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Volume 106, Issue 90
Ryerson slush crawl sparks campus outrage
Admin to research alternative schedules
Megan Devlin Gazette Staff It was a cold, snowy March day last week when half-naked Ryerson University engineering frosh-leader hopefuls crawled across the campus’ frozen pond to earn their “covies,” special coveralls worn by engineers. A video of the initiation event, which has allegedly been going on for the past seven years, was posted on YouTube. It shows the nearly naked students being herded across the pond by current frosh leaders, who yelled at students not crawling appropriately, bombarded them with snowballs and water guns and even slapped the behind of one crawling female student. Ryerson administration is outraged, calling the event an unacceptable form of hazing. “When I saw the video, I immediately thought ‘this is unacceptable behaviour.’ It doesn’t matter if it’s voluntary or optional—when there is a power imbalance and students are being told to crawl, or undertake other actions, it is demeaning,” Michael Forbes, media relations manager for Ryerson, said. “The University does not condone student conduct that demeans individuals in any way.” Rebecca Korolnek, a fourth-year engineering student at Queen’s University, a school known for its hazing practices, said initiation
Bill Wang Gazette
Alex Carmona News Editor
The horror of an overlapping exam schedule is something most students at Western are familiar with—and it appears the administration is finally ready to do something about it. In collaboration with the Student Caucus on Governance, Western administration is currently researching a number of potential revisions to both midterm and final examination policy in order to relieve student stress and overburdening. “In terms of finals, we’re looking toward a four-in-47-, five-in72-hour conflict schema. So if you had that number of exams in that amount of time, you would have to be accommodated, just like how you would for the current threein-23 rule,” Ali Damji, health sciences, medicine and dentistry senator, said. According to Damji, the reasoning behind the new system is
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to ensure the greatest chance of student success on exams, and to address the growing concern of stress-related mental health issues on campus. John Doerksen, vice-provost academic programs and students for Western, has done research as to how many additional conflicts would occur under the new system, and believes such a system can work. “The number of additional exam schedule conflicts that would arise with a new four-in-47 and five-in-72 policy seems manageable. For the April 2013 final exam period, for instance, such a policy would bring just over 50 additional schedule conflicts requiring make-up exams,” he stated. Janice Deakin, provost and vicepresident academic for Western, is also working with SCOG to determine the viability of getting rid of Sunday exams entirely. “They’re working very hard to get rid of Sunday exams within
the regular school year,” Caitlin Harvey, chair of SCOG, said. Damji explained the motivation behind targeting Sunday exams as a matter of accessibility for students. “This will allow for students who might need to work on the weekend. Also, bus schedules are just awful on the weekends. This will avoid the difficulties that exist with exams on those days,” he noted. Yet another potential change will see midterm exams throughout every faculty set under a formal three-in-23 conflict policy, similar to the current finals policy. “Dr. Deakin doesn’t like the idea of having unrestricted exams. Right now at Western, you can have an exam at any day at any time if it’s a midterm. So she really doesn’t like that,” Harvey said. While an official timeframe has not yet been set, it is expected at least some of these changes will occur over the summer, or early next year.
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rituals can have their place on campuses. “I think if done right—I wouldn’t call walking across a frozen pond and slush a good practice—they could give you a sense of community between your classmates,” Korolnek said. She stressed it was important to not make students feel pressured to do anything, and that rituals not be dangerous—characteristics she felt defined her own experience going through the Queen’s engineering frosh week program. Korolnek also expressed concern the bad press surrounding the Ryerson incident may cause other universities to scrutinize their own faculties’ rituals more closely. Ryerson administration hopes to never have such an incident again. “The University is meeting with the leadership of the Ryerson Engineering Student Society later today to discuss their event, and how we can work together to ensure incidents like these are never repeated,” Forbes said. Forbes also explained a student complaint brought the event to the administration’s attention, and that the event went unnoticed in previous years because no complaints were filed. The Ryerson Engineering Student Society, which organized the event, was unavailable for comment.
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Tuesday, March 26, 2013
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