MTA (H) 3 USA (A) 3 - MTA (H) 2

ACAA

MSVU Mount Allison Crandall 10 Holland UKing’s College St. Thomas UNBSJ DAL AC 14

GP W 14 13 13 13 14 13 14 14

13 11 8 8 5 4 3 2

L

1 2 5 5 9 9 11 12

PTS 26 22 16 16 10 8 6 4

ACAA

MSVU 15 Holland Mount Allison UNBSJ St. Thomas USaint-Anne UKing’s College DAL AC 10

so they scarf down the breakfast they brought with them in our coach’s office before they go. On days when they do not have an 8:30 class, they are able to go home and take a nap before they head back to campus for the day.

During the day, swimmers attend classes and labs like normal students; unlike most students, however, by the time a swimmer gets to class they have already been up for two to three hours. Some of the upper years on the varsity swim team use the time they have in between classes to conduct honours research and work on independent studies.

I prefer to go grocery shopping and cook meals. I always make enough food for three or four meals and save the leftovers, so I don’t have to cook after practice. Ask any varsity athlete and they will tell you that cooking supper when you are hungry after a long workout sucks. On a calm day, the period in between morning and night practice can be used to relax and hang out with friends – this could include having lunch.

Evening practice on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays is from 4:30 to 6:30. On these days, swimmers are expected to stay after practice and do 30 minutes of core exercises. Evening practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays is from 5:15 to 6:45.

After practice, I go home to eat supper, then go to the library. The odd evening is spent in a group meeting for a project, or listening to a guest speaker I am required to attend for a class. After dinner, I do homework until bedtime.

The alarm on my phone sounds, I swipe my phone screen to turn it off.

It’s Tuesday, 6:30 a.m.

With files from Maddy Henry, James Kwan and Allison Loewen.

GP 15 15 16 14 14 16 13 15

WOMEN’S HOCKEY MTA (A) 2 - SMU (H) 5 STU (A) 5 - MTA (H) 3

3

W

14 13 10 9 5 4 2 2

L PTS

1 2 6 5 9 12 11 13

28 26 20 18 10 8 4 4

AUS

Saint Mary’s 4 St. Thomas UPEI St. FX Moncton Dalhousie Mount Allison 3

W

16 16 13 13 6 6 3

L OTL PTS

3 2 7 7 11 14 17

2 3 1 0 4 1 1

35 34 27 26 16 13 7

Following a short walk down Squire Street, objectively the quaintest street in town, take a right on Harris Drive and you will find yourself standing on the side of the Trans-Canada Highway. As you wait for a break in the stream of eighteenwheelers, minivans and hatchbacks, you will see your destination on the other side of the divide: you have found the Cattail Ridge Market.

Described as a “six-days-a-week farmers’ market,” the store provides customers with local produce, eggs, cheese, preserves, meat and much more throughout the year.

Cattail Ridge offers a refreshing alternative from the often despondent produce at the grocery store. Plus, you can still fill up on local goodies if you sleep in on Saturday and miss the weekly Sackville Farmers’ Market. Depending on your lifestyle, the store could also interest you in collars for dogs, hay for horses, and local ointments to help your beard grow and your skin glow.

Recently, some friends and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and walked up to Cattail Ridge. While we filled our arms will local apples, garlic and honey, the cashier told us the business has been operating for around a decade. A friend of the owners and a local farmer, the cashier revealed that the eggs I was purchasing were from his chickens. Only at Cattail!

Located across the parking lot from the Independent, Tantramar Tobacco has been in business since 1996. Apart from servicing the tobacco needs of Sackville, the store is also a fully functioning pawn shop. As I entered the store, a whiteboard that read “19+” reminded me of the time I tried to buy a bag of chips as an 18-year-old and was denied service. My palms sweating, I feared a repeat event.

Walking further into the store, I passed the TVs, couches and cross-country skis of patrons past. Upon introducing myself to the sales clerk and informing her of the piece I wished to write, I was made aware of federal legislation that makes it illegal to advertise tobacco. This was not the kind of place you came to ask questions. Assuring her this was not an advertisement, an awkward exchange ensued as I asked about the business without receiving any answers. I left the Tantramar Tobacco, this time of my own accord.

This is not an advertisement.

Splendid Grapes, located off Main Street across from the Bill Johnstone Memorial Park, offers winos with emerging and established palates the options to craft wine at home or have it made in bulk instore. With four kits to choose from that range in price, wait time, regional specificity and flavour pronunciation, the store ensures patrons a wine package that best suits their tastes. The handy “Little Black Book of Wine” arrays a comprehensive selection of over 100 wines that ranges from robust-bodied reds and tongue-arresting tannins to easy-drinkers like Rieslings with crisp citrus notes and refreshing acidities. You can even bring your empties to cut costs further, and you’re potentially looking at $4 a bottle.

Remarkably, this niche store requires no appointments – just walk right in and a friendly staff member will help you select a suitable kit and instruct you how to “pitch the yeast” and bottle your wine. Enjoy beer and/or spirits? Splendid Grapes also stocks beer and liquor-making kits.

Contributors: Claire Henderson-Hamilton (5), David Taplin (1), Mirelle Naud(3), Sylvan Hamburger (2,4) Photographs: Ryan MacRae Illustrations: Louis Sobol, Jeff Mann Layout: Hailey Guzik

THE HIDDEN GEMS OF SACKVILLE

E

The first thing I noticed upon entering the Sackville Harness Shop was a strange sense of order amongst all the stacks of boots, harnesses, messenger bags and wallets that crowded the shop’s cozy front room. The owner, who emerged from an open workspace in the back, said he was too busy for an interview – which seemed legit, considering the black leather grease on his hands and the tone of his voice.

This was fine with me, because despite my intrusive reporting, he still offered his expertise in helping me select a much-needed new belt.

