March 15th, 2021

March 15, 2021

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

p. 4–5: UTMSU elections 2021!

UTM opens clinic for COVID-19 vaccinations, tricampus openings discussed

p. 6: Bill Gates at Rotman

Focus on the pandemic

Khatchig Anteblian Associate News Editor

U of T’s role in vaccine efforts U of T President Meric Gertler said in a U of T News article that the university is offering space and equipment, including ultra-cold storage freezers to store the vaccines.

The clinic will administer the vaccine in accordance with provincial guidelines, starting with essential health care workers, elderly people, and those who are immunocompromised or at high risk before moving on to the general public. Members of the U of T community will fall under the same priority plan.

In an email to The Varsity, Omar Khan, an assistant professor at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, wrote that he believes centralizing the space where vaccines are administered and stored increases efficiency and minimizes waste.

“Once a vaccine vial is opened, there is a window in which you can use the vaccine before it expires.

Having things centralized is one way to make utilization efficient so we don’t waste any vaccine,” wrote Khan.

Student involvement in vaccinations The UTM clinic, and vaccine clinics at other campuses if they are implemented, may present opportunities for students and community members to get involved and support the university and health care professionals in the vaccination effort.

Dr. Salvatore Spadafora, the head of U of T’s COVID-19 response group, said in a U of T News article that the university will be offering vaccination spaces as they are needed, and that students in health faculties, such as medicine, nursing, and pharmacy, may be called on to assist.

If the university returns to in-person operation as its recent announcement suggests, it is unclear whether vaccination will be mandatory for students to be allowed back on campus. Spadafora said that the university will follow provincial guidance in that matter.

— With files from Jessica Han

Hannah Carty News Editor

After being struck down by a unanimous panel of three judges in November 2019, the Doug Ford government’s Student Choice Initiative (SCI) is going to court for an appeal hearing later this month. The government launched the appeal in December 2019 to challenge the November ruling.

Initially announced in January 2019 and only active for one semester, the SCI required that universities allow students to opt out of any incidental fees that were deemed “non-essential,” which included student groups and societies such as clubs, services, and campus media.

A spokesperson for Minister of Colleges and Universities Ross Romano wrote to The Varsity, “Our government will continue to promote affordability and transparency for Ontario students and their families and is appealing the court decision from November, 2019.”

Spaces could provide opportunities for students to aid vaccine efforts

On March 1, U of T opened a vaccination clinic at the UTM Recreation, Athletics & Wellness Centre to support the ongoing national vaccination effort. Peel Public Health oversees the clinic, and Trillium Health Partners (THP) administers the vaccines in the Peel region for those who are eligible.

Through this initiative, U of T plans to play an important role in supporting the national mass vaccination effort. The THP clinic has the capacity to deliver 2,000 doses per day with room to grow to a capacity of up to 4,000 doses per day in the upcoming months.

Discussions of additional clinics at UTSC and UTSG are ongoing.

Vol. CXLI, No. 21

Fight student autonomy

Ford makes up his mind — Student Choice Initiative goes to court this month Ontario government appeals after court previously quashed policy

Background Former Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Merrilee Fullerton announced the SCI in January 2019, along with cuts to tuition and to the Ontario Student Assistance Program. The intention of the SCI was to give students more freedom over how much they pay in fees.

For U of T students, the maximum amount they could have saved per semester was around $60.

Many students and student groups spoke out against the changes, with protests and campaigns to encourage students not to opt out.

Following backlash, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) and the York Federation of Students (YFS) launched a legal challenge, arguing that the SCI was illegal since the government does not have the authority to interfere in the fee agreements made between student groups and universities.

While the SCI was active, students were able to opt out of fees for many levy-funded campus groups, including Varsity Publications Inc., leading those groups to be unsure about the amount of funding they would receive. The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), which collects fees for many student groups, found that the average optout rate among all the groups was around 23 per cent.

Appeal The government filed an appeal on December 6, 2019 to challenge the decision to strike down the SCI in the Ontario Court of Appeals. The appeal will be heard on March 23 and 24.

Several organizations have filed to be intervenors in the case, including the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU), the League of Human Rights agency of B’nai Brith Canada, and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, among others. As intervenors, they will present an opinion to the court.

In June 2020, a group of five Ontario universities — including U of T — also filed to be intervenors in the case.

Those universities will present their points of view to the court as well. In an email to The Varsity, a U of T spokesperson wrote that “the University has no further comment while this case is ongoing.”

However, CFS–Ontario National Executive Representative Kayla Weiler wrote that the universities are “overwhelmingly supportive” of the CFS’ case. “In their report they discuss student societies being an important part of university autonomy and academic freedom,” she added.

The CFS remains determined to stop the SCI. According to Weiler, it asked the government to consider withdrawing the appeal in August 2020, though the government rejected that idea a month later.

“The SCI policy was never about saving students money, but a policy designed to defund the students groups that hold the Ontario government accountable,” wrote Weiler.

The UTGSU did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment. The Varsity has reached out to the UTSU, the YFS, the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union, and the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union for comment.

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Students, unions raise privacy concerns about thirdparty proctoring services at U of T

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UTSU report suggests students should be able to opt out of using these services Jessica Han Associate News Editor

Students and student unions alike have raised privacy concerns about the use of third-party proctoring services at U of T. In response to the concerns, issues, and questions they raised, the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) created and released a report regarding online third-party proctoring services at the university.

The report comes in response to numerous complaints that were brought to the UTSU by students through a survey the UTSU conducted over the summer, as well as emails to UTSU Vice-President Public & University Affairs Tyler Riches throughout the year.

U of T’s agreements with services U of T has agreements with ExamSoft, Examity, and ProctorU, enabling the university to use their services.

These agreements are not available to the public, and decisions to implement these services are decided at the divisional level.

In an email to The Varsity, a U of T spokesperson wrote that ProctorU and ExamSoft are largely used in the professional programs, but that “it is the decision of individual faculties or divisions whether to use these services.”

The spokesperson added that U of T has “clear guidance” that, when ensuring academic integrity on evaluations, online proctoring should not be the first or only option instructors consider, and any issues flagged by these services are “reviewed in the first instance by instructors.”

“The University is supporting instructors as they consider innovations in online assessments, in addition to online proctoring,” the spokesperson concluded.

Concerns about third-party proctoring services Students have raised privacy and technological concerns regarding these third-party proctoring services.

In terms of privacy concerns, there have been breaches of students’ personal information and data, specifically from ProctorU, as well as issues with the level of intrusion that the proctoring services require to operate. Technological issues often include internet and wi-fi access and connectivity, as well as problems with running software.

In an email to The Varsity, Riches pointed out that the issues that come with these proctoring services can “put… assessments at risk and cause anxiety for students.”

Lily Vienneau, a first-year humanities student, has used ProctorU for her midterms and final exams. In a written interview with The Varsity, she recalled that her experience with ProctorU was “very anxiety provoking and uncomfortable.”

Vienneau found the third-party proctoring services “quite intrusive,” writing that they “ultimately violate the privacy of a lot of students.”

ProctorU offers two options for exam proctoring: a live proctor and an automated one. In both instances, students are required to submit a photo of themselves and a photo ID, and their webcam and screen are recorded for the duration of the test.

In the case of a live proctored exam, students are required to show their proctor all four walls of their bedroom, their desk space, and ensure that their cell-

phone is out of reach. The software also allows proctors to briefly take remote control of students’ computers to ensure that no other programs are running on the computer.

The software flags a number of behaviours during a test, including students looking off screen, talking out loud, and being out of camera view. Students are also not allowed to have anyone enter their test-taking area during the exam.

“In the situation we are currently in, school is more difficult for many students as it is and we don’t need these intrusive and violating services to increase levels of anxiety and fear across the student body,” Vienneau wrote.

Another student, Bea Kraljii, who is a third-year student double majoring in physiology and global health, shared her thoughts and experiences with ProctorU in a written interview with The Varsity, describing the experiences as “negative overall.”

She expressed, “it’s really frightening to go into an exam knowing that someone on the other side of the screen that you CANT SEE is tracking your eye movements [and] getting an in depth look at your personal space.”

“They make you show the camera around your room and in a mirror,” Kraljii added.

She wrote that at the beginning of the exam, the proctor would log in to the students’ computers and change their settings, and students had a difficult time reverting these settings back to their original state after the exam.

In addition, students faced with a sudden emergency who would like to change their scheduled exam time with the proctoring service may have to pay a fee in order to do so, according to Kraljii.

On the University of Toronto Reddit community, one user shared an experience they had with thirdparty proctoring services, alleging that a proctor pointed at their friend’s hijab and said to “remove that scarf around your head.” There have been other reports that proctoring has disproportionate negative effects on racialized students at U of T. Report’s findings The UTSU’s report addresses various proctoring issues, including transparency, accessibility, data breaches, and privacy during examination periods. It covers the three recognized proctoring services at the university — ExamSoft, Examity, and ProctorU. It also touches on Turnitin, a built-in plagiarism detector on Quercus, which students have the option of opting out of using.

The report was distributed to central and faculty administrators and student unions in early January.

To compile the report, the UTSU reached out to faculty and student unions across U of T and connected with the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation and the Office of the Vice-Provost Students.

Riches noted that the UTSU found that thirdparty proctoring services are not used as much at U of T compared to other postsecondary institutions in Canada.

This stems, in their understanding, from U of T university administrators often discouraging the use of proctoring services. However, these services “are still being used by some faculties and departments and have caused some students to raise concerns,”

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Riches wrote.

Since the report’s release, Examity has made an information privacy notice available on the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation website. ProctorU and Turnitin also have information notices on the centre’s website, while ExamSoft does not have one.

Although Riches called the report “illuminating [on] how third-party proctoring services are used at U of T,” they said there are “many other tangible changes [that] have [not] occurred” following the publishing of the UTSU’s report.

Particularly, there have not been any discussions about giving students the right to refuse the usage of third-party proctoring services, which Riches remarked was “disappointing.”

“There is certainly room for better policy and transparency around these services, but now it’s easier to understand the scope of the issue,” Riches summarized.

Calls for change, greater attention Regarding the UTSU’s stance, Riches wrote that the union “believes that students should be able to refuse to use third-party proctoring services.”

Ikran Jama, President of the Arts and Science Students’ Union (ASSU), also presented the ASSU’s stance in an email to The Varsity, writing that the union “is against the idea of courses using third-party proctoring services.”

Jama noted that there are “blurred lines” surrounding what is counted as an academic offence. In particular, one of the ASSU’s concerns is that some students are unable to access a quiet and private space, causing them to be unfairly flagged.

Likewise, Vienneau pointed out the many equity issues that could arise from using third-party proctoring services. “Not everyone is in living situations during this time that comply with the ‘detection’ features of these services,” she wrote.

The ASSU hopes that “greater attention” can be brought to these proctoring issues, so that more departments and instructors choose not to use these services.

“I feel so much more engaged in my learning when instructors are supporting growth and a safe learning experience rather than using outside surveillance to monitor us,” concluded Kraljii.

Sexual violence and harasssment hotlines Where to find sexual violence and harassment support at U of T A list of safety resources is available at safety. utoronto.ca. The tri-campus Sexual Violence Prevention & Support Centre’s website is www.svpscentre.utoronto.ca. Individuals can visit the centre’s website for more information, contact details, and hours of operation. Centre staff can be reached by phone at 416-978-2266.

Locations: U of T downtown Toronto campus: Gerstein Library, suite B139 U of T Mississauga: Davis Building, room 3094G U of T Scarborough: Environmental Science and Chemistry Building, EV141 Those who have experienced sexual violence can also call Campus Police to make a report at 416-978-2222 (St. George and U of T

Scarborough) or 905-569-4333 (U of T Mississauga).

After-hours support is also available at: Women’s College Hospital Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Care Centre (416-3236040) Scarborough Grace Sexual Assault Care Centre (416-495-2400) Trillium Hospital Sexual Assault Care Centre (905-848-7100)

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MARCH 15, 2021

How graduate student parents are navigating U of T during COVID-19 English department members on time constraints, child care, difficulty accessing resources

Isabel Armiento Graduate Bureau Chief

With repeated shutdowns of schools and daycares, the pandemic has been a challenging time for graduate student parents. Between balancing their own work and taking care of their children, student parents have reported feeling overwhelmed.

“Many members of our community must balance family obligations with studies and/or work,” a U of T spokesperson noted in an email to The Varsity. “As an open and inclusive organization, one of our priorities is to foster a family-friendly learning and working environment. This has been critically important during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Varsity interviewed several U of T graduate student parents in the English department on the challenges they’re facing and the resources available to them.

Time constraints One of the biggest issues graduate student parents face during the pandemic is a lack of time. In an email to The Varsity, Jessica Elkaim, a fifth-year PhD student, described a busy day filled with her and her partner rotating between child care, housework, and schoolwork. “I always plan to do more work after she’s asleep but I’m always too exhausted,” she wrote. “I’m exhausted just describing what our days look like.”

Elkaim is a new parent whose daughter was born in July 2020. “I don’t know what parenting looks like outside of a pandemic but I would think confinement and social isolation have definitely exacerbated the normal challenges of being new parents,” Elkaim added.

“We can’t ask anyone for help and it’s difficult to give each other a break because there’s nowhere to go. We haven’t had any time to ourselves since she was born.”

Titilola Aiyegbusi, a first-year PhD student — whose children are aged two, five, and seven — said in an interview with The Varsity that because of school clo-

sures, taking care of her children monopolized her attention during the day. “I wasn’t getting enough sleep, but I couldn’t afford to sleep too because I just didn’t have the hours,” she said, recalling that she often went to bed at 10:00 pm and woke up around 2:00 am. This meant that she could squeeze in four working hours before her children woke up.

“Once the kids get up, that’s it.

You really can’t do much.”

Part of this was due to the difficulty of navigating her children’s Zoom school on top of her own studies. “I have two kids having Zoom classes,” she said, noting that especially for her seven year old and five year old, “I just can’t leave them to navigate the computer by themselves.” She described moving back and forth between her children’s Zoom classes, ensuring they were engaged in school and working the technology properly.

“You can’t even afford to be stressed because the stress requires time,” she said.

Aparna Menon, an English master’s student, wishes she had time to do more research for her seminar papers. “You do papers where you would ideally like to read more, but you don’t, simply because you run out of time,” she said in an interview with The Varsity.

Ironically, several students said that parenting during the pandemic had improved their time management skills. “Having a child to take care of has made me much more efficient with my time,” wrote Elkaim. “I get a lot more writing done now in few hours than I ever did before.”

