January 18, 2016

INSIDE The formula for an education

Province to change postsecondary funding model News PG 2 to 3

Web withdrawal

A look into the development and effects of Internet addiction Features PG 12

The UniversiTy

of

Refugees and the Canadian identity

The future of basketball

“Relative tolerance” hinders dialogue Comment PG 10

How three-pointers are revolutionizing the game Sports PG 22

ToronTo’s sTUdenT newspaper since 1880

vol. cXXXvi, no. 13 18 JanUary 2016

FOUR ACTS TOOK TO THE STAGE AT LEE’S PALACE LAST THURSDAY FOR U OF T’S BATTLE OF THE BANDS, BUT ONLY ONE WOULD TAKE HOME THE PRIZE PG14

2 NEWS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016 news@thevarsity.ca

PROVINCIAL FUNDING

Issue 13 Vol. CXXXVI

21 SUSSEX AVENUE, SUITE 306 TORONTO ON M5S 1J6 (416) 946-7600

6%

Core Model: Enrolment-based Funding

5%

Donations & Others

Investment Income

40%

Ancillary Fees

MASTHEAD Alec Wilson Editor-in-Chief

editor@thevarsity.ca

James Flynn Managing Online Editor

online@thevarsity.ca

Margaux Parker Creative Director

Recommended changes centre around student outcomes, support differentiation 1%

thevarsity.ca thevarsitynewspaper @TheVarsity the.varsity thevarsitynewspaper

Sarah Niedoba Managing Editor

Ontario to update university funding model

10%

International Tuition Fees

Operating Revenue of Ontatrio Universities

by Source,

managing@thevarsity.ca

2013 - 2014

creative@thevarsity.ca

Sean Smith Senior Copy Editor

copy@thevarsity.ca

Iris Robin News Editor

news@thevarsity.ca

Victoria Wicks Comment Editor

comment@thevarsity.ca

Alex McKeen Features Editor

features@thevarsity.ca

Jacob Lorinc Arts and Culture Editor

Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Grants

2%

Other Ontario Grants

arts@thevarsity.ca

Nadezhda Woinowsky-Krieger Science Editor science@thevarsity.ca Emma Kikulis Sports Editor

sports@thevarsity.ca

Lisa Wong Design Editor

design@thevarsity.ca

Mallika Makkar Photo Editor

photo@thevarsity.ca

Julien Balbontin Illustrations Editor Shaq Hosein Video Editor Damian Klambauer Web Developer

Undergraduate Accessibility Grant

Medical & Nursing Related Grant

$122M (3%)

$61M (2%)

Graduate Expansion Grant

Teacher Education Grant

$100M (3%)

$41M (1%)

Access (First Gen, Bilingualism, Aboriginal, Disabilities

Other Grants

$39M (1%)

$16M (0.5%)

Institution Specific Grants

Northern Ontario Grant

performance funding

$2,623M (75%)

$154.3M (4%)

General Quality Grant and Performance

video@thevarsity.ca web@thevarsity.ca Teodora Pasca Associate Comment Editor

Nathan Chan Associate Photo Editor

Jaren Kerr Associate Features Editor

Elham Numan and Diana Pham Associate Illustration Editors

Corey Van Den Hoogenbend Associate A&C Editor

Salvatore Basilone Associate Video Editor

Shahin Imtiaz and Shaan Bambra Associate Science Editors Vacant Associate Sports Editor

Devika Desai, Emily Johnpulle and Tom Yun Associate News Editors Lead Fact Checkers Ujwal Ganguly and Sigrid Roman Copy Editors Lucas Bennett, Isabela Borges, Jacob Lorinc, Kieran Buckingham, Nyima Gyalmo, Arin Klein, Darya Kuznetsova, Evan Maude, Saranja Neelananthasivam, Lauren Park, Hunter Sleeth, and Gabriel Wee Designers Chloe Somjee, Amy Wang, and Laura Wang

BUSINESS OFFICE Parsa Jebely Business Manager

Basic Operating GRant

illustration@thevarsity.ca

Mubashir Baweja Associate Design Editor

Sonali Gill and Ariel Gomes Associate Senior Copy Editors

$150M (4%)

Special Purpose and other grants

36%

Domestic Tuition Fees

$194M (6%)

business@thevarsity.ca

Cherlene Tay Business Associate Michelle Monteiro Advertising Executive The Varsity is the University of Toronto's largest student newspaper, publishing since 1880. The Varsity has a circulation of 20,000, and is published by Varsity Publications Inc. It is printed by Master Web Inc. on recycled newsprint stock.

Content © 2015 by The Varsity. All rights reserved. Any editorial inquiries and/or letters should be directed to the sections associated with them; emails listed above. The Varsity reserves the right to edit all submissions.

Inquiries regarding ad sales can be made to ads@ thevarsity.ca. ISSN: 0042-2789

EMILY JOHNPULLE

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

The government of Ontario is developing a new funding strategy for the distribution of operating grants to universities across the province, in an effort to achieve a more “sustainable, transparent, and student-centered” model.

A report was released in December 2015, which outlines the recommendations made to the provincial government after former deputy minister Sue Herbert led a consultation with students, faculty, employers, and post-secondary leaders that began in March 2015.

The report recommends that the new funding formula be guided by student outcomes, support differentiation among institutions, be informed by validated data, and allow for institutions to plan long-term. The current funding model has been in place since 1967.

“This model distributes different proportions of funding based on a few different categories, such as enrolment basis, quality and performance and of course, ‘special purposes,’” said Zak Pageta spokesperson for Reza Moridi, the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. The current model is largely based on enrolment; grants are provided to institutions to support both historical and new enrolments.

In a 2013 report, Ontario acknowledged the need to change cost structures in order “to protect the gains of the last ten years, and to ensure that Ontario’s postsecondary education continues to enjoy a productive and promising future.” Ontario universities recieved $3.5 billion in grants from the provincial government, which account for 40 per cent of their operating revenues — their greatest source of revenue followed by domestic and international tuition fees. Operating grants have increased by 80 percent since the academic year 2002–2003.”

“For the 2014/15 academic year, the University of Toronto received more than $654 million in operating funding, which was a 69 per cent increase over 2002/03 levels,” said Paget. “It is time to fund universities in a way that reflects the twenty-first century learning environment,” added Paget.

STUDENT OUTCOMES AND DATA COLLECTION The recommendation proposes that funding should be focused on improving student outcomes and experience and only be earned through a university’s successful performance.

A model of measuring and assessing learning outcomes would be a condition of funding that becomes phased in over time.

As a starting point, the report states that the focus should be on undergraduate student success as well as factors such as employment outcomes, graduation, learning outcomes, timeto-completion, and labour market preparedness. Currently, some funds are allotted based on an institution’s performance but they are “too small to reinforce a culture of continuous improvement.” A lack of data hampers the government’s ability to measure student outcomes.

To address this, the report suggests the creation of central data collection by the government that is transparent and readily available to the public. Additionally, generating comprehensive data would help students understand what they have learned and help the government understand what skills are being cultivated by the institutions they support. The report advises that funding give equal weight to teaching and research by supporting experiential learning and research opportunities for undergraduate students. Stakeholders expressed that the new funding model should also recognize the role of sessional and non-academic staff in its efforts to support quality learning.

SUPPORTING DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN UNIVERSITIES Although many universities within the province share similar needs, the report claims that there are greater benefits to recognizing the distinctions between universities through a differentiated funding policy. The report states that if each university has a unique mission and is supported through differentiated funding, the new model could provide long-term stability and help universities focus on their strengths. During consultation, stakeholders expressed that resources are needed to support institutions that excel in specific disciplines as well as support regional and linguistic diversity in the province.

THE MINISTRY’S ROLE AND NEXT STEPS While universities will remain autonomous, the consultation suggested that the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities should work with universities to understand program costs, monitor institutional financial health, and have a greater role in enrolment planning as the needs of province changes. As the funding model is set to change, however, the amount of funding given to universities will remain the same. “The government signalled in its consultation document that funding is expected to remain stable,” said Paget. As a new funding model is developed, Ontario will review the report and continue to work with university stakeholders.

“The results will be carefully considered in the development of the final funding formula model, which will involve detailed design work that is based on clear goals and objectives that are shared by government and our sector partners,” said Paget.

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

NEWS 3

var.st/news

SOCIAL JUSTICE

U of T Divest event disrupted by Jewish Defense League Organizers urge U of T administration to step up safety on campus TOM YUN

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

An event advertised under the name “Palestinian Popular Resistance: Building the Student Movement,” hosted by U of T Divest, the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTSU) adhoc committee on Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) received criticism from several Jewish community groups, one of which interrupted the event entirely on January 12.

The event, held at the George Ignatieff Theatre, featured speakers Noura Erakat (via Skype), a human rights lawyer and assistant professor at George Mason University, and Nada Elia, an Iraqi-born Palestinian who works with the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

“Our event highlighted the ongoing human rights crisis facing the Palestinian people in Palestine and Israel,” said Omar Sirri, a spokesperson for U of T Divest. “The persistent violations of international law by the Israeli state have led to renewed forms of popular resistance by Palestinians. Our event sought to educate the campus community about the dire conditions facing Palestinians.”

“Support is only growing for our campaign calling on the University of Toronto to divest from companies profiting from violations of international law and war crimes against Palestinians. The success of our event is a testament to that,” Sirri said.

Various Jewish organizations ended up criticizing the event. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) put out a press release, stating that such events are “offensive and strike a deep nerve within our community.”

CIJA also disputed the claim that the BDS movement was gaining momentum, citing the rejection of an ad-hoc BDS committee by the UTSU’s Board of Directors over the summer of 2015.

Hillel U of T, the local chapter of the world’s largest Jewish campus organization, sent a complaint to the vice provost’s office regarding the event.

“We were disgusted by the name and by the content of the event,” said Hillel U of T co-president Rachel Benezrah. “The recent wave of violence being perpetrated against innocent Israeli civilians is being labeled as legitimate ‘popular resistance’ acts by Palestinian leadership. Hillel felt that it was important to make our position known to the University of Toronto administration.”

Most notably, members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) were present at the event and there was a heavy police presence outside the venue. The group advertised the event on their website and Facebook page, in which they characterized the event as a “call to murder Jews.”

After the event began, it did not take long for JDL members to heckle the speakers.

“Okay, this is outrageous!” shouted Meir Weinstein, the national director for JDL Canada. “This is incitement to murder Jews!” he yelled. Other JDL members vocally criticized the speakers as being antiSemites during the event.

JDL members continued to shout throughout Erakat’s address. The organizers implemented a three-strikes policy, where an attendee would be asked to leave after three outbursts. Despite this policy, none of the JDL members who had accu-

mulated three strikes left, nor were they forcibly removed by campus police.

Anticipating disruptive behaviour, the organizers had a room at OISE ready as an alternative location. Halfway through the event, the other attendees were asked to leave the theatre and were notified to head down to OISE 5170, where the event continued without further disruptions.

The JDL did not respond to The Varsity’s requests for comment. On Facebook, however, Weinstein declared their protest a success.

“The pro terrorism meeting at U of T had to be moved. JDL was successful. They moved to OISE on Bloor Street and the room was to small and not setup for video [sic]. Most people left.”

Sirri, however, said that the JDL’s violent efforts failed. “The JDL’s violent disruption is yet another attempt by this hate group to shut down any discussion of the plight of the Palestinian people… The JDL’s failed attempt to shut our event down is just a microcosm of the Zionist disrupion, aggression, violence, and attempts at erasure that Palestinians face daily,” he said.

Sirri also took issue with the claim that the event represented an incitement to anti-Semitic violence. “Our work to affirm Palestinian human rights promotes life, an end to violence and an end to all forms of discrimination. This can only be done by addressing the root causes of the conflict, namely the brutal system of occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism advanced by the Israeli state. Any suggestion otherwise is a racist, bigoted attempt to discredit the work of activists supporting Palestinian human rights,” he said.

WHAT IS THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE? The JDL is a far-right pro-Israel Jewish organization. The group was founded in 1968 by American-Israeli rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City, who also served on the Israeli Knesset.

In the past four decades, members of the JDL in the US were connected to various bombings of Soviet diplomatic offices, the assassination of Arab-American activist Alex Odeh, and conspiracies to murder suspected Neo-Nazis and Nazi collaborators. In 2001, the FBI classified the group as a right-wing terrorist group.

The Israeli political party that was founded

by Kahane was also banned in Israel, as its members were connected to the killing of 29 Palestinians.

Many pro-Palestine activists consider the JDL a hate group and mainstream Jewish organizations have largely repudiated the group.

Benezrah told The Varsity that Hillel urged the administration to make sure campus police was present at the event and distanced her group from the JDL. “Hillel and JDL did not communicate in any way prior or during this event,” said Benezrah. CIJA has also previously rebuked the JDL, saying that “the Jewish community doesn’t need the Jewish Defense League.”

The JDL are no strangers to the university.

In October 2014, another event held by U of T Divest was disrupted by the group. That event was also moved to a different location after the disruptions.

After that event, Sirri noted that U of T Divest was better prepared for this year’s event. “[We’re] able to learn from these experiences and adjust accordingly,” he said.

The U of T Divest event on BDS was packed to capacity on January 12. PHOTO COURTESY OF OMAR SIRRI

CALLS ON THE ADMINISTRATION Prior to the event, the university’s Office of the Vice President, Human Resources & Equity sent a letter to the JDL, urging the group to comply with the law and the university’s policies.

“If members of your organization fail to comply with university policies, the university may issue a Notice of Trespass or general ban on members of the JDL, as well as pursuing whatever legal remedies it deems appropriate,” read a portion of the letter.

Sirri called upon the university administration to ensure the safety and security of students and faulty.

“The question really is: To what extent is the University Administration committed to ensuring the safety and security of students and faculty engaging in academic debate? If

the University Administration claims to stand against all forms of oppression and violence, then it clearly must do more to address acts of intimidation and threats of violence — which itself is a form of violence — against members of the campus community,” Sirri said.

Althea Blackburn-Evans, the university’s director of news & media relations, said that the university was disappointed in the conduct of some of the attendees and would be looking into the matter.

“We recognize that there are strong views on our campuses and those views may be disconcerting or even offensive to some. It is our clearly and frequently articulated expectation that discussion and debate on such issues take place in a civil and respectful environment,” said Blackburn-Evans.

