September 8th, 2020

September 8, 2020

THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

Vol. CXLI, No. 1

All eyes on U of T

In-person safety, online accessibility — concerns grow as classes resume: p. 2

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A summer of uncertainty, changing plans: U of T set to hold in-person classes for the first time since March Unions question safety of reopening, procedure for COVID-19 cases

Hannah Carty News Editor

Nearly six months after U of T cancelled inperson classes on March 13 due to the spread of COVID-19, some in-person classes are set to be held again alongside online learning for the 2020–2021 school year.

However, the past five months have seen multiple changes to U of T’s reopening plan, as well as challenges to the plan by faculty and staff unions.

On-campus activity and changing plans U of T first announced its plans for the year in May and later predicted that one third of classes would be in person. As the summer went on, however, more and more academic units shifted to primarily online learning.

While most faculties and campuses are predominantly online, the Faculty of Arts & Science (FAS) originally intended to do a more even mix of in-person and online delivery.

However, just over a month before the beginning of the school year, the FAS announced that courses could switch from in-person to online at the instructor’s request, frustrating some students whose plans were thrown up in the air at the last minute.

Other quick changes have punctuated U of T’s COVID-19 plans over the summer. When U of T’s mask plan did not originally mandate masks to be worn in classrooms, the university, following criticism, changed its policy less than two weeks later.

U of T will also be giving out two reusable masks to community members, though some have raised questions about the efficacy of these masks, since they are made out of polyester instead of cotton, which is generally regarded as the most effective fabric against COVID-19.

Currently, the university estimates that 90 per cent of courses are online or have an online option, and the university has estimated that at any given time, less than five per cent of students will be on campus. U of T will also be allowing students to live in residence, though in single-occupancy rooms with limited access to common spaces such as dining halls.

Another concern over the summer was the fact that tuition for this year has not been reduced, with students pointing to the quality of online learning and calls for pandemic-related financial relief. International students, who face higher fees and a 5.3 per cent average increase in tuition this year, have especially expressed concern.

Resistance from labour unions Even though most classes will be held online, a coalition of six unions still says it’s not enough.

Over the summer, these unions put considerable pressure on the university to move the semester online, with unions claiming that it is unsafe to hold in-person classes.

In an email to The Varsity, University of Toronto Faculty Association President Terezia Zoric summarized the union’s numerous con-

U of T is holding in-person classes for the first time since March.

NATHAN CHING/THEVARSITY

cerns as being with “the state of ventilation on campus; associated risks such as plumbing and the spread of other bacteria (legionella, fecal coliform) due to buildings being left idle for months; a weak and ineffectual mask policy and guidelines; overly large in-person class sizes; problems with class scheduling.”

According to Zoric, by not providing adequate solutions to these concerns, the university’s plan to reopen produces “unnecessary risk.”

The unions have also expressed ongoing disappointment about a lack of consultation with them. “The U of T Administration is stubbornly ignoring the expert advice of its own faculty members from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH) who are being consulted regularly by the World Health Organization, federal and provincial governments, and public health authorities,” wrote Zoric.

Procedure for COVID-19 cases U of T also recently unveiled their plan for addressing COVID-19 cases that arise on campus.

Many universities in the US have cancelled all in-person classes after seeing an alarming increase in cases only a few days or weeks after reopening. However, U of T’s strategy does not include any plan to proactively test students, staff, or faculty.

The plan tells anyone who believes that they may have COVID-19 to “inform their academic leads or supervisors and contact the Occupational Health Nurse.” There will also be an online portal to help people monitor their symptoms and decide whether or not to come to campus. If cases arise, procedures are in place to clean areas, and rooms will be set aside in residences for students who need to self-isolate.

Vice-Provost Students Sandy Welsh wrote to The Varsity that “In the event of a positive test result, staff at Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) will inform individuals who have had contact with the affected person while at U of T.” U of T’s plan does not allow supervisors, managers, or departments to communicate di-

rectly with their students, faculty, or staff about possible or confirmed COVID-19 cases, a stipulation that has caused concern among some community members.

In response to this part of the policy, the contract academic worker’s union, CUPE 3902, tweeted, “Seriously, @uoft? You’re not even going to inform students and workers of confirmed COVID cases on campus? We don’t need to invade privacy to know real health risks.”

Welsh did not respond to a question about whether there will be any specific criteria for defining contact, leaving open the question of who will be informed if someone in an in-person class or residence building tests positive for COVID-19. She also did not directly respond to a question on whether information about COVID-19 cases on campus will be accessible to the public.

“As we did in the spring, we will follow the guidance of government and health authorities and follow their guidance in releasing information about cases on campus,” wrote Welsh.

How U of T’s plan compares to those of other universities Reopening universities during the pandemic has been a concern everywhere. But how many are actually reopening, and to what extent?

Coursecompare.ca, a website that gathers data on higher education in Canada, has been collecting information on how universities across the country are adapting to COVID-19.

A majority of postsecondary schools across Ontario, 60 per cent, are entirely online, while 37 per cent are using a hybrid model like U of T. Ontario schools are overall choosing online learning slightly more than all of Canada, where 53 per cent of schools are going online.

Robert Furtado, CEO and founder of Coursecompare, also pointed to U of T’s relatively large international student population as a possible motivation for some in-person classes, since some international students may face unreliable internet or restrictions on internet use at home.

Mental health crisis hotlines If you or someone you know is in distress, you can call: Canada Suicide Prevention Service phone available 24/7 at 1-833-456-4566 Good 2 Talk Student Helpline at 1-866-9255454 Ontario Mental Health Helpline at 1-866531-2600 Gerstein Centre Crisis Line at 416-929-5200 U of T Health & Wellness Centre at 416978-8030

Warning signs of suicide include: Talking about wanting to die Looking for a way to kill oneself Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose Talking about feeling trapped or being in unbearable pain Talking about being a burden to others Increasing use of alcohol or drugs Acting anxious, agitated, or recklessly Sleeping too little or too much

Withdrawing or feeling isolated Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge Displaying extreme mood swings The more of these signs a person shows, the greater the risk. If you suspect someone you know may be contemplating suicide, you should talk to them, according to the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.

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SETPEMBER 8, 2020

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“Not Safe Enough”: U of T’s reopening plans are outdated, lack consultation, expresses community panel

Coalition of unions continues to ask for a fully online fall semester

Ashleigh Tuite speaking at the online panel.

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Joel Ndongmi Varsity Contributor

On August 24, a coalition of the University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) and five unions representing service workers, contract academic workers, and casual workers, organized an online panel to express safety and equity concerns about U of T’s reopening plan.

The panel’s speakers included professors, epidemiologists, and union leaders, and it was attended by over 250 people.

U of T’s plans are outdated, ignore airborne transmission Amy Conwell, Chair of CUPE 3902 — the union that represents contract academic workers — started the call by outlining concerns that the plan is based on outdated science because it does not reflect emerging evidence of airborne transmission and neglects the role of symptomless transmission.

Echoing Conwell, Ashleigh Tuite, an assistant professor of epidemiology, said that since the outbreak, new data

has emerged and there is much more nuanced scientific understanding of COVID-19. “Inhaling it by droplets or aerosols is really the major route of transmission,” explained Tuite, noting that the way COVID-19 most often transmits makes universities a high-risk setting.

Comparing opening university campuses to “dropping a cruise ship into the centre of a city,” Tuite said, “you again have these congregate settings where you have a large number of people existing within a relatively contained space.”

She added that universities bringing

back students is also a risk for the greater community.

Furthermore, according to Tuite, “being indoors is riskier than being outdoors, particularly in rooms that don’t have good ventilation.” Ventilation has been one of the unions’ biggest concerns, and they remain unconvinced that U of T has done what it says it has.

James Scott, Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH), said that U of T’s administration sent a letter claiming that all ventilation systems “meet or exceed public health guidelines.” However, the UTFA has reached out to the administration for the assessment criteria and the buildings that were assessed, but it has not received a response with specific details.

“That’s really the information that we need in order to be able to understand well, first of all, if the claim is correct,” Scott added. He worries that the university “based its approach on the state of knowledge that we had in January and hasn’t adjusted its approach based on the growing body of much more informative science.”

When asked to grade U of T’s plan, epidemiologist David Fisman responded, “I’m going to give the school a weak ‘D’ grade because they did get hand sanitizer dispensers.”

Teaching assistants, equity concerns A prominent concern for the panelists was the safety of teaching assistants (TAs). Kyle Shaw-Mueller, Vice Chair Unit 1 at CUPE 3902, outlined some of the difficulties they face. Not every TA has the choice to work online. Instead, individual campuses, faculties, and departments are left to make these decisions. While the university has an accommodation request process, it has not released a guarantee for TAs who want to work remotely.

Shaw-Mueller mentioned that he’s had conversations with multiple TAs who are worried about endangering immunocompromised family members. He added that “the best guarantee of safety is no in-person contact wherever possible. And TAs should have a right to refuse unsafe in-person work the same way instructors do.”

Arjumand Siddiqi, an associate professor at the DLSPH, outlined the disproportionate effects that the virus has on racialized people, most specifically, those who are Black and brown. She explained that racialized people often work jobs that don’t allow them to physically distance, such as caretakers or delivery people.

“It’s impossible to think about safe reopening plans without acknowledging that reopening has very different implications for different people.”

Lack of consultation Another key concern during the panel was the lack of consultation between U of T administration and the unions when coming up with a COVID-19 plan. Scott added that experts at the DLSPH “provided feedback, mainly just to say, it needs more. And it disappeared into the void, and we didn’t really hear from them again.” He also described U of T’s plan as a “disorganized patchwork of 37 slide decks and spreadsheets.”

In addition, the plan is confidential and is only available to select groups of staff. According to Scott, a “real plan would have been developed in consultation with everyone, including our own experts. A real plan would have been based on science and a real plan would have been a consolidated document.”

He emphasized that an ideal plan would be “available to all members of our communities, not just a few selected members.”

Service workers’ union petitions to stop U of T from outsourcing caretaking services

Move meant to be temporary due to COVID-19 says U of T Hannah Carty News Editor

Due to increased COVID-19 cleaning, the university is hiring two external companies to provide caretaking services instead of in-house workers. CUPE 3261, the union that represents over 1,200 service workers in a variety of positions at U of T, is contesting the decision.

Alongside a website created for the cause, the union’s petition for the university to stop using independent contractors for caretaking services has over 1,900 signatures so far.

Ron Saporta, Chief Operating Officer Property Services and Sustainability, wrote to The Varsity that the independent contractors were hired due to the pandemic, and the change is not meant to be permanent. Saporta said the reasoning behind this move was “to allow for flexibility as the COVID-19 situation evolves, and to ensure cost-effectiveness.”

The petition claims that, contrary to U of T’s assertion that this move is only due to COVID-19, “UofT is using this moment to reduce its labour costs by relying on private cleaning companies.”

“This is not appropriate behaviour for one of the largest government-funded, public institutions in our country,” Allan James, President of CUPE 3261, told The

Varsity.

University of Toronto Faculty Association President Terezia Zoric also expressed solidarity with the petition, writing, “This both negatively impacts low paid precarious workers and hands the work to people who do not know U of T buildings or share the same commitment to the campus community as do regular cleaning staff.”

On its website, CUPE 3261 writes that it has suggested that the university hire temporary workers who would be represented by CUPE 3261, as well as existing members who were laid off from other departments.

CUPE 3261 members are protected by the collective agreement between the union and the university, and the union has expressed concerns that the thirdparty caretakers will not be able to assert their rights as strongly, since they are not protected by this agreement.

One of the union’s biggest concerns is health and safety protocols against COVID-19 under the third party companies, pointing to evidence that external caretaking companies provide a lower quality of cleaning. In addition, the union alleges that caretaking companies have a higher turnover in staff, which may also increase COVID-19 risk.

According to James, private caretaking

companies have a lower quality of services due to “a for-profit model that has money-making as the main motivation rather than high quality of service, inferior working conditions, and poor safety equipment and lack of proper training.”

Even though hiring independent contractors does not cost CUPE 3261 members their jobs, the union still has concerns about the possible long-term effects of this decision. “We want to maintain good jobs at U of T,” explained James. “Through privatization, as more and more jobs get contracted out, there will be fewer good jobs at U of T.” The external services will be responsible for 18 buildings at the St. George campus. Prior to this move, several buildings on campus had already been contracted out to private companies.

“We will continue to deliver high quality service, adhering to consistent cleaning protocols across campus and using cleaning products approved for use against COVID-19,” expressed Saporta, also noting that the staff of the external companies is unionized.

“Contracting out the work of cleaners is inconsistent with the equity principles U of T claims to represent,” wrote James.

“U of T has the ability to make the right decision, and we will continue to ask them to do so.”

CUPE 3261 represents service workers all over U of T. RACHEL GAO/THEVARSITY

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What are administrations at U of T doing about anti-Black racism?

U of T’s national dialogue series faces criticism; Trinity College, Victoria College promise concrete action Lauren Alexander Deputy News Editor

As Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the continent and Toronto following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black people by police, groups around campus released statements of solidarity and calls to action, detailing the need for anti-racism work at U of T. On June 1, U of T President Meric Gertler also released a statement standing in solidarity with U of T’s Black community members and affirming his commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

The Varsity reviewed how the U of T administration has since acted in response to the protests this summer, as well as how the administrations at two federated colleges, Victoria College and Trinity College, have advanced anti-racism efforts.

National dialogue series, anti-racism training U of T, alongside other Canadian universities and colleges, will be leading a national dialogue on anti-Black racism in Canadian postsecondary education through a series called “National Dialogues and Action for Inclusive Higher Education and Communities.” The series aims to discuss how to take action against anti-Black racism in higher education communities and is scheduled to begin at the end of September or beginning of October.

Some have criticized the series, saying that it is hypocritical of U of T to spearhead such an initiative because of issues of anti-Black racism on campus and a general lack of action in addressing anti-Black racism.

“Canadian universities by and large are deeply anti-Black places,” said Rinaldo Walcott, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the Women & Gender Studies Institute, in an interview with The Varsity. He also criticized U of T for leading a conversation on anti-Black racism at Canadian universities while, in his perspective, not doing this on its own campus. According to Walcott, U of T has “consistently not dealt with anti-Blackness.”

In a tweet about the national dialogue, Walcott

Protestors in Toronto earlier this summer.

COURTESY OF SOPHIA YLENIA/TWITTER

referred to U of T as one of the most anti-Black universities in the country, later explaining his comments by saying, “You only need to look at the number of Black faculty at U of T; you only need to ask Black students about their experiences.”

Walcott pointed to Dalhousie University as an example of an institution that he sees doing a better job of addressing anti-Black racism on campus. In 2019, Dalhousie publicly apologized after a report by its professors revealed that its namesake, George Ramsay, the ninth earl of Dalhousie, had ties to slavery. The report also gave a number of recommendations for addressing anti-Black racism on campus.

Elsewhere, a spokesperson from U of T pointed to the Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office (ARCDO) as providing support for organizations on campus, including education and training. The ARCDO will be running a training series to address anti-Black racism, which is al-

ready at capacity for 2020.

“The University acknowledges that education and training alone is not enough and so we continue to work with our faculty, staff and students to address anti-Black racism and create an inclusive and welcoming community,” wrote the spokesperson to The Varsity.

Anti-racism efforts at Victoria College, Trinity College Victoria College President William Robins released a statement after the killing of George Floyd this past May acknowledging historical and present day racism that exists in the university and a need for “concrete, Victoria-specific actions” in support of Black community members.

