The Queen's Journal, Volume 150, Issue 5

the Queen’s University

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journal

Vol. 150, Issue 5

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F r i d ay , S e p t e m b e r 9 , 2 0 2 2

Many Queen’s students do not have reliable access to a family doctor.

News Queen’s remembers the Queen page 4

Opinions Mental Health Services should be individualized page 8

Arts Exploring the significance of book covers pg 4

Sports Lighting strikes, but Gaels strike back pg 11

What’s your Medium?

See Arts on pg 9

queensjournal.ca

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Situated on the

traditional lands of

the Anishinaabe and

Haudenosaunee peoples.

Since 1873

ILLUSTRATION BY PHILIP PRANAJAYA

Kingston needs more family doctors, but where are they?

As Ontario battles a

service and fulfillment through the military.

A few months into basic training, Frost sustained an injury that would define the rest of his military career. The ligament connecting his kneecap to his shin became torn and strained. His knee grew inflamed, and the pain was agonizing.

The mindset of the military demands that recruits simply stick it out—so that’s what Frost did.

Throughout basic training, Frost participated in kilometers-long marches, heavy physical labour, and demanding obedience drills, all with a kneecap that had swollen to the size of a baseball. He took anti-inflammatory pills every night to manage the injury on his own.

While he was stationed at the 21 Electronic Warfare Regiment in Kingston, the military denied Frost the treatment an orthopedic surgeon prescribed him, saying they could only offer reconstructive surgery if his knee ligaments were completely severed.

For nearly a decade longer, Frost found ways to put up with his injuries, even as the strain of being a soldier took its toll on his body.

When he finally retired from the Armed Forces in 2020, he had spent 14 years in the military, and almost the entirety of his career battling multiple chronic injuries.

By the end, Frost said, the Armed Forces treated him like “a burden.”

The military tried to offer

him re-education and training opportunities to help reintegrate him into civilian society, but Frost believes their biggest oversight was letting him go without a reliable healthcare provider.

With his injuries, Frost’s mobility is extremely limited, and so too are his job prospects. Combined with the complex mental health issues he developed from his time in the Armed Forces, he’s severely in need of a family doctor to look after his medical needs.

A province and a city wrestling with a primary care provider shortage simply can’t provide that kind of care.

In a Sept. 6 press release, Kingston Police announced they wished to inform the public about a consumable “toy car gummy” which was seized during an arrest.

The arrest took place following a Sept. 4 hand-to-hand drug transaction which took place around Division Street and Pine Street.

Product was not tainted The Police arrested a 60-year-old individual for the act. cannabis, but actual fentanyl The Police said the toy car gummy looked identical to a Asbah Ahmad cannabis gummy.

Senior News Editor Instead, the gummy consisted of fentanyl, which could have Fentanyl is making its way to serious health effects—including the streets of Kingston, and the death—if consumed. local police want the public to The individual who was arrested be informed. was held in custody pending a bail

hearing and was later charged. The charges included possession of a schedule 1 substance, trafficking of said substance, and possession of proceeds from crime.

The Police urged the public to purchase and consume cannabis products from only licensed private sellers or government-operated online stores.

In a statement to The Journal, Kingston Police Cst. Anthony Colangeli emphasized that while drug enforcement strategies aren’t publicly released for the integrity of investigations, the trafficking of illicit fentanyl is of extreme importance.

“Queens students receive the same education and awareness in regards to the dangers of fentanyl

and other illicit drug consumption as the rest of the community,” Colangeli said.

“The ‘gummy’ seized was in fact fentanyl, not ‘tainted cannabis,’ nor was it packaged as or marketed as cannabis [...] It was seized from a fentanyl trafficker selling it as pure fentanyl.”

According to Colangeli, there’s no recent information or intelligence concerning the tainting of other types of drugs with fentanyl in the Kingston community.

“As a general caution, anyone purchasing recreational cannabis related products from any nongovernment regulated dispensary runs a greater risk of coming across potentially tainted products.”

primary care provider shortage, locals struggle to access the healthcare they need Anne Fu Features Editor In the late winter of 2007, Blair Frost made his way from his small coastal hometown of Yarmouth, N.S., to Kingston. Frost, who had enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces shortly after graduating high school, could not yet afford university tuition, but hoped for a life of

Fentanyl product seized in Kingston

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News

2 • queensjournal.ca

NEWS

Program offers workshops for young girls, trans and gender non-conforming youth of color Aimée Look Assistant News Editor

Queen’s students can help empower and educate Kingston youth on social justice issues by volunteering at Kingston-based Roots and Wings (R&W).

R&W offers programs and community for Kingston youth of colour between the ages of eight to 12 who identify as girls, trans, and gender non-conforming.

Many current volunteers at R&W are undergraduate and graduate students at Queen’s.

The organization encourages youth and volunteers to teach and share skills while striving to educate and invite the greater community to act.

“R&W’s primary goal is to support our youth, troupe leaders, curriculum development and fundraising teams to develop self-reliance, build solidarity networks, collaboration, and mutual aid,” R&W said

$120 million in funding awarded to national research facilities associated with Queen’s Sophia Coppolino Assistant News Editor Prior to the start of a new semester, two national research facilities associated with Queen’s received $120 million in funding from the Government of Canada through the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) Major Science Initiatives Fund (MSI).

In the announcement, François-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science, and industry, highlighted the importance of investing in Canada’s research infrastructure.

Receiving $102 million over six years is SNOLAB, an underground research facility that allowed Queen’s professor Dr. Arthur McDonald to win the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics.

Minister Champagne also announced a $19 million renewal of funding for the Canadian Cancer Trials Group Operations and Statistics Centre at Queen’s University (CCTG).

in an email statement to The Journal.

A part of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPRIG), R&W was inspired by the Radical Monarchs group of Oakland, California.

Founded by two mom-friends, R&W has grown since the winter of 2017, with the support of friends and community members.

The group of 12 youth currently meets bi-weekly to learn about social justice topics, explore their identities, interact with the community, and share skills.

Exploratory workshops cover a wide range of topics—from circus skills and tree identification to consent and body image—while working closely with local organizations.

“We prioritize group activities that involve workshops or field

Friday, 9 September, 2022

Youth and troupe leaders work collaboratively during workshops and meetings.

Roots and Wings empowers Kingston

trips in collaboration with other community organizations, allowing the youth and troupe leaders to connect with, and learn from, a diverse range of organizations,” R&W said.

At its core, R&W’s goal is to create a “radical community of care and love” through mentorship and the development of leadership skills. The group

participates in decolonizing and collective feminist praxis—applicable practices rooted in research. Their exploration is rooted in intersectionality and anti-racism.

The value of R&W’s work is in the program’s individual impact. When youth can name their experiences, they become

killing of a Black Indigenous woman in Toronto. “[R&W] has not only enabled our youth to name their experiences of oppression, discrimination, racism, ableism, it has empowered them to do something about it.”

University students can get involved with curriculum development, marketing, or workshop facilitating—either as volunteers or as a part of internships and practicums.

To partake in R&W as a volunteer, the organization encourages students to express interest via email and follow them on Instagram or Facebook.

Federal government recognizes two Queen’s research affiliates

for new experiments and support existing projects.

“The types of experiments that we house are primarily physics experiments, but it’s not only that: we also have some experiments going on in biology and life sciences,” SNOLAB Executive Director Jodi Cooley said in an interview with The Journal.

SNOLAB’s environment has unique experimental capabilities.

SNOLAB is a “clean room,” which Cooley said “has to do with what size particles and what type of particles are in the air.”

One of the many ongoing “We do trials of all types experiments at SNOLAB aims to of promising treatment, all detect dark matter—illuminous phases of trials, for all patients matter that Cooley describes as with cancer,” Dancey said. the “glue” binding the stars in our CCTG is currently participating galaxy together. in 172 active trials and has “This dark matter mystery has 150 researchers at Queen’s been around for 100 years,” Cooley leading close to a third of said. “This is fundamental research their projects. for increasing our knowledge.”

“From the portfolio of active Currently, there are trials, there were 22 of the four faculty, three adjunct phase three trials that were professors, seven research completed and were analyzed. staff, ten graduate students Of those 22, 13 were positive, and two undergraduate students from Queen’s involved with SNOLAB. “On the way to solving these very interesting and difficult problems, inevitably you end up inventing something new or coming up with ideas that turn into things that are commercially useful,” Cooley said.

CCTG: A world class network SNOLAB: A Canadian “gem” of clinical trials in cancer leading the way in Canadian research underground physics The Canadian Cancer Trials The SNOLAB is primarily Group (CCTG), headquartered a particle astrophysics lab located at the Queen’s Operational and two kilometres underground Statistical Centre, is “the biggest in an active mine in and most sophisticated clinical Sudbury, Ontario. trial unit in the country,” Director The funding will allow of CCTG Janet Dancey said in an SNOLAB to build infrastructure interview with The Journal.

empowered to oppose oppression, R&W said.

“Several youths, for example, have shared that they were able to talk about issues they were facing in more open ways with teachers and family members.”

R&W said, in May, one youth encouraged their classmates to place Black Lives Matter posters in the windows, in solidarity after the

SUPPLIED BY ROOTS AND WINGS

defining a new standard of [cancer] care. Of those, three were CCTG led trials, and the others (CCTG) contributed to,” Dancey said.

CCTG trials work towards reducing the burden of cancer and its treatment, personalizing treatment for individuals, and seeking biological characteristics that are unique predictors for specific cancers.

“We want to know [cancer patients’] thoughts, their

François-Philippe Champagne announced funding at Queen’s.

opinions about treatment, and their experience of that treatment. We are trying to incorporate more of the patient perspective,” Dancey added.

The biobank—created

by CCTG and based at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre—is the largest biobank of specimens from cancer patients on clinical trials in the country.

PHOTO BY CURTIS HEINZL

News

Friday, 9 September, 2022

Three start-up companies talk ground-breaking developments Skylar Soroka Assistant News Editor The Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre (DDQIC) held their annual summer pitch competition in the Mitchell Hall atrium on Aug. 18.

The DDQIC pitch competition provides opportunities for earlystage start-ups to win seed funding and gain access to the mentors and support DDQIC provides. Venture teams from across the world competed for a prize pool of $100,000.

Bruna Guarino Moraes, program coordinator, told The Journal the competition was hosted in-person for the first time in two years. Viewers could watch the event online via live-stream, sponsored by the City of Kingston.

This year marks DDQIC’s 10-year anniversary. Moraes said the team celebrated “10 years of innovation.”

Participants also had the opportunity to win non-dilutive seed funding of up to $30,000.

“I’ve been working closely with founders over the past five years to help [teams] launch their ventures and support innovation and entrepreneurship at Queen’s, in the Kingston community, and more recently, globally,” Joanna Tinus, program and community manager, told The Journal.

“Our mandate is to catalyze potential among people who have a propensity to have an impact, whether that be socially or economically.”

The judges saw a “very broad” range of ventures,

Staff and volunteers had it down to a ‘well-oiled machine’

queensjournal.ca • 3

DDQIC pitch competition celebrates ‘10 years of innovation’ Tinus added. There were both early-stage and late-stage ventures present, and the industry varied across the board.

When the judges deliberated,

explained their use of science to innovate and create.

CO2L Tech’s platform allows for the recycling and conversion of carbon from CO2 emissions into

sides—the science and the “There was a lot of knowledge business—and we have the that was given to us [in the support from alumni from competition], and we really had the Smith School of Business,” to show we were applying it to Nguyen said. our start-ups.”

The competition takes a lot of time and effort, but is worthwhile for anyone who wants to kickstart their venture, Emmily added.

Strictly Diabetic Fadzai Muramba, co-founder of Strictly Diabetic, spoke about the direction she sees her venture going in the future.

