June, 2013 by The Omega

VOLUME 22 ISSUE 28 June 2013

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T O S U U N C I A L T U R N C O T R E K U S E S S E E R E T D

What’s going on in this country? 3

It can happen “so bloody quick.”

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Take a break and do a 7 puzzle

Ω M

TRU’s Independent Student Newspaper

June 2013

News

With $46 million in funding cuts on the way, B.C. gov offers plan for universities to save money He suggested that the main benefit would be making things The Ubyssey (UBC) easier for smaller schools. “We will mostly contribute our purchasing power … as well as our expertise VANCOUVER (CUP) — As and resource capacity,” he said. B.C.’s colleges and universities “UBC gains from the strength of the puzzle over how to deal with whole sector.” $46 million of funding cuts, the A budget planning document provincial government is trying to on the University of Victoria’s convince them to cozy up to each website calls the project helpful. other. But UVic still believes it will have The Ministry of Advanced to cut education programs to meet Education is currently making the province’s funding cuts, and proposals for post-secondary it doesn’t think institutions to the program will cut costs by help. They say combining services they have already like information found savings t e c h n o l o g y, that amount to purchasing and 8.5 per cent of its libraries. operating budget But with the project since 2009, and still far away from asked departments implementation, on April 1 to cut some wonder whether a further 4 per it can save enough cent from their money to deal with budgets. $46 million in —Victoria Klassen, director Gruter-Andrew funding cuts to B.C.’s said that while post-secondary sector of communications, BCCampus he agrees with over the next two the savings years. Called the Post-Secondary wrote in an email. Gruter-Andrew projections, there’s still a lot of work Administrative Service Delivery went on to praise the project’s tight to do to find out whether or not those Project, external consultants timelines. The project began in June savings are actually possible, as well as what they’d cost to execute. “The Deloitte and Touche delivered a 2012. Because UBC is so large, ranges of savings … are subject to report in February identifying opportunities for universities to cut Gruter-Andrew suggested that it significant interpretation,” he said. doesn’t have a lot to save through “Achieving the target benefits will costs by sharing services. The report identifies three the program. “UBC already has require substantial investments categories of opportunities — those critical mass and our costs are upfront.” The NDP’s post-secondary critic, with the clearest benefits and those at the lower end of the possible easiest to implement — as saving range. This is simply a function of Michelle Mungall, wasn’t against between $38 and $83 million, not our size compared to most other the project, but criticized it as a way of justifying the post-secondary counting the $13.5-26 million they institutions,” he wrote. would cost to implement. Many of the opportunities revolve around purchasing; the idea is that buying things together and loading more schools onto the same contract for things like credit card payments, print services, food services, vending machines and shipping could result in more favourable rates. “I thought it was a well-crafted report,” Oliver Gruter-Andrew, UBC’s chief information officer and representative on the project,

Andrew Bates

“Some of our institutional partners do see us as outsourcing...”

funding cuts. “Interesting being an ambiguous word, it was nonetheless interesting that there were some opportunities, absolutely, to save costs to the system,” she said. “Overall, an interesting component in all of this is how the Liberals have chosen to administrate this.” Mungall said that the project is the government’s main plan on how to achieve the $46 million in cuts, even though the savings could take six years to realize. “The reason why they’re cutting $46 million between post-secondary education is the difference between 83 and 38,” she said. “They’re going to jam-pack it into the next two fiscal years.” Mungall also noted that shared services have had mixed success in B.C.’s health industry. It’s a sore point among unions that make up part of the NDP’s support base, who worry that it could mean job losses for public-sector employees. “If we’re going to proceed on this as a government, we’re going to have to be very thoughtful,” she said. “We definitely can’t steamroll ahead … because we’re talking about people’s jobs.” Though the original report said the decisions of the project’s nineschool committee will be binding on those nine schools, the government says that institutions will help the government develop business plans, and not every institution will be included in every project. The ministry has also confirmed that implementation won’t break existing contracts with university workers and is not expected to result in staff reductions.

Many of the job opportunities, including those related to IT operations, will go through independent bodies operated by either the government or groups of post-secondary institutions. Some of these include BCNET, which handles network services, and BCCampus, which handles research and development of software systems. “Some of our institutional partners do see us as outsourcing, but in actuality we’re not,” said Victoria Klassen, BCCampus’s director of communications. “What we’ve worked very hard to do over the last 10 years is to make sure that whatever we built can work and integrate with … systems that respect the autonomy of the institutions, but at the same time bring institutions together.” BCCampus, founded in 2002 by the Liberal government as part of a pilot project for shared services in the post-secondary sector, develops IT products like ApplyBC, which attempts to streamline university and college applications, and Moodle, an open-source Learning Management System that operates like WebCT Vista. BCCampus also develops business models and practices for online learning. “Even if there is a desire of several institutions to work together, there has to be one kind of space, one body, that has the infrastructure and the processes in place that will actually bring those institutions together,” said Klassen. “We really believe that together, we can do more than one institution can do on its own.”

