September 10, 2012

Vol. CXXXIII, No. 2

University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

10 September, 2012

THE Varsity thevarsity.ca

Blues: no longer down and out? pg 21

Boycott of publishing giant Elsevier gathers pace Frustrated by what they call an exploitative business model and unreasonable prices, researchers at U of T have joined a growing movement asking: how much must we pay for knowledge?

Zane Schwartz VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Over 12,000 academics, including 55 from the University of Toronto, have signed a petition to boycott Elsevier, a leading academic publisher in the scientific, technical and medical realms. The Dutch corporation has come under fire in recent months for its controversial business model, skyhigh prices, and lobbying efforts to restrict academic freedom.

“Elsevier is based on a business model in which academics do almost all the work for free,” explains Dr. Rachel Barney, a philosophy professor at U of T. Academic publishers like Elsevier do not pay the academics and researchers who submit papers for publication, nor those who peer-review the papers to ensure their accuracy. Much of the research in papers published in journals distributed by Elsevier is funded by taxpayer dollars, enabling the company to keep expenses low.

Elsevier sells these journals back to public institutions like the University of Toronto for tens of thousands of dollars, frequently bundling together different journals to justify raising the sticker price.

Under this arrangement, Elsevier reaped profits of approximately $12 billion in 2010, a 36 per cent profit margin that is almost unheard of in the publishing industry.

“We’ve been talking about the astronomical journal price increases for quite a long time,” said Caitlin Tillman, head of collection development for the University of Toronto’s library system. “What’s interesting about this Elsevier boycott is that it comes from the faculty, and not the libraries.”

The boycott began with Cambridge professor Timothy Gowers. In a January 2012 blog post, Gowers vowed that he would not publish, peer review, or serve on the editorial boards of any of the over 2,600 journals Elsevier publishes.

In an official statement released in response to the boycott, Elsevier explains that they do not force libraries to purchase their journals. But librarians say that the journals are so prohibitively priced when purchased individually that they have no choice but to buy in bundles.

“They’ll bundle five or 10 together so that if you want one, you need to buy the whole set,” said Julie Hannaford, Associate Librarian for the Social Sciences and Humanities at U of T.

Journal prices have been rising for over 25 years, says Tillman, adding, “I would say the average price increase was four to five per cent.”

U of T’s libraries receive a yearly two per cent funding increase to cover inflation costs. But the price of journal subscriptions, particularly in science, technology and medicine, have outpaced this allowance, rising by around seven to nine per cent every year explains Tillman.

As a result, journals eat up more of libraries’ budgets, both at U of T and abroad.

One survey found that in Britain, school libraries were spending an average of 65 per cent on subscriptions alone.

Last year, the University of Toronto cut all of its print subscriptions to journals that offered digital subscriptions.

Tillman warns that “sooner rather then later” the library will have to make cuts that effect content.

Some suggest that part of the problem is the broader structure of academia. In some fields, a publish-or-die mentality has allowed publishers such as Elsevier to entrench their position. Publication credits in certain reputable journals are a key metric for hiring and promoting professors, and it

CONTINUED PG 7

ONTARIO’S “PLAN” FOR POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

pg 8 U OF T IN FILM AND TV

pg 12 THE VARSITY GOES TO THE MOVIES

pg 14 SPARK YOUR IMAGINATION!

pg 17

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Organizers: orientation week no place for corporations As many orientations conclude at U of T, The Varsity investigates how Canadian schools have kept big business out of frosh week

Leah Nosal VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

This month on the campuses of American universities, companies such as American Eagle, Hewlett-Packard, Target and Red Bull will employ an estimated 10,000 college students as “brand ambassadors” in on-campus peer-to-peer marketing schemes.

Companies are increasingly eager to create life long consumers from the ranks of college freshmen, but so far, corporate presence on campus at U of T remains scant.

“The commercialization of everyday college life is a distinctly American approach to student life,” says U of T orientation and transition coordinator Josh Hass.

“Corporate engagement is a huge, huge difference between Canadian and American schools,” agrees New College orientation executive Sam Khon, an American himself.

According to student leaders and Student Life administrators interviewed by The Varsity, a major reason for the lack of corporate involvement in U of T frosh weeks may be the piecemeal approach that comes with having several separate orientation schedules.

While U of T’s St. George campus may boast an incoming class of over 10,000, the division of freshman by college and faculty means that orientation groups are likely to be comprised of hundreds, instead of thousands of students.

A tent for 99.9. Virgin Radio at the UTSU Club’s Fair during U of T’s frosh week festivities. Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

“Nothing is so decentralized as U of T,” Khon says. “The different colleges and faculties are just a can of worms.”

The unifying body for orientation teams at the university is the Office of Student Life. Hass describes his department as a resource for the different orientation executives. Over the course of the summer, the department offered skill development and engagement for orientation coordinators.

Student Life does not offer funding, but gives financial rewards after-thefact if minimum standards for orientation week are maintained.

The system makes for a stark contrast with American schools, where offices of Student Life partner with corporations to offer frosh week programming. At the University of North Carolina, the incoming class was treated to a late-night shopping excursion to Target, in an arrangement engineered by the vice chancellor of student life.

Representatives at various Ontario universities spoke of a concerted effort to protect allegedly vulnerable freshmen from the manipulation of corporate sponsors.

“There’s always a balance with corporate sponsorship,” says Adam Fearnall, president of the Students’

Council at the University of Western Ontario. “You don’t want to give up your moral independence to secure corporate funds.”

At U of T, the University of Toronto Students Union is determined to maintain ethical business relations with potential sponsors, as a member of the Canadian Federation of Students.

“They’re strict about who they associate with,” says Hass. Union presidents over the past several years have warned of “corporatization by stealth.”

The organic, student-led orientation system that exists at U of T is not universal. Fernall highlighted radically different attitudes towards orientation that he witnessed at universities such as Syracuse, Columbia, Cornell and NYU on a recent American tour.

Cornell’s administration, for instance, ran 170 events in a four-day period, recognizing that it was to their benefit to run their own orientation programs rather than leave it entirely up to student organizers.

Most of Cornell’s frosh events were free of charge, while students at U of T paid between $80 to $120 dollars to participate in college or faculty-run orientation weeks.

Corporate sponsorship will represent less than one per cent of New College orientation expenses this year. What’s more, donations that are received are nearly always in-kind: notepads, ink cartridges, or branded pens for frosh orientation kits.

“We were able to get some sponsorship from small businesses,” says Kohn. “But money — actual money — is a very rare donation.”

Faculty-specific orientations have been somewhat more successful in seeking out sponsorship opportunities.

The orientation week for Rotman Commerce has found generous patrons in the past. Some of the sponsors of the Rotman Commerce Student Association this year include accounting firms PriceWaterhouseCoopers and KPMG. Funding from academic departments normally support U of T’s engineering orientation, which also obtained funding from the National Bank of Canada this year.

While planning orientation events by college may be more desirable, the student-led teams are volunteers with one-year terms may well just be unequipped to secure external funding.

“Every orientation is created in some four to eight months. If I go looking for corporate sponsorship, I don’t have any numbers or data from the last 10 years to show,” explains Kohn. “If a big corporation gave any college orientation a big chunk of money, I’d be extremely surprised.”

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New College, New Mascot

Hundreds of frosh work to solve week-long murder mystery Irina Vukosavic VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

In an elaborate exercise of college spirit, frosh week at New College this year was themed as a murder mystery, climaxing in the revelation of a new mascot.

Since the incoming class arrived on Labour Day, there has been one question on everyone’s mind: GNU done it?

The story, played out over the course of orientation week, saw current mascot Goliath III kidnapped and murdered by one of seven suspects. The college’s new mascot, Goliath IV, enlisted the help of the New College community to solve the murder of his predecessor.

The late Goliath III had represented New College for the past decade.

With around 770 new students split into 30 groups, the challenges of superimposing a narrative on a huge student body were clear from the beginning.

Frosh were given a suspect list and alibis, along with a stream of newscast-style videos that provided clues for the investigation. On the list of “suspects” were members of the New College community including the student council president, principal, librarian, and writing coach.

All the suspects, according to New College orientation co-chair Laurel Chester, will prove to be useful resources for students in the future.

“We made it so that the murder mystery theme works on all levels,” explained executive leader Craig Maniscalco. “The clues and information can pertain to all of the frosh students; the very keen ones can try solving the mystery in depth, while

The grisly scene in New College’s quad. Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

others who are not as interested can still be aware of what is going on.”

Frosh students were not the only ones trying to solve the mystery; except for a handful of executives, team leaders, troopers, organizers, and

frosh were all kept in the dark about the outcome.

In fact, according to Chester, a choice between three potential endings was not made until the day before the announcement. By the end

of the week, the culprit had been revealed as Jeff Newman, the librarian. Newman and his co-conspirator, Debra Knott, had kidnapped Goliath III. When the mascot escaped, Newman murdered him and attempted to pin the blame on Knott and New College principal Yves Roberge.

“It’s cool how the leaders don’t know what’s going on either,” said Julian Dyer, leader of the “Inspector Gnueseau” group. “That way, we are part of the process as well and the more we’re into it, the more likely the frosh students will be as well.”

“So far, its only day two and I’ve already had such a great time. I’ve met so many friendly students and have really enjoyed the murder mystery theme of the orientation,” said Shameer Rahman, a first year political science student.

The orientation team spent most of the summer planning, and the week’s programming has hewed closely to the theme, says Maniscalco. Orientation leaders wanted to create a narrative that was plausible, and created a novella-length body of storyline in advance.

As frosh students clad in bright yellow shirts flooded the courtyard and examined the crime scene of the murdered mascot, it seemed that the team’s careful planning had paid off.

“Everything was very well put together and planned out,” said Max Liu, first year social science student.

“I’ve definitely become more familiar with my surroundings and have met a lot of great people along the way.”

Check out our video coverage: broadcast.thevarsity.ca

Crime Stats August 29 – September 5

24

thefts

16

tresspassings

1

elevator entrapment

2

noise complaints

1

liquor licence act offence

News in brief Harvard students accused of cheating en masse

Stricter Alcohol Policies in Frosh Week

An estimated 125 undergraduate students at Harvard University are being investigated by the university’s administrative board after allegations of cheating on their final take-home exam during a spring semester course last year.

Accusations include charges of plagiarizing answers and collaborating in groups in explicit contradiction to a requirement that they work on the exam alone.

