September 28, 2015

vol. cXXXvi, no. 4

T he UniversiTy

of

ToronTo’s sTUdenT newspaper since 1880

28 sepTember 2015

STUDENT POLITICS

UTSU SUES OVER ALLEGED FRAUD

On April 1, 2015, after last year’s UTSU executive election results were known, former executive director Sandra Hudson allegedly recorded almost 83 days of overtime in her personnel file. Now, she and former president Yolen Bollo-Kamara and former vice-president internal & services Cameron Wathey are the targets of a civil fraud suit.

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STUDENT LIFE

STUDENT POLITICS

UTSU, ENGSOC REACH HISTORIC FEE AGREEMENT Contract remits 50 per cent of UTSU membership fees to EngSoc TAMIM MANSOUR VARSITY STAFF

After years of poor relations, the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) and the Engineering Society (EngSoc) have come to an agreement on the diversion of fees.

Following the announcement that the UTSU and EngSoc were in negotiations regarding a fee agreement in July 2015, the proposed UTSU-EngSoc Associate Membership Agreement was approved for signing by the UTSU Board of Directors on September 20.

The agreement will see the UTSU remit 50 per cent of the membership fees collected from students in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering to EngSoc. At the same time, the EngSoc will provide all services and programs currently offered by the UTSU to its members, with the exception of the various insurances and funding for clubs provided by the UTSU. The contract recognizes the autonomy of both groups, including the UTSU’s representation of their joint membership at university-wide bodies such as the University of Toronto Governing Council and the Hart House Board of Stewards. The UTSU is also able to send an elected member of its Executive Committee to represent the union at meetings of the EngSoc Board of Directors. This representative will have the same voting and speaking rights as an EngSoc director.

CAPS BECOMES PART OF HEALTH & WELLNESS Mental health care now available through Health & Wellness MAITRI GUPTA

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The University of Toronto’s Counselling & Psychological Services (CAPS) has been incorporated into the university’s Health & Wellness services, ending the service as it now stands. After undergoing a series of infrastructural and systematic renovations, mental health care previously provided through CAPS can now only be accessed through a single point of entry at Health & Wellness.

The amalgamation involves changes to the referral process: at their first appointment, students will meet with a nurse or a family physician, and after assessment will be referred to a care plan that best suits their individual needs.

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INSIDE White noise

Jeffery Chen blasts the inherent racism surrounding the controversial posters Comment PG 10

Figuring fiction

As its creative writing program expands, UTSC is becoming a hotspot for nascent authors Feature PG 14

Marauding in the 6ix

Globetrotting and Polaris Prize nominated rapper Jazz Cartier discusses the city’s burgeoning rap scene Arts & Culture PG 16

Head games

For many student athletes, concussions end more than just seasons Sports PG 24

2 NEWS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 28 S E P T E M B E R 2 015 news@thevarsity.ca

Issue 4 Vol. CXXXVI No. 4

21 SUSSEX AVENUE, SUITE 306 TORONTO ON M5S 1J6 (416) 946-7600 thevarsity.ca thevarsitynewspaper @TheVarsity the_varsity

MASTHEAD Alec Wilson Editor-in-Chief

editor@thevarsity.ca

James Flynn Managing Online Editor

online@thevarsity.ca

Sarah Niedoba Managing Editor Margaux Parker Creative Director

2008-2010

2010-2012

August 27

2012-2013

Sandra Hudson serves as president of the UTSU.

Hudson serves as the chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students- Ontario.

Hudson is hired as UTSU executive director.

Bollo-Kamara serves as vice-president, campus life of the UTSU.

managing@thevarsity.ca creative@thevarsity.ca

Sean Smith Senior Copy Editor

copy@thevaristy.ca

Iris Robin News Editor

news@thevarsity.ca

Victoria Wicks Comment Editor

comment@thevarsity.ca

Alex McKeen Features Editor

features@thevarsity.ca

Jacob Lorinc Arts and Culture Editor

MApping the allegations against hudson, bollo-kamara, and wathey

arts@thevarsity.ca

2015

2014-2015

2013-2014

Bollo-Kamara serves as president of the UTSU; Wathey serves a second term as vice-president internal & services.

Bollo-Kamara serves as vice-president equity of the UTSU; Wathey serves as vice-president internal & services.

January 5

april 1

april 13

Hudson allegedly requisitions a cheque in the amount of $9,782.24 for 208 hours of overtime.

Hudson allegedly enters 1,974.5 hours of overtime into her personnel file in the UTSU’s records.

Hudson allegedly requisitions a second cheque, in the amount of $19,999.98, for 407 hours of overtime, in addition to the 1,974 hours she entered on April 1.

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

sports@thevarsity.ca

Lisa Wong Design Editor

design@thevarsity.ca

Mallika Makkar Photo Editor

photo@thevarsity.ca

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

illustration@thevarsity.ca video@thevarsity.ca web@thevarsity.ca

Mubashir Baweja Associate Design Editor

Teodora Pasca Associate Comment Editor

Vacant Associate Photo Editor

Vacant Associate Features Editor

Elham Numan and Diana Pham Associate Illustration Editors

Vacant Associate A&C Editor

Vacant Associate Copy Editor

Shahin Imtiaz Associate Science Editor

Devika Desai Associate News Editor

Vacant Associate Sports Editor

Copy Editors and Fact Checkers Sonali Gill, Alexandra Grieve, Alex Howie, Younhee Jin, Darya Kuznetsova, Hilary Lo, Lauren Park, Anisha Rohra, Sadhia Sandhu, Diandra Sasongko, and Rafia Soomro Designers Maggie Cheung, Nadine Guo, Judy Hu, Natalie Lei, Kitty Liu, Nandini Sinha, Chloe Somjee, Amy Wang, Laura Wang, Vanessa Wang

BUSINESS OFFICE Parsa Jebely Business Manager

x

april 16

april 16

April 15

Hudson, Bollo-Kamara, and Wathey allegedly sign and execute a Termination Agreement and Mutual Release, providing Hudson with $247,726.40, the equivalent of 3.64 years of her base annual compensation.

The mutual release may have the power to “release and forever discharge the UTSU” from “actions, causes of action, damages, claims, cross claims and demands whatsoever (including all damage, loss and injury not known or anticipated, but which may arise in the future and all effects and consequences thereof).”

The results of the 2015 UTSU elections are ratified and the Brighter slate is declared officially elected.

$ April 23

April 30

April 30

Bollo-Kamara highlights the efforts of Hudson as executive director at a meeting of the UTSU’s Board of Directors.

The Termination Agreement comes into effect and Hudson leaves her position. The total lump sum payment to Hudson is worth $247,726.40, which is approximately 10 per cent of the UTSU’s annual operating budget.

Bollo-Kamara informs Ben Coleman, UTSU president, that Hudson no longer works at the UTSU.

September 20

May 1

The UTSU Board of Directors votes to approve a “legal decision” in an in-camera part of their meeting.

The Brighter slate takes office.

september 21

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Cherlene Tay Business Associate Michelle Monteiro Advertising Executives

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

The UTSU initiates a legal action against Hudson, Bollo-Kamara, and Wathey, who have 20 days following the serving of papers to submit a statement of defence, if they intend to defend the proceeding.

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STUDENT POLITICS

UTSU SUES FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PRESIDENT, VICE-PRESIDENT INTERNAL & SERVICES Sandy Hudson, Yolen Bollo-Kamara, Cameron Wathey, named in suit alleging civil fraud

Sandra Hudson, former UTSU executive director, speaks at a board meeting in 2014 . JENNIFER SU/THE VARSITY

ENXHI KONDI VARSITY STAFF

On September 21, the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) commenced a legal proceeding against former UTSU president Yolen Bollo-Kamara, former vice president internal & services Cameron Wathey, and former executive director Sandra Hudson. According to a publicly available statement of claim, Hudson, Bollo-Kamara, and Wathey signed a termination agreement, in late April, which ended Hudson’s employment with the UTSU in her capacity as executive director. This agreement allegedly entitled Hudson to compensation in the amount of $247,726.40 “as a result of the UTSU’s decision to dismiss her.” This lump sum is equivalent to approximately 10 per cent of the UTSU’s operating budget.

TERMINATION AGREEMENT The UTSU alleges that Hudson’s dismissal was without legal grounds. “At no time leading up to April 16, 2015, or at any point, did Bollo-Kamara, Wathey, or other members of the executive express dissatisfaction with the performance of Hudson,” reads a portion of the statement of claim. “All comments leading up to the change-over of the executive and counsel were positive regarding the performance of Hudson.”

The document goes on to note that at the April 23, 2015, meeting of the Board of Directors, Bollo-Kamara highlighted the efforts of Hudson as executive director and thanked her for her work over the year.

In addition to Hudson’s alleged dismissal compensation, Bollo-Kamara and Wathey also allegedly authorized cheques to pay Hudson for “1,974.5 hours of overtime which she herself had recorded in a single entry on April 1, 2015 after the [UTSU executive] election result was known.”

The UTSU claims that Bollo-Kamara authorized payments totalling $29,782.22,

which were presented to be payments of overtime hours worked. The court file indicates that in her two-and-a-half years working as the UTSU executive director, Hudson had never recorded any overtime hours until that April.

MUTUAL RELEASE Included in the termination agreement was a confidentiality provision, in addition to which a mutual release form was signed. The former could prevent the current UTSU executives from revealing the details of Hudson’s departure from UTSU. The latter has the potential to “release and forever discharge the UTSU” from “actions, causes of action, damages, claims, cross claims and demands whatsoever (including all damage, loss and injury not known or anticipated, but which may arise in the future and all effects and consequences thereof).”

The mutual release further states, “not to make or continue any claim or take or continue any proceeding against the UTSU Released Parties and the Employee Released Parties... with respect to the employment… or termination of the Employee’s employment.”

The release notes that it is “no admission whatsoever of liability on the part of the Employee Released Parties or the UTSU/SAC released parties and such liability is expressly denied.” However, the UTSU argues that this document, along with the Termination Agreement, was drawn up in “a joint effort to benefit Hudson” and “unfairly disregards the interests of the UTSU and its members.”

Ben Coleman, current UTSU president, spoke to The Varsity on background about the implications of the mutual agreement with respect to confidentiality. He said that it is legal to speak to anything in the statement of claim and that, since the mutual release is being challenged, it must be discussed in order to be challenged.

The UTSU argues that Hudson stole $126,809.15 from the UTSU when she granted herself the overtime hours and deliberately destroyed confidential information by erasing the hard-drive of the UTSU’s executive director’s computer. The UTSU ends their statement of claim by stating that Hudson’s actions, along with those of Bollo-Kamara and Wathey, were “egregious, outrageous, high-handed, in bad faith, and that punitive damages in the amount of $200,000 ought reasonably to be awarded [to the UTSU].”

STATE OF AFFAIRS The UTSU circulated a press release in response to the release of the statement of claim, in which they defended their decision. “The UTSU is pursuing this course of action to ensure that its resources for serving students are protected and so that our members are not limited from informed participation in our union,” read a sentence in the release. “The allegedly improperly paid severance constitutes around a tenth of our operating budget, and so our decision to move forward is not motivated by a desire to discredit these individuals, but rather to keep the resources that students have paid to us and which we use to serve and advocate for them. In all aspects of how this is handled, the Executive Committee has taken great care to choose the most appropriate and reasonable way to address the situation.

Coleman discussed the circumstances that permitted the alleged issues to arise. He emphasized the importance of a professional relationship between the executive director and the UTSU executive in order to maintain a functional monitoring system.

When asked how these allegations came to light and what they mean for the future of the union, Coleman cited the UTSU’s internal controls. According to Coleman, the UTSU was able to request documents rapidly. He underscored the importance of holding elected

officials accountable and said that, if the right questions are asked, things can be revealed.

On September 24, Bollo-Kamara stated that she had not received any official documents or information from the executive regarding the proceeding, but heard only through rumour that there is a case against her.

Hudson and Wathey did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Among the claims against the three individuals, are that they “acted in a manner that was oppressive, unfairly prejudicial to and unfairly disregarded the interest of the UTSU and its members,” as well as accusations that they “breached their fiduciary duty.” It is also alleged that they “conspired to commit civil fraud” and that their actions “constituted civil fraud.”

The UTSU alleges that it is “evident from the circumstances that Hudson did not wish to work with the incoming Executive Committee, and that Bollo-Kamara and Wathey, knowing that their responsibility for the UTSU’s finances were coming to an end, agreed to dismiss her in order to grant her the benefit of her extremely generous dismissal provisions.”

In terms of reaching a settlement, Coleman has stated that the UTSU would prefer an arbitration process, a sentiment echoed in the UTSU’s press release: “We are open to arbitration or mediation as a way of resolving the issue, and would prefer a non-court resolution, but the advice of our legal counsel was to follow this procedure of filing a claim.

Although this is a substantial course of action, the Board and Executive Committee of the UTSU have a fiduciary responsibility to use its resources responsibly to serve students.”

The defendants have 20 days to prepare a statement of defence from the date of having been served the papers. All details reported here are from the statement of claim levelled against Hudson, Bollo-Kamara, and Wathey and remain allegations until court proceedings are completed.

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FEDERAL POLITICS

THE CANDIDATES: U N I V E R S I T Y - R O S E D A L E The Varsity examines candidate stances on student issues ANDREW RICHMOND AND SIGRID ROMAN VARSITY CONTRIBUTORS

On October 19, Canadians will elect a new federal government. Karim Jivraj (Conservative), Nick Wright (Green),Chrystia Freeland (Liberal), and Jennifer Hollett (NDP) are all running to become University-Rosedale’s next Member of Parliament. To shed some light on the issues at stake, The Varsity sat down with the four major candidates to talk about the policies that have the potential to affect students.

COURTESY OF DAVID CHANG

JIVRAJ On student finances: Wants to focus on creating an environment that attracts businesses, which he thinks will increase the number of jobs for students. Mentions that student funding also depends on the economy.

Unpaid internships: Thinks creating a good job market for students means attracting businesses to Canada. Would not focus on unpaid internships, but instead on creating a job market.

Employment prospects: Wants to focus on creating a “pro-business” economy to attract jobs for students.

Syrian refugee crisis: Won’t enter what he calls the “bidding war” the other parties are involved in, since he thinks it is more important to focus on the 7.6 million refugees fleeing Syria from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). “If you really want to help the people who are fleeing the country, give them their country back.”

Social justice: Is a founding member of LGBTory; marched in Toronto’s 2015 Pride Parade. Supports marriage equality (in spite of the Conservative party line). Wants to “create a pluralistic society that is inclusive, that is welcoming, and that is diverse.”

The environment: Believes Canada’s current policies and environmental regulations are fine, and constitute the right balance between environmental protection and economic growth.

