July 15, 2011

THE VARSITY

Vol. CXXXII, No. 1

University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

11 July, 2011

Flat fees fully implemented Full-time Arts and Science students will pay a flat rate, regardless of how many courses they take. Fee structure widened without a vote. Provost says student groups misunderstand university procedure.

Shonith Rajendran

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR After a two-year test run, the University of Toronto is moving forward with plans to fully implement its controversial “flat fees” system for assessing tuition fees on students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Science. Beginning this fall, students admitted in September 2009 or later and taking more than three credits will pay a flat program fee instead of paying separately for individual courses. Students admitted before 2009 will continue to pay per-course until the end of the 2013–14 academic year.

Students taking three or more credits must now pay a flat fee. For the past two years, the threshold had been four credits. The change was part of the program framework approved in spring 2009, although student groups say the change should require its own vote.

For years, the flat fee structure has been strongly opposed by organized student groups, who argue it amounts to a tuition hike and forces students to pay for courses they don’t or can’t take. While structure was implemented to help the debt-laden faculty, critics say it forces students to rush through their studies and discriminates against low-income students.

No vote The most recent clash between student groups and the administration over the issue was at the Governing Council meeting held at UTM on May 19. The Stop Flat Fees Campaign, a joint initiative of UTSU and ASSU, had organized a protest around an expected vote on the new structure, having earlier collected roughly 4,000 signatures on petition cards opposing flat fees. Protestors then found out that the meeting would hold no vote on the overall policy.

“I was disappointed that there wasn’t a vote,” said Katharine Ball, incoming ASSU president. “To see that there wasn’t a vote on that and it’s moving down a full credit was really disappointing,” she said.

“How does a school, how does a public institution approve a tuition fee increase of 66 per cent without a vote? It’s unbelievable,” said UTSU President Danielle Sandhu. “I think it’s a strong failure. It’s a failure of the university in terms of what’s best for students here, what’s best for this as an institution, a public institution.”

University officials, however, say these groups were simply mistaken about the meeting’s agenda. “I’m not sure precisely where there has been some confusion about this,” said Provost Cheryl Misak, U of T’s chief academic officer.

Misak said that when Governing Council originally approved the resolution adopting the flat fee proposal in May 2009, there was never any requirement that there be a re-vote at a later date. Rather the May 2009 resolution called for revising the flat fee structure if a preliminary evaluation of the fee’s impact in 2011 showed that such a revision of flat fees was required, said Misak.

The 2009 resolution states that “prior to 2011–12, an evaluation of the impact of the model” is to be completed by a committee and submitted to Governing Council, “to enable consideration of revision of the implementation plan, if such is required.”

The group that completed the evaluation, known as the Program Fee Monitoring Committee, submitted its full report to Governing Council at the May meeting. The report’s general conclusion was that “most of the concerns expressed in the discussions leading up to the policy being approved have not materialized” and that “there appear to be no major shifts [in student behaviour] at this time that present cause for concern.”

Misak said that the report essentially showed that the flat fee model did not need to be revised or formally put to another vote. “In some way, yes there is a vote,” she said. “The facts are looked at by the report of the Program Fee Monitoring Committee and they’re discussed and if the facts required revision then there would have been a revision; but the facts were really, really straightforward.”

Committee issues The 10-member monitoring committee, which included three students, looked at the impact of the flat fees model for the one and a half years it had been in effect. The committee looked at the model’s effects on students’ academic performance, student life and extra-curricular activity, enrolment BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

SEE ‘FLAT FEES’ – PG 8

BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

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Toronto’s newest cinema turns one. The Varsity speaks to the Underground Cinema’s founders and ditches the Fellini for Batman Returns.

14 This sandwich joint is definitely not trying to break your heart.

Veteran foodie Laura Kathleen Maize takes on the Wilco-themed café in The $10 Restauranteur.

16 They say the gas is always greener on the other side.

New U of T research confirms that suburbs emit more greenhouse gases than the city core.

17 The search is on!

Extra-terrestrial hunter Jill Tarter talks at U of T and explains what goes into detecting sentient civilizations in space.

19 Chris Kowalczuk and Hugo Lopez, former Varsity Blues, have gone pro. The Varsity explores the lead-up to their big breaks.

VARSITY NEWS

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MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

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CAMPUS INFRASTRUCTURE

UTSC blown away Two buildings under repair as university investigates flying debris Sarah Taguiam

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR The University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus is dealing with two wind-related incidents that occurred within a month of each other.

On April 28, UTSC email accounts received a safety warning cautioning against debris flying loose from the Science Wing’s roof. A similar warning was sent May 18 about loose metal envelope panels of the Arts and Administration Building.

Repairs are underway, but students are wary of their safety.

Director of Campus Safety and Security, Caroline Rabbat, who sent both emails, cited high winds as the main reason behind the loose Science Wing roof fragments.

Asked about why the Science Wing was singly affected out of all the university’s buildings, she replied, “I imagine it’s a culmination of factors, […] sometimes it’s the force of the wind, where it’s coming from, or it can be a combination of where it hit.”

But others doubt harsh weather conditions were the sole cause.

“I understand that it was really windy that day, but how come the Science Wing was only the building affected?” asked Michael Ha, a fourth-year cell and molecular biology major. “Surely it’s not a coincidence that it’s more than four decades old.”

The Science Wing, designed by iconic architect John Andrews, was first opened in

January 1966 and has undergone further construction ever since. The damage it suffered from the wind was reported to have been repaired immediately. The attached Science Building, opened in 2008, was not affected.

Meanwhile, the Arts and Administration Building’s envelope failure is currently under investigation according to Director of Capital Projects, Robert Dernowski. “[An] investigation is in progress and we have yet to establish [the cause] — whether it’s the weather, workmanship or failure of the design,” said Dernowski.

Completed in October 2005, the Arts and Administration Building is past its five-year warranty.

“We are working with the original consultants, the general contractor who built the building, the subcontractors who fabricated and provided the panels and the installers of the system in a very amicable way […] to resolve the problem at no cost to the university.”

Despite UTSC’s reassurance, third-year student Jason Pagaduan is concerned.

“As someone who spends a lot of time going from building to building, I’m glad that repairs have already been done, or are in the process of being done,” said Pagaduan.

“But I can’t help but be mindful that the same events might occur again, and possibly involving different buildings.”

There is no reported connection between the two incidents.

SARAH TAGUIAM/THE VARSITY

U-PASS SNAFU

UTM Dean accused of doctoring financial documents Incident brings campus’ ratification issue to light

Sarah Taguiam

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR U of T Mississauga’s Dean of Student Affairs Mark Overton has been accused by members of the Quality Services for Students (QSS) council of tampering with a financial statement to introduce a new U-Pass fee to incoming Mississauga Academy of Medicine students. Though denied by Overton, the accusation has called to question how the campus ratifies its motions.

APPROVAL PROCESS Every recommendation for new student life fees must follow a strict application process. First, it must be approved by the QSS, which represents every major student council at UTM campus. It is then handed by the Dean of Student Affairs to the University Affairs Board (UAB) for authorization.

Following the QSS’s February 14 meeting, Dean Overton presented a different version of the meeting’s student services fee schedule to the UAB without the QSS council’s knowledge. The document, which proposed a new U-Pass fee for the medicine students starting this fall, was eventually approved by the UAB. The arrangement, however, was rendered void for breaching the process outlined in Article E of a document called The Long-Term Protocol on the Increase or Introduction of Compulsory Non-tuition Related Fees.

OVERTON’S APOLOGY In his letter of apology to Vice-Provost Students Jill Matus, Overton admitted that a wrong version of the form was submitted due to a “tracking error on [his] part.”

UTM Principal Deep Saini explained that it was “a perfectly understandable error.”

“The fee schedule goes through various preparations and there are quite a large number of [them]. As an accident, Dean Overton took the wrong version of it,” he said.

But QSS members have rejected Overton’s version of events, claiming the document was deliberately doctored without student consultation.

“It is factual that [the fee] was never discussed whatsoever,” said Gilbert Cassar, president of the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union. “There’s a process in adding something to a fee schedule. First it must be discussed, and it must be voted for inclusion to even make it to any version of fee schedule whatsoever.”

“The minutes were clearly doctored and misrepresented the actual events that transpired,” alleged UTMSU VP External Munib Sajjad.

PENALTY FOR STAFF MISCONDUCT Convinced of the dean’s misconduct, members of the QSS have urged the university to reprimand Overton.

“I think there’s a clear consensus that Dean Overton is not being held accountable for his actions of misconduct and lying consecutively not only to student reps but also to his colleagues,” said Sajjad.

“If a student cheats, they’re penalized, suspended, but when the administration such a grave violation there’s no consequence, that’s the problem,” added Cassar.

The university, on the other hand, maintains that there is no longer an issue.

“I and the other administrators of the university have accepted the apology and we have moved forward from that. It has been long resolved,” clarified Saini.

PROCEDURAL CHANGES Both parties agreed that procedural changes must be implemented to prevent reoccurrence of similar incidents.

Overton himself has initiated a new “version numbering system” to ensure that no tracking errors will be made in the future while the students recommended that QSS’s “independent and objective Chair” should be the one presenting documents to the UAB instead of the dean.

NO COVERAGE FOR MAM STUDENTS The UAB’s decision to nullify the U-Pass for the Mississauga Academy of Medicine would have denied 54 new students access to UTM’s U-Pass as well as other campus services for the next school year.

But campus administration passed an emergency motion reinstalling the use of all campus services to the medical students. These services, according to Saini, will be shouldered independently by the university.

The QSS was reportedly not consulted during the conception and approval of this new policy.

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VOL. CXXXII No. 1

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CAMPUS INFRASTRUCTURE

U of T to fix fuel train Heating system will get $6m renovation after breaching regulations

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21 Sussex Avenue, Suite 306 Toronto, ON, M5S 1J6 Phone: 416-946-7600 Fax: 416-946-7606 www.thevarsity.ca

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief editor@thevarsity.ca Tom Cardoso Design Editor Anamarija Korolj design@thevarsity.ca Photo Editor Bernarda Gospic photo@thevarsity.ca Online Editor Sam Bowman online@thevarsity.ca News Editor Dylan C. Robertson news@thevarsity.ca Comment Editor Alex Ross comment@thevarsity.ca Arts & Entertainment Editor Ariel Lewis arts@thevarsity.ca Features Editor Erene Stergiopoulos features@thevarsity.ca Science Editor Bianca Lemus Lavarreda science@thevarsity.ca Sports Editor Murad Hemmadi sports@thevarsity.ca Associate Design Editor Vacant Associate Photo Editor Vacant Associate Online Editor Patrick Love Associate News Editor Vacant Associate Comment Editor Vacant Associate A&E Editors Brigit Katz Assunta Alegiani Associate Features Editor Vacant Associate Science Editor Vacant Associate Sports Editors Vacant Copy Editors Designers Maayan Adar Maayan Adar Betina Alonso Michelle Yuan Bernarda Gospic Bianca Lemus Lavarreda Ariel Lewis Alex Ross Erene Stergiopoulos

Contributors Arvid Ågren, Assunta Alegiani, Shoaib Alli, Betina Alonso, Andrew Antinucci, Patrick Baud, Simon Bredin, Lauren Bursey, Adriana Cimo, Semra Eylul Sevi, Jasmine Chorley Foster, Mersiha Gadzo, Albert Razvan Gheorghita, Alexander Griffith, Tanzeel Hakak, Shakir Haq, Elizabeth Haq, Murad Hemmadi, Brendan Hobin, Andrew Johnson, Emily Kellogg, Damanjit Lamba, Bianca Lemus Lavarreda, Laura Kathleen Maize, Zohair Masood, Cristina Olteanu, Ioana Pantis, Mina Park, Gigi Rabnett, Shonith Rajendran, Dylan C. Robertson, Kimberly Shek, Christopher Smith, Yeamrot Taddese, Sarah Taguiam, Jakob Tanner, Lily Tarba, Aldrin Taroy, Fiona Tran, Akihito Tse, Nish V., Dwayne G. White, David Woolley

Board of Directors Chief Executive Officer Paul Humphrey ceo@thevarsity.ca Chief Financial Officer Vacant cfo@thevarsity.ca Chief Operations Officer Matthew D. H. Gray coo@thevarsity.ca Editor-in-Chief Tom Cardoso editor@thevarsity.ca Board Members Lauren Ash (St. George) Jessica Denyer (St. George) Matthew D. H. Gray (St. George) Paul Humphrey (St. George) Ariel Lewis (Staff) Andrew Rusk (Staff) Erene Stergiopoulos (Masthead) Vacant (UTSC) Vacant (UTM) Vacant (ProFac) Vacant (ProFac) Vacant (ProFac) Business Manager Vacant business@thevarsity.ca Advertising Executives Vacant ads@thevarsity.ca Ad Designer Vacant addesign@thevarsity.ca The Varsity is the University of Toronto's largest student newspaper, publishing since 1880. The Varsity has a circulation of 20,000, and is published by Varsity Publications, Inc. It is printed by Master Web Inc. on recycled newsprint stock.

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Please recycle this issue after you are finished with it.

Ioana Pantis

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR St. George campus’ central heating system, known as a “fuel train,” is about to undergo a full restructuring. The system’s boilers and related parts no longer meet Ontario regulations set by the Technical Standards and Safety Authority. Governing Council passed a proposal on June 23 to renew the fuel train over a three-year period with a total cost of $6.138 million.

The Central Steam Plant, located on Russell Street, supplies heating to over 74 per cent of the campus’ indoor spaces. According to the project’s planning report, of the total five existing boilers, two are from the early 1950s with operational controls last upgraded in the 1980s, while two are from the late 1960s and one is from the mid 1990s.

The older systems are obsolete because they depend on pneumatic systems rather than the newer, more efficient electronic systems. The existing fuel train is not up to date with TSSA standards because there is only one protective device for each boiler, whereas TSSA mandates one protective device for each individual burner held within a boiler.

Director of Utilities and Building Operations Bruce Dodds says the university first brought this to the TSSA’s attention. The regulator issued a variance, grandfathering the rules to 2008 standards. This allows the system to continue running until the major renovations are finished.

Mr. Dodds stressed that the university intends to update the system well before the end of the variance granted by the TSSA, avoiding penalties for non-compliance.

The repairs will take place in three phases. Three boilers will have their components replaced this year, followed by one boiler for each of the following two years. Work will take place during the summers to avoid interference with campus heating. No disruptions are expected, since work will be confined to the interior of the Central Steam Plant.

The project will be funded by the the Utilities and Infrastructure Fund, which, according to Dodds, “is a reserve fund with an annual allocation of approximately $3.5 million per year provided through the utilities budget for major renewal items.

“The fuel train project represents just under 2 years’ allocation and is the reason we are doing the work over several years,” said Dodds. “Ongoing maintenance and renewal is part of the cost of keeping the system in operation, just the same as buying fuel for the plant.”

Governing Council has budgeted for various expenses, including construction, taxes, hazardous waste removal, planning, demolition and insurance.

News in Brief U of T students planning a lip dub

Study says co-workers hoard info

A group of U of T students is organizing a “lip dub” to take place some time this September.

A “lip dub” is essentially a music video — subjects sing along to a musical track which is later “re-dubbed” over the shot footage. A YouTube phenomenon among universities, the “lip dub” gained popularity in 2009 when L’Université du Québec à Montréal attracted nearly 9 million viewers to their online video, set to the track of “I’ve Got a Feeling.”

The “U of T’s Lip Dub” event on Facebook currently boasts 5,951 attendees. Student organizer Matt Panday stated that the U of T Lip Dub will be tri-campus, and aims to be the largest recorded University “Lip Dub” video.

He stressed that the current student organizers are still looking to recruit and partner with other U of T clubs and students. More information will be released about the event on its Facebook event page over the summer.

