March 5, 2018

Vol. CXXXVIII, No. 20 March 5, 2018 thevarsity.ca —— University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

COMMENT

ARTS

SCIENCE

SPORTS

Governing Council who?

Blood and revenge

An intergalactic scrapyard

Blues beat Guelph

To represent students well, better communication is needed

Hart House’s Titus Andronicus balances comedy and tragedy

Too much space debris could impact satellites in space

Women’s volleyball team make OUA final four

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Campus radio station faces criticism for ‘undemocratic’ elections process Student union appointees claim aspects of process violate U of T Policy on Open, Accessible and Democratic Autonomous Student Organizations Josie Kao Associate News Editor

“Justice for Tina Fontaine” rally held at Nathan Phillips Square Protesters call for action following Raymond Cormier’s acquittal in death of Indigenous teenager Ilya Bañares Associate News Editor

More than 1,000 people gathered outside City Hall on March 3 to voice their outrage about the fate of Tina Fontaine, a 15-yearold Indigenous girl who died in 2014. The rally came a week after a jury found her alleged murderer, Raymond Cormier, not guilty of the crime. The event was organized through Facebook by 16-year-old Madyson Arscott.

“The news of Tina Fontaine’s death took the breath out of me.

It made me lose the balance in

my step,” said Arscott. “There was nothing she could have done to deserve it. However, the system of colonial court that we have here in Turtle Island makes Indigeneity a crime.”

Fontaine went missing from the care of Manitoba’s Child and Family Services in the summer of 2014. Her body was later found in Red River in Winnipeg, wrapped in a duvet and weighed down by rocks. In a taped confession to police, Cormier admitted to sexual relations with Fontaine and said, “She got killed because we found out, I found out she

was 15 years old.”

Cormier’s defence team argued that the evidence tying him to the crime was circumstantial and that the prosecution provided no forensic evidence linking him to the crime. The jury acquitted Cormier of the second-degree murder charge.

Many attendees could be seen holding signs that read, “Justice for Tina Fontaine,” “In Unity We Stand,” and “Missing and Murdered are Canada’s shame.”

The rally’s numbers swelled after people from the International Fontaine, page 4

Graduate students’ union elections results

U of T radio station CIUT 89.5 FM is facing criticism from two of its Board Directors, Anne Boucher and Stuart Norton, over its internal executive elections process.

Boucher, who is also Vice-President External of the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), blasted the organization’s process as being “not democratic, transparent, [or] open at all.”

Executives are elected during a Board of Directors meeting that is held immediately after the station’s annual general meeting in the fall. Both Boucher and Norton argue that the nature of the election process — specifically the speed at which it’s conducted — hinder the potential for any competition for positions.

“It was all oral… So someone else may have wanted to be VP, even though they didn’t get a chance to lift their hand up. There was no chance for an actual election,” said Boucher. “[CIUT President Steve Fruitman]... went around the room asking who wanted to be... other positions, being like, ‘Oh, where’s my VP? Secretary?”

Norton backed up this statement, saying that “the President was like, ‘So, anyone want to be President? Well, I’d love to do it again, so I’ll be President.’ But... it happened in like five seconds.”

Fruitman described the structure of the meeting as “Who wants to be this? Who wants to be that? We need four officers, you’re the Treasurer… Secretary, who wants to do that?”

“We need a President and Vice-President, and in this case, as usual, it’s not people stepping forward, it’s people stepping back. So who wants to do it? I put my name for it. I said if you want me to continue doing it, I’ll do it. Nobody opposed me, so I was nominated and elected with a motion. Or I wasn’t elected, I was acclaimed,” said Fruitman.

He added that only board members can vote for executives.

“Your board is comprised of who gets elected at an annual gen-

eral members meeting, and they amongst themselves are going to decide who’s going to be on their executive.”

“I started there in 1988,” said Fruitman. “And we’ve always elected our executive that way.”

Cheri DiNovo, former NDP MPP for the Parkdale–High Park riding in Toronto and current CIUT board member, wrote that “anyone is welcome to run for and vote for positions on the Board and our AGM is coming up. All our terms are limited and certainly since the management is elected democratically, there’s an opportunity to change management at every AGM.” However, according to the station’s bylaws, students who pay the levy are not entitled to receive notice of, attend, or vote at CIUT meetings unless they have paid a general membership fee of $89.50, separate from the levy. The sole guaranteed student representation at the station is through the UTSU appointees.

“Students are not considered that way because of the nature of our relationship,” said Fruitman.

“They get their representation through the [UTSU].”

Students also cannot run to be on the board unless they have paid the membership fee. General member directors are limited to two-year terms, although there is no limit on the number of consecutive terms they can serve.

Boucher further criticized the station for not appointing a Chief Returning Officer (CRO) to administer the elections — a move that violates U of T’s Policy on Open, Accessible and Democratic Autonomous Student Organizations, which states that student organizations must have “impartial and fair elections processes that allow members to participate easily as both voters and candidates.”

Fruitman confirmed that CIUT did not have a CRO at the last election, stating he didn’t know of the CRO requirement and was unsure if the university’s policy applied to CIUT. Interim Director of Media Relations at U of T CIUT, page 3

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MARCH 5, 2018 • 3

var.st/news CIUT, from cover

Updated conflict of interest amendment passes first voting round at TCM Amendment must pass again at next meeting in order to be enacted Rachel Chen Managing Editor

CIUT broadcasts from inside Hart House at UTSG.

SOFIA LUDWIG/THE VARSITY

Elizabeth Church confirmed that it does.

Under CIUT’s bylaws, up to three members of its board must be students.

These students are appointed by the UTSU, unless the board finds the UTSU’s candidates unsuitable, in which case it can launch an application process to fill the seats.

CIUT received $310,575 from student fees in 2017, which made

up 59 per cent of its total revenue that year. Full-time undergraduate students at UTSG pay $3.75 per session to the station, while full-time undergraduates from UTM and UTSC pay $0.50 per session.

Fruitman said that “the student fees are a lifeline” and the station wouldn’t exist without the university and its students.

THANKS FOR VOTING! The Varsity’s levy referendums, which were held on February 28, March 1, and March 2 to increase our membership levy by $0.80 and establish a new levy of $0.80 for full-time graduate students, successfuly passed. The results are as follows: Full-Time Undergraduate

Full-Time Graduate

‘Yes’ votes: 534 (81%)

‘Yes’ votes: 65 (51%)

‘No’ votes: 109 (17%)

‘No’ votes: 60 (47%)

Abstentions: 13 (2%)

Abstentions: 2 (2%)

A constitutional amendment that would prevent Finance Committee (FC) members from being present for in camera discussions regarding funding decisions about clubs of which they are president or treasurer passed this February at the Trinity College Meeting (TCM). The FC decides the amount of money nonlevied Trinity clubs receive.

Constitutional amendments must pass by a two-thirds majority at two consecutive TCMs in order to be adopted. The amendment must therefore pass again at the next meeting in order to be enacted.

A previous amendment that attempted to bar all executive members of clubs from being present for in camera FC discussions regarding their clubs’ funding failed at December’s TCM last year. This original amendment saw 62 per cent of students voting in favour, approximately five per cent short of two thirds.

“I spoke with some of the [student] heads who were very against the [original amendment],” said Jessica

Rapson, who put forward both amendments. “I think they made some good points. Unfortunately, they didn’t want to offer any amendments – they thought I should just drop it.”

Rapson was undeterred because over 50 per cent thought the amendment was a good idea, and it was only a few votes short of passing the first time. She initially proposed the amendment after finding that clubs with members on FC received more money on average than those that did not.

After the failure of the first amendment, she changed it to say, “No member of FC shall be present during any in camera discussion of the budgets of non-levied clubs of which they are current or previous presidents or signing officers.”

“Before it was just all executive members, but that’s probably not fair because a lot of clubs have really big executives or people are involved in a lot of clubs,” said Rapson. “So now it’s just presidents and treasurers that are affected. They are the people who are the most involved in clubs and are in the most privileged position to answer questions about the budget.”

The TCM also passed all the

proposed projects of the Student Capital Campaign Committee (SCCC), which “funds long-term projects that generate permanent gains for the college community,” according to the Trin Life website.

SCCC proposals that were passed included $150,000 for non-resident space, $30,000 for music practiceroom renovations, $10,000 for chapel accessibility, and $10,000 for restoring the Trinity College bell.

The TCM also passed Thomas Robson and Tamsyn Riddle’s SCCC proposal for Trinity to enter a partnership with the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape. Funds would go toward hiring a part-time employee to help Trinity survivors of sexual violence with crisis support and longer-term counseling.

This proposal came after the TCM’s decision in January to ask Trinity administration to look for more outside support for survivors of sexual violence. Last semester, the TCM passed a vote of non-confidence in Trinity College’s Office of the Dean of Students, in part due to how Riddle says they handled her sexual assault case.

Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority at two consecutive TCMs to be adopted.

SOFIA LUDWIG/THE VARSITY

Graduate students’ union elects new Executive Committee Half of executives incumbents, half of positions uncontested Andy Takagi Associate Photo Editor

The election results for the 2018– 2019 University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU) Executive Committee show three executives reelected to their positions, with only three of the six positions having been contested. Two of the elected executives had previously held a role on the executive committee.

Lynne Alexandrova, Internal Commissioner-elect, said her priority is “building together a top-level policy-guided and funding guaranteed mutually supportive tri-campus com-

munity.” She affirmed her focus on disability and accessibility issues while also reiterating a commitment to mental health, saying that she would work intently on “de-stressing university work and life across constituencies.”

“It is up to the university to elect to be such a society, where robust wellness supports practically guarantee that excellence in health is boosted rather than undermined by aspirations for academic distinction,” said Alexandrova.

Finance and University Governance Commissioner Branden Rizutto, who will be in his third term as a UTGSU executive, said he hopes to improve

UTGSU executive election results Position

Name

2017–2018 Year

Academics and Funding Commissioner, Divisions 1 and 2

Christoper Ball

Incumbent

Academics and Funding Commissioner, Divisions 3 and 4

Sophie McGibbonGardner

No position

Civics and Environment Commissioner

Leonardo Jose Uribe Castano

Incumbent

External Commissioner

Cristina Jaimungal

Incumbent

Finance and University Governance Commissioner Internal Commissioner

resources and funding for the union, in addition to emphasizing transparency. Rizutto said he wants to “build upon the working relationships that the UTGSU has been cultivating with the School of Graduate Studies and other University of Toronto administrative bodies.” He is currently serving as the UTGSU’s Vice-Chair of Finance and the UTGSU’s Liaison to the School

Branden Rizzuto Lynne Alexandrova

Contested

Executive-at-large No position

of Graduate Studies.

Leonardo Jose Uribe Castano, the re-elected Civics and Environment Commissioner, wrote that his “main goal for the upcoming year is to advocate for a better transit deal for UofT graduate students.”

“I will also focus on promoting a coherent communication between all environment/sustainability focused

groups on campus,” said Castano.

Christopher Ball and Cristina Jaimungal, both incumbents re-elected to their positions, promised a focus on accessibility to resources and funds from the UTGSU in their election statements.

Sophie McGibbon Gardener, Ball, and Jaimungal did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment.

4 • THE VARSITY • NEWS

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Fontaine, from cover Women’s Day March joined in.

The speakers at the rally, many of them Indigenous women, highlighted the systemic injustices Indigenous people face in Canada.

“She was a child, still had her life ahead of her, taken away too soon by a colonial mindset, a racist mindset, a dangerous mindset that Canada continues to protect and encourage by the injustice that the system continues to enforce on Indigenous people,” said Eve Saint.

Saint also criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for failing to take action in the cases of the missing and murdered Indigenous women. “You do not have good standing with Indigenous people of Canada, as you selfishly proclaim to the world at the United Nations.

You truly want to be a leader?

Listen to us.”

Suzanne Smoke of the American Indian Movement also spoke at the rally, denouncing the justice system for its treatment of the Indigenous community. “How dare you take our children,” said Smoke.

“Don’t dare walk into any of our communities and into any of my sisters’ homes and think that you know better than us, the original people on our sovereign land, how to raise our children on this land.”

Another speaker, John Fox, shared his story of suing the Attorney General of Canada. His daughter, Cheyenne Fox, fell from a balcony on the 24th floor of a Toronto building in 2013; police called it a suicide, but her family

maintains it was murder. “It’s going on for years now because of my daughter... and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be anything in sight for a long time,” said Fox. “We’re fighting for justice for Cheyenne Fox, who was killed here.”

