The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

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The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

Transcript of The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

Page 1: The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

Volume 48 - Issue 24April 8, 2015

theeyeopener.com@theeyeopener

Since 1967

p5PHOTO: EYEOPENER PHOTO TEAM

looney news

That’s all Folks!

Page 2: The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

Wednesday, April 8, 20152

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Wednesday, April 8, 2015 NEWS 3

The horrors of Pitman Hall

Pitman Hall residents say the living conditions don’t justify the price tag.PHOTO: Jake kivanc

By Jake Kivanc

Uncomfortable living conditions, questionable policies and possible bylaw violations have those liv-ing in Pitman Hall asking whether the money they paid to stay in the building was worth the stress.

Consisting of 565 rooms and housing upwards of 550 students, Pitman Hall is Ryerson’s second-oldest residence building and in-cludes one of the school’s three caf-eterias.

It is also a place that some stu-dents feel dissatisfied living in.

“I paid a lot for my room,” said Jack Hopkins, a first-year journal-ism student living in the building. “It’s really irritating when stuff doesn’t work. My first choice was O’Keefe for the same thing I have now. It was thousands of dollars cheaper.”

Hopkins, 18, lives in one of Pit-man’s double rooms — a shared living space with two beds in close vicinity and a small kitchen, much like the typical layout of most dorms.

Like Pitman’s doubles, O’Keefe House rooms are shared, with both double and triple occupancy rooms available. When applying to stay in residence, Hopkins labelled his first choice as O’Keefe House due to the cheaper price of roughly $5,000 for an eight-month stay, as opposed to the equivalent at Pitman for nearly twice that, at $9,600.

When finding out he was placed in Pitman Hall, Hopkins said that he assumed the higher cost would mean an improvement in quality, but was disappointed to find that the rooms and overall maintenance of the building were “terrible.”

“The washrooms are always dirty and stuff takes forever to get fixed. It’s pretty ridiculous if you ask me,” Hopkins said.

While issues within students’ rooms were resolved quickly via electronic maintenance requests, problems outside the actual living areas were not — over a three-month investigation, The Eyeopen-

er found maintenance issues that were left unattended for weeks at a time, with examples including feces-covered, clogged bathroom stalls, malfunctioning washing ma-chines and mouldy shower curtains.

The Eyeopener also discovered water temperatures in the commu-nity showers that rose as high as 56 degress celsius, seven degrees higher than the legal limit of 49 degrees as set out in the Building Code Act.

Ian Crookshank, director of housing and residence life at Stu-dent Housing Services (SHS), said that despite occassional errors, they try to address all problems quickly.

“We tend to endeavour to fix a problem as quickly as possible,” he said. “We all want to run a per-fect program and a perfect system, but there are some times when things can slip through.”

According to Crookshank, all maintenance and cleaning is con-tracted out to Ainsworth Inc. and Acura Maintenance respective-ly, both of whom make regular sweeps of the building for issues.

Crooshank did note, however, that much of the responsibility is on students and staff to report problems through the mainte-nance system.

Another issue residents of the building must contend with is the

lockout policy that SHS has in place.Since all rooms in Pitman are se-

cured with a keycard system that opens when a person inserts the card and locks automatically when the door is closed, lockouts are as simple as forgetting the card in one’s room and having the door shut.

This feature is not present in the International Living Learn-ing Centre (ILLC), which requires students to lock their doors from the outside.

Every time a student is locked out, a charge is incurred, with the first one being free and steadily increas-ing every time afterwards, starting at $5 and rising to $50 by the sixth lockout. A staff member then must unlock the room manually.

Chandler Borland, a second-year business management student who has been locked out multiple times, said he sees the policy as “a subtle form of extortion.

“I disagree with the amounts they charge students each time we lock ourselves out,” he said. “I personally believe it should be a flat rate and not incremental.”

Borland, describing a time he was particularly frustrated at be-ing locked out, said that the wait is unreasonable for the price.

“I don’t remember exactly where I was going, but I was either really late for a class or had plans to meet

someone,” he said. “The frustrating part was having to stand around for almost 20 minutes until some-one arrived to assist me.”

Crookshank said that the lockout policy acts as both a form of com-pensation for “time spent” by main-tenance and a type of punishment. “It’s a bit punitive,” he said. “It is to look toward the standpoint of edu-cating the students to take their keys with them.”

Crookshank also noted that a percentage of the funds extracted from lockouts is going toward a future replacement of the build-ing’s locks, although no time frame was provided.

Similarly, the mandatory land-line service supplied to students in Pitman Hall and ILLC costs each resident $156 and nets a total of $127,452. The Eyeopener discov-ered last week that despite these charges, students are using their landlines very little.

On top of the living issues, dis-gruntled meal plan-holders are not uncommon. Students like Morgan Bockneck, who has celiac disease and is lactose intolerant, said that the policy of being forced into a minimum $2,500 meal plan has made life difficult.

“They have the pre-made food, but sometimes there’s no gluten-free options,” she said. “Often times, gluten-free options are dairy and I can’t have that.”

Although not in direct control of meal plan policy, Crookshank said the reason for not allowing students to opt out is mainly based on the in-convenience that cooking has made for students in the past and that students who have any issues with existing policy should speak up.

“The more that I hear from stu-dents, the better,” he said. “I think some times, the struggle is that year over year, people make the as-sumption that things have always been this way and things are never going to change.”

To read more about residence meals plans and Pitman Hall, visit theeyeopener.com.

Ryerson science gets innovativeBy Aidan Macnab

The Eyeopener investigates:

New zone learning initiatives are on the horizon as the science fac-ulty is planning on creating a zone focused on innovation in science.

Plans for the zone are still in the preliminary stages. Director of zone learning Randy Boyagoda and science faculty dean Imogen Coe are meeting with student lead-ers and faculty members to figure out what a science-focused zone will look like.