4 NEWS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016 news@thevarsity.ca

ACADEMICS

George Elliott Clarke named Canada’s poet laureate U of T professor on race, political inspiration, and upcoming initiatives AHMED-ZAKI HAGAR VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

George Elliott Clarke is the first African-Canadian to be parliamentary poet laureate. PHOTO COURTESY OF GEORGE ELLIOT CLARKE

George Elliott Clarke, University of Toronto professor has been appointed the new Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate.

The acclaimed poet became the seventh person and the first African-Canadian to hold the position in its 14-year history. “This is a great honour, a great privilege,” Clarke told The Varsity. “There are 35 million Canadians and counting; and now, I have a special role... to try to encapsulate the collective dreams and ideals and hopes of 35 million Canadians.”

Clarke adds, “I know we’re not supposed to think of it as... representing the people in some way, but I do.”

The selection was made by a committee, based on the recommendation of parliamentary librarian Sonia L’Heureux and others. A public statement by Geoff Regan, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and George Furrey, the Speaker of the Senate, announced the new poet laureate on January 5.

The 55-year old Clarke previously served as Toronto’s poet laureate since his appointment in 2012. His successor,

author Anne Michaels, was announced last December.

According to the Library of Parliament, the role of the parliamentary poet laureate is to “encourage and promote the importance of literature, culture, and language in Canadian society.” The position was created to “draw Canadians’ attention to poetry, both spoken and written, and its role in our lives.”

“George Elliott Clarke has been a true ambassador of the work of Canadian poets,” said Furey in a public statement. “His contribution to Canada’s cultural fabric is exceptional.”

“His talent as poet, playwright, and literary critic is undeniable,” said Regan. “He is an immensely versatile and engaging writer and will bring great honour to the position.”

BIOGRAPHY From Windsor, Nova Scotia, Clarke is a seventh-generation Canadian of African-American and Mi’kmaq Amerindian heritage. His lineage traces back to a group of Chesapeake Bay slaves, freed by the British during the war of 1812 and sought refuge in Nova Scotia.

Continued on PG 5

STUDENT LIFE

Victoria College dean postpones traditional Gardiner Gala Students express long-standing frustration with administration EMILY JOHNPULLE

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

The Gardiner Gala, an annual event held at Victoria College to celebrate the relationship between the college and the Gardiner Museum, was postponed last week, which caught Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council (VUSAC) off guard.

For the past three years, VUSAC has planned the event in cooperation with the Office of the Dean of Students at Victoria College. This year, however, VUSAC lost touch with the Dean’s Office during the month of December.

The office was responsible for communicating and handling contracts with the gardiner.

VUSAC nonetheless continued to plan the event. “There was a break in communication between parties when we needed to maintain that. If there had been a plan about what had to be done things would have worked out differently, but there seemed to be a breakdown in communication,” said Stuart Norton, VUSAC’s scarlet & gold commissioner.

On January 4, following the winter break, the Dean’s Office assured VUSAC the event would still occur on January 14. The next day, however, VUSAC received an email from the Dean’s Office stating the event had to be postponed. “VUSAC representatives did not know why the event was postponed and felt they were not given enough notice or clarification. That wasn’t seen as appropriate,” said VUSAC co-president Benjamin Atkins.

VUSAC released a statement on Facebook — without agreement from the Dean’s Office who wanted to approve the statement beforehand — explaining the situation to students.

“The dean helps with monetary contributions

and supports us, but we are not the same. We are accountable to students and I’m concerned with creating space to ask questions,” said Norton, who did not want to censor the situation.

Within the week, VUSAC met with the dean, who confirmed the office was late ordering catering and that they did not want to agree to the package that the Gardiner offered, which would cost $40 per person. The office decided to postpone the event, but were also willing to provide an alternative semi-formal event for students at the Goldring Student Centre.

“The Dean’s Office is covering the cost of an alternative event on Thursday, which is very kind of them, and we’ll still be holding the Gardiner Gala sometime this semester,” said Norton. “The initial reaction from students was anger, frustration and disappointment,” said Atkins. “VUSAC is grateful that the dean is covering a new event but students were left bewildered.”

“I think the future for us, we have to make sure we are not cut off from the Dean’s Office,” added Norton. “We’re trying to rework how we work together and how the two organizations can come together to provide programming for students.”

ISSUES WITH THE DEAN’S OFFICE “This event fits into a larger narrative of the Dean’s Office as being overinvolved in student affairs and not committed to student interests,” said Auni Ahsan, a third-year Victoria College student. “We have this body that doesn’t consult students but puts policy in place that makes it difficult for students to hold events here. When you look at the Dean’s Office, it is an ivory tower that is not trans-

Victoria College holds an annual gala organized by the students and the Dean’s Office. YASSINE ELBARADIE/THE VARSITY

parent about where money is going,” Ahsan added. “Last year they built another wall that made the only accessible washroom available only by elevator. Did they consult students about it? No.” When Jenna*, a Victoria College student, was sexually assaulted on campus last year, she felt mistreated by associates of the Dean’s Office. “I had to (painstakingly) repeat what had happened at least five times that night before going to the hospital, despite being overwhelmed and wanting nothing more than to go to bed.. I felt there was more attention paid to spreading ‘awareness’ about what had happened (even that night) than was paid to making sure I was okay.” A few days after the incident, Jenna saw a post about the assault on

Facebook, and although she was aware of the importance of warning the student body, she was not notified about the post beforehand.

“There are issues with confidentiality, issues with taking responsibility, and issues with actually listening to and having respect for the students under their purview. I understand that mistakes are made and information leaks sometimes, but I could have had been given an apology.”

“I think what occurred with the Gardiner Gala and my experiences reflect an overall inadequacy at the Dean’s Office,” added Jenna.

The Office of the Dean at Victoria College declined to comment. *Name changed at student’s request.

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

NEWS 5

var.st/news

ACADEMICS CONTINUED FROM PG 4

Clarke received his bachelor of arts in English from the University of Waterloo in 1984, his master of arts from Dalhousie in 1989, and his PhD from Queen’s University in 1993. He went on to teach English and Canadian studies at Duke University from 1994 to 1999. He was also the visiting Seagrams chair in Canadian studies at McGill from 1998 to 1999.

Clarke worked as a parliamentary aide at the House of Commons for MP and civil rights activist Howard McCurdy from 1987 to 1991. He was also a social worker and legislative researcher at Queen’s Park between 1982 and 1983. He was appointed as the inaugural E.J. Pratt professor of Canadian literature at U of T in 2003, where he taught Canadian and African diasporic literature.

POETIC PAST Clarke’s work delves into many topics, including race, social justice, and governance.

He writes poetry, prose fiction, and opera.

“As a black youth in the 1960s and 1970s in Halifax, I was very aware of lots of movements of various peoples to get more equality and get more justice and that had a huge impact on me,” Clarke said.

He coined the term ‘Africadian’ to refer to black culture from the maritimes. Clarke believes the difference between black culture in Atlantic Canada and the rest of the country is the “long history of distinct settlement” that has brought a culture that is “distinct and unique.”

“So Africadians [or] Black Nova Scotians, had no choice but to grow up or survive as a distinct culture from the rest of Nova Scotia because our communities were positioned outside of larger white villages and towns,” Clarke said. “And that was done on purpose, so that the black populations had to work for cheap wages for white employers in nearby towns.”

In 2002, he was awarded the Governor General’s Award for Poetry for his work Execution Poems. The poems are based around two of Clarke’s ancestors who were executed for murder in 1949.

He has received honorary degrees from Dalhousie, The University of Waterloo, Saint Mary’s University, the University of Windsor, the Royal Military College, and the University of New Brunswick for recognition of his work. Clarke was named the William Lyon Mackenzie King visiting professor of Canadian studies at Harvard University in 2013.

Clarke’s upcoming novel, The Motorcyclist, is based on the diary of Charles Fletcher, a Nova Scotian who went from being a janitor to becoming Harvard’s first black professor.

Clarke found Fletcher’s story during his time at Harvard.

From having his poetry as part of the official Magna Carta exhibit, to writing a poem for Toronto City Hall, Clarke said of being Toronto’s poet laureate that “it was a great experience, I truly enjoyed trying to represent the people of Toronto at various events and the poems that I wrote for City Council, that I read to City Council every April, I got to address City Council.”

RACE IN CANADA One of the recurring themes in Clarke’s poetry is race, extending to experiences of being black in Canada. “Questions of police maltreatment in Canada have a long history, going back decades, even centuries,” Clarke said, noting the police brutality that Indigenous peoples also experience. “The

continued activists and scholars who are activists, calling to attention of deficiencies in the justice apparatus of the nation is a good thing.” Students at many North American universities, including U of T have taken to the streets, holding protests on their campuses. Students of colour have been protesting against institutional racism and pressuring university administration to rectify issues such as a lack of diversity training and to commit to employing a diverse faculty.

“Speaking as a professor, anything that makes students feel more comfortable in fulfilling their studies... has to be a good thing,” Clarke said. “If that means more equity training, then possibly that is what it should be.”

In February of last year, Clarke publicly supported for the students of Mount Allison University, who had protested against the racial discrimination they experienced at their campus.

A MULTICULTURAL CANADA One of Clarke’s heroes is Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Clarke wrote a play in 2007 called Trudeau: Long March/Shining Path that focused on the personality of the former prime minister.

In a 2010 interview, Clarke referred to “the Trudeau who appeals to me is the person who represents multiculturalism and projects these values to Canada and the world,” adding, “we don’t see diversity as strange or unusual, or dangerous, which partly a legacy of Pierre Trudeau.” Clarke goes on to say that, “if you had the experience of traveling, as he did in 1948 and ’49, deliberately so that you can experience different cultures and different ways human beings have organized themselves to live. You can’t come away with the provincial attitude, that ‘only our way of life is the very best’ and ‘only our way of doing things count as being right and civilized and humane.’”

As the parliamentary poet laureate of Justin Trudeau’s government, Clarke emphasized the importance of Canadians supporting Canada’s multiculturalism. “I think all of us are promoting multiculturalism, including all the opposition parties,” Clarke said. “This prime minister, like all the prime ministers before him, including Mr. Harper, need to respond conditions as they are right now... regardless of the directives of the past or the ideals of the past, the past as a guide, but it cannot let it dictate solutions to current issues. In other words, the current prime minister must be free to conduct government in the best interest of Canadians and voters.”

CANADA IN POEMS For the next two years as parliamentary poet laureate, Clarke has a line up of initiatives for his tenure. Among his plans is the creation of a database of Canadian poetry in celebration of the 150-year anniversary of the confederation of the country.

“By July 1, 2017, I would like there to be a program to be in place, whereby Canadians will have sent to the Library of Parliament or their respected MPs lists of poets and poems that they believe represent their particular neighbourhood, city, province,” Clarke said. “Almost any particular poet could be represented by poems in different parts of the country, which I think helps make it a national project, a national treasury of Canadian poetry in both official languages, which is what I’m looking for.”

U of T senior research fellow named Forbes’ Top 30 Under 30 Claudio Guarnieri on his win in enterprise technology

Claudio Guarnieri is one of 600 people on the Forbes Top 30 Under 30 list. PHOTO COURTESY OF CLAUDIO GUARNIERI

EMMA COMPEAU VARSITY STAFF

Every year, Forbes magazine recognizes 600 individuals under the age of 30 who are changing the world at the forefront of their sector. In the latest installment of the Top 30 Under 30, Claudio Guarnieri, senior research fellow at the University of Toronto, earned a spot in the Enterprise Technology sector.

Aside from his position at the Citizen Lab at U of T, Guarnieri is the creator of opensource malware analysis tools Cuckoo Sandbox, Viper, and malwr.com. This year marks Guarnieri’s second nomination for the award, having been previously nominated in the law and policy sector. Guarnieri told The Varsity that he was surprised to win in the field of enterprise technology, as his work does not relate directly to enterprise. He views the win, however, as recognition from mainstream media for the work of the Citizen Lab and its impact beyond its direct sphere of influence.

Guarnieri is a graduate from the University of Milan and is a remote senior research fellow with the Citizen Lab, housed at the Munk School of Global Affairs.

The Citizen Lab uses interdisciplinary research and skills to make international information publicly available, with recent reports focusing on Iraq information controls, China’s Great Cannon, and Vimeo blocks in Indonesia. “I focus on investigating and reporting on targeted digital attacks against activists, dissidents, and journalists around the world.

The Citizen Lab is [an] inter-disciplinary laboratory that bridges technical research with

political analysis,” said Guarnieri on his work. “[The Citizen Lab] is a very unique place where people with very diverse backgrounds come together to produce some of the most outstanding and revealing research projects in technical and internet policy communities.”

Guarnieri works in this capacity alongside Morgan Marquis-Boire, John Scott Railton, and Bill Marczak to spearhead initiatives that expose information about the commercial spyware market.

Citizen Lab director Ron Deibert said that “Claudio is an extraordinary researcher and a very gifted malware analyst with a strong commitment to human rights. This mix of characteristics is exactly what we aim to attract at the Citizen Lab.” When asked what the future holds for him, Guarnieri said that he intends to “keep fighting the fight, exposing oppression and oppressors, and making it more costly for them to hinder social change through digital means.”

The rigorous selection process for the Top 30 Under 30 begins with open online nominations on both social media and the Forbes website, in which over 15,000 individuals were nominated this year. Of the nominees, 600 earn top spots in the competition’s 20 different categories. Upon making it to the final round, contestants are interviewed by a judging panel comprised of Forbes reporters and experts in various fields, including TaNehisi Coates and Sarah Jessica Parker, who make the final decision.

6 NEWS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016 news@thevarsity.ca

STUDENT LIFE

SCSU, APUS rally for UTSC shuttle bus Two unions provide a free day of bus service as part of their campaign TOM YUN

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

The Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) and the Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students (APUS) are lobbying the University of Toronto administration to provide a permanent shuttle bus service between UTSC and the St. George campus.

The two unions pooled their resources to run a free shuttle service on January 13.

The bus made three round trips between the two campuses. “We had a really great turnout,” said Yasmin Rajabi, SCSU vice president, external. “Our buses were at capacity going to the St. George Campus. Many students actually could not get on the bus due to such high demand.” Rajabi told The Varsity that because of the growing number of students at the Scarborough campus, many UTSC students have resorted to studying or taking classes at the St. George campus due to a lack of space at UTSC. She also noted that UTSC students pay for services available at the St. George campus, such as Hart House and academic resources. “We pay some of the highest tuition fees in Canada, and deserve a basic service like a shuttle bus in return,” said Rajabi.

