March Issue 2015 by The Watch

THE DAY STUDENT DIVIDE

GOING THE DISTANCE FOR ON-CAMPUS INCLUSION

the watch

March 2015

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

SECURITY CHANGES

BILL C-279

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IN THIS ISSUE

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watcheditors@gmail.com TWITTER @kingswatch

VOL. 32 NO. 5 MARCH 2015 watchmagazine.ca

Editor’s Note

We still don’t have our full levy, even though it passed...

Around Town

Watch editor, Nick, shows off his favourite places to go in Halifax. You may judge him...

Security Changes

Northeastern is gone and Source Security is in.

Op-Ed: How one day student really feels

Sophie Allen-Barron on the day student divide

The effects of Bill C-279

Get the lastest details on the act that affects gender identity

Doctor’s Notes

Are they that necessary?

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EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Nick Holland Grace Kennedy

ONLINE EDITORS

Sophie Allen-Barron Dina Lobo

PUBLISHER

Rachel Ward

TREASURER

John Sandham

COPY EDITOR Keili Bartlett

CONTRIBUTORS

Haleigh Atwood Colleen Earle Rebecca Hussman Michelle Pressé

PUBLISHING BOARD

Michelle Johnstone Adrian Lee Ocean-Leigh Peters Haritha Popuri James Pottie Emily Rendell-Watson Fred Vallance-Jones

Save Money

Do your laundry in the tub

Need a Job?

Turns out looking online doesn’t actually help

Who’s In Charge Next Year?

The faces of next year’s KSU executives.

Be green. Share and recycle this issue.

But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people not be warned: if the sword comes, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at watchman’s hand. -Ezekiel 33:6 We welcome your feedback on each issue. Letters to the editors should be signed. We reserve the right to edit all submissions. The Watch is owned and operated by the students of the University of King’s College.

EDITOR’S NOTE

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What

a month.

It’s been a crazy ride for us the past few weeks - not that it hasn’t been fun - and once you’re holding this issue in your hands its time to settle down to our last issue of the year. We worked long and hard to bring you these issues - longer and harder than most times, since our computers decided they no longer wanted to cooperate together. We managed to get through it though, and hopefully you’ll appreciate the result of our extra hours in the office. We recieved the first quarter of our levy while our last issue was at the presses. This was great news: it brought our bank balance up to $5,661.31, which was enough to print our last two issues and pay our superlatively wonderful contributors. We haven’t recieved the rest of our levy, however, and are currently working to get that from the KSU. (We’ll give you more details online - by the time this editor’s note gets to print, a million things will have changed. Trust us, that’s what happened last time.) Most of what’s been occupying our time and brains, however, is the Atlantic Regional Canadian University Press conference (also known as ARCUP so it can be said in one breath). In January, we were given the chance to host this year’s conference for all the student newspapers in Atlantic Canada from March 20 to 22. We’ve been busy setting up speakers from around Halifax - journalists in the field and in our school - and organizing the nitty gritty details of inviting 50 people to our tiny school.

long rewriting this editorial that we almost gave up and did a full-page spread of us undetaking a keg stand. But we decided ultimately that wasn’t appropriate. We wanted to give you indepth details on our levy, on our upcoming election (March 27 at 4:30pm!), on all the crazy things that happen behind the scenes here in our tiny little office with the handpainted chalkboards. But quite honestly, by the time it was written, it would have been too late. Old news. Out of date. Bo-ring. So we won’t. Instead, we’ll let you know what’s what in the online world. Watch out for Facebook, Twitter and our website. We’ll divulge all the levy secrets when it looks like everything will remain stable for a couple days. Until then, we remain your eternally harried and super stressed out editors. - Nick and Grace

P.S.

This is approximately what our keg stand would look like. Fittingly the colours of the person acting out the keg stand is orange and black, just like The Watch logo.

We’re excited to see how it will turn out, and we want as many of our contributors to be able to come as possible! Not because we want to show off our handiwork - which admittedly we are quite proud of - but because this will be a great opportunity for you to meet and network with great journalists from all around Atlantic Canada. We have workshops on mobile video, on the art of live-tweeting, on what employers are looking for in young journalists, on creatively marketing your paper, and the list goes on. It’s a great opportunity to learn and connect. Okay, that was probably a bit too self-promotional. And we’re sorry.

