December 1, 2014

Vol. CXXXV, No. 12

1 December, 2014

The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

GSU referendum did not reach quorum, says CRO

FOR THE

James Flynn NEWS EDITOR

records ’s o t n o To r nd t heir s t ores a t he ci t y n i y r o t his p. 12

The recent vote on the Graduate Students’ Union’s (gsu) continued membership in the Canadian Federation of Students (cfs) and the CFS-Ontario (cfs-o) did not reach quorum, according to referendum Chief Returning Officer (cro) Stephen Littley.

The quorum requirement for the vote was 10 per cent of eligible voters.

The referendum question asked: “Are you in favour of continued membership in the Canadian Federation of Student and the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario?”

According to sources involved in the campaigns, over 66 per cent of voting members voted “No.” “[T]he total number of eligible voters was 16,056 putting quorum at 1,606. The total number of votes cast was 1,599,” reads a message posted on the cro’s website.

“The vote, therefore, was not quorate,” the message continues.

As of press time, the final results could not be released until administration confirmed double enveloped ballots that will then be counted.

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INSIDE Comment Taking a stance on unpaid internships

UTSU vice-president, university affairs Pierre Harfouche resigns

PG. 10

Harfouche cites lack of communication, power dynamics, procedural disagreements

Arts & Culture

Iris Robin

A call to the university to cease advertising unpaid internships

Gaming like it’s 1993 The Varsity explores the world of retro video game stores

PG. 14

Science Memory loss may occur long after surgery Anesthetics linked to sustained memory deficits

PG. 18

Sports Hockey teams midseason recap Women’s team strong while men’s tried to keep playoffs hopes alive

PG. 23

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

After serving half of his term as vice president, university affairs on the University of Toronto Students’ Union (utsu) Executive Committee, Pierre Harfouche has resigned from office.

Harfouche broke the news to the utsu Board of Directors in a resignation letter sent via email on November 26. His letter cited an inability to accomplish his key goals, his deteriorating mental health, and his discomfort with being paid by students who he feels unable to represent.

Harfouche was the sole Team Unite executive elected in March 2014. He was the first executive member who did not run on a slate that included incumbents in eight years.

Previously, Harfouche served as a director on the utsu board, where he urged the union to recognize the positions of divisions seeking fee diversion.

THE UTSU DIVIDED Asha*, a member of the utsu Board of Directors, notes the rift between what she views as two different sides. “Throughout the summer and continuing into the school year, you could definitely feel the tension and divide between Pierre and — I won’t say all of the [executives] — but a lot of the [executives]... I really almost felt

like I was back in high school and they were two different cliques in the utsu,” Asha says.

“I just feel like there’s a difference between socially not getting along and then literally kind of stopping him from doing his job,” Asha says, referring to an incident in which she alleges that Harfouche was intentionally not notified of legal counsel’s presence at a Board of Directors meeting during the summer. “If other [executives] are notified that legal counsel is coming, then he has the right to be as well. I felt that they were trying to make him look stupid and unprepared,” she says.

Yolen Bollo-Kamara, utsu president, says that she has always worked to maintain a safe and respectful working environment for all members of the utsu executive, as well as all other staff, volunteers, and board members.

She adds that she has made a point of addressing any issues brought to her attention with the individuals involved.

“I think it’s unfortunate that Pierre was unable to stay on as an executive, but I support his making a decision that he felt was best, and wish him well,” says Bollo-Kamara, adding, “being an employer and a student representative of a large-scale organization like the utsu can be a difficult adjustment for first-time executives and it certainly becomes more difficult when there are concerns about your behaviour towards others.”

When Asha brought her concerns to other members of the utsu executive, she did not feel that they acknowledged how Harfouche was treated. “I felt so strongly about how they were treating him that I even went to some of the [executives] to talk about it. I said, ‘I’ve heard some other execs talking about this, and even about how the board members [sic] talking about this,’ and I was really taken aback and embarrassed, and [Yolen] was like, ‘oh, I didn’t know that was how you took it,’ and kind of got defensive about it,” Asha recalls.

Bollo-Kamara alleges that Harfouche broke the utsu’s bylaws. “Pierre has been made aware that he has broken the bylaws on numerous occasions, from not working the minimum required hours, to failing to pass a budget for the Academic and Student Rights Commission that he chairs,” she says.

“Certain roles involve more traditional 9-5 work hours while others involve strategic thinking, reflection, and reading, particularly meeting minutes, budgets, and university policy,” Harfouche says. “It’s very easy for anyone to accuse each other of not accomplishing the required number of work hours.”

Harfouche claims that he did pass a budget for the commission and it was approved by the Budget Committee. Harfouche said that it was

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VARSITY NEWS

Vol. CXXXV, No. 12

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Associate Design Editor Vanessa Wang Janice Liu Associate Senior Copy Editor Hunter McGuire Associate News Editors Iris Robin Alex McKeen Salvatore Basilone Associate Comment Editors Victoria Wicks Emma Kikulis Associate A&C Editors Daniel Konikoff Jacob Lorinc Associate Science Editor Nadezha Woinowsky-Krieger Associate Sports Editor Reshara Alviarez Associate Web Developer Ishan Thukral Contributors Salvatore Basilone, Lisa Bernard, Sam Caladrone, Aditya Chawla, Emily Colero, Emma Compeau, Sampson Coutts, Misara ElGammal, James Flynn, Claire Fox, Jonathan Gass, Meerah Haq, Abbi Indrakumar, Emily Katz, Wan Xian Koh, Daniel Konikoff, Jacob Lorinc, Michael Luoma, Tamim Mansour, Alex McKeen, Linh Nguyen, Sarah Niedoba, Aneta Perehinets, Meghan Peterson, Andrew Richmond, Iris Robin, Kasi Sewraj, Ayla Shiblaq, Jaclin Simonetta, Corey Van Den Hoogenband, Thomas Vangou, Brittaney Warren, Victoria Wicks, Nadezhda Woinowsky-Krieger, Ameena Youssef, Shijie Zhou Copy editors and Fact Checkers Alexandra Babiak, Elisha Bauer-Maison, Isabela Borges, Madelin Burt-D’Agnillo, Erica Chau, Younhee Jin, Simeon Krastnikov, John Macpherson, Ashita Parekh, Soham Parelkar, Teodora Pasca, Maria Sokulsky-Dolnycky, Jonathan Soo, Itzel Velazquez, Elliot Wright lead Fact-Checkers Heather Eason, Sean Smith, Suhas Srinivasan Designers Kawmadie Karunanayake, Jasjeet Matharu, Vanessa Wang, Tiffany Wu Mari Zhou Cover Photo by Mallika Makkar

Photographers and illustrators Afif Aqrabawi, Julien Balbontin, Shahin S. Imtiaz, Mashal Khan, Timothy Law, Jessica Lee, Janice Liu, Evan Luke, Alastair MacNamara, Mallika Makkar, Denis Osipov, Ann Sheng, Catharine Solomon, Jessica Song, Jennifer Su, Maya Wong

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Business Manager Karen Zhou business@thevarsity.ca Business Associate Parsa Jebely parsa@thevarsity.ca Advertising Executives Anna Afshar anna@thevarsity.ca rachel@thevarsity.ca Rachel Choi The Varsity is the University of Toronto's largest student newspaper, publishing since 1880. The Varsity has a circulation of 20,000, and is published

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Fireworks at the Calvalcade of Lights. Mallika Makkar/THe VarsiTy

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WHAT’S GOING ON THIS WEEK ON CAMPUS MONDAY OXFAM U OF T’S THIRD ANNUAL ETHICAL HOLIDAY BAZAAR

Hart House East Common Room, Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle, 11:00 am—5:00 pm

Stop by to pick up some ethical, sustainable holiday gifts. Local artisans will be on hand selling crafts, cards, jewellery, and more.

There will be live music!

TUESDAY HART HOUSE REVIEW SPEAK EASY Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle, 8:00 pm Come out to Hart House for the Hart House Review’s reading and open mic series. This session features readings from Jacob Wren and David James Brock and an open poetry reading.

WEDNESDAY INDEPTH CONFERENCE PRESENTS: MOVIE NIGHT – PRINCESS MONONOKE

THINGS THE VARSITY STAFF WANT FOR THE HOLIDAYS Pass our exams No snow Scratch that — Lots of snow!

A puppy For Ontario tuition fees to fall to Newfoundland and Labrador levels Effective Wifi in Convocation Hall To be friends with Taylor Swift and Lorde For the Leafs, Raptors, and Jays not to break my heart JJ Abrams’ personal phone number… I have some ideas about the new Star Wars movie All the wine A healthy sleep cycle The next season of Game of Thrones

Robarts Library, Media Commons Theatre 5:00—7:00 pm

A pack of Timbits — the simple pleasures

The INDePth Conference partners with the Contemporary Asian Studies Student Union to screen Princess Mononke as en end of semester exam destressor.

Student Commons to happen

THURSDAY EXAM JAM Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St George Street An exam preparation all-day event which includes activities, review sessions, free healthy snacks, massages, and puppies.

A complete set of the Harry Potter limited print run 2008 edition, personally autographed by JK Rowling All the coffee Year-long Advent calendar — chocolate everyday forever Peace on earth Beds in Robarts

FRIDAY CELEBRACION NAVIDEÑA Centre for International Experience, 33 St George St, 5:00—8:00pm

Correction: An article from November 24 incorrectly stated that the teaching assistant wage rate is $45/hour. It is $42.05/hour.

The cie celebrates Christmas. For $5 a plate, a buffet Christmas dinner will be served. All are welcome to share their Christmas traditions.sz4 There will be a piñata.

An article from November 24 contained inaccurate information about the formation of the GSU Litigation Committee.

var.st/news

VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014

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U of T students join rally against police brutality U of T students protest against grand jury decision in Michael Brown case Meerah Haq

VARSITY STAFF

On November 25, University of Toronto students joined in a rally at the American Consulate in Toronto to stop police brutality against black people.

The rally stemmed from a St. Louis County grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.

For Zakerie Farah, a first-year student, the rally evoked many emotions. “This was a strong symbolic moment of black unity and strength.

I was touched by it,” Farah says.

Daouii*, a second-year student who attended the protest, echoed Farah’s sentiment. She says she was amazed at “seeing such a large number of people from all different social, cultural, and economic backgrounds come together for a cause they believed so deeply in.”

Event organizers hope that the rally will help launch solidarity efforts to support organizers on the streets of Ferguson, as well as to recognize racially-motivated police brutality in other areas of the world.

Yolen Bollo-Kamara, University of Toronto Students’ Union (utsu) president and one of the organizers of the Toronto rally, drew connections between the deaths of Brown and Jermaine Carby, a black man who was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in Brampton on September 25.

Bollo-Kamara expressed hope that the rally would play a role in ending racial profiling in Toronto and ensuring that police forces are held accountable for their actions.

Bollo-Kamara also notes that rising tutition fees make post-secondary education unattainable for many low-income families, with black and otherwise racialized families disproportionately affected.

For M’kaylah Fridal, president of U of T’s Black Students Association, racial profiling hits close to home. “My father, my brother, uncles, cousins, and numerous friends all have been subject to racial profiling at least once,” Fridal says.

Fridal also referenced the lack of university professors from racialized backgrounds.

She recalled one particular instance where her 14-year-old brother was stopped by a police officer during his walk home from school and questioned about his activities and destination.

“The reality is that things like this happen every day — not merely for some, but for many,” Fridal says.

The Arts & Science Students’ Union also expressed concern over the grand jury’s decision.

“Acts of police violence towards First Nations people and people of colour occur all the time with a hugely disproportionate amount of violence being directed at black youth. For hundreds of students at U of T, this is the reality they face when they go back to their homes and communities,” a statement reads. *First name used at student’s request.

The rally was held near the US Consulate on University Avenue. SHAHIN S. IMTIAZ/THe VArSITy

Victoria College commissioner resigns Arts & Culture commissioner’s resignation comes after attempted impeachment at council meeting Iris Robin

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Conor Tangney resigned from his position as Arts and Culture commissioner at Victoria College on November 21 following a failed motion to impeach him from the Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council (vusac) eleven days earlier.

Four voting vusac executives voted in favour of Tangney’s dismissal, while four voted against it and six abstained.

The motion did not receive the required twothirds majority it needed to pass.

When asked about the reason for the attempted impeachment, Rowan DeBues, vusac president and mover of the impeachment motion, said, “The simplest and main one is his conduct

in the office space. Ideally, the vusac office is going to be the pinnacle of a safe space at Victoria College and the say he was carrying on was not facilitating that.”

Tangney declined The Varsity’s request for comment.

At the meeting, DeBues circulated hard copies of a confidential document that laid out the full list of allegations against Tangney.

Although the document was not permitted to leave the room, DeBues confirmed in an interview with The Varsity that the charges against Tangney included disrespect towards orientation officials, misogynistic jokes, and homophobic slurs in the vusac office.

The dispute regarding orientation week arose when two orientation executives filed a complaint against Tangney, alleging that he called a lunch with vusac, scheduled for orientation

week, a waste of time. “I disagreed with the placement, timing, and the event itself,” Tangney is reported to have said according to the minutes package from the November 10 vusac meeting. “I believed it to be a conversation that was between me and the execs, or me and a friend — not speaking badly about orientation week.”

Tangney is also alleged to have joked that “women have no place in politics.” According to Tangney, the remark was a private joke delivered in a sarcastic tone.

Tangney said that he apologized immediately after he made the joke. “A lot of you know my humour, out of all the women in the room on vusac — I voted for most of you if not all of you,” he reportedly said to the vusac members present.

During the meeting, Tangney expressed concern that the first time he saw the full list of

charges or accusations was at the meeting.

DeBues clarified that he knew Tangney was considering resignation and did not want to make the allegations public if he was going to resign. “[Had] I known all the charges, I would’ve submitted a resignation,” Tangney said.

DeBues notes that more grievances were made in the week following the motion to impeach Tangney.

DeBues does not know whether it was those that compelled him to resign, because Tangney did not mention them in his resignation letter. vusac councilors are fulfilling the duties of the Arts and Culture commissioner until the new term, when DeBues hopes to hold a byelection for the position. “I don’t like the idea of losing someone democratically elected and replacing them with an appointee,” DeBues says.

University announces first steps in plan to combat sexual violence Alex McKeen

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

University administration is treading cautiously to develop a coordinated response to sexual violence on campus, an announcement on Thursday revealed.

The announcement came in a letter from vice-president, human resources and equity Angela Hildyard and vice-provost, students & first entry divisions Jill Matus, and was ad-

dressed to the Principals, Deans, and the Academic Directors & Chairs Committee.

It reveals the university’s plan to create an “Advisory Committee to the President and Provost on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Violence.”

The announcement comes after a series of legislative developments in the us and corresponding university commitments across North America to tackle the issue of sexual violence on university and secondary school campuses.

The events put increased pressure on university administration to develop a coordinated strategy to respond to sexual violence.

The letter addressed these pressures. “Recent attention to the issue of sexual violence on University and College campuses... signals an important focus on new approaches to prevention of and response to sexual violence,” it reads.

The letter also maintains that sexual violence remains in the jurisdiction of the municipal police, making the university’s scope

of involvement complicated. “The University intends to examine these issues in the unique context of Canadian law and the University of Toronto environment,” the letter says.

The committee will be mandated to determine the best practices to prevent and respond to sexual violence on campus, and to report findings to the president and provost of the university.

Students, staff, and faculty will make up the committee, and focus groups will be held to solicit input from constituents across campus.

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Vol. CXXXV, No. 12

VARSITY NEWS

news@thevarsity.ca

Taking risks and crossing bridges Janice Stein reflects on her time as director of the Munk School of Global Affairs Emma Compeau

field of global issues?

JS: I think that global issues have never been more important to Canada. Canadian students in the University of Toronto, one of the most diverse cities in the world, meet each other in the classrooms. We then say to ourselves that that’s enough, but that’s not true. What I hope to do in the future is to continue to encourage students to go outside Canada to study, to work, and to learn. But also to feel that the world that we live in now, allows for what I call ‘bridges.’ That’s how I see the Munk School. It’s a bridge that I hope students will be able to cross back and forth, from Canada into the world and back, and our alumni association is devoted to that as well. We have to go out in the world more than we do.

VARSITY STAFF

After 15 years in the position, this term marks the final one for Janice Stein in her capacity as the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs.

Stein is an expert in the field of international relations, and specializes in studies on the Middle East.

