January 20, 2020

THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

January 20, 2020

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Levelling up modern art D

News U of T to match donations for new Iranian Student Memorial Scholarship Fund

Comment U of T’s sexual violence policy still has much room for improvement

Bridging the gap between urban and rural medical networks

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Business Everything you need to know to advocate for yourself as an intern

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Sports Move over Olympics: new swimming league for graduates

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ACROSS 1. TTC station whose name comes from the Ojibwe word for ‘hill’ 7. The environment setting of many a scientific experiment (abbr) 10. Where one pays to relax 13. Providence is near its cap 14. The ____ of March (a day to settle debts) 15. He/she/it possesses 16. You probably have one open on your laptop now 17. Fancy accents on the chest of many suits 19. A bean to snack on 21. A Leonard Cohen tune 23. “Oggy oggy oggy __ __ __!”

24. De ____; de brevitate vitae is a book by Seneca on spare time 25. One stop south of 1 ACROSS on Line 1 29. Pronom masculin (en français) 31. Exclamation of awe 32. A millennial shortening of a word that is commonly misspelled 33. The next best thing to a goal 37. Sean Bean’s ____ Stark

39. Clair de ____ 41. Who the Lorax speaks for 43. What an exorcism seeks to expel 45. An infection in the eye 47. You can find them at Sonic Boom 49. One stop south of 25 ACROSS 52. This is ___, TV show 54. Animal famous for dragging a pizza through the New York City subway 55. 2019 horror film starring Octavia Spencer 56. Matty ________, celebrity chef 61. Short for short 63. One might get this after losing work (abbr) 64. One stop south of 49 ACROSS 67. Vloggers often use this effect 70. Strive 71. A guitarist’s microphone 72. Central aspect of the musical Waitress 73. Slang for really liking something, “We ___” 74. Either/___ 76. Yogis carry this 77. Plus 78. Professors often go off on this

Toronto’s 2020 women’s march draws smaller crowd, tries to stay true to big ideals “Small but mighty” group marches in protest for women’s rights

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DOWN 1. Graduating high school student (abbr) 2. Popular form of low-impact exercise 3. DJ who often collaborates with Skrillex 4. A French epiphany 5. Singer of “I’m Like a Bird” (first name) 6. Acronym for student union housed in Sidney Smith Hall that has past exams 7. To put away a sword 8. Irish boy’s name pronounced “Tige” 9. Acronym you might see before a severe weather warning 10. Step 11. Character in The Office who started a Beesly and ended a Halpert 12. Lincoln’s nickname 18. He floats like a butterfly 20. A cow’s lament 21. Spanish greeting 22. Programming language 26. Nigel Farage is not a fan of this (abbr) 27. The Night of the ___ by David Carr 28. “I kissed thee ___ I killed thee” — Othello 30. To manipulate 34. Typical home for three little pigs 35. Fury 36. Usually used to start a game of golf 38. We ___ boyz 39. First syllable of the city of angels 40. A girl, or ___ fille 42. Grew from the soil 44. Not a purebred 45. Total 46. Group that hates liquids (abbr) 48. Lucid 50. Dark evolution of the Pokémon Eevee 51. What you’d refresh your ACORN in hopes of seeing 57. What the snake did to Eve 58. Composed of your ilium, ischium, and pubis 59. Calamari 60. Where young people share photos 61. Imitating 62. You can set it high or low 65. E.J. Pratt Library is located on this side of campus 66. Suffix that can be added to both wing and time 67. Popular on toast 68. Star of Kill Bill 69. One might file your taxes (abbr) 75. When someone shares your content on Twitter (abbr)

Protestors gathered at Nathan Phillips Square before marching in heavy snow.

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Hannah Carty Associate News Editor

Toronto’s fourth annual women’s march drew a much smaller crowd to its informal event on January 18. During a snowstorm, approximately 10 protestors met in Nathan Phillips Square before marching up University Avenue for a rally.

Petra Kassun-Mutch, the publisher of feminist magazine LiisBeth and organizer of the march, said in an interview with The Varsity that she felt it was important to have the march, no matter how small. “We felt we should come anyway… Just because there’s just a few of us on a snowy day doesn’t mean that Toronto women are not aligned with all the things that everybody’s fighting for.”

The original women’s march took place in January 2017, with the first wave taking place the day after the inauguration of US President

Donald Trump. However, the Toronto women’s march separated from the organization that hosts the marches in Washington, DC and organizes marches in the United States, instead operating under the title of March on Canada. For the past three years, Toronto has held a more sizable women’s march, with the 2017 march drawing as many as 60,000 participants, and the 2019 march still gathering hundreds in poor weather conditions.

The group that previously hosted the Toronto women’s march, Women March On: Toronto, disbanded at the end of 2019, causing a lack of an official women’s march this year. Before that, they had separated from the new entity called Women’s March Canada, an organization closely aligned with the Washington, DC-based women’s march.

The divide between Women March On: Toronto and Women’s March Canada in 2018 “had to do with the feeling that the Women’s March

2020 organization globally… is too corporate,” said Kassun-Mutch. “They objected to them trying to find corporate sponsors.”

The official statement of Women March On: Toronto expressed that Women’s March Canada was unwilling to work with or give credit to local organizers, and citied its corporate structure as a reason for the schism.

The initial women’s marches were met with criticism that they were not inclusive enough.

However, “It’s come so far since then,” said Kassun-Mutch. “It’s really evolved and strengthened.”

“This is the women’s march 2020 Toronto!” shouted Kassun-Mutch into a megaphone as the group walked up University Avenue. “Small but mighty!” another protestor echoed.

Another protestor, Champagne Thomson, said she was participating in the march “because as a woman you see that we are disproportionately impacted by all the atrocities in the world, from pay equity to environmental issues.” She expressed the need that women’s marches represent all women: “If it’s not for all of us, its for none of us.”

Kassun-Mutch expressed optimism that the march would come back in a bigger way in 2021, and create “a march that looks representative of Toronto’s population.”

“Hopefully next year, there’ll be twice as many of us!”

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JANUARY 20, 2020

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U of T starts scholarship fund in honour of victims of PS752 plane crash University to match all donations for needs-based scholarship

Convocation Hall hosted a memorial service for the U of T community members that died in the plane crash.

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Rachel E. Chen Varsity Contributor

U of T recently announced the launch of the Iranian Student Memorial Scholarship Fund in honour of those who tragically lost their lives on the Ukraine International Airlines’ flight PS752 near Tehran, Iran earlier this month. U of T is currently accepting donations, which will be matched by the university at three dollars to every dollar donated for the first $250,000, and dollar-for-dollar beyond the $250,000 threshold.

The needs-based scholarship will be managed

by U of T’s enrollment services and will be made available to both graduate and undergraduate students from Iran, or students of any background in Iranian studies at U of T. Of the flight’s 176 passengers and crew, 138 people with ties to Canada were killed when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard mistook the plane for an enemy aircraft, according to Iranian officials. This incident happened amidst heightened

tensions with the US, following the assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani. Eight members of the U of T community — six of which were students — were among the victims of the crash.

The scholarship was created in collaboration with David Palmer, U of T’s Vice-President, Advancement; Rahim Rezaie, Associate Director of the International Virtual Engineering Student Teams initiative at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering; and Mehrdad Hariri, CEO and president of the Canadian Science Policy Centre.

“It really came out of desire to channel in a positive and forward looking way, so I thought that creating a memorial fund to support future students would be a fitting way to honour the legacy of those who perished,” Rezaie commented in an interview with The Varsity.

“I think it’s a tremendous testament to their commitment [and] their desire to contribute and to keep the legacy of our students and others...alive and augment [that] in a practical way.”

The scholarship is a welcome addition to a

U of T to redesign mental health services following task force’s report Administration accepts all recommendations from student mental health task force

Andy Takagi and Mikaela Toone News Editor and Associate News Editor

Content warning: article contains mentions of suicide.

Following a months-long consultation process with the U of T community, the Presidential & Provostial Task Force on Student Mental Health submitted its final report on January 15. The report includes recommendations to redesign U of T’s mental health services, as well as a new partnership with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

Background Following multiple apparent student suicides at UTSG and an incident where Campus Police handcuffed a student in a mental health crisis, student activists have been pushing the university to overhaul its mental health services. As early as March of last year, student groups such as How Many Lives and the Mental Health Policy Council were formed, and together with multiple student organizations, politicians, and faculty, called on the university to address what seemed to be a system ill-equipped to handle an overflow of students seeking health services.

While the university formed a mental health task force after a second apparent suicide in March at the Bahen Centre for Information and Technology, it was only after a third apparent suicide in September that the school placed physical barriers in the building. The mental health task force was the centrepiece of the university’s response to what had become a mental health crisis on campus.

The administration’s response In the Draft Summary of Themes, which the task force released in November, there were concerns regarding the university-mandated leave of absence policy (UMLAP).

Vice-President and Provost Cheryl Regehr explained in an interview with The Varsity that the UMLAP is being kept as a policy, but that efforts will be made to educate the U of T community “so that students don’t see it as a barrier to seeking help.”

Regehr continued to say that the policy is used in rare cases involving safety concerns and “provides a way of us being able to address those concerns without having to use punitive measures.”

As far as the redesign of the current mental health services at U of T, Regehr emphasized that U of T already has “excellent” programs in place and that the redesign will be focused on “streamlining access” to services. This will be done with the assistance of CAMH, one of U of T’s several medical institution partners.

The redesign has no specific timeline — “we are addressing issues as fast as we are able to,” said Regehr. In the planning stages is the l a u n c h of a single website for mental health services across all three campuses, as well as an online booking system for counselling sessions.

Scarborough Campus Students’ Union President, Chemi Lhamo, expressed concerns in an earlier interview about how the task force would adjust to the nuances that UTSC has as a satellite campus. In response to this, Regehr said that while coordination of services will take place on one system across three campuses, there will be “local delivery” of services that can differ from one campus to another.

The task force’s final report also includes a section on financial resources, and states that mental health and wellness will be a priority for the university in the 2020–2021 budget. The university’s 2019–2020

multi-campus commitment to remembering the lives lost. “It’s a very good opportunity for the Iranians and Canadians, and Canadian culture and Iranian culture to cooperate [and] get closer,” noted Vice-President of the UTSC Iranian Students’ Organization (ISO) Caspian Forouhar.

The ISO held a vigil for the community on January 9, where the names of the U of T students on the passenger manifest were read aloud and condolence banners were signed.

UTSG also saw a memorial service held at the Multi-Faith Centre by the Iranian Association at the University of Toronto the next evening, which was attended by President Meric Gertler and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Elizabeth Dowdeswell.

A memorial organized by Tigran, an independent Iranian cultural organization, followed both of these events and was attended by politicians from multiple levels of government, including Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and Toronto

Mayor John Tory.

Most recently, Gertler invited the U of T community to participate in a moment of silence with other Canadian universities on January 15. In a previous statement released shortly after the crash, Gertler commented on the situation: “I want to say how deeply saddened we are, and how concerned we are for the families and friends of those who lost their lives.”

He also encouraged students “to seek out the relevant services available on our campuses” through helplines and 24-hour on-campus counselling services.

“I must thank the University of Toronto for all it offered to us, and I can’t say anything but thank you. We really appreciate what they gave us,” said Forouhar. “[U of T] helped other Iranian student associations that are in other campuses to hold vigils even bigger and even larger in content, so the other associations could invite the families of the people that were lost in the crash, and so I can’t say anything but thank you.”

budget had $17 million available for allocation.

The report also stresses that U of T will continue advocating for more support from the government toward mental health resources.

“We continue to have good conversations with government, and we continue to be really hopeful that they will be investing resources into this critically important area,” said Regehr.

When asked if the professional development opportunities on student mental health that the report promises to provide faculty and staff would include Campus Police, considering the incident in 2019 where a student was handcuffed after seeking mental health services, Regehr responded: “Absolutely.”

Warning signs of suicide include: Talking about wanting to die Looking for a way to kill oneself Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose Talking about feeling trapped or being in unbearable pain Talking about being a burden to others Increasing use of alcohol or drugs Acting anxious, agitated, or recklessly Sleeping too little or too much Withdrawing or feeling isolated Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge Displaying extreme mood swings The more of these signs a person shows, the greater the risk. If you suspect someone you know may be contemplating suicide, you should talk to them, according to the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.

If you or someone you know is in distress, you can call: Canada Suicide Prevention Service phone available 24/7 at 1-833-456-4566 Good 2 Talk Student Helpline at 1-866-925-5454 Ontario Mental Health Helpline at 1-866-531-2600 Gerstein Centre Crisis Line at 416-929-5200 U of T Health & Wellness Centre at 416-978-8030.

Students have protested multiple times outside of Simcoe Hall to call on Governing Council to improve on the percieved lack of mental health resources.

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Department of Computer Science releases new admissions standards following criticisms Plans to increase first-year placements by 10 per cent, decrease high school acceptances Hannah Carty Associate News Editor

U of T’s Department of Computer Science has announced changes to its program admissions for first-year students, following complaints that the previous admissions system was too competitive.

The department plans to increase places in the program by 10 per cent and introduce two new required first-year courses: CSC110 — Foundations of Computer Science, and CSC111 — Foundations of Computer Science II. If students meet the set required marks for these classes, they will all be admitted into a computer science program.

These changes to the Computer Science Admission Category (CMP1) will constitute what the department calls “a new first-year experience” as it attempts to “improve student well-being.”

The new CMP1 admission category will be available to students applying from high school for the 2020–2021 academic year. The department anticipates that these changes “will eliminate competition among CMP1 students.”

At a mental health town hall last spring, held following multiple student deaths at the Bahen Centre for Information Technology — a computer science hub — the department announced that it planned to make changes to the program admissions. This announcement was made amidst complaints that the existing system was too competitive and was fostering an unhealthy environment. Before the changes, admissions to computer science programs were based solely on average marks for required courses. The median average of those accepted to computer science specialist and major programs rose from 78.5 per

cent in 2014 to 89.2 per cent in 2018. In addition, the number of students applying for a computer science program rose from 537 to 981 applicants in the same four years. The program requirements will remain the same for students not admitted to the CMP1 category.