“It does make you more productive,” Menon said, saying that student parents need to be “very specific and completely rigid in terms of time schedule.” She added, “I think I’ve heard this from almost every parent of the group.”

Parent first, student second The parents described that, unlike other distractions, parenting isn’t something that can be turned off. “It is very stressful,” Aiyegbusi said. “You can’t stop being a parent. It’s not something you can take a break from, especially when there’s nowhere to go.”

She found it difficult to find time for classes, reading, writing, and grading when she couldn’t put her children in schools or daycare. During this time, Aiyegbusi would set up her daughter’s high chair behind her on Zoom so that she could keep an eye on her daughter during classes and meetings.

“You can’t put an 18 month old in front of the TV for three hours… You have to ensure that they are safe,” she said.

“I realized that I couldn’t d r o p t h e ball o n

parenting,” said Aiyegbusi. “I t r i e d not to drop the ball on my studies, but I couldn’t drop the ball on parenting.”

Elkaim wrote that having young children at home can prove especially distracting while teaching or in meetings. “I normally enjoy talking to students about their writing but it’s been very stressful to schedule and hold office hours from home,” she wrote. “My daughter has a knack for throwing fits when I’m on Zoom.”

“Honestly, getting a PhD is a piece of cake compared to parenting,” she added.

Julie Prior, a PhD student, said in an interview with The Varsity that when the pandemic first hit, she had to manage her schoolwork while taking care of a two year old and a four year old full time.

She shared an anecdote about being at a Family Care Office (FCO) Zoom workshop that offered strategies for keeping up with work while caring for children at home.

“All you could hear in the background was little kids begging their parents to give them attention,” Prior said. “This whole workshop was supposed to be about how to keep doing your job while you have kids at home and it was almost just comical.”

Many student parents struggle with unique challenges. “It’s a little more complicated for me, because he also has special needs,” Menon said of her three-year-old son, who is on the autism spectrum.

“There [are] the added challenges which come with that, like attention span.” She added that “getting him… to do therapy or something online… was hard.”

Resources for parents In the graduate English department, master’s and PhD student parents have formed a group chat where they can share resources and offer one another support during what may feel like an alienating and stressful time.

Aiyegbusi recalled speaking up about “feeling isolated” during a meeting of the Graduate English Association’s Equity and Diversity Committee. “All these other students are single students,” she said.

“They might not know my realities and it’s hard for me to ask [them] for help.”

Others expressed a similar desire to connect

with other student parents. “It’s been comforting to know other parents in the program are out there,” wrote Elkaim.

However, there are official university resources aside from such informal communities.

Prior said that she was drawn to U of T because of the Canadian Union of Public Employees 3902’s leave policies. She cited the union’s Childcare Financial Assistance Fund, through which Unit One workers can be reimbursed for any child care expenses provided either by a child care centre, babysitter, or the students themselves if they are the child’s primary caregiver.

According to a U of T spokesperson, the university offers many resources for student parents. “Our Family Care Office provides faculty, librarians, staff and students with information about childcare options near the University, near their place of work or near their home,” they wrote.

“Campus childcare services began re-opening in August and we plan to be operating by September at the optimal capacity permitted under the local Public Health COVID requirements.”

The spokesperson also pointed to the Parental Grant program offered through the School of Graduate Studies.

While U of T does offer resources for student parents, many student parents may not know about them. “I want to believe [that] U of T is supportive,” said Aiyegbusi. “[But] we’re so overwhelmed that we don’t even know where or how to get the support.”

“Child care subsidies and parental grants are available but finding those resources in the first place is difficult,” added Elkaim. “Applying to all the resources I was eligible for and organizing my maternity leave were very frustrating. I received a lot of conflicting information and was still filling out forms and chasing people down a month after my daughter was born despite starting the process months early, before the pandemic.”

Menon added that while financial support is available, “a lot of that… is available only at the PhD level, not so much at the [master’s] level.”

Menon said that she hadn’t specifically looked to U of T for support with her child’s autism, “but at the same time… I feel like maybe this is something that we should begin having a conversation about.”

Disclosure: Isabel Armiento is an MA rep on the Graduate English Association.

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UTSU elections: voting begins March 17, four of six positions uncontested

Execs on participation: pre-election efforts to improve access, pandemic challenges Lauren Alexander Deputy News Editor

The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) voting period is set to take place from Wednesday, March 17 to Sunday, March 21, with nine candidates vying for six executive positions.

Four of these positions are uncontested, which mirrors previous UTSU elections in recent years that have also beaen marked by a lack of participation. For example, in 2019, multiple executive elections were initially vacant and required by-elections.

This year, the UTSU has made several changes to accommodate for the pandemic, including decreasing the number of signatures required and changing the reimbursement guidelines.

Prior to the voting period, the UTSU will be hosting an all-candidates forum on March 16, and The Varsity will be hosting its own on March 17.

Lack of contestation, potential vacancy The four positions that have only one candidate running are president, vice-president operations, vice-president public & university affairs, and vice-president equity. Elections for vice-president student life and vice-president professional faculties are contested.

The uncontested candidate for vice-president public & university affairs, Micah Kalisch, previously informed The Varsity that she intended to drop out of the race in explaining why she would not be able to accept The Varsity’s invitation to its UTSU elections forum next week.

After The Varsity published a breaking story on this intention, Kalisch indicated that the reporting was inaccurate — claiming that her notice was private and not meant to be taken as official comment.

As of publication time, Kalisch has not responded to The Varsity’s request for further comment to clarify how the reporting was inaccurate

or her precise plans and whether she will drop out or stay in the race.

If Kalisch drops out, a by-election to fill the role, with a term that begins on May 1, would be required. However, according to UTSU President Muntaka Ahmed, Kalisch has not yet submitted any formal notice to leave the race, and therefore, she officially remains a candidate.

President on pre-election efforts to increase participation In light of the lack of contestation and a potential vacancy, The Varsity reached out to the UTSU for comment on low participation. Ahmed highlighted the UTSU’s pre-election efforts to increase participation amid the pandemic. These included extending the nomination period and updating the elections code, which reduced the number of nomination signatures required and lowered the executive spending limit on elections to $500 but allowed for a full reimbursement.

The UTSU discussed the challenges surrounding participation and approved the above solutions at its February Board of Directors meeting. The UTSU also live-streamed information sessions about the elections on Facebook, which were later posted for students who missed it.

Ahmed noted that pandemic-related circumstances, including the lack of in-person nomination and campaigning processes, have made elections particularly difficult. The union has “tried to make the process as burden-free on both the candidate’s and our administrative end as possible,” she wrote.

The UTSU elections will take place from March 17–21.

COURTESY OF CANDIDATES

“I think that this is more than just a UTSU problem. I think it’s campus wide. And this year it’s exacerbated by the fact that students [are] generally incredibly burnt out and not seeking out positions of leadership as much as they used to,” Ahmed wrote.

Vice-president operations on participation Current UTSU Vice-President Operations Dermot O’Halloran also weighed in on the issue.

O’Halloran wrote to The Varsity that the UTSU executive team has been trying extremely hard this year to increase the number of candidates for executive positions. “This has been a disappointing elections season for student unions across the country, and we’re predictably disappointed that the number of candidates is low for ours,” wrote O’Halloran.

“Our no-slates system causes confusion each year, and it seems this is still the case,” wrote O’Halloran. “So we’re using this as an opportunity to immediately work on improvement strategies for use by the incoming team during our fall by-elections.”

The UTSU used to allow slates to run in ex-

ecutive elections, but the practice was banned in 2018 due to concerns that it had made running more difficult for independents. Slates are groups of candidates who run under similar platforms for the various executive positions.

O’Halloran noted that he believes the ban on slates makes elections more fair.

He wrote that feedback from students on why they are hesitant to participate in elections “has largely been that people are burned out, and are scared after seeing what’s happened at other campuses.” He listed the Carleton University Students’ Association and the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union, which have seen election controversies in the past.

O’Halloran did note, however, some improvements in election participation this year, including an increase in the number of directors running, as well as increased interest from faculty unions in director seats.

“The [vice-president public & university affairs] position is still one year old which may provide some context as to why there is now an unconfirmed (because Micah is still in every way a candidate) potential vacancy,” wrote O’Halloran.

UTMSU elections 2021: All Candidates Forum focuses on equity, academic policies

Seven candidates vying for five executive positions, four of which are uncontested Joshua Chong Associate Features Editor

The University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) held the All Candidates Forum for its 2021 elections on March 10. The forum featured candidates for the five executive positions to discuss and answer questions from community members about student issues, such as academic policies, student life, equity, and mental health.

There are seven candidates for the 2021 elections — five of whom belong to the Build Back Better (BBB) slate — running for the five executive positions. The candidates for president, vice-president internal, vice-president external, and vice-president university affairs are running unopposed. The race for vice-president equity includes three candidates — one from BBB and two independents.

Chief Returning Officer Juliana Salsa hosted the event, with the sole candidate absence being Maryam Yousefipournigjeh, an independent running for vice-president equity.

that she would push for a reduction of all student fees.

“I think it’s shameful that we have to pay for postsecondary education, let alone in the midst of a pandemic,” she said. “So what [BBB] wants to do is lobby U of T governance as well as the federal and provincial government to gradually reduce and eliminate tuition fees.”

When asked about her other priorities, Yabuki said that BBB would develop a COVID-19 accommodation policy that includes extending the credit/no credit policy to program requirements.

Merica Joy Carlos, the BBB candidate for vice-president university affairs, discussed the proposed accommodation policy in more detail, saying that her team will first survey students to better understand which academic accommodations are most needed.

“Students shouldn’t be expected to study and operate the same way as if the pandemic isn’t happening,” she said.

Academic policies Presidential candidate Mitra Yakubi, who is running for re-election unopposed, stressed

Student life Vice-president internal candidate Lai Wei, running on the BBB slate, was asked by a club

executive how she would help clubs and societies next year, many of which are struggling as a result of the pandemic.

She acknowledged the difficulty campus groups faced while transitioning to a virtual environment and said that she and her team would make it easier for groups to submit recognition documents. Wei also promised to look into making faster banking features, such as wire transfers, e-signatures, and alternative banking available to student groups.

Regarding international students, BBB candidate for vice-president external Maëlis Barre said that BBB would strike an international student roundtable that “would be a space for international students to come together and talk about… some of the struggles they face that are specific to their experience.”

She indicated that the roundtable would work on a document that could be used to lobby the administration for policies that best serve international students. “The idea is to really put international students’ voices at the centre of this initiative to make sure that what [we’re] lobbying for and demanding is actually what international students need to feel supported,” she said.

Equity and mental health Questions surrounding student equity and mental health also featured prominently in the forum. Independent vice-president equity candidate Laiba Khan said that she would address these issues by implementing diversity and equity counselling that “will be available to students who come from different backgrounds.” Khan also highlighted her previous experience as a community organizer focusing on gender equity and domestic violence.

One of her opponents, BBB candidate Ryan Tomlinson, would expand the university’s United for Equity campaign, an initiative coordinated by the Canadian Federation of Students that aims to eradicate all forms of oppression and discrimination from Canadian postsecondary campuses.

Tomlinson plans to create more safe spaces for students facing oppression, including town halls where students can learn more about the discrimination other community members face. “I know that these spaces are able [to] allow students to have their [voices] validated and move to heal as a community,” he said.

Tomlinson highlighted his previous experience creating safe spaces for Black students while serving on the Black Students’ Association’s Black History Month committee.

vrsty.ca/news

President

Joshua Chong Associate Features Editor

UTMSU Candidate Profiles Vice-President Internal Radmila Yarovaya Varsity Contributor

Content warning: this article contains mention of sexual assault.

Mitra Yakubi (Build Back Better) Mitra Yakubi, a fifth-year biology and sociology student, is running uncontested for re-election as president of the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) under the Build Back Better slate. Yakubi has also previously acted as the union’s volunteer coordinator and orientation coordinator.

In an interview with The Varsity, Yakubi highlighted the work she did this year launching a new mental health peer support program, along with getting a U-Pass rebate for UTM students. “I’m excited to continue the work that I have already started and to expand on it more to ensure that our students have an accessible education,” she said.

If re-elected, Yakubi hopes to expand the peer support program to include supports for sexual assault survivors. She also plans to strike a mental

MARCH 15, 2021

Mitra Yakubi.

COURTESY OF MITRA YAKUBI

health task force that would lobby all levels of government for more resources.

Yakubi’s priorities also include reviewing UTM’s ancillary fees to look for savings and reducing tuition fees by lobbying senior administrators and provincial and federal politicians.

“It was really shameful that the campus was closed, and students were charged thousands and thousands of dollars for an education that wasn’t even half as good as what we used to get in person,” she said.

The voting period for UTMSU elections will run from March 16–18.

Vice-President University Affairs

Lai Wei (Build Back Better) Lai Wei is a fourth-year student studying finance and economics who is running unopposed for vice-president internal of the University of Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) on the Build Back Better slate.

Wei has been involved with the UTMSU before as a member of the Board of Directors and an organizer for a Chinese volunteer group.

Through her work, Wei “realized the importance of addressing student needs and protecting student rights on campus” and will dedicate her tenure to improving the student experience and making sure that UTM students have the best university experience possible.

As an international student, Wei is dedicated to improving the experiences of international students on campus. One way she plans

Lai Wei.

COURTESY OF LAI WEI

to do this is by establishing a roundtable for international students at UTM, which would help with development and advocacy for international students, who might deal with issues like higher tuition fees, poor access to health care services, and difficulties finding housing.

“It’s a huge challenge for them to adapt to [a] different culture and environment,” said Wei. She also hopes that through her work with the international student community, she can help international students integrate into the university community.

Vice-President External

Jessica Han Associate News Editor

Hafsa Ahmed UTM Bureau Chief

Merica Joy Carlos (Build Back Better) Merica Joy Carlos is a fourth-year student majoring in communication, culture, information, and technology and minoring in visual culture and communication and cinema studies. She is running unopposed for the vicepresident university affairs position in the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union under the Build Back Better slate.

In an interview with The Varsity, Carlos highlighted that “a sense of community means a lot to [her].” She expressed that the need to build community at UTM has motivated her to run for this year’s elections.

If elected, Carlos and her team plan to implement “a job readiness support [system]” in collaboration with academic societies, the

Maëlis Barre (Build Back Better) Maëlis Barre, a second-year international student studying astrophysics and math, is running uncontested for the vice-president external position in the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) on the Build Back Better slate. She was a volunteer coordinator for the UTMSU last year and is the current president of the physics club.