She has a laundry list of achievements, including being a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a member of the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada, and a recipient of the Molson Prize, among many others.

Stephen Toope, former president of the University of British Columbia, will take over Stein’s position beginning January 1, 2015.

The Varsity sat down with Stein to discuss her past, present, and future at the University of Toronto.

TV: Do you have any advice for students on the importance of taking risks and learning from failure?

JS: That’s the core of the message at the Munk School. Nothing great ever happens without failure. We learn far more from our failures than from our successes. When we fail for good reasons — reasons that were not predictable — we have the invaluable opportunity to learn, reassess, change direction, and simply to do better next time. Fear of failure produces a mediocrity or sameness that I think is limiting. We don’t do as much at home and we don’t do as much in the world because we are reluctant to take risks and we fear failure. That’s what the Munk School is changing for our students, and I hope I can continue to work on that in the broader culture.

The Varsity: Your career has been full of remarkable achievements. Where does your time at the Munk School fit into that list?

Janice Stein: The Munk School is one of the things that I am proudest of. It started as a small start-up — multidisciplinary — pulling people together from across the campus. It is a really special environment. We think of ourselves as an incubator where people can come and feel free to take some smart risks and to be comfortable failing. In order to do that, you need to have an environment which is somewhat informal and supportive, and I think that culture has infused all of our teaching and research.

TV: Could you share something that has most stood out for you over the course of your time at Munk?

JS: Two programs: the Masters of Global Affairs and the Munk One program, which we started from scratch and which are different.

They both share one overriding objective which is to encourage Canadians to be truly global. We’re not great at that yet in this country. Our students at the University of Toronto, for example, don’t study in other countries as much as we encourage them to do so. In the Masters of Global Affairs program we send every student out to another country on an internship. When we started this program that was a key part of it for me. There was a lot of skepticism that we could meet that objective.

We did and our global partners are growing, and students tell me that it is a defining experience for them… If you ask me what the most

Janice Stein has served as director of the Munk School for 15 years. AFIF AQRABAWI/THe VARsITy

exciting thing I have done at the Munk School [is], it is to create an environment where people feel comfortable pushing the boundaries.

TV: After 15 years as the Director of the Munk School, why is now the right time to step down?

JS: I think that 15 years is a very long time for an institution to have the same leader. It probably should have been sooner because it’s healthy for an institution to bring in new leadership. I have a wonderful successor, Stephen Toope… and he will take a look at everything we are doing and bring new ideas of his own. It’s invigorating and healthy for an institution to have somebody who hasn’t grown up inside it to bring new energy and new ideas.

TV: Can you share what you see as your future with the university, and the Munk School?

JS: It’s not goodbye to the Munk School and its not goodbye to the University of Toronto.

Everybody I know is a serial failure at retirement… I am going to continue to teach at the Munk School, I love the course and the students I teach. Even though I have two years leave, I will still come back and teach the course next fall. I will continue to do research, which I always did even as director but now I will have much more time to do. In the broader university, if I am asked, I will continue to do whatever I can.

TV: What do you see for the future of the Munk School of Global Affairs and for Canadian educational opportunities in the

TV: Do you have any final remarks as you leave the role?

JS: The Munk School is what it is today because it is at the University of Toronto. We draw from the U of T as a whole, our faculty comes from across the University, from Arts and Science, Law, Rotman, Medicine, and Applied Sciences and Engineering. The depth of the university, both in terms of the excellence of its faculty and the strength of its students is extraordinary. We have done some interesting and exciting things, but we have been able to do that because we are at such a wonderful university.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Disclosure: Emma Compeau is Front of House staff at the Munk School of Gloal Affairs.

EngSoc pub night theme sparks concern Some students express concerns that fiesta-themed event had the potential to devolve into racial stereotyping Iris Robin

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Around 150 Ontario engineering students attended a fiesta-themed pub night hosted by the University of Toronto Engineering Society (EngSoc) on Friday, November 21.

The event, which was held at Suds, the engineering pub, included festive music and salsa dancing, as well as themed foods.

However, some students have expressed concerns that the event could have devolved into something offensive, with racial stereotyping a particular source of unease.

“I received a few complaints from people who were uncomfortable approaching the rest of the officer team,” says Ryan Gomes, EngSoc vicepresident, academic.

Gomes says that he raised these concerns but was met with general dismissal.

Teresa Nguyen, EngSoc president, says that she did not know of any issues raised by EngSoc members. “If they had [raised concerns,] I would have immediately followed-up and taken a more active role in the event,” she says, adding: “As a general rule of management, EngSoc executives are quite hands-off with event planning processes unless something extremely egregious catches our attention.”

“Inclusiveness is a high priority for student leaders on this campus, and I am no exception,” says Nguyen.

“Being a female president of a student organization that may be stereotyped to be maledominated and to have [a] knack for being vocal and opinionated on this campus, I am always advocating for an inclusive student environ-

ment for the engineering student membership,” she adds.

Gomes was uncomfortable being associated with the event, and claims that he did not promote it, support it, or attend it. “That being said, I did hear from some attendees that some of the people in attendance did have racially insensitive attire and/or made jokes,” Gomes says.

According to Nguyen, EngSoc informed its guests that the party had a fiesta theme, and that they were free to come dressed however they wished. Many of the attendees came in their school’s spirit wear and coveralls. “EngSoc absolutely did not encourage guests to dress Mexican as that is blatantly inappropriate,” Nguyen says.

When at the event, Nguyen said that she did not sense fear or offense from any of the attendees, and she believes that the event was generally well-received by the guests. “With any of

EngSoc’s Friday bar events, the server team is trained to protect and maintain the safety of the space and attendees. The experience of building relationships with our fellow engineers across Ontario was what really pulled the event together, rather than the chosen theme,” Nguyen says.

For his part, Gomes remarked that many Arts & Science students on campus feel that Engineering does not provide the sort of equity services that it should. “[Events] like this only give more credence to those beliefs,” Gomes says, adding: “I really do hope that Engineering will be able to move past this and produce better-themed events in the future.”

“I would implore those in charge next year to reflect on this year’s event and select a theme that does not revolve around a group’s culture,” he adds.

var.st/news

VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014

5

Cheap condos or cheap tricks?

Some Toronto accommodations listed on classified sites are too good to be true keys in hands, in less than 48 hours. I’m the only person who has the keys and I found a way to complete this rental safe, fast for both of us,” David says.

An email sent to David’s email address a few days after was not delivered, with a message saying the email no longer exists.

David’s listing was not alone. A Varsity investigation found multiple other questionable listings, with promises of lavish accommodations for cheap.

ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS

juLIEN bALbONTIN/THE VArsITy

Salvatore Basilone, Lisa Bernard, and Claire Fox VARSITY STAFF

Moving away from home to attend school in Toronto can be an expensive endeavour. In some cases, this process can also be a dangerous one.

Tuition for domestic students at the University of Toronto runs upwards of $6,000 for Canadian students and as high as $35,000 for international students.

On top of that, the University of Toronto estimates that accommodations average between $7,000-14,000 per year for a slot in a campus residence or a one-bedroom apartment.

The university also recommends setting aside $1,200-2,400 for “miscellaneous” expenses — enough for a year’s worth of coffee, or 35-70 cases of domestic beer.

If students want to live in style, the cost is

even more prohibitive. According to the Toronto Star, the average rent for a one-bedroom condominium in the downtown core is close to $1,800 per month, as of this past spring.

So finding the following deal on a classified site is a remarkable achievement: a twobedroom condo near University Avenue and Dundas Street for $1,059 per month.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE The Varsity responded to the ad, acting as a prospective student tenant to investigate the post’s validity.

The renter says his name is David, and that he runs a pet store in London, UK. David claims that he inherited the apartment from his now deceased grandfather.

The rental arrangement is flexible — tenants can rent month-to-month, or sign a lease for up to six years.

According to the renter, the rent will never increase. “The price will not increase monthly.

It will remain the same for the whole period that the contract will be signed for,” he says.

The deal gets even better: the price includes all utilities, water, electricity, gas, and cable and Internet.

While the renter does not specify the extent of the cable and Internet offerings, the cheapest Internet, television, and wireless package offered by Rogers starts at $65.47 per month before any taxes and additional fees.

The apartment also comes fully furnished, with a laundry list of amenities.

David says that the apartment includes standard items like a refrigerator, a stove, an oven, and includes access to a “juice machine, iron, toaster, coffee maker, microwave, [and] vacuum cleaner.”

Eventually, David says the apartment is ours.

“I have a good solution and you will have the

Coming across fraudulent advertisements is a reality of using online classified sites like Kijiji and Craigslist. Kijiji says that not all of the site’s 65 million advertisements a year are reviewed before they go live. At Craiglist, around 40 people are employed to oversee 80 million advertisements per month.

That is not to say that all advertisements for properties owned by landlords outside of Toronto are scams.

Patricia*, a graduate student at the University of Toronto who rents an apartment from a landlord based in China, says that the key is having a property manager in Toronto who can quickly respond to any rental issues.

Ava, a supervisor for Kijiji Community Support, says that the company is not able to publicly share details on the proportion of advertisements that are actually scams.

“Our number one concern… is keeping our user community safe,” Ava says.

“We do so both by employing a full time Trust and Safety team, and by providing users with a comprehensive safety section in our Help desk section,” she adds.

Kijiji offers a number of tips for avoiding real estate scams, including exchanging funds in person, seeing a property before placing a deposit, and avoiding advertisements that ask for personal information via email.

Kijiji also advises renters to be realistic about property prices.

According to a recent survey conducted by the City of Toronto, the average monthly cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment in the centre of Toronto is approximately $1,475.

Apartment rent costs have risen about one-and-a-half times faster than inflation since 1990.

Unread AGM Motions twice-delayed at Board of Directors meeting Downtown Legal Services petition, Executive Report also heard Tamin Mansour VARSITY STAFF

Friday’s University of Toronto Students’ Union (utsu) Board of Directors(bod) meeting was forced to adjourn earlier than expected due to a failure to meet quorum.

Halfway through the meeting, it was noted that the meeting had fallen two directors short of the 20 directors needed for quorum.

Part of the meeting, which was held at the Mississauga campus, was slated to address unread motions from the utsu’s Annual General Meeting (agm) last month.

The motions did not have to be reserved to the Board, but the utsu elected to do so to ensure that they would still be discussed.

However, due to the early adjournment of the current bod meeting, the motions will now have to be brought to the next meeting.

One of the motions was intended to support international students.

Cameron Wathey, utsu internal and services vice-president, internal and services, moved the motion. He says that he is continuing to work on the campaign to support international students rights in spite of the inability to pass the motion. “Hopefully, we’ll have it up by the winter [term],” Wathey says.

Wathey had recently brought up the issue at the University of Toronto Mississauga (utm) Principal’s Town Hall to Deep Saini, utm principal.

Other items on the agenda that had been passed while there was quorum included the appointment of Nasar Ghafoori as the director representing the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (oise), and the approval of the Executive Report.

The Executive Report is a report from the utsu Executive committee that details new initiatives, campaigns, and events that the utsu is organizing, including the rebranding as the Winter Week of Welcome to Frost Week and an upcoming E-Sports tournament. utsu president Yolen Bollo-Kamara also

spoke about reopening the consultation process for the restructuring of the Board of Directors. She encouraged members to submit new proposals to Wathey.

The utsu still has a year to be compliant with the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act. Bollo-Kamara also expressed disappointment with the Report of the Provostial Advisory Comittee on Student Mental Health, due to the lack of student involvement in the consultation process.

According to Appendix B of the Report, Kaleem Hawa, chair of the Trinity College meeting, and phd candidate Roula Markoulakis were involved in the process.

Grayce Slobodian, utsu external vice-president also announced the re-launch of the Drop Fees campaign. She explained at the meeting that the Drop Fees campaign was a more recognizable brand than the Stop the Hikes campaign.

Downtown Legal Services (dls), a legal clinic run by the Faculty of Law that serves

community members and U of T students with free legal services, was also present at the bod meeting to present a petition for more utsu funding.

Currently, dls receives $1.50 per term from each utsu member from St. George campus, and $0.50 per term from each University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (utmsu) member. These rates have been frozen since 2003.

The petition is for a referendum to increase the contribution rate to twice the current levels. dls hopes to have the 5,000 required signatures by January 2015 so that they may hold the referendum before the end of the winter term.

Benjamin Ries, staff lawyer at dls, explained that dls was currently running at a deficit, and that the increased funding “will put it on stable footing.”

Ries says that current fundraising efforts are focused on the utsu petition, but dls intends to petition other student organizations next year.

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Vol. CXXXV, No. 12

VARSITY NEWS

news@thevarsity.ca

Home away from home As Robarts prepares for phase two of its revitalization, students find shelter in the library’s study spaces when it’s late and there are fewer distractions.

According to Lari Langford, head of access and information at Robarts Library, the library formally introduced extended hours in 2004 after a two-year pilot project.

Langford explains that the change was triggered by a number of students expressing interest in 24-hour study spaces on campus.

Some students have taken the convenience of extended hours a step further, turning the university library into their temporary home.

The trend of students living at the library came to light in 2004, when Steve Stanzak, “The Bobst Boy” gained notoriety for living in New York University’s Bobst Library for eight months to save on accommodation costs.

UNIVERSITY SOLUTIONS

Robarts Library will soon enter phase two of a set of multi-year construction projects. JESSICA LEE/THE VArSITy

Jonathan Gass & Alex McKeen VARSITY CONTRIBUTORS

The average adult is advised to get at least eight hours of sleep.

Yusheny Qiu, a fourth-year mineral engineering student, is not far off that mark, saying that, on average, he gets about six hours of sleep a night.

While most students wander off to the land of nod in the comfort of their own beds, Qiu, who commutes from Etobicoke, says he often catches up on sleep at the Student Rock Lounge in the Lassonde Mineral Engineering Building,

and then showers at the Athletic Centre — sometimes staying at the University of Toronto from Monday to Friday without going home.

Qiu’s story is not uncommon at U of T. For Tosin Adeyinka, a fourth-year geology and health and disease student, Robarts Library is more than a place to study. “I camp here… yesterday I came at 2:00 pm and stayed here until 7:00 am. I came back at 3:00 pm today, and am planning to do the same thing,” Adeyinka says.

ALL-DAY, ALL-NIGHT Clayton Domina, a second-year commerce student, says that he does most of his studying at night because he finds it easier to concentrate

What prompts students to take such drastic measures?

For Qiu — who keeps his toothbrush, toothpaste, and other essentials on campus — his heavy work load and commute influence his decision to stay on campus.

“It’s not a big deal for me to not go home,” he says.

Whether the result of long commutes or heavy workload, some universities are taking note of the fact that students spend an increasing amount of time at libraries during the night.

Last April, the University of Michigan introduced napping stations in the Shapiro Undergraduate Library.

The library, which is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, now provides students with vinyl cots, allowing those in need of a break to take a quick nap during their study session.

The university wants students to realize that they do not have to sacrifice sleep to complete their work.

James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, offers similar services to students

with the “NapNook,” a room in the student centre where students can take 40-minute naps on beanbags and antimicrobial pillows.

The University of Perth, in Australia, has gone a step further, bringing in “Metronaps EnergyPods” that allow students to take a 20-minute nap to re-energize.

The Pods, which play soothing music and gently vibrate, give students the energy boost they need to carry on working.

Although the U of T libraries have yet to implement such services, some students and library staff are open to changes that would nurture a more supportive environment for overnight library sessions.

When asked whether U of T should adopt napping stations in study spaces, Bukky Aina, a fourth-year psychology and ecology and evolutionary biology student, expressed enthusiasm. “We don’t need dogs, we need that,” Aina says, referencing the therapy dogs that are sometimes available to students during exams.

ROBARTS REVITALIZATION Langford says that Robarts Library will soon enter phase two of a multi-year set of construction projects. The project has already received funding.

Although NapNooks, EnergyPods, and other napping facilities are not explicitly part of the plan, Langford says that the new section of the library will include “state of the art” study spaces.

When the revitalization is complete, the floors of Robarts Library that are currently open 24 hours will close at normal operating hours, and phase two spaces will remain open all night.

Meanwhile, students preparing for midterm exams will continue to be found working, sleeping, and brushing their teeth in U of T study spaces.

National leaders under pressure to address women’s rights Up for Debate campaign calls on feds to improve standard of living for women in canada Brittaney Warren VARSITY STAFF

A coalition of 100 organizations have launched the Up for Debate campaign, which calls on federal party leaders to participate in a debate during the 2015 election that focuses solely on disparities between men and women.