Photo by: Wikiphoto

Our brains, under the usual stresses of the Watch and school, have turned to slightly jelled bowls of tapioca. We’ve spent so

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OUTSIDE KING’S

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Photo by: Nick Holland

EDITORS’ FAVOURITE PLACES AROUND TOWN THE DOME Yes, go ahead and judge me. I don’t care. If there’s one nightclub in Halifax I love going to, it’s The Dome. Every time I go out dancing with my friends we always, somehow, end our night there. After all, Dome is home. And I know... I don’t fit in at King’s. Obladee How’s this for contrast? Downhill and upscale from the Dome, Obladee is the place to kick back with glass of white and pretend you’re one of those sitcom twenty-somethings who can somehow afford happy hour four times a week. The bill might bring you back down to earth. That said, the candlelight is great for Instagram. 4 | the watch

European Food Shop R. Kelly taught us that the show is followed by the after party, and then, obviously, the hotel lobby. I’d say he’s missing a step: drunk food. And I can’t think of a better drunk food than chicken shawarma. You can find it on pizza corner – but with shawarma, poutine and froyo nearby, it’s really time for a new name. Seaport Market If I’m going to haul myself across the bridge — oh yeah, I’m from Dartmouth — then the trip had better be worth my while. Crepes and a coffee while overlooking the harbour? Definitely makes the list. Extra points for the peoplewatching.

SECURITY CHANGES

By: Haleigh Atwood

Photo by: Kris Krüg - Flickr.com/kk

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aven’t recognized the familiar faces of Northeastern Security around campus in a while? There’s a good reason: they’ve been replaced. In December, Northeastern Protection Services was given the boot and facilities hired Source Security & Investigations. Campus security has been under constant flux since May when Northeastern became King’s first security service since 2009. From the outside, Patrol and Northeastern seemed to be working seamlessly. Gerald Wilson, manager and former director of facilities, said, “there were a couple of small issues that we couldn’t seem to resolve (with Northeastern).” These “small issues” supposedly do not include the disheveled man Elizabeth Whitten found sleeping in Angel’s Roost on Nov. 4. In an article Whitten published on King’s UNews.ca, she describes being in her room with friends when she smelled what she thought must have been garbage left in the hall. Whitten was shocked to find a man huddled on the floor of the emergency stairwell. She believes he was simply trying to find shelter from a frigid Halifax night. The man was suspected to have accessed the stairwell through its entrance on the ground floor of the A&A, but the door is only made to open from the inside.

Without any signs of forced entry, Wilson believes it must have been propped open either to let the man in or was simply propped and forgotten about. Wilson said it would have been a problem if facilities thought Northeastern didn’t do their tour of the stairwell that evening. “But that isn’t the case,” he said. “Someone can sneak in between checks, and no one can help that.” Stephanie Cooper of Source Security is now the site supervisor at King’s. After moving into an empty office in December, she said she had to start from “scratch” to establish a reliable security team. “I picked seasoned workers,” Cooper said. “No one told us why Northeastern was removed.” However, after hesitating to enter the A&A elevator and continue her shift, Cooper said she doesn’t understand why King’s needs outside security. “Usually, if security is brought in, it’s because something happened.” Wilson stands by his belief that Northeastern was just not the right fit for King’s. End of story. He says the firm was hired on a term basis, and facilities was free to move on to another company at any time if things weren’t “working out”. Source Security has been employed under the same understanding. “If we had problems tomorrow, we’re not in a contract where we have to keep them on,” Wilsonsaid. |w

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OPINIONS & OP-EDS

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THE DAY STUDENT <---> DIVIDE

