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THE VARSITY THE VARSITY NEWS THE VARSITY Vol. CXLII, No. 10 21 Sussex Avenue, Suite 306 Toronto, ON M5S 1J6 (416) 946-7600 the.varsity

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Postsecondary institutions sign Scarborough Charter addressing Black inclusion UTSC Vice-President & Principal Wisdom Tettey served as committee chair Libby Li Varsity Contributor

On November 18, student, staff, and faculty from postsecondary institutions across Canada gathered over Zoom to sign the Scarborough Charter, which recognizes systemic racism in postsecondary structures, policies, and procedures.

The charter is the outcome of collaborative work between partner institutions, sector-wide bodies, and Black leaders and organizations.

It was organized after last year’s National Dialogues and Action for Inclusive Higher Education and Communities forum.

The Scarborough Charter Led by Wisdom Tettey, UTSC’s vice-president & principal, the Inter-Institutional Advisory Committee drafted the charter based on four principles meant to help the university build concrete plans for addressing anti-Black racism and fostering Black inclusion.

These principles include removing institutional barriers to equity and recognizing intersectional identities, recognizing that inclusivity and diversity are critical to excellence, taking responsibility for postsecondary institutions’ involvement in Black community development, and moving beyond mere representation and taking concrete actions to achieve inclusion.

The charter also includes a series of commitments that signatories must implement.

Charter signing highlights In his introductory comments, Greg Fergus, member of parliament for the Hull—Aylmer region and chair of the Parliamentary Black Caucus, delivered comments and words of congratulations.

Fergus noted that although 3.5 per cent of the Canadian population is Black, they are not

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One signatory brought up a question about how some people view efforts at Black inclusion as undermining excellency. In response, Theresa Rajack-Talley — vice-provost, equity and inclusion at Dalhousie University — explained that, to her, “excellence is amplified by strengthening inclusive diversity that must have elements of fairness, equity, ethics, and integrity.”

The panellists also discussed accountability.

Malinda Smith, vice-provost (equity, diversity and inclusion) at the University of Calgary, said that the “racial reckoning” at universities has forced many to start taking racial justice more seriously. “It’s… incumbent upon all of us to continue to hold ourselves and our institutions accountable,” Smith added.

Bus located on Willcocks and St. George for walk-in vaccination appointments

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Talha Anwar Chaudhry Associate Senior Copy Editor

proportionally represented in senior university leadership or as full time faculty members. Black people comprise 0.8 per cent and 1.9 per cent of those groups, respectively. He added that the situation was similar for Indigenous peoples.

He concluded that these numbers must change in order to create a more inclusive higher-education environment that is truly representative of the Canadian population and enriches university communities.

In a question-and-answer period that happened after the introductions, panellists responded to questions on a range of topics, including addressing misconceptions about what it means to promote excellence and how diversity helps bring postsecondary institutions closer to that goal.

GO-VAXX bus delivers vaccines to U of T community members

Padraic Berting grad@thevarsity.ca Graduate Bureau Chief Vacant Public Editor

The Scarborough Charter includes a series of commitments.

COURTESY OF NATIONAL DIALOGUES AND ACTION FOR INCLUSIVE HIGHER EDUCATION AND COMMUNITIES

Elizabeth Shechtman Varsity Contributor

This year, U of T has introduced a GO-VAXX bus at the St. George campus to encourage community members to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Each time the bus comes to campus, it parks on the corner of Willcocks Street and St. George Street.

According to U of T News, the goal of the program is “to create a safe and roomy environment to comfortably deliver vaccines to people who have yet to receive a first or second dose – or international students in need of a Health Canada-approved mRNA dose.” U of T has run similar programs in the past, such as the vaccine clinic in the exam centre that occurred over the summer.

As of November 1, 97.2 per cent of all U of T community members are fully vaccinated.

The aim is to get the other 2.8 per cent fully vaccinated. Since October, the GO-VAXX bus team has been able to vaccinate more than 500 community members.

GO-VAXX buses are GO transit buses that have fully been transformed into mobile pop-up vaccine clinics. Their seats have been removed to create more space for vaccinations.

A grounds team from the U of T Facilities & Services had to develop a plan for how to accommodate the bus at its current intersection, which is a very narrow space. Stan Szwagiel,

manager of grounds services at the St. George campus, noted that it was a team effort. “We rearranged the outdoor furniture and placed planters strategically to prevent cars from parking and clogging the flow of pedestrians,” he said.

The next available date to receive a dose at

the GO-VAXX bus is November 24, at any time between 10:00 am and 6:00 pm. Appointments for the GO-VAXX bus are not available — it accepts walk-in patients only. Currently, the GO-VAXX mobile clinic is only available on the St. George campus, but all members of the U of T community are welcome to use it.

The GO-VAXX bus.

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NOVEMBER 22, 2021

Preliminary UMLAP recommendations suggest keeping renamed version of policy Review of policy is ongoing, consultations open until November 30 Lexey Burns UTM Bureau Chief

On November 16, Sandy Welsh, viceprovost students; Donald Ainslie, philosophy professor; and Varsha Patel, UTSC assistant dean student success and career support, presented the preliminary review of the UniversityMandated Leave of Absence Policy (UMLAP) to the UTM Campus Council with preliminary recommendations for changes to the policy. The recommendations are not final, and they will be presented at forums on campus as the review of the policy continues.

The UMLAP is a policy that allows the university to place students it deems to be a danger to themselves or others on a mandated leave of absence from their studies. It was approved by the Governing Council in June 2018 after a significant consultation process that considered feedback from students, staff, faculty, external experts in mental health and human rights law and the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and has been controversial since it was established. It is currently undergoing a scheduled review.

Ainslie presented the policy at the meeting. He admitted that it is a “little complex,” and said that the review is aimed toward clarifying the purpose of the policy.

The reviewers recommended keeping a version of the policy, but changing its name, clarifying its use, and restricting its scope to only students that pose a harm to others. They further recommended that additional data be provided on the

policy beyond the number of students who have been put on leave. This data would include demographics and timelines for those on leave.

Preliminary recommendations In the preliminary recommendations, reviewers suggested that the university maintain a revised version of the policy with a new name that would “more accurately reflect its purpose.” They also recommended that the policy be restricted to use when a student poses a risk of harm to others and is “actively interfering with the educational experience of fellow students,” and all other methods for accommodating their needs have been exhausted.

Currently, data on the number of students who have been put on mandated leave is available on U of T’s website. In the 2020–2021 year, four students were put on mandated leave.

The recommendations suggest that additional data on the demographics of those who are put on leave be made available, as well as the corresponding timelines of their leave.

The preliminary recommendations also advised setting up further support for students, such as creating voluntary leave policies for divisions that don’t already have them and providing more support in situations when a divisional voluntary leave policy has not been successful.

The consultation process for the policy will remain open until November 30 and an additional review is recommended to be held in three years to reevaluate the policy.

Background on the review The aim of the policy is for the university to collaborate with the student to find appropriate accommodations and help them meet their academic goals. “But sometimes, despite the best efforts of all concerned, this student refuses to propose accommodations, or the accommodations are not sufficient to address the concerning behavior,” Ainslie said.

At that point, the student in question has the option to go on a voluntary leave to focus on their health, but if their behavior continues to meet the

criteria set in the policies and they refuse to go on a voluntary leave, the university — after consulting with health professionals — may mandate the student to go on leave.

“The policy was inhibiting students from seeking help for fear that they would then be considered for a mandated leave, and that’s the last thing the university wants,” Ainslie said. He added that students don’t have a clear perspective of what the policy does, especially in regard to their study visas, finances, and housing.

The university meant to release a

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companion guide to the policy in the fall, but the guide still has not been released.

“In terms of what we heard from faculty and staff, there was some agreement with the student concerns, especially the need for a companion guide, so that staff and faculty understand the policy better,” said Ainslie.

Reviewers emphasized in the meeting that an individual’s discomfort with a students’ mental health is not a proper reason to put a student on leave. Ainslie said that it is necessary to get more data on how the policy is being used for a better understanding and to ensure that the policy is being used in the initial purpose and is not targeting marginalized students. The review also considers any unintended outcomes of the policy, such as its impacts on students’ access to mental health services and accommodations, evaluation of the annual reporting on it, and periodic review requirements.

Students protest the UMLAP in 2018.

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UTSC Campus Council approves sexual violence policy revisions Larger review of policy still ongoing response to complaints and incidents of sexual violence.

Additionally, the Act holds each college and university responsible for “review[ing] its sexual violence policy at least once every three years and amend[ing] it as appropriate.” In compliance with the Act, U of T last reviewed the policy in 2019.

DIANA PHAM/THEVARSITY

Syeda Maheen Zulfiqar UTSC Bureau Chief

Content warning: This article discusses sexual violence and harassment.

The UTSC Campus Council approved the first revisions to the U of T-wide Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment policy at its November 15 meeting. The revisions bring the policy in line with new provincial requirements.

These revisions will be presented to the U of T Governing Council for final approval on December 16.

Previous policy The previous policy — approved on December 15, 2016 and revised on

December 12, 2019 — was enacted after the Government of Ontario passed Bill 132, the Sexual Violence and Harassment Action Plan Act, 2016.

U of T’s policy applies to all sexual violence incidents where both the complainant and the respondent are U of T community members, whether or not the incident occurred on campus.

The Act dictated that every college or university that “receives regular and ongoing operating funds from the government for the purposes of post-secondary education” must have a sexual violence policy. This policy must address “sexual violence involving students enrolled at the college or university,” and set out the process for the college or university’s

Revisions to the policy Sandy Welsh, U of T’s vice-provost, students, presented the revisions at the UTSC Campus Council meeting.

She explained, “This is just the first step of our larger review of the sexual violence policy.”

“In October, we announced the launch of a much more extensive review of the policy that will involve consultations with the community and with further changes coming forward later in this academic year,” she added.

In September, the provincial government announced two new requirements for public postsecondary institutions’ sexual violence policies. Welsh explained that the two new requirements are already standard practice at U of T, but “to ensure that this current practice is clear to the community, we are adding the language that the government

has recommended to our policy,” she said. She stressed that all of the modifications U of T has made because of the new government policy are only “technical changes.”

The first of the new changes involves the assurance that “complainant[s] will not be subject to action for violation of another U of T policy related to drug and alcohol use at the time the sexual violence experience took place.”

Welsh added that, instead, “We would be focusing on the complainant and supporting the complainant and the sexual violence that occurred.”

The second change pertains to the investigation process and specific questions regarding the prior sexual history of the complainant. “During the investigation process, students who share their experience of sexual violence… will not be asked irrelevant questions from any institution staff or investigators, such as those relating to past sexual history or sexual expression,” states the new addition to the policy.

Though the government only requires that these changes apply to students, U of T’s policy changes will apply to all U of T community members.

The deadline set by the government

for these changes to be implemented is March 1, 2022.

If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence or harassment at U of T: • Visit safety.utoronto.ca for a list of safety resources.

• Visit svpscentre.utoronto.ca for information, contact details, and hours of operation for the tri-campus Sexual Violence Prevention & Support Centre.

Centre staff can be reached by phone at 416-978-2266 or by email at svpscentre@utoronto. ca.

• Call Campus Safety Special Constable Service to make a report at 416-978-2222 (for U of T St. George and U of T Scarborough) or 905-569-4333 (for U of T Mississauga) • Call the Women’s College Hospital Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Care Centre at 416-323-6040 • Call the Scarborough Grace Sexual Assault Care Centre at 416-495-2555 • Call the Assaulted Women’s Helpline at 866-863-0511

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NEWS

UTMSU launches ‘email zap’ to campaign for hybrid winter semester UTM students face difficulties finding housing

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Lexey Burns UTM Bureau Chief

As UTM continues to plan for a return to in-person courses for the winter semester, students have been facing barriers to returning that include finding housing near campus. International students are especially struggling to find housing for their return.

The University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) has continued to advocate for a hybrid

winter semester. Recently, it held an ‘email zap,’ in which it asked students to send out emails to administration to voice the union’s concerns about the winter semester.

International students Mingfeng Cai, a third-year commerce student specializing in accounting, told The Varsity that he felt that the multiple emails he sent to UTM officials had been ignored. Cai is an international student from China who says that he

and his friends have been recently facing many difficulties since UTM announced the winter 2022 semester would be mainly in person.

“The last answer I got was only perfunctory, which made me feel very frustrated… that the school did not really pay attention to the difficulties encountered by students during the [pandemic],” Cai wrote.

Cai wrote that the biggest problem that he and his friends are facing revolves around booking flights and

finding living accommodations. “[These] are problems that are difficult to deal with… especially when the numbers of flights are significantly reduced due to differences in COVID-19 policies in different countries.”

Cai wrote that the issues Chinese international students are facing are not just about finding housing for the winter semester, but the vaccination differences as well. Previously, Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines were not accepted for travel, but, starting November 30, they will be accepted for travel to and within Canada.

Cai believes that the fall 2021 semester is not, as UTM officials claim, a proper preparation period for students to go back to campus.

UTMSU President Mitra Yakubi wrote that the UTMSU is supporting international students with various resources to find safe and affordable housing. She mentioned the International Student Roundtable meetings and House Committee Meetings that are held by the UTMSU to discuss issues around immigration, visas, and paperwork, in which students are often directed to the International Education Centre (IEC) to seek help.

Advocacy by the UTMSU The UTMSU is pressing UTM administration to hold a town hall so international students can address a variety of issues that have been brought up around the return to campus next semester.

The UTMSU Housing Committee has made it clear that there is not enough on-campus housing and that competing for off-campus housing is inconvenient at the best of times.

Yakubi confirmed that the UTMSU met with UTM’s principal and its viceprincipal, academic and dean last week to discuss students’ concerns. A

follow-up meeting to revisit students’ concerns and see what changes can be carried out to make the winter semester more accessible for everyone will be scheduled.

Yakubi hosted an email zap for students to pressure UTM officials with emails about their concerns.

The UTMSU’s original goal was 500 emails. That goal, and all of the union’s subsequent goals, have been continuously surpassed as students have sent a total of 1,933 emails to date as part of the email zap.

The UTMSU believes there are some key changes that UTM must make to ensure the safety of students, staff, and faculty on campus. “We know that the cautious approach UTM took in Fall benefited many students because it gave people the opportunity to study wherever they are,” Yakubi wrote.

She wrote that the UTMSU will continue to advocate for increased safety protocols in the winter semester as well as options for students to learn without the need to come to campus if they do not have reasonable means to do so.

“I think the decision to guarantee spots for first and second year students had good intentions but impossible with the number of students we have compared to the number of spots available. It gives students a false sense of security,” she wrote.

In the process of their advocacy toward housing, the UTMSU has also heard from domestic students who are struggling to find accommodations close to UTM. The UTMSU promises to continue to monitor the number of COVID-19 cases in the Peel area, and believes that UTM will reverse their decision to return in person “[if] students add more pressure and the situation worsens.”

Academic offences at U of T increased by 71 per cent from 2020 to 2021 Significant increases academic offences in undergraduate divisions over the pandemic Aniket Kali Varsity Contributor

Released this month, the 2020–2021 Provost’s Annual Report on Cases of Academic Discipline reports a drastic increase in academic misconduct cases at U of T. This year, the number of cases increased by 71 per cent, from 2,140 to 3,668. This is the highest number of academic offences in the past five years. In comparison, last year’s report indicated an increase of only 35 per cent.