The coalition is urging Canadian leaders to make meaningful commitments to ending violence against women, ending women’s economic inequality, and supporting women’s organizations and leadership.

The University of Toronto chapter of Oxfam Canada, a non-governmental organization (ngo) that mobilizes people against poverty, organized a panel discussion on November 25 in support of the Up for Debate campaign.

“The last time we had this debate was 1984.

It seems like so many things have not changed,” says Niki Ashton, a panellist who serves as New Democratic Party (ndp) Member of Parliament for Churchill and ndp Status of Women Critic.

“We do need willing partners at the federal level, and we need to know where our leaders stand,” she continues.

Ashton went on to cite Canada’s poor ratings on progress in gender equality as a reason why a national debate on women’s issues is overdue.

In the recent Global Gender Gap report released by the World Economic Forum (wef), Canada’s progress in closing the gender gap showed a slight increase in ranking overall, but garnered poor results in individual categories.

Canada currently ranks one-hundredth out of 142 countries in the health care category, a drop from forty-ninth place last year.

Violence against women was also a contentious topic at the panel, and is one of the campaign’s main calls for action.

A study released on November 5 by The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says “the previous five years have been marked by a slowdown towards closing the gender gap between the well-being of men and women in Canada.” The report specifically cites violence against women, political representation, economic security, and access to social services as areas where inequality has persisted and worsened. The report also says that Indigenous women and girls are at a higher risk of violence than non-Indigenous females.

This is in line with a May rcmp report that nearly 1200 Indigenous women and girls were murdered or went missing. The rcmp report also says that Indigenous women make up 16 per cent of the total number of female homicide victims, despite only representing 4.3 per cent of the female population of Canada.

The campaign calls on federal party leaders to address women’s rights. JENNIFEr SU/THE VArSITy

“When we do that inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, we’re going to find that there are crimes against humanity going on right here in Canada in the year 2014,” says Darlene Ritchie, a panellist who serves as director of operations at Atlohsa Native Family Healing Services.

Isabel Duchesne, co-president of Oxfam

U of T and event organizer, voiced concerns over accountability. “Were our federal leaders to host such a debate, they would be encouraged to commit to sound and substantial policy changes to improve the status of women in Canada, and have this specific element of their platforms face serious public scrutiny,” she says.

VARSITY NEWS

var.st/news

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014

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NEWS IN BRIEF Dalhousie becomes first university in Canada to vote on fossil fuel divestment This past Tuesday, Dalhousie University became the first post-secondary institution in Canada to vote on fossil fuel divestment. On the recommendation of its Investment Committee, the university’s Board of Governors voted not to divest its $20.3 million in holdings in fossil fuel companies.

“We believe in reducing green house gas (ghg) emissions,” said board chair Lawrence Stordy in a statement released after the vote.

“The Board believes it will have more influence with regard to climate change as an engaged investor than it would through a one-time decision to divest holdings in carbon companies.”

The vote was in part the result of advocacy work performed by an environmental group called Divest Dal. In September 2013, the Dalhousie Student Union voted unanimously for a motion urging divestment.

Though the eventual vote went against her group, Divest Dal co-organizer Bethany Hindmarsh stressed the need to keep working.

Ryerson divided over freezing fees On November 17, the Ryerson Students’ Union (rsu) erected a tent city on campus as part of their Freeze the Fees campaign.

The protesters demanded to speak to the university’s Board of Governors (bog) on the need for an alternative budget that freezes tuition fees and stops further budget cuts.

The bog was scheduled to meet on November 24.

Some students, however, were opposed to freezing fees. According to The Eyeopener, a Ryerson University student newspaper, the pro-hikes group, Rise for Ryerson, was formed on November 21 to counter the Freeze the Fees campaign.

Rise for Ryerson believes that tuition fee increases are necessary for the university.

Both the rsu and Rise for Ryerson were given the opportunity to address the ‘‘ at the meeting.

While waiting to enter the meeting, members from both groups clashed outside the boardroom. The Eyeopener reported heated debates and allegations of racist comments during the confrontation.

Toronto ninth best city to be a student

U of T instructor awarded SickKids Hospital Elizabeth Manson Award for Clinical Excellence

Toronto is the ninth best city in the world to be a student, according to a qs World University Rankings study.

The study compared relative affordability, student diversity, employer activity, and desireability.

Three Toronto universities — York University, Ryerson University, and the University of Toronto — factored into the rankings, as well as Toronto’s cultural scene and natural surroundings.

The University of Toronto itself tops the list of Canadian universities, and sits at twentieth worldwide, according to qs.

Canada is well-represented on the list of cities, with Montreal in eighth place.

An instructor at the University of Toronto Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work was awarded the highly prestigious SickKids Hospital Elizabeth Manson Award for Clinical Excellence on Tuesday.

Ruth Pluznick, an affiliated faculty member with U of T, teaches and pioneered the field of narrative therapy.

Pluznick has worked as the director of clinical services for Oolagen Youth Mental Health, a not-for-profit children’s mental health agency, for over 20 years.

According to Lydia Sai-Chew, Oolagen Chief Executive Officer, Pluznick’s focus on narrative therapy has been a game changer for youth mental health.

The Elizabeth Manson Award is granted annually to an outstanding practitioner in the area of youth mental health.

—Andrew Richmond With files from The Guardian

—Alex McKeen

— Tamim Mansour With files from The Eyeopener

— Salvatore Basilone With files from CBC News

two days later,” Harfouche says.

Among Harfouche’s concerns is the process used to gather feedback on initiatives. “Simply telling students and student societies to submit alternative board proposals doesn’t move the conversation forward,” Harfouche says.

Harfouche suggests that the utsu should be making documents to help students create legal, complete, and equitable proposals instead.

“Within the Executive Committee we prioritize working towards consensus on decisions where possible, and at minimum ensuring that all perspectives are heard and given due consideration,” Bollo-Kamara says.

Harfouche also alleges that the minutes of executive and Board of Directors meetings were heavily edited and that entire arguments were misrepresented. “It became extremely hard for me to express myself at executive committee meetings because I had absolutely no way of proofreading the minutes before they were sent to the board for approval,” says Harfouche.

During Harfouche’s last week in office, he alleges that his final executive report was modified to remove a paragraph about the University of Toronto’s mental health report and how board members could send him feedback to forward to the university.

“When the board package was released, there was absolutely no mention about mental health — no other executive had even mentioned it in their own report. I had even sent the executives an email informing them I put this paragraph explicitly in my report and that I invited others to build on it,” Harfouche says.

CONTINUED FROM COVER

UTSU VP university affairs, resigns approved in October, before the approval of the utsu’s operating budget.

INFORMATION “WITHHELD” “It was difficult to work when access to information was difficult or worse, information was being withheld from me... information in the utsu is extremely limited and shared on a need-to-know basis, regardless of whether or not it is illegal to withhold such information,” Harfouche alleges.

“I cannot work in an environment where the executives fundamentally do not want to share information with coworkers or the Board of Directors,” he adds.

Naming the management of the Student Commons project as an example, Harfouche says that, from day one, he was repeatedly told that the Student Commons Operating Agreement was not available for executives to see and that only individuals involved in the negotiations and the president could view the agreement.

“Hours later, I found out that this information was categorically false, as the agreement had already been posted publicly on the governing council website and had been discussed and debated at the University Affairs Board,” Harfouche says.

Harfouche also claims that the utsu seems to have created a Student Commons Committee but does not know when exactly it was created.

According to Harfouche, the committee is comprised of the vice-president internal, the president, and the vice-president, campus life. Although the committee produced promotional materials to lobby governors for the approval of the Student Commons project, Harfouche claims that there was no selection process for this committee and that it never sought input from the other executives or the Board of Directors.

“As VP [of University Affairs], the bylaws charge me with being the chief [liaison] between the University, student societies, and the utsu,” Harfouche says. “Through not including me on any [Student Commons] discussions, I was not able to fulfill that portion of my job description.”

Bollo-Kamara says that Harfouche would often complain about not knowing information

NEXT STEPS

Pierre Harfouche served as vice-president, university affairs before resigning. jENNIFER SU/THE VARSITy

after missing a training session without letting others know. “We worked to schedule things around his full-time work commitments for much of the summer, but he frequently missed or caused the postponing of important information sessions on staff relations, how the office functioned, the student commons project and more, due to unexpected absences,” Bollo-Kamara says.

POWER DYNAMICS AND DISAGREEMENTS In his resignation letter, Harfouche also implored the Board of Directors to consider the power dynamics within the utsu.

Harfouche claims that he was never able to

access utsu archives without being accompanied by a staff member — an instruction that he says came from the executive director and the vice-president, internal. “I bear no illwill to the staff in the office, but rather to the policies which the utsu has adopted which concentrate all office-related decisions into the hands of two or three individuals,” he says.

Harfouche also took issue with the executive compensation system.

Harfouche says he was unwell for two full weeks in November and thus unable to fulfill his duties. “Four days into my illness, I requested that my salary be withheld as I had essentially just taken unpaid time off. My request was ignored — even after following up

Since the utsu’s bylaws prevent any by-election from being held between December 1 and September 10 of any year, the utsu will take applications for the position of vice president, university affairs. From the applicants, no fewer than two candidates will be chosen to present to the Board of Directors, who will then decide who will replace Harfouche.

The process has raised concerns among some campus leaders. “The fact that the Executive has the power to create a very small short list, and thereby exclude candidates that they may not like but who would do a better job, is especially concerning,” say Tina Saban and Connor Anear, co-heads of Trinity College.

Teresa Nguyen, president of the Engineering Society (EngSoc), also expressed a lack of confidence in the procedure. “EngSoc has already determined that all of [utsu’s] processes are so broken to the point where they can appoint their own incumbents,” she says. *Name changed at source’s request for anonymity.

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VARSITY NEWS

Vol. CXXXV, No. 12

news@thevarsity.ca

University plans to install more hydration stations Bottled water sales banned on campus since 2011

U of T currently has upwards of 80 hydration stations. jessica song/THe VarsiTy

Misara ElGammal

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Since September 2011, the sale of bottled water has been banned at the University of Toronto’s St. George Campus.

As a result, continuous access to water can require prudent, strategic planning.

“On my way to class, I always stop by Hart House — they have a great water station there,” says Kathleen Harris, a graduate student at the Faculty of Information.

The university currently has upwards of 80 similar hydration stations across campus, which equates to about one hydration station for every 700 students.

According to Ron Swail, assistant vice-pres-

ident of facilities and services, there is also a “plan to continue to install more stations going forward.”

According to the online university map, hydration stations are located in around 50 of the university’s 144 buildings — although Swail notes that the map is out of date.

The purpose of the ban is to counter the commercialization of drinking water and to provide students with rigorously tested water that is free of contamination.

However, the reduced availability of bottled water may have also drawn students to less healthy options.

Clutching a Coca-Cola soft drink, Savana James, a book and media studies student, says that a bottle of water would have been her choice had it been available.

Sitting next to her, Yanjun Wi, a psychology student, expresses a similar view while holding his Fanta soft drink.

Students have become accustomed to the ban — carrying reusable bottles to class and purchasing bottled water less frequently.

“Compared to other areas in the city like the Air Canada Center, students at the U of T buy less water,” says Muhammad Saqib, owner of a campus food cart.

But what if a student forgets his or her reusable water bottle?

When asked about an alternative for purchasing water, a cashier at the Robarts Library’s cafeteria advised purchasing an empty cup for 25 cents and filling it at the hydration station around the corner.

At 5 pm, that hydration station had a line of seven people, with each student taking a

minute to fill their bottle.

The ban was implemented in response to a campaign by the Public Water Initiative (pwi) at U of T, a student group that, according to their website, was formed to “end the sale and distribution of bottled/commercialized water” on campus, and to “improve access to safe clean & sustainable tap water.”

The City of Toronto tests tap water samples four to five times daily — or every four to six hours — for more than 300 potential chemicals.

On the other hand, bottled water, a $100 billion industry, is regulated under the Food and Drugs Act and doesn’t require as frequent testing. Instead, bottled water simply needs to be prepared in sanitary conditions and not contain “poisonous and harmful substances.”

In a cbc investigation, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (cfia) responded by saying, “given that bottled water has an excellent safety record in Canada, cifa’s planned inspection activities are currently focused on commodities that present a higher risk to human health and safety.”

Meanwhile, the Polaris Institute found 20 recalls between 2000 and 2009 on water products with contaminations.

Health Canada says water sold in Canada is good quality and doesn’t pose any health hazard.

At U of T, it took pwi three years to realize its objective. The group has also been influential across Canada, successfully lobbying for a ban at seven other schools.

Toronto’s and New York City’s councils have also recently extended the ban to all municipal facilities.

Mosaic Institute announces 90 day interschool challenge Campaign uses discussion to build awareness of sexual violence in armed conflict Emily Colero

VARSITY STAFF

Last week, the Mosaic Institute announced the “90-Day Inter-School Challenge,” a student-led campaign to promote awareness about sexual and gender violence in armed conflict.

The campaign, which will consist of 90 days of social media promotion, discussions, and potential letter writing, is the outcome of the

GSU referendum fails to meet quorum CONTINUED FROM COVER Alastair Woods, cfs-o chairperson, confirmed the cro’s message. “According to the Chief Returning Officer, the referendum did not quorate, and so the referendum process has completed,” Woods says.

Members of the gsu have been fighting for the chance to decertify from the cfs since at least September 2013, when a petition was submitted to the cfs.

The petition was rejected just weeks before the referendum to vote was scheduled to take place. A gsu Litigation Committee reached a settlement with the cfs in October.

The gsu has no formal position on its status as a member of the cfs, nationally or provincially.

group’s November 15 Women & Armed Conflict event.

The challenge is expected to launch early in 2015, and will include projects that allow students to formulate responses to global issues.

University of Toronto, York University, and Ryerson University students will lead the campaign.

Rosella Chimbambo, associate at the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict, explains the signifiBrad Evoy, an organizer with the “No” Campaign, contends that, in the campaign’s view, they have met the needed threshold for quorum.

Evoy says that the next stages will be to have cfs and cfs-o recognize the will of members.

“The claims of the Federation are statistically insignificant, and derived from questionable numbers and suspect processes.

However illegitimate, the cfs is doing (and will do) whatever it can to deny the democratic will of students,” Evoy says.

“This vote is the single strongest mandate the utgsu has had — in terms of voters engaged — in the past decade and that mandate is to leave the cfs,” he adds.

“Now will be decision-time on a lot of issues at utgsu and the future of the union rests on this question,” Evoy says, adding: “For me, what I’d like to see is a gsu that takes this mandate as a charge to build new bridges, to take charge on lobbying and on

cance of the announcement.

“There is a lot of fantastic activism to end sexual violence in conflict being led by youth.

Young people are disproportionately affected by sexual violence. Their voices are also routinely excluded from international decisionmaking on the issue,” says Chibambo.

Chimbabo adds that youth voices are essential to conversations involving global issues.

“Young people can call on their government to take global leadership on this issue by dedi-

cating funds to grassroots women-led groups and survivors on the front lines of the struggle to stop rape in conflict,” Chibambo says.

Lorenzo Vargas, senior project officer and executive assistant at the Mosaic Institute, says the campaign is consistent with Mosaic’s “think and do” approach.

The challenge seeks to have countries recognize rape as a weapon of war, and calls on the International Criminal Court to prosecute sexual predators in war.

juLien baLbonTin/THe VarsiTy

broader strategies of action.”

Voting was held between Monday, November 24 and Friday, November 28.

Graduate full-time enrolment in Ontario in 2012–2013 was 56,188 students.

A number of University of Toronto divi-

sions, including the Engineering Society, the Trinity College Meeting, and Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council (vusac), passed referenda in favour of fee diversion from the cfs-affiliated University of Toronto Students’ Union in March 2013.

Comment

VAR.ST/COMMENT 1 DECEMBER 2014

comment@thevarsity.ca

Pitfalls in the struggle for equity Social justice and equity movements should think twice before branding dissenters as bigots Michael Luoma

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

It was recently suggested by an article in this paper ("Universities as social incubators," November 2, 2014) that those who opposed a constitutional amendment at Trinity College aimed at abolishing a gender-segregated event were in support of a bigoted institution. Last week, at Christchurch College, Oxford, a civil debate on abortion ethics was cancelled amidst threats by a feminist group. Presently, some proponents of progressive politics are threatening our institutions’ vital liberal ethos.

