October 22, 2012 by The Varsity

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Vol. CXXXIII, No. 7

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SGRT makes a power play Meeting with Minister first foray into lobbying Zane Schwartz VARSITY STAFF

What is the St. George Round Table? While the University of Toronto Students’ Union was founded in 1905, there have been several attempts to create parallel institutions in student governance. Iterations of the group today known as the St. George Round Table have existed for decades, initially as the Council of Presidents of U of T and more recently, the Presidents’ Roundtable. The SGRT’s inaugural meeting was held on November 26, 2009. The Round Table today is composed of the elected student council presidents of the seven college councils, as well as representatives from the faculties of engineering, physical health, and education. Although Wednesday’s meeting was the first between the SGRT and a sitting Minister, the roundtable’s constitution empowers the body to “take the lead in co-ordinating directives and policy on mutual issues of concern for students.”

Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Glen Murray met Wednesday with student leaders from U of T to hear their input on the Ministry’s June discussion paper on postsecondary educational reform. The St. George Round Table (SGRT), a group made up of presidents from college councils and professional faculties, attended the meeting at Queen’s Park, as did representatives from the undergraduate, graduate, part-time, Mississauga, and Scarborough student unions, who were invited as guests. The meeting, which has been in the works for several weeks, was convened because of “the lack of the Minister’s presence at the town hall,” according to Scott Dallen, chair of the SGRT. “There is nothing political about this move,” insisted Dallen in opening the meeting. But the meeting was unmistakably the first foray of the Round Table into provincial advocacy and lobbying, traditionally the realm of the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU). Wednesday’s meeting was the first-ever between a sitting Minister and the Round Table, which was formed in 2009 (see left). “The SGRT is by far the most democratically representative group at U of T,” suggested Jonathan Scott, president of the University of Toronto Liberals, who was closely involved in coordinating the meeting. Scott added that SGRT members “are chosen in elections with the highest voter turnout on campus.” “I hope you find this group useful and can consult with it in future, Minister, because no group at U of T better speaks for U of T students,” Scott said. At the close of the meeting, the Minister agreed to meet monthly with the SGRT. “Maybe it’s the case that the UTSU has a formal mandate to lobby on behalf of students, but what they’re actually

doing is lobbying on behalf of special interests,” said Sam Greene, head of college at Trinity and a member of the SGRT. “The UTSU’s rigid allegiance to the ideological line taken by the CFS [Canadian Federation of Students] makes them inflexible and near-incapable of compromise,” Greene added. Students in attendance had mixed feelings about the outcome of the meeting. “This was my first chance to speak with the Minister oneon-one, which I really appreciated,” said Chris Thompson, president of the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union. Thompson said he was generally happy with the meeting, having taken the opportunity to discuss rising tuition costs with the Minister. Others saw the meeting as a political ploy. “I am going to go ahead and call this an SGRT-Minister get-together to bash the CFS,” remarked Katherine Ball, president of the Arts & Science Student Union. UTSU president Shaun Shepherd was more pointed, commenting: “This wasn’t a meeting. It was a waste of time.” “There are only a few organizations who, throughout the year, have done work on this issue,” said Shepherd, implying that the SGRT was not among them. The UTSU, along with student unions from Mississauga, Scarborough and the Graduate Students’ Union, submitted formal written responses about the paper to the Ministry by the September 30 deadline. No group on the SGRT appears to have submitted a formal response, although some did attend the town hall held in late September. The report submitted by the UTSU to the Ministry was the result of “a number of all-nighters” after the town hall on September 25 to meet the deadline, and the union tried to “compile all of the feedback we heard from students at the town hall … which was the largest student consultation held in the province.”

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October 16 marked the groundbreaking for a major reconstruction project at UTM’s North Building, the eighth major renovation in the last decade to be undertaken on a campus that is rapidly expanding. Over the last 10 years, enrolment at UTM has doubled to just over 12,000 undergraduates, making it larger than approximately 60 per cent of universities in Canada. UTM principal and university vice-president Deep Saini says he expects the campus will continue to grow, in keeping with an ambitious expansion plan laid out in the university’s guiding document, “Towards 2030: The View from 2012.” “We are growing at five per cent each year. At this point we expect 15,000 students in about five years time,” said Saini. Some of the documents in the “Towards 2030” plan suggest this number might eventually grow as large as 20,000. “The reconstruction will provide our students, staff and faculty with facilities better suited to their work and more in keeping with their excellence — spaces that will support and inspire them in teaching and learning, discovery and innovation,” said U of T president David Naylor, who was on-site for the groundbreaking ceremony. The North Building was originally constructed in 1967 as a temporary facility, with the intent of gauging whether or not an additional University of Toronto campus in Mississauga (at the time called Erindale College) was a feasible project. As UTM encountered early success and popularity, the building simply remained in use. Saini noted that there had been “complaints about the quality of the original space,” making it a prime candidate for renovation.

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UTM’s Growing Enrolment “Towards 2030” calls for much of the university’s undergraduate population to shift to the Mississauga campus, necessitating extensive renovations.

Administrators and dignitaries break ground at UTM. Keith Nablo/UtM

The project is jointly funded by the Ontario provincial government and UTM, which have contributed $52.5 million and $22.5 million, respectively. Once opened in September of 2014, the new North Building will be four storeys tall and feature approximately twice the space than is currently available, providing students and staff with an area of over 5,000 square metres. Administrators hope the new layout will meet current demands for space, as well as accommodate anticipated growth. “This reconstructed facility will make a significant difference in the delivery of educational programs on this campus,” says Saini. “It will help us accommodate student growth and provide up-to-date facilities that match the wired and digital needs of young people today. The quality of our built environment, and facilities that stimulate and inspire will play a huge role in our students’ success.” The new North Building will house the Mathematics and Computational Sciences departments, both of which are currently crowded into basements. There will also be space for the psychology, drama, and English departments. “We want to accommodate the departments that have burning needs,” explained Saini. The new building will also provide ample study and cafeteria space, aimed towards use by undergraduates. Saini explained that including these amenities and ensuring sufficient student space was a major priority for UTM. “In every new building, we are providing free [individual and group] study spaces for students,” he said more cafeterias are a welcome development, given the relative isolation of UTM from the commercial centre of Mississauga. To ensure its long-term usefulness, the new North Building has been carefully designed with an eye towards future needs.

Like all new UTM developments, it will have green energy certification. Classrooms will be wired to easily convert into teleconferencing-capable “smart” classrooms. These capabilities are also in keeping with the “Towards 2030” plan, which calls for greater inter-campus collaboration and the possible teaching of first-year courses to students on multiple campuses via high bandwidth transmissions. According to “Towards 2030,” such aggressive expansion is based on “the guiding principle … to complete [UTM and UTSC’s] growth as comprehensive universities with stronger identities, yet build on the enormous advantages our tri-campus system confers upon them in recruitment of top flight faculty and students.” Part of this strategy involves making UTM more attractive for graduate and international students by improving facilities. Saini is not alone in considering the North Building expansion as an example of the swift, drastic changes UTM has been making as a campus. “This groundbreaking ceremony continues the transformation of the campus into a worldclass, cutting edge institution unrecognizable from only a decade ago,” said Harinder Takhar, MPP for Mississauga–Erindale. Pending the approval of further funds, this is only the first of an expected three phases of renovation which are intended to almost totally replace the original structures of Erindale College. Saini sees the expansion of UTM as benefitting both the Mississauga campus and the university as a whole. “The vitality of the campus is exemplary, and a lot of students are attracted to that. It’s a pretty phenomenal story for U of T,” he said. “We are transforming into something unique among Canadian universities.”

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The “education premier” leaves the job half-finished Simon Bredin NEWS EDITOR

Dalton McGuinty’s abrupt announcement that he will step down as Liberal leader once a successor is selected brought a close his nine-year premiership. He is now a lame-duck leader, with a recently-initiated process of higher education reform only halfway finished, and its future uncertain. Post-secondary education has undergone a rapid expansion since the 1960s, from educating an elite five per cent of the population, to nearly half today. A study by the Martin Prosperity Institute reports the higher education “participation rate [in Ontario] will likely need to reach 60 per cent to meet the educational requirements for future jobs.” Within the next decade or so, Ontario will need about 25 per cent more university and college spaces than it has today. An increase of about 100,000 more spaces for baccalaureate students. When he became premier in 2003, undergraduate enrolment in the province was just over 300,000. As McGuinty exits office, that number has climbed to 400,000. Most experts suggest that to meet future demand, the province will need to increase capacity by at least another 100,000. McGuinty’s government has a good record — he rebuilt public services eroded by former Conservative premier Mike Harris. He has also assiduously cultivated his reputation as the “education premier,” and could have survived as the bearer of bad news, weathering political storm with a bedrock of support among a generation of parents and students who believed he salvaged a K-12 system eroded under Mike Harris’ “Common Sense Revolution.” But while he righted the ship, he leaves office without realizing the fundamental reforms he seems to have believed to be necessary. Developments in other provinces, many of which unfolded during McGuinty’s term, suggest a future Ontario premier is now left with the difficult job of telling the province’s 24 colleges and 20 universities that they are not all equal. With every university in the province still scrambling to distinguish itself as a research institution, the government is left with the unsavoury task of telling some schools that their focus must shift to teaching and away from research. Other premiers have already told their constituents such hard truths. In 2007, Alberta’s Conservative premier Ed Stelmach formed distinct categories of post-secondary institutions in the province. Reform in British Columbia also followed a familiar pattern. First came the report by former Attorney-General Geoff Platt. Premier Gordon Campbell then passed legislation to create “special purpose teaching universities” as a distinct class of institutions. In Nova Scotia, NDP premier Darrell Dexter similarly reformed the province’s system, based on the austerity recommendations of economist Tim O’Neill. In Ontario, McGuinty commissioned former NDP premier Bob Rae to conduct a similar review in 2005. But Rae, now the interim federal Liberal leader, stopped short of calling for the creation of a tiered system of research versus teaching universities. Instead, he suggested changes to funding formulae and new qualitycontrol measures. Five years later, in 2010, deputy minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Deborah Newman — the Ministry’s most senior bureaucrat — raised the issue once again, and began to explore whether “a more strongly differentiated set of universities would help