CMP1 students will be guaranteed admission to the computer science minor, major, or specialist programs, provided they meet the requirements.

The department expects that the “vast majority” of CMP1 will be admitted to a computer science program. However, the department also plans to accept fewer students from high school into the computer science stream.

Currently, the capacity for computer science majors and specialists is 550 students per year.

“We expect the first-year experience to be less stressful for students in the first-year CS admission category,” wrote Ryan Perez, Communications & Event Assistant at the computer science department, to The Varsity. “We hope that this will develop into a strong first-year cohort and that this will lead to a stronger undergraduate computer science community.”

Shahin Imtiaz, a mental health activist and a computer science student, expressed that she was hesitant to accept the changes as good news.

“The field of computer science has been growing massively, [and] the responsibility lies on the university’s shoulders to foster an inclusive and nurturing environment for incoming students keeping this in mind,” she wrote to The Varsity.

“There is certainly still a lot left to be done with regards to that.”

The new admission changes come following a mental health town hall last year.

JACKY LAI/THE VARSITY

CUPE 3902 has hosted rallies in support of its negotiating teams in the past, including a kick-off rally in 2017 and a strike countdown rally in 2018.

STEVEN LEE/THE VARSITY

CUPE 3902 units vote on agreements with university, prepare to negotiate

Union joins legal challenge against province for Bill 124

Lauren Alexander Varsity Staff

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3902, a subset of the larger CUPE representing academic employees at the University of Toronto, is working on ratifying agreements with the university and beginning negotiations for two of its units.

Tentative agreement negotiations in the past have inspired the union to take up a strike vote, which requires all members of the union to strike until their demands are met.

Unit 5, which represents some postdoctoral fellows employed by U of T, will vote to ratify its tentative agreement with the university. The agreement prioritizes greater work flexibility, longer paid leave for parents and survivors of sexual and domestic violence, and university help for U of T postdoctoral fellows that are relocating to Toronto.

The agreement also includes an annual salary increase of one per cent for minimum postdoctoral salaries, and a one per cent increase in salary for those who have multi-year contracts.

“We believe that [the agreement] reflects the best deal for postdocs that we could win at the bargaining table,” wrote Hamish Russell, Chair of CUPE 3902, in an email to The Varsity.

CUPE has joined other Ontario public sector employee unions in charter challenges against the province for the wage-cap on salary increases that passed under Bill 124 in November. “The Act is a forced pay cut for all public sector workers. CUPE is joining other unions in launching a legal challenge against the Act,” Russell added.

Unit 1, the largest unit and the one that represents other postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduate students who are employed in teaching-related roles at U of T, will begin negotiations in February with the election of a bargaining committee.

The bargaining committee will consist of seven voting members and representatives from several committees in the union. After surveying the concerns and priorities of union members, they will create a union platform to bring to the university.

Along with a group appointed to represent the university, the bargaining committee will draft proposals for an agreement with the university.

The negotiations will likely continue into 2021.

In order to reach what it would consider to be a more reasonable contract, CUPE 3902 may decide to carry out a strike vote. Should the vote be called, members of the union would vote on whether or not to set a strike mandate, which would lead to legal strike action. All members of the union are required to participate in the strike for its duration.

In 2000, a four-week strike resulted in improved job security, dental care, improved training, and more. The most recent strike happened in 2015, when Unit 1 went on strike until the union entered binding arbitration with the university.

Unit 1 was also set to strike in 2018, but reached an agreement with the university two weeks before the strike was set to start.

In the face of cuts to educational funding by the province, CUPE 3902 is working to minimize the impact that cuts have on U of T employees. Russell noted that CUPE 3902 supports the ongoing strikes by elementary and secondary teachers. “We call on the Ontario Government to end the strikes by reversing their cuts to education, their harmful increases to class sizes, and their interferences with free collective bargaining,” wrote Russell.

Mental health, a much debated issue at U of T, is of high priority in negotiations. The 2017–2018 platform stressed improvement to mental health coverage for all members.

“We continue to work with our unions and look forward to productive rounds of bargaining when negotiations begin later this year,” wrote a spokesperson for the university in an email to The Varsity.

UTM lecturer criticized online for tying grades to social media, buying his book

Reddit post sparks controversy, university asks instructor to change grading scheme Andy Takagi News Editor

Mitchell Huynh is a sessional lecturer at UTM who has come under fire for requiring his students to buy his own book, get his autograph, and follow his social media accounts for marks as part of his introduction to personal finance class.

Huynh has talked to multiple news outlets and stands by his grading practices, though he did tell the National Post that the university has emailed him to ask for his reconsideration of the grading scheme.

In a now-deleted Reddit post, user XdaZxz posted a breakdown of the course’s grading

scheme, which included five per cent of the final mark set aside for buying Huynh’s book Dumb Money, writing out the student’s name in marker, getting the book signed by him, connecting with him on LinkedIn, and following him on Twitter and Instagram.

Despite the online backlash, Huynh stood by his grading scheme, sending the Toronto Star a copy of anonymous student feedback that he had received from previous classes, which mainly held positive views of the class. His RateMyProfessors.com score is evenly split between students who praise the lecturer’s course and students that echo online backlash.

“Basically using the course to promote his book. Course isn’t hard and it’s easy grades so

if that’s what you’re after it’s a good pick,” wrote a user on Huynh’s RateMyProfessors.com page.

A LinkedIn user wrote about his teaching: “I get that the book costs what it does, but really?

Participation is completely bullshit… Teaching is about mentorship and humility. Asking students to conform so you can hit a line item of value for yourself is wrong. Teach your course but don’t add extras that have a monetary value.”

To this Huynh replied that the cost of the textbook is “anywhere from $6 on a good day to $28 at it’s [sic] peak. That’s 1 to 5 Starbucks lattes. Anything under $5 in price is a gimme, which is why the lowest the book has been is $6.

The book needs to be valued to impart value to the students. This will increase the probability of

the students hanging on to the book, so that it will be there when they need it.”

“Teaching and book sales together are less than five per cent of my annual income,” the instructor told the National Post, adding that he has put aside approximately $2,000 and will use the increased attention to his work to donate toward fighting the bushfires in Australia.

In a statement to The Varsity, a spokesperson for U of T declined to discuss the details of the specific case “because of personal privacy.” The spokesperson went on to write in an email: “The university does have policies regarding grading and fees for course materials.”

Huynh did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment.

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JANUARY 20, 2020

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Ford government’s first Strategic Mandate Agreement hopes to tie funding to economic performance metrics

Funding requirements will drastically shift, negotiations ongoing Andy Takagi News Editor

A year after the Ford government announced radical cuts to domestic tuition and financial assistance, the university and the province are sitting down for negotiations of the Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA), where the government hopes to place emphasis on students’ economic outcomes. The third of its kind, the SMA outlines domestic enrollment commitments and tuition fee structures from the university and funding commitments, based on enrollment and performance, from the province.

“As part of SMA3, we are shifting funding for universities and colleges to be more dependent on student, graduate, and economic outcomes,” wrote Ciara Byrne, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Colleges and Universities (MCU), to The Varsity. “Students deserve an education that gives them the education and training necessary for rewarding careers that address labour market needs of today and in the future.”

The province, as part of its 2020–2021 budget, announced that it would be reducing provincial operating grants to Ontario universities and colleges, instead opting for performancebased funding to make up 60 per cent of postsecondary funding by 2024–2025.

U of T receives nearly a quarter of its budget from provincial operating grants, of which performance-based funding makes up 1.4 per cent, soon to be up to 25 per cent for SMA3.

Included in the budget announcement was the

cutting of performance indicators from 28 to 10 for universities, of which one can be selected by the university.

The university has found some relief in the increasing number of international students, whose tuition costs fall under the university’s discretion, as opposed to domestic tuition, which is set by the province.

SMA2, which expires on March 31, had slowly made progress toward performancebased funding, as U of T’s announcement of the SMA2 signing reads: “While the university will still receive per-student funding from the province for both undergraduate and graduate programs, some funding will be moving into a differentiation envelope that will be based on performance.”

SMA2 had also outlined domestic enrollment for the university to decrease over the three-year stretch of 2017–2020 in response to Ontario’s changing demographics — which resulted in the university being short $88 million in its budget when the Ford government cut domestic tuition in 2019 by 10 per cent.

“Students and their families make great sacrifices to attend university and college. They have been told that if they worked hard and invested in university or college, they would find a high-quality job,” wrote Byrne. “That is increasingly not the case.”

The university boasts high performance in the new proposed funding metrics of economic outcomes of students, with a 93.9 per cent employment rate and employability rankings of

12th and 13th in Quacquarelli Symonds and Times Higher Education rankings.

TCU Minister Ross Romano told the Toronto Star that, after replacing former Minister Merilee Fullerton, he visited presidents and heads of all 45 colleges and universities in Ontario. Romano assured the Star that the metrics will not disadvantage liberal arts programs: “I

wouldn’t be here if not for the arts and humanities.”

“The data is the biggest one,” Romano told the Star about what worries him the most. “Because if we do not have clean data, how can we expect institutions to be bound by these terms?”

The Varsity has reached out to U of T for comment.

The Breakdown: Grade deflation

U of T handbook gives guidelines on proportion of As in various courses Mikaela Toone Associate News Editor

As the 2019 fall semester came to a close, students once again took to Twitter to express concern and confusion over U of T’s grading practices.

One tweet in particular featuring a screenshot of an email from an instructor went viral, with more than 500 retweets and students commenting their frustration and similar stories.

The email informed students that in order to counteract grade inflation and keep the course average between 75 to 78 per cent, grades for an assignment would be capped at eight, as opposed to 10.

Melissa Hill, Executive Director in the Faculty of Communications and Public Affairs at U of T, wrote to The Varsity that this email was a miscommunication, and the assignment would, in fact, be marked out of 10.

U of T’s grading distribution guidelines The Faculty of Arts & Science Academic Handbook for Instructors outlines the rules and expectations with regard to grading undergraduate courses. Section 10.3 of the handbook gives “broad guidance” on marks distribution, based on a memo from the tri-campus dean in 2009.

The guidelines note that in large first- and second-year courses, “the proportion of As in any given offering of the course might reasonably vary from 15% to 35%” and courses that consistently fall on the upper or lower end of this range should undergo review.

As for upper-year courses, it states that due to small class sizes it is difficult to set detailed expectations of grade distributions. However, it notes that “distributions with 30-40% As (or even more) would not be unusual in 300- and 400-level courses.”

Calibration but not a bell curve The handbook explicitly bans instructors from using a bell curve: “Grades… will not be deter-

mined by any system of quotas.” However, the use of grade calibration is permitted.

Grade calibration is the process whereby raw assessment scores are turned into the marks returned to students. The handbook describes calibration as a “responsible” practice as “it is totally unreasonable to expect an instructor to design test after test at precisely the same level of difficulty, and TAs vary in their experience and judgement.”

Calibration does not have to be performed using a linear manipulation, that is, adding or multiplying every grade by the same number, meaning grade calibration can appear very similar to a bell curve.

U of T’s Grading Practices Policy requires instructors to explain any grade calibration upon request of a student, and that the calibration be “defensible in light of the nature of the test or assignment.”

A history of confusion This is not the first time that students have expressed concern over the clarity of grading practices.

A 2014 opinion article in The Varsity called for an end to grade deflation. The author called for an end to the practice and for U of T to make its data on average grades public. Months later, another opinion article argued for grade deflation, noting that competition is necessary.

This debate at U of T goes as far back as the 1970s, when in 1975, as part of a “war on marking inflation,” some students in POL208 — Introduction to International Relations and POL312 — Canadian Foreign Policy had their As shifted down to Bs. Bell curving was officially prohibited in 1977 with the release of the Grading Practices Policy

by Governing Council. The following year the central student union released pamphlets reminding students that bell curving was a banned practice as well as other mandatory marking rules professors were held to.

Business

January 20, 2020 var.st/business biz@thevarsity.ca

Interns, know your rights

Ontario’s Employment Standard Act outlines specific criteria for paid and unpaid internships Sarah Folk Varsity Contributor

misclassifying an employee can lead to serious consequences.

With recruiting season in full swing, many postsecondary students and recent grads are feeling the stress of competing for a limited number of summer internship positions. Amidst a limited number of openings and an increasingly competitive job market, many students are unaware of their labour rights in the workforce. Even in junior positions, you deserve appropriate compensation and recognition for your work.

New regulations for unpaid interns The laws and regulations surrounding unpaid interns are undergoing changes — unpaid internships in federally regulated industries are now illegal except for academic placements pertaining to the completion of an individual’s degree.

Students entering this form of placement will require certain paperwork issued by their educational institution in order to provide proof of this requirement and the relevance of this work experience to their learning.

This change in regulation was accompanied by the proposed extension of health and safety laws for unpaid interns in this sector, which would provide these interns with some of the standard protections that employees currently enjoy under the ESA. Provincial and territorial laws do not reflect the same standards for unpaid interns, and vary by province, but are generally based around conditions of academic compensation.

Regardless of the legislative changes that are currently in motion, unpaid interns are still not considered employees under the ESA and are not protected under most employment regulations.

Although the ESA is in place to protect members of the Ontarian workforce, it provides only a minimum standard of treatment for employees and interns.

While recent changes in laws and legislation are working in favour of students entering the workforce, there is always a risk of misunderstandings and potential abuse of their labour.

If you are a student with a prospective internship offer — paid or unpaid — be sure to carefully read your contract, do your research, and inquire about any violations.

Paid versus unpaid positions There are two types of internship positions in Ontario: paid and unpaid. Interns are not automatically considered employees under the Employment Standards Act (ESA) and are therefore not guaranteed certain rights.

While employees can also be interns, not all interns are necessarily considered employees.

Different rights and laws apply to interns and employees, and as a student it is critical to understand the difference.

So, what is the difference?

The term “employee” is often used loosely but the ESA uses its own strict definition, which does not include everyone who contributes to the Ontario workforce.

An employee is paid a wage for their work and receives training from the company to carry out their assigned tasks. Their work is important to the business and that business decides the employee’s wage, their responsibilities, and when and where they work.