Following this statement, the Victoria College Dean’s Office set up a series of meetings with the Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council (VUSAC) and the Victoria College Black Student Network (Vic Black). The uni-

versity hopes the meetings will allow students to communicate concerns to the administration, as well as VUSAC, and find areas for improvement within Victoria College.

“Concrete actions that are currently being implemented as a result of these conversations include the hiring of a [Black, Indigenous, or people of colour (BIPOC)] counsellor at Victoria College, the creation of an anti-Black racism event for orientation and making VUSAC elections more accessible for racialized students,” said VUSAC President Michelle Zhao and VicePresident External Mehr Mukhtar.

Victoria College Dean Kelley Castle identified the idea to hire a BIPOC counsellor as having come from Vic Black.

Victoria College will also be holding a conference on race and racism on campus in the fall, with Vic Black participating in the organization.

Castle also pointed to training on anti-racism, inclusivity, and diversity that is being planned for the staff, as well as sessions during orientation and don training.

“The students have been very generous with their time and feedback. Conversations have been compassionate and upsetting in equal and good measure,” said Castle.

Meanwhile, over the summer, Trinity College students spoke out about their experiences of anti-Black racism at the institution. In an op-ed in The Varsity, three Black students from Trinity College denounced the college for a perceived lack of action against anti-Black racism, writing that the “voices and experiences of Black students will not go unheard anymore.”

Following Black student advocacy efforts, the college announced an anti-racism taskforce on June 22, which is expected to create an action plan to combat anti-Blackness at the college. More recently, a new bursary has been collecting funds for BIPOC students. The bursary aims to increase “the amount of funding available for BIPOC students providing additional support to further ensure their success.”

U of T reduces some incidental fees, introduces international opt-out from health insurance for fall KPE, Hart House, student services fees fall for all campuses Khatchig Anteblian Varsity Staff

While U of T has not planned any changes to tuition fees in the fall 2020 semester, some nontuition incidental fees — particularly for Hart House, student services, and athletics and recreation — have been reduced.

Students will not be able to opt out of any incidental fees, which include fees for services like Hart House and the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) Sport & Recreation, even if they will not be on campus in the fall.

As the fall term goes ahead with online classes and minimal in-person gatherings, on-campus services will be scaled down or moved online entirely.

However, international students who will be studying outside of Ontario will be able to opt out of their University Health Insurance Plan (UHIP).

The university is anticipating that all services and programs will return in full in January 2021, so fee reductions do not apply for the winter 2021 semester. The university may reconsider this depending on the circumstances closer to January.

Incidental fee reductions across all three campuses The services and incidental fees vary by campus, as outlined in an FAQ on the website for the

Office of the ViceProvost Students, and the changes will reflect specific circumstances at each campus. Fee reductions are campus specific and apply to all students registered at that campus.

At all three campuses, the KPE Sport & Rec fee is reduced by 30 per cent, and the Hart House fee is reduced by 20 per cent. The student life fee at UTSG is reduced by 10 per cent.

At UTM, in addition to the previous fees, the UTM athletics fee is reduced by 25 per cent, and the student services fee, which includes the fee for the suspended shuttle service, is reduced by 35 per cent.

UTSC’s athletics and recreation fee is reduced by 40 per cent, and the student services fee is reduced by 25 per cent.

“Most programming and services continue on-line or through video calls, phone calls, and other means,” a university spokesperson wrote to The Varsity. “In-person services will also be offered wherever possible in accordance with public health, government, and university guidelines.”

While intramurals and varsity sports will not be available for the fall term, some athletics facilities run

ISOBEL HEINTZMANN/ THEVARSITY

by KPE Sport & Recreation, UTM athletics, UTSC athletics, and Hart House may be open to inperson activities in accordance with health guidelines.

While the UTM and UTSC campuses reduced the cost of spaces provided for student services and organizations, the UTSG campus waived it altogether.

The FAQ also notes that “some spaces may be available for students with appropriate physical distancing in place.”

Eligible international students can opt out of UHIP Although there are no fee reductions to UHIP, international students living outside of Ontario for the full 2020 fall term will be able to opt

out of the service for the semester.

Students are automatically enrolled in the service starting August 10 and have the option to opt out in October. According to the Student Life website, coverage from August 10–31 is free of charge due to COVID-19 quarantine requirements.

The university will provide disenrollment applications online in October 2020. Should a student opt out but arrive in Canada while the fall term is still in progress, they must contact the UHIP office. The university intends to reinstate UHIP coverage and fees for the winter semester, but also plans to offer the option to opt out if border restrictions are in place.

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SETPEMBER 8, 2020

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UTSU August board meeting: executives review advocacy efforts to reduce tuition, improve accessibility for international students EDI report proposes to disperse vice-president equity duties among other positions

Nawa Tahir Varsity Staff

At the August meeting of the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) Board of Directors, executives reviewed advocacy efforts to reduce tuition fees for the fall and make online learning more accessible to international students.

The board further heard an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) report suggesting that the vicepresident equity position be dissolved and its work be redistributed to the vice-president student life and a human resources manager position.

The board also discussed revamping the working group policy, which was introduced in 2018 to allow students to get funding for smaller, temporary projects.

Tuition fee advocacy The UTSU released a statement on July 31 criticizing the university for not reducing tuition fees and continuing with a 5.3 per cent increase in international tuition fees. The board called for tuition to be lowered for remote classes and for the average 5.3 per cent tuition increase for international students to be cancelled this year.

According to Vice-President Public and University Affairs Tyler Riches, the office of the president said that it had received the statement and is in the process of reviewing it. Riches said that the administration told the UTSU that the tuition fee is being kept as is because the university is investing in online learning infrastructure for students.

Riches also discussed the last meeting with the Office of the Vice-Provost Students (OVPS) where they reviewed student concerns. According to the OVPS, there are no plans to make changes to tuition for the upcoming year as of yet, though ancillary fees,

which are separate from tuition, have been reduced for the fall semester.

The Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education Sport & Rec fee will be reduced by 30 per cent. The Hart House fee will be reduced by 20 per cent, and Student Life by 10 per cent. These changes will continue to be reassessed as the fall term progresses.

Trinity College Director Fiona Reuter asked if the UTSU plans to further advocate for a decrease in microtransactions in the fall because of the financial burden imposed by COVID-19. Microtransactions are small online payments that may build up over time, such as fees for textbooks or online services required to complete a course. Riches replied that it is difficult to have changes made in the fall since

instructors plan their courses months ahead of time.

International students UTSU President Muntaka Ahmed said that the university needs to clarify what support they are offering international students working outside of Canada or the GTA in the fall, such as virtual private networks.

Ahmed said that she plans to raise this issue with the administration at its next meeting.

Vice-President Equity (VP Equity) Alexandra McLean added that the UTSU will use feedback from the online learning survey to determine and conduct further research on how the UTSU can help make online learning more accessible for international students, who may face barriers to accessibility ser-

The University of Toronto Students’ Union August Board Meeting was held virtually.

NAWA TAHIR/THEVARSITY

vices because of health policies in different countries.

UTSU Vice-President Operations Dermot O’Halloran said that the UTSU is “working very closely with Studentcare” and the university to plan opt-outs for international students in the Health and Dental Plan.

EDI Review Body report The EDI report produced proposals to make the UTSU an equitable space for all students on campus, including that the VP Equity role be dissolved and given to a human resources official instead. The VP Equity is part of the executive committee and works on equity related initiatives for the UTSU. New College Director Karel Peters explained that the VP Equity is meant to keep the executives and the board of directors accountable, which is difficult given that the VP Equity is an executive themselves.

Peters reasoned that a human resources official would be more qualified than an elected student.

Currently, per the UTSU’s bylaws, the role of human resources manager falls under the vice-president operations’ purview.

Ahmed called the report a step in the right direction, and she stressed the importance of such changes being made in the structure of the UTSU. Working groups policy Riches discussed changes that have been made to the working groups policy, stating that the UTSU wants to encourage students to use the policy for advocacy work in the coming year.

Working groups are student-led groups that receive funding from the UTSU for a short-term project. Riches also wants to work with the outreach committee to reach out to student groups on campus that may be able to benefit from the policy.

O’Halloran noted that this policy has never been used since its introduction in 2018.

UTSU’s proposed decertification motions at CFS–O General Meeting forwarded to executive committee Cedric Jiang and Marta Anielska Varsity Staff

The Ontario branch of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) held its 2020 annual general meeting virtually from August 26–28 to discuss submitted motions and review the 2020–2021 budget.

The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), primarily represented by Vice-President Public & University Affairs Tyler Riches, proposed five motions regarding decertification from the CFS, which the UTSU has been attempting to do for years.

However, none of these motions were debated or voted upon because a previous motion, titled N03, sent all motions deemed non-emergency to the Ontario Executive Committee (OEC) for discussion.

The other topics discussed by the representatives of CFS member locals were communication issues among unions and the federation’s response to anti-Black racism.

Decertification In a 2017 announcement, the UTSU criticized the CFS as “beyond reform” after a series of scandals, stating that it would actively support decertification from the federation.

The current decertification process requires a student who is not part of the union executive to initiate a petition. Union executives cannot spend their time on decertification efforts. Within a year, at least 15 per cent of the union’s members must sign a physical petition to trigger a decertification referendum. “For students taking a full-course load, this is an

Member locals discuss communication, anti-Black racism immensely difficult task,” Riches wrote in an email to The Varsity.

The CFS has not yet implemented online voting, though member locals have been calling for it for years. This year, when most classes will be offered remotely, leaving the CFS without online options will be even more difficult.

Under N03, all non-emergency motions were suspended and forwarded to the OEC this October for discussion, while motions the OEC could not deliberate on, such as bylaw changes, were postponed until next year’s meeting.

A major consideration behind this motion was online meetings’ lack of accessibility for some students. Although Riches acknowledged the importance of accessibility, he lamented that the CFS “did not find other ways to make this meeting more accessible,” and that, as a consequence, motions that would further empower U of T students to decertify the UTSU from the CFS were delayed for another year.

“It was disappointing that this was the outcome,” Riches wrote. Riches expressed frustration that students pay CFS fees, yet “will have no opportunity to exercise the only right afforded to them by the CFS.” Full-time undergraduate students pay $8.39 to the CFS each semester.

After the budget presentation, Riches also questioned an increase in the federation’s campaigning costs. The executives responded that because of the federal election and the need to promote membership due to the Student Choice Initiative, the OEC voted to increase funding for campaigns in 2019.

Motion to facilitate better communication A motion proposed by local 49, the University of Windsor Students’ Alliance, would streamline communication between member unions.

If passed, the CFS would be obligated to create a centralized directory of contact information for the executive members of each union.

Moreover, a LISTSERV would be created so that any local could send mass emails to all other local member executives.

However, other member locals had some major objections. Local 54, the University of Guelph Central Student Association, argued that the proposition was logistically difficult and should be deemed non-emergency.

Riches moved to amend the motion by adding a clause granting executives the ability to opt out of the directory. Muntaka Ahmed, President of the UTSU, motivated the motion by pointing out that not every executive should have direct contact with the CFS, given that most member locals have an executive to fulfill this function. This amendment carried.

Local 97, the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students of the University of Toronto, then moved to send the motion to the OEC for consideration, decision, and implementation. This motion also passed.

CFS response to anti-Black racism A motion moved by the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union was deemed an emergency because it demanded that the federation respond to the death of Regis Korchinksi-Paquet, an Afro-Indigenous woman, in the presence of six Toronto police officers.

It proposed that the CFS align itself with

Black Lives Matter Toronto in condemning the Toronto Police Service and calling for the defunding and abolishment of the police.

The motion also called on the CFS to develop education materials on police violence and systemic anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in postsecondary institutions.

The motion passed with a unanimous vote and overwhelming support from member locals. During the discussion, Ahmed expressed her concerns regarding policing on U of T campuses, saying that police played a very harmful role in the community’s safety and well-being. She criticized Campus Police for its history of criminalizing racialized people and people with mental illness.

In the email, Riches echoed Ahmed’s insights and cited multiple incidents when Campus Police threatened the safety of historically marginalized groups. This included its failure to protect transgender and nonbinary students at a rally in 2016 and an incident when UTM Campus Police handcuffed a student seeking mental health support.

“It is the responsibility of the administration to reimagine the way that security is implemented on our campus, and find alternative solutions that don’t rely on the use of force, or the institution of policing as we know it,” Riches wrote. He argued that while hiring armed crisis workers is a start to improving the university’s mental health services, “actions like investing in robust 24-hour crisis support oncampus… and investing in online support for students who are not on campus this fall are all important actions that need to be taken by [the] administration.”

6

THE VARSITY

NEWS

news@thevarsity.ca

How plans to offer courses online, in-person vary across campuses, faculties U of T will not take a universal approach to reopening

Quality concerns raised about U of T-provided face masks for use of polyester over cotton

Epidemiologist David Fisman accuses university of “paying lip service to safety” Despite U of T’s policies to keep students and staff safe, there are concerns about buy-in and the lack of enforcement.

ROBERTA BAKER/THEVARSITY

Adam A. Lam and Nawa Tahir Varsity Staff

Going into the 2020–2021 school year, the University of Toronto does not have a uniform policy mandating in-person or online learning for its faculties. Instead, U of T is split into different academic units, which encompass its faculties and divisions and policies vary across them. While a few faculties are incorporating in-person learning, the majority are shifting to predominantly online courses.

“Different academic divisions and departments are working toward solutions specific to their programs in terms of how best to deliver courses,” noted a university webpage updated on August 14.

However, this hybrid mix of online and in-person learning in the fall and winter semesters has been heavily criticized by community members, and course delivery methods have been changed several times. Many courses in the Faculty of Arts & Science (FAS) have changed from in-person instruction to online delivery at the instructor’s request.

The Varsity has broken down the current COVID-19 coursework plans across U of T. UTSC The majority of UTSC classes will take place online, and students will have a remote option for all coursework in the fall semester. In an email to The Varsity, a UTSC spokesperson wrote that any student who chooses an online course in September will be able to complete it remotely, and for first-year students, this guarantee extends to the winter term as well.

The UTSC spokesperson added that “our commitment includes a guaranteed pathway to graduation for those eligible to graduate next June, even if required courses or course elements cannot be offered this coming year.”

The UTSC library will be open with limited access to study space, while the stacks will remain closed with a retrieval process available. Other library services will be available online to the UTSC community.

UTM For UTM students, the campus noted on a webpage that “almost every course will allow [students] to study online if that is what you prefer, or must do for travel or medical reasons.”

Arts and science The FAS announced a hybrid of in-person and online classes, with a webpage noting, “Some programs require applied, practical, or other placement-based activities that must be delivered in person.” However, it also pledged that it would accommodate students who need a course that is offered exclusively in-person for their degree.

Continuing studies At the School of Continuing Studies, which offers non-credit courses to adults taught by contract instructors, 11 of 591 course sections will be in-person for the fall, set to begin in late October. Four of these do not have an alternative online section.

Information In an email to The Varsity, a Faculty of Information spokesperson wrote that the faculty has decided to offer all courses online, and the electives that require in-person participation may be shifted to another term.

Architecture, landscape, and design Students at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design (FALD) will take fall courses and studios entirely online. The FALD also plans to reopen its building, though access will be limited. “Students will be able to access the building in small numbers, and only for coursework-related reasons,” wrote FALD spokesperson Steve Kupferman to The Varsity.

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Dean Glen Jones of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) wrote to The Varsity: “With one exception, all OISE classes will take place on-line and we do not expect any in-class activities. All extra-curricular activities are currently being planned to take-place on-line.”