Strictly Diabetic helps patients with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar levels at low cost.

“With the money we’ve received, we want to start a physical diabetic centre. A place where diabetics can come and seek medical advice, as well as diet and lifestyle advice, from medical practitioners,” Muramba said.

SUPPLIED BY: DDQIC Global start-up venture teams competed for seed funding at Mitchell Hall.

Muramba wants to expand her venture to major cities they looked for a venture that “valuable organic compounds.”

DMB Translation Services to connect patients who would have a substantial impact “It would be a waste if Bayega Joan Emmily, have diabetes with resources, on the community, Tinus said. [science] was just on paper co-founder and project manager so they’re not restricted to a few “CO2L Tech really came to for publication, so we bring it at DMB TranslationServices, spoke locations providing care. the top for all the judges. It was beyond the lab-bench and apply about the competition’s seed “I would like to develop an app a unanimous decision. They’re it so we can make a company of it, funding aspect. or community platform where pitch was excellent, and they and so people can benefit from it,” DMB Translation Services people can interact with each were able to convey this scientific, Tran-Ly said. utilizes language translation other, do life with each other, engineering-heavy, solution in “There are few people in software to help people with learn tips and recipes, and receive such a compelling way.” the world that can do this, and disabilities who are hard of specialist advice.”

The winning teams were CO2L we are a strong team. We hearing navigate everyday life.

In the next five years, Tech, DMB Translation Services, now have professor Dr. Cao“Currently, our business is in the Muramba wants to increase and Strictly Diabetic. They Thang Dinh [on our team] developing stage of our product, the number of people described their goals and visions who is a top chemist and engineer,” which is our language interpreter. and physical locations Strictly in interviews with The Journal.

Nguyen added.

The seed funding will help us go Diabetic reaches.

Besides the technology, CO2L from our prototype phase to the “Expanding marketing, CO2L Tech Tech has a team working on the piloting phase where we can try advertising, and strategies to Anh Tran-Ly and Tu Nguyen, business side. out our application in real life,” connect with people in remote co-founders of CO2L Tech, “[Tran-Ly] knows both Emmily said. areas is very important.”

Queen’s move-in day returns

Skylar Soroka Assistant News Editor Approximately 4,600 firstyear students began their journey at Queen’s with residence move-in day on Sept. 5.

Ann Tierney, vice provost and dean of student affairs, spoke to The Journal outside Victoria Hall on move-in day about the logistics.

“I think move-in is our best day at Queen’s.

It’s a chance to really welcome all of our new students,” Tierney said. “A lot of planning in advance goes into the operations of today.”

Tierney said move-in day planning begins in the spring and continues until the day of.

Time slots for move-in were staggered to help with traffic flow, and lots of volunteers helped make the process as seamless as possible.

“I can’t say enough about our volunteers and staff. There’s over 1000 people volunteering today. The vast majority, easily

4,600 students moved into Queen’s 17 residence buildings.

800, are students,” Tierney said.

“Our staff really has it down to a well-oiled machine.”

The University partnered with the City of Kingston to tell the general community what’s happening—this included signage around campus.

Some students moved into the new Albert St.

PHOTO BY ASBAH AHMAD

residence building, which “When we look at the has 303 beds, Tierney said. whole week, [students] have Tierney added you could the opportunity to start see and feel the excitement in today, building connections the air, as it’s been three years on their floor and their since Queen’s has held a full one- residence with students day move-in. In 2021, move-in from all different programs,” took four days.

Tierney said.

First-year Orientation began Tierney said students will have after move-in, on Sept. 6. the chance to make connections

in different places. She spoke to the importance of maintaining COVID-19 precautions alongside this opportunity.

“We’re really encouraging people to take the precautions that are best for them […]

We talked to students about precautions like masking, hand sanitizing, and distancing as they feel comfortable.”

Emily Yeung, president of the Residence Society (ResSoc), spoke to initiatives student staff are planning in residences, including the shirt initiative.

“We have residence facilitators all over our buildings who will be hosting events, activities, and are resources to be engaged and find peers,” Yeung said.

“We are selling building-specific T-shirts. The whole initiative behind that is to foster community spirit within their building and have a home away from home.”

Yeung said it was exciting to see students move into the Albert St. residence, as it meets all of Ontario’s accessibility codes and is very inclusive, with prayer and meditation rooms.

“I’m so excited to welcome the class of 2026 and I know it will be a very exciting day for everyone.”

—With files from Asbah Ahmad

4 • queensjournal.ca

Funds allocated to Queen’s Climate Action Allocation Aimée Look Assistant News Editor Queen’s Endowment fund planted a new investment strategy to meet sustainability goals and maintain long-term performance.

In the 2021-22 Endowment Fund Report, Queen’s showcased the second highest funds among Canadian universities—in proportion to its full-time student population.

Endowment funds use donation money for investment portfolios to generate income for the University.

Queen’s fund totaled $1.4 billion as of April 30.

Jim Keohane, chair of the of the Board of Trustees I nve s t m e n t C o m m i t te e , said in the report Queen’s endowment fund has seen “outstanding performance” in the last 10 years.

The high performance of the fund is apparent in a compounded annual return of 9.7 per cent, reflecting the value of the fund’s growth over time.

Incorporating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are important to maintain the fund’s performance in the long term,

News

Friday, 9 September, 2022

Queen’s Endowment fund goes green according to Keohane. ESG criteria considers the social responsibility of a company as investors screen potential investments.

“The committee has been working hard to adjust the asset mix to meet our longterm objectives to continue to have a lasting positive impact on the Queen’s community,” Keohane said.

The report echoed a recommendation from the Board of Trustees’ Climate Change Action Task Force to reduce the carbon footprint of university investment portfolios.

Going forward, Queen’s will allocate at minimum 15 per cent of the endowment to the recently established Queen’s Climate Action Allocation.

According to the report, this new allocation is comprised of investments towards asset classes—investments grouped by similar characteristics—that are predicted to “outperform” in the transition to a lower-carbon economy.

Amounts from the fund are also withdrawn each year

per the University’s Spending Policy. The spending policy helps university programming and ensures the financial security of the university’s assets.

The fund releases income to finance scholarships, academic chairs, book funds, lectureships, and a “diverse range” of university programs.

It simultaneously aims to preserve the purchasing power of assets for the future.

Preserving purchasing

power of the assets requires the University to incorporate long-term investments that benefit from inflation—by investing in commodities like precious metals, for example.

These investments act as a protection against inflation.

The endowment payout— money released from the fund for reasons other than University operations—saw a historic peak at $50 million in 2022. In the report, Keohane referred to the payout

rate as “generous,” even during challenging times.

Queen’s donors, such as Rico Garcia ArtSci ’13, shared their reasons for contributing to the fund’s broader societal purpose in the report.

“Today, in a world in desperate need of a more tolerant society, I hope my gifts to Queen’s can help create a welcoming community that sees the strength in cultural diversity.”

a commemorative service will be held during this period.

GRAPHIC BY AIMÉE LOOK Queen Elizabeth II’s reign The endowment plans to invest 15 per cent of funds in sustainable initiatives by 2030. is marked by her many visits to overseas nations, both within and outside of the Commonwealth.

“She would proclaim ‘it was good to be home’ when returning to her beloved Canada.

Asbah Ahmad She was indeed at home here, Senior News Editor and Canadians never ceased to return her affection,” Trudeau said.

Queen Elizabeth II passed away In her many visits to peacefully at Balmoral Castle Canada, Queen Elizabeth on Sept. 8. The current King h a s made s to p ove r s and Queen Consort will in Kingston—along with the new re m a i n in B a l m o ra l King Charles. and return to London on Sept. 9.

In 1959, Queen Elizabeth The Queen passed away and Prince Phillip visited after spending over 70 years the City of Kingston. on the throne, making her the This was followed by a visit to longest serving British monarch. Queen’s in 1973.

She ascended the throne at the Queen Elizabeth attended age of 25. a dinner at Leonard Hall, where a toast was proposed by the Mayor of Kingston.

Her Majesty vowed Dignitaries from the local community—including the then to devote her life to University administration—were the service of the invited to attend.

Commonwealth and its In 1985, the Queen’s people.

Senate passed a motion inviting then Prince Charles In a statement released and Princess Diana to receive yesterday, Prime Minister honorary degrees in 1991.

Justin Trudeau expressed the The Senate awarded fact many Canadians have the degrees to mark the never known a sovereign other 150th anniversary of the than Queen Elizabeth. issuance of the “Her Majesty vowed to devote Royal Charter to Queen’s her life to the service of the University by Queen’s Victoria.

Commonwealth and its people.

The Queen leaves behind On behalf of all Canadians, a legacy of service to the I thank Queen Elizabeth II Commonwealth and Britain. for honouring this vow and She is survived by for a lifetime of service,” her children and many extended Trudeau said. family members.

Trudeau indicated there would be a period of mourning journal_news@ams.queensu.ca for Canadians in the coming days, ILLUSTRATION BY KATHARINE SUNG Queen’s Elizabeth II, (1926-2022) ending with a national day of mourning. Trudeau said

Queen Elizabeth II visited the University in 1973

“

Queen’s remembers the Queen

News

Friday, 9 September, 2022

queensjournal.ca • 5

Students for Human Rights Action empowers students to be global citizens Founder’s Sri Lankan background showed him the power of mobilization Natara Ng Staff Writer This past year, Ovith Thiyagalingam, Comm ’22, founded Students for Human Rights Action (SFHRA), a policy and research website that builds awareness about global issues and provides calls to action for students who want to make a tangible impact.

The online human rights research hub highlights human rights topics and policy research in Canada and abroad, including the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, the overturning of Roe vs.

Wade in the United States, and Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

“Through this initiative, I want to empower every student and individual to be a leader

in tackling human rights and social impact issues,” Thiyagalingam told The Journal in an interview.

Beyond providing well researched information about human rights issues, SFHRA also provides succinct and curated calls to action, key steps, and resources to help students and government stakeholders act on the topic in question.

“If you go online, you can find places where you can donate or [find out] what Canada is doing at a national level to have an impact, but there wasn’t a lot of information on [the] specific things that students can do either on an individual or collective level,” Thiyagalingam explained.

Through SFHRA, Thiyagalingam wants to highlight that everyone who wants to make an impact can indeed contribute, even if it’s through small actions.

The website has already reached 3000 readers since launching this summer. Thiyagalingam is hoping to exponentially expand SFHRA with plans to onboard students and volunteers and eventually spearhead SFHRA chapters at Queen’s and universities across Canada.

“I find being a part of student organizations has a really big impact on our own personal

Community volunteers needed for ‘eyes and ears patrols’ Skylar Soroka Assistant News Editor Kingston Police are hosting a recruiting event for The Kingston Police Community Volunteers (KPCV) at their headquarters on Sept. 17.

KPCV consists of a group of citizens who help the Kingston Police maintain the community by reporting suspicious behaviour, assisting with special events and parades, and participating in missing persons searches.

Applicants can visit 705 Division Street from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. to view displays that will showcase the initiatives volunteers can get involved with, Kingston Police said in a press release.

Qualified applicants should have a G class license and be over 18 years old.

“The volunteers have been helping the community for 26 years now. We have been involved with many missing person searches over the years as well as over 100 special

The event will have applications on-site.

A Smith alum spoke about expanding his human rights initiative.

and professional development,” Thiyagalingam said.

“I want to be able to expand Students for Human Rights Action in a way that provides students with that same opportunity, and to get that kind of experience through this initiative.

Thiyagalingam’s passion for social impact and human rights stems from being a part of the Tamil community in Canada.