The report states that the increase is part of “the real impact of the pandemic” on education and is not limited to U of T. COVID-19 has had a tremendous effect on students and staff in Ontario, and many students indicated in a survey conducted in 2020 that the pandemic had a negative impact on their education.

The report also recognized “the technical, equity, diversity, and inclusion concerns” of online proctoring, which has been criticized for malfunctions and racism. It advised instructors to not rely on such methods exclusively.

The results The report blames the “increased opportunity [for students] to cheat”

during the pandemic for the rise in academic misconduct cases.

It argues that students writing an assessment at home are not always proctored and, therefore, believe they may not be caught for cheating.

This is reflected chiefly in the jump in the use of unauthorized aids, which more than doubled from 953 cases in 2019–2020 to 2,400 in the 2020– 2021 academic year. As a result, plagiarism was not the primary source of academic misconduct for the first time in recent years.

Despite the total increase in cases, the vast majority occurred within a few select undergraduate divisions — namely, the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering (FASE), the Faculty of Arts & Science (FAS), and UTM. There were 139 cases in the FASE and 645 in the FAS this year, which translate to an increase of 2.4 per cent and 2.2 per cent from last year, respectively. Notably, UTM saw an increase of 5.7 per cent, with 879 cases. However, many of these are carry-over cases, which occurred in the 2019–2020 academic year but were not previously finalized.

Most other divisions saw marginal increases, while some, such as UTSC and the Faculty of Music, observed a marked decrease in cases. Overall,

the percentage of students implicated in misconduct cases rose by 1.6 per cent.

The vast majority of misconduct cases are handled by the relevant divisions, but more serious cases get forwarded to the University Tribunal for a trial. The tribunal saw 128 new cases this year, as opposed to 50 cases last year. There are currently 194 open cases. The report attributes this rise to the overall rise in normal misconduct cases.

As of July 1, 2021, 95 of these cases will spill over to the next academic year. A significant portion of tribunal cases take longer than six months to resolve.

University response The report highlights efforts by the university to combat academic misconduct during the pandemic.

These include further clarity on assessments and permitted aids, as well as ways to catch students using third-party services such as online math problem solving websites.

The report also touts academic integrity declarations “written by our Psychology faculty members to inspire maximum impact on students,” which students must sign when they begin assessments. The

The rise follows the move to in-person courses.

KELLSY ANN-MENESES/THEVARSITY

Provost’s Office and the Centre for Teaching Support have circulated documents on improved assessment design for academic integrity.

Moreover, some instructors have made multiple versions of the same assessment to reduce misconduct cases. The report acknowledges that this method includes significant additional work for instructors.

Previous reporting in The Varsity has noted the drastic increase in workload for remote instructors, and how it exacerbates existing gender, racial, and class inequalities.

The report notes that the vast majority of non-tribunal misconduct cases are resolved in under six months. However, they can still be highly stressful ordeals that last for months. The university was unable to provide a breakdown for cases

resolved in one or three months.

In response to the increase in cases, the tribunal has moved to virtual hearings, increased its slate of membership, and upped the number of hearings to from seven to 10 per month. In an email to The Varsity, a university spokesperson said it had also “encouraged some divisions to dedicate additional staff resources” as relevant.

In an email to The Varsity, Josefina Novoa Reátegui, a second-year psychology student who has argued that a focus on stress reduction will lower misconduct cases, acknowledged the importance of individual actions. In addition, they wrote that “one cannot ignore the systematic issues caused by stress,” and suggested open-book exams as one possible solution.

thevarsity.ca/section/news

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

CWTP, OPIRG settle into Student Commons following eviction Multiple groups were evicted from North Borden building at start of 2021

Padraic Berting Graduate Bureau Chief

The Centre for Women and Trans People (CWTP) has been an integral part of the U of T community over the last 40 years, providing a space and key services for women and trans people on campus. However, over the last couple years, the centre has been plagued by administrative difficulties that have hindered its ability to function as normal.

The CWTP, along with another major

The North Borden Building.

CAROLINE BELLAMY/THEVARSITY

advocacy group, the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG), was forced to leave the North Borden building in early 2021. Both organizations have now resettled into the recently opened Student Commons building.

UTGSU levy At the October General Council meeting of the University of Toronto Graduate Students’

Faculty of Arts & Science plans renovation of Sid Smith Renovations will focus on accessibility, environmentalism, design Yassin Mostafa Varsity Contributor

Dean Melanie Woodin of the Faculty of Arts & Science recently announced that the faculty will begin planning the renovation of Sidney Smith Hall in spring 2022. The project will renew the design of the building to make it more environmentally friendly, to make it accessible to a greater number of students, and to give the faculty a more distinct visual character.

A design for today Undergraduate and graduate students alike have complained about the confusing nature of the building’s floor plan and the lack of accessibility for its classrooms. Certain parts of the building are also cut off from others, which adds to navigational difficulties.

The renovation plan hopes to combat these problems and improve the quality of classrooms in the building to increase the quality of education for students who use it. The university will also add spaces and services for students, including study halls, lounges, and a market.

In an interview with U of T News, PhD student Veronica Bergstrom commented that this would be a change for the better, since such spaces are “really beneficial to students in the long run.”

Environmental perspective Similarly to most of the recent renovations on campus, the Sidney Smith renovations will aim to reduce the carbon footprint of the building and its occupants. By the end of construction, the

building should have zero-carbon certification. In order to get the certification, buildings must be highly energy efficient and produce carbon-free renewable energy to offset their annual carbon emissions.

It is still unclear what changes will be made during the renovations in order to achieve this goal, and it does not address the emissions that will be produced by construction or what can be done to mitigate them. However, the faculty has promised to put the battle against climate change at the forefront of its priority list as it moves forward with construction projects.

Aesthetic benefit The renovation will also address aesthetic issues that have been brought up by students and other occupants. In particular, some say that the building’s architectural style leaves much to be desired, and many think it is dull.

Consequently, the renovations have been designed to give the building and the faculty a greater sense of identity and character, and bolster its reputation as a centre for innovation and community. “[Sidney Smith Hall] will be a thoughtfully designed, sustainable and accessible building complemented with a large, and welcoming open space serving our entire community for generations to come,” said Scott Mabury, vice-president of operations and real estate partnerships, in an interview with U of T News.

Sidney Smith Hall.

SHANNA HUNTER/THEVARSITY

Union (UTGSU), a motion was put forward to cancel CWTP’s levy, as they had failed to submit financial statements to the union for the last several years.

The executive director of the CWTP, Justice Huyer, gave a full explanation of their situation at the meeting, describing administrative issues that the centre had been experiencing, such as an eviction from their space in the North Borden Building. Consequently, the UTGSU approved a motion to still collect the levy, contingent on the CWTP providing full financial statements at the end of the year.

Eviction and admin issues In an interview with The Varsity, Huyer elaborated on the problems that the centre has been facing. When they stepped in as executive director at the beginning of 2020, the centre was in the middle of a great deal of staff changes and turnover.

Both groups had been slated to move to the Student Commons for quite some time but due to the delays of that project, they were left with no place to go.

This was exacerbated by the fact that a senior coordinator of the centre had taken an extended period of sick leave, and never returned, leaving a gap in institutional knowledge. Furthermore, the centre was in the process of incorporating itself as an official not-for-profit organization.

However, in January 2021, the CWTP, along with other occupants of the North Borden

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Building, were told that they needed to vacate the building in less than 30 days. This was especially challenging for the centre, as many of its staff members were living in other countries and needed to fly into Canada in order to assist in the sudden move.

Rui Liu, OPIRG Toronto’s representative on the UTGSU board, noted in an interview with The Varsity that the OPIRG was only given three weeks’ notice to vacate the building due to renovations in other parts of the building.

After both groups got into contact with the Office of the Vice-Provost, Students, they were able to get temporary space in Sidney Smith Hall, but Liu noted, “[We] don’t see that support as necessarily a bonus… because we had lost space that we had been occupying for 25 years.”

U of T confirmed that the groups were “provided with formal notice from the University of Toronto for the need to vacate the North Borden Building on Jan. 21st 2021,” and that the university worked closely with the groups in the following months to support the move.

U of T pointed out that both groups had been slated to move to the Student Commons, but that construction delays had prevented them from moving at the expected time.

However, despite these difficulties, Huyer noted that they’re optimistic for the centre’s future, and are looking forward to having inperson programming at the beginning of next semester in the Student Commons.

TCM signs open letter on sexual violence, appoints new equity representatives Changes to equity in response to anti-discrimination reckoning at Trinity Jessie Schwalb Varsity Contributor

Content warning: This article contains mentions of sexual harassment.

Trinity College’s student government, Trinity College Meeting (TCM), gathered online on November 15 for its third meeting of the year.

Participating students addressed the recent Andy Orchard sexual harassment scandal, and voted to sign an open letter demanding action from U of T. Members also made proposals for ways to target systemic racism at Trinity College and provide equity training.

Addressing sexual violence In light of a recent investigation by Al Jazeera into Andy Orchard — a professor at the University of Oxford and the former provost of Trinity College from 2007 to 2013 — a representative from the Trinity College Against Sexual Assault (TASAH) spoke at the meeting and requested that the TCM sign an open letter condemning U of T’s lack of action.

The investigation revealed allegations from former students that Orchard had made sexual and sexist remarks, and pursued sexual relationships with students. An article in the Toronto Star further revealed that students and faculty had submitted complaints to U of T years before the Al Jazeera report.

At the time, the U of T administration responded to these complaints by sending Orchard a letter and reassigning any women students who complained to new thesis advisors. Orchard was promoted to provost after multiple complaints were received against him.

“We… find it really disingenuous for [the university] to act as though this is something that they were not aware [of] decades ago and nothing has been done since,” said Micah Kalisch, president of TASAH.

The open letter calls on the university to release a new public statement and launch a formal investigation into Orchard’s actions while he was at U of T. Additionally, it asks for systemic changes, such as making sexual violence prevention training mandatory for faculty and banning sexual relationships between students and U of T employees. The TCM voted to sign the letter.

Implementing equity policies Trinity College students have also been reckoning with the college’s history of systemic racism. In 2020, a number of current and former Trinity students of colour made allegations of discrimination against the college.

In response, the TCM voted to approve a constitutional amendment adding two equity representatives to the student capital campaigns committee (SCCC), which controls funds contributed by students. “Something that we found is that many… equity issues that arose could be addressed with some of the funding from the SCCC,” said Sam Parker, the TCM’s chair.

The TCM also passed an electoral amendment mandating that all elected student governance leaders attend one equity training session per semester.

“Equity training does not address the structural inequities within the college or within student governance, but it’s important that we have this as a foundation for students to be able to have the necessary knowledge to take on their positions,” said Alex McLean, the Head of College and former vice-president equity of the University of Toronto Students’ Union, who proposed the amendment.

McLean indicated that members of the college should stay tuned for more updates.

“There’s a lot more that’s going to be brought forth to address some of these structural issues that exist within our student governance systems,” they said.

Business & Labour

November 22, 2021 thevarsity.ca/section/business biz@thevarsity.ca

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EVARSITY

The crossroads between artificial intelligence and music production Tune in to BMO Lab’s webinar series on technology and art Zhiyi Fang Varsity Contributor

Can you imagine a world where music is made using artificial intelligence? The webinar series AI as Foils: Exploring the Co-Evolution of Art and Technology is a new initiative at the BMO Lab that features discussions with artists and artificial intelligence (AI) practitioners.

The most recent event, “AI as Foil Series: A New Musical Frontier: AI Meets Music,” was held virtually on October 8. “The goal is to explore the curiosity, the excitement, as well as the fears and concerns regarding the role played by AI technologies in art and creativity,” said Natalie Klym, the curator and moderator of the series.

A new webinar series In 2019, BMO Financial Group invested five million dollars — the largest gift to any single Canadian institution yet — in the BMO Lab for Creative Research in the Arts, Performance, Emerging Technologies, and AI. The lab is based in the Faculty of Arts & Science at U of T and aims to explore and research the intersection between creativity and new technologies, including artificial intelligence.

This month, the BMO Lab invited producer and engineer Annelise Noronha and AI scientist Sageev Oore. Noronha has worked with notable artists such as Dragonette, Jennifer Lopez, Blue Rodeo, and Academy Award winning composer Mychael Danna. She currently works to compose music and has written various music placements for film and television.

Oore is a musician and associate professor of

computer science at Dalhousie University.

He is a CIFAR AI chair and has also worked on Google Brain’s Magenta project that applies deep learning to music.

From tape machines to AI Noronha began the session with an overview of her unique experience with audio engineering.

When she first started engineering in studios, she utilized a software that would lock tape machines together.

If you needed to shift part of an audio track on a multi-track — a recording made from the mixing of several separately recorded tracks — you would have to ‘bounce’ the audio off the tape machine to another tape machine before sending it back to the original tape machine.

“Because we were recording to tape and there were no computers, we were also magicians.

People were really in awe,” she said.

Being able to work with retro sound technology is a very specific and transferable skill set to have, Noronha explained. Now, when people want to record tapes for retro effect, she can still do it.

Oore comes from a machine learning background and explained that he primarily works with AI and machine learning systems to get them to create musical sounds. It is mindblowing how much the music industry has developed from the traditional methods that Noronha worked with at the start of her career to the AI and machine learning-based technology that Oore works with today.

Oore shared a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) generation software, which allows musical instruments, computers, and hardware

to communicate, plus several 30 to 40 second videos of classical music performances generated by the software.

He explained that the computer did not generate the actual sound waves, but did generate the instructions for a sound sampler to play the music, including which notes to play and when.

In order to learn these instructions, the computer was given hundreds of samples of classic piano performances. Oore explained that there is an element of randomness when the computer is generating instructions that’s similar to rolling a die, as it picks which notes to play and when. Going forward, Oore is looking to have a more controllable model where the computer has its own intelligence but can also be directed.

Future dilemmas Artificial intelligence is still very new, and nobody can predict where it will go. It takes hundreds of years to invent a musical instrument and to have it accepted into our culture. Even though history tells us that new technology will eventually be accepted and any current rejection or resistance

toward it is just a phase, Klym thinks we should at least try to be critical and aware of AI’s impacts on all levels.

Ultimately, the goal of AI for music is not the ability to generate music but to build tools that are then used by artists.

Questions naturally arise regarding the application and the future of artificial intelligence. AI could not only be used to generate a musical melody, but also to generate lyrics and tempos for new pieces, and entirely new genres of music. Still, AI-generated music might also not be playable by humans. There is also the question of intellectual property — if AI software writes a piece of music, who has the copyright? The possibility of AI taking over the music industry sparks philosophical questions of whether AI-generated music could be viewed as creative work or not.

The past webinars from this series are all recorded and posted on BMO Lab website.

There are going to be more sessions in spring 2022 that will examine AI and voice as well as writing and neuro-linguistic programming.

Heading Down the Pipeline with a new Rotman podcast Show’s host on keeping business students informed, fostering entrepreneurial spirit Kexin Li Varsity Contributor

As a student at U of T, chances are that your daily routine contains too many hours of screen time, between virtual lectures, assignments, and Discord chats. Keeping up with the influx of information becomes more and more challenging.

The Down the Pipeline podcast by Rotman Commerce provides a way to stay knowledgeable with insightful conversations, without having to stare into your digital screens any longer.

The Varsity sat down with the show host, Aman Chohan, who also serves as the Assistant Director, Student Life – Community & Student Development at Rotman Commerce, to discuss the podcast’s creation.

