UTSU candidates face off at forum

UTM Film Fest comes back

Saini says so long to UTM

The Medium wraps up

Battling it out, ping pong style

News, page 2 Arts, page 9 Features, page 12Opinion, page 6 Sports, page 15

Unite UTM sweeps UTMSU electionUnite earns more than 8,000 votes and wins all executive positions

According to unofficial results an-nounced last Monday, Unite UTM has swept UTMSU’s spring elec-tion and won all of the seats for the 2016/17 executive team.

The unofficial results of the elec-tion were released last Monday af-ter voting ended on March 10. The results showed more than 8,000 votes accumulated by Unite UTM, defeating the three other slates and three independent candidates run-ning for the executive team.

Unite UTM presidential can-didate Nour Alideeb came out on top with 1,717 votes, a total of 1,403 votes more than what each presidential candidate accumulated when combined.

“When we got the email and saw the results, I was personally shocked and overwhelmed,” said Alideeb, who is currently UTMSU’s VP university affairs and academ-ics, in an email to The Medium. “I couldn’t have been happier and more grateful to the rest of my team and dedicated volunteers who

worked day in and day out to make this all happen”.

Also elected from Unite UTM was VP internal and services can-didate Jackie Zhao, who won 1,811 votes. VP university and affairs candidate Vanessa Demello won with 1,808 votes, Marise Hopkins gained 1,612 votes to be elected VP external, and VP equity candidate Maleeha Baig received 1,732 votes for the win.

The unofficial results must be ratified by the elections and refer-enda committee. Francesco Otello-DeLuca, chair of UTMSU’s election review committee and chief return-ing officer Bryan Chelvanaigum did not respond when asked by The Medium when the results would be passed and made official.

When asked what the executive committee will first work on when they take office on May 1, Alideeb noted pending MiWay negotiations as one of the slate’s first priorities.

“Our team is very eager to get started on the issues we and many other students care about; with that being said, it’s difficult to pick one thing we want to accomplish first,”

said Allideeb. “Since negotiations with MiWay will be taking place this summer, we’re very excited to get started with that!”

Following the election result an-nouncement, independent presi-dential candidate Andrew Williams spoke to The Medium regarding his concerns about the election.

“The system to me seemed kind of flawed this year,” said Williams. “It seemed like some people were at a severe disadvantage sometimes and the system helped other people a bit.”

In an interview with The Medi-um, Williams claimed that various slates were reprimanded for trying to report actions by Unite UTM.

“One of my friends on another team told me he got demerit points for that,” said Williams, who also alleged that Unite UTM held meet-ings during the election’s silent period when candidates are not allowed to begin campaigning. “I heard that they had a volunteer training session. How can that not count as pre-campaigning?”

Williams declined to reveal his sources.

“I feel like these rumours dis-credit the hard work that we and our volunteers committed and frankly, it disrespects our students,” said Alideeb in response to the al-legations. “I too have heard many things about other candidates that I do not wish to disclose because I do not want to disrespect the work and integrity of the candidates who ran.”

Williams also said that he accu-mulated a total of 38 demerit points during the elections, but as of March 10, the final day of elections, his points only amounted to 25 list-ed on the wall of transparency.

“I don’t know what the process is for putting things up on the board of transparency,” said Williams. “To be honest with you, I don’t know if all the demerit points were [post-ed]”.

When asked by The Medium if all demerit points were listed on the election’s wall of transparency prior to the conclusion of the election, Chelvanaigum and Otello-DeLuca did not respond to questions.

Concerns were also raised by in-dependent presidential candidates

Daniel Lyght and Ibrahim Bouter-aa regarding the hiring of the election’s chief returning officer, Chelvanaigum. The two candidates cited concerns regarding Chelvana-igum’s previous relationships with UTMSU candidates and claimed his personal involvement with the student union would bias him dur-ing the elections.

According to Lyght and Bouter-aa, the pair presented a letter to the ERC during the all candidates meeting on February 27 expressing their concerns with Chelvanaigum’s ability to serve in the position.

“We are seeking the replacement of Bryan Chelvanaigum as chief re-turning officer of this year’s UTM-SU elections in the interest of fair-ness, and respect to candidates’ and students’ efforts and intelligence,” read the letter. “Given his prior background and relationships with the UTMSU and its past/present candidates, executives, and staff, it is nothing short of outrageous that Chelvanaigum has been instated as CRO.”

ALICIA BOATTOASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

UTMSU continued on page 4

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUMUnite UTM will be instated as UTMSU’s executive team beginning May 1.

2 « 03.21.2016

March 11, 2:55 a.m.Bylaw Offences Campus Police received a noise complaint at a campus residence. The guests were leaving as Cam-pus Police arrived.

March 14, 3:15 p.m.Theft Under $5,000A student reported to Campus Police the theft of his cell phone from inside the men’s change

room at the RAWC.

March 16, 7:45 a.m.Fire CallA fire alarm was triggered by a contractor doing work in the CCT Building.

March 16, 6:10 p.m.Theft Under $5,000A student reported her laptop sto-len from the library.

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-TIPS (8477).

1UofT and Hello U of T face off in UTSU election

FACEBOOK.COM/1UOFT AND FACEBOOK.COM/HELLOUOFT/PHOTOCandidates participated in an executive debate last Wednesday.

The Undergraduate Commerce So-ciety held its ninth annual Show Me The Green Conference March 12, which saw three UTM students take home the grand prize.

Requiring student teams registered in any Ontario university to create a business plan that promotes sus-tainable practices, the competition

is focused on motivating innovative thinking and strategic planning for businesses from an environmental and sustainability standpoint.

The event began with a morning reception featuring speeches made by UTM principal Deep Saini, and senior lecturer and director of undergradu-

ate programs Louis Florence from the Department of Management. The Master of Science in Sustainability Management department, Chartered Professional Accountants Canada, and the Career Centre directed inter-active workshops throughout the day.

The event was co-chaired this year by Mansee Bubber and Austin Oude-Reimerink, who together initiated a method of giving feedback to partici-pating teams on how to shape their ideas and develop them.

The winning team was Team A$AP, a trio of fourth-year UTM students graduating this year. Alice Li, Pat-rick Zhang, and Brandon Black took home the $3,000 cash prize for their presentation on Ecofont.

“I really believed in this idea, thus I was confident in sharing the concept at a more professional level,” said Li on the group’s win.

The winning team’s idea presented a technique that saves ink by leaving holes in the font when printing pa-pers. The holes reduce the amount of ink being used, while the words are still readable when printed.

Students show their green

at annual conference

MANPREET MINHAS

MENNA ELNAKAASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Two slates are going head to head in this year’s UTSU elections to deter-mine the executive team and board of directors for the 2016/17 year. Both slates and independent candi-dates responded to questions from campus media at an executive debate at the William Doo Auditorium at U of T last Wednesday.

The Medium, The Varsity, and The Newspaper moderated the event, ask-ing questions to the candidates for each position. The floor was then opened to a Q&A from the audi-ence. Questions from the media were screened in advance by UTSU.

PLANS FOR UTMIn an email to The Medium, both slates addressed their plans for how they will represent UTM students.

“Our team will have a different ap-proach to UTM than UTSU had this year,” said a statement from 1UofT, which is being led by presidential candidate Madina Siddiqui. The slate’s statement also explained plans to work with UTMSU to fight for free tuition; work on getting a universal student Presto card rate; look into a multifaith space in new buildings at UTM; and push for a 24-hour men-tal health service at UTM. “We will work to include UTM in all major decisions we take as a union. That includes working hand-in-hand with UTMSU”.

“The only UTM executive can-didate, Farah Noori, is running on our slate because she believes that the UTSU can help UTM students and enrich their experience at U of T,” said Hello U of T in an email to The Medium. The slate also explained they are interested in advocating for UTM student rights and also assist-ing UTMSU if they need assistance in advocacy efforts.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATESHello U of T’s presidential candidate, Jasmine Wong Denike, is currently UTSU’s VP external, while 1UofT’s presidential candidate is Madina Siddiqui, who is currently president of the Afghan Students’ Association and is the co-founder of the tri-cam-pus snowball fight held for the past two years.

A question was raised by an audi-ence member on transparent hiring processes in the UTSU to prevent favouritism. Denike said that in her position on the UTSU executive this year, she was not the only person considering the applicants and that there was another “impartial” person who looked at them as well.

Siddiqui, the presidential candi-date for team 1UofT, said that she did not know that UTSU was hiring associates this year, commenting on the need to increase advertising for job openings. “I honestly would have applied,” she said.

“It’s important for us to talk about a better process, […] but talk to stu-dents to come to a fair process as to how students can be hired,” said Sid-diqui.

Both candidates also responded to a question by The Medium regarding the challenges UTSU is facing.

Denike referred to UTSU’s reputa-tion as “wonky”, saying that this year, UTSU has focused more on updat-ing its policies and bylaws more than communicating with students, add-ing that this is something she wants to change for next year.

“In order to UTSU to function properly, we need to listen constant-ly to members and make sure they share with us their problems,” said Denike while Siddiqui expressed that “a lot of students feel disconnected” and it is important for executives to go out and listen to students.

In Denike’s plan to fight racism, Denike said that UTSU has not been doing the “best job” dealing with racism, but she plans on building a framework to fight for black rights. “It’s incredibly important for UTSU to be always there to provide the sup-port.”

Siddiqui promised to listen to both students affected by racism and UTSU.

“It’s part of UTSU to do its part for the black community because black lives matter,” said Siddiqui.

VP EQUITY CANDIDATESCandidates from both slates ad-dressed questions regarding their intentions about the support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel.

Malkeet Sandhu, VP equity can-didate for team 1UofT, stated the

necessity of supporting what Pales-tinians are going through while VP equity candidate Farah Noori from team Hello U of T, talked about the importance of mobilizing and creat-ing awareness.

Regarding how both plan on en-gaging students who do not find eq-uity a major concern, Sandhu said this can be done by trying to show students that issues do matter even though the issues may not directly af-fect them. She also said open conver-sation would play an important part.

When addressed by Noori, the im-portance of open conversation was also discussed.

“Equity is also about education, not just activism,” said Noori who added that she will be open to having conversations with students from all three campuses.

Also discussed is the issued of accessibility which Noori said she hopes to address by making the electoral process better in the way students feel “safer and more com-fortable” including when participat-ing in forums such as the candidates’ debate.

When addressed by Sandhu, the candidate explained accessibility as something which should be looked at as part of people’s lives, and that U of T’s administration must be held accountable when it comes to acces-sibility issues.

VP INTERNAL AND SERVICESWhen asked about their experience in policymaking and their goals if elected, Mathias Memmel from Hel-lo U of T explained his experience stems from his two terms as co-pres-ident of the Faculty of Music Under-graduate Association and the Faculty of Music director on UTSU’s board.

Memmel also explained that if elected, he aims to increase and pro-vide more transparent policies not just for UTSU executives, but for UTSU’s directors, too.

Carina Zhang from 1UofT ex-plained her priority would centre around having more jobs on campus with a minimum wage of $15 and her experience on the Arts and Science Council and being a Curriculum Committee Representative will assist her if elected to the position.

UTSU continued on page 4

The winning team’s idea presented a technique

that saves ink by leaving holes in the font when

printing papers.

03.21.2016 THE MEDIUM NEWS» 3

Drishti Chawla3rd year, commerce

Mahmoud Sarouji3rd year, criminology

Zakaria5th year, history

Kaitlyn D’Lima3rd year, management

My favourite memory is winning the Ryerson sports management competition.

My favourite part of the year is going to two Tedx Talks for The Medium.

My favourite announcement of the year is that U of T will be collecting race data.

My favourite part of the year is planning events with students for Student Man-agement Association.

»WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE MEMORY OF THE YEAR?

UTSU makes changes to health and dental insurance

MAYDA ALKHALDI/THE MEDIUMUTSU has voted to replace Greenshield with Desjardins for student insurance.

UTM has experienced seven fire alarms since January, with the most recent alarm occurring in the CCT building last Wednesday.

According to Campus Police Services manager Robert Mes-sacar, there were various causes for each fire alarm, which have

been triggered in four buildings on campus.

“The causes themselves are quite varied, caused by human error when contractors were working on systems; an elevator belt slip-ping and burning out; rain water seeping into a system and short-ing it out; and in one case, people illegally smoking in an enclosed

area setting off a smoke alarm,” said Messacar. “None of the alarms were actually malicious in nature.”

According to Messacar, fire ser-vices must attend to every incident that involves the triggering of a fire alarm as per Fire Code regu-lations, and fire services must ar-rive on scene to allow for every fire alarm to be silenced.

Seven fire alarms in three monthsThe last fire alarm went off on Wednesday in CCT

Daniere appointed

UTSU has passed a motion to change students’ health and dental insurance provider following more than a $1.6-million loss from cur-rent insurance arrangements.