Bill C-24: Supports Bill C-24. Asks the parties that want to repeal the bill if they will allow back into Canada the people whose citizenship was stripped after they were convicted of terrorism offences.

Bill C-51: Supports Bill C-51. Says, regarding the terrorist attacks happening worldwide, “it is extremely naïve, it’s wilful blindness even, to assume that Canada is somehow immune to this,” and that “we need a sensible approach to national security.” Doesn’t think there are civil liberties at stake, since abuses of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are prohibited, and supposed to be prohibited and rectified by judicial review.

The “Fair Elections Act:” Supports the Fair Elections Act, citing the need for regulations to prevent voting fraud.

Why should students vote? Notes that concerns about jobs, the economy, world affairs, and social justice, are all student issues, because students are going to inherit them, so of course we should have a say in them.

WRIGHT On student finances: Wants to eliminate tuition and forgive student debt over $10,000.

Would increase corporate tax and reduce oil subsidies to pay for this.

Unpaid internships: Would allow unpaid internships only if they have “a very clear and structured learning program.” Would ban unpaid internships if they are solely to the benefit of the organization, and at the expense of the student.

Employment prospects: Proposes an even bigger shift to a “vibrant and prosperous green economy” with new green jobs. Would fund education and preparation for these new jobs.

Syrian refugee crisis: Would take 25,000 refugees “immediately,” depending only on how quickly they can be screened and processed.

Wants to streamline the screening process, but notes that since ISIS has threatened to send militants to western countries, the process must still be thorough. Agrees with Jivraj that we should focus on the root cause of the refugee crisis — instability in Syria and Afghanistan — but thinks this is a direct result of western intervention, and the solution is not to interfere in these countries Social justice: Opposes Bill C-36, the recent legislation against prostitution (which he thinks puts sex workers at risk), and the criminalization of marijuana and other psychoactive drugs. Believes these policies flout civil liberties and social justice.

The environment: Notes that the Green Party is the only party opposed to all pipelines. Focuses on the tar sands, which he says “will have potentially catastrophic repercussions, both for Canada and also the world, in terms of producing CO2 emissions and increasing the rate of climate change.”

Bill C-24: Says that Canada should be welcoming to immigrants, and promote a broad immigration policy with a focus on family re-unification.

Bill C-51: Would “repeal the legislation immediately,” saying the bill “is of grave concern”. Thinks Bill C-51 is intended to silence dissent and quash political protest. Believes the bill denies privacy rights, and generally flouts civil liberties.

The “Fair Elections Act:” Would repeal the Fair Elections Act, arguing that it prohibits too many people from voting.

Why should students vote? “It’s essential for a free and democratic country that everyone be involved in the democratic process.”

COURTESY OF NICK WRIGHT

COURTESY OF THE CHRYSTIA FREELAND CAMPAIGN

FREELAND On student finances: Promises to spend $40 million creating co-op placements for students, fund 35,000 new summer jobs, and offer $80 million in incentives for businesses hiring full-time staff between the ages of 1824. Would run a deficit for three years to pay for this, and other investments (the Liberals are the only party not committed to a balanced budget).

Unpaid internships: Would like to spend $10 million per year to fund paid pre-apprenticeship programs and create 5,000 jobs for youth in the environmental sector.

Employment prospects: Promises to commit $300 million to the Liberal Party’s “Youth Jobs and Opportunity Plan.”

Syrian refugee crisis: Would take 25,000 refugees and thinks that Canada should streamline the refugee process.

Social justice: Liberal platform promises a $20 billion investment in social infrastructure, including affordable housing, infrastructure in First Nations communities, and education.

The environment: Liberal platform promises $200 million to develop clean technology and increase air, water, and energy conservation standards.

Bill C-24: Is “unequivocally opposed to this bill” saying that it is “un-Canadian,” creates “two classes of citizenship,” and “discriminates against people who have connections with other countries.”

Bill C-51: Voted for the bill, though she and the Liberal Party called for amendments to sections they think are problematic.

The “Fair Elections Act:” The Liberal Party calls for changes to the bill, claiming that it turns away many legitimate voters.

Why should students vote? “[The government and laws] shape the world we live in, they shape our opportunity, they shape our lives, and the lives of those around us. We have a chance to shape that world ourselves, she says, and we should take advantage of it.”

COURTESY OF THE JENNIFER HOLLETT CAMPAIGN

HOLLETT On student finances: Would increase funding to create 40,000 student jobs, 10,000 affordable housing projects, national child-care, and other social projects. Would raise corporate tax to pay for this. Unpaid internships: Is against unpaid internships, and promises to crack down on them. Wants to create 40,000 paid jobs, internships, co-ops, and apprenticeships.

Employment prospects: Would invest in manufacturing and aerospace technology, and small businesses to create jobs. Wants to shift “away from an economy that is just dependent on commodity, oil, and gas, to make sure that we have a strong and diverse economy.”

Syrian refugee crisis: Would take 10,000 refugees this year, then 9,000 each year for the next four years. Also thinks we should streamline the refugee process and remove barriers to private sponsorship.

Social justice: Thinks the current government’s policies are flawed, especially regarding the treatment of women’s groups and Indigenous people. Wants to invest in education, child-care, and affordable housing The environment: Thinks Canada’s record on the environment is “embarrassing,” citing our recent reprimands from the Climate Action Network. Would institute a “cap and trade” system to cap emissions and limit climate change.

Bill C-24: Opposes Bill C-24, on the grounds that it “goes against who we are as Canadians,” by “treating some Canadians as secondclass citizens.”

Bill C-51: Would repeal Bill C-51. Says the bill is an example of “fear-driven politics,” and argues that we don’t need to give up liberty to have security.

The “Fair Elections Act:” The NDP is against the Fair Elections Act, arguing that “it will remove the right to vote from several categories of citizens.”

Why should students vote? “There are a lot of politicians that develop strategies that count on students not showing up to vote and we shouldn’t hand the election to them.”

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board, followed by two-thirds at an Annual General Meeting of the UTSU, could end it.

Ryan Gomes acknowledged the high numbers needed to alter or call off the agreement: “[These] are very high thresholds, and I think that it would be very difficult for a future UTSU administration to terminate what I believe is a valuable reconciliation agreement,” Gomes said. “I think that once the UTSU sees the benefit of this agreement, it will become another solid piece of the UTSU’s fabric.”

UTSU and EngSoc reach agreement CONTINUED FROM COVER

FROM DIVERSION TO REMITTANCE Only two months since the UTSU’s Revised Response to “A Framework for a New Relationship between the Engineering Society and the University of Toronto Students’ Union,” the agreement marks a radical change from previous management of issues with the UTSU raised by EngSoc and other divisional societies.

Ryan Gomes, UTSU vice-president internal & services, believes that the agreement acknowledges the concerns that have been raised. “EngSoc voted 95 per cent in favour of ceding in 2013, and it’s important to acknowledge that there were legitimate concerns brought forward in their 2010 letter to the UTSU,” he said. EngSoc has been a vocal proponent of fee diversion for a number of years, citing issues of duplicate services, lack of transparency in the UTSU’s governance, and the inaccessibility of opportunities to get involved with the union, as chief concerns.

These were outlined in a report entitled A Framework for a New Relationship between the Engineering Society and the University of Toronto Students’ Union, sent to the UTSU in 2010.

Gomes said that the fee diversion was an important part of addressing these concerns.

“In order to have some sort of reconciliation, some sort of fee agreement had to be on the table, not only because of the referendum but also because of the high number of duplicated services and representation provided by the Engineering Society,” he explained.

The vote to which Gomes referred was a referendum held by the EngSoc in 2013 to divert UTSU membership fees. Trinity College and Victoria College held similar referenda concurrently. The results, which were overwhelmingly favour of fee diversion, were

DIANA PHAM/THE VARSITY

sent to the University Affairs Board of the Governing Council. The UTSU at the time did not recognize the referenda results. As such, university administrative staff organized the Student Societies Summit to discuss the referenda with different divisions.

There was no lasting conclusion from the Student Societies Summit in order to resolve the issue of fee diversion. The UTSU only changed its stance with the election of the Brighter UofT slate, which held fee diversion and the concerns raised by dissatisfied divisions as one of its platform points.

MOVING FORWARD Hoping that the fee agreement will “prove its value” in the coming years, EngSoc president Ernesto Patiño said that the contract was a matter of “optimization” of the services pro-

vided to its members.

“Because EngSoc is very well-connected to engineering community, our offices are right at the heart of the engineering buildings and our students know us very well and use our services very well. So by the UTSU giving us extra financial support from our own UTSU membership fees, we can enhance those services and in other words serve those students also on behalf of the UTSU,” he explained after the meeting.

Despite near unanimous support at the September 20 meeting, there are provisions in place to review or end the agreement. The contract is up for renewal each year, and a two-thirds vote at both UTSU and EngSoc boards is enough to call for a re-negotiation.

Both parties have the power to terminate the agreement; a two-thirds majority vote at either

MONEY TALKS While there were critiques made at the board meeting that the agreement was akin to throwing money at the problem, Patiño and Gomes both believe that the agreement will bring EngSoc and UTSU closer together.

“I think those criticisms are failing to acknowledge the unique characteristics of the Faculty of Engineering,” Gomes said of the disagreements. “The Engineering Society has a long history of documented and fair grievances with the UTSU, and this agreement is a step towards making amends.”

Patiño said that the agreement allows the UTSU “to be much more present in what’s going on in engineering.” He also believes that the meetings to be held between the UTSU and EngSoc as stipulated by the agreement will allow both organizations to collaborate on complex issues, such as clubs funding. “So I say this agreement will bring us together closer and this agreement is not at all the UTSU just throwing money at us. It’s actually UTSU investing in and UTSU getting more involved in the engineering community,” Patiño said.

“If I learned one thing from the negotiations is how much potential there is for EngSoc and the UTSU to collaborate as partners in addressing common challenges.

This agreement will provide a framework for a new relationship between both organizations, which will be based on mutual support and collaboration.”

STUDENT POLITICS

Plan B becomes Plan A UTSU Board of Directors endorses a board structure proposal TOM YUN

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The University of Toronto Students’ Union’s (UTSU) Board of Directors voted this past Sunday to endorse ‘Plan B’ for the upcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM). Plan B is one of three originally submitted board structure proposals and is moved by Arts & Science at-large director Khrystyna Zhuk and seconded by University College director Daman Singh.

In order to comply with the new rules laid out by the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (CNCA), the UTSU will need a new board structure. During last year’s Annual General Meeting, the sole board proposal on the agenda was voted down. The proposal would have established 10 “constituency directors” who would have represented different marginalized groups. The proposal was controversial, as many students were opposed to the lack of direct representation of colleges and professional faculties on the board.

This year, the UTSU will vote on two proposals.

“The Zhuk/Singh proposal has a fair seat distribution, is thoroughly thought out, and has the widest support among students,” said Ben Coleman, UTSU president. “Instead of aggressively pushing one particular ideology, on their own the movers have been diligent and compromising in gaining this wide sup-

port, and I think it’s worthy of endorsement from the UTSU leadership.”

Plan B has received endorsements from other student societies as well, including the Innis College Student Society, the Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council, and St. Michael’s College Student Union.

If chosen, Zhuk’s proposal would maintain the same number of board members for each college and each faculty as the current board structure. Each student society would hold internal elections for their respective director positions. In addition, there would be six “general equity” directors that would be appointed by the board. Plan B would also make the position of vice-president campus life an elected position and require the vice-president equity to be elected as an independent.

Student Natalie Petra also moved a board proposal, but she ultimately chose to withdraw it. Instead, elements of Petra’s proposal are expected to be incorporated into Plan B during the AGM. Such components include the addition of a vice-president for professional faculties, as well as commissioners for mental wellness, international students’ rights, mature students, and first-year students.

Grayce Slobodian, former vice-president external for the UTSU and one of this year’s orientation coordinators, is also moving a board proposal. Slobodian’s proposal allocates a single director to each college and professional faculty, and raises the number of direc-

Members of the UTSU Board of Directors vote at a meeting. IRIS ROBIN/THE VARSITY

tors representing UTM from seven to eight.

Much like the board proposal that was voted down at last year’s AGM, 12 “constituency directors” responsible for issues facing various marginalized groups would be elected.

Slobodian was present at the board meeting and voiced concerns about the endorsement of Plan B. “You should let the members decide whether they want one over the other,” Slobodian said.

“Endorsing one that’s put forward by most of the board isn’t necessarily appropriate.”

University College director Ryan Hume, UTM director Hashim Yussef, and Victoria College director Stephen Warner also expressed concerns regarding the concept of endorsing a particular board proposal. The board discussed issues of fairness when en-

dorsing one motion over the other motions on the AGM’s agenda.

Coleman disagreed, and stated that UTSU had been fair to all the proposals and stressed the importance of passing a board structure at the AGM. “By providing legal feedback to all proposals as well as choosing not to have the UTSU take a stance on proposals until this point, we’ve been able to open up participation in the process,” said Coleman. “However, this is [a] decision that affects the fundamental nature of the UTSU and needs to pass with a 2/3 majority, so it would be irresponsible for us to not build a majority consensus.”

The two proposals will be considered at the AGM on October 7 in the OISE auditorium.

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ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS

Heated debate in Toronto-Centre Liberals, Greens, NDP at loggerheads while Tories absent ANDREW RICHMOND VARSITY STAFF

Last Tuesday, in a small, packed room at St. Simon Church, Linda McQuaig (NDP), Bill Morneau (Liberal), and Colin Biggin (Green) debated policy, the economy, and Canada’s international role in the first Toronto-Centre debate this election.

McQuaig walked in with an advantage: she was the only candidate applauded on arrival, despite being 12 points behind Morneau, with polls shown to be at 48 per cent in his favour, and Biggin trailing at five per cent.

ECONOMIC AFFAIRS McQuaig denounced Morneau’s involvement with the C.D. Howe Institute, a Yonge Street think tank, she accused of corporate bias. She drew loud applause, and one cry of “shame” directed at Morneau when she accused him of having no plan to increase corporate taxes — which Morneau thinks would drive away jobs — or close a corporate stock option that she claims saves many CEOs $6 million each year.

Morneau hit back. He chided McQuaig’s plan to increase corporate tax but not personal tax on the rich, as the Liberals intend. Mor-

neau criticized the NDP’s plan to establish a $15 federal minimum wage on the grounds that it provides “false hope,” since it won’t apply to the majority of Canadians.

According to Morneau, the NDP’s $15 per day child care, designed to knock down barriers for parents trying to get back to work, was likewise disingenuous, since he claims it would not take full effect for eight years Morneau noted that the Liberals’ commitment to a deficit — spending $60 billion more per year to create infrastructure, employment, and grow the economy — gives them room to make changes right away, without waiting for tax revenue to accrue.