A shuttle between UTSC and UTSG ran more than a decade ago, but the service was discontinued due to low demand. Currently, such a service only exists between UTM and the St. George campus. The shuttle bus is free of charge for UTM students, who fund the

service with an annual fee; each ride costs $6 for non-UTM students.

Although U of T’s Governing Council discussed the prospect of reviving the UTSC shuttle in 2013 and 2014, UTSC chief administrative officer Andrew Arifuzzaman told The Varsity that the university has no plans to re-implement a shuttle service for UTSC. He explained that the shuttle between UTM and the St. George is viable because UTM is in the City of Mississauga, which is not connected to the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). The UTSG-UTM shuttle service has the ability to take members of the public on the bus, which means there is a ‘business case’ for the service.

“The university should be more creative in developing business cases,” said Rajabi, noting that York University provides a shuttle service funded by the university’s operating budget between the Keele and Glendon campuses, both of which are within the City of Toronto.

“The University of Toronto can look to York University as a leader in providing this essential service.”

Arifuzzaman also pointed out the prevalence of traffic congestion along the Don Valley Parkway and said that a shuttle bus would be “not much faster than what you currently have around bus connections.”

“During our shuttle bus campaign event we actually timed the buses for the very same reason,” said Rajabi. According to Rajabi, the trip between the two campuses took 30 minutes during non-peak hours and a maximum of

APUS and the SCSU provided a one-day free shuttle from UTSG to UTSC to lobby for a permanent service. MAISHA ISLAM/THE VARSITY

one hour during rush hour. “The TTC alternative... is a significantly longer ride. Students have stated countless times that the commute between the campuses is very mentally and physically draining. I encourage administrators to take the TTC between campuses to better understand the reality of students, TAs, and faculty,” Rajabi said.

Arifuzzaman explained that the university would continue to work with the TTC to improve public transit in the area. He pointed out the 198 U of T Scarborough Rocket,

which is an express bus route launched last year that travels between Kennedy Station and UTSC. “ ...[T]hat, for us, has seen a significant improvement from what was previously here,” said Arifuzzaman. “We continue to work with the TTC to see if there are any further improvement that we can make on that bus line to reduce the number of stops that exist between the campus and the subway station. And we’re also very active in the City of Toronto in trying to advocate for additional bus routes.”

NEWS ANALYSIS

It’s getting hot in here A look at the progress and pitfalls of the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference SHAAN BHAMBRA VARSITY STAFF

At the tail end of 2015, the world’s leaders met in Paris to discuss the growing issue of global climate change at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The conference, also known as the twenty-first “Conference of the Parties” to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, successfully ended with the creation of the Paris Agreement.

The agreement binds 55 parties, which account for 55 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. It aims to hold global temperature increases to below 1.5 degrees Celsius worldwide. With China and India continuing to rapidly industrialize, and the continuation of high per capita carbon emissions in the West, this agreement sets some ambitious targets.

While the conference was arguably successful in setting measurable goals, critics have called the targets unrealistic. Citing the failures of 1997’s Kyoto Protocol, and the slow adoption of green technology worldwide, many experts have their doubts about whether this new agreement will succeed where other agreements have failed.

Recently, a group of University of Toronto students were selected as delegates for the conference. Larissa Parker, a fourth-year U

The COP 21 conference featured a session called “Earth to Paris.” PHOTO COURTESY OF LARISSA PARKER

of T student studying ethics, society and law, environmental studies, and political science, was one such delegate.

“Overall, I believe that the meeting was a success,” said Parker. “It is impossible to ignore the fact that this was really the first time that a vast majority of countries agreed on a binding agreement and collectively responded to the urgency of tackling climate change in an organized and respectful manner.”

The agreement has also been criticized for imposing restrictions on countries that are

becoming increasingly industrialized. These countries need energy to power their industrialization, and are pointing towards the historical abuse of fossil fuels by high-income countries as a pathway for success.

When asked about the fairness of the declarations made by the agreement to low-income countries, Parker pointed out that the declarations are, in some respects, fair. Parker also noted that the warming target of 1.5 degrees Celsius was “a huge victory for the developing world, and particularly small island states

who passionately argued that two degrees was not enough to save their nations from natural disasters such as floods and droughts.”

The conference discussed the possibility of global partnerships, whereby more industrialized countries would work to alleviate the effect of climate change in less industrialized countries. One of the proposals is to compensate lower-income countries for the economic losses they may incur due to the destruction of their natural ecosystems, with funding coming from countries that have polluted the most.

“Many states like the US and Canada however, were uncomfortable with ‘liability and compensation,’” Parker said. This led to a “footnote in the agreement specifying that loss and damage would not involve liability or compensation.”

Even with all of the high hopes for this agreement, critics around the world still question whether these targets are attainable. “Although the agreement is the most ambitious and cooperative text to tackle climate change that the world has ever seen, it is clear that the targets that each country has put forward, when added up together, do not reach 1.5 or even two degrees. In fact, with the current targets, the world is looking at around three degrees of warming,” Parker said.

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

NEWS 7

var.st/news

PROVINCIAL FUNDING

Ontario gives $18.3 million for development of MaRS tower U of T, Jlabs to support biotech startups DEVIKA DESAI

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

The MaRS research centre on College Street. YASSINE ELBARADIE/THE VARSITY

The collaboration between Johnson & Johnson Innovation (Jlabs) and the University of Toronto to build biotech startups is coming to fruition. After receiving $18.3 million out of the $19.4 million that the Ontario government agreed to invest in the project, U of T has commenced the process of fitting a floor in the MaRS west tower. Jlabs primarily focuses on supporting early-stage companies by offering resources that range from core research facilities to opportunities for venture capital funding.

“Our role is sublicensing the space to Jlabs, signing the space license agreements for each company looking for space,” said Scott Mabury, vice president, university operations at U of T. Mabury outlined the plans for construction, stating that the university plans on using the thirteenth floor leased to them by MaRS to construct a space for Jlabs. He also explained the conditions of the funding, mentioning that the space will consist of 40,000 square feet to be used in creating labs, meeting rooms, offices, and other collaborative spaces.

The funding will also be used for instruments and equipment.

“The agreement is for five years,” said Mabury, adding that, “after five years, there will be a peer review, like how we review

divisions and departments here at U of T, led by the province that will assess the progress to date, how many companies have been created, mentored, and what the potential is for the next five years.” It is Mabury’s hope that they will be able to sustain “ten years of robust activity.”

U of T students who run startups will use the space. “We currently already have nine campus-led accelerators, entities that work with students across the boards in entrepreneurships, engineering, around the creation of the companies, and around mentoring and advising entrepreneurships,” Mabury said. He estimates that there are probably already around 200 companies in these accelerators, which places increased pressure on the project.

The remaining $1.1 million will support the operation of the lab. According to Mabury this money will not go to the university — instead it will go directly to MaRS innovation.

“This particular investment was made through the Strategic Partnerships Stream of the Jobs and Prosperity Fund — a stream designed to encourage open innovation technology partnerships that will allow companies, research institutions, suppliers, investors, and customers to work together and establish industry-driven strategies,” said officials at the Ministry of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure, in an email to The Varsity.

NEWS IN BRIEF U OF T WAR MEMORIAL VANDALIZED

YORK UNIVERSITY ACCIDENTALLY ACCEPTS 500 STUDENTS

CAMPUS POLICE INVESTIGATE DECEMBER SEXUAL ASSAULT

YORK U STUDENT WINS MENTAL HEALTH CASE

The Soldier’s Memorial Slype at St. Michael’s College (SMC) was vandalized on January 11. Part of the memorial was found covered in green paint. The memorial is located in the tunnel between SMC residences More House and Fisher House, which connects the SMC quad with Queen’s Park Crescent.

Names of SMC students and alumni who died during the World Wars and the Korean War are etched onto its sandstone walls.

The area has since been cleaned. Toronto Police Services and Campus Police are currently investigating the matter.

York University accidentally sent out emails to 500 students last week informing them that they had been accepted into the university.

A day after sending the acceptance emails, the university sent those same 500 students an apology email stating a mistake had been made and that they have not been admitted into the university.

The university explains the mistake was a result of a processing error, which occurred immediately after sending emails to students acknowledging that their applications had been received.

The 500 students have been informed that their applications are under review and offers will be made when grades are received in mid to late February.

The University of Toronto Campus Police are investigating an incident of sexual assault that occurred on December 30, 2015.

According to a Campus Police news release shared on January 13, the assault occurred at 3:00 pm in the Spadina Avenue and College Street area. A 23-year-old woman was walking in the area when a male allegedly approached her and started a conversation.

The man then pulled the woman into an alcove and sexually assaulted her before fleeing eastbound on College Street.

The suspect is described as in his late 20s to early 30s, around 5’7”, and 140 pounds with an olive complexion, black hair, and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a blue trackstyle jacket with wide white stripes down the sleeves and a blue emblem on the left chest area. The release also described him as wearing a ring on the little finger of his left hand.

The release appeals for anyone with any information pertaining to the incident to contact the police.

After a two-year fight between York University and Navi Dhanota, a York PhD student in critical disabilities, an Ontario Human Rights commission settlement was reached last week.

The decision allows students to request academic accommodations without having to disclose their specific mental health disabilities.

The fight began when Dhanota filed a human rights complaint against York after she was asked to give a specific mental health disability in order to apply for academic support.

Once a settlement was reached, Dhanota worked alongside the ARCH disability law centre, the university, and the commission to create new guidelines for accessing academic support at the university.

While the school still requires an assessment from a licensed doctor to confirm the student’s condition, there is now no longer a need to label the condition itself. The guidelines also include interim accommodation for students waiting to be assessed.

Dhanota and Human Rights commissioner Renu Madhane said that they feel positive about the new changes. Marc Wilchesky, executive director of counseling and disability services at York University, is concerned about how the developments might impact the department’s ability to help students.

— Tom Yun With files from Metro News

— Emily Johnpulle With files from CBC News

— Emily Colero

— Devika Desai With files from Toronto Star

8 ADVERTISEMENT

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016 news@thevarsity.ca

COMMENT var.st/comment

18 January 2016

comment@thevarsity.ca

Not just a hobby

ELHAM NUMAN/THE VARSITY

The arts have the ability to educate, not just entertain

R

JACOB LORINC

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

ather than write an essay for my American To raise awareness of the actions committed by indicted war Rubin Carter, a middleweight boxer wrongfully convicted politics class, I spent last Sunday binge-watching criminal and on-the-lamb militia leader Joseph Kony. The of a triple murder. Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing brought the first half of Making A Murderer. Now, roughly plan was to have him arrested by the year’s end. The video to light the cruel realities of police brutality in Brooklyn.

10-and-a-half hours later, I’ve learned more about broke the Internet, spreading across the web like wildfire until You likely have a friend who’s been a vegetarian since the the American criminal justice system than I ever did from it reached around 100 million views and nearly 1.4 million day they watched Food Inc. or Cowspiracy. The list goes on. any of my classes. likes on YouTube.

The thing about videos like Kony 2012 or songs about This is not to say that my classes haven’t tried to provide Sure, the documentary ended up being a dupe, but for a wrongfully convicted criminals is that they hold a unique me with this knowledge, but lectures are dull and rarely while it had you convinced. However faulty the video may ability to formulate your values, beliefs, and general state of form a lasting impression. What isn’t dull, however, is film. have been, it’s a textbook example of the power that art bears. awareness regarding the world around you. Art is a medium And perhaps that’s why I learned more from the first season Thanks to the swelling violin, a motivational narrator, and the that relays information to the public, but in a way that’s of Making A Murderer than I did from the first semester of ability to present the issue in a rather mesmerizing fashion, cinematic, melodic, aesthetically-pleasing, or all of those POL203. elements combined. These art forms can lead Academia rarely gives the arts the credit to social change, but they can also cause misthey deserve. You probably enjoyed The Force ART IS A MEDIUM THAT RELAYS INFORMATION TO THE PUBLIC, BUT IN A WAY THAT’S CIN- informed activism. At an extreme end of the Awakens, so you may be wondering why you’re spectrum, art can even be used as a weapon: being antagonized for not appreciating art. EMATIC, MELODIC, AESTHETICALLY-PLEASING, OR ALL OF THOSE ELEMENTS COMBINED. Hitler often used Richard Wagner’s Ride of the What I mean to say is, we often sideline our Valkyries in Nazi propaganda films to drum up artistic interests in pursuit of other academic audience fervor. endeavours. the 30-minute documentary impassioned, outraged, and even It’s peculiar, then, that art — a form that holds such an Many students choose their field of study based on what mobilized swarms of people to take action. influence on those who encounter it — would ever take a backskills are perceived to be the most employable. In doing so, It wasn’t simply the subject matter that influenced viewers’ seat to a form of more ‘standard’ academia, like the sciences we push our inner artist to the side and downgrade our artistic opinion; if that were the case, a 30-minute video of Russell or social sciences. When we’re surrounded by art everyday, interests to a mere pastime or hobby that is solely reserved for monotonously explaining this social justice violation would have from watching Netflix to listening to our iPod, it’s critical the moments when we’re not focusing on our ‘serious’ work. sufficed. Rather, it was the stylistic choices of the filmmaker, that we study it in an academic setting and understand the What we fail to realize in the social sciences, however, is that whose fingerprints were all over your newly-formulated opinion. power it contains. the interest we’ve developed in our chosen field of study is Various forms of art hold the ability to sway opinions often inspired by an art form. and impact actions. When packaged as a song, movie, Jacob Lorinc is a third-year student at Innis College studying Rewind to 2012, the year of a notably sketchy activist group or painting, an art piece evokes emotions and takes on a political science and cinema studies. He is The Varsity’s Arts & named Invisible Children. In early March, the organization particularly influential manner. The song “Hurricane” by Culture Editor. released a film by Jason Russel entitled Kony 2012. Its goal? Bob Dylan is often credited with harnessing support for

10 COMMENT

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016 comment@thevarsity.ca

Canadian identity and the refugee crisis Rhetoric of “relative tolerance” hinders meaningful dialogue on racism JACOB LORINC

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

The Canadian media has emphasized our country’s warm welcome of Syrian refugees, as well as our rejection of the fear and bigotry that characterize conversations about refugees elsewhere in the world. After the pepper spray attack on Syrian refugees during a welcome event in Vancouver earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded on social media: “This isn’t who we are — and doesn’t reflect the warm welcome Canadians have offered.” His remarks show the way in which the discussion of refugees has been dominated, sometimes unhelpfully, by the language of Canadian patriotism.

