The Argosy, September 29, Vol. 146, Iss. 4

THE ARG OSY

NEWS

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

OPINIONS

CENTREFOLD

Accessibility on Mt. A campus (Pg. 2)

“A Red Girl’s Rage” opens at START (Pg. 7)

Profiled: Voice of the Mounties (Pg. 12)

Mt. A award named after racist eugenist (Pg. 13)

Artist Profile: Guzik (Pg. 8-9)

Leavin’ it all on the field since 1872

Mount Allison’s Independent Student Newspaper

Hailey

September 29, 2016 Vol. 146, Iss. 4

02 NEWS

EDITOR: CATHERINE TURNBULL & NAOMI GOLDBERG | SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

TRANSPHOBIA

Transphobia common on campus Former students discuss transphobic experiences at Mt. A

JILL MACINTYRE News Reporter Transgender students can often feel isolated, anxious and endangered during their time at Mount Allison, where the vast majority of students are cisgender and the concerns of trans students can often go unheard.

From questions of wanting to transition to wondering which bathroom is safe to use, university can be incredibly difficult for trans students who also deal with the issues that all students regularly face.

Mareya Julia Faline Salazar, a trans woman who attended Mt. A for the 2014-15 school year, said that her experiences here were mixed.

“I had just graduated from high school, moved out and wanted to transition. I struggled all year with trying to figure out how I wanted to tell my Jehovah’s Witness family that I was about to embark on a journey that would change me forever and that they probably couldn’t approve of,” Salazar said in a Facebook message to the Argosy. “This, of course, distracted me from my studies.”

“I knew I didn’t want to go home any time soon, but I had absolutely no drive to apply myself to my studies.

I didn’t really know at the time but looking back at it now I can say I was really depressed,” she said.

While Salazar was not “out” as a trans woman except to some friends and family during her time here, she did not feel as though there was institutional support for students to transition.

“I FEEL LIKE A COMMODITY HERE.” According to Salazar, if Mt. A could provide more accessibility “to the things trans people need, it would make a lot of students’ lives a lot easier.” She added that these changes need to happen outside of universities as well. “[Information on] medical supplies such as hormones, chest binders for trans men, access to literature on transitioning and some means of contacting a doctor who has knowledge of and experience with transgender patients” were some of the accessibility options that Salazar would have liked to see.

Jesse Macmillan, a Holland College student who attended Mt. A for the

2014-15 year, echoed sentiments about institutional inaccessibility for trans students. “[Transphobia is] actually why I left Mt. A,” he wrote in a Facebook message to Argosy staff.

Although he made inclusive friends, had a supportive nurse to administer testosterone shots and was given a single room in Hunton, his experiences were not all positive.

“The administration put me through hell. They wouldn’t change my name in the system to Jesse and only used my birth name, so I lived in fear every single day of people in my classes finding out and treating me differently because my deadname* was on class lists, Moodle, and my student ID.” While this was a significant obstacle at Mt. A, other schools he attended were more accommodating to a name change.

“I’ve also been at Ryerson, UPEI, and Holland College and I’ve never had a problem [getting my name changed] at any of those schools,” Macmillan said.

According to Mt. A’s sexual harassment advisor, Melody Petlock, the issue has since been remedied through adding a “Preferred Name” field to Connect.

Rogan Porter, a trans man who

TRANSGENDER STUDENTS FACE UNIQUE CHALLENGES ON CAMPUS. ANDREAS FOBES/ARGOSY

attended Mt. A from 2013-16 and transitioned during his time here, said he often felt tokenized. Since there are so few trans students in Sackville, he felt like the poster child for trans rights issues.

“We’re treated as a special category that isn’t really relevant, or that there

aren’t enough of us to justify actual change. I feel like a commodity here,” Porter said. *A deadname is a name assigned to someone at birth that does not fit their gender identity.

ACCESSIBILITY

Disabled students “scared to ask for help” Recent campus construction fails to account for accessibility

STUDENTS FIND CAMPUS INACCESSIBLE. RYAN MACRAE/ARGOSY

LEO GERTLER News Reporter For Mount Allison students living with disabilities, barriers to the educational community are sometimes embodied in the physical campus. From a lack of accessible infrastructure to the rain, wind and snow inherent in Sackville’s climate, students facing mobility challenges often struggle to get access to the services they need.

Rachael Hanakowski, a sociology student with cerebral palsy, has had to take time off from her education due to conditions on campus.

“I literally went away last winter semester, on purpose, specifically because it was hard to get around.

That just goes to show how much of a direct impact these things have

on students with mobility issues,” Hanakowski said.

“Parts of the geography that are difficult need to be smoothed out, like what was done by Avard Dixon a few years ago,” she said. “I would love to see more disabled students here at Mt. A, but I think many won’t come because it’s not very accessible.”

Despite these challenges, Hanakowski pointed out how positive her experience with university staff has been. “I think that everyone in the administration is trying their best to get things done, but I think they get tied up in red-tape a lot.

“The university has been great to me personally. But I think more needs to be done overall to make campus more accessible.”

Both Hanakowski and Olivia Auriat, the Accessibility Affairs

Coordinator for the students’ union and the president of the Association of Chronically Ill and Disabled Students (ACID), cited the need for more accessible infrastructure. They noted a lack of elevators, handrails and ramps on campus. Both, however, praised the services provided by the Meighen Centre.

“The Meighen Centre is top of the line. The testing accommodations we have [at Mt. A] are almost unparalleled at any other Canadian university, which extends to physical accessibility,” Auriat said. She raised concerns, however, that students are not aware of these services.

Auriat said that resident assistants (RAs) and orientation staff need to be knowledgeable about these resources and able to provide the information to students.

“RAs aren’t really taught how to work with disabled students, especially with learning disabilities, which are really common,” Auriat said. “If RAs don’t know what the Meighen Centre is, or what services the Wellness Centre provides, how can they help students in need of these services?”

“We could be doing a lot better,” she said.

Auriat and Hanakowski both had mixed feelings about new construction behind the breezeway connecting the Ralph Pickard Bell Library with the Crabtree building, where a new pathway was paved in place of a staircase.

“Maybe this is progress,” Auriat said. “There’s only so much construction that can happen when students are gone. Hopefully next

year the staircase comes down and they put in a ramp.”

Hanakowski added that it is good the university has reduced the number of stairs on campus, but that she wishes that the breezeway had been made totally accessible.

“The point is to live, regardless of your ability, to be able to live life to the fullest. It’s about fairness. It’s a terrible issue but it’s not insular.

Things that the university here lacks other schools have, and vice-versa,” she said.

“People that I’ve known who have had an injury, or whatever, are just scared, they’re scared to ask for help.

We have such a great community here, just be honest about your situation and you’ll be surprised and delighted at the response you’ll get.”

NEWS

THE ARGOSY | WWW.ARGOSY.CA

GOVERNANCE

03

This week in Students feel disconnected from university governance New Brunswick structure Participation barriers include turnover, lack of diversity

COMPILED BY CATHERINE TURNBULL & NAOMI GOLDBERG News Editors

SACKVILLE POLICE ISSUE COMMUNITY-WIDE WARNING The Sackville RCMP is investigating 10 thefts that have occurred since July, seven of which took place in the past two weeks. The thefts occurred primarily in the Fawcett Avenue and Lansdowne Street areas of Sackville. Mount Allison students are advised to lock their homes and car doors. The RCMP also suggests that any belongings left outside be secured and that exterior lights be left on overnight. The police believe that those responsible are checking for unlocked locations.

MARITIME STUDENTS TAKE LONGER TO COMPLETE FIRST DEGREE University students in the Maritimes are taking on average 4.6 years to complete their first degree, according to the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission. The Commission found that 16 per cent of students who switched schools or field of study completed their degree in four years. In contrast, 64 per cent of graduates who remained in the same school and field of study finished in four years. The New Brunswick Student Alliance (NBSA) believes this new information should lead to a change in New Brunswick’s timely completion benefit (TCB), a program that offers debt reduction to students who complete their degree in four years. The NBSA would like the TCB to be offered to students who finish in five years or less.

RECORD NUMBER OF MOOSE BAGGED IN ANNUAL HUNT SOME SAY IT’S NOT FAIR TO CHARACTERIZE ADMINISTRATION AS “NEOLIBERAL FAT CATS.” JEFF MANN/ARGOSY

NAOMI GOLDBERG News Editor Many students feel disconnected from their university governance structure, in particular from the Board of Regents (BoR).

According to DivestMTA member Alex Lepianka, the university structure is difficult to understand.

“To really understand how those different parts come together into this cohesive whole takes an incredible amount of thought and research,” he said.

BoR Student Representative Willa McCaffrey-Noviss said that the Board deals with the long-term wellbeing of the university.

“In that way, it’s not accessible to students, because students have the short term in mind – they are only here for a few years,” she said. Other members of the Board generally spend much more than four years at Mt. A. Comparing students to fruit flies and administrators and faculty to tortoises, classics professor and faculty BoR member Bruce Robertson also talked about the issue of turnover. He said that students want to see things done quickly, but that “quickly” means something different to the rest of the Board. Robertson pointed out that students serve one- or two-year terms on committees, while projects have a long timeline.