In an interview with The Varsity, Barre said that she was running because she found a passion for advocacy by volunteering with the UTMSU in fighting for students’ rights.

If elected, Barre plans to focus on a COVID-19 academic accommodation policy and lobby the university administration to support students’ unique needs, especially during the pandemic.

Merica Joy Carlos.

COURTESY OF MERICA JOY CARLOS

dean of academics, and the Career Centre, to create opportunities for students transitioning into the professional field.

Carlos said that she is very passionate about this plan, noting that “as a current fourth-year student, finding a job in the market is really hard right now.”

Carlos will also work to develop UTM’s first undergraduate research symposium to “allow students to display the research they have done and… network and connect with others in academia.”

Maëlis Barre.

COURTESY OF MAËLIS BARRE

To support students during the pandemic, she plans to advocate for more lenient and flexible approaches to academics, such as through extensions of the credit/no credit policy and academic deadlines.

On student housing, Barre said that she plans to improve students’ understanding of their rights through information sessions and plans to lobby the government as well: “We are planning on meeting up with some other advocacy groups… and lobbying the municipal and federal government for having more safe and livable housing options for all students.”

Vice-President Equity

Hafsa Ahmed UTM Bureau Chief

Laiba Khan (Independent) Laiba Khan, a second-year student completing a double major in law & criminology and sociology and a minor in political science, is running for the vice-president equity position in the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU). Khan has been on the UTMSU Board of Directors for two years.

Khan has led a conference on gender equity to teach high school students why it is important. She has also organized a protest against domestic violence, a workshop on environmental sustainability, and a clothing drive for homeless shelters.

If elected, she plans to provide more diversity and equity counselling. “[At] UTM, we have a lot of students who come from all different backgrounds, and sometimes they are not provided the right counselling. So it’s time to do diversity and equity counselling to help them with their mental health despite their backgrounds,” said Khan in an interview with The Varsity.

She also plans to make bursaries and financial support more accessible for students. “I believe that no one should be held back on their education due to their financial situation, especially under such unprecedented circumstances like [the COVID-19 pandemic].” Since she has served on the UTMSU’s bursary committee, she noted that she has experience in understanding how bursaries work.

Laiba Khan.

COURTESY OF LAIBA KHAN

Ryan Tomlinson.

COURTESY OF RYAN TOMLINSON

Ryan Tomlinson (Build Back Better) Ryan Tomlinson, a third-year student specializing in sociology and minoring in political science, is running for vice-president equity on the Build Back Better slate. He has served as an executive on the Black Students’ Association and Caribbean Connections at UTM, and was elected to the UTM Campus Affairs Committee.

In an interview with The Varsity, Tomlinson discussed how when he first came to UTM, he did not find a large sense of community or spaces for Black students on campus, so he wants to create “more of those spaces not just for Black students, but also for other groups of students on campus who feel like they may not have a safe space.”

If elected, Tomlinson plans to revamp and expand the United for Equity Campaign to create more safe spaces for students who have experienced oppression or racism on campus, “which will allow them to have their voices validated and heard.”

He also plans to provide opportunities — from podcasts to town halls — for teaching the community about the oppression students face both on and off campus.

He also plans to expand bursaries and grants at the UTMSU, highlighting the need for more niche resources that support all student needs.

Maryam Yousefipournigjeh.

COURTESY OF MARYAM YOUSEFIPOURNIGJEH

Maryam Yousefipournigjeh (Independent) Maryam Yousefipournigjeh, a third-year student doing a major in health science and minors in psychology and biomedical communications, is running for vice-president equity as an independent candidate.

She is the co-president and founder of the Social Justice Club and has been involved in UTM Global Brigades as a fundraising director and volunteer.

If elected, Yousefipournigjeh plans to create a program that will support women students in pursuing leadership positions. “We have a lot of clubs specific to women… but I want to work toward actually making a program to lead women to those resources,” she said in an interview with The Varsity.

She also plans to improve accessibility and resources for student mental health. She discussed how in her first years on campus, she was not informed about mental health resources and often found them through word of mouth. She wants to make a safe space for students to be able to come and “know they’re going to get help.”

Yousefipournigjeh also plans to increase the grants and bursaries at the UTMSU, as well as work to overcome some of the barriers that students face in reaching out for both on- and off-campus financial support. “I just want to ensure every student gets the help that they’re looking for.”

5

Business & Labour

March 15, 2021 vrsty.ca/business biz@thevarsity.ca

Bill Gates’ new book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need is on shelves now.

COURTESY OF BILL GATES

ANUSHKA SAINI/THEVARSITY

Bill Gates at Rotman: climate crisis is The international student wage gap: one of humanity’s “greatest challenges” U of T voices on difficulties finding Canadian employment World’s fourth wealthiest promotes new How to Avoid a Climate Disaster book

Sarah Folk Associate Business & Labour Editor

On March 10, Bill Gates addressed a U of T audience on the defining challenges of the climate crisis at an event hosted by the Rotman School of Management and Indigo Books. The event aimed to promote Gates’ new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.

Gates — the world’s fourth wealthiest person, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the founder of Breakthrough Energy — sat down with Canadian writer and filmmaker Ariel Bissett over a livestream featuring audience interaction. The pair were introduced by Professor Kenneth S. Corts, interim dean of the Rotman School of Management, who also spoke briefly on U of T’s own sustainability efforts.

Over the hour-long conversation, Gates and Bissett discussed important points raised in the book and explored Gates’ journey from working in the software industry to becoming a prominent voice in the climate crisis movement.

The power of renewables One of the first points that Gates addresses in his book is the importance of drastically decreasing our annual greenhouse gas emission from the current 51 billion tonnes to zero. Gates recognized the ambition of the goal during the talk, deeming that “avoiding a climate disaster will be one of the greatest challenges humans have ever taken on.”

Bissett probed the feasibility of Gates’ plans by claiming that the world’s electricity supply will need to double, or even triple, by 2050 to support the growing population.

In response, Gates stressed the importance of energy transmission development. “We’re lucky that in North America we have lots of solar and lots of wind, but we don’t have much transmission to move it around,” Gates explained.

Completely changing the processes — and manufacturing systems reliant on fossil fuels — required to reduce emissions can seem daunting to the average person in Canada.

To facilitate the transition, Gates advocated for “broad knowledge” and encouraged people to support government leaders pursuing climate crisis initiatives. He also encouraged the audience to evaluate what their employers are doing to fight the climate crisis and to ‘vote with their dollar’ by being conscientious of what they spend their money on.

The power — and insufficiency — of innovation Making an impact against the climate crisis at the corporate level starts with innovative change. Specifically, Gates said that “the pipeline of innovation starts with [research and development].”

He highlighted companies that he believes embody this concept. These included CarbonCure — a Canadian company that discovered a way to insert carbon dioxide back into the cement that it creates — and Quidnet Energy — a hydropower company that discovered a way to store hydroelectric power by pumping water into ground formations.

Gates also stressed that innovation on its own will not be enough to fight the climate crisis, saying that the world’s wealthiest countries and largest producers of carbon emissions must also cooperate and do their part to foster this innovation.

He explained that “the rich countries have had the greatest emissions historically. Per person, the US and Canada and Australia are among the worst.” According to Gates, “We drive more miles, we have to heat our houses a lot, [and] our houses tend to be bigger. And so by rights, because of our wealth, our past emissions, that priming this innovation pump, that should be our responsibility.”

However, in response to a question from the audience, Gates also highlighted the importance of China’s involvement in any global climate movement. “China, in present day numbers, is the largest emitter,” Gates said.

“They passed us partly because they export a lot of steel and cement, but they also use a lot. Remember, they’re 20 per cent of the world’s population, so their share of emissions almost matches exactly their share of the global population.”

Gates continued, “They need to participate in every way — they need to help with the innovation; they need to help with the deployment.”

The power of ordinary people According to Gates, getting more young people involved in efforts to fight the climate crisis requires driving “interest in climate to derive interest in science and interest in science to derive interest in climate.” He believes that building science courses focused on climate is a great way to pique students’ interest and “motivate them as they go into politics or science to be part of the solution.”

Regarding his own personal use of resources as the world’s fourth-richest person, Gates said, “I wouldn’t take any credit for the quantity of my giving because I’m lucky to have so much money that I’m not making some huge sacrifice as I give it away.” He encouraged people to direct their praise to those who, when they give, sacrifice luxuries in order to support their communities.

Gates expressed hope that as time passes, people as wealthy as him will become more generous and more resources will be donated to fight the climate crisis. “We fund the philanthropic sector… but I still think ‘okay we should have twice as much,’ ” Gates said.

“How do we innovate, even in that space?”

Statistics Canada: up to 20 per cent difference in international, domestic graduate earnings

Ana Pereira Varsity Staff

A recent study by Statistics Canada has found that former international students earned 20 per cent less than their domestic counterparts in the first year after graduation and nine per cent less five years after graduation.

The study noted that this could be because international students struggle to obtain work experience in Canada prior to graduation. The study considered graduates’ pre-graduation work experience — including number of years worked and total earnings — and determined that it accounted for most of the post-graduation earnings disadvantage.

International at U of T U of T has a prominent international student body, with about one in four U of T students being an international student. However, the university does not make a distinction between former international and former domestic students in its postgraduate employment-related surveys.

The report’s findings have come to light in a period when international students are more important than ever to Canadian postsecondary institutions. In particular, their tuition fees cross-subsidize domestic enrolment. At U of T, 30 per cent of the university's 2019–2020 revenue came from international tuition.

Aside from financial contributions, international students enrich the learning environment of institutions and communities socially and culturally while supporting the labour force in countries like Canada that face and will face skill and labour shortages.

A study in success The study, conducted in collaboration with Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, analyzed earnings trajectories of international and domestic students who graduated from 2010–2012.

Information was collected based on administrative tax data and the Postsecondary Student Information System.

According to the study, language proficiency, cultural differences, fields of study, academic performance, employers’ reluctance to hire applicants with temporary residency status, and employer discrimination are other possible explanations that contribute to international students’ labour market outcomes. However, work experience was found to be the most important factor.

The disadvantage in work experience outweighed the advantages of higher levels of education and specialization, even in fields associated with higher earnings. Inequity was found to be more pronounced among holders of graduate degrees, compared to graduates with lower levels of education. However, the earning gap was smaller for STEM graduates compared to graduates in business and arts.

International undergraduates had an average 1.3 years of pre-graduation work experience, compared

to 6.2 for students who were Canadian citizens.

These figures were 1.4 and 8.1 years, respectively, for master’s degree holders and 4.1 and 8.3 years, respectively, for doctorate holders.

Missed connections The study also suggests that international students in the early years of their postsecondary studies may not have spent enough time in Canada to fully familiarize themselves with the Canadian workplace culture and build local networks.

Christopher Fuchs, a 2020 Rotman Master of Financial Risk Management graduate, spoke to The Varsity about the additional challenge of building employment-related connections in Canada.

Originally from Germany, Fuchs acknowledged the importance of networking as part of North American culture.

“As a Canadian, you have advantages because you probably have [connections] through your family and friends,” Fuchs explained. “[As an employer], you are more inclined to hire someone you really know for a couple of years, or [if] you know their family.”

Paperwork problems International students are legally allowed to work in Canada under the conditions that they are enrolled full time in a Designated Learning Institution and obtain a Social Insurance Number (SIN). They cannot work over 20 hours a week during regular academic sessions, with the exception of scheduled academic breaks, in which they can work full time.

Although they can transition to a Post Graduation Work Permit after graduation, international status can make it difficult for students to take advantage of the same employment opportunities domestic students have.

Christian Gonzalo Paez Diaz, a 2020 U of T architecture and visual studies graduate, spoke to The Varsity about searching for Canadian employment as a student from Ecuador. “Many of the opportunities… require people to be Canadian citizens,” Paez said. “There’s a problem of… accessibility because a lot of jobs require people with cars and with licenses.”

Rebekah Robinson, a fourth-year history and Russian language literature studies student from the United States found that it’s easier to navigate the job market as an international student by looking for opportunities on campus.

She discussed with The Varsity how the Career & Co-Curricular Learning Network (CLNx) is the easiest route to find opportunities. CLNx is U of T’s search engine for career opportunities on and off campus.

“I was really thankful that I did go ahead and get the SIN… as soon as possible because that became really important,” she added. “Especially as I started to look for other jobs, I didn’t have that as a headache to worry about.”

Comment

March 15, 2021 vrsty.ca/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

Combatting toxic academic culture — work to learn, not work to work On mental health and the ‘internalized capitalism’ of university students

Jasmin Akbari Varsity Contributor

In academia, it is not uncommon to boast about losing countless hours of sleep to studying, because for academics there is no such thing as free time, only time spent working. Free time is not for playing video games, watching YouTube, or reading a book; free time is meant for sending out résumés, writing papers, and studying for an exam a month in advance.

Overworking demonstrates a degree of dedication and diligence — it is what is promoted in our society. Not working immediately associates us with

laziness, and being deemed nothing more than parasitic to our society.

We are essentially romanticizing our toxic relationships with our jobs and education. However, while our society condemns toxic relationships with people, it should also condemn those we have with our education and work.

The workaholic culture is furthermore supported by our society’s neoliberal values, such as the idea that it is entirely up to the individual to be successful. The institutions of our

TROY LAWRENCE/THEVARSITY

society have placed emphasis on the fact that our freedom is earned through our success and thus we place pressure on ourselves to outperform what we can handle. Due to things like competition and economic concerns, we do everything to be successful, even if it means overworking ourselves and putting aside our mental health.

In fact, our society has begun to internalize capitalistic values and mindsets by equating our efficiency with how much we are worth, also known as ‘internalized capitalism.’ Thus begins the cycle of squeezing more work into our already packed schedules and putting aside time-off to build our résumés.

It has become a competition of who has had less sleep and who spends more time writing their paper. This culture has been founded on the foundations of exploiting students, resulting in them being overworked and underpaid, all stemming from capitalist ideals. This means that we need to make a move from institutional structures that promote self sabotage and stress to structures that support creativity, critical thinking, public interest-based research, and citizenship.

We often aim to overload our résumé with experience, certificates, and degrees that hold little meaning to us and our self-growth. Shifting reasoning as to why an individual is putting themselves through their degree or a job is pivotal in shaping the way they work and the boundaries that are being set. There is a constant fear of being replaced by a more ‘efficient’ worker or student who doesn’t set boundaries for their mental health, and this culture is reinforced by those su-

perior to us.