BCIT considering university status Neetu Garcha The Link (BCIT)

VANCOUVER (CUP) — After some students had problems getting into master’s degree programs with their BCIT certification, the institution is now looking at becoming an accredited university. Barry Hogan, BCIT’s senior director of program development, says the idea has not been pitched externally but there is talk of the institution’s need to make some changes when it comes to program recognition across the country and internationally — or becoming a university. Hogan told The Link that when BCIT started in 1964 and likely through most of the 1980s, most of the graduates stayed in the Lower Mainland, which is not the case anymore according to Hogan. “Now everyone is more mobile and we’ve got graduates that are moving around and students that didn’t finish here want to apply their credits somewhere else,” said Hogan.

Paul Dangerfield, BCIT’s vice president of education, said the talks of BCIT becoming a university came up during discussion of the 2014 to 2019 strategic plan. Dangerfield said the idea was brought up informally over a decade ago. “It’s one of those topics that have been chatted about over the last probably 10 or 15 years at BCIT as other colleges become universities,” said Dangerfield. Hogan said when BCIT was given degree-granting status in 1994, the only degree the institution was allowed to issue was a Bachelor of Technology (B-Tech). The idea was brought up informally over a decade ago. “We keep getting trapped by one of three buckets: we are not a university, we are not a part of the Association of Universities and Colleges Canada and people wondering, ‘What the heck is a B-Tech?’” reported Dangerfield. The Association of Universities and Colleges Canada (AUCC) is an organization that represents Canada’s colleges and universities.

There is no national accreditation in Canada, so one province may not necessarily know another province’s policies around accreditation, Hogan told The Link, and as a result of this lack of national accreditation, there are a few things that institutions tend to default to. “One is that if you’re a university, you must be better and if you’re a member of the AUCC,” said Hogan. “So, we’re getting the short end of the stick.” E l e c t r i c a l engineering and technology student Harjinder Kandola told The Link that BCIT becoming a university would help eliminate problems students face trying to transfer their BCIT credits to other institutions. “As far as the student perspective goes, I think it would be a really good idea – more so if it were to get recognition and accreditation from

“If BCIT was a university I think the transition to a degree program would be more straight forward rather than taking a bridging program which kind of defeats the purpose of transferring in the first place.” Dangerfield said the institutions governance structure would not change if it were to become a university. “In our preliminary examination of this process, it appears BCIT would not have to change our current governance structure,” said Dangerfield. “We think that our —Harjinder Kandola, governance would stay the same.” electrical engineering, BCIT As for the name of the institution, it is not mandatory for it Kandola realized he would have to change to BC University of to take at least a semester of bridging Technology, or something to courses in order to transfer to a degree represent that it has changed to a program at some other post-secondary university. Hogan said a name change is institutions. “That’s another semester or two down not appealing to the community the drain and that’s kind of discouraging because of the brand equity of the BCIT name. to say the least,” said Kandola. the government,” said Kandola. Kandola said he has not run into any problems personally but because he is in a diploma program, he has looked into the idea of transferring into a degree program at other institutions.

“I think the transition to a degree program would be more straight forward...”

ON THE COVER: Now that the nights are warm enough, get out and have a look around. You’re in a unique region with some pretty views (and sometimes you don’t even have to leave campus for them).

— PHOTO BY MIKE DAVIES

The Omega · Volume 22, Issue 28

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June 2013

Volume 22, Issue 28

Published since November 27, 1991

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Editorial/Opinions

What the #$*^! is going on in this country? Enbridge

Mike Davies

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Editor’s Note Mike Davies Ω Editor-in-Chief

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF * Mike Davies INDUSTRY REP * Mike Youds FACULTY REP * Charles Hays STUDENT REP* Sadie Cox

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Literary and visual submissions are welcomed. All submissions are subject to editing for brevity, taste and legality. The Omega will attempt to publish each letter received, barring time and space constraints. The editor will take care not to change the intention or tone of submissions, but will not publish material deemed to exhibit sexism, racism or homophobia. Letters for publication must include the writer’s name (for publication) and contact details (not for publication). The Omega reserves the right not to publish any letter or submitted material. Opinions expressed in the Letters & Opinion section do not represent those of The Omega, the Cariboo Student Newspaper Society, its Board of Directors or its staff. Opinions belong only to those who have signed them.

