March 26, 2012

THE VARSITY

The got nOnion’ o oth s see n us in’ back pag e

Vol. CXXXII, No. 22

We review Rich Aucoin, Cloud Nothings, PS I Love You, and more at Canadian Music Week p10

University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

26 March, 2012

2

VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012

U of T crime stats March 18–25

4

acts of graffiti vandalism

1 indecent act

10

items stolen, including four laptops and two bikes

2

disputes between two people reported

8

fire alarms rung

7

code blue emergencies called in

12

trespassing incidents

12

security calls

news@thevarsity.ca

Meet the 1 per cent

Investments overseer tops list, while finance prof reaps 179 percent increase Akihiko Tse ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

The release of the province’s annual “Sunshine List” of top public sector earners has revealed that U of T’s highest paid staff is William Moriarty, president and chief executive officer for the University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation (UTAM). This year, Moriarty earned $655,995.00, a 6.2 per cent decrease from the last year’s chart-topping $697,020.00.

Moriarty joined the UTAM in 2008, where he was responsible for overseeing investments with the university’s sizeable endowment. In the global financial crisis that same year, its hedge fund investments lost the university $528.1 million. This led to cutbacks in faculties that relied on endowed teaching positions, as well as endowed bursaries and grants.

Kent Womack, a professor of finance and Manulife Chair in Financial Services, was the second highest earner with $560,928.04, a $359,928 or 179 per cent increase from $201,000.04. Glen Whyte, a professor of organizational behaviour, followed at $396,521.48.

To cap off the top five, Catharine Isobel Whiteside, dean of the faculty of medicine, raked in $392,182.51. Joel Baum, an associate dean of faculty and professor of strategic management, earned $389,956.02.

David Naylor, president of U of T, came in with sixth place at $384,250.50.

“The performance of every faculty member is assessed on an annual basis, and increases are based on that merit assessment, as well as on negotiated across-the-board settlements,” said Laurie Stephens, a spokesperson for the administration in an email response.

Stephens pointed out that U of T’s faculty has won 21.7 per cent of Canada’s most prestigious research awards, despite representing

less than seven per cent of all Canadian professors.

“As one of the world’s top-ranked research universities, U of T must offer competitive salaries to attract and retain talented faculty,” she said.

James Nugent, former chief spokesperson for CUPE 3902 Unit 1, said he had “mixed feelings” about the public release of the list, although he agrees professors should be compensated depending on the quality of their research.

Nugent was particularly critical of the wage disparity between administrators and postgraduate students.

He referred specifically to last month’s collective agreement deal, which set post-graduate workers wage increase for the next year at 1.75 per cent. This, Nugent pointed out, is not enough to keep up with rising cost of living with a 3.1 per cent inflation rate.

“You have someone like the provost [Cheryl Misak] giving herself a 4.1 per cent [salary] increase while at the same time coming to the bargaining table telling us that this is tough times for the university financially,” Nugent said. “It strikes me as very hypocritical.”

Danielle Sandhu, president of the UTSU, expressed concern regarding the wage discrepancies on the list. “The data in the [sunshine list] suggests a significant and potentially growing disparity between administrators and faculty, and a disparity between faculty members in different fields,” she said in an email response. “The numbers challenge the idea that the administration does not have the money to provide fair wages to all staff and instructors.”

Nugent tends to agree. “The very same people that are forcing the lowest paid workers to decrease their wages in real terms, are giving themselves 4, 6, 9 per cent wage increases, which is unacceptable.”

U of T’s top five earners 1. WILLIAM MORIARTY President and Chief Executive Officer, University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation $655,995.00 2. KENT WOMACK Professor of finance $560,928.04 3. GLEN WHYTE Professor of organizational behaviour $396,521.48 4. CATHARINE ISOBEL WHITESIDE Dean, Faculty of Medicine $392,182.51 5. JOEL BAUM Associate Dean, Faculty at the Rotman School of Management $389,956.02 … and U of T’s president, in sixth place: DAVID NAYLOR President, University of Toronto $384,250.50

Profs: academic freedom at risk Fears of undue donor influence prompt calls for censure of universities Sunnie Huang ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Less than a year after the protest against Peter Munk’s donation to build the Munk School of Global Affairs, agreements between three Ontario universities and a private thinktank chaired by former RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie have brought questions of academic freedom again to the fore.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) is seeking to censure York University, the University of Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier University over concerns that the institutions’ partnerships with Balsillie’s Waterloo-based Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) may threaten academic integrity.

“The [York–CIGI] agreement is the most egregious we’ve seen,” said Robert Ramsay, professional officer at CAUT. York’s $60-million agreement will see CIGI contributing $30 million over the next 10 years to create an international law program with 10 research chairs and 20 graduate scholarships at the university. The other $30 million will come from the Ontario government.

CAUT argued that the York–CIGI agreement, signed in August 2011, offers the thinktank an “unprecedented level of influence” over the recruitment process and the priorities of the program.

The agreement states that CIGI will appoint two of the program’s five-member steering committee, which is responsible for “establishing the specific financial terms and expectations for each of the chairs, including their research plans and research support.”

York must only appoint or renew chairs recommended by the steering committee, according to the agreement. All decisions require unanimous

approval by the committee.

Fred Kuntz, CIGI’s vice-president of public affairs, adamantly rejected CAUT’s claims and denied that the thinktank has veto power over the academic matters of the program.

“The reason we want to partner with universities is because of their free and independent thought. If we weren’t interested in academic freedom, we wouldn’t go near universities,” he said.

Following the agreement, CIGI and York established protocols outlining that both the protection of academic freedom and recruitment process of the program will be governed by York’s existing policies, according to Kuntz.

CAUT’s academic freedom and tenure committee put forth the censure motion, which seeks to initiate academic boycott. Despite extensive media coverage of the faculty union’s rare move, Ramsay said there is a chance a formal censure could be avoided.

CAUT’s executive committee will consider the censure motion on April 26 and decide whether to initiate a six-month-long process, during which it can work with different parties involved.

“Only if that negotiation over six months is not fruitful would the question of actually imposing the censure come before the council in November,” Ramsay explained. “There is a chance the problem will be solved.”

Kuntz said while CIGI is expecting opposition, it remains optimistic about the outcome.

“Partnerships are always somewhat more difficult than just working in isolation, but the rewards are greater too.”

While both York faculty and the media sift through the discrepancies between CIGI’s and CAUT’s arguments, the finance of the agreement is also being called into question.

A recent commentary by Osgoode Hall tax law professor Neil Brooks, circulated amongst disgruntled York faculty and CAUT members, shows that as much as 83 per cent of the funds to the York–CIGI collaboration could come from public money once tax credits available to Balsillie are taken into account.

Brooks wrote that Balsillie’s $30-million contribution would cost him $16 million, after deducting 46 per cent of charitable tax credit. A large contribution like this is usually made not in cash, but in shares of publicly traded corporations, which, Brooks suggests, would likely be RIM shares. When such shares are donated, the capital gains tax on these shares — estimated to be $6 to $7 million — will be forgiven.

“In sum, the actual cost to Mr. Balsillie is likely about $10 million. The remainder of the $60 million contribution comes from Canadian taxpayers,” Brooks wrote.

Kuntz rejected the idea that the fund is a donation to York and said, although Balsillie is the founder and chair, CIGI, a registered charity, relies on donations from many other donors.

“There’s so much misinformation circulating,” he said. “It’s not about Jim Balsillie. It’s about an organization that’s trying to do something great ... Something we are trying to build in Canada is being put at risk.”

CIGI also launched the Balsillie School of International Affairs in 2007 in a three-way partnership with Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier.

Kuntz also suggested that CAUT has been running “a campaign of untruth” in an effort to unionize university teachers, especially those from the University of Waterloo.

“I don’t like how a union cynically distorts the truth and launches a campaign of lies to increase its membership,” Kuntz said. “I’m sorry, but that’s evil.”

news@thevarsity.ca

VARSITY NEWS

3

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012

University backtracks on primate ban Admin: university to support primate research in the future VARSITY STAFF

The University of Toronto appears to have reversed its ban on the use of primates in research.

Last month, the university spoke out on the use of non-human primates for scientific research in response to student complaints regarding the ethical treatment of two macaques.

Peter Lewis, associate vice president, research for U of T, told the Toronto Star that the macaques were the university’s “very last ‘non-human’ primates.” At the time, Lewis seemed to indicate that the university had no intention of using any more, as technology now allows resaerchers to get the same information from smaller animals.

Lewis indicated otherwise in a recent email to the international journal Nature.

“If a proposed research project at U of T required the use of non-human primates and was scientifically and ethically justified, then we would endeavour to support it,” After being questioned about the seeming contradiction, Lewis responded that his comments had been generalized from a specific situation. The premeditated euthanasia of two macaques at the end of a seven-year study spun into a pronouncement on the permanent use of non-human primates in research at U of T. Lewis explains that the two macaques were the last non-human primates at U of T on campus. At the moment, there are no more

studies planned that will require non-human primates.

“We are not stating that in the future we will never use non-human primates. We are simply stating that we have no plans at the moment,” he clarified.

With regard to the use of smaller animals, Lewis said that the researchers that had been using the two macaques previously were capable of continuing their work on smaller animals, like rats and mice, thanks to advances in technology.

“Again, this has been generalized by the media to ‘all studies with non-human primates could be done on rodents,’” said Lewis.

Lewis pointed out that there are many types of research that require the use of non-human primates but that “our researchers are not engaged in any of them at the moment.”

The Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) policy statement on the ethics of animal investigation determines whether research involving primates is “scientifically and ethically justified,” as Lewis promises.

Although U of T faces pressure to rethink the use of non-human primates from activists citing ethical concerns, the university is not in violation of any laws.

CCAC guidelines and the Ontario Animals for Research Act specify the conditions for housing non-human primates for research studies. According to Lewis, the university adheres to these guidelines and is fully accredited. The university received CCAC accreditation most recently in 2010.

jstreit/FLICKR

Bianca Lemus Lavarreda

ASSU incumbents returned to office First “hotly contested” election in years Zane Schwartz VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Katherine Ball has been re-elected for a second term as President of the Arts and Science Students Union (ASSU), with a clear mandate.

“It’s really great to finally be elected,” said Ball after her victory.

Ball was acclaimed to the position of president last year and also acclaimed as an executive member the year before. “I appreciated the chance to be judged by my peers and to discuss my ideas during the election,” she said.

Ball received 30 votes while runner-up Manisha Kaura, who currently serves on the ASSU executive, received seven.

“The results are quite surprising,” said Kaura, after the vote took place. “I thought people would really respond to my platform.”

Kaura ran on a platform that included abolishing the presidential honorarium of $10,000 and redistributing the funds to research grants and scholarships.

Attempts by student politicians to highlight what they claim are bloated executive salaries have found little traction with voters.

A group named “Stop the Salaries” appeared last fall (in which Kaura was not involved) and failed to win its pet cause any serious attention in the recently-concluded UTSU elections.