Teaching assistants and professors in positions of privilege must become the voices of struggling students, to help make impactful changes to this system. In order to build a better academic culture, it means breaking cycles such as working more hours than one is being paid for and assigning too many assignments. These cycles have done little to no good, as students are simply overworking themselves to the point of failure.

It is impossible to not only maintain one’s academics to a high degree but also work and do extracurriculars — all of this will only lead to student burnout. Setting boundaries from the beginning is central to begin solving this issue and to build a culture surrounding self-growth for the already precarious student workers and incoming ones, but we must also create a culture where these boundaries are respected.

While there is indefinitely nothing more admirable than students who study hard and work hard to achieve their goals, there must be a line drawn to prevent them from harming themselves mentally and physically. A culture built on the foundations of stress, is perhaps a culture that needs to be reconstructed. In order to combat the ongoing mental health crisis at the University of Toronto, the culture of overworking must be examined and dismantled.

Do not work to work. Instead, work to learn, work to grow, and work passionately.

Jasmin Akbari is a first-year social sciences student at Woodsworth College.

Op-ed: How U of T is focusing investments on a climate-secure future Munk professor, presidential advisor on environment on building a sustainable future together

John Robinson Varsity Contributor

Student leaders should be applauded for their recent passionate advocacy about the climate crisis and their calls for tangible change to ensure a climate-secure future for us all. We as a university share that passion and commitment to change, but since much sustainability at U of T, as elsewhere, happens under the floor, behind the wall, or in meetings only visible to those participating, I wanted to share more about our leadership and our work on sustainability in this article.

Like many public institutions, the university has considerable pensions, endowments, and capital assets. The call for immediate divestment from fossil fuels is heard from within our community and sometimes from beyond. This has also been an area of much thought, research, and analysis for the university administration, which provides direction to University of Toronto Asset Management (UTAM) in how it manages the university’s investments.

The need for substantive action that has real impact is compelling in light of the current climate crisis. This has led the university, working closely with UTAM, to search for an approach that focuses on the greenhouse gas emitting behaviour of actors from all sectors of the economy. By using a model that looks at the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) sources of risk in the university’s portfolios, UTAM estimates that, ultimately, we can achieve a carbon footprint reduction that is more than three times greater than the effect of immediate divestment from fossil fuel companies alone.

The university’s target, for which U of T is on course to reach, is a 40 per cent reduc-

tion in the carbon intensity of its long-term investment portfolios by 2030. The university believes that reducing carbon emissions across all sectors of the economy is the most important goal and that it can best be achieved through this comprehensive approach.

Our ambitions are also strong when it comes to setting targets for the reduction of direct greenhouse gas emissions from the university’s own operations. The 2019 Low Carbon Action Plan outlines a reduction of 37 per cent by 2030 from a 1990 level baseline. It is a detailed university plan to produce clean

energy and carbon capture, to distribute our power efficiently, and to consume less.

One particularly exciting project is Canada’s largest urban geothermal exchange, which will be underground on the front campus and will produce heating for buildings around King’s College Circle. We are also retrofitting our existing buildings, recovering waste heat, and developing innovative carbon capture projects, which are being led by our worldclass researchers.

As an educator, a critical part of the university’s role is to offer teaching and learning

The Landmark Project is just one exciting project from U of T.

UMAMA SIDDIQI/THEVARSITY

opportunities that are related to sustainability. Our ambition is to develop sustainability skills and knowledge that will be useful to all students after graduation.

I believe that it is also vital that U of T takes a leadership role internationally. We are achieving this through policy leadership, notably through our membership in the University Climate Change Coalition of 22 leading research universities in North America, the U7+ Alliance of 45 universities worldwide, and the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment of 27 international universities. We are one of the signatories of the “Investing to Address Climate Change” charter, which amplifies our vision for an ESG approach to investment practices.

These partnerships, and others like them, are instrumental in bringing tangible change well beyond our three campuses.

As we develop and extend these projects, U of T is striving to develop and implement a holistic commitment to sustainability that cuts across research, teaching, learning, operations, and community engagement. It is very important that students continue to scrutinize our activities, offer commentary and critique, and get involved in the living labs. We certainly don’t have all the answers, but we are determined to maximize our shared impact in the search for a sustainable future. That will require the best efforts from all of us, faculty, staff, and students, both on and off campus.

John Robinson is a professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and at the School of the Environment. He is also the presidential advisor on the environment, climate change, and sustainability for the University of Toronto.

8

THE VARSITY

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U of T must do more for the employment of international students

Specific career programs, networking, communication should be improved Yixuan Li Varsity Staff

A recent report from Statistics Canada revealed that international students are earning less compared to domestic students after graduation. According to Statistics Canada, this has mainly been caused by “fewer years of pre-graduation work experience and lower levels of pre-graduation earnings.”

The University of Toronto needs to resolve the structural difference between its own international and domestic students — a gap which has caused low-level pre-graduation work experience and low-level pre-graduation earnings.

Unlike domestic students, international students have relatively weaker ties with local communities, which means that they lack the social capital to help them familiarize themselves with the local employment market. Furthermore, high tuition fees — over $50,000 a year — may force international students to speed up their study in university to slash tuition costs.

Lastly, and most importantly, several employment restrictions as a result of federal policy may hinder international studentsʼ access to high-quality working experience required by their future job prior to graduation.

According to federal policy, international students cannot work more than 20 hours a week during their school terms. Due to the pandemic, this restriction was lifted but only for those working in an “essential service or function,” like nursing workers or food suppliers. With such restrictions, it becomes difficult for international students to find an employer content with hiring someone who can only work about half as long as a full-time employee.

Indeed, as foreigners to this country, international students inevitably enjoy less political rights and social network resources compared to domestic students who have citizenship in Canada. However, as students at the University of Toronto, international students should enjoy the same rights and status as domestic students.

Also, since international students are now under an inferior condition to domestic students on the employment market, the university should pay more attention and do more

CELENE CZARNOTA/THEVARSITY

work to support them.

In an email exchange with The Varsity, a spokesperson for the University of Toronto listed several programs and opportunities for international students and alumni. However, most of the programs are actually not specific for international students; they are just ordinary programs provided by career centres.

For example, the spokesperson introduced a program called “Career Chats,” which is a flexible chat service provided to all students in the university that holds discussions on the career-related concerns of students.

Also, according to the Toronto Star report, one reason why international students and domestic students have differences on future earning is because “the difference in participation rates… in work-integrated learning (which) provides participating students the benefits of workplace-related skill accumulation and connections to potential employers.”

Thus, U of T could also prepare work-integrated lessons specifically for international students, so they can at least understand the local culture and make several domestic friends to gain further social capital as well as gain workplace-related skills.

However, I think that the more critical factor is the lack of opportunities international students have to get to know each other.

Alienation may make some international students rely on untrustworthy career agents, or those students may not seek employment opportunities since they do not know how and where to apply for their position or what to even apply for.

Two big opportunities for U of T students to meet other students on campus are orientation week and club orientation. It should be noted that both of these two opportunities are not organized by the university officially but by student organizations. The university should hold events similar to these and positively involve itself rather than just rely on students.

If U of T were to provide more events — whether college-wide, university-wide, or even department-wide — international students could be more involved in the mainstream university community and establish social networks with locals, which could help international students when they want to seek employment opportunities before or after graduation.

In addition, the university should provide more publicity on work-integrated lessons and communication events for international students. From my own experience, I rarely received emails publicizing career support programs or lectures for students, and I only came to know about some of the available programs when I interviewed the spokesperson for this article.

International students are 20 per cent of the composition of undergraduate students and constituted the main part of the income from student fees to the university last year.

However, international students receive little support from the university in resolving their employment issues, which are critical to their future.

An appropriate analogy would be a luxury hotel that is reluctant to give even a bath towel to its VIP customers. Considering that the employment market is expected to shrink after the pandemic, the university should focus more on the job challenges of its international students to help them succeed in the future.

Yixuan Li is a third-year economics and public policy student at New College.

Letters to the Editor Re: Passion for fashion: introducing U of Meg, reworked university merchandise “Why is this kind of merch allowed yet the meme group’s merch was shut down last June because the university sent a cease and desist order? They were not even planning to make a profit from it, the money was going to go to BIPOC organizations.”

— Matt Frola (from web) Re: Where are the trees for Black communities in Toronto?

“Queen’s Park, Centre Island and any other park in the city. The parks are open to everyone.”

— Robert Bruce Maule (from web) “@Robert Bruce Maule They’re talking about in the neighbourhoods. It’s a fact that communities with more green space have a more

uplifting atmosphere in general” — Sky Day (from web) “@Sky Day But, which neighbourhoods?

There are parks all over the city. Toronto has lots of green space compared to many cities.”

— Robert Bruce Maule (from web) “@Robert Bruce Maule they list some neighborhoods in the article. Also you shouldn’t have to commute to Queen’s Park to have access to green spaces. If you’ve ever been in west North York you’d know that most parks are literally just fields or small plots of land without any trees. The fact that Rosedale basically has a canopy of trees above it while neighborhoods like Jane and Finch have a handful of immature trees next to the road demonstrate inequity in Toronto.”

— Hayley Munro (from web)

Re: “Belongs to the world”: 100 years of insulin — U of T’s greatest medical discovery “Very instructive piece; esp. when it comes to the distribution of insulin at around the time it was first invented and how easily the patent rights were neglected for the well-being of everyone in the world.

Reminds me of Jonas Salk’s famous saying.

Alas, that with all the very unfortunate patent laws established over the past few decades or so, that’s merely a thing of the past. Also, are there actually over 11 million Canadians diagnosed with diabetes or is that a mistake?”

— Amirahmad Azhieh (from web)

Re: Opinion: Bell Media cancels radio stations — and community with it “Back in the day, there was the game baseball, CFL football and hockey. The commentators did a good job of analysing the game and that was it. There were not all these sports talk shows in which people blather nonsense all day long about nothing significant. There were a few good sportscasters/writers like Dick Beddoes and Ted Reeve on TV sports news broadcasts or in their sports columns, but it wasn’t the all-important news of the day. I am not sad to see them go. However, local stations should have a niche to follow their teams such as in Hamilton, Saskatoon, Medicine Hat and so on.”

— Robert Bruce Maule (from web)

Editorial

March 15, 2021 vrsty.ca/comment editorial@thevarsity.ca

UTSU elections’ participation problem — bring back slates? ‘VP engagement?’

Multiple unopposed executive candidates necessitates big changes next year The Varsity Editorial Board Hey full-time UTSG undergraduates, do you remember slates during the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) elections?

Hello UofT, 1UofT, Demand Better, We the Students, Whomst’d’ve UofT? Probably not.

Slates have been banned since the spring 2019 election cycle at your union — you would have to be a UTSC or UTM student to experience them.

Slates were one-time parties in which candidates vying for various positions would band together to coordinate a campaign, share slogans, and convey a common vision for the coming year of student politics. They would be reflected in classic Varsity group photos or high-production YouTube videos.

At its 2018 fall annual general meeting, the UTSU abolished slates. The aim was to help make elections more accessible for independent candidates who did not belong to slates and to eliminate a perceived culture of exclusivity built around the system. These were important objectives — but the three elections since that decision have shown serious shortcomings.

This new slateless era of UTSU elections has heralded an age of election vacancies and uncontested races. In 2019, three of seven executive positions were initially vacant, with subsequent by-elections seeing the important vice-president operations role remain uncontested. In 2020, one of six executive positions was initially vacant, and two core positions — vice-president operations and vice-president public & university affairs — were uncontested. This year, four of six executive positions — a majority — are uncontested, including the president race for the first time in recent memory.

A lack of participation in elections — and, more specifically, a lack of competition — is a serious problem that the UTSU needs to address immediately. Of course, the optics of candidates running unopposed with no one to test them, and with virtually guaranteed jobs and significant power next year, are not good.

Deeper than that, this reflects the UTSU’s overall engagement problem in relation to its membership. It is no surprise, for example, that no general members submitted motions at the latest annual general meeting.

Of course, disengagement is not the fault of this year’s executive members alone. They are also dealing with a pandemic that has disconnected students from campus, and credit must be given to their recent pre-election measures to make the nomination process more accessible. Rather, the problem is years in the making. Unfortunately, while the UTSU discusses engagement during elections every year, the conversation stops afterward until the following year’s election.

That is why big, structural changes need to take place to address not only elections but engagement as a whole.

First, for elections: the UTSU should consider bringing back slates. It was easier to identify and be attracted to the organized visions that these slates presented, as opposed to the currently disparate set of candidates who have their own agendas.

Also, being fully trans-

parent that we are an organization that covers these elections closely, we can attest that there’s a certain level of anticipation, life, and spice that has been sucked out of the process without slates.

More importantly, participation and competition were more likely with slates, as seen in the 2016 and 2017 elections. Of course, this wasn’t guaranteed — in 2018, the last year of slates, there was only one complete slate and three uncontested positions. However, it’s clear that getting rid of slates only exposed and worsened the engagement problem.

And while independent candidates are now the norm, it’s not the case that they had no hope previously — former UTSU president Anne Boucher, who advocated for the removal of slates, became vice-president external in 2017 as an independent.

While there is the valid argument that slates catered to elite groups of students, that must be balanced with the significance of fostering engagement. We should be able to see healthy debates between those running to ensure that those elected are the best choice and speak to the voters the most, not because they are the only options.

Of course, bringing back slates is only a partial — and potentially superficial — solution to the problem. The UTSU must treat its engagement problem year-round, including during the

summer and the fall, and not just leading up to elections in the winter semester. It must invest significant resources toward cultivating a culture of participation and engagement.

It would be interesting, for example, if the union established a new ‘vice-president engagement’ office that was dedicated to developing engagement strategies from the first day of their term — such as regularly meeting and working with student leaders of clubs, colleges, and faculties to generate literacy and interest in elections. It’s this kind of outreach and encouragement that could potentially lead to a healthy combination of both slates and viable independent candidates who have built up a track record in their constituency.

A new vice-president position may, of course, seem unreasonable — an expanded vice-president student life portfolio could also achieve the same purpose with more contracted hours to prioritize engagement.

What is clear, in the end, is that bold, longterm strategies with resources to back them up, rather than last-minute fixes, are necessary to normalize a culture of student body participation in UTSU politics.

Given the lacklustre elections in recent years, the UTSU must treat engagement as an existential issue. With the next academic year anticipated to be a post-pandemic one with more in-person activities, we hope that the union takes the opportunity to re-invent itself.

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

Slates’ shared platforms drove competition.

