October 29, 2018

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

October 29, 2018

Vol. CXXXIX, No. 8

Provincial government to repeal Bill 148, targeting minimum wage, workplace legislation

U of T under fire for membership in anti-Bill 148 lobby group Ann Marie Elpa Associate News Editor

Labour group protests repeal of workplace legislation at Queen’s Park.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

Architecture graduate students report subpar working conditions in One Spadina Students cite lack of privacy, noise concerns, limited workspaces

Indigenous Education Week

Premier Doug Ford’s government introduced legislation on October 23 to repeal parts of Bill 148 — the law that raised Ontario’s minimum wage from $11.25 to $14 an hour and strengthened workplace laws related to paid sick leave, equal pay for equal work, and other workers’ rights.

The University of Toronto has come under fire from local labour unions for its membership in the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC), an independent, non-partisan business lobby group that has been a vocal supporter of repealing the bill. As a corporate member, U of T does not have voting rights but it can still influence

5

Comment 8

Food options, Highland Hall café, food quality issues at UTSC

Editorial

9

Jayra Almanzor UTSC Bureau Chief

Business

Adam A. Lam Varsity Staff

Architecture critic Alex Bozikovic of The Globe and Mail once called One Spadina, the central hub for the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, “one of the best Canadian buildings of the past decade.” But since the faculty celebrated its formal opening in November 2017, graduate students have been voicing complaints about the building’s design. Specifically, the graduate studio space in One Spadina has come under fire for its limited desk space and bad acoustics.

“A library is for writing essays, and papers, and researching — it’s not really meant for building models”

Nasir al-Hattam, UTSC’s hotdog hero

6

Arts & Culture More than just “Monster Mash”: a supremely spooky Halloween playlist

Architecture, page 4

14

Science Confronting arachnophobia at the ROM’s Fear & Fascination exhibit

15

Sports Spending the season with the men’s lacrosse team There is limited desk space and privacy in the studio.

ADAM A. LAM/THE VARSITY

Bill 148, page 3

“I really wish there were healthier options”: a look at UTSC’s food scene

News

The future of truth and reconciliation on campus

the policy agenda.

Bill 148, titled the “Fairer Workplaces, Better Jobs Act 2017,” was introduced by the previous Liberal government in November 2017. The bill was set to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour in January 2019, but Ford’s government has capped minimum wage at the current $14 an hour.

The OCC has taken a strong stance against the bill. The group cites claims of unintended price inflation on goods and services, as well as cutbacks on staffing and benefits by small businesses, among its grievances.

“In the months following its introduction, the Fair Jobs, Better Workplaces Act has had

18

Daria Khalimdarova, a second-year international student from Russia, heats up her food in one of the microwaves at UTSC. This time, it was chicken and rice.

“I am an international student who lives alone in Canada,” said Khalimdarova. “I spend a lot of time at school… so it was challenging for me to start cooking.” However, she said that limited food options, low food quality, and the food vendors’ early closing hours drove her to cancel her meal plan at UTSC and begin cooking for herself.

Most food vendors at Market Place close at 7:00 pm from Monday to Thursday. On Fridays, most close at 4:00 pm. All food vendors at the Market Place are closed on weekends.

According to Food Partnerships’ Assistant Director Frank Peruzzi, they are in the process of developing a new five-year plan to improve the food at UTSC. “A bubble tea concept is now open at Rex’s Den and a new café called ‘Gathering Grounds’ will soon open in Highland Hall,” Peruzzi told The Varsity. “When the new residence opens in the future, it will include a new dining hall with several new concepts and extended

hours throughout the week and weekend.”

He said that when choosing new restaurant concepts, his management team discusses ideas and solicits students’ feedback via student surveys. The surveys are held every two years.

“There are a lot of international students coming from different backgrounds including myself who are struggling to adapt to local food,” said Khalimdarova.

“I would love to see some changes towards making different meal options available across the UTSC campus.”

Luke Zhang, a secondyear Computer Science student, also complained about the food quality at UTSC. “The healthy options are overpriced in my opinion,” said Zhang.

He cited fruit at Market Place as an example. “I really wish there were healthier options, but there aren’t so I usually settle for a burrito bowl at the local kitchen or a pizza at Pizza Pizza.”

There have also been numerous food quality incidents at UTSC. One of them took place in March, when a student found a winged insect in her food from Asian Gourmet, a restaurant in UTSC’s Student Centre.

Then in August, a “caterpillar-like bug” was found in a first year’s food during the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union’s (SCSU)

MICHELLE KIM /THE VARSITY

frosh week.

The most recent bug incident took place on October 15, when another insect was found in Asian Gourmet food.

All restaurants in the Student Centre are separately leased with the SCSU as the landlord.

After the August incident, the SCSU said executives “would be attending Food Handling courses” in preparation for future events.

The SCSU also told The Varsity that it was “disappointed in the recent incident at Asian Gourmet and is currently investigating the matter.”

Zhang thinks that the food quality of the food chain vendors at the Student Centre are poor “compared to the same chain restaurants in other places.”

“Toronto Health Department [assesses] the food safety risk of each vendor and schedule[s] inspections accordingly,” said Peruzzi. “A fresh fruit vendor will likely be inspected fewer times than a burger shop.”

Peruzzi said that each food vendor separately selects its own supplier. He said that he is unaware about whether SCSU executives are trained in restaurant management.

The SCSU has not responded to The Varsity's requests for comment.

2 | THE VARSITY

OCTOBER 29, 2018

UTSU AGM Bingo

THE VARSITY Vol. CXXXIX, No. 8 21 Sussex Avenue, Suite 306 Toronto, ON M5S 1J6 (416) 946-7600 thevarsity.ca

the.varsity

thevarsitynewspaper

the.varsity

@TheVarsity

The Varsity

MASTHEAD Jack O. Lantern Editor-in-Chief

editor@thevarsity.ca

Potion Cao Creative Director

creative@thevarsity.ca

Reut Coffin Managing Editor

managing@thevarsity.ca

Kaitlyn Spookson Managing Online Editor

online@thevarsity.ca

Kevin Lupine Senior Copy Editor

copy@thevarsity.ca

Josie Kackle News Editor

news@thevarsity.ca

Ibnul Cobweb Comment Editor Kate Reaper Features Editor

Srivindhya Skulluru Science Editor

science@thevarsity.ca

Ghoulyana Purbodiningrat Design Editor

gheyana@thevarsity.ca

Shanna Haunter Photo Editor

photos@thevarsity.ca

Treat Lawrence Illustration Editor

illustrations@thevarsity.ca

nikhi@thevarsity.ca

Spectre Zhang Back End Web Developer

stephanie@thevarsity.ca

Julie Shroom Deputy Senior Copy Editor

deputysce@thevarsity.ca

Ilya BOOñares Deputy News Editor

deputynews@thevarsity.ca

Spookzea Rehman UTM Bureau Chief

utm@thevarsity.ca

JayRAWR Almanzor UTSC Bureau Chief

utsc@thevarsity.ca

Joseph Gnome Blog Editor

blog@thevarsity.ca

Blythe the Hunter Podcast Editor

podcast@thevarsity.ca

Mandy Fangs Chinese Translations Editor

chinese@thevarsity.ca publiceditor@thevarsity.ca

Vacant Associate Senior Copy Editor

Vacant Associate Sports Editor

Ann Marie Elpa, Silas Le Blanc, Andy Takagi Associate News Editors

Matias Gutierrez Associate Business Editor

Vacant Associate Features Editor Vacant Associate A&C Editor Spencer Y. Ki Associate Science Editor

Quorum not reached until an hour later (if we’re lucky)

Student Commons delay mentioned (again)

Dramatic accusation

Snarky comment made toward the chair

“Call the question!”

Meeting ends without some motions being discussed

Lady Godiva marching bnad

Anti-Doug Ford protests

The execs whisper to each other

FREE SPACE Run out of samosas

Someone walks in with Starbucks in hand

Procedural confusion

Board member talks for five minutes

The CFS is mentioned

Anne Boucher wears a sweater

Technical difficulties

video@thevarsity.ca

Trickhi Bhambra Front End Web Developer

Angela Feng, Zach Rosen Associate Comment Editors

Tyler Biswurm uses an analogy

biz@thevarsity.ca angelafu@thevarsity.ca

Morag McGreevey Public Editor

Someone gets lost finding the room

sports@thevarsity.ca

ANGELa Fu Design Editor

Jess STEWart-Lee Video Editor

The Medium walks in late

A student paper spells someone’s name wrong in live tweets

features@thevarsity.ca arts@thevarsity.ca

Mike Wazowski Business Editor

Someone brings up the True Blue bracket

“Folks”

Board members are late (probably finding the room)

comment@thevarsity.ca

Kashi SyAHHHHL Arts & Culture Editor

Daniel Samuel Hocus Pocus Sports Editor

Someone speaks on the wrong agenda item

Keith Cheng Associate Design Editor Vacant Associate Photo Editor Vacant Associate Illustration Editor Vacant Associate Video Editor

Lead Copy Editors Isabel Armiento, Marisa Balleani, Jovana Pajovic, Sabrina Wu Copy Editors John Bao, Megan Brearley, Oana Calin, Jacob Harron, Emily Hurmizi, Adam A. Lam, Matthew Lee, Jadine Ngan, Daniel Ninkovic, Shayelle Smith, Teresa Wang, Emily Yu Designers Hazel Antiporta, Sarah Garland, Michelle Kim, Christie Lee, Yolanda Zhang

BUSINESS OFFICE Emma Findlay-White Business Manager business@thevarsity.ca

Al Janusis Advertising Executive al@thevarsity.ca

Daniel Dong Advertising Executive danield@thevarsity.ca

Petros Kwan Advertising Executive petros@thevarsity.ca

The Varsity is the University of Toronto’s largest student newspaper, publishing since 1880. It is printed by Master Web Inc. on recycled newsprint stock. Content © 2018 by The Varsity. All rights reserved.

Any editorial inquiries and/or letters should be directed to the sections associated with them; emails listed above. The Varsity reserves the right to edit all submissions. Inquiries regarding ad sales can be made to ads@thevarsity.ca. ISSN: 0042-2789

Snarky comment about the UTMSU

Student reaction to The Great UC-Innis Meme War of 2018 Issue 7 Crossword Solutions:

news@thevarsity.ca | 3

THE VARSITY | NEWS

The Breakdown: 2018 UTSU Annual General Meeting

Bill 148, from cover

UTSU/UTMSU Membership Agreement, Doug Ford, election reform on agenda Andy Takagi Associate News Editor

The University of Toronto Students’ Union’s (UTSU) Annual General Meeting (AGM) — the union’s largest gathering of the year — will be held on October 30 in Walter Hall.

The meeting is open to all UTSU members and is a chance for members to direct their questions or concerns to their union representatives.

In advance of the AGM, The Varsity looks into how the meeting will be structured and how students can participate.

The UTSU’s membership includes full-time undergraduate students at the St. George and Mississauga campuses, and students in professional faculties, the Toronto School of Theology, the Transitional Year Program, and those on a Professional Experience Year Co-op.

The meeting is conducted accord-

The UTSU is holding its AGM at the Faculty of Music’s Walter Hall this year.

NATHAN CHAN/THE VARSITY

ing to Robert’s Rules of Order, a manual of parliamentary procedure, and will begin with a presidential address from UTSU President Anne Boucher, followed by an executive question period.

In order for the meeting to begin, a quorum has to be met with 75 members. Out of this, 50 members must be physically present while the remainder may be through proxies.

A proxy vote is when a member appoints another member to act as their representative through a proxy form.

The deadline for proxying a vote was October 21.

The standout item on the agenda is the endorsement of the separation of the UTSU and University of To-

ronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU).

The UTSU and UTMSU began renegotiations on their Associate Membership Agreement (AMA) in January. Talks broke down, and in September the UTSU’s Ad Hoc Negotiations Committee formally recommended terminating the AMA. Ratification of the separation can occur in one of two ways. The first is a three-quarters majority vote at a joint meeting of the UTSU and UTMSU Board of Directors and a three-quarters majority vote at the AGM between the UTSU and UTMSU board members and executives.

The second is a two-thirds majority vote at a joint meeting, and a simple

majority referendum across both campuses.

Also on the agenda are resolutions submitted by members, which will be introduced by Vice-President Operations Tyler Biswurm. Of note is a resolution for the UTSU to “go on record as opposing the Ontario government’s anti-democratic ‘free speech on campus’ mandate, and refuse to participate in its implementation.”

Premier Doug Ford’s campus free speech mandate requires student groups to comply with their university’s free speech policy. According to a press release on the Ontario government’s website, “institutions consider official student groups’ compliance with the policy as condition for ongoing financial support or recognition.”

If the resolution passes, the UTSU will refuse to abide by Ford’s policy after the January 1 deadline, and the Ontario government will have to determine whether U of T is violating the mandate and if provincial funding should be pulled.

Provincial funding made up 29 per cent of U of T’s operating funds last year.

Another motion proposed by a member is a discussion on amending the Elections Procedure Code of the UTSU. The amendment, which is pending approval at the general meeting, would prohibit cross-campaigning, or the ability of candidates to campaign for one another. This would eliminate slates from UTSU elections and each candidate would not be allowed to campaign for other candidates.

The AGM agenda and other information can be found on the UTSU’s website.

Four new branded vending machines added at UTM since summer

Best Buy vending machine latest addition

A UTM spokesperson said the new vending machines have built-in anti-theft features.

ZEAHAA REHMAN/THE VARSITY

Zeahaa Rehman UTM Bureau Chief

In the latest in a series of vending machines that have sprung up across UTM, a new Best Buy Express vending machine has made its home in UTM’s Communication, Culture, and Technology Building (CCT).

Since the summer, UTM has added four branded vending machines.

The UTM Recreation, Athletics and Wellness Centre (RAWC) acquired a My Lil’Healthmart vending machine earlier this summer, while a Reis & Irvy’s frozen yogurt vend-

ing machine — which is reportedly not working very well — was put in CCT sometime in September. An automated THEOS Coffee Espresso Bar machine replaced the Second Cup in the Instructional Centre (IB).

“We have found that our students are spending more time and longer hours on campus [including] evenings and weekends,” explained Suresh Krishnan, Manager of Retail Services at UTM’s Hospitality & Retail Services Department. “We work diligently to accommodate their needs when other food services are not available.”

Most food services on campus close by 7:00 pm. Only the Pizza Pizza in the William G. Davis Building and the Subway and Quesada in IB remain open until 9:00 pm, while the Tim Hortons in the Davis building, the Starbucks in the Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Center (HMALC), and the Chatime connected to the Student Centre remain open until 10:00 pm, from Monday to Thursday. The Tea Bar in Oscar Peterson Hall (OPH) is open until 9:00 pm every day, and the Colman Commons Dining Hall in OPH is open until midnight from Sunday to Friday and until 9:00 pm on Saturday.

“We have recently expanded our vending program to include a second tier of products,” said Krishnan, “including ice cream and specialty coffees as well as non-food items such as those offered through the My Lil’Health Mart and Best Buy machines.”

When asked about why Best Buy was chosen over other vendors like Staples or The Source, Krishnan explained that a variety of factors influenced the decision.

“Brand recognition and customer service records are critically impor-

tant considerations,” he expressed.

The Best Buy vending machine sells a variety of technological devices ranging from Bluetooth headphones, Fitbits, external hard drives, and phone chargers to instant cameras and even an electric razor. Customers can purchase these items with a credit card, and exchange or return these items at any Best Buy store.

The vending machine also guarantees customers the lowest prices, promising to match prices from Best Buy Stores and BestBuy.ca.

Krishnan added that the machines have built-in anti-theft features.

“In general, UTM is a very safe environment,” he elaborated. “Our campus police are dedicated to creating and maintaining a safe and secure environment, and officers are on duty 24 hours a day, 365 [days] a year.”

Krishnan did not explicitly say whether UTM planned to add more vending machines around campus in the upcoming months, citing feedback and demand as deciding factors.

“If there is a demand for additional vending machines,” Krishnan added, “we welcome hearing from students, staff and faculty.”

a visible impact on the Consumer Price Index, resulting in price increases for everyday consumer goods and services for every family in Ontario,” read an OCC press release from October 23.

Rocco Rossi, President and CEO of the OCC, said in a statement that “as Ontario’s business advocate, our position has always been clear: Bill 148 was too much, too fast. The compounding labour reforms and unintended consequences came at too high a cost to Ontario’s economy.”