Helping students keep up to date Down the Pipeline aims to bring business students across North America up to speed with what is going on in the business world. It invites topic-specific experts, such as professors and industry leaders, onto the show to explore trending topics through insightful conversations.

The podcast, which has released five episodes and accumulated a double-digit number of listeners, has already covered topics such as career prospects, work-life balance, opportunities and challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, and students’ anxiety toward job searching. Until now, all the guests have been from Rotman.

More professors, industry leaders, and even students will be invited as the show grows.

Chohan explained that the podcast is designed using a student-centred approach. The

initial intention behind creating the podcast was to not add more tasks that require screen time onto students’ to-do lists. As its name entails, Down the Pipeline funnels trending topics around the world to business students to help them process new and relevant information from subject areas that they may not have ever come across before.

The show also focuses on explaining why, as business students, social issues that go beyond the business world like climate change or biodiversity should matter to its listeners. Chohan explained that this was part of the show’s goal.

“We want students to know that just because you are studying business doesn’t mean you cannot be a future leader and change the world.

The only way we can do that is [to] give them that information,” he said.

Entrepreneurship opportunities Not only is Down the Pipeline a business podcast made for business students, the show itself is an example of entrepreneurship. From designing the logo and website, to inviting the guests and scheduling, to recording and editing, the show is entirely done by Rotman work study students.

New Rotman podcast aims to keep business students informed on important news and global issues.

SAHIR DHALLA/THEVARSITY

The podcast started as Chohan’s passion project, and he created this podcast as an opportunity to “[put] students in the driver’s seat.”

“One of the main points of the work study process is to provide students with the opportunity to build competencies [and] to build skills that they can [use] to market themselves when they’re [looking] for jobs outside of the university,” said Chohan.

Chohan mentioned that one of the biggest challenges of creating the podcast was that none of the team members work full time on the show.

“And at the end of the day, my work study students are also students… And so sometimes it’s hard to stay on schedule. Sometimes it’s just hard to get a [guest] to show up on the podcast.”

Nevertheless, the hiccups with scheduling do not impact work experience with the team, as Chohan spoke highly of the two student assistants that he is working with, Kitty Lu and Katrina Lai. “They’re just awesome people to work with. And I think anybody who works with them will see why. They care about what they do [and] they take responsibility for what they do,” said Chohan.

In the future, Chohan hopes to leverage the 30 official student groups at Rotman Commerce to create a student-centric engagement loop where students both run and benefit from the podcast to help more business students build marketable skills. As the podcast grows, Chohan hopes it will become an entry point for Rotman students who are passionate about podcasts and media. “My dream for this is to be able to lay the foundation and then hand this off to a [future] student,” he said.

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November 22, 2021 thevarsity.ca/section/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

U of T’s POSt system is harming students The university needs to adapt to educational trends

Many programs only accept a small percentage of applicants.

COURTESY OF GERALT/PIXABAY

Maeve Ellis Varsity Contributor

Sitting in circles in the Victoria College quad during my first couple of weeks of school, conversational ice breakers all followed a familiar pattern. Questions about names, residences, and learning streams would inevitably be followed by one question that always brought a jolt to the conversation: “What program of study (POSt) are you going for?”

At U of T, getting into your dream school is no guarantee that you will get to study your dream major. In fact, our university’s POSt system often means that getting over the hurdle of university acceptance — usually the most climactic event of someone’s adolescent life — is only half the battle. After being accepted, students have to wait until at least the end of first year to see if they will be allowed to study what they actually want.

How POSt is supposed to work The main thinking behind the POSt

system is that it gives students more time to think about the subjects they want to pursue. The main problem is that, when it’s time for them to decide, those choices are often not even available to them because of the competitive admissions process.

Applications for different programs vary immensely in their difficulty. In some programs, particularly those in the humanities, anyone can enter, but many others only accept a small percentage of applicants. This effectively forces first-years to scramble for unrealistically high minimum grades in a stressed-out haze to have a chance at getting into these programs.

This stressful competition could be avoided. Our school simply lets in so many first-year students that it is too full for students to have much choice in what programs they get to study.

U of T cannot educate everyone in the world who wants to learn here. The school has to sift out applicants at some stage. But instead of rejecting people during general admissions, U of T takes

their first-year tuition — and a whole year of their lives — before deciding who is allowed to study what they want.

How itʼs breaking students Sophia Witterick-Laskin, a second-year life sciences student, told me about how the POSt system left her spending her first year feeling “really, really stressed.”

“I felt from a lot of the people around me… if we didn’t get into those programs it was gonna be a waste of a degree,” Witterick-Laskin said.

Even though the POSt system eventually did let her into her dream program, she still cannot forgive it for her horrible first-year experience. She admitted that, during first-year, “we [students] met the prerequisites we wanted to… but we met nobody, because we spent all of our time doing schoolwork.”

Witterick-Laskin continued, “We were too stressed to work, to go do fun stuff, and to join clubs and to join extracurriculars.” The painful system even led her to start looking into transfer applications during her first year.

Perhaps the worst effect of the system is how, instead of welcoming first-years and supporting them in settling into university, U of T often breaks them down. Armando Rojas, a secondyear computer science specialist and psychology major, spoke to me about uninformed first-years being told they are not guaranteed the ability to study computer science. “It kind of hits you like a truck,” he said.

His first year, which he spent trying to get into the computer science, math, and statistics (CMS) program at UTSC, was especially stressful. Upon entrance, his cohort of students were met with a harsh qualification process for the program. “Instead of having a set GPA, like all of the previous years, we had kind of like a battle royale kind of thing where only the top 200 out of

the 400 [would get] admitted to CMS that year,” Rojas said.

It is also unfair to have such a momentous assessment be based on first-year grades, since the first year of university is inherently harder on some students than others. International students, on top of figuring out how to get to classes, have to figure out a new country. Also, students from high schools that did not prepare them as well for university start out academically behind and have to deal with POSt evaluations before they have the chance to catch up.

How we can break the system down The main goal behind the POSt system is admirable. Choosing what subject to pursue is important; it has ramifications for roughly the next three years of students’ lives and often launches the trajectory of entire careers. But this theoretical benefit of giving students more time to choose programs is making people rip their hair out in practice. If U of T wants to realize the theoretical benefits of the POSt system, the school needs to make two fundamental changes.

First, our university accepts too many students in the general admissions stage for it to allow students flexibility in what programs they get to pursue once they are in. U of T lets in a massive herd of first-years by dangling in front of them the carrot of the major they want.

But once they take the bait and enter — and have given the school a whole year of their life and a monstrous amount of tuition money — they are often blocked from actually getting to study what they want to study.

A university spokesperson emailed me about the computer science department, which only accepts 51 per cent of applicants through the POSt system. “The volume of applications continues to exceed the capacity of what the department is able to offer…

As such, Computer Science will continue to offer limited-enrolment programs,” they wrote.

The university should take into account how many students departments are able to teach and then accept a smaller number accordingly, so there is flexibility for students to change majors once in school.

The second change U of T needs to make is to ensure departments are more adaptive to trends in student interests.

The people paying to be here should not have to change what they learn based on what the university has room to teach. Rather, the university should change what it has room to teach based on what students want to learn.

If there are increased rates of students accepted into U of T wanting to learn computer science or psychology, those departments should be given the resources to expand the number of students they are able to take in. With the recent innovations forced by the shift to online learning, now is a great time to figure out creative solutions to expand faculties and allow students to study what they want.

At the core of this issue, there are two fundamental ways that our university can choose to act: mission-serving or self-serving. If it actually lived up to its stated mission of education, it would prioritize students’ ability to study what they are most passionate about. Instead, U of T seems to be perfectly fine with our hallways being full of miserable, stressed out, tuition-paying zombies studying their second-choice subjects.

The POSt system’s goal of giving students more time to decide their majors deserves to be realized. To achieve that, our school needs to tighten up general admissions and make departments more responsive to what students want.

Maeve Ellis is a first-year social sciences student at Victoria College.

Toxic productivity is counterproductive A singular focus on getting work done can stifle creativity, originality, and personal growth

Toxic productivity isn’t just dangerous; it may also be unproductive.

RIDA WANG/THEVARSITY

Anna Simeone Varsity Contributor

I can’t remember the first time I stayed up all night to get work done, but I will never forget the one and only time I was awake for 72 hours. To be fair, I don’t remember the events of those three days clearly — they’re more of a hazy memory of bathroom mirror pep talks and trying not to fall asleep in coffee lines.

Admittedly, 72 hours is on the extreme side of the all-nighter spectrum, but the unsettling part is that during those sleepless nights, I was far from alone — the entire time, I was surrounded by fellow students also taking advantage of the extended hours being offered at Robarts Library at the time.

As a fourth-year student who is now hopefully wiser than I once was, I realize that this kind of torture is not worth the risks. It actually has a name: ‘toxic productivity’ refers to the desire, or even compulsion, to be productive at all costs, even at the expense of one’s health.

I should clarify that the compulsive nature of toxic productivity refers to an obsession with productivity, rather than productivity out of necessity. For example, working long hours due to

financial need is different from being productive solely for productivity’s sake. In this article, I want to highlight problems with the latter, not suggest that we’re always able to take time off.

Although it’s difficult to determine the origin of the term ‘toxic productivity,’ it’s easier to pinpoint the beginning of its popularity. When I searched in U of T’s library database, all the papers I could find referencing it were written either in 2020 or 2021.

This makes sense, given that the pandemic has, for many, merged the once distinct realms of workplace and home, causing work to encroach on what used to be a space for relaxation and reflection. But while it’s reasonable to assume that the pandemic has worsened its effects, toxic productivity existed before the pandemic and could continue to have an even more powerful hold on us beyond the reach of lockdown.

Now back on campus after a remote third year, I have this urge to work harder; after experiencing setbacks due to the pandemic, I feel extraordinary pressure to get back on track. I don’t believe I’m the only student with this compulsion to be extra productive as a kind of compensation for a year I spent in isolation.

It may seem like common sense to avoid toxic productivity. I mean, I knew staying awake all night was unhealthy, but I did it anyway. The reality is that students ignore sensible arguments due to anxiety over their future, fear of failure, and the pressure to compete.

The need to distinguish oneself from the masses at large schools like U of T only fuels students’ anxiety.

Toxic productivity is also aggravated by social media’s unique ability to make us feel inadequate: if you think you’re surrounded by smarter, more talented people, then it’s easy to believe that the only way to stand out is to work harder.

In this world of constant comparisons, it’s no wonder that many students become anxious, depressed, or dependent on stimulants like Adderall in an attempt to maximize their efficiency.

Not only is toxic productivity dangerous, but it also might not actually be very productive. Research on the process of memory consolidation shows that people need time to transform short-term working memories into long-term ones — time that we often don’t allow ourselves. So unless our idea of productivity is nearsighted, we should leave room for calm reflection.

Also, the majority of scientific breakthroughs, cultural movements, and artistic brilliance result from inventive, imaginative, original thinking — something that’s hard to come by if all of a person’s time is spent maximizing productivity. We shouldn’t ignore the benefit of the time we spend being creative. Students are often told that the difference between a B and an A is originality; if great essays include original ideas, then students should allow themselves quiet contemplation to see beyond the course readings or to make personal connections.

Furthermore, toxic productivity implies that productivity is an end goal rather than the natural result of a wellthought-out plan. In the framework of toxic productivity, people do not really prioritize creating plans for personal growth. Personally, I spent so much time during university completing steps toward a goal that I’d outgrown. It took me until my third year to accept that I needed to take time out to think things through, and that led me to eventually switching majors and improving my mental health drastically.

It might seem like a losing battle, but I’m optimistic about combatting

toxic productivity. Although mental health initiatives aren’t perfect, people have generally become more aware of mental health concerns, and the negative effects of the pandemic on mental health are well documented.

I’ve personally found that professors are extra accomodating in light of the pandemic, so students should also allow themselves time to heal.

Although the long-term solution requires rewriting deep-rooted societal narratives that overprioritize productivity, students can combat toxic productivity every day by setting time aside to address feeling overwhelmed or directionless.

As a student who now realizes the dangers of toxic productivity, but who also understands the at times overpowering desire for success and fear of failure that many students feel, here’s my proposal: if time is our most valuable commodity, let’s use it wisely. Long hours spent trying to be productive are misspent if we aren’t also taking the time to reassess our goals, nourish our creativity, and attend to our health.

Anna Simeone is a fourth-year philosophy and Portuguese student at St. Michael’s College.

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Forum: Are large-scale climate conferences effective?

International conferences like COP26 cannot create meaningful change without capable leaders and cooperative governments George Daniel Agia and Isabella Liu Varsity Contributors

The 26th United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP26) was a global climate summit where some of the world’s most influential leaders gathered to mitigate the detrimental effects of the climate crisis. However, it can be difficult to determine whether any tangible results come from these large, international conferences. Below, two contributors discuss the conditions these conferences require for success: competent leaders looking out for their nations, and governments willing to collaborate for a brighter future.

World leaders determine climate conferences’ success COP26 brought together some of the most powerful leaders in the world to fight the climate crisis, aiming to reduce humans’ carbon footprint and protect natural habitats and communities while securing net zero global carbon emissions by the middle of the century.

I believe that the dedication world leaders have to fighting the climate crisis will determine our success in diminishing its detrimental effects. In addition, I believe that leaders who attend climate conferences such as COP26 are making decisions that also benefit their own individual nations.

Leaders are an integral part of any battle. As such, the competency and beliefs of the world’s leaders determine how effective we are at battling the climate crisis. Therefore, in determining which countries are committed to tackling climate issues, we must ask which countries actually attended COP26. Presidents Xi Jinping, Jair Bolsonaro, and Vladimir

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Putin notably did not attend.

What do these leaders have in common? The three of them hold controversial beliefs concerning what they can and cannot do with their state’s authority. For example, more than one million ethnic Uyghurs are enduring human rights violations in Xinjiang under President Xi Jinping’s leadership. In short, authoritarianism appears to underlie these leaders’ political strategies and actions.

While it may seem like I am going on a tangent, what I am trying to convey is that competent leaders who represent countries with strong

democratic institutions are the leaders who can best combat the climate crisis. For example, a climate action tracker assessment suggests that Russia’s efforts are critically insufficient in its battle against the climate crisis.

This very notion is unsurprising, considering President Putin’s absence during COP26.

One problem regarding COP26 is that even if countries participate, there are no sufficient legally binding contracts that come out of it. Hence, there are no measures to force countries to lower their carbon emissions. Declarations that are not deemed legally binding

prevent states and corporations from having to take legal responsibility for their malpractices around climate change. A lack of legal repercussions will not encourage nations to cooperate with global emergencies like climate change.

However, this should not undermine the fact that through conferences like COP26, countries and leaders worldwide are making some effort to collaborate regarding global emergencies. Some effort is better than none.

For instance, countries can invest in green energy, which can contribute to economic growth. More economic production — including from an increase in trade — makes nations wealthier. Moreover, when states engage in trade, this can warrant the needed diversification to transition toward a low-carbon world, conveying the benefits of large-scale climate conferences that highlight the significance of cooperation.

Leaders who demonstrate effective leadership skills — like being able to collaborate on global crises — are the ones who can increase their exports of green energy throughout the world.

In short, if any nation is interested in maximizing its resources for the future, especially regarding trade, tackling the climate crisis will be necessary.