Insurance is currently provided by Greenshield and purchased through the Canadian Federation of Students. Greenshield cover-age will continue its services until August 31 and will be replaced by Desjardins, following a vote at UT-SU’s February board meeting.

Students currently pay $291.96 annually for both health and den-tal insurance and have the option of opting out if they are already covered by another provider. The insurance changes will now cost students $307.80 per year, an in-crease due to the UTSU board of directors’ successful vote to raise psychological coverage from $30 to $100 per session.

“CFS-Services is not a licensed broker, and as such has a sole-sourcing arrangement to sign stu-dent unions directly with Green-shield,” said UTSU president Ben Coleman in an email to The Medium. “It is important to note that our new broker also obtained quotes from Greenshield, along with four other insurance compa-nies including the successful bid-der Desjardins.”

According to a report by The Varsity last December, UTSU has lost $1.6 million through its cur-rent plan over six years.

“Because the plan has consis-tently run in deficits in the past five years, we would probably have had to increase the cost by about 10 percent in order to repay the accumulated debt to the insurance company,” said Coleman in an email to The Medium. “With the [request for quotation] from our new broker, Studentcare, we were able to limit the required increase to 4.7 percent”.

When asked for the final vote count when the change was passed by the UTSU board of directors in February, Coleman said that it “wasn’t a close vote” and that “the board was generally in favour [of the motion]”.

“I don’t think we would have done our job to just accept a mas-sive increase in cost for no added benefit,” said Coleman, who voted in favour of the motion put for-ward by UTSU VP internal and services Ryan Gomes.

According to Coleman, in order to avoid liability for losses, UTSU has established a health and dental restricted reserve that will be used to shield students from what Cole-man described as “large rate hikes”.

“Since in the old financial mod-

el, UTSU was responsible for all losses in the plan, we had to carry a fluctuating reserve,” said Coleman. “The new financial model doesn’t give UTSU the direct liability for losses, so the board chose to estab-lish a similar reserve that can now be used to protect students from large rate hikes if claims spike for some reason.”

Coleman also noted all transac-tions from reserve the will require the board’s approval to prevent “malfeasance”.

In an interview with UTMSU president Ebi Agbeyegbe, Ag-beyegbe explained why he voted against the motion.

“There was no consultation done with UTM students,” said Agbeyegbe. “[The changes to the plan] looked good on paper, but we were not sure how [UTM] students are going to be affected by it.”

Agbeyegbe cited “ambiguities” regarding the number of claims that students can make under the new dental plan, access to the new mental health resource, and the impact on part-time stu-dents as contributing to his views. Agbeyegbe also said that UTSU agreed to explain the changes, but that UTMSU didn’t have time to consult the UTM students when the motion was being passed.

Changes to the health and dental insurance provider will be in effect starting in the 2016/17 school year, while students currently covered under Greenshield can continue to submit claims until further notice.

SAMINA SULTANA

Amrita Daniere has been appointed as UTM’s new vice-principal aca-demic and dean starting July 1, tak-ing over from interim dean Kelly Hannah-Moffat.

“I am very excited and optimis-tic about taking on the position of vice-principal academic and dean at UTM,” said Daniere in an email to The Medium. “This is a wonderful time in UTM’s trajectory in that it has completed, to a great extent, re-newal and expansion of its physical plan and is about to embark on a de-velopment of an intellectual plan for the future.”

As announced on March 10, Daniere has been appointed to the position for two years by the agenda committee of academic board of the academic board after the previous vice-principal academic and dean, Amy Mullin, decided not to renew her position after holding it for five years, opting instead to return to the classroom.

Daniere is a professor in the De-partment of Geography and Planning who has been at U of T for more than 20 years, has previously served four years as UTM’s vice dean graduate, and also teaches at UTM’s Institute of Management and Innovation within the master of science in sustainability management program.

Within the next two years, Daniere hopes to work with UTM’s principal and other vice-principals to develop an academic vision as well as a strate-gic plan to implement a vision for the campus. Knowing two years isn’t long enough to complete an implementa-

tion plan, Daniere expressed inter-est in getting started and developing a strategy that UTM can follow over the next five to 10 years to achieve the new long-term vision for UTM.

Daniere also hopes to introduce a new student advisory committee that would report to the dean.

“I hope that by meeting monthly with an interested and diverse set of students, I will keep myself more in-formed about what matters the most to students and get their ideas about how to improve both academic and social aspects of their experiences at UTM,” said Daniere, who will meet with students in early September to discuss the proposed initiative.

Also on Daniere’s radar, the newly appointed vice-principal academic hopes to establish further opportuni-ties for students and faculty at UTM.

“I hope to gain more experience at creating opportunities for faculty and students to work together to come up with initiatives that are appropriate for students in the coming decades—programs that take advantage of technology, communication and the diversity of UTM and help the cam-pus to become even more exception,” said Daniere.

When asked why Daniere chose to accept the position, Daniere ex-plained her love for the campus and community.

“I love the campus—its enthusias-tic students and its exceptional facul-ty. I really enjoy the scale of UTM It is large enough to encompass a diversi-ty of people and ideas and disciplines and yet small enough to get to know people from staff to students to pro-fessors from across campus,” she said.

VICTORIA DANESI

KASSANDRA HANGDAANASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

According to a report by The Varsity last Decem-ber, UTSU has lost $1.6 million through its cur-

rent plan over six years.

4 «NEWS THE MEDIUM 03.21.2016

About 60 attendees were present at last week’s speaker event “The Soldier and the Refusenik”—host-ed by the Association of Palestin-ian Students and open to U of T students and the Mississauga and GTA community—discussing dis-placement in Palestine and North America and militarized policing.

The event was held as part of Israel Apartheid Week, which is intended to raise awareness of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Dina Hammoud, an executive member of APS who manages in-ternal communications, elaborated on this by saying that the aim of the week was “to spread awareness of the ongoing occupation over Palestinian citizens and their de-prived rights, […] to highlight the struggle of Palestinians for justice and equality”, and “to promote the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement”.

According to Hala Ayyad, VP of APS, to kick off UTM’s Apartheid Week with a talk by Israeli activ-ists was important because “not all Israelis are Zionists, and that is an important distinction people need to make”. She continued to speak about how, through talking to vari-ous people, she learned that not many have had the chance to hear what Israeli activists have to say.

The talk featured activists Eran Efrati and Maya Wind, who were invited through a collective effort between APS at UTM, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights at Western University, and SPHR at McMaster.

As the executive director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA, Efrati has par-ticipated in both independent and UN investigations into Israeli mili-tary operations.

Wind is a doctoral student in So-cial and Cultural Analysis at NYU and has cofounded a Shministim group of Israeli conscientious ob-jectors. She is now actively work-ing with several civil society orga-nizations such as New Profile: The Feminist Movement to Demilita-rize Israeli Society and ICAHD-USA.

Both speakers called for a one-state solution to the conflict where Israelis and Palestinians live with equal rights, side by side.

Wind refused to serve in the army and was sentenced to im-prisonment in the Israeli military prison. Among other topics, Wind spoke about racial discrimination within the prison system in Israel and in Israeli society.

In order to reach peace in the fu-ture, Wind says that the Israeli so-ciety must be demilitarized and the current regime must fall because the West Bank occupation sustains the Israeli economy.

Efrati talked about his personal experience as a formal Israeli IDF soldier, sharing his story of enforc-ing a curfew.

“Our rules [were] basically, if we see someone breaking curfew, to shoot him. But I never did it. I don’t know anyone from my unit at that time who did it,” he said, be-fore going on to discuss how one night his friend from the army woke him from his sleep and he realized the reality of what he was

doing. “[My friend] looked shocked,

not saying a word. He was sup-posed to be outside till seven in the morning. ‘Why are you here?’ I asked him, and my friend is just mumbling something to me. And I understood something is happen-ing but I don’t know what,” Efrati said. “I shook my friend [and asked him], ‘Man, what is going on?’ And he’s looking at me and saying, ‘I think we just killed a little boy.’

“I was trained at that time to fight in the army, but I didn’t know what to say to a guy who just killed a little boy. I was not trained for that,” he said.

Reflecting on the talk, APS pres-ident Tamam Khalaf said, “It is im-portant that two people who were raised Zionists, for them to say it, that we were forced to do this, and that. And that they see the issue in it now.

“It’s extremely important be-cause it shows Palestinians are not being anti-Semitic. It’s about Pal-estine itself, and wanting it back,” she said.

When asked whether APS con-sidered the event a success, Ham-moud said, “We were really happy with the Israeli activists coming in and shining a new light on the real-ity of the situation, since they came from within the system and grew to resist and oppose the system.”

APS will hold one more event this Wednesday, a mock check-point near the Student Centre, in an attempt to convey what life is like for Palestinians who have to enter the Israeli state from the Palestinian territories to carry out their daily tasks.

Israel Apartheid Week comes to UTM

Approximately 60 students attended last week’s event

WARD SUROURFARIDA ABDELMEGUIED

Letter calls for removal

In an interview with The Medium, Lyght further clarified the intentions of the letter.

“My appeal was that [Chelvana-igum] should be removed as CRO or

have some of his duties taken away from him,” said Lyght.

Despite the concerns raised, Chelvanaigum remained in his po-sition. Neither Chelvanaigum nor Otello-DeLuca responded to The Me-dium’s request for comment.

UTMSU continued from Cover

VP EXTERNAL CANDIDATESWhen asked what UTSU should do next to assist students in attaining af-fordable education, both candidates running for VP external offered dif-fering ideas to address the issue.

“[U of T has] the highest tuition,” said 1UofT candidate Andre Fast who compared the cost of education to other countries who maintain low-er tuition fees. “We should invest in education,” he said.

Lucinda Qu, Hello U of T’s VP ex-ternal candidate, stressed that in ad-dition to actively lobbying for afford-able education, students should have access to basic necessities on campus including food.

VP UNIVERSITY AFFAIRSHello U of T’s candidate Shawn Wil-liams expressed interest in lobbying the provincial government for im-proved health care.

“The university doesn’t seem to have students’ trust it when it comes to mental health needs,” said Wil-liams.

1UofT candidate Andy Edem ex-pressed interest in analyzing U of T’s policies to see how they affect stu-dents and added that the credit/no credit policy is something worthy of

being lobbied for. Edem also wants to makes students aware of the re-sources they have on campus and also work to have 24-hour mental health resources on campus.

VP CAMPUS LIFEAll three VP campus life candidates addressed a question about music artists being brought to campus as part of the UTSU annual orientation week.

Shahin Imtiaz, Hello U of T’s can-didate for campus life said that in-creasing the budget for the artist is not “feasible”.

“U of T is a big school and we should be able to have good events,” said Lera Nwineh, 1UofT’s candidate who said that if elected, he would make sure to have a better concert and better artists, by proposing to double the budget for the artist by increasing collaboration for other events.

Alessia Rodriguez, an independent candidate and current interim VP campus life, expressed dissatisfaction about U of T students’ school sprit.

“We don’t have a strong spirit,” said Rodriguez who added that she will work on improving frosh orientation and on bringing a better artist.

VP PROFESSIONAL FACULTIES

VP professional faculties is a new po-sition being elected on the executive committee of UTSU. Candidates for VP professional faculties were ques-tioned on the issues facing profes-sional faculty students.

Charlotte Shen, 1UofT’s candidate explained that these issues include insufficient study spaces and an inad-equate exam deferral process, adding that some students have to stay for another year in the event that some-thing happens and they have to defer their exam. Shen also talked about holding private monthly meetings with the professional faculties and hosting more career fairs for them.

Ryan Gomes, Hello U of T’s can-didate and the current UTSU VP internal, said that the high tuition fees that go up every year are among issues affecting professional faculty students. Gomes also explained that students in professional faculties do not have equal access to Arts and Sci-ence courses because they don’t easily fit into their schedules. Gomes also mentioned that they do not feel rep-resented by UTSU.

Voting for the UTSU executive and board of directors will take place from Tuesday to Thursday at polling stations at both U of T and UTM. Voting online will also be available at www.utsu.simplyvoting.com.

New professional faculties positionUTSU continued from page 2

03.21.2016 THE MEDIUM NEWS» 5

A new parking deck extension will offer 300 new spots to be in service starting next September.

The new parking space will be located next to the existing RAWC parking lot.

The UTM Campus Council ap-proved a three-percent increase in parking fees in a meeting held in February. Fee changes will be imple-mented starting in September.

Several UTMSU representatives who attended the meeting objected against the high cost of parking at UTM. UTM’s chief administrative officer, Paul Donoghue, explained that the increase in fees won’t be intended for maximizing surplus, but will instead be used towards the capital reserve for parking.

The rate for a student unreserved permit for the current year is $285.07 per session. According to Sonia Borg, UTM’s assistant director, the rate will increase to $293.62 per ses-sion for 2016/17—an $8.55 increase.

As previously reported in The Me-dium, Donoghue explained in the meeting that the project has been

brought forward by a year because of UTM’s increase in population and the elimination of parking lot 1 due to the construction in the North Building.