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So here’s that section where I get to sound off about something that’s bothering me, praise someone or something that’s worthy of it or comment on events in our world that are worth highlighting in order to further the discussion. I’m going to do a bit of all three, I think. Since last I wrote one of these the mayor of Toronto has been accused of smoking crack cocaine, the Canadian Senate has been under extra scrutiny for fund misappropriation opening the debate yet again about what purpose it serves and the provincial government of B.C. has officially said no to the current proposal for a pipeline to bring oil from the oilsands of Alberta to B.C.’s northern coast. Oh, and there is finally some regulation on cell-phone providers that seems good for the consumer. CRTC ruling The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has, after many years of hearing consumer complaints from mobile-device users, implemented (well, it goes into effect in December) a new code of conduct for service providers. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to their website and have a read (crtc.gc.ca) because I don’t have the space to explain it to you, because I want to talk about a bunch of other stuff, too. The short version is that limits are now being placed on mobile service providers in regards to contract length, roaming charges being capped, and the wording of contracts being understandable. This is going to cost you more money, not less. The way they used to be able to “afford” to give you free phones was to stretch your contract out over a period of three years (did you seriously not notice that you only got all the good free stuff if you signed up for a really long time?), because they essentially had you paying an extra, say, $80 per month x 12 months. That’s almost $1,000 more you were giving them in total to avoid paying up front for your couple-hundred dollar phone. Now that they can only cage you for two years, those phones won’t be free anymore — or if they are, you can bet that your per month rate will go up to compensate for it. Does anyone seriously think that a little thing like legislation will cause the telecommunications companies to accept less profit? Don’t be daft. Their shareholders will have none of that, and their end users won’t suffer the outrage that would build in their souls if their service levels dropped, so that means the company will still need to make the same amount of money over a shorter period of time. That means we (assuming you’re part of the cell-phone crowd) will pay for it.

The Northern Gateway Pipeline is dead! Hooray! Not so fast, there. B.C.’s then environment minister, Kamloops-North Thompson’s own Terry Lake, has said, “British Columbia is not in favour of this project as it’s presented.” He was very careful with his wording, made sure to include the fact that it’s a recommendation to a committee that’s been given, and that the opposition is only to the current proposal. George Hoberg of the UBC faculty of forestry, in an interview with CBC, said that it’s a “huge victory for environmentalists,” because while it’s not a defeat for the pipeline, it “makes it more politically difficult for the Harper government to take a position directly opposed to the position of the province of British Columbia.” Basically, the provincial government has said, “As the plans currently sit, we ask that the federal government not allow Enbridge to build this pipeline yet, because we’re not really happy about it, but maybe if they just tweak a few things….” That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the project’s opposition. Most I’ve spoken with about the issue lie somewhere between, “It’s a ploy for more money from Enbridge,” and “The feds will push it through anyway, and at least this way the B.C. Liberals can say they opposed it and it’s the federal government’s fault.” It’s a fair assessment. We’re still basically waiting for Harper and his folks to say, “Here’s your pipeline.” The difference is now Christy Clark can say, “Not my fault.” Senate reform I’m not going to go through the whole Senate uproar — both because I don’t have the room (remember?) and because if you even care a little bit, you don’t need me to. I will say this, though: If we’re going to keep the Senate we need to make it do something for us to justify its expense. The base salary for a Senator is $135,200 — not including bonuses and expense accounts (which are the main issue being examined right now; Pamela Wallin claimed $310,000 in travel expenses since September 2010, according to a CBC report). Oh, and they work approximately 90 days a year. An Angus Reid Public Opinion poll released in February — before all of these most recent shenanigans were brought to light, I might add — said that 67 per cent would like to see Senators elected instead of appointed, and 66 per cent would like to see term limits of eight years for those elected senators.

That same poll shows 77 per cent of Canadians want a referendum to decide the fate of the Senate, and that only 40 per cent believe we need a Senate at all. I say we do need some oversight when it comes to the passing of legislation, but when the people who are supposed to do that were given their might-as-wellbe-permanent jobs by the people they’re supposed to be overseeing, we have the right to be pissed off when they sign off on everything put before them and waste our money on really expensive orange juice, fancy hotels and Caribbean vacations during which they claim to be at work. And one more thing: when anyone else defrauds thousands of dollars from other people, they don’t generally just get to give it back and have everything be okay. Rob Ford

Damn, it looks like I don’t really have room to dig into this as deeply as I want to (because I just had to run that creative commons photo of Ford at a press conference looking like the self-entitled fat kid from Charle and the Chocolate Factory except with a finger puppet of himself), so I guess I’ll just say this: I will not be surprised if a tape surfaces that shows the mayor of Toronto smoking crack cocaine with Somali drug dealers, bashing other politicians, using homophobic slurs and being a racist (as that’s what the alleged recording reportedly shows; The Omega has not seen nor can it verify the contents of the video). Have you seen that guy? He regularly makes a fool out of himself (and by extension the city of Toronto and to a lesser extent Canada) in public. I particularly enjoy the footage of him slamming his own face into a television camera at a media scrum. Why would it surprise anyone if they found out he consumes illicit drugs in his free time? And considering he hasn’t sued the shit out of anyone that claims to have seen the video and has spread these allegations, I’d say there’s a good chance he doesn’t know for a fact that it doesn’t exist, despite his poorly worded — yet obviously extensively thought out — claims and denials. Also, super weird that he went into hiding when the story broke and then appeared a week later with a smug smile on his face saying the video didn’t exist, right? But alas, as of the writing of this piece, the video has disappeared. We might never have proof one way or the other about the crack smoking allegations. We sure do have a lot of proof about him being a buffoon and an embarrassment, though. editor@truomega.ca

