February 22, 2016

vol. cXXXvi, no. 17

T he UniversiTy

of

ToronTo’s sTUdenT newspaper since 1880

22 febrUary 2016

SPORTS

Paige Schultz competes for The Varsity Blues. PHOTO COURTESY OF MARTIN BAZYL

The Varsity Blues men’s and women’s swim teams led a dominant week of varsity athletics for U of T, breaking a combined 18 provincial and national records while taking home multiple medals. The men secured their thirteenth straight OUA banner as the women claimed their third, leaving both teams alone atop the national leaderboard. PG 26

CAMPUS POLITICS

UNIVERSITY FINANCES

Where in the world are your directors?

U of T forecasts net income of $138.2 million, $70.1 million deficit

Attendance at UTSU board meetings rises; meeting length a barrier to participation

Actual outstanding debt $1 billion, credit rating remains investment grade

KAITLYN SIMPSON

INSIDE Whose history is it anyway?

What are we commemorating when we observe Black History Month?

Comment PG 11

Rough rentals

What students leasing apartments in the city need to know Features PG 14

The Bard’s books

Fisher Rare Book Library exhibits original Shakespearean works Arts PG 16

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

TOM YUN

The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) represents 47,000 full-time undergraduate students at U of T. The Board of Directors is the union’s highest decision-making body and the individuals who sit on it are elected by the UTSU’s members during the union’s spring elections. The job of each director is to represent the interests of their constituents. Each year, The Varsity evaluates board meeting attendance rates.

The University of Toronto has released its institutional financial predictions for 2016. Net income, net assets, and the university’s deficit are all forecast to drop. The university’s actual outstanding debt teeters close to $1 billion, but this figure is a reduction from the most recent September 2015 sum. In July 2015, U of T’s endowments passed the $2 billion mark.

PG 4

PG 3

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

From the classroom to the boardroom How a new program is preparing PhDs for careers outside academia Science PG 23

2 NEWS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016 news@thevarsity.ca

Issue 17 Vol. CXXXVI

21 SUSSEX AVENUE, SUITE 306 TORONTO, ON. M5S 1J6 (416) 946-7600

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

thevarsity.ca thevarsitynewspaper @TheVarsity the.varsity thevarsitynewspaper

MASTHEAD Alec Wilson Editor-in-Chief

editor@thevarsity.ca

James Flynn Managing Online Editor

online@thevarsity.ca

Sarah Niedoba Managing Editor Margaux Parker Creative Director

managing@thevarsity.ca creative@thevarsity.ca

Sean Smith Senior Copy Editor

copy@thevarsity.ca

Iris Robin News Editor

news@thevarsity.ca

Victoria Wicks Comment Editor

comment@thevarsity.ca

Alex McKeen Features Editor

features@thevarsity.ca

Jacob Lorinc Arts and Culture Editor

arts@thevarsity.ca

Nadezhda Woinowsky-Krieger Science Editor science@thevarsity.ca Emma Kikulis Sports Editor

sports@thevarsity.ca

Lisa Wong Design Editor

design@thevarsity.ca

Mallika Makkar Photo Editor

photo@thevarsity.ca

Julien Balbontin Illustrations Editor Shaq Hosein Video Editor

video@thevarsity.ca

Damian Klambauer Web Developer

web@thevarsity.ca

Mubashir Baweja Associate Design Editor

Teodor a Pasca Associate Comment Editor

Nathan Chan Associate Photo Editor

Jaren Kerr Associate Features Editor

Elham Numan and Diana Pham Associate Illustration Editors

Corey Van Den Hoogenbend and Reut Cohen Associate A&C Editors

Salvatore Basilone Associate Video Editor Sonali Gill and Ariel Gomes Associate Senior Copy Editors Devika Desai, Emily Johnpulle and Tom Yun Associate News Editors

Winter makes a clear comeback on a cold day at King’s College Circle. SILA NAZ ELGIN/THE VARSITY

illustration@thevarsity.ca

THE EXPLAINER T H E NA M E S BE H I N D SOM E OF U OF T ’ S BU I L DI NG S

Shahin Imtiaz and Shaan Bhambra Associate Science Editors Vacant Associate Sports Editor

Lead Fact Checkers Ujwal Ganguly, Evan Maude, Lauren Park, and Corinne Przybyslawski Copy Editors Lucas Bennett, Kieran Buckingham, Jaren Kerr, Evan Maude, Lauren Park, Lisa Power, and Corinne Przybyslawski

1.

2.

Designers Judy Hu, Amy Wang, Laura Wang, and Vanessa Wang

Parsa Jebely Business Manager

business@thevarsity.ca

Cherlene Tay Business Associate

4.

Innis College — The smallest college on campus is named

Athletic Centre, this Faculty of Kinesiology and

for political economist and media theorist Harold Adam

Physical Education building is named after the first

Innis, who studied communication media of the last 4,000

woman to graduate from U of T with a degree in

years and influenced fellow Canadian media theorist Mar-

chemistry.

shall McLuhan.

Claude T. Bissell Building — The building that houses

5.

Margaret Addison Hall — This Victoria College stu-

the Faculty of Information is named for the eighth

dent residence was named for the dean of Annesley

president of U of T, who expanded the university with

Hall residence from its founding in 1903 to 1931.

the opening of the Mississauga and Scarborough

During her time in higher education, Addison was an advocate for including women in higher education.

campuses between 1958 and 1971.

3.

BUSINESS OFFICE

Clara Benson Building — Built in 1959 as part of the

FitzGerald Building — Named after Dr. John

6.

Teefy Hall — John Read Teefy, professor of mathematics,

FitzGerald, the building is part of the Faculty of

philosophy, and English, played a role in affiliating St.

Medicine, where Dr. FitzGerald served as dean

Michael’s College with U of T by establishing an agree-

from 1932 to 1936. Dr. FitzGerald also founded

ment that allowed the college to teach philosophy and

Connaught Laboratories, which developed vac-

history courses.

cines for rabies and diphtheria.

Michelle Monteiro Advertising Executive The Varsity is the University of Toronto's largest student newspaper, publishing since 1880. The Varsity has a circulation of 20,000, and is published by Varsity Publications Inc. It is printed by Master Web Inc. on recycled newsprint stock.

Content © 2015 by The Varsity. All rights reserved. Any editorial inquiries and/or letters should be directed to the sections associated with them; emails listed above. The Varsity reserves the right to edit all submissions.

Inquiries regarding ad sales can be made to ads@ thevarsity.ca. ISSN: 0042-2789

CORRECTIONS An article published in Issue 16, February 8, “Skule slams the slopes” contained errors relating to the composition of competition toboggans. The toboggans need only have skis made of concrete, the rest of the sled is largely carbon fibre. Additionally, the captains of U of T’s Concrete Toboggan Team (UofTBog) Ozan Coskun and Matthew Frade were reported to be in mechanical and industrial engineering, and on a professional experience year, respectively. Frade is a fourth-year industrial engineering student, and Coskun is a third-year mechanical engineering student. The Varsity regrets the errors.

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

NEWS 3

var.st/news

o CONTINUED FROM COVER

The University of Toronto’s financial results and report on debt reveal that U of T forecasts a net income of $138.2 million and projects net assets to be at $4.35 billion. The forecasted net income is a decrease from last year’s net income of $287.8 million, while the value of last year’s net assets was $4.38 billion.

The forecast, which includes the university’s projected revenue, expenses, net income, and changes in net assets for the fiscal year ending on April 30, 2016, was presented on January 25 to the Governing Council Business Board. The board oversees the university’s financial transactions.

These forecasts are based on a projected investment return of 0.4 per cent, an endowment payout of $78.3 million, an increase of $96.4 million in reserves, and an increase of $23.7 million for future divisional capital

edict d o in expenditures. The university acknowledges that it only has interim information regarding divisionally controlled revenue and expenses, and that investment returns are uncertain.

The university also projects a deficit of $70.1 million, which is a drop from the $89.5 million deficit run during the 2015 fiscal year. This has been partially attributed to the $22.9 million increase in tuition fee revenue, correlated with an increase in enrolment from international undergraduate students, who currently pay over five times more than domestic students.

THE DEBT REPORT This report is comprised of three parts: the annual debt strategy review, the status report on debt, and the credit report by Moody’s Investors Service.

According to the status report on debt, the university allocated $1.218 billion in bor-

income net

et deficit

rowing room, with $150 million allocated to pensions and $200 million allocated to other internal debt. The university also allocated $868 million for external components, which includes $15 million for the expansion and renovation of the Recreation Wing at UTSC. The University of Toronto’s actual outstanding debt as of October 2015 totals $999.9 million. Of that figure, $123.3 million is pension debt while $158.9 million comes from other internal debt.

External debt makes up $717.6 million, the bulk of which is in the form of unsecured bonds issued by the university.

The university’s credit rating is unchanged from last year; Moody’s gave the university an Aa2 rating, while Standard & Poor’s and Dominion Bond Service assigned a rating of AA. These ratings are considered investment grade.

Currently, U of T’s debt policy limit is set at a debt burden ratio of five per cent. This means that the debt and interest should not exceed five per cent of total expenditures. This is only the university’s acceptable limit; the recommended upper limit is set at seven per cent.

According to the annual debt strategy review, the university’s debt policy limit was set to $1.401 billion as of April 2015, and the university expects this to increase by an additional $350 million to $1.75 billion by April 2021.

The review also states that a one per cent increase in the interest rate would result in the reduction of the limit between $53 million and $88 million, while a two per cent increase would see a reduction between $95 million and $158 million.

4 NEWS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016 news@thevarsity.ca

ne fi t o

di ecto

CONTINUED FROM COVER

Attendance at meetings of the University of Toronto Students’ Union’s (UTSU) Board of Directors has risen slightly this year despite a significant increase in the number of board meetings.

The number of directors consistently absent at meetings has fallen from previous years.

One fifth of directors have missed at least 60 per cent of meetings; last year one quarter of directors missed that many meetings. The average attendance rate currently sits at 64 per cent.

The Board of Directors is an elected group of individuals that represents college and faculty interests in the UTSU. They are classed into three divisions: Division I is comprised of the colleges in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Transitional Year Programme; Division II includes the Professional Faculties; and Division III is representative of UTM. According to UTSU’s by-laws, the board must meet at least once a month, with additional emergency meetings to be called when necessary. Thus far, the UTSU has had 15 meetings, five of which have been emergency meetings.

There are 38 active directors; the positions for the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and for the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education are currently vacant.

The Varsity contacted all 38 directors for comment on this year’s attendance record, five of whom responded as of press time.

MEETING LENGTH Mathias Memmel, director for the Faculty of Music, cited the length of the meetings as a potential reason for the lack of attendance. “Some meetings last as long as six hours. For some people, this is a turn off,” he said.

John Sundara, director for the Toronto School of Theology, agreed with Memmel and referred to the issue as “general meeting fatigue.”

Jess Afonso, director for St Michael’s College, said that the lengthy, contentious meetings left her feeling insignificant and voiceless, and that she does not attend meetings because she no longer wants to.

Although Afonso feels that the UTSU has had numerous successes this year, such as agreeing to divert 50 per cent of engineering student fees back to the Engineering Society and running a voter engagement campaign during the 2015 Federal Election. She believes it took an unreasonable amount of time to accomplish them.

“The one thing I will never forgive the UTSU for is the

ent om t le t

amount of time it took to be present at those meetings where these motions were debated and voted on,” Afonso said, adding that she remained mostly silent during the meetings. “The problem with [it] is [that] there are so many other board members who act like me: we feel drowned out by the select few amplified voices and it makes us afraid to speak up.”

Afonso listed the policies and procedures that govern the meetings as a barrier to her participation. UTSU board meetings are run according to Roberts Rules of Order, a set of governance principles designed to facilitate the proceedings in a parliamentary fashion. For Afonso, meetings are flooded with procedural showboating that blocks meaningful discussion and participation.

“Robert’s Rules has been the biggest pain in my ass since annotated bibliographies,” Afonso said. “If I tried to speak up — heaven forbid — I’d end up getting shut down because I was out of turn or out of order.”

Afonso acknowledged the importance of procedural compliance but said that there was a “tipping point” at which she felt “too checked” to speak up. “I was in limbo between thinking these meetings were a complete waste of my time, and that ultimately my vote was crucial to the passage of many important motions,” she said.

OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES The most common reason given for absences was the understanding that the directors are students with responsibilities outside of their positions. “Apart from being on the board of directors, students have part-time jobs, schoolwork and personal matters to attend to,” said Peter Zhang, director for New College.

This academic year has seen an exceptionally high number of board meetings. “We’ve had 15 meetings this year and we aren’t even done yet! For reference, last year there were only 9 meetings,” Memmel stated. He added that meetings can be especially challenging for commuters to attend. The UTSU does not subsidize transportation costs for directors who rely on transit to attend meetings downtown. For meetings at UTM, the UTSU has provided a shuttle to and from the St. George campus.

The UTSU permits directors to attend the meetings remotely, through online fora such as Skype or Google Hangouts.

Zhang said that setting the schedule of meetings far in advance may help boost attendance rates. “I think a good thing for next year would be to spend the first meeting of the school year mapping out the remainder of the meetings.”

e cent o meetin Raffi Dergalstanian, a director for the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, proposed the possibility of a smaller board and reducing the number of meetings. “If I know that a meeting is happening only once a month, I’ll be more inclined to attend.”

With 38 occupied seats and two vacancies, the board should be 40-strong; however, the changes to the Board of Directors structure saw the addition of 12 new seats. The board that will be elected in this year’s UTSU spring elections will comprise 52 members only if all seats are filled.

IS IT A PROBLEM? In interviews, the directors did not agree on whether the attendance rate poses a problem. Memmel said that the attendance rate is “concerning.” For Memmel, a directorial absence may mean the loss of representation for their constituency for that meeting. “Some divisions only have one representative and when their voices are absent, the concerns of entire divisions may be too.”

For his part, Dergalstanian believes that it is “unrealistic to expect all board members to attend every meeting.” Sundara said that he was unsure whether it is a problem or not.

UTSU president Ben Coleman believes that measuring attendance is not an accurate reflection of the success of the board. “I would still say that board meeting attendance is an imperfect measure of performance, since board members have so many other responsibilities as well.”

U of T students were similarly split in their perception of the problem’s scale. Pharmaceutical chemistry student Nareg Kara-Yacoubian, said he could “see why [absences are] happening… especially if the topic or issues of a particular discussion don’t affect their groups interests.”

Political science student Tamsyn Riddle feels that the average attendance of directors is “disconcerting” and feels that the directors “should have to attend at least 75 per cent” of the meetings.

Coleman said that overall he is very proud of the board. “The decisions they’ve had to make this year make previous years look easy by comparison,” he said.

Afonso disagreed. “If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that students like me do not belong on the [UTSU Board of Directors]. I encourage more knowledgeable voices to fill board member positions next year. Otherwise, you will have six-hour meetings, which you do not want to be attending — trust me,” she said.