This rhetoric does have value, especially in affirming newcomers’ sense of safety and belonging as they start their lives in Canada.

A man who was hit in the pepper spray attack, Youssef Ahmad AlSuleiman, told The Globe and Mail that, to refugees leaving behind political instability in their home countries, Trudeau’s clear and immediate condemnation of the violence is a meaningful gesture.

Still, the public response to the Vancouver attack, which mirrors Trudeau’s comments leaves little room for exploring nuanced approaches to racism and Islamophobia in Canada.

It is comforting but not entirely accurate to claim that exclusionary violence “isn’t who we are” as a nation. Compassion and respect cannot be called inherently Canadian qualities any more than intolerance can. While Canada ha stated a commitment to advancing human rights, Canada’s history is marred by the legacies of Japanese internment camps, immigrant exclusion acts, and the residential school system, among other institutions of racial discrimination.

If the majority of Canadians today value compassion toward and acceptance of refugees, it is not because of the example of our national history, but in spite of it.

Recent violence motivated by racism and Islamophobia, although committed by a minority of Canadians, shows that bigotry is still alive and well in Canada, often very close to home, whether or not we represent bigoted acts as Canadian, or acknowledge their place in Canadian history.

In the last few months alone, a mosque was set on fire in Peterborough; several incidents were reported in the Greater Toronto Area

DIANA PHAM/THE VARSITY

of Muslim women being harassed or assaulted in public places; Muslims were asked whether they were sorry for the Paris attacks; and a Muslim U of T student was spat on and harassed outside Robarts. This is to say nothing of smaller-scale acts of bigotry that often go unnoticed or are trivialized in classrooms, online comment sections, and other daily interactions, which Iris Robin noted in The Varsity last week.

Characterizing inclusion and compassion as essentially and even

uniquely Canadian qualities is of limited value in uncovering the roots of racism in Canada and reducing violence and bigotry in the future. We have no hope of addressing the problem if we cannot acknowledge it first.

By writing off violence against refugees and racialized people as isolated incidents, and not representative of Canada as a whole, we risk minimizing the real threat of violence many Canadians face on a daily basis. If we are committed to

making our campus and our wider communities safe and welcoming to everyone, refugees or otherwise, then we must commit to conversations about racism and bigotry that move beyond simple characterizations of Canada as an almost universally accepting place.

Language matters; let us be clear, direct, and honest in articulating the values and commitments we hold above all else. We welcome refugees into our communities today not because it is the Canadian

thing to do, but because it is right.

In the same way, we must condemn attacks against refugees not because these acts are un-Canadian, but because they harm real people, reduce refugees’ humanity, and violate our shared commitment to building a just and equitable world.

Rusaba Alam is a third-year student at Victoria College studying English.

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

COMMENT 11

var.st/comment

We’ve had enough It’s time (no, really) to tackle the student debt crisis MALONE MULLIN VARSITY STAFF

According to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), the average Canadian university student has accrued $28,000 by the time they graduate. The number alone is chilling enough, but for some Ontario students, the debt problem comprises more than just a hefty OSAP tab. There’s interest on that debt, collection threats, withheld diplomas, repayment deadlines, and post-degree jobs that don’t pay enough to pay it all back.

Thankfully, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has recently axed a condition that cut support to loan recipients making over $100 a week, a policy that effectively ensnared students in a low-income quagmire. Every time they tried to climb out of the debt trap, the government dumped another bucket over their heads, subtracting a funding dollar for every buck earned over the limit. Now, students can reap the OSAP cash to which they’re entitled, while having the option to boost income through employment earnings, allowing them to avoid accruing debt from banks and credit cards.

While this move seems to signal that the federal government recognizes the seriousness of student, Trudeau has made no move to pressure provinces to limit tuition fees themselves. As such, the crisis remains driven by two primary factors: high tuition and lack of individual funding.

Only 15 years ago, Ontario tuition stood at about half its current level. According to U of T, this is the province’s fault: the 2011

budget report declaimed inadequate government support, which has fallen since operating grants were frozen in 1994. That loss, the report says, is directly to blame for the eight to 10 percent annual tuition increase.

And tuition will continue to rise — meaning bigger loans for students — unless universities receive appropriate provincial funding.

In addition to dilated tuition costs, Canada’s student debt problem lies in a disparity between personal loan maximums and the real prices students pay to live and learn.

While U of T places the monthly cost of living at $1,500, the 2014 OSAP review manual calculated that single independent students were only in need of $1,124. The gap, when there is one, might be filled with private loans, leading to the aforementioned debt troubles.

Why have governments in the last two decades permitted — nay, fostered — a disparity between what’s financially demanded of us and what’s meted out?

In light of the government’s foot-dragging on the issue, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) recently demanded a tuition freeze. OUSA claims personal grants aren’t enough when university operating costs are “carried on the backs of students,” who, as OUSA’s president Spencer Nestico-Semianiw told the Toronto Star last week, presently contribute more to postsecondary institutions than any other group — including our provincial government.

Yet Nestico-Semianiw also told me over the phone that he supported Trudeau’s low-ball election promises over something more substantial. The federal government plays more

of a 'financial aid role,' he said, and ought to stay on that track, but OUSA certainly encourages the feds to push provinces in the direction of tuition fee limits.

When I asked why we shouldn’t demand the elimination of tuition fees altogether, NesticoSemianiw argued that a feasibly implementable system requires both grants and subsidies.

Grants direct the funding to students who need it most, he said, while freezing tuition helps disadvantaged individuals avoid “sticker shock” when contemplating enrolment. For OUSA, it’s the most practical and fairest solution, one with affordable steps that can be taken as early as next year.

I’m not an expert, but I’m not convinced by OUSA’s piecemeal approach. Other countries have figured out how to provide free tuition without depleting the public purse. Norway, which has a tax rate comparable to Canada, has done it; France, Germany, and Brazil have also figured it out. At any rate, sacrificing a valuable ideal for mere practicality seems to me a scary proposition, a compromise we shouldn’t be willing to make.

While Ontario has attempted to remedy that shortfall in recent years by providing additional grants directly to students who need them most, this mandate merely helps the poor after they’ve already taken the risk of enrolment, rather than preventing the problem in the first place. We took great strides hastening to a debt crisis; we shouldn’t be taking baby steps to get ourselves out of it.

Malone Mullin is a fifth-year student studying philosophy. Her column appears every three weeks.

CHANTEL TENG/THE VARSITY

On the academic importance of Beyoncé Pop culture should be integrated into university curricula AVNEET SHARMA VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Students at the University of Waterloo can now take a course titled "Gender and Performance," which makes use of Beyoncé’s eponymous album to explore the themes of race, feminism, and sexuality. This is not an isolated incident; in fact, the CBC published an article listing instances in which "pop culture invades university courses.”

While such pop culture may get a bad rep for being shallow or overly commercial, it nevertheless is a topic that is ripe for academic analysis. By definition, pop culture reflects what society en masse finds intriguing or worth promoting; in turn, we can evaluate why such phenomena have so much social currency, and to what extent it is desirable or not.

The integration of pop culture is first and foremost an effective approach at teaching university courses; it can easily make dense theories and abstract concepts more relatable and thus accessible. For instance, it is not hard how to see a course on Jay-Z and Kanye West in relation to the American dream offered at the University of Missouri could be more compelling to students in 2016 than Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Students are more likely to identify with, or at least know of, Jay-Z and West’s material, given it’s contemporary nature.

Integrating pop culture into the classroom would also teach students to be more critical of the media they consume. I have learned

AMBER NGUYEN/THE VARSITY

valuable lessons from recent pieces of pop culture that I have consumed.

Take Aziz Ansari’s recently released show, Master of None, which touches upon topics like

casual racism and cultural diaspora. Its second episode, “Parents,” is notable for an eerily accurate portrayal of the jagged relationship between immigrant parents and their children.

By highlighting the lack of knowledge (and consequent discomfort) the protagonists had of their parents’ immigration journey and sacrifices, Master of None was commenting on the profound strains a family faces when members are raised in completely separate cultures. Given that my parents immigrated to Canada in 1989, eight years before I was born, this episode also helped me better grasp the struggle my parents faced in immigrating to a foreign country.

In a similar vein, Jessica Jones is a show that can be studied as one representation of how survivors of sexual assault deal with post-traumatic stress disorder; the list of potential subjects of study are endless. In fact, when taking a larger look at pop culture, it becomes increasingly clear that there is no reason for it not to be a valid object of academic analysis.

With regards to employability, there may very well be a stigma towards pop culture and courses that use it as a learning device, but rarely will an employer look at the full course list of a university graduate. With more jobs in media, the integration of pop culture may even be a welcome change to some employers. A degree in sociology is still a degree in sociology, even if you used Beyoncé to understand certain concepts.

Avneet Sharma is a first-year student at Trinity College studying English and cinema studies.

T

w ice a y e a r , I find myself checking my e-mail a bit more than

usual. In December and January, I check Outlook incessantly expecting messages from professors informing the class that final marks are available online; and in April and May, the confirmation of summer prospects drive my anxious inbox refreshing.

I am fully aware of how ridiculous this neurotic activity is; checking my email will not make anything happen any faster. Interestingly, it occurred to me recently that my compulsive behaviour has only been made possible by the birth of Web 2.0 — a new term coined to define the transition from what was previous a mostly ‘passive’ interaction with the Internet to the interactive and user-generated experience brought about by innovations like social media. The recent over-development of the ‘refresh-impulse’ has enabled, if not aggravated users’ impatience and neuroticism online, and it leads us to wonder: is this obsessive behaviour innate, or are we simply victims of the Internet?

In this country, much like almost everywhere else in the world, the Internet has reached a critical ubiquity. In fact, Canada leads the world in sites visited and time spent per person on the Internet. As students, we use it for research, communication, and, of course, procrastination. Sometimes this can go beyond just spending half an hour too long scrolling through Twitter. Whether it’s gaming, social media, pornography, or e-mail, the Internet is a space where addictive behaviour can flourish.

A QUESTION OF LEGITIMACY

In 1998, a psychologist named Kimberly Young developed the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), a set of 20 questions that ask participants to measure how often they use the internet on a scale of zero (never) to five (always). According to the test, the higher the score, the stronger the subject’s addiction, although it is not without its critcis. Dr. Young believes that problematic Internet use (PIU) — an accepted term for damaging Internet use — does constitute an addiction, and she is not alone. Dr. Ofer Zur, a licensed psychologist, agrees, and has documented what he understands as the stages of Internet addiction. Dr. Young’s test is still seen as the gold standard for measuring Internet addictions, though it is not without its critics.

Skeptics of Internet addiction include Dr. John Gohrol, the founder of Psych Central, a mental health social networking tool. Gohrol, who has described

AN UNHEALTHY DOSE DOT COM

DIGITAL DAMAGE

Hyacinth*, a first-year life science student, likes to watch videos on the Internet as a way to take a break from studying. Sometimes, the break becomes a binge. “Part of me thinks it is good for stress relieving, the other part tells me that is bull crap, sleeping more is better for that. I wake up [for a] test the next day feeling tired and fucked up. Never again... or so I think.”

Internet addiction is not based solely on how long one uses the Internet, it is also influenced by the extent to which the Internet disrupts daily routines, relationships and health. James, a fourth-year engineering student, regrets his overuse of the Internet. “Surfing the Internet is all I did after I came home from [high] school... As a result, I have very few useful skills and competencies today. I’m starting to change that now, but I’ll never get that time back,” he explains.

“If I study, I need Internet. It is hard not to be distracted while doing real work, it is always there luring me,” admits Hyacinth. “When I open my laptop for studying, I have this procedure [in my] memory that makes me open [Google Chrome] and click reddit, since I have been doing it so often.”

Wasting time is not the only problem. Over dependence on the Internet is routinely linked to health concerns including: obesity, headaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, changes in sleeping patterns and shrinking of brain tissue. While all those symptoms are undesirable, the last one seems the most frightening.

The shrinking of brain tissue is connected to online gaming addictions. In a study of university aged Chinese students with online gaming addictions, researchers found that gray matter in the brain’s cortex — where speech, memory, motor control and emotions are all processed — shrunk by as much as 10 to 20 per cent. The longer the behaviour persisted, the more tissue was lost.

Interestingly Karl Friston, a neuroscientist at University College London, says that brain tissue shrinkage is not necessarily a bad thing. He argues that it could be a result of the brain adjusting to a frequent habit and optimizing itself to perform certain tasks. For example, a study of taxi drivers found a similar shrinkage sometimes called densification, in brain tissue due to better developed spatial navigation skills. While this may not seem so dangerous, white matter in the brain — which links different regions — was also shown to be affected by gaming addictions. Addicts’ brains often had reduced white matter, which adversely affected short term memory and decision making. Additionally, a German study found that people who used the Internet excessively exhibited gene mutations similar to those found in smokers.

While there is no question that excessive Internet use can be detrimental, experts in the world of psychology are divided on whether it constitutes an addiction — and if it is, what should be done about it.

Internet addiction as a “fad disorder,” has lambasted research in the field for bias and inconsistency. Others have argued that, while PIU is an issue, it is not an addiction. They fear that calling PIU an addiction could lead to unnecessary medication and pathology of all behaviour relating to internet use.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) currently considers online gaming a disorder, but, citing a lack of research, excludes surfing the web as a definable addiction. Internet addiction, because it is behavioural, is difficult to define. So far, gambling is the only behavioural disorder in the DSM-5 — the rest are related to substance use.

Many experts believe that Internet addiction has little to do with the Internet itself.

Some researchers see it as a symptom of social anxiety, depression, fear of missing out,

and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dr. Bruce Ballon, an associate professor at U of T’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health and director of the Internet addiction program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), identifies underlying psychiatric problems in his patients and tries to solve those, instead of addressing internet habits themselves.

Providing a different perspective, freelance writer Michael Shulson suggests that the Internet is designed for compulsive use. Many websites, especially publications born in the digital age – think Buzzfeed, Gawker, and Upworthy — making their money from page views and clicks. Writers, publishers and advertisers alike benefit from maximizing exposure to these web pages. These sites — often arbiters of the infamous and ubiquitous clickbait that clogs our social media feeds — depend on constant scrolling, link clicking and page sharing. In fact, strategies attempting to capitalize on this behaviour are becoming normalized. Nir Eyal, a consultant working with several Silicon Valley firms,

E OF

the charge on bingeing with its automatic progression from one video to the next. Facebook has followed suit, implementing a video feed that automatically plays several similar clips after watching one video. This phenomenon extends past entertainment and recreation, after all, the internet is always open, allowing impatient students like myself to check our email relentlessly, and ambitious executives to work far past office hours if they please.