McQuaig responded that of course the NDP plan will take time: “do you think Medicaid was created overnight?” she asked. Though the NDP plan will take time to make change, she said that the Liberal plan is too vague to effect change at all.

CONSERVATIVE NO-SHOW On some issues, the missing Conservative candidate brought out the unity among those that made it to the debate. All agreed that Canada should accept more refugees and streamline the refugee process,

Candidates in the riding of Toronto Centre debated at City Hall. THE CITY OF TORONTO/CC FLICKR

guarantee housing as a right for all Canadians, invest heavily in growing the economy, especially in creating jobs, and work to lower the income-gap in Canada.

Biggin, the self-described underdog, stayed mostly out of the fray.

While the NDP and Liberal candidates focused on each other, he was able to advance his own platform points, which he laid out between jabs at Harper’s “gold-plated pension” and jokes about “old stock

Canadians.”

He won loud rounds of applause for his promise of a Guaranteed Liveable Income for all Canadians, as well as for committing to scrap tuition fees. “If you take nothing else away from what the Green Party stands for, I want you to take this away: we are going to abolish tuition for students in Canada,” Biggin said.

Biggin believes that eliminating tuition fees, along with the forgive-

ness of student debt, “will do more to generate businesses and new jobs in the future than probably anything else.”

Biggin kept his answers short, often handing the microphone back long before his time was up.

Biggin said that his party has a big role in “the conscience of Canada,” and closed the night by saying, “it would send an unbelievable message if the Greens were elected in Toronto Centre.”

STUDENT LIFE

Downtown Legal Services expands offerings Employment law, housing law services added to roster HELENA NAJIM

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Thanks to a combination of the their recent levy increase and a $100,000 budget increase from Legal Aid Ontario, Toronto’s Downtown Legal Services (DLS) has been given an opportunity to expand its offerings and to deliver more hands-on training to the nearly 140 University of Toronto Law students who work at the clinic every year.

“The levy increase and legal aid increase were serendipitous, both were necessary to support those initiatives. We are very grateful for how these events turned out,” said Lisa Cirillo, executive director of DLS. DLS offers free and low-cost services to low-income people who meet Legal Aid Ontario’s financial eligibility criteria and to U of T students. In doing so, they aim to bridge the gap between people whose rights are threatened and the costly legal aid that they need. They can offer help regarding criminal law, family law, refugee and immigration law, and university affairs.

Their decision to add employment law to the roster of services stems from an increase in precarious employment and unemployment in the

WINSTON LI/THE VARSITY

city. Various assessments among legal aid clinics shed light on services gaps throughout the province and on a pattern of denial for Ontario Disability Support Program applications.

“We did offer employment services years ago but due to resource allocations it could not be sustained.

This has been a long standing issue,

especially among low income callers that did not have access to better referrals, they often have to forgo their rights and they find themselves in a very vulnerable position.”

Housing services will be enlarged to counteract other legal aid clinics’ limited treatment of housing issues.

While most clinics prioritize evictions, DLS will be able to help cli-

ents with a host of housing matters such as roommate issues and subpar housing conditions.

“Up until this influx of funding, there was a part-time lawyer in our housing division and limited staff lawyer time for students and clients. With this expansion we are able to increase that lawyer’s hours and provide law students with more

in-house and in-court experience,” added Cirillo.

Housing and employment law are among the services added to most of the student legal aid services societies across the province. “It’s wonderful when we find that we’re working on the same areas of law because we have a great opportunity to work collaboratively. We’re all thinking through how best to teach our case workers what to do to hit the ground running,” she said.

Regarding a possible future expansion in services or any other service gaps, Cirillo felt that it would be best for DLS take some time to plan how to implement these new services to ensure their stability.

According to Cirillo, the next step will be to conduct an internal survey of the efficiency of the clinic, under served areas, and constituent needs. Following the results, DLS plans to respond to those needs in a few years, or when the budget will allow for it.

“I think that it’s really important for us to take a pause because this is a lot of expansion in a small amount of time. We need a strategic planning process to properly allocate the funds and ensure security and stability for these plans in the future.”

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STUDENT LIFE

The former location of CAPS in the Koffler Centre. Students can now access mental health services through Health & Wellness. NATHAN CHAN/THE VARSITY

Amalgamation of services leaves some students anxious CONTINUED FROM COVER

SYSTEM CHANGES According to Janine Robb, executive director of Health & Wellness, it was feedback from students that prompted the changes. CAPS has been a significant source of frustration for many students seeking treatment for mental illnesses, primarily due to long wait times to access services. With almost 56,000 appointments at Health & Wellness annually, approximately 3,100 of which are in the realm of mental health care, Robb emphasized that this change was extremely necessary.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to wellness planning. We were seeing mental health on our mental health side and we were also seeing mental health in our physical health side. So the idea of amalgamating everything, and having students register in one area would allow for continuous, comprehensive care,” said Robb.

The Health & Wellness Centre administration and staff hope that this new integration will provide a clear and cohesive pathway for patient-centred care; where the patient is actively involved in personalizing a treatment route that works best for them.

“The episodes of care in this holistic approach, where students are able to come in at one access point, determine their needs moving forward. Those needs may change according to their journey over time at U of T... they

could vary across a trajectory of a number of years for a student. Students can move in and out of the system in a very flexible manner,” explained Dr. Andrea Levinson, Psychiatristin-Chief at Health & Wellness.

Dr. David Lowe, a long-standing family physician and doctor at Health & Wellness, provided insight into the need for these changes. “There were three doors; there was a solely counselling unit, a psychiatric unit and there was a health service. The doors didn’t communicate very well. A person could be going to all three different places, but there was no communication,” Lowe explained.

“This merging allows, a dynamic team that maybe comprised of a family doctor, nurse and a counsellor working together and communicating in a way to best serve the needs of the student at the time,” he said.

THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE Paloma*, a second-year ethics, society, and law student, visited CAPS during the amalgamation and encountered issues with CAPS’ bureaucratic structure. “Overall, it just seemed like nobody in the office knew what was going on or who they were supposed to talk to in order to get things done,” she said.

Paloma said that she had trouble obtaining the request documents she needed for a petition. These documents would prove that she had attended sessions with CAPS. In the end, Paloma claimed that it took over a month and a half for her to get them.

“I can understand the director of CAPS being busy, what with the amalgamation, but a month and a half for a signature on a form is unacceptable,” she said, “Every time I went in, it seemed like the staff had no idea how to communicate with one another, and the entire office was a chaotic, bureaucratic nightmare.”

Once Paloma finally got her form, the final exam period had ended and her petition request was late. According to Paloma, CAPS backdated the letter. “CAPS actually backdated my letter to within the exam period to make it look like I had been a lazy student who hadn’t picked up the letter, and as a result, I have no idea what’s going to happen to my petition.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure that students will benefit from these changes,” Paloma said, adding “it seemed like a giant rebranding, rather than actually tackling substantive issues. I wish I could be optimistic about the changes that are happening — but honestly, I have little faith in the administration at this point.”

Leo*, a second-year East Asian studies student, had also visited CAPS in the later phases of the amalgamation and had had prior experience with mental health services provided by Health & Wellness. “I have not noticed a significantly negative change throughout the amalgamation,” he said of his experience. “[The] changes seem to facilitate my treatment by freely offering me the services required from both organizations. As

a result, I have noticed that I am having a more positive experience with both Health & Wellness and CAPS,” he added.

Although Leo believes that students will benefit from the changes in the long-term, he expressed concern with chronic issues of overcapacity. “I do hope that the ability of Health & Wellness and CAPS to handle many students at once is continually improved on. That is, I hope the university will monitor the students’ need for help at both services and allocate personnel and resources in an appropriate manner.”

Leo expressed surprise that Accessibility Services was not included in the amalgamation, as he has been urged by his psychiatrist at the university to register with them.

“If registering with Accessibility Services is something that will help students to such a large degree, then I do believe that it would be helpful to offer it as a part of the aid and treatment the university offers. This way, it would be easier for students to actually get the help they need, rather than continually answering the same questions over and over and being stuck in waitlists.”

According to Robb, the most important part of the amalgamation was “creating this team approach so no one falls through the cracks.” *Name changed at student’s request

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HIGHER EDUCATION

HOW TO RANK U OF T? Students at the fringe of global rankings Convocation Hall is one of U of T’s most recognisable landmarks. FILE PHOTO: BERNADA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

EMILY JOHNPULLE VARSITY STAFF

It’s the most competitive time of the year for post-secondary institutions, what with the release of the world university rankings.

The QS World University Rankings, released two weeks ago, placed the University of Toronto in thirty-fourth position; dropping 14 places from last year. McGill University (24) and University of British Columbia (50) ranked among the top 50 universities in the world.

QS World University Rankings uses six indicators, each carrying a different weight, to calculate every university’s score. The indicators — academic reputation, employer reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, and international student ratio — are chosen because they can be measured and compared across borders.

“Costs and loan programs vary hugely across the world. For example, Finland offers free tuition, while the average cost of a US education is $21,109,” said QS head of research Ben Sowter.

“This means that this metric would be unsuitable for producing a World Rankings, and would lead to an unrepresentative end product.”

“QS is producing a World University rankings, and therefore it needs to choose metrics that have supporting data from across the world. Student outcome data is not produced everywhere,” added Sowter.

This week, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings will be released, which l.ists universities according to teaching, research, citations, industry outcome, and international outlook. Last year, U of T placed 20 in the world and first in Canada.

Within Canada, Maclean’s Magazine released its annual rankings of Canadian universities, placing each institution according to type: undergraduate, comprehensive, and medical doctoral. Maclean’s rankings are based on students and classes, faculty, resources, student support, library, and reputation.

Although limited to Canadian universities, Maclean’s placed a 20 per cent weight on reputation when determining rankings.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE In the US, President Obama argued that college ranking systems neglect student outcomes and facilitated the launching of College Scorecard, a website which provides information about graduation rates, tuition fees and salary after graduation.

The New York Times reported that while President Obama initially wanted to rate the quality of colleges and universities, officials “said the government had no business competing with college rating services like those offered by US News and World Report.”

Although the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities does not rank universities, and has no plans to introduce its own ranking system, the ministry publishes key performance indicators including employment rates, graduation rates, and student loan default rates.

“Our approach is to recognize the strengths of our diverse institutions in a differentiated system, while concentrating on successful outcomes for students and ensuring they have the information they need to make the right choices,” said ministry spokesperson Tanya Blazina. “These performance indicators are helpful measures that assist new, and prospective students, in making program choices — and they demonstrate the value of a postsecondary education for both the individual and the province.”

According to these indicators from 2014, U of T, on average, has a 77 per cent graduation rate and 85 per cent employment rate after six months.

STUDENTS IN THE RANKINGS In order to provide a resource for students that is both transparent and customizable, the online resource UniversityHub provides rankings focusing on undergraduate education in Canada, which is based on student and alumni reviews of over 55 evaluation areas.

Despite being well-ranked globally U of T falls behind in several of UniversityHub’s categories. For example, in the category of “Comfort in securing the job you want,” U of T ranks 23 out of the 26 universities with Saint Francis Xavier University taking the top spot.

“Ultimately, all the publications out there have static rankings with a pre-determined weighting system without consulting students. This could result in students choosing a university that isn’t at all what they are looking for,” said UniversityHub co-founders Joel Nicholson and Alex Dorward.

“Every student is incredibly different when it comes to what they want out of a university experience, yet we obsess over league tables that put us into a single, homogenous category.”

STUDENT LIFE

We’re here, we’re queer

Annual Queer Orientation focuses on intersectionality CATHLIN SULLIVAN VARSITY STAFF

Queer Orientation is an annual series of events for LGBTQ+ and queer students at the University of Toronto. Every year, over 30 groups from all campuses come together to plan and execute more than 40 activities.

Many of this year’s events focused on the intersecting identities that shape a person’s experience of being LGBTQ+.

“From our very first meeting we engaged in discussions about the barriers that students, staff, and faculty might face when trying to participate in these spaces,” said Kathy Mac, Human Resources and Equity Officer for the Sexual and Gender Diversity Office, of the factors taken into consideration when planning Queer Orientation. Mac named barriers such as language, finances, physical accessibility, social anxiety, visibility, class conflicts, legal drinking age, and a variety of other accessibility needs among those to be addressed.

“We wanted to plan these events, not just with these needs in consideration, but around these needs from the start.”

Katie Pereira, a second-year student and member of VicPride! said that Queer Orientation is especially important to the U of T community because the school’s size makes it easy for students to feel lost.

“Having a week of events dedicated to queer identities helps us feel more at home here. It tells incoming students, many of whom are coming from high schools — which are notorious for not being the most accepting — that

Attendees at the Aces and Allies Social during Queer Orientation. NATHAN CHAN/THE VARSITY

U of T can be a safe, inclusive space,” Pereira noted. “It gives us a place to meet queer people and form connections all of which are very important for making community.”

Brian Langevin, co-president of Woodsworth Inclusive, agreed. “In essence, Quer Orientation helps to queer the university and this needs to be an ongoing effort.”

The goals of this year’s Queer Orientation centred around building community, increasing awareness of U of T’s resources, to bring awareness to areas where there is a lack of resources, to educate and to have fun.

“We decided at the very beginning of our planning to commit to having many different kinds of events to engage different kinds of participants,” Mac said, adding : “I think we’ve been very successful in reaching out to different people.”

As a participant in many of the events and an organizer for Vic’s Yoga in the Quad event, Pereira believes that it is very important for the U of T community to continue its focus on intersecting identities. “ ... It’s extremely important to acknowledge that queerness can be made even more complex when we factor in other aspects of people’s identities. Most queer people aren’t just gay or bisexual or trans — many of us have intersecting identities that add extra challenges or extra differences to be celebrated.”

Langevin notes that for the first time, Queer Orientation hosted an event centred around individuals on the asexual spectrum, which “allows [them] to build connections and communities in a way that was not previously and would not otherwise be possible.”

Matthew Celestial, a fourth-year book and media studies student, attended several Queer Orientation events. He emphasized the importance of Queer Orientation, especially for first-years and people who are not out or who are exploring their identities. “[Queer Orientation] has always catered to making me feel like my identity mattered on campus. Especially, during my first year when I wasn’t out, I really, really appreciated seeing that there was Queer Orientation that year. It made me feel safe knowing that I was represented on campus, that people supported me, that there were many resources on campus, and that people were aware of the ongoing issues and would listen to me.”

