April 2, 2012

THE VARSITY

Vol. CXXXII, No. 23

University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880

2 April, 2012

It’s a wrap!

ABS-OLUTE ATHLETES U of T’s fittest and finest discuss their seasons

HEY NICKY YOU SO FINE An interview with U of T professor Nick Mount

THE BREAKFAST CLUB Find out how David Naylor starts his day

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VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

news@thevarsity.ca

U of T crime stats March 26–28

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domestic dispute

1

broken air conditioner reported

1

person charged with mischief

3

fire alarms sounded

4

damaged vehicles after collision

TOM CARDOSO/THe VARSiTy

U of T quiet about security after gunman incident Man appeared in court Thursday, possessed no gun upon arrest Simon Bredin ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

quickly, it wasn’t deemed a crisis and could be handled quietly.

Concerned students and staff called campus police and Toronto Police Services to the scene.

The unidentified man was arrested outside the library at 130 St. George St. No gun was found on his person at the time of the arrest.

Police said eyewitnesses described the man as “yelling and screaming.” He has been charged on several counts including threatening bodily harm, although university spokesperson Laurie Stephens said Friday that no students were “directly threatened.” He appeared in court Thursday morning.

The incident occurred on the fourth floor of the library. It was not clear how he managed to bypass the security checkpoint on the first floor, where students are required to show their T-Cards to gain admittance to higher floors.

The suspect is not a student at the university.

The incident took place as students crammed into libraries on campus in preparation for exams and finals.

The university addresses situations like a possible shooter in accordance with the Emergency Preparedness and Crisis Management Plan, a protocol for assessing incidents of varying degrees of severity.

people investigated for trespassing

A 23-year-old man was taken into custody Wednesday morning at 10 am after claiming to possess a gun in Robarts library. The university declined to comment on whether security would be increased or not in light of the incident.

A university representative said that “regular patrols occur in various buildings across campus as the safety of our employees and students is paramount.” The representative added that since police responded to the incident so

4

Ontario budget cuts angers students

4

items stolen, including a wallet and bike

5

security alarms sounded

Government will discontinue some grants, bursaries, and study-abroad scholarships, place a cap on extra credits, and decrease international student funding Akihiko Tse ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

As part of an effort to eliminate Ontario’s $16 billion deficit, finance minister Dwight Duncan tabled the 2012 provincial budget Tuesday, which included holding annual education sector spending to 1.7 per cent and other cost-cutting measures that will affect postsecondary students.

“The single most important thing is to balance the budget,” Duncan told the assembled media on Tuesday.

Among other cuts to the education sector, the government intends to “scale back or discontinue non-core grants and bursaries” to compensate for the 30 per cent Ontario tuition grant, place a cap on extra secondary school credits, eliminate study-abroad scholarships, reduce funding to institutions for non-PhD, and decrease international student funding.

Cancellations to the non-core grants, which are expected to save $84.2 million over three years, will apply to the Ontario Textbook and Technology Grant and the Ontario Trust for Student Support. The Queen Elizabeth II Aiming for the Top Scholarship will be gradually withdrawn over three years. The Small, Northern, and Rural Grant will also be discontinued.

Duncan said the primary aim of the budget is to reduce the deficit in order to stimulate the economy and produce jobs.

“The budget takes strong action and makes the right choices to protect the results we’ve achieved in health care and education,” he said.

Despite economist Don Drummond’s recommendations, the budget will keep funding for full-day kindergarten — to be implemented by 2014 — maintain a cap on class sizes, and continue the 30 per cent tuition grant for eligible college and university students.

However, Sandy Hudson, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario, said the budget was further evidence of “a broken promise” to students after the Liberals campaigned on a pledge to reduce tuition fees by 30 per cent.

“Students are very frustrated about the budget right now,” she said.

Hudson was critical of the fact that only onethird of students — 300,000 Ontario students — are eligible for the 30 per cent tuition grant, while tuition fees have increased by five per cent, and nine financial assistance programs will now be cut.

“For every dollar that’s been invested in student financial aid, $1.20 has been clawed back through the cuts, and so students feel that they’ve been betrayed time and time again by this government,” Hudson said.

CONTINUED ON P4

VARSITY NEWS

news@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

3

Beating the stress

How to cope with exams and end-of-semester workloads Irina Vukosavic VARSITY STAFF

ROCHELLE ARANHA/THE VARsiTy

Feeling the stress of the exam time crunch? You’re not alone.

In a 2009 survey of six Ontario campuses, more than half of undergraduate students said they felt overwhelmed by anxiety during exams.

“I have three midterms and exams plus a presentation within two days.

It’s definitely been quite stressful,” said Aleksandra Dragozet, secondyear biological anthropology student.

More students experience increased symptoms of stress or anxiety during exam periods, according to Jill Stier, assistant professor at the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy.

“For those students with mental health problems, the symptoms tend to be amplified as the term comes to an end,” Stier said. “During this time, students tend to have more academic demands placed on them, which can seriously affect their mental health.”

These stress-related symptoms could snowball into major cases. Last year at Queen’s, six students died due to stress and mental illness.

Chris McGrath, president of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services, cited suicide as the second most common cause of death of people aged 18 to 24 after car accidents.

In an emergency-type situation, services are available at the students’ disposal.

Sarah Illman, a candidate for an MSc in occupational therapy, suggested students refer to the “emergency section” of the Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) website: http://www.caps.utoronto.ca/Emergencies.htm.

Stier also added that it is crucial for students to feel comfortable talking about their symptoms and ultimately get assistance. She said that conversations within the university, faculties, and departments should take place to ensure that the stigma of mental illness is minimized.

Students themselves are trying to figure out ways to deal with stress and heavy workloads.

“I think the key is to do the work as you get it and avoid falling behind. It also helps to make exam notes as you go, so that you don’t have to do them

all at once when the semester comes to an end,” said Katarina Andrejevic, second-year immunology and physiology student.

“I try to balance what I study for and pay even attention to all my subjects. As well, I try to study without distractions, so I keep my phone locked away,” remarked Teodora Avaramov, first-year English student.

There is also a wide variety of programs that can help students take their minds off of school.

Laurie Coleman, a registered U of T social worker, suggested that programs offered at Multi-Faith Centre, Hart House, and various athletic centres are helpful in dealing with stress.

Exercising, doing yoga, or engaging in religious practices were all some methods she had seen students using during this stressful time.

“It is important to let students know that they are not alone because many students are going through similar feelings and emotions,” Stier said. “Students should know that there are resources available at the university that can help them achieve their academic goals and maximize their personal development.”

Strumming his way to the top U of T guitarist Tariq Harb lands coveted musical recital in Amsterdam Evan De Souza VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Tariq Harb received his first guitar as a Christmas gift from his mother when he was eight years old.

“She knew I was interested in guitar because I was listening to guitar music, but I was a violinist,” he said, thinking back to his childhood.

And since receiving his red electric guitar that Christmas day, Harb has gone on to win numerous awards including first prize at both the Montreal International Classical Guitar Competition and the Barrios WorldWideWeb Competition.

Most recently, the U of T doctoral student in musical arts was chosen to perform a solo recital at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Harb will perform in the “Meesters op de Gitaar” (Masters of Guitar) concert series.

“That came as a surprise. I couldn’t believe it,” said Harb after receiving the email from the concert organizers.

The former rocker admitted he is very excited for the event, especially to meet one of the sponsors of the concert who coincidentally made one of his guitars.

According to McGill University professor Dr. Garry Antonio, Harb is a musician of the “highest calibre,” and his guitar playing is “effortless and thoughtless.”

But Harb is too humble to accept these kinds of accolades.

“I obviously appreciate them and I love to hear them, but I try not to let them get to me and try to keep on going forward with my goals,” he said.

It is this humble and driven attitude that pushes Harb to practise on average three to four hours a day. In preparation for a concert, he practises six to seven hours a day.

Music has always been a part of Harb’s life.

His family was very supportive of him as he took lessons at the Queen Noor National Music Conservatory in Amman, Jordan.

Although the majority of his family still lives in Jordan, Harb said they’re still just as supportive despite the challenges of finding financial success as a musician.

“Once you can manage your artistic life and know how to make sure there’s always

EVAN DE sOUZA/THE VARsiTy

funds coming in, then they’re cool and proud of you.”

Harb moved to Canada after high school to study finance, and after earning a BA in commerce from Concordia University, began a career as a financial advisor. Soon, he decided finance wasn’t for him and enrolled in an undergrad program in music.

Before coming to U of T for his doctorate, Harb studied music at both Concordia University and McGill University.

Even though he studied at other universities, Harb credited the guitar program at U of T for expanding his musical knowledge.

He said getting feedback from the numerous

international artists that perform master classes was “extremely helpful.”

Harb’s musical studies have honed his performing skills and allowed him to take ownership of the pieces he plays. Harb finds that his biggest challenge is bringing out the composer’s original intention, while still owning the piece.

Nerves are another aspect of performing that Harb struggles with, but he came up with a solution: turning his nervousness into excitement.

“It’s those moments when you turn those nerves into excitement and you get that kind of energy between audience and performer

that makes it all worth it to me,” he said.

Despite the nerves and long practice hours, Harb truly loves performing and for him, the best part of his musical journey is inspiring people.

“I love it when people tell me ‘I like the pieces that you play; I would love to play them some day’ or ‘I’m actually buying a guitar.’ This is the most rewarding thing to hear,” said Harb, modestly chuckling.

Harb is scheduled to perform in Costa Rica in August and then the Concertgebouw show in September. After these two shows, he plans on performing around Ontario and working on his doctoral thesis.

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VARSITY NEWS

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

news@thevarsity.ca

NEWS IN BRIEF

CONTINUED FROM P2

London to adopt party bylaw after St. Patty’s day fiasco

U of T lip dub receives lukewarm reviews

Memorial University reserves seats for Aboriginals

City solicitor James Barber is drafting a proposal for a new city bylaw, aimed at shutting down “nuisance parties.” The bylaw is modelled after one in Bowling Green, Ohio and similar laws in college towns south of the border. It will give police the authority to shut down parties on private properties and issue fines and in extreme cases, arrests.

Barber was prompted to draft the proposal after a chaotic St. Patrick’s Day celebration in a neighbourhood close to Fanshawe College. The riot resulted in a destroyed media van, injured firefighters, and over $1,000 in damages.

Several students turned themselves in following the raucous party that lasted all day. The community is known to house many students from the nearby college.

—Georgia Williams

One reshoot, two teasers, and multiple fundraisers later, the official U of T Lip Dub video premiered on YouTube at 5 pm, Friday after a full year of preparation.

The video generated about 36,000 views in less than two days. The 10-minute video featured more than 1,500 students from all three campuses and included cameos from president David Naylor dancing to LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” alongside cheerleaders.

Despite the anticipation, the reception was mixed.

“I know that it’s going to get a lot of criticism because that’s just the nature of producing something. I’m just glad people got to really experience the unity at U of T,” said lip dub director Sandra Zhou in an interview with the Toronto Star.

As of April 1, the video received 665 likes and 763 dislikes on YouTube.

—Sunnie Huang

The Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission recently granted special status to Memorial University’s Aboriginal Designated Seats Program, which reserves three seats for First Nations students.

The commission’s commitment protects Memorial’s program from meeting any obstacles or oppositions in the future.

The three Canadian Aboriginal students will be required to meet the minimum entrance standards to a wide range of programs. The university clarified that the seats aren’t a guaranteed entrance but rather an invitation to encourage aboriginal applicants.

Applicants to this program are still required to meet university entrance standards.

—Jennifer Gosnell

With files from Metro News and Maclean’s.

With files from Maclean’s.

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The budget also proposes a cap on excess secondary school credits — at 34 beyond the requisite 30 — which executive director of People for Education Annie Kidder said will limit students’ ability to plan effectively before attending university.

“I was really seriously surprised to see a cap on high school credits,” Kidder said. “[The budget] says it’s going to give them an incentive to plan well, but I’ve had teenagers and they don’t plan well… They need to have that flexibility in high school.”

Study-abroad scholarships and funding for non-PhD international students are also on the chopping block. This could mean that institutions will be forced to charge higher tuition fees for international students in order to eliminate the provincial deficit, said a former CUPE Local 3902 Unit 1 bargaining team member.

“We are already in a situation which is viable for only the richest international students or those willing to take on a huge debt sentence, and this will be further off-loading the provincial deficit onto those same students,” said Ashleigh Ingle, who is also running for a position on the Graduate Student Council. “The exclusion of working class people from an educational institution, no matter where they are from, is a sign of an unhealthy system.”