CREDIT TO SAMANTHA YAO AND VARSITY ALUMNI

10

THE VARSITY

FEATURES

“A very, very scary moment”: U of T student in Myanmar recalls the military coup Internet shutdown, isolation, and fear of future Writer: Cedric Jiang Photographer: Anonymous

Alex* remembers that it was a Monday morning in their home in Myanmar when their mother all of a sudden rushed into their room, woke them up, and told them to contact U of T while they still could. It was at that moment that they realized that something was wrong and that the rumour that had worried their country for months might have just become real.

On February 1, a military coup in Myanmar shocked the world. The military swept the country overnight, detaining newly elected officials and lawmakers. Among them was the country’s elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won a landslide victory in the election less than three months prior.

The military leader, Min Aung Hlaing, declared a yearlong state-ofemergency, putting the country once again under military rule. The military group accused the November election of being fraudulent and promised a “free and fair” election when the stateof-emergency is over, according to the BBC. The military government has brought several charges against Suu Kyi, including allegations of possession of imported walkie-talkies, violation of COVID-19 restrictions, and perpetuated corruption.

Civil disobedience movements and protests have erupted across the country since the military takeover, and protestors were confronted with tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets. Countries including the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom have laid down sanctions, but the violent crackdowns continue in spite of widespread condemnations on the military’s abuses of human rights and violation of “international law.”

The Varsity was able to speak to Alex, who returned to Canada very recently, about their unique experiences on the ground in Myanmar. A U of T spokesperson wrote that “registrars are in touch with all students,” and the Government Relations Office is in touch with Canadian authorities that monitor the situation in the affected region.

Not long after Alex clicked send on their email to U of T, everything was

shut down. Snow screens buzzed on televisions. Websites never loaded, and mobile connections were forced offline.

“That was a very, very scary moment,” said Alex.

Disconnected from an online semester Alex had a difficult semester while they were still in Myanmar. One of the major challenges, according to Alex, was a lack of access to the internet.

As COVID-19 continues to haunt the world, this semester is still almost entirely online. However, after the coup, this singular connection between Alex and their university life was disrupted.

The military disabled phone lines and internet across the country, as well as the television and radio. The connection was restored later; however, it came along with new restrictions and both scheduled and intermittent shutoffs.

No internet can be accessed every day from 1:30–9:30 pm Eastern Standard Time. While in Myanmar, which is 11 hours and 30 minutes ahead of Toronto, Alex completely rehauled their schedule to match the Toronto time zone. They slept during the shut-off period and watched recordings of lectures later.

“I was already feeling disengaged because of the online thing. This just makes it worse,” they said.

Even outside of the eight-hour window when they didn’t have internet access, they still had an unstable connection. “You never know when it’s gonna cut off,” said Alex. “Especially when you’re doing a test, and there are also live lectures, so if the connection is not that good, the screen just turns black.”

Sometimes the internet would go down while Alex was attending team meetings. The only thing they could do was grab the phone and tell their teammates that they couldn’t be there anymore. Even when the internet was available, however, foreign websites, including Quercus were blocked if the user was not using a virtual private network — which makes connections even laggier.

If the connection dropped during exams, Alex’s only option was to file a petition. Given the situation, they considered taking time off because of the political instability and incidents surrounding them.

According to a U of T spokesperson, registrars are identifying the challenges the students connected to Myanmar are facing. “Where necessary they are also providing students with support through communication with instructors,” they wrote to The Varsity.

Alex recalled being put in touch with a learning strategist. “She told me to inform all the instructors, so they are aware of what is happening [there],” Alex said. “If the internet was to cut off at important times, then they could understand what is happening, and I could file a petition for that.”

“In the beginning, I thought of maybe taking a break from the semester because a lot of things are going on personally, and I couldn’t seem to concentrate on my studies at first,” they said.

Alex considered gapping this semester because they did not feel they could focus on studies with the political instability and incidents happening around them. They were told they could drop some courses, but they ultimately chose not to.

They noted that their teammates and friends have been supportive and instructors were willing to extend deadlines for a few days. “But I don’t want to keep doing that — I don’t want to feel like it is just an excuse to put off the work,” they said. “So I kept going.”

Staggering road to democracy On the day the coup began, Alex couldn’t stop asking herself: is history going to repeat itself ?

The military has never been absent in Myanmar politics, along with the country’s struggling democratic movements. In 1945, Britain and the AntiFascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) freed Myanmar from Japanese occupation.

The AFPFL faced a split around 1958, resulting in an ad hoc government led by Army Chief of Staff General Ne Win. The period afterward was

marked by tension between the government and the army on religion and separatism issues.

Then, in 1962, Ne Win led the coup d’état that overthrew the federal government. However, near the end of the 1980s, economic crises agitated people and led to anti-government riots, resulting in Ne Win’s ultimate resignation.

The pro-democracy movement reached its peak in August 1988, with mass demonstrations and strikes erupting across the country. That year, Aung San Suu Kyi delivered her iconic speech in front of 500,000 people at the Shwedagon Pagoda, calling for democracy.

The movement ended with blood: thousands were killed, many were arrested, and some fled the country in the deadly crackdown. Suu Kyi was put under house arrest in 1989 while her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won by a landslide in the election a year later — a result disregarded by the ruling military government then. That government remained in power for 20 years afterward under different titles.

In 2010, the country held its first elections since 1990. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) claimed that it had won and said that the country had moved out of military rule.

A week later, Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. In 2012, Suu Kyi and NLD candidates won a victory in parliamentary by-elections.

Professor Jacques Bertrand from the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy told The Varsity that Myanmar’s transition to democracy after 2011 is different from democratic movements that are usually characterized by rebellions of some form. The reform in Myanmar, in his opinion, is largely “engineered by the military,” which kept tremendous privileges for itself over the constitution, parliament, and certain ministries.

“You have to remember that there [were] always two governments,” Bertrand said. “There was a military gov-

features@thevarsity.ca

Myanmar is experiencing a military coup.

ernment independent from the civilian government, and they were at loggerheads with each other to some extent.”

He added that Suu Kyi, leader of the NLD party and the state counsellor before being detained, had been attempting to reduce those military privileges in the system during her tenure. The military agreed to adopt some changes in the constitution, but last year’s election results disappointed the military, and they expected a harder political life ahead with NLD at the stage.

“So the fact that the military takes over, it’s to sort of get rid of the NLD,” said Bertrand. He added that the charges brought against Suu Kyi, from his perspective, served the same purpose: to disqualify her from running.

It was the scale of the backlash, he said, that the military did not anticipate.

Across the country, people fought the military with protests and acts of civil disobedience. The tension escalated quickly and led to deadly crackdowns.

“They arrested a lot of people all over Myanmar,” Alex wrote to The Varsity.

“Most of them were students.”

According to Students for Liberty, a

non-profit organization, some student activists were being transferred to a prison that has a history of detaining political prisoners and use of torture.

Al Jazeera reported that on March 3, approximately 400 student protestors in the Tamwe township were rounded up by police in the largest mass arrest since the coup. One protestor recalled that there were around 20 police officers who used stun grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas. The student protestors who were arrested allegedly do not have any access to communication with family or lawyers.

This event echoed the way that many protests against the coup have unfolded.

Many have met violent and deadly retaliation by soldiers and security forces, who used tear gas, flashbangs, and stun grenades over the past weeks. The military also reportedly opened fire on peaceful protestors. In Reuters, a United Nations human rights investigator reported that as of March 11, at least 70 people have been killed since the coup happened.

Alex attended one protest on February 14, but they said that this was before

many soldiers were involved. Their experience was relatively peaceful, but now there is a massive shift.

“There’s more violence now,” they said.

“They are shooting.”

A foggy future ahead “We had a future, right?” Alex questioned, gesturing to the precarious situation that the current political instability brings. “My family was scared that it would be gone.”

That uncertainty has extended to many sectors of life in Myanmar now. Financially, the economy has taken a hit as businesses are being disrupted and the currency is depreciating. As an international student, this meant that Alex has faced concerns about tuition, which Alex said they pay in full. Education became a larger worry “especially that it’s online, and the tuition is very expensive,” Alex said. “I don’t know much about support for international [students].”

Alex added that some international students they know are trying to get out of Myanmar as soon as they can. They want to go back to their institutions,

but due to the pandemic and political issues, they have been unable to get flights.

Reuters reported that Yangon International Airport, the country’s main air hub, was closed by the military on the second day of its takeover, and permission to land and take off had been revoked for all flights until the end of May. There may also be additional concerns over access to COVID-19 testing right now. The coup has collapsed Myanmar’s testing infrastructure, and as testing is required to enter some countries — including Canada — this has effectively contained more people to the country.

For now, they have to wait as the coup maintains in Myanmar. While Alex had heard about the military taking over in the past, this is their first time experiencing this destabilization and conflict firsthand.

“Everyone was just worried,” they said. “[The military is] capable of doing everything. It is scary.” *Name has been changed due to fear of retribution.

Arts & Culture

March 15, 2021 vrsty.ca/arts arts@thevarsity.ca

Rough Draft: two U of T alumni’s podcast delves behind the scenes of writing Rachel Evangeline Chiong, Sarim Irfan on creative collabs, chance meetings

Jadine Ngan Associate Features Editor

In 2019, Rachel Evangeline Chiong, who had graduated from U of T a year earlier, was hired to photograph New College’s orientation. During one of the training meetings, she remembered wondering, “Who is this person with a British accent behind me? He won’t stop talking.”

That person was Sarim Irfan, one of New’s head orientation leaders. He remembered Chiong as the photographer from a leaders’ retreat earlier that year. “You see her — cinnamon roll — but at the time, I didn’t know her, and she had part of her hair shaved. I was like, ‘Yo, this girl is tough.’ ” “I looked like a punk,” Chiong laughed.

“I was mildly intimidated,” Irfan said.

Those were their first impressions of each other. After orientation week was over, the two began messaging on Instagram and found out they were both writers. They struck up a friendship, and several months later, Chiong sent Irfan a voice note.

She’d been listening to classical piano music while getting work done and spoke over the music instead of turning it off. “I was like, ‘Did you hear what you just sent me? That was kind of magical,’ ” Irfan recalled.

“Rachel was like, ‘Yo, should we start a podcast?’ ” Irfan agreed because he thought she was joking. But that was not the case. Soon, they found themselves recording a test episode, and Chiong bought a mic, sending it to Irfan’s home without telling him.

The two alumni — Irfan graduated in 2020 — dropped three episodes of Rough Draft, their podcast, on February 4 and have published a few more segments since. They open each episode with a poem, and then, they “explore, dissect, and meme on the craft they so adore” — writing. So far, Rough Draft has covered topics that fall into

three umbrella categories: the craft of writing, literature, and literary culture.

The Varsity sat down with Chiong and Irfan to chat about Rough Draft.

On collaborative creativity Although the two haven’t been friends for long, they make a strong team. Chiong has wanted to make a podcast for years and has previously collaborated with friends on projects that fell through. To her, Rough Draft was worth pushing for because she knew Irfan would be a good person to work with.

“Sarim and I, we joke that we’re the same people, but we’re actually different people when it comes to work ethic,” she said. “There are times when I’m always ‘push, push, push, push,’ but then, Sarim will

ground me and be like —” “Okay, okay, don’t say that,” Irfan interjected.

“You’re painting me as lazy. We keep each other in check. Rachel pushes me when I’m being lazy, and I calm her down when she’s pushing herself too hard.”

Instead of scripting their episodes, Chiong and Irfan ad-lib the show. Before they launch into the topic of writer’s block in episode one, “The Blank Page Menace,” Chiong introduces herself as a writer’s block survivor, and Irfan follows that up with a quip: “I’m Sarim. The only thing more blocked than my writing is my dopamine.”

In episode two, Rough Draft delves into the value of literary translations, and in the third episode, “Numerical Nonsense,” the two debate the criteria by which books should be rated. Both hosts primarily hope their listeners take a sense of

BELINDA HOAN/ THEVARSITY

enjoyment away from the podcast — plus “maybe the odd bit of actual education,” as Irfan said.

“For example, Rachel mentioned on the podcast once that in Tagalog, there are no gender pronouns,” he said. “That was news to me, and it was nice for a bunch of our listeners too because a couple [of ] friends even messaged me like, ‘Yo, I’m Filipino, and I didn’t know that.’ ” “It’s why Filipino relatives will always be mixing up ‘he’ and ‘she,’ ” Chiong explained.

Drafting the future In the future, Chiong hopes that the podcast grows enough that they can cover audience-suggested topics, and Irfan expressed an interest in inviting guests onto the show. “The selfish reason I want to get that big is because I want an excuse to meet all my favourite authors,” Irfan said.

“Rachel’s secret big dream is that Grammarly sponsors us for one episode,” he added with a laugh, seemingly only halfjoking.

Apart from that, Irfan said that he would love to build a community around the podcast so that he can discuss writing with others, “rather than just me yelling at Rachel for 30 minutes — which I love doing, but it could be more, you know.”

“It’d be really fun to be known as the two people from Rough Draft,” Chiong said, expressing the hope that their work is recognized in its own right rather than as a side project. Producing the podcast “is low-key a part-time job,” so her long-term goals also include making the project financially viable and being able to hire their editor and audio engineer, Jon Catanus, whom Irfan calls the podcast’s “backbone.”

“We’re both aiming high, which is, In Sha Allah, God willing, a good sign.” Irfan said.

Rough Draft can be found on Spotify, and more information about the project can be found on its website.

What are U of T students listening to on Spotify?

Canadian pride and international influence shine through in our music preferences

Momina Ahmed Varsity Contributor

Which genres, artists, and tracks flow through the headphones of the elusive U of T student? Apparently, many that I don’t recognize. As a self-proclaimed music fanatic and frequenter of the music-streaming service Spotify, I was curious to explore the listening habits of my fellow University of Toronto students.

“The Sound of University of Toronto” is a Spotify playlist by Everynoise.com — a site that creates playlists for universities and colleges around the world based on student listening habits. For U of T, the top five genres are Canadian hip hop, Toronto rap, Canadian contemporary R&B, trap soul, and alternative R&B. Evidently, the support for Canadian artists is alive and well. The genre of ‘Canadian hip hop,’ for example, is heavily represented in the playlist, with heavy hitters like Drake and Tory Lanez both making an appearance.

Although some mainstream artists are featured, a large number of smaller, upcoming artists are spotlighted as well. For instance, RAJAN, Kylie V, and Young Smoke are Canadian-based artists, each with less than 50,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Jagguar, who has less than 12,000 followers, is also featured.

This overwhelming support for independent artists holds the potential to propel them to widespread fame, in part thanks to the size and influence of U of T’s vast cohort.