By: Sophie Allen-Barron Photo: Flickr.com/Transformer18

hear other people reminisce about their time at King’s – okay, mostly first year – and it sounds like the stuff in brochures. Specifically, the idea of a close-knit community, where conversation flows effortlessly from tutorial to dining hall. Students perching in window sills, resting their copy of Dante’s Inferno on their laps as they gaze out at the quad. Processing down to Prince Hall with floormates, robes swishing. I bought the dream and socked those images away, using them as a balm for my fears of leaving high school, and joyfully reciting them at family gatherings. I could save money by living at home, study something I loved and be part of a hashtag: community. What’s not to love? And then September rolled around. Frosh week was a mixed bag. Shoutout to the attempts at integrating the day students – the frosh van was a great help, the Day Students’ Society repped us from the get go and every interaction I had with res students and staff was nothing but positive. There was, though, the night when cold weather put the kibosh on a quad campout, and my day student friends and I walked home with our sleeping bags wrapped around our shoulders, while everyone else retreated into residence for more bonding time. Even with days full of activities, there were entire periods of togetherness I just didn’t feel I had access to. And once that week was over, it felt like every week was another step farther away as residence students formed closer groups. A few things about me: I live on peninsular Halifax. My commute to King’s is 25 minutes on foot, and it takes me about the same amount of time to bus (if only because I show up to the stop much too early, just in case.) I’m extremely bad at meeting new people. I started at King’s with quite a few friends from high school, and only became closer to them as a result. I know day students with a much, much longer commute than mine who wove themselves in seamlessly with the residence community. It can be done! But it remains that day students have to work at something that not only comes naturally, but is unavoidable for a lot of residence students. My first year experience wasn’t some bleak Little Matchstick Girl scenario, with me standing in the pouring rain, one hand pressed to the window as my classmates socialized by candlelight inside. I made a group of great friends in other day students, and I’m grateful for the connections I made through tutorial and my involvement in the Dance Collective. I may not have experienced Sodexo, but I got to have lunch with my grandparents most days of the week. While residence students congregated in common rooms

for all night paper writing sessions, my cat kept me company through some endless nights. Oh yeah, and I saved almost ten thousand dollars. So why bring it up now, especially when I’m getting ready to start my final year at King’s, and after so many of my classmates have moved off campus and become day students themselves? For one, at this year’s election speeches, I noticed the common plan for engaging day students was to keep us informed. But when you have to travel half an hour or more just to get to campus, all the notice in the world may not be enough to get you out the door. Theme nights at the Wardroom are great, but with fewer buses the later it gets, the trek isn’t always worth the hassle to get home. I can appreciate the struggle to time events. As a student body, our commute to campus can range from seconds to

“When you have to travel half an

hour or more just to get to campus, all the notice in the world may not be enough to get you out the door.” hours. Some of us work, some don’t. Evening classes, day classes, extracurriculars: all throw a wrench in even the most inclusive plans. Just know that for those of us with farther to go, not attending doesn’t mean we don’t know what’s happening, or don’t want to stop by. Second, I feel the divide I felt in first year to this day. I can’t walk into the Wardy by myself and have a connection with half the room. We never chatted over the salad bar, did Secret Santa with our floor, or studied at 4 a.m. in the Manning Room together. I feel like having missed the formative experience of residence puts me at a disadvantage. We talk a lot about community at King’s, and rightfully so. That’s what drew me to a small school like ours, and all the pockets I’ve encountered have been tightly woven and supportive. But when we’re talking about community, let’s remember the communities. I’m not suggesting we give up on day students, or encourage the divide. I only suggest that we remember life outside the fishbowl, and the different ways to find common ground on the quad. |w

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The lastest updates on Bill C-279

By: Rebecca Hussman

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n Canada, trans individuals seem to be exempt from the privileges that other citizens are granted by the Charter and federal Human Rights Act. In light of this, NDP MP Randall Garrison introduced a federal trans rights bill, also known as the Gender Identity Bill to the Canadian Senate. Much to the country’s human rights activists’ chagrin, however, Bill C-279 has yet to pass. Statistics Canada does not have any information gathered that is specific to Canada’s trans population, but according to Trans Pride Canada, “The suicide rate in trans populations is staggering.” A recent survey reports that 43 per cent of trans people surveyed have attempted suicide at one point in their lives, and “19 per cent of young trans people have attempted suicide... in the past 12 months.”

According to Trans Equality Canada “74 per cent of transgender youth (across Canada) reported experiencing verbal harassment in school, and 37 per cent reported experiencing physical violence.

Bill C-279 that gathered more than 60 participants. “While trans people in Nova Scotia do have certain protections under the law, as per the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act, the same cannot be said about many of the other provinces and territories,” said Caitlin Meiklejohn, one of the presidents of King’s PRIDE. If it were to pass, Bill C-279 would “add gender identity as protected grounds under the Canadian Human Rights Act and as a basis for hate crimes protection under the Criminal Code.” Two weeks after the campaign, on Feb. 26, the bill was amended by Conservative Senator Don Plett, for reasons that have been cited by critics in and out of Parliament as “trans-phobic” and “discriminatory.” Plett’s amendments targeted one of the most fundamental and contentious social issues trans people must deal with on a daily basis: access to gendered public facilities such as bathrooms and changing rooms.