Although definitions and designations are undecided, it seems conclusive that the Internet can foster destructive behaviour. Cures and solutions have so far manifested in several forms.

REGAINING CTRL

The fight against Internet addiction, traces its roots back to an area among the worst affected: East Asia. In as early as 2005, 40 per cent of Hong Kong’s youth were addicted to the Internet.

In 2009, China had over 400 clinics that treated Internet addiction. South Korea implemented the radically unpopular and euphemistically named Cinderella law in 2011. South Koreans under the age of 16 are ‘Cinderella,’ and the South Korean government serves as the fairy godmother, using ‘magic’ to block Cinderella from accessing gaming websites after midnight. The law still applies, but it was eased in 2014.

Countries all over the world have followed East Asia’s example in the battle to curb Internet addiction. There are self-help software solutions like Freedom and Cold Turkey, which allow users to block certain websites at specific times, as well as institutions focused on therapy and rehabilitation.

North American approaches usually cost tens of thousands of dollars for treatment. Notable Internet addiction recovery centres include reSTART, in the state of Washington, and Outback Therapeutic Expeditions in Utah, which, for a cool $25,000, provide therapy in the form of a digital detox.

Canadian institutions are few, with only the Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare centre in Windsor joining the efforts of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

Unlike the costly American programs, Hôtel-Dieu Grace offers a free inpatient program for 21 days.

LIFE BEHIND A SCREEN

For students, social networks are nearly a necessity. They allow us to keep in touch with faraway friends, relax, read news, network, and collaborate with classmates. All of these factors make it difficult to curb compulsive use. Even if one intends to visit Facebook only to post in a course group, there’s a good chance of being distraced by something unrelated. Anything from a headline to an embarrassing photo can be the beginning of an Internet binge: an indulgent but ultimately regretful spree of scrolling, hopping through hyperlinks and amassing an army of tabs, all to wonder where the time went at the end of it.

Many websites, including smaller social media sites, allow people to log in with Facebook or Twitter. Moreover, social media widgets encourage users to share content with their friends. So, not only does social media provide access to its native networks, it allows easy access to the rest of the Internet. It’s possible to ignore social media altogether, but its seductive convenience is too alluring for most.

In 2011, 86 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 18-34 had a social media profile. It makes sense: why would anyone forgo a digital world where you can talk to friends, read the news, watch videos, and publish your thoughts all in one place?

Hyacinth argues that interaction is easier on the Internet.

“Clubs are fun, but their [hours are] usually inconvenient.

It is easier to spend 30 minutes on Reddit while studying, than to go out and hang out with friends.” For all its benefits, it seems obvious that social media could never recreate the intimacy inherent to face-to-face contact. Cute emojis are no substitute for hugs and kisses, and online communication — where people toil over the perfect status update and carefully curate their profiles — strips users of authentic interaction. Hyacinth tells me that he will probably rely on

BY JULIEN BALBONTIN the Internet less when he makes more friends, but I cannot help but wonder how people can go about making more friends when they spend most of their spare time online.

Internet addiction is clearly a difficult problem to solve.

The Internet has made life easier in many ways, and has become a key component of our lives. This makes it both difficult to avoid, and even more difficult to identify where it transitions from being a part of life to controlling one’s life. It’s fluidity blurs work and play, socialness and anti-socialness. Smartphones, tablets and computers make it almost as omnipresent as the air we breathe. How do we manage?

Perhaps our best hope is to Google it.

Internet addiction is difficult to define; it’s also dangerous ARTICLE BY JAREN KERR AND ILLUSTRATION

wrote a book called Hooked, teaching web designers how to give their sites “narcotic-like properties.” Eyal does exhibit some discretion; he refuses to consult for pornography and gambling sites, and his book has a moral rubric to encourage ethical behaviour. Some readers of Hooked might take Eyal’s ethical suggestions seriously, while others will use his tips and tricks to manipulate and entice visitors into visiting their own sites.

Shulson’s theory that the Internet, as a platform, has addictive qualities, seems convincing. It has made bingeing easier and normal. Pornography and gambling can be addictive independent of the Internet, but it makes them easier to access. With the web, you don’t have to stop gambling when the casino closes, and money seems more disposable when it’s bet online. The Internet has created a space for millions of free porn videos and photos, eliminating the need to spend money on a dirty magazine or adult video. Netflix has led

*Name changed at student’s request

var.st/arts

ARTS&CULTURE 18 January 2016

arts@thevarsity.ca

THE BATTLE IS WON

Garret Olson of The Fallers picks his way through one of the bands songs during a short set for The Battle of the Bands on Thursday, January 14. MASHAL KHAN/THE VARSITY

Four bands delivered lively performances at Lee's Palace for battle of the bands COREY VAN DEN HOOGENBAND ASSOCIATE ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

Winterfest’s annual Battle of the Bands has always been a treat for U of T’s musically inclined, and this year was no exception.

Four bands brought a myriad of sounds to the table, providing a night of music, dancing, and free drink tickets. In the end, there could only be one winner to take home the $500 cash prize. Here, we’ve supplied a rundown of each band’s set.

ACT I: SPACESHIP THOUGHTS The first act to hit the stage was the mysterious and newly formed Spaceship Thoughts, comprised of out-of-this-world members Spoon Johnson (a human), Sky Casket (also a human), and Lump the Potato (also a human; not a potato).

Lacking any online presence and playing for an audience only once before — it was to audition for this show — the self-described acoustic rap outfit seemed to have intentionally created a veil of intrigue around themselves.

With little notice, a heavy drumbeat kicked off their performance, commanding the attention of attendees still casually floating around the venue. The group’s frontman, questionably dressed in bling and a tie wrapped around his head, captivated the audience with fast and energetic verses on top of drums and acoustic guitar. Self-referential and clever lyrics caught my ear and made it clear why Winterfest’s audition team was impressed by the eccentric trio.

As the group’s 30-minute set progressed, the energy on stage began to fade. Since the songs were comprised of similar drumbeats, structures, and lyrical content, it became increasingly difficult to tell them apart. Still, clever lyrics and a unique style made for a solid start to the evening.

ACT II: NORTHERN RIOT Next to perform were the patriotic partiers from Northern Riot. “Rock and roll ain’t dead, it’s just asleep. So you’d better get loud to wake it the fuck up,” urged frontman Thomas Thurley near the beginning of their set. The band has been playing with their current five member lineup for about a year, during which time they’ve made themselves comfortable in Toronto’s youthful music scene.

Their sound is unmistakably ‘70s inspired, with an emphasis on crunchy distortion and beefy vocals. The group’s fast and heavy-hitting rock sound dissipated any concern that they could not live up to Spaceship Thoughts’ energy. Northern Riot occasionally simmered for slower numbers like “Expired,” a track that showcased Thurley’s impressive vocal range.

Overall Northern Riot provided a solid sound track for a night of heavy drinking but offered little else. Groups like Kings of Leon and Mumford and Sons take influence from the past and bring something new to the table, but Northern Riot failed to innovate in any meaningful way. Unfortunately, one particularly awkward instance did not go over well with the U of T crowd, when the rhythm guitarist held his water bottle to his pelvis, and squirted it in a phallic gesture. Classy.

ACT III: THE FALLERS Fresh from a 22-date Canadian tour last summer, The Fallers are a group with plenty of experience playing on stages like Lee’s. Heavily inspired by garage rock like The Strokes, the trio delivers a live show that sounds as big, if not bigger, than their studio recordings.

The Fallers began their set with “Left, Right, and Centre,” an upbeat yet composed alt-rock number that instantly marked their difference in style from the previous acts. Lead singer and

guitarist Garret Olson’s vocals were stellar and complimented by tight basslines from Alex Lakusta and the drumming of Mackenzie Read.

The band flowed in and out of multiple styles, at one point resembling pop and at another resembling punk. This made for an energetic and solid set, one that had many in the crowd wondering if they had already found the battle’s winner.

ACT IV: THE IMPLICATIONS By the time the final band took the stage, the occupants of Lee’s Palace were the jumpiest they’d been all night. Perhaps it was the drink tickets catching up with students capitalizing on free booze, or maybe it was the contagious energy of the prior three bands to blame. But most likely it was in anticipation of the final band to take the stage: The Implications.

Performing at their third U of T Battle of the Bands, this time following a rebranding from The Turks to The Implications, their quirky pop-rock style was both familiar and welcomed by the crowd. The four-piece group offered a cohesive show that highlighted their ability to work together through carefully timed drum fills, bass and guitar solos, and sing-along sections.

The band engaged with the audience on countless occasions: at one point they promised a free copy of their EP to whoever danced the hardest to their next song. Ultimately, it was this level of audience interaction and fun that propelled this set above others they have played in the past.

After roughly a 20-minute wait to make their decision, the judges took to the stage to announce that The Implications had won the 2016 Winterfest Battle of the Bands.

Four acts entered, but ultimately it was repeat performers "The Implications" that took home the prize. MASHAL KHAN/THE VARSITY

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

ARTS & CULTURE 15

var.st/arts

THEATRE REVIEW:

Into The Woods Hart House tackles Sondheim to kick start the second half of the season HANNAH LANK

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Featuring a cast of nearly twenty, Into The Woods, directed by Jeremy Hutton is a fairy tale menagerie and musical in which a series of familiar faces — Cinderella, Jack (of beanstalk fame), Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, a witch, a couple of princes, a baker and his wife — find themselves in the woods, their classical stories overlapping as they each pursue their goals.

Cinderella wishes to go to “the festival,” but is forbidden by her evil stepmother and stepsisters from going; the baker and his wife, the story's main protagonists, wish to have a child, but first they'll have to ‘reverse the curse’ that the witch has placed on them. To do this they journey into the woods and collect some iconic items from fairy tale lore, including a golden egg and Little Red Riding Hood’s cape.

The first act of Into The Woods is rather benign. Everything is running smoothly, and all the characters have their wishes fulfilled.

It’s what happens in the second act that truly defines the production.

Suddenly, the comforting, generic world of fairy tales crumbles, and the characters begin to appreciate the repercussions of their actions —

MIA CARNEVALE/THE VARSITY

consequences that are often ignored in typical fairy tales. The characters are forced to band together or fall apart and must learn how to live and define themselves in a world more real than that of the preceding act.

Hart House’s performance is well executed. The audience will find the large cast refreshing and entertaining, especially in a smaller venue.

The most memorable parts of the production are those featuring most of, or the entire cast, as they are uniquely choreographed on stage and feed off of one another’s energy.

There are parts, however, that seem rather forced, and with a cast so large, it is perhaps no surprise that some performers are stronger than others, particularly when they must

command the stage alone, or with only a few others to back them up.

It is during times like these that delivery of dialogue becomes trying, and is only relieved with the start of another musical number.

Michelle Nash and Saphire Demitro, playing Cinderella and the witch respectively, both give strong performances, embodying

their characters in a convincing and well-constructed manner. The entire cast has considerable singing ability, and the score is generally well performed.

Most notable is the set itself, which almost takes on a character of its own throughout the performance. The stage features a collection of clocks and moving parts that embody the idea of automation driving the first half of the production and resemble a cuckoo clock.

When the story takes a turn in the second half, the set is again put to good use — the clocks crumbling and crashing, symbolizing the disintegration of the comforting fairy tale world.

The explicit dualism between the world of ‘happy-ever-afters’ and the ‘real’ world is a point well understood by Hutton. Into The Woods is a production that, much like the fairy tales it encompasses, appears innocuous on the outside, but contains, as he writes, “a depth of complexity and thoughtfulness that is utterly compelling, and worth exploring time and time again.”

Into The Woods is running at Hart House Theatre through to January 30.

A jam once lost, but now is found U of T librarian James Mason discovers long lost Norwegian concerto DANIEL SAMUEL

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

After speaking with the Toronto Star and CBC, James Mason is getting tired of interviews.

Mason, a librarian at the University of Toronto’s Music Faculty Library, discovered a long-lost concerto written by the Norwegian conductor and composer Johan Halvorsen. The piece had originally been written for and performed by the prodigal Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow in the early twentieth century before its mysterious disappearance.

Mason took issue with the characterization of the concerto as ‘lost’ in conversation with The Varsity.

“The official story is that after it was premiered, Halvorsen wasn’t too happy with the critical results and reviews,” Mason explained. An enigmatic composer, Halvorsen had earned a reputation for being highly critical of his own work. “It hadn’t been published, so it wasn’t commercially available at this point. It

was assumed that if he destroyed his version of it then it was gone.

But he made a copy for Parlow. Low and behold there was a copy that was preserved and showed up 100 years later.”

Parlow's estate donated all of her works to the library. For years people had asked about the availability of Halvorsen’s concerto only to be turned down.

Mason and his colleagues Suzanna Meyers Sawa and Houman Behzadi managed to find the concerto while working on a project to digitize Parlow’s archival collection.

In the process of digitizing the library, he moved the records from one database to another, before recording it all in a spreadsheet.

“There were four records that had virtually no information. In the fields in which you’d expect things like title and author, there was nothing. There were some information fields that weren’t used for anything. In one of those fields in all four of them there was a caption with Parlow’s name. There was one

The Concerto went missing in the early twentieth century. PHOTO COURTESY OF JESSICA LEWIS

that was clearly a manuscript score and we were like, ‘Whoa what’s up with this?’ We took it aside, we did a little bit of digging, and we came to think we had the only copy.”

The discovery speaks to the importance of digitizing libraries. The concerto will make its twenty-first century debut at the International Musicological Society's annual con-

ference in Norway on July 4. Mason is optimistic that the piece will also be performed within Canada in the near future.

“We also feel like we have ownership over this too,” says Mason. “I think it would be really nice if we had a premiere here. Personally I feel it would be great if the University of Toronto orchestrated it. The

Toronto Symphony would also be great, or even a soloist from Calgary would be great.”

As for speaking to the media, Mason says, “I think I’ll be happy to get back to my job. Being a librarian isn’t always the most drama filled profession, so it’s been exciting to be able to talk about what I do.”

16 ARTS & CULTURE

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016 arts@thevarsity.ca

Is this the real life?

