April 10, 2019

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T H O M P S O N R I V E R S U N I V E R S I T Y ' S I N D E P E N D E N T S T U D E N T N E W S PA P E R

VOLUME 28 · ISSUE 26 · APRIL 10, 2019

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TRU PROF TALKS SNC-LAVALIN

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ECO CLUB CLEANS KAMLOOPS SHORELINES

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WOMEN'S RUGBY PROGRAM ENDING

CFTC host regional Junior Dragons' Den Juan Cabrejo BUSINESS EDITOR Ω The Community Futures Thompson Country regional Junior Dragons' Den took place last Thursday, permitting a selected few aspiring student entrepreneurs of different age groups to present their business ideas to a live audience and judging panel. The competition was separated into three divisions, a junior category for elementary

school students, a secondary category for junior high/high school students and a post-secondary category for university students. The three winning concepts (one for each age group) were rewarded a $500 check to continue pursuing their venture.

Out of 400 business proposals, the 16 most fleshed out student entrepreneurial projects qualified to compete.

Each competing qualifying team was paired up with a mentor from the Kamloops business community to help

further develop the students’ business idea while assisting them in composing a one-page business plan and a final video or slideshow for the live pitch. Tara Holmes of Kamloops This Week helped moderate the event.

See JUNIOR DRAGONS' Page 2

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The Junior Dragons' Den took place in the Irving K. Barber Centre last Thursday. The secondary category resulted in a two-way tie between Recycled Sounds and Clean Kitchen. (Juan Cabrejo/Ω)

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APRIL 10, 2019

NEWS

TRU hosts Education Career Fair Junior Dragons' Den Education graduates given a chance to network with employers sees 16 ideas face off Farrah Johnson CONTRIBUTOR Ω The TRU Career and Experiential Learning Department in conjunction with the Faculty of Education and Social Work hosted a career fair for new graduates from the Bachelor of Education program in the Panorama Room of the International Building on April 4.

The fair featured provincial and national school districts, along with international recruiters, who interviewed graduates from elementary and secondary education STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs.

Vince Watson, TRU events and marketing coordinator, said the fair gave upcoming graduates the opportunity to connect with various employers before graduation.

“We’ve got them grouped into three different groups, so they have an opportunity to go around and connect with different school districts, as well as different schools throughout British Columbia, just to

network and learn more about the opportunities that are available,” he said.

Watson also shared that employers who attended the fair had the option to select candidates to interview the following day.

He added that while the education career fair is an annual event, this year is the first time the university has involved STEM graduates.

“That program is only two years old, so it’s a remarkable opportunity for them to be able to have a position and have that lined up for them before graduation,” he stated.

Elaborating on the event, John Churchley, coordinator of teaching and learning, said they brought in fifteen employers from various schools districts including private, international and Indigenous institutions.

“We do a speed dating interview, so they have five minutes per employer and they go around and they just have these quick interviews. Tomorrow they’ll have longer interviews with the employers that they like,” he explained.

Churchley said the fair is very helpful because it gives students practice with the interviewing process, so they won’t feel as nervous when they start applying for jobs.

“We’ve just had one excited TC leave a little bit early because she got handed a contract at this meeting right here, so it’s very exciting for our students,” he said.

Churchley was referring to Victoria Pattison, a bachelor of education major in the elementary program, who told The Omega that she had met with the school district she had previously applied to and was offered a package “right away.”

“Here’s a good chance to warm up [and] try these five-minute interviews. They’re low stakes, you get to feel comfortable [and] you can’t stay nervous,” Churchley stated.

“The students always come out excited about that but also they get jobs.”

This year, there will be 80 students graduating from the two cohorts of elementary education and the first cohort of the secondary STEM program.

CONTINUED (COVER) “There were so many applications that came in, 16 teams are who have made the finals and they are going to be pitching to you tonight,” Holmes said. “The goal of this competition with Community Futures, when you think about it, is the students are thinking outside the box with innovative, amazing ideas and they can go on to form businesses.”

The most well thought out ideas consisted of a feeding system for small animals, an eco-friendly cutting board service, an ecological wooden speaker business and a painting service app attempting to improve the painting quota process. Curiously, all of the post-secondary projects at the junior dragons’ den had been pitched previously at the ICE Club’s elevator pitch competition.