Interestingly, the listening trends among other students in Toronto and throughout Ontario closely resemble those of U of T students. Canadian hip hop, for example, is the top genre among Ryerson Universi-

ty, York University, University of Waterloo, McMaster University, and University of Guelph students, to name a few.

Moving outside of Ontario, the patterns begin to shift.

Students at the University of Calgary listen to “desi hip hop” and Simon Fraser University students are fans of “desi pop,” while “canadian indie” is the number one genre at the University of Alberta and Dalhousie University. At the University of Regina and the University of Windsor, “afro dancehall” and “afropop” are the respective favourites, and “contemporary canadian country” holds the top spot at the University of Saskatchewan.

It is surprising to learn that, outside of Canada, students at the Hochschule Mainz: University of Applied Sciences in Germany have the most similar music taste to U of T students, followed by JustusLiebig-Universität Gießen in Germany and Högskolan i Halmstad University in Sweden.

Unsurprisingly, in addition to Canadian music, several international tracks are featured in “The Sound of University of Toronto,” including “Innoru Glassu,” a Tamil song by Pira, R Jay, and CK; “王八蛋” by Taiwanese artist David Tao; and “Haye Dil,” a Hindi track by Jimmy Khan. This speaks to the diversity of U of T, which included more than 23,000 international students from 159 different countries and regions in the cohort of fall 2019–2020.

This playlist exemplifies just how powerful multiculturalism is in defining U of T’s culture. Through its combination of Canadian pride and international sway, U of T’s musical repertoire stands unique among global student cohorts.

JESSICA LAM/THEVARSITY

vrsty.ca/arts

MARCH 15, 2021

13

Overlooked: The History of Bees explores our interdependence with nature On familial complexities, the less glamorous side of love, and the centrality of bees

Mohamed Dasu Varsity Contributor

If you had a summer to read a book, The History of Bees probably wouldn’t be your first choice. It’s not every day that you’re pushed to read a historical encyclopedia about a domesticated insect.

But that’s not what this book is. And you should read it.

Maja Lunde’s The History of Bees is an elegant account of three fictional individuals and their intimately real lives. This deeply moving book situates itself in three different times and places yet manages to capture the same human emotions, motivations, and struggles.

William, a biologist seeking to impress his eldest son, attempts to develop a new model for a beehive. Set in 1852 England, you join him on his painful journey of introspection, balancing commitments to work and family, and creating a legacy that would bring honour to his descendants.

In 2007 United States, you witness George, an experienced beekeeper, trying to make a living while coming to terms with the realization that his son will not preserve the family’s ancestral beekeeping tradition.

In addition to this emotional blow, George fights a gripping battle with the modern

beekeeping industry. But every day seems darker, and you join him in learning how fragile human life truly is.

Tao, a mother in 2098 dystopian China, spends 12 hours a day pollinating fruit trees by hand. You feel her tears, hear her cries, and relate to her wanting a better future for her young son. Through her, you envision a life without bees.

Lunde treads softly between these three characters to send an urgent message. She paints how the lives of bees shape these three narratives. Hence, she illustrates how the extinction of bees would create a world that is simultaneously foreign while also intimately hostile to us.

Yes, this prediction may sound like a stretch. However, Lunde beautifully captures exactly why it’s not.

Our lives are nimbly woven into interdependence with the natural world. The saying often used after experiencing a loss is almost more applicable to bees: you don’t know the value of something until you lose it.

If the cover of the book alone does not mesmerize you — staccatoed, ghostly translucent bees scattered across an ethereal earth — then

let the ocean of topics Lunde brings to life sweep you away. You’ll find everything from family, love, nostalgia, and coming-of-age to totalitarian governments, police states, a crumbling economy, and dystopian futures.

If you do read The History of Bees, be prepared to sweat from your eyes. While the book may sound unconventionally focused on bees from the title, at its core, it’s about humans — it’s about you and me.

I rarely ever get emotional while reading books, but I have a soft spot for families and their struggles. The theme of parents feeling as though they have failed their children pervades every chapter of the story.

It truly makes you wonder what sacrifices your mother, father, or other dear ones have made for you.

This book will break you, change you, and make you realize that our planet can exist without us, but we quite literally cannot exist without it. Let Lunde show you how.

Maja Lunde’s book will change you.

RICHARD KENDRICK/FLICKR

The extraordinary poetry of To Make a Bridge by Antonia Facciponte Building the bridge to family traditions, intergenerational love, and making ravioli

Joël Ndongmi Arts & Culture Columnist

Antonia Facciponte, an emerging writer and a student in the Master of Arts in creative writing program at the University of Toronto, is releasing a new poetry book called To Make a Bridge on April 6. In it, she explores themes of intergenerational bridgemaking and family — especially expressed through food and culinary traditions. The book mirrors her life experiences and reflects her last name “Facciponte,” which roughly translates to “make bridge” or “make us a bridge” in Italian.

I spoke to Facciponte about her motivations behind writing the book. She mentioned that she is interested in writing poetry about ordinary “little things like cutting a peach or peeling onions or making ravioli.”

Despite the realness of the lively characters employed in her poems, they are completely fictionalized. Facciponte bases her writing on bits of her regular life, and from that point, they are “fictionalized [and] poeticized.” She added, “This isn’t a memoir or anything like that. It’s all fiction, but it starts… from little points of interest in daily life.”

The poem collection is ordered like an opera, with each section focusing on a different theme, such as cooking or family. According to Facciponte, the opera-like structure underscores “the resonances between these different threads of thought.”

Facciponte dismembers daily elements of life and sometimes adds a subtle and romantic quality to them.

Extraordinary visual and auditory imagery are some of the first-glance characteristics of the book.

For example, the poem “Understanding” describes the moon’s light as a melody reaching the ears — the metaphorical eyes — of the reader: “Listen / For the moon’s / monthly melody.” Her careful narration keeps the collection pertinent and

engages the reader throughout.

The book also invites us to consider and engage in our definition of intergenerational bridge-making. To Make a Bridge explores bridge-building through food, stories, and most importantly, intergenerational love.

For Facciponte, bridge-building is about recognizing that “you grew up in a very different time from generations before you… It’s about trying to connect with the past and bridge to the past so that you can move into the future.”

This is very much exemplified through the book, which portrays bridge-making through multiple faces — whether it be the protective grasp of Nonno, or even the creation and degustation of food around the table. International bridge-making is essential to Faccipon-

te’s work.

As eloquently stated in the eponymous poem, “To Make a Bridge,” bridge-making is “an act of creation that ushers us / across time and in-between stories, / an act of navigating, exploring / the bearings that bind each to the other.”

In other words, this poetry collection encourages us to explore our inner desires and connect with our communities. Stories are the common thread of unity across our shared humanity — they build bridges into real or alternative realities and have the fundamental power to reshape our understanding of life. This book hints at such radical possibilities of poetry.

This collection also explores bridge-making through food. In the poem “To Make a Bridge,” Facciponte narrates: “But while I / craft mouthfuls of ink, you / spell out another bridge: / precious plates of penne, heart / raving ravioli, all smothered / with the sugo you schooled m e / to

craft.”

Different types of people have different ways of connecting with their communities. In the collection, parents and grandparents show their love through home-cooked meals and passing down family recipes.

In another poem, “Intermezzo,” food is explored in a sensory way. The reader becomes defamiliarized with usual items. Speaking of tomatoes, the passage reads, “pulpy red specks whirlpool down the drain. / Nonno takes a space at the table’s edge, / slicing a peach. / Dismembered chunks plop / into his glass of vino, / a speechless ballad.”

The senseful strangeness of this narration captivates the reader. Through this poetry collection, one can admire the poetry of the boring, mundane, and overlooked aspects of everyday life.

The theme of family is also prominent and explored through many alternatives within the text. In one poem, grandparents are portrayed as family builders — providing support for the foundation of the family.

The poem “Sitting on the Couth with Nonno” reads, “my ombra, keeping / me cool from suns that wither plants / as I grow / further and further into myself.” This poem portrays family values as something that keeps us grounded in the chaos of the world.

For readers, bridge-making can take on multiple interpretations.

As we are disconnected during this pandemic, bridge-making is more important than ever.

This poetry collection helps us reshape and reconsider our relations to everyday items.

Sometimes, it will help us romanticize the moon, or, “It’s about trying to connect with the past and bridge to the funnily enough, admire the past so that you can move into the future.”

JADINE NGAN/THEVARSITY strange nature of tomatoes.

14

THE VARSITY

ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

I quit social media for a month — here’s how it went

Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat are not the be-all, endall of your relationships Sky Kapoor Arts & Culture Columnist

Sunday mornings are for late wake-ups, brunch, and the New York Times crossword.

That, and a notification I dread: “Screen time weekly report now available.” After the morning and I become acquainted, I sit down at my desk to be assailed by the same message on my laptop. The subheadings of these notifications — which I’m not necessarily proud of — provide insight into how much time I’ve spent in front of screens in the past week.

Putting these two numbers together essentially maps out my days: an average of five hours a day on my phone, and nearly double that on my laptop. My entire life is built on screen time. Whether it’s the screen itself or the innate responsibility that comes with pressing the power button, the new digital era we live in can weigh you down. Our beautiful campus no longer unifies us in the way it once did — breakout rooms have taken over that playing field.

And when we can finally pry ourselves away from Quercus or Zoom, how do we reward ourselves? By streaming Netflix, scrolling through Instagram, or playing a couple of rounds of our favourite video games. With a lack of in-person interactions, our screens have become looking glasses for the time being. Maybe instead of looking through photo albums years from now, we’ll look through our old Instagram pages in-

stead.

While some of this is inherently unavoidable, I have begun to feel like I am living my life vicariously, watching the world melt away before my eyes. Though the endeavour may seem fruitless during COVID-19, the idea of liberation from monotony is compelling.

In an attempt to fight back against what feels like the plot of Ex Machina, I opted to complete monthly challenges throughout 2021. For February, it was a month without social media.

There’s a number of reasons why someone would want to take a break. Some people find that social media prompts them to compare themselves to others — when we constantly see what others have, we instinctively want it too.

Others find that feedback or attention from others draw them in.

Social media preoccupies your mind through perpetual boredom, making you feel less alone.

And due to this, a common side effect is hindered productivity, distractions from work, and poor mental health.

In my case, I believed the negative side effects to be wasted time and becoming distracted, so I allowed myself to continue texting my friends and close ones. This wasn’t a challenge to limit my communication, just my mindless scrolling.

As expected, the first few days were the most challenging. Like many people, my brain had been hardwired into compulsive checking. I grabbed my phone mindlessly, unlocking it to

swipe back and forth between screens, looking for something, but what? Likes? Comments?

Direct messages?

From my time off of social media, I learned two things. First, you are addicted to social media — whether you realize it or not. The location of apps on my phone was ingrained into my muscle memory. I’d reach for social media without even thinking about it, only to realize that I was just pressing phantom buttons.

When I logged back in after the month was up, everything pretty much looked the same. There were no pressing messages, no crazy posts, nothing screaming at me to stay — which leads me to my second point.

Nobody gives a shit! Though it may sound harsh, the truth is that, more often than not, people are neutral about you. Chances are, the majority of your followers consist of people you’ve crossed paths with on campus, friends of friends, and finally, your close ones. The extent of most of these relationships is the knowledge that you exist — nothing more, nothing less.

Social media isn’t the be-all and end-all of your relationships. By taking a break, I’ve noticed specific people who genuinely want to keep in touch with me will make the effort to do so.

While the majority of the challenge had positive results, I found that I was a bit late to receive information. Social media has become an outlet that sometimes surpasses news. Somehow, there’s a colourful infographic about the latest social issue before news channels cover it.

It’s definitely a useful tool for informing yourself, though this comes with a caveat: the volume of information to take in is overwhelming. After logging back on, it only took me a few minutes to remember why I took a break.

So, now what? I spent a month off

of social media, and now I’m suddenly some uber-woke individual who looks down on the digitally addicted?

On the contrary. I finished the challenge about a week ago, and I still use social media.

The difference lies in how and when I use it.

My screen time has decreased significantly, and I’m no longer spending my 24 hours the way I used to. In a strange way, there’s a sense of clarity in taking time away from compulsively checking the screen.

So, if you’re in the position to, try taking some time off of social media. It may seem difficult at first, but the urge is only fuelled by the perpetual fear of missing out.

When you reconnect again, you’ll realize a simple truth: you won’t miss a thing.

Letting go of mindless scrolling didn’t make me miss a thing.

JOHANNA FORTES/ THEVARSITY

Daft Punk’s breakup might have ruined my day, but their influence on me is enduring

The duo has great music that expanded my taste; their anti-celebrity celebrity reflected my shyness Angad Deol Associate Sports Editor

Breakups are never easy. They’re even harder when you add more people in the equation — so when Daft Punk recently announced their split at the end of their acclaimed music career, you can imagine that the global audience captivated by their sound was rightfully heartbroken.

To me, and to many fans of the house and dance genres, Daft Punk were the most recognizable figures in an otherwise fairly underground scene. Their critical and commercial fame never affected their quality of music, however. With only four studio albums over a 28-year span, they never went corporate and churned out releases like other artists.

Instead, they took their time and released masterpieces.

Together, they took home six Grammy awards, but beyond that, they left a lasting legacy in the industry, with Scarborough’s own The Weeknd heaping praise on their work, and even collaborating with them on two tracks for his album, Starboy.

Kanye West also collaborated with them heavily on the album Yeezus.

I could spend all day discussing and debating the influence of Daft Punk on the music scene today. That’s how much they have meant to me throughout my life. For a group that relies less on wordplay and more on the rhythm of their music, Daft

Punk left a profound impact on my tastes — and helped an otherwise shy person feel more comfortable in their own interests.

Music has always been a huge part of my life: over the years, I’ve consumed a lot of records spanning tons of genres. Daft Punk is one group that has consistently dominated my playlists, with one of my most-played albums of all time being their 2013 release, Random Access Memories — an homage to the sound of ’70s and ’80s music — in which they shifted from the drowning beats of dance to a more sophisticated form of pop and soft rock.

Part of me

always identified with the modesty of the public persona Daft Punk carried. The glamour of their live shows always contrasted with their hidden identities. As someone who struggles to open up to others, I always found comfort in the fact that Daft Punk could conceal the intimacy of their identity while still captivating millions and engaging audiences for decades.

I saw myself in not only the music, but the maestros behind it.