Those ideas will be brought to Provost Mohamed Lachemi to de-termine what needs to be done to bring the zone to life.

“I’m excited,” Boyagoda said. “Because what we see on campus is students who are creative and ambitious and want to try to do something beyond their classroom experience.”

In addition to a new science-related learning zone, Boyagoda said there is interest in developing a zone for engineering students as well. Next year Ryerson, in collab-oration with St. Michael’s Hospi-tal, will unveil a bio-medical zone.

Boyagoda met with computer science students last week to fur-ther discuss the new zone.

“They were all really impressed with the idea of having a dedicat-ed space and access to devices that would let them experiment and explore new ways of enhancing on computing experience,” he said.

The multi-discipline approach is a response to feedback Boyagoda said he has been getting from stu-dents who want something that speaks to their interest similar to the Digital Media Zone.

Zone learning is intended to bring students together for experi-ential learning and interdisciplin-ary collaboration. The zones pro-vide workspace, resources, specific learning modules and connect stu-dents with mentors, professionals and entrepreneurs who try to turn ideas into reality.

“Every university in North America is trying in some way, shape or form to find a way to support student innovation,” Boyagoda said. “At Ryerson we have a mandate, because of our very charter, to provide career rel-evant, socially-engaged education and I think zone learning is a very good way of doing that.”

The zones are meant to help students gain contacts and apply their skills to the real world.

“It’s about the experience stu-dents get from taking an idea and being given the opportunity to work on that idea and to change the world,” Coe said.

By The News Team

Beloved Editor-in-Chief Mo “Mosie DiManno” Omar was torn limb from limb during a riot on Gould Street on April 8. Police have detained an editor from the rival campus paper, The Ryersonian.

“He was telling people I was some kind of mole for The Eyeopener,” said Sean W.E.I.C. Wetselaar. “He messed with stuff that was way above his head.”

Sources close to Omar said that

he may have started the riot himself after a mental breakdown.

“It started with relatable GIF ar-ticles, ‘15 Moments from Friends that Feel like Exams,’ stuff like that. But then he got obsessed,” said Me-hdad Behichi, online editor. “Soon we were pumping out 40 GIF ar-ticles with titles like ‘Best Cats to Look at While Pooping.’ He lost it.”

Omar’s obsession only grew. Plans were found in his office stating he discovered a “format so innova-tive that would make Sheldon Levy

look like a fucking troglodyte.”But he soon began setting fire to

news stands and muttering “Dead format, no scrollbar.”

Omar then stopped abruptly, an unidentifiable twinkle in his eye, and started sprinting.

Reports indicate that Omar broke into the puppy clinic at Ryer-son and began shoveling dogs into a large burlap sack and rushed out to Gould Street.

“He had Satan in his eyes,” said graduating journalism-student Jack-

ie Hong. “It makes a great story for page three.”

Omar began pelting people with puppies screaming “CLICK IT, YOU BASTARDS,” until a crowd gathered around him.

Soon after, Omar was torn asun-der by annoyed rioters.

Omar’s former roommate, Charles Vanegas, said that this was a dark day for journalism.

“Fuck Sean Wetselaar,” he said.Omar was wearing blue when

he died.

Editor-in-Chief ripped to bloody shreds

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Editor-in-ChiefMohamed “Hasta La Vista” Omar

NewsJackie “True Grit” Hong

Jake “Shawarma Wraps” ScottKeith “Fuckseanwetselaar” Capstick

FeaturesCharles “Ass = Grass” Vanegas

Biz & TechLaura “WomanKind” Woodward

Arts and LifeAl “STONE COLD” Downham

SportsJosh “www.internet.web” Beneteau

CommunitiesDylan “Serial” Freeman-Grist

PhotoRob “Bugs” Foreman

Sierra “Daffy Duck” BeinStephen “Foghorn” Armstrong

FunEmma “Shmema” Cosgrove

MediaBadri “Venn Master” Murali

OnlineFarnia “Newsicle: The Musical” Fekri

Behdad “Short Hair Don’t Care” Mahichi

Web DeveloperKerry “Bye Kerry!” Wall

General ManagerLiane “Too Much Wine” McLarty

Advertising ManagerChris “Maple Whisky” Roberts

Design DirectorJ.D. “Jesus Selfi e” Mowat

Circulation ManagerMegan “Circ Part Deux” Higgins

ContributorsDana “Deadgirl” Dwaik Kyle “Honest” EdwardsAlina “Good” Bykova

Natacha “Tex Mex” JanjicDavid “Dangle” MorassuttiDeni “Gherkin” Verklan

Aidan “TALK TO ME!” MacnabAllan “Take A Hike, Guy!” PerkinsJake “You’re Good Man” KivancRobert “Actually Fun” Mackenzie

Youp “SO HIGH” ZondagDevin “Early Riser” JonesAnnie “CLOSED” Arnone

Chris “Hi Chris” Blanchette

Nick “Smashes Things” DunneJulia “Welcome” Knope

Mansoor “Badass” TanweerJacob “Incoming” Dubé

David “He Has Risen” LaoBahoz “Syndicated” Dara

Hayley “Tree Queen” HanksSalmaan “Invisible” Farooqui

Super Awesome InternsAnika “Thank You” SyedaHayley “For Being” Adam

Mohamud “The Best” IsmailSarah-Jayne “Interns Ever” A. Canlas

Playing the part of the Annoying Talking Coffee Mug this week is having to leave this place. *cries* *boogers extend from nostrils* *sees boogers* *eats boogers* *smiles*

The Eyeopener is owned and oper-ated by Rye Eye Publishing Inc. You can reach us at 416-979-5262, at theeyeopener.com or on Twitter at @theeyeopener.

ByMohamedOmar

I’ve been thinking about this fi nal editorial ever since I was elected as The Eyeopener’s editor-in-chief in March 2014.