An intern is usually considered an employee when they are trained by their employer in a skill that is used by other employees in the organization.

Should an individual fulfill these requirements,

YOON-JI KWEON/THE VARSITY

they are entitled to certain rights and treatment by their employer, such as being paid a minimum wage, receiving overtime pay, and being limited to a maximum of 48 hours of labour per week.

For academic internships, the placement is considered legal if it is similar to that of vocational schools and if the placement benefits the intern, among other criteria.

Exceptions to the ESA There are exceptions under the ESA, including those who are performing work under a program which has been approved by their university or

private career college. Interns who fall under these categories do not qualify for the same rights under the ESA, including monetary compensation.

Despite these exceptions, unpaid internships are illegal in Ontario unless the individual is receiving academic credit, the position is providing training required for a specific profession, or the internship fulfills the six requirements that classify an individual as a ‘trainee.’

Employers are obligated to treat all those who qualify as employees appropriately and can face prosecution if they fail to do so — even

Six new capital construction projects in planning stages at UTSC New residence, Scarborough Medical Academy, Indigenous House in the works Oviya Muralidharan Varsity Contributor

The UTSC Campus Council announced plans for new capital construction projects on November 19 to address the need for additional space on campus.

Student residence A 747-bed student residence will begin bidding for contractor selection in mid-January and is scheduled to be completed by the 2022–2023 academic year.

This project would nearly double UTSC’s capacity of student residences, which accommodated 850 students from 2018–2019.

Since 2013, undergraduate enrollment has increased from 11,701 to 13,694 students.

In an email to The Varsity, UTSC Media Relations spokesperson Don Campbell explained some of the design elements that the new student residence will feature.

“It’s being developed as passive house, a design standard that results in ultra-low energy use,” wrote Campbell.

Instructional Centre Instructional Centre 2 is in the design development phase, and is scheduled to be completed in 2023. According to Campbell, it will house 17 new classrooms and a proposed 500-seat theatre style classroom. “It will also have 300 new study spaces, including group study spaces,” wrote Campbell.

According to Campbell, Instructional Centre 2 is slated to become a hub for student affairs and

services on campus, and will house the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, which currently resides in Instructional Centre.

Indigenous House Indigenous House is also in the design development phase and is expected to be completed by 2022. The architect and building design will be revealed in early 2020.

Its purpose, wrote Campbell, is to “create a space on campus for our Indigenous community.

The goal is to bring all communities together to engage in intercultural dialogue and to educate, build awareness and teach Indigenous ways of knowing, histories, and culture.”

Though these projects have all been approved by the Governing Council, other buildings are

still in the planning or pre-planning stage.

These other buildings include the Arts, Culture and Pluralism Centre, which is in the Project Planning and Report Development Stage and is expected to house the Department of English, Department of Arts, Culture and Media, and the Doris McCarthy Gallery, all of which are currently spread out in different buildings across campus.

“The Scarborough Academy of Medicine is in the early stages of planning,” wrote Campbell.

“But the goal is to significantly contribute to plans already underway to revitalize health care in Scarborough.

“The facility will help train doctors, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, kinesiologists and life science students, among others.”

KATE TAYLOR/THE VARSITY

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January 20, 2020 var.st/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

Despite the efforts of the SVPSC, barriers toward sexual assault support remain present on campus.

NATHAN CHAN/THE VARSITY

There are concerning gaps in the university’s sexual violence support systems

First-hand account reveals shortcomings with the Sexual Violence Prevention & Support Centre Alex Levesque Varsity Contributor

Content warning: discussions of sexual violence U of T’s sexual violence policy received a ‘C’ grade in 2017 from Our Turn, a national action plan resource that gave student unions tools to combat sexual violence on campus.

This should come as no surprise. There are systemic barriers that prevent survivors from coming forward — barriers that include inefficient wait times and a culture that silences conversation at U of T. The Sexual Violence Prevention & Support Centre (SVPSC) opened in 2017. From early 2017 to late 2018, only 56 reports of sexual violence were filed through the SVPSC. Only one hearing was held.

The SVPSC can only take academic and legal actions against the perpetrator if the assailant is a member of the U of T community, despite the fact that the assailants are not necessarily students.

Consider that Silence is Violence, a grassroots student advocacy group, found that out of 544 respondents, 109 reported experiencing sexual violence, or something they were uncertain whether to classify as sexual violence, during their time at U of T, which corresponds to around 20 per cent of respondents. This is a far cry from the one hearing held for a student

population of 90,077 in 2017–2018.

Of course, the 56 students who chose to report sexual violence may not include students whose assailant was not part of the U of T community, or who chose not to press for academic consequences. Regardless, the number seems disproportionately low.

While each survivor has their own reasons to choose whether or not to disclose, the low proportion is indicative of a larger problem.

Rape culture is still present at U of T and can be seen in the casual ways in which members of the community unintentionally place the burden of responsibility on the survivors.

U of T’s policy states that the university is “committed to making available programs and resources to educate its community on the prevention of and response to Sexual Violence.” However, according to a Maclean’s report published in 2018, 38 per cent of U of T students said that no one had properly educated them on how to report sexual assault. This potentially discourages conversation about and reporting of sexual assaults.

While U of T provides avenues to report cases of sexual assault, it becomes redundant if the university does not actively pursue measures to reduce the impact of rape culture.

This culture was exemplified in 2017 when

a series of posters containing quotes from university members detailing their experience with sexual violence and the university’s lacklustre response were put up by Silence is Violence. The university allegedly later took the posters down, effectively shutting down the conversation.

It is imperative that the university takes an active stance in order to dissipate the toxic environment and, consequently, shows survivors that U of T is serious about providing support. A passive form of ignorance will no longer stand.

With an understanding of the toxic atmosphere survivors face, it is worth noting that the services the university does provide simply do not accommodate the sensitive state of sexual assault survivors.

While there are many statistics to support this point, for an issue as personal as this one, it is worth grounding it in the experience of a survivor who has tried to go through the university’s service channels.

However, the university’s policy does note that reporting can “be initiated in person, by phone, or online,” granting survivors the ability to choose whatever is most comfortable.

According to U of T’s official policy, reporting is defined as detailing the occurrences of

an assault which “could result in disciplinary action being taken against the Member of the University Community alleged to have committed Sexual Violence.”

This same disregard for the unique situations of survivors can also be seen in the way the SVPSC processes survivors. The SVPSC asked the source to fill in a form with her personal information, including an emergency contact. In some survivors’ circumstances, this could result in contact with the assailant. Her experience highlights the lack of effective processing within the SVPSC. To create a safer environment and better resources for survivors to come forward, the university must do more to reduce these potential barriers to access. It is clear that U of T policy tries to stay in line with the province’s approach to sexual assault, but this has proven ineffective.

A review of provincial and university policy, along with the creation of more programs that encourage conversation around sexual assault and the effectiveness of help centres is a necessary starting point.

Alex Levesque is a f irst-year Social Sciences student at University College.

Debunking the myths surrounding Greek life: a community of opportunities Open doors for networking, community-building, and proper academic performance define sororities and fraternities Haley Sheh Associate Video Editor

ZEANA SAMI HAMDONAH/ THE VARSITY

Seven sororities and 11 fraternities form U of T’s Greek community and, contrary to popular belief, being a member of any one of them means more than just parties. One has to pay dues, spend time and effort on various meetings, and engage in activities during the school year. It is certainly not a small commitment, and can greatly add to the cost and pressure of university.

Greek life is busy — in a good way. Every house has at least one mandatory weekly chapter meeting, and there are regular social gatherings to bond with fellow house members. Some weeks have socials between fraternities and sororities.

There are also philanthropy events, alumni events, semi-formals, and formal parties. The Greek community is an ideal place to open up one’s social circle and unite with other people who are seeking to share similar experiences.

However, joining in does not guarantee that you will make friends; you can’t just hold your drink and stick to the walls during parties. You have to make an effort to talk to people. Some-

times others come to you; sometimes you will need to approach them. After all, your interpersonal skills are what enhances any bonds you make with people. It takes effort from both parties to maintain a relationship.

My own experience with Greek life is defined by a sense of belonging. I came to Canada from China alone — a 13-hour time difference separates me from my family and friends. Within the Greek community, I finally felt the sense of belonging that I searched for in a foreign continent.

While I do not live in my sorority house, I spend a large amount of my free time there. My sisters and I cook and eat together while bingewatching Netflix. Sometimes we share stories of emotional ups and downs. More often we stalk random cute guys on social media and discuss their Instagram posts.

While there are numerous social opportunities and obligations attached to joining a house, they are generally understanding when it comes to prioritizing school over duties. Members un-

derstand that everyone is under a lot of academic pressure, and that it is okay to adjust your engagement with a Greek organization to account for classes.

If you scroll down my sorority group chat during the school season, the most common messages are ones that ask if any sisters want to go to the library together. Our education comes first. All houses have minimum GPA requirements to stay active and we reward high academic achievement.

Greek life is a community experience. It can be a great networking opportunity and a second home with your lifelong friends. It can be anything you want it to be, if you make a social and academic effort. How much and how good of an experience you get out of Greek life is totally up to each pledge to figure out.

Haley Sheh is a second-year Anthropology student at Innis College. She is The Varsity’s Associate Video Editor and a member of Alpha Omicron Pi.

8

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COMMENT

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Increase Indigenous awareness training in U of T’s faculty of law Critiques of stereotyping reveal from gaps in Indigenous awareness training

The Faculty of Law faced criticism regarding an assignment which referenced stereotypes about Indigenous peoples.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

Toryanse Blanchard Varsity Staff

Last month, first-year U of T law students criticized a final assignment for using “racial stereotypes” of Indigenous peoples.

The assignment featured a hypothetical situation where Indigenous children were taken out of the care of parents with substance use disorder and placed in foster care with a non-Indigenous family. After two years, the father, who had overcome alcohol use disorder, requested to see the children. The students were asked to write a memo on the situation, and take into consideration a 2017 Ontario law that prioritizes the maintenance of familial and cultural ties for Indigenous children.

Edward Iacobucci, Dean of the U of T law school, responded with an apology a week later.

“I apologize whole-heartedly for the offence this assignment has understandably caused, especially to our First Nations and Métis students” wrote Iacobucci. “The faculty will consider means that we can adopt going forward to seek to ensure that something like this does not happen again.”

Looking closer at the assignment and the criticisms that it evoked, the initial problem wasn’t that the assignment was inherently stereotypical but that it was presented with a general lack of Indigenous awareness. Moving forward from this incident, U of T must incorporate more Indigenous awareness training for faculty and students.

There have been varying responses to this incident, from initial student complaints to the dean’s apology. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, shared her view, saying that there was nothing wrong with the assignment at its “face value,” because it was based on the fact that more than half of the children in foster care are Indigenous.

However, others argue that there should have been more engagement with experts in Indigenous law beforehand in order to avoid engaging with “troubling stereotypes,” as Iacobucci called them.

Indigenous voices are important in these situations, however, respecting Indigenous responses to this incident doesn’t necessarily ensure that something like this won’t happen again. Instead, there must be a concentrated effort toward increasing the base of Indigenous knowledge and awareness in the curriculum. By doing so, U of T would demonstrate a dedicated effort not only in reforming its own curriculum, but also in training a future generation of students whose actions will continue to remedy the gaps in our legal systems.

In an interview with, Iehnhotonkwas Bonnie Jane Maracle, a learning strategist at U of T’s First Nations House, expressed that she agreed with Blackstock’s initial impression, seeing this assignment as something necessary to educate

students on the historical and ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples in Canada.

“This is [a] fact… that’s the language of our lives, and if you’re going to be in law, you definitely have to be conditioned to what you’re going to be dealing with,” Maracle said.

However, as other students voiced in interviews with Law Times, the assignment came with a general lack of context, and should have considered the other harsher realities of the “whole story,” like “residential schools, the sixties scoop, [and] discrimination enabled by the Indian Act.”

“

Ironically, as Maracle also pointed out, the whole response to the article created an issue in itself, as the avoidance of issues related to Indig- enous peoples creates stereotypes.

”

In order to properly address reconciliation, we must train students, educators, and legal workers on the unique historical conditions which have shaped and reinforced the continued neglect of Indigenous peoples in Canada.

The need for integration of Indigenous content in our curriculum is made evident in a 2015 report, when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) implored the Federation of Law Societies of Canada to provide “appropriate cultural competency training,” highlighting the “history and legacy of residential schools,” “treaties and Indigenous rights, Indigenous law and Indigenous-Crown relations,” and “training in conflict resolution and anti-racism,” as areas of concern.

In British Columbia, all lawyers will be required to take a six-hour course covering these areas starting in 2021. All other Canadian provinces should make a similar effort in order to provide competency and awareness training to law students, and other faculties of study. U of T must join this effort, and increase its own Indigenous awareness training.

Maracle noted that the response to the assignment exemplified the continued stereotyping of Indigenous peoples as the result of a direct lack of implementation of the TRC recommendations.

Ironically, as Maracle also pointed out, the whole response to the article created an issue in itself, as the avoidance of issues related to Indigenous peoples creates stereotypes.

“All they could see,” Maracle said, “was the stereotypical aspect of it, not the fact that this was a learning experience. A lot of people are now aware and treading very lightly on what they see… It prevents people from actually looking closer. And especially lawyers, but you have a job to do, to look beyond that and at the facts.”

This assignment was an opportunity for law students to fully immerse themselves in a case that affects numerous Indigenous families each year in Canada. Rather than focusing on the reality that is the disproportionate amount of Indigenous children in the foster care system, reactions have centred on criticizing this assignment as stereotypical and offensive. This hypersensitive reaction distracts from the reality of this systemic inequality. While it is important to reflect upon the way we talk about Indigenous issues, we must not forget that these issues persist regardless of the way we phrase them.

Instead of being quick to label things as stereotypical — and consequently silence debate and discussion altogether — we must focus on reforming our institutions and curriculums so that there is an increased quality and quantity of Indigenous awareness training within our faculty and society.

Toryanse Blanchard is a second-year English, Environmental Biology, and Book and Media Studies student at New College.