Over time, I m a tured and

found ways to start overcoming my anxiety. In a lot of ways, Daft Punk’s breakup coincided almost exactly with a time in my life when, for once, I felt comfortable around new people and became confident in myself — a huge progression that couldn’t have been possible without their influence. I was able to express myself in creative ways and was more open about my own beliefs and opinions because I drew inspiration from the many artists I admired who tackled their own issues and did the same.

So, when I opened Instagram on February 22 and discovered that Daft Punk had decided to split up, I was shocked at first. Sometimes, you open up Instagram and your day is instantly ruined, and that was one of those days. I didn’t exactly know how to feel; after all, it had been a long time since their last non-feature release, yet I felt their story wasn’t finished.

Eventually, I came to realize that not all stories need a planned ending. Nature itself is quite abrupt, and if the entropy of the universe decided that Daft Punk was a star ready to fade out in the midst of an ever-growing industry, so be it. In the end, I’ll cherish the classics Daft Punk gave me, I’ll be sure to bump Homework on repeat during gruelling study sessions, and One More Time will always be the first song up in my workout playlists.

Daft Punk is leaving behind a lasting legacy.

LARRY WILLIAMSON/FLICKR

Photo

March 15, 2021 vrsty.ca/photo photo@thevarsity.ca

Pets of U of T: Meatball A small but adorable companion

Samantha Yao Photo Editor

Meatball’s name comes from her shape By a large margin, most households that own pets decide to care for a dog or cat. Small animals, such as hamsters, are far less common. From pure speculation, this may be due to the fact that hamsters are nocturnal and sleep during the hours we’re awake and vice versa, and most people would want a pet that is awake when they are.

Here I share some of my experiences with a hamster and perhaps shed some light on why they are an awesome companion to have!

Ha

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ca n

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both water bottles a

! hes s i d nd

I adopted Meatball, a winter white dwarf hamster from another family where she was born. She was only a month old at the time and an extremely picky eater. Pellets are recommended for hamsters since they ensure a diet with complete nutrition. However, she initially refused to eat food pellets and only wanted sunflower seeds. Now, she happily eats her food pellets but still leaves all the millet in her seed mix until she has no choice.

all atb Me

fin ally

Taming Meatball was also a challenge. She had to become accustomed to my presence before she was brave enough to be picked up. Even now, at four months old, she never sits still.

Seeing all the hamster videos that others post on social media, this was definitely a surprise.

Every hamster has their own personality and ‘hyper’ is definitely part of Meatball’s!

sor t

of ov ercom

ing her picky eating!

Like all other hamsters, Meatball is nocturnal, but this actually matches my schedule as a student — which is an unhealthy one. I’m often awake until 2:00 am and it’s always comforting to hear her wheel running. I definitely don’t disturb her while she’s sleeping though — if I find her hiding in her bedding, she’ll give me a look, then turn around and burrow even deeper.

a bru ssel

s pr ou

at. th

od.

Learning to stand just for fo

Meatball with

Don’t

g. bother me… I’m sleepin

Despite Meatball’s picky eating habits and nocturnal way of life, she is a joy to have in my life. If I’m ever stressed or need a break, she’s there. Hamsters are also very low maintenance compared to cats or dogs, only needing their enclosure cleaned once a week and to be fed once a day. Like any furry pet, Meatball is adorable and perfect for mini-cuddles!

Science

March 15, 2021 vrsty.ca/science science@thevarsity.ca

Science Spotlight: Samantha Athey on microfibre pollution and its macroscopic effects A dark closet disclosure on the environmental impacts of fast fashion

Samantha Athey samples seawater for microfibres in the Arctic.

COURTESY OF SAMANTHA ATHEY

Angel Hsieh Varsity Contributor

If you want to buy new clothing, there’s a good chance you’re doing so from ‘fast fashion’ brands — trendy, cost-cutting labels like H&M and Zara that excel at producing a huge variety of styles to parade in front of consumers.

The rapid growth of ‘fast fashion’ over the last two decades has had serious environmental impacts, accounting for one tenth of the world’s climate emissions according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

One impact that is beginning to receive attention since the discovery of microplastics is microfibre pollution, according to Samantha Athey, a PhD candidate at the Department of Earth Sciences who studies how microfibres — microscopic fibres that come off clothing — enter different environments and ecosystems. Her research on the presence of denim microfibres in the Arctic was previously reported by The Varsity last year.

Athey spoke to The Varsity about what she has learned about microfibres, and how consumers can respond to a fast-paced fashion industry.

What makes microfibres problematic?

Microfibres are everywhere. According to Athey, they account for 80–100 per cent of microscopic particles found in water samples collected from almost all types of aquatic environments.

The physical composition of the cellulose in microfibres, either natural or synthetic, is modified by a suite of chemical additives during the production of textile materials. Athey said that microfibres thus become vehicles for chemical pollutants that persist much longer in the environment and “[have] more opportunities to come into contact and potentially impact [various organisms].”

How do these seemingly minute particles harm human health? “No one knows,” Athey replied, mentioning reports of the footprint of microfibres found in human lung tissues.

Garments shed microfibres over the course of their lifetimes as textiles, and these microfibres are making their way up the food chain. Athey’s most recent publication investigates how organisms in estuarine ecosystems, where freshwater meets saline seawater, are influenced by trophic transfer of microparticles.

Her study highlighted how microscopic zooplankton end up consuming microfibres. Since they make up the lowest level in the aquatic food chain,

feeding on microparticles not only “[causes] feeding behaviour to change,” reducing zooplanktons’ nutritional intake, but also, zooplanktons’ predators may “ingest plastics through contaminated prey,” said Athey. As estuarine environments are some of the most productive sites of commercial seafood, the microplastic and microfibres accumulate upward into the food chain and ultimately end up on our plates.

Another study Athey co-authored from 2020 showed that up to 90 per cent of the effluent from wastewater treatment plants can be made of broken down fibres. The microfibres and microplastics entering Lake Ontario are linked to urban sources, though there is no direct correlation between wastewater effluent and concentration of microfibres as of current data, according to Athey.

The long term implication of microfibres found in freshwater, including sources of drinking water, remain largely unknown as there are more studies focusing on marine ecosystems.

A time for change When asked about what we can do to mitigate microfibres being released into the environment, Athey proposed several strategies to tackle microfibre pollution. From a technical standpoint, filters may be applied to laundry machines and wastewater treatment effluent and used during the industrial production of textile materials to catch microfibres.

The main challenge then becomes the disposal of fibres from these filters. For instance, filters in wastewater treatment plants capture organic materials alongside fibres. These materials are often used for agricultural purposes — injecting microfibres into the agricultural process would cause as much harm to the environment as output into waterways.

On an individual level, Athey discouraged buying apparel from fast fashion brands. Such clothes are meant to have short lifespans and are produced in excess quantities under the fast fashion business model. For example, only one third of imported apparel in the European Union is sold at full retail price. The rest of the stock becomes “deadstock” that ends up in landfills or is shipped to low-income countries.

Toward the end of the interview, Athey shared some of her personal fashion tips. Beside buying more durable clothes, she recommended giving your clothes a second life. She cautioned that cloth recycling programs from fast fashion brands are “[marketing them] as if they’re saving the world.”

Boutique renting, reimagined.

One Month Free + $2,700 in Welcome Bonuses OUR FIRST RESIDENTS WILL RECEIVE:

$1,200 Value in 1GB Internet by Rogers $1,000 Structube Gift Card $500 Boxcar Social Gift Card

NOW RENTING

First residents defined as the first 50 residents to sign a lease. One month of free rent is valued at the monthly rent amount of the specific suite that is leased. All residents will receive internet included in their rent, which has an approximate value of $1,200/year. Suite availability, suite pricing, and promotional give-aways are subject to discontinue without notice. Future residents must meet Fitzrovia’s application requirements, be notified by Fitzrovia of approval as a resident, and sign their lease by March 31, 2021. Gift cards are redeemable upon move-in. The one month free is redeemable during the first full month of tenancy. Errors & omissions excepted.

vrsty.ca/science

MARCH 15, 2021

17

U of T researchers develop athome test detecting COVID-19 in five minutes

New method developed amid a push for more effective, safe tests IVAN MILIUKOV/THEVARSITY

Umama Siddiqi Varsity Contributor

Remarkable feats of scientific effort and collaboration have been achieved since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, starting from the sequencing of the virus in January 2020 to authorizing the first vaccine by December 2020, which is arguably the fastest vaccine ever created.

Testing for COVID-19 has been an area of special focus for many researchers, including an interdisciplinary team at the University of Toronto. The team’s recent paper outlines a novel method for diagnosing COVID-19 that can provide results in five minutes and requires no specialist lab equipment.

Private companies have already developed similar at-home testing kits, but this method tests for COVID-19 in a new way — one that the researchers hope will be adapted for detecting other viruses.

The current landscape of COVID-19 testing In addition to adhering to the health safety protocols in place, testing for COVID-19 is extremely important. Testing can not only help with quick identification of positive cases for contact tracing, but it can also help to prevent further spread of the virus, especially within highly affected populations.

There are currently two rapid test methods for detecting COVID-19: the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and the antigen tests. In Ontario, free public testing uses PCR tests while commercial testing kits produced by private companies can be either type of test.

This is mostly because of how the tests work. Antigen tests are cheaper to produce because they require fewer chemical reagents.

PCR tests require special chemical reagents and are conducted in laboratories.

The tests are also priced accordingly. In the US, the commercially-available BinaxNOW — an at-home test from Abbott Laboratories — costs around $31 per test and are sold in packages of six. In Canada, personal testing kits are available from Sinai Health at a cost of $160. Switch Health’s tests are also being given to travellers returning to Canada through select airports, including the Toronto Pearson Airport.

The lower price point has motivated a number of companies to produce their own versions. Even employers are beginning to see their potential; a group of 12 of the nation’s largest companies, including Scotiabank and Air Canada, have partnered with the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management to study how antigen tests can be widely used to screen employees working in person.

There are still general concerns about the use of antigen tests. They are known to be less reliable and deliver more false positives than PCR tests, which prompted experts to caution against their use earlier on. But the federal government has recently revised its position on antigen testing, saying that they can still supplement PCR tests if used narrowly and cautiously.

“A rapid antigen test is clearly better than no test at all, as long as it is not used as a free pass,” said Irfan Dhalla, an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, in an interview with The New York Times.

A new method for antigen testing Enter a new method of antigen testing from researchers at the University of Toronto. A group of researchers spanning six different departments within U of T and two external research institutes have developed a device to detect SARS-CoV-2 particles from a person’s saliva within five minutes. The best

part? It can be used by anyone in the comfort of their own home — no chemical reagents are required, and the test does not have to be sent to a laboratory.

Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the researchers describe their device as a type of ‘assay,’ a general tool in the biologist’s toolkit for measuring the concentration of a specific substance — in this case, viral particles of SARS-CoV-2.

The assay is made of a sensor that can detect the so-called ‘spike protein’ of a SARS-CoV-2 viral particle, attached to a negatively-charged piece of DNA. A compound called ‘ferrocene’ is also attached to the DNA. The whole device is then placed on an electrode, standing upright like a pillar.

When the sensor detects the spike protein of a viral particle, the two become stuck together. Then, a positive electric charge is applied to the electrode, which pulls the negatively charged DNA chunk down to it. Once the DNA topples and touches the electrode, electrons are transferred to the ferrocene, which then undergoes an oxidation reaction.

The time taken for this final reaction reveals the presence of SARS-CoV-2. The heavy particles stick to the DNA chunk and slow the rate of its toppling. If the oxidation reaction is sufficiently slowed down, it can be attributed to a viral particle.

The shape of the pillar-like structure has inspired its name: the molecular pendulum.

The technique has been used to detect proteins before, but never something as large as a virus.

“Our sensor is based on the concept of a molecular pendulum,” wrote Shana Kelley, a professor of biochemistry and an author of the study, in an email to The Varsity. “The sensor travels to the surface of an electrode with a characteristic time constant that slows down when the virus binds because of its size… [and] the kinetic properties of [the]

electrochemical signal… allows us to visualize this change in travel time.”

Future directions The researchers emphasized the accuracy of their test and the usefulness of using saliva to test for COVID-19.

They tested their device’s ability to detect SARS-CoV-2 directly from saliva samples from infected patients previously tested positive with PCR methods, with no human subjects as control in a blinded study. The results showed an observable oxidation reaction to infected samples within two minutes with an accuracy the researchers describe as comparable to PCR. “Saliva is a pretty straightforward sample type but we were very pleased to see statistically significant signals within 2 minutes,” wrote Kelley.

A lead author of the study and doctoral candidate Hanie Yousefi also wrote in an email that “the sensitivity of the system is clinically relevant. Which means infected persons’ saliva carries a large enough load of the virus to be detected with the system.”

“All you need to do is add your saliva sample, wait for [a] few minutes, and read the result of your test. The measurements can even be made in the mouth,” she added.

Going forward, the researchers hope their molecular pendulum will be used for COVID-19 testing. Yousefi is confident that it can still be used if the virus mutates, writing that “the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is resistant to mutations and is a good marker for sensing.”

“We are currently working on designing hand-held devices that can be used outside of [the] laboratory,” Kelley wrote.

She added, “In addition to answering the needs of the current pandemic, having this device commercialized and ready to use is a great asset for facing future pandemics… and for other diagnostics needs.”

Sports

March 15, 2021 vrsty.ca/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

My teammate, Rena Nakajima: juggling an engineering degree with the soccer team

Erin Kelly Varsity Contributor

Making well-rounded look easy

How do you possibly balance the demands of an engineering degree while doing sports at U of T? On a windy yet pleasant Thursday afternoon, I sat down with my teammate, Rena Nakajima, to chat about it.

Growing up in Whistler, British Columbia, Nakajima has always had an inclination to be active. She grew up skiing, biking, and, of course, playing soccer. Her passion for the game started by playing with friends after school and grew from there.

Nakajima reflected on how interpersonal connections with her coaches and with other players growing up helped her: “I meshed really well with them, and I really enjoyed [soccer], not just as a sport for myself, but [also] as… personal development.”

The interpersonal skills developed through soccer have served Nakajima well both on and off the pitch. She is an impressive person because of her strong time management skills, which she credits to her commitments to the Varsity Blues women’s soccer team and her mechanical engi-

neering major. She is specializing in mechatronics and energy systems and minoring in sustainable energy and business.

Nakajima was initially motivated to attend U of T for its engineering program but, since she knew some players on the soccer squad, she thought, “Maybe I could actually try out and take this on.” In order to stay on task and motivated, Nakajima keeps a schedule that she makes before every week, and she wakes up early in the morning to allow for more recharge time at night.