The “dragons” of the competition included Community Futures Thompson Country general manager Blair Gray, CFDC of CIFN (Community Futures Development Corporation of Central Interior First

Nations) general manager George Casimir, KADREA (Kamloops & District Real Estate Association) president Wendy Runge, SOBE director of development Kim Torreggiani and Colin O’Leary, principal at O’Leary and Associates Ltd. Casimir was very appreciative of everyone who contributed their time and effort to make the Dragons' Den possible.

“I want to acknowledge all the 400 participants who started their journey last fall, the organizers of tonight’s event, the 16 semi-finalists and three finalists; I want to give them a big round of applause,” he said. “I want to thank all the principals and teachers, support staff of School District 73 and thank them for their support, we also need to thank all the mentors, sponsors, parents and community members.”

It was a tough decision for the judges, resulting in a two-way tie for the secondary category.

Congratulations to LTS Feeds (junior), Clean Kitchen (secondary), Recycled Sounds (secondary) and Quick Fix Painters (post-secondary).

TRU law professor discusses relevant institutional problems Christian Varty NEWS EDITOR Ω For over two months now the Trudeau government has come under heavy scrutiny under suspicion of pressuring Jody Wilson-Raybould, ex-attorney general, to invoke a deferred prosecution agreement that would act as a corporate plea deal for Montreal-based engineering giant, SNC-Lavalin.

Many are throwing vitriol at either of the two principal actors in the debacle, Justin Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould on fairly obvious partisan lines, but what many have not taken into consideration is the institutional system that allowed the scandal to spiral out of control to the size it has now.

Craig Jones is a law professor at TRU who has previously worked in the British Columbia Ministry of Justice and Attorney General. Jones sat down with The Omega to talk about some of the back-end features that ultimately facilitated the mess the Liberals currently find themselves in.

“Over the last 30 or 40 years, attorney generals offices have gone from basically a handful of lawyers to being massive government agencies as they’ve taken on more and more ministerial roles and that makes them inherently more political then they have been previously,” Jones explained. “When I was at the British Columbian AG’s office there were around 500 people. They’ve become huge institutions and as a consequence of that because there’s a concern that, one of the roles of the attorney general is overseeing prosecutions. The concern is that

Early last week Prime Minister Justin Trudeau removed Wilson-Raybould and fellow MP Jane Philpott from the Liberal Party caucus. (Owen Byrne/Flickr) prosecutions might then become political fodder.”

The attorney general, at the end of the day fundamentally has the say as to what cases are prosecuted by the Crown.

“I was doing a polygamy trial and that came as a consequence of the attorney general of the time, Wally Oppal, overriding the decisions of the prosecutors who decided not to prosecute anyone and Wally said, ‘I don’t like that, so I want you to appoint

a special prosecutor’,” Jones said as to how that manual override works in actuality.

Problems arise in the case of how the system is organized in Canada federally when the attorney general’s office operates, not independently of the government, but in accordance with the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry’s function is essentially to act as legal counsel for the Canadian government. But Jones points out that having the attorney general’s office

completely severed from the Canadian government can also be problematic.

“The difficulty with a fully independent prosecutorial service is that it’s not accountable and do you really want some prosecutor that no one’s voted for deciding on a whim who to prosecute and who not to prosecute,” he said.

“The complication, in this case, is no one has ever really examined since we’ve had this new model how much politics is appropriate in that

attorney general’s override decision.”

Jones added, “I think it’s completely appropriate for the Prime Minister or anyone else to say, ‘Look this is a powerful company, there might be jobs on the line. It’s important for us to look at it economically.’ Where it probably crosses the line, at least into very distasteful territory if not ethically and maybe even legally questionable, is if the Prime Minister says, ‘We’re going to lose an election if you don’t override this prosecutorial decision’.”

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NEWS

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Women of TRU share tales of gender imbalance in academia

NOW

HIRING

Cailyn Mocci ARTS EDITOR Ω Starting back in January, the TRUSU Equity Committee launched the Women of TRU project to provide women in academia the platform to share their experiences and stories of gender barriers and inequalities.

