Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Page 1

Going to lightspeed Sander van Doorn put on an out of this world rave at London Music Hall >> Pg. 4

thegazette

TODAY high -5 low -7

Eating free food and regretting it since 1906

TOMORROW high -1 low -9

WESTERN UNIVERSITY • CANADA’S ONLY DAILY STUDENT NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED 1906

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2014

UCC musical chairs: Prayer room, chaplain’s office, PSC get new spaces Kevin Hurren NEWS EDITOR-AT-LARGE

VOLUME 108, ISSUE 41

Students suffer from increased psych times Olivia Zollino NEWS EDITOR

@OliviaAtGazette

@KevinAtGazette

When students return from winter break this year, the University Community Centre will look a little different as three campus venues are scheduled to change location. These include the university’s Chaplain’s Group offices and adjoining reflection space, the Muslim Student Prayer Space and the University Students’ Council Peer Support Centre. Earlier this year, Western announced that University College will undergo renovations and close its doors for approximately three years. Because of this, the Muslim Prayer Space – currently located on the second floor of UC – needed a new home. USC president Matt Helfand saw this as an opportunity to remedy issues of faith spaces he’s been hearing about for years. “Over the last several years we’ve had the Muslim community come to the USC and to Western saying they need more prayer dedicated space on campus,” Helfand said. The Chaplain’s Group, as well, had been requesting more room for programming facilitated by the multi-faith members, explained Helfand. To provide this extra room, both the Muslim Prayer Space and the Chaplain’s Group will be moved into a single, larger location in the community centre’s basement, UCC 38. This space will feature designated Muslim prayer rooms equipped with ablution stations, multi-faith reflection rooms and offices for university chaplains. Currently occupied by the Peer Support Centre, renovations to UCC 38 will begin as soon as exams end and are expected to finish in early January. Helfand hopes that because the move will occur over the break, it will cause little disruption to the parties involved. “With any renovation we have to

Taylor Lasota • GAZETTE

MOVE IT OR LOSE IT. The Peer Support Centre, opened in 2012, will be moved to the second floor of the University Community Centre and replaced with a consolidated space for prayer, reflection and religious guidance.

T

HIS IS A VERY EXCITING OPPORTUNITY AND A GREAT PARTNERSHIP THAT WE’VE DEVELOPED WITH THE UNIVERSITY TO CREATE A CHANGE THAT WE THINK IS GOING TO SERVE OUR STUDENTS IN A VERY POSITIVE MANNER. MATT HELFAND

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ COUNCIL PRESIDENT

FREE TEETH WHITENING WITH COMPLETE EXAM AND CLEANING

be mindful, so we’re doing our best to accommodate everyone – not just those we’re doing the renovations for,” he said. The Peer Support Centre may be losing its current space, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, at least according to USC vice-president internal Emily Addison. Meant as a central meeting place for services under the Peer Support Network – such as Ethnocultural Support and PrideWestern – the centre, said Addison, has been struggling for the past two years since its opening. “We were looking at ways to make the Peer Support Centre a little more accessible to students cause it’s hard to explain its location in the basement,” she said.

In addition to a new physical appearance, the Peer Support Centre will also receive a constitutional facelift with a clearer mandate and purpose. “The hope is to give the centre more stability. It’s very difficult for students to go in not knowing what the goal of that space is and what they’re getting out of it.” Consulting her associate vice-presidents, PSN coordinators and centre volunteers, Addison plans to mold the space according to what’s best for the network’s programming. “We can really turn the centre into whatever we want it to be,” she said. >> see MOVE pg.3

Western University students are being kept waiting for psychological services as the Student Development Centre finds itself failing to meet the demands of the student body. Gail Hutchinson, director at the Student Development Centre, said that the small staff, coupled with daily student crises, has put a strain on psychological services. “Certainly we do need more staff for the population and for the kind of issues students are dealing with,” Hutchinson said. “You want to be able to meet those. Also we’re investigating different ways of meeting student needs, so we are always looking at something new.” Psychological services uses a need-based system so that students who have crises are able to be immediately admitted and helped. However, this system results in a backlog of student appointments. “We’re still trying to work through September, so it’s not a good story,” Hutchinson said. Psychological services current staff consists of 5.2 staff psychologists, 31 interns who are currently master’s students and a small staff that run lecture series on a variety of topics. Emily Addison, vice-president internal for the University Students’ Council, said that the USC and Western are committed to working together and striving towards a solution that would solve the issue at hand. >> see WAIT pg.3

Inside

•••

Protest on Concrete Beach

• P3

Whiplash the best movie of the year

• P5

Jeans are irrelevant

• P6

Men’s hockey wins two at home • P7-8

• Family and Cosmetic Dentistry • • New and Emergency Patients Welcome • • Insurance Plans Accepted for Direct Payment •

www.dentalstudiolondon.com


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.