—IMAGE COURTESY SHAW N MER RITT/FLICK R COMMONS

Teach us how to get jobs! Stephen F. Power The Muse (Memorial)

ST JOHN’S (CUP) — Entering the final year of my undergraduate degree, I am thankful for the practical abilities that I have been taught over these four years. I know how to write a resume and a cover letter. I know that employers generally don’t hire prospective employees that don’t bother to sell themselves. These skills, a few of many that I picked up over my academic career will serve me for the rest of my life. Those who boost the liberal arts point to a number of other benefits that, although intangible, allegedly serve students in becoming better citizens. Adam Chapnick, an associate professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, argued along this line in a recent online column for University Affairs, an online magazine centered on postsecondary education. “If only they understood that the value of a liberal education cannot just be measured in dollars and cents,” goes the traditional “lament” of liberal arts supporters, according to Chapnick. “What about the role of the arts in promoting democratic citizenship? In fostering critical thinking? In creating the entrepreneurial spirit that is so necessary for innovation?” What about all these things, indeed. I’m proud to say that I do understand these values, having gone through a fairly broad cross-section of what the university has to offer in the liberal arts. These courses—English, history, philosophy, political science—all did well to tutor me on these subjects. Critical thinking? No problem—I can crank out literary criticism without breaking a sweat. Democratic citizenship? I can talk for hours (to anyone foolish enough to listen) about the myriad flaws infesting our current system of governance, on all levels. I’m not attacking the value of these skills; Chapnick has a point in his mention of the development of an “entrepreneurial spirit.” Students are done a disservice, however, when these skills are not coupled with the knowledge necessary to apply them outside of academia. It is here that the reality of the needs of students comes up against the values of academics that value learning for the sake of learning. Most students, and even most liberal arts students, envision some sort of job or other kind of employment existing at the end of the post-secondary rainbow. Many of these students, however, are ill informed as to how valuable their Bachelor of Arts really is, especially when it isn’t supplemented with volunteer and other extra-curricular work. These students need to be caught early, and the best place to do it is where they spend most of their time interacting face-to-face with university employees: the classroom. More connections need to be made between course curricula and extracurriculum resources that provide hands-on learning experiences and opportunities to network with employers in a student’s field. To make this possible, academia needs to change to meet the needs of the students that it serves. Professors and university administrators can no longer prioritize the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. This desire, however noble, must be balanced with the need to help students build opportunities for themselves when they eventually graduate into the real world.

June 2013

Feature

“Some kind of nightmare”

June is br

Brain injury can happen “so bloody quick,” changes lives ... not just of those who suffer them

Mike Davies

Ω Editor-in-Chief Early in 2004, Pamela Jane Kilgore, now 50, fell down a flight of stairs — 26 of them to be exact. They were wooden. It was raining. There was concrete at the bottom. It happens to a lot of people. As Kilgore herself says, “It can happen so bloody quick.” After the fall, Kilgore had a “fullcranial” operation, where surgeons removed most of her skull in order to access the brain to remove blood clots and relieve pressure. She doesn’t remember much about the doctor who performed the operation, except a joke she made about a vacuum cleaner following the surgery. In a brightly lit, off-white room, plain but for a desk with a computer and a filing cabinet, Kilgore recounts the ordeal and what her life has become. “It’s because of alcohol that I fell,” she starts, wanting to get that admission out of the way, as if it somehow will affect the rest of the story. I suppose in a way it does. “My brother came around the corner, and he said ‘don’t effin move, you’ve probably got a broken neck,’” after which she fell unconscious, and was transported by ambulance from Revelstoke to Kamloops. “I woke up, I guess, after about four days,” she says, but she couldn’t remember waking, as she was then placed in an induced coma to aid the recovery process. “I guess I was flailing around a bit when I was awake.” She finally awoke from the coma, looked around and saw her family. Her sister and nephew were at her bedside, and she was wondering why they were crying. “I was thinking, ‘What the hell is the matter with you?’” And then she noticed she couldn’t talk. “This must be some kind of nightmare,” she said to herself. Almost month later she checked herself out of the hospital, because, as everyone knows, they can’t keep you in a

hospital against your will — and at the time, she had not yet dealt with her addiction and wanted her fix. Because of the neurological damage caused by the brain injury from the original fall, it wasn’t just her addiction issues that were more difficult for Kilgore to overcome. She also had some serious difficulty with her balance and her memory. “Six months after that, I fell off a hospital bed and broke my hip. Six months after that, I fell out of another hospital bed and broke the other hip,” she says. The second hospital-bed fall, which broke her second hip, also “fried the right side of my body,” she says, and demonstrates how only one of her ankles rotates freely when she holds up her leg and shakes it with her hands. “Unless I mentally tell myself to pick up my foot, I fall.” She recently fell as she walked through the front door of the office we were currently sitting in — the Kamloops Brain Injury Association (KBIA) — and split her head open, for only the most recent time. She pulls her bangs back to show me the scar. “That was like a month and a half ago.” KBIA “Brain injury is really unique for each person, because we have different lobes in our brain that do different things,” said Kristy Buchner, KBIA education and prevention coordinator at a meeting earlier that month. According to Buchner, the brain injury recovery process is so different for each person because depending on the area of the brain that has been, there are likely to be different systems and issues — the Frontal Lobe controls personality or speech, while injuries to the back of the brain might effect sight, for example. (See fig. 1) The not-for-profit KBIA, located on Victoria St. right in downtown Kamloops, is a publicly funded operation (with help from various community fundraisers, private donors and partnerships) where those who have suffered brain injuries can go for various