–Emily Kellogg

Distrust among employees leads to knowledge hiding, according to a study co-authored

by David Zweig, a U of T assistant professor of organizational behaviour.

The research is among the first to study the nature of knowledge hiding between employees. The findings suggest three main types of knowledge hiding: playing dumb, evasive hiding, and rationalized hiding.

Although many corporations encourage knowledge sharing, many employees indirectly hide information, or play dumb, out of distrust. “[Employees] justified their decisions in different ways, but the underlying reason they hid information was distrust of management or colleagues,” Zweig told The Globe and Mail. Distrust often drives employees to hide knowledge from their colleagues.

The research recommends managers increase employees’ perceptions of trustworthiness by emphasizing a shared identity.

–Dwayne G. White

U of T forestry schools get the axe

SCSU election legitimate after all

The future of U of T’s Faculty of Forestry has come into question, and is now being forced to consider a merger with the Department of Geography and the Centre for the Environment.

The faculty is both the country’s oldest and smallest forestry school. It aims to incorporate “ecological science, biomaterials science and engineering, as well as social and economic research.”

Money doesn’t grow on trees for the university, which hopes such subjects can be taught more cost-effectively through the Faculty of Arts and Science.

The faculty has already been teaching undergraduate forestry students for the last fifteen years.

Professors and students told The Globe and Mail that the move could “eventually kill off a training ground for thousands of conservationists and ecological experts” and ruin the benefits of a small enrolment size, both major draws for the program.

–Lauren Bursey

The latest Scarborough Campus Students’ Union election results were ratified after allegations that the CRO had been following an outdated version of the election rules.

SCSU’s board of directors was about to ratify the results at their March 4 when former SCSU VP external Amir Bashir entered the meeting and claimed the election had been run on old election rules and not the latest version that was approved earlier this year.

The results were tabled as the board decided to study the supposed dilemma. But according to Guled Arale, current chair of the board, it was all a misunderstanding.

“The election policy mix-up was a confusion,” said Arale in an e-mail to The Varsity.

“An executive from the previous year said in the board meeting that the policy was outdated, but when they reviewed it afterwards, they found it was just a confusion and the election was run on the correct policy.”

–Dylan C. Robertson With files from Natalie Sequeira

Dunlap Observatory drama continues

Dunlap Observatory drama continues There’s no end in sight to a dispute over the David Dunlap Observatory, a property in Richmond Hill U of T sold in 2008.

The largest optical telescope in Canada, the Dunlap Observatory was opened in 1935 after the Dunlap family donated its 19th century farmstead to U of T. The university sold the 191 acres of green space to Metrus Properties for $70 million. Corsica, a company subsidiary, plans to construct an 833-unit housing development project using roughly half the land. The observatory would remain intact and protected by the company.

Residents of Richmond Hill have opposed the development on grounds of the land’s heritage status, leading the Ontario Municipal Board to take reins over the issue in June.

The OMB is now conducting third-party mediation in an attempt to settle the issue out of court.

–Tanzeel Hakak With files from the Toronto Star

U of T engineers help craft huge ice cream cake

To celebrate 30 years of Dairy Queen ice cream cakes, the record for the world’s biggest ice cream cake was broken with some help from U of T. A team of six graduate students in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry were involved in the project’s planning, where they calculated the cake’s dimensions and how it could be put together.

The enormous dessert, constructed at Yonge-Dundas Square on May 10, weighed over 10 tonnes, surpassing the previous Guinness world record of 8 tonnes.

–Kimberly Shek

VARSITY NEWS

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Meet the Grads

On June 6, the High Commissioner of Singapore to Canada, Koh Yong Guan, received his honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Toronto. Guan holds a degree in engineering from U of T and a masters in business administration from the Catholic University of Leuven.

He is a well-known public servant in Singapore, having served as governor of its central bank before becoming a diplomat. As a U of T student, he spent his free time exploring Canada, by hitch-hiking from coast to coast, having his canoe capsize and seeking shelter from strangers — once in a morgue. In this interview, Guan discusses his time as a student at U of T, his role as High Commissioner, and his advice to students.

SES: How was your experience as a student at U of T? KYG: I remember more about what I did during the summer vacation months than what I studied. But I am pretty sure I mastered well what I was required to study.

I was fairly active and adventurous. We could canoe and portage in Algonquin Park, camping out for several days.

There is nothing more soothing than to watch the sun setting over the lakes, and the loon calling in the Canadian wilds.

Another summer, I volunteered with a group to build a church and community hall in a Cree native reserve in Manitoba.

We lived in tents, and the mosquitoes were like small black clouds some evenings. The pike we caught from the lakes

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

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U of T awarded 15 honorary degrees this year. Scholars, humanitarians, public servants and philanthropists received diplomas and gave speeches at convocations. Some of this year’s recipients are well known, such as Malcolm Gladwell, Craig and Marc Kielburger, and Paul Martin.

The Varsity’s Semra Eylul Sevi, Yeamrot Taddese and Sarah Taguiam spoke with three lesser known graduates about their lives, work, and relationship with U of T.

On June 15, George Brown College President Anne Sado received a University of Toronto honorary doctorate of laws for public service and philanthropy. Sado graduated from U of T in engineering in 1977, and received her MBA from Rotman School of Business in 1981. She worked at Bell Canada for 25 years, taking on several roles from business planning to customer service. She also served as a president of YWCA of Metropolitan Toronto and chair of the Trillium Health Cwentre.

Last year, the Women’s Executive Network named her one of Canada’s 100 most powerful women. Among other awards, she has received the Ontario Professional Engineers Gold Medal in 2007 and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for her work with the YWCA of Greater Toronto. She also received the U of T Arbor Award and was inducted into the university’s prestigious Engineering Hall of Distinction.

Because of her success in the corporate and non-profit worlds, many see Sado as a role model for women in engineering and management. A day after she collected her honorary degree and gave a speech to graduating students, she sat down for an interview with The Varsity.

From continuing his education in Italian concentration camps, uncovering his passion for physiology during summer trips in Vienna and Amsterdam, and finally solidifying his dedication to diabetes research at the University of Toronto — Professor Emeritus Mladen Vranic has led an academic career like no other.

A celebrated expert in diabetes, the Croatian-born professor has carved his own path toward the forefront of Canadian medical research, receiving prestigious awards such as the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, Fellow of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, and honorary doctorates from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the University of Saskatchewan, and most recently, the University of Toronto.

Since 1963, after being offered a post-doctoral fellowship by Dr. Charles Best, the co-discoverer of insulin, Vranic has been a source of pride for the university. His groundbreaking work has transformed the landscape of diabetes research and opened many doors for individuals suffering from the disease. Among his achievements are developing a precise tracer method, discovering the existence of extra-pancreatic glucagon and pioneering research that links exercise, stress and diabetes.

YT: How do you remember your undergrad days at U of T? AS: I became a part of a community very quickly because there were so few women in engineering at the time. I was one of the four women in my class, and there weren’t that many more throughout the faculty.

ST: How do you feel about being awarded a University of Toronto honorary degree?

MV: It’s the greatest honour that an academic can receive from his own university. It is definitely a good feeling to know that my work is valued.

Our interviews with the honorary graduates continue on page 8

A Primer on Honorary Degrees An honorary degree or honoris causa (Latin: “for the sake of honour”) is an academic degree, typically a doctorate, conferred by an institution without the usual requirements like exams and graduation. Degrees are awarded to individuals for exceptional achievements or general contributions to society that bring merit and credibility to the institution.

According to Oxford University, the earliest honorary degree was offered to Lionel Woodville, brother-in-law of Edward IV, around 1478. The university presented Woodville, who likely held a bachelor degree of Canon Law, with a doctorate in Canon Law, resolving him from any academic requirements. The conferral, though, was supposedly unsolicited. Rather than an act of goodwill, the degree is interpreted as an attempt to curry favour from a man who was subsequently elected chancellor of the university. Woodville would later became the Bishop of Salisbury.

The first time an honorary degree was revoked took place in World War I. Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, German ambassador to the United States, had been bestowed a law doctorate by the University of Chicago in 1911 for his contributions towards cross-cultural exchange. When the U.S. entered the war in 1918, the university president William Faunce annulled the earlier conferral, saying that von Bernstorff was “guilty of conduct dishonourable alike in a gentleman and a diplomat,” even while the two nations were “still at peace.”

More recently, in 2007, protestors from the Edinburgh University Students’ Association demanded the university rescind an honorary degree granted in 1984 to Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe for human rights violations and political corruption. After two years of campaigning, the university stripped Mugabe of his degree. In 2008, students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst similarly asked their university to revoke a degree awarded to Mugabe 20 years prior,

which was unanimously repealed. Michigan State University followed suit soon after.

U of T has a 56-page list of its honorary degrees.

“The university has been granting honorary degrees going back to 1850,” says Henry Mulhall, Secretary for the Committee of Honorary Degrees. The committee aims to reflect both U of T and Canada’s character and diversity, while striving to balance scholarly endeavours and other societal contributions.

“There is a call for nominations to the university and external community, usually in the spring of each year. The nominations are considered confidentially by both the Committee for Honorary Degrees as well as its Sub-committee for Nominations, and a list of individuals is recommended by the Committee to the Governing Council for approval each year, usually in December,” says Mulhall. “Those approved for honorary degrees usually receive them at convocation ceremonies in June or November the following year,” Candidates must attend a ceremony within two years of the offer in person in order to be deemed to have received their honorary degree.

The selection committee is chosen during in-camera, or private, sessions of Governing Council meetings, with the last taking place June 23.

According to the Terms of Reference of the Committee, GC appoints committee members on the recommendations of the Academic Board. Mr. Mulhall says that although there are no specific criteria for selection, appointed members are “generally distinguished and prominent persons,” represented across a variety of academic disciplines from the university’s three campuses. The committee includes two student positions and four teaching staff positions.

–Akihito Tse

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VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, JULY 11 2011

news@thevarsity.ca

KOH YONG GUAN, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

ANNE SADO, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

MLADEN VRANIC, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

were excellent eating, but the smoked moose meat was not so memorable. These experiences I had in Canada will stay with me forever, and are the basis for my deep affection for the country and people.

I remember I walked in the first day and I was in line to register for something and another woman came up to me and said, “Welcome and when you finish here you can sign up for volleyball, basketball and hockey.” The way she said it, I can’t remember exactly how she said it, it sounded like I had to do it and that I didn’t have much choice.

So I found out later that if most of us in engineering didn’t sign up, that we didn’t have enough women to fill up the team. So I played basketb all, I played volleyball and I played hockey.

ST: Why did you choose to study medicine and specialize in diabetes research?

MV: One of the reasons was that when I was choosing my career, people feared at that time that there could be a new global conflict. I felt that if I was a medical doctor, I would heal people rather than shoot them. In a way, I didn’t choose diabetes, it chose me.

Our Department of Physiology was small and exclusively focused on diabetes and carbohydrate metabolism. I also took summer jobs working in laboratories in Zagreb, Vienna and Amsterdam, concentrating in the same area.

SES: Tell me about your role as the High Commissioner of Singapore to Canada.

KYG: I spent almost seven years as a student at the U of T on a Canadian government scholarship. I then worked 33 years in the Singapore public service.

Since Singapore and Canada established diplomatic relations in 1965, our ambassador at the United Nations had always been jointly accredited as the High Commissioner to Canada. I am honoured to be the first High Commissioner who has responsibility for only Canada.

The bilateral relations between Singapore and Canada are warm and friendly. My role is to help deepen those relations on three levels: political, trade and economics, and people-topeople relations.

SES: What advice would you give to recent graduates and current students?

KYG: I find it useful to remind myself that everyone has weaknesses and strengths. Some people manifest their abilities very quickly, others may take a longer time with the right opportunities. It is useful to try and develop early the ability to identify them in people.

To be able do this, it is important to learn to listen to people, to listen with an open mind. Listening is probably the one skill that we give the least attention to. For foreign students in particular, I like to urge them to take advantage of their stay in Canada to live and experience as much as possible while they are at the U of T. It is not just the degree you will be getting that will be important for your growth, it is also the totality of life experiences that you gather that will equip you to deal with the many challenges that will come your way.

SES: Tell me something surprising about yourself.

KYG: Nothing comes to mind, other than the fact that I can sleep at will almost anywhere. It surprises even my wife. I can tell her I am going to sleep and within a minute I am asleep.

I have learnt to tell myself not to worry about anything that I cannot do anything about. And if I can do anything about it, then go and do it. With that I have been able to put things out of my mind, and learnt to sleep at will.

—Semra Eylul Sevi

FOR THE COMPLETE INTERVIEWS WITH THE HONORARY GRADS, VISIT THEVARSITY.CA

YT: In your view, what makes college education different from university education?

AS: The two systems are different but they can also be complimentary. For me, it’s about a continuum of education. Right now, in fact, 20 to 25 per cent of our students at George Brown have some university credentials. If they had taken very general studies, which are wonderful for building knowledge and critical thinking, they find that they don’t necessarily have the ability to find the job that they want so they come back in some cases for our graduate studies or they come back for another program or focus. So it’s very complimentary but we definitely focus more on a broader range of applied skills and the university has more theoretical knowledge-based programs.

YT: Last year, the Women’s Executive Network named you one of Canada’s most powerful women. Why do you think you’re powerful?

AS: The speech I gave yesterday at U of T was around the movie The Matrix. Because I was speaking to a computer and electrical engineering graduating class for the most part, I thought, “Ok, I bet these guys will have watched The Matrix because the main character in the movie, Neo, was a computer hacker. Morpheus had risked his life to make sure Neo was safe, but all of a sudden Morpheus is in great danger and Neo decides to go back in the non-real world to save him. And the reason for doing that is the power of the relationship that they had built in the time that they’ve known each other.

I talked about that and I said, “In my world, relationships trump power every time.”

YT: Many people see you as a leader. What does that word mean to you?

AS: A leader definitely has to set the tone. A leader has to walk the talk. The things a leader has to do are the same no matter what area you’re working in because one of the key things you have to do is you have to help set a vision. Then you have to get people engaged, they need to want to work with you to achieve that goal with you.

You want to set an environment where people are inspired to want to achieve that vision.

YT: Would you say it was hard to break the glass ceiling to get where you are?

AS: Yes and no. When I started working at Bell, I felt there’s no reason I shouldn’t have the same opportunity for growth and development as a young male engineer. I had the opportunity to keep growing because I met the results. But when you get to the more senior level of the organization, it was still very male-dominated. You always had to sort of think about how you were perceived, how you were presenting yourself and if your ideas were going to be heard in the same way as your male colleagues.

—Yeamrot Taddese

ST: Why have you chosen to stay at U of T for almost 50 years?

MV: It’s a very strong university that allows a lot of collaboration, which my whole existence in science depends on. A lot of scientists specialize in one field and they become experts in that field, but I moved around a little bit and this is why most of my work was possible only because I teamed with experts who knew many things that I didn’t know.

ST: How has the university changed since you first joined it in 1963?

MV: Enormously. It’s become, scientifically, a very strong university. What’s happening here in science is fantastic. When I came to Canada, there definitely wasn’t enough money for research. The philosophy at that time was that if you wanted to be well-informed about research, there is the United States.

They have more money and they’re a huge country, so go and train there.

But now, we wish to be leaders — and are leaders — in many fields in the world. The university’s medical school is 17th in the world, just behind the Ivy Leagues. Ten years from now, we would be the leading country in biomedical research.

ST: Do you have other passions?

MV: I am greatly interested with classical literature and when I was In Croatia, I was very much influenced by Russian literature like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Gogol. Those are still my favourite books, although I also like Shakespeare.