McGuinty’s vacant office. BERNARDA GOSPIC/thE vARSIty

improve the overall performance and sustainability of the system.” A discussion paper released this June by Minister Training, Colleges, and Universities Glen Murray hints at possible sweeping reforms to come. Murray and others have repeatedly the discussion paper is for discussion, not claimed determining policy. Yet as the opening salvo in a process of reform that could take years to unfold in full, the discussion paper seems to suggest the provincial government is prepared to overhaul the delivery of higher education in Ontario. With Murray rumoured to be contemplating a run to succeed McGuinty as Liberal leader, the future of the consultative process is in question. But, if two classes of universities are ever created in Ontario, there is every indication the University of Toronto would remain a research university. It has long been the crown jewel of Ontario’s higher education system, the only university in the province to break into the top 20 of reputable global rankings. In a recent meeting with student leaders from this university, Murray claimed the Liberals have increased U of T’s funding by 100 per cent. Murray praised U of T as an “elite” research institution and indicated that he was prepared to defend and maintain that distinction. But he also harkened back to Rae’s suggestion about the need for “quality control” around funding, to make sure it is actually improving the student experience, suggesting that may not be the case at U of T. The theme throughout the meeting between student leaders and the Ministry was that good work has been done, but more progress is required. The conversation may now shift away from one between bureaucrats and stakeholders and into the political arena of a Liberal leadership race. Interestingly, three of the likely top-tier candidates are uniquely positioned to ensure a substantive discussion of the issue, from three differing perspectives: Murray, the Universities minister; Kathleen Wynne, the much-celebrated former education minister; and Dwight Duncan, the finance minister whose recent programme has shifted the government away from a paradigm of Liberal investment and into an austerity agenda. As all three contemplate and perhaps campaign to succeed Dalton McGuinty, they’ll bring three distinct perspectives to his unfinished agenda on post-secondary education.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

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Munk School hits its stride

Two years on, The Varsity checks in to see how the university’s $35 million investment in a new school for international affairs has fared Irina Vukosavic VARSITY STAFF

With an initial $35 million investment from Barrick Gold chairman Peter Munk in 2010, a new building on Bloor for the flagship Masters of Global Affairs program, and the promise of giving students a unique window on the world, the legacy of the Munk School of Global Affairs has so far engendered both prestige and controversy. Launched in 2010, the Munk School of Global Affairs has recently seen its first cohort convocate and make their way into the workforce. The school’s academic initatives and groundbreaking research regularly make international headlines. Since its inception, the Munk School has been dogged by allegations of undue corporate influence among a handful of

“Never once in my time here have I seen, in light of Peter Munk’s donation, even the slightest indication of impeded academic freedom in any way,” says Graham Smith, currently half-way through the school’s flagship Masters of Global Affairs (MGA) program. Janice Stein, director at the Munk School, says that academic freedom is “in our DNA,” and that students are “free to express their opinions and develop arguments that are supported by the best evidence that they can find.” In spite of the initial furor over Munk’s influence, it’s hard to ignore how far the Munk School has come in just two short years. The new building on Bloor Street provides a home for the MGA program, doubling the amount of space for students, faculty, and staff. An official ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted in late September was attended by senior administrators from Simcoe Hall as well as provincial cabinet ministers.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Munk School’s new building in late September was a star-studded affair. Bernarda Gospic/THe VarsiTy

outspoken groups on campus, many of whom object to the fact that a mining mogul like namesake donor Munk is so heavily invested at U of T. “Perhaps the main problem with the Munk contract, which President Naylor signed to establish the Munk School, is that it effectively cedes decision-making power to the corporate sector,” says Jacob Nerenberg, a graduate anthropology student at U of T, in a previous exchange over email. Sakura Saunders, co-editor of anti-Munk website ProtestBarrick.net, claims that Peter Munk’s mining company Barrick Gold is “leveraging the reputation of the university to avoid government regulation on mining abuses.” Students at the Munk School tell a different story.

Some younger programs like the Global Journalism Fellowships, which were launched in September, seem to be getting a strong reception already, turning heads in places like Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab or the headlines of The Globe and Mail. “Now all of our Fellows are reporting stories for major media; all have pitched stories successfully; some have already been published. Others are in the queue. That’s a lot of progress for a month!” says Robert Steiner, director of the journalism fellowship program. The secret to this rapid and high-profile success, according to students and administrators, is the Munk School’s primary goal of combining real-world experience and lecture material.

News in brief Minnesota bans Coursera, but soon relents

Canadian research funding in worst slump in decade

The Office of Higher Education (OHE) in Minnesota has reconsidered a controversial banning access to the online education program Coursera to residents within the state. A policy analyst from the OHE stated that Minnesota originally enacted the ban because of the enforcement of a longstanding law “requiring colleges to get the government’s permission to offer instruction within its borders.” Concerns have been expressed, however, that the ban was unenforceable, and that the law itself is outdated. Coursera was founded by Stanford computer science professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. The company’s website states that Coursera offers “(world class) courses available online, for free.” It is currently partnered with 33 world renowned universities. A statement by OHE Director Larry Pogemiller on Friday indicated a possible reconsideration of the ban. He commented that he saw “no reason for our office to require registration of free, not-for-credit offerings.”

Research funding at Canadian universities grew just 2.2 per cent this year, according to a study by Toronto firm Research Infosource. This marks the lowest rate of growth seen in a decade and has raised concerns about a possible decline in Canadian innovation. The study, entitled “Canada’s Top 50 Research Universities List 2012”, found that funding increased in just 34 out of 50 top Canadian universities from 2010 to 2011. In Ontario, the numbers were worse: the province posted a two per cent loss in research income, as just 12 out of 18 Ontario universities saw their funding increase. “With most research income coming from government sources and with governments at all levels cutting back, it’s not surprising to see total research support slipping,” said Ron Freedman, CEO of Research Infosource. “This year’s growth is the poorest since Research Infosource began tracking in 2001.” The University of Toronto saw its research income increase by 4.2 per cent over the last year, and came first in the national ranking of Canadian research universities, followed by UBC and the University of Alberta.

—Dan Smeenk With files from Slate and Coursera.com

—James Maiangowi

“The MGA program is very focused on linking theoretical knowledge and practice of international affairs,” said Smith. “It’s endowing in us professional skills and networks to tap into so that when we get out of here, we can hit the ground running in global affairs careers.” Fariya Mohiuddin, part of the first cohort of students to graduate from the MGA program, says that it’s the perfect way to pursue higher learning without giving up networking and practical skills. She explains that instead of going the traditional route of doing a masters degree and an entry-level position afterwards, MGA graduates can go straight into the professional world. One of the ways the Munk School provides practical experience, said Mohiuddin, is through the first-year internship program. Although other students suggested that the initial round of internship assignments was bumpy as the school was still brand new and coming into its own, Mohiuddin’s experience — helping the government prep for the annual budget in Bangladesh — was an “incredibly positive experience.” Other students within the program say much the same about their placements. “I interned at the World Bank in Washington this past summer and it was an amazing opportunity,” says Smith. “Being at a major multi-lateral institution like that, I had so many contacts and experiences unparalleled to anything I may have gotten at another graduate program.” Another reason for the Munk School’s success, say students, is the receptivity of the faculty. The new “2.0 MGA program,” as Mohiuddin calls it, has been adjusted and tinkered with over the past two years. “We have received a lot of valuable feedback from the first graduating class of MGA students and have extensively revamped our Capstone course to enhance the professional education that students get,” says Ron Levi, program director for the MGA program. The Capstone course, Levi says, now offers students research opportunities in experimental labs and research projects across campus. For example, professor Joseph Wong’s new interdisciplinary “Global Challenges” course is taught in collaboration with colleagues from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, the Rotman School of Management, and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Those kinds of innovative, cross-faculty courses, says Mohiuddin, weren’t offered in her first year at Munk. “We knew what we were getting ourselves into, but at the end we all knew we were doing something monumental,” says Mohiuddin. Stein says this is just the beginning. Her hope is that the MGA program “will be among the best programs internationally, a program that students around the world look to as an example of professional education that is infused with Canadian knowledge and expertise.”

“SGRT” CONTINUED FROM COVER Student leaders have been jostling for the opportunity to weigh in on the broad reforms proposed within the discussion paper since a dispute over speaking time three weeks ago prevented the Minister from attending the UTSUorganized town hall. The union and the Minister had a falling out over his absence at the town hall that escalated into a near-flame war on Twitter. Tense exchanges online continued during the event itself, with the UTSU tweeting mid-meeting, “Minister wants to protect the ‘elite’ positions of is [sic] U of T students. what about #UofT students who don’t fall under that? #UofT @Glen4TC.” The tweet, which allegedly misrepresented a comment about preserving elite research institutions like U of T, drew the ire of the representatives from St. Michael’s College, University College, and the Faculty of Engineering. The tweet was “obviously misquoting” the Minister, said Mike Cowan, president of St. Michael’s College Student Union. Reached by phone after the exchange, Cowan remarked that the presence of invited guests including the UTSU was “pretty counterproductive.”

“The UTSU is an incredibly unrepresentative institution of the student body,” Cowan added, “to the point that their elections should not be even considered legitimate.” Murray himself reflected in a later tweet that “clearly we did not move towards a working relationship with your org [UTSU] yesterday. However I am forever an optimist.” Angelo Veloso, president of New College, had a different view. “I think we’ve had a friendly relationship with the UTSU, and not been as confrontational with them as other colleges.” Subsequent meetings between the SGRT and the Ministry will focus on specific topics. Murray suggested reducing tuition and looking at ways to maximize spending on student experiences as potential subjects. Scott suggested that the “invited guests” of Wednesday’s meeting would not be asked to attend future gatherings. Although Murray made clear that he would continue to meet separately with the union, and whomever else wished to speak with him, the agreement on a standing meeting with the SGRT was billed by Greene as “laying the groundwork for working with Minister Murray.”

VARSITY NEWS

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MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

Rotman dean steps down Surprise announcement will see Martin exit post one year early James Maiangowi

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Roger Martin, Dean of U of T’s Rotman School of Management, announced last week he would be ending his third and final term on June 30, 2013, one year earlier than scheduled. Martin, who intends to stay on as a professor, first joined Rotman as dean in May 1998. He oversaw a period of rapid growth, and led the development of a new curriculum centered around “Integrative Thinking.” Under his leadership, enrolment numbers have soared, as have the number of programs offered by the faculty. Martin said he was motivated to leave early by the recent completion of several long-term goals, including the opening of Rotman’s new building on St. George Street and the development of a world-class faculty. “There are two reasons I am taking this step,” Martin said. “First, the school is in fabulous shape. Second, I believe the school is well-positioned to make a meaningful global contribution to democratic capitalism, whose future is being questioned.” In a later interview with The Globe and Mail, he expanded on his reasons for leaving. “A new dean could come in and start dreaming 10-year dreams. I just felt increasingly that I wasn’t about to start long-term things and then stick the next dean with them. I didn’t get stuck with a lot of long-term plans that previous deans had put in place — I had relatively free rein.” Once he steps down, Martin will head the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity and the Martin Prosperity Institutes, both research institutes affiliated with Rotman. Little in Martin’s early years could have predicted his future tenure at the Rotman School. Following an undergraduate degree at Harvard, Martin enrolled in Harvard Business School’s famed MBA program largely to appease his parents, who thought his preferred option — coaching men’s volleyball — unsuitable.