The primary channels through which students can interact with the Board are the MASU and the administration. Past MASU President Dylan Wooley-Berry said that this is a problem.

“We as students have a very

managed interaction with the Board, dually, through the administration and the students’ union,” he said. “[This] can and probably does hinder some students from interacting with the Board at one level or another.”

Students also said that certain subgroups of the student population were represented more than others.

Lepianka, who is also the vicepresident finance and operations for the MASU, noted that “in order to get to the point where you are applying for and receiving spots on committees, it requires a considerable amount of work learning how to fit in that role.” Some students cannot access these roles as easily as others.

“In committee meetings, I’m pretty assertive and I’m a male,” WooleyBerry said. “I’m very cognizant of the fact that I meet the idea of someone who is supposed to have knowledge and someone who is supposed to communicate that knowledge.”

Robertson said that Mt. A should seek to diversify its representation.

He noted, however, that this would involve moving away from having most board members be Mt. A alumni, the majority of whom are white.

There are currently no people of colour on the board.

While interviewees all said that there were barriers to student participation, they felt this was due to systemic factors such as the governance structure or a culture of neoliberalism rather than individual board members or administrators.

According to Robertson, “many of us have a deep malaise about capitalism. If the larger world’s financial system is corrupting, it’s

easy to project that antipathy onto the Board.” He added that just as students should not be characterized as video game-playing, apathetic millennials, it is “unfair to characterize the administration as neoliberal fat cats.”

McCaffrey-Noviss said that most regents have successful careers and diverse backgrounds in terms of their employment. “The reason they have students on the Board is to keep those perspectives updated,” she said.

Lepianka said students’ and the Board’s reasoning about what is good for the university come from a different place. While regents are motivated by ambition and pride for Mt. A, student activists are motivated by a “critical ambition.” “[Student activists] are more critical and considerate of adapting structures and dismantling them, whereas [regents] look to improve [the structure] from within,’’ he said.

Lepianka added that the university is a very efficient organization, which makes it difficult to talk about anything other than risk or return.

Students and faculty board members do not always have access to the entirety of board meetings.

According to McCaffrey-Noviss, the Board went in-camera at the meeting in May, which usually means that non-board members are asked to leave the room. However, all four student and faculty board members, including McCaffrey-Noviss, were at that time told to exit.

McCaffrey-Noviss requested a reason, but was not provided with one. “I haven’t been able to get a straight answer,” she said.

Overall moose populations in New Brunswick remain healthy after an annual five-day hunt produced a record number of killings. This year’s hunt ran from Sept. 20 to Sept. 24. 4,952 resident hunting licenses were issued and 3,728 moose were registered to have been killed by the end of the hunt, indicating an 80-per cent success rate for hunters. According to New Brunswick Ministry of Energy and Resource Development, over 61,000 applications were entered into the draw for hunting licences. Next year, the season will revert back to three days, as it was before it was extended to five days in 2014.

INDIGENOUS NATIONS ACROSS CANADA SIGN TREATY AGAINST OIL SANDS EXPANSION Over 50 First Nations at simultaneous gatherings in BC and Quebec signed a historic alliance against the expansion of the tar sands. The document, called the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, calls for action against the building of pipelines and other proposed infrastructure such as TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion, Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline and Enbridge Northern Gateway. The nations see such expansion as a threat to water, land and people.

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NEWS

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

CAMPUS BAR

Passports at The Pond

International students frustrated with ID rules at campus bar KAVANA WA KILELE News Reporter At Mount Allison’s campus pub, The Pond, international students are required to use their passports as a form of ID. First-year international student Franciso Sanchez said he worries about the consequences of drinking when he goes to The Pond with a passport. “I feel like I can’t drink when I go out because I might lose my passport. If I lose my passport it will be very difficult to get a new one,” he said.

The Pond requires Mt. A students

to show their student ID and a government-issued ID that includes their picture and date of birth.

Preventing underage drinking is a priority for The Pond’s staff.

“There are so many different types of international IDs that it is impossible for the staff to know which are legitimate and which are fake, even with adequate training,” said Andy Hebert, manager of The Pond. “In addition, the majority of international IDs are in a language staff cannot read.”

Hebert said that the consequences associated with underage student drinking could result in a large fine or

This Week at MASU council NADIYA SAFONOVA Politics Reporter ELECTION RESULTS

Following the Mount Allison Students’ Union (MASU)’s first round of fall elections, the first-year councillor for the 2016-17 academic year is Philip Carolin and the two new councillors-at-large are Emilie Gatchell and Kaye Klapman.

The MASU will hold another election to fill the three councillor positions that remain vacant. Candidates will be campaigning for this upcoming election from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5 and voting will be open from Oct. 6 to Oct. 7.

HOUSING FAIR MOVED TO OCT. 19

Signing leases in September and early October has long been the norm in Sackville. The MASU’s External Affairs committee has been advocating for a change in the bylaws so that lease signing occurs later in the school year. The town of Sackville has not approved such a change. To give students more time to decide on off-campus housing, the MASU has moved the housing fair to Oct. 19.

CHANGES TO RESIDENCE DRINKING POLICY

For many years, Mt. A residences have served alcohol to underage students at residence parties in the form of drinking tickets. This year, MASU’s Student Life committee changed its policy so that residences will no longer be able to sell drinking tickets to anyone under the age of 19. Students who are 18 or younger can still attend residence parties, but with non-drinking tickets only.

RESIDENCE LIFE CODE OF CONDUCT REVISED

Monetary fines for rule violations in residences have been replaced by a points system this year. Although there will be consequences for students who accumulate points, including don intervention, residence assistants will no longer be able to give out fines to students who break the rules.

REBOOTING CONDOM SERVICE

The MASU’s Student Life committee will be revamping the condom service.

They will begin this process by gathering feedback from students on how to improve its distribution services.

EXTENDED LIBRARY HOURS UPDATE

Funding for the Ralph Pickard Bell Library’s extended hours comes from the MASU, since Mt. A has refused to fund these hours so far. The MASU’s Academic Affairs committee has submitted another funding proposal to the university to take over financing the library’s extended hours.

temporary closure of The Pond. “By asking for a passport, we are getting a legitimate, identifiable piece of identification,” he said.

Herbert was not available for an interview this week. The information included in this article came from a written statement he provided.

Third-year international student Saurabh Kulkarni said that not every international student has Canadian ID because it is difficult to get an ID in New Brunswick while living in residence. Kulkarni, who is also the former president of the Multicultural Organization and Social Arena for International

Cooperation (MOSAIC), said Mt. A residences are not considered a proper residential address.

Kulkarni has been working on finding solutions to this problem. He suggested issuing separate IDs for international students upon request, making sure The Pond accepts foreign IDs and asking for help from the MASU, which represents the entire student body.

International students can apply for a photo ID card from Service New Brunswick. This card is valid for four years and is accepted at The Pond. The photo ID is available to residents of New Brunswick for use

as identification when they do not hold a valid driver’s licence.

In order to acquire the photo ID, an applicant has to present one other form of ID, which can be a study permit, work permit or foreign passport. These documents must contain the applicant’s full legal name and date of birth. Only original documents or copies certified by the issuing agency are accepted.

Applicants also need at least two documents to prove their New Brunswick residency, which can be difficult for international students.

The ID card costs $48.

SRRC

Community coalition welcomes refugees to town Successful fundraising by Sackville group sponsors families CATHERINE TURNBULL News Editor In July, Sackville welcomed its first sponsored refugee family to the community, thanks to the Sackville Refugee Response Coalition (SRRC). The SRRC was formed last fall in response to the refugee crisis in Syria, and by January, the coalition had raised over $100,000. For their efforts, members of the SRRC were named Sackville Citizens of the Year in an announcement at last week’s Fall Fair.

After a public meeting last September, a steering committee was formed to spearhead the initiative.

John Perkin, Mount Allison’s chaplain, chairs the Coalition.

Perkin said the success of the Coalition has to do with the nature of the Sackville community. “I’m really humbled to be part of this,” he said.

“We’ve had round figures of around 150 volunteers in our database, but that doesn’t even include everyone who’s helped out.”

Those involved range from students, to university administrators and staff, to community groups and individual citizens. “It has been a real cooperative venture from a whole variety of sources,” he said.

Various subcommittees were struck, with jurisdictions such as finances, fundraising and communications, and drew on strengths from many community members.

Second-year student Keith Nicholson sits on the steering committee. His experience with the SRRC was one of his first impressions of the community in Sackville. Nicholson said the support the Coalition received, both monetarily and volunteer-wise, was overwhelming. “It is such a great feeling to come to a community that is so welcoming and has so much support,” Nicholson said.

The first sponsored family –

DIVERSE GROUP OF SACKVILLE COMMUNITY MEMBERS. SRRC/SUBMITTED Nezar Hussein, Aisha Ibrahim, and their infant son Kassem – arrived in Sackville at the end of July from Lebanon, where they had taken refuge after fleeing the Syrian civil war.