The biopic genre has an unfortunate record for obscuring the truth DUNCAN MORRISON VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

NOOR NAQAWEH/THE VARSITY

Biopics — explorations of the life and work of historical figures — have existed since the early days of Hollywood cinema. From Russell Crowe’s performance in A Beautiful Mind, to Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Abraham Lincoln, biopics have presented some of the finest performances in cinema and been lead by some of the most esteemed and iconic actors.

In fact, the past three Academy Awards for Best Actor have all gone to performers starring in biopics. By focusing on individuals, these stories have the power to illuminate the past while making important statements about the present as well.

The controversy and praise accumulated by works such as Twelve Years a Slave, Selma, and Milk is derived not just from their portrayal of historical events, but also from what that portrayal says about contemporary life and society.

Despite their uncanny ability to attract Academy Award recognition, biopics often draw criticism for oversimplifying historical events to make the lives of historical figures more

palatable to a modern-day audience.

Arguably, Cinderella Man portrays Max Baer, as a cold, unforgiving antagonist. According to some, The Imitation Game makes some strong implications that Alan Turing had Asperger’s syndrome – something historical scholarship has yet to corroborate.

In other instances, stylistic changes contradict the truth of the historical events, such as the choice to cast a white man as the protagonist in Stonewall. Many commentators criticized this as being historically-inaccurate, seeing as the actual Stonewall Inn was frequented by non-white members of the LGBT community in Manhattan. The list of biopics that have been historically mangled in order to convenience the filmmaker is endless.

Falsifications like this reinforce false perceptions we may have of the time-period and the characters, rather than revealing the truth.

This is best exemplified in All Is

By My Side, a recent biopic starring OutKast member André Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix. Filmmaker John Ridley reinforces the perception of Hendrix and his crew as hopeless druggies, who ultimately care more

about scoring dope than entertaining their fans. This is not entirely false; however, it allows for the filmmaker to take certain liberties in depicting Hendrix’s actual life.

In the movie, Jimmy Hendrix furiously clubs his girlfriend over the head with a telephone. Following that scene, Hendrix’s girlfriend is seen downing sleeping pills, to the point where she overdoses before waking up in a hospital bed. Most of these scenes were taken from a biography written about Hendrix shortly after his death, but Hendrix’s former girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, denies this ever happening. Many others have debunked the biography’s version of Hendrix’s life, and Etchingham went so far as to sue the authors. She has referred to the film as “absolute nonsense.”

In reality, history is far too complex to be recreated in simple, Hollywood-style narratives. It deals with real people rather than fictional creations, which is why it is imperative that filmmakers depict their subjects as accurately as possible, and acknowledge that the past may not always be a convenient story for the big-screen.

IN CONVERSATION WITH:

Busty & The Bass The former McGill band dishes on school, their rise to popularity, and an upcoming album JACOB LORINC

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

TV: When did you realize this wasn’t just an after-school thing, and was actually a legitimate path that you guys were going to take?

MJ: “I think it was a really gradual process. Everybody saw different future things as a result of different experiences. It wasn’t ever like one thing happened and now everyone’s like ‘we’re going to do this for the rest of our lives.’ It was like, one thing would happen, and one or two people would start talking Continued on PG 17

Everyday food. Consciously sourced.

Dine in.

Take out.

Uber Delivery.

124 HARBORD ST.

Harbord St.

Spadina Ave.

The Varsity: How did Busty & The Bass come into existence?

Milo Johnson (Bass): “We all happened to meet each other within our first week or so of going to McGill, and our guitar player (Louie) organized a jam session/party at his apartment in Montreal. Almost every one of us jammed together on that first week of that first night of

TV: Was it difficult to gain popularity, how fast did you guys see yourself get a lot of fans and followers?

MJ: “That wasn’t really our concern so much as it was to play crazy music that people would want to dance to, no matter who was there.

It was just sort of a steady thing, and we just so happened to play a lot in our first two years at McGill.

We played a lot of basements, a lot of campus bars, that kind of thing.

Bit by bit people started to latch on and it seemed like we were doing something people liked. So because of that we have our devoted fans of McGill and of Montreal now.”

Scott Bevins (Trumpet): “At least for the first couple of years it was

never something that we saw doing after school, so it was nice because it was this super low pressure, really fun, really unique group. For a while it was just an outlet, and not something we needed to put a lot of stress onto. Everything was super organic. It wasn’t like ‘we need to get Facebook likes.’”

Robert St.

Amongst the many bands formed in college, Busty & The Bass currently stands as one of the most popular groups to recently graduate from a Canadian university. The band formed at McGill and has been playing around Montreal and Toronto for the past five years. Upon the release of their latest album, Glam, we chatted with the bassist and trumpeter about their life in university.

school, and it was pretty silly, pretty fun, and after that we decided to keep playing together and one way or another arrived at the name ‘Busty & The Bass.’”

UofT Athletic Centre

Ask us about Catering your luncheon harvestkitchen.ca

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

ARTS & CULTURE 17

var.st/arts

CONTINUED FROM PG 16

about long term [plans], and from there something else would happen that would make another person get more invested in the long term, but I think it was definitely a gradual build up of things that would happen.”

SB: “The more time we spent together as nine people and once we started going on tours together and started getting regular attendance at our shows, people got really invested in our music. I think those kind of things were what would change our minds and make us think ‘hey, we should really keep going with this.

This is something cool.’”

TV: What was it like to balance university and a band at the same time?

Was that difficult?

MJ: “It was definitely hard. We were in a fortunate position that we were all in the music program, so our teachers were moderately sympathetic. If we had rehearsals or class we could get subs if

we needed to. Not everybody had that luxury. But granted, when we had one gig that meant finding seven subs. Like, a thing came up that brought us downtown for a weekend and that meant finding a trombone player, two trumpet players, and a whole rhythm section. So it was kind of a nightmare in that way, but it was definitely something we could work around.

It was difficult, but it was possible because we were music students.”

TV: What are you working on now?

MJ: “Well right now we’re in the middle of writing a bunch of music.

We spent the last couple of months doing song writing, and now we’re doing a whole bunch of prepping and we’re going to record a fulllength album. That’s at the front of our minds right now. We’re going to be playing a few shows here and there between now and the rest of the winter, but mainly we’re going to be focusing on the new album.”

Busty & The Bass are currently working on a new album. PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHAEL SAYEGH

Photographs of freedom Blackwood Gallery's The Day After displays pictures of countries on their day of independence

Blackwood Gallery is located on UTM's Campus. PHOTO COURTESY OF AURELIEN MOLE

KASSANDRA HANGDAAN VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The opening reception of the Blackwood Gallery, with its many film screenings and talks planned throughout the year, is sure to excite lovers of fine art.

On the night of the reception, the gallery, located in UTM’s Kaneff Building, gave visitors an opportunity to view its latest exhibition, The Day After, by Maryam Jafri. The exhibit is a historical collection of photographs taken between 1934 and 1975 across Europe, Asia, and Africa.

As Jafri explains, the intention behind this collection is to show how “post-colonial states in Asia and Africa [and Europe] preserve the founding images of their inception as independent nations.” The selected photographs aim to draw attention to marginalized historical events; in a way, the exhibition gives the viewer a unique opportu-

nity to see a side of history not seen in textbooks.

What’s impressive is the amount of collaboration and research conducted by Jafri and Bétonsalon Centre for Art and Research in the production of the exhibit.

A team of archivists, researchers, and journalists worked with Jafri to attain the images. The National Library of the Philippines, Mohamed Kouaci Archives, and Kenya Ministry of Information are just a few sources from which the collection stems from.

The first thing that you notice when stepping into the gallery, is the long white wall that runs along the back of the room. On the wall, a series of photographs are pasted in lines that span from one end of the room to the other. The photographs are ordered chronologically, starting from 1934, and progressing through years and countries as the viewer edges from one side of the wall to

the other. The setup is minimal, and forces the viewer’s attention to the pictures themselves.

As I make my way down the wall, it seems as though I’ve travelled through decades in the span of seconds. I see images of important looking men seated around tables in the midst of discussion, women marching in Syria, Burkina Faso, and Burundi, and streets ablaze with rocks and destruction as people riot in Indonesia.

The collection is rife with political statements of each society’s social and legal development.

Not every photograph is heavily politicized, though; there are images of festive parties and parades with people dancing in cultural attire. In particular, one photo depicts a lively dance scene in the Philippines, where women and men don their traditional Filipina dresses and barong.

The exhibit ranges from the declaration of independence of Ho Chi Minh (1945), to Sri Lanka (1948),

and Botswana (1966). Apart from these moments in political history, what captivates my attention is a seemingly mundane image.

The black and white photograph, captioned “VIP Women, 7 August 1960 Ivory Coast,” shows a crowd of well-dressed Ivoirian women sitting comfortably in a stadium. Presumably, the women are watching a sport. One of the women seems to gaze back at me; a sunhat tipped elegantly on her head, her lips are half curled and her eyes bright and kind. If not for the caption stating that the photo had been taken more than half a century ago, I would never have guessed its actual age. The women in the crowd wear recognizable clothes (think Kate Middleton), and it is this familiarity that makes me think that perhaps we are not so different from those that preceded us. History may have changed and new developments may have arisen, but the expres-

sion of leisure and humanity are not unfamiliar.

Maximizing the viewing experience of The Day After can only be achieved if the viewer makes an effort to internalize the significance of the photographs. Otherwise, the meaning and story behind each photograph can easily be overlooked, and the experience diminished.

Fortunately, this candid collection of photographs makes it easy for the viewers to become captivated by the story unfolding in front of their eyes. It is an experience which Susan Sontag explains best: “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”

The Day After runs from January 13 to March 6, 2016

SCIENCE 18 January 2016

N OW S

ARO

Everything a student needs to know about the technology and policies behind U of T’s wireless network

CIENC

E

A beginner’s guide to wi-fi at U of T

science@thevarsity.ca

D UN T

var.st/science

FUNCTIONAL NON-CODING MUTATION AND THE 3D BREAST CANCER GENOME The Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology (LMP) Monday talk series presents Dr. Mathieu Lupien, senior scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center and assistant professor at the University of Toronto, whose research focuses on investigating genetic predispositions and mutations in relation to the expression of cancer.

Monday, January 18 4:00–5:00pm Medical Sciences Building 1 King’s College Circle Rm2170 Admission: Free

NEW MEASUREMENTS OF CARBON DIOXIDE FROM SPACE: THE FIRST YEAR OF THE ORBITING CARBON OBSERVATORY

ost students can’t imagine studying on campus ithout of ’s massi e i-fi net ork MALLIKA MAKKAR/THE VARSITY

SOPHIA SAVVA VARSITY STAFF

Wi-fi. Most University of Toronto students couldn’t survive on campus without it. However, few of us are aware of how U of T’s networks operate, what the limits are to usage, and how strict U of T’s information and communication technology (ICT) policy is.

HOW DOES T HE WI-FI WORK? Wi-fi is transmitted through radio/wireless technology. The University of Toronto campus wireless network connects thousands of students, faculty, and staff to its wireless networks, such as ‘UofT’ and the older ‘eduroam,’ which is mainly used by visitors to campus.

The wireless network utilizes access points (APs) — devices connected to the wired network and stationed around campus. These APs communicate with the wireless cards found in electronic devices, such as laptops, linking users to the campus network and then to the Internet.

APs allow users to stay connected to the network wirelessly, even if they move from one part of campus to another. APs are better in general at providing service to lots of users over a large area, rather than routers, which are usually used in homes or smaller areas.

As of last May, the total number of APs in use on the St. George campus was 4,241. Robarts Library, Gerstein Library, Rotman,

and Sidney Smith are some of the busiest locations for internet usage on campus. Robarts, for example, has a total of 265 APs installed. The placement of even more wireless equipment across all three campuses is ongoing, with more coverage to be expected in many other high traffic spots around U of T, like the Goldring Centre.

HOW MUCH BANDWIDTH ARE STUDENTS ALLOWED TO USE VIA U OF T’S WIRELESS NETWORKS? Until the middle of 2012, users were only allowed two giga-bites (GB) of traffic per week, but due to the increasing reliance on high-bandwidth applications for school, and improvements in technology, the limit was abolished.

Users do not have complete freedom to do whatever they want.

Personal devices that use U of T’s networks must follow the provost’s guidelines on appropriate use of information and communication technology, whose main focus is the “quantity of resources consumed” and the “quality of the information transmitted.”

SO WHAT IS AND ISN’T ALLOWED? “We do not prohibit the use of any technology on our networks, as long as users comply with the provost’s ICT guidelines,” said Martin Loeffler, U of T’s director of information security. “That said, we

do take measures to block hostile activity (e.g., malware or viruses) entering or originating from our network, or activity that over-uses network bandwidth.”

The university oversees traffic on its networks, an operational procedure created from several IT resource policies, including the ICT guidelines. U of T uses traffic analysis to spot devices using excessive or abnormal amounts of bandwidth, which could indicate a compromised or infected device.

Depending on the situation, the perpetrator is warned or banned from using the campus backbone network. Through traffic analysis, it is possible for U of T to discover other suspicious or illegal activity, such as pirating.

A report is automatically sent out when a host’s traffic passes a preset limit, which is 15 GB a day. A traffic anomaly is considered “excessive” when in two or more days during the week, a host had traffic exceeding the limit or in one day had traffic exceeding two times the limit. Loeffler notes that “a sizeable number” of these reports are not investigated further, as the host’s traffic usually drops below the limit the next day (commonly because the host is investigated if suspected of illicit file-sharing or streaming).

Loeffler clarified that punishment for “inappropriate activity” is greatly based on the “nature of the activity.” For example, students are not banned for torrenting.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO FOLLOW THE RULES? “It’s important to note that no technology is harmful in and of itself, but rather [it is] the use to which it is put that can be damaging or problematic for other users of a network,” Loeffler said. While file-sharing programs such as BitTorrent can be used for academic purposes, they can also be used to pirate copyrighted material, and can slow things down for other users of the network.

“Anyone using BitTorrent (or any other file transfer services) for legitimate purposes should keep bandwidth usage down to avoid inconveniencing other users of our wireless network,” said Loeffler.

“We all have a responsibility to consider the implications of how we use networked resources and to ensure that our uses are appropriate and respect the rights and needs of others in our community, both the University and beyond,” said Seamus Ross, a professor at U of T’s iSchool and former dean. “The university needs to ensure that all [of] its resources are effectively managed and equitably shared across our community if we are to support learning and research by all members of our community.”