Music is another passion. I started to take piano lessons when I was 10, just before WWII started. That was probably the only good thing about the war that I was forced to stop piano because I can’t translate the music, which is in my head, to my fingers.

When I was younger, I also tried different sports but wasn’t tall enough for real competition. The only sport where I was able to compete was boxing in the light category. I trained for a year but I knew that I wanted to become a physiologist — I needed to protect my brain.

ST: You advised graduates at convocation to “take the road less travelled” when faced with major decision. What exactly do you mean by that?

MV: What it really means is that in science you shouldn’t follow the crowd. For example, when somebody discovers something very important, the whole flock follows. But if you really want to be original then you have to choose the road that’s not heavily traveled, or in other words, choose your own path. It is the key to making a difference in any discipline.

—Sarah Taguiam

MASSEY FELLOWSHIP

Ignatieff joins U of T Former Liberal head takes Massey fellowship, will teach this fall Semra Eylul Sevi

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

VARSITY ARCHIVES

Former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has accepted a teaching position at the University of Toronto and a senior residency at the university’s Massey College.

Ignatieff resigned as party head on May 3 after his party lost Official Opposition status to the NDP. He also lost his own seat in the House of Commons, and quickly accepted a residency and teaching spot offered by U of T. Ignatieff will be teaching in various areas, including the Faculty of Law, the Munk School of Global Affairs, the School of Public Policy and Governance, and the Department of Political Science.

Ignatieff completed his undergraduate degree in history at Trinity College in 1969. The internationally respected academic and author previously taught at Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge universities.

“Dr. Ignatieff accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Toronto in 2005 when he decided to return home, but was immediately drawn into a by-election and entered political life,” said President David Naylor.

“Once he decided to step down as leader, Dr. Ignatieff made it clear that he intended to stay in Canada and return to university teaching. The University of Toronto was the logical spot for many reasons.

“The city is home for Michael and [his wife] Zsuzsanna, and the institution is extremely strong academically in Michael’s main fields of interest. He studied here as an undergraduate.

And there are many family ties to the university, not least through his father, also an alumnus and renowned diplomat who later served as provost of Trinity College and chancellor of the university,” said Naylor.

“The idea came [to offer a spot at U of T] when it was clear that Michael Ignatieff had also lost his seat in Parliament, so all of the participants were aware of the possibilities,” said John Fraser, master of Massey College.

“It was a note of inquiry from President Naylor to me […] that started the ball rolling. His note came on the morning of after the election and if he hadn’t had an e-mail all ready in my mailbox, I would have written him,” said Fraser, noting Massey College’s long tradition of welcoming high-profile politicians and journalists facing transitions.

“I was first off the bat with Pierre Trudeau and Preston Manning. President Robert Prichard was first with Bob Rae back a few years ago,” said Fraser.

“We have also welcomed editors-in-chief like Kenneth Whyte [National Post], Peter Herrendorf [Toronto Life] and Edward Greenspon [The Globe and Mail] after their hasty departures.

Indeed, I myself was offered the chance to come here shortly before my head was about to be severed by Conrad Black when I was editor at Saturday Night,” added Fraser.

In an email to The Varsity, Ignatieff expressed enthusiasm in returning to his alma mater.

“I’m looking forward to being in the classroom teaching undergraduates and graduates next fall and spring semesters,” he wrote. “I will have an office at Massey and I look forward to working with students. Can’t wait.”

Ignatieff toured Massey College on May 7 with his wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar. His one-year contract with the college begins July 1. He will begin teaching after Labour Day for the academic year. He is expected to teach POL382H1, a special topics course offered for undergraduate political science students.

“We’re very pleased to welcome Michael Ignatieff back to his alma mater. He had a stellar reputation at Harvard with faculty and students alike,” said Naylor.

VARSITY NEWS

news@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

7

CAMPUS SPACE

U of T boots affiliate high school UTS to find new location by 2021

REMI CARREIRO/THE VARSITY

Jakob Tanner

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR Last month the University of Toronto rejected a $48-million proposal to refurbish its affiliated private secondary school, University of Toronto Schools, and stated it will not be renewing the school’s lease at 371 Bloor Street. The lease runs until 2021, at which point the school, after a century at its current location, will have to find a new home. The university will use the site for its own unspecified purposes.

“The affiliation agreement specified that a committee of five individuals would review the proposal for the redevelopment submitted by UTS and make the decision whether to take it to the Governing Council,” said Cathy Riggall, U of T’s VP business affairs. “The committee was established as provided in the agreement. We met, considered the proposal provided, considered a wide range of issues that we felt were relevant and came to a conclusion.”

Prior to the rejection, the $48-million refurbishment plan proposed rebuilding the current UTS building by implementing a modern auditorium, gymnasium, and swimming pool while retaining the façade of the original building.

Since the decision was publicly announced April 15, groups have mobilized against the committee’s resolution. Leading the backlash is the Liberal strategist and UTS alumnus John Duffy, who describes the university’s choice as “puzzling.”

“The way the university decision-making process is usually designed is to produce consensus by an open and transparent process,” said Duffy. “I would like to know why that opportunity wasn’t taken. Secondly, there hasn’t been a full consultation.

Thirdly, does the university have a proposal for this site? Riggall says they don’t […] but if they do, surely that proposal should be publicly evaluated against the UTS proposal.

“A public institution like the University of Toronto normally takes competitive bids. If they have a different proposal in mind let’s hold it up to the light along with the UTS proposal in an open and transparent and accountable process, and have the university governance structure decide which is best.”

When asked to describe U of T’s redevelopment plan for the site, Riggall replied by e-mail that “there are no current plans.”

The school’s principal, Michaele Robertson, wonders how the school’s consciousness of holding a tentative location will affect students over the coming years. “The timeline is not immediate, in the sense that we have until 2021 to try a location and do the renovations we would inevitably need to do,” said Robertson.

“I think of course there will be a greater degree of apprehension than what we have seen up until now, and that will probably continue until we have a new home. People in our community are going to have difficulty comprehending being in a different location. That is the hard part for the existing community.”

David Rounthwaite, a UTS alumnus and building committee chair, was one of the first informed of the university’s decision, who then notified current students and alumni. “It is the intention of UTS to maintain a very strong relationship with the university because one of the unique aspects about the school is the connection with the university; a relationship that provides students with a number of benefits, that include access to the athletic facilities, the libraries, special programs that operate on a bilateral basis, such as the recent program that was done at the [Munk School of Global Affairs] in conjunction with UTS,” said Rounthwaite. “We don’t see the relationship being eroded, but changing and evolving.”

University administration has stated its support in helping to find a new location for the school. “We have a very experienced real estate team and good connections into the development community. We have offered to provide this expertise to UTS to help them find a new site,” said Riggall.

When asked if lobbying against U of T’s decision will hurt future negotiations between the two schools, Duffy said: “I can’t imagine the university would ever want to retaliate against some citizen or community activism regarding decision making. That just doesn’t seem like the U of T I know.

“When U of T makes a big land use and institutional decision, it is supposed to go through a number of channels. That’s normal, and this doesn’t look like t he normal procedure. All we want is a normal procedure,” said Duffy.

≥ RESPONSE ≤ 5H 8 RI 7 %RRWV $ɷOLDWH +LJK 6FKRRO John Duffy’s comment that he found “puzzling” U of T’s decision to turn down the UTS proposal is also puzzling.

He is calling for an open and transparent process, and seems willing to ignore the fact that the University followed the process set out in the Affiliation Agreement signed by both the University and UTS in 2006.

He is correct that, as a public institution, UofT normally takes competitive bids. If we were interested in selling the building, that is what we would do. But this is far from a normal situation. Instead UTS had made a proposal, as permitted under the Affiliation Agreement, to redevelop a site that the University of Toronto owns.

Our assessment concluded that the proposal was not in the long-term best interests of the University - the owner of the land and building.

The Affiliation Agreement also specifies that the Review Committee would determine whether the UTS proposal should be moved through U of T’s governance process. But that step would only occur if Administration supported the proposal, which it does not.

In short, the process, as agreed to by UTS in the Affiliation Agreement, was followed to the letter.

Sincerely, LAURIE STEPHENS DIRECTOR, NEWS AND MEDIA RELATIONS UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

8

VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, JULY 11 2011

news@thevarsity.ca

GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION

Satellite campuses bring their own flavour As Ontario changes campus policies, we look at the strengths of UTM and UTSC Betina Alonso

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR Recently, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities John Millow announced the Ontario government’s decision to determine where colleges and universities are to open new satellite campuses, no longer allowing academic institutions to make the decision first and consult the province later.

The initiative intends to avoid the uneven spread of education in Ontario — the densest hub being the southeast and the GTA, following population density. Given that a large portion of enrolment in institutions comes from the surrounding community, a satellite campus is strategic in providing education to its local area.

The University of Toronto campuses at Scarborough and Mississauga demonstrate that the project of satellite campuses can evolve beyond being a chapter of a home campus. Founded in the 1960s, they were inspired by a recommendation made by the Council of Ontario Universities to open three new liberal arts campuses, two of which would be affiliated with U of T.

‘FLAT FEES’ – CONTINUED FROM PG 1 behaviour and whether the number of completed courses had changed, as well as the model’s main criticisms.

Students serving on the committee raised several issues in e-mails to The Varsity. Peng You, former president of the Psychology Students’ Association, said that overall he felt his concerns were taken seriously and that he was satisfied with the final report but that more data was needed since it only looked at one and a half cohorts. Jesse Beatson Holmes, another member, said that there were some questions about the reliability of the focus group used to examine the effects of the fee on student life and extracurricular activity.

“When they did the focus group portion of [the report] they didn’t really poll a lot of students so it wasn’t very cohesive to the student body,” echoed Ball. “It’s not a very good sample of students.”

There were plans for four focus groups with 20 participants each, according to the report. In total, 94 students registered though only 41 attended.

Holmes pointed out that that the committee uncovered several unforeseen problems with the flat fee model.

The committee found a trend showing students holding on to courses longer since there was no financial penalty for dropping courses past the drop date as long as the student stayed at or above 4.0 credits. “There were plenty of stories from the registrar’s offices about students unable to get into required courses because they were full,” wrote Holmes. “While the final report does make mention of this, it could have perhaps highlighted some of the new problems discovered more prominently in its conclusion.”

“We thought there were a lot of problematic correlations that were being suggested by that report and that essentially it was designed to show a positive reflection on flat fees,” said Sandhu.

Meric Gertler, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, defended committee’s work in an interview with The Varsity. He also responded to criticisms that the committee was little more than a rubber-stamp body

While originally administrated from St. George and founded to receive an overflow of students from the downtown campus, both campuses are now full-fledged campuses in their own right, with Scarborough becoming a separate division in 1971. Mississauga became a separate unit from the Faculty of Arts and Science in 2003. The Mississauga campus was known as Erindale College until 1998, when it was officially renamed University of Toronto Mississauga.

Though with smaller student and faculty bodies, both campuses have grown to hold their own specific identities, due to unique student demographics and faculty initiatives.

Notably, collaboration with local community colleges has allowed both campuses to couple an academic approach with hands-on experience.

Scarborough currently finds itself amidst a great expansion, having doubled its population since the ‘90s. An instructional centre is slated to open in late August, the biggest facility since the campus’ founding. It has recently launched its first PhD in Environmental Science.

that lacked teeth from its beginning.

“None of these people had a vested interest in, you know, one set of findings or another,” he said. “None of them had a vested interest in supporting the program fee.” Gertler pointed to the fact that the committee included student leadership as well as college registrars and undergraduate coordinators.

“What they have reported is straight-up results,” he said. “They make no recommendations, they simply report on what they’re asked to report on. I think it’s safe to say that on the basis of two years’ information, in some cases a year and a half, they have done about all the analysis they

simply be spent on faculty housekeeping.

“We do expect students will see really tangible improvements in their learning experience as a result of the new investments that this funding makes possible,” he said.

Despite such reassurances, opposition to flat fees, expressed by organized groups like the Stop Flat Fees Campaign, remains fervent.

Campaign tactics Opponents say they intend to continue campaigning and lobbying against the model, though some student leaders admit that the question of how best to continue with their efforts will require some time to think through.

“As of right now, I’m not really sure where it’s going for the upcoming year but we’re thinking about it, and I’m definitely thinking about it, and ASSU is for sure,” said Ball. “We’re just not sure yet exactly where we’re going, but it’s in the works for September.”

With a provincial election this fall, some flat fees opponents have already tried to elevate the issue to the provincial level, where they hope for more success than their results from university administration.

However, it is unclear whether any of the parties would be willing or able to intervene. In an e-mail, a spokesperson for John Milloy, minister of training, colleges and universities, defended the program fee model, saying it provided universities with a more predictable source of revenue, and that universities had the flexibility to set fees as long as outcomes aligned with provincial policy. A spokesperson for Rosario Marchese, the NDP’s education critic, said that the party was opposed to the structure but stopped short of saying it was promising to work to reverse flat fees if elected.

Some prominent critics of UTSU say they think the string of disappointments for opponents of flat fees over the last several years might be beginning to take a toll on student morale. “I don’t think that they believe that they’ll be successful at U of T,” said third-year student Brent Schmidt

We thought there were a lot of problematic correlations that were being suggested by that report.

—Danielle Sandhu could possibly do. They’ve investigated all of the questions that were top-of-mind during the debate and they have reported in a pretty clear, fair and unbiased way.”

Faculty deficit At full implementation, the university expects the new model to generate $9.5 million in additional revenue, according to a brief provided to Governing Council.

“When I became dean it was pretty clear that our expenditures each year were outrunning our revenues by a significant margin,” said Gertler on the faculty’s motivation for changing to a per-course system. He recalled the faculty facing deficits of anywhere from $10 to $20 million dollars. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that in circumstances like that you really have to explore every available option in order to be able to close that gap and find the means to reinvest in teaching capacity and learning experiences. That was what really triggered it for us.”

Gertler added that a priority for money generated from the flat fee structure was hiring more professors.

He stressed that the money wouldn’t

It is also houses a program exclusive to its own campus, mental health studies, distinguished from more mainstream psychology programs in its focus on clinical psychology.

The program is popular, branching into additional Masters and PhD programs. UTSC is also home to U of T’s only journalism program, one of its pairings with Centennial College.

The collaboration with Centennial allows graduates to receive certificates and diplomas in addition to their university degrees.

Another example is the paramedicine program, granting graduates a paramedic license as well as a degree that allows students to pursue further graduate studies.

Mississauga is the university’s second-largest campus, and offers all traditional academic certifications. Additionally, it has its own degree options — a Bachelor of Business and Administration and a Master of Management and Professional Accounting, among several others. Similar to Scarborough, a joint effort with Sheridan College has allowed it to offer education that grants both a university degree and college accreditation, such as programs in art

and art history, and theatre and drama.

UTM also hold Canada’s first forensic science institute, and is about to open an institute of medicine to increase the university’s capacity to train primary care physicians and general practitioners, and offer communityoriented medical training.

The campuses have also grown distinct by virtue of its student population. Laura Matthews, a UTSC spokesperson, comments on the excitement of living in a diverse campus.

“When Roméo Dallaire was speaking, one of our students thanked him personally because she was one of the people in the refugee camps he helped save.”

Matthews says the wealth of perspectives and personal stories is an asset for both the faculty and the student body. “The global story is very much the story of our community.”

A satellite campus, judging from the U of T experience, offers a permeable flourishing of opportunities for both the institution and its community, often developing an identity of its own. What the process will look like under the supervision of the province has yet to be seen.

on whether UTSU can actually influence university administration.

“I think that if they think they’re going to be successful, they’re going to be successful on a political level, not on a campus level. I don’t think that they think they can have any direct or short-term impact on admin being who they are now.” Schmidt, who ran for the position of VP internal in March, said that he is strongly opposed to flat fees, but disagreed about the tactics employed by UTSU and other groups, which he called overly aggressive.