Her education has also allowed her to gain skills in working under tight time constraints.

“Engineering has really been all about just learning how to juggle a lot in a short amount of time,” she explained. Those takeaways are, to Nakajima, more valuable than the technical information that the engineering program has to offer.

Nakajima also spoke about meeting likeminded people through academics and athletics.

She found that her peers in engineering who are also varsity athletes tend to be highly organized and have a “perseverance factor and a desire to push [to] accomplish more than just school.”

These same qualities that Nakajima admires

Nakajima wakes up early in the morning to allow for more recharge time at night.

SEYRAN MAMMADOV/VARSITY BLUES

in her friends can certainly be found in herself.

Miranda Badovinac, a fourth-year student who is a midfielder on my team, vouched for Nakajima in a written interview with The Varsity: “Rena is someone you can always count on. Whether it be on or off the field, the hard work she puts in and dedication she invests into everything she does is unparalleled. This, amongst many other reasons, is why the team looks up to her.”

When asked what she is most looking forward to post-pandemic, without hesitation, Nakajima chose practising. She was integral to the success of the women’s soccer team in fall 2019, in our

‘U of T: Women in Sport’ — a new support community for Varsity Blues athletes President and vice-president of new club share inspiration, goals

Janhavi Agarwal Business & Labour Correspondent

This year, Varsity Blues athlete, Lauren Dundee, formed a new club aiming to create a community for women athletes — U of T: Women in Sport. Dundee, a secondyear student majoring in peace, conflict and justice studies, is on the Varsity Blues women’s water polo team.

The Varsity spoke with Dundee, the president of the club, and Sara Sutherland, water polo athlete and vice-president of the club, about their aspirations and vision for the club.

Goals and vision “Varsity Blues does a great job of providing support to all athletes. But just for womenidentifying athletes in particular, [there are] other struggles that we go through behind the scenes… They’ve become so normalized over the years because that’s just how it is in the world of sport,” Dundee said.

She continued, “They don’t really get talked about. And so there’s quite a lot [of ] people struggling in silence. I wanted to create a club that provided a support network and a community for [women] athletes going through that at U of T.” Having been involved in sport from a very young age, Dundee and Sutherland recognized the challenges that women and, in particular, women student athletes face. “[U of T: Women in Sport]

also works to provide an environment in which we can discuss issues that are particularly prevalent within the womenidentifying athlete community such as: body dysmorphia, mental health, inequality, life after sport, time management, careers in professional sport, respect and unequal recognition,” wrote Sutherland in an email to The Varsity.

Events this past year The club has hosted a number of guest speakers, who spoke on issues ranging from coping strategies for women student athletes to disordered eating, abuse and maltreatment, and athlete retirement.

During exam season, the executive team hosted office hours that members could join to set study goals and to study together. The executive board also presented at the SheMoves conference, which was hosted in honour of International Women’s Day.

In addition to guest speaker events, U of T: Women in Sport used social media to highlight the efforts and achievements of women athletes and teams across U of T. In the fall semester, the club introduced ‘Teammate Tuesdays,’ spotlighting an athlete on Instagram for being a great friend, teammate, or role model every Tuesday.

In the winter semester, U of T: Women in Sport introduced ‘Spotlight Saturdays,’ each of which featured a particular women’s sports team and their accomplishments.

“What we really wanted to do with our social media was celebrate the achievement [of women athletes] and give women’s sports teams a platform… where we can go, ‘Look, this is what they’re doing,’ ” said Dundee.

Looking ahead When the world gets back to its ‘new normal,’ the club hopes to host post-game interviews with women’s sports teams and to highlight their performance and efforts when they play in games.

U of T: Women in Sport also hopes to implement a program to mentor girls in sport across the GTA and show them what life is like as a student athlete at university.

Dundee said, “Fingers crossed, everything will kind of be back to normal next semester, and we can start working toward all of that stuff from there.”

COURTESY OF LAUREN DUNDEE

Disclosure: Agarwal is an athlete on the Varsity Blues women’s squash team.

exciting push to qualify for the national championship and in our bronze medal finish.

As a centre back, Nakajima defended for us well, playing heavy minutes into the playoffs and games at the national championship.

When asked about playing with Nakajima on defence, my teammate and third-year defender Alessia Cusimano wrote, “Getting to play alongside Rena last year (especially) at Nationals was huge. On and off the field, she’s worked super hard to get where she is. Trust is important for the defensive line, and Rena makes that feel effortless!”

Testing UTrain: Mindful Moments Do the workouts really work?

Alex Waddell Varsity Staff

While on exchange last winter, I took a course on meditation and really appreciated what I learned from the practice. However, when I returned to Canada, with all of the chaos of the pandemic and without the guidance of my professor, I let go of my practice. Even with the warm weather and sunshine, I was worn out this week — but I felt like it might be time to try again.

I had seen “Mindful Moments” on the virtual fitness studio schedule, and I figured that I would try one of these classes from the U of T Virtual Fitness Studio YouTube channel.

Mindfulness is a Buddhist-inspired practice of building our ability to be present and aware of where we are and what we’re doing in a non-judgemental way. It is also used in clinical psychology to help treat patients with chronic anxiety and stress, including academic stress.

The “Mindful Moments” class description describes the class as a “series of meditation exercises designed to relieve stress, instill calm and lower blood pressure leading towards health in both mind and body.” The class was hosted by Lauren B, who began the class with a short reading from Richard Wagamese’s book, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations. Lauren mentioned that there is a lot of crossover between our mindfulness work and Wagamese’s writings.

We began the class with three to four minutes of free writing.

We didn’t share it with the class, and I will not be sharing mine here, but as someone who is not used to journalling, I found this activity quite difficult. The next practice was a breathing exercise that I was familiar with from my meditation course in which we focused on individual parts of the body and breathing.I have noticed that I used to be better at following my breath, but as with exercise, I was out of practice.

The next exercise was to bring our focus to our emotions and locate them in the body. The goal was to acknowledge the emotions and recognize the separation that comes from the practice of observing our thoughts and emotions.

The last practice was a walking meditation, so I just walked around the room. Lauren mentioned that this exercise would be particularly useful to appreciate nature. She broke down each step so that you could feel each part of the foot and sense each movement.

Lauren ended the class by returning to Wagamese’s writing, explaining how the importance of “being physically well enough to do good work” applies to students.

vrsty.ca/sports

MARCH 15, 2021

Opinion: Find the silver lining in gym closures Diversify your routine with calisthenics

Can Gultekin Varsity Contributor

It has been a full year since my last workout in a public gym. Prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, gyms were a big part of my life: I’d spend an hour, three days a week in the Goldring Centre with a weekly swimming session on the side. In the blink of an eye, my routine was taken from me.

But I’m a firm believer in the saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” While I still miss public gyms, going a full year without weights has benefits, forcing us to grow and adapt.

With the pandemic forcing us out of gyms into the open, there’s still a bunch of ways to keep fit without losing your hard-earned gains. For me, calisthenics has been a game changer in the past year.

In an article for Men’s Health, Kenneth Gallarzo defines calisthenics as “a form of fitness, which utilizes gravity and bodyweight leverage to challenge your fitness level.” And contrary to popular belief, calisthenics does build muscle just as much as a free weights workout.

Your body responds to resistance, no matter how you create it. Whether you put your body under ten-

sion with an overhead press or handstand pushups, your shoulders will be under tension, forcing muscle growth. The tricky part is progressive overload, the gradual increase of weight in an exercise over time in order to increase muscle. Workouts from fitness YouTubers Andrea Larosa and Chris Heria helped me a great deal with that.

The other part of a balanced fitness routine is cardio. For those who prefer a warmer environment and sunny weather, going for a jog when it is freezing in Toronto may seem tricky at first. But with the help of a couple of layers and a thick beanie, I get warmed up within five minutes of jogging and haven’t skipped a run once this year.

While I still reminisce about public gyms, I prefer to flip the script, look at the bright side, and see this as a challenge to overcome. Moving from a heavier weights-focused routine to lighter bodyweight workouts could help you expand your horizons and appreciate more advanced bodyweight exercises, such as handstand pushups or side-to-side pull-ups.

Now, I’m just looking forward to adding some diversity into my old workout routine as soon as the gyms reopen — hopefully in the not-so-distant future.

Even without public gyms, you can still add diversity to your workout.

SHANNA HUNTER/THEVARSITY

Combatting dorm loneliness: be brave, look forward, explore

Giselle Dalili Varsity Contributor

As the world approaches a year of pandemic restrictions on dormitory residency and gatherings, there is no doubt that many U of T residents have experienced an unprecedented degree of dorm loneliness. And with seemingly no end in sight, students are looking to countless online resources in hopes of reducing the solitude they feel as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Throughout articles and advisory resources, students time after time are told the same blasé ‘keep in touch with family’ narrative. This advice, although helpful, is overdone and not

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The transition from hardwood to video game controller

How online play fills the competitive void left by real sports

Physically distanced competition can be just as engaging.

HAYDEN MAK/THEVARSITY

Angad Deol Associate Sports Editor

I’m a bit of a boomer when it comes to online gaming: I do most of it solo, and when I do hop online with friends, it’s mostly casual. However, in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns — and the increased risk of contracting COVID-19 during group physical activity — I haven’t been able to shoot hoops with my peers or engage in any other in-person competition. Instead, I opted to finally try my hand at online gaming.

There were three main video games I tried in lockdown — League of Legends, NBA 2K, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). League of Legends came first — and I absolutely hated it. I wasn’t too awful at the game: I ‘mained’ Senna, kept a solid kills-to-death ratio, was a great teammate, and never put anyone down — I was the model player.

However, believe it or not, people on the internet suck. As mentioned earlier, I was relatively new to online gaming. My reaction time was average at best, and I was still learning the ins and outs of League.

The chat is merciless in League of Legends, and after being called a ‘scrub’ for the last time by an anonymous player, I gave up on the game.

NBA 2K is probably my favourite video game franchise of all time. From 2009 to the present, I’ve bought every copy. Yes, it’s the same game every year with a new roster, but I don’t care; I just really love basketball.

Mostly, I tend to play the single-player modes such as MyCareer and MyLeague, role-player-game-like modes in which you control an athlete or a general manager of a franchise, respectively. However, I was bored enough to hop on the online servers to see what was going on. While the 2K community tends to be nicer, it felt like I had walked in on a circus.

Be bold, be brave Students across all faculties have taken advantage of social media and messaging platforms to create group chats with peers in the same classes. Although this is inherently very beneficial, students share a common hesitancy with messaging since these are often very large chats. Others have simply given up on making an effort to interact with others entirely because of how unattainable interaction has become.

Sending a simple message reading, “Hey, does anyone live in or around Woodsworth? We could go on a nice, physicallydistanced walk” could be the outset of a prosperous ANDREA ZHAO/THEVARSITY friendship. It is important to keep in mind that everyone necessarily attainable for many students who has felt or is feeling similarly, and it only takes already have busy schedules and are in different one person’s response to resolve perpetual lonetime zones from their family and friends. So liness. the question still remains: what can dorming Moreover, your body will thank you for the students do to relieve this vexing issue? risk-taking with a dopamine boost, courtesy of While physical distancing is a vital method your mesolimbic reward system. of limiting the spread of COVID-19, it can sometimes come with social and emotional Have things to look forward to costs. Dorm loneliness is a very important and Although many belittle the adversity that panvalid variant of this mental health strain that demic students endure, arguing that online can easily heighten and segue into other men- education is easier, more flexible, and more tal disorders for students. convenient, the lack of structure or variance in With many students living on campus and students’ days has detrimental impacts on their unable to interact with other people, it is more mental states. Thus, it is important to take care important than ever to explore the little things of oneself. that can make every day seem more sated.

So, allot one hour next Saturday to give your-

How to make residence life less miserable amid lacking connections

Every game on The Park — MyCareer’s online extension where you can compete against others — has three types of players, much like in real life pick-up games: the dribble god who never passes but thinks he’s Kyrie Irving when he’s not; the person who loves blasting music during the game; and, last but not least, the trash talker — perhaps my favourite of the types.

Despite the occasional setback, I found competing on NBA 2K to be incredibly fun. In a good lobby, the clutch moments make you feel like the ball is really in your own hands — and the emotions get just as intense.

More recently, I picked up an old favourite of mine, CS:GO. In high school, I was fairly decent at the game, reaching the peak of the silver rank but never any further. Around grade 12, I was more focused on school and stopped playing altogether. In the wake of COVID-19, I decided to check back in on the community, and I was atrocious at first since I was starting from scratch.

I practised and practised — especially during a much deserved reading week this semester. I started my comeback like Michael Jordan in 1995 — except with more hair and a lot less to lose. I’m now back on track to get through the ranks of CS:GO again, and I’m getting some much needed competition to keep me engaged day in and day out.

All in all, I miss the action of in-person sports. In the midst of the vaccine rollout, I’m already dreaming of the day I can return to the real hardwood because while I can get my fix of competition from the screen, the anonymity of the internet can often create a toxic environment. Therefore, if you plan on picking up a controller today, make sure to be respectful on your mic. A lot of us are novice gamers waiting for the day we can hop off the screen and into the gym. self a makeshift spa treatment. Or, after you finish that huge assignment, order in from your favourite restaurant. Put it on your calendar!

Explore new hobbies Many can attest to experimenting with new hobbies during lockdown. I, for one, took up crocheting to keep my mind busy during long periods of solitude. Not only did it relieve anxiety, but my practice with such intricate and punctilious work has improved other aspects of my life.

Undertaking simple, undemanding activities such as crocheting is a lossless investment as the materials are cheap and the technique is easy to grasp. The confidence one garners from learning a new skill is also a big plus.

Make sure to keep up with your workout routine Whatever working out may look like for you, stick with it! The dopamine boost is absolutely worth it. You can find a myriad of dorm-appropriate, no-equipment workouts on YouTube and online blogs.

Beyond the general health benefits, the increase in serotonin and dopamine will significantly decrease the symptoms of loneliness and those of other mental health disorders.

Make sure to take advantage of U of T’s resources U of T has a lot of unique resources and programs to connect students. Although online friendships do not have the same breadth as their in-person counterparts, they are valuable assets and great first steps for students who are encountering chronic loneliness.

From Student Life’s Access & Inclusion Peer Programs to Sidney Smith Commons’ Recognized Study Groups, to the 1,000 different clubs and student-run organizations across U of T’s three campuses, there is an activity for everyone and anyone to find an online friend with similar interests.

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MARCH 15, 2021