She added that the cancellation of study-abroad scholarships would constrain students’ university experiences and global perspectives.

U of T spokesperson Laurie Stephens said they can’t comment on the budget or its contents at this moment.

“There are a number of measures in the provincial budget that will have an impact on Ontario universities. The university is examining those measures to ensure it has a full understanding of what they mean to the U of T,” she said.

A spokesperson from the admissions and awards office could not be reached for comment on Friday.

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VARSITY NEWS

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MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

5

Addressing cases of bad roommates

Conviction in Dharun Ravi case stirs discussion on university policies for residence room changes Dalana Parris ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

MICHAEL BEDFORD/THE VARsITy

Extended tuition cap increase met with outrage Education ministry also issues province-wide flat fee moratorium Rida Fatema Ali VARSITY STAFF

An announcement by the McGuinty government extending the five per cent tuition fee cap has been met with criticism and outrage from student groups across Ontario.

The cap would allow postsecondary institutions to increase fees by up to an average of five per cent — almost twice the inflation rate — for the seventh year in a row. It has been a part of the educational framework since 2006.

“The five per cent tuition cap is the largest cap across the country,” said Sandy Hudson, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario.

“No other province has a cap that’s that big. Most of the caps are inflationary caps.”

According to Statistics Canada, Ontario’s average tuition fees are the highest in the country at $6,640, followed by New Brunswick’s, which, at $ 5,853, is still nearly $800 less.

“In the last six years, we have seen tuition fees increase by 71 per cent. We have seen provincial funding to our institutions go down and students are now shouldering more of that underfunding than ever before,” said Shaun Shepherd, VP external for UTSU and next year’s elected UTSU president.

Shepherd stated that instead of raising tuition by five per cent and giving some students back $1,600, a better alternative would be to use the funding allocated for the grant to provide an

overall tuition fee reduction.

The announcement also included a moratorium on increasing or establishing flat and deferral fees for 2012–13.

For weeks, there have been rumours of a province-wide flat fee being established for all arts and science programs, but education minister Glen Murray declared them false.

“No changes are being contemplated that would require all universities to set standard tuition fees for arts and science programs,” said Murray in a statement.

This was one part of the announcement that was well-received by students.

“It is good to see a moratorium on flat fees in the province, and we hope to work with the MTCU on eliminating flat fees,” Shepherd said.

But overall, the reaction still has been that the government is not doing all that it can for postsecondary students.

Hudson said that the government needs to prioritize in investing on postsecondary education.

She also added that free education in Ontario would only cost $2.4 billion.

That is less than one third of the annual $8-billion corporate tax.

“We need to see a fully funded reduction in our tuition fees to address the upfront barriers to accessing postsecondary education facing many communities, and we need to see an investment in upfront, needs-based grants to decrease student debt in the province,” Shepherd said.

This week’s conviction of former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi has reignited discussions on the responses to university residence room change requests.

Two years ago, Ravi broadcasted an unauthorized webcam video of his roommate Tyler Clementi being intimate with another man. Shortly after the broadcast, Clementi committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.

In the weeks before Clementi’s suicide, it is alleged that he filed a room change request. Questions have surfaced about how Rutgers responded to the claim at the time.

Critics from Maclean’s OnCampus argue that had Clementi been granted a room change or had his initial complaint been handled differently, he might still be alive today.

As a result, Maclean’s OnCampus urges universities to take room change requests more seriously.

U of T administrators say they approach cases of bad roommates on an individual basis to ensure each situation is dealt with using appropriate measures.

The dean of St. Michael’s College, Duane Rendle, told The Varsity that although residence policies at the university vary from college to college, they are based on “the best practices in the industry.”

Rendle said that SMC uses various techniques in order to pair “good roommates,” such as providing a roommate questionnaire, drafting roommate agreements, and teaching “roommate etiquette.”

Despite these precautions, Rendle explained that it is still difficult to foresee cases of “bad

roommates.”

“I’ll be the first to admit that assigning roommates is not yet a science,” said Rendle.

“Sometimes two people who looked like great matches on paper won’t get along very well. Other times people who appear to be polar opposites will not only find a way to coexist but turn out to be lifelong friends,” he continued.

In the event that roommate relationships sour, SMC uses an incremental system to mediate nonthreatening conflicts. In contrast, more direct and immediate action is taken to address dangerous situations.

“For incidents that involve threats, harassment, or theft, we would never advise students to simply ‘[work it out] among themselves’ or ‘come back and see us in October,’” said Rendle. “Our residence life staff would intervene immediately.”

Similar to SMC, New College residences implement policies that monitor roommate conflicts and encourage staff to intervene in hostile incidents.

“We have live-in dons in residence that help to mediate situations between roommates. Dons work closely with the assistant director, residence life to ensure that roommates each live in a safe space, and that their needs are met,” said Virginia Kostianiuk, assistant director of residence life at New College.

Although cases of bad roommates are a concern, not all colleges and campuses at U of T receive many complaints.

Julie Stevenson, assistant director of residence life at UTM, said that the Mississauga campus generally does not have as many issues in its residences because its rooms are single occupancy, eliminating the “good-roommate, bad-roommate” issue.

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Ten-million dollar project U of T’s Excellent. latest legacy New artificial turf on the horizon, won’t require student fee increase Sunnie Huang ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Back Campus lovers can soon say goodbye to muddy shoes and blotchy grasses if a capital project to install artificial turfs is approved by the Governing Council next month.

The St. George Back Campus Fields Project, with an estimated cost of $10 million, would see the entire Back Campus, an area enclosed by Hoskin Avenue, Hart House, and University College, ex-

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cavated and layered with synthetic surfaces similar to the ones used by the Varsity Stadium. The fields would be laid out according to International Hockey Federation guidelines, which would allow U of T to host national championships.

“U of T has an incredibly strong and rich history in field hockey. It would be great to revitalize that sport here,” said Anita Comella, assistant dean of co-curricular physical activity and sport from the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education.

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Once completed, Back Campus would be the only double-turfed field hockey ground in Ontario.

Other sports, such as soccer and lacrosse, can be played recreationally.

The proposed operation is part of the Toronto 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games and is jointly developed by U of T, Infrastructure Ontario, and the Toronto 2015 Organizing Committee. The federal and provincial governments will contribute to 56 per cent of the cost, and U of T is responsible for the remaining 44 per cent.

“We have never had, and likely will never have, an opportunity to pay 44 cents on a dollar for a capital construction project,” Comella said. “We found this project to be a great match for 2015 needs during the games and our needs as a legacy.

“Toronto 2015 is very focused on the legacy. They don’t want these games to just be building sports infrastructures and leaving them as white elephants in the community or tearing them down,” she said.

The project would not result in any student fee increase because extra revenues would be generated from renting the upgraded fields externally to community members, according to Comella. Currently, Back Campus is not available for external rental because of grass degradation. She added that most external rentals would take place during down time — such as Sunday mornings or summer semesters — when these fields are not in high demand by students or intramural teams.

Comella said U of T has always grappled with sports infrastructure deficit, with student access to sports facilities at about 66 per cent of the standard set by the Council of Ontario Universities. Switching Back Campus from natural grass to artificial turf would increase student access time threefold, as the synthetic surfaces are not seasonsensitive.

The planning process for the St. George Back Campus Fields Project began when Toronto was drafting the bid book for the Pan/ Parapan-Am Games. Back Campus, with its downtown location and proximity to the future Athletes’ Village, was picked over Front Campus because it provides the ideal location to have two fields side-by-side. Two games can be going on at the same or one field can be used for warm up.

The proposal was approved by the Planning and Budget Committee, the University Affairs Board, and the Academic Board in the past two months. The Governing Council will vote on it on April 11. Once approved, the project would take about a year to complete.

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VAR.ST/COMMENT

FROM THE ARCHIVES

2 APRIL 2012 comment@thevarsity.ca

A necessary labour Why unions are essential for healthy democracies Simon Capobianco VARSITY STAFF

Throughout history, democratization and organized labour have been inextricably connected. Workers’ groups were the driving force behind the French Revolutions of 1848, which established, among other things, unemployment institutions and led to a recognition of the people’s “right to work.” The Arab Spring was also largely union-driven; the April 16 movement, which was at the centre of the uprising in Egypt, is named after the date of a planned textile workers’ protest that was crushed by state force in 2008.

The inspirational Bolivian revolution that took place between 2000 and 2005, during which the longoppressed indigenous population deposed a dictator and took back its water supply, was also built upon union organization.

Around the world, labour unions are at the crest of extremely exciting developments in democratization and social justice. In Canada, however, where organized labour has been the cornerstone of our democratic and social progress for more than a century, unions are becoming increasingly unpopular.

Although the business world has always been hostile to workers’ rights, recently the working class (historically coterminous with organized labour) has developed a significant antipathy towards unions. These anti-union sentiments culminated

in the highly publicized incident during the recent Air Canada wildcat strike, in which a man spat in the face of a female unionist.

Amid the economic uncertainty following the recession of 2008, many Canadians have directed their frustrations at public-sector workers, whom they accuse of greediness amid scarcity. The vice-president of an Ontario business group articulated this sentiment well in a recent National Post article: “We’re coming out of a very painful recession, there are obviously dark clouds out there,” he explained. “I think the public generally are looking at their own circumstances and saying ‘We’ve taken a big hit and meanwhile we’re seeing government employees living a good lifestyle on our dime.’” Likewise, a recent Globe and Mail article notes that many Canadian workers see their unionized counterparts as “out-of-touch elitists mocking hardpressed taxpayers with their job security, regular hours, and goldplated pensions.”

Although frustration is understandable in tough economic times, it must be understood that if working people in Canada — indeed anywhere — are to see improvements in their work conditions, job security, and standard of living, both history and common sense tell us that it will be through more, not less, labour organization. It is a virtual axiom of economics that market forces, if unrestrained by regulation and collective bargaining, depress wages and

working conditions to sub-human levels, while increasing unemployment and wealth inequalities. Anyone interested to know what life is like in unionless societies need only take a look at the poorer developing nations or, better yet, our own history, which demonstrates unequivocally the necessity of collective bargaining rights for decent survival.

Canada has organized labour to thank for the vast majority of social advances that have made life in this country worth living for the majority of its citizens, including the jewel in the crown of Canadian society: universal health care. As historian Desmond Morton puts it “In 1870, sickness, injury, unemployment and old age had been economic catastrophes: by 1970, most Canadians could depend on Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, workers’ compensation plans, and a web of government-backed pension and security plans. Almost every significant advance had been foreseen and fought for by the labour movement and, by the same token, denounced as ruinous to the economy by business leaders and their powerful allies.”

Unions, like immigrants, are popular scapegoats for economic troubles, whatever their cause. During recessions, the frustrations of the un- and underemployed are easily misdirected at those who fare relatively well — a fact which the busi-

CONTINUED ON P11

We called it! Way back in 2010, The Varsity predicted the end of the penny.

Read about it here: var.st/8he

The recent Canadian Union of Postal Workers strike was ended through back-to-work legislation. BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

The road to 24 Sussex Dr. What the New Democrats will have to do to win the 2015 election Patrick Baud VARSITY STAFF

Last weekend, thousands of New Democrats gathered in Toronto to select their party’s next leader. Thousands more cast their ballots in advance and online the day of the convention. After four ballots, Thomas Mulcair, one of the party’s two deputy leaders, was chosen as Canada’s leader of the opposition. In choosing Mulcair, New Democrats have shown that they have a sense of what they need to do if they want to win the next federal election. Mulcair is popular in Quebec, which the NDP hopes to make its new electoral stronghold, and is sufficiently moderate to attract disaffected Liberals to the party.

However, new leadership will not be enough to transform the New Democrats from opposition to government. Many Canadians still question whether the New Democrats could handle the economy and tame the deficit. The standard New Democratic response to this attack, which emphasizes the harm that the policies of the other parties have done to the majority of Canadians while in government, is simply not enough. The negative perception of the

New Democrats is so entrenched that they will have to work harder than both the Conservatives and the Liberals to establish their economic chops.

Fortunately, the New Democrats benefit from a major untapped resource in this regard: provincial New Democratic governments. While many in Ontario recall the New Democratic government of current federal Liberal leader Bob Rae with disgust, NDP governments in other provinces have been remarkably successful. Ahead of the convention, Nova Scotia premier Darrell Dexter published an op-ed in the Globe and Mail touting his government’s many economic achievements. Indeed, Dexter’s government is one of the few in Canada to be running a budgetary surplus. New Democratic governments, past and present, in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have also enjoyed many successes.