The students claim that while some students did act in clear violation of the program requirements, many of the allegations stem from practices previously taken for granted, including the “commonplace” practice of consulting with graduate student teaching fellows. The university has released a statement saying it will not reach any conclusions until the administrative board has met with each individual student.

Students face punishments ranging from from a one-year suspension to the revocation of their diploma if they already graduated. Some students have threatened to sue the school if such disciplinary measures are implemented.

Universities across Canada have rolled out a host of new policies designed to combat irresponsible drinking practices.

At some universities, such as the University of Alberta, Queen’s University and the University of Guelph, administrations have banned drinking in public portions of residence. The University of Acadia has adopted a more radical policy, which includes urging local bar owners to be more careful about how much they serve students, and sending letters to parents about having “safe drinking” talks with incoming frosh.

The policy also authorizes residence advisers to check for alcohol inside dorm rooms during frosh week, and calls for training student volunteers to help their peers drink responsibly.

In Ontario, concerns about unsafe drinking practices, especially during frosh week, stem mainly from most first-year students being 18 — a year below the legal drinking age. Student unions suggest that preventing students who are of age from drinking in residences may just drive them to off-campus bars or other potentially unsafe situations. ­ —Karen Kyung Fuhrmann

—Dan Smeenk With files from the New York Times and the Harvard Crimson

With files from The Globe and Mail

Visa delays affect international students at UBC

U of T ranks third in Library Investment Index

Visa delays will force at least 100 international students enrolled at the University of British Columbia to postpone their studies until January at the earliest.

Michelle Suderman, the University’s associate director of international student development, attributed the slowdown to the Canadian government’s closure of visa services in Germany, Japan, Iran, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

She noted that some students may need to wait until next September before they can start, even if they have already arrived in Canada. Among those concerned are graduate students who should otherwise start teaching classes next week. The administration has announced that classes affected by the delay will be taught as planned.

University of Toronto libraries have been ranked third in the Association of Research Libraries’ Library Investment Index, just behind Harvard and Yale.

After a fire destroyed all but 100 books at the University’s original library in University College in 1890, U of T was forced to rebuild its libraries with donations from all across the Commonwealth. The result is what chief librarian Larry Alford calls an “extraordinary collections which has been built over several generations.”

Currently, U of T has 12 million books housed in 44 libraries. Alford is planning to prioritize easy access to the collection: his goal is to “figure out how to preserve the digital record of our present, which will become the history and how people understand history 100 years from now.”

—Kelvin Chu With files from CBC News

—Sheena Singh With files from the Toronto Star

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Introducing: Sarah Jayne King The new chair of the Ontario’s largest student lobby hopes to ride the crest of Quebec’s student protest movement. Will she succeed?

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

It’s lunch hour at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s b Espresso Bar, where I am meeting Sarah Jayne King for her first interview with a campus newspaper since rising to the helm of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario this summer.

With the carre-rouge pinned prominently to her blouse, King is seated at a table in the sunlit atrium. Possessing an air of considerable self-confidence, she shows no outward signs of fatigue from her busy itinerary: a dizzying number of general assemblies, meetings with the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, protests, and, around the time of our meeting, logistical planning for a nine-day whirlwind tour of Ontario campuses featuring talks by leaders of the Quebec student strike.

Since King was elected in August, the Ontario wing of the CFS has become increasingly involved in agitating for a Quebec-style student movement here in Ontario. Increasingly, student union leaders such as King can be seen in public wearing the distinctive red felt square in solidarity with the student protesters.

Changes at the top of CFS-O, including King’s election, come at a critical time for the organization. In addition to King’s election as chair, representatives from CFS-affiliated unions also voted to bring Toby Whitfield, previous president of the Ryerson Students’ Union, to executive office.

For years, the CFS-O has tried to rouse Ontario students into action, a task that has proven difficult in spite of the province’s sky-high tuition rates. Behind King’s efforts is a struggle by unions outside Quebec to capitalize on the ongoing strikes and demonstrations of French Canada. In her short time in office, much of King’s efforts to date been focused on this goal.

A multi-year veteran of the University of Ottawa’s student governance, King joins an organization with extensive roots in Toronto.

“I’m excited to have the opportunity to learn more about what goes on in Toronto, the North, outside of Ottawa, and to connect with other student unions to be able to push issues that affect us differently on different campuses,” she said.

“My goal is to make sure that as many students and members of the general public are aware of the issues that we are fighting for and understand them in a broader context of how important postsecondary education is to us, to society in general, as well as understanding that the situation has gotten quite bad in Ontario.”

King first became involved in campus life in early 2007 as a volunteer and eventual board member of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group. While at Ottawa, she also led

popular sustainable campus food initiatives, including The People’s Republic of Delicious and Simard Hall’s Café Alt. Her first term in office began under a cloud of controversy, following a decision to overturn the victory by popular vote of her opponent, Tristan Denominee, amidst allegations that he had violated official election policy. The next year, King joined the CFS executive as treasurer.

One of the foremost challenges facing King will be repairing relations with minister Glen Murray’s office.

The CFS-O meets regularly with Murray to consult on provincial policy. Relations soured when the CFS accused the Liberals of reneging on their campaign promise to provide a tuition grant to all students. When details of the grant were handed down in January, both Murray and the CFS became publicly critical of each other.

“In Ontario, we don’t have [a] history of student strikes to achieve an end. I think that students are inspired and are contuing to take action to ensure that our voices are heard.”

Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

Colin Tessier

—Sarah Jayne King, chair, CFS-O

“The problem I’m having with the CFS, in spite of significant efforts to reach out to them, is this sort of attitude of ‘give it [all to me] and give it to me today,” said Murray in a February conference call with campus media. “Every time we turn around and do something, the glass is always halfempty for them.”

King, for her part, “hopes to be able to use [her] role as an opportunity to create new and stronger relationships with all partners, whether that’s within labor or the government.”

That day in the Conservatory, King seemed optimistic, in spite of the challenges she and her organization will face. A blog post by the National Post’s Jonathan Kay ridiculed a recent protest at Glen Murray’s constituency office, suggesting there was only seven people there.

In response, the Ontario Students’ Mobilisation Coalition released a cheery, if awkward YouTube video of the protest, featuring a crowd larger than Kay described, singing Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” lyrics adapted to the student cause.

“In Quebec, there is a long history of using strikes as action to effect change, and they have largely been successful,”

she explains to me. “In Ontario, we don’t have that history of achieving student strikes to achieve an end. I think that students are inspired and are continuing to take action to ensure that our voices are heard, and a strike is a tactic that could be used.”

I ask King why she thinks students in Ontario seem to react so anemically to CFS calls to action, despite the comparative severity of their tuition fees. She pauses for a moment, and says, “the level to which tuition fees have increased since the 1990s has definitely influenced students ability to get engaged.”

From the passion in her voice, it is clear that she cares deeply about the perceived plight of the average Ontario student.

Her work is cut out for her. We are, as she says,“drowning in debt, working hard to put food on the own table, stay in school and make ends meet.”

Ignatieff signs five year contract Plans announced to split time between U of T, Harvard James Maiangowi VARSITY STAFF

Former Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff will join the Munk School of Global Affairs with a half-time appointment as a professor this September. He will also assume a halftime appointment at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government starting in January orphan.

Janice Stein, director of the Munk School, announced Friday that Ignatieff would assume his professorship immediately. Stein welcomed Ignatieff’s appointment as a boon to students.

“He brings a deeply global perspective to our biggest policy challenges and will work with our students to give them the analytic skills they need in today’s connected world,” she said.

Ignatieff’s appointment marks a homecoming for the former academic-turned-politician.

Ignatieff studied history as an undergraduate student at U of T’s Trinity College, graduating in 1969. Following doctoral work at Harvard he taught at Oxford, Cambridge, and

RYAN KELPIN/THe VArsity

Harvard universities before entering Canadian politics in 2006.

Ignatieff led the Liberal Party between 2009 and 2011. He resigned from Pariliament following the party’s 2011 electoral defeat, when the party fell to third place for the first time in Canada’s history.

Ignatieff was then appointed Senior Resident at Massey College, and appeared to readily embrace a return to his former academic life, teaching a course in the Department of Political Science on “Renewing Canadian Democracy” in the 2012 winter semester.

In an interview with U of T Magazine earlier this year, Ignatieff discussed his return to academia and the lessons he learned from his time in politics.

“Practical political experience has a double effect: it makes you more aware of how difficult it is to get anything done but also how important it is to get things done,” he said .

In the same interview, Ignatieff spoke briefly of his time on Parliament Hill.

“There’s no question you miss the cause.

You go into politics to make life better for Canadians.”

“But I can honestly say I don’t miss the life.”

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St. George Campus: Graduate Students: September 4th – 27th Undergraduate Students: September 10th – Oct 3rd Location: OPIRG-Toronto Office, 563 Spadina Crescent, Room 101 Monday – Thursday 11AM - 7PM Mississauga Campus: All Students: September 24th Location: UTM Student Centre (near the UTMSU office), 250 The Student Centre. 3359 Mississauga Road North.

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Hart House squeezes budget in effort to eliminate deficit by end of year Clubs and committees to lose surplus as funds diverted to maintenance Martina Bellisario VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Hart House will attempt to close a deficit of nearly half a million dollars this year, through a series of belt-tightening measures that will eliminate wasteful spending and prioritize maintenance of the historical building.

Student-run clubs and committees at Hart House will bear the brunt of the changes.

Along with an 18 per cent decrease in programming funds, amounting to around $67,000, student groups will also have limited access to the Marketing and Communications department. The department had previously helped student groups with promotional efforts such as poster design.

Bruce Kidd, the warden of Hart House, explains that the cuts are not as “savage” as they may initially appear.

When Hart House was running a deficit last year, clubs were allocated around $70,000 dollars more than they spent. “Those programs are such an important part of what we do in the house,” says Kidd.

Hart House also announced plans to reserve the West Wing, which includes the Music Room, Board Room, and North and South Sitting Rooms for bookings by non-Hart House groups.

The cuts to program funding and in-house resources come largely in response to the pressure from the Hart House Finance Com-

CONTINUED From cover increasingly serves in admissions processes to competitive research programs. Elsevier publishes some of the largest and most well-known journals including The Lancet series of journals.

“This has very little to do with academic publishing,” says James Romanow, co-chair of Access Copyright “All they’ve got to do is stop subscribing and stop using [journal articles] as a metric for hiring and promotion.”

Elsevier is one of the three large commercial publishers in the industry, which together account for approximately 42 per cent of the academic journals printed worldwide. By limiting their boycott to Elsevier, academics can register their objections, while retaining the opportunity to publish their work elsewhere.