While I fretted over the choice between black or dark brown, two older gentlemen entered the shop. Soon the front room was full of chatter as these old timers shared anecdotes.

One of the newcomers, a jolly fellow in a Harley Davidson jacket, approached me and pointed to his worn beige belt: “Best belt I ever owned,” he said. The guy seemed like he knew what he was talking about, so I took his advice and bought myself the sturdiest belt I’ve ever owned.

As I left the shop proudly wearing my new belt, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d experienced a piece of local history. And I had, considering the shop was established in 1919.

As they say, no two things go together quite like curling and haircuts, and one local business takes this adage to heart.

Located in the same building as the Sackville Curling Club, Carlos’ Barber Shop may be the town’s best-kept beauty secret.

Located at 22 Landsdowne, the shop is unassuming – the simple decor includes a motorcycle clock, a tasteful collection of miniature cars, family photos and a “Happy birthday Dad!!!!” painting.

Carlos and I chatted over the Chilean music filling the room while he shaved away at a gentleman’s head. Originally from Santiago, Chile, Carlos opened his shop in 2013. Since then, he has accumulated many loyal customers, some of whom come all the way from Moncton for his services.

Sadly, Carlos rejected my offer to let him try cutting and styling my long hair; it’s worth noting that he works on short hair only. Regardless, I left feeling bouncier – not because of any curling action or new ‘do, but thanks to yet another Sackville business owner’s genuine humility and warmth.

10 ARTS & CULTURE

EDITORS: MIRELLE NAUD MALLORY BURNSIDE-HOLMES FEBRUARY 2, 2017 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

MENTAL HEALTH

Film screening talks mental health

A Pre-Bell Let’s Talk event opens community discussion on stigma surrounding mental illness

SIDEWALK CHALK REMINDS PEDESTRIANS TO KEEP ON TALKING SAVANNAH MILEEN HARRIS/ARGOSY

EMMA BUSH Arts and Culture Reporter It can be easy to get caught up in the negativity – about each other, about ourselves and, on Bell Let’s Talk day, about the flaws of corporate involvement in highly publicized glamorization of mental health and mental health awareness. This past Tuesday, students Carly Penrose and Alanna Stewart chose to move past this and focus instead on creating an atmosphere of encouragement and love in the face of mental illnesses in their presentation, Big Rides and Mental Riptides.

Penrose and Stewart, second- and fourth-year psychology students, came together to screen a “preBell Let’s Talk” film, “Clara’s Big Ride.” This featured mental health ambassador Clara Hughes’ cycling trip across Canada to raise awareness for, and start the conversation about, mental well-being and illness. After the screening, there was a time for open discussion in which participants shared their own experiences and personal struggles with mental illness.

Stewart believes in the necessity of normalizing and understanding mental health and mental illness.

“I am not under the illusion that

Bell Let’s Talk will erase stigma, but it is an excellent way to start the conversation,” Stewart said. “[However, the] responsibility is on us to continue this conversation.”

The desire to provide students with “[the] opportunity to speak openly and to encourage openness in others” motivated her and Penrose to organize the film screening.

Penrose expanded on Stewart’s comments. “We wanted to spread awareness about mental health issues and how common they are for the lack of attention they receive,” she said. “The dialogue is really important and I’m only now realizing how

sharing can encourage others to share and bring them out of any dark places they may be in right now.”

Feedback for the event was positive.

“It was inspiring to hear Carly and Alanna share their testimonials with such confidence,” third-year drama student Erik Garf said. “It sure got me talking.”

The event dynamically closed with the opportunity for attendees to leave notes expressing feedback.

“Some people wrote that they were struggling and that this event had encouraged them to seek help,” Stewart said. “That’s what this is all about.”

Penrose and Stewart took steps towards promoting a positive conversation and community in giving their presentation. They used the spirit of a campaign such as Bell Let’s Talk day to open up about their own personal stories. “I saw a need to create open dialogue for real,” Stewart said.

Fourth-year psychology major Vince Casey said, “It’s awesome to see members of the Mount Allison community organizing an event like this and putting their own experiences out there for their peers to hear. That must be extremely difficult to do, but it is so important.”

THEATRE

Garnet & Gold stages Legally Blonde Argosy “bends and snaps” moments of feel-good musical production

JESSICA MACLEAN (PAULETTE) CONSOLES A BROKEN-HEARTED MORGAN REID (ELLE) AT HER HAIR SALON SAVANNAH FORSEY/ARGOSY

LEGAL TEAM STEPHEN BUCKLEY (EMMETT) AND REID ACCOMPANY A DETERMINED MACLEAN TO BRING BACK HER BELOVED FROM MICHAEL MCCKRACKEN (PROBLEMATIC EX) SAVANNAH FORSEY/ARGOSY

ARTS & CULTURE

THE ARGOSY | WWW.ARGOSY.CA

VAGINA MONOLOGUES

Just write “vagina” Penning like a pussy with your pals

HANNA LONGARD Contributor “A space where vulnerability is more freeing than frightening” was Cara Mackenzie’s impression of her second Vagina Monologues Writing Workshop. Inspired by Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues,” the writing workshop was hosted last week by this year’s student-led cast and production team. The workshop was open to individuals of all genders and backgrounds.

An intimate gathering, the workshop allowed cast and community members to share personal writing and thoughts about feminist topics.

Participants discussed themes such as masturbation, queerness, gender-based violence, menstruation and their childhood and adolescent conceptions of sex and sexuality.

Third-year student Mackenzie emphasized the importance of community discussions about feminist topics.

“I think sharing personal experiences in almost any setting

is valuable because it enables community building to occur around those shared or similar experiences,” she said. “That is doubly so for feminist topics because it allows us to validate one another and grow stronger together as we unify around our experiences.”