Others were even more sceptical about motivations for continuing the campaign given the fact that the flat fee structure has already been implemented “‘Drop Fees’ is a wonderful bullet point to have in your platform, but the question is ‘Where are the results?’”, said Matthew Gray, who also ran in the UTSU election.

“I don’t know if it’s something that can be reversed. I don’t really know how realistic it is for it to be reversed especially considering the budget shortfalls which the faculty is facing.

“When their strategies are so outlandish and unrealistic in terms of consulting the administration with

ally need to make sure that all of us are coming together to work for the benefit of our entire membership.”

A new normal?

Whether student leaders can actually overturn flat fees might not matter. Many students remain vehemently opposed to the new fee structure.

A dilemma often cited by student groups involves financial aid. Most financial aid programs are only available to full-time students. Some students take three credits, the threshold of a full-time load, while working part-time. This allows low-income students to both work and qualify for loans and assistance.

Because the flat fee system charges all full-time students the equivalent of five courses, students groups argue that the poorest students won’t be able to finance their education.

Another common grievance is that students will fast-track their education instead of exploring the opportunities a post-secondary education offers.

University officials dismiss such arguments, saying that some students are stuck in the old, per-course mentality. “What students are getting is a program,” said Misak, when asked whether it was unfair to charge students on the basis of their program instead of the courses they were taking.

“What you get at the end of your time at the University of Toronto, whether it be in pharmacy or Arts and Science, is you get a degree and that degree consists of a whole bunch of things: a number of courses, sometimes there are experiential learning components, internships; each degree is slightly different but that’s what you’re getting, you’re getting a degree.”

Whether students will eventually adapt to flat fees as a normal fee structure remains an open question.

Sandhu said she didn’t think student opposition was ready to let the issue rest. “In terms of being optimistic, I think if people are willing to come together to work together, there is room for this.”

Full disclosure: Matthew Gray is a member of The Varsity Board of Directors and current Chief Operating Officer.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that in circumstances like that you really have to explore every available option.

—Meric Gertler representing student interests, I think that it becomes kind of an unrealistic thing to promise and something which they can’t really deliver.”

Sandhu responded that she hadn’t heard of anyone saying the campaign was misleading.

“I’ve never had a student come up to me, a member, who was concerned about that,” said Sandhu. “I don’t think there’s anything misleading about the campaign or [its] possibility.

“In fact it’s that kind of approach that limits students from being able to achieve victories together. We re-

comment@thevarsity.ca

VARSITY COMMENT

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

9

Breaking the alliance

AN

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IJA

KO RO L

J/T H

EV AR SIT Y

Canada needs to leave NATO before it’s pulled into more destructive conflicts

David Woolley

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR On July 1st, we celebrated Canada’s birth as an independent nation. I was lucky enough that day to be in the audience at the Blyth Festival for the opening of Vimy, a Canadian play exploring the very war that gave Canada its sense of nationhood. This outstanding play tells the story of four wounded soldiers and their nurse, all Canadians, in an army hospital after the capture of Vimy Ridge.

While the play never asks explicitly why World War I was fought, the stories of the characters force you to ask why such suffering had to happen.

Any Canadian history class will teach you that Canadians fought in World War I because we were loyal members of the British Empire, and that the war culminated in Canada’s recognition as an independent country. Were you in the U.S., you may be taught that World War I was fought, as President Woodrow Wilson claimed, to make the world safe for democracy.

But what democracy? The brutality of World War I merely paved the way for the deaths of 100 million from Communism, the rise of Hitler, and the atrocities of the Holocaust. In the Great War more than 10 million soldiers died and 21 million more were wounded. Not included in those figures are the soldiers who returned home with bodies intact, but who, like Vimy’s Lt. Laurie MacLean, still brought back “all the mess what’s inside of me now… stuck there, forever.”

As I watched the human tragedies in Vimy unfold, I was reminded of a recent speech by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in which he claimed that unless Europe played a more active role, the NATO alliance could collapse.

We should be so lucky.

NATO — like the alliance system that dragged us into World War I — is a dangerous anachronism that pulls Canada into conflicts that we might otherwise avoid.

In World War I, Serbia was linked to Rus-

from Soviet expansion. The USSR knew that aggression on the continent would lead to all-out war with America. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the elimination of the Soviet threat. Since then, NATO has been in convulsions trying to justify its continued existence.

From Bosnia to Kosovo to Afghanistan and now Libya, we must ask if Canada would not be better off outside the organization.

Does it not seem obvious that interven-

NATO — like the alliance system that dragged us into World War I — is a dangerous anachronism that pulls Canada into conflicts that we might otherwise avoid. sia, which in turn had alliances with France and Britain, which was allied with Japan; while Austria was allied with Italy and Germany, which was allied with the Ottomans.

Had it not been for the web of alliances that linked Europe, it is very possible that what became World War I could have amounted to little more than a series of skirmishes on the Austro-Serbian border.

NATO was established after World War II to ensure the safety of Western Europe

tions such as in Libya would be better justified if they were UN missions rather than NATO ones? Surely wars fought to enforce the laws of the international community should be sanctioned and led by the governing body of that community rather than what was meant as a transatlantic defense pact.

More importantly, does NATO ensure the safety of Canada by preventing our citizens from fighting in unnecessary wars as they did at Vimy? No. Rather, NATO has brought us close to

unnecessary war even in the recent past.

In 2008, the former Soviet state of Georgia was told it would receive a direct path to NATO membership. Soon after, Russia intervened militarily in the Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to stop what would later be revealed to be persecution of the local ethnic communities by the Georgian government. Had Georgia become a NATO member prior to this conflict, Canada could have found itself at war with Russia, fighting against a power that was intervening in a humanitarian crisis.

More recently, Israel raided a Turkish aid vessel en route to Gaza. Had Turkey, a member of NATO, claimed the actions to be an act of war, NATO’s mutual defence agreement would have required Canada and the rest of NATO to go to war with Israel. To claim that we would not have is to show the glaring farce of NATO, which is that its members have closer international allies among nations with whom they have no formal alliance, than they do with many NATO members.

Were Canada outside NATO, like Australia and New Zealand, it could remain neutral regarding conflicts it had no direct stake in, ensuring our nation — and our servicemen and women — would not get dragged into conflicts merely because of diplomatic technicalities. However, Canada would retain the ability, were the next Hitler to rise, to take part in a war that it was crucial to join. Such a course would ensure that the government’s first duty was the protection of Canadians, not foreign regimes.

VARSITY COMMENT

10 MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

comment@thevarsity.ca

Our quiet Vietnam A reflection on our failures in Afghanistan

Patrick Baud

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR Although he architects of the war in Afghanistan and its inheritors — President Obama chief among them — have desperately avoided comparisons between it and the Vietnam War, the similarities are undeniable. Though allied and civilian casualties are far fewer, and United States forces have been joined by a greater number of countries, including Canada, the war seems headed to a similar end. Talk of victory by the American government has diminished in recent months, and been replaced with suggestions of a dignified retreat. The last chopper out of Kabul may be much closer than we think.

Since the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden in early May by American special forces, secret talks have begun between allied forces and representatives of the Taliban. When Afghan President Hamid Karzai — whose relations with allied commanders have become increasingly strained in recent years — revealed the negotiations with the Taliban last week, they came as a shock to many. Years of denial by military leaders and politicians alike that negotiations were

an option had dimmed hope that anything but a stalemate could result. While this armistice may not be negotiated in Paris, as at the end of the Vietnam War, it could have a similar effect.

Mere days after the revelation of negotiation efforts, President Obama also announced plans to withdraw 10,000 American soldiers from Afghanistan in July and an additional 20,000 before the end of the summer. This is major reversal from a president who had enthusiastically backed a surge of forces in 2009. The surge has simply not met its objectives, the most important of which was reducing the Taliban’s capacity to launch bombings and suicide attacks with impunity. Moreover, it may also mean that a majority of American combat troops may be withdrawn from Afghanistan ahead of the planned withdrawal in December 2014.

Despite significant efforts by allied forces to prepare the Afghan military and police to take on security responsibilities, many units remain undertrained and unprepared. Unlike in Iraq, where there were a significant number of lowlevel veterans who could be quickly trained to provide law and order,

Afghanistan has had little in the way of formal government. Barring a collapse of the Taliban military organization, it seems inevitable that they will eventually overthrow Karzai’s weak central government.

Unlike in Vietnam, there was really never a viable alternative to the opponents in Afghanistan. It is not clear how the Americans could change this in the final years of the

ever before and that it will return to anarchy and civil war.

Another variable in the postwithdrawal scenario is the fate of Al Qaeda. While it has been significantly weakened by a decade of targeted operations by countless security agencies and military forces, its ideas have spread. While the particular Al Qaeda cell led by Bin Laden’s successor Ayman al-Zawahiri in the

Barring a collapse of the Taliban military organization, it seems inevitable that they will eventually overthrow Karzai’s weak central government. war nor how they could continue to prop up the Afghan government after 2014 without suffering unacceptable casualties and taking on billions in additional war debt. It is undesirable for allied forces to remain in Afghanistan, but it is equally undesirable that they leave.

The risk is that they will have left Afghanistan more unstable than

mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan may no longer be able to mount attacks, there may be dozens or hundreds more elsewhere who can. Particularly disconcerning are so-called “homegrown” cells which do not need to contend with entering Western countries to mount attacks.

The Americans are right to pur-

sue an armistice with the Taliban.

However, no one should be deluded into thinking that such a peace would mark the end of the conflict between Islamist terror and Western governments. Instead, we can expect to return to the kind of confrontations that were the rule in the 1990s. The current war with Libya indicates a continued willingness among Western leaders to undertake air wars. Moreover, it is also likely that the American government will continue its worldwide covert campaign against terrorism through drone attacks and paramilitary operations.

The Vietnam War was the final major proxy conflict of the Cold War, but the United States continued its covert operations against communist movements around the world until the dying days of the Soviet Union. The time for peace is now, but the larger war is not likely to end soon nor is Afghanistan likely to enjoy much stability in the near future. While our Vietnam has been quieter, largely free of mass demonstrations and large-scale casualties, it will almost undoubtedly have a similar outcome — the original enemy will take over. What is not clear is whether we will be able to avoid another Afghanistan again.

Nobody cares about the Maple Crown Thoughts on Canada’s royal wedding Jasmine Chorley Foster VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

A royal visit to Canada is bound to cause excitement for some, hatred for a few, and apathy for many. A royal visit that incorporates Canada Day festivities ought to have sparked much more controversy and conversation than it did, and it must be asked: what does a Canadian monarchy mean in 2011?

Originally conceived as Dominion Day, July 1st celebrated the 1867 enactment of the British North America Act, which united three British colonies (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada) as one country within the Empire. In 1982, the year the Constitution Act patriated the Canadian constitution, July 1st was renamed Canada Day. The name change celebrated the severing of Canada’s legal dependence on Westminster Palace.

Lasting from June 30th to July 8th, the excitement caused by the presence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Canada was glaring. On the surface it was a festive diplomatic visit from the newest, most beloved royal celebrities since the Duke’s own mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. The undeniably charming newlyweds mingled with Canadian dignitaries, watched fireworks, and greeted the crowds of what can only be described as their fans.

The pandemonium had little effect on unvisited cities such as Toronto. We all saw the photographs of William and Catherine Windsor in the Globe, Star, or Post, and were undoubtedly reminded by peers of how much federal and provincial money was being spent on the English circus (about £950,000 GBP or $1,465,833 CAD).

Anti-federalist and anti-monarchist protests in Quebec during the couple’s stop in the province were small. Protests simply didn’t occur in Anglophone provinces.

What Canadians need to discuss is whether or not we ought to sustain our current relationship with the British monarchy. A hereditary monarch guarantees the principle of impartiality, which supports (but does not solely ensure) governmental stability and accountability. As far as royals go, if and when he is crowned King of Canada, William will most likely be met with popular approval and fulfil his duties to the best of his ability. As our head of state, he will act mainly as a figurehead and a symbol. But does the history of the monarchy, and what it symbolizes, reflect Canada today?

poverty and disadvantage in this country (namely, that experienced by First Nations peoples) is a direct reverberation of monarchical imperialism. It’s a history inextricably tied to the English royal family. I’m uncomfortable being a royal subject of a family with such a history.

Many Canadians have ancestral ties to England, however, and take pride in that enduring connection to the land of their forefathers. My own maternal grandfather came to Canada from Liverpool between the World Wars. I felt that loyalty to my English roots swell in my chest when I watched William and Kate’s April wedding on television. My histories betray one another however, and as an Irishwoman, a Scot, and a German I could not help but feel disgusted. As a Canadian, I’ve been taught to value the land of my ancestors. As a history student, I’ve been taught to be critical of my loyalties.

I’m partial to the George Elliott Clarke alternative — the poet once mused about an entirely First Nations royal family for Canada. Various other scholars have proposed their own alternatives, but sustained debate about the fate of the Canadian monarchy has never come to fruition. The populace has never demanded one. Under our constitution, severing all remaining ties with the monarchy would be an immense feat. Collectively, Canadians have never considered real independence to be worth it.

Until there is an extreme discomfort amongst most Canadians, or an extreme economic benefit to be reaped, there probably will not be a surge in interest surrounding the Canadian monarchy. Unless we engage in constructive, intelligent discussions about the future of our monarchy, we will see William on a $20 bill in our lifetime.

If there is to be a symbolic head of state in the country, why not make that position truly distinct from the British monarchy? Why not an elected or rotating head of state who is Anishinaabe, or Métis, or Inuit?

We mustn’t forget our history as a colony, for it’s certainly shaped much of what we’ve become as a nation. But no matter how much love we may have for ol’ blighty, for tradition, or for monarchical pomp, we can’t forgo reconciliation, modernity, and remembrance. Canada deANAMARIJA KOROLJ/THE VARSITY serves better.

Monarchy represents a history of building an empire while simultaneously oppressing and destroying countless peoples and nations. It represents the divine right of kings, murderous conquest, and Christian privilege. Such ideas are widely acknowledged as things of the past but are symbolically inseparable from a state system that adheres to a crown.

England built much of the foundations of our federalism and our parliamentary democracy, but the colonial legacy also resonates as a legacy of racism, elitism and delayed secularization. The greatest

VARSITY COMMENT

comment@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

11

Respecting LGBTQ youth Why Catholic school boards’ stance against gay-straight alliances is discriminatory and wrong

Simon Bredin

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR It says something meaningful about the status of our movement when the loudest complaint recently from the queer community was provoked by the mayor’s refusal to attend the Pride parade. Here in Canada — where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2002 — and particularly in Toronto, homophobia seems to be more often the exception than the rule. Exceptions are usually condemned quickly and almost unanimously. But one of the most flagrant and egregious has persisted, and even attracted apologists. That is the refusal of Catholic school boards across the province of Ontario to allow gay-straight alliances.

LGBTQ youth are more likely to commit suicide, skip school for fear of harassment, and suffer from exceedingly low levels of self-esteem.

And if the experiences of my friends and colleagues in the queer community are any indication, our legal victories have done little to alleviate the day-to-day harassment and petty indignities inflicted on LGBTQ

students. I can only imagine that the experience of these students in the Catholic system, surrounded by a dogmatism that actively and explicitly denies their dignity and worth, is worse yet.

Gay-straight alliances have appeared with increased frequency since a recent rash of suicides by queer youth drew public attention to the perennial issue of schoolyard and online bullying. These alliances function as a sort of peer support group expressly for a demographic that urgently requires it. Yet Catholic school boards have vigorously suppressed them, or at least their characteristic queer elements, choosing to allow generalized antibullying groups but maintaining a heavy-handed ban on anything deemed too “gay.”