George Daniel Agia is a third-year international business, economics, and political science student at UTSC. Climate conferences do achieve their purpose The issue with climate conferences is that people tend to overestimate — and have often overestimated — their intended purpose and the way they operate. The common assumption is that a climate conference will ‘solve’ global warming, curb climate change, and revolutionize governments. So much pressure is put on climate conferences to have a notable effect that when none of those grandiose expectations are met, the public is always quick to criticize them, and controversial questions concerning the effectiveness of climate conferences are brought up.

However, the reality is a little more complicated and involves a little less action. Climate conferences don’t have the capacity to singlehandedly produce groundbreaking change, nor are they supposed to be responsible for it. Instead, they are more like consultation meetings, where participating governments create blueprints. A climate conference is a very preliminary stage of action. It is a discussion platform for countries to better understand the context of the issue from differing perspectives, reach a consensus on the status quo, and draft sets of goals for the long term.

Global media recently covered the COP26 Conference in Glasgow, a session for world leaders and prominent climate activists to provide input, reach a consensus, and decide on some goals — and take no immediate action beyond that. Similarly, in the official Paris Agreement, the preamble is filled with acknowledging the issue of climate change and noting its importance, while the rest of the articles tell what countries shall do or will aim for.

When we look at climate conferences from that angle — not as the solution to climate change but a single component of it — then yes, they are achieving their purpose.

Members at COP26 have successfully reached an agreement on the phasing out of coal, among multiple other provisions. The Paris Climate Accords produced a worldwide agreement to reduce carbon emissions and stop the global temperature from increasing beyond two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and many other previous summits have concluded with similar types of goals.

It’s important to distinguish this difference in the real role of climate conferences, particularly for when we find they produce results that are less powerful than desired. When the news came out that countries were, at best, barely hitting their proclaimed quotas under the Paris Climate Agreement, people were quick to judge the efficacy of the conference itself, asking whether conferences work at all.

However, the wrong questions are being raised. This lack of action taken shouldn’t be held as the conference’s fault, but rather the governments’.

Governments are in charge of taking the blueprints that are created at the conference and bringing them to fruition through policy. Blaming the complacency of governments on a single meeting of advisors and ambassadors is just nonsensical.

Rather than asking if conferences work at all, we should instead criticize the bureaucracy for not putting in the work necessary to create change.

Conferences are quite crucial.

They set the groundwork for international cooperation, which is especially important on larger global-scale issues, and they allow for the creation of treaties, goals, and standards. However, at the end of the day, it depends on the ethics and commitment of each country to meet the threshold those conferences set for there to be real change in the fight against the climate crisis.

Isabella Liu is a first-year social sciences student at Victoria College.

thevarsity.ca/section/comment

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

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A shorter school week wouldn’t benefit students The benefits of a shorter school week are still contested Nina Uzunović Associate Comment Editor

Recently in Ontario, there’s been discussion about shifting businesses to a four-day work week model. At the Liberal party’s annual general meeting on October 17, Ontario Liberal leader Steven Del Duca announced that if he is elected in June 2022, his party will institute a pilot project to assess the effectiveness of the shorter work week and determine whether we may see it implemented province-wide in the future.

This push for a shorter work week is in part due to the evolving values Ontarians developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic brought numerous changes to the daily lives of many people, including the emphasis on striking a healthy work-life balance. While the effectiveness of the four-day work week policy is still up for debate, there are many studies in favour of the initiative.

In one study, Iceland held a four-year experiment from 2015 to 2019 with its public sector workers in which it introduced a shorter work week. It was found that the quality of working life and productivity of the workers improved. In another study at Microsoft Japan in 2019, productivity increased by roughly 40 per cent once a four-day work week was temporarily implemented.

Although there have been studies on the impact of a shorter work week among workers, there has been little research in terms of how a shortened work week could potentially be introduced at the post-secondary level and what repercussions students would face. This is an increasingly important question considering the round-the-clock work culture of university and college students.

Although models for a shorter school week

vary depending on the institution, the general idea is that it would see all the classes currently scheduled on Fridays instead be spread among the remaining days of the week. For research faculty and administration, the hours they would typically work on Fridays would also just be spread out among the remaining days. Thus, while the week gets shorter, each individual day would get longer — bringing its own set of implications with it.

At the moment, universities such as the University of Mobile in Alabama, the University of Akron, and Eastern Florida State College in the US have implemented their own versions of a four-day school week, and each of them have experienced different benefits.

The University of Mobile implemented a 35hour work week for faculty and administration, with classes scheduled between Mondays and Thursdays. However, professional staff rotate their days off to ensure students still have support throughout the week. Eastern Florida State College has held a similar policy for roughly a decade now and has found that its energy costs have decreased by $474,000, and its administration sick hours have decreased by 50 per cent. In addition, the university has reduced staff turnover by 44 per cent, which has saved it the time and resources necessary for training new workers.

Despite the many benefits of a shorter work week for faculty, one drawback is how it manages faculty workload and burnout. Their workload would hardly decrease if the policy is implemented, but the time that they have to complete it would diminish. Important elements such as lab tests would still take the allotted number of days to be completed. Hence, the amount of work that the faculty faces will merely be intensified with the

rearrangement of work hours.

Nonetheless, while Eastern Florida State College has demonstrated the many benefits of the policy, these advantages are largely geared toward the faculty and administration. Their policy has provided little evidence demonstrating why the policy would aid students. Although the money saved on energy costs could be reinvested into classrooms, university spaces, and lab equipment — positively impacting students — there are doubts as to whether the policy would actually benefit students’ ability to learn.

For instance, while students would have more downtime to relax and destress, studies have demonstrated that students comprehend and retain information better if they study more frequently for shorter amounts of time. A fourday school week would do just the opposite — increase class time and decrease the frequency of classes. The heavier schedules they would entail also pose a greater risk to students burning out, as they would have more intensive deadlines and less flexibility in their schedules.

However, one benefit of a shorter school week is the increased accessibility of classes. Student athletes often have games or tournaments scheduled over the weekend and, as a result, have to miss their Friday classes. Similarly, students often miss classes due to conflicting appointments. With another free day, they would be able to schedule their appointments so that they don’t miss class, thus increasing their learning potential. In addition, commuter students would be able to reduce the amount of time they spend in transportation to get to campus, allowing them to be more productive and save money.

Another possible model to consider while

A shorter school week may have more drawbacks than benefits.

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weighing the benefits of a shorter school week is that of the Cristo Rey Network of private Roman Catholic high schools. At the high schools, students are offered a position at a work-study program on their otherwise free Friday. With this opportunity, students are able to pay back their loans and save up for tuition, thus reducing their future student loan debt.

There is no doubt that there are convincing arguments on both sides. Considering the policy as a whole, a shorter work week is an advantageous model primarily from the perspective of the faculty and administration.

However, from the perspective of a student, a shorter school week poses far greater drawbacks than it does benefits.

Therefore, at least until further evidence supporting the model surfaces, universities shouldn’t follow the business world and should instead retain the five-day school week.

Nina Uzunović is a first-year social sciences student at Trinity College. They are an Associate Comment Editor at The Varsity.

Indigeneity-based inequality goes beyond Iqaluit water crisis Income and educational inequality also impact Indigenous communities William Lloyd Varsity Contributor

In recent weeks, all eyes have been turned to Iqaluit, Nunavut. For over a month, the remote community of around 7,700 people has been in the throes of a crippling water crisis. The area has been in a state of emergency since October 12, when town officials found the water supply to be contaminated with fuel. This declaration only came after a number of complaints of suspicious odours from local residents. In response, the government has sent the Canadian Armed Forces to Iqaluit to assist in efforts to mitigate the emergency.

The toll has been significant to say the least.

The situation has not only inflicted acute hardship on the local community — particularly on already vulnerable populations — but has also proved incredibly costly, with alleviatory efforts already costing upward of $1.5 million. The final total will likely be considerably more.

The crisis has garnered the attention of

Canadians across the country and people around the world — and rightfully so. The ongoing disaster in Iqaluit is a national disgrace and blemish on our national image.

As Canadians, we like to think that we live in a progressive and prosperous country, a beacon of diversity and equity in a world that so often seems in turmoil. We view ourselves as a nation where everyone has access to certain inalienable rights: education, health care, shelter, food, and clean water, to name a few. As a country, we take pride in this conviction.

Unfortunately, those rights are only guaranteed to some. The fact is that, in many senses, there are two Canadas for two different parts of the population.

Often, this divide is drawn on the basis of Indigeneity.

When we look at the water crisis in Iqaluit, we must remember that it is not the only crisis in Canada — it’s just one of the few that garners headlines. While it may have received an increased amount of attention from Canadians, it is far from the only ongoing issue concerning the living GEORGIA KELLY/THEVARSITY

conditions of Indigenous peoples in Canada, particularly those living on reserves. More troubling yet is the fact that soon enough, the attention of most Canadians will turn to other issues, and the crisis in Iqaluit will be forgotten.

The situation in Iqaluit is far from an anomaly. It is a singular manifestation of a systemic crisis, and a deeply troubling example of the two-tier system that persists in Canadian society that neglects Indigenous people.

In countless metrics, across countless domains — including health care, education, and shelter — Indigenous peoples, especially those on reserves, fare significantly worse and have a significantly lower quality of life than non-Indigenous Canadians.

There are so many ways to quantify the living conditions of a community that it can seem terribly overwhelming. Focusing primarily on income disparity can prove beneficial, as income is a main determinant of the aforementioned secondary measures and helps better conceptualize and contextualize the issue at hand.

According to the most recent census data available, the median income of people over 14 in Canada was $34,000. By comparison, the median income of Indigenous peoples on reserves was just $17,100. This polarity is staggering, and helps illuminate the great divide between Indigenous peoples on reserves and non-Indigenous Canadians.

One major determinant of future income is education. Not only is there a direct correlation between education level and future earnings, but there is also one between educational attainment and health outcomes. There remains a significant gap between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people in Canada in terms of literacy rate, numeracy, and technology skills.

This gap plays a central role in perpetuating income inequality between Indigenous peoples and nonIndigenous people in Canada.

As with income, educational disparity proves particularly acute in remote and rural communities.

It is relatively easy to buy into the mentality that this inequality is not so much a question of Indigeneity but because of the difference between living in urban and rural locations, though this is not necessarily the case.

There are, of course, some inherent educational challenges that exist for any rural community that are not as prevalent in urban centres, including proximity to primary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions; the quality of these institutions; the funding allotted to these institutions; and the availability of advanced courses.

There is no easy way to fix these issues. In sparsely populated areas, educational institutions will inevitably be farther away. Similarly, it will likely be more difficult to attract top-notch teachers and faculty, and have access to schools catered to the particular needs and wants of different students and families.

However, it’s imperative to note that, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, even in remote and rural communities, educational attainment is significantly lower amongst Indigenous students than their non-Indigneous peers. Clearly, there are intrinsic barriers in place that hinder educational attainment for Indigenous peoples in urban and rural communities alike.

Any attempts to lessen the income disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada must first address differences in educational attainment. Only then can we enact the meaningful change we so desperately need.

William Lloyd is a second-year history and peace, conflict, and justice studies student at Trinity College. He is the co-president of the U of T Model UN Travel Team, an executive team member of the Hart House Debates and Dialogues Committee, and the co-founder and president of the Open Debate Initiative. He was a lead analyst of the G7 Research Group during the 2020–2021 academic year.

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FEATURES

The emotional toll o Vurjeet Madan Varsity Contributor

The thing about stories is that they never feel quite like a story in the moment you experience them. So, naturally, on the night I was coming home from a friend’s place, when the TTC was conveniently closed and I was booking an Uber on my phone, I did not think anything remotely thought-provoking would happen.

“For Vurjeet?” the Uber driver asked.

“Yes, for Vurjeet.” I responded.

I hopped into the Toyota minivan, and, as if on schedule, I began the regular small talk you would make with an Uber driver. As he spoke, I recognized a subtle South Asian accent in his voice. We passed through the rare quietness of Bay Street, and I asked to be dropped off near U of T. He carried on the conversation by asking what I was pursuing in school. I, an eager first-year at the time, started rambling on about how I was studying political science and hoped to go to law school in the future.

Usually, conversations with Uber drivers at that hour of the night are the epitome of surface level small talk. They say “that’s good,” and I say “thank you,” and then neither of us think about the encounter ever again. Instead, this man surprised me by sharing his own experience as one of the top Supreme Court lawyers back in his home in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, I was mentally connecting the dots. I wasn’t surprised as to why he moved here — I knew enough about the immigrant experience from my parents to understand that much. I was, however, confused as to why he was driving an Uber instead of working as a lawyer in the big city, the same way he did in Dhaka. He told me about how the government didn't recognize his degree, and how he didn’t have it in him to go through the cumbersome schooling process all over again.

As I said, at the time, I didn’t even think I

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The money and labour that built the reputation of the Global North has come from centuries of exploiting the South.

would remember that encounter in retrospect — let alone write about it. I think the reason I remember it as vividly as I do is because of how I felt when he told me his story — a mix of helplessness and empathy.

When I was a kid, the last thing I wanted to hear was another story about my parents living in a small apartment when they first moved into the country. Fourth grade Vurjeet and her sister were much more entertained by Hannah Montana’s captivating secret life. But since then, I’ve associated a certain helpless feeling with hearing my parents’ immigration stories. It was that same feeling I felt sitting at the back of the Uber that night.

The man told me about how immigrating was a decision he made for his children, to allow them to grow up in a country with more resources, better education, and safer infrastructure. The story isn’t much different for most families — despite being settled and comfortable in their countries, they make the difficult move to Canada to start from the ground up, in the hopes that the future generations of their family will enjoy the fruits of living in a developed country.

The immigrant story to Canada is never a simple one. For those that do not have much exposure to immigration, it is nothing like how

it looks in Slumdog Millionaire. Moving to Canada is not an overnight, you-won-the-lottery experience. Sacrifices — whether they be about giving up things like a degree, a job, or land — are usually part of the deal of immigrating.

Clearly, this shared story of sacrifice is common enough that I seem to encounter it even on my way home in the middle of the night.

The Global South, the Global North, and colonial debt ‘Developed’ and ‘developing’ are terms often associated with the Global North and the Global South, respectively. What these labels usually fail to bring attention to is the hidden and complex postcolonial aftermath that led to such reputations.

Take the British invasion of India, for example.

An Al Jazeera headline put it in jarringly direct terms: “How Britain stole $45 trillion from India.”

The truth is, the money that went on to build modern-day Canada wasn’t just innately in the pockets of the British. It came from somewhere.

To put it in simpler terms, the money and labour that built the reputation of the Global North has come from centuries of exploiting the South.

As a result, there’s a gaping difference in the developmental timelines of these regions. If the world continues on this same path, places like Canada are essentially always going to be a step ahead of the South, because of the sheer reality of postcolonialism. One of my professors once said that there is colonial debt owed to the Global South. As easy as I feel it may be to think of Canada as the ‘saving grace’ for developing countries, there is a lot that led up to this point.

This isn’t to say that Canada’s immigration policy and welcoming face isn’t worth celebrating — it is! But we must critically

How colonial legacies of immigratio

assess world history and remind ourselves why immigration to the Global North became so popular. The North had a developmental head start at the cost of the South. We see this with the prestige of the educational institutions in the States, the free healthcare in Canada, the comparative lack of corruption in the Western world, and so much more.

The infrastructural differences between the Global South and North became even more apparent when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. A couple months ago, when India was making international headlines for its COVID-19 crisis, I came across a short video of a reporter covering the situation.

The video began with a

trigger warning. People were on beds, and their family members were begging doctors for oxygen cylinders. Others camped right outside hoping to get a bed.