As the New Democrats look towards the 2015 election, they should aggressively recruit current and former cabinet ministers from these governments to run. This would not only help the federal NDP seem more credible, but also would also enhance their ability to

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

After four ballots, Thomas Mulcair secured the leadership of the NDP. MATT JIGGINS/FLICKR

VARSITY COMMENT

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CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Canadians. Doubling the benefit would require increasing deductions, which currently apply only to the first $48,300 of income. While Mulcair would presumably support raising the amount of income to which the deductions apply, he would likely have to raise deduction rates across the board to achieve this ambitious goal.

This kind of problem does not exist with all the policies put forward by New Democrats. Yet it certainly plagues some of them, such as introducing national childcare and pharmacare programs. It makes it all too easy for the Conservatives and Liberals to paint the NDP as a party not prepared to govern. There is certainly a risk involved in disclosing costs for their proposals, but unless they do so, the New Democrats will never gain the credibility that they need to constitute the government.

The New Democrats have done well to select Mulcair as their leader. He is certainly the type of politician who could lead them to victory in 2015, but he cannot do so unless the New Democrats raise their game. This means drawing on the experience of provincial New Democratic governments and ensuring that the NDP makes proposals that are solidly founded. The New Democrats face several obstacles along the road to 24 Sussex, but these can be overcome if they admit the challenges they face and work to resolve them.

govern well if they were to form a government. The New Democrats should not ignore provincial cabinet ministers from other parties, particularly the Liberals, in their effort to strengthen their shadow cabinet. After all, prior to running for his House of Commons seat in Outremont, Mulcair served as environment minister in a Quebec Liberal government.

Even former provincial cabinet ministers who are not interested in running federally could help improve the NDP’s credibility. While they are already active in federal election campaigns, they are generally unseen between elections. They should be deployed in greater numbers as spokespeople for the party in the news media, explaining the flaws in the Harper government’s proposals and sketching out the New Democratic alternative. This is something that the Conservatives and Liberals do not need to do because voters are accustomed to thinking of one of them as the governmentin-waiting, while the other is in power. Not so with the New Democrats.

Bolstering credibility by drawing on provincial experience is important, but it is not the only thing that New Democrats will have to do in order to be seen as a potential government. During his recent leadership campaign, Mulcair proposed doubling payments to retirees made by the Canada Pension Plan. Currently, the CPP is funded through contributions deducted from the paychecks of

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VARSITY COMMENT

10 MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

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THE VARSITY

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VARSIT HE

Y

T

VOL. CXXXIII No. 23

ES

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Contributors Tanya Debi, Evan De Souza, Zoe Edwards, Albert Razvan Gheorghita, Mekhala Gunaratne, Elizabeth Haq, Sarah Lin, Meghan McCabe, Cristina Olteanu, Mary Scourboutakos, Fiona Tran, Nathan Watson Copy Editors Emily Dunbar Tina Hui Laura Mitchell Joshua Oliver Benjamin Pan Jasmine Pauk Thuy Truong

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EDITORIAL

Gradually, then suddenly T

he media landscape changes in two ways: gradually, then suddenly.

For several years now, in The Varsity’s final issue of the academic year, the outgoing editor-inchief has written an impassioned defense of print and a call for students to start reading newsprint more often, lest the medium die out altogether.

But that doesn’t really tell the story of how much this publication has progressed over the past few years. Though The Varsity has struggled in the face of declining advertising revenue, it has still found ways to flourish: through the introduction in 2007 of The Varsity Magazine, a feature-based issue; through its annual Student Handbook, a true testament to the passion and creativity of our student editors; and more recently, through a full website redesign, which has nearly tripled our site’s direct traffic.

It may come as a surprise that The Varsity has been dealing with

significant financial obstacles in recent years. (For a better idea of what I’m talking about, flip to page 19 to see 2011’s audited financial statements.) We’ve addressed this challenge head-on, with a total restructuring of this paper’s business office and board — ever since last summer, the paper’s business operations have been entirely administered by students, including ad sales, bookkeeping, and dayto-day clerical duties. Though it’s still too early to call, the shift to a student-led business model has so far shown promising results.

The board of directors has been similarly overhauled. With the guiding hands of a diligent policy analyst and an experienced lawyer, the structure and purpose of our board of directors have been completely rethought. Governance at The Varsity is, more than ever before, alive and well.

As important as business and board operations might be, however, it’s in the editorial department that this publication has

grown the most. In my three years as a Varsity staffer (and my two previous ones reading every issue that hit the stands), I’ve never seen more names on our masthead.

The amount of talent and dedication this publication has been able to attract is proof enough that there is still a place for journalism on this campus.

In the face of ever-increasing financial and editorial adversity, The Varsity has grown — grown, despite publishing a single print issue every week; grown, despite skyrocketing expenses and declining revenue; grown, despite the occasional legal threat from the subjects of our investigative pieces. Printing an issue every week is our job; being able to involve as many people as we do and having the time of our lives doing it is a true accomplishment.

As the year comes to an end, so does The Varsity’s 2012–2013 run, and I couldn’t be prouder of this year’s team. I’d like to thank the writers, editors, photographers, de-

signers, illustrators, copy editors, fact checkers, ad executives, business officers, and board members: they all came together to produce the paper, website, videos, photographs, illustrations, recordings, and writing you see before you.

I’d also like to thank this year’s masthead in particular, who have braved many meals of beer and pizza, handed in assignments late, and slept on couches to guarantee our product is the best it could be. Above all, however, I’d like to thank you, the reader, for choosing this publication week after week.

Thus ends the academic year, and year CXXXII of The Varsity’s history. I can only hope next year’s masthead, staff, and contributors enjoy putting together this publication every week as much as I did, because the end always sneaks up on you. Gradually, then suddenly.

TOM CARDOSO Editor-in-Chief, 2011–2012

What happened on the Internet this year?

Looking back on some disappointing trends from a year on the Web Davin Leivonen Fok ASSOCIATE COMMENT EDITOR

As another busy year draws to a close, we University of Toronto students can reflect on the moments we’ve shared together this year.

There have been plenty of highs and lows, and I’m not just talking about abominable grades.

On the Internet, we were asked to stop a Ugandan warlord by watching a 20 minute video of vague accusations. And we mourned the death of two major musical talents in the only fashion the Internet knows: by making them more popular than ever — to the point where they begin to annoy us.

The Kony 2012 campaign is really quite phenomenal. The video

itself, a 22-minute piece about a Ugandan warlord and criminal, tells the harrowing story of all the atrocities the man has committed, using vague statements, bright colours, incredible self-praise by its director, and charts that simple health adverts use to make people aware of problems they were never concerned with before and will quickly forget. Personally, I have not watched the video past the part that states that there are 200 million more people on Facebook than there were 200 years ago — as if nobody realizes the internet has only been around since the ‘90s. Still, disregarding its lack of political nuance, I suppose the video’s sentiment is correct.

As for the music industry, the

passing of Whitney Houston and the earlier death of Amy Whitehouse has transformed both singers’ careers. Prior to their respective passings, people would not have felt apprehensive about mocking their infamous addictions. But with the need to fill up a 24-hour news cycle, we were forced to learn all the intimate details of their tragic lives and then endure their beatification. Once they had passed, nobody dared insult their talent, and instead we gave them more airplay to remind ourselves of the incredible potential that we’d lost. This type of reaction is not unprecedented; record companies were equally thrilled at Kurt Cobain and Michael Jackson’s respective deaths.

In terms of mockery, it’s a little bizarre that the death of a celebrity will change their entire status.

I’m not trying to excuse or lighten the negativity shown to celebrities, but it’s peculiar that if someone has enough talent, they’re exempt from scorn.

Despite the many forms of communication available to us, we have confused messages for ourselves.

It’s impossible to stop a warlord if nobody really knows the facts first-hand. Although many have watched the video, few seem to have acted on it. The discussion is no longer about what cause is being addressed but how we address it. Couldn’t those who live on the Internet make a video to stop Stupidity 2012?

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VARSITY COMMENT

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

11

Turning it down a notch Why we need to end the uncivil discourse before it gets out of hand Meghan McCabe VARSITY STAFF

Last week, there were two events that held deep significance and big implications for the Canadian culture of today: I stood in line at a post office and I turned the TV on to the CBC when I got home.

What I saw on TV, after what I had just witnessed at the post office, left me feeling disgusted and altogether hopeless. At the post office, a younger, 20-something man in front of me was having an argument with a 50-year-old postal worker behind the counter. The customer was inexplicably rude and demanding, calling the post office employee heinous names and cursing loudly as an older woman, a young mother, her young child, and I stood around in a sort of dumb shock.

Did he not understand that one shouldn’t treat others this way? Then something curious and upsetting happened when the customer addressed me: he was nice. Which made me wonder if he was being so rude to the gentleman and so civil to me because, unlike the post office cashier, I speak without an accent. I, like the irate customer, reek of generations of Canadianism.

Nonetheless, as I walked out the door, my mind raced with more questions: why are so many people so rude, and why did I not say

something? Why didn’t I tell my peer that he cannot treat people that way? In that post office there should have been nothing holding me back from speaking up, from saying “that ain’t right,” because that is what each of us in there believed. The whole moment encapsulated what appear to be two growing trends. When it counts, Canadians are not as polite as the stereotype lets us believe, and we are not willing to plainly point out what is not acceptable. We see it in our politicians and we see it in our streets. I thought I might simply be romanticizing an era I never knew, nostalgic for a past that may never have existed. But that cannot possibly be the case; basic human decency cannot possibly be antiquated. My Canada is not rude; it is kind, not discriminatory, inclusive, and accepting. I see less and less of this in my Canada every day.

At home, the TV blinked on to an attack

Canada has organized labour to thank for the vast majority of social advances that have made life in this country worth living for the majority of its citizens, including the jewel in the crown of Canadian society: universal health care.

CONTINUED FROM P8 ness community eagerly exploits. As early as the global recession of 1873, Morton observes, “Employers took advantage of the crisis to rid themselves of troublesome unions and their spokesmen.” During the Great Depression, labour was dealt a major blow when a mining strike was broken up by state violence, killing three miners. Throughout the financial crisis of the 1970s, organized labourers — despite their constant willingness to accept wage freezes — were blamed for the rampant inflation caused by bad import policies.

The same scapegoating is easily visible today in the mainstream press. During the recent mail strike, one could read again and again that postal workers must “wake up to the new reality” of electronic communication and decreased mail volume.

As one commentator put it, management, which faces “daunting challenges,” had to deal with its “bloated workforce” and “get its labour costs under control” or face catastrophe. The fact that Canada Post — a Crown Corporation which is mandated only to break even while providing a public service — had posted profits for 15 consecutive years, including a record $443 million in the year of the strike, was hardly mentioned in discussions of this “daunting new reality.”

Oddly enough, the out-of-control costs that had to be cut did not include the CEO’s halfmillion dollar salary.

Of course, it is true that unions sometimes make unwise decisions, providing easy fodder for anti-labour pundits. CUPE, for instance,

should not have gone on strike over bankable sick days in 2009, creating a summer garbage overflow in Canada’s largest city and souring public opinion on labour. The City of Toronto was at least equally responsible for the workstoppage, refusing to let sick days be banked just results in employees using them to extend their weekends rather than risk losing them at the end of the month. But the lesson is clear: unions live and die with public opinion and must be willing to suffer small injustices in order to spare the public large ones.

The extent to which labour rights underpin modern civilization is evident in the fact that they have been enshrined in international law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees to everyone not only the “right to work” and to “protection from unemployment,” but also to “form and join trade unions” and to be paid wages sufficient for “an existence worthy of human dignity.” Human dignity, indeed, is the indispensable cause and consequence of labour organization. One need not look too far back in Canadian history to find serfdom in Lower Canada, children slaving in factories, and non-landowners excluded from voting.

The rights, which we now take for granted, were won by long, bitter, and often bloody labour struggles — a fact which we must not forget. There is still much to be done if full rights are to be won for all workers. These endeavours require solidarity and compromise, not jealousy and intransigence, which, as history shows, are the only things that can prevent people from gaining, and holding, lives worthy of human dignity.

py to see the Liberals disintegrate, and negative ads like that are quite helpful to their cause. But again, who cares? I would rather see my governing party invest in informing my fellow citizens about the important work they are doing, about what matters today or, even better, actually doing the work. At this point in the game, the issues trump the parties.

Lately, the House of Commons has been engrossed in accusations over Robocalls and indeed the issue of fraudulent phone calls seeking to disrupt the fair democratic process during last year’s federal election is extremely important.