By interviewing seven women of all walks of life on campus, the Women of TRU project was able to discover some issues on campus around the mentorship of women, promotion, tenure and pay equality and sexualized violence.

In a three-page letter written to TRU President Brett Fairbairn, Sierra Rae, TRUSU VP Equity, invites the TRU administration to take into consideration these women’s stories for future campus improvements.

This letter was comprised of the interviews of the project and an open conversation held in celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8.

The social media project had quite a large reach, racking over 34,000 hits on social media platforms and sparking conversations that might have been kept quiet due to stigma.

Among the seven women interviewed was Dean of Students Christine Adams. Adams is the leader of a vast array of professionals in charge of supporting students’ personal, academic, social and career development.

Adams spoke of her grandmother’s sacrifices that lead to the privilege of education she has spent the majority of her adult life immersed in.

“I realized that the hard work she and my grandfather had done created a foundation that allowed my mother to get a nursing education which thereby allowed me to access both undergraduate and graduate studies,” said Adams in her interview with

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the Women of TRU project. “She was humble, incredibly talented and a reminder to me of the privilege I have had to have a life based in education.”

An international student hailing from South Africa, Patience Nyoka, spoke of the hushed and stigmatized conversations of sexualized violence that often go without justice.

“It can be scary, especially for a woman of colour. You are often fighting two battles at once —how the world will react and what people think of you. As women, we don’t tend to believe in ourselves as a community,” said Nyoka in her interview. “It’s only petty differences that separate us. We can achieve so much more when we are working together.”

In the letter directed towards Fairbairn, Rae pushed the idea of providing mandatory gender equality courses in male-dominated paths such as trades, STEM and athletics, to help combat the "bystander effect" that passively encourages gender discrimination.

“When creating this sense of community and team through athletics there is absolutely no room for gender discrimination,” said TRU journalism alumni and events coordinator for the TRU WolfPack, Miranda Pham, in her interview for the project. “Every woman on campus deserves this level of support and I’d encourage women to reach out and talk about the struggles you face to help build that support network with other women.”

Rae is confident that this letter will spark some changes within the campus community. While there hasn’t been a response yet, Rae lists the Equity Committee’s strong relationship with the TRU administration as a positive support system.

To read all seven interviews you can find them at trusu.ca/news/equity/ what-we-heard-women-of-tru/.

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APRIL 10, 2019

NEWS

TRU lecturer takes on the subject of ethics Domestic tuition set to increase Cailyn Mocci ARTS EDITOR Ω In respect of National Health Ethics Week in Canada, registered nurse and TRU senior lecturer Michelle Funk Coltman opened up about the importance of teaching these subjects for health professionals in training.

National Health Ethics Week is an opportunity for health professionals all over the country to talk about this very important subject as it pertains to the health care they provide daily.

For over a decade, Funk Coltman has focused her career in palliative and end-of-life care, a branch of health care that for many is sensitive and involves an intimate relationship with one’s ethics.

Funk Coltman has been teaching at TRU for 15 years and focuses much of her teachings on death and dying, life and living, self and others in nursing practice settings.

“Our profession is very embedded with ethics, as professionals, as nurses we have something that’s called a code of ethics. We take them very seriously and to heart,” Funk Coltman said.

“Enacting that every day as a TRU faculty member with students in the clinical setting or the classroom when we speak of case studies or encounters we’ve had as healthcare professionals, it’s really important to ensure and emulate our ethics at all times, no

matter where we are.”

In her Death and Dying class (HEAL 3330), which is taught as an interdisciplinary course, forces students to turn their technical training inwards and look at how they ethically think themselves.

“It’s about challenging our own notions of our own ethical stance in how we feel about those areas of practice as people. But when you come into my death and dying class it’s ‘But how do you feel about that?’ to think about the delivery of medical assistance for the dying,” Funk Coltman said.

Funk Coltman encourages other professions to take on a more reflective approach when it comes to ethical teachings. This reflective process allows students the time, space and education to think about these taboo subjects.

“Students come into education and they don’t know what to expect.

They have an idea what it might be like but they really don’t expect the self-awareness and reflection that we gain in education. It changes us,” Funk Coltman said.