“It’s a long-standing history of me being able to see where my parents come from and the fellow people in the Tamil community

[…] The shared struggle that we experienced in being displaced from Sri Lanka through the civil war that took place […] and then having to migrate and find a new home.”

“As a kid, from being able to go to different events and protests where we peacefully would ask for the government to take action in helping to resolve the conflict, I learned a lot about the power of mobilizing people together and what kind of positive action that could instigate from the government.”

Thiyagalingam hopes the

GRAPHIC BY CURTIS HEINZL

initiative’s strong foundation will help it expand to the Queen’s community and beyond.

“Something that I really believe in is that every little action really makes a difference. And that’s something that I’ve always believed in, whether it’s been through my nonprofit work or my involvement in student clubs at Queens’s,” Thiyagalingam said.

“I really want to be able to contribute to having better global citizens who are passionate about [playing] their role in having this meaningful impact.”

Kingston Police searching for ‘a few good people’

events a year,” Chris Phelan, coordinator of community volunteers, said in an interview with The Journal.

Phelan said volunteers do “eyes and ears patrols” in Kingston.

Volunteers then contact police dispatch, which sends officers to investigate the situation.

Phelan added the volunteers are “non confrontational.” They act as an “extra set of eyes and ears” to keep the community as safe as possible.

KPCV are looking for new volunteers who can commit to a minimum of eight hours per month of patrols and events, as well as attend one meeting per month. Volunteers should be able to commit to a minimum of two years, due to the expense of training and equipment, Phelan said.

Members of KPCV will be on hand to answer any questions at the event.

Those interested can pick up and complete applications on site.

JOURNAL FILE PHOTO

Friday, 9 September, 2022

FEATURES People like Frost who are searching for a family doctor have nowhere to turn.

“I have contacted every physician in town with no luck.

Not even my wife’s family doctor is interested, although they said they would accept our yet unborn child,” Frost told The Journal.

“I was forced to allow a disability claim to lapse, ultimately foregoing additional disability income that could really help my family because I couldn’t find a doctor to fill in the paperwork. The local clinics won’t even do it.”

A service under strain

29,000 people in Kingston were without a local family doctor in 2020, making it southeastern Ontario’s hardest-hit region in the primary care provider shortage.

A CBC News investigation conducted earlier this year found that only 19 per cent of the 125 family doctors in Kingston were accepting new patients, and only from select demographics. None were taking patients from the general public.

Dr. Veronica Legnini is a Kingston family physician who was born and raised in the city. She recalls a day when she had to turn away four separate people from her practice, simply because she could not accept more patients.

“When you don’t support the health care that family docs provide sufficiently, like growing patient loads or high demands, you’re going to see people in family medicine retire early or split their time between family medicine and other things that are better,” Dr. Legnini said to The Journal.

Team-based care, which Dr. Legnini claims is the most well-supported model for patients and doctors, could help alleviate the number and complexity of patients of whom family physicians are expected to take care of. The province didn’t provide the funding needed to sustain this kind of practice, leaving family doctors without the kind of support they might get in a hospital.

Although Kingston is supplied by a medical school and a tertiary care hospital, only a fraction of its physicians practice family medicine, which means the city is still not classified as a “high needs” community despite the demand for family doctors.

“Right now, family physicians deal with all sorts of issues that aren’t really in our wheelhouse, but we’ve grown to develop expertise [in] out of necessity,” Dr. Legnini said.

Today’s family doctors may find themselves taking on the roles of psychotherapists, podiatrists, marriage counsellors, or dieticians to deal with each patient’s health needs, which hinders their efficiency. Team-based care could relieve some of that stress.

Another factor putting pressure on Kingston’s family physicians is the overhead expenses associated with running a practice.

New medical school graduates may be dissuaded by the costs of working in family medicine compared to more lucrative specialities, especially when

they’re facing hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt from medical school.

“Medicine is medicine, but medicine is also a small business.

[Family medicine] just becomes unattractive when you go into a business that doesn’t actually allow you to pay your bills and take home what is an acceptable amount,” Dr. Joy Hataley, a retired family physician and the District 7 chair for the Ontario Medical Association, told The Journal.

Still, family medicine remains a vital part of patient care because it’s what our healthcare system has been designed to work around, Dr. Hataley explained. A family doctor acts as the patient’s gateway to all other aspects of the healthcare system. Without access to a primary care provider, patients are forced to hop between virtual appointments, walk-in clinics, and emergency departments, disrupting a continuity of care that’s crucial to good medical decision-making.

“If you don’t have a family doc, you’ve kind of lost your key to the door. You’ve got to figure out another way—you’re going to have to get through the window, or down the chimney, or something else,” Dr. Hataley said.

For Queen’s students, many of whom come from out of town, living without access to a family doctor can be problematic for their health.

Kate Burke Pellizzari, ArtSci ’23, hasn’t had a check-up since her family doctor retired when she was 12 years old. Now at Queen’s, she’s struggling to find someone who can look after her health.

Pellizzari has been on a waiting list to be connected to a family doctor for nearly three years and has contacted multiple clinics in and outside of Kingston, but to no avail.

In the meantime, she relies on Queen’s Student Wellness Services (SWS) and local walk-in clinics for healthcare, but she believes these resources are not adequately equipped to meet her needs. When Pellizzari developed keloids from her ear piercings, she went to see a doctor at SWS. He looked at her ear, told her he didn’t know what he was seeing, and sent her away with nothing.

“You can’t actually build a rapport with any of the physicians there because it’s always someone new, and they don’t know anything about your history,” she said to The Journal.

According to Cynthia Gibney, executive director of SWS, healthcare providers at SWS can request a confidential release of records from a student’s regular practitioner if they need information about their past illnesses.

“At Student Wellness Services (SWS), we have always encouraged students to continue the relationship they have with their home community family physician, as continuity of care and knowing medical history is important when responding to a new or ongoing medical issues,” Gibney wrote in a statement to The Journal.

Pellizzari recalls times she felt dismissed by healthcare providers

Features

queensjournal.ca • 6

SWS wants to ensure continuity of care.

working in local clinics or turned away because they thought she could be seeking drugs. The result, she worries, is people will struggle to find care until their health issues escalate into emergencies—but students without a family doctor are left with few other options.

Pellizzari is especially concerned about how her health needs will develop as she gets older.

She’s approaching the age where she’ll need to get regular Pap smears and watch for the signs of breast and ovarian cancer.

With a third of the family doctors in Kingston planning to retire within the next ten years, the city is scrambling to train and recruit more physicians not just to replace outgoing physicians, but also to take care of an aging population.

To Dr. Hataley, these changing demographics are just another factor putting strain on family physicians. Many family physicians are choosing to pursue other fields alongside traditional family medicine such as palliative care, a discipline needed more than ever as Ontarians grow older.

While these other specialties are important, they leave fewer physicians with the capacity to deliver full-time primary care.

“There are many more people living longer with more complex illnesses now, and palliative care is engaged with the end stages of life that don’t just last for the last few weeks anymore, but years,” she said.

Drs. Hataley and Legnini believe the situation will get worse before it gets better, if the Ontario government remains as slow on the uptake as it is right now.

Until then, they’ll continue to call for change.

Undervalued, underestimated

Jonathan Tung, HealthSci ’26, hasn’t had reliable access to a family doctor since he first moved to Kingston in 2013. His family doctor, who lives in Markham, is a two-and-a-half-hour drive away.

Unless he experiences a health issue that would make the journey worth it, Tung typically waits until his yearly check-up to address any health issues he’s experiencing. In the meantime, he too relies on SWS and local walk-in clinics.

Like Pellizzari, Tung has been on a waiting list to find a local family doctor for years. He knows friends who’ve had to drive as far as Ottawa or Toronto to meet their family doctors. The first time his family tried to contact a family doctor in Kingston a few years ago, they were told the clinic couldn’t take on any more patients.

Last year, they called again, only to find out the doctor was retiring. Tung expects his own family doctor to retire soon as well.

Provincial family doctor shortages are exacerbating local ones. Although Tung no longer lives near Markham, he can’t find a family doctor anywhere closer to him—an issue that’s become widespread across Ontario.

According to an analysis on the city’s physician shortage co-led by Dr. Legnini in 2020, many people who move away from Kingston also have trouble finding a physician elsewhere, and so choose to stay with their old family doctor here.

As a result, many doctors are seeing patients who currently live in other areas, which prevents them from taking on more locals.

Tung’s difficulties accessing a family physician have inspired his career goals. Having spent nearly a decade in Kingston without a family doctor, he hopes to enter primary care and practice in the region to help address the same shortage he’s faced for so long.

“Being a family practitioner is more about the personal connection to patients. You get to witness the growth of a person because you’re most likely going to be their family doctor for 10 to 20 years,” Tung said to The Journal.

These longitudinal relationships are precisely what make a family physician so valuable, according to Dr. Hataley. A family doctor gets to see their patients in both sickness and in health, which allows them to sense if something is wrong and intervene early on.

Convincing the government to appreciate this kind of care is crucial to ensuring family doctors get the support they deserve, she believes, especially when preventative care could save the province billions in the long run.

Dr. Anthony Sanfilippo is the associate dean of undergraduate medical education at Queen’s, and the senior advisor on educational innovation and expansion.

Although he’s a cardiologist by training, Dr. Sanfilippo is determined to address the family doctor shortage in Kingston by enhancing medical training at the University.

While the causes of the shortage are complex, he believes the proliferation of new specialties in medicine have crowded out the traditional kind of family medicine that’s sorely needed today. A generation ago, all medical students would have been trained to become a general practitioner, but their options after graduation have multiplied since then.

PHOTO BY HERBET WANG

“Today, students come into medical school and they do the same four-year program.

At the end of that program, they have to choose from one of 30 residency positions to go on and do their further training, and then those 30 positions diversify further into over 100 different kinds of doctors. Family medicine remains only one of those choices,” Dr. Sanfilippo said in an interview with The Journal.

Dr. Sanfilippo is a part of a team at Queen’s developing a six-year special curriculum for prospective family doctors. The University is planning to expand their medical admissions by 20 seats in 2023 for students who’ve shown a dedicated interest in family medicine and plan to practice in communities in need.

While this new program will help meet short-term local primary care demands, Dr. Sanfilippo says simply training more family doctors is unlikely to address the most significant issues leading to this shortage. Rather, there are bigger dilemmas with who is selected to enter medical school, what beliefs and assumptions they hold, how young doctors are trained, and the way healthcare in Ontario has evolved.

The solution doesn’t lie in just offering doctors more incentives to practice in high needs communities either, according to Dr. Hataley, who believes this will only move the shortage from one place to another. More systemic changes are needed—changes that will guarantee every Ontarian a family doctor and a team to support them.

Earlier this year, Dr. Hataley became a proponent of the Life Without a Doctor campaign, which has been lobbying the provincial government to give family doctors more time to see patients, promote team-based care, and recruit more physicians to the province, with the ultimate goal of connecting every Ontarian to a family doctor.

Dr. Hataley knows that a better future is within reach, which is why she’s become so outspoken about the importance of primary care.

“The government, the public, needs to really highlight the value of long-term family physician relationships with patients.

If you don’t value something, nobody’s going to be interested in it, nobody’s going to want to go into it, and it’s not going to be adequately covered.”

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Friday, 9 September, 2022

Editorials

EDITORIALS

queensjournal.ca

The Journal’s Perspective

Privatizing healthcare won’t solve Canada’s problems The recently reignited debate around the privatisation of Canadian healthcare should sound alarm bells all over the country.

Our healthcare system needs solutions to long-standing problems, but we must avoid a situation like that of the U.S. Healthcare is a complicated issue that our government has failed to address for years. Canadians are dying waiting for care that should be accessible to all of us.

Everyone wants to be able to buy their way to the front of the line, but privatizing healthcare would only benefit a small proportion of Canadians.