Fox also called out police officers in the back of the crowd, saying, “The culprits are right there in the back with the yellow jackets on, and the blue, whatever they’re dressed in today, those are the culprits around here. Shame!”

Charlie Angus, MP for Timmins— James Bay and the NDP Critic for Indigenous Youth, also spoke.

“Our nation failed here,” said Angus. “This was not a crime in the courtroom — this was a crime of a nation, of taking children. Just as they took Amy Owen, and Courtney Scott, and Kanina Turtle, and all the other young children that have been taken into a system that has left them without support, and too many have ended on the streets or have died.”

Like Saint and Smoke, Angus also criticized Trudeau. “If enough children die, and The New York Times calls the government, and the government will tweet and say they’re sorry, it’s a tragedy. A tragedy is when you walk out and get hit by a bus. When children die, and are taken day after day after day, that is not a tragedy, it is genocide.”

Speakers at the rally denounced mistreament of Indigenous people in the justice system. ANDY TAKAGI/THE VARSITY

WeChat Pay, Alipay now accepted at U of T Bookstore Move made to keep up with market Josie Kao Associate News Editor

U of T Bookstore locations are now accepting payments through WeChat Pay and Alipay, two popular China-based mobile pay apps. Purchases can be made through these platforms using devices at the cash register at all four locations: St. George, Mississauga, Scarborough, and the Varsity Sports store at UTSG. According to Lotta Lindblom, Vice-President Retail at the University of Toronto Press, U of T

Bookstores, which is the retail arm of the University of Toronto Press, decided to implement this payment method to keep up to date with the market.

“The reason why we started accepting WeChat pay and AliPay is part of our way to… ensure that we are servicing the community in the best way possible,” said Lindblom.

“These payments methods are preferred payment methods for Chinese consumers… [and] have exploded in usage during the past five years.”

WeChat Pay and Alipay combined

have over 1 billion users worldwide, compared to Paypal’s 203 million active accounts in 2017.

Using WeChat Pay and Alipay, customers can link their bank accounts to these apps to pay for goods, while also knowing the exact currency rate for RMB and CAD, according to Lindblom.

In addition to WeChat Pay and Alipay, U of T Bookstore will continue to accept cash, debit, credit, and U of T Bookstore gift cards. TCards are also accepted at all locations except UTM.

MIA CARNEVALE/THE VARSITY

MARCH 5, 2018 • 5

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Premier Wynne talks minimum wage, mental health at Hart House U of T visit part of town hall series before 2018 election

Theology graduates to hold referendum on UTSU membership

Lidia Likhodi Varsity Contributor

Association seeks to join graduate students’ union instead

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne visited Hart House on March 1, delivering a keynote address and participating in a moderated discussion hosted by the Hart House Debates & Dialogues Committee. The event was largely focused on student-related subjects.

The discussion and Q&A period with the audience, led by Debates & Dialogue Committee student chair Aceel Hawa, focused on the province’s minimum wage increase and issues of mental health.

During her address, Wynne emphasized the significance of publicly funded education, which she described as “the most important” government responsibility. “I’m in politics because I believe that there is inherent unfairness in our world

— that’s a reality that we deal with,” she said. “I came into politics because of my deep commitment to publicly funded education.”

Wynne also spoke to the controversial decision to increase the minimum wage to $15 by January 2019. The change, she said, was balanced with a decrease in small business taxes from 4.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent as well as youth hiring subsidies. She added that the minimum wage change is closer to providing a living wage for GTA workers and was instituted during an opportune time of economic growth.

Audience members expressed concern that the government had failed to deal with employers sidestepping the minimum wage increase by cutting worker benefits and breaks. In response, Wynne said the number of Ministry of Labour inspectors visiting businesses had been increased to en-

sure that improvements for workers would materialize.

“The vast majority of employers are following and complying with the law, but we’re very determined to make sure that happens,” said Wynne. “If we find that it’s not, we’ll move ahead with making more changes.”

Another topic addressed by Wynne during the Q&A session was mental health. She said that the government had a clear plan to put more money into support on campus and in the community. “You will see, as we move forward, we are going to make more investments to provide more practitioners, more places for people to go to find mental health supports.”

The Premier’s visit was part of a series of town hall-style events that have recently focused on issues relevant to postsecondary students. The province will take to the polls in a general election in June 2018.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

The Toronto School of Theology enrols approximately 40 graduate students.

SOFIA LUDWIG/THE VARSITY

Silas Le Blanc Varsity Staff

The Toronto School of Theology Graduate Students’ Association (TGSA) will hold a referendum to decide on whether or not to leave the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) for the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU).

A ‘yes’ vote on a referendum would withdraw the TGSA from the UTSU; joining the UTGSU would be a separate process.

At a February 24 meeting, the UTSU Board of Directors passed a motion to approve the TGSA referendum. The TGSA is the only graduate student association whose members are also members of the UTSU — all other graduate student associations are a part of the UTGSU. “Earlier this year, the TST graduate students expressed interest in leaving the UTSU for the UTGSU. We don’t represent graduate students, so we decided to allow a referendum,” UTSU President Mathias Memmel told The Varsity. The referendum also requires that the UTGSU confirm its acceptance of TGSA members by March 9.

The UTGSU represents over

18,000 students across 115 different departments. Their work consists of lobbying national and provincial issues on behalf of the students, holding community building events and campaigns. Like the UTSU, they offer various services such as health and dental insurance, advice, grants and bursaries, and access to a workout space.

U of T policy requires every student to be a member of one of the five representative student committees: the UTSU, UTGSU, Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students, Scarborough Campus Students’ Union, or University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union.

Should the referendum pass, the TGSA would withdraw from the UTSU, including the UTSU Health and Dental Plan. This plan includes health and dental, vision care, and travel insurance. It also allows students to add spouses or financially dependent children for an additional fee.

Currently, the Toronto School of Theology enrols approximately 40 graduate students. Memmel said that undergraduate theology students do not need to worry about this change.

“They won’t be affected by any of this,” he said.

The Breakdown: the Student Commons How much it will cost us — and what we’ll get in return Aidan Currie Deputy News Editor

The Student Commons, a studentrun centre at the St. George campus, is set to open in September 2018.

With the deadline fast approaching, here’s what you need to know.

Construction is still underway on most of the building, located at 230 College Street, the former home of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture. It will feature a community kitchen, a conference centre, office space for clubs, presentation galleries, a student-run café, and prayer space.

It will also house the University of Toronto Students’ Union’s (UTSU) Food Bank.

St. George members of the UTSU are paying a semesterly levy of $10.24 for the Student Commons, which the UTSU can increase by 10 per cent

each year. The fee will rise to $20.75 in September.

Currently, only capital expenses are included in the levy. When the centre opens, the capital expenses will increase to $14.25 per semester, and operational expenses of $6.50 per semester will be collected.

The building cost will be in excess of $20 million when completed.

About $4.6 million has been collected from the UTSG student levy as of April 2017. The remaining $15.4 million will be financed through a loan taken out by the university on the UTSU’s behalf.

UTSU President Mathias Memmel said the building underwent a full redesign because the original plan was a “recipe for bankruptcy.” In an oped published in The Varsity, Memmel explained that the union would have canceled the project if possible,

but it was contractually obligated to continue.

“My hope is that the Student Commons will be a service-oriented community centre, as opposed to a costly monument to the vanity of student politicians,” said Memmel in an email. “To that end, we shifted the focus of the project from ‘student space’ to student services.”

Claiming to have made every consequential decision regarding the building and its design over the last eight months, Memmel said that his guiding principle has been the idea of a “community of communities” rather than a “single student community under the control of the UTSU and the idea of the UTSU as a provider of services.”

The Student Commons project began in 2007. Its opening in September will come a year later than forecasted.

The building is set to open in September 2018. ANDY TAKAGI/THE VARSITY

6 • THE VARSITY • NEWS

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UTSC student finds insect in meal from Asian Gourmet Incident reported to Canadian Restaurant and Food Service Inspection Aidan Currie Deputy News Editor

A UTSC student reported finding an insect in her meal from Asian Gourmet, a restaurant located in UTSC’s Student Centre, posting photos of her meal to Facebook after finding a large winged insect, likely a butterfly or moth, in her bok choy.

“At the time I thought it was just a burned or overcooked piece of the bok choy,” Amanda Fontanilla told The Varsity. “So I went to take it out, but initially I thought it was strange to see an inner piece of the bok choy to be burned.”

UTSC media relations told The Varsity that the administration had not been informed of the incident. However, UTSC Media Relations Officer Don Campbell confirmed that they would follow up with the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) to address the matter. “Our Food Partnership Department, which licenses all the other food outlets on our campus, takes food safety seriously,” said Campbell.

All food vendors operating in the Student Centre are licensed in separate agreements, with the SCSU as the landlord. SCSU President Sitharsana Srithas did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment.

Indigenous, postcolonial literature among new requirements in program Hannah Carty Varsity Contributor

The student originally thought the insect was a burnt piece of bok choy.

SCREENSHOT COURTESY OF AMANDA MARY JANE FONTANILLA

Fontanilla approached the SCSU regarding her experience and was given executive director Kavita Siewrattan’s email. She said she will be following up with the union.

Additionally, she reported the incident to the Restaurant and Food Service in Canada Agency.

Fontanilla said she believes that Asian Gourmet should undergo a health inspection, including clean-

liness and health procedures in food preparation.

“It was a terrible experience, but to be fairly honest, I wasn’t too surprised to see it there because I [heard] about someone finding a body of a cricket or something, but like most people, I thought it was just a rumour,” she added.

The Varsity has reached out to Asian Gourmet for comment.

U of T releases survey on sexual violence Survey driven by provincial legislation

Support is available through the Sexual Violence Prevention & Support Centre, with offices at all three campuses. STEVEN LEE/THE VARSITY

Kathryn Mannie Varsity Contributor

Students are receiving email invitations from the administration to participate in a ‘Student Voices on Sexual Violence’ survey, an initiative mandated by the provincial government.

U of T is surveying all full-time students from February 26 to March 26 as a “tool for benchmarking and understanding sexual violence on university campuses,” according to a statement from Vice-Provost Students Sandy Welsh.

The survey is being conducted at institutions across the province by CCI Research Inc. on behalf of the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development. Ontario Bill 132, which amended the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act to include a section on sexual violence, is the legal mandate behind the survey.

The amendment sets requirements for Ontario postsecondary institu-

English department shifts program focus in light of declining enrolment

tions regarding data collection and sexual violence reporting.

It also defines sexual violence as “any sexual act or act targeting a person’s sexuality, gender identity or gender expression, whether the act is physical or psychological in nature, that is committed, threatened or attempted against a person without the person’s consent, and includes sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, indecent exposure, voyeurism and sexual exploitation.”

Students are incentivized to complete the 20-minute survey with a $5 electronic gift card for Amazon, Starbucks, or Indigo.

The survey includes questions regarding personal information, experiences with sexual violence, understanding of consent, knowledge of support and reporting resources, and level of satisfaction with the university’s handling of sexual violence cases.

Silence is Violence (SiV), an antisexual violence student advocacy

group on campus, has had its own sexual violence survey open to the public since February 13. SiV’s survey was launched after a year and a half of development, and it was not created in response to the university’s survey.

Jessica Wright, who conducts research at SiV, is critical of the fact that the initiative for the survey came from a government mandate. Wright expressed skepticism about how the information will be used and about whether the U of T survey will be effective. “Part of the culture of the university perpetuates the cultural conditions that make rape and sexual assault so horrifyingly common,” she said.

In a statement on U of T News, Welsh said that the feedback from the survey “will help us better understand the experiences of our students and their needs and concerns.”

Welsh further added, “This will ultimately help us improve the university’s support services for our community.”

If you have experienced sexual violence you can call Campus Police at (416) 978-2222 for UTSG and UTSC or (905) 569-4333 for UTM. Support is also available through the Sexual Violence Prevention and Support Centre, which can be reached by phone at (416) 978-2266 and is located at 702 Spadina Avenue at UTSG, Room 3094G in the Davis Building at UTM, and Room 141 in the Environmental Science & Chemistry Building at UTSC.

After a two-year program review, the English department is changing the requirements for its specialist and major programs, effective for this year’s enrolment. The department is also introducing more courses that focus on broader themes.

The changes are intended to allow for more flexibility through decreased breadth requirements within the program and a clearer path for students to choose courses. The department has also introduced an Indigenous and postcolonial literature requirement.