Celestial praised events such as Out at Work, Decolonizing Queerness and Black, Indigenous and People of Colour Parents Group as among the most important fixtures of the week. Celestial said that these topics in particular spoke to his experiences. “[Being] queer and out at work is and unfortunately will always be an issue that will affect me socio-economically through my identity as a working student-professional,” he said.

As a person of colour, Celestial said, having these programmes at the beginning of the year engages people to think more.

While Queer Orientation only happens once a year, the Sexual and Gender Diversity Studies office puts on many events throughout the school year. Information on these events can be found on their Facebook page U of T Sexual and Gender Diversity Office.

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ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS

U of T rated financially stable Governing Council publishes U of T’s debt profile SALVATORE BASILONE VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Over one billion dollars: that was the closing balance of the University of Toronto’s actual debt outstanding as of August 31, 2015. Actual debt outstanding is the sum of internal loans issued from internal debt plus actual external debt issuance and for U of T stands at $1.58 million.

The debt burden ratio is the key determinant of debt policy limit, equals interest plus principal divided by total expenditures. It influences the debt policy limit, which is the maximum debt that can be taken on based on a debt burden ratio of five per cent. For U of T, the actual debt stands at 3.7 per cent.

These figures were presented before U of T Governing Council’s Business Board meeting, which occurred last Monday, September 21.

The vast majority of the debt, which includes all long-term external and internal borrowed funds obtained by any means such as debentures, bank loans, and excludes letters and lines of credit and all short-term and medium term internal financing for purposes such as construction financing and fund deficits comes from long term debentures issued by the university that are due between 2031 and 2051.

U of T’s financial endowment remains the largest of any university in Canada, at $1.9 billion dollars, and has grown by 32 per cent over the past decade.

U OF T RATED FINANCIALLY STABLE Though the headline debt number may seem imposing at first, this past July Standard &

The Governing Council Chambers. FILE PHOTO: KENNETH TRUONG/THE VARSITY

Poor’s maintained the university’s ‘AA’ credit rating. A rating at that level is given to entities whose ability to meet financial commitments is viewed as very strong. “The stable outlook reflects Standard & Poor’s expectations that, within the outlook horizon, U of T will maintain its strong student demand profile, its operating budgets will remain balanced, and its debt burden will decline modestly or be stable,” read a portion of Standard & Poor’s report.

“The affirmation primarily reflects the independence of U of T’s governing bodies, its considerable financial resources, and Ontario’s track record of non-interference in the sector,” the agency said in their research update.

Standard & Poor’s looked specifically at how U of T would fare if the Ontario government, which was recently downgraded to an A+ rating, was itself facing default. The agency believes that U of T would be able to

weather such a scenario and would not default on its obligations.

Standard & Poor’s stated in their report that their projection can be revised if U of T runs operating deficits as a result of a significant reduction in government grants, or substantial pressure in U of T’s resilience in the event of an Ontario default scenario.

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS

BOARD OF DIRECTORS BY-ELECTION: EXTENDED CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

Varsity Publications is the not-for-profit corporation that publishes The Varsity newspaper.

There are two (2) vacant seats on the Corporation’s Board of Directors.

A by-election to fill these seats will be held on October 12 — 14 2015.

Who can run?

— One (1) Mississauga director: any full-time undergraduate student who pays the Varsity Publications levy and is enrolled at UTM. If no nominations are received for the UTM category, a general category director will be elected — One (1) Scarborough director: any full-time undergraduate student who pays the Varsity Publications levy and is enrolled at UTSC. If no nominations are received for the UTSC category, a general category director will be elected

Nomination information: Eligible student must complete a nomination form and obtain the signature of twenty-five (25) members.

Members are full-time undergraduate students who pay the Varsity Publications levy. Nominations are due by 5 pm on October 2.

Completed forms can be scanned and emailed to the CRO (chair@thevarsity.ca) or submitted in person to room 200, 21 Sussex Avenue, Toronto ON M5S1J6 var.st/bod15

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28 September 2015

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MUBASHIR BAWEJA AND LAURA WANG/THE VARSITY

WHITE NOISE

A critique of the white students’ union posters

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ast week, around the York, Ryerson, and U of T campuses, amid the usual ads for suspect essay aides and dubious LSAT tutors, there appeared posters that would have been right at home in the 1930’s.

Featuring the stylized outlines of two statuesque white men, the poster was boldly captioned, ‘WHITE STUDENTS UNION!’ (Complete with the exclamation mark and grammatical error). The handsome white men in the poster — doubtless fanciful self-portraits of the group’s founders — are dressed in a pea-coat and a parka, presumably to ward off the chilliness of the isolated moral high ground they inhabit. They display searching expressions, looking, one assumes, for the facts to back up their opinions.

The effect of all this would be comical, were the issues it raises not so serious.

Students for Western Civilization (SFWC) — that is, the organization behind these posters — calls for the creation of white students’ unions on Canadian university campuses that would “promote and celebrate the culture of Western Civilisation” while working to “advance the political interests of the Western peoples.”

Let us evaluate the goals of SFWC, leaving aside, for a moment, the fact that it is preposterous to try to define any cultural element as being intrinsically western. Members

ARTICLE BY JEFFERY CHEN

of SFWC must be calling for an increase in stone tablet etchings when they say they want more promotion and celebration of western culture, the majority of Canadian media is already dominated by white anchors and white writers, discussing issues pertaining to white people.

More generally, despite SFWC’s protests against the contrary, the very idea of a white people’s union is racist. White people are not structurally oppressed based on their race — as such, a white students union does nothing except consolidate and celebrate the unequal power dynamics of which they

BY APPROPRIATING THE STRUGGLE FOR RACIAL SOLIDARITY AND POLITICAL RIGHTS, A WHITE STUDENTS' UNION IS GRIEVOUSLY DISTRACTING FROM THE SYSTEMIC DISADVANTAGES FACED BY RACIAL MINORITIES. This problem of racial bias in the media is so extensive that people have built their whole lives around analyzing it — take, for example, Frances Henry and Carol Tator, whose 272page book Discourse of Domination meticulously traces how “Canadian journalism is dominated

by White people.” As such, SFWC’s cry for increased celebration of western civilization is, at best, a sad joke, akin to the calls for a straight people’s pride parade.

SFWC’s aim to advance the political interests of ‘western peoples’ is equally laughable.

The Parliament of Canada is overwhelmingly white; the country's demography is also largely white (76 per cent). Whose interests, then, are really at risk of being underrepresented here?

Members of SFWC clamber for social change, but what they clearly need is internet access.

are already the primary beneficiaries. By appropriating the struggle for racial solidarity and political rights, a white students' union is grievously distracting from the systemic disadvantages faced by racial minorities.

The issues of racism are certainly real and numerous — from anti-black police brutality, to Islamophobia, to the continued colonization of indigenous land — but they are all to the benefit, not detriment, of white folks.

Apologists for the organization will fling themselves onto the life raft of free speech, and decry those seeking to suppress such noxious bigotry as leftist censor. However, while the founders of SFWC certainly have the right to voice their opinions, they do not have free reign over the forum. SFWC was not a registered organization on any of the campuses it targeted;

as such, the university’s disassociation from, and condemnation of, SFWC false advertising could hardly be called censorship.

It is unfortunately inevitable that university campuses, as centres of intellectual debate, will continue to have to deal with extreme opinions of this kind. However, as students, it is our duty as part of the academe be critical of the lazy, irresponsible arguments presented by organizations such as SFWC. So, for all the odiousness of an organisation such as SFWC, we can thank them for stirring up ire and attention towards racial inequality rooted in Canadian society.

Incidents like these should be a constant reminder of the long challenges ahead, and serve as a rallying cry for our generation to chip away at the entrenched advantages white Canadians still hold at every level of power. In the meantime, SFWC’s posters have been consigned to the original birthplace of the organization’s own opinions, and hopefully the final resting place of this sort of dialogue — the garbage bin.

Jeffrey Chen is a third–year student at Trinity College studying English and European studies.

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The war on female voices Gender bias, not vocal fry and uptalk, is hurting women in the workforce LAUREN PARK

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

In an effort to sound more professional, young women are seeking voice coaching and 'cosmetic' speech pathology. Specifically, women are criticized for their use of uptalk: the rising intonation pattern at the end of a declarative sentence that can make statements sound like questions.

This “Valley Girl lift,” laments Hofstra university professor Laurie Fendrich, “reveals an unexplainable lack of confidence in one’s opinions and a radical uncertainty about one’s place in the world.” Ostensibly popularized by socialites such as Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, Fendrich writes that the phenomenon makes a woman sound like “an empty-headed clotheshorse for whom the mall represents the height of culture.”

Uptalk’s linguistic sister, vocal fry, is another phonetic trend to come under fire in recent years.

Also known as creaky voice, or laryngealisation, the term refers to a glottal rattle caused by certain movements of the vocal folds.

Though the fry is an important grammatical and cultural feature across many dialects, it is known to some today as the way a Kardashian would speak.

Despite the stereotypes, however, vocal fry did not originate among millennial women — in fact, there is no conclusive evidence to show that women even use it more often than men. Since the 1960s, it has been a well-documented speech feature of upper-class Englishmen, who use it to indicate their status as educated leaders.

Here in North America, the host of older, high-profile male vocal fryers includes Prime Minister Stephen Harper, President Barack Obama, and Ira Glass. Male uptalk

KATE TAYLOR/THE VARSITY

has been noted as early as World War II. George W. Bush has notably made rampant use of uptalk in his presidential speeches.

Given this history, why do we still associate uptalk and vocal fry with women? Theorists suggest that it is simply disproportionately noticed in female speech.

“All the discussion is about what we think we hear,” explains linguist Robin Lakoff, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “With men, we listen for

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what they're saying, their point, their assertions. Which is what all of us want others to do when we speak... with women, we tend to listen to how they're talking, the words they use, what they emphasize, whether they smile.”

Consider, for example, a 2014 study by the University of Miami, in which researchers recorded seven young men and seven young women saying “Thank you for considering me for this opportunity” in both their regular pitch and in vocal

COM

fry. In relation to the male vocal fryers, women’s vocal fry was ranked significantly “less attractive, less competent, less educated, less trustworthy, and ultimately less hireable.”

This result suggests that even when we hold the variable of vocal fry constant, women’s vocal fry is felt to be more uncomfortable than men’s — presumably, because our gender biases lead us to focus more on a women’s delivery of argument, rather than the content. More generally, our relative indifference

toward male uptalk and vocal fry suggest that it’s not about the speaker’s register or intonation, but rather whose mouth the speech is coming from.

As U of T students move into the corporate world, these prejudices can have profound repercussions, not only on their levels of success but on their sense of self-worth.

This trend of critiquing vocal trends in women is patronizing, discouraging, and does not respect their actual ideas. Our culture’s disproportionate policing of women’s language, from their voices to their diction to their intonation patterns, is uncomfortably similar to its policing of women’s physical appearance.

Just as a woman’s intelligence, lifestyle, and even her self-respect can be presumed by the length of her skirt, the problems another has with her voice are heard over what she has to say. And just as the beauty industry continually invents new reasons for women to feel insecure about their bodi es, Internet articles and other forms of media encourage a similar self-consciousness about our speech.

As such, students shouldn’t try to change something so personal as their voice in order to be accepted by the powerful, but rather should call out those who create reasons to dismiss them for it. The same way we’ve been combatting paternalistic beauty standards, the first step toward uprooting these biases is becoming aware of them.

Lauren Park is a second-year student at Victoria College studying history and linguistics.

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Lobby your union, not your university Endorsement of sociopolitical causes is outside the university's prerogative LI PAN

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

In an article that appeared in The Varsity last week, a writer advocated for an endorsement of the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement by the university. In this article, I will not address the merits of the BDS movement. Instead, I will argue against student activists seeking endorsement from our university. The reason is twofold: I do not understand the BDS debate well enough to comment on it in particular, but I can comment about the form of student advocacy in general. I’ll do this by examining U of T, the University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation (UTAM), and the University of Toronto Students' Union (UTSU), in turn.

First, the university, as an institution, should not give endorsement to sociopolitical causes that take place beyond its campus. The reason is quite simple. To quote our school’s policy on "social and political issues with respect to university divestment:" “the University’s core academic values include freedom of inquiry and open debate. As a general matter, the University does not take positions on social or political issues apart from those directly pertinent to higher education and academic research. Instead, its role is to provide a forum within which issues can be studied carefully and debated vigorously.”

Note, however, that this stance is not at odds with the idea that the university is a community with values and traditions to uphold. Students could still pressure the university on issues such

as support for mental health or gender equality.

They are directly pertinent to higher education.

Additionally, this statement does not preclude individuals within the institution from taking a stand. Students could take on causes such as BDS, but they should not ask for endorsement from U of T, because it is not a stakeholder in these debates and should not be brought in merely to give one side more credibility.

Second, while UTAM is the target of a number of divestment campaigns, including BDS, the argument for divestment actually hinges on a misunderstanding about the source of UTAM’s funds. UTAM does not actually manage money from our pocket.

According to its 2014 annual report, it holds $2.3 billion in its endowment, $3.8 billion in pension plan, and $1.4 billion in working capital. Only the last category involves student fees. Even then, working capital is largely determined by the timing of staff salaries, maintenance fees, government grant, etc. As such, our sense of ownership of the university’s investment fund such as is implicit in the arguments presented in last week's article is actually false. Students have only a relatively minor stake in it.

When other activists campaign for divestment, they make a rather different argument: they appeal to our university’s responsibility as an ethical investor. That is, our university should not reap rewards from companies that engage in socially injurious behaviors. This makes sense and it

DIANA PHAM /ASSOCIATE ILLUSTRATION EDITOR

has succeeded before, leading to divestment from the tobacco industry and from apartheid South Africa.

Notice, however, that divestment in this case feels somewhat different from our university taking a side in these issues.

Investing is but a pastime of this institution.

Its main mandate is to research and to teach.

As such, it would be bizarre that U of T would be forced to sacrifice the neutrality needed for its main function to satisfy its responsibility for a secondary one.

While I oppose endorsements by U of T, I think student activists should take their causes to the UTSU. After all, unlike the other two bodies, this one is fully democratic and its only purpose is to represent us, the students.

Whether the UTSU should actually take political stances on controversial issues is still subject to debate; yet, it stands that the UTSU has taken stances on similar issues before. It has endorsed the fossil fuel divestment campaign, and it will introduce a motion to support BDS at its Special General Meeting in November.

In short, student activists should only seek endorsement from the UTSU. U of T’s mandate is to research and teach. It should not be forced to take a position on social issues just to lend credibility to a debate which does not concern it.

Li Pan is a fourth-year student at Trinity College studying economics and math.