Staff shortages are a large part of the issue, and they have two main causes.

First, healthcare workers are underpaid and overworked because there aren’t enough of them to meet the demand.

Another widely discussed problem is the scarcity of medical and nursing school seats. Too many qualified candidates don’t get accepted into nursing and medical programs; nothing is being done even though we desperately need more health care professionals.

The rate at which new seats are added doesn’t even come close to matching the exponential increase in applicants each year.

Prospective nurses used to have the options of college or university, but now programs have been limited which breeds competition.

Nurses are overworked and underpaid, so there’s little reward on top of how competitive programs are. If you are accepted to a nursing program, you may be forced into unpaid work instead of receiving the education you’re paying for like Dalhousie nursing students last year.

ILLUSTRATION BY KATHARINE SUNG

We need to treat healthcare workers and students with more respect if we ever hope to overcome this crisis with public healthcare intact.

Medical and nursing schools’ focus on prestige is symptomatic of the larger economic and social landscape—one that favours the white and affluent.

International medical school graduates fail to get residency spots in Canada, while new immigrants with medical qualifications are unable to transfer them to work in the field. Both result in us losing skilled healthcare workers.

The healthcare system should be built on people who represent society. Elite groups of people who are accepted into medical school may be more interested in research or specializing and don’t want to live in rural areas or smaller cities.

Specialized medicine pays more, so

PHOTO BY CURTIS HEINZL

Exchange should be an opportunity for everyone Maia McCann Editorials Editor Queen’s has over 220 exchange partners in 55 countries with programs for students in every faculty. Some prospective students choose Queen’s for its breadth of opportunities to study abroad. For others, exchange isn’t a factor—but it should be.

For anyone looking to see the world and maximize their university experience, studying abroad is a golden opportunity.

There aren’t many times in life when we have a set period to devote to learning and personal growth. Most people agree that education is about much more than what happens in the classroom,

but it’s easy to neglect that part of the university experience.

There’s so much to gain from studying abroad: friendships all over the world, learning to appreciate cultural differences, getting comfortable with discomfort, exploring all the sights in your host country, and more. It’s something from which almost every student can benefit.

However, as beneficial as exchange can be, there are no shortage of barriers for those looking to participate.

Financing a semester or full academic year abroad is challenging, even without paying tuition to your host university.

Unfavourable exchange rates in many foreign countries, high travel costs, and inflation don’t help, either.

there’s less financial incentive to working in family medicine. This leaves emergency rooms flooded with people with nowhere else to go because they’re without a family doctor.

A possible solution is reserving seats in medical school for family medicine to help address the shortage.

Setting up a system to fast-track qualified immigrants to jobs in medicine would also help reduce staffing shortages.

The way healthcare is organized in Canada should also be called into question.

Political inconsistency makes provincial healthcare jurisdiction problematic.

Constant swinging in policy means a lack of stability—something that’s necessary for effective care.

Other countries handle healthcare access and equity on the national level and leave providing care to municipalities.

Communities know best what they need in terms of healthcare, and it makes sense to let them organize it for themselves to some extent.

Queen’s BeWell breaks down where to go for which health concerns. This is a good example of no one knowing a community’s needs better than the community itself; allowing communities more health jurisdiction and depoliticising care should be our priority.

It will take time to implement the changes our system needs, but we shouldn’t give up on public healthcare in the meantime.

— Journal Editorial Board

THE QUEEN’S JOURNAL Volume 150 Issue 3 www.queensjournal.ca @queensjournal Publishing since 1873

Editorial Board Editor in Chief Managing Editor Production Manager News Editor Assistant News Editors

Features Editors Editorials Editor Editorials Illustrator

Dharmayu Desai Asbah Ahmad Sophia Coppolino Aimee Look Skylar Soroka Anne Fu Suzy Leinster Maia McCann Katharine Sung Rida Chaudhry

Arts Editor

Sam Goodale

Assistant Arts Editor

Sarah Maat

Sports Editor

Maddie Hunt

Lifestyle Editor Assistant Lifestyle Editor

Clanny Mugabe Curtis Heinzl

Photo Editor Assistant Photo Editor

Herbert Wang

Video Editor

Mackenzie Loveys

Copy Editors

Vineeth Jarabana

Cassandra Pao Mikayla Wilson Amna Rafiq

Graphics Editor BIPOC Advisory Board Members

Ruth Osunde Alexis Ejeckam Sharon Sun

Contributing Staff Emily Gillon

Contributors

Philip Pranajaya

Emma Courtemanche

Emily Miller Natara Ng

Staff writer

Business Staff Business Manager Sales Representatives

Social Media Coordinator

Story continued online...

Ben Wrixon Julia Harmsworth

Sandrine Jacquot

Opinions Editor

Fundraising Representative

For many students, going abroad is inaccessible.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also been a barrier to studying abroad over the past few years. Many Queen’s exchanges were cancelled, and those that proceeded often left students uncertain about whether exchange would go ahead until a few weeks or days before departure.

Just as it is at home, finding housing is challenging for outgoing exchange students and is a tough barrier to overcome. Housing scams are more and more common and the stress of navigating a housing search can cause students to choose to abandon their study-abroad plans.

Opportunities for exchange at Queen’s are incredible, but there’s plenty of room for improvement. For example, the International Programs Office (IPO) leaves something to be desired in terms of the pre-exchange support it offers.

Once students are accepted by their host universities, they’re expected to refer to their university for support. However, when the host university can’t answer their questions and the IPO’s response to inquiries is to suggest contacting the host university abroad, students are left feeling abandoned.

There are gaps in support for many of the most important parts of exchange preparation.

Things like organizing visas are stressful tasks for which students could benefit from guidance, even in the form of a simple checklist and regular communication throughout the visa application process.

While each country’s issuing process is unique, it seems reasonable to expect support on one of the most challenging parts of exchange preparation. One possible solution is for the University to employ returning exchange students to walk outgoing students through the process.

•7

Chad Huang Sylvie Garabedian Eric Joosse Grace Moffat Claire Schaffeler

Want to contribute?

For information visit: www.queensjournal.ca/contribute or email the Editor in Chief at journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca Contributions from all members of the Queen’s and Kingston community are welcome. The Journal reserves the right to edit all submissions.

The Queen’s Journal is an editorially autonomous newspaper published by the Alma Mater Society of Queen’s University, Kingston.

Situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. The Journal’s Editorial Board acknowledges the traditional territories our newspaper is situated on have allowed us to pursue our mandate.

We recognize our responsibility to understand the truth of our history.

Editorial opinions expressed in The Journal are the sole responsibility of The Queen’s Journal Editorial Board, and are not necessarily those of the University, the AMS or their officers.

190 University Ave., Kingston, ON, K7L 3P4 Editorial Office: 613-533-2800 Business Office: 613-533-6711 Fax: 613-533-6728 Email: journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca Please address complaints and grievances to the Editor in Chief and/or Managing Editor.

The Queen’s Journal is printed on a Goss Community press by Metroland Media in Toronto, Ontario.

Contents © 2021 by The Queen’s Journal; all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of The Journal.

Opinions

8 • queensjournal.ca

OPINIONS

Friday, 9 September, 2022

Your Perspective

Mental health services should not be ‘one-size-fits-all’

Emily believes mental health care should evolve alongside conversations.

Institutions need diversified care options Emily Gillon Contributor This article discusses mental illness and may be triggering for some readers. The Canadian Mental Health Association Crisis Line can be reached at 1-800-875-6213.

like this. Where one person might need time off from work, another might require therapy and medication. Mental health issues are highly personal and therefore require personalized treatment.

Over the last 10 years, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of mental health.

This awareness is inherently good and has given rise to more accessible mental health services and accommodations in workplaces, schools, and healthcare.

However, the addition of new mental health services has not eliminated all the problems accompanying new accommodations at an institution.

Mental health is in many ways related to and just as important as physical health—but mental health treatments are not like physical health treatments. If you go to the doctor with a broken leg, there's a predetermined plan of action which will likely work.

Mental illness should not have one-size-fits-all treatments

The problem with many mental health services implemented by schools or workplaces is the diversity and personalization necessary for these services are not properly considered.

Queen’s Student Wellness Services has an array of accommodations and forms of therapy available to students, though its not without its flaws.

The problem with seeking care through any institution is all the mental health services they offer are short-term, while long-term, quality care remains inaccessible.

"Workplaces and schools have stayed stagnant for far too long—there's no one way to go about treatment.

While institutions claim they provide an abundance of mental health services, only a portion of those in need find services that are actually beneficial to their mental health.

The remaining individuals are left to struggle without proper support.

This one-size-fits-all characteristic of many mental health services or accommodations can be credited to a lack of institutions evolving alongside mental health conversations.

In 2010, mental health awareness and de-stigmatization became a largely discussed topic in mainstream media. This newfound awareness was arguably thanks to Clara Hughes and her partnership with Bell in launching the “Bell Let’s Talk” campaign.

Mental health services were considered taboo not long ago. People were reluctant to admit they needed help or were struggling with their mental health.

Following the emergence of the “Bell Let’s Talk” campaign, many schools and workplaces began implementing

mental health support or services. In 2014, Queen’s University partnered with Bell to create a mental health training program.

At the time, steps towards destigmatizing mental health were so novel that one-size-fits-all approaches were celebrated and promoted.

Now, as the conversation continues and society’s knowledge evolves, institutions need to constantly update the services and treatments they offer. Workplaces and schools have stayed stagnant for far too long—there's no one way to go about treatment.

This type of oversight is a problem specific to mental health.

"We need diverse and individualized mental health services to see the most progress and receive the best care.

If an individual needed stitches and wasn't responding to typical treatment plans, hospitals wouldn’t throw up their

SUPPLIED BY EMILY GILLON

hands and say there wasn’t anything more they could do. Instead, they would try a different approach to restore the patient back to full health.

Physical health treatments are largely based on the evolution of different types of treatment.

In Canada, physical health research expenditures are estimated to have been around 4.3 billion in 2021.

With new knowledge comes new courses of action for treating all physical health ailments, improving the health of all Canadians.

There needs to be a renewal on how educational facilities, workplaces, and society see and treat the mental health of students, peers, and co-workers. We need diverse and individualized mental health services to see the most progress and receive the best care.

We are all different people with different needs—treatment should reflect that.

Emily Gillon is a second-year biology student.

Arts

Friday, 9 September, 2022

ARTS Rida Chaudhry Senior Arts Editor

Art is everywhere, from our playlists to our clothes to the movies.

In this column, The Journal will have conversations with connoisseurs of various forms of art to learn about what inspires the Queen’s community. Sol Macmillan, ArtSci ’24, and Mitchell Lupa, ArtSci ’24, chatted about what music means to them.

“I wanted to be a rockstar when I was a kid,” Macmillan said.

“I started playing guitar really young but didn’t start having a lot of fun doing it until 13 or 14 when my friends started playing instruments too—it became something for us all to do together.”

As a child, Macmillan was drawn to the guitar solos of Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd—he frequently imagined what it would be like to be on stage with an audience.

“It’s changed over the years; I more so now play for myself more than anything.”

Back home in Vancouver, Macmillan and his friends play in a band. What first started out as an excuse for them to hang out turned into a melodic passion project.

“It was almost a competition in the beginning, going to each jam session and saying ‘guess what

queensjournal.ca • 9

What’s your medium?

A conversation with music buffs on why and how they consume songs I learned this weekend, I bet its better than what you learned’.”

Since first being introduced to psychedelic rock through his father, Macmillan’s taste has gone through quite the journey.

“From bands like the Grateful

he turned to music as a form of expression and this medium being his outlet was the product of what he was exposed to as a child.