Labour unions respond The Ford government’s plans to repeal parts of Bill 148 have been met with strong pushback. On October 23, Ontario Labour Minister Laurie Scott’s office was broken into and vandalized, and the words “Attack Workers We Fight Back $15” were spraypainted on the walls outside her office.

Labour unions have been especially vocal in their opposition to the seemingly imminent repeal of Bill 148. Emergency rallies were held across Ontario over the past week in response to Ford’s plans.

One rally was held in downtown Toronto on October 24 in front of the offices of the Ministry of Labour. Local labour groups, including the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) and UFCW Local 175 and 633 were out in force. Groups held signs with messages of “$15 and fairness,” and cheers included “Hey Ford — Stop your hypocrisy! Fairness means democracy!”

The Varsity spoke to two U of T labour unions, CUPE 3261 and CUPE 3902, regarding the university’s position on the repeal of Bill 148. CUPE 3261 represents service workers, and CUPE 3902 represents sessional lecturers and teaching assistants.

“We are so very glad we were able to negotiate $15 an hour rate effective October 1, 2017 with the University of Toronto,” wrote Allan James, President of CUPE 3261, in an email. “We need a living wage, but $15 was a start. We don’t understand how anyone can afford to work in Toronto at this rate of pay.”

“It looks like [Ford] is listening to the Chamber of Commerce instead of trying to protect working people in Ontario," James continued. "University of Toronto is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and should be advocating for equal pay for equal work.”

Members of CUPE 3902 also criticized the university’s membership in the OCC. “As a [member] of the Chamber of Commerce, The University of Toronto is partially responsible for the lobbying of Big Business which led to this repeal,” read an email statement from Jess Taylor, Chair of CUPE 3902.

“As a leader in research, The University of Toronto should know gains for workers improve the economy, the city, and its culture. As an employer, The University of Toronto should protect its workers and should treat the people who are educating students with respect and dignity.”

“This is a grave disappointment,” Taylor said.

The university’s next steps U of T increased its minimum wage to $15 in January to coincide with the anticipated raise mandated by Bill 148.

“Earlier this year, the University took a leadership role on this issue and increased the minimum rate of pay for most nonunion casual employees to $15 an hour,” said Elizabeth Church, a U of T spokesperson. “The $15-an-hour wage is consistent with the rates of our unionized casual staff.”

The university has no plans to cap its minimum rate of pay.

4 | THE VARSITY | NEWS

news@thevarsity.ca

“Global City for Who?” event addresses inclusivity in world’s top cities Hashi Mohamed, Kofi Hope discuss classism, segregation in Toronto, abroad

Toronto Star reporter Sara Mojtehedzadeh moderated a discussion on inequality.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

Architecture, from cover The New York Times once praised the studio as a “110-footwide column-free room,” but the lack of columns and walls, paired with its high ceiling, have created an environment where hushed conversations and even clicks of keyboard typing echo across the room.

In addition to the high noise levels, there is also limited desk space and privacy in the studio, due to desks lacking dividers and the absence of walls.

“You don’t have a ton of room for your own stuff,” said Louisa Kennett, a first-year Master of Architecture student. “I think having a low wall might be alright, but I don’t think having cubicles would necessarily be a positive change, because it would inhibit discussion amongst classmates.”

In response to the lack of privacy, many students have resorted to constructing their own dividers as a solution.

However, there are no tools available for graduate students to construct these dividers, said Nassim Abdollahi Sani, a second-year Master of Architecture student. Furthermore, the time for construction is too costly, especially for students inexperienced with woodwork.

“I feel like for someone who is here maybe two, three days a week, four days a week for a short time, it doesn’t make sense,” said Sani.

Speaking on the problem with acoustics, Shawn Johnston, a second-year Master of Architecture student, said that, “When there’s a bunch of people in here, no matter what, it just feels noisy.

And when people are stressed, you can hear it — if there’s one or two people in here, you can hear the conversation across the room.”

The noise levels are a partial result of having no dividers on the open desks. The undivided desk surfaces have also resulted in no privacy and unclear boundaries of space, explained Sani.

“Each person doesn’t even have enough room to do anything in. So even if I wanted to do something, it would take some space away from the next person.”

The motivation behind the open spaces Daniels Dean Richard Sommer explained that in the old building for the graduate studio spaces, students were assigned cubicles with tall walls for privacy. But in the new studio space, according to Sommer, they have “arranged the studios to facilitate more collaboration, and distribute some of the space that was previously dedicated to individual desks to more collective work.”

“I’m not sure the real evidence exists to say that they’re working here less than they were before,” Sommer said.

“There was no poll to know how many students were working in our old building. According to our Faculty, just as many students are working in the studio now.”

He also noted that studio spaces in the current building have more floor space than in the previous building but acknowledged that the “change is one that not all the students welcome.”

Suggesting solutions to the problems of acoustics and pri-

Jackson Whitehead Varsity Contributor

As cities become increasingly global, a major question for researchers is how to help cities remain inclusive for all as they expand. This topic was the focus of a panel discussion held on October 24 by the Geography and Planning department. Panelists for the “Global City for Who?: Inequality and Social Exclusion in Toronto and London” talk discussed what makes a city global and how to keep cities accessible.

The event featured Hashi Mohamed, a barrister and BBC broadcaster based out of London, England, and Kofi Hope, a current Bousfield Distinguished Visitor in Planning at U of T’s School of Urban Planning. Hope is also serving as a Strategic Consultant for U of T’s VicePresident Human Resources & Equity.

The event was mediated by Sara Mojtehedzadeh, an awardwinning labour journalist for the Toronto Star who previously worked for the BBC World Service.

The panel started off with land acknowledgments and introductions, before diving right into the topic at hand.

Both Mohamed and Hope ad-

vacy, Sommer recommended students go to the libraries, fabrication labs, and the main hall.

The feasibility of these suggested solutions In response to Sommer’s suggestion for graduate students seeking silence to work in nonstudio spaces, Johnston agreed that it made sense for nonmodeling work. “The library is definitely more private, and it’s totally an option for the students to go. I think that’s good.”

But for the construction of models, Johnston noted that “if you want to build a model in a quiet place, you can’t really go to the library to do that. I mean, it’s

dressed how global cities around the world have become exclusive, allowing only those who can afford to live in such places.

The Institute for Urban Strategies at Japan’s Mori Memorial Foundation grades cities on their ability to draw in “creative people and business” from around the world, as well as their ability to mobilize assets and stimulate environmental, economic, and social growth.

According to this index, the top 44 global cities are measured and analyzed by their effectiveness and deficiencies, which are determined by the following criteria: economy, research and development, livability, accessibility, cultural interaction and environment.

In the 2018 report, only two Canadian cities made the top 44 — Toronto at 14 and Vancouver at 21. At the top of the list were London, New York, Tokyo, Paris, and Singapore.

Mohamed based his talk on his experience as a Somali-Kenyan-born refugee in the United Kingdom, saying that the notion of “just work hard” is not as simple as it seems.

“What does success actually look like [in] the eyes of a society that has finite resources and finite amount of jobs?” he asked.

kind of weird, right?”

“All of our materials are here, we can’t store anything in the library,” added Sani. “We can’t go back and forth. Everything gets messy. So you want your desk to be where you want to build your models and store everything.”

As an alternative, Sani said an expansion of workshop space would be useful. “I think a workshop would be a much better space for modelling than a library,” she said. “A library is for writing essays, and papers, and researching – it’s not really meant for building models.”

While all three graduate students interviewed in the open

“Everybody seems to think they can make it, only if they work hard and do the right thing, when actually it’s far more complicated.”

He added that education and environments foster development of talent in youth and that removing classism from employment considerations is the answer to what it would take to be a more inclusive global city.

Hope shared many of the same sentiments as Mohamed, and spoke directly about what a global city is supposed to be.

“Who are we building these global cities for? Do we build cities for people or for profit?”

Addressing the struggle that most people have in global cities, Hope spoke on how certain people are pushed into the margins and ignored.

Toronto specifically, Hope said, is becoming a city of two cities — one of ethnic segregation and low income, and the other of white economic privilege and exclusivity.

When asked about how to make positive change, Hope summarized the event in his answer, saying that “intercultural lives” and “equity and inclusion” for everyone would make the biggest differences in society.

studio spaces preferred the collaborative environment more than the previous individual environment, they still believe that the space could be improved.

“Working in the studio space means you get a lot of feedback from other students and things like that,” said Johnston. “The great thing about it being as open as it is, I think what they’re trying to do is encourage collaboration.”

“The problem with that was how it was a smaller room, with a lower ceiling. It just felt like an office,” Sani added.

“The good thing is that it’s open, you get to interact a lot with people, you get to see what

other students are doing — I love that about this space, but at the same time, there’s no privacy," Sani said. “So I think it has to be something in between.”

Sommer added that it is an “incredible privilege” for Daniels graduate students to have their own space, but acknowledged that the changes in the new building are ones that “not all students welcome.”

When asked whether the form of the building achieves the function of encouraging collaboration, Sommer said that “for the most part, yes. We could get it better. But for the most part, it was conceived for this.”

Architecture students are complaining about a lack of space and privacy at One Spadina.

ADAM LAM/THE VARSITY

OCTOBER 29, 2018 | 5

var.st/news

UTM professor advocates transferring ownership rights of Indigenous song recordings back to Indigenous peoples Inaccuracies in Ts’msyen song descriptions resulted from lack of Indigenous consultation, says Dr. Robin Gray at Indigenous Education Week event Adam A. Lam Varsity Staff

Dr. Robin Gray, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UTM, argued at an Indigenous Education Week event that the full rights to ownership of song recordings of the Ts’msyen Indigenous people — many of which are legally owned by Columbia University as part of its Laura Boulton Collection of Traditional and Liturgical Music — should be transferred to the Ts’msyen Indigenous people.

The talk was titled “Access &

Control of Indigenous Cultural Heritage: When the ‘Object’ of Repatriation is Song,” held in the First Nations House (FNH) on October 23. The event was part of Indigenous Education Week, an endeavour by FNH to celebrate Indigenous contributions and Indigenous presence on campus.

During her talk, Gray explained how ethnomusicologist Laura Boulton recorded songs of the Ts’msyen people — an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest — in 1942, and then sold the recordings to Columbia

University in 1962.

At the time she sold them, Boulton created metadata for each recording — descriptive information about each recording. But, as Gray found in 2012, Boulton’s metadata was inaccurate.

“Columbia University provided me with the metadata for the collection,” said Gray, “which created an expectation that the recordings would be in order and that the Ts’msyen collection would be complete. But after researching and listening to every file — about a thousand of them

A UTM professor spoke about Indigenous language and song at an Indigenous Education week event.

SAMANTHA YAO/THE VARSITY

in the Laura Boulton Collection — I discovered that Columbia only had an audio file for half of the Ts’msyen content.”

Columbia University not only underestimated the number of Ts’msyen songs in existence, but was also unaware of mistakes in Boulton’s written descriptions of the individual Ts’msyen recordings, according to Gray.

Nine of the Ts’msyen songs were attributed by Boulton to a Ts’msyen man named William Pierce. According to Gray, Boulton described Pierce as, “Eagle by birth, but Blackfish by adoption,” and claimed he “sang clan songs for her.”

But Gray said that Boulton’s lack of precision about Pierce’s heritage made it impossible for Boulton to verify whether his songs were Eagle or Blackfish, or if they were even “clan songs” at all.

Gray also criticized the titles of Boulton’s recordings as being “overly simplistic,” providing examples of Boulton categorizing songs as “Indian Songs” and “Folk Songs.”

Speculating on the reasons for the imprecision, Gray said that Boulton may have forgotten details as she “created the metadata for the recordings 20 years after the time of capture,” and that Boulton’s results were “typical of overly simplistic labels for classification given by someone who did not really understand the content, or the significance of it.”

Gray said that the inaccuracies resulted from a lack of consultation with the Ts’msyen people.

“As is typical in the early years of capturing, preserving, and representing Indigenous cultural heritage, Ts’msyen were not informed or consulted in any of these transfers and transactions.

In all instances, Ts’msyen and oral histories were given new meanings and values ex situ —

divorced from the appropriate sociocultural contexts, without consultation from the community.”

“In the Ts’msyen worldview,” wrote Gray in a 2018 peer-reviewed publication, “ownership is more synonymous with responsibility than it is with possession.”

But in the “Western property view,” wrote Gray, “Ts’msyen never owned the copyright to the knowledge product, the tangible recording. Laura Boulton, the researcher, claimed ownership of it, then sold it and bequeathed it, and now multiple institutions control the means of access to our songs.”

Such access to Ts’msyen songs without proper context can encourage erroneous beliefs about Ts’msyen culture.

To provide proper context for Ts’msyen songs, they “must be put into the appropriate cultural context,” said Gray. Such a context would accurately answer questions such as, “Who composed the song? What’s the composer’s lineage? Why did they compose the song? Where does the song belong? Who has the rights to sing the song, and in what context?”

Gray concluded her talk by outlining her position on who should retain ownership of Ts’msyen song recordings, saying that institutions with ownership of “Indigenous cultural material” must “be prepared to give up control of Indigenous cultural heritage if that is what the source community wishes.”

This ownership would allow the Ts’msyen people to ensure that any listeners of the songs would experience them in their proper cultural context.

The Varsity has reached out to Columbia University for comment.

UTSU board strikes committee to replace resigned directors Open positions at UC, Transitional Year Programme, Engineering

Adam A. Lam Varsity Staff

The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) Board of Directors held an emergency online meeting on October 22 to ratify the results of an election for a New College Director, as well as to strike a committee to replace three directors who resigned in October.

Elected New College Director Arjun Singh won an internal election for New College students held from September 29 to October 4.

The board called for the election following the resignation of a former New College Director, which it accepted on September 15.

Singh, uncontested, won 141 votes, or 73.8 per cent of the vote, against 50 spoiled ballots, or 26.2 per cent of the vote. The result of Singh’s election was ratified by the board during the online meeting.

The UTSU board also accepted the resignations of Kirsten Stevens, Justine Huyer, Joanna Zhou, and Sabrina Brathwaite, for the respective positions of University College Director, Transitional Year Programme Director, Engineering & Applied Science Director, and University College Director.

To “pursue the occupation” of the vacant offices, the board struck an Ad Hoc Director Shortlisting Committee during the online meeting, which will operate until November 30. The four directors on the committee are Lucas Granger, Lisa Zaher, Marawan Sadek, and Chris Dryden. The three executives on the committee are Josh Grondin, Yasmine El Sanyoura, and Yolanda Alfaro.

As per the agenda, Bylaw X.5.b requires that these vacancies be filled by the board appointing “a replacement after soliciting applications from the membership for no less than fourteen (14) days.”

The alternative is for the board to pass a two-thirds supermajority vote to “leave the position vacant for the remainder of the year.”

Governing Council addresses allegations of bullying, harassment in one academic unit October meeting included report from President Gertler on municipal elections, free speech, smoking policy Ilya Bañares Deputy News Editor

U of T administration has opened an investigation into several allegations of bullying, harassment, and academic and professional misconduct at the university, which were brought to the attention of the Office of the Ombudsperson by current and former students.

At the Governing Council meeting on October 25, which was the first full meeting this year after the September date was interrupted by a protester, Ombudsperson Ellen Hodnett said that multiple people had contacted her over the previous year about “very serious systemic issues” occurring within a single academic unit.

According to her report, several of the allegations also concerned external institutions that partner

with the university.

“After I brought the issues to the attention of senior administration, an internal investigation was launched by the Provost’s office,” Hodnett wrote. “I periodically requested and received progress updates. As of this writing, the issues remain unresolved.”

When reached by The Varsity, U of T declined to provide further details. “We can’t provide details at this time as the matter is under investigation,” a spokesperson said, “We are conducting a thorough investigation and we are waiting for the results of that work.”

An “academic unit” can mean virtually anything at U of T, ranging from the three campuses, to various faculties, departments, or colleges.

The ombudsperson also noted that despite having an established process to deal with com-

plaints about university staff, U of T does not have a process for faculty-student relations, adding that students who make allegations against a specific professor “may be left under the supervision of the professors, while an investigation (which can take many months) is undertaken.”

She also wrote, “I recommend that the University implement measures to protect the students from real or perceived threats while the investigation is underway,” noting that these measures are important given the power imbalance between faculty and students, as well as the negative psychological impact of bullying.

Hodnett also noted that although she understands an investigation — and particularly finding an investigator — can take time, the allegations are serious enough in nature to warrant a

U of T declined to provide further details about the investigation into bullying allegations.