Fighting Isolation Why we should choose to be more than just a number

Students are overly attached to technology. ALEXANDRA SCANDOLO/THE VARSITY

AYESHA ADAMJEE VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

When it comes to atmosphere, U of T receives its fair share of complaints. Many students describe being treated merely as ' a number', isolated, and feeling alone.

The claim is made often that with its cold attitude, the university makes its students feel inhuman because they are not treated

like individuals. Contempt for U of T litters blogs and message boards. Social networking sites are rife with accusations that claim it is the institution’s fault that students are so lonely.

I will admit I was one of these people. I found it easier to hate the school that gave me so many opportunities, rather than look to myself for the reasons behind my unhappiness. We’re all guilty of misplacing blame – denying our flaws is an integral

part of human existence. So, it’s easy to look at U of T, see approximately 80,000 faces, and say that the institution is stealing our individuality and our sense of community.

But what many of us don’t notice is that, as we’re walking down St. George street with our headphones in, trying to avoid awkward eye contact with the people walking past us, we’re guilty of exactly what we criticise our school for. We don’t see the people in our programs or our classes as individuals. We take their images at face value and bury our heads in our overpriced textbooks or laptops, hoping they don’t decide to strike up a conversation.

How many of us have stood outside a lecture hall on the first day of class amongst a group of a hundred students, all tapping away on their smartphones? I know how futile trying to initiate conversation is: as soon as I introduce myself to the person beside me, I see their face twist in horror at the unspeakable social crime I have committed.

Why is it that we’re so scared of a few minutes of uncomfortable small talk that we refuse to so much as smile at the person walking beside us?

Growing up abroad, I always heard about the unmatched kindness of Canadians.

While I’ve caught some glimpses of it since moving here, I’m starting to fear that it’s beginning to fade as we progress through our university careers. Perhaps we forgot it while rushing out the door to a 9 a.m.

lecture, lost it amongst our overdue papers, or dropped it in the abyss between the bed and the wall while Netflix-and-chilling.

As cliché as what I’m trying to express may sound, I’m willing to risk sounding like a broken record: we are getting so lost in the quickening pace of our increasingly digital lives that we are forgetting what it means to form connections with people.

This doesn’t feel that important, because we have enough going on on our screens to keep us occupied. But this means that when we look up, there’s no one beside us, or if there is, they’re absorbed in another world altogether.

The isolation we feel sitting alone in our dorms or our library cubicles isn’t just a product of the university we chose. It’s up to us whether we decide to introduce ourselves to our professors, TAs or just the person next to us; join a club, participate in the community that only exists if we all choose to be a part of it. With a school as big as ours comes the advantage of being able to create the experience that we want. You can find all kinds of people and seize as many opportunities as you want. It all depends on your outlook, and what you want to make of what’s presented to you.

Ayesha Adamjee is a second-year student at Victoria College studying English and philosophy.

Creatin

T HE R A PID GROW T H OF U T SC’S CRE AT I V E WRI T ING PR

I

s Toronto a creative city? If so, the University of Toronto would be wrong to claim much credit for such a distinction. This is not for lack of enthusiastic artists within our community. U of T’s extra-curriculars are bustling with dance, drama and writing.

However, among choruses hailing the school’s many research feats, the successes of the university’s creative programs are seldom celebrated. The University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) is making a move to change that, with a new program dedicated to creative writing.

WRITING PRESTIGE COMES TO UTSC In the winter term of 2014, Miriam Toews, author of the Governor General Award-winning A Complicated Kindness, became UTSC’s inaugural Writer-in-Residence. The creative writing program arranged for Toews to visit classes during the semester, and gave students the opportunity to work alongside the renowned author.

The rapidly growing program now organizes numerous events for students. The recently developed minor offers an array of courses not necessarily found on other campuses, including screen writing, creative writing and performance, and creative non-fiction.

The University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) campus also boasts a professional writing and communications program, while St. George offers a writing and rhetoric minor. The program at UTSC, however, stands alone for its exclusive focus on writing as a creative endeavour. According to associate professor Daniel Tysdal, Scarborough has accomplished something unique and sought-after in their program.

Tysdal is currently on sabbatical to conduct research and add to his already impressive collection of creative work. He is an award-winning author and has most recently released a poetry collection entitled Fauxcassional Poems along with a textbook published by the Oxford University Press entitled The Writing Moment. When I spoke with Tysdal, his enthusiasm for teaching was clear.

“The program has really expanded,” explains Tysdal. “When I started teaching at UTSC in 2009, there were only two creative writing courses — poetry and fiction. But they weren’t necessarily offered in the same year.”

Tysdal explains that the number of creative writing courses at UTSC has increased due to the interest of students from many different academic backgrounds. “We have students from neuroscience, health studies and anthropology in our creative writing classes,” he says. “Writing gives them the chance to explore intimate experiences and emotions.

The environment at UTSC is not too competitive and students want to help each other.”

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO LEARNING Tysdal has taught UTSC’s poetry courses for several years. These courses delve into the creation of free verse and experimental forms of poetry as well more traditional forms such as sonnets and sestinas.

Now, additional courses offered within the creative writing program also give students the chance to work closely with a professor and share constructive criticism with their peers through weekly workshops. It is a welcome change of pace for many students who become bogged down in the detached lectures and homogenized evaluations which are often associated with large university classes.

One such course, taught by Tysdal, teaches screenwriting. The course was offered for the first time at UTSC in the winter term of 2015, and was described by English graduate Leanne Simpson as “eye-opening.”

“I thought it would be easy because my stories are dialogue heavy, but it was a challenge and it was enriching,” she explains.

Simpson goes on to say that collaboration is what sets this program apart from others. “The coolest part was pitching ideas in class. We had to learn not only how to create screenplays but also how to make people take interest in them.”

ARTICLE BY AN ILLUSTRATION BY J

Illustration for “Segm

BUILDING A NETWORK OF CREATIVE MINDS For Trevor Cameron, an English specialist, the creative writing component of his degree has been formative. This is as much because of the

“SEGMENTS”

“DINNER PARTIES”

By Oubah Osman

Stormy standstill woman, a languid, smokeless fire over American plains.

What could be of her, her with thighs and many, many hues?

Women walk here and there with eyelashes fanning out, but somehow men find their way in.

She stands with her gut of bleeding roses.

She blends, stormy woman, lustfully down.

What of plateaus? What of plain yellows in the shade of orange-browns? when she is a bleeding thing of absence. Presence. (potential)

On Grace Hartigan’s “Goldsmith”

By Fiza Arshad Hair long, folding up and inward, asking: Who will mend my soul?

She beckons towards whispers and away from legless amour.

And I have died somewhere in the waters below.

And I am drowning peacefully down.

Where are we when what we have come to know is no more?

And Hartigan enlivened her in the painting; Her, whose eyes are downcast, gazing at the scorned face reflected in the red coat.

The red coat that wraps the intensity buried beneath the red: the colour of love, the colour of passion, the colour of blood, of royalty and revenge, whose master, Heathcliffe, shrieks in a fit of passion, “Last night, I was on the threshold of hell.

Today, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it.”

On the distance that wavers despite the b tones that manage to slash through the diffe objects and indifferent people, smoothly, and carve out corporeal depra her soul.

Yet, she remains poised, calm and dign among reflections of images within ima Her fingers resting on red, radiating de in that posture of hers.

These hands, that downward slant of he and the eyes reflecting the recollections a dinner parties:

ng writers

ROGR A M BUILDS UP ON U OF T ’S CRE AT I V E L A NDSC A PE classroom culture, as the course content, he explains.

“I doubt I would have ever put pen to paper – or rather, fingers to keyboard – if not for a certain bearded, multicolored sock wearing professor,” says Cameron. “Professor Tysdal is the only person I know who can take a room full of silent undergrads sitting in a circle staring at their feet and get them all laughing.”

Cameron describes a classroom experience nestled somewhere between academically enriching and curiously spiritual. “Expect to be nudged in whatever direction your intuition takes you. In class, nothing is sacred but the creative process itself,” he explains.

Andrew Westoll, author of the national best seller Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary and a UTSC creative writing lecturer contends that the Scarborough campus is on track to become a creative writing hub in Toronto. Central to this predicted transformation is the continued success of the Writer-in-Residence program, which Westoll leads.

As part of this initiative, students were able to work with internationally acclaimed author Nino Ricci, author of In a Glass House and The Origin of Species, during the past school year.

UTSC’s current Writer-in-Residence is Helen Humphreys. An acclaimed author, Humphreys has won the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize and the City of Toronto Book Award. When asked about her goals as UTSC’s Writer-in-Residence, Humphreys said that she aimed “primarily to encourage students who are interested in writing to continue with it.”

“I think the most useful thing when you want to be a writer is to be a reader,” she added. “I would recommend reading as much as you can and learning as much from published writers as possible. When you’re a young writer you have years to develop. Try different genres and it doesn’t matter if you fail.”

The presence of these writing experts on campus marks a definite move toward a more creative UTSC. In addition to being available to give feedback during regular office hours, the Writers in Residence have also been deeply involved in the UTSC community, attending events and engaging with students.

The program recently added offerings in creative non-fiction, and plans to soon add an advanced creative writing course entitled “Creative Writing as a Profession.” The course will be a practical introduction to the techniques, abilities, and knowledge necessary to publish in the digital age, and to sustain a professional career in creative writing.

UTSC intends to have a new Writer-in-Residence each year and hopes to eventually develop an English major in creative writing, in addition to the flourishing minor.

CAMPUS SPACE MEETS CREATIVE SPACE Creative writing enables students to experiment with different types of expression and to explore a wide variety of topics. Works by UTSC students often address misunderstood subjects such as mental health issues and discrimination, shedding light on difficult realities and to give a voice to marginalized communities.

In UTSC’s most recent creative writing contest, Simpson won first place in the creative non-fiction category for her short story on living with a mental illness. Simpson JOHN DIAS was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a young age and she uses her writing to share her ND experiences of living with the disorder and surviving a suicide attempt.

JULIEN BALBONTIN For students like Simpson, creative writing cultivates mental wellness on campus, because it provides a platform for people to share real life narratives and the difficulties they experience on a daily basis. Simpson has performed several readings of her writing at UTSC, and says that her peers have been very supportive of her work.

Creative writing has the power to challenge stigmas and celebrate the true narratives of people who overments,” by Oubah Osman come difficult circumstances. It can give a voice directly to people within disadvantaged communities and elicit understanding and empathy in ways that academic readings might not.

barbed

erent

avities of

nified ages. efeat

er lips, s of many

“THE PATIO”

By Chris Williams

the chairs, the tables, the banister, the tiles and paintings and mercy – they all merge into one, circling the betas and the deltas of her mind, mocking the similes and metaphors shimmering beneath the surface of her equilibrium.

The flowers, the lace and tight-lipped smiles fool her no more Her, with that cavalier tilt of her pointed chin, turned sideways.

Her, with that perpetual scorn – Red, still red.

By our third beer strong our voices were long & bullfrog sweet, and the wet air made the smoke go down smooth.

Caution

of ferment plunges to meet the hostile lap. Chairs fly, tables tumble and glasses shatter in a flurry of fists.

Fishnets

and radiating skull, hands outraised, peace imploring, shuffling feet, wracking memory for conflict resolution techniques learned in some remote workshop,

to the wind, sweat stains form, and glistening foreheads light the porch like beacons of hope, till aimless controversy, fetid swamp water, a cataract

and painted lips from corner shriek in a widespread stance, blood on her knuckles, crumpled nose and shielding hands doubled up below. Bossman Bill, moustache

out the back door, carnage breaching eye, time to neutralise.

I lost sight of him after the pitcher met his face in a spray of ocean meeting shore, the ancient war.

Read more short pieces by creative writing students at thevarsity.ca

var.st/arts

ARTS&CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

28 September 2015

MEET THE NEW

6IX GOD

Jazz Cartier proves Drake isn’t the only rapper reppin’ Toronto COREY VAN DEN HOOGENBAND / ASSOCIATE ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

Toronto-based Rapper Jazz Cartier. BRIAN RANKIN AND MAGGIE CHEUNG/THE VARSITY

“I

t takes five years to blow up over night," Jaye Adams tells me. The Toronto-based rapper, commonly known by the name Jazz Cartier, is talking about 'overnight success'; it's a curious contradiction for sure, but one that rings true for the upand-comer.

After years of building a name for himself over social media and crafting his debut mixtape, Marauding in Paradise, to perfection, Adams is finally making waves in, and beyond, the local hip-hop scene.

Despite his newfound success, Adams' rising popularity does not come without its peculiarities. In a city that’s been branded by the behemoth Drake, what is it that allows Adams' music to attract attention in a music scene already so crowded with competition? Perhaps it's his

chemistry with producer and sound engineer Michael Lantz, whose collaborations yield some of the freshest sounds today. Alternatively it's Adams' time abroad that shaped the 22-year-old into something that can't be constructed natively.

The stepson of an American diplomat, a young Adams spent much of his youth on the move. From the U.S. to Kuwait, Adams took with him unique experiences, styles, and perspectives from each country he visited in order to mould his own musical identity. "I feel like a lot of rappers from Toronto don't leave Toronto, so their perspective on stuff is not as broad as mine," remarks Adams. "Travelling definitely helped."

Inching closer to adulthood, Adams met a crossroad in 2012. Adams was accepted to study at Columbia

College in Chicago, but declined the offer in favour of returning to Toronto and pursuing music. He describes the decision as, "Mostly me just wanting to connect back with Toronto. I wasn't really here my formative years, so I figured coming back here and kind of finding myself would help influence the music a lot. And it did."

"We have a lot more to prove,” says Adams, referring to the Toronto rap scene. “So the music is going to be on a different standard than others."

In an intimate downtown recording studio, Adams and producer Lantz have spent the last few years working painstakingly to surpass those standards. They settle on "cinematic trap" as a description of the Jazz Cartier sound. The music has an energy to it that compliments big venues, but instrumentally could

also serve, perhaps, as a movie score — something that the cinematic vibe of his music videos makes clear.

Given his age, Adams is very much a child of the Internet era, and is well aware of the importance of social media. "Music is a big part of [succeeding], but that's like half of it. I feel like a lot of it is how you carry yourself on the Internet. Rappers portray themselves the way they want to be perceived, you know? And a lot of the times it's very tacky. That holds a lot of people back."

"Self awareness is a very good thing. You have to be self aware of your content and everything you do.

That's just something I use for my formula."

Adams is always up to something — since the summer, the rapper has become accustomed to the larger

venues and crowds found at festival shows like Riot Fest Toronto; he’s been a long-listed nominee for the 2015 Polaris Music Prize, and is now working on the follow-up to his debut mixtape less than a year after its release. "That honeymoon phase is over," he says about Marauding in Paradise. "I'm on to the next right now."