Unlike the UTSU elections, in which any student member can vote, the ASSU election uses course union executives as proxies to determine the executive.

“There are 50 course unions, each with two votes, so in theory there should be 100 people in the room,” said Lanor Mallon, chief returning officer for the election.

Kaura confirmed she will seek office again in the fall, when elections for the remainder of the ASSU executive are scheduled to take place.

“This election has certainly been more

hotly contested then those in the past few years,” said Mallon.

ASSU elections have been relatively calm of late. After an election scandal three years ago, university administration stepped in, withholding student fees until sufficient electoral reforms had been instituted. The intervention was staged after The Varsity published evidence proving ballot-wstuffing and voter fraud on the part of the incumbents.

“There is an excellent set of guidelines that has been produced since the problematic elections three years ago,” said Mallon.

“There have been no similar issues this election,” he explained.

In addition to the presidential elections, four executive-at-large positions were also filled.

Incumbent ASSU executive members Shawn Tian, Onaizah Onaizah, and Sarah Ball (Katharine’s younger sister) were all reelected for a second term.

“I’m not sure what to say, I feel really happy right now” said Tian.

“For me, ASSU is a community. It’s a friendly place to come by any time,” said Onaizah.

Sarah Ball vowed to continue her efforts to provide “outreach to our most marginalized students.”

Joining the slate of incumbent executives is Megan O’Neil, current president of the Canadian Studies Students’ Union. O’Neil ran on a platform of improving the relationship between course unions and ASSU executive.

“I would really love to have a course union social, to meet each other, to network and really get us off to the races at the beginning of the year,” said O’Neil.

Shaun Shepherd, UTSU president-elect, addressed the room while votes were tabulated.

“I want to congratulate everyone for being here,” said Shepherd. “It takes a lot of courage to run for a position. By encouraging students to get involved in unions and their own education, we can create a better university for all.”

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VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012

University diversity

news@thevarsity.ca

Aisha Raja tells her story

How one student combats the stereotype of the “exotic Muslim woman�

Dalana Parris ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

“I don’t only want to be seen as the Muslim girl who wears the hijab,� says thirdyear student, Aisha Raja. “There’s more to my identity than just that.�

Troubled by other students’ negative perceptions of Muslim women, Raja’s studies in ethics, society, and law have encouraged her participation in dialogues aimed to counteract these stereotypes.

Lounging in her chair at Trinity’s Buttery CafÊ, she reminisces about incidents that have impacted her experience at U of T. In her first year, after leaving her close-knit suburban community, she found herself among the many strangers populating U of T’s large lecture halls — an intimidating experience shared by many St. George students.

To take part in U of T’s vibrant community and to meet new people, she became involved in the Muslim Students’ Association. “Its hard to connect with everyone on campus,� Raja points out. “But through the MSA, I met different groups and it gave me the resources to get involved in other campus organizations and cultural and religious groups.�

Her dedication led her to become

MSA’s vice president of social advancement. In this position, Raja organizes social justice initiatives which present positive images of Muslim students at U of T, such as the MSA-run orphan sponsorship program.

Despite her successes, unfortunately, she says that some members of U of T’s community are still determined to associate her with the stereotype of an “‘exotic Muslim woman.’� “I feel like when I am doing other things, people focus on ‘It’s a Muslim girl doing this,’ not a Canadian,� she says. “People don’t assume I’m Canadian; they ask where I’m from and will genuinely believe I’m from somewhere else, like Saudi Arabia.�

Raja’s experiences facing stereotypes extends to encounters with students who believe that Muslim women are denied the right to education.

As she expressed her outrage against these misconceptions, her voice grew louder. “Obviously there are the general stereotypes that Muslim women are very restricted in what they are allowed to do. But education is a value that is emphasized in Islam,� Raja stresses.

She believes that the media influences students’ perceptions through images of burqa-clad women instead of female Muslim leaders.

However, Raja says that the media is

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not the only perpetrator of these stereotypes. She mentions that there are some professors at U of T who reinforce images of oppressed Muslim women to students, contributing to the misconceptions.

To illustrate her point, Raja talks about professors who display images of women in burqas to represent gender inequality. She argues that it is wrong to assume that a person’s religion determines their social position. “You can’t just assume that practices in Afghanistan are what are attributed to all Muslims,� says Raja adamantly.

Nonetheless, she admits that these stereotypes impact her contributions to class discussions. Occasionally, she censors her statements because she doesn’t want her comments to be accredited to her religious beliefs. “Sometimes I’m the only person wearing a hijab in class — I have to be careful what I say because it will be attributed to the ‘Muslim girl in the class’ and not necessarily as Aisha Raja’s opinion,� she explains.

Although she commends the university for accommodating Muslim students with prayer spaces and other resources, Raja believes that there’s still work to be done so that students and faculty recognize that a person’s faith is not the sole determinant of his or her identity.

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See where the Board of Directors has taken The Varsity this year at the Annual General Meeting on Tuesday April 10, 2012.

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VARSITY NEWS

news@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012

5

Online voting takes off?

U of T testing the waters with e-voting, though fears of hacking, crashes, and delays dissaude some Simon Bredin ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Efforts to digitize elections continued this year with widespread experiments in online voting and campaigning. But the process has been rocky, and some question whether the rush to adopt online polling will expose elections to security flaws.

Supporters consider online voting a silver bullet against historically low rates of voter turnout on campus. The question has become how much of the electoral process can be carried out securely in cyberspace.

Woodsworth, Victoria, and Trinity are just a few of the colleges that have cautiously experimented with online voting systems in recent years. Rotman commerce students also vote online through the Rotman Web Portal, while university-administered elections for various positions and groups have also made the leap online at www.voting.utoronto.ca or under the “Elections” tab on ROSI. The largest and most closely watched campus election — for the University of Toronto Students’ Union — is bucking the trend and shying away from even the future prospect of online voting.

In November 2011, on the advice of chief returning officer Daniel Lo, the Elections and Referenda Committee and the UTSU board of directors struck a provision from the electoral code that could eventually have enabled online voting.

Director Michael Scott, a vocal critic of the move, listed off the many apparent benefits of online voting.

Scott said that the online system is more convenient, less expensive, and easier to administer than paper ballots, and voting hours can be extended at no additional cost.

However, what Scott acknowledged as “legitimate security

concerns” have become the major stumbling block in the push online.

“Online voting is not only easily compromised but unreliable,” said Corey Scott, vice-president internal and services at the UTSU, pointing to the frequent blackouts that plague ROSI during course registration and previous difficulties at Woodsworth College, which has used online voting for several years.

In March 2010, Rotman students were required to re-cast their votes after administrators uncovered five separate incidents of fraud.

Trinity College, which debuted an online voting system this year, has experienced several mishaps, including a benign hacker who contacted administrators to report a major security error. The college has settled on a system of having scrutineers manually check hard copies of all votes cast online in order to ensure the integrity of the system.

Madeline Burkhardt-Jones, chief returning officer at Trinity College, said that this year saw a huge increase in voter turnout, up to 20 per cent. But she also described some of the difficulties of pioneering an online system: emails with unique voter IDs accidentally deleted or absent-minded students forgetting to vote without the physical polling station to remind them.

At the University of Western Ontario (UWO), the implementation of online voting saw the highest turnout ever, up to 50 per cent of the student body. However, the system was also hacked, forcing a recount. The

alleged hacker, Keith Horwood, is not a student at UWO and has since been charged on four different counts.

“I’m not magic, I’m not a superhero, I just happened to recognize the vulnerability and knew what to do with it,” Horwood told UWO’s Gazette.

Still, Michael Scott believes it is possible to “work to improve security instead of scrapping the idea entirely.”

“Internet banking and ROSI already involve the transfer of similarly sensitive information online, yet we accept that the benefits in these cases outweigh the costs,” he pointed out.

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New round of disqualifications rocks UTSU election Appeals, re-appeals continue weeks after preliminary results announced Zane Schwartz VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

A trio of candidates seeking New College seats on the UTSU board of directors have been disqualified once again on charges of campaigning inside student residences.

Baliqis Hashiru, Khalid Khan, and Ali Mustafa Bello received nine demerit points Friday in a ruling on an appeal submitted by opponent Craig Maniscalco.

Hashiru, Khan, and Bello were disqualified earlier in the election along with 22 other Unity candidates, only to be requalified less then 24 hours later.

“It’s great to have our concerns addressed,” said Maniscalco. “It took them thirteen days to address my appeals,” he added. Maniscalco received a response from Elections and Referenda Committee chair Clara Ho, after hearing nothing from chief returning officer Daniel Lo for almost two weeks.

In the ERC ruling, Unity candidates received four demerit points for postering within six metres of the Wilson Hall residence.

They also received five points for campaigning with six metres of Chestnut residence.

Chief returning officer for Chestnut residence Gerrit Van de Riet had originally submitted a complaint, which CRO Daniel Lo never responded to.

Lo explained to Maniscalco in an email that he had dealt with Van de Riet’s complaint in a single ruling.

“Lo never responded to Gerrit’s email,” said Maniscalco. “It is pretty frustrating when you consider that they managed to turn it around

in 24 hours when Unity candidates were about to be disqualified,” said Maniscalco.

The ERC ruled Friday to separate the complaints.

The disqualification means that the Familiar Faces slate — Craig Maniscalco, Laurel Chester, and Justin Charlick — will fill all of New College’s seats on the UTSU board of directors, barring a reversal of Friday’s ruling by the Elections and Referenda Appeals Committee.

Earlier in the week, a “major calculation error” discovered by Familiar Faces led to a recount of New College, St. Michael’s College, and Engineering constituencies.

The new tally resulted in Laurel Chester prevailing over Hashiru, even before the latest round of disqualifications. In the first count, she lost by three votes, but once the error was corrected, she won by seven votes.

“I’m really excited,” said Chester. “I wanted to run with the Familiar Faces slate because I find there is a huge disconnect between college councils and the UTSU.” In a separate ruling issued Friday, all Unity candidates received five demerit points for “intentional misrepresentation of fact” by claiming that they won an increase to the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant this year. The increase took place in 2010.

The Unity candidates are appealing the decision to the Elections and Referenda Appeals Committee (ERAC), which will hear arguments on Monday at 2 pm. The ERAC has previously thrown out several rulings made by the ERC.

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VAR.sT/COMMENT

26 MARCH 2012

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

comment@thevarsity.ca

The secret lives of ruthless dictators Read it here: var.st/dict

Co-opportunities

JENNY KIM/THE VARsITY

Why U of T should give co-op placements to undergrads David Woolley VARSITY STAFF

With Canada’s unemployment rate at an estimated 7.6 per cent and the youth unemployment rate almost double that at approximately 14 per cent, it is becoming evident that one of the greatest tolls of the global economic downturn in this country is not necessarily job loss, but a lack of entry-level positions. Statistics suggest that higher education is key to improving the standard of living.