Martin’s negative experiences in business school shaped many of his later policy decisions. He found HBS a surprisingly anti-intellectual institution, with students more concerned about finding the ‘right’ answers than academic development. After graduating, Martin joined the Monitor Group, a consulting firm, where he rose to become head of Monitor University, the firm’s training program. Given the chance to evaluate business school graduates from the other side of the table, he concluded there was something fundamentally wrong with MBA education. “By 1991 we had determined that the people we hired from high-end business schools were no better at integrative thinking than the undergraduates we hired from top-notch liberal-arts colleges,” he said in a 1999 Fast Company profile. “By the time people were done with business school, they were generally less open to using their minds the way we needed them to,” Martin added at the time. “Integrative Thinking” has been a recurring theme in Martin’s career. After years of studying the thought processes of great leaders, Martin narrowed in on one common ability shared by all: every leader could hold two opposing models of the world in their mind, and come up with a third model that combined the best attributes of both. One of his first goals as dean was to overhaul Rotman’s curriculum, focusing on “Integrative Thinking,” and more recently, on the intersection of business and design. His efforts have paid off handsomely: Rotman’s flagship MBA program was ranked the best in Canada by the Financial Times this year, while its PhD program was named one of the top fifteen worldwide. Though Martin’s last day is June 30, 2013 , the search for a new dean is expected to last until 2014. An interim dean is likely to be appointed in the meantime. “There’s a lot of work that I would like to do and it is time for my next phase,” Martin said. Future projects include shaping the future of democratic capitalism. “That particular agenda needs a lot more work, and I look forward to getting on with it.”

Rotman’s new building: one of Martin’s long-term projects. Bernarda Gospic/THe VarsiTy

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Students should feel safe walking streets near campus at night. BERNARdA GOSpiC/THE VARSiTy

Protecting students should be a priority With ongoing assaults near campus, U of T needs to act

Olivia Forsyth-Sells

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Over the past three months, more than 12 sexual assaults have occurred only a few blocks west of campus. According to local news sources, a particular man has been publicly terrorizing women. With assaults so close to campus, and the administration tight-lipped about the issue, some students are asking, “What measures are really being taken to keep campus safe?” Special Constable Sam D’Angelo of the U of T Campus Police explains that most criminals, especially violent criminals, have a ten-

dency to stay in the same area. “Most criminals stay in an area they know. He’ll reside in the area that he knows where to run and where to hide. His pattern has always been in that area, and there is no reason to believe he’ll move outside of it.” D’Angelo doesn’t think that the Annex assailant will enter campus grounds, given this tendency to remain in a familiar setting. D’Angelo also explains that the St. George campus, with more resources available to its Special Constables than to the average campus security guard, has a very low rate of violent crime. This is due to the increased access to resources and additional training that Special Constables receive. D’Angelo and his col-

leagues make campus safe enough for even his two daughters to attend. Despite this assurance, the administration needs to make a statement regarding the issue. After all, many students live off campus, and these assaults have occurred as close as a single kilometer from Robarts library. The Toronto Police Department remains vague as to the nature of the assaults themselves. Though it is necessary for the media to keep the nature of the crimes discreet until the investigation is complete, the university ought at least to educate students on campus about the current situation and how it affects their safety. The university needs to decide if they intend to provide ad-

ditional protection and services to students who commute through the Annex daily for class. If this isn’t part of their plan, an explanation is even more in order. Given that this is an open campus and a frequent thoroughfare for non-students, additional security, or at least an addressing of the issue, is necessary. The administration should act to show that the safety of students is still a campus priority. The university should recognize that students have a right to know they’re safe leaving class at 9.00 pm, and heading back to their homes off-campus. When unsolved crimes like the recent Annex assaults occur in our local community, protecting students should be a priority.

There are words we can live without The logic behind inclusive language Trish Starling

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

I was recently asked by a friend why using a word like “retard” is unacceptable, especially given the idea of “safe spaces” on campus. He was able to acknowledge his own status as an able-bodied, straight, white, male, but was still regretful about not being able to use certain words. In his words, “I like saying ‘bitch’ and ‘slut’ and ‘retard’ as jokes, but I don’t want to be knowingly victimizing people either.” He was confused about the concept of word re-appropriation, and why it is okay for some groups to use certain terms, but not others. The concept of reclamation — as, for example, a person with a disability using the term “retard”

to reclaim its hurtful power — can be somewhat confusing. Whether or not reclaiming hurtful words is an effective means of liberation is a point of contention within specific communities; not all LGBTQ persons agree with the reclamation of the word queer, just as not all black people support the use of the n-word in their communities. As a woman, I may be able to reclaim a word like “slut,” but I don’t feel we’re at a point where it will help more than it hurts. So I can understand the confusion.

That being said, when someone speaks from the position of, say, a straight white male, it does not put them in a great position to use any of these words. Although many understand the “I don’t mean it that way” explanation, language and power are very much linked. By using words that have been used to victimize and oppress people different from them in the past, people speaking from a position of historical privilege may continue to marginalize people as “other” or different, whether intentionally or not.

There are certain words that are more acceptable than others. Consider “bitch” for example. That word gets thrown around often, and some might argue that for this reason it isn’t really offensive. I disagree. I think the acceptance of terms often positively correlates with how oppressed certain groups remain. The truth is this: when I walk into a group of people that is exclusively male — although women are similarly guilty of this — and there is a discussion going on where the term “slut” is being used casually, I never feel good about it. In fact, it feels unsafe, as if somehow these men are able to project moral superiority. What gives them the right to use a word that degrades people who are more like me than like them? Does this mean I write these people off and would never be friends with

them? No. But it does mean I may consider their values, and ultimately what prejudices they hold under the surface. It may also prevent me from being closer friends than I would have been had they made a different vocabulary choice. As a result, I try not to use any of those contentious words. Using that kind of vocabulary only feels good because there is so much power behind those words. Why don’t other words suffice? As someone who holds a lot of privilege myself, I think being required to give up usage of a few words is the least I can do from a position where pretty much everything else is handed to me. Perhaps it is one of the few things that are “not allowed” for someone in my position. This is something I can live with — can you?

VARSITY COMMENT

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The perils of ‘slacktivism’

Questions raised by a new campaign from the makers of Kony 2012 Svetlana Maleva

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

“You think you know what happened, but you have no idea.” Invisible Children explain it all in the sub-heading on the trailer for their newest documentary, MOVE. On October 17, representatives from Invisible Children visited the University of Toronto and met with students in the Hart House debate room. Following a year of praise and controversy in equal measure, the non-profit organization behind the failed Kony 2012 campaign continues to seek the capture of the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. No sooner had the original campaign gone viral, than it was met with scrutiny and questions. MOVE appears to be an attempt to clear up the so-called misunderstandings behind Kony 2012, namely the questionable allocation of donations, factual inaccuracies, ties with the Ugandan military, and filmmaker Jason Russell’s meltdown in March 2012.

This time, the goal is to gather participants in Washington, DC on November 17, 2012 to “hold world leaders accountable to their commitments to end LRA violence,” as they said on the MOVE:DC website. Supporters of the campaign may wish to claim that Invisible Children have made a grand contribution to the promotion of human rights around the globe and, regardless of its problems, at least it did what it was intended to do: spread awareness. This may or may not be true in regards to social justice, but I would argue that the failure of the Kony 2012 campaign has also had a number of latent effects that ended up creating “awareness” of an entirely different sort. First, we have become more acquainted with the power and possibilities of the most powerful communication tool of our time: social media. One of the aims of the Kony 2012 film was, supposedly, to make the millennial generation realize their power when it comes to causing change. I

believe that it is more important for this generation to realize that activism without background understanding can only go so far in making a positive change. For better or for worse, let it be acknowledged that the potential is there, although it is doubtful that it would be possible to recreate a trend on the same scale as Kony 2012. The reason behind this lies within the failure of Kony 2012 some eight months ago. Invisible Children’s human rights awareness campaign has, in addition, taught the public to be aware of the possibility of inaccuracies in the information presented to them, to approach such issues with a much more objective and critical mindset, as well as to research causes before offering up blind support. It should be noted that MOVE has not received nearly the same level of media attention as the previous campaign created by Invisible Children, although it involved a similar thirty-minute film. In fact, I do not believe that it is possible

for any future cause seeking to spread awareness through social media and “slacktivism” to be met with success. Social media has become more and more ingrained into our daily lives, and we’ve learned to be more critical of the information presented to us. As for the effectiveness of MOVE, it will be revealed in due time whether or not Invisible Children were successful in holding legislators accountable for their promises to locate and arrest Joseph Kony. Should this prove to be unsuccessful, we can at least thank the organization for demonstrating the power of social media and the need for critical thought with which we are to approach it. I encourage both supporters and critics of Invisible Children to follow up on the coming MOVE:DC event, as it will determine once and for all the success of the Invisible Children filmmakers’ attempts to regain public support and influence legislation to cause the capture of Joseph Kony.

Rona Ambrose should be fair to Canadians

It’s time for the Minister for the Status of Women to resign Devyn Noonan

Women's Issues Director of the University of Toronto Liberals

The October 8 issue of The Varsity contained an article by Carter West entitled “Be fair to Rona Ambrose.” Ambrose, West proposes, did not vote to reopen the abortion debate, but rather to investigate the question of when life begins. Pro-choice organizations and media outlets calling for Ambrose’s resignation, by this argument, are misguided. How exactly, West asks us, has Ambrose violated her responsibilities as Minister for the Status of Women? The notion that Motion 312 was not aimed at reopening the abortion is erroneous. Abortion rights are so deeply entrenched in Canada that any MP hoping to call them into question must do so through a slow process.