“(It’s as if) they believe trans women are actually men pretending to be women in order to prey on female children in washrooms. ” Transgender individuals in Ontario face unemployment over three times the national rate and many more are underemployed.” Simply existing as a trans-identified person challenges those who are holding onto traditional worldviews in which gender is perceived as something that is non-fluid and strictly binary. In other words, simply by virtue of their presence, they challenge the indoctrinated notion that one’s gender expression must coincide with the sexual anatomy one is born with. This challenge can have devastating consequences for trans individuals; if perceived as a danger to society, they become hyper-vulnerable targets for hate crimes and violence. “Trans lives are important, are in danger, and need protection from violence and discrimination,” said Pat McCutcheon, a trans King’s student involved with the King’s College PRIDE (People Recognizing Individual Diversity and Equality) society. On Feb. 11, McCutcheon and the presidents of King’s PRIDE launched a letter-writing campaign in support of

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“The amendment exempts sex-segregated federally owned public property such as prisons, transition houses, public washrooms, armed forces property, etc. So the bill would not apply to those spaces,” said Madison Foster, a trans women on the board of directors at Dalhousie’s South House Sexual and Gender Resource Centre. “It literally includes active discrimination in an anti-discrimination bill.” Since the bill was first introduced in 2013, Plett has been against its terms. He has been outspoken with his rationale: it would be putting women and girls at risk if trans women were allowed access to facilities meant only for women whose gender identity matches their sex organs. “King’s PRIDE, as an organization, condemns the amendment,” said Jessica Durling, who is a dedicated trans activist and the other president of King’s PRIDE. “We are saddened to see a bill that was supposed to save lives and

This is word cloud was compiled from the text of Bill C-279. The size of each word corresponds with the frequency of that word’s use in the bill. help transgender people, become something to discriminate and segregate them in relation to crisis facilities, washrooms, changing rooms, correctional facilities and other gendered federal facilities.” “Personally, I’m disgusted by Senator Donald Plett’s decision to compare us to pedophiles, just for how we’re born,” Durling said. Based on his amendments, Plett is “prepared to let us be assaulted, raped and killed. I’m appalled by his edits to the bill, which promote the segregation of and violence against trans people.” “There’s a lot of gross propaganda saying that trans women are predators and will abuse young girls in washrooms,” McCutcheon said. “(It’s as if) they believe trans women are actually men pretending to women in order to prey on female children in washrooms.”

If Bill C-279 passed, a trans person who was discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity would be able to file a federal human rights complaint. In addition, having gender identity categories in the Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code would make it illegal to “publicly incite hatred based on gender identity,” and make it so those who are guilty of discriminating against trans people receive “additional time added to their sentence due to their discriminating on the grounds of gender identity,” according to McCutcheon. Foster said that when it comes to trans rights in Nova Scotia, the province is “really far behind” and if Bill C-279 were to pass, it would at least be a good first step to get the ball rolling for province’s like Nova Scotia who are in need

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DO I H O N E S T L Y NEED A DOCTOR’S NOTE?....... oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

By: Colleen Earle

Most of the time when you’re sick with the flu or the cold, the best thing to do is stay home. There are many reasons for this. If you rest early, you won’t get more sick. By going out in public, you expose others to your illness and I’m 100 per cent not down with that. But most of the time people don’t see this as an option because they “can’t miss any time,” or “don’t want to see a doctor,” and I believe that at least part of this is because of the doctor’s note. As institutions seem unable to believe their employees or students are sick without documented proof, the wait times in emergency rooms – which I have spent a fair amount of time in this year – and walk in clinics becomes so long that they are almost unuseful, and a place where only the seriously ill feel they can go for treatment. Many doctors also charge for doctor’s notes now, in an attempt to dissuade people from getting them.