NATHAN CHAN/THE VARSITY

more expedient process.

“I am concerned about the need for complaints of this nature to be responded to in an expeditious fashion, given the impact on all parties, and students in particular,” she said. “There may be ways to make the process more efficient.”

Report from the president U of T President Meric Gertler also presented his report at the meeting, noting the results of the recent municipal elections in which many of the winners are U of T alumni, including

environmental geoscientist Jennifer McKelvie, who defeated incumbent Councillor Neethan Shan in Ward 25 Scarborough—Rouge Park.

He also mentioned that U of T continued to be placed highly on international university rankings.

In addition, Gertler brought up the Ford government’s requirement that every postsecondary institution in Ontario develop a free speech policy.

The president said that the university’s existing policy, effective since 1992, already meets all of the

requirements. He noted, however, that there are new “wrinkles,” including the requirement to report annually on their progress to the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.

The administration also spoke about the new campus smoking policy. Scott Mabury, U of T’s Vice-President University Operations, said that the university is developing a new policy that would make all campuses smoke-free, with a target of January 1 for full implementation.

Business

October 29, 2018 var.st/business biz@thevarsity.ca

Rotman hosts AI industry leaders for machine learning conference

Alibaba president, Sanctuary AI founder among speakers discussing the future, impacts of technology Nikhi Bhambra Front End Web Developer

The Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab hosted 24 of the world’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, business leaders, economists, and thinkers on October 23. The “4th Annual Rotman Conference on: Machine Learning and the Market for Intelligence” featured discussions of AI and the impact it will bring to the future of business, medicine, and numerous other industries.

Ajay Agrawal, the founder of the Creative Destruction Lab, and Shivon Zilis, the project director of Tesla and Neuralink, co-chaired the 11.5-hour event. Among the speakers were Alibaba — the world’s largest online retailer — President Michael Evans, Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney, and U of T Emeritus distinguished professor Geoff Hinton. Despite their unique perspectives, one message was clear: machine intelligence will revolutionize how we think about solving problems.

The event began with talks from leaders in the international business sector on why industries worldwide are rapidly adopting machine intelligence into their business practices. Kevin Sneader, Global

Managing Partner at McKinsey & Company, explained how monumental AI will be toward optimization and efficiency. Sneader said that he expects “mainstream absorption” of AI within the next decade. Evans showcased Alibaba’s automated distribution facilities powered by intelligent roving robots and its multitiered corporate strategy to adopt AI. The speakers made it clear that businesses see the huge potential upsides associated with smart automation, but none discussed the issues that AI adoption may bring to the labour force or customer data responsibility.

Many industry pioneers dream of closing the gap between human and artificial intelligence, and they want you to know that the results don’t have to parallel dystopian sci-fi. Suzanne Gildert, CEO of Sanctuary AI, is building sentient, fully autonomous robots powered by the next generation of AI. The artist-turned-technologist said that designing the first generation of synths with realistic human bodies will allow them to interface with our human world. Debates around the treatment, regulation, and integration of robots into human society are still very unresolved, but Gildert hopes that AI will push humankind to new heights. Citing the

Nasir the hotdog guy finds motivation in UTSC students

Behind the business of the vendor who has served UTSC since 2005 Jayra Almanzor UTSC Bureau Chief

On a cold, quiet Wednesday morning at the Starbucks in Kennedy Commons, Nasir al-Huttam walks in and apologizes for being three minutes late. He tries offering to buy me a muffin to make up for it.

Nasir al-Huttam — who many UTSC students know as ‘the hotdog guy’ — owns Nasir’s Gourmet Hot Dog, a food stand outside of the Student Centre.

Unlike other restaurants at the Student Centre, al-Huttam’s stand is located outdoors; he says that hotdogs are a street food and that they do not taste good indoors.

“So your shop is really well liked among the student body,” I start.

Al-Huttam sets his coffee on the table and pulls down the hood of his black fleece sweater. He humbly expresses his thanks and is quick to praise UTSC students for being polite and loyal customers.

Al-Huttam explains that before opening his hotdog stand at UTSC in 2005, he used to work for someone else at York University. “I fall in love with the students,” he says. “That makes me motivated to open my own [stand].”

When al-Huttam was still thinking about opening his hotdog business, he approached UTSC students and asked them if they liked his concept. According to him, the students’ positive responses to his idea inspired him to start serving at the campus.

“Nothing started easily,” says al-Huttam. “The process… took about six to eight months [for UTSC] to approve it… Working outside with different kind of weather is also hard.”

Al-Huttam adds that, even though his hotdog stand is a small business, “it’s not an easy business.

There’s no easy business. Everything you have to work hard [for].”

“I almost gave up. But thank God I didn’t give up.”

Al-Huttam’s eyes light up as he talks about his customers, whom he credits for motivating him to continue. “Even though [they have] different back-

Sanctuary AI founder Suzanne Gildert's talk was entitled “AIs in Human-Like Bodies: Virtues and Challenges.”

Courtesy of YANA KAZ

possibilities to create hyper-empathetic, creative, and intelligent minds, Gildert emphasized her optimism for the future of AI. She ended her talk with a fascinating, albeit slightly terrifying, demo of a robotic clone of herself, complete with a matching silicon body and voice capabilities.

Perhaps one of the more sobering talks of the day was given by theoretical physicist and former president of the Santa Fe Institute Geoffrey West, who discussed the “socioeconomic entropy” that comes with chasing innovation. Despite the optimism of other speakers and the crowd in light of continued innovation and growth, West cast doubt over hu-

U of T alumni to match all donations to Hong Kong scholarships Billionaire Lawrence Ho, sister Daisy Ho start HK Match initiative Julie Shi Deputy Senior Copy Editor

Al-Huttam sells hotdogs, burgers, and fries.

JAYRA ALMANZOR/THE VARSITY

ground, different religion, they all have this quality of being respectful and being polite. I like that, we have this common thing. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, they will respect you.”

Some students, according to al-Huttam, have approached him to work with him. He says that students — who have already graduated and opened their own businesses — created the menu signs that are still up on the hot dog stand to this day. Other students have also approached him about an app that they are developing.

“As a business owner, I like students who try to open their own business, who try to be their own boss,” he says. “I always encourage [students] to be their own boss. I always motivate them.”

“The trick about being your own boss is if you fail one time, it doesn’t mean that you’re gonna fail all the time.”

Al-Huttam says that asking others for help is never a wrong thing to do, and that it will all pay off in the end. “Maybe in the future when you’re established, you’re gonna start helping other people also.”

Read more of this story at var.st/nasir

manity’s ability to support sustained accelerated innovation.

Based on his research into the scale of companies and human networks, he suggested an underlying futility to the aspirations of the field. This alternate perspective brought a human context back to the event; if we don’t understand how we grow, we are doomed to collapse under our own weight.

The lower floors of the event hosted Toronto AI companies, who demonstrated their latest and greatest tech. Dozens of startups and corporations presented their efforts to integrate AI into solutions for specific industry problems, highlighting the extent of AI adoption.

U of T alumni and siblings Daisy Chiu-Fung Ho and Lawrence Ho have pledged to match every donation received by the U of T (Hong Kong) Foundation in a new initiative called HK Match. The foundation, established in 1996, provides financial aid to prospective U of T students from Hong Kong.

According to the university, the U of T (Hong Kong) Foundation has provided scholarships to 80 Hong Kong students who have entered 43 different fields of study, with 59 per cent of them pursuing postgraduate studies.

Doubling the impact of every donation, HK Match will allow “the U of T (Hong Kong) Foundation to expand its existing scholarship program so that it fully covers tuition and living costs,” according to the university.

This academic year, total expenses for international students from Hong Kong at U of T are estimated to be at least $59,000, with an upper limit of roughly $70,000. Foundation scholarships currently range from $13,000–22,000. These scholarships are some of the most substantial and competitive of those available to U of T undergraduates.

Established by dedicated alumni and friends from Hong Kong, the foundation named its first scholar in 1996. It runs three scholarship programs — the University of Toronto (Hong Kong) Foundation Scholarship, the Dr. Cheng Yu-tung Scholarships, and the Fung Yiu King Memorial Scholarship — which are awarded annually to up to four incoming undergraduate students and are renewable for up to four years.

Making the campaign possible Daisy and Lawrence Ho have each donated at least $1 million to U of T’s Boundless campaign, which the U of T (Hong Kong) Foundation is nested under. The Boundless campaign works to realize the university’s three priorities of “excellence and leadership in society,” “innovation and impact,” and a growing “global footprint.”

As a means to nurture this global footprint, the university encourages an international student population, as this introduces “unique perspectives to the classroom, and [helps them] think and engage globally.” As of the 2017–2018 academic year, 19,187 — or 21.3 per cent — of U of T’s enrolment are international students.

Read more of this story at var.st/hkmatch

FIONA TUNG/THE VARSITY

Comment

October 29, 2018 var.st/comment comment@thevarsity.ca

The push for ASL education is a good sign

In order to improve accessibility for Deaf students on campus, the sign language course at UTSC should be generalized to all of U of T Amelia Eaton Student Life Columnist

If you’re looking to take a language course at U of T, you have over 40 options — including Aramaic, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and Ancient Greek. But despite being an institution that promises “boundless” education, U of T does not currently offer an American Sign Language (ASL) course at its St. George and Mississauga campuses — and that needs to change.

Thankfully, there is already a push to introduce ASL courses at UTSG. The Arts and Science Students’ Union (ASSU) has been working on an ASL course proposal since July, based on the recommendation of Michael Junior Samakayi, a Deaf student and founder of the U of T ASL Club. Since then, ASSU has worked with University of Toronto Students’ Union Vice-President University Affairs Josh Grondin, the Society for Linguistics Undergraduate Students, and the Equity Studies Students’ Union to develop the project.

When Samakayi and I first met, I had no knowledge of sign language. After he taught me how to finger spell my name and some basic signs, I was determined to learn more on my own.

Some internet research informed me that ASL is not simply English translated into individual signs, but a complex and vibrant language with its own grammar structure. I knew I needed to take a course to at least properly understand the language, let alone become proficient in it, but there was no course for me to take to do so.

Of course, the importance of an ASL course at U of T is far greater than for satiating my personal interest, but I’m not the only one with this interest.

Samakayi told me via email that he was inspired to push for ASL courses at U of T because most of the people to whom he teaches sign language are eager to learn more, but are not given the opportunity.

U of T students want to learn sign language. This is indicated by the interest in the ASL club founded

by Samakayi, which has over 500 likes on Facebook.

Despite such eagerness, U of T is lagging behind other Canadian universities, including Ryerson University, York University, Carleton University, and the University of British Columbia when it comes to offering ASL courses.

UTSC introduced an ASL course to its linguistics department in 2007, led by Professor Rena Helms-Park. She told me over email that all the positive feedback she has received on the course and the number of students “waiting anxiously” to get in makes her confident that the ASL course offered at UTSC has “incalculable value” to the students.

She expanded on the professional opportunities that the course has offered students, including being “the first step towards getting professional qualifications in audiology or speech pathology,” as well as obtaining volunteer positions in hospitals, clinics, and schools.

“One of our graduates, Ricky Chow, is now at Sunnybrook Hospital conducting research on cochlear implants, especially in connection with hearing Cantonese tones,” said Helms-Park. She added that “in many other situations, the ASL course is one of the repertoire of courses that count as relevant for admission to various programs in the rehabilitative sciences.”

Students from UTSG and UTM are missing out on these opportunities without an ASL course on their calendars. As Samakayi pointed out, any U of T graduate who works with the public would benefit from ASL courses, as they “will eventually encounter a Deaf person who uses ASL.” While universities offer students unique access to languages and cultures that are otherwise marginalized by mainstream society, they also serve as the arbiters of which cultures are considered worthy of study and which are not.

When universities fail to offer sign language classes, they inadvertently contribute to a system that undervalues and ultimately erases Deaf culture. In turn, this perpetuates widespread ignorance that has, for too long, resulted in the mistreatment of Deaf people. The Canadian Association of the Deaf believes that the human rights of Deaf people are violated in Canada because of “systemic discrimination, inap-

The dwelling dilemma

A comfortable UTSC student experience requires better access to decent and affordable housing

Townhouse residences at the Scarborough campus.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

Michael Phoon UTSC Affairs Columnist

Every year, one of the most significant challenges for first-year university students is stepping outside of their comfort zones and living with people they have never met on campus residences. This is especially true for international students, who also have to adjust to a different culture. For students to experience

SADIE TENILE/THE VARSITY

propriate priorities, and simple ignorance.”

Deaf culture encapsulates much more than just ASL, but learning sign language is deemed as a necessary first step toward breaking down the barriers between Deaf and hearing students. According to ASSU executive Joshua Bowman, a recognized ASL course at U of T would allow students to “build bridges where there are currently walls.”

Samakayi agreed, as “sign language helps to bridge the gap between the Deaf community and hearing community.” He added that, as a Deaf student at a hearing university, when other students “know some basic ASL, it makes [him] feel the sense of [belonging] to the University student life.”

Ultimately, introducing a sign language course would put substantive backing behind the university’s promise of accessibility. “It’s not enough to throw the word accessibility onto a button,” said Bowman.

“Our university needs to throw their support behind American Sign Language and accessibility as a whole.”

By giving students at all three campuses an opportunity to learn sign language, U of T can provide students with the tools to create a more accessible campus and world. For example, with the introduction

of ASL to UTSC, a group of graduates created the organization Hear2Speak to improve accessibility in developing countries, as well as in Canada.

The chances of ASL being introduced at UTSG look promising. In the beginning of October, ASSU met with Dean of Arts and Science David Cameron and the Faculty of Arts & Science administration to introduce the course proposal and receive input. According to Bowman, the feedback from the dean was positive and the administration is now assisting in the process of collecting information.

In the meantime, Samakayi suggests liking the U of T ASL Club on Facebook to learn more about sign language, because “it’s important we keep the culture alive until the University recognizes it as a credit.”

The development of an ASL course proposal is progress in itself. Accessibility remains an issue on campus, but students working together to create meaningful solutions is certainly a good sign.

a smooth and comfortable postsecondary education, access to decent housing is crucial.

Indeed, when I started university at UTSC last year as a Malaysian student, I felt uncertain about my ability to adjust to this new lifestyle. However, living at a South Residence townhouse on campus helped me immerse myself into the university and Scarborough’s broader culture. This year, I was fortunate enough to live on residence again. Other students, however, did not share this luxury.

As the number of students attending UTSC and the commensurate demand for housing grows, the issue of insufficient space on residence intensifies.

This forces many undergraduates to endure long commutes to school or to find landlords around campus who are willing to rent rooms to students.

These decisions are also informed by the cost of on-campus residence. At UTSC, there are currently two residence options for students: Joan Foley Hall, which is an apartment-style residence, costing $9,624 per year for a single bedroom; or townhouses, which cost as much as $8,560.

These unaffordable prices, coupled with inadequate housing for the student population, encourage many students to consider inexpensive but illegal rooming houses around Scarborough. In this scenario, a single person’s rent is split with other students who are willing to share the rent to live in the house.

In 2014, The Varsity reported on an incident of an illegal rooming house on Military Trail near UTSC that was shut down by authorities, as “11 students were found living in cramped and unsafe conditions.” Earlier this year, a UTSC student was killed in fire at an illegal rooming house on Haida Court.

This phenomenon raises serious questions about the link between the lack of access to affordable housing and the exploitation of desperate student tenants.

It is therefore crucial that U of T does its part to improve access to housing for students. One hope is a planned residence project at UTSC, which intends to increase the number of beds from 765 to 1,261

by March 2020. The City of Toronto, more broadly, must also invest in affordable and decent off-campus housing. This way, more commuter students can choose to live closer to school and avoid the strain of long-distance travel, and fewer students will find themselves in unsafe housing circumstances.

As an international student still living in residence, I am aware of the privileges that come with not having to worry about long commutes or unsafe housing. Indeed, the housing issues I have had to deal with have been relatively insignificant — the heater breaking down, having to walk over a mile for food, or fending off raccoons.

For the most part, I have been able to remain focused on what I imagine student life to actually be: studying, experiencing campus life, and further familiarizing myself with local culture.

Speaking from personal experience, I sincerely hope that UTSC will become a comfortable and convenient learning and living space for all students.

By eliminating the burdens that arise with a lack of access to livable and affordable housing near and on campus, we can take a major step in achieving that hope.