Right now, his favourite song is an 18-minute jazz-rock ballad by Charles Mingus.

Musical journey’s of art consumers tell a story.

Dead I got into Led Zeppelin, which took me into metal, and from there it transitioned into jazz and right now I’d say I’m in an aggressive metal jazz beat.”

Macmillan told The Journal that

“It’s out of tune so it makes it sound really ominous, it’s just raw emotion and you can tell it was a live performance—you can tell that’s exactly how the musicians were feeling in that moment.”

According to Macmillan, this piece is supposed to be played in tandem with a ballet, so the purposefully out-of-tune recording allows listeners to imagine the dance in sequence with the song.

Emotion has always played a

GRAPHIC BY AMNA RAFIQ

big part in Macmillan’s intrigue with music.

“Music, and art in general, can be a blessing and a curse,” he said.

It’s something you can escape to, but at the end of the day you can

get lost in it where a few hours go by of you listening to new music and you realize you haven’t gotten anything done or you’re late for something, but you keep escaping.”

Lupa was first exposed to music at six years old when one of his mother’s friends made him a CD mixtape with 12 songs on it.

“For a long time, those were the only 12 songs I knew or listened to.”

Lupa felt connected to the songs because of how much time was spent making the mixtape for him, but didn’t feel attached to the medium until he began connecting songs with moments of reflection.

“Kanye West’s Yeezus was probably the first album I felt really attached to.”

Lupa says that music is now an integral part of his life—the process of finding new artists and albums is his favourite part.

His taste has developed from the 12-song mixtape he kept on repeat, to largely hip hop and top 40s, to now finding beauty in all types of music. His favourite songs of late are “Helmet” by Steve Lacy and “Heartbreaker”

by Led Zeppelin.

“I listen to music upwards of five hours a day—it sets the tone of your day in a lot of ways.”

Union Gallery appoints new Art Director Morgan Wedderspoon hopes to build community through art

Sam Goodale Assistant Arts Editor There’s a new Art Director at Union Gallery.

Morgan Wedderspoon, BFA ’09, has been appointed to the role for the academic year ahead.

Prior to becoming the new Art Director, Wedderspoon previously worked at Union Gallery as a summer student during her undergrad at Queen’s.

“I worked here as a summer student in 2007,” she told The Journal. “It was my first gallery job actually, so I already had some familiarity with [it].”

Wedderspoon, who specializes in print media art, has worked at galleries and taught fine art courses at the University of Alberta and Queen’s. She feels her breadth of experience throughout her career will benefit her tenure as Art Director.

“I kind of bring a range of experiences to this position because I’m always wearing three hats in my career. I have lots of experience installing exhibitions, touring folks through exhibitions, planning and putting on exhibitions of my own, so there’s lots there that I can advise students on.”

In terms of her plans as the new Art Director of Union Gallery, Wedderspoon is set on organizing and facilitating programs previously established for the year

while bringing to life the ideas and goals of those closely involved with the gallery.

“We have this lovely list here of hopes and dreams that folks have already put together […] and I think it’s so inspiring,” she said.

“We have a lot of really exciting ideas, and some of them really speak to me and my interests, so I’m really excited about that.”

Above all, though, Wedderspoon says her plans for the gallery centre around serving the community and students. She believes this is the gallery’s primary function.

“We, as a not-for-profit, are serving the public; and situated within the university campus, we want to be a resource to students.

Since those are our priorities, I think my job is to listen first, and to see what people need from us and then start to formulate the plans.”

We d d e r s p o o n hopes students understand that Union Gallery exists for them and is a vital resource for getting involved in the arts.

Whether it’s a simple visit, volunteering, or a staff position, there are plenty of opportunities for students to immerse themselves in the community surrounding Union Gallery.

“You can always come and visit.

It’s always free to come and look in the gallery,” Wedderspoon said.

“We have resources that we make available as well. Union Gallery is your gallery.”

There are, additionally, opportunities at the gallery for Queen’s affiliated artists to display their work. Art history and cultural studies students can also write about the art at Union Gallery.

However, involvement in the gallery is not limited to these programs.

“We’re always excited to work with students from all kinds of different backgrounds,” Wedderspoon said.

She recognizes the power

of art to bring people together.

It’s something to be shared and enjoyed. She wants to prioritize making connections with students as the new Art Director.

“Art always is an offering to people. You can enjoy art by experiencing it, you don’t have to buy anything, so it’s always this wonderful gift. We don’t sell anything here; we share it.”

Ahead of the first term without restrictions since the start of COVID, Wedderspoon says Union Gallery

Wedderspoon standing in front of Elaine Foreman’s “Cyanotype Plant Quilt.”

is setting up to have a special year.

She’s particularly excited about an immersive exhibition planned for this semester.

“There’s something really lovely about work that you have a physical relationship with, work that puts you inside of it.

It’s pretty special.”

If you’re interested in visiting Union Gallery or getting involved, check out their exhibitions and programs on their website.

PHOTO BY CURTIS HEINZL

10 • queensjournal.ca

Arts

The case against dupe culture

Friday, 9 September, 2022

Cheaply made look-a-likes are destroying the integrity of designer pieces Rida Chaudhry Senior Arts Editor The rising interest in for sustainable clothing and support for small designers are being overshadowed by micro-influencers dedicated to finding inexpensive dupes for goods that one may not typically want to spend for.

While it’s seemingly inconsequential to purchase said copies from stores like Amazon or Shein, the truth is far from it.

The phenomenon of ‘dupes’ is nothing new. While owning one was previously cast as shameful, TikTok’s youthful creators and viewers have adopted ‘knockoffs’ or ‘copies’ with pride. To the average consumer lacking disposable incomes, the choice to pay a fraction of the price for a supposedly identical item seems obvious.

Social media’s ground-breaking setting for trend cycles to rapidly flourish and dissipate serves as the most persuasive form of consumer capitalism to the growing generations. The desire to acquire a certain aesthetic or look feeds a disillusioning relationship between consumer and producers.

It’s time to value more than just a look of an item.

A reality check is necessary.

Overwhelming detachment between consumers and methods of production has resulted in cycles of cheaply-made clothing, which rips off small designers, through the supply chain.

Not only is the integrity of the designer disrespected, but the $300 dress you found on Amazon for $10 was absolutely made through exploitative labour. The desire to acquire a certain look or aesthetic is feeding this detachment.

For designer brands, the lack of

concrete plagiarism laws creates a power imbalance between them and small brands pumping out cheap replicas that won’t last.

To the financially conscious person: this is not a preach to refrain from inexpensive purchases, but rather a call to action on how to better consume and enjoy your products.

Thrifting, for example, has recently been spotlighted as an alternative to expensive shopping.

It’s a conscious effort to lessen one’s own waste through second hand

GRAPHIC BY AMNA RAFIQ

purchasing. There’s absolutely no shame in keeping your limits within what you can afford, but critically reflecting on how you consume fashion is necessary.

It’s a difficult conversation to navigate when the industry is so cruel and money driven, however it’s vital to consume consciously in a world moving at such an unsustainable pace.

Style is not dependent on trends or newness—online presences have tricked consumers into this belief.

Personal style is created from clothes that make you happy and you identify with.

Sure, this could be the Mirror Palais dress you’ve been eyeing for a while, but deciphering the value of your desire versus the lost value to designers/labourers is vital.

Shifting your perspective from surface-level respect for the clothing you own to seeing them holistically as goods that are designed, created, and sent out for your pleasure is far more important than flexing knock offs.

Navigating the climate crisis requires a disillusionment from the supply chain. By approaching your consumption with an understanding for the production cycle, you not only weaken your personal carbon footprint, but also respect the designers who’s clothes you admire as art.

The World Economic Forum has declared the fashion supply chain as the planet’s third largest polluter. The worsening climate crisis calls for a necessary change in how we consume clothing and what value we give to achieving a desired style. journal_ae@ams.queensu.ca

An overview of book cover art Exploring historical shifts and the significance of book covers

Sam Goodale Assistant Arts Editor The old saying tells us not to judge a book by its cover, but we’ve been doing exactly that for centuries.

From medieval manuscripts to 1980s high fantasy, book covers have long been a visual expression of a book’s content and significance.

Book covers are works of art deserving of appreciation and contemplation. The historical context of the book, however, drastically changes the purpose and composition of its cover.

For example, Medieval books were luxury items to be enjoyed solely by the political and

Cover art is art too.

intellectual elite. Literacy was a rarity, and consequently, books were precious objects.

During Medieval times, we saw bejewelled, bedazzled book covers. Covers, then, reflected the value of a book and its status as a luxury good exclusive to the educated upper class.

However, with the proliferation of printing presses and increased literacy rates, the place of books and the role of book covers changed.

Book covers during the 16th to 19th centuries were primarily functional. Of course, they were beautiful and embossed, but the illustrations we associate with

modern book covers were found inside the binding. Books had illustrated title pages called a frontispiece, which you might have noticed if you’ve ever had to read Shakespeare in high school.

Additionally, until the Industrial Revolution, it was the buyer’s responsibility to have their books bound: printers sold the printed text of a book, and binders bound the pages. So, the buyer essentially got to choose the appearance of the cover.

The cover, then, was not a form of artistic expression nor reflective of the themes contained inside. It was merely a decorative means to hold your loose pages together.

Fo l l o w i n g i n c re a s e d industrialization and mechanical innovations, printers began to print and bind books. Technological advances meant books were cheaper to make, while increased literacy rates meant more people were reading them.

During this period, too, we saw the first books resembling modern mass market paperbacks, called penny dreadfuls. They revolutionized the role of book covers and cover art: they were made to be judged off their covers, with beautiful, zany full-colour pieces decorating their fronts.

While we may not want our novels to look like Black Bess,

GRAPHIC BY AMNA RAFIQ

the emergence of coloured paperback covers revolutionized how we view book covers: they’re not merely protective slabs of wood, but a canvas for art.

It’s essential to recognize the importance of cover art and how it relates to our experience reading a novel. You may hold a particular fondness for one edition of Harry Potter as it’s the one you read as a child; its cover is not only bound to the book, but also to your experience of the book.

Book covers are instilled with meaning far greater than their composition. They’re an art form coloured by your interpretation of the book.

The iconic cover of The Great Gatsby is beautiful on its own, but its significance shifts with your reading and becomes more moving. Its meaning is malleable and shaped by the story and how the reader interacts with it.

That’s why covers are so profound: they’re a conversation between stories and art. They exist in virtue of each other, not in spite.

One is necessary for the other, and both shape our understanding of the world and ourselves.

From Chaucer to Vonnegut, covers have been bound to books in more ways than one. Although there has been an unfortunate shift toward dull, lifeless cover art, these images have become no less important.

A book’s beauty does not begin and end within its pages. The artistry inside must be reflected on the outside; perhaps then book covers might stand up to judgment.

Friday, 9 September, 2022

Sports

queensjournal.ca • 11

Lightning strikes, but Gaels strike back Gaels overcome inclement weather to beat Gee Gees 26-16 Sarah Maat Senior Sports Editor Lightning delayed the start of the Gaels and Gee Gees Sept. 3 matchup at TD Place in Ottawa.

After the game finally started, it stayed slow. Neither team put up any points and lightning caused another delay with only five minutes left in the first quarter.

This second delay lasted longer, pushing the game over two hours behind schedule—what had started as a dinner-time game was now being played into the night.

However, the Gaels didn’t let delays rattle them, instead keeping up the same mentality Coach Snyder instilled upon them when they departed for the season’s first away game.

In a press release, Snyder said they were to treat it as “a business trip and [go] out and just getting really locked in.”

After play resumed, Queen’s put themselves on the board with a 13-yard field goal.

Gaels maintained their winning streak in week two of the regular season.