All-in-all, Funk Coltman views ethics in teaching as a huge priority.

“Ethics are huge, you have to be ethical and behave properly and practice in a certain way. We all have to have ethics, we all have to have an ethical lens as a society,” Funk Coltman concluded.

Latest TRU Board of Governors meeting reveals a hike to domestic tuition and an incoming academic freedom statement

Christian Varty NEWS EDITOR Ω The school year is beginning to wrap up which means that the academic powers-that-be residing over the board of Thompson Rivers University gathered for the final Board of Governors meeting of the winter semester. The event was live-streamed on Vimeo and is available via transcript for students or faculty that would like to explore a wider range of the topics covered at the meeting.

The two decisions that are unequivocally the most relevant to students and faculty is the tuition hike and the statement on academic freedom.

“Domestic on-campus undergraduate enrolments continue to be a challenge for TRU. We have budgeted for a two per cent increase in tuition rates,” Paul Manhas, associate vice-president of finance wrote in the budget report. “Domestic open learning enrolments are

projected to increase plus the budgeted two per cent price increase.”

The increase of domestic tuition is ultimately less than what international students will be experiencing.

“Fall and winter enrolments are expected to be down by 200 students each semester approximately reducing fee revenue by over $3 million. This is partially offset by the fee increase of three per cent starting in the fall semester,” the same report continues on regarding international students and their tuition prices.

One of the reasons cited for an increase in international tuition is due to the sharp decrease in summer semester revenue. Estimated to be around 22 per cent.

The other significant stipulation this board of governors meeting produced was the announcement that TRU will further pursue a statement on academic freedom at the school.

Currently, no such statement

exists.

“Academic freedom is of highest interest and impact to faculty and I trust through the committee that you will propose a statement that best reflects TRU,” Brett Fairbairn said in a release.

“While academic freedom is protected under collective agreements at TRU, as noted in the working committee’s terms of reference there is no universally-accepted understanding of its scope. A TRU-specific statement will help provide some clarity around the meaning and reach of academic freedom, in its application at TRU. The statement is intended as a guideline, and one that I hope will be inspirational and an opportunity to state our common values; it is not about procedures or regulations.”

The actuality of this release refers to a new committee that will research the need for an academic freedom statement and creating one that is most pertinent to TRU at this time.

TRU Eco Club and City set out to clean Kamloops shores A party of 40 volunteers took to Pioneer Park to clean up trash left by people Justin Moore STAFF WRITER Ω Adjacent to the public washrooms at Pioneer Park last week sat a sign "Adopt a Street cleanup in progress," but what took place last Saturday was much more than just a street clean.

In a combined effort of the TRU Eco Club, TRU Sustainability Office and the City of Kamloops, Pioneer Park hosted around 40 residents, students and city officials for a shoreline cleanup.

The inception for the cleanup came at the same time for TRU's Sustainability office and Christian Andrews of the TRU Eco Club.

"I came across the website, and at the same time, the Sustainability office reached out to me and said ‘We're trying to find somebody to do this,’ and I was actually thinking about doing it anyway, so I partnered up," Andrews said. "It was very easy to organize."

Shortly after 10 a.m., volunteers picked up orange garbage bags, trash collectors and sharps waste boxes supplied by the city and after some words from Andrews, the volunteers split up, setting out to clear the area of any trash they came across.

As the event was organized using The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup (GCSC) resources, scorecards were handed to each group to tally up how many of certain items were picked up.

For the next week, Andrews will

Volunteers from the Eco Club, residents of Kamloops and TRU students gathered to tackle shoreline garbage with bags and grabbers. (Justin Moore/The Omega) be tallying up the results to send to the GCSC. This information will be added to the yearly data the organization gathers on how much trash is collected.

By far one of the most interesting items collected on Saturday was a red KitchenAid blender, leaving volunteers and Andrews amazed and

curious as to if it still worked.

At the end of the two-hour cleanup, the garbage was then collected by the City of Kamloops to be weighed and disposed of accordingly. The weight and number of bags is information also of interest to the GCSC. In 2017 alone, over 10,000 bags of

garbage were filled during cleanup events weighing in at well over 88,000 kg.

