On reflection at DalhousiePopular outcry has more to do with vigilante justice than rule of law, and isn’t steering right in this case.Medium Opinion, page 4

Get your govern onCandidates are vying for seats on the powerful Governing Council and Campus Council again.Medium News, page 2

Inside InsideBlackwood features art meant to commemorate the loss of a mural that hasn’t been destroyed just yet.Medium Arts, page 5

Living with lessEver wished your house could lose some weight? And you become a minimalist? Here’s a note on how.Medium Features, page 8

Once and future SauganThis UTM hockey player born and raised in Sauga has no intention of leaving home soil anytime soon.Medium Sports, page 11

THE VOICE OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF TORONTO MISSISSAUGA

January 19, 2015Volume 41, Issue 14themedium.ca

Tour brings premier to UTM

UTMSU to discuss MiWay changes

Wynne meets UTM students, faculty, staff, Medium in Deerfield last Thursday

Exploring

fall break

optionsPremier Kathleen Wynne visited UTM on Thursday on the fourth day of her campus tour in the province.

During her brief stop on campus, Wynne met with students, U of T president Meric Gertler, UTM princi-pal Deep Saini, and local Liberal rep-resentatives at the North Side Bistro in Deerfield Hall, followed by a visit to a chemistry lab on campus.

Beginning at McMaster last Mon-day, Wynne’s postsecondary circuit led her to Western and George Brown before her UTM visit. The tour is in-tended to provide Ontario students an opportunity to discuss their issues and concerns with the premier.

In a sit-down interview with The Medium, Wynne discussed unpaid internships, flat fees, and sexual vio-lence on postsecondary campuses.

The cost of postsecondary tuition was also discussed, a current focus for UTMSU following its launch of a “Drop the Fees” coalition the day be-fore the premier’s visit.

“We will continue to work with

student groups and universities and colleges,” said Wynne in regard to tu-ition.

When questioned about the effec-tiveness of the current 30% tuition rebate available to some students, Wynne argued in support of the ini-tiative, which was introduced by the McGuinty government in 2012 at the expense of provincial Work-Study.

“The 30% tuition is a very impor-

tant aspect of our commitment to stu-dents,” said Wynne. According to the premier, the rebate has since provided assistance to 230,000 students.

Wynne did, however, acknowledge disparities in flat fees across Ontario.

“We are trying to move everyone to a place where it’s more consistent,” she said.Announced in December 2013, Wyn-ne’s government initiated changes to

the flat fee system, which will be im-plemented starting this fall. The first changes will change the threshold of program costs instead of per-course costs to 3.5 credits, in place of the cur-rent 3.0 credits.

As of 2016, full tuition will be charged to students enrolled in 4.0 or more.

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUMOntario premier Kathleen Wynne discussed tuition, flat fees, and other issues during her visit.

NICOLE DANESIASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

UTMSU’s sixth Commission Meet-ing last Tuesday focused on new plans with MiWay and campaigns concern-ing fees.

CHANGES TO MIWAY SERVICEAccording to UTMSU president Has-san Havili, union representatives will discuss extending the 110 bus schedule with MiWay next month.

The last 110 bus comes at around 11 p.m., which is allegedly inconvenient for some students.

UTMSU will also talk to Missis-sauga Transit about increasing the number of 44S buses running in the morning, which quickly fill up.

Havili also said that UTMSU will look at the possibility of adding photo ID to the U-Pass so that students do not have to present their T-Card.

This will also help eliminate fraudu-lent use of the U-Pass, he said.

UTMSU is considering arranging for a Presto pass for students, since the U-Pass only covers MiWay services and does not work in other systems

such as Brampton and Oakville transit.

STUDENT FEES & BUDGETINGHavili also enumerated a number of campus fees to the attending students.These include per-course and per-

program fees, ancillary fees to the uni-versity, and incidental fees, like the $12 cost of ordering a transcript.

Sixth commission focuses on fees, governance, and upcoming campaigns

MENNA ELNAKAASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

ZARA RIZWAN/THE MEDIUM

UTMSU representatives encouraged students to speak out about their concerns.

Starting today, the Office of the Prin-cipal will begin a week-long online survey about the possible introduc-tion of a fall break at UTM. Email in-vitations will be sent out to all UTM undergraduate students, faculty, and staff.

The proposed fall break—which would be offered beginning in the 2016/17 academic year if the respons-es are in favour of the proposal—would last four days, from Tuesday through Friday following Thanksgiv-ing Monday.

Survey respondents will be asked to select whether they are in favour or whether they are against the pro-posed fall reading break at UTM and will be able to leave feedback regard-ing the proposal.

FARAH QAISERSTAFF WRITER

Break continued on page 2Wynne continued on page 3

UTMSU continued on page 2

2 «NEWS THE MEDIUM 01.19.2015

These reports are those that have been released to TheMedium and do not necessarily constitute an exhaustive list.

Students can contact the UTM Campus Police at 905 828 5200, Peel Regional Police at 905 453 3311, or Crime Stoppers at 1 800 222 8477.

Race begins for governance

Three UTM students are running for seats on Governing Council, U of T’s highest decision-making body.

A number of students are also competing for positions on the UTM Campus Council and its standing committees.

The names of the candidates com-peting for student seats on Governing Council and its several sub-councils were announced Thursday follow-ing a call for nominations earlier this month.

GOVERNING COUNCILUTM student Ridwan Olow is one of 10 candidates competing for two Constituency I seats on U of T’s Gov-erning Council—the body with the final word in most decisions concern-ing university priorities, capital proj-ects, and student life, among other matters.

Positions in Constituency I are re-served for full-time students in the Faculty of Arts & Science, UTM, and UTSC.

In addition to Olow, two of the three candidates running for the two part-time undergraduate seats on the council are UTM students Ray Khan, currently president of the ICCIT Council, and Amir Moazzami, UT-MSU VP part-time.

Student governors serve one-year terms and provide input regarding university decisions.

UTM CAMPUS COUNCILIn addition to Governing Council, the names of candidates running for seats on the UTM Campus Council and its standing committees have also

been released on the GC website.UTM Campus Council is respon-

sible for discussing issues relating to academic and student life at UTM, along with business matters for the campus. The council makes decisions on behalf of GC on UTM-specific is-sues.

Candidates running for the two seats for full-time undergraduate stu-dents are Emerson Calcada, Alice Li, and Abdulla Omari.

In addition to GC, Moazzami and Khan are also competing for the sole part-time undergraduate seat on the UTM Campus Council.

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEEUnder the Campus Council are three standing committees, and elections will be held for two: the Academic Affairs Committee and the Campus Affairs Committee.

The Academic Affairs Committee oversees matters concerning teaching and learning at UTM, as well as re-search. The committee also provides recommendations for amendments to current academic policies. These recommendations go through Cam-pus Council and are then presented to one of the bodies of Governing Council.

Seven full-time students are com-peting for four seats on the AAC: Nour Alideeb, Best Anaele, Sarah Amjad, Vanessa Kattar, Ryan Persaud, Betsy Susan Yeldhose, and Samiha Zaman.

No election is required for the part-time seat, for which Leonard Lyn is the only candidate.

This school year, the Academic Af-fairs Committee has approved new programs such as the forensic science

minor to be available at UTM next year.

In the past, the AAC has also ap-proved changes to the credit/no-cred-it policy.

CAMPUS AFFAIRS COMMITTEENine students are running for the four positions open to full-time stu-dents on the Campus Affairs Com-mittee.

The CAC discusses issues affecting student and campus life and makes recommendations on matters relat-ing to campus priorities, planning, and the management of campus re-sources.

Like the AAC, the CAC makes rec-ommendations to Campus Council for approval before they are presented to the relevant division of GC.

The candidates running for seats on the CAC are Albina Almetova, Nash Chikowore, Maheen Farrukh, Abdul Hadi Tariq, Lina Hassan, Hoda Khan, Abdulla Omari, Maria Rabbat, and Tsz Yan Tam.

Since Amber Shoebridge is the sole candidate running for the part-time seat on the CAC, there will be no elec-tion for it.

Recent decisions approved by the Campus Affairs Committee include the recommendation to build a new parking deck at UTM and increase parking and other ancillary fees.

All full-time and part-time UTM students are eligible to run for seats on GC and its bodies if they are citi-zens of Canada and enrolled in a de-gree, diploma, or certificate program. International students cannot cur-rently serve.

Campaigning for the election will begin on January 26, with voting to be held in February.

MARIA IQBALNEWS EDITOR

If the fall reading break is introduced, it could affect the length of the study break between the last day of fall classes and the first day of December exams.

“We remain committed to a 12-week term and we cannot start classes here until after Labour Day,” said Di-ane Crocker, UTM’s registrar and di-rector of enrolment.

According to Crocker, this is be-cause of the time needed to “assess records” after summer programming and the need not to push summer schedules back.

The break will also not affect the two-week December holiday period

after exams.The impact of a fall break on the

study break length will mainly de-pend on when exactly Labour Day will occur each year. Calendars show-ing the impact of a fall reading week over the next five years will be avail-able online.

In recent years, many Canadian universities have started introduc-ing fall reading weeks. As of October 2013, 11 of Ontario’s universities had a fall reading break, including Brock, Ryerson, and McMaster.