In the same way that important discussions about vaginas are often neglected, most people do not allot enough time to personal writing, according to fourth-year student Sally Faulkner. “[Through the writing process] largely immaterial thoughts that are about actual problems and actual joys become real things that can be translated to other people,” Faulker said, emphasizing how writing can raise awareness and increase solidarity.

The workshop helped individuals unravel their personal stories that might otherwise be left unheard and undeveloped. “[The workshop] was a good

opportunity to deliberately sit down and work through ideas and issues that are easily left unthought or un-interrogated with myself,” said third-year student Shannon Power, elaborating on how writing can function as a therapeutic tool. Power is also a co-producer and cast member of this year’s Vagina Monologues production.

Maddie Hayman, a first-year student, discussed the relevance of the writing process as an actor in this year’s production of the Vagina Monologues. Hayman said writing about personal experiences “allowed me to think about what the stories in the script must mean to the women who told them, which has given me a much greater understanding and passion for this project.”

Some of the works created during the workshop are included in this story and will be featured during the production happening this Friday and Saturday at The Vogue. We invite you to come and be a part of what Faulkner describes as “a brief community about vaginas.” “[We] can’t have enough of those,” she said.

11

LETTER TO MY MENSTRUAL CUP CARA MACKENZIE Dear Diva Cup,

Thanks for your subtlety

THANK YOU!

Even though I tell

You silicon beauty

Everyone when I need you

You marvelous chalice

And how amazing you are

You bearer of monthly burdens Thank you, sincerely Thank you for being affordable See you again next month!

For reducing the waste I put into this world For being so strong So durable For coming with an Instruction manual Thanks for always Having my back For never making me sick (Even though I forget about you For 24 hours sometimes)

EXCERPT: ACCEPTING MY VAGINA’S AUTONOMY ANONYMOUS The day I discovered my vagina I was swimming shirtless and in loosefitting underwear that billowed and swished with each stroke and splash.

Teetering the line of the acceptable age to still be a nude child, I reached between my legs to remove a leech that had attached itself there during my mermaid adventures. At the mouth-end of the leech, I made an interesting discovery – I found my vagina. At seven I discovered that there was a place between my legs that things wanted to get at. A place of blood and slimy things that I would have to actively protect against

potential invasions.

Around the same age I got itchy.

I had always been an itchy child. My whole body is an allergy zone. But mangoes and vulvas are different.

Although they go together in my mind, all ripe and juicy, I developed an allergy to mangoes and my vulva became my defiant allergy zone. I resented my vulva for burning red if I dared to taste my favourite fruit. I resented my vulva. I wanted to itch it off, to be free from its unapologetic ability to dictate my decisions.

A while later I reached grade four and found my older brother’s sex ed homework on the table. I read

BUCKLEY SCANS REID’S CLUTTERED DESK IN SEARCH OF A SIGN OF SCHOOLWORK SAVANNAH FORSEY/ARGOSY

a paragraph-long fill-inthe-blank play-by-play of hetero sex and I remember being startled at how much happened in a few short lines, but also at how reductive it sounded. For weeks I tried to understand the act by playing with my barbies.

But of course no matter how much Ken and Barbie scissored, he never became erect and he definitely never put the p in the v. During these attempts

to understand sexual intercourse, I would always experience a dull pressure or pulsing between my legs.

“NO MATTER HOW MUCH KEN AND BARBIE SCISSORED, HE NEVER BECAME ERECT” It essentially manifested in the need to pee, and then I would just sit on the toilet staring at my bits until the

CAST CELEBRATES A SUCCESSFUL PRODUCTION SAVANNAH FORSEY/ARGOSY

pulse went away.

As a kid I never understood these activities as related. I remember it simply as being an annoying distraction from my barbie play time.

Once again my vulva was just acting up, presenting its own diversion from MY plans. I guess the paragraph-long play-by-play of hetero sex failed to explain that sex could actually involve real and positive sensations – desires other than creating babies. But at least I learned one valuable thing: how to scissor really damn well if your parts don’t fit together normative p- and v-style.

12

ARTS & CULTURE

FEBRUARY 2, 2017 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

MODEL UN

Mt. A students attend McGill’s Model UN

Trump’s travel ban delivers reality check to political theatre participants

DELEGATES PARTICIPATE IN MODEL UN ASSEMBLY. IZZY FRANCOLINI/ARGOSY

WILL PELLETIER Arts and Culture Reporter Take the ‘Model’ out of Model UN and the scene at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Montreal would almost certainly have been cause for alarm. The ballroom was crammed with eager student members of an assortment of delegations and schools, present and waiting for the opening ceremonies. The massive projector screens that flanked the centre stage spurred shouts of praise as each school’s name rolled by and, in conjunction with the roaring

chatter of the attendees, the opening ceremony for the McGill Model United Nations’ (McMUN) seemed at first to be a weak facade for a rave.

Things started soon after we took our seats. After a long and patriotic procession (bagpipes included), a few speeches delivered by the McMUN exec and a meandering filibuster from the keynote speaker, the conference officially commenced at the drop of a gavel by Secretary General Ginny Tan. Roughly 1,500 delegates, including 18 from Mount Allison, shuffled to their respective committee sessions and began to mime the democratic

process we know and love, sometimes as representatives of governments they themselves personally dislike.

One such delegate was Michael Anghel, a third-year Mt. A student.

“It was mainly the government’s corruption as a whole I didn’t agree with,” said Anghel, referring to Azerbaijan, the country he represented at the EU Council committee. “Their government in general is reputed as being corrupt, and they have a corrupt president who doesn’t care much for human rights.”

In MUN, delegates are expected to represent their designated country, individual, or government and work in its best interest, no matter how objectionable they find the policy.