Photo by: Grace Kennedy

ecently I have been quite ill. Luckily, I have very understanding professors who want me to be healthy and succeed. This good will, however, does not excuse them from requiring something with which I morally disagree with: a doctor’s note. We’ve flown the coop and no longer have mothers to write notes to our teachers, saying “My kid was throwing up, so I kept them home today.” In their stead, employers and professors require us to bring in notes from doctors to prove we’re sick. Perhaps it’s my Kantian leanings – I can’t understand why someone would say they’re sick to get out of something, since lying is against the categorical imperative – but I’m not sure why people can’t believe us. When you say things like “I had a really high fever for two days because I had the flu,” or “I was throwing up all day, so I couldn’t come to class,” or “I have asthma and couldn’t breathe yesterday, so I stayed home and slept so it wouldn’t get worse,” it would be nice to be believed. At King’s we talk a lot about self care insofar as it’s important to take care of our mental health. But why do we never talk about the physical side of things?

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After I recovered from my most recent illness, I went to see my general practitioner. I discussed this issue with her because I thought it was important to have more than the ramblings of someone who is generally upset at almost everything. She also dislikes this practice and was only willing to write me a note – which I failed to get while in emergency, because I was more focused on being able to breathe then on getting a note to excuse my absences – because I had made the appointment for another reason and I was really sick when I missed time. She also added that she doesn’t want to see people when they’re vomiting either, because she doesn’t want to risk catching what they have. Having someone who is sick like that in her waiting room is bad for her practice, and it probably would have been better for the patient to stay home and rest instead of coming in for a note. To summarize, I understand why doctor notes are necessary, but I think the practice needs to be seriously rethought. When you’re ill, you’re not thinking about getting a note to excuse your absences, or at least you shouldn’t be; you should be focusing on getting better. When you have the flu and go and see a doctor for a note, you’re putting dozens of people at risk. Doctor’s notes put extra strain on our sick, our doctors and our medical facilities, and none of this benefits anyone except for the person who needed proof to believe you. |w

WHY ONE STUDENT WASHED HIS CLOTHES IN THE TUB By: Michelle Pressé

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ith increasing tuition fees, it’s no secret a university education comes at a high price. For international students, the costs are even higher. Xiang Li, a student in the one-year Bachelor of Journalism program, is spending nearly $30,000 to study at King’s. Both the cost of the program and moving from China has forced Li to be creative when it comes to saving money. Instead of using the laundry machines on campus, for example, he spends his time scrubbing and wringing out his clothes – including his socks. “It costs money and once I want to save money, I have to wash it by myself,” says Li. “It’s very inconvenient, but I have to do that.” For most people, hand washing is reserved for delicates, but for Li, it’s his end of the day routine.

Photos by: Michelle Pressé

“No one really wants to wash their jeans by hand. I mean, it’s kind of a handful, but I have to,” says Li. While he admits $1.25 per load isn’t expensive, he says it adds up over time and he would rather spend time than money. At King’s, it costs $3.50 to wash and dry one load of laundry. If a student does one load of laundry each week, between September and April they would spend about $85. While this may not seem like a lot, for someone paying international student fees, every penny counts. Li also says it’s common in China to hand wash everything, including bed sheets, which he hangs in his closet to dry. He says drying his sheets takes days, causing some uncomfortable sleeps. But to him, if it costs nothing, it’s worth it. One of his floormates, Takaichi Kogata, is also an international student. He says the custom is not shared between their home countries. “I hate to say this, but if you do this in Japan, you will be bullied, I’m sure,” laughs Kogata. After dealing with playful jokes from his other floormates, Kogata’s statement doesn’t cause Li to hesitate with a comeback.

Despite finding it odd, Kogata applauds Li’s innovative way of saving money and admires the culture difference. “If it’s a Chinese culture, I respect that,” says Kogata. “I’m very impressed with that. Marvelous.” |w

Li has recently moved off campus and into a home with free laundry service.

“That’s why I didn’t go to Japan to study. At least Canadians are generous enough to let me do my laundry by myself. It’s a free country.”

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NEED A JOB? STOP SURFING AND START WALKING By: Leah Hansen | The Eyeopener

Photo by: Farnia Fekri / The Eyeopener o o o o o o o TORONTO (CUP) — When Parth Patel was in his first

few years of the engineering program, he found getting a summer job to be quite challenging. “I applied to more than 60 or 70 jobs,” he said. “I [was] trying to find work (in engineering), but I wasn’t able to.” The frustration of finding a summer job is something many students have experienced before, especially since the 2008 economic crisis when markets around the world crashed. Searching through thousands of job listings online, perfecting your resumé and sending it out can take hours. But if you’re hoping to score that ideal job, going back to the basics is the way to go, said Daniel Kennedy, a career consultant at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management careers and employment partnerships centre in Toronto.