Perkin said the family is settling in very well, are enthusiastic to learn English and are being embraced by the community. “It’s been a joy to watch that process,” Perkin said.

“Their baby is Sackville’s baby in many ways.”

The family has been in Sackville for two months and the Coalition has only encountered minor issues while settling them in, Perkin said.

“Compared to some other towns, we seem to have had far fewer issues or difficulties.” The SRRC has been a resource for other groups hoping to sponsor refugees.

Colin Robertson, president of the Rotaract Club at Mt. A, said the scale, not the efforts, of the fundraising success surprised him.

“That’s a lot of money for a town that has as many economic challenges as Sackville does,” Robertson said.

Partnering with church organizations in town allowed the Coalition to speed up the process of sponsorship, said Perkin. This was facilitated by a specific sponsorship agreement with the government, which churches already possess.

Bill Evans, a Sackville town councillor who also sat on the SRRC steering committee, said he was impressed by how diverse yet cohesive the Coalition was.

“These people were all trying to do some good for other people,” Evans said. “[The organization] was a wonderful reflection of a good community, but was also the creation of a new community.”

On Monday, the SRRC announced that the second family, a couple from Syria who have been taking refuge in Turkey, will arrive next week. The SRRC is also waiting to hear news of the Congolese family they are sponsoring. The family was supposed to arrive this summer.

Perkin said awareness campaigns represent another important effort by the Coalition. “We all know the Syrian crisis – we may not know the ins and outs of that – but probably very few people know of the Congolese crisis at all.”

As for the Coalition’s future, nothing is set in stone.

“There is an organizational framework that has been laid for the future,” said Robertson. “We now have an understanding of our potential.”

EDITORS: MALLORY BURNSIDE-HOLMES & MIRELLE NAUD SEPTEMBER 29 2016 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

COMMUNITY

ARTS & CULTURE 05

Socially responsible fashion line launches out of Sackville

Jeska Grue brings together equity and design in fashion project

GRUE SEWING IN HER HOME STUDIO. RYAN MACRAE/ARGOSY

MALLORY BURNSIDE-HOLMES Arts and Culture Editor In the cozy light of her home studio, Jeska Grue has been hard at work handcrafting her first clothing line. “Small, considerate [and] contemplative” are a few words Grue used to describe the project that draws inspiration from her education, life experiences and community.

Grue is currently working under a provincial grant available to unemployed entrepreneurs with the skills and aspiration to achieve selfemployment.

“I have always been interested in fashion and social justice,” Grue said.

“From early on…I really liked the idea of doing exactly what I’m doing right now.”

Having completed degrees in equity and costume studies, Grue has combined both subjects in her process and product.

“There are quite a few things I have been intentional about through the whole process,” Grue said. “I’m not

paying attention to seasons…it forces me to look at design as something that people will like five years from now, [even] 10 years from now.”

A self-proclaimed “avid thriftshopper,” Grue finds value in garments that transcend time and escape fashion trends that perpetuate consumerism.

“What really drew me to costume studies was the desire to be selfsufficient…[and the idea] that I could cut myself off from the consumer loop,” she said.

Grue’s intentions extend to the environmentally and labourconscious materials she works with.

However, “due to textile certification [and] label making, it’s much easier to ensure textiles are sustainably produced than strict labour codes [are followed]. Fair-trade [labelling] is rare to nonexistent in textiles right now,” she said.

Many of her materials are sourced from Canadian companies. The Indian company from which she orders provides “clear information on

environmental [impact] and labour in their production,” Grue said. Local natural dyes, such as goldenrod, she forages herself – a process you can sometimes watch in Grue’s daily updated Instagram story.

Instagram has played an important for Grue in her ongoing project.

“Over the past five years, there have been a lot of other [people], primarily women, doing a similar thing [as me] across the United States, Canada [and] Australia. Because of Instagram you can see what they’re doing and it almost becomes a supportive network of women with small companies,” she said.

Grue has found support, inspiration and opportunity for collaboration in Sackville. The industrial seamstress took to Facebook when brainstorming a label design. She is also creating a pattern using old train anchors gathered from the Sackville railroad track.

When you purchase a garment from

Grue, it comes with a print by local artist Rachel Thornton.

“Where I’m from is always implied in what I’m doing. Even the look book and photos on the website are shot in regional settings around town,” Grue said. “I wouldn’t be doing this without the community that I have here. If I were in a different community, [my line] would look different because I’d be influenced by that community.”

Grue was raised in rural Nova Scotia, where a factory producing handmade wooden chairs employed many of the town’s people. When the factory burnt down and was unable to be rebuilt due to lack of governmental support, “80 people lost their jobs, which was everybody, including my own family,” Grue said.

On her website (jeskagrue.ca) Grue wrote, “this project draws on what was, what wasn’t able to continue and the dismay that lingered within a community during [my] childhood.”

Grue plans on adding to her

collection while remaining selfsufficient.

“I would like to keep selfmanufacturing. I like the idea of the return of a [handcraft] industry in Atlantic Canada, and Canada in general.”

To support Grue’s communitybased project, visit jeskagrue.ca and enter the promotional code “Argosy” for 20 per cent off your purchase this week.

FEATURED WRITER A space to showcase original writing anchorage #6 can we stay here forever and wear the softwood of the banister until our palms know every line and desire something new like your exacting coffee table in California and my white sheets in Sweden that will pull us farther away than our dreams ever could conceive but for now let’s enjoy the creak in the floorboards and the leak in the shower we can’t stay here forever you know

by Kennedy Lundberg

GRUE TESTING A GARMENT ON HER TRUSTY MANNEQUIN. RYAN MACRAE/ARGOSY

SACKVILLE PLAYLIST

Music at Mt. A’s centennial celebration presents: SAT. OCT. 15

“The Life and Music of Mary Elsinore Tait” (7:30 p.m.) lecture and piano recital Brunton Auditorium

SUN. OCT. 16 RENOWNED CANADIAN TROMBONE QUINTET. ITROMBONI/SUBMITTED

“History of Music at Mt. A” (3 p.m.) lecture and vocal performance Brunton Auditorium

FRI. SEPT. 30

WED. OCT. 12

TICKETS

WED. OCT. 5

FRI. OCT. 14

iTromboni (7:30 p.m.)

Brunton Auditorium $28/$15 online or at door

PianoFusion (4 p.m.) faculty and guest recital Brunton Auditorium

WED. OCT. 12

Pops Concert (10:30 a.m./8 p.m.) symphonic band and jazz ensemble Convocation Hall

Birds of a Feather (4 p.m.) flute and piano Brunton Auditorium

Vox Aeris Trio (12:30 p.m.) alumni recital Brunton Auditorium Tesla Quartet and Mt. A faculty (7:30 p.m.) string quartet Brunton Auditorium

(not applicable to iTromboni) free Mt. A student admission at all events with card $10 adult $5 student/senior $25 family

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ARTS & CULTURE

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

FINE ARTS

“Make. Work.” makes memories Fine arts faculty puts on bi-annual show at the Owens

12 artists present individual works in a group context without an overarching theme. However, the playful nature of many of the artworks help generate, as Kuiper suggests, a thematic overtone of inquisitive exploration.

For example, Leah Garnett’s work, titled “This,” whimsically links with Adriana Kuiper’s piece titled “That.”

Paul Griffin and Erik Edson’s pieces both appropriate and manipulate the functionality of sporting equipment, demonstrating their shared interest in examining unconventional uses of materials and their connotations.

Thaddeus Holownia’s photograph, “Classical Texting,” is the type of work that must be mentioned but not described, since that would spoil the fun for you.

The faculty exhibition serves as an important entrance point for new students and those unfamiliar with faculty work to see the artistic creations of their professors.The exhibition also offers works-inprogress a risk-free space to be presented in.

“I think a lot of times [the faculty] shows things that they haven’t shown

in Sackville,” said Edson, who is a printmaking professor and the exhibition’s coordinator. “One of the fun things about [the exhibition] is people put in things that they are in the process of making...In some ways it’s more intimate because they show things they wouldn’t normally show or wouldn’t show in that state.”

An essential and excellent exhibition for people interested in learning about the faculty’s projects, “Make. Work.” is on view at the Owens until Oct. 26.

ATTENDEE CONTEMPLATES LEAH GARNETT’S MULTI-MEDIA WORK. SAVANNAH MILEEN HARRIS/THE ARGOSY

EVAN FURNESS Contributor The faculty exhibition I attended as a first-year student two years ago stands out as an important moment toward me “getting” contemporary art. This year, “Make. Work.” again presents a diverse range of playful and experimental artwork.

Sculpture and drawing professor Adriana Kuiper recycled remnants from a project created with fellow Sackville artist Ryan Suter during their artist’s residency in the Magdalen Islands. For the original piece, patterned quilts referencing the island’s formations were installed

in a mobile recording booth. Along with sound blankets and found materials, these quilts soundproofed the installation. Within the space, the artists recorded locals telling stories of isolation and loss.