The new requirements will apply to all students enrolling in English programs beginning in 2018, and current students in the program will be able to switch to the new requirements if they are interested.

One of the significant changes to the program is adapting 300-level courses to cover broader themes in literature instead of specific historical periods or authors, as is currently the case.

According to Professor Jeremy Lopez, introducing 300-level “topics” courses will give more freedom to “instructors who want to teach some kind of course that might combine or transcend or move between periods or genres of national literatures.”

The program will also include four new “gateway courses” that are intended to give English students a strong background in the major areas of English literature and help them succeed in upper-level

courses. These courses will be the first required English courses and will be designed to foster a sense of community for the specialist and major students who take them.

Three new courses will be introduced to help increase interest in English programs, including a course geared toward science students called Literature and the Sciences.

In addition to making changes to the program, Lopez said that the changes are also set against the backdrop of decreasing student enrolment in English programs over the past five years.

“The current curriculum has been around for 10 years, and usually curriculums have about a 10 year life,” explained Lopez.

The decrease in English enrolment at U of T is not specific to this university or subject, but it is part of a wider trend of reduced enrolment in the humanities at many universities. In acknowledging this trend, the English department’s focus was “increasing the value of the program in the face of it being smaller.”

Elena Matas, a third-year English student, believes that the changes strike a good balance between giving students freedom of choice and providing them with a clear trajectory.

“It gives students the opportunity to explore important aspects of the literary canon,” said Matas.

“But it also gives them flexibility in their later years to study the aspect of literature that appeals the most to them, which is an opportunity I wish I had gotten.”

The current English department curriculum has been in place for 10 years.

TOM KUHN/THE VARSITY

Comment

February 5, 2018 var.st/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

Challenging the power of Trudeau’s positive press In conversation with students, The Varsity’s Associate Comment Editor sheds light on the Prime Minister’s many inconsistencies

MIA CARNEVALE/THE VARSITY

Jenisse Minott Associate Comment Editor

While scrolling through Twitter, flipping through news channels, or partaking in conversations, the topic of Donald Trump is one that appears to permeate all aspects of vocation and vacation. Evidently, there are a whole host of reasons why his behaviours, policies, and positions pique the interest of the public; he is an absurd man with an absurd amount of power. However, as Canadians, focusing on the 24-hour circus put on by our closest neighbours often pulls us away from engaging critically with our own government representatives.

Since his appointment in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has dazzled Canadians and foreigners alike with his good looks and refreshing political stances. In the early days of his tenure as Prime Minister, memes pertaining to Trudeau’s attractiveness and virility flooded the internet, with BuzzFeed documenting a few of the more salacious posts. When he responded to inquiries about his genderbalanced cabinet with, “Because it’s 2015,” the world took pause to revel in the majesty of such a forward-thinking leader, and even Emma Watson tapped out a tweet in support of the Prime Minister and his nation. Though his reputation is occasionally dented by controversies such as ‘nannygate,’ ‘elbowgate,’ or his recent ‘peoplekind’ faux-pas, in the eyes of many, Trudeau gets out of most scandals without any permanent damage.

Naturally, I found myself curious as to just how Justin Trudeau is managing such a routine: he appears to be skating past severe, career-shaping criticism at every turn by wooing the world. On a quest for answers, I spoke with three students about the Prime Minister and gathered their thoughts on his performance as the leader of our country so far.

The students each had a particular point of criticism for Trudeau. Ayesha Tak, a fourth-year Sociology student, critiqued the Prime Minister’s statement on World Mental Health Day last year that called for mental health support, pointing out that he has yet to address the suicide epidemic among Indigenous communities in the north. Zeahaa Rehman, a third-year Linguistics and Professional Writing and Communication student,

cited the Prime Minister’s #WelcomeToCanada tweet posted in response to President Trump’s travel ban last year, mentioning that it made little sense in the wake of the refugee cap taking effect in Canada at the time. Tak and Rehman’s concerns highlight Trudeau’s tendency to speak loudly about the things he believes in while doing little to uphold or enforce those values in a real way.

Concerns about the ethics of the Prime Minister’s actions were also raised. Natalie Petra, a fourth-year student studying Ethics, Society and Law; Peace, Conflict and Justice; and Equity Studies, and the President of the York-Simcoe NDP Riding Association, commented on what she perceived as the deeply disturbing nature of Trudeau’s trip to the Aga Khan’s island on a private plane, arguing that this decision put the public in an uncomfortable place because no one will ever know what deals were or were not made during that trip.

These flaws in the Prime Minister’s image often get overlooked or buried due to a couple of complementary factors: negative press for Donald Trump and positive press for Trudeau. Tak believes Trump’s presidency has largely contributed to Trudeau’s infallible status in the political sphere. “We do give him a pass because of Trump,” suggested Tak. “We compare a lot of politicians to Trump, and we go, ‘Oh at least they’re not Trump,’ which is setting the bar very low.”

Petra, on the other hand, perceives Trudeau’s popularity to be more reflective of the strong relationship Liberals and Trudeau himself have with the media. “If you’ve ever gotten to hear the Prime Minister speak at a live event or talk to him face-to-face — which I have done both — he’s very unwilling to commit to a position,” explained Petra. “When you’re a little bit wishy-washy on a position, it’s really easy to get that positive PR. And that positive PR helps get the Prime Minister more traction and more popularity with Canadians at the end of the day.”

In my view, a combination of those two factors has led to the current situation where many Canadians are willing to forgive our Prime Minister for anything. However, like any great rhetorical tactic, a standardized noncommittal stance only works as long as nobody catches you. The public reaction to recent mishaps like ‘peoplekind’ show that the ‘Justin Trudeau, selfie prince’ veneer is rapidly

chipping. And though Trudeau’s public image has certainly benefited from superficial tweets and curated photographs, people are now expecting him to show more consistency between press and policy.

Petra critiqued Trudeau’s claims of feminism by juxtaposing them with his many instances of nonfeminist behaviour. For all the positive press around Trudeau’s gender-balanced cabinet, for instance, it was revealed that five females were being paid less than their male counterparts. Moreover, during the ‘nannygate’ controversy, when it became clear that Canadians would be footing the bill for the two Trudeau nannies, the Prime Minister’s wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, received a lot of gendered abuse as a mother who appeared to be taking advantage of taxpayers. Petra argues that despite his claims of feminism, Trudeau never thought to clarify that the nannies provided just as much support for him as for his wife.

“It’s difficult to consider yourself a feminist when you’re not willing to put the substantive action into it,” said Petra. “It’s a lot more than just standing up and saying, ‘Because it’s 2015’ or going to the UN and saying, ‘I am a feminist.’”

Rehman summed up the disconnect between Trudeau’s words and actions very simply: “A lot of what he does isn’t in tune with what he says."

The time has come to focus on what our nation needs from our Prime Minister, and to stop marvelling at the madness going on beneath us. We should continue to analyze what Trudeau says, and ensure that it matches his actions. We should not rely on ignorant power players south of the border as the benchmark for our Prime Minister’s success, or on fluffy articles focusing exclusively on our Prime Minister’s looks and charisma.

Students, with their breadth of knowledge on internet and social media sensationalism, have the power to challenge superficiality and demand something real.

Jenisse Minott is a third-year student at UTM studying Communications, Culture, Information, and Technology and Professional Writing and Communication. She is The Varsity’s Associate Comment Editor.

8 • THE VARSITY • COMMENT

comment@thevarsity.ca

Improving Governing Council’s communication skills Increased engagement on social media could bring the council closer to the community that it governs Angela Feng Campus Politics Columnist

Staying peacefully ignorant of university affairs became increasingly difficult this winter, as Governing Council candidates’ ads popped up on my social media feeds at least five times a day. These friendly, professional ads piqued my interest, and so I became familiar with the candidates running for the vague position of representatives on ‘Governing Council.’ A quick Google search and a few casual conversations later, I realized that neither the internet nor my peers were able to tell me what role the Governing Council played in campus affairs and student life or how each candidate hoped to fulfill their positions.

Established by the University of Toronto Act of 1971, Governing Council has ultimate authority over the university’s operations. This body has the power to appoint the President, establish programs of study, and fix salary amounts for university staff, among other responsibilities. Eight students sit on this council of 50 for the purpose of overseeing “the academic, business and student affairs of the University,” meaning they are instrumental in managing and overseeing the university’s day-to-day and long-term decision-making.

This information about Governing Council, as it turns out, is readily available, but it is packaged in unfriendly PDFs and a web of hyperlinks. For the average student, it might be easier to shrug off Governing Council as another vague, bureaucratic body at the university. However, the decisions of the council should not be taken lightly.

Featuring members appointed by the President and the Lieutenant Governor in Council, this body governs student and faculty affairs that can affect the university’s structure, including withdrawing the proposed mandatory leave of absence policy and potentially approving a new Bachelor of Information program.

The eight elected student representatives require the input, support, and criticism of their constituents to better provide the council with a meaningful student voice. While it is the responsibility of individual students to stay informed, it is likewise the responsibility of Governing Council to provide access to the students that it is governing, especially concerning policy deliberations and general meetings. It is especially important to highlight this need for transparency given Governing Council’s position within our university.

Despite its impressive role within our university, Governing Council does not effectively attract students through social media platforms that are frequently relied upon for scheduling and networking. Facebook event notifications have become instrumental in encouraging community engagement for many student groups and professional events. While opportunities to get involved might be there, they are hard to find, and they could be more welcoming. Though it is encouraging that reports and meeting minutes are made publicly available, these documents are not always the most engaging way to communicate important messages.

The pervasive reliance on social media platforms in the recent elections reveals that students prefer these more accessible mediums. It would be an asset to both the student body and the council itself to increase engagement through social media.

Student groups are becoming increasingly dependent on online sources to connect and attract members across a variety of platforms. The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), for example, is highly active on social media, using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep its constituents aware of changes to its benefits, advocacy efforts, and community events. Regardless of your feelings towards the UTSU, it should be noted that it effectively uses social media to keep itself accountable to students in a direct and accessible way. This transparency is commendable and should be looked upon as a model for effectively informing constituents using contemporary technological methods.

FIONA TUNG/THE VARSITY

Governing Council, a body that holds even more power over students — and certainly more authority over the university — ought to engage its students, faculty, and community in a similar manner. The benefits of doing so are numerous. Keeping up to date with Governing Council provides students with opportunities to become involved with subcommittees or to apply to be a co-opted member.

The council meets fairly frequently and updates its online files every Friday. There are plenty of opportunities for students to get involved and most meetings are held in open session — the council just needs to make sure students know about them first.

Looking back at this year’s debate over the proposed mandatory leave of absence policy reveals just how important communication between the council and the student body can be. Intervention from the Ontario Human Rights Commission was necessary to solidify concerns already vocalized by organizations like the Arts and Science Students’ Union and the UTSU — both student groups that directly engage with constituents in person and on social media. In contrast, the majority of the university’s communications were in the form of formal announcements, speeches during Governing Council meetings, and interviews with news outlets like The Varsity. While the outpouring of criticism makes it evident that students do respond to these methods of

communication, the painfully long process leading up to this decision brings into question why it took so long for the council and advisors to listen to the university community’s overwhelmingly negative response.

A board dedicated to the well-being of its students should be in tune with their needs. Opening up new lines of communication would better support Governing Council as a body willing to engage and construct policies that directly concern and support the needs of students.

Confidence in Governing Council’s ability to effect positive change to university affairs and student life is absolutely paramount to maintaining trust in the council and preserving relative stability in academic life.

Rather than waiting until problems arise, it would be advantageous for Governing Council to take control of its public image by presenting information in a clear and direct way through its social media platforms, leaving no room for confusion or misinformation. In a time where it is quick and easy to disseminate information over online platforms, failing to do so in an active and explicit way is inexcusable, particularly for organizations that have a profound impact on university affairs.

Angela Feng is a second-year student at St. Michael’s College studying Anthropology and Cinema Studies. She is The Varsity’s Campus Politics Columnist.

FEBRUARY 12, 2018 • 9

var.st/comment

Learning the business: education and the Weinstein complex Sexual misconduct in Toronto theatre schools highlights the need to address institutional flaws that are characteristic of the entertainment industry

MIA CARNEVALE/THE VARSITY

Maighdlin Mahoney Varsity Contributor

In the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein allegations, it has become clear that Hollywood is not the only institution in the spotlight when it comes to sexual misconduct. In Toronto, theatre programs at postsecondary institutions like Randolph College for the Performing Arts and George Brown College have also been rocked by sexual assault accusations.