“It was hard to speak on behalf of a known corrupt government, as some of the arguments I had to make didn’t agree with what I believe is right,” Anghel said, reflecting on the challenge of accurately representing his country. “However, it was a good experience, as I was exposed to a lot of different views from around the world.”

The dynamic discussion fostered in committee sessions is often incredibly time-consuming and, as a result, pulls delegates’ attention away from reality.

However, the delegation was not able to fully eclipse the real-life tension occurring south of the border. On Saturday afternoon, each committee was paused for a briefing about Donald Trump’s executive order banning individuals holding passports from seven Muslim-majority countries,

potentially affecting multinational students attending the conference.

“A McMUN organizer came in and told us that the order meant some of the roughly 700 Americans attending wouldn’t be able to go home tomorrow and to come see them for help,” Jonathan Ferguson, a first-year international relations student, said.

“The room was left pretty shaken realizing how real things had become,

“THE ROOM WAS LEFT PRETTY SHAKEN REALIZING HOW REAL THINGS HAD BECOME, AND WE VOTED IN FAVOUR OF TAKING A BREATHER” and we voted in favour of taking a breather. The Americans I spoke with expressed their frustration and disbelief.”

Several delegates from the General Assembly special session on the Refugee Crisis expressed their resentment toward the executive action by sending disparaging messages to the student delegate representing the U.S. Without condoning the controversial executive action, the committee chair took a moment to explain the inappropriate nature of the delegates’ behaviour. After this announcement,

the U.S. delegate was sent roses by several members of the committee as consolation for the harassment.

While this news was devastating for many, no Mt. A students in attendance were impacted directly

by Trump’s ban. Committee chairs handled the disruption admirably and the conference continued.

Although reputed as a highprofile and often serious conference, McMUN did not shy away from using its city’s vibrant culture as a hook to draw in out-of-town students.

Spending a weekend in a city with a nightlife as rich as Montreal’s was interesting, to say the least.

To accompany the delegation and forums, McMUN set up a bar crawl and the infamous “McParté,” a party hosted at renovated theatre L’Olympia. McParté saw hundreds of plastered students wander in through its doors to dance for over six hours straight to energetic dance mixes.

Over the course of the evening, participants exclaimed, “McParté is lit!” enough times to coin an unofficial slogan for the event.

Despite all the glamour, the Mt. A UN team did not make it out of Montreal unscathed. Two of the many notable happenings included one encounter with a con artist and a particularly dramatic disappearance of almost a dozen plastic yardas from the hotel. Susu Kobla-Tsikata Graham reflected on his experience at McMUN while we cabbed back to the airport: “It’s a death trap. All you get is alcohol poisoning and the flu….I would still go back, though.”

POST-GRAD

Advice for aspiring health-care professionals Applying to health-care programs and what to do when you get there WILLA MCCAFFREY-NOVIS Contributor Health-care professions are common pursuits for Mount Allison graduates.

In addition to medicine, Mt. A graduates have pursued a number of other health-related fields such as nursing, pharmacy, psychology and health administration.

Last year, Amanda Rundle, an honours biochemistry graduate and Marjorie Young Bell scholar, accepted an offer to Dalhousie Medical School. Rundle partially attributes her successful candidacy to her involvement at Mt. A. “From athletics, to Global Brigades, to Healthcare Outreach and other volunteer and academic commitments, I think Mt. A gave me a variety of opportunities to decide that this was the right career path for me,” Rundle wrote in an e-mail correspondence.

Rundle commented on her extensive preparation for the interview component, a crucial phase of the application process.

“I started working with an interview coach once a week before I was offered an invite to Dalhousie

or MUN [Memorial University of Newfoundland],” Rundle wrote. “It was more effective for me to receive criticism from a professional rather than a peer.”

Dalhousie uses the popular Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) approach, an interview circuit designed to assess a candidate’s soft skills. “I was still nervous on the day,” Rundle said. “But beyond my own qualities and resume, I was very prepared and I think that’s what made my interview successful.”

Physics alum Triston Berger went on to pursue medical school outside Canada at the American University of the Caribbean in Sint Maarten.

Berger’s advice to students interested in studying medicine abroad is to do extensive research on the schools and programs.

“The American University of the Caribbean offers a medical degree that is fully accredited in the U.S., Canada and Europe. However, there are some other schools that are only accredited in certain provinces or states,” Berger wrote in an e-mail correspondence, cautioning that “people who are looking offshore to go to medical school should be

comfortable with the fact that they may end up practising outside of Canada.”

Currently going through the tough medical school application process, Brynn Aucoin, an honours biochemistry student with minors in chemistry, biology and French, is applying to MUN, Dalhousie, Queen’s and the French stream at University of Ottawa.

“AS MUCH AS WE ALL WISH...

THERE IS NO EASY FORMULA TO GET INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL” “As much as we all wish … there is no easy formula to get into medical school,” Aucoin said. She feels that it is important to be involved in activities that she is interested in rather than those that only look good on applications.

“Personally, I have chosen to

participate in groups on campus that I am passionate about and that I enjoy; otherwise, I don’t think they are worth doing.”

Former Mount Allison Students’ Union president and honours psychology graduate Heather Webster was intent on pursuing patient advocacy. Webster is currently pursuing a joint degree that allows her to combine her law degree with a master’s in health administration at Dalhousie.

“The program is designed for those pursuing administrative and leadership careers in the Canadian healthcare delivery system,” Webster wrote in an e-mail.

Webster commended the program’s experiential learning component, which allowed her to work for Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) on projects like assisting implementation of Medical Assistance in Dying policies.

Graduating in May with an honours in psychology and a minor in biology, Kaitlin Milner is applying to clinical psychology programs – a highly competitive pursuit for psychology majors.