Disclosure: Tamsyn Riddle is a reporter for The Varsity.

ACTIVISM

Silence is Violence Anti-sexual violence group develops branch at U of T AIDAN CURRIE

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

A new anti-sexual violence group has opened a chapter on campus; Silence is Violence is the University of Toronto’s survivor-led collective that aims to tackle problems related to sexual violence and rape culture.

The Silence is Violence organization started at York University and has branches at other post-secondary institutions, including the University of British Columbia (UBC). The group at U of T met for the first time recently to discuss issues surrounding the university’s ineffective responses to sexual assault and violence.

Silence is Violence takes an intersectional feminist approach to mobilizing solutions. Survivors of sexual violence may share their ideas for organizing and are at the forefront of the initiative. The group is open to connecting with related movements and coalitions.

According to the UBC branch of Silence is Violence, the organization is “not a rape relief organization but endeavours to gather and share various resources for survivors of sexual violence, particularly those navigating the difficulty of the university reporting process.”

The organization also states that they would have universities “[put] survivors of sexual assault above their commitment to image and brand.”

Organizers with Silence is Violence U of T were unavailable for comment at press time.

U of T community members rally in support of feminism after threats against feminists surfaced in September 2015. SANDY MA/THE VARSITY

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

NEWS 5

var.st/news

DIVISION II

DIVISION I

BOARD OF DIRECTORS ATTENDANCE

NICHOLAS GRANT, ARTS & SCIENCE AT LARGE

RYAN HUME, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

DAMAN SINGH, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

KHRYSTYNA ZHUK, ARTS & SCIENCE AT LARGE

AUNI AHSAN, VICTORIA UNIVERSITY

ANGELO GIO MATEO, TRINITY COLLEGE

DANIELLE SARDELLA, ST. MICHAEL’S COLLEGE

STEVE WARNER, VICTORIA UNIVERSITY

NATHAN GIBSON, WOODSWORTH COLLEGE

JESS AFONSO, ST. MICHAEL’S COLLEGE

PETER ZHANG, NEW COLLEGE

ANASTASIA HAROVSKA,* TRANSITIONAL YEAR PROGRAMME

NICOLE THOMPSON, INNIS COLLEGE

ZACHARY BIST, NEW COLLEGE

MATTHEW CELESTIAL,* WOODSWORTH COLLEGE

PRIYA KAUR, ST. MICHAEL’S COLLEGE

CAILYN STEWART, WOODSWORTH COLLEGE

DANNI ZUO, NEW COLLEGE

MATHIAS MEMMEL, MUSIC

JOSH CALAFATO, APPLIED SCIENCE & ENGINEERING

CAITLIN PASCOE, NURSING

NIA-IMARA BARBEROUSSE, PROFESSIONAL FACULTY AT LARGE

RIAZ SAYANI-MULJI, LAW

JASON LO, PHARMACY

CARLOS FIEL, PROFESSIONAL FACULTY AT LARGE

REBECCA JACKSON, MEDICINE

ADRIANA MENGHI, ARCHITECTURE

JOHN DEEPAK SUNDARA, TORONTO SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

EMILY XU, APPLIED SCIENCE & ENGINEERING

RAFFI DERGALSTANIAN, APPLIED SCIENCE & ENGINEERING

T

AN

C VA ILAN ZIMNER, DENTISTRY

KINESIOLOGY & PHYSICAL EDUCATION

T

AN

C VA

OISE

DIVISION II

Missed FEWER THAN 5 meetings ABDULLA OMARI, UTM

HASHIM YUSSUF, UTM

FARAH NOORI, UTM

EMERSON CALCADA, UTM

Missed 6 OR MORE meetings *Does not currently hold the position

FALHAD MOHAMOUD, UTM

SANA CHISHTI, UTM

MAHEEN ALTAF, UTM

Celestial resigned and was replaced by appointed director Ifrah Farah.

The TYP director’s term does not coincide with that of the other directors; Harovska was replaced by Paul Rhaney in a by-election.

6 NEWS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016 news@thevarsity.ca

RESEARCH

Shakespeare’s First Folio goes on display at Fisher Library Additional 60 books reveal Folio’s history, source material EMILY JOHNPULLE

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

The University of Toronto is marking 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare with a special exhibit at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. ‘So long lives this’: Celebrating Shakespeare, 1616-2016 features Shakespeare’s First Folio from 1623 — the only copy in Canada.

The First Folio was published seven years after Shakespeare’s death. It was the first time a book of plays was printed, and the first time that more than half of the plays were published.

“Until then folios were mostly used for printing important religious, political, and historical works. With the First Folio in 1623, the format of the book itself confers a new kind of importance on plays — and plays written and performed for nearly the full stratum of English society, from working-class people to the royal court,” said Alan Galey, director of the Master of Information Program at U of T. Galey worked with fellow U of T professors Peter W.M. Blayney and Marjorie Rubright and Western University assistant professor Scott Schofield to curate the exhibition.

“Without it, we probably would never have been able to read — or even know about — plays including Macbeth, The Tempest, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, and Anthony and Cleopatra [sic],” added Galey.

Almost 60 other books will be on display, some of which Shakespeare may have used for inspiration in his own work.

“Reading the same sources that he did helps us understand how he apprenticed himself, so to speak, to other writers and dramatists,” said Galey.

“We often value writers now for their originality, but Shakespeare’s actual practice as a dramatist reminds us of a basic fact about writing: that writers make stories out of other stories, and that creativity frequently comes from adaptation, reinvention, and even what today we would call remixing,” adds Galey.

In addition to source material, the exhibition features Shakespeare’s other three seventeenth century folios, Shakespearean scholarship from the Renaissance, and present day texts.

“Studying the other books also helps to elucidate the printing history of the First Folio itself. So for instance one of the other books had a type that got broken at some point,” said Anne Dondertman, director of the Fisher Library. “So when that same broken piece of type reappears in a particular play in the First Folio, it makes it possible to determine the order of the printing of the plays in the Folio.”

The exhibit is free to attend and runs until May 28, 2016. The Fisher Library is also running a screening series at the Media Commons Theatre, which will showcase film adaptations of Shakespeare’s work.

“If you come and see the exhibit and the modern material that’s included I think its [sic] brings it home that Shakespeare is still a source of inspiration to ordinary readers today but also to people who are making books or illustrations,” said Dondertman.

The collection includes the only copy of the Bard’s First Folio in Canada. PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN SHOESMITH

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

NEWS 7

var.st/news

ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

U of T tackles cyber aggression

Financial statements reveal UCLit’s 2015 deficit

U of T’s Faye Mishna on challenges of social media, importance of education

Increased expenses account for loss EMILY JOHNPULLE

ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

4,000 undergraduates have already taken the survey and 1,000 graduate students are set to respond in March.

ALEXANDRA SCANDOLO/THE VARSITY

SAMINA SULTANA VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

When exploring the murky waters of social media, students are often unsure about how to handle acts of cyber aggression. In response to this problem, the University of Toronto has hired Faye Mishna, dean of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, as the provostial advisor on aggression in social media.

Working with members of the U of T community, Mishna will develop strategies to educate students about the challenges with expressing aggression on social media. She hopes to take the benefits and risks of social media usage into account and advise the provost on how to foster an environment which would lend itself to positive social media.

Mishna cited the “power to demean” as one of the key factors in online aggression. “[When you’re online] you don’t see the person you’re speaking to, there are no social or physical cues. [You don’t see their] face, [or their] body flinch,” said Mishna. “Some people, who can’t say things in person, say it online and that is problematic. [They say] things they wouldn’t otherwise in person... but it might be too much.”

According to Mishna, the challenge with social media is “how to respond [in a way that is] helpful and not punitive.” Mishna wants to promote positive use and teach how to respond without being reactive. “[Social media is] not problem based; it is part of the world right now.

Whether it’s online or offline it’s about people relating. We need to have codes of conduct, respectable ways of dealing with conflicts, points of differences and have consequences.”

So far 5,000 U of T students have been surveyed about their experiences with cyber aggression, most of whom were undergraduate

students. Next month another 1,000 surveys will be distributed to graduate students.

Mishna also wants to conduct focus groups for student feedback at all years of post-secondary education in order to “figure out the best way to provide education.” At this point she is focusing on students but hopes to eventually interview faculty, as “everybody is effected.” “[U of T] is a huge [school] with three campuses, [with a] range in diversity with students, faculty and staff,” said Mishna. “Social media is a new world and so challenging generally [because it is] easy to get misused.”

When asked about the importance of the issue Mishna said that all universities need to deal with aggression on social media. She added that, instead of implementing policies, students and faculty at universities should be preventative rather than reactive in their actions on social media.

“People are on social media, it’s a new world and we don’t know all the consequences, it affects us good and bad and everyone needs to be aware of this.”

For now, Mishna wants students to keep their guards up when it comes to positing on social media. “If you’re posting about [yourself], anybody can see it and anybody can post it. [You make yourself] vulnerable. When you post about others, anybody can see it, there is no privacy. When there is no one in front of it, you think it’s just a device a computer, a smartphone, there is a person behind it. It comes down to the relationships.”

According to the financial statements of the University College Literary & Athletic Society (UCLit) from April 2015, the organization was operating with a deficit by the end of the winter term.

The UCLit’s statement of operations reveals that their expenses rose by over $67,000 from 2014 to 2015. Expenses increased across the board in 2015, a $20,000 increase for services and University College-recognized clubs form the bulk of the increases. Several thousands of dollars also went into outreach, as well as literary and creative arts initiatives.

The society is largely dependent on the University of Toronto for its funding, but some revenue also comes from external sources.

In 2014, the society had $34,848 in excess revenue. A total of $210,144 in revenue came from fees and levies, events, and the Refugee Sponsorship Program. In 2015, however, $242,500 in expenses outweighed the student society’s revenue of $205,029.

Although there was an increase of several thousand dollars in revenue from Fireball, the college’s annual formal dance, and the Refugee Sponsorship Program, there was a significant drop in revenue.

The figure fell from $55,124 in 2014 to $26,954 in 2015.

When compared to 2014 when there was a $30,481 increase in cash that resulted in a

cash total of $53,252, records show that there was a $56,888 cash decrease in 2015.

Net assets, however, remained relatively similar from $72,237 in 2014 to $63,273 in 2015. At the end of April 2015, the assets comprised primarily the funds held in trust by U of T, a sum of $51,432 and did not include any money in the bank.

For the 2015–2016 term, the UCLit’s executives have said that they are working to ensure that the same losses do not occur.

“As for the current year, we’re ensuring that overspending does not occur, through perpetual updates to our actual spending, and ensuring all transactions are streamlined and filed in detail,” said Snow Mei, the UCLit’s current finance commissioner.

“Updating our actual expenditures as they are approved and issued ensures we can identify when specific line items go beyond the budgeted amount,” she said, adding that the UCLit’s goal is to host events and provide services to students while maintaining a balanced budget.

According to the auditor’s report, the financial statements do not reflect the assets and liabilities of the clubs and student organizations at the UCLit, and they do not reflect the services of volunteers.

The University College Literary and Athletic Society is the student council at University College. SILA NAZ ELGIN/THE VARSITY

8 NEWS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016 news@thevarsity.ca

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Black History Month at U of T A series of events commemorating black history and heritage NATASHA MALIK

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Throughout the month of February, student groups are holding events for Black History Month at U of T. The activities are designed to provide a dedicated space for the discussion of black experiences of both the past and the present. Black History Month also acts as an opportunity to support the black community.

With these aims in mind, the University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) organized a number of events for the first half of February.

These events included festivities such as the Black History Social, which allowed students to enjoy soul food and exchange ideas and views with their peers, and also the ‘Buy Black’ initiative. Buy Black was a two-day event to support local black-owned businesses by enabling them to promote and sell their products on campus.

The UTMSU is also collaborating with Textbooks for Change, a social enterprise that provides affordable educational material locally and abroad. The two organizations are donating 1,000 books to universities in East Africa.

In the second half of the month, the UTM Equity and Diversity Office and the UTMSU are hosting a talk by community organizer and educator Jasiri X. UTMSU president Uranranebi Agbeyegbe did not respond to The Varsity’s request for comment.

The Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) is holding a conference entitled Resil-

ience and Resistance: Black History Month Conference. On February 27, it will include a number of workshops as well as two keynote speeches.

Africa. The speakers will discuss the challenges of institutionalized anti-black racism within post-secondary education.

Civil rights activist Rosa Parks and her husband volunteered for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

MATT LEMMON/CC FLICKR

The speakers are Yusra Khogali, from the Black Liberation Collective U of T, and Nompendulo Mkhatshwa and Faisha Hassan, from #WitsFeesMustFall, a student activist movement that was started last year in South

“Resilience and Resistance is one of many spaces created by Black students at the University of Toronto,” said Jessica Kirk, SCSU vice president equity. The SCSU last organized a Black History Month conference in

2014 which involved several student groups at UTSC. This year, the union worked with a number of associations across the university. “Rather than solely organizing Black History Month initiatives with Black Student Associations at the Scarborough Campus, we reached out to Black student organizers and organizations across all three campuses to demonstrate a true sense of unity in the Black community,” Kirk said. “[The] SCSU is not limiting the creation and maintenance of spaces for Black students to February,” Kirk explained. “Rather, we aim to take active steps to support Black students and community members all months of the year in various ways.”

For the end of Black History Month, the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) Social Justice & Equity Commission has organized a spoken word showcase, Afro Speaks! set for February 29. According to the Facebook event page, “The tone of this space will welcome expressions of the radical and critical truths about Blackness/Africanness as it interacts with a white supremacist global system.”

All the events held this month aim to highlight the importance of giving a platform to minority groups. The groups behind the commemoration of Black History Month hope to “collectively create strategies to support and empower the Black community,” according to the Facebook event page.

CAMPUS EVENTS

UTSEC Sexual Awareness Week promotes sexual health Focus on safety, consent throughout week of activities HARLEEN SANDHU VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

This year’s Sexual Awareness Week (SAW), run by the U of T Sexual Education Centre (UTSEC), took place from February 8 to 12.

All the events were free to attend and included A-sexy Time! with Asexual Outreach University of Toronto (AOUT), Q21 Cafe: Consent, Communication, and Pleasure with the Sexual and Gender Diversity Office, and Kink 101.

These events have become an annual tradition. “The aim of [SAW] is to promote sexual health on campus and to start interesting, nuanced conversations around sex-ed in fun, inclusive, and affirming environments,” said Rowan* and Mika*, external education coordinators of UTSEC, in a joint statement.

SAW sought to spark conversations about consent throughout the week, especially at the Q21 Café where communicating consent and stating boundaries were at the forefront of the event’s discussion.

A-SEXY TIME! The A-sexy Time! session took the form of a community discussion. According to Brian Langevin, AOUT president, a group of asexual spectrum, or ace, students attended and shared their experiences. The history of the ace community, the politics of aromantic communities in relation to ace communities, and the various ace events that have

taken place on campus were among the topics discussed.