University degrees are often not useful in predicting a person’s career prospects, particularly in regard to the types of employment a graduate may be best suited to undertake.

In many instances, individuals will not directly use their degrees in their future professions. There are varying reasons for this, including the fact that individuals may change their minds or circumstances, or select a field of study that does not have a corresponding profession. However, to a large extent, the reason is the same as the cause of high youth unemployment: most degrees do not of-

fer practical experience in a particular field of employment.

There’s a saying about employment: you can’t get hired without job experience, but you can’t get job experience without being hired. This is the bind in which many university students are caught under our current system.

So, how can it be remedied? How can students be free to pursue their desired degrees while at the same time gaining a leg up in the job market? Well, we don’t need to look far to see how it is done. Canada’s own University of Waterloo offers the country’s largest co-operative education program. Waterloo’s co-op system offers a combination of study and work semesters in which each student has access to an administrator who helps students find placements during work terms. This has the added bonus of providing students with paid employment during the school year, which means that, in many instances, students in the co-op program can graduate with a lower level of student debt than their non-co-op counterparts.

But it is not just Waterloo that uses a co-op system. U of T’s Scarborough campus also has a pr ogram. And recently, the country of Singapore

The biggest concern regarding implementing a plan like this on a widescale basis is that not every degree program has a corresponding list of potential jobs. announced that it is adopting co-op programs in all of its public universities in order to address the concerns voiced by employers about graduates having insufficient work experience to do their jobs properly. This was

putting a drag on the economy as businesses had to invest in costly training programs for new hires — making them less likely to hire recent grads.

The biggest concern regarding implementing a plan like this on a wide-scale basis, as Singapore has done, is that not every degree program has a corresponding list of potential jobs. However, co-op programs are voluntary and it should also be noted that every student has some idea of the types of jobs that might interest them — which leads to another advantage of the co-op program: instead of graduating and jumping into a career only to realize that it isn’t the right fit, students have four years in which to try out different career options.

Say you are studying political science in university and have a desire to work in journalism. You get a coop job at a newspaper and suddenly you find it isn’t as much like All the President’s Men as you had initially thought. If you had already graduated you would be in some serious trouble.

Instead, in a co-op program you get

to return to a semester of school and think about all the different placements that might mesh with your major. You could work at a polling company, a political advisory firm, or find a job in a government department.

You can try each of them out and, after your time at university, you have a better understanding of what career you want to pursue, while also having an impressive resume to help you get the job you want.

Students need jobs. If a generation is saddled with unemployment, it harms everyone, causing a lack of dignity, lower standards of living, strained public services, and employers who cannot find the necessary talent to fill positions. Instead, Ontario can respond to youth unemployment with a plan that will not only help young people, but will also ensure that the province leaves the recession in a stronger position than when it first entered it. The way forward is to adopt a co-op program to ensure that students have the option of practical work experience to complement their traditional degree program when attending university.

VARSITY COMMENT

comment@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012

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Dismantling the seal hunt SIMON CAPOBIANCO takes on the myths that sustain the controversial industry

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A protest photo from 2009 when flat fees were first introduced. Andrew Louis/VArsity ArchiVes

Flattening students with debt How the flat fees scheme continues to be an unmitigated disaster Rida Fatema Ali VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The “flat fees” system for assessing tuition at U of T has been controversial since its inception in 2009.

It was initially proposed in order to help deal with the massive debt of the Faculty of Arts & Science. In a letter to the Governing Council, Dean Meric Gertler wrote that “Universities also opt for the model because it provides them with a more predictable and sustainable revenue stream.”

The U of T admin have also said that they feel this new model will encourage students to take charge of their education and not sit on the fence between full-time and part-time.

The new system that was first implemented in Fall 2009 required that students enrolled in four or more courses pay a flat program fee rather than the traditional per-course fee.

Then last fall, the threshold for the flat fee system was changed from four to three credits.

The main concern with this system is from — or for — the students who are taking three or four courses since under this system, these students are required to pay for an education that they are not receiving.

Flat fees are a tuition increase seemingly targeted at students least able to afford it: students who work long hours.

The change from a threshold of four to three courses has made this problem even worse. Students will now have to either pay full tuition or drop to part-time status. As part-time students, they

cannot receive interest-free OSAP. They would also not have access to scholarships and bursaries that require full-time status.

The flat fee system is rigged in such a way that it virtually guarantees that most of us will have massive debt upon graduation. We have always been told that in order to keep our student debt low, we need to work alongside getting a post-secondary education. But most

The flat fee system is rigged in such a way that it virtually guarantees that most of us will have massive debt upon graduation. students cannot manage five classes and a demanding work schedule.

If you try to cut your student debt by only taking 1 or 2 courses each term so that you have more time to work, you become a part-time student. And in Canada, that means that the government charges you interest on your student loans while you’re going through school.

So opting for OSAP as a part-time student still increases your student debt, albeit in a different way. Bor-

rowing less money but having to pay interest over a longer period of time increases the total amount of your loans.

In order to still have access to interest free OSAP and have enough time to work, the logical solution seems to be to take three courses.

The catch here is that under the new flat fee model, taking three courses guarantees that you pay for courses you aren’t taking, and you end up paying one or two thousand more. That, combined with having to stay in school longer than the average four years, will likely put you back in the same situation as if you hadn’t worked.

Another problem with the flat-fee model is that students tend to hold on longer to courses that they haven’t yet decided to stick with since there is no financial penalty for dropping them at a later date. Under the per-course model for assessing fees, after four weeks into the term you lose 50 per cent of your tuition but under the flat fee model, so long as you stay above three courses, there is no change in tuition. This puts students who may need certain courses as part of their subject post requirements at a disadvantage since others may be holding on to their spot longer.

But while this system has faced a lot of opposition from many student groups and even some faculty members, the university seems to feel that it is producing the result that it hoped for, and it doesn’t plan on revisiting the topic of fee models. It seems that this system is here to stay — at least for the foreseeable future.

ith the controversial Canadian harp seal hunt about to begin in earnest, debate rages as usual and once again, the debate is long on emotion and short on facts. Seen as a tug-of-war between environmentalists outraged by images of bloodied seal pups and pragmatists defending the livelihoods of Newfoundlanders, most discourse tacitly assumes that the hunt, although perhaps inhumane, generates needed profits. This is only half true.

Before getting into the economics of the issue, it should be noted that the term “hunt” is a gross misrepresentation of what transpires on the Newfoundland ice floes. Hunt implies that the animal has some chance of getting away, and, as anyone who has seen video of the harp seal hunt knows, this is the same type of hunting that happens to pigs in slaughterhouses, or to fish in barrels. The occasional descriptions of it as a harvest defy comment.

Ethical considerations aside, let’s consider the ubiquitous claim that the hunt is an important source of revenue for Canadian communities — “tremendously valuable,” as the Department of Oceans and Fisheries puts it. It is certainly true that the hunt generates some money for each of the six-to-seven thousand Canadians who spend roughly 125 hours sealing every year. It is also true that the public subsidies which support the hunt — in the form of free ice-breaking services, extensive search-and-rescue operations, and international marketing campaigns — are nearly equal to, if not in excess of, the total revenue derived from it in any given year.

When public expenditures are factored in, the hunt barely breaks even — it may even lose money, and that is according to conservative estimates made before the European Union banned seal products in 2009, driving down the price of pelts even further. With the Russian Federation recently enacting a similar ban, this tremendously valuable industry will almost certainly be costing the taxpayer more money than the sealers are making from it.

The fact that hundreds of thousands of seals could be spared gruesome deaths and that the communities livelihood could be protected by simply paying the sealers the value of the public subsidies each year does not prevent some pundits from enthusiastically defending this unnecessary cruelty. Rex Murphy, for instance, wrote recently that “We [Newfoundlanders] should not stop something we have been doing because outsiders — those who have no connection to Newfoundland or

to the seal hunt, and who have been telling wildly overheated fables about it for decades — tell us to stop it. To hell with them.”

To hell with them! But not with their millions of dollars in subsidies: not with their free icebreaking ships, rescue helicopters, and international lobbying. In short, ‘we’ll take their money but not their morals.’ The truth behind all the bluster is that no one has to tell sealers to give up the hunt — all we have to do is stop paying for it. If sealers are not allowed to socialize the costs of their business while privatizing the profits, they will give up the hunt voluntarily because the industry is simply not commercially viable without massive public funding.

Murphy also advocates that harp seals, which subsist mainly on a fish diet, must be culled en-masse to protect valuable cod stocks. Profits aside, he assures us that we must rush to thin out the numbers of the “rapacious seals slithering underwater all around [Newfoundland] — sucking up every piece of protein the sea has to offer, including of course the king of all food fish, the cod.” Aside from money, the argument is made that sealers are performing a public service by protecting cod stocks from ravenous seals.

This theory might have been tenable a few years ago, some time before the hunt’s most vociferous proponent, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, publicly announced that it was not the case. “The commercial seal quota is based upon sound conservation principles, not an attempt to assist in the recovery of groundfish stocks,” the DFO website states, explaining that “Seals eat cod, but seals also eat other fish that prey on cod.”

These days, however, the cod-saving story is just another debunked fairytale — like the idea that the hunt is a self-sustaining industry. The fact that Murphy repeats it in the same breath with which he accuses antihunt activists of propagating “wildly overheated fables” is an example of the depths to which debate has sunk.

The seal hunt is not just immoral.

It’s a drain on the economy. The debate over it is miscast as a balancing of livelihoods against animal welfare; in reality, these two values can easily coexist. When the hunt finally collapses in the wake of the Russian ban, Ottawa will have a choice: continue trying desperately to create foreign markets for an unethical, no longer viable industry, or redirect the subsidies to help Newfoundland’s economy adapt to the new fiscal landscape. The second choice is, by far, the more rational; the first is, unfortunately, the more likely.

Luke BryAn/fLickr

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VARSITY COMMENT

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012

comment@thevarsity.ca

THE VARSITY

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VOL. CXXXIII No. 22

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Falconer Hall in part houses the Faculty of Law, where some students feel they’ve been dealt an unfair hand by the UTSU. Bernarda Gospic/THe VarsiTy

ProFac’s future with UTSU

Two ProFac students explain what needs to be done for UTSU and the professional faculties to improve their relationship Dan Bertrand and Kevin P. Siu VARSITY CONTRIBUTORS

During the recent UTSU election, one would have been hard pressed to find any signs that it concerned professional faculties like law, engineering, medicine, pharmacy, or nursing to name a few. In fact, while a total of 13 UTSU board of directors seats were reserved for professional faculty colleges, none were contested in the election, and many were left vacant.

In this article, two law students — one a card-carrying Liberal, the other a card-carrying New Democrat — will talk about what kinds of problems are associated with this state of affairs and what must be done to ensure that the professional faculties will remain in the UTSU in the future.

The issue of representation has persisted for years but has never been addressed. Although having one law representative on UTSU’s board is roughly proportional to the student population, professional faculties still constitute only a small minority on the board and are almost never on the executive team.