“For the … programs that I’ve

applied to, there were usually around 100 applicants and only five to seven spaces available,” Milner said.

Like many other professional healthcare hopefuls, Aucoin and Milner experienced the stress of the extensive documentation and money required for the application process of these competitive programs.

“Most students will begin by taking their MCAT after second year. Then most will retake it after third year,” Aucoin said. “One of the issues with this is the cost associated with the test itself and that there are no test centres in New Brunswick, so we must travel to Halifax or Bangor to write it.”

Since beginning at Dalhousie, Rundle said the environment has been nothing but welcoming.

“Once you’re in, you are so appreciably supported by your classmates, administration and professors,” Rundle wrote. “People begin to invest in you and your education from day one.”

For Rundle, it would seem there was a light at the end of the tunnel in a rigorous application process.

ARTS & CULTURE

THE ARGOSY | WWW.ARGOSY.CA

ETHICAL CONSUMPTION

Cleaning out the closet

Students challenge fast fashion by shopping secondhand MARISSA CRUZ Arts and Culture Reporter Whether we like it or not, our clothing says a great deal about who we are.

A visual voice, our garments talk without us having to.

Fast fashion

dominates the retail industry.

The goal of fast fashion companies is to take designs seen on runways and make them accessible for consumers to buy, bringing garments to stores as quickly and cheaply as possible. Although it doesn’t devastate the condition of one’s bank account, fast fashion comes with a collection of problems.

Fash fashion retailers aim to get us to shop constantly by producing low-quality, high-quantity runs of clothing. The resulting low-priced, mass-produced clothing poses a challenge to the pricier competition.

Along with negative environmental impacts, this often involves corporations breaking labour laws when producing so many articles

of clothing in such a short amount of time.

In a group interview of eight Mt. A students, half of them explained they buy their clothing from fast fashion heavyweights like Urban Outfitters and H&M. However, when in Sackville, these students mainly buy secondhand instead of shopping online. Second-year commerce student Mike McCracken said people buy used because of its immediacy: “[In Sackville] it is accessible to buy recycled clothing.”

First-year student Sarah Gordan explained that fast fashion creates a pressure to stay on trend and acknowledged that this has its problems. “The clothes that you are buying are cheaply made and have less quality,” Gordan said.

Paige Percy, a first-year student, explained her stress when shopping. “When I go home, there are too many options and I end up buying too much.”

Students also expressed the impulsiveness they feel when shopping in malls. “[Fast fashion] is compulsive; when there is a sale or when the clothes are so cheap, it is hard to resist,” Gordon said.

Anahid Chujunian, owner of the curated secondhand clothing store Little Cat’s Bazaar, explained that fast fashion is very much alive in Sackville and admittedly even she gets wrapped up in it.

“It’s not hard to understand why many students participate in the fast fashion industry,” she said. “With

trends changing practically overnight on the runway, low-cost replicas of high-end, trending pieces seem like the only way of staying on top of what’s ‘in.’”

Chujunian said that when buying clothing for her store, she sticks to the items that always sell and pieces that are classic and always trending. “[I] love being able to offer my customers an alternative to fast fashion, especially my customers who have never really been exposed to thrift culture before.”

For many of us, shopping has become a common, potentially addictive pastime. By buying ethically made or secondhand clothing, we can ultimately help counter the effects of fast fashion.

Unsettling the table ALEX LEPIANKA Contributor

In an ongoing project titled The Golden USB, Montreal-based artists Richard Ighby and Marilou Lemmens invite us to consider how we understand our world through the lens of commodification. Reflecting on the ability of commerce to break down borders, the artists explore the relationship between global, earthbound capitalism and the frontier of outer space. As our economic paradigm draws the entire world into an orbit of capitalist circulation, Ighby and Lemmens imagine interstellar capitalism as the logical extension.

As Ighby and Lemmens discussed at a recent artist talk at the Owens, The Golden USB is a trade catalogue: a list of all objects, processes, know-hows and creatures that could be traded with extraterrestrials. Representing the process of appropriation, where objects and experiences are transformed into exchangeable commodities, the artists sample the world through filmed performances and physical specimens. Ighby and Lemmens catalogue a pile of salt, the concept of a shower, construction

materials and Latin American literature.

Through sampling, recording and indexing, Ighby and Lemmens also perform the work of taxonomists, articulating the order of a world fit for sale. Their catalogue defines categories: Things Found on the Ground; Things Not Yet Touched by the Mild Boredom of Order; The Way of Cooking Particular to María José Jaramillo. Ighby and Lemmens actualize a worldview in which everything we are, do and eat as human beings is defined by the possibility of being traded.

In one video, Ighby and Lemmens register the knowledge of an Ecuadorean chef by recording her prepare a guinea pig for barbecue, clean crabs and select herbs for tea.

Her work is systematic, recorded without narration in a large, empty room, evoking the de-personalized cooking demonstrations that might appear on Buzzfeed Tasty.

But, the title of this sample, The Way of Cooking Particular to María José Jaramillo, asserts that it is the chef herself – her embodied knowledge, her social context, her customs and beliefs – who is being rendered available for exchange.

Commodification breaks down the relationships between culinary knowledge and eating practices, land and community. Ighby and Lemmens’s performance reveals commodification as a process of abstraction – a cutting-out of the part from the whole, where the whole represents a limit to trade.

Traded on a market, culinary practices are deprived of their connections to ecosystems, cultural context, interpersonal relationships and daily rituals like grocery shopping, feeding others, composting leftovers. Sampled, appropriated and deprived of context, the commodity becomes absurd, stripped of the meanings possible only in relation to human life.

The commodification of an entire culinary practice, embodied in the chef, reveals the precariousness of meaning in global capitalism and its worldview. The Golden USB asks us to reconsider our own lives, beyond our culinary practices, to break down the logic of commodification — to see the phenomena that resist abstraction from the contexts that give them meaning.