Amelia Eaton is a second-year Political Science and Ethics, Society, and Law student at Woodsworth College. She is The Varsity’s Student Life Columnist.

Michael Phoon is a second-year Journalism student at UTSC. He is The Varsity’s UTSC Affairs Columnist.

8 | THE VARSITY | COMMENT

comment@thevarsity.ca

Academizing the anti-#MeToo movement

The baseless fear of false accusations and avoidance of women in academia helps no one and hurts everyone Nadine Waiganjo Varsity Contributor

Content warning: references to sexual violence.

A few weeks ago, the swearing-in of Judge Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Justice not only filled the court’s ninth seat, but introduced a worrisome shift in American culture: a legitimization of the fear of false sexual allegations.

The #ProtectOurBoys movement is a testament to this troubling phenomenon: mothers, sisters, daughters, cousins, and friends alike are banding together to resist, in their perception, the threat of false accusers waiting to attack their male family members or friends. Even the President of the United States attests that “it’s a very scary time for young men.”

This is a dangerous ideology, as it portrays survivors in a warped light — that the ones who experience and come forward about sexual violence despite their own fears are the real threats. Unfortunately, this perverse phenomenon is spreading into academia.

In a recent piece for The New England Journal of Medicine, U of T-affiliated researchers, including Deborah Gillis, Sophie Soklaridis, and Catherine Zahn, wrote that men in academic medicine are shying away from mentoring women for fear of being falsely accused of sexual harassment.

The #MeToo movement is sadly being used to justify the unjustified fear of lying women.

Indeed, these fears are completely baseless because false accusations are statistically rare. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center found that false accusations account for between two and ten percent of reports. Moreover, the reports themselves are labelled as “inconsistent definitions and protocols” by the Center.

In Pacific Standard, Emily Moon wrote that “re-

searchers relying on federal data often conflate ‘unfounded’ reports — when law enforcement labels an accusation false or ‘baseless’ — with entirely false ones.”This means that there are ‘false allegations’ that aren’t really false at all, but instead just don’t meet legal criteria.

It can be concluded from this, then, that the wide statistical range of two to 10 per cent leans, in fact, toward the lower end. The point is that survivors who come forward are almost certainly telling the truth about their assailant. A man who has behaved professionally his entire life has nothing to worry about. Therefore, men who are fearful feel this way because of a culture and system that supports their victim status — not because there is any empirical backing or rationale behind their fear.

One possibility is that men who refuse to mentor women are not scared of the prospect of false accusers, but rather because their own behaviour is no longer acceptable. As psychiatrist Prudy Gourguechon

wrote in Forbes, “The essence of maturity is to be able to control and moderate sexual and power-related impulses in a context where they are not warranted.

Like at work.” She explained how most men do not have to actively think about this control, because it’s subconscious. By default, they view the people they work with as respected co-workers or friends.

However, some men do worry — implying that they have heretofore viewed their female colleagues in a non-professional, non-friendly way, and that this outlook might now have consequences. Rather than professionally adjust their interactions and behaviours with women in an era where women are more likely to come forward, they choose to avoid them.

This response is detrimental to women. Currently, men dominate leadership roles in academia. According to University Affairs, in Canada, only 36 per cent of associate professors and around 22 per cent of full professors are women. For many women hoping to advance and develop within their academic fields, mentorship is a crucial asset.

The refusal of mentorship based on unfounded fears, then, hinders women’s chances in career advancement. Furthermore, they cannot close the disproportionate gender gap in leadership positions if they aren’t given the tools and assistance to do so.

Evading women in academia is also the least constructive solution for men who fear false allegations.

It judges and reacts to the #MeToo movement by

(From left to right) Gillis, Soklaridis, and Zahn wrote on men’s fear of mentoring women in the era of #MeToo. Courtesy of CAMH

its false cover: a supposed male witch hunt. These men will never learn the important lessons that the movement is trying to teach — namely, how to treat women properly, especially in professional contexts.

Listening to, instead of avoiding, the movement would also make it clear that women are not the only people who are sexually assaulted. Men, too, can be victims of sexual violence. Consider the fact that, according to the Sexual Assault Centre Hamilton Area, one in six men will experience some form of sexual violence in their lifetime. Secluding yourself to only interacting with men is not protecting yourself — it is making a deluded assumption about how sexual assault works.

Fear and avoidance are also problematic because they put the onus of sexual assault on women in academia to not accuse others of sexual assault — instead of on the assailant to not assault women in the first place. It is not the woman’s fault if she is assaulted, and bringing her story forward is not an attack on the assailant but a call for justice and a change in culture.

Avoiding women also makes it difficult for women who have been assaulted within academic contexts to come forward, when the consequences for their fellow female academics is not only a more tense environment, but also fewer career opportunities. The act presents itself as a punishment for being a woman within the workplace and for being a woman who is assaulted within the workplace.

The final truth is that false accusations are rare, precisely because they rarely benefit the accuser in any way. Telling the world that you were assaulted isn’t a trophy to put on the shelf. For Christine Blasey Ford, her alleged assailant is a Supreme Court justice. She has had to deal with death threats, insults, and a life that has been uprooted with no result.

Men must learn that the #MeToo movement is not about living in fear; it is about changing the way that people are treated, and about making every environment safe for everyone. It is ultimately asking that they see everybody, especially women, as human beings — not as sexual objects, and certainly not as monsters lurking around the corner, waiting to attack you.

Nadine Waiganjo is a first-year Social Sciences student at University College.

The student responsibility for reconciliation

To create a more inclusive university for Indigenous students, student government must hold the administration accountable and take initiative on its own Sam Routley UTSG Campus Politics Columnist

Last February, the Decanal Working Group (DWG) released its Report on Indigenous Teaching and Learning to the Faculty of Arts & Science (FAS). It addresses the “central role” that the administration ought to play in advancing the calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to the FAS. On September 17, it was announced that the faculty would fulfil a key recommendation by creating an “Indigenous College with Residence Space.”

Many of the 19 other recommendations — including enhancing forms of support, curriculum changes, and divisional leadership — are still undergoing implementation or have yet to be announced, demonstrating that this is an ongoing process.

The DWG’s call reflects an often overlooked problem at U of T: the absence of Indigenous methods in academia. If U of T is to be an inclusive, accessible, and empowering environment for Indigenous students it must become a place where forms of Indigenous expression and thinking are integrated into academics, including being “critically and rigorously studied at the most advanced levels.”

While the implementation of these recommendations are a step in the right direction, the broader sys-

temic issue — the discriminatory and unwelcoming environment for Indigenous students on campus — is a problem that the purely academic- and facultybased report cannot fully resolve. We, the students, must do more.

Therefore, although written for the FAS, the DWG report is also a legitimate and worthwhile document for other bodies and student government representatives to follow. This includes the Arts and Science Students’ Union (ASSU), the colleges, the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU), and Governing Council.

Most initiatives appear out of the immediate jurisdiction of student governments. Nevertheless, they can participate by holding the administration accountable during the implementation process.

Above all, the recommendations can inspire student groups to pursue their own initiatives in the spirit of reconciliation.

In fact, the concerns at the heart of the report fall completely in line with the intentions of student government. After all, Indigenous students are represented by the UTSU and ASSU, so student governments should work for the welfare of those whom they represent.

It is also consistent with the UTSU’s mission statement to “safeguard the individual rights of the student” and “foster their intellectual growth and moral awareness.” Indigenous students have the right to an inclusive university experience, and the UTSU’s cooperation with the DWG’s initiatives, from an academic perspective, can also help to intellectually and

Measures recommended by FAS commission to make campus more inclusive for Indigenous students and faculty.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

morally enrich non-Indigenous students.

The fact is that these initiatives also benefit the broader U of T community by promoting active learning and understanding of Indigenous peoples and their forms of expression. More importantly, this will aid in the progress of reconciliation between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples of Canada — a process that requires the active remembrance of a painful past, as well as action in the present that can contribute to ending quasicolonial institutions and discrimination.

The first recommendation — the creation of an Indigenous college — is already planned for opening in 2030. The UTSU and ASSU, however, can contribute their voice to these plans, such as encouraging particular aspects of student life within that new space.

There is also the essential role of accountability: to maintain a careful eye in ensuring that the administration does not make empty promises. Additionally, this does not preclude existing colleges from making themselves more accommodating.

The Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council, for instance, is pursuing an initiative to rename the Ryerson residence house and VicOne Ryerson stream to something derived from Indigenous academia or language.

One particular area that student governments

can take proactive and immediate action in is by providing more support and services for Indigenous students. This seeks to address unique problems and barriers that Indigenous students face in a racist and colonial structure, in which there is a profound lack of understanding of Indigenous cultures, languages, and ways of approaching the world. Student government must play its part to counteract and remove barriers for Indigenous students.

Such initiatives are not completely new to student governments. For instance, there are plans to expand the pilot ASSU Mentorship Program, a support system for students, to include a stream specifically for Indigenous students. It should also be mentioned that this can be done through active participation in several groups on campus — such as the Indigenous Law Students’ Association and Indigenous Education Network — that have taken up the call to action.

Student government must consider the DWG’s recommendations seriously, for it presents an obligation to hold the FAS accountable, and an opportunity to act on more reconciliation-based initiatives for the creation of an inclusive environment for Indigenous students.

Sam Routley is a fourth-year Political Science, Philosophy, and History student. He is The Varsity’s UTSG Campus Politics Columnist.

Editorial

October 29, 2018 var.st/comment editorial@thevarsity.ca

Reconciliation must mean action, not words

U of T must implement tangible changes to campus space and curriculum to better reflect our Indigenous communities

The Varsity Editorial Board

Three years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its summary report on the racist history of the residential school system. It provided settler Canadian institutions with 94 calls to action in order to address this legacy and achieve ‘reconciliation’ with Indigenous peoples.

The discourses of the educational system have historically justified the practices of separating children from their communities and by extension their culture, land, and livelihood. Schools and universities are arguably central sites in which redress for past and ongoing wrongdoings must occur.

As U of T scholar Monica Dyer notes, this is especially true for our university. U of T played a role in shaping the racist discourse that informed residential schools. Religious colleges and missionary organizations on campus were also connected to the propagation of residential schools.

Education is a vital mechanism for acknowledging and respecting the treaty relationships to which we are bound and for confronting settler Canadian ignorance about Indigenous communities. Hence, the TRC specifically calls for educational institutions to do better for Indigenous peoples.

Namely, it recommends increased funding to ensure that First Nations students have better access to postsecondary education, the creation of postsecondary programs in Indigenous languages, the education of teachers on the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms, and the establishment of a national research program to “advance understanding of reconciliation.”

Since this summer, universities across Canada have been stepping up initiatives in response to the TRC’s calls. At U of T in particular, it is a timely moment to reflect on education in the reconciliation era. Last week, First Nations House hosted its annual Indigenous Education Week — an important opportunity for the U of T community to “celebrate Indigenous contributions” and “Indigenous presence on campus.”

Last month, the Decanal Working Group (DWG), commissioned by the Faculty of Arts & Science (FAS), announced its report’s recommenda-

tion — among 19 others — to create an “Indigenous College with residence space” by 2030. According to the report, the FAS has an important role to play in the inclusion of Indigenous languages, cultural expressions, and knowledges within academia.

Aside from the Indigenous college, the report calls for enhanced services and support for Indigenous students, curriculum changes, new programs of study, increased recruitment of Indigenous students and staff, and training for staff and faculty. All these recommendations are commendable and should be implemented by the FAS. However, a major point of concern surrounds the report’s call for the dean to respond to the report and provide a roadmap for implementation “as soon as possible.”

FAS Dean David Cameron, who established the DWG, is leaving next summer, and there is no indication as to whether or not his successor will be committed to the report’s recommendations.

TESS KING/THE VARSITY

This reflects a central issue with the university bureaucracy’s approach to reconciliation: it largely revolves around promises. Concrete action is slow to materialize.

The DWG’s report largely echoes many of the recommendations that were made by U of T’s Steering Committee in response to the TRC in January 2017.

It also called for the creation of a physical space for the Indigenous community, increased recruitment of Indigenous faculty members, and curriculum changes to reflect education about Indigenous peoples.

The Varsity interviewed President Meric Gertler and asked about the progress made on reconciliation

since the 2017 report. Gertler pointed to increases in funding to hire more Indigenous staff and faculty.

However, as a result of other universities pursuing similar initiatives, he noted that there is a “competitive labour market” for this objective — and that this corresponds to a lengthy time frame for realization.

When asked about specific projects, he often deferred his answers to specific divisions and campuses, or the newly appointed advisor on Indigenous issues, as sources of action. Above all, he seemed most excited by the existence of “conversation” about reconciliation on campus.

In essence, U of T appears to be stuck in the realm of words, ideas, and slow progress as opposed to concrete action. This shortcoming was cautioned by Indigenous leadership at the time of the release of the TRC report. U of T’s lack of action cannot simply be excused as the result of administrative processes that are natural to the governance of universities.

Indeed, other schools are considerably ahead of U of T in taking action for reconciliation. For example, in 2016, the University of Winnipeg and Lakehead University became the first two universities to introduce an Indigenous course requirement for incoming students.

Rather than solely rely on the labour of First Nations House to annually educate the community, U of T must take responsibility and implement its own initiatives — including an expedited implementation process in response to the DWG and Steering Committee reports. This, in turn, will show that settler society is committed to re-educating itself on its true history and reforming educational institutions to do more for Indigenous peoples.

Reflecting on the coverage of Faith Goldy Context is important when covering controversial candidates the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union, and its imbalanced coverage of Goldy’s candidacy.

Morag McGreevey Public Editor

Toronto’s municipal election is behind us. Mayor John Tory was easily re-elected to a second term with 63.5 per cent of the vote, while his main rival Jennifer Keesmaat pulled in 23.6 per cent. But it was The Varsity’s coverage of third-place contender Faith Goldy — who won just 3.4 per cent of the popular vote — that caused the most concern for readers.

Goldy is a far-right media personality with ties to white nationalist views. Prior to being fired from The Rebel Media for appearing on a neo-Nazi podcast, Goldy hosted a segment on whether Canadian immigration is leading to a “white genocide.” In other words, Goldy espouses views that are morally repugnant to the vast majority of the University of Toronto community.

The Varsity was faced with the difficult task of acknowledging Goldy’s candidacy, while delineating her fringe views and low levels of popular support.

At times, The Varsity’s election coverage fell short of this responsibility. The Varsity failed in two main areas: its imprecise coverage of the protest that broke out during the mayoral transit debate co-hosted by

Precision matters According to one reader, “there has been a pattern of coverage of Faith Goldy that has quite honestly left me confused. While I understand mistakes happen, I have come to expect better.” This “pattern” refers to two moments of editorial oversight.

The first was The Varsity’s October 1 cover, which featured a photograph of UTSC students and pro-Goldy protesters at the transit debate. As Rachel Chen noted in her Letter to the Editor, the cover offered no context about who Goldy is or why she was excluded from the debate. It also failed to explicitly distinguish which debate attendees were bystanders and which were protesters.

The second incident was The Varsity’s publication of a Facebook video with the title “Protests erupt at mayoral transit debate.” Like the October 1 cover, the title of this video offered no context about Goldy’s controversial politics. According to Editor-in-Chief Jack Denton, it was an accident — The Varsity did not intend to publish the video with that title. Denton informed me that when “it was brought to our attention (within minutes), we immediately renamed the title of the video and ensured that the caption on Facebook clarified beyond doubt who the protesters were supporting

and what Faith Goldy represents.”

Neither incident was intentional. However, Chen was correct when she wrote that “in a situation involving something as heavy as white supremacy… it is the responsibility of the newspaper to make sure they provide enough context.” The Varsity should be held to a heightened standard of conscientiousness when reporting about Goldy because her views are so antithetical to those of our community.

Journalists always have a responsibility to be accurate when affiliating any person, or group of persons, with offensive and extreme political viewpoints. This is of particular importance in campus journalism, where readers often know the individuals being featured.

The Varsity isn’t just a conveyor of news; it is also a conveyor of community. What might appear as an impersonal photo in National Post or The Globe and Mail has more immediate repercussions on a university campus. Given these stakes, The Varsity should have aspired to the highest degree of clarity when reporting on the pro-Goldy protest at the mayoral transit debate.

Legitimizing Goldy’s candidacy The Varsity was also criticized for giving Goldy’s campaign too much coverage. Last week’s edition included a full-page feature on Goldy, titled “The Faith Goldy effect.” The author, Anastasia Pitch-

We must move beyond the complacency and comfort of land acknowledgements and cultural appreciation. We should especially be creating physical spaces on campus and altering curriculum to reflect Indigenous histories, knowledges, and voices.