What I saw was a healthcare system that was finally crumbling from its weak foundation, due to long-lasting colonial legacies.

Usually, I tend to feel a certain disconnect from the current events of India as a child of

immigrants. My exposure to the country has only ever been during the occasional trip we’d take to visit family, since I’ve never actually lived there.

But then and there, I began to tear up — grateful for the decision my parents made 20-some years ago, and saddened for my people back home.

Brain drain ‘Brain drain’ is an economic term for the

features@thevarsity.ca

of global brain drain

shape the experience on to Canada

phenomenon of highly skilled people emigrating outside of their ‘home’ country. Professor Jonathan Crush of Wilfrid Laurier University, performed a study analyzing Alberta’s strategy to tackle the shortage of doctors in the provinces’ rural areas by recruiting them from South Africa. As Crush put it, South Africa is “bleeding skilled personnel at an accelerating rate.” The appeal of the safety net and lushness of living in a developed country means that it doesn’t take much to convince people to leave their homes.

However, the recruitment program didn’t warn these South African physicians

about the emotional toll that comes from the feelings of guilt for ‘abandoning’ your country.

Keep in mind that, in most cases, immigration into Canada doesn’t happen because of a recruitment program that paves the way for you — instead, it comes with another string of long sacrifices that add onto any such feelings of guilt.

The same story goes for international students from the Global South. Alyanna Denise Chua, a third-year UTSC student, feels complicit in the global brain drain. “I am removing capital — financial and human labour [from my home country of the Philippines],” she said. She, like many other international students at U of T, pays far more for her education than her domestic peers.

next generation of scientists and engineers.”

As Watson emphasized, “my pain is not a performance.” Sharing the uncomfortable side of immigrant stories isn’t meant to evoke pity — it is meant to instill a sense of understanding and empathy. It is this sense of understanding that helps us to then make informed decisions about policies regarding immigration.

It makes economic sense for international students to have higher fees for non-domestic students, to an extent. What is questionable, though, is the size of that gap and where universities will draw the line. In wanting a better life and access to more resources — which may be inaccessible at home due to the effects of colonialism — these students are asked to pay huge amounts of money.

However, it isn’t just about paying that money. The bigger issue lies in the fact that this money then doesn’t go into advancing their home country in the South, which only builds on the infrastructure divide between the South and the North.

The phenomenon is cyclical in nature — more capital put into the North only accelerates the North’s advancement, giving more reason for people to emigrate there. Think of colonialism as giving the North the same kind of head start that coffee does. Brain drain is like drinking four espresso shots right after.

Shantel Watson, a fifth-year student, spoke about the internal conflict she feels as an immigrant student. “I feel like I’m benefitting from the oppression of my own people,” she said. Her unsettling point illustrates that brain drain is not

Sacrifices and the frustration behind immigration Watson’s story, in particular, stuck with me.

When she was younger, her mother, who had gotten a part-time job at a restaurant with the help of a relative, would bring home a small box of food that was usually Watson’s dinner. “Later, I found out that my mom often went without dinner so that I could eat,” Watson recalled.

Watson’s mother had to study at Sheridan College to receive recognition for her high school diploma, since the one she got in Jamaica was rendered unacceptable. “I started to question the benefits of emigrating to this country,” Watson said.

In her five years at U of T, Watson has held an impressive number of positions, but the “everyday frustration” of trying to succeed as an immigrant is something she doesn’t forget.

The personal struggles Watson and her mother went through — from domestic abuse to food insecurity — demonstrate the lengths which the struggle of immigration to Canada can reach.

Immigration is not a simple plane ticket to success and riches.

Stories like Watson’s exemplify exactly what I mean by the emotional toll of brain drain.

Immigrating from the South comes with struggle and sacrifice — that is part and parcel of the experience. Now pair this with the aforementioned issue of contributing to North-South divide and

KALLIOPÉ ANVAR MCCALL/THEVARSITY

just an economic effect — it has a social impact too. As her father warned when she flew in from Jamaica, “Canada isn’t a bed of roses.”

It is important to emphasize how accepting international students like Chua and Watson is the exact opposite of charity — they contribute hugely to the economy of the Global North.

Like Richard C. Atkinson, the former director of the National Science Foundation in the US suggested, “Without the large number of international graduate students, research universities would be unable to educate the

internal conflict of benefitting from oppression that caused you to leave your home in the first place.

Wouldn’t you be overwhelmed too?

Brain drain is about more than migration I’m not uncovering the complex nature of brain drain and immigration to make you feel bad. On the contrary, I intend to provide insight on how this phenomenon is so much more than just people moving from one side of the world to the other.

By becoming aware of the colonial legacies

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that have led to brain drain, we can better understand how to improve immigration policies in Canada so that they are less

Immigrating from the South comes with struggle and sacrifice — that is part and parcel of the experience.

”

exploitative. Perhaps this means a little more leniency with recognizing degrees from the Global South, or maybe having a stricter cap limit for public universities’ international student fees.

There are definitely steps Canada can take to minimize the infrastructural divide between the South and the North and decolonize our economic systems.

Understanding this concept is arguably even more important for those who don’t have any recent exposure to immigration. It is easy to oversimplify the issue of immigration by zooming in to the past decade only and thinking that people are just moving into your country and using your resources. This mindset turns a complete blind eye to the reality of postcolonialism and the struggles inherent to immigration.

It comes as no surprise that Canada’s immigration policies have created a foundation for so many immigrants from the South to thrive and flourish. Without it, you wouldn’t be reading this article, which is written by a child of an immigrant herself. But, while appreciating these opportunities, it is important to think critically about the historical events that have led to the mass movement of people and resources from the Global South to the Global North. Clearly, it doesn’t just happen without cause.

This is all to say that brain drain is far from just being a trendy word your economics professor uses. Just like all terms, this one holds power and history. It is impossible to isolate the human experiences and struggles of immigration from the economic implications of it — they are inextricably connected.

Disclosure: Alyanna Denise Chua is an Associate Features Editor at The Varsity.

Arts & Culture

November 22, 2021 thevarsity.ca/section/arts-and-culture arts@thevarsity.ca

ing, but the painting struck me. The juxtaposition between the resigned woman and the lively girl reminded me of the transition we all make from the carefree realm of childhood to the more mundane slog of adulthood.

Though I remain hopeful that this transition is not one to mourn over, “The Blue Room” took on a perspective that’s marked by a destruction of dreams and a loss of vivacity.

Picasso’s paintings were coloured in dark blue hues and the bodies and the objects in them cast sharp shadows, but the real melancholy of Picasso’s works emanated from the scenes themselves. “Melancholy Woman” depicted an inmate sitting alone in an underground cell, looking downward and deep in thought, while “The Dead Woman” was Picasso’s chilling replication of a corpse’s face — painted up close.

Picasso’s paintings highlighted the deep imbrication between art and artist.

Consistent across Picasso’s works were COURTESY OF NATHAN LAUREL/CC FLICKR also slumps — the consistent sagging of shoulders, the limp bending of knees, and After that, Picasso wandered through the streets of the downward waves of long robes. These elements Montmartre, visited the infamous Saint-Lazare hos- not only culminated in a collective sinking feeling but pital prison, witnessed mass homelessness in his also allowed Picasso’s technique to shine through. home of Barcelona, and suffered through poverty.

I noticed that Picasso’s paintings were heavAlthough there are arguments that we should ily influenced by sculptures. The movement and separate the art from the artist, I could only think texture of drapes — the crevices, dimples, depths, about the deep imbrication between art and art- and flow of the clothes clinging to the body’s curves ist, and art and context, as I gazed at Picasso’s — depicted in Picasso’s works followed the same paintings. The Blue Period, after all, was the era strong, smooth curves of sculptures. in which the modernist master painted almost Picasso: Painting the Blue Period featured over exclusively in blue and blue-green hues — colours 100 artworks from 15 countries. It mapped the often associated with sadness. evolution of Picasso’s work, from the peripheries Perhaps the most somber and haunting painting I of the Blue Period until the early days of the Rose wandered upon was “The Blue Room.” In it, a nude Period. At the AGO, I saw the evolution of Picasso’s woman is standing in a bathtub, slouching as she artistic style, and more generally, how the artist was rubs a wet rag by the side of her right leg, letting water able to improve and master his craft over time. trickle down to the base. Despite not being completely For example, the first few paintings from the lifeless, her drooping posture portrays her resignation. Blue Period featured pronounced and broken Behind this woman hangs a portrait of a young brushstrokes tinted with warm colors. The faces girl wearing a billowing dress with a bright pink of Picasso’s subjects here did not contain much underlining as she skips through a gravel street, detail — they were blurry. Ultimately, I found these her arms daintily holding the ends of her skirt. Both early Blue Period works underwhelming. the woman and the young girl have blonde hair.

But at the height of the Blue Period, Picasso’s Perhaps it’s just my own ambivalence toward ag- brushstrokes became continuous and smooth.

How Picasso’s world is filled with drama, destitution, and despair The new AGO exhibit is food for the melancholic soul

Alyanna Denise Chua Associate Features Editor

Content warning: This article mentions suicide.

Picasso: Painting the Blue Period was so rife with feeling that it’s difficult to put the exhibit into words. I suppose this is the challenge of writing about art — how does one convert sensations and scenes into mere text?

As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art.”

The best I can do, then, is to write simply about the new Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) exhibit featuring Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period artworks. And, to put it simply, sauntering through room after room of blue paintings hung on white walls was a solemn experience, which made me feel a little sad.

The Blue Period commenced when Picasso, 19 years old at the time, lost his best friend and fellow painter — Carles Casagemas — to suicide.

The artworks here had more shadow and depth, increasing the drama of the scenes they depicted.

It was in this exhibit that I learned how art could capture the subjective human experience.

As Picasso ached through his own pains and as the cities around him ached through societal and national pains, his artworks were coloured in shades of blue and quiet despair.

To me, art is a largely sensory and subjective experience. Though I tried to describe Picasso’s works here as best as I could, you ultimately have to visit the exhibit in person in order to experience the quiet solemnity of the Blue Period artworks.

Picasso: Painting the Blue Period will be at the AGO until January 16.

If you or someone you know is in distress, you can call: • Canada Suicide Prevention Service phone available 24/7 at 1-833-456-4566 • Good 2 Talk Student Helpline at 1-866-9255454 • Connex Ontario Mental Health Helpline at 1-866-531-2600 • Gerstein Centre Crisis Line at 416-929-5200 • U of T Health & Wellness Centre at 416978-8030 Warning signs of suicide include: • Talking about wanting to die • Looking for a way to end one’s life • Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose • Talking about feeling trapped or being in unbearable pain • Talking about being a burden to others • Increasing use of alcohol or drugs • Acting anxious, agitated, or reckless • Sleeping too little or too much • Withdrawing or feeling isolated • Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge • Displaying extreme mood swings The more of these signs a person shows, the greater the risk. If you suspect someone you know may be contemplating suicide, you should talk to them, according to the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.

Why Taylor Swift has chosen to “Begin Again” and rerecord her old music Sara Sullivan Varsity Contributor

Taylor Swift is the music industry — at least, that’s what us Swifties like to say.

Based purely on sales, there’s a good argument to be made that this is the truth. After being in the music industry for less than two decades, her record sales are already catching up to that of The Beatles.

Critically speaking, Swift is incredibly renowned. She has more GRAMMYs than Rihanna, more American MTV Moonmen than Justin Bieber or Britney Spears, and more Billboard Music Awards than any other woman artist.

She’s also received near-perfect critical reviews for her recent albums from Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and Time Magazine, to name just a few.

But Taylor is not just some “90s trend” making a comeback either — more than 15 years after joining the industry, she’s still actively writing and recording music. Named 2020 Album Of The Year by the Recording Academy, folklore was the top selling album of that year, with more than one million units sold — an almost unheard-of accomplishment in the age of streaming.

If you haven’t been living in “exile” for the past two years, you’d know that there’s been no escaping the reemergence of Swift’s classic bops from Fearless, an album she originally recorded in 2008. You might be wondering, why are these old hits coming back with a vengeance, a sense of maturity, and a few unheard songs? “long story short”: the reason is Scooter Braun. Braun is a music manager who purchased Swift’s master recordings in 2019 when

By owning the master recordings to her new work, the artist is proving to be “Fearless” his company, Ithaca Holdings, also bought Swift’s ex-record label, Big Machine Label Group. This happened unbeknownst to Swift, who was never offered the chance to purchase her master recordings.

Master recordings are the legal right to control

how, where, and when the original recording of a song or album is used or reproduced. When record labels control the master rights to an album, they give a certain percentage of its royalties from sales to the artist who recorded it. Usually record labels have ownership of the

We Swifties like to say that Taylor Swift is the music industry.

COURTESY OF ALTIMATE WARRIOR/ CC WIKIMEDIA

master recordings as part of their contracts with artists — although some artists create clauses that require master recordings to revert to their control in two to five years. But Swift left Big Machine Records without owning the rights to her work.

After purchasing the master recordings, Braun proceeded to resell Swift’s discography to an investment fund for $300 million USD. Unluckily for Braun, Swift’s songwriter or cowriter status on her old songs and a provision in her contract with her former label gave her the unique right to rerecord her old music. So she did.

By rerecording her old music, Swift is given the opportunity to legally own the master recordings of those new songs and therefore devalue the master recordings of her original work. She also gets the chance to take the music she wrote at different stages of her life and recreate it with the wisdom and experience that she’s gained.

So far, rerecording two of her first six albums — Fearless and Red — has offered Swift the chance to show off her musical growth, and every song sounds more melodic and breathtaking than its original version. For us long-time Swifties, most of whom were prepubescent teens when the original albums and songs were released, it’s also the chance to relive our youth.

As “Sad Beautiful Tragic” as it is that an artist has to fight to own their work, Swift has made it clear that she’s not going to allow a record label control her musical growth. She has, as she has before, made the brave choice of fighting for herself, despite those who “throw rocks” her way.

“The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why?” She’s too busy singlehandedly dismantling the bullying that’s “All Too Well” and alive in the music industry.

thevarsity.ca/section/arts-and-culture

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

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The Velvet Underground: Underground: An essential watch about the 1960s New York art scene Todd Haynes concocts a collage of sights and sounds that do the band’s artistic vision proud Padraic Berting Graduate Bureau Chief

I read Meet Me In the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman a few years ago. For anyone interested in learning about how acts like The Strokes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or LCD Soundsystem got their foothold in music, it’s an outstanding read. Written as an oral history, Goodman interviews friends, business partners, and the band members themselves about their experiences in the 1960s, a time that produced so many acts that fans continue to adore.

However, there’s a bit of a saccharine quality to their stories. These artists entered the fold at a time when Manhattan had become gentrified, and many of its acts had come from fairly affluent backgrounds. For all the great music produced during this time, it often felt like these artists were simply yearning for chaos in a city in which it didn’t exist anymore.

The Velvet Underground, directed by Todd Haynes, doesn’t just take us to that old age in New York — he slams it in our face until we see stars. And those stars are beautiful.

For those who don’t know, the Velvet Underground was a band that formed in New York in 1964. It consisted of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Moe Tucker. The band was also affiliated with Andy Warhol, who was their manager and the design artist of their first album.

The band’s music, which sought to infuse rock with avant-garde elements and transgressive lyrics, sold extremely poorly when it was first released but has grown in influence since. They are now considered one of the most influential acts of their era.

In keeping with the experimental nature and free spirit of the band, director Todd Haynes concocted the film in a way that keeps true to its artistic vision.