Letters to the Editor Re: “The Breakdown: Victoria College renames ‘Ryerson Stream’ to ‘Education Stream’” “Ho-ly fuck they actually did it. I never thought Vic would relent on that, good job!”

—Garnet Shredder (from Web) “Pearson Streem, Frye Stream, Stowe-Gullen Stream, Education Stream… they all fit together so seamlessly.”

—Rowan DeBues-Stafford (from Web) Re: “To better accommodate students with disabilities, U of T should compensate note-takers” “THANK YOU! I’ve been saying this to anyone who will listen for the six years I have spent at U of T. I’m finally in my last semester, and I have never had a reliable note-taker for my disability through Accessibility Services.”

—Paige McMaster (from Web) “Still trying to get someone to help me ” —Jenny J Pierre (from Web) Re: “University suspends incidental fee opt-out portal following court decision quashing Student Choice Initiative” “You pay all your taxes- you don’t opt in or out when you join a community.”

—Paul Newland (from Web) Re: “A review of Cats reviews — the dodgiest film of 2019” “This might be the best piece of journalism of 2020” —Miranda Alk (from Web) Re: “Study abroad: ditch your LSAT for el cerveza” “Beautiful written. Funny and witty. I could see myself there ! :)” —Michelle Morrison (from Web)

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JANUARY 20, 2020

9

U of T mourns the victims of Flight 752.

HANNAH CARTY/THE VARSITY

“Their stories were our stories”: reflecting on Flight 752 Iran’s political missteps continue to bring irreversible harm to its people

Sayeh Yousefi Varsity Contributor

On January 8, the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 plane was mistakenly shot down by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The crash killed all 176 passengers and crew, including 138 people with ties to Canada.

Sara Mamani and Siavash Ghafouri-Azar had flown to Iran to celebrate their wedding with their families. Iranian weddings are always sure to be parties of unequivocal joy and celebration.

Photos from the wedding show a joyous Mamani and Ghafouri-Azar, smiling for the cameras in celebration of their love for one another.

Just a few days later, Mamani and GhafouriAzar’s families and friends reconvened at the same banquet hall where they had danced, laughed, and celebrated just a week ago, this time to attend the couple’s memorial. The video of the memorial shows the attendees heaving with sobs as a band plays a somber, classic Persian tune, while the foreground displays a haunting life-sized photo of the couple on their wedding day.

This was Shakiba Feghahati’s first time returning to Iran with her 10 year old son, Rosstin Moghaddam since emigrating to Canada seven years earlier, and they had gone back to visit family.

Feghahati had insisted that her husband come with them, but he decided to stay in Toronto to work so that they could pay their bills with comfort. He couldn’t have imagined that he would never see his wife or child again.

Mandieh Ghavi was travelling to Canada with her older sister, Masoumeh Ghavi, to begin her studies at Dalhousie Medical School. Masoumeh had spoken to friends about how excited she was that her sister would be joining her in Halifax.

She was eagerly preparing for the apartment they would get together.

I can only imagine her excitement for her sister’s arrival and the beginning of a new life abroad together, and how much they would have contributed to their communities. I can imagine that Mandieh was riddled with nerves at the prospect of leaving her home for another, but perhaps she was comforted that she was in the company of her sister.

Mohammad Asadi Lari and Zeynab Asadi Lari were siblings, both studying at the University of Toronto. Mohammad was a passionate and hard-working student at the Faculty of Medicine who was actively involved in several organizations that contribute to the community. Zeynab was equally brilliant — a brilliant student, mental health advocate, and humanitarian worker who was sure to be a pioneer in her field.

They both died as they returned from a visit home to be with their families over the holidays.

Mohammad and Zeynab lived in my building. We probably took the same route walking to school, shopped at the same grocery store, and went up the same elevator every day. They both had also resided in British Columbia. They moved to Canada just a few years after I did. We had so much in common, and yet their lives were so unjustly cut short. I walk home now, knowing that a flat in my building is empty, the former home of two bright minds.

The list of heartbreaking stories goes on. A brief survey of the victims aboard the flight paints a telling portrait of the calibre of human and intellectual potential that was lost in this tragedy.

The passengers included students in Canada who left their families to study in their respective fields of science, engineering, and medicine. Some were families with small children. The passengers also included the beautiful couple that had been in Iran to get married, whose wedding photos stood out amidst the charred debris of the flight that scattered across the landscape.

The gravity of this tragedy goes beyond the collective national mourning in Canada. It has brought together Iranian residents in Canada of all walks of life — the wealthy, the poor, the politically engaged, and those that have distanced themselves from Iranian politics.

We were all united not just because of some shared feeling of national belonging, but because any one of us or our loved ones could have been aboard that flight, leaving Iran for Canada. This tragedy holds an immense symbolic pain. It is a loss of potential, of human life, of human kindness, of shattered hopes, dreams, and possibilities.

We weep not just because we feel solidarity with the victims — we weep because their stories

were our stories, their loss is our loss. How many of us remember that first flight to Canada, or to the US or the UK? Filled with nervous anticipation — excitement over the prospects of a new life and new freedoms in our new homes — but also holding a deep discomfort in the pit of our stomachs as we left behind our homes, our families, and our collective histories and cultures.

I wonder if Mandieh had similar anxieties.

Perhaps, like her fellow passenger Nasim Rahmanifar, she was wondering whether she needed a warmer winter jacket to face the infamous Canadian winters. Maybe she wondered when the next time she would be able to come to Iran would be.

I’m sure many aboard that flight were following the news. I’m sure many were anxious to leave Iran and land in the far safer country of Canada.

I’m sure many were pre-emptively feeling homesick for their families, their culture, their homeland.

It is heartbreaking because some of the victims had likely come to Canada to escape the horrors of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to live safely and without fear of losing their lives to political incompetence. And yet they fell victim to it nevertheless. For what reason? For going home to celebrate a wedding? For visiting family they hadn’t seen in eight years? For surprising their mother during a brief break from their studies?

We mourn their loss. We all feel their loss. And we will bring justice.

This immense, unimaginable grief has rightfully inspired an anger among Iranians, both abroad and in Iran. Iranians have taken to the streets to mourn the victims and to protest the immense political negligence that caused this senseless tragedy. They are being met with violent repression.

While Canadians come to memorials attended by our prime minister, public officials, and politicians, the government that has hijacked our home instead shoots mourners.

Protestors have been calling for Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, to resign. They have been chanting slogans like “shameless!” at Islamic Revolutionary Guards who wield their batons in the face of brave, angry, Iranian protestors, armed with nothing more than

an unwavering resolve for justice.

Anti-regime protests are not new in Iran. Little over two months ago, approximately 1,500 Iranians were killed by the regime during mass antigovernment protests. The Iranian people want accountability, democracy, and freedom, and have been fighting for such for a while, always inevitably facing gunfire and repression.

But this time, it feels different.

There is an unprecedented anger over this injustice — the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken away 176 innocent, defenseless lives. This tragedy is truly inexcusable. An Iranian State news anchor, Gelare Jabbari, recently wrote in a nowdeleted Instagram post, as translated by Farnaz Fassihi of The New York Times, “It was very hard for me to believe the killing of my countrymen.

I apologize for lying to you on TV for 13 years.”

The Association of Journalists of Tehran also issued a statement through the Islamic Republic News Agency speaking out against the lack of freedom of the press and the breakdown of public trust in Iran.

The profoundness of the impact of this loss on Iranians across the world is not to be abased. It has inspired a camaraderie so powerful that it is a force to be reckoned with. The protests show us that the Islamic Republic’s murder of those 176 innocent lives on Flight 752 will not go unavenged.

As an Iranian Canadian who left Iran as a child and tried her best to distance herself from Iranian politics but has since felt an unassailable force drawing her to engagement, I say this: the end of the tyrannical rule of the Islamic Republic of Iran is inevitable. Not because of foreign intervention or war or economic motivations, but purely because of the unparalleled strength of Iranian solidarity and compatriotism. Our empathy, care, and solidarity for one another is stronger than any missile or bullet the regime can employ, and eventually, the oppressor will fall, and a free Iran will rise. An Iran that all the Iranians aboard Flight 752 would have been proud to call home.

Sayeh Yousefi is a fourth-year Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies at Victoria College.

10

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FEATURES

“I’m from Watervliet, Michigan, which is a town of about 1,600 people (and falling),” Hiler wrote to The Varsity.

DINA DONG/THE VARSITY AND JUSTIN TUNG/CC FLICKR

Between two worlds: rural students on transitioning to city living On missing home-cooked food, silence, and seeing the stars Writer: Ruth Frogoso

The University of Toronto reported a total enrollment of 91,286 students for the 2018–2019 academic year, with students coming from 157 countries and regions.

However, there are currently no statistics for the number of students who come from rural areas.

Even as domestic students, rural students still undergo an acute sense of culture shock and change when moving to urban areas to attend school. In order to attend university, rural students have to leave their family and friends, and face financial challenges due to the relocation.

The Varsity interviewed two U of T students who shared their stories about transitioning from rural to city life.

Growing up in rural hometowns Thomas Wildeboer, a first-year student studying physical and mathematical sciences, was raised in a “very agricultural and quiet” town in southern Ontario called Grand Valley. It has a population of roughly 3,000 people, according to a 2016 census

by Statistics Canada. There are only a few stores, ranging from a hardware store, to an LCBO and a few restaurants.

“Most residents were farmers or worked in local trades… To do anything important you had to drive 20 minutes to the next larger town, Orangeville,” Wildeboer wrote to The Varsity.

Growing up, the activities were largely outdoors-based. “As a kid we spent summers

fishing and biking around mostly,” he wrote. “In the winter there would be lots of snow and the area is hilly so sledding was always fun.”

“

a town of about 1,600 people (and falling),” Hiler wrote to The Varsity. “There’s a movie theatre, maybe 3 good restaurants, and Lake Michigan.”

Diversity adds this intangible quality to life — Hiler

For Dean Hiler, a third-year student studying earth systems, geographic information systems, and history and philosophy of science, it’s a similar story.

“I’m from Watervliet, Michigan, which is

”

“I enjoyed my time there. I enjoyed fishing, building forts in the woods, tending to chickens and horses, riding a dirt bike, and like everyone else, video games!” wrote Hiler.

He added that “Relative to Toronto, there weren’t a lot of things to do or places to go, but you don’t notice that.”

Transitioning to life in Toronto Wildeboer discovered that one of the biggest changes in acclimating to Toronto is the feeling of not knowing anybody.

“Walking down the street you won’t usually recognize anyone, unlike in a small town,” he wrote.

However, he found that adapting to the pace of city life was not as big of a pendulum swing as expected. “Many people who live in rural areas have a lot of bad ideas about city living but the adjustment really isn’t difficult,” wrote Wildeboer. “I started to feel at home pretty quickly.”

He found that living in Toronto provides a new kind of convenience that Grand Valley didn’t have. “You’re walking distance away from a lot of stuff and the TTC can get you places. If all else fails, Uber is an option. In rural areas, driving for hours to run errands is common,” he wrote.

Wildeboer has found that one of the best things about living in the city is fast internet, which he describes as “a rare commodity in rural Ontario.”

For Hiler, the biggest change has been the commute. In Toronto, he commutes an hour from Scarborough each day, with an extra cushion of 30 minutes for potential delays. But back in Watervliet, he had his schedule whittled down to the minute.

“It took about 15 minutes to get to school once the school bus picked me up. When

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I turned 16 and started driving to school, it took exactly 7 minutes and never varied because traffic doesn’t exist,” wrote Hiler.

He mentioned that although Toronto is the only big city that he’s spent much time living in, he has noticed some differences between the cultures of rural and metropolitan areas.

The diversity in Toronto is one of Hiler’s favorite features of living here. He described Watervliet as “95% white.”

“And I mean the same shade of white!” he wrote. “Everyone is protestant or Catholic. Going out to eat means burgers, pizza, or ‘the Mexican place.’ All of the radio stations are country music with the occasional rock or pop.”

Hiler emphasized that diversity was integral to adding and altering many things in his life, from his taste in food and music to his view of the world and personal values.

“Diversity adds this intangible quality to life that is often indirect and minor, but because it affects everything, it’s actually a huge part of your life and you don’t realize you were missing it or value it until you have it,” he wrote.

He explained that “the perspective I get from being enveloped in diversity has allowed me to redefine myself using a much larger dictionary.”

The opportunities of being in the city In over 30 years, there has been tremendous growth in the number of people attending universities. In 1980, there were 550,000 students enrolled at the undergraduate level at Canadian universities. In 2010, there were 994,000 students. For the 2016–2017 academic year, Statistics Canada estimated that 2.05 million students were enrolled in postsecondary education — up 1.2 per cent from the previous academic year.

Changes in the labour market and the demand for a highly skilled and educated labour force have driven this growing trend in participation in postsecondary studies.

This demand has increased the value attached to university degrees, drawing more people from all backgrounds to postsecondary education.

The promise of opportunity that being at U of T brings rings true for both Wildeboer and Hiler.

“I don’t have many solid plans after I’m finished my studies, but I can’t envision moving back. I want to work in tech or finance,” wrote Wildeboer. “Those industries obviously don’t exist outside of cities and I can’t stand a long commute.”

“As a kid we spent summers fishing and biking around mostly,” Wildeboer wrote.

SAMANTHA YAO AND DINA DONG/THE VARSITY

The same goes for Hiler, who also can’t envision himself moving back to a small town in the near future.

“I feel like that would be closing myself off to a lot of my academic, professional, and personal potential,” Hiler wrote. “My summer work as a field assistant had me

“

In between two worlds Wildeboer typically commutes home on the weekends and finds himself between two worlds, quite literally.

“I have two sets of friends and two ‘modes’ of living essentially,” he wrote.

The separation between living in

There simply aren’t many opportunities for me back home.

— Wildeboer

doing more camping in three months than I ever did in Michigan. My courses have taken me into the Ontario wilderness, to Turkey, and this year, South Africa and Australia.”

Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean that he’ll be tossing away his small town values and way of life for Toronto.

“After graduation, I’ll continue to seek involvement and balance, drawing from the best of both ‘worlds,’” he wrote.