What do I write? Do I list our accomplishments this year? Our biggest stories? Our most contro-versial reports? A bunch of words that rhyme with fart? Or do I write about the role of a student newspa-per on campus and the responsibili-ties of student journalists?

For inspiration, I looked at the fi nal editorials of previous editors, all the way back to 1998 (stuff got weirder beyond that, because the nineties).

Some wrote a regular opinion piece on something that was big that week. Some (rightfully) com-plained about Ryerson and how it had messed something up. Others talked about the student union’s fuck-ups actions.

All of them were dandy edito-rials, but none were true to what a departing editor-in-chief really wants to write. None of them ex-

pressed what I believe was going through their (and now my) head: Fuck, I have to leave now?

The Eyeopener taught me every-thing I think I know about journal-ism, from writing a coherent and interesting story to properly editing a photograph to managing a herd of ridiculously talented editors. The school, which has to accommodate all kinds of learning curves, did not. It tried to spoon-feed me lessons — The Eyeopener shoved them down my throat and gave me a beer or seven as a chaser.

This place gave me great friends and taught me how to work with all kinds of people. It taught me to be patient, to care more and, much to the chagrin of rapper Big Sean, to fuck with you.

This place taught me to appre-ciate attention to detail, to praise the weird and — cliché time! — question everything, my sanity included.

I’ve had the greatest job in the universe for the past eight months and it’s hard to leave. But I will leave — OK, technically I have to— because change is good. Change brings fresh blood. Change keeps this place from rotting into a

THANK YOU TO OUR GLORIOUS, TALENTED AND DEDICATED CONTRIBUTORS

congratulations to our new editors for fall 2015

Sean Wetselaar - Editor-in-ChiefJacob Dubé - Biz & Tech editor

Devin Jones - Sports editorAnnie Arnone - Photo editor

Robert Mackenzie - Fun editor

4 EDITORIAL Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Don’t cry for me, Eye-gentinathe eyeopener returns with a vengeance in august. brb

crusty carcass of amateurism, or worse — becoming part of the journalism school.

I wish incoming editor and hu-man-slinky Sean Wetselaar and everyone on future mastheads the best of luck and life at The Eyeopener. This place is more magical than Hogwarts on acid.

But before I leave, I’ll drop off some pearls of wisdom that I’ve collected over the past fi ve years:

1) Grown-ups do not always know what they’re doing or say-ing. Kind of like you!

2) Make fun of yourself as much as you can.

3) People will doubt you. Take that doubt and convert it into raw I’m-going-to-prove-you-so-fuck-ing-wrong motivation. It works!

4) Old people are in charge of a lot of things and a lot of them don’t do things right. Not for long!

5) Save money. Unless you can’t. Then save only a little money. If that’s impossible, well, shit.

6) Life after Ryerson isn’t the worst. At least I hope it isn’t.

7) People remember everything you’ve said and done to them. Keep that in mind no matter where you are. Bye!

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Wednesday, April 8, 2015 NEWS 5

Ryerson’s year in reviewThe news team saw the good, the bad, and the just plain weird. Here are our picks for stories that defi ned the 2014-2015 school year

Yup, Sheldon’s still pres

Year of the fi re truck

A most curious electionRams soar at CIS

Rise of Transform

Blood on the MAC fl oor

Sex assault policy

New year, new building

Freeze the Fees

Blood on the MAC fl oor

Year of the fi re truck

Rams soar at CIS

FreezeThe headhunters couldn’t fi nd a replacement for the city builder. After 13 months of searching, executive search fi rm Spencer Stuart was unable to fi nd a suitable president to take Sheldon Levy’s place.

On March 6, Ryerson announced that Levy would be staying for a term of up to two years due to the failure of the search. This threw a wrench in Levy’s plan to tour on his motor-cycle this summer, but it’s a sacrifi ce he had to make. The announcement also killed the farewell party called Decade of Change. No new plans have been made for another farewell party as “Up to Twelve Years of Change” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

This RSU election, The Eyeopener discovered that the Chief Returning Offi cer (CRO) Fatima Sajan, who was in charge of running the elec-tion, had sat on a York Federation of Students board with a current

RSU staff member. This staff member was Gilary Massa, the RSU’s director of communication and outreach, who was one of two

people responsible for hiring the CRO for the election. According to RSU bylaws, the CRO is supposed to be hired in conjunction

with the current RSU president. RSU President Rajean Hoi-lett said he was not involved in the process. We’re also

not sure if at any point they “hung out” or “chilled” during the election, because they wouldn’t tell

us. Sajan’s post-election report accused the university of interfering with the election, which Ryerson denied.

January was the most stab-happy month of the year with two separate incidents of assaults around the Mattamy Athletic

Centre. Roderick McIntosh, 67, was arrested on Jan. 11 for second-degree murder after using a samurai sword on two men in a fi ght that occurred at an apartment at Jarvis and Carlton streets. It’s a rare and terrifying day for a news editor when they have a reason to put “samurai sword” in print. Fifteen days later, someone

went on a Sunday morning stabbing spree that put three people in the hospital and left one injured. All four

victims were random people going about their morning routine.

Universities and colleges across the country launched reviews into how they handled sexual violence on campuses after a Toronto Star investigation revealed only nine in over 100 post-secondary schools had sexual assault policies. At Ryerson, Vice-Provost Students Heather Lane Vetere was put in charge of the review, which in-volved speaking to staff and students about their experiences on campus. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced an action plan to combat sexual violence in March, which makes it mandatory for colleges and universities to adopt a sexual assault policy and renew it every four years with input from students.

There seemed to be a fi re truck on campus every week this year at Ryerson. O’Keefe House burst into fl ames during the fi rst week back for winter semester, causing $50,000 in dam-ages. There was also a number of fi re alarms on campus this year, and The Eyeopener re-ported that each time one of them goes off, Toronto Fire Services charges the school $410 per truck per hour. One alarm was set off because the temperature in Kerr Hall got so high that the heat sensor trig-gered the alarm. Heat, yo!