“The event was incredibly successful in creating a safe small group for ace students — something that had not existed at the university beforehand,” Langevin said. Students present at the event agreed that there needs to be a dedicated safe space for ace students; as a result, Langevin is now leading a biweekly discussion group called “ace/ aro space.” The group meets every other Wednesday evening.

KINK 101 Kink 101 was the last event of the week, led by Rae Costin and Jordan*, members of UTSEC. The focus was on creating awareness about consent, the resources and research available in the context of kink, the importance of implementing risk aware consensual kink (RACK), and how to properly practice RACK. Understanding terminology was also a focus. At Kink 101, the facilitators walked the attendees through the various acronyms used in the kink community including BDSM, which refers to bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism. These acts include things like restraining another person, inflicting pain on others, or inflicting pain on oneself.

Safety was another major theme at Kink 101, as Jordan emphasized that researching

SEC offers free safe-sex supplies to members of the U of T community. MICHAEL CHAHLEY/THE VARSITY

about the safe ways of doing otherwise dangerous things is a necessary step in engaging in kink. The workshop showed how to engage in impact play and binding safely.

Costin highlighted the importance of having safe words, which are predetermined words used to end or slow down a scene, or an instance of engaging in BDSM. Costin also covered non-verbal cues, such as

dropping or jangling keys, which can be useful when someone is unable to say or clearly pronounce a certain word.

“All of our events were great successes and we hope to work with the individuals and organizations who held them in the future,” said Rowan and Mika. *Name amended at individual’s request.

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016 var.st/news

T H E VA R S I T Y

ADVERTISEMENTS 9

COMMENT var.st/comment

22 F ebruary 2016

comment@thevarsity.ca

ELHAM NUMAN/THE VARSITY

Steady but slow A review of the university's report on sexual assault response and prevention NAOMI STULEANU VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

F

rom the Dalhousie dentistry scandal in 2014 to a recent string of sexual assaults at the University of British Columbia, high profile occurrences of sexual misconduct have raised national concerns about sexual violence on university campuses. Students have consequently lobbied university administrations to implement sexual violence policies.

At U of T, that advocacy pressure has resulted in the creation of the Advisory Committee to the President and Provost on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Violence. The committee released its final report shortly before reading week, a decision that has been both a cause for criticism and cautious optimism.

The committee’s process has been slow; it seems as though the issue has not been addressed with the urgency it requires. It took the committee 15 months from the time it was first established to release its final report, and it does not include any specific terminology or protocols for a new sexual violence policy at the university. This is slow compared to the single month it took Queen’s University to create an interim sexual assault support and response protocol in response to the Toronto Star’s investigation into sexual violence policies at different universities.

It is a weak excuse to say that bureaucratic, administrative processes hampered the committee’s ability to produce prompt recommendations. While policy is not created overnight, the administration should have certainly prioritized the issue. Given the gravity of the issue, it is unclear why our university did not move more quickly. Some recommendations require more research than others, but this should not exclude the possibility of an interim protocol or, at the very least, a clarification of existing procedures.

The committee also proposed that a “policy on sexual violence be created and begin with a clear affirmation that sexual assault and harassment will not be tolerated on campus.”

Yet, the recommendation for the sexual violence policy is simply that — a recommendation. It does not indicate what rights will be afforded to survivors of sexual assault, nor does it offer specifics on how the procedure will work. This is not to mention that an institutional commitment to combatting sexual violence is a step forward, but such a simple statement could have been made much earlier.

Looking at Queen's again: only one day after the Toronto Star published its review, the university's principal and vice-chancellor wrote an article in the university publication The Gazette, affirming that “there is no tolerance for sexual assault in our community” and that “we have much work to do in this

regard, but we have also made some significant strides.” Additionally, he outlined the steps the university was taking to combat sexual violence, projecting accountability to the broader community. U of T should aspire to have leaders that encourage similar attitudes.

To the committee's credit, the suggestion to create one university sexual assault centre for reporting and providing support services is quite promising. It responds to how our current services for survivors overlap with each other, which makes them difficult to navigate.

The committee’s other recommendation for university-wide education and training programs is essential for generating awareness and understanding about sexual violence among students, staff, and the community. It is commendable that the committee looks to combat “underlying attitudes and behaviours,” which are at the root of sexual violence. There is also a move toward accountability in shifting campus culture with the suggestion that “a regular campus climate survey [be] conducted.”

These benefits are offset by the fact that the committee’s report lacks any set deadlines for further discussion or policy. This lack of certainty leaves the progress on sexual violence in limbo, and makes it harder for students to hold the university responsible for producing anything in the near future.

The university’s choice not to make the report more public exists in the same vein. For all the emphasis on campus-wide education initiatives, there was a curious failure to disseminate the report via university list-servs.

This is concerning because the committee purports to want feedback from students. Yet, this cannot occur unless students know what they should be responding to.

Soliciting more student feedback will ensure that the new policy reflects the specific concerns of this university, and that the implemented initiatives are appropriately tailored to our community It is important that we recognize the limits of bureaucracy when responding to various complex social phenomena. Equally important, however, is to keep a critical but fair eye on those who wield institutional power.

In this sense, the release of the committee’s report is bittersweet, and the fight against sexual violence is far from over.

Naomi Stuleanu is a second-year student at Victoria College studying criminology and psychology. Her column appears every three weeks.

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

COMMENT 11

var.st/comment

Not in my city

Whose history is black history?

To combat misogyny, a resolute and contextualized response is necessary

African liberation narratives deserve recognition in Black History Month MILEN MELLES VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

ELHAM NUMAN/THE VARSITY

TEODORA PASCA

ASSOCIATE COMMENT EDITOR

Pickup artist and blogger Daryush Valizadeh, also known as Roosh V, is infamous for his misogynistic views. Most notoriously, these include a proposal to make rape legal on private property, which was unconvincingly dubbed satirical following its release.

Recently, Valizadeh organized an international ‘tribal meeting’ of his followers to allow them to congregate and exchange their views.

One meeting was scheduled to take place in Toronto at Queen’s Park, which is adjacent to our campus.

Backlash from city mayors, community groups, and members of the general public forced the various meetings to be either relocated or cancelled altogether. The overwhelming opposition to the Valizadeh meeting was entirely appropriate; it highlights the importance of fighting hateful discourse and attitudes, no matter how extreme or ‘fringe’ certain groups may appear to be.

Although he prefers to be labelled a 'neomasculinist,' Valizadeh and his followers blatantly promote misogyny. On his personal website, Valizadeh states that “a woman’s value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty.” He deems gender equality a detrimental myth. He even accuses women of manipulating the legal landscape, where rape and domestic violence accusations will be used as tools for their benefit.

Valizadeh’s blog, Return of Kings, allows fellow 'neomasculinists' the opportunity to chip in on what women can do to be more attractive to men, what’s 'wrong' with women of various ethnicities, and what women to avoid at all costs, including the 'damaged' women that claim rape and sexual abuse.

To most of us, these ideas may seem obviously disturbing yet, thankfully, representative of a small minority. Numerical size, however, does not preclude harm from being inflicted.

The Westboro Baptist Church, infamous for its fiery hatred of LGBTQ persons, is significantly tighter-knit but claims to have picketed more than 40,000 times since 1991.

This has rendered them a visible presence in many communities and demonstrated that even a small group of individuals can do a lot of damage.

It is also questionable as to whether Valizadeh is actually a lone wolf. Despite his extreme views, the blogger was able to organize meet ups in 43 countries, including 10 locations in Canada. Support for his cause can also be found in the multitude of online commenters voicing their views on the Return of Kings website.

“Neomasculinity,” then, continues to hold more water than we may think. It is important that we should contextualize the popularity of their ideology in the persistent societal structures that encourage discrimination against women. Subtle, institutionalized sexism pervades educational and employment spheres, while sexual and domestic assault against women continues to be a pressing concern.

Similar structures of oppression foster and allow the survival of other hate groups. The Ku Klux Klan, one of the oldest hate groups in the United States, maintains a membership between 5,000 and 8,000 people and, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, has active chapters in over half of the states.

While it is easy to shrug off their extremist views and actions, their existence is rooted in the same racist ideology that continues to underlie discriminatory trends like anti-black police brutality and mass incarceration.

Finally, though he is often the butt of many an Internet meme, presidential candidate Donald Trump seems to have enjoyed unprecedented support despite his often blatantly xenophobic and sexist views. Many have speculated that his popularity, though embarrassing, actually coincides with the rise of extremist leaders in other countries — such as Marine Le Pen in France — due to deteriorating and unstable economies.

The trouble with these extreme ideas extends beyond their problematic content; often, they are not taken seriously as symptoms of more widespread though muted problems.

We laugh at their absurdity, but fail to recognize that their roots lie close to home. In this vein, the fact that Valizadeh garnered extensive support suggests that there is much more work to be done on expunging misogyny from the public record.

Luckily, the response in the city was loud and clear — we do not tolerate misogyny in Toronto nor on campus. This type of backlash must continue, and each of us must contribute, in spite of how little power we perceive these groups to hold.

Simultaneously, we must take extreme expressions of misogyny (and any other oppressive ideology) seriously, by unpacking and contextualizing its origins. Only then can we make it unequivocally clear that oppression is not welcome among us.

The first day of February marked the beginning of Black History Month, a designated time to celebrate African-Canadian successes and struggles for equality. Though some still dispute the necessity of a special time carved for recognizing black excellence, I believe it remains useful to challenge mainstream narratives that whitewash black contributions to Canada.

My issue here is not whether Black History Month is still necessary; rather, I question why, when we brand the month of February as a time to celebrate ‘black’ history, we seem to create only one narrative for an extremely diverse body of peoples. That is, we focus on resistance efforts of Afro-slave descendants but do not seek to delve deeper into the richness of their ancestral histories, independent of slavery or segregation issues.

Stories from Africville and the resistance efforts of black people like Viola Desmond surely must be celebrated. Yet, it is important to complement the specific black Canadian experience with broader pre- and post-colonial histories of people of African descent. Exploring Black History Month in this manner allows us to reclaim the richness of African history before European disruption, while still paying homage to the resistance efforts of all Africans, whether in the continent or in the diaspora.

This is particularly pertinent given that, as of 2001, about 48 per cent of black immigrants to Canada were born in Africa, while another 47 per cent were born in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. This is in contrast to foreign-born black people, who arrived in Canada before 1961, of which only one per cent were born in Africa. Toronto itself is home to nearly half of Canada’s black population, of which more than half are foreign-born.

To celebrate the entirety of black history, we should thus connect the black Canadian experience to broader narratives of black liberation. In doing so, it is possible to group together the different histories of African peoples, because there is a shared experience of imperialist oppression. European colonization has worked to dismiss African autonomy and legacies, both in the diaspora and this continent.

The displacement of West Africans during the slave trade stains the histories of Afrodescendants in the Caribbean Islands, Latin America, and North America. While creating

a distinct black identity and history in this region, the slave trade is also rooted in the same racist ideology that marked Africa with scars from French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Belgian, and German colonization.

On the other side of the same coin, Canadian resistance efforts towards slavery and our respective civil rights movement parallels African decolonization and liberation movements in their underlying commitment to combatting racial oppression.

On a more personal level, I am a first generation black Canadian whose parents immigrated to Toronto from Eritrea. Although my history is different from the experiences of Afro-descendants who have lived in North America for hundreds of years, my history is also marked by European colonization; I can identify with the black Canadian struggle.

This is similar to the experiences of many first or second generation black people in Canada, who come from countries like Ghana, Jamaica, or Somalia.

When we observe Black History Month in Canada, then, we should strive to include more narratives that reflect the diverse reality of black identity. By linking and contextualizing the history of slavery and segregation in Canada within the broader legacy of white imperialism in Africa, we can also better appreciate what ‘black history’ means in an age of increasing globalization.

Using Black History Month as a time to celebrate general African history is not a call to overshadow or erase the history of African slave descendants in our country. We must and should continue to highlight this one angle of history. At the same time, however, we can find commonalities between these experiences and black liberation across the world, in order to foster a greater sense of solidarity and understanding as we navigate the complexities of racial identity.

Black history did not begin in Canada, and not all black people in Canada have history rooted here. Therefore, when we celebrate Black History Month, we must decolonize the narrative away from a Eurocentric angle that has stripped black Canadians from identifying with their African heritage. To do so, the first step is to acknowledge the wider black story that is comprised of many experiences and consequently embrace diversity in our narratives.

Milen Melles is a first-year student at Victoria College studying humanities.

Teodora Pasca is a second-year student at Innis College studying criminology and ethics, society & law. She is The Varsity’s Associate Comment Editor. Her column appears every three weeks.

ELHAM NUMAN/THE VARSITY

12 ADVERTISEMENT

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016 var .st/ads

Notice to Members: Spring 2016 Elections

The UTSU is your Students’ Union. We are governed by a Board of Directors elected by YOU. Our aim is to provide services and events that save YOU money and enrich YOUR university experience.

The University of Toronto Students’ Union is holding its Spring 2016 elections for the following positions: Positions Available:

Seats:

Division I Directors: Â’

Woodsworth College

3

Â’

University College

3

Â’

Victoria University in the University of Toronto

2

Faculty of Applied Sciences and Engineering

3

Â’

Faculty of Dentistry

1

Â’

Faculty of Medicine

1

Â’

Faculty of Nursing

1

Â’

Leslie L. Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

1

Â’

Toronto School of Theology

1

Â’

Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design

1

Executive: Â’

President

1

Â’

Vice-President, Internal and Services

1

Â’

Vice-President, University Affairs

1

Â’

Vice-President, External

1

Â’

Vice-President, Equity

1

Â’

Vice-President, Campus Life

1

Â’

Vice-President, Professional Faculties

1

To run for a position, please pick up a nomination package during the nomination period at the UTSU office – 12 Hart House Circle or download at utsu.ca/elections.

Nomination Period: Monday, February 29, 09:00 am to Friday, March 11, 05:00 pm Silent Period: Friday, March 11, 05:00 pm to Monday, March 14, 09:00 am All-Candidates Meeting: Sunday, March 13 Campaign Period:

Academic Directors: Â’

Computer Science

1

Â’

Humanities

1

Â’

Life Sciences

1

Â’

Mathematical and Physical Sciences

1

Â’

Rotman Commerce

1

Â’

Social Sciences

1

Two (2) Professional Faculty Directors at-large from any two (2) of the following Professional Faculties:

Seats:

The Election Dates are as follows:

Division II Directors: Â’

Positions Available:

In-person campaigning: Monday, March 14, 09:00 am to Monday, March 21, 12:00 am (midnight) Online campaigning: Monday, March 14, 09:00 am to Thursday, March 24, 06:30 pm Voting Period: Tuesday, March 22, 12:00 am to Thursday, March 24, 06:30 pm* *Note: online voting opens March 22 at midnight and will be open for 24 hours until the voting period ends. Polling stations open March 22 at 9 am and close at 6:30 pm each voting day.