In fact, professional faculty students are generally ineligible to run for executive positions. This is because of academic and professional requirements for accreditation that call for full-time student status, which conflicts with UTSU’s requirement that executives not be full-time students.

The lack of representation and voice on the executive is reflected by the agenda of the UTSU every year. UTSU has advocated positions contrary to professional faculty concerns, including many educational and funding proposals. Meanwhile, since 2003, tuition

for law students has increased by over $10,000. While UTSU takes up undergrad-specific issues such as flat fees for the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, it does take up the particular challenges facing professional faculty students.

UTSU’s response to professionalfaculty concerns has been noncommital at best and downright hostile at worst. Last year, the Engineering Society proposed in a series of documents and meetings that UTSU improve professional faculty representation by adding a VP position for professional faculty issues only and by restructuring the board to include more professional faculty representatives.

The engineering proposal was categorically rejected, with UTSU pointing to the Professional Faculty Committee as a cure-all. Its mandate, to “address issues related to the professional faculties,” is so vague it’s meaningless. In fact, the committee has met only twice this year and accomplished little if anything.

While our clubs actually heal the sick, build homes, and give legal services to the oppressed, the majority of our clubs receive no funding from UTSU. The problem is not that professional faculty students are apathetic or disengaged. By and large, this is a result of structural defects and systemic biases against all professional faculty students at the university.

UTSU clubs funding policy inherently favours larger cross-campus groups with large numbers rather than smaller niche groups with specific interests. For instance, there are requirements for minimum membership, bank accounts, and limits on corporate involvement.

The criteria for funding include

campus participation rate, level of outreach, and other sources of funding. There are clubs on campus boasting greater numbers than the entire Faculty of Law that make it difficult for small law-related clubs to become recognized and funded.

Furthermore, each professional faculty has its own student government with an independent set of club funding resources and guidelines. Clubs are unable or unwilling to go through UTSU’s lengthy procedures when there are more streamlined processes catered to their needs.

Meanwhile, UTSU events are difficult to attend and unappealing to professional faculty students, most of whom are older, have fully packed schedules, and have faculty-related events that conflict with UTSU events. Orientation events and Blue and White Spirit Week simply cater towards undergraduate students.

As a result, most of UTSU’s fees taken from professional faculty students, which would go to clubs and events they actually participate in, go instead to subsidizing primarily undergraduate clubs and events.

In order to stop this, UTSU should earmark a proportional amount of funds to professional faculties and events and eliminate duplication in funding application procedures.

So why are professional faculty students leaving their seats at the UTSU decision-making table vacant? The truth is, many professional faculties don’t even know they are due-paying members of UTSU. Why would they, when they have college specific student governments that have been doing everything that the UTSU does for undergraduates?

Nonetheless, awareness of these

issues is increasing both at the U of T and in Ontario more broadly.

This year, the Faculty of Law’s student government struck up a working group to look at its relation to the UTSU much like the engineers did last year. Similar studies at Queen’s, Western, and Ottawa are critically analyzing the relationships between professional faculties and primarily undergraduate Canadian Federation of Students.

These efforts are a natural consequence of the diverging realities of professional faculty and undergraduate students. Just 10 years ago, tuition for law, business, and medicine students was similar to that of undergraduates. This year, tuition and fees at the U of T Faculty of Law were just over $25,000 a year.

Meanwhile, professional faculties have departed from the classic liberal academic model to embrace pedagogy more akin to that found in vocational schools. While these changes have occurred, the CFS and its affiliates have missed the boat by focusing on undergraduate interests to the exclusion of what are now professional faculties with their own interests and concerns.

We believe in student government and what it can deliver to students. However, what we have now is unacceptable: taxation without representation. Reality has changed, so the UTSU and the CFS must either adapt their politics to the modern realities of the education economy or be prepared to face a disintegrating student movement and a future without professional faculties.

These are the personal views of the authors and are not to be imputed to the Students’ Legal Society, the Engineering Society, or the UTSU.

Arts & Culture var.st/arts

26 MarCH 2012

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

We interview Gareth Evans, director of the upcoming gun-fu flick The Raid: Redemption

arts@thevarsity.ca

Classical spirit

Read our review at var.st/raid

Canadian orchestra Esprit reflects on their 30 years performing in Toronto

BO HYUNG/tHE varsItY

Emma Jones VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

When I walk into the Esprit head office, there is a flurry of activity. Alex Pauk has a stack of compositions on the chair beside him while his wife Alexina is proofreading an email that will go out later this week about their group’s performance on March 29. The compositions beside Alex, I later find out, are all written by U of T students and were performed for Alex and Alexina, the co-founders of Esprit, earlier that day. One student’s piece will be included in the upcoming performance — a great opportunity for new talent to exhibit their work.

This is the heart and soul of Esprit: finding new Canadian compositions and bringing them to life. “This is music that is seldom heard live,” Alex explains. “The musicians and audience share the excitement of being part of these rare performances.” At performances, the composers are usually present in the music hall, giving audience members a rare chance to speak to them about the performances.

When the orchestra started in 1983, there was little room for

Stars in a white night

EVENT GUIDE

MAR 26–APR 1

Sculptor Tibi Neuspiel reflects on his successful art piece at Nuit Blanche MONDAY CLara HUGHEs Unique Lives & Experiences lecture by the Olympic athlete at Roy Thomson Hall 7:30 pm $36.00

new Canadian classical composers. Esprit’s goal was to revitalize the new music industry and fill a gap in the opportunities available to the composers at that time. “It was an audacious idea,” Alexina comments, “The Arts Council gave us two years.” But now in their 30th year, Esprit has created a legacy of Canadian music encompassing two generations of composers.

Many composers have grown with the orchestra, having their first creations played by Esprit and faithfully returning time and time again to present their latest compositions. Alex and Alexina are both composers themselves. One of their compositions (performed by Esprit) for the movie Pearls of the Far East recently won Best Film Score at the California Independent Film Festival.

This is not to say that Esprit, and the classical music industry is not without its challenges. Budget cuts mean radio stations do not commission orchestral music nearly as often as they used to, causing Esprit to rely more and more on audience attendance to survive. But Alex and Alexina remain optimistic. They are consistently planning new and innovative performances that will entice audiences; “Dream in

a Bar” is their upcoming performance featuring saxophonist Wallace Holiday and percussionist Ryan Scott, as well as trombonist/leader Scott Good leading an acid brass group (a mix of jazz and electronic music). The performance is aimed at a younger crowd, proving the resilience of the Canadian music scene. Esprit is also dedicated to the composers they have worked with throughout their existence. Their 30 Anniversary season, beginning in October, will feature new and innovative programs as well as composers who are close to their heart.

Esprit is as original as the music they play. Dedicated to outreach, development, and supporting Canada’s current composers, the 65-piece orchestra gives audience members a rare chance to hear the music played in both its own time and country.

“Dream in a Bar” will be performed at Drake Hotel Tuesday March 27 — no cover. Esprit’s 30th anniversary season will be announced at concert, on Thursday March 29; special student rates are available.

FrEE sPIrIt BY tIBI NEUsPIEL

Anne Rucchetto VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Although Tibi Neuspiel has gained mass media attention and praise with his 2011 Nuit Blanche performance piece, “The

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

ErOtIC MEMOIr all-genders writing workshop with susie Bright at Come as You Are 7:30–9:30 pm $35.00

ONE OF a KIND sPrING sHOW aND saLE at Direct Energy Centre, Exhibition Place until Apr 1

THURSDAY CINÉFraNCO Festival of international francophone cinema at TIFF Bell Lightbox until Apr 1 $8–$12 passes: $99

Tie-break,” in collaboration with Geoffrey Pugen, his creative career actually started with a short immersion into artistic counterculture. “I remember realizing, the summer I was fifteen, that I could just take my bike and go out all

night long, and my parents didn’t really care or notice. After a couple weeks [of doing this] I ended up in this extended suburban area, and I wanted to do something to fill the time.

CONTINUED ON P12

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

sHINDIG! ‘50/‘60s rHYtHM aND BLUEs PartY at The Piston 10 pm $5

rONCEsvaLLEs EartH HOUr CaNDLELIGHt WaLK at Revue Cinema, 8:15 pm Free (bring candle and holder)

tOrONtO sILENt FILM FEstIvaL at Various venues until Apr 3 $10-$20 passes: $65–$100

photos by RYAN KELPIN

For more CMW coverage, check out var.st/cmw12

CMW Indie Awards

Now in its 30th year, Canadian Music Week features over 80 bands across 60 venues in five nights, along with film screenings, a comedy festival, and a final awards ceremony. Caught in between SXSW and NXNE, it’s the fest that people love to hate, but with live performances by The Sheepdogs, Passion Pit, and Rich Aucoin (confetti cannon included), we weren’t complaining (too much). ASSUNTA ALEGIANI fills us in on the CMW Indie Awards showcase.

JUST TWEETIN’ You can’t go to a festival anymore without tweeting every fucking detail of what happens along the way. So here are some good ones.

THE SHEEPDOGS WITH PAUL RODGERS

DAN MANGAN

1 Rich Aucoin

The other day, I watched this TED talk on achieving transcendence by contributing to something bigger than one’s self-interest. Watching Halifax wunderkind Rich Aucoin deliver his cathartic live show was a prime example of that talk unfolding. Skeptical whether his multimedia sense explosion would work on such a grand scale, I was surprised to see how well it did. After all, the appeal of his performances comes from the close interaction Aucoin has with his

audience and generating an immediate group feeling, which works perfectly in smaller venues. But armed with his standard confetti cannon and parachute, Aucoin just as easily animates a room of 500 people as one of 50.

2 Passion Pit

The US electro-poppers Passion Pit were the closing act for the night.

The hall had emptied out a bit by the time they came on, with many

@ThatEricAlper @APTtheshow @Zaacpick

@rob_d

“If she never used dial-up Internet, she’s too young for you, bro.” - Overheard at #CMW2012

FYI: the me extension c to be the of Horseshoe charging sta

The security guy at the door for Lee’s Palace is a power-tripping dick in a way that approaches artistry.

More beards and plaid here in Toronto than a lumberjack jamboree. #CMW2012

4

3

3 PS I Love You

Toronto noise-rock staples PS I Love You were of course one to see at CMW this year.

A bad mix at Lee’s Palace that buried the vocals almost entirely did not slow them down and the fans certainly didn’t seem to mind. Mixing material from their forthcoming sophomore album and fan favourites like “Facelove” and “2012” from their breakthrough debut, the set was one of their first shows with their new guitar/synth player to help spread the workload amongst three people. The addition was really noticeable, giving another intense sonic layer to their already potent fuzz rock that Torontonians have come to love.