Catholic school boards have consistently pursued policies that do nothing to meaningfully address the concerns of LGBTQ youth. The Toronto Catholic School Board, for instance, was the last board in the province to pass the Ministry of Education’s standard Equity and Inclusive Education policy, and it is now

in the process of introducing a set of regressive exceptions to this document. Although the most critical amendments will not be voted on until a meeting in late August, proposed changes to the policy include provisions that “denomination rights take precedence over human rights protections,” and specifically take aim at gay-straight alliances, requiring the board to “approve only clubs which have goals consistent with the Catholic faith and the Catholic church’s moral teachings.”

In another case, the Halton Catholic School Board expressly removed “sexual orientation” from an antidiscrimination clause.

These policies do not prioritize the well-being of their students, gay or straight. Patrick Keyes, the superintendent of education for the Toronto Catholic District School Board voices the paranoia that actually drives the debates: “a real fear, a fear their children will become part of this ‘gay agenda.’” It is shocking that any person in charge of children’s education could voice such a fatuous, toxic opinion. Catholic school boards across the prov-

ince would do well to reconsider their priorities: it is incumbent upon them to function as an educational institution first, a Catholic institution second.

Unfortunately, for the time being, we must accept the historical anachronism that established public religious school boards in the first place. Since the nineteenth century, the public has more or less abided their existence, and parents continue to enrol their children in a system that provides an explicitly Catholic curriculum. But on this issue, the stance of these school board administrations is reprehensible; their policies are negligent and oppressive. They have ignored their first and most important mandate: the education and well-being of their students. That mandate is imposed on them by the public funds they receive. Worse yet, they continue to quash the efforts of their students to address the issue when they fail to act.

The Ministry of Education passed an equity policy in the first place to ensure equal treatment for all students. That right should be ex-

tended to all students — whichever school system their parents have enrolled them in. Catholic school boards must stop pursuing the special exceptions that allow them to ignore or aggravate the plight of their LGBTQ students. By insisting on universal deference to Catholic principles and teachings, school boards make it impossible for teachers and administrators to help students at all, since contravening these policies is considered grounds for termination. The boards also seem determined to stamp out student-led efforts at combating homophobia and creating safe spaces at school. The impulse to suppress anything overtly “gay” about these anti-homophobia groups recently culminated in a spat of farcical incidents, including one school banning the distribution of rainbow flags. It seems unlikely that the administrations of these Catholic school boards will go out of their way to help LGBTQ students any time soon. But at the very least, they must stop actively working against efforts designed to help these students cope.

VARSITY FEATURE

12 MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

features@thevarsity.ca

The healthcare kingdom In a land where doctors reign supreme, it’s no wonder healthcare professionals don’t always get along. ADRIANA CIMO explains the ins and outs of healthcare and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to treat chronic illnesses.

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or most, middle school is a distant memory. You might have played jump rope, or you might have played doctor. And along with the schoolyard routine came our education in etiquette. “Don't interrupt.” “Wait your turn.” Our world is built on the standards of being polite. Surprisingly, healthcare providers tend to overlook these simple rules when it comes to collaborating with one another.

It becomes all the more relevant when you account for the increasing complexity of healthcare demands.

These days, chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease are on the rise. In order to provide effective patient care to individuals suffering from these illnesses, you need a diverse team of healthcare professionals. That’s where interprofessional collaboration comes in.

Take the example of type II diabetes. Effective care would require patients to be prescribed medication, understand the physiology of their disease, and adhere to dietary and lifestyle modifications to self-manage their condition.

This requires collaboration between a minimum of three healthcare disciplines to take advantage of their respective specialties: a physician, a nurse practitioner, and a dietitian.

Yet incorporating the different perspectives of each professional isn’t as easy as it sounds. In fact, part of the conflict arises from healthcare providers having their own unique perspectives. Professionals train to practice in a specific field: they learn a different set of customs, values, and behavioral norms specific to their discipline.

Then comes the question of which disciplinary perspective will dominate the conversation.

For example, nurses tend to dominate when faced with dietitians and social workers. Research has shown that nurses tend to adopt a competitive style when interacting with other healthcare staff, imposing ideas and being impatient with the process of gathering information.

Strangely enough, most professionals don’t even realize they’re acting this way. In a study conducted this year by Lorber and Savic, hospital employees rated nurses as having dominant behaviour styles when dealing with conflict. Nurses, on the other hand, rated themselves as agreeable and compromising.

But interprofessional communication isn’t just about who talks the

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loudest. A distinct hierarchy exists within healthcare settings, and it often determines who will be heard.

Unsurprisingly, doctors usually get first place in the healthcare pecking order. They exercise more power over decisions related to caring for patients, thanks to their extensive medical knowledge. Other professionals tend to accept and follow this hierarchy, despite feeling that their own concerns and opinions are undervalued.

To make matters worse, most healthcare professionals have minimal knowledge of the skills other fields can contribute to patient care. As scientist Marie Lidskog and her colleagues explain, this leads to stereotyping the social identity of other professionals. The resulting lack of mutual respect makes it understandably difficult to

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collaborate on the task at hand — namely, the patient’s health.

That’s where it becomes clear that all this squabbling is somewhat counterproductive. When it comes to caring for a patient, the best solution is collaboration.

Researchers in the field have suggested ways of overcoming these disciplinary duels. They recommend active listening, asking openended questions to avoid one-word answers, and using body language to show respect for each member of the healthcare team. Many suggest that getting civility back into the game is also a matter of pushing docs off their pedestals, and giving the underdogs equal standing.

Perhaps what our highly educated healthcare professionals really need is the lesson in etiquette we all learned in middle school. Figures.

VARSITY A&E

arts@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

13

Going Underground ALEXANDER GRIFFITH delves into the history of Toronto's newest cinema — on its first birthday.

BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

“We’re not just putting on a screening; it’s an event,” says Charlie Lawton in the box office of the Underground Cinema. “The building itself takes on the spirit and magic of the people who come through.” The room, like the rest of the venue, reflects the cinephilia of its owners.

Movie posters deck the walls like ivy and at the entrance of the seven hundred-seat theatre (to date the largest single screen auditorium in Toronto), a quote from Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa greets ticket holders: “Take me, subtract movies, and you get zero.”

Lawton co-founded the Underground in May 2010 with Alex Woodside and Nigel Agnew, former employees of the Bloor Cinema. The basement theatre at 186 Spadina used to be The Golden Harvest, one of many Chinatown cinemas that specialized in Kung Fu film from Hong Kong until it closed in the late 1980s. In 1994 the theatre opened again as The Golden Classics. Colin Geddes, of TIFF Midnight Madness fame, brought back Kung Fu content along with Anime and other Asian titles during the cinema’s brief revival. It would close for another fifteen years before Lawton, Woodside, and Agnew renamed the theatre and took it in a new direction.

It boils down to what Lawton said about “event cinema.” Last year, Adam West appeared at a screening of the original Batman. Next summer Robert Englund will talk at screen-

ings of The Nightmare on Elm Street movies, in which he played the iconic Freddy Krueger. The Video Game Armageddon series allows guests to play vintage games on Sega Mega Drive. It’s not insignificant that the owners got to know each other during the production of Woodside’s Jurassic Park shadow cast performance, where actors playing humans and dinosaurs re-enacted the film as it screened behind them. The theatre's mandate has always been to make film-going as much of a personal, interactive experience as possible.

The theatre has maintained ties to Toronto’s Chinese community by screening films from the Reel Asian Festival and working with Chinatown’s BIAs (Business Improvement Areas). In May, the Underground had films from both ends of the Asian cinematic spectrum: the big-budget Kung-Fu spectacle Guardians and Assassins and the independent Japanese Karate-Robo Zaborgar, about a robot with expertise in motorcycle maintenance and karate. “[In the multiplexes] it’s very corporate and very cold; you see the movie and you leave. Here it’s very rare that you’ll leave and not have a discussion with someone standing around. We don’t have fifty cell phone

ads before the movie starts.” During this interview, friends and acquaintances of the owners hang around the snack bar; inside the theatre gamers play level after level of Sonic the Hedgehog. The Underground has a mixture of repertory theatre grandeur (the sweeping staircase and red carpet) and the relaxed nostalgia of video stores that still carry VHS. The mainstays for film content

“One of our series was called ‘Defending the Indefensible,’ where local critics chose a film and one of them defends it and one of them denounces it. I think we really cater to the 20–30 year-old market.”

“We look at programming in a different way than the other indie theatres,” says Agnew. “They do a lot more second-run content than we do, whereas we think of what movies we’d like to see on the big screen, and if we didn’t get to see them when we were younger or we want to see them again, then we try to do something special with it.” Hence ‘Defending the Indefensible’ or the Seven Deadly Sins Series, in which they picked a double feature to represent each vice. Agnew, a P.T. Anderson fan, appropriately chose There Will Be Blood for Greed.

“We try and engender a different way of watching a movie,” continues Agnew.

“You can go to the Cinématheque and watch Fellini films and there’s no food and it’s quiet and that’s fine. It’s an art medium and it deserves to be viewed as such. But if you want to watch Barbed Wire Dolls about chicks in prison in the '70s and there’s nudity half the time and you’re in a theatre where people have snuck in their mickeys and are throwing popcorn and shit — that’s

Here it's very rare that you'll leave and not have a discussion with someone standing around.

—Charlie Lawton are cult films from the 80s like Fright Night (free on July 21) and independent Canadian film like Unleashed (premiered July 8). Woodside and his colleagues see value in all types of cinema and do not maintain distinctions between “high” and “low” art. In fact, the Underground is often more interested in the features that were critically panned.

the flipside to the Cinématheque.

We want to do the warm inclusive atmosphere, to come and enjoy the film with likeminded people and yell at the screen.”

The owners also want to give independent Toronto film makers a chance to premiere their work. “Seeing their work on the big screen with their friends is an experience that you can’t recreate,” says Lawton.

“And we help provide that.”

When the conversation turns to the current state of affairs in Hollywood, Woodside is critical and perceptive: “Now with the advent of digital technologies and global releases, at leas t 50–70% of a blockbuster’s total gross is coming from overseas. Especially in the '90s, there was a thick wave of very “American” movies, but Hollywood is going to be changing their tune and catering to a global audience.

Right now, Hollywood is in the worst slump they’ve been in, who knows how fucking long. It’s disgraceful the kind of shit they’re putting out right now.” Agnew and Lawton nod in agreement and mutter “garbage.”

“Fuck Spiderman. We just fucking had it and now they’re redoing it again. But they’re going to have to change their tune, now that other countries can get into the game a lot more seriously.”

Coming up at the Underground is a Shadow Cast of Batman Returns and a swathe of exciting material for October.

VARSITY ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

14 MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

FRINGE!

FRESHLY PRESSED MEMORY TAPES — PLAYER PIANO

Dayve Hawk, better known as Memory Tapes, creates evocative music that, as his moniker suggests, is nostalgic but still rooted in the present.

“Most of Player Piano is about a personal relationship falling apart,” Hawk said in an interview for The Quietus. Yet with the album’s upbeat and bright pop composition, one would never guess its solemn design. After the album’s quiet instrumental intro,

“Wait in the Dark” (a track about childhood abandonment translated into a love song), Player Piano flourishes to life with Hawk’s paper-thin vocal wails and keyboard whirls.

The album’s first single,“Today Is Our Life,” waltzes with doo-wop finger snaps and chimes, a pipe organ keyboard (Hawk’s primary rhythm maker), and his own mellow vocals coming in waves.

The second single, “Yes I Know,” drifts between dreams and reality. Its foggy and sombre melody evokes surreal imaginings of a summertime bike ride after midnight. The LP’s upbeat pop track, “Sun Hits,” shines with energy, evoking music greats like Roxy Music and New Order. If there’s one thing Memory Tapes offers his listeners, it’s assurance that music provides hope, a light in the dark.

—ALDRIN TAROY

The $10 Restauranteur Sky Blue Sky Sandwich Company

A glimpse into the fest's hits and misses CELLAR HOTEL Cellar Hotel follows Dr. Gray and Maggie, strangers who check into a hotel run by God and her staff, the seven virtues. The hotel’s bar/restaurant is run by Mephistopheles and his staff, the seven vices. The play is laced with Faustian themes, and the doctor and Maggie are drawn into a philosophical tug-of-war between good and evil. The time constraint of a Fringe show hit this production hard, leaving gaping holes in character development and plot propulsion.

Performances were strong, especially the singing.

Mischa Aravena was perfect as the stressed out doctor, made only stronger by his soothing, crystal clear vocals. Ashley Gibson’s Maggie was underdeveloped, making it difficult to understand her post-traumatic stress, but her final solo, “What Have I Done,” was hauntingly beautiful.

Brittany Robinson’s choreography was stylistically perfect, evocative of a big Broadway musical, but at times, her frustration with non-dancers came through (the step-touch-snap was an unwelcome recurring theme). The musical numbers were solid and catchy.

The dialogue is at times thought-provoking, but workshopping is required for the virtues of this production to outweigh its vices. —SHAKIR HAQ

CANUCK CABARET Canuck Cabaret, written by veteran Fringe performers Paul Hutcheson and Sharon Nowlan, features several well-established Fringe artists. Hutcheson is energetic and charming as host for the 60 minute line-up, engaging the audience with provocative anecdotes of his travels across North America. As a bold and outspoken queer performer, as well as a an engaging teacher, he's got some interesting stories to tell. Hutcheson's wildly expressive and over-the-top style is a delight to watch, but the cabaret sees him joining forces with burlesque performer Sharon Nowlan, whose corseted, fish-netted contribution to the show seems glaringly out of place.

Martin Dockery offers a 15-minute story about the first time he performed, a whirlwind of embarrassing moments and bodily functions, encapsulating the energy of the show at its best.

However, the compact production barely provides introduction to the performers involved, and I left feeling like there should have been something more. If it was about Canadian pride, I would have liked to have heard more than a humdrum story about Hutcheson’s experience with the Northern Lights. If it was about song and dance, there should have been more than lip-syncing to Chantal Kreviazuk. Each performer had stage presence and charm, but that wasn’t enough to constitute a fluid production. —ELIZABETH HAQ

WISHES ARE HORSES

SARAH MORRISON/THE VARSITY

When I need a delicious meal and I’m on a budget (which, let’s be real, is all the time), my first stop is Sky Blue Sky Sandwich Company.

You’ve probably heard about this place already — it’s that Wilcothemed sandwich shop that opened up a few years ago — but you’ve probably never seen it. Sky Blue Sky is tucked away on the 2nd floor of a building a block past Bathurst and Bloor and is, hands down, my favourite place to get a sandwich in the city. Each sandwich is made fresh to order, and all the ingredients are fresh too — the fruits and veggies are all purchased at the Korean fruit markets in the neighbourhood.

They make their own bread, several different kinds (always toasted to perfection), and the sandwiches they offer are the most brilliant mix-

es: the “Casino Queen” has smoked turkey, balsamic onion marmalade, bacon, and avocado, and the veggie-friendly “My Darling” has the bizarre but delicious combo of creamy cashew butter with sliced cucumber. Each sandwich is just under $5, so go ahead and help yourself to some soup, also made in-house, which I swear has always cured any bad mood I’ve been in.

The whole experience of eating here will give you a warm feeling. The owners are always smiling, and they are very passionate about the food.

I’ve had several in-depth conversations with them about the best kind of honey mustard. You should not miss this place: it’s easy on the wallet, and the sandwiches are crafted to perfection.

—LAURA KATHLEEN MAIZE

arts@thevarsity.ca

What happens when a physics professor has the power to make wishes come true? In short, mayhem of not-so-quantum proportions. Wishes Are Horses, a comedy written and directed by Peter Bloch-Hansen, delves into the seedy underbelly of the motivationalspeaker business. It also examines the passive-aggressive backbiting of a university faculty. Finally, it throws in a disillusioned, alcoholic FBI agent for good comedic measure.