Stephen Woodworth, the MP who proposed the motion, has admitted that he is opposed to abortion and the consequence of the motion, had it passed, would have been the reexamination of the legality of abortion. Even Gordon O’Connor, the Conservative Party whip, admits that the Motion 312 was a piece of anti-choice legislation. The outrage over Ambrose’s vote is rooted in the realization that, ultimately, the Minister for the Status of Women voted in favour of reopening the abortion debate. What, some might ask, is the harm in discussing fetal rights? Is honest debate no longer valued in Canada? Although these questions are valid, they fail to realize that abortion is necessary for gender equality. Women and men are not physically the same: women get pregnant, and men do not. Pregnancy, unfortunately, is a tremendous liability in the modern workforce. Abortion is

a means of affording a woman the right to choose whether or not she is prepared to accept that impediment to her career. Without abortion, women would be systematically disadvantaged in the workplace, and, consequentially, in life. If women and men are to have any semblance of equality of opportunity, abortion must remain completely legal. So long as reproductive rights are ‘honestly debated’ gender equality is under threat. The problem with Ambrose’s decision to vote for Motion 312 is that the Minister for the Status of Women voted against the very equality she is supposed to protect. Ambrose has violated the trust of Canadian women, who only attained constitutional equality thirty years ago. If Canadians are, as West urges, to “be fair to Rona Ambrose,” it is only right that Rona Ambrose be fair to Canadians. Fairness, in this case, calls for Ambrose’s immediate resignation.

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MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

Let the premiers into federal politics PATRICK BAUD VARSITY COLUMNIST

Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty’s surprise resignation last Monday sparked rumours that he will launch a bid for the federal Liberal leadership. Whether McGuinty enters the race or not, the idea of a provincial premier entering a federal leadership contest is unusual in Canadian politics. Few premiers have launched federal leadership campaigns, fewer still won leadership, and not one has become prime minister. By contrast, many American governors have run for president — including former Massachusetts governor and current Republican nominee Mitt Romney — and several have been elected, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush among them. The differences between the American and Canadian political systems help explain why governors do what premiers are seemingly unable or unwilling to do. The federal and provincial wings of Canadian political parties are not well integrated compared to the Democratic and Republican parties. Many have overlapping membership and some — particularly the NDP — share resources. But they also jealously guard political talent. Unlike in the United States, where political candidates often begin at the local level, then pursue state office and move on to federal campaigns, Canadian politicians tend to start at one of the three levels and stay there for much of their career. Regionalism also plays a big part. Premiers are far more tied to their province than MPs. That means that premiers have to work especially hard to shake the impression that they are only getting involved in federal politics to get a better deal for their part of the country. Premiers also have records, which makes it a lot easier for opponents, both during a leadership race and in an election campaign, to blame and shame them for all the things they did wrong while in government. But premiers also have a remarkable amount to bring to the table. Premiers, and to a lesser degree mayors of large cities like Toronto, have the closest thing there is to the experience of running something as big as the federal government. The subject matter is different, but a lot of what it takes to be a good premier overlaps with what it takes to be a good prime minister. Canada is putting a lot of good political talent to waste by keeping former premiers out of federal politics. They are not the only people qualified to run governments, but they certainly should be considered. Thankfully, this is not an issue that plagues one political party more than another. There are talented former premiers who could easily play a big role in any of the three major parties, from Bernard Lord of New Brunswick for the Conservatives, to Gary Doer of Manitoba for the New Democrats, and perhaps premier McGuinty for the Liberals. This would not be unprecedented for either the Conservatives or the New Democrats. The legendary former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas served as New Democratic leader from the party’s founding in 1961 to 1971, and Robert Stanfield of Nova Scotia served as leader of the then-Progressive Conservatives from 1967 to 1976. While there may not be a place for Dalton McGuinty in the federal Liberal leadership race, there certainly should be greater space made for premiers to enter federal politics and particularly, to lead federal parties. They would bring extraordinarily valuable experience to Ottawa and might lead their parties not only to campaign well, but to govern well too. Not all premiers have what it takes to make the leap into federal politics, but those that do could make a significant contribution. Their parties would do well to ensure they get that chance. Patrick Baud’s column appears every two weeks

VARSITY COMMENT

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

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Provost Cheryl Misak has signed away her integrity An op-ed from a Graduate Students’ Union executive

Bahram Farzady

GSU Academics & Funding Commisioner for the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

There seems to me at least two ways to acquire elite intellectual status. First, you could write your ideas for others to see and acknowledge the fact that you are indeed an elite intellectual. On the other hand, you could purchase the most expensive scientific instruments and work in the most exclusive laboratories and, without doing anything others so equipped could not do, see into some microbe deeper than ever before. The elite intellectual status our university achieved, along with only a few others, as of the beginning on this calendar year was, I think, of the second sort of eliteness. It’s the type you achieve by being born richer than everyone else or the sort a corporation achieves by stealing its competitors ideas — but changing them ever so slightly, so as not to violate the patent. This eliteness agreement was signed by provost Cheryl Misak. For some background, aside from her current occupation as our provost, she was first famous for being a pretty stellar philosopher. She once argued persuasively that, “The right answers to our political questions are not the answers given by a sovereign, or by a deity, or by some canon of Reason, but rather, the right answers are those

which we [the people] would arrive at were we [the people] to debate, deliberate, and inquire in an open fashion.” Another word for “the people” is “the public.” But, as John Dewey wrote close to a century ago, “There is no public without full publicity in respect to all consequences which concern it.” The Access Copyright agreement does not allow for this full publicity — or anything like it. It allows for very narrow and defined margins of publicity. Indeed, many other predatory publishers are doing the same. But knowledge in dark quarters is too often idiocy when exposed to the light of day. There’s a reason mischievousness sleeps during the day. As Provost Misak writes of Dewey, he “thought, with Peirce, that if a belief were to always withstand challenges, if it were to always stand up to experience and argument, there is nothing higher or better we could ask of it.” What she fails to write is that it is quite difficult for scientists working at Memorial University’s labs to challenge the results of experiments conducted at the University of Toronto if they do not have access to the scholarly journals University of Toronto scholars do have access to. As Dewey writes, “…a thing is fully known only when it is published, shared, socially accessible.” The epithet on Ariel Katz’ website reads, “Civilization is essentially an opensource project.” They both seem to me to be making the same point. Those unjustified authorities Provost Misak writes of are blocking

the way of inquiry — and thus, contradicting Peirce’s first rule of logic. They stop you from asking sensible questions like “But what if the king is wrong?” Likewise, if we are keeping our answers to difficult questions from the scrutiny of anyone else who would like to take a shot at them, we are stopping others from asking, “what if Ariel Katz is wrong about Access Copyright?” Fortunately, Professor Katz does not hide his views — and has had to withstand his fair share of criticism. So what does it say about your university when it limits the access others have to the works of its scholars? Well, save nocturnal creatures — and shift workers — we ought to be suspicious of anyone who sleeps during the day. The Access Copyright agreement signed by Provost Misak in January of 2012, essentially signs away her confidence in her faculty. She signed away the integrity of your work for you. This, in itself, is a high crime. But what about all the reasons people who are more practical than me give for being outraged over the agreement? You’re being charged twice for work we pay scholars to produce — whether via taxes or tuition — and please let us lean towards the former for a change. You’re being charged once to pay them to do the work, and again so you can see it when they’re done. And this is aside from the fact that legal scholars in the appropriate areas of law are shouting at the top of their lungs that we shouldn’t be worried about Access Copyright in court.

You’re being charged twice for work we pay scholars to produce — whether via taxes or tuition…You’re being charged once to pay them to do the work, and again so you can see it when they’re done. Dewey thought we should publish the findings of the social sciences in newspapers — and, for Dewey, all science was social. The academic journals should be reserved only for methodological squabbles. And was he really so crazy? If it concerns you, shouldn’t you know about it? Why should my grandfather, a former pharmacist, have to borrow my UTORID to find the latest information about my grandmother’s type-2 diabetes? Are we afraid our medical professionals would be out of a job if our grandparents didn’t have to go to them as often? There just seems to me no reason — except for evil selfinterested reasons (yum, my favourite) — to be against information and ideas being spread across the fields of the world as widely as possible so that they may grow as widely as possible. Bahram Farzady is GSU Academics & Funding Commissioner for the Art, Humanities and Social Sciences

Past Coverage of Access Copyright

From arbitration to community outreach, this program offers

“A Supreme Court of Canada ruling has left a controversial agreement between the University of Toronto and Access Copyright largely intact, although the UTSU renewed its calls for the university to pull out of the agreement.”

the unique skills you need

— August 25, 2012

to launch your career as

“U of T students and professors involved with research, whether in the sciences or social sciences, should make an individual commitment to submit their papers solely to either open access journals or open access repositories.”

“The new agreement also revised the definition of “copy” to include digital copying of copyrighted work and sending an email containing such copies...displaying digital copies on a computer and projecting digital images using a computer.”

— August 25, 2012

— February 27, 2012

an arbitrator, conciliator, employee relations officer, mediator and many other exciting career options.

Clarification:

DENTAL CARE

ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION

DR. ELON GRIFFITH

POSTGRADUATE CERTIFICATE

The Graduate Students' Union, University of Toronto stands united with student, labour, and faculty unions across the province in our discontent with the proposals put forward in the discussion paper "Strengthening Ontario Centres of Creativity, Innovation, and Knowledge" by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities. For the sake of clarification, the op-ed written by GSU executive commissioner Jason Dumelie [published October 1, 2012] solely reflects his own views on this matter. His opinion does not reflect the views of the GSU executive as a whole nor does it reflect the views of the GSU membership. Furthermore, the GSU recognizes the successful efforts of the University of Toronto Students' Union to engage broader student participation in consultations for the Ontario government discussion paper and we are committed to working together with the UTSU toward this end. Erin Oldynski External Commissioner On behalf of the University of Toronto Graduate Students Union

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Features

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Hey! Get off campus! 1

In the depths of midterm season it’s easy to get stuck in the student bubble. But seeing a new part of the city makes a great escape. VIPASHA SHAIK and SIMON FRANK share some of their favourite neighborhoods: illustrations by Minhee Bae

2 Bathurst Theatre District Broadview and Gerrard Chinatown U of T is right next to the Spadina Chinatown, and everyone knows that Toronto’s best East Asian and Southeast Asian food is actually found in the suburbs. But there’s still reason to visit the East End’s small Chinatown. Perched over the Don Valley, the Broadview and Gerrard Chinatown packs a lot into a small area. Wandering along Gerrard, you’ll find Rose’s Vietnamese Sandwiches. The verdict is out on whether Rose’s banh mi truly outclass the competition on Spadina, but the sandwiches are undeniably delicious and the store has the feel of a comfortable neighbourhood staple, with kids running in for afterschool snacks. For a more luxurious culinary experience, there’s Bill’s Lobsters, one of Toronto finest shops for fish and seafood. The larger Chinese groceries lining the strip are worth wandering through, whether you’re shopping for dinner or just marveling at the variety of ingredients. Part of the area’s excitement comes from its location, bustling as streetcars cross the intersection. Heading downtown as Gerrard Street crosses the Don River, you can briefly convince yourself you’re entering Manhattan.