kinds of help. Accodring to Buchner, these supports include helping those having problems with finances, discussing brain injury with family members, accompanying people to doctor’s appointments, or helping to organize schedules for people with memory problems — right down to supplying day planners. They offer group workshops that focus on specific issues (like emotional management, current brain injury topics in the news, or posture, balance and strength sessions) or are for specific demographics (they have a women’s group that’s more focused on “crafty” things). They have also partnered with ASK Wellness and Kamloops Hot Yoga for a weekly yoga day, as well as — funds permitting — periodically engaging in outings to the B.C. Wildlife Park, bowling, camping or other activities that might not otherwise be available for clients. Aside from these various client services, KBIA also has an education component. Every year, KBIA representatives go around to all the primary schools in the area and speak to grade four classes about brain injury and the importance of helmets being worn during activities where possible head injury could occur and to the secondary schools to talk about intoxicated driving. They also recently fitted 182 helmets at the Kamloops Bike Rodeo and will be putting on an awareness campaign this fall at TRU. A brain injury survivor comes along to tell their story at these sessions and events. “Survivors” Buchner says that although the stigma of brain injury isn’t as severe as it is with mental illness, for example, there is still an aspect of judgment from others in regards to how people who have sustained brain injury are treated by others. “There are definitely some situations where people don’t want to access services to avoid being labelled,” she said. “We call them ‘survivors of brain injury’ rather than ‘brain injured people’ because they find [the latter] labels them.”

Part of the stigma of brain injury, it seems, is disappearing due to an increased awareness amongst the public. “I think it’s more acceptable now that you have a brain injury. It’s brought up to the surface a lot better. It’s more open and accepted,” according to Kilgore. She remembers her thoughts on brain injury before she actually sustained one. “My idea of a brain injury was totally wrong. I’m thinking of someone who can’t do anything, can’t talk, bla bla bla, and their brain is fried, right? That’s what I thought a brain injury was. Apparently that wasn’t the case, because I talked my way out of the hospital,” she laughs. So how did Kilgore, who fell down a flight of stairs in Revelstoke and checked herself out of the hospital to return to her life of addiction there, become the person she is sitting across from me at the KBIA? “They actually came from Kamloops to Revelstoke to see me. I guess the brain injury was a little more severe than I thought,” she laughs. KBIA gave her two conditions she needed to live by: stay in the hospital and stay clean. She’d dealt with addiction issues most of her life, but since they approached her in March 2004 with these parameters, she’s been off drugs, and now attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and has been dry since 2007. “I open up the meeting every morning by 11:20,” she says with a smile. She stayed in hospital as was requested (moving from Vernon to Revelstoke hospitals and then on to Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) in Kamloops), but soon after she arrived at RIH, she found herself in her own apartment instead, as that requirement was lifted once she was closer to KBIA and their services. “There’s so much more here [in terms of support],” she says. She has life skills coaches in Kamloops, thanks to KBIA, who help with everything from transportation to grocery shopping. “They don’t just let you go. They don’t just come in and fix a few things and then let you out. They’ve been with me for nine years and they still make sure that I’m okay every week. Somebody always touches base with me every week, just to make sure I’m okay.” Life as it is

Fig. 1: The reason brain injury support needs to be so customized

Aside from being clean and dry, many things have changed for Kilgore since the fall. “I always second guess myself on everything. I wasn’t like that before,” she says. She also has problems being in crowds. A year and a half into her recovery she couldn’t be in a large group of people at all without panicking, she said. She’s now able to attend Christmas concerts, parades and various large gatherings for more than an hour, but it’s still difficult. She wants to get back in the workforce, and has been looking into what she should consider as a career path, and she’s had some help. She attended the Career Orientation and Personal Empowerment program at TRU, which is designed to help women engage in self-reflection and teach skills like anger management, build self-esteem, encourage balance and time-management and explore career paths. She’s been told the best type of work she should consider would be something repetitive.

“The physical, em exacted on survivo and the communi “And then I’m thinking if I do that it’s going to drive me crazy,” she says, “but it’s not going to because I know how important it is for me. It’ll be easier for me to function.” Can anything good come of a brain injury? It may sound like a strange question. To some degree it is. For Kilgore, however, there’s not only the aspect of living a clean and sober life now that she is a brain injury survivor, she also appreciates things more. “One of the things that really amazes me,” she said, “is that the things that I took for granted before that are really, really important for me now.” She doesn’t take remembering things for granted as most of us do. Even small things like conversations on the street are precious, because they sometimes don’t stick. Or sometimes they do, but only weeks later. “Memories about my family — I cherish those a lot more now,” she said, because she doesn’t have many of those memories left, and has difficulty making more. For more information about brain injury, the KBIA has compiled a long list of links and resources, which you can find at kbia.ca.