Donoghue added that building a parking deck at the south end of UTM is not only environmentally friendly, as requested by UTM prin-cipal Deep Saini, but is also aestheti-cally pleasing, since it’s not “hard landscape”.

Donoghue highlighted the im-provements made by the introduc-tion of the U-Pass in a meeting re-port of the campus affairs committee.

“Rates of demand for parking de-clined from a peak of approximately 30 spaces per 100 campus popula-tion to between 15 to 20 spaces,” he said. However, he also noted that re-gardless of these improvements, for “much of the campus population, the utility of public transit service to UTM is limited”.

Construction for the project be-gan in February, after a one-year delay caused by a “tight and not flexible” construction period, said Nicolle Wahl, assistant director of communications.

300 new parking spaces

to be constructed by fall

JOSHAN RAMNAUTH/THE MEDIUM

The parking deck expansion will be completed by this fall.

Students trade stocks in IMI finance competition

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUM

Roughly 100 guests attended this event.

CHRISTY TAM/THE MEDIUMU of T was established in 1827.

U of T celebrates 189 yearsStudents turn to social media to celebrate U of T’s birthday

FATIMA ALVIWITH NOTES FROMNICOLE DANESINEWS EDITOR

Students, staff and faculty celebrated U of T’s 189th birthday last Tuesday.

Since it was established in 1827, U of T has been home to Canada’s

first female computer scientist, the first electron microscope, the dis-covery of insulin, and to Canada’s first electronic computer.

To honour the milestone, a pho-to contest was hosted by U of T’s Student Life Programs and Ser-vices across all three campuses last Tuesday using the hashtag #hbdU-

ofT. Three prize-winners are to be randomly drawn from the submis-sion of pictures on Twitter or In-stagram, and a winning photo is currently in the process of being voted on through U of T’s Student Life and Services Facebook page. Voting is to conclude at 11:59 p.m. tonight.

The closing ceremony of the IMI Finance Competition was held on Wednesday in the Innovation Complex Rotunda. Sponsored by Nvest, it featured roughly 100 guests, among whom were UTM’s principal Deep Saini and IMI di-rector Hugh Gunz.

The Undergraduate Commerce Society Student Management As-sociation and the Undergradu-ate Economics Council partnered with the Li Koon Chun Finance Learning Centre to host the cer-emony.

Andrew Graham, the lab man-ager of FLC, was the MC for the evening. “This ceremony is a cul-minating event of a four-month period in which students were trading,” Graham said in an in-terview with The Medium. “The purpose of the event was to allow staff, faculty, and other students to hear about the strategies of some of the top 20 student traders.”

He explained that the competi-tors started with 100,000 USD, which they used in the markets “however they saw fit”.

“Participants were restricted to two things. They could only buy and sell company stocks, not derivatives, options, foreign ex-change, or hedging,” Graham said.

Graham introduced the four judges, who included a UTM alumnus, a bond trader at CIBC, and a president of a private invest-ment group.

The top five students were Mo-hammad Asad, Askri Abbas, Omar Ali Osman, Remon Tadros, and Leon Zhao. Each of them had to present their strategy and trading results in a five-minute presenta-tion to the audience. Judges could ask them specific questions after they had shown their one-slide presentations.

“The five students chosen from the top 20 were selected because they had the best strategy and they represented the diversity of

students,” said Graham.The champion of the 2016 IMI

Finance Competition was Abbas, who was awarded a cheque for $1,000 and a U of T trading jacket. Asad placed second with a cheque for $500 and Zhao won third place with a cheque for $250.

E. K. Huang won the Wolf of Bay Street award, which was given to the contestant with the high-est return of investment at 55.7 percent. The Most Honest Trader award went to Raf Aman. Kon-rad Fitzpatrick won the Big Short award, which represents the great-est number of short-selling trades. Javid Karimli won the Bull award, which was given to the trader with the highest number of long-selling investments.

The Social Media award was awarded to Ryan Lam, who scored a 95/100 for engaging and influ-encing other students in the trad-ing platform. Lam also won the award for the most overall trade.

EESHA HASAN

HIBA TRABOULSISTAFF WRITER

300 new parking spaces to be constructed

Editor-in-ChiefMaria Iqbaleditor@themedium.ca

Managing EditorMaria Cruzmanaging@themedium.ca

NewsNicole Danesinews@themedium.ca

A&EKate Cattell-Danielsarts@themedium.ca

FeaturesFarah Qaiserfeatures@themedium.ca

SportsEric Hewitsonsports@themedium.ca

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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.

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To contribute, emaileditor@themedium.ca

6 « 03.21.2016

So long, friends, until next time

Experience is a great teacher. My first two months as news editor ended with a lawsuit threat. Two years later, I’m so thankful for it.

I never really considered myself much of a risk-taker. Coming back this year to be EIC (rather than apply to grad school) was one of the bigger risks I’ve taken. And yes, at the begin-ning, it often felt like I’d stepped into shoes that were a little too big for my size six feet. In the months I spent training over the summer, I would sometimes wonder to myself how I would handle running the paper for the entire year. I had nightmares be-fore the year began, making me ques-tion my own competence at taking on this job.

And to be honest, I don’t kid my-self into thinking that the year was perfect. It seems like every week I was learning something new and grow-ing into my new shoes, so to speak. I’ve come to realize by the end of it that that’s part of the experience—we never truly “fit” into the position, we make it what it is. And I think every-one who takes it on will bring their own approach to it.

And boy, the things I learned this year are incredible.

I learned that truth sometimes means making decisions that are un-popular. There have been a number of times when people asked me this year about why we take some things so seriously when we’re just a student newspaper. Yes, we’re a student paper and it does mean that we are in many ways a work in progress. It also means that in many ways we represent our readers: UTM students. But don’t for-get that we are also a newspaper, and there are some journalistic principles

that come first in order for us to re-main a credible, responsible, and reli-able newspaper.

Any good journalist sides with the truth. And that means putting up with people’s comments, complaints, and sometimes even lawsuit threats. And it also means taking risks.

I also learned that being editor-in-chief doesn’t mean that I’m alone in running the paper. For someone who had so much anxiety before the pub-lishing year, I couldn’t be more thank-ful for the editorial team I had this year. From helping each other come up with ideas for each week’s issue to collaborating on hosting this year’s events and cracking jokes with each other and at one another’s expense, you’ve truly made this year a memo-rable one for me.

Nicole, you’ve run an amazing news section, taking on new and challenging topics, and above all, fol-lowing up on stories. Farah, you’ve worked incredibly hard, taking on ex-tra pages and coming up with hit top-ics. You have a real gift for taking spe-cialized topics and making them easy for general audiences to understand. Kate, you have a great eye for detail when it comes to artistic criticism and a great pen for putting it in writing. I’ve found that often your articles read like art themselves. And Eric, you’ve been a fabulous sport all year—a real team player (get it?). Puns aside, you brought some great values from the sports world into your work here—loyalty, dedication, and sportsman-ship, to name a few, and you taught me a lot.

Thanks also to Sarah for the dedi-cation you put into your work each week and for always being willing to

step in to help out whenever we need-ed it. To Akshaya, for the hilarious copy editing comments each week and for saving us from publishing embarrassing errors in our issues. To Kim, for being so organized with the blog this year and engaging readers with fun and interesting posts. To Co-rey, for the good humour you brought into the office and to our online pres-ence. To Mayank, for your impressive marketing skills with which you first sold yourself to us during your hiring, and then used to sell The Medium to advertisers, and for being so enthusi-astic all year.

A special thanks to Maria Cruz and Mahmoud, who came through when-ever we had a crisis and really stepped up and became leaders among our team. Thank you both for all your work, dedication, and courage this year.

And, of course, thanks to Luke, the first and only EIC I’ve worked with at The Medium. I remember my first ever news article, and boy, how much editing it needed. I also remember, when I first started working as news editor, how much help I needed with everything from knowing where to find stories to how to do my layout on Sundays. I thought about these things several times this year, and I couldn’t believe the amount of trust you and Larissa placed in me at that time and how much I grew from your support. Thanks for helping me grow as an edi-tor, a journalist, and as a person.

To my lovely parents: thanks for be-ing so supportive of me this year. You sympathized when I was stressed out, listened to me when I needed some-one to talk to, and of course, stayed up every Sunday night waiting for me

to come home. I know this position involved many sacrifices on your end, and I’m grateful for it and love you.

Thank you to all our writers and photographers, readers, and every-one who came out to our events. This newspaper is made by and for you, and I’m sure I speak for the entire editorial board when I say that we couldn’t function without you.

Thank you to all of our support-ers, both the open and the quiet ones, whose continuous motivation has kept us going when things get tough, and who never fail to remind us of our responsibility as a newspaper.

And finally, thank you, God, for throwing this opportunity my way and giving me the courage to take it. There were plenty of challenges that came my way this year, and You gave me the strength to stand up and take each one head-on.

Another year has come to an end at The Medium, but a new team is ready to take the reins. I wish you all the very best. There’s no telling what’s in store for next year, and I hope to read about it then.

Here’s to the end of a great year and to all the people who’ve been a part of it

YOURS,

MARIA IQBALCORRECTION NOTICE

The Mar. 14 article “Towards to-morrow” misstated the name of the Yaris Sedan, and the vehicles on display, described as Toyota’s “core products”, are in fact only the core products that target the “urban millennial driver”. The ar-ticle “Students donate for Nate” stated that 167 had registered by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, when in fact this number had registered by 3 p.m.

03.21.2016 THE MEDIUM OPINION» 7

A very (non)sentimental thank you

Three years, 68 articles, and 68 issues. These three numbers may quantify my time here, but in no way do they accurately sum up my experience here at The Medium.

Once a froshie riddled with anxi-ety, I spent the summer of 2013 work-ing as an intern, taking a geography course, and binge-watching Gilmore Girls on evenings and weekends. Now, although this is the part where people will likely laugh, as I watched protagonist Rory Gilmore rule the office of the Yale Daily News, I can wholeheartedly admit that she was the sole inspiration that led me to start my journey with The Medium. I don’t know what specifically inspired me, but all I know is that I wanted to give news journalism a shot (although for the record, Rory did start off writ-ing for features). Some people may laugh, but three years later, it’s need-

less to say that things have worked out pretty well since then and it has been quite the amazing ride.

As I leave both UTM and my desk in the newsroom for the last time to-day, I will know one thing for sure: The Medium is a place of opportunity. It is a place to grow, make mistakes and learn from them, challenge ideas, and be part of a family who cares about each other and the students of UTM. More importantly, however, The Medium is a place where we as students have the unique opportu-nity to learn firsthand why this thing called journalism exists.

Earlier this year, I attended Mayor Bonnie Crombie’s inaugural Youth Speaker Series featuring well known business journalist Amanda Lang. On the agenda for the evening was Lang and Crombie discussing Mississauga’s 14 percent youth unemployment rate

and advice young people can use to enter the workforce.

As a journalist who has worked for the likes of CNN, CBC, The Globe and Mail, and now works at Bloomberg News, Lang focused her remarks on the power of asking questions, not just for journalists, but for everyday people. As I sat there and listened to Lang, I was reminded why news jour-nalism exists, particularly due to the fact that I possess no formal journal-ism training. I’ve learned what I know through practice, learning from oth-ers, and an interest in the field.

Since I started at The Medium, I have been primarily covering news stories, stories that affect people’s lives on a large or small scale. Whether the story is about U of T administration, an event on campus, UTMSU, UTSU, or a story in the community, we jour-nalists try our best to understand and

get to the truth. The field can be chal-lenging at times, but the power of ask-ing questions, as Lang explained, can help us come to a better understand-ing as to why things are the way they are. But as I leave here today, I hope present and future UTM students will not only continue to ask questions that matter, and work to seek the truth for the 13,000 students who call our campus home, but will continue through life questioning all aspects of our daily lives.

To the amazing family at The Me-dium who have engaged in endless discussions and questioned both big issues and small, who have laughed until we ended up in tears, and who have worked tirelessly to get the an-swers students need to know, it’s been one heck of a ride. A very special thank you to Maria Iqbal, who has been not only a mentor and a source

of encouragement, but also a dear friend. Thank you also to my family of news writers for growing with me on this journey and helping students get the answers they need. Thank you in particular to my three fearless as-sociates, Menna Elnaka, Kassandra Hangdaan, and Alicia Boatto, for tak-ing initiative and joining the family.

To the smart and ambitious stu-dents at UTM, take my advice, if not Lang’s, and try something that scares you, question everything, help oth-ers, work to overcome the challenges presented to you, and stay adaptable to new opportunities, new ideas, and to the idea that there is still a lot you have to learn.

Stay curious, UTM.

Yours sincerely,Nicole DanesiNews Editor

It’s been a long day. I think after spending, on occasion, as many as 14 hours in this office on a Sunday with school the next day, that I can officially claim that my days are long. However, today was particularly dif-ficult for me. For nine hours, several editors, myself included, were wait-ing on the results of our elections to see which of us would be returning next year and who would be taking over particular sections.