Applied science and engineering The Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering announced a “remote access guarantee” on June 9, “which will allow every one of their students to complete all academic requirements remotely, including final exams” for the fall 2020 term. In an email to The Varsity, Thomas Coyle, Vice-Dean Undergraduate of the faculty wrote that all online synchronous lectures will be recorded.

Representatives from the Engineering Society (EngSoc) have been consulted by the faculty while planning the course of action, and EngSoc President Christopher Kousinioris wrote to The Varsity that the four months of mostly remote learning in the fall will provide valuable insights into the logistics of such a model, if required in the future.

Law Law students will have “a combination of remote and in-person teaching. Students were given the option of remote learning for the fall semester,” wrote Nina Haikara, Communications Strategist at the Faculty of Law to The Varsity.

Music Music students at U of T will receive a hybrid delivery system, with courses delivered partially online and partially through “appropriate-sized” in-person groups. On July 24, Dean Don McLean of the Faculty of Music noted that the faculty is continuing to “prepare timetable and space allocations for the fall semester.”

Nursing The Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing noted on its webpage that some courses may be partially or fully online and clinical “placement may continue to be restricted or delayed,” with possible changes to scheduling and delivery format.

Medicine and dentistry Medical and dentistry students have resumed clinical placements this summer at their respective

faculties. Faculty of Dentistry Dean Daniel Haas noted in an August 6 letter that, within the Doctor of Dental Surgery program, all “didactic lectures and seminars will be delivered online” for the fall semester.

A spokesperson from the Faculty of Medicine wrote that the faculty is “following public health guidelines around physical distancing and proper hygiene for any on-campus activities, as well as providing online learning, where appropriate.”

Management As of now, the Rotman School of Management will only offer online options for all undergraduate and graduate courses in the fall semester. The Rotman website writes that the faculty is “planning to gradually incorporate in-person elements to the student experience” throughout the fall term. Access to the building will be limited.

Social work The Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work Master of Social Work (MSW) and PhD courses will be entirely online in the fall. The MSW Indigenous Trauma and Resiliency program usually includes a face-to-face session, though it is not yet clear whether the session will take place in person or online.

Public health The Dalla Lana School of Public Health has guaranteed a remote option for all their classes, but will have some in-person activity, such as labs or important evaluations.

Kinesiology and physical education The Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) has an online option for all of its courses, and will not be holding any in-person exams in the fall semester.

Associate Professor and Vice-Dean Academic Affairs Ashley Stirling wrote to The Varsity that the faculty intends to have a mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning, and accommodations will be provided for students who may be unable to attend synchronous classes.

Pharmacy Professional program courses within the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy will progress “predominantly online,” with both synchronous and asynchronous online delivery and some in-person activity for the fall semester. For students who are unable to attend in-person activities, the faculty will provide alternate arrangements.

According to Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy Director of Communications Nicole Bodnar, the faculty has committed to posting recordings of all synchronous learning activities to Quercus, including live lectures.

Graduate program courses, seminars, and teaching assistant work will be mostly online. According to Bodnar, “Essential lab-based research activities” resumed, with lab-capacity limited to 50 per cent and physical distancing standards put in place.

Disclosure: Adam A. Lam previously served as The Varsity’s Volume 140 Science Editor.

University of Toronto masks were delivered to the St. George campus in preparation for back to school.

COURTESY OF JOHNNY GATTO/UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Khatchig Anteblian Varsity Staff

Professor David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at U of T, claimed in a recent Twitter thread that the 250,000 masks U of T has obtained to distribute to members of the community may not be effective against COVID-19.

The masks are made out of double-ply polyester, which is less effective at filtering efficiently, according to a study linked by Fisman.

Generally, aside from medical-grade masks, cotton masks are thought to be the most effective.

The study concluded that “there is a complex interplay between fabric type, weave, and yarn count and the filtration of nanometer-sized aerosol particles.” It listed two types of polyester as having a “quality factor” of less than three, while the World Health Organization recommends using masks that have a quality factor of more than three. Overall, the study still found that the most effective material is a tightly woven cotton fabric.

A U of T News article about the masks said that the masks “are intended to supplement the homemade and store-bought masks many U of T community members have been using since the pandemic began.” However, if the masks are not meant to be worn alone, it is not clear how the university will communicate this fact to community members who may be relying solely on the U of T-provided masks.

“To me, this fits a pattern that has emerged, of our administration paying lip service to safety, focusing on optics (“we bought 250,000 masks!”), but really not using available science or expertise to actually keep our community safe,” tweeted Fisman.

“In May 2020, as a goodwill gesture to promote health and safety, and prior to the advent of mask-wearing policies for enclosed public spaces, the University arranged the procurement of 250,000 U of T branded, non-medical, reusable cloth face masks in order to provide two to every student, staff, faculty, and librarian member of the U of T community,” ViceProvost, Students Sandy Welsh wrote to The Varsity.

“We considered samples from 6 authorized U of T vendors,” she explained. “We referred to the guidance of public health organizations in selecting the masks and considered a combination of factors including fabric and weight, comfort, and quality.”

Business & Labour

September 8, 2020 var.st/business biz@thevarsity.ca

Opinion: U of T’s partnership with Alibaba raises privacy concerns The university must be more transparent about its agreement with the new cloud service

Ari Finnsson Varsity Contributor

COVID-19 has changed the way we learn, as many U of T students are studying completely online for this academic year. Beyond the numerous administrative headaches and technological glitches this introduces, this move also opens the door to another complication: data privacy.

On July 9, the University of Toronto initiated a partnership with Chinese conglomerate Alibaba to use its Cloud Enterprise Network (CEN). This service was designed to provide students studying from mainland China with faster, more reliable, and more consistent access to U of T services like Quercus and Blackboard Collaborate.

However, Alibaba has been embroiled in the same kinds of privacy controversies that have plagued companies like Facebook, Google, and Huawei. With this in mind, the U of T partnership announcement leaves many questions unanswered.

A questionable record In January 2018, Alibaba was reprimanded by the Chinese government for having “inadequate” privacy protections. In September 2019, Chinese government officials were dispatched to work inside 100 private tech companies — including Alibaba. Under Chinese law, organizations can be forced to hand over data to the state if requested.

Alibaba has been implicated in domestic Chinese surveillance programs. These include the social credit system, where collected data will be used to give and take away individuals’ privileges based on online and real-world behaviour.

Alibaba is one of the targets of the United States’ Clean Network initiative, aimed at preventing Chinese tech firms from gaining access to sensitive information. A key concern for American state officials is the influence of the Chinese government over companies like Alibaba and Huawei.

Finally — and of particular concern for users of the Alibaba CEN — Chinese cybersecurity laws allow the government to control the kind of data

FIONA TUNG/THE VARSITY

that is transferred out of the country. According to The Atlantic, this policy is complemented by unwritten rules which reward companies for storing data on local Chinese servers.

How does cloud computing work?

Cloud computing works by storing data on remote servers. A central server then ensures connectivity between devices linked via the cloud, providing users with a faster connection and better access to the stored data. Given the increased latency that China’s ‘Great Firewall’ introduced, the use of a service like the Alibaba CEN is extremely valuable in providing students in mainland China with a quality connection and better online instruction.

Alibaba is the largest provider of public cloud services in China and is growing globally at a rapid pace. In July, Alibaba announced that its cloud technology was supporting 38 per cent of Fortune 500 companies worldwide, and plans to continue expanding.

According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, cloud computing opens up several risks with regard to data security. Users are often unaware of where their information is being stored, how long it is being kept, and with whom it is being shared.

Since there are no standardized rules surrounding cloud services, cloud providers’ terms of service can vary greatly in their security and privacy policies. Large cloud providers can access better security technologies, but these systems are never perfect and there is still much work to be done to ensure the reliability of cloud data security.

U of T’s remarkable silence on privacy issues Currently, students have no access to information regarding what kinds of data will be stored on Alibaba servers. None of the publicly available information on the partnership mentions privacy concerns, nor does it provide any details on the terms of service users engage with when using

the cloud.

Given that the CEN will provide students with access to services like Quercus, important information like student numbers, names, grades, and records could be at risk. U of T classifies this kind of data as non-public, meaning that it can only be disclosed with proper permission.

Students with concerns about who can see their data, how it will be stored, and whether students not using the CEN will be affected are out of luck: U of T has not made any answers available.

The university is, however, aware of these problems. “We recognize that there are particular challenges regarding online learning for students located in other countries. Questions about privacy, surveillance, and free inquiry may arise among students who reside in countries with different laws, cultural norms, and monitoring by law enforcement,” wrote Susan McCahan, Vice-Provost Academic Programs and Vice-Provost Innovations, and Isaac Straley, U of T Chief Information Security Officer in an August 12 memo.

“For example, there is a far greater likelihood of surveillance in some countries outside of Canada and this may impact a student’s ability to engage with some course material.”

The memo ends with the recommendation to “increase awareness and understanding of the issues that [the university’s] students may face wherever they are,” — a statement made ironic by the lack of published information regarding CEN security concerns.

While the use of a service like the Alibaba CEN will prove invaluable in improving the quality of education for students in mainland China, it behooves the university to be more transparent about the kinds of risks this service might entail for students, faculty, and staff — whether abroad or in Canada. U of T should make the details of its agreement with Alibaba public and should act decisively to reassure students of the security of their personal data.

Practical, profitable experience: how RSM100 gives first-years a taste of entrepreneurship Rotman professor Michael Khan on the purpose, function of the business case competition

Janhavi Agarwal Varsity Contributor

Every year, hundreds of students learn about the fundamentals of the business world in RSM100 — Introduction to Management. The course is mandatory for all first-year Rotman Commerce students and equips them with the tools they need to tackle future management courses.

Michael Khan, an associate professor in the Rotman School of Management’s teaching stream, has been instructing RSM100 for the last eight years. He has stressed the importance of “collaborative learning,” and previously introduced an applied competition component — the business case competition — to the course.

The Varsity spoke to Khan about the pedagogical purpose of the competition, the experience it provides students, and how he is adapting it to online learning, pursuant to Rotman Commerce’s course delivery plans.

Recent origins At the suggestion of his teaching assistants (TA), Khan introduced the business case competition to the course two years ago. “I was very against it,” Khan said, referring to his initial reaction to the idea. “I thought it was a great

thing to do… but I just thought it would be very difficult in a class of over 800 people” — people, he specified, who had just graduated from high school.

“It was a challenge; it continues to be a challenge… But I think the benefits certainly outweigh the costs.”

In years past, students were assigned groups and asked to develop and pitch business plans.

Khan and his TAs then selected the competition’s semi-finalists based on these pitches.

Those who were selected would present to their peers, and the student body chose the finalists.

The competition concluded with the finalists pitching their ideas to a panel of business professionals for a chance to win $5,000 in prize money that would be shared amongst the top three teams.

“One of the key aims of the case competition is to build those soft skills that are necessary for life in business and life in general,” Khan explained. “So things like teamwork, verbal communication, written communication, and essentially making students prepared for not just an academic career in Rotman, but then their actual career once they leave Rotman. Essentially, we are trying to make a more wellrounded student.”

Pandemic preparations Because of COVID-19, the competition is moving totally online this year, along with the rest of the course. Students will also be given the opportunity to select their own groups.

“One of the things that I am trying to do is… show them the importance of networking,” explained Khan. “[Students] can see other people participating… and be like ‘Hey, that person participates. I want them in my group because I see that they are engaged in discussions.’ ” These changes accompany changes in lecture coverage, where Khan plans to introduce pandemic-related case studies — for example, the ethical, economical, and operational issues attached to reopening a gym. “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right?” Khan said, referring to COVID-19. “See what you can do to leverage off the situation.”

Student impressions Last year’s winning team consisted of members Enzo Hao, Jack Hewitt, Emily Kemp, Adnan Khan, Sylvia Qi, and Sabrina Shafi. They formed the fictional company “IndePendant,” which would manufacture a necklace with a GPS tracker and alarm inside the pendant. The Varsity received emails from Kemp, Qi, and

Shafi — all second-year Rotman Commerce students — with comments about their experience.

“The competition greatly benefitted me, and was a highlight of my first year at U of T,” Kemp wrote. “One of the biggest things I gained from it was finding out that I (along with my amazing group) could create a real business plan and present it professionally. When I look back at the proposal now, I am still impressed that a group of first years, with very little business background at the time of creation, could make this!”

“Working on this business plan taught me how to materialize a creative idea into existence,” Shafi wrote. “No amount of practice prepared us for the kind of questions we got but that experience made me look at our product from different, new angles and this really helped me develop my analytical and quick-thinking skills.”

“I feel so grateful to Professor Khan for giving students the opportunity to push themselves in the RSM100 competition,” Qi wrote. “I think it is important to gain experience working with people on a multi-month project. Other RSM group projects typically take a week or two, whereas this one took long enough for everyone’s strengths and personalities to mesh into a powerful group dynamic.”

Comment

September 8, 2020 var.st/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

We must defund the police across the board — in Ontario, Toronto, and U of T Racism is foundational to Canada, and we

must put pressure on

institutions of all scales

Madeleine Reyno Varsity Contributor

This past summer, social media timelines have been transformed into an ongoing memorial of Black and Indigenous people who have been lost at the hands of an indifferent white supremacist state. From the killing of George Floyd to the shooting of Jacob Blake, we have seen protests against policing and anti-Black racism erupt across this continent.

The public is demanding the protection of Black and Indigenous lives, but at times it feels as though these cries are unheard. The Louisville Metro Council has passed ‘Breonna’s Law,’ — which will ban no knock warrants — but Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove, and Jonathan Mattingly, the cops who killed Breonna Taylor, have not been arrested.

Closer to home, Ejaz Choudry, Chantel Moore, D’Andre Campbell, and Regis Korchinski-Paquet, among others, have all died during police responses to mental health calls in recent months.

There are more names, more tragedies, and more stories of unfair and unnecessary loss piling onto one another. This unjustified violence is bound to continue without a total systemic overhaul, a complete reimagining of the state and its services. How can this be done both immediately and effectively? Black folks who have been at the forefront of this movement for years have delivered the answer to us on a silver platter, and white people are showing up late: we need to defund the police.

In Minneapolis, the site of George Floyd’s murder, city council members have already set motions in place to disband its police force.

City Council President Lisa Bender has acknowledged that the current system of policing is not working. Bender claims that we need to listen to Black leadership and find support within communities.

The sentiments of Bender’s pledge have been echoed across North America, and an abundance of folks are calling for similar action in Canada. In Toronto, we have seen a half-hearted proposal by city councillors Josh Matlow and Kristyn Wong-Tam to temporarily cut the city’s police budget by 10 per cent, which amounts to a $122 million reduction — and even that motion failed.

Mayor John Tory has pushed for reform within police services rather than abolition, claiming that he refuses to support “arbitrary” cuts to the Toronto police’s $1.22 billion annual budget. Tory’s sentiment was reflected

by Toronto’s city council in their recent decision to forego budget cuts to police services, instead approving an incremental budget increase of up to $50 million to cover the cost of implementing body cameras.

The effectiveness of the use of body cam-

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eras has been widely criticized, therefore raising questions of whether this is an appropriate action on the council’s behalf. It is already apparent that there is a staunch difference between action in Toronto and Minneapolis.

Though both municipalities have embedded histories of brutality against Black and Indigenous folks in their policing, only one of the cities is moving forward to dismantle such a violent structure. Why is this? What is stopping communities in Canada from taking steps toward defunding the police, even when there is so much violence and brutality perpetuated by the institution of policing?

The Police Services Act (PSA), which became law in Ontario in 1990, is responsible for the conduct of all police services operating in the province besides the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the establishment of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU).