At the faculty exhibition, Kuiper and Suter’s re-purposed materials serve as a nest for a radio. As the viewer walks around observing the artwork, the radio fades back and forth between static and voices. “It’s a place to play,” Kuiper said, highlighting the interactive nature that characterizes the faculty exhibition.

Shows with many independent artists can easily lack thematic cohesion. At the faculty exhibition,

STUDENTS GET UP-CLOSE WITH PAUL GRIFFIN’S TEXTUAL SCULPTURE. SAVANNAH MILEEN HARRIS/THE ARGOSY

Fine arts’ nude models expose all

Models discuss their experiences with nakedness, body image and anonymity in a small town

MARISSA CRUZ Arts and Culture Reporter For many, standing naked in front of a group of strangers would be a nightmare. But for some students, bearing it all can be liberating.

Every year, Mount Allison’s fine arts department hires students as nude models for its drawing and painting classes. Although pay surpasses minimum wage – at $20/ hour with sessions ranging from one to three hours – the models described incentives beyond financial compensation.

Mt. A student Teressa Carriere has been nude modelling for a few years for fine arts classes and independent projects. “I have always been comfortable being nude. It was a bonus I was getting paid,” Carriere said, whose first experience was being photographed in the middle of the day by the train tracks.

Completely comfortable with her decision to pose nude, Carriere posted a photo of herself from the train tracks on Facebook. The photo received a slew of reactions, ranging from encouragement to horror, until it was taken down by Facebook – an outcome she had expected.

Fourth-year student Connor Wheaton said, “I heard people say [posing nude] builds selfconfidence…I wanted to see if they were lying.” Mainly interested in the

monetary gain, Wheaton found the job’s application process challenging due to the limited amount of advertisement. Luckily, he had friends in the fine arts department, so he was able to get the correct forms and contacts to begin nude modelling. “It needs to be publicized better,” he said.

Fourth-year fine arts student Izzy Francolini said they were curious about what it would be like to be on the other side of the artist’s easel.

“I was at a point in my life where I really wanted to be comfortable with putting myself out there. I am very much a person who thinks nudity isn’t that big of a deal, so it was time to walk the talk.”

Francolini admitted to feeling nervous before disrobing, but as an artist who had previously worked with nude models, they understood the art studio as a place of mutual respect. “The artists are the sweetest people. Is me being nude in front of people in my class going to make things weird? No. [I] may as well just be a chair.”

When modelling, Francolini forgets their physical appearance. “I am not even thinking about my body.

[I] think about [my] body [in terms of] lines and angles.”

Sackville is a small university town, and with that comes a lack of anonymity on campus. “It’s hard to stay under the radar,” said Wheaton.

“It doesn’t give you a chance to be anonymous. I see people who have been in the class and I don’t know them, but I know they have seen me naked.”

Posing nude has empowered some of the models. “Everyone has their own body issues, and mine relate to self-harm,” Carriere said. “I found that modelling in its own way was a…deterrent [from self-harming]. I can’t cut [when] I am modelling in two weeks. In that way it has helped me. That is a positive thing.”

“I think that there is still that fear of being judged for your experience.

No one is judging you for your physical appearance, [but] there were still those nerves because I assumed people would be judging me, even though I knew that wasn’t what I was there for.”

Wheaton was more skeptical about modelling as a way to build selfesteem. “I don’t want to generalize. I don’t want to say that this is a way to get in contact with body image. I don’t know if that is true,” he said.

“Life modelling improves your own conception of body image. You are up there for two to three hours bearing yourself [to become] immortalized on canvas. Once you get past the fact [that] you are naked...you are left with your own thoughts.”

All models stressed that people should give nude modelling a try, regardless of Sackville’s size.

MOUNT ALLISON STUDENTS POSE NUDE FOR STUDENTS AND COMMUNITY CLASSES. IZZY FRANCOLINI/THE ARGOSY

ARTS & CULTURE

THE ARGOSY | WWW.ARGOSY.CA

INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

07

“A Red Girl’s Rage” on politcal injustices Hassencahl challenges culturally insensitive government solutions through art

EMMA HASSENCAHL PARTICIPATES IN THE RED DRESS CAMPAIN FOR MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN. SAVANNAH MILEEN HARRIS/THE ARGOSY

CHELSEA DOHERTY Arts and Culture Reporter Emma Hassencahl, a Maliseet artist and fourth-year fine arts student, responds to the unresolved political injustices and systemic oppression of Indigenous people in her exhibition, “A Red Girl’s Rage.” The exhibition, which opened on Sept. 23 at START Gallery, includes topics such as the Tobique First Nations land claim, oppressive stigmatization and missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Hassencahl’s exhibition opened with a traditional smudging ceremony performed by Dorchester Mayor J.J. Bear. “Since the work is politically charged and people are going to take their interpretations whichever way they would like, the smudge not only welcomes people into our culture, but it [also] brings [them] a calming energy,” Hassencahl said.

Consistently political in her art, Hassencahl derives inspiration from topics she is currently learning about.

For her latest exhibition she drew inspiration from Cherokee writer Thomas King’s novel The Inconvenient Indian and the documentary A Red Girl’s Reasoning by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, which inspired the exhibition’s title. “As long as I’m reading, I’m making work,” Hassencahl said.

Wearing a red dress, Hassencahl explained the significance of the colour red in her exhibition. “[Red is] a sacred colour to Indigenous people.

We buried our dead with red ochre to preserve the bodies. It’s the colour we

keep our medicine in,” she said.

Designed to compensate the Tobique First Nation for stolen land, the Canadian government’s $39-million settlement was accepted last week in a vote by members of the community. The Tobique land claim was one of the oldest land claims in the Maritimes.

Responding to the outcome of the vote, Hassencahl said, “A lot of people’s decisions are influenced by greed and that is never really something I believe in. First Nations people generally don’t believe that you can sell land [since] it is not something you can own. I was

disappointed, but not surprised with the way the vote went.”

In the centre of the gallery stood a piece titled “Medicine Wheel,” in which beer bottles, needles and representations of cocaine and marijuana rest on different colours of the wheel.

The work’s description read, “‘If you can pick up a bottle or a drug to forget something traumatic in your life, you’re gonna do it’ - Someone I Love.”

Addressing the presence of drugs in “Medicine Wheel,” Hassencahl said, “People are not bad people because they do drugs. It’s a decision.

I had someone explain it to me that way…I don’t understand first-hand what it’s like for someone with an addiction problem. For some people, it’s medicine.”

A quote by Brianna Jonnie, a Winnipeg teennager who wrote to police and government officials about missing and murdered Indigenous women in 2015, hung at the back of the gallery in large letters: “And if I do go missing and my body is found, please tell my mom you are sorry. Tell her I ask to be buried in my red dress, for I will have become just another native statistic.”

On the day of Hassencahl’s

HASSENCAHLS “MEDICINE WHEEL” FEATURES DRUGS AND EMPTY BEER BOTTLES. SAVANNAH MILEEN HARRIS/THE ARGOSY

opening, Inuk artist Annie Pootoogook was found dead in the Rideau River in Ottawa. Hassencahl only found out after her exhibition.

Pootoogook’s death, currently not being investigated as homicide, speaks to the discriminatory handling of Indigenous murder cases.

“It makes me angry because these cases are not being treated fairly. They make it seem like they are…No one wants to call it assimilation either, or colonization…it is also not through physical killing or relocation anymore, it’s through legislation. They can still wipe us out through the law and through the Indian Act because we are still bound to it,” Hassencahl said.

Hassencahl’s politically charged art aims to heal her community and educate the public about Indigenous issues. “I understand that my community, as a whole, is sick. I try to get people to understand or defuse the situation,” she said. “Even though I lost the [land claim] vote and was angry...I am a firm believer that if you’re yelling, people won’t pay attention to you.”

Art provides Hassencahl with the tools to effectively express her outrage towards the political injustices her community faces.

“A lot of my work comes from anger. Growing up, my mom used to say that nothing good comes from anger, but I would disagree. I think a lot of good things come from anger.

A lot of movements are rooted in anger.”

You can view “A Red Girl’s Rage” until Oct. 4 at the START Gallery.

08

ARTIST PROFILE HAILEY GUZIK Fourth year Fine Arts student, Hailey Guzik, explores her individual perceptions of the surrounding Sackville landscape in her recent series of paintings Here Not Anywhere.

Equipped with a self-designed bicycle trailer, which included a pop-up easel and panel carrier, she completed eleven paintings in the plein air painting tradition.

In addition to exploring her own subjectivity in the landscape, Guzik’s work also reflects on the history of the representation of landscape in art.

An exhibition of Guzik’s series Here Not Anywhere will be displayed at Thunder and Lightning for two weeks starting Friday. Join the artist for an opening reception Friday September 30, 2016 at 7:30pm.