As for the Kamloops cleanup, the tally is still out, Andrews guaranteeing a figure by the end of next week.

While the Pioneer Park cleanup was a first for Kamloops, the city is proposing a monthly effort to further

clean the shores of human-caused litter under the banner of Adopt a Shoreline, according to Andrews.

"I think this is a great thing to do. It fits my values as a person and sharing that with other people is my goal in life I guess," Andrews added.

Any future cleanups can be found on the Eco Club's Facebook page.

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ARTS

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Four films to excite you into checking out climbing

The Reel Rock film screening aims to show audiences different types of rock climbing Elizabeth Nygren CONTRIBUTOR Ω On April 23, the Reel Rock film screening put on by the Adventure U Club and adventure program at TRU will take place at the Alumni Theatre in the clock tower. Nipunika Kedia, the organizer of the event, is a first-year adventure studies student, currently working to earn her Adventure Guide Certificate. “[Reel Rock] releases four short films related to rock climbing every year. No one was playing the film and all the adventure students here wanted to watch it, so I thought I’d take the initiative and bring it so everyone can experience it,” Kedia said.

The film screening is apart of the Reel Rock film tour, which was created by two filmmakers, Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer. This is their 13th time creating the film tour and the Adventure U Club at TRU has been hosting it for years.

“This is the first time I’m putting on this event,” Kedia said. “But this event has been put on in the past few

years by other senior students. They release movies every year so I’m pretty sure somebody else next year coming in will put it on.”

This film screening will hopefully encourage those who don’t climb to check it out, as well as to promote the sport. Speed climbing has recently been added as an Olympic sport and will be showcased during the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.

The film screening will show four different climbing related films.

“Reel Rock was a film series that was founded in 2006. It brings the best rock climbing and adventure films of the year to audiences around the world,” Kedia explained.

She says that the event will hopefully get people stoked and excited for the rock climbing season coming up.

Age of Ondra, one of the films, follows the story of Adam Ondra as he embarks on an intense rock climbing experience. Valley of the Moon is about a team of four climbers who climb tall sandstone walls in a desert in Jordan. Up to Speed takes a look at speed climbing, a subgenre of the rock climbing sport. Lastly,

there’s Queen Maud Land, which follows the story of six elite climbers as they climb the remote frozen towers in Antarctica.

Kedia was able to put on the event with help from TRUSU, which provided a grant to purchase the rights for the films, as well as from the Adventure U Club, the Adventure Program and Kelsie Maas, a coordinator in the adventure department.

All in addition to the creators of Reel Rock themselves.

In the past, the adventure club has seen around 100 people attend the event, but Kedia hopes for more.

“Since this is a free event, I would encourage people who don’t climb to come and experience and see if they’d be interested in trying out the sport,” she said. “It’s also promoting the sport in a way.”

The event is free for everyone but the club encourages people to register online through TRU Adventure U’s website. Free popcorn will also be available at the event, as long as the people attending bring their own bowl. Doors for the event open at 6:30 p.m. with the films starting at 6:45 p.m.

Album review: A New Breed of Bloodbath A late-stage vaporwave album that recalls the classics Christian Varty NEWS EDITOR Ω Vaporwave has long since been scrubbed from the minds of many who were once inundated with the post-Internet music genre that encapsulated millennial apathy and sneered at consumerist society. There is still a healthy underground scene where the obscure subgenres of otherwise nebulous musical style are represented by artists like Surfing, Windows96 and fellow Vancouverite R23X. At the end of the day what Lustre Flux has accomplished with A New Breed of Bloodbath is explore the vaporwave cliche aspects of the genre with such competency and with nods to ironic humour that one can only

wonder how seriously Lustre Flux is taking their own music.

The most blatant example of this is the track Frank ECCO: Return to 420 Land [無敵], the title is a series of references and inside jokes —Frank likely referring to vaporwave enamoured internet comedian and producer Frank Jav Cee, ECCO undoubtedly referring to vaporwave catalyst Chuck Person’s Eccojams Vol. 1, the Chinese kanji at the end being a play on the ubiquitous usage of Japanese kanji in the genre. And then there’s the minute long track itself, which is, depending on how you look at it either a remix of Macintosh Plus’s irreverent リサフランク 420 / 現代のコンピュー |, which in itself is a slowed down and modulated recording of Diana Ross’ It’s Your Move. This time

the song is sped up and suffers from blatant time stretching problems and offers an odd ode to the genre.