This has become a pattern for the Gaels; the first points from last game were also courtesy of a Tyler Mullan 13-yard kick through the uprights.

However, the Gee Gees quickly retaliated.

Within 30 seconds of Queen’s getting on the score board, they joined the Gaels as Maracle threw a touchdown to Dimbongi.

Fair finished it off with a good point after try, giving UOttawa a total of seven points.

From there, the game continued with some back-and-forth action.

Gaels put up another field goal, but were still tailing as the Gee Gees kicked two more through the uprights. After a delayed half littered with penalties and constant change of possession, both teams were glad to be through the first two quarters.

With their rushing-based offense, the Gee

Gees proved to be an interesting opponent for the Gaels. After losing their top running back, Anthony Federico, to graduation, many were left wondering how Queen’s would stack up against a ground-heavy assault.

Anthony Soles proved himself up to the challenge. His determined and diligent rushes helped the Gaels tie the game early into the second half, pairing well with quarterback James Keenan’s split-second decision making.

Soles focused on running northsouth throughout the game, refusing to get caught up in dancing with the other players. Likewise, Keenan played the field well. He’s shown a consistent ability to keep his eyes downfield while also extending plays with his legs.

The two Gael touchdowns in the third

Online sports betting is here to stay—for better and for worse

Gambling on athletes has its highs and plenty of lows Ben Wrixon Editor in Chief You’ve no doubt seen the commercials: sports betting is live in Ontario and the big companies are eager to get everyone on their apps.

It’s become impossible to watch a Toronto Blue Jays game without being bombarded by ads for the online sportsbooks, be it Bet365, The Score, or Bet MGM, among others. No matter how much you love Breaking Bad, the one with Aaron Paul is especially egregious.

These ads paint sports betting for what it Online sports betting is everywhere. is: fun and exciting. have been putting money on steeds and boxing matches for decades, but being able to “On paper, sports and betting are bet on hockey, baseball, basketball is a newer phenomenon for many. a match made in heaven.

However, what they conveniently avoid mentioning are risks associated with gambling. Like slots and blackjack, sports betting is an addictive hobby that can drain your finances like a three-pointer.

On paper, sports and betting are a match made in heaven.

Sports fans are often intense, highly invested, and passionate. They find few things sweeter than their team winning a big game.

Add in some money, and now that huge Raptors win has your wallet feeling a little heavier than it did before tip-off.

Some sports, primarily horse racing and fighting, have always involved betting. People

“This is where it gets dicey; the overwhelming number of options on these betting platforms create an illusion of skill.

Online betting apps provide the most casual of sports fans an avenue to put money down on their favourite teams and players, no bookies required.

The options are unlimited. As the commercials are quick to explain, users can put money down on their

SPORTS

SUPPLIED BY ROBIN KASEM

quarter allowed Queen’s to pull far enough ahead. The field goal points the Gee Gee’s put up next wouldn’t make a difference.

The Gee Gees sent it through the uprights to cap off the third quarter, and the Gaels reacted by with two field goals of their own, taking away any chance uOttawa had at securing a win.

This close, drawn-out game started with kickoff at 7:04 p.m. and finally ended at 11:45 p.m.

Next, the Gaels are set to play their rival the Western Mustangs in London on Saturday. Heading into that game Queen’s is in great standing, ranked 5th in U Sports Top 10. what the player in question has done all season.

Unfortunately, no amount of research or knowledge can accurately predict how a game will play out on a given night. The house always wins; oddsmakers set lines in a way that ensures nobody is destined to be a profitable bettor in the long-term.

However, the more important question is whether becoming a profitable bettor is something desirable in the first place.

Serious sports betting requires serious commitment. People who only bet on the weekends with their friends might get lucky once or twice, but the people who really make money are the ones devoting hours a day to studying, for what little good it does.

“They’re little more than exploitative businesses happy to take money from anyone.

GRAPHIC BY AMNA RAFIQ

favourite teams and players, no bookies required.

The options are unlimited. As the commercials are quick to explain, users can put money down on everything from the moneyline—picking the winner—to hyper-specific play props, such as how many innings Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman will pitch in his next start.

This is where it gets dicey; the overwhelming number of options on these betting platforms create an illusion of skill.

When you bet on the moneyline, you’re choosing either win or lose. When you start betting on player props, you’re guessing based on averages.

For many diehard, well-educated sports fans, these types of bets feel safer.

Some people make a living selling their predictions, using algorithms to calculate supposedly statistical based on

The adrenaline rush you get after hitting a parlay on your favourite team is unmatched—until you’re bored and betting on their next game.

Most people already have a hard enough staying off their phones. Add in the need to check the scores on seven games every few minutes, and you have a recipe to spend your entire night with your nose mere inches from your phone screen.

These companies are smart. They lure people onto their platforms using celebrities and keep them there by offering free bets, but ultimately, they’re little more than exploitative businesses happy to take money from anyone who buys into their fantasy.

When done responsibility, online sports betting can be fun. But, unlike watching the game on TV, the consequences of a tough loss can be devastatingly real.

Sports

12 • queensjournal.ca

Queen’s Soccer opens season against Ravens on home turf The men’s team suffered a tough loss, while the women ended with a tie Sarah Maat Senior Sports Editor

PHOTOS SUPPLIED BYJAMES PADDLE GRANT

Neither team started with a win.

Men can’t hip thrust at the ARC Thrust and abductor machines only available in the women’s section Sarah Maat Senior Sports Editor

With school back and in-person, the ARC has seen many students flocking through its doors in the past week. However, not every student has been able to find what they are looking for.

On Sept. 31, some students anonymously took to Reddit to complain about the issue.

The problem at hand: hip thrust and abductor machines are only available in the Women’s Fitness Zone, making any student who doesn’t identify as female unable to access them.

The original post called the ARC out for being “sexist,” explaining that denying men access to certain machines was unfair. The poster expressed support for the Women’s Fitness Zone as a concept, but simply wished all machines were available in the general zone.

This post received many comments from students who are also frustrated by this inequity. Commentors had no problem with the Women’s Fitness Zone as an area; their problem, however, was with certain machines being omitted from the general section.

Some were quick to point out possible adaptations that could work the same muscle groups just without using the machines. The Redditors, however, were not satisfied.

Many argued the proposed alternatives given are not always suitable, as there are few machines available that specifically target the muscle groups the abductor and hip thrust machines are designed to

target. Although innovate athletes find ways to adjust using other machines, barbells, and cables, these options have their own limitations.

Ultimately, the anonymous discussion seemed to favour one solution: reach out to the ARC and make a formal complaint.

Someone even dropped the exact email to which they should reach out.

When The Journal asked Athletics and Recreation (A&R), they suggested just that.

We encourage any and all students who have suggestions on how we can improve the service and equipment offerings we provide at the ARC to provide their recommendations to our Customer Service team, take part in one of our forthcoming user surveys or leave their feedback at any time by visiting rec.gogaelsgo. com/suggestions.”

According to A&R, the discrepancy between the sections is a result of decisions and suggestions made by of survey of the 2019-20 student population. “[A&R] completed a renovation and expansion of the ARC’s Women’s Fitness Zone in January 2020 in collaboration with a committee of student leaders. As part of that collaboration, specific equipment offerings were acquired and installed after being identified as priorities for the space by users who offered their feedback to the renovation process.”

In recognizing the changing demands of the student population, A&R is prepared to adjust if intentional feedback is given.

The whole discussion is available on Reddit under r/queensuniversity.

The hip thrust and abductor machines are valuable to all.

PHOTO BY MAIA MCCANN

On Sept. 2, the Queen’s women’s and men’s soccer teams laced up their cleats and faced the Carleton Ravens at Richardson Stadium.

The women played first and put up a tough fight, but were only able to put one shot in the net, ending the game in a draw.

A few hours later, the men suffered even worse results after conceding two goals early, letting the Ravens hold the lead for the rest of the game.

Here’s a breakdown of which Gaels to look out for, and the key plays from this past weekend.

Men’s Soccer unable to pull ahead

The two times these teams met on the pitch during last season, Carleton delivered a clean sweep. The Ravens kept up that pattern last Friday.

For the first ten minutes, the Gaels were able to hold them off despite struggling to maintain possession. It wasn’t until the ten-minute mark that things started to go downhill.

Daniel Assaf of the Carleton Ravens started off the scoring streak with a quick goal. Within two minutes, Silvio Simil followed suit and put one in the back of the net as well.

These two quick points were enough to discourage the Gaels.

“The way we started both matches was very promising but conceding the first goals and not executing in our final acts donated the win to our opponents. We know what we will do better and will use the next two weeks to work to make it so,” Head Coach Christian Hoefler said in a press release.

Friday, 9 September, 2022 The Ravens kept up their momentum, scoring once more in the first half. Their consistent pace showed the Gaels what it would take to succeed this season.

In the second half, the Gaels decided to face the challenge head on. They continued to get shots on net while Connor Adams protected the net on the other end of the pitch. Finally, one of their many shots landed; Lucas Booth scored their first goal of the regular season.

Friday’s game was a tough loss that showed the reality of competing at this level.

Women’s Soccer has strong start to the season

The women’s drive, desire for the ball, and ability to play as a team shone through in last Friday’s home game.

As defending OUA champions, the women took the pitch with tenacity. Right from the start, they stole and maintained possession.

They kept the ball in the Ravens’ end for the most part, but ultimately struggled to get the ball within the 18-yard box most of the time.

Cecilia Way started off strong with many shots on net. She was able to move the ball amongst her teammates and facilitate plays that incorporated her teammates’ strengths.

She looked for ways to capitalize on Jenna Matsukubo’s insane speed and worked on sending through passes to Raya Athwal that could develop into attacking advances. This incredible performance and leadership won Way Queen’s University Athlete of the Week.

Despite game play dominated by the Gaels, the Ravens scored the first point.

Elodie Sylvain launched a free kick from just inside the sideline that magically found its way over both the defense and offense, going straight into the back of the net. This was the Ravens’ first shot on net all game.

What followed was 12 minutes of misery as fans wondered if the usually dominant Gaels would ever land a shot. Finally, Melissa Gravel scored the equalizer, putting a ball in the back of the Raven net around the 78-minute mark.

Later, Way had an opportunity much like the one Sylvain had, but her free kick hit the inside of the crossbar and bounced out.

The game ended in a draw as neither team was able to pull ahead.

Looking ahead, the men will play next on Sept. 18 against the RMC Paladins. The women return to the pitch much sooner on Sept. 9, facing off against the UOttawa Gee Gees.

Lifestyle

Friday, 9 September, 2022

LIFESTYLE

queensjournal.ca • 13

Student-approved festive fall recipes

Spicing up the fall season, one recipe at a time

Maddie Hunt Senior Lifestyle Editor While venturing around Shoppers Drug Mart the other night, I found myself wandering the store’s magazine section with the 40-year-old moms. Given the pressure to not grab the trashy gossip magazine for fear of judgment, I proudly grabbed a Better Home & Gardens fall recipe magazine, and I’m so happy I did.

With fall festivities shortly rounding the corner, I thought it was only appropriate to share some simple recipes to spice up your meal plans.

Don’t worry—they’re dummy-approved for all the students who cook ramen every other meal.

Turkey Apple Grilled Cheese

Why not start with a classic, and make it autumnal? These turkey-apple grilled cheese sandwiches only take 25 minutes to make, so they’re perfect for a quick dinner or lunch before class.

The ingredients you’ll need are simple: apple jelly, white cheddar or gouda cheese, a granny smith apple, sliced deli-roasted turkey,

a sweet onion, bread, butter, and vegetable oil.

Grab a large pan, toss in some oil, and add the onion over medium heat. Cook until the onion begins to brown—this should take about six to eight minutes. Once browned, transfer into a small bowl and add two tablespoons of apple jelly.