Since news of elections first came into the newsroom, I’ve been a

wreck. Last year, I had a plan to run for editor-in-chief but the decision was rightly made for Maria Iqbal to take over, as she had more experi-ence. So, I became managing editor and for the past year I have learned from one hell of an EIC, just like I did when Luke Sawczak was running this place. And after three years on the editorial board, I thought I was ready to run for editor-in-chief this year. And, evidently, so did my peers.

In the event of a win, I had noth-ing prepared to say. Not that I nec-

essarily think that preparing a thank you speech is bad luck, but I didn’t want to write something until the fi-nal results came in. Now, I may be in the English and professional writing and communications programs but when it comes to talking about my-self, I turn into Tina Belcher and just let out a monotone moan. What can I say? I’m a nerdy kid who joined The Medium in 2012 and within one year, I went from a volunteer to features editor. Then I ran arts. Then I be-came the managing editor, and now

I’m here. Did I think that I would become the editor-in-chief one day? Not really, no. But now that people were kind enough to vote me in, I’m torn between screaming in fear and screaming in joy.

The good news is that there isn’t really enough room in the opinion section this week for me to have time to ramble on about myself or get sappy about my journey here. I’m not that good with sentiment. But, for those of you who voted for me, I need to take the time to thank you.

Thank you for enriching my time here. Thank you for thinking that I’m good enough. I wouldn’t be here next year if it wasn’t for you guys. I owe my career to you.

Anyway, that’s enough sentiment. See you guys next year and thanks for voting for someone who once fell into the toilet because she didn’t see that the seat was up. (True story.)

Maria CruzManaging Editor

A fond farewell and a word to the future

I’ve been at this newspaper for two years now and I’ve never written once for this paper. My job as the photo editor is coming to an end here at The Medium, and my, what a ride it was. This job has opened me up mentally to a new world. I’ve learned about what it takes to be both a photojournalist and a journalist. Man, I have 227 credits to my name. But that’s not why I’m writing this. I figured it was time to end my year as a photojournalist by doing some actual writing. This will be my first ever op-ed, but it won’t be about anything specific; I have my arguments for a lot of things, but this won’t be an argument on

anything. I want to just write. Sometimes, I think we at The

Medium just forget to write. And I’m 100 percent guilty. I really only got into writing a few months ago. I figured that I may as well orga-nize the disarray of emotions and thoughts swirling in my head and put it on paper. You know, some-times it makes things that seem bad a lot better.

Where am I going with this? I think what I want to say is that sometimes we tend to forget how much we as individuals can grow in a short amount of time. Not just physically, but as people. And that’s what I feel right now. Even with my

own personal shortcomings, I’ve still been able to squeeze through and become better at what I do in this life. What we do here at The Medium is all about growing. We as an organization can’t grow without you, the reader. We as The Medium staff can’t grow without the team-work and love that we give one another. We only continue to grow because of the work that we put in for the readers of our university. Whether you’re a first-year stu-dent, my father, or Deep Saini read-ing, we grow and grow and grow, and we become an organization that is more than just spewing out news—we become an organization

that aims to inform and connect with our university. So, to the first-year who still doesn’t know that we exist, or to the profs who read us and critique the hell out of us, just know that we will always be here, to not only hold up our mandate as a newspaper, but to also ensure that we’re the greatest damn stu-dent paper out there. We still live. We still inform. We still grow. We still write.

So, Mahmoud, when you read this in the future, do a few things: 1. Don’t cringe at your writing skills or at the whole cheesy sentimental crap you wrote. 2. Just look back at the time you wrote this and remem-

ber, you grew. Keep doing it.So, editor, this is my first ever

op-ed. Before I sign off, thank you. Thank you everyone at The Medi-um for doing what you did this year to make The Medium have prob-ably one of the most fantastic years it’s seen so far. You all helped me become who I am today. Whether you’re leaving this year or coming back, never forget what you did here at The Medium. You wrote your fricking hearts out.

Well, as for me, I photographed my heart out.

Mahmoud SaroujiPhoto Editor

Words from a photojournalist turned writer

Vote in The Medium’s Board of Directors Election

ERIKA ROLDANAs your future Board of Directors for The Medium, I want to ensure that The Medium is a newspaper that hears the voice of their students. My skills in my current job as a front desk administrator allows me to understand what financial issues and tasks must be done in order for an organization to run smoothly. I am passionate about law and finance and want to help The Medium to be the best it can be.

RAFAY MIRZAI am applying for the position of Board of Directors on the Medium. I am interested in this position because I would like to experience and learn more on how the Medium operates internally. Over the three years of being a student at UTM, I have relied on the Medium as my top source of information and knowledge on campus. If elected, using my previous experience as the Vice President External of the ICCIT Council, I plan to promote the Medium through the decision making process of the board and consult in matters of financial and legal affairs when needed. I guarantee success of the Medium’s fiscal year.

AIDA JAHJAHMy name Aida Jahjah and I am running for the Board of Directors at The Medium because of my wealth of experience in creative writing and publishing. I am currently the President of the UTM Scribes which is a creative writing collective at UTM with over 200 contributing writers.In this past year, my organization has created a web-site to showcase students works and we are currently publishing a magazine which will showcase over 40 students works. I’m also committed to social respon-sibility within major organizations as we need realize that have the power and influence over our community to make it a better place. I want The Medium to be-come a force for empowering students and creating a positive impact over our beautiful campus. Vote Aida.

ARIKA MACAALAYWriting is a tool that allows us to communicate. The Medium at the University of Toronto Mississauga is a powerful organization. The Medium provides students with an unbiased source of news, and a channel to refer to on all things related to the University of Toronto. Although known amongst the students, The Medium is not particular popular. There are many aspects of the Medium’s image and brand that can be improved on, and avenues in which the Medium can progress in. For example, many students are aware of the Medium, but do not actively read the Medium for University updates. The Medium also does not have a prominent online presence. This is extremely impor-tant for the student community, and will help increase visibility to the students. I hope to bring these concerns to discussion as a potential Board of Director. To help the student experience, and to assist in shaping the Medium’s direction and brand.

FATHAMA ARSHADHello everyone! My name is Fathama Arshad and I am running for one of the positions on the Board of Directors for The Medium. I would love to have the opportunity to be apart of something important at UTM. I have always seen The Medium around campus but I don’t always hear many students talking about it. My goal is to get more students aware of the fact that the school has a newspaper and that they can be apart of it too! Raise awareness for The Medium! Vote Fathama Arshad! Thank you!

NAMRAH TAHIRMy name is Namrah Tahir and I am running for a place on The Medium’s Board of Directors. I have been in the background of The Medium, writing a few articles and I was even a runner up for The Medium’s Writ-ing & Photo Contest 2015. However, I felt that I need to play an active role in The Medium, and become involved in changes or decisions towards the bet-terment of The Medium and raise awareness of this newspaper on campus. I am organized, creative, punctual, and do intent to attend all meetings. These qualities and my passion towards the progress of The Medium would make me a great candidate on the Board of Directors.

ARLENE CORTIGUIERRAExperience. Passion. Positivity. These are three things that represent Arlene Cortiguierra: they keep me driven in everything I do. I am currently a second year student in CCIT, with a diploma in Media Communica-tions from Humber College. As an applicant for Board of Directors on The Medium, I’ve developed great or-ganization skills and professionalism in my current role as Marketing Director on the ICCIT Council as well as my current role at RBC as Innovation & Communica-tions Analyst. My extensive experience on both verbal and written communications (corporate or personal), marketing strategy, leading meetings, and my love for working with people are what will allow me to use my superior creative and leadership skills in order to bring the best for the student body at UTM. I am always looking for opportunities to learn, making decisions with others, and most importantly I would like to bring the best initiative and leadership to the team as your future Board of Directors.

MAHNOOR AWANThe reason I want to run for The Medium board of di-rectors is because I feel that The Medium is no longer serving its purpose as a student newspaper, making students’ voice being heard. In my last three years as a University of Toronto Mississauga student, I felt really disconnected with the newspaper. Therefore, in my last year as a UTM student, I want to make a difference and bring The Medium back to life, to serve its purpose. As a Business Management student, I believe I will be able to make a huge difference by changing the way things are working currently. I want to make sure that the finances are also being distrib-uted to the right department. That is because I believe The Medium has excellent writers without a doubt. However, it is lacking structure in the way it is being promoted and distributed and I want to make sure that UTM students know that this is their newspaper, and for their community, and they should feel a part of it.

ZARA RIZWANI’ve been involved with The Medium for the past three years of my undergrad, from collaborating in Humans of UTM in my first year to becoming the Associate Photo Editor in my second year to just recently being named Staff Writer. My three years of experience with the paper gives me an upper hand in understanding the importance of financial and legal affairs. I want to see The Medium thrive, and I can help make that happen.

NATALIA RAMNARINEAs an avid reader, contributor and past member of the board of directors for The Medium, I am rerunning for a position on the board to be involved in outing out a new issue each week. With a background in profes-sional writing paired with administrative experience in multiple fields, as well as the board itself, I believe I would be a valuable and relevant edition to jointly oversee the activities of a university publication. If elected, I hope to maintain The Medium’s progress, and propel it to new frontiers with an innovative out-look for the team.

EDRIC MICHAEL BALAGreetings,Students of UTM, my name is Edric Michael Bala, and I want a seat on the board of directors at the Medium. Why? Well, I believe I bring something that not many other students have. Mileage. I know, I am a fossil, I was born in the 80s, unlike many of you who were born in the 90s. But, what this means is that the skills I can contribute are invaluable- experience, years, and understanding of the workforce. Moreover the board would benefit with a mature student at the table. To add to this, I am familiar with working in team environ-ments, I have experience with communicating with a variety of peoples- from different creeds, languages, and nations. All in all, what it is that I encompass is people skills, I know people, and if awarded a seat, I promise to deliver uncompromised, unbiased, and dependable news.

NOOR MOHAMMAD CHAUDHRYThe reason why I am running for the Board of Direc-tors of The Medium is to help give back to the UTM students. As students, we pay for services like our campus newspaper and I believe the funds that go towards The Medium should be used towards in the best interest of the students. As a member of the Board of Directors I will strive to present new ideas to the Board that will create more engagement for students. Most of all I want to help have the student voice heard on the Board of Directors. A vote for me, is a vote for you.

YUJIA QUNowadays people are really dependent on technology but personally I think newspaper is one of the most old-fashioned information sources. It has always been an interest of me to participate in the industry and deliver messages people need to know. After coming to Canada, I noticed that lots of people stopped using newspaper due to language reasons. It would be nice to provide multi-language newspapers for people from different countries. Also, as one of the international students, it would be nice to see things from our per-spectives but at the same time stay impartial.

MENG-YU (LINDA) LINAs a reader of The Medium, I would like to be part of the publication’s board of directors in order to repre-sent students’ decisions and opinions in the directions and the behind-the-scenes process of maintaining the school newspaper. In addition to my experiences as Vice-President for Language Studies Academic Society (LSAS), as community director of the UTM residence council and as a treasurer on the execu-tive team for Department of Visual Studies Student Society (DVSSS), I have strong skills in the areas of leadership, communication, teamwork and organiza-tion which enable me to be a suitable and distinguish-able candidate for this position.

MIKE DOPSAAs a creative, a writer and a student of this great campus, I have always admired and appreciated the unique voice found at The Medium, and I believe it is time for me to contribute directly. Be it covering stu-dent-let events and featuring students’ photographic coverage, or editorials and competitions amongst the student body, The Medium shines a light on the best parts of UTM. With a seat on the board of directors, I intend to extend the light to extend that light to recog-nize the best student works, and innovative projects on campus. Alongside individuals, I will collaborate with the biggest and best clubs and academic societ-ies on campus to encourage an even more collabora-tive, cohesive community at UTM.

MALEEHA IQBALHey, UTM!My name is Maleeha Iqbal, and I would like you to elect me to serve as a Director on The Medium’s Board of Directors for the 2016-2017 school year! I have been involved with The Medium for almost two years—I started off as a Staff Writer, and this year I’m working as an Associate Copy Editor. As a Director, I will ensure that students have access to all board of director meeting minutes, annual general meeting minutes, and audited financial statements for trans-parency and openness. Finally, as a Director, I will also ensure that students continue to receive quality news in a timely manner.

KAITLYN FERNANDESDear Readers,I’m a big fan of both reading and writing for The Medium, and I’d love to take my passion for student journalism to the Medium’s Board of Directors. Not only do I want to take part in running The Medium and ensuring it is governed responsibly, but I also want to share my ideas for innovating UTM’s newspaper with the board of directors and the editors. During my term I’d like to look into how The Medium can better serve the students of UTM while remaining the reputable and unwavering “Voice of the University of Toronto at Mississauga.”