The Omega · Volume 22, Issue 28

rain injury awareness month

What can a brain injury affect? The Mayo Clinic, one of the premier medical centres in the world, has a 64-page document called “Understanding Brain Injury: A Guide for the Family” which outlines some of the effects and support strategies that people with brain injuries have and need.

Thinking changes: Confusion/Memory issues Encourage the use of a notebook to log events and encourage the person to refer to it for details of daily events Establish a structured routine of daily tasks Gentle reminders of correct details of events and confirming accurate information with other people. Attention issues Focus on one task at a time. Decrease distractions when working or talking with the person.

Perceptual changes: Changes to field of view Position and mark objects on the person’s affected side in ways that they can change their relationships towards them Limit clutter; keep the home and drawers organized and neat to help the person void falls and bumps Always keep often-used items in the same location so the person doesn’t have to search for them

Behavioural changes: Self-control issues Limit the person’s choice of options Explain the reasons for tasks Praise and reward desired behaviour Difficulty in social situations Plan and rehearse social interactions so that they will be familiar, predictable and consistent

motional, economic and social toll of brain injury is not only vors and their families, but it also reaches friends, caregivers ity.” —Leona Aglukkaq, minister of health, Government of Canada

Encourage the person to slow down and think through responses Review the bahaviour following the outing, establish the overall success and praise appropriate behaviour

Emotional changes: Difficulty controlling emotions Remain a model of calm assurance and confidence if an emotional outburst occurs Avoid comparing past and present behaviours Understand that brain injury often prevents the person from feeling guilt or empathy

Physical effects: Fatigue Mental fatigue: Encourage the use of calendars and planners Physical fatigue: Set a schedule that encourages regular rest breaks Seizures Do not try to restrain the seizure. You cannot stop it. Clear hazardous objects Loosen tight clothing (neckties, belts) and remove glasses

Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Terry Lake speaks at the KBIA’s 7th annual fundraising dinner held at TRU May 31, 2013. The majority of KBIA’s funding comes from the annual dinner and their golf tournament in the fall, according to Kristy Buchner, KBIA education and prevention coordinator. —PHOTO COURTESY KENT WONG PHOTOGR APHY

Dial 911 if breathing does not resume and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is necessary, another seizure starts before the first one ends, the person has been injured during the seizure or the seizure continues for more than five minutes. Various other physical issues associated with brain injury include issues swallowing, bowel and bladder changes, and obviously balance issues.

June 2013

Sports

Beyond the arc

Jade Richardson The Peak (SFU)

BURNABY (CUP) — Growing up in Toronto, a young Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe was always the tallest kid in her classes at school. It was her height that led to her picking up basketball in third grade, and her passion and love of the sport has grown ever since. As a senior at Simon Fraser University (SFU), the first International school to become a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Raincock-Ekunwe made a name for herself and her team in the United States and in the basketball world. In her final season with the SFU Clan, the 6’2” forward broke two Great Northwest Athletic Conference records and led the Clan women to season-high sixthplace national ranking. At the end of 2012 she broke the conference record for most rebounds in a game with 24 against Trinity Western University and in early 2013 she broke the conference record for career double-doubles with 49, despite only having been in the conference for three years. With the senior leading her squad, the SFU women advanced to a historic sweet-16 finish in the NCAA National tournament, earning Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) and West Region runner-up spots along the way. Raincock-Ekunwe, who averaged 16.8 points per game in her final season, topped the NCAA Div. II field goal percentage rankings for most of 2013, with a 65.1 shooting percentage in her final year. She was also the GNAC leader in rebounds, averaging 12.4 each

game, and was fourth in the nation in that category. The success she had in her senior season seems natural to many people, but the soft-spoken athlete confessed that she has put in a lot of work to get this far. “In my first year at SFU it was a big change. Going from the best player on your high school team to a more secondary position was hard for me. I was able to take it a little bit easy.” After her freshman year, however, the Clan lost their core group of seniors to NCAA eligibility rules — the CIS allowed athletes five years of competition, but the NCAA only allowed four — so in her sophomore year her role changed again. “I knew that I had to step up my game and put a lot more work in during my second season. I didn’t do as much as I should have as a freshman because I knew I wouldn’t play much, but I became a starter a year later so I had to push myself to improve my game.” The Clan’s head coach Bruce Langford agrees that her progress has been outstanding, and that the work she put in over the years has truly paid off. “When she came in as a rookie she was an amazing athlete, that is certainly true, but she lacked focus and was not motivated to reach higher. Since that time she has become more and more committed and much more skilled on the court. She is always looking to maximize her potential.” And the natural-born athlete is looking to be her best in all facets of her collegiate experience, including in the classroom, though that has been a journey as well. “School came very easy to me in high school, and I thought it would be the same at university,” she explained. “I was wrong and

my grades suffered as a freshman, so I have been working ever since to improve my GPA and step up my academics. “SFU has very high academic standards, so while it can be difficult at times, I never want anything to come too easily to me. I’m glad I’ve had those challenges.” Teammate Carla Wyman, who has played with RaincockEkunwe since the age of 17, says that watching her friend grow as a player and a person has been extremely special. “She has all this raw athleticism, and now that she is really focusing on becoming a better technical player, her talent is unreal. She works extremely hard in practice, and cares so much about the game and the team that the rest of us can’t help but care.” At the end of her collegiate career