In the opening minutes of the play, the audience discovers that Dr. Robert Polari, played by Stephen Flett, has scientifically proven that wishes can, indeed, come true. This seemingly life-altering realization only serves to irritate his modelesque wife (played by Tina Sterling, the strongest performer of the cast) who has to deal with the ensuing media storm. Domestic strife coupled with a potential national security threat provides a hilarious basis for the plot.

The play runs for forty minutes, and is playing at the Theatre Passe Muraille until July 17th. Wishes Are Horses is a short, concise, and funny play. The delivery might not always be smooth or timely, but there is a definite sadistic satisfaction that can be gleaned from watching the escalating neurosis of a professor.

—LILY TARBA

ABRA-CADAVER! Despite the intriguing premise of “a dark comedy about the many suicide attempts of literary wit Dorothy Parker,” Abra-Cadaver!, the one-woman show performed by Jenna Turk, is surprisingly underwhelming. In spite of the high-energy delivery, following the show’s prefiguring scene — a hilariously dressed old lady Parker, sporting goggles and a purse, bouncing on a trampolined grave — the production gave many a redundant ramble about death, mired in sloppy references and flashbacks to Parker’s sex life.

She’s going for spirited and ironically self-deprecating,

and at times she succeeds, but her single presence on stage becomes quickly tired. There’s no denying the considerable talent of Ms. Turk, however; she is a Fringe veteran and aspiring director, and her booming spirit and ability to engage the audience is certainly appreciated. Abra-Cadaver!’s hour long span seems chocked full of potential to meet its précis halfway, and yet the chattering dialogue just doesn’t come up to snuff. Somehow her exploration of the more wanton aspects of Parker’s life by way of longwinded monologues fails to gel. The performance is good, but I’m left thinking it’s a shame she couldn’t push the envelope further. —GIGI RABNETT

EXCUSE ME, WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY A BAR? Excuse Me, Would You Like To Buy A Bar? is filled with imagination, so much so that the possibilities of interpretation are as daunting as a leering abyss. Free from the constraints of time, Excuse Me narrates the overlapping stories of six individuals who all encounter a young boy on a mission to sell the most chocolate bars, completely unaware that the boy is a recurring thread connecting each of their unstable lives. With sparse sets and very little props, the play cleverly transitions between locales and time periods using eerie extraterrestrial sound bites and subtle changes in lighting.

Created by young playwright Wesley J. Colford, the winner of Tarragon Theatre’s Under 20 Playwriting Competition, and directed by Canadian theatre veteran Marc Richard, Excuse Me not only speaks to a broad range of theatre-goers; it reminds us that it's OK to go through life unsure about the “big questions.”

With discussion on lesbians, chocolate, disco and art, Excuse Me, Would You Like To Buy A Bar? is a Fringe experience that will calm the nerves of all those secretly dealing with unrealized dreams and regrets.

—DAMANJIT LAMBA

EVERY WOMAN I’VE EVER SLEPT WITH BEFORE I MET YOU Every Woman I’ve Ever Slept With Before I Met You is a promising title. I expected a male version of Sex And The City, filled with hilarious accounts of sexual mishaps. But David Amito, star and co-writer of this oneman play, doesn’t delve into the steamy details that the title implies. The play is set at a restaurant dinner table where Amito sits across from the audience, basically his date. After he arrives late and nervously gulps down his wine, he takes his date on a journey of his past loves.

Beginning with his first kiss with an orange at the humble age of 6, he weaves his way through the girl who first broke his heart, his travels in the hope of oblivion, his first long-term relationship and some collateral damage along the way. It's a story that everyone has in their repertoire, the story of who made us the way we are. Amito’s character gives an honest portrayal of the scarring that broken relationships can inflict but also the bliss they can bring. Though charming and occasionally hilarious, the play doesn’t break new ground, but it certainly delivers some of the best robot moves I’ve ever seen.

—ASSUNTA ALEGIANI CANUCK CABARET

VARSITY ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

arts@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

15

Harry and I A meditation on the literary figure who shaped a generation

Assunta Alegiani

ASSOCIATE A&E EDITOR Harry and I go way back. I can thank my mom for that: in a catalogue, she’d spotted a new three book series — Harry Potter. It was, supposedly, magical. Though I had a stack of over 1000 pages lying on my bed, I wasn’t very excited to get started. To this day I still have to be in the right mindset to delve into a new world. Usually, I like to be comforted by old friends.

I once read somewhere that the beginning of a novel is not unlike the beginning of a friendship. There’s this kind of excitement and the desire to get to know as much about the other person as fast as possible.

As a Harry Potter reader, it’s easy for me to say that its cultural significance is unparalleled to any other narrative of our time. But consider this: in the summer of 2005, my dad, my younger brother and I went on vacation to Italy. On the day of the worldwide release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the three of us went to the local bookstore and bought a copy each. Over the course of the next two days, we barely spoke, save for asking each other “What page are you on?” To think this same book was keeping two and a half generations awake into the night — that’s rare. And yet, this has been the case for a good decade now.

I’ve always taken pride in the fact that I’d read Harry Potter before the hype started. When the inevitable happened and Harry Potter got turned into a movie, I was not impressed. The Lord of the Rings was released around the same time and, both being fantasy novel adaptations, they were soon competing for fans and box office reciepts. This was the Team Edward/Team Jacob question of the early millennium. I ferociously vouched for Middle Earth, to a large extent because I didn’t want

the movies to destroy my images of Harry, Hogwarts, and Hogsmeade. I was also slightly appalled by the speed at which the marketing machine had picked up Harry Potter when The Lord of the Rings had taken almost fifty years to make it to the big screen. Not that The Lord of the Rings wasn’t milked for all it was worth, but it was made thanks to Peter Jackson’s passion for the novel. In contrast, Harry Potter was made to cash in on the hype.

As Harry grew up and had to deal with teen angst, so did I. But amidst all the confusion — “do I really want to be an auror when I grow up?” — Harry Potter remains tame. In JK Rowling’s world, despite Voldemort and his evil gang, innocence and idyll set the tone.

The halls of Hogwarts serve as a refuge from the dangerous outside world and, unsurprisingly, many decried the increasingly dark turns Rowling took with the story as the series progressed. Dumbledore’s absence after the 6th book and the setting away from Hogwarts force Harry to grow up — and his readers along with him. Rowling reminds us that eventually Hogwarts will be replaced by the real world.

Meanwhile, in the real real world, Harry Potter has become the best-selling book ever. It’s been translated into 70 languages, sold more than 450 million copies worldwide, and been made into eight feature films, which have grossed 6 billion dollars worldwide thus far. Rowling’s latest coup?

Announcing the soon-tocome website "pottermore. com." With the eighth and final movie coming out this Friday, something was

needed to keep the machine rolling. For now, there’s no shortage of daily news updates on Emma Watson’s wardrobe, Daniel Radcliffe’s almost-drinking problem, and Rupert Grint's, well, there's nothing on him, actually. But in a few weeks, when the box office numbers are dying down, Harry Potter fans will let out a sigh of relief — or pain, knowing that it’s still not over.

My relationship with Harry ended with the last page of the seventh book. It was the longest I’ve had so far — 10 years of anticipation and excitement. Naturally, I grew more critical of the series as I got older, saw flaws and shed tears, but still, whenever I need comfort and I want a light read with head and heart, I turn to my old friend Harry.

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The Winter’s Tale

This summer's dream in High Park woos and wounds Brendan Hobin

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR Canadian Stage’s Dream in High Park, an annual performance of a Shakespearean play which takes place in the High Park Amphitheatre, channels all the fairytale playfulness and mystical fancy of its surroundings. The plays exhibit an extraordinary tendency toward lightness. Appealing to families, the company often downplays tragedy in favour of wit or bawdy humour. In some ways, this habit of niceness conjures up a tremendous feeling of gaiety. It can, however, be reductive: it fails to recognize the particularity of sorrow and, in failing to differentiate heartache from heartache, it misses the potential of Shakespeare’s plays to truly wound, as John Berryman would say.

This is not true of 2011’s production, The Winter’s Tale. Directed by Emily Shook and casted impecca-

bly, this instalment of the Dream has a Dionysian tautness and spirit that belies a severe underpinning: it is fun, yes — but shocking.

The Winter’s Tale is a loping, twisting story, first of a king who drives apart his friends and destroys his family through jealously, and then of the bramble of circumstances sixteen years later that reunite him with his abandoned daughter.

The cast hurtles through the winding plot with remarkable force.

The first thrust is supplied by David Jansen as Leontes, who captures a sympathetic hero unwinding with authority. Long before a word is shared that trouble looms in the distance, Leontes’ voice quakes with uncertainty and frustration — he shifts with ease from affability to inner turmoil. Equally notable performances come from the backing cast, namely John Blackwood as Antigonus, and Nicole Robert as Paulina.

Estelle Shook’s vision of The

Winter’s Tale is sparse. Props are scarce, lest they detract from the looming stage. The few that do appear are icons and are often reused (as are the actors). In this way, they become points of reference to things within and beyond the play.

Shook shifts attention from visual pageantry to the auditory: music and sounds are shaped by a small ensemble of musicians, sometimes seen, sometimes not. The ultimate effect is an emphasis on the “beyond-being-seen,” the extrasensory, the magical.

Shook’s The Winter’s Tale so effectively sparks the audience’s imagination that it ultimately creates a space into which the dimensional world of each character can open. Thus, in the Tale’s final spectacle of fantasy, when a statue of dead Hermione comes to life, we awe not at the possibility of magic itself, but rather at the vast depth of wonderment created by the characters.

BEN HARVEY/THE VARSITY

16 MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

VARSITY SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

Greenhouse Gases Not just an urban problem

BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

Mersiha Gadzo

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR For those of you who thought the congested downtown core was the major cause of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), you might be surprised to hear the new theory put forward by researchers from U of T and the World Bank.

According to their research paper, “Cities and greenhouse gas emissions: moving forward,” suburbs emit far more GHG emissions per capita than the city core.

Whitby had the highest amount per capita of CO2 emissions in the GTA — 13.02 tons as opposed to 1.31 tons in East York.

People living in areas close to the downtown core have a smaller carbon footprint because of the shorter distances and greater transport options: people can walk, bike or take the subway to work. In the suburbs where transit isn’t as developed, people rely more on their cars to get around. Homes in the suburbs are also larger and require more energy to heat.

Data from around the world show that denser cities with more access to public transit have lower per capita emissions. The lowest emissions in the world come from

developing nations, which consume fewer fossil fuels.

Lorraine Sugar, a U of T master’s student who compiled the report along with World Bank researchers Dan Hoornweg and Claudia Gomez, says many cities worldwide have good practices, and Stockholm, Sweden is a good exemplary model.

“Stockholm has done some really innovative things with their urban development. They’ve done a lot of mixed use developments so people can live very close to where they get their groceries or where they go to work and so there’s a lot less automobile use in Stockholm,” Sugar said.

“There’s a really robust transit system that people use. One of the big things in Stockholm as well is they have a lot of jobs and businesses and industry outside of the city and they’ve managed to be one of the cities where they have people commuting in both directions.”

This is one aspect in which Toronto is disadvantaged. Most people commute to the city centre for work

and go back home in the suburbs at the end of the day.

“Whereas in Stockholm with certain satellite cities and certain suburbs, people are commuting in both directions. People are going from the city to the suburbs as well as people from the suburbs com-

to 3,200,000 square meters of office space. Sugar says a lot of cities are looking to Toronto as an example for this particular technology.

The report emphasizes the importance of cities in lowering GHG emissions. Cities are now home to more than half of the world’s population while occupying only two per cent of land. They also consume 70 per cent of global energy and produce 70 per cent of GHG emissions.

“In terms of climate change and global issues, cities have a huge role to play,” Sugar said.

“It’s in terms of the emissions they’re producing, in terms of where most people live, putting in infrastructure that’s sustainable.”

Cities are becoming more recognized for their influence on climate change. The C40 Sao Paulo summit was held between May 31 and June 2, where 40 mayors from the world’s 40 largest cities were brought together to share their experiences in dealing with climate change.

Bill Clinton and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a

People living in areas closer to downtown have a smaller carbon footprint because of the shorter walking distances. ing into the city and that’s a really unique characteristic,” Sugar said.

There is a lot of innovation coming from Toronto, such as the deep lake water cooling system. Operating since 2004 by Enwave Energy Corporation, the system draws water from Lake Ontario to cool buildings in the financial district instead of using electricity for air conditioning. The pipes extend five kilometres into the lake and have a cooling power of 59,000 tons. It can cool up

merger of initiatives in April where they will work together to address climate change.

Kevin Sheekey, a former deputy mayor of New York and principal political advisor to Bloomberg told The New York Times that involving cities is important if we want anything achieved with climate change.

“We are putting a stake in the ground around the idea that national and international governments have failed, possibly quite permanently, or at least in a way that they will not make any serious progress before it’s too late,” Sheekey said.

“If you address the problems of the cities, there will be no need for China and India to sign onto some international accord. And thank God, because that’s not going to get done. It’s time to say it.”

Sugar says it’s important to be aware of your carbon footprint in order to make the right decisions in the future. For example, when buying a home, be aware how much it’s insulated and how efficient the furnace is. When commuting, use public transit or carpool. To measure your emissions, use the Toronto-based Zerofootprint’s personal emissions calculator: http://earthhour.zerofootprint.net/

VARSITY SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

17

Play nice

ARVID ÅGREN reviews Nowak’s Super Cooperators

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hy bother being concerned for others? The theory of inclusive fitness has been favoured by evolutionary biologists for almost 50 years. The theory resolves why people behave selflessly by considering the genetic relationship between the helper and the helped individual. Altruism, the unselfish concern for the welfare of others, evolves if the cost to the helper is less than the benefit to the recipient and is weighted by the genetic relatedness between the helper and the recipient. The more genes shared, the more help provided, which leads to an increase in the probablility of the helper’s genes getting passed onto the next generation. A neat summary of the theory is given by British evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane, who said “I’d lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.”

Last August, mathematical biologist Martin Nowak and two Harvard colleagues argued in a controversial article in Nature that predictions from inclusive fitness have highly limited applicability and only work under very strict conditions.

This sent inclusive fitness right back into the centre of debate in the evolutionary biology community. Nature later published five fiercely critical responses to the paper, including one signed by 137 (!) researchers.

Critics focused on the particular claim that inclusive fitness theory has contributed nothing to our understanding of social evolution.

“This claim is just patently wrong”, commented Andy Gardner of Oxford University in an interview in the New York Times. Jerry Coyne from University of Chicago went further in his blog, Why Evolution is True, where he commented that Nowak and his colleagues demonstrated a “wilful ignorance of the literature.” Gardner, Coyne and others point to fruitful empirical studies such as parent-offspring conflict.

In Nowak’s book, Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed written together

IO STERG POULO Y VARSIT S/ THE

with New Scientist editor Roger Highfield, he explains his reasoning to the general public. The book is an exciting account of how mathematics has enhanced the study of all sorts of biological questions, including the spread of cancer, the evolution of language, and the occurrence of altruism in the living world.

Nowak outlines five rules for the evolution of cooperation: direct reciprocity (being nice to individuals that are nice to you), indirect reciprocity (having a reputation of being nice makes others more likely to be nice to you), spatial games (be nice to your neighbour), group selection (cooperating groups do better than non-cooperating groups) and kin selection (Nowak agrees that giving preferential treatment to relatives can work under some circumstances).

The statistician George Pox once commented that “all models are wrong but some are useful” and that holds equally true today.