While it is productive that these allegations are being heard and taken seriously, it is problematic that many conversations revolve around accused individuals as outliers. This rhetoric allows institutions to target perpetrators without addressing the deeper issues of policy and culture that create and enable them in the first place.

Here’s what has happened at the two colleges so far. At George Brown, several students accused former Acting Teacher Todd Hammond of inappropriate sexual comments. Though the first accusations from a former student appeared in February 2017, Hammond was still associated with the school as a director as late as April 2017. His name has now disappeared from George Brown’s Theatre Faculty Directory, but the college has yet to make a formal announcement regarding his absence.

At Randolph College, founder and former President George Randolph announced his intended retirement for spring of 2018. Then, in January 2018,

the college issued a formal statement saying that Randolph had been accused of making “unwelcomed comments and physical gestures” by former students and staff. The administration did not explicitly state that his preemtive retirement last December was due to these accusations, but I would say that the timing deserves scrutiny due to the quick succession of events.

In the end, we have two colleges specializing in acting and performance, and two high-ranking individuals accused of sexual misconduct, both of whom have now vacated their positions. While this is a good start, there is still much institutional action required. If we are now acknowledging that the entertainment industry is a breeding ground for sexual harassment — whether it be in Hollywood or within educational facilities in Toronto — institutions have to dig deeper and ask why this is the case and what they can do to prevent harassment in the future.

Professional entertainment settings are characterized by intense competition over employment, a theme that underlies the Weinstein allegations. A startling amount of Weinstein’s victims stated that fear of losing current or potential job opportunities was a reason they initially chose to stay silent about their experiences.

Similar factors appear to be at play at the Toronto theatre schools currently under scrutiny due to sexual misconduct allegations. Students at George Brown have cited the school’s system of regularly

eliminating students for not meeting the program’s standards as creating an atmosphere of fear and anxiety.

In an interview with The Varsity, two graduates from Randolph College who wished to remain anonymous recalled how they were made to believe that expressing any “concern, objection or dislike” of teachers or faculty would potentially ruin their career. This took place through instructions on professionalism and a lack of willingness to address concerns in conversations with various staff members. Furthermore, graduates of Randolph College stated that Student Services, the proscribed avenue for sexual misconduct complaints at the college, is widely perceived by students to be not confidential.

If these schools are creating atmospheres where objections are perceived as tantamount to throwing away one’s career, and where they may not even be heard confidentially, it is hardly a surprise that sexual harassment allegations fester.

To move past individual perpetrators into institutional changes, the first step should be breaking the culture of silence and fear. Weinstein had a reputation in Hollywood of being predatory before the accusations, but silence prevailed over fear that anyone who hurt his career would face consequences to their own employment.

Randolph College and George Brown could combat this tendency toward silence by clearly stating the conditions under which Hammond and Randolph stepped down.

While both colleges claim to be revising policy, nothing has yet become public.

Bringing the conversation out into the open is imperative to digging into policy and culture in a productive way. If the institutions remain hushed about the proceedings, it seems akin to the previous environments that cultivated fear around hurting the reputations of industry names.

It must also be acknowledged that theatre programs are a unique academic setting. One graduate from Randolph College noted that “theatre training does sometimes require physical contact between student and instructor,” a requirement that probably does not occur in many other fields. A specific setting requires specific policy: if physicality is the norm, there must be a clear way for students to express when they are comfortable and when they are not, without fear of their education or career being jeopardized.

Institutions like George Brown and Randolph College exist for the purpose of preparing students for the professional industry — if sexual harassment goes overlooked or unaddressed, it is tacitly accepted, and undoubtedly bleeds into the professional industry. But if schools take the initiative in ensuring students’ ability to express discomfort without repercussion, they can begin to change the industry from the ground up.

Maighdlin Mahoney is a second-year student at University College studying English and History.

Under the m

U of T undergrad Joseph Moysiuk is mak

Article by Keith Cheng Photo courtesy of Jos Illustration by Elham N

A

s a child, Joseph Moysiuk was fascinated by the rocks at his local ravine. There, he would discover fossils and think, ‘What are these things?’

Moysiuk, a fourth-year Earth Sciences and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) student at Victoria College, made headlines last year for his research on a group of extinct coneshaped animals called hyoliths; the paper, which he co-authored, was published in the science journal Nature.

The hyoliths were previously thought to be part of a group of animals called molluscs, but Moysiuk’s paper, “Hyoliths are Paleozoic Lophophorates,” explains that they are more closely related to another group, called brachiopods.

Although it might not seem extraordinary to those who aren’t well versed in fossils, the discovery has broken new grounds — and Moysiuk is just getting started.

A “first taste” of paleontology, Toronto-style Moysiuk’s curiosity about unfamiliar rocks is what first led him to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). As a kid, he would bring his findings to the ROM’s Rock, Gem, Mineral, Fossil, and Meteorite Identification Clinics, where the museum’s curators would help him identify them.

“That was kind of my first taste into paleontology and what really started me into this field,” he says.

These identification clinics sparked

his ongoing involvement with the ROM. While attending Etobicoke Collegiate Institute, he was given the opportunity to get involved through his high school’s co-op program.

“That was like five years ago now, and I’ve been hanging around ever since. They can’t get rid of me,” says Moysiuk.

Moysiuk chose to attend U of T because of its “unique affiliation with the ROM.” He cites Jean-Bernard Caron’s dual role as the senior curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the ROM and an associate professor in the EEB department. Moysiuk was interested in working further with the professors and conducting research himself.

The Research Opportunity Program (ROP) at U of T, which allows secondand third-year Arts & Science students to work on a professor’s research project, gave him the opportunity to make his hopes a reality.

Through the program, Moysiuk conducted research under Caron. Martin Smith from Durham University was also a part of the research team.

Prior to the ROP, Moysiuk had only worked in collections management roles, but the program allowed him to get hands-on research experience.

“The ROP gave me the first chance to actually study the fossils and maybe learn something new about them that we didn’t know before,” he says.

The methods behind the paleontological madness The ROM’s expansive collection of

hyoliths, which according to Moysiuk “nobody had really looked at” before, inspired Moysiuk and Caron to embark on the project that has now introduced Moysiuk’s name to the wider world of paleontology.

“It seemed like it was a project that was potentially right for something.

We didn’t really know what at the time,” he says.

They began the project by going through all the hyolith specimens, taking inventory of them, and forming a hypothesis using the information gathered, a process that took up a fair part of that year.

Excavations that Moysiuk participated in before beginning his ROP from the Burgess Shale at the Kootenay National Park provided a lot of new material that became fundamental to the study. The fossils found at Burgess preserved the hyoliths’ soft tissue details particularly well, allowing the research team to observe details that were not visible in previous fossils.

The fossils collected from the shale were preserved as carbon films. “That’s like if you took an organism and just flattened it onto the rock and heated it so you burn off everything except the carbon,” explains Moysiuk.

Soft tissues of organisms are typically made of compounds of organic carbon, so the carbon film preservation made sure much of the soft tissue detail was well preserved.

These small details required special equipment to analyze. They used a scanning electron microscope, which

Joseph Moysiuk, a fourth-year Earth Sciences and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology student at Victoria College, made headlines last year for his research on a group of extinct cone-shaped animals called hyoliths; the paper, which he co-authored, was published in the science journal Nature.

microscope

king a name for himself in paleontology

seph Moysiuk Numan

allowed them to examine the chemical composition of the fossils. Some details were only visible under polarized light that cut down on the reflection of the rocks, thus making the features more visible.

Visualizing fossils through scanning electron microscopy allows researchers to observe what is overprinted from the fossilization process and what the original matter is. This became particularly valuable in the analysis of fossils from the Burgess Shale.

Using the scanning electron microscope, the team looked at “what preservation factors have affected these fossils that might affect our interpretation of the anatomy,” says Moysiuk.

“Basically, my first few months of the ROP program was going through the collections, looking at every single specimen under the microscope, and seeing, ‘What do we have?’ ‘Is there anything important here?’” explains Moysiuk. “Once we had selected some kind of specimens that seem to be more important, we try other techniques of imaging them to see if we can tease out some more aspects of their morphology.”

One of those techniques was using a scanning electron microscope, a device that allows researchers to examine the chemical composition of fossils.

“One of the tricky things about studying fossils is we’re always trying to interpret the anatomy of these organisms,

but kind of overprinted on that anatomy [are] all of the changes that have affected the organism between the time that it died and was buried, and it’s gone through 500 million years of alteration, of heat, pressure, fluids passing through the rock,” says Moysiuk.

Discovering a new branch in the evolutionary tree Prior to Moysiuk’s research, there wasn’t much clarity as to how hyoliths should be classified. While they were presumed to be related to molluscs, there wasn’t much concrete research to verify it.

Hyoliths did not fit nicely into any evolutionary scheme. While many hyolith fossils were found and identified, they remained either unclassified or were assumed to be likely molluscs, until now.

“People have been puzzling over them for 175 years, and most people have been saying, ‘Oh, these things are probably molluscs, they’re probably related to squid, clams, snails.’ They didn’t have a lot of evidence to back that up, but they said it enough that no one else had any better ideas to refute that.”

The key finding associating hyoliths with brachiopods was their feeding apparatus.

Hyoliths fed from a ring of tentacles around their mouth, sandwiched between two shells, called the lophophore.

The presence of the lophophore shows that the hyolith was part

of a larger group of animals called the lophophorates, which include modern brachiopods and horseshoe worms. This new anatomical knowledge suggested that hyoliths were related to the brachiopod group, as the brachiopod is the only modern animal that has a similar configuration of shells and tentacles.

Although many features of the hyoliths aligned with those of the brachiopods, other hyolith features, such as their elongated cone-shaped shell, are not present in brachiopods today.

These features are instead found in other brachiopod relatives, like horseshoe worms.

“Hyoliths have brachiopod-like shells but an elongated body like the horseshoe worm, and that puts them kind of between these two lineages,” says Moysiuk.

Moysiuk, Caron, and Smith consider the hyolith a transitional form.

“Being that kind of intermediate between these two groups is telling us something about the evolution of both and the origin of both of these groups and how both of them have come to be in the modern world,” says Moysiuk.

One of the researchers’ goals was to better understand the biodiversity of the world.

“All living animals can trace their ancestry back to the Cambrian explosion 500 million years ago, and so, by studying the different, bizarre animals that lived back then, [we’re] starting to be able to tease out

how biodiversity came to be.”

With biodiversity at risk in many areas in the world, the value of understanding its origins is an important step toward helping protect it.

Learning lessons and continuing the hot streak While the opportunity to help discover such a significant part of the evolutionary puzzle is astonishing, Moysiuk also emphasizes the learning process involved.

“It’s one thing to do a literature review, and it’s another thing to take it to the next step and think beyond what other people have said,” he says.

The research project has opened his eyes to many of the more formal aspects of research, from communicating long-distance with his fellow researchers — Caron at the ROM and Smith in the United Kingdom — to the submission and peer-review process of scientific journaling.

“It was eye-opening to see this process that I’ve heard about,” says Moysiuk. “It’s very different to do it yourself.”

Despite the hurdles that he had to face while adjusting to the research process, he has learned a lot and has accomplished things that he never expected, citing his experience giving a talk at the ROM. “I was able to give a talk at the ROM, it’s in their big speaking hall, to like 300 people, but wow. That’s definitely not some-

thing that I expected to get out of my undergrad, but it’s been amazing,” he says.

One of the most gratifying parts of conducting his research, however, was seeing that it actually had impact in the scientific world.

“To see that the research that I’ve done is having an impact beyond this university [is] something that I’ve always wanted to work towards, and it’s just really gratifying to see that the research [is] contributing to the body of science,” he says.

As he finishes his last year of his undergraduate degree, Moysiuk hopes to continue with graduate studies in paleontology.

He is currently working on another project studying a different group of fossils collected from Kootenay National Park: the agnostids. While they are known to be orthopods — meaning they are related to insects, spiders, centipedes, and crabs — it has been hotly debated where they fit in.

For undergraduates who may be interested in pursuing research, Moysiuk’s advice is to get started early and take initiative.

“The earlier you start, the more you’re going to know about what you’re getting yourself into and the more chances that you’re going to have to be able to do different research along the way, and maybe you’ll discover something amazing.”