At 22, Adams is leading the pack of up-and-comers in the Canadian hip-hop scene. He's Toronto's newest rap darling, but thanks to his international past and grasp on online culture, he has the drive and intelligence to attract listeners on a far larger scale. While he'd prefer you didn’t make the comparison, it's nevertheless become increasingly clear that Adams is claiming his own stake in the 6ix God's territory.

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Accio, beer!

Does The Lockhart Bar stay true to the Harry Potter series?

RHIANN MOORE

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

and came up with a handy rundown of what you’ll find when you get there.

At its core, The Lockhart bar is a niche, Harry Potter-themed drinking spot that has gained more attention than it had initially anticipated. Ever since the widespread attention it received from an article on Buzzfeed, the pub has been overflowing with clientele, resulting in a near-constant twenty-minute wait to be seated. While you might arrive to the Dundas and Dufferin bar with butterbeer in mind, The Lockhart is not actually as magical as you might think. The owners, taking extra precaution to avoid copyright claims from Warner Bros., toned down the Harry Potter-ness of it all to keep from being sued. We investigated just how Harry Potter the Harry Potter-themed bar actually is,

THE GROUNDS The inside of The Lockhart is quaint, with about three subtle Potter references hiding in plain sight. If you look carefully, you’ll see a sign that states, “all was well,” which hardcore Potterheads will recognize as the last sentence of the book series. There is also a stag head displayed on the wall that is reminiscent of Harry’s famed patronus, and a discreetly hidden deathly hollows symbol lurking in the corner. Those are the most blatant references, and the rest of the bar seems low Potter-lore.

The bar itself is labelled “Potions and Elixirs” and displays large, apothecary style jars and light fixtures reminiscent of the floating candles seen around Hogwarts. The exposed

brick, teapots and scattered portraits of women channel an inner-city London-style tavern, but not one that you’d find in Diagon Alley.

THE POTIONS “The Befuddlement Draft” ($28) is a shared, fiery cocktail that’s magical enough to be found in Hogsmeade. This weekend, if you solemnly swear that you’re up to no good, this drink will definitely be worth a try. Oddly, there is also an unexpected “Dr. Manhattan” drink ($7), which, for the uninitiated, is a clear reference to The Watchman graphic novel. When looking at the drink menu, you’ll notice that the names aren’t zeroing in on Harry Potter-themed titles as much as making as many pop culture references as possible.

THE EDIBLES Fortunately, The Lockhart doesn’t carry any chocolate frogs, however the food is where the Potter references really come to a halt.

The menu is filled with an assortment of tasty Tapas meals that will balance nicely with the potent “Befuddlement Draft.” The Deep Fried Jalapeno Mac & Cheese Sliders ($12), although not particularly cheap, make for a surprisingly filling meal, and if you’re looking for something cheaper, the $6 Caprese Skewers are equally suitable. The tapas are great for sharing, but at the end of the day, The Lockhart is an upscale bar where the snacks are magic-free.

CONCLUSION: Too magical for the Dursleys, but too muggle-filled for the Weasleys.

The Lockhart is a Harry Potter-themed bar. LE DAN PHAM/THE VARSITY

What to wear for any occasion it effer en s and g ide to or al wear nd o t ow to dress to i press at vario s events JEFFERY CHEN VARSITY STAFF

Every now and then, at an event like a wedding, there is inevitably someone who brings it upon themselves to waltz into the event in jeans and a plaid shirt – often buttoned up to the neck in a touching nod to formality.

Ultimately, arriving at a formal event underdressed could be an embarrassing experience — one that you may want to avoid. Clothing, after all, is the social armour you fashion for yourself; the tailored image you present to the world. What exactly is at stake, you may ask?

Well, to dress informally at a job interview could cost you a job; to arrive underdressed at a business meeting could deprive you of new connections; and to be ill-prepared for the fancy dinner with your significant other’s family could have you exiting the dinner date with a glass of water emptied over the band t-shirt you carefully selected for the occasion.

In all seriousness, everyone is entitled to wear what they please, and should never feel any pressure to do otherwise. However, if you’re hoping to look sharp at fancy dinners, the opera, or wherever else, here are some handy style tips that you can fit up your sleeves — as long as they’re tucked carefully past the cufflinks.

FORMAL WEAR: Formal wear can be divided into two types: ‘white tie’ and ‘black tie’.

White tie is for those rare occasions that call for the most formal of clothing such as weddings, galas, balls, or that Downton Abbeythemed party you’ve always wanted to have.

Black tie is the more relaxed version of white tie, and is the most common style of formal wear today. Of course, not everyone has all the accouterments necessary for a formal dress ensemble, but it’s a good idea to check out the variety of rent options available in Toronto the next time you want to look snazzy at an Oscar party.

DRESS OPTIONS: A suit with a white shirt, a waistcoat or cummerbund, black dress shoes, suit pants, a bowtie, and a black or midnight blue dress coat. Alternatively, you can wear a floor-length gown, white opera-length gloves, and evening shoes.

SEMI-FORMAL/BUSINESS FORMAL: A step down from the stiff formality of formal wear, keep it relaxed with semi-formal wear — the clothing you can wear to formal events held before 6pm such as daytime weddings, cocktail parties, or a formal lunch. Business formal indicates that the event is business-related, and not festive, which limits the choice of colour and creativity in dressing. Business formal is often the standard work clothing for professions in business, and is recommended when attending formal job interviews.

DRESS OPTIONS: For semi-formal wear,

Semi-formal wear.

Formal wear. ELHAM NUMAN/ASSOCIATE ILLUSTRATION EDITOR

I’d recommend wearing a vest, white dress shirt, a tie, and leather dress shoes. You can also wear a shorter dress, otherwise known as the cocktail dress.

of jacket or blazer with informal items — such as creatively coloured shirts — this style is much more relaxed, and thankfully, way less regulated than formal wear. That being said, it never hurts to tailor your clothing and match colours as you see fit.

TIP: For business events, a jacket can be paired with the dress as well. If you’re a fan of the 80’s/Hillary Clinton style, you could also opt for the pantsuit.

SMART CASUAL/BUSINESS CASUAL: Smart casual is ideal for dinner dates and ‘casual Fridays’ at work. Business casual follows much the same idea, except with a slightly conservative twist. Generally a combination

DRESS OPTIONS: Feel free to wear a sports coat or blazer (colour varies, but generally brown, blue, or black would work), a dress shirt, a button-down shirt, or polo shirt, khakis or un-ripped jeans, and loafers, brogues, or leather shoes. You could also opt for a skirt with a sweater, blouse, or open collared shirt.

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CHEW ON THIS: OTTO’S BERLIN DÖNER Emilia Sherifi visits the German street-food store in Kensington Market ARTICLE BY EMILIA SHERIFI

A döner from Otto's Berlin Döner.

EMILY MILANA/THE VARSITY

It was a drab Thursday afternoon when I first walked into Otto’s Berlin Döner — a German inspired restaurant and bar in Toronto’s Kensington Market.

Naturally, I checked on Yelp to find out what kind of menu I’d be committing to for my lunch hour, and having already flipped through dozens of pictures of their food, I decided my order the minute I walked up to the cashier. What took me by surprise was the décor of the store. The Berlin Döner has an outdoor patio in front with fairy lights hung overhead, and a door leading from the patio into the store. The inside features an eye-catching mural painted on one wall, and on the other is a shelf stocked with plants illuminated by glowing lights.

Picture-perfect décor situated throughout, the newly opened restaurant acts as both a heaven and a hell to the Instagram-oriented mind.

Specializing in German street food, the restaurant offers three dishes that can be altered to your liking. The döner, a sandwich consisting of fladenbrot, assorted meats, cheese and hot sauce, is priced at an easy $7.95; the döner teller ($9.95) – a breadless option that I had opted for – is made up of meat, couscous, house salad, fries, and your choice of garlic, yogurt, haut sauce, or curry ketchup. The third meal offered is the currywurst ($7.95), a fried piece of veal or pork shaped into a sausage, traditionally topped off with curry ketchup.

The friendly cashier suggested that a first-time Berliner such as myself should start off with the yogurt and garlic sauces, and eventually move my way up to the big leagues (hot sauce and curry ketchup). When I asked which drink was ideal for my meal, he immediately suggested the Prime Mate. A play on words, this Montreal style, highly caffeinated club drink is made with an infusion of yerba mate. They also offer the Club Mate – the original version of the drink — that’s perfect for a late night out with your friends, or, if we’re being honest with ourselves, a late night spent cramming at Robarts. If booze is what you’re looking for after the trauma of an organic chemistry midterm, Otto’s also offers beer, wine, and a speciality slushy offered both virgin and spiked.

Otto’s is closed on Monday’s and Tuesday’s, but is open as late as 3:30 am on Friday's and Saturday's. With chic décor, great food, decent prices, and house music playing softly in the background, this is the perfect spot for a quick lunch, a study break, or a couple of drinks with friends.

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STUDENT THEATRE:

Agamemnon UC Follies opens the season with an emotional take on an ancient tragedy NADEZHDA WOINOWSKY-KRIEGER SCIENCE EDITOR

In the wake of the online threats against U of T's feminists comes UC Follies' Agamemnon, one of the most female-driven of the Greek tragedies. As the theater company's opening production for the year, the play encapsulates the Follies' theme for the season, which is 'gender and power'.

Aeschylus’ 2500-year-old masterpiece tells the story of the ancient King’s return home from Troy. Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra — the star of the show — chooses not to welcome her husband home and instead viciously murders him in the bathtub out of revenge for his murder of their own daughter.

According to Dorcas Chiu, director of the play, the femalecentric aspect of the story in contrast to the inherent sexism both in the original script and the translation chosen, are one of the main reasons that she selected Agamemnon in the first place. “I really wanted to highlight…how three-dimensional women can be in Greek Tragedy,” said Chiu, who spoke with The Varsity about the performance’s inception. She explained that one of the ways she incorporated the theme was by casting an all female-chorus, leaving Agamemnon who — despite being the titular character — only shows up in one scene. She also carefully selected which parts of the poem are told by which members of the chorus, to help emphasize the depth and complexity of Clytemnestra’s actions. “That’s kind of my concept,” Chiu said, “to justify Clytemnestra actions and to justify women’s rights.”

The story is, characteristic of Greek tragedies, told almost entirely using long monologues with virtually no action, making Agamemnon a challenge for even a professional theatre company. That being said, Chiu uses every resource at her disposal to make the story engaging for the audience.

The show was performed in the UC quad, using lighting, costumes, makeup, and original electronic music composed by U of T student Aidan O’Brien. Props were used to maximum effect and contributed to the play's ominous atmosphere — for instance, the UC building itself drew the viewers’ attention as it loomed over the actors throughout the performance, reminding the audience at every moment of the majesty and wealth of the ‘House of Argos’ (Agamemnon’s family) — another major theme throughout the story.

By far the most striking element of the production lay in the movements of the actors and their use of dance, motion, and positioning to aid in presenting their dialogue. “I’m a very movement-based person,” explained Chiu, who was trained as a dancer prior to her acting and directing career. “I’m very interested in how you can translate words into movement and how visceral[ly] that evokes the audience. That’s where I came from, into Agamemnon, trying to translate words into movement and how poetic that can be and what drives people to move.”

This dedication to dance is evident throughout the production — there is not a single scene in Agamemnon where the actors are not in motion, even when the course of the scene is elsewhere. Members of the chorus also use facial expressions, poses, giggling, cackling and whistling to help set the mood for every monologue throughout the play. Although the continual reinforcement of emotional character could have easily come across as forced or overly simplified for the audience, in practice, it highlighted the exaggerated nature of Greek theatre in general perfectly — which in turn was complimented by the choice of Ted Hughes’ poetic translation.

Chiu and the Follies' rendition of Agamemnon is captivating and engaging — a commendable feat for a story that could have otherwise been inaccessible.

The UC Follies perform Agamemnon. JULIA HOWMAN/THE UC FOLLIES

2015/2016

U OF T’S PERFORMING ARTS LEADER SINCE 1919

Hart House Theatre Season

WORLD PREMIERE

WE THE FAMILY Multicultural mayhem. Love.

Larceny. And death!

By George F. Walker Directed by Andrea Wasserman

SEPT. 18–OCT. 3, 2015 BOX OFFICE:

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

www.harthousetheatre.ca

Season Sponsors:

var.st/science

SCIENCE 28 September 2015

science@thevarsity.ca

D UN T

STUDENT

ARO

N OW S

E

CIENC

Hosted by U of T Pre-Medical Society in collaboration with the Canadian Blood Services, this event is the perfect chance for ou to nd out im ortant information a out lood donation and how you can help.

VERSUS

Thursday, October 1 11:30 am – 2:00 pm Sidney Smith Hall (lobby) 100 St. George Admission: Free

TIME

U OF T ASTROTOUR PLANETARIUM SHOW Come out to the monthl u lic AstroTours- organized by graduate students of Astronom and Astro h sics de artment. Along with the lanetarium shows there will also be a public talk beforehand and telescope observation.

T he sear c h for the per fec t time -managment app

Thursday, October 1 m m St. eorge Street Admission ree registration is re uired

REINVENT CONFERENCE

ifferent students use different rograms to manage their time. ALEXANDRA SCANDOLO/THE VARSITY

SOFIA LUU

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Last month, I received an email I’d been dreading — the time-management app that I’d been relying on for the past year or so, Timeful, was going to be no more by the end of September. This announcement was inevitable, as I’d already learned that Google had acquired Timeful a little while ago. So, with Timeful no longer present on my iPhone, I went hunting for a viable alternative in hopes of answering the following question: is there such thing as the perfect time management tool?

Timeful worked well for me because it was one of the few apps that worked with me. Like many other students, I have to juggle a number of different responsibilities including school, work, extracurriculars, and other personal commitments.

The nice thing about Timeful was that it worked as both your agenda and to-do list, not to mention its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to schedule your tasks during a time that worked best for you.

With Timeful gone, I asked my friends for their recommendations.

The answers were mixed. Despite

the popular belief that many students are perpetually plugged in, there were still a large number of us who relied on the highly effective method of pen and paper planning.

Some used the various tools that came with a UTORID, available through the Microsoft Outlook system. Many relied on Google Drive.

A common feature of most of the productivity apps was cloud computing, which allowed you to access your data from wherever you choose to sign in from. Your data and information exists on the Internet, rather than a physical location like on a USB or your hard drive. Either way, no one relied on a single tool for managing their time and staying on top of things.

There are a plethora of resources on the internet dedicated to enlightening readers with tips and tricks on how to be their most optimal and productive self. One could spend more time reading articles on Lifehacker and other related sites than actually getting stuff done. There are sub-communities on Tumblr and Reddit dedicated to productivity and time management skills.