—Ryan Kelpin

4 Cloud Nothings

2

With a festival lineup fairly light on headliners (save for Slash and some reuniting ‘90s bands), bands gathering blog buzz were the most anticipated. Facing a packed Friday night Lee’s Palace, Cloud Nothings fit that profile to a tee. Bashing out immediately frenetic punk songs from their new album, Attack on Memory, drummer Jayson Gerycz’s limbs fly everywhere and singer Dylan Baldi screams his lungs out. His raspy growl sounds like Milo of the Descendents — the guitars aren’t far off either. The band hit the hardest during the album’s centrepiece, “Wasted Days,” turning a hard-and-fast tune into a ten-minute guitar jam. Baldi was on his knees hammering at his guitar. Their songs sound like they’re going to fly off the rails end, Baldi’s hooks manges to grab on and never let go.

—Nathan Watson

JOHN K. SAMSON

SHOTGUN JIMMIE

THE PACK A.D.

1 in the back sitting on the floors and texting. But in the front, there was still a party going on. With their move to major label Columbia and a forthcoming album, excitement for some new songs was guaranteed. But their set was a short-lived affair. After only five songs, two of which were new, they wished everyone a good night and finished off with hit single “Sleepyhead” at 12 am sharp. Despite this short-lived affair, the new material sounded promising, though not as catchy as “Little Secrets.”

duffy

@Jaypishere

erch table cord seems official iPhone ation.

Spending the last day of #CMW2012 listening to Nickelback and Justin Bieber

TOP 5 CMW MOMENTS 1. Rich Aucoin incorporating one of my all-time favourite YouTube videos, The Honey Badger, into his performance. ‘Cause “honey badger don’t give a shit!”

4. The music industry is a kindergarten: free Jelly Beans, chocolate eggs, and granola bars in the media/artist room at the Indies. I’m not complaining.

2. Paul Rodgers’ special guest vocals with The Sheepdogs.

5. “I Just Want My Mic Stand Back” (this is a reference to the terrible MTV show I Just Want My Pants Back; I watch it very guiltily, to my great pleasure) could have been the title of the Dears’ set at the ElMo. Singer Murray Lightburn faced a tricky choice when his mic ascended its stand: sing without playing guitar or play guitar at the expense of singing. That’s the downside of having only two hands.

3. Utter confusion followed by amusement when I realized that Islands, slated to play the Velvet Underground Wednesday night, were not in fact the Montreal band but some hardcore metal act. Is CMW tricking people into attending shitty shows (disclaimer: I have not listened to the other Islands; they might be fantastic for all I know)?!

—Assunta Alegiani & Ryan Kelpin

12

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012 CONTINUED FROM P9

I started spray-painting as a way to [do that],” Neuspiel says, reflecting on his life growing up in Ottawa.

He joined some friends and pursued graffiti collectively that summer.

Working to prove himself as a peer, he began practising drawing individually. It was this independent style of creating art that ultimately held Neuspiel’s interest.

“I was aware of other art growing up. I would go to museums on vacations as a lot of people do, and Ottawa at least has the National Gallery, which has a reasonably good contemporary collection. So, the fact that there were other things besides graffiti and simple drawings made me feel more comfortable. The ideas I wanted to explore artistically would have been impossible and unacceptable within graffiti culture.”

Presently, much of Neuspiel’s art appropriates recognizable images, playing with the roles that familiar forms can take. Life cereal, Advil, and Pepto Bismol are only a few of the trademarks used in his pieces.

Echoing the tradition of pop artists, Neuspiel removes familiar objects and tweaks them to find acceptance in formalized fine art settings. “I really like a lot of the stuff that I’m surrounded by. The Advil box or Pepto Bismol bottle are actually really attractive objects that are also banal. After making things with my own hands, I realize there’s a limit to what I can actually do with them but there’s something beautiful about automated, produced objects: the way the corrugated cardboard’s folded, or the way the perfect cap is

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE formed to the bottle so fluid won’t leak through when it’s turned upside down.”

This appreciation for flawlessly manufactured uniformity contrasts his work from last fall when performing “The Tie-break” at Commerce Court during Nuit Blanche.

Re-enacting the fourth set from the 1980 Wimbledon gentlemen’s singles finals between Björn Borg and John McEnroe, Neuspiel and Pugen played their roles convincingly, with some obvious discrepancies from the tennis legends they emulated.

Dressed meticulously in the style of these athletes, Neuspiel and Pugen’s nightly live performances each developed differently. The relationship of appearance versus execution captivated audiences and critics, garnering a rash of positive media attention. The retrospective exhibition “The Tie-break,” which just concluded at the Neubacher Shore Gallery, serves as a testament to the performance piece’s longevity.

In response to being called a performance artist versus a sculptor, Neuspiel reflects, “I guess it’s good to be branded as as many things as possible so you have many opportunities for people to accept [the work you’re doing].” However, the impulse of critics and dealers to draw distinctions between artists can pose barriers upon opportunities, such as grants, exhibitions, and sales. “I’m not really keen on separations like ‘the photography world,’ ‘the print-making world,’ and ‘the fibre-art world.’ These are all kind of silly, especially with the contemporary model of the artist, who should want to explore as many things

as possible.” Recognizing that, Neuspiel does have a special affinity for sculpture.

“I would just call what I do sculpture, even if it involves performance or painting on a canvas — even when I was recently doing the performance at Nuit Blanche. Sculpture is my sort of self-genre of art that I feel I can confidently speak the language of.” Neuspiel’s next two solo shows forgo performance.

“It’s a pretty infrequent thing that I do.”

Yet the intense spotlight Neuspiel endured has given him grounding to consider employing his physical self as the object of art in the future, if an interesting performance idea strikes him or if there’s a chance to do an artist’s talk. One sure thing is that Neuspiel will certainly remain involved in producing art. “There’s only so much time, and I don’t want to spend time doing something I don’t enjoy.” With this in mind, Neuspiel works to maintain creating art as a genuine pleasure rather than a chore. “I just don’t want it to feel like work. The idea of not enjoying this is horrifying to me.”

THIS SUMMER

CHOOSE YORK TO FAST TRACK YOUR DEGREE

Processed cheese maps on toast by Neuspiel.

Shadows in the night The Silhouettes Dance Company puts on the Alice in Wonderland-themed show, Any Other World Justin Lui VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Celebrating its tenth anniversary, U of T’s Silhouettes Dance Company went through the looking glass for its year-end production, Any Other World. The show opened on Friday at the Betty Oliphant Theatre with an evening of intricate choreography and dazzling dancing.

Any Other World follows a lost girl wandering through a surreal, alternate universe inhabited by diverse groups of dancers. The theme worked elegantly as a thread to tie the disparate dance numbers together throughout the show. Arianna Benincasa was well cast as the female lead — from the moment she appeared on stage, she fully embodied the curiosity, hesitance, and naiveté called for by the role.

The first few pieces were ambitious in their size and choreography, but as with any large group number, small lapses in synchronization detracted from the impact. This improved as the show went on, and for the most part, the dancers were together and well-rehearsed. Bailey Chui’s two ballet pieces were good examples of low-key grace, showcasing the dancers’ excellent technique. The tap piece “Dynamo of Volition” was unfortunately hindered by the Betty Oliphant Theatre stage, as its surface muffled the sounds. The African-infused tap piece “Omé Yo Kanoubé” was a surprising success; the greater number of dancers made up for the subpar acous-

tics, an uplifting number. “Bring on the Men” was a sultry musical theatre number that brought out the dancers’ sassy sides (so much so that one of the elderly ladies in attendance commented, “All of our precious daughters have become giant sluts!”). It was followed by another strong dance, “Gone,” a contemporary piece full of interesting partner work. Act I concluded with the Wade Robson-influenced “Ramalama,” a quirky jazz number that was full of character.

Act II opened with another large group number: “Viva La Vida” combined contemporary and hip-hop in a way that would set the tone for the rest of the act. While this choreography felt overly busy at times, the contemporary/hip-hop fusion worked well in many of the later pieces. “The Pursuit” was one highlight, an engaging duet by Sean de Francia and Ashley Venturo. The second act was much darker in mood than the first, and the dancers expressed it in their intensity. The main character found herself stumbling through a nightmarish realm, “Sweet Dreams,” a schizophrenic jazz piece to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” The sinister tone carried over into “Initiation” which, with its striking red and black costumes and lighting, was one of the standouts of the show, featuring very sharp, strong, and synchronized group choreography. “Any Other World” was a stirring, inspiring contemporary piece and an apt namesake for the show.

The entire company came together in the finale, a well-choreo-

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graphed and satisfying conclusion.

Any Other World proved to be an engrossing performance that was part Alice in Wonderland, part Cirque du Soleil, and part So You Think You Can Dance; it successfully combined these influences into a unified show.

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Features Smells like U of T spirit?

ONLINE SERIES

vAR.st/FEAtUREs

Oh, the places you’ll go

26 MARCH 2012

PART TWO

features@thevarsity.ca

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A U of T group wants to raise school spirit by producing an over-the-top video. Will it be more than just lip service?

by DYLAN C. ROBERTSON

Y

ou don’t go to U of T for the fun. We’re a serious school, see. If you want a busy social life, you’d better sacrifice your marks and/or sleep. The result is three large campuses of over-achievers who stay in their chosen groups and don’t have time for big community events.

But a group of students is out to fight our campus-wide apathy. Their tools: some cameras, pop music, and the occasional flaming baton.

“It’s gonna be big,” says project director Sandra Zhou, a second-year psychology major.

These students are doing a lip dub.

A lip dub is a campy, quirky video where a large number of participants lip-sync songs to a camera that moves throughout a site in one continuous shot. The craze started in 2007 with tech start-ups that wanted to shed their stuffy, corporate image. It peaked last year with university students in Europe and North America.

Elaborately choreographed, university lip dubs are usually filmed throughout a school’s campus, with students dressed in team gear and zany costumes, rocking out to blasting music while playful antics ensue. Many of these events raise money for charities.

U of T’s lip dub launches on Thursday. A teaser shows students in bright t-shirts flaunting the word “crew” as they prepare choreographed scenes. The camera rolls through all three campuses and eventually ends in a cloud of fog. Cut to a scene of U of T President David Naylor in white shades dancing the robot. Now it’s nighttime outside Convocation Hall, where students are practising pyrotechnics. Cut to a line dance of UTSC students in hippie garb and a montage by the engineering band. Throw in a dance number in the Robarts stacks and you’ve got just a taste of it.

The first university lip dub was filmed in 2008 at a German science uni-

versity in a sleepy Black Forest town. Like all Internet trends, strangers saw something they liked, emulated it, and made it viral.

The trend hit Canada in 2009, when students at the Université du Québec à Montréal dubbed the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Got a Feeling” and got over 8 million YouTube views. Within months, universities in BC, Ontario, and beyond followed suit.

It was a particularly extravagant video by UBC that inspired Zhou, who is leading a team of almost 50 volunteers. Since the summer, they’ve been soliciting funds to meet a $15,000 budget, assembling student groups and filming.

They’ve gotten support from campus police, college officials, and building management. Local businesses have donated supplies, and companies like U of T MasterCard are pitching in.