Please note that the following Colleges/Faculties will be holding their own internal elections for their constituencies’ Director seats:

Â’

Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering

Â’

Faculty of Dentistry

Â’

Faculty of Medicine

Positions available:

Â’

Faculty of Music

Division I Directors:

Â’

Faculty of Nursing

Â’

Leslie L. Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Â’

Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education

Â’

OISE/UT

Â’

Faculty of Law

Â’

Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design

Â’

Toronto School of Theology

’ Innis College ’ New College ’ The University of Trinity College ’ University of St. Michael’s College

Seats:

1 3 1 3

Division II Directors: Â’ Faculty of Music Â’ Faculty of Law Â’ Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education

1 1 1

If you are a member of one of these Colleges/Faculties, contact your student union/association to find out details on their respective election dates and nomination policies and procedures.

For more information, contact the Chief Returning Officer at cro@utsu.ca

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

COMMENT 13

var.st/comment

How much do scholastics cost?

Combatting the skyrocketing expense of academic journals

DIANA PHAM/THE VARSITY

SIMON SPICHAK

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

As a U of T student, part of my student fees go towards guaranteeing access to subscriptions for dozens of academic journals. Without this subsidized access it would become necessary to pay as much as $30 per article in some

popular journals. To gain extended access to a high-profile journal like Nature or Science, a year-long subscription would set you back hundreds of dollars.

It is no wonder, then, that scientist Alexandra Elbakyan created Sci-Hub, a website that allows users to pirate more than 47 million academic papers. In response, online publishing giant Elsevier — which has faced backlash from over 12,000 academics, including some from U of T — filed a legal complaint againt the website, which has since been suspended.

In response, Elbakyan moved her website to a new domain. She argued that charging for the papers was in violation of Article 27 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which pertains to one’s right to share in scientific advancement.

As a student researcher, I support Elbakyan. Costly journals and subscriptions slow the progress of research and education. Her actions are unsurprising, given that the current publishing models do not offer an appropriate balance between the cost and accessibility of academic articles.

Open access journals, such as the Public Library of Science, are on the rise and seem to be ushering in an age of freely available information. They are able to disseminate research to a larger audience, without steep subscriptions cost obstructing access to research.

Without the profits from user subscriptions, however, these journals must rely on other sources of funding that ultimately decrease the quality of their published articles. There are several models, such as an article processing fee or a membership that researchers can pay for to receive publishing privileges. This erodes the integrity of the peer review system, as it puts those endowed with more money, who may simply buy a spot in the journal, in a position of privilege.

This results in a conundrum: if we want cheaper articles and subscriptions, journals will have to increase the amount of papers they publish, and find a way to make up for the subsequently decreasing quality.

In conditions like these, piracy seems like a viable catalyst towards a solution; we cannot blame Elbakyan for trying to access articles she needs to further her research.

It is worth considering the way TV show and movie producers have skirted around this problem. The high cost of cable and DVDs once generated a spike in piracy, which has recently decreased with more affordable streaming services like Netflix.

Research journals should consider similar solutions if they hope to decrease piracy without sacrificing the quality of their content.

They must work out an appropriate profit margin that balances these concerns.

To achieve this ambitious goal, perhaps collaboration is in order. By selling subscriptions to a third party website or program, users may be able to access articles for a reasonable monthly subscription cost.

In this case, the unaffordable prices of academic articles inevitably led to piracy, yet an entirely open access system is not a feasible solution. It is, therefore, in the best interest of journals to seek third party collaborations and aim to allow access to multiple journal subscriptions at fair prices.

Simon Spichak is a third-year student at New College studying neuroscience.

SAD for the season How Health & Wellness helped me cope with seasonal affective disorder DARYNA KUTSYNA VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Although this year's winter has been unusually mild, it hasn't disappointed when it comes to dreary mornings and very short days. With impending papers in November and exams in December, I began to feel as sluggish and uninspired as the view outside my window. At first, it was easy to dismiss my lack of motivation and productivity — after all, aren't we a little prone to avoiding studying during finals season and taking extended naps whenever possible?

Soon enough, however, the problem became impossible to ignore. I found myself sleeping ten to twelve hours a day, and resorting to unhealthy eating habits to cope with the stress of classes and finals. Even more concerning was my lack of motivation for any activity at all, and my inability to concentrate on the tasks before me.

With a little research, I began to suspect that I was experiencing seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

As defined by the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), SAD is the most severe manifestation of the seasonal mood changes that affect many people in late autumn and winter, when the daylight hours get significantly shorter.

While many of the given symptoms aligned with my experiences, doubts immediately occurred to me: was I overreacting? Many students often experience the "winter blues," and my heavy course and workload was undoubtedly not helping the situation. When I began to fall behind on my schoolwork, however, I knew that it was time to look for some sort of help.

Although the Health and Wellness Centre was located just a short walk from my house and was accepting appointments from all U of T students, I also knew that the mental health services on campus do not have a very good

reputation. Nevertheless, my family doctor was dozens of miles away, and with important deadlines approaching, I figured I would give campus services a try.

At first, I was pleasantly surprised by my experience. The centre scheduled me for a next-day appointment, and the doctor listened attentively to my symptoms and concerns.

He immediately gave me a range of recommendations, such as increasing my physical activity and shifting to a more protein and complex carbohydrate packed diet, insistent on establishing the cause of my sluggishness and depression.

He recommended a vitamin D supplement, prescribed several blood tests, and scheduled a follow-up appointment.

The doctor expressed genuine concern about my health and well being. In fact, during my follow-up, the doctor continued to insist that despite my improved condition, I should continue to monitor the situation and return for a follow-up appointment wherever necessary.

My situation is just one of many and does not negate the remaining problems of stigma and inadequate services that others continue to face. I want to highlight, however, that there are professionals on this campus who are caring and willing to help students struggling with mental health issues. It is unfortunate that the distribution of these professionals seems to be based on luck, and that is something the administration should strive to improve in the future.

In any case, however, I would encourage anyone struggling with feelings of depression, whether seasonal or otherwise, to seek help on campus. SAD is a legitimate illness and should be treated as such, no matter whether it feels like mere “winter blues.”

Daryna Kutsyna is a third-year student at Trinity College studying international relations and history.

She is the co-president of U of T’s Equal Voice Chapter; the views expressed here are her own.

The winter months often bring about low spirits among students. KASSANDRA NERANJAN/THE VARSITY

ROUGH A T N E R When I think about the various parts of my identity, the word tenant tends not to come to mind, however, as I continue to live on limited means, and the price of housing in Toronto continues to soar, the title of ‘homeowner’ seems to drift further and further out of reach. Like many students, I find myself frequently navigating the murky world of city tenancy.

The housing market is flush with demand. People who can afford to live here continue to flow in, while growing condominiums and building cranes seem to assert themselves as permanent fixtures on the city skyline. In 2015, the average home price in the Greater Toronto Area hit a record high of $622,217, which was an increase of nearly 10 per cent over the previous year.

In many cases, renting is unremarkable; agreeable landlords meet responsible tenants, and a happy relationship ensues. In situations where this is not the case, however, tenants sometimes find themselves caught up in costly bureaucratic and legal dilemmas. This is, unfortunately, the truth for many U of T students, who often find themselves on the very margins of the housing market.

STUDENT STRUGGLES

Denis Suvorov is a U of T student, and formerly a fellow tenant of a building on Bloor Street West. We had the same landlord and the same problem with cockroaches.

I took my landlord to court when the issue went unaddressed and managed to get the city inspector to file a report. This was a year before Suvorov went to the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) over his concerns.

For Suvorov and his girlfriend, the landlord seemed off from the start.

He reportedly “snatched” the deposit cheque from her hand on the day they signed the lease. Surovov gave the landlord written notice of leave in December when the cockroach problem didn’t get resolved. Suvorov told the landlord that he would be assigning his lease to someone else. The landlord reportedly replied that “he doesn’t do that” — which is illegal.

Suvorov told potential tenants about the roach problem, and nobody was willing to take over the lease.

From that point on, Suvorov says that the landlord used the terms “assignment” and “sublet” interchangeably, which is misleading. An assignment means that a new tenant signs an agreement to takeover a lease from the previous tenants.

Subletting the apartment, however, leaves the initial lease agreement in place, and the primary tenant remains responsible while someone else lives on the rented premises.

Suvorov and his girlfriend paid rent for the months of January and February

after giving verbal notice of their intention to leave in November. They slipped the keys under the door in January. Their next step was to go to the LTB. They couldn’t assign or sublet the unit to anyone themselves; they would have had to lie about their experience in order to get someone else to assume the responsibility or endure the cockroaches.

After they left the apartment, the landlord filed a claim against them with the LTB. The maximum dollar amount that anyone can file for with the LTB is $25,000. This landlord was asking for $20,000, a number that seemed absurdly high to the couple.

By February, they went into mediation, a process in which both parties present their case and try to resolve the dispute before appearing for a hearing. After appearing twice and seeing no progress, the disgruntled group booked a hearing in small claims court for a month later. Suvorov was concerned about the short time to prepare.

In court, the landlord’s lawyer attempted to delegitimize Suvorov’s claims by denying the existence of an infestation, and saying that Suvorov was attempting to leave because he could no longer afford the rent. Meanwhile, Suvorov had moved to a new unit in January which was more expensive. At mediation, Suvorov settled for $5,000.

LANDLORDS AND THE LAW

Suvorov’s experience, like those of many students in conflict with their landlords, was aggravated by legislation.

In 1998, Mike Harris’ conservative provincial government established the Tenant Protection Act and the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal, now known as the LTB, which was meant to settle disputes in accordance with the law.

In 2006, after lobbying from landlord and tenant advocacy groups, the McGuinty government put forth the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) to replace the previous act. According to the views expressed by tenant and landlord associations during the review process, this process was far from groundbreaking.

Ten years later, not much has changed.

According to Dan McIntyre, an experienced paralegal in Toronto who specializes in representing tenants, the McGuinty government made two promises when preparing the RTA: a focus on maintenance issues and the loosening of rent regulation. Surovov’s case shows that maintenance issues are still a challenge, and while rent deregulation benefits landlords who can raise prices in gentrifying areas, it can often hurt low income tenants who get priced out of their units.

Students face legal hurdles, lack of effective resources as Toronto tenants

S L TA ANDREEA MUSULAN VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

To the chagrin of many students who have faced landlord and tenant issues in Toronto, this legislation has not been reviewed since 2006. Meanwhile, the housing market in Toronto is constantly changing. The increasing costs associated with these changes make the stakes high for students who enter into costly lease agreements with limited budgets. As it stands, the recourse available under the RTA threatens to be just as costly.

Some students try to avoid legal matters by taking on informal lease agreements, often through personal connections. It can be a solution for students when money is tight.

I connected with a fellow student through the U of T reddit page, who used the name ‘Spuntop.’ Spuntop was illegally renting an apartment 10 years ago on Queen Street West, after having been introduced to the landlord through mutual friends. Spuntop’s occupation of the apartment was based on a verbal agreement.

“It was a large, two-bedroom apartment that we couldn’t hope to afford at market value,” Spuntop explained. This is why the renters “work[ed] as a collective” when the apartment became infested with beetles. In Spuntop’s case, the landlord was out of the country when the beetle problem presented itself. They were unable to reach out to the landlord to fix the issue, and without a written lease they had no protection.

His low income tenants who are most frequently evicted by landlords using the LTB, even though they qualify for legal aid and representation offered by legal clinics throughout the city. While these clinics exist to protect the poorest people from losing their homes, they are backed up with people who need their services, which makes access difficult. Funding for these clinics, which comes from federal and provincial governments, has been at a bare minimum until recently. To deal with the volume, cases are organized in order of priority. Anything physically threatening, for example, would be considered a top concern.

Downtown Legal Services, the law clinic operated by the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, recently received new funding following a 2015 referendum.

This gave them the ability to hire full-time lawyer Benjamin Ries. In a phone interview with Ries, he spoke of “significant systemic problems” in the institutions mitigating the landlord-tenant relationship.

According to Ries, the “shortage of rental housing” in Toronto is “at the advantage of the landlord” and that this gives them “little incentive to change.” Mr. Ries warns not to “rely on the investigation enforcement unit,” a group tasked with enforcing the RTA in landlord-tenant disputes, because they are understaffed.

Meanwhile, these issues continue to appear in legal clinics and the court system.

While this seems like a great way to keep the LTB in business, it is hardly the path of least resistance for students like Suvorov.

Now that the funding to DLS has been released, the hope is that some pressure will be alleviated and cases will be addressed more promptly. Previously, Ries mentioned that even though DLS used to accept only cases that were going to the LTB, he hopes that the expansion of the overall capacity of DLS will allow the clinic to look at a broader range of cases.

In a phone interview, Arlene Clement, director of Housing Services at the university’s St. George campus, discussed the importance of rental literacy for tenants, especially when it comes to the responsibilities of landlords. More often than not, finding and navigating that information is left to the student alone.

The informational services can help students prepare to be tenants, but it is the student’s responsibility to take it from there. Housing Services will refer students to the Federation of Metro Tenants Association and local legal clinics if they are having issues with their landlord after they sign the lease.

Jasmine Denike, vice president, external for the University of Toronto Students’ Union, is involved in organizing a seminar in collaboration with the DLS about landlord-tenant rights. Through promoting the event, she has received interesting responses from students about their tenancy experiences.

“The main concerns of students lie in what I believe is most important: students knowing what they’re deserved as tenants and not wanting to be given less than that by landlords,” she says. “Ensuring that students feel safe and comfortable in their homes is incredibly important — not only financially, but for their mental well-being. If there are students out there living in poor conditions and who don’t feel safe, that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.”

SLIPPING THROUGH THE CRACKS

Toronto is old. There are a lot of deteriorating buildings being bought up by companies or individuals that take on the role of landlord. One of the most famous cases in recent times came from a company named Akelius in Parkdale. They started renovations in the building without regard for the tenants and ignored the responsibilities outlined in the RTA. With the advice of the local legal clinic, the tenants filed a class action lawsuit against the company. These cases are few and far between because coordinating a large group of people with little in common other than their difficult predicament is the weakest of strong ties.

Students face an uphill battle when faced with housing issues and helpful resources are limited. The best we can do is fight for change and rent with caution.

var.st/arts

ARTS&CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

22 F ebruary 2016

Much ado about Shakespeare The rare book library's latest exhibit displays original Shakespearean works

Shakespeare's first four folios are featured in the exhibit. RUESHEN AKSOY /THE VARSITY

SHAFIKA RAHMAN VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

"S

o long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives

this, and this gives life to thee," reads "Sonnet 18," one of William Shakespeare’s best known poems. Centred on romance and illuminating its own immortality, it inspired the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library's latest exhibition 'So long lives this': Celebrating Shakespeare, 1616–2016. Marking the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death, much of the playwright's work is currently on display at the library.