Thinly slice the green apple, and place it, one slice of cheese, the turkey, the jelly-onion mix, and another second slice of cheese on a slice of bread. Finish it off with the second slice.

Next, cook like a normal grilled cheese. Butter the top half of each slice of bread and place your sandwich buttered-side-down on a pan over medium heat.

Flip it over once you see each the bread beginning to brown.

Once browned on both sides and the cheese has melted, your meal is complete!

This meal tastes amazing, makes you feel like a master chef for making grilled cheese and gets you into the autumn spirit.

Cinnamon Sugar Bourbon Pumpkin Muffins

These muffins are designed for my friends who have a sweet tooth. Your housemates will adore you for baking them. Note: you can substitute water for the bourbon.

For your trip to the grocery store, grab chopped pecans,

GRAPHIC BY AMNA RAFIQ

These are the perfect recipes for a successful autumn.

granulated sugar, 15 oz. canned pumpkin, bourbon, cinnamon sugar, all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, vegetable oil, and eggs.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a muffin spread pan with the paper baking cups.

In a small bowl, mix in 2/3 cups of granulated sugar, 3/4 cups of pecans, and a teaspoon of cinnamon. In a larger bowl, add 2 3/4 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, and another teaspoon of cinnamon.

In a second large bowl whisk the pumpkin with 2 2/3 cups of granulated sugar, 3/4 cup of vegetable oil, 3 eggs, and ¼ cup bourbon.

Combine the two mixtures and mix until the batter looks lumpyandmoistened.Fillthemuffin cups and sprinkle the pecan mix on top. Let bake for 25 to 28 minutes. Once they’re

out of the oven, top your muffins with cinnamon sugar and let them cool for 10 minutes before indulging in your fall festive sweets.

Bacon Turkey Cranberry Pinwheels

These pinwheels are a quick and easy snack when you’re on the go between classes.

All you’ll need is some bacon, cream cheese, large tortillas (nine to 10 inches), one cup of dried cranberries, a green onion, and thinly sliced deli-style turkey—which, if you’re following along, you should already have!

Cook the bacon in a pan.

Once it’s cooked, crumble or cut it into small pieces. Thinly slice the green onion and chop the cranberries. Grab a small bowl and add an eight-ounce chunk of cream cheese, along with the

crumbled bacon, green onion, and cranberries.

Once mixed, spread the cream cheese mix over a tortilla—or two, depending on how hungry you are.

Top it with a thin slice of turkey.

Roll the tortilla tightly and cut it into one-to-two-inch pieces.

If you’re preparing them on a plate for friends, stick some toothpicks in horizontally to hold the pinwheels together. It’s really that simple. ***

I hope you enjoy these simple, fun fall recipes! I know I did, and I hope your friends will as well. *All recipes are courtesy of the third printing of Fall Recipes 2020

by Better Homes & Gardens.

Re-evaluating diet culture

Cutting essential nutrients out of your life is unhealthy.

Diet culture causes more harm Clanny Mugabe Assistant Lifestyle Editor For the 2022 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian embarked on a crash diet to lose sixteen pounds in three weeks just to fit in Marilyn Monroe’s dress.

For the past couple years, celebrities have trended online for losing immense amounts

PHOTO BY CURTIS HEINZL

of weight in short amounts of time, crediting strict diets and intense workouts for changing their appearances in record time.

Influencers, celebrities, and civilians alike have been embarking on these severe lifestyle-changes for the sake of weight loss.

Outside of weight loss, there’s been several fad diets rising and falling within the public consciousness. Many of them intense, rigid, and restrictive. It’s clear we’re living in an age when policing your food intake is more normal than ever.

Having dietary preferences or needs is

normal and okay. Whether it’s allergies, taste or texture preferences, or a matter of ethics, what you eat and why is yourbusiness.

Having a specific diet isn’t bad in a vacuum, and wanting to be h e a l t hy, eat h e a l t hy, and feel good is admirable. Of course, we should all aspire to be healthy.

But we don’t live in a vacuum.

A flawed society creates flawed concepts and values, and diet culture hides toxic ideals in a mask of health consciousness.

Some of the most famous examples of strict diets come from celebrities and influencers, who seek to lose weight rapidly or prevent themselves from gaining weight. To be transparent, they do it in an unhealthy manner.

I bring up Kim Kardashian because of her specific place in society. She’s a style icon who created the benchmark for beauty standards in the late 2010s. Her actions, her style, and what she chooses to promote sends a message about what is stylish, beautiful, and desirable.

When style icons like Kim Kardashian promote diet culture through crash diets or weight loss teas, they send a clear message of what body is aspirational. They promote fatphobia by making being anything but thin incredibly undesirable.

There are healthy ways to look and feel

fit. To accomplish such a thing in a healthy manner, however, you must make healthy choices. Following a no carbs, no sugar, no fat, no sodium four-month diet is not the healthy choice.

To truly have a healthy diet, you need a balance of all the food groups—if you can eat them. Carbs are hugely important, and so is sugar, believe it or not. So many diets demand a hard cut-off of essential nutrients just because they might cause a shift in weight and, more desirably, a change in appearance.

Heavy restriction and calorie counting—something that comes side by side with diet culture—are also aspects of disordered eating habits.

All in all, the many harms of diet culture means that our relationship with food and our bodies is deteriorating.

We need to re-evaluate our relationship to food and diets. Wanting to eat healthy and feel good are good goals, but being healthy means more than being skinny. Reckoning with diet culture also means reckoning with toxic beauty standards and trying to find real holistic ways of engaging with food and beauty.

Compromising your health to mirror the Kardashians’ body image is detrimental and unrealistic. The Kardashians don’t even look like the real Kardashians without Botox and plastic surgery.

Let’s not mistake reality for fiction.

Lifestyle

14 • queensjournal.ca

Friday, 9 September, 2022

The ultimate first year survival guide Rounding up orientation week advice

Maddie Hunt Lifestyle Editor

Getting Involved

It’s September already, and while I’d rather be diving off the pier, we’re instead diving headfirst into Orientation Week.

In the spirit of O-Week, here’s a recap of the most important information first-year students will need to be successful during their time here at Queen’s.

Beating the freshman fifteen

Freshman fifteen is a well-known phenomenon across all universities. Being told you’re going to move away, live on your own, and gain fifteen unwanted pounds isn’t exactly comforting to hear. However, there are ways to avoid it.

The truth is, the ‘fifteen’ doesn’t come from junk food—it comes from the amount of alcohol most people consume during first year. While I won’t encourage underage drinking, there are smart low-calorie drinks that can help with the worry of weight gain.

Local, Socialite, and Cottage Springs are all vodka sodas ranging from 55 to 99 calories. This can beat out other options like Budweiser or Heineken, which can rack up to 150 calories per drink.

Second, if you’ve had the same eating habits for most of your life, the food choices you make relatively should stay the same. The dining halls really do provide proper meals. While they may not be the most prestigious dinners you’ll ever get, they have healthy options like salads, fruits and vegetables, and protein options. Eating from dining halls helps to avoid using too much fast-food-based Trade a Meals (TAMs) or flex dollars.

Intramural sports and clubs like debate team, The Journal, and Model UN—shoutout the fact I’m basically doing an unpaid promotion right now—are great options for meeting people and exploring interests.

I know it’s scary to put yourself out there, but involving yourself not only builds connections with friends, but allows you to explore your interests, develop hobbies, and maybe even try something you’ve never tried before.

The Queen’s community is so welcoming and, frankly, always happy to have new faces join teams and clubs. Take the jump and get involved—you won’t regret it.

Signing Leases

Coming from someone who had the worst living experience possible in the first half of second year, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of the information I’m about to share.

Yes, it’s recommended you sign a lease

by October or November. However, I highly advise you to truly get to know the people you’re planning on living with before you sign the lease.

Discuss living styles: do you like a quieter house to study, or are you a serial partier?

Do you like having your own space and a smaller number of people, or do you like having people around and a larger set of housemates? Are you an early riser or a night owl? Quiet times, parties, friends staying over, and cleanliness are all important facets to think about.

There are also multiple student-run

This is how to have a successful Queen’s experience.

social media pages that act as resources to find and chat with people about off-campus living, including Facebook group chats, Queen’s housing listing websites, and advisors to guide you in asking the right questions.

Managing Your Workload

Managing multiple assignments at a time can get overwhelming fast—especially during exam season. My best piece of advice is time management.

I live and breathe my calendar. Once you’re done reading over all your syllabi, write down all important due dates on a calendar—not a virtual one—and set it up by your work desk. That way, you’re reminded about upcoming deadlines every time you work.

If you’re really worried about missing deadlines, write down the upcoming deadline a couple of days earlier than it actually is. You’ll trick your brain into doing it early, and if you forget about it, you’re still in the safe zone and won’t suffer a late penalty.

With multiple assignments, get the smaller ones done as soon as you find out about them. Don’t push off a discussion post that will take you 20 minutes, because suddenly you have four others due, as well as two essays.

Try your best to put some time into larger assignments. If you do small pieces of each assignment in increments, you’ll never have too much on your plate at one time.

you want to say that Pizza Studio will help, or maybe even a burger, but I hate to break the news: it’s a total myth that greasy food soaks up alcohol—greasy foods aren’t soluble in water.

Instead, have a banana!

Bananas contain fiber and they help with digestive issues—so if your stomach is flipping, they may calm it down a bit—and they’re great for levelling out your potassium.

Ginger/Ginger Tea

The morning after isn’t enjoyable for anyone.

A cure for the hungover Smashed, sloshed, gone-zo, boggled: there’s a cure for it all Maddie Hunt Senior Lifestyle Editor The first week of school, Alehouse & Canteen announcing Tuesday country theme nights, and moving back in with your best friends sounds like a recipe for, well, alcohol. With a recipe always comes a remedy, so I present to you: hangover cures.

I mourn the days I could party all night and wake up the next morning feeling amazing. Hell, I’d even go for a run bright

and early, grateful I wasn’t among my half-alive groaning friends who were begging me for a Tylenol. Those were the days…

Now, here I am, suffering among the masses. The positives? I have a wicked list of hangover cures that actually work.

Gatorade

While drinking a ton of water is so important Gatorade is too.

It not only gives your taste buds a fun wake-up call, but it also

gives you a ton of electrolytes.

It’s a small boost of energy rather than the lowly water that seems almost difficult to drink in such a state of despair.

In between your glasses of water—and I truly mean glasses, not sips—grab your favourite coloured Gatorade (blue is the most elite and any other answer is wrong) and remind yourself there are still alcohol-free fun drinks.

Carbs—but specifically, bananas

Is standing up too fast feeling like you were just on a roller coaster that did one-too-many loopty-loops? I’ve been there.

A trick that most people don’t talk about is either eating ginger or having ginger tea.

After doing some research, I found out ginger has natural properties that help with indigestion, nausea, and other hangover symptoms.

Now, please don’t start eating a ton of ginger—that will probably make you feel worse—but ginger tea is definitely a possible option for mending the sickness.

For all my girls who reject carbs, y’all aren’t going to love this one, but unfortunately, it has to be done. Anyone who knows me well knows my go-to food to soak up the alcohol in my system is toast.

You need a hefty carb, like bread, crackers, or a sandwich that can settle your stomach. I know

If that pounding alarm in your head is too painful to deal with for the next 24 hours without any help, then Tylenol, Advil, or Ibuprofen is your best friend. Only take one of the options—please not all three.

Personally, an extra-strength Tylenol works best for me. Take one every four to six hours and

PHOTO BY CURTIS HEINZL

GRAPHIC BY AMNA RAFIQ

Tylenol, Advil, or Ibuprofen

by the end of the day (6 p.m. to 8 p.m.) you should be relieved of the banging in your head.