This act provides context for our discussion on defunding the police in Ontario. Section four of the PSA states that “adequate and effective police services” must be provided in all Ontario municipalities, including “crime prevention; law enforcement; assistance to victims of crime; public order maintenance,” and “emergency response.”

Beyond these criteria, what is deemed to be “adequate and effective” in terms of policing is not clearly explained in the PSA. This complicates the disbandment of municipal police forces, but what if Toronto, for example, decided to disband its police force anyway? At what point would a budget cut be significant enough for it to be considered a breach of the PSA? It is unclear how great of a cut would threaten the status of police services as “adequate and effective” in any given municipality.

If a community in Ontario were to reduce its municipal police services beyond what is considered to be “adequate and effective,” the provincial government would intervene. Ac-

cording to section 19(1) of the PSA, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) is responsible for “providing police services in respect of the parts of Ontario that do not have municipal police forces.”

The province has the authority to charge the municipality for the use of the OPP, placing the burden of the financial cost on the community. Unlike the city of Minneapolis, city councils in Ontario are unable to defund and dismantle their police forces without intervention from the provincial government.

Recent decisions made by Toronto’s city council further enshrine the police force that the PSA actively protects, and the public is not happy about it. The 16 of 24 councillors who opposed the budget cut have been called out for their actions, with citizens expressing their disappointment and disdain. This work that is being done by the public is integral to achieving tangible change within the system and imagining realities outside of it. Public demand brought discourse on police abolition to the table, and continued action will create spaces to continue that discussion.

It is important to note that one piece of provincial legislation is not the only barrier to defunding police services in Ontario. Racism is embedded in the foundation of this country — in institutions of all scales. Therefore, it is necessary to put pressure on all scales in order to further the movement of justice for Black and Indigenous lives. It is also necessary to break down the conglomerate of these braided scales so that we can better understand and interact with them in constructive ways.

This includes the scale of academic institutions. The existence of a police force specifically dedicated to the University of Toronto, Campus Police, perpetuates and reproduces legacies of colonialism, surveillance, and violence against Black and Indigenous people.

In a recent open letter to U of T President

Meric Gertler, faculty, staff, and students at the university brought attention to concerns surrounding Campus Police, noting the multiple experiences of students — particularly racialized women — who have been handcuffed after seeking mental health support.

The open letter reads, “The calls to defund and abolish police are increasingly global and supported by research that shows us that policing does not make people safe. It is an institution premised on the assumed need for fear, domination, and force; it threatens, harms, and sometimes kills.”

As students, we must recognize the problem of policing close to home and take action against it. Indeed, the open letter importantly calls for an end to Campus Police: “The institution of the police is irredeemably racist and threatening to Indigenous and Black life.

Therefore, the University of Toronto must end all partnerships with Toronto Police Services and all carceral institutions and work with members of the university and surrounding communities identified by staff, students, and faculty to foster safer campuses.”

Anti-Blackness is intertwined into the very existence of policing, and therefore, if you commit to anti-racist work, you commit to abolishing oppressive institutions. If you are an Ontario resident, part of your anti-racism work may be to reach out to your local MPP and demand a repeal of the PSA. If you are a resident of Toronto, continue to voice your outrage and disappointment in recent decisions regarding police reform made by your local councillor.

And as a U of T student, support the demands calling on the administration to defund and abolish Campus Police.

Madeleine Reyno is a recent graduate from Victoria College with a specialist in human geography and a major in environmental studies.

var.st/comment

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

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Let’s listen to the experts — U of T’s reopening plan is flawed Reviewing the CUPE 3902 panel that exposed the plan’s lack of safety Hayley Spenst Varsity Contributor

Student life on campus was thrown into mania back in March — students packing up their dorms, classes moving online, and exams being reformatted within a matter of days. Nearly six months later, still in this pandemic, universities are launching their back-to-school plans.

The University of Toronto is planning to partially reopen its doors, and while some may be excited to get back on campus, I am indignant that this decision has not earned a confident consensus from experts.

During a virtual event hosted by several of the unions that represent workers at U of T, epidemiologist, panellist, and professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health David Fisman was asked what letter grade he would as-

sign U of T’s back to school plan. “I’m going to give the school a weak ‘D’ grade,” he responded, “because they did have hand sanitizer dispensers — that prevents the ‘F.’ ” Initially, U of T planned to offer over 90 per cent of undergraduate courses online and provide in-person options for a third of classes within some faculties. Many faculty members were adamantly against this as they were required to teach on campus, regardless of their own comfort.

Due to backlash, that plan was revised for the Faculty of Arts & Science, and professors were given the opportunity to confirm if they were comfortable teaching in person or instead wanted to move their classes online. But U of T’s reopening plan is still riddled with issues and lacks scientific support — which leaves

FIONA TUNG/THE VARSITY

very little room for students to feel confident that the administration’s protocols can keep them safe.

U of T now claims that only five per cent of the student body will be on campus at any given time. However, Robarts Library is offering public study spaces and the law and music libraries are open to their respective students. These study hubs have the potential to lure in fully online students and create an influx of traffic on campus, putting students further at risk.

The university is currently mandating masks be worn indoors and is providing two reusable masks to every student and worker, with exceptions for those with medical conditions or those who are partaking in athletics.

While that may seem good initially, James Scott, an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, pointed out during the panel that these masks were not produced in compliance with scientific recommendations.

The Canadian Medical Association recommends a tightly woven fabric like cotton, while the ones U of T is providing are made of polyester. Additionally, because polyester is so smooth, it doesn’t filter out particles as well as rougher textures — like cotton — do. This is an apparent effort to choose cost efficiency over students’ health.

To put U of T’s plan in perspective, the University of Ottawa, another metropolitan university partially reopening, is offering testing on campus to make it accessible to students and staff. At the bare minimum, U of T should offer onsite testing if it wants to keep its doors open to students while also keeping campus safe.

We cannot overlook the fact that COVID-19 disproportionately affects working Black and brown people. Arjumand Siddiqi, Canada Research Chair in Population Health Equity and Division Head of Epidemiology, discussed this

during the panel. “I read over the documents that have been released by the administration and am again very disappointed that this fundamental issue has not been at all addressed,” she said.

Siddiqi went on to express concern for Black and brown working class students, Black and brown faculty with working class parents, and staff at U of T. She concluded by saying: “The tradeoff is that by giving students this in person rather than online university experience, we are asking many of the people who would make that experience possible, as well as many of those students themselves, to risk their lives, and it just seems like an unconscionable tradeoff.”

Given the administration’s current plans, Siddqui’s conclusion cannot be ignored. There are absolutely some learning experiences that cannot be recreated online, and for those courses it is important to have in person classes, but, to minimize the risk for individuals who must return to campus, the responsible thing is to remain off campus unless absolutely necessary.

Personally, I have no intention of setting foot on campus this fall and I’m thankful all my classes are online. As someone whose family and loved ones have been severely impacted by COVID-19, I know the devastating impact it can have and want to ensure that I’m not increasing anyone’s risk of contracting it. I imagine there are plenty of other students in the same position.

U of T boasts itself as being the most prestigious research institution in Canada and it is disheartening to see a school formed on the pursuit of knowledge and belief in science consistently ignore its own experts.

Hayley Spenst is a second-year criminology and political science student at Woodsworth College.

U of T’s welcome, virtual orientation have been frustrating and disappointing A first-year international student reflects on the lack of transparency

Josefina Novoa Reátegui Varsity Contributor

When I was initially accepted into U of T in late January, I prepared to live in residence, as not a single person in my home country of Peru had been infected with COVID-19.

The news of the pandemic seemed far away.

Now, over 600,000 people have been infected in Peru, and it has become evident that I can only attend this fall semester online.

However, U of T’s attempt at virtually welcoming students has often left much to be desired. Since April, I have received vague and frustrating emails saying that the university understood our concerns and uncertainty, all while failing to provide any details or concrete information on how things were going to take place in September. We knew it was happening, but we didn’t know exactly what was happening.

The uncertainty of the situation created stress; my concerns with not being able to fly to Toronto arose as I was unable to get a study permit. There was, and still is, a lot of uncertainty about how international students like me will be included, both academically and socially, at U of T when most of us will not even be able to be present in Canada.

Making decisions relating to university was very difficult. The administration did not assist in alleviating that stress, but rather exacerbated it by leaving its students in the dark for so long. Transitioning would have been a lot easier if the administration had been more transparent in its decision-making from the beginning.

The welcome from Trinity College has been

somewhat satisfactory, but there is still a lot of improvement to be made. Since June, a group of older Trinity students has been uploading academic advice to Quercus and setting up social events. I found their academic advice very helpful, though most of the guidance came from their personal experience, which cannot be applied to this unprecedented situation.

Furthermore, the orientation schedule was only made public on September 2, and this caused a lot of uncertainty among first-year Trinity students before then because of the lack of transparency in the decision-making process.

Additionally, I did not really enjoy the online social events; few people connected to them, and they were unsuccessful in bringing the incoming first-year Trinity students together. This was discouraging to my first-year experience because if I had not made friends in the first-year foundation that I am part of, I would have started my first year at university feeling isolated from the U of T community. Once again, U of T left its students to pick up the slack of their shortcomings.

In my view, separating the 2024 class into small groups and selecting a mentor — an upper-year student — to encourage continuous communication and friendship among first-year students would have been far more beneficial.

Furthermore, transitioning to university would have been a far less complicated process if there had been less ambiguity on how

U of T’s virtual orientation left much to be desired.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

the administration was handling the situation and if Trinity College would have made a greater effort to bring first-year students together by encouraging greater and more intimate interactions between them.

Orientation is an integral part of transitioning to university life, and yet students like

me were left in the dark for most of it. This only makes me question how the university plans to handle the rest of the year.

Josef ina Novoa Reátegui is a f irst-year arts and science student at Trinity College.

10

THE VARSITY

FEATURES

“Too Asian?”

How the model minority myth feeds

anti-Black racism at institutions like U of T

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Working hard doesn’t necessarily topple social barriers

Jadine Ngan Varsity Staff

In November 2010, Maclean’s published a cover story about race in Canadian postsecondary education that was met with biting backlash. The piece, originally entitled “Too Asian?” raised the spectre that American affirmative action policies might spread north of the border and defended Canadian universities’ meritocratic admissions process as the fairest option.

In the same breath, the authors worried that Asian students were so adept at navigating the Canadian meritocracy that they were becoming a cultural danger to “top-tier schools” like U of T. “That Asian students work harder is a fact born out by hard data,” Stephanie Findlay and Nicholas Köhler wrote in “Too Asian?” “They tend to be strivers, high achievers and singleminded in their approach to university.”

To Findlay and Köhler, that work ethic meant that ethnically Asian students were becoming overrepresented on Canadian university campuses. “The only people from our school who went to U of T were Asian,” a white high school student named Alexandra said in the article.

“Too Asian?” had many immediately apparent issues. It lumped all Asians together into a monolithic group, cast their presence on campus as sinister, and blamed them for racial friend group divisions within schools like U of T. As well, the authors portrayed white students as primarily interested in partying and athletics, and the article was generally rife with problems of journalistic integrity.

Maclean’s later renamed the piece and issued a statement of regret. Still, there was no retracting Findlay and Köhler’s twisted contribution to the narrative of the ‘model minority,’ which purports that Asians — through a cultural propensity for achievement — have transcended racial barriers to enjoy unbridled success in the west.

With the recent wave of racial upheaval across North America, the model minority myth has come under renewed scrutiny for pitting the Asian community against the Black community in a way that benefits neither.

This is because the myth’s central claim is that with enough

conformism and hard work, any racialized group can follow the Asian path to achievement. Subsequently, this myth claims that any groups that remain impeded by racial barriers — like Black people — simply lack the grit to rise above.

At U of T, the anti-Black racism that the model minority myth is inherently tied to runs rampant. Most recently, three Black students from Trinity College wrote a powerful op-ed calling out the racial slurs, stereotyping, and exclusion they’d experienced from the administration and their peers alike. In the piece, they noted that their presence on campus and at dining halls was treated as suspicious and unwelcome.

Ultimately, the model minority myth is especially influential in the arena of Canadian education like at U of T, where it tells a convenient story about Asian triumph and Black failure that protects a deeply racist status quo.

The history of the model minority myth The earliest use of the term ‘model minority’ can be traced to a 1966 New York Times article titled “Success Story, JapaneseAmerican Style.” In it, sociologist William Petersen presented Japanese Americans as a group that used effort to rise above trauma and structural obstacles.

“Despite being blocked from citizenship,” he wrote, they were “exceptionally law-abiding”; although they were barred from a wide range of jobs, “they undertook menial tasks with such perseverance that they achieved a modest success.”

It is important to note that Petersen framed Japanese American success as a “model” to weigh it against the African American case in an attempt to challenge the notion that the poor treatment of racialized groups would create “problem minorities.” The idea of the model minority has, since its inception, been inseparable from anti-Black racism.

As we know, the model minority label stuck around and has evolved over time, stretching to incorporate all Asians in the west. As it gained momentum as a discourse, it refused to be hemmed in by borders — it diffused into Canada in the 1980s and 1990s, when Canadian journalists like Robert Sheppard pulled from American writing on the topic.

Since then, the case of Asian American success has been circulating in the Canadian national consciousness, transforming

into a story of Asian Canadian success and contributing to the broader conversation about race in Canada.

Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s theory of racial formation seeks to foreground “the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed.” To Omi and Winant, this process occurs via racial projects, which interpret the meaning of race and connect those meanings to the organization of the world.

This statement is an example of a racial project; racism is a problem of the past and it’s no longer fair to recognize racial differences, so all we need to do is treat everybody equally. Or, consider this: Asians perform well in Canadian education, so our schools must be equitable places where Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students can succeed, too.

At any given time, Canadian society is saturated with a multitude of racial projects competing for air, and the attractiveness of the Asian American success story has allowed the model minority myth to billow larger than many other narratives about race. Although it’s far from its origins, the idea of the model minority has made itself right at home in Canada.

What the statistics show Those who believe that hard data speaks for itself — overlooking the layer of human interpretation needed to make sense of numbers — will see a certain story in Statistics Canada’s data on educational attainment.

The most recent numbers come from the 2016 census, during which respondents were asked to self-report their ethnicity and the highest level of education they’d acquired. When you collapse the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese categories together — as the model minority myth does — and compare them with the Black category, a trend emerges.

Black respondents are more likely than East Asian respondents to report having no degree, diploma, or certificate at all, and those who identify as Black are slightly more likely to have a high school diploma. But as you travel up the scale, from bachelor’s degrees to master’s degrees to doctorates, East Asian Canadians begin outperforming Black Canadians. That gap is widest at the undergraduate level — compared to Black Canadians, Canadians of East Asian ethnicity are twice as likely to

features@thevarsity.ca

JADINE NGAN/THE VARSITY

have a bachelor’s degree.

The model minority myth relies upon data like this to tell a racialized tale of determination: one group deserves to succeed because of their hard work and the other doesn’t. Of course, statistics only present an aggregation of outcomes.

For example, this numerical picture of success leaves out the racism Asian students continue to experience and obscures the influence of immigration policies that funnel top Asian students and professionals into the country. It also completely erases the lived experience of studying while Black in Canada.

Empirical evidence of anti-Black racism in education Read a single study on Black students’ experience in Canadian education and you’ll begin to question the meritocratic narrative that the model minority myth sells. Read as many as you can get your hands on and you’ll realize that no matter how well-read you are, you’ll only understand a fraction of what it is to be Black in Canadian schools. That is, unless you’ve experienced it yourself.

