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Ender’s Game rushes to its end Good acting can’t compensate for its too-quick plot pace >> pg. 4
thegazette In a drunken stupor since 1906
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2013
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CANADA’S ONLY DAILY STUDENT NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED 1906
VOLUME 107, ISSUE 33
Ontario Hall makes it official Ivey students analyze Western’s newest residence has grand opening
classroom garbage Hamza Tariq GAZETTE STAFF
Richard Raycraft GAZETTE
WELCOME TO ONTARIO PLACE. Western’s new 1,000 bed residence for incoming first year students, Ontario Hall, celebrated its grand opening yesterday with guests like Mayor Joe Fontana in attendance.
Richard Raycraft NEWS EDITOR The lobby of Western’s newest residence Ontario Hall was bustling yesterday, as administrators, students, faculty and city officials gathered for its grand opening. Speeches were delivered to those in attendance, emphasizing the importance of the new residence to Western — including one by London mayor Joe Fontana, as well as residence staff and students. “It’s an exciting building and an exciting day for all of us at Western,” said Susan Grindrod, associate vicepresident of housing and ancillary services. “We continue to guarantee residence to first year students, and this building will make sure that going into the future we will be able to do just that, as well as some upper year students who would like to come back into residence after first year.” Located on Sarnia Road on the west side of campus, Ontario Hall opened for the first time this year to students. The residence, which is still partly under construction, will eventually house around 1,000 students, which is especially important because Western guarantees a spot in residence to all first-year students. In addition to students, Ontario Hall also includes faculty suites for visiting faculty and fellows. “We’re hoping as time goes by
We continue to guarantee residence to first year students, and this building will make sure that going into the future we will be able to do just that. — Susan Grindrod
associate vice-president of housing and ancillary services
— depending on the faculty and what they’re doing here — that they’ll be able to do some interaction with the students, and it’s just a nice service to be able to offer to the university,” Grindrod continued. “We’re becoming more global and bringing in more visitors and it’s great to have a brand new facility to provide to them.” The residence offers a large dining room, a wellness centre, a media centre and a number of study spaces and lounges. Hashini Puwakgolle
Mudiyanselage, a first-year student from Sri Lanka currently living at Ontario Hall, spoke about her experience so far. “I’m loving it,” she said. “I went to a few other residences and comparatively this is one of the best.” Mudiyanselage explained that the facilities at the residence were an important part of her experience. “The facilities, like the music room and the dining room — I’m a foodie, so I love the dining room,” she said. Ontario Hall has a distinctive architecture when compared with other residences, featuring a mix of glass, brick and wood, giving it a sleek new look — not to mention a lot of natural light. Grindrod explained the importance of the warm feel of the residence to firstyear students. “I think it’s very important […] the transition to university is a hard one — it’s different coming to university even if you’re coming from a short distance away,” she said. “It’s what happens in these buildings that make [students’] experience.” “On our floor, just the way that we always come out in the halls and just talk and the lounges are amazing, we spend so much time there,” Mudiyanselage agreed. “Yes, it’s been very easy to make friends […] it’s a very first-year thing to do, introducing yourself to everybody, so it’s been easy to make friends,” she said.
Western students might need a reminder about recycling. A recent waste reduction challenge at the Ivey Business School found that 16 per cent of the garbage generated by an average classroom could have been recycled. The Ivey Sustainability Club, in coordination with Network for Business Sustainability at Ivey, Facilities Management, and Sustainability at Western, led the challenge, which sought to raise awareness of waste management among students. The challenge pitted eight groups of students against each other in the race for which group could reduce their waste output and make better waste allocation in the correct bins. “We have a whole new building but students don’t often appreciate the space because they always have somebody cleaning up after them,” said Ahsan Syed, president of the ISC. The first audit before the actual challenge revealed that on average over 16 per cent of the weight of any classroom’s garbage was improperly disposed recyclable material. The ISC executive team announced the results the next day and offered Ivey Cup points to the section that would have the most reduced recycling found in the garbage. “We wanted to create this challenge in a way of this competitive drive that the business students are so aware of and give them an incentive of actually thinking about this,” Syed said.
The second random audit the next week showed on average only nine per cent of the garbage was recyclable material, with an average 6.5 per cent improvement. This showed a potential 625 pounds of recyclable material being diverted from landfills. “I guess the overall message was for students to become aware of what can be recycled and the importance of putting recycling in recycling bags,” Syed commented. According to Syed, even though such challenges would be difficult to conduct campus-wide due to different schedules in most buildings, these results do raise awareness of the potential of recycling in classes and halls. He also proposed a potential composting program for the new Ivey building. The composting program is usually run by the university’s Hospitality Services and isn’t as wide-scale as recycling is around campus. “I know that there is definitely potential to move that [composting program] in Ivey, that will be our first step,” he said. “Letting students have separate bins where they can throw out their food waste, and then based on the success of that there is the possibility to include that all over Western, would be the overall ideal goal.” Syed said that the challenge led to a lot of questions about what’s recyclable on the ISC’s social media pages and stressed that students need to be made aware that paper coffee cups are not recyclable, as these are found in large quantities in recycling bins.
Logan Ly GAZETTE