“Pretty much across the board Elsevier is the most expensive” says Tillman. She stresses that large academic publishers strictly enforce confidentially agreements, so it is difficult to know for sure.

COPYRIGHT LOBBYING CEMENTS FRUSTRATION A growing sense of frustration with Elsevier was further cemented when the company last year announced its support for controversial American copyright laws including the Stop Online Piracy Act, the Personal Information Protection Act and the Research Works Act. Elsevier lobbied heavily in favour of the Research Works Act, which would have restricted open access for federally funded academic research in the United States.

If the bill had become law, academics would no longer have been allowed to share their own work publicly on personal websites or in an email to friends or colleagues. Publishers would have been granted complete control over anything printed in their publications.

Elsevier withdrew its support for the measure in February of this year.

Steve Easterbrook, a computer science professor at U of T and a signatory on the petition, says he joined the boycott because of rising costs and bundling practices, but “above all [because of] their attempts to restrict open access journals.”

“When I publish something, it’s because I believe it’s worth sharing. I want anyone who wants to read my work to be able to read my

Student groups will no longer receive priority in booking rooms when the West Wing. Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

mittee, which has diverted funds towards building maintenance as a long-term financial priority.

The budget document claims that while Hart House previously “subsidized student programs by cutting back on maintenance,” the Finance Committee “insisted that [Hart House] increase the deferred and

major reserve to a minimum of $600,000.”

In addition, engineering consultants to the nearly 100-year-old building recommended $2,000,000 in annual spending to stay on top of major repairs.

“It’s been a public sector problem,” Kidd explained in a phone conversation. “When people are primarily interested in programming,

they deal first with that and look to ongoing maintenance next.”

By “planning [the] use of space more carefully,” being “extremely cost-conscious,” and making “new efforts to generate more revenue,” Kidd hopes to close a deficit of $502,000 in one year.

Though the budget promises that the new revenue-focused Hart House will not limit student accessibility to the House in any significant way, some clubs and committees members remain unconvinced.

“I’m most concerned about having access to the West Wing rooms,” says Aaina Grover, a member of the Hart House Debate Club.

“When we host tournaments, our club relies on some of those rooms. As students who pay tuition, we should have booking priority.”

“It’s an experiment, and we’re trying to measure the results of this experiment,” said Kidd. “Our hope is that it will increase outside business, because outside groups like to book a long time in advance, but that it won’t affect student groups, because student groups generally don’t book that far in advance.”

Despite some challenges, Kidd is confident that his somewhat experimental financial plan compliments his vision for Hart House.

“This is one of the most precious, favoured places in the city and we just face enormous demand,” he says. “This is a way of both dealing with our financial challenges and also using our space in an effective and productive.”

work,” says Easterbrook. Easterbrook now publishes his work on his own website under a creative commons license, as well as through traditional print publications.

A Change Is Coming Open access efforts such as Easterbrook’s are on the rise worldwide. At U of T, a self-archiving system called T-space allows academics to make their work available online.

Others have taken matters into their own hands, creating not-for-profit journals that anyone can access and read.

In 2006, the entire editorial board of Topology, an Elsevier-owned mathematics journal, resigned in protest. The next day, the same board members formed a not-for- profit journal called Journal of Topology, which continues to publish today.

Cases like the Topology resignation are rare, but for many, they represent some hope for the future. Still, these open access journals are not a perfect solution. “Some of these journals have no status, because they’re putting up unreferreed work,” cautions Romanow.

The open access movement is also beginning to receive some legislative support. The European Commission announced this summer that all research published from 2014 through 2020 that is funded by the Commission’s more than $100 billion in grants must be made freely and openly accessible.

The commission’s decision followed on the heels of an announcement in the UK, committing to making publicly funded research freely available by 2014.

Despite advancements in open access, the problem of cost remains. In April, the Library Advisory Committee of Harvard University, the most affluent post-secondary institution in the world, published a report calling the rising price of journals “fiscally unsustainable” and “academically restrictive.” According to the report, Harvard spends $3.5 million annually on subscriptions to corporate publishers like Elsevier.

Elsevier claims their business model makes it possible for researchers “to have their work efficiently reviewed, enhanced, validated, recognized, discovered and made highly accessible.”

But as library budgets tighten and the boycott gathers steam, Elsevier’s grip on the world of academic publishing grows looser each day.

SERIALS

TOTALS

MEDIAN Cost of serials To total library SPENDING BY MEMBERS OF AMERICAN RESEARCH LIBRARIES.

1986 Cost of Serials Total Library expenditures

$1,496,775 $8,361,092

2009 Cost of serials Total Library Expenditures

$7,193,291 $23,622,720

Source: American Research libraries statistics, 2008–9 U of T spending Cost of serials Total Library Expenditures

$5,673,099 $68,231,488

COming up

VAR.ST/COMMENT 10 SEPTEMBER 2012 comment@thevarsity.ca

Look for PATRICK BAUD’s new bi-weekly column in the next issue.

Who cares about Krista Ford?

Objectionable or not, Krista Ford’s tweets don’t deserve much attention Llyvell Gomes VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

Ontario should focus on quality over quantity The province’s White Paper prioritizes budgets over students James Maiangowi VARSITY STAFF

Throughout the summer Glen Murray, Ontario’s Minister of Colleges, Training, and Universities, held meetings with students, professors, and institutions to discuss the future of post-secondary education in Ontario. His plan for Ontario’s educational future would see sweeping changes made to our post-secondary system, possibly to disastrous effect.

On June 28 the ministry released a discussion paper entitled “Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge.” By releasing the document only two days before Canada Day the ministry may have hoped to lose it in the slow summer news season. The problem with this is that the paper outlines several very ambitious and worrying plans for Ontario’s educational future: interchangeable first- and second-year courses at all Ontario universities, a return to three-year degrees, year-round campuses, and an Ontario online university.

In principle there are good reasons for many of these changes: online learning helps those unable to physically attend campus; interchangeable courses would allow students more flexibility; and yearround courses could help alleviate the educational summer slump.

But the underlying tone of the paper belies its lofty goals. The ministry isn’t looking to improve educational quality, but its own financial situation. The financial crisis hit post-secondary institutions hard worldwide, but Canadian institutions, unable to command fees comparable to American universities, have had to scramble to make up lost funds.

In looking to balance the needs of both students and the government, the ministry has struck upon a simple solution: maximize the

total number of students in Ontario universities with little regard to the quality of education offered.

“Creating the conditions to reach a 70 per cent attainment rate among Ontario’s adult population” is the last item in the ministry’s list of ‘PostSecondary Education commitments’ nestled early in the paper. No mention is made of commitments to the quality of education offered.

As with the paper’s later goals, there is a sensible reason for this commitment: the modern workplace requires an ever-increasing number of “knowledge-workers” with at least some post-secondary education.

The Ministry, however, has confused its goals with their intended consequences, to disastrous effect.

Increasing the number of adults with post-secondary qualifications without a comparable increase in educators can only dilute the quality of education offered. Employers look for post-secondary credentials as a sign that prospective employees stand out in some way, as a sign of excellence. If the quality of a student’s education is compromised, then the value of the credential is too. Mindlessly pushing up “attainment rates” without regard for the quality of education offered benefits no one.

Interchangeable, or even indistinguishable courses, will only constrain those gifted educators whose spontaneity can make a course come alive. Three-year degrees will only rush students through material best covered at length. And an education conducted solely online will lose that most essential element of education: a personal connection between the educator and the educated.

Murray’s plans would fail to improve the quality of post-secondary education in Ontario while commodifying the value of a degree. This isn’t fair to students, isn’t fair to educators, and isn’t fair to Ontario.

But unless students and members of the public take action against Murray’s plans, the future of education in Ontario won’t resemble a classroom so much as a factory line.

Krista Ford, daughter of a city councillor and niece to the mayor, felt the brute force of the media for a tweet she posted on August 29.

“Stay alert, walk tall, carry mace, take self-defence classes & don’t dress like a whore.” This was taken to mean that victims of rape and sexual assault are responsible for the crimes committed against them.

I first read about this on The Globe and Mail website, and heard about it as the subject of discussion on CBC Radio later in the day. A quick Google search confirmed similar articles were posted on other news websites. The exposure Krista Ford has received from the media is nothing short of excessive. However, I cannot understate the gravity of her statement. The way a person chooses to dress should never be perceived as consent for sexual assault.

“Stay alert, walk tall, carry mace, take self-defence classes & don’t dress like a whore.” @kristaford (August 29) Does being the niece of a mayor warrant meticulous scrutiny from the media? As a selfproclaimed model and personal trainer, Krista — her last name aside — is a private citizen.

She doesn’t influence legislation and is not an apparent role model for society, so there is no reason why news stations should think she is deserving of the limelight.

The disconnect between statement and individual that social networks like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter provide is a nesting ground for what can at times be offensive and unfounded comments. The tweet was the source of nationwide backlash and debate, despite Ford’s humble Twitter following of just under fifteen hundred. Her tweet probably would have disappeared into the ether without a second thought, had her last name not been Ford.

Does being related to well-known members of society automatically serve as consent for relentless media coverage? If Krista Ford and her views on sexual assault are so important, why was she referred to in articles merely as the niece of Mayor Rob Ford?

monday, September 10, 2012

University is best enjoyed with company

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Frosh week’s focus on college spirit leaves many first years without the opportunity to form real relationships Niall Casselman VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

With frosh week behind us, it’s time to take stock. Countless first-years have marched through the streets, belted out college verses both foul and fair, and generally partied hard. The question that remains in the wake of the week’s frivolity is whether the current model for frosh week — as a time largely devoted to building college spirit — is best for the students it aims to please.

School spirit is a laudable goal but also a vacuous one which, after the college-coloured body paint has washed away, ceases to have much relevance to the day-to-day life of first-year students. Frosh week aims to provide students with a home in their college and a sense of belonging. But any such belonging will

wilt in the absence of more concrete relationships with other students: it’s hard to feel engaged in a college when it’s a faceless entity.

What first years need is to build lasting friendships with their new classmates, and frosh week is the ideal time in which to do that. Ultimately, fostering friendships will have a farther-reaching effect on student contentment and happiness than college spirit, because they endure longer and are, by their very nature, individualized to meet each student’s wants. This is especially important for commuters, who don’t have a built-in community in the form of a residence.