Debra Wunch, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto will be the featured speaker at a talk that is part of an ongoing environment seminar hosted by the School of Environment Wednesday, January 20 4:10–6:00pm Earth Sciences Building 5 Bancroft Avenue Rm149 Admission: Free

STARTUP CAREER EXPO 2016 VOLUNTEER SESSION Hosted by You’re Next Career Network, this volunteer information session for the Startup Expo 2016 will welcome over 80 startups from Toronto, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, and more.

Wednesday, January 20 6:30–9:30pm Haultain Building 170 College Street Rm401 Admission: Free

THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP HATCHERY PRESENTS: ACCELERATOR WEEKEND

Come out and join U of T’s biggest 28-hour business competition, which brings together multidisciplinary teams along with experienced mentors to develop a business canvas around an idea and pitch to a panel of judges for the chance to win a $2,000 grand prize.

Friday January 22 and Saturday January 23 Fields Institute 222 College Street Admission: $40

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

SCIENCE 19

var.st/science

Streeters: Will we ever live on Mars?

U of T students share their thoughts on whether science should look towards the sky or stay down on Earth

ARTICLE AND PHOTOS BY NYIMA GYALMO

At the end of 2015, SpaceX managed to launch and land a reusable rocket for the first time in history. The public has viewed this as a great step forward in making the colonization of Mars a possibility. Despite the SpaceX initiative, the Dutch Mars1 program, and many recent popular science fiction films about space travel, the non-scientific public may be directing their interest and their money into a goal that is not achievable. With growing concerns about the environment, critics debate whether or not the focus of our scientific attention should be directed a little closer to home.

We asked U of T students for their opinions on whether we should direct our efforts toward space travel or saving the environment. Here is what they have to say: DIANA PHAM/THE VARSITY

“According to [science] right now, no [we won’t colonize Mars] because they have proven that there is water there but not that there is an inhabitable atmosphere. [We should still focus on] the environment. I mean, we are living on our Earth. We should be preserving our planet before trying to [inhabit] another planet, so our resources should go [towards] developing ways to lessen the impact on Earth and make it better.”

“I think that’s a question for far in the future. There are more important things we should be worrying about, [such as] fixing the environment before trying to populate Mars. We should be investing in the environment. I mean, space travel might be important far in the future but we have more pressing issues on Earth. We should be looking to do something about climate change, and [look] for alternatives to [living] on Mars.

— Jasjeet Matharu Third-year neuroscience and immunology student

— Jon Paul Mathias First-year political science masters student

“I don’t know. Maybe we should concentrate on making Earth a better place to live instead of looking [to live on other planets.] That’s a tough one because [it is a question of] where should we be, or how we should be directing science, I suppose. Maybe because my research does have to do with the environment, I would say [we should focus on the] environment, which isn’t to say that space exploration and other research isn’t important.”

“I think [we may populate Mars and] because of projects like [SpaceX] that we should reach Mars by 2030... If people can go to the moon, why not Mars? I think [we should focus on] the environment, I suppose, because if you don’t have the environment then you cannot [attempt] space travel... If the world goes to hell and we need a run away from global warming effects [we should] definitely [attempt] space travel. You need to first take care of the environment before worrying about science fiction, which [inhabiting Mars] is right now.”

— Sarah Larlee First-year civil engineering masters student

— Mike Ivanov Third-year history student

“I think the technology is there to do it eventually, [although] not right now. But before we get to [the] point [where that is possible], we would end up killing each other or destroying the Earth. I think we should definitely invest more on our own planet — I mean, we know more about the moon than we do about our own ocean.”

— Joshua Paras Second-year industrial engineering student

“ ...It would be a challenge because it would be [an] indoor lifestyle and [there would be] no outdoor activities... It would be the same lifestyle as living in a space station floating through space and it would be nothing like we know now... I think in [the] very distant future it [could be] possible. But the question is, would you really want to live that kind of lifestyle?”

— Isabelle Forcelledo Second-year astrophysics student

20 SCIENCE

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016 science@thevarsity.ca

U of T study finds transplant recipients are at a greater risk of cancer Rise in recipient’s median age coincides with expected increase in incidence of disease CONNIE LIU

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

For many recipients of organ transplants who have survived their surgeries, the danger is not quite over, according to new research at the University of Toronto.

Solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) are three times more likely to die of cancer than their peers in the general population, regardless of age, sex, or transplanted organ says the recent report.

This retrospective study identified 11,061 organ recipient patients with kidney, liver, heart, and lung transplants in Ontario between 1991 and 2010.

According to the study, one-fifth of the mortalities in this population were cancerrelated. The results were consistent regardless of transplanted organ, and regardless of age or sex of the patient. “[Patients] are dying sooner after transplantation,” said Dr. Sergio A. Acuna, lead author of the study and PhD student in clinical epidemiology at the University of Toronto. “Cancer is cutting... their life expectancies [short].”

The increased risk in post-transplant patients is reported to be highest for children, and lowest among patients above the age of 60. Cancer is the second-leading cause of death among SOTRs and although cardiovascular disease has always been known

The link between cancer and transplants stands regardless of the organ that was transplanted. ARMY MEDICINE/CC FLICKR

as the leading cause of death, little prior research has been done on the burden of cancer in these populations.

Prior to this study, a paper was published on the role of cancer in kidney transplant recipients. A major flaw in that study, noted

by Acuna, was that “40 per cent [of] their causes of death were unknown... our data is more contemporary.”

Additional mortality factors were controlled for in the study conducted by Acuna, including cardiovascular disease, organ rejection,

and infections related to immunosuppression, and in doing so the study isolated cancer as the cause of death.

The study confirmed that cancer outcomes for SOTRs are worse than that of their peers in the general population, and researchers are now looking into the causes behind this disparity.

The researchers hypothesize that the increase in cancer risk may be due to the medication required by SOTRs to suppress the immune system in order avoid organ rejection.

Another possibility is simply the difference in treatment options between SOTR patients and non-transplant patients.

“That [difference] is one of the aspects we are going to explore in the future,” said Acuna. “ ...we are going to compare the differences in the way transplant patients with cancer and non-transplant patients with cancer are managed in terms of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery.”

As the median age of transplant recipients increases, the incidences of cancer are expected to grow. This is primarily a result of higher post-transplant survival rates, as patients are now living long enough for cancer to be an issue.

“There is not [currently] a specific screening recommendation for transplant recipients. In fact, the only recommendations that exist are extensions [of the recommendations] for the general population.”

A major concern for the researchers is that patients would become more hesitant to receive organ transplants, in light of this research. “In no way are we suggesting that they should not receive the transplant because of the risk of cancer,” Acuna emphasized. But rather, measures must be taken to “ensure that [the organs] are used in the best way, [that is, to] provide these patients with the longest life expectancy that we can give them.”

WORK WITH US. science@thevarsity.ca

FASHION MANAGEMENT & PROMOTIONS POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

WORK YOUR DEGREE WITH A POSTGRAD

From retail management to logistics, this program offers the unique skills you will need to launch your career as a fashion buyer, logistics coordinator, product development manager, visual merchandiser and many other exciting career options.

Our postgraduate certificates help you accelerate your career by providing specialized training that builds on your previous degree or diploma combined with the opportunity to gain practical experience taking on real-world challenges.

business.humber.ca/postgrad

business.humber.ca/postgrad

DENTISTRY ON THE AVENUE Dr. Lisa LindstrÖm

Gentle, Caring & Compassionate Dentistry HEALTHY TEETH = HAPPY SMILE

315 Avenue Road Floor 1, Suite 2, Toronto (Between St. Clair & Dupont) FREE PARKING 416.926.0123 drlisalindstrom.com dentistryontheavenue@gmail.com

SPORTS

var.st/sports

18 January 2016

sports@thevarsity.ca

The SAD side of sport How mental illnesses like seasonal affective disorder affect athletes GAYE BOSTON

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Unfortunately, for U of T students and Torontonians in general, winter is here. Alhough we were wearing spring jackets on Christmas Day and hadn’t had to pick up a shovel in months, we all knew deep down that the record-breaking warmth of November and December wasn’t going to last.

Alongside sub-zero temperatures, the winter season also means navigating physical and, sometimes, mental challenges.

For student athletes, the addition of icy conditions, the lack of daylight, and seasonal health risks are dangerous because of their hindering effects on an athlete’s ability to train efficiently and maintain their school work.

One of the biggest downsides to the winter season for students and athletes is seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which affects more than two per cent of Canadians in their lifetime.

SAD as a term is widely misused and abused by people who claim that they ‘hate the cold and winter’ and must therefore be suffering. In actuality, SAD is a mental illness that accounts for 10 per cent of all depression cases and affects millions of Canadians every winter season.

Though research into the prevalence of SAD in studentathletes is scarce, an American study found that National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletes are at a higher risk of experiencing mental health issues than their non-athlete classmates.

Symptoms such as lethargy can manifest themselves in many ways, like difficulty getting out the door for a run or excessive fatigue during workouts. Combined with increased cravings, this can result in significant fat gain for athletes.

As an athlete and sufferer of SAD, I know these symptoms well. Being physically cold in winter and desperately seeking a way to warm up, I became a masters athlete on U of T’s track

he

and field team. For me, athleticism worked as a way to pump endorphins into my brain and improve my mental health. For the student athlete who is having trouble finding motivation, there are other forms of therapy available to alleviate mental illnesses like SAD. I sat down in a Starbucks recently to talk to Sara Giovannetti, a representative from the University of Toronto StudentAthlete Mental Health Initiative (SAMHI) Campus Team.

We discussed unique struggles student athletes face when dealing with mental health, and where they can go to get the right support. As an alternative to exercise, Giovannetti explained that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) — a psychological treatment that involves learning to change your thoughts and behaviours — can also help.

Through many recent awareness initiatives, including Bell’s ‘Lets Talk’ campaign with six-time Olympic medalist Clara Hughes as its spokesperson, it is clear that the stigma surrounding mental illness is often harder for students and athletes to overcome than the physical symptoms.

For athletes who pride themselves on their ‘toughness,’ coming to terms with a mental illness like SAD can be difficult. Although student-athletes are able to juggle a lot of stress during their time in university, caused by assignments, competition conflicts, and deferred exams, sometimes the stakes become too high. “If an athlete were to become unwell, coaches may not know how to approach the situation and may feel nervous, or reluctant because discussions surrounding mental health can be challenging,” explained Giovannetti.

Among other resources to help students disclose their struggles to their coaches, SAMHI offers a Mental Health Action Plan (MHAP) for athletes to complete collaboratively with their coaches. “The tool allows student athletes who have identified that they have mental health issues to clarify the challenges, triggers, warning signs, and coping strategies that

are important to their individual mental health needs,” said Giovannetti. She added that although the action plan is an important tool for students and coaches, it is not a substitute for professional mental health services.

Even though one in five Canadians will experience a mental illness in their lives, the stigma associated with mental health — especially for athletes who are celebrated for their mental ‘toughness’ — prevents people from seeking help. “Everyone on the planet knows someone who has experienced a mental health issue” explained Giovannetti, who added that “Its not talked about very often [mental illness in sport]... I think a lot of people might be deterred from seeking help because it’s not talked about and feel embarrassed.”

Although the effects of SAD and other mental health issues experienced by athletes are becoming more widely researched and the stigma is dissipating, a difference still remains between the speed and accessibility of healing physical injuries and mental ones.

For SAD sufferers, who may experience symptoms only a few months of the year, the stigma can become even more exaggerated — more research is necessary in the study of SAD and the relationship between the disorder and athletes.

Organizations like SAMHI are invaluable resources for athletes whose mental game may be impacting their physical one.

SAMHI will host one of two ‘Mental Health Matchups’ on February fifth when the Blues men’s and women’s basketball teams take on Brock at the Goldring Centre. The event will connect students with on-campus and community resources as well as raise awareness for the importance of mental health in the sports community.

e stages o stress ractures

g impse at i e on crutches or those

ho are a a s on the mo e

NADEZHDA WOINOWSKY-KRIEGER SCIENCE EDITOR

MIRKA LOISELLE/THE VARSITY

I didn’t realize how much I loved running until I broke my foot.

I’ve been running casually here and there for exercise since I was a teenager, but an intense increase in my running routine last summer called for a shift in identity from ‘occasional jogger’ to ‘athlete.’

Unfortunately, my awareness of my new runner status, along with all the advice, coaching, and budgeting that comes with

it, was realized too late. A poor choice in footwear and an overly ambitious schedule put an end to my short-lived career as an athlete; just one month into my new intensive routine, my foot started hurting. The pain increased slowly but consistently throughout the course of the summer, until I was finally forced to see a doctor.

After two months of consistent foot pain, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture — the smallest, yet most inconvenient of

all sports injuries; dreaded by runners everywhere and generally considered one of the most frustrating injuries out there.

Before I could come to terms with what my running was doing to my body, I would have to go through five stages of grief. The following is a warning to all about the hazards of uneducated athleticism; learn from my mistakes.

Continued on PG 23

22 SPORTS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016 sports@thevarsity.ca

Turf’s up hether ou pre er s nthetic or natura , the t pe o tur ANSTON EMMANUEL VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

KAWMADIE KARUNANAYAKE/THE VARSITY

From Varsity Stadium’s synthetic turf to the iconic grass we tread on every day walking to-and-from Con Hall, the surfaces athletes practice and compete on can have a huge effect on their game. Here is a breakdown of the three types of field surfaces that can be found at U of T and the differences between them.

ARTIFICIAL TURF Also referred to as synthetic turf, artificial turf is a patented composition that mimics the physical attributes of a natural grass environment and has become widely useful in recent years. Composed of specific types of plastics, rubber, and sand, the turf was first introduced to improve sports fields but now has been implemented in residential, public, and private spaces as well. The main benefits of synthetic turf are its low maintenance cost, its durability, and its superior weather resistance when compared to a natural field.