While I was looking for a new time

management system, I stumbled upon a number of different tips and apps.

There is the Pomodoro Technique, created by developer Francesco Cirillo in the 1980’s, which suggests breaking up your tasks into 25-minute time increments, interspaced with 5-minute breaks. The Pomodoro Technique website offers helpful tips for activities to do during your 5 minutes of downtime, such as ‘office yoga’, or just simply reorganizing and clearing your workspace.

The technique also suggests listing distracting thoughts that may intrude while you’re in your 25-minute work period in a notebook or a file on your computer.

That way if your brain is pestering you with reminders to email your professor, or Facebook is notifying you of an upcoming potluck that you still need to bake for, you can rearrange according to priority later during your break.

The newly popular Bullet Journal (which I’ve been trying to get the hang of) applies a digital way of thinking to an analog something by way of a method called ‘rapid

logging.’ The concept was devised based on the idea that the more effort you need to put in to your organization system, the less likely it is that you will keep your system updated. In the ‘rapid logging’ language, you use short statements to characterize your thoughts, preceded by symbols to label your thoughts accordingly. Dots, for instance, represent actions that need to be completed, whereas circles signify events. Once you have mastered the language, logging your life on paper and then reading it afterwards becomes a quick and painless task. However when it comes down to it, productivity and good time management aren’t skills you pick up overnight. At the core of being productive and organized is developing healthy habits and attitudes towards work and time management. Unfortunately, technology has yet to provide us with a one size fits all solution to fix our procrastination woes. In the meantime, in an effort to stay on top of things, perhaps it’s best to try out different tools and tricks in order to find a system that works for you.

Come out to a full da at T funded Canadian nstitute of Health esearch C H . The conference will reinvent the way you think about neglected disease through a series of panel discussions, keynote speakers and wor sho s in regard to s stemic ine uities and neglect .

Friday, October 2 8:30 am – 7:30 pm University college 15 Kings College Circle Admission: $15 for students Pay what you can option also available

THE OPTIMISTIC ENVIRONMENTALIST: PROGRESSING TOWARDS A GREENER FUTURE This seminar featuring r. avid . o d an environmental law er will present challenges in sustainability, along with a report of substantial progress in and solutions toward a greener future with topics including endangered species, renewable energy, salvation of the ozone layer and more.

Wednesday, September 30 4:10 pm – 6:00 pm Earth Science building 5 Bancroft Avenue Rm. 149 Admission: Free

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What surgery is really like Three ways in which the operating room is not how you think it is

SHAHIN IMTIAZ

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

This summer, I had the opportunity to volunteer at a state of the art operating theater. While I was very excited, my main concerns were bracing myself so as to not throw up or pass out, and checking my clumsy self to be the least obtrusive I could. Surgery is a serious, quiet, sombre business, and knowing myself, I would trip over some trays, the surgeon would flinch, and the guy on the gurney would get lobotomized accidently. Thankfully, I had it all wrong.

ALICE KIM/THE VARSITY

1. IT’S NOT REALLY SCARY I expected the sight of a cut up human body to scar me for life, but it wasn’t so bad. In fact, once cut up, human bodies don’t look very different from the inside of sheep or cows (except for the four stomach chambers I suppose).

It’s just bone and fat, muscle and blood, which instead of grossing me out, just put a lot of things into perspective. It really doesn’t matter whether you’re 5’3 or 6’2, plain or handsome, android or apple. On the gurney, after the muscle and fat has been sawed through, it really is a question of what’s on the inside.

2. MUSIC IS OK Out of a row of operating theatres (OT’s) to choose from, I selected based entirely on the fact that Kanye West was playing. Turns out, the right way to jam out on Yeezy is while cutting up some guys innards.

This was in fact pretty common. If a surgery was lengthy and ‘routine’ and the patient was completely anesthetized, the OT staff would crank up the radio and live a little.

“We do the same surgeries day in and out,” one heart surgeon told me, in between ‘how many anesthesiologists does it take’ jokes. “I have done this exact same heart surgery more times than I can count. What’s in a little fun?”

Looking back, everyone wore Crocs so I should have known not to take them too seriously.

3. DOCTORS BREAK DOWN TOO While they may be a lighthearted bunch when they can, that does not change the grim realities of medical professions. Surgeons haggle with life and death daily, and when death wins and takes its dues it is heart-breaking to watch.

One surgery I assisted was an emergency C-section. The doctors held the mother’s shaking hand through the anesthesia, and then with swift knives cut her open. The woman was having twins, and one was likely dead and the other dying. They pulled out the twin that didn’t survive and reached right back in to save the living one.

After sewing the mother back up, the obgyn gave her the news. “They look just like each other,” she said Upon holding the still twin, the mother wept, choking on her tears. Many of the

doctors, nurses and technicians surrounding her cried too.

Many times I saw doctors blink away tears or wipe them hastily. They’re only human, after all.

I think the most important thing I take away from this experience was that death doesn’t discriminate. Be it a star athlete in a freak accident, an old vegetative patient, or a seven year old with every zest for life.

Death can claim them all, sometimes in the same day.

After that realization smacks you in the face, it makes no sense to discriminate between the living — or not appreciate every breath.

New microchip expected to revolutionize lung transplants U of T research on biomarkers may reduce lung-donor waitlist times dramatically RAMANA TRIVEDI VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Lung transplants save hundreds of lives each year and are among the most vital operations in the medical field. Unfortunately, the procedure comes with an array of risks and, to this day, the leading cause of post-operational death is poor donor lung viability. To maximize success, only a select few donor lungs are deemed appropriate for transplant. But despite rigorous and time consuming assessments of donor lung viability, nearly a fifth of lungs are rejected by their new hosts every year, causing devastating complications and often death.

Recent research conducted at the University of Toronto could revolutionize this procedure.

Dr. Shana Kelley, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences and biochemistry, worked in tandem with Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, a professor of thoracic surgery, to develop a quick and accurate method to analyze donor lung viability. Their innovation relies on microchips,

called fractal circuit sensors (FraCS) initially designed by Dr. Kelley to test for infection.

Modified, the microchip can now locate biomarkers in lung tissue, virtually eliminating all error.

While the study focuses on lung transplants, Dr. Kelley points out that, “any assessment that can be made on the basis of specific molecular markers can be carried out with our chip.” The chip, then, has the power to completely overturn the field of clinical practice.

The chip operates by analyzing a biopsied sample of lung tissue. It detects mRNA biomarkers to determine the lung’s viability. The innovation is unique in that it requires virtually no sample purification before analysis, making the process remarkably fast.

Using biomarkers as a method of aiding medical decision-making is widely accepted and promoted. The current methods available, however, require anywhere between six and 12 hours to perform, rendering the practice obsolete for such a time-sensitive operation.

This pioneering innovation, in contrast, can

determine lung viability in under 20 minutes.

The new research will allow doctors to not only analyze lung function when considering donor viability, but also assess lung damage.

Most lungs used for transplant today are chosen for their suitability as functioning organs.

However, around a third of deaths following transplant are due to a complication known as ‘primary graft dysfunction,’ which is commonly caused by damage already present in the lungs.

In a powerful demonstration, the microchip analyzed 52 lung transplants that had already taken place, and yielded a 74 per cent rate of sensitivity and 91 per cent rate of specificity, correctly identifying numerous instances of primary graft dysfunction.

The benefits of this new technology go beyond preventing complications.

Another major issue in the field of lung transplants is the staggering wait list. In Canada, nearly 300 people died between 1997 and 2006 while waiting for lung transplants.

In part, this is due to the fact that surgeons

are very conservative with their use of donor lungs to maximize success; only 15 per cent of donated lungs are considered suitable. However, estimates show that around 40 per cent of the lungs deemed unusable may be viable organs. This technology would improve our ability to identify this 40 per cent accurately, thereby reducing wait-lists, and saving lives.

The first successful lung transplant in history was performed at Toronto General Hospital in 1983. Since then, success rates have burgeoned and access has become relatively widespread. Now, Canadian innovation is making it possible to reach more patients and save more lives. The scope if this technology is seemingly endless, but when can we hope to see the innovation used in hospitals?

As Dr. Kelley put it, “What we reported […] was a proof-of-concept study. We now need to do a much larger clinical validation study to show that our accuracy is sufficient for clinical use.” Doctors Kelley and Keshavjee are now working to fine tune their innovation, making it ready for clinical use.

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Notice to members: Fall 2015 elections and referendum UTSU is your Students’ Union. We are governed by a Board of Directors elected by you. Our campaigns and services are also shaped by you.

Our aim is to provide services and events that save you money and enrich your university experience.

UTSU is holding its Fall 2015 by-elections for the following positions: POSITIONS AVAILABLE:

SEATS:

DIVISION I Transitional Year Program

ONE (1)

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ONE (1)

Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering

ONE (1)

To run for a position, pick up a nomination package during the nomination period at the UTSU office. Please keep in mind the dates and deadlines.

ELECTION DATES:

Nomination Period: October 13 at 9am - October 16 at 5pm Campaign Period: October 19 - October 29 Voting Days Period: October 27 - October 29 @UTSU98 For more information, visit your Students’ Union website at utsu.ca/elections or contact the Chief Returning Officer at cro@utsu.ca.

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SCIENCE 23

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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SLEEP AND DIABETES Recent studies show that excessive sleep during the day can be a sign of Type 2 Diabetes KASI SEWRAJ VARSITY STAFF

Sleep: a rare occurrence in a U of T student’s routine. We all know sleep is crucial to the function of our bodies; it helps us consolidate memories, allows our cells to repair and regenerate, and it helps us stay focused during that 9 a.m. lecture. But too much sleep is detrimental, in more ways than we may have recognized initially, says a study performed by the University of Tokyo at the European Assocation for the Study of Diabetes (EASD).

This information was found through meta-analysis of over ten studies conducted on 200,000 people in countries all over the world. When results were cross-examined, researchers found that the risk for developing Type 2 diabetes increased by 56 per cent in those who were extremely tired during the day. For those who napped for more than an hour a day, the chances of developing diabetes increased by 46 per cent. 40 minutes was

the maximum amount of time that would not cause an increased risk.

The reason for this is that increased sleep puts people at risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Studies of epidemiology show that OSA is directly linked to ischemia — or blockages of blood vessels. In 2014, U of T published a study that related OSA and diabetes, those with severe OSA are 30 per cent more likely to develop diabetes.

So what do you think? Will you start taking shorter naps? “Not really. I mean it’s either drinking coffee or soda if I don’t take a long nap, so either way I have an increased chance of diabetes.” Says second-year student Sophia Shim. I guess students really can’t win.

Smoking out bad habits 30,000 lives could be saved by removing onscreen smoking from youth media, new report shows CHARMAINE NATASHA NYAKONDA VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

“Smoking is hazardous to your health,” and, “children see children do” are examples of warning labels covering 75 per cent of the front and back covers of cigarette packages in Canada. Ironically, it can be argued that smoking has become a part of youth culture in efforts to distress, to be ‘cool,’ and to live in the moment. If people already know the negative consequences of smoking, then why do they still smoke?

“It is the nicotine rush, it helps me think sometimes I just have to because without nicotine it is kind of weird and I want to stop but I can’t because it is too addictive,” says first-year U of T student Alex*.

Earlier this month, the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit (OTRU) published the Youth Exposure to Tobacco in Movies special report, which examined onscreen exposure to tobacco among Ontario youth. The report estimated the impact of this exposure with consideration to new smokers recruited and their tobacco associated mortality and health care costs.

“Young people are more likely to [take up] smoking after exposure to onscreen smoking based on analysis of data,” said Robert Schwartz, executive director of the OTRU and associate professor at University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

The report cites that “from 2004 to 2014, more than half (56 per cent) of top-grossing movies in Ontario featured tobacco imagery and 86 per cent of them were youth-rated... adult ratings for movies that depict onscreen tobacco would save at least 30,000 lives and half a billion healthcare dollars... estimates of healthcare costs do not include the costs of drugs and home care, for which data was not available.”

“I believe that youth smoke for various reasons addiction, out of boredom, for physical enhancement [or] peer pressure,” said first-

year life-sciences student David Orakpo, “Onscreen exposure to smoking only tells them that others are doing it and it is acceptable in public — thus acting as an inhibitor to quitting as it encourages the practice instead of shunning it, Schwartz projected that at least 185,000 children and teens in Ontario will start smoking cigarettes due to exposure to onscreen smoking, based on United States Center for Disease Control models, which account for health effects over a lifetime. “Getting people to agree with the finding was one of the challenges that we faced,” said Schwartz, who personally feels the evidence is convincing enough.

“Sometimes young people get encouraged by watching that stuff and they want to smoke too you could probably stop incidents of youth smoking by [proposing a] policy to put a no under 18 restriction on movies with onscreen smoking but it won’t help people that are smoking at the moment,” Jessica, a first-year student commented.

Whether or not an 18A rating for movies with smoking in them is realistic, however, Schwartz urges students to consider the extent to which the benefits would outweigh the costs involved in enforcing such a policy. “Rates of youth smoking has been declining but not as much as we want them or would expect them to,” Schwartz points out, “and I really want to take this time to emphasize that the suggested policy change is not to completely ban the production of movies with on screen smoking, but to place an 18A rating for all movies with smoking.”

LISA WONG/THE VARSITY

*Name changed at the request of the student

SPORTS

var.st/sports

28 September 2015

sports@thevarsity.ca

Students rst, athletes second: Combatting concussions in varsity sports

n active approac to re a ing rain in ries ARTICLE BY LEILA KESHAVJEE AND ILLUSTRATION BY ANN SHENG

Eugenie Bouchard, Canadian tennis star, recently suffered a concussion at the U.S. Open and as a result was forced to withdraw from the tournament. Bouchard, an active social media user, was noticeably absent from the media for three weeks, before posting a picture of a black screen on Instagram with the caption: “Glad I don’t have to sit in this anymore.”

Concussions can be one of the most devastating injuries athletes can sustain. Treatment for sports related brain injuries is constantly evolving in an effort to find the safest, most effective route to recovery. Like Bouchard, U of T alumni and former Varsity Blues hockey player, Mary Claire Geneau sustained a concussion during her first year with the Blues, and can relate to Bouchard’s ‘dark room’ experience.

“It’s difficult to feel better as a rookie living in a single room,” said Geneau “you feel isolated from your friends, your team and this can make it more difficult to feel better.”

Although there are multiple studies and medical journals asserting the effectiveness of the ‘dark room therapy’ both Bouchard and Geneau received, Dr. Michael Hutchison, assistant professor and director of the concussion program at U of T believes that there are more effective means of treatment.