Of course, for some frosh, spending time cheering and chanting will help them to make friends. But I suspect that these are the students who will never have much difficulty meeting people. The model for frosh

Rob Ford is a fool, but he’s our fool Even Rob Ford’s critics should be concerned about him losing his office on a technicality

week can’t be based on extroverts, because other students who might require a little push to make friends will not get one, and will end up drifting through the year flitting from class to class in a campus that has become conspicuously large.

How do we shrink the campus by fostering friendships? We can first agree, I hope, that size is intimidating for many people, and large-scale events that involve lots of noisemaking don’t usually get people acquainted with each other very well.

Smaller events keyed to specific interests and with opportunities for prolonged interaction will work better at introducing likeminded people than trying to get very different sorts of people interested in large-scale events where contact is fleeting. As far as possible, given organizational constraints, these events should be flexible: if students need to sign up

Eric Vanderbeek VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Two years ago, Toronto mayor Rob Ford voted on a council motion to prevent himself from having to pay back $3,150. Ford had solicited the money in donations for his football foundation using City of Toronto stationary, and city council had ordered him to repay it on a recommendation from the city’s integrity commisioner. Ford is now the defendant in a lawsuit, filed by Toronto buissinessman Paul Madger, in which Madger alleges that Ford’s vote to excuse himself from repaying the donations violated the “Municipal Confict of Interests Act.” Now Ford will defend his position in front of a judge and assert that he didn’t do anything wrong.

Whether or not he did anything wrong is not really important. What

for each specific activitiy weeks in advance, it’s difficult to hang out with the people you’ve just met and like who’ve signed up for different ones. Having alternate activities for those who don’t want to attend the raucous parties would keep everyone involved and engaged.

It’s also worth considering whether the current model, in which colleges organize their own frosh weeks, is an unnecessary constraint to meeting people. Many of the clubs at U of T are campus-wide. Why not extend that idea to parts of frosh week beyond the UTSU’s parade?

Maybe that’s not feasible for organizational or funding reasons, but there seems to be no other reason to keep students entirely separate. It’s something to think about, at least.

At the risk of sounding like a trite character from a children’s TV show, university is best enjoyed

with company. Insipid or not, if we foster friendships and allow people to meet each other during frosh week, the isolation and strangeness of the new environment gives way to enjoyment. It will never be possible to get everyone engaged, no matter what approach is used, short of cordoning off Con Hall after each 100-series class and forcing chitchat amongst the students there.

We can get more out of it, though, by shifting the emphasis of frosh week from spirit to enjoyment.

Even if the cost of these changes is that not all first-years are able to sing their school songs from memory, it’s worth it. More likely, happy, befriended students will make for a spirited community that is enthusiastic about university life and eager to participate in it. And that is exactly what frosh week is meant to be about.

is important is that he could lose his title of Mayor of Toronto over this matter. When he took office in December 2010, it was not because of suspicious political activity, backroom deals or football donations.

Surprising as it may be to many of us, he was elected. A possible conflict of interest in no way supersedes this all-important fact. The city of Toronto elected Rob Ford as mayor, and for a judge to decide that he is no longer worthy of that title is simply undemocratic. Had he committed some form of election tampering it would be another matter, but in this instance the allegations against the mayor are irrelevant to the election.

I’m sure there are many Torontonians who are licking their chops at the prospect of ousting Ford before his term ends. Whether that is because of his often questionable decisions as mayor or his ridiculous weight-loss fiasco, I don’t disagree.

But I didn’t vote in the municipal election and judging by the fact that Ford won, neither did many of his detractors. Those who voted should not have their engagement in democracy overruled by a judge.

More importantly, if Rob Ford is tossed from City Hall his supporters will cry foul, saying that Ford’s opponents had whined him out of office. This would make them more likely to vote for Ford again should he choose to run in the next election.

So let’s relax. Let’s allow Ford finish his term in office and continue to make blunders as he has in this conflict of interest affair. Maybe then, come the next election, his former supporters will know better.

Let them finally arrive at the same conclusion many of us had already reached, when Ford substituted policy making for a weight-loss competition against his brother.

10 Monday, september 10, 2012 THE Varsity VOL. CXXXIII No.2

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McGuinty’s tough talk on teachers’ unions is not what it seems The province’s real focus isn’t bugets or students, but politics Abdullah Shihipar VARSITY STAFF

A doomsday scenario with closed schools, teachers forming picket lines, and thousands of taxpayer dollars lost is what would appear to be at stake in this latest labor dispute, if you listen to the rhetoric coming out Queen’s Park.

The dispute involves the various teachers unions of Ontario, who walked out of negotiations with the government earlier this year. At issue was a freeze on wages and eliminating bankable sick days. In late August, the McGuinty government did something unexpected: it proposed legislation, the “Putting Students First Act,” that would enforce a freeze on wages and block the ability of teachers to strike for two years.

The government claims that this was to keep schools open and save taxpayers the $473 million that would have been spent because of an automatic rollover of teachers’ contracts. But is this legislation really about deficits and keeping schools open?

The answer, in short, is no. By-elections in Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo were set for a few weeks after the legislation was proposed.

Wanting to look good in the lead up to those votes, McGuinty decided to pick a fight with teachers. By doing this, he looks like he’s fighting to save taxpayer money, and generates an enemy to rally against — those teachers stealing your money.

In the short term, the legislation does save money but in the long term, it’s not a viable solution. A long-term solution would involve reducing the size of government and increasing taxes. Another solution would be to reform private-public partnerships, but that would bring up the examples of ORNGE and E-Health, scandals that occurred under McGuinty’s leadership. Both alternatives are politically costly, so McGuinty chose to attack teachers. After all, if it isn’t your salary that’s affected, it’s not a big issue.

While initially this will save taxpayers cash, it presents a few problems. The teachers

have said that they will take the act to court over the effective ban on strike action by the union, a ban they claim goes against the “Labour Relations Act.” It’s expected that a court will side with the unions, costing the government unnecessary legal expenses. With the act repealed, it will come time to negotiate a new contract and teachers will be less willing to give up what they have. Since the teachers’ unions did not threaten a strike in the first place, they will be unhappy at the government for demonizing them for political gain. Taxpayers could lose more money in future strikes and labor disputes.

Finally, the act may in fact decrease the quality of education that some students receive, since a minority of teachers have decided to stop doing voluntary things like hosting after-school activities and buying supplies. While the provincial government’s legislation is nothing but a political gimmick, its negative implications for students, teachers and the budget are real and that’s a cause for concern.

Ron Paul’s grassroots support spells trouble for Romney Disgruntled delegates and a split within the GOP could make the presidential election unpredictable David Woolley VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

During the week of August 27, three rallies were held in Tampa, Florida.

The most publicized was the Republican National Convention, where Mitt Romney became the party’s nominee for president. Romney carried 42 states in the primaries and had the votes of more than 1,400 delegates at the convention. This was not a nail-biter, it was a cakewalk. But despite Romney racking up wins, one candidate refused to drop out of the race. That candidate was Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas — and the subject of the two other conventions held in Tampa that weekend.

Running simultaneously to the RNC were the Paul campaign-sponsored ‘We Are the Future’ rally and the grassroots-organized People Awakening and Uniting for Liberty (P.A.U.L.) Festival.

These rallies presented a stark contrast with the polished and professional RNC. While New Jersey governor Chris Christie lambasted Democrats for massive federal spending and being held in hock to labour unions, Pastor Chuck Baldwin criticized so-called Christians for booing the Golden Rule when Ron Paul evoked it with regards to foreign policy at a GOP debate. Professor Walter Block spent 15 minutes challenging the pro-life crowd to adopt a more pro-choice view on abortion — it was not traditional conservative political fare.

But a difference in message was not the only thing that separated the rallies. There was a palpable sense of opposition between the Ron Paul revolutionaries and the establishment GOP. When the RNC stripped state delegates of their status in an attempt to deny Ron Paul the requisite five delegations needed to be considered for the nomination, grassroots supporters rallied on the convention floor and got six state delegations to petition for Paul’s inclusion. The RNC Rules Committee’s response was to unilaterally raise the five-state threshold to eight.

At ‘We Are the Future’, Paul campaign advisor Doug Wead recount-

ed tales of Paul supporters being physically assaulted at nominating conventions, entire boxes of ballots being destroyed, and a verbal memo coming down from state party chairmen ordering that if anyone of Hispanic descent or anyone under 50 began talking, the microphone should be shut off because they were a Ron Paul supporter.

Nowhere was the feeling of opposition more palpable than at P.A.U.L. Fest. While denounced the policies of the Republican party, historian and best-selling author Dr. Thomas E. Woods fervently dismissed the idea that Ron Paul supporters should back the Republican candidate with the words: “If you even want to imply that we are involved in some kind of common cause with a monster like Mitt Romney, then you have missed the whole point of the Ron Paul Revolution.”

Then Gary Johnson took the stage. Johnson is the Libertarian nominee for President and a former two-term governor of New Mexico.

As governor he took the state from a $1-billion deficit to a $1-billion surplus, reformed Medicaid, called for the end of the death penalty and the legalization of marijuana.

Johnson had tried to run in the Re-

“If you want to imply that we are in some sort of common cause with a monster like Mitt Romney, then you have missed the entire point of the Ron Paul Revolution.”

JOEFF DAVIS/FLICKR

— Dr. Thomas E. Woods speaking at P.A.U.L Festival

publican primary, but was kept out of the debates by an ever-changing polling threshold — first you had to poll at two percent to be included; when he reached two percent, it was raised to three; when he reached three, they stopped including his name in the polls.

Johnson now faces the same hurdle in the presidential election.

To take part in the presidential debates, a candidate must poll at 15 per cent nationally — but Gary Johnson’s name is rarely included in the polls. In his speech, Johnson made a humble yet impassioned plea for Paul supporters to rally behind him to get him into the debates. This would provide a national stage for their issues — ending all foreign wars, abolishing the income tax, repealing the PATRIOT Act and the NDAA, legalizing marijuana, more stingent auditing of the Federal Reserve and legalizing competing currencies.

Johnson received raucous applause from the attendees and has received words of support from several libertarian luminaries. Whether the grassroots end up directing their energy towards a Johnson presidential campaign is yet to be seen, but if it happens it could make the outcome of the election unpredictable.

When Johnson’s name was included in polls in two usually Democratic states, Romney inched ahead of Obama to victory, but when he was included in polls in usually Republican states, he sapped votes from Romney, giving Obama the edge.

But Ron Paul’s supporters aren’t afraid of being spoilers. To them a Romney administration is just as reprehensible as an Obama administration. Their goal is to deliver their message and awaken more people to the ideas of liberty. Gary Johnson may be just the man to ensure that happens.