”

Toronto and living in Grand Valley leads Wildeboer to miss some aspects of being home. Something that he looks forward to when going back is home-cooked food.

“The stars and the quiet [are] really nice sometimes, especially when [I’m] under a lot of stress,” Wildeboer added.

Hiler also identifies his experience as being between two worlds.

“When I think of ways in which people can differ — politics, religion, values — the greatest polarizations are found within the rural/city divide. I think the differences between rural and city people are much greater than the differences between the cultures of [the US and Canada],” Hiler wrote.

Something he especially misses about being back home is the nighttime. He defines the night as being “a period of time where there is a major absence of stimuli,” and he claims that he’s never experienced the night in Toronto.

“It never gets dark — especially in the winter when it’s as bright as day at 3 a.m,” wrote Hiler.

Back home in Watervliet, the night sky is a place of silence and respite.

“There is no light, save for a sky full of stars and a moon,” wrote Hiler. “It is completely silent except for crickets chirping and leaves brushing against each other in the breeze (different kinds of trees have different sounding leaves).

It’s a great time to take a walk in the woods… and it’s so easy to fall asleep at night.”

Arts & Culture

January 20, 2020 var.st/arts arts@thevarsity.ca

God or Jezebel The historicization of women’s pain Kate Reeve Varsity Staff

Christian history is starred with women mystics in various states of ecstasy and agony. Particularly prominent in the twelfth and thirteenth-century mystical movement in Western Europe, women’s mysticism was characterized by the primacy of the body as a site of connection to God. With limited access to theological education and little ecclesiastical authority, women’s sense of religion was necessarily more physical than men’s. The association of women with the flesh also endowed them with certain spiritual privileges; texts about medieval women saints highlight their “physical identification with Christ’s humanity and Passion as a function of their femaleness, which was assumed to predispose their bodies to be, like his, loci of nurture and suffering.”

As such, for women to transcend their natural limitations, they must transcend or control their bodies. Mystical women remained virgins throughout their lives or returned to celibacy after a period of sexual activity — perhaps a marriage — because chastity was seen as a sign of spiritual value.

They also often inflicted themselves with crippling pain. Take, for example, Beatrice of Ornacieux (1260–1303) driving nails through her palms, Dorothy of Montau (1347–1394) contorting her body to hang like a cross, or Serafina of San Gimignano (1238–1253) exalting her own paralysis.

Last winter, I grew quietly obsessed with these women. The aesthetics of their self-mortification fascinated me; the reproductions of their pain — in paintings, drawings, or narratives — blinked wetly from my laptop screen, ready for adoration.

What is it that Susan Sontag talks about regarding the pain of others? That there is no grand ‘we’ involved in engaging images of suffering. So this is about me, not you. And yes, fine, these women weren’t photographed; there was no photography yet to immortalize them. But now they’re on my laptop and they look like a picture.

What makes a picture if not a border and what makes a border if not a caption? So what is it again that Maggie Nelson said about The Art of Cruelty? That it sucks for the viewer.

In most religious traditions, mystics — those with a special connection to the divine — hold a particularly potent kind of authority: the ability to declare a state of exception, to challenge dogma from within. As such, their presence may endanger the authority of the religious institution to which they claim membership.

Some individuals theorize that women mystics used extreme mortification to demonstrate the authenticity of their experiences. To prove they were not just crazy. Yet, women mystics engaged with suffering for a variety of interior reasons far beyond proving their spiritual legitimacy. They suffered in the image of Christ, for Christ, to renounce the mundanity of the world which bound them. Esther Cohen terms this as ‘filopassionism’ — the search for pain in order to imitate Christ.

Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) asked God to strike her with suffering, but her petition wasn’t necessarily corporeal. Spiritual pain afflicts the soul as well as the body. Psychic distress rots from the eyes-in, which anyone with a smartphone knows. Teresa of Avila wrote in her autobiography — now available for purchase from a baldheaded creep online — “I desire to suffer, Lord, because Thou didst suffer.”

She also feared her own weakness: the very real possibility that she could not withstand the suffering required to love God and atone for her sins. Teresa recorded that “just being a woman is enough for my wings to fall off.” Later, she came to believe that God does not send more suffering than what one is able to bear. This thought was a great comfort to her. I read this in February and looked around at my empty apartment.

We — the collective unknowable we — maintain a salacious interest in and discomfort with women who violate themselves. Women’s confessional literature abounds. Entire websites are dedicated to narrative reproductions of women’s pain. Maybe the whole internet is about it. The physical sites of this, the women who share their stories, might get 50 or 75 bucks in return for 500 words on the worst experiences of their lives.

They mortify themselves online. Perhaps this is an attempt to demonstrate the authenticity of their experiences, the rawness of womanhood or whatever. But who does this serve? God? No — Jezebel.com!

One scholar wrote that although Teresa finds fulfillment and self‐actualization through suffering and the surrender of her will, “such practices entail the substantial risk of total self‐annihilation.”

Now, I know that it is not fashionable to talk about women’s suffering without dismay. To secular readers, the maceratory practices of these medieval women seem obscene. Moreover, the political subject of the feminist lens — which has been fitted into our cultural mainstream, you can’t deny — remains, in the words of Saba Mahmood, “a liberatory one, whose agency is conceptualized on the binary model of subordination and subversion.”

We want our women to be victims of pain. We want our women to suffer under the hands of others. But we also must question the normative nature of that which we may hope to encounter in history.

Many contemporary feminists look for and feel affirmed by women of the past who ‘smashed the patriarchy’ in palatable ways. We can put their delicate little faces on tote bags and mugs, embroider them on t-shirts and charge for the privilege. However, as the lives of these Christian mystics demonstrate, the agency of women lies not only in how they can resist norms, but also in the various ways they may inhabit them.

Disclosure: Kate Reeve previously served as Volume 139 Features Editor of The Varsity.

COURTESY OF AGO

var.st/arts

JANUARY 20, 2020

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In defence of the video game The AGO, the MOMA, and the National Portrait Gallery have had their day — modern art is now digitized Liam Bryant Associate Arts & Culture Editor

Heirlooms are curious things — nostalgic bits of personal history that rarely mean much to those unfamiliar with their context. Coins, trinkets, baubles, artifacts, and amulets of possibly cursed origins: the stuff of personal legend, meant to be passed down from generation to generation.

Yet, the world has become a lot less physical over the years, and heirlooms have followed suit. I used to watch my dad traverse pixelated worlds in the darkness on our old living-room MacBook, the low-resolution screen painting both of our faces a pale blue.

I hid behind his back on a stool, looking on as our afternoons and evenings passed slowly into the night.

On one occasion, I watched him take on hellspawn of all sorts, crowbar his way through portals to hell, and save innocent civilians and Earth from certain disaster. I would come to know this as the plot of Doom, an eventual classic. Of course he knew how to navigate this world — he’s Dad. Over his broad shoulders, I would come to this viewing party many times, each time visiting a new locale, a new story, and a new plot. All the hits of the ’90s took place in my home theatre: Tomb Raider, Half-Life I and II, Diablo, Unreal Tournament, Myst, and the aforementioned Doom. I was too scared to play the games, of course, but my dad could kick demon butt, so with him behind the keyboard, I had nothing to worry about.

I became so comfortable watching that I actually neglected to ever play video games

myself. My childhood best friend used to play Sonic Adventure 2 on the GameCube for hours while I sat on his bed, content to watch from the sidelines. I would pick up the controller every now and then when he asked me to, but at that time video games were a spectator sport to me.

By the age of 10, the only games I played were online and very superficial. Neopets, Toontown, and FusionFall kept my boredom to a minimum throughout my childhood as a digital native, but nothing made video games especially stand out, save for the soft spot in my heart where I held the time with my dad.

I didn’t know it yet, but my dad had already decided what his heirloom was going to be. As a portly four-foot-11 sixth grader with no fashion sense, I think he sussed out the necessity of a hobby for his lonely little son. That same year I entered middle school, I was gifted The Sims 2: Deluxe and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Both boxes contained multiple CDs, both took hours of time to set up and play, and both ignited a part of me that continues to burn brightly today.

Before The Sims and Star Wars, the world of video games for me was all first-person, focused on running, shooting, and fighting.

The games of my dad and my best friend had movie-like linear plotlines and, just like films, they were a joy to watch. But I seemed to be missing out on the operative part of a game, video-based or not: participation.

Now that I had been suddenly thrust into two genres which I didn’t know existed, casual and role-playing games (RPGs) turned my world upside down. They engrossed me like nothing ever had before. And from there

it snowballed into the intersection of all of my interests.

I picked up the indie-legend Minecraft a year later, which flexed my creative muscle in unimaginable ways. With a near-infinite world at my disposal, and countless available modifications to tailor it to my choosing, my penchant for meticulous design shown through for the first time in my life.

Later games in my repertoire included RPGs such as Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas, both of which became decade-defining in their own right. These games ask players to navigate civil wars, negotiate difficult ethical dilemmas, and discover on their own terms what it means to be a saviour.

As I grew up, video games became the glue that stuck so many of the best parts of my life together. Mini Metro added to my alreadyastounding adoration for public infrastructure design. Stardew Valley tied my friends together over shared custody of a family farm, bonding us over chicken raising and crop sales. Animal Crossing taught me the importance of patience, of planning ahead, of simple beauties in little things.

It became increasingly clear to me that what made video games special was not simply their gameplay — which, in the end, is just a gimmick. Video games are just like paintings, sculptures, drawings, and the other media I would end up studying. They are, in fact, pieces of art.

Video games carry with them a message, a theme, an idea. They are, just like any work of art, ultimately vectors for the humanity imbued in the project. Video games, however, have the benefit of near-universal application.

Unlike oil paintings, sculptures, or figurines, you don’t need to step into a museum to experience them; you just need a computer, and the price of admission. The rest is up to you.

There’s a video game for every person, for every purpose, and for every genre imaginable. Video games can be beautiful, breathtaking, or downright vapid, but so can all forms of art. They are all equally important, and equally necessary, in a world teetering on the edge of the unknown.

My dad gave me an heirloom I had not been expecting. A holdover from his dad, who apparently gave him the same thing. He taught me to appreciate art, in his own way.

To watch, to speculate. To observe and eventually take part. To digest the medium and make it my own. A skill you cannot learn well by yourself, and one that comes best as a gift.

Video games can do that. They can bridge the gap between what’s there and what hasn’t yet quite arrived. Music, visual art, and participation — all in one package. Our age is one of anxiety: focused on wrongs, focused on fixing, focused on looking outside ourselves. Yet we have to look inward every now and again.

We all deserve a place and time to give our heirlooms away, even if the future seems muddled. Who’s to say whether video games will change your life like they have mine?

They are simply one more avenue to feel human, which means one less chance to slip through the cracks.

If you’re unsure one day, pick up the old mouse and keypad, the joystick, or the controller. Figure out something that makes you happy. You are art — you deserve a medium that corroborates that.

Coming to a theatre near you!

From Dune to Birds of Prey: films to look out for in 2020 HYUN KIM/THE VARSITY

Michelle Krasovitski Varsity Staff

The second decade of the second millennium offered some ground-breaking movie moments — both within the industry and the films themselves. From jaw-dropping spectacles at awards ceremonies — who can forget the Moonlight/La La Land debacle — to true innovation in film technology, the past decade has facilitated meaningful conversations about the roles of class, race, and politics in cinema.

We have a lot to look forward to this year. From the classic to the new, up-and-coming directors, 2020 is sure to be an interesting year for film.

Stars from the 2010s The French Dispatch — directed by Wes Anderson Wes Anderson made his mark on the 2010s with movies like Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Isle of Dogs — all films that displayed his unique touch of symmetry and colouring. His films are lovably absurd, and their contributions to pretty concept art coffee-table books have contributed to how beloved he and his work are.

The French Dispatch stars Tilda Swinton and Timothée Chalamet, and has been described as being a “love-letter” to post-war journalism in Paris.

Dune — directed by Denis Villeneuve If anyone could be argued to be the director of the decade, it would be Denis Villeneuve. Starting the decade off with Incendies — which is, in my opinion, the unrivaled best film of the 2010s,

— Villeneuve went on to direct Prisoners, Sicario, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049. His films are slow and cerebral, but that doesn’t make them any less exciting or tense.

Dune is the ambitious adaptation of Frank Herbert’s famous sci-fi novel of the same name, and will be split into two parts so as to be faithful to the story. The movie will star Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson, and will centre on the son of a noble family who must protect a treasured element of the galaxy.

Other movies to watch out for are Tenet — directed by Christopher Nolan Last Night in Soho — directed by Edgar Wright Legends Blossoms — directed by Wong Kar-Wai One of the world’s most prolific directors, hailing from Hong Kong, Wong Kar-Wai cemented himself as a visionary filmmaker with efforts such as In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express, and Happy Together. In the past decade, however, he has remained relatively silent. The Grandmaster, released in 2013, was his only movie during the 2010s, so the hype for Blossoms, his newest film in nearly a decade, is real.

Blossoms details the day-to-day lives of several people in Shanghai, taking place in two different periods: the 1960s and the 1990s. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Jin Yucheng.

Mank — directed by David Fincher David Fincher was anointed a legend in the ’90s thanks to his releases of Seven and Fight Club, but he proved that he is still going strong, directing

The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl in the past 10 years.

Mank stars Gary Oldman as Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. The movie is supposed to be a biopic, following Mankiewicz during the tumultuous production of one of the most iconic films in cinema’s history.

Also watch out for Thrilla in Manila — directed by Ang Lee Future stars Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon — directed by Ana Lily Amirpour Ana Lily Amirpour made a name for herself in 2014, when she wrote and directed A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. It was a stylistic black-andwhite film following a lonely, skateboard-loving vampire who stalked the people of her small Iranian town. Her follow-up film, 2016’s The Bad Batch, replaced vampires with cannibals and proved that Amirpour was no one-trick pony.

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon follows a young girl with special abilities as she breaks out of an asylum, and stars Burning’s Jun Jong-seo and Kate Hudson.

Shirley — directed by Josephine Decker In 2018, Josephine Decker rejuvenated the ageold question of what separates art from reality — and reality from art — in her unique film Madeline’s Madeline. Her vision and direction really took the forefront, marking her a director to watch for years to come.