—IMAGE COURTESY MAR K BURNHAM PHOTOGR APHY

Raincock-Ekunwe holds 12 GNAC records, an outstanding feat, but one that does not define her. “Nayo is a great example and leader for the younger players,” continued Langford. “She leads by example and demonstrates her commitment through her actions.” She also picked up numerous honours in her final season, being voted a Daktronics second-team All-American; the first basketball All-American by an athlete from a non-American school. She was also the 2013 GNAC Player of the Year, and was named a first-team Allstar in both the GNAC and the West Region. Despite all the success, RaincockEkunwe has also had to overcome some adversity in her career, missing out on competing for the Pan American and FISU teams that

she made because of appendicitis. “She handled her return following that disappointment very well,” Langford explained. Now on her way out of collegiate athletics, the two-time Basketball British Columbia University Player of the Year has high hopes for her future, but knows that like her honours so far, future success will not come easily. “I would love to play professionally in the future,” she confessed. “Maybe in Europe or South America. Lots of Clan alumni have done so and I might wish to follow in their footsteps, if I am able to push myself to that level one day.” Either way, Raincock-Ekunwe knows, that basketball is a part of who she is, and will always be a part of her life.

A jersey is no excuse Maclaine Chadwick

The Fulcrum (U of Ottawa) OTTAWA (CUP) — It’s no secret that high school, college, and university athletes are beloved and admired in their respective communities, and this is especially true in the U.S.; but all too often their status shields them from facing responsibilities or consequences that they sometimes deserve. A recent example: CNN’s Poppy Harlow said of the convicted rapists in the Steubenville rape trial, “these two young men who had such promising futures—star football players, very good students— literally watched as they believed their life fell apart.” Seeing the words in text doesn’t truly ilustrate the point I’m trying to make, because Harlow’s words simply seem true. The lives of these two young men will never be the same, and their futures will be greatly affected. They will struggle to find jobs, develop relationships, and generally be accepted by society. However, let us not forget that this is because they raped someone. Harlow’s statement was delivered in a way that implied sympathy for the offenders. Whether or not she was simply reflecting the tone of the footage provided to viewers has been debated (the footage shows the young men apologizing to the victim’s fam-

ily and collapsing into their parents’ arms), but the clip is missing something critical—sympathy for the victim. American football culture likens its young athletes to gods in their communities. They are praised by their neighbours, admired and envied by peers, and encouraged to act like macho men. It’s just like what we see in movies and on TV—when it comes to hierarchy, jocks are on top. Considering that many athletes are defended by their classmates, regardless of their actions, it’s no wonder many of them develop a sense of entitlement. A sarcastic humour video created two years ago by satirical news source parody The Onion has recently resurfaced in light of the media response to the Steubenville trial. The video tells the story of Jacob, a basketball player who is presented as an inspiration for overcoming “the trauma of committing a terrible rape.” “He’s got a quick first step, a good outside shot, doesn’t get down on himself after a bad play or when he gets accused of rape,” explains the fictional basketball coach. A fake booster club president states that “[Jacob] averaged 22 points a game as a freshman; no amount of raping is going to change that.” The video may draw a dark

chuckle, but it’s eerily similar to CNN’s commentary of the Steubenville rapists. The boys’ coach, Reno Saccoccia, allegedly knew the rape occurred and has been accused of trying to defend them or cover it up. Of course, Steubenville isn’t the only example. Who could forget when Joe Paterno, head coach of the Pennsylvania State football team, was fired for essentially looking the other way when his assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was committing the sexual assaults he would later be convicted for. I don’t want to imply that all male athletes are rapists—of course they aren’t, although studies show that there is an overrepresentation of college athletes in sexual assault charges—but the fact that there is a population who would defend a rapist on the basis that they are an athlete is problematic. Sports and sporting events are absolutely a source of entertainment, and just like we may admire a singer or actor for their performance, athletes are placed on a pedestal for us to fawn over. Some of them are heroes, some of them make criminal decisions that ruin the lives of others, and all of them are role models (whether they like it or not). No amount of padding or MVP status should be enough to protect any jock from the consequences of their negative actions.