Trinity students do not have a moral duty to abolish their gender-segregated meeting, nor is it appropriate to imply they are bigots for voting down the constitutional amendments; Christchurch students however, especially those responsible for interrupting the debate, certainly have a moral duty to respect the rights of their peers.

Progressives who are ostensibly “liberal” may have varying moral sensibilities. Some liberal values, such as the legal and social equality of persons irrespective of religion or gender identity, may be derived from various ethical camps. The way your sentiments align with one of these camps will determine how you interpret the Christchurch incident.

For example, if you are a deontologist and think that rights are intrinsically significant, then you will condemn the disruption of the debate. But if you are a utilitarian and believe that a little wrong can justify the promotion of social welfare, then you will applaud the disruption. After all, not only did the disruption draw international attention to the patriarchal structure of public discourse, it also prevented dubious arguments from swaying public opinion and reinforcing current power structures.

All parties in a dispute wish to sway opinions, but this brand of progressive politics seeks to prevent the “contamination” of the public from outside forces. These progressives would deny that they seek to prevent members of the community from exercising their rights and that they act only to bring about justice in their communities. For consequentialists,

juLIEN bALbONTIN/THE VArsITy

right actions are those that maximize welfare.

Since the feminists at Oxford are maximizing welfare by squashing political freedoms, they are also acting rightly. Furthermore, they prevented the reduction in welfare that would have ensued had the debate occurred.

One has the suspicion that this community is narrower than it lets on. To exclude someone from the public square and deprive them of the rights you would expect for yourself is clearly to make an “other” of them. Once this is has occurred, the community stops respecting the dissenters' rights of free speech and assembly, because they are simply different in kind — they are bigots or misogynists.

All beings capable of rational and autonomous action are part of the deontological community — a philosophical interpretation of ethics based on adherence to normative rules. Liberals acknowledge that people will sincerely disagree over ends and pursue diverse projects. This makes negotiation central to their ethics, and also makes it hard to exclude anyone from consideration and respect.

Rather than being subject to a particular ac-

count of what’s good in life from the get-go, deontological agents are ends in themselves and free to pursue their own projects so long as they do not violate the rights of others in the process.

The gender-segregated Trinity College Meeting (tcm) does not violate rights nor does it unfairly exclude. It would unfairly exclude only if it discouraged an individual from participating in an activity based on something about that individual that is irrelevant to their ability to participate in the activity. This explains why denying the right to marriage to same-sex partners is wrong. However, gender is essential to the activity in question. That means the property in question — gender— is relevant to the event, so the exclusion is not unfair.

Last year, I spearheaded a social media campaign to abolish the gendered format of an event at Trinity College. The premise of Saint’s Rush is to pick a random date for Trinity’s charity ball; boys traditionally line up on one side, girls on the other. Then the girls run after the boys in hopes of finding a date. It unjustly excludes those who are not heterosexual based on a property that is irrelevant to the function of the event.

The case of the gender-segregated meeting is not the same. The event serves no governmental function for the college. If it did, to exclude based on gender would be unjust. After all, gender is clearly not relevant to the ability to perform the role of citizen or member of college.

In fact, it would be hard to argue that the event serves much of a function beyond a particular elective one: homosocial gender play. It is thus perfectly acceptable for community members who identity within the binary to get together for homosocial bonding in traditional fashion once a year. We should respect their autonomy to do so. If the event were looking to primarily accomplish some other activity, it would be unjust.

It is not a requirement of liberals that their elective services be universally desirable. This is an impossible requirement. It may, however, be a duty of the college to create new space for gender-questioning gender expression for those who do not wish to play within the stricter confines of the binary.

A last note: it would be “bigoted” of a person to regard someone with disdain on the basis of a characteristic that is not relevant to their capacity for rational autonomy. The vast majority of students at Trinity are not guilty of this offence. Support for the gender-segregated tcm does not necessarily entail antipathy towards trans or gender-questioning people, nor does it violate their rights.

It is a paradox whenever progressives in gender politics seek to achieve legal and social recognition of inessential differences by means of positing essential differences; that is, when they exclude others from debate or brand them morally deficient bigots. It is also a double-edged sword for their cause. If the criterion for moral obligation to others were merely an agreement with one’s particular moral sentiments, then the majority would be justified in squashing troublesome minority opinions. By attending closely to the structure of our moral duties we can avoid these challenges; deontological liberalism acknowledges deep differences among rational beings and demands respect for self-determination regardless.

Michael Luoma is a fourth-year philosophy specialist at Trinity College.

Debunking myths around sexual violence A concerned response to Margaret Wente’s comments in The Globe and Mail Victoria Wicks

ASSOCIATE COMMENT EDITOR

In a recent article regarding sexual harassment, Margaret Wente has once again employed fallacious tropes to downplay the magnitude of sexual violence in Canada. As The Globe and Mail’s conservative contrarian, it’s easy to dismiss Wente as an anomaly in our liberal and “progressive” society. Yet, I’ve routinely encountered peers who use her style and logic of argumentation to rationalize, excuse, or ignore the prevalence of sexual violence against women in Canada.

MYTH #1:

“Nothing short of castration could force all men to behave.”

Wente rationalizes sexual harassment as an inevitable product of men’s high testosterone and biologically insatiable sex drives. She conveniently fails to provide any substantial scientific reasoning for this argument, effectively ignoring the methodological difficulties of quantify-

ing libido. Most importantly, such deterministic arguments ignore how scientists have already declared it a “gross over-simplification” to assume hormones are the primary motivators of human sexual activity.

Instead, “expectation and conditioning” are more salient influences on our conduct. It is easy to imagine, then, how men’s propensity for predatory behaviour is more likely caused by society’s constant sexual objectification of women and promotion of male sexual aggression. By recognizing that malleable cultural norms — as opposed to rigid biological factors — hugely impact sexual behaviour, society can be more effective in its fight against sexual violence.

“lube up,” and “are your pubes as radiant, shiny and glorious as mine?”

What’s more, the dinner menu for a Liberal National Party fundraiser last year served “Julia Gillard Fried Quail — Small Breast, Huge Thighs.”

Clearly, being a 51-year-old leader of one of the world’s wealthiest countries did absolutely nothing to protect Gillard from sexual harassment.

This is because sexual harassment is not simply a product of physical attraction to women in their “sexual prime.” Instead, it’s a psychological weapon used to discredit and intimidate women.

MYTH #3:

MYTH #2:

Society’s tolerance for sexual harassment is “approaching zero,” so there’s no real cause for concern.

We only have to examine Julia Gillard’s tenure as Australia’s first female prime minister to realize Wente’s assumption is simply false. In an online discussion, for example, Gillard received misogynistic comments like “get my dinner ready,”

A quick Google search reveals that in 2012, the acting chief commissioner of Canada’s Human Rights Commission explicitly stated that “sexual harassment persists” and detailed Canada’s disappointingly slow adoption of anti-harassment policies. In 2013 alone, Ontario’s Human Rights Legal Support Centre received over 1,000 calls from people seeking legal advice for sexual ha-

Older women, especially those with influential positions, do not face sexual harassment.

rassment — that’s about three calls a day. And just this month, the Toronto Star released an extensive feature describing how, between Jian Ghomeshi and Parliament Hill, tolerance for sexual violence is still a pervasive and troubling issue in Ontario. Regarding Ghomeshi specifically, Maclean’s has chronicled how his sexually predatory behaviour was well-known, even in his university days, but no one took action to stop him. Face it: there’s a problem.

It’s disgraceful that a prestigious national newspaper like The Globe and Mail, which has a readership of 3.5 million people, continually broadcasts Wente’s trivialization of sexual violence. Her arguments are baseless, yet they gain significant social traction by reflecting and perpetuating traditional gender stereotypes. So while we can acknowledge Canada’s incremental progress, Wente’s views remind us not to rest on our laurels — we still have a long way to go.

Victoria Wicks is an associate comment editor at The Varsity. She is a second-year student at Trinity College studying political science and philosophy.

Her column appears bi-weekly.

10 Vol. CXXXV, No. 12

VARSITY COMMENT

comment@thevarsity.ca

U of T needs to take a stand on unpaid internships Refusing to advertise unpaid positions internally would represent a significant step towards labour justice Meghan Peterson

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Recently, I received an email from my department at the University of Toronto outlining summer work opportunities I could apply for that were relevant to my illustrious forthcoming Bachelor’s degree in social science. A few were paid positions; the majority however, were not. My personal favourite, the United Nations Association in Canada, contained a section titled “Why Should I Pay to Intern?” filled with buzz phrases on the importance of “investment in your career” and “employability in the international job market.”

Investing in job skills for the future is a nice sentiment for those who have the disposable income to do so. But for those of us who are required to work out of financial necessity, it raises the question: shouldn’t the United Nations Association, at the very least, be setting an example?

For a generation already expected to have a lower standard of living than its predecessor, the expectation that we will also work for free is nothing but a cruel joke. Free labour provided in exchange for a reference on a glamorous letterhead or an enhanced resume has frighteningly become the norm for youth entering the job market.

My point here is not to discuss why unpaid internships are damaging. We know that unpaid internships exploit inexperienced students. By the nature of assigning administrative tasks to uncompensated workers, unpaid internships take away positions that could be occupied by paid professionals. What's more, unpaid internships perpetuate a cycle of privilege and socioeconomic stratification by serving those who can afford to bear the opportunity cost of not working.

Advertisements for unpaid internship programs have no place on U of T job boards. jennifer su/THe VArsiTy

However, the question remains: if we’ve recognized that unpaid internships are harmful, where do we go from here? As a student body, we have several options.

First, we can pressure students on an individual level to demand compensation for their labour. Unfortunately, undergraduates with minimal work experience have little bargaining power as individuals. If students turn down swanky internships because they want 11 dollars an hour to pay rent or feel a moral imperative to set a precedent on the ethics of

unpaid work, employers can easily find another willing participant.

Secondly, we can pressure legislative bodies to enact standards outlawing unpaid labour. The Employment Standards Act of 2000 already outlines that all interns are entitled to minimum wage, with limited exceptions. One of these exceptions includes a vague, often-invoked promise that training provided during the internship be “for the benefit of the intern.”

Internships approved by a college or university can also refuse to pay. While we should

pressure our elected officials to eventually eliminate unpaid labour over time, we should also acknowledge that legislative bodies are slow-moving and vague exceptions to labour laws can be difficult to enforce.

Our best option for immediate change is to pressure U of T and other institutions to delegitimize full-time, unpaid internships by refusing to advertise them. Currently, U of T's Career Centre and individual departments will advertise full-time, unpaid internships so long as they comply with the standards set by the Ontario Ministry of Labour. However, if U of T purports to be an institution committed to equity, the administration should refuse to validate these inequitable practices. Unpaid internships are inherently inequitable given that they exploit students and perpetuate privilege.

U of T should therefore leverage its institutional strength to make a statement on the ethics of labour compensation by refusing to advertise full-time labour unless workers are paid at least minimum wage. Additionally, individual academic departments should screen full-time internship opportunities and refuse to promote unpaid ones through the department, the web, or departmental internship coordinators.

The purpose of this exercise is not to make unpaid internships inaccessible. If students want to find internships, they can still readily do so on their own accord with the plethora of materials available through the Internet. On the other hand, by refusing to acknowledge their existence, U of T would make an influential statement on how certain internship opportunities exploit student inexperience.

Meghan Peterson is a fourth-year student studying political science, history, and Russian Literature at Trinity College.

The University of Toronto, standing on the wrong side of history U of T divestment campaign will carry on in spite of opposition Op-ed Chris Webb and Omar Siri

MEMBERS, UTSU BDS AD HOC COMMITTEE

On October 27, students gathered at oise to discuss how the University of Toronto's investment practices are complicit in human rights abuses and violations of international law in Palestine.

An off-campus hate group attended the event to launch an attack on academic debate and freedom of speech. Rather than stand up for these principles on campus, the university took actions that supported this hate group.

In 2005, almost 200 Palestinian civil society organisations called on international allies to support them through Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (bds), a campaign to achieve their universal human rights. bds is aimed at pressuring the Israeli government to halt violations of international law, such as the continuous construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, the on-going destruction of Palestinian homes, and restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement. bds is one of the few tools we have to express

our support for Palestinians facing blockades, dispossession of land, and indiscriminate attacks by the Israeli military. The campaign makes these issues local and asks institutions like ours to withdraw investments from companies complicit in these abuses. Our university has substantial investments in three corporations — Hewlett Packard, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman — that support the Israeli military’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

These companies have aided the Israeli military through the sale of hellfire missiles, bomber jets, and information technologies that facilitate the continued land, air, and sea blockade of Gaza, described as the world’s largest open air prison.

The utgsu has launched a campaign called U of T Divest, which urges our university to divest from these companies. The message is simple: students’ money should not support war crimes.

Internationally, the bds movement has been growing in strength, leading to a backlash by university administrations. These have ranged from bureaucratic efforts to thwart campus organizing — such as blocking pro-Palestinian student groups from booking meeting spaces

— to more recently providing de facto cover for known hate groups. One such group calls itself the “Jewish Defense League” (jdl). The jdl is a hate group banned in the United States and, ironically, prohibited from participating in Israeli politics because of its blatant racism.

On October 27, the jdl disrupted the bds campaign launch by hurling racial epithets at students and speakers, accosting organisers and attendees, and refusing to exit the room even after being granted time to air their vile rhetoric. They accused anyone who sought their removal from the premises of being supporters of “dirty Arab terrorism” and those who “want to throw acid in the faces of unveiled women.”

Organizers followed university policy, giving disrupters opportunities to cease their disturbances after which they were asked to leave.

They refused. The university then played into the hands of the disrupters and called for the event to be cancelled without explanation. The jdl members were permitted to remain on campus.

Through its actions, the university was complicit in supporting a known hate group. In light of this, we must ask whether the university can

stand by its claim to foster an environment conducive to “tolerance and mutual respect” in which “radical prescriptions for social ills can be debated.” We should also question the university’s ability to follow its own policies and ensure student safety on campus.

In spite of bullying and intimidation, the U of T Divest campaign will continue. We hope that when you — students, staff, faculty, and alumni — visit www.UofTdivest.com you will sign the petition in support of the divestment campaign.

Three decades ago, U of T was one of the last Canadian universities to divest from apartheid South Africa. The university was ultimately on the right side of history, though just barely.

When it comes to Palestine, will the university be able to say the same thing? Maybe. But it will be up to us to make them.

Chris Webb is a PhD student in the Department of Geography.

Omar Sirri is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science. Both are members of the UTGSU BDS Ad Hoc Committee.

Editorial

VAR.ST/EDITORIAL 1 DECEMBER 2014

A university’s primary concern

juLIEN bALbONTIN/THE VArsITy

“Something fundamental has happened to North American universities,” reads a quote from Bill Nelson in last week’s Varsity article entitled. “The corporatization of U of T.” Nelson, who became the chair of the university’s government committee in 1969, continues: “Forty years ago, major universities were not primarily concerned with servicing the world of business and commerce. The primary concern was educating people.”

U of T’s motto translates from the Latin "Velut Arbor Aevo" to “as a tree with the passage of time” in English — a mission statement for the institutions growth and evolution over time. And grown it has, most notably in terms of the university’s size — U of T’s 67,128 undergraduate student population stretches across three campuses, and U of T is the largest research institution in Canada. Things become more complicated, however, when we look at how that growth has occurred.

In 2013–2014, U of T operated on a $1.9 billion budget, 44 per cent of which came from tuition and 34 per cent of which came from government funding. Ontario’s current provincial funding model for post-secondary institutions distributes funding according to enrollment: larger enrollment means more funding from the provincial government.

Though this current formula was meant to extend access to higher education in principle, in practice it creates a seemingly endless cycle wherein institutions like U of T bring in more students to pay for the ones they already have.

To operate on the scale that it does U of T cannot rely on provincial funding alone. In order to maintain, and increase, its institutional reputation moving forward, U of T has adopted a corporate model of operation to grow the endowment by supplementing meagre provincial support.

Many of the university’s constituent organizations, such as its Governing Council, have begun to rely on corporate strategies in light of insufficient funding. U of T’s Governing Council is a high-level decision-making body tasked with overseeing the academic, business, and student affairs of the university. The council consists of students, faculty, alumni, members of industry, and government appointees. There are eight student representatives who sit on this board, which is comprised of 50 members. Because of this, student representatives have little say in the affairs of the council; they can bring issues forward, but are unable to affect substantial change in the event that they are opposed to a vote.