CHIDIMMA MORALDOSalutations,I am a second year DEM and PWC student and would like to apply what I’ve learned in my programs to an organization. The Board of Directors is a great opportunity to see the inner workings of a the Me-dium and the world of publishing and journalism. I see being a Board member as a way to learn and get involved in the UTM community in a meaningful and exciting way.

March 21 @ 8 a.m.—March 25 @ 11:59 p.m.Visit voting.utoronto.ca to cast your ballot.

Open to all registered UTM students.

18 candidates are running for five seats on The Medium's board of directors. Add your voice to the corporate and

financial governance of your student paper.

Direct any questions to cro@themedium.caFor more info, visit themedium.ca/elections

03.21.2016 » 9

UTM rolls in talent at film festivalJudging panel and audience members raise the stakes and weigh in on their favourite films

UTM is a school brimming with cinematic talent, and the UTM Film Festival last Thursday night proved this true. Organized by ICCIT Council, DVS Student Society, DEM Society, UTM/TV, and UTMSU, the film fest showcased 14 student short films of all genres. Located in a lecture hall in the CCT Building, the festival attracted a large audi-ence that came to watch and support films made by friends and peers. Free popcorn was handed out as an added incentive.

Prior to the night of screenings, the judging panel—Brian Price (as-sociate professor of cinema studies); Matthew Stoddard (assistant profes-sor of cinema studies); Christopher Rowe (DVS sessional instructor); and Alison Syme (DVS chair)—nominated films for five differ-ent award categories. The awards included “Best Film”, “Best Cin-ematography”, “Best Editing”, “Best Screenplay”, and “Best Video Art/Animation”. The winners of each category were chosen by the judges

before the screening.Although the panel determined

the award winners prior to the event, audience members were encouraged to vote for their favourite film at the end of the night. The Viewers’ Choice Award was then awarded to

the most popular film.Despite the award labels, it’s chal-

lenging to narrow down the best films of the night. Nearly all the films screened at the film fest were produced with professionalism and high-quality cinematography. I was

pleasantly surprised and even slight-ly proud that I belong to a school so rich with talent. I obviously can’t discuss every film that inspired me, but to name a few I’d have to settle on Anxiety by Heather Shanahan, Abort Mission by Ifunanya Paulinus,

and Golden Mean by Ryan W. Smith.Anxiety was brief—probably the

shortest film of the night. Yet in only a couple of minutes, it left a strong impression. Rather than live actors, Anxiety features cartoonish anima-tion in real-life settings. The film opens with a dark hallway and a car-toon figure standing at the end, spas-tically changing shape and colour as the music intensifies. Near the end, the camera conveys a first-person perspective of the film’s subject. They walk towards the mirror and their reflection shows an animated blob. Earlier, the camera walks towards the toilet and a downpour of orange cartoon vomit pours into the toi-let bowl. I admire this film because it captures the effects of anxiety on the mind and body without using a single actor or voiceover. Rather, the animation does all the talking.

Overall, Abort Mission left the greatest impression on me. Narrated via a lyrically haunting slam poem by Tobi Ogude, Abort Mission is a fragmentary depiction of a teenage man’s decision to either become a fa-ther or abort his unborn son.

Q&A: grads answer with artistic skillFrequently Answered Questions give art and art history grads the chance to flex their creativity

Last week, UTM’s Blackwood Gal-lery opened its annual exhibition of UTM art and art history graduates’ talent. Frequently Answered Ques-tions explores how art is an oppor-tunity for hypothesizing and not just an exchange of questions and answers.

“The theme [of FAQ] reflects how as art and art history students we came into the program with a lot of questions […] and now we’re ready to leave with those ques-tions answered,” says Sophia Luo, designer of the 2016 class’s exhibit poster.

The Blackwood Gallery website speaks about the frequently asked questions the artists examined throughout their careers: “Ques-tions of place, questions of mate-rial, and questions of self. What are constructions of personal identity? How are attachments formed to place? How are we affected by art? And of utmost importance, what art do we choose to make?”

On the wall across from the en-trance to the Blackwood Gallery is Chelsea Quinton’s series Mon-santo. The acrylic and graphite cre-

ate a ribbon of movement across the page. From left to right, the pieces feature a ribbon of flying butterflies that turns into a farmer spraying pesticides, rises into corn stalks, and then falls into an ashy pile of dead butterflies.

“The piece refers to the incident that occurred a few years ago where the company Monsanto decimated the monarch butterfly population with their use of pesticides and

herbicides,” Quinton says.On the wall beside her are three

pieces from Suzanne Yeh’s Dys-morphic series—What cannot be changed #1, #2, #3. The lino and digital print series explores soci-ety’s prescribed beauty standards for women.

Stephanie Payne’s Mearcstapas: while we wait, an installation of succulent leaves, thread, water, wood, and plexiglass, stands in the

middle of the gallery.“I use[d] thread given to me by

an elderly lady no longer able to sew, and a succulent plant culti-vated by my mother,” says Payne. “Through this generational gener-osity, my piece, in reflecting on the temporal, is painfully aware of its own mortal existence.”

At first, Holly Watson’s Vessel looks like a pile of white ceramic pottery patterned with black ink

floral designs. After a closer look, you notice that mixed in with the teapot and teacups are a paper cof-fee cup, a plastic cup with a straw, and dish detergent. Watson’s in-stallation of found objects, gesso, and ink juxtapose objects of high value with the everyday and make the viewer think about how a de-tergent bottle can look as beautiful as a handmade clay object when painted to look like ceramic.

On one of the other walls is Ju-lien Balbontin’s Heal, Boy!, ap-proximately 100 pieces of waterco-lour and black ink on cotton paper. Some of the depictions of dogs don’t have eyes. Some are only par-tially present, like a ghost fading in.

“During 2015, in an [attempted robbery] back in the Philippines, one of my dogs was lethally poi-soned,” Balbontin writes in his art-ist statement. “After his death, my other dog refused to eat and [as a] result, also passed away. I had other dogs in my life; however, it was a different experience when an act of violence had killed them.”

Balbontin explains that the dif-ferent colours bleed into each other as a symbolic representation of poi-son seeping into the dogs.

OLIVIA ADAMCZYK/THE MEDIUMOutgoing art and art history students shine in their final show.

FACEBOOK.COM/UTMSU/PHOTOGet your free popcorn and movie fix at the UTM Film Festival.

HAILEY MASONASSOCIATE A&E EDITOR

ANDREEA MIHAISTAFF WRITER

Film continued on page 10

Answers continued on page 11

10 «ARTS THE MEDIUM 03.21.2016

Let’s set the world on fireCity of Mississauga to appoint first Youth Poet Laureate

CULTURE.MISSISSAUGA.CA/PHOTO

It’s not just the grown-ups who get to show off their poetic talents.

The City of Mississauga accepted submissions for its first ever appoint-ment of a Youth Poet Laureate until last Friday. The Youth Poet Laureate, like the Poet Laureate, is an ambas-sador of the arts on behalf of the city. Both roles require a strong attach-ment to the literary arts and to the values and themes of Mississauga. The difference is that the Youth Poet Laureate will work with the young writers in the city and help build their emerging profiles, as opposed to supporting established adult writ-ers.

This is a fast move for the city of Mississauga, considering that it was

less than a year ago when Mississau-ga’s Culture Division announced the city’s first Poet Laureate, Anna Yin. In the last year of Yin’s appointment, she will also work with young poets as a mentor of arts and culture in the community. But the appointment of a Youth Poet Laureate in such a short time after announcing a poet laure-ate speaks to the city’s recognition of the charisma and talent that young artists in Mississauga possess.

It’s not a surprise. Just a few months ago, John River made big waves with Mississauga’s youth with his music video for Hope City II—the second installment of his mixtape, The Storm. The video, featuring Riv-ers rapping with the Absolute World buildings in full view, features sev-

eral shots of neighbourhoods that anyone living in Mississauga would recognize. His lyrics say what a lot of young people in Mississauga feel—that we have an identity and want to be great for who we are.

I think that when we look at fa-mous rappers, singers, artists, writ-ers, or musicians, we often forget that they weren’t always what they are now; there was a place that they came from. There is untapped talent in the young artists, writers, and mu-sicians of Mississauga. That will be the challenge for the first Youth Poet Laureate—to tap into that stream of emotion, creativity, and ambition, and help create the foundation for Mississauga as not just a city, but the place artists can come from.

ANTON MYKYTENKOASSOCIATE A&E EDITOR

Oscars of the future

With the resurgence of the British grime scene by artists like Skepta and Stormzy, past works from grime artists like Tinie Tempah have been ridiculed for being too pop-affiliated and therefore too soft to be consid-ered true grime. Despite these recent sentiments towards the genre, Tinie Tempah’s 2011 debut album Disc-Overy dropped at number one on the U.K. charts. The bold debut displays a spectrum of sounds all heavily in-fluenced by grime and U.K. garage music.

The album starts off with very heavy bass lines and an electric ga-rage feel; his rhymes are somewhat inaudible, especially on “Intro”. Now you might be thinking, why would any rapper have inaudible rhymes throughout his songs? With the first two tracks on the album, Tinie is highlighting his signature fusion sound by not being too heavy-handed on the actual rap. These songs seem to borrow a little from every genre, which helps bridge the gap between grime music and mainstream pop and electric charts.

The album changes course with the decisively brazen grime song “Pass Out”. What takes this club hit to the next level is the production and vo-cals by musician Labrinth. The boast-ful high tempo is indicative to any and almost all rap songs on the mar-ket. The synthesized electric feel is what brings this track back to Britain.

The boastful demeanour carries over throughout the album, even on love songs “Till I’m Gone” and “So Addicted”. In “Till I’m Gone”, Tinie blends American R&B with his signa-

ture witty rhymes and flow.His tongue-in-cheek rap style,

which sometimes produces silly lines about sweet nothings, segues into hard-hitting truths on the piano-driven track “Illusion”. This shows Ti-nie’s versatility and ability to touch on the topics of fame, race, and violence while keeping it relatable. The album then crosses into full-on pop with “Written in the Stars”; the cliché mes-sage and singalong hook are similar to those in many hit pop songs.

On the other end of the spectrum, Tinie takes us on the electric route with “Miami 2 Ibiza”. This collabora-tion with Swedish House Mafia brings out his full wit and again highlights his adaptability.

From Ellie Goulding to Emeli Sandé, Tinie puts forth collaborations that take the album to the next level, but his works with Labrinth take the cake. “Frisky” mixes in enough elec-tro house to be mainstream but not so much that it loses its authenticity.

The entire album feels like a bal-ancing act between styles. It could so easily have felt choppy—almost every track is a different genre—but Tinie manages to hold it all together with a consistent flow and rhyming style, and heavy electric baselines. The col-lection as a whole does feel very 2011, since the mishmash of styles and its confused air reminds of my personal headspace at the time.

Personally, I think Tinie is at his best on the more grime-centric songs. I feel the album could do with one more song featuring Labrinth, and if there is one thing I can take away, it is that the two should definitely con-sider becoming a duo.

MMM

The scenes cut in and out of moments between the man and his girlfriend and moments that the potential son (shown as an adolescent boy) expe-riences as a result of their decision to keep him. The boy is seen in the background watching as the teenage couple quarrel or behave intimately and he anticipates their decision to have him or abort him. A recurring prop throughout the film is a pic-ture frame that shows the couple and their son smiling together. In the fi-nal scene, the man rolls over in bed, turns off the light, and the candle on his nightstand illuminates the pic-ture—without the boy.

In contrast, Golden Mean provided comedic relief and ultimately had the greatest reaction from the audience. The film depicts a world in which everyone is naked. All the time. This feature of the film seems quite ran-dom at first. I assumed it was for a co-medic effect until the ending reveals its greater significance. Golden Mean follows a man who becomes jealous of his neighbour’s spinning disco

light. The neighbour uses this light to throw parties and lure in women, including the woman the main char-acter is interested in. What results is a hilarious struggle between the man and his neighbour as he attempts to steal the disco light in an effort to re-claim his romantic life. The man ends up ripping the light from the ceiling, smashing his neighbour’s head with it, and running off in naked victory.

The final scene takes a more se-rious turn, though, when the man holds up the disco light and notices the blood on his hands. He suddenly becomes insecure about his nudity and covers himself, alluding to the original sin.

While these are only three of the films featured last Thursday night, the UTM Film Fest was unquestion-ably an event that showcased UTM’s cinematic talent.

The award for Best Picture went to Golden Mean; Best Video Art/Ani-mation to Gamediction; Best Editing to Deadline; Best Screenplay to Knots; Best Cinematography to Deadline; and Viewers’ Choice Award to Abort Mission.

Film continued from page 9

ANJEOLA SALAMI

Get on the playful sideExplore this summer with artsy activities in the GTA

You’ve almost made it. There are only a few weeks left before the end of classes. Not only that, but the weath-er’s warming up as well, which has me fantasizing about ice cream and outdoor theatre. Here are a few arts-related events in the GTA to keep you occupied between those biochemistry lectures.