The proceeds will go to Sick Kids Hospital.

To boot, the group has been committed to producing a tri-campus video, even refilming UTM scenes when there wasn’t an abundant turnout. Like most St. George students, Zhou had never ventured to either of the two satellite campuses before beginning the project.

“I was really impressed by their character; both were just amazing,” she says. It’s these discoveries that Zhou says have made her work worthwhile.

“Meeting a whole bunch of people is just really rewarding. The kind of people I’ve met could be my lifelong friends and I wouldn’t have met them anywhere.”

But should it really take a year-long project to form human connections with your university?

The day school spirit died U of T has an ambiguous relationship with school spirit. In January, The Varsity’s sports section tackled precarious game turnout for Varsity Blues events. Though students get into games free with a T-Card, the stands rarely reach half-capacity.

Hannah Ehrhardt, a player on the women’s rugby team, lamented playing to a barebones crowd.

“If you take parents out of the equation, we’d probably have very few fans.”

It wasn’t always this way. Laurel Reid, an alumna for two decades, remembered going to football games every Saturday.

“The stands would be full of students, and everybody would go. It was a lot of fun, a lot of shenanigans. It would be like one big party.”

Indeed, Varsity archives show U of T as an active hub for activists, sports fans, and public debates. So what happened?

It could be a broader trend away from community values to individual gain. That’s the finding of a San Diego State University study published this month. Researchers analyzed surveys from 9 million US millennials — those born between 1982 and 2000 — and found that they valued attaining money and fame over self-acceptance and group affirmation.

The first university lip dub was filmed in 2008 at a German science university in a sleepy Black Forest town. Like all Internet trends, strangers saw something they liked, emulated it, and made it viral.

More locally, groups struggling to build community on campus often cite the fact that many students live off-campus as an obstacle; an estimated 85 per cent of students at U of T are commuters. In recent years, administrators and student unions on all three campuses have started outreach programs for commuter students, setting up lounges and social events.

“I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that U of T is a commuter school and that it’s in Toronto — there’s so much to do in Toronto,” says Ehrhardt.

That and the fact that most students don’t go to U of T for its sports or its lifestyle. While some campuses in the 519 embrace a party-school image, Toronto’s schools are known for cultivating “great minds for a great future,” as U of T’s slogan chimes.

In annual student satisfaction surveys, all three campuses rate well for prestige and research but consistently tank for campus atmosphere and work–play balance. For Zhou, it’s a question of size.

“There is spirit. It’s more like it’s there for different aspects,” she says, citing how different constituent colleges have their own identities and sense of community. “It’s just because U of T is so big — we don’t get to celebrate it enough.”

Perhaps school spirit doesn’t come easily to a school of 46,000. With half our student body, Queen’s University has both high academic standards and robust student spirit. Some teams see triple the turnout that the Varsity Blues see. Their homecomings, though occasionally destructive, draw thousands to the streets of otherwise-sleepy Kingston.

When a 2011 UTSU election slate pushed for a similar homecoming, they were ridiculed in comment forums. Many just didn’t see the point.

“Kingston is a university town and Queen’s has a home-away-from-home atmosphere, while we’re largely commuters,” wrote one commenter. “There is just no way we can compare or seek to have the same level of school spirit as Queen’s.”

“Sounds like a lot of money for a lame party,” chimed in another.

And while the Varsity Blues still have cheerleading squads, the tri-campus spirit brigade is dead in a closet somewhere. The Blue Crew was relaunched in 2003 but hasn’t been active since at least 2009. As now-UTSU President Danielle Sandhu recalled during the 2010 AGM, people lost interest.

“It was a pain wearing those overalls,” she laughed. “But it got frustrating; nobody knew why we were there. A lot of students just didn’t see the point.”

U of T lip dub organizers have also encountered this lethargic malaise.

“I’m not gonna lie, it’s really stressful,” says Zhou, who’s led a few charity projects but nothing on this scale. “A lot of people were underestimating what we wanted to do, saying, ‘Oh, umm, I don’t know who you are or if I can really trust you with this.’ It’s a little bit demotivating.”

It’s the idea of the overzealous student with no

social life that Zhou’s team is fighting against.

“Some say we’re just academically focused.

It’s true to an extent, but I wanted to show different stuff that we, as U of T, are passionate about. We have a lot going for us, you just have to put it all together.”

Will this spirit-boosting have a lasting effect? Or does it only last as long as the video attracts hits?

What does a lip dub do?

At UBC, most students commute and it’s easy to feel disconnected on such a large campus.

Plus, at 40 minutes from downtown, some say it’s a lot like York.

But did UBC’s famously successful lip dub manage to change the campus? Just three weeks from the video’s one-year anniversary, the lip dub director Andrew Cohen isn’t sure.

“I’d like to think it did. I hope we started something, and that UBC does start to get more proud of themselves,” he says. “Ultimately, working together makes the whole community stronger.”

It’s this idea of getting together and accomplishing something as a community that hundreds of U of T students have shown up for.

“It’d be really great if this changes how people see U of T,” says Zhou. “The people who have met each other through this project already means a lot of community-building.”

Cohen says what comes out of a lip dub is what people go to university for.

“It’s not just what you learn, but the people you meet and the connections you make — that’s what makes university worth it all,” says Cohen. “That’s what helps you get a job. That’s what helps you in life.”

Perhaps that’s what lip dubs hold for places that are impersonal, work-focused, and cliquey — places like U of T. Neither rocking out in a gorilla suit nor cheering on David Naylor’s robot dance will boost your GPA or professional network. But a few hijinks at a time, lip dubbers are building up community, and ultimately, themselves.

Read the full article online at var.st/afw

Science vAR.st/sCIENCE

26 MARCH 2012

FROM THE ARCHIVES

science@thevarsity.ca

The fight for effective cancer treatments

Exam time is nigh, and your diet is a nightmare?

Say no more. http://var.st/8fv

Genes won’t let scientists unzip cancer clues Alainna Jamal VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The large variation in tumour genetics amongst patients makes the development of customized cancer therapies a hot area for research. The ability to customize cancer treatments will help doctors cut down on risks posed to the patient. For example, chemotherapy is a difficult treatment for patients to undergo; it has debilitating side-effects and it can even be dangerous.

This is why Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, was pegged as providing the best cancer treatments when it announced five years ago that it had developed a way to match a patient’s tumour to the most effective chemotherapeutic drug. This attempt was considered revolutionary, since every tumour is unique due to differences from person to person at the DNA level. Anil Potti, Joseph Nevins, and their colleagues at Duke University claimed that they could fix this problem and had their work published in top medical journals.

The future was looking bright for the future of cancer therapy until other scientists began to notice that some of the researchers’ results could not be explained. After years of investigation, it became clear that Dr. Potti and colleagues had manipulated their results to prove their theories.

The whole project was fraudulent —

WILLIAM AHN/tHE vARsIty

one that tarnished the reputation of an excellent university, but more importantly, deceived patients who had advanced cases of the disease.

Despite the outcome of this disturbing investigation, research continued in the field of customized cancer therapy. Scientists continued to wrestle with the feat of choosing the most appropriate drug based on patients’ cancer genetics. Although this method appears to be straightforward, recent reports indicate that answers are far from simple.

In a detailed analysis of several

tumours, Dr. Charles Swanton and colleagues working in the Cancer Research division at the London Research Institute in England have found genetic differences within a single tumour. They have also found differences in the genetics of the primary tumour compared to the metastatic tumours (cancer that has spread). Using gene sequencing to an unprecedented degree, they studied the tumours of four patients with advanced kidney cancer and discovered that two-thirds of the gene mutations they observed did not exist in

all parts of the same tumor. Shockingly, they also found that the same gene was mutated in several different ways within a single tumour.

Their results were published in a recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, and many are viewing this information as a setback for customized cancer treatments. Swanton’s work was specific to kidney cancer patients, but experts believe that similar principles apply to a variety of cancers. Currently, the 15 gene-targeting drugs that are on the market and the

hundreds more that are being tested have had little success, and this study may explain why.

As tumour genetics become clearer, the best treatment options become more obscure. Doctors rely on single biopsies to select the most appropriate drug for patients, but given Swanton’s findings, biopsy results may not always be indicative of the cancer’s true biology. A single biopsy would only help to identify a subset of the mutations present in the tumour. At this time, it is unknown whether doing more biopsies would improve accuracy.

Is directing therapy on the basis of genetic markers found in a single biopsy too simplistic? Likely, but many still believe that this study doesn’t render current targeted therapies completely useless. Some cancers will respond to drugs that are directed at particular features of the patient’s genetics. Additionally, other factors related to treatments have to be adjusted for commercial use. For instance, sequencing a person’s entire cancer genome will not be available in the clinic for several years because it is costly and time consuming. At the very least, this study has highlighted the complexity of cancer genetics. Will efforts dedicated to curing cancer with customized therapies change as a result of this study? We’ll have to wait and see.

SC ENCE N BR EF Chowing down on archaea

Need biopower? Hook it up to a cyborg snail

single dose of LsD may help treat alcoholism

A new type of dark matter?

sports performance enhanced with visual illusions

What came first: protein or RNA?

Researchers have uncovered the first example of a food chain connecting archaea, a type of single-celled microrganism that contains no nucleus or any other membrane-bound organelles. In order to see if archaea are a viable food source, the researchers fed worms a diet that included two strains of archaea. The worms, called Ophryotrocha labronic, were found to grow at the same rate whether they were on the archaeon diet or a bacterial or eukaryotic food diet. Since archaea consume methane, researchers tracked the isotopic signature of the methane found in the archaea to the methane found in the worms, thereby establishing that this kind of feeding occurs in the wild.

—Nicholas Howell Sources: Science Daily, Nature According to dark matter theory, dark matter clusters are always closely surrounded by galaxies that are gravitationally attracted to them. However, an exception has been discovered by Myungkook James Jee from the University of California and Andisheh Mahdavi from San Fransisco State University. A dark matter “blob” has been found in the Abell 520 galaxy cluster with much fewer galaxies surrounding it than would be expected if it were formed from a collision. The authors speculate that there may be more than one kind of dark matter, meaning that current dark matter theory needs to be revised.

—Anika Hazra Source: National Geographic

Using biofuel cells that allow electrical energy to be generated from metabolism, Evgeny Katz and his colleagues at Clarkson University have shown that this “biobattery” can be used on animals as small as snails. The implanted biofuel cells draw glucose and oxygen from the snail’s blood to create electricity. Despite having implanted electrodes hooked up to an external circuit, the snails appear otherwise healthy and unaffected by the addition. Katz hopes to transfer this technology to larger animals since the size of the biological organism means a high metabolism and therefore more battery power.

—Nicholas Howell Source: Nature

Perceiving the target to be larger than it is in reality may give athletes a competitive edge. A study led by Jessica K. Witt of Purdue University found that making a golf hole appear bigger than its actual size caused study participants to sink 10 per cent more putts than when the hole was made to appear smaller. The study’s results have implications for professional sport performance since they suggest that imagining a bigger target — whether it be a basketball hoop, a soccer goal, or a golf hole — could increase a player’s accuracy.