The viewer is constantly presented with multiple images on screen at once; whether it be iconography of Manhattan in the 60s, images of Andy Warhol’s factory shoots, or old photographs of band members, Haynes keeps us in a constant state of unrest. We’re always presented numerous sounds and images, trying to pick out what is and isn’t important.

In this way, the medium of the film evokes the

Members of the Velvet Underground

COURTESY OF APPLE TV PLUS

turbulence of the time on an aesthetic level. It’s visually outstanding.

The clips and interviews include archival audio clips from singer and lyricist Lou Reed and secondary songwriter John Cale. They offer the viewer a detailed history of the band without standard rock documentary self-glorification. The interviews feature more coffee conversations than clips of washed-up rockstars telling you how great they are.

Aside from being both an explanatory piece on the band’s history and a snapshot in time of New York during that era, it’s also simply a love letter to the creation of art and of anything new and exciting.

There’s a special moment in the second half of

the film where Boston music legend and Velvet Underground superfan Jonathan Richman gleefully explains a live performance of 17-minute long noise jam Sister Ray. Picking up his acoustic guitar, he strums the chords of the song and speaks overexcitedly, as if he had just gotten out of a concert that happened 50 years ago.

In a lot of ways, that scene encapsulates what the whole movie is about.

Although the film takes us to a point in time decades long gone, it finds a way to leave the viewer starstruck and excited, wanting to rush out and tell everyone what they just experienced.

For anyone that loves alternative music, 1960s art, or even just a well-produced documentary — this is where it’s at.

How the Hart House Debate Club helps conquer fears of public speaking Janus Kwong Varsity Contributor

Whether it’s because you’re flubbing your lines, searching for the right word, or struggling to articulate arguments — being good at communicating your beliefs is hard. Arguing is difficult, and so is listening to the opposite side of an argument while you ground yourself in your stance.

But what if you want to get better at these skills?

Debating is an ability that enables individuals to not only speak efficiently, but to also construct and defend arguments. It exposes participants to social, economic, artistic, and scientific issues of their time while encouraging them to analyze the world they live in. Finally, it teaches people to listen to what others have to say and how to respond in a structured, comprehensive manner.

At the Hart House Debate Club (HHDC), these skills can be incorporated and honed with enough practice, dedication, and motivation.

The HHDC is one of U of T’s most prominent public speaking clubs and one of the most successful debating clubs in North America. Home to about 50 members, the club offers a space for students of all skill levels to try their hand at artful persuasion. Whether you’re a novice or a competitive debater with high school experience, the club has a ton of resources and opportunities to further your personal goals for growth in public speaking.

Hosting two meetings a week, any U of T student is welcome to attend drop-in practice debate rounds. During practices, students are given a debate topic, 15 minutes to prepare an argument, and seven minutes to speak and defend their given position. The club also runs seminars targeted at personal development on both introductory and competitive levels. For those who wish to debate competitively, the HHDC also sends members every weekend to compete at both local and international tournaments.

This year alone, at the grand finals of the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC), HHDC members made it to the grand finals and

The club encourages students of all skill levels to analyze the world we live in two members of the club were named part of the top 20 speakers in the world. Members have made it to finals at the Yale Inter-Varsity and the Oxford Inter-Varsity. They also won the North American Debating Championships, making them fairly well-known throughout Canada and across the international debate scene. The prestige of the HHDC has challenged and motivated many members to go past their limits to prepare for and debate in global circuits.

Serena Yuan is a member of the HHDC and a second-year student studying environmental studies and public policy. For her, debate is a learning opportunity, where she can challenge herself to explore her own potential.

“I learned from a lot of really fantastic debaters whose brains I could really, really pick,” said

ROSALIND LIANG / THEVARSI TY

Yuan. Yuan elaborated that debate is largely about “getting familiar with what your strengths and weaknesses are and having a lot of opportunities to go to different tournaments, partner with people, and interact with different motions and different topics.”

However, Yuan doesn’t shy away from the intensity of competitive debate. She described the process of practicing for the WUDC as being “super intensive.”

“It was a huge drain, a huge commitment,” Yuan admitted. “But it was pretty rewarding.

And if you’ve been in debate for quite a while, I think it’s an enjoyable experience.”

As the HHDC’s current equity officer, Yuan is one of several debaters heavily involved in the competitive aspects of debate. However,

the majority of the club’s members are typically less involved in these intensive tournaments and often have little to no experience in debate before getting involved in university.

Jessica Singh, a novice debater at the HHDC, described her experience as someone who did debate in high school but was still able to learn from the club’s opportunities.

“It can obviously be a little bit nerve wracking for newer individuals, especially if you don’t have high school experience,” she explained.

“Debate is all about critical thinking… It pushes you out of your comfort zone, whether that pushes you with more confidence or with more speaking. Whatever you’re looking for, if you stick with it, I really think it gets better.”

Learning to debate is not an easy task, and to be good takes a good amount of effort.

However, the HHDC regularly provides beginners like Singh with constructive feedback. The club also provides resources specifically geared toward novice debaters, including mentorship programs and seminar presentations. Once debaters get past these early stages, Singh explains, the skills they gain are limitless. “[Debate] is a skill that transcends any field,” Singh said. “You’re going to communicate, and effective communication is so important, and debate helps you do that.” Singh also added that debate encourages participants to think critically in any scenario. “It’s so fascinating to think about problems and learn about all these different perspectives that you, in your daily life, probably don’t engage with.”

Unlike many other sports or activities, debate challenges participants to think, listen, and speak — with reason — about serious topics relevant to different aspects of life. By introducing themselves to debate, individuals get the opportunity to achieve their personal and academic goals, while making friends with similar passions.

It’s not necessarily easy, but if you’re tired of rambling through messy presentation after messy presentation, know that the HHDC hosts meetings every Tuesday and Thursday, welcoming all students with open arms and open mics.

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THE VARSITY

arts@thevarsity.ca

ARTS & CULTURE

Gayathri Siva Varsity Contributor

Content warning: This article discusses a film that contains themes of anti-Black racism.

On September 23, Screenwriting at Victoria College (SVC) launched the episode of their filmbased podcast, Fade In. Hosted by SVC co-president Vikram Nijhawan, Fade In promises to “take a critical look at film storytelling” and explores topics like literary themes, framing devices, and social commentary.

Nijhawan also invites weekly guests — student filmmakers and professionals, located at the University of Toronto and beyond — to offer their insight about the films.

What does the phrase “based on a true story” really mean? What is the responsibility of the film maker to the person whose life is being adapted?

What’s the responsibility of the audience in interpreting the truth? All are questions that Nijhawan and club members Connie Zeng and

Reviewing Fade In The club’s debut episode explored Green Book; I, Tonya; and The Farewell

by forging hospital documents.

On one hand, Billi wants to respect her grandmother’s autonomy, and on the other, wants to please her family and conform to their wishes of hiding the truth from her grandmother.

The semi-autobiographical film is partially the story of the film’s director, Lulu Wang. It explores her experience of being Chinese-American — “something which I can personally relate to,” noted Zeng. Like her protagonist, Wang’s grandmother was terminally ill at the time of the film’s shooting — in fact, she only found out about her diagnosis after the film’s screening.

Zeng noted that Wang offered to write the film’s script in both Mandarin and English, but could not read or write the former. As a result, Wang worked alongside her mother and professional translators to translate her film’s script.

“Is it worse to have a film that’s based on someone who’s still alive without telling them or without getting their consent? Is it more responsible to wait until someone’s passed to tell their story?”

Zeng wondered. “I didn’t think it was a problem

after Shirley’s passing. As a result, the film was created with Vallelonga as its protagonist, as its creators had access to more information about him through interviews.

“It was a creative decision that many viewers felt negatively impacted the story’s overall presentation,” explained Nijhawan. The host also added that viewers feel this choice contributed to Vallelonga being portrayed as a “white saviour figure.”

Shirley’s family was quick to call the film out as “a symphony of lies.” They asserted that Shirley and Vallelonga maintained a strict “employer-employee relationship” and were not close friends, as depicted in the film. However, recordings of Shirley from the 2010 documentary Lost Bohemia seemed to support many of the details of the film, including

specifically focuses on Harding’s involvement with an attack on her figure skating rival, Nancy Kerrigan. Kerrigan was clubbed in the right kneecap by hitmen hired by Jeff Gillooly, Harding’s husband at the time.

During the year of the attack, Harding went on to win the National Figure Skating Championships. Despite her injuries, Kerrigan made the USA Figure Skating National Team, and won a silver medal at the next Olympics, at which Harding didn’t earn any medals.

Harding eventually pled guilty to the charge of conspiracy to hinder prosecution. She was then banned from the USA Figure Skating Governing Body, probiting her from ever competing or coaching again.

his close relationship with Tony Vallelonga.

Anielska noted that the film’s responsibility to be accurate is a “complicated question” that stems from the separation of fiction and nonfiction. “They’re trying to gain something from the fact that they’re based on a true story. There’s clearly a reason why the filmmakers are telling us it’s based on a true story,” they explained.

“The concepts they’re trying to express through their storylines are somehow more legitimate and more true,” Anielska added. They then contemplated whether or not nonfiction films inherently exploit experiences to express a theme or idea.

If so, they said, “that feels like the use of another person’s life.”

“I think responsibility depends on whether [filmmakers] are trying to paint or determine characters, or if [they’re] trying to chronicle an event,” expressed Zeng. They also noted that what “[viewers] know about Shirley is based on his race.”

“I don’t think that the changes that have been made in the Green Book are necessarily working towards… something really powerful in terms of the storyline,” argued Anielska. Pointing out that all of Green Book’s writers were white, they added, “It claims to say something about race…

I imagine it must have been [insulting] to Shirley’s family to not be consulted on it.”

Steven Rogers, the movie’s screenwriter, described the film as an “attempt to rethink the narrative [people] know about Harding and create a nuanced portrayal of the primary cast of characters.”

Rogers was also “interested in exploring truth and perception of truth.” However, Anielska notes that Kerrigan’s perspective is absent through the film.

Zeng began the discussion of the film by citing a TikTok video they found about Harding. Zeng noticed that many of the video’s comments were supportive of the skater, which Zeng compared to the comments of a YouTube video about Harding they’d watched before the film’s release. “Most of [the YouTube video’s] comments [were] not very sympathetic towards Harding… the general sentiment has changed, a lot of people in our generation… are very sympathetic towards her.”

Zeng also noted a “special animosity towards Kerrigan” in the comments under videos they’d watched about the figure skater.

“The [film’s] message that the media twists things is not subtle,” Anielska pointed out. “It’s ironic that people have so quickly latched onto this movie as a redemption arc for [Harding]. It breaks the fourth wall because it wants to point this out to you.”

Zeng argued the film was misogynistic, and fed into a woman-versus-woman narrative by pitting Harding and Kerrigan against one another.

at all due to my Eastern-Western heritage… you do anything ‘family’ and there is no concept of boundaries or personal privacy, especially if it entitles success.”

Although Western culture “[thinks] of it as bad,” Anielska admitted that they thought that hiding the diagnosis is a “type of honour.” “[There’s] something beautiful in…‘We’re going to hide what we feel because we want you to be happy,’ ” they explained.

I, Tonya I, Tonya is a 2017 film, which, as its title card states, is based on “irony free, wildly contradictory, totally true interviews” with Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly.

The film is based on the experiences of Tonya Harding, a former American figure skater. It

The Farewell Zeng introduced the 2019 film, The Farewell, as being “based on an actual lie.” The film follows the story of Billi, a girl living in China. Billi finds out her grandmother is diagnosed with lung cancer and does not have much longer to live, a reality that her family tried to hide from her grandmother

If you or someone you know has been affected by anti-Black racism, you can call: • U of T’s Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity Office at 416-978-1259, or • Black Youth Helpline at 416-285-9944, or • U of T My Student Support Program at 844-451-9700.

Anyone interested in screenwriting can listen to Fade In on Spotify.

JACKY LAITHE/THEVARSITY

Marta Anielska attempted to answer in the appropriately titled episode “Based on a True Story,” which explored the ethics of films that are based on the lives of real people.

To prepare for this episode, Nijhawan, Anielska, and Zeng watched three films: Green Book; I, Tonya; and The Farewell. As a preface to the episode, Nijhawan explained that, while each of the films were in part created “to shed light on a marginalized group of individuals,” their accuracy has since been debated by the public.

Green Book The 2018 film Green Book is set in 1960s America. A Black classical pianist, Don Shirley, hires an Italian American driver, known as Tony Vallelonga, to help him get to his venues. Though Vallelonga is originally racist toward Shirley, the two characters eventually become closer and Tony learns to let go of his racial prejudices.

The initially problematic aspect of Green Book, Nijhawan explains, is that its title was created in reference to the safe travel guide that author Victor Hugo created for Black people travelling in the south at the time of Jim Crow laws. This reference “takes a backseat” in the Academy Award winning film adaptation, which was written by Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, and Peter Farrelly.

Nijhawan also talked about an accusation he’d seen that the film is an “inaccurate portrayal of the central characters’ relationship, as well as an overly simplistic portrayal of race relations in America at that time.”

Before the production of Green Book, the reallife Don Shirley was approached by writer Nick Vallelonga. However, the film was only released

Final thoughts The first episode of Fade In was a success.

Though the films analysed in this episode portrayed unique experiences, they shared the similarity of depicting real occurrences. Thus, the episode’s content flowed smoothly.

Nijhawan, Anielska, and Zeng articulated their ideas clearly and respectfully, while tying in their experiences to help listeners better form an opinion on each film. They had also extensively researched the films they discussed to help prove their claims.

So, what’s the truth about my article? I’m looking forward to hearing more from Fade In and the SVC. Disclosure: Marta Anielska is currently The Varsity’s Deputy News Editor.

Science Reema Al Yousef Varsity Contributor

The history of science is usually recounted as a history of genius white men, often portrayed as brave intellectuals who resisted the dominant ideas of their time to advance powerful new insights.

For example, in the past, whenever I thought of science, Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein immediately surged through my mind. I easily thought of people like James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins, who were awarded the Nobel Prize after developing a model of DNA’s double helix. And the moon landing is almost synonymous with Neil Armstrong.

However, as I later learned, it was actually Rosalind Franklin who contributed to unravelling — no pun intended — the structure we know today as the DNA double helix. And Katherine Johnson, a mathematician, calculated the flight

November 22, 2021 thevarsity.ca/section/science science@thevarsity.ca

The unsung heroes of science Two oft-overlooked stories of women scientists helped inspire me mathematician and Black woman who calculated the trajectory for the Apollo 11 Lunar mission and the mission that sent the first American to space, that I began to believe in my own potential.

At the time, computers calculated the orbital trajectories for space missions from liftoff to splashdown, but astronauts were reluctant to put their lives at risk because of calculations by machines that were prone to errors.

So, in 1961, Johnson calculated the trajectory for Freedom 7, allowing the first US astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, to go to space. In 1962, as NASA prepared the orbital mission for John Glenn — the first US astronaut to orbit Earth

Crick and Watson visualize and develop a model of the DNA double helix, but her contributions were largely uncredited at that time. When it was time to award a Nobel Prize for the discovery a few years after her death in 1958, her name wasn’t mentioned.

Franklin was a brilliant scientist at the top of her field. She published consistently throughout her career, and even worked on revealing the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus. She helped expand our understanding of the structure of the polio virus and its implications on human disease. She travelled to conferences around the world to talk about coal and virus structure.

her supervisor in a letter to stop thinking about and working on unpacking the DNA structure.