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“If you go into (the websites) Monster or Workopolis and you type in ‘summer jobs’ you’re going to find job postings,” he said. “The problem is there are about four million other students across Canada who are going to find those same job postings.” It often comes down to doing some old-fashioned scouting on the ground, Kennedy said, adding that proactively approaching employers can make a bigger impression than simply sending a resumé by email. “What students should do if they really want to make a go of it is to look for companies that don’t have the capacity to advertise for those summer jobs,” he said. “If you can identify, and find those companies and approach them proactively, that will give you a much better chance.” Because finding a job can be so difficult in urban centres and university towns, many students decide to go back to

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their hometowns for the summer, where the competition is less fierce and jobs are easier to come by. Laura Hamel, a Ryerson first-year performance acting student said the cost of living in Toronto has helped determine her choice.

“

I’m from Regina so I’ll be moving home to find a job,” she said. “It’s a lot cheaper to live at home and I have a solid job at home.

”

The summer job market comes down to basic supply and demand, Kennedy said. “On the supply side, you have basically a lot of students that are looking for jobs during the summer months and that’s fine as long as the demand’s there,” he said. “The demand really hasn’t been there since 2008.” Brennan Thompson, undergraduate program director at Ryerson’s school of economics says that the recession of 2008 has brought everyone down a notch when it comes to the job market.

“The guy who was working at the auto assembly plant loses his job and now he’s taking the low paid job at Tim Horton’s,” he said. “Now the young person who used to have that job at Tim Horton’s (doesn’t) have anything.” Kennedy says the market is starting to bounce back. But compared to 10 years ago, finding a summer job is far more of a challenge. Even in a city as big as Toronto, competition can be fierce because there are so many students looking for temporary employment. According to Kennedy, even if the job you end up with isn’t at all related to your field, it’s still a good idea to include it on your resumé. Employers look at how your skills have evolved, even if the job you had was just bussing tables. The hard skills you gain might not be related to your future career, but the soft skills — like leadership skills, problem solving abilities and customer service experience — will come in handy. “No one is expecting you to graduate here and have four years of senior project management experience,” he said. “What they want to see is that there’s a progression.”

Atlantic Regional Canadian University Press Conference MARCH 20-22 Dinners Keynotes Pub Crawl Workshops Panels Location: University of King’s College Tickets: $40 for CUP members, $55 for non-CUP members For more information, or to volunteer, email watcheditors@gmail.com

WHO’S IN CHARGE NEXT YEAR?

Our new executive is voted in and learning the ropes before they take over mid-March. In case you forgot their names, faces, biography and a brief portion of their platform, we’ve got your synopsis. RESULTS Alex Bryant, president: 90 per cent Aidan McNally, fvp: 54 per cent Hannah Kaya, evp: 67 per cent Alex McVittie, slvp: 93 per cent Sofia Zaman, cvp: 50 per cent Taylor Saracuse, BOG: 30 per cent Zoë Brimacombe, BOG: 28 per cent

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ALEX BRYANT - PRESIDENT

Alex Bryant is a third year student with dual honours in Contemporary Studies and Philosophy. He started his career in the KSU in 2013-2014, when he was the Financial Vice President, and continued this year as the student life vice president. In his first year, Bryant was heavily involved in the KTS, although now his union duties prevent him from being involved in other societies. However, in his spare time he has been going to Blue Devils games and checking out various Haligonian cafes. What’s the greatest change you hope to implement as president? “Decentralizing power from the President and then ultimately from the executive. So trying to push a lot of the work that, say, the executive holds very close to their chest out to people that can also do the work. I’ve been trying to do this kind of thing as FVP with the Finance Committee, when we were in conversation about whether or not we should raise the union dues. So a lot of that involved – I would organize the meetings, I would help distribute tasks to people, but the people that were on Finance Committee were actually able to take on the work, because we know a lot of competent people. We have about 1100 competent people around here to do the kind of stuff that five hyper-stressed-out executive members do sometimes.”