In 2001, Henry M. Codjoe studied a group of successful Black students in greater Edmonton and found that each and every one of them had faced racialized barriers in the classroom. To begin with, student after student recounted stories of anti-Black racism, such as white students’ use of the n-word to harass them. Racial slurs and mocking inflicted “psychological damage, emotional pain, and… personal humiliation” to the extent that one Alberta-born student cited this as a direct cause of his decision to drop out of school.

Negative racial stereotyping added to Black students’ difficulties; they were seen as intellectually inferior and were steered away from science and mathematics to roles that teachers believed suited them better, like athletics and entertainment. Teachers simply didn’t expect much from their Black students. One girl’s teacher recommended that she reassess her ambition to study medicine, as they doubted a Black person could become a doctor.

Racism, though, has always been about more than prejudicecharged interactions and racial slurs. Codjoe emphasized that the students he interviewed had the most to say about the impact of racially biased curricula, as Canadian history classes tend to centre on and naturalize the white experience, rendering the history of other groups invisible.

In Codjoe’s study, a student named Abena pointed out that whenever Black people were discussed, it was in the context of slavery. Black youth were given no models of excellence or positive representation that they could see themselves in.

Their textbooks ignored African Canadian contributions and reinforced the general sentiment that Black students did not belong.

Overall, Codjoe reported that his subjects’ school environ-

ments were alienating, isolating, and demoralizing; he argued that the psychological implications of these racialized barriers were underestimated and that racial issues needed scrutiny in order to improve the situation.

Nearly 20 years later, very little has changed: in 2019, Carl James published a study on Black boys in middle schools in the GTA that echoed many of Codjoe’s findings. In both studies, Black students exercised agency and aspired to succeed in their studies, and they were beaten back at every level by factors out of their control.

These factors are certainly not isolated to the educational system; rather, they’re entwined with racism in broader Canadian society. Heightened surveillance and policing of Black bodies seeps into schools. This results in the violent mistreatment of Black children in hallways and classrooms, like the 2016 case in which an unarmed, 48-pound first grader was perceived as a threat and handcuffed at the wrists and ankles.

“Because Black youth are so often not seen or treated as children, schools too often become their first encounter with the organized and systemic devaluation of Blackness present in society at large,” Robyn Maynard wrote in The Walrus about the incident.

This systemic devaluation includes a Black income and employment gap, which is significant because of the association between low income and undesirable learning outcomes. Students whose families have fewer economic resources will miss out on crucial early learning opportunities, contend with more household instability as they study, and are more likely to be streamed into applied-level classes that restrict their access to postsecondary opportunities.

Across spheres — legal, political, economic, cultural, and educational — racialized disadvantage is always compounding, knotting itself deeper into the fabric of Canadian society, leaving Black Canadians devastatingly entangled.

Naturally, many issues identified in the literature are deeply embedded at U of T today. Earlier this year, The Varsity reported that, of all the authors assigned in the four core courses of the St. George campus’ English program, only 7.2 per cent were Black. Members of the Black Graduate Students Association have been working to combat isolation on campus and have spoken about microaggressions like being doubted when they say they attend U of T. Black students and professors are underrepresented on campus. Chika Oriuwa, the Faculty of Medicine’s 2020 valedictorian, was the only Black student in her class of 259 people.

When anti-Black incidents occur, Black members of the U of T community advocate for change and are met with roadblocks and delays. These examples barely scratch the surface — antiBlack racism has been given plenty of room to fester at U of T. It’s important to remember that there are many Black com-

munities on campus, and their experiences are not homogenous. Still, it’s clear that the relationship between aspiration and achievement cannot be linear when symbolic and structural obstacles are thrown up at every turn.

Black students of all identities are proud, resilient, and capable of success. When they do not perform well, know that they are enduring a system that has failed them generation by generation — a system that remains intentionally blind to its own failures, bitterly resistant to change.

What we need to change When proponents of the model minority myth hold the Asian subject up as a success story fueled by discipline, they lend credence to essentialist views of race: all Asians work hard, all Black people do not. On top of this, they buy into the neoliberal view that character alone can determine success, rendering invisible the various ways in which racialized students are marginalized.

No matter how well Asian students perform academically, they are forever foreign, forever an alien threat. No matter how tenacious and intelligent Black students are, they have to expend precious resources fighting for their place at a hostile table in their every pursuit. Ultimately, the model minority narrative is a tool of white supremacy designed to keep our focus on culture and character-driven achievement and off the racist structures and systems impeding it.

Despite their many shortcomings, the authors of “Too Asian?” did make one point that remains relevant 10 years later: Canadian universities still resist addressing the topic of race in sufficient depth to understand the problems they harbour, let alone solve them.

However, Findlay and Köhler’s prescriptions for dissolving racial divisions on campus — like “[encouraging] groups to mingle” — are woefully and predictably insufficient. A better starting point for U of T is to deliver on its 2017 promise to collect demographic data.

It is impossible to diagnose a problem without sufficient information about the character of what you’re up against. Also in order: diversifying curricula to decentre whiteness, releasing more equity-seeking scholarships, and ensuring that Black, Indigenous, and people of colour students can voice their concerns safely in a way that leads to meaningful change.

Canadian schools are microcosms of a broader Canadian society that denies it has a racism problem and, in doing so, perpetuates it. Until universities like U of T actively examine and dismantle their racist structures, they will remain fractured in ways far more meaningful than who hangs out with whom.

And until we abandon the idea of the model minority, the myth that hard work works for everyone, regardless of their race, will continue to define Canadian education.

Arts & Culture

September 8, 2020 var.st/arts arts@thevarsity.ca

An ode to a full campus Lamenting what is lost to the great empty

A campus devoid of students results in the loss of small, everyday joys. SAMANTHA YAO/ THE VARSITY

Kate Haberl Varsity Contributor

Oh full campus, oh full campus, how I miss thee.

Thine walkways of dappled sunshine under a fall sky, thine crowded corridors and lecture halls, thine old stone facades and strange glass buildings.

Burwash Hall, where I spent so many a morn — and afternoons and evenings and nights while

cramming for finals — full of mediocre food and good conversation. Connections forged while waiting for new trays of pizza to emerge or waffles to cook on weekends. Dinners eaten at the faculty table, holiday celebrations, and strange food combinations all echo like distant memories in the black hole my brain has become.

Convocation Hall, oh dreaded entrance for first years and lauded exit for fourth — or fifth, or sixth — years. Its uncomfortable chairs, echoey

soundscape, and lack of available writing surfaces made me dread the many hours I spent in its classes, but now I remember them fondly as rites of passage.

Clubs and events — if I’m being honest, what I’ll miss most about them is the free food. Who needed grocery shopping when one could subsist on popcorn and Chips-Ahoy cookies? Yes, I would love to take home the leftover snacks, but now, tragically, I’ll have to buy them myself. No more well-timed jokes or cringeworthy puns to break up monotonous meetings about budgets, and no more arguing about whether the chair squeaked or someone farted — we’ll all be muted on Zoom.

Technical difficulties are simply not the same. No longer will my professor spend an entire semester trying to figure out how to use the lighting system in our lecture hall, no more microphone feedback. Instead, we’ll have to listen to professors trying to figure out how to screen share, unmute themselves, or upload lectures to Quercus.

Orientation too falls victim to our emptying campus. This year, there will be no parade through the streets of Toronto, no body paint and cheap plastic jewels, and no “Vic loves everyone” and “Trin loves Trin.” I’m left with only a memory of how hot all the kinesiology students are and a smile when I think about how fun the University College group always was. First-year students will

watch me act in orientation plays on YouTube instead of on a stage.

Oh full campus, the most brutal consequence of your absence is in our community. I bemoan the loss of being able to hold open the door for someone, my inability to study in the law library, and the fact that I can no longer book it from Victoria College to Sidney Smith Hall and yell “hello” to friends on my way.

I miss the quiet din of Diablos Coffee Bar and Caffiends, where I spent so many hours giggling over lattes with friends. The time spent at Ned’s Cafe, spending my money on hot Cheetos and vegetarian lasagna. Oh full campus, I miss the ability to work across King’s College Circle and smile at whatever weird thing was going on that day, from ultimate frisbee to quidditch.

There’s nothing quite like strolling across campus on a sunny day, latte in hand, just experiencing the unique noise of university students who are tired, rushed, and stressed, but also passionate, smart, and inspired.

There is no replacement for you, full campus, unrivaled in sorrow and joy. I fear that I will never see you again, but I know that even if that is the case, I will always cherish my memories of our time together. Please, please, come back to me soon.

Disclosure: Kate Haberl is a member of the Victoria College Council.

Decades for a degree: a reflection on my journey as a mature student at U of T Take the first step — and keep moving forward John Montefiore Varsity Contributor

My university experience began in 1995 when I chose to attend the University of Toronto. This decision was primarily based on athletic reasons: I was recruited by the Varsity Blues football team as I was a promising player from St. Michael’s College High School in Toronto.

Being young and unfocused on my studies, I was unwilling to fully embrace the academic challenges that came with being a student athlete at U of T. While I became a key member of the 1996 football team, I was put on academic probation, which ultimately led to a one-year academic suspension from the university.

Coupled with injuries sustained from football, I was presented with adversity that I had not experienced before and was ill-equipped mentally to overcome the challenges that I had brought upon myself.

I left U of T, ashamed of failing myself and others to whom I had given my word to put forth my best effort. After I served my one year academic suspension, I re-enrolled in courses but never showed up. I was still burdened by feelings of shame and guilt, as well as a fear that I would not be able to dig myself out of the hole I had created.

This resulted in a three-year academic suspension.

I then decided — or rather convinced myself — that I did not need a degree and that I would be okay without one. I joined the workforce, and my dream of a postsecondary education became a distant memory.

Over the years, I carried feelings of regret, fear, and self-doubt from not having completed my studies. I have had various careers of varying success but always thought I could have done and achieved more if I had just finished school.

Decades later, in the summer of 2018, I walked into the St. Michael’s College Registrar’s Office to inquire about returning to school. I will never forget the experience.

The gentleman working behind the counter asked me, “What’s your student number?”

I politely replied that I did not remember.

After some authentication questions, he said, “Okay, fill in this form, pay the admin fee, and tell me, do you want to start in September or January?”

I was shocked. After all of these years of shame and regret, all it took was a small step to pursue my education once again. If there is anything that I have learned over the 20 years of being out of

FIONA TUNG/THE VARSITY

school, it is that I would not make the same mistakes I had made the first time around.

I booked an appointment with an academic counsellor, and together we worked on a plan to complete my degree. So, in the fall of 2018, I was once again a full-time student at the University of Toronto. I felt anxious about returning to school, thinking I would be the only older student and that I would not be able to ‘keep up’ with the much younger students at the St. George campus.

All of these fears turned out to be irrational. There were many other students at different points in their learning journey. As for keeping up with the other students, I got some great advice from a friend who had also returned to school as a mature student. He told me to not focus on the other students and to just make the learning experience between you and the teacher. Sit in the front row of all of your classes, and just focus on doing your best. I listened and decided to commit to put forth my best effort.

As my studies progressed, there were times when I felt I needed help. In such instances, I discovered

that U of T has an abundance of resources and services available to students. For example, not having written an essay since before Facebook was invented, I regularly leveraged the college writing centre. This allowed me to not only get great advice, but also helped me with my confidence and clarity as a writer.

If there is any suggestion I can make to others looking to return to school as a mature student — or any student for that matter — it is to leverage the services the university provides to you. They are there for your benefit and are designed to contribute to your success.

Today, I am proud of what I have accomplished.

I have graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts degree: a double minor in education and society and human geography.

I am the first student to complete the education and society minor in the first two consecutive semesters after being accepted into the program and did so with a 4.0 GPA. I was also the recipient of the University of St. Michael’s College Francesca Annamaria Meneguzzi Award of Excellence in

both 2019 and 2020. I went to every class and never missed a deadline or asked for an extension on any assignments.

The point I feel is the most important part of being successful: showing up. Sure, there were times when it would have been easier to skip class and not face the anxiety I was feeling, but that slowly dissipated the more I decided to show up instead. What was hard for me in the beginning became a pleasure for me in the end.

I am so grateful to the University of Toronto for allowing me to erase the feelings of doubt and regret I carried with me all these years and for giving me a second chance. A special thank you goes out to Miranda Cheng, an associate registrar at St. Michael’s College who helped me throughout this process.

And to anyone considering pursuing a postsecondary education at U of T: just start. Take the first step, but then take another one. Keep moving forward, regardless of the challenges or the fears you may have, because in the end, you may even surprise yourself. I know I did.

var.st/arts

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

The strange lexicon of COVID-19 How we’ve created — and resurrected — words during a pandemic

Michelle Krasovitski Varsity Contributor

Chances are, if you’ve scrolled through your Twitter timeline or tapped through Instagram stories any time over the past couple of months, you’ve encountered words and phrases that would have seemed absurd — if not altogether nonsensical — this time last year.

“Flatten the curve,” “covidiots,” “social distance,” and even “coronageddon,” are all terms that — casually yet suddenly — waltzed into our collective lexicons in recent months as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the world. Every day, whether on social media or in person, new phrases are coined and picked up — some promise longevity; others fizzle out rather quickly. How and why does this happen?

Historically, major events have consistently proven to have a significant impact on language evolution.

In a written interview with The Varsity, Rena HelmsPark, a professor of linguistics at UTSC and UTSG, explained that new phrases are born during “catastrophic or historically monumental events that befall humanity suddenly and often without preparedness.”

The Great Depression, the world wars, and even Brexit a couple of years ago all introduced new words into our lexicons. This was largely due to the fact that people were coming together in celebration or in protest of these events, effectively generating a positive environment for language growth.

“The colloquialisms that mushroom around the event form a lexical pool from which communities select items to find ways of bonding and creating modes of quick communications about urgent issues that have left the world in a state of flux,” HelmsPark explained.

This is why our current pandemic is so interesting: in contrast to past world- and word-changing events, the COVID-19 pandemic is centred on isolation.

Instead of gathering together in solidarity, we are ordered to stay apart; many countries even go as far as to institute penalties and fines for breaking physical-distancing orders. And, as expected, the words that have sprung out of isolation have reflected this.

Think about how ‘social distancing’ — the pandemic word which Helms-Park finds most amusing — feels like a word that is omnipresent, yet somehow simultaneously debated and accepted. What does it mean to socially distance? Is it staying at home and not going out into the public, or is it staying two metres away from others?

According to the Center for Disease Control, the latter definition is the correct one, however this is not reflected in praxis, as many use the term to refer to the former. Many networks and institutions around the world, including The Varsity, have now chosen to replace the term with a new one — ‘physical distancing’ — which more accurately represents

public health guidelines without implying the need to be disconnected from other people.

Had someone celebrated a potential “flattening of the curve” last year, you would have looked at them puzzlingly. With the exception of nursing and medical students, terms like ‘PPE,’ which stands for personal protective equipment; ‘epidemiology’; ‘respirators’; and even the technical terms for masks — ‘cloth,’ ‘surgical,’ or ‘N95’ — would not have garnered anyone’s interest.

Some of the phrases that have gained popularity are newly-made; others are remnants of previous pandemics or global events. Helms-Park explained that “phrases like ‘contact-tracing’… have been in general use prior to the COVID pandemic,” but that it is “entirely possible that their current use will increase their frequency in future discourse.”

The large pool of names with which we can refer to the virus is a great example of both newly-made words and ones taken from the annals of epidemiological history: the name ‘coronavirus’ has been in use since the 1960s, while ‘COVID’ and ‘COVID-19’ are newly made, generated from the letters in “coronavirus disease 2019.”