This performative reconciliation that lacks action is not unique to universities — it reflects a broader trend. The federal Liberal government may offer apologies and tears in the name of reconciliation, but it continually fails Indigenous peoples — for instance, by building pipelines without adequate consultation.

Most recently, the Supreme Court announced that the government is not obligated to consult Indigenous peoples before drafting laws that affect treaty and Indigenous rights.

Frustration about the hypocrisy of settler institutions is most clearly articulated in MP Romeo Saganash’s claim in parliament that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “doesn’t give a fuck” about Indigenous rights.

Reconciliation is meaningless if institutions continue to perpetuate colonialism under the guise of empty promises. Indigenous students across Canadian universities know this firsthand as they continue to experience racism on campus. Campuses should not unilaterally pride themselves on reconciliation or ‘Indigenization.’ Rather, it is up to Indigenous students to determine the effectiveness of reconciliation policies on campuses.

The very discourse of reconciliation is also problematic because it implies resolution between two equal parties; it obscures the power dynamic between the colonizer and the colonized. We should acknowledge that reconciliation, if it is to be effective, is an uncomfortable process. It commits to decentring settler voices and centring Indigenous voices, and, most critically, to making material concessions that change how we organize our institutions.

At The Varsity, we know that we can and should do better as a media organization. This year, we are striving to improve our coverage of Indigenous issues and become a stronger platform for Indigenous voices.

Ultimately, university campuses must institutionalize a new mode of education that reflects the true history of this land, and take concrete action in pursuit of reconciliation. Until then, reconciliation is doomed to remain an idea as opposed to becoming a reality.

The Varsity’s editorial board is elected by the masthead at the beginning of each semester. For more information about the editorial policy, email editorial@thevarsity.ca.

er, was careful to contextualize Goldy’s politics in relation to their white nationalist origins and condemn the politician’s views as “unambiguously hateful.”

Nonetheless, the question remains: should we be giving a politician who espouses such views a full-page feature in The Varsity? Pitcher’s article anticipates this question and argues that “a forbidden message has power and allure. [Goldy] has said, ‘the more they try to silence us, the more people are starting to pay attention.’ For once, I have to say that I agree with her.” However, the reality is that this article gave Goldy greater exposure — more people know Goldy’s name now than before.

The danger of giving Goldy a voice in The Varsity is the risk of legitimizing her xenophobic views.

Even if the newspaper’s coverage is largely critical, it grants Goldy ostensible legitimacy as a political figure. As Lucas Granger argued in a Letter to the Editor, “giving [Goldy] a platform to spew her hatred in order to debate her and try to take her down civilly is a false dream and can only win her more support.”

This brings me back to the refrain that context matters deeply when covering controversial political candidates. Context matters in specific circumstances, as in the mayoral transit debate, but also in a broader, institutional sense. We as readers, writers, and editors of The Varsity must be aware of the legitimizing power that this newspaper holds, as we seek to wield it wisely.

Morag McGreevey is The Varsity’s Public Editor and can be reached at publiceditor@thevarsity.ca.

10 | THE VARSITY | FEATURES

Pinkwashing at Toronto’s Pride Parade Writer: Maighdlin Mahoney Photographer: Shanna Hunter

Having some sort of Pride celebration du the summer months is now par for the c for many major city centres, and more more, the festivities are spreading into smaller urban areas. Owen Sound, On had its very first pride parade this year.

As queer events garner broader attend they have also become sought after oppor ties for corporate sponsorship and adve ment. However, these advertisements provoke widespread criticism — can P demonstrations stay true to their foun spirit of queer liberation when they’re b rolled by major corporations?

To spectators at this year’s Pride Para Toronto, a corporate presence was extre visible. Most of the large scale floats sp rainbow coloured logos of large companie Canada Trust or Bud Light. Yet, while corporate floats loomed large over the pe trian element of the parade, many group foot carried signage protesting that same porate involvement, with slogans such as Can’t Buy My Pride” or “The ‘T’ in LGB Doesn’t Stand for ‘TD’.”

For some, corporate sponsorship is a be and necessary aspect of contemporary P movements and celebrations. For other pinkwashing — big business trying to ap queer-friendly in order to seem progre and gain new marketing opportunities, w out necessarily caring about or contributi the community.

While complaints against corporate volvement in queer events are beco more frequent, the political environmen changed dramatically. With government f ing for queer non-profits already scarce potentially becoming more so (if the rec scrapped LGBTQ+-friendly sexual educ curriculum is any indication), there’s also question of whether these groups can con to do work for the queer community wit relying on private and corporate funding.

Origins of Pride

The origin of these mid-year celebrations most contemporary queer organizing is us acknowledged as the Stonewall Riots of 1 In 1969 New York, it was illegal to ‘s homosexual relations.’ On June 28 of that police conducted a series of raids on ba Greenwich Village that were thought t gathering places for the queer community culminated in a raid on the Stonewall which broke into a queer struggle agains police, who ended up barricaded inside the While members of the community de to be highlighted in the events of that nig most notably, trans woman Marsha P. Joh who is credited with throwing the first of the riots — much of the lasting signific of that night was the lesson of how the q community could band together to fight diverse oppressions.

After that night, queer liberation m ments gained visibility and momentum. M locally, Toronto Pride celebrations grew of the Bathhouse Raids of 1981. The Tor police forces coordinated raids on four m bathhouses that they suspected of prostit and ‘indecent acts’ — read: queer sexuality After a whopping 286 arrests, the marked a turning point in Toronto’s quee eration movement. The queer community increasingly politicized and refused to be s under the rug by police, media, or the pub Both these events occured, of course, before large companies would have had an terest in sponsoring queer movements. So do the events of 1969 and 1981 compa our modern Pride celebrations, where co rate sponsorships feature prominently in q organizing?

during course e and even ntario,

dance, rtuniertiseoften Pride nding bank-

ade in emely ported es like these pedesps on e cor“You BTQ

enign Pride rs, it’s ppear essive withing to

e inoming nt has funde and cently cation o the ntinue thout

s and sually 1969. solicit t year, ars in to be y. This l Inn, st the he inn. eserve ght — hnson, stone cance queer their

moveMore w out ronto major tution y. raids er libgrew swept blic. , long ny ino how are to orpoqueer

features@thevarsity.ca

Contemporary Pride While both the Stonewall and Bathhouse riots were protests, modern Pride has incorporated more and more celebratory aspects, as milestones of LGBTQ+ liberation become more frequent.

Now that larger corporations and even governments wish to share in Pride celebrations, there is often more competition for visibility.

This was clear in the summer of 2016, when Black Lives Matter (BLM) Toronto staged a protest in the Pride Parade over the growing marginalization of the Black queer community within Pride celebrations.

Pride Toronto ultimately agreed to Black Lives Matter Toronto’s demands. That same year, Justin Trudeau marked the first time that a Canadian Prime Minister ever walked in a Pride celebration, but Trudeau did so without ever publicly acknowledging the BLM protest to which he was in such close proximity.

These events raise questions of who should be privileged and visible at events of queer celebration. As the signage shows, many protestors at this year’s Pride parades and marches argued that corporate sponsorship didn’t belong. However, at the same time, Pride is a non-profit organization. Since it charges no admission to its events, sponsorships are vital to its ability to create queer spaces.

I wrote to Undergraduate Director and Lecturer Dai Kojima from the University of Toronto’s Sexual Diversity Studies Program about the dilemma that queer non-profits find themselves in.

When asked about the potential benefits and risks of major corporate sponsorship, Kojima responded that he viewed the situation as “more complicated than good/bad.” In Kojima’s opinion, “it is too easy to blame nonprofits as being complicit in capitalism — as if they can ‘refuse’ to take the money.” He continued, “Many organizations are barely getting by and fighting over small pools of money to fund their programs, pay minimum salaries to their dedicated staff, and rent a basic work space to gather and organize activities.”

Kojima said that not all queer non-profits would even have the option of relying solely on non-corporate funding, especially non-profits that serve the most marginalized elements of the LGBTQ+ community, such as “racial and ethno-specific communities, homeless youths, sex workers, people with disabilities, immigrants and refugees, to name a few.”

He explained that “in the context of Toronto/Ontario, governmental support for these intersectional, queer non-profit organizations is shrinking rapidly — a dire situation made worse by the current Premier’s attack on social supports and public education on gender and sexual diversity.” This means that many more organizations are forced to turn to corporate support to stay viable.

Further, Kojima wrote, “We really have to understand the ambivalent and conflicted ways in which queer organizations — both big and small — work with corporations and governments to fund their work.”

Noulmook Sutdhibhasilp, Executive Director of the non-profit Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS), echoed Kojima’s call for nuance in these discussions. He noted that issues of corporate sponsorship are directly linked to “a bigger social justice issue” — that is, the “neo-liberalism agenda that shrinks government’s welfare state and continues to direct the responsibilities of social, health, education and other services to be dictated by the market.”

For Sutdhibhasilp, this makes corporate sponsorships essential in providing services to marginalized communities in Toronto and elsewhere.

Sutdhibhasilp also expressed that while “many people are turned off by corporate logos and conditions they impose,” the “PRIDE spirit is in celebrating who we are” and taking up space in the mainstream.

Who are the sponsors?

Sponsors vary widely in industry and how actively they support the queer community, outside of the weekend of Toronto Pride.

One of Pride Toronto’s most noted sponsors is TD Banking, which sponsors 83 Pride festivities around North America while also supporting over 160 LGBTQ+ organizations and initiatives.

On the flip side, Bud Light is a major sponsor of Pride Toronto, yet was also a major sponsor of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. This move was widely criticized due to reports of Russia’s recent and well-documented persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly its anti-gay purges in Chechnya.

There are also sponsors like Remington’s Men of Steel strip bar, which supports Pride while arguably promoting cisnormative views of beauty and pleasure.

Nevertheless, all of these businesses are willing to put their profits into funding initiatives like Pride Toronto. Is this contribution enough, in return for all the benefits that they get through exposure at Toronto Pride? Or do corporations that can appear accepting and progressive through sponsoring events like Pride have more of a responsibility to engage with the queer community, as TD Bank and other sponsors try to do?

Kojima argued that the debate should not focus on whether corporate money is “always already bad” so much as on questions such as “which agendas are deemed safe and worthy in the eyes of corporate philanthropic programs and which voices remain on the margins?” and, “what systems of value and valuation are at work when corporate and government money is unevenly distributed?”

In that framework, organizations like Pride seem safer and less controversial than organizations serving more marginalized elements of the community, and therefore receive more corporate funding. This leaves organizations serving ethno-culturally specific or poverty stricken aspects of the queer community struggling for funds to keep their services going.

For anyone wanting to support some of those organizations who receive less governmental and corporate funding and remain on the margins, here are a few places you could start: Rainbow Railroad: an organization helping LGBTQ+ people from around the world escape state-sponsored violence Casey House: Canada’s only stand-alone hospital for HIV/AIDS patients Youthline: a completely anonymous hotline for queer youth that provides referrals, support, and recommendations for resources ACAS: mentioned briefly above, this organization works to make HIV/AIDS information, as well as general LGBTQ+ resources, available to East and Southeast Asian Communities

Symbolic appropriation?

On a broader scale, questions regarding the effects of the widespread use of queer symbols by large corporations remain. While it can be positive for queer symbols to be more widely accepted and mainstream, Kojima noted that “we must be skeptical of the belief that circulation of symbols and mass consumption of them will somehow lead to some kind of liberation.”

The recent controversy surrounding the new Philadelphia Pride Flag, which incorporates black and brown stripes into the traditional rainbow flag to represent inclusion of queer people of color, highlights this. As Toronto recently experienced with the 2016 BLM protest, this is a much talked about issue in current queer organizing — the drive to ensure that people of color are not ignored when we talk about the queer community, and that this intersectionality is acknowledged.

It’s important to note that as of yet, no corporations have used the Philadelphia flag instead of the traditional rainbow colours.

Perhaps the more frequently used “Love is Love” and “PRIDE” are safer, more consumer-friendly options, rather than embracing the contemporary face of the queer community and accepting potential controversy.

Kojima presented an ideal scenario, one that he stressed is only theoretical and not currently the way that corporate sponsorships work: “Ideally corporations should work with queer communities in order to first find out what the pressing needs of that particular community are and ask how their sponsorship will help that cause. Not the other way around.”

“Corporate donors need to let go of the expectation that their sponsorship and donation for queer events and programs will

produce direct beneficial return (e.g. corporate visibility, increased positive public perception, monetary gains etc.), and instead should offer financial and other material supports because supporting these initiatives is the right thing to do.”

Arts & Culture

October 29, 2018 var.st/arts arts@thevarsity.ca

An alternative movie list for Halloween

Hereditary is going to be the next cult classic in the Halloween film genre

SOFIA PHAM/THE VARSITY

Michelle Krasovitski Varsity Contributor

Sometimes, we need to prepare ourselves to watch a movie. That’s why we marathon all eight Harry Potter movies before any new Fantastic Beasts release and why we watch all the Star Wars movies before a new addition to the franchise.

But when a new movie doesn’t come with others backing it up, we construct makeshift watchlists. Here is one to prepare you for Hereditary, a horror movie that is already out.

Due to its success, it will most likely be one of the biggest Halloween-esque films in decades.

It is this standalone property that makes Hereditary, and movies like it, all the more special, so I made it a rule for this list.

I realized it would be much harder to compile a list when most films are either remakes, sequels, or prequels, but I stuck with it. Some honourable mentions that unfortunately didn’t fit the bill are the 2013 Evil Dead remake and 2016’s The Conjuring 2.

Three rules for this Hereditary pre-watch list: the film had to be released in the 2010s, it had to be a standalone, and it had to fit the horror genre — no thrillers. Sorry, you won’t find Green Room or Don’t Breathe on here.

1. The Babadook, 2014 — directed by Jennifer Kent, Australia You’ve probably heard of The Babadook. In the four years since its release, it has acquired a sort of cult following. And for good reason.

The Babadook follows a mother and son duo who find an eerie storybook on their doorstep one day. What ensues is a haunting by a boogeyman that makes for innovative scares.

One of the reasons I appreciate The Babadook as much as I do — and why I think it is perfect for this list — is that it really utilizes the most that it can within the film medium to make your body literally shiver from fright.

You cover your ears when you’re scared in anticipation of loud noise?

That’s fine; The Babadook has imagery that will tattoo itself onto your consciousness.

You cover your eyes when you’re scared in anticipation of such tantalizing imagery?

That’s fine; The Babadook arguably has the most unsettling sound effects that will condition you to grow anxious, like when you hear nails on a chalkboard.

And the best part? Absolutely no jump scares. All of the thrills in The Babadook are created thanks to tension and storyline.

Yes, it really is that good.

2. Under the Shadows, 2016 — directed by Babak Anvari, Iran If The Babadook seems a little overwhelming to you, it’s best to start off with Under the Shadows, a simple yet effective Iranian horror movie that showcases its horror in the same manner, but in a significantly less intense way.

In a war-torn Tehran in the ’80s, a mother and daughter must stick together and battle an evil that presents itself within their apartment building.

Not only is Under the Shadows an incredibly clear cultural vignette of a city divided by war, but it perfectly balances political commentary with complex family dynamics and good, old-fashioned horror. Under the Shadows is a lot easier to watch than The Babadook, but it is nonetheless an extremely effective horror movie.

3. The Witch, 2015 — directed by Robert Eggers, US The Witch received a limited release in 2015; it was a revelation of a horror movie. The Witch is as much a period piece as it is a horror movie: set in 1630s Puritan New England, a family is plagued by a witch — or are they? — and they begin to grow distrustful of each other, leading to a horrifyingly memorable finale.

The Witch, like The Babadook and Under the Shadows, relies on a calculated storyline, a well-curated score, and cinematography to instill tension.

There are no jump scares or cheap loud noises. The fear is warranted. And don’t believe the buzz, because The Witch is incredibly watchable. You’ll be hooked from the first minute.

4. Raw, 2016 — directed by Julia Ducournau, France I was a little hesitant about putting Raw on this list. On the surface, it doesn’t appear to have many fantastical aspects. But once you delve further into its reality and the story arcs that Julia Ducournau expertly builds, you come to find yourself facing a world that is nothing like our own, and yet eerily similar.

Raw follows a young girl, raised by a family of cult-like vegetarians, as she enters her first year of veterinarian school. There, she must wade through new and foreign temptations to find out who she really is.