The Omega · Volume 22, Issue 28

Coffee Break

WEBSUDOKU.COM

5 1

5 4 3

2 5

2 6 7

6 9

3 4

6 1 2 WEBSUDOKU.COM

last issue’s answers (May Edition) easy

hard

Last month’s “hard” sudoku was actually impossible due to two 9’s in the first vertical column. Thanks to Gene Wirchenko for bringing it to our attention.

Across 1. Shuttlecock 5. Ho Chi Minh City 11. Calendar abbr. 14. Brother of Jacob 15. Burning 16. Chemical ending 17. Developer 19. Pilot’s announcement, briefly 20. Watery motion 21. Watch the bottom 23. Tree under which Buddha was born 24. Storage cylinder 26. Textile designer and printmaker Albers 27. 1545 council site 29. “Cheaper by the dozen” actress, Hilary 32. Kind of room 33. Crumb 35. Plane, e.g. 37. Parked oneself 38. Real estate listing information, often 41. Cow or sow 43. Kind of palm 44. Low card 45. Microscope part 47. Study, say 49. Medieval light 53. Four Corners state 54. Ancient alphabetic character 56. Before, of yore

57. End of boyish period 61. Potato measurement 63. Track action Commodore’s lyric, “She’s ____” and home description 64. 66. Be off base 67. Ending 68. Boxer Spinks 69. Jamie Foxx’s legend 70. Out of it 71. Sheltered, at sea Down 1. Bidding 2. Meteorologist’s line 3. Talk aimlessly 4. The Everly Brothers composition 5. Riyadh resident 6. Away from home 7. Under the weather 8. Moves restlessly 9. Foreboding 10. Roman fiddler 11. Gentleness 12. Wave catcher 13. One not wearing rose colored glasses 18. Eating places 22. St. Louis pro 25. Alfresco 28. Parent’s order

30. FYI part 31. Contractor’s measure 34. Ski lift 36. Opposite of sophisticated and advanced 38. All the renters on an estate 39. It may need massaging 40. Jersey call 41. Type of party 42. Greek woman who was a social climber 46. “Quiet!” 48. Clout 50. Fill up the tank again 51. Defoe character 52. Satellite of Saturn 55. A natural juice 58. Clods 59. Life lines? 60. Bond opponent 62. Kind of nut 65. 007 creator Fleming W H O M

A U R A

P A R A

L I A R

S E E K E G U R R E I S C S

A C C O L A D E

T R A V E L

T O S U U N C I A L T U R N C O T R E K U S E S S E E R E T D

H A V E N

E V E R

N E A T

A S T H E G O N S A R I H E B A I L S M S D S E A T O F V U L A E N E C R A S E

A N I E M V E E A R M E R A I P T P A E A R

X E N O N

E X T O L

S T O N Y

L A O S

S I D E

O D E S

I N F O

N A A N

T Y R O

LAST ISSUE’S ANSWERS (MAY EDITION)

8 4 7

sudokuhard

MYLES MELLOR AND SALLY YORK

3 8 2 8 5 1

crossword

1 3 5 2 5 7 6 9 2 7 5 3 2 4 1 7 6 8 4 7 6 1 5 7 4 1 3

5 3

sudokueasy

“Constructions”

Hey, here’s a random joke! A priest walked into a barber shop in Ottawa. After he got his haircut, he asked how much it would be. The barber said, “No charge. I consider it a service to the Lord.” The next morning, the barber came to work and there were 12 prayer books and a thank-you note from the priest in front of the door. Later that day, a police officer came in and got his hair cut. He then asked how much it was. The barber said, “No charge. I consider it a service to the community.” The next morning, he came to work and there were a dozen donuts and a thank-you note from the police officer. Then a Senator came in and got a haircut. When he was done he asked how much it was. The barber said, “No charge. I consider it a service to the country.” The next morning, the barber came to work and there were 12 Senators in front of the door.

June 2013

The Omega would like to congratulate all of this year’s graduates on a job well done. Whether you’re carrying on with your education formally (NEVER STOP LEARNING) or joining the workforce, we wish you good luck (as if luck has anything to do with it) in your future endeavours. May you always remember your time here fondly.

We’re hiring for 2013/14 Here’s what we need: Someone with a reliable vehicle who doesn’t mind waking up early one day a week, can be trusted to do so, and is interested in marketing and/or sales. The position is advertising and distribution coordinator, and it can pay really well depending on your performance. Here’s what else we need: Someone who gets their kicks from administrative and policy decisions, wants to investigate reasons for the decisions that are affecting the campus community, and has a nose for when something smells off in terms of public relations and talking points. The position is news editor, and if you’re looking at getting into investigative reporting, PR work, or other forms of communications work, this will look awesome on your resumé and give you some outside-the-classroom skills (with proof) to help market yourself. Oh, and: Someone who likes everything about campus life, from concerts and plays, to guest speakers, program development, grounds and building maintenance, athletics and residential issues. The position is roving editor, and you’d pick up where everyone else leaves off, getting the goods out to our readers about what’s going on around them that they should be taking advantage of. Contact Mike at editor@truomega.ca with a resumé and cover letter if any of these positions sounds appealing. If you’re a good fit, you start in September.