1. Shakespeare in High Park. Every summer, CanStage puts on a Shake-speare play in Toronto’s High Park. Recently, they’ve expanded their one-show season to a two-show rep-ertory-style performance. From June 30 to September 4, catch Hamlet and All’s Well that Ends Well on alternat-

ing nights.2. LIVE restaurant open mic night.

Warm up your vocal cords for the Living Arts Centre’s open mic on April 21. Held at the LIVE restaurant, this event promises food, drinks, and talent. Since it’s a 16+ restaurant, you can bring your high school–age sib-lings and embarrass them with your covers of Justin Bieber songs.

3. Carassauga. A three-day event from May 27 to 29, held at various venues throughout Mississauga, that aims to celebrate diverse cultures. Over 70 countries are represented, and each pavilion offers food, music, and entertainment specific to each country. Admission includes free Mi-Way transportation.

4. Inside Out LGBTQ film festival.

The TIFF Bell Lightbox hosts this film festival from May 26 to June 5, bringing together films either about or made by the LGBTQ community. The 11-day event also includes panel discussions, artist talk-backs, and parties. The perfect something to tide you over until TIFF in the fall.

5. Fringe Festivals. These indie the-atre festivals are completely uncen-sored and take place across Ontario. If you’re travelling out of the province or even internationally, check your summer holiday destination for a Fringe Festival. Knowing what plays to attend is a complete crapshoot, but at least you’ll only be set back about $10. Visit theatreontario.org for de-tails.

KATE CATTELL-DANIELSA&E EDITOR

SARAH YASSINE/THE MEDIUMReward yourself post-exams with a few cultural activities.

03.21.2016 THE MEDIUM ARTS» 11

Blackwood Gallery showcases grads

Frequently Answered Questions also extends into the e|gallery in the CCT Building.

Klasha Fernandes’ digital illustra-tion Obey greets visitors first. The propaganda-style posters feature vil-lains from literature and their slo-gans, such as “All animals were cre-ated equal, but some more equal than others” from George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm.

Kaylin Andersen’s Bust Character

Study (series), which sits on a wooden stand in the middle of the space, is made of plasticine. Her fantasy-style busts reflect her watercolour and ink pieces displayed on the wall.

The first half of the exhibition will run until March 27. The second half will open on March 30 and run until April 10.

The other artists featured in the first exhibition are Thomas Bewick, Olivia Brouwer, Rebeca D’Alessandro, Kaitlynn Errygers, Natalie Lei, Janine Malaca, and Lisa Wong.

Answers continued from page 9

Writing it on the wallsBradley Museum fuses Canadian poetry and visual art

The Bradley Museum isn’t one of grand presence. It’s nestled among a row of houses in Mississauga and, from the outside, looks like any oth-er home. But the exhibits on display inside contribute to the history of the city, making the museum one worth visiting. Their current exhibit pays homage to several Canadian talents: Susanna Moodie, author of Roughing It in the Bush; Margaret Atwood, who wrote a series of poems after the pio-neering woman; and contemporary multimedia artist Charles Pachter.

In 1832, Susanna Moodie emi-grated to Upper Canada with her husband and daughter. In Roughing It in the Bush, Moodie writes about her experiences as a middle-class Englishwoman settling a farm in the backwoods of Ontario.

Moodie’s books inspired Margaret Atwood to write poems that explored the emotional and psychological as-pects of Moodie’s survivalist spirit. When Charles Pachter first read Roughing It in the Bush in school, he felt unconnected from the story. But when he read Atwood’s poetry, he felt compelled to illustrate them.

The exhibition includes 30 origi-nal print-poem combinations on loan from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, On-tario.

According to the exhibition’s web-site, it seeks to “prompt new insight into the experiences of early settlers and today’s newcomers”. The site quotes Moodie: “In most instances, emigration is a matter of necessity,

not choice,” a quote that lands close to home for many Canadians, given the relevance of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Gallery 1 houses Immigration and Settlement—Journal One. Red sten-ciled letters on the hardwood floor guide the viewer’s eyes into the room, reading, “It was our own ignorance we entered. I have not come out yet.” The effect is reminiscent of following a trail of blood on the ground.

The stenciled red letters continue on the white wall above the fireplace and contextualize Journal One. Gal-lery 1 focuses on Moodie’s arrival and early settlement in Canada. Jour-nal One reflects her initial feelings of alienation.

Atwood’s poems “The Wereman” and “Disembarking in Quebec” cap-ture the initial feeling of alienation. In “Disembarking in Quebec”, At-wood writes from Moodie’s point of view. Patcher’s illustrations for these poems use sombre colours. Against a dark green forest, a figure rises from the trees with white eyes and teeth in “The Wereman”.

Journal One also documents a shift in Moodie’s attitude towards the landscape. In “Paths and Things-cape”, Atwood writes about the beau-ty of plants. Patcher’s illustration re-flects that shift with light colours and soft lines. The effect echoes sunlight falling on summer leaves.

In addition to the prints, the ex-hibit also displays artifacts from the Mississauga Museum’s collection. A trunk of old books, lace cloth, and a fine china tea set contrast with rough firewood, rope, and metal farm tools. Though not artifacts that belonged

to Moodie, they help set the tone for the lifestyle shift Moodie experi-enced and they reflect the themes in the poems.

Gallery 2 houses Ageing and Af-terlife—Journal Two and Three. An old rocking chair, a pair of women’s boots, a pile of books, and an ink stand sit in this room.

The red stenciled words continue on the floor: “I should have known anything planted here would come up blood.”

The poem and its illustration “Lat-er in Belleville: Career” speaks about Moodie’s process of buying her chil-dren shoes by selling sketches of but-terflies. The last line, “There is no use for art”, is juxtaposed with the exhib-it of poems and illustrations inspired by Moodie’s writing.

The exhibit has dedicated a wall in Gallery 1 to community reflections. In this component of the exhibit, there are poems and reflections from high school students and community leaders and artists, including Mis-sissauga’s Inaugural Poet Laureate, Anna Yin.

This ongoing part of the exhib-it makes The Journals of Susanna Moodie come alive with relevance to present-day visitors. From the experiences of a writer in the 1800s to a writer and illustrator in the mid-1900s to the experiences of newcom-ers today, the exhibit takes a manda-tory studied-it-in-school text and makes it relevant to people living in Mississauga today.

The Bradley Museum will host Margaret Atwood and Charles Pachter’s collaboration The Journals of Susanna Moodie until April 17.

Before joining my professional writ-ing and communications class, Re-languaging: Writing Across Cultures and Languages, I had never heard of Xiaolu Guo. I’m aware that there are many writers out there whom I have never heard of before and will never encounter before I die. But Guo is someone with a message that I wish I had heard earlier.

Her novel, A Concise Chinese-Eng-lish Dictionary for Lovers, follows a Chinese student in her early 20s, Z, on her way to England to study. Her un-derstanding of the English language is weak in the beginning of her journey; her sentences are incomplete, she con-stantly looks up the meanings of words that she’s never heard before, and she doesn’t fit in very well with the new culture.

Her time in England seems to soft-en, though, when she meets an un-named man in a movie theatre whom she promptly moves in with. Their re-lationship inevitably suffers from the end of the honeymoon phase, which only serves to make her time in Eng-land as sour as it was when she first moved there.

Now, putting aside the obvious plot, which is implied in the title, one of the biggest things to take away from the novel is the expansion of West-ern culture and, namely, the English language. Having grown up using it my whole life (and studying it now in school), I know it’s a difficult language. There must be hundreds of thousands of words that I don’t know the defini-tion of and may never even find out in my life. But while listening to Z’s nar-

rative, you can’t help but feel sympathy for her as she tries to understand an entirely new culture.

The inadvertent humour in the novel is something that adds to the richness of the story. Z’s attempt to make sense of what is being said to her or what she’s learning leads to some pretty great misunderstandings on her end.

Additionally, there are some pow-erful passages in the book that delve deeper into her troubles of adapting to a new place. One that stood out for me the most was when Z reflects, “I am sick of speaking English like this [...] I am scared that I have become a person who is always very aware of talking, speaking, and I have become a person without confidence, because I can’t be me. I have become so small, so tiny, while the English culture surrounding me becomes enormous.”

This is one of those novels that has something interesting to say but may lose readers on the execution of these ideas. I know for myself that reading sentences like, “That’s how all start. From a misunderstanding […] A week later, I move out from Chinese land-lord,” can be very taxing. But I think that’s the point. It’s taxing for us to read, but imagine how taxing it must be to learn a language when there are so many rules and restrictions. How-ever, this is something that can en-dured if you’re willing to hear Guo’s message.

My overall thought on the book is that it’s worth a read if you’re interest-ed in learning about the struggles one goes through when adapting to a new culture. But Guo’s very literal transla-tion of Z’s thought process may be a turn-off for some people.

MARIA CRUZMANAGING EDITOR

ANDREEA MIHAISTAFF WRITER

OLIVIA ADAMCZYK/THE MEDIUMThe exhibit is applicable to present-day Canadians, and not just those studying history.

12 « 03.21.2016

Students bid farewell to Deep SainiSaini will begin as the vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra in September

I sit across from Professor Deep Saini in his rather spacious office. His windows offer a view of the rain outside. The sky looks quite bleak.

Perhaps not as bleak as Saini’s thoughts on leaving UTM, as he has now been appointed as the next vice-chancellor (president) of the University of Canberra in Australia and will be ending his current term on August 31.

“The buildings, the grounds—they’re just the containers. The con-tents [of UTM] are the people—and this place has amazing people. I’m going to get emotional [right now] […]. I’m going to really, really miss the people,” says Saini.

“This is an amazing place, and I will always be watching it—no mat-ter where I am,” he adds.

Saini’s tenure as the principal of UTM began in July 2010.

His early academic career began at the Punjab Agricultural Univer-sity in Ludhiana, India, where he completed both an undergraduate and master’s degree in botany. He then completed his doctorate at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Saini then moved to Canada, where he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta. Saini worked as the director-general of the Plant Biology Research Institute at the Université de Montréal, before transitioning to being the dean of the Faculty of Environment at the

University of Waterloo.With a glance at his academic ca-

reer, I wonder what fuels his every move—is it wanderlust? Or is he simply a risk-taker?

Saini laughs and replies that he “like[s] interesting, challenging sce-narios to work in”.

“Each of my moves has essen-tially been triggered by an oppor-tunity that has come up [and] has taken me somewhere where there is an interesting challenge. I generally tend to go for riskier things than the more comfortable ones, and they have so far in my life paid off

very nicely. And I hope that this one would not be a mistake,” says Saini.

Has he challenged himself enough though?

“Most of the people who know me would think so. I think I’ve pushed the limits quite well. You know, the trick in life is to see a challenging opportunity that’s coming your way. Most of us, when an opportunity is coming [our] way, we tend to see it in the form of a risk. Because we get focused on that risk, we end up missing the opportunity,” says Saini.

However, he admits that when it comes to financial opportunities, he tends to see opportunities as risks too. Saini says that he hasn’t been a good investor over the years, as at times, he believed that certain stocks were too risky only to find out later that those risks were now selling at a much higher price and would have raked in quite a profit.

“When it comes to career oppor-tunities, I have been fortuitously very good at judging the opportuni-ty when it comes my way, and have been able to cut through that scary fog of risk that always is associated with these things,” he says.

FARAH QAISERFEATURES EDITOR

OLIVIA ADAMCZYK/THE MEDIUM

Saini’s tenure as the principal of UTM began in July 2010, and will end on August 31.

Saini continued on page 13

TEDxUofT makes a splash downtownThe conference, themed “EDGE”, was held at the St. Lawrence Centre in Toronto

Last Saturday, the halls of the St. Lawrence Centre in Toronto buzzed with anticipation as at-tendees filed into the theatre, where the fourth annual TEDx-UofT was set to commence. Vol-unteers guided student delegates to their seats, excited to hear what some of the top minds in their re-spective fields would have to offer to those just beginning their forays into changing the world.

The event kicked off with an a cappella performance, courtesy of U of T Faculty of Music’s Sur-round Sound, who began by dig-ging deep into the audience’s nostalgia with a performance of Britney Spear’s “Toxic” blended with Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole”. As the ensemble segued into a cover of Drake’s “Hotline Bling”, the unstated but essential element of TEDx emerged: that an under-standing of what is and has been is essential in the anticipation of what is to come.

Alan Cross, Toronto-based ra-

dio personality and event MC, proceeded to take the stage, and with a brief personal introduction, moved into a reflection on the importance of ideas and stories. “Whoever dies with the most sto-ries wins,” he concluded.