3 St. Clair West Unless you live there, St. Clair West isn’t really on the student radar. But even though the area is quite family-oriented, the stretch from around Bathurst to Dufferin is filled with unexpected highlights. The street has a Goodwill and a particularly well-stocked Salvation Army, which boasts a remarkably deep discount record bin. South of St. Clair lies the Wychwood Barns, a former TTC streetcar repair-site converted into a park and studios for artists. The space also hosts a farmer’s market on Saturdays. St. Clair West is quietly powerful on the food front. Stockyards offers acclaimed ribs, barbeque brisket, fried chicken, and burgers. Right next-door is Churrasco of St. Clair, home to excellent Portuguese barbeque chicken. The area also boasts quality Jamaican and Filipino spots. Go further west to reach the neighbourhood of Corso Italia and you’ll find a plethora of Italian bakeries and takeout counters, as well as the Brazilian restaurant Rio 40°, which makes a fine feijoada (a quintessentially Brazilian stew of pork and black beans).

Though many U of T students stick to the Annex, other parts of Bathurst Street are also a delight to visit during the school year. In particular, if you take the 511 streetcar from Bathurst Station and gets off at Queen St. West, you’ll find the heart of Toronto’s underground theatre scene. At this core are a whole bunch of theatres, including the Tarragon, Factory Street, Theatre Passe Muraille, and the Theatre Centre, all of which are dedicated to showcasing upcoming playwrights and actors for a decent price. Passe Muraille has pay-what-you-can Saturdays for patrons not able to afford the pricier shows, and all the theatres cap ticket prices off at around $25 (which, considering many other theatre prices in Toronto, is relatively cheap) The area is also the site of a multitude of a multitude of theatre festivals (such as the SummerWorks, Fringe and Off-Bathurst Street Marathon festivals) where play tickets are usually around $10–$15. Aside from cheap theatre, some interesting restaurants to check out include the Epicure Cafe, which serves delicious Italian and French treats, and Sadie’s Diner, which serves vegan and vegetarian re-imaginings of greasy spoon classics eats

4 Bloordale Village Bloordale is a something of an in-between neighbourhood, often overshadowed by flashier goings-on to the east and west. But it’s a relaxed place with a few surprises. For instance, there’s Stella, which at first glance appears to just be a solid bar with a focus on reggae. But the bar also serves Bengali curries, distinguished from other South Asian food by strong mustard flavors and a focus on fish. The nearby South Indian Dosa Mahal is one of the downtown’s better spots for dosa. Bloordale Village is also a key center for Toronto’s small Burmese community. You can wander through the chaotic convenience store Golden Burma, sifting through tea, traditional snacks, and dried fish from the tourist destination of Inle Lake. To heighten the experience, the store’s clerk is impressively gruff. The area is also unassumingly artistic. The Mercer Union is an important artist-run gallery. If you go to the edge of the neighbourhood and wander down Sterling Road, you’ll find a strip of old industrial buildings filled with galleries and artist studios. Growing fears of gentrification aside, it’s still a great place to find an art opening or loft party.

Yonge and Eglinton

Greektown Greektown is one of Toronto’s most vibrant neighbourhoods, if not its most vibrant. The area is host to the Taste of the Danforth festival, which has grown to become one of the biggest street festivals in the world, with over one million visitors each year. But even though the area is synonymous with the festival, it’s more than an early August tourist spot. It also has some of Toronto’s best Greek restaurants (surprise, surprise). Pan on the Danforth features live belly-dancing performances twice a week on Friday and Saturday, as well as local Greek bands, and Square Boys is said to be one of the best souvlaki joints in Toronto. The area is also home to The Only Cafe, a beer pub that has a hundred bottled beers to choose from, and sixteen on tap. A neighbourhood gem, the pub also occasionally hosts live music. Aside from endless food and drink, U of T students looking for cheap books, DVDs, and CDs, will find their oasis in Re:reading, purportedly one of Toronto’s best used bookstores.

One of the strangest things about this neighbourhood is that it has a street called ‘Cowbell Lane’. Sounding like something out of a movie, the street name was actually the product of a citizen demanding that the area’s councillor recognize its past cattle-grazing culture from Toronto’s earliest days. But Yonge and Eglinton is also a retail and business centre that has some surprising treats. First off, it has Bulldog Café, which is located just north (on Eglinton) from the intersection. Serving some of the best coffee in Toronto, it’s the perfect place for the caffeine addict looking for something more than Starbucks. The area is also home to a selection of great restaurants, including the La Vecchio Ristorante, an Italian restaurant located two blocks north of Yonge from the intersection. La Vecchio Ristorante has been recognized around the city for its fantastic cuisine and refined dining experience. Besides the large RioCan shopping centre, the area also offers the traditional small shops one sees in downtown Toronto. In fact, a big sign from a BMV-type bookstore,“WE WILL BUY YOUR BOOKS,” immediately looms into view once you leave the subway station.

The Junction After Dundas West curves north, passing through confusing and slightly terrifying stretches of sports bars along Dupont, the Junction arrives. The neighbourhood is so far west it can be the punchline in jokes about graphic designers and cooler-than-thou young parents, but cynics overlook its charms. The Junction is sufficiently out of the loop to create a refreshing sense of isolation from downtown clamour, while actually being accessible and much closer than you’d think. Since the summer, the neighbourhood has hosted the Junction Flea, a monthly Sunday market that brings together antiques, vintage clothing, food vendors, and miscellaneous design knickknacks. The market will be paring down its activities in the winter months, but the Junction’s community-focus won’t fade. Check out the sleek Canadiana-inspired design boutique Russet & Empire or the furniture store Smash, run by the organizers of the Junction Flea. If you’re in Junction and looking for coffee you’ll have to make the difficult choice between Crema Coffee Co. (one of the city’s best cafés) and its friendly competitor The Good Neighbour.

Pacific Mall Though a neighbourhood should never be defined by its shopping centres, the area around Pacific Mall deserves a special exemption. Located on the outskirts of Markham, it’s a mecca for the person looking for good knock-offs, cheap clothes and accessories, and some amazing food. Aside from that, the one thing that makes it worth the commute is YuTopia. YuTopia is a self-serve frozen yogurt shop, priced at $0.39/ounce. As one of the best self-serve frozen yogurt shops in Toronto, its cheap price makes you realize that all the other frozen yogurt shops around the city have been ripping you off. Also around the area is Destiny Tea Cafe which offers drinks, bubble tea, snacks and more. With free-WiFi and large tables, it’s the perfect place to play board games, or to order cheap drinks on a weekday night. There are countless other restaurants in the area — try Matsuda if you want a really good and cheap sushi buffet. Searching through small shops you’ll find some of the best and strangest thrifting deals in the city. Pacific Mall is bound to delight the city wanderer who wants to explore the outskirts of Toronto.

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For the love of books DANIELLE KLEIN stops by the Antiquarian Book Fair and swoons over the unique (and expensive) merchandise

photos by Bernarda Gospic

here were two events at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre the night of October 12: the Toronto International Antiquarian Book Fair and “Whisky Live.” So I was faced with a choice that many U of T students have to make on any given weekend: do I immerse myself in a myriad of books or get wasted? Being as full of youth and fun-loving as I am, the decision was clear: antiquarian books all the way. Immediately upon entering the fair, it struck me that I was a bit young for the crowd. The room was filled with booths helmed mostly by older ladies and gentleman, peering at visitors with discerning eyes, seeking to weed out genuine buyers from commoners like myself. Despite the acute awareness that I clearly did not, at this point in my life, appear even fractionally wealthy enough to buy anything in the room, I decided to try my hand at doing as the collectors do. Mimicking the serious-looking people in the room, I strutted resolutely through booths, determined to look and touch the works that interested me, staring at prices as if I was actually considering purchasing a $5,000 book. When I asked one merchant, Jennifer Grainger of Attic Books, if she has any affordable books, she raised her eyebrows. “There are some affordable books,” she explained, “But if there’s something you collect, you are willing to splurge on it.” As I moved about the room, I began to understand the appeal of collecting, as the English major in me bubbled over with the desire to own the unique editions that I saw at the different booths. The first draw was aesthetic appeal. The visible antiquity of the books lent an enticing literary quality to the editions that were on display. Many were decorated with gold designs on the spines or unique encasing, such as a suede-covered novel with wooden detail. What truly made my heart flutter, though, was the content of the books. I found the two most gorgeous copies of Pride and Prejudice I’ve ever seen. A rare, unfinished F. Scott Fitzgerald short story collection called to me, as did an $11,000 original Winnie the Pooh signed by A.A. Milne and a page from the third folio of Shakespeare’s Henry V featuring the line “Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more” caught my eye almost immediately. The comically-obscure titles of some volumes on sale made things all the more exciting. Who wouldn’t want a copy of the city council minutes of Toronto from 1866, for example, or the History of the Montreal Polo Club? Another gem was a manual called How to Swim Crawl, with an image of a man crawling underwater on its cover.

Books were not the only antiquarian objects for sale at the fair. There were also a number of maps, such as the vintage maps of Toronto displayed at the booth of Alexandre Antique Prints. Elsewhere were propaganda posters, old family photographs, and the first Canadian Christmas cards. One noteable item came from Paul Foster, a salesman from London, UK, whose booth held three contracts signed by Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, and Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols in 1978. Big-ticket books could be purchased for upwards of $50,000. A $65,000 manuscript displayed in the booth of Donald Heard Rare Books contained a petition to Queen Anne regarding the Hudson’s Bay Company. Such expensive items are not as easy to sell, however. The joy of collecting intermingles with cynicism when one is confronted by the staggering value of the books, and the small, shrinking market that wants to own them. “He likes the red spine. He’s come around a few times,” one seller whispered about a patron of the fair. “But it’s a $45,000 book.”

Retail Therapy: Philistine Small Queen West boutique boasts a diverse and carefully selected collection Sofia Luu VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Philistine, located at 1394 Queen St W., is a tiny store, especially when compared to its more spacious neighbours. But it would be wrong to think that this small boutique has little to offer because at Philistine, quality trumps quantity. At first glance, it is clear that there was a lot of time and effort put into maintaining a smart balance between vintage and modern. This fall,

Philistine is taking customers back to the basics with men’s flannel shirts and L.L. Bean chore coats for both sexes. Their Minkpink party dresses guarantee you will be more than ready for the upcoming holiday season. Corter Leather, a minimalist response to leather accessories, is the latest addition to their roster of brands. With such variety, there is bound to be something that’s fitting for both your taste and budget. Since discovering Philistine, I tend to visit the store at least once a week and I bet it won’t be long before you start doing the same.