Despite what the title may suggest, Raw is not solely a dissertation on vegetarianism.

The film examines the awakening of identity and hunger, both literal and spiritual. It does so in such inconspicuous ways that the moral of the story hits you rudely only after you’ve finished watching.

What makes Raw so scary is that it is essentially the product of feeding Western society and norms through a distorted filter. It feels familiar but doesn’t look like it.

In short, Raw is the funhouse-mirror reflection of human nature and obsession, and if that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will.

It’s also gory — beware.

5. The Wailing, 2016 — directed by Na Hong-jin, South Korea I am not going to mince words or wax poetic. The Wailing is, by far, the scariest and the most astonishing movie I have ever seen. It is also criminally underrated, and so I hope that if you consider yourself even a slight horror fan, you’ll give this treasure a watch.

The Wailing has a runtime of two and a half hours and follows a detective in a small village in South Korea as he handles what can only be called a zombie-like disease outbreak.

But this is not a zombie movie in the slightest. The villagers suspect that an old Japanese man, a recent immigrant, is the cause of the virus and, as you can predict, madness ensues.

The Wailing examines xenophobia and paranoia better than any political drama ever could. The film references the relations between Japan and South Korea, the use and reliance of shamans, and overall spirituality and religion in South Korean society. It forces you to become vulnerable, to give yourself up to the narrative and reality of the story. And once it makes you vulnerable, it bombards you with one horrific scene after another.

It is riveting and jaw-dropping, with no unnecessary jump scares. The Wailing is the perfect film to get you prepared for any further — potential — horror you may see in Hereditary.

OCTOBER 29, 2018 | 13

var.st/arts

Revisiting the sparse genre of Halloween music: Nightmare Revisited Halloween is a better holiday than Christmas #hottake Isabel Armiento Varsity Contributor

I subscribe to the school of thought that the Halloween season should be as widely appreciated as the Christmas season. Every October 1, I immediately bust out all my creepy clown decorations, pour over my horror movie collection, and start saving up for my Halloween costume.

By Thanksgiving, my mantelpiece is littered with jack-o’-lanterns, witch paraphernalia, and a tasteful rhinestone-encrusted skeleton head.

It seems that the only thing missing from this otherwise robust holiday season, at least vis-à-vis Christmas, is the music.

Halloween music is a genre that proves frightfully sparse. Aside from a few classics, there’s not much to pick from — and there are only so many times you can play “Monster Mash” before you start doubting whether it would really be a “smash” in any graveyard.

Enter the musical genius of Danny Elfman.

Perhaps the greatest Halloween CD of all time, The Nightmare Before Christmas never fails to get me in the Halloween spirit. But with only one 1993 CD in my Halloween music arsenal, I, much like Jack in “Jack’s Lament,” “have grown so tired of the same old thing.”

From this need for even more Nightmare music, the brilliant cover CD Nightmare Revisited emerges. It offers a second album for your Halloween playlist, as well as a much-needed intersection between emo culture and the world of The

Nightmare Before Christmas.

The album’s standout is Marilyn Manson’s glorious heavy metal rendition of “This is Halloween.” Other tracks seem less intuitive, yet offer the same vitality; Rodrigo y Gabriela perform an enchanting instrumental cover of the iconic “Oogie Boogie’s Song,” featuring an ensemble of intricate acoustic guitars in which even the throaty percussion is provided by drumming on guitar bodies.

The beauty of this cover is that it doesn’t try to compete with the wildly entertaining original — unlike Tiger Army’s slightly off-putting attempt at remaking Oogie Boogie’s anthem — instead offering something entirely new. In contrast, Amy Lee’s rendition of “Sally’s Song” is indisputably better than Catherine O’Hara’s weak original, and her sultry vocals make this track perhaps the most worthwhile one on the album.

The standout on the 1993 CD is arguably the Christmas classic “What’s This.” Though nothing can beat Danny Elfman’s version, alternative metal band Flyleaf delivers a dream-like rendition, heaviness dripping from each note. The song begins with a panoply of instrumentation, featuring slow guitars and crashing drums blending with languid, fluid vocals. Tying it all together to make pure rock-and-roll psychedelia, Flyleaf ’s “What’s This” ends in a surprising minor key, offering the song a haunting tone that makes it perfect for when you’ve been listening to the original on repeat for several hours and need something slightly new — but only slightly.

Is lit culture dead?

Memes killed books and I’m jaded Varsha Pillai Varsity Contributor

The premise of the novel being ‘dead’ first arose during the rise of nihilism: the denial or lack of belief in meaningful aspects of life.

Though many have claimed that this was an exaggeration, with the rise of social media has come an entire generation that has been removed from

literary culture. Our most well-known creative outlet is now YouTube.

YouTube is both a blessing and a curse. Watching a world of Californian YouTubers and their lavish lifestyles easily leads down a rabbit hole of random videos about ‘Twitter beef ’ or ‘tea’ that apparently needs spilling.

Along with this new cultural phenomenon comes the unfortunate decline of time being

Listen to Nightmare Revisited as you amble along St. George Street among the autumnal leaves.

SHANNA HUNTER/THE VARSITY

Alternatively, Fall Out Boy offers another take on “What’s This,” overlaying tinkling piano with electric guitar and drawing listeners in with a breathtaking opening note loaded with melisma and melody.

Other tracks that shouldn’t be missed include Korn’s nu-metal spin on “Kidnap the Sandy Claws,” as well as The All-American Reject’s impressively angsty “Jack’s Lament.” Rise Against lends the already frenetic “Making Christmas” a punk rock sound with fast heavy guitars, distort-

ed instrumentation, and spitting vocals.

The lesser-known “Town Meeting Song” is revamped by The Polyphonic Spree as an epic rock opera reminiscent of Rocky Horror, transforming a three-minute plot-driven song into a goliath nine-minute masterpiece.

So if you’ve been decking the halls with pumpkins and cobwebs, but you can’t seem to find the right Halloween tunes to tie together the spooky ambience, give Nightmare Revisited a try for a twist on your favourite holiday classics.

spent on ‘traditional’ hobbies. What I am referring to is the kind of thing that your parents would say if they saw you binging Netflix for hours: “When I was your age we had to spend our time doing something offline. Do something else! Go outside, ride a bike, or read a book!”

Literary fiction once dictated popular culture, but with the rise of the digital age, the hunger for new stories has been satisfied by movie adaptations and audio books.

The sponsoring of YouTubers by companies like Audible has greatly increased in popularity. Audio books are considered to be easier to ‘read’; people can experience ‘reading’ a book while doing other

tasks at the same time. This has resulted in fewer purchases of hard copies. In turn, many book stores, particularly independents, have had to shut their doors.

Personally, I find that listening to a book does not give you the same feelings as picking up a new book and experiencing that euphoria of ‘new book’ smell does. It truly is a sad moment every time someone tells me that they have not even heard of some of the greatest books of all time, never mind having read them.

Literary culture has dwindled down to sappy Wattpad stories of a girl reading in a café or a park and meeting the boy whom she will later marry.

The days of literary puns and classic English literature are long gone. Every so often, a book series will send popular culture into a frenzy, leaving behind a whirlwind of heartbroken teens and fierce fandoms, but for the most part, literary culture is slowly being lowered into its grave.

Even when speaking to friends of mine, many say that they “love the idea of reading” but can’t stay focused on a book long enough to finish it.

Honestly, how can I, or any other book lover, blame them? This generation has been trained to be accustomed to the fast pace of social media and its continually growing collection of memes.

All that remains of literary culture is what hipsters have made from romanticizing the idea of reading in a café and having revolutionary ideas.

The sad truth is that, in a world in which the novel is so out of sync with a society molded so heavily by meme culture, the idea of someone reading could actually be seen as incredibly intellectual.

Reading is no longer associated with leisure.

Novels have now become intertwined with academia and schoolwork. The automatic instinct for many children, teens, and adults is to grab their electronic devices and play games, listen to music, or use social media rather than immerse themselves in a story beyond themselves and the world around them.

Reading is now looked upon as an acquired interest rather than a common hobby. It seems like reading has returned to being a refined art form, and the glory days of being ecstatic when your parents took you to Chapters or the local book store are no more.

The traditional novel is obsolete beside everadvancing technology. Literary culture, to most people of this era, is dead or dying.

GHEYANA PURBODININGRAT/THE VARSITY

14 | THE VARSITY | ARTS & CULTURE

There’s nothing deader than a Halloween haunt with bad music Pick this playlist for your party to get in the mood for a spooky season Gaetana “Tricksy” D’Amico Varsity Contributor Whether you’re a goblin or a ghoul, every creature that dwells in the darkness loves to get down and freaky at a good dance party.

Halloween is upon us once again — there will be pumpkins, monsters, but also parties popping up to scare you at every street corner in the country.

If you choose to host a party, or if you just want to get into the Halloween groove, here are my top 10 Halloween songs to help you become a frightfully good party host and get all your monster homies into the Halloween spirit!

arts@thevarsity.ca

“It’s Almost Halloween” by Panic! At the Disco, 2008 In the middle of the dark woods, there is a party in a clearing. Are those mummies, vampires, and werewolves partying? Nope!

It is the American pop punk band in full costume! Although it’s one of the newer songs on this playlist, Panic!’s “It’s Almost Halloween” might just be the best in the genre when it comes to explaining just what Halloween is really all about. Check out the music video for the full picture.

“I Put A Spell on You” by Jalacy “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins, 1956 This song has risen in popularity through its many covers and is also featured in the classic 1993 Halloween film Hocus Pocus.

The original singer of this song was frightful in his own right, because Screamin’ Jay usually pulled voodoo aspects into his performances.

It’s a great one and definitely worth a listen!

“Addams Family Theme Song” by Vic Mizzy, 1964 They’re spooky and they’re kooky! In the 1960s, there was a fondness for the unconventional, yet still relatable, childfriendly world of the monsters. Not only was The Addams Family a result of this trend, but it also produced The Munsters and Bewitched.

“Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr, 1984 Just like many other songs on this playlist, this is a track to a cult classic Halloween film.

Ghostbusters has a sequel and a feminist revival too, leading to more alternative renditions by artists like Fall Out Boy and Missy Elliot.

“Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett, 1962 This song has withstood the test of time. The lyrics of this iconic song allude to monsters such as Wolfman, Frankenstein, and Dracula all enjoying a spooktastic dance party. It is truly a graveyard smash with its catchy beat and addictive lyrics.

“Thriller” by Michael Jackson, 1982 The music video for this song is almost as famous as the song itself. Who can resist hordes of zombies dancing in unison? As a bonus, no mere mortal can resist the legendary Vincent Price doing a stellar voice over.

“Calling All the Monsters” by China Anne McClain, 2011 “Calling All the Monsters” makes appearances on numerous Disney television shows. The lyrics are about facing your fears. Compare that with the monster-filled dance party in the music video. What more is there to say? Give it a play.

JENNY LIU/THE VARSITY

“Spooky Scary Skeletons” by Andrew Gold, 1996 There’s just something about those darn skeletons which keep bringing the spirit of Halloween year after year! This song became popular after a video of a pumpkin-masked, black leotard-clothed man did his fangtastic dance on YouTube. Give it a watch. I dare you.

“This Is Halloween” by Marilyn Manson, 1993 Marilyn Manson is scary. Now imagine him creating a song about the scariest day of the year. Terrifying, right? This song rose to popularity when it was featured on the soundtrack of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s a classic and you should pop it on your party playlist ASAP.

follow: Jessie (Carla Gugino) and her husband, Gerald (Bruce Greenwood), decide to take a romantic vacation to a lake house in the middle of nowhere, as many ill-fated couples do.

The game in question comes when Gerald decides to put Jessie in a pair of handcuffs for some roleplaying. Jessie agrees, then becomes uncomfortable. The two argue and suddenly, Gerald drops dead.

Handcuffed to the bed and totally alone, Jessie could easily be the chained-up prey of any would-be killer from a film more entrenched in the stereotypes of the genre. Instead, Jessie is forced to confront the truth about her life: her failing marriage to Gerald, her history of being sexually abused as a child, and the silence with which she has endured all of it.

Rather than be an object of disgust, horror, or

Overlooked: Gerald’s Game

This film has the scariest monster of them all

“Modern Monster Mash” by Key of Awesome, 2014 This one is a little different from the rest.

Instead of being a song on a CD, this Halloween hit is actually a YouTube viral sensation. Creative YouTubers Key of Awesome updated “Monster Mash” by changing the lyrics to include newer horror film icons. You’ll find Freddy Krueger from The Nightmare on Elm Street series, Michael Myers from The Halloween series, Jigsaw from Saw, Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, and many more.

shock, Jessie’s trauma is simply presented as it is, with Jessie’s fear stemming from the silence she has been forced into all her life.

There are some old-fashioned scares as well, with Jessie hallucinating the ghost of her dead husband and being interrupted by a grave robber and serial killer in search of treasures, but ultimately, the movie is Jessie’s journey.

Gerald’s Game is an intensely realistic examination of memory and trauma. The lead female character is never an accessory to another’s story or shamed for her choices.

This is the kind of story we need right now, the kind that knows how to scare you without any cheap tricks or jump scares. The scary monster is, in the end, what Jessie has to live with: silence, shame, and trauma.

Gerald’s Game stars Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood.

Courtesy of NETFLIX

Adina Heisler Varsity Contributor

Content warning: references to sexual assault.

I love horror movies. I love everything from the super cheesy ’80s slasher flicks, to the most twisted and intense psychological horrors — provided, of course, that they don’t demonize people with mental illnesses.

But alas, my deep disappointment with horror

is the treatment of women and sexual violence.

Women’s bodies become ragdolls to be thrown around, either to fuel male emotion or for the sake of pure shock value. Women’s sexuality too often becomes the deciding factor in who gets to survive until the end, with the virginal ‘final girl’ rewarded for chastity while still being heavily sexualized.

Enter Gerald’s Game, the 2017 Netflix horror and thriller based on Stephen King’s 1992 novel of the same name. The setup is easy enough to

Courtesy of NETFLIX

Science

October 29, 2018 var.st/science science@thevarsity.ca

Scared of spiders?

The Royal Ontario Museum’s latest exhibit challenges misconceptions about spiders

The Jumping Spider is one of the arachnids featured in Spiders: Fear & Fascination.

Courtesy of SEAN MCCAN

Srivindhya Kolluru Science Editor

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) opened the Spiders: Fear & Fascination exhibit earlier this year, developed by the Australian Museum and toured by Flying Fish.

The exhibit challenges arachnophobes to face their fear by trying to understand spiders, as most fears originate from a lack of information.

“We thought spiders were a particularly interesting subject because there are a lot of misconceptions about spiders, so there is sort of a fear and fascination about them and we thought that sort of angle would really resonate with the public,” said Doug Currie, Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at U of T and Senior Curator of Entomology at the ROM. While most museum exhibits lack a living ele-

ment, Spiders features 18 different types of living spiders, including the brown recluse and black widow, spiders that are commonly mistaken for each other.

A common misconception about spiders is that they are insects, but they are in fact arachnids. Insects are made up of three sections and have six legs, while arachnids have eight legs and are made of two sections.

Considering most spiders have eight eyes, many have poor vision. Their eyes can only distinguish light and dark and detect movement. Spiders’ rear eyes give them 360-degree vision so that they can pick up movement, while their front eyes can pick up detail within a short range.

The exhibit also has an Interactive Spider Lab — a small laboratory within the exhibit — and two on-site technicians known as “Spider Wranglers” who demonstrate venom milking.

The term ‘venom milking’ or ‘venom extraction’ elicits a repulsive image. But the process was much more clinical than I had imagined.

Mateus Pepinelli, one of the spider wranglers and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at U of T, filled the spider’s tank with carbon dioxide to put it to sleep. In this demonstration, Pepinelli extracted venom from a Huntsman spider. Once the spider fell asleep, Pepinelli carried it to a foam board with tools on the side. The setup was reminiscent of one you might find in an operating room at a hospital.

Once Pepinelli confirmed that the spider was asleep, he put the spider on its back and used pins to hold the spider down and away from its fangs.

The pins do not puncture the spider, and were placed around the spider’s legs in a position that was convenient for Pepinelli.

Pepinelli then used an electrical device dipped in saline to trigger the spider to release its venom.

At the same time, he placed a 0.5 mL microcen-

trifuge tube, enough to hold a drop of water, under the spider’s fangs to collect its venom.

The entire process was shown on a screen outside the Spider Lab. Some visitors watched in awe, others in horror.