However, the naming of this virus has not gone without controversy: there are many racist instances of people — including the US president — who choose or have chosen to refer to COVID-19 as the “Chinese Flu” or “Kung Flu.” There are a number of reasons as to why these ge-

ography-related titles are inappropriate. Along with the fact that many Asian Americans have rightly criticized these harmful titles, in 2015, the World Health Organization advised against naming pathogens after locations as this could have “unintended negative impacts by stigmatizing certain communities.”

Indeed, as a New York Times editorial explains, there is a long history of the mistaken, racist, and xenophobic belief that a particular group is responsible for a virus or more likely to spread it. The racialization of diseases only serves to fuel hatred and persecution toward minoritized communities, as we have seen with the Black Death and Jews; syphillis and the French, Italians, Russians, and others; and the Ebola virus and Black people.

Racist naming is not the only harmful language practice that has popped up during the pandemic.

Many linguists and doctors have raised issues with the use of war-time words when referring to elements of the pandemic.

For instance, anyone who has to work in a public space is referred to as a ‘frontline worker,’ effectively comparing the pandemic to war, since ‘frontline’ is a military term that refers to positions closest to the enemy. Across the ocean in Europe, many politicians have been prophesying a ‘D-Day’ for the virus, where patients will overwhelm hospitals.

The problem is that in using militaristic analogies, there is no emphasis or pressure on the need to better structural and systemic flaws within health care systems — ones that the pandemic has exposed as always being present. A group of linguists in Spain considered this to be such a large issue that they created #ReframeCovid, a project through which they aim to find alternatives to this militaristic language.

The Spanish linguists — and, hopefully, you — will find it reassuring that no war-time words

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13

made it into the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) unscheduled dictionary update back in April, when it added 14 new words, all related to the pandemic.

The update — described by OED’s editorial manager as being “significant” and prompted by the “unprecedented times” — saw phrases like ‘self-quarantine,’ ‘shelter in place,’ and even ‘elbow bump’ make the cut, while more fun terms like ‘covidiots,’ — the word for people who break physical distancing orders — did not.

Though these more humorous terms may seem more novel than those that were officially recognized, these ‘neologisms’ — newly-coined words — are not groundbreaking. Helms-Park clarified, “Some of the processes underlying the creation of neologisms, as exemplified by the blends ‘covidiot,’ ‘quarantini,’ and ‘coronials,’ are eternal.”

When it comes to the longevity of these neologisms and phrases, Helms-Park explained, “The new meanings of metaphors such as ‘flatten the curve’ and ‘social distancing’ have potential to last, but their popularization via the COVID-19 pandemic per se could well be forgotten by future generations.”

Helms-Park offered the examples of “to send someone to Coventry” and “to go pear-shaped” — the first idiom meaning to ostracize someone, the second meaning to go wrong — as phrases that have lost popularity over the passing of the decades.

But if there’s one thing that is linguistically certain, it is that social media and technology play a significant role in the birth, popularity, and potential death of these terms. “The rapidity of the spread of these novel creations can be attributed to the rapidity of global communications — memes and buzzwords are the order of the day!”

And it is also on social media — and through general keyboard-use — that we have been able to define and lexicalize COVID-19 in a fun and lighthearted way: through emojis. A March study of 12 health-related emojis by Emojipedia found that Face with Medical Mask and Microbe were used the most when tweeting about COVID-19.

Interestingly, when the study expanded its emoji-parameters to include all emojis, not solely health-related ones, it found that Face with Tears of Joy was the most-used emoji, coming in significantly ahead of the second-place Rolling on the Floor Laughing — you may have spotted a pattern.

Though we have been living through what feel like unprecedented times — the word ‘unprecedented’ has stirred much debate amongst linguists as well — we find ways of bringing light to our day-to-day lives.

“Many neologisms,” Helms-Park wrote, “can also serve as much-needed humour during times of uncertainty and despair.”

So whether you are using emojis to express yourself or venting about the ‘covidiots’ next-door who threw a 30-person birthday party, take comfort in the knowledge that your language — and the language around you — is constantly evolving to best reflect your reality and quell your anxieties. Just maybe stay clear of the war-time analogies for now.

Bit Playas tackles racism inside and outside the casting room

Kris Siddiqi — from U of T student to CBC web series runner Mikaela Toone Varsity Contributor

“I want to make a show with no white people,” is how Kris Siddiqi pitched his web series Bit Playas to CBC. The show follows Ahmed (Siddiqi) and Leon (Nigel Downer) as they spend their days chasing minor roles and commercial parts across Toronto, all the while dealing with racism inside and outside of the casting room.

Nerd culture is also heavily featured in Bit Playas; the show is jam-packed with pop culture references and even culminates in a rooftop battle between the protagonists as they come to terms with their crumbling friendship.

“Black folk and brown folk and Asian folk, we can all be nerds as well; it’s not just dominated by white bodies,” Siddiqi said in an interview with The Varsity.

Siddiqi began his comedy career while enrolled in film studies at U of T. Between classes, Siddiqi found himself drawn to the Helen

Gardiner Phelan Playhouse tea room, looking on as drama students performed movement exercises. However, “too cynical” for theatre, Siddiqi drifted toward comedy and improv and carved out a career for himself as a comedic writer as well.

A culmination of events inspired Bit Playas, including witnessing white actors clinching roles Siddiqi was auditioning for, and growing weary of “being a Canadian who constantly turned on Canadian television and only saw white faces on TV.” Siddiqi then decided to take action himself. “The only show I know how to make is a comedy show that’s filled with nerd references but that is specifically showcasing brown and Black faces and bodies,” Siddiqi said.

Bit Playas does just that. The episodes are short — approximately 12 minutes long — and for most of the series, they each tackle a theme associated with racism. These themes include cultural appropriation, white privilege, microaggressions, and the fetishization of race in the

The show, created by a U of T alum, can be streamed on CBC Gem. COURTESY OF CBC

context of dating.

As the story arc nears its end, the show deviates from tackling the racism woven into Ahmed and Leon’s lives and instead focuses on their rapidly deteriorating friendship as they audition for the same role — “thug number four” — in a major action movie.

Should a second season occur, Siddiqi is hoping to shift from the characters dealing with external forces to their own internal thoughts

and struggles, including “what it is to be racialized and what it is to have immigrant parents.”

In addition, Siddiqi wants to get wilder on the production side of the show, including making an episode in Japanese anime style.

For up-and-coming Black, Indigenious, and people of colour comedians and writers, Siddiqi offers these pieces of advice: “Write, write, write, write, write, and do classes.”

“Take up that space, man; don’t be shy.”

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ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

Guilty Pleasures: Crimes of the Heart

A Southern Gothic dark comedy that is not without its faults Bao Li Ng Varsity Contributor

Content warning: mentions of suicide and abuse.

I watched Crimes of the Heart with my mom and sisters about a month and a half into lockdown.

My mom picked it because it checked all the boxes for movies she likes — about women, some kind of dramedy, and set in the past. Taking place in mid-twentieth-century Mississippi, the dark comedy Crimes of the Heart is certainly one of the more recently-set films my mom will watch, her favourite time period being the Victorian era.

Basically, she likes watching white women be dramatic and wear frilly clothes.

Crimes of the Heart is the film adaptation of Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, produced in 1986 and starring Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek as three sisters reuniting in their family home. This is after Spacek’s character, the ditzy Southern belle Babe Magrath, non-fatally shoots her abusive husband.

Immediately, my sisters and I cast each other into these roles. My younger sister was Babe, my older sister was the responsible wallflower Lenny, and I was dubbed Jessica Lange’s character — the impulsive and reckless Meg, who returns home after a failed Hollywood career.

Everyone in my family seemed to think this was an “extremely accurate” judgment, even going so far as to say “that’s what she would do!” whenever Meg did something that resembled my behaviour. However, I found this characterization to be offensive and sat in the

corner across the room looking at my phone, only glancing up occasionally throughout the duration of the movie.

That being said, I surprisingly enjoyed the parts I did see. No doubt, there are some aspects I could definitely have gone without; for example, Babe’s sexual abuse of a 15-yearold boy — characterized as an “affair” by the characters in the film.

However, this shockingly gets her off the hook for the shooting, as her husband is afraid that, since the child is Black, it would be embarrassing if people knew about it. He drops charges on the condition that the boy, named Willie, leave and never come back. Willie is last seen waving goodbye to her from a bus window.

While realistic in terms of the privilege and racism the white characters exhibit, I was consumed with questions. Where are this kid’s parents? His family? Why does Babe have the power to take him out of school and send him away? And where is he even going?

Disregarding this, I found that the lead performances were considerably well-acted and nuanced portrayals of the relationships between sisters and the dysfunctional familial intimacy that results from a shared trauma. In the case of the Magrath sisters, this family trauma is their mother’s suicide, which was heavily covered by newspapers because she ended both her own and the family cat’s lives.

The effects of this trauma can be seen throughout the film, most prominently manifesting in how each sister lives their life.

For instance, Meg ran away to California as soon as she was able to, Lenny stayed in their family home to care for the grandfather who

FIONA TUNG/THE VARSITY

raised them, and Babe married a wealthy but emotionally and physically violent man.

Thus, Meg appears to deal with her pain through avoidance and denial, Lenny through staying behind and falling into the familiar safety of eldest-sibling martyrdom, and Babe through realizing her similarities with her mother. In the end, after a series of suicide attempts, Babe realizes that, like her, their mother didn’t really want to die but took her anger out on herself,

and, furthermore, killed the cat because she was afraid to die alone.

While I wouldn’t say I’m suddenly a big fan of the Southern Gothic, I liked this film because it was fun to watch with my sisters and my mom, because I saw aspects of my own family in the Magraths, and because, like the final scene — in which the Magrath sisters are shown laughing around a birthday cake — it was a rare moment of happiness in an otherwise ominous time.

Overlooked: Insecure A show about young Black women who are living their ordinary lives — guaranteed to provide some much-needed comedic relief

Insecure is a touching dramedy available for streaming on HBO. COURTESY OF MERIE W WALLACE/ HBO

Kelly-Anne Johnson Varsity Contributor

As a Black woman in my twenties, it is not hard to notice that there are not many television series that include actresses who look like me.

Even when there is representation, I feel like there is a disconnect between the depiction of Black women on television and my own lived

experiences.

I know that I will never be like Olivia Pope from Scandal or Annalise Keating from How to Get Away with Murder. Although I admire the courage and determination of these characters, their storylines are unrealistic, and they overlook the everyday experiences of myself and other young Black women in the present day.

Insecure contrasts with these inaccurate representations of the lives of average Black women on the small screen. The series follows

Issa Dee and her best friend Molly — two Black women who are navigating their way through the ups and downs of modern-day adulthood in Los Angeles. Although both women face similar challenges with respect to their relationships and ‘situationships,’ their uncomfortable experiences in their predominantly white workplaces, and their search for emotional fulfillment, their lives are remarkably different.

The first season sees Issa struggling to get her life together. She is unhappy with her

job and her five-year relationship, and she is torn between pursuing what she wants and continuing to do what is expected of her. In contrast, Molly, a confident and well-liked corporate lawyer, appears to be in control of her professional life. However, her unreasonably high standards and her preoccupation with settling down prevent her from maintaining her romantic relationships.

The nature of Issa and Molly’s friendship is a core part of Insecure. From the very first episode, the viewer is introduced to an authentic women friendship that thrives off the differences between these two characters. It is encouraging to see how the girls can both support and keep it real with one another despite the fact that they each desire something that the other has — notably, professional success and a serious relationship.

Their witty remarks to one another — along with the hilarious supporting cast — are an added bonus to the show, such as in this interaction: Molly: “You gotta fuck a lot of frogs to get a good frog.”

Issa: “That’s not the saying. Or any saying.”

This depiction of a women friendship in which the characters can not only joke about their shortcomings, but also genuinely want what is best for one another, is currently not afforded to Black women on the small screen.

Shows like Love and Hip Hop and the Real Housewives of Atlanta present a distorted picture of Black women friendships as being characterized by jealousy and competition.

Insecure is also unique because it reflects a stage in life that many university students can relate to. Oftentimes, it feels like we are expected to have our lives figured out by the time we graduate. The portrayal of Issa and her friends serves as a reminder that it is completely normal if we have no clue what we want to do in our lives and that small setbacks do not signal failure.

Science

September 8, 2020 var.st/science science@thevarsity.ca

The lockdown may be over, but the pandemic is not

An immunology graduate student reviews the need to be more cautious than ever Christina Maria Ditlof Varsity Contributor

During the university lockdown caused by the pandemic, an initiative to promote the spread of pertinent information regarding COVID-19 was started by immunology students at UTSG. Graduate students in the Department of Immunology created educational pamphlets on important topics regarding COVID-19, including disease pathogenesis, current therapies, and the process of vaccine development.

As a current student in the Master of Science in Applied Immunology program, I was motivated to get involved and helped contribute to the creation of the vaccine development infosheet. The rationale behind this initiative was to generate scientifically accurate pamphlets that members of the general public can easily access in order to educate themselves and mitigate the spread of misleading information.

health risk. This is reflected in the number of reported cases. According to Public Health Ontario there were more than 850 new cases in Ontario in the last week of August. Outbreaks are still occurring.

After the August long weekend, there was an outbreak at the Deerhurst Resort in Muskoka due to individuals reportedly not following physical distancing and social bubble guidelines.

The Simcoe-Muskoka District Health Unit had entered Stage 3 a month earlier on July 17.

However, remaining cautious does not mean we should not be hopeful. Clinical trials are underway to generate a safe and efficacious vaccine, but it is important to acknowledge that this process takes time. Vaccine development

Remaining vigilant, maintaining hope As of late July, Ontario had entered Stage 3, allowing businesses and services to reopen to promote the long-term restart and recovery of the economy. Although this provides a return to normalcy, it certainly does not mean the pandemic is over. Therefore, the information contained in the pamphlets continues to be valuable.

Despite the restrictions easing, this is a time to be more cautious, not more lenient. Currently, progress toward developing a safe and effective vaccine is still ongoing. It is imperative that the public remains vigilant in performing safety precautions to ensure their well-being and that of others.

It may be perceived that this gradual reopening signifies that the pandemic is no longer a threat of the same magnitude as it was earlier in the year, but COVID-19 is still very much a public

occurs in several stages, including research of the virus, pre-clinical experimentation in animal models, and human clinical trial phases that test the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Oxford University recently tested a vaccine candidate called ChAdOx1 nCoV19, which has demonstrated safety in humans and an ability to generate neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19. ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 is undergoing phase three of clinical trials.

REBECA MOYA/THE VARSITY

The information problem During the 2016 outbreak of the Zika virus, a study found an increased usage of Twitter, Google search engine, Google News, YouTube, and Wikipedia pages to acquire Zika-related content. Although social media platforms and search engines allow for the spread of information in a timely manner, they can also be harmful due to the amount of false information being spread by unqualified users.

This is problematic as accurate information is often drowned out by misleading information.

Additionally, certain users might see this information and be confused as to what is factual and what is not.

During the early stages of COVID-19, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus referred to the spread of false and misleading COVID-19 information as an “infodemic.” He expressed that, like a virus, false information spreads rapidly and should be considered dangerous. Therefore, controlling the spread of misinformation on social media and online platforms is vital to ensure the public is receiving accurate knowledge.

It is understandably hard for platforms to manage information due to the number of social media users. Thus, the responsibility is put heavily on the internet user to ensure that they are accessing credible sources to acquire information. Accessibility to accurate information can be promoted by providing easy-to-read online documents and interesting graphics created by the government, academic institutions, and scientists.