U of T stands out in stark contrast in this regard when compared to the administrative structures of some other Canadian universities, many of which have both a board of directors and an academic senate working in tandem.

Being an undergraduate student at U of T today is very different from what it was a few decades ago. Growing as an institution means that more students are coming to study at the university, but that development does not necessarily equate to adequate resources for the growing student population. The current funding model provides an incentive for U of T to bring in more students, but not necessarily to enhance the quality of their experience after enrollment.

Increasingly, students are looking at higher education as a means to an end — investing money in their education with the hopes of seeing a return on that investment in the future in the form of stable, meaningful employment.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this mode of thinking; it makes sense that those who have invested in a university degree would want a sense of financial security in return, especially as fees continue to rise. But when it is the only concern, other important aspects of the educational experience are drowned out, like whether you have a genuine relationship with your professors or whether you feel you are getting a broad and comprehensive education.

Ontario has the highest tuition and the lowest per-student funding of any province in the country. According to the Canadian Federation of Students, undergraduate students in Ontario pay 29 per cent more than the national average, and graduate students 41 per cent more. Additionally, in the last 20, years undergraduate tuition fees have outpaced inflation by 601 per cent. Under the 2006 provincial Reaching Higher framework, tuition rates have increased annually at an average rate of five per cent, leaving the average student with $37,000 in combined loan debt after a four-year undergraduate degree.

The current model of provincial funding needs to change. A university can only prioritize its students if it has the money to do so. If U of T is to maintain its reputation and progress further, the institution needs money, and it resorts to corporate strategy to get it. This presents something of a catch-22 — in order to achieve a better student experience and continue providing a top tier education, U of T has opted to pursue a business path that threatens to compromise academic values.

The government of Ontario is currently working with a $10.5 billion deficit, making it unlikely that it will be able to arrange its budget to provide substantially more money for post-secondary institutions in the near future. However, the government must reconsider the way it chooses to fund these institutions, and it must acknowledge the importance of doing so. If students think of their degrees as an investment, then the province needs to follow suit. Students at U of T and other schools are the ones who will soon be filling the province’s work force, and they deserve a quality education, and one that will not leave them mired in debt.

As an academic institution, U of T must always remain faithful to its foundational purpose: the education of its students. If it has grown to become a corporate-style institution, then we must refer back to the independence of its academic roots. The province needs to prioritize higher education and enable institutions like U of T by curbing tuition inflation and increasing per-student funding. For students to engage with their post-secondary education, and invest in it as more than a means to an end, the province must invest in them in turn.

The Varsity's editorial board is elected by the masthead at the beginning of each semester. For more information about The Varsity's editorial policy, email comment@thevarsity.ca.

comment@thevarsity.ca

LETTERS TO

THE EDITOR Re: The corporatization of U of T (Vol. CXXXV, No. 11 | November 24) I enjoyed reading this article, and I share concerns about many of the things mentioned (except for the unicameral system and the new budget model, which are a story for another time).

The article mentions the November 3rd Business Board meeting as an example of U of T decisions increasingly being made in secret. I sit on the Business Board, so I suppose I should explain why we discussed three items behind closed doors.

Item one — the increased cost of renovating Ramsay Wright: the material discussed in camera was the total cost breakdown for the building project. By discussing the dollar figures in camera we can ensure that builders don’t see our budget and the bids stay competitive. The relative size of the cost increases for Ramsay Wright and the reasons for them were publicly discussed at the Planning and Budget meeting of Oct 29th, which the Varsity covered. (http://thevarsity.ca/2014/11/03/ cost-of-ramsay-wright-upgradesgreatly-increased/) Item two — “real estate transaction information update”: The “information update” involved the private records of the current owner of the piece of real estate. We discussed this in camera to respect their right to privacy.

Item three — “in camera reports of the administrative assessors”: This is a placeholder, in case we have to discuss something sensitive, such as a health and safety item involving private information of a U of T employee.

I don’t believe in secrecy, unless it’s for good reasons, like those explained above. Please keep challenging the way Governing Council makes decisions — it helps us all.

— Ben Coleman Re: Give me some sugar (Vol. CXXXV, No. 10 | November 10) I was very upset by last week’s [sic] cover story about “sugar babies” for a variety of reasons. Namely, the overall tone of the article. It carried a scandalous note that is totally inappropriate and disrespectful. The entire concept of an article about students “turning to sex work” to pay for school is disrespectful and delegitimizes the validity of sex work.

Sex work is work like any other, and this article did not treat it as such.

By styling it as an expose, this article framed the option of being a “sugar baby” as titillating and risque, which further stigmatizes sex work. The photograph, a spill of candy and loonies was a caricature and offensive.

This week you featured an article on students also working as chefs.

Look at the difference in tone, the student chefs are not painted as “turning to cooking”. It is painted as a valid job, and a career. Why is sex work treated differently? The quote from Chris Glover, “Nobody should ever be coerced… to pay for their education by selling sex,” is

again taken out of context and misframes the issue. The tragedy is not students “falling” to sex work. It's that students should need to take on ANY kind of work to pay for school. One would never describe a student as coerced into a job at McDonald's by the economy. But sex work is apparently unconscionable.

The handling of the article was also extremely callous, and frankly bad reporting. The article repeatedly used the term “baby” to refer to sex workers, as opposed to the preferred term: sex worker. While many sugar babies do not identify as sex workers “baby” is a stigmatized term, and one that should only be used when it’s a workers preferred term. The article did not specify terms, and that's key in taking about work like this.

Do your research. On that note, the article did not have interviews with any actual students in arrangements, only students who had made accounts and had yet to go on a date. This is further stigmatizing, as it implies even considering this kind of set up is scandalous.

This choice is also extremely disrespectful to the many students who actually are sex workers, or are in arrangements like this. You are ignoring their voices and speaking for them. Elaine calls it “easy money” but hasn’t even met anyone yet.

This is lazy reporting.

And finally, the end of the article misquotes a law, and implies that sex work is illegal in Canada.

Canada has always had legal sex work, Bill C-36 makes it a crime for people to purchase sexual services, or communicate to obtain them, it does not make it a crime for someone to sell their own sexual service.

The quote in the article deals with third parties, not someone selling their own sexual service. The portion of the bill was presented without context and framed in a way to mislead readers into thinking sex work was illegal. This is not just bad reporting but unethical reporting.

I don’t need to remind you how wide a reach The Varsity has and how influential it is on student opinion. That this is what you allowed to be a representation of anything close to sex work to thousands of students is atrocious — Ola Skudlarska I am a 60-year-old woman who fell on the sidewalk at Harbord Street near Spadina on Wednesday November 26, 2014 around 1:30 PM. I want to thank four U of T students who came to my aid. Seconds after the fall, a lovely young man in a kind and respectful manner asked if he could help. Then two young women arrived shortly thereafter to help. The three of them got me up off the ground and a fourth young man offered to help me also. These four students are to be commended for their kindness and caring. They are the faces of the future and they have given me faith in life again.

— Anonymous

Letters to the editor should be directed to comment@thevarsity.ca. Please keep letters to 250 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

FOR THE RECORDS In conversation with Kops Records and a guide to record stores in Toronto Article by Ayla Shiblaq and Jacob Lorinc Photos by Mashal Khan and Mallika Makkar

T

ucked away amid the little shops along Queen Street West sits Kops Records, one of the oldest record stores in Toronto. Regarded as the last man standing among the record stores of Toronto’s past, the 38-year-old store stands out for having weathered the vinyl industry’s long and bitter drought with hardly a scratch to show for it. Locations such as Sam The Record Man and A&A Records both declared bankruptcy within the past 25 years and were replaced by cd shops and online downloading. Increasingly, record stores are incapable of keeping up with the rapidly changing modes of music distribution. Many record stores, not only in Toronto, shared the same fate and declared banruptcy.

Somehow, perhaps even miraculously, Kops Records was spared.

For Andrew Koppel, the son of Kops Records’ founder Martin Koppel, seeing these monumental record stores being driven out of business was a bittersweet experience. Though it marked the end of an era, in some ways, Kops reaped the benefits of the change.

“The difference in the ’70s was that you had a lot more competition,” says Koppel. “You had a lot more chain stores, and my dad was an independent retailer. He was up against hmv, Tower Records, Ameba Records, Sam The Record Man, and basically any big chain store that sell cds now that would’ve been selling vinyl then.”

While most of these companies made it increasingly difficult for a smaller store like Kops to maintain business, inexplicably, Kops survived. Major vinyl retailers found it impossible to break even and many were forced into switching over to cds. Meanwhile, Kops Records survived the recession with nothing but a few minor hiccups.

“In the early 2000s we started pushing more towards selling clothing, to help tide us over,” Koppel explains. “We were more a unique clothing shop with accessories, but also had a healthy selection of vinyl. Luckily, we also had a bedrock of 45s, of which we have the largest collection in Canada.”

45s are the equivalent of the singles that musicians release online before releasing their full

album. Singles were released on smaller records, and were played at 45 rpm, compared to a regular lp’s 33 revolutions per minute. The faster the rpm, the faster the record plays through.

Nowadays, with the resurgence of vinyl, business is booming for Kops Records. “By about 2006–2007, we were making enough money on vinyl that we didn’t need to sell t-shirts anymore, so we started fading it out slowly,” says Koppel. But that does not mean that the business today doesn’t have challenges to contend with.

“Nowadays, it’s more of a challenge of having to turn people’s vinyl collection down,” explains Koppel. “Now that the vinyl popularity has come back, everybody thinks the vinyl they have is priceless.”

Despite the return of vinyl’s popularity, the question of buying records over downloading music online remains. While it is certainly easier and more convenient to download music owning off of iTunes or otherwise, there’s an argument to be made for a physical copy of the music you choose to listen to.

“I just theorize that it’s filling a void here,” suggests Koppel, contemplating the benefits of buying records rather than downloading albums. “You say to yourself, ‘Why am I paying 10 bucks for something I can just download for free?’ Whereas with vinyl, you ask ‘Why am I paying $24 for vinyl?’ Well, it’s because I get two albums, I get to put it on my turntable, I get the posters [and] the artwork that comes with it… and you can actually feel attached to it,” he says.

Kops Records continues to sell strictly vinyl at their Bloor Street West location and almost entirely vinyl at their Queen Street West location. Their dedication to keeping vinyl alive comes from their commitment to selling physical copies of albums and singles; something which has become increasingly uncommon in the digital age.

“If you are a big music fan, and you really want to feel the experience, forget the argument about how [records are] warmer or sound nicer,” says Koppel, adding, “It’s not necessarily about that, it’s about being a part of it.”

Vinyl history keeps on turning Early 1930s Vinyl records are first popularized in the US and Canada when Columbia record label releases their first LPs

1937 Sam The Record Man, one of Toronto’s first record stores, opens on College Street and Crawford Street

1961 Sam The Record Man moves to its Yonge Street location, where it becomes an official Toronto landmark

1976 Martin Koppel opens Toronto’s longest standing record store (as of now), Kops Records

1981 ABBA’s The Visitors is the first popular music album to be released on a CD

1988 CDS surpass the gramophone in popularity

1991

Popular Toronto record outlet, A& Records, files for bankruptcy

&A

A Guide to Toronto’s Record Stores In recent years, Toronto’s record scene has been stepping up its game. Despite the loss of hometown favourites like Sam the Record Man and Criminal Records, there are new stores and expansions opening left and right for the record enthusiast.

FINDING A PLAYER Records are an expensive love. That is not to say that you can’t enjoy records cheaply — just that it is extremely difficult to do so. Some of us will get lucky and find a dusty record player tucked away in our parents’ basement, but for those contemplating purchasing one of their own, you will likely want to give it some thought.

If you decide to commit, buying the right record player is key. The decision depends largely on why you want the record player and how much you’re willing to spend. In theory, we would all like to spend $1,300 on a sound system that brings the band to your living room — but that is a beautiful but unrealistic dream for most of us. So, if you’re looking to start, the best advice you will ever get about record players is through people. Not the internet — actual humans. If you’re serious about getting a player, go to Bay Bloor Radio, Planet of Sound, or really just any record store — they know what they’re doing.

THE RUNDOWN With so many record shops in the city and more opening each year, navigating the options available to you can be daunting. Each shop has its own atmosphere and specialty and are as individual as the people who shop in them. Though big retailers like hmv, Urban Outfitters, and Amazon can be tempting for their familiarity and accessibility — and in the case of the former two, a good record selection — exploring the smaller, independent names can create a different experience and lead to some remarkable finds.

Kops Records Kops has been in the business for years, and they know their stuff. The people here are vibrant and the atmosphere is comfortable making their two locations particularly ideal for those just beginning their relationship with records. Their prices average out to approximately $25 per record.

Their specialties are their bins of one-dollar records and excellent vintage collections. If you’re looking for any independent records, sometimes you’ll find old-time favourites at their lowest price in Toronto here.

Cosmo Records Cosmo’s prices range, on average, from $10 to $30.

That being said, you can also find a $60 copy of Highway 61 Revisted. Their prices are all over the board. Their Queen Street West location is a small

store with bins everywhere. If you’re looking for an impulsive buy or a rarity, this is the place for you.

Planet of Sound This boutique-sized shop is hit-and-miss. Their records are priced relatively reasonably at $25 each, and though the size of their selection is rather dismal compared to their competition, it is eclectic — if you’re looking for rarer Animal Collective records, this is your place.

Their shining glory, however, is the sound systems they have available in-store. They stock some of the best record players out there and are a good source of information if you’re looking to invest in one.

Sonic Boom This former Annex staple is now located just off of Queen Street West and Spadina Avenue and, to the rejoicing of Sonic Boom aficionados, the vibe is pretty much the same.

Records cost an average of $25 each. Their impressive collection makes them a great spot for holiday shopping.

They are arguably also the master of Toronto in-store performances. They have had many great local artists play in the shop such as Mac Demarco, Broken Social Scene, The Wooden Sky, and Luke Lalonde from Born Ruffians.

Tiny Record Shop Record shops are a bit of a rarity in the city’s east end, making Tiny Record Shop a small but welcome addition. The prices are average (approximately $25 per) and it has a great selection from local record labels.

Discovery Records Another east end stop that offers considerably varied prices. They have an older vibe, and the smell of vinyl in this joint permeates everything: it’s glorious. Discovery Records has a great selection of collectibles and rarities. It’s off the beaten track as far as record stores go, and its location means you may have better luck with finding original pressings here.

Grasshopper Records Located at Dundas Street West and Ossignton Avenue, this spot boasts what is arguably the best collection of rap records in the city, making it an essential stop for lovers of the genre. The prices are on par with other shops in the city at an average of $25 per record.

LP’S LPS The new Roncesvalles location, although harder to find than their former Ossington Street home, is bigger and better. This is not your usual record store collection — if you’re looking for specific titles of independent artists, you may not find them here. What you will discover, however, are underrated finds for anyone looking for something new and different.

From left to right: Records on display at Kops Records.

The store display.

The lower-level of Sonic Boom’s new location on Spadina Avenue.

The alt-rock section at Kops Records

2001 2014

Sam The Record Man files for bankruptcy 2011 2007 An estimated 988,000 records are sold in the US

Digital music sales surpass physical music sales

18-year old Julian Seth-Wong opens Tonality Records in Toronto

2001 Sonic Boom Record Store opens in the Annex

2007 The first Record Store Day takes place in record stores around the world

2012 An estimated 4,600,000 records are sold in the US

Arts&Culture VAR.ST/ARTS

1 DECEMBER 2014

arts@thevarsity.ca

Toronto gets its game on Exploring the city's retro video game haunts Corey Van Den Hoogenband VARSITY STAFF

Remember when playing video games used to be simple? There was once a time, long before software updates, micro-transactions, and downloadable patches, when the closest thing to troubleshooting was blowing on your game cartridge like it was an 8-bit harmonica. Fortunately, a few retailers in Toronto still remember and celebrate the early days of gaming; there are three vintage video game shops near campus that no gamer should ignore.

LAST GEN

193 College Street, second floor Established in 2012, this "little store on the second floor" is a unique spot in the city for nostalgia junkies, thanks to its sale of vintage video games, vinyl records, and cassettes.

According to storeowner Joe Laffey, the decision to fuse rare games and music at Last Gen is a reflection of his personal passions and knowledge.

Laffey, who has been collecting vinyl since high school and gaming his whole life, will always have a piece of trivia behind any item in store, and is happy to share what he knows.

I asked what he considers to be the rarest item at Last Gen, Laffey procalims, "I once had Alice Cooper stop by and autograph a bunch of his records.