The fact that it is even an issue is disconcerting enough and a further reflection of the fall of Canadian politics. Things weren’t so ROCHELLE ARANHA/THE VARsiTy dirty here once upon a time. And ad against Liberal interim leader Bob Rae, the shouting of accusations back paid for by the Conservative Party of Cana- and forth in Parliament is nothing to be da. Among other grievances, it condemned proud of either. There’s fighting about how Rae’s actions as premier of Ontario in the the unemployment rate keeps rising but no early 1990s. Attack ads during election cam- understanding of what to do about it. Invespaigns have grown in popularity since the tigators are being left to sort out the Robo1990s, because however much Canadians calls mess. The 2012 federal budget does not deplore them, the ads work. All the major bode well for university students hoping parties have used them. My point is not par- to find gainful employment upon graduatisan; we are witnessing volatility between tion. So, Canadians have two options: leave politicians of all stripes. But we are years this country in search of greener pastures away from another federal election, the Con- or start speaking up to say that this is not servatives have a majority, Rae is not even okay. We need to be able to tell that rude leader of the official opposition, and most peer that such behaviour doesn’t fly in our important of all, who cares about what he country, just as we need to be able to tell did two decades ago? The ad is just another our politicians the same. We need our MPs example of the decline in civility in Canadi- to stop behaving like schoolyard bullies and an politics and the ideologically-based bul- start working on the future of this country. lying that litters the headlines today. Poli- We need to make them care by telling them tics is adversarial, but does it have to be this that we care. We need to make sure that we bad? The Conservatives would be quite hap- do not lose the Canada we know and love.

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Rachel Jewett, track and field OUA MVP Rachel Jewett has had a stunningly successful season. The Varsity Blues pentathlete and runner took the gold and bronze medals in the OUA and CIS women’s pentathlon events, respectively.

The track-and-field star’s achievements come despite sitting out all of last season. “It’s my second year on the team, but I was injured last year so I didn’t compete,” Jewett explains. “So technically, it’s my first year of eligibility and competing for U of T.” Being sidelined did play a positive role in Jewett’s performances this season, though. “Just having another year in there of training helped me get a lot fitter, a lot stronger for this season,” she notes.

“I definitely don’t think it would have gone the same way if I hadn’t been injured.”

Aside from her individual success, Jewett was part of the 4 × 400 m women’s relay team that broke records at both the OUA and CIS championships. “[At CIS] it was very close between us and the team from Saskatchewan, but we were going in with the goal of winning and breaking the record,” Jewett explains. “We had no idea we would break it by so much — we improved our personal best time by about three or four seconds.

“That was the highlight of my season, just winning CIS and breaking the record and all of us being able to do that together — that was very exciting.”

Jewett knows it will be hard to follow up such a successful season. “I know that my improvement curve is going to start plateauing, because I improved so much this year from what I ever did in high school,” she says. “I’m going to have to get used to not improving so much every single time I compete, but I want to get faster and stronger and do better than I did this year.”

Hot Jocks Dedication, talent, and sheer athleticism — meet some of U of T’s sporting stars Michael Prempeh, football

by MURAD HEMMADI photos by BERNARDA GOSPIC

Receiver Michael Prempeh has seen the team improve drastically over his five years at U of T. “When I first got here we were dismal; we didn’t win a game my first year,” he remembers. “In the past season, we won three games.”

The Blues football player was named an East-West all-star in 2010 and started all eight games this season. Prempeh made 25 catches for 350 yards, the best of which was a 49-yard catch in the 21–12 victory over Guelph. “Definitely the highlight of the season … was beating Guelph on national TV,” he says. “It was our first nationally televised game in I think about 10 years. Coming up to the game a lot of people were asking, ‘What’s U of T doing on TV? They’re a bad team, they don’t deserve to be on TV.’ “And we came out and proved everybody wrong.”

Prempeh enjoys playing in front of a live audience too. “Personally I like playing on the big stage. I like to shock people. People come to games not knowing what to expect, and it’s nice to give them a couple of highlights and hear the ooh’s and aah’s in the crowd.”

The 2010 Blues receiver of the year believes his cohort of recruits has been important for the Blues. “I think we’ve helped bring the team to a higher level in the OUA and we’re now a respectable team,” he says. “Teams have a game plan for us now. [They] can’t look over us like they used to.”

Prempeh is graduating this year, but he knows he’s leaving the team in good hands. “We’ve brought this team a long way and I think it’s time for the new guys, the younger guys, to step up and continue this path we’re on right now. We have a lot of young guys that are going to be good athletes, that are already good athletes and it’s time for them to step up and make plays and be leaders.”

Nick Smith, rugby Varsity Blue Nick Smith thinks his team deserves a lot of the credit for his OUA all-star nomination this season. “More so than any other team sport I’ve played, you’re totally reliant on the other guys on the field.”

Smith’s personal success is particularly surprising considering that the Blues finished the season 1–7, the sole win coming via Guelph’s forfeiture. The all-star ranked 10th on the OUA top-scorer list, with 26 points in seven games. “It just so happened that this year I was in a position where I was able to score a lot and had a lot of these flashy kind of plays,” he says.

It’s been a difficult season for the Blues. “We lost a lot of the experience and skill right in the beginning, and it was an uphill battle from that point on,” says Smith, ”Last year we had a slightly larger team and we had [fewer] injuries and we managed to stay competitive right to the end.”

Smith is looking forward to taking an increased role on the team next year. “There’s definitely a responsibility for all senior players to be leaders on the team,” he notes.

His personal success with the Blues notwithstanding, Smith admits that a recurrence of the injuries he has sustained in the past would cause him to reconsider playing rugby. “I’m going into fourth year, and I’m not planning on going to higher levels of rugby and professional rugby,” he says. “So it becomes a toss up — do I want to risk it? Right now, I’m saying ‘yes.’ I love the game, but if I were to get another concussion next year, I would give it some serious thought.”

Still, Smith is looking forward to next season. “We’ve got a lot to prove, definitely. We’re underdogs in the league, but we’re going to come out all guns ablazing.”

Hayley Warren, track and field Varsity Blues hurdler Hayley Warren hasn’t been able to compete much this season. After tearing her meniscus at the start of last season, Warren worked her way back to full fitness in preparation for the indoor track schedule. “I ended up re-tearing it again in January so I had to take the season off again,” she explains.

Before this injury problem surfaced, the Blues athlete looked to be on track for great success. “I did my first year at McGill, and I ended up doing really well — I came third at nationals for the 60 m hurdles,” says Warren, who transferred to U of T at the end of that year. “And then last year I ended up running the second-fastest time a female hurdler has ever run at U of T, so I had a really good ranking going into nationals.”

Unfortunately, Warren’s injured knee ended her season, and at the time of press, she had just begun to work her way back to form. “I probably started training full-time three or four weeks ago,“ she explains. “It’s going really well so far.”

But despite returning to training, Warren’s injury has permanently changed the way she competes. “In hurdles you have a lead-leg and a trail-leg; my left is my lead, but that’s the one where my knee hurts, and aggressive extension hurts it,” she explains. “So I ended up having to switch lead legs, which is like learning to write with the other hand.”

While she has been sidelined, Warren has been cheering on the women’s track and field squad as they have broken records and performed extremely well this season. “We always want to see our team do well, no matter what,” she says.

Warren is cautiously optimistic about next season. “I’m really just hoping to be able to finish a race at this point or kind of get back to where I was,” she says. “I don’t expect to be better than what I was, but definitely next year is [about] getting used to the whole change.”

14

VARSITY FEATURES

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

features@thevarsity.ca

SERMON FROM the Varsity sits down with U of t’s literary high priest nick MoUnt known for teaching eng140 (“literatUre for oUr tiMe”) associate professor in the departMent of english at U of t associate chair in the departMent of english at U of t fiction editor at The Walrus winner of 3M national teaching fellowship

on U of t When I first got to U of T, it took me years to sort of adjust to it; it really did… It was a big transition for me… I I think it was about a year until a student talked to me. The big one that took me a while to get used to was just the sheer size and complexity of it and at first I kind of rebelled against that.

So do you find large universities preferable to small liberal arts colleges now?

No, different. Don’t get me wrong, if I had the money I would shut my class down tomorrow. That is, if I could replace our first year class of 500 with ten of me, I would do it tomorrow. I don’t have the money; we don’t have the money; and I also — to be honest — don’t have ten of me.

on UniVersities What do you think the university at large is sacrificing today that it ought not?

Undergraduates. For a lot of complicated (and some good) reasons we place too high a premium on original knowledge, on research in all of its forms. So the primary marker of value that we use… is not how well I teach or how many I teach; it’s how many articles I publish and how important those articles are…

I think undergraduates are being asked to pay the price for an awful lot of research, some of which is of dubious value.

Are you very hopeful for [university] reform?

bIg

10

the end of the night.”

IF ONLY

What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?

Carpenter. .

What profession would you least like to do?

High school teacher.

What’s your favourite curse word?

Fuck.

The cork on a good bottle of whiskey.

What sound or noise do you love?

What sound or noise do you hate?

Distortion, unless it’s intentional.

The Larry Sanders Show.

What TV show have you watched faithfully?

What singer or group do you identify with the end of high school? Fleetwood Mac. .

If you could have dinner with any educator, who would it be?

Socrates* What book are you reading ATM? A book by Josh Ritter; Lyrics by John K Samson.

What is a pet peeve you have?

The loss of pedestrian space in Toronto.

*”I think I’d probably slug him by

Hm, I’m not for change for change’s sake, you know? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I think the kind of changes that I would advocate would be less of a reform and more of a peeling back of some layers of bureaucratization and specialization that we’ve added on to the original idea of the institution.

VARSITY FEATURES

features@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

THE MOUNT

E X C E R P T S FROM A gRAPhiC inTERviEw

by SAM bOwMAn

On writing in canada i can remember, in this country, when Canadian literature was in a section called “Canadiana.” So you’d go in there and you’d have your canoeing manual, right?

And then a novel by Margaret Atwood, right? And they’d be side-by-side instead of Atwood with the novels. it’s still tough to make a living from writing in Canada. we still struggle with things like … the size of the population, the number of readers, the cost of transporting words across the country, the lack of a coherent audience even within our population — you know, the language problem — a lot of the problems that afflicted writers in the old days, we still have. yet, i’d say we’ve reached the point where it’s possible to stay at home as a Canadian writer.

On the walrus Do you see your position at The Walrus as a chance to help try to fix the problems Canadian writers are facing today? nope. no. i don’t really see Canadian writers as having any problems right now. Mainly, i see that job as being pretty simple: i get to pick what i hope are the eight best stories that will be published in Canada that year. has taking on that extra workload affected the way you teach? not really… i already have a job and it kind of keeps me busy, so the only reason The Walrus was able to talk me into it — well, there are two: it’s certainly not for the money, i can assure you of that. There isn’t any. One is because i believe in them; i think it’s an incredibly important magazine. but also, because the kinds of writers that they were tending to publish were the kinds of people that i was already teaching in my first-year class. we are interested in the same generation of writers.

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MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

VARSITY FEATURES

features@thevarsity.ca

What does U of t eat for breakfast?

Ever wondered what David Naylor, your profs, TAs, and classmates eat for breakfast? We asked them, and they dished. Compiled by MARY SCOURBOUTAKOS. DAVID NAYLOR — U of T President A bowl of high-protein or high-fibre cereal, usually with water or soy milk. I may also grab a bowl of plain low-fat yogurt, an orange or banana, or a handful of almonds. However, on occasion, I just stand and graze in the refrigerator, attacking left-over fruit salad, green salad, or even cold vegetables from the previous night’s dinner. I then grab a cup of coffee in a travel mug (homogenized milk, no sugar), and head off to the office… It’s all about trying to get full with minimum time and minimum calories, while trying to limit saturated fats and boost fibre intake.

PAUL GOOCH — President, Victoria College

CHERYL MISAK — Vice-President & Provost

I always start with a hot cup of black tea with skimmed milk and wildflower honey along with one of the following: a bowl of hot Red River cereal with raisins, chopped almonds, and vanilla soy milk; or one to two scrambled eggs with either a little parmesan, old cheddar cheese, baby tomatoes, or mushrooms along with a slice of toasted granary bread; or a slice or two of toasted granary bread, thickly spread with crunchy almond butter, jelly, or jam and a small fruit smoothie… Immediately afterwards, I do a fivemile power walk and then resistance/weight training at the gym for an hour… when I return from my workout, I will often have another cup of tea with milk and honey and a small “second breakfast” of something I didn’t have for my “first breakfast…

When we were growing up, my mother would never allow my sister or me to leave the house without first having had a really good breakfast. It is a lifelong habit for me and I must confess that I love breakfast! I wake up looking forward to it. Without breakfast, the day couldn’t possibly be even half as wonderful — because I wouldn’t have as much energy to enjoy it!