Arts&Culture

March 5, 2018 var.st/arts arts@thevarsity.ca

On queerness, on stage Theatre is making space for more authentic representation Kashi Syal Associate Arts & Culture Editor

In February, I had the pleasure of performing in Tinsel Town Bartleby: A Collection of Desperate Monologues at the Hart House Drama Festival. The show was written and directed

by Emily Powers, a third-year English Literature student with a background in creative writing, especially in poetry.

Not only was this my first time in a U of T production, but it was also my first time portraying a queer character on stage. My background in the dramatic arts is slam poetry, so imagine my delight upon reading the character description for Maria Vasquez, the character I would later be chose to portray.

“POC Lesbian. Would be damn good at slam poetry. Has a lot of gay guy friends because of that one time she quoted RuPaul.”

I ticked the boxes, fulfilled the categories, fit the criteria. I distinctly remember ringing my mum and squealing on the phone because it was such a shock that a writer actually wanted queer representation in their play.

Ultimately, theatre is a collection of worlds.

There are the flamboyant, glittery musicals, the hard-hitting on- and off-Broadway/West End productions, cabaret, fringe festivals, and of course Shakespeare.

However, a new world is emerging: queer theatre. Queer theatre is another term for the gay theatre movement, which embraces the role of the gay community within all the other worlds of theatre.

Unlike Hollywood, theatre always reflects the social conditions of the political and cultural climate. Queer theatre would not have been celebrated during the Elizabethan era, for instance — ironic, considering all the actors were technically in drag.

Powers’ writing in Tinsel Town Bartleby is laden with a vast amount of personal ex-

perience and emotion, which resulted in her skillfully targeting the problematic behaviour of the queer community, as opposed to that of its individual members. My character’s monologue focused on the cisnormative and white members of the queer community.

Maria’s slam poem was a raw and humbling piece to perform. I was able to relate to many of the themes regarding female sexuality, vulnerability, and the unwanted ‘male gaze’ from both gay and straight men. It was such a gratifying experience to be able to portray a queer character on a safe stage and to have been given the opportunity to deliver a narrative that truly needs to be heard.

Theatre is a transformative tool, and with Tinsel Town Bartleby, Powers recognized her platform as a playwright to influence positive change, provoke thought, and suspend our realities. In her character descriptions, Powers specified that Maria and another character, Taylor Marsh, both fell under the LGBTQ+ umbrella.

I asked Powers if there was any significance behind the casting and character descriptions.

“It was important for me to show queer visibility both in the characters and the actors,” she said. “My priority was casting queer people and people of colour, because visibility in theatre and art in general is so important.”

In Tinsel Town Bartleby, Taylor Marsh was portrayed by Justin Park, a fourth-year Computer Science and English Literature major, who told me he was “uncomfortable with [playing] Taylor at first, as I didn’t want to take a role away from a non-binary actor.”

Representation Park said he “tends to be fairly critical of white washing and the like in mainstream media.”

He feels that it is important for queer characters to be visible in theatre, but he also acknowledges that representation should be

MIA CARNEVALE/THE VARSITY

inclusive of other intersectional discourses, including gender.

While theatre has traditionally evolved alongside society, Hollywood is only just beginning to become more inclusive of women, people of colour, and the LGBTQ+ community. Through television, and to a small extent, film, the industry is now producing content that passes the racial Bechdel Test and its selfdecreed ‘diversity quota.’

However, in their rush to respond to — and profit from — the current ‘politically correct’ climate, Hollywood has also been casting actors in roles that do not ‘belong’ to them.

Traditionally, there has been less stigma attached to straight actors playing queer roles in theatre, as opposed to vice versa, but recently

there has been a vast amount of backlash surrounding actors who appropriate identities and cultures.

There was an uproar surrounding Jeffrey Tambor’s portrayal of Maura Pfeifferman, a transgender woman, in the Amazon Prime show Transparent, and similar issues surrounded the films The Danish Girl and The Imitation Game, with lead actors Eddie Redmayne and Benedict Cumberbatch accused of preventing members of the LGBTQ+ community from portraying their own stories on screen.

Fortunately, now in 2018, there is finally a space for theatre that celebrates queer actors, comments on public pressures regarding sexuality, and makes the personal political.

Full steam ahead for A Fellow Ship In conversation with the local folk-funk band

A Fellow Ship commands the stage at Mod Club Theatre. PHOTO COURTESY OF LEAH CHAN

George Moshenski-Dubov Varsity Contributor

Those who circulate in Toronto’s local music venues may recognize A Fellow Ship, the self-described folk-funk band who have been rocking venues like the Horseshoe Tavern, Silver Dollar Room, The Central, and Mod

Club Theatre.

Forming close to four years ago, the band was founded in high school by a group of friends who shared a common love of dancing, singing, and having fun. Their formation began with a jam session, said lead vocalist Forest Van Winkle. “We were hanging out,

playing covers, making music, and it just snowballed,” he added.

The band now consists of eight members: guitarist and lead vocalist Joe Dent; lead vocalist Forest Van Winkle; guitarist, mandolinist, and vocalist Jack Stone; pianist Teddy Liptay; bassist Tristan Schultz; drummer Ryan Johnston; trumpet player Austin Jones; and the newest member, saxophonist John Nicholson.

Schultz, Johnston, and Jones are alumni of U of T’s jazz program, and Nicholson is currently completing his master’s degree here.

A Fellow Ship recently opened up for the festival-favourite and critically acclaimed band Magic Giant for the third time.

The group can rest easy knowing that the energetic performance mentality they learned firsthand from Magic Giant was on full display at their show at Mod Club on February 13. They dominated the stage, to the delight of the several hundred people in attendance. The band played new music off their EP The Black Sheep, teased unreleased music, and acknowledged the many friendly faces in the crowd and the support they’ve received.

Relying on a combination of warm string

instruments and soul-pleasing brass, the band gave listeners an excellent musical experience and a visual treat of a performance.

Seeming extremely comfortable, the band engaged with the crowd, posed for pictures, made jokes, and created a dancing frenzy.

Despite their captivating live set, they are still looking for ways to improve. “We’re still at the point where we’re not making a living off of this,” said Dent. “We hope to be one day, but it’s a long journey. We want to tour more, release more music, and grow a bigger and bigger following, until it is something tangible. For now, we’re all having a blast.”

They’re still hard at work looking for gigs and venues, and they hope to have a followup to their first tour in September last year, when they played shows in Ottawa, Montréal, and Halifax.

They also claim to be heading back into the studio soon, and they’re are looking to release a double single sometime this summer that will capture their onstage energy.

“We’re trying to do a lot, everyone is trying to do a side hustle, but everyone is trying to make the most of this,” said Van Winkle.

A Fellow Ship will perform March 15 at the Horseshoe Tavern.

MARCH 5, 2018 • 13

var.st/arts

Theatre review: Hart House’s Titus Andronicus One of Shakespeare’s bloodiest plays straddles comedy and tragedy

From left to right: Titus Andronicus (David Mackett) speaks to the Clown (Laura Darby), Titus kneels, and the company portrays the grotesque nature of the play.

PHOTOS BY SCOTT GORMAN, COURTESY OF HART HOUSE THEATRE

Shamaila Anjum Varsity Staff

Hart House made a bold choice for its annual Shakespeare production this year with Titus Andronicus, one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest and most gratuitously violent plays. It’s neither as beloved as Hamlet or Macbeth, nor as technically sophisticated, but it deals with similar themes of revenge and power. Hart House’s production is able to balance the play’s comedic and dramatic elements without overemphasizing either.

Titus Andronicus also straddles the boundary between comedy and tragedy. Director James Wallis’ vision for the play was to create the sense of a carnival, of funhouse mirrors and the dual world of the grotesque and comedic, a promising vision that played well with the themes and tones of the play. While Wal-

lis’ production occasionally edges close to giving in to the tragedy, on the whole it balances the two modes well, leading to a funny, horrifying, and thought-provoking performance.

The production also shines in its enthusiastic acceptance of the play’s natural horrific, comedic, and tragic dimensions. The grotesque fully plays out on stage, while the comedic horror of some moments, like when Titus’ daughter Lavinia holds a dismembered hand in her mouth, manages to elicit both laughs and squirms from the audience.

At the same time, the trauma of sexual assault, the fear and grief of losing a child, and the heartbreak of a lover’s death are all portrayed with full respect for their tragedy.

The casting of female performers in some of the originally male roles also adds a layer of depth and insight. The show’s first on-stage death becomes the death of a female child,

making the later rape of a female character in revenge more powerful for its parallels.

Lavinia’s lover is portrayed by a woman, also providing for deeper engagement with the theme of sexuality.

The production also features some electrifying performances. Shalyn McFaul and Tristan Claxton, who play Tamora and Saturninus, perform with particularly great gusto and liveliness and play off each other well, constantly contributing to the comedy of the performance. David Mackett, who plays Titus, comes alive in the second half of the performance, enthusiastically embracing Titus’ descent into silliness.

Titus Andronicus relishes and revels in the violence it portrays, but it also has touching and startling moments. It’s a horror story on the surface with a surprisingly meaningful deconstruction of revenge underneath.

Any production of the show must grapple with these competing strands. Done well, the play can be fascinating; if it succumbs wholly to either the comedic or the tragic, it can be profoundly disappointing.

Hart House’s production manages to handle these dual elements well — both overthe-top and darkly humorous — while also showing the devastating effects of sexual assault, murder, and the tragic consequences of revenge. The result is a fun, exciting, and thoroughly enjoyable production — one well worth attending.

Titus Andronicus runs at Hart House Theatre until March 10.

Notice of Referendum

Campaign Period: Mar 19, 09:00—Mar 28, 06:00pm

utsu.simplyvoting.com

Voting Period: Mar 26, 12:00am —Mar 28th, 06:00pm

Voting is online at www.utsu.simplyvoting.com The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) is seeking the consent of its members at the St. George Campus to establish a non-refundable U-Pass fee of up to $322.50 per session (including the Summer session), as of the Fall 2018 session. Members will only be charged the fee for sessions in which they are enrolled.

The Board of Directors of the UTSU will be authorized to increase the fee by up to 5% per year, in order to account for the cost of administration and increases in the cost of transit.

In the event of a “Yes” vote, every member of the UTSU will be entitled to a PRESTO-based U-Pass, which will grant unlimited, semester-long use of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) transit system at no additional cost.

A Post-Secondary Metropass currently costs $116.75 per month. The U-Pass fee will be up to $80.60 per month in 2018-19.

Are you in favour of establishing a non-refundable U-Pass fee, as described in the preamble? [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Abstain

Full-time graduate students at the Toronto School of Theology (TST) are members of the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) and are covered by the UTSU Health and Dental Plan. At the request of the Theology Graduate Students’ Association (TGSA), the UTSU is allowing full-time graduate students at the TST to withdraw from the UTSU. Please note that a “Yes” vote will cause full-time graduate students at the TST to withdraw from both the UTSU and the UTSU Health and Dental Plan. It will not cause full-time graduate students at the TST to join the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU) or to be enrolled in the UTGSU Health and Dental Plan.

Are you in favour of full-time graduate students at the Toronto School of Theology withdrawing from the UTSU and the UTSU Health and Dental Plan, as described in the preamble? [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Abstain Learn more online at utsu.ca/referendum

14 • THE VARSITY • ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

We shouldn't be surprised Netflix is trying to conquer late night Talk shows are just another step toward the service’s total TV domination

The hosts of Netflix’s late night talk shows: Chelsea Handler, Joel McHale, and David Letterman. PHOTOS COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Sarim Irfan Varsity Contributor

Netflix’s transformation of the television industry has long been debated as being either a blessing or bane for the old gogglebox. With the streaming giant’s latest string of original programming, that debate has now zeroed in on one specific genre: late night.

Talk shows have been around forever, but Netflix seems to be trying to work its magic to bring new dynamics to the tried and true late night formula.

Bill Nye’s Bill Nye Saves the World cuts to enough celebrity segments to give it the feel of a talk show, but it primarily focuses on zany experimentation and palatable scientific explanations. Chelsea Handler’s now-canceled Chelsea eschewed the traditional monologue in favour of longer interviews, more cinematic and comedic segments, and even ‘remote’ dinner parties featuring multiple guests.

One of Netflix’s latest ventures, The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale, exposes its viewers to a wide range of content, some drawn from the internet. It harkens back to not only McHale’s previous show on E!, The Soup, but another clip show of old: Ray William Johnson’s Equals Three.