Jooyoung Lee, a U of T assis-

tant sociology professor, began the succession of speakers with an ap-peal for social compassion, and in spite of the event’s imposing theme of living on the edge, underscored by the hashtag “#EDGE2016”, an unstated, underlying theme of the importance of empathy began to

weave its way into the conference. Following statistics on the difficul-ties of overcoming violence within black communities, Lee laid out a moving recollection of his friend-ship with Flawless, a hip hop artist whose story Lee employed to em-phasize the importance of caring

for victims of gun violence. Lee concluded that above all else, an attentive ear and compassion are the best tools to overcome chal-lenges of violence in racialized communities.

In keeping with the emphasis on empathy, a moving talk by Lisa Boivin on indigenous resilience through art followed. Boivin ar-dently recounted times of personal healing and her relationship with her daughter among sources of inspiration for the reclamation of indigenous identity.

Immediately following the break, professional dancers–turned–U of T students Patrick Lavoie and Chris Stalzer took the stage.

Stalzer danced with the National Ballet of Canada in 2007 and per-formed as second soloist in 2012. Lavoie danced as first soloist for 12 years, ultimately retiring from the National Ballet of Canada in 2015.

Both individuals have spent their entire lives training their bodies and minds to be meticulous pieces of art.

TEDx continued on page 14

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUMThis year’s conference featured 11 speakers and three musical artists.

ERIC HEWITSONSPORTS EDITOR COREY BELFORDONLINE EDITOR

03.21.2016 THE MEDIUM FEATURES» 13

Speedreading a feasible option—or not?For students taking five courses or more per semester, it adds up to a lot of reading

University students spend a good chunk of their time doing required readings for courses. They also spend their time before tests cramming as much information they possibly can into their brains. For students who take five courses, if not more, per semester, that adds up to a lot of reading, and sometimes in order to catch up, students may speedread. This brings about the question: does speedreading help with memory re-tention?

Some may reason that it’s better to quickly read something than not read it at all. Assia Messaoudi, a third-year English major, agrees that speedread-ing is “equivalent to reading a sum-mary. It takes a lot less time”.

When dealing with copious amounts of information, university students need to be able to decide what information is important and disregard the rest.

“It is not only key to read the mate-rial quickly, but to also be able to ab-sorb any key information,” says Joey Close, a third-year professional writ-ing and CCIT double major.

Close finds that speedreading

brings about another skill, known as selective reading, which allows the reader to zero in on useful informa-tion and discard the rest.

A program called Iris Reading offers free (online and in-person) speedreading and memory work-shops for U of T students who have trouble keeping up with their read-ing materials. These workshops teach

speedreading techniques with a focus on comprehension, and also teach ways to memorize effectively.

“As students, we’ve all been told to memorize things, but very few people have been taught how to memorize. There are very interest-ing techniques, some that date back to Ancient Greece, that can help stu-dents in scenarios where they need to

commit something to memory,” says Paul Nowak, the program director at Iris Reading.

The Iris program’s workshops not only help those who are strug-gling with their course readings, but Nowak says, “Students enrolled in our programs are basically learning how to learn.”

While speedreading can help de-

velop skills such as selective reading, how effective is the technique when it comes to memory retention? Are students who do last-minute studying or speedread a paragraph likely to re-member it in the long run?

UTM psychology professor Craig Chambers says that speedreading is ineffective and also hampers the pro-cess of getting the desired informa-tion from a text.

“When it comes to studying from print-based material, the best ad-vice is usually to do whatever you can to encourage ‘deep’ processing. This often involves doing some-thing to make the comprehension process more controlled and de-liberate, such as making ‘Fs’, ” says Chambers.

“The eye can only ‘take in’ print information when the eye is still, fo-cusing on a particular piece of text. These moments, which we call ‘fixa-tions’, last on average around 200 to 250 milliseconds in duration,” says Chambers. He also says that during these ‘fixations’, the human eye can only focus on three to four letters to the left and 14 to 15 letters to the right from the point of fixation.

KARINA COTRANSTAFF WRITER

Speed continued on page 14

JILLIAN SEGOVIA/THE MEDIUMWhen dealing with readings, students need to decide what is important and disregard the rest.

Saini is heading towards warmer days in the south

Last year, Saini took a six-month ad-ministrative leave, where he focused on both his research and considering the priorities and “the future direc-tion of UTM”. It was late during his sabbatical, in November, when Saini was first approached about the pos-sibility of a position at the University of Canberra.

His initial reaction was not very positive. Saini says that he “wasn’t even thinking [about] this kind of [opportunity]” as he had just accept-ed a second term as the principal of UTM.

“But as we talked more, it became more and more interesting,” says Saini.

Saini says that his move is not a matter of prestige or the position of-fered, but that it’s simply a “once in a lifetime” opportunity.

“It’s the nature of the project. They have a very significant campus de-velopment project to do, both in terms of physical development of the campus—they’re looking at about 1.6 billion dollars of development […] and the academic development of the campus. It’s the nature of the work there they have conceived they would do—it’s exceptionally excit-ing. There’s nothing like that hap-pening anywhere else in the world, in any university. And that’s what excites me,” says Saini.

There is also a sentimental aspect to his decision: Saini believes that he owes his start to Australia, where he received “top-class education” which he didn’t have to pay for.

“That country gave me an abso-lutely amazing education—and this is my opportunity to pay [it] back,” says Saini.

He further comments that this “doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt to leave UTM—that duality is going to be a big regret. I wish I had spent an-other five years here at UTM. I wish I could do both somehow. I will miss UTM sorely.”

But what about the ideas that Saini had been developing through his sabbatical—how will they be imple-mented?

“Things happen when you are planning something else—this is one of those things,” he says.

“I have done a lot of work, and have given a lot of thought to the fu-ture of UTM. But I also believe that it would be not very prudent and ethi-cal on my part—now that I’m leav-ing—to openly articulate a vision for UTM, because I won’t be here to carry [it] out,” says Saini.

However, Saini will be leaving his thoughts with U of T president Mer-ic Gertler and a few key members of the administration.

“I certainly am very committed to not inadvertently doing any harm by my departure. So I won’t be talking openly about my vision any more, but I will be leaving my thoughts with others, because a lot of work has been done on this,” he says.

As for his final few months here at UTM, Saini will be focusing on tran-sitioning.

“I’m here practically to the end of July, so I’m actually starting to work with my senior colleagues to ask them about what are perhaps [the] two or three most important things in their portfolios, with which they would need my help to take to frui-tion, or at least substantially advance those before the next person takes over,” says Saini.

While these tasks will keep him

busy during the day, at night, he will be occupied with the arduous task of packing.

Looking back on the period of Saini’s tenure, a key feature has been the several building projects that have been initiated (and completed), such as the Instructional Centre, Deerfield Hall, Innovation Complex, the completion of the Terrence Don-nelly Health Sciences Complex, and the Centre for South Asian Civiliza-tions.

When I ask him about which proj-ect he would consider to be the most important, Saini’s reply is immediate: “All of them.” Though he does admit that he has a special attachment to the Innovation Complex.

Three years ago, before the Inno-vation Complex was built, the area consisted of the Kaneff Centre (built in 1992) and a circular green lawn in the middle. Saini and Paul Dono-ghue, UTM’s chief administrative officer, reimagined the architecture together. They imagined a structure standing in place of the lawn. What shocks Saini the most is that the ar-chitects rendered that dream and made it a reality.

“Every time I go there, I think, ‘Yes, we dreamed of that,’ ” says Saini.

Saini is also looking forward to the upcoming renovations to the North Building.

“I have a bit of an emotional feel-ing about [that] one […] because when I first came here in 2010, I vis-ited all the departments. One of the thing[s] that I got from everyone in the North Building [was the ques-tion] ‘Can you do something about this building?’ ” says Saini.

While Saini regrets that he will not be around to see the construction, he says that he will be coming “all the way from Australia to see the open-ing of this building”.

“I feel that [the North Building] is the fulfilment of a promise that I had made [to] my colleagues,” says Saini. He comments that this situation is similar to what happened to him as he left the University of Waterloo. Despite his position here at UTM, he returned to see the opening of the new building that he had previously initiated.

Aside from the many structural achievements, Saini believes that a part of the legacy he will leave be-hind includes “qualitative changes”.

“I feel that UTM is [a] much more confident place than when I arrived here. It was confident, but the confi-dence of UTM and what it aspires to, and how it is viewed in the commu-nity, [and] how it is viewed in the tri-campus system has gone a quantum leap forward. We think of ourselves not as a satellite campus anymore—we think of us as a university. I often joke about it: there’s UTM, and then there’s our satellite, downtown To-ronto,” says Saini.

Along with these achievements, Saini has also faced several challeng-es during his term as UTM principal, such as clashes with students regard-ing parking fees and last year’s CUPE 3902 strike.

“[There were] some of the de-

bates with my student colleagues—at times, we had some moments on parking and so on, where I feel that we reached a kind of dead-end im-passe where there is no way for us to reconcile our differences. But that’s the nature of any job. I’ll have that in Canberra, and no matter where I’ll go,” says Saini.

As for the CUPE 3902 strike, Saini believes that it was a “very unfortu-nate period in the history of our in-stitution”.

“A great institution such as the University of Toronto ought to be able to sort out their differences without going to that extreme. I don’t blame anybody. Whenever something goes wrong to that point, it’s a collective failure. It’s not an in-dividual’s failure. It’s not a particular group’s failure. We all failed,” says Saini.

During the strike, there was a student sit-in outside Saini’s office—which Saini joined.

“I was saddened by the effect [the strike] had on the students—espe-cially undergraduate students. I was also pleased that we are on a campus where the principal can sit down with students who are protesting and can have that kind of conver-sation. That’s why I’m so proud of people here […] that we never lose sight [of] our relationships, that we never lose sight of our ability to talk and that was the beauty […]. I’ll re-member that as one of the highlights of my time here that we had that mo-ment—it lasted for half an hour. It was a beautiful moment,” says Saini.

I jokingly tell him that we can rec-reate the moment.

He laughs and says that he’ll bring pizza this time.

Saini continued from page 12

Saini says that his move is not a matter of

prestige or the position offered, but that it’s simply a “once in a

lifetime” opportunity.

14 «FEATURES THE MEDIUM 03.21.2016

With the end of the semester approaching,

it’s time for the last Blackboard Special in-

stalment of the year.

It’s funny how quickly a year passes—in

fact, I can still clearly remember typing out

my first Blackboard Special last Septem-

ber. While I was writing about a dish that I

loved (Chinese fried rice), I was also quite

hesitant. Who was I to write about cooking

and preparing food, when my idea of cook-

ing was tossing a basic salad together?

While I still haven’t found the answer

to that particular question, the recipes of

this year certainly have given me a great-

er appreciation for the finer points of the

“foodie” culture. I have yet to become the

next Martha Stewart—which remains quite

unlikely—but at least I now understand the

magic behind creating fancy desserts such

as an Australian pavlova.

My final recipe for this year is a par-

fait—or, as I call it, a DIY parfait. No, this

recipe is not going to help you recreate the

classic French-style dessert. Instead, it’s a

healthier version layered with strawberries

and a personal favourite of mine, mangoes,

that makes for an excellent breakfast when

I’m in a rush.

The Blackboard Special will be back

again next year with even more mouth-wa-

tering recipes, but until then, bon appétit,

folks.DIY Parfait

INGREDIENTS

• ½ cup of Greek yogurt

• 1 tbsp of sugar

• 1 tbsp of honey

• 1 tbsp of Rooh Afza syrup (concentrated

squash)

• 1 banana, peeled and sliced

• 1 mango, peeled and chopped

• Mixture of berries, chopped (e.g. straw-

berries, blueberries, and raspberries)

• Biscuits, crushed (optional)

METHOD

1.Spoon three tbsp of yogurt into a bowl

(or, if you’re feeling fancy and want to

achieve a dessert-like look, a tall glass).

2.Add the chopped mangoes, bananas,

and strawberries.

3.Mix the yogurt with the fruits using a

spoon until the yogurt covers all the

fruits.

4.Add the honey, sugar, Rooh Afza syrup,

and remaining yogurt to the mixture.

5.Mix thoroughly.

6.Refrigerate for 30 minutes or place in

the freezer for up to 10 minutes to cool.

7.Sprinkle crushed biscuits over top of the

mixture.

8.Serve immediately.

SERVES 1–2

Speeding through notes

“This limitation in acuity is the rea-son why we make many shifts in our point-of-gaze as we read,” says Chambers.

According to Chambers, there is a way to become a more “effective and efficient reader”, without rely-ing on speedreading. The answer is to read more.

“Individuals who engage in read-ing more often show stronger abili-ties to extract information and cor-rectly identify the broader meaning of a stretch of text,” says Chambers.

However, Maxanna Brooks, a part-time graduate student at Uni-versity of Southern California and a participant in the Iris speedread-ing workshops, says that one key technique that she picked up was “to utilize [her] finger or a pen as a guide to focus and anchor [her] eye movements to the page as [she] reads”.