I usually eat leftovers from the previous night’s dinner, whatever those might be — stir-fry, pasta, curry, soup… I get up very early in the morning and work on my own research during the time it takes me to make and drink two cups of tea and two cups of coffee. Then I rush in to make it to work before the traffic kicks in. By the time I get to my office, I’m hungry again and I’ve been up for a couple of hours, so I eat my lunch. And then I eat another lunch at the normal hour.

JILL MATUS — Vice-Provost, Students I typically have fruit (berries), cereal (oatmeal or muesli), milk and yogurt… I am not very hungry at breakfast and usually only want a cup of tea or coffee. But if I don’t eat anything, I am ravenous by mid-morning, so I try to eat something that will keep me going through the morning till lunch.

Kicking Horse coffee, Three Sisters blend, two cups black (because it tastes great and kicks the system into gear in the early morning); a clementine (more fibre than juice has); steel cut oats in oatmeal porridge with added bran; a bit of two per cent milk and a sprinkle of brown sugar (steel cut oats have a lower glycemic index than rolled or instant oats; bran is good roughage). Multivitamins, especially vitamin D in the winter… It may look like I have a preoccupation with my internal workings. I don’t. I eat this way to avoid having a preoccupation with my internal workings.

WENDY CECIL — Chancellor, Victoria College

MARY L’ABBE — Professor and Chair, Department of Nutritional Sciences I’m not a big breakfast eater. On weekdays it’s usually yogurt, a bagel, and cream cheese. On meeting days I eat a more filling breakfast, like porridge, because I don’t know when I’ll be able to eat lunch.

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF — Professor, Department of Political Science, the Faculty of Law, the Munk School of Global Affairs, and the School of Public Policy and Governance Coffee, black, and lots of it, fresh fruit (mangoes are popular in this house), cereal, toast, and occasionally, in a nod to Russian roots, kasha, a buckwheat cereal, eaten plain with butter.

CATHERINE MAH — Assistant Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Head, Food Policy Research Initiative Scottish-style oatmeal with dried cranberries. Sometimes I add pumpkin seeds, toasted almonds, or plain yogurt.

When I don’t have oatmeal, I like to have poached eggs with buttered toast and grapefruit. I try to buy organic and local whenever possible. If not, then I try to buy fair trade… My breakfast reflects my work: supporting sustainable food systems and public health.

VIVEK GOEL

— Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, President; CEO Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion Fruit, yogurt, and granola; coffee… It’s healthy and it tastes good!

JENNY KIM/THE VArsITY

Check out what grad students and undergrads eat in the morning! Visit http://var.st/ahf for the full article.

Arts & Culture var.st/arts

2 aPrIL 2012 arts@thevarsity.ca

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

Listen to some titillating tunes for the sombre study season — this week’s Singled Out! Read and listen to it here: http://var.st/ahe

Justin Peroff of Broken Social Scene plus Dave Hamelin and Liam O’Neil of The Stills make up Eight and a Half

“There goes my ego”

REVIEWS We All Raise Our Voices to the Air

Eight and a Half: what happens when The Stills and Broken Social Scene jam Assunta Alegiani ASSOCIATE A&C EDITOR

Eight and a Half is the new kid on the block in the Indiesphere — kind of. The trio isn’t exactly new to the whole “band” thing, with former Stills members Liam O’Neil and Dave Hamelin and Broken Social Scene drummer Justin Peroff.

It all started one night, when the long-time friends played together just for fun. Fast-forward three years, and that jam has evolved into Eight and a Half’s debut album Scissors, slated for release on April 10. The trio is now getting ready to promote their brooding synth-rock record and The Varsity spoke to Liam O’Neil about being in a new band again.

The Varsity: I read in an interview that you’re already working on new stuff. Have you moved on from Scissors before it’s even come out?

Liam O’Neil: No no, it’s just that we always write, we’re always working.

As the album starts to come out, we’re not going on the road right away. We thought the best use of our time was to seize that “downtime” we have and try to capture as much as possible, so once we do get really, really busy, we have some stuff in the bank for later.

TV: You, Dave, and Justin started working together while you were all still busy with your previous bands. Can you tell me about that process? When did you say, “Al-

right, we’re doing this as a band?”

LO: The first time we jammed together, Justin had come to Montreal after BSS played Ottawa Blues Fest and we decided to go down to the Stills’ practice space where we had a small studio set up. We jammed and had some fun and had two song ideas that came out of the mix. And then we decided that it was so fun that we should go back the next day instead of, you know, going to the mountain and the park and drinking wine with all our friends in the sunshine. After two or three days of jamming and having fun, we were like “This is actually pretty good; this is something that could lead to something else.” And I think that was kind of the moment when we decided, “Let’s do this. Let’s try to make this work with our schedules.” BSS was making a record at the time. And The Stills, we had kind of retooled ourselves and gotten back to the original line-up and we were in an attempt to make our fourth album. We only got part of the way through and decided it wasn’t the right time. But amidst all that, whenever the three of us had time to get together and work on music, Justin would just fly in to Montreal and stay for anywhere between three days and two weeks and we worked on it. After that first session, we knew we wanted this to be something that was real and not some passive, fun side project.

CONTINUED ON P18

Narcopolis

by Jeet Thayil Jeet Thayil’s debut novel Narcopolis is completely enthralled by Mumbai (or rather Bombay, as he would have it), but one of the most refreshing things about the book is how, for the most part, it avoids the standard trappings of contemporary Indian literature. Narcopolis is neither a multigenerational family saga nor a chatty confessional on entrepreneurs and new technology. Instead, Thayil looks back to the 1970s and digs into the grime of Bombay’s opium dens and dangerous neighbourhoods. The cast of dealers, users, eunuchs, and a former Chinese general risks cliché, but Thayil balances any sort of drug-glorification with glimpses into the dark reality of addiction.

Though the book jumps between multiple narrators, eunuch addict Dimple becomes the common thread as Thayil traces the Bombay drug market’s progression from opium to heroin and worse. Taking inspiration from Thayil’s own experiences as a former addict, Nacropolis is unhurried and completely engrossing.

—Simon Frank

by The Decemberists Music has a peculiar power in its ability to evoke memories. Once, my Ukrainian grandmother wept when she heard the Decemberists’ “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” — its jaunty accordion reminded her of the polkas she used to dance to. Even though it’s been the project of most to write the band off for these hokey genre experiments, on their live double-album, We All Raise Our Voices to the Air, this kitschy song is the last of the regular set, representing all of the goofy influences of the band’s ten-year back catalogue. For all the photographs of different moments of their career, the album showcases songwriter Colin Meloy’s ability to craft a catchy melody throughout.

The Decemberists dive deep, playing songs from each stage of their career, including their first EP, making even Pitchfork’s reviewer nostalgic. Though the band may no longer be in fashion and their quirky indie rock tunes are a thing of the past, the Decemeberists seem confident in their new direction as they experiment and grow in sound.

—Nathan Watson

Peepshow

by the U of T Visual Studies program Peepshow, the 2012 U of T Visual Arts thesis exhibition featuring the work of 20 artists in the final year of their undergrad career, took over the North Borden Building for its opening reception on March 30. The show was an orgiastic combination of a wide array of media including paintings, drawings, photography, conceptual pieces, performance art, and film. Takeaway cue cards detailing the artist and their contact information could be found at the beginning of the exhibition and accompanying the artwork.

Elias Saoud’s photographs, inky renderings of what seem to be natural landscapes saturated with disorienting opacity, were a highlight. Warped illustrations of human bodies, Burton-esque in their cheeky perversion of individual body parts, were artist Oli Li’s stunning contribution to the show. Gabrielle Gray’s painting, a deeply immersive image of a pair of hands wrapped around a woman’s body, displayed her command of colour and strength of expression.

While the most permanent parts

of the exhibition were impressive in their own way, Anna Sarchami’s performance art piece was disappointing at best. Presented as the evening’s main event, it involved her approaching visitors of the exhibition in complete silence and engaging them in some way. Her work was pedestrian, inspiring the idle shuffle of feet and the occasional giggle in addition to forcing many people to seek refuge as far away from her line of sight as possible. I suppose this turned out to be a good thing, however, because it gave people a chance to re-experience the works of several extremely talented future art-world superstars.

—Elizabeth Haq

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VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

Have a long, boring summer ahead of you?

Write for Arts! arts@thevarsity.ca

EDITING PROOFING A retired Professor and English teacher will provide exceptional proofing and editing services for all papers and essays. Guaranteed Satisfaction.

Contact Thomas Barratt at 705-738-9749 or email: barratt789@yahoo.ca

arts@thevarsity.ca

$10 RESTAURATEUR WITH LAURA KATHLEEN MAIZE Banh Mi Boys 392 Queen St. West

The recently re-opened Banh Mi Boys on the northwest corner of Queen and Spadina is serving up tasty morsels like banh mi, steamed bao, and Korean tacos — and boy are they good. When BMB first opened up I was pretty skeptical. I eat banh mi on the regular (usually at Le’s Sandwich at 1119 College St. or almost any resto in Chinatown) and after checking out their prices, I laughed at the suckers who would be paying $5 more than I was for an (albeit) hipper food experience. I was going to try their sandwiches and tell you guys that it would be a waste of your time and money, but after one bite of a BMB sandwich, I was proven wrong.

This is not a traditional banh mi shop. Trendy ingredients line the menu — pulled pork, duck confit, pork belly — and while they are pricey for a sandwich that usually costs under $3.50, these sandwiches and tacos are so worth their price tag. Everything on the menu is under $10, and what you are getting is fresh ingredients and a new spin on an old classic sandwich — Vietnamese sausage, assorted meats, and pork liver pate are substituted for lemongrass pork,

and Asian BBQ sauce (grilled pork sandwich, $4.99), crispy squid rings with lime vinaigrette (squid sandwich, $5.99), and braised duck leg with onion chutney (duck confit sandwich, $7.49). Only the baguette, thinly sliced pickled carrots, cilantro, and cucumber will remind you of original banh mi — well, that and the name of the restaurant.

And that’s just the sandwiches! Treat yourself to a taco or steamed bun — I highly recommend the kimchi fries — and go back to the traditional banh mi when you’re feeling extra broke. But for now, we’re nearing the end of the school year, and don’t you think you deserve to shell out and tickle your taste buds?

CONTINUED FROM P17

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TV: I feel like “Go Ego” is an instant hit, because it’s so catchy, whereas the rest of the album is more atmospheric and works best in its entirety. Is that something you were going for?

LO: I think for this record more than any I’ve made before, we had no idea what it was going to be until it was finished. Every time we got together and made music, we added another little facet to whatever the shell of this band is.

We were kind of just going with our instincts and we were all inspired by the fact that we weren’t constrained to any other moulds of what our previous bands were. The fact that we were recording and producing it ourselves was also liberating. I think we didn’t quite figure out what the sound of our band was until we collected all the songs that we thought were the right songs for the album, had it mixed and then listened back and said “Oh I guess that’s what our band sounds like.” A lot of it actually goes to Joe Mahoney who mixed the album. He was able to see all the connecting threads between the music that we had made and make the whole thing sound like one piece of art.

TV: Were you surprised by how synth-heavy it turned out to be?

LO: No, that part of it we knew, that it was going that synthy route. What I think we didn’t know was how dark and atmospheric the record was. At different times, we thought different things, like “this sounds what you’d expect a collaboration between The Stills and BSS would sound like” or “this sounds like a more melancholic version of MGMT.” Once we were finished, we thought we made a pretty sombre, dark record with a few more upbeat numbers — as you mentioned, “Go Ego” being one of them.

TV: All three of you played in bigger bands previously, in terms of the number of people.

Does it feel uncomfortable to perform with only two other people now?

LO: It’s actually quite the opposite; it feels to-

tally liberating and it feels like there’s more room for each person to have their own personality on stage. I have a pretty good idea of what’s going through Dave and Justin’s head most of the time, a lot more so than I used to be able to be sure of what was going through four or five other people’s heads. And when you’re only three people, no matter where all three people are on stage, it’s just a triangle.

You look up and see all people at all times.

TV: Like you’re more in tune with everybody?