And we will get to see how she has evolved in her 2020 effort Shirley. The film stars Elizabeth Moss as Shirley Jackson — writer of “The

Lottery” — who is inspired to write a new novel when a young couple moves into her farmhouse.

The film is a psycho-drama which will undoubtedly be riveting.

Other movies to watch out for are The Devil All the Time — directed by Antonio Campos Candyman — directed by Nia DaCosta Blockbusters No Time to Die — directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga Although James Bond is a figure we’ve all grown familiar with, whether we’ve seen his movies or not — sophisticated international spy with a propensity to seduce any young woman within his vicinity — Beasts of No Nation director Cary Joji Fukunaga is going to usher this iconic character into his seventh decade.

No Time to Die sees James Bond leave his short retirement in order to rescue a scientist who was kidnapped by a nefarious force. Daniel Craig will return as James Bond.

Birds of Prey — directed by Cathy Yan After the disastrous Suicide Squad, it is only right that Harley Quinn gets the cinematic redemption she deserves. Margot Robbie returns as Quinn as she splits from the Joker and turns hero, embarking on a journey to save a young girl who was taken by a crime lord.

Keep an eye out for Wonder Woman 1984 — directed by Patty Jenkins The New Mutants — directed by Josh Boone The King’s Man — directed by Matthew Vaughn

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THE VARSITY

ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

UNHhhh: the Swiss Army knife of YouTube shows

Tune in for some solid bant with Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova Mikaela Toone Associate News Editor

I know what you’re thinking: what the hell is “unhhhh?” It’s both a versatile vocalization — perfect for finding moldy food in the fridge and greeting a crush — and a versatile YouTube show perfect for any physical or mental state. UNHhhh stars RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova, and its new season premieres on January 22.

Ahead of the season premiere, I took a look back at some of the episodes viewed by millions over the past four years to highlight some scenarios where a little UNHhhh is just what you might need.

In a slump There are some YouTube rabbit holes that are allconsuming. One winter day I was truly digested by the weather, and as I let autoplay whisk me away a strange video popped up. Two glamourous

queens introduced a show against a white backdrop where they “talk about whatever we want, because it’s our show, and not yours.”

Each episode has a set theme, including the topics of shame, online dating, and finances. However, part of the fun is watching Mattel and Zamolodchikova barrel from one tangent to the next, until the pre-set theme is altogether forgotten.

An episode entitled “Roommates” features visceral descriptions of the hosts’ harrowing encounters with rodents and pests. Zamolodchikova described finding a trapped rat that had been left to mulch into green goo over the holidays: “It was something other than this world,” she said as studio lights darkened and drums began to beat.

Mattel went on to describe a refrigerator full of raw meat that spoiled on a hot summer day and caused an infestation. “If something has maggots in it, it’s gotta go,” she exclaimed.

As I devoured UNHhhh episodes well into the night, rolling in laughter at the contrast between the hosts’ glamour while discussing very unglamorous topics, coupled with immaculate editing, my winter blues temporarily lifted.

On a date When I’m at the stage in a new relationship where watching Netflix is on the table, the quandary of what to watch weighs heavy on me. Now, however, I look no further than the more than 100 episodes of UNHhhh.

Each episode is short — around 12 minutes long — so if you decide to make an early exit you won’t be bound by the endless conflict between Starks and Lannisters.

In addition, Mattel’s dry but hilarious jokes and Zamolodchikova’s weird and wacky humour cover the full spectrum of comedy. UNHhhh can be used as a humour litmus test. If your crush remains straight-faced, it’s probably best to leave while you can.

At a pregame Among the many topics UNHhhh touches on is drugs and drinking. Spattered amongst the wild tales are nuggets of real wisdom. For example, the show touches on the stress of dealing with anxiety once one is sober in situations you’ve gotten yourself into while in a drunken stupor, and on the importance of not looking in the mirror if you ever decide to try acid.

In addition to some practical partying advice, you now have the opportunity to watch your friends experience the beauty of UNHhhh for the first time, which is far more joyful than watching your friends experience Narcos!

UNHhhh is the Swiss Army knife of YouTube shows, perfect for almost any occasion. Mattel and Zamolodchikova have developed a chemistry that the most renowned comic duos of history would be desperate to have.

Speculating as to why the show garnered so much success, Mattel explained on the podcast Whimsically Volatile that her boyfriend had told her to “think of what young people see when they’re young and gay and weird and they see young, gay, weird people excelling. You accidently inspire people.”

Promoting “Canadian speculative fiction”: two U of T alumni discuss running literary magazine

Chatting with Alex De Pompa and Kerrie-Seljak Byrne about Sunburst-nominated Augur Magazine Tahmeed Shafiq Associate Science Editor

Alex De Pompa is flashing a great smile as he describes his childhood summers at his family’s farm in Nova Scotia. Over 50 acres of trees, hillocks, and streams — ample space for the young De Pompa to pretend he was a character in an adventure story with the bow and arrow his father had made him.

“I would spend every summer of my childhood there,” he says. This early, regular exposure to nature gave him an appreciation for wonder, and later, this imaginative play-acting would lead to a love for speculative fiction — science fiction, fantasy, and the more agile genres between.

De Pompa and I are talking in the Bora Laskin Library of the Faculty of Law at U of T, where he is a third-year JD candidate. He is also the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Augur Magazine, a literary magazine for the fantastic that recently started in Toronto and is growing fast.

As of 2020, Augur is the first Canadian publication to receive recognized status from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the premiere guild for writers and artists of science fiction and fantasy (SFF). This recognition is given to magazines that pay writers a standard professional rate of 11 cents per word.

This recognition also enables Augur-published stories to be nominated for the Nebula Awards, which are some of the most prestigious awards in SFF publishing. They might well be on their way to winning one soon, as a story in their very first issue has garnered a nomination for the local equivalent, the Sunburst Award for the best Canadian speculative writing.

I’ve asked to meet with De Pompa to learn how three U of T students set about creating Augur, and how life has changed since. We emailed the night before; our exchange included the magazine’s publisher Kerrie Seljak-Bryne, who founded the U of T SFF journal and blog, The Spectatorial.

love to read. For those of us who are writers, it’s also what we love to write.

Why Canadian? Because there are so few Canadian speculative fiction magazines, and even fewer that pay. There just weren’t enough opportunities for people to publish speculative stories — so we created one.

Plus, we knew we’d need grant support. We already wanted to support Canadian and Indigenous creators, but knowing that grants shared that desire made it exceptionally clear to us what we needed to do.

Turns out we weren’t wrong. Now we receive over 3,000 submissions per year. Our all-volunteer staff is almost 30 people big, and our stories have been recommended by Maria Haskins, Charles Payseur, Locus Magazine, and the Nebula reading list. It’s been a pretty wild ride.

TV: How did the founders of Augur meet? Was it through The Spectatorial?

Alex De Pompa: Yes and no! The three founders of Augur are Kerrie, Mado Christie — former senior editor — and me.

Kerrie and Mado knew each other from online writing forums back from high school, but reconnected when they both ended up at U of T. Kerrie founded The Spectatorial and was its

editor-in-chief in 2013, during the final year of their undergrad. I first met them when a short story of mine was published in the second volume of The Spectatorial.

When Kerrie first had the idea to start an independent literary magazine, they reached out to me and Mado to help them to plan the magazine that would eventually become Augur.

TV: What kind of stories are you looking for at Augur?

KSB: Our sweet spot is stories that are too speculative for classic Canlit ‘literary’ spheres, and too quiet or ‘literary’ for many speculative spheres.

That said, we also publish both of those genres.

We’ve had everything from a quiet meditation about a relationship by the ocean, to a steampunk fairytale, to a magical robot. An Augur story is more of a tone than content.

ADP: And since one of our major goals with Augur is to foster an inclusive space that centres marginalized voices, we’re especially interested in stories that feature marginalized characters.

TV: Augur began as a Kickstarter-funded publication. How have things changed on the funding side as the magazine has grown?

KSB: We have three sources of revenue: grants, subscriptions and issue purchases, and crowdfunding. Right now, we’re dominantly reliant on grants and crowdfunding, as many magazines are.

My hope is that in the next five years we’ll develop a recurring subscription base that’s strong enough to support our issue costs.

Otherwise, we’re looking at a diverse set of programs now. This year we’ll run a literary magazine, launch a conference, and we recently partnered with a reading series. In future years, we hope to run workshops and potentially even launch a small independent press.

We’re going to launch our second Kickstarter on February 1, where our goal is twice what it was in 2017 — we’re hoping to raise $12,000 in 28 days. Cross your fingers that we make it!

TV: When is the next submissions cycle? What advice do you have for people hoping to submit?

KSB: If you’re a newer, younger, or emerging writer, try and write short. Under 2,500 words.

The longer your stories are, the more immaculate they must be. Every issue has a budget, and it costs us as much to buy two 2,500-word stories as it does one 5,000-word story. Your odds are better if you write shorter just by virtue of how many words we can afford to buy. That goes for many per-word magazines.

Then send us wonder. Just your wondrous or uncanny or fabulist or dreamy stories. Make us feel something, even if we don’t know what it is.

The best way to get a story through is to immerse us in it.

ADP: We’ll open to submissions again in June 2020!

You should always read the publication that you’re planning on submitting to. If you read the publications you want to submit to, you’ll gain a better understanding of the tone and content that they are looking for.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get an acceptance! We publish about one per cent of the pieces that we receive and lots of other magazines have similar numbers. If you get a rejection, don’t take it as a sign that you’re a bad writer. A rejection just means that your piece wasn’t right for this publication at this time — that’s all.

Get back out there, keep writing, keep submitting, and keep the faith.

TV: How did Augur begin? Why create a Canadian science-fiction and fantasy magazine specifically, over other genres of literature?

Kerrie Seljak-Byrne: Augur began because I’m never happy until I’m working on a project. Combine that with my love of reading, my decision to not work a nine-to-five publishing job, and my desire to grow our speculative fiction community, it was an easy choice.

Why speculative fiction? Because it’s what we

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

IRIS DENG/THE VARSITY

Science

January 20, 2020 var.st/science science@thevarsity.ca

Strengthening the bond between emergency medicine departments in urban and rural Ontario Academic departments like U of T’s can learn, share information with rural emergency departments Clara Osei-Yeboah Varsity Contributor

Rural Canadians often experience disparities in health care which are unique to their environment, including a shortage of physicians in emergency room (ER) departments, and difficulty accessing specific health care services.

To better meet the health care needs of patients in rural settings, health care providers are establishing networks between urban academic emergency departments and their rural and regional counterparts.

A recent symposium paper, co-authored by researchers such as principal investigator Dr. Aaron Johnston, the Director of Distributed Learning and Rural Initiatives at the University of Calgary, and Dr. Yasmine Mawji, an assistant professor at U of T’s Faculty of Medicine, looked into ways to build and consolidate these relationships.

The co-authors identified some of the logistical benefits of a network between urban academic and rural communities, including more timely access to consultation, the facilitation of transfer of care, and opportunities for training medical students and residents in rural environments.

Strengthening relationships The study surveyed health practitioners working in rural emergency departments and academic department leaders. A panel of leaders from both rural and urban settings convened over the course of eight months to propose seven recommendations on ways to consolidate and build these relationships.

According to the survey’s respondents, there seems to be a lapse in how urban practitioners understand and perceive the unique challenges of the rural environment. For example, rural physicians often have difficulties accessing specialists for advice by phone.

The study identified the significance of providing training opportunities for physicians, medical students, and residents in rural emergency departments in order to address the gaps in understanding. Both urban and rural physicians expressed interest in opportunities to shadow and work in the others’ environment.

The link between rural hospitals and universities The relationship between the rural hospitals and universities must therefore be predicated on mutual understanding and learning, according to the co-authors. It is not recommended for universities to disseminate knowledge, which

not only patronizes the rural constituency, but also fails to appreciate that the academic and operational approaches are two sides of the same coin.

“At the time of recruitment and admission to medical school, we need to provide opportunities… in the kind of areas we hope that people will work in,” said Johnston to The Varsity.

Training opportunities not only prepare individuals for rural communities through experiential learning, but this active involvement in medical education also stabilizes workforce communities. Communities involved in teaching medical trainees have more stable workforces over time, partly because some of these same trainees will be colleagues in the future.

There are challenges, however, to providing medical students with training opportunities.

“We need to address issues of hidden bias or [the] hidden curriculum… that might dissuade people who are interested [in] or predisposed to a rural career from pursuing [it],” said Johnston.

The term ‘hidden curriculum’ refers to an implicit set of values that may impact care. To address this issue, he recommended providing exit surveys to graduate students which examine its impact on their educational and medical experiences.

Examples of the hidden curriculum include the idea that doctors may “never admit to not knowing something,” and the emphasis in many ERs to minimize wait times, which could lead to behaviours that reduce the quality of patient care.

What academic divisions can learn from rural departments Engagement between rural departments and academic divisions also provides opportunities for mutual learning and teaching, and practitioners in rural settings can also teach other practitioners about the concepts and significance of generalism and clinical courage.

Clinical courage is the concept that practitioners are sometimes pushed to the limits of their training in order to meet the patient’s needs.

Because of staff shortages and limited resources in rural environments, this concept is often applicable to everyday practice for rural physicians.

Johnston explained that it “is an idea that means working at the edge… [because] you’re really the only doctors there.” In a larger environment of health care, practitioners do not often consider this situation.

In fact, family physicians in rural communities across the country practice a broader scope of medicine, which even includes providing emergency care because of the shortage of ER physicians.

Rural physicians can also teach other environments and communities about resource stewardship, since these areas often have limited access to the labs and diagnostic testing that urban communities have, yet still manage to provide exceptional care.

On the flip side, physicians, trainees, and medical students can also gain additional skills from academic institutions in areas of palliative care, for example, or the ER, as there is an appreciation for adaptability or being able to meet the needs of the patient population by acquiring and updating an individual’s skills.