For the fi rst time in four years, the RSU election featured an entire opposition slate, Transform Ryerson, to the incum-bent slate. The group was made up of a number of campus leaders from various faculty-related student societies and groups, most prevalently the Ryerson Commerce Society (RCS). The rise of the slate began with Rise for Ryerson, a group of students that protested the current RSU ex-ecutives’ campaign to lower tuition fees and were also closely tied to the RCS. Rise eventually culminated in Transform, led by president-elect Andrea Bartlett, also a former executive member of the RCS. The election blitz was unlike any in recent years and resulted in them sweeping the executive posi-tions.

The longest running and most visible campaign undertaken by the Ry-erson Students’ Union (RSU) saw the erection of Tent City and the

creation of an alternative budget. Freeze the Fees, spearheaded by Vice-President Education Jesse Root, was a polarizing force on campus. It was the spark that created anti-RSU group Rise for Ryerson and the inspiration for the satirical Freeze the Peas campaign. The RSU also drafted an alter-native budget claiming the school could use part of what it called a $14-million “structural surplus” to halt tuition increases. Ryerson has said that this is not the case. The RSU

will still present this budget to the Board of Governors at their annual budget meeting in late April.

This year’s RSU election campaigns began with posters being ripped down and defaced, the number of director positions being confused and the starting date of elections being misreported. The confu-sion and miscommunication continued with the CRO taking days to respond to emails and answer candidates’ questions. But the election really got out of hand on the night votes were counted. Transform Ryerson scrutineers said they were told they were not allowed to travel with the ballots or stand in elevators with them. The CRO yelled at an Eyeopener news editor after allegedly chang-ing election rules saying she could change bylaws if she felt like it. The Eyeopener has since had a hard time fi guring out whether or not any of the candidates are emotionally traumatized by this clusterfuck. However, it has been confi rmed that Eyeopener news editor Keith Capstick has been having nightmares about the election since its fi nish.

The largest development at Ryerson is impossible to miss. The gargantuan Student Learning Centre (SLC) cost $112 million and boasts eight fl oors of dedicated student space. Each fl oor is even colour themed to match your notebook.

The building has been such a hit that even non-Ryerson students have come to take ad-vantage of the indoor tanning provided by the windowed wonder. It’s arguably the largest — and defi nitely the most visible — achievement of Sheldon Levy’s career so far at Ryer-son. The SLC had its soft-launch on Feb. 23 and the offi cial grand opening on March 31.

Ryerson hosted the CIS Final 8 Men’s Basketball tournament — the school’s fi rst time holding a national championship in any sport. Proving their status as the third-ranked team throughout the regular season was no fl uke, the Rams fi nished the playoffs with bronze medals around their necks — the fi rst time a Ryerson team has ever medalled at nationals in any sport. The city (and CIS marketing) went all out for the fi rst ever Final 8 held in Toronto, with several high profi le appearances and events throughout the week. It seemed to work: attendance totalled 16,874 for the 11-game, four-day event — a far cry from the days when Ryerson basketball games were only attended by players’ parents and partners.

The saga of the CROThis RSU election, The EyeopenerOffi cer (CRO) Fatima Sajan, who was in charge of running the elec-tion, had sat on a York Federation of Students board with a current

RSU staff member. This staff member was Gilary Massa, the RSU’s director of communication and outreach, who was one of two

people responsible for hiring the CRO for the election. According to RSU bylaws, the CRO is supposed to be hired in conjunction

with the current RSU president. RSU President Rajean Hoi-lett said he was not involved in the process. We’re also

not sure if at any point they “hung out” or “chilled” during the election, because they wouldn’t tell

us. Sajan’s post-election report accused the university of interfering with the

The saga of the CRO

Page 6: The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

6 Wednesday, April 8, 2015Features

While Soumia Allalou worked on her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, she regu-larly used the women-only gym hours provided at the university’s gym. They were convenient, she felt more comfortable and often went with friends. But after mov-ing to Montreal to study law at McGill, she was surprised by the lack of information on the univer-sity’s website about women-only hours.

“I just assumed they would have them,” says Allalou, 23. The ath-letic department informed her there were no such hours, but that she could come early when no one was around and “work in a corner.”

So Allalou began to work on a survey.

She contacted the Students’ So-ciety of McGill University (SSMU) and began talks with Jill Barker, the McGill athletics manager of marketing and communications. While Allalou says Barker was ini-

tially open to the idea of women-only hours, things changed after an article about her attempts was published in The McGill Tribune.

Posted on the Spotted At McGill Facebook page, the article sparked a petition against the idea of women-only times — with more than 600 signatures — which was sent to Ol-livier Dyens, McGill’s deputy pro-vost of student life and learning. Af-terwards Allalou says the university unilaterally cut off communication with her. However, on March 19, 2015, a day before Dyens released a media statement on his decision, he and Allalou met.

“He said, ‘Look, we basically disagree on how to solve the prob-lem that you’re thinking. It’s your choice how you decide to work out,’” recalls Allalou. “‘I don’t see a modesty issue at the gym, and, as a matter of principle, McGill will not segregate its services.’”

In his press release, Dyens de-fended the decision, saying “Mc-

Gill is a community where every form of di-versity (cultural, linguis-tic, gender, religion, etc.) is celebrated and encour-aged,” again referring to women-only gym times as “the segregation of services.”

But Allalou says she isn’t looking to segregate services.

“[It’s only] a couple of hours a week and we’re talking about a separate room. The main gym [would still] be co-ed.”

Before communica-tion had been cut off, Barker had shown Al-lalou the Varsity Weight Room, usually reserved

By Nick Dunne Photos by Sierra Beinfor student athletes, and Allalou estimated it could accommodate upwards of 30 people. Using this room would not prevent students from accessing the co-ed gym. Be-cause it wasn’t directly addressing the root cause, Allalou said that Dyens told her they would instead continue to train staff and encour-age women to report inappropri-ate behaviour. But Allalou says that isn’t enough.