The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is an esoteric time capsule accessed mostly by grad students — a bibliophile's utopia. Past the secured entranceway, the remnants of the artifacts rest enclosed in glass display cases adorned with banners and a bust of the man himself.

The first case holds Shakespeare's First Folio, produced in 1623 — seven years after Shakespeare’s death — by printer and publisher Isaac Jaggard. It is on display to show the table of contents and notes a few print errors. Of the 230 surviving copies today, it is the only copy in Canada and was gifted to Sidney Fisher at the library's grand opening in 1973.

Accompanying the First Folio is Thomas Wilson's A Christian Dictionary, the first biblical English dictionary. Another piece is Andre Fayn's The Theater of Honour and Knight-hood, which features heraldic, meticulously hand-colored illustrations, along with a note by stationer George Lathum proclaiming, "I warrant this book perfect."

The second case holds Shakespeare's Second Folio (1632), Third Folio (1663), and Fourth Folio (1685); the third one remains the rarest of them all and contains seven additional plays. All four folios were published posthumously and remained largely unedited, until they gained popularity among scholars in the 1700s.

The workmanship of the time period is emphasized throughout the exhibit. The third case is dedicated to showcasing William Jaggard and his publishing colleagues' expert craft. Thomas Milles' Catalogue of Honor bears an intricate engraving of classical figures writing Latin on stone.

A 1613 pocket-sized edition of Francis Bacon's philosophical Essays is bound in vellum. Ralph Brooke's catalogue of English

royalty is strikingly hand-coloured in vibrant red, blue, white, and yellow. Robert Glover's Nobilitas Politica Vel Ciuilis is one of William Jaggard's most ambitious printings and illustrates a majestic engraving of Queen Elizabeth I in parliament.

The exhibition also showcases a wide variety of ancient writing. The fourth display case highlights works that Shakespeare read during his writing process. Raphael Holinshed's The First and Second Volumes of Chronicles shows a landscape similar to the Garden of Eden, which contained the most extensive history of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales that was available during the period. Shakespeare also turned to Plutarch's The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes (1579) for the history of famous figures like Julius Caesar or for the romance of Antony and Cleopatra. Shakespeare alludes to Ovid's Metamorphoses in several of his plays, including Richard II, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The fifth display case highlights linguistic history by showcasing words as a globally influenced form of calligraphy. John Baret's An Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionarie contains a multilingual mélange. Henry Cockeram's English Dictionary is the first monolingual English book, self-described as a dictionary; it was created for the general public rather than the linguistically elite to help with difficult words. Robert Dodsley's On Biblical Subjects shows exquisite hand illustrations containing a prophetic curse, which the reader enacts by lifting up the paper's flaps.

The finale of the main floor is case eight, which displays modern twentieth century productions, including works by Toronto locals. Don Taylor's Illustrations for Macbeth (2012) is an eerielooking book that features aesthetic bloodstains of 'Dechard Rinderpest', the pseudonym of a local actor driven insane by his role as Lady Macbeth. Robert Wu's cover designs are displayed via several preparatory sketches in the lower Maclean Hunter Room, among other varying treasures.

The exhibit is much more than Shakespeare alone. It moves chronologically through history, and in doing so, it exemplifies the British playwright’s tremendous legacy.

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

ARTS & CULTURE 17

var.st/arts

FILM REVIEWS

Ayanda (and the Mechanic) ilm tell t e to o e e in t e memo

o

il

e

t e

AYAN KASSIM

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

And he doesn’t even know it With a bit of reconstructive surgery, we turned Donald Trump’s tweets into poems LISA POWER

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Donald J. Trump is many things: entrepreneur, real-estate developer, television personality, and frontrunner for the American Republican Party. But did you know that he's also a poet? Despite his aversion to all things politically correct, perhaps underneath his tasteless antics and deplorable public persona lies a sensitive, imaginative man. With a little re-arranging, we converted his twitter account into a poet’s journal, searching for deeper meaning while discovering some truly exquisite social commentary.

For starters, it’s pretty obvious that Trump draws a lot of inspiration from fellow Republican nominee Ted Cruz. One could say Cruz is his muse. In the following tweet, he accuses Cruz of lying — something he often does. Beneath the surface, however, a sadder image emerges: one of betrayal, loss, and loneliness. Trump expertly summarizes Shakespearian tragedy by having Cruz resemble Hamlet. Here’s how we interpreted the tweet: Original tweet: “Wow, just saw an ad — Cruz is lying on so many levels. There is nobody more against ObamaCare than me, will repeal & replace. He lies!”

Found poem: Lying. He lies! Repeal & replace. There is nobody.

Original tweet: “We will stop heroin and other drugs from coming into New Hampshire from our open southern border. We will build a WALL and have security.”

Found poem: Heroin will build security, a WALL, and border. We will open. Stop drugs.

Original tweet: “Ted Cruz is a cheater!

He holds the Bible high and then lies and misrepresents the facts!”

Found poem: A cheater lies. He holds the facts high!

Original tweet: “Anybody who watched all of Ted Cruz's far too long, rambling, overly flamboyant speech last nite sic would say that was his Howard Dean moment!”

Found poem: Watched; far too long; rambling flamboyant. ast nite. is moment.

Ayanda (and the Mechanic) (2015) is a complex story of betrayal, trauma, ambition, and resilience. South African director Sara Blecher — known for Otelo Burning (2011) — and writer Trish Malone present a coming-of-age narrative that focuses on working-class life in South Africa via the entrepreneurial and vibrant life of a 21-year-old girl named Ayanda (Fulu Moguvhani).

Ayanda (and the Mechanic) is told through the eyes of a nameless, young documentary-filmmaker striving to convey stories of ‘modern South Africans.’ Shot in Yeoville, a district in Johannesburg known to be a melting pot for its diversity of African immigrants, the film follows the headstrong Ayanda, who longs to preserve her deceased father's memory. As the former owner of car repair-shop Mosses Motors, Ayanda’s father fixed old cars and resold them at auctions while Ayanda would

use the shop to refurbish old furniture — her first true love. But after a freak accident at the shop, her father’s premature death left no real successor to any one person, leaving Mosses Motors to fall into serious debt.

Struggling to save the shop from being sold by her shady uncle and business partner Zama (Kenneth Nkosi) and apathetic mother Dorothy (Nthati Moshesh), she devises a plan using her craft of revitalizing new furniture, selling revitalized cars to keep her dad’s business and memory alive.

The film is at its best when exploring Ayanda's dynamic relationships with Dorothy, and with her lover and co-worker David (O.C. Ukeje).

After her husband’s death, an ambitious and creative Dorothy transforms into a meek, pragmatic mother who struggles to survive.

Unable to cope with this new reality, Ayanda grapples to come to terms with the mother she once knew and the mother she knows now, dismissing her trauma and heartache. In one of the film’s tenser scenes, Ayanda discovers Zama and Dorothy’s secret affection for one another, and even goes so far as to blame her mother for her father’s death.

Ayanda’s relationship with David is also quite fraught. As his causal lover, Ayanda is often oblivious to David’s feelings towards her and the sacrifices he makes in order to keep Mosses Motors alive. These relationships highlight Ayanda’s ambition and self-actualization, which are ultimately the magnetic pull of Ayanda’s character.

Cinematographically, Ayanda is breathtaking; almost each shot could be a standalone photo. The film also, oddly, integrates some stop-motion animation, which comes across as rather contrived, and serves no real purpose for the plot’s progression.

Sometimes, the glimpses into the characters in Ayanda’s life could be disorienting. Certain characters, particularly her brother, Lenaka (Jafta Mamabolo), could have been developed further. Nevertheless, Ayanda (and the Mechanic) is still worth watching — if not for its poignant portrayal of the complexities of life after catastrophic loss, then at least for its dynamic feminist narrative of determination and strength.

Ayanda (and the Mechanic) premiered at the Toronto Black Film Festival. PHOTO COURTESY OF TORONTO BLACK FILM FESTIVAL

Thina Sobabili: The Two of Us o t l c i lin

ic n film t t e o onto ilm e ti l ollo t o t ed n old

REUT COHEN

ASSOCIATE ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

A sense of darkness hangs over Thina Sobabili: The Two of Us. The film follows the story of two siblings, Thulani (Emmanuel Nkosinathi Gweva) and Zanele (Busisiwe Mtshali) as familial tragedy unfolds against the vivid backdrop of Alexandra, South Africa. Although the dialogue of the film is spoken in Zulu, the film’s themes are universal.

It’s Zanele’s sense of alienation from her hometown that sets the events of the film in motion. Though the siblings only have each other to rely on, Zanele feels marginalized by her overprotective older brother. She seeks the realization of her hopes and dreams of escaping the township, and attempts to find this validation in an older, dangerous man.

The film’s dialogue is at its best when showing the banter between friends, which comes across effortlessly. Interestingly, there is also some English slang mixed into the script, which can feel forced. In particular, conversations between Zanele and her friend Tumi will seem incredibly familiar to viewers, as the two do each other’s makeup and discuss fashion trends. “This is Beyoncé’s style,” Tumi says while trying to convince Zanele to wear a certain dress.

Tumi is also Zanele’s accomplice; she’s the partner in crime of whom Thulani disapproves, due to her relationships with older men. “She’s a whore,” he says, not understanding that his judgement is only pushing his sister further and further away. Of course, as Zanele watches Tumi reap the benefits of these connections, she decides to seek them out for herself.

On the whole, the ensemble delivers incredibly natural performances. This is aided by the minimalist approach to cinematography, which lends the film a documentary feel.

Mtshalis delivers an especially beautiful and heartbreaking performance, moving seamlessly between teenage angst and deep longing and sorrow. It’s difficult not to empathize with Zanele’s dreams of leaving a place where “everyone’s the same,” but the viewer cannot help but feel a sense of profound discomfort while watching her go about escaping in all the wrong ways.

Viewers may also be surprised by the film’s capacity to shock. A central theme running throughout is that things are not always what they seem like. As characters find themselves under pressure, or in new environments, layers of their personalities are peeled away, revealing additional depth to each one. Richard Lukunku, who plays Skhalo, the older man Zanele develops a relationship with, is excellent as well. Enticing yet menacing, Lukunku captures the duality to Skhalo’s character with ease.

The movie is unsparing in its depiction of life’s daily tragedies, and of the ways we can hurt those we love the most. While Thulani wants only the best for his sister, he is damaged, and at times fails to be her protector. These exchanges between the two siblings showcase a particular magnetism. Though some times brutal, it’s hard to look away, and the simple power of the duo’s connection is remarkable.

The Two of Us is a clear-eyed examination of how guilt and pride affect our relationships, joyful and devastating in equal measure.

Thina Sobabili takes place in Alexandra, South Africa.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TORONTO BLACK FILM FESTIVAL

18 ARTS & CULTURE

T H E VA R S I T Y

arts@thevarsity.ca

Cinema studies faculty predict Oscars 2k16 Best Picture The Big Short Bridge of Spies Brooklyn Mad Max: Fury Road The Martian The Revenant CK Room Spotlight BJ , DJ Best Director Adam McKay, The Big Short George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road BJ Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant CK, DJ Lenny Abrahamson, Room Tom McCarthy, Spotlight Best Actor Bryan Cranston, Trumbo Matt Damon, The Martian Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant BJ, CK, DJ Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl Best Actress Cate Blanchett, Carol Brie Larson, Room BJ, CK, DJ Jennifer Lawrence, Joy Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale, The Big Short Tom Hardy, The Revenant Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies Sylvester Stallone, Creed BJ, CK, DJ Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight Rooney Mara, Carol Rachel McAdams, Spotlight Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl BJ, CK, DJ Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

Dr u J e

Prof. Charlie Keil (CK)

f fries ( DJ)

bs Jaco n a i r B Prof.

J) on (B

Best Original Screenplay Bridge of Spies Ex Machina Inside Out Spotlight BJ, CK, DJ Straight Outta Compton

Best Original Song "Earned It," Fifty Shades of Grey "Manta Ray," Racing Extinction "Writing's On The Wall," Spectre CK "Til It Happens To You," The Hunting Ground BJ, DJ "Simple Song #3," Youth

Best Production Design Bridge of Spies The Danish Girl Mad Max: Fury Road BJ, CK, DJ The Martian The Revenant

Best Adapted Screenplay The Big Short BJ, DJ Brooklyn Carol The Martian Room CK

Best Original Score Bridge of Spies Carol The Hateful Eight BJ, CK, DJ Sicario Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Best Sound Editing Mad Max: Fury Road CK, DJ The Martian The Revenant BJ Sicario Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Best Foreign Film Embrace of the Serpent Mustang Son of Saul BJ, CK, DJ Theeb A War

Best Visual Effects Ex Machina The Martian The Revenant Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens BJ, CK Mad Max: Fury Road DJ

Best Sound Mixing Bridge of Spies Mad Max: Fury Road DJ The Martian The Revenant BJ Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens CK

Best Documentary, Feature Amy BJ, CK, DJ Cartel Land The Look of Silence What Happened, Miss Simone?

Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

Best Cinematography Carol The Hateful Eight Mad Max: Fury Road The Revenant BJ, CK, DJ Sicario

Best Short Film, Live Action Ave Maria BJ Day One Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut) DJ Shok Stutterer

Best Animated Feature Anomalisa Boy and the World Inside Out BJ, CK, DJ Shaun the Sheep Movie When Marnie Was There

Best Costume Design Carol BJ, DJ Cinderella CK The Danish Girl Mad Max: Fury Road The Revenant

Best Short Film, Animated Bear Story Prologue Sanjay's Super Team We Can't Live Without Cosmos World of Tomorrow BJ, DJ

Best Film Editing The Big Short BJ, DJ Mad Max: Fury Road The Revenant CK Spotlight Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Best Makeup and Hairstyling Mad Max: Fury Road BJ, CK, DJ The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared The Revenant

Best Documentary, Short Subject Body Team 12 Chau, Beyond the Lines Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness DJ Last Day of Freedom

An artist's tool Once Is Nothing explores the relationship between visual art and drones RACHEL CHEN VARSITY STAFF

The InterAccess gallery at Ossington and Queen was bustling with people last Wednesday for the opening of Once is Nothing: A Drone Art Exhibit. Drones, it seems, are an intriguing subject.

According to the exhibition card, Once is Nothing is the first exhibition in Canada to focus specifically on drones, "as a subject, material, and tool of artistic production." Indeed, the gallery covers drones through all sorts of mixed media. From 3D printing to drone filmography, eight international artists delve into “the cultural space and aesthetics of drones.”

Upon stepping inside, it became apparent that the exhibit doesn't abide by any specific

order. This was probably a good thing, though, seeing as patrons squeezed past each other to see each of the works. While not the most aesthetically stimulating exhibit — with the exception of Millard’s lovely window video work visible from the street — the pieces were certainly thought provoking.