I have one on display at the store!"

Among other things at Last Gen, you'll find retro consoles, postcards, comics, and used games spanning from the Gameboy era up until now.

Since in-store space is limited, Last Gen makes sure that all the games, vinyl, and comics they carry are

carefully selected and curated. Upon stopping by, you'll find great games and service with student friendly prices. On my visit, I snagged an outof-print John Lennon live cassette for only two dollars.

ICEMAN VIDEO GAMES

206 Augusta Avenue The independently owned and operated Iceman Video Games has been a staple of Kensington Market for over 15 years. Iceman is home to a range of classics and rarities of the gaming world, but also keeps up to date with the latest releases.

What makes Iceman stand out amongst other retro gaming shops in Toronto is the plethora of limited edition and out of print box sets available. From Batman: Arkham City statues to a nearly unattainable Fire Emblem: Awakening, Iceman is your best bet for tracking down that collector's box set you missed out on the first time around.

Prices can be fairly steep for students on a budget, though this becomes understandable when considering the costs of shipping you'd inevitably pay buying the same item online. As for the coolest item in the store? Iceman stocks the RetroN 5, a gaming console that plays and up-scales those old nes, snes, Genesis, Gameboy, and Gameboy Advanced cartridges onto your hd television. '90s kids, rejoice.

A & C GAMES

452 Spadina Avenue A & C Games is a gaming paradise that simply can't be missed. Boxes of paraphenalia include, but are not limited to, Nintendo Zapper and Guitar Hero controllers, imported

Cheap arts Fountain Abbey: Holiday Comedy Ho Down Julia Hladkowicz and Diana Love host a night of free, festive comedy Tuesday, December 2 The Fountain 9:00 – 10:30 pm Free

games that haven't yet hit North American markets, and working arcade games.

Fresh off of a new move, manager Jamie Waters shares his thoughts on the store's expansion in size and popularity. "The move has been a challenge, but one we've really enjoyed. It's a whole new way of thinking to go from having just enough space to put out the important stuff to thinking about what goes where, what looks best, and what will catch peoples' eyes the most," he says.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of A & C is the customer’s ability to rent nearly any title in the store. Not only this, but customers can also rent gaming consoles for very reasonable prices. This means you and your friends can rent a ps1, snes, or even the infamous Virtual Boy and treat yourselves to a vintage video game night in.

Students have been receptive to A & C's fair prices and library of gaming oddities. Lukas Adamek, a third year physics major, says, "It's fun to just go in there and look at all the games I used to play when I was younger." I ran into Adamek digging around for a rumoured German copy of Pokémon HeartGold to help himself study the language outside of the classroom.

When it comes to the coolest thing in store, Waters is quick to call out the store's not-for-sale copy of Super Mario Sunshine signed by Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of classic titles like Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong. "I can't help but smile whenever I see it and remember [Miyamoto] always signs his name with a smile," says Waters.

Toronto is full of stores with a focus on specialty retro video games.

Photos by Dennis osiPov/the varsity

Under $10, pay what you can, and free arts events happening around the city this week

Grateful Dead, Grayfolded, Vinyl and Virtual: John Oswald Unwinds the Toxic Consequences of Digital Lecture by Sandy Pearlman on John Oswald’s Grayfolded Wednesday, December 3 Claude Bissell building, Room BL 538 4:30 – 6:00 pm Free

Aqueous with Tear Away Tusa at The Garrison Buffalo rockers Aqueous will be tearing up The Garrison Thursday night Thursday, December 4 The Garrison, 9:00 pm $10

By Daniel Konikoff

CINSSU’s Free Friday Films Presents: “Guidance” with Q&A by Pat Mills Catch a free screening of Pat Mills’ first feature film, Guidance, and stick around for a Q&A following the screening Friday, December 5 Muzzo Family Alumni Hall 100 7:00 – 9:00 pm Free

Streetcar No One Desires: The Second City The Second City’s writing class is putting on a graduation show, with all proceeds going to Gilda’s Club Greater Toronto Cancer Support.

Sunday, December 7 Second City Toronto 3:00 pm $5

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014

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Varsity reads: winter break When it comes to personal reading during the school year, let’s be honest, who has the time?

Sure, you say you’ve read the latest award-winning release, but, in all likelihood, it’s sitting dusty and sad next to your ever-growing pile of textbooks. If you’re planning on using the holiday break for some much-needed pleasure reading, we’ve read and reviewed our top choices. And hey, if you’re planning on going into a long and fulfilling Netflix-coma, they also make for great gifts.

Illustration by Janice Liu

A podcast column with Daniel Konikoff & Jacob Lorinc

GONE GIRL, GILLIAN FLYNN Linh Nyguen

VARSITY STAFF

As someone who stays far away from scary stories of any kind, I really should not have started reading this book (alone, at night) in a basement. Classified as a psychological thriller, Gone Girl is sharp, clever, and terrifying. It will leave you questioning what's really in those dusty corners of people's minds for days.

The story, told from the alternating perspectives of two twisted characters, centres around the disappearance of Amy Dunne, and her husband Nick’s involvement in the incident. Although Gone Girl is unlike the books that I typically enjoy, I found myself captivated by

jENNIFER SU/THE VARSITy

the story's brilliance and I finished it in two days.

Gone Girl is Gillian Flynn's third novel and was published in June 2012, rising rapidly in popularity and acclaim. It is superbly written with very deliberate diction — every word connotes imminent menace. Flynn's style is easy to follow and immerse yourself in. Once the action starts, the mystery builds very quickly, leaving the reader guessing at every turn. The novel relies on unreliable narration that creates suspense until the very end.

In addition to its fast-paced, sinister plot, Gone Girl also offers some interesting insights on dishonesty in marriage, the media's construction of news, and on the negative effects of a dire economy.

A large part of the novel's mystery

revolves around the true nature of Nick and Amy's relationship. Flynn stated in an interview with Publisher's Weekly that a concept she wished to explore with Gone Girl was dishonesty in long-term relationships, saying, "marriage is sort of like a long con, because you put on display your very best self during courtship, yet at the same time the person you marry is supposed to love you, warts and all. But your spouse never sees those warts really until you get deeper into the marriage and let yourself unwind a bit."

Gone Girl raises many intriguing questions and is sure to have you hooked. If there's one book you read for pleasure this holiday season, this is a great choice — do yourself a favour and read it before you go see the movie.

While the novel is admittedly fictional, it is based largely around real people and life events. It quickly becomes clear that Lev Termen’s life in Us Conductors is anything but dull. Through scenes depicting war, murder, Kung-fu, espionage, the decadent life of a famous scientist in 1920’s New York and the brutality of Russian gulag camps during the Second World War, Michaels shows his readers Termen’s life through the most captivating highs of the human experience and the lowest moments of physical and mental despair. The two worlds are captured through lyrical prose that stays compelling from beginning to end.

At the centre of the novel lies a story of unrequited love, which journeys with Termen from the

ussr into the United States. Readers quickly come to realize that the book is written in the form of a letter meant for a younger woman named Clara Rockmore — in reality, one of the most accomplished theremin players in the world.

It’s hard to believe that this is the first novel written by Michaels. His debut Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning work offers something for everyone.

It is an eloquent mixture of science, history, politics, love, and suspense, all seamlessly interwoven into a story of one real man presented as a fictitious character. I would recommend this book to almost anyone because of its numerous and hugely diverse elements, opening up the mostly unknown yet fascinating world of an instrument and its inventor.

JAKE: In a way I think that the

novels during the holiday season. It is a compelling look into Canada’s past that manages to succeed in the often-elusive combination of education and entertainment.

Quill & Quire referred to the novel as a "beast”, and it’s an apt description, coming in at just over 500 pages The Orenda is not a light read, nor should it be. The engrossing novel tells the tale of three distinct characters in the 17th century making their way through the wilderness of what was to become Canada.

Jesuit missionary Christophe, young teenage Iroquois girl Snow Falls, and Haudenosaunee warrior Bird. The reader follows the characters to the climax of the novel, a gruesome battle pitting

the Huron and the Jesuits against the Haudenosaunee.

By telling his story through three separate view points, Boyden paints a tragic but moving picture of murder and destruction, wherein where each side believes themselves to be in the right even when enacting the worst of atrocities.

The Orenda was the winner of cbc’s 2014 “Canada Reads” contest, and it’s a deserved win. It’s worth your time as an engaging historical novel of Canada’s past, but Boyden’s largest success arguably comes from his ability to connect us with figures who would have lived hundreds of years ago and to a part of our nation's history that is too often overlooked.

JAKE: I have to give the movie

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US CONDUCTORS, SEAN MICHAELS Aneta Perehinets

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

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If I’m being entirely honest, the surface plotline of Us Conductors did not initially pique my interest. Author Sean Michaels writes a fictitious account of the life of real engineer and physicist Leon (Lev) Termen. Termen was a twentieth century Soviet inventor known for the creation of the theremin, a strangely eclectic sounding instrument. For those unfamiliar with the theremin’s unique sound, Sheldon plays it in an episode of The Big Bang Theory, apparently trying to replicate the Star Trek theme song.

THE ORENDA, JOSEPH BOYDEN Sarah Niedoba

ASSOCIATE A&C EDITOR

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Full disclosure: this is what I’m getting my dad for Christmas.

(Sorry dad if you’re reading this — I think this is where the ‘it’s the thought that counts’ platitude comes into play). He’s notoriously hard to shop for, so I usually pick out a book for him around Thanksgiving and spend November sneakily making sure he doesn’t read it before the holidays.

To be clear, I’m not saying that Joseph Boyden’s third novel falls under the ominous category of “dad book” so often applied to historical fiction and action-adventure

Associated is a bi-weekly podcast and film column created by The Varsity’s associate Arts & Culture editors, Daniel Konikoff and Jacob Lorinc. They’ll be reviewing the latest movies making their way into theatres. On the bill for this week is book-to-movie thriller Gone Girl and the intense musicfilled Whiplash. Plus, Arts & Culture editor Sarah Niedoba weighs in with Jake on romantic bio-pic The Theory of Everything. Read some of their thoughts here, and then be sure to go online and check out the podcast at thevarsity.ca.

GONE GIRL DAN: [Director David Fincher]

is quite amazing at creating this really cool colour palate with his cinematography. It's dark and also kind of alienating, and I find it lets you focus on the raw emotion of the story itself. cinematography really added to the feel of the movie... I remember there's this one scene where [Ben Affleck's] sitting on the couch and half of his face is in shadow... it adds this whole new dimension to the story; I had no idea who was guilty, or who had done what.

WHIPLASH JAKE: [J.K. Simmons] was definitely trying to turn his students into these fantastic "above and beyond" music players... he says at one point—

DAN:"There are no two words in

the English language more harmful than, "good job." That line will resonate with me forever.

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING credit for being able to do what it does, but it has these moments with the swelling violins and all these emotionally heavy stuff happening, and I was like, I don't want to be emotionally manipulated like this.

SARAH: Well, the reason I found it so emotionally taxing — there was pretty much no point in the movie where I felt happy — [it] was essentially just watching someone live with ALS, and trying to imagine what it would be like both to have that happen to you... and also what it would be like to devote your life to someone [living with it].

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Vol. CXXXV, No. 12

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

The making of sketch comedy Co-directors of The Bob offer their take on putting together a sketch show

The cast of The Bob rehearse before opening night. Maya Wong/THe VarsiTy

Abbi Indrakumar

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Ghosts roamed Isabel Bader Theatre’s stage as I sat down to talk with The Bob’s co-directors Talal Itani and Emma Robinson. The rehearsals for opening night ran until midnight, and the air was filled with the buzz of excitement. The Bob a Victoria University tradition, Canada’s longest running sketch revue, now 142 years old. It took place this weekend from Novemer 27 to 29. It’s a student-written revue directed not just towards the collegiate audience, but Toronto as a whole. The show ran for an hour and a half, filled with original content written by the cast themselves. I spoke to the co-directors about their experiences in getting involved in sketch comedy and how they put together a show.

The Varsity: What got you into sketch comedy?

Emma Robinson: We have really similar tastes. Shows like Monty Python, STV and The Upright Citizens

Brigade in New York really influenced our love for sketch comedy.

Talal Itani: Other comedy inspiration definitely includes The Simpsons and Kids in the Hall. I like that offbeat humour.

ER: We like that logical absurdity.

That’s what we’re about at The Bob. We don’t believe in meanspirited comedy, but rather something that draws from aspects of life people can connect with... A sketch comedy show does exactly what the name suggests. It’s a show filled with a series of short comedy scenes; it’s Saturday Night Live on the stage. But creating a sketch comedy show from scratch isn’t something you can just do the night before, like your 10-page paper.

TV: So what’s the process of making a sketch comedy show?

ER: It all starts in September, after the audition process, of course. The cast members get a chance to pitch ideas to us. Then we develop and critique those. That’s a month and a half long process.

TI: In auditions, we give someone an

old SNL sketch and see how they deliver one-liners or an ongoing joke.

It’s all about comedic timing; that’s the key to comedy. Practice and the perfect timing of a line.

ER: Then it’s rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals. We fine-tune, while the tech comes in to set up things like lighting.

TV: How do you decide which sketches work?

ER: In November, we narrow down the sketches down to the ones Talal and I find would work best in the show. This year, we started with 45 pitches and narrowed it down to 22.

TI: We look at the premise of the writing, and whether they read well during table reads in the first month of development. Emma and I also take feasibility and the cohesive tone into consideration. It’s important we make sure everyone has a chance to pitch their ideas and develop them.

ER: We take both short and long sketches, because we want the show to flow together. So when

we make the transition between long sketches and have to change the set, there are still short sketches happening in front of the curtain. The audience will always be entertained without feeling they’re being droned on.

TV: What’s the biggest challenge that you face?

TI: I think it’s making sure everyone gets heard. People may feel like they’re being underappreciated in any group environment, so here we make sure they’re always appreciated. Our cast works so hard, and that starts with them having the chance to pitch their ideas freely without feeling intimidated or judged.

ER: It’s important we make sure everyone gets a fair chance and fair share at opportunities. There are even first years here who have opened up because they get this fair chance at pitching ideas.

TI: Once we make sure of that, we all work hard together, which makes us such a tight cast.

TV: It’s exam time. There are a bunch of assignments, tests, and exams happening right now that are leaving students at U of T overstressed. Why would they take the time out to come and see The Bob instead of reading another chapter?

ER: Laughter is a proven medical stress reliever. Not only are you getting a good laugh, but you won’t have to think about [school] while watching us. We’re not creating content just for university students, but writing that expands beyond that, to everyday life we all experience. I like writing about social critiques, like the parent, or the douchey guy at a club.

TV: What surprises are in the show this year?

ER: We actually have a legit musical number. Like something out of Broadway. Except it’s more of a parody of every Broadway cliché.

TI: All of the music was composed ourselves. One of our cast members specializes in composition; it’s amazing what they created.

var.st/arts

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014

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Home is wherever I’m with food Students discuss their relationships with food and what it means to them

Niclas Manson is in his first year of a Master's of Public Health.E jENNIFER SU/THE VARSITy

Emily Katz

VARSITY STAFF

Food is something we all have in common. We all need to eat, yet the dietary habits of students at the University of Toronto vary greatly, taking on different meanings, spaces, and ingredients.

For students raised abroad, food often stirs up memories of “home.”

Second-year student Priyanka Naik considers Zimbabwe her home, but was educated in Australia and

Canada. To her, dishes like boiled peanuts or sadza are reminders of home, while “Tim Tams trigger memories of Australia,” she says.

Her Canadian dish of choice? Tim Hortons, of course.

Regardless of their point of origin, most students follow a similar pattern when it comes to feeding themselves. Living on their own for the first time, they are forced into a world of independent culinary struggles and successes. Third-year Rotman student Andre Gadbois says he spent his first semester out

of residence “eating a bowl of cereal and two bagels a day.”

Now in his second year offcampus, he has developed dinner staples like pad thai with eggs. He says finding proper grocery stores is the key to saving money, like the Korean grocer on Palmerston Avenue or Honest Ed’s for dry goods.

On the one hand, food options are all around us. The city of Toronto has almost 10,000 restaurants, cafés, and fast food stores that act as prime distractions for many students. As most of us know, it’s a

two-sided game of finding the best meals at the best prices.

Yet for some students, food is linked more closely to identity than sustenance. And like our own identities, the range of expression is great.

Carrie,* a fourth-year student in Book and Media Studies, thinks that food is often seen as an indulgence, a private experience, and something that’s not supposed to be talked about.