The next example of the humour embedded into this album are the next tracks titled Drown Your Sorrows in MP3s and Solve Your Problems with MP5s. The former is an adept, albeit derivative vaporwave remixing of The Pet Shop Boys’ Yesterday When I Was Mad. In its essence, this is representative of what a vaporwave appropriation track should be —a reimagining of an upbeat 80s song that has been manipulated to sound dissonant or full of sorrow. Drown Your Sorrows in MP3s most prominently features the once inconspicuous line, “It doesn’t really matter ‘cause the music is so loud,” completely dominating the song. It’s pitch-shifted and altered to the point where the once poppy and upbeat song has a foreboding edge to it in this context.

The final leg of the album is where the release really starts to pick up steam. Into the Fog is perhaps the most spectacular song on this record. Straight out of the gate the song is triumphant and optimistic. It’s dense and evocative while not resembling anything that even resembles traditional orthodoxy in Western music but still manages to feel inspiring, like a digital orchestration that has the ability to tap into the sense of adventure that lives within us all.

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APRIL 10, 2019

ARTS

Shazam review: the best DCEU film yet Morgan Hunter CONTRIBUTOR Ω A boy who gains the ability of a superhero is an interesting premise, especially when you mix it in with the intensity that is the DC Extended Universe. With its charm and understanding of what it is, Shazam is truly one of the best DCEU films made thus far, even tying for the best with Wonder Woman, in my opinion.

Shazam revolves around Billy Batson, a 14-year old foster kid who is visited by a wizard and is given a variety of superhuman abilities, all while shifting from a teenager’s body to a superpowered adult.

The first great thing about this movie is how well Zachary Levi portrays a 14-year old. Whenever the kid turns into a god, he retains his entire puberty-stricken brain, which is portrayed so well that it makes each moment with him on the screen even better. He portrays a teen who's been rejected so many times by foster homes and society that his performance itself separates the film from the regular superhero formula that

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viewers have come to expect.

The second great thing about this film is that it carries with it a genuinely good theme that a foster home can be a good place. The stigma that comes with foster homes in movies is usually toxic and destructive due to there being many foster homes that do care about the children they look after.

The villain is also very interesting, though the character himself isn’t the most well-written. He holds a good motive, the sad part is he does take a back seat compared to the origin of Shazam himself but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as well this

Review: Dumbo

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room Morgan Hunter

means there could be good surprises if the film does get a sequel.

And honestly, the picture has good comedy and surprisingly dark and graphic moments that hold the viewer on the edge of their seat. It doesn’t hold back on the references and uses actual real-life examples for its story that carry more weight than they should, which only speaks to the love that the entire production crew had for the film.

Shazam is amazing, and even though clapping at the end of any movie isn’t something I regularly do, I almost did it for this film and would go see it again in a heartbeat.

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CFBX TOP 30 CFBX 92.5 FM, 350 Watts Kamloops, BC Music Director: Steve Marlow Charts to April 4, 2019 * indicates Canadian Content ** indicates a local artist

CONTRIBUTOR Ω

Artist - Album (Label)

Disney has decided to take all their animations and turn them into live action. The problem is some of them don’t lend themselves to that environment and that's exactly the case with Dumbo.

Dumbo revolves around an elephant with wing-like ears and his goal to reunite with his mother.

Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room, Dumbo isn’t good, and it hurts because it’s barely watchable. The only positive about it is the acting from Danny Devito (who shines as America's sweetheart) and the CGI version of Dumbo.

There’s something about the way this elephant is animated and interacts with people that makes it likeable. It all falls apart, however, when another character speaks to it, showing how wooden and dull the dialogue is. Jon Favro proved that a full CGI Disney remake can be amazing, so how Tim Burton fumbled the ball so bad will always evade me.

In all fairness, this critic has never seen the original Dumbo, but if a film can’t stand on its own without the love of the original pushing an audience member forward, it shows that the film has problems and this movie is a prime example.