“That’s exactly what the [facili-ties] have right now and that’s not working. What about women who can’t access the gym?” she says.

While there was similar resis-tance from some students when the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) sought to implement women-only hours in 2013, the path was less rocky. Demand from both the Muslim Students’ Association and the Centre for Women and Trans People — citing concerns about paying for the athletic facilities but being unable to access them for re-ligious reasons or comfort issues — led to a RSU survey in which 2,000 people responded in favour of the women-only hours.

The survey was presented to An-thony Seymour, Ryerson athletics’ manager of recreation, who cre-ated a pilot project last September.

Working with the RSU, he de-cided to offer an hour and a half every day at the Ryerson Athletic Centre (RAC), at times near peak hours. He was initially worried that there wouldn’t be enough de-mand for the hours, but says

the response has “far exceeded [his] expectations.”

Before women-only hours, Sey-mour estimates only 10 per cent of members working out in the weight room were female.

“When we started looking at some of our busier times, we were

24 women, while the afternoon shifts averaged 28 women in Oc-tober — when the hours were be-ing tested — and found that up to 60 women were coming through during women-only times.

Sydney McInnis, a first-year journalism student, says she some-times feels intimidated because she doesn’t know how to use all the equipment.

“I just feel judged. People look-ing at me and being like, ‘she doesn’t fucking know what she’s doing,’” she says.

McInnis has used the hours just twice but says she enjoyed the ex-perience.

“It turned out to be a better time. I didn’t feel so intimidated, [with] big men everywhere lifting heavy stuff. It was kind of nice to not be around that,” she says. “The entire reason why I go to the RAC and not the MAC is because the people there are a little bit less intimidating and a little bit more amateur … but still, I will never go into the weight room at the RAC unless I’m with [a male friend]. I’m too scared.”

Seymour says that some patrons have told him using the women-only hours has made them more comfortable using the co-ed hours. Allalou says she would hope for similar results at McGill.

McGill currently offers women-only pool hours on the basis of

Getting In Your Reps

getting 70-100 people [and] we were really only getting seven to 10 women in the weight room working out,” Seymour says.

Given that 54 per cent of un-dergraduate students at Ryerson identify as female, the number of women using the weight room was unsatisfactory.

According to Seymour, the morning shifts averaged just over

“modesty concerns.” While Bark-er and Dyens declined to speak with The Eyeopener, Dyens reiter-ated the university’s stance against women-only gym times because they “do not believe in the seg-regation of [their] services” in an emailed statement.

Several negative comments on national news sites have criticized Allalou’s push for women-only hours as solely a religious accom-modation, but she says it’s part of a larger women’s issue.

“We’re talking about a gender issue here, not necessarily just a religious accommodation issue. I’m talking about a broad range of women who have many rea-sons why they can’t access the gym,” Allalou says. “At the end of the day, I just want to increase the health and fitness of women at McGill.”

Page 7: The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

Wednesday, April 8, 2015 7Photo

This Year in Photo1

2

3

4

5

67

8

9 10

1. Bill Murray at TIFF. (Farnia Fekri)2. Laptops are evil. (Nick Dunne)

3. Jess Tsang’s Mink Saga.4. Behdad Mahichi’s burger saga. (Farnia Fekri).

5. A model at Mass Ex.

(Alex Downham)

6. Jahmal Jones, after the men’s

basketball team medalled at

the CIS tournament held at

Ryerson. (Sierra Bein)

7. Jake Scott, being Jake Scott.

(Rob Foreman).

8. The Rams take on the Victoria

Vikes at the CIS tournament.

(Marissa Tiel)

9. The Student learning centre,

right, opened in March.

(Lulu tanenbaum)

10. Ryerson assistant profes-

sor jordan tustin, who went to

guinea to fight ebola.

(farnia fekri)

Page 8: The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

8 arts & Life Wednesday, April 8, 2015

RU fashion sweater a faux pas By Kyle Edwards & Alina Bykova

Students at Ryerson’s School of Fashion don’t think their program swag looks pretty in pink.

“When you see that pink fash-ion logo on a sweater, it’s kind of like another stereotype they just label us with,” said fourth-year fashion design student Stephanie Moscall-Varey.

For all of Ryerson’s official pro-gram swag, spirit-wear is the same: a navy sweater with yellow var-sity text. For the fashion school, however, there’s an exception: their text also comes in pink. It’s a creative choice criticized by fash-ion students who call it a “missed opportunity” for young designers that “genders” the school.

In 2013, the school of fashion ranked no. 26 worldwide by Fash-ionista.com for its “solid design

program.” The school also hosts Mass Exodus, the largest student-run fashion event in the world fea-turing garments and art by fourth-years. But members of the school argue their spirit-wear doesn’t re-flect the program’s values, despite associate director of campus retail Kelly Abraham saying the design was chosen by students “some se-mesters back.”

Moscall-Varey — a designer at Abercrombie & Fitch and Mass Ex-odus — said she’s never bought the sweater and believes students should design their own merchandise.

“It’s discouraging,” Moscall-Varey said. “We have all these students that are so capable and are doing amazing things, but we don’t get that opportunity.”

Jenifer Forrest, a sessional in-structor for the fashion school, also said not allowing fashion stu-dents to share ideas is a missed op-

portunity. She said singling out the program with pink is something faculty and staff oppose.

“We’re trying to move our pro-gram beyond being something that is feminized, and when it’s feminized, it’s therefore seen as something that isn’t serious,” said Forrest.

Second-year fashion design stu-dent Adrian Arnieri also said he feels unrepresented by the design because it genders his program.

“It tells everyone [ that the fash-ion school] is a female-dominant program, and it is, but there are still guys,” he said. “I feel like people look at you weird wearing a pink sweater that says fashion. People assume stereotypes.”