Elsewhere, Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman have managed to make the simple art of conversation exciting again with Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee and My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, not to mention Jim Rash’s talk show lite take on behind-the-scenes footage with Beyond Stranger Things.

With these exciting, fresh takes on a classic genre, Netflix is cleverly combining its own pedigree with the individual star power of bigname celebrities to usher in a new age of late night — the same kind of new age it brought with its other originals. The revolution is truly being televised.

No revolution is without its opponents, how-

ever. Netflix has been blamed for significantly impacting traditional cable viewership with its à la carte nature and quality original programming.

Netflix boasts a slew of high-profile shows with large fanbases under its Netflix Original label. Stranger Things, for example, has had such a cultural impact that it warranted a coveted Super Bowl halftime trailer for its second season.

The influence of the Netflix special has even made its way into comedy. The service has begun to offer many comedians, seemingly regardless of their mainstream popularity, the chance to film their own hour.

Late night is only the latest foray Netflix has made into original programming, and it might have only just begun. The Daily Show alum Michelle Wolf, a standup comedian and longtime contributor to the satirical news show, recently announced her own talk show venture with the streaming giant. Fellow Daily Show

alums Jessica Williams and Hasan Minhaj have also contributed to the Netflix catalogue, and Minhaj also recently secured his own deal with Netflix for a talk show.

The talk show correspondents and hosts who have attracted Netflix’s attention prove that the streaming service has an eye for talent and is willing to expend its resources to lure them away from traditional broadcasting.

The great prestige attached to its original work and the unprecedented access it provides to an ever-expanding library of network TV shows have firmly established Netflix as not only a part of the industry, but of the cultural zeitgeist.

Such a force cannot exist without challenge or something to challenge. Netflix very much seems to be gearing up to actively compete with traditional cable television. Be it in late night, standup, or scripted shows, the Netflix Original is undeniably on the rise.

The ROM’s Christian Dior exhibit is a must-see for fashion aficionados Work from the fashion house’s first decade reveals an effort to celebrate femininity Isabel Armiento Varsity Staff

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is currently hosting an exhibit celebrating Christian Dior’s 70th anniversary, presented by Holt Renfrew.

Featuring pieces from the first decade of Dior’s legacy, the apparel displayed ranges from 1947– 1957, reflecting the climate of the aftermath of World War II. The exhibit, a must-see for fashion aficionados, has a nostalgic Torontonian feel; the 40 garments featured were donated by Toronto socialites.

Dior revised the knee-length skirts and masculine cuts of wartime for a fresh postbellum femininity. He highlighted the female silhouette with willowy waistlines and accented bosoms, full skirts and soft, frilly details. According to Dior, this was “a look of peace” that reflected the postwar feminist feeling by celebrating the female form.

Despite Dior’s modernity, his construction of clothing harkened back to older methods that were beginning to become obsolete in the midtwentieth century. A believer in handmade work

over mass production, he revitalized dying industries and enlivened his clothing with careful craftsmanship and stellar quality.

Dior admitted that his “return to long-forgotten techniques raised a host of difficulties,” but nevertheless insisted on reviving forgotten arts, such as that of boned corsetry, after it had fallen out of use after World War I. The designer had also commented on the importance of constructing dresses to compliment the female figure. “I wanted my dresses to be constructed like buildings, moulded to the curves of the female form, stylizing its shape.”

His cocktail dresses were heavily corseted, giving the torso a concave quality. The myriad hooks and eyes used to pin the bodice in place ensured that the female form would be seen in its fullness, the only the drawback being that women would require help dressing.

Another art that had all but disappeared after World War I was passementerie, the handweaving of braided, lace, and velvet ribbons.

Despite the ease of factory production, Dior was set on resurrecting this artistry, preserving the beauty of ribbonry in carefully designed and crafted detail, a sentiment echoed once again in

These couture dresses, designed by Christian Dior, are currently being exhibited at the ROM.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

his insistence on hand-embroidered fabric.

The House of Dior committed to historically favoured methods of dressmaking and amalgamated the creative insight of various top designers and craftspeople.

Dior’s desire for excellent fashion extended beyond only the upper classes, however, offering haute couture at a relatively affordable price by using inexpensive materials like glass and artificial pearls in jewellery, as well as sacrificing material so resources could be funneled into high quality manufacturing.

The pieces intended for working women are just as alluring as the evening gowns. These included two-piece suits with flattering waistlines and long coats, accented with buttons and a belt to frame the female silhouette with both grace and professional poise.

The exhibit is exquisite to behold. The embroidered fabrics, sparkly detailing, masses of tulle, and floor length voluminous skirts on display would make any fashion addict swoon.

The Christian Dior exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum runs until April 8.

Science

March 5, 2018 var.st/science science@thevarsity.ca

What goes up does not always come down Decades of launched satellites have created a junkyard over our heads Spencer Y. Ki Varsity Staff

My father, a huge Trekkie, once hypothesized that the purpose of the shields used in battle on the USS Enterprise was to protect the ship from the massive amount of dead satellites and other junk that would be orbiting Earth by the twenty-third century. This may have been an incredulous thought when the original run of Star Trek broadcast through the clear skies of the 1960s. But, with every new rocket launch, it is looking more and more likely that my father might be right.

In the decades since Sputnik 1 launched on October 4, 1957, humanity has been obsessed with catapulting machines into orbit. In fact, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs maintains an index of all the objects humans have ever launched into space. The current count stands at 8,074 items, ranging from the original Sputnik right up to Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster.

As these leftovers age, pieces break off and components degrade, allowing low Earth orbit to gain its very own scrapyard. We are on track to have a veritable minefield for future voyagers of the final frontier. Altogether, NASA is tracking more than 500,000 pieces of assorted space debris orbiting Earth at

various levels.

Space explorers of the twenty-first century use two types of tools: grounded telescopes and instruments that need to be launched into space. Astrophysicists on the ground are not yet overly worried about the issue of space debris. The sky is not so polluted that it causes visibility problems, and the dominance of non-optical telescopes circumvents the issue entirely.

“It is true that astronomers want the area surrounding the earth to be free of debris that could affect space telescopes,” wrote Dunlap Institute Fellow Dr. Tyler Natoli in an email to The Varsity. “But that is not a thing most astronomers spend time thinking [or] worrying about.”

Exhibiting more concern are the rocket engineers looking to navigate their own spacecraft beyond the stratosphere.

The accumulation of space debris “has been on the radar for quite a while, and it will only continue to become a bigger problem,” wrote Victor Nechita, Project Manager for the Space Systems Division of the University of Toronto Aerospace Team, in an email to The Varsity. “Think of it like a numbers game, the more debris you have whizzing around the earth, the more likely it is to collide with a functional satellite, and in turn

creating more debris.

This will only become a bigger problem as companies like SpaceX plan to send up 12,000 satellites in the coming years.”

The mention of SpaceX does raise a number of concerning points. As the possibility of success and profit for space companies becomes increasingly apparent and exhilarating, startups are popping up as quickly as oil wells in early twentieth century Texas. Paralleling the use of fossil fuels for decades before negative consequences were even considered, these questions must be asked: are we polluting the skies too fast, and whose job is it to clean it up?

“There are currently international guidelines in place for satellites that state within 25 years after its operational life ends, the satellite should burn up in the atmosphere.

However, the key word is should. About [a] third of the satellites don’t follow this guideline,” wrote Nechita. “I think it lies in the governments and space agencies to determine the appropriate methods to solve this problem... Satellites are so critical to our daily lives that I find it hard to imagine that this will not continue to be something that is a

FIONA TUNG/THE VARSITY

top priority for both governments and space agencies to address.”

But pessimism at this current stage is also undue. Nechita stressed that there are entire organizations, such as the InterAgency Space Debris Coordination Committee, working to solve this specific issue. The adventures of Captains Kirk and Picard are brought to mind by one solution currently being tested by the European Space Agency: a sci-fi-esque shield created by layering metal fibres.

Instead of glumness, one should really appreciate the fact that we live in a time where spaceflight is expanding to the extent that we need be concerned about the debris at all. “I think [it’s] given a lot of people the excitement they’ve been missing from space exploration,” wrote Nechita.

Reimagining vanished worlds Paleoart brings prehistoric animals back to life Vaibhav Bhandari & Mark F. Mabanglo Varsity Staff

They can be purple and friendly, cinematically monstrous, or wherever in that spectrum lies Robin Williams’ Smoochy.

Regardless of their depiction, dinosaurs are known to excite — perhaps because of their unusual look, their great size, or the fact that they represent an almost unbelievable, bygone era in natural history.

Whatever the reason for the intrigue surrounding dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, they are brought back to life by the work of paleoartists.

A portmanteau of ‘paleo,’ which comes from the Ancient Greek word for ‘old,’ and art, paleoart is any artistic work that visually depicts prehistoric life based on current scientific knowledge. As such, paleoart has a significant influence on the public’s idea of species that no longer exists. Whether it is a Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops locked in mortal combat, a woolly mammoth cornered by spear-wielding Ice Age hunters, or a sabre-toothed cat attacking Hipparion horses, these illustrations of prehistoric scenes meld the precision of paleontology with the creativity of art.

An important aspect of creating paleoart is the science that underlies the presentation — gathering data and preparing the fossil is delicate work.

While providing a tour of his lab, Robert R. Reisz, a vertebrate paleontologist at UTM, pointed at an illustration of a Captorhinus skull, a focus of his research. The illustration shows the minute details of the almost 290-million-year-old skull, which is about the size of a thumb. Some of the informa-

tion on bone fragments was gleaned through neutron tomography to attain a detailed anatomy of the skeleton.

Referring to another fossil — an armoured amphibian found in Nova Scotia — Reisz explained the painstaking procedure of fossil preparation, which required months of careful processing under a microscope by Diane Scott, the resident illustrator and long-time member of the Reisz lab.

Reisz explained that illustrations provide a critical form of mass communication for his research. “Science doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it’s all about communication… and the best way to communicate is visually.”

Referencing some of his more recent work, Reisz delineates the process of working with illustrators as a paleontologist. “We discuss the biology of the animal, we provide the anatomical information that we have and they do the flesh reconstructions based on the shape of the ribs, on the shape of the hands, and legs and neck and head,” said Reisz.

Reisz described the illustration process as consisting of three steps: observation of the fossil remains as they are, restoration of the original skeleton, and a flesh reconstruction illustration of the animal in a natural pose.

With a requirement for scientific precision, he said, “Most of the time our interpretation of the animal is almost entirely based on the evidence that is available from the fossil. We try not to extrapolate too much because that’s when errors creep in.” Yet, apart from attractiveness of the presentation, artistry is required to idealize incomplete or imperfect fossils.

For Julius T. Csotonyi, an acclaimed Canadian paleoartist and scientific illustrator, what started as a hobby transitioned into a

successful career. After being provided with an opportunity to collaborate with the Scottish paleontologist Dougal Dixon on a dinosaur encyclopedia, Csotonyi’s work has since appeared in books, popular science magazines, museums, journals, and even on the back of commemorative coins produced for the Canadian mint.

Csotonyi has a PhD in microbiology, but he is not a paleontologist. For accurate representations he relies on collaborators along with his own investigations into the topic to create his pieces. “I will take that [knowledge] and look up additional background information to help fill in the gaps and provide a larger picture because often it’s an environmental piece that I’m reconstructing, not just an individual organism.”

Further emphasizing his collaborative process, Csotonyi highlighted the interplay between the researcher and the artist. Though he uses other techniques, he said that “most of the scientific illustration is digital because it’s a lot more malleable.” This malleability is helpful, according to Csotonyi, because “the process actually involves a lot of revision until… everybody is happy with it.” Even then, new research can lead to further modification to the illustrations.

Csotonyi also noted the need for balance in order for his pieces to be attractive and accurate. “I just need to be able to constrain the artwork by this [scientific] information, but the aesthetic appeal is really established largely by selecting an interesting composition… keeping this within the constraints of what would be realistic, keeping the environment as accurate as possible based on what we know.”

While the field has existed since the

MIA CARNEVALE/THE VARSITY

nineteenth century, the realistic animatronic depictions from Jurassic Park led to mainstream appreciation of the organisms and interest in the field of prehistoric art.

Csotonyi has seen his field grow and recognizes its mass appeal. Though movies may take advantage of cinematic license in the portrayal of prehistoric creatures, he feels that it is “good to use it as an opportunity to be able to, as much as possible, educate people.”