Pepinelli extracted a drop of venom into the tube and moved the spider back to its habitat, a separate tank, before it woke up.

The venom, clear in color, looks innocuous, but it is chock-full of compounds, some of which have medicinal value. The venom extracted during the demonstrations is freeze-dried and sent to scientists that study spider venom for biomedical research.

The Interactive Spider Lab is one of several interactive features in the exhibit. Video projections also cast digital renditions of spiders at the entrance of the exhibit floor, and scaled-up models brought small spiders to life.

In addition, the ROM added its own elements to the Australian Museum’s exhibit.

“As is typical with many ROM exhibits, we add our own twist to it,” said Currie. “This was developed by the Australian Museum in Sydney and when we brought it here we added our own components.”

A Golden Spider Silk Cape is on display for the first time in North America, the world’s largest textile made exclusively from spider silk. The cape is made from the silk of 1.2 million female golden orb weaver spiders from Madagascar and took around three years to complete.

Spiders are also popular in culture and in art: a life-size first edition of a Spider-Man comic book and Indigenous textiles featuring spiders are also on display throughout the exhibit.

Spiders: Fear & Fascination is on display until January 6 in the ROM’s Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall.

Big Falcon Rocket shoots for the moon University of Toronto Aerospace Team members comment on SpaceX’s latest venture Spencer Y. Ki Associate Science Editor

It has been nearly half a century since Commander Gene Cernan of Apollo 17 became the last human to walk on the moon.

But in September, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced the #dearMoon project — a weeklong trip aboard SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) to and from lunar orbit in 2023.

Their team plans to traverse the traditional circumlunar trajectory, and take advantage of the gravity of the Earth and moon to point the ship in the right direction, rather than relying on brute engine force.

How has technology changed since the end of Apollo program?

NASA built the Saturn V rocket to send astronauts to the moon as part of the Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s. It later replaced the distinctive black-and-white rocket's design in favour of the reusable Space Shuttle, a more mass-efficient alternative.

Rockets have seen developments since the 1970s. According to Jacob Weber, an engineering student in the University of Toronto Aerospace Team’s (UTAT) Rocketry Division, changes to rockets have been largely economical.

“Advancements in materials, manufacturing techniques, and electronics have all [resulted] in a ‘modernization’ for most rockets making them more efficient in terms of production and performance,” wrote Weber. “As a whole though, I wouldn’t say rockets have changed that much.

You can tell that most rockets use the same multiple stage setup with or without some extra boosters on the side.”

In particular, Weber pointed out that the fun-

damental design of the popular Soviet/Russian series of Soyuz spacecraft has remained largely unchanged since the 1980s.

One of the main selling points of Space Shuttles is their reusability. Traditional rockets are composed of a number of stages — sections of a rocket that contain an engine or a cluster of engines. They break off after use and are either scrapped or recycled upon falling to Earth.

But SpaceX has made its name with rockets that are partially-reusable, comprised of a first stage that can land upright to be refueled and relaunched, topped by a disposable second stage.

The Falcon 9 rocket made its maiden voyage in February, carrying Musk’s now-famous Tesla Roadster. Its strengthened version, the Falcon Heavy, can carry a larger payload than any currently operational spacecraft.

The BFR is composed of two fully-reusable stages, a booster and main body, both of which will be able to 'soft-land' upright. It is set to become SpaceX’s flagship rocket, and will eventually supplant their current line of spacecraft to become an all-purpose vehicle.

“Looking at the concept images and what’s been released of the design so far, the obvious improvements are number of crew it can carry… as well as the ability to carry a significant payload along with this crew,” wrote Weber.

SpaceX’s BFR can carry one hundred passengers, which greatly exceeds the three seats available on the Apollo missions. Its ability to carry a significant payload in addition to crew is also a plus.

“The BFR is also probably going to be a lot roomier than the Apollo capsule was, with all more modern controls and user interface elements which should be a better overall experience for the crew and, based on the artist ren-

TROY LAWRENCE/THE VARSITY

derings, give them a nicer view,” wrote Weber.

Weber also pointed out that the BFR is likely to be much less costly and complex than the Saturn V, which he claimed was “the single most complicated machine we’ve ever made with some three million individual components.”

While still a half decade away, #dearMoon and the development of the BFR invite anticipation regarding the near future of spaceflight.

According to UTAT Executive Director Ridwan Howlader, such ambitions are echoed by budding space explorers.

“SpaceX is doing some very exciting work

to enable organizations and industries all over the world to make use of the space environment. Their ability to overcome challenges has allowed them to come up with Moon missions, Mars colonization missions, as well as next generation space technologies,” Howlader told The Varsity.

Howlader added, “We encourage students to find ways to conquer challenges to further their learning experiences, while still understanding the fundamentals of engineering design and effective collaboration. These are ways we redefine student innovation, and it’s great to see this type of activity in the industry as well.”

16 | THE VARSITY | SCIENCE

science@thevarsity.ca

What makes a building sustainable?

Looking into U of T's LEED-certified buildings

12 buildings at U of T have attained a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

ROBERTA BAKER/THE VARSITY

Fatima Abdulla Varsity Contributor

The University of Toronto plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 37 per cent from its 1990 levels by 2030. This is part of the University Climate Change Coalition commitment, which U of T joined in February.

According to Ron Saporta, U of T’s Chief Operations Officer of Facilities and Services, around 50,000 metric tonnes of carbon emissions have been eliminated in the past ten years on the St. George campus alone.

Making changes to existing infrastrcture poses challenges, but according to Saporta, no challenge is insurmountable, and those that arise are expected from a campus of this size and age.

A new greenhouse gas project is in the works on all three campuses, part of an overarching project that is anticipated to be completed by the end of next March.

The Athletic Centre at UTSG will also acquire photovoltaic and photothermal panels, and a new 14-storey academic tower made of timber will be built above the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport.

Already, there are many sustainable buildings at U of T, 12 of which have attained a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. The Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC) awards

these ratings based on the type of building being assessed.

The Varsity ranked each of these buildings according to a standardized percentage score, calculated from comparing the points awarded to each building by LEED to a total possible number of points for each criteria.

Among the following buildings, six have Gold certification and four have Silver. Out of all certifications granted by the CaGBC, Platinum is the highest, followed by Gold, Silver, and Credited as the lowest.

Exam Centre (UTSG) LEED Rating: Gold 63% Certified in 2009, the Exam Centre uses rainwater to reduce water consumption by 62 per cent.

In 2017, the addition of photovoltaic solar panels successfully lowered electricity needs, generating 75,000 kW-hours per year. The green wall on the first floor acts as a natural air cleaner.

Lassonde Mining Building (UTSG) LEED Rating: Gold 61.4% The Lassonde Mining Building was renovated in November of 2011, converting unused spaces such as the attic into "student design studios," teaching spaces, and even a rooftop meeting room. Photovoltaic panels produce energy required for lighting and technology in the Goldcorp Mining Innovation Suite. Other measures such as thermal buffer zones for improved insulation, automated smart blinds, and skylights were also implemented to minimize energy consumption.

Environmental Science and Chemistry Building (UTSC) LEED Rating: Gold 58.2% This building houses UTSC's Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences and features 2,890 square metres of research and teaching labs. An earth tube system ventilates the building while a geothermal pump cools and heats it. Materials with low Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), such as paint and adhesives, were used in addition to low-flow plumbing and rain water usage to reduce the building's carbon footprint. Other green features include glazing on the windows to reduce

heat transfer, electric vehicle charging stations, and a green roof.

Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (UTSC) LEED Rating: Gold 57.3% This high performance sports facility was built with 30 per cent recyclable material. 95 per cent of all construction waste was diverted from landfills, and instead recycled, reused, or composted. The Sports Centre also uses geothermal heating, which supports 40 per cent of the building's heating and 99 per cent of cooling demands. Its 1,854 solar panels generate enough energy to power 20 standard homes a year. As well, the building consumes around 37 per cent less water than a standard building of its size, and saves around 1.8 million liters of water per year.

Terrence Donnelly Health Sciences Complex (UTM) LEED Rating: Gold 57.1% The Health Sciences Complex was built in 2011 using low-emitting materials, which contribute to better indoor environmental quality. The building’s underground cistern houses rainwater for irrigation that has helped reduce water consumption by 50 per cent. Stainless steel panels were also configured to provide insulation during the winter, and the building's exterior was designed to prevent heat gain to eliminate the need for cooling systems. The central district energy plant also eliminated the need for independent boilers, chillers, and cooling towers.

Rotman School of Management - South Building (UTSG) LEED Rating: Gold 55.7% The building features nine stories connected to existing Victorian era infrastructure, with measures to prevent the heat island effect, such as the rooftop garden, use of 30 per cent less water, and optimized energy performance. The building also diverted 75 per cent of its waste away from landfills, and used 32 per cent locally processed and manufactured materials in its construction.

Instructional Building (UTM) LEED Rating: Silver 52.9% The UTM Instructional Building was finalized in 2011, complete with a geothermal heat pump

which stores heat in the ground during the summer and uses it in the winter to supply heating and cooling systems. A small amount of electricity is used to run the underground pumps, located in the wells field. A 21 kilowatt solar electric system is also in place, and solar panels reduce the cooling load. Other energy-efficient initiatives in place include using computers, lighting, and tech equipment with minimal waste, as well as using the orientation of the building to maximize on natural light. The building itself is made from local material that is durable, and renewable or recycled.

Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre (UTM) LEED Rating: Silver 50% This 24 hour building opened in 2007 on the site of an old parking lot, and is one of the 44 libraries at the university. It is home to an electronic shelving system that allows shelves to move on a track, and maintains a rooftop garden, which helps to counteract the urban heat island effect. It also has low-emitting building materials and low-flow plumbing to improve air quality and reduce water usage. A green cleaning program has been implemented, among other operations that target indoor air quality.

Munk School of Global Affairs (UTSG) LEED Rating: Silver 47.1% After renovations in 2012, the building features new green aspects like measures to reduce water use by 30 per cent, contribute to ozone protection, and use innovative designs such as low mercury lamps. The renovation of the building itself used low-emitting material, and diverted at least 75 per cent of water from the landfill. Part of the building was also built with wood, a sustainable resource.

Innovation Complex (UTM) LEED Rating: Silver 45.5% The Innovation Complex houses offices, classrooms, and study rooms. There is a green roof, a system of low-flow plumbing fixtures, and ample natural light to enhance energy savings. In addition, a number of exterior “fins” prevent heat retention and reduce the need for cooling energy. The Complex also features efficient lighting fixtures that sense when a room is empty and automatically turn off.

OCTOBER 29, 2018 | 17

var.st/science

Hold your breath

U of T researchers investigate the effects of nitrous acid on indoor air quality Shruti Misra Varsity Contributor

While conversations surrounding air pollution have largely centred on outdoor pollution, indoor air pollution also poses a threat to public health.

A study led by Douglas Collins, former postdoctoral fellow in the Abatt Group in the U of T Department of Chemistry, explored the effects of nitrous acid on indoor air quality.

In an email interview with The Varsity, Collins, now an Assistant Professor at Bucknell University, identified nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter as examples of indoor pollutants.

To simulate nitrous acid chemistry in a realistic environment, Collins and his peers brought lab

TROY LAWRENCE/THE VARSITY

instruments to an inhabited home and set up experiments to observe the effects of combustion, a known source of nitrous acid and nitrogen oxide.

They compared their measurements to a computational model designed to approximate indoor concentrations of nitrous acid combustion based on a variety of factors.

This is one of the first studies on the effects of nitrous acid composition on indoor environemnts to take place in an inhabited house, as previous studies used lab environments to measure nitrous acid concentrations.

Collins explained that while nitrous acid is one of the lesser known pollutants, it is nevertheless one of the most hazardous. Its reactive nature allows it to act "as a source for other chemically reactive compounds that shape the chemical composition of indoor air.” He added that nitrous acid can also “chemically react with tissues in the respiratory tract and cause adverse health effects.”

Other indoor pollutants include some organic chemicals widely used in plastics, flame retardants, and other common household products.

Indoor air pollution is particularly hazardous to humans because the concentration of air pollutants in enclosed environments can quickly accumulate, and lead to severe health problems like respiratory diseases and cancer.

To make matters worse, many homes now lack sufficient ventilation for air circulation for pollutants to escape, due to new energy-saving regulations.

Other sources of indoor air pollution include asbestos, common in older buildings but universally banned in recent years, tobacco smoke, which clings to clothes and furniture, and chemicals released from space heaters, stoves, and certain cleaning products.

There are several types of indoor air quality meters on the market designed to measure the concentrations of nitrous acid and other air pollutants.

“If you’re interested in monitoring your indoor air, be sure to do your research on which mode is best for your purposes — not all sensors are created equal,” Collins wrote.

Popular air quality sensors include volatile organic compound (VOC) sensors which can pick up organic compounds such as formaldehyde and ketones, carbon dioxide meters, and combined sensors, which can measure a variety of particulate matter, VOCs, and gases. Professional labs are used for exhaustive air quality screening.

A major problem with indoor air pollution is that hazardous pollutants are in nearly all household products and are emitted through common tasks, such as cooking.

However, there are ways to improve air quality, including opening windows to improve ventilation and using ventilation fans in the house.

“The fan above the kitchen stove can be an effective way to remove polluted air from your home, especially when cooking, which is one example of an activity that makes lots of pollutants including HONO [nitrous acid] if you have a gas stove,” Collins wrote. “Refraining from using scented candles or incense is another way to stop pollutants from being introduced to your indoor air. Purchasing a good-quality HEPA air cleaner is also a good idea.”

The National Human Activity Pattern Survey reports Canadians spend almost 90 per cent of their time indoors. It is therefore imperative that we understand the effects of indoor pollution and find ways to improve indoor air quality.

Young dinosaur finding hints at evolutionary differences

U of T researcher involved in study that uncovered rare diplodocid skull remains Nubaira Forkan Varsity Contributor

Diplodocids are a group of sauropods that include giants such as Diplodocus and Supersaurus — some of the longest creatures ever to walk the Earth.

Archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of fossils from this dinosaur group, but little is known about their origin or development into adult form.

In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers including U of T PhD candidate Cary Woodruff analyzed a young diplodocid’s skull remains — unearthed in 2010 in Montana — and found that younger diplodocids may have had different diets than their older counterparts.

The skull remains, dubbed ‘Andrew,’ demonstrate that cranial dimensions did not develop on a fixed scale or at equal measures.

The dental and cranial differences between a mature and immature diplodocid can give the impression that they are of different species, but Andrew reveals that there are implications for cranial ecology as young diplodocids grow.

Woodruff and his team were able to determine specific differences between Andrew and adult skulls discovered earlier, including an extended tooth row, taller jaw bones, and peg tooth formation.

In fact, the authors state that if the fragments of the skull had been discovered separately, they would have likely been misidentified.

This is mostly because these distinct traits were

A species of Diplocodus is on display in the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Natural History.

TADEK KURPASKI/CC WIKIMEDIA

common to other species — taxa — in the same clade as diplodocids, such as Eusauropoda and Macronaria. To a non-expert, it would seem strange that younger dinosaurs may horizontally integrate in taxa.

However, the researchers describe that this may be due to either recapitulation or, most likely, dietary niche partitioning between the young and adults.

Recapitulation theory suggests that an organism takes on forms of its ancestors — forms that were critical for survival in evolutionary past but are no longer needed — as it grows from embryo to adult, reaching the latest derived state during adulthood.

As such, it has been suggested that the skulls of adult diplodocids are taking the same form as their ancestors’.

The researchers in this study outline how dietary levels of specialization are what determined skull sizes, and that this is a form of recapitulation.

The younger diplodocids, like their relatives in the same clade and their common ancestors, ate more plants and lived in forested areas.

But as they got older, they gravitated to open space habitats and developed a more specific diet. Dietary specialization is the latest in the evolutionary timeline of diplodocid behavioural development, and is only found in fully mature individuals.

Woodruff explained why so many diplodocid skeletons have been discovered, but so little is known about their cranial ontogeny.

“The greatest difficulty in studying diplodocid —

any sauropod — skulls are their rarity. We have loads of Diplodocus skeletons (well over 100), but fewer than 10 skulls are known. So it’s difficult to even have specimens to study in the first place,” he wrote.

The fragility of these fossils is also a significant limitation. “Dinosaur skulls are made up of dozens of thin, fragile, and delicate bones. The skull could easily get damaged or destroyed long before it’s even buried and begins the fossilisation process,” wrote Woodruff.