The price for campus store clothing has led student course unions to design and produce al-ternative sweaters for a price that meets student budgets. The jour-nalism course union has been able to design and produce sweaters externally, then sell them at $25 a piece — half the cost charged at the campus store.

Ryerson Fashion Union co-presidents Millie Yates and Bron-wyn Marshall wrote via email that they’ve never been approached about the fashion school’s merch, but they’re aware of “students out there that are unhappy with it.”

Abraham said the design stayed due to its “popularity,” but is will-ing to find a solution with fashion students in the future.

“If we have a group that wants to work with me, then sure. I love working with students,” he said.

Read about Necroslinger, the gun-wielding warlock, at theeyeopener.com

PHOTO COURTESY ASHLEY GOODFELLOW CRAIG

New RTA course works with OSC

PHOTO: AL DOWNHAMStudents at the school of fashion want to design their own swag.

By Al Downham

The RTA school of media and Ontario Science Centre (OSC) have created an “experiential de-sign” course for new media and digital media students.

The “hands-on” course — aim-ing to combine “art and technol-ogy” by designing interactive installations — will be open to RTA students next school year, divided into two semesters of pitching and constructing pieces. Unlike the RTA school of media’s last voluntary project, Forest at the TIFF Kids’ digiPlaySpace, this project is a two semester, full-credit course.

In a press release, RTA Chair Charles Falzon calls the class an “opportunity for our students to get real world experience, and fully appreciate the end-to-end process of designing an exhibit and install-ing it into a public space.”

Approximately 25 students will

be working with senior members of the RTA school of media and the OSC to create the pieces. Fal-zon said mentors will be chosen based on students’ ideas for their “art, interactive installation, or a mixture of both.”

“[If a student’s project is based on] more natural sciences, a senior exec from that department [will be chosen],” he said. “If it’s more environmental sciences, some-one from that department will mentor.”

RTA faculty members have had pieces featured at the OSC. Fal-zon’s 2011 piece called Geofreakz created a treasure hunt with cel-luar and GPS technology, while associate professor Steve Daniels created Sessile, a 2008 OSC in-stallation of “kinetic but non-motile pods” that physically re-sponds to light. Daniels will lead the workshops and brainstorming events in the course.

The press release said Kevin von

Appen, director of science com-munication at the OSC, is open to students’ creative ideas, adding that the centre has included pieces with themes ranging from bioart, robot-ics, astronomy, fashion and even steampunk pop culture.

After selected projects are ap-proved in the Winter 2016 se-mester, students’ projects have a chance of being featured in the OSC during the following summer.

“The projects have to be senior for a third-year level, not just of quality, but complexity,” Falzon said. “Both the science centre and [the RTA school of media] will look for things the average audi-ence can engage with. It’ll be for the average family to enjoy.”

Falzon said he expects the course to reach a larger demo-graphic and encourage “learning through doing.”

Details on experiential design will be announced at a later date.

Page 9: The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

Wednesday, April 8, 2015 SportS 9

Nursing student to sail at Pan Am games

Meet Steve Dangle: Leafs fanNursing student Brenda Bowskill will be sailing at the Pan Am games this summer.

PHOTO COurTesy BreNdA BOwskill

By Josh Beneteau

When Brenda Bowskill was six years old, her parents enrolled her in a sailing summer program while they went to work. She didn’t mind — they already lived on their boat during the summer — but she never imagined that those classes would lead her to the Pan American games this July in Toronto and possibly the Olympics next year in Rio.

“I mean it’s not great for a story but I was never five and saying ‘I want to go to the Olympics,’” the Whitby, Ont. native says. “But pro-gressively along the way I realized my potential and from there my goals went to qualifying for Pan Am and hopefully the Olympics.”

The 23-year-old, who is in her second year in Ryerson’s nursing

program, qualified for the Pan Am games at the end of January when she was the top-seeded Canadian at the ISAF (International Sailing Federation) Sailing World Cup re-gatta in Miami.

Bowskill races in the Laser Radi-al class of boats, meaning she’s out on the water alone and responsible for everything from steering the boat to quickly reacting to chang-ing wind conditions.

She says during the weeklong competition in Miami, she wasn’t nervous, but excited.

“When I did win the trials it was an in-shock moment,” she says. “I hadn’t really quite realized that I was going to be going [to Pan Am] and I think it will be another sur-prise when I actually get there.”

Bowskill says the sailing courses

are “very dynamic” and that “it’s almost impossible to have the ex-act same conditions every time.” Boats race against each other in a reverse scoring system, with first place getting one point, second getting two and so forth.

“The weather is clearly unpre-dictable,” she says. “A lot of our sport is predicting, being able to recognize trends and set up for what you expect is going to happen.”

To prepare, Bowskill says she spends six days in the gym each week. She tracks everything she eats with an app on her iPhone and is in constant communication with her nutritionist and coach. It’s too cold in Lake Ontario to start train-ing right now so Bowskill and some of her teammates rented a house in Clearwater Beach, Fla., from No-vember to February to train in the warmer weather.

With such a busy schedule, Bowskill says balancing classes can be a challenge. She has friends who help her with notes and all of her professors are aware of the oppor-tunity she has with her sport.

“I never just didn’t do what I had to do,” she says. “And I actu-ally enjoy the things I am study-ing so it doesn’t seem so much like work when I’m away.”

But the nursing program has a lot of placement work that is hard to schedule around. Before her second year, the nursing school suggested that she choose be-tween sailing and school, which surprised her. So Bowskill enlisted the help of Ryerson athletic direc-tor Ivan Joseph, who made some calls and eventually got the nurs-ing school to change its mind and let her take classes.

“I’m not asking for them to make it easier on me, if anything I’m asking for more flexibility and for it to be harder,” she says. “So [the athletics department was] re-ally helpful this year and even the classes which I need a note for, they write me a note no problem.”