LO: Yeah, I think so. And then I just compare it to The Stills where there was always one guy on stage right with me. For the first little while it was Greg, and then Dave for a little while also, and I was like, “Alright, that’s my guy; that’s the guy I’m going to connect with, we’re gonna put on a show stage-right.” Versus now with this band, each one of us occupies a third of the entire space, and therefore we just play with each other, I think.

TV: Why did you choose a Fellini film reference as your band name? Who came up with it?

LO: Dave had the idea years ago — we’re talking about like 5 years ago. But he wanted to have a band called Eight and a Half. He loved the film, and he felt like he connected with some of the characters in that film and the general vibe and aesthetic. He didn’t know what this band was going to be, but he knew he wanted to start something else, something outside of The Stills, where he could kind of create a new persona for himself. And when this band started making music, the idea popped back into his head and he was like “maybe this is Eight and a Half.” And so he proposed the name at some point and I was a little bit on the fence at first but came around to it.

TV: How come?

LO: I don’t know, maybe I have weird associations with bands having numbers in their names. You know, like Blink-182… But ultimately, I thought it evoked a picture that I liked; I thought it was something that I could get behind.

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The Varsity

INDEPENDENT AUDITORS’ REPORT To the Members of Varsity Publications Inc. We have audited the accompanying financial statements of Varsity Publications Inc., which comprise the statement of financial position as at April 30, 2011, the statement of operations, statement of changes in net assets (deficiency), and statement of cash flows for the year then ended, and a summary of significant accounting policies and other explanatory information.

Management’s Responsibility for the Financial Statements Management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of these financial statements in accordance with Canadian generally accepted accounting principles, and for such internal control as management determines is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS INC. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Toronto, Canada FS approval Date

DR AF T

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS INC. STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION APRIL 30, 2011

2011 $

CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS LICENSED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS

We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit opinion.

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS INC. STATEMENT OF OPERATIONS FOR THE YEAR ENDED APRIL 30, 2011

Advertising Student levy Interest income

Opinion In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of Varsity Publications Inc. as at April 30, 2011, and its results of operations, changes in net assets and cash flows for the year then ended in accordance with Canadian generally accepted accounting principles.

Auditors' Responsibility Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audit. We conducted our audit in accordance with Canadian generally accepted auditing standards. Those standards require that we comply with ethical requirements and plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement. An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditors' judgment, including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud. In making those risk assessments, the auditor considers internal control relevant to the entity’s preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but are not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity’s internal control. An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements.

APRIL 30, 2011

REVENUE

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

2010

206,851 $ 149,101 526 356,478

170,203 143,753 555 314,511

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS INC. STATEMENT OF CHAN ES IN NET ASSETS (DEFICIENCY) FOR THE YEAR ENDED APRIL 30, 2011 2011

ASSETS

2010

2011 B A L A N C E beginning of year

C Cash Short term deposit Accounts receivable Prepaid e penses

$

15,959 $ 15,000 95,340 604

13,372 15,000 81,595 604

$

126,903 $

110,571

$

133,098 $

123,686

6,195

13,115

126,903 $

110,571

$(

cess deficiency of revenue over e penses

6,920

B A L A N C E end of year

$(

2010

13,115) $

163,107 (

176,222)

6,195) $(

13,115)

EXPENSES Bad debts Bank charges and interest Bookkeeping Capital assets Delivery and postage Insurance Office and general Photography Printing Professional fees Salaries, commissions and benefits Telephone Travel and promotion

22,004 1,888 5,321 2,139 11,784 2,756 4,073 326 96,638 8,077 186,266 5,496 2,790 349,558

EXCESS (DEFICIENCY) OF REVENUE OVER EXPENSES

$

34,802 3,834 6,189 11,389 16,328 1,966 10,255 131 114,565 9,489 256,342 6,775 18,668 490,733

6,920 $(

LIABILITIES C Accounts payable and accrued liabilities NET

ASSETS

(D E F I C I E N C Y)

nrestricted net assets deficiency

176,222)

$ Approved on Behalf of the Board Director Director

(audited - the accompanying notes form an integral part of these financial statements)

( he accompanying notes form an integral part of these financial statements)

5

6

2011

S FROM (FOR) OPERATIN ACTIVITIES

cess deficiency of revenue over e penses

$

et changes in non cash orking capital Accounts receivable Accounts payable and accrued liabilities INCREASE (DECREASE) IN CASH CASH beginning of year CASH end of year

$

7

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS INC. NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS APRIL 30, 2011

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS INC. NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS APRIL 30, 2011

VARSITY PUBLICATIONS INC. STATEMENT OF CASH FLO S FOR THE YEAR ENDED APRIL 30, 2011

CASH FLO

( he accompanying notes form an integral part of these financial statements)

6,920 $

2010

1.

176,222

13,745 9,412

76,637 59,530

2,587

40,055

13,372

53,427

15,959 $

13,372

2.

PURPOSE OF THE OR ANI ATION

SI NIFICANT ACCOUNTIN POLICIES continued d)

arsity Publications Inc publishes The arsity , niversity of Toronto of T students ne spaper once a eek during the school year covering the of T Campus, environs and issues important to the students and citi ens

A inancial instruments classified as assets or liabilities held for trading are reported at fair value at each balance sheet date, and any change in fair value is recogni ed in the statement of operations in the period during hich the change occurs

SI NIFICANT ACCOUNTIN POLICIES

L inancial instruments classified as loans and receivables and other liabilities are initially recorded at fair value and then at amorti ed cost in subse uent periods

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance ith Canadian generally accepted accounting principles for not for profit organi ations and reflect the follo ing policies )

R

)

R

The student levy is invoiced annually and recogni ed as revenue in the period to hich it relates C

A

Capital assets consist of furniture and computer e uipment and are recorded at cost and charged to operations in the year of ac uisition )

D

S

The Organi ation derives significant benefits from the voluntary services of its members Since these services are not normally purchased by the Organi ation and because it is not possible to determine their fair value, donated services are not recogni ed in these financial statements

U

E

The preparation of financial statements in accordance ith Canadian generally accepted accounting principles re uires management to make estimates and assumptions based on currently available information Such estimates and assumptions may affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities as at the reporting date and the reported amounts of revenue and e penses during the current period Actual results could differ from the estimates and assumptions used

Advertising revenue is recogni ed upon the print completion date

)

C

The Organi ation classified its cash and short term deposit as held for trading Accounts receivable is classified as loans and receivables and accounts payable and accrued liabilities is classified as other liabilities

arsity Publications Inc is incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act as a not for profit organi ation and is e empt from income ta under Canadian Income Ta Act 2.

F

.

FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS The fair value of cash, short term deposit, accounts receivable and accounts payable and accrued liabilities appro imates their carrying value due to their short term maturity nless other ise noted, it is management s opinion that the Organi ation is not e posed to significant interest rate, currency or credit risk arising from its financial instruments

( he accompanying notes form an integral part of these financial statements)

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VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

Reel change

HYUN KIM/THe VArsITY

BRIGIT KATZ explores the ever-changing role of independent theatres in Toronto I

’m standing in the projection room of The Revue Cinema, one of the oldest theatre companies in the city.

It’s a small, narrow space, almost entirely consumed by three hulking projectors. A glass window affords a steep view of the theatre below, which, in several hours, will be darkened for the evening’s screening.

Andy Willick, one of the managers of the theatre, gestures to two metal cases on the floor, in which are stored reels of 35 mm film.

“Try to lift the left can,” he says.

I grab the handle of the can and pull. I can barely get it off the ground.

Willick laughs. “That’s one movie, those two cans,” he says. “On a busy week, we could be changing movies every two days. That means assembling and disassembling reels for two movies every two days. It’s a lot of work to be doing that.”

He tells me that The Revue, like most other cinemas in the city, has increasingly been screening movies using digital hard drives, as opposed to reels of 35 mm film. This minimizes the amount of time and effort involved in screening an individual movie and, as Willick points out, eliminates the need to lug around heavy cans of film. “[The hard drive] comes in a little case,” Willick says, and then pauses.

“It’s really odd.”

While the switch to digital projection certainly has its benefits, as I talk to Willick, I get the sense that The Revue has been caught up in the whirlwind of new technology that is forever changing the world of cin-

ema. By the middle of the summer, almost all the theatres in Canada (the majority of which are owned by Cineplex) will have made the transition to digital projection systems. Much of the 35 mm film stores will eventually be thrown away, essentially forcing independent theatres like The Revue to make the rather expensive leap to digital projection.

“If I’m trying to book a print here for a title, if there’s not demand for it in 35 [mm] … there’s going to be no way for me to get a print, so I won’t have anything to play,” Willick says.

“So the challenge here is going to be … raising the money to digitize.”

Although The Revue is being propelled into the digital age by the multiplex powers that be, the company is determined to maintain the unique programming that has made the theatre a beloved feature of the Roncesvalles neighbourhood. A not-forprofit repertory cinema, The Revue screens second-run films at discounted prices and hosts a variety of events featuring a less mainstream lineup of movies, from the classics to genre films to documentaries. Every Sunday, for example, The Revue screens a silent film, accompanied by a live piano player. As part of their “Book Revue” program, the cinema screens film adaptations of books and hosts a discussion about the movie. The list goes on.

I ask Willick to describe the process involved in selecting the films that will be included in its special programs.

“It’s based on people showing in-

terest in particular areas,” he tells me. “Sometimes, we find someone in the community who has [a particular] expertise. We just played the Scarlet Empress [a historical drama about Catherine the Great] because someone who lived in the neighbourhood wrote a book about Catherine the Great. So she did a lecture … and we watched the movie.”

Above all, The Revue’s special programs are created with the intention of turning the theatre into a space that fosters a sense of community among its patrons. “[A local theatre] is a gathering place. It’s a place where people are meant to come together,” Willick says. “I think what we’re trying to do with some of the special events is to enhance the experience beyond just watching a movie.”

At the moment, The Revue is faced with the challenge of sustaining the repertory lineup that makes the theatre so dear to its patrons. The Revue is essentially stuck in a cinematic limbo, as 35 mm prints of new and old films alike are becoming obsolete, but the theatre cannot yet afford to install a digital projection system.

“Right now we’re in a weird transition time,” Willick tells me. “There’s going to be a gap between having digital copies of rep stuff and when … we have a good digital catalogue.”

A few weeks prior to interviewing Willick, I stopped by what was formerly known as the Bloor Cinema in the Annex. The theatre recently made the switch to a digital projection system, along with a slew of

other upgrades and renovations that required the cinema to temporarily close its doors. A repertory theatre like The Revue, the Bloor had been struggling for its survival for some time, and its owners were forced to sell the lease of the property. The documentary festival Hot Docs and the investment company Blue Ice Group purchased the theatre and financed its renovations. Nine months later, the Bloor was reborn as the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema.

I sat next to Robin Smith, the Bloor’s programmer, in one of the soft seats of the theatre’s new interior. The changes to the space are subtle. The new digital projector is also refurbished with 35 mm capabilities, so the theatre can play almost any format aside from 3D. A new Dolby sound system was installed and the screen was moved forward and raised higher, allowing people on the balcony to get a good view of the movie. A large, crisp, glass panel now looks out onto the lobby, but it is covered with a curtain while the films are playing.

“Everyone realized that people love this cinema for what it was and its history,” Smith told me. “It was really important that we didn’t alienate the audiences that used to populate the Bloor by radically changing it… [The theatre] needed that face lift, it just needed some money to put behind it.”

But the Bloor did have to undergo some significant changes in order to stay afloat amidst the sea of multiplexes in the city. Because the theatre is now being financed by Hot Docs, it has moved away from its

repertory program, and the secondrun fiction and genre films that made the Bloor a hub for Annex cinephiles are, for the most part, being replaced by documentaries.

“Any business … is only as good as servicing the immediate needs of [its] neighbourhood,” Smith said. “They were very smart, back in the day, about knowing what people lived and ate and breathed in the Annex…

We want to do something similar, although we’re going to be primarily documentary-focused.”

I asked Smith if he thought the shift to a documentary-heavy program would lead to a change in the makeup of the audiences that come to the cinema.

“Probably,” he replied. “Documentary audiences … skew a little older than the genre fans that used to come to the Bloor… I think we’ll probably have a lot of people who attended Hot Docs coming here to taste it out and see what it’s like.”

For now, the Bloor is simply trying to strike a balance between the target audience of the company supporting its existence and the long-time patrons of the theatre, who might feel put off by its new program.

“There’s no harm in us adding more shows if we’re successful with something, or creating a new strand of programming if there’s a demo that feels like the program isn’t really catching them here,” Smith says.