ABOVE: PORTABLE BICYCLE EASEL RIGHT: THE DYKES. 2016. OIL ON CANVAS. 14.5 X 17 INCHES. HAILEY GUZIK / ARGOSY

10

ARTS & CULTURE

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

MUSIC

Sackville festival revives early Christian music

Performance and lecture series explore modern renderings of Song of Songs

Performing Arts Series launches Friday Renowned Canadian instrumentalist group promises engaging show

THOMAS CARDOSO-GRANT Contributor

MARGARET LITTLE AND SUSIE NAPPER, VIOLAS DA GAMBAS, AND SOPRANO ANDRÉANNE PAQUIN GRACIOUSLY ACCEPT APPLAUSE. SAMUEL THOMSON/CONTRIBUTOR

CORINNA PAUMIER Arts and Culture Reporter & EMMA SOLDAAT Contributor Faint and angelic sounds cut across Mount Allison’s habitual drone of hip hop and drubbing house music last weekend. The sweet tones emerged from the Sackville Festival of Early Music, a performance and lecture series about Song of Songs.

Song of Songs is a controversial religious text containing a series of romantic and sometimes-erotic poems. Laden with sensory detail, the poems describe a couple’s sexually intimate relationship. Over the years, Song of Songs has been interpreted as a religious treatise, literary text and musical piece. It has even been analyzed through feminist and queer lenses.

Fiona Black, a professor of religious studies at Mt. A, opened the festival with a humorous and accessible lecture on the various contexts and interpretations of Song of Songs. She examined modern renderings by both the Pixies and the New York Polyphony, an all-male vocal group that performs Renaissance-style madrigals (vocal songs without instrumental accompaniment).

Black also presented visual interpretations of Song of Songs by artists Marc Chagall and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and medieval illustrations of the text from the Winchester Bible. She concluded with feminist and queer readings of the text, and an overview of how the piece has been received historically.

On Friday the New York Polyphony, Black and Andrew Wilson, a professor from Mt. A’s religious studies department, hosted

a panel discussion in the Chapel that focused on textual understandings of Song of Songs and the Polyphony’s style of blurring the line between modern and ancient sound.

Obvious differences emerged between the musicians, who seek to evoke emotion, and the scholars, who strive to uncover meaning in text. The Polyphony cheekily said, “for us as interpreters, frankly, most of the time we’re just worried about singing the correct notes and rhythms.”

Responding to a question on how musicians can best ensure proper representation of old texts, the musical group said, “we have this expression to not over-ice the cake.

We have to toe a line with composer intents, in being stylistic, in being respectful...We try to make the musical gesture as passionate and powerful as possible, and [at] the same time, we don’t want to inject something into the music that is not actually there.”

The Polyphony followed the panel discussion with a concert later that night. The performance featured poems from Song of Songs and antiphons praising the Virgin Mary, a figure often featured in allegorical interpretations of Song of Songs.

The quartet’s engaging and intimate performance bridged the 600-year gap between today and the time the works were composed.

Presenting the livelier side of early music, Ensemble Constantinople took over Brunton Auditorium Saturday night, transforming it from a concert hall to a Renaissance theatre. While the Polyphony had presented the sacred and serious works of the Renaissance, Ensemble Constantinople performed the lighthearted music of the era: dance tunes, love songs and improvisations.

Ensemble Constantinople performed music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, played on period instruments.

Acadian soprano Suzie Leblanc, who accompanied the ensemble, sang a variety of dance and love songs by Monteverdi, Barbara Strozzi and more. Full of sighing descents and haunting plunges to the low register, Leblanc’s expressive and tragic

performance of L’Eraclito amoroso (the love of Heraclitus) easily stood out as the evening’s highlight.

The festival’s five-day duration managed to bring out admirers across eastern Canada. The collaboration between the town and the Mt. A community was no doubt a success in showing that early music has a place in modern society.

RENAISSANCE MAN BOWS VIOL, CROWD GOES WILD. ANDREAS FOBES/THE ARGOSY

MICHAEL ANGERS ON THEORBO (LEFT) AND KIYA TABASSIAN ON SETAR (RIGHT) ACCOMPANY SOPRANO SUZIE LEBLANC. SAMUEL THOMSON/CONTRIBUTOR

The centennial anniversary of Mount Allison’s music program gives us much to celebrate, including a remarkable Performing Arts Series.

Each year, the series connects the small town of Sackville with the greater Canadian music scene and some of Canada’s most distinct and prominent artists.

Beginning its 2016-17 season this Friday, Sept. 30, the series promises to delight with one of Canada’s most versatile and charming chamber groups, iTromboni. Composed of renowned instrumentalists from across the country, the trombone quintet is also known as “Team Canada of Trombones.”

Known for performing a variety of genres, including classical, jazz, pop and folk, iTromboni creates programs that satisfy everyone’s tastes. This Friday, Passmore’s arrangement of From Russia with Love promises to engage film-lovers while Brahms’s “Hungarian Dance no. 5” will entice romantics. If you’re already in the Christmas spirit, Poirier’s arrangement of “O Magnum Mysterium” will have your lights up before October begins.

Friday night’s program also includes Verhelst’s “A Song for Japan,” which was written as a charity project following Japan’s 2011 tsunami. For this piece, Mt. A’s brass students, community members and local professionals will join the Canadian quintet.

In addition to iTromboni, Canadian concert violinist James Ehnes and non-profit organization Les Jeunesses Musicales will also be gracing the Brunton stage this school year. The Huu Bac Quintet – led by Bac, who emigrated from Vietnam to Montreal at the age of two – and producer, composer and banjoist Jayme Stone are also on this season’s lineup.

New student pricing will make this season’s concerts more accessible.

For a limited time, students can purchase tickets for nearly half-price, at $15 per ticket. Tickets are available at mta.ca/performingarts.

EDITOR: DAVID TAPLIN | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

COMMUNITY

SPORTS & HEALTH 11

Homecoming: more than a football game Weekend events bring community together in Sackville

Homecoming is an event for everyone, from first-year Mounties to returning graduates, locals to visitors, young kids to football parents, and partiers to introverts. The entire town of Sackville comes together, creating a stronger sense of both Mountie and community pride.

First-year student Azeem Munawar said the weekend is about bringing the whole school together and “a lot of yelling, screaming [and] cheering.”

This year’s homecoming events will showcase a wide variety of activities.

Sports such as rugby, soccer and football will be played throughout the weekend.

Sackville’s renowned Farmers’ Market, where you can pick up some tasty snacks for the game, will be as active and popular as ever.

A performing arts series at Brunton Hall tomorrow evening will present iTromboni, “one of Canada’s foremost brass ensembles,” which is sure to be a hit. The Owen’s Art

JEFF MANN/ARGOSY

HAMZA MUNAWAR Sports Reporter

so much more than just football and drinking (from sunrise to sunset, for some). Homecoming shows students, residents and visitors the value of a small-town community because it includes both the university and the town, while accommodating visitors.

For a university town like Sackville, homecoming is one of the biggest events of the year—every year.

Students tend to forget that it is about

Gallery will announce the installation of the mural Athletes by Mt. A alum Alex Colville.

Grab a bite to eat at Joe and the Crow. Enjoy a delicious milkshake from Mel’s. If you’re feeling some extra school pride, pick up some fan-wear at the bookstore. Say “hi” to Amanda, an employee at the Cackling Goose Market, and try a “gingerbread running back cookie” to support our Mounties.

Mt. A’s women’s and men’s soccer teams will take on UPEI Friday night under the lights of Alumni Field, in what could be a victorious match for both teams.

While Alumni Field will host soccer, Park Street field will see the women’s rugby team look to continue their strong start to the season against DAL-AC. Saturday will bring Acadia’s football team to town. The Mounties will attempt to reclaim their homecoming after losing last year to the Sherbrooke Vert et Or.

This weekend, Sackville will be bustling with the annual homecoming celebrations. Things will come to a standstill and streets will empty on game day, when everyone will gather at Alumni Field not only to cheer on their Mounties, but to celebrate their community as well.

Everyone in town can get involved.

Just like you, I’ll be taking advantage of what Sackville has to offer. Take the time to introduce yourself to the person next to you and learn what has brought them to this special community.

So come on out, have a beer, grab some garlic fingers from Jack’s, and enjoy.

CORRECTION

A photo last week accompanying the article “Perserverance and progress as young Mounties aim for results” should have been attributed to Samuel Thomson.

HEALTH

Tossing out soft-serve for salad A student guide to eating well on and off campus RILEY HIGDON Health Contributor

The National Association of Registered Dietitians and Health Professionals of Canada has consistently supported Canada’s Food Guide.

By following the recommended guidelines implemented by this system, you will receive the most important vitamins and nutrients as well as the appropriate number of servings of each food group.

Is it possible to get this type of nutrition as an on-campus student with a meal plan at Jennings? After surveying five first-year students, the general consensus was that the menu provided at Jenning’s dining hall can be a “hit or miss.”

While it poses a challenge at times, there are solutions to finding more nutritious options that the prepared meals. The salad and sandwich bars offer healthy alternatives. Veggies and protein are always available during lunch and supper at these

While transitioning to university life, students have a tendency to make sacrifices to their health in order to balance the different aspects of being a student. With less sleep, higher stress levels and greater alcohol consumption, students’ overall wellness can begin to slip.

Eating nutritious food is one of the most important routines to follow in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Not only is eating properly great for your body, it has significant, positive effects on your well-being and brain function. Nutrition is important for students, who need to maintain a state of alertness and optimal cognitive functioning.