Bowskill is looking ahead to both the 2016 Olympics in Rio and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. But

with the Pan Am games only three months away, she says that is her main focus. She expects to have a lot of family and friends turn out for her races and also has high hopes for herself on the podium.

“I believe being on the podium is likely, the only question is what colour medal am I going to get, if that doesn’t sound too cocky,” she says.

By David Morassutti

Steve “Dangle” Glynn, a gradu-ate from the RTA school of media, opens the door to a small room in his basement. The blue walls, the Toronto Maple Leafs chair in the corner, the pictures and McFarlane figures on the wall have become fa-miliar to Leafs fans who watch his videos.

“Do you want to see the amaz-ing setup?” he asks as he puts his camera on the desk, gets his exer-cise ball — then the final touch — turns on the small desk lamp with a piece of paper taped to it as a filter. “Real high-tech stuff, eh?” he says, letting out a small laugh.

Under the name Steve “Dangle,” Glynn posts a short video after every Leafs game giving his reac-tion. That can include screaming at the camera, wearing costumes,

or any other way Glynn can come up with to describe the game that night.

Glynn has amassed 23,567 sub-scribers and more than 5.5 million views on YouTube. Most of the videos range between four to eight minutes depending on how much he has to say. It usually takes just over an hour to complete a video — 10 to 30 minutes to film, five minutes to import the video to his computer and around 30 minutes to edit, depending on how much footage there is. He doesn’t miss a Leafs game and has been making the videos for eight years.

“People need to remember that once you set the bar so high you need to keep it that way,” he says. “Video blogging was not a thing you could [do] back then, so it is surprising to see how far this has gone.”

His nickname originates back to when he wrote for his high school newspaper and all the members had to come up with their own nicknames. Looking through an old book Glynn saw the name “Floyd Dangle” which he found pretty funny. Now it’s the name that everyone calls him.

“Throughout the year every article I wrote had Steve ‘Floyd Dangle’ Glynn,” he says. “Then I decided to name my YouTube page Steve Dangle, but I did not post anything right away. Once the page started to get a lot of attention I did not see a reason to change it.

“Even my work email is Steve Dangle. Everywhere I go, it is al-ways Steve Dangle, only those close to me call me by my real name,” he says.

You can read the rest of this sto-ry on theeyeopener.com

Devamrita Swami, Yale grad and an internationally renowned monk comes to Ryerson and invites us to a look behind the masks we wear

and examine the quality of our lives. April 8th, 6:30pm Thomas Lounge

Talk, Q&A, Meditation & FREE VEGAN FEAST!RSVP@ [email protected] or FB "Bhakti Yoga Club- Ryerson"

Page 10: The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

10 BIZ & TECH Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Panning out Pan Am games volunteering

A summer program is set to launch for Ryerson students who want to start their own business and earn money at the same time.

Basecamp is a program that welcomes students with an idea to start working on their business with a team.

Jaigris Hodson, Ryerson Launch Zone director, said that the pro-gram was created because a lot of students wanted to start their own business, but were unable to be-cause they still had to earn money in the summer.

“What we were hearing from students was, ‘we would really like to do this program, but we really can’t because we have to work and make money over the summer’, so we got the funding as a way for students to pay themselves a little in the summer while they’re in this program,” Hodson said.

The program will be held at

the Launch Zone, an extension of Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone (DMZ) located in the Student Learning Centre (SLC). Applica-tions are open until April 15 to all Ryerson students. Those accepted will attend the program from May to August.

The fi rst two weeks of the pro-gram will begin with a boot camp that will have students taking courses in areas such as fi nance and programming.

After that, students will have to fulfi ll a minimum number of hours spent in the Launch Zone, as well as attend a certain number of meetings and workshops to stay in the program. Students will be ful-fi lling the requirements alongside their designated mentor.

“We are going to tailor specifi c mentorship to each of the specifi c teams that come,” Hodson said. “For example, say your busi-ness is related to marketing and communication, we’ll fi nd you a

By David Lao

The Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) is offering bene-fi ts to university students who are volunteering for the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games this summer — but are they worth it?

Volunteers will receive an ad-ditional six-month interest-free extension on their pre-existing six-month interest-free repayment period. The current provincial rate is the prime rate of interest plus 1 per cent.

The average four-year under-graduate university OSAP debt is $22,207 — equalling six monthly interest-free payments of $3,701, but payments are often made beyond this six month interest-free period.

Fresh graduates working on a minimum wage salary with full time hours earn $2,200 monthly.

With the volunteering extension incentive, monthly OSAP pay-ments would lower to $1,850 per month.

Along with the grace period, stu-dents no longer have to input their

By Jacob Dubé income prior to their grant period — allowing students to receive a bigger loan, as OSAP doesn’t take into account students’ income.

For fi rst-year journalism student Sherry Li, both benefi ts were an incentive to volunteer.

“I don’t know what the job mar-ket is going to be like when I grad-uate and extra time to pay back the loan would be pretty good, especially if it was a substantial amount of money,” Li said.

To be eligible for the OSAP benefi ts, students are required to work a minimum of 12 eight-to-10 hour shifts at the Pan Am Games. If a student were to spend that time working a summer mini-mum-wage job, they would earn a minimum of $1,056.

Teddy Katz, chief spokesperson for the Pan Am Games, said he couldn’t answer whether or not volunteering is worth more than working the same amount of time.

“For those who have the time and ability, it’s a great opportunity to get a once in a lifetime type of experience,” Katz said.

Summer income-ing

marketing and communications mentor.”

After the program fi nishes, stu-dents will still be able to use the Launch Zone and other programs or incubators around campus to progress their startup.

The program has space for up to 30 students, but that can be any number of startups as it depends on how many people are going to be on each team, according to Hodson.