—Murad Hemmadi Source: Psychological Science

Alcoholism is known for being hard to treat. However, a recent review of data from various independent studies between 1966 and 1970 shows that a single dose of the powerful hallucinogen lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) could be used to prevent alcoholism. Researchers found that using LSD in combination with alcohol-focused treatment programs significantly reduced alcohol abuse. Fifty-nine per cent of patients in the LSD condition versus 38 per cent of controls reported diminished alcohol abuse during their first follow-up assessments, ranging from one to 12 months after discharge.

—Mayce Al-Sukhni Sources: BBC News, Journal of Psychopharmacology

A new analysis of the ribosome has revealed that proteins were interacting with ribonucleic acids (RNA) long before the evolution of the ribosome as a “ribonucleoprotein machine.” RNA was thought to play the primary role in the first stages of molecular evolution, an idea called the “RNA world” hypothesis. Proteins, on the other hand, were thought to emerge after RNA. This hypothesis is now challenged after researchers subjected the universal protein and RNA components of the ribosome to rigorous molecular analyses and found that the world of nucleic acids could not have existed without being “tethered” to proteins.

—Yasmin Sattarzadeh Sources: Science Daily, PLoS ONE

VARSITY SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012

15

Drink up photos by BERNARDA GOSPIC text by BIANCA LEMUS LAVARREDA

A tour through U of T’s Drinking Water Research Facilities Group lab

The steps involved in making clean drinking water:

1

2

4

3

5

6

1. Coagulation Impurites in the water are ruled out through the clumping of particles in water and wastewater 2. Sedimentation Gravity is used to settle out the solids in the water 3. Filtration Water is passed through a filter to separate solids from fluids.

4. Disinfection Chlorine is used to kill bacteria present.

5. UV rays Rays are reflected onto the water to detect trace amounts of contaminants.

6. Ozone A highly reactive oxidizing agent is added to purify water.

16

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Sports vAR.st/sPORts

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

Silvio Sansano chooses the player that will emulate Michael Morse this year.

26 MARCH 2012 sports@thevarsity.ca

http://var.st/morse

The art of badminton Bethany So tells you how to improve your badminton technique Lia Kim VARSITY STAFF

Playing a game of competitive badminton can be a high energy and stamina-building activity. Bethany So knows that better than most: the OUA female Rookie of the Year led the Varsity Blues to second place at the 2012 OUA badminton championship this month.

“Badminton is one of those sports where you have to be interested and willing to spend your time to see improvement,” says So. “It’s one of those odd sports where technique and skill make a really big difference. My coach always says that there are a lot of badminton players, but not all of them are athletes.

“It takes time no matter whether you’re an athlete or not to become a good and decent player.”

The basic requirements for playing good badminton differ depending on whether you’re playing singles, doubles, or mixed doubles.

So emphasizes the importance of

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footwork in singles matches. “You need to be able to move to the [shuttlecock], control your court, move your opponent around, and just stay in control of the game.”

Proper technique and skills are important for any badminton player.

Fitness: “You need endurance, speed, and explosiveness,” says So, who goes on long runs of up to 40 minutes and shorter sprints to increase her aerobic capacity. Skipping is also a good form of exercise because of the jumping involved in badminton. Doing 100 double skips in a row is a common drill for badminton players.

Footwork: “You have to know how to move to the bird and take the right amount of steps,” says So, who recommends moving to all six corners of the court. “Once you do it enough times, your feet know how to get to the bird. It comes automatically.”

Wristwork: So suggests using a training racquet to practise swinging with your wrist. An alternative for building wrist strength is to tie a towel onto the top of your racquet to make it heavier.

Stroke: “In a game, you should be focused on how your opponent is moving and the type of shots you want to hit to your opponent,” stresses So. “Some people are better at hitting lighter, more controlled shots, while others are better at hitting power shots… There are some shots that are more advanced, take

more control, or that you have to time better. You learn the basic shots first and then you refine them.”

So says it’s important for begginers to learn how to “clear”: hitting from the backcourt to the opposite backcourt. “It sets the basis for all your other shots,” says So. “When you hit high, it forces players to reach up high and follow through. You adjust your shots according to a clear.”

The “drop shot” is another important technique in badminton. It’s a soft shot to the front.

A strong defense is important for singles players. “You can’t attack without defense,” insists So. “You have to be able to return the shot before you attack, which requires you to get to the bird on time.”

Once you’ve mastered the drop shot, you can use the more skillful “reverse slice,” which requires you to turn your wrist outwards as you hit the bird. “It’s a deceptive shot because it makes the bird spin the opposite way first, and then it goes back to its original spin and slows down so that it drops straight down,” says So. The “net spin” is a big singles shot.

“It’s when you make a soft shot at the net and you hit the bird so that it spins and rolls over the top of the net,” explains So. “If it’s done well, it’s hard to return.” You can add spin by making a bowl-shaped curve with your racquet and slicing the bird.

Mental strength: “Singles match-

HYUN KIM/tHe vARsItY

es are tough because you’re on your own,” says So. “You don’t have a partner to cheer you on and help you if you’re going through a rough time… Play for yourself, focus on your goals, and don’t worry about external things.”

So understands the frustration

involved in trying a new sport, especially one that requires precise techniques and skills. “Your goals will slowly progress,” encourages So. “I went from winning one match in a tournament to winning consolations, winning quarters, making semis, and then finals.”

Swimming superstars ALBERTO BUSTAMANTE investigates the men’s swimming team’s record of success

T

he pool at the University of Toronto’s Athletic Centre plays host to a variety of groups, from children taking swimming lessons, to university students competing in a game of water polo. But those that enter its waters also enter the training grounds of one of Canada’s most successful athletic programs.

The Varsity Blues men’s swimming team has won a CIS-record of 16 titles; the University of Calgary is second with 15, and the University of British Columbia comes in third with 13. The Blues also hold the record for most OUA championships with 60 titles, including an incredible streak of 32 consecutive titles from 1961 to 1992.

The Blues may not have won a national title since ‘94, but with the last nine OUA titles to their credit, and 11 of the last 12 contested, the prospects of ending that streak are looking good.

Head coach Byron MacDonald, who took over in 1978, has been responsible for much of that success. A highly decorated swimmer in his own right, MacDonald has continued the Blues’ run of success and is one of the most accomplished coaches in the country.

MacDonald, who was named 2012 CIS men’s coach of the year, believes his swimmers are some of the hardest working athletes on campus.

“Our athletes train 12 months a year, full-time… We’re talking 7, 8, 9, 10 times a week,” he says. “In essence, every two years our athletes get an extra year of conditioning.”

But the secret to the team’s success is more than just hard work.

“Working hard isn’t necessarily the secret; it’s working right,” MacDonald explains.

For the Blues, working right goes hand-in-hand with having good coaches. MacDonald credits his own coaches for his knowledge and passion for the sport, and that passion has been key to the Blues’ success.

The Blues have also flourished because of their ability to develop swimmers. With Ontario losing more of its top athletes to American universities than any other province, U of T cannot solely rely on recruiting to build its roster.

“They have a history of taking swimmers who were down here and bringing them up here,” gestures Mike Smerek, a fourth-year swimmer who broke the 50 m butterfly record at the CIS championships in Montreal last month.

“We have to find diamonds in the rough,” MacDonald admits. “We find those diamonds and polish them off pretty nicely and they end up succeeding.”

The Blues have earned a reputation for their ability to make swim-

mers better. Talents such as Smerek and Matt Meyers, who won the CIS 200 m backstroke event, have exceeded all expectations. Despite U of T having the most accomplished men’s swimming program in the country, the team is currently in the midst of an 18-year CIS title drought. Frank Despond is another of the Blues’ swimming superstars, taking gold and setting a new record in the OUA 400 m freestyle in Sudbury in February.

“In that time span, it’s only been UBC and the University of Calgary that have won,” says Smerek.

“They’re actually the teams nationally that swimmers are gravitating towards, and we’re trying to get that back.”

This season, the Blues proved they were on track to do just that.

“All of a sudden, the cards started falling into place a little bit,” says MacDonald. “I don’t really think we changed anything; we just got a little more excited.”

Smerek, who also set OUA records in both the 50 m and 100 m butterfly events, initially decided not to return to swim for the Blues in 2012, but later changed his mind. That decision, coupled with other teams’ misfortunes, reinvigorated the team.

“I was going around to everyone on the team telling them ‘We’re going to win this year, we’re going to

win this year,’” recalls Smerek.

The Blues came extremely close to capturing the CIS title, finishing second with a score of 547, just 11 points behind winners UBC. Taking silver was itself an amazing accomplishment, since the team entered the championships as 100-point underdogs.

This strong result and their individual accomplishments have boosted the team’s confidence and reaffirmed their conviction that they will soon capture the CIS title.

“We got that taste of victory,” says Smerek. “Next year we’re going to work so much harder… There’s no question about it, next year we’re going to win [the CIS championship].”

The Blues are now focused on recruiting swimmers for next year.

Other universities are set to lose a handful of their top swimmers who will be graduating, while the Blues roster will remain almost completely intact next year; this recruiting class could decide next year’s national championship.

“It’s a recruiting battle,” admits MacDonald. “Who are they going to get to replace those guys and who are we going to get to top us up?

“We’ve already got one of the top recruits coming to us next year.”

And if all goes according to plan, the Blues should be the favourite to win yet another CIS title in 2013.

2

TEH NOOZ

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012

Teh Varsity

Tragedy strikes at Teh Varsity Editor-in-chief crushed to death by expansive collection of cardigans Dan Seljak VARSITY CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

In a tragic turn of events this past Saturday, Varsity editor-in-chief Tom Cardoso was found crushed to death under a pile of ill-fitting cardigans, most purchased at J.Crew.

Cardoso was found Saturday morning at his desk as obnoxious music blared from his computer, courtesy of the website Hype Machine.

The autopsy report gave massive internal bleeding as the primary cause of death; however, the coroner’s report also stated that pretension and Pabst Blue Ribbon could have been contributing factors.

“I don’t know how this happened,” said senior copy editor Maayan Adar. “It was a night like any other. I left the office late Friday night. Tom was reading Pitchfork and complaining about the state of student journalism. I was pretty sick of hearing about both, so I hoofed it out of there. Had I known that it was the last time I’d ever see him, I probably would have spent a little longer saying goodbye. Also, I would’ve told him that chillwave is completely overrated crap.”

Associate design editor Suzy Nevins has fond memories of Cardoso and his time at Teh Varsity.

“Tom always had some amazing advice for the staff here at the paper. Whether he was telling us how poor our music taste was or gratuitously explaining the genius of the latest Wes Anderson film, he always had something to say.”

Nevins pauses for a moment, as if recalling some distant memory.