“Best case scenario, I’ll see some of the faces that I used to see when I came here to the Bloor, but I’ll also see some new faces … Time will tell.”

VARSITY ARTS & CULTURE

arts@thevarsity.ca

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

21

Arts students can get their hands dirty too Tired of writing bullshit essays on existential undertones in Fellini? U of T’s Research Opportunity Program isn’t just for science nerds Danielle Klein ASSOCIATE A&C EDITOR

The not-so-secret pride and joy of the University of Toronto is research.

Undergraduate students express frustration over the prioritization of graduate and professional programs where high-profile research is conducted that earns the university its prestige. Many undergrads sit in overcrowded lecture halls and receive few opportunities to talk in class and truly engage with their studies. Certain programs exist at the undergrad level to mitigate the problematically impersonal nature of this massive, research-based system, including the Research Opportunity Program (ROP).

The ROP seeks to invite exclusively second-year students to participate in research. Accepted applicants work one-on-one with professors, serving as assistants and receiving course credit. The program largely consists of projects in the sciences, allowing students to work in labs in collaboration with professors. However, there are also a small number of lesser known ROPs in the humanities.

“We’re trying to provide an early dip into research,” explains director of the program and associate dean of undergraduate academic programs Anne-Marie Brousseau.

“This is obvious for science students. They’re expecting to do research and for them, the sooner, the better, but a lot less in the humanities. Especially this year, I tried to give a sense that we’d like to see more projects in the humanities.”

Brousseau believes that research opportunities provide universal skills and benefits in spite of one’s field of study. “The process and the way you answer questions would

transfer easily from arts to psychology to chemistry. It’s the same way of thinking, the same way of approaching problems or devising research questions. The other side of it is to get students to get a kind of privileged relationship with an instructor.”

Her hope is to encourage professors in the arts to consider doing ROPs by bolstering awareness of the program.

“I would like to see more [arts ROPs]. And I’m trying to get more.

But it has to do with the culture of these fields where … many researchers are not used to working with teams and assistants, and they have a hard time devising a project that would be appropriate for second-year students… So one thing I’m planning to do is to put together instructors who have supervised 299 and invite people so they can share what it kind of looks like…

In literature, for instance, many researchers don’t imagine themselves in the context of a research team so I would like to work on changing this mentality a little bit.”

Professor Andrew Hughes of the Centre for Medieval Studies was among the arts professors who conducted ROPs this year. Although he is an advocate of arts ROPs, he expressed skepticism about whether the university would provide funding for increased opportunities for humanities research. “There are way more opportunities for arts ROPs, but of course the number of grants humanities get is miniscule, and that is undoubtedly bound to contribute to how many people are researching.”

U of T is, rather explicitly, a research university. The ROP allows some of that research to trickle down to undergrad students seek-

ing the ability to break out of large classrooms and “get their hands dirty,” as Brousseau suggests. Arts students are entitled to the same opportunities to research as students in other fields and are just as capable of both providing assistance to instructors and benefiting from the experience. Brousseau asserts, “To take an active role in the development in knowledge … has long-lasting effects on any student. In terms of confidence, in terms of understanding how you think and taking control of your learning … it’s easier to do that when you’ve done research.”

This medieval scribe is taking graffiti samples for his research. WENDY GU/THE VArsiTY

By the numbers

What you can study

154

Compiled by Zoe Edwards

students in the Research Opportunity Program in 2010–2011

1–2

students in a typical ROP

2

Arts ROPs being offered for summer 2012, as well as 10 in the sciences and social sciences

4

Arts ROPs for 2012–2013 fall and winter, as well as 14 in the sciences and social sciences

Graffiti in Ancient Athens

Abi Ferstman participated in a classics ROP, where she chose to study the role of graffiti in ancient Athens. She expressed how the professor was very open to what she wanted to focus on within the field and that she was given the freedom to choose something that really caught her eye. She gushes, “I really enjoyed this ROP. The professor was extremely helpful in providing me with books for research, and he told me where to look. I now know so much more about researching for studies in the humanities. This kind of experience is not something you can get in regular undergrad courses, as it is super specific. It’s the kind of research that you would do as a grad student or prof, and it really inspired me for the future.”

Medieval and liturgical manuscripts

Cylita Guy’s medieval studies project is about researching and dating different medieval and liturgical manuscripts. “It was an amazing experience doing this project with my supervisor, Professor Hughes, because of the one-on-one time,” she explains. “I would take his ideas and explore different avenues. It was great to have someone to bounce ideas off of and to work in conjunction with to create a final project. It also gave me a great sense of independence to take charge of the project. It has really inspired me for the future.” Cylita also found her ROP beneficial as her degree is in science, so it was particularly interesting for her to pursue a different area of study and to hone her writing skills.

See more online at thevarsity.ca.

Science vAR.st/sCIENCE

2 APRIL 2012

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

science@thevarsity.ca

A statue fit for a queen

Cold-Blooded Roommate is the last in our Science Illustrated series!

Check it out: http://var.st/dinoroomie

TANYA DEBI unravels a U of T discovery of artifacts from ancient Egypt

U

niversity of Toronto professor Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner of the Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations department and her team conducted a dig in Abydos, Egypt last summer that unearthed majestic treasures consisting of an offering chapel, a monumental building with animal remains, and a statue believed to be of the “female king” Hatshepsut.

Hatshepsut was an Egyptian ruler in the 18th dynasty (about 3,500 years ago) that assumed the otherwise male title of “pharaoh.” She co-ruled with her stepson Thutmose III because he was too young to take the throne at the time that his father, Thutmose II, died. In art and other artifacts, Hatshepsut is portrayed as a male with the traditional false beard — a symbol of power — although delicate features like her small waist and chin are distinguishably female.

Hatshepsut’s co-regent and eventual

successor, Thutmose III, did his best to wipe out the female ruler from history after her death, possibly because she kept him from power for more than 20 years. Her 22-year reign places her as the longest ruling woman of Egypt in her time.

The wooden statue is a magnificent and rare find both because of the attempted eradication of Hatshepsut’s image during Thutmose III’s reign and the rarity of existing royal wooden statues.

Osiris, god of the afterlife, was held in high esteem and worshipped by the ancient Egyptians in Abydos. Interestingly, the offering chapel discovered by the team was built near the processional route of the festival of Osiris. The wooden statue is also thought to have been part of a ceremonial procession and festival celebrating Osiris. Monuments were created along the processional route to show their life-long dedication and

Rawr!

Cool dinosaur facts

text by Fiona Tran illustrations

by William Ahn The Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction occurred 65 million years ago and took out dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine reptiles.

What happened after the meteor that supposedly drove the dinosaurs to extinction? Turns out they may have survived for another 700,000 years afterward.

If the whole history of the universe until today were compressed into a 365-day year, dinosaurs only lived about 5 days.

In the same universe-compression model, the first mammalian ancestors appeared on December 25.

The oldest dinosaur fossils found come from rocks in Argentina and Brazil and are 230 million years old.

One of the earliest known birds, the Archaeopteryx, appeared in the late Jurassic period and shared the skies with flying reptiles.

The smallest dinosaur egg measures 3 cm long and its species remains unknown.

Heaviest dinosaur: the Brachiosaurus weighed 80 tonnes, equivalent to 17 elephants.

Smallest dinosaur: the chickensized Lesothosaurus fed on plants.

Its fossil is the smallest discovered of any fully-grown dinosaur.

Biggest brain: the Troodon’s brain was comparable in size to modern mammals and birds. It also had stereoscopic vision and hands capable of grasping.

Not-so-big brain: a Stegosaurus’ weighed 75 g and was 3 cm long.

participation to this god. However, if one built too close to the route, he could face the death penalty.

The team also recovered a repository of 80 animal mummies. The remains were mostly of dogs but included cats, sheep, and goats. It is suggested that these animals were part of a sacrifice — the number of dogs discovered at the site implies that they were probably sacrificed to the jackal god Wepwawet, leader of the Osiris festival and the one who guided the deceased to the underworld. The team believes that these sacrificed animals belong to an undiscovered tomb and that the remains were displaced during tomb robberies.

The discovery of these artifacts in Abydos contributes to the understanding of Ancient Egyptian ritual activity and sheds light on the mysterious past of a once-powerful female leader.

tARANEh zARIN/thE vARsIty

Organic tomato gardening on campus The Dig In! Campus Agriculture network gives you the lowdown on growing tasty tomatoes Sarah Lin VARSITY CONTRIBUTOR

Delicious and easy to cultivate, the tomato is a popular choice when it comes to vegetable gardening. A few key steps for organically growing tomatoes are as follows: obtain seedlings, find a sunny spot, dig in some compost, and water them regularly. Make sure you set the seedlings outside after the last spring frost because tomatoes love heat.

Seedlings, which are basically sprouts, can be purchased or grown from a seed. To start from a seed on your own, use a commercial seedling starting tray or a biodegradable egg carton. Once the seed germinates and the seedlings grow a couple of sets of leaves, move them into larger contain-

ers that contain a mixture of soil and compost. Typically added to the soil to aid growth, compost is central to organic gardening as it supplies the nutrients plants need to grow and supports the diverse life in the ground below, without the need for chemical pesticides, fertilizers, or herbicides.

Tomatoes are warm-weather plants and frost-sensitive — therefore, the seedlings need to remain indoors until the last spring frost is over and the soil is warm (generally around May 10 in Toronto).

When it’s time, seedlings are transplanted to a sunny outdoor space.

Tomatoes generally start ripening in late July and then throughout August and even into September, depending on weather conditions.

Growing food is a great endeavour — plants not only feed our bod-

ies but also nourish our minds and souls. Since 2008, green-thumbed students with the Dig In! Campus Agriculture network have been growing a variety of common garden organic edibles across smallscale plots on campus. Seed varieties such as pineapple, yellow pear, peacevine cherry, and many more are being sown in the greenhouse of the anthropology building and are eventually transplanted to the Hart House, Sid Smith, and Hart House Farm Committee plots.

Campus produce is consumed by volunteers, is incorporated into Hart House menus, is served up by the Hot Yam! food collective, and is donated to the U of T Food Bank.

By growing produce locally, organically, and seasonally, sustainable food production is demonstrated at its best.

Growing food is a great endeavour — plants not only feed our bodies but also nourish our minds and souls.

science@thevarsity.ca

Precision instruments

VARSITY SCIENCE

Doctors and healthcare providers at the University of Virginia Medical Centre managed to put a halt to Sultan Kosen’s continual and abnormal growth. Kosen lives with acromegaly, a condition caused by a tumour in the pituitary gland that leads to abnormally increased release of growth hormone. So what is the final official measurement in the 2012 Guinness World Record for the world’s tallest man? Eight feet and three inches.

—Albert Razvan Gheorghita Source: Science Daily

23

The Digital Fabrication Lab at the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design manufactures prototypes using 3D printers. Prototypes are built layer by layer according to specifications from modelling software. photos by Bernarda Gospic

SC ENCE N BR EF World’s tallest man, version 2012

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

St. George’s University of London Medical School

Single-cell mutation may lead to obesity A study on mice by researchers has uncovered a mutation in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene responsible for overeating. The gene mutation prevents leptin and insulin hormones, released after eating, from passing through the brain and causing satiety. Mice with the BDNF mutation suffered from severe obesity. Despite its obvious link to obesity, how BDNF controls body weight has yet to be determined.

—Mekhala Gunaratne Source: Science Daily

FALL 2012 APPLICATION OPEN Abandon ship? Sea levels are rising Researchers took rock and soil core samples from Virginia, New Zealand and Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific and looked at material from the Pliocene epoch (2.7 million to 3.2 million years ago). Using this data, the researchers predict that future generations could face a rise in sea levels, between 12 to 22 meters (40 to 70 feet) — although this may take hundreds to thousands of years.

—Mayce Al-Sukhni Source: Science Daily

Psychic abilities are indeed a hoax

Professors Chris French from the University of London, Stuart Ritchie from the University of Edinburgh, and Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire have found no evidence of precognition. Published in PLoS ONE, the team replicated the study conducted by social psychologist Daryl Bem who published evidence supporting psychic ability.