AIDAN McNALLY - FVP

HANNAH KAYA - EVP

Aidan McNally is a second year student in biology and A first-year student, Hannah Kaya has an appreciation for all CSP. She served as one of the Board of Governors repreof the ridiculous existential esoteric authors that she’s read so sentatives this year and has been involved with the King’s far in FYP. An active member of the External Action CommitDance Collective. ““One of my top priorities is to represent tee this semester, she has also been involved with the Platypus students at the level of college administration with finances Society, Sustainability King’s and the Feminist Collective. Kaya and make sure their voices are heard. My second priority is walked in the People’s Climate March in New York this past to improve communication between societies and the union, autumn, and gleefully dances about advocating for female repand make sure the union is more accessible to students. My resentation in academia, sexual health, education and safety. third priority is to bring issues of “This fall there is going be a federal equity to the realm of finances. election…so my first focus will be We have a lot of discussion on about educating the student body. campus about equity issues, and For most students this will be their that just cannot be excluded in first election .... It can be easy to any part of the college, and I think feel overwhelmed, and this election Alex McVittie is a first year student from Toronto. This that’s really important to bring to is particular it is essential to have year at King’s she’s been involved with the Theatrical everything that I do.” “I think that a non-apathetic student body. StuSociety and the External Action Committee. “I really everyone benefits from hearing a dents deserve to be informed, and I want to try and develop (how) King’s is viewed, or how multiplicity of voices, and those will encourage students to look for I viewed it when I was in high school, was as an arts voices need to be brought into the the party that they feel best fulfills school. If you go to King’s you love doing theatre, and conversation.” their needs.” you love being involved in things

ALEX McVITTIE - SLVP

SOFIA ZAMAN - CVP

Sofia Zaman currently sits on council as First Year Rep. In her spare time, she listens to copious amounts of Kendrick Lamar and reads picture books about baby sloths. How will you encourage transparency between the administration, KSU and student body? “administration doesn’t seem to like when we get angry, write letters, vocalize our oft ignored opinions. Let’s keep doing that.” How will you encourage attendance at the General Meeting? “upping da status of council from da get go, so reelin in dem froshies thru vids of council members, social media blitz, snapchat, insta, myspace” What campaign run by the KSU and CFS are you excited to get behind? “Post secondary ed. is deemed a social equalizer, yet PoC r unable to $$. I began work on a diversity working group, and want 2 b able 2 continue w tht.” Give us your best pun on the word TWAK, JBK-style. “this email is for all dem insomniTWAKS out there!”

ZOË BRIMACOMBE - BOG

that aren’t necessarily sports, not that we don’t have sports students

since a lot of my friends are on sports teams, but it’s not promoted as heavily as I think the arts are at King’s .... I love making promotional videos, so making promotional videos for the teams would be really great, and good for the students to see who the athletes are, what they’re representing, and how their season is going.” “What I was thinking of doing was sending out a biweekly newsletter of things that people are doing, it would be on a nomination or a recommendation basis ... so people knew what other people are doing.”

TAYLOR SARACUSE - BOG

Taylor Saracuse will be a fifth year student next year, but he’s been following King’s campus politics for even longer. Saracuse believes communication and understanding is the key to increasing transparency between the student body and the board, and hopes his experience on campus can help make this a reality. “I think that there is a lot of misunderstanding on both sides, but I would hope that I have you know, the ability to start a healthy rapport with a lot of the people that sit on the board, ‘cause you gotta remember they’re humans too.” “Equally as important is doing bottom up action, which I think is rousing students to get the general King’s public involved with what is happening on the board. I think what I’d like to do is I’d like to get King’s faces, kind of into the boards peripheral vision, pretty much. What I mean by that is I have some actions that I’m not going to disclose in this interview, but that I would like to see happen that would coincide with board meetings.”

Zoë Brimacombe hasn’t even been around King’s for a year, but has already made an impact as the KSU’s Member at Large. She hopes to continue to build upon her first year on council by fighting for staff representation on the board, while continuing to push for more gender neutral spaces on campus. “I really think that board meetings should be open because its part of a transparent and accountable board. I was at the Town Hall recently and George Cooper was basically asked why aren’t board meetings being open, and he kind of said like, board members feel more comfortable talking when it’s not open, and that seems like if there are things that board members are uncomfortable talking about in front of their constituency groups, they shouldn’t be saying them, because they’re there to represent their constituency groups.”

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