Jeff Gadsden, one of the event’s organizers, insists that there is a permanent place for antiquarian books in the world, in spite of ereading technology and economic hardships. “I just can’t see these books disappearing,” he said. “They’re too important.” I sensed the truth in his words as I swooned over the volumes on display. As I eased into the fair, they began to seem more like artifacts than merchandise, rare and significant. Walking around the room slowly, silently, and in awe, I felt like I was in a museum. While I couldn’t afford most of the objects before me, I could see and appreciate their value: not just their financial worth, but their historical significance. For students, the Antiquarian Book Fair is less of an opportunity to bolster a collection, and more a temporary exhibit for book nerds. Susan Raudin of Wilfrid M. de Freitas Books in Montreal told me that there are three important things in book collecting:

“Condition, condition, and condition.” She showed me a first edition by Winston Churchill, and explained that signed, with the dust jacket, it is priced at $6,000. Unsigned, with the dust jacket, it would go for around $450. Unsigned, in rough condition, without the dust jacket, it drops to $50. When I asked her why people collect these books, she responded with an anecdote. “One of our customers collects illustrated books, and when he opens a book with really beautiful illustrations in it, it calls to him, it means something. It’s part of who you are.” I felt that call when I found a collection of Gems of English Poetry encased in a carved wooden cover with a floral design. “You come, you see them,” Raudin mused as I pored over her wares. “You begin to covet them.” The Toronto International Antiquarian Book Fair is an annual event hosted by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of Canada. www. torontoantiquarianbookfair.com

var.st/arts

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

Frida and Diego reunited at the AGO A review of their newest exhibit showcasing two modernist greats Monica Carinci VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Over the past year, the walls of the AGO have proudly hosted the works of Chagall and Picasso, two major modernist artists. This fall, the gallery has opened its doors to two more modernist icons: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. “Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting” is an exhibition that celebrates what AGO director Matthew Teitelbaum calls the artists’ “commitment and conviction” to politics and art. The AGO’s previous retrospectives of big name artists have explored the Russian avant-garde and Picasso’s Paris. This new exhibition explores Mexico as a cultural centre, although in reality, its presentation of a nation’s artistic identity is dwarfed by the work of a feisty female artist whose biographical tribulations take the spotlight. According to the curator, OCAD professor Dot Tuer, the works of Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera are “rarely paired together in an exhibition,” probably because the subject matter of their oeuvres differs greatly. Rivera, a fervent communist, captured the history and politics of Mexico in the early twentieth century, while Kahlo focused on the subject she claimed to know best: herself. During my recent visit to “Frida & Digeo," it was easy to see that the exhibit’s focus lies on the tragic life of Kahlo, whose body was crushed in a streetcar accident in 1925, when she was only eighteen years old. The physical ramifications of the accident haunted Kahlo until her death, and had an all-encompassing and significant influence on her art. Many of Kahlo’s violent paintings are featured at the AGO, including

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Few Small Nips (1935), a small painting that shows a woman lying naked and bloodied on a table with a man standing over her. As I viewed the painting, I could overhear a number of spectators commenting on its association with Frida’s tragic experiences, including the many miscarriages resulting from the accident that rendered her infertile. Visitors were clearly more interested in the private life of this troubled personality than they were in the grand political murals of her husband. To be fair, Kahlo’s dark and personal portraits usually do outshine Rivera’s works, and not only within the walls of the AGO. “Frida & Diego” features many of the self-portraits that have made Kahlo a household name, including Self-Portraits with Monkeys (1943). The vibrant colours and jungle backdrop of the painting are all part of Kahlo’s signature style, which continues to claim an iconic place in pop culture to this day. While Rivera’s work has taken a backseat to his wife's art, “Frida & Diego” suggests that this was not always the case. Rivera was once the more renowned artist of the two, as famous for his murals as he was for his womanizing. The AGO’s exhibition opens with a room full of his cubist paintings. I was surprised to discover that these fragmented landscapes and still-life paintings were the product of a Mexican artist, although they were admittedly

painted while Rivera lived in France. As I walked along the display of Rivera’s work, which is arranged according to medium, I became more aware of the variety of his paintings. “Frida & Diego” displays Rivera’s impressive mastery of a range of styles, and his body of work includes something to suit everyone’s tastes. As with many exhibitions at the AGO, “Frida & Diego” included an important interactive portion to the exhibit. Starting on October 24, visitors will have the opportunity to leave notes on an ofrenda — a traditional shrine that welcomes the dead — constructed by Mexican artist Carlomagno Pedro Martinez. This portion will be included in the final room of the exhibition, which features large papier-mâché figures of Kahlo and Rivera created by Toronto theatre group Shadowland. Photography also plays a large part in the exhibition. Tuer notes that photography was “essential to the way Frida Kahlo created her persona.” Mid-way through the exhibition, there is an entire room dedicated to photography and video footage of Kahlo’s photo-shoots. Two walls feature black and white photography, while a third wall boasts coloured photographs taken by Kahlo’s lover and friend Nikolas Murray. Most of the photographs in this portion of the exhibit are of Kahlo, and they evoke her colourful and

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Self Portrait as a Tehuana (Diego on my Mind), 1943. FrIDA KHALo

virbant paintings. Yet a photograph by Bernard Silverstein, entitled Frida Paints Self-Portrait while Diego Watches (1940), suggests that while Kahlo’s work may have eclipsed that of her husband, their artistic lives were intricately intertwined. Perhaps, as Martinez (designer of the

TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL 2012

aforementioned ofrenda) has suggested, Rivera was a supporter of Kahlo’s art and her life source after her accident. With this in mind, it is appropriate that the work of these two artists are displayed together in this beautiful and provocative exhibit at the AGO.

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MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

Arts' Arts A “9” Speaks I am extremely formal like an equation balanced hanging on a sheet of white paper. According to the theory of the four humours my nature is phlegmatic learned from phlegmatic devices and accordingly when I drink I become as forceful as a large body of water. Tied to a railing today a white dog on a red leash. “I am gravity I am a wave that a planet settles into,” said the dog barking while men and women (both in ragged ponytails) came up to it dressed in their yellow melancholies. I like the word “dog” better than the dog itself. I keep running my hands over things to try and determine where the word lives inside. Give me a fine serif I can grab my hands around. —André Babyn

photos by Michael Bedford

arts@thevarsity.ca

Science

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

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Bacteria could be key to green energy production

22 ocToBer 2012

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features@thevarsity.ca

Biomedical symposium features local and international talent IBBME celebrates 50 years of collaborative and translational research with a neuroscience symposium Roxanne Leung ASSOCIATE SCIENCE EDITOR

Life science researchers at the University of Toronto are at the center of a vibrant network of collaborative opportunities that enhance the growth and impact of U of T’s research community. Affiliations with world-renowned hospitals and research institutes allow U of T scientists to perform groundbreaking research and translate science from the bench to innovative consumer products. This past Wednesday, U of T’s Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) celebrated that legacy on its 50th anniversary with a neuroscience-themed symposium entitled, “Defining Tomorrow: Advancing the Integration of Engineering and Medicine”. The one-day symposium illustrated huge advancements in the field of neuroscience by highlighting four burgeoning research themes: neural plasticity, electrophysiology, biophysics of cell behaviour, and neural networks. The event included speakers from U of T and various affiliated institutes, including Cambridge University, Tufts University, and Stanford University. During the lunch hour, a showcasing event sponsored by the Ontario Brain Institute featured biomedical technology companies such as BD Biosciences, The Centre of Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, and GE Healthcare, and their products and programs. “It was integrated in such a way that a lot of [the speakers’] research was related to one another,” said Rob Pilipos, a fifth-year PhD graduate student at IBBME. The varied and often unrelated research studies and experiments coalesced into a co hesive narrative of the field of neuroscience.

“It was integrated in such a way that a lot of [the speakers’] research was related to one another.” — Rob Pilipos, fifth-year PhD graduate student at IBBME The first session on neural plasticity included seminars by Dr. James Fawcett, of Cambridge University Centre for Brain Repair in the UK, and Drs. Derek van der Kooy, Michael Salter, and Molly Shoichet of U of T. Though separated by laboratories and institutions, each speaker was united by the themes of their current research, which aimed to harness the flexibility of neurons. The focus of each lecture identified a different avenue for utilizing the plasticity of neurons and showed results with far-reaching implications for stroke patients, spinal cord injuries, chronic pain, and stem-cell therapies. Many attendees discovered new details relevant to their own research. For Pilipos, one of the most interesting presentations from the morning sessions was Fawcett’s. “He’s an outstanding speaker, and the data was interesting… It’s related to my research.” Being able to listen and draw on the leading investigators in one’s own field proved to be both inspiring and encouraging. Along with the collegial aspect of sharing mutual research interests, the seminars also examine current research in neuroscience. “Everybody’s talking about stem cells and how you need chemical or protein communications to … stimulate them,” said Dr. Milos Popovic,

Bernarda Gospic/THe VarsiTy

a professor at IBBME and Senior Scientist at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. “[Dr. Michael Levin is] going to show, very convincingly, that it’s all electrical… He came out of the left field [with that].” To complement the academic aspects of the day and demonstrate the applications of biomedical research, IBBME hosted “Tomorrow’s Technologies: A Showcase” during the lunch hour. Established companies specializing in laboratory instrumentation, cell culture systems, and biomaterials showed their products while techno-entrepreneurial training programs like the Institute for Optical Sciences (IOS) presented a number of high-tech startup companies.

The showcasing event provided a platform for those in attendance to browse through biomedical applications and also allowed small startup companies like Lunanos to network and build useful relationships. Scott McAuley, Director of Lunanos, describes the networking opportunity as important, “especially in the life sciences where developing something takes so long [with] a lot higher cost requirement.” The symposium illustrated many of the rich outcomes of collaborative and translational research, a principle IBBME endeavours to demonstrate as they reflect on the past fifty years and strive to continue with the same level of excellence for the future.