Although vaccine development is underway, it is still important that we follow public health guidelines, stay informed via accurate sources, and take preventive measures to avoid a potential second wave of the virus.

Opinion: STEM isn’t very gay friendly — and that’s a problem LGBTQ+ inclusion requires rethinking our working and lab environments

Tony Hu Varsity Contributor

How is your equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM? I’ve never had any complaints!

If you excuse the horrible reference to RuPaul’s Drag Race, I have some thoughts on being a LGBTQ+ person in STEM. While I have not experienced any overt discrimination for being LGBTQ+ in STEM, I do not find it to be a particularly safe or welcoming space.

First, let’s recognize the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community. The LGBTQ+ community contains some of the strongest people alive. Despite the increasing acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, bullying and harassment remain a rite of passage for many. I myself have been verbally and physically assaulted for who I am.

But despite our strength, LGBTQ+ representation in STEM is still lacking.

This question might be framed as, “If there aren’t any rules explicitly preventing LGBTQ+ people from being in STEM, why aren’t there more LGBTQ+ people in STEM?” But there are in fact LGBTQ+ people in STEM — they are simply not visibly represented among students and researchers. So why the lack of visibility?

My answer, as someone who is sometimes asked why I am not out in the STEM community, is simple. Although institutions may claim to be a safe space for LGBTQ+ people, the reality is that many do not feel safe revealing their sexuality.

Inclusion is an active process A 2013 survey indicated that LGBTQ+ workers in STEM fields feel more comfortable being open about their sexuality to friends than colleagues. The issue then is that LGBTQ+ people in STEM exist but are not visible.

A lack of discrimination isn’t enough to make STEM inclusive for LGBTQ+ people. What’s needed is an active effort to address the discomfort scientists and students might face in being out to their peers. If more members of the LGBTQ+ community came out, it would improve their visibility in STEM — but that is not so easily achieved.

The visibility of LGBTQ+ people in STEM is particularly challenging to improve because, unlike race and gender, sexuality is not immediately obvious. The lack of obvious indicators of being LGBTQ+, coupled with heteronormative assumptions, makes it easy to hide your sexuality. And it is often the environment that makes someone hide their identity.

On a fundamental level, it is the immediate environment in which we find ourselves that determines how safe and comfortable we are, not just the rules protecting minoritized communities against discrimination. It takes a lot of courage to come out in a potentially hostile space. Given the uncertainties surrounding coming out, there is the very real potential of your sexuality creating obstacles in your academic career.

This fear results in few LGBTQ+ people coming out in STEM, creating a cycle whereby the fewer people who are out in STEM, the less inclusive STEM feels, which prevents more LGBTQ+ people from coming out.

This is not hypothetical — a 2018 survey suggested that almost a third of UK-based LGBTQ+ physical scientists have considered leaving their positions because of their workplace environment.

So creating an inclusive and safe environment for LGBTQ+ people in STEM means actively asking why current environments feel unsafe.

The research environment The research environment presents an equity, diversity, and inclusion challenge. In academia, within a department, faculty members run their own research groups with graduate students, postgraduate students, undergraduate students, and lab staff.

These research groups exist as distinct environments; it is a system marred by fragmentation where each lab can have wildly different working environments. The lack of standardized training culminates in varying cultures of openness, diversity, and inclusion within each research group.

Additionally, research is very collaborative with researchers frequently collaborating with other groups. Even if your group is inclusive and supportive, you might need to collaborate with a group that is not. Groups from other institutions and disciplines have varying levels of openness.

Consequently, creating more welcoming environments in isolation is not enough to make STEM more inclusive. Researchers at all levels of their careers and at all different locales around the world need to be aware of this issue.

Considering solutions Here are some solutions to increase equity, di-

versity, and inclusion in STEM, particularly for LGBTQ+ people. For LGBTQ+ researchers and students, connect with other LGBTQ+ researchers and find LGBTQ+ mentors in STEM. A quick Google search will provide a number of STEM-centric LGBTQ+ organizations and events, such as 500 Queers Scientists and the annual LGBTQ+ STEM conference hosted by the University of Windsor. Connecting with other members of the community is one of the best ways for LGBTQ+ people to feel safe in their own environments.

For non-LGBTQ+ researchers, learn about becoming an ally. You can do your part to ensure that the STEM community is a safe and inclusive space for LGBTQ+ people. Start by recognizing the difficulties faced by LGBTQ+ people in STEM. Consider your reasons for being an ally — sometimes, performative allyship is worse than no allyship at all. Leverage your strengths to make the STEM community more safe and inclusive for LGBTQ+ people.

Equity in STEM extends beyond LGBTQ+ issues, encompassing other underrepresented minoritized groups in STEM including women, people of colour, Indigenous people, and many more. These equity issues are all interconnected.

If you feel strongly toward increasing LGBTQ+ visibility in STEM, you should feel strongly toward having more Black people in STEM. You should feel strongly toward having more Indigenous people in STEM. You should feel strongly toward having more women in STEM. Our work is not done once LGBTQ+ people achieve equal status in STEM. Our work is only done when all people are treated equally.

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SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

Data collection for Indigenous peoples is lacking under COVID-19

Experts on how communities navigate systemic racism in Canadian health care

MAARYA ZAFAR/THE VARSITY

Oviya Muralidharan and Rehnuma Islam Varsity Contributors

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, data collected by Toronto Public Health reveals higher rates of infection and hospitalization among low-income households, racialized groups, and immigrants.

The impact on Indigenous communities has been particularly concerning. In July, a Change.org petition co-run by Dr. Anna Banerji of the Department of Medicine called for the federal government to supply greater resources to Indigenous communities.

This petition gathered over 50,000 signatures.

Dr. Kwame McKenzie, a physician and professor in the Department of Psychiatry at U of T, spoke to The Varsity at length on the pitfalls of a “one size fits all” pandemic response and the dangers of not collecting more granular data. “One of [the] things you do in a democracy is you count things, and if you’re not counted, you basically don’t count,” McKenzie said.

Courses, professors, POSts — advice from two scholarshipwinning STEM graduates

Recipients of 2020 John H. Moss Scholarship, U of T Alumni Association Scholarship on how to succeed

Lana El Sanyoura

Arthur Qiu

COURTESY OF LANA EL SANYOURA/LINKEDIN

COURTESY OF ARTHUR QIU

Mohammad Hadaddnia Varsity Contributor

Entering an undergraduate program can be an overwhelming transition for many. However, the difficulties of being thrust into a new environment, a new city, or even a new country

can be overcome with the right guidance.

Having already been in similar situations, upper-year students can be great mentors from whom first-year students can learn. In a written interview with The Varsity, John H. Moss Scholarship winner Lana El Sanyoura and U of T Alumni Association Scholar Arthur Lei Qiu, two highly accomplished 2020 graduates, described their paths as undergraduate students

The challenge of data collection While the province of Ontario has announced it will start collecting race-based data, that in itself is not a solution. In May, the Yellowhead Institute, a Ryerson-based Indigenous think tank, released a report highlighting the lack of data collection for Indigenous communities.

The report mentions how Yellowhead researchers were able to verify more Indigenous COVID-19 cases — by combing through obituaries and local reports — than were previously known due to a lack of any public agency “reliably recording and releasing [COVID-19] data that indicates whether or not a person is Indigenous.”

Dr. Michael Anderson, an Indigenous physician and a member of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health, explains the colonial roots of Indigenous peoples’ fear to selfidentify as who they are. Because the health care system is built on racism and discrimination, it can be challenging to trust, and thus, generating accurate statistics becomes an issue, even during a pandemic.

Anderson noted that “when Indigenous people migrate into an urban centre so the health care institution is four metres away, their access gets worse not better.” This is because systemic racism acts as a barrier to getting treatment. Without adequate records on who is Indigenous, resources cannot reach those most in need.

“There’s efforts underway to try to change that, but that’s sort of in its infancy,” Anderson said. He further highlighted that there is a fleeting responsibility to pay for Indigenous health care among the three levels of government, so those seeking treatment fall to the wayside.

Bonnie Jane Maracle is an Indigenous learning strategist at the First Nations House and a member of the Wolf Clan, Mohawk Nation at Tyendinaga Territory. While Maracle works within the city, she spends her weekends at home on the First Nations reserve. She recounted her time on the reserve during COVID-19 to The Varsity.

“I haven’t been untouched by the sheer fact [that] I don’t have access to clean water when I’m at home,” Maracle said. “So [when it comes to handwashing]… you have to make a decision for the use of your water.”

Anderson and Maracle highlight that Indigenous health care has, over the years, received much lower funding than health care for non-Indigenous communities and has inadequate data collection to aid resource allocation.

at the University of Toronto and provided advice to current and future students.

El Sanyoura, a computer science graduate, is currently an intern at Amazon and joined Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in delivering a televised address to the country’s graduating class this summer. Qiu is a graduate of both mathematics and physics and received a scholarship to study abroad at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland.

as poor teachers can still be excellent mentors and research supervisors. “[Professors] pave the way for teaching us how to approach a problem, how to be critical of our own questions and possible solutions, and how to find ways of making others feel welcome and supported,” El Sanyoura wrote. “[I] have even gone to my professors for questions regarding future career goals and potential decisions I need to make.”

However, it is important to put advice in context. “I do think that professors can have a skewed perspective on some topics… Be aware that their words of wisdom might be biased, and try to listen to a variety of people from all walks of life,” Qiu wrote.

Selecting courses Course selection is probably the first time students feel the beginning of an academic year.

Every student keeps searching through a long list of courses offered by various departments to find the courses they want.

Students also talk with their peers and upperclassmen to find courses that are appropriate for them. Appropriate, however, usually means easy. While many students decide to take bird courses to boost their GPA, both El Sanyoura and Qiu disagree with this strategy and encourage students to take courses that they find interesting and useful for their future.

“Every course you take is a chance for you to grow your toolset, to learn something new, and to gain a new prerequisite to a potential opportunity,” El Sanyoura wrote, emphasizing how these courses can shape the future of students.

“Personally, I’d rather take a hard course in a subject area that I’m passionate about than an easy course in a subject area that I find uninteresting,” Qiu wrote, highlighting the significance of personal interest over grades.

It is also essential to point out that when you are interested in a course, whether because it is important to your future goals or you just enjoy the content, it is more likely that you’ll do better in that course.

Choosing professors After deciding what courses to take, some students like to narrow their search by choosing ‘better’ professors. But RateMyProfessors.com can be misleading, as professors who are rated

Community resilience Furthermore, Indigenous communities have struggled to obtain government aid to integrate basic needs, such as water pipelines for clean water, and have been subjected to a disjointed health care system. The pandemic has blatantly revealed the shortfalls of the Canadian health care system to care for Indigenous and marginalized peoples.

According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Indigenous communities have had proportionately far fewer COVID-19 cases than the general population, but that figure may be partly due to the effort of communities themselves and not local health care units.

Local communities have set up their own roadblocks to isolate themselves, and in British Columbia, there have been documented cases of community members caring and providing for Elders in their homes.

Maracle pointed out that throughout history, Indigenous communities have fought off pandemics brought over by settlers during colonization by way of social isolation. This has strengthened and enabled their kinship communities, a network broader than blood relations, to look after their people, elderly, and children.

This peer-to-peer network could be part of a broader health care strategy for Indigenous communities in the future. As McKenzie puts it, “You need a plan of how you’re going to protect the communities, which you have to do with community involvement [and] engagement to find out what [is] going wrong.”

Choosing a field of study One of the biggest academic challenges is trying to find the field of study that interests you the most. Thus, program of study (POSt) selection can be a stressful experience for students.

“POSt is a very difficult topic to talk about because there is no recipe to make it into POSt per [se],” El Sanyoura wrote.

Apart from finding the right POSt, you must also work hard to get accepted, which may not always happen. However, this should not discourage students. There are lots of other programs and opportunities available. “When one door closes another door opens,” El Sanyoura wrote.

In addition, there is a lot of flexibility to POSt selection, and many students switch programs. “Remember that there’s usually some wiggle room for changing course,” wrote Qiu, who himself switched from astrophysics to mathematics.

Undergraduate years, being the beginning of a long journey, can be overwhelming. But at the same time, these years are when you find your interests and choose your path into the future. There are tons of opportunities, activities, and people in our undergraduate year that may shape our future. Thus, it is important to make the best of it and enjoy it while it lasts.

var.st/science

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

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U of T physicists discover that quantum tunnelling is not instantaneous

Recent publication in Nature reveal important progress in the field of quantum mechanics side of a barrier to another.

According to Steinberg, he wouldn’t call his recent findings ‘a discovery.’

“I think very few people thought the process was instantaneous,” he said. “There’s been over 80 years of debate over how exactly one should talk about the duration and process of different attempts to define and to measure it. And… a year or two ago, there was a new story with another group, and they found that it was instantaneous. And we disagreed with that description.”

FIONA TUNG/THE VARSITY

Aanya Bahl Varsity Contributor

Imagine if matter could go through other matter.

Wouldn’t the world be a different place?

Let’s say you went on a hiking trip and arrived at a bridge over a river. Theoretically, you have two options to get to the other side: you could either go over the bridge, or you could paddle under it. But what if you could go through the bridge?

This is analogous to a phenomenon in quantum physics — physics at very small length scales — known as quantum tunnelling. A recent Nature publication highlights a discovery made on quantum tunnelling by Dr. Aephraim Steinberg and his team at the University of Toronto’s Department of Physics.

The team proved that quantum tunnelling is not instantaneous. In other words, if a particle were to go through a barrier, it would spend a certain amount of time in the barrier. According to Steinberg, the most surprising thing about the principle of quantum tunnelling is that a particle going through a barrier need not be an electron.

“In principle, a baseball could do this,” he said in an interview with The Varsity.

What is quantum tunnelling?

Most physicists explain quantum tunnelling with a classic analogy of a ball and a hill. If you try to push a ball up a hill and you give it a strong push, it won’t get over the crest of the hill unless you give it one big push so that it can reach the hilltop. In physics talk, you need to make sure that the ball has enough kinetic energy to overcome the hill’s potential energy.

However, the quantum world doesn’t use those seemingly logical rules — and it is for this reason that the field of quantum mechanics can be so difficult to explain.

Unlike classical physics, quantum physics is probabilistic. That means that instead of calculating the exact locations and positions of particles, quantum physicists investigate the probability of electrons being located in a certain area.

If you had a quantum ball and hill scenario, even though it is highly likely that you’ll find the ball on your side of the hill, there’s still a tiny probability that you’ll find your ball inside the hill. There’s an even smaller chance that your ball could eventually end up on the other side of the hill — almost as if it had dug a tunnel through.

This is how quantum tunnelling is observed in most experiments: a change in location from one

How did Steinberg’s team do it?

The team measured how long a rubidium atom spends inside a barrier of light constructed using lasers and microwaves. Rubidium atoms were cooled to one nanokelvin and directed by lasers to move in one direction. The path of these atoms was then blocked by another laser beam, which served as a barrier of light. The experimenters wanted to know how long the atoms spent inside the barrier before making it out on the other side.

So, how do you measure the travel time of an atom?

“If you let every particle carry its own stopwatch, and then you wait and look through to see when the particle appears on the other side, you can look at its stopwatch [to measure the time it took],” Steinberg said. “It turns out that particles like electrons and atoms have a property called spin… and the spins… react to magnetic fields.”

Steinberg and his colleagues used the spins of the rubidium atoms as hands on a clock face. Inside the light barrier, they exposed the atoms to a magnetic field, which caused the ‘clock hands’ to rotate — effectively revealing how long each atom spent inside.