One of the main issues that bring itself to the front right out the gate is the child actors. Even if they were trying their best, it doesn’t excuse the way they were poorly written, being used either as a failed

1) Said the Whale* - Cascadia (Arts and Crafts) 2) Colin Linden/Luther Dickenson* - Amour (Stony Plain) 3) Royal Tusk* - Tusk II (E1) 4) Michael Jerome Browne* - That's Where It's At! (Borealis) 5) King of Foxes* - Salt and Honey (Independent) 6) Angela Verbrugge* - The Night We Couldn't Say Goodnight (Gut String) 7) Benny Turner and Cash McCall - Welcome to Chicago (Nola Blue) 8) Elza* - Nothing's Wrong (Independent) 9) The Shires - My Universe (Decca) 10) Murray A. Lightburn* - Hear Me Out (Dangerbird) 11) The Pikeys - The Sons of War and Whiskey (Independent) 12) The Galacticas* - Diagnostics (Independent) 13) Mike Edel* - Thresholds (Pop Up) 14) Royal Canoe* - Waver (Paper Bag) 15) At Mission Dolores** - Cool World (Factotum Co.) 16) Justin Hewitt* - The Ways to Love You (Independent) 17) Lee Harvey Osmond* - Mohawk (Latent) 18) Anemone* - Beat My Distance (Luminelle) 19) Atomic Road Kings - Clean Up the Blood (Bigtone) 20) Flesh Rag* - Inside Your Mind (Independent) 21) Homeshake* - Helium (Royal Mountain) 22) Fishtank - Shadows EP (Independent) 23) The Blue Stones* - Black Holes (E1) 24) Karbholz - 100% (Metalville) 25) Layla Zoe* - Gemini (Independent) 26) Priors* - New Pleasure (Slovenly) 27) The Houses (Where We Grew Up)** - Dy//ng (Independent) 28) Lost Cousins* - In Scenery (Pheromone) 29) Escape Goat* - Escape Goat EP (Independent) 30) Dave Young* - Lotus Blossom (Modica)

platform or as extras. Claiming things as passions and having that portrait characterization is as disrespectful as flat-out having them wear a sign stating, “This is what makes me important.” It treats the viewer as stupid, and I’m aware this is a kid’s movie but if it has $170 million backing it, it could spare a few dollars for a decent writer.

There are some fantastic visuals, and that does shine through though. From the style of the setting to some of the set pieces, the show carries a very distinct identity that people can appreciate. But style can’t hold a movie up, it needs to have features that complement its style, and that isn’t present in this remake.

Dumbo is a film that no one asked to be remade, and now that it exists, it's clear that it’ll become so dull that. In a few months or at the most a year, no one will remember it anyway.

3

WWW.TRUOMEGA.CA

SPORTS

7

WolfPack Awards Banquet honours top performers Tim Dobbert and Olga Savenchuk win Sports Task Force athletes of the year Alvin Mutandiro SPORTS EDITOR Ω At the end of every season the WolfPack hosts a banquet to celebrate their top performers. This year saw a lot of familiar faces receive some top awards.

Olga Savenchuk had a big night winning two awards. Savenchuk was

the winner of the Sports Task Force female athlete of the year award.

She also took home the female newcomer of the year. Olga was named a Canada West first team allstar and was fourth in Canada West in kills (340) and kills per set (3.78).

Savenchuk beat basketball star Michelle Bos to the award. Grimm was complimentary of his star player.

“Very happy to see Olga get the recognition she deserves as TRU female athlete of the year,” he told TRU Athletics. “I appreciate her desire to make our group stronger moving forward and she is very deserving of this award.”

Savenchuk managed to beat Chantal Gammie in the race for newcomer of the year as well.

In other awards, Michael Rouault

(TRU Athletics/Andrew Snucins)

won the Cliff Neufield leadership award for the second straight year over soccer’s Thomas Lantmeeters and volleyball’s Tim Edge.

“Michael is exactly what you want when you recruit student-athletes,” said men’s basketball coach Scott Clark to TRU Athletics. “He takes both aspects of that title very seriously. He is a hard-working student and is very diligent. He is a team-first guy. I can’t say enough good things about him.”