Lawrence Bird’s Parallel 3 demonstrates the political aspects of daily life through his ‘drone surveillance tour.’ Even in the “mapping” of the earth, there are discrepancies of satellite footage based on economic and political differences. In Bird’s video, different ideas of borders, surveillance, identity, and place are thoroughly examined.

IOCOSE, a collective of four European artists, submitted a project to the exhibit that contemplates the role of drones during times of peace. They have two pieces on dis-

play: Drone+ and Drone Selfies. The video of a drone competing in a 100m race and the prints of vain drones doing as humans do were silly and off-putting.

With the exception of perhaps one item, there are practically no human figures presented in any of the artwork. This was especially surprising, since half the gallery included pieces looking at the impacts that drones have on human life. Will we integrate these machines into our lives?

Mona Kamal's Drones in Waziristan – dated as “2015-?” — initially resembles a picture of a galaxy laid out on a carpet. Its real focus, however, is on the perpetual loss of human life that drone warfare causes.

The consistency also invites its viewers to consider different perspectives on what qualifies as art. Many of the screenshots taken

from videos of drones overlooking rural spaces hold artistic value. Even further, the artists themselves make use of drones for their own purpose. The artists explore how a drone can be both a killing machine and an artist’s tool.

Other notable pieces include Morgan Skinner’s Gorgon Stare, which mixes footage of drone strikes with game footage from Battlefield 4. That, along with Joe Ford’s Dead Pixels emphasizes the desensitization of society through the digital world. The artists make it clear that the juxtaposition of how humans see drones compared to how drones see humans is something worth thinking about.

Once Is Nothing: A Drone Art Exhibit runs at InterAccess Gallery until April 2.

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

ARTS & CULTURE 19

var.st/arts

Scarborough campus comes into culinary cultural artifacts U of T’s Culinaria Research Centre acquires 10,000 Chinese restaurant menus RACHEL CHEN VARSITY STAFF

Perhaps motivated by the popularity of Chinese takeout for U of T students — shout-out to New Ho King — UTSC recently acquired 10,000 antique Chinese restaurant menus.

Purchased from collector Harley Spiller for $40,000, the collection was recognized by the Guinness World Records in 2005 as being the world's largest. The arrival of the menus is significant for U of T, as UTSC's Culinaria Research Centre is North America’s largest food studies research centre according to Professor Daniel Bender. The campus recently kick-started Canada’s first food studies minor program.

Bender, director of the Culinaria Research Centre, foresees the university developing into a global centre for the study of food and society. “We live in a remarkable moment of Canadian history, where we are seeing this remarkable flowering of creative culinary culture,” he said. “So much of that is happening not downtown, where restaurants tend to be cookie cutter, but on the edges of the GTA and the inner suburbs where you find people working incredibly hard to produce incredibly good and interesting food," Bender explained.

"Those kinds of restaurants can provide an insight not only to the economic and social life of diverse communities, but it can also provide a way of thinking about what is really the creative heartbeat of our city.”

On its website, the research centre says it will explore questions relating to the place of

food in cultural identity and expression. The menu collection, valued above its purchase price by food studies scholars, will help produce studies that examine the relationship between food, diaspora, and inter-ethnic and inter-cultural contacts.

According to Bender, Spiller chose UTSC for his collection partially because of the location, but also because UTSC plans to make the scholarly collection public. Victoria Owens, chief librarian of the UTSC archives, said the library hopes to share the menus online in the near future.

“Some of them are fragile, some of them are old, some of them have been used, some of the menus were once placemats and some of the menus you can see the food stains and [the way] people have handled them,” Owens said.

“We do have to preserve them, and that’s one of the ways of making them widely accessible too, [through] digitization.”

In North America, there are more Chinese restaurants than chain restaurants. According to Bender, “that means we have here, at the University of Toronto, the single largest archival collection of an incredibly economic driver of our daily life and of our economy.

The emergence of restaurants — the sheer volume of restaurants — suggests how important public dining has been in diasporic Chinese culture. Not only as a place of community building, but as a sort of economic ambition.”

The menus show how Chinese immigrants could make stable work for themselves even when they faced racist and exclusionary policies. In a shared history, the menus can also provide explanation as to how the idea of American food was conceived.

“You look at the menus and you see things we might not expect to see,” Bender said.

“Hamburgers, steaks, things listed as American food. Things listed as Chinese food. Suddenly it seems like there was a very subtle, but careful way in which Chinese or American food was getting presented to Americans, Canadians, at the Chinese restaurants. We might ask ourselves, did French fries — French fries, or hamburgers — become Canadian, or American, at the Chinese restaurants?”

Once the menus are arranged in a digital archive, the collection will become available to everyone for physical and online research.

“Imagine somebody whose parents or grandparents they know worked in a restaurant or owned a restaurant — imagine them being able to find that menu digitized, available in the menu collection,” Bender said.

“That’s a really important service that we are providing. At a university, connecting larger communities to its shared past — I can’t think of anything more important for a public university to do as a public service.”

U OF T’S PERFORMING ARTS LEADER SINCE 1919

The massive menu collection will shed light on a number of cultural trends.

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO SCARBOROUGH LIBRARY

2015/2016 Hart House Theatre Season

BOEING BOEING

By Marc Camoletti Translated by Beverley Cross and Francis Evans Directed by Cory Doran

FEB. 26-MAR. 5, 2016 BOX OFFICE:

www.uofttix.ca / 416.978.8849 Adults $28 / Seniors $17 / Students $15 $12 Student tickets every Wednesday evening!

www.harthousetheatre.ca

Season Sponsors:

22 F ebruary 2016

CIENC

E

Ripples in spacetime confirmed

science@thevarsity.ca

D UN T

Smashing ‘gravitational waves’ detection turns 100-year-old theory into fact

ARO

N OW S

var.st/science

SCIENCE

HATCHERY CIRCLE - BASMA HAMEED The U of T Hatchery features Toronto entrepreneur Basma Hameed, founder of s ar a ou a e and para edi al i ro pi ent i plantation lini as a a eed lini .

Monday, February 22 5:00–7:00 pm Ramsay Wright Laboratories 25 Harbord St. Rm117 Admission: Free with registration

ENGINEERING WORLD HEALTH 2016 SYMPOSIUM he s annual full da s posiu ai s to expose lobal health initiati es in de elopin ountries ia en ineerin and interdis iplinar approa h. t ill feature talks panel dis ussions and poster sessions explorin lobal health initiati es ia en ineerin solutions.

Monday, February 22 8:45am–5:30 pm New College 45 Willcocks St. William Doo Auditorium

VANESSA WANG/THE VARSITY

ALEXANDER GOMES VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Exactly 100 years ago this month, Albert Einstein first proposed his theory of general relativity.

Just over a week ago, physicists announced that the theory has finally been confirmed.

Einstein’s ground-breaking theory predicted, amongst other things, that the acceleration of massive objects would cause ripples, called gravitational waves, which move through the fundamental backdrop of the universe, much in the same way that regular water waves may ripple in a cup of coffee. Whereas the ripples in your drink may be caused by the act of dropping a cube of sugar into your mug, these gravitational waves were successfully detected from the merging of two black holes over a billion lightyears away.

Physicist David Reitze began the announcement bluntly, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have detected gravitational waves.” His words were met with jubilance at the Washington

D.C. press conference, as he paused to let the significance of a century’s worth of painstaking effort to resonate among the audience.

At the University of Toronto’s Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics’ (CITA) webcast viewing event, which took place at the Burton Tower of the McLennan Physical Laboratories, the applause was only outdone by the radiant smiles that were shared among members of our own physics department.

“It’s momentous,” said Luis Lehner of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo.

“It marks the beginning of our ability to peek at the universe through a completely new window.”

Gravitational waves are created by powerful events, like a binary black hole merging. Black holes are some of the densest and heaviest objects in the universe, with some having masses four million times greater than our sun. When these massive objects collide, they release a large burst of energy in a short amount of time. This energy is dispersed via ripples that travel throughout the

entire universe. As gravitational waves travel, they compress space in one direction while stretching it in the other, a phenomena that scientists believed they could identify.

Over large distances however, gravitational waves usually fade as their energy dissipates, turning into no more than a whisper, leading scientists to fear that they would never be able to detect their existence. In this case, however, the energy released by the black hole collision was so great that its gravitational waves were able to remain detectable after travelling over a billion light-years to Earth.

Determined to detect gravitational waves, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) invested more than $1.1 billion (US) into the construction of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), which is described as “the most precise measuring device ever built.”

LIGO is comprised of two separate detectors, one in Livingston, Louisiana and one in Hanford, Washington. The detectors were designed

around the concept of gravitational waves compressing space in one direction and expanding it in the other.

LIGO’s first observational run began in 2002 and ended in 2010 without having detected any gravitational waves. The NSF remained confident however, and a major upgrade was made to the detectors, making LIGO more sensitive. As it turns out this was a brilliant decision because the signal was only just quiet enough to have evaded detection before LIGO’s recent upgrade.

Each detector is made of two four-kilometre long perpendicular arms that have ultrapure glass mirrors at their ends. A beam of light is split into two and shot down both tubes, bouncing off the mirrors and returning to the starting point.

LIGO is able to detect gravitational waves by measuring miniscule differences between the journeys of the two beams — if nothing interferes with the beams, their recombining will cancel each other out.

Continued on PG 22

ASX STAR TALK: THE WORLD RECORDS OF THE UNIVERSE rofessor r an aensler the dire tor of the unlap nstitute ill ans er all our spa e related tri ia uestions. hat s the oldest pla e in spa e hat is the fastest ob e t in the ni erse hat is the bi est ob e t e e e er seen in spa e and the s allest o stron and eak does ra it et nd an ore.

Thursday, February 25 Starts at 8:00 pm McLennan Physical Laboratories 255 Huron St. Rm134

ENGINEERING WORLD HEALTH 2016 IDEATHON n opportunit for students to ork to ether in roup of interdis iplinar tea s and o e up ith appli able ideas to ta kle lobal health issues.

Sunday, February 28 9:00am–8:30 pm Rosebrugh Building 164 College St. Rm412 Admission: Registration required by February 22

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

SCIENCE 21

var.st/science

it

o it l int od ce fi t e

ee clinic

Large numbers of Syrian refugees in need of healthcare, U of T doctors help out SOPHIA SAVVA

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Fifteen-thousand Syrian refugees are expected to arrive in Canada by the end of February; most of them are in need of general exams by family physicians, and U of T doctors are doing their part to help.

Meb Rashid is a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) at U of T and the director of the Crossroads Clinic at Women’s College Hospital, the first hospital-based refugee health clinic in Toronto. Due to the large numbers of Syrian refugees expected to enter Canada, Rashid created a program of rotating intake clinics comprised of family medicine health teams around Toronto to see refugees after they arrive in Canada for initial assessments.

Syrian refugees are checked twice for infectious diseases before coming to Canada, but chronic or latent diseases might go undetected, which is why seeing a family doctor is so important. Rashid’s network includes pediatricians, psychiatrists, dentists, and other specialists to provide quick and easy treatment for patients who need further care.

“I know from my own experience in Lebanon that Syrian refugees there have found it extremely difficult to receive adequate health care,” said Peter Goodspeed who is a journalist and volunteer at Lifeline Syria, an initiative to welcome and support 1,000

Syrian refugees as they settle in the GTA over the next two years through the help of sponsor groups. “So it is essential that they receive immediate attention on their arrival in Canada, simply to ease their own concerns and to speed and ease their integration into Canadian society,” explained Goodspeed.

Refugees may not seek out health care right away due to many different factors, such as difficulty in understanding Canada’s health care system. In late January and early February, Rashid’s network of clinics treated between 200 to 250 refugees in ten days. The network managed to see this many people, even though new refugees were not originally connecting with the clinics as quickly as they were arriving. The clinics were eventually able to reach such high success thanks to the help of Dr. Ben Langer and family medicine residents, who raised awareness of the clinics online and at meetings and fairs.

Some issues Syrian refugees are expected to face are uncompleted vaccinations, hypertension, diabetes, war-related injuries, and mental illness.

Concerns have been raised about a delay in psychological services for refugees suffering from post-traumatic stress or other psychological issues, but the refugee clinics around Toronto aim to offer friendly faces and a place to connect.

Many other U of T doctors are helping to connect Syrian refugees with health care as

Rashid’s network includes pediatricians, dentists, psychiatrists, and other specialists. PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE EVANS AND MICHAEL WONG

well. St. Michael’s Hospital doctors Ashna Bowry, professor at DFCM, and Gabrielle Inglis, U of T alumna, teamed up with Mike Evans, DFCM faculty member and YouTube creator, to create an Arabic-language whiteboard YouTube video. The video welcomes Syrian refugees to St. Michael’s Hospital and explains the procedures they will go through at the clinic. Evans said that

the family medicine department wanted to create a welcoming experience for refugees. “[W]hen you have more than enough, some people build fences… but some build a longer table,” said Evans. “We are in the table group.”

Thanks to the support of U of T doctors, the process of finding healthcare has gotten easier for Canada’s newest citizens.

U of T based cancer research group hailed as ‘Dream Team’ Dr. Peter Dirks and colleagues receive $11.7 million to lead new cancer stem cell research initiative CONNIE LIU

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

In 1961, Toronto researchers verified the existence of stem cells. Now, in 2016, a Canadian ‘Dream Team’ of researchers assembles to tackle cancer stem cells.

Announced on World Cancer Day, Dr. Peter Dirks, a neurosurgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children and a professor in the departments of surgery and molecular genetics at the University of Toronto, will lead this $11.7 million initiative funded

by Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C), among other organizations.

Co-led by Dr. Samuel Weiss, director of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the University of Calgary, the team brings together scientists across Canada in a collaborative approach to make a difference for children and adults with brain cancer.

“The [goal of this] project is to understand brain cancer from a cancer stem cell perspective,” says Dr. Gary Bader, a Dream Team principal investigator of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research. “The best treatments [currently] are not very effective.

They do extend your life by...a few months.”

The Dream Team is dedicated to translational research, which aims to move discoveries from the lab and implement them in medical practices by bringing new treatments for brain cancer into clinical trials.

Dr. Dirks and his dream team stand up to cancer. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN

The primary targets are cancers known as glioblastomas and ependymomas, both of which are types of brain tumours. Less than 10 per cent of adults with glioblastoma survive for five years after diagnosis, and brain tumours are now the leading cause of death in children with cancer.

When healthy, stem cells in the brain will develop into normal nerve cells. Certain stem

cells with deleterious changes, on the other hand, can become cancerous. These cancerous stem cells can regenerate tumours even after surgery and therapy. Many cancerous stem cells will resist drug treatments as well.

The researchers intend to approach this challenge in three ways: first they will conduct a detailed analysis of brain tumour stem

cells to better understand the biological profile of these cells. Then, they will explore new drug combinations through a careful screening of chemicals. Finally, the team will test five promising drugs in clinical trials that may potentially be the solution to glioblastomas and ependymomas.