Despite our increasing separation in time from these ancient creatures, the ability of paleoart to render prehistoric life as it may have been, helped by fundamental research and enabled by advanced technology, connects us to our ancient past.

16 • THE VARSITY • SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

Should personal genomics be a standard healthcare procedure?

Genetic information derived from personal genomics is both powerful and dangerous Launched in 2012 by the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children, the Personal Genome Project Canada (PGP-C) is the Canadian counterpart of Harvard Medical School’s Personal Genome Project. The project aims to sequence the genomes of 100 Canadians, integrate this data with personal health care information, and make these genomes freely available to the public.

This February, the results from the inaugural PGP-C participants were released. While personal genomics can elucidate the genetic basis of some diseases, our understanding of the human genome remains messy and incomplete. Here, we present one piece that explains how personal genomics improves patient care through early prevention and targeted therapy, and a counterpiece that explores the risks surrounding overdiagnosis and privacy.

YES Anya Rakhecha Varsity Contributor

A relative of mine got extremely sick last year. They were not too old and had no major health issues prior to this. They had a sudden bout of weakness in their body and their health got increasingly worse thereafter. The doctor ordered several tests. None of them came back positive, and after a month and a half, my relative passed away.

Because the doctors were not able to find out what was afflicting them, treatment and cure were not even part of the question.

This story is heartbreaking to me on both a personal and a scientific level — was there anything more that could have been done?

DNA sequencing, or genomics, has been an important discussion in genetics and health care for the past few decades. Sequencing the human genome first came into the limelight in the early 1990s with the Human Genome Project (HGP). The HGP cost an astonishing $2.7 billion — today, sequencing a whole genome has become much more affordable at around $1,000. Lower costs have allowed us to personalize it.

PGP-C researchers anticipate that whole genome sequencing will likely become part of mainstream health care in the near future.

PGP-C integrated participants’ genomic data with their personal health information to help understand genetic contributions to human health and disease. It also gives patients direct access to their genetic information through an online database.

NO Analysis of this genetic information can help doctors determine potential disease risks, how your body will react to certain drugs, and more.

Most importantly, genetic diseases can be revealed through this technology. Risk factors for cancer, cystic fibrosis, arthritis, and even high blood pressure can be detected through genetic testing before symptoms manifest. This kind of early detection is key for preventing and treating some of these diseases. Having more time for proper treatment can make all the difference.

Personal genomics is also an important tool for ‘precision medicine’: the tailoring of health care according to each individual. We are not all built the same, at least not genetically. Thus, different people sometimes need different treatments for the same disease.

This is why cancer treatments are often individualized. Currently, most cancer patients receive a combination of various treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation.

With the help of personal genomics, doctors can give more targeted treatment to individuals based on how they might respond to a drug or therapy.

I think a lot about my relative who passed away. Had personal genomics been available, was there a chance of saving them? If the sickness was genetic in nature, perhaps we would have identified the cause. Personal genomics can help change how we see medicine and how we diagnose and treat patients. It can provide the guidance that is needed in the world of medicine today.

Jeffrey To Varsity Contributor

The usefulness of personal genomics can only go as far as our understanding of the human genome. There is a significant discrepancy between an individual’s genomic information and their actual state of health: findings from PGP-C seem to indicate that people can be missing huge chunks of chromosomes without negative effects on health.

One participant, for example, possessed risk factors for aortic stenosis, a lethal heart defect that develops before birth. Yet that individual is a healthy 67-year-old who works long hours, skis, and has a normally functioning heart.

These false positives — supposedly harmful mutations in DNA with no ill effects — suggest that the accuracy of genetic testing for uncovering health issues is uncertain, at least until scientists develop the necessary tools to fully decode the human genome.

Moreover, extensive testing may provide more data, but this also runs the risk of overdiagnosis. If the results of a genetic test indicate that a patient is at risk of developing a disease, a doctor could take precautionary measures and prevent the illness from manifesting. But in the case where the disease is actually harmless or does not develop, precautionary treatments could cause more harm than good due to side effects.

The increasing accessibility of genomic information also comes with potential social consequences. Canada’s recently passed Genetic NonDiscrimination Act protects

individuals from having to disclose the results of a genetic test to an employer, but the same cannot be said for health insurance.

According to the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association’s voluntary code, results of genetic tests can be requested by companies if the application is for a premium worth $250,000 or more. Considering the privacy risks associated with having your genome accessible to third-party organizations, some people may deliberately avoid genetic testing, which means that they cannot reap its potential benefits. Furthermore, what if an insurance company takes into account a false positive when calculating your insurance rate?

Without appropriate genetic counselling needed to contextualize the genetic information, patients may live their lives believing that they possess some sort of abnormality. They may end up a victim of the self-fulfilling prophecy, internalizing the presumed condition and behaving according to what they expect the symptoms to be.

While personal genomics provides new and exciting avenues for the diagnosis and prevention of disease, its applicability to current medical affairs is still limited by our lack of understanding of the human genome and by the risks associated with having genomic information accessible to the public.

Do your siblings make you empathetic?

U of T study finds that empathy develops reciprocally in siblings MIA CARNEVALE/THE VARSITY

Pascale Tsai Varsity Staff

A recent study published in Child Development found that the development of empathy in sibling pairs are linked. The study defined empathy as “the general capacity to share in the affective experiences of others.”

According to the researchers, empathy is apparent in children from their earliest days of life and promotes their future prosocial and altruistic behaviours.

Playful activities between siblings and conflicts between siblings have both been shown to contribute positively to social and emotional development in children. These interactions may give children opportunities to solve problems and allow

them to see how their own actions may impact others.

This new statistical study of empathy in children allowed researchers to see significant change in the empathetic tendencies of younger and older siblings assessed both at the beginning of the study and 18 months later.

The researchers found that empathy from one sibling is linked to a reciprocal increase in the other sibling’s empathetic development.

As well, greater age difference between siblings was correlated with greater empathetic development in the younger sibling.

“This is consistent with other studies showing that older siblings are better at modeling good behavior and teaching their younger siblings

skills as they get older,” wrote Marc Jambon, a U of T postdoctoral fellow and the lead author of this study, in an email to The Varsity.

Jambon speculates that this may not apply to siblings who have a large age gap because they likely would not spend much time together. However, this particular study did not consider large age gaps as “all of the siblings were within 4 years of each other as part of the study design.”

The study also found that younger brothers did not positively correlate with their older sisters’ empathy. Instead, if younger brothers were observably less empathetic, there was a slight tendency for older sisters to become more empathetic over the 18 months.

In general, the results highlight

that younger siblings tend to influence the character development of their older siblings just as much as their older siblings influence them.

Jambon hopes that this finding will affect the design of family intervention programs aimed at promoting healthy social functioning in children.

“Most of those programs focus on training parents, and sometimes older siblings, on certain skills with the idea that they will transfer those benefits onto younger children in the family. And I think that’s certainly true, but there may also be merit in including younger siblings in that process as well, given that they may have a unique and meaningful influence on other family members as well,” wrote Jambon.

Science Around Town Charmaine Nyakonda Varsity Staff

The Science Behind SIU Investigations A member of the Special Investigations Unit will be explaining the process involved in evidence collection and how this evidence is analyzed.

Date: Tuesday, March 6 Time: 7:00–8:00 pm Location: Fort York Library, Fort York Boulevard 190 Admission: Free with registration Lecture Me! Series: Deciphering Real vs Fake Science News In the age of misinformation and fake news, it’s difficult to distinguish what is factual and what is not.

In this installment of the Lecture Me! Series, Professor Fiona Rawle will be discussing how to tell fake science news apart from real science news and how to determine whether or not a science article is sensationalized.

Date: Tuesday, March 6 Time: 7:00–8:30 pm Location: Mississauga Central Library, 301 Burnhamthorpe Road West, Noel Ryan Auditorium Admission: Free with registration Neuronal transcriptome profiling identifies a conserved ubiquitin ligase complex involved in serotonergic neuromodulation in C. elegans This seminar will spotlight Dr. John Calarco’s work on molecular mechanisms that govern how neuronal cells impact behavioural changes and proteins that play a role in mediating long-term feeding behaviors induced by heat stress.

Date: Thursday, March 8 Time: 11:00 am Location: Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, 160 College Street, Cecil C. Yip Red Seminar Room Admission: Free

Sports

March 5, 2018 var.st/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

Blues women’s volleyball beat Guelph Gryphons Team to advance to OUA final four Summer Lee Varsity Contributor

The Toronto Varsity Blues women’s volleyball team finished off second in the OUA East division with a 15-4 record. Entering the match, the Blues women’s overall regular season record spanned an impressive seven consecutive victories.

They had last been defeated on January 27.

On Saturday, the Varsity Blues defeated the Guelph Gryphons 3–2 (22–25, 25–19, 25–21, 24–26, 15–4) to continue their winning streak in a quarter-final match at the Goldring Centre, a back and forth affair that went to a tiebreaker fifth set.

Third-year right side hitter Alina Dormann continued to be an enormous catalyst for the Blues and set the tone by opening the first set with a kill. Both teams got off to a strong start, and the score soared an early 7–5 for the Gryphons. Despite the great offensive play from the Blues, Gryphon middle hitter Libby Donevan’s abilities in hitting deep lines allowed the Gryphons to take the first set with a score of 25–22.

The Blues took the first point of the second set with a kill from first-year middle hitter Jenna Woock. She received a substantial amount of playing time in the game, executing

Rayn Perry and Alina Dormann celebrate after earning a crucial point. ARMAN SADRZADEH/THE VARSITY

a strong performance by consistently hitting quick sets. The Blues continued to pull ahead through the set, driving the score to 18–10. The second set concluded with the Blues defeating the Gryphons 25–19.

In the third set, Blues right side hitter Dormann dominated the court, putting her fierce kills on display. Her hits continued to account for Toronto on the scoreboard, and the Blues reached a 13–9 lead. Toronto first-year setter Rayn Perry accumulated multiple assists and did not disappoint in putting up accurate sets. After the timeout from Guelph at 19–12, the Blues extended their lead and won the set 25–21.

The fourth set featured multiple dynamic rallies, and Gryphons left side Michaela Hellinga exhibited strong blocks and multiple kills. The performance of the Gryphons showed no lingering effects from their defeat in the last two sets. Despite the early 6–1 lead for the Blues, the Gryphons battled

back with tenacity, inducing the Blues to call for a timeout at 23–21. Following the timeout, the Gryphons played with great fluidity and finished the set with a score of 26–24 in their favour.

The Blues did not allow their defeat in the previous set to affect their performance in the tiebreaking fifth set. As the Gryphons started to lose momentum, the Blues continued to display their well-practiced hits and cohesive teamwork, taking an early lead of 8–3. Toronto’s Anna Licht used her height to her advantage and scored three points with her well placed dumps over the Gryphon blockers. An ace from Blues Veronica Derylo sealed the fifth set with a 15–4 victory for Toronto.

The Blues will continue their hunt for an OUA title next Friday in the semi-finals against McMaster University.

An inside look at the Varsity Blues field hockey offseason Blues defender details how she prepares for the upcoming season Julia Costanzo Varsity Contributor

As a Varsity Blues field hockey player, my fall semester is packed with lifts, practices, traveling, and competition, while my winter semester is considered my offseason. ‘Off’ may be the wrong word, considering how much work our team does in the winter to prepare for our competition season in the fall.

Our offseason field hockey training is essential to our team’s success. In order to improve my skills, build strength, and increase my fitness levels over the winter, I need to stay healthy and perform my best at workouts and at practice.

Similar to our competition season in the fall, sleep is essential.

Depending on the week, we may only have one or two days off, which don’t always fall on the weekends, so relying on those days to catch up on sleep doesn’t work. For me, there is really only one way to stay well-rested, and that is sleeping at least six — but ideally eight — hours per night.

Nutrition is key to maximizing offseason training results. I never count how many calories I eat in a day, but I do make sure I fuel myself properly before workouts, practice, and competition. I try not to skip meals. Even if we’re training early in the morning and I’m not hungry, I will at least have a small snack.

I always pack extra food like granola bars, fruit, or vegetables in case I get hungry or I don’t have time to go home before training.

Staying hydrated is another way I stay ready for training. Especially while running, I can tell when I’m dehydrated, and I usually struggle more on those days. To prevent this, I carry a water bottle with me everywhere and, if possible, I keep it where I can see it, constantly reminding myself to stay hydrated.

During the offseason, we work out as a team twice per week.