But she writes about food because she likes thinking about food. To Carrie, talking about food is often perceived along with authority; people expect you to know about the cuisine that corresponds with your cultural background, whether you identify with it or not.

At the end of the day, though, she says simply, “I have to eat, so I’ll eat well.”

Niclas Manson, in his first year of a Master’s of Public Health, eats well. After moving to Canada from Trinidad at age six, he credits his parents’ cooking as helping him keep up with his culture. While he says there is not a huge West Indian food scene downtown, he still loves introducing friends to the cuisine when he can.

Food is at the core of Manson’s identity as an immigrant and, also, as a dessert lover. He proudly frequents Demetre’s, the Canadian dessert restaurant, and one of the first things he told me was, “I would marry a Cinnabon if I could.”

Manson notes that he has “never felt bad about what he’s eaten, ever.” This is particularily striking given that food is often linked to

guilt and stress, especially during the holiday season.

Also apt for the holiday season is the idea that food means family.

To fourth-year Political Science and American Studies student Natasha Abraham, her experience with food is completely connected to her family networks in both Toronto and India. When she thinks of family, she thinks of aunts, uncles, and lots of buffet dinners.

Abraham only began to cook Indian food for herself after moving out of her parents’ home and realizing just how much she missed her mother’s beef curry.

While some seek comfort from eating the foods they like, others enjoy making them. Jeremy Matos, a fifth-year history student, cooks to de-stress. He is the co-president of the Culinary Arts Club and also serves on the Hart House Farm Committee, whose primary role is catering for events.

For him, it is the art that provides the therapy; his favourite culinary activity is making bread. As he says, “It’s such a simple creation yet has drastically differing results based on technique, that it’s an intriguing thing to study.”

Matos agreed that food conjures the idea of a private experience and space. When cooking he thinks of a space “for myself at home, where there is no one to judge the final product but me.”

Food is another way in which we express ourselves; our thoughts and memories, our loved ones, and our past experiences, all piled on a plate. *Name changed at student's request

30 days, 50,000 words Students share their experiences participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge Linh Nguyen

VARSITY STAFF

As November draws to an end, so do classes, beard growth, and National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Now in its sixteenth year, over 400,000 writers worldwide have taken on the challenge this November. The Varsity spoke with two U of T students, a NaNoWriMo first-timer and a veteran, about their novel writing attempts this month.

Martin Petkov, a third-year computer science specialist, has undertaken NaNoWriMo for the first time this year and finished strong. "I [refused] to come close and not actually make it to the final goal," he says, adding, "I've enjoyed it; it hasn't felt like work, only like bringing to reality what was already in my mind."

Petkov explains that his favourite part of the experience was "getting to see an idea in my mind actually form into a coherent thing.'" His story takes a fantasy-like twist, following the mind of a lucid-dreaming man as he dies in a coma.

It’s hard to imagine completing a full novel on top of a regular courseload at U of T. Petkov acknowledges this difficulty, saying, "This last week is the hardest one. It's coinciding the

Martin Petkov conquered NaNoWriMo for the first time this year. jENNIFER SU/THE VARSITy

due dates for four final assignments, and it's hard to find the time to write out my daily words.

It doesn't really get easier as the goal gets closer. I still have to convince myself not to skip a day or I'll fall too far behind."

Paloma Griffin, a fourth-year political science specialist, agrees: "the hardest part has definitely been the time management.

Fourth year is busy, even without 50,000 words in progress!"

She adds, "I think [I will finish].

I might be a couple days late in finishing, because I got a few

thousand words behind this week, but if I put some good effort in I should be able to reach my word count by December 2 or 3. I really love this story, and I’m so pleased where it has gone so far!"

Interestingly, the idea for Griffin's story this year originated from a course. "I’m taking this really amazing religion class this semester called Witchcraft and Magic in Christianity, and it really inspired me," she says, adding, "The professor for this class encouraged us to really take a look at modern versus historic ideas of magic. While getting through a

Paloma Griffin met her goal this year, and plans to try again next. jENNIFER SU/THE VARSITy

reading back in October, I stumbled across a historical account of “sylvan ones,” which are people or creatures who dwell in the woods, so I wrote my story about that — a group of wild people who live in the woods, and have their own magic system.

The main character is this little girl who gets lost and is found by the sylvan ones."

Griffin says that her favourite part of this year's writing experience was the research for her story. "Every year you have to dedicate a little time to background research on the things you are writing about, and because

I’m taking a class on the history of the story I’m writing, I ended up loving the research element of it!" she says, adding,"I really think I’m going to take this story and make it something good."

Petkov states that while he enjoyed the experience and gained a lot from it, he will not do it again. "I'll just be happy with knowing that I've conquered this behemoth and crossed something off of my bucket list," he says. Griffin, on the other hand, enthusiastically responds, "I'm definitely going to keep going! This is a lifetime activity."

Science

VAR.ST/SCIENCE 1 DECEMBER 2014

science@thevarsity.ca

Anesthetics may cause sustained memory deficits Anesthetics affect memory loss well after surgery by keeping certain neurological receptors active

In this seminar, Dr. Nasreen Khatri, clinical psychologist at the Rotman Research Institute, will talk about the impact our busy lives have on our neurological health

Jaclin Simonetta

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine have discovered how anesthetics result in prolonged memory impairment.

Doctors have long been concerned as to why many patients that undergo anesthesia during surgery experience cognitive impairment — especially memory loss.

Some patients experience memory deficits for a few hours after discharge, while about one-tenth of patients suffer cognitive impairments three months after their surgery.

These concerns led Dr. Beverly Orser and her team to look at what mechanisms are involved in postoperative memory loss.

“We not only want to ensure our patients are pain free, but also want to optimize the patient’s performance after their surgery,” says Orser, professor at the Department of Anesthesia and Physiology, and anesthesiologist at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

Orser adds that, as anesthesiologists focus on the quality of life of their patients, they need to understand the long-term repercussions of anesthetics.

Memory impairment after anesthesia has been linked to the activity of specific inhibitory receptors in the brain. Anesthetics activate these receptors to eliminate any memory during the acute operative period, so patients do not remember the traumatic events of the surgery.

It was thought that once the anesthetic drug is eliminated, the

Tuesday, December 2 7:00–8:15 pm Toronto Public Library, Annette Street Branch Free; no registration necessary

Receiving Health Care Services as an Afghan in Iran: Reflections on Exploratory Fieldwork into the Ethics of Care

timothy law/the Varsity

receptor is no longer active. However, Orser and her team found that this receptor can function in rodent models for at least one week after the use of anesthetics.

This prolonged receptor activation results in long-term impairments of memory performance after general anesthesia.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, was led by PhD candidate Agneiszka Zurek. In the experiment, healthy mice were given a low dose of anesthetics for 20 minutes. A single injection of the anesthetic etomidate kept the specific receptor active for at least one week after. These results provide an explanation for the

postoperative long-term effects of general anesthetics that many patients experience.

During anesthesia, the increased activity of the receptor studied causes an acute memory blockade.

The activity mostly results in deficits in anterograde memory — the memory essential for the formation of new memories. Memory deficits long after the surgery have led to reduced quality of life, loss of independence, and increased mortality.

The likelihood that cognitive impairments are experienced after anesthesia depends on the patient’s age, health, type of surgery, and the anesthetic. The occurrence of these impairments is highest in the elder-

ly and those undergoing major surgery or more intricate procedures.

“Now that we understand the molecular biology, we are able to validate patients’ concerns and prepare them for these postsurgical deficit,” says Orser. She recommends that patients write everything down or bring a family member with them after surgery.

For high-risk patients, it is essential that physicians notify them about possible postoperative effects.

Orser says that upcoming research will focus on optimizing the use of currently available drugs, as well as repurposing exisiting drugs towards reducing postoperative effects.

New clue in galaxy formation puzzle Astronomers at U of T provide the first direct evidence that galaxies in clusters have reduced star formation due to intergalactic wind Aditya Chawla

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Astronomers at the University of Arizona and the Dunlap Institute at the University of Toronto have finally solved the 40-year-old mystery of why galaxies in clusters tend to have less star formation than non-clustered or “field” galaxies.

They have provided the first direct evidence that intergalactic wind is stripping galaxies of molecular hydrogen, which is an essential star– forming element.

Several theories have been presented in the past to explain the fundamental difference in star formation between clustered and field galaxies.

Your Brain on Speed: How the Brain Responds to the Rush Hour of Life

One model that has been proposed describes how, when a galaxy falls into the cluster, the hot gas from the cluster blows out the least dense gas from the incoming galaxy, an effect that is called “ram-pressure stripping.” This least dense gas consists mainly of atomic hydrogen which cannot form stars directly. However, when dense enough, atomic hydrogen converts to molecular hydrogen, which can then go on to form stars through nuclear fusion. Without this gas, the galaxy cannot form stars and slowly dies.

For the last few years, astronomers have detected trails of young stars in many galaxy clusters. These young stars look like they have been pushed out of the galaxy cluster.

However, ram-pressure stripping

is not powerful enough to remove entire stars from a galaxy.

Dr. Suresh Sivanandam, a research fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and his team inferred in their original findings that there must be molecular hydrogen present in these trails.

The most difficult aspect of this study was actually detecting the molecular hydrogen, because it is invisible and normally gives off very little radiation in the infrared spectrum. However, the unique process of ram-pressure stripping heats the molecular hydrogen, allowing astronomers to detect it by using infrared telescopes. Through readings from the Hubble telescope, the Spitzer telescope, and data from previous studies, Sivanandam and

his team were able to detect clear bands of molecular hydrogen being ripped out of these galaxies.

Sivanandam, when asked about the major obstacles of the study, says that, “The main obstacle is… trying to come up with a coherent explanation for the results.” He adds, “We have a couple [of] different galaxies with slightly different behaviours, and [we are] trying to come up with some explanation that can properly explain what we observe.”

This study represents the first time that scientists can actually see how star formation is halted in these types of galaxies. Ultimately, these new results could provide insight into how galaxies have evolved from the early Universe to the present.

Speakers include Donna Gabaccia, professor at the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies at utsc, Razieh Rezazadeh, assistant professor at the Iran University of Science and Technology, and Laura Bisaillon, assistant professor in Health Studies at utsc Wednesday, December 3 10:00 am–12:00 pm Munk School of Global Affairs, room 108N (North House) Free; register on Munk School website

On the Emergence of the “Entrepreneurial” Hospital A seminar featuring Dr. Fiona A. Miller, associate professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation Wednesday, December 3 4:00–5:30 pm Health Sciences Building, room 108 Free; no registration necessary

U of T AstroTour Planetarium Shows Learn about U of T’s planetarium and telescopes with a public tour; the talk and telescope viewing do not require registration but the planetarium show does Thursday, December 4 Multiple times between 9:15 pm and 10:15 pm McLennan Physical Laboratories Free; register on Eventbrite

Alzheimer’s Disease: Neurodegeneration and Repair A seminar by Dr. Isabelle Aubert, senior scientist at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Monday, December 8 4:00 pm–5:00 pm Medical Sciences Building, room 2172 Free; no registration necessary

VARSITY SCIENCE

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014

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Making room for mental health camh establishes new emergency department to accommodate the rising demand for mental health care Wan Xian Koh

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (camh) has recently revitalized its services and doubled its patient capacity with the official opening of the Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan Emergency Department.

Established in 1966, camh was Canada’s first specialized 24-hour psychiatric emergency department, as well as the country’s largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital. The emergency department is open to the general public and serves people from 16 years of age and older who have a mental health or addiction concern.

Due to the rising awareness of mental health, there has been a growing demand for psychiatric services. The patient volume at camh has more than doubled since 2003.

In the year 2012–2013, a total of 7400 visits to the emergency department were recorded.

According to Dr. Brittney Poynter, the clinical head of the Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan Emergency Department, the hospital attends to 60 per cent of psychiatric emergencies in the central Toronto area and also treats patients from all over Ontario.

As the only dedicated emergency psychiatric department in Ontario, camh has a vision for the advancement of mental health care.

The generous contributions of numerous donors coupled with the support of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care enabled this breakthrough transformation under the leadership of Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan.

Prior to the renovations, the facility was outdated, cramped and inadequate. To efficiently address the urgent needs of patients and decrease long wait times, the new emergency department has two waiting areas, a quiet room for families, a lounge, a short stay unit with eight beds, and twice the number of interview rooms as before. Patients are assigned to either the acute or less-acute wait-

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health on College Street. file photo: max stern/the Varsity

ing room, allowing for increased privacy and comfort. Designed specifically for emergency psychiatric care, the facility includes better sight lines, barricade-free doors, rooms with double exits and weighted furniture. camh takes an interdisciplinary approach to mental health care. Inter-professional collabo-

ration of nurses, psychiatrists, social workers, and pharmacists leads to optimal recovery plans tailored to individual patients.

“We hope to achieve a safe, respectful, and dignified experience for all of our patients in the emergency department,” says Poynter. “[For] many of the people we see, it is their

first interaction with the mental health care system ever and this can be frightening and can be traumatic,” she adds.

The emergency department hopes to provide a calming healing space for patients. The new renovations offer welcoming and therapeutic spaces for patients and families in crisis.

Finding a cure for Ebola with a digital chemist New partnership to use supercomputer to find Ebola treatments Shijie Zhou

VARSITY STAFF

A supercomputer. courtesy of pacific northwest national library/flickr by cc

The University of Toronto, Chematria, a U of Tbased startup, and ibm recently announced a new partnership for finding potential cures for the Ebola virus using a computer modelling system.

First recognized in 1976, the Ebola virus has remained a mystery despite continuous research effort to battle the virus. Since March 2014, the virus has become widespread in several West African countries, affecting more than 15,000 people with a fatality rate of 36 per cent. The transmission rate has reached an alarming level, yet an effective treatment still eludes us.

Moreover, the speed at which treatment and vaccine research is going may not be fast enough.

However, this new partnership may just be the boost we need in this race.

Armed with an ibm 64,000-cpu blue gene/Q, the most powerful computer in Canada, the research partnership will use artificial intelligence technology to predict the functions of new drugs without any physical laboratory testing. The technology is based on deep learning neural networks.

“[It] uses machine learning approaches inspired by the human brain,” explains Dr. Abraham Heifets, Chematria co-founder and ceo. He adds, “Some of the structures which they use in some of the inspirations for those approaches look very much like some of the behaviours of the mammalian visual cortex.”

In a sense, the program can “think” like a human chemist and work in a virtual lab.

This technology has shown promise before in other research. Chematria has used this virtual platform to find new uses for existing drugs for Malaria treatments.

Heifets believes that this method provides significant advantages. “We are beginning by looking at drugs that have already been approved,” he says, adding, “This is good for Ebola because we are starting with approved drugs. We can move much faster and expedite some of the safety work.”

If this method succeeds, it has the pontential to transform the pharmacology industry and clinical research. “There are far more experiments you could run than you’re able to run,” says Heifets adding, “You have to prioritize which experiments you get to do… You always have to make judicious choices [although] this platform can significantly shorten research time while allowing more experiments.”

20 Vol. CXXXV, No. 12

VARSITY SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

Merger star found near black hole Scientists may have discovered a new class of objects in our galaxy’s most dynamic region Nadezhda Woinowsky-Krieger ASSOCIATE SCIENCE EDITOR

ann sheng/The VarsiTy

According to the newly published research, there are two new leading models for what the true nature of G2 might be.

It could be that the object is a young, newly formed “proto-star,” obscured from our vision by the remainder of the dust and gas cloud from which it was born.

Alternatively, the object could be a recent merger of what is called a “binary” star system. Normally, in a binary star system, the two stars from which the system is composed would orbit around each other forever due to their gravitational stability. But in an area of highly dynamic stellar activity, such as near a black hole, any of the rules that stars regularly abide by can easily be broken.

“A lot of stars are binaries in the universe, so in the galactic centre [there are] probably lots of binary stars, and their interaction with the black hole and other stars near it sometimes will cause the binary separation to get smaller.” Do says, adding, “Sometimes the binary separation will get small enough that

the two stars will essentially touch, and form one star.”

Although the astronomical community missed out on the fireworks that they were expecting to see when G2 was supposed to fall into the black hole, Do is excited about the prospects of the resulting turn of events.

“I think the fact that it might not be a gas cloud isn’t that disappointing because this might be a new class of objects that we can study at the center of the galaxy,” he says, adding, “it could potentially tell us a lot about how stars behave over time near black holes.”