“This assists with smoothly glid-ing the eyes back and forth across each page. This method is in lieu of the jerky, one-word-at-a-time man-ner I was used to. Rolling my eyes instead of jerking the eyeballs actu-ally did reduce the strain I had be-gun to feel,” says Brooks.

Brooks believes that techniques such as these both increased her confidence in tackling numerous reading assignments and decreased her “anxiety levels from wondering if I would be able to keep up with the many reading assignments for my classes now and in the future”.

Chambers cautions against hav-ing expectations that speedreading will help retain information, saying that “a better way to test yourself is to see if you can recall and explain material without any more assis-tance than a keyword or two to get you started”.

Nowak, however, warns against taking too much time in notetak-ing when first setting out to read. “It would be better to finish read-ing a paragraph or section of text before taking notes,” he says. “Notes should be concise with abbrevia-tions used when possible so you can quickly get back to making progress through your reading material.”

“The reason [the Iris Program] focus[es] so strongly on compre-hension and memorization strate-gies is because too many speedread-ing programs focus only on speed. But speed means nothing if you can’t understand and remember what you read,” says Nowak.

Speed continued from page 13

TEDxUofT returns bigger

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUMStudents were treated to a live demonstration of Google Cardboard.

To have their narratives come crash-ing down recently because of aging is a cruel fact to swallow, but these two talented men have not ended their journeys yet. They are cur-rently reinventing themselves, living in a world that has obstacles outside of ballet, and they couldn’t be more excited and frightened at the same time.

Stalzer and Lavoie have taken up a university education at the Universi-ty of Toronto. While there is an odd-ity about coming to class among a whole class of 18-year-olds, the two accept their lives as unique journeys and something with a lesson learned at the end.

“Here we are now and it’s been a whirlwind of a year; in a way, it feels like we’re taking two steps backwards to go one step forward,” said Stalzer. “This isn’t a success story, it’s a story about transition and we’re constantly trying to adapt to what’s next.”

“Its been therapy sometimes—the stage is a very special place, and there’s nothing quite like it. We had the chance to fulfill a dream and now our new journey isn’t perfect, but it gives us an opportunity to explore something new,” said Lavoie.

“Art isn’t exclusive, art is every-where, and I think that wherever we end up, our artistic past will be a part of that,” he added.

Following a talk on the impor-tance of home cooking by Bonnie Stern and a heartfelt performance by singer and Montreal native Pe-ter Katz, Nazar Polodian took the

stage to educate on providing work opportunities for refugees, infusing the event yet again with the perva-sive emphasis on social compassion. Polodian, himself a Syrian refugee, cited his personal experiences as an example of what can be accom-plished when Canadian communi-ties reach out to refugees with open arms.

Next up was Swish Goswami, who, bounding onto the stage in a pair of Yeezys, presented an invigo-rating case for social entrepreneur-ship. Goswami, an 18-year-old uni-versity student, carried a rock star appeal and almost immediately had the entire theatre’s attention. The first to explicitly state the word “em-pathy” as the key feature of social engagement, Goswami cemented the event as a socially conscious call to arms. Recounting his challenges as a young man, including a speech impediment and immigrant status, Goswami endeavoured to make it clear that no challenge was too in-surmountable for those wanting to make a positive dent in their com-munity.

The third quarter concluded with a summation of current efforts to combat climate change by Sara Hughes, assistant professor of politi-cal science at U of T.

Beginning with U of T student Jane Souralayack’s beatbox perfor-mance, the final quarter proceeded with an analysis of the current prog-ress of drone technology by Angela Scheoling as well as a reflection on the importance of archaeological documentation in the 21st century

by Timothy Harrison. Finally, delegates heard from a

man who in just a single decade could become known as “The Mar-tian”. Ben Criger, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Waterloo, is one of 100 candidates being suggested for the final 24 colonists headed to Mars in 2026.

Criger said that the first thing NASA asked him when he applied to go to Mars was whether he had a sense of humour, which he said he does.

“The question becomes why I would want to go. When I was a kid, my mom and dad used to have a say-ing that they would use whenever we were unable to get something done as a society or species. They’d point to whatever it was and say [that] we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t get our species to do this on Earth,” he said.

“The estimate to head to Mars is about $2 billion a year. We already spend about $10 billion a year on space exploration so it isn’t crazy to say we could spend $2 billion send-ing people to Mars. If you look at the way money is spent on Earth, it’s em-barrassing; for example, over the past 90 days, Star Wars VII sold over $2 billion dollars’ worth in tickets. The question is, are we willing to spend money in real space rather than [in science fiction]?” said Criger.

“Having a Mars colony shouldn’t happen because we can, [but be-cause] we have to do it because the only way we’re going to survive and prosper in the long run is if we do,” said Criger.

TEDx continued from page 12

03.21.2016 » 15

Ping pong brings March MadnessThe UTM Ping Pong Club concludes the year with their March Madness tournament

Last Friday, the UTM Ping Pong Club held its final event of the year, seeing an impressive number of par-ticipants come and compete for ping pong supremacy. It was like Balls of Fury in the multipurpose room in the athletic facilities.

At the beginning of the event, stu-dents participated in accuracy and team-building challenges, which improved their skills before the one-on-one tournament began. Organiz-ers gathered up the participants and put them into groups where games are held at four different tables al-located throughout the room. Balls flew around, screams and chants were heard from down the hall, and new friendships and rivalries were built. Bring a water bottle before coming, because the games can get mentally and physically fatiguing.

During these tournaments, the better players with more experience enjoyed helping the beginners im-prove their skills. The players with crafty serving styles went around and demonstrated their strategies to

help improve the overall quality of play.

Prizes are always handed out at the end of the tournaments; this year,

participants received ping pong balls and $25 and $50 Square One gift cards to the second place and first place finishers, respectively.

Ali Aleyan finished in second place after having a great round robin tournament, winning all of his preliminary games. Although Aley-

an had trouble against Ruan Venter in the finals, with Venter taking two straight 11-point matches (13-11, 12-10) and taking home the $50 gift card.

“The turnout was pretty nice; we had 12 people participate in the tournament and 16 to 18 people participate in the mini-games,” says UTM Ping Pong Club president Pritesh Patel.

Next year, the goal for the Ping Pong Club is to include more tour-naments in their schedule, with the hope of having at least one every month. With more awareness and participation, the $5 membership fee will help purchase fun prizes for top finishers. Patel believes it would be a unique experience to have Anqi Luo come out and play against the dedicated participants. Luo is one of Canada’s top female table tennis players with strong aspirations for the next summer Olympics.

“Our biggest goal for next year would be holding an event in the big [RAWC] gym. This grabs the atten-tion of many people, and we hope to draw larger crowds next year,” says Patel.

Marathoning your way through exams

ERIC HEWITSONSPORTS EDITOR

PRITESH PATEL/PHOTOPritesh Patel congratulates Ruan Venter for winning the tournament.

There are many physical and cognitive benefits to exercising during the exam period

Soon enough, students will be-gin emerging from hibernation and congregating in libraries and study spaces to prepare for the most painful time of the year: exam season. And while trying to cram a semester’s worth of infor-mation into a highly caffeinated and deliriously sleep-deprived brain is stress-inducing to say the least, finding the time to hit the gym might prove as effective as hitting the books.

Researchers in Germany recent-ly tested the effects of exercise on university students’ responses to the stresses experienced during final exams. The results of their study support the idea that adapt-ing to one form of stress is thought to induce adaptation and translate into tolerance for other forms of stress as well. This “cross-stressor adaptation hypothesis” means that the physical stress experienced by the body during a workout im-proves your body’s ability to re-spond to non-exercise stressors, like cramming for an exam, writ-ing a paper, or even looking at your bank account, as in my case.

The stress response is measured in slight variations in the time between consecutive heartbeats, termed as a person’s “heart rate variability”. This variability gives an indication of the balance be-

tween the parasympathetic (rest and digest function) and sympa-thetic (fight or flight response) components of the autonomic nervous system. In stressful situ-ations, a decrease in the parasym-

pathetic nervous system reduces HRV, as the body is preparing to deal with the stressful situation and heighten its sympathetic re-sponses.

The heart rhythms of students

in the study that regularly en-gaged in 30 to 60–minute exercise regiments twice a week had higher heart variability, which was an in-dication of reduced stress, even during their highly stressful exam period.

The chronic stresses and pres-sures we experience nearing the end of the semester as assign-ments, labs, and tests are due raise the risk of severe heart issues and an eroding of health in the long run.

Unavoidable as it is, stress doesn’t have to mean total self-destruction, especially if you mentally and physically prepare yourself. In fact, exercise not only keeps HRV values closer to nor-mal, but it may even be linked to boosting mood and immune func-tion and helping keep ailments like high cholesterol and heart disease at bay.

You might be stressed from all the studying you haven’t done, like me. As counterintuitive as this may seem, there isn’t a better way to procrastinate than by exercising to prepare your body to handle the hurricane of stress that’s just around the corner.

AMANDA BORTHWICKSTAFF WRITER

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUM

Exercising improves your heart’s response to the stress experienced during final exams.

16 «SPORTS THE MEDIUM 03.21.2016

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUM

It’s better to choose a healthy diet over exercise, if you had to choose.

It can be extremely difficult to lose weight—there never seems to be the proper combination of diet and exercise that works. If you were given only one option to decide on, which one would you choose? So many people place emphasis on maintaining strong workout hab-its so they can eat whatever they want afterwards, but in actuality you really only need to maintain a careful healthy diet to look like the next Instagram model. So the next time you have to decide between eating that chocolate bar and then running an hour on the treadmill or ditching the chocolate bar and eating a salad instead, researchers

strongly suggest ditching the choc-olate bar and going for the salad.

Your overall level of physical activity is not your primary de-termining factor for weight loss. Eliminating saturated and trans fats from your diet and eating less carbohydrates at night will lead to greater weight loss maintenance than doing physical exercise.

Of course, both diet and exercise together would be the best combi-nation for tightening up your core and eliminating the fat you don’t want. By no means eliminate exer-cise from your routine; exercise has so many more physical and cogni-tive benefits, such as slowing your aging process and improving men-tal health. Exercise has been noted to not only burn calories while

you’re awake, but also burn calories while you’re asleep. An eight-hour sleep at night equals to approxi-mately 300 burnt fat calories—but if you ingest carbohydrates before bed, then no fat is being burnt. If you’re serious about losing weight or maintaining healthy habits, you’ll understand that overeating or overportioning your meals is not a step in the right direction.

What’s being argued here is that if you’re emphasizing a strong workout routine, but haven’t con-centrated on your nutrition, you should spend your energy focusing on what you’re putting into your body a little more. Then if you have enough time to hit the weights or the pavement, then go ahead and do that.

ERIC HEWITSONSPORTS EDITOR

Picking a fitting pair of shoes

There are two kinds of people in the world—the ones who like neon yellow shoes and the ones who don’t. I’m of the collective that doesn’t. Finding the perfect pair of shoes for sports can be a stressful experience for anyone; there are so many shoes for different purposes, and you may not understand their particular purpose.

First of all, choose a pair of shoes that comfortably fit your feet; if the shoes are too tight or too large, you can come across debilitating foot injuries or blisters.

There are three different cat-egories of shoes: running, training, and walking. For walking shoes or running shoes, you want to choose a comfortable soft upper, shock-absorbent shoe that encourages the natural roll of the foot. Track and field sports shoes are the easiest to determine for most people be-cause they’re studded at the bottom to increase traction on turf and grass. The sizes of the spikes vary depending on the conditions of the outdoor surface; if it’s a muddy field, the spikes are sharper and longer, but wider and shorter spikes are designed for short cut grass. Longer spikes are better for soccer, football, and rugby because of the field surface used in these sports. Shorter spikes are better for golf,

baseball, and track and field.If you’re interested in extensive

exercise while maintaining good health for the joints and bones in the feet, shoes that are lightweight prevent foot fatigue. Shoes that mould to the natural outline of your foot are also incredibly important.

For basketball and tennis, you need a shoe that supports the foot during side-to-side movements. A shoe that provides stability on the inside and outside of the foot is key. Choose a thick, stiff sole. Make sure you have ankle stability and tie up your shoes comfortably.

There are aids for your foot when problems and injuries occur. A heel cup provides an efficient way to alleviate pain beneath the heel, known as plantar fasciitis. An or-thosis, or arch support, can relieve pain in the arch of the foot.

Shoes like Asics are highly rec-ommended walking and running shoes; their support and shock absorbency protects the foot from injuries and fatigue. If you’re some-one who likes to go and lift heavy weights, you’ll be recommended to slide on some training shoes, such as Adidas and Under Armour shoes. The benefit of a cross-training shoe is that the shoe is versatile enough to be used for a variety of activities. Its sole is typically flat, allowing you to balance heavy weight evenly without rolling your ankle.

ERIC HEWITSONSPORTS EDITOR

The Medium family bids a fond farewell to our readers this year! Not pictured: Mayank Sharma and Kimberly Johnson.