She would later go on to lead her team to decode the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus.

Despite the resistance she continued to receive throughout her life, she did not let gender disparities or discrimination overcome her drive to learn. Her perseverance led to our current understanding of the structure of DNA and viruses, which have had crucial applications in healthcare. Her work was cut short by her early death after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

Similarly, when Johnson participated in the space program, she asked for permission to be a part of the briefings. When was told, “the girls don’t usually go,” she responded, “is there a law [against it]?” She continued to attend briefings, which eventually led her to work on aerospace trajectories. She died in 2020 at the age of 101.

Franklin and Johnson defined perseverance by taking ownership of their positions.

MARGARET ATKINSON/THEVARSITY

path for the first American spaceflight and the first moon landing. The stories of these two women demonstrate that the history of science most certainly isn’t just the history of genius white men, and they helped me regain my love for learning.

Encountering my first barrier When I was very young, I thought that the only barrier I would face to achieving what I wanted was myself. I was driven and curious to learn anything, including math and science.

But as I entered grade four, I was presented with many more challenges than just math problems. I started to think that I did not have the intellectual abilities to pursue my ambitions.

I believed there was a biological barrier, one that could not be overcome. I felt like I had to put in more effort to prove that I was capable.

It wasn’t until I was exposed to the contributions of Johnson, who was a NASA

— Glenn called upon Johnson to run the same calculations as a preflight checklist. Johnson recalls him saying, “If she says they’re good, then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s successful flight served as a turning point in the competition between the US and the Soviet Union.

Johnson had a great love for mathematics and counting from her childhood: “I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed… anything that could be counted, I did.”

Unravelling DNA’s unsung hero Franklin, a chemist, used a technique called X-ray crystallography to get the first real image of the DNA structure, referred to as ‘Photo 51.’ Photo 51 changed the world and our understanding of the DNA structure.

Maurice Wilkins, who worked with Franklin, showed some of her unpublished work — including Photo 51­—to Watson. Her work helped

In 1968, 10 years after Franklin’s death, Watson published a memoir titled The Double Helix. He represented Franklin as a badtempered, arrogant person who kept data from her colleagues. Consequently, Franklin’s friend Anne Sayre wrote a biography as a rebuttal, highlighting Franklin’s contributions and making her discovery more well-known. It was only years after Franklin’s death that Crick finally acknowledged that her contributions were critical for the development of their model.

After her death, the polio crystal structure was published in the scientific journal Nature by her colleagues John Finch and Aaron Klug, dedicated to her memory. Had she lived, the Nobel Prize, which was awarded to Klug in 1982 might also have been awarded to her.

Franklin and Johnson’s perseverance Franklin did not have it easy. Before Photo 51 was published in Nature, she was instructed by

Regaining my drive to learn Little did I know that I would come to enjoy calculus and solving problems. I owe my understanding and love for learning calculus to my high school teacher, a woman from Nigeria who I don’t think got enough credit from the school. I also enjoy learning life sciences, and I’m grateful to be a student at the University of Toronto where we are not only expected to apply what we’ve learned beyond the class, but are encouraged to do so. Being in university has only increased my curiosity and love for learning.

Now, my drive to learn and contribute is so much greater than my fear of not being good or smart enough. For every Watson and Crick, there’s a Rosalind Franklin. And behind many great achievements in science, there’s a Katherine Johnson.

As Johnson said, “You lose your curiosity when you stop learning.”

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THE VARSITY

science@thevarsity.ca

SCIENCE

The gruelling path to medical school Selling your soul for a stethoscope — it’s the pre-med way Safiya Patel Lead Copy Editor

It’s not easy getting to a place you’ve never been before. For us pre-medical students with no map, GPS, or set path, it’s even harder. We can’t simply make a turn and hear, in a comforting monotone voice, “Your destination is on the left.”

We sometimes get lost in the journey, and not in the way Arthur Ashe — a US tennis legend — wrote about when he said, “Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” We get so preoccupied with how we will get into medical school that we forget why we wanted to become doctors in the first place.

It’s easy to focus on checking off boxes. When someone on a pre-med Reddit forum says that the baseline for extracurriculars is thousands of hours of volunteer work, at least one research project, and a couple hundred shadowing hours, that’s somewhere we can start, right? We can make a checklist and work away at it.

However, during the process, somewhere between your hundredth shift at the hospital and your second literature review, you begin to lose yourself. You sell your individuality and your joie de vivre to become a slave to the relentless yet jejune expectations you set for yourself based on talk from your fellow pre-med students.

I might not be able to convince you — after all, I’m in the same boat as you — but the bonafide genius Albert Einstein famously wrote, “A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”

This doesn’t mean your happiness depends on quitting school and running a quaint chocolaterie in a small French town, nor is this a sign to drop all extracurricular activities and quote Einstein in your personal statement. The process of getting into medical school was never supposed to be

easy: it serves as proof that we possess the arsenal of skills we’ll need once we cross to the other side.

Therefore, it shouldn’t be reduced to something as simple as ticking off boxes, no matter how gruelling the activities behind the boxes were. As future doctors, we are expected to change the face of medicine — how can we

forcing us to sacrifice our youth, our current happiness, and trading them in for sake of the rat race.

The life of any student requires dedication and hard work. With the additional responsibility of preparing for the medical college admission test, the required dedication and work logically increases. Why then must we further bog ANDREA ZHAO/THEVARSITY

do this if we are forced to fit into a rigid mold?

The checklists are bad enough. Worse still is the maniacal obsession with sticking one’s foot in any door if there’s any kind of extracurricular activity on the other side. The pursuit of success is commendable; the restlessness is where the problem comes in. It’s this restlessness that is

ourselves down with hours of unnecessary and often futile extracurricular activities?

Don’t get me wrong — I am by no means encouraging you to apply for medical school with no extracurricular experience under your belt. Illustrations of personality and personal development are necessary to create a strong

medical school application. However, joining every student society available at U of T often does not lend itself to this growth.

Our acceptance into medical school is not contingent upon a demonstration of our ability to work endlessly like a machine, picking up every opportunity that graces our path. The mission of a doctor is to care for people. For that, we don’t need to be tireless cogs in a wheel, but human beings.

Therefore, you shouldn’t let the guy from Reddit’s checklist dictate your path to medical school; you already have what you need. We all know that extracurriculars should focus on quality over quantity. Some people equate that with spending more time on all of them, but you also need to show medical schools that you are an individual with a personality. What you can offer goes beyond good grades and the ability to follow rules. You are an individual with unique experiences and hobbies — bank on that.

As pre-med students, we are undoubtedly familiar with the rigour and structure of the scientific world. For now, let’s limit the rules of the scientific world to our academic life; our extracurricular lives should be an art. Take part in activities that you enjoy and that will have a meaningful impact on you and allow you to grow into yourself, instead of into the lab-grown, ‘ideal’ med school candidate.

For you, this may mean working as an assistant in an immunology lab, or it may mean joining every possible student association. For me, it may mean writing for The Varsity.

Happiness, Einstein taught us, is what we would achieve from a “calm and modest life.” But there’s more — and herein lies the secret to success.

The simple life, as opposed to the relentless pursuit of success, not only leads to happiness, but it will also carry you to the day you take your Hippocratic oath. Selfishness is at the very core of striving for success, but good doctors don’t focus on themselves. If you shift your attention to becoming a better person and an asset to society, you’ll automatically be a better doctor.

There’s no formula to become a doctor. We cannot simply e = mc² our way into medical school — as Einstein taught us, it’s all relative.

Monster goldfish: How scientists are addressing a fishy issue Meera Mohindra Varsity Contributor

Goldfish have been kept as pets for hundreds of years. Nowadays, though, it’s not uncommon to find goldfish in urban ponds, streams, and other waterways.

Invasive species can wreak havoc on ecosystems negative consequences of introducing goldfish to environments to which they aren’t native.

Harmless-looking invaders Goldfish have fast reproductive rates and are able to tolerate harsh environmental conditions such as low water oxygen concentrations. This makes them tenacious invaders, able to compete with and crowd out species native to the area. Though there are several established populations of goldfish in some Canadian waterways, they are considered an invasive species and have contributed to significant habitat degradation.

Nicholas Mandrak, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at UTSC, is investigating the presence and impact of goldfish in urban ponds.

Mandrak’s research project aims to determine the risks that goldfish pose to waterways as they go from ponds into the wild.

One issue of concern is Goldfish can grow over six inches after they’re Unfortunately, that goldfish being released are released into the wild. many people potentially going through rapid COURTESTY OF WORACHAT SODSRI/THEVARSITY release their pet evolution which could allow them to fish into the local waterways or urban ponds survive the extreme environments found in urban once they grow tired of them or can’t take care ponds, such as the higher temperatures and low of them anymore. oxygen concentrations that are predicted to be For many, adding a few small fish to foreign exacerbated by climate change. If these ponds waterways may seem harmless. In fact, people are indeed making goldfish better adapted to often believe they’re doing what’s best for their climate change, they would be well equipped pet by allowing them to live out their life in to outcompete wild goldfish and other native the wild. Although that may be true, there are species in the wild.

A unique consequence of goldfish being released into urban ponds is that these fish can grow to very large size. Goldfish rarely grow over six inches when they’re kept in household aquariums, due to the limitations of their habitat. However, in the wild, so-called ‘monster goldfish’ have been spotted in several locations. Their lack of natural predators and everwarming waters contribute to the opportunity these fish have to grow to several pounds in size.

They may be cute, but they can wreck ecosystems Unfortunately, goldfish bring a whole host of problems to foreign ecosystems.

They are voracious eaters, they degrade wetland habitats important for the spawning of native species, and they stir up mud, clouding the water and making it difficult for other organisms to breathe and see. They can also introduce foreign parasites and diseases that can propagate and cause harm throughout an ecosystem.

Goldfish typically spawn when there is a change in temperature. So, if water temperatures start increasing earlier due to climate change, goldfish will reproduce more often and therefore increase the negative effects they cause every year.

Mandrak’s research is contributing to a collaborative effort with other researchers on different aspects of urban ponds. His team is

also collaborating with the Walpole Island First Nation, Ontario Streams, Ontario Nature, Nature Conservancy of Canada, McGill University, University of Windsor, and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority on this project.

The public can play an important role in preserving natural environments by learning how to avoid accidentally spreading invasive species. In particular, don’t release pet

fish into Ontario waterways. Instead, return them to a pet store or donate them to another person or facility.

Additionally, cleaning and drying your boat, trailer, and other outdoor equipment before using them helps ensure no unwanted hitchhikers get released into another ecosystem. The Ontario government also has a toll-free hotline where people can report invasive species spotted in the wild.

thevarsity.ca/section/science

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

17

U of T’s most interesting STEM bird courses Whether you’re into weed, trees, or health, your courses don’t have to make you cry all the time Alexa DiFrancesco and Angad Deol Arts & Culture Editor and Sports Editor

Have you ever entered a new semester with the thought “I need a break” lingering at the back of your head? Maybe you’re not thinking at all, but silently counting down the days to reading week. Perhaps you’re even dropping courses and looking to replace them with easier ones.

University is overwhelming — you don’t need us to tell you that. It’s even harder for STEM students, or for non-STEM students left cursing some evil bigwig for deciding that we need to take STEM courses in order to graduate. Either way, our situation is cruel.

However, in the middle of our spontaneous crying sessions and growing eye bags, we are offered a saving grace: bird courses.

Yes, they exist in STEM too. Sit back, relax, and postpone your thoughts of dropping out while we guide you through the easiest STEM courses at U of T. PCL218 — Cannabis the Drug Whether you’re 420-friendly, or simply want to learn more about the effects of cannabis on your body, look no further than PCL218. The course examines how cannabis is discussed in relation to mental health and addiction, highlights and addresses myths and facts about it, and leaves a mark on students from all walks of life. Whether

Shankeri Vijayakumar Varsity Contributor

Meditation, sleep, nutrition, exercise, and social connectedness are just a few of the practices that can help people achieve and maintain optimal physical and mental wellness. Meditation is increasingly being recognized as a practice to maintain well-being due to the growing research surrounding meditation, its prevalence in popular psychology, and the relative convenience of practicing meditation compared to other fitness activities.

The term ‘mindfulness’ is often used interchangeably with the term ‘meditation,’ but mindfulness is, in fact, a form of meditation.

Meditation more broadly consists of setting aside time to do something that is good for you. This can include exercising meditation, where you set aside time to engage in physical activity to clear your mind, or mindfulness meditation, which involves intentionally paying attention to whatever is happening in the moment without passing judgment on your thoughts or feelings.

How does meditation work?

Meditation is a popular practice commonly associated with improving calmness and physical relaxation. There are many different types of meditation, some of which have been practiced for thousands of years. These different forms include guided meditation, mantra meditation, mindfulness meditation, yoga, and tai chi.

While each of these different forms of meditation involve different processes, there are a few common elements across all of them, including focused attention, attitude, breathing, setting, and position.

Maintaining your attention during meditation involves clearing your mind of distractions and

you’re an arts aficionado or a connoisseur of life sciences, this course might just pique your interest.

BPM232 — Buddhist Psychology Formerly listed under the course code NEW232, this course provides students with an introduction to concepts of Buddhism and how they are intertwined with psychology, including understanding how suffering is created. We recommend this course based on personal positive experiences with it. The professor, Anderson Todd, weaves together personal experiences with complex concepts in Buddhism extremely well, making it a great lecture experience.

NFS284 — Basic Human Nutrition This course is a great introduction for students who are interested in examining how diet can impact their health in addition to the intersections of nutrition and disease. Despite its reputation as a bird course for life science students, it is still quite interesting, and could be your next favorite breadth course. Topics covered include vitamins and minerals; Canada’s food guide; and the carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins in our diet, as well as their roles in nutrition.

ENV100 — The Environment Picture this: you took Geography in grade nine,

These courses will scratch your itch for science without bringing you to tears.

FOHANNA FORTES/THEVARSITY

earned your highest grade of that school year, then never explored the topic again. We’re pretty sure this is a universal experience. If you’re missing the subject — and your high grades — ENV100 is the course for you. It explores everyday topics like natural hazards, Earth’s weather systems, forests, and food resources.

The best part? A major theme in this course is interdisciplinary crossover between science and the humanities is a major theme in this course.

STAB23 — Introduction to Statistics for Social Sciences If you’re a UTSC student who needs that Quantitative Reasoning half credit to graduate,

How does meditation work?

The impact of meditation on wellness and health outcomes

focusing on being present. Having an open attitude requires you to let your thoughts flow freely in your mind without passing judgement.

Relaxed breathing involves slowly taking deep and even breaths. This allows more oxygen to be taken in, which can reduce muscle tension and help you breathe more efficiently.

A quiet setting with limited distractions will also help you focus on your meditation in the present moment. Finally, finding a comfortable position to practice meditation is important.

Whether you’re sitting down, standing up, or walking, a comfortable position can help you practice your breathing and focus your attention.

The efficacy of meditation Several research studies have found that meditation is effective for improving health

you’re in luck. We all know that statistics is the easiest math course on campus, but let us present to you a statistics course that’s tailored to social sciences. STAB23 covers only the basic concepts of statistics and explores the statistical methods used most often in the social sciences.

To sweeten the deal, you’re allowed to bring a double-sided cheat sheet into the midterm and final exam.

So wipe the tears off your faces, stop stressing about your problem sets, and go explore the wonders of science through one of these courses — without any accompanying existential dread.