13

TIDELAND DOC FEST COMING SOON TO THE VOGUE This March, a New Brunswick-made film about the work of Sackville’s very own Community Forest International (CFI) will be taking home a major award at the world’s largest environmental film festival in Washington, D.C. The film is called Kokota: The Islet of Hope and features the climate change work CFI has been doing in Africa. Along with three other short documentaries, Kokota will be playing at the Vogue Cinema as part of the Tideland Doc Fest on Wednesday Feb. 8, from 7 to 9 pm.

The film premiered at the Atlantic Film Festival last September and struck gold with a win for best cinematography. Two months later it received Best Canadian Short at Canada’s largest eco film festival, Planet in Focus in Toronto.

Now, it is taking home the Eric Moe Award for Best Short on Sustainability from the Environmental Film Festival. The film’s director, Craig Norris, will receive the award when he screens it for the festival at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., on March 20.

“I get goosebumps anytime I tell someone. Ten years ago I started off as a photographer and I dreamed of shooting for National Geographic, so doing anything related to that organization is literally a dream come true,” Norris said.

Tideland Doc Fest will also feature Sunrise on the Total Chaos, Amazing Places of the Fundy Biosphere Reserve and the fan favourite Surviving the Fundy Footpath. The latter is the story of a non-hiker from Toronto who backpacks the extremely difficult Fundy Footpath for his first hike. The uncensored version of this documentary will be played, so some foul language should be expected.

Together, these New Brunswick-made films have been featured at 23 film festivals in eight countries on four continents. However, until now there hasn’t been an easy way for New Brunswickers to see the films – enter Tideland Doc Fest.

“We have several films that we want to tour around New Brunswick and they all revolve around the same themes: nature, conservation and climate change.

So it just made sense to package them up and tour them together,” Norris said.

This February, the inaugural version of this touring, two-hour documentary festival will be making stops in Sackville, Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John. Films will be screened for students at seven high schools and there will be four evening events open to the general public. Admission is free, but there will be a suggested donation of $5 at the door and proceeds will be donated to Community Forests Pemba.

For more information please visit the Tideland Facebook Page. https://www. facebook.com/TidelandDocFest/

14 OPINIONS

THE ARGOSY w w w. a r g o s y. c a

Independent Student Newspaper of Mount Allison University Thursday, February 2, 2017 volume 146 issue 14

ACADEMICS

More than just my major Challenging the perception of “good” and “bad” majors

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on Unceded Mi’kmaq Land 62 York Street W. McCain Student Centre Mount Allison University Sackville, New Brunswick

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THE ARGOSY is published by Argosy Publications, Inc., a student run, autonomous, apolitical not-for-profit organization operated in accordance with the province of New Brunswick.

THE ARGOSY is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national co-operative of student newspapers.

ISSN 0837-1024

The Underbridge Press is a student-run publishing organization at Mount Allison University.

EDITORIAL staff EDITORS-IN-CHIEF | Sylvan Hamburger, Tyler Stuart MANAGING EDITOR | Cecilia Stuart NEWS EDITORS | Naomi Goldberg, Catherine Turnbull ARTS & CULTURE EDITORS | Mallory Burnside-Holmes, Mirelle Naud SPORTS & HEALTH EDITOR | David Taplin OPINIONS EDITOR | Shannon Power HUMOUR EDITOR | Mark Cruz COPY EDITOR | Claire Henderson-Hamilton

PRODUCTION staff PRODUCTION MANAGER | Hailey Guzik PHOTO EDITOR | Savannah Harris PHOTOGRAPHERS | Savannah Forsey, Ryan MacRae ILLUSTRATION EDITOR | Jeff Mann ILLUSTRATORS | Izzy Francolini, Louis Sobol ONLINE EDITOR | Monica Zahl

REPORTING staff NEWS REPORTERS | Leo Gertler, Kavana Wa Kilele, Jill MacIntryre POLITICS REPORTER | Nadiya Safonova

KAYLEIGH COLFORD Contributor Being a Mount Allison freshman has provided me with the opportunity to meet many different types of people in a rather short period of time.

People I meet often ask, “Hey! What’s your major?” – which, I admit, is a rather harmless question. But as one of the first things you tell someone about yourself, it tends to carry a lot of weight regarding first impressions.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that there is a negative stigma attached to English majors. In fact, I have found that my major has been

OPERATIONS staff BUSINESS MANAGER | Tessa Dixon AD MANAGER | James Lantz CIRCULATIONS | Katharyn Stevenson

CONTRIBUTORS Brendan Carroll, Kayleigh Colford, Maddie Hayman, Liz Kent,

MARIA O’LEARY Contributor

COVER | Jen Frail RUNNING DOODLES | Evan Furness

PUBLICATION board Leslie Kern, Owen Griffiths

DISCLAIMERS & COPYRIGHT The Argosy is the official independent student journal of news, opinion, and the arts, written, edited and funded by the students of Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of The Argosy’s staff or its Board of Directors.

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day. This solidifies my opinion that you can study anything and become a well-versed and intelligent member of society – whether that be English and literature, computer science or engineering. And on the same note, you can study anything and learn absolutely nothing at all.

The intention of this article is not to call out other departments, but to draw attention to the fact that all majors are equally important.

In my opinion, the Mt. A campus would be a much happier place if everyone felt as if their talents and majors were valid. If we want to live in a society free of judgment and stereotypes, valuing people’s varying interests and strengths is an important practice. That said, I highly encourage everyone to use whatever field they chose to study as a beacon to spread positivity in the world instead of casting negative judgments in a society that hates to find a silver lining.