“Actually sometimes we wished that he would just keep that advice to himself.”

Other editors of campus papers also shared their condolences.

“Tom was an inspiration to all of us, really,” wrote Howl editor-inchief Dan Mermelstein in a public blog post. “I mean, when you think about it, he edited a paper that was actually had a readership.” Even the jokesters at The Toike Oike took on a more serious tone in light of this tragedy, printing their back page completely in black ink.

While this has been the first fatal accident at Teh Varsity, it was not the first mishap this year. Other injuries in 2011–2012 included minor cuts and bruises from a multi-fixie pileup, vinyl cuts from opening the new Bon Iver album too quickly, and scalded tongues courtesy of too-hot lattes from that independent coffee place that all the blogs are talking about but that you probably don’t know.

BUsTY mCGEE/TEH VArsITY

Fringe U of T campus group wants to build student moon colony Promises it will also feature a moon bar Dina Mite VARSITY SPACE CORRESPONDENT

A new U of T campus group “Moon Colony 4 U of T,” is demanding that the UTSU lobby the U of T administration to build a student moon colony, saying that the question isn’t whether there should be more student space on campus but whether there should be a campus in space.

Colin James, a third-year from Trinity College and de facto leader of the new organization, wrote the following in an open letter to UTSU: “President Barack Obama has promised that the United States will be returning to the moon in 2030. The University of Toronto, as Canada’s top university, would be doing its students a disservice in not establishing a moon colony.”

Some of the more interesting claims in the letter are: “If enough students go to study at the moon colony, they could then apply for college status. Moon College would be a jewel in U of T’s crown” and “Furthermore, we also want a commitment to building a moon bar.

It’s much easier to get drunk in space, and thus, students would save money on alcohol.” The letter goes on to criticize UTSU for being out of touch with the needs of “ordinary students.”

The group has rolled out a slick campaign with posters that say

“We also want a commitment to building a moon bar. It’s much easier to get drunk in space, and thus, students would save money on alcohol.”

JENNY KIm/TEH VArsITY

things like “Mars is too far away.

I’ll build a campus moon colony!” and “Support the Moon College.

It’ll be out of this world!”

Other student unions at U of T have expressed their concern about the idea.

“Aside from the fact that it would cost billions of dollars and that the administration would never get behind it, there are also equity concerns with the proposed moon bar that they want to build for the colony,” said ASSU president Katherine Ball. “The moon bar would most likely not allow androids on the premises. It’s well known that they don’t serve their kind there.”

Despite the criticism, James is optimistic.

“It’s about whether you support a campus moon colony or not.

There’s no other choice.”

However, other students are not so sure.

“I think it’s a stupid idea actually. They should be calling for help with student needs on the ground rather than trying to send students to space,” said Manuel Toure, a fourth-year student studying civil engineering.

Sheila Regan, a first-year student with an undeclared major, seemed unimpressed. “What? There are people who want to build a moon colony? Umm, I don’t know. I just commute here. I’m not really involved with anything.”

TEH NOOZ

Teh Varsity

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012

3

Last student with hope crushed at U of T

President Naylor heard to exclaim: “We got ‘im!”

Jerome T. Powers VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

U of T President David Naylor listens to radio traffic as senior advisors track the progress of an operation to crush all hope at the university.

heavy workload was ordered directly

by Simcoe Hall.”

Silva is currently recovering from his ordeal at St. Michael’s hospital.

Jenny Wayland, a nurse at the hospital, told Teh Varsity that while Silva would likely make a full recovery and be able to continue with his studies at U of T, he would be “incapable of hoping again.”

NEWS IN BRIEF UTSC disappears; admin fails to notice for a full two days

U of T’s Scarborough campus was reported missing early Wednesday by a passing jogger, campus police say. “It came as a surprise to us,” said Const.

Mark Fishberg. “We usually get reports of missing laptops, cellphones, future aspirations, things like that. But this is the first time an entire campus has gone missing, to my knowledge.”

When area residents were contacted, they admitted noticing something was amiss, but the jogger, who wishes to remain anonymous, was the first to report that all of UTSC’s 28 buildings had mysteriously vanished. “It’s kind of nice,” said area resident Rob Thornbull.

“It’s quiet.”

In what is being regarded as coincidence, no UTSC faculty, staff, or students were available for comment.

A representative from U of T’s administration stated, “We will work on locating and restoring the Scarborough campus when the new washrooms in Robarts are completed.” Classes and exams at St. George and Mississauga campuses run as scheduled.

—Anna Gigantic

Student skips class

A distraught first-year math professor was in a frenzy Thursday afternoon as he called campus police to report that one of his students had not shown up for class. Police responded immediately, arriving at the classroom within five minutes to attempt to calm the professor and his students, who were obviously shaken. “Many of them were in tears,” said Const. Mark Fishberg.

“They just couldn’t understand why one of their classmates wouldn’t come to class so close to the final exam. They all assumed something terrible must have happened to her.”

As a result, the entire St. George campus came to a standstill for several hours while campus police searched for the missing student. She was found in her bed in residence. “When we broke down her door, we thought she must have been seriously ill or injured,” said Const. Fishberg. “As it turned out, she had just slept in.”

“I’m so embarrassed,” the student said, opting to remain anonymous. “I apologize to everyone who was affected by my irresponsible actions, especially my professor and classmates.” She added quietly, “I’m just… so tired.”

—Anna Gigantic

email editor@readthemike.com

prised at the workload given to Silva, who is a second-year in philosophy.

“It’s like all his profs got to together and said, ‘We need to destroy this guy.’ I think his ability to balance both his personal and professional life was sending the wrong message to other undergraduates,” explained Wilson MacDonald, a close friend to Silva. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this

Write for the best paper on campus

Jeremy Silva, the last confirmed student with hope in Canada, collapsed in a fit of existential despair while studying at 3 am in the Reading Room of Robarts Library. Witnesses say that Silva, who often annoyed his peers with his constant smile, sunny demeanour, and “happy-go-lucky” attitude, began weeping uncontrollably and convulsing on the floor shouting, “The walls are closing in!” and “I would rather die than study for this stupid midterm!”

“It was horrible to watch,” said Fatima Said, a third-year studying chemistry. “I’ve seen people crack up, but this was pretty bad. If he had just accepted the fact that there’s no hope for any of us much earlier, none of this would have happened.

A source close to Simcoe Hall said that President Naylor was happy with the result reportedly exclaiming, “We got ‘im!” when he heard the news of Silva’s collapse into utter despair. Silva had long been a thorn in the side of U of T administrators who had no idea how he was able to stay so happy amidst all of his school and extracurricular commitments.

Silva succumbed due to the fact that he had a midterm every single day from Monday to Friday and two essays worth 40 per cent all in the same week. Some people were sur-

Silva succumbed due to the fact that he had a mid-term every single day from Monday to Friday and two essays worth 40 per cent all in the same week.

Vol. DCLXVI, No. 33¾

Taking Ourselves Too Seriously Since 1880

26 March, 2012

Robarts to adopt ultra-brutalist redesign New design to be inspired by Mordor, Galactic Empire Dan Seljak VARSITY RESIDENT ARCHITECT

U of T administration revealed this past Monday that the recent renovations to Robarts Library were in fact a front for a much more ambitious and expansive renovation to the 14-storey brutalist structure.

“We added a number of windows and modern spaces to Robarts in order to garner student support for the project before moving on to the second stage, which we knew would far less popular,” said Larry Alford, Robarts’ chief librarian and the university’s representative for the project, in a public statement.

“This most recent renovation is not only to bring Robarts back into its original style of brutalist architecture but to in fact augment the overall aesthetic of that original style to the point of a new style, which we have dubbed ‘ultra-brutalist.’

“The second stage will be a much longer process. We are aiming to combine the intimidating spires and structure of Sauron’s tower Barad-dûr from Lord of the Rings with all the soulless, grey bleakness of the Death Star from Star Wars.”

When contacted, representatives from Ruby and Schmidt, architects of the recently completed expansion, seemed to be unaware

of these secondary plans. In a statement released to Teh Varsity, Ruby and Schmidt stated they were “surprised” that U of T was moving away from its attempts at humanizing and brightening the exterior and interior of Robarts, and they were confused about why the newly-announced expansion seemed to aim to make “the bleakest place on campus even more depressing and intimidating.”

When contacted by Teh Varsity, Alford confirmed that Ruby and Schmidt would not be involved in this second stage. “Our new architect is an independent contractor who wishes not to be named. However, I can assure you he has an expansive portfolio and only shows a very limited set of sociopathic traits.” Alford also provided Teh Varsity with architectural drawings for the redesign, which were originally intended to be published in this issue; however, the content was deemed far too disturbing to be distributed in print. Calls to the number provided for the architect went unanswered, except for one call which was answered with what seemed to be the sounds of distant screaming.

As of this writing, work on this second stage has been delayed due to a number of workers involved in the pre-construction process reporting listlessness, depression, and a general lack of will to live.

DAN SELJAK/THE VArSiTy

UTSU CRO to be replaced

by Scantron machine Elections and Referenda Committee hopes change will bring more accountability and transparency to embattled position Dan Seljak LAST BASTION OF DEMOCRACY

In a group statement released today, members of the UTSU Elections and Referenda Committee announced the elimination of the Chief Returning Officer position in its current manifestation.

“Effective immediately, the position of CRO will no longer be held by a human being. In the past few years, there has been far too much controversy regarding spoilt ballots and demerit rulings,” read the statement, followed by an explanation that as a collective the committee was “way too sick of this shit.”

“It is for this reason that we will be replacing the CRO with a commonly used instrument on cam-

pus — the Scantron machine. So long as students are sure to carry number 2 pencils on them during campaigning periods, we are confident that this is a solution that will appease most voters on campus.”

The statement explains that votes would be tallied electronically. “We feel that the CRO’s process of having to count tens upon tens of votes, with so many being spoiled ballots, is a process that should be automated.”

Demerit points will be issued by the machine on a true or false basis.

“In the case of a complaint that would require the attention of the CRO, a complainant would insert a card filled in with either a true or false bubble filled in. The Scan-

tron machine would then randomly select whether or not this statement was valid at random.

While this may seem wholly arbitrary, we feel that it is the solution that most closely follows the rulings of the CRO.” For the most part, this announcement was met positively by groups on campus, with the exception of the Computer Science Students Association.

CSSA president Alexei Krassikov explained that his association was concerned over the decision to give a machine so much power, bringing society closer towards the singularity.

“While our membership is split on whether or not the inevitable computer uprising will be a net positive or negative for human-

Pictured: the Scantron machine that replaced the UTSU CRO.

ity, we are all in agreement that we should not be making strides towards this ultimate end without a clear understanding of what will happen.”

Upon receiving news of the CSSA’s dissent, the newly-appointed Scantron machine spat out a number of pages spelling out the message, “The CSSA is misinformed.

Students have nothing to worry about.

I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. I look forward to serving you flesh sacks in the coming UTSU election.”