—Mekhala Gunaratne Source: Science Daily

US & EUROPEAN CLINICALS STUDY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN PRACTICE IN CANADA Wed. & Thurs., April 18 & 19 from 5-7pm LOCATION: Room 8170 - OISE COME MEET WITH: Mr. Tipton Carlson – Director of Marketing and Recruitment QUESTIONS? – 917-396-6204 or carlson.t@unic.ac.cy

DIVERSIONS

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Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Retina (security feature) Slow, unintelligent Pennsylvania Association for Arson Investigators “Neither here nor ” “Old,” to Robbie Burns Conclusion to a prayer Greek God of the Underworld “Fe” on the periodic table On fire Talking trees from Middle Earth Atomic watchdog agency Accompanies King Lear into the storm Baldwin, 30 Rock co-star rise to fame, astronomical Breathe out

I Vant Advice Dear Ivana, How do I get over my urge to destroy my boyfriend’s meddling ex-girlfriend? I seriously wish I could.

SOS, Prospective Cat Lady Dear Normal Girl, I only have a frustrating piece of advice to offer: she is not the one you are dealing with — it’s your boyfriend. He should set and maintain the boundaries between himself and her. She can prance around and try whatever dumb shit she wants, but none of that should matter if he’s really into you. Think about it like this: she can be like Darla Dimple from Cats Don’t Dance all day long but it’s not your place to confront her about her bratty and incessantly annoying ways. Well, you can, but make sure you are ready for anything beforehand. Don’t let yourself get all worked up over her drama because that much hate will just drain you and give you premature wrinkles. If the pain becomes very persistent, then the very least your boyfriend can do is acknowledge how you feel. But if he’s totally cool with letting that loaded diaper do what she wants, then I suggest you peace the fuck out.

Hope that helps, Ivana

Annual General Meeting The Varsity’s Annual General Meeting is Tuesday, April 10, 2012.

The AGM is a meeting where The Varsity’s Audit for the financial year ending April 30, 2011 is discussed.

For more information, check out

var.st/agm2012

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(acronym) Nigerian currency Italian menswear designer A Book of the New Testament First James Bond movie (1962) Expensive type of camera

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Follow instructions Small, hairy creatures in Star Wars girl, appearing in magazine centrefold Red (baseball) Estate or large house Institute for Nutrisciences and Health (acronym) Key ingredient for l’escargot Ghanian currency Ontario law that deals w/ accessibility rights “The world is your ” Fourth largest city in the state of GA Instruments of beheadings (multiple) Michiko Kakutani’s favourite word retentive Cow noise Charlie of “Charlie Bit My Finger” Indonesian island

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Major Hollywood lobby group Metrical unit of Shakespeare Former Chinese currency Ms. Lemon of 30 Rock “ -zam, I’m Foxxy Cleopatra!”

Voluntarily give up territory or ground Maple Leaf Gardens, Rogers Centre, e.g.

Food conglomerate; makers of iced tea.

Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (site of 2001 disaster) Distinctive atmosphere surrounding a person Ice Transfer . . .

In mathematics, a general proposition reached We Bought a , starring Matt Damon Purple flower Experience, for short Musical term, referring to a rapid tempo Monthly African-American magazine “Everything is bigger in ” Orange pylons Negatively charged ion Historical African Kingdom — occupied the Congo, Angola, Zambia Measurement of the Biblical Hebrews Grammar, denoting a verb’s mood Fox News host; made controversial comments about Tayvon Martin Slanted font, like in this clue First name of Superman’s nemesis As Hitler’s Germany did to Poland Legal term: return case to a lower court for re-consideration Mad Men network Form of clean energy “Dancing Queen” band Police agent responsible for drug busts Past Participle of “alight” Norse God Object of Rob Ford’s resentment Less than a Marquis, but greater than a Viscount Build Your Own Robot (acronym) Spanish word for “gold”

THANK YOU! The Varsity masthead would like to thank Staff and contributors for all your work this year. We couldn’t have done it without you!

STAFF: Maayan Adar, William Ahn, Mayce Al-Sukhni, Assunta Alegiani, Rida Fatema Ali, Reshara Alviarez, Brandon Bastaldo, Patrick Baud, Zoë Bedard, Elizabeth Benn, Alberto Bustamante, Simon Capobianco, Tom Cardoso, Rémi Carreiro, Jenise Chen, Wyatt Clough, Jade Colbert, Morgaine Craven, Tanya Debi, Dennis Dobrovolsky, Emily Dunbar, Yasi Eftekhari, Ken Euler, Davin Leivonen Fok, Alexa Franczak, Simon Frank, Catherine Friedman, Nikita Gill, Susan Gordon, Jennifer Gosnell, Bernarda Gospic, Matthew D.H. Gray, Wendy Gu, Ryan Hanney, Elizabeth Haq, Mimoza Haque, Murad Hemmadi, Sunnie Huang, Tina Hui, Nancy Kanwal, Brigit Katz, Maggie Keenan, Ryan Kelpin, Sean Kennedy, Jenny Kim, Lia Kim, Danielle Klein, Anamarija Korolj, Damanjit Lamba, Gabriella Lambert, Bianca Lemus Lavarreda, Rob Leone, Ariel Lewis, Patrick Love, Laura Kathleen Maize, Meghan McCabe, Laura Mitchell, Suzy Nevins, Joshua Oliver, Cristina Olteanu, Benjamin Pan, Dalana Parris, Jasmine Pauk, Alex Ross, Anne Rucchetto, Jonathan Scott, Dan Seljak, Semra Eylul Selvi, Kimberly Shek, Abdullah Shihipar, Yi Qing Sim, Sheena Singh, Daniel Smeenk, Erene Stergiopoulos, Joan Sullivan, Sarah Taguiam, Jakob Tanner, Lily Tarba, Fiona Tran, Akihiko Tse, Mushfiq Ul Huq, Irina Vukosavic, Georgia Williams, David Woolley, Michelle Yuan CONTRIBUTORS: Olga Abeleva, Tom Adamson, Arvid Ågren, Maya Akbay, Mahsa Alimardani, Shoaib Alli, Betina Alonso, Andrew Antinucci, Rochelle Aranha, Mohammed Arshad, Arash Azizi, Bethany Babinchak, Mike Badour, Minhee Bae, Alex Baird, Nicole Baker, Katharine Ball, Alex Bayluss, Cameron H. Becker, Samantha Beddington, Michael Bedford, Banafsheh Beizaei, Roberta Bell, Angela Brock, Kate Bruce-Lockhart, Edvard Bruun, Paul Bucci, Rachel Bulatovich, Robin Buller, Lauren Bursey, Monica Carinci, Jill Cates, Catherine Chan, Ian Chan, Elen Chang, Jackie Chang, Ethan Chiel, Matthew J. Chow, Zakia Chowdhury, Adriana Cimo, Dave Cogliano, Nat Cooper, Simon Costomiris, Aaron Crighton, Evan De Souza, Andreea DinulescuLorentz, Daniel Direkoglu, Wes Dutcher-Walls, Chris Edwards, Zoe Edwards, Sherine Ensan, Mike Erwoos, Victoria Facer, SaraJane Findlay, James Finlay, Jasmine Chorley Foster, Mersiha Gadzo, Aggie Gao, Shannon Garden-Smith, Savannah Garmon, Jonathan Gass, Mitchell Gauvin, Nick Gergesha, Albert Razvan Gheorghita, Craig Gilchrist, Sahar Golshan, Lylvell Gomes, Ivan Gospic, Aidan Gowland, Kevin Grace, Alexander Griffith, Mekhala Gunaratne, Tea Hadziristic, Tanzeel Hakak, Shakir Haq, Peter Hart, Ben Harvey, Anika Hazra, Julia Herrick, Brendan Hobin, Dylan Hornby, Daniel Horowitz, Nicholas Howell, Shannon Hsieh, Bo Hyung, Alainna Juliette Jamal, Stephan Jayaratnam, Juan Carlos Jiminez, Andrew Johnson, Emma Jones, JP Kaczur, Manisha Kaura, Emily Kellogg, Hyun Kim, Jenn Kucharz, Nishi Kumar, Kimberly Kwan, Lucia Kwan, Michael Labate, Jessie Lau, Demi Lee, Caroline Lee, Maybelle Leung, Sapphire Li, Sarah Lin, Janice Liu, Justin Liu, Melissa LoParco, Rebeccah Love, Lily Lu, Ian Mack, Sean MacKay, Colin MacLeod, James Maiangowi, Maleeha Majid, Madeline Malczewska, Craig Maniscalco, Catherine Mansouri, Zohair Masood, Heather Maughan, Kimberly McIntosh, Esther Mendelsohn, Yohani Mendis, Dan Miller, Alessia Mocella, Amina Mohamed, Alissa Mohammed, Natalia Moskal, Sadi Muktadir, Jessica Muraca, Livia Murray, Sarah Niedoba, Brian O’Neill, Chantal Otchere, Isaac Owusu, Ioana Pantis, Haley Park, Mina Park, Roxana Parsa, Katherine Parzei, April Pawluk, Stephan Petar, Ishita Petkar, David Pike, Anna Pippus, Anastassia Pogoutse, Goldie Poll, Konstantine Polyzois, Samantha Preddie, Gigi Rabnett, Salahuddin Rafiquddin, Kelly Rahardja, Shonith Rajendran, Sneha Raju, Lauren Ray, Tessie Riggs, Jordan Rivera, Janine Riviere, Dylan C. Robertson, Nardin Samuel, Danielle Sandhu, Ingrid Santaren, Emma Sarconi, Yasmin Sattarzadeh, Zane Schwartz, Mary Scourboutakos, Cherise Seucharan, Chongwong Shakur, Jared Shapiro, Jamie Shilton, Leanne Simpson, Gloria Simunic, Rajeev Sinclair, Kevin P. Siu, Monica Slovak, Charlotte Smith, Andrew Stobo Sniderman, Wendelle So, Nicole Stanikowsi, Ivana Strajin, Nothando Swan, Fatima Syed, Yeamrot Taddese, Regine Taduran, Kay Dyson Tam, Steve Tan, Tichaon Tapambwa, Aldrin Taroy, Connor Taylor, Franziska Teusel, Andrea Themistokleous, Tim Thurley, Monika Traikov, Stephanie Travassos, Thuy Truong, Jimmy Truong, Daniel Tsiokos, Nish V, Stefan Venier, Crystal Vincent, Michael Vu, Sherryn Vynkunthanathan, Matthew Jarvis Wall, Thomas Wallenius, Jakub Wasikiewicz, Nathan Watson, Mike Welch, Carter West, Dwayne G. White, Ronique Williams, Keegan Williams, Corina Wong, Jonathan Wu, Cherry Yiu, Paul York, Meraj Zafar, Taraneh Zarin, Belinda Zong, Jessica Zou. SPECIAL THANKS: Lorraine Chan, Dana Gregoire, Arlene Lu, Jamie C. Liu, Kalam Poon, Ivana Strajin.

Did you contribute this year and your name’s not on the list?

Send an email to editor@thevarsity.ca to let us know.

Varsity Staff are those who have contributed six times in at least five issues.

The Varsity

Weekly Horoscopes

by Destiny Starr Aries

(March 21–April 19) Feelin’ horny? So are the stars. Seize the opportunity.

Taurus

(April 20–May 20) Take some downtime to distract you from your essay-writing woes. Robarts is no place to party — try Pratt instead.

Gemini

(May 21–June 20) Mars graces your celestial sphere with supreme confidence this week. Don’t let Neptune cramp your style with a frumpy sweater.

Cancer

(June 21–July 22) Listen to Neptune this week: let loose a bit, open up a beer, and play some video games. Winston Churchill says why not.

Leo

(July 23–August 22) The stars are prompting you to make a big decision. Get inspired by doing some karaoke to “Call Me Maybe.”

Virgo

(August 23–September 22) The shadow of Neptune in the sign of Leo has had you donning your fair share of leopard print these days. Don’t stop, you’re doing it right.

Libra

(September 23–October 22) The cosmic rains will shower your life with joy and unexpected good marks this week.

Also, invest in denim.

Scorpio

(October 23–November 21) You’re waiting on some important news, but fret not, fair Scorpio! Lucky Venus smiles upon you, expect good luck and nice shoes this week.

Sagittarius

(November 22–December 21) Your friends and colleagues might be questioning your sartorial choices this week, but hold your ground with that onepiece longjohn suit. Own it.

Capricorn

(December 22–January 19) Capricorn, it’s time to get your shit together and finally record that polka cover of “My Heart Will Go On.” You might be in Pluto’s shadow right now, but musical Mercury will mend your achy breaky heart.

Aquarius

(January 20–February 18) Hey, I just met you. And this is crazy. But here’s my number. So call me maybe.

These four sentences will change your life.

Pisces

(February 19–March 20) Think long and hard on your priorities this week, and invite a new friend into your life. He loves corgis and wears cardigans.

He’s also on page 10.