With so many diets constantly endorsed by various promoters, it can be easy to lose sight of what is truly “healthy eating.”

locations. Make your own snacks of hummus and veggie sticks, or add beans, chickpeas and feta cheese to salads for a more filling meal.

The bread station, for sandwiches or toast, is a great way to get your daily portion of whole grains. Yogurt is also served daily, which provides an excellent source of calcium and can serve as a delicious alternative to ice cream for dessert.

In addition, many of the ingredients used at Jennings are locally sourced.

Supporting regional food products by purchasing items from markets, farms or local businesses is optimal.

Products from these venues are fresher and more natural, without the additional chemicals and preservatives that often accompany shipped items.

As for improvements to meal hall services, several students stated that the nutritional quality could be improved significantly if the fresh

NURTITION TOUGH FOR SOME . CHRIS DONOVAN/ARGOSY ARCHIVES fruit bar were available more than twice per week.

Temptations abound in meal hall, from chicken burgers and french fries to Tish Delish and soft serve. While these treats are fine in moderation, eating empty calories can be a trap

that many students fall into when so much is already on their plate.

Overall, healthy eating on campus is all about individual choices.

Creativity is the best way to overcome the challenge of eating well at meal hall.

THE SCOREBOARD

WOMEN’S SOCCER MTA (A) 0 - StFX (H) 2 MTA (A) 0 - CAPE BRETON (H) 3

AUS

Cape Breton Memorial Acadia StFX UPEI Moncton UNB Dalhousie Mount Allison Saint Mary’s

GP 6 6 5 6 6 6 5 6 6 4

W 6 5 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 0

L 0 1 0 1 4 4 2 4 5 4

T 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 1 0 0

PTS 18 15 13 11 6 6 5 4 3 0

MEN’S SOCCER

WOMEN’S RUGBY

LACROSSE

MTA (A) 0 - StFX (H) 8 MTA (A) 0 - CAPE BRETON (H) 4

MTA (A) 51 - UKC (H) 15

MTA (A) 4 - DALHOUSIE (H) 13 SAINT MARY’S (A) 12 - MTA (H) 5

AUS

StFX Cape Breton Acadia Dalhousie UNB Memorial Moncton UPEI Saint Mary’s Mount Allison

GP 6 6 5 6 5 6 6 6 4 6

W 4 4 4 3 2 1 1 1 0 0

L 0 1 1 0 0 3 4 4 2 5

T

2 1 0 3 3 2 1 1 2 1

PTS 14 13 12 12 9 5 4 4 2 1

MEN’S RUBGY UNB B TEAM (A) 5 - MTA (H) 17

FOOTBALL LAVAL (A) 49 - MTA (H) 4

AUS

StFX Saint Mary’s Acadia Mount Allison

GP 3 3 3 3

W 2 1 1 0

L 1 2 2 3

PTS 4 2 2 0

12

SPORTS & HEALTH

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

COMMUNITY

The man behind the mic

Sitting down with Steve Ridlington, ‘the Voice of the Mounties’

DAVID TAPLIN Sports Editor Since 1974, residents from Park Street to Lansdowne and all the way up to Union have become familiar with the sound of Steve Ridlington’s booming voice––or, as it is better known, ‘the Voice of the Mounties.’

Ridlington is much more than a football broadcaster. A father, husband and former Parks Canada employee, he manages webcasts for Mount Allison athletics, broadcasts for the soccer and women’s hockey and coordinates community work for student athletes.

For Ridlington, athletics are integral to the Mt. A community.

“Call it tradition, call it spirit building, call it the essence of what being part of a university community is all about,” he said.

Ridlington sees projects funded by alumni such as the new field as confirmation of the importance of Mt. A athletics.

“Alumni stepped forward [for the field], spearheaded by past athletes,” he said. “That’s a tacit, hands-on expression of what their Mount Allison athletic experience meant to them in their younger days and what it means to them now.”

When I sat down with Ridlington before and after Saturday’s game against Laval, his passion for Mt. A

and collegiate sports was palpable. So was his character.

At the outset of our interview, we discussed the acoustics of broadcasting at Alumni Field.

Ridlington said he aims to push his voice farther into the depths of Sackville.

“We get some great echoes off of the metallic grandstand,” he said.

Although you really have nothing to fear, as Ridlington added, “humanity is a great sound absorber,” referring to the fans in the bleachers, I think.

His quick wit was on display throughout our interview. ‘The Voice,’ as he is known to some alumni, sported a wry smile throughout as he reminisced about his 43-year career.

In 1974, the head coach of the Mounties men’s hockey team asked Ridlington to fill in for the game announcer who was out with the flu. Looking back at his beginning, Ridlington said, “43 years later…I guess I [just] stepped in.” Ridlington graduated the next year but never strayed far from Mt. A. In addition to being the voice of the Mounties, Ridlington also held a full-time job.

Now retired, he worked for Parks Canada and for Canadian Wildlife Service in a field that he described as “pretty much as far away from athletics as you could get.” Although his career often took him to St. John

and Halifax, he would always make the trip back to Sackville for game days.

When asked why he has stayed for so long, Ridlington said, “they’re tremendous sports to watch for fans of the game. It’s probably the highest level of amateur sports folks will see.” He quickly added, “For the past 32 years I have had a patient and loving spouse who has allowed me the privilege.

It would not be appropriate for me not to say that.”

Later on, with a Coors in hand (after the game of course), Ridlington expanded on his passion for college sports.

“I draw the greatest satisfaction by

“BY EARLY OCTOBER EVERY YEAR, THE GRASS FIELD WAS A COMPLETE SWAMP.” bringing attention to these folks,” he said. “Men and women, they invest the time as student athletes. I have great admiration, it’s a commitment to study, to practise, to compete and to sustain an average.”

Throughout the interview, I was lucky enough to have him share some of his favourite stories from over the

years.

One such story was about a wide receiver in the late ‘70s who he said “caught a pass, ran for a touchdown and felt in such a celebratory mood that he continued running out of the stadium, all the way to the liquor store.”

He told another about a student who laced

u p his boots for the men’s soccer team in the morning, punted for the football team in the afternoon and hit the ice in an exhibition game for the men’s hockey team that same evening.

Ridlington described a fad that took place after a 1970s ban on glass bottles in the stands, where students would inject vodka into oranges. As he put it, “there seemed to be a considerable increase [in the] consumption of citrus in the stands.”

When asked about his adopted home of Sackville, Ridlington, originally from Quebec City, said, “It’s a beautiful small town yet it has a cosmopolitan outlook because of the school’s presence.” He referenced the lecture series, the theatrical performances and the music.

“How many communities of 5,500 souls in this country have a 1,500-seat concert hall?” he continued.

Speaking on the interplay between the town and the university, he said,

“The interface between the university and the community is inescapable and that makes the whole Sackville experience kind of neat.”

Ridlington highlighted some prominent student volunteer groups: “Things like the SMILE

program, a number of students that volunteer with minor sports organization, scouts and cadets,” he said.

At the end of the interview, Ridlington commented, “I used to tease people that came from Greater Toronto coming to Sackville to go to school, saying, ‘you abandoned the golden horseshoe for the bright light – singular – of Sackville.’”

Now it seems the bright traffic light Ridlington used to joke about, along with his baritone voice, are what makes this community on the marsh home to us all.

HOMECOMING FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30TH

5:00pm – 9:30pm: Varsity Soccer on Alumni Field vs. UPEI 7:00pm: Women’s Rugby on Park Street Field vs. DAL AC 7:30pm: Performing Arts Series at Brunton Auditorium 7:30pm: Local Art by Hailey Guzik at TNL

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1ST

CALLING HIS LAST GAME FROM ATOP THE STUDENT CENTRE. RYAN MACRAE/ARGOSY

Do you sport? Are you passionate about Health and Wellness?

WE ARE LOOKING FOR CONTRIBUTORS MENTAL HEALTH, NUTRITION, CAMPUS RESOURCES OR LACK THEREOF, WRITING, SPORTS EMAIL ARGOSY@MTA.CA WITH YOUR NAME AND CONTACT INFORMATION FOR MORE DETAILS ABOUT HOW TO GET INVOLVED!

9:00am - 12:00pm: Sackville Farmers’ Market 11:00am - 1:30pm: Pep Rally at Jennings 2:00pm - 5:00pm: Football Game on Alumni vs. Acadia

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2ND

3:00pm: Colville Installation at Owen’s Art Gallery

EDITOR: SHANNON POWER | SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

OPINIONS 13

Mount Allison must rename award honouring racist eugenist CLAY STEELL Contributor

In the summer of 2015, I was privileged to receive the Mount Allison biology department’s Ruggles Gates Award, an annual summer research fund for honours students.

While I was and am grateful for having received the award, I quickly learned it had a very dark origin.

The award was created by an endowment from Reginald Ruggles Gates (1882-1962), a Mt. A alumnus who became a prominent advocate for eugenics before and after World War II. Gates, a professor at King’s College London, also conducted racist “research” on human genetics and heredity, purporting that human “races” were separate species. In 1933, Gates testified for the forced sterilization of 250,000 mentally disabled Britons to the Brock Committee, a notoriously proeugenics government inquest.