Courses such as women’s and gender studies provide valuable opportunities for critically analyzing health and beauty standards

Pelletier

O’Leary, Dylan Wooley-Berry

aware that there are safer roads to a career and that such questions and comments – from friends, relatives, acquaintances – are prompted more out of concern than malice.

Personally, I find it rather disheartening when people assign value judgments to someone based on their area of study when, in reality, the only conclusion you can draw about someone based on their major is their major.

However, it isn’t just English majors who get this type of backlash.

I’ve come across many people on campus who seemingly discredit fine arts majors, saying that their area of study is nothing more than overly priced arts and crafts. However, these people fail to realize that although fine arts majors may not be studying out of textbooks, they work just as hard as anyone else. On more than one occasion I have seen fine arts majors trickling in and out of the Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts at 3 a.m. trying to finish their final projects with an 8 a.m. class the next

What’s a good body, anyway?

ARTS & CULTURE REPORTERS | Emma Bush, Marissa Cruz, Will

Willa McCaffrey-Noviss, Laura Medicoff, Kevin Melanson, Maria

discredited by my peers for being less important and even less academically challenging than a science or commerce major. However, this assumption isn’t always malicious.

For example, if you hear “English major” and think, “Oh, that person likes books,” you’re probably right.

If you hear that and automatically think said person wants to become a teacher or lawyer, you’re certainly generalizing, but haven’t done anything wrong.

That said, I get a lot of questions asking what I plan on doing with my English degree once I finish university. More often than not, these questions are paired with either a disgusted scoff or an eye roll, as people often assume I won’t be able to do much with it. On more than one occasion I have been told by those around me that what I chose to study will be “the worst decision of my life” and that I should have gone to nursing school like I had initially planned.

Do comments like these bother me?

Yes. However, I am more than well

BODY IMAGE

SPORTS REPORTER | Hamza Munawar

Caroline Kovesi, Alex Lepianka, Hanna Longard, Cara Mackenzie,

EDITOR: SHANNON POWER | FEBRUARY 2, 2017 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

Exercise is a word that holds many different meanings to different people. To me, exercise is a word that brings both a smile to my face and a hidden discomfort. Physical activity in the form of sports has had a large role in my life. As a child, I played a plethora of sports growing up and always did it out of pure enjoyment – never with an ulterior motive in mind. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that my outlook on exercise started to change. As I consumed magazine articles and television shows, I began to see that my body didn’t reflect those in the media.

Mainstream media feeds us unrealistic images that people of all genders feel the need to achieve.

Unlike media representations of women, as a teenager I was not tall and I was not stick thin. I began to see exercise as a way to achieve a body that I thought would bring me satisfaction and happiness, instead of as something I simply enjoyed doing.

I found media representations almost all-consuming and believed that if I could just achieve the body presented

to me, it would reduce whatever stress I happened to be experiencing.

I can remember watching Friends as a young teenager and focusing on Rachel and Monica’s slender figures.

Monica’s weight was often a topic of discussion on the show, as she had been overweight growing up. I would watch and wonder how I too could look like that when I was older. The images of these women stuck with me and motivated me while I exercised.

In other words, I was quick to think that I could achieve what the media was promoting. Even though I was a happy and very fortunate person, I somehow believed if I was thinner and had a toned body, I would like myself more and attract more people to me. I think a lot of people get caught in the trap of seeing this representation, believing it and then trying to reproduce it themselves.

Although I already had a level of awareness with respect to the effect the media was having on me, it was not until I began taking courses such as women’s and gender studies (WGST) that I realized the extent to which I had bought into the beauty and dieting industry. These industries target young women and girls, causing them to believe they must take extreme measures in order to be appealing to society.

In the end, regardless of the weight I lost, I always wound up in the same unsatisfied place with no greater selfappreciation or confidence. Through the knowledge I have gained in taking WGST, I am striving to examine and deconstruct the media that I encounter in my everyday life, specifically how it targets women. As I have learned

WHILE EXERCISE CAN BE GREAT, SEEING IT AS A MEANS OF REALIZING DOMINANT BEAUTY STANDARDS CAN BE HARMFUL ARGOSY ARCHIVES through my studies, nothing can be taken at face value; one must deeply analyze and ask questions. Taking important courses like WGST hasn’t solved my problems surrounding body image, but it most definitely has helped me see the world more clearly and fuel me to continue investigating inaccurate and often harmful images of women in the media.

While Mount Allison offers many interesting and engaging courses, it is courses such as WGST that provide knowledge that empowers you and

can be applied in your everyday life.

On many occasions I have walked out of class and immediately used the knowledge I have just gained.

The application of WGST course content to my own life allowed me to spend less time obsessing over my self-image and begin to deconstruct the representations I’ve been presented with. I wish everyone was fortunate enough to take WGST in order to question not only body image, but other assumptions that go unchallenged.

OPINIONS

THE ARGOSY | WWW.ARGOSY.CA

FIGHTING STIGMA

15

ANTI-SEMITISM

Beyond Bell Let’s Talk

Mental health allyship is an everyday responsibility, both on social media and on campus

We need to fight hate as fiercely as ever

Hateful attitudes have a long history and extend beyond any one individual LAURA MEDICOFF Contributor

MENTAL ILLNESS ADVOCACY IS NOT CONFINED TO SOCIAL MEDIA RYAN MCRAE/ARGOSY

CAROLINE KOVESI Contributor

Despite recognizing positive aspects of the day, I do not enjoy Bell Let’s Talk. Critiques of the initiative abound online, citing problems with the sanitization of mental illness, the use of others’ lived experiences for corporate gain, a lack of diversity among faces and stories of the campaign, the representation of only “overcoming” narratives and the hierarchization and individualization of disability, among many others.

Though I may not be able to add much to these, I can discuss how I feel witnessing Bell Let’s Talk day as a student living with anxiety and depression at Mount Allison.