The relative importance of the five rules will be the subject of much future debate. However, one problem Nowak overlooks is the fact that inclusive fitness theory is not just a tool used to calculate when social traits are likely to evolve, but also tells us something very fundamental to the question of what natural selection maximizes: inclusive, rather than individual or group, fitness. Before Nowak addresses this shortcoming, he will struggle to convince the scientific community of the value of his models, however elegant they may be.

Overall, SuperCooperators is the kind of book more scientists should write. It provides a personal account of one of the most controversial topics of biology and manages to do so in a very accessible way. Add in some personal anecdotes about playing soccer with members of the House of Lords, cracking mathematical problems when hiking the Alps, and sipping cocktails with a Wall Street tycoon — and you got all the ingredients of a bestseller.

SETI-Terrestrial NISH V. attends free SETI lecture at U of T

“A

re we alone in the universe?” That is a question that has long captivated Dr. Jill Tarter, the current Bernard M. Oliver Chair of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute. She spoke about the efforts of the SETI Institute to a packed Macleod auditorium at the University of Toronto on Saturday June 4th.

The search for extraterrestrial life splits into two separate searches, one for biosignatures that are indicators of any sort of life form, and the other for technosignatures that are the product of sentient intelligence. Dr. Tarter spent some time discussing the remarkable progress made by researchers on the biosignature front. As Dr. Tarter put it, “exoplanets and extremeophiles are gamechangers.”

Extremeophiles are organisms that thrive in physically extreme envi-

ronments that most life forms just aren’t cut out for, while exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than our sun.

Exoplanet hunting has become much easier thanks to the 2009 launch of NASA’s Kepler spacecraft.

Kepler uses the ‘transit method’, which looks for periodic changes in the brightness of distant stars to detect the presence of rotating planets. Using the difference in brightness to estimate the size of the planet, and the time it takes for one rotation we can work out the planet’s distance from the star.

The most promising exoplanets are those that lie within the habitable zone of their star, where the planet is neither too close nor far.

As of February, Kepler has found exactly 1,235 candidates for exoplanets; 68 are earth-sized planets and 171 are stars believed to have

multiple planets. In addition to the transit method, astronomers also look for slight wobbles in the star that could be caused by the gravitational distortion of an orbiting planet.

When astrobiologists assess the viability of life on a planet they look at a few key requirements that are crucial for life as we know it, including temperature, pH levels, UV index, and sunlight. It was originally thought that if any of these indicators were beyond a narrow range, life would be near impossible. However, the recent discoveries of ‘extremeophiles,’ or life in the nooks and crannies of the most hostile environments on our planet, have dramatically widened the acceptable range of the aforementioned requirements of life.

The SETI Institute, however, is more directly involved with detect-

ing technosignatures, signals from other intelligent civilizations. Dr. Tarter has gone through a variety of imaginative yet debunked ideas on possible signals of intelligence: from traces of Dyson spheres, to fission waste dumps. Detecting intelligible radio signals remains the core of SETI programs worldwide.

The idea for SETI first emerged two years after Sputnik when two physicists at Cornell University mulled the possibility of using radio telescopes to spot extraterrestrial civilizations through the tell-tale sign of intelligible radio messages.

Following this insight, there have been more than 98 SETI-related initiatives worldwide.

The SETI Institute, in tandem with the University of California Berkeley, had been operating the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a dedicated array of telescopes op-

erationally equivalent to a 100-meter radio telescope. Unfortunately, because of budget cuts, the ATA was just hibernated in April of this year, with the equipment put into a safe configuration waiting to be put back to use once the SETI Institute acquires other sources of funding. Budgetary woes are nothing new to the SETI Institute. The SETI Institute managed to continue part of the scientific research and educational programs run under NASA’s SETI program before the US Congress abruptly cancelled funding in 1994.

A project like SETI, by its very nature, needs to be up and running for the long haul. As Dr. Tarter and other SETI researchers have shown, the ramifications of even detecting one intelligent signal from another sentient civilization more than justifies the cost of sustaining SETI.

VARSITY SCIENCE

18 MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

science@thevarsity.ca

Math! Blargh!

Calculating the costs of dyscalculia Fiona Tran

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR We all know someone who severely stresses with math. A new paper explains how this may be a product of dyscalculia, a little-known neurocognitive disorder that disrupts the learning of basic numerical and arithmetic concepts. Examples of signs of dyscalculia include difficulty memorizing basic arithmetic; prolonged delay in learning how to count; lack of “number sense” in comparing quantities and visualizing numbers; and using fingers to compute simple number comparison. The disorder is estimated to affect about 5–7 per cent of the population — about as many people with dyslexia, an analogous disorder which inhibits the ability to read and spell while having no overall bearing on intelligence.

Decreased mathematical ability is generally overlooked as a cognitive development disorder, but a recent effort by scientists and educators has revealed that dyscalculic

learners have abnormalities in a particular neural network associated with arithmetic.

The disease is genetically linked, as indicated by research from twins and special populations.

The paper, published in the journal Science, recommends that specialized teaching for individuals with dyscalculia be available in mainstream education. Professor Diana Laurillard, the paper’s co-author and a member of the Centre for Educational Neuroscience, remarks that despite the inherited nature of the disorder, specialized teaching can help in the same way programs for dyslexia do. For example, a study showed that software games aimed to improve numerical performance have garnered some success with children suspected of having the disorder.

Dyscalculia also leaves behind an economic impact. Professor Brian Butterworth, also co-author and member of CEN, adds that dyscalculia is as much of a burden on the

The disorder is estimated to affect about 5–7 per cent of the population — about as many with dyslexia.

state as dyslexia. If all students in the U.S. were brought up to at least the basic mathematics level in the Program for International Student Assessment, it could lead to a 0.74 per

cent increase in the country’s total growth in GDP. This is a quite significant growth compared to the 1.9 per cent experienced in the first quarter of 2011.

If dyscalculia is as promiment as dyslexia then why has it received far less attention?

Vancouver dyscalculia tutor Susan Hall hypothesizes that our society has somehow placed higher priority literacy than on numeracy — that trouble with numbers is nowhere as devastating as the inability to read. Other dyscalculic resources such as Inclusion in Science Education for Students with Disabilities at West Virginia University suggests encouraging students to “visualize” the numbers in real-life situations, assigning practice problems with repetition, providing one-onone attention and giving students enough time to complete problems. As the students need time to master the basic concepts, concrete materials such as beads and counters are helpful before moving on to more complex concepts.

Electronic Age Metals molding the environment

BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

Andrew Johnson

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR The abundance of technology emerging each day poses a serious question to the youth: “which new technology do I want?” Apple has catered to tech kids by introducing new “generations” of their famous iPods and Mac computers. Microsoft is not far behind in releasing faster and more efficient products each year — like the allegedly almighty Windows 7.

The hardest question of the technophile’s day may be which Intel Core Duo 2 Processor (whatever that is) is better, but environmentalists say we have bigger problems when it comes to our electronics.

Many people in developed countries remember the dawn of the In-

ternet and the rise of the computer, but this rise in electronics came with a few repercussions. As technology advanced, improved electronics entered the global market and settled into homes all over. When asked whether they’d recycle their old electronics, most U of T students replied negatively. One student, Michael Galang said, “I usually pass on my old electronics to my brother and sister. [Laptops], iPods, etc.” Although a great way to reuse old electronics, it is important to realize that they can be put to other uses.

According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) the rate of recycling metal is far below its potential. This is correlated with a dramatic decrease in resources, predominantly metals. UNEP states that

lead is among the most recycled metals, which is not surprising as it is commonly found in batteries. Other metals that see a rate of recycling of over 50% are gold, aluminum, silver, tin, nickel, etc.

Eighteen metals see these higher recycling rates, but 34 are recycled less than one per cent of the time, including boron, geranium, selenium, and lithium.

This is a disappointment because although some of these are unheard of, they are frequently used in the manufacturing of steel, glass, ceramics, electronics, plastics, and medical equipment.

Even though some of these metals yield higher recycling rates, all elements have seen a dramatic increase in demand, followed by a dramatic de-

crease in supply. Metals have become an important resource in any economy, especially in places like China that need these resources to expand.

Mining for new elements has become costly and environmentally harmful. Creating new mines has many environmental impacts, ranging from water use to ecosystem damage and air pollution emitted from machinery and transportation.

Most people are unaware of how many recycling plants exist in their neighbourhoods, and how many benefits are derived from their use.

Paulo Bettencourt, a student working for his uncle’s contracting business, explains that recycling is an important part of the business. “I recycle metals every day after work.

One time I got $300 from one bag of

aluminum. It’s really easy and there are more recycling plants in your area than you are even aware of so it’s really convenient.”

Keep in mind however that the quality of the metals is taken into consideration before compensation. “If the metals are mixed you won’t get much money back. What they are looking for are clean metals which are just the original element,” Bettencourt explained. By recycling metals frequently and being more responsible about what and how much we consume, we can build metal reserves that will last us well into the future. Metal is what drives our economies and our cities, but if we are not careful we will not be able to drive, communicate, and play the way we are accustomed to.

VARSITY SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

Physiology Day GASP and Let’s Talk Science open more than just doors Bianca Lemus Lavarreda SCIENCE EDITOR

On May 10, the doors of the Medical Science building were opened to local GTA grade 11 students for the second annual Physiology Day. The event, hosted by Let’s Talk Science and the Graduate Association for Students in Physiology, was broken into one morning and one afternoon session. In each session, students rotated between three lab stations where they were taught an overview of the activity lesson by graduate student volunteers. Students then broke up into small groups and participated in short activities that forced them to engage with the material like real scientists: pipettes were diligently pressed, spirometers were breathed into, and sphygmometers were squeezed. After gaining familiarity with the equipment, students bonded with their group members and discussions about academic interests could be heard within the labs.

Although this event may seem small-scale (less than 80 students took part), its goal is to hit a broad audience of prospective university students about the value of translational research in physiology.

What is translational research? Pretty much what it sounds like: translating scientific research. The purpose is to transfer advances in the scientific literature and apply them in practice to the creation of medical technology and treatment. The topic has been critically explored in a highly cited commentary by Steven H. Woolf in the Journal of the American

Medical Association that investigates how advances in scientific knowledge a) are used to develop new products and b) translates into the practice of health care. Although there is some controversy over which aspect of translational research has higher financial priority, the main point of translational research remains: it is essential that scholars take interest in research contribution to increase the amount of helpful medical resources available.

These medical resources are cultivated in several scientific disciplines. Interestingly, each of the three lab stations cleverly reflected a facet of physiology-related research. One of the labs focused on the cardiovascular system and had students measure the effects of position and exercise on blood pressure. This activity may be worthwhile since diseases of the heart were the second leading cause of death in Canada in 2007. The second lab was

on the respiratory system, in which students had to calculate lung volumes and analyze the effects of physical fitness. Similarly, chronic lower respiratory diseases were the fourth leading cause of death in Canada in 2007 and are among the most expensive to treat. The last lab explored DNA extraction and DNA fingerprinting through hands-on experimentation and the recreation of the solution to a real-life criminal case. Studies on DNA are invaluable and increasingly stir interest in the informational power of DNA. As anyone can see, each of these activities harbors information that translates into beneficial medical resources.

Excellent examples of scholars invested in the value of translational research can be found in GASP itself. The president of GASP, Keith Ho, is a Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience and studies Parkinson’s Disease at the U of T Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Ho and all of the members of GASP engage in some form of rigorous research to advance the field of physiology.

Translational research leaves a resounding imCOURTERY OF GASP pact that spreads throughout the scientific community. It is important for both prospective as well as current life science students at U of T to keep in mind that medical school is not necessarily the be-all-end-all of a rewarding scientific career. According to organizations supporting translational research, events like Physiology Day hone in on this message and aid an inaccurate perception of the academic world by encouraging students to investigate life-changing alternatives.

Vision predicts audition Another reason we can’t read minds Cristina Olteanu

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR Why do we feel uneasy when we think someone will say a certain word but we hear something else? The issue was raised in a Nature Neuroscience article this past June that investigated a study by Arnal and colleagues that showed how we use vision to predict what we hear using MEG technology. As it turns out, our brains naturally create speech predictions based on visual representations. In other words, the brain guesstimates what others will say before it hears them say it.

This is possible since we produce facial movements faster than we do sounds with our vocal cords. Our brains use these facial movements to predict the subsequent sounds a person may make.

In addition, as it is well known in linguistics, there are certain lip movements associated with phonemes that are significantly better speech predictors than others. For instance, readily visible sounds like /p/ and /m/ are much easier to predict than less visible phonemes like /k/ and /g/, which are produced at the back of the mouth.

Researchers in the study investigated patterns of brain activation involved in this phenomenon by showing subjects videos of actors producing a particular sound (for example, /pa/) paired with a vocal mismatched sound (for example, /ka/). The researchers altered the match between visuals and sounds by choosing vocal sounds that ranged from low to high oral visibility. For example, the /ka/ sound is less visible than the /ga/ sound. Therefore, a visual of /pa/ paired with /ka/ should be harder to predict than /pa/ paired with / ga/, since /ga/ visually resembles /pa/ more than /ka/ does.

Results showed differences in brain rhythms based on the degree of matching between the visual stimuli and sounds. High frequency brain patterns were evident when the prediction error was large (i.e.

the visual cues did not match the subsequent speech). In contrast, low frequencies were present in the brain when prediction error was low. Investigators believe that the high frequency in the former situation is due to enhanced brain activity attempting to resolve the error. This demonstrates the brain’s ability to continually re-shape its neuronal connections. In a similar way, most incorrect predictions occur late in the cognitive response. This result is consistent with current predictive coding theories that say the brain is consistently scanning new information to make updates about its external surroundings.

However, the problem of locating these rhythms in the brain remains. For example, beta activity (the normal brainwaves of an awake and alert person) can increase in certain regions of the brain such as the visual cortex yet decrease in the frontal cortex (the area of higher reasoning and planning). Additionally, the timing of the prediction errors is hard to pinpoint since it seems that multiple prediction errors can occur simultaneously.

So how does the brain interpret a connection between visual stimuli and speech? The assumption is that there is a cortical hierarchy: the higher order area predicts an upcoming sensory signal and transmits this prediction to a lower order area. When the lower order area picks up the sensory signal it sends it to the higher order area. The circuit then calculates a mismatch between the prediction and the incoming sensory signal as result of this higher order/lower order cortical communication.

Predictive coding is a new area of research that has triggered much interest within the scientific community and further investigation seems promising. The valuable research of Arnal and his colleagues provides the first insights into how such coding in audiovisual speech works and exposes the complex interdependent nature of visual and auditory systems.

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

19

SCIENCE in BRIEF The Shape of Matter

After the Big Bang an equal amount of matter and antimatter should have been produced. The particles of antimatter, called antiparticles, have the opposite charge of ordinary particles of matter and to date only cosmic rays and some types of radiation have been shown to contain antimatter. So where has all the antimatter gone?

One way to approach this question is to study any potential differences between matter and antimatter, including any difference in shape that may exist between the two particles. Researchers at the Imperial College of London set out to determine the exact shape of the electron and have shown that it deviates by only 0.000000000000000000000000001 cm from a perfect sphere.

This finding rules out a few possible explanations regarding the disappearance of antimatter and the technology being developed to answer these questions has applications to studying other complex systems. It’s also satisfying to know that one of life’s building blocks is (nearly) a perfect sphere.

—MINA PARK Source: www.sciencedaily.com

The cow left water on the moon

Scientists have known for years that a miniscule trace of water exists on the moon. This amount, however, has been turned on its head by a study published in the July issue of Science which revealed that there is up to 100 times more water on the moon than studies previously indicated. A collaborative research team measured the amount of water in lunar soil samples collected during the Apollo 17 mission. They used standard petrographic methods to measure the water content within lunar melt inclusions, tiny parcels of magma trapped within crystals that grow prior to volcanic emission. Since melt inclusions are formed at such high pressures, they can preserve the state of the magma trapped inside. This allowed the team to study the magma’s unaltered composition. The water content found indicates that some of the lunar interior contains just as much water as the upper mantle of the Earth.