Despite these benefits, Toronto Public Health guidelines warn that synthetic turf’s pesky rubber pellets can get caught in athletic wear and implore athletes to be conscious of excessive heat on the field. Although touted as more durable than grass, artificial turf does deteriorate if not properly maintained, which was highlighted by the US women’s soccer team’s recent refusal to play on a decrepit and dangerous turf field in Hawaii.

ou p a on ma es a difference NATURAL TURF (GRASS) Deemed to be the safest field surface for athletic play, good ol’ grass has also been know to be unreliable when exposed to high levels of activity without significant maintenance. Although we may be most comfortable with this field, the quality of natural turf that is not routinely maintained for athletic use is highly dependent on recent weather — think front campus after a rain-storm. Although more labour intensive to maintain than artificial turf, grass has become the catalyst for gender equality in sport. This is especially true for men’s and women’s soccer; where women are routinely expected to play on turf, while men get to play on the much preferred grass. Everyone’s favourite Toronto team, the Blue Jays are even looking into incorporating a real grass field by the 2018 MLB season to replace the current artificial turf in the Rogers Centre.

WATER-BASED TURF Introduced mainly for competitive field-hockey play, the benefits for this type of artificial turf includes reduced abrasive effects, a constantly lubricated field, and a nearly unaffected path of motion for a ball in play. Water-based turf can also increase the level of activity during a match by allowing athletes to traverse an area of turf much quicker.

A water-based turf such as on back campus, physically does not have an underlying fill material and is instead composed of multiple uniform layers of composite material with the playing surface on top, thus giving water-based turf its iconic smooth look and feel.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this article appeared on The Varsity’s website and made erroneous references to AstroTurf.

The Varsity regrets the error.

Embracing the three How three-pointers are changing the game of basketball, from the NBA to CIS PROFESSIONAL WRITING AND COMMUNICATIONS POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

Building on a strong foundation of storytelling, editing and research skills, you’ll also develop in-demand expertise in media writing, copy editing, and project management. humber.ca/liberalarts/professional-writing-and-communications

RESEARCH ANALYST POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

Focusing on the theoretical, practical and ethical underpinnings of research, you’ll also develop the statistical and technical skills needed to do applied research in a variety of settings.

humber.ca/research-analyst

DANIEL MICHAEL CENTENO VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Golden State Warriors cruised to their 2015 championship title led by two three-point shooters, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

Their starting line-up was comprised of at least four capable three-point shooters, without a centre playing a key role. The 2015 playoffs were an indicator of a shift in how the game of basketball is being played, but this trend is not new. The three-point shot has been embraced as a huge part of team offense rather than an option to relieve pressure off big men in the paint, gradually this has become a permanent shift in how the game is now being played. Ever since the introduction of the threepoint shot to the NBA in the early 1980s, teams have continually tinkered their line-ups to add an edge to their offensive arsenal. ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh states that the NBA average for three-point shots per game is 22.5, which is a huge jump from the league average of 16 in the 1995-1996 season, and three in the 1979-1980 season.

Teams and recruiters no longer seek out defensive specialists like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Shaquille O’neal, and are moving away from putting the big man in the middle.

Players with the finesse and accuracy of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Kyle E. Korver are now in high demand — we saw it in the 1988-89 New York Knicks, 2005-07 Phoenix Suns, and now in the Warriors.

The increased usage of the threepointer has transcended the NBA. In CIS sports a shift has started in teams’ line-ups, which conform to this new norm. According to the statistics of the current season for both Varsity Blues men’s and women’s basketball teams, the three-point shot has become fully entrenched in both squads’ offense.

Varsity Basketball has made the three-point shot a focal point, rather than an option to offer more spacing for big men and slashers.

This season, the men’s team is averaging 23.1 three-point attempts per game, while the women’s team

is averaging 19.6 attempts per game, with each team sinking 7.9 and 4.4.

In the majority of these games, almost every active player attempted a three-pointer. This new norm has helped the Blues, who, like the Warriors, have built their rosters by focusing more on finesse. With the exception of three players on the men’s team, no one on the roster exceeds 6’5”; on the women’s team, with the exception of one player, no one on the roster exceeds 6’0”.

The game of basketball has gradually shifted from a focus on big players, to the increasing need for the three-point shot. The 2015 Warriors proved that a team brimming with three-point specialists can win championships. This style of play is spreading across almost all leagues, including the CIS and our own Varsity Blues. The Blues also deploy a sizeable number of smaller players. An example of how the game has changed, and how adopting the three-point shot is crucial for success in today’s game.

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

SPORTS 23

var.st/sports

CONTINUED FROM PG 21

1. DENIAL The denial began halfway through the summer when my right foot started hurting, and I chose to do nothing about it. It was only when the semester started, and I realized the symptoms weren’t going to go away by themselves, that I disgruntledly made an appointment with the David L. MacIntosh Sports Medicine Clinic for athletic injuries.

Stress fractures are very difficult to detect via x-ray, and my scan brought up nothing. As stress fractures are mainly caused by the repetitive application of force, the sudden increase in my running routine and lack of support due to improper footwear were considered evidence enough of my true diagnosis. The doctor’s treatment course involved quitting running entirely for up to two months and walking less than 15 minutes a day.

For a person like me, who lives their entire life on their feet, this was no small order. The walk from my classes at the Victoria College campus alone are more than 15 minutes away from my classes at the physics building. In my mind, the doctor clearly didn’t understand how busy and active my life was, so I chose to ignore his advice and continued carrying on as I had. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, turned out to be a mistake.

2. ANGER It was a couple of weeks into my diagnosis, after changing nothing about my activity level except substituting long runs for long walks and my symptoms still refused to improve.

If anything, they were getting worse: the rest of my body compensated for the pain in my metatarsals (bones in the ball of the foot), as the pain spread to my ankle and then up to my knee.

By now, I was getting irritated and started making an effort to exchange some of my walking commutes for biking ones. There is only so much laundry and groceries that can be hauled around atop a bicycle though, and the increased stress of adjusting my life so drastically was only making me miss my long anxiety-relieving jogs even more.

It was only after an incident where I attempted to carry coffee with me on my bicycle by stuffing a falsely labelled ‘spill-proof ’ thermos in my backpack with my laptop, when I snapped entirely. A tiny split in my foot bones, too small even to show up on an x-ray, had now taken away my laptop, my ability to run errands independently and, two months of my running routine. With the pain in my foot ever increasing, it was time to start pleading with the authorities.

3. BARGAINING While I was previously determined not to let a silly injury take anything away from my already tight student budget, I now had no choice to give in and see what money could buy me. I purchased a pair of proper (and expensive) supportive running shoes in a vain and useless attempt to rescue my capacity to move.

I also gave in and booked an appointment with the orthopediatrician at the MacIntosh clinic, per the recommendation of my doctor. Surely the combination of expensive footwear and fancy orthotics would heal my foot and preserve my ability to continue to live a mobile and independent life.

Alas, none of these things could save me. I began scrolling the web for another way, but all I found were links to forums where people discussed their stress fracture lasting for weeks or even months past the predicted recovery date.

For me, that was it. The perseverance that had helped me push through so many miles of jogging over the summer had now abandoned me entirely. I clearly wasn’t going to change my ways without a limiting factor to force me. I explained my failure to adjust my lifestyle to the MacIntosh doctors, and begged for an air cast and crutches, which I received. I was almost ready to accept my fate, but I had to weather one more stage first.

4. DEPRESSION The cast and crutches, as much as they were intended to restrict my movement and force me to submit to my new lifestyle as a couch potato, almost put me back to square one. Now that my foot was off the ground permanently, I took great advantage of my new found freedom of mobility to crutch-walk wherever I pleased.

At one point I even attempted to go for a leisurely stroll (or in this case, a leisurely hobble) through Trinity-Bellwoods Park with my headphones, as I used to do uninhibited so many months ago. Needless to say, this was not what I was supposed to be doing at all. The extra weight of my left foot was pushing me to move forward, and after just a few weeks of being in the boot, my left foot started hurting as well.

This pain spread up my leg to my knee, just as it had done before when I was originally injured. By the time the dim but chronic pain started creeping into my hands, I realized that I had opted for the wrong solution yet again; I was going to have to make serious lifestyle changes or I would never heal.

Finally, in mid-November, I bought a TTC pass. I also downloaded Uber onto my phone, and applied for a bursary to compensate cab rides, so that I could take a taxi to get in between classes on campus where the TTC couldn’t reach.

Using the TTC on crutches is easier said than done. There was one occasion after an exhausting work day and a 15 minute wait for a crowded streetcar where no one would get up to give me a seat, when and the streetcar hurtling forward caused me to lose balance, and I accidentally stomped my crutch into an old lady’s foot.

This was too much for me; my foot wasn’t healing and I was spending all my money on transportation and buying meals away from home, due to my inability to purchase groceries.

By now, exam stress was setting in, and I was having difficulty leaving the house entirely. Where I had originally been told my foot would heal in six weeks, it had now been three months. It was time to accept the fact that some serious lifestyle changes would be in order, or I was never going to heal.

5. ACCEPTANCE No one ever said that a full lifestyle turnaround was going to be easy. For me, it started with accepting that I wasn’t going to run again for a long time. Once I realized that my previous coping mechanisms weren’t going to return to me any time soon, it was time to find new ones. This is where everything started to come together, albeit slowly.

After exams were over, I took the streetcar on my crutches to the Eaton Centre to buy a swimsuit and signed up for a yoga pass. For a person who has always deeply identified as being active, having had no exercise for an entire semester had caught up with me, and it was time to turn it around.

I put my identity as a runner at the back of my mind and started viewing myself as a calmer, more reflective person. I began lane swimming at the AC pool, and took up yoga lessons for the first time. Instead of staring into space vapidly, I learned how to use my commuting time on the TTC to finish readings or even just relax and listen to music.

My lifestyle changes were quickly reflected in my attitude.

I caught myself high-fiving other people in casts as I crossed them hobbling up and down the stairs to the subway. I smiled at the old people who were slowly but steadily making their way across hectic Toronto with their canes. Instead of pushing myself to go for longer and further runs I learned how to breathe and reflect when life was overwhelming.

Most importantly I learned how to ask for help. My father started carrying my laundry to and from the laundromat for me and brought me groceries on busy nights of studying. My friends, upon request, were surprisingly quick and happy to participate in quieter dinners and brunches instead of nights out dancing and at busy bars.

Although my foot has not yet fully healed, I no longer spend all my time waiting for change to occur. I have accepted that it will not happen by itself, but I also can’t force it to.

SPORTS IN BRIEF EMMA KIKULIS SPORTS EDITOR

TRACK AND FIELD ATHLETES CLEAN UP AT HOME OPENER

BLUES MEN’S VOLLEYBALL ANNIHILATE NIPISSING

WOMEN’S HOCKEY LOSE 3-2 TO GRYPHONS MEN ON TWO GAME WINNING STREAK

Last weekend, the Varsity Blues men’s and women’s track and field team hosted the 2016 Fred Foot Memorial Meet at the Athletic Centre field house. The competition saw multiple athletes make OUA and CIS standards, as well as win a host of gold-medals. James Turner, a fifth-year kinesiology student, lead the way for the men’s team, winning the men’s heptathlon competition by racking up 5,430 points. Turner, the defending OUA and CIS champion in the multi-events competition, has surpassed his 2015 CIS gold-medal winning decathlon performance by 1,353 points.

Fourth-year student Ekua Cudjoe made CIS standard in the weight throw competition with a throw of 17.09m. In addition to making the national standard, Cudjoe won the shot put competition with a throw of 12.45m, 82cm longer than her OUA throw last year. Leading the way for the Blues men’s jumps squad was second-year computer engineering student James Elson who won gold and silver in the high jump and triple jump competitions, respectively.

Despite missing some of the track and field program’s most accomplished athletes, the team managed to win seven gold medals. Next up for the team will be the OUA championships on February 29 at York.

The Varsity Blues men’s volleyball team had a stellar night defeating the Nipissing Lakers on Saturday in North Bay, putting the Blues in fourth place in the OUA — just two points behind Queen’s. The win helped the Blues improve their record to 7-4, and was characterised by spectacular individual feats from several players including third-year right hitter William Colucci and captain Aidan Haslett.

Colucci and Haslett both managed career-high kills during the game with 23 and 16, respectively. Colucci, who is studying environmental science and ethics, has now moved up to sixth spot on the OUA kill per set count, behind teammate Stefan Ristic who sits in second position. Improving immensely from last season, the men have already beaten last years 4-16 record and moved up six places on the OUA leader board with eight games left until the OUA quarter finals. The men’s next game on Monday January 17 will see the Blues looking to redeem themselves against the York Lions who beat them 3-1 in their last game. You can watch the game at the Goldring Centre; the first serve is set for three o’clock.

The Varsity Blues women’s hockey team dropped a close 3-2 decision to the Guelph Gryphons on Saturday, bringing the Blues to sixth position on the OUA leader board. Top seed in the OUA, the Gryphons scored their winning goal on a power play with 7.7 seconds remaining in the game, bringing their season average to 10-2. Both teams stayed on the ice post-game to pay tribute to Denna Laing, the NWHL player who sustained a serious spine injury competing at the inaugural outdoor women’s classic on December 31.

In men’s hockey action, the Blues won their second straight game on Saturday 4-1, defeating the visiting Brock Badgers.

The men were aided by superb goaltending from Andrew Hunt, making 24 saves in the match. The Blues have several players within the top 10 on the OUA leader board, including goalie Brett Willows in sixth spot with 164 post-season saves. The men will try to make a three game streak when they take on the Mustangs on January 21 in London.

M O N DAY 18 J A N U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

DIVERSIONS 24

var.st/ads

2015/2016

U OF T’S PERFORMING ARTS LEADER SINCE 1919

Hart House Theatre Season

INTO THE WOODS Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim Book by James Lapine Directed by Jeremy Hutton

JAN. 15–30, 2016 BOX OFFICE:

www.uofttix.ca / 416.978.8849 Adults $28 / Seniors $17 / Students $15 $12 Student tickets every Wednesday evening!

www.harthousetheatre.ca

Season Sponsors:

ACROSS 1. Rascal 7. Decriminalise 8. Water grasses 10. Infrequent 12. Thinking only of others 14. Chinese city, ... Kong 16. Did breaststroke . an at-out 20. Adjacent householders 23. South American dance 24. Birthrights 25. Lazed

DOWN

The Varsity will post the answers to this puzzle in the next week’s issue. © Lovatts Puzzles

1. Second movie showings 2. Unfasten 3. Huge 4. Simple 5. Roadside indicators 6. Flyer’s fatigue (3,3) . esell tickets for profit 11. Open spaces in forest 13. Tree blood 15. Fibbers 16. Solely 18. Supply & ...

19. Actor, ... Norris 21. Yonder, ... there 22. Beach surface

Answers from Issue 12