I find it difficult to watch my newsfeed fill with cheery posts about the need to talk more, especially when these are written by people who have answered my own struggles with silence. I have spent years, cushioned by my privilege, talking about mental illness. And while I

have been fortunate to find receptive audiences, I have also encountered many well-intentioned people who encourage or pressure me to censor my words and experiences, usually assuming I am unaware of the potential consequences of speaking about mental illness.

While I may not struggle with talking, I continue to struggle to be heard, be accepted for who I am and have my words considered on their own terms. I know that my employment prospects at Mt. A have been impacted by my openness about mental illness. Well-meaning professors have at various times explained they were doing “exposure therapy” with me, made decisions on my behalf to “protect me from my anxiety,” or told me to write about personal experiences of mental illness. I have learned that speaking in an environment like Mt. A, in which stigma, ableism and sanism remain pervasive, is accompanied by risks and that choosing to talk is not the same as being told to.

I am tired of committing myself to mental health work on a campus where people are unable to separate my value and potential from my mental illness. I am tired of questioning how different my last

five years might have looked if I’d tried harder to hide this side of me, or if this side simply didn’t exist at all.

I am tired of talking without seeing change.

So, to everyone who shared about Bell Let’s Talk last Wednesday, I’d like to present you with the following challenges: Students: Work to get comfortable asking people about their well-being when you are genuinely concerned about them, sitting through messy disclosures and not knowing how to support your friends. This is not easy, but listening takes many forms.

It might look like offering to walk a friend to the Wellness Centre, letting them sleep over, or being honest about your uncertainty and asking how you can help.

Professors: Go beyond the accommodation statements included in your syllabuses. Learn about Universal Design in Learning and experiment with implementing it. Attend workshops offered by the Meighen Centre. Attend Elephant in the Room. Advocate for students and employees with mental illnesses at Mt. A. Ask your students to comment on accessibility in their course evaluations. Challenge long-held ableist assumptions embedded in

“A CORPORATION

ISN’T GOING TO DO OUR DIRTY WORK”

typical evaluation styles, classroom setups and ideas like “academic integrity.”

Administrators: Commit not only to mental wellness, but also to mental illness. Continue to apply for funding for more professional services.

Invite public feedback on policies like the new Mental Health Strategy and Students of Concern Protocol.

Learn more about community members’ experiences at Mt. A. Ask about experiences of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and sexual violence on campus and then work to combat these. Most of all, do not allow yourselves to write and think mental illness into abstraction. It is a reality many of us live every day.

We must all work harder at being vulnerable, learning, unlearning, asking, watching, listening and yes, talking. A corporation isn’t going to do our dirty work. But frontlines are not always those drawn in protests on the streets. They exist in boardrooms, classrooms and bedrooms, in prisons and on reserves, in darkened movie theatres and public bathrooms, across continents and on sidewalks. You do not have to be at every site at once.

But please remember that mental illness is not confined to social media and neither should your allyship be.

I am a Jew. I was brought up watching documentaries and reading books on the Holocaust and listening to the stories of Holocaust survivors.

I have always been taught that we must continue to educate future generations about the past to stop history from repeating itself. Recent events at Mount Allison shook me to my core and I have been doing everything in my power to raise awareness of the fact that people with these anti-Semitic sentiments still exist.

I do not support Donald Trump.

Nor do I condone his words, actions or opinions. I understand that in difficult times such as these we look to find the root of the problem, someone to take the fault, so that we need not place the blame upon ourselves. This blame has fallen on Donald Trump and, while his views and political motives are far from tolerable, I do not believe we should be giving him the credit for this unthinkable behaviour. Granting this man the culpability for these thoughts and actions not only intensifies his sense of power and control over the world, but hinders us from looking at the problems that existed within society before his campaign began.

The first time I experienced antiSemitism directly was in the first grade, when a classmate said he would shoot me because I was Jewish.

There was no political Trump then, so where did these words stem from?

In cases such as these, too often we dismiss them as one-offs, give a small punishment and go about our lives as if nothing happened. The fact is that these attitudes existed long before World War II and persist today. We cannot put the responsibility for decades of animosity toward certain populations on one man who has come into the political spotlight within the last few years any more than on Hitler himself.

We must face the realit≠≠≠y that the individuals responsible for the recent incident on campus were simply looking for an excuse to act upon already chosen beliefs, penalize them for their actions and take the recent election results with a grain of salt. It is up to us to continue to inform and educate each other about acts of hatred and their repercussions before they move to a larger scale.

It is my hope that we can learn from this and that this episode unites us as a community. As is often said on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day: Never Again.

16 HUMOUR

EDITOR: MARK CRUZ | FEBRUARY 2, 2017 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

ICE-POCALYPSE

Student voices MEAL HALL GAVE FREE FOOD TO EVERYONE WHO LOST POWER DURING THE ICE STORM. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

“FREELOADERS. MY PARENTS PAID FOR MY MEAL PLAN FAIR AND SQUARE!” ELI SMITH First-year Campbell Hall Resident “I’M NO EXPERT, BUT JUST THINK OF THE MONEY THE UNIVERSITY WASTED ON THOSE STUDENTS. ENROLLMENT IS DOWN, THEY SIMPLY CANNOT AFFORD IT!

BY KEVIN MELANSON

TODD SMALL Commerce Major “I BET THEY MADE GREAT TIPS THAT NIGHT.” ROBIE YOUNG RA

BY BRENDAN CARROLL

BY MARISSA CRUZ

! calling all funny people !

WE ARE LOOKING FOR CONTRIBUTORS ILLUSTRATIONS, COMICS, DOODLES, WRITING EMAIL ARGOSY@MTA.CA WITH YOUR NAME AND CONTACT INFO FOR MORE DETAILS ABOUT HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED!

BY LIZ KENT