Looking outside Ontario So, what does this mean for Ontario? The study recommended modelling future relationships between academic institutions and rural regions after successful models, like the British Columbia Emergency Medicine Network, which links the province’s emergency physicians and BCrelevant clinical resources initiated in September 2017.

The network encourages peers and colleagues to support one another and share knowledge and information in order to better serve patients. Its rural component is embodied in the network’s Rural Working Group, which provides a rural perspective on the clinical resources that the network offers. Where and when necessary, rural members review and update resources.

But there are challenges to building this kind of network, according to Johnston. Firstly, it takes time to build relationships, so the potential for successful results won’t be immediate or instant. Its infrastructure also requires significant amounts of money, resources, and manpower.

The BC Emergency Medicine Network works because it was intentionally built with specific goals in mind. Leaders travelled to rural communities to get a sense of what the community wanted and what the relationships between the community and the health care profession should look like.

By listening to the constituents, namely the physicians who use the resources, the BC Emergency Medicine Network has been successful, as it is equipped with knowledge of the needs of the health care communities.

Building a similar network elsewhere To build a similar network elsewhere, Johnston recommends a web-like network rather than a “hub-and-spoke” model, in which the academic institution is in the middle and everything else is connected to it. While it may be more difficult to build a web-like network, Johnston noted it is important because it allows for the interconnection of nodes in different ways.

The Supplemental Emergency Medicine Experience (SEME) is a program that offers three months of clinical immersion in emergency medicine for physicians from rural environments, and was launched to address a staffing shortage of physicians working in ER departments in smaller and rural communities.

By providing family physicians with training, SEME hopes to aid in the acquisition of skills that are necessary for these physicians to practice emergency medicine in their rural communities.

The program’s success is attributed to the collaborative network between U of T’s teaching hospital sites, the Rural Ontario Medical Program’s teaching sites, and many faculty members.

The program measures its success in the sustainability of family physicians in rural communities in emergency medicine. According to exit surveys, most respondents have still been providing care in emergency departments in rural communities one to five years after program completion.

“It’s rewarding to have them speak back to us [about] how much they feel the program has improved their confidence to practice emergency medicine and [their] interest to practice emergency medicine. We receive emails in terms of how they’ve been able to use the program in their day-to-day practice,” remarked Mawji, who is also SEME’s program director.

A great challenge for SEME, however, has been attracting physicians from northern Ontario, since it is difficult for some to leave their practice for such a long period of time. With the renewal of the program, Mawji hopes to create a satellite program in Thunder Bay. Hopefully, providing training opportunities closer to home may increase the recruitment of rural physicians into the program.

Physicians like Johnston and Mawji are taking action to improve the health care outcomes of rural communities, and the future seems promising for successive generations and how they can get involved with improving equitable health care for all.

The co-authors recommended modelling future relationships between academic institutions and rural regions on successful models.

DAN SELJAK/THE VARSITY

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THE VARSITY

SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

A gutsy conference exploring who you are inside

Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology Student Union hosts conference on gut microbiota Charis Lam Varsity Contributor

“We are not fully human,” announced Dr. Shaiya Robinson, a research fellow at SickKids, last Saturday at the Go With Your Gut conference. “In fact, recent estimates place the ratio of bacterial cells and mammalian cells at something like one to one, which literally means you are just as much bacteria as you are human.”

Go With Your Gut, a conference hosted by the Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology Student Union on January 11, explored the impact of gut microbiota on health and disease.

The forum took place in the MacLeod Auditorium and featured talks by U of T researchers including Dr. Dana Philpott, Dr. Alberto Martin, and Dr. Susan Poutanen, who spoke on recent developments in understanding how intestinal microbes contribute to inflammatory bowel disease, colon cancer, obesity, and more.

The impact of gut microbiota on Chron’s disease The talk began with insights from Philpott, a professor at the Department of Immunology whose lab uses mouse models to study the interplay between genetics and bacteria in Crohn’s disease.

Philpott explained that the microbiota — the population of microorganisms living in the gut — of healthy individuals differs from that of patients with inflammatory bowel disease, and researchers can model the difference by treating newborn mice with antibiotics.

Her lab has explored whether a “short-term antibiotic regimen in the animal within the

neonatal period” could have an impact on the animal’s gut microbiota. “There’s pretty good evidence now, in human studies, that repeated earlylife exposure to antibiotics can increase the risk of Crohn’s disease development,” she noted.

Indeed, a recent study from her lab has shown that antibiotic treatment disturbs the intestinal bacteria of genetically susceptible mice, which makes them more vulnerable to inflammation.

The link between diet and gut microbiota Martin, also a professor at the Department of Immunology, spoke about the interaction of genetic and environmental factors, particularly those of a person’s diet.

“There [are] two particular diets that have been linked to colon cancer, and one is the Westernstyle diet… and the other is a low-carb low-fibre diet,” he said.

He remarked on their work with a particular strain of E. coli that has been found to cause cancer in genetically susceptible mice, “So we want to ask whether that microbe interacts with these two different diets.”

He concluded that the “E. coli NC101 [strain] interacts specifically with a low-carb diet to enhance [tumour development].”

An audience member posed the question: “After all this research, what do you eat?” to which he answered, “I don’t want to really delve too far into this because [all this work is in] animal models, but I actually strongly think that it is probably

Robinson’s advice to young researchers is to “always consider why you’re doing your research. Who does your research help, and how will it help them?”

CHARIS LAM/THE VARSITY

applicable to the human condition.”

“A low-fibre diet is probably not very good… but really, this study is just beginning.”

Exploring fecal microbiota transplantation Pivoting from causes of disease to treatment, Poutanen, a medical microbiologist, infectious diseases physician, and an associate professor at U of T, talked about fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). FMT is the process of transporting gut bacteria from the stool of healthy donors into patients in order to recolonize their colons with healthy bacteria.

She discussed the positive results of this treatment — FMT is now recommended for treating recurrent C. difficile infection — but also the strange logistics of providing it.

“In terms of our donors, the big question at first is, ‘How do you collect the stool?’” she noted.

She explained that they usually prefer to ask their donors to collect their sample in a provided container and place it in the fridge.

“And you may think that’s not very palatable — to put your stool in the fridge beside your

food, but we have a very nice pack… [that looks like] an ice cream tub or a margarine tub.”

The promise of probiotics Robinson closed the conference by discussing another emerging treatment: probiotics. She studies their utility in mouse models for preventing necrotizing enterocolitis, a serious gastrointestinal disorder which threatens the lives of preterm and low-birth-weight babies.

She also gave advice to young researchers, saying: “Always consider why you’re doing your research. Who does your research help, and how will it help them?” She further encouraged them to think “about [not only] how your study will drive the research field forward, but also how it drives society forward.”

Those not interested in performing research themselves can contribute by donating stool to the FMT trials, through projects such as the Microbiota Therapeutics Outcomes Program.

As Poutanen’s recruitment poster said: “Instead of flushing it down the drain, you could help someone in pain!”

U of T engineering students aim to revolutionize transportation with hyperloop technology

Investigating a mode of transportation that could exceed the speed of commercial airliners

The hyperloop involves a pod sealed within a tube which has no air resistance and could travel at speeds of up to 1,200 kilometres per hour.

COURTESY OF U OF T HYPERLOOP TEAM

Med Kane Varsity Contributor

Since the early 1900s, the world has embraced the age of flight. Planes with guzzling engines leapfrogged across cities and oceans, consequently subduing slower modes of transportation such as ships and trains. However, just as the passenger ship once faced the threat of the commercial airliner, planes may soon face an emerging threat: the hyperloop.

In 2012, SpaceX, a company founded by Elon Musk with the goal of revolutionizing space technology, introduced the concept of the hyperloop.

Described as a pod sealed within a tube which has no air resistance, the hyperloop could theoretically travel at speeds of up to 1,200 kilometres per hour.

In comparison, the fastest train in the world can only travel up to 430 kilometres per hour.

Over the past several years, Musk has held annual competitions between various universities

and engineering teams in the design of hyperloop technology in order to foster innovation.

The Varsity sat down with the University of Toronto Hyperloop Team (UTHT) to discuss hyperloop tech and the team’s role in its design.

The origins of the UTHT Inspired by a YouTube video of Elon Musk’s annual hyperloop competition, Juan Egas, a thirdyear undergraduate student studying materials science, wanted to join a hyperloop team.

However, he soon discovered that no such teams existed at U of T. Rather than staying content with watching teams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Waterloo compete, he decided to co-found a team at U of T. With Egas as captain, the team launched operations during the winter semester of 2019. Its growth was as fast as an accelerating hyperloop pod.

“By the end of the semester… we were about 10 [people]. At the end of the summer, we were 100… and now we’re [over] 200,” Egas remarked.

The team also raised over $50,000 in funds in less than six months through corporate sponsorships and funding from U of T. The team has divided itself into several main divisions, including technology, leadership, and business. Within the tech division, students designed test tracks for the pod, implemented critical software, produced braking systems, and engineered propulsion systems. Students also worked in the subsystems of structures to produce the shell and frame of the vehicle and power systems, which involves battery design.

In addition to designing the first pod, the team set up a research and development division to outmaneuver competitors by configuring technology such as Halbach arrays — arrangements of permanent magnets — into the design. The Lorentz force generated allows the pod to levitate, and as long the magnetic drag is surpassed, the pod can accelerate.

Yet the team is not solely focused on competing with other universities; rather it also hopes to achieve more altruistic ideals.

“We are not defined by competition,” Egas explained. “At the very beginning, it was about the competition, but then we started to realize that [the] hyperloop is more than [just] a cool technology [and is also aiming for future] sustainability.”

Jovan Phull, a founding member, said to The Varsity that hyperloop construction could bring better transportation options to North America, which lacks the high speed trains deployed in Europe and Asia.

Another founding member, Tony Wang, added that “it would be an honour to strive… to accomplish this evolutionary design.”

Taking on challenges in hyperloop construction Aflush with growth, the team found itself facing many of the challenges that Musk currently faces.

“The learning curve of the design is steep, requiring a lot of self-motivation in learning new things that the university does not teach you,” Wang commented.

“Being a new team, we didn’t have previous years to look to. So we [looked] a lot to European teams and [to] teams around the world,” said Sasha Rudolf, who serves as the technology division director.

Similarly, developers of hyperloop tech often find themselves stymied by a lack of precedent.

Another added difficulty is that the hyperloop pods must be able to withstand normal atmospheric pressure, as the hyperloop operates in a near-vacuum.

The future of UTHT UTHT is working to build a test track in collaboration with five other universities. The team is fully cognizant of not only its own future prospects, but also that of the hyperloop. “[The hyperloop] could have a really big impact on [communities such as] Toronto and Montréal,” Rudolf remarked. However, he also acknowledged that “one of the big challenges is going to be getting the whole community, and especially the government, involved.”

Rather than leaving it solely up to Musk and other tech titans to get the job done, they hope to help foster some innovation within Canada.

The team has been planning a Canadian hyperloop team competition in conjunction with five other Canadian universities this summer.

This would showcase various projects, new research, and of course, the contest itself.

var.st/science

JANUARY 20, 2020

17

HEIA: Ontario’s new tool hoping to make mental health care more equitable

How the Ministry of Health aims to level the playing field for patients Beverly Teng Varsity Staff

HEIA is a framework for the development of effective policies to help mitigate or resolve health care challenges facing different communities.

SOFIA HABIB/THE VARSITY

Imagine running a marathon. Now, imagine running a marathon while carrying a backpack full of rocks. How much more difficult would it be to run? What if you had to jump over hurdles as well? Would you still be able to make it to the finish line?

Similarly, inequitable health care can make it much more difficult and sometimes impossible for disadvantaged groups to access the care that they need. This is where the Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) tool comes into play.

HEIA is a decision-making framework designed to assess the impacts of public health policy on marginalized and vulnerable groups.

In an interview with The Varsity, Dr. Branka Agic, Director of Knowledge Exchange at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and author of a recent review of the HEIA, provided an overview of how this tool is designed to reduce health care inequities.

In an article she published, Agic defined health inequity as “systematic, unfair and avoidable differences in health… between population groups deeply rooted in social determinants of health.”

The barriers to mental health care Income, social status, employment, culture, education, gender, and sexual orientation are all examples of factors that can create barriers to accessing effective mental health care.

For example, in Ontario, members of the LGBTQ+ community experience higher rates of both depression and anxiety. Women in Ontario are also two times more likely to experience depression than men. Additionally, residents of lower-income neighbourhoods in Ontario report increased rates of depression in comparison to higher-income neighbourhoods.

Unfortunately, researchers have documented that despite increasing need for mental health services in disadvantaged groups, the service of care tends to decrease. This is a factor that causes mental health inequity.

How HEIA could lower barriers to health care Agic described the HEIA as a framework for the development of effective policies to help mitigate or resolve health care challenges facing different communities. A working group composed of several important stakeholders developed the first HEIA with the Ministry of Health in 2011.

In 2012, the tool was updated to incorporate feedback from more relevant parties.

As for how the HEIA works, the tool itself is set up to look like a spreadsheet, and plots out five steps for planners to take: identification of populations and causes of health inequity; consideration of unintended potential impacts; mitigation of potential negative impacts; monitoring of mitigation efforts; and dissemination of results.

Next steps for HEIA While each step is vital for ensuring the successful implementation of the tool, the fifth step — dissemination — is especially important, because it allows developers to continue improving on the tool.

The types of evidence and information inputted into the HEIA are experiential in nature. What this means is that the tool’s impact assessment depends heavily on the experiences of both patient and practitioner, because health care is meant to serve everyone who needs it.

As a result, Agic cited feedback as integral to help the tool become more effective. There are many online platforms to support the community around the HEIA. Mental health care itself is an ever-evolving conversation, and the HEIA is one evolving tool that could guide it toward a positive direction.

The overlooked relationship between clinical depression and other medical illnesses

The mental illness can significantly impact the course of medical treatment Ava Harrington Varsity Contributor

An overlooked issue in medicine is the high rate of depression among people with other medical illnesses, according to a recent paper by U of Taffiliated co-authors including Dr. Joshua Rosenblat, a clinician-scientist at the Department of Psychiatry, and Dr. Paul Kurdyak, the director of Health Systems Research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

They reviewed articles related to depression among people with other medical illnesses, a condition which is twice as common for them than in otherwise healthy patients. The Varsity spoke with Rosenblat to learn more about the high rates of depression observed in patients with other medical illnesses, and how to best tackle the issue.