Dr. Amy Caudy, a professor in the department of molecular genetics and Canada Research Chair in Metabolics for Functional Enzyme Discovery, is a Dream Team principal investigator. As part of the interdisciplinary approach against brain cancer, her team is investigating the links between cancer cells and metabolism, specifically a metabolite (a chemical produced in the body during digestion) called 2-hydroxyglutarate (2HG). “[2-HG is] very central to the pathogenesis of at least some of these glioblastomas,” says Dr. Caudy, emphasizing the disease-triggering abilities of 2-HG. “People are now using it as a biomarker for [the] progression and status of glioblastomas and also some other cancers.”

With project leaders Dr. Dirks, who first discovered brain cancer stem cells, and Dr. Weiss, who received the Canada Gairdner International Award for discovering adult neural stem cells, the team of fourteen researchers stand up to cancer. Together, the Dream Team continues Canada’s legacy in stem cell research.

22 SCIENCE

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016 science@thevarsity.ca

Are our food choices genetic?

Certain women have genes that can induce increased fat intake

Researchers believe that the higher fat intake is due to the gene-carrier’s food choices. NYIMA GYALMO/THE VARSITY

NARTHAANAN SRIMURUGATHASAN VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Obesity is a global pandemic, affecting millions of people in North America alone. It has been associated with medical conditions, such as cardiovascular complications and type 2 diabetes.

A recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that diet may not be the primary cause of obesity. Rather, the presence of a certain gene in women may also be a contributing factor.

Researchers at McGill University recently discovered that the fat intake of women is influenced by a gene called the DRD4 VNTR repeat 7. Although this gene alone does not cause women to become obese, the way that the gene affects the fat intake of the body depends on the environment that the carrier of the gene grew up in.

In particular, the presence of the DRD4 repeat 7 gene, present in approximately 20 per cent of the population, is informed by the carrier’s socioeconomic background. Women

who carry the gene will have a worsened or healthier than average fat intake, if they grew up in a poorer or richer household, respectively. Lead author Laurette Dubê believes that the higher fat intake is due to the carrier’s food choices, rather than due to an underlying metabolic mechanism.

The study focused on 200 Canadian children, aged four, from Montreal, Quebec and Hamilton, Ontario. The researchers calculated the percentages of fat, protein, and carbohydrates the children had consumed based

on diaries kept by their parents, while saliva tests were used to determine which children were carriers of the DRD4 repeat 7 gene. The quality of their socio-economic environment was estimated using family income.

“We found that among girls raised in poorer families, those with DRD4 repeat 7 had a higher fat intake than other girls from the same socio-economic background,” said Laurette Dubé.

Conversely, wealthier girls with the same gene variant had a lower fat intake than other girls in the same economic conditions. “This suggests that it’s not the gene acting by itself, but rather how the gene makes an individual more sensitive to environmental conditions that determines […] a child’s preference for fat and consequent obesity as the years pass by.”

The study confirms that DRD4 repeat 7 belongs to a larger class of plasticity genes, which increase or decrease the risk of certain medical conditions depending on an individual’s environment. The study confirmed that DRD4 repeat 7 was indeed a plasticity gene. These results provide a clearer explanation of the underlying causes of diseases like obesity, changing the focus from the gene to the environment.

Boys with the DRD4 repeat 7 gene were not affected. Perhaps it is because girls need to be prepared to gain more weight to reproduce.

Or perhaps it is too early to see the effects of the gene in boys at the tender age of four.

Boys and girls gain weight at different stages in this age.

The outcomes of this study have further advanced our knowledge of obesity. Rather than merely blaming genetics, it is now evident that the environment in which one is raised plays a significant role on the development of obesity.

It is therefore necessary to focus on both genetic and environmental factors to adequately prevent the pandemic.

Physicists believe gravitational waves may be used to develop ‘Einstein telescopes’ CONTINUED FROM PG 20

A light sensor is waiting in case something changes. Because of the perpendicular arms, the single dimension compression and stretching caused by gravitational waves will compress only one arm and stretch the other. So if a gravitational wave warps the path of one of the lasers, the two beams will be marginally misaligned, and the laser will hit the photodetector, alerting scientists to the deformity.

1.3 billion years ago, in a galaxy far far away, a pair of black holes were circling each other, slowly spiraling inwards, until they merged into one massive black hole. The two black holes had the equivalent weight of 36 and 29 times that of our sun respectively — much larger than most black holes, which typically have a mass equal to about ten times our sun.

At the time of the collision, scientists estimate that they orbited each other at an astounding rate of 75 orbits per second.

The resulting black hole, however, was not the 65 solar masses one would expect from addition, but rather 62. This collision resulted in the mass of about three suns being converted to energy and released in a fraction of a second, which gave rise to particularly turbulent gravitational waves.

That wave first reached the LIGO facility in Louisiana, followed by the one in Washington state just seven milliseconds later. This allowed physicists to locate the black-hole collision as having occurred somewhere in the southern sky. The tiny time delay in itself proved that gravitational waves move at the speed of light.

As well as confirming a century-old theory, the detection of gravity waves may also have

a practical application that can help us uncover more secrets of the universe. Until now scientists have relied on light to observe the cosmos, but if we can find a way to design telescopes that use gravitational waves, we may be able to probe into parts of the universe where even light cannot reach and drastically increase our observational field.

Such ‘Einstein telescopes’ could potentially track black-hole mergers, identify the collisions of ultra-dense neutron stars, investigate exploding stars and unearth theoretical “cosmic strings” left over from the big bang.

Gravitational waves will give scientists an identifiable marker for when objects don’t emit visible light.

Scientists from the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have led the project, supported by a variety of international scientists and in-

stitutions. In fact, the scientific paper published names 1,004 individual authors.

The members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration based at the University of Toronto include Harald Pfeiffer, Prayush Kumar, Kipp Cannon and Heather Fong, a physics graduate student. CITA researchers contributed to the search pipelines that identified the black hole merging and the theoretical waveforms that established the black hole masses and spins.

With this new discovery, we are one step closer to peering further into the final frontier and understanding where our universe came from.

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

SCIENCE 23

var.st/science

What comes next?

New graduate professional development program at U of T brings ‘boardroom’ skills into the classroom HANNAH FUNG

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

In a global market with diverse job opportunities, few PhD graduates ultimately become university professors. In fact, he Conference Board of Canada reports that only 18.6 per cent of PhD graduates become employed as full-time university professors.

Few have embraced this reality more than Dr. Nana Lee, a lecturer at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Reinhart Reithmeier, former chair of U of T’s biochemistry department. Lee and Reithmeier have created a professional development program that will cater to the vast majority of graduate students who will not continue in academia after getting their degree.

For Dr. Reithmeier, it all started when he was compiling outcome data for the graduate students in his department.

Of the students who graduated while he was chair, only 15 per cent became professors. The remaining 85 per cent were engaged in an astonishingly broad range of careers, including constituency, law, policy, and communications.

Most faculty and administrators are unaware of the breadth of opportunities available to graduate students. “Some professors — not all of them, but some of them — have sort of a narrow view because... the only grad students that they see or hear about are the ones that go onto [postdoctoral fellowships] or become faculty,” says Dr. Lee. Dr. Lee completed her PhD in biochemistry in 2000. She spent the next few years in the biotechnology industry, where “it’s not just science,” she says, “but how well you work with people, your communication ability, all these – what we call – core competency skills.”

In 2012, the pair established U of T’s Graduate Professional Development program, a credit course which trains graduate students to be ‘real-world ready’. The program prepares students for the transition between graduate school and the workforce, be it within academia or beyond. During the program, students develop an array of soft skills, including presentation skills. They participate in a Three Minute Thesis, in which they are given three minutes or less to articulate their research to a panel of non-specialists. Through this exercise, students are challenged to grapple with how their research ties into the rest of the world.

Students are also encouraged to extend their networks beyond their supervisors and committee members. They are taught to use social media, cover letters, and résumés to tell coherent stories about their skills and experience.

Dr. Lee says, “We briefly go over the importance of LinkedIn and I check their profiles. We discuss the best way to write the cover letter and résumés using CAR [Context / Challenge, Action, Result] statements for a real job opening or a created opportunity.”

She explains, “Let’s say you tutor high school students... if you implement CAR, you would write something specific such as customized individual lesson plans for three high school students over two years, resulting in a final grade performance increase of 10-15 per cent.”

Dr. Reithmeier now serves as special advisor to the dean of the School of Graduate Studies for graduate skills development and engagement. He says his goal is “to ensure that all U of T graduate students and postdoctoral fellows develop a broad skill set and network to be able to take advantage of the career opportunities available to them in academia and beyond.”

Dr. Reithmeier hopes the postdoctoral fellowship will become a plan B for science PhD graduates.

HOW TO BUILD THE ULTIMATE LINKEDIN PROFILE Dr. Nana Lee, coordinator of the Graduate Professional Development program, lists the following as the three characteristics of a successful LinkedIn profile.

KIMIA GHANNAD-ZADEH/THE VARSITY

1. Profile picture The profile picture doesn’t need to be taken professionally, but it should be a headshot — nice and inviting. Ten percent of students use their Facebook profile pictures, which aren’t appropriate for the work environment.

2. Summary The summary should have three components: research program, interests and career goals. Dr. Lee says, “I encourage people … to use [all of the headings] to their full advantage and list everything that a potential employer might search for. Because some people just do the bare minimum – PhD student, department of immunology – and that doesn’t give a head hunter any information.”

3. Accomplishments Dr. Lee recommends students use CAR (Context / Challenge, Action, Result) statements to describe their accomplishments.

They should write about the impact they’ve made and the initiatives they’ve created. LinkedIn profiles should tell stories, not just résumés.

WHAT CAN SCIENCE PHD GRADUATES DO THAT’S NOT TEACHING OR RESEARCH? For those of you considering a PhD, there’s good news and slightly less good news. The good news is that at 85 per cent, PhD graduates boast one of the highest employment rates in the country. The slightly less good news is that only one in five PhD graduates become full-time university professors. In an increasingly globalized market, most PhD graduates pursue employment in diverse fields such as law, management, health, and communications.

These past few weeks, The Varsity interviewed graduate students, post-docs, and professors to give you five non-research, non-teaching jobs held by science PhD graduates.

1. Data scientist Data scientists collect and interpret large volumes of data.

Hailed the “sexiest job of the 21st century” by the Harvard Business Review, the birth of the data scientist reflects the need to organize and to make sense of the 2.5 quintillion (that’s 18 zeros) bytes of data we create each day. IBM estimates that

90 per cent of the data in the world was generated in the last two years.

2. Government Government agencies are responsible for creating and enforcing standards that ensure our health and safety. PhD graduates are often hired as technical experts or advisors in healthcare, resource management, education and environmental policymaking. They work for organizations such as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which draws on ecology research to provide access to safe and effective pesticides.

3. Communications Scientific research is not always accessible; we need science writers in the media and in scientific journals to interpret research for policymakers, investors, and the public. Medical writers, for example, work with medical professionals to document research and product use in clear, concise ways.

The ubiquity of social media has given rise to digital strategy managers – executives who develop their institution’s digital brand. Science PhD graduates have found work in this vein at the Institute of Cancer Research, among others.

4. Consulting Medical science liaisons are employed in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and other healthcare industries to bridge the gap between businesses and medical professionals, who apply the technology. U of T PhD graduates provide environmental and statistical consulting in a variety of firms, including resource management and software companies.

5. Law At committee meetings, PhD students are challenged to present their data in ways that highlight the significance and validity of their research. It turns out that the skills required to do so are sought after in the practice of law. Many PhD graduates in the sciences or engineering find themselves as technical specialists or scientific advisors at law firms that deal with intellectual property. If all goes well, the firm might even sponsor them to pursue part-time studies in law.

SPORTS

var.st/sports

22 F ebruary 2016

sports@thevarsity.ca

Blues take Centre Court during NBA All-Star festivities ll t

e

i ition

eld in o onto o t e fi t time l t ee end DANIEL CENTENO VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

The Varsity Blues men’s basketball team competed in the NBA All-Star festivities last weekend. COURTESY MARTIN BAZYL

The Varsity Blues (5–12) men’s basketball team fell to the Ryerson Rams (15–2), 79–94 during the NBA Centre Court festivities for the 2016 NBA All-Star game.

The game celebrated the opening of the NBA All-Star Weekend in Toronto. The exhibition is an annual weekend of basketball festivities held by the NBA, which includes skills competitions, most notably a slam-dunk competiton and a final matchup between the best players in the eastern and western conferences.

This year, host city Toronto ensured fans of all ages could enjoy various basketball drills and activities at the NBA Centre Court event, which were facilitated by All-Star staff, former NBA player Dikembe Mutombo and current San Antonio Spurs forward LaMarcus Aldridge.

The Blues represented U of T in a showcase of Ontario varsity basketball talent throughout the weekend. The men’s team took on Ontario University Athletics (OUA) leaders and cross-town rivals Ryerson Rams. The day prior, the Queen’s Gaels defeated the Windsor Lancers in the women’s All-Star showcase.

More than just an opportunity to give varsity athletes a taste of the pros, the event displayed the strong passion many Torontonians harbour for basketball in a typically hockey-dominated nation. It came at a time when the Toronto Raptors are second in the Eastern Conference standings, and the Leafs sit at the bottom of the NHL.

During the matchup between the Blues and Rams, U of T kept it close in the first half before the Rams went on a scoring run in the third quarter. Using their size and firm defense to gain momentum, the Rams built a significant lead over the Blues.

Despite early fouls by the Blues’ Sage Usher and strong Rams defense on lead scorer Devin Johnson, U of T was able to keep the game at 24–27 at the end the first quarter.

The Blues enjoyed an offensive surge from forwards Miroslav Jaksic and Manny Sahota off the bench. In the second quarter, the Rams’ tight defense continued, and the Blues switched to a more traditional line-up with the 6’10” Jaksic matching up against the Rams’ 6’9” centre Kadeem Green.

After a slow start, Devin Johnson led the Blues with 10 points to keep the score at 37–40.

With the game tied at 42 at the 2:12 mark, Rams forward Adam Voll recorded a huge block on the Blues’ Devin Williams, leading to a retaliation foul and two made free throws. The Rams used the late surge to maintain their lead at 44–47 heading into the second half.

In the third quarter, Usher was once again benched early on after recording his third foul.

The Blues’ Wilson Torres slashed to the basket for the two points and made his one free throw to make it 49–50 at 8:03.

Ryerson’s Voll recorded a huge dunk off a pick and roll with teammate Aaron Best to swing the momentum once again.

From there, the Rams would go on a 10–0 run to make it 49–60. Williams would end the Blues’ scoring drought at 5:45.

The combination of poor shooting and fouls led to a 61–75 deficit for the Blues going into the fourth quarter.

In the fourth, Johnson continued to be neutralized by the Rams’ big men in the middle and by defensive wing players who were able to keep the Blues’ star player isolated. The Rams strong inside presence forced the Blues to take several contested three pointers by constricting the passing lanes.