Although normally everything in the universe moves very, very slowly, due to the fast-paced nature of the location of G2, the answers that Do and his colleagues are still seeking may be on their way quicker than most other astronomers could hope for.

“Right now it’s a little hard to say definitely whats going on. I think it’ll probably take a few more years to look at how this object changes over time,” Do says.

science@thevarsity.ca

second… that’s almost one per cent the speed of light, which is much, much faster than anything we would see [normally],” he adds.

Write for science

Of all the strange and mysterious objects that astronomers study, some of the strangest can be found in the very heart of our galaxy, near the black hole around which the Milky Way revolves. A recently published article in the Astrophysical Journal may be able to shed some light on the nature of one of these unusual objects in the galaxy’s darkest and most obscured neighbourhood.

The object, which was dubbed “G2” when it was first discovered in 2012, was previously believed to be a molecular hydrogen cloud in orbit around the black hole. To the anticipation of astronomers all over the world, it was expected to fall into the black hole this summer. Yet despite these predictions, G2 remained in orbit.

Ever since this misbehaviour, astronomers have puzzled over an alternate model for what the object might look like, always taking into account the potential influence of its supermassive neighbour. The colossal mass of the black hole is estimated to be equivalent to four million times that of our sun. Due to the effects of the incredible gravitational forces exerted by this ultra dense object, stars, gas clouds, and other astronomical bodies can move at speeds far faster than almost anywhere else in the galaxy, causing all kinds of unusual things to happen.

“The gravity of the black hole causes objects to move really fast,” says Dr. Tuan Do, a researcher at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics. “In fact this object, G2, was moving at over 2,000 kilometers per

Sports

VAR.ST/SPORTS 1 DECEMBER 2014

sports@thevarsity.ca

Team profile: Blues swimming team Men’s and women’s teams rank near the top of the CIS Thomas Vangou

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Varsity Blues swimming teams have just begun another strong season as they look to defend their respective championships. Last season, the men’s team won the Ontario University Athletics (oua) and Canadian Interuniversity Sport (cis) championships while the women’s team won the oua championships.

Byron McDonald, last year’s Coach of the Year award winner, is leading the team to another strong season.

The Blues currently sit near the top of the cis rankings. The men’s team is ranked second and the women’s team ranked third.

So far this season, the teams have competed at events at home and have travelled to Waterloo, Hamilton, and Montreal for meets where both teams have finished first in all meets.

On November 22-23, the Blues competed in the oua Stratten Divisional Championships in London, Ontario. This event represented the midseason report card for oua swimmers. This was a chance for the Blues to race against all their Stratten division competitors for the first time this season.

The rest of the oua competed in the Tihanyi Divisional championships at Wilfred Laurier University. Both men’s and women’s teams swam strongly to claim first place finishes, with top times in 27 of the 38 events.

The teams were led by two freestyle specialists. Rookie Stephen Straszynski led the men’s team with first place finishes in the 200, 400, and 1500 metre freestyle.

His 1500 freestyle time of 15:48.05 was the top time by any oua swimmer in the event this season.

Vanessa Treasure is in her fifth year on the swimming team. CourteSy of martin bazyl

Fourth-year Paige Schultz recorded wins in the 50, 100, and 200 freestyle events.

Her times in the 100 and 200–metre events topped her times from last year’s oua championships.

Three men’s swimmers claimed multiple victories. Hochan Ryu won the 200 and 400 IM events, Edward Liu won the 100 and 200 butterfly events and Chris Manning won the 50 freestyle and breaststroke events.

Vanessa Treasure, Kylie Masse, and Bridget Coley contributed to the women’s team victory with top finishes in the im, butterfly, backstroke and freestyle events.

The strong group of Blues swimmers combined to earn first place results in the relays.

The women won three events, and the men won two.

A rare miss in the 400–metre freestyle men’s relay proves the team is human. Both squads racing in the 400 freestyle relays were disqualified for competing out of order and for early takeoffs.

The University of Western Ontario provided the Blues with its closest competition, finishing the meet in second place. Western’s swimmers consistently placed near the Blues’ leaders.

The wins for the Blues are an indication that U of T is the team to beat in the Stratten division. In the Tihanyi division Waterloo University won the men’s event and

Laurentian University won the women’s event this year.

The Blues have competed in 5 of their 7 interuniversity meets.

After the holiday break, the Blues will host the Winter Cup in January. This will be their final race before they compete in the oua championships hosted in Ottawa.

The Blues will then travel to Victoria, British Columbia for the cis Championships where they will compete against the cis’s top ranked team University of British Columbia.

The team’s strong group of swimmers and midway results are an indication that the Blues are in the chase for more championships this season.

The history of the hockey stick A look at how the hockey stick has evolved over the centuries

Catherine Solomon/the VarSity

Kasi Sewraj

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The technology of sports equipment has improved significantly over the past decade or

two. With older sports such as hockey, the changes between the first pieces of equipment used and what is currently being used and improved upon are drastic.

Let’s take a look at the hockey stick’s evolutionary journey: the oldest known sticks, dating back

to the mid-1800s, were made out of hornbeam wood. In the 1920s, ash became the preferred material for hockey stick manufacturing, being very durable but also extremely heavy. These sticks were not curved, and the blade was inserted into a notch in the shaft and glued together.

In 1927, Cy Denneny, from the Ottawa Senators, was the first to “banana blade” or curve his blade, but this did not become popular until the 1960s.

In the 1950s, wood blades were wrapped in fiberglass, and the usage of fiberglass made sticks cheaper, lighter, and more durable.

Quebec’s Sher-Wood and Canadien companies started the revolution of becoming less dependent on wood sticks and more on fiberglass. When they began using lightweight aspen wood reinforced with fiberglass.

By the 1980s, aluminum sticks were being made. In 1981, they were made legal in the nhl.

The aluminum sticks were even more durable and lightweight than their wood and fiberglass counterparts, and blades were separate from the shaft, making replacements easy and reducing cost.

The 1990s brought another revolutionary change to the hockey stick, by introducing carbon fiber as the main material. These sticks allowed players to adjust their own blade, however, they were not very cost effective.

In 1995, the first composite blade was introduced, and today it is this very stick that dominates the game.

Composite sticks are crafted from a multitude of different materials making them light and flexible, but they are known to break easily, which is why nhl players go through many per season.

While there are still elements of the stick that can be improved, all of the recent developments indicate a light and durable stick being created in the very near future.

VARSITY SPORTS

22 Vol. CXXXV, No. 12

sports@thevarsity.ca

Coach profile: Dan Price Hockey team adds new coach to staff in 2014-2015 season Sam Caladrone

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

In the years before his hiring as the first full– time assistant men’s hockey coach in Varsity Blues history, Dan Price would look with envy at the Varsity Blue program.

“I’d heard rumblings about some of the things it was doing, how the Varsity program had continued to evolve and improve, about the renovations they’d done to the arena. It just seemed to me, like a program that was on the rise,” says Price.

While still an assistant to the Tri-City Americans earlier this summer, both Price’s and Blues’ head coach Jim Hiller’s contracts were up. After Hiller left for an assistant job with the Detroit Red Wings, Price knew his career was in limbo.

“I remember when I first saw that [job] posting, and thinking this was just another clear indicator of what they were trying to do,” he says.

At the interview level, Price was thrilled to find that head coach Darren Lowe and athletic director Beth Ali shared some of his philosophies. Both emphasize the duality of the role of the student-athlete, recognizing the importance in developing their players holistically.

In spite of being the first full time assistant coach in Varsity Blue history, Dan Price sees no special expectations for himself. Rather, he sees a generally high expectation for a program as historically great as the Blues.

“The expectation certainly is success, every day, every year… definitely the coaches believe it, the players believe it,” says Price.

Instead, Price sees himself as an extra resource to the players. Lowe has been essentially

Dan Price joined the men’s hockey team this year. courtesy of MArtiN BAzyl

running the program by himself for the last 20 years, and Price seeks to alleviate some of that pressure.

“There’s so many components… there’s video, there’s off-ice training, on-ice training, there’s player prep, practice prep, game prep, pre-scouting, administrative, budget, recruiting. There’s everything under the sun involved with running the hockey program,” he says.

After graduating from the University of Saskatchewan School of Law, Price considered a more conventional career approach. However, the competitiveness of elite–level hockey kept drawing him back.

His commitment is evident — while working a different profession in Calgary shortly after graduation, Price began voluntarily scouting for the Regina Pats, a local junior hockey team, on the side.

“Most people would rather play if they could.

But to the extent that there’s anything that matches playing, or comes very, very close to playing, for me anyway, it’s coaching, and a big reason for that is because of the strategic and planning component,” says Price.

The team is struggling in its play so far this season, but recent improvements and successes have indicated hope for the team’s playoff run, and Price will help to lead the Blues to this goal.

Staying fit over the break Tips for eating and exercising during the holidays should reduce your intake as much as possible.

Pace yourself, drink in moderation, and alternate between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks in order to keep yourself hydrated. Just like with sugar, make sure you are giving yourself a day or two in-between to let your body reset itself.

With free time during the break, try cooking at home more. This will allow you to know exactly what is going into your food, and it will make reducing amounts of oil and sugar easier. Try cooking with vegetables that are grown organically.

Try to set the goal of eating at least one more meal per day that you have prepared yourself than usual.

EXERCISE

AlAstAir MAcNAMArA/tHe VArsity

Ameena Youssef

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The holidays are fast approaching. With family gatherings, dinners, and parties, it can get a little hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

By staying away from a few foods, sticking to other foods, and continuing to exer-

cise can help you stay on track with your health this break. These are a few eating and exercising tips to help you keep fit during the holidays.

EATING It will be hard to maintain a healthy diet with gingerbread, gravy, and pies all around, but try to reduce sugar intake.

Avoid piling up on empty calorie foods that are full of added sugars and low on any nutritional value. Having some of these foods is okay, but all is good in moderation.

Despite how much you want to, do not eat them every day, but occasionally at gatherings.

During the break, keep your consumption of alcohol to a minimal. Just because it is around you at holiday parties and New Year’s parties, you

With the free time you have, make an effort to be at the gym for at least 30-60 minutes per day at least three days per week.

Balance workouts with an equal amount of time spent on cardio and strength training.

Have a workout buddy; bring a friend who will motivate you. This will make going to the gym more of a fun activity than a chore.

Winter also brings outdoor winter activities. Go out and enjoy the weather all while keeping active. Try ice-skating, skiing, or snowboarding.

Go out with your friends and family, and take advantage of the activities that we can only enjoy this time of the year. You won’t even feel like you’re working out, but all these activities burn a lot of calories.

If you would prefer not to leave home, then one way of staying fit is to invest in a good equipment, and purchase an at home workout dvd.

Alternatively, a number of at-home workouts can be found online as videos or as circuits that you can perform at your own pace.

VARSITY SPORTS

var.st/sports

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014

23

State of the Blues hockey franchise A midseason recap of the men’s and women’s hockey teams Sampson Coutts VARSITY STAFF

At the midpoint of their 28-game Ontario University Athletics (oua) regular season, the men’s hockey team sits in sixth place in the oua West division with a 6-8-1 record, one point ahead of the Lakehead Thunderwolves and York Lions for the final oua playoff spot.

It has been a difficult season for the men’s team, with injuries to the starting goaltenders Brett Willows and Garrett Sheehan, forcing third-string netminder Michael Nishi to start the last eleven games.

Nishi has been admirable in relief for the starting duo and is a decent oua goaltender, but the Blues, with their trademark run-and-gun style of hockey, allow an average of 34.3 shots per game, many of them very high-quality scoring chances.

This brings us to the issue with the men’s hockey team; the club’s team defense is lackluster and this shortcoming isn’t masked by stellar goaltending as it was last year.

Veteran defenders Dylan Heide and Lane Werbowski are playing tough minutes and are solid as ever, but the team is victimized by blown 3-on-2 and defensive zone coverage too often.

Up front, the Blues have continued to score by committee, with eight players scoring at least 0.5 points per game.

Forward Tyler Liukkonen has 13 points and sniper Jeff Brown has 12, as does Heide, who has added an offensive element to his already-solid defensive game, and grinding forward Christian Finch, who has been a revelation this season.

Although broken up, last year’s all-rookie, heart-and-soul line of Dean Klomp, Casey Knight, and Russell Turner have contributed

solid secondary scoring, playing on varying combinations with Clarkson University transfer Patrick Marsh and veteran two-way centre Paul Van De Velde.

Finally, the Blues’ star forward Michael Markovic, has been characteristically excellent. Markovic has nine points thus far, plays the toughest minutes, is excellent defensively, and makes his teammates better.

It’s been a difficult couple of months for the Blues fans, but despite their struggles, the men find themselves in the playoff picture at the winter break. It will likely take a playoff push reminiscent of last season’s heroic performance at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre to keep the team’s playoff appearance streak alive, but the Blues aren’t down for the count.

The Varsity Blues women’s hockey team sits in fourth place in the oua with a 7-3-2 record.

Following last season’s 18-5-1 record and deep playoff drive, expectations were justifiably skyhigh at the beginning of this season.

The goaltending and defense have been stellar, with Canadian Interuniversity Sport (cis) all-Canadian Nicole Kesteris as good as ever in goal, and young defenders Rebecca Bourgeois and Julia Szulewska improving an already excellent defensive core.

Szulewska made the team out of training camp and has an excellent shot, while Bourgeois is a brilliant skater and seems to get better with every game.

The concern for the women going forward will be goal scoring, as the loss of 2014 playoff heroes, sisters Alie and Courtney Brind’Amour-McClure, as well as sniper Taylor Day to injury, has hurt the team’s scoring depth and allowed for opponents to focus on shutting down the top line of Sonja Weidenfelder, Amanda Ricker and fan favourite

Men’s hockey captain takes a shot. evan luke/THe varsiTy

Kristi Riseley.

Getting the defense more involved offensively will be key to compensating for the loss of the Brind’Amour-McClures, as will the play of veteran forward Jacqueline Scheffel.

The electrifying Scheffel has anchored the third line for three seasons, but will be relied upon for scoring more than she has in the past.

Goal scoring is a concern, but the team is still built for a playoff drive. Kesteris is as good a goaltender as you could hope to have, and Bourgeois and Szulewska complement a fantastic defensive core of veterans Stacey Oue, Caitlin Maikawa, and April Looije. Defense and goaltending win championships and the Varsity Blues women have both in spades.

Why pursue graduate studies at Queen’s engineering?

Because we have the programs that will take you where you want to go.

REVIEW OF THE OFFICE OF THE UNIVERSITY OMBUDSPERSON The Office of the Ombudsperson provides an impartial and confidential service to assist members of the University who have been unable to resolve their concerns about their treatment by University authorities. The Office is devoted to ensuring procedural fairness and just and reasonable outcomes.

Are you aware of the Office of the Ombudsperson and its services?

Whether it’s an MEng to further career goals, an MASc to explore an interest in research, or a PhD to pursue the highest degree in the profession, Queen’s engineering has the right program for you.

Ibrahim Nour Eldin, Sc’12, MEng’13

Visit www.engineering.queensu.ca/whygradstudies to view profiles of current students and recent graduates and find out more.

How effective do you believe the operations of the Office of the Ombudsperson to be?

What are your thoughts on how to improve the services of the Office of the Ombudsperson?

The Committee would like to hear from you.

The Governing Council is conducting its regular review of the Office. The Review Committee is also welcoming nominations for the University Ombudsperson.

Visit www.uoft.me/ombudsperson to comment or submit a nomination by Friday, December 19, 2014.

24

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014

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Varsity Publications’ Fall Meeting of Members Thursday, December 4 2014, 5:10 pm The Fall Meeting of Members of Varsity Publications, the corporation that publishes The a Varsity newspaper, will be held for the purposes of: 1.

2.

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4.

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THANKS FOR READING, U OF T! We’re back on stands and online at thevarsity.ca on Monday, January 5.

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Consideration of the financial statements Consideration of the public accountant’s report Re-appointment of the public accountant Any other business.

Membership: All full-time undergraduate students who pay the Varsity Publicstions fee are members of the corporation and are entitled to attend and vote at this meeting.

Proxies: Members who are unable to attend may proxy their vote by returning the for, of proxy to the meeting location at least 24 hours before the meeting.

Location: the meeting will be held in the Varsity’s offices, on the second floor of 21 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON. For more information, to view documents to be considered at the meeting, or to download the form of proxy, please visit: var.st/ fall-meeting-of-members.

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