Getting the most out of the first-year life science experience Seminar courses teach important skills not covered in lectures Alainna Jamal VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Most students in the life sciences will never forget our first-year educational experiences. Much of our time was spent among 199 classmates, glued to the uncomfortable chairs of Convocation Hall, and struggling to see the tiny figure at the podium (the professor) without resorting to a telescope. There was also time allocated to memorizing science facts, solving problem set after problem set, and bubbling our answers to multiple choice test questions on Scantron sheets. It was quite the change from high school, where we had a maximum of 29 classmates and significant interaction with our teachers. Fortunately, first-year seminar courses can help keep students from feeling swamped and alienated at a school as big as the University of Toronto. First-year seminars, with a maximum of 24 students, are the smallest courses a first-year can take. There are several first-year science seminar courses covering subjects such as biology, chemistry, physics, and psychology. Students often find these courses to be a positive learning experience, where they get the opportunity to engage in conversations and discuss a variety of intellectually stimulating topics with their classmates and professors. This may be a lot closer to the university experience that we imagined when we first came to U of T: exploring ideas and concepts in a creative and meaningful way, removed from the rote answers and daily grind that would sometimes bog us down in high school.

TaraneH Zarin/THe VarsiTy

Dr. Michael Reid, an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, teaches “PMU199: Great Astronomical Issues.” Like most seminars, there is no fixed curriculum for the course, because it focuses on current topics. This spring, Reid plans to focus on two important cosmic mysteries: dark matter and dark energy. He explains that first-year seminars focus not only on writing and research, but also on strong communication, which he emphasizes is a “crucial skill — more important that

memorizing the tax code, the citric acid cycle, or the paintings of Monet … but one we don’t get much opportunity to teach in university.” Students are also able to network with each other and with the professor in a relatively small-group setting. Reid explains that first-year seminars “provide a more old-school, human alternative” to “huge classes … which totally de-emphasize human interaction.” Beyond developing a skill set and network, students are able to indulge their interests — something Reid “fear[s] we’re losing in universities… Students have become very ‘credentialist,’ worrying about grades and degrees more than about learning interesting things.” Reid hopes that his first-year seminar is a non-threatening and non-technical environment, in which students can appreciate that “[astronomy] is a physical science…but also a discipline of wonder and imagination and constant astonishment.” So why do professors take the time to teach these courses? Reid likes “interacting with students in small groups,” but also because they “give me the opportunity to talk about astronomy with non-science students.” Reid explains that many of these students have a “deep engagement with astronomy” despite pursuing non-science majors such as literature or criminology. “Great Astronomical Issues’ gives non-science students a fun opportunity to learn about astronomy in an environment designed to fit their learning style. It’s in first-year seminars that students seem to learn the most.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

VARSITY SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

A week of scientific inspiration The 2012 Nobel Prize declarations and their implications Victor Swift

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Every crowd of enthusiasts has an annual event to get excited about: movie buffs have the Oscars, car lovers have Le Mans, and enthusiasts of science have the Nobel Prize declarations. Throughout the second week of October, the Nobel Prize Committee in Stockholm, Sweden, disclosed the names of the 2012 Nobel Prize laureates in Physiology and Medicine, Physics, and Chemistry. On October 8, Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Gurdon and Yamanaka share the prize for their joint contributions to a method that reverses adult cells to pluripotent stem cells — cells with differentiating capabilities. In the 1950s, Gurdon

discovered that mature cells retain the same genetic information they had as unspecified pluripotent cells, and in 1962, he demonstrated that a new organism could grow from the nucleus of an adult cell placed in a de-nucleated egg cell. “This started the entire revolution of cloning, eventually leading to the cloning of mammals” says Dr. Denise Belsham, a professor of physiology and medicine at U of T. In 2006, Yamanaka was able to turn mature mouse skin cells into pluripotent stem cells by treating the adult cells with what Belsham calls “a cocktail consisting of a limited number of genes and proteins.” In 2007, Yamanaka used this same method to revert human adult skin cells to pluripotent cells. Gurdon and Yamanaka’s research is profoundly significant in the area of regenerative medicine and the development of patient-specific

corina wong/THe VarsiTy

cells. Though current procedures are efficacious, there is controversy surrounding the destruction of embryos and fetuses. Because Gurdon and Yamanaka’s methods circumvent these controversies, they may very well be the foundation for a therapeutic revolution. “Imagine creating a new organ from an existing skin cell by just adding a few developmental genes to the mix — this is remarkable,” Belsham says. On October 9, Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland were declared the winners of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics. Haroche and Wineland are recognized for their development of experimental methods to measure and manipulate singular quantum systems. It was widely believed that single particles of matter or light could not be isolated from the environment without losing their quantum properties. Wineland quashed these speculations by probing ionic quantum states of beryllium ions, while Haroche trapped and observed photons using microwaves and mirrors. Besides substantiating the claims of theoretical quantum physics, Haroche and Wineland’s research may provide a basis for realizing quantum computing, a method of employing quantum properties to represent data. Because quantum particles can be in multiple states simultaneously, a quantum computer could process data simultaneously, enabling ultrafast complex computa-

claire seringHaus/THe VarsiTy

tions. Although Haroche and Wineland have showed that quantum computing is possible by enabling manipulations in a single quantum system, much more research must be done before a multisystem quantum computer can be produced. On October 10, Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka were declared the winners of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Before the work of Lefkowitz and Kobilka, the mechanisms that permitted cells to sense their environment were unknown. The laureates uncovered a family of receptors called G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which transmit biological messages and regulate most of a cell’s physiological processes. In 2011, Kobilka captured an image of one of these receptors being activated by a hormone via X-ray crystallography. Dr. Scott Prosser,

associate professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto, explains that Kobilka’s recent success with is truly remarkable because X-ray crystallography normally only captures inactive states. “Thanks to their work, we live in an era where we can now begin to make connections between biochemical signaling processes and the exquisitely complex molecular machinery — GPCRs — responsible for these processes,” says Prosser, who worked with Kobilka in 2009 on GPCRs. The laureates’ discovery has and will continue to provide insight into existing and potential medications, most noticeably in the pharmaceutical industry, since about half of all medications on the market target GPCRs. “There are 800 GPCRs out there and a world of chemistry and new discoveries awaits us,” Prosser says.

Order from chaos observed in plasma experiments Scientists come closer to how particle microphysics can explain the origin of astrophysical objects Alexander Mihaescu VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The chaotic manner in which the fundamental building blocks of the universe operate has baffled scientists who try to reconcile this with the ordered systems found at the macroscopic level. New findings in plasma particle movements suggest a possible method through which highly organized systems can emerge spontaneously from random motion. Nathan Kugland, lead author of a paper published in the September issue of Nature Physics, explored this problem by examining the movement of particles in a gaseous plasma comprised mostly of ions. Electromagnetic fields that were passed through the plasma were found to organize the system of

counter-streaming ions and shape the movements of the particles. The results of the experiment was surprising, since it was expected that the particles were moving fast enough to flow past each other, free of interference. The finding suggests plasma may have been naturally organized in the formation of stars: electromagnetic forces working alongside gravity to form the first solar systems of the universe. Experiments that try to emulate the forces behind astrophysical objects through particle microphysics help to answer questions that would otherwise be too difficult to measure directly. International efforts across many different laboratories joined together in collaboration, and American, European, and Japanese funding helped to build the OMEGA EP laser used for the experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Donate your body to science! We mean write, ya dingus!

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Sports

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

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Be sure to read the men’s and women’s volleyball preview article

22 octoBer 2012

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sports@thevarsity.ca

Blues’ baseball team defeat Brock, repeat as OUA champions Cap off wild regular season with championship ring

The Varsity Blues baseball team in action. Counter clock-wise from top: Jamie Lekas, Brent Page, Jonathan Isaac. Jamie macdonal/varsity Blues

William Deck

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Varsity Blues men’s baseball team wrapped up a wild season last Sunday with a 4–0 victory over the Brock Badgers to win the Ontario University Athletics championship for the second year in a row. U of T has now won the OUA championship four times. Blues pitcher Andy Orfanakos pitched eight complete innings, allowing no runs on seven hits while striking out two. Orfanakos was named OUA championship MVP as well as OUA male athlete of the week for his exceptional pitching throughout the playoffs. “Andy pitched an absolutely amazing game; he was calm and cool every time they had base runners on, and he really set the tone for the defense,” said Blues outfielder Jonathan Isaac. “He did the job for us,” added head coach Jim Sheppard. “He did whatever we asked him to do and more.” Blues outfielder Andrew Mannone led the way offensively, going 2–3 with an RBI. Catcher Stuart Fraser and right fielder Steven Hersch each added a hit. Despite out hitting the Blues 7–4, the Badgers were unable to capitalize, leaving 11 runners on base. Brock starting-pitcher Ryan Beckett went 4 2/3 innings, allowing four runs on four hits. The Blues’ Hersch and Jamie Lekas scored in the top of the first, on an error by Brock first-baseman Bill Sloat. Two more runs came in the top of the fifth when Fraser scored on an error by Brock third-baseman Craig Vannus and Hersch scored on a passed ball. Beckett was relieved by pitcher Justin Ayles midway through the fifth inning. Ayles dominated the Blues in a late September game earlier this season. He was just as dominant in the final 4 1/3 innings

of the game, not allowing any hits and striking out six. However, Toronto’s 4–0 lead proved to be too much for the Badgers offense to overcome. The game culminated in a dramatic ninth inning, which proved to be a perfect ending to such a wild season for the Blues. Up 4–0 in the bottom of the ninth, the final at-bats for Brock quickly became the most exciting of the game, and to add to the drama, it started to rain. “It’s pouring rain. I’m looking through the mist and the rain. The umpire wasn’t going to call it because it was too close to the end of the game,” recalled Sheppard. With runners on first and second and two outs, the game was set up for a thrilling finish when closing pitcher Drew Taylor loaded the bases after walking a Brock hitter. “The next guy hits a fly-ball to centre field. We’ve got all our bench guys lined up on the side there, almost on the diamond,” continued Sheppard. “We catch the ball and we’re champions. And you know what happens? The rain stops. I’m thinking this has to be a movie.” The victory came against a Brock team that handed the Blues two crushing home losses in late September, pushing the Blues to a mediocre 3–8 record at the time. Despite their poor regular season, the Blues knew they had the pieces to succeed and refused to continue to fall in the standings. “After the losses against Brock, we knew we were down but not out,” said Isaac. “The coaching staff and the veterans on the team did a great job of keeping the team focused on continuing to play one game at a time, one inning at a time, instead of focusing on the past or the future. “Our team had all the people and skills we needed to win it all at the start of the season. Over the course of the season, we just needed to find how those pieces fit together and needed a little bit of urgency to push us over the top.”