Tim Dobbert was the Sports Task Force male athlete of the year.

Dobbert had an excellent final season at TRU that included an all-Canada team selection.

He is also in consideration for the KSOC university athlete of the year award.

“Tim Dobbert had a great year and is well deserving of all his awards and honours,” said men’s volleyball head coach Pat Hennelly to TRU Athletics. “Tim is an excellent student, teammate and athlete, we will miss him and wish him all the best.”

TRU swim team sensation Ryley McRae was named the male newcomer of the year. He is the first swimmer from TRU to ever qualify for the USports nationals.

“I’m very excited for the year that Ryley had at TRU,” said TRU swim coach Brad Dalke to TRU Athletics.

“He had a very steep learning curve becoming a student-athlete at TRU. Overall we were very pleased with how the year went.”

The winners of the evening were the women’s volleyball team, who had all four awards on the women’s side.

In addition to Savenchuk’s two wins, Kendra Finch won the Cliff Neufeld leadership athlete of the year.

Finch received the award due to her role as a coach of a U14 team with the Kamloops Volleyball Association and her involvement with the I Believe You campaign that raises awareness about sexual violence.

Grimm was very effusive when speaking about Finch.

“I appreciate Kendra’s continued contribution to our program and institution and the example she provides to our team,” he said.

The fourth award went to teammate Avery Pottle who won the Doctor Roger H. Barnsley award, an award Finch won the last time around.

To conclude the evening the WolfPack’s fifth year and graduating players were honoured.

The banquet is always a special event as it brings recognition to those that are deserving but it also ushers in a new era for the program.

WolfPack women's rugby sevens coming to an end

Mired by injuries and bad results, women's rugby will not be returning next season Alvin Mutandiro SPORTS EDITOR Ω Starting a new program in college sports is always a tricky endeavour, an endeavour with which TRU has struggled with, first it was hockey and now it’s the women’s rugby sevens.

The WolfPack women’s sevens rugby program will not be returning in the future. It is disappointing news.

Rugby sevens is growing in popularity and provides unique opportunities to athletes that may not be suited to the 15s format.

Despite TRU cancelling the program, the Canada West University Athletics Association will still be voting on making women’s rugby a varsity sport in Canada, the process will take place in May. The WolfPack had carried out a two-year trial to determine the viability of the program but bad results combined with injuries made it difficult.

TRU was 0-5 throughout its run, every game was one-sided. TRU was up against some established university programs who have rugby 15s teams.

Competing against well-established teams was TRU’s greatest challenge, a challenge which the university will face in the future if they decide to bring back the program.

“It is very difficult to start from scratch when you are going up against schools that have established rugby 15s programs from which

(TRU Athletics)

they can pull their sevens athletes,” TRU’s Athletics and Recreation Director Curtis Atkinson told TRU Athletics. “I am very appreciative of the entire coaching staff and all of the student-athletes who showed tremendous commitment to TRU and the program.”

Atkinson tried to keep an open mind back in February when he spoke with KTW. He had expressed that despite the bad results and

injuries the program had a chance of survival.

Ultimately coaches, Derek Pue and Jesse Olynyk, decided it was best that the program be discontinued.

Pue stated his disappointment to TRU Athletics.

“The core girls showed they had the work ethic and commitment to build a culture we wanted, but in the end we need to build a deeper foundation,” Pue said.

Despite the disappointment, Pue still expressed his gratitude for the opportunity he was given by TRU, but he also hopes the program is revived in the future.

“In the future, if a dedicated group came forward to establish a club at TRU and showed they could build a foundation that would be a good start for another varsity program,” Pue added.

Atkinson is open to reviving the

program in the future but stated that won’t be anytime soon.

The WolfPack program has experienced a litany of changes this season, the closure of the rugby program is the latest example of that.

Going forward TRU will have to plan well if they’re going to introduce a new program, as it has been proven; it is very difficult to establish a viable program that can compete in varsity sports.

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APRIL 10, 2019

THE OMEGA

Donate any left-over non-perishable food items

Donation bins will be available in the TRU Residence, Upper College Heights, and McGill Housing lobbies:

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