Gates later became an active member of an international group of

scholars who endorsed eugenics and “race hygiene” long after the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed and public support for eugenics had eroded. This scholarly group actively impeded the American Civil Rights movement – Gates himself was vocally opposed to interracial marriage.

As a recipient of this award, I believe it is important to confront its origins not only at a personal level, but also at an institutional one. I encourage the administration, specifically VicePresident Gloria Jollymore and the University Advancement Committee, to change the name of the Ruggles Gates Award, thereby acknowledging its foundation in one of the darkest periods of recent history.

I met with Jollymore in March to discuss this and was told it would be considered by the Advancement Committee. I hope they will make the right decision and rename it.

All wealth is inherently political.

We live in an economic system that unjustly benefits certain people and

institutions at the expense of others, discriminating along lines of race, gender and historical circumstance.

By changing names or erasing imagery of historical injustice tied to the wealth of our institutions, we come a step closer to addressing today’s injustices rooted in that same history.

The same racism that gave Ruggles Gates the privilege and wealth used to create the award in his namesake still exists today. By renaming the award, the university could take a small but meaningful step in considering how it can dismantle other forces of historical oppression on campus. As long as it remains the Ruggles Gates Award, Mt. A will continue to honour a racist eugenicist who advocated for a practice that killed millions of people and whose effects are still felt by the descendants of victims today.

This is an opportunity for Mt. A to join a global movement of institutions changing historical names or imagery of racism, colonialism and other means of oppression. Universities

across the United States, including Yale and Harvard, are renaming buildings and programs honouring 19th-century slave owners. A statue of Cecil Rhodes, the British imperialist who established brutal colonial legacies in southern Africa and also the namesake of the Rhodes Scholarship, was removed from the University of Cape Town last year. Another statue in his likeness is facing mounting opposition at Oxford University.

While the nature of scholarship and award funding indirectly supports inegalitarian access to higher education, awards like the Ruggles Gates Award can provide important short-term opportunities for Mt. A students in the increasingly corporatized Canadian university. I propose not the discontinuation of the Ruggles Gates Award altogether, but instead a name change as the first step away from Mt. A’s sometimesugly past.

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EDITORIAL staff EDITORS-IN-CHIEF | Sylvan Hamburger, Tyler Stuart MANAGING EDITOR | Cecilia Stuart NEWS EDITORS | Catherine Turnbull, Naomi Goldberg 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

LANGUAGES

Tips for studying a new language

PHOTO EDITOR | Adrian Kiva PHOTOGRAPHERS | Ryan MacRae, Savannah Harris ILLUSTRATION EDITOR | Jeff Mann ILLUSTRATORS | Andreas Forbes, Izzy Francolini

Pronounciation practice essential during first stages of study

LIAM ST LOUIS Contributor Learning a language is a long and complicated process – many people take classes and study grammar and vocabulary without ever feeling like they are getting anywhere. This is a tragedy, because there are few things more useful, interesting and, frankly, thrilling than reaching proficiency in a new language.

Over the past few years, I have learned Spanish and Turkish to various levels of fluency, mostly through self-study. I was always reliant on friends to help me, talk with me and put up with my attimes inane conversations (“What’s your favourite colour?” anyone?).

Now in my fourth year and taking a reduced course load, I agonized for a while over whether I should start another language or awaken my nowdormant Turkish. My curiosity got the better of me. For the past three weeks, I have been learning Hindi.

To start, I ordered the Hindi collection of the “Teach Yourself” series, which generally produces high-quality courses and has served me well for Turkish in the past. My first task was mastering the different script and collection of sounds that

Hindi uses.

Hindi has 11 vowels and 35 consonants. This seemed daunting, but learning a new script turned out to be surprisingly easy. A new letter is no harder to learn than a new word, and after a few hours of tracing out shapes in my notebook, I could begin piecing together actual sentences.

More important than actually speaking the language was learning to pronounce those sentences properly. Given that Hindi has four different letters that roughly equate to the English letter “T” and that, for example, nasalizing a vowel makes the difference between saying “is” and “are,” it was crucial to build good pronunciation habits early.

We often skip this step when learning a new language, at great cost down the road. Any good language resource should give you recordings of the sounds that explain important details like where to place the tongue or how much breath to use. To get the results I wanted, I listened to them, mimicked them and yelled weird-sounding stuff at the wall until it sounded normal. A Hindispeaking friend and I spent two hours in a basement repeating words with sounds that were new to me. When I could not get the Hindi ‘dh’ sound right, we chanted it in unison until I did. Seriously.

Though awkward, such exercises help overcome what is arguably the biggest barrier to language learning: fear of embarrassment.

When learning a language, we often focus on writing and grammar for too long before turning our focus to conversation. How many tenses do we have to learn before we feel “ready” to

practise speaking? Grammar may be complex, but we can learn it alone at our desk. We can’t wait until we are ready to speak a language; we will never feel “ready.” We have to take the leap early because it does not get any easier with time.

That said, I have struggled with this in Hindi. I have had two of three full, 15-minute conversations, but for the most part I have been too content copying out dialogues, learning a new song, or studying a new grammar rule. I know I should not

procrastinate. Hindi may be difficult, but I can speak it, however slow and mangled my speech might be. Still, it isn’t easy, and the hardest part is finding the humility to ask friends for 15 minutes of their time to talk.

Languages are hard, but they are also fun, rewarding and interesting.

I have had my successes and my failures, and by sharing them publicly, hopefully I can make them useful for more people than just myself. Until then, shukriyaa.

ONLINE EDITOR | Monica Zahl

REPORTING staff NEWS REPORTERS | Leo Gertler, Kavana Wa Kilele, Jill MacIntryre POLITICS REPORTER | Nadiya Safonova SPORTS REPORTER | Hamza Munawar ARTS & CULTURE REPORTERS | Chelsea Doherty, Marissa Cruz, Corinna Paumier

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

CONTRIBUTORS Clay Steell, Olivia Landry, Saurabh Kulkarni, Liam St. Louis, Riley Higdon, Evan Furness, Emma Soldat, Thomas CardosoGrant, Kevin Melanson, Liz Kent, Carly Penrose, Kennedy Lundberg, Samuel Thompson COVER | Izzy Francolini RUNNING DOODLES | Andreas Fobes

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. The Argosy is published weekly throughout the academic year by Argosy Publications Inc. Student contributions in the form of letters, articles, photography, graphic design and comics are welcome. The Argosy reserves the right to edit or refuse all materials deemed sexist, racist, homophobic, or otherwise unfit for print, as determined by the Editor-in-Chief. Articles or other contributions can be sent to argosy@mta.ca or directly to a section editor. The Argosy will print unsolicited materials at its own discretion. Letters to the editor must be signed, though names may be withheld at the sender’s request and at The Argosy’s discretion.

Anonymous letters will not be printed.

Comments , concerns, or complaints about The Argosy’s content or operations should be first sent to the Editor-in-Chief at the address above. If the Editor-in-Chief is unable to resolve a complaint, it may be taken to the Argosy Publications, Inc. Board of Directors. The chairs of the Board of Directors can be reached at the address above.

All materials appearing in The Argosy bear the copyright of Argosy

OVERCOMING EMBARASSMENT IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PARTS OF SPEAKING A NEW LANGUAGE. JEFF MANN/ARGOSY

Publications, Inc. Material cannot be reprinted without the consent of the Editor-in-Chief.

14

OPINIONS

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

WGST

What can’t you do with a women’s and gender studies degree?

WGST important for critical thinking and understanding systemic oppression

OLIVIA LANDRY Contributor “What are you going to do with that?” is one of the most common responses I receive when I tell people that I am trying to major in women’s and gender studies (WGST) at Mount Allison. I am sure that many other arts students experience this, and personally, the question almost always feels like an attack on the validity of my program. My passion for WGST exists regardless of what future career paths it may lead to – even though there are many.

I run into this type of questioning so often that I have turned it into a game. Any time someone asks me what I can accomplish in life with a degree in WGST, I give them a different answer. The answers range from being a professor, studying law, or working for the UN, to being a journalist or working for the

federal government. The list goes on and on, and despite trying to find entertainment in this painful type of inquiry, I question my need to justify my degree based on what makes it “useful” for a potential career.

WGST is relevant to every aspect of our lives and I believe studying it makes you a better person. The program at Mt. A addresses many issues – racism, sexism, ableism, classism, elitism, homophobia, transphobia, to name just a few. It can also be studied through many different avenues, such as art, film, history and theory. I wish everyone had the opportunity to learn and understand more about the different types of oppression at play around the world.

WGST teaches us about the role that systematic oppression plays in our lives, and this knowledge then affects the way we see the world.

After completing WGST 1001, I analyzed everything differently – my other courses, relationships, and dayto-day interactions and routines were viewed through a WGST lens. I was awakened to the possibility of why things are the way they are and how they could be different. This program has drastically changed my life, and its benefits are nearly endless.