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10 SEPTEMBER 2012 features@thevarsity.ca

From the Archives

Brandon Bastaldo’s guide to Toronto-set films var.st/af9

Frats, Vampires, and Libraries Exploring U of T as a film set There are few cinematic thrills to equal seeing part of your town getting blown up on the big screen. We’ve all been there.

And if you’re enrolled at the University of Toronto, you’ve probably seen American film crews riding around campus, hogging our narrow side-streets with trucks and trailers. If you moved in early, you may have noticed the setup for an upcoming feature, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, the film adaptation of the popular young adult fantasy novel by Cassandra Clare. But this intrusion onto U of T’s campus is only the latest chapter in a rich history of film and TV crews drawing on U of T’s scenery for a touch of atmosphere, whether it’s academic or gothic.

The Mortal Instruments follows teenagers, demons, werewolves, and vampires as they clash across New York City, but the lines of trailers that occasionally stopped on Huron Street looked significantly less supernatural. The film would have been a great starting point for our foray into the nitty gritty of campus filming, but we quickly learned that Hollywood style snobbery follows film sets everywhere.

Public relations shut down any attempts to talk to the cast and crew squatting in our very own backyard, claiming that they would not be doing any press for the film

for some time. No matter, secretive PR heads were no match for young devotees of the series: gaggles of girls congregated in front of Knox College daily with copies of the novel shaking excitedly in their sweaty palms. They obsessively followed Twitter hashtags and fan pages to track the coordinates of each shooting location and the whereabouts of the cast.

It’s not hard to see why directors might want to utilize the old world gothic or classically collegiate look of the campus, but what is the appeal for viewers?

“I do find movies and television series filmed on campus to be more appealing.

There’s something addicting about seeing a familiar location on screen,” said recent cinema studies graduate Brad Brisco. “My first year residence was at 89 Chestnut, which you can see explode with Toronto City Hall in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004). It sometimes felt very appropriate that Robarts Library stands in as a prison in Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010).”

Brisco also weighed in on the lack of recognition afforded to U of T’s campus in the majority of films shot on campus grounds.

“I have seen many films that use U of T’s campus as a backdrop. Unfortunately most times it follows the standard ‘Toronto as [city] format.’ We rarely get to see U

by Damanjit Lamba and Navi Lamba illustrations by Suzy Nevins photos by Bernarda Gospic

Secretive PR heads were no match for young devotees of the series: gaggles of girls congregated in front of Knox College daily with copies of the novel shaking excitedly in their sweaty palms. of T represented as U of T.” TV shows also rely on Toronto for anonymous cityscapes.

Thriller series Nikita and Covert Affairs both frequently film on campus despite by being set in America.

Our frat and sorority houses have also received attention from production companies, though often with their true identities obscured. The Beta House (a fraternity based north of Bloor on Huron) was prominently featured in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). In 2009 a house party was shot in the dingy space that usually houses Beta’s twenty-two members — all relocated for the three days of shooting. Where the rental fees for the fraternity space went is still up in the air, but Brisco recalls a subsequent controversy quite well.

“There was an incident in 2010 when Toronto City Council denied filming permits to seven U of T fraternities north of St. George and Bloor due to noise com-

plaints. It was believed that these fraternities would make money from renting their house out for film and television production, and then use the money for a big house party.”

The truth behind the rumour never quite surfaced, but the city’s film commissioner was suspicious enough that filming was halted.

Fortunately U of T’s film resources are not on exclusive reserve for big production companies in search of Ivy League lookalikes. Even beyond the cinema studies program, the university offers students numerous opportunities to flex their creative muscles and reinterpret their surroundings like industry heavyweights.

The Hart House Film Board is a great pit stop for students flowing with ideas but low on funds or formal training. This film and production club provides members with access to equipment rentals,

VARSITY FEATURES

var.st/features grants, workshops spanning storytelling to hands-on shooting, and even screening opportunities through U of T’s annual film festival. Most of the Film Board’s cameras are the latest digital models, but it also rents out Super 8 cameras, an easy-to-use format that harks back to the beginnings of independent film.

The lack of any unified cinematic identity for U of T should only serve as more impetus to make use of these support systems.

Amateurs can follow in the footsteps of almuni directors such as Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, and Atom Egoyan — none whom actually majored in film.

Still, the brief onscreen glimpses of U of T’s campus continue to resonate with students and locals alike. Brisco pointed to his favourite film from way back, when keeping details of the set location on the down low was still standard procedure.

“My favourite film shot at U of T also happens to be set at U of T. Sort of. In the Christmas-horror classic Black Christmas (1974), it is very clear that the film takes place in Toronto, but I do not believe it is verbally confirmed to be Toronto in the film. That was common practice in the 70s – be as ambiguous as possible as to where your Canadian film takes place in order to be able to sell the US distribution rights.”

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Other movies at U of T We did some rummaging through our collective memory to compile a few noteworthy moments from U of T’s screen time in the form of a visual history.

2 3

1

The Prince and Me (2004) stars Julia Stiles as a student at Wisconsin University, who falls in love with a Danish prince (Luke Mably), who for some reason has a British accent. The two are shown making out at Victoria University’s E.J. Pratt. Sure, Hollywood studios get that students like to suck face in libraries; the part they got wrong was NOBODY makes out at Pratt. It is much, much too open and bright. You save that shit for dusty and dank Robarts.

2

The Incredible Hulk (2008) sets us up with Edward Norton this time around. There’s a clear shot of Ed at Knox College pre-Hulk form. If you remember the movie, he actually morphs into the green beast within the glass hallway of the college.

3

Mean Girls (2004) sees Lindsay Lohan’s character redeem herself by attending the final Mathletes tournament. The scene was famously filmed at Convocation Hall, which means that Tina Fey has been to the site of some of your most boring lectures.

Arts & Culture

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Online Exclusive

10 SEPTEMBER 2012

Find updates of our TIFF coverage thevarsity.ca

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TIFF: the best and the rest

by Damanjit Lamba, Nick Gergesha, Daniel Horowitz

Toronto’s annual film extravaganza has returned with its diverse lineup of docs, dramas, comedies and everything in between.

Here is The Varsity’s take on some of what TIFF has to offer this year.

Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell) Promising in theory but lacking in execution, Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson is ultimately an exercise in misused potential.

Though the film features an auspicious cast, led by Bill Murray and supported by the likes of Laura Linney and Samuel West, its most insightful moments are marred by the gaping holes in its direction. Murray’s performance as Franklin D. Roosevelt is careerdefining and West’s believable portrayal of King George VI will surely draw comparisons to Colin Firth in The King’s Speech, but Michell and screenwriter Richard Nelson focus too much of their attention on plot when they should be developing the film’s characters. They cannot decide whether Hyde Park is a tell-all romance about the president and his cousin or a humanizing look at two perplexing and influential historical figures.

Laurence Anyways (Xavier Dolan) “Can something be great enough to spare the person from difference and ostracism?”

This question, posed by Laurence Alia (Melvil Poupaud), shapes both the style and emotional crux of Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways. The film, a startlingly surreal but genuinely sincere treatment of transgendered individuals, points to its own cinematic greatness with its epic length and fluidity of styles, as though drawing attention to the film’s grand scale will somehow legitimize Laurence’s lifestyle. An early scene sees Laurence, who works as a teacher, entering his classroom dressed as a woman for the first time. The cinematography evokes the wide-angle landscapes captured by the likes of Bernardo Bertolucci, and the silence is deafening. But in contrast to the scene’s grand style, Laurence’s students prove to be completely nonplussed at the sight of their teacher, prompting the audience to ask themselves if this film is ‘great’ enough to spare its protagonist from scorn. Ultimately, though, the film is a lofty undertaking that is hindered by its own ambitions and excessively long run time. Laurence fizzles out and overstays his welcome long after we have accepted him for who he is.

Bill Murray in Hyde Park on Hudson. Photo courtesy TIFF.

A Late Quartet (Yaron Zilberman) With the skill of a seasoned conductor, director Yaron Zilberman commands a nuanced cast, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mark Ivanir, Catherine Keener, and Christopher Walken, who harmonize on-screen as four brilliant musicians. The lead actors craft four beautifully defined personalities whose interactions reveal unique voices, palpable histories, and psychologically engaging characters. These characters are members of a string quartet, which is thrown into disarray when Walken’s Peter Mitchell, the cellist and moral centre of their company, begins to suffer from the onset of Parkinson’s disease. Throughout the film, the main actors share a volatile and riveting onscreen chemistry, as their characters struggle to keep emotion and obsession in check. While watching A Late Quartet, it becomes clear that the cast members are as dedicated to their craft as their musicians are to their instruments, and

that excellence can be defined not only by an entire career, but also by a single great performance, whether musical or cinematic.

The End of Time (Peter Mettler) The “end of time” for this film comes not a moment too soon for the audience members who are eagerly anticipating the credits. Director Peter Mettler’s pristine and picturesque cinematography of a desolate Detroit, the cavernous CERN laboratory, and the lava-wrecked slopes of Hawaii would ultimately function better as a screensaver. Contemplating the ambiguity of time with an equally ambiguous film, Mettler leans closer to avant-garde than documentary.

Granted, The End of Time does occasionally stir up deep pathos with some of its images, such as a burning funeral pyre and the desolation of a once-glorious movie palace, disemboweled and usurped by a parking lot. But the film fails to impart knowledge or enlighten its viewers,

and Mettler’s mother provides the only shred of humanity and life-affirming knowledge in an otherwise soulless and intellectually vapid cinematic experience.

Dredd (Pete Travis) Unapologetically gory, littered with kitschy one-liners, and complete with Karl Urban’s answer to Christian Bale’s Bat-growl, Dredd is the most unabashed fun I’ve had at the theatre in a long time. In a futuristic megacity called (you guessed it) Mega City One, where the role of judge, jury, and executioner are vested in no-nonsense cops, Judge Dredd (Urban) and trainee judge Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) ascend a 200-storey shantytown to halt production of the drug Slo-Mo. This drug allows its users to experience reality in (you guessed it) slow motion, creating an opportunity for the audience to be treated to cinematographic reprieves of colour and hypnotic beauty, juxtaposed with scenes of innovative and gruesome methods of torture. Lena Headey plays Ma-Ma, Slo-Mo manufacturer and gang leader hell bent on killing the judges she has trapped. Like Headey’s Cersei on Game of Thrones, Ma-Ma is a testament to villains whose allure is rooted in languid gestures and a calm, distracted demeanour.

Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley)

Mark Ivanir, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in A Late Quartet. Photo courtesy TIFF.

When director Sarah Polley’s charismatic mother leaves a secret in the wake of her death, sons, daughters, fathers, and friends use stories to explain and to probe, to build myths and to expose the hidden deceits of the living.

Personal, but never narcissistic or self-indulgent, Stories We Tell is a documentary that ironically examines how slippery the truth can be in a genre that aims to present facts and target reality. To some, this documentary might be the basis for celebrity scandal. To me, it is a glorious film, rich, tender and pure in its moments of joy and sadness. Sarah Polley’s debut doc has been mined and exploited, but rarely respected for the talent and method behind it. As I watched Stories We Tell, I was first enchanted by the

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Monday, September 10, 2012

15

film’s subjects, who benefit the picture with their humour, intelligence, and endearing personalities. Then, I was engrossed, and later fooled by the director’s dramatic recreation of home video footage. And when the film was over, I wanted it again.

Midnight’s Children (Deepa Mehta) TIFF favourite Deepa Mehta returns to this year’s festival with her remake of Salman Rushdie’s novel, Midnight's Children. The film is an ambitious feature, encompassing India’s history from as early as 1917, when the country was still bound to the British Empire, to 1977 and the end of the Emergency, a period during which fundamental civil liberties were suspended by Indira Gandhi. The film follows the lives of children born in the first hour after India gained its independence, children who soon come to realize they have supernatural powers. The concept is intriguing, but the film is much too ambitious in scope. Midnight’s Children jumps abruptly between different time periods, leaving the film’s plotlines frustratingly unsettled. Also, Mehta’s decision to exclude a political trajectory from the film as it interweaves stories that are set during the country’s bloody history seems misguided.

Unfortunately, like the more mainstream Slumdog Millionare and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the majority of Midnight’s Children ends up relying on “poverty porn” b-rolls for its dramatic punches.

Shahana Goswami in Midnight's Children. Photo courtesy TIFF.

Book Review: Bobcat and Other Stories

Rebecca Lee’s short story collection is an ambitious work of fiction.

But can the short story format support its author’s grand vision?

Jakob Tanner VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

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Bursting with plots and side plots, backstories and side-characters, Bobcat and Other Stories by Canadian author Rebecca Lee sprawls in endless directions, much like the vines that creep across the buildings of the university campuses that are the central link to all her tales.

Lee’s first short story collection is concerned with the drama that you might expect from a campus-centred novel: plagiarized papers, raunchy sexcapades with professors, and crappy roommates. But her vision also spans beyond the petty conflicts of a university campus. Bobcat and Other Stories is an ambitious work of fiction that strives to link desire, anguish, and the rest of the human condition with knowledge, theories, and ideas.

Lee, who is also the author of the 2006 novel The City is a Rising Tide, strives toward a lofty goal with her first collection of stories. As with revered contemporary authors such as Jonathan Franzen and Zadie Smith, Lee undertakes in Bobcat and Other Stories the daunting task of combining the macrocosmic world of ideas, history, and politics with the microcosmic one of family, friends, and

the individual. But while Franzen and Smith allow their plots to unfurl across the many pages of epic-length novels, Lee works in a much more condensed medium. Her choice of format begs a particularly important question: can such a hefty combination of thought and knowledge function properly in the short story genre, a form that traditionally values conciseness and precision?

The answer is yes and no, depending on the story, but for the most part, Bobcat works quite well. A notable example is the wonderful story, “Min.” The tale follows Sarah, a confused gender-studies student, during her summer abroad in Hong Kong, where she becomes involved in arranging her friend Min’s marriage.

In just over thirty pages, Lee majestically weaves together such disparate themes as new-wave feminism, a licentious professor, traditional Asian values, a middleAmerican university, and the Vietnamese refugee situation in Hong Kong, all while depicting her protagonist’s strange coming-of-age summer.

Academic disciplines are clearly important to Lee, and the subjects that her protagonists study or teach usually play a role in defining the thematic scope of her stories. In “Banks of the Vistula,” what the story’s narrator refers to as “the sweetness” of the sentence becomes sig-

nificant as the personal lives of the students in a linguistics class begin to intertwine. In the more humourous “World Party,” a classics professor, who teaches a course covering the major conflicts and dilemmas of Caesar and Cleopatra, ironically sits on the “Faculty Hearings Committee,” a group designed to solve the minor conundrums of the university where he teaches.

Unfortunately, the titular story “Bobcat,” which portrays seven diners attending a Manhattan dinner party, is defeated by Lee’s preoccupation with academia. The characters speak as though they are professors lecturing in a classroom, and Lee appears to be more concerned with postulating on abstract concepts than with developing the fictional world of her characters.

"Bobcat” is littered with an abundance of quoted poetry, biblical references, and theoretical ideas. While a longer novel might be able to balance out such erudite musings with its character and plot development, Lee’s short story veers dangerously close to crude intellectual masturbation.

But perhaps we shouldn’t read Lee’s intellectualism as a fault. If in Bobcat and Other Stories, Lee is trying to capture the realities of university life, isn’t it fitting that she includes a little pretension?

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Trinity College, the (alleged) home of the ghost of Bishop Strachan. Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

Ghosts of campus past DANIELLE KLEIN takes a walking tour of the spookiest spots on campus and gets acquainted with U of T’s ghosts

"Y

ou can tell yourself they're only stories."

This is the ominous warning that Richard Fiennes-Clinton, founder of Muddy York Walking Tours, provides at the first stop of a tour called “The Haunted Streets of Toronto.”

All of the ghost stories he will relate during the tour, he claims, are backed up by substantial evidence, including frequent sightings.

Fiennes-Clinton informs the group that has gathered in order to check out some of the city’s spookiest spaces that Toronto is home to a rich phantom population that resides in both obscure corners of the city and major tourist destinations. It is, according to Fiennes-Clinton, a diverse population, including everything from creepy little girls in white dresses, to important historical figures and unbridled psychopaths.

Students at U of T can be particularly proud (or terrified depending on your perspective) of

our campus, which is an especially haunted corner of the city. Most visitors to the St. George campus have probably thought that its buildings look a little like Hogwarts, and it turns out that like that fictional wizard school, our hallowed halls are home to a multitude of unique ghosts. So much of U of T is haunted that Richard designed a tour specifically for the campus.

“It’s a perfect setting: academic by day, spooky by night.”

Early on in the tour, which begins on campus, Richard comments that the University of Toronto used to be a residential neighbourhood, where many of U of T’s ghosts lived before they met an unfortunate end. Other spirits are connected to the history of the university itself.

The ghosts’ reasons for haunting the living vary from malicious to rather innocent,

Richard Fiennes-Clinton, founder of Muddy York Tours Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

“[U of T is] a perfect setting: academic by day, spooky by night.”

—Richard Fiennes-Clinton founder, Muddy York Walking Tours with some spirits desiring to inflict the pain of their death on passers-by, while others merely wish to enjoy a playful prank at the expense of the living.

Among the haunted destinations at U of T is Trinity College. Trinity was founded by John Strachan, Toronto’s very wealthy first Anglican bishop, who died on November 1, 1867. Many have claimed to see Strachan returning to the college he founded around the anniversary of his death, clad in his bishop robes. Strachan had a reputation for being somewhat overbearing while he was still alive, and many suspect that he returns from the dead in order to check on the progress of the college.

University College is home to the most notorious ghost story on campus, a famous legend familiar to many students. The story centers around the tragic life of Ivan Reznikoff, the namesake of the café in Morrison Hall. Ivan was a stonemason who worked on the reconstruction of the building and he fell in love with a young woman. He followed her one night, and found her with another man. Infuriated, and obviously a bit more of a bad-ass than his girlfriend realized, Ivan grabbed an axe and went after his girlfriend’s lover, but the man dodged Ivan and stabbed him to death with a knife. Ivan was buried under the stones on the construction site where he worked, and ever since, UC students have claimed to see Ivan sadly moping around campus, eager to share the story of his betrayal.

Closer to Victoria College is the Christie Mansion, now Regis College, and once home to fa-

mous Canadian baker William Christie of Mr. Christie’s Cookies. Christie’s son, Robert, inherited the house, constructed a secret chamber, and trapped his mistress inside it. Robert visited her frequently, but then began to get bored with her and saw her less and less. The woman ultimately committed suicide by using the bed frame to hang herself. Later, when the house served as a woman’s dormitory at U of T, students studying in the room where the chamber was said to have been were reportedly overcome by an eerie feeling, and some would find themselves unable to open the door. Many speculate that this was the ghost of Robert’s mistress, inflicting her experience on the living. Considerably more terrifying is the theory that the room is haunted by the ghost of Robert Christie, who is trying to trap more women.

Other haunted destinations on campus include the Soldier’s Tower in University College, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the statue of Edward VII in Queen’s Park. As Richard guides the tour group to each of these locations, he claims to frequently receive reports about campus ghost sightings from students, staff, and sometimes even the people who attend his tours. To skeptics, he offers this warning: “While there may be no reason to be afraid of the dark, there may be every reason to be afraid of what’s hiding behind the dark.”

More information about Muddy York Walking Tours, “The Haunted Streets of Toronto,” and other walking tours can be found at www.muddyyorktours.com.

Science

from the archives

var.st/SCIENCE

10 SEPTEMBER 2012 science@thevarsity.ca

An app developed

by U of T students makes waves var.st/8kx

U of T club Sparks creativity and innovation Student-built engineering projects brought to life by U of T Spark Design Dennis Dobrovolsky SCIENCE EDITOR

If you walked across campus last Monday evening, you might have come across a group of engineering frosh tossing LED lamps onto a giant magnetic sign in front of the Sanford Fleming building. Not your usual frosh shenanigans; this was an event set up by Spark, a U of T club dedicated to slipping science into your subconscious. Called “What the F!” the event saw frosh making their own magnetic LEDs as part of Skule’s f!rosh week 1T2.

Spark’s vision is to bridge the learning gap between theory and practice.

Science students often doubt the existence of any real-world applications for all the formulas and theorems they are forced to memorize, and Spark is here to dispel that doubt.

“We have workshops where students can learn technical skills while making things,” says Aditi Kumaraswamy, a Spark executive responsible for external affairs. “Our main vision here at Spark is that we believe our learning environment really influences how we learn, so our goal is to make it very motivational and inspirational.”