A minimum of $2,000 is given to each accepted student, which will come from both Ryerson and the Brookfi eld Institute of Innova-tion and Entrepreneurship. Stu-dents who show fi nancial need can be eligible for more money.

“We have some funds available for that, because we really want students to be able to do this pro-gram,” Hodson said. “We didn’t want needing to pay your bills to be a barrier for starting your own business.”

Entrepreneurship: A summer job

How many hours do you plan on working this summer?

We asked 100 Rye students about their summer prospects. Here are the results, collected by Josie Mills

Successful student applicants for the Basecamp program will spend their summer building their startups.PHOTO: ROB FOREMAN

How much do you think you’ll rake in by the end of the summer?

Do you have a paid summer job lined up?

Page 11: The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

Wednesday, April 8, 2015 FUN 11

The Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) and the Freeze the Peas student rally group settled some “beef” this weekend.

Usually the word beef refers to the meat that comes from a cow, but in some cases — like this one — beef is used as a synonym for a conflict or animosity.

According to Vice-President ed-ucation Jesse Root, the RSU chal-lenged them to a battle after they realized that the March 27 Freeze the Peas rally was a satirical pro-test of the RSU’s ongoing Freeze the Fees campaign.

“We were completely caught off-guard when we found out we were being made fun of,” said Root. “We really thought they were just looking for a way to pre-serve their vegetables.”

After negotiating battle agree-ments, the two student groups met in the Quad on Sunday to resolve their contradicting viewpoints through a giant battle royale.

The battle lasted more than two hours. Weapons were not allowed as part of the battle agreement. According to Root, the RSU held an all-night karate training session for its members the night before.

“Honestly, we were impressed with their karate attacks,” ad-mitted Obaid Ullah of Freeze the Peas. “We definitely were not ex-pecting that.”

Consensus from spectators was that the RSU won the fight. How-ever, the results are being contest-ed after an anonymous report stat-ed that several RSU fighters were aided by the use of nunchucks.

Because of these reports, Freeze the Peas is now protesting the out-come of the fight. “It is clear that the RSU brought weapons to the fight, and this injustice needs to be recognized,” said Ullah.

Root denies these accusations, and the RSU is now holding a counter-protest to confirm that they won the fight. “There is no credible evidence that we used weapons in the fight,” said Root. “We won fair and square.”

Ryerson administration has been brought in as a third party to investigate the fight, reviewing cell phone footage from spectators and the wounds of several of the Freeze the Peas fighters as evidence to make their decision.

The investigation is ongoing, and it doesn’t seem like the two protests will end any time soon.

More to come.

A study by the Canadian Ladies’ Man Coalition (CLMC) found that the words “baby,” “princess” and “sweet cheeks” have a 99.99 per cent success rate at getting a woman’s attention.

“There is the occasional female who will turn the other cheek,” said Snapback Joe, longstanding president of the CLMC. “How-ever, we refer to those fine women as ‘bitches.’”

Joe said this term is not used in a derogatory manner, it’s simply the scientific term for the outliers

in CLMC’s largest social experi-ment yet.

“We hope to canvas the entire populated world, actually,” said Joe. “Currently, CLMC is in the process of developing a foolproof method of induced attention recip-rocation.”

The study’s projected comple-tion is August 2016. With a team of over a billion industrious re-searchers and volunteers, the CLMC aims to uncover the holy grail of catcalls with a 100 per cent success rate.

According to the overwhelm-ing majority of male participants,

such a project has been long over-looked.

“I’m sitting in my truck, win-dows down, arm over the door, and some honeys walk by. I’m a nice guy, I say something nice,” said a participant who wishes to remain unnamed. “When a nice guy like me, just trying to brighten someone’s day, is treated like shit because of it, you know there’s a problem in our society.”

Several women’s rights groups such as Amnesty International Canada and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, as well as the decent popula-tion of the world, have dismissed

By Robert Mackenzie

RSU v. Peas battle

By Anika Syeda

Study: Catcalling very effectivethe CLMC completely. They claim that there is “literally” no solution to their predicament.

When questioned about the chance of failure, CLMC leading researcher and CEO Tribaltattoo Montgomery was defiant.

“Scientifically speaking, the opin-ions of the CLMC defectors and competitors are not valid whatso-ever. In fact, one may classify them as slander, and falsified slander at that. It is common knowledge in the scientific community that the number one experts on females and/or ‘bitches,’ as we like to call them here, are men.”

ACROSS 2. Conservative OR non-partisan John 4. A city with a mall8. Guy being dude 9. Bill C-51 enthusiast 10. Queen of universeDOWN 1. Rye sprotz team 2. Huckleberry Finn OR fun’s enemy 3. Social medium you wish you could delete 5. Sweaty season 6. Land of the pie, home of the gun 7. To do after last exam

Bring your completed crossword puzzle with your contact info to the Eye office for a chance to win a $25 Tim Hortons gift card! LAST CHANCE, FOLKS! HURRY! GO!

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ILLUSTRATION: YOUP ZONDAG

PHOTO: AL DOWNHAM

Page 12: The Eyeopener - April 8 2015

12 Wednesday, April 8, 2015

When the Student Learning Centre opened in February, Ryerson got a gateway on Yonge Street, and the city got an immediate landmark. But all that was blown away when I walked in the door – because the place was full of students, and that’s what counts.

It was the same when we hosted the national basketball championships at the Mattamy Athletic Centre. Ryerson students blew the roof off Maple Leaf Gardens with spirit and support for our bronze medal team.

These are just two examples of many. Entrepreneurial zones, conferences, competitions, clubs and organizations, community charitable events, environmental and social innovation, the list goes on and on.

What all of them have in common – is you. Thank you for making Ryerson a university overflowing with energy, ideas, initiative and kindness. All the best in your assignments and exams, and may your summer fulfill all your most wonderful plans.

Sheldon Levy President

A Message from President Sheldon Levy

Your Ryerson.