The Blues would go on a tear for the rest of the season, finishing the last nine games with seven wins and two losses, capped with a blowout 15–0 win over Queens at home in the final game of the season. Toronto finished the regular season with a 10–11 overall record, and soared into the playoffs red hot off a three-game win streak. “It was definitely a season of ups and downs as we searched to find our groove as a team,” said Isaac. “We did a great job of coming together when we needed to and pulling out the games that we needed to win.” “What I saw the last half of the season was a bunch of guys who had a challenge, and got over it. To me that means a lot,” added Sheppard. “Whether we won or lost on Sunday, the fact that we got there is a tribute to how hard these guys worked the last half of the season.” In the first two days of the OUA playoffs, Toronto defeated Brock 6–5 and Guelph by the same score in their first and second games, before falling to Brock 2–4 in the first game of the final. Because Toronto had already beaten Brock once in the playoffs, the Badgers came

into the final having to win both games, while Toronto only had to win one. “We went into Sunday only needing to win one game, while Brock had to beat us twice,” said Isaac. “After they beat us in the first game, we found ourselves with our backs against the wall and with no room for error. Unfortunately for Brock, that’s when we play our best baseball and that’s just what we did.” With the threat of being eliminated from playoff contention looming after falling behind in the standings, the Blues rattled off win after win to squeeze into the playoffs, where they would continue their clutch play enroute to the OUA championship. “I can’t get in their heads, but I think that they had the feeling that we could win this and get that ring,” said Sheppard. “Every guy. Score keeper, bullpen guy, whatever. We started to sieze the fact that we could get that ring.” The Blues are hoping the excitement from this year’s thrilling OUA title will carry over to next season when they try to become the first team to win three consecutive championships since Western from 2005–2007.

VARSITY SPORTS

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

sports@thevarsity.ca

PORTRAIT OF A MODERN

Renaissance Woman

Bernarda Gospic/THe VarsiTy

ETHAN CHIEL talks to Olympian and U of T PhD student Donna Vakalis

traddling boundaries is what Donna Vakalis does. Vakalis’ undergraduate degree in Arts & Science at McMaster University let her “dabble rigorously.” She then came to U of T to complete a Professional Masters in Architecture with the aim of keeping “one foot in the sciences and one foot in the arts.”

As the 2008 Olympic Games approached and Vakalis realized that she would not make the Canadian Olympic Team, she traveled to Greece to train for her event, the Modern Pentathlon — the very definition of interdisciplinary. Modern Pentathlon is a combination of epée fencing, swimming, horse riding, running, and pistol shooting (the last two became a single event after the 2008 Olympics). “What’s distinctive about it is that the profile is much, much higher in Europe,” says Vakalis. “I’ve been in a taxi cab going from somewhere in Greece, say in Athens, and it’s surprising to me that the taxi cab driver knows exactly what pentathlon is. That differs from here where someone who is somewhat familiar with sport will not even know that this is an Olympic event.” That has everything to do with funding. In Canada, according to Vakalis, “there’s no money to create an infrastructure to promote it and recruit, but without promoting it and recruiting more talent they’re not going to produce the results that will give them funding to further promote and recruit. “There’s a lot of good will in the pentathlon community, and people who would talk your ear off about how great the sport is, but those people are not paid anything and they also have full day jobs.” Vakalis came to pentathlon both early and late. She swam from a young age, and began riding while spending time on a friend’s farm in Carlisle, Ontario. She eventually attended a national tetrathlon (pentathlon without fencing) and won the competition. However, she then quit: “At the time I didn’t get the bigger picture of life balance and I just thought ‘I need to do other things, so I quit sports.” Vakalis didn’t get involved again until graduate school in 2005, when she joined the fencing and triathlon clubs, “not with an aim of going into pentathlon, but because I

missed just doing things and I also wanted to escape from the architecture desk.” She found she was training increasingly hard. Vakalis started running cross-country the next year, and finished an OUA all-star. Vakalis placed third at a pentathlon national competition in 2008 and hoped to compete internationally with the aim of qualifying for the 2008 Olympics. But, it was 2007 and the question remained, “How to do it?” It was too late to qualify for the Canadian national team, so she contacted the Greek team who offered to pay for her training and give her somewhere to live. So Vakalis moved to Athens. In Greece she found herself living first in an office space, then what had previously been a building where teens would go to party. But she made the best of it and “had some adventures cleaning it up and making it into a livable space.” Much of her time was spent elsewhere though, training and competing in European competitions. In 2008 she was in Beijing as an alternate for the Greek team, but didn’t get to compete. Vakalis returned to Toronto, where she spent the next year writing her thesis. She thought she would stay on the Greek team, but it soon became apparent funding would not be forthcoming and, although she faced a similar situation with the Canadian team, she found herself in increasing contact with them. Her approach was simple: “I don’t know how it will work, but I’ll make it happen somehow.” Luck was on her side. This past summer Vakalis received help from an unusual source. She’s an avid consumer of podcasts, one of which is Jordan, Jesse, Go! a comedy podcast hosted by Jesse Thorn and comedian Jordan Morris. Upon learning that she had clinched a spot as one of thirty-six women who would compete in the pentathlon in London 2012 and would be returning to U of T in the fall to start her PhD in civil engineering, Vakalis called in to inform Thorn and Morris as part of a regular segment called “Momentous Occasions.” When they heard her news, they sprang into action. “Jordan and I both thought that the fact that one of our listeners was going to the Olympics was the most amazing thing ever,” says Thorn. “It occurred to me as soon as we got Donna’s email and voicemail that if she was a modern pentathlete there was probably something we could do to help her out.”

The duo had her on their show and soon after launched a campaign with a purpose as simple as its title: “Buy Donna a Laser Gun!” Vakalis’s laser gun — used in the shooting portion of pentathlon — had broken in competition and she needed a new one, but the cost was prohibitive. A total of $5070 came in, surpassing the hoped-for $2900 and providing enough not only to buy the gun but also to fix Vakalis’s fencing gear. Vakalis remembers waking up to emails saying money was pouring in, and thinking “No way, it’s working!” Thorn wasn’t surprised, but was grateful that listeners pitched in. He and Morris even travelled to London to see Vakalis compete and ultimately placed 29th. Thorn was thrilled. “I don’t think we’ll ever get another chance to be friends with someone in the Olympics and to have someone run off the track and come over to the stands and give us a hug. That was an absolutely amazing moment in my life that I will remember until the day I die.” Vakalis remembers a similar moment, where she ran past Thorn, Morris, and her best friend waving to her from the stands. She calls it “a moment of wonder” for which “there was no protocol.” Two months later, Vakalis is one of a handful of graduate students who make their academic home in an office in the Galbraith building. Since returning from London, she’s joined the Nordic skiing and mountain biking teams, two sports she happily crows she has no prior experience in. She’s also thrilled to be back in school, working on making buildings and cities greener. “It’s just so much fun. There’s probably not many points where society condones you spending all your time doing something that you’ve dreamed up and that applies to high level sport as well.” I asked Vakalis if there was anything else she thought people ought to know about her. Canada’s pentathlete paused, made a joke about telling people to read books, and then started talking about Toronto. “By and large, the people here, the people I train with here at U of T, on the cross-country team, on the mountain biking team, on the Nordic team, on the swim team, and the people I get to interact with now in my courses — there’s this feeling of … things do matter and we can make a difference, and it’s so palpable.”

VARSITY SPORTS

var.st/sports

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012

Blues men’s hockey team destroys Queen’s 8–1 Forward Kyle Ventura soars past Gaels with four goals Shaun Midanik

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Varsity Blues men’s hockey team pummelled the Queen’s Gaels 8–1 on Saturday night. The game was never really close as Toronto dominated throughout and saw their record improve to 3–0–1 for the season. “I thought we played quite well,” said head coach Darren Lowe. “We wanted to play quick and physical. We got that early lead which seemed to break their spirit.” The star of the show for the Blues was Kyle Ventura, who scored four goals on the night and caused innumerable problems for the Gaels defense. “I can’t take full credit,” said a modest Ventura. “My line-mates are giving me the puck and sometimes you get lucky. I’d say tonight I got lucky.” “[Ventura] was struggling to score,” said Lowe. “He hadn’t scored yet so [the coaches] decided to have a talk with him the other day. We tried to encourage him to stay positive and keep working. The puck just seemed to keep going in tonight.” The Blues had an excellent start to the game. Forward Jeff Brown began the scoring two minutes in and followed up his first goal six minutes later with a top corner shot that left Queen’s goalie Riley Whitlock helpless. Ventura began his superb out-

ing 12 minutes into the match when he deflected a shot and spun to backhand the puck into an open net for his first goal. The Blues continued their dominance into the second period when Lane Werbowski received a pass from Tyler Liukkonen and fired it into the top corner of the net. Ventura scored his second goal when a lucky bounce off the boards sent the puck onto the tip of his stick. Rob Kay followed with another goal with less than a minute in the period. The initial effort was saved, but the rebound came back to Kay who took his time and slotted it over the Queen’s goalie. Unfortunately, Toronto goalie Brett Willows could not maintain the shutout and shortly into the third, Taylor Clements of Queen’s scored off a rebound. The Blues’ Ventura quickly made the fans forget the Gaels goal and finished his hat-trick two minutes later by controlling the puck behind the net and wrapping it in. His fourth goal on the day had an element of luck to it. Six minutes into the final period, Ventura’s shot took a strange deflection yet somehow managed to still find its way into the back of the net. The game was effectively over at this point. Toronto was happy to run down the clock and Queen’s looked like they wanted to return home to Kingston more than anything. It was an ugly game for Queen’s, previously undefeated. “Queen’s is a good hockey team,”

Lowe remarked. “They have great goal tending usually, but their goalie had an off night. They did play last night against Ryerson. I’m sure the next time, it won’t be like that. These are one-off games. We got lucky.” “Every team we’re going to play this year is a tough outing. If we work hard and persevere, we’ll get results like this,” Ventura noted. One of the key deciding factors in the game was penalties. Between the two teams, 73 penalty minutes were called. It was a very physical game that became nasty at times; one Toronto player was even ejected after a major cross checking penalty. Despite the penalties, Toronto was satisfied with the result. But, the Blues claim they don’t want to relax with crucial matches coming up. “We don’t want to get into any bad habits,” said Ventura. “When we blowout teams like that, we want to stick to our game plan. We don’t want to get into any bad habits for our next game.” “There are some little things we have to take care of,” agreed Lowe. “We got a bit sloppy in the neutral zone at times and we had odd man rushes against us. In tight games, we can’t afford to do these things. “We were lucky tonight to have a bit of a lead. We made some mistakes but overall we had good goal tending and we put the puck in the net.” The Blues next task is to defeat Ryerson who are 2–2 on the season.

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