All of our lifts include various different exercises, but one day is lower body-focused, while the other day is concentrated on

upper body. Since field hockey is a running sport that involves speed and agility, we also train footwork at one lift and conditioning at the other.

Our lifts serve two major purposes that prepare us for our upcoming season in the fall. Firstly, they focus on staying healthy and preventing injuries. Secondly, since all of our data — the weight we lift and our fitness scores — is tracked, lifts provide opportunities to identify weaknesses, set goals, and monitor improvements.

Offseason practices only occur three times per week, and we play indoor field hockey — a variation on the outdoor game — instead of outdoor field hockey. Indoor field hockey requires a slightly different skill set, although it is transferable to the outdoor game, and it keeps us interested, as we’re always working toward and improving on something new.

We play tournaments once per month to maintain some competition and see how much we’ve improved through practices. Indoor practices allow us to try new skills and learn new tactics — all things that keep us driven and excited about returning to Back Campus in the fall.

Overall, our field hockey off-season isn’t really ‘off’ at all. Our training is focused and requires preparation and dedication.

We increase our personal strength, fitness, and skills, while also bonding closer as a team through a shared atmosphere of hard work, trying new things, but most of all, a desire to be at our best when the season starts.

Costanzo looks to pass the ball to an open teammate.

MARTIN BAZYL/COURTESY OF THE VARSITY BLUES

18 • THE VARSITY • SPORTS

sports@thevarsity.ca

International Women’s Day: inspirational female athletes m

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to a penalty shot that cost Canada the game — and our shot at an Olympic gold medal.

I can imagine that it’s tough to bounce back from that.

Yet McLeod always does. I was thrilled to learn that, at the veteran age of 35, McLeod came back from her third knee surgery to play for Canada in a friendly match with Norway last month. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have her for another Olympics.

But it’s not just McLeod’s athletic and artistic ability that inspires me. In 2015, she publicly came out as gay. It takes immense bravery to come out when you’re already in the public eye, and I admire her for doing so. I’m certain that she has inspired many young women who are afraid of coming out, fearing possible repercussions.

Whatever McLeod’s future holds — in the net or not — I’m certain that she will continue to inspire young women like me to overcome obstacles and be ourselves.

–Kaitlyn Simpson

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from $15,000 to $41,700.

I was 16 the first time I interviewed Williamson, a time in which I’d define myself as far more passionate than skilled as a writer. Regardless, the year prior, two crucial events had happened in the landscape of women’s soccer in Canada.

The Canadian women’s national soccer team had lost an epic semifinal to the United States at the 2012 London Olympics, for one. This grabbed major headlines, but my attention was also on another, severely underreported event. The Ottawa Fury women had won the now defunct USL W-League Championship over the Pali Blues in a thrilling penalty kick victory, and Williamson had earned MVP honours for her performance in the match. Both events piqued my interest in women’s soccer.

At that point of her career, Williamson had already experienced more than her fair share of adversity, yet she managed to triumph after each setback.

The spring before her freshman season, she suffered a torn ACL in her right knee. She endured the strenuous rehabilitation process and came back to start in every game at centre back, and the following season she was named 2010 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Defensive Player of the Year.

In her senior season, Williamson played in only five games before she suffered another knee injury, this time a meniscus tear in the same knee. Yet she rehabbed again and returned two months later to join the Gators in the NCAA Tournament. In her collegiate career, the two-time All-American won three SEC titles.

Following her fifth knee surgery, Williamson made the decision to hang up her cleats.

She still lives in Portland and works at Nike.

Her career has had significant impact on me.

I can’t imagine wanting to write about sports without having seen her play.

—Daniel Samuel

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grew up playing soccer. I was four when I first joined a local soccer club, I was nine when I started playing goalkeeper for my house-league team, and I was 12 when I began playing competitively.

Ever since I could remember, I’ve looked up to the Canadian Women’s National Team goalkeeper extraordinaire, Erin McLeod.

McLeod has always been somewhat of an idol of mine. She first began playing for the national team in 2002 when she was only 19 years old. Since then, she’s played in 116 national team games, 112 of which she was the starting keeper. In addition to her athletic career, McLeod is also an artist, singer, and entrepreneur.

As a goalkeeper, McLeod has been under tremendous pressure to perform. Making a single mistake could cost the team a game.

This is precisely what happened in the 2012 London Olympic Games, when McLeod was called for a six-second violation — essentially, wasting time when you have the ball. This led

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here’s no one quite like Kat Williamson. It takes a certain type of character for an athlete to endure four knee surgeries and come back better each time. While the former Portland Thorns FC defender retired in 2016, there’s no doubt her impact on the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), former teammates, and fans is irreplaceable.

Williamson’s career was shaped by her resilience.

Over the course of her four-year professional career, Williamson’s toughness, high work rate, and consistency made her one of the most reliable defenders in the league. In her rookie season, she also played a key role on the Thorns FC side that won the 2013 NWSL Championship.

“She’ll light up any room with her positive take on life.” Those are McCall Zerboni’s thoughts on Williamson, her close friend and former teammate, which she gave to sports blog Dynamo Theory. The pair played together for two seasons in the NWSL. Last April, ahead of the NWSL’s historic fifth season — no professional women’s soccer league beforehand had made it past three — I had the opportunity to interview both Williamson and Zerboni, along with University of Southern California (USC) national champion and standout Morgan Andrews for a story attempting to capture the past, present, and future of the league.

The tough veteran Zerboni served as the present, Andrews represented the promise of youth, and the newly retired Williamson was reminiscent of the league’s not too distant past.

In the interview, Williamson reflected on her career, and I was reminded not only of her unselfishness and raw passion for her sport, but also the exceptional qualities of the league.

In its inaugural 2013 season, it saw nonallocated players make between $6,000 and $30,000 USD; that range increased in 2017

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Ahead of International Women’s Day, three contributors reflect on the female athletes who inspired them.

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Varsity Contributors

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Personal reflections on the greatest women in sport

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rowing up in Dubai, there was always a stigma surrounding women in sports. As an avid tennis player, I felt conflicted about pursuing the game because of the society where I had lived. I nearly gave up on tennis until I watched Serena Williams play for the first time. I was struck by her powerful physique and epic moves.

Williams is an embodiment of everything girls weren’t allowed to be in my community: strong, confident, and fiercely competitive. In that moment, she became my hero.

Williams has worked for her success, and that level of grit and unbreakable determination continues to pay off for her. It helped her develop her intimidating forearm, and that legendary serve contributed to her victories, leading her to become a Grand Slam champion at the age of 17. Williams also holds the most Grand Slam titles of any active player across every category. In 2015, she won four Grand Slams in a row, an accomplishment so rare that it has been named after her — the “Serena Slam.”

She’s still going strong, surpassing all the

limits and expectations placed on her. Despite being 36, roughly a decade older than when other great tennis players of the past retired, she’s still the best at the game. Williams has rewritten the record book for the sport and set new standards in the world of tennis. No other player, male or female, has revolutionized tennis in the way she has.

Without Williams’ influence, I might have experienced a childhood without sports.

There were no women around me who played sports, but Williams made me feel normal for pursuing something that no other girls did where I lived. She inspired me to work hard, to always persevere in the face of adversity.

In my eyes, Williams is the greatest athlete of our time, and her impact on my life has been profound. Throughout every challenge she faces, Williams comes back greater than ever. Her sheer resilience and ability to inspire will be part of her legacy as one of the greatest tennis players of all time.

–Veeda Tariq

MARCH 5, 2018 • 19

var.st/sports

Keyira Parkes: more than just an athlete The Blues star talks academics, life, and hoop dreams

Keyira Parkes attempting a layup. PHOTO BY MARTIN BAZYL, COURTESY OF THE VARSITY BLUES

Vincent Ruan Varsity Staff

Being a university student isn’t easy. Students have to grind it out during the year for assignments, quizzes, midterms and the most dreadful of them all: final exams. The workload is already hectic enough for students, but imagine trying to add sports to the stack, another massive time commitment. It takes a lot of effort and dedication to handle the busy schedules of varsity athletes. University of Toronto Varsity Blues basketball guard Keyira Parkes is one of those brave few willing to sacrifice precious time to play a sport they love.

Growing up, Parkes was avidly involved with sports. She started playing sports when she was just seven years old. Her first love was, surprisingly, soccer, not basketball. “[I played] soccer, but not for a rep team or anything,” says Parkes. “[I played] mostly in school. I actually wanted to play soccer before basketball. It was my favourite sport.”

Parkes already found success on and off the court before joining the Blues program. Graduating with honours from the International Baccalaureate program at St. John Paul II CSS, she was also MVP of her basketball team. She won another MVP award in a basketball tournament outside of high school. Parkes is currently pursuing a double major in Criminology and English.

Now a prolific scorer on the Varsity Blues women’s basketball team, it’s no surprise the player from whom she takes inspiration. “Growing up, the most influential basketball player to me would have to be Allen Iverson. He was one of my idols growing up,” says Parkes. Like Iverson, Parkes is quick and can slash her way to the rim. She is a very impressive scorer despite her relatively small stature. Iverson is listed at just six feet, while Parkes is 5'1" tall.

“I’d have to say my strengths as a player is my shooting ability,” notes Parkes. This season, Parkes is leading the team in points with 16.8 points per game on an efficient 46.6 field-goal percentage. She also leads the team in three-point percentage, with a staggering 45.8 mark. “I really take pride in being a great shooter,” she adds, while also emphasizing the importance she places on creating opportunities for her teammates.

Most athletes generally have some sort of weakness. LeBron James, for example, has been a below average free-throw shooter for his entire career. Parkes, however, claims that there is no true physical weakness to a player. In her mind, mental weakness is what separates good players from great players. “I think that when you doubt yourself, that’s the only weakness you can possess. I truly believe that when you believe in yourself and have confidence in yourself, you can do anything.”

Parkes notes that her only ‘weakness’ would be when she doubts herself. “I don’t doubt myself often though,” she adds.

Despite being a talented basketball player, Parkes doesn’t come from a family with a history of sports. “I’d love to lie and tell you that they do, but they don’t. They never really pursued sports, at least not in a serious way.”

When it comes to balancing school and sports, it can get confusing and challenging. A typical week could begin with a women’s basketball team practice at 6:30 am on Monday morning. These practices often last until 9:00 am. Then, players proceed to the weight room, where they lift for another hour.

Her own personal schedule begins with going back to the gym to practice shooting and ball-handling, since she doesn’t have class until the afternoon. After she’s finished with extra reps, she heads to physiotherapy to focus on physical health

WEEKLY BOX SCORE

VOLLEYBALL WOMEN’S March 3

and rehabilitation. Her final step of the day is academics, going to classes until roughly 7:00 pm. “Then the next day is just wash, rinse and repeat,” she laughs.

Being a varsity athlete can be difficult, as time management is one of the biggest aspects of maintaining a healthy workload. “It’s pretty tough, especially coming into university as a first-year student,” says Parkes. Having to represent your school as an athlete is similar to a full-time job. The demand of constant workouts, practices, meetings, and weekly games can take a toll on body and mind.

“We tend not to have a social life because it’s just basketball and school back and forth,” she adds. “But it’s a comfortable rhythm, and I think I adjusted to it pretty well.”

Before upcoming games, players participate in shootarounds, drills, and practices in preparation for their next opponent. Players and coaches go through the other team’s offense and focus everyone on their defense.

“For me personally, I usually like to get up shots during the week,” says Parkes. “The day of the game I sleep a lot, just to get my mind and everything calm, because I don’t like being tired before the game.”

At the end of the day, it’s all worth it to Parkes. The opportunity of being a varsity athlete at one of Canada’s most prestigious schools is rewarding for her. “The feeling that I get when [I play basketball] is feeling free, and there’s just not a care in the world.”

After graduation, Parkes plans on going to law school. She prefers Harvard University, or any of the top schools in the US. She also wouldn’t mind staying at U of T to become a lawyer. When it comes to her future in professional basketball, Parkes says that “if it comes, it comes. I would love to play pro if the opportunity came about.”

3–2 Varsity Blues

(22–25, 25–19, 25–21, 24–26, 15–4)

Guelph Gryphons

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TITUS ANDRONICUS

MARCH 5, 2018 • 20

U OF T’S PERFORMING ARTS LEADER SINCE 1919

2017/2018 HART HOUSE THEATRE SEASON

TITUS ANDRONICUS

By William Shakespeare Directed by James Wallis

MARCH 2-10, 2018 WARNING: Extreme violence, sexual violence, disturbing scenes

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