The fall reading week issue has pre-viously been raised at the Principal’s Town Hall meetings at UTM. The dates of UTM’s fall break would not necessarily coincide with those of U

of T’s other campuses. Optional experiential education

opportunities may be offered in the fall reading week, similar to the Al-ternative Reading Week program that occurs in the winter reading week break. For first-year students, this week could offer help for a smooth transition into university life.

The online survey will include fur-ther information about the impact of a fall reading week for all respondents to consider.

According to Crocker, the survey results are expected to be released by mid-February. The survey will exclude graduate and Mississauga Academy of Medicine students, un-less they are also teaching staff.

Break continued from Cover

Fall break possible in 2016/17

UTORONTO.CA/PHOTO

Three UTM students are running for Governing Council, the highest decision-making body at U of T.

January 8, 1:00 p.m.ReportA staff member reported damage to her vehicle by another vehicle while parked in lot 8. The other driver failed to remain at the scene.

January 8, 11:14 p.m.DisruptionTwo UTM students were temporarily trespassed for the HMALC for being disruptive.

January 9, 7:59 p.m.CDS Act OffenceA non-community member was ar-rested by Campus Police for possessing a substance contravening the CDSA at the Blind Duck. The male was taken into custody by Peel Regional Police and transported to 11 Division.

January 10, 4:15 p.m.MischiefCampus Police investigated a report of mischief to a vehicle parked in the CCT garage. January 10, 1:30 a.m.Noise complaintCampus Police investigated a noise complaint from a townhouse unit. Pa-trons loitering outside were requested

to leave the area and left without inci-dent.

January 12, 7:12 p.m.MischiefCampus Police investigated a report of graffiti on a washroom pillar. Caretak-ing Services were contacted to have it removed.

January 13, 12:30 p.m.Animal Services contactedA raccoon was removed from Davis by Animal Services.

January 13, 5:22 p.m.Motor vehicle accidentA car collided with a Mississauga Transit bus on the Inner Circle Road. No injuries reported.

January 13, 4:30 p.m.MischiefCampus Police investigated a report of graffiti on a pillar in lot 8. Grounds Department contacted to have it re-moved.

January 14, 1:50 p.m.Theft under $5,000A student reported the theft of her jacket from an unsecured locker lo-cated inside the RAWC locker room.

01.19.2015 THE MEDIUM NEWS» 3

Oneeb Javaid1st year, life sci

Najat Dirie1st year, humanities

Kevin Lam1st year, life sci

Stephanie Wighton4th year, anthro & poli sci

What’s the hardest part about being premier?

What’s your favourite store to shop at?

What do you actually do?

What’s your action plan for social housing, especially in Toronto and the GTA?

»WHAT WOULD YOU ASKKATHLEEN WYNNE?

Baird greeted by egg-throwing Palestinians on visit to West Bank

The Foreign Affairs Minister of Can-ada, John Baird, was greeted with egg yolks on his visit to the West Bank on Sunday. Palestinians threw eggs at Baird and his car in protest of Baird’s support for Israel. Canada was among the few countries against Palestine’s request to become a non-member state in the UN General Assembly in 2012.

Source: Canoe News

Target closing its Canadian stores after less than two years

Target announced its intention to close all 133 of its Canadian stores last Thursday. The U.S. retailer launched its operations in Canada less than two years ago, in March 2013. Target in-curred almost $1 billion in losses in its first year alone, and continues to face losses.

Source: CBC News

Suspect sought after SUV reverses into Brampton restaurant

Police are looking for a man suspect-ed of reversing an SUV into the front of a Brampton restaurant, injuring three. A woman reportedly left her SUV running outside when she en-tered Island Cuisine. Police say a man then entered the vehicle and backed into the store. The restaurant remains closed for investigation.

Source: Toronto Star

OISE professor toplead guilty to child pornography charges

A U of T professor is pleading guilty to charges related to child pornogra-phy, says his lawyer. Benjamin Levin, who taught at OISE, was arrested in July 2013 after an investigation that involved police officers as distant as in New Zealand. Levin’s lawyer, Clay-ton Ruby, did not indicate which of the charges the professor would plead guilty to.

Source: Toronto Star

RCMP officer fighting for life after shootingin Alberta casino

An RCMP officer is facing life-threat-ening injuries after two officers were shot in Alberta. The officers had walked insider a casino when they were shot. The suspect’s body was later found inside a house a few kilo-meters from the shooting. One of the officers was released from hospital on Saturday.

Source: OCanada.com

UTMSU launches fee coalition

On Wednesday, UTMSU spoke to about 30 students on campus in the Presentation Room at 1 p.m. for about two hours during the “Drop the Fees” coalition.

UTMSU representatives discussed being fed up with the obligation to keep up with exorbitant fee increas-es. The speakers interpreted figures onscreen showing a significant rise in payments over the years.

The representatives spoke about the rising cost of tuition and how it

is holding students back. Ultimately, the student union says they are pre-paring for the goal of, one day, elimi-nating tuition fees in Canada. At least provincially, they talked about beginning with service charges and the possibility of using taxes—that everyone already owes—to curb costs.

The statement provided during the meeting was that “education is a right”, not an advantage only for the wealthy.

Student involvement was encour-aged. The numbers representing

costs were shown to the audience on the projection screen, making stu-dents aware of the increase in educa-tional costs over the years.

At the end of the event, the stu-dent leaders insisted on the need for greater attendance.

“We had an amazing turnout and fruitful discussions. Moving forward we will be having less [talk] and more actions,” said UTMSU repre-sentatives in a Facebook post after the event.

The next coalition meeting will be this Wednesday at 1 p.m.

SHANNON SCHILLING

ZARA RIZWAN/THE MEDIUM

UTMSU’s “Drop the Fees” coalition was launched last week. Meetings will be held every Wednesday.

Wynne did not mention plans to take further action on the issue.

“We’ve taken action on it,” she said. “We feel at this point we’ve moved in the direction that we needed to.”

While addressing current legisla-tion governing unpaid internships, Wynne stressed that such employ-ment is banned under current em-ployment laws unless prearranged through a university or college course.

“We are looking at precarious work, [...] and where do we find situ-ations where people in the workplace are vulnerable because of the working conditions,” said Wynne.

The Premier also stressed the im-portance of striking a balance be-tween the protection of workers and the ability for workers to gain experi-ence on the job.

“Experiential learning and the op-portunity to have hands-on knowl-edge of a particular sector is very important and we need to make sure that there are enough opportunities for students to get that,” she said.

On the eve of Wynne’s visit to UTM, the premier hosted a roundta-ble at Queen’s Park discussing sexual assault on campuses with members of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario. Victim support services, stu-dent involvement in the creation of

campus administrative policies, train-ing, consent, and campus resources were discussed.

“Having a safe environment for students and faculty and anyone who works on a campus is a very high pri-ority for us,” said Wynne.

The roundtable precedes an ex-pected action plan regarding sexual violence to be released by the Liberal government on International Wom-en’s Day in March.

Following her visit to UTM, the premier travelled to Sault College in Sault Ste. Marie on Thursday eve-ning, where she announced more support by the provincial govern-ment for mental health initiatives on postsecondary campuses. The tour is expected to wrap up this Friday with upcoming stops on the premier’s tour.

A video of the interview is available on The Medium’s website.

Wynne continued from Cover

Wynne discusses unpaid interns

Thirty attend first “Drop the Fees” meeting last Wednesday

Havili criticized high schools for not teaching students how to budget for these fees as well as living expenses, adding that this is not only the univer-sity’s problem.

GOVERNING U OF TAt the meeting, UTMSU also ex-plained the university’s decision-mak-ing process, noting that decisions start with the Campus Councils, whose de-cisions are eventually brought forward to Governing Council.

According to Havili, the heated bus shelter and food truck rotation on Thursdays are a result of “speaking up”.

He added that the U-Pass, an initia-tive spearheaded by Aubrey Iwaniw

in 2004 and negotiated by admin and UTMSU with Mississauga Transit un-til its implementation in 2007, saves students over $1,000 per year.

He encouraged students to take action regarding their dissatisfaction with fees and asked them to attend meetings to that end.

Havili also mentioned UTMSU’s “Know Your Rights Campaign”, which began on January 12 and runs till Feb-ruary 13. The campaign will address housing, employment, justice, and academics.

At the end of the meeting, some stu-dents expressed their dissatisfaction with Turnitin.com, alleging that they have a right to refuse it.

The next Commission Meeting will take place in February.

UTMSU continued from Cover

Photos could appear on future U-Passes

Wynne called for a balance between

protecting workers and allowing them to gain

experience.

4 « 01.19.2015

Editor-in-ChiefLuke Sawczakeditor@themedium.ca

NewsMaria Iqbalnews@themedium.ca

A&EMaria Cruzarts@themedium.ca

FeaturesMadeleine Brownfeatures@themedium.ca

SportsJason Coelhosports@themedium.ca

—

PhotoMahmoud Saroujiphotos@themedium.ca

DesignMubashir Bawejadesign@themedium.ca

CopyAkshaya Sharmacopy@themedium.ca

Online & BlogMichelle BonsuSafia Aminblog@themedium.caonline@themedium.ca

VideoRussell Wuvideos@themedium.ca

MEDIUM II PUBLICATIONS3359 Mississauga Road,Room 200, Student Centre,Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6

themedium.ca

EDITORS

NewsNicole Danesi Menna Elnaka

A&EKathelene Cattell-Daniels

FeaturesAndreea Mihai

SportsEric Hewitson

PhotoChristy TamZara RizwanNicole Raquinio

To become an associate, begin writingand speak with your section editor!

ASSOCIATES

Distribution ManagerNatalie Zetusiandistribution@themedium.ca

Comic ArtistCorey Belford

GENERAL STAFF

Christine Capewell, Larissa Ho,Saima Khan, Denio Lourenco,Jaime Pokhoy, Obaid Said, Ajay Sharma, Luke Sawczak

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

COPYRIGHTSAll content printed in The Medium is the sole property of its creators, and cannot be used without written consent.

DISCLAIMEROpinions expressed in the pages of The Medium are exclusively of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Medium. Additionally, the opinions expressed in advertise-ments appearing in The Medium are those of advertisers and not of The Medium.

LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters to the editor will be edited for spelling, grammar, style and coherence. Letters will not exceed 700 words in print. Letters that incite hatred or violence and letters that are racist, homophobic, sexist, or libelous will not be published. Anonymous letters will not be published.

MASTHEAD

To contribute, emaileditor@themedium.ca

Doing more to help than harmIn the heat of emotion we ask for punitive justice, but it’s not the best way

The Dalhousie dentistry case is a very interesting one. There are tons of differently nuanced opinion and news articles online—after reading through them, I think I’ve seen pho-tos of the dentistry building from ev-ery conceivable angle—although they broadly agree. The most recent de-velopment I’m aware of is the police’s finding nothing criminally pursuable in the offensive posts. I haven’t seen any commentary on that decision yet, but I’m sure what will be said will rep-resent, by and large, outrage.

And there should be outrage, of course, over the sorts of crimes these students joked about. There’s no ques-tion that it would take a horrible lapse of judgement to commit any of them, and that no decent person, let alone a professional, should joke about them in any context. The “hate sex” poll alone was beyond the pale.

But the outrage being shown is partly about the punishment chosen, and that’s where I’m not sure I under-stand where people are coming from.

Dalhousie at first said it would pur-sue a restorative justice route, with the implication (at first) that expulsion or suspension was not in the cards. There were marches, social media like the hashtag “#dalhousiehateswomen”, and more to compel a “stronger” re-sponse from Dalhousie.

But action taken under the pressure

of public outcry is rarely the carefully considered kind. It has nothing to do with the rule of law and a little to do with vigilante justice. Out of curiosity, I took the opportunity to ask Premier Wynne her opinion while she was here on Thursday, and she pointed out that when people raise an outcry, we should think long and hard about changes that “should have been made 30 years ago”. But she conceded that it can’t always reliably guide a just re-sponse. Emotion can be manipulated by rhetoric; a crowd will often alter-nate between the debater it cheers for. Hence we sentence people in court, not in the court of public opinion—except when the offence is not strictly illegal and a university administrator is doing the sentencing.

As Wynne said, public outcry is a compelling indicator of the things we need to change. And as a Star ar-ticle pointed out, institutional justice alone would have had a hard time get-ting evidence in cases like that against Jian Ghomeshi. But public outcry is not always right, and in this case, I’m puzzled by the anger about the choice to use restorative justice.

Restorative justice is relatively new and doesn’t have solid research to definitively support it, but to me at least it seems more promising than punitive justice. It involves education, constructive conversation, restitution

more meaningful than just money, and more. It humanizes. There are also good reasons to believe it reduces the risk of reoffending. As long as we never risk the crime bring trivialized in our minds, there’s no particular reason to refuse restorative justice.

Except, it seems, when anger makes us cry out for something harsher. But surely cool reason is better. In an ar-ticle we ran last week, Amanda Havey pointed out that we normally “throw

the rapist in jail for life”, as if that were the best we can do as a society. In one article I read, a Dalhousie alumna says that she will make “damn sure” her grandchildren don’t get treated by anyone from the class of 2015. Bad news: it’s not the dentistry class of 2015 at Dalhousie that’s the problem, it’s systemic issues that consistently produce saddening behaviour by young men across all strata of society. We can’t afford to perpetuate outdated ideas of criminality in which throw-ing an axe at someone fixes a problem

rooted very deeply in our culture.Similarly, some faculty at Dalhou-

sie raised a complaint about the pro-posed restorative justice plan, says a Globe and Mail article, arguing that it would be “long, complicated, and not driven by a set of formal rules”. Well, unfortunately, solutions for the sexual offences that are deep-seated in our society are not quick, easy, or listed in handy guidebooks. Expulsion would clear the current problem from the public table, but it would do less good in the long run.

When comments are offensive and troubling, we have more options be-fore us than just attacking the per-son who made them. You don’t often teach someone a lesson very well that way. You get back what you put out, and I would hope that you teach a person to respect others by showing respect, at least better than purely by doling out force.

The Dalhousie students are getting both restorative justice in the form of a program, for their own good, and punitive justice in the form of sus-pension from clinical activities, for others’ good. As a response to their making unacceptable jokes, this is a fine start.

YOURS,

LUKE SAWCZAK

The problem is systemic issues that producesaddening behaviourby young men acrossall strata of society.

01.19.2015 THE MEDIUM OPINION» 5

It’s been over two months since the UTSU Annual General Meeting, and the conversations following the meeting have been dominated by entrenched opinions and a lack of compromise. We are no closer to a solution to this crisis than we were af-ter the AGM, and the clock is ticking down to an October deadline.

It’s time for action.There is no question that students

will be the true losers if their com-munity leaders can’t work together on this pressing issue. The UTSU must conform to the CNCA by October, and it has become increasingly clear that the only proposal that could pos-sibly be successful is one that brings everyone to the table and produces a

compromise.On January 21, we will be hosting a

joint board proposal meeting that we hope will produce an honest conver-sation between all stakeholders in our union. To ensure that a wide range of voices are heard, the UTSU, UTM campus leaders, professional faculties and colleges, as well as course and equity groups have all been invited to attend, with many already confirm-ing their attendance. Beyond these groups, however, the meeting is open to all students who are interested in seeing and being a part of a resolution to this problem.

As the chairs of this meeting, we hope to host a fair meeting where all voices and opinions are respected and

heard. The conversation surround-ing board reform needs a fresh start, and this meeting will offer everyone a chance to do this and find a solution that works for all of us. To accomplish this, we have three primary objec-tives: have an explicit structure for the meeting, set out clear goals, and ensure the space is safe.

To make sure that the meeting stays on topic, we will be using a set agenda to structure the meeting. This means clearly setting boundaries and con-straints, openly discussing legal is-sues, and defining the needs of union members. We hope that by having a well-defined idea of what we want to produce, all parties will be able to en-gage in meaningful dialogue.

In addition, we want to get an ex-plicit set of goals from those who choose to attend. What do our stu-dent leaders want to see in this new board structure? What sort of objec-tives do they have coming into this meeting? At what point are they will-ing to compromise on their ideal vi-sion? These are all questions that we can’t answer alone: they have to come from everyone willing to attend and voice their opinion.

Finally, it is paramount to us that the space remains safe. A recurring concern from board meetings, AGMs, and other general meetings is the lack of a safe space to have this kind of dis-cussion. We will be operating under a one-warning system, and there will

be zero tolerance for purposeful ha-rassment or oppressive language.

As U of T students, we know how to think critically. Compromise must be the lens through which we build a new board proposal. Let’s create a so-lution together.

We hope to see you there.

Natalie PetraUC, Public PolicyRyan GomesUTSU Board of Directors

The Joint Meeting will be held January 21 at 5 p.m. in ES B142.

Please check our Facebook event for details: http://on.fb.me/1x1nPpb.

The Prophet is crying, and it isn’t hard to see why. Seventeen people killed in his name—the Kouachi brothers yelled, “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad!” as they opened fire in the Charlie Hebdo headquarters—and countless others murdered across the Middle East by Islamic radicals.

The events of January 7 centre on the old debate of freedom of expres-sion vs. blasphemy, or religious cour-tesy, if you like. More than a week later, people are still faced with a Hamlet-like dilemma: to draw face-tious cartoons or not to draw; to re-print or not to reprint.

This week’s tragedy in Paris is the re-sult of a deadlock created by the clash of ideologies. Stéphane Charbonnier, editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo, told Der Spiegel back in 2012, “I have no kids, no wife, no car, no credit. It may be a little pompous what I’m going to say, but I’d rather die standing up than live on my knees.” The staff knew the risks of their profession. Likewise, the Kouachi brothers, when they were holed up at the printing factory, sur-rounded by police, let it be known that they wanted to “die as martyrs”. So a martyr for a martyr... making the whole world blind.

Neither party will back off. West-ern Europe’s tradition of free speech (and satire) is historically entrenched and will never make Islam an excep-tion. Islam’s more radical branches will likely continue the death threats, firebombing, and cold-blooded ex-ecution against what they consider blasphemy. So what are we to do?

I don’t know if I have the answer to this question. For starters, one has to pick a side: you either support free speech, no holds barred, or you don’t.

Supporting it only when it’s inof-fensive is a cop-out. Mind you, free speech does not mean hate speech, and in more murky cases it is up to the courts to differentiate. This was the case in 2007, when the maga-zine was taken to court by the Grand Mosque of Paris when it reprinted the infamous Danish cartoons. Hebdo was acquitted when the judge ruled that the magazine was ridiculing fun-damentalists, rather than all Muslims. Charlie Hebdo’s brand of ridicule was never about hate; they did not hate the Prophet as much as find him—and all other religious figures—ridiculous.

Perchance a more intelligent (vir-tuous? self-effacing?) person than myself would have given the answer given by almost all Canadian newspa-pers, which chose not to reprint any cartoons, despite their currently hav-ing, in the words of one journalist, “profound news value”. Support free speech, but within bounds, and let the bounds be set by what people find of-fensive, they seem to imply. Ridicule anything and anyone, but don’t touch radical Islam, because we all know what happens when you do.

The preservation of human life is a noble goal, but this is not the side my conscience advocates. To be inof-fensive is to be bland, to cower... and to stand for nothing. The New Yorker’s cartoon editor Robert Mankoff was right when he wrote that the only “culturally, ethically, religiously, and politically correct cartoon” is an emp-ty panel. The citizens of France, too, have chosen their side, swelling the streets of Paris with thousands of “Je suis Charlie” placards. I only hope that every one of those Charlies wields the sign with full awareness of its mean-

ing, which is the support for self-ex-pression despite the threats, even if they involve terrorism on home soil.

In light of the self-conscious atti-tude of many of Canada’s news outlets, and in response to the recent op-ed by my dear friend, The Medium’s editor-in-chief, I feel I must take a closer look at satire. By definition its aim is the reformation of folly and vice. In-structional humour, if you will. Many polite folk are quick to point out, af-ter profusely defending Charlie’s right to exist, that mockery advances no cause, that offense serves no construc-tive end. But it does.

Let’s deconstruct the easily found Hebdo cover of Nov. 3, 2011. Released to “celebrate” the victory of an Islamist party in the Tunisian elections, its subheading read “Charia Hebdo”. In one corner was a note saying this edi-tion was guest-edited by “Mahomet”. On a green background, a caricatured Prophet grins, holds up a finger, and declares, “100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter.” On the one hand this is slanderously tongue-in-cheek, but on the other it is a strident attack on corporal punishment as practised under Sharia law. At face value, cor-poral punishment is, of course, no laughing matter. Take the very recent case of the Saudi writer and activist Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to a prison term and 1,000 lashes by the Saudi government. His crimes were apostasy and insulting Islam online. The flogging has begun to be adminis-tered in sets of 50 over a period of 20 weeks, and “puts him at risk of death”, his wife told reporters.

Those who laugh at this Hebdo car-toon laugh to undermine the author-ity of extremists, because that is what

they hate most. Western governments can send warplanes to bomb ISIS tar-gets in Syria and Iraq, but the average citizen can only laugh. Laugh in re-sponse to the fear sown by public acts like stoning, flogging, amputation, and decapitation. Those who laugh take back their sanity from the grip of the fanatics by finding them fool-ish. We live in anxious, angst-riddled times, and laughter is one of the few effective over-the-counter medica-tions. So we laugh at things that make us angry, fearful, embarrassed, and of-fended, that make us feel vulnerable and see things as they really are.

Many people, not just this paper’s editor-in-chief, find that Hebdo “vili-fies many legitimate ways of life”, but the Hebdoian response is that funda-mentalism is not a legitimate way of life, especially not in a pluralistic soci-ety. The 12 murdered employees were not sixth-graders doodling on their desks. Much thought went into each publication; every cover was directly in conversation with its day. Though some may have indeed been in “bad taste”, there is a grain of truth in every mockery. That is what makes it funny.

This isn’t a clash between the West and Islam, but between democracy and theocracy. This isn’t an attack on Muslims, but on the radicals who kill because they’re offended, because they disagree. It is an attack on ISIS, on the Taliban, on Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram and every leader who is at this moment gathering supporters for the next attack. The Hebdo car-toons were—and still are—laughing at them.

Having said this, I must add that the roots of the attacks can be traced back to France’s treatment of its im-

migrants. The question that isn’t be-ing asked enough is why four young people born and raised in France would turn to terrorism. The answer partly hearkens back to the country’s 2010 ban on face-covering in public and 2004 ban on conspicuous reli-gious symbols in schools. It’s old news that there exist two Frances: one for the white native French, and the other for immigrants; Paris’s notorious ban-lieues (think Jane/Finch or Scarbor-ough) are populated predominantly by immigrants and their descendants, many of them Muslim. Complaints by second- and third-generation im-migrants that they are stereotyped by landlords, by potential employers, by the police, have fallen on deaf ears. The backgrounds of the Kouachi brothers fit this profile. They struggled with rootlessness, poverty, and integra-tion all their lives, and their criminal records attest to this. The majority of French immigrants hail from Algeria and Morocco, and yet it has been said that France has still not fully come to terms with its colonial past. Although hopelessness and social isolation are obviously not excuses for violence, they too often go together.

This leads me to ask: apart from holding “Je suis Charlie” placards, what will French citizens and the French government do to make their immigrants feel accepted?

The latest Hebdo cover features the Prophet once more. On a green back-ground the Prophet is holding up a “Je suis Charlie” sign and crying. The cap-tion says, “Tout est pardonné.”

Deconstruct this one yourselves.

Valeria RyrakAlumna, English

On constructive satire and the Prophet

Urgent board reform requires compromise

6 « 01.19.2015

Inside Blackwood’s new exhibitBlackwood Gallery’s latest exhibit pays homage to student-made mural in North Building

Inside, the Blackwood Gallery’s cur-rent exhibit curated by John Arm-strong, asks viewers to reconsider painting’s engagement with the rooms we inhabit.

Armstrong says his inspiration for commissioning the artists to make wallworks was the fact that the mural in the North Building—made by UTM student Denyse Thomasos in 1986—was slated to be demolished (see “Campus construc-tion jeopardizes Thomasos mural”, Oct. 28, 2013).

“The original plan for the exhibi-tion was to include portions of the mural cut out of the walls during the North Building’s demolition,” Armstrong said. “But the demoli-tion was delayed, and so that did not come to be [yet]. The mural is still intact; however, the North Building has been closed to public access as of December 20.”

The gallery painted its walls white for the exhibition. Mark Bell’s Reverse Obsolence (Deerfield Hall, 2014), chalk, and nail loom on the wall across the gallery’s doors. The straight black and grey lines envi-sion what the newly constructed Deerfield Hall might look like if it

were in decay.Sara Hartland-Rowe’s untitled

piece spans the wall next to Bell’s piece. From the gallery entrance, you see large grey coins falling across the wall to the ground, rib-bons of pastel rainbows shimmer-ing on both sides of the coins, and squiggles on the rest of the wall. Up

close, the squiggles transform into little figures. People kissing, fight-ing, pointing guns, and holding up enormous teddy bears populate the wall.

Hartland-Rowe says “the people pick her” and are part of a collec-tion she’s gathered over time. “I live in Halifax, and I have a quiet, beau-

tiful studio,” she says. “I’m in there on winter days—I’m warm, I’ve just had my breakfast, I don’t expect a bomb to drop. It’s so strange to me that I can be so comfortable, so safe while right now, somewhere in the world, there are a lot of people who aren’t sure at all.”

The words “Don’t be sad that

it’s over; be happy that it ever be-gan” lean against one of the walls in the e|gallery. Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky recreated a UTM student dorm wall covered in contemporary posters and knick-knacks. Dark purple paint covers the mesh and plaster forms that make up the wall.

Also in the e|gallery is Denyse Thomasos’s Burial at Gorée (1993). Her paintings that preceded Burial at Gorée represented the 18th-cen-tury slave ships that transported and kidnapped Africans from the Guinea coast to landings along the Delaware River. Burial at Gorée de-picts a holding area for slaves arriv-ing in the Delaware Valley.

Armstrong moderated Inside Job Part I, a panel talk with artists Pierre Dorion, Sarah Hartland-Rowe, Ma-ria Hupfield, and Rhonda Weppler on Wednesday, January 14 before the exhibition’s opening reception.

Armstrong will moderate Inside Job Part II with artists Mark Bell, Dorian Fitzgerald, and Trevor Ma-hovsky in the Annie Smith Mezza-nine at Sheridan on Thursday, Feb-ruary 12 from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Inside runs until March 2 in the Blackwood Gallery and the e|gallery.

ANDREEA MIHAI

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUM

Inside decorates Blackwood Gallery with giant murals.

UTSU’s Frost Week heats up St. GeorgeThe event hit capacity of 450+ students at the Great Hall downtown in anticipation of Lights

Students lined the hallways just outside the Great Hall at Hart House this past Thursday to attend a free concert featuring DJ Intrin-ity, Sam Cash and the Romantic Dogs, and Lights. The concert, sponsored by Skull Candy, Apus, and the University of Toronto, was just one of the many events orga-nized by UTSU for this year’s Win-ter Week of Welcome: “Frost Week 2015”. The week was geared toward welcoming new students and re-turning students to the university and to perhaps help students brush off those terrible post-Christmas blues.

Upon entry at 7 p.m., students were given large Styrofoam glow sticks from the Guvernment night-club in Toronto with the words “Guv Life” in black on the side. Just outside the hall, students started dressing up for the photo booth with Bob Marley wigs, Batman masks, and devil ears while others

enjoyed popcorn. Both the photo booth and popcorn were compli-mentary.

As more students slowly filtered into the hall, they were welcomed

by the sounds of DJ Intrinity, who kicked the concert off with a mix of light house music.

The historical hall was decorat-ed with white lights draped across

the room and covering a couple of small trees. This gave the event a vibrant, eclectic, winter wonder-land feel.

At the back of the hall a bar was

set up offering ciders, bottled beer, and juice, but most of the crowd consisted of underage first-year students, so the concert remained pretty tame and relaxed.

Around 8, VP external Grayce Slobodian and VP internal and services Cameron Wathey of UTSU took centre stage and pre-sented the audience with a chance to win a backstage meet-and-greet with Canadian electropop musi-cian Lights herself. In order to win this prize, Slobodian and Wathey said that students would have to come up on stage and sing a song of their choice.

Several students hopped onstage and belted out lyrics from the likes of Nikki Minaj, Coldplay, Hozier, and Sam Smith. The winner was a student who sang Justin Timber-lake’s “Mirrors” and was cheered into first place. In the end, UTSU granted the top five contestants backstage access.

MIKE DOPSA/PHOTO

Lights was the special guest performer at the Frost Week concert.

JOEY CLOSE

Lights continued on page 7

01.19.2015 THE MEDIUM ARTS» 7

Lights lights up frosty nights at the Great Hall downtown

Around 8:30, special guests and opening indie band Sam Cash and the Romantic Dogs took the stage to kick off the first of the two sets played, mostly drawing on their 2013 album Stand Together, Fall Together.

I must admit that I wasn’t famil-iar with Cash and the Dogs before the concert, but with Cash’s great vocals in songs like “Remedy” and “Steal My Car” and the overall uni-

ty of the band, by the end of the evening I had definitely become a fan.

Around 10 p.m., the Great Hall was full of over 450 students chanting, “Lights, Lights, Lights!” as heavy fog filled the room. With a genuine big smile and laid-back demeanour, Lights greeted her fans. The Toronto-based artist, who once had a more synth feel to her music, now projected indie pop with her latest album, Little Machines, released this past Sep-

tember. Lights performed songs from the album such as “Portal” and “Running with Boys”. She closed the night with her most popular song, “Up We Go”.

The night came to an end around midnight as DJ Intrinity played his last set to wrap up the concert. The night had a great turnout, but un-fortunately—according to the vol-unteer welcome desk—there were over 100 students that weren’t able to get in because the event was overbooked.

Divine voices, infernal show

SCOTT GORMAN/PHOTO

David Michael Moote stars as Jesus Christ.

It’s not every day you see Jesus in skinny jeans, but director Luke Brown brought exactly that to Hart House with his rendition of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Having dazzled audiences on Broadway for years, the musical was sure to be a hit at Hart House. I my-self was expecting to be blown away by miraculous performances. Which, for the most part, I was.

David Michael Moote stars as Christ and from the moment he opened his mouth, he silenced the crowd. With easily one of the stron-gest voices in the entire cast, Moote nailed his songs with a clear, smooth, and beautiful voice. I will admit, though, that there were times Moote couldn’t quite nail the Steven Tyler-esque high notes mid-song; his voice cracked a few times during his per-formance.

Aaron Williams may be Judas when he acts, but he’s an angel when he sings. He was incredible from start to finish. What was particularly lovely for me was how well Williams merged acting with song; when he was sup-posed to be sad or angry he natu-rally incorporated that into his songs,

making for one hell of a performance.The quality was maintained by

Claire Hunter, who played Mary. Not much else can said about her other than that she was the calm in the eye of the storm. With so many loud, emotional rock songs, Hunter really balanced things out with her softer songs that allowed her to show off her talent.

Now, three side performances I feel obligated to mention are Simon (Har-old Lumilan), Annas (Matt Gallagh-er), and King Herod (Saphire Demi-tro). These three were breathtaking. Lumilan had no problems hitting the long high notes and Gallagher had a beautiful strong voice that he used with ease.

Enter Demitro: the sassy yet ador-able queen that owned the stage for her one song. She earned as much ap-plause after her one song as the entire cast did during final bow.

Now, being opening night, the play certainly struggled with some things. First, the lighting was atrocious. Spot-lights shone in front of actors and doorways, not on them, keeping the main focus of the scene in the dark. The spotlight also visibly struggled to line up with actors several times. At one point, the lights went off alto-gether while Hunter was in the mid-dle of a song.

A few other technical difficulties presented themselves as well. The microphones had feedback or were scratchy as the actors sang, taking away from their performances. When the show first started, Williams’s mi-crophone was so loud that his high notes thundered in my ears. In com-parison to the others, whose micro-phones were not turned up that high, Williams was painfully loud.

The ensemble was full of terrific singers, but as a group they didn’t flow well. Their voices clashed with one another and the choreography only drew more attention to how un-coordinated they were. Their energy also didn’t fit well because some of them were more energetic and eccen-tric than the others.

But the play was worth a watch. It was fun, exciting, and full of wonder-ful performers. Quite a blast.

MARIA CRUZA&E EDITOR

Through the scope

Bradley Cooper stars as Chris Kyle, a U.S. Navy Seal in Ameri-can Sniper, a true story directed by Clint Eastwood. Kyle has hopes of living the only “Ameri-can Dream” that matters to him: protecting his country. Having been raised in a staunch house-hold based on defending those who mean the most by any means necessary, Kyle defends his fam-ily, especially his younger broth-er, by fighting on behalf of his country. He shuns living a life of ignorance towards what’s hap-pening in war-torn countries and in doing so becomes addicted to fighting a fight that’s not his. In joining the war, he leaves behind his wife (Sienna Miller) and his children.

The film focuses on realism and the inner psyche of the sol-dier that people rarely see. What shocked me is how Kyle is one person in the war and a complete-ly different person at home. But even when he’s at home, his head is still in the war. Eastwood’s di-recting executes this story sharp-ly, showing the deterioration and brainwashing of Kyle after he re-turns home.

When we hear stories of sol-diers, we hear that war is a gru-elling experience, but sometimes imagine that all is well once the fighters return home. What

American Sniper does exception-ally well is put the audience be-hind the closed doors of a fam-ily that was built on the shaky grounds of preparing its children to enter the military. Audiences feel the tension between Kyle and his wife and get a glimpse of what life in the military is like, either through the character’s eyes or through the scope of a sniper, which truly captures the realism of the film. Not only do you see

and hear the bullet leaving the gun, but you also see the anxi-ety in the sniper’s face, as well as the collapsing body of a terrorist after being gunned down by, as TIME Magazine calls him, “the most deadly sniper in American history”.

Cooper and Miller bring a unique relationship to the screen, evoking the nerves out of the au-dience and emotion from their own acting arsenal. Cooper and the film are nominated for Best Actor and Best Motion Picture, and more accolades are surely coming their way.

A look into the life of the deadliest sniper

CHRISTOPER ANTILOPEASSOCIATE A&E EDITOR

Eastwood’s directing executes this story sharply,

showing the deterioration and

brainwashing of Kyle.

Jesus Christ Superstar is HH’s first musical of 2015

Lights continued from page 6

I myself was expecting to be blown

away by miraculous performances. Which,

for the most part, I was.

8 « 01.19.2015

I like my packed lunches (and, if nec-essary, dinners), as I discussed in “Eat-ing good food? It’s in the bag” back in November. But it’s clear that for the majority, buying food on campus is still easiest. However, there’s no need to sacrifice your new year’s intentions to eat well as a result. In fact, accord-ing to our campus dietitian, Kimberly Green, UTM has more “good for you” options than ever. She jokes, though, that you might need to look beyond the pizza to find them.

“I’m very excited about several changes food services [Chartwells] has brought to campus. The new Vegilicious and Deli Station options at TFC, as well as the Greenery salad bar at the North Side Bistro in Deer-field Hall, are great additions,” she says. “And as of January, the On the Go fresh salad and sandwich offerings have printed nutrition information so you know exactly what you’re getting.”

Green explains that “healthy” doesn’t just mean anything low in cal-ories and fat. She advises picking food that’s high in overall nutrition; for ex-ample, complex carbohydrates, fibre,

protein, healthy fats, and vitamins and minerals (besides being filling and tasting good). In fact, we may be thinking too much about calories and fat and not taking into consideration

those other nutritional values.“Many students consume too much

sugar and salt, and too few vitamins and minerals like calcium, vitamin D, iron, folate, and B vitamins, so these

are important considerations as well,” says Green.

So how do we maintain these healthy eating practices when con-fronted with the beasts that are our

on-campus franchises? Green has cre-ated a shortlist of what she refers to as her “Best Bets on Campus”, in which she gives her dietitian seal of approval on certain menu items at Subway, Tim Hortons, and Booster Juice.

Subway certainly has a fairly health-conscious image. Remember the Sub-way Guy Jared Folger and his pair of jeans? Jared attributed his weight loss to eating subs. Nevertheless, not all their menu items are equally good for you.

How would Green build the ideal sub? She suggests the six grams of fat or less sandwich options. “These include ham, chicken, beef, turkey, and veggie six-inch subs, which also happen to be significantly lower in sodium than other varieties. Choose whole wheat bread for more fibre, and skip the cheese,” she says. “Instead of pop, order milk or even chocolate milk to get a filling calcium- and vita-min D-filled beverage.”

She similarly recommends the made-to-order sandwiches offered in the TFC and OPH as well as the On the Go line.

Jefferson Bethke once wrote, “We re-fuse to turn off our computers, turn off our phone, log off Facebook, and just sit in silence, because in those moments we might actually have to face up to who we really are.”

When you take a look at your life and who you are, do you tend to “see” yourself in terms of the car you drive, the amount of money in your bank account, the name brands you wear, or the amount of gadgets you own? Do you have five differ-ent gaming consoles, even though you know you only need one? Have shelves of books you never read, always making a mental note that you’ll “get to them later”?

In contrast, I present to you the lifestyle of a minimalist.

Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, best friends and co-authors of The Minimalists, write about living a meaningful life with less stuff. At the start of their 21-day journey into a minimalistic life-style—the amount of time it usually takes to form a habit—they write that people “saw our six-figure jobs, our luxury cars, our new gadgets,

and our lives of opulence, and they thought, ‘These guys have it figured out. I want to be just like them.’ They saw all of those things—all of that su-perfluous stuff—and they just knew we were successful... But the truth is we weren’t successful at all. […]

Because even with all our stuff, we weren’t satisfied with our lives—we weren’t happy. And we discovered that working 70 to 80 hours a week and buying even more stuff didn’t fill the void. In fact, it only brought us more debt and anxiety and fear

and stress and loneliness and guilt and overwhelm and paranoia and depression. It was a solipsistic ex-istence.” Millburn and Nicodemus note that happiness is not tied to wealth and accumulation, and that one should not let their happiness

be controlled by what they own.They define minimalism as “a

lifestyle that helps people ques-tion what things add value to their lives. By clearing the clutter from life’s path, we can all make room for the most important aspects of life: health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution.” Mini-malism helps clear the excess from your life to focus on what you find important. With different notions of living happily come different ideas of minimalism: the minimalist life-style of a 22-year-old single guy will differ from a 40-year-old married mother’s. Millburn and Nicodemus ask us to consider the following question: How might your life be better if you owned fewer posses-sions?

Rachel Bell, also a minimalist, de-scribes her new life with limited ma-terial products as a daily “zen-like” experience on her personal blog, herbalcell.com. “Ideas like ‘the more I own, the more I’m worth’ and ‘I might need this someday’ no longer made any sense to me.

JELIN PHILIP

Minimal continued on page 10

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUM

Some of us choose to have more, and some of us choose to have less.

MADELEINE BROWNFEATURES EDITOR

How to eat healthy with UTM vendorsDietician Kimberly Green explains why you should eat subs instead of muffins

CHRISTY TAM/THE MEDIUM

On the Go is one of your least bad options.

Live with less for your own sakeMinimalism, taken one step at a time, helps you trade useless stuff for self-development

Healthy continued on page 9

Let’s take a trip down memory lane. Let your mind wander back past last semester’s exams, your summer va-cation, that last birthday—let’s go way back to your very first day at UTM. Feels like ages ago, huh? You’re pumped, full of energy, and you can’t wait to begin! It’s a whole new begin-ning—what’s not to like? But then, disaster strikes on the very first day. You’re about to be late for your first class because, let’s face it, those two let-ters—be it DV or NE—aren’t exactly a map to where your class is. It’s 10 past the hour and you’ve just flat-out sprinted to class, and lecture hasn’t started. (Wait, what?)

We’ve all been through this; it isn’t a new story. The first few weeks are a nerve-wracking experience, but we eventually adjust and adapt to our new lives. The transition to university takes more than the first few weeks, though—we have to develop a wide range of core skills from perfecting time management to crafting essays. It’s even more stressful to adapt or find the relevant resources to help you, es-pecially if you’re new to the country or if English is your second language. It’s this exact sentiment that propelled Laura Taylor of the Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre to start com-piling a survival guide for first-years

with the help of the International Education Centre and current UTM students.

Taylor earned her undergraduate degree in economics, but following a few years in the financial sector, she decided to switch gears and enter the teaching stream. She spent several years teaching abroad in both Japan and South Korea, and then went on to achieve a MA in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) and a PhD in education.

“I never planned it out, but it all worked out in the end,” she says. “We’re in an age where we don’t neces-sarily have to stick to our degree—we come to university expecting certain things to happen, and sometimes they do and we know what we want to achieve when we’re 19, but sometimes we don’t. But if you don’t, university can act as a learning experience.”

Today, Taylor is a lecturer at RGASC, where she works primarily with English language learners to assist students not only with their English but also to develop core skills through workshops, seminars, and meetings.

“The ESL/ELL population has never had a concentrated effort here at UTM,” she says. “I’m new here; stu-dents are new […] By us all working together to tell their stories in the sur-vival guide, I’m hoping that I’ll develop relationships with current students.”

The survival guide isn’t a guidebook advertising UTM’s many facilities and resources, which is what many univer-sity resources boil down to. Instead, it will consist of personal stories from over 100 UTM students on a variety of topics, ranging from Orientation Week, how to survive group projects, dealing with culture shock, and more.

“This resource won’t just be limited to UTM students,” says Taylor of its fu-ture. “The goal is to create an e-book accessible to all. We’re planning on giv-ing it an ISBN and to possibly put in on a platform such as Amazon, so that it’s publicly available free of charge to all incoming first-year students, wher-ever they may be heading to study.”

The survival guide also provides a unique opportunity for current in-ternational or ESL/ELL students to contribute stories about their own experiences regarding their first year at UTM. “I’d like to work with current students in order to help develop their writing, to get to know them, and to get them published in something use-ful,” says Taylor.

Submissions for the survival guide are currently being accepted. Students will be credited.

The guide will be edited over the summer and released at the end of the summer for the beginning of the Headstart sessions and in time for the new school year.

01.19.2015 THE MEDIUM FEATURES» 9

What she particularly likes about these options is that you can add in lots of veggie toppings, and they use smaller servings of bread in contrast to the Subway subs, which equal roughly four to six Canada’s Food Guide servings of grain products.

If you’re pressed for time and des-perate to actually start eating break-fast regularly (think of those good old days of eating a bowl of Fruit Loops while watching morning cartoons), Tim Hortons is the most obvious choice on campus. That said, like Sub-way, Green warns that some menu items are better than others. Here’s a surprise (for me at least) from Green: “Muffins and donuts make a good sweet treat or dessert once in a while, but muffins are not a healthy break-fast.” Apparently, even those haunting bran and whole grain muffins (come on, who would ever choose them first in an assorted box?) aren’t as healthy as your grandmother makes them out to be.

“Tim’s bran and whole grain muf-fins have the benefit of at least four grams of fibre per muffin, but still have anywhere from 11 to 15 grams of fat per serving, at least 370 milli-grams of sodium (nearly a quarter of the recommended intake for the day), and are low in protein, so [they] will not sustain your energy level for long,” says Green.

In fact, for breakfast, Green actu-ally recommends either a toasted English muffin breakfast sandwich with egg white and cheese (avoid the sausage or bacon) or mixed berries or maple oatmeal. If you’re like me and ordering a bagel from Tim Hortons is engrained in your genetics, Green says to opt for the fibre-rich wheat and honey or 12-grain bagel with pea-nut butter rather than the other low-to-no-protein spreads such as butter,

jam, or cream cheese.“It should keep you full for quite

a while. […] The 12-grain bagel has the most fat (nine grams) of all the varieties, but this is from the added seeds, which provide more protein, fibre, and iron due to the nutritional benefits of sesame and sunflower seeds, so it is actually a better choice,” she says. “Cream cheese can add 140 calories and 14 grams of fat to your bagel. Keep in mind that since most Tim Hortons bagels weigh about 113 grams, they are equivalent to three Canada’s Food Guide servings of grain products.”

Green suggests that if you’re look-ing to switch up your regular Tim-mies order, try their chicken ranch or chipotle chicken snack wrappers. She notes that, surprisingly, two snack wrappers (with the exception of the chicken salad version, which has a higher fat content) have fewer calo-ries (380) than a bagel, less fat (9 to 12 grams), and the same amount of fibre (6 grams).

Green also gives the go-ahead to their yoghurt and berry parfait, even with its 20–25 grams of sugar. “A good part of the sugar comes from natural sugar (lactose) in yoghurt and natural fructose in fruit. The yoghurt and ber-ries provide filling protein and fibre, as well as nutrients like vitamin C and calcium,” she says.

Green ends her round-up of healthy choices on campus with “a big ‘caution’ […] for students who want to limit their sugar intake” about Booster Juice, despite the squeaky clean image of fruit and veggie smoothies. “Boost-er Juice’s classic smoothies have be-tween 65 and 96 grams of sugar per serving,” she points out.

“Choose the smallest serving and read the nutrition information pro-vided to know what you are consum-ing, or even better, eat a piece of whole fruit (or two) and some yoghurt.”

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUM

Laura Taylor is working on a university survival guide for first-years.

FARAH KHAN

Look past the pizza Healthy continued from page 8

100 first-year storiesRGASC employee compiling university transition guide

10 «FEATURES THE MEDIUM 01.19.2015

ARANIE VIJAYARATNAM

Well, unfortunately, we’re lacking a

professor or staff recipe this week.

But no need to worry. I’ve consulted a

culinary expert and guru of all things

kitchen: my roommate.

So much for professors, university

staff, or any real adults, for that matter.

We all know students have a great rep-

utation for their cooking skills. Right?

Who can whip up a bowl of Kraft Din-

ner with such swiftness? Who can boil

a kettle for Mr. Noodles with a single

press of the button? Who would ever

have the creativity to combine leftover

Thai Express chicken pad thai and

pepperoni pizza? It seems to me once

we finally land so-called careers and

“settle down”, we lose all our freedom

and free spirit in the kitchen. Come 5

p.m., students never worry and say,

“Oh no, what am I going to make for

dinner tonight?” Even with an empty

fridge. No, students just call up Pizza

Pizza or craft some sort of concoction

using the various condiments at the

back of the refrigerator and microwav-

able popcorn.

My roommate, who shall remain

anonymous in order to preserve some

of her dignity, developed her apple

crisp recipe below from her Nana’s in-

famous version, which even her moth-

er doesn’t attempt to make given the

high status it holds in the family. My

roommate says that she often forgets

the details of the recipe, but a quick

Google search gives her some helpful

inspiration. She admits that it may end

up tasting like oatmeal with apples—

cold oatmeal with apples, for that mat-

ter, if you take her advice to let it cool

in order to try to obtain some sort of

crispness. Hopefully you enjoy that.

And if not, then be a boring grown-up

and look up a real apple crisp recipe.

But where’s the fun in that?

Adequate Apple Crisp

MAKES ENOUGH TO FILL A PAN

INGREDIENTS

• 5 to 6 Macintosh apples (one of the

worst apples to use for apple crisp)

• 3/4 cup rolled oats or 2 packages

of Quaker instant oatmeal apples

and cinnamon

• a shit-ton of cinnamon (because

who doesn’t love cinnamon)

• ½ cup sugar

• flour?

• salt?

• ½ cup butter, melted

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C).

2.Take a pan—something with

depth—and line it with tinfoil.

3. Cut up the apples, choose whether

you want to peel the apples—you’re

your own person.

4. In a bowl, combine the oats, cin-

namon, sugar, flour and salt (if you

choose), and butter until it clumps.

5. Put the apples in the pan, dump

the crumble mixture on top, and

spread it out until no apples are

showing.

6. Bake until the apples are soft when

speared.

7. Check the crisp halfway through

baking time and if it looks like

it’s not crisping, pour some more

melted butter or maple syrup on

top. If none of it crisps, at least this

addition will.

8. Leave to cool completely—that will

help to solidify it.

Antibiotics grown in soilResearchers discuss whether new drugs can beat resistance

Bacterial infections and illnesses can be painful and time-consuming to cure. Our physicians provide us with a prescription for an antibiot-ic where the label says, “Take until bottle is empty.” Antibiotics help us cure most of our symptoms, but mu-tations occurring in bacteria inevi-tably make them resistant to the old drugs we’re so used to taking.

Kim Lewis and Losee Ling from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts and the University of Bonn in Germany may have found an effective antibiotic that bacteria have yet to resist. This study, published on January 8 in Nature, presents re-searchers with new techniques and potential for learning more about “unculturable bacteria”—bacteria that scientists can’t grow on a petri dish in a laboratory.

BREAKING DOWN WALLSThe new antibiotic described, teixo-bactin, prevents bacteria from creat-ing a “cell wall”, which is a bacteria’s

safety blanket. Without a cell wall, bacteria cannot support themselves structurally and they become sus-ceptible to viruses. Teixobactin latches on to the molecule “lipid II”, which creates the building blocks for a cell wall. By attaching itself to this molecule, lipid II can’t release the cell wall. A bacterium senses that it has no protection, so it undergoes lysis, a self-destruct mechanism for the whole organism. Without any protection, a bacterium is better off dead than weak and vulnerable.

To test how effectively teixobactin can kill bacteria, they injected mice infected by Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), the bacteria that causes skin infections, respiratory diseases, and food poisoning in humans. They also injected it into mice infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), the main cause of tuberculosis. Lewis and Ling found that all the mice survived while the bacteria were dead and gone.

Clinical trials for humans are ex-pected to be two or more years away.

RESISTING RESISTANCEWhat makes teixobactin so unique was that it was found and developed in ground soil. Lewis and Ling used an item called an iChip that provides blocks of soil sourced from various locations with nutrients, so when bacteria develop a colony, the re-searchers can take it back to the lab and analyze it further. This is differ-ent from the usual technique for an-tibiotic creation, where bacteria are grown and raised on a petri dish.

This new technique provides a unique look on how pharmaceutical companies and researchers can im-prove antibiotic creation. By looking at more natural sources and raising them in their environment rather than in a lab, we can find new antibi-otics like teixobactin to eliminate the strongest bacterial infections.

Other researchers, such as Dr. John Conly quoted in a January 7 Globe and Mail article on the bacteria, contend that resistance is inevitable, contrary to the researchers’ claims. In either case, new sources of antibiotics at least enlarge our arsenal.

I now felt a new kind of lightweight freedom,” she writes. “Things occu-pying my space now had to pass the test of worthiness according to me. Decisions to get rid of things were hard at first, but became easier the more I made them. If I didn’t ever use something, I got rid of it, and if I didn’t enjoy using something, I got rid of it.” Bell began her simpler life at home by getting organized and saving space: she got rid of her filing cabinet and kept what was necessary in fold-ers, her CD and DVD cases for used paper envelopes instead, most furni-ture, and invested in a cheaper, lighter keyboard to carry around.

The minimalist lifestyle comes with many perks: more freedom, fewer ex-penses, and more peace of mind. Al-though Bell admits that “sometimes you’re going to regret getting rid of something—it’s an impossible thing to avoid. And sometimes it can feel like a socially awkward way to live.”

Bell mentions in a blog post about her and her husband’s move across the U.S. that “our only piece of furni-ture now is our memory foam mat-tress. We keep our bed in the living room because it’s definitely the nicest of all the areas in the house with lots

of windows and is connected openly to the kitchen. We also keep it on the floor, which we’ve done happily for several years. We use it for sitting, eat-ing, using our laptops, watching mov-ies, playing video games, and sleep-ing. We spend most of our time on it and it has definitely been worth what we paid for it.” For some of us, this sounds like a dream—to spend most of my time in bed? Sign me up! How-ever, when asked about how their reduced furniture sits with visitors to their home, Bell replied, “They sat in the few chairs we had, but I think it can make them feel a bit awkward. Everyone expects to have a comfy living room set to plop onto. I think once they get past that initial shock and realize they still have a place to sit, they’re all right with it.”

It can be agreed that many of the things we decide to purchase are based on how we want others to view us. We put stock in the unfortunate truth that others will judge us, so we find worth in ourselves often through the quantity of high-end things we own. One might hesitate to pursue a minimalist lifestyle because of the stigma that may arise from living with less than others—it is only natural we feel that way at first, because we are raised to care what others think.

I asked Bell for advice she would give to students, and people in gen-eral, who have trouble letting go of material things and are looking for a more condensed lifestyle change.

“Take baby steps. Pick one thing to organize, say, your DVDs, and take note of how much space they took up before (you could even take a be-fore photo), and then how little space you were able to compact them into,” she says. “It’ll impress you so much that you’ll want to tackle another area. Living as a minimalist may be a controversial thing, but one thing that everyone always agrees on: it feels good to organize and get rid of things. So just chase that feeling. And make sure to reconsider everything in your house as something to poten-tially get rid of, so that you don’t fall back on what’s culturally expected. A lot of furniture and items are single-purpose and could be eliminated by something clever that serves multiple purposes. Do what makes sense to you, not what other people expect you to do.”

You can read more about Rachel Bell’s experiences as a minimalist at herbalcell.com, and check out themi-nimalists.com for more information on Millburn and Nicodemus’s best-selling novel.

Reasons to try out minimalismMinimal continued from page 8

MICRO-BLOG.INFO/PHOTO

iChips can be used to capture the growth of a microbe in its natural environment.

01.19.2015 » 11

Yunes’ Sauga hockey upbringingUTM hockey player Adam Yunes reflects on growing up and giving back to Mississauga hockey

In a year when the revamped Hockey Night in Canada travels from coast to coast highlighting the different small hockey towns across Canada, we thought it would be apt to shed light on homegrown Mississauga talents who continue to play the sport they love in the community they love.

Student athletes are plentiful at UTM, but you would be hard-pressed to find anyone more “Sauga” than Adam Yunes.

The “student” in “student athlete” may be the part that matters more for us. It is what unites all of us across the UTM campus, since we are, or at one time were, students. Adam is in his second year of studying social sciences with hopes of completing a double major in political science and crimi-nology.

In addition to working hard on his studies, he is a defenceman on the Di-vision 2 and tri-campus Eagles men’s ice hockey team. He first became in-

volved with UTM puck while he was in his first year. “I was hitting up the gym when I saw the flyer on the wall,” says Yunes. “Honestly, I didn’t think I was going to make it because it was

filled with all former junior players, but luckily enough I got a defence spot on the team. It’s been a blast ever since.”