Spark’s monthly workshops have churned out a wide variety of fascinating feats of engineering, including Dance Dance Revolution-style LED lights that respond to touch, fully op-

erational pinball machines, and a display of hanging light chimes.

In January, club members, or “sparkers” as they are called, had the chance to pave the floor of the Bahen Centre with giant piano keys. Inspired by a set of giant piano stairs built by TheFunTheory in Sweden, 20 students from a variety of engineering disciplines worked for hours to create a fun and engaging exhibit that could help students de-stress before midterm season.

“Extracurriculars like Spark, I believe, build a lot of the skills you need in the workforce,” says Aditi. “You learn how to work in teams, and there’s a lot of thinking on your feet, which is stuff you won’t learn in the class.

“It’s not something they can teach you in a lecture; it’s something you can only learn by getting your hands dirty.”

Spark leaders have a lot planned for the 2012-2013 season. Work that students create during workshops will be put up on display for the entire student body to see. In late September, Spark will be creating an exhibit for Nuit Blanche featuring Jansen Walkers — large mobile sculptures powered by a hand crank, inspired by the design of sculptor Theo Jansen — made out of recyclable materials.

While Spark events are usually held at the Sanford Fleming building and activities are usually engineering-focused, the club welcomes all students from the St. George campus.

Spark showcases its exhibit for Engineering’s clubs fair. Clockwise from bottom-left: Mark Battiston, Artem Radzikhovskyy, Hubert Ka, Andrew Park DAN SELJAK/THE VARSITY

18

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Scientists unravel the chemical secrets behind oceanic methane Researchers from the University of Illinois discover the biological origins of methane gas in the ocean Dennis Dobrovolsky SCIENCE EDITOR

Methane: we’ve all heard of it, we’ve all inhaled it at some point or another, but do we know where it comes from? Researchers from the University of Illinois have recent come to a fairly conclusive answer.

Scientists have known for many years that anaerobic (oxygen-free) bacteria produce methane. It has always been a puzzle that aerobic (oxygen-containing) areas of the ocean harbor vast amounts of the natural gas — up to four per cent of the global methane budget.

Clearly, this methane isn’t coming from anaerobic bacteria but rather from aerobic bacteria. No known biosynthetic pathways in aerobic bacteria even came close to explaining how such a simple molecule (four hydrogen atoms attached to carbon) as methane could be given off as a metabolic by-product.

The first clue to solving the puzzle came from the labs of

professors William Metcalf and Wilfred van der Donk, who were interested in finding new antibiotics. They were trying to discover bacteria that could make organophosphonates, an intriguing class of chemicals that contain a carbon-phosphorus bond. This bond, when present in antibiotics, helps the drugs stay resistant to enzymatic breakdown and are thus able to neutralize the defenses of the bacteria.

The researchers found a microbe, N. maritimus, which seemed to contain the enzymatic machinery capable of synthesizing these sought-after phosphorus compounds. Of particular importance, they detected a very special molecule, methylphosphonate (see graphic), which had previously been known to undergo enzymatic degradation to methane. So it seemed as though the paradox was solved: methylphosphonate can turn into methane with the action of certain enzymes. There was a catch though: nobody had ever detected methylphosphonate in aerobic bacteria.

The researchers were able to prove, with a series of experiments, that another molecule called HEP can be converted to methylphosphonate by their special breed of bacteria N. maritimus.

It turned out that N. maritimus had just the right set of enzymes to do the job of making methane from phosphorus-containing molecules. The type of chemistry that the researchers discovered, involving the direct cleavage of carbon-phosphorus bonds, is very exotic and unusual. The strangeness of these reactions bears testament to the versatile life-forms evolution can produce. When faced with harsh environments, bacteria can evolve to metabolize almost anything to obtain the nutrients they need to survive.

The effort required to analyze the biochemical pathways leading to methane production in N. Maritimus was enormous. The researchers were required to clone the enzyme responsible for the synthesis of methylphosphonate in the cell cultures of bacteria.

Difficulties arose due to the very

dennis dobrovolsky/THe VArsity

small genome size of the bacteria (one-tenth the size of an average lab rat microbe), which limited the amount of genes the researchers had to work with. Another factor that threatened to thwart the experiment was the low cell density of the culture. After growing hundreds of litres of culture, the researchers were only able to obtain around 50 milligrams of cells, one per cent of which contained phosphorus.

Taken on a journey that brought them from antibiotics

According to a new study conducted in the UK, an optical illusion caused by curved drinking glasses can speed up the rate at which people drink alcohol.

Angela Attwood, an experimental psychologist at the University of Bristol, explains that people don’t always realize how much or how fast they’re drinking. She suspects that the shape of beer glasses might distort a person’s perception of how much alcohol is being consumed.

Atwood’s team conducted a study with 160 people divided into eight groups, all consisting of young, healthy people who were considered social drinkers and not alcoholics. The team found that one group consistently drank much faster than the others, the group drinking a full glass of beer out of curved glasses rather than straight ones. The group with straight glasses finished 354 mL of beer in about 13 minutes, whereas the group with curved glasses finished the same volume in less than eight minutes.

So why the increase in drinking speed? Atwood believes the difference is because the halfway point in a curved glass is not clear.

Social beer drinkers tend to pace themselves when drinking alcohol, judging themselves by how fast they reach their halfway point. “A simple solution to this problem would be to mark beer glasses with the accurate halfway point,” says Atwood.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the harmful use of alcohol — defined as drinking that damages health and has negative social repercussions — results in 2.5 million deaths per year worldwide, and is the third largest factor in the global burden of disease.

Legislative solutions to curb binge drinking are so unpopular that many governments are reluctant to implement them, and Attwood and her colleagues instead hope to find a solution through education.

—Karen Kyung Fuhrmann Source: ScienceNOW

Bacteria helps According to recent research, hyenas rely heavily on symbiotic bacterial communities in order to communicate with each other. The bacteria, which reside in the hyenas’ scent glands, produce various odours that can then be incorporated into secretions used by hyenas to mark their territory.

Researchers also noted that secretions from different hyena clans vary in their odours. The odour-producing bacteria help to form a distinct chemical signature for each hyena clan. Having a shared scent among the clan also means that hyenas can work together to

Source: Science

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Science in brief Certain beer glass shapes encourage faster drinking

to weird methane chemistry, the University of Illinois researchers were well rewarded for their work by managing to publish in the highly-esteemed journal, Science.

Their findings have huge implications for the origin of greenhouse gasses and the future of global warming.

mark their territory more quickly and efficiently.

While it is well known that various animals use scent as a form of signaling and communication, and that local microbial flora plays an important role in a number of mammalian functions, this new study shows that bacteria and hyenas can have symbiotic relationship specifically when it comes to odour production.

—Mayce Al-Sukhni Source: Science Daily

VARSITY SCIENCE

20 Monday, SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

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Dr. Andy Dicks in the spotlight Organic chemistry professor weighs in on teaching and student life Dennis Dobrovolsky SCIENCE EDITOR

First year can be a very scary time, with assignments piling in and midterms approaching — the easygoing days of high school are over. As a life sciences student, core classes are filled with thousands of frosh all competing to get the A+ that they think will get them into med school. Strolling into Earth Sciences for that first organic chem lecture, struggling to find a seat, and dreadfully awaiting the crippling blow of a million pages of homework can be quite demotivating.

Fortunately, if you’re taking organic chemistry, you’ve got Dr. Andy Dicks.

Dicks lays down chemistry principles with a blend of clarity and charisma that makes an otherwise difficult and often esoteric subject bearable. His teaching style is unusual: he often uses hi-fives and other body language to convey difficult concepts.

“Teaching large introductory classes always keeps you on your toes,” says Dicks.

“I think a key attribute any educator should possess is the ability to show empathy. Whenever I teach students or otherwise interact with them, I always try and remember what it was like to be in their situation — at school for the first time, perhaps away from home, under pressure.

“I have learned that there are many effective ways to teach, and that it is important to try new things and refresh curricula wherever feasible.”

Making organic chemistry exciting for first years is no easy task, and Dr. Dicks is always enthusiastic about perfecting his teaching strategies.

“Organic chemistry is a relatively easy subject to “sell” ­— if you pick up the Toronto Star, you’ll find several articles each day that directly or indirectly relate to first-year principles,” says Dr. Dicks. “I bring these case studies into the classroom — and involve the class in their learning, do student-driven demonstrations, pose real-world scenarios, tell personal stories etc. I do emphasize however that most of their learning has to take place outside the classroom, and that the lecture is simply a

Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

launching pad for them.”

Dicks is also a lab co-ordinator for a number of chemistry courses. One of the most exciting things about his job “is interacting with undergraduates, especially during practical sessions.”

“The main reason I became a teaching faculty member was to try and share my love of chemistry, and that is often best done in a lab environment,” says Dicks. “It is tremendously fulfilling to see the improvements many students make throughout their degree programs. I also really enjoy talking about new teaching strategies with colleagues.”

Dicks’ research focuses on chemical education; he believes that everyone, not just dedicated chemists, should have a working knowledge of the subject.

“Chemistry as an applied subject is definitely not for everyone, but the public needs a basic understanding of science to make informed choices, especially related to behavior and practices that are environmentally sustainable,” explains Dicks. “Anyone taking university chemistry courses will realize that it is a problem-solving discipline.

Chemistry students learn skills — critical thinking, deductive reasoning and many others — that will be key in whatever career they pursue.”

Dicks is mindful of the difficulty of transitioning from high school to university. Given the small amount of time there is for evaluation in half-year courses, new students need to “hit the ground running in September.”

“There is not much time for students to find their feet and become independent

learners,” he says. “They have to become effective time-managers and get their hands dirty in the courses they are taking — personally interacting with the people teaching them is a great start! In a nutshell, students must take responsibility for their own learning.”

When he’s not in the lab or at the lecture podium, Dr. Dicks enjoys cheering for his favorite sports teams.

“I am a keen spectator of almost every sport, although cricket and soccer are my favorites,” says Dr. Dicks. “I come from a family that is mad about sport, and a lot of my relaxation time is built around that – running, cycling and hiking. I’m hoping my two sons (who are eight and four years old) show more ability than me at ball games, though!”

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Check out the results of the women’s soccer game against the RMC Paladins online.

10 SEPTEMBER 2012 sports@thevarsity.ca

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Varsity Blues singing a different tune

Blues defensive back Spenser Stewart lines up in the team’s opening victory. Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

Despite a 1–1 start, positive signs suggest a successful season for football team Zoë Bedard SPORTS EDITOR

a priority. Ken Mazurek (special teams coordinator) did an outstanding job.”