Some of Andrew’s bones were missing, “and those that remained were greatly squished” from being underground for millions of years. Bones can also become warped or distorted after long periods.

The work done by Woodruff and his team to draw out the cranial ontogeny and dietary habits of these animals have significant scientific implications. It reveals that diplodocid adults most likely gave birth and then separated from their young early on. It also shows us that herds were mostly segregated according to age.

The work done with Andrew highlights how the fossil record can impart indicators of behaviour and animal sociology. But the questions don't end here.

“Andrew is not some missing link, nor does it fill in all of the remaining questions — it doesn’t even come close. Each new discovery, finding, and bit of research is like finding a piece to our puzzle. With every piece our picture becomes more and more complete,” wrote Woodruff.

Science Around Town Emily Deibert Varsity Staff

How Math Can Save Your Life Modern medical imaging technologies are applications of mathematical research from the early 1900s. In this public lecture hosted by the Centre for Quantitative Analysis and Modelling (Fields-CQAM), Professor Chris Budd will discuss medical imaging and other health applications of mathematics research.

Date: Tuesday, October 30 Time: 6:00–7:00 pm Location: The Fields Institute, 222 College Street Admission: Free with registration Climate Change: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly How can mathematical models provide us with insight into both the past and future of our planet?

Professor Chris Budd will describe the complex mathematical and physical concepts behind climate change in this Fields-CQAM Public Lecture.

Date: Thursday, November 1 Time: 6:00–7:00 pm Location: The Fields Institute, 222 College Street Admission: Free with registration No Sugar Coating In recognition of Diabetes Awareness Month, join U of T PhD candidate and University of Toronto Diabetes Canada Chapter cofounder Krishana Sankar for a talk on the latest in diabetes research.

Date: Thursday, November 1 Time: 7:00–8:00 pm Location: Mississauga Central Library, 301 Burnhamthorpe Road West Admission: Free with registration Bridging the Gulf: Computational Thinking for All In this E. A. Robinson Science Education Lecture, Professor Quintin Cutts will explain “computational thinking” and show how anyone can develop computational skills relevant to their respective field.

Date: Friday, November 2 Time: 2:00–3:00 pm Location: Instructional Building, 3359 Mississauga Road, Room 345 Admission: Free with registration Astronomy on Tap Join the Dunlap Institute for an evening of astronomy news, games, and prizes, with a chance to have all your space-related questions answered by U of T astronomers.

Date: Friday, November 9 Time: 8:00–11:00 pm Location: The Great Hall, 1087 Queen Street West Admission: Free

Sports

October 29, 2018 var.st/sports sports@thevarsity.ca

All the way to Baggataway Inside the Varsity Blues men’s lacrosse team’s 2018 season The 2018 Varsity Blues men’s lacrosse team.

Courtesy of the VARSITY BLUES

Kieran McMurchy Varsity Contributor

“That’s a turnover!” head coach Joe Nizich shouts, his voice echoing through Varsity Stadium as an errant pass sails out of bounds. He shakes his head and paces down the sideline, exasperated.

The Varsity Blues men’s lacrosse team lines up and resets the drill.

“We have to hold on to the ball!” Nizich yells, and as the whistle sounds, the team restarts the drill. The whistle sounds again, and again, and again. Just like it has nearly every day since late August, all in preparation for the November 9–11 weekend when the Blues host the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) championship, the Baggataway Cup, for the first time in their program’s history.

Baggataway. The word on everyone’s lips since it leaked in early spring that U of T would be hosting the tournament. Baggataway, “the Creator’s game” — the game played by the Indigenous peoples of this land that has come to be known as lacrosse. Baggataway, the final weekend of the CUFLA men’s lacrosse season.

Team captain Zach Holmes focuses on picking up the loose ball.

SEYRAN MAMADOV/Courtesy of the VARSITY BLUES

September 7: Toronto at Laurier (win) The final seconds of the halftime break are ticking off. The Blues are huddled together, laughing and gesturing to the scoreboard, 7–2.

It’s only halftime, but the game is surely over.

Captain Jason “Barney” Barnable has begun the season the same way he begins every season — scoring goals and setting them up. As the team comes together before taking to the field again, coach Nick Bradley is quick to pour water on the flames. He looks around the huddle, and shakes his head. “I don’t know why you’re all laughing, score’s 0–0.”

Play like the score is tied; it’s a common refrain in team sports. Imagine the next goal as the winning goal. In the first game of their season, it’s a lesson that the Blues have yet to learn.

A game that seemed certain at halftime ends closer than it needed to.

On this night, the talent on the Blues roster makes the difference. They win the game, but as they get back on the bus and fight through traffic to arrive home in the early hours of the morning, they know that, in the coming weeks and months, talent alone will not be enough.

September 28: Toronto vs. Brock (loss) The Blues are down big time. They’ve given the last 72 minutes of gameplay at home to Brock. Through the bitterly wet and windy night, the Blues have fought hard, but there’s only eight minutes left and they’re going to lose this game. A timeout is called and the team huddles together with the coaches.

Team captain Zach Holmes hunches over, exhausted — 72 minutes and he’s played every second. He winces as he stands up straight, his back to the scoreboard. Tall, proud, and defiant in the face of defeat, he says, “We can play with them, boys, we can play with anyone in this league — we just have to play our game.”

Their heads raised high and eyes blinking through rain that is now falling heavier and heavier with each minute, there’s a sense of determination and belief that resounds through the team.

It isn’t about the single lopsided game, it’s about the progress.

It’s about finishing as you mean to go on. “We’re going to play a team like this at Baggataway,” coach Jon Moore says. Normally calm, jovial, and easygoing, the team’s offensive coordinator is electric

come game time. “They’re not better than us.

Our guys against their guys any day of the week.”

The team comes together again, huddling close. “Eight miles, boys!” a reference to former captain Jonathan “Rudy” Rudyk’s favourite method for keeping time. There’s some laughter and a few grins, then on the count of three, “Blues!” rings through the huddle, through the wind and rain. There’s a sense of togetherness and a sense of family.

There’s no Hollywood ending to this game.

No emotional comeback. No last-second winner. There have been some of those in past games and in games to come; but not tonight.

A heartbreaking loss The men’s lacrosse team has a group chat, as almost every varsity team does. It’s a space to talk about practice, workouts, academics, and general team banter. It’s a space all of their own, away from coaches, and trainers, and doctors. A place to tease and support each other, it’s a virtual locker room.

On September 10, a different message is sent in the group chat. It is a message that will dramatically alter and come to define the season. Coach, former captain, and forever friend Alejandro Duque passed away the day before.

The shock and heartbreak that the players feel is beyond words, beyond comprehension. Senior players had been teammates with Al; they had leaned on his experience, been motivated by his burning passion, and come to love him as a brother. They can’t make sense of it. He was so young, so vibrant, and so excited for the next chapter of his life. The first-year players, most of whom hadn’t met Al, don’t know how to react, only understanding that Al’s loss was a massive one.

That week, practice is tough. No one has the words to describe the hole that is left in the heart of the team. No one wants to practice, and yet being there, together, is comforting.

The one thing that unites the team, that unites every player on the roster, is a love for lacrosse. They take comfort in a crisp pass and an extra effort to get a loose ball. They take comfort in celebrating a particularly outrageous goal, and a stellar defensive play. They take comfort in the sport they love, and it is healing.

The team attends Alejandro’s celebration of life later in the week. Generations of Blues lacrosse players come to say goodbye. It is emotional in many ways. There are many tears, but nearly as many smiles. In a time of such sorrow, there is a sense of family.

Thing One and Thing Two “Power, do your stretches!” Darren “Blondie” Elliott shouts over his shoulder. “You do your stretches!” Sean Power yells back, mocking him.

“Power!”

“Blondie!”

The pair go on like this for a few more moments, shouting at each other and bickering like an old married couple, much to the amusement of the rest of the team. Thing One and Thing Two. Inseparable off the field and leaders on it. Both joined the team the previous year; Blondie, a silky smooth attackman, and Power, a tenacious midfielder.

An offensive midfielder last year, Power selflessly moved to the defensive side of the ball for this season. There’s no glamour in being a defensive midfielder in field lacrosse.

No goals or fancy tricks. No six-foot long pole to wield like a broadsword. It’s a hard, heavy job between your marked man and the ball-carrier. The constant running, vicious body-checking, and fear of making a mistake and having to fish the ball out of your net.

But the team comes first, and Power’s sacrifice has ensured a strong and dependable defense. At their best, the Blues defense frustrates, leaving their rivals bruised, battered, and struggling to score.

September 30: Toronto vs. McMaster (win) As darkness descends around Varsity Stadium, the bright lights shine down on the Blues as they warm up. Everyone on the team has their own pre-game ritual. Some spend time alone to focus. Others exchange lighthearted banter and shoot on the net until the coaches call them in.

The Blues always find McMaster a difficult opponent. Although unable to match Toronto’s talent, McMaster never fails to match their intensity. This game is no different. Heading into the final 20-minute quarter, the Blues are losing by a goal.

In a season filled with such promise — and with the ultimate goal of lifting a trophy at season’s end — losing to McMaster at home would be devastating.

With less than 10 minutes left, first-year attacking midfielder and graduate student Nick Pison scores his second of the game to tie things up. A diamond found in the intramural rough, Pison has been an offensive standout for the Blues. But now at five minutes and counting, Mac once again takes the lead.

“No more,” Gabriel Lisus-Lean says. Those two words are simple enough to understand;

OCTOBER 29, 2018 | 19

WEEKLY BOX SCORES var.st/sports

BASKETBALL MEN’S October 26

they are the ethos of defense. Do not break, do not even bend. Give everything you have in these final minutes. Whatever it takes, hold.

This is defensive coordinator LisusLean’s fourth year as a coach, after playing four years for the Blues.

Eight years with the program, and time and time again, he’s mentioned the dream of playing a playoff game at Varsity Stadium. The Blues are guaranteed that game at Baggataway, but Lisus-Lean is well aware that with the execution the Blues are showing tonight — that game could turn ugly.

CUFLA abides by international rules: four 20-minute quarters. But the fourth quarter of the game against McMaster isn’t going to be won or lost on September 30 alone; it is either won or lost during August training camp and every practice thereafter.

At the end of every practice, strength and conditioning coach Dr. Alex St. Pierre spends 10 minutes putting the Blues through brutal conditioning exercises that leave them gasping for air, legs leaden beneath them.

But it is these 10 minutes every day that give them the mental fortitude and physical ability to play the way they do in the final five minutes against McMaster.

With less than two minutes to go, Barney scores to tie the game. In the final minute, Barney finds Blondie, who buries his decisive second of the game. The Blues win.

October 12: Toronto at Western (loss) Rain is falling and the temperature is dipping dangerously close to zero; these are some of the only constants of October lacrosse. It’s halftime and the Blues are huddled together. They’re in London, taking on the Western Mustangs. After hours on the road, the Blues have come out flat. The coaches are seething, as the Blues have failed to make a simple play and they’re being punished for it.

Lacrosse is a brutal game. Historically, Indigenous peoples used this sport as a war game. Entire tribes would compete against each other on a scale scarcely imaginable, with estimates ranging from 100 participants to 100,000.

Today, only nine men and a goalie take the field at a time, and although it is no longer a war game, the stakes are still high and the play is still ferocious.

Considered the fastest game on two feet, there is no slow play in lacrosse. It is full tilt and high octane, and at the highest level in the country, the animosity and vitriol is evident.

The Blues have an injury list that seems to be growing by the game. On this night, Barney, Blondie, first-year goalie Macon Jeffereys, and I — a fourth-year defensive midfielder — are unable to play. Many of the Blues on field are nursing injuries too, but playing through pain is nothing new.

The Blues’ entire roster at full strength is only half of the Mustangs’ dressed roster. Leaden legs chase desperately after the Mustangs, who are two-time defending national champions.

Second-year long-stick midfielder James “Chilli” Keane has run ragged into the ground. Play after play, he has hacked, slashed, and stopped one of the most prolific offenses in the league. But in a war of attrition, on this night, the Blues are outmatched.

The score ends 21–6. It could have been far worse if not for the efforts of goalie Matt Frola.

In the locker room, there is nothing to say. The team knows. They know that simple mistakes lead to goals. That to beat the Mustangs, they needed to play a near perfect game. Tonight wasn’t perfect,

103–51

Ryerson Rams

Varsity Blues

November 2

Algoma Thunderbirds

vs

Varsity Blues

November 3

Guelph Gryphons

vs

Varsity Blues

WOMEN’S 67–37

October 26

Ryerson Rams

Varsity Blues

November 2

Algoma Thunderbirds

vs

Varsity Blues

November 3

Guelph Gryphons

vs

Varsity Blues

FIELD HOCKEY October 26 Varsity Blues

4–0 Quarterfinals

McGill Martlets

Guelph Gryphons

2–1 (SO 3–2) Semifinals

Varsity Blues

October 27

3–0 Bronze medal match

October 28

Waterloo Warriors

Varsity Blues

HOCKEY MEN’S Darren "Blondie" Elliott despairs at one of the few chances he's missed.

JENNA HUM/Courtesy of the VARSITY BLUES

not nearly. But it was a lesson, especially of the type of game that the Blues would need to play to win at Baggataway.

In professional sports, there is an old adage that says athletes need short memories. Through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows they must keep level heads. But as undergraduate and graduate students, the Blues are not professional athletes, and their spirits tonight are low.

Jeffrey Zade is an upper-year student studying molecular biology. With a wicked shot, always low to high, the attackman doubles as the team’s de facto comedian. He gauges the mood on the ride back from London. As the bus rolls through the dark night, past farmers’ fields, construction, and the glare of traffic, Zade slowly but surely lightens the mood.

Back in Toronto, the team steps off the bus laughing, eager to continue their journey to Baggataway.

Two more weeks of sleeps It’s Wednesday, September 5, and the Blues are scheduled to open their season against Laurier on Friday night.

After a long night of practice, the Blues slow clap and circle up. Water bottles are passed around and ice is given to those in need. They discuss the things that went well, and the things that they need to work on tomorrow. The beauty of practice is that there is always another one tomorrow.

“Three more sleeps!” someone calls out, reminding everyone of the coming game and the dawn of this most important season. There’s a lot of laughter, and some shoving, “Two sleeps, you mean?” More laughter, as the team struggles to figure out how many sleeps until the seventh. After an embarrassing few moments, everyone realizes that it is, in fact, two more sleeps.

The laughter and camaraderie is what makes the Blues special.

Now, for the next two weeks until November 9, the Blues will practice for their 7:00 pm quarterfinal game at Varsity Stadium.

Weeks and months of field practice, work in the gym, and for many, years of playing lacrosse for U of T, are coming together for this final weekend of the season.

Since August, the Blues have practiced day in and day out for Baggataway. They have practiced and played to make sure that, come November 9, they are ready to lay it all on the line.

Baggataway — for the first time in the program’s history.

October 26

5–3 Varsity Blues

McGill Redmen

October 27

5–4 (OT) Varsity Blues

Concordia Stingers

November 2

Lakehead Thunderwolves

vs

Varsity Blues

November 3

Lakehead Thunderwolves

vs

Varsity Blues

WOMEN’S October 27

5–3

Western Mustangs

Varsity Blues

November 1

Ryerson Rams

vs

Varsity Blues

November 3

Varsity Blues

@

York Lions

MEN’S

LACROSSE

October 26

9–7 Varsity Blues

November 9–11

MEN’S

CUFLA Baggataway Cup

SOCCER

October 24 Varsity Blues

October 28

McMaster Marauders

Ryerson Rams

1–0 Playoffs

3–1 Quarterfinals

Laurentian Voyageurs

Varsity Blues

WOMEN’S October 24 Varsity Blues

October 28

WOMEN’S

Ottawa Gee-Gees

1–0 Playoffs

Carleton Ravens

2–0 Quarterfinals

Varsity Blues

VOLLEYBALL

October 26

3–2 Varsity Blues

McMaster Marauders (25–17, 15–25, 16–25, 25–12, 19–17)

October 27

3–1 Varsity Blues

Brock Badgers (25–19, 23–25, 25–23, 25–14)

20 | THE VARSITY | ADVERTISEMENTS

18/19

OCTOBER 29, 2018

Hart House Theatre Season

THE PENELOPIAD Nov. 9–24, 2018 $12 Student tickets every Wednesday evening!

By Margaret Atwood Directed by Michelle Langille

harthousetheatre.ca Season Sponsors: