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ORIENTATION
The Gateway September 2016
FOLK FEST
A TASTE MAP OF HUB September 2016 1
Campus News
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September 2016
Letter from the Editor
Published since November 21, 1910
The Gateway has been the U of A’s campus newspaper for 106 years. This year we decided to switch it up. Pick up has decreased as digital information becomes increasingly prominent and as our generation becomes disaccustomed to print media. This is our first of eight magazines that we’ll release at the beginning of each month. The magazine is an effort to get people to pick up and read print copies again. If you’re new to campus, welcome. If you’re returning, expect some new shit from The Gateway. We hope you find interesting things in the magazine, and we hope you write your own interesting things for the magazine. The Gateway is a student-run organization featuring student-written content. Come visit us on the third floor of SUB with your feedback or ideas.
ISSN 0845-356X
Circulation 8,000
Suite 3-04 Students’ Union Building University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2J7 Advertising www.f-media.ca Contact 780-492-5168 gateway@gateway.ualberta.ca Editor-in-Chief Josh Greschner Managing Editor Jon Zilinski Art Director Adaire Beatty
Contents Campus News Events Combining Dance with Academic Research From the Bruce Peel Archives Q&A USRI: Students May Discriminate Against Gender and Race Opinion Editorial School Success = Sex Dear First Years Arts This is Folk Fest Sports A New Generation of Pandas Hockey Features Chicken Soup for the HUB Mall Soul; or, How Walter Benjamin Taught Me How to Appreciate On-Campus Cuisine Alone Together Your Students’ Union Sofia’s Declassified Lister Survival Guide *glossary included
Photo Editor Joshua Storie Online Editor Mitch Sorensen News Editor Jamie Sarkonak Contributing Editors Ashton Mucha Sam Podgurny Staff Reporter Sofia Osborne Multimedia Reporter Oumar Salifou Webmaster Alex Shevchenko Contributors Pia Araneta Arden Burtnik Andrew McWhinney Front Cover Adaire Beatty Joshua Storie Copyright All materials appearing in The Gateway bear copyright of their creator(s) and may not be used without written consent. Volunteer Wanna write, draw, shoot photos or take videos for us? For information on how to get involved with The Gateway, visit gtwy.com/volunteer GSJS The Gateway is published by the Gateway Student Journalism Society (GSJS), a student-run, autonomous, apolitical not-forprofit organization, operated in accordance with the Societies Act of Alberta.
September 2016 3
Campus News
From the Bruce Peel Archives
Events
By Jamie Sarkonak
Alumni Weekend Free Concert An afternoon of music including Mozart’s ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’, performed by elite music students in the Symphonic Wind Ensemble and University Symphony Orchestra. Sunday, September 25, 1 p.m. | Convocation Hall COST: FREE Graduate Design Group Show A selection of work by students graduating with a Master of Design degree. Graduates: include: Travis Holmes (VCD), Devaki Joshi (VCD) and Adam McKertcher (ID). September 20 – October 22 | FAB Gallery COST: FREE Science Talks A night of science presentations, including: “Art and science: a mutually beneficial affair” by Julius Csotonyi, ‘98 BSc (Hons), ‘02 MSc; “From the desert to the city: exploring our dusty atmosphere by Sarah Styler, Assistant Professor of Environmental Chemistry; and “AlphaGo: a milestone in machine intelligence” by Richard Sutton, Professor of Computing Sciences. Friday, September 23, 7:30 – 8:30 p.m. | CCIS L2-200 COST: FREE (register at rsvp.science@ualberta.ca) Tao of Homer: Lessons on Creativity and Innovation in The Simpsons U of A Alumnus Joel Cohen (’88 BSc) worked in the corporate world before becoming an Emmywinning writer for The Simpsons. This humorous talk will include anecdotes, clips, and discussion of how to inject more creativity into life. Saturday, September 24, 12 – 1 p.m. | CCIS L1-140 COST: FREE for Faculty of Science students, $10 for other students (register at rsvp.science@ualberta.ca)
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or every honourary degree awarded by the U of A, a customized artist book is commissioned for the recipient. In 2008, one of those books was The Many Lives of Miss Chatelaine, constructed to represent the fluid and multifaceted persona of k.d. lang. Artist books invite readers to question the difference between art and text by combining both — in this case, words from lang’s biography, written by Victoria Starr, have been highlighted, drawn around, and structured into 14 panels (referring to lang’s 14 studio albums that had been released at the time). Panels are joined by sturdy zippers, allowing for the ordering and reordering of text. The work’s mutability acts as a metaphor for the many many fluid
facets of k.d. lang’s life — as an animal rights activist, LGBT spokesperson, and Canadian musician. “Should it be flat? Should it be up? Should it zipped? Should it be unzipped? This work exists in all of those states simultaneously. There’s no one true way for it to be.” — Jeff Papineau, Library Assistant, Bruce Peel Special Collections & Archives
The Many Lives of Miss Chatelaine Artist: Douglas Beube Collection: Artist’s Books and Bookworks Year: 2008 Call Number: N 7433.4 B566 A6 M36 2008 folio
Combining Dance with Academic Research
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hile some graduate programs in university focus on statistical sciences, surveys, and other research methods, Lindsay Eales uses what she has known since age 10 — dance. Eales is one of the 127 students in a Physical Education and Recreation graduate program. She wrote — and choreographed — her Master’s on social justice and integrated dance, which included a performance by dancers using wheelchairs. “We have understandings of disability that are really medically-based, where there is something wrong in the body that needs to be fixed,” Eales said. “But a lot of disabled scholars, activists, and artists articulate the problem 4 GTWY.CA
is actually not that people’s bodies are different, but that social structures expect certain kinds of bodies in a space.” Eales is continuing to use dance in her PhD to study madness, the psychiatric system, and dance itself, in order to question what can be done to increase accessibility for the “mad” — people labelled as mentally ill for not viewing reality as others do. For example, some dance exercises, she said, may force dancers to work with parts of the body that evoke trauma. Eales has earned a Vanier scholarship and was involved in starting two dance companies during her education: Solidance Recreation Society and CRIPSiE (Collaborative Radically Integrated Performers Society in Edmonton)
By Jamie Sarkonak
— both of which incorporate dancers from across a spectrum of ability and gender identity. She continues to run both projects in her PhD research. Pursuing a Master’s and PhD has been freeing, Eales said. Previously, she hadn’t envisioned making dance, her “passion project,” into a career. “I ended up creating things (in my education) that are more interesting than I could have ever imagined,” Eales said. “I never imagined I would be running two dance programs. I never imagined I could use dance in research, or draw together dance and disability in a way so that we now pay our artists to be professional dancers.”
Campus News
Q&A by Oumar Salifou What was your first musical experience? I’m from a pretty musical family … I’m the youngest of two siblings so my whole family is very musical, we go to concerts all the time and we did jazz workshops. I also did band in high school and I did private lessons starting in middle school. It’s been musical right from the start. Do you remember your first university music class? I was a music major so all I did was music classes. I went to Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and their music department is an entire faculty within the university. The saxophone class was large, about 25 students, and super tight-knit. Socializing with grad students right from the get-go was really fun and eye-opening … totally intimidating but in the best way. What’s one message you would pass onto first-year music or non music students? I’ve realized that not everyone has such a clear path in their mind and in fact sometimes allowing yourself the freedom to look at different paths and to try different things is essential. We need to allow students the freedom to experiment and diversify their education because it’s more and more important — especially for music students who need to learn how to do more than just play their instrument really well. What’s the piece of music that’s had the most influence on your playing? When I moved to France to go to school in Bordeaux, I met several good composers in the area, including Thierry Alla. One piece in particular is called Digital and it’s for solo soprano saxophone. It’s short, like six minutes long, and it’s entirely multiphonic. The title is a play on words — it sounds like electronic music but it’s not, and it’s also extremely difficult for your hands, for your fingers. It’s gritty and hard, and brings the audience in. You’re rooting for the player because they’re physically going through something to play this piece.
NAME Allison Balcetis, FACULTY Arts, POSITION Instructor of Music, FAVOURITE SCALE Chromatic scale September 2016 5
Campus News
USRIs: Students May Discriminate Against Gender and Race By Jamie Sarkonak
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t the end of every semester, students fill out a course evaluation form called the USRI, or the Universal Student Ratings of Instruction. The USRI is designed to be objective, but new research suggests that students demonstrate racial bias and evaluate female professors more harshly than male professors. This has prompted General Faculties Council to review the student evaluation system this academic year. The review will cumulate in a final report on USRIs to be released on April 30, 2017, which will recommend GFC to keep, change, or abandon the current rating system. Sarah Forgie, chair of the Committee on the Learning Environment (CLE), wrote in an email that her committee will research instruction rating mechanisms in university courses, review the U of A’s current evaluation tools, and look into multifaceted assessment methods. A statistical study published by research network ScienceOpen last January found teaching evaluations are better at showing biases against women than assessing teaching quality. The study, by the Paris Institute of Political Studies and the University of California, Berkeley, prompted English professor and former GFC councillor Carolyn Sale to propose the review. Discriminatory USRIs could be detrimental to some professors’ careers because teaching 6 GTWY.CA
quality reported by the surveys affect hiring, promoting, and tenuring decisions. Diversity in academic labour has improved since the initiation of an employment equity plan 22 years ago, but diversity gaps persist in 2016, according to a study by the Academic Women’s Association. Male full professors currently outnumber female professors of all ranks at the U of A.
“There is no other area in higher education that has been more researched than student evaluations. You will find any kind of data that supports your individual view.” “The academy is more diverse, racially and ethnically, than it was 20 years ago,” Sale, now the President of the Academic Staff Association of the University of Alberta (AASUA), said. “If a certain kind of person tends to have an advantage in faculty assessments, we need to take account of that.” Results of the U of A’s USRI have never been analyzed for sexist, racial, or linguistic bias. The design of the original, peer-reviewed USRI system implemented in the 90s
was bias-proof, said Heather Kanuka, former Chair of the Committee on the Learning Environment. However, some USRI questions have since been added or changed from the original, and these changes were not peer-reviewed. Kanuka added that student evaluation research can be challenging to examine — some studies suggest evaluations do more harm than good, while others support the opposite. In 2009, Kanuka led a CLE review of teaching evaluations that concluded systems similar to USRIs are not significantly biased.
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tudent evaluations of teaching were introduced in many post-secondary institutions following student revolts in the 60s. By the 70s, various universities introduced the evaluations to hold professors accountable for their teaching. During those years, the U of A’s faculties and departments administered teaching evaluations for students that did not have to be made public. When the U of A implemented the USRI across all faculties in 1994, the Students’ Union advocated for ratings to be made available to students to help them select courses. Students were given access to an online database of USRI results in 1999, which is still updated after every semester. However, many students aren’t aware of the database
Campus News
and use ratemyprofessors.com instead. SU Vice-President (Academic) Marina Banister will take part in the USRI review as a member of the Committee on the Learning Environment (CLE) to represent students. She said the SU will be looking to make sure the feedback professors receive from USRIs is “useful, usable, and consistent.” She’ll also push for class time to be given to students for filling evaluations, and for better communication around the importance of USRIs and their role in professors’ careers. USRIs aren’t the only tool used to evaluate teaching. In the Faculty of Science, the USRI score is a “number that starts a conversation,” according to Vice-Dean John Beamish. If a professor’s USRI score is low, this can prompt a department chair to suggest ways to help the low-scoring professor improve. The Faculty of Science uses eight metrics apart from the USRI to evaluate teaching, including peer assessment and assessment of graduate student supervision. A similar multifaceted approach that includes the USRI is
also used in Arts departments, Dean Lesley Cormack said. any academic staff are skeptical of the USRI system — 402 academic staff respondents of a 2012 survey revealed concerns about flaws in statistical interpretations of USRIs and the abusive nature of some comments from students. Staff were also concerned that the USRI only measures student experience, not learning. The 2012 survey led the academic staff association to argue that USRI comments should be confidential and not anonymous in order to hold students accountable for derogatory comments, and that opportunities for training, peer consulting, mentoring, and professional feedback should be offered with USRIs to improve teaching. History professor Andrew Gow said he has been skeptical of USRIs since his time on AAUSA’s teaching and learning committee from 2003 to 2010. “(USRIs) reproduce the prejudices of class,
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gender, ethnicity, and racial prejudices of the student body,” Gow said. “They do so in a way that’s unconscious. The bias is hidden because the evaluations are almost universally believed to be objective.” For now it’s unclear if the U of A’s USRI is biased or unbiased, Kanuka said. While some research indicates sexist biases, Kanuka said large-scale, peer-reviewed studies support that student evaluations show non-significant differences in gender. And while ideal teaching evaluations would be done with experts sitting in on classes and focus groups for students, Kanuka said large institutions lack the resources to provide such in-depth evaluations for all professors. The U of A has more than 4,000 academics on staff and each one needs to be evaluated in some way, which can be accomplished with the USRI despite its limitations. “We have to rely on an instrument,” Kanuka said. “Is it the best instrument? That would be one thing we don’t know in this institution.”
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Don’t listen. Save money.
September 2016 7
Opinion
Editorial By Josh Greschner
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n the search for classes to enrol in, after students consult their friends, scrutinize Rate my Prof, and check the U of A exam bank to see if exams are fit for their liking, students can now also see how much money their professors earn. The U of A’s sunshine list was released on June 30, and if it hasn’t already, it will profoundly affect how students and the public consider the university’s finances. Some of the top earners on the list work in administration, the Faculties of Law, Medicine, Engineering and Business. A number of Arts professors occupy the middle of the list. While some (especially Arts profs) balk at the idea of reducing academics to “bang-for-your-buck” arguments, the sunshine list offers proof that Arts profs seem reasonably compensated for what they do. When applied to the university, the NDP’s Public Sector Transparency Act is a bad idea. Centralizing salary information without context allows Wildrose interns to easily add all the numbers together and easily argue for cutting post-secondary funding, which does no one any good. The value of the spreadsheets is also questionable. It’s not as if much of its information isn’t already public (regarding the pay of tenured professors anyway) and it feels unnecessarily intrusive to know what individuals earn to the dollar amount. Given the research dollars, sponsorships, market modifiers, and even buildings (DICE vs. Tory), it’s common sense that those in administration, Business, Law, and Engineering, for example, generally earn more than those who work in Arts. Yet tenured Arts profs are comparatively some of the cheapest workers for offering one of the most far-reaching degrees. The purpose of an Arts degree is for students to self-fashion. Students are exposed to a world of ideas, they engage with those ideas and create their own ideas. Students gain research, writing, and communication skills by working on essays and assignments. If they do the hundreds of hours of work required for their degrees, Arts students, even without grad school aspirations, can become highly
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skilled, versatile thinkers and workers. For students to apply their knowledge and gain situational experience, there are various organizations on campus such as faculty associations, student clubs, the Students’ Union, and, yep, The Gateway. Bachelor of Arts degrees are often misunderstood because they aren’t professional programs (in the sense of being vocational). The value of a BA shouldn’t be determined by the most minimal of requirements — what students must know before they leave. Rather, BA degrees should be evaluated according to what students can do with them. A destructive piece of folk knowledge is that a BA will get you a bad career, or that, absurdly, it’ll prevent you from getting hired. As a heavy duty mechanic or a financial analyst, maybe. It’s common sense that organizations shouldn’t trust new grads with much of anything important, so it’s understandable that introductory positions are unfulfilling or uninspiring. But research shows getting a BA works out eventually. It really is possible to have it all: to learn job skills for well-paying careers by studying, say, graphic novels or, God forbid, the Bible, in your twenties. Arts profs, similarly, can do it all. They are teachers, mentors, public speakers, and leaders. They do practical things like answer questions, write reference letters, and tell you what’s on exams, but they’ll give the best answers for people looking to write, for example, family history or personal memoir. They’ll probably be the best people on campus to answer the most important philosophical questions (or least the best guides to the answers). Students waste opportunities when they don’t visit their professors during office hours. Arts profs can also be thought of as authors on specialized topics. Some material is esoteric, but it’s often possible for BA students to read the books Arts profs write because students spend the length of their degrees reading work by other Arts profs. Most importantly, profs facilitate lifelong intellectual engagement — interesting things for students to do for 50-60 years. Arts profs are renewable resources. The big question then is “Are profs rea-
sonably compensated?” This requires the understanding that a tenured professor’s work load is roughly 40 per cent teaching, 40 per cent research, and 20 per cent administration, so students have a limited ability to answer this question. This is an educated guess, but from what I’ve seen from the dozen or so tenured Arts professors I’ve had, I think they’re each worth $150,000/year and then some for the work they do. Most were good instructors, and they all had the ability to bring out the best in students if students were willing to put in the work. The question of “Are profs reasonably compensated?” is much more urgent and complicated for students of the highest earning faculties. It requires knowledge of pay distribution, research money, and many are unwilling to talk about salaries. If anyone is up for the challenge, write about your findings in The Gateway.
Opinion
School Success = Sex By Pia Araneta
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mmm, do you smell that in the air? Smells like another academic year burning your brightest aspirations. Being back in school can sure be tough, but luckily for you, I have discovered the secret to success: this year, reach your full potential by taking a vow of celibacy. By accepting a vow of celibacy — and I mean zero sexual activity with yourself or others — not only will you be conquering the very core of human nature, but you will conquer the classroom with the dexterity of one thousand sous chefs. Here’s why. Time Management How much time do you spend pulling your pork or flicking the bean? How often do you think about sex? Like any normal twenty-something-year-old, I’m assuming every second of every day. But, by expelling any sex-related activity from your life, you would find that you actually have a fuckload of free time. And do you know what’s time well spent? Learning how to make a pie chart on Excel. Sourcing your research paper properly. These are the things that make a person an above-average student. So stop yourself the next time you watch porn because every minute spent nurturing your old, dirty habits is a minute spent spitting in the face of your future. Stop going to parties and bars because you’re not going home with anyone and you’re just going to wake up in the morning vomiting and alone. Stop having conversations with people because you don’t want to listen to their toxic sex lives, and you won’t have one to talk about in response. So without porn, partying or talking to people, you have successfully cleared your calendar for a solid year of knowledge. Score.
essay on where you see yourself in 10 years (celibate and thriving). When you look at the assigned readings which amount to half of a textbook, no longer will you shudder with agony and despair. You have combatted life’s perversions — the worst is over. You are a strong, independent scholar who don’t need no study breaks. Study breaks are for sluts. You will go to heaven Why would you be a motivated student if you knew you were going to hell? By practicing celibacy, you can attend your convocation as a child of God and really, what more could you want? I know I’m asking a lot from you — celibacy is not an easy thing — but to think, if you abstain from sex, you could graduate and land the job of your dreams. You excel in time management, self-discipline and holiness — who wouldn’t hire you? Some celibates masturbate and though I don’t recommend it (it could potentially destroy everything you’ve worked so hard for while inviting temptation into your life), don’t beat yourself up too badly if you do. As the brilliant Yahoo! answer user: MNL_1221 says regarding masturbating while celibate: “If you plug an extension cord into itself it doesn’t go anywhere or do anything… If you plug an extension cord into a socket or into another extension cord, you have a connection and the possibility for electricity.” So there you have it my wonderful extension cords. Just refrain from plugging yourselves into one another and watch your GPA soar higher than any erection ever could.
Self-Discipline The colossal lack of self-discipline of this generation is another unfortunate quality which handicaps our GPAs. Celibacy is the perfect life choice to train your mind for anything that will come your way. What’s harder: getting a scholarship or being celibate? If you can refrain from being romantically touched for the duration of a school year, I’m certain you can write an
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Opinion
Dear First Years By Andrew McWhinney
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ongrats! You’ve finished high school, made it to university, and are ready (or at least trying to be ready) to begin a whole new chapter of your life. University can be a little daunting if you don’t know what to expect. Last year, I heard all kinds of things about the workload and the social experiences, but I didn’t hear a lot about how to tackle either of those two things. However, I did manage to find my own methods to help navigate first year. First, break out of that high school shell. Friends won’t just fall onto your lap. Try your best to make new friends in your classes, otherwise lectures will feel pretty lonely. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll have several classes with the same people, and you might as well strike up
conversation with them. Another way to meet new pals is to join the clubs on campus. Clubs are great because you’ll be meeting people you know you share at least one common interest with. The only extracurricular activity I got involved with last year was contributing to The Gateway, and I regret not joining it until second semester. I met so many awesome people, and it’s encouraged me to join a few more clubs this year. Since classes here cover a lot more content in a shorter amount of time than in high school, it’s pretty important to keep up with studying and assignments. The Rutherford and Cameron libraries are guaranteed to be quiet, or you can grab a table in SUB if you prefer having some background noise. These study spots will end
up being your best friends when midterms and finals hit — try to have a few favourite spots so that you don’t have to sit in the same one for hours. Although these tips are basic, they are essential to making your first year more enjoyable. Good luck first years — I hope that my advice will help you better manage your workload, richen your social circle, and make your first year successful and memorable.
A passion for technology ... ...compassionate patient care College and Association of Respiratory Therapists of Alberta
www.carta.ca
SIN CE DE PU IS
1964
www.csrt.com
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WHAT’S ON at UALBERTA? Campus News
at the ti m m s centr e for the arts
God’s Ear
Bright Burning
Oct 13 – 22
World Premiere
by Jenny Schwartz
Twelfth Night
by William Shakespeare
Nov 24 – Dec 3
The Government Inspector
by Colleen Murphy
Mar 30 - Apr 8 The Lady from the Sea by Henrik Ibsen
Special Flex Pass Ticket Offer: 3 Student tickets for only $30!
Adaptation by Michael Bradley
May 18 – 27
by Nikolai Gogol
Adaptation by David Harrower
Feb 9 – 18
University of Alberta | Department of Music Catching Butterflies
2016/17
Convocation Hall
Friday, Sept 9 @ 8 pm Música Contemporánea Brasil
A Musical Feast
Friday, Sept 23 @ 8 pm
Saturday, Oct 15 @ 8 pm
Convocation Hall
Convocation Hall
Alumni Weekend Free Concert
Prism
Sunday, Sept 25 @ 1 pm
Sunday, Oct 16 @ 3 pm
Convocation Hall
Winspear Centre
Graduate Design Group Show Free Admission
Sept 20 - Oct 22
For full details on all Fine Arts events:
ualberta.ca/artshows September 2016 11
Arts + Culture
THIS IS FOLK FEST Green onion cakes, long waits, hillside dates, tarps to race, getting baked, friends to make, dancing late. God damn right it’s great. BY SAM PODGURNY On a tarp in front of me, I watched as a group of friends gathered around a backpack passing out cans of smuggled beer. As I walked past a couple cuddling under a blanket, they made faces at each other as they snapped a selfie. Standing in the shade, I listened to The Tallest Man on Earth as he gently plucked the strings of his guitar and explained how Edmonton’s cool nights and ruthless mosquitoes remind him of home, in Sweden. And from atop Gallagher Hill, I watched the sun set over our city as the hillside made its nightly transformation into a scene of dancing and flickering candle lights. The staying power of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival is rooted in small, personal moments gathered over a four day whirlwind that make the massive, annual event feel both entirely unique and utterly unforgettable. It’s not the lineup of performers, the endless crowds or the hour-long waits that define this festival; it’s the conversation you had which turned an acquaintance into a friend; it’s the jam session you saw during your favourite musician’s afternoon concert; it’s the first satisfying piece of crispy, gingery beef you bit into after a jug of cold beer that will leave you longing to return once the gates close for another 12 long months.
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Arts + Culture
On the long list of traditions you will encounter at the Edmonton Folk Festival, none are simultaneously loathed and loved more than the infamous tarp run. “If you’re not running a tarp, you’re not fully committed to the Festival experience,” says a young woman who’s standing in an ever-growing line of antsy folk fans. “But my God am I fucking tired,” she adds, halfway through a big yawn. Before each day of the festival, people flock to the park — often at profanity-worthy hours — to determine who will get to set up their thin blue base-camps on the hill first. The ritual kicks off as people gather outside the festival grounds, with some heading to a spot overlooking the hill and some to the quaint neighbourhood below. The dedicated bunch is then guided into a corral and handed lottery tickets— each ticket is colour coded and has the name of a performer on it. A nervous silence falls over the packed enclosure each time a volunteer reads out an artist’s name over the megaphone. When your ticket is finally called, you line up with your fellow runners and wait to be led onto the hill by Festival volunteers. Everything comes to its climax once you get through the gates, choose the best spot you can find, and quickly peg down your festival regulation-sized tarp. All that’s left to do is celebrate — or curse — the outcome of your time and efforts. At 8:00 a.m. the line of runners was already hundreds of people deep. But despite hangovers, sleep deprivation and poor lottery luck, spirits were high and the atmosphere
was wonderfully welcoming. From the families of four to the solo teens, who were taking one for the team while their friends slept off the misadventures of the night before, no one could be considered a poor sport. “We’re last today and we lost yesterday,” says a woman with considerable sass, clearly unimpressed with her recent luck. “But it won’t spoil it for me, I’ve done this for almost 10 years and will keep on doing it,” she says smiling. Don’t let the overly positive attitudes fool you. Despite the upbeat mood, many participants wear their most serious game face to this event. For veterans and newcomers alike, that means coming into the run with a foolproof plan. “A good strategy we see is when people bring every family member or friend they’ve ever known and use them to get all the different coloured tickets,” says one of the volunteers guarding the corral’s gated entrance. “But the real secret is that if you’re over 80 you get in for free, so what you need to do is take a bus over to an old folks’ home and bring all of your 80 year old friends, then you’d be guaranteed first pick”. When all factors are considered and the pros and cons are weighed, it would be hard to blame the average festival goer for passing on this rigorous tradition. From the painfully early start, to the long wait times and unpredictable outcome, the tarp run can challenge even the most seasoned Folk Fest fans. But at the end of the day, you’ll be there anyway, with your tarp and Tim Hortons cup proudly in hand, because you are fully committed to the Festival experience.
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Arts + Culture It’s like we’re high all the time. Also the high fives are great. Well, they’re mostly down lows actually.
I’ve got an interview at a gallery today at three. I’ve got a bunch of my paintings in my car if you want to see them.
If I act a little bit sexy and sell a few more candles, I’m satisfied.
Every year I watch a little more music. I turned 18 and it was all beer gardens, but now it’s about 50/50. I’m becoming my parents.
Arts + Culture I didn’t know much about Kaleo but I’m like hardcore obsessed now. He’s kind of like Hozier but just way cooler than Hozier.
We make the original green onion cake. It’s the perfect festival food and it goes great with a beer.
Even when I’m on stage, I’ve been caught off guard by a performance. You just start watching and have to catch yourself like, Oh yeah, I’m still working!
We had a couple of fence jumpers this morning. But that’s okay, we just tackle them.
Sports
A New Generation of Pandas Hockey
By Jamie Sarkonak
In the 80s, hockey at the University of Alberta was a program where young men learned professionalism, maturity, and character. Under coach Clare Drake, a player learned to play as part of a family, going from “a piece of meat” in juniors to a Golden Bear, alumni Darwin Bozek says. “The saying in the dressing room was, ‘It’s amazing what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit,’” Bozek says. “It’s about the family. You go to battle together, and you fight for each other. That’s where success comes from.” This year, Bozek is returning Drake’s training philosophy to the U of A as head coach of a new generation of Pandas. Besides Howie Draper’s CIS Pandas, the U of A is now home to the Edmonton Pandas, a hockey club composed of elite girls’ teams at the Midget AAA, Midget AA, and Bantam AAA levels. When the Pandas hockey team was established in 1997, Draper, who played alongside Bozek under Drake, brought the Golden Bear philosophy into the Pandas’ dressing room. Draper and Bozek will now be coaching their respective female hockey teams in an intergenerational training structure. As a collaborative project between the Pandas, U of A Athletics, the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, and Hockey Edmonton, the program will train Pandas of all generations in the gym and on the ice. Edmonton Pandas players will also enter the U of A’s AIM program, which provides nutritional, physical, and mental support for athletes. Draper hopes that sharing Pandas resources with the younger hockey community will grow stronger players in Alberta — stronger players who may opt to join the Pandas later in their careers. The junior Pandas club is a solution to a bigger problem faced in Alberta minor hockey. According to Draper, Albertan female minor hockey is plateauing (and maybe even declining) in registration and retention. Top players who want to maximize development are leaving minor hockey programs for hockey schools such as Calgary’s Edge School for Athletes and Lethbridge’s Warner Hockey School, where tuition is between $25,000 and $40,000. The high costs of esteemed programs can dissuade female players from continuing on to higher levels of hockey, Draper says. The Edmonton Pandas will offer players in Alberta an elite alternative to hockey school by integrating minor hockey training into CIS training — which includes the benefit of building connections with university athletes. Pandas forward Sasha Lutz hopes that closer training with younger players will help them aspire to the CIS team experience. Younger players will hopefully benefit from the Pandas’ team mentality — Draper
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Sports
coaches with an emphasis on players’ grades and on team-building “almost a little too much,” Lutz jokes. Because grades are important to the Pandas, academic emphasis would hopefully spread to the minor club teams. Lutz also hopes that Draper’s emphasis on Pandas team building will trickle down to lower levels. It’s “huge” to be friends on and off the ice, Lutz says, so by integrating training and establishing friendships between minor and CIS Pandas, high-level female hockey will hopefully become more welcoming. “The Pandas are like a family, and I’d like to be able to pass that on,” she says. Having won 12 of 19 Canada West championships (the most recent in the 2014-15 season) and seven CIS national championships (most recently in 2010), the Pandas are well known within female hockey — Lutz and her teammates looked up to the CIS team during high school. But while Lutz eventually joined the Pandas, many of her contemporaries quit hockey. Some players drop the sport because there are fewer leagues in female hockey to motivate advancement, Lutz says. Girls can work toward university or Olympic hockey, but they can’t aspire to the numerous leagues of the male game (such as WHL, AHL, NHL, and NCAA hockey.) If more girls aspire to join higher-level teams such as the Pandas, the depth of skill going into the U of A’s program, and female hockey in general, will hopefully increase, Lutz says. She also hopes it will increase the university community’s understanding
of the female game. “As Pandas, we battle so hard to get the recognition that the Bears do — in all the sports, but hockey is probably one of the bigger ones,” she says. “The boys get 600-plus fans a game, while we get 50. Anything that can help bridge that gap could be beneficial to the female game.” At the Junior Pandas’ ID camp in June, eyes lit up as coaches explained to the girls how the integrated Pandas’ training program would work. The parents were receptive too — Doram thinks they’re starting to see girls’ minor hockey programs as building blocks for later opportunities, rather than just co-curricular activities to enroll their daughters in the present. After spending August in tryouts, September is the first official month for the Midget AAA, Midget AA, and Bantam AAA girls of the Edmonton Pandas. Draper, however, is focused on getting the program started and moving forward. Besides the work on the ice, there is a lot of administrative work to develop the club team structure. He hopes integrating CIS training with minor hockey training will be taken up by other CIS schools so they can all “grow Alberta hockey.” “This is a new chapter for female hockey at the minor level,” Draper says. “To be able to say that we’re kind of at the forefront of this movement in Alberta is exciting.”
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Chicken Soup for the HUB Mall Soul; or, How Walter Benjamin Taught Me How to Appreciate On-Campus Cuisine By Arden Burtnik
The
University of Alberta’s HUB Mall is a four-storey student residence, food court, and study space that horizontally stretches the equivalence of four city blocks along Edmonton’s 112 street. The building is approximately 30 metres wide, a 30:1 ratio of its length to width. ATMs, gift shops, stationary shops, magazine stores, convenience stores, two hair salons, an optician, a shoe cobbler, law services, immigration law services, a flower shop, a laundromat, a jewelry repair shop, and a framing centre line either side of HUB’s 292-metre-long second floor and are dispersed amongst its 16 food joints: A&W, Academy Pizza, Teapsy, Beez, Burrito Libre, Chosun Korean, Cookies by George, Edo Japan, Feta & Olives, Ho Ho Chinese Food, International Fare, Joe Coffee & Tea, La Pasta Trattoria, New York Fries, Subway, and Jacket Potato Man. One restaurant appears about every 17 metres. But more than merely a foodbased mini-mall, HUB is a pedway that connects the university’s transit centre and Fine Arts Building (FAB) on its south side, to the Humanities Centre, the Alberta School of Business, and the Henry Marshall Tory Building on its north end. At the halfway point, a pedway to Rutherford Libraries (North and South) juts to the west. The sheer number of amenities housed not only within the mall, but that the mall connects to, renders HUB a pedestrian super-highway during rush hours. To deal with the amount of traffic, walkers have silently and unanimously decided that, like North American cars, one travels on the right. With metal aisle seating as the meridian, two opposing streams of pedestrians commute down the mall and try their best to not look to the left — for potential fear of making mutual eye contact with one another. HUB, for better or for worse, is a place to see and be seen. Thus, on the one hand, there is the commuter HUB: a place of perpetual to and fro where one willfully ignores its goods and services; the building is, conveniently, a heated sidewalk to shelter pedestrians from Edmonton’s blistering winter climate that spans 60 per cent 18 GTWY.CA
of the academic year. On the other hand, there lies the HUB that is not only home to about 800 students (mostly international ones), but through more than its one dozen restaurants, it simulates a hybridity of the quintessential American food-court experience and a Parisian arcade, or le passage. How do we reconcile the transient nature of commutership with the inert act of eating? If lunch should be enjoyable, then why does it feel like a chore when I eat a
bowl of udon from Edo Japan in HUB? My objective is to investigate how space influences taste and how taste informs space. Beyond a solely culinary or architectural critique in and of the building, my research synthesizes an aesthetic-historical account of HUB with my own Morgan Spurlock-esque* endeavor to eat HUB food once a day, every day for a week. The mode of the resulting
research is homage to Walter Benjamin’s incomplete magnum opus The Arcades Project (1927-1940) through both its fragmentary and interdisciplinary design: fragmentary because at the time of his death, The Arcades Project was a haphazard collection of aphorisms and reflections that has since been edited and published in order to become a preeminent text in the field of 20th century literary and cultural critique; interdisciplinary because Benjamin’s criticism relates the flow of capital to the modern Parisian arcade experience. Thus, piggybacking on Benjamin’s work, I am calling for a taste map of HUB. As it stands at the beginning of the 2016-17 academic year, HUB could use some dignity. On June 15, 2012, four armored guards were shot and three were killed by an armed gunman inside the building. On October 27, 2014, HUB was evacuated at 12:42 p.m. in response to a hazardous materials incident. In spite of the university’s ongoing efforts to increase awareness and access to mental health services, the evacuation was due to a natural gas leak-induced suicide. One month later, on November 24, echoing and accentuating the HUB suicide, a student living in another University of Alberta residence took his life. Indeed, the structure of the building itself is not a culpable agent in the motivations of these tragedies, but it is also impossible to extradite the space from where these events took place. A brief survey of HUB reviews reveal pervading sentiments toward the Mall. Alex F., writes on Yelp.com: “HUB mall ... I don’t really know what to say about it. I visit whenever I need bus tickets or if I forget my lunch … The thing I don’t like is that even with a larger selection than SUB or CAB, the food either seems overpriced or terrible for you or both. I’ve never had anything that was simultaneously healthy and tasty (t)here … Overall HUB is OK … but it’s a bit underwhelming.” When I first mentioned this project to friends their reactions varied from laughter to mockery to pity. Why would one subject
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herself to “so much HUB”? a colleague asked. My best friend preemptively scorned the project by labelling the Mall a “24/7 carnival.” Determined to find a glimmer of poise, I forged onwards: HUB has a bad reputation that has just yet to be redeemed. Allow me to preface with the fact that at best, I am an amateur cook, although I am unabashedly an expert eater. I do not believe that food must be an esoteric experience, nor do I think that a nice dinner date should be an exercise in spending half a month’s rent. But I do believe that food can, and should, surpass mediocrity at all costs. Too often does an unacknowledged Calvinist sensibility permeate and guide our eating habits that it’s often mediocre Big Salads* and sad deli sandwiches that reign supreme at lunchtime. The unfortunate thing is that when mediocrity is perpetuated to the point of ubiquity it is taken to be the standard.
flavors of the wrap, but the introduction of cutlery allows for optimal adherence to codes of “social decency.” I was aghast. Eating a burrito in HUB in haste and isolation is a part of the ritual, and I was insulted by his conversion to an inedible burrito receptacle. To me, the burrito bowl was an unwelcome reminder of HUB’s ability to conceal those pesky, unpalatable human experiences that it deems undesirable.
Tuesday
Monday
April 6, 2016; 14:14 A $9 shredded beef burrito from Burrito Libre has steadfastly been, for three years running, my go-to comfort food on the east end of campus. I know what to expect: a $1 dollop of never-brown guacamole and toppings that conglomerate into a savory mess. The burrito juices always drip down my hand and onto my lap, so extra napkins are a prerequisite (these mushy things should really be toasted, like at its competitor Mucho Burrito). Oftentimes, due to the clumsy wrap job that my burrito endures, I am required to seek refuge in one of the cubicles found in one of HUB’s upstairs lounges. The Garneau Lounge, Riverside Lounge, Rutherford Lounge, and Skyview Lounge are all accessible by either ramp or staircase and they hover over the mall, while still under the windows of the dorms. My friend once told me that in response to not wanting to eat his burrito in isolation (for fear of being gazed-upon mid-burrito avalanche) he had transitioned to ordering the burrito bowl. He argued that the burrito bowl maintains the
exceeded its budget by $1 million (or $6.2 million adjusted for inflation). By 1975, HUB was only 85 per cent occupied, and $2 million was needed to repair its leaky skylight roof that stretched its entire length. Additionally, HUB businesses were not as profitable as had initially been imagined. In the 60s, the university’s future plans were to expand the campus into northeast Garneau, positioning HUB as the literal hub of North Campus. When the planned expansions failed to move forward and the university began constructing westward, HUB failed to live up to its name. Foot traffic was also limited due to a lack of pedways connecting the Mall to other buildings and its obliquely marked entrances and exits. In April 1976 the university freed SU from HUB’s failure to turn a profit and agreed to purchase the building. Their price tag? $1.
Problems persisted since HUB’s inception. The building was initially constructed in response to the university’s affordable housing dilemma in 1971 and was under the ownership and leadership of the Students’ Union. Construction began in 1971 although the funding had yet to be confirmed. As the SU grappled with banks, the government, and the university to secure loans, the building ultimately
April 12, 2016; 11:52 I purchase the Tuna Bean Salad from Beez without reading the item’s menu description. These are green beans, not black beans like I was expecting, and I deride myself for being a poor close-reader. This leaves me with romaine lettuce, scallions, flakey pieces of canned tuna, and craisins dressed in a watery vinaigrette and packaged in a Styrofoam container. The meal cost me $8. I also cannot yet bring myself to eat in the aisle seats so I’ve retreated to an ensuite that I can only call the A&W lounge — mostly because I am surrounded by blue-collar men eating cheeseburgers and onion rings. The dish lacks any possibility for an impressionable taste that makes me miss every mayonnaise-based tuna salad (or its French rival, the classic niçoise) that I’ve ever eaten. Left feeling downturned and still hungry, I turn to what I know: French fries.
Tuesday
April 12 2016; 12:38 I order a small portion of hot $3.29 French fries (with Heinz ketchup) from New York Fries that are great enough to me make forSeptember 2016 19
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get the fact that I just spent $8 on a lackluster tuna salad that could have potentially won the title “Most Ignored Dish” at a run-of-the-mill potluck. Notwithstanding its economic woes, the Mall debuted to respectable architectural admiration. An editorial by Neville Green in the monthly magazine Canadian Interiors praised the design’s Japanese influences, mentioned its Parisian qualities, but inexplicably evaded its obvious arcade-like layout. “(T)he sharp perspective of the covered mall, with the variety of coloured panels, formed by the random opening of shutters in the various apartments, creates an unusually festive appearance, somewhat rare in this part of the Canadian West … Unfortunately, all the stores have been recessed behind an outer covering with projects some eight to ten feet into the mall and causes much of the hustle-bustle and colour of shopping in the marketplace to be lost to the view of the casual passerby. Some of the stores are now beginning to open out a little, and one small restaurant has cast-iron tables on the side of the mall that are so authentic, it is a disappointment not to see the inevitable bottle of Pernod [French liqueur]. Trees in tubs are also beginning to make their appearance, and these too, help to break up the boredom of the unrelieved straightness.” Green describes, in granular details but without labelling, what Benjamin devoted his lifelong work to. (To Green’s benefit, the translated English edition of The Arcades Project was not released until 1999 — decades after his piece.) In the introductory “Exposé” section, Benjamin references an Illustrated Guide to Paris to capture the scene: “(A) recent invention of industrial luxury, (these arcades) are glass-roofed, marble paneled, corridors, extending through whole blocks of buildings, whose owners have joined together for such enterprises. Lining both sides of these corridors, which get their light from above, are the most elegant shops, so 20 GTWY.CA
that the passage is a city, a world in miniature.” The similarities between Green’s piece and Benjamin’s description are uncanny: for as much as HUB imitates a skyscraper laying on its side for an afternoon nap, it undoubtedly attempts to mimic the Parisian arcade. Benjamin viewed the arcade as the most important architectural design of the 19th century: it crystallized the period’s transition from a culture of production to one
of consumption. Green’s review references a similar ethos, which implicitly calls attention to how the Mall is designed to habitualize consumer behaviour — while pretending not to. Green even goes as far to say that the Mall’s internal temperature should be regulated to a balmy 17°C in order to “enhance the impression that one is walking outside in a narrow street, rather than at the presently claustrophobic
70° F (21°C).” The interplay between natural and artificial motifs in a singular space suggests an atmosphere that is designed to censor, like the arcade, its capitalist reasons for being.
Wednesday
April 13, 2016; 14:06 Chosun Korea is the most modern (i.e. recently renovated) restaurant in the fried food vessel. Unaware of what to order, I requested the most popular item, which happens to be the $10.05 bibimbap. The dish is a Korean favourite that I sampled at Earl’s last summer — their latest East Asian culinary appropriation. A traditional bibimbap (literally translating to “mixed rice”) is a quagmire of steamed vegetables, beef, gochujan (chili pepper paste), and soybeans over a bed of rice. In more lavish versions, the bowl is heated and an egg is cracked on top and stirred vigorously moments before eating. Understandably, the dish at Chosun did not arrive with a performative flair. Instead, I received (via table service) a composée rice dish: sticky rice, shredded carrots and cucumber, mushrooms, cabbage, sliced beef, and a fried egg; hot sauce in an anonymous ketchup bottle and kimchi on the side. Not an overly ambitious dish, but incredibly satisfying, healthy, and a blend of distinctive textures that dovetails with my own ambitions for what mall food can be. The simplicity of the dish was matched by Chosun’s strict interior colour scheme of neutrals-only. Benjamin uses a phrase to describe the arcade, “a world in miniature,” aligning with what Fredric Jameson explains in his seminal postmodernism manifesto Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Jameson writes, “(postmodern architecture) aspires to being a total space, a complete world, a kind of miniature city ... It does not wish to be a part of the city, but rather its equivalent and its replacement or substitute.” Yet, the “world in miniature” or “mini-city”
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that HUB aspires to be is not purposefully dizzying like other postmodern structures: “this latest mutation in space — postmodern hyperspace — has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself … and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world.” Indeed, for all of HUB’s simulations of the outside world at large — whether through its range of international cuisines or formerly domed skylight roof — the structure is ruled by laws of right angles, linearity, and perpendicular logic. Walking down HUB is not a maze to get lost in, or a means in itself; rather it functions as a means to an end. That is, while HUB is a simulacrum, a hodgepodge of East-meets-West tropes and cuisines, its purpose is pure capitalist utilitarian: to either buy or sell, or get out.
chewing the panini, I feel relaxed… a near tangible sense of solidarity between the crowd and me.
April 15, 2016; 16:06 A&W’s recent rebranding overhaul has infiltrated HUB and makes the other restaurants appear nostalgically mom-andpop-like. To see more commercially bright
thoroughly impressed. The fries are shaped and cooked to such a perfect density that I forgo the ketchup; much better than New York Fries. The rest of the burger is so good that I momentarily disremember HUB and all its postmodern trappings. I forget that HUB is a place to watch and be watched; a place where your gaze is automatically orientated for you, and I, in turn, enjoy my lunch in peace.
and coordinated colour schemes, like the ones at A&W, one has to travel to the westend of campus in search of a Starbucks or Tim Hortons. I order a mozza burger and French fries and there is almost an auditory crunch as I bite into the lettuce, the patty and through the bacon. The textures are reminiscent of the bibimbap from Chosun and I am
The New York Times former and late chief architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp wrote an extensive essay at the time of The Arcades Project’s English publication. “The Passages of Paris and of Benjamin’s Mind” aims to come to grips with Benjamin’s virtually impenetrable 900-ish page text. Muschamp posits that reading The Arcades Project performs the very act it represents: the reader is transformed into an intellectual flaneur, parsing the material, in the same manner that a flaneur roams the Parisian arcades. But what is more, Muschamp maintains, is that in the 21st century, “(a)ll of Paris is an arcade, and many American cities have remade themselves as shopping malls in order to survive. Cities are fun! Cities R Us!” If Muschamp is correct, then one must not be scornful of the postmodern behemoth that sits on the edge of campus; like the flaneur, one must penetrate, rather than circumscribe, the building. Because, as Muschamp gestures toward, we have met HUB before. Every right angle, every restaurant (whether franchised or not), every simulated store awning meant to evoke its European predecessor, has been copied across North American to the -nth degree. HUB is simply self-aware that its own money-making pleasures are under the guise of, to use Jameson’s parlance, a postmodern “pastiche,” a “blank parody” that challenges the flaneur to critique HUB instead of insisting that HUB be a vestige of cultural criticism in and of itself. HUB is harsh, but that should not make us sad.
Friday
Thursday
April 14, 2016; 14:04 At Ho Ho’s, I am certain the sriracha sauce is watered down. I order the chow mein, ma po tofu, stir fried vegetables, ginger beef, and kung pao chicken, all drenched in sauce and soggy. It is the week’s most expensive meal, coming in at $11. The ensuite dining needs to be recarpeted and the tofu should be incinerated along with it. Underneath the fluorescent lighting, as I stab a piece of dilapidated broccoli, I feel like a piece of barbecued pork underneath the warming lamps out front.
Thursday
April 14, 2016; 16:40 Unable to finish the Chinese food from 2.5 hours ago, I turn back to HUB and grab a smoked chicken panini from La Pasta Trattoria, HUB’s definitive Italian restaurant. The sandwich comes to me without any gimmicks: hot, gooey and, although monochromatic inside and out, the perfect antidote to a hum-drum end-of-term afternoon. I eat it in the aisle while leaning on an oblong table, watching people pass by and inviting every onlooker to look back. While
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Alone Together by Joshua Storie
Alone Together by Joshua Storie
Campus News
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Features
Your Students’ Union By Jamie Sarkonak
The Students’ Union is the official representative body of undergraduate students at the University of Alberta. Its responsibilities include advocating for students, running businesses, running student services, and maintaining the Students’ Union Building. The SU must also manage an $11 million budget every year that contains roughly $80 in mandatory SU fees paid by all U of A undergrads. These services include the UPass, the student health and dental plan, and advocacy for government initiatives such as the tuition cap. Comprised of 200 employees, the SU’s workforce includes five student executives elected every March to lead the SU’s initiatives for the following year. Here is the SU’s executive team for the 2016-17 year.
President
Fahim Rahman The President oversees the SU’s advocacy efforts, operations, and employees. The President also represents undergraduate student interests while working with the university’s Board of Governors and General Faculties Council, as well as the federal, provincial, and municipal governments.
Goals
Expand awareness of experiential learning opportunities at the U of A. Advocate for a $1 million provincial grant for mental health. Move the responsibility of student group discipline from the university to the SU. Increase student financial aid, particularly for low-income students. Office hours
Visit Fahim to talk about progress on any of his goals.
Presidential advice
“If you’re a particularly shy person don’t be afraid to say ‘hi’ to the person you’re sitting next to in class. If you say ‘hi’ to the two people that sit beside you in class every single day, and multiply that by the number of classes (and semesters) you take in your degree, you’re going to end up with at least 50 unique friends you can grow alongside.”
Vice-President (Operations and Finance)
Robyn Paches The VP Ops-Fi manages the SU’s $11 million operating budget and oversees the SU’s businesses (including Dewey’s and L’express.)
Goals
Bring students back to campus by directing businesses closer to student wants and needs. Create more programming for RATT and Dewey’s. Make L’express fill the “fresh food” niche of SUB food. Improve security on campus by advocating for more UAPS patrols. Oversee renovations of the Myer Horowitz Theatre. Office hours
Visit Robyn to talk about SU businesses, building matters relating to SUB, campus security, and progress on the Myer Horowitz Theatre’s renovations.
Financial advice
“Make some kind of plan. It doesn’t have to be extensive, you don’t have to have a sheet in Excel for every little expense you’ll have, but try and think of a base-level budget of what you want to do. Also, pre-game, don’t drink at a bar.”
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Vice-President (External)
Vice-President (Student Life)
Goals
Goals
Advocate to continue provincial mental health funding but on a per-student basis.
Pursue residence advocacy in the Residence Task Force.
Mike Sandare The VPX advocates for undergraduate interests at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels of government.
Push for switching student financial aid from a tax credit model to non-repayable loans. Change the STEP program from summer to year-round. Facilitate an employment festival in the Winter semester. Office hours
Visit Mike to talk about mental health funding and how students advocate towards the provincial and federal governments.
Diplomacy advice
“To quote Winston Churchill, ‘To grow is to change, and to change is to perfect.’ Don’t be afraid to get out there, and to make moves and try to make something out of your time here at university.”
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Francesca Ghossein The VPSL coordinates non-academic advocacy and programming for student services, groups, residences, and events.
Begin writing a Charter of Student Rights. Centralize mental health resources online, and create a service triage tool. Organize a large campus event facilitated by different student groups during the last week of class. Office hours
Vice-President (Academic)
Marina Banister The VPA looks after the academic life of students by working with administration, General Faculties Council, student faculty associations, and department associations.
Goals
Advocate for flexible course loads, particularly in programs such as Nursing and Engineering. Strengthen role of student faculty and associations in university governance. Increase opportunities and awareness for inter-faculty majors and minors. Communicate to students how governance works.
Visit Francesca to discuss concerns with residences, student groups, the SU’s Health and Dental plan, progress on the university’s sexual violence task force, mental health, and campus events.
Office hours
Life advice
“The U of A and the SU (give students) a lot of information in September, which can be totally overwhelming. But if students can make the most of the different clubs fairs, information sessions, and open houses — even if you go to 10 different things, chances are you’re going to like one of them. Have somewhere that you can go to after class so that you don’t just go to class and go home.”
“University life is going to get competitive and challenging, and what we typically do is ignore mental health and our relationships. The excuse is that we’re busy, and we need to focus on our studies. But we should be doing the counterintuitive thing — take care of ourselves and take care of our relationships because those support systems get us through the toughest times in university.”
Visit Marina to discuss any academic matters or student and university governance concerns.
Involvement advice
Sofia’s Declassified Lister Survival Guide *glossary included By Sofia Osborne
Welcome to Lister! You might be thinking, “Oh man, this is going to be the best eight months of my life.” Or conversely, “Oh man, what the fuck have I done.” The truth is we all have a love/hate relationship with Lister, so welcome to the club. But I promise you can make it through these next eight months — just be strong, wear shower shoes, and follow these simple tips. YOUR FLOOR
BEING A GOOD NEIGHBOUR
THE BATHROOM
FOOD
Your floor will be your Lister family, whether you like it or not. So get to know them, go to floormals, pile into someone’s room and drink too much. You won’t like everyone on your floor, but you’re sharing a prison cell with these people for the next eight months, so try to at least be civil. Get to know your RAs and RVs, they know how to survive Lister better than anyone. That being said, you probably shouldn’t make a move on your RA, even if you’re blackout drunk and they’re a hot third year with their own sink. On Sunday at 8:00 p.m. when your poor RA (who you definitely didn’t hook up with) yells “Floor meeting!” down your wing, please, for the love of God, be one of the five people with the decency to go to the lounge. I know cleaning Lister kitchens is disgusting, and that vacuum you have to use to clean the carpet is from 1960, but your floor will thank you for it.
Figure out which toilet has the quietest flush and try to use that one. The unfortunate soul with the room beside the bathroom will thank you. Don’t wash or cut your hair in the sink. You will never actually catch someone doing this, but freshly cut hair will be in the sink at some point, mark my words. Remember, the bathroom isn’t a barber shop. DO NOT have a bath in a Lister tub. You might not live to tell the tale. Do you know how many Listerites have been dared to have sex in one of those tubs? Do you know how many have gone through with it? Don’t say I didn’t warn you when your grandpa (Henday AllStar 1965) Jimmie Prairie’s semen gets mixed in with your Lush bath bomb. Date someone who lives in Schaffer and use their shower. This hack requires commitment, but have you seen the showers in classic Lister? It’s worth it.
Lister walls are pretty thick, but the doors are a different story. Don’t be loud in the hallways, especially, late at night and in the morning on your way to class. No one cares that the Schaffer dodgeball captain acknowledged your existence at Dukes. It’s three in the morning on a Wednesday, asshole. Also, please don’t play your music loudly. The person in the room below you will probably fantasize about killing you in your sleep. They might actually do it too if you play “One Dance” one more time. Everyone will warn you about floorcest like it’s a sin, but it will always happen. Keep it tidy if you choose to sleep with someone from your floor, for the sake of everyone else. You and Brad from high wing have already broken your desk and bed frame, at least try to keep your dignity intact.
Complaining about Aramark food is a Lister tradition, but as awful and overpriced as it is, you’re going to have to eat it. Stir fry from the cafeteria is a good source of grains, vegetables, and protein, and it’s available almost every night. Mar poutine is not even made with real cheese curds, but it’s cheap and filling. Also, you can never go wrong with an egg and cheese sandwich, even for dinner.
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THE KITCHEN
Label anything you put in the fridges, and check expiry dates regularly. If you don’t, you’re just asking Brad to take your leftover Oodle Noodle and eat it while playing League of Legends in his boxers in the lounge. Why did you sleep with that guy again? When you try to console yourself with some expired chocolate milk, you’ll be wishing you’d just bought a mini-fridge. Don’t make messes in the kitchen. If there’s batter all over the walls and you were the one who made the brownies that had the consistency of burnt toast, then you better clean it up.
DODGEBALL
Attend church regularly, and by that I mean spend at least a couple hours a week in the Tuckey. Play dodgeball, or at least go out and support your team. It’s a great way to meet people, take a study break, and work off that burger from the Mar you had for lunch. Oh and if you don’t, you’re going to purgatory. That’s the next 10,000 years of Brad incoherently explaining how he “feels” about your relationship. Just go play dodgeball.
GLOSSARY
SAVING MEAL CARD MONEY
Don’t get Booster Juice every day. Yes smoothies are delicious and right there in your basement but your meal card money will run out faster than you can say “Brazilian Thunder.” Buy some of your snacks and grocery items from Mac’s or a grocery store. You will soon realize that the Mar doesn’t have prices on anything. That’s because you don’t even want to know how much they mark everything up.
STUDYING
Get to ECHA or Mac Library early during midterms and finals to grab a spot. ECHA has great study rooms, a Starbucks, and walking to ECHA actually forces you to get some fresh air. Mac library is right in your basement and is beautifully silent. Don’t ruin it. You can always study in your room, except when the floorcestual couple next door is getting it on, or when the guy upstairs is STILL playing “One Dance,” or when someone keeps flushing that one loud toilet. Yeah, you’re probably better off in the library.
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is Th ok bo s ha
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MAYBE MOST IMPORTANTLY
Make friends outside of Lister! Edmontonians are chill, they know the city, and they usually have cars. Get out and join a club, or at least talk to people in your classes. There’s more to the U of A than Lister (and more to Edmonton than Dukes, Knoxvilles, and Garneau Pub). Don’t feel bad if you get homesick. Don’t feel bad if you don’t feel like you’re having the Lister experience everyone talks about. Don’t feel bad if you can’t wait until you’re out of that hellhole. That being said, you are guaranteed to at least have a bit of fun at Lister, so embrace it.
FLOORMAL: A couple nights a year when you and your floor get all dressed up and go somewhere nice like Earls, or somewhere not nice (referred to as an anti-floormal), like McDonald’s or Denny’s, for dinner. MAIN LISTER: Where the classic towers and Schaffer meet. Here you’ll find the Residence Services desk, the mailboxes, and all the food you could ever (and never) want. You can go to main in your muscle shirt and Adidas slides even in the middle of winter via the tunnels leading there from each tower. THE MAR: The Marina. Located in main Lister this is your go to spot for Tim Hortons coffee on your way to class, post-dodgeball Booster Juice, and a selection of greasy eats prepared “fresh” right before your eyes. THE CAF: The Lister Market. Upstairs in main Lister you’ll find a cafeteria with rotating entrees, a salad bar, stir fry, a grill, a halal station, and sandwiches. It’s also a good place to study if you don’t mind old episodes of Heartland playing in the background. THE TUCKEY: The David Tuckey Gymnasium. This is the gym where dodgeball is played, off the hallway on your way to Schaffer. A banner on the wall says “Dodgeball is everything to everyone.” It’s accurate. RA: Resident Assistant. Someone who is payed to deal with your drunk ass. RV: Resident Volunteer. Someone who VOLUNTEERS to deal with your drunk ass. CLASSIC: The three first-year Lister towers were built in the 60s: Kelsey Hall, Mackenzie (Mac) Hall, and Henday Hall. There are about 45 people to a floor — they’re housed in three wings (high, middle, and low), each with a communal bathroom. Every floor has a kitchen and lounge. In the tower basements you’ll find amenities like the Henday gym and Mac library. SCHAFFER: Built in 2003, Schaffer is basically paradise. It used to hold upper years but now only first and second years can live there. Everyone has a private bathroom and there are three lounges on every floor. Three! FLOORCEST: Getting with someone from your floor, AKA your “family.” DUKES: A diner right across the street from Schaffer that has a liquor license, enough said.
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