Home advantage A home stadium is typically filled by home supporters who can be as valuable as an extra player on the field — the “13th man” of Canadian football.

Following Laurier’s muffed punt a Blues fan sitting near the 50 yard line spent the rest of the game taunting the Goldenhawk’s punter

20 Years of Varsity blues

with chants of, “Put 37 [Pfeffer’s jersey number] on the field! Let’s see him lead the team again.”

The ability to distract players and interrupt the progress of a game has proven the the greatest advantage of a home field crowd.

Qwest Field, the home of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, is renowned for its loud crowd, which has been recorded at 112 dB, only 18 dB below a Boeing 747. In a 2005 NFL game, the

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(Regular season win percentage)

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91

Special teams On Labour Day, the team was guided to victory by spectacular special teams play, as both offenses were slow coming out of the game — to be expected when two teams with first-year starting quarterbacks meet in a season opener.

Quittenton entered the game as one would expect a first year starter to: full of nerves. “I was nervous before the game not really about my own individual stuff thought, I just wanted to win.”

Following a scoreless first quarter, the momentum swung towards the Blues on an odd special teams play. On a third down Laurier was preparing to punt the ball to the Blues, but the high snap flew past punter Ronnie Pfeffer. He picked up the loose football at his own

five yard line under heavy pressure

by Toronto, but rather than concede the safety he booted the ball out of bounds at the two yard line.

Two plays later Quittenton snuck the ball into the end zone for the first major.

“Special teams is a high point for us right now,” Gary told The Varsity. “Last year we thought that we weren’t as good on special teams as on the other facets of our game so special teams is something we really focused on and we made it

19

After 135 games, 540 quarters of play, countless passes, tackles, losses and wins, the Varsity Blues finally recorded their first shutout victory since 1995 with a definitive 19–0 home win against the Wilfred Laurier Golden Hawks on Labour Day. Head coach Greg Gary later told reporter Michael Hogan, “It was one of those games where I never thought it would happen. I mean, a shutout is rare. Even as it was getting late into the game I kept thinking that they’d at least get a rouge or a safety.

With about six minutes left I got to thinking, ‘We might get a shutout’.”

The game marked Laurier’s first shutout loss since 1984. History will show that the Blues defeated the Golden Hawks 1–0 in 2010, but that win was decided in a boardroom after it was found that Laurier had used an ineligible player in the game. A win on the field became a loss in the record books. Apart from that altered match, Toronto has failed to triumph over Laurier since October 1996.

“It’s a nice start to the season,” admitted Toronto quarterback Richard Quittenton. That rings especially true for a Blues team that

entered the 2012 season hoping to prove that they are a fresh, competitive team.

Saturday’s away game at Western proved something of a letdown after that spectacular start; the Blues fell 62–7 to the Western Mustangs, only avoiding being shut out themselves thanks to a nine-yard touchdown reception by receiver Cody Rossi from rookie quarterback Chris Jugovic, who came in to replace Richard Quittenton in the second half.

22 Monday, SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

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Men’s soccer triumph 4-0 in home opener Blues trounce Paladins, lose keeper for the game Daniel Tsiokos VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Varsity Blues men’s soccer team were looking to even their record at 1-1-0 on Saturday when they played host to the Royal Military College (RMC), and did just that with a 4-0 victory.

Second-year striker Jermaine Burrell, buried his first of two goals for the match in the 11th minute, on a beautiful heel pass from thirdyear midfielder Ezequiel Lubocki inside the 18-yard box. Freshman Adrian Dannel put a header in the back of the net in the 31st minute, off the foot of first-year striker Marko Miketic.

Striker Mario Kovacevic, who started in the opening loss to Carelton, came on for the second half and scored on a beautiful bicycle kick off a long cross from third-year defender Jean Giroux in the 62nd minute. Rookie defender Tyrell Rayne came on late in the second half and with a burst of speed sprinted up the right side of the pitch to set up Burrell for an easy tap into an empty net in the 84th minute.

However, the win may have cost the Blues their starting goalkeeper for at least one game. Rookie goalkeeper Rab Bruce-Lockhart, came out to the edge of the 18-yard box to challenge for a ball in the 36th minute, and collided with one of his defenders who was jockeying for position.

“It was quite a collision,” Blues head coach Anthony Capotosto said after the game. “He decided to come out for the ball, and it kind of died in the wind so he was forced to punch it. He was late getting to it and collided with one of his defenders.”

Bruce-Lockhart took a blow to the forehead and injured his hip in the process. Capotosto said they are not worried about a concussion, but are concerned about Bruce-Lockhart’s hip. Fellow rookie goalkeeper Anthony Spanopoulos, did not dress for the game as he continues to recover from a finger injury during last week’s warm-up before the Blues season opener against Carleton.

With no backup goalkeeper on the bench, fifth-year midfielder Dylan Bams donned the gloves and protected the net for the re-

maining 55 minutes.

Although there is nothing fortuitous about having to substitute your goalie due to injury, the Blues already had a 2–0 lead at the time of the collision, and had the game well in hand against a weak RMC team.

Toronto started five different players and altered their style of play greatly from the 3-1 loss to Carleton in their season opener.

“We changed our formation from last week,” said Capotosto.

“We’re trying to play to our players’ strengths and have the players dictate what system we play, and I thought it was more effective today.”

Capotosto was pleased with the way that his team played, but is still unsure which formation the team will use in the future. “We’re going to try to work two different systems, and we’re going to see and choose the one that best suits our team. It’s really early right now, and we’re still trying to get a feel for the team. We lost 10 players from last year, so it’s about fitting the right people in the right spots in the right formation.”

The team is still recovering from

Adrian Dannel intercepts a pass from Queen’s. Bernarda Gospic/THe VArsity

preseason injuries, but Capotosto is optimistic that he will have a full complement of players soon and peak at the right time as playoffs approach. “Hopefully, we’re healthy for the playoffs. Now it’s about playing in the regular season and preparing ourselves for late October.”

The Blues fell 2–1 to the Queen’s Gaels in a close contest on Sunday.

Toronto striker Mario Kovacevic scored the only Blues goal in the 70th minute to tie the game at 1–1.

However, despite ample opportunites, the Blues were unable to keep pace with the Gaels.

var.st/sports

VARSITY SPORTS

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

Field hockey 101

23

illustrations by Dan Seljak

The Blues have claimed 10 of the past 15 OUA field hockey championships since 1997, including last season’s OUA Title following a 6–0 shutout victory over the Guelph Gryphons. The team also won the CIS Championship in both 2010 and 2007. U of T is hosting the CIS field hockey championship this season so it is especially important to support the team in a year where there is great hope that they can reclaim the cross Canada title in front of a home crowd. Varsity Blues field hockey player Heather Haughn explains the basics of her sport.

All goals must be scored inside the penalty circle which is a semi-circle around the goal. Any goals shot from outside do not count. If a player from the defending team fouls within the penalty circle a penalty corner is awarded to the offensive team.

No player can allow her foot to come in contact with the ball. If a player kicks the ball it is counted as a turnover and the other team gains possession

Similar to soccer, field hockey is played on artificial turf with each team sporting 11 players at a time in forward, midfield and defensive positions, and a goalie.

Unlike soccer, there is no off side rule as players can receive the ball past the last defender of the opposing team.

CONTINUED From PG 21 New York Giants incurred 17 false starts due to the Seattle crowd noise.

The 5,000 Blues fans in attendance, while not nearly as loud as a Boeing jet, still forced Wilfred Laurier into an offside in the second quarter, which lead to a successful Andrew Lomasney field goal from 27 yards out, and another two false starts in the fourth quarter, including an illegal procedure. The flow of the Golden Hawks offense was greatly interrupted by the penalties as they were unable to advance the ball with any consistency throughout the game, generating only 190 total yards.

Last season the average attendance at Varsity Stadium teetered around 1,300. This year’s home opener saw a near 4,000-person increase, and the largest opening game crowd of the past few years. The 13th man advantage on Labour Day definitely played a role in the victory.

But home field advantage can prove a suf-

focating disadvantage when you are playing before a hostile away crowd. The Blues learned this lesson on Saturday in London in the 62–7 loss to the Western Mustangs.

Room for improvement One area that the Blues must improve if they wish to remain competitive in the OUA and avoid losses such as the one against Western is their penalty count.

“We’re a team that’s going to get penalized,” said Gary. “We play on the edge we’re aggressive. I expect us to get penalized we’re trying to clean it up but a lot of our effort penalties and we’ll expect those. Just trying to make plays and I can live with that.”

Western and Toronto combined for 259 yards in penalties, with the Blues being flagged 15 times for 135 yards. Last week, the Blues were charged for 110 yards in penalties against Laurier.

Moving on The loss is a reminder that the season moves

on and the excitement and glory of the first win becomes simply a W in the books with seven more matches ahead.

Yet, the loss is simply that — a single loss.

From 2001 to 2008, the Blues football team went six consecutive seasons without a victory. These were not close games where one play, one catch, one tackle could have changed it all. They were shut out, demoralizing losses to the tune of 80–0. With the first victory in nearly seven years coming against Waterloo at the start of the 2008 season, the Blues set at record for the longest losing streak in Canadian university history at 49 games.

The past two seasons have seen a turnaround for the team. Under Gary the team has won three games each year, ending the 2011 season one game out of the playoffs.

Good omens Amidst all the mockery, it can be easy to forget that the Varsity Blues football team existed before the skid began in 2001 and that its

The objective of the game is to score, as in most sports, and involves advancing the ball into the opposition’s circle and then hitting, pushing, or flicking the ball into their goal.

A player cannot obstruct another’s chance at getting to the ball in any way. A body or stick cannot be used to stop the advancement of another team’s player . history is far richer than those 49 lost games.

The years in which Toronto opened the season as victors at 1–0 provide an encouraging precedent for the current Blues team to emulate.

The 1993 season is eerily familiar to anyone following the team this season. That year, the Blues beat Waterloo by 19 points in their opening game, and lost only one game all year, to Western, on the road to becoming Vanier Cup champions. While the Blues, who face a tough schedule this year, most likely will lose more games than that 1993 team, the similarity of their starts offers hope that this year’s team can follow a similar path.

But it’s only two games into the season, with one definitive victory and a demoralizing loss.

The upcoming games will reveal which team will play the remainder of the season — the shutout victors or the 55-point losers.

“We’re going to play each game one at a time,” coach Gary said after the victory over Laurier, “We want to win five games and get to the playoffs.”

24 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

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