The longer the particle took inside the barrier, the longer it was exposed to the magnetic field, and the more its spin rotated.

Ultimately, the researchers found that each atom spends 0.61 milliseconds inside the light barrier — a small number, but definitely not zero.

“Basically, what we’re really striving for is simply a better understanding of how the quantum mechanical particles get where they get,” Steinberg said.

“Tunnelling is one of the most striking examples of this. Honestly, what interests me is the modern question of how we think about this quantum world at all.”

Quantum tunnelling is a process we see in our everyday lives.

“[It has a role in] things like photosynthesis, even vision, where electrons and even protons are required in order to transfer energy along some of the biochemical pathways,” Steinberg said. “And maybe one of the most fundamental [roles quantum tunnelling has] in our existence is that a lot of nuclear processes require tunnelling. So the fusion that occurs in the sun that allows us to survive actually relies on tunnelling as well.”

What’s next for the team?

Steinberg noted that his team is going in “a few different directions.”

“It’s relatively straightforward to just calculate — if I throw a lot of particles in a barrier — on average, how much time [they would spend] in the barrier.

That’s not so difficult,” Steinberg said. “What makes the process confusing comes back to this indeterminism in quantum mechanics; some particles get through and others are reflected. People wanted to know, ‘How long does it take just for the particles to get through?’”

But the team was in for a surprise. In the particular place they looked, transmitted and reflected particles spent the same amount of time in the barrier. Steinberg is now interested in asking different questions.

“Instead of just asking, ‘How much time do the particles spend overall in the barrier?’ you ask more specific questions. Where in the barrier are they spending most of their time? Are they on the left hand side or on the right hand side or middle?”

Steinberg said. “Then, we expect to actually see different results with the transmitted and the reflected particles. So we want to refine our experiments to do that.”

The probabilistic and often controversial nature of quantum physics has given the physicist a lot to think about.

“Although the predictions for what we’re used to asking are probabilistic, the laws that we use for our predictions are, in fact, completely deterministic,” Steinberg said. “In other words, we can predict exactly what the final probability distribution is — there’s no ambiguity about that.”

Steinberg continued, “So it’s a controversy that’s more on the philosophical side. What does it mean to have a description of nature that only gives us probabilities? And does it give us definite results?”

Sports

September 8, 2020 var.st/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

Opinion: Hollow stadiums, hollow pride

No OUA games presents an opportunity to examine U of T student culture Angad Deol Varsity Contributor

Everyone at U of T remembers the first time they thought to themselves, “People here are kind of mean.” From my first day on campus, everyone I have spoken to has shared this experience; in fact, they embrace the first time someone gave them the cold shoulder on campus as a rite of passage.

Indeed, the walk to Robarts Library is tough when it’s -20 degrees Celsius outside, but have you ever asked someone for a pen and they just stared right through you? Ice cold.

However, what U of T lacks in campus unity, it makes up for with extracurricular activities. Leaving aside the plethora of clubs available for students to sign up for, U of T also has the Varsity Blues to offer for sporting entertainment. With the upcoming season being cancelled because of COVID-19, one might ponder how the lack of Varsity Blues events might affect the already dim campus culture.

The truth is, you might not even notice the Varsity Blues missing this year. It would not surprise you to learn that the University of Toronto Varsity Blues suffer from poor attendance records across multiple teams.

According to an article by The Varsity, the 2014 Varsity Blues football team had an average attendance of 2,240 people, less than half of the stadi-

um’s maximum capacity. If that isn’t bad enough, the 2014 Varsity Blues men’s hockey team had a paltry attendance average of 139 people, less than four per cent of the maximum capacity.

This is not to say that Varsity Blues events are a sombre affair. In fact, last year, some of my best times on campus came at Varsity Blues events.

With the launch of the Varsity Blues Rewards app, U of T helped incentivize attendance by

giving students prizes and reward points just for showing up.

The problem, however, goes beyond student pride or a lack thereof: U of T struggles to advertise events. In fact, if you don’t follow any of the U of T social media pages, you might never hear of the Blues your entire time at this school, aside from a flyer or two. To place the blame solely on students for a lack of attendance would be to give

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the school too much credit.

The fact of the matter is that there is a lot of discussion to be had over the school’s lack of student culture and how the Blues can play a key role in bolstering it.

Students at U of T have no problem discussing the lack of student culture — until and unless it comes to the debate over which school is the ‘best’ in Canada. But, in that debate lies the ultimate problem of student culture on campus: individual bragging rights have always come first. Students are never going to show ‘school spirit’ and cheer on their sports teams because most students really only see themselves as an individual on campus, not a member of a community.

According to a 2018 Varsity article, over 75 per cent of students identify as commuters. When most students are gone before the Varsity Blues even kick off, attendance is doomed to be mediocre unless the teams are successful or hyped up.

With the Varsity Blues presumably off the field in the coming year, and with students gearing up to study from home in these unprecedented times, the discussion about student culture must be had.

While we could be shocked at the attendance numbers for the Varsity Blues, we should instead consider ways to increase the number of students in the seats. But this can only be done by first examining and reimagining student pride here at U of T.

Canada: tennis’ next world power?

Analyzing Canada’s up-and-coming athletes with Nabil Tadros, Varsity Blues tennis head coach Benjamin Ding Varsity Contributor

Were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada’s premier tennis tournament, the Rogers Cup, would’ve taken place the second week of August. In celebration of Canadian tennis, let’s take a look at Canada’s current youth brigade, which boasts, arguably, the brightest prospects of any country.

All four of the constituents are under 21 years old, possessing playing styles as unique as each of their individual backgrounds and personalities. All have experienced great successes on the junior circuit. Additionally, each one of these young stars is a child of immigrants — fitting for a country that prides itself on its multiculturalism and diversity.

The following profiles will give brief overviews for each of these young players, as well as commentary from U of T’s head coach for both the men’s and women’s tennis teams, Nabil Tadros.

Leylah Fernandez The youngest of four Canadian prodigies, 18-year-old Leylah Fernandez is of Ecuadorian and Filipino descent and battled her way into a maiden professional final earlier this year in Acapulco, Mexico. There, she captivated the locals with her gritty and creative playing style as well as her fluent Spanish. While she sits outside the top 100, you can expect this feisty lefty to continue skyrocketing up the rankings as tennis returns.

Tadros wrote to The Varsity that Fernandez is a tremendous competitor and athlete. She has already successfully won against then fifth in the world Belinda Bencic and 2017 US

Open Champion Sloane Stephens. According to Tadros, Fernandez is a precision shotmaker, with great promise.

Felix Auger-Aliassime This Togolese Canadian hails from Montréal and is easily the most physically imposing of the four. ‘FAA’ first rose to prominence in March 2015 when he became the youngest boy to hold a professional singles ranking ever, at just 14 years and seven months.

Auger-Aliassime has gradually climbed his way toward the top 20, of which he resides just outside. He’s already made five Association of Tennis Professionals finals across all three surface types. Most impressively, he went 5-0 in his first five matches against top 20 opponents. Auger-Aliassime seems like he’ll be a top player for years to come.

Tadros wrote that Auger-Aliassime’s raw athleticism — including speed, anticipation, and court awareness — are comparable to the three greats: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic. Auger-Aliassime’s game is dependably good with a notably great backhand.

Denis Shapovalov The child of Russian-Israeli citizens, ‘Shapo’ delighted home fans when he reached the semifinals of the 2017 Rogers Cup, where he defeated two titans: Juan Martin del Potro and Nadal. Shapovalov hasn’t had a run like that since then, but he’s built himself into a top 20 player, ranking near his close friend, Auger-Aliassime.

Last fall, Shapovalov won his maiden title

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in Stockholm and reached his first big final at the Rolex Paris Masters. At just 21 years old, Shapovalov is already a fan favourite.

According to Tadros, Shapovalov is an incredible shotmaker with a huge range of ability. His win over Nadal as a teen and a tight loss to Djokovic earlier this year proves his ability to step up to the plate. Tadros wrote that Shapovalov still needs to work on keeping this excellent performance consistent; however, that comes with more experience.

Bianca Andreescu The last of Canadian tennis’ youth brigade is already a Canadian household name through the hashtag #SheTheNorth. Andreescu burst onto the women’s tour last season, catapulting from rank 178 all the way to a career high world number four. She most notably became the first Canadian ever to win a Grand Slam Singles title at the 2019 US Open, where she stunned Serena Williams in the final.

This daughter of Romanian immigrants would end the season with a mesmerizing 48-7 win-loss record and a mindblowing 8-3 record against top 10 opponents. Andreescu is undoubtedly the brightest hope for Canadian

tennis, with many touting her as one of Wil liams’ successors.

Tadros wrote that the key for Andreescu is staying injury-free. In the past, Andreescu has taken time off when she had been injured, which was a wise move. Otherwise, Tadros believes that she’s ready to conquer women’s tennis, as she has already won both the Rogers Cup and US Open.

Her movement and anticipation are both great, but Tadros contends that the most outstanding part of her game is her variety — she has mastered a wide assortment of shots and spins.

The final say Canada already boasts a rich tennis heritage with top players like Eugenie Bouchard, Milos Raonic, Vasek Pospisil, Daniel Nestor, and Gabriela Dabrowski. But it seems as if the best is yet to come for Canadian tennis, and the future looks bright thanks to these four young athletes.

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Opinion: Don’t burst your bubble

How bubble leagues are working to keep sports on screens Avishai Sol Varsity Contributor

Professional sports leagues have seemed to be at the forefront of COVID-19 news since the beginning. Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert’s positive COVID-19 test was the spark that brought American sports leagues to a screeching halt, and the hole left by that absence was what first hammered home the severity of COVID-19 to many people in North America.

We wondered for months about the return of sports. How? When? And on our darker days, if ? That’s what makes the NBA and NHL bubbles such an achievement.

In a nutshell, each league picked a neutral site where teams can stay and complete their playoffs. Everybody inside the bubble is tested daily. The bubbles offer amenities like golf and movies; players and staff are allowed to leave with authorization, but then they have to quarantine when they return.

When the world first heard about the bubble format, there were more than a few skeptics. Some worried about the morality of testing athletes daily while average citizens struggle to get tested at all. Some thought that bunching athletes together would spread the virus throughout the leagues. Others worried that athletes were being pushed by team owners and that returning to play was putting money above players’ health.

All of that has been put to rest.

Even the most optimistic fans could not have hoped for the bubbles to run this smoothly. Since play resumed in late July, the NBA and NHL have had a grand total of zero positive tests in the bubbles. None.

The quality of play has been as strong as ever, and, ignoring some cabin fever, the players have been satisfied with their bubble’s living conditions.

You could even argue that the quality of play has improved since adopting the bubble format.

In an interview with The Varsity, William Lou, a reporter for Yahoo Sports, said that putting a halt on travelling has allowed players to be more focused. “If you remember in last year’s finals, Toronto was taking fivehour flights twice a week to go play Golden State. Now, we’re getting our guys at their best.”

But now comes an even trickier question.

What do we do about next season?

Basketball and hockey were relatively fortunate in that they had nearly completed their seasons. This allows them to pick up where they left off and complete their playoffs in a short-term bubble. However, when it comes to a full regular season, you can’t expect players to want to live away from their families for six to eight months.

We’ve already seen with Major League Baseball how returning to a regular season complete with travel and outside exposure can bring down entire teams from within.

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The NFL, too, plans to resume normal play despite having many of its teams in the most infected parts of the US. So what do we do? Well, first we wait.

Basketball and hockey both plan to postpone the 2020–2021 season at least until late December. This is partially to give their players some semblance of an off-season and partially to act in accordance with the everevolving pandemic guidelines. Hopefully, we’ll have made strides toward a COVID19-free world during those months.

At U of T, we have a similar dilemma when it comes to the return of our beloved Blues.

This past June, the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) cancelled all of its 2020 fall sports championships.

It’s a bummer, but it’s the right call.

When sports inevitably resume, it may

be worth following in the footsteps of the pros. The CCAA has recommended ‘training nodes’ when teams return. A training node is a bit like a dulled-down version of the bubble: players and coaches try to avoid socializing with others outside their node but don’t live together.

We’re all longing for the world to return to normal, but the trick is not to overstep and end up moving in the wrong direction. If, for the near future, these bubbles are the key to safe sports, then they’re not just the right decision, they’re the only decision.

Here’s to hoping things outside the bubble become safe enough for the Blues to come back, but for now, we’ll have to sit tight and watch those old heads in the NBA and NHL go at it.

Stay strong U of T.

The real beginner’s guide to yoga — and Yoga An honest introduction to its culture — and a pose to get you started

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Anna Aksenovich Varsity Contributor

Millions of people all over the world practice yoga, from professional Olympic athletes, to NBA players, to university students, to spiritual gurus. Even some corporate employees practice yoga right in their companies’ boardrooms.

Scientific research backs the immense popularity of yoga as physical exercise, emphasizing its ability to improve the overall quality of life. Studies that compare yoga with other physical exercises, such as running, walking,

dancing, and stretching, show its superiority in reducing stress, improving blood glucose levels, decreasing physical exertion, and relieving symptoms associated with depression and anxiety.

What escapes from the mind of many, however, is that yoga is not only a physical exercise. In its original conception — and as it continues to be for many Hindus — Yoga is a philosophy and a way of life.

A brief history Yoga, in translation from Sanskrit, means “the union of mind and body.” This is a state of being to embody not just on the mat, but also

in every aspect of our lives. With millennials’ screen time as high as 11 hours per day, we are facing a stark separation between the body and the mind, which leads not only to physical and mental health problems but also to the duality of our perception, Maya.

Maya is a crucial concept in Yogic philosophy for Hindus and Buddhists that literally translates to “illusion” — a misperception of the world from what it really is. In modern conception, Maya can lead to discrimination.

Because racism and other social inequalities can stem from living in this illusionary perception of our separateness from others and the universe as a whole, I believe Yoga can also be a tool for battling our own unconscious biases.

Each posture, known as an asana, is designed to direct breath flow through Ida and Pingala nadis. These are the left and right energy channels, respectively.

Indeed, before you get down on your mat, it is important to mention that yoga is primarily a breathing practice. The very first postures of yoga were the seated meditation poses. Only thousands of years later, in the fifteenth century, Nath Yogi Swatmarama compiled the Hatha Yoga Pradipika — the most influential text for the development of modern Hatha Yoga — outlining 15 postures. Despite the gained importance of the physical aspect and the emergence of purely fitness-orientated variations such as Power Yoga, yoga remains a

breathing practice.

A foolproof pose to get you started A great pose to start with is the tree pose. It helps you gain strength, balance, and flexibility while also providing an excellent opportunity to bring stillness and focus into the mind through a physical embodiment of those qualities.

To come into the tree pose, stand at the top of your mat. With feet slightly apart, spread your toes. Pushing the weight into the right leg, bend the left knee. Coming to the tippy toes of the left foot, turn the knee to point sideward. Bring your hands together at the heart centre, and find one non-moving point of focus in front of you. Bring your foot to the inner side of your calf.

Once you find a sense of balance and stability, you can practice bringing your foot into the inner thigh. Avoid the knee area, and remember to keep your core engaged. Stay in the pose for five long, deep breaths. Then, come back to the original position with your feet slightly apart. Move onto your left leg, and repeat the same sequence on the other side.

No matter your reason for practicing yoga, it is important to remain respectful of its roots and remember its continuing spiritual significance in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

One great way to begin is to honour Yoga’s ancient heritage by staying true to its original focus on breath as a source of life.

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