Yunes subscribes to the same lingo

as most hockey players across Canada, and jokes that his favourite part of be-ing on the UTM team is getting babes and “popping ginos”, which is hockey player slang for scoring goals.

Adam’s hockey experience goes back a lot further than just his first year of university. He first started play-ing hockey when he was five years old. Like many Canadians, he played Timbits hockey—pre-hockey training, camps, and games sponsored by Tim Hortons.

As he got older he played in a few well-known hotbeds for Mississauga hockey. When he was young, he played house league for Applewood and when he got older, played for Meadowvale at the rep level. Yunes still has a fondness for those arenas and continues to be a supporter of local Mississauga hockey.

When asked about the biggest in-fluences in his hockey career, he had quite a lot to say. His mom and dad were always his biggest supporters. He also says that his love for the game comes from watching Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday night, mainly Don Cherry, who held his attention from a young age.

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUMYunes plays defense for UTM and hopes to eventually coach at the rep level.

PHIL POWER

Western win off late goalGrowing the game at UTM With a loss to the Mustangs, the Blues are 2-3 in the new year

If you walk through the lonely halls of Davis past Gym C at a late enough hour, you might hear the echo of a ball colliding with a bat. Since the RAWC has covered the windows that originally allowed passersby to peek into the forgotten gym, you may not know what sound that is.

Well, it turns out that Gym C is home to UTM’s cricket club, where players gather twice a week for drop-in or organized games playing the game they love in less traditional cir-cumstances.

UTM’s cricket club has existed for over four years now and since its creation has grown in participation of students eager to play a game less popular in North America. Shahriyar Nisar, commissioner and VP finance, is proud of the reception the club has had at UTM.

“The response has been great,” says Nisar, a third-year accounting specialist. “Every year we have had around 80 to 90 people playing in the league.” He adds that students are enthusiastic about the sport and that the playoffs garner crowds to cheer on teams. “For some people, it’s more than just a game—it is a great source of entertainment and an ideal means of relaxation.”

Nisar sees the club as a great way for newcomers to familiarize them-

selves with the sport and eventu-ally play at a competitive level. “We have pickup cricket on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.,” he says. “This is where anyone can drop in and play.” It’s at the drop-in sessions that players socialize, learn the game, and form teams for intra-murals that play a set schedule during the fall and winter semesters.

The game at UTM is slightly dif-ferent from traditional cricket play, because it’s played indoors, which Nisar says is due to the weather. But he doesn’t think this hurts the game, but rather makes it “equally amusing, if not more”.

Nisar thinks cricket is a simple enough game that newcomers will be able to grasp rather quickly. In crick-et, each team takes a turn to bat and bowl and the team with the most runs in the end wins—somewhat similar to baseball. There is a limit to the num-ber of people who can bat and bowl, and players in the field—or, in the case of UTM, the court—are used to prevent the flow of runs. A batsman can be out for various reasons, but the most common is when a fielder catches the ball.

UTM does have a cricket team that plays against other universities and participates in a tri-campus tourna-ment with other U of T campuses every year.

After a decisive 7-4 win against Ry-erson the previous night, the Varsity Blues men’s hockey team fell 4-3 to the number two seeded Western Mustangs on Saturday at Varsity Arena.

With the loss, the Blues drop to 8-11-1, sitting at a lowly ninth in the OUA west division out of 10 teams.

“I thought we played really well,” said head coach Darren Lowe after the game. “We’re playing some good hockey, but against a really good team like them, we have to make sure that we play every shift, every period, of every game, hard.”

The game got off to a quick start when Mustangs forward Julian Ci-madamore potted an odd rebound goal that skipped off his stick and

floated past the Toronto netminder a little over two minutes in.

Some undisciplined hockey from both teams developed into a pen-alty-filled affair as each team was handed four minor penalties. In-tense hockey was the result, both teams showcasing their offensive and defensive prowess with their special teams. Impressive goalten-ding from Toronto’s Brett Willows kept the game within reach after a 1-0 first period.

Heading into the second period, fifth-year forward Michael Markov-ic got Toronto on the board with a seeing-eye goal in the first two min-utes. Not long after, a horrific give-away by a Mustangs defender gave Jeff Brown a clear and open slapshot in the slot, and Paul Van De Velde cleaned about the rebound to give

Toronto a 2-1 lead. Toronto in the second period was

clearly the better team on both ends of the rink. They outshot their op-ponents 11-4, got the better scoring chances, and only allowed Western to shoot from the perimeter. The home team ended with a 2-1 advan-tage heading into the final frame.

After riding on a high note at the intermission, the Blues quickly fell back down to earth when Western’s Steve Reese and Cody Brown found the back of the net within the first three minutes of the period for a 3-2 score. However, less than a minute later, Blues Dean Klomp evened up the game on a textbook 3-on-2 play with assists from U of T captain An-drew Doyle and Patrick Marsh.

BLUESPUCKTALK.THEVARSITY.CA/PHOTO

The Blues are 8-11-1 with 17 points on the season, which leaves them second last in the division.

JASON COELHOSPORTS EDITOR

FRANCIS LAM

Cricket continued on page 12 Blues continued on page 12

Yunes continued on page 12

12 «SPORTS THE MEDIUM 01.19.2015

Cricket club a success

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUM

Drop-in games for cricket are played Tuesday and Wednesday from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Gym C.

Nisar hopes that cricket can get more recognition from UTM stu-dents and hopes to coordinate events this semester to introduce more students to the sport. The club held games in Gym A/B earlier this year to make the sport more visible to passersby.

Upcoming club events are tele-casting the Cricket World Cup, “Stumped” (a cricket quiz game), “Hitz” (testing players’ skills in cricket categories), and, at the end of the semester, the medal and tro-phy ceremony for intramural play-ers. Members of the club get access to all these events for free, with the fee for membership being $2 per

year.Nisar looks to the future of

cricket at UTM and sees many pos-sibilities. For one, greater partici-pation in extramural tournaments. Nisar believes that with the talent at UTM, winning extramurally will come easily.

Another area that he hopes to shed light on is inclusiveness. At the moment, cricket is only open to men; women are only able to par-ticipate in special events held by the club, and while participation is not strong, the possibility of a co-ed league would allow more to learn the game.

“We still don’t have the numbers to make intramural cricket co-ed,” says Nisar. “If, at any point in the

near future, I believe co-ed intra-mural cricket is a possibility, I will certainly pitch the idea to UTM Athletics.”

The sign-up for the winter se-mester took place on January 13, with games beginning January 20. But students can still join a team for the next couple of weeks after this date.

Last semester, eight teams par-ticipated with 10 players per team. Nisar is hoping for more teams to participate this semester and thinks the talent this year is promising, es-pecially among the first-years.

With another semester of cricket to be played at UTM, the sport is thriving and looks to be heading in the right direction.

Cricket continued from page 11Blues drop one 4-3

The game was tied 3-3 until the last five minutes of the third period, when a point shot from Western’s defence-man Colin MacDonald deflected off a Toronto body and into the net.

Toronto, with three minutes to go and with the man advantage, came very close to tying up the game when Patrick Marsh’s backhand shot was gloved down by the Western goalten-der. The puck fell in the crease and a wild scramble ensued, but incredibly, the puck stayed out to preserve a 4-3 win for the Mustangs.

“They got a couple of fortunate bounces,” says alternate captain Mi-

chael Markovic. “We had our oppor-tunities, but just couldn’t capitalize on all of them. The hockey gods weren’t really smiling on us tonight.”

Despite the loss, Markovic is still confident in his team and thinks that some adjustments can lead to suc-cess in a tough OUA east division. “In spurts we were the more dominant team, but we had some lapses here and there, and it cost us two goals and a lead,” he says. “Moving forward, we have to play a full 60 minutes if we’re going to be successful.”

The Varsity Blues return to the ice to take on the Lakehead Thunder-wolves in Varsity Arena on January 23; the puck drops at 7:30 p.m.

Blues continued from page 11

Keeping it localYunes loved watching the Leafs, too, particularly former goaltender Curtis Joseph, known to Leafs fans as “Cujo”.

At this moment in his career, Yunes is finding inspiration from his team-mate at UTM hockey, Rory Bour-geois, also one of the leaders on the team and a tri-campus all star. “He’s definitely a major influence on my playing abilities and the team in gen-eral,” says Yunes. “He has great lead-ership and helped lead us to the finals last year with his outspoken personal-ity, which really inspires the team and myself in particular.”

Yunes finds Bourgeois a natural-born leader on and off the ice, and as an up-and-coming UTM hockey

player Yunes hopes he can take on that role in the future.

But he hopes to finish where he started, returning to the house leagues in Mississauga to volunteer his time as a coach. He believes that giving back to the community that made him who he is will allow him to get experience coaching and hope-fully move up to coach a rep team. Yunes is grateful for all the people he’s met at UTM in his short time here, both teammates and head coach Chet Long, who, Yunes jokes, “finds the time to coach the team in between the hot yoga sessions he instructs”.

But most importantly, he’s proud of where he’s from and the Mississauga hockey community that has helped him grow on and off the ice.

Yunes continued from page 11