—CHRISTOPHER SMITH

Geometry for everyone

Whether you loved or hated Euclidean geometry classes, it turns out you didn’t really need them! A recent study conducted in a secluded area of the Amazon basin suggests that understanding basic Euclidean geometry is an innate quality.

The Mundurucu Indians’ responses to geometry problems were compared to French and North American participants of the same age. At first glance, the native Amazon Indians seem disadvantaged since most have never attended school.

However, results showed that their understanding of infinite straight lines and parallel properties of lines matched those of the more educated participants.

How long does it take a North American student to conceptualize that the sum of all angles in a triangle is always 180 degrees? The Amazon natives did just as well on this task and even outperformed the North American and French participants in answering basic problems regarding spherical objects. This performance is partly due to the increased focus on planar geometry in civilized schooling systems. Mixed results were found in North American children between 5-6 years old, leading to the assumption that understanding geometric concepts begins around 6-7 years old. This study furthers the important link between geometry skills and survival.

—ALBERT RAZVAN GHEORGHITA Source: Science Daily

VARSITY SPORTS

20 MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

SPORTS BRIEFS >> Blues recruit new talent New recruits have been locked down for the Varsity Blues 2011–2012 season.

Leading the pack is swimmer Graham Hawes, who medalled in both the 50- and 200m backstroke at the 2010 Canada Cup, is set to start at UTSC in the fall.

International superstar Fiona McKee will be joining the badminton team. A decorated player, McKee won back-to-back titles at the 2007 and 2008 Pan Am Badminton Championships in women’s and mixed doubles respectively.

Tyler Weber, top-scorer for the Etobicoke Collegiate Rams for the last three seasons running, turning out for the Varsity Blues men’s lacrosse team.

-ZOHAIR MASOOD

Witmer, Jewett medal at Canadian Track and Field Championships Varsity Blues Tamara Jewett and Alex Witmer both won silver medals at the 2011 Canadian Track and Field Championships, held in Calgary in June.

Finishing the women’s 5000m just four seconds behind winnner Leslie Sexton, Jewett ran the race in 16:59.16.

Like men’s high jump title-winner and Blues alumni Mark Dillon, Witmer 2.19m, but with more misses overall, he was forced to settle for second place.

Witmer is the current CIS champion. He jumped 2.16m at the 2011 CIS Track and Field Championships in April.

-ZM

sports@thevarsity.ca

Playing with the big boys Two former Blues make CFL debut Shoaib Alli

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR Making it as a pro athlete isn’t easy. Even with tons of practice, raw talent, and a little bit of luck, playing in the big leagues is often nothing more than a pipe dream for many.

Two talented former Blues have beat the odds. Football players Hugo Lopez and Chris Kowalczuk have signed with CFL teams for the 2011 season.

While at first it seems the hard part is over, the work is actually just beginning for Lopez and Kowalczuk.

Lopez, a defensive back who played for the Waterloo Warriors from 2007 to 2009, joined the Varsity Blues in 2010 after the Warriors announced they would not be competing in the 2010 OUA season following a steroid scandal involving nine players on the team.

Although Lopez posted 22 tackles and one interceptio in just one season with the Blues and was selected 14th overall in the CFL draft by the Edmonton Eskimos, he failed to make any tackles or interceptions in his first game as a pro.

Kowalczuk played for the Varsity Blues his entire collegiate career. He switched intermittently between guard and tackle during his time with the Blues, starting 24 straight games from 2007 to 2009.

Kowalczuk signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on October 28, 2009, following his last game as a Blue. He spent the final two weeks of the 2009 CFL season on their practice roster.

In 2010, Kowalczuk signed with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, but again didn’t make it onto the active roster. For the 2011 season, Kowalczuck was moved up, but never got the chance to see the field in his first game with the big boys.

But the fact that neither Lopez nor Kowalczuk didn’t really contribute in their first days as pros hardly speaks to their futures in league. The Eskimos wouldn’t waste such a high draft pick on a player they didn’t believe in, just like the Blue Bombers wouldn’t waste valuable team money on someone they didn’t expect to ever play the game.

Edmonton beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders 42–28 in it’s season-opener while Winnipeg won its 24–16 against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. There are a number of reasons why Lopez and Kowalczuk did not have an impact in these games, the main one being that the two players are rookies.

A rookie isn’t likely to make an impact right away, because there are only eight teams in the CFL and as a result, the talent pool is spread out less than it is in other sports. It’s harder for a rookie to claw his way to the top past the scores of veterans that are going to be on the field. With time, however, they will get the chance to prove themselves in prac-

tices and games, and to show the coaching staff that they are ready to make the jump to a role with more responsibility.

Both Lopez and Kowalczuk play positions that their respective teams are well-stocked in. Lopez is one of ten defensive backs on the Eskimos’ active roster and of them, eight have more experience than he does. The one other rookie that plays the position also made a negligible impact on the Eskimos’ first game.

When there are a large number of defensive backs, rookies typically start on special teams coverage before moving up to actual defense. Lopez is likely to mostly play on special teams in the near future, Kowalczuk plays offensive lineman, and is listed as a guard.

The Blue Bombers have four guards in total, and the other three are more experienced than Kowalczuk. Offensive lineman, whether guard or tackle, is a position that rookies rarely step into right away.

So while Lopez and Kowalczuk have their respective teams’ faith as pieces for the future, they have their work cut out for them if they want to make their mark in the big leagues.

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Hugo Lopez was selected 14th overall in the CFL draft by the Edmonton Eskimos. DAVID PIKE/THE VARSITY

VARSITY SPORTS

sports@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011

21

Construction of new athletic facility underway at UTSC

Andrew Antinucci

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR A state-of-the-art athletic centre will be constructed UTSC in time for the 2015 Pan Am Games.

Efforts are well underway at Morningside Avenue and Military Trail. Three construction companies were pre-qualified to help design and build the facility at the beginning of June.

Soil is undergoing remediation until December, but major work on the facility’s infrastructure is on track to start before the end of the year.

The athletic centre is expected to be completed between May and June 2014 according to Bob O’Doherty, Senior Vice President of Sport and Venue at the Games.

The construction of the centre is estimated to cost $170 million, and according to O’Doherty, the Federal and Provincial governments, City of Toronto, and U of T will all play a role in funding it.

“Its not too often that a university has the opportunity to get involved in a project like this,” O’Doherty said.

The state-of-the-art facility will is set to include the Pan American Aquatics Centre (PAAC), the Field House, and the Canadian Sports Institute Ontario (CSIO) Project.

According to O’Doherty, the Aquatics Centre will be a “world class facility,” consisting of “two 50m pools and a five-metre-deep diving tank” will host aquatic events such as swimming, synchronized swimming and diving.

The Field House is a gym facility. According to O’Doherty, it will be equivalent in size to four baske tball courts and have a recreational track for running. During the Games, the Field House will host fencing competitions.

The Canadian Sports Institute Ontario (CSIO) will serve as a national high performance centre after the games close, providing “things like sports science, sports medicine, coaching,

State-of-the-art complex to be ready for 2015 Pan Am Games

training and a testing facility [for] high-performance athletes in Ontario.”

Heidi Calder, the Co-Director of Athletics and Recreation for UTSC, believes that this new facility will help expand the sporting life of U of T. “Programming-wise, we will more than quadruple the amount of opportunities for fitness and athletics our students have,” Calder said, noting the facility could have other potential benefits in academic life such as masters pro-

grams in sports and sports management.

Calder also acknowledged that with this new facility, varsity sports and varsity programming “can be decentralized.”

Varsity swimmers, for instance, could train out in Scarborough instead of being confined to the St. George campus.

Pagalavan Thavar will be beneficial to students, faculty and the broader Scarborough community but shares public concern about

the accessibility of the centre.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has, however, acknowledged the issue, stating in numerous reports that his public transportation plans will be realized in time to accommodate the Games.

Ultimately, the athletics centre will hopefully not only be a world class venue for the 2015 Pan Am Games, but a legacy that will affect generations to come at UTSC and the Scarborough community.

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE PAN AM GAMES The Games are held every four years and usually one year before the Olympic Summer Games.

The first Pan Am Games were hosted in 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Toronto will be hosting the Pan Am Games in 2015.

The Games have struggled recently to get the same attention from the media and top athletes as the Olympics.

They feature over 42 participating countries from all over the Americas with an average of 5000 athletes competing.

Football inflation MURAD HEMMADI talks about the some of football’s heftiest pricetags in his blog The Goalkeeper

A

t a time when inflation is a headline issue across continents and economic strata, it seems that not even football clubs with their millions are exempt from sudden price rise.

Manchester United’s estimated £17 million capture of David de Gea from Spain’s Athletico Madrid is only the latest move in Sir Alex Ferguson’s latest rebuilding project. Ferguson’s attempt to improve the quality available to him has already seen a £30 million outlay on teenage defender Phil Jones (see my last entry, ‘Buying Local’) and winger Ashley Young.

De Gea, however, could be the most important United summer arrival. Ferguson has an iffy record with goalkeepers. The just-retired Edwin van der Sar proved a worth successor to Peter Schmeichel, but only after ten other goalkeepers, including the likes of Fabian Barthez, Roy Carroll and Tim Howard, had lined up in goal for United. United’s defense is solid but needs an equally good ‘keeper to provide backup.

So De Gea has to deliver, and his price tag will only add to the pressure. Especially since it represents a £17 million increase on the fee that Wigan Athletic, a club that nearly suffered relegation from the EPL, nearly paid for him a few seasons ago. Roberto Martinez, Wigan’s manager, was reportedly hours away from signing the now-United ‘keeper on loan from Athletico, a move that would have seen De Gea arrive in the EPL for a grand total of nothing. It’s impossible to calculate a

percentage inflation on nada, so suffice it to say that De Gea has seen his footballing worth skyrocket in a very short space of time.

Could-have-been moves for unlikely figures are not restricted to young Spanish goalkeepers, and United’s Ferguson seems to have a particular fondness for them. Last summer, in addition to United’s breakout sensation Javier Hernandez, Ferguson signed a Portuguese forward named Bebe from Vitoria de Guimaraes. Seemingly normal, given Ferguson’s past success with fellow Portuguese forwards Nani and Cristiano Ronaldo (who I’ll get to in a moment). However, Bebe’s £7.4 million transfer fee was almost 60 times the £125000 that he had been available for only months earlier.

Not only did Bebe move to United for 60,000 percent of what he had earlier been valued at, but the Portuguese forward has now been loaned out to Turkish club Besiktas, which will be able to buy him for £2 million at the end of the coming season.

The set transfer fee at the end of his loan is a 370 per cent drop in his value, meaning that not only has Bebe’s value inflated wildly over the last 12-odd months, but it has deflated unbelievably as well!

Liverpool’s Andy Carroll is another player who has seen a remarkable rise in transfer value. At the end of the 2008–2009 EPL season, Carroll was valued at a mere £1 million by relegat-

ed-to-the-Championship Newcastle United. After topping the goal scoring charts in the following Championship season, then scoring 12 goals in the first half of the last EPL one, Carroll replaced Fernando Torres at Liverpool for £35 million.

De Gea took two excellent seasons at Athletico to go from almost-loaned to the £17 million great-United-goalkeeping-hope.

Carroll took almost that long to cause Newcastle to demand 35 times their previous asking-price for his services. Bebe’s ridiculous inflation in value happened over a few months. But perhaps the most sudden increase in a footballer’s value involved two clubs already mentioned in this blog entry — Manchester United and Liverpool.

Cristiano Ronaldo, not long ago the best player in the world, was offered to Liverpool by his then-club Sporting Lisbon of Portugal for £4 million. Literally days later, after Ronaldo had almost single-footedly defeated Manchester United in a friendly, he moved there for £12.24 million. A few seasons on, he moved again, this time to Real Madrid for a world-record £80 million, a 2000 percent increase from his original proposed cost to Liverpool.

The crazy transfer fees that football clubs pay each other for players are a constant source of surprise. The ridiculous inflation of players’ values, whether it be over days, months or seasons only reinforces that!

THE VARSITY

Vol. CXXXII, No. 1

University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

11 July, 2011

Flat fees fully implemented Full-time Arts and Science students will pay a flat rate, regardless of how many courses they take. Fee structure widened without a vote. Provost says student groups misunderstand university procedure.

Shonith Rajendran

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR After a two-year test run, the University of Toronto is moving forward with plans to fully implement its controversial “flat fees” system for assessing tuition fees on students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Science. Beginning this fall, students admitted in September 2009 or later and taking more than three credits will pay a flat program fee instead of paying separately for individual courses. Students admitted before 2009 will continue to pay per-course until the end of the 2013–14 academic year.

Students taking three or more credits must now pay a flat fee. For the past two years, the threshold had been four credits. The change was part of the program framework approved in spring 2009, although student groups say the change should require its own vote.

For years, the flat fee structure has been strongly opposed by organized student groups, who argue it amounts to a tuition hike and forces students to pay for courses they don’t or can’t take. While structure was implemented to help the debt-laden faculty, critics say it forces students to rush through their studies and discriminates against low-income students.

No vote The most recent clash between student groups and the administration over the issue was at the Governing Council meeting held at UTM on May 19. The Stop Flat Fees Campaign, a joint initiative of UTSU and ASSU, had organized a protest around an expected vote on the new structure, having earlier collected roughly 4,000 signatures on petition cards opposing flat fees. Protestors then found out that the meeting would hold no vote on the overall policy.

“I was disappointed that there wasn’t a vote,” said Katharine Ball, incoming ASSU president. “To see that there wasn’t a vote on that and it’s moving down a full credit was really disappointing,” she said.

“How does a school, how does a public institution approve a tuition fee increase of 66 per cent without a vote? It’s unbelievable,” said UTSU President Danielle Sandhu. “I think it’s a strong failure. It’s a failure of the university in terms of what’s best for students here, what’s best for this as an institution, a public institution.”

University officials, however, say these groups were simply mistaken about the meeting’s agenda. “I’m not sure precisely where there has been some confusion about this,” said Provost Cheryl Misak, U of T’s chief academic officer.

Misak said that when Governing Council originally approved the resolution adopting the flat fee proposal in May 2009, there was never any requirement that there be a re-vote at a later date. Rather the May 2009 resolution called for revising the flat fee structure if a preliminary evaluation of the fee’s impact in 2011 showed that such a revision of flat fees was required, said Misak.

The 2009 resolution states that “prior to 2011–12, an evaluation of the impact of the model” is to be completed by a committee and submitted to Governing Council, “to enable consideration of revision of the implementation plan, if such is required.”

The group that completed the evaluation, known as the Program Fee Monitoring Committee, submitted its full report to Governing Council at the May meeting. The report’s general conclusion was that “most of the concerns expressed in the discussions leading up to the policy being approved have not materialized” and that “there appear to be no major shifts [in student behaviour] at this time that present cause for concern.”

Misak said that the report essentially showed that the flat fee model did not need to be revised or formally put to another vote. “In some way, yes there is a vote,” she said. “The facts are looked at by the report of the Program Fee Monitoring Committee and they’re discussed and if the facts required revision then there would have been a revision; but the facts were really, really straightforward.”

Committee issues The 10-member monitoring committee, which included three students, looked at the impact of the flat fees model for the one and a half years it had been in effect. The committee looked at the model’s effects on students’ academic performance, student life and extra-curricular activity, enrolment BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

SEE ‘FLAT FEES’ – PG 8