Causes of depression in patients with other medical illnesses Rosenblat suggested three main sources of depression among people with other medical illnesses: biological, psychological, and social. Psychological and social triggers can include sadness driven by unfortunate circumstances, such as a serious medical diagnosis.

When considering biological sources, Rosenblat said, “A lot of things… can happen in your body biologically that can actually have a profound impact on the immune and cognitive systems.”

Inflammation, often caused by infection, autoimmune disorders, and cardiovascular issues, can release inflammatory signals that lead to depression. This is likely an evolutionary adaptation meant to reduce the spread of disease disincentivizing socialization through depressive symptoms.

Additionally, neurological disorders can also make the brain more susceptible to depression.

As an example, half of all stroke victims will develop depression.

Impacts of depression on treatment It is important to note that while illness can cause depression, depression can also give rise to illness.

For example, depression often leads to changes in appetite, resulting in malnourishment or complications related to overeating.

Additionally, just as inflammation can trigger depression, so too can depression trigger inflammation, leading to the development of autoimmune disorders among patients. Depression can also cause harmful changes in behaviour, such as alcohol or tobacco use disorders, which may lead to other illnesses such as cancer, and can worsen pre-existing medical conditions.

Depression can have serious impacts on disease recognition. According to Rosenblat, there is an increased risk of a false link between symptoms of neurological disorder or medical illness.

For example, a patient with diagnosed anxiety may also have an undiagnosed stomach ulcer, but their stomach problems may be dismissed as a symptom of anxiety.

The opposite is also true: a patient being treated for cancer might struggle with low energy caused by undiagnosed depression, but this may be dismissed as a symptom of cancer.

Diagnosing and treating depression Depression is often not properly diagnosed among people with other medical illnesses. It is difficult to measure how often depression is under diagnosed, but Rosenblat estimates at least 25 per cent of cases are not diagnosed.

There are a number of reasons for this discrepancy. Primarily, patients and medical providers may feel uncomfortable discussing depression. In addition, there may be problems with the systems used to diagnose depression. Screening tools that are too specific may overlook some patients who have depression, while screening tools that are too sensitive may overwhelm the mental health system with some patients who do not have depression.

An overwhelmed medical system can also mean that patients who have issues more serious than their depression might not have time to discuss depressive symptoms. Rosenblat suggested a number of solutions to these diagnosis problems, including reducing stigma, as well as pairing highly sensitive and highly specific screening tools.

An example of paired screening tools might be a doctor asking, “Do you feel depressed?” and “Do you feel less motivated?” as sensitive tools. If the responses are affirmative, they would follow up

with a test that asks about symptoms of depression, which is a specific tool.

Unfortunately, screening improvements do not necessarily lead to improvements in depressive symptoms. Many hospitals do not have adequate resources to treat depression. More investment into the mental health system, as well as better treatment education for medical providers would help.

According to Rosenblat, the current recommended treatment includes starting with less intense interventions, such as community engagement and socialization, and if those do not work, trying antidepressants and psychotherapy.

Next steps for depression research What’s on the horizon of depression research?

A number of more radical treatments, such as psychedelics — Rosenblant’s current focus of research — and the dissociative anesthetic ketamine have shown interesting clinical trial results.

More research is generally needed for biological treatments of depression.

Lastly, Rosenblat suggested that future clini-

cal trials should begin with stronger predictions, such as the potential side effects of a drug and the ways in which it will improve depression. This is different from previous methods, which simply gave a drug to patients and considered side effects and biological pathways in hindsight.

Depression is difficult to both discuss and study. Numerous changes, such as reduced stigma, better funding, and additional research need to take place to improve the diagnosis and treatment of depression.

For now, the results of this study demonstrate the importance of considering depression among people with other medical illnesses and how to best go about diagnosing and treating the disease.

If you or someone you know is in distress, you can call: Canada Suicide Prevention Service phone available 24/7 at 1-833-456-4566 Good 2 Talk Student Helpline at 1-866-925-5454 Ontario Mental Health Helpline at 1-866-5312600 Gerstein Centre Crisis Line at 416-929-5200 U of T Health & Wellness Centre at 416-978-8030.

Dr. Joshua Rosenblat suggests that biological, psychological, and social factors are the main sources of depression among people with other medical illnesses.

COURTESY OF TIM MOSSHOLDER/UNSPLASH

Sports

January 20, 2020 var.st/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

New Toronto swim club gives young swimmers option to continue competing after graduation

U of T alum Robert Kent is looking for young university-aged swimmers to join International Swim League Silas Le Blanc Sports Editor

After working as an investment banker on Bay Street for 25 years, former U of T swimmer Robert Kent is getting back into the sport — now as the general manager for the Toronto expansion franchise in the International Swim League (ISL).

The second season of the ISL starts in September, and Kent is looking for top talent, both from Canada and abroad, to compete in one of its newest franchises. “I was talking to the owner of the ISL in Rome in November, and we got to talking about the global swim series and one thing led to another,” Kent recalls in an interview with The Varsity. “He asked me if I would become the [general manager] of the new expansion ISL team.”

The two new franchises in Toronto and Tokyo will have exclusive rights to negotiate with swimmers from their respective countries until February 15. “They’re actually down in Knoxville today at a big swim meet down there,” Kent said about the Canadian swimmers he hopes to secure a contract with.

“When they get back I plan on approaching them and offering them a contract with the ISL.” Toronto will have negotiating rights with Olympic phenom Penny Oleksiak, and former U of T swimmer and Olympic bronze medalist Kylie Masse, among other top Canadian swimmers.

Historically, university swimmers had few options to continue competing, unless they were lucky enough to graduate in an Olympic year.

Kent said that he wishes the ISL existed after he graduated, and recalls his experience training in between his graduation and the next Olympics.

“When I graduated from U of T, and in 1986 I

got a silver medal at nationals,” says Kent. “’86 was not an Olympic year, ’88 was the Olympic year, but I was close enough that I took the next two years off and just trained exclusively to try and make the Olympic team.”

He continued, “If there had been an ISL back then, I would have definitely loved to have done that because instead of being a professional athlete I lifeguarded at U of T, and was a swim instructor there. Up until this October, that’s what any of these prospective Olympians did in between Olympics.”

Kent is focussing his efforts on recruiting top talent from Canada, but is looking at international swimmers as well, many of which will be student athletes. “I plan on getting a core group of Canadian athletes on the team and I have exclusive rights to do that for a little while,” he added.

“Some of them are student athletes and some aren’t, but beyond that, of course the whole team won’t be made up of Canadians. There will be swimmers from all over the world.”

He continued, “Then there’s the [National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)] issue… and then take it one level down from there, is the U SPORTS issue where they’re all Canadian student athletes.”

Currently, the NCAA does not let its athletes compete in the ISL, while other Canadian student athletes and international student athletes can. However, Kent is still keeping a close eye on the NCAA swimmers, as the situation is evolving, and may choose to compete in the ISL after they graduate.

In addition to acquiring talent, Kent is also responsible for the business side of the competition, including branding and revenue. “On the business side, there’s everything from silly things that are really important, like establishing a name and then incorporating, getting a franchise, getting the domain, the website, accounting, hiring a staff, all that kind of stuff. And then getting sponsors and broadcast rights and stuff like that. All of which I’m kind of juggling right now two weeks into it,” Kent said.

Former U of T swim alum recruits for the ISL. COURTESY OF MARTIN BAZYL/ VARSITY BLUES

Blues men’s hockey team defeats Windsor Lancers in a 5–2 decision The Blues dominate the rink to earn the hefty three-point lead Laura Ashwood Associate Sports Editor

The Blues defeated the University of Windsor Lancers this past Friday with a score of 5–2, notching the team’s 18th win and clinching their first-place spot in the Ontario University Athletics West division.

Toronto started the match off with a slew of aggressive offensive plays, leading the shots on goal throughout the first period. After a close shot from forward Joey Manchurek in the 12th minute and a series of aggressive breakaways by David Thomson, Ontario Hockey League veteran Kyle Potts found the back of the net, assisted by Nathan Hudgin and Hunter Atchison.

The goal seemed to wake up the Lancer offense though, with a quick redemption goal scored by Windsor forward Brennan Feasey.

In the final minute of the first period, Windsor forward Connor Logan pulled the Lancers ahead. However, the Blues did not allow their opponents to stay comfortable for too long into the second period, with Thomson feeding the puck

to Hudgin to score the tie-making goal. Keeping up the momentum, Chase Olsen scored a crowdpleasing wrap-around to secure the lead, followed quickly with an assurance goal from Manchurek to start the third period with a 4–2 lead on the scoreboard.

Despite the Blues’ dominating offense, the final period found the Lancers deeper into the Toronto end as they fought for redemption, racking up shots on goal. However, goalkeeper Alex Bishop held his ground and stopped every Lancer shot.

In the last few minutes of the match, Manchurek passed the puck to Kyle Clarke, who found the back of the Lancer net for the fifth Toronto goal of the evening. The crowd left the stands satisfied with a high-energy game and another Toronto win in the books.

The Blues will continue their effort to hold the top spot in their division when they face off against the University of Western Ontario Western Mustangs this Wednesday at the Varsity Arena.

The Blues secure their first-place spot in the Ontario University Athletics West division.

COURTESY OF JIMMY WANG/VARSITY BLUES

var.st/sports

JANUARY 20, 2020

19

Blues go 0-2 in Saturday night doubleheader

The men’s and women’s basketball teams both lost against strong Ryerson squads Jaime McLaughlin Varsity Contributor

The Varsity Blues basketball teams fell in both games of their doubleheader this past Saturday against the Ryerson University Rams.

Women’s team In the women’s game, the Blues donned eyecatching custom pink threads for their 12th annual Think Pink matchup for breast cancer.

The Rams lived up to their U SPORTS fifth ranking early, storming out of the gates on a 12–2 run. A three from Ellen Ougrinov and some timely free throws by first-year players The women wore pink jerseys for their annual Think Pink campaign for breast cancer awareness.

COURTESY OF HENRY ZHAO/VARSITY BLUES

Mikhaela Ekwandja and Jasmine Lambert cut the lead to five, with only a few minutes left before the teams would trade buckets the rest of the quarter. It was 23–14 for Ryerson after 10 minutes.

In the second quarter, the Blues showed some fight, reducing the deficit to a manageable six points with four minutes and 51 seconds left on the clock as Ekwandja finished a tough drive through traffic in the paint, making the score 27–21 for Ryerson. Ekwandja would finish with a team and new career-high of 12 points for the night. The Blues found solace in their rookies, as Ekwandja’s twin Nakiesha Ekwandja connected on a corner threepointer with the shot clock winding down a few possessions later. Fellow rookie Lambert also drew iron from beyond the arc. The squad showed good moments, but ultimately the lead remained at 39–29 for Ryerson at the halftime.

The Rams extended their lead in the third quarter as the Blues struggled to find a consistent scoring flow. A Sarah Bennett lay-in with less than six minutes left to play — which completed a beautiful Blues press break — followed by an Ougrinov pull-up jumper kept the score to a manageable 49–36 about halfway through the quarter. The Rams continued to push, increasing their lead to 58–38, but not before Nakiesha found Sara Cumby on a nice backdoor cut with about two minutes left in the period.

The Rams continued to hit shots in the fourth period, and the final score was 84–53 for the visitors off the backs of a combined 42 points from Ryerson veterans Hayley Robertson and Marin Scotten. For the Blues, Sarah Bennett hit her fifth double-double of the season with 10 points and 10 rebounds, while Nada Radonjic was solid as usual with nine points and seven boards. Toronto got 24 points from its bench and 25 points from rookies.

Men’s team The men’s game was a high-tempo affair and both teams looked hungry from the opening tip.

Each side had already hit double digits in scoring just minutes in, and were tied at 11–11 less than seven minutes after Chris Barrett and Evan Shadkami each connected from both the field and the charity stripe. The Blues’ runand-gun game was matched by their aggressive zone press on defense, and the punishing pace saw Toronto use four bench players within the first five minutes alone. It was 20–16 for the visitors after one quarter.

The second frame was much the same, as both teams continued to score in flurries. The Rams slowly and quietly built their lead to as high as 12, fuelled by the efforts of floor general Tevaun Kokko, who put up a team-high of 31. Meanwhile for the Blues, Shadkami took his second charge — one of three on the evening — as he stepped up and disrupted a twoon-one transition play with a little over eight minutes to go.

Later on in the frame, Jeremy Aibi hit a putback lay-in with two minutes to play before a Marshall Reed three-pointer and a few more Shadkami foul shots made the score 45–38.

This should have been the half-time score if not for the heroics of Kokko to end the frame, as he would hit a Hail Mary, and beat the buzzer from about 75 feet down the court. The score was 48–38 at half-time.

Both teams would trade buckets in the

The men’s team moves to 4-9 on the season with their loss against Ryerson.

COURTESY OF HENRY ZHAO/VARSITY BLUES

opening minutes of the third period before a three from Shadkami cut the deficit down to just six. Each squad continued to push and the Blues would also get three-point baskets in the frame from Barrett, Elie Mouyal, and Daniel Johansson. Ryerson maintained an 11-point lead at 76–65 heading into the final period.

In the fourth quarter, Jeremy Aibi opened the scoring for the Blues with a putback layup with a little over eight minutes remaining on the clock. Aibi was an absolute warrior for the home side, grabbing a game-high 13 boards — including an incredible eight offensive rebounds — in 30 minutes off the bench. Ryerson began to push and the Blues’ heartfelt earlier efforts fell in vain as the visitors outscored the Blues 18–8 in the fourth, taking the game with a final score of 94–73.

Shadkami posted a game-high of 35 points in 36 minutes, exploiting his unique ability to draw contact as he went 13–15 from the foul line. Barrett was the other Blue in double figures, with 12 points as Toronto shot 35 of their 70 field goal attempts from beyond the arc.

20

THE VARSITY

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