Nevertheless, even if there is a lack of conclusive evidence to support the effects of meditation on specific health conditions, it can still be useful for relaxing and clearing the mind.

Practicing meditation As a busy university student, it may appear difficult for you to practice meditation, but it does not have to be complicated or time-consuming.

There are many different types of meditation, and the principles of meditation can be applied in many different settings at any time. This means that you can practice meditation in a way that works for you, regardless of location or time.

One way to practice meditation is by doing it as you walk. If you’re walking to a lecture or meeting, use a portion of the path to your destination as an opportunity to practice a structured meditation exercise. Start GEORGIA KELLY/THEVARSITY walking slowly and focus on being aware of your thoughts conditions like stress, anxiety, depression, in the moment and the sensations of standinsomnia, and high blood pressure. However, ing and walking. A key aspect to this exercise the overall research on meditation and its is being present in the moment, which involves efficacy for improving health outcomes has keeping an open mind and being accepting of come to conflicting conclusions. While some the experiences around you in that moment. studies suggest meditation may be effective Breathing exercises are also great to practice. for improving certain health conditions, some If you ever feel consumed by recurring negative of them are compromised because they don’t thoughts, try to close your eyes and take deep a consistent definition of meditation or using breaths while paying special attention to your a poor study design. breathing and your body in the present moment.

A 2015 review found that only nine per Have a couple of minutes before your next cent of research into mindfulness meditation lecture? Whether it is virtual or in person, take interventions have been tested using clinical at least a minute to close your eyes, take deep trials that included a control group. Ultimately, breaths, and focus on your breathing. while there are studies that support the benefits The next time you are walking to class or are of meditation for some health conditions, other waiting for your next virtual meeting to begin, try researchers suggest that there is not enough practicing some meditation in a way that works evidence to draw definitive conclusions on the for you and focus on your thoughts, feelings, benefits of meditation. and movements in the moment.

Sports

November 22, 2021 thevarsity.ca/section/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

The Canadian mens’ national soccer team is taking the world by storm A deep dive into Canada’s magic on and off the pitch Audrey Miatello and Mekhi Quarshie Varsity Contributor and Associate Sports Editor

The Canadian men’s national soccer team has moved to the top of the table for the final round of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football qualifiers.

The move was a result of their 2–1 win over Mexico on November 16. Canada hasn’t made it into the World Cup since 1986 and this is the closest they’ve been since 1994.

For the past 35 years, the Canadian men’s soccer team has unfortunately failed to qualify for the World Cup. While this drought does not rival the 54 years that Toronto Maple Leafs fans have been waiting to win another Stanley Cup, it has certainly been a long time. However, the teams’ recent successes have given fans hope that perhaps their days of waiting are coming to a rapid end.

In preparation for the upcoming 2022 World Cup in Qatar, eight teams qualified for the octagonal tournament, which means that the teams from North and Central America are playing each other twice over a period of seven months.

The competition is fierce, and the top three teams will automatically advance to the World Cup. The fourth-place team also has a chance at qualifying, but it is not guaranteed, since they will first have to enter into an extra intercontinental playoff. The other four teams will be sent home at the end of the tournament.

Team Canada’s road to success November boasted two exciting matchups for the Canadian team: they played Costa Rica on the November 12 and Mexico on the November 16. Canada was in an excellent position going into these games — they were one of the two teams to remain unbeaten in their first six games, and managed to score a goal against both the USA and Mexico, two formidable opponents.

After a tense first half against Costa Rica, Jonathan David scored for Canada in the 57th minute, capitalizing off a loose ball in the box.

The three points from that victory were critical for Canada’s victory, but they did not have much time to celebrate, as they played Mexico — the ninth best team in the world — only four days later.

That Tuesday night, about 50,000 fans flooded into Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium, which had just been blanketed by around 20 centimetres of snow. In the dying minutes of the first half, defender Alistair Johnston took a powerful shot that the Mexican goalie Guillermo Ochoa could only push away. Seeing the loose ball, striker Cyle Larin sprung into action and neatly tapped the ball into the back of the net.

Throughout the second half, Canada continued to control the game, and the team’s hard work paid off when Larin scored his second goal of the night in the 52nd minute. The end of the game was certainly nervewracking, as Mexico scored in the 90th minute.

But in the end, Canada was able to hold onto their lead and finished the November games having captured the full six points from both games.

After their victory, Canada now sits at the top of their group. This success is well deserved,

and they have proven through their opening eight games that they are a team of champions.

After so many years of struggle, people are now starting to recognize that this is one of the best teams in the world.

And luckily, it seems like the team’s successes will not stop anytime soon. Many of the key players on the team are only just starting their careers as soccer players and have years left to contribute to this team. Five of the 15 athletes who played in the game against Mexico aren’t even 25 years old yet, including some of the greatest superstars that team Canada has to boast about, like 21-year-olds Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David.

Even though one cannot help but want this team to have many more major successes, their impact has already been profound. When current coach John Herdman was hired in 2018, the team was ranked 94th in the world. Now, after their most recent victory, the team is ranked 40th. As a result of their successes, new fans are constantly discovering Canadian soccer and tuning in to watch their games. And the timing for this could not have been better, since the country will come together to cohost the World Cup in 2026 alongside USA and Mexico.

But given the way that things are going, it seems like fans will not have to wait until 2026 to see Canada play in a World Cup. There is still work to be done, of course, and the team will have to maintain their momentum until their next game on January 27. But, until then, fans will be able to brag that their team is number one.

of teams. Fourth would be basketball — the Raptors became a national story in 2019 and, although views have declined since then, basketball still is a vaguely popular sport.

Every athlete has had the debate with their friends about which sport is the most important.

A football player will brag about the prevalence of the Super Bowl, while a soccer fan will clap back with the cliché fact that soccer is “the biggest sport worldwide.”

While this ranking doesn’t address streaming platforms other than TV or the complications of TV rights deals, it’s fair to say

Team Canada’s impact on and off the field The impact that the team’s success has had on the sports landscape in Canada is a story that is often untold. Adam Seaborn, director of sales and media operations at Toronto-based media agency Kingstar Media, helped The Varsity shed some light on it.

Seaborn consistently tracks the Canadian media landscape

The Canadian team has taken the world by storm recently..

COURTESY OF CHRIS MCPHEE/CC FLICKR

in an attempt to help brands find value in advertising. Seaborn estimated that 1.15 million people tuned into Sportsnet’s broadcast of the Canada vs. Mexico game on average.

To put that number into perspective, it’s about the average number of people who watch CTV news every night and the average viewership that Hockey Night in Canada receives. It is also the largest viewership figure that Seaborn could find

on record for a live soccer broadcast in Canada in the last 12 years. This is monumental, since soccer has not historically been a big sport in Canada.

Seaborn said that hockey is the most popular sport domestically by a landslide. According to him, this stayed true even when the Leafs were playing. The second-most popular sport is baseball, and the third-most popular is football, which also attracts viewers that watch a variety

that soccer doesn’t rank among the sports giants of Canada. The recent hype for the Canadian men’s team is simply because, as Seaborn says, “Canadians really seem to support Canadians.”

Seaborn said that in sports like tennis, views have remained relatively low unless a Canadian tennis player was playing well. This is exactly what the men’s soccer team is witnessing. Unlike the NHL or NFL, where Canadians watch a variety of teams, Canadians are watching soccer because they want to see our athletes do well in what is arguably the biggest sports competition worldwide.

The demographics of these views were telling as well. When it comes to TV broadcasts, the audiences in general are older. “The typical viewer on linear TV, as we call it, is… in [their] late forties,” Seaborn said. However, according to Seaborn, 37 per cent of the audience watching Tuesday’s game on Sportsnet was under the age of 49. In a sense, Canada’s journey to the World Cup has pulled millennials and Gen Z Canadians off of their Tik Tok videos, Twitch streams, and video games to collaboratively watch a national story unfold.

What the Canadian men’s team has done is impressive in a number of ways. Currently, they are leading men’s teams worldwide in total goals scored, 40th in the worldwide FIFA rankings, and undefeated in the final round of qualifiers.

Numbers aside, it’s evident that, in the middle of a global pandemic, sports is doing what it does best: uniting people in the face of adversity.

The Canucks, however, have six games left until the end of the final round, and the USA and Mexico are trailing menacingly behind them by a few points. The 2022 Qatar World Cup is still a ways away, but Seaborn said that Canadians were “absolutely dialled in” to the game on Tuesday. If this performance continues, who’s to say that Canadians won’t stay dialled in?

These present viewership figures can’t guarantee more long-term support for the MLS, the Premier League, or the Canadian Premier League. But, in terms of Canada’s World Cup dreams, our boys are starting to look like a Cinderella team. If that’s true, then the World Cup might just be our royal ball.

thevarsity.ca/section/sports

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

19

From the Blues to the pros: Athletes grow a mo’ to save a bro Cole Hayes Varsity Contributor

During the month of November, many people rock moustaches for a good cause: Movember.

Movember is a fundraiser put on by the Movember Foundation where people raise money by growing moustach. Proceeds go toward resources for men’s health, including mental health and sucide prevention, prostate cancer, and testicular cancer.

The sports world has provided some of the greatest Movember moustaches over the years, and the moustaches have been out in full force during the month of November.

One of Toronto’s most beloved athletes, Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs, has rocked a Freddie Mercury style moustache since 2019. This year, Matthews has put his moustache on the line in his Movember campaign. He’s willing to shave his moustache if he raises $134,000, saying, “I’m willing to shave it off, but only for a good cause.” Matthews has also been wearing Movember-inspired equipment this month.

While Movember is visible among the pros, it is also visible for some U of T Varsity Blues

Moustaches are out in full force for a good cause athletes. Men’s lacrosse defender, Michael Lamacchia, for example, has traded his beard for a moustache this month.

When asked about his inspiration for taking

part in Movember, Lamacchia said, “Some of my inspirations include wanting to raise awareness for mens mental health as well as prostate cancer.”

Lamacchia also discussed his preference for the

JESSICA LAM/THEVARSITY

moustache: “I’d probably have either a handlebar style or a Auston Matthews-Esque one.”

There are many ways to support Movember.

Growing a moustache, which is what people like Michael and I have opted to do this month, is a common way in which people bring awareness to men’s health. Another way to raise awareness is to “move for Movember.” According to the Movember website, the goal of this is to “run or walk 60km over the month, for the 60 men lost to suicide every hour globally.”

Some people also host fundraisers in support of the Movember Foundation. In past years, the local sock company Major League Socks — formerly known as “Babsocks” — partnered with local Toronto hockey leagues to hold a fundraiser. At the event, they sold socks featuring former Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock’s face with a moustache, and part of the event’s proceeds went toward the Movember foundation.

We have seen many athletes donning moustaches this month, and although it will alter their appearance — November can be an awkward month for the upper lip — it is definitely noticeable and brings awareness to the cause.

You, too, could grow a mo’ to save a bro.

Reviewing All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs A review of the documentary that followed the Maple Leafs during a heartbreaking season Cole Hayes Varsity Contributor

The 2021 documentary series All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs gives fans a behind-thescenes look at the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 2021 NHL season. The series shows a side of Leafs players and management that many fans have yet to see while the team looks to achieve their goal: winning the Stanley Cup. The docuseries also debunks many narratives surrounding the team, giving viewers new perspectives on many players while highlighting the criticisms that many fans have had with the Leafs.

My main takeaway from watching All or Nothing is that the narrative that the Leafs run a “countryclub atmosphere” is false. From day one of training, head coach Sheldon Keefe preaches “Stanley Cup habits.” The documentary shows how Keefe needs every Leaf to buy in on their mission to win the cup.

Keefe’s nasty side is also shown in All or Nothing. He is not afraid to curse out the team in practice, and he is very blunt. In the series, Keefe calls Jimmy Vesey’s game “vanilla” — meaning simple — to his face. Later, he gets into a heated argument with goalie coach Steve Briere over the performance of Freddy Andersen.

In my opinion, Kyle Dubas, general manager of the Leafs, is best at creating an environment for his players to succeed. All or Nothing shows that just because he creates this environment, it does not mean that there is a country club atmosphere in Toronto. He clearly demands a lot from his players.

Whether he was calling meetings because he was concerned about the fragility of the team after a few losses or trading for Nick Foligno at the trade deadline, Dubas was doing whatever it took to get what the team needed heading into the playoffs.

All or Nothing reminds me why I fell in love with the 2021 Leafs. The great moments from

JESSICA LAM/THEVARSITY

last season were relived: Jack Campbell’s recordbreaking run, Joe Thornton being a Leaf, getting to meet Jason Spezza’s father, Rino, and seeing how ecstatic he is that Spezza plays for the Leafs, and the magical regular seasons that Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner had.

It made it even more heartbreaking when they lost in the playoffs. The team rallied to go up 3–1 against Montreal after John Tavares suffered one of the worst injuries I have ever seen. They had

Montreal in a choke hold until two giveaways in overtime, and then a dud of a game seven whipped away what had been a magical season.

It broke my heart to see Campbell crying while being consoled by Spezza in the dressing room and Matthews and Marner, heads buried in an empty dressing room. Overall, All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs reminded me of why I loved the 2021 Leafs, and it broke my heart to relive the playoffs.

If you are a Leafs fan, it is definitely a must-watch.

Mental Moment: Walking on the path to mindfulness Angad Deol Sports Editor

How taking a stroll can help you find peace of fussing over the last two lines of code on your computer science project, maybe take a stroll down to a local coffee shop and get your favourite drink. Regardless of where you’re going, be sure to take some time for self-care, and get on your feet.

There’s nothing I find more peaceful than going for a nice walk in my neighborhood on a chilly autumn day or a warm summer evening. In my most stressful moments, I have found tranquility in the cold breeze biting my face — maybe I will do well on that midterm tomorrow, but for now, this moment is bliss.

You may not be shocked to discover that evidence suggests walking may in fact be beneficial for your mental health, but if you are shaken by this discovery, The Varsity is here to help break it down.

Benefits of marching down mindfulness lane Walking is great for cardio — that’s a no-brainer — but did you know that walking is also great for your mental health? Turns out, walking is associated with relief from stress, better sleep, and improved stamina. If you grab a friend or two before you head out, walking in groups is also linked to better mood, self-esteem, and can improve bad moods.

In my own experience, I’ve found that taking a step back from the rush of tests, essays, and presentations that come near the end of the semester and taking a step outside for some fresh

ROSALIND LIANG/THEVARSITY

air for about 30 minutes to an hour really helps me get back in a good headspace to continue grinding through my work. Unfortunately, this isn’t my own scientific breakthrough, as research suggests acute exercise — such as walking — can

help you concentrate.

So, if you have a hard time getting in the right headspace to crank out the rest of that essay, maybe head outside and get some fresh air — campus looks lovely this time of the year. Instead

Where can I walk on campus?

If you haven’t noticed, or have decided to become one with the stacks of Robarts, U of T has a gorgeous campus with lots of places to walk.

Philosopher’s Walk is a great place to stretch your legs and soak in some nice views. Maybe you’ll come to an epiphany on this trail like many a student before you.

Not at UTSG? If you’re a UTSC student, try Valley Land Trail. This trail opened in 2019 and has some great scenery. UTM students can tie on their kicks and head to the UTM Nature Trail Loop, which is quite beautiful as well.

All in all, I hope you find the time to get some fresh air before winter really kicks in and the indoors starts to feel a lot better than the outdoors. Walking is clearly good for you, and in times like these, self-care is always important.

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THE VARSITY

NOVEMBER 21, 2021

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