“We are moving away from the dark room and believe more in an active recovery,” said Hutchison, “for no other injury are patients

UP

NEXT

told not to exercise so concussions are no different.” Although the differences are minimal in the treatment available to varsity athletes who suffer concussions versus the treatments offered to professional athletes like Bouchard, Dr. Paul Comper, a clinical neuropsychologist at the David L. MacIntosh Sports Medicine Clinic, says that a major concern is that varsity athletes are students first, and athletes second.

Professional athletes tend to want to get back in the game as soon as possible, as many rely on sponsorship deals and prize money to earn a living, and have unlimited access to teams of therapists to help them get back into the game. In comparison, varsity athletes who also have access to doctors and therapists, are concerned about their ability to keep up with their academics.

Statistics in varsity sport are scarce, and according to the Sports Concussion Institute five to 10 per cent of athletes will sustain a concussion in a season. At U of T, varsity athletes on the baseball, basketball, field hockey, football, ice hockey, lacrosse, rugby, soccer, wrestling, and volleyball teams must all complete a pre-season cognitive and vision screening before they are cleared to train and compete. The screening gives doctors, coaches, and therapists a baseline in the event of a head injury.

Concussions can seriously dissrupt and pos-

sibly end an athlete’s season. Depending on the severity of the injury, some athletes are forced to take time off classes, which can put their academic year in jeopardy. Speaking from personal experience, recovering from a concussion can take a major toll on your academics. After sustaining a concussion a few days prior to midterms, I ended up withdrawing from most of my courses because, by the time I was feeling well enough to complete assignments, it was too difficult to make up for the time I spent recovering. Geneau also found herself in a similar situation; in order for her to maintain her eligibility and play the following season, she needed to take four summer courses. “It is common for students to have to drop classes because of how much work they have missed,” Comper suggests.

For some athletes, the fear of being hit again remains when they’re finally cleared to train and compete. Blues track and field athlete, and former volleyball player, Emily Kawaguchi says she hasn’t played a game of volleyball since sustaining a concussion in a warm up over a year ago. “That was my life before and so it’s crazy... I want to play,” said Kawaguchi adding, “but also there is a fear of getting hit [again] because I am not even better from this [concussion].” Although the psychological damage a concussion can inflict on an athlete is detrimental, and can be, in

Kawaguchi’s case, career-ending, a small percentage of concussed athletes experience post concussion syndrome. The disorder consists of various symptoms ranging from dizziness to migraines, which can last for weeks after the initial injury. Geneau still experiences difficulty looking at screens and motion sickness as a result of her concussion.

Amy Dinaut, the physiotherapist for the Varsity Blues men’s hockey and women’s rugby teams, maintains that although it’s near impossible to give a standard recovery timeline for a concussed athlete — since treatments vary depending on the individual and the severity of the injury — an active approach to rehabilitation, as opposed to sitting in a dark room, is the best bet.

“Concussion treatments of the past used to have people do nothing after the injury,” said Dinaut. Athletic staff from both the MacIntosh Clinic and Concussion Program closely monitor the active approach, which involves mild cardiovascular, balance, and motor control exercises. “The active approach is something we start when the concussion symptoms have resolved,” said Dinaut, adding that resuming physical activity, no matter how minimal, helps an athlete feel closer to competition again.

MEN’S

MEN’S

MEN’S & WOMEN’S

WOMEN’S

Hockey vs. York

Basketball vs. McGill

Water Polo U of T Fall Classic

Rugby vs. McMaster

Varsity Arena @ 7:30 PM Tuesday, September 29th

Goldring @ 7:00 PM Friday, October 2nd

Varsity Pool @ TBD Friday, October 2nd

Varsity Stadium @ 1:00 PM Saturday, October 3rd

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Who cares about CIS? There isn’t an established market focusing on Canadian varsity athletics

ELHAM NUMAN/ASSOCIATE ILLUSTRATION EDITOR

DANIEL SAMUEL

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

March madness, college football, and D1 schools — these terms should all be instantly recognizable to sports fans and enthusiasts across Canada. What all three have in common is that they are synonymous with America’s National Collegiate Athletics Association — more commonly referred to as the NCAA. The NCAA is the upper echelon of varsity athletics, reportedly pulling in just under one billion dollars in annual revenue in 2014. The triumphs and scandals of NCAA teams frequent US headlines and trickle into Canadian media and sports culture. Millions of Canadians create March madness brackets every year, and there is a constant stream of boosting and coaching scandals appearing north of the border. But why exactly are our newsfeeds flooded with NCAA discussion instead of our own Canadian product?

The amount of coverage dedicated to the closest Canadian equivalent to the NCAA, Canadian Interuniversity Sports (CIS), lacks in content and frequency when compared to the NCAA — in part because of the media structure we currently live in. Small sources can not make much of an impact when reporting

on CIS championships when major Canadian news organizations decline to cover the same events as heavily as they do the NCAA. This lack of coverage, when combined with the fact that U of T students — and Canadian university students in general — do not regularly engage with university sport, makes the market for covering the CIS small.

Along with their masses of collegiate fans, the NCAA also boasts a clear financial advantage over the CIS in marketing and advertising.

In the US sportswear companies such as Nike, Adidas, and Under Armor sign seven-figure sponsorship deals with colleges to own commercial and apparel rights. If you walk into any of the ‘Big 10’ colleges’ sports stores, you can expect to find jerseys embossed with the number of your favourite player. Because, in US collegiate sport you not only know who the players are, but you actually have a favourite.

Reporting on the Blues’ recent football home opener I was completely unaware of the surnames of the opposing McMaster Marauders. At the same time, like a lot of avid sports fans, I can rattle off the names of the top NCAA football programs in a heartbeat.

Aside from the lack of media coverage, there is also a common narrative that discredits Canadian varsity sport — the CIS lacks worldwide notoriety and does not seem to produce the magnetic star athletes who go on to play professionally.

The sheer amount of programing devoted to the NCAA also outweighs that of the CIS. On Saturdays, from noon till night, any sports fan can find a number of NCAA football games airing on television, but the same cannot be said of the CIS. This disparity however, can also be attributed to the rule differences between American and Canadian football, the same differences that are evident between the CFL and the NFL — due to the lack of knowledge regarding Canada’s rule system, an information divide exists atop a popularity divide.

The sad truth is that there just isn’t a market available for the CIS to rival the well-oiled, better funded, NCAA machine. Superior branding has even casual fans relishing the opportunity to redeem themselves from last spring’s busted bracket in the 2016 March madness tournament.

SUNDAY

OCT 4 TORONTO METRO TORONTO CONVENTION CENTRE 1 pm - 5 pm SEMINARS start at 12 noon

www.studyandgoabroad.com

DENTISTRY ON THE AVENUE Dr. Lisa LindstrÖm

Gentle, Caring & Compassionate Dentistry HEALTHY TEETH = HAPPY SMILE 315 Avenue Road · Floor 1, Suite 2 Toronto · (Between St. Clair & Dupont) FREE PARKING 416.926.0123 drlisalindstrom.com dentistryontheavenue@gmail.com

26 SPORTS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 28 S E P T E M B E R 2 015 sports@thevarsity.ca

pening p t e pla ing eld Diversity in professional and amateur sport is on the rise VELA PANDYA

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The NHL’s New York Islanders recently drafted Andong Song, an 18-year-old defenseman from Oakville, in the sixth round of the 2015 entry draft. Picked 172 overall, Song’s selection by the Islanders shouldn’t have been remarkable, however, what made the pick so revolutionary is that Song is the first Chinese-born player to be selected in the NHL’s entry draft.

The debate continues over whether professional sports are becoming more diverse — by actively seeking more ethnically, culturally, and racially diverse rosters — or if individual countries themselves are doing more to promote involvement in non-traditional sports.

Regardless, the addition of Song into the NHL is a huge step forward for the league.

In order to inspire the same degree of athletic diversity within campus sport and athletics, the president of University of Toronto Mississauga’s (UTM) Athletic Council (UTMAC), Belal Raifai, believes that it’s the job of organizations like UTMAC to actively promote inclusivity and diversity in their campaigns. “UTMAC has a responsibility to promote teams and create events geared towards non-traditional sports,” said Raifai, adding that one of the top priorities of the council is to make sure that the student body’s diverse athletic needs are met.

According to a recent survey by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, the NBA is the most diverse professional sport organization, boasting an A+ grade when it comes to racial hiring. However, a study conducted by Elias Sports Bureau found that Major League Soccer (MLS) is the most diverse league in North America in terms of international players, with 42.8 per cent of MLS players being born outside of Canada and the US. The study ranked the NBA fourth behind major league baseball and the NHL. Song, who acknowledged in a recent interview, that it was hard to find rink space to practice on, and even harder to enter tournaments because of the lack of established leagues and teams in China, is excited to play professional hockey in America where there is well-established hockey culture. “China just started broadcasting NHL games,” said Song, adding that he hopes his new opportunity will promote hockey in China.

Raifai doesn’t recognize the same lack of diversity exemplified by professional sports organizations at UTM, but he does acknowledge that if there is a demand for a non-traditional sport to be included within the intramural roster, or drop-in programs, then it’s the job of the UTMAC to deliver. “[We have] a responsibility to promote teams and create events geared

JULIEN BALBONTIN/ILLUSTRATION EDITOR

towards non-traditional sports,” he said. “If we notice that there is demand for certain sports that are not already being provided then we will work alongside the department to find different ways to introduce those sports to UTM.” Kamal Ali, director of intramurals and campus recreation at UTMAC agrees. “We promote to students to come and play and try

out new sports,” said Ali, who asserts that recreational and drop-in sports like cricket, ultimate frisbee, and table tennis are increasingly important because they get a more diverse group of students participating in campus athletics.

Blues basketball season preview Campbell, Garner, and Addo optimistic about upcoming season DORA AKCAY

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

With the beginning of the regular season a little over a month away, both the men’s and women’s Varsity Blues basketball teams are focused and aiming high for 2015-16, with both teams rosters having changed considerably from last year. With both teams having quite a bit of roster change from last year, the Blues’ basketball team is looking forward to training and developing players both new and told.

After ending the 2014-15 season with a defeat against Windsor in the first round of the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) playoffs, the men’s basketball team is preparing for redemption, and is starting the season afresh with some brand new talent. The team is getting close to finalizing the starting line up and appointing captains, as tryouts are coming to an end in the next few weeks. “[A] minimum of seven different players will be on the roster this year,” said men’s head coach John Campbell, adding that chemistry will be an evolving process throughout the season and will be essential to the team’s success.

When asked about what the team’s goals for this season, Campbell, who represented U of T as an assistant coach on the Canadian men’s basketball team at the 2015 Summer Universiade, was direct and to the point, “our goal would be to make the playoffs and host the games at the Goldring Centre,” he said, “Once we get in to the playoffs our goal is to win each game.”

Despite his no holds barred philosophy and the amount of preparation his young team is putting in on the court, Campbell

does not forget to add that fans and game attendance are going to be vital to the team’s success throughout the year, “Fan support is essential. I am excited about this team… I believe this will be a very entertaining team.”

He said, adding that he hopes the university community gets excited about the season and enjoys watching the team dominate the court.

The women’s Varsity Blues basketball team will also start the season with a new, young roster. Although the number of rookies joining the team this year outnumbers the amount of returning veterans nine to seven, co-captains Alanna Garner and Abena Addo feel optimistic about what the team can achieve throughout the year. “Our team is younger

than most of the other teams in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS),” adding, “we should be more athletic, aggressive and quicker than our opponents.”

When asked about developing a successful team dynamic and learning to communicate effectively on the court, both Garner and Addo assert that chemistry is the least of their problems. “We don’t see [team chemistry] being a problem at all,” they said. “In the change room we laugh, talk and already have inside jokes. We also know what the first year players excel in or struggle with. We believe we are stronger at this point in time as a team than we were at this time last year.”

Last year, the team ended their season in

the second round of the OUA playoffs, when they were eliminated by the Windsor Lancers — who would go on to become the 2015 CIS champions. This year, Garner and Addo’s top priority will be qualifying and competing in the 2016 CIS Championship, adding that the combination of skilled veterans and determined rookies will take the team on a fun and successful journey.

The women’s and men’s Varsity Blues basketball teams will play their first games at home on November 11 against Waterloo at 6 PM and 8 PM respectively at the Goldring Center for High Performance Sport.

Men’s coach John Campbell & woman’s captains Alana & Abena look forward to a successful seaso. PHOTO COURTESY OF VARSITY BLUES

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Blues fall short in hall of fame match U of T defeated 37-18 by Queen’s

Blues couldn’t hold off power-house Queen’s. SOPHIE ZHU/THE VARSITY

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On a scorching Saturday afternoon, in honor of the 1965 Yates and Vanier Cup winning team, the Varsity Blues football team were unable to overcome costly penalties and offensive miscues falling 37-18 to the visiting Queen’s Gaels. One might have expected a game reminiscent of the clash of the titans between the two historic rivals. However, both the Blues and Gaels came out surprisingly flat in the first quarter, with neither team managing to put together much of a drive in the opening 15 minutes. U of T looked particularly poor, with veteran quarterback Simon Nassar completing only two passes for 33 yards.

The second quarter saw Queen’s begin to move the ball effectively, scoring a single point off a punt into the end zone, as well as a pair of touchdowns in the final three minutes of the half. U of T’s offence was still unable to gain any headway; the defensive line was exposed to repeated attacks by Queen’s quarterback Nate Hobbs for huge downfield gains. The Blues took a 15-0 deficit into the locker room at halftime.

In the wake of a halftime presentation in honor of the 1965 Yates and Vanier Cup Championship Varsity Blues team, U of T’s offence found their stride and came

out firing in the third quarter. The Blues were able to march 65 yards in 10 plays to score a touchdown on their opening drive of the second half — successfully breathing some life into a Varsity Centre crowd which had little to cheer for during the first 30 minutes.

After the game, blues running back Divante Smith credited the team’s mentality at halftime as the driving force of that quick third quarter start.

“During halftime we tried not to focus on the past quarter. We wanted to focus on getting a fresh start and doing our jobs, it was our time to stand up and play with these guys.”

The Gaels answered back with a touchdown of their own, pushing their lead to 22-7, but the Blues responded quickly with a touchdown, then a field goal, to close within four points of the lead midway through the fourth quarter. The blues’ rally was ultimately stymied by a number of costly and unnecessary roughing penalties, allowing Nate Hobbs to run in another touchdown, as well as a game ending fumble recovered in the endzone by Queen’s, putting the game out of reach for the Blues at 37-18 with five minutes to go.

After the game head coach Greg Gary admitted that the team has a lot to work on in preparation for the Red and Blue Bowl on October second when the Blues face GTA rivals York.

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