At that point, feel free to make yourself a smoothie.

No noise irritation, plus you’re nourishing your body with fruits and protein.

Sleep

Naps are the best when you’re badly hungover. Your body is exhausted—you just tore up the dance floor all night while literally poisoning your body for a few hours.

Your body can’t combat the discomfort you’re feeling when it’s exhausted from the night before.

A nap works wonders.

Sleeping not only helps you escape the awful feeling of being hungover, but it also gives your body a chance to regroup and rejuvenate itself after the terrible way you treated it, hours prior. ***

This strongly curated list can only go so far. Frankly, if you’re so hungover that you’ve Googled this, have done all the above and still feel awful, there may be nothing else I can do for you.

At the end of the day, you have to just soak in the pain you’re feeling. I hope you feel better though.

Lifestyle

Friday, 9 September, 2022

Sometimes, this misinformation is deliberate, as the stigma around mental illnesses still exists in many spaces. No amount of awareness will change the minds of people who prioritize jokes and entertainment over the lives and feelings of real people.

Mental health is a hot topic, and the widespread discussion around it has led to some institutional change—workplaces and universities are bringing mental health mindfulness into their policies.

But there’s still a deep-rooted history of mental health being stigmatized. Less romanticized conditions, like narcissistic personality disorder, is still ascribed to morality.

If you glance at TikTok, you can find a whole set of videos where people with no expertise in the field are diagnosing others with bipolar disorder or narcissistic personality disorder, which ascribes bad behaviour as symptoms of mental illness.

Pretending to be an expert in a highly nuanced field harms everyone in the process. Diagnosing others around you leads to further stigmatization of those illnesses because that “diagnoses” purports false beliefs about the illness in question.

Social media brings awareness to the issue of mental health, but makes it vulnerable to

Mental health and social media: good or bad?

Education and misinformation are two ends of the same stick Clanny Mugabe Assistant Lifestyle Editor Today’s rise in mental health awareness goes hand in hand with the widespread use of social media.

With this rise of social media comes a questioning of its ethics.

How does social media reflect our reality? Accurately? Helpfully?

Or does it amplify our flaws and hurt us more than it helps?

In the case of social media’s relationship with mental health, this question becomes especially pertinent. While social media provides a new platform to speak on people’s experiences and resolves some stigma, it also opens its own can of worms.

On the positive side, social media creates a space for education.

Beyond depression and anxiety, there’s a whole spectrum of mental

illness and neurodevelopmental disorders that have historically been stigmatized and oppressed.

Before social media, having a mental illness was treated as a joke, and real people felt the weight of the punchline. These new platforms bring awareness to issues people have never thought of before, provides a realistic view of what mental health can look like, educates them on the proper ways to discuss mental health, and facilitates more sensitivity all around.

On the other hand, with awareness comes misinformation.

While experienced mental health advocates provide accurate information on mental health, there are more amateurs in the field than there are experts—people who are likely to misunderstand the information they hear.

Saving your self-care routine

Emily Miller Contributor With school starting up fast, many of us experience high stress and feel a pressure to succeed.

Our brains receive an overload of information in the first week of classes—it can be overwhelming now, but it’s even more overwhelming when you have big papers all due in the same week.

When the stress of it all finally hits, we need to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves first and foremost. Self-care looks different for everyone, but these are a few things that have worked for me in the past, and hopefully they work for you too.

Spending a Night Out with Friends

This option may seem contradictory when you’re stressed about getting your assignments done on time, but hear me out.

Sitting in your room for hours on end can be detrimental to your mental health and ability to focus.

Taking a break by spending time with friends will lift your mood and release some of the school tension and stress. Socializing and going out are both important facets of the university lifestyle that lots of students crave and require.

Eating a Proper Breakfast

queensjournal.ca • 15

Mental health needs to be discussed.

misinformation and the misuse of terms.

Despite these dangers, the biggest pro of social media’s amplification of mental health is solidarity and access. Social media users can find whole communities of people with similar experiences and shared feelings who’ve dealt with the rollercoaster that may be their mental health.

One of the best things social media has brought us is a sense of interconnection and community.

People across continents can meet and connect. Social media gives everyone around the world access to the advice and wisdom of people with a variety of experiences.

A depressed teenager can see and understand the message of hope coming from someone who came out of their depression.

Exercise comes in many different forms, which means there’s something for everyone based on interests and physical capabilities.

Taking part in physical activity releases stress and helps you relax. For the short time you’re in the gym, you’re in a complete detox from life’s many distractions. It allows you to take time to focus on your body, which we need to take care of—it does so much for us on a day-to-day basis.

Let’s not pretend that we weren’t always told growing up that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” I hate to break it to you, but it really is. You can’t go wrong with eating a full and hearty breakfast.

Eating a good breakfast in the morning has positive mental, emotional, and physical Bed Break benefits. An egg, quick banana, bowl of oatmeal, or protein fruit smoothie can all If going out isn’t for you, no problem. give you the energy you need for a full day of Sit down with a cup of tea, coffee, classes or studying. or water, and pick up a book or put on your A healthy breakfast also has multiple health benefits such as keeping a healthy heart and reducing the risk of diabetes. When you’re sitting in classes all day, there’s littleto-no opportunity to run home and eat lunch, making breakfast even more of a necessity.

Exercise

If I could recommend one thing to do to take care of yourself, it would be exercise.

Dedicating time to go on a run, lift weights at the gym, or do thirty minutes of yoga in your bedroom makes a big difference. I cherish the time I can get away from my screen, plug my AirPods in, and just run.

I know exercise can feel dreadful—like a burden that you simply don’t have time for—but it’s one of the most important ways to take care of yourself.

Mental health is just as important as your physical health.

GRAPHIC BY AIMEE LOOK

GRAPHIC BY CURTIS HEINZL

People can show each other coping mechanisms and offer compassion from a place of experience, alleviate fears of navigating the healthcare system, or give helpful warnings.

Social media can be, and often has been, very toxic. The harassment and abuse it provides needs to be talked about and managed, but if you’re careful and mindful, social media can act as a gateway to better understanding what mental health is and how to help your own.

It’s not perfect—it does not make you an expert—but hearing first-person accounts of mental health experiences is a huge first step in broadening our understanding of mental health and how to properly discuss and manage it.

comfort show. Complete a mindless action—your mind deserves the break.

When you’re on the move all day long travelling from classes and putting your brain to work in lectures, you rarely have enough time to sit and enjoy your own company.

I cannot stress enough the importance of taking time to sit down with yourself and do something mindless. *** Whatever you do during the day, night, and throughout the school year, it’s crucial that you put yourself first. Trying to succeed also means you have to work hard in selfcare, to ensure you’re mental, emotional, and physical needs as met as much as your academic ones.

Lifestyle

16 • queensjournal.ca

Friday, 9 September, 2022

Why I loved being a Gael Giving my first years the encouragement my Gaels gave me

Emma believes O-Week gives students hope.

Emma Courtemanche Contributor One of the questions given to me to inspire this article was, “How has O-Week made you feel?” As a Gael, I must say…“I FEEL SO GOOD! OH, I FEEL SO GOOD! OH!” This year, I made the great decision to become a Gael for the class of 2026. I loved my experience of Orientation Week, both as a first-year and as a Gael—O-Week truly gives you a sense of hope and excitement for your future at Queen’s.

There were a few very important things that encouraged me to become a Gael. When I was in first year, not too long ago, my Orientation leaders, Hannah and Charlotte—Gaels in the Arts and Science faculty—really had an impact on me, for more reasons than one.

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I felt safe and comfortable.

I came from a small town and an even smaller high school. I was terrified to transition from a small high school with a couple hundred students to a ginormous campus of 25,000 students—not to mention 200 students in a single lecture hall.

My Gaels’ positive and encouraging attitudes helped me calm my nerves. I felt safe and comfortable. They provided me with amazing resources for school and activities, which made

me get acquainted with my now new home. I was hopeful to fit in here.

I remember thinking to myself, “man, I want to make someone else feel this welcome.” From that moment on, I decided I wanted to get involved in ASUS Orientation and become a Gael. It’s probably the best decision I’ve made at university.

Unfortunately, my year of orientation had some challenges that I am sure we are all familiar with: COVID-19. Being a firstyear in the pandemic was tough.

However, my Gaels and the whole Orientation committee made O-Week memorable for me even with the relentless restrictions.

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Gaels were able to make our activities accessible.

These restrictions included masks, a mandatory six-foot distance between other fellow students and Gaels, being unable to gather in large indoor facilities like the ARC, and restricted access to touring different establishments due to capacity limits.

I know these restrictions sound terrible and nearly impossible to work around. However, Gaels were able to make our activities accessible and enjoyable. We were still able to experience Queen’s Orientation traditions like the tamming ceremony and my personal favourite: coverall painting.

Seeing the work they put in to give us a proper experience despite the circumstances was really encouraging.

When I applied to become a Gael, I wanted to have a chance to apply the skills I learned in my O-Week, like better campus navigation skills, using onQ and navigating SOLUS. I was also connected with useful academic and wellness resources such as Student Academic Success Services (SASS) and Student Wellness Services (SWS).

[...] connections you “make are really like a family.

Passings along these skills and welcoming the next generation of students to in-person activities after a long two years in isolation was amazing. I was able to show first years the same support and encouragement that I had received in my first year without working around restrictions.

In addition to the joys of running Orientation, the process of becoming a Gael is also so enjoyable compared to your typical job or volunteer training. The people you meet, things you learn, and the connections you make are really like a family.

Through the week of socials, the trip to “Winnipeg” and the early morning training sessions, I created a bond unlike any other. I felt incredibly included and welcomed by all the ASUS Orientation Chairs

and Orientation Coordinators.

Training allowed me to see the ongoing growth at Queen’s regarding many different topics including student wellness, academic success, a space to feel included, and the growing diversity of the campus.

The atmosphere of Gael training prepared me with an open mind and a positive outlook on my future at Queen’s—an important mindset when thinking about your future. That’s something I’m very grateful for.

Welcoming first-years on their move-in day with open arms and an upbeat attitude was a blast.

Potentially being the first friendly face a student sees on campus meant a lot to me. I wanted the first-years to know that while starting university can seem overwhelming and scary, every student at Queen’s started where they are and made it.

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O-week has given me hope about my future at Queen’s.

First year was not my greatest time, but seeing my Gaels smiling faces gave me hope that beyond all the assignments, readings, and exams, there’s a positive and supportive community. That’s what I wanted to give back to them.

Parents and students coming to me with questions about all different things made me feel proud to be helping people.

SUPPLIED BY EMMA COURTEMANCHE

Then, I had a chance to meet my own first-years in my Orientation group and, let me tell you, they are the best. Hearing where they are from, their hobbies, and what they want to study really made me happy knowing they chose Queen’s to pursue those passions.

Watching the first-years laugh, smile, and experience the spirit of Queen’s made me incredibly grateful to attend this university.

Knowing that myself and the people around me made a positive impact on the incoming students around us fulfilled a dream .

We were able to inspire students to meet their community, explore clubs of their interests, play sports in intramurals or maybe be confident enough to try something they’ve never done before.

Knowing you have a good support system behind you can motivate you to be brave and experience new, positive things. Not only did O-Week impact the firstyears, but it also impacted me as a Gael. To see and be a part of such an inclusive, gratifying community has truly been a highlight of my time here at Queen’s.

O-week has given me hope and excitement about my future at Queen’s, and inspired me to give back to my community and do the same for incoming first-years. I can only hope I made an impact on them the way my Gaels did for me.

Next year, I plan to pursue a role as an Orientation Coordinator and lead the Gaels to triumph—just as my OCs did for me.