Despite his early struggles, Johnson was named player of the game for the Blues with a team leading 19 points. Sahota, Torres, and Daniel Johansson also scored in double digits for the Blues.

The Rams’ Roshane Roberts was named player of the game for Ryerson. Ammanuel Diressa and Roberts, who both scored 17 points, and Green, who scored 15 points and recorded three blocks, led the Rams to their 79–94 victory.

In a post-game interview, second-year Blues guard Oluwaseun Olutogun acknowledged his team’s good ball movement in the first half. Moving forward, he believed the team needed better focus, as well as needing to “stay cleaner” on offense throughout their games.

The Blues are tied for the seventh spot on the OUA leaderboard with Laurentian and Algoma. Ryerson shares the top spot with the Ottawa Gee-Gees.

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

SPORTS 25

var.st/sports

Sports industry tycoons to converge at U of T to o t fi t

nn l

ADIT DAGA

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

It is safe to say that Toronto is well on its way to becoming a sports city. The Pan Am Games, the NBA All-Star Weekend, and the unprecedented success of the Blue Jays and Toronto FC in the past year have gone a long way towards cementing the city’s reputation.

The University of Toronto Sports and Business Association (UTSB) are capitalizing on the success of the city’s blossoming athletic scene. On March 4, the UTSB will host their fifth annual Sports Industry Conference — one of the largest of its kind in Canada.

Revolutionary thinkers like NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and the NBA’s director of basketball analytics Jason Rosenfeld are two of many industry tycoons scheduled to attend the conference as keynote speakers, delivering talks on recent trends and disruptions in sport.

The conference, which will be held at Rotman Commerce’s Desautels Hall, is one of the most anticipated events of the year for U of T students and Toronto sports fans alike — and it’s run entirely by students.

“The marketing team has been working hard on curating promotional content and advertising the event across different platforms, mediums, and organizations,” said Arco Recto, the UTSB’s marketing director, regarding the lead-up to the conference this year. In preperation for the event, the UTSB’s events and corporate teams have been working non-stop in order to curate a seamless and exciting experience.

For 2016, the theme of the conference is “Behind the Game: Building the Playbook.”

The theme is centred around a team’s playbook and strategy; it will examine how the

l inin in

ot

nd t

on e ence o

playbook is developed to aid players and to help deliver a winning team. “[The theme] was developed from this notion that the esteemed roster of speakers speaking at our conference undertake a myriad of duties and responsibilities that the public are not necessarily aware of,” explained Recto. He added that behind every award winning team, there exists an entire organization of individuals who work together to develop the playbook strategy.

“By looking at statistics from something like a basketball game, fans and sports professionals are able to identify another dimension to the sports they’ve loved,” explained Dan Oh, fourth-year Rotman Commerce student and current president of the UTSB. For professionals working in the industry or students looking to get their foot in the door, the conference seeks to provide opportunities to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes of major league sports teams. “In the past couple years, the UTSB and U of T have collectively seen a huge student drive to work in the industry,” commented Oh. “The UTSB serves those needs and provides a platform for both students and professionals to connect, and discuss new ideas.”

Recently, an increasing number of professionals have become enthusiastic about attending the conference as well. Mathieu Bilodeau, a second-year student who works in the UTSB’s corporate relations department, noted that there has been a significant increase in acceptances from sports organizations, the media, and professionals to speak at and to attend the conference. “I only see the potential of the quality of speakers and the knowledge they impart increase as we keep hosting [the conference],” he said.

ie

o t ent

i t

nd t dent

li e

This year’s conference will take place at Rotman Commerce’s Desautels Hall . TOSIN MAIYEGUN/THE VARSITY

As an organization, the UTSB also provides an opportunity for students to engage in the business, through marketing and corporate aspects of the sports industry — processes that may not be easily understood to those looking at a successful league from the outside.

“In my first and second year as a student, I faced the same ordeal that many students faced and still face today: not knowing what to do with their life,” said Recto. He explained that due in part to his involvement with the UTSB, he has landed jobs with the Raptors and Maple Leafs in their community relations departments, as well as the Blue Jays’ marketing department.

“There is no greater feeling to work in an industry and organization where you share the same interests, values, and passion,” stated Recto.

The conference will kick off with a talk by keynote speaker Jack Armstrong, the Toronto Raptors’ broadcaster, as he interviews Canada Basketball president Michele O’Keefe on the issue of the growth of basketball throughout the country.

The conference will also tackle sports data and analytics with the NBA’s Jason Rosenfeld, focusing on how the league keeps track of the stats it values the most and what the optimal player in each position looks like.

Former gold medalist Johann Olav Koss and Toronto FC general manager Tim Bezbatchenko will discuss sports strategy as well.

To cap off the event Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, will give a talk on the expansion of hockey, and the ramifications international growth has on the sport.

t ed c ille tendon

The process of rehabbing one of the most detrimental sports injuries DORA AKCAY

Known for their severity and the long-term reparative physical therapy they require, Achilles tendon ruptures can be disastrous as they quite commonly signal the death of an athlete’s career.

VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

CORALS ZHENG/THE VARSITY

ACHILLES TENDON IN SPORT As the largest and strongest tendon in our bodies, the Achilles tendon is one of the most challenging areas of the body to rehab, especially for athletes.

The tendon connects the calf muscles to the heel bone and is the main source of force as an individual pushes their foot down while walking, running, and performing almost every athletic exercise.

Since the tendon plays a crucial role between the connection of the calf and the heel, it is no surprise that rupturing the tendon is more common in athletes who are involved with sports that include running, jumping, accelerating, and making sudden changes in direction. The most contemporary example is NBA player Kobe Bryant’s Achilles rupture in 2013, which sidelined the combination guard for almost eight months.

Although more common in high performance athletes, Achilles ruptures can happen to those who don’t engage in any kind of sport. Any amount of intense pressure and

force on the heel always runs the risk of rupturing the Achilles, no matter how strong the tendon is.

TREATMENT OPTIONS There is only one way to treat a ruptured Achilles tendon: surgery. Reconnecting the calf with the heel bone using stitches in an open surgery is the most common way of repairing the injury, however, surgeons can use varying techniques depending on the severity of the tear.

After the surgery, a splint or a cast is placed on the patient’s leg from the toes to the top of the tibia. The patient is not allowed to walk and is encouraged to use crutches for the first couple of weeks. Around the sixth week, the cast is taken off so that physical therapy can begin.

PHYSICAL THERAPY Although one may think that the most important aspect of post-surgery rehabilitation is regaining mobility and re-learning how to walk, one of the most crucial components is to look out for any signs of infection on the surgery site. As surgically repairing an Achilles rupture involves opening a sizable portion of the lower leg, the risk of infection is higher than that for other procedures like arthroscopic surgeries,

which can be used to repair ACL tears.

The long physical therapy process starts with exercises aimed at strengthening the leg — especially the calf muscle — and gaining back some pre-rupture range of motion in the ankle. In time, exercises tend to focus more towards helping an athlete transition back into their sport pain-free; incorporating more bodyweight and near-bodyweight exercises into an athlete’s rehab routine helps this process.

In all sports injuries, the rehabilitation process varies significantly depending on the severity of the injury and the individual athlete. With Achilles ruptures, the entire physiotherapy period can take about 16 weeks.

For professional athletes, the amount of time from rupture to returning to the game can take anywhere from nine to 12 months.

Although the injury has career-ending potential, statistically the chances of re-rupturing the tendon are as low as five per cent. At U of T, students who have suffered an Achilles tear or who are rehabbing a pre-existing injury have multiple resources they can utilize in order to get back in the game, including the McIntosh clinic and health services.

26 SPORTS

T H E VA R S I T Y

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016 sports@thevarsity.ca

Big week for Varsity Blues athletes All we do is win, win, win, no matter what

lues tra k and field athletes o peted state side last eekend in Seattle and hio. COURTESY JONATHAN YUE

EMMA KIKULIS SPORTS EDITOR

U of T students are now heading back to class after reading week, but many varsity athletes didn’t get much of a break. Multiple teams competed in a throng of meets throughout reading week.

The Varsity Blues men’s and women’s swim teams came home with Ontario University Athletics (OUA) banners; the track and field squad took on international competition in Washington and Ohio; and the men’s volleyball team shut-out number one team McMaster, while the women capped off a perfect regular season.

SWIMMING The Varsity Blues swim teams didn’t disappoint during the OUA championships in London, hosted by the Western Mustangs. The Blues dominated the competition with both teams’ closest challengers, the Mustangs, over 280 points away from the Blues women’s 1,049 point total and the men’s 1,019.

Over the course of the competition, the Blues broke a total of 18 OUA and national records. Second-year Kylie Masse led the women’s team, taking home four individual gold medals — one of which came in her national record breaking 100 m backstroke race. Masse was named the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) athlete of the week for her successes.

On the men’s side, third-year Hochan Ryu drowned the competition and was named the male OUA swimmer of the year,

earning four individual gold medals, including a meet record; he was also a member of two of the Blues gold medal winning relay teams. The OUA banners signal the thirteenth straight banner win for the men and the third for the women. The wins place the squads comfortably at the top of the CIS leaderboards.

TRACK AND FIELD Athletes from the Varsity Blues track and field team headed to the states for some division one competition, when they attended the Husky Classic at the University of Washington in Seattle and the Spire Invitational in Geneva, Ohio.

Sending teams comprised mainly of runners, the men’s team was lead by fourth-year veteran Sacha Smart who won the 600 m and 800 m competitions. Smart, who competed on the Blues cross-country team in the fall, placed fifth in the 600 m at last year’s CIS championship. Sprinters Rayshaun Franklin and Isiah Weathers also enjoyed podium finishes in Seattle, placing first and third, respectively, in the men’s 300 m race.

Third-year distance athlete Gabriela Stafford not only placed second in the women’s 3000 m race but also did it in a world championship qualifying time of 8:54.87 — a clocking which would have won the competition in 2014.

Representing U of T’s field athletes was fifth-year horizontal jumper Julia Stille who, in keeping with her podium finishes throughout the season, placed second in the long and triple jump competitions.

The women’s track and field team sits at the top of the CIS leader board with a comfortable lead, while the men’s squad is just shy of 30 points behind powerhouse Windsor.

VOLLEYBALL In an incredible demonstration of grit, the number four Varsity Blues men’s volleyball team defeated the top ranked Marauders in five sets to ruin McMaster’s perfect regular season.

The win, aided by a game high 23 kill performance from William Colucci, seemed to give the Blues a confidence boost, which carried them through wins against the Guelph Gryphons a day later and an electrifying five set win over the Western Mustangs on Friday.

The win over the Mustangs awarded the Blues an OUA homecoming 12 years in the making, as the squad will play host to an OUA playoff game for the first time since 2004. Following a win over the Windsor Lancers on Saturday, the squad improved their winning streak to five.

Not to be outdone, the Blues women’s volleyball team completed a 19–0 regular season on Saturday with a win over the Lancers. Dropping only two sets all season, the women’s team sits five points behind UBC’s Okanagan campus who lead the CIS with 60 points. Last year’s OUA champions, the Blues will attempt to defend their banner this Saturday at Goldring Centre in OUA quarterfinal action.

Blues tame Lions U of T beats York 6–2 CODY MORRISON VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

he lues o en s ho ke tea sits se ond in the .

BENJAMIN LAPPALAINEN/THE VARSITY

In their final home game of the regular season on Friday night, the fourth ranked Varsity Blues women’s hockey team gave the number 11 York Lions a beating in a 6–2 victory at Varsity Arena.

The night began with the Blues honouring four departing fifth-year players: April Looije, Sonja Weidenfelder, Caitlin Mikawa, and Jacqueline Scheffel, who will all be graduating this year.

The mood in the arena shifted after the first period started, as forward Jacquline Scheffel maximized the Blues first power play, beating York’s defensemen and putting her fourth goal of the year past Lions netminder Eva Hall.

Despite having to kill two penalties, the Blues continued to dominate the Lions. They added one more goal before the end of the period, as fourth-year favourite Taylor Day got a hold of defensemen Rebecca Bourgeois’ rebound and buried it in the back door.

The Lions’ frustration appeared to hit a boiling point in the second period when they earned their first of four penalties, only 49 seconds into the frame. The Blues notched three penalties of their own in the period but came through unscathed, as their penalty kill shut the Lions down.

On their final power play opportunity of the period, Day showed she still had some left in the tank as she effortlessly broke past York’s defense and scored her second of the game and fourteenth of the season. Meagan O’Brien widened the gap to four before the close of the frame as she threw a rocket over the shoulder of York’s rookie goaltender.

Halfway through the third period, second-year forward Lauren Straatman increased the Blues’ lead to five, with an impressive play that beat the York goalie on her blocker side.

Despite being down by five, the Lions appeared eager to break the shut-out by pulling their goalie with just over eight minutes left in the period. The pulled goalie added an extra attacker to the York team who were already on a power play, making it six on three.

The Blues answered the call as their penalty kill remarkably limited the Lions’ chances, while goaltender Yordanov made some incredible saves. Blues’ team captain Kristi Riseley rounded off the scoring with an empty net goal. With less then two minutes remaining, Lions forwards Lauren Cavarzan and Kristen Barbara spoiled the Blues’ shut-out with two quick goals.

The 6–2 victory secured the Blues’ a second place berth in the OUA standings and awarded the team a home ice advantage in the first round of the OUA playoffs.

M O N DAY 2 2 F E B R U A R Y 2 016

T H E VA R S I T Y

ADVERTISEMENT 27

var .st/ads

TURNTABLES

+

SYMPHONY

Toronto’s cutting-edge contemporary music festival

March 5–12, 2016

Co-curated by Brett Dean and TSO Music Director Peter Oundjian with an explosive finale by Toronto’s own DJ Skratch Bastid.

Fragile Absolute March 5, 8:00PM

$30

FESTIVAL PASS

Two Memorials: Anton Webern & John Lennon March 9, 8:00PM Knocking at the Hellgate March 12, 7:30PM

NewCreationsFestival.com

PRESENTED BY

M O N DAY 7 S E P T E M B E R 2 015

T H E VA R S I T Y

DIVERSIONS 28

var.st/ads

CONNOR CAMPBELL/THE VARSITY

Answers from Issue 16

ACROSS

DOWN

1. Energetic 4. Brusque 7. Clap 8. Hot water burn 9. High quality cigar 12. Eminence 15. Greenest (trees) 17. Delighted 18. Small & rotund 21. Independently 22. Roman III 23. Fiasco

1. Deteriorate, go ...

2. Contest court decision 3. Chowder ingredient 4. Gallivants 5. Wild 6. Escaped 10. Concur 11. Coat with pan juices 13. Edge of highway 14. More robust 16. Cinematographer’s apparatus 18. Vanuatu’s capital, ... Vila 19. Xmas period 20. Conjurer’s stick

The Varsity will post the answers to this puzzle in the next week’s issue.