I would go so far as to say that it is hard not to become a better person through the study of WGST because you are able to recognize and speak

STUDENTS MOBILIZED LAST YEAR AFTER SENIOR ADMINISTRATION CLAIMED THERE WAS NO FUNDING FOR THE WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES PROGRAM. ALLISON GROGAN/ARGOSY out against the oppression that different groups face. For me, this is what life is all about: challenging injustice to make the world a better place.

There have been many times in my life when I have spoken about WGST and people have responded by telling me that 1) I will never be able to fix all of the problems in the world and that 2) I will never change the minds of everyone, so I might as well not even try. While this reaction may seem extreme, I can think of at least three

instances in which I was met with this exact response in the last two months.

At first I found this unbelievably discouraging, but lately I have begun to understand it. Whenever someone tells me I am not going to be able to fix all of the world’s problems, I realize they are really just uncomfortable with change.

Sometimes it is easy to think that these people could be right – WGST as a discipline is extremely undervalued, which is blatantly obvious when you look at the proposed cuts to

our program last year. Any kind of threat to WGST programs is devastating to me and I would not like to imagine a world where people are unable to learn about one of the most influential and relevant fields of study. As a discipline, WGST affects everyone and everything. I am grateful to be able to study what I am most passionate about, no matter what I plan on ‘doing’ with it.

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

Obtaining ID a challenge for international students Students cite institutional barriers as a reason for alienation

SAURABH KULKARNI Contributor Why did I choose to come to Atlantic Canada for my education? As an international student, studying in a larger urban centre like Toronto or Vancouver seems like a much more lucrative and wise decision. New Brunswick, however, does not seem like a viable option, at least from an international student’s perspective.

It takes a lot of effort to leave the comforts of your home country and move somewhere completely new.

It is often the case that international students feel welcomed and at home in Sackville, but remaining in New Brunswick after your undergrad does not seem like a plausible plan. Even when you try to be optimistic about

living and working in the province, lack of institutional cooperation creates an unsuitable environment for people to stay in the province once they have finished university.

One prominent issue that international students at Mount Allison face is obtaining valid pieces of ID to use at stores, restaurants, bars and airports. My friends and I have experienced how difficult it is to manage without a Canadian ID while living in residence for the past two years. This has me wondering if it is worth staying in Atlantic Canada when it is easier to obtain Canadian ID in provinces like British Columbia, where universities put in an effort to help international students get a BCID during their orientation week.

Anyone who has been abroad will understand the dangers of losing a passport in another country.

Not having a provincial ID or a driver’s licence forces international students to carry their passports around. Losing your passport means hundreds of dollars in flights to major cities to contact an embassy, applying for a new study permit and long-term student visas – on top of applying for a new passport. Having access to a provincial ID is necessary for an

international student, since it is the only piece of ID other than a passport that is accepted across Canada.

Given that an on-campus address is considered insufficient proof of residential status in New Brunswick, international students living on campus cannot obtain provincial ID or a driver’s licence. For many, such as international aviation students who must commute to Moncton Flight College on a regular basis, a driver’s licence is nearly essential.

With meagre transport facilities to and from Sackville, having a car becomes a necessity.

Although moving off campus gives students a valid address and makes it easier to obtain ID, leaving residence early might mean missing out on certain opportunities to get involved on campus. Based on my personal experience, residence life is a great way of adjusting to life at Mt. A and Canada in general.

Little things, like recognizing international students as prospective professionals, for instance, are crucial in helping them stay in the province.

Lack of recognition on a government level is a major deterrent and directly results in alienation. Not only does the provincial government struggle to

retain young people in the province, it also falls far behind in retaining the substantial number of international students who would positively contribute to New Brunswick’s economy and communities, and who would gladly make Canada their home.

I am an optimist and would like to live and work in Atlantic Canada. I

am fond of the sense of community I feel when living in the small and midsized cities in this part of the country and can see the potential for growth.

That said, it becomes increasingly difficult to commit to this idea when I see other parts of Canada doing the right things sooner, whereas New Brunswick still needs a lot of work.

HUMOUR 15

EDITOR: MARK CRUZ | SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

HOW-TO

LOCO 4 HOCO

GAME DAY ADVICE FROM CHAD CHAD CRUZ Humour Editor ‘SUP, BROS! IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN: HOMECOMING SEASON. YOU KNOW THE MOTTO, WIN OR LOSE WE HIT THE BOOZE. I, CHAD CRUZ, HAVE CREATED THE STEP-BYSTEP GUIDE TO MAKE SURE THIS HOMECOMING WILL BE A FUCKING WIN NO MATTER THE SCORE. GAME TIME, BABY. 1. START EARLY TO ENSURE AN ABSOLUTELY WILD TIME, YOU NEED TO BE 4+ BUSCH LITES DEEP BEFORE LUNCH. 2. PAINT THAT STOMACH ROUND UP THE SQUAD AND WRITE “MOUNTIE PRIDE” ON YOUR STOMACHS, EACH TAKING ONE LETTER. GO FOR THE LETTER “D.” EXTRA PHALLIC, MY DUDE. MAKE SURE THE CHICKS CAN STILL READ IT MID-FLEX. HAHA. 3. HIT THE DOWNTOWN DINER FOR LUNCH THE BEST SPOT FOR DILF/MILF SURVEILLENCE. NO CONTEST.

4. GRAB THAT AUX CORD FAM NO HOCO PARTY WOULD BE COMPLETE WITHOUT J. COLE’S 2014 FOREST HILLS DRIVE ON REPEAT. THIS IS REAL RAP. 5. ARRIVE AT THE GAME TELL EVERYBODY YOU DON’T LIKE FOOTBALL, IT’S JUST AN EXCUSE TO GET “SHITTERED.” 6. STORM THE FIELD NAKED DROP THOSE DRAWERS AND STREAK ON THAT SICK NEW ASTRO-TURF. ASSURE EVERYONE IT’S “JUST SHRINKAGE.” 7. SPEND NIGHT IN THE DRUNK TANK JUST WAIT TILL THE WINDSOR BOYS HEAR ABOUT THIS ONE. 8. BEFRIEND LOCAL CROOKS MEET SKETCHY LARRY AND HIS GANG OF MISFITS WHILE IN THE TANK. BE CONVINCED TO JOIN IN “ONE LAST JOB” ONCE YOU ALL GET OUT THE SLAMMER. ABSOLUTE BEAUTIES.

10. GET INCARCERATED YOU’RE LOOKING AT 3-6 YEARS, MY DUDE. 11. DISCOVER THAT THE MODERN PENAL SYSTEM IS FLAWED COME TO THE STARTLING REALIZATION THAT ISOLATION AND POOR PRISON CONDITIONS FAIL TO REHABILITATE CONVICTED FELONS (AKA HUMAN BEINGS). IN FACT, IT WOULD SEEM THAT THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX IS FUNCTIONING EXACTLY AS PLANNED, REINFORCING SOCIAL HIERARCHIES BASED ON RACE, CLASS AND GENDER. 12. EMERGE FROM PRISON, DAMAGED AND DISENFRANCHISED 13. SECOND WIND SHOTGUN THAT FIFTH BUSCH LITE BRUH, BECAUSE THAT 12PACK WON’T FINISH ITSELF!

CHAD AND HIS BOY TURNING UP AT THEIR FIRST HOMECOMING MARK CRUZ/ SUBMITTED

9. BOTCH A ROBBERY AT THE SAVE EASY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A QUICK IN-AND-OUT.

LIFESTYLE

Dad Culture

Celebrating all things fatherly at Mount Allison

BY LIZ KENT

BY KEVIN MELANSON

! calling all funny people !

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

CARLY PENROSE Contributor A new cultural movement has spread throughout Mount Allison’s student body. This newly emerging subculture is one that brings humiliation, hilarity, socks and sandals, barbecues, beer guts and, most of all, shocking amounts of enthusiasm for golf. That’s right, “dad culture,” also known as “dad-stalgia,” has taken hold of young people in a major way.

In a welcome “blast from the past,” you can frequently observe twenty-year-olds across the nation sipping cheap beers while discussing the virtues of duct tape and comparing their prized collections of screwdrivers (which are virtually untouched in favour of said duct tape). Rather than “getting lit” to Kanye West, those who identify with dad culture are partying to the soundtrack of debates about whether the greatest performer to ever live was Rocky or the gofer from the true cinematic masterpiece of our time, Caddy Shack.

With so much unrest in the world, taking a step back may be just the change of pace we need. Dad culture

recognizes a simpler time, a time when beer was cheaper, when your dad had a gloriously full moustache – evidence of which you’ve only seen in slightly discoloured, old photographs – and when “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin was the saddest sound to ever touch any man’s ears.

So the next time you find yourself standing at a family event, probably near a barbecue, take in your father’s cargo shorts, golf shirt and even his customized apron with “Will cook for Beer” scrawled across the chest and appreciate him for the cultural pioneer that he is. Say “I’m grateful,” then shake his hand as he echoes the chorus of generations of dads before him and dads that will follow: “Hello grateful, I’m dad.”